The Mentor Effect by Greg Christensen

The Mentor Effect: Making a Home for Creatives | TalentZoo.com

4/27/11 4:34 PM

Username:

Password: Login with Facebook

(case sensitive) Forgot?

Careers & More for a Cutting Edge Community

Fan Page @talentzoo

Employers

ALL

Job Seekers

Blogs

ADVERTISING JOBS

Columns

@talentzoojobs

Help

NEW MEDIA JOBS

CREATIVE JOBS

MARKETING JOBS

GEEK JOBS

GUEST COLUMN Share

December 7, 2010

The Mentor Effect: Making a Home for Creatives By: Greg Christensen

About the Author Greg Christensen

This year, about 100 new writers and art directors will spill out of their portfolio schools, looking to land their first jobs. And in about three years, most of those same junior creatives will be looking for work at an entirely new agency. That’s because most junior creatives follow an almost-clichéd trajectory: They get a job, work hard for a couple of years, start building their book, and move to a new shop. That’s not just speculation. I recently conducted a survey of more than 250 junior creatives and portfolio school students. The results show that over 82 percent of them expect to be at their first agency no more than three years. A similar poll among creative directors shows that 94 percent of the CDs have the same expectation of their junior teams. They come on board, log a few years, move on, and everyone seems fine with that.

Greg Christensen is a brand creative at The Richards Group. He came to Dallas by way of Switzerland, after transferring to Geneva from Y&R’s Chicago office. He’s taught at the Chicago Portfolio School, co-authors makinads.com, and graduated from the VCU Brandcenter. Though an upstanding citizen, he once gathered and set fire to 178 Christmas trees in his mother’s field. Find him on Twitter @happygrc or contact him at happygrc@mac.com http://www.richards.com/index.html

But they shouldn’t be. From the agency’s point of view, this is a terrible way to run a company. Imagine a factory or a school that has to routinely replace an integral part of its staff or faculty every one to three years. Once a junior team decides to leave, the costs of replacing them can escalate quickly. Interviewing fees might include roundtrip airfare, hotel accommodations, and dining expenses. There could be headhunter fees, as well as hiring freelancers in the interim. Even when a team can be hired locally, at the very least it means tapping into the working hours of agency principles, creative leaders, and staff that might better be put to use for paying clients.

RELATED ARTICLES Controlling the Disgruntled Employee Problem Today How to Rebuild Corporate Trust

So, what if those junior creatives stayed at the same agency? And what if they had reason to? In this same poll, the junior creatives were asked what incentives would keep them at their agencies longer. “More opportunities to do great creative” was the number one reason. No surprise there. But what’s interesting is that being mentored by a creative director is a bigger incentive to junior creatives than a pay raise.

Newest Jobs Junior Developer Marketing Drive LLC Boston, Massachusetts Art Director Break Media Los Angeles, California Account Executive, Digital Media Public Af... Connections Media Washington, District of Columbia

Creative directors similarly agreed that more opportunities to do creative work is the greatest incentive for

http://www.talentzoo.com/news.php/The-Mentor-Effect-Making-a-Home-for-Creatives/?articleID=8777

Interactive Creative Director Qualified Creatives U.S. Nationwide

Page 1 of 3

The Mentor Effect: Making a Home for Creatives | TalentZoo.com

holding onto their junior teams. But their responses skewed towards “more money” as the second greatest reason, with mentoring and attention being less important. In other words: While juniors are planning to move on in three years, unless more creative opportunities and more mentoring are available, creative directors are expecting them to leave while overlooking the more valuable, more sought-after, and more cost-effective mentoring that might actually keep a team around longer. With hundreds of portfolio school graduates trying to enter the work force each year, maybe the loss of talent seems inconsequential. With such a huge pool to draw from, replacing talent shouldn’t be an obstacle. However, the agency’s bottom line isn’t the only element affected when a junior team departs. It’s also in the agency’s best interest to hang onto talented juniors as long as possible, because losing them can be a drain on the agency’s culture. Frequent turnover puts a greater onus on the agency leadership to bear and perpetuate the culture. Juniors tend to have a more limited role with clients, which at least minimizes the effect on client relationships. But even when the juniors’ replacements are über-talented, new creatives have to take time acclimatizing to a new agency. It should go without saying that the more mentoring a junior team receives, the better the creative output of the agency as a whole. So, the longer a team remains at an agency, the better its players will become, and the more that agency will reap the benefits of developing talent. If you’re not convinced mentoring is an overlooked factor, consider this: In the same survey, the students and junior creatives were presented with two hypothetical creative directors: an industry superstar whom everyone recognizes, but with whom they’d have limited interaction, and a less famous creative director who still does great work, but with whom they would have daily interaction. Almost all respondents chose the less-famous CD they’d be able to work with on a daily basis.

4/27/11 4:34 PM

Web Analyst/Interactive Marketing Analyst RedEngine Digital McLean, Virginia First Impressions Specialist (Receptionist... Spark Productions/McMurry New York, New York Senior Copywriter Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods Little Rock, Arkansas Art Director Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods Little Rock, Arkansas Copywriter Introworks, Inc. Minnetonka, Minnesota Account Executive Forbes Media New York, New York Public Relations/Communications Coordinato... Allegra Network Plymouth, Michigan Marketing Internship - Grass Roots Maid Brigade Alexandria, Virginia Marketing Assistant Anonymous Employer Matteson, Illinois Account Executive - Intermark Group Intermark Birmingham, Alabama Copywriter The Integer Group New York, New York

Share on on Share via This confirms a Sally Hogshead maxim: “Which agency you work forShare usually matters less than which Facebook Twitter email 32 23 32 23 accounts and creative director you work for.”[1]

By mentoring junior creatives, agencies are able to hold onto them longer, which improves their bottom line, their culture, and their creative. That’s the Mentor Effect, the seldom-tapped resource that doesn’t cost the agency anything.

Advertising Jobs New Media Jobs Enter topic to look up Creative Jobs Marketing Jobs Geek Jobs

So what does this mean for students, juniors, and their agencies? As a portfolio school student or junior creative, it’s important to understand that not all creative directors are capable mentors. Interviewing students should be conscious of finding ways -- maybe even during the interview process -- of determining what kind of leader and mentor a potential CD is going to be. For creative directors, it’s important to understand what most students want coming out of portfolio school: attention. Chances are, the more they receive, the better their work will be. They’re not looking for handholding. But they expect more than “go work on this area” as feedback to their ideas. For agency management, the knee-jerk reaction might be to hold a short series of “How to Mentor” seminars. But it takes a really amazing seminar on Monday to be remembered by Thursday. The thing agency principals can do is recognize the Mentor Effect, which means recognizing their creative directors’ abilities to mentor their junior teams. It’s not just about a track record lined with Lions and Pencils. It’s about getting the people under them to perform just as well. [1] “The Agency With the Best Softball Team Does the Worst Creative” by Sally Hogshead

10 people liked this.

http://www.talentzoo.com/news.php/The-Mentor-Effect-Making-a-Home-for-Creatives/?articleID=8777

Page 2 of 3

The Mentor Effect: Making a Home for Creatives | TalentZoo.com

4/27/11 4:34 PM

Add New Comment TalentZoo.com Advertising

Type your comment here.

Image

Post as …

Showing 3 comments Sort by Popular now

Subscribe by email

Subscribe by RSS

Adambeu 4 months ago I was about to unsubscribe to my Talent Zoo Daily Dose until this article caught my eye. I was just talking with my designer wife this weekend about wanting to give back after having great mentors early on in my career. Great insight. 4 people liked this.

2 people liked this.

Mike Wolfsohn 4 months ago Nice article, Greg. Good insights that are too often ignored.

Copywriter4you 4 months ago I was laid off from my first job straight out of school after 5 months . Consequently, leapfrogging to another agency wasn't an option for me. I hope juniors coming out of school, have better luck than I did in this very precarious, backstabbing, and terrible industry. Like

blog comments powered by DISQUS

Advertising Jobs

Employer Sign-Up

TalentZoo.com Jobs

Marketing Jobs Digital Jobs

Job Seeker Sign-Up

TalentZoo.com Articles

Twitter: @talentzoo, @talentzoojobs

Creative Jobs

Return to Top

Facebook Fan Page Site Map

http://www.talentzoo.com/news.php/The-Mentor-Effect-Making-a-Home-for-Creatives/?articleID=8777

Page 3 of 3