Catch a Rising Star: What do you look for in young account executives, and how do you train them?

Robyn Griggs.

This article is adapted from one that appeared in Agency magazine, a publication of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As), in the Summer of 1997.

When trying to break into advertising, aspiring account executives must face the harsh truth. To get a job, they need experience. To get experience, they need an incredible break (this is rare) or they need to be willing to work for free (this is called an internship).

In this lean-and-mean, down-to-business, advertising agencies can’t afford to bring in greenhorns, spend a lot of money training them, and then watch them move on to bigger and better pastures. Agency chiefs want solid proof that job candidates are committed to advertising, understand what it’s all about, and are willing to do it all—from the grunt work to the glamour dinners. And the most reliable means of measuring this resolution is to gauge the amount of real-world experience on a résumé. Someone who’s spent a little time in the trenches is the kind of account executive who will understand how to treat every member of the all-important team with fairness and compassion,

When it comes right down to it, anyone can sit down in an interview, look into a potential employer’s eyes, and swear allegiance to advertising. Not everyone is willing to put in the time—usually without monetary compensation—to prove it. And that’s why, when agency chiefs spot that alluring combination of eagerness, commitment, and intelligence—often within their own ranks of interns—they immediately snap it up.

Cathy Finlon, Chairman and CEO, McCalin-Finlon Advertising, Denver

We’re very enthralled with young people who have done internships. We love that, because they’ve had some business experience, and it demonstrates that this is someone who’s willing to work while going to school. It shows they’re somebody who’s stepped outside the square and experienced the real world. Frequently, our account executives even have interned here.

We also look for good grades and a work ethic and a great deal of initiative. And they should have a conviction about the business. We’re really looking for someone who says, “I know from the station I’m in that I want to be in advertising.” We’re small, so at our agency young AEs work under an account manager, and then they’re trained onto an account once they have good knowledge of b usiness practice, what kind of clothing they need to wear to meet with clients, and the business formalities they need to observe. We also have an academy within the agency in which account management meets once a month to discuss a series of subjects such as integrated marketing, books, and international work.

David B. Abramson, Chairman, Abramson Ehrlich Manes, Washington

We look for young people who are without a sense of entitlement, have a work ethic, and understand there are no shortcuts.

Timothy Labus, President, Abramson Ehrlich Manes, Washington

They have to be aggressive and persistent. That’s exactly what we’re looking for.

We have a very formalized intern program for college students, with five to seven interns on a quarterly basis. We often hire interns after we’v e had a chance to see their work. They spend time in creative, media, the account side, and even in our entertainment di viszzion, so they get a broader experience and see how departments work before they start dealing with clients. If they’re willing to do what we call the scut work—faxing and copying and all that—that gives us a pretty good idea that they have that aggressiveness.

We make sure they read the books put out b y the AAAA, and when there are seminars in Washington, we send them to those. That gives them an opportunity to meet with their peers and talk about similar issues and problems. They’re also very encouraged to talk with senior managers here, to share problems and concerns.

Austin McGhie, President and CEO, Young & Rubicam Advertising, San Francisco.

What we’re looking for, obviously, is everything. That sounds like a funny response, but you’re looking for brains, creativity, analytical skills, curiosity. Analytical skills and curiosity are probably two of the biggest traits we screen for here. Also, some kind of gut-level connection with advertising.

As for training, every second week we have a one-hour training session and invite all account people so they all have exposure to the same words. We use a combination of in-house resources—people like me and the senior managers—and some outside resources. That’s a more informal get- together, basically coffee and doughnuts. We have more formal sessions on things like sales and presentation skills on a less frequent basis—whenever we have a critical mass to pull it together. Scott Cotherman, President and COO, Corbett HealthConnect, Chicago

Traditionally our agency, specializing the health-care3 field, has gone after folks who are experienced in the pharmaceutical industry—with a sales or marketing background.

As we’ve gotten bigger, we’ve had the opportunity to work with younger, less experienced people to create a network of new account executives.

We’re looking within the agency for top-caliber project manager-type people. They need to have a good understanding of our daily operations, understand scheduling, and be skilled at managing financial aspects.

When we hire personnel directly out of the pharmaceutical sales forces, they have no advertising or marketing experience. They bring strong interpersonal skills, product knowledge, and knowledge of the sales environment.

So we have two different types of training and development needs. The first group understands how the agency works, but what they don’t have is sales skills, client exposure, and strong category experience, which in our business is fairly technical. We work very hard helping them understand the pharmaceutical market and the nature of the sales environment and what they need to be as account people: ultimately, the salespeople of the organization.

For the second group, we immediately put them into training opportunities where they have limited exposure to clients, and learn agency operations and procedures, and basic advertising and marketing principles. They need to be trained in team-building skills, because as salespeople they’ve been out there working independently. It’s a double-edged sword.

If we succeed in both groups, we’ve been able to develop strong skill sets. We’re just trying to round them out.

Jim Foster, Chairman and CEO, Brouillard Communications, Chicago

Because of our size, we tend to look for young account executives with a few years experience, but foremost, we look for writing and communication skills, because they’re in short supply. Then we look for people with a high curiosity quotient and an interest in the kinds of accounts we4 handle here in a specialized agency.

In terms of training, we assume they come with some of the basic in place; then we have some group sessions for training young professionals. Because of our size, the president, Bill Lyddan, and I are able to work very closely with the staffs and can do some serious mentoring and we expect our senior executives to do the same. Shanna Columbus, President, PriceWeber Marketing Communications, Louisville, KY

All of us who are looking t o add young agency account people are going to look for some of the same basic skills: intelligence, quickness, willingness to learn. But now, more than ever, we’re looking for the basic qualities of what you hope is going to be a superstar in the long term.

What I look for is a little more maturity, someone who understands it’s going to take time to become a superstar or really to contribute on the part of the agency or clients. It takes time to learn the agency’s approach to dealing with and doing business with clients, and to fully understand the clients to which the young person is assigned.

I find so often that everyone’s in a hurry to excel, which is wonderful, but what I look for is the wisdom on the part of younger people to understand it’s going to take time.

We had wanted to have a more formal training process in place by this time, but we haven’t done that yet. Young account people work in tandem with other members of the team on a daily basis. They’re given various assignments so they’re able to contribute something on their own, yet they’re supervised by an account director.

Bob Miller, Chairman and CEO, Miller Meester Advertising, Minneapolis

Number one, we look for people who have chosen advertising as a career field. They have to put some points down on their résumé that show us that—an internship or something that shows some interest in the business. We can tell when we interview them; they either know the game, or they don’t know the game.

Most often we look for someone who’s done a good job in a small agency, someone who’s stepped up through small boutiques and done a good job on a number of small but interesting accounts.

As far as training, the first thing we do is throw them into a team relationship with a well-experienced account team.

We have a formal continuing-education program known as the Miller Meester marketing Institute, in which we require everyone to read books and then get together for brown-bag lunches once a week to discuss them.

We’ve tried more formal programs, like sending them out to seminars, but we’ve found they have diminishing returns. We prefer to support advanced education in the private arena by paying tuition. We like the AAAA’s program [the Institute of Advanced Advertising Studies], and we always create a couple of stronger people out of that each year.