“It’s not their experience versus your academia”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question: 

“How do I propose fresh and unconventional ideas as a new hire at a conventional agency?

I’ve recently been hired as an intermediate designer at your typical all-round marketing agency, and while they are definitely more flexible and open than other agencies, there’s a certain rigidity and way that things are done and have been done for years.

I have a lot of respect for my colleagues who’ve been working in the industry and at this company for far longer than me, and I appreciate that the hands-on knowledge they have is more valuable than theory in many ways. However, even though I have less industry experience, I do have a masters degree in design that explored more unconventional design thinking and research practices, so I do feel like I could bring some valuable, fresh insights and ideas.

How do I go about this without treading on any toes or egos and seeming like the academic know-it-all (especially as many of my superiors have a bachelors degree at most)? And how do I prove that some of my more theoretical, academic knowledge is just as valuable as time spent working in the industry?”

Katie Cadwell, co-founder of branding studio Lucky Dip and The NDA Podcast:

It’s important to start with, it’s not a competition. It’s not their experience versus your academia. You’re part of a team, and a diverse one by the sounds of it, so there’s room for both your expertise.

They probably won’t care about your masters. Someone’s background isn’t and shouldn’t be important. They’ll care about whether you have good ideas. Whether you’ll help them when they need it. If clients will like you, and buy your thinking. Put your CV aside and focus on the work. New ideas won’t threaten your team, but showing off will.

You have to transition from your research based approach to an agency one. Make suggestions, not comparisons. “This is what I did during my masters” should become “how about we try this?” because that is the essence of collaboration. Your role is adding new angles to improve the work. 

Introduce your untraditional thinking bit by bit. A weird idea on a smaller stake project will be more successful than saying the studio’s whole process needs an overhaul. Look for the quick opportunities to demonstrate your ideas. You have to show them how you think to gain their respect – it won’t come automatically because you’ve done a masters.

Finally, you need to credit your team. Stop the you vs. them. Say loudly that someone else’s idea sparked one for you. Building on top of each other’s creativity is the best version of a studio working. 

Remember, you’re remixing what your colleagues do, not reimagining it.

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

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