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What are some design ideas?

I'm meeting with a hiring manager at a Brand Strategy agency on wednesday. What do I bring? I don't have a branding/graphic design portfolio. I have a lot of knowledge about branding and ideas for new initiatives. I did some Social Media Consulting.

  • I did extracurricular Product Design and Design Management at Parsons and RISD but graduated with a BA in Audio Production from American University. I truly feel that I have a intuitive understanding of what people want in the brands they associate themselves with. I don't have proof and I know without it, won't guarantee me a job on wednesday. How do I implicitly express my ability for consumer empathy with foresight with no proof? And when I ask, "what do I bring", it's very general. Should I attempt to put show the process of development in a product design project from RISD, or what I learned from my final project at Design Management at Parsons? Certain user-centered research skills I learned that I think could prove useful at their company? Or is it more attitude and enthusiasm?  Should I use specific examples of branding? What would you want to hear or see that would make you want to a hire a motivated college grad for an entry-level position in this field?

  • Answer:

    If you get it, the job you'd be doing there is developing something that creates a magical and rational relationship between your clients' businesses and consumers. A brand experience that needs to work quickly in the short term as well as building over the longer term. So I'd take in a couple of companies that you think are pretty cool right now but could be something more. Show something you suspect about their future evolution, to show that you understand and can articulate clearly a compelling insight. Then show how you think that insight will affect the world of the consumers that those companies would be interested in. It might result in selling something to them, or it might just be about getting people involved in something. Then show how you can solve for insight+behaviour change = solution. And lastly, show how that solution is a commercially interesting place for a client company to be in. You don't have to do anything grand scale or even finished. Just show the way you think, the way you solve for real-world commercial problems. And do it simply and clearly.

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All good answers. I may add that the core of this job is stakeholder management. Understand everyone's motivation for why they are connecting with the brand you are about to become part of and the client brands you are building. Show them you know the skills but also your awareness of your roles and team hats you have. Are you a good Teamworker or a Rockstar? To demonstrate that skill, e.g. describe how you go about supporting the launch of a new product. You could demonstrate that you know about brand strategy by explaining you know about B2B, B2B, B2P etc and house of brand and branded house strategies and that you know what is in your toolbox to suggest for each of their clients. Focusing on examples is essential as you don't want appear stuck in theory. In my experience employers and clients crave solid understanding of strategy and building a partnership with your new employer's brand and the clients they have / want, will get you a long way. Good luck!

Astrid Fackelmann

I suggest that you bring examples that show how you think. It's one thing to say "I have a lot of thoughts, or ideas." It's quite another to illustrate that you're not only actively thinking about brands, but rather that you're studding how brands work, what's effective, what's not and why. Do you have a blog, have you written any papers/articles? It doesn't have to be written content, charts, diagrams… anything that proves to an employer that you're not only different, but that you provide more value. That means providing insight, not just information. Hope this helps.

Mark Gallagher

I think it is a combination of demonstration of skills as well as attitude and enthusiasm. Based on your background and skill set I would recommend compiling some examples of your previous work and showcase that on a laptop during the meeting. You should also email the samples to the hiring manager before or after, but make sure you bring something with you (a tablet even) to pull up the work during your discussion. I also like the idea of researching brands that a) provide an exceptional, multichannel customer experience and b) fail to provide a good experience for customers despite a strong product (or high demand). This will allow you to demonstrate the intuition you described for identifying the needs of the audience and communicating to that directly. http://visual.ly/job-interview-best-practices Good luck!

Olivia Cole

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