Insure? Sure

Hearing a brilliant remix of an unlikely track is encouraging. There are a few songs which are just crying out for remixes, and I wish I had the patience, talent and Ableton to do this. In the meantime, I'll settle for gems like this.

[via my good friend Steph]

Sorry.

I’d given up applying advertising grad schemes, because, firstly, I’ve been doing it for too long, and secondly, the resulting jobs seem more organisational than creative. But then I got word of the Saatchi & Saatchi Summer Scholarship. I figured it’s such a massive company that I’d be a fool not to apply, especially considering that the Scholarship offers creative roles.

In order to apply, I was told to join the Facebook group. Then I was sent this:

“Welcome to the Saatchi & Saatchi Summer Scholarship 2010. Over the coming weeks we will be setting a series of briefs that have been specially designed to test the various skills and attributes you will need to work here. Each brief will be fun, but challenging – that’s the point. It’ll be a bit like The Apprentice meets Big Brother meets The Blair Witch Project. Actually scrub the Blair Witch bit.

As the scheme progresses some of the best work and ideas submitted will be posted for everyone in the group to see and comment on. We will also post important notices here on the group page and message you as well. So make sure you check your emails regularly.

The first brief will go live at 10am, Monday 18th January. So brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on clean undercrackers and get ready to rumble.”

There were some T’s and C’s, but that was the crux of what was to come. The HR team already seemed like a bunch of wankers, but, it's Saatchi & Saatchi, and I've done so well on previous grad scheme applications.

So I waited until today, at 10am, when I received this:

“Brief 1.
This will test your originality, creativity and ability to connect to a mass audience.
Create a new Facebook group. The objective is to get as many people as possible to join your group. The top 50% of all the groups will go through to the next round. Simples.

You must:

1. Set up your group and leave it ‘open’.
2. Then add Saatchi Recruiting as a friend.
3. (Once accepted) Invite Saatchi Recruiting to join your group.
4. Then copy and paste your group’s URL to the link below:
http://fbanalyzer.appspot.com/
(There’s a picture of how to find the URL if you don’t know)
Deadline: 6pm GMT, Sunday 7th February.”

I created a group asking for people to get ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ to number one. I invited all of my friends, embarrassing myself a bit and giving myself a touch of RSI in the process. Then, with 30 members, I sussed out the competition. The Saatchi & Saatchi HR team have, on all accounts, neglected to make their recruitment process watertight. In order to appeal to a mass audience, people have created some really snide groups. ‘London 2012 – JOBS’ has over 1500 members. ‘Summer 2010 Music Festivals! Buy Tickets Here!’ also has a couple of hundred members. Both are peddling lies.

I wouldn’t usually start hammering on about stupid Facebook groups, because I like to get on with other things. But Saatchi & Saatchi’s HR team are encouraging candidates to mislead and lie as part of their application, which is pretty novel if you think about it. Every piece of careers advice tends to actively discourage lying on an application form.

The team have already whittled down many candidates by introducing rules too late into the game so as to stop ‘cheating’ (e.g. becoming an admin of a large, established group, people creating more than one group). What would happen if I’d made a group called ‘Advertising is probably evil’? Even if it got 3million members, the team would have to question it, right?

Call it sour grapes, but I don’t feel comfortable lying to gain popularity. Otherwise my group would’ve been called ‘FREE PORN ON FACEBOOK’ or something else equally spammy.

So I must apologise on five different counts. Firstly, I apologise for creating the group asking for ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ to get to number one – two versions occupy spots 4 and 5 already, let’s allow something new to dominate, even if it is Ke$ha.

Secondly, I apologise to Journey and even the cast of Glee for stealing your thunder and trying to tag onto your talents in order to self-promote my shitty Facebook group.

My third apology is for inviting every single one of my Facebook friends to a shitty Facebook group. Fourthly, I apologise to myself for wasting a lot of time creating and subsequently checking a shitty Facebook group.

And finally, I apologise to anyone else who remains in the competition. Because, as much as I may complain about the recruitment process being dodgy, it’s only a snippet of what’s to come. An advertising company’s application requires candidates to lie and mislead because that is what advertising has become. The application is to the career what the toy gun is to the uzi. The pressure to lie and mislead will only increase with every day someone spends working for an ad company, and I’m sorry to and for whoever doesn’t cotton onto that.