When a Job is Not As Described

This happens all the time.  And it happens at every level, from Presidents and CEO’s to junior account managers.  People start a job and discover that everything they were told while interviewing was wrong.

Just last week, I received this email from a candidate who was an account supervisor who took a job at an agency to become an account planner.

Here is her verbatim:

Hi Paul!

Describing my title, money and accounts is sadly a long weird story. The original deal was that I would be working on [two well known accounts] as an account/strategic planning "hybrid" for [salary] (def took a HUGE pay cut) and that after 6 months there would be a review to hike up my salary to [presumably more] (STILL below what I should be making, BUT I decided I would bite the bullet in exchange for the strategic planning experience) AND further transition into the strategic planning realm. That WAS the deal.

When I started things were 100% different. I was placed on [account name]  [direct] MAIL business as a Sr. Account Exec and on the [another account] as Sr. Account Exec AND Digital Producer. Mind you I've never handled [this kind of business] nor Direct Mail or digital producing experience. Total and utter disappointment. Totally bizarre.

Needless to say I'm unfortunately still looking on the side for that elusive strategic planning position. Sigh....

It is generally not this extreme, but it happens in one form or another all the time.   

Why does it happen? 

Companies are often so anxious to get a body in place that they gloss over the negative aspects of the job.  Maybe this is a human tendency - accentuate the positive.  But it is a bad strategy.   By not laying out the negatives up front, the problems only get perpetuated since, inevitably, the hired candidate will not last long.  When this happens at senior levels, it is really bad for business.  At junior levels, it just causes unnecessary turn over. When jobs are not spelled out carefully, otherwise good executives are often made to look foolish.

There are circumstances, particularly for senior jobs, where expectations on both sides are not fully articulated which leads to confusion and false expectations.

There is only one way to handle this and it is actually not a guaranty.  There are three parts to every job at every level.   If any of these parts are missing, the essential ingredient of the job is missing – power.  Power, even for an assistant account executive is derived from Influence, Responsibility and Authority.  These things must be discussed prior to being hired.  If you are senior, it is important to find out what the limits of your authority and responsibility will be – will you be in charge of staff, staffing budgets, client hires?  Will you be empowered to make decisions?  Will you be able to influence decisions which will affect your ability to function in your job.  I heard a great story recently about a CEO who resigned an unprofitable account; the holding company told him he was not empowered to do that.

 

There are excusable circumstances.  I often hear about people hired to work on one account who end up on another business.  Sometimes between the time someone accepts a job and the time they start, there are account losses, resignations, etc. which could affect the assignment. I guess this is a forgivable occurrence.  A simple courtesy phone call should be made explaining the situation, before a candidate starts work; unfortunately, that rarely happens. 

Sadly, there are some places that are just deceitful.  I remember once hearing a story from someone who was describing her first job.  As a college graduate, she accepted a job as an assistant account executive at a small, but reasonably well known agency. Unfortunately, they neglected to tell her that she would also be a receptionist.  She did not show up for day two.  This kind of subterfuge is not limited to small agencies.  The problem at the bigger agencies is that there is no one overseeing the entire hiring process.  If an account is lost and the new employee was supposed to work on it, who is responsible to inform the candidate?

I understand that some companies are so anxious to get a body in place that they will say or do anything to make a hire and then worry about it afterwards.  I suspect that this is the case of the assistant account executive who was really a receptionist. The stupidity of moves like that is that it only perpetuates the problem since the candidate will leave quickly and the company will have to start all over.

It is critical for companies to be honest when hiring new employees.  If there are job negatives, they should always be spelled out up front so there are no surprises.  I will never understand why when giving me job specs, companies don’t tell me that clients are tough, supervisors difficult, etc.  It would make their own interviewing process and my recruiting more efficient.  I understand that part of the candidate evaluation will be a determination if a candidate can handle the situation.  However, If I were told in advance of a negative or questionable situation, I could recruit against those specs which would lower turnover and recruiting time.

The more information you have, the less chance of their being bait and switch. 

I would like to hear your stories to send to me or to share with my readers.

What Happens When You Want To Return To Agency Life

Almost every day I receive résumés from people who have left the ad business for other ventures – sometimes client side, sometimes to start a business or other venture, sometimes just to take a sabbatical.  (I am not writing here about maternity leave, which is another blog post all together.)  They all share one thing in common. 

It is hard to get back.

The simple reason is that ad agencies look askance at people who are not committed to advertising.  They reason that why hire someone who has left the business for several years when they can hire, generally for the same money, someone is so committed that they never left.  No matter that whatever venture the applicant has been on has probably made them a better advertising executive and given them a more well rounded view of the business.

I have previously written that agencies should hire more clients, particularly ex-ad agency people who prefer the agency side.  They can bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to an agency.  Not all clients are right for the agency business, but those that are right should not be dismissed out of hand.

There is no question that some people who want to come back should not do so.  In many cases they have been out of the business for a decade or more and only want to come back because they are desperate for employment.  If someone has been doing something which is completely irrelevant to advertising, their background is probably no longer appropriate.

But for those who have been doing relevant things – retailing, media, communications, research, and a host of other things – they can bring a wealth of knowledge to the business.  Their perspective just may be invaluable to helping solve a client’s problem.

As an aside, each year I see people who have been successful running small agencies.  They work on small brands (occasionally well known), and generally do regional or local advertising.  To my chagrin, I have discovered that it is almost impossible to place them at a “name” agency – big or small.  Their experience is simply not seen as relevant unless they have a couple of major national brands under their belt.  In my opinion, some of these people actually know more about branding, advertising and business in general than many of the folks who come out of straight careers in big agencies on big brands.  But most of the time, I cannot even get them interviewed.

Advertising tends to pigeonhole people.  I worked early in my career for both big and small agencies - strategic and creative, always well known brands..  Then I opened my own shop; it was reasonably successful and had a number of good accounts.  It was merged into an agency where I was head of account management.  When I started looking for a job because I was unhappy, a president of a large agency told me I would not find a job at a big agency because I was a “small agency” person.  That is absurd.  And, by the way, I was offered jobs at Chiat/Day and Wells, Rich, Greene but decided to recruit instead.  I wrote this about myself to show that this is not a new trend.  It has been endemic in the agency business for decades.

The best way to get back in is to keep up with ad agency contacts.  Someone who knows you will be more likely to want to hire you than a complete stranger.  Networking is a better way than through recruiters – recruiters are paid to put square pegs in square holes.