Yesterday, the students of Curtin from Ad391 had the privileged to visit Young & Rubicam (Also known as Y&R, one of the world’s largest advertising agencies) hosted by Soohan, the Regional Associate Account Director of Y&R for one of the blue chips account, Caltex.
Soohan has been around in the advertising industry for the last 6 years. Despite being equipped with just a diploma, he has progress himself up the career ladder from an internship role at Publicis (where we crossed path) to where he is today at Y&R. Let’s take a peek at THREE of the secrets behind his success stories with the ad agencies.
1) Be adaptable
You’ll meet people from all walks of life, and working on brands with different dynamic. Without adaptability, you will not be able to manage your role well in handling people and working on different brands.
2) Have an open mind to possibilities
He has no real plans to kick start his career at the ad agencies. It all happened because he kept all his doors open to see where that will lead him to. And he has never regretted his decision till this day.
3) Be willing to bite the bullet
He has accepted an internship pay after 5 months of job hunt just to get his career started. And had continued to be paid below market value despite his contributions with his previous employers. He believes in the saying that “you’ll be under paid and overworked in the lst half of your career, and you’ll be fairly rewarded in the next half of your career”.
Take on hard ship and be willing to travel the extra mile when it comes to your work. That was what infested others to admire him for his passion, and became well sort after by head hunters.
I’m sure the students managed to bag and learn more secrets than the 3 pointers above. Hope you’ll have a chance to join us for such sessions in the future.
Thank you Soohan for being such a great host. We wish for you to have more success stories ahead.
Here are some photos we have taken during our trip to Y&R. I was delighted to have also met my long time colleague, Camellia (Cammy) who brought us to their office zen-like roof top where most ideas were born.
