Putting The Hustle Into A Job Search

In his book Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, Luke Sullivan tells the story of an advertising graduate who was unable to get his work in front of any of the top ad agencies

Instead of giving up and joining Uber he hatched a plan...

He visited a top agency near the end of the working day and asked reception if he could speak with HR about a copywriter position

As usual he was thanked for coming in person and told to visit the careers section on their website

On his way out of the building he stopped at the toilets on his way out and put his wallet on the side while he washed his hands

A cleaner must have found the wallet later that evening and inside it had the name of the agencies Creative Director clearly marked

So they dropped it off on his desk before the end of their shift

Next day the CD noticed the wallet on their desk and opened it to see who it belonged to

Out fell a series of spec ads with 8 fully thought out marketing campaigns, complete with headlines, sketches and email strategy

The graduate was hired later that week as a Junior Copywriter

This is of course a quite extraordinary example but the principle holds true:

— If you what you are doing isn’t working
— Try something different!