Alright, here’s a quick rundown of why it’s a bright idea to hire recent grads to work at your marketing agency. A lot of this comes from my own agency experience, some of it comes from logic, and some of it comes from ancient mathematical equations known only by eldritch sorcerers such as myself. Anyways, here goes:
Masters of Switching Between Tasks
The average full-time college student takes four or five courses at a time and has to learn to switch between the different subject matters and projects. In many agencies, having four or five clients at a time is fairly common.
Both in undergrad and grad school, I often found myself managing two projects, three papers and a presentation simultaneously. And at first, this was overwhelming. But like most things, you adapt to it, and it just becomes the norm. Transitioning from this sort of lifestyle into marketing agency life felt natural.
I remember spending my college-era summers at in-house digital marketing positions and being bored to tears. There was a seemingly infinite backlog of recommendations to be implemented, and things moved slowly. Each day I would be looking at the same website, seeing the same problems, and growing more impatient. Agency life was a cure for this, as working with multiple clients allowed for each of them to stay fresh and exciting.
TLDR: The level of task-switching in college life is similar to that of agency life, so hiring recent college grads makes sense for agencies.
All Deadlines, All the Time
Meeting multiple deadlines and dealing with confounding variables – time management issues, unavoidable delays, the occasional crashing of Microsoft Word – is right in the recent grad’s wheelhouse.
The college experience forces you to get good at this. While many freshmen may wait until the night before to write a 10-page paper on Kant, by the time senior year rolls around, they’ve straightened themselves out. They know how long tasks are going to take, in what conditions they work most efficiently, and how to prioritize.
TLDR: Recent grads are used to deadlines. Agency life is filled with deadlines. Do the math.
Learning, Duh
Even if you hire someone who has been in the industry for quite some time, there will always be something new to learn during the first couple of weeks on the job. For me, it was BrightEdge and Majestic SEO. And Basecamp. And a whole lot of other stuff. Invariably, a new job means new skills.
Recent grads are still in information-absorption mode. College students have no fear of acquiring and applying new information. They’re not stuck in a routine drilled into them from years in a position somewhere else, and they don’t hold onto any stubborn opinions or previously-obtained misinformation. They are clean slates.
TLDR: Learnin’. College grads are in the right mindset for it.
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