Best Advice

Friday morning I traveled to Brooklyn to interview Ben Kraft, a copywriter at Big Spaceship. It was more a conversation than it was an interview. To be honest, I think I only asked Ben one question. And that’s exactly what I wanted. We talked about different projects he’s worked on over the course of his career, from Cadillac to IBM (not his favorite) to SEC Nation (he wishes he had asked to work on more sports related projects, especially those unfamiliar to him) to now Starbucks. It was cool to hear him mention how he’s having to constantly develop different writing skills because one project may be long-form copy while the other demands short, witty copy. As he talked about how you can request an extension on an internship if you really like it or if you think sticking around longer will benefit you, or if taking several more internships will be more beneficial than jumping directly into a job afterwards, Ben dropped a gem. He stated that the one person many people overlook in this entire process is the talent recruiter. He went on to say that everyone wants to talk to the person whose job they want, yet fail to realize that before you can even get a chance to meet with that person, there is a gatekeeper has to allow it. So, a word of advice from Ben to all of us, make sure you are in the side pocket, back pocket, heck, attached to the hip of these talent recruiters. They hold the access.