Commentary

Where Have All The Good Media Planners Gone?

There are definitely a number of agencies looking to hire these days (yours truly being one of them), which is a very good sign, but I’ve noticed that there is a much lower supply of candidates to choose from than in years past.

Remember back in the day when media people were falling off trees? Every guy and girl fresh out of college came bounding into the agency world with their psychology and international relations degrees and made good money doing interactive media planning. The dot-com bust proved that many were mediocre at best, but at that time a warm body was provided and if they had minimal analytical skills they became a core part of the media team. Back in those days I managed a team of 25-30 people, a few of whom were stars but not everyone was passionate about the work we were doing.

Well now its 2003 and finding good media people can be very difficult. Potential candidates with strong media skills and management skills are hard to come by. It seems as though the supply has diminished while the percentage of Americans traveling the world has increased proportionally. Here in San Francisco it quickly became the ad agency dustbowl following the dotcom bust and as most of the agencies closed their SF offices, so went the media planners, either to travel or to leave San Francisco because the cost of living was just too high to ride out the storm.

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I recently posted a job listing on a Craigslist for a media planner position and became instantly inundated with resumes. I began to review them and was utterly shocked at the fact that all of these people had applied. As I read them it became very clear to me that many people don’t know how to read. I had received resumes for a Media Planner position from local Chef’s and Designers and Retired VC’s and even one from a Civil Engineer. I couldn’t have been clearer with the job description or the salary ranges, but a number of people felt compelled to tell me how there culinary skills were so immediately applicable to online media planning.

Since I’m sure most companies in a hiring phase right now are having the same difficulties that I am, I thought I would take a moment to point out what the two most important elements are when a person is being considered for a job.

  • Passion / Career-Focus – The best employees are the ones that enjoy what they do. I always tell people, “If you enjoy at least 50% of your job, you are better off than at least 50% of the people in the workforce.” If you are focused on a career path and have an idea where you want to be, you will work harder to get there, and that is reflected in what you do everyday. If you are just trying to collect a paycheck, then you are not going to be willing to run that extra mile. “This is a marathon, not a sprint”, is what one of my old bosses used to say. I agreed somewhat, but I amended it with the fact that I am running the race to win, not just to finish and that means we need to run hard.

  • Honest/Traditional Skill Sets – The interactive media world changes quickly however the methodologies for doing planning in today’s market are starting to reflect more of a traditional skill set. The skills that a strong online media professional today need to understand are a combination of traditional direct response and traditional branding. Our medium is the perfect union of the two. The fact that the web is becoming a reach medium, but is still held accountable (and rightly so) is just a precursor for what will happen in other forms of media by 2010. Therefore, the best media professionals will understand how these two disciplines are married together and applied in the interactive space. This requires a base of offline knowledge but practical application of Search Engine Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, and traditional Advertising metrics and concepts.

    There are definitely some other things that employers are looking for such as Loyalty and a number of other elements, but the two that I mentioned above are historically the most important. If you are applying for a position in today’s market, ask yourself if you fit the two criteria above. If not, then have a damned good reason why you are still applying. Maybe your explanation will be solid enough to be considered for a position.

    And if you are a media planner who is reading this while traveling around Southeast Asia, hurry up and come back home, your job market needs you.

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