how do you improve your career?
Out of context: Reply #11
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- shellie0
I don't believe there's any real traditional track to the progression of your career these days. It's a free style, free for all, most creative hustler wins. I don't think something that worked for one person would necessarily work for another in the same way. If you can actualize your worth to a company in dollars and cents, your value on paper to a company, you will rise to the top very quickly. On a project, are you falling well below the number of hours they're quoting to the client. Are you carrying more workload than others with the same job title? Can you prove it down to the penny? If you took on a large portion of an art director or creative director's duties to help out their workflow on a project, you're saving an agency a lot of money. Your billable hours vs their billable hours. Being able to break down why you're valuable makes a strong case for big moves.
I can't really tell you how to get yourself in a position to get that kind of transparency of sensitive information. You I suppose it's different for everyone. But, I started by throwing myself into every pitch I could, getting very close to producers, and eventually becoming a producer myself (on top of my other duties as a designer and developer). Curiosity and willingness to train and take on extra hours under other roles in the company (new business, production, etc) really helps. You will eventually get on the "need to know" side of the business at your company. All also very valuable information if you ever want to leave that company anyway. Rarely will you hear a no by offering your help on those big pitches upper management toils away on late at night and weekends. Being able to write, win, and budget pitches and then execute the physical labor launched me upward in every company I've worked for. When those same projects also have a giant profit margin, you'll be pretty much untouchable.