At JWT, focus is on building long-term careers

Sapna Srivastava, chief talent officer, JWT APAC, in conversation with Ashish K Tiwari, speaks about how the agency sees the Portfolio Night 11 initiative acting as a catalyst for the agency’s soon-to-be-introduced JWT Honours programme that focuses on creating long-term careers in advertising. Edited excerpts:

What prompted JWT to associate with Portfolio Night?
There were two compelling reasons for us take it up. First, to provide the young/ raw students a platform to showcase what they have done and are capable of doing. Secondly, we saw it as a great opportunity to identify bright talent (from the 90 participants) and eventually look into the possibilities of making them a part of JWT. We have always been and want to be known as an agency that helps build careers and hosting an event like this serves that purpose well.

How does the Portfolio Night approach to identifying budding talent?
As an organisation JWT India does not go to campuses as we feel we may not get the best of the candidates as there are many companies vying for the same pool of talent. The difference between campus recruitment and what we are doing through Portfolio Night is that here we’ve got people who are interested in a career in advertising. And while they are participating in the global event, they are actually coming to JWT. So we know these people are serious about a career and not using it as a stepping stone to go elsewhere.

So campus recruitment is not for creative talent and is largely restricted to account management roles for which hiring is done from B-schools.

What is the approach for recruiting creative people then?
There are many colleges that produce really good graduates. However, a lot of candidates write to us about wanting to start their careers and we generally choose from these applications.

Having said that, this year we are proactively launching a programme called ‘JWT Honours’, wherein we will go to colleges and make presentations about careers in JWT.

We will pick about 12 interns in every city, they will come and train with us for 12 weeks and create a book of work which will be evaluated and the best of the lot will be hired.

With this we are creating a whole new platform to help youngsters build their careers and Portfolio Night will act as a catalyst to our JWT Honours initiative, which will focus on creating long-term careers in advertising.

Could you tell us about the profile of candidates who have registered for the Portfolio Night event?
Majority for them are freshers who are either studying or have just passed out of their creative colleges. I think what they are really looking forward to from the event is a feedback on the work they have done while studying. Getting an opportunity to present their book of work to the likes of Prasoon Joshi or Piyush Pandey and getting a comment on what they’ve done is a great thing to have at the beginning of one’s career.

Even if the comment is negative, the young minds will know the direction they have to move thereafter; and if their work is good they will be highly appreciated. In fact, this year Portfolio Night will select the best of the creative minds from across the cities where this event is being hosted and fly them to New York where an All Stars Portfolio Night will be held. So one of the students from the Mumbai event will also go for this event.