National Careers Week 2015 - The Digital Guide | Page 9

MONDAY FUTURE JOBS

09

IN SEARCH OF
CREATIVE PIONEERS
The ‘heads’ campaign idea devised by
the Institute of Practitioners (IPA) in
partnership with Metro is a
recruitment campaign with a
difference. Rather than jumping into
the detail of job roles and starting
salaries it starts in a much more human
way, by asking the question, what’s
your brain type?
From the work we have done over the
past three years in helping over 200
young people to find job
opportunities in the advertising and
digital marketing industry we have
found that the biggest barrier we face
is that people assume you have to
be ‘creative’ to get in. So if you are
good at number crunching, or just like
getting things done, there wouldn’t be
a role for you.
Yet the reality is very different. Less
than a third of the front office jobs in
the advertising and digital
marketing business are creative in this
way. Another third are in general
management and the rest in planning
and reporting on what’s been done.
The ‘heads’ campaign is designed to
bridge this gap in understanding by
asking people, in a simple way, to think
about how their brain works. At a
scientific level, are they more linear or
more lateral, or a mix of both in equal
measure, which we call
‘diagonal’? At a more human level, do
they enjoy to ‘plan’, to ‘create’ or ‘do’?
It’s only then that we go on to
explain how different brain types lead
to different job roles, and give them
a flavour of the quirky terms we use
like search, insight, media planning,
data analytics, project management,
production, client service, account
management to name but a few.

Advertising and digital marketing may
not be a world parents or teachers
know about, but it’s one of the most
dynamic and fastest growing sectors
of the UK economy and offers an
exciting and stimulating career path.
New statistics from Government*
show that the whole creative sector
is growing 3 times faster than the
economy as a whole, with 1 in 18 jobs
overall, and 1 in 12 new jobs, falling
into this category. And advertising and
digital marketing, together with related
software and IT, offer the most jobs
in the sector. It’s definitely an area of
work where the UK is ahead of the
rest of Europe, and is attracting
business from the rest of the world.
The Creative Pioneers initiative from
the IPA and Metro provides a simple
route into finding out about
apprenticeship opportunities in the
sector. It offers a portal to over 50
different advertising, digital marketing
and media employers who are looking
to take on school leavers; in the City
regions of Birmingham, Bristol,
London, Manchester and Newcastle.
It’s a win-win. Successful candidates
gain valuable on-the-job experience
and an industry recognised
qualification at the end of 12-15
months, while the businesses gain
access to the brightest, freshest
thinking from the next generation of
digital natives.
To find out more about
Creative Pioneers go to
www.creativepioneers.co.uk
For more information on the new
Government stats go to
www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk