The art directors club put together a trip to visit Grey, an advertising/marketing company that is well known globally in the design world.  We got to meet up and talk to different members of the Grey agency and learn more about whats expect from us in both work and portfolio, and also what to expect from a big time agency like Grey.

The first lady was who brought us in gave us a breakdown of Grey advertising and who they are. She went through a large number of clients that they worked with and how the process of design works there.  They have, of course, a lot of work coming in constantly and because of that there is a lot of jumping around that needs to get done. She says that in the Grey community there is little place for standing, even creative directors work on small parts of projects the overall idea is to get the project done. Theres also a lot of jumping around, once you finish with your work they will usually send you to help another group if they feel they need the extra help. She also went over the “no asshole” policy which basically means they don’t hire people who are “difficult” to deal with. They want there community within Grey to feel close, connected, and like family because she says that you will definitely be spending long hours here, more then your own home. She also went over some of the things that Grey offers. Things like they offer classes to all there employees that range from speech to design to programing. In the spare time that you do get you are welcome (as an employee) to sign up for these classes attend them and learn knew things.  So if the business side wanted to learn more about the design side of the advertising business they could sign up for a class and vise versa.

The second was a lady from the hiring department. She is the one who hires all the creatives and is an important person to know if you want a job there. She did a breakdown first of what is expected from employees who work there, again long hours, passion, and a love for caffeine. She went through how she personally goes about hiring.  She said that she hardly looks at resumes just to see that you graduated and then goes straight for portfolios. Of course your portfolio must be well organized and appealing. The work inside must show that you have a large ray of design and thought processes. Since there is a lot of jumping around within the company she looks for people who can tackle more then just one task. If she is happy with the work you go in for two interviews. Again the “no asshole” policy applies so the interviews are really just seeing how much she likes you and if you would fit in with this community. She went over different things to be aware of when going to interviews which are pretty subjective to her but still very helpful.

The last lady who spoke to us was a group called the Adventures Club (I think). She was part of a branch in Grey that thinks of new innovative physical products for there clients. For instance one of there clients is Volvo a car company. They designed a spray for bikers that is reflective. So you can spray it on your clothes and in a cars headlights in the dark it will be a silver white color and make it easy for you to be seen. They did this to help bikers because Volvo cares about everyone on the streets.