Small Agency Life

My name is Mike McIntyre, I am currently interning at my first ever advertising agency. So far, it has been a great experience that I feel is helping me prepare for the real world when I graduate. The agency I am working at is EFK group, its an agency located in Trenton NJ. It’s a small agency, it only has a total of 9 people who work there, not including me and the other intern.

What is it like working at a small agency? Well, for starters, everyone who works here works very closely with one another. Everyone helps everyone to achieve their goals. I work with the account managers, and from what I have been able to experience so far is that all the account managers work on the same accounts together. Whenever one account manager has a meeting with a client, the other account managers, and our CEO, will usually join in on that meeting. Our creative director will usually also be a part of client meetings as well as our web designer.

In my classes at Temple, I have learned that in most agencies, the account manager is the link between the client and the rest of the agency. That’s true here as well but not always, sometimes someone from the creative team, or our CEO, will also be in direct contact with the client.

Some advice I can give to you for anyone looking to work at a small agency, be prepared to be working very closely with everyone else who works at the agency, even if they’re not in your department. If you work on the account side, you will have to be comfortable helping the creative team with ideas for a campaign. And if you work on the creative side, you will have to be comfortable with talking to clients and attending client meetings and pitching ideas.  If your comfortable with that, than small agency life might be for you.

Another great thing about working at a small agency is that you don’t get lost in the shuffle. Everyone knows you by name and they want to help you learn if you’re an intern or fresh out of college working your first job. Every day I meet with my manager and we go over what he wants me to do for the day. I also have a weekly meeting with our CEO and we go over what I want to get out of the internship as well as what I would like to learn from interning here. I feel that working at a larger agency wouldn’t give me as much one on one contact with my superiors. Working at a small agency feels like working for a family. Everyone wants to help everyone and everyone wants to see each other succeed. If you have never worked for an ad agency before, I recommend getting your first internship, or your first job at a smaller agency, it will help line you up for success.