If a person has a short stint (less than 3 months) in an organisation, is it OK to avoid its mention in the resume?

This is a question that everyone in advertising, from Trainee to CEO is asking these days. True, every single industry is faced with a talent crunch but none have the problem of exodus that advertising is facing. As a search organization with a keen interest in the Communication space, we have a ringside view of the questions that are asked, the reasons that some people give for leaving or staying. Here are a selection of some facts, questions and opinions:

Questions

• Does it make sense for a creative, client servicing or media professional to stay on in advertising at all?
• Should a young bright fresher who while participating in college festivals felt he had the talent to create ads or dreamt of the ‘glamour’ of advertising look at the business at all or look at media, entertainment….
• Is the crisis of talent in advertising today unique or simply magnified given that newer sectors are opening every day and advertising people with their unique blend of experience and exposure get picked up for these sectors?
• Is advertising as an industry itself on the verge of extinction as we know it and the exodus natural fallout of this?
• Does advertising pay poorly?
• Does the profession have any ‘respect’ left?
• Is the industry run by people who are not in touch with new realities and therefore salaries, job definitions et all are out of synch?

Some Facts

• Advertising no longer features as a profession of choice for MBAs from the top 20 business schools
• More students from an institute like MICA (set up for advertising) take non-advertising jobs than in the profession, from the campus
• Creative Directors are finding jobs as Marketing Managers
• Media, Internet, Banks, Auto, Retail, Consulting, Telecom and many more sectors offer jobs to people with 6-14 years experience in advertising

Salary

• The advertising business is between a 2000-2500 cr industry. Profits would be between 300-400 crs. A single entity like HDFC Bank is bigger, makes more money and employs less people than the entire industry. It is just not capable of paying more.
• A client servicing person with 9-12 years experience would draw between 12-16 lacs as annual CTC. When he gets his break in Media or internet he would get 20+
• There are very few 1 cr plus salaries in advertising. Most corporates have between 5-20 people in that bracket.

Some of the softer issues that bother

– ‘Respect’. There is none from the clients. They knowingly treat agencies very badly and the agency heads also behave like they will do anything for the clients business. So there is no standing up for points of view or principles or demanding to be treated well

– Peers from similar class/batch generally seem to have higher salaries, bigger jobs

– No one is particularly bothered about training, mentoring, appraising..no HR practices at all

– Agency heads and creative heads are all chasing awards so blindly that they are ‘cheating’ all the time and justifying it as legitimate tactics

Some reasons to stay

– Ask yourself whether you are a ‘variety seeker’. If you are, unlikely you will be happy in a one or two product/service job

– Do you ‘love’ advertising? Do you seem to instinctively get that insight, feel the idea and get excited by it?

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