Have you watched any show on NatGeoWild where you see a cheetah or a pride of lions lie in wait patiently for a deer or a gazelle, simply waiting, for the opportunity to start the chase and pounce on their 100m dash dinner?
That’s how poaching season works in the corporate world. This is a key period and it’s usually from October to February because this is when promotions happen, employees leave and fresh grads start applying for internship and entry level roles. Basically, gaps need to be filled and the market is tight especially for middle and senior management roles.
Nobody really gives a shit about entry level. 8 out of 10 times.
What’s interesting about poaching season isn’t the frenzy of firms sending headhunters and using its employees to source for the best talent they can find for their team, it’s the switching that’s marvelling and today we will be taking a look at how tech is taking a lot of advertising agency talent.
Ghen Ghen
Anyone who has had any experience working with agencies knows that the job is high pressure and high impact. You are getting an uppercut from a brutal revert, just as you’re jumping into a meeting where you receive progressive right and left hooks, only to get a sliding tackle as you’re in the club on a Friday night when your colleague texts you on WhatsApp to tell you “we have a crisis”.
Dorime ameno is completely ruined with 15 sets of “please find attached” and “kind regards”.
The job is fun no doubt, but there are a few problems with it and I will be addressing them for entry level folks (and others) because the industry still has a high barrier to entry, but thank God for digital. There’s a lot of them listed by the people I asked (no thanks to the ones who aired me) but I will be grouping them into five:
Unnecessary pressure: for me, I grew into the pressure the job brings. Though Friday 5pm is where I draw the line to pick up the chalk on Monday 9am, I have seen this isn’t the same for a lot of folks. A lot of times it's agency culture that’s messed up, other times it’s brand managers acting like agents of darkness and calling you by 11pm when you’re trying to engage in coitus with your partner.
Silliest part of this is that a lot of these respondents said the pressure didn’t match the pay. Because how will you work 13 hours (office and home) everyday 6 days a week, for someone with 5 years of experience only to be earning N150,000 a month?
That’s roughly $500 with the current exchange rate! I can’t blame the agencies in some part but tech does offer an added incentive that definitely makes agency talent pack up and switch like Saka ported from Etisalat to MTN.
Workplace benefits & under-appreciation: Though a few agencies are picking up on things like leave (without disturbing the employee) and some salary bonuses, word has it that it came with a lot of pressure when employees started making these demands. I mean what’s so hard with small chops every month? It’s important to help the employee ease off on the stress and be appreciated for the work done. There’s nothing wrong with “hey good job on this”. You won’t die if you refrain from saying “we can do better” when you should be praising the team.
Loyalty isn’t bought but with the right amount of benefits in the offer letter, well garnished with a fat salary, I don’t think you’d be able to set up shop anymore when one startup that just closed Series A funding takes all your senior staff.
Just like a certain american company did to the devs of a certain Nigerian bank that shall not be named.
Toxicity: this word is common now on the internet but let’s be realistic: with the stories being told about some agencies and the way superiors treat their juniors, these places may be worse than a nuclear warhead lab in Iran. Not to forget that employee-employee mistreatment is a thing too.
The case that shook me the most is one where in an agency, one colleague stole an idea from another and presented it to the boss, then during the client meeting the brand manager rejected it harshly and the thief blamed it on who they had stolen from. Long story short, dem flog person papa with laptop charger for office.
Cases like this are one of the reasons people up and leave because while there may be accountability, a lot of the work that goes on becomes office politics and human beings testing out how much they learnt from Robert Greene, on each other.
Then when you send in your resignation letter, HR will start wooing you with words like “ we can double your salary”. Well no shit, Sherlock.
International exposure: tech is like a genie; you make three wishes and it takes you a short time and a lot of smart work before it's all granted. The people I asked for comments said the most any agency person can get with regards to international exposure is online communities and foreign brands that they get to work with. On the side of online communities, nobody wants to work with an ad person who doesn’t understand their market. It’s illogical. With tech? Haha hold my beer!
Tech is a great way for talent to get international recognition and get poached by foreign companies so they can earn more dollars. Nigerians are so good at this that a certain tech bro got into a company and a year later almost all the tech talent there were Nigerian.
Agency can’t give you this. Lai Lai.
Relevance: if there’s anything I have noticed about Nigerians is how well we evolve. Maybe it’s a trait we developed over time having to deal with, well, what we’ve dealt with, but I do know we want to remain employable, valuable and payable for as long as possible. Tech evidently not only provides the platform but the leverage. Agency on the other hand, I hear is that once you hit director level it’s over.
Yeah, “shit” is a good way to respond. People avoid this by going over to the client side but many stories show that the moment you start earning client side money, especially with FMCG you become lax and don’t pursue much like you used to. But I’m a junior strategist, what do I know? All I’m doing here is write, right? Nevertheless, if you were to ask what keeps an individual on their toes, solving problems and getting properly compensated for it then your answer will be tech.
To close this off, I fully support whoever is moving to tech. Please by all means, go. The pipeline you create for others to fill your shoes will allow entry level talent to join the rank and file, and be trained in the art and science of marketing communications.
If that isn’t charity and goodwill then I don’t know what is.
Don’t forget to wear your masks as you go out this season, we are still in a Panasonic.