Raise your sights! Blaze new trails! Compete with the immortals!

Helen Keller was once asked by a journalist what she thought would be worse than being born blind. She replied without missing a beat, “to have sight and no vision.” Ogilvy encourages you to dream big in every aspect of your work. The only way the agency can create groundbreaking work is if its people have the idealism to think anything is possible.

As an Ogilvy Associate, embracing idealism means more than simply believing in yourself, and harnessing your own potential. It’s seeing the best in your co-workers and your clients, and raising the agency to the standards set forth by our founder decades ago. What does idealism mean to you? Sound off @ogilvycraftsmen and let us know your thoughts.

Originally from Westchester County, New York, I graduated Penn State in 2011 where I developed an avid passion for all things marketing. My hopes of pursuing a career at Ogilvy’s “Chocolate Factory,” the New York office, finally started to become a reality after arduous months of preparation and a plethora of interviews throughout my Senior Year. However, I’d soon find out that there were opportunities beyond the Chocolate Factory’s walls…

In late March I found myself attending Ogilvy’s Super Saturday. Captivated with the culture of the company on this intensive day of interviews, I shortly thereafter was offered a First Year Associate position with the caveat that I would be pioneering the program on the West Coast. Flattered, but anxious, I embraced this task, packed my things, and ventured off to sunny Los Angeles. I began my career at OgilvyWest working in account management, helping ensure an optimal operational flow on the high visibility Brand Mexico account. Here, I reaped great benefits of hard work, learning something new in the wonderful world of Marketing daily, on a global scale. I was asked to stay on Brand Mexico for two rotations, and am now rotating through RedWorks, which is Ogilvy’s in-house production studio.

Ogilvy has made Los Angeles my new city, my new home. If you’re in the process of interviewing to be a Craftsmen of Culture, it could be yours too . . .

3 Ogilvy LA Must-Knows:

1. Our office is composed of approximately 100 employees. This smaller environment makes it quite simple for a First Year Associate to meet people in various departments . . . a.k.a. this office is Networking Gold!

2. The Ogilvy LA space is incredibly unique. When approaching this creative section of town, a cluster of trapezoidal buildings greets you. This includes a seventy-two foot Observation Tower resembling an oversized Chinese staircase, a huge canopy of twisted glass and steel, and of course our building, which is often referred to as the stealth building due to its resemblance to a stealth bomber.

3. If you like to play with dogs, Ogilvy LA may just be your ideal workplace. During my first few days here, I was a bit perplexed by the high number of dogs trotting about the office, but I soon learned that this was the OgilvyWest norm. What better way to relieve stress than taking a few seconds out of your day to pet a pup or bring your own?

For any questions about the Ogilvy LA experience, tweet @ogilvycraftsmen.

We wanted to show our love for all you readers with a Valentine’s day mixtape curated by the current Associates. Which are your classic V-Day jams? Let us know @ogilvycraftsmen. Happy Valentine’s Day!

As promised, here’s another passage from The Ugly Duckling, a cautionary tale of creativity told by Ogilvy’s Worldwide Chief Creative Officer, Tham Khai Meng.

The following excerpt discusses the four essential questions one must ask when judging a piece of work. Enjoy.

Let’s get your imaginative, inspirational, innovative minds rolling again with quotes 6-10.

6. “No great thing is created suddenly.” – Epictetus

We live in a McDonald’s culture where everything happens instantly and without effort. And while many things are created suddenly, stellar careers aren’t. Take an orthopedic surgeon, a CEO or even Thomas Edison. None of them got there overnight. Great careers are built upon hundreds of thousands of small efforts, undertaken daily, that eventually grow into a series of satisfying wins.

7. “Well done is better than well said.” – Benjamin Franklin

This is a play on “Actions speak louder than words,” and Shakespeare’s “Talkers are no good doers.” When hiring bank presidents, an executive search consultant said, “There are two kinds of candidates: tap dancers and superstars. Tap dancers go through the motions. Superstars get the work done. I recruit the superstars.” Be a superstar.

8. “No wind favors he who has no destined port.” – Montaigne

Many companies lacking vision and focus are broken because they don’t have the direction necessary to succeed. Stephen R. Covey said it well in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People when he advices us to “begin with the end in mind.” Sometimes working backwards can be that first step forward.

9. “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” – Seneca

Life’s tough, we know. But take a cue from Churchill, “Never give in, never, never, never, never; in nothing, great or small – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

10. “Do first things first, and second things not at all.” – Peter Drucker

It’s so easy to do what’s familiar, comfortable or fun. It’s so difficult, sometimes, to tackle the highest priority. And sometimes it’s even more difficult to know your top priorities. If you’re having a hard time figuring that out, try asking yourself questions like “what is the best use of my talents?” and “how can I make a bigger impact?”

Do you feel inspired? Go forth and do big things, dream big things, make big things happen. But do it in 10 words or less. Are you up for the challenge? Let us know on Twitter @ogilvycraftsmen.

Dear Ogilvy Hopefuls,

We’ve gotten some very helpful insights from our HR department about your applications. We KNOW you all have a ton of questions, but the information below should answer most, if not all, of them. While many of you may still have questions about your specific application, please understand that there’s no way we can answer everyone individually due to the sheer number of applications we’ve received. Every application was carefully reviewed and all decisions are final. We will be inviting applicants to interviews until March 2, so don’t stress out if you haven’t heard anything yet.

Associates Application Process:

Round 1: Applicants are reviewed by HR (resume, other qualifications)

Round 2: Applications that pass Round 1 are reviewed by a team from Ogilvy’s creative department to evaluate the applicant’s response to the prompt “What makes you creative?”

Round 3: Applicants that pass Round 2 are selected for Skype or in-person interviews.

Round 4: Applicants that pass Round 3 are selected for Super Saturday.

Round 5 (Super Saturday): This is day-long, in-person evaluation at Ogilvy New York during which final decisions are made.

Associates Program Decision Decoder:

The “Job Status” column on the Job Submission Status page has no relevance to the decision we’ve made about your application. It is best to ignore the fact that it says “Open” or “Closed.”

Under “HR Status” on the Job Submission Status page:

Ineligible:  You have not been chosen for the program

Eligible:  You are still in the running and are being considered for an interview

Submitted: We have not yet reviewed your application. But we will. Fear not!

A more detailed explanation from Ogilvy HR:

This year’s application focused on pervasive creativity with the prompt, “What makes you creative?” Each application was first reviewed by HR in terms of their resume and other qualifications. Then, ‘finalists’ from each school were reviewed by a team from our creative department here at Ogilvy.

The most common problem the creative team found was that applicants didn’t actually answer the question, “What makes you creative? Another common issue was that there simply wasn’t enough effort put into the creative execution. That being said, we were careful not to get too caught up in how well videos were edited or how pretty a picture was. Instead, we focused on the full picture of the submission. In other words, we asked ourselves if the applicant really defined what makes them creative. Did they tell a compelling story? Is it engaging? Does it have a nugget of creative thought that makes us want to know more? The HR team sat in on every creative review and in some cases overrode the creative team’s decisions if we felt the applicant had strong credentials and deserved an interview.

Related Posts:

Don’t Stress, Stay Fresh
Inspiration in 10 Words or Less
Best of Ogilvy Volume 3

…so we know that doesn’t actually rhyme, but we’ve been getting a lot of Facebook and Twitter questions about your application statuses and asking us for interview tips. As Associates, we can’t really answer these questions individually – but know that answers are coming soon. What we can do, though, is provide you with inspirational posts like this one and interview tips on our Facebook page and on Twitter @ogilvycraftsmen – straight from the associates. We’ve all been in your shoes and know what you’re going through. Hang in there!

Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Maybe that’s why some of the world’s best and most famous quotes are less than 10 words. Simple ideas don’t have to mean simple meanings. David Ogilvy has instilled in us the notion that every word counts. Make the biggest impact with the least amount of copy. There’s always room to trim away the excess. Step back and take a wider look. We uncovered some gems across the Internet and wanted to share.

1. “Love.” – The Prophets.

We hear, “Love makes the world go round,” and “Love heals all wounds,” day after day. Familiar themes include love of friends, ideas and self, love of your country, and even love of life itself. From Gandhi to Buddha, all the world’s prophets hold love as a central value, the glue that anchors the universe.

2. “Know thyself.” – Socrates

In career development, self-knowledge is everything. Know what you’re capable of, where you are and where you want to go. In a career, you can be two or three degrees off course and walk into a wall, instead of through a doorway. You don’t have to be far off to have it fail, so take time and focus on the path you want to take.

3. “Inches make champions.” – Vince Lombardi

By taking inspiration from the winning Green Bay Packers’ coach, we can understand that if football is a game of inches, so is career success. In the competitive world, you seldom win by a landslide. It’s about gaining those small victories, those inches, and pushing it as far as you can. And then pushing it even farther.

4. “Nothing gold can stay.” – Robert Frost

We are swamped in change and need to understand how to deal with it. Career change is common, as is growth and expansion. Take a little inspiration from Robert Frost’s poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

But then the cycle repeats, and everything always works out in the end.

5. “Work is love made visible.” – Kahlil Gibran

People often confuse happiness with a higher paycheck, and that mistake can cost you. The goal of career development is to uncover one’s gifts and passions, and to link them to the practical needs of the world. As there are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, we – as a generation – should first and foremost seek to love what we’re doing. Let’s make that our ultimate goal.

To be continued…

Let us know your thoughts on Twitter @ogilvycraftsmen, in 10 words or less.

Each year, Ogilvy & Mather’s Worldwide Creative Council meets to select the most outstanding creative work from throughout the O&M network. The result? The Best of Ogilvy.

Check out the link below to see the latest addition, Best of Ogilvy Volume 3, and see what you can be a part of as a Craftsman of Culture.

Enjoy!

Link: http://www.ogilvy.com/The-Work/Articles/BestofOgilvyVol3.aspx

New York City means always saying “Yes”
It means always being ready to go to a last minute concert. It means having a costume box for electric zoo, SantaCon, Halloween, 4th of July, or whatever new cause you decide to support. It means staying out till 6am. Eating street meat just because you are curious. Chasing coffee with redbull. Peeling your lifeless body out of bed on a Sunday to go to the MoMa and braving your first poetry slam at an underground speakeasy. This city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to try something new, to meet someone from any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again.

New York City means accepting impermanence.
It means having those neighborhood spots you love disappear forever. It means learning a new route to work. It means couples breaking up. Friends that move back home. Friends you never thought you’d meet. This city will overwhelm you with an image, a day, a beauty so surprising that you will shake your head in disbelief. Living here means accepting that change of perspective can happen just as quickly as the change of scene.

New York City means being able to laugh at yourself
It means accidentally taking the subway to Brooklyn more times than you’d like to admit. It means overreacting when you see a large rat on a poorly lit street or realizing too late that you wore the wrong colored socks to work. It means wearing winter coats in your living room to reduce your heating bill. Pretending to consider your wine options when you undoubtedly will pick the cheapest one on the menu. Watching your roommate’s shirt catch on fire as she teaches you how to sauté chicken. Living here means learning to laugh when a drunk man randomly yells at you on the street.

New York City means embracing the unknown
The goal here is to embrace the uncomfortable, to observe how you react to new experiences, and to learn from the fear of something threatening or difficult. Try to earn the appreciation of an honest critic, and endure the betrayal of false friends. Love someone you never thought you’d be with. Find beauty in imperfection, and opportunity from mistakes. Cry when you feel like crying. Eat Indian food, listen to dubstep, read the New Yorker, cut the line at a club, buy hipster glasses, drink on the subway, and help someone you don’t know. Explore the inner, undiscovered worlds.

Living in New York means stepping out of my comfort zone and into new opportunities.

What does New York City mean to you? Let us know on Twitter @ogilvycraftsmen.