(Vice-President, Copy Supervisor, Doyle Dane Bernbach Inc.)
chuukyuu In interviewing an applicant for copywriter, what point do you check?
Dillon First, when we interview a writer, we do not interview him at all.
We interview his work. That is, he leaves his samples and goes away and we go over his book. We feel a man's work speaks for itself.
One reason for this is that all of our supervisors are working copywriters and art directors, too.
We can't be sure we'll be free to interview everybody. But I think the main reason in that the only thing you can go by is performance.
A copywriter can sit across the desk from you and tell you all the reasons why the ads in his portfolio are just average, or filled with advertising cliches, or just p;ain dull. Now, the reasons may all be very sound---that may be the kind of work he had to do. But this still doesn't show us shat a man is capable of doing . Nothing but work itself can tell you this.
They only requirement here is that they not be ads on products that the agency n handling .What if you didn't like the guy's work but he had one idea that we were already working on?
Anyway, we've hired quite a few writers this way, and in fact have promoted people in our own agency to copywriting jobs because we found that they had the kind of speak or whatever you want to call it that we looking for.
(fin.)
