Q. The reason I’m emailing is because I want a job in Commercial Copywriting, to be more specific, a job in anyone of the following industries: Travel & Leisure, Entertainment & Arts, Food & Beverage, Automobile, Sports, Sex, Health & Fitness or Self-Help. My question for you is what are the steps I should take in pursuing these jobs? I recently read David Ogilvy’s book “Ogilvy on Advertising”, which was a great read; in the book he stresses the point of anyone pursuing a job in copywriting should start in direct mail. Is this true?
A. To be honest, I have no idea how to find a job in those industries, because I’ve never tried to find a FT job as a writer. Just do some research, compile a list of target companies, pick up the phone and call up some of them, and ask. I’d guess that if there are inside copywriting jobs (and many places won’t have staff writers – they’ll hire freelancers), they’ll be in the marketing department, so you might start there.
So, if you want to go into AD copywriting, yes, maybe direct mail makes sense because in both you have to create a hook and really draw the reader in. But in general copywriting – it’s a place to start, but not the only place to start.