(This post is intended to give graduates – looking for account handler jobs – a gist of what it is like to work as a junior account handler.)

As soon I was in the door in this morning, I had to leave to meet a client with the account manager and account planner working on his account. Our client has several businesses. He has invited a few advertising agencies to pitch for his newly-launced publishing business. This is my first pitch. I learned a lot. Especially the need to ask questions. It was almost embarrassing the amount of questions the account manager, and in particular, the account planner asked. But it’s quite normal in advertising to ask lots of questions like this.
We got back into the office at lunch time. After lunch I had a meeting with another account planner, and the copywriter and art director, who are all working on a campaign for a gift shop chain. I am getting a bit nervous because they should have come up with more ideas by now. I sometimes think that this particular copywriter and art director don’t always listen to what I say (but maybe they think the same of me).
After that I had to do some account planning work for another client (biscuit brand). The account planner working on this is out sick. This isn’t a very big project. However, I had to ask the account planning director to give me a few guidelines about what I needed to do.
At 5 o clock I attended a creative brief. This creative brief was for a shoe brand. The account planner gave a really good brief. Everyone liked the big (marketing) idea. In fact, only an hour after we had finished, the copywriter gave us a preview of some of the creative ideas that the creative teams had already come up with.
At 7 o clock I left work for home.

Finally, I really enjoy my job as an account handler. For people looking for account handler jobs, I would say that you have to enjoy working with others (in particular, with the client, as well as with people in your own team such as the account planner, the copywriter and art director, who are often quite different in personality and attitude to account handlers), as well as be: good at negotiating, well organized, persistent, energetic, and more.

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