Participate in NEXT and You Just Might Get a Job

If you're on the fence as to whether or not you should apply to the NDAC and Ad2's NEXT portfolio program, this might help you make up your mind.

In eight short weeks, the NEXT portfolio program did more for both our books and our careers than two months of self-motivated spec work ever could have.

First, the NEXT program introduced us to other young, driven, advertising professionals—aspiring or otherwise. Finding a good partner to bounce ideas off of and provide complementary strengths is absolutely invaluable when you’re trying to get your portfolio in shape. When you find a partner who’s as dedicated as yourself, the work you produce together is always going to be exponentially better than the work you could have produced alone.

Then NEXT assigned us mentors to help direct our work and clean out as much creative garbage as possible before we presented to local creative directors. The briefs our mentors guided us through encompassed a wide array of brands – from Jackson Hole Ski Resort to Google. And when you’re compiling your book, demonstrating that a brand’s size has no correlation to the caliber of the ideas you can generate for it is never a bad idea.

Finally, NEXT gave us face time with four of Denver’s most respected creative directors. And that’s not easy to come by.

After NEXT, we made sure to keep in contact with our mentors, and through networking, we were lucky enough to be hired at Karsh\Hagan a mere three months after completing the program. We sincerely appreciate the efforts of everyone who worked to coordinate and run the NEXT program. You were amazingly helpful and endlessly patient.

- Brian Suter + Karen Morris

P.S. The campaign you used to introduce Next was moderately terrifying. After our first presentation, we found it wasn’t nearly as abrasive as we had originally expected.

Application Deadline is 3/15/2010.