Graduate Diary 

| Conor Kearney

My name is Conor. I am a 24-year-old from Kildare currently living in Dublin. I started in dentsu at the end of January 2022 on the Entry to Media Program. I like to spend my spare time running, going out with friends, and watching movies.

How did you find out about the entry to media programme opportunity? / What did you do to prepare for the interview?

When I graduated with my master’s in digital marketing, I had been looking for Agency jobs, but I could not find one that was willing to take on a graduate with very little experience. I found out about the Entry to Media Program while I was searching for jobs on LinkedIn. The Entry to Media Program seemed to be the perfect opportunity for me and I applied. I wanted to get into the digital media/marketing space because I grew to really enjoy the subject matter and range of possibilities for a career in the industry. Getting into an internationally renowned agency like dentsu was a brilliant opportunity to learn and develop in an industry I was keen to work in.

I was contacted very quickly after applying for the program. For the interview, I knew I was interested and had just enough experience in the area to be able to have a conversation about trends and technology. I researched some trends in detail that I thought was interesting and looked at some of the great work that dentsu has done on their website. Going into the interview, my process was to prepare my talking points on my experience, work I had done and what I was interested in. I also looked up the people who were interviewing me on LinkedIn, so I was a bit more familiar with what they did in the company.

How did you feel during your first week? And how are you feeling now?

In my first week, I started remotely which I was used to before joining dentsu but it was still tough to start as a new person virtually. As the week went on, I and the five others that were in my intake started chatting more and working together on small tasks we were getting while shadowing the teams. After the first week, I was feeling way more comfortable and was really enjoying myself. I really put that down to the other grads and the people team who were always checking in on us and guiding us through the first few days.

What team did you join? Tell us a bit about what you enjoy within the team? Tell us about some of the work you’ve been involved in.

Once we completed the first four weeks, we were told what team we would be joining. My experience in my previous job and my interest in paid search meant that I joined the PPC team in iProspect. I am delighted with the team I have joined as it’s exactly the kind of work I wanted to do when I was studying. The people on the team are brilliant to work with, they are very social and have been so supportive and helpful. The culture at the company in general is one of the best team environments I have ever worked in. It really makes the work and experience that much more enjoyable.

Have you had to overcome any obstacles? If so, how did you do this?

I was taken aback by the amount of analytical work that is involved in my day-to-day work. I did not come from a particularly numerical background but my interest in the work has allowed me to understand things much quicker than I thought I would. I think working in an agency provides you with the best learning space to develop your skills. Since joining, I have learned so much about the media landscape that I was completely unaware of. I was very much coming from a digital background and was ignorant of the importance and scale that out of home and TV media buying have in our industry. Shadowing the different teams throughout the four weeks was great to get a sense of what each team does and how their team interacts with all the other teams. Since joining my team, I have learned so much about Paid Search with so much more to learn as I continue my journey.

        

Can you describe your day-to-day role and responsibilities? And What takes up most of your time?

In the morning I check my emails to see if there are any reports that clients are looking for or any other team requests/updates needed.

I then get into my client accounts and start optimising the accounts. This usually consists of adjusting the budget, creating search term reports, and analysing campaign structure. The platforms I work on most often are Google ads, SA36 and Google Analytics.

I then often have some meetings. These are usually one-to-one meetings with Account Managers where we discuss account performance and possible testing that can be done to improve the account performance. I also often have catch-ups with my manager to see how I am getting on.

In the afternoon I check up on some of the tests or experiments that are running on some of my accounts and do some analysis on performance and if there are any changes that could be made.