For students about to enter the advertising industry, some of the toughest decisions happen before their careers even begin. Should you take an internship or hold out for a full-time junior position, especially after spending two years earning a master's degree?

In 2019, Brandcenter alum Joe Castagna turned down a full-time junior position in Chicago for an internship at BBDO New York, earning just $15 an hour in one of the most expensive cities in the country. Sounds crazy, right? He thought so, too.

We talked with Joe about why he made that choice, what he didn't see coming, and how he made it work. Plus, what he'd tell students facing those same decisions in a very different job market.

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I had my eye on BBDO for a while. They were doing great work, and I wanted to work somewhere big.

I always thought of it like going to a teaching hospital. I wanted to learn from the best, be surrounded by great work, and have a whole community of people I could learn from.

I was also considering a full-time junior position in Chicago. It was a good offer, and Chicago was definitely more affordable than New York. But I'd always pictured myself in New York. There was a little bit of that, too.

The funny thing is, I'd been pretty adamant about not taking an internship. I was telling people I was going to get a real job, even if I had to wait.

The Chicago offer was good. It wasn't a crazy amount of money, but it was a junior salary, and Chicago was cheaper than New York. It was also working on Heinz, which was a cool brand.

In retrospect, that was one of the harder parts, because they ended up doing some really great work for Heinz in the years that followed. Sometimes I wish I'd been part of that.

But I don't regret my decision. I think BBDO was where I was supposed to be.

What really pushed me toward BBDO was the person I'd be working with. We connected really well, and I knew I wanted to work with her. She couldn't guarantee me a full-time job, but she promised I'd be considered for one if I did good work.

It was really tough financially. I was making minimum wage, which was $15 an hour in New York City. That's basically nothing. I was living off credit cards and barely making enough to pay rent. I had family helping me out here and there.

That went on for about six months. For a number of reasons, they couldn't hire me until October, but I eventually got the job. That was the important thing.

And I ended up staying there for almost four years.

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First of all, I think it was a very different climate than it is now.

Back then, big agencies like BBDO were doing some really cool work, and I wanted to be surrounded by a large community of strategists. I didn't necessarily want to go somewhere with a smaller team.

The pandemic did a real number on the holding companies, and I think we're still seeing the effects of that today.

I also chose BBDO because I knew they were really focused on award shows. I knew that if I played my cards right, I could get an Effie pretty early in my career, which I did.

They were doing a ton of work, they were well-funded, and they were getting new clients. They'd just landed Ford, which worked out because I'd previously interned on Lincoln at Hudson Rouge.

And New York, at the time, really felt like the epicenter of advertising.

I think that's shifted a little. New York still is a major center, but not in the same way it was six or seven years ago. There are a lot of really cool independent shops doing interesting work in smaller towns now, which is great.

If I were graduating today, I'd probably look more seriously at smaller independent agencies. There are so many great shops doing interesting work outside the traditional advertising hubs now.

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The money was tough. I had basically no money to my name, and I ran up quite a lot of credit card debt, which I'm only now getting around to paying off.

Another big challenge was that the work wasn't always what I'd expected.

I ended up working on a lot of things that weren't necessarily the kind of creative strategy I originally imagined doing. The work started moving away more toward experiential and consumer journey work.

But I learned experience design, CRM, marketing, and communications planning. I learned a ton of stuff that Brandcenter doesn't really teach you because it's not necessarily creative-focused.

At first, I wasn't particularly excited about some of that work. It wasn't what I thought I'd signed up for. And she basically told me I could either do the work or not have a job. This was during the pandemic, so I did the work.

In retrospect, I was a little miserable about it at first. But once I got into it, I started getting pretty good at it, and it's really helped my career.

Now I can put together an experience design, a go-to-market plan, or a content management plan. I understand the consumer journey in ways that a lot of other strategists might not.

That was the big struggle, just navigating all of that.

I think it's difficult because you never really know what you're going to run into.

If somebody had told me when I was considering the internship that I'd end up working on Ford, that the nature of the business would change, and that I'd be doing a lot more consumer journey work, I probably wouldn't have taken it.

But I think you just have to roll with the punches.

You buy the book, you read the book, you watch the YouTube videos, and you learn how to do the stuff.

I think Brandcenter sets you up really well with that foundation. You know enough that, whatever you're working on, you can pick up a book or have a conversation with somebody who's really skilled at it.

Hopefully, that's somebody you're working with.

I was lucky to work with people who were really good at what they did. They knew I had no idea what I was doing, but they also trusted that I was smart enough to figure it out.

Sometimes that meant being told to read a really boring 70-page PDF about connections planning and then come back and talk about it for an hour.

That's part of it, too: finding your people. Finding somebody who sees something in you and using that opportunity to learn.

I also think Brandcenter students should use the Brandcenter name to their advantage. Sometimes people know the school, or they went there, or they know somebody who did. Sometimes people have no idea what it is, and they don't care.

But when somebody does recognize it, it's a conversation starter. It tells them you've gone to a school specifically for this industry.

Having a master's degree is great, but at the same time, not everybody really cares about the degree itself.

The network and the experience can be really valuable.

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Getting a junior job right now is damn near impossible. I don't really know what to say about that. You're probably going to have to get an internship. Just do it.

If I were hiring an intern, a junior, or even a mid-level strategist, the biggest thing I'd want to see is character.

I want to see a bold personality. I want to understand what makes you interesting. Are you a street photographer? What's your perspective on things? Do you have some weird essays on your website I can read?

Help me understand your opinions. Have you learned something well enough that you could teach it to somebody else?

Another big thing for me right now is what you bring to the interview.

I've interviewed people who've come in with a presentation, even just a five or ten-minute presentation.

There was a candidate recently who came in with a really slick presentation. They said they'd put it together with Claude in about a day. I could kind of tell it was an AI-made presentation, but it was great.

They had something prepared, it was really well laid out, and they walked us through it quickly. Having visuals was really helpful.

I recommended that we hire that person. That wasn't the only reason, but the presentation was a big part of it.

It actually inspired me to start putting together a presentation for my own interviews.

And that's something Brandcenter teaches you how to do really well. Use that to show off your skills and what you know. Show your work, but also show your interests, the things you make, or even some weird photo you took somewhere.

Be weird.

I think Brandcenter really instills that creative mindset, and the best thing you can do is show it off.

The other important thing is showing that you can walk into an agency and understand how it works. You've basically been working in a mock agency environment for the last two years.

You're probably going to be pretty bad at some things at first, but you can do the work well enough that somebody more experienced can help you fix it. That's how everybody learns.

Your portfolio matters, of course. I definitely want to see what you've been working on.

But you and everybody else are coming in with a portfolio.

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