They say some of the best ideas come to you whilst in the bath. And that’s certainly true here at Creative Resource. We always knew we wanted to move beyond just being a traditional recruitment agency… yes you can rely on the tried and trusted techniques of understanding sector challenges and attending recruitment fairs… but who wants to just do the same things forever!
A Creative Director from the other side of the world called David Campbell had approached us about running an ‘Ad School’ type event to help engage professionals who wanted to break into advertising… and that really lit a spark in our heads here at CR. So much so that a few years down the line we now have engaged with 1000s of students through our University events and hundreds of experienced and respected professionals through these and our Lockdown Learning Masterclasses.
“We never expected it to become this popular, but it has and we are over the moon and the wide range of businesses who recruit through us have felt the benefits as we are able to find them the right talent quickly through our huge black book of contacts.”
Julie Ollerton, Creative Resource MD
So, what are the events we run exactly we hear you cry? Here’s a little bit more about them:
Two+Two
We run this one-day collaboration event each year. Two+Two is a competition bringing together marketing and creative students with mentors from over 25 agencies to tackle a brief for a social cause. The last event was attended by over 500 students who are all close to graduating and keen to gain industry experience.
School of Thought
Creative Resource is proud to be the co-founder and sponsor of School of Thought, a 12-week intensive training programme in Manchester and Leeds which aims to develop the skills of creative professionals to develop and pitch big ideas. The initiative has seen a number of individuals gain roles at the likes of TBWA Manchester, BJL, Zeal and Propaganda.
Handle This!
Our newest event, ‘Handle This’ brings together networking and learning for the agency account handling community in a relaxed environment that has resulted in some fantastic knowledge and experience sharing sessions.
Lockdown Learning
During Lockdown we connected with a wide range of experienced professionals, from agency owners to marketing strategists, planners, marketing directors and copywriters to create a suite of invaluable online sessions that have inspired, educated and entertained both fellow professionals and students across a wide range of creative, marketing and digital subjects.
“How these events have changed our business has been incredible. We now find it easier to find the best talent and we’re inundated with CVs from new and established professionals who see us as the go to agency when it comes to finding their first or next role in the industry.”
Phil Cookson, Creative Resource Director
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic changing the plans for some of these events moving forward, we are still actively planning and gearing up for the next School of Thought following a successful run in Leeds which had to be part held over Zoom.
The timings for other events are still up in the air but already universities and employers and industry experts are contacting us to get involved for the future. It’s great to see that the events we created from a seedling of an idea in the bath one evening have now become key events in the marketing and creative events calendar.
If you’d like to know more about these events or how Creative Resource can help you find some new or established talent for your team. Give us a call on 0161 477 3221. Or email Julie at julie@creativeresource.co.uk or Phil at phil@creativeresource.co.uk