5 WAYS TO PREPARE FOR AN INTERVIEW WITH A CREATIVE DIRECTOR
How to make sure your interview goes both ways
This might be the start of a creative collaboration. You might be meeting your mentor and the person who sets the direction of your future creative projects. That’s why it’s important that this interview goes both ways. They need to decide if they want to hire you, and you need to decide if you want to be hired by them.
Below are 5 ways to prepare for an interview for a creative role with a Creative Director. These are grounded in experience with some psychological backing.
0: Celebrate and be excited
Creative directors are extremely busy. They oversee multiple projects and often need to juggle a day full of meetings while ALSO producing work, which by no means is everyone’s day-to-day in an agency (it’s mostly either or).
That’s why you can be sure that if you score an interview with a CD, they definitely want to invest the time to speak with you. They are interested. They saw your CV or work, and you might have spoken with recruiters who already like you. This means you can relax. You don’t need to pitch yourself in that sense.
This interview is as important for them as it is for you. As a creative, it can sometimes feel like you are one of many, but not at all. Your set of skills is unique and might be exactly what they are looking for.
Someone else with your set of skills is hard to find. In general, creative positions are often open for a long time because it’s not easy to find creatives who really fit the expectations of a specific role, and they need to search next to their day-to-day. And the recruiter put you forward so they want you to succeed too at this point. So feel confident about being invited!
1: Immerse yourself in their work
Before setting foot in the interview, dive deep into the agency’s work, values, and the creative leader’s style. This goes beyond skim-reading the website. Explore recent campaigns, brand stories, and any interviews or articles featuring the Creative Director.
Thorough research eases anxiety (your brain finds comfort in the familiar) and equips you with common ground to spark genuine connection. People form impressions swiftly, and demonstrating “I understand what matters to you” in those early moments can immediately put you on the same page.
Immersing yourself means noticing details. Perhaps the agency’s latest campaign uses bold humor. How does that align with your own style? Maybe the Creative Director mentioned in an article that they value storytelling that sparks emotion. Take note. When you reference these specifics in conversation (naturally, where relevant, not forced), you show that you did your homework out of interest and not because it’s somewhat expected. You’re there to learn about their perspective too, so research as a way to understand and empathize, not to recite facts.