Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Copywriter wanted: shoes optional, but sense of humor and aversion to clichés required

03.22.2018 by David Murray // Leave a Comment

As the job market continues to tighten, we begin to consider interviewing what are called "nontraditional candidates."

And I'm reminded me of a Catholic priest who once interviewed with my dad for a job as a creative director at an advertising agency in Detroit, back in the 1960s.

My dad was willing to talk to anybody to get decent copywriters in there, because the hotshot New York writers wouldn't go to Detroit, which they saw as, "like two Newarks."  Typewriter

He fought the agency's management for the right to see candidates without the personnel department filtering people out "for wearing funny shoes."

And so he found himself interviewing a priest, who wanted to be a copywriter.

Except, the priest wanted to get one thing across at the outset.

He didn’t approve of some of the advertising he was seeing these days.

It was all too sunny, too peppy, too sanguine for his taste.

“Frankly, Mr. Murray,” the priested leaned in severely, “I don’t see life as a bowl of cherries."

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