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Copywriting Interview day

ACC - Academy of Commercial Communication Yesterday was HARD! I drove from Ashkelon to Petah-tikva to take 2 mattresses to my cousin Sagit. Then drove to Tel Aviv for an Interview day in ACC, the leading copywriting school in Israel. I thought it will just be an interview that will be over in 5-10 minutes. Instead the whole process took almost an hour. We were 9 people invited for that day, we were divided into 2 groups - one was sent upstairs for personal interviews, the second (me included) stayed in the room. Tirza Granot, the school manager, came and started doing ‘creativity tests’. We were handed papers and pens and then it started.

The first ‘test’ was like this: Each of us got a word, and we had to write what-ever we want (story, poem, song…) that includes this exact word 13 times. I got the word ‘chair’. Damn. I first thought of writing a short paragraph about a couple going to buy a chair, and the seller shows them 12 chairs and name each, but I figured I’ll be labeled a smart-ass, so I wrote a part of a script about an investigation in a police station, with 2 scenes. I hope it was nice enough.

Afterwards came the second ‘test’.

We were instructed to write a poem. Each line must be composed of 2 words. The rhymes had to be exact (for example, ‘rim’ exact rhyme is ‘rim’, only. Not ‘lim’, ’sim’ or anything else). Each of us got the first line from Tirza. I got “No Butterflies” (’Ein Parparim’ in hebrew). Then, after we all finished, we were asked to read our poems out loud. I think I’ve done pretty good on this part, according to the reactions of the other people.

The third thing we did is ‘Sentences I would never say to…’. We were suppose to write a sentence we will never say to the person written in the head of the page and then pass the page to the right. After a full circle, we’ll have the page were we wrote the first sentence. I was the one starting the page dedicated to sentences I would never say to mom. The other pages/sentences were dedicated to my dog, Bill Clinton, a Rabi and Yael Dayan (a feminist Israeli politician). After we completed a whole round we had to read out loud the page we had and whenever we read a sentence Tirza liked she asked who wrote it. I think I did pretty ok here, too, since she liked 3 of my sentences.

The last thing was fast answers phase. Tirza asked each of us a question and we had to answer quickly. I was the first (by my sitting) and I got the question “What does nobody knows about you?” I was pretty clueless for almost a minute, I eventually said “how I dance”. Lame and untrue, I know, it was just under pressure and a really problematic question. The other questions were “What does most people think about you that is untrue?” and “To whom would you lie about your age?” (I don’t remember the other 2 questions).

All this took about 40 minutes or so. We then switched with the other group and went to personal interviews. Mine was a little shorter then others, I think, and I didn’t feel it went that good. I was first asked to tell about myself, they asked me all kind of questions about why I studied physics and what does computer graphics research actually means. Then I was given situations and was asked to suggest creative solutions. I gave pretty simple, banal solutions at first until they pressed harder and I managed to come out with pretty wild ideas (which was what they wanted).

I’m suppose to get an answer in 2 weeks. Interesting to see if I was approved…

Anyway, after that I went to my car, just to realize I don’t have enough money in my wallet to pay for parking. I had to wonder around, in the pouring rain, to find an ATM. Managed to find one after 10 minutes or so and I hurried back to my car. I called Gali, my friend, to get directions to her house in a near by village. She moved there a couple of months ago with her boyfriend (now her husband) and I didn’t have a chance to visit her there yet. So she gave me a general (not so accurate) directions and I managed to find it after 20 minutes of driving. I spent there about half an hour and then we both went out. She had to go do an ultrasound (she’s pregnant) and I drove back to Jerusalem, where I’ve ordered a large family Pizza. That was my sole meal for that crazy day and I’ve finished it all up myself. Well, except for a small triangle…

Anyway, it was a packed day. Was glad to be back in my appartment and sleep!

2 Comments so far

  1. civax
    May 7th, 2003

    | 8:44 am

    BTW, I’ve approved. I’m starting the course in July. :)

  2. November 20th, 2007

    | 2:24 pm

    Congratulations on passing all of those tests. I would recommend that you get some part time work, in a marketing department too whilst you’re doing your copywriting course, as this will make you much more employable when you finish. Well done again :-)

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