For creative strategists
Creative strategy roles that come to you.
Good strategists are not short on work. They are short on work worth taking.
If you can read an ad account and decide what to make next, you already have more inbound than you can service, and most of it is wrong. Too small, too slow, or run by someone who wanted an editor and called it strategy. This is the other list: a small bench of strategists we have watched work, and the brands who come to us looking for exactly that.
What being on the bench gets you
- 01
The work comes to you
No proposals, no discovery calls, no undercutting someone on a marketplace. Brands come to us with a role and we introduce the two or three people on the bench who fit it.
- 02
Accounts with real budget behind them
We place into DTC brands and agencies that are already spending. You are not being handed a $3k test budget and asked to perform a miracle with it.
- 03
You never pay a fee
The brand pays us. Nothing comes out of your rate, and there is no charge to apply, to sit the session, or to stay on the bench.
- 04
Vetted once
One working session, then you are on the bench. You do not re-interview for every introduction, which is the part that makes freelance placement exhausting.
Worth knowing first
Most of these get cut.
We would rather cut too many than place one strategist who cannot think. That is a hard thing to read on an application page, and it is the reason being on this bench is worth anything at all. A roster that takes everyone is a directory, and nobody pays a premium to be found in a directory.
So the form is long on purpose. Two of the questions want specifics that are difficult to write if you have not actually done the work: what you do in the first week on a new account, and one result you can walk through end to end. Vague answers score badly. That is the filter working, and it is what protects the value of the introduction when it is your name on the shortlist.
Under a year of experience is not a rejection. Those applications route to a certification track instead of the bench, and we will tell you that inside the form rather than at the end of it.
What happens after you submit
- 01
This application
Two written answers about how you actually work, your portfolio, and a short video. Around 25 minutes if you have your numbers to hand.
- 02
Review, within 5 business days
A person reads every application. The written answers carry the most weight, because they are the part that cannot be faked with a nice-looking deck.
- 03
One hour on a real account
A live working session on an actual ad account. We watch you diagnose it. No take-home, no unpaid test project, no panel.
- 04
The bench
You go on the roster with your niche, your platforms, your availability, and the rate you set. Introductions come from there.
- 01Basics
- 02Work
- 03Video
- 04Review