What to do when no one will hire you as a copywriter…

Something about Fall compels me to create a new vision board, whip out a yearly planner, watch inspo videos on social media, and refresh my resume. 

This is 2 of a 3-part series I wrote on LinkedIn. Want to connect with me there?

📖 Storytime…

Someone told me that if I got a college degree, I could get a 🤑 great job. So, check that off the list! But after 9 years of trying to break into copywriting, getting that urge to brush off my resume for writing jobs every September, and getting super-fast rejections, I knew I’d gotten outdated advice.

But communications is my calling so I didn’t give up. I spent all that time absorbing all the info I could about marketing, social media, customer personas, sales, and copywriting. Surely, that’d be enough?

While folding sweaters and dressing mannequins, I was just waiting for a company like Dove (yep, the body wash brand ~was~ on my vision board) to discover me in the giant pile of applications and give me writing assignments 🤩

I waited. And I waited.

So weird…No one reached out to me, the little hidden gem in the Westy County mall 🫣🙄

Finally, it hit me: If no one would hire me, then I’d create projects myself. I started blogging for me and people like me. I started working on presentations, webinars, social media content, websites, landing pages, PDFs, ebooks, guidebooks… You name it. Me, Canva, and Google Docs are like this 🫛

💁‍♀️ Tip…

How did giving myself projects help me become a copywriter? Because practice is more valuable than theory. What’s a *plan* without *action*?

I turned what I knew into something tangible I could share with recruiters and hiring managers. Sometimes, opportunities don’t drop at your door. Sometimes you have to create them yourself.

So if you’re an aspiring writer and you’re strategizing a career pivot into corporate copywriting, take decisive action to build brag-worthy portfolio assets. Start writing for yourself. Explore. Experiment. Pretend you got hired and write that content.

Don’t let your good ideas and talent go to waste...and have something to SHOW for your efforts 🥰