JOB PLACEMENT AT DAD
You come here to get hired.
THE WHOLE POINT
You don’t spend 15 months at DAD just to graduate with a nice portfolio and figure out the rest on your own. We spend the first four quarters helping you become the kind of creative agencies want to hire. Then, in Q5, we start teaching you how to actually get hired.
Because making great work and getting the right people to look at it are two very different skills.
THE QUESTION EVERYONE ASKS
No school can promise you a job. But of the DAD graduates who actively pursued employment in advertising, 97.5% found one. And that number isn’t being carried by one unusually strong graduating class. Placement has remained consistently high year after year.
OVERALL DAD PLACEMENT RATE
97.5%
Not a promise.
A track record.
Nearly every DAD graduate who went looking for a job in advertising found one.
PLACEMENT RATE BY GRADUATING YEAR
Placement data covers DAD graduates from 2020–2025 who actively pursued employment in advertising. Employment outcomes and timing vary by graduate and market conditions. Denver Ad School does not guarantee employment.
WHERE THEY LAND
Yes. DAD grads have landed at some of the most recognizable agencies in advertising, from global networks to respected independents to smaller creative shops doing great work. Here’s the bigger picture, arranged from the biggest names at the top to the smallest names at the bottom.
PLACES DAD GRADS HAVE LANDED
Wieden+Kennedy Goodby Silverstein & Partners Droga5 Ogilvy McCann
VML TBWA\Chiat\Day Dentsu Creative Leo Burnett Saatchi & Saatchi GUT Mischief
The Martin Agency Highdive Anomaly Media Arts Lab DDB Havas RPA Deutsch BarkleyOKRP Publicis Groupe
Mekanism McKinney GSD&M Digitas CP+B BSSP David&Goliath Zulu Alpha Kilo The Community Tombras
Work In Progress Cactus Cartwright Fact & Fiction Bakery Agency Opinionated Humanaut Pereira O'Dell VIA Fitzco Doner Arnold
Campbell Ewald Venables Bell & Partners Zambezi Sterling-Rice Group Firehouse Curiosity Le Truc Party Land Fortnight Collective Trade School Agency Big Spaceship Terry & Sandy Hill Holliday
Madwell Motive Karsh Hagan TDA Boulder Atlantic NY The Nuance Collective StrawberryFrog Drake Cooper Civilization H/L Agency LaneTerralever Lumenati Ghost Note Agency Schafer Condon Carter The Food Group The Grist Tom, Dick & Harry
180LA draftLine USA Monigle Vladimir Jones 3Headed Monster &Barr Cullen+Rose Jonah Nishlis Legal Marketing Odysseus Arms Moore effct.org Disney Frito-Lay StubHub System76 TrainingPeaks Trulieve Kikoff Oat Foundry E5 Baseball
03 / WHERE YOU CAN GO
NOT EVEN CLOSE
DAD Grads get hired all over the country.
WHERE DAD GRADS HAVE LANDED
BIGGEST HIRING MARKETS + REGIONS
DENVER IS THE STARTING POINT
Come to Denver. Build the portfolio. Then go wherever the work takes you.
04 / THE INVESTMENT
DO THE MATH
Portfolio school is an investment. So the question shouldn’t just be what DAD costs. It should be what that investment can put you in position to earn once your creative career starts.
TOTAL DAD TUITION
$27K
The full 15-month DAD program.
AVERAGE DAD STARTING SALARY
$65K
What DAD grads earn on average when they begin their careers.
CAREER TRAJECTORY
$100K+
A common milestone for working creatives several years into their careers.
2.4×
That’s the relationship between DAD tuition and the average starting salary.
The point isn’t that your first paycheck magically pays back school. It’s that a relatively short investment can put you onto a professional creative career path with substantially higher earning potential.
A TYPICAL CREATIVE CAREER DOESN’T STOP AT ENTRY LEVEL
Invest in building the portfolio, skills, and network that get the career started.
The average starting salary for a DAD graduate entering the industry.
A six-figure salary becomes a realistic career milestone as creatives gain experience and responsibility.
SO, IS IT WORTH IT?
You’re not paying $27K for 15 months of school. You’re investing in the career that comes after it.
Salary figures reflect DAD graduate data and historical career outcomes. Individual compensation, career progression, and timing vary by graduate, role, employer, market, and economic conditions. Denver Ad School does not guarantee salary or employment outcomes.
05 / HOW TO GET A JOB
AFTER THE PORTFOLIO
A great portfolio gives you something worth showing. But somebody still has to see it. You still have to write the email, make the introduction, follow up, interview well, negotiate the offer, and close the deal. So in your final quarter, we stop treating job hunting like something you’ll magically figure out after graduation.
Q5
The portfolio is almost finished. Now we teach you how to turn it into a career.
Job placement at DAD starts before you graduate. In Q5, the focus expands from making great creative work to getting that work in front of the people who can hire you.
Heather works with students throughout Q5, mostly one-on-one, on the practical stuff nobody teaches you when they tell you to “go get a job.”
She teaches a class called How to Get a Job. And that is exactly what it sounds like: a class about everything that happens between finishing your portfolio and signing an offer.
THE BUSINESS OF GETTING HIRED
How to write an email people actually answer.
Who to contact, and how often to follow up.
How to build a LinkedIn profile recruiters notice.
How to write a website bio that sounds like you.
Where the jobs are, and which agencies to target.
How to apply without disappearing into a portal.
How to interview like someone they want to hire.
How to negotiate salary without freaking out.
How to follow up without becoming annoying.
How to practice all of it in mock interviews.
THE DIFFERENCE
We don’t hand you a portfolio at graduation and say good luck out there.
06 / WHO TO TALK TO
YOUR HEAD START
Most junior creatives start a job search by Googling agencies, guessing email addresses, and sending portfolios into whatever application portal they can find. DAD students start with a master list of recruiters and agency leaders we’ve built through years of working with the industry.
Names. Agencies. Recruiters. Creative leaders. Contact information. The people who are actually worth putting your portfolio in front of.
Instead of sending your portfolio into the void, you can start with the people whose job is actually finding creative talent.
The list only matters because Q5 also teaches you how to introduce yourself, write the email, and follow up like a professional.
DAD gives you the head start. You still have to do the outreach, build the relationships, and make somebody want to hire you.
ACCESS ≠ A GUARANTEE
We can give you the names, the emails, and the introduction to the business. You still have to knock on the door.
07 / THE PART YOU STILL HAVE TO DO
NO BULLSHIT
We’ll help you build the portfolio. We’ll teach you how to look for work. We’ll give you recruiter contacts, introduce you to people in the industry, recommend you when agencies call us, and keep helping after you graduate. But we can’t interview for you. We can’t make you send the email. And we can’t close the deal for you.
THE REAL JOB-PLACEMENT STRATEGY
HOW MOST DAD GRADS GET HIRED
Recruiter, creative director, talent lead, or somebody already inside the agency.
A short introduction, a strong portfolio, and an actual reason to look.
Because silence usually means “busy,” not necessarily “no.”
Another agency. Another person. Another conversation. Until one becomes a job.
THAT’S THE DEAL
We’ll give you every advantage we can. Then you have to use it.
08 / THE HIGH ART OF SELLING
THE OTHER HALF
You can have the best idea in the room and still lose the room. Agencies don’t just hire people who make strong work. They hire creatives who can explain the thinking, tell the story, defend the idea, read an audience, and make people want to come along with them. So we teach that, too.
Mickey has been with DAD from the beginning. He’s spent his career on the account and agency-leadership side of the business, where selling ideas is part of the job.
In Q5, he leads The High Art of Selling and works with students to turn their final portfolio presentation into something that feels less like a school critique and more like walking into a real agency and presenting to a client.
THE HIGH ART OF SELLING
What was the problem? What did you notice? Why did the idea have to exist?
Presentation exposes thin thinking fast. If the idea needs more depth, you go back and make it better.
The strongest presentations don’t sound interchangeable. They show your taste, point of view, and personality.
Speak clearly. Read the audience. Know when to explain, when to move on, and how to make the idea land.
THE FINAL PRESENTATION
Here’s the idea. Here’s why you should care.
AND IT MATTERS
Recruiters have told us DAD students give some of the strongest portfolio-school presentations they see. Some have been hired directly from Recruiter Debut.
BECAUSE THIS IS THE JOB
Creative careers are full of rooms where somebody has to believe in your idea before they’ll approve it, buy it, produce it, or hire the person who made it. Knowing how to present your work isn’t an extra skill. It’s part of being a professional creative.
09 / RECRUITER DEBUT
THE BIG INTRODUCTION
You’ve built the portfolio. You’ve learned how to present it. You know how to reach out. Recruiter Debut brings those pieces together by putting graduating DAD creatives in front of recruiters, agency leaders, and people whose job is finding the next generation of talent. It’s not a school critique. It’s your introduction to the industry.
DENVER AD SCHOOL PRESENTS
THE NEXT CLASS OF
ART DIRECTORS + COPYWRITERS
DAD invites recruiters and agency creatives to meet graduating students, see their portfolios, hear them present, and start conversations that can continue long after the event ends.
DENVER
+ ONLINE
WHAT HAPPENS THERE
Not just the finished executions. The thinking, the stories, the decisions, and the point of view behind the work.
They get more than a URL. They see how you talk, think, explain ideas, answer questions, and connect with people.
Sometimes it becomes feedback. Sometimes a follow-up. Sometimes an interview. And sometimes it becomes a job.
YES, PEOPLE GET HIRED FROM IT
DAD students have been hired directly from conversations that started at Recruiter Debut. That’s the whole point of putting the right work in front of the right people.
Recruiter Debut is growing into a larger annual event, with recruiters and agency people invited to Denver to meet DAD creatives in person.
Online students still participate live, presenting their portfolios and meeting recruiters through Zoom rather than watching from the sidelines.
THE GOAL
Graduate with more than a finished book. Graduate with people in the industry who already know your name.
10 / WHEN THE INDUSTRY COMES TO US
IT GOES BOTH WAYS
Most graduates get their jobs by doing the outreach themselves. But after years of sending DAD creatives into the industry, something else happens, too. Recruiters, creative leaders, and agencies occasionally come directly to us and ask who they should be looking at.
A VERY GOOD EMAIL TO GET
INBOX / RECRUITING
“Hey DAD — we’re looking for a junior creative. Who should we meet?”
THIS HAPPENS.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
Sometimes they need a junior art director. Sometimes a copywriter. Sometimes they just want to know who in the newest class is especially strong.
The portfolio matters, but so do personality, interests, working style, location, and what kind of creative the agency is actually looking for.
Heather, Jesse, or another member of the DAD team can put names forward, make an introduction, and help get the conversation started.
IMPORTANT DISTINCTION
We can tell an agency we think you’re great. We can send them your portfolio. We can make the introduction. But after that, you still have to interview well, build the relationship, and convince them you’re the person they should hire.
WHY THE NETWORK MATTERS
The best kind of network isn’t just knowing people. It’s having people know where to look when they need talent.
ONE MORE WAY IN
You should never sit around waiting for an agency to discover you. But when an opportunity comes through DAD, we want to know exactly which graduates deserve to hear about it.