How to Apply to Interpublic Group of Companies

7 min read Last updated April 20, 2026
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • IPG no longer exists as an independent company — Omnicom acquisition closed November 26, 2025.
  • Apply through surviving network brands, not 'IPG' — McCann, Acxiom, Kinesso, R/GA, Octagon, Weber Shandwick, Golin, IPG Health, UM, Initiative, Mediahub.
  • FCB, DDB, and MullenLowe are being retired in H1 2026 — applications to those brands will route to BBDO or TBWA.
  • Expect ATS varies by network; many use Workday or SmartRecruiters under unified Omnicom corporate HR.
  • Tailor portfolios per network — McCann craft, R/GA digital product, Acxiom enterprise data are different bars.
  • Address the merger directly in interviews — hiring managers respect candor, not feigned ignorance.
  • Quantify outcomes (revenue, retention, awareness lift, technical scale) — generic responsibilities get cut.
  • Show AI-augmented production fluency — Omnicom is using AI to justify further labor reduction through 2028.
  • Price in integration risk — further restructuring is committed through at least 2028.

About Interpublic Group of Companies

Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG) was, until November 26, 2025, one of the 'Big Four' global advertising holding companies, alongside WPP, Omnicom, and Publicis. As of April 2026, IPG no longer exists as an independent public company. Omnicom Group's $13.5 billion acquisition of IPG closed on November 26, 2025, after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved a final consent order on September 26, 2025 and the European Commission granted unconditional clearance. The IPG ticker (NYSE: IPG) was delisted, and the combined entity now operates under Omnicom (NYSE: OMC). Anyone evaluating IPG as a potential employer in 2026 is, in practice, evaluating Omnicom and the legacy IPG networks that survived integration. IPG's heritage traces to 1930, when the McCann-Erickson agency was formed through the merger of H.K. McCann (founded 1902) and the Erickson Company. The holding company was formally restructured and renamed Interpublic Group in 1961, becoming the first true marketing 'holding company' and the template for how WPP, Omnicom, and Publicis would later organize themselves. Headquartered in New York City at 909 Third Avenue, IPG employed roughly 53,300 people globally before pre-merger restructuring began. Philippe Krakowsky served as IPG's final CEO from January 2021 through close, and now serves as Co-President and Co-COO of the combined Omnicom alongside Daryl Simm, reporting to Chairman and CEO John Wren. Pre-merger, IPG operated through five principal networks and a constellation of specialized agencies: McCann Worldgroup (creative and integrated marketing), FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding, founded 1873), MullenLowe Group (creative network), IPG Mediabrands (parent of Initiative, UM, Mediahub, MAGNA, Kinesso, and Acxiom), and a portfolio that included R/GA (digital), Octagon (sports and entertainment marketing), Weber Shandwick and Golin (public relations), Jack Morton (experiential), Momentum, MRM, Craft, FutureBrand, and IPG Health. Huge, the digital agency, was divested to private equity firm AEA Investors prior to merger close. Integration is actively reshaping the surviving footprint. Omnicom announced that DDB, FCB, and MullenLowe will be retired during the first half of 2026 — FCB folding into BBDO, and DDB and MullenLowe rolling into TBWA. McCann survives and was named one of three flagship global creative networks under Omnicom Advertising. UM, Initiative, and Mediahub were folded into Omnicom Media alongside OMD, PHD, and Hearts & Science. Acxiom and Kinesso continue to operate as data and identity platforms inside Omnicom Media (notably underpinning Acxiom RealID). Weber Shandwick and Golin became part of Omnicom Public Relations alongside FleishmanHillard, Ketchum, and Porter Novelli. Octagon and R/GA survive as specialist brands. Approximately 4,000 post-close redundancies were announced for late 2025, on top of roughly 3,200 IPG cuts earlier in 2025, with Omnicom doubling its synergy target to $1.5 billion (including $1 billion in 'labor costs' by 2028) — meaning further restructuring will continue throughout 2026 and beyond. The advertising industry context is brutal: post-COVID client consolidation, in-housing pressure, and AI-driven productivity expectations have forced every holding company to cut. Anyone applying to a 'former-IPG' brand in 2026 should assume they are applying to Omnicom and price in ongoing integration risk.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Identify the actual hiring entity

    Identify the actual hiring entity. Since November 2025, the legacy IPG corporate careers portal at interpublic.com/careers redirects much of its job inventory to network-specific career sites and to omnicomgroup.com. Search by surviving brand (McCann, Acxiom, Kinesso, R/GA, Octagon, Weber Shandwick, Golin, IPG Health, UM, Initiative, Mediahub) rather than by 'IPG' as a parent. Posts from FCB, DDB, or MullenLowe in 2026 may be rerouted to the absorbing network (BBDO or TBWA) by the time you interview.

  2. 2
    Submit through the network's applicant tracking system

    Submit through the network's applicant tracking system. ATS varies by agency: many former-IPG networks historically used Workday or SmartRecruiters, with Acxiom and IPG Health on enterprise Workday tenants. Omnicom corporate roles use a separate ATS (also Workday-based for many functions). Tailor a clean, ATS-readable resume per role and avoid two-column or graphic-heavy templates that parsing engines mishandle.

  3. 3
    Recruiter screen (30 minutes)

    Recruiter screen (30 minutes). An internal talent acquisition partner confirms eligibility, comp range, location flexibility, and visa status, and probes your familiarity with the agency's recent client work. For creative roles, the recruiter will request your portfolio link before scheduling further rounds.

  4. 4
    Portfolio or work-sample review

    Portfolio or work-sample review. Creative, design, copy, strategy, and digital production roles require a portfolio with case studies showing the brief, your specific contribution, and the business outcome. Account, project management, and operations roles are typically asked for a written deck, work artifact, or written exercise instead.

  5. 5
    Hiring manager interview

    Hiring manager interview. Conducted by the agency leader you would report to. Expect questions on craft, client examples, how you handle pitch pressure, and whether you can articulate the difference between brand/creative work and performance/data work. For data and engineering roles at Acxiom and Kinesso, expect technical depth questions on identity resolution, MarTech stack, and cloud data warehousing.

  6. 6
    Panel or 'chemistry' rounds with peers and cross-discipline partners

    Panel or 'chemistry' rounds with peers and cross-discipline partners. Agencies hire for collaboration; expect three to six interviewers across creative, account, strategy, production, and (increasingly) AI/automation leads. Some networks add a brief presentation or case task here.

  7. 7
    Reference checks, background screening, and offer

    Reference checks, background screening, and offer. Final stage runs through Omnicom's centralized HR systems for legal hire approval. Expect 30 days end-to-end for most roles, and significantly longer (60-120 days) for senior creative and senior data roles. Comp is firm; signing bonuses are uncommon below director level in the current cost-cutting climate.

Resume Tips for Interpublic Group of Companies

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Lead with named accounts and measurable outcomes, not job titles

Lead with named accounts and measurable outcomes, not job titles. Agency hiring managers scan for 'led $40M Verizon brand campaign — +18% unaided awareness' before they read your tenure. Generic phrasing ('contributed to multiple campaigns') gets cut.

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Network alumni signal matters

Network alumni signal matters. Big Four holdco alumni (Omnicom, IPG, WPP, Publicis) and respected independents (Wieden+Kennedy, Droga5, 72andSunny, Anomaly, Mother) move first through screening. If you have it, name the network and the discipline (BBDO Account, R/GA Experience Design, Acxiom Identity Engineering).

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For creative roles, the portfolio is the resume

For creative roles, the portfolio is the resume. A two-page resume with a portfolio URL outperforms a three-page resume without one. Host on a fast, mobile-clean site (Squarespace, Cargo, your own domain) — never PDF-only. Three to five anchor case studies beat fifteen thumbnails.

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For data, identity, and adtech roles at Acxiom and Kinesso, list the actual stac

For data, identity, and adtech roles at Acxiom and Kinesso, list the actual stack: AWS/GCP/Azure, Snowflake/Databricks, dbt, Airflow, LiveRamp, Salesforce CDP, RealID, Python, SQL, and any clean-room experience (InfoSum, Habu, AWS Clean Rooms). Vague 'data-driven' language is filtered out.

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ATS keyword discipline differs by agency

ATS keyword discipline differs by agency. Match the job posting's exact phrasing for craft (copywriter vs. senior copywriter vs. ACD copy), platforms (TikTok vs. social vs. paid social), and certifications (Google Ads, GA4, Meta Blueprint, Workday, Tableau). The parser ranks on literal matches.

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Address the integration honestly in your work history

Address the integration honestly in your work history. If you joined McCann in 2020 and McCann is now part of Omnicom Advertising, write 'McCann Worldgroup (Omnicom Group, formerly Interpublic)' so recruiters see continuity instead of confusion. Hiding the transition reads as evasive.

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Quantify pitch wins, retention, and revenue

Quantify pitch wins, retention, and revenue. 'Account lead on retained $25M financial services client through holdco transition' is the kind of line that survives a layoff round. So is 'shipped MarTech integration that reduced media reconciliation cycle from 14 days to 36 hours.'

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Show comfort with AI-augmented production

Show comfort with AI-augmented production. Omnicom is publicly investing in 'enterprise AI capability' and using it to justify headcount reduction. Resumes that show fluency with generative tools (Midjourney, Runway, Adobe Firefly, Claude, ChatGPT) for ideation, comping, and production move faster in 2026 than resumes that ignore them.

ATS System: Workday (primary, varies by network)

There is no single unified IPG ATS in 2026 — IPG corporate historically routed candidates through a Workday-based portal, and individual networks use a mix of Workday, SmartRecruiters, Greenhouse, and Eightfold depending on their pre-merger systems. Acxiom and IPG Health run enterprise Workday tenants. McCann, FCB (until retirement), MullenLowe (until retirement), and most creative networks used Workday or SmartRecruiters. Under Omnicom integration through 2026, expect progressive consolidation onto Omnicom's preferred Workday-based corporate stack, with network-specific portals persisting for creative roles. Always apply through the link in the actual job posting; do not rely on the legacy interpublic.com careers domain.

  • Use a single-column, ATS-readable resume — no two-column layouts, no embedded text in images, no headers/footers with key information.
  • Match keywords from the job posting verbatim — title (senior copywriter, not 'senior creative'), platforms (GA4, not 'Google Analytics'), certifications (Workday HCM, not 'HR systems').
  • Save as both .docx and .pdf and submit whichever the portal accepts; .docx parses more reliably across Workday tenants.
  • Include a portfolio URL in the header for any creative, design, copy, strategy, or experience-design role — recruiters skip portfolios buried in 'projects' sections.
  • For Acxiom, Kinesso, and IPG Health roles, list the specific tech stack (Snowflake, dbt, LiveRamp, RealID, Veeva, MLR workflow tools) — generic 'data-driven' phrasing is filtered out.
  • Write your work history with the post-merger naming so recruiters see continuity: 'McCann Worldgroup (Omnicom Group, formerly Interpublic).'

Complete Workday (primary, varies by network) Resume Guide →

Interview Culture

Culture inside the former-IPG networks varies more than candidates expect, and the post-merger environment in 2026 amplifies the differences.

McCann, the oldest creative shop in the building (lineage to 1902), still feels like a traditional global creative agency: senior craft people, deep client relationships, formal pitch culture, long hours during new-business sprints, and a strong New York identity even with offices worldwide. R/GA reads more like a digital product studio with agency-style client services bolted on — more designers and engineers in the room, more emphasis on prototyping and experience design, less of the classic 'creative team in a war room' ritual. Acxiom feels almost nothing like a creative agency: it is an enterprise data and identity company headquartered in Conway, Arkansas, with engineering culture, structured technical interviews, and compensation that tracks software companies more than ad agencies. Kinesso sits between Acxiom and the media networks — data and tech people working alongside ad operations. Weber Shandwick and Golin operate as global PR firms with their own senior-led, client-service culture. Octagon is sports and entertainment, with a network of athletes and rights holders rather than typical brand briefs. IPG Health is regulated pharma marketing — slower, more documentation, MLR review cycles, and people who actually like that pace. In 2026 the dominant subtext in every interview is the merger. Omnicom announced approximately 4,000 post-close layoffs late in 2025, on top of roughly 3,200 IPG cuts earlier that year, and has publicly committed to $1 billion in further annual labor savings by 2028 through additional reductions, near-shoring, off-shoring, and outsourcing. Some functions are visibly at risk — duplicate corporate, finance, IT, procurement, real estate, and overlapping creative/account leadership — while specialist disciplines (data engineering, identity, healthcare marketing, performance media) are still hiring. Hiring managers are not allowed to discuss specific reorganization plans, but candidates should not pretend the situation is normal: ask cleanly about how the team has been affected by integration, what work is committed for the next twelve months, and what the manager's mandate is post-close. Walking in with that maturity is often what separates a hire from a pass in the current cycle. Account and creative hiring are different worlds. Account interviews probe relationship management, client politics, organic growth, and the ability to hold a difficult conversation; portfolios are not expected. Creative interviews are 80 percent the work — interviewers expect you to walk through three to five pieces, defend the strategic choice, and credit the team accurately (taking sole credit for collaborative work is a fast no-hire). Strategy and planning sit between the two — case-style reasoning plus a point of view on culture. Pitch readiness is genuinely tested: most former-IPG networks expect that during a new-business cycle, weekends and late nights are the deal, and they will ask you about your tolerance for it. Network mobility (e.g., moving from McCann to BBDO) was historically rare under separate holding companies; under unified Omnicom in 2026, it is becoming less rare but still requires hiring-manager sponsorship and is rarely lateral on comp. Distinguishing IPG corporate roles from network roles also matters: corporate finance, legal, IT, and HR functions are being centralized into Omnicom corporate and have different hiring dynamics than the agencies themselves.

What Interpublic Group of Companies Looks For

  • Demonstrated craft at a senior level — copy, art direction, strategy, account, data engineering, or identity science — not generalist 'marketing' background.
  • Comfort with the post-merger reality: candidates who acknowledge the integration and ask grounded questions about it, rather than pretending nothing changed.
  • Named-client experience with brands the agency actually serves or competes for. Recruiters cross-reference your client list against the agency's roster.
  • Portfolio quality and originality for creative roles; for data and engineering roles, evidence of shipped systems at scale (millions of identifiers, terabyte-scale pipelines, real attribution work).
  • Pitch stamina and a track record of organic growth. Account, strategy, and creative leaders are evaluated heavily on whether they have grown existing accounts, not just defended them.
  • AI-augmented production fluency. Omnicom is publicly investing in enterprise AI as a productivity lever, and 2026 hires are expected to use generative tools competently in their daily work.
  • Discipline-specific certifications and platform fluency: Workday, Google Ads, GA4, Meta Blueprint, The Trade Desk, Salesforce, Adobe Workfront, Snowflake, dbt, LiveRamp, RealID.
  • Cultural fit per network — the same resume reads very differently to McCann (craft heritage, traditional creative), R/GA (digital product), Acxiom (enterprise data), and IPG Health (regulated pharma).

Frequently Asked Questions

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View open positions at Interpublic Group of Companies

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