Meet our Marketing Intern: Lauren Rodolakis

By: Lauren Rodolakis

Growing up, I always knew I had a passion for creativity. My favorite past-times were journaling, filming and editing footage of my family’s vacations, and blogging. By the time I was 16 I had taught myself how to edit HTML on Tumblr so I could customize my blog and had a Twitter account dedicated to the Boston Red Sox that amassed over 2,000 followers in 6 months. When my junior year of high school rolled around, I had decided on communications and public relations as a major because of the emphasis on all things creative.

LaurenInternPhoto

I spent my first two years of college taking public relations courses, joining clubs like the Public Relations Student Society of America, and securing my first internship. In the summer going into my junior year, I was given the opportunity to work as a social media intern for a national healthcare staffing agency. I created a full content calendar for each of their social media platforms, built them a blog and an Instagram account, started weekly employee spotlights, monthly office tours, and worked with the in-house graphic designer to create promotional materials for career fairs. This internship was my first look into the world of social media and at the time, I had no idea how instrumental it would be towards my future career.

Although I loved working as a social media intern, I had never worked in a real public relations agency setting so I left to peruse a more traditional PR career. My junior and senior year were spent at a boutique tech PR agency, a world-renowned PR agency doing consumer account work, and a mid-sized integrated agency where I did traditional PR for a consumer electronics brand. At each agency I went to, I kept hoping I would like the next one better. I always blamed my reasons for not loving the internship on the agency culture, the clients, or the tasks I was given. One day, I realized I just don’t love traditional PR. I missed the work I was doing at my social media internship and felt the tasks I was being given did not leave much room for creativity.

With my senior year spring semester approaching, I knew I needed to find a great opportunity that would expand my knowledge in the social media world. Finding my internship at the Wentworth Institute of Technology’s CO-OP + CAREERS department has been the perfect way to end my college career. I was given the ability to be more creative in a work setting than I ever have before and enhance my skills in graphic design, video editing, and social content creation.

LaurenInternPhoto

My experience at Wentworth was also instrumental in helping me land my job for after graduation. In May, I will start my career as a Social Media Community Manager at Reviewed, a USA Today company where I will focus on building engagement with our followers across our social channels. My career path has certainly not been linear, but I learned a lot. Through my internships, I was able to pinpoint what I truly love to do and what I am passionate about and now, I am lucky enough to be able to make a career out of those passions.

Thank you for dedicating your semester to our marketing team, Lauren! Follow all of Lauren’s updates on her website: https://www.laurenrodolakis.com/.

A Guide to Personal Branding

By: Hadley Hopkins

Hi there! I’m Hadley Hopkins the marketing intern here at CO-OPS + CAREER. As an advertising student, I am very concerned with branding. Not only of the brands I work for but also my own personal brand. Below I am going to walk you through the steps of how to brand yourself by using my own professional life as a model, so you can learn a little about me and a lot about creating your own personal brand.

You may be thinking, ‘what is a personal brand and why do I need one?’ A personal brand is a combination of your skills and experiences that make you who you are. So technically, you already have one, but by shaping it into a clear message you will be more confident in your strengths and potential employers will easily be able to see who you are and what you stand for.

Find Your Strengths

The first step to creating your brand is to evaluate your strengths. I did this by making a list of my best qualities including character traits as well as industry related skills. I tried to think of traits that are unique to me and would make me stand out:

  • Teamwork
  • Flexible
  • Multi-tasking
  • Teachable
  • Strategic thinker
  • Logo design
  • Making GIFs
  • Branding

Once you have you have your list of attributes it is important to think of evidence to support these claims. Recall situations or experiences that prove these traits are a strength, for example:

Multi-tasking/flexible – At my past internship, I was working on a design project that was interrupted because my supervisor realized a flyer needed to go out to print by the end of the day to be done in time for the event. So, I began working on that project but then had to stop in the middle to go take pictures of an event that was taking place. Although I took on many projects at once I was able to prioritize to give each one the attention it needed to finish everything in a timely manner.

Logo design – I have created various logo designs for different companies, clubs and organizations

Share Your Story

Another aspect of your brand that you will want to focus on is your story. How did you get to where you are? What makes you passionate about your field?  This allows people to know you on an emotional level and not just as a list of your accomplishments and skills. For me, I like to tell the story of how I decided to study advertising:

Advertising and graphic design have been a passion of mine since I created, branded and marketed my own energy drink “Spazz” for my 7th grade technology class.  I found the balance of creativity and logistic to be the perfect mix for my analytical yet artsy mind.

Show Off Your Quirks

An additional way to make your brand seem more personal is by showing off your quirks. These habits make you who you are and can add some “spice” to your brand. For me, the fact that I am a southerner now living in Boston makes for interesting tidbits, as well as my passion for different cultures:

I may be from Georgia, but I have definitely adopted the New England lifestyle. You can catch me sporting my Red Sox hat, and ‘Bean Boots with a Dunkin’ in hand but I will never give up saying y’all. I love all things food, travel and art.

Find Your “Take-away”

Once you have figured out the main aspects of your brand you will be able to create a key take-away that embodies everything you want to express to potential employers:

“I am an analytical, yet creative thinker who is flexible and has a passion for creating meaningful work that helps enhance a brand.”

Although you will probably never be asked in an interview what your mission statement is, this key takeaway can give you direction for materials that future employers will see such as your resume, cover letter, portfolio and LinkedIn profile.  When creating these materials, it is important to ask yourself: ‘does this align with my brand and is my mission statement well represented?’

Another way to strengthen your brand is through the look of your materials. It’s important that your resume, cover letter, portfolio, and LinkedIn profile are cohesive. I suggest sticking with the same font across all materials and make sure you use the same header for both your resume and cover letter. This will help future employers recognize you better across all platforms.

Here is an example of my LinkedIn profile:

Example of LinkedIn Profile

And an example of my resume that I feel represent my brand:

Example Resume

Creating a personal brand takes time and effort but is totally worth it!  With these steps I hope you can create a brand that is uniquely your own and will help you stand out to employers.

As always, we encourage you to stop by CO-OPS + CAREERS to discuss your questions with a Co-op + Career Advisor. You can make an appointment or swing by fall drop-in hours every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 1:30 – 4:00 PM. Our office is located at 101 Wentworth Hall.

Feel free to contact us via email at coopsandcareers@wit.edu, or call us at 617-989-4101. We look forward to connecting with you soon!

Meet the Staff: Kristen Eckman, Marketing Intern

I began my marketing internship with the CO-OPS + CAREERS Department at the start of the spring semester knowing one thing; I wanted to be a part of a team. Through my time spent with the department, I can now say that team dynamics and workplace culture will most certainly be deciding factors for me when applying for and ultimately accepting a full-time job offer after graduation.

I am currently an undergraduate senior at Emmanuel College majoring in business management with a concentration in marketing and minoring in economics. And if you couldn’t already gather from my fields of study, I was unsure of what type of position I would be pursuing post-graduation. Creative marketing, specifically social media marketing, however, has been an interest of mine since high-school. I was given the opportunity through my high school’s DECA chapter to create social media marketing plans and compete against students nationwide, which ultimately sparked my love of creative marketing. I was then able to branch out into event planning through my first marketing internship at ENERGYbits. There, I oversaw coordinating a new product launch party, booking and attending multiple sports and fitness expos, and planning and marketing sponsored work-outs with the ENERGYbits team.

If I were asked to give one piece of advice to those searching for an internship or co-op, I would tell you that experience in the field you are interested in should be among your top priorities. Second to relevant work experience, you should be inspired to do what you love. I was touched by one of my marketing research professors while at Emmanuel College. She brought into the curriculum her own marketing plans and projects that she had completed for agencies over her many years in the marketing field. Her experience was something I could connect with and envision for myself. While working on marketing research projects alongside my professor, I realized my attraction to higher education. It was always in the back of my mind that I would like to teach one day, to inspire and guide students in the way that I have been throughout my academic career. It was not until my internship with the CO-OPS + CAREERS Department that I could confirm, higher education is the environment where I feel I truly belong.

This decision, I will warn you, was not an easy one. There is no straight path to your dream job and choosing a career involves strenuous self-reflection. With that, I will say that internships and co-op opportunities are essential to shaping your career path and I would not be where I am today without the academic and professional guidance I received throughout my college career. The guidance I refer to includes not only your own experiences, but informational interviews with successful alumni in your major or intended professional industry, and informational meetings with your professors and Co-ops + Career Advisors. Through my internship I have learned that you have overflowing resources here at Wentworth to help you along your career path, do not be afraid to reach out! The CO-OPS + CAREERS Department, myself included, are here to help you make the most out of your co-op experience.

As always, feel free to stop by CO-OPS + CAREERS to discuss co-op opportunities or talk professional development with your Co-op + Career Advisor. To contact us stop by 101 Wentworth Hall, email coopsandcareers@wit.edu, or call 617-989-4101.