The fantastic career development night began with a presentation from founder and CEO Jeff Carrigan of Big Shoes Network, a job site for professionals in communications, advertising, marketing, design, public relations, and social media based in the midwest. Jeff's informative presentation involved him giving his expert advice to us UWW students and future communications professionals. Jeff took 15 minutes of our time to clue us in on current facts about job postings as well as advice on how to stand out when being interviewed for jobs. According to Jeff and Big Shoes Network's website,
- Job postings this year are up 9%
- 33% of jobs on the website are entry level
- 45% of job postings on the website are agency jobs
Jeff also included advice for current students regarding internships and how important they are as well as let us know that April and May are the biggest/best months for internship postings. Next, Jeff discussed his theory on how to stand out in interviews based on 5 C's. The C's on how to stand out include
- Competence
- Connections
- Character
- Chemistry
- C-suite (thinking like a CEO)
All in all, Jeff's advice was both helpful and informative and definitely helped clue in all of the students on internship/job information. After Jeff's presentation, the students and gracious professionals did mock interviews as well as informational interviews. I was lucky enough to meet three great working professionals during this event. The first was Angela Mork of LePoidevin Marketing. Angela gave me great advice as well as clued me into some of her work at LePoidevin. The next professional that I had the pleasure of meeting with was Sarah Kikkert who works for the Wisconsin State Fair. Sarah asked me a lot of great questions as well as gave me advice on how to better wrap up my answers to questions. Lastly, I met with Cassandra Sura, a PR specialist for Rush University Medical Center. I was able to ask the informative questions during this round of interviews and got to learn more about PR and the medical field which was a very interesting and new perspective on public relations that I have not learned much about before.
The night wrapped up shortly after the interviews and left me fortunate enough to gain new knowledge and advice about interviewing. I was so grateful to meet each and everyone of these professionals, and am grateful to Ann Knabe, PRSA, Big Shoes Network, and the Hudson Business Lounge for putting on such a wonderful and successful event.
I really enjoyed Jeff Carrigan's speech! It surprised me that 33% of jobs listed on BSN are entry level. His tips on how to stand out were especially helpful. I will definitely keep those in mind when applying for jobs and internships!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I love how you set this post up! I'm a huge fan of outline formatting :) It was great to read that you had some cool professionals to interview with. Especially the health care area, that must have been interesting as it's not something we learn about in every PR class. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI, too, was a fan of Jeff Carrigan! He was so informative and I loved the 5 C's for success! His speech also gave me hope when he talked about job numbers for entry level PR professionals!
ReplyDeleteI like how you posted about what Jeff shared during his presentation. It was a very insightful 12 minutes I must say. I also found the 5 c's very important to understand. The fact that 45% of jobs are agency jobs made me happy considering that's what I would like to go into.
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