A panel of recent Hopkins graduates now working in the field of marketing spoke to members of the Hopkins community on Monday at an event hosted by the brand new Hopkins chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA).
It was the group's first event. Sitting on the panel were Amelia Vereb, a Writing Seminars major and 2009 graduate, Jenn Armstrong, English major and also a 2009 graduate, Jason Budden, a 2002 graduate with a major in economics and Matt Giuliano, who also graduated in 2002 and majored in English.
Each member of the panel began by discussing how they got into marketing and what their jobs entail.
"I came in as a Writing Sems major and I wanted to do something with writing but I knew I was not going to write novels. A lot of people suggested public relations," Vereb, who works at a company called Edelman, said.
She decided try out the field after receiving an e-mail about an open internship.
"I was the liaison between the Center for Summer Learning and [a local PR firm called] Himmelrich. After that, every year I fell into another PR internship," she said.
Vereb eventually started an internship with Edelman that ultimately turned into a job. She now helps pharmaceutical companies market their products.
She feels that Hopkins helped to prepare her for her current work.
"I took a lot of classes at Hopkins that helped prepare me. I took marketing, advertising. Those classes help to get me ready because that's not really what we talked about for Writing Sems," she said.
Armstrong, who works at a firm called Wolters Kluwer, also held a series of internships before landing her current position.
"I had two internships doing PR type things . . . I basically decided I was not so good at making phone calls so I kind of turned toward the Internet because I am more adept at that," she said.
Now she does marketing through social media.
Budden is vice president of marketing at a company called Baseball Factory.
"We do player development and college placement for high school age baseball players. We start working with kids from 13 [and] up and we develop them, we train them . . . and from there we work with them to find the right fit at the college level," he said.
He actually went through Baseball Factory's program himself before he began working there part time in his senior year of high school. Eventually, that led to a permanent job.
"In the fall of my senior year [at Hopkins] they were looking to hire an assistant director of marketing but at the time they didn't have a director of marketing. So I went to them and said 'what do I need to do in order to become the director of marketing?'" he said.
The company told him that he would have to begin work on Jan. 1. He did, and balanced a full-time job and his studies during his last semester at school.
"That was one hell of a semester but that was something that I felt I needed to do in order to take an advantage of an opportunity," he said.
"Looking at the job market right now, it is definitely something that you will need to consider down the line. What sacrifices are you willing to make in order to get to where you want to be?"
Giuliano owns Lucid Health, a firm that does market research for the health care industry. He said he first learned about market research in his senior year in a class on marketing.
At a previous job, one of his responsibilities was to hire interns.
He told the audience, "That was the number one way to get jobs. Whenever they would look to hire they would always look to who the interns were, who worked out really well, who's really engaged and did a great job, and they always go first pick when they were interviewing for full-time positions."
After giving their presentations, the panel took questions from the audience.
When he was asked about resumes, Budden stressed the importance of proofreading.
"I've gotten resumes and it's said "Dear Mr. Budden at . . . " and it's at a competitor. That is going in the trash," he said.
When asked what college did not prepare her for, Armstrong stressed the difference in the schedule.
"[Working] 9-5 is a lot different than sleeping until 12 and taking two classes a day," she said.
Another member of the audience asked how important they felt it was to believe in the product they were marketing.
"I'm more engaged in the products that are good but I still do the best that I can with [those that aren't]," Giuliano answered.
Abby Duggan, AMA's president, thought the event went well, especially considering the fact that it was the AMA's first event.
"I think the panel was a really great first event for a brand-new organization," she said.
According to Duggan, over 30 people attended.
Professor Leslie Kendrick, who teaches marketing to Hopkins students, was impressed as well.
"I was . . . very pleased with how well the new JHU Undergraduate AMA Board promoted and ran their first event," she wrote in an e-mail to The News-Letter.
Attendees seemed to have enjoyed the event.
"It was reassuring to hear that even if [marketing] is not your major you can still go into it," Dasha Iventicheva, a sophomore, said.
Jake Snyder, a 2001 graduate, summed it up by saying "It was worthwhile."
