How I Got Here: The Story No One Asked For
Except That One Time UNT’s Ad Club Did
In 2018, I was asked by the University of North Texas Ad Club to speak to their student members about how I got to where I am in the industry. I was honored and thought it was a great opportunity to talk about myself (probably my favorite pastime) and to impart some of my wisdom to the next generation (another favorite pastime since obviously my personal story is just chock full of gold nuggets). This may be the definition of TL;DR but in case you ever wanted to know my story, here it is!
I have a good job as a writer. I had a good education to become a writer. And overall I’m happy with my career path, despite the fact that it took me 5 years to get from a college diploma to my desired job title.
Now I know I am lucky. Most people never get to that elusive point where their career aligns with their degree.
Against advice and basic common sense, I got a degree in journalism with the hopes of someday being a full-time (paid) writer.
And I did. But not right away.
You know the almost ironic entry-level job openings that required previous experience and references? I believe there is, in fact, an answer to that riddle.
Kids, stay in school but network like hell while you’re there. In fact, never stop networking. The old cliche “It's not what you know, it’s who you know” is entirely true, but it's still up to you to pursue what you want.
That’s where my story to the Ad Club youths really began.
For me, a traditional internship seemed out of the question. I did not have a car and I supported myself by waiting tables—two key elements that made an unpaid internship outside of my college town unrealistic, if not impossible. But I knew I needed some kind of experience to prove I could actually do the stuff I was getting my degree in, so I found an on-campus extracurricular group that could fit into my busy, car-less situation: student-run Advertising and PR agency called SWOOP. Thus my networking began.
Middle row, 2nd from left with probably my worst hair choice ever.
In that student group, I met my first real mentor, Professor Bill Ford. His guidance and encouragement helped scrappy little college Cali to believe that she could make it in the industry even without that internship because she had a decent brain, could kind of write and think outside the box, and most of all had the gumption to not give up.
Then I graduated and found myself still waiting tables. But determined not to be a lifer in the restaurant world, I saved up and bought myself a car to start venturing out for interviews...that one after another didn’t pan out.
But remember that part about networking, kids? A big part of networking is maintaining those connections. Through my occasional email updates to my old mentor on life post-graduation, I finally got the scoop on a job opening—one at a real-life agency in the big city!
Although not the fantastic writer position I dreamed of, I jumped at the opportunity and started my job as an office administrator at a web development agency in Dallas. Sure, I was mostly just answering phones and stocking office supplies, but every chance I got I asked to do more. I asked how I could help and offered all those skills I had graduated with, and lo and behold my boss gave me a small, simple project to manage.
And then another and another and another. Within six months, I got a promotion to become a full-time project manager. I left the front desk and got business cards and felt pretty darn pleased with myself.
I was definitely the coolest project manager ever.
But I still wasn’t really fulfilling my dream of writing, except for statements of work and technical briefs. I wanted more—so I spoke up and again asked my boss if there was any way I could actually put those writing skills to good use.
At that point, my boss, Bren Montogomery, had become my new mentor. The crucial next step in my networking strategy was always identify and build a connection with someone who shows an inkling of caring about your career - and my boss invested much more than an inkling of caring into my goals over my 4 years at that agency. She sent me to conferences and events across the country focused on content, feeding my pursuit of adding “Content Strategist” to my business cards. Content became king in my career goals, but it turned out there wasn’t much of an opportunity for that role to materialize at the web development agency.
In my 4 years there, I stumbled upwards from the front desk towards a field I was actually interested in with many titles along the way: Office Administrator, Project Manager, Ongoing Services Specialist, Account Manager, and the attempted role of Content Strategist. Through promotions and LinkedIn profile updates, that place was like rocket fuel for my career. But still, my waking life wasn’t coming anywhere close to my content daydreams.
Here’s where I got serious with those Ad Club students and dropped what I considered to be another true piece of wisdom on them: Never stop pursuing what you want, kids, even if you have it pretty good in your status quo.
Despite having this fantastic mentor at a company that supported me in countless ways, I knew I would not achieve that next step in my career if I stayed there. It was time to make a move.
So I did. I joined a small inbound marketing agency with the title “Digital Strategist” and felt hopeful that my content dreams would finally start becoming a reality.
But they didn’t. In fact, my day-to-day work didn’t fit into any digital strategist job description and I quickly realized I was actually an account manager in disguise that provided absolutely no strategy for my clients—but at least I got to write blogs for them. Ultimately, 9-to-5 was still unfulfilling and I wasn’t finding any meaningful connections with anyone at the company to reset my path.
So it was time to start networking again, but this time outside the realm of agencies and corporations. Networking doesn’t always have to fall within the strictly professional category. I took my underutilized skills and free time into the nonprofit world by volunteering as a writer for a philanthropic arts organization called Art Conspiracy. Flexing those creative muscles again, I wrote press releases, artist profiles, and articles for their big charity art auction events. I was writing for people who were more than grateful to have my brain on their team—and my writing portfolio was actually taking shape.
Volunteering my creative skills at Art Con 13
Despite the fulfillment that Art Con brought, my day job had become soul-sucking. But I believed I finally had a decent enough collection of published pieces to find a place that would actually pay me for the work I wanted to do.
It was time again, kiddos, for me to start the hunt. But this time, I had my eyes and heart set on a whole new deal: making the jump from agency to in-house and in a whole new city.
Be brave, young ones, because you won’t always have someone to hold your hand.
Sometimes you can leverage all that networking into solid leads, but never limit your dreams just because your safety net is in one geographic location. Put yourself out there, know your worth and don’t settle for less—but also be prepared to get rejected. You will be rejected a lot. I was rejected a lot. But I knew what I wanted and I wasn’t going to sell myself short just because my job hunt had gone from weeks into months with no luck.
Sidenote: I had the luxury of doing all this job hunting while still being fully employed—it can be a totally different story if you’re situation is dire. Detours can happen all the time in your career, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be on that alternative road forever.
Now a funny thing happened when I finally nailed that nice new job in Austin—I got laid off from the one I hated in Dallas. Literally the day before I got the Content Writer offer in Austin, I got the painfully awkward one-on-one where I was gently told there was just no longer a need for my role and I’d be receiving a severance package.
My thoughts during that conversation were OMG, WTF, and LOL. Sometimes stars align.
So from diploma to current day, my career path has been a meandering one. I didn’t really have a plan, and honestly, I still don’t (this is when I got real inspiring to the youths). But I always knew when I wanted something more and I never hesitated to pursue it. I talked to people much wiser than myself and asked incessant questions and volunteered every chance I got both in and outside of the office.
I got to where I am today not because I had a grand plan lined up as I approached graduation, but because I doggedly went after every opportunity I could realistically take.
At the end of my Ad Club presentation, I reminded the students of this true gold nugget: You can start over and try something new at any point in time.
You are not anchored to those career goals you tell all your friends and relatives about before you crossed the college stage. That first job doesn’t have to instantly fulfill your dreams. You are allowed to be dissatisfied even if you get that promotion and start reconsidering roles. Roll the dice and take risks and be okay with rejection. You can have all the right stuff and know all the right people and still just can’t figure out how to get where you want to go.
I still don’t know what I’m doing
And you may not even know where you want to go—and that’s okay because wherever you find yourself, you can always start over and try again and see if maybe this next thing is what you’re looking for.
I got here despite not knowing how to get here.
And I believe you can too.
