Rebecca Dotson ’10 was on campus last Thursday to speak with students about her marketing profession and how her PWR experience helped her transition into the workforce. While at Elon, she took Publishing and worked closely with Kerr Health with their marketing and communications department. It was from this service learning class that she was able to get a job with Kerr where she does research for their campaigns and creates newsletters, deal with social media, and creative design.
Currently Dotson is working with Kerr as a bridge between applicants and the company. She reads applications along with her other duties. When asked what the most important part of an application was, Dotson responded with, “the coverletter.” It is the first thing that the employer will read. She said to, “think of ourselves as a brand.” Throughout her PWR experience, she learned the importance of marketing herself towards the application. By highlighting and tailoring her resume to the specific descriptions on the application, she found that it was easier to break into the industry. She also said it was important to create a “them-me” chart where you could compare your talents and skills to what the job/ internship is asking for. And most importantly, she said if you do get rejected or denied a position, follow up with the employer and asked what you need to improve on so that next time you will be better prepared.
It was great to hear from a PWR alumna and how well she is doing out of college. Dotson pointed out how versatile and dynamic PWR students are because we are trained to do any type of communication, whether it be business, written, verbal, sales, marketing, etc. the major opens the door for almost everything. We are taught that everything is an argument and how to be effective communicators and Dotson highlighted that throughout her coffee talk with myself and a few other students.
What do you think is the most important part of an application? Is PWR truly as versatile as Dotson says it is? I certainly think so, but do you?
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