My past internship at Komen MA, I asked my supervisor, the Director of Marketing Communications, this question. I was expecting an answer involving versatility, knowledge about emerging technologies, or personal and professional charisma; her answer surprised me. “Go back to the basics. No one can ignore a really good writer.” For the next few months this is what I did: wrote emails, crafted social media posts, composed formal letters to public officials, created posters that included key Komen messaging, developed a script for their biggest fundraiser of the year, generated participant surveys, etc. Needless to say, my writing skills have developed.
Do I think this is the only skill that you need to get a job in today’s economy? By all means, that is not what I was inferring. Being able to effectively verbalize messages, inhabiting a personality and a professional attitude, and versatility are all important skills to companies who are hiring. However, a really good, well-developed set of writing skills can almost guarantee a position somewhere in some industry.
This being said, Endicott should really include classes that are strictly writing-designated within the marketing communication concentration. This way most of the students in the class can practice tailoring messages to different audiences. I think a speech class should also be included in the curriculum; hopefully this will ensure comfort when speaking to a group of people or an individual. Another major part of any current job in marketing communication is knowledge of the current social media; a class on this should also be required of students.
Yet, in the end, nothing can take away the importance of real world, actual work experience. This is where I learned a majority of my current communications skills; nothing can take the place of this learning environment.
This was written for a college class I took last year... It truly does encompass what I believe in this industry in this day in age... I had to start with this!
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