Sabrina Son: Content Marketer

Name: Sabrina Son

Age: 28

College & Majors/Minors: University of Washington, BA in Creative Writing / Minor in Law, Societies, and Justice

Current Location: Seattle, WA

Current Form of Employment: Content Marketer

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I work at a start-up where I do content marketing. Just like any other start-up, I wear many hats on the marketing team, but the bulk of my day goes towards managing my company's blog, from content strategy, writing articles, and overseeing freelance writers. I also work on email drip campaigns, writing ad copy, and basically anything else related to words.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different).

I got the chance to interview with Boeing for a technical writing position, but I didn't get the job because I didn't have enough experience. So I went back to school for a technical writing certificate, and from there, I discovered marketing writing, which I fell in love with. The classes I took helped build my writing portfolio, and I was able to use that to land a copywriting job for an e-commerce site.

I wanted to broaden my scope of skills, so I decided to escape copywriting and applied to my current company. I knew I was completely under-qualified for this job because I probably only met 10% of their requirements, but they took a leap of faith and hired me on!

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

For a while, I was a freelance associate editor at an ad agency that worked with magazines for Lexus, Holland America, etc. There, I learned how to do creative editing with articles from freelance writers and optimize copy for web, mobile, and print versions. It opened the door to the world of digital content for me.

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

To be honest, I didn't do anything to prepare myself for the writing world because I was so set on going to law school. It's really all about how you can relate what you've learned or experienced to whatever job you're currently applying to — you're a writer after all, you know how to build sentences in your favor.

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

Don't just set your eyes on one dream job because you'll never know if you'll enjoy it until you get into the real world. Experiment with different styles of writing — copywriting, content marketing, social media — these all require more creativity than you'd think. Writing is such a unique talent that's difficult to pick up, and you'll find that it's also one of the most practical and rare skills out there.

Connect with Sabrina on LinkedIn, and follow her on Twitter @sabrinason29! 

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Chris Stephenson: Information Architect

Name: Chris Stephenson

Age: 42

College & Majors/Minors: McMaster University, B.A. in English Literature, interests in Philosophy, Art History & Politics (1997); University of British Columbia, Master of Library & Information Studies (2016)

Current Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Current Form of Employment: Information Professional, Carpenter, Writer

Where do you work and what is your current position?

As per usual, I currently have many "irons in the fire..." Presently I work in the capacity of Information Architect for a non-profit society started by a former mayor of my city. Here I do records management, historical transcription, advise on best practices for showcasing digital documents, and I participate as a media spokesperson to promote the program and (hopefully!) contribute to raising funds to keep our projects going. We have nearly completed a community transcription project to put the first five years of our historical City Council Minutes online for historians, researchers, students, and the public to use in digital form.

““I’ve digitized nearly forty books so far this year, including some really neat ones from the 1770s.””

On the other hand, I also work for a major Westcoast digitization centre (Canadian spelling from here on in!) on a project called the British Columbia Historical Books Project. We are systematically digitizing rare materials that tell the narrative of the earliest years of this province. I've digitized nearly forty books so far this year, including some really neat ones from the 1770s. My interest in Pacific northwest history is constantly sparked by handling these amazing accounts of first-hand explorers, Chinook jargon dictionaries, maps, and other rare texts.

In the meantime, I'm honing my job application and interviewing skills as I search for the perfect job in my particular field of librarianship: I'm trained as a legal and legislative research librarian. This is my second career, so I have reserved the right to be a little choosey for the moment.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different).

My first career job was actually in 'Hollywood North,' another name for Vancouver's thriving film industry. After I finished my English degree my Dad handed me a hammer and said, "If you want to pay off your student loans in a hurry, you should learn to use this." That moment kicked off an informal apprenticeship in carpentry that eventually led me out here to the Westcoast for a ten year career in building the sets for feature films, television and commercials. After while though, I was getting pretty burned out by the long hours, and I started paying attention to a nagging voice that said I should return to my area(s) of interest: writing, teaching, and helping people solve information issues. I took a year off to motorcycle around India and learn yoga and think about how I could make my career dreams possible.

After hanging out at my public library, I started dating this cute local librarian. I asked hundreds of questions about the program she'd recently graduated from, and before I knew it she was helping me with my application for library school. Fast forward to now - we're no longer together, but I have a trusty MLIS under my belt, and I'm as enthusiastic as ever about librarianship. My non-profit job came about after I did a professional experience course and initially approached the society to volunteer, and my digitizing work fell into place as a part time job just as I wrapped up my final semester.

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

No matter what job I'm doing at any given time, I always attempt to publish something.  It's a great way to articulate to myself and others my passion for what I'm doing.  In my last reference librarian role I wrote an article for the Canadian Parliamentary Review and a few articles for the local government's website.  Next month I'm contributing a piece to the Vancouver Association of Law Libraries for their online review.  

I've also been writing a lot of reference letters for people lately, and most exciting of all, I'm learning how to effectively do grant writing.  I'm helping to organize a Children's Literature conference this spring and as the "Logistics & Finance" guy, I've been scrambling to find us some money.

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

As an undergraduate pursuing a liberal arts degree I was pretty angsty and had a great many interests and little focused direction. I read broadly, travelled often, had adventures such as living in my van for my final year of school, and really took the time to get to know myself. I also documented my life by writing human interest stories for the newspaper, and challenged myself in other ways: playing music, trying tough new jobs like treeplanting, and hiking everywhere I could. Little did I know until much later, but these extra-curricular events played a large role in forging the guy I am today: an intensely curious and only slightly curmudgeonly fellow. ;)

But to answer the question, I worked in my campus library. I loved that job and I never forgot the feeling of being behind the desk and sending people away with the help and resources they came seeking. Throughout my life I've often worked in libraries - first running the children's programs in my hometown library, and then later as a circulation desk and systems development employee.

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

Find a writer that speaks to you, and read their books at least twice—especially if you're at a time of life when making life decisions. It was Robert Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that got me on a motorcycle heading west after my undergrad degree. Matthew B. Crawford showed me in Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work that I could be a carpenter and a writer, and constantly reinvent myself. And good old Joyce Cary reminded me to keep my humour and artistic passions in check in his amazing book, The Horse's Mouth.

It was looking into the lives of people doing work that they love that has helped me the most. I'm a firm believer in the value of "Information Interviews." Call up someone in a professional field that interests you and take them to coffee. You'll find that people like to talk about what they do and are thrilled to answer your questions. These people often become crucial later on in ways that you couldn't possibly have predicted. As my Mom says, "If you don't ask, you don't get!" so I always make sure to ask. Turns out it's a great remedy to this persistent curiosity of mine, too!

You can connect with Chris on LinkedIn, and see the Transcribimus website he helped to create!

Rick Wiedeman: Instructional Designer

Name: Rick Wiedeman

Age: 49

College & Majors/Minors: Pitzer College (Claremont Colleges), BA English

Current Location: Dallas, Texas

Current Form of Employment: Instructional Designer

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I’m an instructional designer for Hitachi Consulting, the IT and business consulting division of Hitachi, which is one of the largest companies in the world (330,000 employees), based in Tokyo. Our division is in Dallas, with offices worldwide. I’m basically a teacher in a company, instead of a teacher at a school—I write curricula, teach classes in person and over the web, and create elearning on a variety of topics. It’s a lot of fun.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different).

My first job was as a subrights and special sales assistant at Viking-Penguin Books in New York. I fell in love with creative writing in college, and wanted to be involved in the publishing industry. On my first day there, we got a death threat for publishing Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and had to evacuate the building. That was a fun welcome to New York.

Being in publishing was one of those experiences that looked neat on paper, but in reality was rather boring, and had little to do with my skills or interests. I did light typing and filing, and answered phones. My salary was $15,000 a year, and as you can imagine, you can’t live in New York on that—even in the late 1980s. It’s one thing to pay your dues, but it’s another to be miserable all the time. After a few months there, I took a job as an editorial assistant at Simon & Schuster—$17,000 a year—and the work atmosphere was even worse. The woman who worked next to me jumped off the George Washington Bridge just before Christmas, and my boss mostly went to long lunches and schmoozed with people. I stuck it out for a year, got to be editor for one book, and left. 

After this experience, I felt lost. I returned to my college town, Claremont, California, and got into the PhD program for English literature, but this wasn’t what I expected, either. Grad studies are nothing like undergrad—it was applying obscure philosophical principles to books nobody reads outside of academia. I didn’t see the point in going into debt for this, especially with the poor prospects for recent grads (at this time, fewer than 5% of PhDs in humanities were finding fulltime work). 

““The computer skills I’d developed, combined with my English degree, made me attractive for tech writing jobs.””

I don’t blame publishing or grad school for either of these experiences—I didn’t know who I was, or what I wanted. I was still searching. For me, I learn by doing, and two years out of college I’d learned two things I didn’t want to do: publishing and grad school.

I went back to my hometown of Dallas, Texas, mostly to see old friends. I hadn’t lived at home since I was 18, and didn’t want to be one of those people who got a liberal arts degree and went back to live with their parents, so I slept on a friend’s couch and got temp work. The computer skills I’d developed, combined with my English degree, made me attractive for tech writing jobs. I think my first gig paid $10/hour, or about $20,000 a year, which was livable in Dallas back then. I worked for the technical training division of American Airlines, creating course catalogues and instructor guides. This was mostly layout in Quark and Adobe Pagemaker, which I’d learned working on the college newspaper, but also involved interviewing subject matter experts to build lessons, which I found interesting. 

The neat thing about corporate training is, you learn about a lot of different things -- technology, law, project management, organizational psychology. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys random documentaries, likes people, and who’s good at trivia, it can be a natural fit for a busy mind. Equally important, it paid a living wage, and I didn’t have to share a one bedroom apartment with two other guys on the Upper West Side and eat bologna sandwiches. I could be happy doing this in Dallas, and I was.

Due to my natural interest in technology, I’ve ended up working in corporate training for Microsoft, Siemens, McAfee, and now Hitachi, where I’ve been for six years -- the longest I’ve ever been at the same place. Maybe in middle age, I’m finally settling down. They give me great freedom to approach projects as I see fit, and it’s satisfying work.

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

Everything I’ve done (teaching, ad copy, tech writing, corporate training) has been shaped and supported by my writing skills. To me, good writing is the result of clear thinking. What I really learned in college was how to think clearly. I’d argue that if you can’t write well, you’re not thinking well. Writing is the evidence. People who approach it as a separate skill are missing the point.

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

I was on a work-study program at Pitzer College—my financial aid was tied to keeping a job on campus that worked around my schedule. The first two years of college, I was a security escort. I mostly accompanied young women to the library, which was across three other campuses (Claremont has five colleges, a grad school, and a school of theology). That was a good gig.

““So, it was really the combination of writing skill and technical skill that shaped my career, though at the time I didn’t think of it in such formal terms. I just enjoyed writing, and needed a college job for gas money.””

My second job, junior and senior years, was running the computer lab. This was in the days before everyone had a personal computer. Pitzer is a liberal arts college, and most students went to the lab to type their papers. I was given the key to the lab. That was my entire training experience. Basically, I was guarding the equipment. As students complained about losing papers or not being able to print -- these were the days where the operating system and the word processing program were on the same 5 1/4 inch floppy disk—I slowly figured out how these damn machines worked, and found I liked helping people. It turned out to be two valuable career skills that I’ve maintained throughout my life.

So, it was really the combination of writing skill and technical skill that shaped my career, though at the time I didn’t think of it in such formal terms. I just enjoyed writing, and needed a college job for gas money.

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

Don’t leap into grad programs expecting you’ll find work afterward. I’ve had several English MAs and PhDs work for me on various projects over the years. Check the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and pay attention to job projections. It’s fine to have a passion -- mine is creative writing, and I do it every week, if not every day—but I don’t try to pay the bills with it. You need to live. And you probably don’t need a Masters or PhD to do that. 

I think a lot of people go into grad school to feel good about themselves—grad degrees are like grown up merit badges. There are more fulfilling, and less expensive, ways to expand your mind and use your talents. For me, that’s writing. All I need is a library and the internet, both of which are practically free.

““Getting that first royalty check the month after publishing the first book made me feel like a real writer. (That’s my definition of “real.” If you got paid, you’re a pro.)””

The great thing about writing and publishing today is, you don’t need to be in New York to do it, and frankly, you don’t need an agent and a publisher taking 87.5% of your royalties to get your stories out there. Though at first I resisted self-publishing, since diving into it four years ago, it’s been one of the best experiences of my life. The first thing I wrote -- a short novel about a father and daughter trying to get from Dallas to Galveston after an apocalypse—did surprisingly well. I made two thousand dollars. The follow up novels did OK, but were a bit indulgent, and got mixed reviews; that’s OK, too. I’ve learned from that. I wrote a supernatural horror novella, which did poorly, and am now at work on a psychological suspense novel. The only investment has been my time and effort, and it’s been a great satisfaction to me. Getting that first royalty check the month after publishing the first book made me feel like a real writer. (That’s my definition of “real.” If you got paid, you’re a pro.)

If I were going the traditional route, I’d have to spend at least a year getting an agent. She’d spend at least a year marketing my book. If it sold, the publisher would spend a year doing covers and editing and scheduling production... and all that assumes perfect success each step of the way, which seldom happens. You’re about as likely to succeed in traditional publishing as you are to be a movie star. 

I’m not anti-traditional publishing. I may try that route it someday. But I know enough about the industry to have realistic expectations, and I love the full control self-publishing offers.

My personal website is rickwiedeman.com and I’m on Twitter @rickwiedeman. I’m happy to talk to any of my fellow writers about my self-publishing experience, and share what little I know about traditional publishing. My ebooks on Amazon are here.

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Anna Wenner: Editor at Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Name: Anna Wenner

Age: 23

College Majors: English and History Minor: Global and International Studies

Current Location: Kansas City, MO

Current Form of Employment: Editor at Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I work at Hallmark Cards, Inc. as an Associate Editor making greeting cards. 

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different).

Although I did have some part time jobs and internships in college, this was my first full time job. In January of my junior year I applied for dozens of internships, most of which I never heard back from. Honestly, it felt like I could have been tossing my resume to the wind and had the same effect, which was pretty disheartening. Then I got a call back from Hallmark for their Writing/Editorial Internship. The application for this internship probably took me the most time out of any of those that I applied for. It involved creating a portfolio of greeting card samples and insight as well as submitting more standard application pieces such as a resume and cover letter. Then, when I got called back, I still had an interview to get through. Although it took time, it was well worth it because I got the editorial internship. That summer I interned at Hallmark's main headquarters in Kansas City, MO and later that year I was given a full time job offer to be an editor at Hallmark. 

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

My junior year in college I was the editor for the opinion section of the University Daily Kansan, the KU student newspaper. This job was great as a resume builder, but more than that, it was a great experience toward learning what I liked and didn't like about editing. In this position I read and edited about fifteen opinion pieces per week, which meant that in order to save time, I had to adapt to reading faster, giving only the most important comments as feedback for the writer, and honing in quickly on the meat of an argument and whether it was well made. Moving quickly for the paper as an editor (and in other roles that I served on the paper before and after my stint as an editor) taught me the importance of deadlines and helped me learn to balance speed and accuracy in my work.

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

More internships hands down. It didn't really feel necessary to me to apply for internships until the summer of my junior year, and honestly, that was coming into it pretty late in the game. I lucked out because the first internship I did in college turned out to be something I really wanted to do full time, but that's not always the case. For instance, during high school I did an internship at a newspaper and while I loved the experience, it made me pretty confident that I didn't actually want to be a reporter like I thought I did. If I'd done more internships either during school or during breaks, I could have felt more sure about what sort of job I was (and perhaps just as important, wasn't) looking for. For me doing more internships wasn't entirely feasible because I studied abroad the summer of my sophomore year and I worked a lot every other break, but I do think I could have made it more of a priority to find internships. 

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

I have two pieces of advice for my fellow English majors:

1) People told me constantly that I wouldn't know what I wanted to do for a living in high school because there were so many jobs out there that I'd never heard of before. They were right.

If you'd asked me in high school what I thought I'd be doing by now, I'm sure I wouldn't have answered that I'd be making greeting cards, because honestly while I knew someone had to be the person putting the words on greeting cards, I never imagined it was a job I could actually have. Being at Hallmark has made me realize how many awesome, entirely unheard of jobs there are out there. 

2) Take that weird, non-writing related job. The stranger the better. 

The job I'm asked about most often off my resume is never something writing related—it's my part time job at a cemetery. 

I spent every break for several years returning to my hometown and working in the office of a cemetery there. I helped digitize their records by doing data entry, and did some investigative work to try and recover records that had been destroyed by a fire a few decades ago. There was nothing remotely writing or editing related about this job, but it's come up in every interview I've ever had. Why? Because let's be honest, it's a talking point. From my point of view, I was better off taking a strange paid job than doing a handful of more stereotypical "English major" roles at my college. Don't get me wrong—English major related experiences are really important for all the reasons I listed before, but I do think a weird job helps you stand out. It helps too if you can tie it back to whatever you're applying for. For instance, I usually said something about how working on rebuilding the lost records in the cemetery taught me to think outside the box and explore new avenues for answers. 

You can connect with Anna on LinkedIn here, and follower her on Instagram here.  

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Jenna Stolfi: Gallery Manager, Writer & Researcher

Name: Jenna Stolfi

Age: 27

College & Majors/Minors: English with an emphasis in Creative Writing; Minor in Communications

Current Location: South Florida

Current Form of Employment: Gallery Manager, Writer, and Researcher

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I currently am the Gallery Manager, Writer, and Researcher for Daniels Antiques, a luxury antiques business.

This is not your grandma's dusty old antique shop. We specialize in selling polished WWII Binoculars, antique Louis Vuitton trunks, vintage coin-op and arcade machines, antique slot machines, and contemporary art. It is an eclectic, museum-quality collection that is a testament to both human ingenuity and a bygone era.

Jenna Stolfi in the Daniels Antiques Gallery

As the writer and researcher, I am responsible for all written content, which includes all social media accounts, email correspondences, product descriptions, marketing materials, and the blog. I learn something new every day.

My challenge each day is to make each of our items come to life, whether it be through the content I disseminate via various online channels, or through the spoken word when I am educating or selling to a prospective buyer.

As I have transitioned into taking over more responsibilities on the gallery management side of things, I have learned more about business operations than I ever expected to. 

I think if I would have gone into a larger corporation, my position would have been a lot more narrow in scope. As one of four members of the business, I have many different responsibilities. This amount of responsibility has increased my skill set in ways I never could have imagined. I have learned the art of negotiation, learned accounting practices, and even become well-versed in shipping logistics, all while building my writing portfolio.

The Daniels Antiques Gallery

While at first it may be appealing to go right after the big companies when you begin your job search, don't rule out smaller family-owned or local businesses, where you can become an integral member of a team.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different).

When I first got out of college, the entry-level jobs I was most interested in were either unpaid or very low-paying jobs in expensive cities that would have required a cross-country move. I was apprehensive about going into debt or getting in over my head financially. 

While I continued my job search, I became a full-time server. I was fortunate to work at a high-volume restaurant for most of my tenure, and found that the flexible schedule and the pay afforded me a great opportunity: time and money. I was able to take on additional side-jobs regardless of what I was being paid.

Social media and the internet are absolutely great for finding opportunities, but it is important to thoroughly research any person or company you are going to work for, especially if it is unpaid. There are a lot of people and businesses out there that try to exploit aspiring writers or recent graduates, so exercise caution if anything seems off. Always trust your intuition.

I was fortunate to work with a few great non-profits and small businesses that needed content for their websites but were too busy and too understaffed to create content on their own. I volunteered my services for free in order to build my portfolio.

This strategy worked, and the writing experience that I gained while working as a server allowed me to transition into the next stage of my career, which was becoming the full-time writer and researcher at Daniels Antiques.

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

While it wasn't a job, one of the most important decisions I have made so far in my career was to pursue the Professional Sequence in Editing through University of California-Berkeley's Online Extension. I began this program while I was a server, and completed it while I was in my current position.

I wanted to supplement the creative skills I had practiced in my undergrad with the technical side of my craft, which is editing. This sequence begins with a much-needed refresher in grammar and mechanics, something that you don't actually spend much time on in an English degree! The middle two courses focus on copyediting, and the final course immerses you in substantive editing.

This sequence buttressed my confidence as both a writer and editor. I learned things that have helped organize my writing that I never would have thought of, such as style sheet generation. I also met a great group of diverse, virtual classmates who shared their wide range of experiences in different realms of both the writing and editing profession. 

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

When I was in college, I jumped at any opportunity that was put before me. If there was a club that sounded interesting, I attended the meeting. If a professor was looking for researchers, I volunteered. 

I always pushed myself to try something new and to get outside of my comfort zone, which is a spirit that I continue to feed in my post-grad life. You never really know which opportunity will either directly or indirectly take you where you want to go.

I would say one of the most formative experiences of my college career was participating in the required advanced writing workshops. The workshops were no more than 18 people, and you were required to write a piece of either fiction or a small collection of poetry, and pass it out to every member of the workshop. Then, for a full class period, you had to sit in silence while everyone discussed your work. You could not defend your work, you could not clarify anything. All you could do was listen.

It was both a petrifying and illuminating experience that taught me how to handle constructive criticism. It taught me how to put myself out there, and also how to look someone in the eye and stand by my work. 

If you are trying to become a professional writer or journalist, in the beginning so much of what you do involves the process of writing queries and submitting. It is a trying and difficult process that requires both vulnerability and detachment from yourself and your work. Workshops are an invaluable tool that can help you callous the skin you will undoubtedly need to be a writer.

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

Read as much as possible, all the time. Read books on craft, read books for fun. Ingest as many words as you can stand.

If you are trying to get published, many publications will put their contributor guidelines on their websites. Do the research. I recommend making a Twitter account to follow literary magazines, editors, other writers, and publications you want to submit to so you can get a good idea of what they are already publishing.

Explore all of your options when it comes to picking your career path. I never would have imagined myself working in a gallery, but I wouldn't change it for anything. Apply to jobs whether or not you think you have the experience. Try to add to your portfolio whenever you can.

English degrees can be one of the most valuable degrees out there because of their versatility. People are consuming so much information each day thanks to the internet. I don't think there has ever been a more important time than now to be able to write well and communicate clearly, and I don't think that's ever going to change.

You can read more of Jenna's writing online on her eco-conscious travel and lifestyle blog and on her recently launched vintage and antique book blog. You can also connect with her on Twitter.

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