Vincent Rendoni: Email Marketing Copywriter

Name: Vincent Rendoni

Age: 28

College & Majors/Minors: Chatham University, MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) & Western Washington University, BA in English

Current Location: Seattle, WA.

Current Form of Employment: Advertising/Marketing

Current Occupation: Email Marketing Copywriter

Where do you work and what is your current position? 

I am currently an email marketing copywriter for the GreaterGood Network, a charity website. In the past, I was a copywriter for the mom-and-kid focused zulily when it was still a start-up.

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

I was waiting tables when I found the copywriter posting for zulily on Indeed.com. I was a bit nervous about applying as I knew nothing about moms and kids. They must have saw something they liked. It wasn't long after I applied that they sent me a time-sensitive copy test for five different items. After submitting, they had me in for a long interview with the three leads. That's when my future boss gave me a test on the spot. It wasn't long after that they hired me.

My current job was found on Craigslist. The GreaterGood offered a more challenging position and more responsibility for causes (Animal Rescue, World Hunger, The Environment) I truly care about. Despite a lackluster first interview with HR, I had some wonderful conversations with my future boss and colleagues during the second one. To my surprise, I was hired later that day.

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

Funny thing: I never wanted to be a professional writer. I always sort of thought I should keep work and passions separate fearing it would all become work. Sometimes it feels like that. But copywriting keeps me sharp. There are worse things that constantly practicing your craft and getting paid for it.

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

In my undergrad, I actually didn't do much to prepare for post-grad life. Failed to network, content to pass instead of excel. To be honest, I was a bit of spoiled slacker. It didn't bode well for what happened afterward. It was 2006 and the recession was in full swing. When I couldn't find a job at Kinko's, that's when I got a TEFL Certificate and taught English abroad.

I don't want to go into too much of a tangent here, but teaching English abroad is something I highly recommend for English Majors— for anyone with a college degree, really. You get to experience a different culture, contribute to an emerging economy, and make money instead of blowing through savings. It's not always easy at times: Not every country is hiring and the schools that hire you don't always have your best interests in mind. Homesickness can be crushing. It's not an adventure you can easily pull out of. If you decide to do it, consider placement carefully. That being said, I wouldn't take back any of my experiences. I student-taught in Italy and later taught courses in South Korea, Turkey and eventually the United States. It was a good thing for a really long time, but definitely something I couldn't do forever. When I got into Chatham's MFA program, I decided it was time to head back home.

When I got into graduate school, I changed it up. I said yes to everything. Maybe too many things. (Readers, be mindful with internships. You don't work for free, you hear?) But I'm glad I did. Went to readings big and small, read for my school's literary magazines, interned at the county jail, worked with Chatham's international community. I just tried to absorb everything I could before it was time to hunker down and get to work on my thesis.

One instructor in particular prepared me well for copywriting. Novelist Sherrie Flick taught me a lot about sentence structure. I tend to be long-winded and say nothing in particular quite often. Her classes helped me get to the point of what I wanted to say. Turns out if you can write succinct, active sentences in fiction, you can do quite well in the copy world.

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

Don't let people tell your degree is useless. Our world is not as literate as you think. A moderately well-spoken person who reads is an asset in any business. Take advantage.

You won't use your degree for what you want. Not at first, anyway. Acknowledge that you will have to write about lingerie for pregnant women, breast-pumps, and tulle-laden tutus. You will just have to. But soon enough, you may get to write copy about helping dogs in Sochi, rescuing horses and how people can help feed the hungry.

Check out Vincent's resume, portfolio, and connect with him on LinkedIn. 

Chris Strom: Marketing Copywriter

Name: Chris Strom

Age: 28

College & Majors/Minors: B.A. & M.A from Central Washington University

Current Location: Seattle, WA

Current Form of Employment: Marketing Copywriter

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I'm pleased to say that I have just accepted a new position working as a marketing e-mail copywriter. I suppose, though, I could speak more to what I had been doing prior since I've not gotten into my new digs just yet.

I have been working as a copy editor for zulily.com, where I edit all kinds of copy that goes onto the site or into e-mails. In a nutshell, my job is to uphold voice and style according to brand and make sure writing looks presentable for the public. I also work one-on-one with writers to help them develop their own work copy and dabble in some special projects.

Currently, I work with designers and other copywriters to put together marketing e-mails for clients.

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life? What kinds of extracurriculars did you participate in?

Is it extra-curricular if you got paid? I guess I'm not sure. I wish I had more to present here, but I don't. To be honest, a lot of the extra things I put into my college experience were really helping me to prepare for teaching, which was my interest for a very long time. I worked in the writing center, acted as a TA and taught my own composition courses. Additionally, once I had gotten into grad school, I submitted several papers to literary conferences. If I was looking to actually become a college professor, I was on a great path.

However, this isn't to say that none of this shaped my career now. These were instrumental in developing my editing abilities, and I believe wholeheartedly that learning the basics of tutoring, teaching and public speaking also made me into a much better coworker and communicator, and I've prided myself on my interpersonal skills. They translate over!

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different). What was it like applying?

At first, terrible. I did not expect it to be so hard. If you think you're the only one struggling in your job search, you're not. I use this as a way to preface my statement with a ray of hope. As hopeful as it may make you feel to know that your misery is in company. It's just that I had to learn this the hard way once my morale had taken quite a beating. I looked very hard for a couple of months, and all the responses back were rejections. And that prompted me to, well, give up. I thought that it was me and that I wasn't talented all along, and this is where I mean it would have been nice to know I wasn't alone.

Finally, I took a chance and decided to get in contact with an old college friend of mine. My preliminary message was just to ask for advice on where to look and maybe get some other contacts. She was very nice and insisted I send in my resume to her work because they were looking for an editor. I got very lucky. It kicked off the entire interviewing process where I did phone screenings, an editing exercise and eventually an in-person interview.

I've had other interviews since then, including the one for my new employer. It definitely got easier as I built up my own professional confidence, but I still don't think I know what people are looking for. Of course, they want all of the normal things like multitasking and great under pressure. In fact, it's listed right in their job postings, but that makes those things boring. You should be able to demonstrate basic professional skills, but they shouldn't be your focus. I think employers want to see you beyond the cookie cutter responses they're used to getting in interviews with people hellbent on impressing them. You have to be you. The person you're meeting face to face is also human, and they're going to be looking to make a personal connection as much as a professional one.

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

Everyone is going to tell you to connect, connect, connect. Get out there and network, and it's true that the two main jobs I've been able to grasp onto first started out with my own professional/personal connections. So, always keep people in mind down the road.

I think, though, judging from my own experience and past, I'd most like to say don't be afraid to start small. If you expect to get your dream job straight out the gate, well... you might, but chances are you won't. Those people want experience, and your name will get shuffled right out (maybe/all speculation/educated guessing). My first job out of college was not my dream job, but it certainly got a better job to look at me after getting a year+ experience under my belt. This is the beginning of your dream, so don't try to get to the end so quickly.

Sarah Scott: Public Library Professional & Writer

Name: Sarah Scott
Age: 34
College & Majors/Minors: University of Puget Sound, B.A. in Philosophy, minor in English (2001). San Jose State University, Master of Library and Information Science (2012).
Current Location: Bellevue, WA
Current Form of Employment: Public Library Professional & Writer

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I currently work as a Library Associate IV at The Seattle Public Library. In this role, I provide reference and instruction services to the public and serve on the Library Innovation Team. While writing and editing are not the central part of my job, my skills in this area are put to use in various ways, from writing email to writing blog posts for the library's blog. I am also part of a team getting ready to launch a new internal blog about innovation. I anticipate that writing and editing will be an important part of my work on that team going forward.

Outside of work, I have blogged for Public Libraries Online (the blog of the Public Library Association), been a contributing writer for the local community website Bellevue.com, written for the newsletter of local literary organization Richard Hugo House, and co-written a book chapter on library innovation for a forthcoming book. I also write poetry and prose in my free time and intend to eventually publish some type of literary work.

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

As an undergraduate at the University of Puget Sound, I worked as a Peer Writing Advisor in the Center for Writing and Learning. In that role, I provided one-on-one writing conferences for my peers and assisted them throughout all stages of the writing process, from formulating a thesis statement to planning a 15-page research paper. I also served on the editorial team of the campus literary arts journal, Crosscurrents, where I reviewed and selected poetry and prose submissions for publication; worked as a Records Assistant in the Office of the Registrar and as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Philosophy; spent a summer working as the Storeroom Assistant in Facilities Services; and hosted a couple of weekly radio shows on the campus radio station. Working in these various positions helped me to develop experience and skills in various areas, from writing and editing to interpersonal communication, customer service, and public speaking. As I entered the job market, I was able to use these experiences to develop my resume and demonstrate my qualifications.

As an undergraduate, I did not have a clear sense of what I would do in the future. I did not have a long-term career plan. I had learned a lot about poetry and philosophy, but what did that have to do with earning a living? I knew that I would most likely pursue a graduate degree but I was not sure of what discipline to pursue, so I decided to spend some time working, traveling, learning independently, and focusing on my own personal development. My first job after college graduation was in the community library in my hometown of Battle Ground, Washington. While I had never considered librarianship as a career, through that job I discovered that I loved library work. After a few years of working in libraries, I decided to pursue a Master of Library and Information Science degree so that I could become a professional librarian.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job.

I found my first post-college job the old-fashioned way: in the classified ads in the newspaper. This was in 2001, before online job sites became the norm. When I saw an ad for library assistants at the local community library, my curiosity was piqued and I decided to apply. I was invited to take a qualification test, which involved a typing assessment and a card filing exercise. After passing the test, I was interviewed by a hiring panel consisting of the Community Librarian, Circulation Supervisor, and Library Assistant III at the branch I would be working at. They asked me questions about my knowledge of literary genres and my experience serving customers, handling difficult situations, and explaining policies. I was also asked to put a cart of books in order according to the Dewey Decimal Classification system. I received a job offer for a full-time position a few days later.

I worked at the Battle Ground Community Library from 2001-2003, and since then, I have had a number of different jobs and gone through a lot of interviews. I earned my MLIS in 2012, and since then, I have focused my job search on professional librarian positions. The interviews for these have varied a bit depending on the particular position being filled, but the key competencies and responsibilities for professional librarians today include public service (including reference, readers' advisory, and instruction), outreach, programming, resource development, promoting intellectual freedom, leadership support, staff training and development, technology literacy, and communication and interpersonal skills. Some librarian positions include duties such as blogging, social media marketing, website development, and creating publicity pieces such as brochures and press releases.

Goals!: How to Get Everything You Want -- Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible

$12.72

By Brian Tracy

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

Build a wide professional network. LinkedIn is a great tool for building your network; attending professional conferences is another great way to do so. Seek out mentors, and become a mentor yourself as you grow in your life and career. Continue learning and investing in your personal and professional development. Study the careers of others who have achieved goals that you want to achieve. If others have done it, then it is possible for you to do it. Set goals regularly and implement plans to achieve them. The book Goals! by Brian Tracy provides excellent advice on goal-setting and achievement.

Visit Sarah on twitter @Sarah_H_Scott, tumblr and connect with her on LinkedIn. 

Melissa Pilgrim: Writer, Editor & Writing Coach

Name: Melissa Pilgrim

Age: 45

College & Majors/Minors: University of New Hampshire (1990). B.A. in English, Minor in Theatre. Graduate of The Institute of Children's Literature (1993).

Current Location: White Mountains, N.H.

Current Form of Employment: Writer, Editor, & Writing Coach

Where do you work and what is your current position?

For the past seven years, I have run my own writing, editing, and script/writing coaching service called Your Writing Muse from my home office (which started in Los Angeles, but is now in the White Mountains of N.H.). In the course of my career since leaving college in 1990, I worked all over the country for seventeen years in all mediums-- theatre, film, TV, and book publishing-- and based on all of those experiences I am now able to help others with their own writing goals.

You can see my full bio on my website, but in short I have had 16 plays produced, four screenplays optioned, one TV show optioned, one children's book and app published, have either edited or ghostwritten over twelve books (both in nonfiction and fiction genres), been a judge in two screenwriting contents, and have been hired by many producers, authors, and companies as a writer-for-hire on various projects (including Martin Sheen's ESP Productions). I also co-write songs as a lyricist with musicians. Besides doing all these types of creative writing projects/jobs, I also work on business websites helping clients with all their business-related writing and editing needs including their page content, blogs, articles, reports, and newsletters.

As a writer I've found it's great to be able to always stay both creative and versatile, for you never know what kind of writing someone may need help with! Working in all fields has kept me both marketable and employed, for when it's slow in one medium it's normally not in other ones. (Plus, it keeps life interesting!)

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Tell us about how you found your first job. 

My actual first job out of college was very hard to get, for when I graduated in 1990, the country was in a recession. I went all over Boston and N.Y.C. hoping to find work in theatre, film, or publishing, but no one was hiring. But, one interview in N.Y.C. led to a lead for an interview for a job as part of the "starting crew" of Universal Studios in Orlando, which I got. So I moved to Florida where I did a variety of things at Universal, including working in casting for one of Nickelodeon's TV shows. This experience showed me that I really wanted to work with kids more as well as write more. So I started sending out my resume and writing samples to different children's theatres that I knew of in the area, and I was soon hired by one of them.

I found that having great writing samples was very important to get the playwriting/directing job in children's theatre I was looking for, so I always kept writing and trying to improve my craft. It also helped to keep studying in the craft (especially within the children's writing market, specifically), so in the early '90s I also did The Institute of Children's Literature writing program to really learn how to write for every age group of children and teens. This knowledge has helped in many job interviews later on dealing with children's projects in all mediums, for clients can tell I know the field very well.

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

I have worked in different community theatres in several states with both children and adult groups, and not always, but most of the time writing the plays for each group basically "came with the job," and so I was very fortunate to be able to be paid for my writing skills as well as my directing and producing skills all at once. But I wouldn't have gotten hired just on my writing abilities alone in any of these theatre jobs. I found it was an asset to have a variety of skills to offer when interviewing for positions in the field of theatre. People who can handle many types of jobs and responsibilities are more likely to get a job in most small theatres. (But as you work your way up to bigger theatres, this changes and you can then be more specialized into doing only one job, or at least let one job be more of the focus overall.)

For instance, I really got into playwrighting even more when I spent five great years as the artistic director for The Sheil Park Players in the Wrigleyville area of Chicago where I wrote plays for the children and teen groups.  I also did writing workshops for adults to develop new plays out of it for the adult group and helped new playwrights’ original work get showcased.  Many of those workshopped plays went on to be produced in other theatres in Chicago, New York, and even London.

During this whole time I was also focused on evolving my writing in other areas— I started writing screenplays and sending them out to writing contests. One of them placed as a quarter-finalist in both the Nicholl's Fellowships and the Writer's Network Screenwriting Competition, as well as a semi-finalist in the Illinois/Chicago Screenwriting Competition. An agent from Beverly Hills then noticed it, and I moved to L.A. to start writing for film and TV. I went on a lot of what Hollywood calls "meet & greets" and got four of my screenplays optioned over time. I was hired to do a lot of rewrites, script coverage/critics, became a judge in two screenwriting contests, and helped many clients develop their own ideas into screenplays or book manuscripts.

The biggest break of these kinds of jobs came when I was hired to work for ESP Productions (Estevez-Sheen Productions), which is an independent production company in Los Angeles founded by Martin Sheen and his son Ramon Estevez. (It is now run by Ramon and his brother Charlie Sheen.) I worked for them as a writer when it was under Martin Sheen. They are a wonderful family and it was a fantastic experience when they hired me after reading one of my original TV series pilot scripts I had being pitched around Los Angeles at the time. I didn't sell that TV series (yet-- I'm still trying!), but it just shows you never know what is going to happen when you're showing your projects!

I learned early on in my various entertainment jobs that you always have to keep writing new projects all the time and keep pitching/showing your work. Perseverance is key when it comes to writing as a career, in all the mediums, and especially in book publishing... I have helped a lot of people with their book projects (in both nonfiction and fiction genres) over the years, and I really saw how long it took before many books became well known. This kept things in perspective for me as I created my first children's picture book, Animal Motions, which is a fun, easy-to-do, interactive book based on some of my made-up children's theatre improv

games.

After pitching Animal Motions many different places (to both big and small publishers), I finally found a great publisher, Indigo River Publishing, who understood the book's concept and importance to kids right away and I got a publishing contract with them. They found a wonderful illustrator, Ira V. Gates, and we all worked together on the book's creation, with me using my theatre background to "direct" the design of each page as the story unfolded. So once again, I learned how valuable it was to know how to do more than one thing when it came to working on a project like this. An app for the book (published by Authorly.com) was also created in this fashion and it is being launched in February 2014, which is very exciting!

Each of these experiences have all been very important in my career, and I hope they show all writers reading this that working on any and lots of different kinds of projects is possible-- you just have to stay focused and keep writing all the time (as well as bring as many other skills you can to the table/project). If one medium isn't working for you (or you just need a change from it), then do a different one. It's all up to you to keep writing and trying until the right project falls into place at the right time, then you can go on to the next one.

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

I always knew that I wanted to write in a variety of mediums one day, but my first love was the challenge of writing for the stage. I felt it was a great way to learn characterization, dialogue, and plot development skills that would then always help craft any other kind of writing to make it even tighter, better, and stronger overall. So I became an English major with a creative writing focus while I also minored in theatre to really learn as many theatre skills as I could. (Even back then I was advised that to work in theatre you should have several different kinds of jobs/skills to be marketable in the field.) At the time, the east coast had the best programs in writing, but there wasn't as much opportunity for learning about how to write for film and TV, which I knew I also wanted to do. So for my junior year I did an exchange program with San Diego State University to learn the craft of screenwriting out west, where the best training for that was offered. By the time I graduated, I felt I had covered all the mediums and was ready to work in any of them!

At the University of New Hampshire, I was involved with UNH's concert choir, drama groups, several different writing groups, UNH's Student Exchange Club, and SCOPE (a music/performance club that got professional people to come do shows and events at our school including rock groups like The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Inxs, comedians like Jay Leno, filmmakers like Spike Lee, etc.). They were all fun and great activities, but SCOPE was the one that put me around professional people who were doing creative, writing-related types of careers for a living, and that inspired me to know it was possible for me to do it too.

Also keep in mind that just because you're out of college doesn't mean you shouldn't stop learning about or working on your craft. For instance, I always knew I wanted to write for children as well as adults, so I enrolled in The Institute of Children's Literature writing program and studied how to write for children and teens pretty soon after I graduated from UNH. Always look for ways you can keep improving in your craft so others will see you're highly skilled and valuable to their specific project/job.

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

My advice to anyone just starting out in the world of writing (beside perseverance, which I already mentioned) is to learn to have patience… things take a long time to get done in this whole "writing world," both the actual writing part and the trying to get it sold (and then hopefully produced) part. So patience is a big lesson in this field (along with a good sense of humor when a project you thought was all set to sell or go suddenly "falls apart")!

I'd also like to mention that it's important to always respect (and appreciate) other people's time and only pitch them something you feel is truly relevant to their own needs or goals (in all mediums, always). I can't tell you how many times I've worked for companies or people who say they only want to read romantic comedies at this particular time, yet get pitches for all genres anyway. Do your research before you pitch, always! For it only makes you look unprofessional if your project doesn't seem relevant to their current needs or tastes.

And lastly, if this is a career field you truly want to do for a living, then respect that it is an actual career choice and expect to get paid for it. Know that your skills--and eventually experience-- are worth being paid for. I see many "free/spec jobs" listed for writers all the time and it saddens me, for all forms of writing takes time, focus, and skill to do, and if someone is going to put all of that into a project they should also be paid for their time, focus, and skills. But for some reason people try to talk them into doing it for free or very little money. But I, like other professional writers I know, normally work on their own projects for free until they're ready to be pitched and sold. Working on other people's projects is then an actual job. Believe it will be for you, too.

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Visit Melissa on her professional website YourWritingMuse.com for more examples of her work and writing tips. You can also check out her latest project at AnimalMotions.com!