Scripps PRSSA traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina on Feb. 9 to see what the Queen City had to offer! As it turns out, North Carolina had more than just warm weather waiting for us. After a weekend of networking and seeing the city, here are some things we learned from the companies we visited!
Diversey
Our first stop was Diversey. Diversey is a provider of cleaning and hygiene products – serving customers in the hospitality, healthcare, food and beverage, food service, retail and facility management sectors. Formerly JohnsonDiversey, Inc., Diversey was a brand of Sealed Air Corporation, until 2017. Now Diversey is now a standalone company that includes the former Diversey Care division and the food hygiene solution business. One of the most interesting things that we learned from the Diversey team is that you can’t plan the future, the majority of the professionals we talked to didn’t major in communications in college, their areas of studies ranged from mathematics to chemical engineering. So take a deep breath and relax, you will end up where you are supposed to, even if it’s in an unexpected place.
FleishmanHillard
FleishmanHillard was one of our favorite companies, and not just because they gave us free Dunkin Donuts and had a dog in their office. FleishmanHillard is a global PR and digital marketing agency. They have offices all across the United States and around the world. One of the most important pieces of advice we received from this company was to always be willing to learn. They talked about how no matter what project their clients want them to do, even if it’s something they haven’t done before, they do it. If they don’t know how to, they learn. This is also something they look for in an intern, someone who is eager to learn new skills while improving the old.
Yellow Duck Marketing
We met with Yellow Duck Marketing for a networking lunch at a cute little Italian restaurant. At the lunch we had the pleasure of talking to the founder of Yellow Duck Julianne McCollum, and hearing all about what it was like to start her own agency. As the “Head Quack” for Yellow Duck Marketing, Julianne was able to give us a long list of advice for finding internships as well as a free resume critique and local coffee shop recommendations.
Luquire George Andrews
Our last stop of the day, Luquire George Andrews is a firm that provides advertising, digital marketing and public relations to companies like Bojangles, Purple, Carolina Panthers and many others. We were able to hear all about their latest campaigns and how they put them together, giving us a firsthand look at what it is like to put together campaigns for large companies. We also got to hear from their most recent intern turned full-time employee about how she turned her summer internship into a job.
Annie Nowak is a junior strategic communication major. Give her a follow on Twitter @annie_nowak.