For our first October meeting, we met with Ashleigh Mavros (’13). Ashleigh is an alumna of Ohio University and a former member of Scripps PRSSA. Ashleigh began her professional journey while attending OU, where she completed internships at Jeff Krabill Marketing, Intern Queen, and Fahlgren Mortine. After graduation, Ashleigh continued her journey with Fahlgren Mortine, where she worked with multiple accounts, including, but not limited to, McDonald’s, Capital University and Donate Life Ohio. After 2 ½ years with Fahlgren, Ashleigh moved on to work with Geben Communications, Redshelf, Avision Young, and ultimately, McDonald’s, where she’s now the Manager of Operations Excellence Communications. After gaining experience in the many fields of PR, advertising, marketing and communications, Ashleigh reviewed the advice that she was given throughout college and her professional career, and whether or not it’s truly valuable. So, Ashleigh’s eight pieces of advice are listed below.
- “Agency is some of the best entry-level experience.” – Ashleigh said, that even though agency experience can be amazing, it does not have to be the track that everyone goes down after college.
- “Be a strong writer, more so, be known for your quality of work.” – Ashleigh highlighted that while it’s always important for students looking to work in communication fields to be strong writers, it’s best to be known for work of high quality. Ashleigh also emphasized the importance of making sure your work is always thorough and client-ready once finished.
- “Personalize for the job/internship search.” – Ashleigh said to personalize every resume and work samples to each specific job application. Ashleigh also creates a hype-sheet for every interview. This includes information about the company, or extra details or stories about her experience that she’d like to share during an interview.
- You don’t have to be a specialist: Ashleigh said that while it’s important to have a passion for something specific in your work, you don’t have to focus on being a specialist, especially during your early career.
- Be a generalist: Ashleigh said it’s important to be good at a little bit of everything.
- Everything will work out: While Ashliegh said that things do usually work out, they won’t work out unless you put the work into it.
- “Build your network – it’s all about who you know.” – Ashleigh said one way to keep track of your contacts is to keep a spreadsheet of your contacts’ names and information.
- “Live life by your eulogy, not your resume.” – Ashleigh said that work and your career will always be important, but so is living your life. At the end of the day, your coworkers will always be there to congratulate you, but your friends and family will be there for the hard moments.
You can connect with Ashleigh on LinkedIn here.
Ella Neighborgall is a second-year student studying advertising, communications and PR at Ohio University and can be found on LinkedIn here.