Cameron Johnson speaks with employers and students at the Creative Career Fair about finding success and opportunity.
Transcript:
0:06: Welcome back to Chronversations.
0:08: I’m your host, Cameron Johnson.
0:10: The fall semester may be ending, but job searching is just beginning.
0:14: This past Tuesday, the School of Business and Entrepreneurship hosted many different companies and employers for the Creative Career Fair.
0:21: This took place on the fifth floor of the Student Center.
0:23: I took time to interview many companies to pick their brains on how they rose to success and what valuable tools they aimed to provide the students with while being at this fair.
0:31: Hi, my name is Zachary Bernstein.
0:34: I am an employee at the House of Blues Chicago and the director of marketing for the International Live Events Association.
0:43: So we have multiple chapters across the country with a variety of members all in the events field in different cities.
0:54: So we host monthly events where we can do a lot of networking, mingling, seeing other spaces and meeting different people across the industry in our city.
1:08: My name is Brandt Miller.
1:09: I’m a talent acquisition specialist.
1:11: Zach Coleman, talent acquisition specialist.
1:12: Sweetwater Sound is North America’s number one online retailer of music instruments and pro audio.
1:17: We were founded in 1979 out of the back of a VW bus and have grown.
1:22: Into kind of the titan of our industry just serving customers, as we would our friends.
1:26: It’s been a really special thing to watch this company grow.
1:29: My name is Dee Britton and I am head of talent for ARC Worldwide.
1:32: ARC Worldwide is an advertising agency under the publicist umbrella, and we specialize in all things retail, shop and marketing, commerce and consumer packaged goods.
1:43: With success stories, they are never actually linear.
1:47: There’s always something that happens along the way.
1:49: So what would you say is one piece of advice that someone has given you to attribute to your success?
1:54: The biggest piece of advice is go to everything and don’t be afraid to say hello to anyone. 2:03: Genuinely, I think any sort of industry in the arts, especially the events industry, is such a tight-knit community of people that are all either bouncing around to different networking groups or bouncing around to different jobs that you’ll just always, always, always meet the same people over and over again and form a really close connection with a lot of them.
2:27: So just go to everything and you’ll meet as many people as possible and really build that connection.
2:34: I would say always be seeking to help and serve people.
2:36: The more you’re willing to be there for others and the more willingness you have for that, the more doors get open for you.
2:43: I think especially as creatives and as musicians, this can be kind of a hostile industry, you know, we experience a lot of trials and tribulations.
2:49: There’s a lot of stuff that we go through.
2:55: Several circumstances, even throughout my life, the doors closing, another one’s opening and just having to trust that I’m gonna be in the right place.
3:00: And I remember my father told me that nothing is truly a failure if you learn something along the way, and I think that life throws us some curveballs and twists and turns and stuff like that, but if you treat it as something to glean from, something to learn from, I don’t think it’s ever something to hang your head down and consider a failure.
3:19: That is a good question.
3:21: I think success looks different for everybody, but, you know, for the most part I’ve had individuals say to me, stay true to who you are.
3:30: I take that advice wholeheartedly.
3:32: I’ll give you a fun fact, a little fun story.
3:34: I started with this company in 2001.
3:38: In different variations of the company, kind of throughout the publicists’ journey, but I was only supposed to be there 2 days answering phones, and it turned into 17.5 years before leaving for 6, and then being a boomerang and coming right back, and who would have thought that I would have started answering phones and now I am the head of talent, for an agency.
4:00: So just truly love what I do, truly love that someone was invested in me to help me to grow, to be this person that I am today, but I also enjoy the space that I’m in to help other individuals grow.
4:14: I can also give you a fun story.
4:15: I met a young lady here, I don’t know, maybe 6 years or so ago.
4:20: She landed at ARC for an internship a few years ago.
4:22: I didn’t remember her, but she reminded me that we met here and some advice that I had given her that she holds with her to this day, and I will share that with you because I think it’s very important for individuals that are listening in.
4:36: In order to be a great and impactful leader, you not only have to be great at what you are, or great at what you do, but also great at who you are.
4:45: After chopping it up with industry professionals, I took a break to go talk to some of the students to see how they felt about the career fair.
4:51: My name is Pedro Villa.
4:52: I’m a communication major and I go by he/him.
4:55: I’m Tyler.
4:55: My major is music technology.
4:57: My pronouns are they/them.
4:58: So before coming to this event, were there any companies that sparked your interest before coming?
5:03: Definitely, Sweetwater because I’m a big music head, so I absolutely knew I had to go to them as well as Fox News just because, since I’m a communications major, you know, they do a lot of writing, a lot of being in front of a camera, so those two are definitely on the top of my list.
5:18: I feel you on that.
5:19: I’m a radio major myself.
5:21: I’d actually come to the career event in spring for audio and music.
5:26: I’m a music tech. major, so I was really looking for Sweetwater.
5:29: That was kind of the only company that really stood out to me, music tech. is very limited in what we can really apply to, and on top of that, there’s only a few handful of actual audio companies that came here, so I was really just looking for Sweetwater.
5:45: What year are you to start off?
5:47: I’m a senior, so almost at the finish line.
5:50: So does it ever get nerve-wracking just knowing that you’re at the finish line and trying to figure out what’s gonna happen after college?
5:56: It’s more of a relief and stress at the same time because you’re trying to find a job while you’re leaving, but it’s also calming because, you know, you’re here to meet new people and network and get yourself out there.
6:08: Oh absolutely, I’m always constantly thinking about it, especially because I know our job market right now is really not that good so I’m glad I’m not a senior, no offense seniors, but I’m like I’m trying to wait as long as possible, but I’m really nervous trying to get an internship to get some job experience right now for the spring and the summer.
6:27: So hopefully when I get to that senior year I can say that “I have this experience, hire me please, please.”
6:33: Honestly, I’m very lucky to have my family.
6:35: And they’re such big supporters of me and honestly what calms me down is that even if things do not work out, I always have that safety net to go back to.
6:42: My family will always take me back, you know, I’m from Michigan, so if I have to move back home to Detroit and I can’t stay in Chicago, my family will welcome me with open arms and I can hopefully get my money up and maybe come back to Chicago another time to try again after I graduate.
6:58: So that is the one thing that’s helped me come is that I have that good support system.
7:07: Make sure to stay up to date with Campus and Metro News at Columbiachronicle.com.
7:12: I’m Cameron Johnson.
7:13: Thanks for listening.
7:14: And until next time.
Copy edited by Camila Verzino
