I was in the last place I thought I’d be when I heard about Hoffman’s public relations internship program: Disney World.
While visiting my sister in Orlando, I learned about the program when Tori Quinn, Hoffman’s talent acquisition manager, messaged me asking if I’d be interested in having a conversation about it.
With every sentence Tori said, Hoffman sounded more and more like an ideal first agency to work at post-grad.
This was reaffirmed through three interviews, where I met seven Hoffman employees who were all so nice and positive that I thought, What am I going to do if this doesn’t work out? “Catastrophize” is my middle name.
Despite four years of college passing by, I’d always felt that entering the professional PR world seemed far away. Of course, I always knew I would graduate and try to find a job, but truthfully, when I looked to my future, I felt like I was out of my body and looking at a different person.
Regardless, though, I walked across Newark, New Jersey’s Prudential Center stage in May and felt ready to step into my new professional life — or at least apply for it.
After five months of searching every day for jobs, the offer to work at Hoffman felt like a culmination of hard work. To have a role where I could apply what I studied made me so excited … so excited that I was completely unprepared for the overwhelm I would feel the first week.
The new schedule, complex clients and new people left my brain working overtime on the first day. I’m shy, I’m introverted, and by the end of the first week, I was completely unsure if I was capable of working in an agency. Then, the next Monday came around. I took a breath, and I was fine.
I tend to live in the future, but each day, I try to remind myself to take things day by day. It’s an adjustment, and it’s supposed to be.
In fact, I found PR to help with adjusting to college.
Originally an English major (for half of my first semester), I switched to PR on a whim for its structured creativity, even though I didn’t completely understand what it was. Luckily, when I took my first Writing for the Media class, I knew I was in the right place, and classes, internships, PRSSA and my school’s student-run PR firm only confirmed this. It was strategic and creative, letting me apply writing and improve my speaking.
Now? I’m excited to learn more. My previous internship was at a small, completely remote agency and focused on architecture, so Hoffman is different in so many ways. I can’t wait to dive in more to see how an agency functions when there are several offices in a fast-paced industry.
I hit my stride during my last year, maybe even my last semester of college, so leaving just while I was starting to enjoy it was hard.
Post-grad, I’ve compared myself a lot to my classmates, who all seemed to have no trouble finding jobs, which led me to feel absolutely frantic. I wish I could tell the May/June/July/August version of myself that the job for me would land in my LinkedIn inbox while I was on vacation.
In my free time, I like to unwind by watching TV and reading, and my favorite things to do are teaching and taking dance classes.
