From Agency to In-House (feat. Julia Waneka)
Episode 29
In this episode of Everything Speaks, host Lee Caraher talks to Julia Waneka, communications director at Whistle, a pet tech company in San Francsico. Together they discuss the importance of your first internship, and how it can set you on your path for future success.
Key takeaways:
- Internships are the way to get work.
- Use your internship to suss out your strengths as well as identify the topics and where you don’t know very much and therefore still have a lot to learn.
- If you’re deciding between an internship at an agency vs. an internship in-house at a company, remember agencies are set up to train whereas a lot of companies are not set up to train in the PR function.
- Another thing to consider if you are choosing between a communications role at an agency or a company is that at an agency you are surrounded by people who understand what you do and can help you hone your skills and ideas. In-house, your “peers” may be engineers and sales and operations.
- Don’t get hung up on changing your title every few years. Titles are not an indication of growth. Some titles refer to a function and the function can grow over time.
- Understand what interests you and learn all about that. Commit yourself to becoming an expert of that, because this industry changes so fast and if you have a focus and a core and a curiosity you’re always going to be motivating yourself and finding new paths.
- Be nice and work hard.
