It’s Not Personnel (or How I Fell in Love with Marketing)

My marketing class met last night, and I love hearing about my grad students’ career goals, their dreams… and their uncertainties. Very rarely is a career path clear or easy or linear.

As an MBA student, I interned in HR at NCR Corporation. Back then, it was called Personnel Resources—and to be honest, it felt pretty bleak. The only sparks of energy were my boss, Cheryl, and a few new grads.

Cheryl tasked me with coordinating campus recruiting visits, from choosing schools to managing budgets and logistics. It was supposed to be an HR project, but what I was really doing was marketing—market research, targeting segments (where to find engineers, managers, sales reps), refining messages for different audiences, and selling the company to the schools, and the schools to the executives.

By the end of that summer, I knew I loved marketing, so I added it as a second MBA concentration. My career path has evolved since, from corporate to academia. But that summer is when and where it all started.

How did you find your career path, or are you still searching?

Let’s chat!

See you tomorrow.