Last Tuesday, my professor brought Jacob Hribal as a guest lecturer during class. Jacob is a USF alumnus and took Professor Ritters class during his time as a Bull.
Currently, he works for a company called Assembly Global as a Senior Paid Search Manager.
During our class time, he covered many topics which included different bid strategies, the importance of a strong resume and finding proficient analysis techniques. Here are my biggest takeaways from the class:
We were very engaged when he talked about the pros and cons of working for a big advertising agency versus a small one. He explained it as three-tiers: global, mid-tier and boutique.
Working for a larger, more established company has its pros in job stability and pay as long as they keep their strongest clients. It can be possible to get lost in the sauce as an employee since you are working with hundreds of people.
On the flip side, working for a smaller, “boutique” agency may be a little less stable when it comes to job security, but it does have a stronger work culture since you are working with less people. It is also easier to talk to your CEO directly.
This advice was very helpful due to the fact that most of my class are juniors and seniors. We are at a point in our academic career where we are looking to take the next step, but with so many options, it is difficult to find which one suits us best.
His story from his time as being a student was very reassuring as well. While he was at USF, he was working full time as a bank teller and feared he didn’t have enough time to intern, similair to me.
It wasn’t until he went to one of Professor Ritter’s field trip where he was able to network and get his first job.
That made me laugh because when we took our field trip to MMG studios, I too took it as a time to network.
Jacob mentioned that his future goal after his time at Assembly Global is to work more on a client-side role. Since he has gained many years of experience in this field, it is possible.
For someone right out of college though, it might not be the best move since it does not have a lot of career growth in it.
Following that, I was able to speak to him briefly about what I wanted to do as a career, where he gave me advice and told us a story about how his friend would make local flyer for events at USF. Now, he works for the NBA's emailing advertisements.
Finally, he closed off his lecture talking about LinkedIn and Glassdoor.
Only a quarter of my class knew what Glassdoor was. This came to me as a shock since it is one of the most valuable tools I use when looking for jobs.
Overall, Jacob’s visit to my class was engaging and offered a strong perspective from someone who was just like us, to now working for an worldwide company.
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