Blog
Alumni Career Advice
Embrace the Dynamic Playing Field of the Job Market
By Eddie Brennan ’19
June 24, 2022
Tags Arts & Entertainment
I was thrilled when asked by the Career Center to write about my career experience since leaving the Hill in 2019. It reminded me how important it is to celebrate the wide variety of jobs and industries that make up my resume. Growing up and throughout my undergraduate experience, I always heard the job market described as a stationary path that you enter and progress through, rather than the dynamic playing field that the current job market encourages.
Inspired by the liberal arts values that bolster the marketing industry, I dove head first into a variety of internship experiences. My first internship with The Fountainhead Group, a multi-national manufacturing company based locally in Utica, afforded me the opportunity to support the competitive research and brand strategy for a national sales launch in retailers like Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Walmart. Creative marketing stuck with me, and I soon found an outlet for my passion and drive to support the LGBTQ+ community in a part-time internship with Pride Media, the largest LGBTQ+ marketing agency in the U.S., and Stone Set Studio, a nimble creative strategy agency headed by a stand-out Hamilton alum. My internships allowed me to hone my project management and digital marketing skills in two vastly different companies with a myriad of world-class clients in the fashion, beauty, and tech industries. It was while strategizing creative ads for luxury fashion houses that I was first introduced to the business side of influencer marketing.
Growing up I consumed more YouTube content than television, finding community and creativity in the world of social media. It was through casting and digital marketing strategy at both Stone Set and Pride that I was introduced to the entertainment industry and Digital Brand Architects (DBA), the premier Influencer Management company in the United States. My next internship at DBA, propelled by both the Hamilton Internship Funding program and a semester “abroad” in New York City, afforded me the opportunity to scout talent and brainstorm creative strategy for some of the most influential tastemakers in the marketing industry, as well as work side by side with creators who had shaped my adolescence. The entertainment industry encouraged a fast pace, a blend of creative and strategic thinking, and authentic storytelling while cradling almost every industry, leading me to accepting a full time offer with DBA after graduation.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed every sector of the global economy, shifting industry and personal priorities for so many of us. I saw my passions shift to focus on the intersection of marketing and the vastly overused and contentious word “change.” I stepped away from DBA and shifted focus, utilizing my project management skills and branding experience to start my own consulting business that hosts a diverse portfolio of companies as they seek to tell their story and engage with their communities. From corporate philanthropy to AI-driven, sustainable agriculture, I couldn’t have imagined the winding path that my short post-grad career has taken, but it is the ever-learning, adaptive attitude encouraged by Hamilton that has emboldened me along the way.
