My Path to (and through) Prosek: Never Stop Learning

When I received Prosek’s post-graduate internship offer in August 2009, I was so eager to accept that I forgot to ask if it was a paid position or not. This was a somewhat important detail as I was relocating from Pennsylvania to Connecticut for the temporary gig. Thankfully, I had some generous relatives offering me a place to stay—but after a summer of unemployment, I probably should have been a bit more concerned with whether I’d be able to buy a few meals.

At the time, my earning potential wasn’t exactly top of mind. Four months earlier I had graduated from Penn State with a degree in public relations. But I walked off the commencement stage right into the wall the Great Recession. The financial crisis was in full swing and the unemployment rate hadn’t yet peaked when I collected my diploma in May 2009. It was a rough time to begin one’s career.

It wouldn’t be fair to blame my situation just on the economy, though. While I had a good degree, some solid internships under my belt, and decent enough grades, I had no PR agency experience and even less of an idea of how to actually apply my skills to the working world. My only shot was to get my foot in the door at an agency, and hope something resembling a career resulted down the line.

My goals broadened as the job search wore on, and I widened the net of the search itself as the weeks and months passed. Along with my dream goal of a PR agency spot, I pursued marketing gigs, sales positions, and so much more. Fun fact – I probably hold some kind of record for the shortest tenure in the consumer electronics retail industry, having accepted a job at Best Buy just 18 hours before the offer from Prosek came in😊.

But for all my shortcomings, I was at least smart enough to realize the opportunity in front of me, after I networked my way into an introductory interview with Prosek. The firm of ~35 people – then called CJP Communications – saw it fit to give me a shot as a post-graduate intern, and before they could change their mind, I packed up my possessions into my 2003 Honda Civic and wound my way northward up I-95 to Stratford, CT.

I was then quickly thrust into the world of financial agency communications. This was an interesting development for someone who had a hard time even understanding the day one paperwork to set up direct deposit for my paychecks (yes, the internship was paid. Big relief!). I might not have been a finance junkie, but I loved to learn and explore. Buoyed by the opportunity to prove myself, I gave it my best shot and was grateful to receive a full-time job offer a few months later.

So that’s the story of how I landed at Prosek. The story of why I’ve stayed for 15 years is a little different.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to guest lecture in many classrooms, speak at recruiting events, and interview hundreds of job candidates. The question I’ve been asked the most is “what is the most important trait for success in this field/at Prosek?”

My answer, every time, is “intellectual curiosity.” You don’t have to be passionate about asset management (or whatever industries your clients sit in). You don’t have to love writing press releases. You don’t have to live for crisis situations. But what you absolutely need to love is learning.

Learning makes reinvention possible. And the simple fact is, most people can’t last at the same place without reinventing themselves a bit. I’ve had the opportunity to do this on several occasions at Prosek.

First, I developed my focus areas – commercial banking, then adding insurance, and branching out to professional services. I dipped into special situations, project management, branding, content development, and internal communications. Taking after the person who gave me my first shot (ty Steve!), I was the internship and PA program coordinator for our Connecticut office for many years, recruiting, hiring, and mentoring entry-level folks into the industry and firm. Wayyyy back in the day, I even ran Prosek’s Twitter account, which for anyone familiar with my (lack of) fondness for social media, is a wild thought today.

Along my ever-weaving path, a tickle of an idea began to form. I had been increasingly drawn to the power of harnessing data to tell stories and prove trends. Over time, this tickle turned into an itch. I began looking for new ways to not only amplify stories, but to measure and communicate success and potential pivot points for campaigns. That itch turned into a hunger, and before long, I was pitching to anyone who would listen my desire to help in the launch of a dedicated Data and Analytics practice at Prosek (which would no doubt have to be properly founded by folks who had a deep expertise in the space).

That wish came true a few years later, as I started to split my focus between PR and Data and Analytics. After two years of that, I tacked on the newest part of my “path through Prosek,” focusing nearly exclusively in our growing data and analytics practice.

It may seem like an abrupt shift, but the truth is, my prior life as a PR practitioner has been a big help in my career change. The key skill: the ability to translate. From clearly articulating complex finance and B2B concepts to end users, to teaching new joiners the ins and outs of how Prosek and the industry operates, to communicating to a CEO who doesn’t speak in comms jargon why a campaign was a huge success, so much of what is required of us is the ability to translate.

Communicating the impact that comms activities have on the business bottom line is hard – not just because actual, causal links are few and far between, but because the language of data and statistics is inherently opposed to that of typical linguistics.

The human mind seeks to understand causality, but proper analysis can typically only point to correlation. A more rigorous analysis often yields a more nuanced conclusion… but the audience wants a headline. By clearly and responsibly framing – translating! – the nuance in way that still allows for conclusions to be drawn, data analysts provide value.

I’m fortunate that the culture at Prosek celebrates curiosity. If it didn’t, I’d of turned that Civic back around after my post-graduate internship wrapped in December 2009, and I would have still been in a much better place than I was previously. But ultimately, I’m grateful to have spent my career in a place that didn’t force me to stay in one lane, but instead encouraged me to explore new ones. Fifteen years in, I’m still learning, still translating, and still curious. And still very much on the path.