Making My Way Downtown… Birmingham
It all began in the fall of 2016. I was recently graduated from Ferris State University and excited to begin my career at Shift Digital as a digital marketing consultant. The role itself was outside of my public relations comfort zone, but it was an opportunity to immediately apply and expand my skillsets in an agency atmosphere. Plus, Shift itself was/is living up to the “Cool Places to Work” standards: open office space, fast-paced environment, great benefits, snack/lunch perks, gym membership. Why wouldn’t I be excited?
From the first day, I dove deep into the subject matter of all-things Shift and my specific role. I was inhaling multiple different training opportunities, job shadows, plus company and team events. The days were busy yet filled with fun! This type of learning environment is continuous at Shift and continued steadily for my first month, which is when I really began fulfilling my daily responsibilities independently. It became clear to my managers I nearly mastered my daily responsibilities as a consultant roughly a year later, and they could see I was hungry for more.
I began taking on more company-wide projects and shadowing subject matter experts (SMEs) across different teams to gain an understanding of the topics they have become experts in (e.g., analytics, digital advertising, operations, etc.). For me, personally, given my public relations background, I was originally interested in operations. However, digital advertising quickly became a new passion of mine.
DigAd is a universal language at Shift and the marketing industry overall. Yet again, I was excited –especially when roughly six months later the DigAd SME role became available within my team. This role would be in addition to my current consultant role, which was overwhelming at times. Although, it was well worth it due to the other exposure I was receiving working with external vendors, creating and managing team-wide training opportunities, and serving as the primary source of everything related to DigAd for my team.
I was LOVING every minute of my elevated consultant role, and, only a few months later, was promoted to senior digital consultant (SDC). During this time, the primary company-wide project I shifted my focus to was becoming Shift’s Brand Ambassador, which was responsible for creating, managing, and maintaining Shift’s social media presence.
As you can see, I was obviously keeping busy, but I could not stop thinking about my career long-term – What am I truly passionate about? How does that and my public relations background apply at Shift? Who has a similar role that leverages the skillset I possess? Then, it dawned on me… account management.
My first, true exposure to account management-type work was when I was invited to attend a client conference on behalf of Shift. This is when I had a full-circle moment of Shift as a company as well as in my career. I was in awe.
Fast forward four months, after multiple internal resume submissions later, I landed my first account management role as a program specialist with a different project and client. As a program specialist, I spent two-and-a-half years applying the same amount of drive, passion, and eagerness to learn, which led me to where I am today.
I am now solely working in account management as a program manager for the same client I began my journey with at Shift - talk about full circle moment 😉. Reflecting on my time at Shift thus far, I am grateful Shift has been so much more than a “job” for me. Shift is the place where my career started and flourished, which only leaves me optimistic for my future and everyone else that works here.
Cheers to many more years of learning, laughter, and growth!