>> I studied at Millersville University.
I went for two and a half years and I studied speech communication and public relations.
I graduated in 2011 and when I graduated in December I thought PR
and communication was my heart's desire and that's my career path.
When I graduated the recession was still pretty bad and I was competing with people in the PR
and communication industry that had ten, 15 years of experience that were applying
to entry level positions and I wasn't getting really any callbacks so I had been working
with TriStar when I was in school and I said "Hey, I'm still not working fulltime
if there's anything that you can have that I can work for income," so they actually sent me
to a school district for an HR specialist role, had no experience with HR,
had no desire to go into that whatsoever.
I was there for six months and absolutely fell in love with the hiring game,
fell in love with the people interaction, benefits, really being a help to people
that you know they're coming to you if they have a benefits question.
They're really frustrated trying to make them feel like they're important because a lot
of times in a large organization people can feel like a number and not a name and not a face.
So really like the personal aspect of it.
After I was there and that assignment ended I actually got a fulltime job at a nonprofit
and I was there for a year and a half and they went through some restructuring
so I was laid off which was not the best experience but networking is really key
in any profession but I actually was laid off on a Tuesday, called up the staffing agency
that same Tuesday actually an hour after I was laid off.
They had an internal opening, got me scheduled for an interview the next day,
interviewed on Wednesday not even 48 hours later I was called saying they had an opening.
They would like to hire me and then I started the following Monday.
So I was laid off for less than a week.