Today’s Alumni Spotlights shines onto 2009 Communication Studies graduate Aljanae Foster. Aljanae is the Public Relations Coordinator for Elan Pharmaceuticals. Let’s catch up with her!
I asked Aljanae how she landed her job at Elan: “I actually received the job by networking. I was the assistant manager of a bank and I frequently talked to one of my customers about wanting to get into PR. She just so happen to be the SVP of Corporate Relations at Elan and when I was having trouble finding an internship after graduation she offered me the opportunity to be her intern. I didn’t have to interview or anything they just gave me the job. After interning for a few months the dept executive admin was going on maternity leave and they thought that I’d been doing such a great job and promoted to me to a coordinator so that I could fill in for her while she was on leave, and I’ve been here ever since.”
Communication Studies grad Aljanae Foster
As a the Public Relations Coordinator, Aljanae supports the Corporate Relations team with any day to day PR task such as meeting scheduling and calendar management, event coordination and production, reporter interfacing, and planning and support for public relations activities. The best part of Aljanae’s job? Planning employee events. “I’ve had the opportunity to be the head person on a number of employee events and parties and it’s such a rewarding feeling to see all your hard work is appreciated. I get tons of compliments about how great the events are now.”
Given that we have a number of soon-to-be Communication Studies grads out there who will be looking for jobs, I asked Aljanae to share any advice she has on the job hunt. “With this economy it’s all about who you know and not what you know. The best advice I can give is network, network, and network. Meeting new people and building relationships in the industry you want to work in can provide many opportunities that simply just sending in a resume to a company cannot.”
Thanks for the advice, Aljanae, and congratulations on your position! What are you up to alums? Contact me at edoohan@usfca.edu to be profiled in a future Alumni Spotlight!
