By Samantha Jehnings, Senior Communication Studies Major
Attending the University of San Francisco for all four years of his college career, Talarman has taken his degrees and applied them throughout PR locations in San Francisco.
What year did you start your academics at USF, and what year did you graduate?
I started my academic career at USF in 2010 and graduated in 2014.
Jacob Talarman, University of San Francisco graduate
I graduated with a communication studies major and a minor in advertising, as well as creative writing.
Did you participate in any extracurricular activities when you attended USF?
Yes, for my first three years I was on the men’s soccer team, and my last year I was on the men’s club soccer team.
Were you able to have internships in college since you were playing a sport?
My sophomore to senior year I worked in the athletic department for the marketing team, which was a really good experience, and it was really convenient because I was already always in the athletic department. I also worked with community outreach and alumni relations, which was in another part of the athletic department.
How soon after graduating did you find a job?
Well I traveled for about a year after college, and then once I got back, I got an internship for DocuSign, which is a truck moving company, and I worked in corporate PR for them.
How long did you intern for DocuSign, and how soon after did you find your next job?
I interned at DocuSign for about three months and then decided I wanted to work in agency PR and try and find something that I enjoyed doing more. After I left my internship at DocuSign, it took me about another eight months to find an internship. The internship I got next eventually turned into the full-time job that I have now.
Where do you currently work and what do you do daily?
Currently I work for Voce Communications, where I got a full-time job after interning for them for about eight months. I work as an associate client executive right now, so I have different accounts that I work on where I help draft press releases and media alerts and what not. I also handle setting up the dates and times for meetings in my accounts.
Do you think that your minor in creative writing has helped you with your PR jobs?
Yeah, I think that having that as a minor really benefited me because PR is all about creating stories and helping other people who might not be interested in the topic find relevance for wanting to know about it. A lot of people I work with are very smart but don’t always understand how to formulate ideas in a way where a diverse group of people can find the information relevant. So, I think that having that background is really useful for my job.
In the future, what do you see yourself doing?
Since I love sports I would love to be able to get a PR job inside of a sports company, specifically soccer. But if I can do soccer specifically I would love to try and get into any type of sports PR. It is different than the PR that I currently do so it might take me a while to get there. If that specifically doesn’t work I just want to narrow my focus and find something that I could talk about day in and day out.
What advice would you give to students that are currently enrolled at USF?
Honestly one of my biggest regrets is not going to the career fairs and the other events that had potential employers because you can get such an idea of employer’s expectations across the board. Even if companies that you couldn’t see yourself working for are there, the foundational expectations employers have tend to be pretty universal so it’s always helpful to attend those. What I think is most important though is to build relationships with your professors. Obviously, you don’t have to try and be close with all your professor’s but there are always at least one or two that you are drawn to and making that connection is really important. When you make those connections, you can always go to them for advice and it could even produce in potential job connections.
