Ready to meet an Autodesk Brand Manager? Kassidi Sorensen has been busy for the last 6 months creating and finding only the best content to post on all our social media channels. You’ve seen some of her work on Instagram @AutodeskLife, and she hopes you will see her on the TV show Survivor soon, as she’s HUGE fan of the show Survivor and has seen all 41 seasons since the show began.
Question: What degree did you graduate with, and how has it affected your career? Or, what education / training do you have that has helped with your role?
Kassidi: I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Washington State University. I always loved social media and content creation, so I took on PR leadership positions in campus organizations and even offered to manage social media for small businesses in my college town to get experience. I used YouTube and LinkedIn Learning to teach myself all the content creation basics – design, photography, video editing, etc. I also earned free certifications from organizations like Google, HubSpot, and more to further my knowledge in this space.
Question: How would you describe your role at Autodesk? What does a typical workday look like? Which skills and qualities are important to be successful in your role?
Kassidi: Instead of marketing our software solutions to clients, I market Autodesk as a great place to work to prospective candidates by highlighting our company culture! We do this through social media marketing, paid advertising, partnerships, and more. A typical day for me is spent identifying employees with amazing stories to tell, working with them to articulate their story, creating content to share it in an engaging way, and ultimately giving them a platform to share their “AutodeskLife” journey. Some technical skills that help with this are experience with the Adobe Creative Cloud software – all things photography, graphic design, and video editing. Also, media buying/campaign management experience helps me a lot too. Less technical skills that help me are stakeholder management, curiosity, creativity, and staying on top of research and trends in digital marketing and talent acquisition!
Question: What do you find interesting about your role? What are the challenges? What do you find satisfying about your work?
Kassidi: I selfishly think I have one of the coolest jobs at Autodesk because I get to hear so many amazing stories from people who work here. It can be hard to connect with others in a virtual world, but the nature of what I do introduces me to some really awesome people who are accomplishing seriously impressive things. It’s satisfying to hear from Talent Acquisition when candidates call out specific posts from our AutodeskLife social media channels in their interviews that resonated with them. The challenges? There are SO many amazing stories here, and our team is small right now so it’s a lot of ground to cover. We’re also hiring more people than ever, so our small but mighty team is very in demand from the recruiting side, which means lots of prioritizing, expectation setting, and proactive communication. These are good challenges to have though because it means there’s a lot of passion and energy behind what we do
Question: What advice would you give to a student who is interested in pursuing a role like yours?
Kassidi: Just because you don’t have paid job experience in digital marketing/social media management doesn’t mean you can’t find it elsewhere before you graduate. For example, I learned everything I know through experience. I spent time learning technical content creation skills on YouTube and LinkedIn Learning and getting free certifications that were specialized to my career goals, then I started practicing. By volunteering to manage PR and social media on campus and at local businesses, I was able to start an online portfolio to showcase all my project work relevant to my career goal. Because of this, I was able to land a Digital Marketing Specialist job right after graduating. I didn’t have an internship, but I did have 2-3 years of hands-on experience while I got my degree. My manager from that job still says that my portfolio was what made her hire me!
Are you ready to start a Social Media role at Autodesk after reading that interview? Let Kassidi know if you have any questions, and make sure to follow #AutodeskLife on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook!
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