Success story: Senior gets full-time offer from marketing firm

Success Stories | Sep 24, 2015 | Gabelli School of Business

Benjamin Phillips

Benjamin Phillips, BS ’16, knows right where he’s going to be working when he graduates this May. Exactly what will his responsibilities be? He’ll find out soon enough.

Phillips, a Gabelli School of Business business administration major who is concentrating in entrepreneurship and marketing, has a standing offer from IPG Mediabrands, a company with a number of marketing and media subsidiaries, for a full-time position after he finishes his degree.

“My offer is good for any position available under IPG Mediabrands, so it’s not exactly a specific position, like in finance and accounting where an investment bank hires you for a specific spot,” Phillips, of Bernardsville, N.J., explained.

In the spring, he will call IPG and discuss what jobs are available, see what the best fit is for him, “and then go from there.”

Phillips received his offer after his successful completion of a summer internship with initiative, a company under the IPG Mediabrands umbrella, where he worked on advertising pitches for large companies.

“I did everything from helping film small videos to working on presentation decks,” Phillips said. He participated in six pitches during his internship.

He and another intern worked together and were given a lot of responsibility. Phillips said that made him feel like a part of the team.

Combined with what the company called a residency – in which Phillips and other interns met regularly with senior officers from a variety of companies – the experience, the 21-year-old said, was “an awesome program.”

There was no assigned seating at initiative, Phillips said, a situation which led to his meeting a lot of people and sharing a lot of experiences.

“On any given day I sat next to the CEO of North America or the chief strategy officer or somebody who was an associate and only a year older than me,” Phillips recalled.