Name: Kristine Esser Slentz Studied: English and Creative Writing, 2010 Current Position: Sr. Search Media Networker at Slingshot SEO in Indianapolis, IN
How did you get to Purdue?
“The beginning of my college career began at the commuter college, Purdue North Central. I was trying to find the right University to transfer to and knew many people at several different colleges around the state. Through my personal social network I got to get to know the atmosphere and curriculum of many of these schools on a more granular level and decided that Purdue University was the right one for me.
I transferred to Purdue University for my sophomore year to study English and Creative Writing. Once I got to the campus, and fell in love with it, I decided that it was time to start looking for extracurricular activities to supplement my degree, plus I just really needed a job. What would be a good job for an English major? Writing for the student newspaper of course!
One night shortly following I found myself at the Exponent for the Advertising Sales department callout. This was because that was the only callout currently happening for the Exponent. My thoughts were that once something opened in the newsroom I would just move to that department but get to know the paper really well in the meantime. Fortunately, I grew to really enjoy my time in the ad department and decided to stay. This decision, while I didn’t know it at the time, would pay off later in my career even though it didn’t exactly align with my goals at the time.”
What did you do after college to grow professionally?
“After college I had a very unique skillset that many of my peers did not. I had a writing degree with an advertising, marketing and sales background. Now, what was I going to do with that? A little lost right after college, not really knowing where exactly go with my career and during a reception, I took a promotions internship at an ecommerce company. Most of the online promotions I was doing involved some kind of integration of search engine optimization, SEO. This kind of piqued my interest because it was all about finding ways to get your content written in such a way that was appealing to the writer as well as a search engine. Alright, SEO, challenge accepted. This was when I took a strictly SEO internship and once again, fell in love!”
What was working for Slingshot SEO like?
“Shortly after I accepted an offer at Slingshot SEO and began making SEO and inbound marketing my career! Slingshot SEO is an agency in Indianapolis that is dedicated to promoting digital relevance for deserving brands. This is the kind of thinking I wanted to align myself with. Right now the industry is making some great changes, which is nothing new for the only 14-year-old trade, to becoming more of an inbound marketing practice. This means more marketing and less worrying about what the bots think of your marketing content.”
What suggestions do you have for current students?
“I suggest going after what really interests you with full force. Learn as m
uch as you can because the distinctive skillset you come out with could be the next up-and-coming industry. Use your network on all social media channels to job hunt and find the next awesome opportunity.”
