Public relations manager, Malorie Lucich, spoke during advisory on Wednesday, January 22, discussing her experiences in the media industry, what skills big corporations are looking for in today’s job market, and recommendations for graduating students going into the competitive world of internships.

Nearly every seat was filled in the Black Box at Vista when Vice Principal Lori Emmington, introduced Lucich, her former student, to the awaiting advisory students that afternoon saying, “She just bought a home in Oakland Hills … which goes to say just how well she has done for herself in her field.” 

Lucich graduated from Folsom High School in 2002 and went to San Francisco State University to major in print journalism. While she was in her junior year of college, the face of media changed and she had to “become more flexible” about the fields she wanted to work. She talked to her counselor about what to do, and they advised her about other ways she could use her skills in writing, like in public relations.

After searching for writing internships, Lucich started to expand her horizons. “There weren’t very many writing internships, it was almost impossible, but I found some PR internships,” Lucich said.

At the same time, she was working for American Eagle and freelancing for a magazine. “I was trying to throw in all these experiences into a toolkit so that by the time I graduated college I would have a different type of skill set.” She said it was important to have a variety of skills, because when you turn in your resume to your future employer, “You’re pretty much saying ‘I’m better than everyone else applying because of X, Y, and Z.’”

Lucich said several times how important it was for her to get internships and experience. “I wasn’t the smartest at school, I wasn’t the smartest in the internship, but I worked really hard. I was always the first one to have my hand up, and the first person to volunteer,”  she said.

Right out of college, she had an interview for a PR tech company in San Francisco. She got the internship there, despite her very little knowledge of what she was going to do, and she said that she learned to take internships.

Organizing a toolbox of skills through internships will help career-seekers in the long run when they are trying to get the jobs they really want. “Take internships during college, take internships after college to get to the next step. People who don’t take internships, or only look for internships for a very specific job … miss out on a lot of the fun stuff,” Lucich said.

Lucich moved on talking about her landing a job at Facebook on their, at that time, very small PR team. She worked there for about five years. “I started when the company was about 500 people,” she said, “and I left when the company was about 5,000.” She left Facebook because she felt she was “getting too comfortable” and wanted to challenge herself, so she asked colleagues to vouch for her to get an interview at Pinterest. She was offered a job to work there soon after and jumped at the chance. “I’ve been working for Pinterest for almost a year and it’s been, it’s just been great. Really great.”

Lucich finished her story to the advisory students by sharing her life lessons. “Find your thing and really focus on it, hone your skills, but don’t do it so much where you miss out on opportunities.”

She also commented on collecting a lot of different skill-sets. “Build your toolkit. You know, if you want to focus on writing, then focus on writing, but also, what else can you do?” She said to learn as many skills as possible.

Vista thanks Lucich for sharing her story on her success to us, and hopes to see her make Pinterest as big and famous as Facebook one day.

*Be sure to look for Vista del Lago’s own Pinterest page!