Name: Anna Wenner

Age: 23

College Majors: English and History Minor: Global and International Studies

Current Location: Kansas City, MO

Current Form of Employment: Editor at Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I work at Hallmark Cards, Inc. as an Associate Editor making greeting cards.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different).

Although I did have some part time jobs and internships in college, this was my first full time job. In January of my junior year I applied for dozens of internships, most of which I never heard back from. Honestly, it felt like I could have been tossing my resume to the wind and had the same effect, which was pretty disheartening. Then I got a call back from Hallmark for their Writing/Editorial Internship. The application for this internship probably took me the most time out of any of those that I applied for. It involved creating a portfolio of greeting card samples and insight as well as submitting more standard application pieces such as a resume and cover letter. Then, when I got called back, I still had an interview to get through. Although it took time, it was well worth it because I got the editorial internship. That summer I interned at Hallmark's main headquarters in Kansas City, MO and later that year I was given a full time job offer to be an editor at Hallmark.

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

My junior year in college I was the editor for the opinion section of the University Daily Kansan, the KU student newspaper. This job was great as a resume builder, but more than that, it was a great experience toward learning what I liked and didn't like about editing. In this position I read and edited about fifteen opinion pieces per week, which meant that in order to save time, I had to adapt to reading faster, giving only the most important comments as feedback for the writer, and honing in quickly on the meat of an argument and whether it was well made. Moving quickly for the paper as an editor (and in other roles that I served on the paper before and after my stint as an editor) taught me the importance of deadlines and helped me learn to balance speed and accuracy in my work.

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

More internships hands down. It didn't really feel necessary to me to apply for internships until the summer of my junior year, and honestly, that was coming into it pretty late in the game. I lucked out because the first internship I did in college turned out to be something I really wanted to do full time, but that's not always the case. For instance, during high school I did an internship at a newspaper and while I loved the experience, it made me pretty confident that I didn't actually want to be a reporter like I thought I did. If I'd done more internships either during school or during breaks, I could have felt more sure about what sort of job I was (and perhaps just as important, wasn't) looking for. For me doing more internships wasn't entirely feasible because I studied abroad the summer of my sophomore year and I worked a lot every other break, but I do think I could have made it more of a priority to find internships.

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

I have two pieces of advice for my fellow English majors:

1) People told me constantly that I wouldn't know what I wanted to do for a living in high school because there were so many jobs out there that I'd never heard of before. They were right.

If you'd asked me in high school what I thought I'd be doing by now, I'm sure I wouldn't have answered that I'd be making greeting cards, because honestly while I knew someone had to be the person putting the words on greeting cards, I never imagined it was a job I could actually have. Being at Hallmark has made me realize how many awesome, entirely unheard of jobs there are out there.

2) Take that weird, non-writing related job. The stranger the better.

The job I'm asked about most often off my resume is never something writing related—it's my part time job at a cemetery.

I spent every break for several years returning to my hometown and working in the office of a cemetery there. I helped digitize their records by doing data entry, and did some investigative work to try and recover records that had been destroyed by a fire a few decades ago. There was nothing remotely writing or editing related about this job, but it's come up in every interview I've ever had. Why? Because let's be honest, it's a talking point. From my point of view, I was better off taking a strange paid job than doing a handful of more stereotypical "English major" roles at my college. Don't get me wrong—English major related experiences are really important for all the reasons I listed before, but I do think a weird job helps you stand out. It helps too if you can tie it back to whatever you're applying for. For instance, I usually said something about how working on rebuilding the lost records in the cemetery taught me to think outside the box and explore new avenues for answers.

You can connect with Anna on LinkedIn here, and follower her on Instagram here.

Name: Jenna Stolfi

Age: 27

College & Majors/Minors: English with an emphasis in Creative Writing; Minor in Communications

Current Location: South Florida

Current Form of Employment: Gallery Manager, Writer, and Researcher

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I currently am the Gallery Manager, Writer, and Researcher for Daniels Antiques, a luxury antiques business.

This is not your grandma's dusty old antique shop. We specialize in selling polished WWII Binoculars, antique Louis Vuitton trunks, vintage coin-op and arcade machines, antique slot machines, and contemporary art. It is an eclectic, museum-quality collection that is a testament to both human ingenuity and a bygone era.

Jenna Stolfi in the Daniels Antiques Gallery

As the writer and researcher, I am responsible for all written content, which includes all social media accounts, email correspondences, product descriptions, marketing materials, and the blog. I learn something new every day.

My challenge each day is to make each of our items come to life, whether it be through the content I disseminate via various online channels, or through the spoken word when I am educating or selling to a prospective buyer.

As I have transitioned into taking over more responsibilities on the gallery management side of things, I have learned more about business operations than I ever expected to.

I think if I would have gone into a larger corporation, my position would have been a lot more narrow in scope. As one of four members of the business, I have many different responsibilities. This amount of responsibility has increased my skill set in ways I never could have imagined. I have learned the art of negotiation, learned accounting practices, and even become well-versed in shipping logistics, all while building my writing portfolio.

While at first it may be appealing to go right after the big companies when you begin your job search, don't rule out smaller family-owned or local businesses, where you can become an integral member of a team.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different).

When I first got out of college, the entry-level jobs I was most interested in were either unpaid or very low-paying jobs in expensive cities that would have required a cross-country move. I was apprehensive about going into debt or getting in over my head financially.

While I continued my job search, I became a full-time server. I was fortunate to work at a high-volume restaurant for most of my tenure, and found that the flexible schedule and the pay afforded me a great opportunity: time and money. I was able to take on additional side-jobs regardless of what I was being paid.

Social media and the internet are absolutely great for finding opportunities, but it is important to thoroughly research any person or company you are going to work for, especially if it is unpaid. There are a lot of people and businesses out there that try to exploit aspiring writers or recent graduates, so exercise caution if anything seems off. Always trust your intuition.

I was fortunate to work with a few great non-profits and small businesses that needed content for their websites but were too busy and too understaffed to create content on their own. I volunteered my services for free in order to build my portfolio.

This strategy worked, and the writing experience that I gained while working as a server allowed me to transition into the next stage of my career, which was becoming the full-time writer and researcher at Daniels Antiques.

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

While it wasn't a job, one of the most important decisions I have made so far in my career was to pursue the Professional Sequence in Editing through University of California-Berkeley's Online Extension. I began this program while I was a server, and completed it while I was in my current position.

I wanted to supplement the creative skills I had practiced in my undergrad with the technical side of my craft, which is editing. This sequence begins with a much-needed refresher in grammar and mechanics, something that you don't actually spend much time on in an English degree! The middle two courses focus on copyediting, and the final course immerses you in substantive editing.

This sequence buttressed my confidence as both a writer and editor. I learned things that have helped organize my writing that I never would have thought of, such as style sheet generation. I also met a great group of diverse, virtual classmates who shared their wide range of experiences in different realms of both the writing and editing profession.

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

When I was in college, I jumped at any opportunity that was put before me. If there was a club that sounded interesting, I attended the meeting. If a professor was looking for researchers, I volunteered.

I always pushed myself to try something new and to get outside of my comfort zone, which is a spirit that I continue to feed in my post-grad life. You never really know which opportunity will either directly or indirectly take you where you want to go.

I would say one of the most formative experiences of my college career was participating in the required advanced writing workshops. The workshops were no more than 18 people, and you were required to write a piece of either fiction or a small collection of poetry, and pass it out to every member of the workshop. Then, for a full class period, you had to sit in silence while everyone discussed your work. You could not defend your work, you could not clarify anything. All you could do was listen.

It was both a petrifying and illuminating experience that taught me how to handle constructive criticism. It taught me how to put myself out there, and also how to look someone in the eye and stand by my work.

If you are trying to become a professional writer or journalist, in the beginning so much of what you do involves the process of writing queries and submitting. It is a trying and difficult process that requires both vulnerability and detachment from yourself and your work. Workshops are an invaluable tool that can help you callous the skin you will undoubtedly need to be a writer.

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

Read as much as possible, all the time. Read books on craft, read books for fun. Ingest as many words as you can stand.

If you are trying to get published, many publications will put their contributor guidelines on their websites. Do the research. I recommend making a Twitter account to follow literary magazines, editors, other writers, and publications you want to submit to so you can get a good idea of what they are already publishing.

Explore all of your options when it comes to picking your career path. I never would have imagined myself working in a gallery, but I wouldn't change it for anything. Apply to jobs whether or not you think you have the experience. Try to add to your portfolio whenever you can.

English degrees can be one of the most valuable degrees out there because of their versatility. People are consuming so much information each day thanks to the internet. I don't think there has ever been a more important time than now to be able to write well and communicate clearly, and I don't think that's ever going to change.