Rebeka is Marketing Coordinator at Cognizant Technology Solutions, where she implements email marketing campaigns, helps with in-house web design, and coordinates trade shows for Comcast, a major client.
Managing Relationships
Rebeka’s day-to-day work is in digital marketing and public relations, but the root of her job comes down to relationship management.
She’s empathetic and warm, and because she relates so well to people, her favorite part of her job is event planning.
In a technical environment, she credits her outgoing personality with helping her to quickly assume a great deal of responsibility during her time at Cognizant.
Even though the technology industry is not somewhere I thought I would end up, it’s been an incredible learning opportunity. I’ve gained not only professional experience, but confidence in my ability to excel in industries I’m unfamiliar with.
Climbing to the Top
While living in her home state of New York, Rebeka started searching for the country’s best Journalism schools, and landed at UGA. Athens quickly became home, but she was determined to improve her education through travel. In 2010 she taught English in Tanzania, during which time she had the opportunity to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
Reaching the summit was a formative experience, and Rebeka set out to climb again. During her junior year, she traveled to Nepal. To get there, she connected with a businessman seeking access to the U.S. hiking market — Rebeka met him, helped brand his company, and took promotional photos with his business banner at the base of Mt. Everest.
After receiving her degree, Rebeka was hired by a PR agency in Boston, and spent a year working with consumer clients. She worked as an Account Coordinator at SHIFT Communications, where she pitched news outlets to increase her clients’ presence in industry-related publications, and reported analytics for clients’ PR campaigns. She enjoyed her work in Boston, but found that agency work was too generalized to serve her career goals. By working in-house at Cognizant, she’s able to focus on only one client, making her skill set more specialized.
Networking in the Digital Age
As an undergraduate, Rebeka was highly involved with Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), and she coordinated events for the Grady School of Journalism. After planning and coordinating ADPR Connection – a networking event that brought more than 50 companies to campus, she realized how valuable event planning is to building a network and communicating across disparate industries.
But online marketing and real-life networking go hand-in-hand. Rebeka calls LinkedIn “a big deal.” At a recent training event where she didn’t know anyone, she used LinkedIn to connect with attendees in advance, and emailed to follow-up on introductions afterward.
I do a lot of research before I talk to someone. I try and find something he or she has done, so I have something in my back pocket as a way to relate. I prepare to explain what I do, what I’ve done, and what it brings to my company.