Sophie O'Sullivan, Graduate Client Associate, Core Media

Who what does your role involve?

There is no such thing as a normal week in my role in Starcom, which is the offline media agency within Core Media. So I’m working in the ‘traditional’ media of TV, Press and Radio. I decide what ads are going to be seen here, whether that’s in newspapers, on television or on radio. So a lot of my work is planning. I help devise and maintain campaigns, which includes when an advert will run, before or after a popular television show for example, and then relay this information to clients. I also do a lot of post-campaign analysis, which helps us plan what to do and what not to do for forthcoming campaigns. We also have a lot of team meetings so we know what the various teams within the agency are working on, and see what opportunities there are there. We also have a lot of meetings with clients, which include major media outlets such as RTE and the Irish Times.

What skills do you need to be successful at your job?

The number one is organisation, you really need to be as organised as you were during the first week of college, except you need to be like that all the time! It’s about knowing what’s going on in a lot of areas at any one time so confidence is very important, you need to be able to voice your opinions at meetings and with colleagues and clients.

Did studying business help you career choice?

In college we covered aspects of a lot of areas, such as accountancy, HR and logistics and supply chain management. So that background was great, it means that I can be adaptable. However it was when I started doing marketing that I understood that this was where I would like to work. It’s about sound, imagery, colour and being creative, things I was really passionate about. In third year, when I had to choose what to specialise in, it had to be marketing, I knew it wasn’t going to be anything else. For me, marketing is like colour, there’s so much you can do with it, and make a real impact!