Alumni Career Connections events are back in full swing at Binghamton University.
On Nov. 12, the Alumni Association and the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development hosted Delaney Ratzky, ‘17 at the Benet Alumni Lounge in Old O’Connor Hall. Ratzky, a social media manager at Digital Media Management based in the Seattle area, explained her career path and fielded questions during the event.
Tenley Peak, assistant director of alumni engagement, discussed the significance of Alumni Career Connections events while introducing Ratzky to the attendees.
“This is the first time it’s put on [this semester] by the Alumni [Association] and then also the Fleishman [Center for Career and Professional Development],” Peak said. “We work together to bring alumni back to campus in order for you to learn from them as they were once in your shoes. Especially [Ratzky] — she was very recently in your shoes.”
Ratzky, who majored in business administration at BU and was involved with Women in Business and WHRW 90.5 FM, said she did not see social media marketing as a potential career path when she first entered the University but soon found herself with an opportunity to explore the career.
“My sophomore year at [BU], my roommate was writing for this online college magazine that was mainly for women in college,” Ratzky said. “So I started writing for them, and they needed some help with marketing, and so I was like, ‘OK, I’m interested in social media. I’m on it all day so sure, let’s try it.’ So I did social media marketing for them, the magazine and became the social media director.”
From there, Ratzky sought out internships at Social Matters Digital and iHeartMedia back at her home in California before graduating early so she could enter the workforce. She initially struggled to find employment before taking on social media marketing for small businesses owned by her friends’ families.
Then, a few months after graduating, Ratzky secured an interview at BuzzFeed.
“I’d applied for probably like 10 jobs at BuzzFeed, it was one of those dream company scenarios and I never thought I would actually get an interview,” Ratzky said. “But they brought me, they gave me an interview and then I came into the office. It was to work as an intern on their lifestyle brands … So they hired me, so I was a social media intern for three months mainly working on those lifestyle brands and then after those three months, that three-month contract was over [and] they kind of brought me on as a freelancer.”
While Ratzky remembered her time at BuzzFeed as fun, the formula and monotony behind the work ended up motivating her to exit BuzzFeed and join her current employer, Digital Media Management, in the winter of 2019.
After discussing her career path, Ratsky fielded questions in regards to the leadership challenges she faces as a manager, the ways she maximizes different social media platforms to reach consumers, how people from a variety of majors and paths find a way into social media marketing and the strange questions she encountered during the interviewing process.
Toward the end of the event, Ratzky highlighted the most important lessons and skills she learned during her time at BU.
“Learning these different opportunities are out there,” Ratzky said. “I even took a social media marketing course at [BU], and that really helped me learn a lot about the different platform insights and things like that. So those were really good as well, helping me to learn what I wanted to do as a career, especially in business too … but also definitely take advantage of the resume services because that helped me so much. I’m sure I had a million resume edits from [the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development] and the [School of Management Career Services] but definitely take advantage of the career center.”
For those interested in events sponsored by the Alumni Association and the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development, the next large event planned is a virtual alumni networking night with over 100 alumni in attendance on Jan. 11.