A recruiting team from ESPN spoke to students about internships and careers with the company and also gave tips on improving resumes Tuesday night at the Walter Cronkite School. The team began by asking students, “Can you brand it? And then can you sell yourselves?”
ESPN reached out to Michael Wong, director of career services at the Cronkite School, because of the strong talent pool at ASU, and especially at the Cronkite School.
“ASU has been on ESPN’s radar for several years now because recruiters know we have quality students taught by a quality faculty and learning on state-of-the-art equipment,” Wong said in an email.
ESPN, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, is “a global company,” said Joe Franco, ESPN’s manager of university relations. “It provides opportunities for all of us, especially you.”
Franco explained ESPN has job opportunities in marketing, technology, engineering, finance, sales and information technology. The company offers internships in each of its departments and hires some employees right out of college.
The average age of an employee at ESPN is 37, while the average age of a new hire is 24.
“We are here recruiting you because you are the next generation at ESPN,” Franco said. “But it’s very, very competitive,” he warned.
Classmates are competing with one another for internships and entry-level opportunities, Franco said. He told students to take advantage of the professionalism that the Cronkite School offers and to use it to strengthen their skills.
To lighten the mood, two of the speakers, Chris Pelczynski, creative director at the ESPN Los Angeles production center, and Tim Aguilar, an account executive for sales and marketing, asked several trivia questions pertaining to ASU sports, rewarding correct answers with ESPN merchandise.
“The first thing for me is dedication,” Aguilar said. “Someone that is very humble and understands that, yes, you are working for ESPN, but this is a privilege.”
After the trivia session, Traci Mack, director with the ESPN Content Associate Program, asked her fellow speakers several questions about standing out in a job search.
“It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it,” Mack said about what makes a great applicant over a good applicant.
A great potential employee for Pelczynski is someone willing to do anything to start out and to do the small things that will eventually lead to bigger things.
Jay Francis, ESPN senior coordinating director, looks at 500 applications daily and takes only about eight seconds to read each of them. An applicant has to jump off the page to get even a second look from him.
“Work hard, keep your head up, make connections,” Francis said. “Kick the door down and say, ‘Here I am. Please look at my resume. Here’s what I am doing now relating to ESPN.’ ”
“Don’t back off, if you want it go get it,” he added.
The team will be in Tempe today to talk to students on the main campus.
Contact the reporter at aldugan@asu.edu
