I’m a public relations/content coordinator at Wray Ward. As a member of our team of savvy storytellers, I spend my time supporting our clients’ needs across content marketing, public relations and social media. One day I’m conducting interviews and writing content for a client’s website, and the next I’m measuring earned media coverage and helping plan a social media giveaway.

It’s a dream position for a young postgrad with a media and journalism degree.

Although things have fallen into place for me, there is more to this story than meets the eye. In the days, weeks and months immediately after my graduation from the University of North Carolina, my heart sank every time I opened LinkedIn. My stomach dropped at the thought of writing another cover letter. Because for me, as for many of my class of 2020 peers, the postcollege job search followed a decidedly nonlinear path.

The COVID-19 Class

Quick flashback to spring 2020, the final semester of my senior year at UNC: Instead of soaking up special senior-year moments on campus, I was finishing my undergraduate degree completely online. While perhaps ready to leave behind the stress of exams and all-nighters spent staring at my laptop screen cranking out research papers, I was not quite prepared for the reality that awaited me after I crossed the (virtual) stage in May.

For background, I studied public relations and German at UNC. Seeking a fast-paced and collaborative work environment, I wanted to land an agency position after graduation. However, when the pandemic struck, strategic marketing and communication positions largely vanished, as many companies paused hiring while they got their bearings for doing business during a pandemic. I’d worked hard to get my ducks in a row, even scheduling an in-person visit to Wray Ward on March 18, 2020. Then, just a few days prior, my now teammates said, “Let’s reschedule this for when things get back to normal.” Little did we all know that day wouldn’t come for more than half a year.

Like many recent grads at a loss for promising leads, I moved back home with my parents. There, I spent hours perusing job boards while wondering how I could possibly find the right opportunity in the middle of such an uncertain period. For a while, I was hesitant to apply for positions outside of my chosen field of public relations, although I was even more fearful of the dreaded resume gap. Speaking for all students, it’s hard to cope when you have dreams and ambition and are scared to make a wrong move that may lead you away from those goals.

However, as the long days of stay-at-home orders dragged on, I began to realize that having the rest of my life to work on my career could be a good thing. It didn’t mean I had to be stuck wherever I started.

It meant I simply must start somewhere.

A Perfect Connection

Like many of my peers, I took temporary jobs during my search for full-time work. Among them? A communications internship at a nonprofit, bilingual preschool for low-income, Spanish-speaking families. I don’t even speak Spanish, but I do have a degree in German, some interest in dual-language education and a passion for nonprofit work. And while working with this organization in the summer of 2020, I learned a lot about the importance of dual-language education for Latinx families.

At the time, I had no idea that this experience would give me a leg up when Wray Ward called in November to ask if I was still interested in opportunities with the agency.

Around that time, Wray Ward had just selected its next crop of EmpoWWer service-grant recipients — three local nonprofit organizations the agency would support in 2021. Serendipitously, one of the organizations was Charlotte Bilingual Preschool. Sound familiar? Yep, this EmpoWWer recipient shared a lot of traits with the preschool for which I had interned over the summer. Wray Ward was looking for a coordinator to join their Charlotte Bilingual Preschool team, creating a true aligning of the stars for me. I attribute my ability to jump in on this account, and my determination to find work wherever possible during the pandemic, as big factors in Wray Ward’s decision to bring me onboard.

Looking Back, Looking Forward