Rashmi Jayaram, a 4B Arts student studying Honours Economics, dives into her experiences working in product marketing and tells us how her hard work and dedication landed her a full-time job at American Express - the same company she completed her final co-op!
Rashmi has completed a total of five co-op work terms:
- Work term 1: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Assurance Associate
- Work term 2: Scotiabank, Scotia iTRADE, Product Specialist
- Work term 3: University of Waterloo, Online Learning Assistant (OLA)
- Work terms 4 & 5: American Express, Marketing Intern
There were two key projects Rashmi worked on during her co-op terms at Scotiabank and American Express. Both of these projects revolved around campaigns.
While at Scotiabank, she was a part of the brokerage “Scotia iTRADE”, and was responsible for creating a new campaign for the bank’s Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) account. “Basically, because I didn't know too much about marketing, analytics and sales, I had to learn everything from target audiences to using data analytics to create a new offer and create a new campaign," says Jayaram. "That whole process of creating a campaign from the beginning all the way to looking at the post-campaign analysis was definitely a very interesting project for me. [It] was more product marketing heavy, which is something I'm really passionate about.”
She continued her work on campaigns while at American Express where she got the opportunity to be a part of multiple marketing campaigns. “At American Express I was on a team called ‘International Prospect Marketing’. We were basically a team that sat in-between marketing and sales. So we had to coordinate a lot of the activities between the sales team and the marketing team and tell the marketing team what we want, to acquire more clients, to acquire more consumers. There was a lot of vendor management and a lot of campaign analysis and data analytics that we were using to communicate those acquisition results.”
What kind of responsibilities were you given while working at American Express?
“A huge task that I had weekly, that I have learned a lot about during the process, was vendor management. We had to coordinate with our sales teams, our marketing teams and we had to coordinate with our overall international team to share best practices.”
“Saying like, ‘how much are we acquiring this month?’ ‘What are some things someone in, let's say Italy, did that really helped them acquire new American Express clients?’ and we would use that in our world as well.”
“Another thing that I was responsible for, and something that I owned, was being in charge of our Merchantforce documents and leads. So, Merchantforce is similar to Salesforce, but just for merchants, which are small business owners that we were working with during my time at American Express. What I had to do a lot of was reporting, so pulling out reports from the Merchantforce and really analyzing the data, seeing how many leads we're getting from like the food and beverages industry, or how many leads we're getting from the retail industry, and are we getting enough leads from tourism places.”
“So just seeing different industries and making sure that we're targeting each one of them when we're acquiring new clients. I would say this role had a lot to do with data analytics, which honestly in my previous co-ops I didn't work too much with, and also just being creative with finding different ways to acquire new clients.”
You will be working at American Express full-time after you graduate. What do you think made you stand out while working at the company to get a great opportunity like this one?
“Honestly, it's so nerve-racking when you're in co-op, whether it be four months [or] eight months, just in regards to getting that full-time job offer. You want to tell them, ‘Hey, hire me back' but at the same time, you just want to prove yourself from the beginning. I think it's really dependent on the company and how the company culture is. With American Express, they're very, very straightforward and candid about these conversations. They really promote having conversations about career development and having conversations about your career goals specifically.”
“Even though I was in an eight-month co-op term, almost every three or four months they checked in with me and said, ‘What are your goals?’ ‘Are you accomplishing what you want to accomplish?’ ‘Are there any new projects that you want to try out?’ Because those conversations were very candid.”
“At the beginning of my co-op term, I tried to set up as many coffee chats as possible with people from my team and people from other teams. It was in my one or two-month mark when I realized I really like this company.”
“I would ask them ‘I want to come back to American Express, what are some ways that you can say would help me get that return offer and would help me grow in my career progression here?’ They would tell me to have these candid conversations with anyone you're talking to."
“So, when you're having a coffee chat with your colleagues or when you're talking to your manager, always just throw in there like ‘I'm really looking forward to growing with American Express’, or ‘I'm really looking forward to learning more and really growing myself in this corporate environment.’”
“Just constantly make it known to everyone that you really love the company and you want to come back. That's something I did.”
“The second thing is just doing your work and doing it well. A lot of people are like ‘What should I do to get that full-time offer back?’ and honestly, whatever you're assigned. Just do that work and do it extremely well and go above and beyond. If you're asked to create a PowerPoint, make it the most beautiful PowerPoint the company has seen.”
“Whether that being asking questions or doing whatever you can, just do what you're doing really well and put yourself out there, and I would say take on a lot of projects. If your manager gives you two or three, ask 'I'm interested in this American Express card, can I work on this campaign with this manager?’. So, definitely spread yourself out.”
What’s next for you?
“I'm graduating this summer, which I'm really excited about. I feel like it's been such a long journey but I'm definitely looking forward to that. I will be starting my full-time role in September with American Express as an assistant marketing manager, so I'm really looking forward to starting my role with them.”
“I’m the type of person that always has something to do and has a goal. But this summer I just want to relax, nothing too crazy.”
“So I'm planning to do a lot of traveling this summer if this pandemic allows me to. I have a couple of trips planned with my friends.”
