Amy Cardenas

I had the opportunity to participate in a seminar with Amy Cardenas, in the beginning of my second semester as a marketing post grad student, and it was one of the most useful experiences I’ve had in the program so far. She shared her professional career in a very honest way, connecting what we learned in the classroom with what actually happens in the market.

She told us about her  background. Before joining George Brown’s program, Amy already had a master’s degree. Even so, she went back to school because she realised that the marketing area changes too fast and chose this institution due to the brand reputation, to do her study.Another add to why continue studying was that tools and strategies she used years ago have already evolved a lot, especially in digital.This made me think about how important it is to never stop learning, not as an obligation, but as part of the job even more in the market field.

Networking was one of the themes that appeared the most as this was the beginning of your seminar series. Amy said that, even though she sought internships in various ways, the opportunity that opened doors the most came from her personal network. She encouraged us to get out of the comfort zone: send messages to professionals, schedule a coffee, talk to people from different areas. It’s the kind of advice that we know is true, but we need to hear from someone who lived this to really realise, and again she will also say that the market is difficult, but she made me continue with hope.

Another point I found interesting was the conversation about kindness and professional posture. Amy and your teacher said that treating people well leaves a lasting impression, and that sometimes a simple interaction can result in an indication months later. It reminded me that emotional intelligence and soft skills are not extras; they are part of the job, and after the next seminars this just becomes something undeniable in this field of work.

About the portfolio part, she was very direct: don’t wait for the perfect opportunity to appear. If you are starting out, create experience on your own: volunteer projects, collaborations with small businesses, freelancers. Her first projects were small, but they were the ones who proved what she knew how to do. A portfolio shows real results, not just places of work like a resume, and this being said was a good confirmation that my +150 hours of volunteer work actually could help me a lot in the future.

This changed a little the way I think about career preparation. You can create opportunities before you have your first job, helping a local business with social networks, testing campaigns, building something concrete. Even simple projects count, creativity and results are shown, and was something that I was just doing inside of George Brown, and made me think of reaching out to some small business to see what I could do.

In the data and analytics part, Amy made it clear that success in digital marketing goes beyond likes and followers. What matters are conversions, qualified traffic and real engagement. She talked about connecting social media campaigns to landing pages and analysing what really works, also suggested learning how to create videos, and better quality product photos.I had the possibility to understand this suggestion in real life last semester when I decided to do continue education in photography so I could understand better about image composition.

The discussion about A/B testing was also presented in the meeting. Test different versions of an ad, a button colour, a call-to-action. Small things that seem irrelevant but that directly influence user behaviour. It is this combination of creativity with analytical thinking that defines digital marketing today, and that is the moment that AI got in the middle of the topic, as we can use it to create one of the A/B testing variables.

About artificial intelligence, Amy was balanced: AI is a useful tool, not a substitute. She uses it to improve texts, edit videos, analyse data, but always with a critical eye. Originality and human creativity are still the differential. I completely agreed, and she also said to be careful and not give all your info to AI, it is supposed to help you not substitute you.

Finally, she talked about specialisation. Digital marketing is too broad to master everything at once. Her recommendation was to choose an area: SEO, social media, email marketing, video, and go deep into it before dispersing as this will also help us to be better placed when looking for a job.

Overall, the seminar gave me a more realistic and motivating vision of what it means to build a career in marketing. I learned that the path involves continuous learning, network construction, concrete portfolio and a lot of adaptability, and that you can build this now, without expecting everything to be perfect, something free and simple, can open new opportunities that for a new grad could be harder to achieve.