What I'd Tell Every New Communications Graduate Right Now
You made it through the coursework, the internships, the late nights, and the pressure of figuring out what comes next. You earned this. Now you are standing at the edge of one of the most exciting, most challenging, and most consequential moments this industry has ever seen.
The communications workforce you are entering looks nothing like the one I walked into. The tools are different. The media landscape is fragmented in ways that demand real strategic thinking at every turn. AI is reshaping how stories get found, not just how they get told. And yet, the fundamentals have never mattered more.
Here is what I know to be true after more than a decade of building Kite Hill from the ground up, founding Communications Week, and watching hundreds of early career professionals find their footing in this field.
The Path Is Not Linear. Embrace That.
Your career is a constellation, not a straight line. Every experience adds a data point, and the full picture only reveals itself when you look back. An opportunity that does not fit the plan you had at graduation might be exactly the one that shapes you most. Stay curious, stay open, and show up fully wherever you are.
As you look towards your future, think big. Do you know your North Star? From my first job interview as a PR coordinator at a tiny ad tech startup in New Jersey, I knew that I wanted to launch a tech PR agency one day. I jam-packed the next decade of my career with experiences that would help me get there.
And when I launched Kite Hill in 2013, there was no roadmap. Just conviction and a lot of showing up.
AI Is Your Amplifier, Not Your Competition
AI can empower you to be strategic, more efficient, and more proactive. The technology amplifies your expertise, but the human insight is what earns trust and drives meaningful results.
At Kite Hill, we treat it as a research tool and an efficiency engine, something we've built deliberate workflows around and we're still learning. We also know that authentic journalist relationships and impactful storytelling that leads to real earned media results cannot be fully automated. Those things require judgment, cultural intelligence, an understanding of context and creative thinking that only people can bring.
Get fluent in the tools, understand how AI is reshaping media discovery and how audiences find information, and then use it to sharpen your edge, not replace it. Now is the time to embrace change and be a part of a reimagined future.
Relationships Matter More Than Ever
Take time to genuinely understand the journalists you work with. Read their work, learn their beats, and approach every interaction with curiosity rather than an agenda. When you show up as a helpful resource and not just someone with something to pitch, you build the kind of trust that opens doors over time. A thoughtful note, a relevant tip, or a simple acknowledgment of a story they worked hard on goes further than you might expect.
The media landscape shifts constantly. Journalists move between outlets, launch newsletters and Substacks, start podcasts, and build audiences of their own. The same is true of clients who change companies, influencers who evolve their platforms, and colleagues who grow into leaders across the industry. The relationships you invest in today may look very different five years from now, but the foundation of trust you laid will travel with all of you.
Culture and Connection Are Not Soft Skills
When I founded Kite Hill, I built it around culture, connection, and collaboration because I genuinely believe those things matter as much as the work itself. That belief has shaped everything about how we operate and how we have grown together as a team.
As you explore opportunities, pay attention to how an organization talks about its people. Notice whether leaders invest in developing their teams, whether mentorship is something that actually happens or just something listed on a careers page. When you find a place with a culture worth showing up for, lean into it fully. Show up generously. Give more than you take. That presence travels with you.
Always Build Your Network
Networking is not a transactional exercise. It is relationship architecture. The connections you make in the first five years of your career will show up in unexpected ways for the next thirty. Former colleagues become clients, peers become collaborators, and mentors become some of the most important people in your professional life.
Mentorship has always been central to how we operate at Kite Hill, and we put that belief into practice in 2023 when we launched our Modern Mentorship campaign, bringing together ten remarkable women leaders to share honest, actionable wisdom on innovation and career growth. We extended that same spirit through our Modern Mentorship: Young Lions program with NCM because we genuinely believe the best thing any of us can do is share what we have learned. Mentors matter because they have already made the mistakes you have not made yet, and more than that, they see the potential in you that you cannot always see in yourself.
The broader network you build over time works the same way. Those relationships become a quiet infrastructure beneath everything you do, people who open doors, challenge your thinking, and show up when things get hard. Find mentors who will be honest with you, and surround yourself with people who are genuinely invested in where you are going.
One Last Thing
Stay humble, agile, and curious while prioritizing listening to those around you. Lead with candor, show up with passion, and bring balance to how you work and how you treat others. Those are values we live by at Kite Hill, and they are the ones that tend to shape the most resilient, collaborative, and purposeful communicators over time.
That is exactly who you have the chance to be. We are rooting for you.
