We took advantage of no school for high school today to take a group of students to visit the Amazon offices and meet with a team from the Amazon Marketing Services department. We had a few high school sophomores and juniors, as well as college freshmen and sophomores representing the StreetSquash alumni community. The visit started with some introductions, and our hosts each shared about their backgrounds and their educational and career paths that led them to working at Amazon. We learned that when Amazon hires in their advertising and marketing department, they care more about your customer service attitude than your specific work experience – our hosts had backgrounds in finance, fashion, engineering, and political science, but somehow all ended up in marketing. We had some time for Q&A, and then divided up into three teams to work on a business scenario. Each team had to come up with an advertising campaign for Pepsi during the Super Bowl, including tag-lines, specific brands and products, target audience, and budgets. Though a bit slow to start, each group quickly warmed up to the activity, and came up with some really great ideas. After each presentation, our hosts gave each team some real feedback on their campaign ideas. We wrapped up with a pizza lunch, got a sneak peek of the fulfillment floor (where the magic happens!), and headed back uptown! Thanks Assumpta for co-chaperoning 🙂

-Cici, Senior Director of College Access & Success