Assistant Account Executive 

(Female, Age 23) from New York, NY

This is a REAL-LIFE job profile written by a Female aged 23 who works as a Assistant Account Executive in New York, NY. We have removed all names and personal information in order to protect privacy. This professional kindly spent a bit of their time to complete one of our job profile surveys so that prospective job seekers like you could read their insights. Please excuse any punctuation or grammatical errors in this profile.

At a Glance

Current Job

Basic data on your current job

Job Title Assistant Account Executive
Salary $40,000
Other Compensation None Set
Hours/Week 45
Company Size (not answered)
Location New York, NY
Years Experience 9 months

Career Ratings

Opinions on your CAREER overall (i.e. not just your current job)

Years in Career 0
Education (not answered)
Income Rating 0 / 10
Interest Rating 0 / 10
Work-Life Rating 0 / 10
Fulfilment Rating 0 / 10

Current job Q&A

Describe the type of organization you work for.
I work for a media planning and buying agency with approximately 500 employees. The company is structured to have a brand team working on each client, which consists of both an account group and a planning group. In addition to the brand teams the company also haa specialists in National and Local TV, Digital Media, Outdoor, Print, National and Local Radio and Direct Response.

Describe your job role and responsibilities.
The AAE is responsible for assisting the team in implementing all work which includes: Billing and Budgets; Added Value; Media Days; Issuance of authorizations, buys and posts; Necessary information for trafficking; Issuing status reports; Internal client communication and requests; Competitive Analysis and Facilitating information flow among all groups.

Please list an additional benefits (beyond compensation) that you receive.
Cigna Health Insurance, 401K, 20 vacation days and unlimited sick days

Do you feel you are under/over or well/fairly compensated at your current position?
under

Does your job entail you working with others on a daily basis? Is this something you like/dislike about your job? Please explain.
Yes, I am constantly working with others on a consistent basis whether it is within my brand team or the other media channels within the company. I am also in contact day to day with reps from many different publications. I really enjoy this structure and the fact that i am able to work with so many different people in different positions and with unique expertise to strengthen my knowledge of the industry.

Do you work collaboratively with supervisors/managers?
Yes

Do you work collaboratively with your co-workers?
Yes

Describe your work location (e.g., office, home, theatre, in the field) and what you like/dislike about working in it.
I work at a cube in an office building. It is nice to be in a more open work environment where people are in close proximity to my desk and i am able to interact with people both from my own team and other teams all the time. However, sometimes it is difficult to be in such an open space when you are trying to concentrate on certain matters or speak to a client on the phone.

Please rate each of the following aspects of your current job on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest/best):
Income: 7
Benefits: 8
Hours: 5
Co-Workers: 3
Supervisors: 4
Job Title: 6
Level of Responsibility: 2
The Actual Work: 1

A day in the life of…

Please describe a typical workday for you in your current job:

5am to 6am
6am to 7am
7am to 8am Wake up and get on the bus to go to work
8am to 9am Commute to work and settle myself at my desk reading through any emails from the previous night
9am to 10am work on internal client coordination and maintain added value deliverables from the client and the publication reps
10am to 11am pull information from a competitive system on our clients competitors’ media activity for the year in all media vehicles and make charts in excel to put into a power point presentation
11am to 12pm Analyze data for the competitive and put together a presentation for the client summarizing their competitors’ history of media activity; set up upcoming meetings for the week
12pm to 1pm eat lunch while checking emails and facilitating communication with the team, clients and reps
1pm to 2pm meet with rep from a specific publication to learn more about the offerings of the magazine and what they could offer our specific client for added value based on the number of insertions we ran with them for the year
2pm to 3pm Check positioning of our clients ad in a publication as compared to our competitors and other advertisers; run deliveries on a plan that was put together for the client; provide deliverables and presentations to the client
3pm to 4pm Status meeting with the clients, creative agency and PR agency; write up a status recap to distribute to the team
4pm to 5pm Update the team’s internal status document in order to stay on top of all current requests and projects and manage all deliverables for the week
5pm to 6pm Finish up last minute daily tasks and send out a summary of meetings to the team for the next day
6pm to 7pm Commute home
7pm to 8pm go to the gym
8pm to 9pm eat dinner
9pm to 10pm Review a presentaion that I will be taking the client through in the morning
10pm to 11pm
11pm to 12am

Table of Contents

How you got your job

How did you get your current job?
A job fair that was posted on my University’s Career Development website

What was the application process?
I submitted my cover letter and resume

Did you have to interview for your current job? If yes, what did the interview process entail?
After submitting my resume I was contacted by the HR department of the company. I scheduled an interview and first needed to take a brief media math test and then interviewed with HR. About a week later I had a second interview with an Account Supervisor. The HR department notified me that they would be reaching out to my listed references and soon after they gave me an offer.

If you can remember, what questions were you asked during the interview?
What interested me in the field, personal strengths and weaknesses, past experience, what my interests were in the field etc.

Do you feel your employer properly prepared you for your job? Explain.
Yes, i had many different specific training sessions to learn how to use the programs i use daily as well as the overall Media 101 class which gave me an overall view of how every aspect of our industry runs.

Was there training for your current position? If yes, what did it entail?
Every entry level employee is enrolled in a 6 month Media 101 class, the company also has many speakers in the industry constantly coming in to the office to give presentations and lectures to further our learning, i was also training in many different programs that i use in my position on a consistent basis.

Do you feel your educational background prepared you for your job? Explain.
Yes, majoring in English Communications and Advertising provided me with many essential skills for this industry. Going into the position i already had an understanding of the day to day duties as well as the termonology that is used on a consistent basis.

If applicable, do you feel your internship experience helped you prepare for your job?
Yes, my many different internships really helped me to learn the different opportunities within the Advertising and Marketing field. I was able to work with many different individuals, produce my own work, use my social skills to contact others and keep up with the news of the industry.

If someone wanted to go about getting a job similar to yours, what would you recommend for him or her to do?
Speak to as many people in the industry as possible – references are very important. I made sure to network as much as possible to find out about specific jobs and opportunities within the industry and help me learn as much about the field as possible.

What skills do you think a person should have if they want to pursue a position like yours?
Both Social and Organization skills are the most important within this industry. You have to be organized especially when you are working on multiple brands that all have different media activity running throughout the year. Additionally, there are so many requests that come in from clients day to day and you need to make sure you keep track of the status of all items going on and never let things slip between your fingers. Social skills are also extremely important since we work so closely with our group within the company as well as the communication we have with our clients on a constant basis. You need to be able to form certain relationships both with the clients and the reps that we work with daily.

Do you feel that you need a certain level of education or training to be successful in your job?
Having an education in advertising and media is extremely helpful in understanding the process behind the work that we do. However, there are still many programs and systems that you will not learn until you are in the specific job.

What advice would you give to someone who was about to start work in your position/ line of work?
Go for it! The field is always exciting and new and will keep you on your feet.

Long-term career plans

Is your current employment part of your overall career plan? Why or why not?
Yes, i think that my current position is a great first job for me to grow and learn vasts amounts about the industry. Since i work so closely with the planning group and the other media channels and clients it really allows me to see every aspect of the industry to determine what specific group i would like to work in further in my career.

What are your current career goals?
Master my current duties, learn from anyone and everyone around me, go to as many training sessions as possible and speak to as many people as possible to learn every aspect of the industry, grow internally within the company and make many contacts outside of my company within the field. And most importantly to work my hardest at every aspect of my job and succeed!

Is there anything else you would like to share about your career?
It is a great career!

Prior work history

Please list your most recent jobs prior to this current job:

Title Length Salary Description
Prior Job 1 Advertising and Marketing Intern Fall Semester 2008 Daily tasks included: Creating tailored media pitches for publications, contributing original and relevant content for monthly newsletters, assisting the Director on designing and creating a brochure to distribute to organizations, submit information about the company to relevant social and media forums
Prior Job 2 Marketing Summer 2008 Daily tasks included: Participating in experiential training and assisted Special Events Manager with daily administrative duties, raising funds for events and contacted organizations for sponsorship, preparing and shipping materials for event partners, assisted in promoting and planning company events.

Educational background

Please list your educational background:

High School GPA:4

GPA School Degree
College (Undergraduate)
or Technical/Vocational
3.97 Yeshiva University BA in English Communications/Advertising
Graduate or Professional
(Masters or Doctorate)

Ask a Question of this Mentor

This mentor has opted to receive questions from people interested in this career or job position. Please be respectful of their time and willingness to help. Include some basic relevant background so they can intelligently answer your question.