Connect with Erin on KU Mentoring+.
ALUMNI, CAREER, HOMEPAGE NEWS, NEWS
Erin Curtis-Dierks is a communicator, project manager, and marketer. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1997, and has worked in a variety of sales, promotions and communications roles throughout her career.
Erin was the director of communications for the KU School of Music from 2005-2013 and later worked as a senior media researcher. Currently, she is senior accounts director for Firesign Marketing, one of the nation’s only marketing agencies solely devoted to the legal industry, where she helps law firms build credibility and clientele.
Erin is happy to chat with prospective students, or help fellow Jayhawks with choosing a major, workplace issues, or questions related to parenting and your career.
What do you do at your job? What do you enjoy about it most?
At Firesign, we create and manage marketing plans for our law firm and legal tech clients. We are a small but mighty agency, so we all wear a few hats, but as Senior Accounts Director I act as the overall marketing project manager while also creating and executing marketing campaigns, and I contribute to business development efforts.
I love meeting new clients, listening to their marketing needs, creating a customized marketing plan, and ushering them through the marketing process. It’s so fulfilling to help grow business for our clients.
How has being a Jayhawk helped your career?
My first job out of college is a direct result of being a Jayhawk; my college advisor connected me with my first position. Living in Chicago I actually ran into quite a few Jayhawks, as Chicagoland boasts a nice alumni base.
And coming back to the present time, my boss, the CEO of Firesign, is a proud KU graduate herself and we talked quite a bit about KU basketball during my interview. Needless to say, being a Jayhawk has had wonderful advantages.
What advice about preparing for a career would you give a college version of yourself?
Internships: if you can secure one or more during college, do it. And do them well. Get excellent references. This has been a huge advantage for me personally for my career. Plus you meet some really cool people along the way.
Connect with your fellow Jayhawks. You will be blown away at the number of folks who will end up helping you throughout your career because of a healthy Jayhawk network.
Finally, if you aren’t sure exactly what you want to do with your degree when you graduate, that is okay. Try different things and see what fits best. You learn so much in all your experiences and trust me, you’ll apply all these learnings to everything you take on.
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