Adventures in Marketing

Informational Interview Reflection

I interviewed Kyle Smidt, he is a founding member of the Social Media Team at Garmin International. He works full time as Social Media Moderator. I chose to interview Kyle because he has been a senior member of his team for several years and is in charge of training new employees. He is a team player and encourages a collaborative team environment. 

I was surprised to hear that Kyle had no previous Social Media experience prior to accepting his role and that his strong writing background was instrumental in landing him the job.

I can envision myself growing into his role and becoming a senior member of the Social Media Team. I also have a relatively strong writing background and am great at multitasking and am working on a development plan to become a trainer. I have gained some experience in the field and have used my troubleshooting skills on specialty products to propel myself forward in that direction. I am continuing to gain experience daily and am working towards allowing more daytime availability in my work schedule to be there for typical training hours.

I plan to work directly with newly hired associates one-on-one instead of via Zoom call and improve my communication skills while teaching them my vast specialized product knowledge.

I learned that Social Media is vast and there is room for so many opportunities. Strong writing skills will always be necessary in those fields and keeping an open mind to new ideas is key. Adaptability is a major bonus as well as having a passion for helping others.

A couple of things I could work on are my communication skills as well as improve upon my time management skills. I am taking a communications class. I will continue to explore Communications classes offered in college as well as through my employer and online. I also plan on working to improve my time management skills by blocking out my time allowance for each project or task I am assigned.

This experience did not change my current long term goals, however it did help me to focus on my short term goals while I work towards more distant goals as I complete my education.

Informational Interview Video: