Andrea Pung is the account manager for Channel Bakers and works remotely. Her job consists of tracking data for the company, and managing the money that comes in and out of the different businesses that Channel Bakers represents. Channel Bakers is a business that helps start-up companies launch their endeavors to different platforms to gain more attention.
Pung has a background in journalism, advertising and graphic design. She said she didn’t always know what position she would end up in. “I have in the past had to work in cold-calling jobs, where that’s part of your week-to-week tasks.” Pung said. “I realized I didn’t like it, and it’s not for everybody, but it taught me a lot.”
Through Pung’s work experience, she said PR and journalism go hand-in-hand, but it doesn’t mean people can directly jump to the job they want. Pung said that each job she took taught her something different and valuable, and that it took a lot of time for her to get to the spot she’s in. While she said she didn’t love the past jobs she had, they taught her to value each place of life she’s in and that it takes commitment and determination to reach hard-earned goals.
Spartan Newsroom reporter Aubrey Rademacher spoke with Andrea Pung about account management through advertising for Career Conversations.
Transcript:
Aubrey: “Welcome to Career Conversations, a podcast series about jobs in journalism and related fields from Spartan Newsroom. I’m Aubrey Rademacher, and I’m a journalism sophomore at Michigan State University. I’m interested in connecting my journalism career to fields in PR, marketing and advertising. I researched companies that connect those fields and discovered Channel Bakers, a business that helps startup companies expand. I was connected to Andrea Pung, the account manager. She has a background in journalism, marketing and design. We taked via zoom.”
Andrea: “I work for a company called Channel Bakers. They are based in Anaheim, California. I’m fully remote, which is great. It gives me the flexibility to be able to travel and move around if I see fit. So the company that i work for is an advertising agency, so we work with clients, aka businesses, and we help with all their advertising needs. I am in a client facing role, but I don’t have to do any cold calling, we have a whole business development team that brings in new clients for us. I have, in the past, had to work in cold calling jobs where it’s a part of your week-to-week task. I was lucky to get out of that. It’s not bad, but it’s not for everyone, so it can get a little overbearing and tedious. People have to do it, and it’s okay.”
Aubrey: “What drew you to this role originally in your career path, aside from the remote position?”
Andrea: “I’ve been on the creative side of marketing, whether that was content creation, print, all of that kind of stuff. So, when I graduated college, I actually got a job at a company called Constructive Eating. I was their content creation and marketing manager. I did anything you would see visually, I created all of it. I created all of the photography, video, I did all of the social media management, I did a little Amazon, all of that kind of stuff as well. That was my first job in the industry.
I think journalism and PR go hand-in-hand. It’s kind of one and the same, depending on how you go about it, whether it’s business based or not. It’s still writing.
Every opportunity you have can be a learning opportunity. I think it’s important, as you yourself being in college as a young professional as well, to just know that you might have some jobs that you’re like ‘oh my gosh, I don’t know how I can keep doing this’ but if you keep focus on what you’re there to learn and take away from the job, it can make being a young professional easier.”
Aubrey: Thank you Andrea Pung, I’m Aubrey Rademacher reporting for the Spartan Newsroom.”