By Freya Lambert and Nancy Foxall

       On Wednesday the 12th of March, MIBT students had the opportunity to meet and listen to a guest lecture by Olivia Hanlon. Olivia is the inspiring founder of the online marketing community, Girls in Marketing, since its inception in 2019. She boasts an impressive career, achieving milestones such as Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Media & Marketing, as well as successfully maintaining a podcast and working to build a progressive marketing industry through insights and crafted advice on your professional and personal brand.

      This blog will be a deconstruction of this event, and will be the motivation you need to kickstart your career.

Building your personal and professional brand

Olivia could not stress the importance, throughout her talk, of the value of maintaining a personal and professional brand and the currency it provides in the marketing industry. Building this branding can be as simple as creating a LinkedIn persona, where you post regularly about issues you are passionate about (something such as fashion), creating awareness among your audience about who you are as an individual, and your values and interests. LinkedIn was not the only channel you could invest your time in; other channels she mentioned included TikTok and blog content.

 Despite Olivia being the CEO of a marketing community, she emphasised the need for authenticity in your content that can be independent of the field of your desired career. In the words of Olivia, ‘You’re an expert in your own life and experiences’, so create your brand with your expertise.

Olivia’s best top tips

Olivia is a successful entrepreneur, so any tips she provided in this lecture we wanted to steal and share with all of you! We have already discussed building your brand but have not yet mentioned how to turn this brand into opportunities.

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”

This resonated with all attendees, and it was evident in Olivia’s rise in her career that she too ‘built her door’. Olivia combined initiative and a passion for writing to create her opportunities, through proactive moves such as freelance writing and being a regular freelancer for local creative agencies on briefs that suited her skill set. This worked up her portfolio that she could showcase to future employers to secure jobs, something that she encouraged all attendees to do, as it helped her secure her first role before even graduating from university!

Mentors and inspirational creators

              Developing your career can seem an intimidating venture (something we all have to experience at some point in time), but you don’t have to do it alone. Olivia discussed how seniors in the industry, when asked, are willing to guide more junior professionals. But it’s important to note that a rapport needs to be developed with potential mentors before you start relying on them for career support! Examples Olivia provided ranged from an informal Teams call to a chat over a coffee.

              Girls in Marketing has a variety of talented members, with some given the spotlight as industry experts who are deemed valuable to follow. The list Olivia provided is shown above. To finish her talk, she noted how valuable it is to be connected with individuals like these, who are successful in their fields and can provide inspiration and tips on how to create your success, incorporating your values, skills, and personal brand.

This post is paired with a live recording of the event, which can be found on MIBT’s podcast – MIBTalk. We recommend listening to this episode to hear first-hand Olivia’s experience and advice, with a Q&A section which involves Olivia answering student questions at the end. However, due to technical issues, the questions were not recorded, but the answers provided still hold value!

              As a department, we wanted to thank Olivia for taking the time to produce this lecture and providing valuable tips that will guide us along the course of our careers.

You can listen to a live recording of this guest lecture via our podcast, MIBTalk: