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Bill McKendry, founder and chief creative officer at Hanon McKendry, talks with Stefanie Stephens, a senior in advertising at Grand Valley State University and also a young creative at The Polishing Center. McKendry found that while his company often helped young people with internships or other programs, it didn’t often open doors to employment to that group of professionals. All that is changing as the communications landscape has put a premium on the skills that come as second nature to young professionals.

Hanon McKendry opened its doors to professors to see what a modern communications firm needs, but it also brings in youthful talent. From left, Alicia Saenz, a Mayor’s 50 intern from Comstock Park High School; Hanon McKendry’s Dawn Pick Benson and Ellen Winterburn; and GVSU student Stefanie Stephens PHOTOS: JOE BOOMGAARD

By Joe Boomgaard | Knowledge
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GRAND RAPIDS — With the business of communications in a constant state of flux, sometimes the educators find they’re the ones that have to be schooled by companies about the industry’s needs in a changing work environment.

For years, Bill McKendry, founder and chief creative officer at Hanon McKendry, has welcomed students into the offices of his brand consulting and communications firm. They came on class tours or via internships, but the outcome was mostly the same. While the company exposed the future crop of creative professionals to a desirable work environment, it never provided a way for those young people to join the team.

“We think we have a great place, but there’s been a roadblock for young people to get into Hanon McKendry. We recruit those people with a lot of experience. For years, …we haven’t provided (young people) access,” McKendry told Knowledge. “We told them you can’t get a job here. The best thing for them to do was to leave and come back – that’s what they needed. But that’s not the case anymore. They have a skill set that is needed now.”

Most people with years of experience in the workplace are digital foreigners, but the new college graduates are digital natives. While the veteran branding professionals have to wrap their minds around digital marketing and think about it in terms of their past experience with other media, the young professionals see the new technology as second nature, and they’re coming out of collegiate programs with a handle on both branding and marketing, just the mix of skills that companies like Hanon McKendry need, he said.

When McKendry was in college, advertising students went through the journalism and mass communication programs and then got into specializations like marketing. But in the 1980s, he saw a switch away from that track to more strategy, creative and business courses. But the current digital, multimedia frontier has placed the emphasis squarely back on content, the bailiwick of journalism and communication, in combination with those other skills.

“The industry fundamentally changed in the last five years, in the last two to three years, because of digital content. … It’s the journalism and communications students we need again. They can put together and tell a story and keep people interested and engaging. It’s about creating relationships with people, and the students get that,” McKendry said. “We’re also trying to share with college professors that we need these students and that they need to make sure they train them in a way that’s relevant to the marketplace. The demand is there.”

Hanon McKendry’s outreach to college professors took shape in Febraury with the company’s first Content 101 program. It invited professors from local colleges and universities to a presentation about the company’s workforce needs and the skills and capabilities it’s looking for in potential hires.

Dawn Pick Benson, the company’s director of branded content, said Hanon McKendry wants to innovate its content division and tap into those digital natives to tell stories “with a purpose” across media platforms. Those future employees will need a range of skills supporting a keen proficiency in communications, she said.

“One of the reasons we brought the professors in was to bring them into the discussion of what we’re seeing,” Benson told Knowledge. “We talked about content and the development of the new division and what potential hires might look like. They’re interested in what we’re seeing and what things we look for in the people we hire. They hear a lot about cuts in the workplace, but to hear students are needed was encouraging for them.”

Hanon McKendry is still a small company with 42 people, and it doesn’t plan to hire dozens of these new graduates at a time, said Ellen Winterburn, director of human resources. Those additions will likely be opportunistic and could come after firsthand internship experience, she said.

“Now, most of our internships are less strategic, but we need to be more opportunistic for specific individuals. Going forward, looking at how to fill gaps, we want internships in content positions that could lead to content management positions,” she said.

McKendry envisions future content hires also taking on entrepreneurial roles in seeking their own clients and building their portfolios. Career growth would come as those portfolios grew and those content specialists would have to manage a team of professionals, all overseen by the firm’s senior management.

“The hardest part is that we’re putting our reputation for excellence on the line with young people. It’s not just their brand, but our brand as well,” he said.

Winterburn said the Content 101 program was designed to be a first step in what the company hopes is a series of discussions and interactions with college professors. The initial meeting had five professors from as far away as Central Michigan University, but more wanted to come. She said outside of the constructive discussions, the educators also appreciated the time to network with other professors in the region.