Everyone always seems to be talking about the lack of jobs in Rutland or at least the lack of good jobs. I realize I've been blessed with a fairly privileged life and my parents priority was always education. My family and husband have always supported my crazy ideas and overactive imagination, allowing me to follow my dreams in any direction. So, where are all the jobs and why can't millennials seem to find them? I searched long and hard and applied for anything and everything so maybe I just have good luck or good timing? I'm not totally sure but here is my personal experience with finding jobs in Rutland.
I graduated from Ithaca College a semester early in 2009 with a B.S. in Communications Management and Design (fancy for marketing, leadership and graphic design). Many of my classmates were taking any job they could to pay their student loans, a significant number of them not related to their degree. My husband (then fiance) and I made the move to Rutland in December 2010 after he also applied for jobs in upstate NY that paid anywhere from $15-25k less than the job he had applied for and taken at Rutland Regional Medical Center. People are shocked when they hear that because most assume that every job in NY pays better than in VT but, for Physical Therapy at least, that's far from the truth. RRMC has also provided us with amazing health benefits that we have not seen elsewhere and even comparable to other local businesses they are pretty extraordinary.
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| My mom and I at graduation. A slightly terrifying time for college graduates looking for jobs. But I'm determined and when I want something I go for it and I wanted a job using my degree. |
But back to me and my marketing degree and a little history. By my sophomore year in college I had decided that I did not want to move to LA and work in entertainment like many of my classmates had. It's a running joke that LA is owned and run by Parkies (what everyone in Ithaca calls students in the Park School of Communcations). After taking many environmental courses and traveling to Copenhagen for the COP15 United Nations Climate Control Conference, I knew I wanted to use my degree and career to make a difference. I attended SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry for a semester of grad school before we left for Vermont but decided that environmental marketing was not the career path I wanted to take. And hello, VT was full of tree huggers so I'd be good!
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| Ugh, so young! Our first visit to Rutland when Tom interviewed. Having a chicken of wine at Three Tomatoes. |
Moving to Vermont I was honestly scared if I'd find a job related to my degree given how small Rutland was in comparison to Utica, Ithaca, Syracuse and Rochester (everywhere I'd ever lived prior). But by mid-February I was working part time as Community Relations Assistant for Rutland Area VNA and Hospice where my boss took me under her wing to make sure I succeeded. I was managing all areas of graphic design, rebranding all marketing collateral and heading a state wide marketing piece with my manager that is still in existence today 5 years later. My boss taught me the ins and outs of not just the VNA but of the community, making sure I was involved and attending everything I needed to. She'd introduce me to everyone as her prodigy letting them know how amazing I was and to keep an eye out for me. When I applied for my job at RAVNAH I had also applied to about 20 others, a few I knew I wasn't qualified for and many I was over qualified for.
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| Laura, my boss from RAVNAH who was at my wedding just 8 months after I started working for her. I'm still not sure she understands what an impact she's had on my career and life. And since I know she'll read this - thanks Laura :) |
2 years later I took a full time graphic design position at the Mountain Times newspaper in Killington. As much as I loved my boss at the VNA I knew I needed to push my design to the next level and honestly needed a full time job (I was 30hrs at the VNA). The Mountain Times may be a small town newspaper but it's look and feel was anything but as the new, and young, owners had taken over a few years prior. To say that I grew during my 2.5 years there would be an understatement. Not only did my design skills expand but I had learned what the word deadline actually meant. After 18 months I took it upon myself to go to the owners with a new position for myself as Creative Director and for the next 7 months I worked harder than I ever had before. I was completing projects like the yearly magazine from start to finish, managing layout, content, sales leads based on content and the overall look and feel to really push us to the next level. I loved my job but crazy deadlines and not always predictable hours were becoming hard now that I was pregnant with our second son. As I sat in my publishers office in January 2015 telling her I had to give my 2 weeks notice, I'm pretty sure it took me 10 minutes to get it out through all of the tears. I still tear up thinking about that day as I left some of the best friends I had since coming to VT, amazing people that argued like family but would do anything for one another - something I truly feel you can only find in a small Vermont city like Rutland. And how lucky I was that not once, but twice, it was exceptionally hard for me to leave a job because I loved my coworkers and managers that much.
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| This was my baby while at The Mountain Times. It pushed me to my creative limits and is still one of my favorite pieces. |
Two weeks later (and 25 weeks pregnant) I started my current job at Heritage Family Credit Union as AVP of Marketing. The salary and benefits along with the more predictable work hours had, at first, been the main reason I switched jobs. In all honesty I had no idea what a credit union was prior to being hired and had assumed it was a type of bank. As I quickly learned, all credit unions are a non profit, cooperative financial institution that were founded to help the under-served in its communities. Remember my short lived time in grad school? Well my thesis was to be about social responsibility and the effects of climate change on the under-served populations of the US. My inner hippy couldn't contain itself as I'd found a career in my field where I was also helping to make a difference.
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| Working at HFCU has pushed me in a direction career wise I didn't think was possible. Getting involved with the community on a more meaningful level, allowing me to professionally develop beyond what I thought possible. |
So in 5 years I have managed to have 3 jobs, using my degree in the so called city that doesn't have any jobs, in a time when many companies needed to cut their marketing department in the rest of the US. Did I work hard, of course I did. Did I make sacrifices, take salaries that were far less than what I had paid for a single year at Ithaca, you bet. I went in taking what I could get but put my stamp on everywhere I was, pushing the envelope and pushing my companies to do bigger and better things. I had a degree, I had knowledge and I wanted my companies to use it, to benefit from it and to hopefully make lasting changes.
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| Just a little plug for the National Credit Union Marketing award we won this year :) |
I cannot speak for other industries, but I have seen some amazing professional jobs available in Rutland. And the most amazing thing about the Rutland workforce is that they want their young employees to succeed, they push their young professionals to do more and be better. When they find someone willing to work hard, they see their future and foster those relationships, even if it means letting them go on to bigger and better things.
Find what you want and go get it, be willing to make sacrifices and work hard. The right job is out there, it's in Rutland, now you have to go get it.
