Rolling Forward: Taking the Next Steps to Advance my Career with Zumiez
My name is Jake Piggott. I'm a senior Advertising major at Temple University, and I'm currently interning at Zumiez.
My name is Jake Piggott. I’m a senior Advertising major at Temple University, and I’m currently interning at Zumiez.
My name is Jake Piggott. I’m a senior Advertising major at Temple University, and I’m currently interning at Zumiez. I’ve been employed with Zumiez for roughly eight years, and was beyond thrilled to be able to be able to intertwine work with school.
Since being hired In 2017, I’ve worked my way up through every position all the way to store manager. I’m currently running my second store as a store manager and am working to make my way into the marketing department in our home office after graduation.
For those unfamiliar with Zumiez, we are a mall based specialty retailer that sells apparel, footwear, and gear tied to action sports like skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing.
Targeting customers ages 12 to 25, we create a high energy and lifestyle driven shopping experience through unique store designs, knowledgeable staff, and a constantly evolving mix of popular and emerging brands. The company emphasizes authenticity, individuality, and community, blending retail with a culture that reflects its customers’ passions. (https://www.zumiez.com/about)
This experience allowed me to challenge myself more and incorporate more practices of advertising when it comes to making an impact on my stores results. One of the biggest things this internship has taught me is that marketing and advertising do in fact work. Since I am only a store manager, there is only so much I’m allowed to do in terms of advertising, but one of the coolest things my team and I have had the opportunity to do was work with the social media marketing team to create content for the Zumiez main Instagram.
This allowed us to not only reach more potential customers, but to show them more of our store’s personality. This is huge, especially when you’re located in a mall with several other stores that sell similar product. Having this form of creative freedom lets us show our customers, and potential customers, why Zumiez is the best store in our mall.
Marketing and advertising also played a key role in improving my recruiting process during this internship. Without a formal advertising budget, creative strategies like leveraging social media platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, and the Zumiez app became essential tools. By encouraging customer interaction on these platforms, the store built a stronger sense of community and showcased the fun, high energy work culture. Highlighting perks and behind the scenes content on LinkedIn helped build a personal connection with potential recruits, which helped spark interest in joining my team. This approach successfully turned loyal customers into interview candidates, shifting recruitment away from impersonal online applications and toward more organic, relationship based hiring.
Because of my position, I have the opportunity to travel three times a year for work, and this has become a great opportunity to network and connect with fellow store managers, home office employees, and celebrities and influencers. In January, I traveled out to Colorado state for “Zumiez 100K,” a private invite only event held to recognize the sales efforts of the companies best sales people. Though this event was more of a celebration than work, it solidified my decision to pursue a job in the marketing department, as they are the ones in charge of setting up and hosting this entire event. I had the opportunity to talk to a few people who worked behind the scenes on this event, and I can’t wait to use the skills I’ve learned at Temple to hopefully one day be a part of the planning for these events.
On the topic of national events, at the beginning of May, I will be traveling out to the beautiful Winthrop, Washington, to complete another level of my store manager training. South of Seattle, and a few hours away from our home office, all store managers, upper management, and the H.O team are together to become better teachers and leaders. I wish I would’ve been able to speak about this opportunity more for this internship, but I will be sharing my experience on LinkedIn for anyone who would be interested and like to connect!
When it came to the actual experience of doing an internship, it was different than what I was expecting. I’m very fortune to work for a company that I love and have been able to continue working here as part of my internship. One part that was a bit challenging was trying to juggle school and this internship on top of my normal roles and responsibilities at work. Time management was easily the biggest skill takeaway I have from this experience. It allowed me to better manage myself and execute my projects and tasks on a much more structured basis.
My biggest advice for anyone doing their first internship is to seek out a company you could see yourself working for after graduation. I’ve had several friends who did internships at places they didn’t necessarily care about because they needed the credits, but ultimately regretted this because it was much harder to find a job after graduation because they didn’t make the best connections and fully experience the work force they wanted to be working in.
I can’t wait to continue to work my way up in Zumiez, and continue building the connections I have made here. It’s great to be surrounded by like minded individuals and be able to work for a company who recognizes you for your success and gives people the opportunity to grow. In the next few years following this internship, my goal is to be able to look back on this post and say I’ve achieved everything that I currently want to have accomplished and have a whole new list of goals for myself.
