Hannah Fleishman ’12
Hannah Fleishman (@hbfleishman) graduated from Emerson in December 2012 with a degree in Marketing Communications, after which she found a home working for one of Emerson’s Partner Employers, HubSpot. Her latest role has been working as the Recruitment Marketing Manager for their Culture Team. What has the experience at HubSpot been like? Check out our Q&A with Hannah to find out!
1. What are some of your everyday tasks at HubSpot?
H: “I spend most of my time and energy on marketing HubSpot as a place to work. But what that looks like on a day-to-day is always evolving. One of the things I admire about HubSpot and the people I work with is that we’re never satisfied with the status quo, and that means I’m constantly experimenting and exploring new ways to use inbound marketing as a recruiting tool. Or, as we call it, “inbound recruiting”.
Today, for example, I put together a workshop to help HubSpotters write better, more inclusive job descriptions. Then I (digitally) met with our recruiting team in Dublin to talk about the marketing plan for our new Berlin office in 2017. And, throughout the day I worked on blog posts for our careers blog, developed a Facebook Ad campaign for global hiring, and collaborated with our design team on web assets we can use for recruitment. The daily variety keeps you on your toes and I like that.
An everyday focus, though, is content – the main ingredient in every inbound strategy. On any given day, I spend a good chunk of time writing. I might write website copy, headlines, blog posts, internal resources, marketing emails, or Facebook ad copy; I love writing and I love the variety of writing I get to do in this role.”
2. Why did you choose HubSpot?
H: “Honestly? I got very lucky. And no, I’m not doing that thing women do where we downplay our accomplishments; I seriously got lucky. I was still at Emerson, wrapping up my Honors thesis, and interning with the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange when I found HubSpot. Or, when HubSpot found me. I worked with someone during my internship who referred me to a HubSpotter and by the end of that week I was invited to interview for an events position. The company was only a few hundred people at the time and I didn’t really know what inbound marketing was all about but decided to give it a shot.
The people I met during my interview was what got me hooked. Every single person was genuine, insanely bright, and passionate about what they were working on. By the time I left that afternoon, I knew I’d be heartbroken if I didn’t get the job. The culture was just so strong and all-encompassing from the second you walked in the door; I really wanted to be a part of that and learn from the people I met that day. Over 4 years later, I still feel the same way.”
3. What is your favorite part of the job?
H: “The autonomy, my coworkers, and the opportunity. HubSpot’s growing quickly and we think big. That means there’s a new opportunity at every turn, and I feel that in my job every day. If there’s a new business need or problem to solve, people really trust you to experiment and own the solution. For inbound recruiting, for example, we know we want to build a world-class candidate experience and attract top talent through content and marketing. I have a ton of autonomy, though, in figuring out how we get from A to B, and what that roadmap looks like.
Of course, autonomy only works if you have the right people to lean on and learn from. I’m on the Culture Team at HubSpot, and my team and the people I work with on a day-to-day make coming into work every day exciting. They’re insanely bright, admirable, kind, and quirky. Having a team I can learn from and laugh with every day is pretty great.”
4. How did your time at Emerson help you prepare for this position?
H: “I had a few professors at Emerson, particularly in the Honors program, who would push you hard when they knew you weren’t giving a 110%. Because HubSpot is so autonomous and there’s endless opportunity on the table, you need to hold yourself to that higher standard and put in the work. Emerson shaped my work ethic in a big way.”
5. Any advice for recent graduates or upcoming seniors?
H: “Find a company, not a job: If I didn’t join an ad agency after graduation, I thought my life would be over; writing copy for Grey Goose or Nike was the only option. I never thought I’d be working at a B2B SaaS company. But marketers have malleable skill sets and the world will be different 2 weeks, 2 months, and 2 years from now. The job you’ll be doing next year might not even exist today; mine didn’t. So try to think about what kinds of work environments excite you, what problems you care about solving, and what types of people will make you want to come in everyday. Then go find it.
Use all your board bucks: Real money is just so real.
Stay in touch with people: Emersonians are everywhere. Studios in Hollywood, non-profits in NYC, tech companies in SF, publishing houses abroad, everywhere. You never know how or when but you will likely cross paths with someone unexpected and have the opportunity to learn a lot from them. And vice versa.”
6. What are some of the challenges you’ve faced in your position?
H: “Confidence and data. Everyone at HubSpot is crazy smart, and while that means you’re learning constantly, it can also be intimidating. Feeling confident in what you know and being honest about what you don’t know can be hard. And I think a little bit of that, for me, comes back to data. We all know we didn’t go to Emerson because we’re gifted in math. But if you’re going to work in marketing today, you need to train your left side of the brain at least a little bit. I think I’ve struggled in the past because, being in content, events, and PR roles at HubSpot, I thought I could avoid the whole data and metrics thing. Well, you can’t. At least not if you want to show value and really understand your industry. Understanding and leveraging data doesn’t come naturally to me, so that’s been a challenge. Also, I think I just found my first New Year’s Resolution.”
7. What are your passions and how did that play into your career success?
H: “I’m passionate about writing and about how different parts of the world work and why. I’m a third-culture kid (I grew up in Italy, Germany, and Egypt), and I didn’t realize until I moved back to the States how much that global curiosity motivates me. So, getting to work on global content projects at HubSpot, like blog posts and ad campaigns for our Dublin, Tokyo, Sydney, or Singapore offices, is the best of both worlds and the best part of my job. I feel really lucky to work at company where both of those passions are valued and my manager is invested in helping me leverage them.”
8. Did you ever use career services? If so, how did it play a part in your career success?
H: “Going to career fairs and career services workshops was wildly helpful. Until you get your first internship, the career fair is often the first time you’ll hear from an employer what it actually means to do a job. In real life. It’s a bit of a reality check. The skills and way of thinking you learn in the classroom are only valuable if you know where they’re most needed and how they fit into the puzzle. So, every time I went to a career fair and talked to someone face-to-face about a position, it helped connect the dots on what life might look like after graduation.”
