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EPISODE 004 · COLLEGE → MARKETING
Amelia Christofferson on graduating into a hard job market
Every other guest on this show is twenty years into a career, looking back at how they got there. Amelia Christofferson is standing at the start of it. She graduates in December into one of the hardest entry-level markets in years, and this episode is about what that actually feels like from someone living it rather than remembering it.
What you will learn
- The clubs taught her more than the classes. Her own assessment, and she is not being flippant about it.
- Applying online goes nowhere. “You apply for everything and you hear back from no one.”
- Nobody taught her how to reach out. Students are told networking matters. They are not shown what to actually say.
- What she wants from senior women is not a job. It is to be treated as a person worth teaching.
- The one question she asks in interviews, and why it tells her more than anything on the job description.
What does the last semester of college feel like right now?
Lighter than you might expect, and deliberately so. She describes taking a step back and accepting that there is enormous pressure to have everything figured out, then deciding to enjoy the time she has left because she will not get it back. Underneath that is a calculation a lot of people never make: she will figure it out regardless, so the anxiety is not buying her anything.
She does not currently have a job, which she finds genuinely strange. She spent the summer working roughly fifty hours a week and describes herself as a bit of a workaholic, so arriving at a semester with nothing scheduled sent her looking for hobbies. She has started reading again.
Did college prepare her for work?
Partly, and she is precise about which parts. She got involved in her freshman year and went to everything: the entrepreneurship club, the marketing club, the sales club, the real estate club, including the ones she had no particular interest in. What she got from it was practice at talking to people, and specifically at the thing that is hard to teach.
“It's good to learn how to still be personal while being professional.”
Amelia Christofferson, Women IN episode 4
Her verdict on the classroom is more measured than a soundbite would suggest. The classes taught her everything she needs to know, she says, and learning a vocabulary term is simply a different activity from doing the thing at a job. Her summary of where she stands is one of the cleaner descriptions of a new graduate you will hear:
“I've built the foundation of everything I need to know, and now I need to learn how to apply it.”
Amelia Christofferson, Women IN episode 4
What school did not prepare her for was the texture of a full-time job. Coursework has deadlines, but the goal is a good grade. Work has high-stress environments, deadlines that matter to other people, and numbers to hit. She says the amount of stress was the thing she was not expecting.
What should universities do differently?
Put students on real work. Her frustration is with the loop that every graduate runs into: entry-level jobs that require experience, with no obvious route to getting the experience. Her proposal is that coursework should involve working with an actual company on an actual problem, rather than invented scenarios from a textbook.
She is careful to say she knows that is hard for a university to arrange. She is less careful about the cost of not doing it, which she puts plainly: there are students who could bring a genuinely new perspective and are never given the opening.
What is the job search actually like?
This is the section of the episode that will land hardest with anyone currently looking.
“You go on LinkedIn and Indeed and you apply for everything and you hear back from no one.”
Amelia Christofferson, Women IN episode 4
Her diagnosis of the gap is sharper than the complaint. Students are told repeatedly that reaching out is important. Nobody teaches them how. So the act of emailing a stranger who might interview you feels awkward and, in her word, disingenuous, because she does not want the person to feel she only wants something from them.
What she wishes she had been taught is the mechanics: how to identify which jobs are actually right for you, and how to write to someone in a way that makes a real connection rather than opening with a favor. Sondra's counter is to reframe it as an informational conversation rather than an ask, and to use contacts who are already inside.
What does she want from women twenty years ahead of her?
Not a job, though she would take one. Her first ask is simply to be given a chance, and her second is about how it feels to be new.
She describes walking into a room where everyone has twenty years of experience and finding it intimidating enough that asking a question feels like an imposition, as though you are wasting someone's time or advertising that you do not know what you are doing. Add the age gap, which she is blunt about: at twenty-one she has had colleagues her parents' age, which makes casual conversation awkward before any work happens.
Her ask is that senior people behave like a mentor and a friend rather than a boss, because that is the difference between a new hire who asks questions and one who does not.
“A lot of the times, kids our age, we don't like to ask for help.”
Amelia Christofferson, Women IN episode 4
She also takes the Gen Z reputation head on. She hears constantly that her generation is lazy and does not want to work, and says that is not the case for the people she talks to. They want careers. Starting is the hard part. And she makes a point that costs a senior person nothing: even when you have no role to offer, the advice itself is worth having, because it shows there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
What would she tell a junior sitting behind her?
Start thinking about graduation now, because it arrives faster than anyone believes. She remembers being a freshman certain she had all the time in the world.
Then: say yes to everything. Go to the club even when you do not feel like it, because the people are the point. And crucially, ruling something out counts as progress. She went to a finance club meeting and knew immediately it was not for her, which is a useful afternoon, not a wasted one.
Her third piece is about friendship, and it is the least obvious. Keep friends across different majors, because they are going through the same thing. Her nursing friends are struggling to find jobs too. Being able to say that out loud to someone is the support group.
The question she asks in every interview
Her summer internship set the standard. Her manager's position was that she did not care how much work got done in a week as long as Amelia was learning, and asked her directly what she wanted to learn. Amelia's reaction to that is telling: she found it surprising.
Her read on most employers is that they teach you how to do the job but do not mentor you on how to do it well, because getting it done matters more to them than it being done properly. So the thing she is looking for in a first job is an employer who will actually train her and move her past entry level.
Which is why she asks interviewers what they like about their job. Her reasoning: she may not enjoy every task, but she wants to like the job, and the person across the table answering that question tells her whether that is possible.
Where to find Amelia Christofferson
She is on LinkedIn and actively looking for a marketing role. If you are hiring, or you know someone who is, she is exactly the person this episode is about.
Where to listen
Listen to Women IN episode 4 with Amelia Christofferson wherever you get your podcasts.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Amelia Christofferson?
Amelia Christofferson is a marketing and sales student graduating in December 2026. She has been a campus leader, running the American Marketing Association's Grand Canyon chapter, and is looking for her first full-time role in marketing. She is the only guest in season one of Women IN who has not started her career yet.
What does she say college prepared her for, and what it did not?
She says school taught her time management, hitting assignments and working in groups, and that she has built the foundation of what she needs to know. What it did not prepare her for was the stress of a nine to five job with real deadlines and numbers to hit, rather than coursework where the goal is a good grade.
What does she think universities should change?
She wants students placed on real projects with real companies as part of their coursework, rather than invented scenarios from a textbook. Her point is that entry-level jobs ask for experience students have no way to get.
What does she want from women further along in their careers?
To be mentored as a friend rather than managed as a subordinate, and to be given a chance. She says Gen Z gets a reputation for being lazy that does not match the people she knows, and that even advice from someone with no job to offer is worth a great deal.
What is her advice to students still in college?
Say yes to everything, including clubs you think you will not like, because ruling something out is as useful as finding something you love. Start thinking about graduation earlier than feels necessary, and build a support group of friends across different majors.