Month: June 2024

Successful Berklee Alumni #239: Peyton Propst

Kevin
Peyton Propst
Listen to the interview or download it.

Graduated in 2020 with a major in Music Business. Principal Instrument: voice.

Position: Director of Social & Content at Lemme, a small vitamin startup where she’s one of a dozen employees–three in marketing. Peyton makes social content calendars for Instagram & TikTok, she edits all content for paid and free media. She works with companies and helps with collarborations. She also does briefs for design team, social engagement with audience, and outlines briefs for mailers and photoshoots. This adds up to 65-70 hour weeks!

Overview: Peyton made it through Berklee in only three years, thanks to summer and online classes. After graduation, she moved home to Atlanta, where she did marketing for Keller Williams Realty as well as working as a personal assistant for a family. In September of 2021, wanting a change and feeling that opportunities were opening up post-pandemic, Peyton moved to L.A. She worked at a health club for a few months, then started searching for a better job. Via LinkedIn, she found a job as an account coordinator for a creative marketing agency and worked there almost a year, but she didn’t see this company as a long-term career so she started applying again to jobs. Lots of near-misses, but in the summer of 2022 she got a message from someone at Lemme and was hired into her current position before their products had even hit the market.

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You can see Peyton’s LinkedIn profile here.

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Choice Quotes: “I’ve never had a job where I felt so close with colleagues. They go above and beyond themselves, and they really want to see me grow in my role, try things, and succeed! They really want to know what I think. Realistically, (as someone fairly young) I’m part of the target audience.”

“It’s SO important to follow up with people! Any professor you form a connection with may be able to helpful. Personal relationships will take you far. Also, LInkedIn is a great resource. I found both my jobs on it.Reach out to Berklee alum on it and use it to the best of your ability. Also, it’s OK to work some part-time jobs while you’re figuring it out–I’ve met great people and got valuable skills working those.”

“You can’t teach taste; you can’t teach instinct. Music has made those second nature to me. Also, being on set in my job feels the same as being onstage.”

“I listen to many lectures online about marketing and those help me think about my job. As simple as marketing sounds, there are so many different facets to it that you can get into.When you think about yourself and platforms you’re on, you’re marketing yourself–that’s everything you do!”

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See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Successful Berklee Alumni #238: Kassidy Ford

Kevin
Kassidy Ford
Listen to the interview or download it. Note: Due to a technical glitch, the final 5 – 10 minutes of the interview were not recorded.

Graduated in 2020 with a major in Music Business. Principal instrument: voice.

Position: Underwriter Rates Integration Specialist at Qualia, a real estate technology company specializing in streamlining and standardizing real estate transactions, their main customers being title insurance companies. “This is kind of a unique position, where you can do accounting without a CPA. It has both accounting and customer success responsiblities. A lot of what we do is just be a specialist, assignment to a client to handle accounting-related questions. I’m doing a client’s month-end reporting and giving them general advice as to how to maintain their escrow accounts. It’s more like a consulting position.”

Overview: Kassidy entered Berklee as a Music Therapy major but switched to Music Business halfway through, as the degree felt more versatile. After graduating in the pandemic, she stayed at home in the Boston area and worked as a restaurant manager. By the fall of 2021 she was feeling a strong urge to move somewhere new and start a real career. She moved to Austin, Texas on her own, found roommates, and waited tables while networking and looking for better work. A friend who had worked at Qualia submitted her resume and she got a position, as well as a part-time position at SOFAR Sounds organizing living room concerts. A year later, Kassady had been promoted at Qualia, and while she was meeting lots of people at SOFAR, it was a lot of time for not much money and she had made her peace with not working in music, so she left that position.

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You can see Kassidy’s LinkedIn profile here.
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Choice Quotes: “My position is a really good way to start a career. It allowed me to get into something new without another degree. Real estate will always be a significant industry, so it’s a position I’m grateful to have. But I also enjoy it. The peole are great and helpful, our culture is amazing.”


The people of Berklee and experience going to an art school fosters self-development, because it’s so creative. It helped me shape my personality, which helps with everything.

“I still have a keyboard and guitar in my apartment and will mess around once every couple of weeks. I might be auditioning for a community theater musical soon. I want to always have a relationship with music.”

I normally have certain assigned clients, where I’l perform hundreds of daily reconciliations on their escrow accounts–going through it daily makes it so that any fraud is spotted quickly.”
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See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.

Successful Berklee Alumni #237: Jacob Stephens

Kevin
Jacob Stephens
Listen to the interview or download it.

Graduated in 2021 with a major in Music Business. Principal instrument: drums.

Position: Account executive at Billion Dollar Boy, a Tiktok influencer agency with around 150 employees, helping negotiate promotions between brands and influencers. Jacob helps find influencers for ad campaigns, making sure the videos match what the company wants in the campaign. He’d in contact mainly with influencers, but also brands.

Side job: Jacob has his own clothing brand, INFORCE Clothing.

Overview: Jacob launched INFORCE Clothing in the fall of 2019, about halfway through Berklee. As part of this, he’d post parties that would attract 200+ people…then the pandemic hit and that all stopped. After graduation, Jacob was living in L.A., and had a job at Banana Republic. His mother suggested he go to grad school. Jacob applied to both Berklee NYC and Parsons School of Design for a Masters in Fashion Management. He didn’t get into Berklee NYC, but after initially being waitlisted was admittedto Parsons for this one-year program, starting in the fall of 2021. While in grad school he did an internship in social media marketing and liked it, thinking it would be a good career. A bit after grad school wrapped up he mentioned this to a friend whose sister worked at Billion Dollar Boy, and through that connection he got an interview and was hired into his position.

You can see Jacob’s LinkedIn profile here.

Choice Quotes: “My main job is great–it gives me an inside view of how brands build their influencing marketing campaigns, how they meet their goals. It’s cool to get to build something from beginning to end. The whole process is fun for me!”

“The basics of business is all the same, but the nuances of the industry are different. You can build a record label, then if you transition to fashion you just have to learn the details of that industry.”

“Berklee prepared me for all the ups and downs of life. At Berklee you go through the mental battle of if you’re good enough. Then you lean to practice and practice until you get better.”

“As they say, your network is your net worth. Really use the people you know. I’ve learned how many people are doing cool things in the world. I’ve gotten opportunities just from who I met at Berklee. I got out of my rut by being inspired by others.”

“If you want to go into social media marketing, if you’re still a Berklee studetn DEFINITELY market caf shows and other small shows–that experience will be extremely valuable. For fashion, you’re near so many different schools. Go out there and do your research. I did a lot of research–google, YouTube. Just go and do it.”

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See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.