Dione Marion

I attribute my success to the passion I have for what I do. First of all, I love what I do. I'm a workaholic and I love to work. I can't imagine retiring because I would be so bored. But it's also my commitment to continuing my education and always learning new tools and new features in the creative world. That has been so important and has really helped me become who I am today. I'm constantly on the learning track to continue with technology changes, whether it's AI or new Adobe features, and I think that ongoing education and staying current with the industry has been critical to my success.

The best career advice I can share is to find someone that can truly mentor you properly and to work for a company that can train you properly. When I got out of college, the most important thing to me was finding a company that could train me properly, because you learn what you learn at college, but it's really not the real world and what you're actually going to use. I always emphasize that if you can get in, even if it's a lower salary in the beginning, to get in with the right person or the right place where you get the proper training, do it. You're getting a really good foundation and learning to build your career off of. It's like free education, basically. I mean, you're getting paid, maybe not as much as you'd like to, but it can only help you in the long run. Find a proper mentor and a proper company that gives proper training, that doesn't just throw you in there and make you do grunt work, but really wants to teach you and is invested in you.

I think young women have an edge in today's industry, especially with the new way the world is with content creation. The industry has completely changed since I first got out of school. There weren't nearly as many jobs as there are today because with content creation becoming so important with social media and advertising all going online versus how it used to be with commercials and traditional media, it's an equal playing field now. I find that women are very good with social media. I think they're a lot better than men when I watch social media in my company and elsewhere. I think they're just very good communicators. My advice would be to continue educating yourself and becoming better at what you're doing, because I think it's an equal playing field, maybe even better for women, because they're better communicators. Continue to do what you do and communicate well, because that definitely is how advertising and the influencing and marketing and advertising world works now.

There are lots of opportunities in content creation right now. If you're a graphic person and a good photographer and you have a good eye, you're going to have a lot of opportunities because a lot of companies are looking for that type of person to handle their graphics. There's a lot more opportunities than when I first got out of college, and I get approached quite a bit by recruiters. The biggest challenge, though, is getting in front of the right person. More than anything, with the way recruiting and the way jobs are now, everything is through submitting an application online. The biggest challenge is getting in the door and showing what you're capable of. I say use LinkedIn to communicate and message after you send your application. Don't just send your resume and wait. You will never get a response back. So the challenge is being really persistent and using tools like LinkedIn to find the hiring person and reach out. Don't just think that your resume or your portfolio's going to get you the job. It's really challenging versus when I got out and I could just take my resume, show up at a place, and say I want to meet with the managing person and convince them that they want me. Now you can't do that. Everything's a number and an analytic on the computer.

Honesty and trust are most important to me. I also value being positive and giving positive feedback. I love to be able to give people positive feedback, and I've helped a lot of younger photographers and people that have been interested in the field. I just think that positive feedback and always being positive in your life and being motivating is one of the most important things to me, along with honesty.