19: What It’s Like as a Latino to Work in Communications With Jose Castaneda, ITI [Main T4C Episode]

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Jose Castaneda is the Communications Manager for the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI)* the trade association for the high tech sector — from hardware to software to services — representing the most innovative technology brands in the world. In this role, Jose drafts blog posts for ITI’s policy teams, manages media relations with reporters and leads ITI’s social media efforts. It’s not what he thought he’d be doing when he graduated from the University of Florida in May 2015, with a double major in Economics and Political Science, but fortunately for Jose, it’s a job that plays to his strengths: lots of writing, networking and public speaking. Prior to joining ITI, Jose had several internships which helped to position him for the entry-level communications job that got his foot in the door at ITI as a Communications Associate. Jose’s internships included working at the PR giant Edelman, at Hamilton Place Strategies (HPS) as a public affairs intern and at AT&T as a Federal and National Public Affairs intern. Tune in to this episode of T4C to learn how Jose leveraged internships (and actually sold his car to make rent) until he finally landed a full-time paying gig.

*Jose left ITI in January 2019. He is now a Policy Communications Senior Associate at Google.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE:

• How you can learn to write well by reading what your boss and other colleagues put out (3:33)
• Why being adaptable will be an asset in the working world (9:25)
• Why your college major won’t matter early in your career because you’ll be learning different skill sets (20:21)
• How there’s no one right way to start building your career (23:19)
• Why knowing how to network is one of the key factors that will make you successful in this career (25:15)