On Bouncing Back and BroncoJOBS
Earlier this year, Greg Comperchio found himself facing many Michigan workers’ greatest fear: the loss of his job. A marketing major who built his sales skills while still on campus by selling retail advertising for the Western Herald, Comperchio landed his first job at the Lansing State Journal where he sold classified advertising for three years. Then, Comperchio moved to Safety-Kleen, an environmental solutions company, working as a market specialist for two years. Earlier this year, he was let go from Safety-Kleen and re-entered the job market by force instead of by choice.
Luckily, his degree from the Haworth College of Business and his sales and marketing experience made Comperchio very marketable. Only out of work for two weeks, he found his current position as the New Media Account Manager at WILX TV through BroncoJOBS. Comperchio speaks of his job loss as something that was eye opening, “To go from a low point in my career to getting back in the saddle, interviewing, networking, and then being hired by my current employer was a very proud moment for me. I was only out of work for two weeks. My current employer sends its postings to about ten different websites. I was the first employee at this station to be hired from BroncoJOBS.”
Comperchio knew that his degree had prepared him to adapt to the changing conditions of the job market and seeing the benefits his degree afforded in his job search affirmed what he always knew intuitively about his business degree, that it gave him an “edge.”
Comperchio is a believer in paying it forward when it comes to the Haworth College of Business, “I always speak highly of the business college to my peers and friends.” In one particular case, he met a young man at a local baseball game and struck up a conversation. As it happened, the man was considering going back to school, and Comperchio was quick to note the merits of a degree from WMU. “A year later I met up with him again, and he pointed out his WMU hat to me. He wanted to let me know that speaking with me at that baseball game persuaded him to attend WMU, and he loved the atmosphere. We shared stories about common hangouts around campus,” Comperchio notes.
Comperchio still considers Kalamazoo and Western his home away from home and is a frequent attendee at WMU sporting events.
He notes that his only regret from his time in the Haworth College of Business is that he wishes he had more time to be even more involved in student organizations like AdClub and others and encourages today’s students to do as much as they can to give them the competitive edge that today’s job market demands.