Q&A with Hope Hansen, Account Coordinator

We are excit­ed to offi­cial­ly wel­come Hope Hansen to Bell­mont Part­ners as an Account Coor­di­na­tor! Hope start­ed as an intern in spring of 2023. She dove right in on media rela­tions, social media coor­di­na­tion and con­tent devel­op­ment for a vari­ety of clients. She also brought along her atten­tion to detail, a will­ing­ness to go above and beyond, and over­all con­ta­gious pos­i­tive atti­tude. We knew we had to hire her full-time as soon as pos­si­ble! Hope start­ed at Bell­mont Part­ners as an Account Coor­di­na­tor upon her grad­u­a­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of St. Thomas in the spring of 2024.

Recent­ly I sat down with Hope to hear more about her back­ground, what she’s look­ing for­ward to in her role, advice she has for col­lege stu­dents look­ing to get into PR, and what she can be found doing when she’s not at work. (Hint: It prob­a­bly involves dancing.)

Tell us a bit about your background.

I grew up in Detroit Lakes, Min­neso­ta, about three and a half hours north­west of the Twin Cities. It is a beau­ti­ful small town with fan­tas­tic lake life – going back to vis­it is always a treat! After I grad­u­at­ed from Detroit Lakes High School in 2020, I attend­ed Uni­ver­si­ty of St. Thomas in St. Paul and loved every minute. The St. Thomas cam­pus has small-town vibes, but liv­ing in the Twin Cities brings ample oppor­tu­ni­ties for adven­ture. The per­fect blend for me! While at St. Thomas, I dou­ble majored in Strate­gic Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies and minored in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion. I just grad­u­at­ed in May 2024 – bring on the post-grad life!

What drew you to the field of communications?

Grow­ing up, I didn’t real­ly know what I want­ed to do for a career. What I did know is that I loved writ­ing and loved talk­ing to peo­ple. The com­mu­ni­ca­tions field seemed like a per­fect fit! The sec­ond I start­ed tak­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions class­es in col­lege, I was hooked.

How did you find out about Bell­mont Partners?

Through­out my time at St. Thomas, Bell­mont Part­ners kept pop­ping up in the best ways. Through our PRSSA chap­ter, we had sev­er­al guest speak­ers from Bell­mont Part­ners includ­ing part­ner Shel­li Lis­sick, direc­tor Hye­di Nel­son and direc­tor Megan Ander­son. I had pro­fes­sors that spoke high­ly of Bell­mont Part­ners as well.

In my junior year of col­lege, Hye­di invit­ed me to attend a one-day job shad­ow­ing event for col­lege stu­dents at the Bell­mont Part­ners office. I could feel the pos­i­tive cul­ture from the moment I stepped in, and I knew I want­ed to stay con­nect­ed with the agency.

You start­ed as an intern at Bell­mont Part­ners last sum­mer – what were you sur­prised to learn about through your expe­ri­ences? About the indus­tries you’ve been work­ing in or just agency life in general?

I am beyond grate­ful for my intern­ship at Bell­mont Part­ners. I had heard com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­als say it’s great to “start your career at an agency!” but I did not under­stand that at all until my intern­ship. I was sur­prised to learn that there are tru­ly no “typ­i­cal days.” Any­thing can hap­pen with any client on any day! My intern­ship taught me to be nim­ble while jump­ing in to help oth­ers and not being afraid to ask for help myself.

Anoth­er aspect that sur­prised me was the var­i­ous strate­gies and tac­tics used for dif­fer­ent clients. A tourism client, for exam­ple, is going to use dif­fer­ent social media strate­gies and media rela­tions tac­tics than a man­u­fac­tur­ing client. That’s the beau­ty and dif­fi­cul­ty of agency life – flip­ping your mind­set and chan­nel­ing your exper­tise for the client you’re work­ing on at that moment. And in the end, it always comes down to authen­tic and effec­tive storytelling.

What advice do you have for col­lege stu­dents look­ing to get into PR/communications?

For prac­ti­cal advice, I’d encour­age col­lege stu­dents to get an intern­ship – and do it at an agency if you can! You’ll learn about many indus­tries and which PR/communication ser­vices each client utilizes.

Join PRSSA or any com­mu­ni­ca­tion-relat­ed club or orga­ni­za­tion at your school. It will con­nect you and give you a life­long net­work of peo­ple who are excit­ed about the same things you are! Don’t be afraid to reach out to pro­fes­sion­als either – you’d be sur­prised at how much peo­ple gen­uine­ly want to help students.

And final­ly, show­case your per­son­al­i­ty! Whether you’re net­work­ing or apply­ing for a job, peo­ple will be drawn to your kind­ness and enthu­si­asm. So work hard, but don’t feel like you need to chan­nel a dif­fer­ent “work” per­sona to get into PR/communications – peo­ple love authen­tic­i­ty and know­ing who you are out­side of work!

What aspects of PR/communications do you enjoy most?

That’s chal­leng­ing. I like so many things about the field! The first thing I think of is meet­ing great peo­ple. That includes both my fan­tas­tic col­leagues and the won­der­ful clients we work with. Work­ing with a vari­ety of clients and help­ing ampli­fy their mes­sages is super reward­ing. Anoth­er thing I real­ly appre­ci­ate about PR/communications is its blend of strat­e­gy and cre­ativ­i­ty – sto­ry­telling is everything!

As an Account Coor­di­na­tor at Bell­mont Part­ners, you’ll be work­ing with the Tourism, Events and Min­neso­ta prac­tice group, as well as con­tribut­ing to oth­er client work across the agency. What are you look­ing for­ward to in your role?

I’m a very proud Min­nesotan with nat­ur­al inter­ests in tourism and events, so I’m thrilled to con­tin­ue work­ing with the Tourism, Events and Min­neso­ta prac­tice group. I’m also thank­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with clients in oth­er prac­tice groups – I’ve been learn­ing a ton about var­i­ous indus­tries along the way!

I have found that I real­ly enjoy writ­ing social media copy as well as more long-form con­tent like blogs and media pitch­es. I’m look­ing for­ward to flex­ing those cre­ative writ­ing mus­cles for clients across the agency, and I’m excit­ed to do more with media rela­tions, too.

When you’re not at work, what do you enjoy doing?

I absolute­ly love per­form­ing arts. I was a com­pet­i­tive dancer grow­ing up, and I still dance when­ev­er I can. Dur­ing the win­ter sea­son, I judge mid­dle school and high school dance teams through the Min­neso­ta State High School League – a fun way to stay involved with the sport. I’m obsessed with musi­cal the­atre as well. I’ve chore­o­graphed six musi­cals and I love watch­ing any type of show on stage! Going to con­certs with friends is anoth­er favorite hob­by. On the less stim­u­lat­ing side, I enjoy long walks and try­ing new cof­fee shops.