Yates just graduated from JMU with a marketing degree. She will begin her job at Nickelodeon as a licensing coordinator on May 14. Photo: Haley Yates
As a licensing coordinator, Yates will be working with companies that request to license Nickelodeon’s beloved properties and artwork. Everything from mac and cheese to stuffed toys must be licensed by Nickelodeon before secondary companies, such as fisher price or Kraft, before characters can be used on their products.
“I’ll be the connection between the outside companies and my bosses,” Yates told The Breeze. “So everything, even like a little thing you get in a video game, has to be approved by Nickelodeon because it’s their characters and they want it to look right.”
Yates explored other job opportunities in case there wasn’t an opening at Viacom, the company that owns Nickelodeon, after graduation. She received a call in March offering her a position in the same department she worked in before: the Boys’ Toys Team.
For Yates, the biggest advantage of this job is that she knows she’ll enjoy working there because of her prior experience. She explained that she was excited to go to work every day during her internship.
“I never was treated like an intern,” Yates said. “They made me feel like a part of the team, which I think is really rare so I was extremely fortunate.”
When Yates applied for her internship, she interviewed with a general recruiter. She requested a position with Viacom’s networks she was most familiar with, MTV and Nickelodeon. Yates grew up watching Nickelodeon and remembers loving shows such as Rugrats and SpongeBob SquarePants. Moments before her final interview for the internship, Yates received an email requesting that they Skype instead of speaking over the phone.
Yates had just gotten out of the shower and had to get dressed and find a quiet place. Despite her initial nerves, she felt the interview was mostly about seeing if she would fit well with the team.
“It was the most relaxed and calm I’d ever felt after an interview,” Yates said. “It felt like it had really gone well. It wasn’t these super hard questions or anything like that. Looking back I was probably so awkward compared to now that I know them.”
Andy Wood, the chair of the marketing department at JMU, met Yates a year ago and has taught her in two classes. He feels that Nickelodeon noticed the same qualities in Yates that he has seen in her.
“She genuinely is inquisitive,” Wood said. “She has communication skills, has good listening [skills], is pleasant, is enjoyable to have a conversation with.”
When Wood met Yates, he felt her energy made her stick out. He noticed this enthusiasm carries over into class where she is eager to learn and always sits in the front row.
Christina Trombadore, a senior hospitality major, is Yates’ best friend and roommate. Trombadore agrees Yates’ perseverance will lead to her success.
“She’s just so proud of getting to work there, so she carries around so much pride, so much energy and Nickelodeon needs that being with Viacom,” Trombadore said. “I think she’ll fit in really well.”
Trombadore and Yates have supported each other since they were hallmates freshman year in Magnolia. Trombadore advises Yates to stay true to herself as her career advances.
Yates’ professors Wood and Theresa Clarke agreed that she should hold on to her love for learning and her enthusiasm as she moves into the workplace. Clarke, Yates’ marketing professor, witnessed Yates’ go-getter attitude first hand when a client fell through for her group’s project. Yates was her team’s leader and took charge to get her team caught up to the rest of the class.
“It ended up being a whole lot more work for her and her team but I was highly impressed with her perseverance and her desire to do high quality work,” Clarke said.
As far as Yates’ future goes, she hopes to progress at Nickelodeon and wants to enroll in NYU’s marketing master’s program. Wood expects Yates to do great things and feels she’s a good fit for Viacom.
“I think it’ll be a win-win situation for both of them,” Wood said. “She won’t just be Nickelodeon, she’ll get into that industry and then there will be other opportunities maybe for some new channel that gets launched and then she’ll take a lead on developing that new channel but the future is bright I just don’t know where it’ll be for her.”
Congrats Haley! :)
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