"A postgraduate degree gave me more time and the opportunity to learn a lot more".

When Matt Dworakowski began his undergraduate degree, he had his sights set on a career in health promotion.

Studying public health, health promotion and commerce, Matt thought he was more the ‘creative type’ who could work for government or NGO organisations on health advertising campaigns.

But as he progressed through his course, Matt found himself drawn more to the business aspects of the degree and became increasingly interested in the commerce and marketing disciplines.

‘I’d also learnt that it wasn’t health organisations who did campaigns but marketing agencies – and this was the area I was really interested in,’ he says.

Securing part-time work with a marketing agency during his undergraduate degree, Matt decided to roll straight into a Master of Marketing postgraduate degree at Deakin after graduation.

‘I was still a little unsure about which career direction to take but as I was leaning towards marketing, a postgraduate degree gave me more time and the opportunity to learn a lot more,’ he explains.

Completing the degree in 2015, Matt is now employed fulltime as a digital marketing strategist with Assemblo –a Melbourne-based creative marketing agency.

Working alongside the company’s head of strategy, Matt’s role is to pitch, develop, implement and evaluate digital marketing campaigns.

‘I create and monitor social media ads for clients, maintain their social media accounts, undertake search engine optimisation (SEO) for client websites, run display and AdWords campaigns, and evaluate campaigns on a monthly basis to track their performance,’ he explains.

Matt enjoys the creative freedom of his role and says it offers him great scope for using imagination and creative, intelligent thinking about how to run effective advertising campaigns. 

‘It’s awesome just sitting in a team meeting bouncing around ideas and then coming up with a creative concept and strategy that surrounds that idea.’

Working with a range of clients from diverse industries, Matt is involved in extensive research around a client’s products and target markets and says that sometimes, this can be one of the more challenging aspects to his role.

‘Many clients require me to spend a lot of time understanding aspects of their industry. So although it can be tough and it takes a bit of time, it’s also rewarding because you expand your knowledge and really broadens your learning and understanding.’

He says that completing a postgraduate degree in marketing has enabled him to move beyond the theory of marketing into industry skills and application.

‘It’s helped me learn the practical side of things more quickly and has also given me the opportunity to acquire knowledge that you probably wouldn’t learn until reaching a senior marketing position.’

Matt’s advice to anyone interested in a marketing career is to build networks and tackle as much ‘real-world’ experience as possible while studying.

‘Whether this involves volunteering in a marketing-related role or finding paid administrative work in the marketing field, take the opportunity. Also try to meet and network with as many people as possible because this can go a very long way in establishing and growing your career.’