{"id":16380,"date":"2016-12-30T08:00:07","date_gmt":"2016-12-30T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/?p=16380"},"modified":"2016-12-30T08:00:07","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T13:00:07","slug":"media-moguls-in-training-j-seldric-blocker-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/media-moguls-in-training-j-seldric-blocker-01\/","title":{"rendered":"Media moguls in training: J. Seldric Blocker \u201901"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nWhile looking for internships at\u00a0Clemson, Seldric Blocker was plucked\u00a0for a program with First Union. But not\u00a0for banking or financial needs; it was\u00a0human resources. Now he\u2019s the director\u00a0of campus recruiting, shaping paths for\u00a0future generations of network newsies\u00a0and entertainment execs as the director of\u00a0NBCUniversal\u2019s talent acquisition campus\u00a0programs, Campus2Career<\/a>.
\nEach year he fields more than 42,000\u00a0applications for about 2,000 spring,\u00a0summer and fall internships. In the last\u00a0three years he\u2019s managed more than 5,500\u00a0interns, including 300 added to cover the\u00a02016 Summer Olympics in Rio, Brazil.
\nPart of Blocker\u2019s job has entailed\u00a0streamlining the Campus2Career program\u00a0so there is a standard NBCUniversal<\/a>\u00a0experience at each campus they visit,\u00a0and across all internships and all markets, including their London and Singapore programs. \u201cFlawless\u00a0execution\u201d is how Blocker defines it.\u00a0\u201cWe want them to have a great experience, even if they decide this isn\u2019t what they want to do long term,\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201cWe want them to leave more curious than when they came in. We want them to have fun.\u201d
\nLessons he learned from his own academic and career experience very much inform how he mentors\u00a0others. He encourages those that come through his office to take advantage of study abroad, be more\u00a0ambitious and take more risks.\u00a0One of the ways Blocker and his team allow interns to have fun and take ownership of their internship\u00a0is through NBCUniversal storytelling. \u201cThe students are digital natives, and we encourage them to craft\u00a0and tell the NBCUniversal story through a multifaceted approach, whether that\u2019s Snapchat or some other\u00a0social platform. They have their fingers on the pulse of what\u2019s happening next and are brand ambassadors\u00a0for future generations of interns.\u201d
\nBlocker is also focused on building diversity across NBCUniversal\u2019s platforms. \u201cWe are looking for\u00a0people who have demonstrated their leadership on campus. We employ a wide variety of majors and\u00a0backgrounds. [pullquote]They don\u2019t just have to have a passion for media and the entertainment industry. We want\u00a0to know what you can take from your background and bring to the table to help us tell a more well-rounded\u00a0story[\/pullquote],\u201d said Blocker.
\nEven after hanging strong in the financial sector through the economic downturn of 2008, Blocker\u00a0said navigating the media industry at first was a new, interesting beast. \u201cIt was tough at first. In the media\u00a0you have a lot of creative people who have a competitive edge, and you\u2019re managing a first-impression for a\u00a0major media brand,\u201d said Blocker.\u00a0Blocker said the experience at NBCUniversal has taught him to meet people where they are, and that\u00a0being relatable is a skillset that transcends any workplace environment.\u00a0\u201c[Clemson\u2019s] academic environment did a good job of fostering a sense of responsibility and ownership\u00a0and made me feel like I belong,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to give others that sense of feeling like they belong, too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While looking for internships at\u00a0Clemson, Seldric Blocker was plucked\u00a0for a program with First Union. But not\u00a0for banking or financial needs; it was\u00a0human resources. Now he\u2019s the director\u00a0of campus recruiting, shaping paths for\u00a0future generations of network newsies\u00a0and entertainment execs as the director of\u00a0NBCUniversal\u2019s talent acquisition campus\u00a0programs, Campus2Career. Each year he fields more than 42,000\u00a0applications for about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":16467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[172,994,1605,2048,2049,3306,3307],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-16380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniprofiles","tag-alumni-profiles","tag-diversity","tag-internships","tag-nbc","tag-nbcuniversal","tag-winter-2017","tag-winter-2017-alumni-profile"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/12\/Seldric-Booker.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16380"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}