Job Talk NJ

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[jobtalknj]

Entering an Industry with no Prior Experience

Today’s jobtalk is with Timothy Johnson III, who is working in a field that is unrelated to what he studied in college. In this interview, I don’t get into what Tim does for a living, rather I find out about the decisions he made when he was in college and how he was able to break into marketing without studying it in college – no related internships either. Check out what Timothy has to say about getting a job in an area in which you have no prior experience.

Title: Marketing Coordinator

Education: B.A. Linguistics, Swarthmore, 2007

Age: 26

Did you have an interest in marketing when you started college?

But I’m guessing it’s safe to say that you’re no longer interested in going to medical school and being a medical researcher since you are in marketing now. Why did you change your mind?

It’s primarily because when I started taking science classes in college, I started to realize that my drive to work in a lab wasn’t there. I enjoyed lab-work, but it wasn’t something I could imagine myself doing for a long time. I wasn’t comfortable with having to function with very little sleep and having to be in charge of people’s lives. I know what I feel like with 2 hours of sleep, and it’s very hard for me to do anything.

I also realized that I was more interested in doing something that would let me have more conversations with people. So I realized that I wasn’t quite as into doing medical research as I thought. I also noticed that there was a marked difference between me and my friends who were really into science.

My friends that were really into science would always be in the science library and they were always talking about science. I enjoyed talking about science, but not to the extent that my science-friends liked to about it.

I decided that I didn’t want to major in science, so I chose linguistics. I had wanted to major in English, but unfortunately, at Swarthmore, to do that would have required a special major. And it just wasn’t feasible. So I decided to try linguistics. It was very different from what I thought it was.

In one of James Altucher’s blog posts, he writes that college is basically about memorizing facts and that it will not really teach people how to think. What is your response to this statement?

I would say that his point about memorizing information is wrong. I think you see more of that in high school.  When I got to college, we were expected to be able to apply our knowledge. My first several exam grades in biology were abysmal. I would study the information and do the study questions and thought, “Okay I should be good for this test.” But I was wrong.

In college, it wasn’t read, absorb, and regurgitate. It was read, absorb, and apply your knowledge to a problem you haven’t seen before.

For me, college really helped to shift my thinking.

What else did you do during your college years besides going to class?

I worked at the library and in the art gallery. That showed me what it was like to do a job, handle money, and budget my time. I had also worked as a lifeguard when I was in high school. Every Saturday I taught preschoolers how to swim.

When I graduated from Swarthmore, I looked for marketing and communications jobs, and I couldn’t find anything. I had gone on interviews and gotten to the last round and then someone had a marketing internship or background and they took that person over me.

So I thought about it, and since I couldn’t get a job in the field that I wanted to work in, I made a list of retail companies that I could stand to work in that would cater to my interests. I came up with a really short list. It was Apple, Barnes and Noble, Verizon Wireless, and AT&T. I had also looked at Pier 1 Imports, but after I had had an interview with them, I thought, “Nah I can’t work there.” I ended up working at Apple.

Did you take anything away from your time working in the Apple store?

I got to work with a particular product that I thought was pretty out-of-this-world and I really believed in it. It was easy for me to talk about it because it wasn’t like I was trying to get people to buy Oreos. I also got to meet interesting people that came into the store, so that was great from a networking standpoint.

Working at Apple also taught me that I loved working as team with my coworkers. While salespeople were all responsible for being knowledgeable, if I didn’t know something that a customer asked about, it was okay to say, “I’m not really sure about that. Why don’t we go to my colleague and we can learn more about it together.”

I also learned how to give excellent service from working at the Apple store as well as what it was like to work for a company that really cares about its customers. Understanding what a customer experience should be like – from the floor plan to the way the product looks on the shelves – taught me what goes into marketing a product.

What advice do you have for someone that wants to go into a field that s/he didn’t study in college?

Sit down and say, “Okay, I have a degree in XYZ, and I want to get experience in marketing.” The question to ask is “How can I get experience in marketing?” Make a list of all the ways you can go about fulfilling your goal.

For example, the list might have the following for someone who’s interested in marketing: internships, jobs, taking a class at a community college, taking out a couple books from the library, joining an organization such as The American Marketing Association of New Jersey. Also figure out how to network. Talk to people who do what you want to do and ask them about what it’s like and what advice they can give you.

I know you commute from NJ to NYC, so your weekends are precious. What do you love doing on the weekends?

Yeah, I have a busy week. I leave my house at 6:30 in the morning and get home anywhere between 6:45 and 7:15. So on the weekends I like to see my friends. Yesterday I went bowling and tonight I’m going to a dinner party. I also spend time on my hobbies and enjoy reading fantasy novels. 

[jobtalknj]

Be Professional

Photo Source: Flickr's Andrea Schwalm

Guest Post By Dana Sitar

One difficulty in making your art your business is that often there are no clear-cut rules for how to act in that business. Norms kind of get thrown out the window when your greatest strength is your ability to be different. But that doesn't mean that you no longer have to act like a professional -- you just have to figure out exactly what that means in your profession.

Learn how to correspond professionally. This doesn't just mean full sentences and proper capitalization in emails -- though ugly emails are a huge annoyance for a lot of people. It also means knowing how to introduce yourself to a major player in your industry, greeting and ending a phone call smoothly, providing clear information in a voicemail, including useful contact information on your business card or your website, knowing how to make a form letter personal to each recipient.

Even if you wear jeans every day and work from home, you still have to capitalize on your chances to network.

Don't do favors. When your friends find out that you're a writer, they will come crawling out of the woodwork with projects they want you to "take a look at." This can either offer you great experience and fill out your portfolio, or it can be a huge time suck. If you're working full time in your given art, you have to learn how to distinguish these, or you could wind up spending a lot of time and energy on pet projects that aren't going anywhere instead of taking on new projects that could boost your own career.

Furthermore, don't let a bad writer guest post on your blog or a lousy actor perform in your show just because you're friends. It's nice to do what you can for someone, but you can't let the quality of your work be dragged down just to be nice.

Treat every job like it matters. Even if you are working for free or you are working for a friend, do your best work every time. Internships and unpaid work are a great way to get started doing what you love. They offer you a chance to practice and gain experience, and if you do well, they can provide you with a strong history and a plethora of references to get future work.

Don't ever treat a gig like it's below you -- you wouldn't be doing it if it were.

What tips can you offer to artists for acting professional?

Dana Sitar is a freelance journalist and author of the ongoing memoir series This Artists’ Life. Her latest release, The Hart Compound, follows the writer to her journalistic roots as Senior Campaign Writer to a Mayoral campaign headed by two Madison, Wisconsin comedians. Dana shares writing tips and anecdotes at her blog by.dana.sitar. She is @danasitar on Twitter.

[jobtalknj]

Live on the Cheap

When I was little, I used to have one of those magic 8-balls. A lot of kids had them. Of course I knew that magic 8-ball wouldn’t give me the answer to my questions, but it was fun to pretend. Now there’s something better, there’s Google. You know how it goes. You type in your question and you get tons of answers.

How do I get rid of shin splints?

Can I wait till 40 to have a child?

Is the economy ever going to get better?

But just when you thought you had it all figured out, you click on an article by Jack Metzgar that cites the Bureau of Labor Statistics to make the point that most jobs in the future won’t require a college degree. But looking at the jobs that don’t require degrees – health aides, janitors, and construction workers are some – you quickly realize that you don’t want any of them.

You decide you want to be in the camp that gets the jobs with the degrees. And then you come across other articles that are persuasive in getting you to believe that you need college. Here’s one from Robert Reich that says college should be more affordable. Of course he’s arguing this because his bottom line is that you’re going to have a better opportunity to make money if you go to college.

Google isn’t exactly as cut-and-dry as our favorite magic 8-ball.

So the question remains, should you go to college or shouldn’t you? And if you rely on statistics to tell you the answer, well, the statistics seem to point to people needing college. Some of the stats, anyway!

I’m not going to tell you to go to college or to not go. You need to figure that out for yourself. Make no mistake, I definitely have an opinion about who should go to college and who shouldn’t, but tons of people are writing and talking about it. Judith Clayton makes some great points in her short article, “Who Shouldn’t go to College,” that sums up how I feel about college better than I could write about it.

Whatever you decide, do it on the cheap. Unless, that is, you’ve got a never-ending supply of money. Then you can do whatever you want.

So if you go to college, make sure you have a scholarship. If you don’t have a scholarship, live with your parents and go to a community college first. And if you can't live with your parents, work and go to school part-time. So you take longer to graduate. At least you'll have a lot of job experience.  

Oh, all of your friends are going away? How happy will all of your friends be when they can’t find their first job and have student loans to pay off? Or maybe they do get their first job, but still have tons of debt.

And if you’re friends with people whose parents are paying their full ride and your parents can’t afford to pay for you, realize that you can’t be like your friends. The sooner you make decisions about your life based on your finances, and not based on what you want to do because your friends are doing it, the better off you will be.

If you are not rich, don’t try to act like a rich person. It will only make your life hell in the long run.

I drive a 1997 Toyota Camry, and I share the car with my husband. That’s right, we have one car. And we live with my mother. And we are not in our 20s either! Do I want to have my own place? Does it snow in Alaska? But I rather go through my days being able to think about something else than paying rent, which I can do since I live with my mother.

Besides, it’s temporary. Everything is temporary. Unless you get yourself into debt.

Making good financial decisions will set you up to have a better life, and there's no debating that.

Think about it this way, debt is paralyzing. If someone said to you, “You can take out these loans in exchange for your legs four years from now,” what would your answer be? 

[jobtalknj]

Interview with a Restaurateur

Today's jobtalk is with John Procaccini, who owns three restaurants in the Princeton area with his brother, Tino. Soon, they'll add one more restaurant to their portfolio when their Kingston restaurant Osteria Procaccini opens its second location in Pennington.

I interviewed John Procaccini at PJ's, which he and his brother bought this past August. Procaccini was manning the checkout when I arrived, and for a moment I wondered if he'd actually be able to talk to me or if I'd be having to get soundbites in between his ringing up customers.

Luckily, I did get to steal some of his time, and here's what I found out!

By the way, check out a review of Osteria Procaccini in the New York Times. 

Title: Restaurateur

Education:  B.A. Business Management and Organizational Behavior (minor in entrepreneurship), Rider University, 1997

Age: 36

When did you start buying restaurants?

In 2005, we outgrew our first restaurant, La Principessa, and we moved to Princeton. We own Princeton Sports Bar and Grill, which we originally opened as Sotto Ristorante. We opened up the Osteria Procuccini in Kingston in January 2011, and now we’re opening up our second location in Pennington next month. In August 2011, we bought PJ’s.

Sounds like a crazy work schedule when you were at Sarnoff. Were you working all of the time?

Yeah. And I still do. When I was at Sarnoff, I’d get to the office at 7am, finish at 5, and then get to the restaurant for the dinner shift. Now I start 7am and close the bar at 2 in the morning. 

I know you’ve got two little kids. When do they get to see Dad?

They spend a lot of time at the restaurants. When they want pizza, they come for pizza, and when they want pancakes, they come for pancakes. We also do take several vacations a year. I work hard. I make sure I play hard too. 

How does it work out being in business with your brother?

Good. Well, look, we’re Italian, so we’re very tight-knit. Don’t get me wrong, we have our moments, but it’s been like that since we were kids. We’re complementary in skills.

What’s your brother good at that you’re not and vice versa?

Tino is all kitchen and food-focused. I definitely am that too, but I’m more customer-service oriented. I’ve always been the front-of-the-house, and he’s always been the back, so we don’t really ever get in the way of one another. The only time we get in the way of each other is when a customer wants some crazy request that is against his culinary religion.

The movie Big Night explains it all. That movie is our story. It is two brothers who open a restaurant together. The one brother in the movie, Primo, is just like mine; he’s all about culinary exquisiteness. So when the other brother, Secondo, tells Primo that a customer wants a side of spaghetti to go with her risotto, Primo says he won’t do it.

Yet Secondo argues on behalf of the customer. That’s my brother and I. But for the most part, my brother and I complement one another and help each other out. I’m more of the business guy, so I’m always the one looking for the next thing.

You own not one restaurant, but four. I know this isn’t an easy business to be in, so what drives you to do this?

Everybody thinks that this business is a glamour business. The way I describe it is that when you watch a duck on a lake, the duck looks so peaceful, but below the water the sucker is paddling like crazy to stay afloat. And that’s the perfect analogy for us in the restaurant business.

The motivation behind expansion is basically retirement. At the end of the day, you can make a living owning 1 or 2 units. But, you’re not going to retire from it. And that’s not where I want to be. I want to eventually spend time with my family and my kids. When you start exponentially growing, 4 units, 5 units, that’s your revenue stream. Obviously, I can’t be in 4 or 5 units, but you’re still overseeing it, and you’re still getting paid.

And, it’s also diversification. You have to look at it that way. If you own 1 restaurant, and the economy tanks, and the restaurant is based on a concept that doesn’t do well in a bad economy, what are you going to do now?

We have a diversified portfolio; we do not have all high-end or low-end restaurants. This helps to keep us afloat during the bad times. We all know the last 3 or 4 years have been really bad times. But we’ve been growing in this bad economy, and now things are picking up.

How did you decide to start the pizza shop as opposed to starting another kind of family-friendly restaurant?

When we took a look around at all of the local pizza shops, we realized that they all carry the big 16 or 18 inch pizza. That doesn’t exist in Italy. We wanted to do something that was different and more authentic. The pizzeria is farm-to-table. In Italy, I remember my grandmother making the dough and tomato sauce from scratch. That’s what we wanted to do at Osteria Procaccini.

We chose the location in Kingston because we both live in Kingston, and there wasn’t any place to go get pizza or a sandwich. And it’s been really successful.

Our second location for Osteria Procaccini is Pennington. We like to choose historical villages. Those are the areas we are looking for.

What’s one of the biggest challenges of being in the restaurant business?

The volatility of it. The volatility in this business is insurmountable. Most businesses have certain overhead that you can cut to weather a storm. In this business, you cannot order less produce, you cannot have fewer servers or fewer cooks. Even if business is slow, a busload of tourists could show up, and you have to be ready to go. What are you going to do, tell people you don’t have the food they want? 

Being able to manage the ups and downs is the biggest challenge.

Summertime. That’s the perfect example of the ups and downs. When the university empties out, people go away. All summer long we’re grasping for customers.

What do you love about this industry?

I love the customer interaction. There’s nothing better than satisfying a customer. It’s like instant gratification. I also love getting to know the customers.

If you weren’t in this business, what would you be doing?

I would definitely be back in business development, marketing, customer relations. That’s what I did at Sarnoff.

What is one of the biggest mistakes that you’ve made and learned from?

Everybody wants a high-end restaurant. Everybody wants these fancy places. And we learned the hard way. Because at the end of the day, when times are tough, even people with money cut back. Take a look at Lahiere’s, they were in business over 90 years, and they had to close.

What I’ve learned is that small, simple, and cost-friendly food works. Even the wealthy will come and eat breakfast or go get a slice of pizza. But when the economy is bad, they won’t necessarily go out for filet mignon.

That’s why we changed Sotto. It was a nice higher-end restaurant. We did well for the first two years – amazingly well. When the economy tanked, business dried up. We made the decision to change over. To make a long story short, keep it simple – affordable.

What advice do you have for anybody who wants to get into this business?

Have a thick skin. Make sure you have some experience in the restaurant industry. It cracks me up whenever I see Hollywood stars open a restaurant. Whatever fortune these people amass in their real life, they destroy it in their entrepreneurial life.

It’s  kind of the same thing as people who want to bartend but have no experience. People come in and tell me they want to be a bar tender. I say, “Have you ever bar-tended before?” And they say, “No, but I took the class.” So okay, you memorized how to make a drink, but have you made drinks when the line was 7 deep and you have 300 people staring at you looking for a drink that you can’t get to? And then you’re going to have to look at your recipe-card because you don’t remember how to make a drink?

One time when Mike Tyson was being interviewed, he was asked if he had a plan for the ring, and he said, “Everybody has a plan until they get hit in the face.” It’s the same thing with this business. The only thing I can say is, if you’ve never been in this business, don’t do it. I don’t care how much money you have.

How do you go about finding good help?

We’ve been blessed. All my people work at all of our locations. I always keep them busy, and I take good care of them. I treat them right, and they treat us right. I’ve had employees for 15 years. And it’s easy to promote them. Now that we’re growing, I need to promote. So servers turn into managers.

As a person who’s grown up in Princeton, how has Princeton changed from when you were a kid?

In general, I’ve seen a big change from all the mom-and-pop shops that were once here and now have been replaced with chains. Nassau Street is turning into one big chain. Other than that, all my childhood friends never left, so that’s the same. 

Where is one of your favorite restaurants outside of Princeton?

I don’t have a lot of time to go out to dinner, so when we do, New York City is where I like to go. I’m a big fan of Jean Georges and Gordon Ramsay.

What’s your favorite breakfast at PJ’s?

Eggs Benedict.

Aside from work and family, what takes up your headspace?

I hate to say it, but any free time that I do have is always consumed by the next concept.

You’re driven.

Last night I was up till midnight working on the next project. And I enjoy it. But for the most part, I really enjoy reality television. I’m not gonna lie. I’m a big Kitchen Nightmare fan. I love the Celebrity Apprentice. That’s the time when I don’t need to think about anything. It’s down time. I’m not going to deny it. I love it.

[jobtalknj]

Interview with a Future Dentist

Today’s jobtalk is with Patrick Shock, a recent college graduate who took full advantage of his college years to explore potential careers. Patrick has put a lot of time and thought into his decision to pursue dentistry. Reading this interview will give you insight into the question that everyone asks at least once, “What makes a person want to become a dentist?”

Title: Future Dentist

Education: B.S. Neuroscience, University of Delaware, 2011

Age: 23

How did you choose your undergraduate major in college?

What made you decide to switch your major?

After my sophomore year, I realized that one of the most interesting majors at my school was the neuroscience; it’s more specialized than biology.  I had been reading a lot about neuroscience, and wanted to delve into that, so I switched majors.

Once you switched, did you still have the intent to go to medical school?

At that point, I switched the major solely because I enjoyed studying neuroscience more than biology; I was still planning on going to medical school.

How did you realize that you wanted to become a dentist and not a doctor?

Junior year I shadowed a lot of physicians. I shadowed an orthopedic surgeon – I saw knee and hip replacement surgeries. I shadowed an internist, an oncologist, and a radiologist, and I talked with a cardiologist about his work.

The thing that turned me off about the medical field is that I didn’t get sense that the doctors were enjoying what they were doing.

All of them?

Most of them.

The more I shadowed, the more I got to see what medicine was really like. Every surgery or any work you do you have to back up with documentation. You have to tell the insurance companies about every procedure and every appointment and it’s a very difficult field to just expect to enjoy the actual practice.

I even got the sense that these people wouldn’t suggest to go into the field of medicine. So I reconsidered.

So how did you decide that you wanted to be a dentist?

I wanted to make to look at other professions similar to medicine. I liked the idea of creating a bond with patients that you see regularly and doing something to help people; I also wanted to find a way to serve people that involved science. I looked into physical therapy, but I didn’t find it to be as science-intensive as I wanted to be. Dentistry was actually a lot more science-intense than I thought it was. So I started shadowing dentists I know.

How did you find people you can shadow?

When I was looking for doctors to shadow, I started asking people who I knew. Where I grew up in NJ was a great place to start. I was able to have one woman who was a friend of a friend set me up with contacts.

It’s even easier to find dentists to shadow. With doctors you often have to go through hospitals, and that involves a lot of paperwork. With dentists, you just deal with them directly. You can even go to an oral surgeon.

I first shadowed a pediatric dentist. What you mainly do is restorations and cleanings and sealants. After seeing a pediatric dentist, I still knew that I needed to see more. I enjoyed pediatric dentistry, but I didn’t know if it was because of the kids or if it was the dentistry. So I shadowed a general practitioner for a whole year during my senior year in college.

How often did you shadow during that year?

I would go at least three times a week for 2 to 4 hours per time.

What did you learn from that year?

I was able to see a variety of the procedures that show how grotesque dentistry can get – the worst you can at general practitioner’s office. The reason being is that Newark is lower income, so often people rely more on general practitioners rather than going to a specialist.

What was the worst procedure you saw?

I saw this one back molar that was pussing, infected and had a lot of decay. It’s not something nice to look at and you’re very close to the person’s mouth. It smelled horrible, and the amount of blood that came out when the dentist extracted the molar made the sight even worse.

Did you have doubts after that?

I had doubts, but I thought that I could see myself getting used to it. And I did.

That year I also learned about the business side of dentistry. It’s also not all roses. It’s more of a business than medical professions if you work for a hospital.  Not only does a dentist worry about his procedures, but he has to make sure that his lawn gets mowed and that he has hygienist.

You have to be a business person – you have to be an entrepreneur because you are selling not just your skills, you’re selling yourself. You also have to be a people person.

You also did a two-week intensive training at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) last summer, right?

Yes. It was a 2 week program that allowed you to meet the faculty of the school and learn about every profession in dentistry. You got to go through lectures and work with your hands. It was a lucky thing for me to get to go to this program that was right in my backyard. That experience helped me figure out that UMDNJ was a great school and helped me have a glimpse of what dental school was like. Some people figured out by the end of the program that dentistry wasn’t for them.

Do you know what type of dentistry you want to practice?

I’m still undecided; dental school will give me experience to know what I’m good at. I think it’s important for me to make my decision based on what I’m good at because that will be best for my patients.

Do you know where you’re going yet?

No. I got into Temple. I’m waitlisted at Maryland and UMDNJ, which are both good schools, and I’m still waiting for Penn to get back to me.

How are you going to fund your schooling?

Loans. My parents will try to help me as much as they can. Thankfully, I don’t have any debt from my undergraduate degree because my parents were able to pay for it – and I’m lucky for that.

Talk about the process for choosing a graduate school.

Shadowing people was a good way to find out about good dental schools. I would look at the dentists I shadowed and who was really skilled and find out where they went to school. When you apply to schools, it also really helps to be able to say, “Hey, I shadowed this dentist who graduated from your school.”

What was your favorite non-science class in college?

Black Holes and Cosmic Theory.

What color walls do you want in your dentist’s office?

Blue because it’s supposed to be a color that calms people.

[jobtalknj]

Part II of What I have learned from doing over 40 interviews

Career paths are highly individualized processes. Just like individuals are unique, so are career paths. Talk to five people who are in the same profession. You’ll hear five different stories about how they got to where they are today. Especially in 2012. This is great news, right? What it means is that just because you might not have gotten your MBA does not mean you can’t open a business.

But there can even be variation if you chose a profession that requires a degree or certification. Teaching is one of those professions that has a pretty set path. You have to get your certification which can be done in one of two ways in New Jersey (and I think other states are similar). You can either get a certificate with an education degree in college or you can do what’s called Alternate Route. But not everybody becomes a teacher right out of college.

Years ago, when I was studying for the GREs I took the Princeton Review. My instructor was an elementary school teacher who had been an accountant prior to becoming a teacher.

An old coworker of mine from Small World Coffee went back to finish his undergraduate degree when he was 30. Now he’s in law school. While he is going through a pretty set route now, he certainly did not take the average route to law school.

Out of the 40 interviews I’ve done, the most “textbook” path is Jessica Wong, the teacher. She did go into teaching right after graduating from college, and has been teaching ever since. But I’m finding more often than not, people create their own way.

I think we’re often tricked into thinking that if we want to work in a certain profession that we need to take very specific steps to get there. And that there is a very specific timeline that we have to follow.

Maybe the route to becoming a doctor is pretty cut and dry. But most people aren’t doctors.

The point is, if you’re just entering the career-world, allow yourself to find your own way. Contrary to what colleges and media and society might have you believe, there’s no one right way to make a career. 

Want to share your ideas about career paths? Leave a comment!

[jobtalknj]

Career paths are not linear

Career paths are not linear. Sounds obvious, I know. But I believe that most college-bound people expect to “get their career on” upon graduating from college. And by “get their career on,” I mean getting hired into the field they studied.

And it does happen for some people. I know one person that I went to high school with who wanted to go to college to study journalism. She did. And she became a journalist. And, to my knowledge, she’s still a journalist.  

But what if you can’t find the job you want right after college? Or, say you find your dream job only to realize that you can’t stand it? Or you don’t even know exactly what you want to do for a career? Or maybe you don't even know if you want to go to college right after graduating high school?

lt is okay. Really. It is OKAY. Developing a career takes time. 

This past Monday, I interviewed Kirsten Thoft, an architect in Princeton, New Jersey. Prior to our interview, I had assumed that her career path was pretty linear because her undergraduate degree was related to architecture and her graduate degree is in architecture. Well, was I wrong!  Yes, she did go back to get her Master’s in architecture, but she didn’t decide to do that upon finishing her undergraduate degree. You'll see what I mean when I post her interview in April. 

Even Jessica Wong, who secured a teaching position after she finished graduate school, did not enter college knowing that she wanted to become a High School English teacher. It was only after she started teaching Sunday school and realized how much she enjoyed it that she thought about becoming an English teacher.

Take Penelope Trunk, whose real name isn’t even Penelope Trunk, by the way. She went to Brandeis for English and then played beach volleyball in California before getting her first corporate job. Then she did a start up, and another that bellied-up, and then started Brazen Careerist with Ryan Paugh and Ryan Healy.

Then there’s Gina Kolata, who’s an accomplished journalist and science writer whose mind couldn’t have been further from thinking about being a journalist when she first started her career path.

One more example. My father, who recently retired and sold his business did not set out to become an entrepreneur. He didn’t even set out to become a computer programmer, which is what he was. He went for a degree in accounting, and discovered his love of programming when he needed to take another course to graduate from college. His first job was working for the IRS, which he wasn’t giddy over. Anyway, it was only years after he entered the programming field that he went into business on his own.

Where you land is often a very different place than where you start.

I once sat in on a class with Ron Carlson, who is a writer and Professor. He was giving a lecture about plot growing from characters. He spoke with such religiosity about allowing characters to tell a story instead of writing a story with the end in mind that it has stayed with me all these years. The point is, if you know how the story ends before it’s written, you limit opportunities that the characters might have. Such wonderful advice for writers and equally wonderful advice for people.

Stay tuned for the other patterns I’ve noticed about career paths. 

[jobtalknj]

Another Person Making Her Way in the World Without College

Today’s jobtalk is with Cristina Santamarina, a young woman who’s living in Berlin and is from Spain. Amazing how the internet allows you to connect with people from so far away! Cristina is an example of a person who’s forging her career path without a college degree, though she did try college more than once.

Job: Employee at Cobot

Age: 23

I understand that you dropped out of college two times. What made you go back to college after you dropped out the first time?

My family was really unhappy when I dropped out. I finished high school, where I specialized in sciences, but did not know what I wanted to do. So I started studying political sciences. I always liked history and sociology so I thought it would be interesting to study it at college.

Why didn’t you finish college the second time around?

 As I just explained, studying Business Administration was not a choice I really wanted to make. I finished the first year and started the second. Then Regus offered me the possibility to move to Czech Republic, where they were going to centralize the administration of all their business centres in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Asia). That would mean being there during the roll out, and having a better position. So I did not think twice; I was convinced that I would learn much more by the experience of setting up a shared services centre rather than studying in college.

At this point in your life, do you think you will ever return to college for a degree?

 There are a lot of things I want to learn, such as programming and languages, but I don’t think I need a college degree for that. I would like to take some specialized short courses and get a certificate, but I don’t see myself at college for longer than a year anymore.

Explain what you do for a living. How were you able to achieve success without college?

I recently joined Cobot, a software company developing a management tool for co-working spaces. I have joined the team to help the boost their sales, improve the product by collecting users and prospects feedback, and to help with the support.

For the last 5 years, I did project administration, billing and customer service for Regus, in the executive offices industry.

I have sometimes found myself in situations when I regretted not having attended college for a longer time, like when I was presented with complex matrices and when I had to test an application for the first time. Because I am curious, I always try to find answers to my questions (either by reading technical data or asking experts); being a hard worker is also beneficial. So everything ends up working out.

What skills do you need to know to do your job?

You need to be organized, a good listener and be able to think out of the box.  I also read about marketing, B2B sales, and PR to keep up with trends. 

How did you learn the skills you need to do your job?

I use Google a lot. I read technical books and Wikipedia. I read tons of blogs and tweets and white papers. I discuss ideas and situations with a lot of my friends who do have college education.

Does your career allow you to live the lifestyle that you enjoy? Can you save money and still go out with friends or take a vacation once a year?

The thing I value the most is flexibility. I can work wherever I want, and I don’t have a fixed 8 to 5 schedule. I learn a lot every day. With my salary, I can rent a modest, but nice place, go out any time I want to, travel, and still save some money every year. I must say I am really fortunate, considering that 46% of Spanish people my age can’t find a job.

What advice do you have for people who are debating whether or not to go to college?

I would advise them to give it a try. People will always try to tell you how wrong you are. If you’ve gone to college and it didn't work out, you can always say you’ve tried, and tell  people the reasons why you dropped out. Of course, you may like it. Maybe you will even graduate.

What is one of the biggest career-related mistakes that you’ve made, and what did you learn from it?

Around two years ago, I worked in the set up of a new process for Regus. We had to update the process many times, as after the implementation we found out that we missed some country specifications, or did not have enough tools to control how the different teams were doing with it. I learned that planning is very important. A planning mistake can cause delay in the delivery and a lot of headaches. You always have to ask yourself the “what ifs?” Make sure you know all the information about the project and have all the tools you may need. No hurries while planning!

What is one of your favorite expressions in Spanish, and what does it mean?

“La ocasión la pintan calva.” I think the English equivalent is that “You have to strike while the iron is hot.”

Where’s one place that you’d like to visit where you haven’t already been?

Latin America in general, but to keep it small I am going to say Mexico. I love Mexican food. The history of the country is very interesting, and ever since I read The Savage Detectives, a novel written by Roberto Bolaño, I have always wanted to go to the Sonoran Desert.

[jobtalknj]

Dan Bauer Interview

Today’s jobtalk is with Dan Bauer, who’s been doing public relations at McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey for over 2 decades. Dan got his start as an intern at McCarter in the literary department, and quickly realized the literary department was not the place for him.

Dan says that Bruce Cockburn’s saying “Never let up, people are depending on you,” inspires his work ethic.

Title: Director of Public and Community Relations

Education:

B.A. Theater, SUNY Fredonia

M.A. Directing Theory, SUNY Binghamton

Age: Undisclosed

How did you wind up as the Director of Public and Community Relations PR for McCarter Theater?

When I went to the job fair, I noticed a woman sitting alone at a table. I went up to her and said, “Why are you here and why don’t you have anybody at your table?” She explained who she was, and that she didn’t have any positions but that she wanted to be represented. I asked her what theaters she recommended that I look into. She recommended George Street Playhouse and McCarter. She advised me to see who offered a better stipend and housing.

McCarter offered a stipend and housing and still does so today. George Street only offered a stipend. I thought, “Well, there’s no way that I could pay for housing.”

So that’s how you ended up at McCarter?

Right.

I was in the literary department, which was on the fifth floor. Once you went up to the fifth floor, you were up there for the day.

You had to walk up?

Yes. I didn’t like the internship and I was with two other people up there all day. The last office on the way up was the communications office, so I would hang out there. Then I would get the gumption to go up to the office.

At that point I was able to create my own internship. Mid-season, the publicist at the time was sort of not happy in her position and was on her way out. Then in February, she resigned. The managing director went to the communications department and asked if there was any staff who they felt could handle the publicity to get through the season. The staff in communications knew me because since I always stopped by their office on the way to the fifth floor. They asked me if I was interested. I had no experience and no clue how to do publicity.

And you said yes?

I did.

What was the first event that you had to do?

It was for Holly Near. She was a known folksinger/songwriter and was politically active and a feminist. She wasn’t selling. It just wasn’t happening. I couldn’t do anything to make her sell.

Here I am, trial-by-fire, and I’m given Holly Near.

So one day during this time, my boss took me to lunch and I decided to walk back through campus after words. On my walk back, I stopped at the Women’s Center on Princeton's campus. I introduced myself to the director there and explained my situation. She was thrilled because she had produced Holly Near in California 3 times. She directed me to the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament which is now Coalition for Peace Action and told me to talk to them because Holly Near was a big peacenik.

How much time did you have to get people to the Holly Near event?

I had about three weeks. But the show sold out, so it was a huge success. I organized a potluck under the stage in the trap room with the both the Women’s Center and Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament – both the organizations that helped me publicize the event – and Holly Near came down to it. It was pretty amazing. Something like that would never happen today.

There was this couple at the potluck. One of the partners was deaf, and she told me that they had gotten the word out about the event to the deaf community. And that’s when I realized the power of community.  If you hook into the right people who have the right connections, and people feel ownership to a project, things can get done. The famous saying, “It takes a village,” is true.

So that opportunity to work on the Holly Near event led to your having a PR job with McCarter?

Yeah. I was there for that trial period and then I just stayed on.  And after all these years I still love it.

Before that happened, I had worked on a production called Three Ways Home. And that show was moving to New York. I had to opportunity to go with that show to New York. But then I thought, “Well, after that show is over, I’ll have no work, and I’ll be back at square one.” So I decided to stay at McCarter.

Is there any one well-known person that you loved working with?

I’d have to say Ben Vereen. We worked on Fetch Clay, Make Man together. He and I just really clicked. Initially, his manager said that I had to contact her every time I wanted to schedule an interview. And eventually she said not to bother contacting her. Then it turned out she would be calling me to find out where he was because I was spending more time with him than she was. He was just so open to running around doing church and radio appearances. He was so wonderfully accessible.

If you’re working with movie people who have stage experience who just get the fact they need to do interviews. Right now we have an actor in Travesties  who’s a stage person who’s gotten into film. He told me he’s totally open to whatever interviews I need to set up to promote the show.

What advice do you have for someone that’s interested in a career in PR?

You can’t be lazy. You have to go after the work, do the work, and you have to keep pushing yourself to get stories and stay on top of what it is you are promoting. I also take on other projects. It keeps me fresh, and I’m never bored because I have so many projects that I’m working on.

What are your side projects?

I handle PR for Passage Theatre, serve as the on-site contact for SmartTalk Connected Conversations in New Jersey and Delaware, and lead walking tours for Princeton Tour Company.

What’s one place in the world that you really want to visit?

I want to go back to Austria. I’m working on a documentary on my grandmother, who turned 100 this year. The documentary has my grandmother, my father, and her nephew each telling the same story of what happened in 1933/1934 in Vienna and what happened in that time period, because that’s where they lived.

I envision doing another story with my father in which he revisits Austria; he was 4 when he left in 1938. My grandfather was taken to Buchenwald Concentration camp. And then he returned and the family went to Holland and then came to the U.S. For this project, I’d want to go back to Austria with my father. I think that this would be an interesting project if my father were open to doing it.

[jobtalknj]

Lessons I Have Learned from Job Talk NJ

Lesson #1 People won’t always be on time for meeting, and won’t always let you know that in advance. And, sometimes they won’t show up.

Solution #1: I always bring something else to work on if I’m meeting someone at the library or at Small World Coffee. This way, my time isn’t wasted if a person is late or is a no-show.

I also make sure that I know exactly what I will work on if someone is a no-show, that way I’m not caught off-guard trying to figure out what to do and can be productive right away.

Lesson #2: I am only a tiny bit tech savvy, but not savvy enough to customize my own Wordpress site.

Solution#2: Stop wasting time trying to figure it out and find help. That is, I realized that I cannot be all things. If I am not capable of doing something, it’s more efficient to ask for help.

Lesson #3: Balance is a lie. I’ll explain. Often I’ve found myself asking the question to my interviewees, “How do you balance work and personal life?” If you’re an entrepreneur or CEO, your job is all-encompassing. And if you are striving to have some semblance of balance in your life, especially in your earlier years of doing your job, you’re going to fall short.

Solution#3: Accept it. If you don’t love you’re what you’re doing enough to live a life “off-kilter,” you should rethink what you’re doing. My interviewees that are CEOs, entrepreneurs or have other leadership positions love their jobs and accept that the long work hours go with the territory. 

Lesson #4: There’s more advice about how to create a high-trafficked blog than I knew. Around January, I started realizing the potential for Job Talk NJ and thought, “Well, I gotta start getting readers.” I spent hours Googling phrases like, “creating a successful blog,” and “marketing your blog.” All that searching really did was to take me away from Job Talk NJ’s mission.

Solution#4: Stop Googling! Ultimately, I realized that the each individual really blazes her (or his) own trail. Yeah, there are models we can use, but at some point, we’ve got to figure it out on our own. I’m now focused on my mission, once again. It’s too early to tell whether or not Job Talk NJ will gain a following. But right now, I wholeheartedly believe it will, so I’ll keep on keeping on and not let myself get distracted.

And by the way, the Googling addiction, I believe, really takes away from our own abilities to create our career paths. Don't get me wrong, the internet is a wonderful tool, and I'm glad we can get information on careers (among other subjects) that we want to know more about. But there comes a point when we all have to stop Googling and take action!

Lesson #5: I can’t write a good post when I’m really tired.

Solution #5: Pretty simple. Go to sleep. I know a lot of people try to work through the night. And certainly I can do things that don’t require much thought when I’m tired like folding laundry or vacuuming. But trying to write a good post only produces bad results. When I’m working at night and I find that I’m not able to hold a thought or am coming up short on things to say (not usually a problem for me!), then I know it’s probably time for me to get some shuteye.

Share what you’ve learned on-the-job lately!

[jobtalknj]

Interview with a Gardening Teacher

My next jobtalk is with my former co-worker, Suzanne Cunningham. Suzanne’s an example of someone who is intelligent and hardworking and had no idea what she wanted to do after she graduated from college. Sound like you?

Allowing herself to experiment with different jobs and classes after college, Suzanne turned her love of gardening into a career teaching gardening at the Waldorf School.  

I love this interview because it’s an affirmation to the notion that it’s okay to take time to find yourself – your career. It's also an affirmation to the maxim, “Do what you love.”

Title: Gardening Teacher

Education: B.A. International Government, Smith College, 2007

Age: 28

I know that at one point in your life you thought you would follow in your father’s footsteps and become a lawyer. How is that you wound up becoming a gardening teacher?

People ask me that all of the time. I was interested in government and became interested in religion at similar times. For me, it feels like government and religion are inseparable even though we separate them.

I just wanted build a community. I had moved 28 times in 27 years. I finally came back to Princeton and felt like I had a community for the first time. A lot of my friends were farmers, and our community time was spent cooking, cleaning, and eating together.

I realized what I liked were systems that brought people together. That’s what I liked about government and religion because it brings people together. But what I didn’t like was all the BS, all the fighting that happens in religions.

Everyone has to eat. Not everyone eats, but everyone has to eat. And cooking can bring people together from many different backgrounds.

So how did your discovery about things you like such as cooking and farming lead you to a career?

Well, I haven’t really thought about my career.

But you have a career. You’re a teacher. What were the steps it took to get you where you are now? Not just anyone can show up to the Waldorf School and say, “Hi, I really like gardening and I want to teach it, will you hire me?”

After I graduated from Smith, I slept for three months. Then I found my way to working in the kitchen at Small World, which I loved because of the fast-paced environment. But at the same time, I was pretty down on myself for not being further along with a career.

In that time of not feeling adequate, I decided that I needed to be taking classes so I could feel better about myself. I’m a lot like my older brother, who always is taking a class in one thing or another. I wanted to get more involved in farming and gardening because I had had a gardening plot for three years.

I saw a master gardening course in Mercer County with Barbara Bromley, who is amazing. So, I took the course, and I loved it. It was for everyone from a home gardener to golf course turf manager. It wasn’t just about creating gardens, it was also land management. And it blew my mind, so I started looking for things to do in that field. I did some landscaping work with a company and other odd gardening jobs.

I moved to Philadelphia on a whim, and got a restaurant job that I hated.  Then I quit my job, sublet my apartment and started wwoolfing on a farm. Around that time the Waldorf School was hiring for a gardening teacher, and I applied for the job.

Did the Waldorf School hire you after 1 interview?

No, the interview process had a few different rounds which included being interviewed by teachers. I actually didn’t get the position that I wanted. I got the assistant position. I was really bummed that I didn’t get the position that I wanted right away, but I realized that I did get the position that was right for me at the time. It is hard when you get that dose of humility.

I worked as the assistant for the retiring gardening teacher and worked as the assistant for the oncoming gardening teacher. The new teacher eventually quit, and I became his replacement.

What are your responsibilities as the Gardening Teacher?

I teach grades 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8, and have to design curriculum for those grades. In the spring I also teach kindergarteners.

That sounds tough leading kindergarteners in the garden.

It is. But I’m so grateful for my time as an assistant because I learned how to handle little kids during that time. You just have to make it as structured as possible.

Also have to make the gardening class tie in with the students’ main curriculum as much as possible. So, if they are studying ancient civilizations, like they do in the 5th grade, I find a way to parallel the gardening curriculum with ancient civilizations.

What’s you favorite thing that you’ve done so far?

The sixth grade studies laws in ancient Rome. Last year they were really tough for me because sixth graders can be pretty argumentative – in my experience. I made gardening about laws to tie in with what they were learning in ancient Rome. I had them map the garden for crop rotation in the fall.

They make all these maps, and they make all a lot of rules. Then in the spring, they decide where everything goes.

What’s the most challenging aspect of being a teacher?

Classroom management. The curriculum is fun and easy. The physical work during the summer is hard, but it’s not mentally challenging. But the classroom management is hard because you have 15 to 20 kids in an acre garden working with very sharp objects. I have lots of conversations that start off like, “Why do you think it’s a bad idea to raise a pitchfork in the air?”

What’s been your biggest mistake as a teacher?

I dropped the f-word in front of my students. I curse a lot because that’s the way people talk in kitchens, and I'm so used to that.

There was an eighth grader who jumped out of the bushes to scare me. And I said, “What the f*@#!”

How did she react?

She was just startled. But I turned around and there was an entire kindergarten class right behind me. So I had to gather up all the 8th graders and tell them what I said and apologize. Then I had to go to the teachers of the kindergarten class and apologize. Though the teachers told me they didn’t even know that happened. It was really embarrassing.

What is your favorite dish to cook?

Saheaag Paneer, an Indian dish with spinach and cheese.

It sounds like you are really enjoying your work? What are your thoughts for the future?

I don’t have any interest in going back to school right now. That might change; I’m not closed to it. I want to be at this garden for a while. I kind of have a 5 year vision. But honestly, not planning has worked out pretty well for me. 

[jobtalknj]

You Can Have a Career Without Going to College

Since posting Tuesday’s article and having some back-and-forths with James Altucher via Twitter and email, I’ve decided that I need to do more to show that there is life without college for those who choose to go that route. I did a little poking around to search for some articles on success without college.

You can also find articles like this one from careerbuilder.com which will pretty much leave you thinking you need a degree.  And then there are the articles like this one that give you a list of jobs you can do without a degree. Problem is, the list is confining, and if you’re a young adult looking at that list and nothing on that list appeals to you, you might think to yourself, “Gee, I guess I do have to go to college.”

But where’s the coverage about the different paths people take without college – aside from the press the few high powered tech college dropouts get or the collegeless business moguls? 

I emailed Chris Guillebeau, who I thought might know some people who’ve been successful without college degrees. He tweeted, and some retweets later, I’ve come in contact with some interesting people who either never went to college or dropped out. Here are some snippets about a few folks that I’ve been in contact with.

The Flatbread Grill, in Montclair, New Jersey, is run by the Esendemir sisters; one of them does have a college degree, but the other two do not. Gonca, who stopped going to college partway through her degree says that the “passion, commitment, and courage that it takes to survive in the business world” cannot be taught at any college. Check out an article in the NYT about their business here.

Donna Druchunas tried to go to college in her 20s and 30s, but says that she isn’t suited to spending time thinking and reading about subjects that don’t interest her. She’s held many jobs that involved doing page layout and technical writing. She abandoned the cubicle to write books on knitting at the suggestion of her knitting buddy. Six knitting books later, Donna is the owner of a successful business Sheep to Shawl.

Lynn Siprelle, whose pen name is MeiLin Miranda, says she was encouraged to go to college, and went but dropped out in her sophomore year. A volunteer reporting job at a public radio station led her into a paying job in radio. She left radio, went into IT, and settled into writing fiction several years ago.

I recognize that this isn’t an overwhelming list of people. But this is just the beginning.

In the future, I’ll be continuing to interview people who haven’t gone to college alongside those that have. And, I’ll be looking at people who don’t belong to either of those categories, but the I-got-college-degree-but-it-didn’t-really-help-me category.

 Are you someone who hasn’t gone to college (or dropped out) and are happy with your career life? Share you story in the comments section. 

[jobtalknj]

Interview with a Young Entrepreneur

Today’s jobtalk is with Co-Founder of Under30CEO, Jared O’Toole. Another example of Gen Y’s finest, Jared’s hardworking, intelligent, and not afraid to take risks. If you’re interested in entrepreneurship, you’ve got to check out Under30CEO.

Title: Co-Founder of Under30CEO

Education:  B.A. Finance, Ithaca College, 2008

Age: 26

What was your first job out of college?

I had internships in college in finance too, so that showed me a bit of what I’d be doing every day. Nothing was bad, but I wasn’t excited for any of those jobs. And I thought, “If I’m bored in an interview, this is going to be a rough 30 or 40 years.”

That’s pretty amazing that you were able to realize that at 21 years old and act on your feelings. I think people are too scared to do what you do, especially in their 20s.

I had no clue what I was doing. I had never even thought of starting a business before. I spent 4 years to set myself up to do something in finance.  And then I just wasn’t thrilled with the idea of it.

I did have some friends who were doing things that I was interested in. One of my friends started a business and he got me into reading some entrepreneurial magazines like INC magazine. 

I would read about entrepreneurship and think, “How can I do something like this because this is cool and these interviews aren’t.”

Why did you study finance in college?

I originally went to school for physical therapy. I was a big sports person in high school and I was very injury prone and spent all of High School in physical therapy.

When I actually got into the program, I talked to people about their career paths and the opportunities in physical therapy. I ended up choosing finance because the problem with physical therapy is that it’s not a flexible degree. If you become a physical therapist then that’s what your career path is limited to.

Finance was always my second choice, so I immediately jumped into that after I realized physical therapy was more closed-ended.  And back then, in 2004, people who were graduating with degrees in finance were earning 6 figures. But of course that wasn’t what it was like when I graduated.

Where did you do one of your internships, and what didn’t you like about it?

In my junior year, I did an internship at Merrill Lynch. I don’t know if it was a bad internship… I was just bored. It was a lot of paper work and crunching numbers. You don’t get to handle money or portfolios on day one.

That’s what I like doing, but that’s not what you do on day one. I realized that it would take a while to get to the point when I’d be doing the things that I liked doing. So those jobs became less attractive to me.

Were your parents supportive of you decision to start working for yourself?

It’s a funny story. Even to this day they are sort of unsure of what I do. But they were very supportive even if they were kind of in the dark. They supported the fact that I was learning new things, and they were thrilled to see that happening. They knew there was no perfect path with a finance degree.

How did you come up with the idea for Under30CEO?

Under30CEO wasn’t the first thing I started. That summer after I finished college, my business partner and I started a bunch of things. None of them worked out. They were all random things, but we really learned what works and what doesn’t work.

Under30CEO started on a whim and it took a while for it to build and for us to recognize that people liked it.

What was one of your ideas that flunked?

There was a T-shirt company. It was a great idea for any 21 year-old. We loved the T-shirts and thought everyone else would. No one else did. A month or so later, we realized that the T-shirts weren’t as cool as we thought they were.

Was Under30CEO originally called Under30CEO?

It was. My business partner, Matt, went to Bryant university and ran this group called CEO, which is an entrepreneurship group on college campuses. He was the president of it the club at Bryant, so he spent a lot of time around the entrepreneur-sky-is-the-limit mentality.

When we returned home after graduating from college – we grew up in the same town – we got really bored after about 6 months. There wasn’t the exciting environment that we were used to being around at college. There were no groups… nothing going on.

So Under30CEO started because we wanted to find like-minded people our age and form a social group similar to what we had at college. We didn’t care about where these people were located. We just wanted to connect with them via Twitter, phone or go to NYC and grab coffee with people. That was the original idea.

After about 6 months, we said, “This could be something. Maybe this is our great idea.” It was the only thing that we had done that people had actually liked. And that’s how it started.

What’s your Under30CEO elevator speech?

We are a media company that covers young entrepreneurs and the trends, the people, and the advice that young people need to succeed when starting a business.  We serve our mission both online with our daily blog and offline by hosting events in NYC. We’re out to highlight the next generation of business leaders and job creators and to see what the next great industries out there are.

What are some of the sacrifices you’ve made to get where you are now?

Money. Social life. Time. Spending 18 months, maybe 20 months living at home with my parents. There have been so many sacrifices. It took a long time to build revenue streams with Under30CEO. And when you’re not making money right away, you never know if you’ve chose the right path. You think, “Maybe I should have taken that finance job.”

When I was living at home, friends were always going out and going on trips. And I could never do any of that. Even to this day there are a lot of times when I can’t go out on a Friday night because we had problem or something happened that I have to take care of.  A lot of time gets sacrificed.

Once we made the move down to NYC, we life was a day-to-day roller coaster when we didn’t know how rent for our space would get paid. It was a huge challenge to come up with basic expenses like food and metro cards in the early days.

But as long as we put a step forward every day, we didn’t lose confidence in what we were doing.

How long did it take for Under30CEO to bring in revenue?

The first year was nothing, that’s for sure. In the second year we made little to no money and survived a bit off of consulting and online marketing. It was in our third year that we were able to draw salaries.

What’s your workweek like?

I handle all of the online content. Matt, my partner, does all of the event work. I start working at 8 in the morning and pretty much work until I go to bed at night. I have to get up 2-5 articles on the site every day, including weekends. I also spend a lot of time answering email after email after email. And there are always events that I have to go to on many evenings.

You must like to write?

I’m actually not the biggest fan of writing. We have a large guest contributor network. My job is to organize our contributor network and edit articles.

What do you love about your work?

I love coming up with writing topics and thinking about ideas.

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?

The most common advice that probably everyone says is, “You just have to do it.” You have to take leaps. You’re not going to learn anything until you just do it. That’s the real way to learn. All the books and blogs in the world are great, but you really aren’t going to figure it out until you sit down with someone and have that first client meeting.

You don’t have to wait for that genius idea to start. It’s important to experiment and learn and that will get you in the direction that you need to go in.

What’s your favorite piece of furniture in your apartment?

We have this big, comfy chair that you can lie back in. That’s where I can sit down all day with a computer in my lap and do work and fall asleep.

[jobtalknj]

Tuc Sargentini Interview

Today’s jobtalk is with veteran Barista and trainer at Princeton’s Small World Coffee (SWC). He knows just about every regular’s drink of choice and has trained every barista who’s been hired at SW for the past 16 years.

Tuc’s the type of guy who can turn any disgruntled customer into a happy one – not that SWC gets many of them. If you have questions about giving all-star service and creating training programs for retail service jobs, he’s your man. He can also answer questions about coffee!

Title: Barista/Trainer

Education: B.A. Social Work Antioch College 1991

Age: 43

What brought you to Small World?

I was living in Princeton. I had just spent three years working 60-80 hours a week for a social service agency, and I burned out on the bureaucracy, and took up landscaping.  I needed a job for the winter and my friend who was working at SW suggested I apply. I didn't get hired the first time I applied, but I tried again a few months later and was accepted.

You've been working at SW for 17 number years? How do you keep yourself challenged?

What do you love about training new employees?

I have been training at SWC for around 16 years.  I love watching the progression of Worldlings - what we call people who work here - from newbies to line crunching baristas.

If you weren't working at SW, where would you be working?

While I don't have a specific idea I know it would involve interacting with people and being physically active. The past jobs I've had where I've felt a semblance of actualization were when I was a baker, and a peer education/logistics coordinator.

What was one of your worst on-the-job mistakes? And what did you learn from it?

Fortunately most mistakes are easily corrected and inconsequential, so I can't recall I big "worst" mistake. I suppose the biggest mistake I've made is not asking for help when things get stressful. It is surprising how helpful co-workers can be when asked.

What do you spend a lot of time thinking about?

At work I mostly am focused on situational awareness – what's going on in the cafe and how customers and Worldlings are interacting. I'm noting faces, identifying patterns, and taking notes on what creates a great experience or what has caused a sub-optimal transaction.

When I'm not at work, I think about life, the universe, and everything. I imagine the daily existence of the folks I interact with everyday. 

When you're not wearing a red apron, what do you do?

I read, play board games with several groups of friends, and design t-shirts. I also love cooking.

What is the best part of your job? What do you enjoy most in this work?

The best part of my job is teaching each generation of Worldlings. I really enjoy making folks happy though the medium of coffee.

What is the most challenging aspect of your job?

The most challenging part of the job is managing the information/culture drift within the business. While there are many systems and procedures for how to perform the job, individual interpretations can be quite interesting. 

Also as with any service industry there is the public. Ninety-nine percent of people are wonderful, but 1% seems to be looking for something besides coffee which usually involves conflict.  

If you could project yourself back in time, what would you tell yourself?

If I could time travel I would tell myself to buy restaurant clogs sooner.  I ruined a lot of sneakers before figuring this out.

How have you seen the coffee house/coffee industry develop over the past 17 years?

'Specialty coffee' used to be rare. Increasingly the public is coming in with a better idea of what types of drinks a coffee house can make.

What’s your favorite caffeinated beverage?

Soy NOLA.

For those people who don’t know, can you explain what a soy NOLA is?

A soy Nola is the Small World Coffee’s New Orleans-style iced coffee made with soy milk instead of dairy.

What’s one talent you wish you had?

I wish I were a farmer. I grew up around farmers in Hunterdon County, and their self-reliance (and terrific produce) always intrigued me. Unfortunately, growing plants and vegetables is not a set of skills I have developed enough beyond the ability to kill anything I bring home from the nursery.

[jobtalknj]

What did James Altucher Learn at College Anyway?

James Altucher strikes me as the type of guy who throws out an apple with one lone bruise on it instead of eating around it or cutting it out. I’ve never met James, but after reading his blog post “Did Obama Really Say he Wants Everyone to go to College?” this past Sunday, that’s the impression I get.

For those of you who don’t know who James Altucher is, he’s a writer, blogger, and entrepreneur who has about 40k followers on Twitter – including Ali Velshi and Chris Guillebeau. He’s pretty funny and makes some good points here and there on his blog.

But Sunday’s post bothered me on account of James’ self-assured and ridiculous claims about college. He writes, “The idea is that a college education will fill your memory. Teach you a lot of facts. Maybe teach you basic analysis that conforms to your teacher’s opinions. But will NOT teach you how to really think. Will not teach you how to come up with ideas. How to sell ideas.”

Really, is that the idea of a college education, “To fill your memory”? Gee, when did James find time to survey the public about its idea of a college education? Where are his facts to show that that’s what college is all about? Though learning facts and concepts can be quite useful. (I personally want to go to doctors and dentists that have learned their facts from a regulated institution.) I’m not sure I believe that that many people think college is just about memorization.

In fact, my own undergraduate degree couldn’t have been further from a fact-based education. My degree in religious studies taught me how to navigate difficult texts and to think critically about them.

When I went back to school at Rutgers University to become a high school English teacher, I had wonderful professors who engaged and challenged me. A literature theory class I took influenced my worldview and still informs my ideas today; a comparative literature class I took helped me to better express myself in writing.

Could I have learned a lot of this without going to college? Possibly. But I’ll be honest. I was not an academic superstar in high school. I needed the tutelage of my professors to help me become a better reader, writer, and thinker. Sure, there are some people that can do this without college. I’m probably not one of them. And I think there are thousands upon thousands just like me.

So you’ll understand when I say the comment that most vexes me is that college “will not teach you how to think.” James, the reason why I can even discuss the holes in your argument is because I went to college. Yes, college taught me how to think, and not just to conform to my professors’ opinions.

Sure, there were some classes that I had that weren’t intellectually rigorous. There are always not-so-great professors. But to dismiss all of academia as a waste, as James implies, is absurd.

I’ll concede that college might not teach people how to sell ideas. I had to learn how to sell my ideas in writing, but I’m referring literary analysis, not business ideas. But not everyone plans on being an entrepreneur.

Yeah, there are some people who probably don’t learn much in college at all because they decide not to put anything into their time there. Or maybe they are geniuses and didn’t need help.

Surely there are problems with our higher education system in this country. Surely not everyone needs a college degree. James Altucher does make valid points in this post and in others about college. But to dismiss college to the extent that James Altucher does is reductionist.

Funny, another thing college taught me is that most issues have many sides. James Altucher’s argument about college suffers from all-or-nothing thinking. It’s too bad he never had some of the great professors that I’ve had. 

Addendum: After some back-and-forths with Altucher on Twitter, I've decided to give a brief update to this post. See the DM's from Altucher.

To which I responded that I agreed. Then he DMed  the following.

To which I emailed him, since he's not following me, and I didn't want to annoy the few followers that I had. 

So, let's give some credit to James Altucher for writing about the insane expense of higher education. That's why I actually started reading his blog in the first place. 

But let's acknowledge that the benefits of higher education are important enough that people should be able to go to college without taking on enormous debt.

What can we do to "put up a fight" about this unethical rise in tuition?

[jobtalknj]

5 Valuable Lessons I Learned from Crappy Day Jobs

Guest Post by Dana Sitar

I may have cast aside the workaday life to be a writer, but I can't deny the value of the minimum wage jobs I worked for 8 years through high school and college before I knew that I would do that. With encouragement from a Wisconsin Lutheran upbringing that demanded loyalty and work ethic, I learned to extract the value from even the crummiest of jobs, and I keep these lessons with me in a less straightforward career.

Hustle (from Fast Food Cashiering/Cooking). Regardless of the work I am doing, a sense of urgency is not only useful, but surprisingly unique. Arriving to a meeting on time, capitalizing on my time in the office, and offering a timely response to queries help keep my business moving and keep clients happy. In a fast food restaurant, you'll be buried if you can't satisfy the customer quickly enough with the correct order. In the over-saturated freelance writing market, you'll be forgotten.

Customer Service (from Retail Cashiering). Knowing how to create a welcoming environment is vital for building a base of customers -- whether those are blog readers or grocery store patrons. Years of training and experience behind the counter at various retail stores in the Midwest taught me how to cater to customers' needs and answer to their complaints. It also taught me one of the most valuable lessons I know: Let it go. You can't go home angry about a cranky customer, or you'll never have a chance to be happy.

Phone skills (from Call Center Interviewing). Simple and straightforward as it seems, knowing how to introduce yourself over the phone, leave a clear and informative voicemail, wrap up a long conversation, etc. is often overlooked. With so much of my work now relying on making contacts and connecting with sources and subjects, the ability to communicate comfortably and effectively over the phone has come in handy.

Organization + Leadership (from Hosting). In the middle of a rush of customers needing to be seated and a phone ringing off the hook, a hostess, who appears insignificant in the culture of the restaurant, can make or break the night. I learned how to quickly take control of a leaderless crew in the midst of chaos, how to remain strategic and speedy and keep smiling at customers. The experience has helped me know when to take the lead, and how to create order when an organization or project is on the edge of a crisis.

Publicity (from Student Org. Positions). I owe the majority of my marketing knowledge to my years as an employee of and a volunteer for student organizations at the University of Wisconsin. From grassroots publicity efforts to number-crunching data collection, I learned a lot about how to spread awareness of events and issues to the masses. (Whether in college or not, I highly recommend volunteering with local non-profits for the diversity of work experience you can gain -- not to mention the feel-good, do-gooder element.)

Photo Credit Flickr's Chris Gold

What lessons have you taken from the jobs that you couldn't wait to leave behind?

Author Bio

Dana Sitar is a freelance journalist and author of the ongoing memoir series This Artists’ Life. Her latest release, The Hart Compound, follows the writer to her journalistic roots as Senior Campaign Writer to a Mayoral campaign headed by two Madison, Wisconsin comedians. Dana shares writing tips and anecdotes at her blog by.dana.sitar. She is @danasitar on Twitter.

[jobtalknj]

Ryan Healy Interview

Today’s jobtalk is with Ryan Healy, one of the cofounders of Brazen Careerist, and the only founder who still works for the company. After my interview with Penelope Trunk, I realized that it’d be great to hear from one of the other founders of Brazen Careerist, so that’s when I emailed Ryan Healy.

As a newbie in the blogosphere, I automatically assume the worst when I contact someone who doesn’t know me – I won’t hear back. So it made my day when Ryan Healy responded to my request for an interview saying that he’d be happy to do it. As the epitome of Gen Y’s resourceful and hardworking, Ryan not only serves as a role model for his generation, but also for anyone who has an entrepreneurial spirit.

Title: COO of Brazen Careerist

B.S. Accounting, Penn state University, 2006

Age: 27 

Ryan’s been named as one of the “Top 20 Entrepreneurs to Watch” by Worth magazine. But I assure you, it hasn’t gone to his head.

Did you start college knowing that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

I was always really interested in business, but I didn’t put it together that I wanted to start something on my own and create things from scratch until my sophomore year in college. A buddy of mine who started a business in college took me under his wing.

What was the business?

It was on online ordering business. You would order takeout online. It started at Penn State. My friend ended up bringing it to different schools. He left, but it got pretty big.

When you graduated from college, what made you take a job at IBM?

When I got nervous about majoring in entrepreneurship – I had created a major in entrepreneurship – I switched to studying accounting. And once you’re in accounting, you end up going to work at a big accounting or consulting firm. I got lost in the shuffle, I like to say. I ended up following the crowd. I figured that I didn’t know what else I was going to do so it seemed okay.

It doesn’t seem like you followed the crowd for very long.

Well, that’s the thing, I realized quickly that I couldn’t crack it.

What was it that made you realize that?

I need to have an impact on whatever I’m working on. I guess maybe I need some control – or a lot of control. And I need to be doing something that I really believe in that makes a change in some way; I need to be creative and do something that’s helpful to people.

What you’re saying is something similar to what I’ve heard many other entrepreneurs say.

Right. I could have done that at IBM, I guess, if I wanted to wait 30 years.

What inspired you to start your blog, Employee Evolution?

I was helping out my boss at IBM do some recruiting at Penn State. I talked with folks from IBM and with my father a lot about this new generation – my generation – that was coming into the workforce. People were saying that Generation Y was so different, that kids these days were lazy and entitled and want trophies. I remember hearing about all this and I thought it was really interesting because I just didn’t see it. It wasn’t what I saw from myself or my peers.

So I did some research. And the thing that I realized was that there were a ton of people who were making a great living off of telling companies how bad young people were and how much they needed trophies and all that stuff.

I didn’t think it was true. And I realized that all these people who were doing it were in their 50s and 60s. I thought, “What do they know about this generation? I don’t think they know what they’re talking about it.”

I had the idea to talk about Generation Y in the workplace from the Gen Y point-of-view. I figured that the best way to talk about it was to start a blog, but I knew nothing about blogging. I reached out to a friend of mine, Ryan Paugh, because he had majored in journalism. I figured he would know what a blog was.

He was working at Merck at the time. He said that he had heard some of the same ideas about Generation Y from consultants that came to Merck, and he thought what they were saying about people our age wasn’t true either. So we decided to start the blog together. We wrote about Gen Y in the workforce from a Gen Y point-of-view and invited our peers to write about it too.

About a month or two into blogging, we started getting calls from press. The Wall Street Journal called Ryan one day. The next day I got a call from Business Week. Then the New York Times called. We had become to go-to sources for anyone writing about Gen Y at work because the other sources were in their 50s and 60s. It was crazy and totally unexpected.

As we were growing, I really wanted to turn the blog into something. I thought, “Well maybe this will turn into something.” I reached out to Penelope and asked for feedback on my writing. She wrote back and she asked me to guest post on her blog, which drew more attention to our blog. I’d write one post a week for her blog. She’d edit it and then we’d talk about the post on the phone.

At the same time, Ryan and I were trying to figure out how to make what we were doing into a business.

Penelope said that she was thinking about doing a startup having to do with Gen Y in the workplace too, so we all decided that we should do it together. That was in 2007.

After that, I put in my two weeks notice in, we incorporated and moved out to Madison Wisconsin.

At that point, you had no doubts, you just went for it?

Exactly. I knew it was the best shot I was going to get.

What was that first year in Madison like for you?

It was weird. I think that’s the best way to describe it. It was Ryan and I living on the top floor of a house that we rented for 500 bucks a month. We lived on maybe 1000 bucks a month tops. An awesome family friend of mine gave us 25K – no strings attached – that we lived off of.

We just tried to figure out what we were going to do. We worked from the apartment that we lived in. It was fun and weird and exciting and cold.

What was that figuring out process like?

Penelope would come over to out apartment and we’d get out a whiteboard and throw around ideas. When we settled on where we were going to start, we worked on figuring out how to find people to help us build our project.

How did you find people to help you?

At first we found people who would help us in exchange for equity or who would help us for a low cost. We had a designer who was a friend of Penelope’s who we paid a little bit. And we had a software developer who was Ryan’s and my friend and we paid him a little bit. Once we got a prototype off the ground in March 2008, we got really lucky and were able to raise 700K.

Then we were able to hire the software developer fulltime and convince him to move from Philadelphia to Madison, Wisconsin.

In late 2009, we had another investor come on board. We asked him to be the CEO. We wanted somebody to come on and act as CEO because we thought we needed someone with an entrepreneurial background.

I think it takes people who are really humble to do that.

I think you’re right. It does to a point. Penelope was the CEO at that time. It was good to have somebody be in between Penelope and me too. We both have strong personalities.

Do you have much of a personal life?

Yeah, I do. My girlfriend moved out from Madison to D.C. with me. We have a lot of fun. I work a lot. But we also play a lot. I’m finally going to take a little bit of time off this year to travel. I’ve got a pretty good balance.

What’s your take on Tim Ferris?

I think he’s one of the top 5 marketers I’ve ever encountered. He’s really good at knowing what people want.

What are your day-to-day responsibilities as a COO?

It’s everything and anything, and it changes every day. I do everything from doing fundraising to finances to wire-framing new products to coming up with a sales strategy for how we should be selling into companies.

If you could talk to your 20 year old self, what would you say to him?

There’s so much. I’d say to be patient. Everything is going to take 3 times as long as you think it’s going to take. But you also have to be persistent because if you sit around and wait for something to happen nothing is going to happen.

The other thing I would say is to figure out how to just ship it. Meaning, get the product, the service, whatever it is, out there. See how people react and then make decisions about where to go.

That’s what Eric Ries talks about.

Yup. Exactly. I’m a big believe in The Lean Startup.

What is your favorite late night snack?

Granola.