Want to Get Hired? Ditch the DoDo for YOLO!

Shanita Akintonde:

Hi. This is Shanita Akintonde, professor, author, career coach, and marketing shero. I invite you to join me in this very special edition of my Marketing Insights podcast series entitled Want To Get Hired? Then Ditch The Dodo And Go For YOLO. That means your opportunities leveraged online. In this special edition, marketing maestros, I'm going to give you exactly what you asked me for, and that's the 411 on how to get hired. I initially hosted a podcast on the same topic back in 2018. It was the very first episode of my Marketing Insights podcast series, and that was six years ago. Can you believe that? I'm telling you, how time flies. Well, given that today's podcast is in commemoration of this being my 50th episode, that's right, it's the big five-oh, so I thought it only appropriate to take a blast from the past. But y'all know me, I've got to remix it and put it into formation.

Allow me to break this down even further. This episode is part two of part one of a new two-part series. Confused? Well, so am I. So let me take it further. This is the 2024 edition of What It Takes To Get Hired, whereas my original podcast was entitled You're Hired, Now What? In this episode, I'm going to talk about how to get hired in a post-COVID-19 when work from home is the new thing, and all the stuff that's mixed into that gumbo jambalaya soup. In part two, which is not this episode, it'll be the next episode, I'm going to share an interview that I will be hosting for the Chicago Advertising Federation, for which I'm a board member, and I'm host there for a webinar series that's entitled Market Smarter: That's Chicago AF. Get it? The Chicago Advertising Federation is AF. Have I confused you further? Well, let me add a little more sugar on top.

When I do that episode, that will serve as part two of this podcast. So that webinar, which you can also possibly take a look at, I'll take a look to see if I can get y'all a link. But regardless, you'll get a podcast version of it so you can at least listen, and that's going to be me talking to recruiters, hiring managers, and the people that actually make the decisions. In this podcast, you're going to get yours truly, your favorite professor podcaster and marketing shero and marketing maven, yours truly, to give you the business basics in this very special edition of my Marketing Insights podcast.

Phew. Now that we have all of that out of the way, let me get back to answering your question, which is you want to get hired. And here's the response, then you need to ditch the dodo and go for YOLO. That's your opportunities leveraged online, part one. So what I'm going to be talking about in this episode is an examination of the process of getting hired in two areas, the pre-work you need to do and the post-work you need to do. And I say post-work, but it's really kind of mid-work in the middle work, the process work. So let me rephrase it and call it pre-work and process work, because you're going to be in the midst of looking for the job, and these are the tips that I'm going to give you in that area as well.

Now, what I'm going to do is give you two points under the pre-work process banner and I'm going to give you two points under the process itself banner, which adds up to be numerically four points. But although that numeric value may not sound extremely high, that's okay because the intrinsic value that it's going to give you is innumerable. And I mean that. These are time-tested tips. Go back and listen to my first podcast of You're Hired, Now What? Lay it on top of this one. And with these two book-ended podcasts, let me just say you are going to be more than ready to go out there and get a job. All I ask is, when you're hired, you shoot me a note or like and share this podcast and give a commentary and let everybody know that listening to this Marketing Insights episode and the last one helps you get a J-O-B. Let's go.

So I'm going to call each one of these points I'm going to give you ditch the dodo for YOLO points. So ditch the dodo for YOLO point number one is clean your search engine light. Here's what I mean. Everyone uses the same tried and true search engines, LinkedIn, Job Recruiter, Handshake, Monster. I worked for Monster, by the way, as a college and career coach for years, and I loved it. And all of those tools that I just mentioned are awesome. I know I set them kind of like... I didn't mean for my tone to sound like that. The sound was really because they're not the only tools that are available to you, which I'll elaborate on in a moment.

But back to Monster for 30 seconds. When I worked for Monster, that was in a different rendition of my life. I was a recent college graduate, young career pioneer, but I had so much experience as an undergraduate and graduate student doing internships and working that I was very well-knowledged about how to get a job, which is why I know I'm qualified to tell y'all this today. And so in that process, I was hired and I traveled all over the world to speak to high school and college students in two programs. One was called Making High School Count, the other was called Making College Count. I was ranked their top speaker in the nation for my work in that program for engaging students, go figure. And it was a lot of fun, lot of work, but a lot of fun.

So that was, like I said, probably around the second rendition of my life. I'm currently working on about the eighth rendition of my life, meaning I keep reinventing myself. And I have my eye on the ninth rendition too, so y'all stay tuned. You might see me on the Oscars on TV for that one. But back to the podcast. Reinvention is key. I'm saying it facetiously and jokingly on this podcast, but in all sincerity, reinventing yourself is not only essential, it's something that a lot of people underestimate or don't realize they have at their disposal. This is not necessarily applicable to all of you who are starting out your careers if you're listening and you are a high school student, a college student, or an early career starter. But for those of you who are in the midst of your career, this is a process point, or doing a career transition, don't feel that you have to stay in the same lane.

And actually, this point goes across the board no matter where you are in your career trajectory. You can always reinvent yourselves, and that is because that's what the world is all about. And I want you to always keep that in mind because, otherwise, you'll feel locked in and get frustrated when things are not going your way. That may be a sign from the universe that you just need to do something different my loquacious, licorice-lipped lined listeners.

So instead of the same old, same old as it pertains to search engines, to bring it back to that point, how about you turn that niche job search site into something that is specifically oriented to you? Or you up your game by looking for innovative sites that may not be the same ones that everyone else is going to. And why, dear listeners, do you think that might be beneficial to you? Well, if you don't know, it's because at least you will have a smaller pool in which you can be a bigger fish than a big old pool and you are a big old fish, but it don't matter because there are a thousand other big fish as well.

All right. Some of the creative job search sites that you may be familiar with or may not be familiar with are Dice, Behance, and Creatively. So you can get your game on with those sites. You can get your game on by going to Dice, and that was a pun. I intended that because I said game on and I said the site Dice. I'm not connoting gambling, McGraw-Hill. I'm not connoting that. I was just making a pun about dice and playing games because you can have dice in Monopoly, right? Which, by the way, they say is a game that's analogous to life, like how you play Monopoly is how you live your life. And for the record, I slay Monopoly. I am the little car when I play and I am really good. I always get Boardwalk and Park Place, by the way. All right, back to the podcast.

Ditch the dodo for YOLO point number two, become obsessed. I hope McGraw-Hill does not let me go, y'all, on this 50th episode because I'm talking about Dice and now I'm talking about being obsessed, but stay with me. When you are going out on your job search forays, make sure you become obsessed with a couple of things, the organizations, companies, entities that you want to work for. Don't just pick it because it's popular or because it sounds good or someone in your class or your professor may have mentioned it. No, no, no, no. While those might be inspirational points, and I'm not saying to discount them, you may find someone inspire you in class. Your professor may say something. You may listen to me on some of my past podcasts when I've dropped brands that I've worked for, like McDonald's and Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and Sprite. And you may say to yourselves, "Well, wow, we like listening to Professor Akintonde. And if she's worked for all those companies, maybe there's something there for me."

And there may be. Those are excellent companies and I've learned a lot from working with them. But whatever your reason behind your decision to choose where you think you want to work, underline the word think you want to work, you have got to do your own homework. So become obsessive with your homework. I've been watching some Kobe Bryant documentaries to inspire me to still try to get back in my pre-pandemic outfits and working out. And he has the mamba mentality, which I'm sure you all know. It's mamba, right, not mumba? Mamba?

See, I don't even know how to say it, but y'all know what I'm talking about. It starts with the letter M and ends in A. In that, I note that he has always said that he is willing to work harder, or I should say in the past tense, forgive me, Kobe's no longer with us. But he was willing to work so intensely that he knew he was outworking his competitors because it was like an obsession with him to get out there and practice, practice, practice. So when he got to the game, that was when he was able to literally and figuratively play.

Well, you have to have that same mentality when it goes about getting the jobs that you want to work for, the career, I should say, you want to begin or transition into. You've got to become obsessive. Use the internet. It's so wonderful to have search engines, Safari, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, whatever, at your disposal. Use it. Find out who the CEOs are at the companies you want to work and go down the food chain. I suggest you go at least five levels in. Go five levels deep, everyone. Don't just stop at the CEO level or the C-suite level. Go underneath it to the VPs. Go underneath it to the mid-managers. Go underneath it to the reports that report up to the mid-managers. Go underneath it to the entry-level roles that you will be looking for in many cases. Go underneath that to the janitorial and the secretarial staff.

I don't know how many levels that is I just said, but what I'm saying is, as my grand mama would say, you know what I'm going to say next, from the rooter to the tutor, know what that company is all about. Look at their mission statement. Look at their mission statement and pull words that they use in their mission statement when you are writing your cover letter. Yes, I still believe in cover letters. I said this in the first podcast, I'm saying it again here. I know it's six years later, but it doesn't change. Use the same wording. Use it in your resume. Use it when you're interviewed, whether on Zoom or in-person. Just make sure that you are showing both literally and figuratively, that's my phrase of the day, that you are understanding who they are. And the best way to do that is to speak their speak.

All corporations have their own code of language. I was going to say code of conduct, that too. But the way they speak is unique to them, whether they consciously are aware of it or not. And so if you are able to get yourself in that position to show that you understand that, it gives you a leg up. Now, let me pause because as you all can see, I'm a slightly obsessed person with what I'm saying to you right now. I am not suggesting by these tips that I'm giving you that you become a conformist. So in other words, although I'm saying, "Research the language they use, research all these individuals that work there," I don't want you to do it in the sake of emulation or imitation. I never condone or connote that or condone that.

What I am saying is understand the game, understand what's being played, back to my Monopoly analogy, so that you are able to then get in the door where you can carve out your unique niche. But you can't do that necessarily on the outside looking in because you want to get in there first. And so this is how you do it. It's one way you do it, but it's a time-tested strategy that most people ignore. The obsession is a part of it. And to be honest with you, and this is just common sense, y'all, if it's something that you're automatically passionate about, the idea of being obsessed will probably not even be something I have to say to you.

You know how you are if you have a favorite food at Chipotle. You go in there and you order that every time you go. Nobody has to tell you to do that, right? So that's what I'm saying to you about where you want to work. If it's laborious for you, if you're drudging and dredging and going, "I don't want to do this," then that is not where you need to be. That's not a field that you need to be going into because this should incite in you, ignite in you the kind of energy and passion that what I'm saying you should already be doing. You should already have people pinned. You should already have information at your fingertips. And so this is just an added cherry on top. All right, that's point number two. You see, I was obsessive about that one too.

All right. Ditch the dodo for YOLO point number three, you're going to leverage all your social media. And I know this may be an antithesis to many people because sometimes, especially older generations will say, "Get off your phone, get off your tablets, get off your laptops." When I was teaching in my liberal arts institution here in Chicago for all those years, I never told my students to turn off their cell phones. And I know that is another counterintuitive point, but I say use those things as tools. I know they were maybe texting their friends or something or doing other things sometimes in class, but it was a challenge for me to be the type of professor that got them so engaged that we would use the phone in class. I created a lot of different exercises and activities that we would do where I would weave it into my pedagogy.

But outside of that, what I am saying to you about your social media access and use now is use it for the greater good. So rather than just scrolling through other people's sites and looking up TikTok videos and creating your own TikTok videos, which is great depending on what the content is and what you're doing, take that up a notch. So when you're looking for your job search, this is a process point still I'm making here, make sure your digital footprint is magnified to the highest level in the way that you want it to be. So go and create a spreadsheet and literally list every social media app that you have a presence on. And if you don't have a presence, where you can build one. The number one site in my humble opinion that you need to be on as a college student or as a job seeker generally is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is where it's at when you're looking for a job.

So you need to go out and create a site if you don't have one on LinkedIn, or a page, excuse me. Or if you do have one, go take a look at it and spruce it up. Your headshot is key. I know you took that cute selfie at the Taylor Swift concert, but that's probably not the best one to have on your LinkedIn profile page, unless Taylor's in the back giving you a thumbs up. But you need to create a professional image on LinkedIn. So go ahead and put a professional headshot, create a specific headline, list underneath it whatever it is you want employers to know about you.

I'm going to do a webinar on that myself in early 2025 in January if you'd like to attend. It's free. You let me know. I can send you the link. But the point being, make sure you are present everywhere consistently and well-shined, groomed, ready. That is your translation in the first seconds that those potential employers of you are going to look at your site for you to woo them and wow them and make them think that you are the best person for the job. And it's the easiest thing to do.

The second thing I'm going to say is specifically about LinkedIn. That's another place when I said be obsessed in the previous point, LinkedIn is where you can go. Find the people that are on those levels that I mentioned as well, the presidents, the C-suite folk, everybody else. Reach out to them, send them messages, ask to connect. You may say to me, "Well, Professor Akintonde, they don't know me. They're not going to connect with me." You'd be surprised. Sometimes they will. It could be a whim. They don't even really realize who you are when they connect. Or they may just be the type of person that connects, like I do. If I get a connect request, and especially if it's from a student, I will accept it with no hesitation because I do a lot of content on my LinkedIn site where I want to share it and I want you to have it. And so that's one of the reasons why I do it.

But what you want to do with them is not seek for them to give you anything. If I didn't say this yet in this podcast, let me say this now and let this be, if you only take one thing away from this episode, let this be it. You are not there to have anyone do anything for you. No one owes you anything. They don't owe you a return phone call. They don't owe you a return email. They don't care. What you have to understand is it's your job, your responsibility to let them know why you are a benefit asset plus one add-on in a positive way to them. So when you go to them on these social media apps, I'm mentioning LinkedIn now, there are others you can use, and you do connect or you don't. Regardless, find out things that you think would be of interest to them.

For example, I have a student that I told this to and she has been promoted so many times now, I won't be surprised if she's not a CEO the next time we talk at her company. But I would say to her, "Why don't you find articles, quick little snippets or videos on Instagram or wherever you are and send them to your potential hires at the time," they hadn't hired her yet, "that you think would be interesting for them to know about?" Now, listen carefully. This can be something relevant to their industry. So, say, in her case, she was interested in fashion. So she would find something on a fashion, a new fashion trend, for example, or something related to their company. I won't say the name of it, but their company specifically. And she would make a commentary or a note about the article about them when she sent it.

But if it was something that wasn't their company, she would say, "I ran across this quick video or something and I thought you might be interested," and she signed her name. And after I'd say roughly just three months or less of doing it, they called her in for a conversation. And then that turned into an internship. And then that turned into her getting hired. Now, notice I said on the second part that when she sent them something that wasn't about their, or that was about their company, excuse me, she made a comment on it. That's important because if it's something about their company, they don't need a resend of that from you. I mean, what's the point? You got to add something, as I just said. So you give them your perspective on whatever it is. That means you will have had to read it and you will have had to have an opinion on it.

A lot of people get afraid to do this. They think, "Oh, what if I send it in, they think I'm stupid?" Or, "Oh, I don't know what to say." Yes, you do. If this is, again, an area of passion for you, whether it be entertainment, sports, it can be astrophysics. Whatever turns you on, that is what needs to drive this bus, this train, this plane so that when you are in the throes of having a conversation about it, you're able to articulate it. It doesn't have to be Encyclopedia Britannica-type language. You use your own voice. And you may sound like Encyclopedia Britannica, forgive me. I don't want to insinuate that you don't. But you get what I'm saying. Use your authentic voice, whatever that is, and give them that. Those are the ways that you start to stand out from the crowd.

Is this going to take a little work? Yes. Is it going to require you to be intentional? Yes. Make sure there are no spelling errors in what you send. Get the person's name correct, spell their name correctly. Send it on certain times a day, right? You don't want to send it at midnight because you're up at midnight watching Netflix and chilling. You want to send it to them in within business hours. So those are the kinds of things, you can schedule them even. But just make sure you are creating a kind of graph and marking who you do this for. Don't do it for just one employer, by the way. Pick a few people in the same company. But when you do that, make sure you get the names correct again. Don't send it to the C-suite level president and send the same message to the VP but forget to change the name.

All right, you all get the point on that. I won't belabor it. But the last thing I'll say is I'm saying send it to the multiple people in the same corporation, but send it to multiple people within the same industry. And maybe you should at least have two to three different types of industries that you're looking for employment within. I chose to do advertising, marketing, and public relations because I'm an integrated marketer, so I had a resume for my marketing positions I was looking at, I had a resume for advertising jobs, I had a resume for public relations. Now, that's an extreme, but that's me. My first choice was advertising because that's what I'd studied. But that doors were not necessarily going to open for me, and they didn't at first, public relations did. But because I had so many feelers out, it worked for me. And that's what I'm saying to you.

So be intentional, which is point number four, the last one. Ditch the dodo for YOLO point number four is simply to be intentional. I've rattled through the ways in points one, two, and three already, but the last point that I want to make about it is this. When you go out and do anything, think of it as your resume. When you're in class talking to your professors, that's you building yourself up to build your resume. When you're on the first job, even though you've been hired, some people rest on their laurels at that point and think, "Well, I'm in here now, I can just chill." No, you cannot. You still want to act as though you're that person who's looking for the job. I don't mean wear desperation like a body spray. Not saying you have to run around and be nervous. But what I am saying is that hunger still needs to be there.

Make sure you walk around the office and meet your colleagues and your superiors. Ask to sit in on meetings, even if you weren't assigned to sit in on them. That got me so far in my career early on by me just saying, "Hey, do you mind if I sit in on this meeting with you?" And more often than not, after the incredulous stares, they would allow me to. Now, I didn't say anything, everyone. I didn't go in there and offer my two cents, although I may have had it. I was listening, collecting information. That's key. You don't want to be talking, you want to be listening. And that way, once you get back to your cubicle or your office or wherever you're fortunate enough to be, or your home because we're hybrid now, in your living room, you can make notes. And when you're in another meeting, you can have additional insights to add.

So I'm hopeful that this was helpful to you. My top four things about how to ditch the dodo and go for the YOLO, said, "Yo-yo," YOLO, your opportunities to leverage yourself online. Again, I'm going to come back with part two, which will be the professionals themselves telling you what they look for specifically in hiring. And I know you want to hear that. And go back, as I mentioned before, and listen to my first version of this, which is You're Hired, Now What? Until next time, which will be our best time, this is Shanita Akintonde, professor, author, and career coach signing off. If you enjoy listening to these podcasts, be sure to subscribe on your favorite platforms such as Stitcher, iTunes, Apple Music, Audible, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your other favorite podcasts. Be sure to like them and subscribe wherever you hear them. Connect with me on LinkedIn at Professor Shanita Akintonde, or follow me on Twitter @_shanitaspeaks. That's @_shanitaspeaks. This is episode 50, y'all. Bye.