Interviewing for my Future
Being completely honest, I had no idea how I was going to handle this assignment. After reviewing the prompt for this week’s post, I was kind of dumbfounded at the idea of having to reach out to three strangers and interview them. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely outgoing and have great communication skills, but reaching out to three professionals, who work in fields that I am interested in, and asking them about the hiring process is a little bit overwhelming. It was a jump outside of my comfort zone, but one that I was eager to try. Thankfully, my LinkedIn account gave me access to over 100 professionals to sort through to find the three I wanted to reach out and seek information from.
The first thing I had to do to prepare for this interview was find my potential collaborators. Gershon dedicated an entire chapter of her book, Down and Out in the New Economy, to LinkedIn and it’s influence in the professional world. She talked about how to act on this platform and said, “Almost everyone believed there was a LinkedIn etiquette”. Keeping this in mind, I wanted to be as professional as possible when contacting these employers. I decided to message all of them with a heartfelt momento that described who I was, what I was doing, and why I needed their help. The three people I chose were Jake Melville, a recruiter at Athletes Go Pro, Rachel Pincus, the Manager of Strategic Communications for Kansas Athletics, and Amy Huchthausen, commissioner of the America East Conference.
All three of these professionals are extremely successful in their respective fields. I connected with them just by their job titles, and hoped they would connect with me back. My strategy was to try and connect with as many people as possible that had a career in my potential line of work, and I was very fortunate to match with these three individuals. Gershon said, “She was uncertain how to value a LinkedIn connection, largely because it was on a professional networking site. This person might turn out to be useful in the future -” My thought process throughout these connections were that all three of these people could be very useful to me in my future, so why not request them to connect and see if it works out? Rachel Pincus was the first person who reached out to me being an MCS grad from UMBC as well, and is now extremely successful in her field.
The next step for my preparation was to research all of the three different careers. I wanted to make sure I had insightful questions to ask, as well as a prior understanding of what their position entails. Jake Melville went really into depth with me on the hiring process for his company. Even though I was unable to get all of the audio converted over to MP3, he talked with me about the different things he looks for in a potential employee and talked about the influence LinkedIn has on providing the employer with all the information they need on any applicant. Gershon highlighted this idea as well saying, “Hiring managers recognize that all of the information they have is already packaged to put the applicant in the best possible light.”
Overall, my interviews went extremely well. I gained valuable, first-hand, knowledge that could not be obtained anywhere else. The thing I was most happy about was me reaching out caused for all three professionals to view my LinkedIn page, and check out my past experiences. Gershon says, “Yet not all online sites get the same kind of attention from job seekers that LinkedIn does.” This statement was proven to me first hand when three employers, that I could definitely see myself working for, all viewed my profile on their own time. This assignment may have caused me to go out of my comfort zone, but it was extremely beneficial. My plan going forward will be to continue to reach out to professionals in hopes to make one connection that could lead to a fantastic career. LinkedIn has a ton of power, and I am just starting to find how to harness it.
Colton Hower
