The Importance of Personal Relationships with Job Mentors
For my interviews, I decided to talk to three supervisors of areas of work that I am very interested in going into once I graduate next semester. My two recorded interviews were with Eli Eisenberg, the President of VPC, Inc. and Steve Levy, the Associate Director or Athletics/Director of Athletic Communications at UMBC. My last interview was with Zach Seidel, the Director of Multimedia Communications/Sports Marketing Digital Media.
Ilana Gershon writes about networking on page 89, saying “[Job seekers] need to stop imagining they are being productive by spending hours upon hours submitting resumes. Instead they should go out and network,” (Gershon 89). I believe through my internship I have begun to do just that, and have multiple contacts that can help me get a job in the future.
Gershon cites the importance of having a network, saying, “Job seekers try to find an individual in the organization who will personally send their resume to the hiring manager,” (Gershon 91). This is such an important factor because it can help bypass the automated resume checking systems as well as bring a more personal side of your application. Having a strong network can lead to you being noticed, and being close to people like Eli and Steve offers many benefits, as they are great teachers as well as people that can recommend you to potential employers, as they are both highly respected in their fields.
One part of networking that I personally believe in is the personal relationship aspect of it, which can often be lost in a medium such as LinkedIn. Gershon writes, “A connection symbolizes potential, but precisely what kind of potential? If you are willing to connect with anyone who asks, you may have more connections than people who are less inclusive, but they may not be all that valuable as connections,” (Gershon 134). In my opinion, personal connections mean so much more than just LinkedIn connections. Building a rapport in person with a job mentor like Eli makes it much easier to do so many things, like asking for a recommendation or advice.
While having Eli, for example, as a LinkedIn connection is great, it means way more to have a real-life connection with him, as I can gain insight and have a more personal relationship with him, one that allowed my interview with him to go much better than one with someone I strictly knew from LinkedIn.
Eli mentioned in his interview that he often will search for new employees through sites like LinkedIn, and Gershon shows that to be a common tool, saying, “If you are a recruiter, you might find LinkedIn good for looking for people who use the keywords that also appear in the job requisition that you are trying to fill,” (Gershon 156). This shows to me that even though LinkedIn can be a less personal way to network, it still can have its benefits in some cases, if your profile is laid out in a strong way.
Preparing for the interviews was fairly easy in my opinion due to the personal relationships I have with all three job mentors. This also made conducting the interviews easy because they knew me and knew that I have knowledge of the industries they work in. I believe contacting someone I know strictly from LinkedIn would have made the interviews much more difficult, as we both would not know each other well.
One thing that really stood out to me was both Eli and Steve said that they both are beginning to hire more and more recent college graduates for their companies, with Eli even saying, “Almost half of our work force now are between the ages of 21–22 to around age 34.” He said this to show how they are developing a new generation of workers, some of which have come from the ESPN 3 Initiative at UMBC, which I am lucky enough to be a part of for this coming winter/spring season.
Zach has a personal relation to this topic as he came from graduating from UMBC and immediately began working at UMBC, so he can relate to the “youth movement” so to speak.
Eli also alluded to the fact that just a GPA is not enough to make it in the working world, as that does not entirely translate over to the production field. He said that the most successful future employees are coming in with more than just school experience by gaining hands-on experience prior to being hired, which is where the ESPN 3 Initiative is such a benefit for students here that want to enter the industry of live production, as we get the ability to learn all aspects of live sports production.
Steve said that he attempts to hire more locally to hire a graduate student or intern trying to move up to the next step, which also points to the fact that both of these industries are moving to younger new hires.
To be successful in the athletic communications field, Steve said that a passion for sports, including the “non-glamour” sports, is one of the fundamental needs to hire someone in his opinion. Many candidates can have strengths that are important to have, but the biggest red flag to him is the lack of an interest in sports. Zach gave very similar answers to Steve, but was able to relate more to the “applying for the job” side of things, as he is Steve’s employee.
Overall, the interviews went well and were very informative. I have a strong interest in both the live production field as well as the athletic communications field, so getting the points of view from those that hire was very helpful, and will stay in my mind when building my resume and cover letter when applying for a job in these fields.
It seemed clear to me that having a well-rounded skill set seems to be important for both fields, so I will be attempting to learn as many skills as possible from Eli, Steve, and Zach in the coming semester to round out my resume and be a more appealing candidate.
