Beware the Golden Handcuffs: Notes from SXSW Interactive 2015
This story originally appeared in USA Today College.
In January, an alum reached out to the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications and asked if any students were interested in a free trip to SXSW Interactive. Her brother’s NYC-based digital marketing agency needed a coordinator to travel with the team during the conference and figured a student would get the most out of the opportunity — and jump at the chance of free travel. I responded to the email, sold the alum’s brother on my background in tech, and within a week had a flight to Austin booked in my name.
For the past two years, I’ve worked on the communications team for UF Information Technology learning firsthand about emerging technology at the University of Florida — everything from advancements in high-performance computing for researchers at the UF Brain Rehabilitation Research Center to 3D printing at the Marston Science Library. I love following tech innovations almost as much as I love all-expense-paid trips.
The guys from the agency, I quickly learned, weren’t there for the official badge-required part of SXSW Interactive. It turns out, you hardly need a badge to experience SXSW, i.e. make business connections and collect swag. There are hundreds of unofficial social events hosted by brands and startups, and the agency guys needed to be there to make business connections and see what’s on the horizon for emerging tech in 2015.
My duties as coordinator were straightforward. All I had to do was RSVP the team to networking events, organize their daily schedules in a Google calendar, and provide transport via a rental car to and from our AirBNB house to downtown Austin where the conference took place. In exchange, I got to attend journalism-related networking events, go to parties, and hang out with techies.
I learned a lot, and not just that companies stop at nothing to create buzz for their products (like involving St. Bernard rescue dogs and beer bikes). As graduation looms and the media landscape is rapidly changing, I saw that jobs for young journalists are abundant in tech, networking doesn’t have to be gross, and the “golden handcuffs” are real — and scary.
Networking is the game
The idea of networking, like decaf coffee and Guy Fieri, used to disgust me. I was never good at it and didn’t have a firm grasp on what it actually meant. Before SXSW, I thought networking was a process by which one meets another and immediately begins to calculate the other person’s use, as in, ‘How can knowing this person benefit me?’
OK, it sort of is, and definitely at SXSW — but not all the time. In Austin, I met all types: Hello-here’s-my-card-goodbye people, students like me hoping to connect with potential employers, those jaded at the corporate circus the conference has become, and the worst, people who feigned friendliness. But I also met people with cool jobs and good advice, like a staff photographer from the Christian Science Monitor who’s also working with the Center for Investigative Reporting and a former Procter & Gamble marketer who created a new audio-recording wearable. Once, in an elevator, a man in an Ed Hardy T-shirt who worked at a news site in San Francisco told me the best advice he could give any young journalist was to forget print newspapers and apply for a job at VICE. He seemed tired.
Yes, sometimes networking is tedious. After a full day of parties, one of the guys on our team admitted that he unknowingly networked with one of the same people he’d met in Austin last year. That type of scenario is straight out of an Onion article about what happens at SXSW Interactive, and it proves that networking shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The secret to success, I realized, is to be sincere with each new meeting. If you’re a student, speak with someone you’ve just met the same way you’d speak to a professor or mentor: respectfully, and ask smart questions. People can spot phony politeness and an agenda. Stay relaxed. And if you get stuck in a conversation that’s going nowhere, just do this.
Techies are always talking about “hustle”
“Hustle” is one of those ubiquitous startup buzzwords, but it does accurately describe what it takes to make it in the industry. It’s the drive that propels you to work quicker and better than the competition. The face of emerging tech and the startup economy is constantly changing; as new innovations roll out in wearables, robotics, and apps, only those who think ahead thrive. It takes that impulse to stay sharp and never stop moving — that hustle — to be successful, no matter where you end up working.
As one of the agency guys said to me,“If you think differently, you’ll win.”
Create a sharp business card (or pay an artistic friend in burritos to make one for you)
The business-card trade is the butt of many SXSW jokes, but how else will you let new business connects know you’re a Junior Hashtag #Consultant? Having a distinctive card on hand is a crucial part of the networking game.
I asked friend to design mine, and he came up with a cool concept: On one side, a graphic of a finch (my last name), and on the other side, my information in a custom font. The best cards I saw had some kind of graphic element, photo, or creative and subtle use of color. Stay away from Patrick-Bateman-style black text on a white (or cream or ecru or eggshell) background.
Perfect your pitch
I didn’t have a pitch in mind before getting to the conference, which was a mistake. On the first day, people would ask me questions about myself, and I didn’t have clearly formed answers. The next day, I sought advice from one of the guys in our group, and he detailed the anatomy of the pitch. First, describe your skills and experience. Second, detail your interests. Third, bring up your availability. Close with contact information.
This is just a skeleton though, he said. Your pitch should be more than just a bulleted list of facts about yourself. Personality, humor, and finding common ground with people — like one techie I met at a party who also loves Kids In the Hall — are just as essential.
My pitch, by the end of the conference, started to look like this: “Hi, I’m Chloe. I’m a journalism student at the University of Florida with a background in web producing, entertainment writing, and editing. I’ve freelanced for my college’s newspaper, worked in web production for UF Information Technology, and right now I’m a web editor for WUFT News. I’m about to graduate in May, and I’m searching for a job that doesn’t involve mass-produced fast-food.”
From there, people would either nod and start searching the room for someone more useful to talk to, or they’d start asking questions (or, most common, gaze into the distance and say, “I remember college…”). If they seemed bored, I’d listen to their pitch, and then we’d exchange cards and part ways. If they seemed interested, we’d keep talking.
Follow up!
In addition to handing out cards, you’ll receive many in return. I spent the days following SXSW parsing through my stack, sending LinkedIn requests, and emailing the people whose conversations I remembered most. Following up is a great time to restate your pitch and remind people of your existence. Within a week after the conference, one of my post-SXSW email exchanges even lead to a freelance content-production job for a men’s fashion startup.
Beware the ‘golden handcuffs’
At one point over the weekend, I broke away from the team to check out the Spotify House. Bands performed, a flavored-vodka brand hawked their product and gave away free booze, and people way cooler than me played interactive music trivia and won T-shirts for knowing where Thom Yorke is from. While I was there I talked to some cool-looking guys who told me they work at an ad agency that’s always hiring fresh-out-college copywriters.
I was super into it. Images of myself banging away at a typewriter and swigging scotch into the wee hours of the morning danced in my brain (I should stop re-watching Mad Men). They gave me their cards, and I had every intention of following up.
When I met up with my boss later, I described the interaction. He laughed and told me to “beware the golden handcuffs.”
“Ad agencies promise college grads the world,” he said. They tell you that you can work from home two days a week, take unlimited vacation, and a cool office culture. In return, though, they expect a near-impossible-to-achieve work output, which guarantees that you never take advantage of the perks or move upward.
The double edge to this, he added, was that once you’re stuck in the grip of the golden handcuffs, it’s difficult to convince other companies to hire you out them. If you’re duped by the promise of perks, you’re proving to others that you lack career savvy.
Not all ad agencies promise golden handcuffs, obviously, and the golden handcuffs can come in many forms. But if an entry-level job offer promises a suspicious amount of perks and seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Be bold
Sure, you can answer online job postings and cold-call potential employers, but meeting someone in person is always better. A handshake is always beats than a LinkedIn request. Eye contact is always stronger than an email. And when you show your face, people know you’re hungry and committed.
On my final day at SXSW, per the advice of a mentor, I walked into the Austin Chronicle’s office on a whim. I spoke with a staff writer, gave my pitch, talked about how much I loved reading the Chronicle while in town, and why I’d be a good fit at their paper. It’s too easy, especially as a student, to become intimidated and hide behind an inquiry email. But the payoff for getting facetime with an employer for whom you’d like to work is much higher, and it sets you apart from the dozens of other novices sending emails.
Going to Austin with a group of people I’d never met was one of the biggest risks I’ve taken with my life, and it taught me how to weigh consequences. The worst thing that could’ve happened at the Chronicle was that security could’ve ejected me from the building, but of course that didn’t happen. The only “security” the Chronicle has was an office dog chilling on a couch. At best, I can learn about their job openings; at worst, I got a couple new Twitter followers. Face time is always worth it.
Tech needs communicators (and 20-somethings)
You don’t have to have a B.S. in computer science to find a job with a startup, marketing shop, or interactive agency. I met people in Austin for SXSW with backgrounds in fine arts, engineering, theater, and journalism. Mashable made a case for non-techies to get tech jobs, and they’re all valid points. The skills you need can be self taught, whether through MOOCs or lynda.com tutorials or old-fashioned reading. If you can show that you’re about the hustle, you can find a spot in this “booming, creative and fulfilling” industry.
There are two types of students in the UF J-school, I’ve realized. There are those who are driven reporters and editors who want to contribute to a newspaper or magazine, but there are also those with journalistic skills who don’t necessarily want that traditional media job. The second type are especially skilled in graphic design, web development, social media, and digital content. Neither type is bad, and both are necessary.
If you fall into that second type, you shouldn’t lose sleep. You should, however, consider a career in emerging tech.
Odds are, you’re made of the right stuff to do it. What does being a young journalist require, after all, if not hustle?
Chloe Finch is a soon-to-be graduate from the University of Florida. Follow her on Twitter @chloedfinch.
