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San Francisco

Sara Anderson

Graphic design

Brand marketing

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today, we have coming our dear friend, Sara. Sara, thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Our goal here today is to get you hired. In order to find the right company, the right role, the right culture, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Well, my name is Sara, as you clearly know. I grew up just north of LA with my parents and my older sister. My sister is an art director at a beauty company and both my parents work in aerospace. I decided that I wanted to move a little bit north. Now I live in the Bay Area where it's a little bit cooler and a little bit less traffic.
>>>Wow, amazing. There's traffic in the whole entire California.
<<<All California is just traffic.
>>>Coming from a super accomplished family, a super accomplished older sister, parents, and I'm assuming you're also very super accomplished, you've probably worked at a lot of personal projects too growing up and all the way until now. Why don't you tell us about one of them that you're super proud of?
<<<My most recent personal project that I've been working on is my website. It houses my portfolio, my testimonials, people who I've worked with in my freelance business, but it also has my resume and a little bit more of an in depth look at my resume. My portfolio is never really going to be done because there's always new projects to add. I'm always making changes to past projects or reimagining them. I try and publish them on the website so it's current.
>>>Wow, amazing. Why don't you tell us what's the website called so people could go there and find you?
<<<It's sarajanecreative.squarespace.com
>>>Perfect. I'm sure people are going to get there. Hopefully, your traffic spike will be through the roof that you have to find new servers and everything.
<<>>Flipping the script from creating that incredible website about yourself, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<A personal challenge that I went through that I definitely did overcome was living abroad. I took a contract with Tokyo Disneyland for 14 months and I was really well aware that I wouldn't be able to go home during the duration of my contract, but I was living in a foreign country. It was really scary. I was 24. I had traveled but not in that capacity by myself. I ended up really loving it there and I talk about my time there really fondly. I feel like I learned a lot about myself and a lot about other cultures. It was a huge change for me.
>>>Wow, amazing. I know, Sara, in your next position, you have the ability to get comfortable with the uncomfortable just like moving to Tokyo, and putting yourself in new positions and a whole new environment, and making sure that the right work gets done and staying in a positive frame mindset. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<I'd say in my next job, I really want to continue to use my knowledge of marketing along with design and brand management. I feel like that makes me really valuable to companies who would normally have to outsource one or the other. What's really great about working in marketing graphic design is that every company needs someone who does that. While I've enjoyed working in construction, I'm really open to new industries. I think it's an exciting and interesting challenge to learn all that's going on into a different industry that I have never tried.
>>>Absolutely amazing. I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to try and send as many opportunities where possible in marketing, graphic design, brand manager to get you hired. Thank you.
<<<Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Sara Anderson.mp4

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Denver

Suzanne Beer

Project management

Program management

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today, we have coming our dear friend, Suzanne. Suzanne, thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Thank you so much. I love what you guys are doing. Thanks for letting me be a part of it.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Thank you for giving us the ability to host you on this platform. Suzanne, in order to find the right role, the right company, the right culture, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from, so we can get to know you better?
<<<Absolutely. Well, I grew up in military so we lived all over. My father then joined and started working for the airline. We lived in Michigan and Wisconsin and Florida, Tennessee, and then I had moved on my own. I don't really have one place to claim as home and I have no regrets about that. I really have lived all over and loved it. It gave me a really diverse background and experience growing up. With my dad being in military, what I learned from him was a lot of that discipline, bringing people together and collaborating and that sort of thing. Then my mom, she worked in telco, and then she worked in healthcare and government jobs. Learned a lot from her as well as far as her work ethic and making sure that people come together. Both of them always instilled in all of us that bring your own sense of style to your job and keep a sense of humor, which I do pretty much on a daily basis. I at least try and do my best.
>>>Wow.
<<<Then I have two older brothers who were nerds. Being the little sister, I wanted to follow in their footsteps and tag along and do whatever they wanted to do. When they both became technologists, I had to be a technologist. I wanted to be better than they were. I ended up finding project and program management, which, to me, embodies everything that our parents taught us growing up; bring people together, take a giant puzzle and throw it out on the table. I'm also married to a nerd and I have a nerd going off to college.
>>>A lot of nerds, but that's okay.
<<<A lot. I'm surrounded.
>>>It seems like your parents did the most incredible job. First of all, thank you to your father for his service. They've done amazing things and they taught you so many credible values. It looks like most of to your life was balanced between the I-95 and the 280, back and forth going in those directions across America. I'm assuming, along those two highways, you probably have done multiple personal projects and worked on a lot of personal things. Why don't tell us about one of those that you're super proud of?
<<<Professionally, I think I've done hundreds of projects and programs in my career. I have a sense of pride about each one of them. The personal projects, and I'm glad you brought that up, because personal projects really shine a light on things you may not always see on a resume, which to me is fantastic. Years ago, I went to the University of Denver, DU, the women's college. I majored in IT. As you can imagine, there were only maybe 20-something of us in that time out of hundreds of women majoring in Business and Communications. There weren't that many of us in IT, but we were all passionate. We were determined. We were dedicated. We were creative. For me, I thought, why don't we have our own organization and spice it up a little bit and get people more engaged? It just exploded. I came up with the name which was DuWIT - DU Women in Technology, still exists today. Then we started doing community events and community outreach not just to young women and girls interested in technology, but all kids for STEM fields. We used different methods to teach in these communities about programming language, about SQL, and all kinds of fascinating things using candy bars and hats and things that were common and strange and unique. It helped those kids remember. I know we touched hundreds of kids. We partnered with organizations like NCWIT and CCGIT, and I'm throwing out a lot of acronyms. Basically, what we did is we touched hundreds of kids. As an end goal, if one of those kids ended up in a STEM field, then that's a success. When that kid passes on his or her own slant, I'm getting others engaged in technologies.
>>>That's all it's about. It's about empowering someone else to empower the next person they come in touch with.
<<<Exactly.
>>>That's what it's about. It's being a lamplighter, lighting the fire within one person, and they're going to affect another person. That's what it's all about. Flipping the script from there, igniting the torch within someone else, and inspiring multiple young girls in order to take the STEM approach, which is incredible, what's a challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<Having moved around a lot and having to adapt to different styles and personalities of individuals, I think diversity is sort of ingrained in my life now. Then as far as project management and personal challenges that I faced, I've found over the years that many times communication and collaboration are overlooked as sometimes secondary, unfortunately. To me, I took, again, that sense of humor and engaged people. Sometimes people refer to me as a contagious enthusiast. What happened is that I take kind of dry projects. As an example, we had a printer deployment. We were deploying new printers at an organization that I worked at and I needed the entire organization to understand why we were doing this, why we were disrupting their lives, and forcing them, if you will, to utilize this new technology. I made a quick video of it and engaged the C-level executives to star in it. I wrote a script tailored after The Office, the TV show, since they were printers, and just blasted that out to the entire organization. It was a hit. People loved it. It starred people in our organization, including the CEO. It just relayed the information all the way from why we're doing this, and what we can expect from it. It was a lot of fun. People had a lot of fun and they couldn't wait for the next video to come out so they could be a part of it.
>>>Amazing. I know in your next role, you have the ability to bring a lot of fun into the office and create these type of promotional videos like that. You have the ability to be open minded and accept everyone within there, and not only that, uplift them like the STEM program you launched, help them advance their own careers. You come with the ability to accept every single type of nerd out there, full of love, but what are you looking for in your next role?
<<<That's a great question. For me, I would love to go somewhere where it's a great fit for me and a great fit for the organization. It's all about the culture. I want to be a culture fit for them and then for me, then I can bring my skill sets and my humor and whatever else to the organization, and help them succeed, removing those barriers, collaborating, whatever it is that they need me to do as a project or program manager at their organization.
>>>Amazing. Suzanne, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're are obviously going to do everything in our power to try and send as many opportunities where possible to get you hired. Thank you.
<<<Thank you so much. I appreciate your time today.

Suzanne Beer.mp4

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New York City

Paul Benjamin Taylor

Leadership Development

Talent Management

Learning & Development

Change Management

Proven leader of global transformational initiatives in hyper-growth technology environments, creating and executing the vision and strategy for learning, leadership, and talent development to enable key business outcomes

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend Paul. Paul, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Thank you, Ephraim. I'm really honored to be part of this project
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure, Paul, and our goal here today is to get you hired. In order to get to know you better and to find the right company, the right role, why don't they give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Sure. Where I'm from is complicated. I've moved around a lot, born in Ohio, but I spent 10 years in Japan, 5 years in China, a few years in many other places, and I've been in New York now for a little more than 10 years. 
>>>Wow.
<<<I started out in life, believe it or not, as a fashion designer and kind of got tired of the fashion design trade. I still liked the design aspect of it, but it didn't really feel like it was satisfying enough for me so I moved into learning and development. I found that I could really have an impact on people and that I had a knack for it. I cut my teeth in learning development at Gateway Computers, where I did sales training, and then took over sales enablement. From there, I moved on to capital projects. They we're putting in Siebel systems. It's the first CRM implementation that I'd beed part of and then I got really excited about projects and became more of an instructional designer. Then I went off to China, did some consulting for several years. Then came to New York, worked as an instructional designer for a while and then started running all the training programs for the R&D department at Medidata. Then thought, okay, I've got the technical side down, I want to learn a little bit more about the HR side of things. Went over Panasonic, got the HR side thing, and then finally, got my dream job at Integral Ad Science, finally, as the Director of Global Learning development, where I could combine it all. Then as everybody else on here, COVID happens and hard decisions are made and it's okay. I'm sure the next dream job is around the corner.
>>>It definitely is. From a young boy growing up in Cleveland, Ohio,
<<<Ohio, Cleveland, close
>>>Until, you mentioned right now, having your dream job ,along that whole entire timeline, living in China, living in Japan, working for Panasonic or being a fashion, multiple different things and multiple different talents and skill sets, I'm assuming you've worked on a lot of personal projects, too.
<<<Oh, I did. Yes. For sure. 
>>>What's a personal project that you worked on and accomplished that you're super proud of?
<<<There are quite a few. I also really enjoy music. I've produced my own music, been in bands, but I actually really like choral music as well. When I was in Beijing, I sang in an international festival chorus and we sang in the Forbidden City concert hall. Then in New York, I was with [inaudible] choirs, and we actually got to go to UK and sing for the Queen's Jubilee. My favorite thing that I ever did with that choir was at Radio City Music Hall, sang live to the soundtrack of Lord of the Rings, two towers in Elvish.
>>>Wow. That's amazing.
<<>>Paul, what can't you do? You're a designer, a singer, you're a global learning, you're a leader. Wow, so many things.
<<<Definitely, I love the creative side and I love applying creativity to work situations as well, especially finding a better way to do things. I really liked startups because there are not a lot of processes in places and sometimes that can be very chaotic and difficult to work around in, but I welcome that challenge and coming up with a process that's scalable, that just feels great to do that. Sometimes, when you go into slightly post startup company and you've got all these organic processes that come up and little fiefdoms, that can be a real challenge to try to unbuild some of those things that have been built. That's exactly the space I'm looking for, is a chance to come in and put in some scalable processes, put in something that you can just grow.
>>>So I know, obviously, in your next role, you show up with everything you mentioned before. You show up with the ability to create the holiday choir party for the company. You show up with the ability to apply your skillset and learning to take the innovation and the global learning of the company and take employees to the next level. Well, what are you looking for in your next role?
<<<I'm looking for a place that I can come in and put in some scalable systems. In my last role, it was my first real opportunity to be a leader of leaders and I really love that aspect of it. So I hope that I can have a team and I can build and develop that team and that we can actually accomplish even more at scale. Well, hopefully for smallish company. I like the startup.
>>>Amazing. Paul, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to try and send as many opportunities along your way possible to get you hired. Thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Paul Benjamin Taylor.mp4

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Chicago

Mike Bragg

Account management

Customer service

>>>Hey, everyone. We're here with our next candidate for Project #1000Hires, our dear friend, Mike. Hey, Mike?
<<<Hey, how's it going, Jesse?
>>>It's going great. We are so excited to have you with us here today, and we're going to do everything that we possibly can to help get you hired and back up on your feet.
<<<Cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
>>>It is absolutely our pleasure. To get things started, why don't you start off, Mike, by telling us a little bit about your background, your family, any of that personal information you'd like to share with us today?
<<<Sure. Well, I am a Chicago guy through and through. I've lived here my whole life and I've built my career here as well, mostly in digital marketing and in an agency setting. I've just recently gotten my own family started. I've had a daughter in April, and so I've gotten a lot of time to spend with her, probably the longest paternity leave I'll ever have. My wife is a teacher so right now we're both spending this time at home together as new parents. It's wonderful and I am ready and willing to get myself back out there.
>>>Amazing, Mike. Congratulations for becoming a first time father.
<<<Thank you.
>>>I'm sure, aside from being a first time father and being a husband, those being probably the two biggest projects that you've had in your life, what's some other projects that you've had that you're really proud of that you'd like to share with folks?
<<<Absolutely. I have been very focused on understanding and helping people understand their voter registration status and voting rights. I want to make sure my friends and family and their networks are informed voters when they go to their polls or right at their mailboxes, I guess, in this case. I have been researching myself a lot of what it would take to understand enough to bring that to other people and make sure that everybody is informed and educated so that they can vote in this November election. That has been bringing me a lot of joy to help people sift through all the unknowns and answer a lot of people's questions proactively. Then also, I've been toying around with doing a podcast. Several years ago, I started my own podcast with a friend. We talked mostly about sports and just the current events. That was a good time. It's defunct now, but it was a lot of fun and I'd like to restart that. I think this is a great opportunity, time that I wouldn't have otherwise had to spend in there. Maybe there's a way that I can merge those two. I've been thinking about that. Those are two things, in addition to being a new father, that I've been working on during these last few months of the pandemic.
>>>Amazing. We're going pivot ever so slightly from being a father, starting, potentially, a new podcast, and helping voters become informed with their registration, maybe talk a little bit about some challenges that you've overcome and that you're really proud of that you've been able to work through.
<<<Sure. I'm probably most proud of being able to complete one of those obstacle races. A couple years ago, I was very vocal and interested in starting an obstacle race. My wife was instrumental in pushing me to get myself in shape so that I can do one. I ended up doing a Spartan Race just totally solo on my own. It was not only a physical challenge getting there, but when I arrived, there was an additional curveball. It had rained torrentially the entire week beforehand. The course that's normally dry and just gravel, dirt had mud up to my calves, and in some places that you would have to actually literally swim through, which was not supposed to happen. That was a particular challenge, but I did it. My time wasn't great, but I have done one since. My goal was to do something for me that I can rely on myself, that was a challenge physically and mentally. It had those additional layers of the extra challenges they have that I didn't expect, but I'm proud of myself. I've done a couple since then, I want to continue doing them. I do think that that helped shape and change what I enjoy doing in my day to day and how I spend some of my free time.
>>>Amazing, Mike. It's clear that what you bring to the table, aside from being able to expertly navigate yourself through barbed wire without being electrocuted, being a first time parent, being a great husband, and then bringing that digital marketing, client services, account management expertise that you have. What, ultimately, are you looking for in your next role, your next opportunity that you have, Mike?
<<<I really love the client service piece of my job. I like being a conduit between subject matter experts who may be able to create something from scratch, develop something, build something, and those who are asking and requesting for it. I really like being able to bring those people together. That's the most enjoyable part of my day to day job. I would really love to stick to that, particularly with digital marketing and/or advertising, which is where my career has been so far. I feel like that's where my feet are most comfortable. If I can get any kind of connection to creative teams or creative developments that are actually developing artwork, working on typography, branding and copywriting, I particularly really enjoy that as well. Outside of just those more specific day to day job descriptions, I really am looking for a company that has a corporate social responsibility pledge not only to the physical community that it's in, but also to its key stakeholders like their customers, and of course, their employees. I want to work at a place where the employees are heard and valued and invested in so that they can bring back their best work to the company. To me, that's really important, always has been, but it's especially important in looking for my next job opportunity.
>>>It's clear, Mike, that whether it's being a conduit for voter rights, a conduit of your family, a conduit for a client between their digital marketing operations, that you're going to be successful wherever you go. We're going to do everything that we possibly can over here at Project #1000Hires to give you as many opportunities as you possibly can. We wish you a tremendous amount of success in your next endeavors.
<<<Thank you very much, Jesse and Project #1000Hires. I really appreciate it.
>>>It is absolutely our pleasure.

Mike Bragg.mp4

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David Schmidt

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, David. David, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Hey, thank you so much for having me. It's so timely and very happy to be here.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. As you know, our goal here today is to get you hired. David, in order to get to know you better, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Absolutely. I'm a California kid. I grew up just about 20 miles south of San Francisco, in a small town, a coastal community called Half Moon Bay, California. Throughout high school and into college, I was a waiter. I always had a lot of interaction with people ND really enjoyed that. I've always been really close to Silicon Valley. I had an opportunity to interview for an internship at a company called Zora, back when they weren't public. I went in and that day, they got headcount to add more employees. I got a full time job going in there for an internship. That's what launched me into Silicon Valley. Eventually, I made my way up to San Francisco, which is where I live today.
>>>I'm assuming along the way of growing up in a small town next to Silicon Valley, getting that incredible experience being a waiter, which made you into a real people's person, and I wouldn't be surprised, from that position, you probably got multiple positions offers as you waited to somebody who happened to be the CEO of a Silicon Valley startup and they're like, ""You know what, David, we want to hire you. Come and join us."" It's multiple projects you accomplished along the way to becoming where you're at now. Why don't you tell us about a project you've worked on that you're super proud of?
<<<The thing that comes to mind as an Amazon business that I created. I dove into being an entrepreneur. I don't know if it's where you are in New York, but in San Francisco, I know they're banning straws just because of the waste that's created. I noticed how the experience of drinking through paper straw is, in my opinion, really horrible. I created a stainless steel straw, sourced the straw, had a carrying case and everything and created a whole business on Amazon selling these eco-friendly reusable straws. I worked on it for about two years. The business actually turned profitable. It still was a lot of work, but what I ended up doing was selling it. Believe it or not, there are people who are looking for Amazon businesses to purchase and I sold that venture and, man, did I learn a ton about straws, which you wouldn't think of but also running your own business from SEO to logistics and sourcing,
>>>There's no better experience than being an entrepreneur and being a micro entrepreneur,
<<<Yes, it was a really special time in my life.
>>>Incredible. Flipping the script from there, of creating businesses and being an entrepreneur, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<When I think of personal challenges, the one that jumps to ming most was my dad was actually, about a year and a half ago, my dad is 74 and he was in a very bad accident, an accident where he almost lost his life. He was in the ICU for about a little over a month. It was pretty much as bad as it could get in the sense where he was on a ventilator and life support, and all of that. For me, I was the main source for our family to understand what was going on. I was there all the time with him, even though he didn't know I was there. There's a lot of emotions that run through that. I think I had to learn about being resilient and being mindful and controlling what you can control because when you have a sick family member, you want to be supportive but most of the time he didn't even know I was there. My role really was about taking on insurance companies, being his advocate. At the end of the day, making sure that if and when he did make a recovery, he had the best recovery possible. That took a big emotional toll on me. My dad is out of the hospital. He is, I would say, about 90% of what he was, which is a really good prognosis for the accident that he had. I think through that challenge, I actually got closer to my dad. It's really a special thing when you can start to take care of your parent when they've taken care of you your whole life.
>>>Wow, that is so beautiful. I'm very excited to hear that, thank God, he's doing well, he's doing much better, and hopefully, will have 100% recovery and everything will go well.
<<<Fingers crossed. He's doing great. He's a very Happy guy.
>>>Absolutely incredible and I hope he stays up like that. I know in your next role, you show up with empathy, compassion towards others, to help others. You're a mic entrepreneur, so you could take initiative and come up with strategic strategies of how to accomplish specific goals. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<I'll break it up into two parts. I think the first is position title, the second is company. I think you hit the nail on the head with empathy and things that are really important. The way I think about it is what I've done my whole life is SaaS sales, so I would want an account executive, an account manager type of role, anything that is either net new hunter. I also have experience with landing and expanding clients, so managing a book of business as well. From a company perspective, there's really three things that, at least in my career, have stood out to me that are really important. The first is leadership. I think you want leadership that is transparent and pathetic, and, quite frankly, leadership that wants to develop you and allow you to learn and create that culture of learning. That's so important for me personally. The second piece is product. I want a product that actually solves a real problem. It makes it so much easier as a salesperson, when you're selling something that is meaningful, and really does help solve a real issue for businesses. Then the third thing, the third and final is culture. Obviously, culture is really important, and people define it in a lot of different ways. I certainly want a culture that promotes everyone driving towards the same goal and has a healthy level of competition. I think in sales that can really get skewed. I would much rather us win as a team than me be the best player, but also still lose the game. You don't really accomplish your goal. I think those three things coupled with either an account executive or account manager role would be the bee's knees for me.
>>>Absolutely amazing. Let's make sure that happens. David, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to try and send as many opportunities along your way and account executive as possible to get you hired. Thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Hey, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

David Schmidt.mp4

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Salt Lake City

Tanner Hopkins

Product operations

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today, we have coming our dear friend, Tanner. Tanner, first of all, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Thank you. It's really good to be a part of it.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Our goal here today is to get you hired. Tanner, in order to find the right role, the right company, the right culture, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<I'm from Utah, born and raised in the Salt Lake area. In Utah, pretty much everyone here is in hiking and camping and outdoors and I'm no different. I love to be in the outdoors, backpacking hiking as much as possible. That's basically what I do
>>>Amazing. Being an avid hiker, being an avid camper, I'm assuming you've probably camped and hiked in multiple different places.
<<<Yes.
>>>Why don't you tell us, first of all, your number one place?
<<<Probably, the most incredible place that I've been trekking or backpacking in was, a couple years ago, I had the privilege of hiking to Everest base camp. That was an incredible experience, but I think one of my favorite places here in the States is Grand Teton National Park. I've been backpacking there twice, and there's something about it that's just magical.
>>>Wow. Why don't you tell us about a personal accomplishment? Hiking to Basecamp in Everest, that's something that's really phenomenal. I'm trying to see what other personal accomplishments you've worked on that are better than that. Why don't you blow us away?
<<<That's a good one. It's related to my involvement in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and doing different fundraising efforts for them. A couple of years out of high school, one of my oldest friends was diagnosed with leukemia. Fortunately, he's in remission and he's a survivor. A couple years ago or a few years ago, he got me involved in Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and nominated me for what's called Man & Woman of the Year. Basically, it's a competition where the nominees put together a team and you fundraise for three months. At the end of that three months, whoever has fundraised the most money wins. It's kind of a friendly competition. He nominated me. I put together a team and for three months, we were able to raise $25,000. It wasn't enough to win. There was people that raised, surprisingly, a lot more than that, but it was a great experience. Then the base camp trek, that was actually a year later as part of another fundraiser that I did for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. My involvement in that has been a great experience for me and has allowed me to do some really cool things.
>>>Wow. Absolutely incredible. Kudos to you and such an incredible initiative and doing all that for everyone that's unfortunately going through a hard time with leukemia. Flipping the script from there, let's go into challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<I would say I think like a lot of people I've, in the past, suffered with, just health and wellness. When I was younger, I didn't really know much about exercise, eating well. When I was 28 years old, I was unhealthy. I found myself nearly 300 pounds, and I knew that I had to make a change there. That was nearly 10 years ago now, where I started on my journey of basically learning how it is to live healthy. Lost 80 pounds since and wellness is now a really important part of my life. That was a tough journey, making that change, sticking with it, and making a big life change like that.
>>>That's incredible. I know in your next role, you show up with the ability, first of all, to be consistent and disciplined, like losing weight. You show up ready to face challenges and hurdles like hiking up to the base camp of Everest. You show up with the ability to play stuff in the wild, like going camping. What are you looking for in the next role?
<<<What I'm looking for is I want to use my creativity. That's what really drives me. I love coming up with new ideas and rallying a team behind that. I love working with a team. I've been in leadership type of roles and I would love continuing in that. I've been looking for roles in product development, either product manager or maybe even product operations where I can continue to do that. I'm really excited to continue in that.
>>>Absolutely amazing. I want to wish you, Tanner, a lot of luck, a ton of success and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to everything in our power to try and send as many opportunities where possible to get you hired. Thank you.
<<<That's awesome. Thank you for doing this. I appreciate it.

Tanner Hopkins.mp4

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Austin

Shannon Marie Bryant

Customer success

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited today to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Shannon. Shannon, thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Thank you for having me.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Our goal here today is to get you hired. So Shannon, in order to find the right company, the right role, the right culture, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are, so we can get to know you better?
<<<Oh, great. Well, I'm Shannon, and I'm in Austin, Texas because my husband works for Dell here. I'm an extremely resilient, driven, energetic, lively human being over here. Well, I think I build reports pretty quickly. I have a lot of hobbies and interests and so I can usually find something in common with someone very quickly and get them talking and comfortable with me. Over time, I think with that relationship, I quickly build trust so the person wants to pick up the phone with me and wants to have a conversation and knows when they ask for help, that I'll make sure they're helped.
>>>Well, absolutely amazing. The ability to help people, having that empathy and compassion that you have and the positive energy is actually incredible and will translate very well into the next company you work for. Let's focus specifically more on your personal side. Why don't you tell us about a personal project and accomplishment that you've done and that you're super proud of?
<<<Oh, great. This is what you're waiting for. I actually was at a roaring company when the.com booms hit. There were 271 of us just answering the phones at least 60 times a day and they said, okay, you taught people that answer the most phone calls and bring in the most revenue, you're going to win a trip to Italy. I had my head down, and I'm answering calls and I'm doing the best I can and, all of a sudden, I'm 11th and I'm in training. I'm in training still. I'm like, ""Oh, I got this. I just got to take more calls, make more calls, make more outbounds."" Soon enough, I was cycling the hills of Italy. I think that's because what's unique about me is I have a ton of energy. My sales managers and even production managers of companies say I do what nobody else can do. They're looking in salesforce and they're seeing all this activity that doubles activity and the close rate comes with it because I'm at 240% to quota. When I was born, I stopped breathing pretty quickly, and a fireman had to come revive me. I have this brand that I'm the Energizer Bunny. Literally, I bring 200% to quota or just have this huge activity level that brings production and kills quotas. Really, behind it too, I care about the customers and they trust me, and so they buy for me or they buy from my company and they stay with my company because I'm there. I'm just the Energizer Bunny. Look at these. These are my favorite. These are the drumsticks that come with the drum. They're are so cool. Oh and I forgot to put the glasses on. Oh and the hat. I need the ears. The ears look like a pig or something. Look at the ears. They're a little aww.
>>>This is how you show up to work on a daily basis?
<<>>Why don't we just, on a daily basis, show up in the Energizer Bunny costume and it'd be phenomenal.
<<<Here's the deal. I think there's a lot of companies right now during this COVID stuff that actually have a demand and a huge demand. One of them's called Zoom and I think those people are missing out if they don't hire people like me that can produce and that can do a lot of things because they have a huge demand that they need customers to have a good experience with and be responded to and people that care to do a little bit extra just to make sure the customer is answered. That's me.
>>>Wow. Let me ask you this, what can your future teammates, either at Zoom or at another phenomenal company, count on you for?
<<<To show up, to be driven, to be resilient, to start answering the customers from day one, to start caring about the customers from day one, to make sure the customers get what they asked for, what they call you for and make sure we deliver on that and make sure they just have a wonderful experience all throughout.
>>>Amazing. The Energizer Bunny Shannon. I love it.
<<<Say that 10 times fast.
>>>I know, obviously, in your next role, you show up with incredible ability of energy. You show up with the ability to help and uplift the people around you. You show up with the ability to care about the customer and not just about closing the deal and trying to take it to the next level, but you actually care about what they need and you're listening, you're a great listener, but what are you looking for in your next role?
<<<Well, the ability to add value and the ability to find my perfect role, whether how much software experience I have, or regardless. They need to see my personality, and that's what customers like and pay for and stay on the phone with and also trust. When they have a person that cares about their experience all the way throughout, that's who they buy from and that's who they stay with. I'm accountable not only to the acquisition, which I'm really good at, but also I'll be on a customer service call if I know it's to make sure that customer is retained because it's easier to keep customers than to acquire them. But again, I think I'm good at both, and I like both. That's because of that sincerity of not only caring about the customer at the acquisition point, but retaining them as well.
>>>Wow, amazing. Absolutely amazing. Shannon, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're going to do everything in our power to make sure that that Energizer Bunny can walk into the next office and uplift the whole entire place. Thank you so much.
<<<Thank you. Thanks for taking the time for all of us and for the care.

Shannon Marie Bryant.mp4

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Detroit

Frank Novak

Marketing

Management

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Frank. Frank, thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Thank you for having me.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Our goal here today is to get you hired. Frank, in order to find the right company, the right role, the right culture, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<I am in a suburban Detroit, Southeast Michigan, Farmington Hills to be exact. A University of Michigan graduate and about 15 years experience in marketing, public relations, communications, all of which occurred in the live events, entertainment, and sports industry.
>>>Amazing. What was the most incredible marketing event or initiative you've done that you're super excited about?
<<<One of the things that was a probably tops on my list, one of the baseball teams that I was able to work for during my nine-year stint working in baseball was the Kansas City Royals double-A affiliate in Northwest Arkansas. They were moving from Wichita, Kansas to Springdale, Arkansas, which is not far. It's about halfway between the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and Walmart headquarters in Bentonville. Brand new team, brand new brand, brand new market, and a brand new $50 million stadium. I was tasked with essentially a lot of the branding elements, a lot of the public relations, gaining the ground support from local media, and essentially delivering that brand experience and the aura of what this team was to the public there. It opened in 2008. We opened essentially right before a recession hit. That presented its own challenge. The lead up from doing the mascot unveiling, to putting tickets on sale for the first time, to the very first opening day, to leading hardhat tours with local media through the construction site, and getting to see the stadium that rose from the middle of cow pasture, for lack of better terms. It was in a relatively sparsely populated section of the community. It was almost like Field of Dreams. You go through a hilly terrain and then arrive at the stadium. Then there were lights, and if you're a baseball fan, it gives you all that feel. Being able to take that to market and see it through in the first four to five years of its existence, it was very rewarding.
>>>Amazing. Even though it happened in 2008, I can still see the passion and energy that you talk about this project like that. It means so much to you. It's incredible to see.
<<<Yeah, absolutely. The people that were involved in it, a lot of folks there I still keep in close contact with. The other thing that is a tie that binds among a lot of us that worked there at that particular time, the team itself won a championship in our third year with a lot of the baseball players that ended up winning the World Series with the Kansas City Royals in 2015 against the New York Mets. It was a special group and a special time. I've got pictures in my house of the ballpark shot from a drone overhead on the very first night. I still look at it. I have a championship ring right on my dresser. It's one of those memories in life that will never really leave. It was a cool thing to be a part of.
>>>Amazing. Flipping the script from championships and creating stadiums and all that, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<I've had to obviously take a page from the COVID playbook dealing with a little bit of a challenge right now, not just not just trying to find a job, but also stay-at-home dad. I'm finding it to be a very big challenge. It's probably, honestly, one of the bigger challenges that I've tackled. Professionally, in my more recent job, we began a brand new event for Metro Detroit on called the Southeast Michigan Auto Show. One of the reasons it was a challenge, here in Detroit, we're really well known for the North North American International Auto Show, which is held in downtown Detroit, traditionally, been held in January. A couple years ago, they announced that they were going to move it to the month of June. The owner of this convention center, which is not the convention center that the large auto show is held at, wanted to start something that would backfill that spot in January. The initiative we undertook was taking it a little bit back to its roots. 20 years ago, it was much more of a, ""Hey, come out and see the latest model vehicles."" As auto shows have evolved, they become much more technological based. I think one of the reasons why they moved it to June was so it didn't overlap with CES in Las Vegas. We created this event in the matter of months that essentially took it back to the cars on carpet. Let's have 200 and some odd cars on the floor representing the brands provided by local dealerships, and basically a consumer show, much like the same RV shows, home shows. The challenge, from my perspective being the marketing and PR guy, was I had to essentially create this brand and help bring it to market. We created a little Go for the show in-house, we created the sponsorship deck that we used to try and pitch to local sponsors, ticket pricing website. The challenge was taking something out of nothing and bringing it to life. We didn't quite make our first year attendance goals this past year, but we really, with a really small staff, put a lot of effort into it, around the Christmas holiday because the show was actually right after New Year's. We were setting up for the show, essentially, on New Year's Eve. We did a lot of great stuff. It was a tremendous challenge to help get this thing off the ground. Circling back to the previous anecdote, I love building things from the ground up, creating things, helping launch stuff, helping bring things to life. Marketing is a living, breathing thing. It never is stagnant. There are a lot of different ways to look at things; there's old school approaches, there's new school approaches. I'm definitely have the idea that there's a blend there where they merge on the highway, but at the same time, it's a living, breathing thing, much like a heart rate monitor. It's going to go up, it's going to go down. In any case, you have to be responsive to the here and the now. That's a continual challenge for somebody that's a marketing person. Anytime that you're able to get on the ground floor and launch something and be a part of something for the first time, that's one of those things that's, I don't want to say feather in your cap, but it's something that, hey, I was here at the very start. Opening the doors for the very first time is a cool thing and only a few people get to do that.
>>>Amazing. I know in your next role, you show up, first of all, as a family man, you show up as somebody who can put in the hard work and actually do something, create something from the ground up, see it all the way through. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<I've spent a lot of time in my career especially in the standpoint of being in professional sports, I've done branding for brands, if you view the professional sports teams as being brands on their own, but I've also spent a lot of time involved in the activation process with, hey, we've got sponsors. Whether it's Verizon Wireless, or whoever it is, activate at the site of the stadium or the site of the event, be it the Michigan State Fair, the baseball game. I really think that, in my next role, I would love to have a little bit more brand side experience, be it working for a franchise of restaurants or a cell phone brand, somewhere where I'm on the brand side or basically the opposite end of the table, if you will. I think I can bring something to the table having been on the opposite ends of some of those conversations. At the same time, I have that perspective from having been on the opposite side, in a sense, knowing what works. At the same token, I've still done all the stuff that those people do, buy media, negotiate ad rates. I think, in that respect, I bring a lot to the table. I don't necessarily have a traditional resume because I've worked in so many niche areas, but I believe in my heart that a lot of those skills translate.
>>>Frank, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessing. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to try as many PR, communication, and marketing positions your way possible to get you hired. Thank you.

Frank Novak.mp4

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Berlin

Luis Colin

Design operations

UX design

UX research

Product design

Emerging technology

I am a purpose-driven strategic UX leader with 13+ years of experience supporting multidisciplinary, research and creative teams with design discovery, strategy, design vision and direction.

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited today to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Luis. Luis, thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Thanks to you for having me here.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Our goal here today is to get you hired. Luis in order to find the right role, the right company, the right culture, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Sure, happy to do that. I'm Luis, I'm based in Berlin. I've been abroad since 2012, but I grew up in Mexico City. I'm a UX design lead. What I do, I help companies and try to improve the design maturity and to develop better services on some products.
>>>Incredible. Growing up in Mexico, you had this big dream that you wanted to move to Berlin. You finally moved to Berlin, and then you obviously being this design lead, you start as a regular UX designer, and you probably start as a graphic designer. Then you finally came into UX design, and now design lead. I'm assuming you're very accomplished. I'm going to assume that you're probably working on a lot of personal projects along the way, too. Why don't you tell us about one of those that you're very proud of?
<<<Well, I think something that I've been always working on is mentoring. It's an ongoing project. Since I have memory, when I was in high school, I remember I used to teach mathematics to the students that were labeled as problematic or not able to learn quickly. I was mentoring them and trying to find it's not that mathematics were hard, but every person is different so everybody learns in a different way. I was helping them to find the best way to approach complex problems. I've been doing that since [inaudible]. In the last months, I've been mentoring other designers. Usually, the three topics that I like to mentor is career, life in general, when you have struggles, how can you deal with them, and I like to help designers to explore a bit deeper, what they can do and what design is about and what could be the best thing for them.
>>>It's absolutely amazing. That's super powerful. And I think that's such an incredible thing. Taking the initiative and helping people out in all different forms, especially life and designers is so powerful. Flipping the script from mentorship, being a mentor means that you went through your own personal challenges and you were able to come into your own skin and take that advice and help someone else. Why don't you tell us about one of the challenges you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<Well, I think my life has been about challenges all the time. There is no day that I stop, just chill and relax and I'm done. Most of the biggest challenges that have been overcome Is financial things, being able to go to school. I grew up in Mexico. Even if the education is public, you don't have the financial means to support your life to be without pressure. You need to support your family. If you want to keep studying, you need to work. I started working when I was seven years old, and I haven't stopped, well, only the last month. That's one of the biggest challenges. In 2012 when I left Mexico, there was no money to come here and it was super expensive for nonEuropeans to study a master's here. I made it. I arrived to Europe with €70 in my pocket, and not knowing anybody. I just had a dream. I wanted to do design. I wanted to study more, I want to learn more to be able to help people. 
>>>Wow. That is so inspiring and heartfelt. It's all about having the dream, you had the dream. You came €70 in your pocket and look where you are today, looking for a position as a UX designer lead. Look at the transition that happened all because you're persistent, you are disciplined, you had a dream and you followed through. I know these are the things that your future teammates could count upon you on and also your future company knows you come with these skills, that you came with such an upbringing and you made a name for yourself and a life for yourself in a place like that. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<I'm looking for doing meaningful design. The reason I'm doing design is not because I like the paycheck or it's a nice title to hold, I feel design enable you to solve major social and systemic challenges. I think, in my next role, I want to be working on something that really, really is impacting people, is doing something meaningful for them, providing real value. Nothing fancy, there are still basic issues that we as a society are living, and I would like to contribute to them. My roots is engineering. Before doing design, I was in engineering so my heart is always technology. Ideally, the next role needs to be in a tech company. I like tech meets design and when tech is used to solve problems that people are having. Global impact, that's something I would like to have as a plus. Some of the industries that I like a lot is healthcare. Healthcare could be an option.
>>>Wow, incredible. Luis, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to try and send as many UX design lead positions your way possible, to get you hired. Thank you.
<<<Thanks for having me again.

Luis Colin.mp4

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Portland, OR

Maryam Shams

Strategy

Growth

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Maryam. Maryam, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Yeah, my pleasure. I'm super excited. 
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Our goal here today is to get you hired. So Maryam, in order to find the right opportunity for you, and in order for people to get to know who you are, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Yeah. As introduced, my name is Maryam. Originally, I'm from Texas, San Antonio to be exact, but currently I'm in the Bay Area in San Francisco. I moved here for grad school for my MBA, love the Bay Area, super excited to be here. A little bit more about me, I started in customer service at insurance companies and account representatives. I essentially worked with my clients regarding their policies, managed those relationships, built trust with them. From there, I actually started a small family business for my family. We have a small car dealership that we run, which we've just expanded to a mechanic shop, so trying to provide a full service for our customers and maintain that loyalty. There was just a point where I wanted to go back to school, I'm a little bit of a nerdy I think. I just love learning, and I knew I always wanted to get my MBA., so opportunity arose in San Francisco and I was like, I've never been to San Francisco. I've always wanted to live there and experience, so let's do it. Came to the Bay Area, was here in school for about a year and a half. From there, I worked in education at the University as a program coordinator, managing the graduate programs, and then from there, I went to a FinTech start up as a partner growth manager, helping companies create their strategies for growth to implement our product.
>>>Wow, amazing. It seems like you've done a lot of super cool things; micro entrepreneur, helping your parents start business, going to school, taking the initiative to do so many things. That's really incredible. Why don't you tell us about a personal project you've worked on and accomplished that you're super proud of?
<<<Definitely. I think my personal project goes back to me being a little bit of a nerd. It's all about my continuing education. I am technically a first generation American. My dad is an immigrant and I was the first in my family to go to college and graduate college. Being able to go forward and complete my MBA, that was a huge project for me. I think within different stages of my life, there's been that aspect of continuing education. For example, right now the biggest thing that I'm working on, and I'm super passionate about is two things: upskilling. I identified that I need to be more savvy when it comes to my hard skills so I'm currently trying to learn more of MySQL skills. The second thing is I'm working more on my thought leadership, so providing my perspective and opinions out there, specifically in the diversity and inclusion space, which I think can be a little bit lacking within tech and Silicon Valley, and they're working so hard to bring it up. Those are the two passion projects that I've really been working on, is my hard skills and then thought leadership in terms of DNI within tech.
>>>That's amazing. Then let's flip the script a little bit and move away from upscaling and talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<I think we all go through different challenges within our life as well. I want to say one of the biggest challenges that I overcame was after leaving grad school, the job market was still very saturated. I think you tend to get a little bit discouraged of what's going to come next and comparing yourself to others, and just getting the constant rejections. Being thrown back into it, it's almost like PTSD coming back to it, but, I think, with that experience, I was able to learn different techniques and different tricks in order to overcome that because that was a really hard period, and that was very challenging. Being able to meet up with support groups and knowing you're not the only one, everybody's going through this during this time, or taking a break from applying for some days and focusing on your mental health is really important and being able to identify when you are getting burned out. Yeah, I think that's one of them and having strength to overcome it.
>>>Well, I know, in your next role, you show up with your incredible positive outlook and attitude. You show up as a micro entrepreneur, someone that's willing to work hard, put in the actual work, put their right foot forward, and really show up and push through all challenges to get the job done in the best way possible. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<As you can tell, I have a little bit of experience in things all over the place, but really what I'm looking for is what I'm passionate about specifically in customer experience, customer operations, or partner operations in a project manager role. I think it's really important to have somebody who understands the methodologies and the frameworks of project management and being able to get projects to completion, who also have the experience in what your project managing. For example, for me that would be partner operations or customer experience because I do have that very customer relationship building experience in my background. Specifically, within a company, I'm looking for a midsize startup. I've been in all sizes of companies and I like a middle ground, a mid-sized startup, but I think one of the biggest things for me is a mission-driven company. I like to be at a company who I can really align myself with their mission so that I can become a part of it and I can really attribute my skills and we can work to make that company a success together and it's really important to have.
>>>Absolutely amazing. Maryam, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're going to do everything in our power to try to send as many mission-driven company opportunities your way to get you hired. Thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Maryam Shams.mp4

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Allen Kantorowitz

Sales

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Tiffany Vurek

Design

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hire. Today we have coming our dear friend, Tiffany. Tiffany, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Thank you for having me. This is a great project to be a part of.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure and the honor is all ours that we have the ability and the privilege to host you here to show you to the world. So Tiffany, in order to get to know you better, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Yeah. I am from New York. I am born and raised in San Francisco. Now I consider myself bi- coastal. I am now in New York City. I'm here with my husband and my French Bulldog.
>>>Wow, amazing. Tiffany. From a small group growing up in San Francisco, moving all the way to New York, finding love, getting married, having a dog, I'm assuming you've worked on multiple personal projects along the way. Why don't you talk about a personal project you accomplished that you're super proud of?
<<<Yes. I'm very much a big city kid. I like the craziness. It's comfortable me to be in a big city and you're exposed to lots. I've seen and been watching consultants for a while and how they operate within major enterprises and what their work life balance looks like and I've always been like, oh, I would love to be able to do that, take in all of the Silicon Valley and.com experience that I have. I really pushed myself in the downtime to launch my LLC. I'm helping corporations accomplish more with less which is the theme right now. Small businesses to be able to amplify their C2C sales. Also, my give back is, I've always loved to mentor junior designers and other members and I continue to do that in the space. I haven't formally monetized it in any way, but it just gives me another platform to be able to help out.
>>>Amazing, amazing. I'm going to make a side note and say, ""Hey, every single person watching this, that needs help with mentorship, definitely go to Tiffany."" That's for sure.
<<<Yeah, definitely. I've been in the corporate field for a long time.
>>>Amazing. Let's flip the script a little bit and let's talk about challenges. Now, what's a personal challenge that you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<It's interesting when you are dealing with big corporations and then understanding their original purpose. In one role that I came into, super exciting being able to be the first .com team that they were building in house. They've worked with other agencies a lot of the time, so very much on the first day, it was full, what is UX great deliver to the success of this company, they're very quick to market. So we were completely replatforming, designing a design system from scratch and doing it in six months. Then at the same time, the difficulties of coming in and doing something in a startup the.com way, there was a lot of foundation that was missing, so not the right tools and all that and all this is going on in parallel in six months. So I think that that was probably the most challenging for myself to come in and have to wear multiple hats and do it on an international scale and then also live up to the tricky part for any major corporation that's starting a new initiative. They still have certain level of presence in the industry. So even though this is new for them, they've had a long calling as a brand and living up to that premium state even being a startup .com. So that was probably the most challenging for me.
>>>Wow. I know in your next role, you show up with the ability to wear multiple hats, communicate across the world and cross multiple different departments within the organization. You have the ability to bring people lower, bring them up to your level, to mentor and help and guide people, but what are you looking for in the next role?
<<< I am very passionate in building and scaling teams. I'm getting more and more excited about companies that are really taking a look at diversity from a leadership standpoint. I'm living really mean of it and I think that that was always happening in the backend, but to have that come to the forefront is super exciting. So I'm looking for companies that believe in the power of UX, and then be able to come in and grow that UX maturity for the company and then chief circle.
>>>Amazing. Tiffany, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to try to send as many UX opportunities your way possible to get you hired. So thank you.
<<<Thank you.

Tiffany Vurek.mp4

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Brian Litke

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to have our next guest for Project #1000Hires. We have my dear friend Brian, coming all the way from Chicago. Brian, first of all, thank you so much for joining us on the show today.
<<<Thank you for having me. I'm excited and like I said, I think it's a really good project that you're doing and shows that there's still a lot of good in the world.
>>>Listen, we're all put in this world in order to make a difference, and to help each other out. Like I always say, there's no commandment in the Bible that says that I shall be an asshole. As background, why don't you give us a brief description of where you're from and a little bit about yourself?
<<<Yes. I was born and raised in the city of Chicago. So to make it very culturally aware, my heyday was during the Jordan years so I want to make sure it's relevant. Spent my childhood in Chicago, went to undergrad at Indiana University, graduate in 2008. Came back to Chicago started to get my master's degree in mass communication. Part of the reason why I'm still in Chicago is my brother, who's my best friend lives right down the street from me. My parents are only about a 15 minute walk from me. So family is something that's really important to me and I've been lucky enough to still be in Chicago. I'm surrounded by not only my family, but also my wife's family lives here as well. Then the other thing I tell people, people that I mentor, people I talk to all the time, is the older I get, the more I realize that I need my parents. The more I find out that everything that drives me crazy about them is that it's just wise, good advice. It always turns out to be advice that I should have taken a lot earlier. So as you get older and wiser and communication skills improve, you start to realize what my parents are telling me is not usually but it's mostly always the right thing.
>>>Right. Wow. All day just starting to realize your parents are actually right. I love it
<<<Hey, I always tell my story. I was in Italy about years ago, and my dad was like, ""You have to go to this gelato place. This is the best gelato. I'm like, well, Dad I'm in Italy, like every place is gelato. So we were walking and we find a gelato place and we were in Italy for about a week and a half, but even 3,000 miles away and eating gelato for a week and a half, it's till the best gelato I ever had. So it's just like, yeah, from taxes, to life advice, to everything, it just turns out that the older I get, the more I probably need their wisdom.
>>>Wow, I love it. I'd love to meet your dad one day. So why don't you take us through a personal project or accomplishment that you're working on or accomplished that you're truly proud of.
<<<Yeah. So going back into that, one thing that's always really important to me is reading, challenging myself to constantly rereading an article or be reading a book. So in about 2016, instead of making these wait crazy abstract, New Year's resolutions, I said I want to read a book a month. So in 2016, I wanted to create some discipline, I realized I wasn't reading as much. I was getting away from that and so in 2016, I said, I'm going to read a book a month. So that goal 2017 is I'm going to read a book every three weeks. Now, I'm going to read a book every two weeks. So now not only is that well, maybe sometimes I'm not reading as much, I've disciplined myself where every night on the least reading 30 minutes. We're in quarantine. I've read I think six books in the last seven days. So maybe I have too much free time but it created that discipline to to where I said no matter what it is, even if I'm just going to read three pages. [INAUDIBLE] this is a set time. I'm a creature of habit and the more routine I can create, the better I can get to the goals that I want to hit.
>>>You should definitely create a list of top new books you've read so you recommend the others.
<<<Yeah, I think a lot of times when I email people, I always put a suggestion of books that I've read or that so I will definitely include that.
>>>Yeah. Let's flip the script over there and tell us about a personal challenge that you went through and overcame?
<<<Yeah. The one that always comes to mind was that, I graduated from the University in 2008 and that was when the recession hit. I graduated with a communications degree and then just thinking, I'll just get a job. My brother did it, that's every talk to you. They graduate somebody hires them, and you learn that. In a way you start to learn that entry level jobs or roles I was looking for, were not as readily available. Luckily again going back tomy parents education support. So I pivoted, I figure out what is going to make me stand out. I went back to school, I got my master's in integrated marketing communications, learned a handful of new disciplines, and then [INAUDIBLE] that into a role at Groupon. The reason why that's important was, when I got the job of Groupon, that's when Groupon was one of the most well desired places to work at. It was one of the biggest startups in the country. I was able to use a lot of my marketing background to get into a sales role. Then the reason why I think that's important to me is my whole background has been sales and operations and getting that degree, getting that discipline, getting into a job set the pace for my career is where I'm today.
>>>Wow, super cool. There's no doubt in my mind that own self learning and that discipline that you've had previously, it's going to definitely translate into next role. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you're looking for the next role?
<<<Yes. Abstractly, I'm always looking for a role that's going to be a challenge. My career has mostly been in startups. So what I look for [INAUDIBLE]. It's more about is this an opportunity to create personal growth on a day to day basis. Is this a role that's going to align with my values? This is a role which can allow me to build long term client relationships. I believe in my career where companies are able to create the most revenue is through their current clients. So can you create those relationships where you can create those tools and create those platforms that help grow both accounts. I always looking for a job that I can put myself out there, I can be on the front lines, and I can help create content to push both of the companies moving forward.
>>>Wow, that's incredible. First of all, there's no doubt in my mind that you're going to be an incredible resource to any company that has the opportunity to hire you. First of all, I want to wish you a ton of success and a lot of luck. We are definitely going to do everything in our ability to make sure you're able to stay in the Windy City over the Chicago send all the most incredible opportunities your way. Thank you so much for joining us.
<<<No, awesome. This has been a pleasure and what really makes me excited about this is, there's a lot of people in my position. I'm really excited to tell them about this and hopefully spread the word for this.

Brian Litke.mp4

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Jon Heise.jpeg

Jon Heise

Recruiting

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today, we have coming our dear friend, Jon. Jon, first of all, thank you so much for joining us today.
<<<Thanks, Ephraim. Happy to be here.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure and our goal here today is to get you hired. In order to find the right role, the right company, the right culture, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from so we can get to know you better?
<<<Great. I am a lead recruiter in Chicago, Illinois. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and I've been out here Midwestern, born and bred, I've been in Chicago for about 10 years. One thing I'll say about that is the energy of this place is off the charts. The variety of people, things to do, the business, it's totally exciting, totally interesting every single day and that makes me, as a recruiter, really excited to connect with all those people because I get a chance to talk to so many people every day.
>>>That's amazing. As someone from the east coast, I might have to disagree with that, but we could talk about that later.
<<<If we get into the pizza debate, let's just take that offline because it's going to go long.
>>>Being a Midwestern boy, growing up in Detroit and moving to Chicago, being a people of the people, which is essentially a recruiter, and talking to people, you obviously have to have the ability to love people in order to do an awesome job, which you do. I'm assuming you've probably worked upon multiple personal projects also and accomplished a lot of things. Why don't you tell us about one of those that you super proud of?
<<<One of the things that actually happened earlier in my career, I was with a smaller firm years ago. We were lucky enough to win a relationship with one of the biggest companies in America. I was selected along with a few of my teammates to go up to this place and pretty much build out an entirely new technology practice with them. Did we really know what we were doing at the time? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not even sure but we were willing and we were energetic to do it. The several of us ended up making nearly 100 hires in I think 11 months at this organization, nationwide. I don't know how many other places were doing that type of thing. That was pretty unprecedented, at least for our little firm. That was one of the real kickstarters in my career. While that passed, a lot of that group that I worked with, we left, we moved elsewhere, and we reconvened at a different firm. I've been working with most of those folks for going on for years before, unfortunately, the whole COVID situation. That's one of the biggest highlights in my 9 or 10 years in this career.
>>>That's amazing. All those hundreds of people that you helped get a job, I'm assuming they're very grateful for you not just for the company, but the people themselves. Incredible.
<<<It's all about doing right by people you talk to. As a recruiter, we can't place everyone, but any person that I talk to can be left with a better skill, maybe some better confidence in themselves. There's always something that I, in this position, can offer. Hopefully, it's a job. If not, we find something else.
>>>Right, 100%. Flipping the script from there, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<Let's use this example. I was not expecting to run into 2020 and have to search for a new position. I really enjoyed where I worked, the people were phenomenal. We were doing truly innovative and interesting things. I'm taking this opportunity as the biggest challenge I've had in a long time. What I've been doing and how I've been trying to solve, and even though this is just eight or nine days old for me, I'm turning to my network. I'm conducting a diary, a blog, a story situation where I'm taking the skills that I try to instill in my candidates and my contacts, the very specific ones, day by day type things, and I'm applying it to my search, and I'm talking about it. What I'm hoping to get out of this is to not only tell all my secrets, that's okay, but to build some engagement, get some people talking about some of the challenges they're having too because in the middle of it with all these people. It's going to get better, but it takes time, effort, and opportunity to make it happen. I want to guide people and myself to where we want to go. That's my big challenge and that's how we're going to work out of it.
>>>Amazing. I know in your next role, you show up with the ability to guide people in the right direction and to lift them up and to take them to where they need to go, to their promise land. You have the ability to take people and not just guide them, but lift up their career, mentor them. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<What I want to do is to really stay in the same type of space. Recruiting is a large, broad area. My last few years focused more on digital marketing, creative content, and even executive search type things. Those are pretty fun to me even though I started earlier in the IT space, all those around the table. What I want to do is find a place that is not just there to be transactional, just to place people. What I was doing and helping build content, like my little blog project as well, is very valuable to me. I want to be able to advise, to create content, not to pat myself on the back, but try to be that thought leader, putting these ideas out into the open. I would love to find a nice close knit group to go into the day to day grind with. It can be in Chicago, again, I love the city, but we're probably going to be pretty remote from here on out so that's an option for me as well.
>>>Amazing. Jon, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and tremendous amount of blessings. We're going to do everything in our power to try and send as many opportunities your way possible to get you hired. Thank you.
<<<Thanks so much.

Jon Heise.mp4

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Kevin Erickson.jpeg

Kevin Erickson

Information security

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming, our dear friend, Kevin. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Thank you, thank you Ephraim. Actually, it's it's an honor and a privilege to be able to have an opportunity to talk to you and you've done an admirable effort in front of you and I 100% support it. I think it's phenomenal. Everybody needs a little extra boost these days.
>>>It's an absolute pleasure, and I would say the honor is mine in order to be able to support you and to talk with you. Our goal here today is obviously to get you hired so let's work on that. Let's make sure we get that accomplished. In order to get to know you better, and to find the right opportunity, and the right people, the right culture, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from? 
<<<Okay. Yeah. Well, I'm currently in Salt Lake City, Utah area, born and raised not too far up the road here in northern Utah. I'm a farm boy. I grew up on a farm up every day, working hard and that's one thing that farm work instills in you is, you figure out a way to get done., you work hard, you have to finish it or things don't get taken care and the cows don't get fed and everything else gets taken care of. I loved it. Hard work has been instilled in me and I absolutely just loved growing up that way. My parents, when I was younger, I was in second grade at the time, they saw this trend of computers starting to come out back with the old Apple TV. I don't know if anybody out there is old enough to remember that computer, believe it or not. I used to stay after school in elementary school for three hours a day, three times a week, just to get a chance to go with the group of kids to the back storage room of the library to touch a computer and play with it and learn some basic programming, play games, and I was hooked. I was hooked with technology after that, and I think it's fantastic. I just loved it. I embedded myself in all the way up and then I had also had an interest in psychology, I love the human element working with people and understanding how they think, and how they work, and how they interact now with these technical devices. That's always been a fascination for me is how people are using technology that was so fascinating and wonderful to work with, and now they're using it for nefarious means. That's what drew me into the security area. I think it's drawn me down that road for being in IT for over 20 years and absolutely loved every minute of it, but I love that personal aspect of working with people so that's drawn me to the security area to understand and work and manage people, manage teams and I love it. I love it and I miss it, trying to get back.
>>>Well, that's our goal here. That's super cool.
<<<Excellent. 
>>>I'm assuming a small town farm boy, riding horses, doing all that makes his way into technology and then security technology, along that whole entire path and journey, I'm assuming you've done multiple other stuff, too. Why don't tell us about a personal project you worked on and accomplished that you're super proud of?
<<<Yeah, a couple of my work done, just to give you some ideas, one of my really love because my parents are quite a bit older, they're in the 80s, and I developed a simple little introductory course and I offer it up at the Technical College of the Logan down here in Salt Lake as well. It's a beginners. class and I primarily targeted elderly seniors who are just getting used to technology, they're new to technology, and I focused it around the Mac because Apple's got a little bit of a soft spot in my heart since that's where I started, and it's a great computer for them to start with and get used to with iPads. So I developed that. I teach it over six weeks, one night a week they'd come down, we do labs, we talked about the basics of the computer and how to go and go to their local Best Buy or Apple Store and understand the specs of how to work with the computer, and understand what to price out and what not to. Then we went through the operating system, how it worked and how to be secure and how to watch for scams that are targeting people. It was fascinating. I loved it. I ran it about three times a year for-- gosh, this is the first summer I haven't because of situation we've been, but for about four years now and I loved it. It was so much fun to be able to work with people that were just understanding technology to overcome their fears, to say, hey, look, I don't want to be scared of this anymore. I can I can FaceTime or video chat grandkids or they can send an email off to a friend of theirs that maybe is somewhere else in the country. I really enjoyed that. It was pro bono on my end, and I absolutely loved it. It was a nice little give back for me anyway.
>>>Wow. That's such a useful and incredible class that so many people can use, especially the elderly. It's a great thing that you did that. Flipping the script from it, and moving away from teaching the elderly and helping the elderly and helping people in order to use technology better, let's talk about challenges. What a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<I'll tell you one that's actually very recent, that's haunted me since I was a little kid. I have a fear of water. I had a bad experience when I was younger going through swimming lessons, things like that. So I was scared of water, never liked it. I'd get into it a little bit here and there, it always just scared me to death, and I haven't been in a pool or anything for 16, 17 years. I didn't step foot in a pool, anything at all, but I've got a six year old son and he's starting to go on swimming lessons, starting to want to play in the water, get excited about it. So I'm like, ""Okay, I'll do this. I'll get in the pool."" I had to force myself to overcome that fear so I can have a chance to get in with him in a pool and start to play with him and get him, so he didn't see my fear so I don't portray it and I don't want to project it onto him. I want him to be comfortable with it. It was a challenge. You can feel your anxiety in a heartbeat and I had to force myself to do it, get in the pool with him and have we had a good time. We had a great time, but it was a big challenge for me to overcome that fear because that fear has haunted me for a very, very long time.
>>>Wow. Amazing, hopefully it continues and soon we'll see you doing laps and all that
<<<Exactly. I think it will continue. He talked about wanting to go back and I can still feel that apprehension, but I know I can force myself to do it just for him because he really enjoys it. That's what's meant to see a smile on his face.
>>>Yeah. I know in your next role, you show up with the ability to overcome your fears and face the challenges head on. Obviously, being a father, you have empathy and compassion and patience like you have for your son in the po, and you're obviously a really good security network programmer. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<For me I like to see companies and I want to find a company that has the drive; they want to get this done. There's a lot of different organizations out there that security is not a first thought, and I think it's often thought afterwards after something happens, and you know what, those are the ones we want to help, those the ones that want to say, ""You know what, you do need this. You need this to put this program in place."" We've got to change these systems out. We've got to build things out. We got to make your users aware. We've got to look at your programming. There's a lot of berries there. I want to see leadership team that's got drive and has passion behind them to push a security program and I want to be able to build that out. That's what I love, is going back to the form roots, I love building things.I've been a consultant before and I absolutely love it, being a director in the information security world is fantastic. I love building that out, building those programs, creating the infrastructure that needs to go into place for the entire organization. So I want a team that's behind you, that's got that drive, that innovation, and they've got people that are open to security. Security has a stigma behind it sometimes. I want people that are open to that and overcoming that because I am not a scary guy. I'm not your security guys who are usually like, Oh, no security, back away, back away. No, no, no, I want to be involved in the process with an organization to say, Okay, we can do this. We're part of this. We're not here as a local, we are here to help. I want that openness in an organization as well. Those are the key areas that I'm looking for.
>>>Right, amazing. Kevin, I want to wish you a lot of luck and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to try to send as many opportunities in security and anything else along your way to get you rehired. Thank you.
<<<Excellent. Thank you. I really appreciate it very much, Ephraim. You're doing a fantastic job. Keep it up.

Kevin Erickson.mp4

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Vincent McGinley.jpeg

Buffalo

Vincent McGinley

Operations

Vincent McGinley.mp4

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Ali Rizvi.jpeg

Los Angeles

Ali Rizvi

Software engineering

Full stack

Engineering

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Ali. Ali, fFirst of all, thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Hey, thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Now, Ali, in order to find the right opportunity, the right company, the right culture for you, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Again, my name is Ali Rizvi. I actually was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, and I moved to Indianapolis, Indiana when I was about 12 years old. From the Midwest, grew up about 10 years there and then I moved here to LA about two and a half, three years ago. I've been here and planning to stay here. I love the place. I was working at Robert Half before COVID and doing consulting pretty much in the technology sector, and working with client relations, doing business development, client retention, project scoping, things like that; pretty much day to day consultant jobs. Currently, I'm in a software engineering boot camp and looking to work as a full stack developer. So far, I've created two applications, and I'm very proud of it. I am excited to look forward to future in engineering.
>>>Wow, amazing. I'm assuming from a little boy coming from Pakistan to New York to New York, Indiana, at 12 years old, and experiencing that whole entire culture shock: the US, your classmates, new language, new food, everything, where you're holding now, trying to become that full stack engineer, which you're going to become and do amazing at, I'm assuming in between that voluntary time, you've done multiple other personal things. Why don't you tell us about a personal project that you work on and accomplished that you're super proud of?
<<<A personal project would be, I'm actually a musician. This is a very off-topic thing, but I'm actually a musician. I actually created my first song just earlier last week, and it took me about five years to suck up to it because I'm keep-it-to-myself person, but I'm able to put put my thoughts on a paper and be able to put them out there. That's one of my recent projects that I'm very proud of besides the other two projects that I've worked on in software engineering,. Coding is something I never thought I would be able to do, but the fact that I work I got into GA, which is general assembly, and the fact that they are such good teachers that what they teach, I'm able to apply what I'm learning To these projects, and I'm very proud of them. I'm going to be flushing them out as I'm going through the program.
>>>Amazing. Super cool. Wow, I'd love to hear that song.
<<<Yeah, for sure.
>>>Then flipping the script a little bit and moving away from creating that music and the applications you built, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<A personal challenge that I feel like I had to overcome was the fact of putting myself out there, like this interview. It's very daunting, but also, it's rewarding at the end of the day, is what I've, in a way, trained myself to believe and it's true. I used to be a very quiet person and then I started challenging myself at a very early age to start putting myself out there to do different projects. I've worked in different companies because I put myself out there. I worked at Apple, got a position as a retail associate in Apple and then worked as a sales associate in Tesla, only because I've put myself out there, reached out to people on LinkedIn and my own network. That has been extremely rewarding. I continue to do that because it always proves to me that I can overcome anything. That's one thing that keeps me going.
>>>Wow. It's super inspirational, really inspiring and everything. I know in your next role, you show up with the ability to put yourself out there, to going out of your comfort zone. You also show up with the ability, if they need a musician by the holiday party, they got you. They also have an incredible developer. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<I love working with growing teams. I've worked in tech and around tech for the last three to four years. i went from Apple to Tesla to Robert Half just doing technology work, and I love technology. I finally dove into software. Engineering because that's something that I've been wanting to do but never felt like I was good enough for it, that's why I never stepped up to it. When I did, I found out that I had this love for it that I even use my weekends to work on the projects that I'm working on. What I want to do is I want to be able to take what I'm doing at the moment and put that into a growing company; either startup or a mid level company that needs somebody who has passion, and who will be that person who's because creating the project, but also helping the team across the way. A growing team that is collaborative, that helps me, but also when they need help, I can help them and just be able to, in a way, manually grow together is what I'm looking for in my next next position.
>>>Ali, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to try and send those opportunities, the ones you want, and the companies have those qualifications your way in order to get you hired. thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it, Ephraim.

Ali Rizvi.mp4

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Sam Murray.jpeg

Charlotte

Sam Murray

>>>Hey, everyone, I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Sam. Sam, first of all, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Thank you very much for having me. I look forward to speaking with you.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Sam, our goal here today is to get you hired. In order to get to know you better, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you from?
<<<I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina. I am married and I have three young kids, three, seven and nine. I enjoy the Charlotte area been here for about 13 or 14 years.
>>>Wow. Moved to Charlotte, live with your three kids, most probably the best project so far you've done. Why don't you tell us about another project that you've accomplished and that you're super proud of?
<<<With my previous role, I was in a Business Development Project. Our job was to take the product that we were trying to spread across the country and do it in a PR type role. I'm a veteran myself and I worked with veterans to offer them this product and it was improving their lives. I was able to be a top performer on the project, and we were able to spread it across multiple states, much quicker than we originally anticipated. And the program continued to grow and it's still doing great.
>>>Wow. Amazing. First of all, thank you so much for your service. Flipping the script from your accomplishments, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge that you were able to overcome?
<<<I think a lot of people in life go through a challenge where they try to figure out a work life balance. Taking a job that requires a significant amount of travel, for example, I was traveling Monday through Thursday, late afternoon, or getting back home early Friday. I was finally able to get into a rhythm after a few months in my last position to where I was able to finally find that balance. I wasn't scheduling so much work that when I got home, I was just recovering. I would find a good balance where I was still meeting all of my objectives and exceeding all of my goals set to me by my supervisors. But then when I got home, I still had enough energy to spend time and be a good father when I was at home. That was a challenge for me and I know that's a challenge for a lot of people, to be able to figure that balance and luckily, I've been able to find that.
>>>That's incredible. I know obviously when you show up to your next role, you'll come with the ability with first of all a lot of energy. You're able to find a work life balance and able to get the agendas and everything else, all the goals that they put aside. They say create it, done. What are you look for in your next role?
<<<I'm looking for a role where I can expand upon some of the things in my background. Prior to my last role, I owned multiple franchises and operated them simultaneously. I'm looking for something in the operations field. I feel that I have a good general understanding of all the different aspects of a business from from HR, hiring, training to understanding P&Ls, and budget sheets and stuff like that. I think those are all things that I have a good general understanding of, the inner workings of the business. I have a lot of experience in the small business [inaudible]. In my previous role just recently, it was it was more of sales based. I enjoyed the sales aspect of the operational side of the business. I'd love to find a role that would put me in that [inaudible].
>>>Amazing. Sam, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success and a tremendous amount of blessings. And we're obviously going to do everything in our power to send as many opportunities along your way as possible to get you hired. Thank you.
<<<Thank you very much. I really appreciate this opportunity. Good luck to you on this project.

Sam Murray.mp4

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Ali Buck.jpeg

Nashville

Ali Buck

Communications

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend Ali. First of all, Ali, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Thank you so much for having me. I think it's a phenomenal initiative
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Our goal here today is to get you hired. In order to find the right company, the right role, the right culture, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. At 18, I moved out to San Francisco. I spent some time in Shanghai when I was at Ace, and then have spent the past two years living in the Netherlands where I got a master's degree in history and then worked in tech, doing internal communications and getting really involved with diversity and inclusion initiatives, particularly focusing on feminism and the LGBTQI inclusion elements over there. I'm currently living in Nashville, Tennessee, which is an entirely new adventure to me, which is really great. I love traveling, learning about new parts of the world, learning about new cultures. The South is definitely a new culture to me. I'm excited to get to know this new city as I am reentering back to the US.
>>>Wow, amazing. Buenos Aires, Shanghai, and Amsterdam, Netherlands. Where else? Multiple different places.
<<<San Francisco I think was the place I called home the longest during my adult life. That's where I got my undergraduate degree and I had some phenomenal internships while I was studying, as well as some fun part time jobs where I got involved in the wine industry. I did some retail, I gained a lot of customer service experience, all while studying politics and being able to work with the Irish and British consulates. I represented Nancy Pelosi, which was a really phenomenal opportunity.
>>>Incredible. It seems like you've had multiple different experiences, multiple different roles, multiple locations, so you've been exposed to so many different mindsets, so many different people and cultures. I'm assuming along those lines, you've probably worked upon also multiple personal projects, and then a lot of things that you accomplished that you're super proud of. Why did you tell us about one of those that you accomplished?
<<<I think that the project I'm most proud of was while I was interning with Uber in EMEA. I was based in Amsterdam. I was the internal communications intern and my first and largest project was working on the Global Week of Service for that region, which meant that I was able to use my experience with nonprofits and the corporate world and communications to develop projects that lasted for up to a week throughout the region that we were covering EMEA, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and I was the communications lead. I helped to write the outreach playbook. I was the main point of contact in Amsterdam where we ended up having 15 different events throughout this five-day week. I helped with everything from organizing the groupings, finding leads and managing those teams, making sure that people were actually going to the sites that they had volunteered for, tracking the hours, setting up the home pages and events for the internal tracking system, and designing t-shirts, or using designs to create our own regional t-shirts, making sure that those were distributed throughout the region, which was so much fun. It brought me so much joy to be able to take organizations that I was passionate about and that other people were passionate about and connecting the dots to be able to give back not only the energy and enthusiasm that people had, but to go into the communities that Uber was working with, and really be able to get to know who we were living amongst, what we were doing, and the impact that we could have, whether that was painting someone's house, or working at the food bank or fishing plastic out of canals. It was so much fun to see the joy that all of that brought to our employees and to the organizations that we were supporting.
>>>Wow, it sounds like a great success and it worked out. It's incredible too, and I can see the smile you have on your face talking about it and how much joy it brought you accomplishing it. It's really amazing. Flipping the script over here, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<One of the major challenges was being an international student in the Netherlands. I went over there to get my master's degree in history and you have the student visa, obviously as a student, and then you get a very short period of time to convert that to a working visa. Fortunately, the Netherlands has what's called a Zoekjaar, which is an orientation year or searching your visa. Meaning that if you are a foreign student, once you complete your studies, you're able to go and work for one year and have full labor rights. That's what I did, but that process of finding a job and knowing that I had that very limited timeframe was stressful, to say the least. Luckily, I had studied migration studies and knew a little bit more about that process than I think some of my peers in other programs did. I remember there was one weekend where I got keys to a new apartment, signed my contract, and graduated within 72 hours. I started the following Monday and that's when I started at Uber and then had the end of that Zoekjaar, unfortunately, end in the midst of the current COVID situation, which meant I also then had a very short period of time to once again move quite far back home in the US.
>>>So much going on. I know in your next role, that you have the ability to put yourself in uncomfortable situations and get comfortable with that, to explore new opportunities, to just pick up and go to China, to Buenos Aires, to move to Amsterdam, do the things that no one else does. I'm assuming you apply that in your work, that you're able pick up the pieces and accomplish incredible things. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<I'm actually taking some courses right now to learn more about UX/UI design, which is user experience and user interface design. I was exposed to it while working at MediaMonks and I thought it was just this phenomenal intersection of where diversity and inclusion which is one of my passions meets technology and communications. Bringing together people and tapping into psychology and history and sociology and how people interact with the tools and products that they're using, and how companies and teams are able to be purposeful in the designs that they use to make that as accessible and inclusive to everyone. I know that there has been a lot published recently on bias with data sets and how different technologies have faced some charges of discrimination, whether that's by the users themselves, or the algorithms behind them. I'm taking these courses and doing some mock projects right now in order to better understand how I can help the next company I'm at design product from the beginning to make it easier to access for everyone.
>>>Amazing. Ali, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to try and send as many opportunities your way in user experience to get you hired. Thank you.
<<<Thank you so much.

Ali Buck.mp4

Helper

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Kenzie Columbus.jpeg

Dallas

Kenzie Columbus

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend Kenzie. Kenzie, thank you so much for joining us. 
<<<Yeah, thank you so much for having me. 
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure, and our goal here today is to get you hired. In order to get to know you better, and to find the right company, and the right role, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Yeah, absolutely. I am Kenzie and I currently live in Dallas, Texas and have for some time, but growing up, I had the unique opportunity of living in four different states as well as overseas in Thailand for three years. Yeah, I'm so thankful for that opportunity because I was able to meet so many different people from all over the world and learn about so many different cultures, and it really has brought a lot of unexpected things into my professional life as well. I've been able to adapt to change extremely easily, I've been able to thrive in ambiguous and uncertain situations, and funnily enough, it also really just laid my foundation in recruiting because I'm still getting to talk to people from all over the world and hear their stories, which is the biggest thing that I love about the job itself. I've tried to make it my mission to help as many people as I can, and to create a positive impact on as many lives as possible. I really feel like I've been able to live this mission through my seven years of experience in recruiting in agency in corporate environments. I'm really excited to continue to do that, hopefully, somewhere new very soon.
>>>Wow. That's super, super cool. I love that whole circle of life. So to summarize, you're a girl of the world; lived in four different states, Thailand for three years, which must have been a crazy experience, which is a phenomenal place, I want you to go there, and you experienced multiple different things, been through so much uncertainty. So I'm assuming, going through so much uncertainty and having all the experience to open and broaden your mind, you've worked upon multiple personal projects too, and accomplish a lot of personal things. Why don't you tell us about a personal project that you accomplished that you're super proud of?
<<<Yeah, absolutely. During this unique time in history, I've really tried to think about my mission, which again, is just helping people and hopefully positively impacting lives, and what projects can I take on to continue that. I've really come up with two main things. The first thing is I've created my own small business where I sell artwork that I make to other people and donate a percentage of proceeds back to a nonprofit that I'm extremely passionate about. The goal was obviously always to help that nonprofit that really serves critically ill children and their families during this difficult time, but there were a lot of unexpected benefits that have come from this too. I have learned so much about what it takes to create a small business, what marketing looks like, what SEO is, what branding is, how to elevate the customer experience. I would have never learned these things had I never stepped out of my comfort recruiting bubble, if you will, and it's just been amazing because I know I'm going to be able to take these lessons into my next role and really just elevate what I can bring to a company. The second thing is I've spent a lot of time working with my network, and just offering my expertise free service to anybody that may need it during this time, whether it's reviewing resumes, or giving interview advice, or maybe even just a small pep talk, and I've met so many amazing people that I would have never otherwise met doing this. I've truly enjoyed that experience. So when you reached out to me about your projects, I really was excited to talk to you because you're doing this on such a grander scale. I'm just very thankful that you are taking the time and appreciative of helping so many people like me in this situation. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for what you're doing as well.
>>>You're welcome. I love what you're doing, and definitely don't stop. A micro entrepreneur, creating incredible art and selling, and not only that, donating the proceeds to charity. I'd love if you're able to say which charity you're donating to so that way, if anyone's watching this video wants to donate to it, they could donate to it also. Which charity is it?
<<<Absolutely. It's Give Kids the World village in Florida.
>>>That's right. Hopefully, whoever's listening and would love to participate should also. Flipping the script from becoming this world renowned entrepreneurs and artists, God willing, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<Yeah. With any challenge in life, I always try to take lessons learned and I refer to them as wisdom nuggets. I like to think that I carry my jar with the nuggets around to refer back to when I faced new challenges, but also to give to other people when they may end up in similar circumstances and may be craving or wanting that wisdom as well. I think the biggest lesson and challenge I've gone through in my career is just the importance of finding a company whose values match your own. If you ever end up in a situation where that's not the case, it's 100% okay to remove yourself from that situation and look for a company that has the same mission and values that you do as well. I know it's not really a part of the question, but it is a part of who I am sharing the wisdom nuggets. I just want to encourage anybody that may be frustrated or anxious in the job market right now, and just say that we are all in this together. This is one small part of our novels in life and there are so many chapters in front of us. I'm confident that each of us are going to end up with some bestsellers, if you will, on our hands, and they're going to be so many stories of how this turned into a blessing in their lives because if it had not happened, XYZ couldn't have happened for them. I'm just really excited to read those stories that I know they'll be coming up soon, and just encourage people and I'll definitely be here to celebrate with people too as they do reach those success landmarks and land those jobs.
>>>Wow. I think you're the wrong profession. Forget about recruiting, you should become an emotional coach, the new Tony Robbins. That's what you should do. I know in your next role, you show up with the ability to uplift people's spirits in hard times. You're able to provide emotional coaching. You're able to create a zone of safety and security and bring people forward in order for them to do their best work. What are you looking for in your next row?
<<<Ideally, I'm looking for a talent acquisition manager role with a company that is continually striving for excellence. That being said, title, of course, is not the most important thing to me in my career. The most important thing is finding a company whose values are aligned with my own personal values, that has a similar mission to what my mission is in life. I really just want to find a firm whose leadership truly believes in the power of talent acquisition because without great people, you can't have great results at the end of the day, and it's just such an important thing for the leadership to believe in. Lastly, I would just say a firm that is not afraid of change and they're willing to remain curious and ask the hard questions because I truly believe that curiosity leads us down new paths and new ideas. It's so important to remain curious as well as to continually check our blind spots to be the best versions of ourselves in the future.
>>>Wow. Kenzie, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, a tremendous amount of blessings, and definitely to continue to have humility and desire to learn and change that you have and continue to bring it forth in the world. We're, God willing, going to send you as many opportunities as possible to get you hired. Thank you so much for joining us. 
<<<Thank you.

Kenzie Columbus.mp4

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Vince Walch.jpeg

Atlanta

Vince Walch

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Vince. Vince, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative. 
<<<Thank you for having me. 
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Our goal here today is to get you hired. So Vince, in order to get to know you better, and to find the right role, the right company, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<I'm born and raised here in the Atlanta area. Grew up playing lacrosse and basketball, went to college, played lacrosse, and essentially have progressed into now a recruiting career. Something really that's true to me is, I'm a huge people person. My wife tells me all the time that she could put me in a bar and I can make friends with anyone there. That's something that when people think of me personality wise, I'm a big care for other people, I always want to help out wherever I can, and that's something that I like to translate, especially in the professional side of work as well.
>>>Wow. So I'm assuming from a young boy growing up in Atlanta, when your dream was to become a professional NBA player, to going all the way and becoming a recruiter, along that whole entire timeline, you've probably worked upon multiple different projects, and you had a lot of different transformations along the way. Why don't you tell us about something you accomplished that you're super proud of?
<<<One key project, it's still something I'm active with, really giving back to the community. I coach high school lacrosse outside of work. It's grown so much here in the Atlanta area ever since I was in high school. I remember we would play the same schools, two, sometimes three times a season, and now it's just so competitive to get all different schools on your calendar; you never play the same school twice unless you meet them again in playoffs. So, one thing that I've developed is I started doing my own personal training, one-on-one sessions with a lot of the young, anywhere from elementary school kids to high school kids, to really not only coach them on how to better their skill set in lacrosse, but also teach them a lot of the values outside of lacrosse. Lacrosse is maybe all you do now, it's all you focus on, especially if you're looking to go and play college, but it's really about how can you apply the values from the team aspect, the culture, really the work ethic, and take that to the next level as they progress in their career, whether they're going to high school, going to college, transitioning from college to the professional world. So that's something that I took that leap last summer, was when I decided to really start out and move away from Organize and supplement it with some of my own one-on-one coaching, which has taken off substantially. I have probably close to 15 different kids that I train on and off on occasion. So it's been something that's definitely provided a lot of value. It's been great just seeing these kids grow throughout their career.
>>>Wow, that's amazing. So not just teaching them lacrosse, but teaching them about the principles and values of life. That's very special. Flipping the script and moving away from that, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<One thing I think that was really up until my last semester of college I was dead set on being a physical therapist. I shadowed in clinics throughout high school; I did a lot of shadowing throughout college. My degree is in exercise science and had aspirations to go to physical therapy school. I was finishing up my last senior year internship fall of 2016. Really, one of my aspirations was to go work for a company, become a therapist, but then ultimately, grow into a clinic director role. To do that, I had to learn a lot of the back office functions. So I learned everything about recruiting, the sales, the marketing piece, everything that goes into what a clinic director needs to know outside of just patient care, and really fell in love with it. It was something I was torn with really going into November and December up into my graduation in December, really deciding, do I continue the route and go to school or do I start this trend to really go into more of the business focus. Ultimately, had a lot of conversations with my parents, my mentors, and ultimately decided to go the business route. I think a lot of it was attributed to seeing the document on what the student loans would be for three years of physical therapy school, but I feel like the value I got and what I would be doing giving back to the community in the physical therapy realm I gave back by coaching. So it's been great to get the best of both worlds from the coaching and now the the professional recruiting realm.
>>>Right, amazing. I know in your next role, you show up with the ability to mentor new people coming into the workforce. You show up with the ability to be a phenomenal recruiter in the sense of take people that are looking to get a job, and help them and hold their hand and take them through the whole entire process. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<My next role, I think, really number one, I have to be in a role where the culture is something that's really important to me. That's something where looking at family culture and really partnering with the right leadership, I think where I'm at in my career, a little bit over three years and one thing that I take pride in is I coach lacrosse, but I'm very coachable in the professional world. Partnering with the right leadership, I think that's going to be key, really, going forward because there's so much more that I can learn and really dig in from people who have been in the field 15, 20, some 30 years. That's going to be the key aspect, is really finding that right leader and that right culture going forward where I can not only come in and make an impact from a recruiting perspective and production wise, but also really help and grow my professional values and really start my path to getting into leadership. That's my ultimate goal is use what I've learned and ultimately drive that to leadership. I think number two is definitely something that's in the IT and technical space when it comes to recruiting because I've been on the sales side of recruiting, the marketing side, recruiting functional roles, but have really just had a passion for IT recruiting. I think just how it constantly changes and really evolves in the market, and recruiting from low-level engineers to C-suite executives, the conversations definitely vary. You talk about what got them into IT, and some of the people I've talked with, they started out in marketing or sales and then decided to go back to school and start their IT career. It's because it's something that's always going to be needed. It's something that's always going to change. Being on the recruiting side, you're always going to see candidates that are going to evolve skill sets and really grow in their career. That's something that I really take pride in is not building the relationship for a short term search, but really long term, and making sure that I keep contact, hey, maybe this isn't the right fit for you, but let's stay in contact and work together for another search.
>>>Amazing, absolutely amazing. So, Vince, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're going to do everything in our power to try and send as many technical recruiting roles possible your way to get you hired. Thank you so much.
<<<Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure getting to connect here and looking forward to seeing what comes out of this.

Vince Walch.mp4

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Julianne Lee.jpeg

Julianne Lee

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Julie. Julie, first of all, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Thank you so much, Ephraim, for having me. I really appreciate it.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Our goal here today is to get you hired from this interview. So Julie, in order for us to get to know you better, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Great. Yeah. I have lived in many countries. I was born in Wyoming, funny enough, I consider my dad a Chinese cowboy because that's exactly what brought him from China to Wyoming to have his American dream come true. That's where I was born and was raised in many states, but also for half of my life in China. I came back for college and I've stayed on since.
>>>Wow, amazing. So, Chinese American cow girl, I guess, you could say.
<<<You could say so. I did learn to fly fish.
>>>Horses too?
<<>>Okay, and you can shoot a gun?
<<>>Horses and fly fishing is good enough. So a Chinese American cowgirl, moved back to China, came back to US for college, and now you know you're looking for your next gig. I'm assuming along this whole entire journey, you've done multiple personal projects and accomplished a lot of things. Why don't you tell us about one project that you worked on that you're super proud of?
<<<Sure. This project is something that I am sometimes still bewildered that I was ever a part of, it's given me a lot of perspective on who I am and where I want to go next. While I was at Tesla, I had the great honor of working for Robin Ryan, who became our global president of sales. I was his first hire in the United States in our headquarters and factory in Fremont, California so I was thrust into a role of managing sales programs and also managing our government relations, interactions with all the delegations that came from Asia. Most notably, during this period of time that I worked for Robin, we hosted, I want to say 50 plus delegations from China, in selection of our final giga factory in China factory build site. So it was just an incredibly personable experience that I felt like I had with these government executives, with Elon to walk them around, give them factory tours, tell them the value proposition of Tesla. This was still very early in our operations in China and so it was having people believe in us. Looking back now, Tesla's seen incredible growth and I just can't believe I had that experience of actually helping facilitate those government visits and then putting together a final deck to help Elon select the final city for where we located our factory, which is now in Shanghai, China.
>>>Wow, that's absolutely incredible. What an opportunity. That's amazing. Flipping the script a little bit and moving away from Tesla and being able to work and accomplish such a great thing over there, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<Yeah, absolutely. Personally, I actually feel, again, really incredibly lucky for this challenge because it gave me the opportunity to be where I am now. Mostly, it was when I was a child, I lost my mom when I was 11 during 9.11, actually. So my dad actually signed it to move us back to China on a whim, within a month. It was this crazy learning experience of here's this kind of American cowgirl, Chinese cowgirl and she's going back to China to get back to her roots and I couldn't speak well enough to even order lunch at the cafeteria since I went to a local high school. So it was a very humbling experience to see the world as an 11 year old, from completely new perspective and learn the language and just start life again, but it was incredibly rewarding because that's what gave me the opportunity to work at Tesla in the role I did and hosts these delegations. Still to this day, I speak Mandarin and I just feel really lucky to be able to have that connection and with multiple cultures or people.
>>>Wow, that's amazing. First, I'm some sorry and second of all, thank you for sharing that. Wow. So worked at Tesla, worked at Jewel, speak Mandarin, these are the things you show up with. That whole entire ability and energy that you have and past experiences are what you show up with in your next role. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<Sure. I want to find a role where I work with good people, I have a challenging problem to solve, and also where there's growth. That could be in any sphere, personal interests, or in software and education, might see the future in a lot of apps that I use. I have learned so much from YouTube, from other folks, Udemy, just online courses, MasterClass since COVID. I've always been really happy to provide my really strong communication skills and interpersonal skills to facilitate disparate projects into one direction, collating different workflows into one streamlined workflow. I have a lot of operational experience, whether that's in supply chain or whether that's in product management, or in product marketing, or product launch. I don't want to pigeonhole myself into anything. I just want to use this opportunity we have now to introspect during COVID to find what's best for me next. Again, I just want to have a challenging problem to solve and I want to work with really passionate folks who are good folks who just care about each other.
>>>Wow, amazing. Absolutely incredible. So Julie, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to send as many opportunities along your way as possible to get you hired. Thank you.
<<<I really appreciate it, Ephraim. I will do the same. I love this energy. Let's keep it going.

Julianne Lee.mp4

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Ryan Wells.jpeg

Ryan Wells

Finance operations

Fintech

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Ryan. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Of course, thank you for having me.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Ryan, in order for us to get to know you better so we can hire you and get you a job right away, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Right now, I'm living in Salt Lake City, Utah. I live here with my wife, our five year old stepson, and then we have a little baby girl coming in October
>>>Congratulations.
<<<Thank you. We couldn't be any more excited. My family, we've lived here ever since we've been married. My wife was born and raised in Utah, but I was born and raised all over the US and in Europe. So I've gotten to see a lot of the country and parts of the world and I've really enjoyed moving around and settling down here in Utah.
>>>Wow. I'm assuming amongst all your travels of moving around the whole entire world, you've done multiple personal projects and things. Why don't you tell us about one project you've done and you accomplished that you're super proud of?
<<<Yeah. When I was a freshman in college, I decided to put college on hold for a little while and move to Spain to do service and to help the people there. I didn't know any Spanish I hadn't really been exposed to it. So the challenge I had was learning Spanish and really being a being able to communicate so I could survive there. When I got there, they partner you up with other people who are there doing service as well so you're not on your own. My friend who I was living with and serving with, he didn't speak any English, it was just Spanish. I didn't speak any Spanish, just English. My challenge was learning Spanish. While I was there, I was able to study it, to practice it, to learn it, and really learn to love that language and that culture and now I feel very confident in a lot of my Spanish abilities. I still have more to learn and to keep improving, but it was a very great experience to be able to learn that language and that culture.
>>>Wow, amazing, not just for the service aspect, which is incredible, also about learning another language. Keep it up. Flipping the script a little bit and moving away from service and traveling around the world, let's talk about a challenge. What's a personal challenge that you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<Yeah. One of the personal challenges I've had was deciding to go into the financial space. I got my degree in psychology, and when I was set to graduate, I was already to pursue a PhD in psychology and I was accepted in universities, but then I decided that wasn't right for me and I wanted to pursue finance. This was a challenge because everyone in my life was against it. Everyone was telling me, Oh, you'll never do anything with the bachelors in psychology, you'll never be able to get that job, to make that move. There was a lot of pressure to just continue down the path I was on. It was challenging because it made me second guess my determination, what I wanted out of life, and what I knew I could accomplish. As I thought about it, and as I worked towards it, I realized that if I'm determined and if I work as hard as I know I can at any goal, then I can make it happen.
>>>Right? Wow. It seems like you made it happen. Incredible. I know in your next role what you come with. You have the ability to make things happen. You have the ability to pick up languages and learn different things, pick yourself up and put yourself in uncomfortable situations and be comfortable. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<Yeah. I would love to continue to work for a finance company. My last company was a FinTech and I loved it. It was something I was very passionate about because it allowed me to step in and make an impact on the company's success right away, but also learn from them and grow. Ideally, I would love a an opportunity in finance where I can impact the company's success, as well as learn from the people around me and continue to grow my knowledge of the finance sector.
>>>Wow, amazing. Ryan, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to send as many opportunities along your way as possible to get you rehired. Thank you. 
<<<Awesome. Thank you so much.

Ryan Wells.mp4

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Adam Shapiro.jpeg

Israel

Adam Shapiro

Enterprise

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Adam. Adam, thank you so much for joining us on this initiative.
<<<Thank you, Ephraim. Thank you very much for including me. I appreciate the opportunity.
>>>It's absolutely our pleasure. Our goal here today is to get you hired from this. Adam, in order for us to get to know you better, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
<<<Sure. My name is Adam Shapiro. I'm 36 years old. I'm originally from Zimbabwe, which is a little country just in southern Africa. I moved to Cape Town, South Africa for university, then spent a little bit of time in Israel studying after my university degree. I met my wife here in Israel. We went back to South Africa, to Johannesburg where she's from and we got married there and we lived in Johannesburg for about 11 years after that. We relocated just under two years ago, and currently living in Beit Shemeshm, in Israel.
>>>I'm assuming that a whole entire transition from a small little boy growing up in Zimbabwe, moving to Cape Town, then Joburg, Israel, back to Joburg, and now back to Israel, I'm assuming you've done them multiple personal projects along the way. Why don't you tell us about a personal project you worked on that you're super proud of?
<<<Absolutely. One of the things that I really have a soft spot for is in the medical field. In South Africa, I was a volunteer for Hatzolah Medical Rescue, in Johannesburg for seven years. Originally, I served as a dispatcher. I would dispatch the calls that the paramedics would respond to for three years, and then we ran another paramedics course and I did that. I was a responder volunteer, EMT, for four years whilst I was in Johannesburg. When I made Aliyah, because it's something that's very close to my heart and very dear to me, I've joined United Hatzalah, here in Israel and I'm, again a volunteer EMT. It's something that I'm very proud of and it's an amazing community that I really appreciate enjoy the opportunity to give back to.
>>>Amazing. That's actually incredible; saving lives, nothing better than that. Let's flip the script a little bit and move away from saving lives and talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<You've mentioned it just briefly as well, in terms of leaving home at quite a young age. I know that in America, people usually leave home after high school. It's not so normal in Africa, to be honest with you, especially in South Africa where there are really world class tertiary education opportunities. People traditionally stay at home. They stay at home until they get married. I left home at 17. I left my parents at the age 17 and I went to a different country, to Cape Town, South Africa, where I studied my degree. That was obviously a personal challenge of mine. I grew a lot and got to experience the wide world. It was a fantastic opportunity for me, but obviously a challenge as well.
>>>I can only imagine.
<<<As you mentioned as well, I moved around quite a lot in terms of living in Cape Town. I came on my own initiative to Israel as well, lived here for a year and a half before meeting my wife. I lived in a dormitory with other students, which was obviously a very life building and life growth transition period for me, and something that I really enjoyed; some of the best times of my life.
>>>Wow, incredible. I know in your next role, you show up with the ability to overcome challenges, face your hurdles, just like moving around the world and getting comfortable, you're able to get comfortable in your next role, put your best foot forward and do the next right thing. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<I'm looking for the opportunity to apply my skills and my experience that I've really built up over the last 10 or so years, working as an enterprise account manager for a couple of companies. I worked as an enterprise account manager for a telecoms company based in Johannesburg, for just under eight years, actually. I wasn't originally hired as an enterprise account manager, but I thankfully managed to grow within the organization to a position whereby I was actually leading the International division of a telecommunications company based in Johannesburg. That was an incredible experience and it gave me a lot of skills and a lot of education in terms of customer relationship management and the skills required to be successful in that role. After after immigrating to Israel, I moved into a position as a premium account manager at a tech company based in Jerusalem. Again, it was a very successful program that we were running out called the premium program at this company. Thankfully, I was given the opportunity to be promoted and work as an enterprise account manager in the enterprise division. In terms of my next role and and what I'm looking for, I'm really looking for the opportunity to apply these skills that I have in communication, in customer success, customer relationship management, and applying the knowledge that I have and the experience that I have in growth strategies for businesses to really grow and enabling businesses to grow. I really get a lot of pride in seeing solutions rolled out for mutual benefit, both from our customers and for the company that I'm in.
>>>Adam, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of success, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to send as many opportunities along your way possible to get you rehired. Thank you.
<<<Thanks, Ephraim. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for the opportunity. It really has been a pleasure meeting you and I wish you every success with this endeavor. You the incredible ability to really help people progress in their lives. It should stand, for you, as a big merit and something that you should be very proud of. Well done to you, kol hakavod, and hopefully, you should be very successful in your endeavors as well.

Adam Shapiro.mp4

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Usman Hussain.jpeg

London

Usman Hussain

Technical coordination

Architectural technology

Usman Hussain.mp4

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Aimee Ortiz-Tolley.jpeg

St Louis

Pittsburgh

Aimee Ortiz-Tolley

Aimee Ortiz-Tolley.mp4

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Dan Rosenfield.jpeg

Dan Rosenfield

Public affairs

Economic development

Dan Rosenfield.mp4

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Nick Deyo.jpg

Nick Deyo

>>>Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to present our next candidate for Project #1000Hires. Today we have coming our dear friend, Nick. Nick, thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Thank you for having me, excited to be here.
 

 It's absolutely our pleasure, Nick, in order to get to know you better, to find the right company, the right role, why don't you give us a brief description of who you are and where you're from?
 

 Yeah, for sure. My name is Nick Deyo, currently living in Long Island City, Queens, but originally from Houston, Texas. Came to college upstate New York at Syracuse University at the SI Newhouse School of Communication, holding degrees in marketing and television, radio and film, and then came down to New York City just after graduation, working primarily, in digital marketing, social media, brand management, across multiple industries throughout my almost 10 year career now. Everything from fashion, to travel, to food, it's really like running the gamut in terms of exciting challenges and opportunities that I've been able to sink my teeth into, so to speak. That's the quick elevator pitch for you.
 

 Multiple different things; I heard,fashion, startups, ecommerce, multiple, different things. From a young boy growing up in Houston and riding horses down the street.
 

 Yes, that happens all the time, I'm sure.
 

 To going to college and having your 10 year career, you've probably worked upon multiple personal projects and accomplished a lot of things. Why don't you tell us about something you worked on that you're super proud of?
 

 Yeah. I've been freelancing on the side here and there too, helping out with a strategy standpoint, doing audit consulting, and that kind of thing, but I think one of the most rewarding projects that I was very heavily involved in was actually a volunteer project. I sit on the board of directors for the New York City [inaudible] course, and a few years ago, we came across an opportunity to really refresh our vision. We had the same brand voice, same logo, and not really any marketing brand toolkit for this iconic New York City organization. It's been around since the early 80s. The faces in the organization have changed dramatically to reflect the diversity of the city that we live in, but it's a stagnant brand. We got a group together, completely refreshed not just the visual components, so a completely new logo, new brand set, style guides, fonts and whatnot and really created a brand for this organization. Instead of relying on the name, which carries a lot of weight even still amongst the art community, especially in New York, but we could really stand behind something and push our advocacy even further. It's not just getting up and singing in front of a crowd, we also go into schools and we're doing outreach programs, be it with senior citizens or kids and trying to develop this network of community centered around the arts and around singing in particular. So we have a brand new website that we rolled out, new marketing and everything. Really, what we saw is a huge boost and donors now that we had the visibility and we had the infrastructure in place for this brand. It's been about five years since the rollout, still going strong, still evolving, which is great. That's one of the biggest things. It was a big labor of love working with a lot of different stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization. The final product was something to really be proud of and it's something that I can be excited for being involved in the organization myself, to see it continue to grow and prosper.
 

 Wow, that's absolutely amazing. Super cool. Can we get a brief type of song or something? 
 

 No, I can't. I have to warm up first.
>>>Flipping the script a little bit, let's talk about challenges. What's a personal challenge you went through that you were able to overcome?
<<<I think life is filled with challenges of varying degrees. The thing that comes to mind when you ask that question is honestly and I'm going to be transparent about it, this is the first time I've been facing unemployment. I was laid off from my job in June due to the impact of COVID on the industry, and navigating this whole uncharted territory, everything from the logistics of short term unemployment benefits and stuff like that, but also thinking big picture and holistically and that I've been going and going and building my career for almost 10 years, like I said, and this is providing me an opportunity to take a breath and to really like reassess and put myself out there in a way that is authentic and genuine, which are two very important things to me. It's a challenge. It's scary, especially given the new world that we live in, where there are a lot of people like myself, who have been working in various industries, various verticals, who are now out of work and suddenly out of work. It's difficult to assess a path forward when there's just so much uncertainty not just in the markets themselves, but in the hiring, and companies are rightfully so and understandably so holding their cards close to their chest, so to speak, when it comes to that. There are also a lot of opportunities. There are companies that are growing like crazy since of the impact of COVID as well. So there are opportunities and really, the most important thing to me is just putting a face and this is why I'm so excited about this project is that your resume says certain things about you, but it doesn't give you the full picture. I think that having the human and the emotional component is critically important to really finding my next move. Going back to your question, because I am a talker, going back to your question, facing unemployment for the first time in such an uncertain time is a challenge. I obviously don't feel like I 100% overcame it yet, but every day you take it day by day. I learn and I'm networking and I'm growing, and I think that even sitting here and now today, I'm much better than I was a week ago in terms of growth and learning. So I'm taking it day by day, but definitely, the uncertainty is what gets you.
>>>Amazing. I know in the next role, you have the ability to show up with all the growth you came through this whole entire period of time of unemployment. You're going to show up with all the new growth of your new version of Nick, and you're going to show up as 2.0, and then you apply and do the hard work. What are you looking for in your next role?
<<<What I'm looking for, honestly, is just something that I can really sink my teeth into. I've worked across multiple industries and verticals, people ask me sometimes, you pivoted from fashion to food, what does that mean? I really only see it as an asset because each opportunity has given me a chance to learn something new and to grow. I've learned so much about industries that I never thought I would be working in. Really, what I'm looking for is just an opportunity to be a change maker, craft compelling stories that people can relate to. At the end of the digital marketing, brand marketing, social media, is all about authenticity. I think, especially in this time, which is so difficult for so many people, people are looking for authenticity, and I think even more so than they were in the past. Really, what I'm looking for in a job is something working digital marketing, brand strategy, social media,, where I can really be a team player, I bring a lot of passion and enthusiasm to anything I do. I hope that's coming across now, but I also can back it up with a pretty robust background. I'm a very data driven guy, a former performer. I definitely value and can synthesize the creative components, but definitely marry the data driven model with the creative. I think that they very much inform each other. I'm looking for something to work collaboratively, but also innovate and craft a really robust digital strategy. 
>>>Amazing. Nick, I want to wish you a lot of luck, a ton of things, and a tremendous amount of blessings. We're obviously going to do everything in our power to try and send as much digital strategy positions and anything related to positions or even, you know what, if Cirque du Soleil calls up and says, ""Hey, we need a performer,"" we know it who to send them to. I want to wish you a lot of success and blessings. Thank you so much for joining us.
<<<Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity. I'm very, very excited to be part of this project and part of this network.

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