Job Hunt and Almost Getting Scammed

Transcript

building in an business in the center a venture capital i am Alex Edmonds people on the internet call me supremerumham and this is the Building an Indie Business Podcast recorded in the indie business studio um okay so today i'm just talking about my job and specifically the fact that it's over right so i got a job in uh paid media which is really funny because you know for the entire you know lockdown pandemic since march 2020 i have been focusing on seo and paid media is the exact opposite of seo so yeah um that's my job um by the time i'm recording this at the end of april so i'll be starting in a week um and by the time you hear this it'll probably be like june or july so i'll be into it um yes i'm just gonna talk about my entire job from september 2021 to april 2022 so yeah uh like there's there's one notable thing that happened every month so i'm just gonna talk about that okay so um before this i was working um at um a feed store in florida and what i was doing was i was building them a new website so that they can do e-commerce right so i was building it on wordpress with woocommerce and i was just doing that on my own i had no oversight it was fantastic and then that ended in august of 2021 um yeah august september yeah august september let's just say that and i didn't need to interview for that one i just i didn't need a resume and my biggest problem with like job hunting um before that was my my resume was [ __ ] um and i knew this and i couldn't figure out how to write a resume right so um i hired someone i hired crystal parker she's fantastic she not only wrote my resume um the resume if you've looked at my twitter um before i got the paid media job my resume um was the one she wrote in uh in a pen tweet right so if you are having trouble with your job hunt um you need you need help with your resume or you just need like practice interviews talk to crystal hire her she's fantastic she's great um there's also um a discord server that she has where you can talk to her different clients and like interact with them and get interview advice and you know it's just great support um yeah so um i was in new york for august of 2021 and i came back yeah i came back and i had the idea to hire a resume writer and so um i was complaining about my resume i guess on twitter and crystal saw that she dm'd me and she was like hey we should work together and i was like yeah great idea and especially because i saw um the resume writing as an investment i pay you know 100 200 and 2-3 months later i'm making uh five thousand dollars a month that's probably the greatest investment you can make right uh when you compare to like the stock market or even crypto um was not crypto but yeah actually based on the monthly return probably better than crypto in terms of percentages but that's not the point of this episode so yeah um crystal wrote my resume um i started applying to jobs and in october of 2021 i had my first interview and that was with a company in the bay area in san francisco i'm in san jose this one was in san francisco and it was my first one it was with the startup and i remember like i felt really awkward and i was sweating and um yeah i kinda i didn't know what to say um and he now that i realized he asked me weird questions like um so i had a job in big tech in 2020 that was my first job out of college right so um he asked me like oh why do you want to go from big tech to startups like that is uncommon and that's like a unicorn event it's not it's super common uh my father came to the bay area in 97 to work um at a startup and then he also worked at the same big tech company for 20 years um like three years later of working that for startup so this one was 97 that he came to live here and no like 95 95. whatever so from like 95 to 98.99 he was working at startups and then he made the transition to big tech and so i kind of felt awkward with those questions and he asked me like that question in different ways like three different times so of course i didn't get that job right so that was that was september right and then october hit in october i'm applying the jobs i'm interviewing and then i started talking to this one education company and um for a lot of october i was in texas visiting family and so i had the first interview and i was in san jose and then the second part of this interviewing process was a um it was like a take-home assignment and this take-home assignment pissed me off so much because um they wanted to see if i knew marketing strategy right and so they had me write out how i would promote their products um and then so i wrote like six or seven pages and it was great it was perfect it's exactly what they wanted and then the guy who interviewed me first emailed me he goes oh we wanted to see like a worked out example so i talked about email i talked about blog writing and so he wanted to see like what um an email that i would write would say what a blog post i would write would say um which was [ __ ] right so i wrote the six pages um and then so that was like october 5th or 6th right and october 7th or something like that he emails me again and he's like hey we wanted to see the worked example and so um i submitted it while i was home and then he emailed me while i was in texas so um you know i had already gone out of that mindset of you know i i'm done with this i'm gonna prepare for the third interview um and so i had to get back in that mindset and then and then when i was in texas i had the third interview um that was like maybe like the 14th and then i left in the 20s right so um this guy i was interviewing with a different guy and he was like yeah i didn't read your second submission so it was like what the [ __ ] dude like i put a lot of effort into that and um the first guy told me that it would affect my standing in the later interviews um and so that was [ __ ] um and that interview went whatever um and then i get back home and this is like the late 20s 30 almost um halloween and they go we don't have the we can't give you the support that you need to be successful in this um role and it's like then why bother even talking to me you knew that before you started talking to me yeah so [ __ ] that company um yeah so then that was october november um oh for november i wrote for transvc yeah so um the play to earn report um i wrote like a very small fraction of that like maybe not even five percent but some of what i wrote is in there right so that was cool um but um i was interviewing for like a full-time position andrew um decided to go in a different direction but that's okay and then i started to um talk to this company in new york um and they were like a finance company and that fit well because it was a content role and um of course i revenue research so i talked about that a lot and yeah so i noticed that the company was very the employees were very pale right and um the manager that i would have had was very much she looked like me right and so i was pretty excited about that but uh i looked at the company picture at one of their like retreats or whatever and i could easily spot her so you know i had that going against me for that one but then like her and i had this energy together and it was great um but she wanted me to go to the office and like be in person so we did the first interview and that went great we did a second interview that went great um oh and actually side note when i was in new york in august i passed their offices she gave me the address and i plugged it in i was like yeah i know exactly where this is because i was down there um so it was by like port authority and i'd taken port authority to go back to where i was staying so i knew exactly like how to get there from where i was staying because i was staying with family um yeah so and then the third interview which i actually i like this um she basically gave me an assignment that is what i would do in a day so it was just like two pages write a blog post um or it was yeah write a blog post or like write like write a summary strategy that you would give a client so i basically just wrote like oh email's great seo is great and here's why um and she gave me a clock so it was like write this in 48 hours because this is what you would do at work yeah so after that i was kind of like picturing myself living in new york like yeah i would stay with family i take the subway here i'd get food here i'd have to spend this much money in a month on food and i have to stick to that budget um and i'd go to comedy clubs after work i'd take my manager to comedy clubs because um she's she was from like atlanta right um and so i was i was giving her directions to my favorite pizza place from basically i was telling her how i get to my my family's apartment um because that's where the pizza place is right so i just like was picturing myself living in new york like oh what would i take from home to new york with me yeah and then after i submitted it um she didn't get back to me as quickly because the first two interviews were like maybe two days apart right um so yeah i didn't get that job and then i saw on linkedin she just left the company and she was only there for like four or five months so something weird happened there and i feel like because we're we're still connect we're connected on linkedin because we connected so well um she was like hey add me on linkedin and watch out for future opportunities so i just saw she left the company for a uh like a shopify plug-in so i kind of want to message her and be like hey what happened but um you know now it doesn't matter because the reason why i wanted to message her is to see if there were any opportunities at her new company especially because now i have shopify experience so that would help me right um yeah so that was um that was uh november november december and then in that was like no that was december january like early yeah and then in december as well um i was interviewing i started to focus on seo so i was applying for like marketing associate marketing analyst marking specialist and then i started to see some results during this time for like seo so for arrow drawings i was working on that seeing results um for the open podcast blog i was seeing more traffic come in through seo especially because i stopped promoting it so yeah i started to focus not just marketing associate but like seo associate marketing or seo specialist and that really helped me focus um because i'm niching down and especially because i was talking to different companies and they were like yeah people your age don't focus on seo they know um social media and you know snapchat instagram and i i don't know any of that but i know email and i know seo so i leaned into that so um and i started getting more responses once i started applying to like seo positions and so um i started applying to agencies like marketing agencies for their seo positions and that's where i came in contact with this um with this marketing agency that wanted me for an seo position right and the last thing i did before the holiday break was interview at this one agency right and i hit it off with the person that was going to be my manager um we even talked about comedy so i started telling her about like she was in boston um and i was like yeah a lot of my favorite comics come from boston and so i started to talk about bill burr patrice o'neal and a bunch of other guys and she was like yeah um i don't really know anything about comedy but i've been to some shows and after because she asked me like oh what do you do um like in your free time i was like yeah i watch a lot of comedy um and that really like you could see my personality come out when i started talking about that and that really changed the tone of the interview i stopped being nervous and that helped me to you know connect with her and then so that was the last thing i did and then in january um i met with like two other managers and that one was really awkward i don't know why they were asking me questions um and i knew the i i stumbled on the answer like i knew them but i had to think about it right um so that didn't help yeah and then january what what's another thing that happened oh yeah in november and december like a lot of companies would be like we'll get back to you next year right um and like um like i was talking to this one woman who had a small business and i think she was starting an agency and i talked to her in december she wanted the position i was hire um that i was interviewing for was like marketing assistant like i would help her do marketing so she ran the agency and any time a client like wanted writing i'd do the writing and then she also wanted it to keep me on for like her personal use so like she had um what do you call like a wordpress website and she wanted me to do the wordpress website for her so um she was like yeah let me talk to you in the new year where i have five clients coming in and i was like okay um she never got back to me like we would email back and forth a little bit in january and then at the end of january i was like hey what's going on because she emailed me she was like yeah my whole family has coveted um and so like and the january beginning of february is like hey just checking in on you because i'm bill burr checking in on you uh sorry um yeah and she never got back to me um that was uh unfortunate but i made the mistake of uh so one problem i had during all these job interviews and negotiations is you know once you have more experience you can charge more and i didn't take that into consideration so i was making a certain amount of money at um doing the wordpress stuff at the feed store and i just kept that rate so i told them exactly what i was making at um the store instead of being like yeah i have you know a year or two of experience of wordpress experience you know maybe maybe ten dollars more an hour maybe 20. um so yeah that would have been like a low paying sidekick and then she was telling me that her husband started an e-commerce store and that i could help him and of course i could because i told her about aerodromes right um but it was a woocommerce store so everything was wordpress which for someone building wordpress themes i don't like but that's a whole nother episode um yeah but they never got back to me um i even like sent her like a concerned email was like hey are you good and i never heard back but um and she's not active she was active on linkedin and now i don't see any of her activity so yeah that was another one and then um yeah that was uh that was january nothing really significant besides those three happened um february this started to die down um yeah and then in march i started i found like the perfect job right so i found um a job that was in seo ecommerce manager so basically what i do for arrow drawings i do the no so it was seo e-commerce account manager so the seo portion of what i do for e or for arrow drawings you know prod descriptions um technical audits but i was the manager so or i would have been so i hire people to do that stuff for me and then i just manage them and i'm doing this for like 15 to 20 accounts right um so that fell through because um i i almost got scammed right so at this time i was fielding this company and i was fielding another company and i was really excited for this seo account manager position because i met with the ceo and she literally said i like you but i need my other guy to meet with you and so um i emailed her on thursday wanting to schedule the follow-up she didn't get back to me at all so this other company though this other company that never existed they they had entered me interviewed me before this and the interview was really weird and this should have been a red flag it was on skype and it was text only so i had a document of like commonly asked questions and i would copy and paste these answers um and they gave me everything i asked for right um no problem and then um so on monday they sent me an offer an offer letter and um the offer letter turned out to be or the offer um with like benefits bonus and overtime turned out to be like 80 000. um and i was like [ __ ] yeah i should just take that one because i know they weren't the seo company wasn't going to match it right because um they put the range and the range was 55 to 70 right so they weren't gonna offer me 80. so on on tuesday she finally got back to me um and no so on monday when i got the offer i i had to reach out to her i sent her an email and i was like hey i got an offer but i want to work for you um can you schedule something with me i have until friday to decide um and so i took i took like two to three days i told the other company like you know i i needed the time to decide and so i emailed her on monday and i sent her a message on linkedin because that's how we first connected um and uh she got back to me on wednesday and by that time i saw that it was 80 000 and i was like i took the other offer sorry um yeah so i did that and then this other company sent me a check and they were like can you deposit this um uh online only and they sent me an invoice so they were like okay you need to pay the invoice right and then you know i sent like linkedin requests to the people that i was talking to and um it was a spoofing scam so they were using all the right information but it was getting redirected to um to them not the real company right so i kind of noticed that and i didn't cache the check so i didn't get scammed but i already told this other company my my quote-unquote dream job that i wasn't i took the offer and so um as a long shot i emailed her again and i was like hey i got scammed um can we still meet and see if i'm a right fit for the job and of course she didn't get back to me it was a long shot you know i had nothing to lose um so yeah that was march and then on march like 28th yeah like 26 to 28th um this this company that i'm enter that i accepted the job for um they i had my first interview and i was interviewing for like a digital marketing assistant job and um i'm meeting with the hr person and i'm telling her about all my technical stuff i'm telling her like yeah i'm building wordpress themes to start a shopify store you know i have a blog i optimize it for seo i have a lot of experience with email and she stops um and we're hanging out we're talking about like the environment and how i hate packaging um and things like that like we're just hanging out and i'm i'm talking about my job in big tech and how there's a lot of bureaucracy and we're just laughing we're hanging out we're talking um and she stops for a minute and she goes you know there's a job that i haven't posted that you would be perfect for and it was the paid media gig right and it's it's more money um you have an opportunity for um even opportunity for um a lot of commission and she didn't really tell me what the job was she said it was like um like ads but it's kind of like the stock market right like day trading and i you know i have my background in finance i really like investing so i kind of have a grip on that stuff like like it'd be an easy transition from what she described to from seo right um and i was like yeah sure why not more money and the worst case scenarios the paid media people say no and i take the uh the marketing assistant job right so i'm still working at the company with the benefits and that was the important part um right um so then yeah um i entered the next week um i interviewed with the manager him and i hit it off um i'm talking about aero drawings talking about web development because i i looked i looked him up on linkedin and he had a background in web development he had his like he struck out on his own in web development so we started talking about that um and then the next day so that was monday tuesday i met with like the lead of my team that would be my the guy who's now the lead of my team we hit it off we started talking about new york started talking about pizza things like that uh my my ethnicity because he has he knew about the places where my parents are from um yeah and then the third interview was with someone who's at the same level but they've been there for like nine months right so him and i headed off to i never had a bad conversation so i really loved it right um yeah and then i met with the the chief officer one of the chief officers like the chief officer of my department um and we never even talked about like my qualifications we talked about um open podcast a lot right we talked about my writing he was very curious about how i got started in web development from like my marketing background and so i'm talking about open podcast like yeah i started this telegram group i wanted to create our own space and use it to uh build a product and then i started talking about um like way back like alerts for btc.com right um yeah and then i started talking about what i'm doing now and he thought that was very interesting um and i i think that's because they they want me for something else like there's my job now and they're gonna start adding more stuff like more products or product offerings and they're gonna tap me on the shoulder and be like hey can you work on this yeah i'm not done yet though so uh during this time i'm interviewing i'm still interviewing right like i have more to say about march um so yeah i have friends helping me out get jobs right and so in january it like like november january uh i'm interviewing with this one company um as an seo specialist that someone set up for me and they like i was interviewing november december and they told me like yeah in the new year we'll figure out because we need to figure out budgeting for your position and you'll come in part time and then eventually if we like your work full-time i'm like yeah hell yeah cause that's what i want because i want an seo position that will teach me like seo like so right now i can get like two 300 views a day i want like a thousand views a day right so uh by working in the industry i'll figure that out that's what i want so um for that company i emailed with the ceo he was fine with me he was like you have your basics in seo i'll take you to the next level then i met with someone else about email and they were like yeah um we want twenty percent twenty percent open rate and for arrow joints i get like 25 to 30. so i'm like [ __ ] yeah let's do it and then i meet with the head of hr and she was like yeah do you have access to slack do you have access to an email so she was talking to me like i had already been hired right but then suddenly they stopped talking to me and this is like the same time that woman and her husband stopped talking to me so then yeah that was january and then this same friend um you know him but i won't name him he i told him this and he was pissed off so he um has another business partner and they were looking for someone to be in a marketing position like a marketing manager so the seo job that i was looking for but it's every part of marketing so it's email it's paid media it's seo it's email did i say email twice whatever you understand me um the problem with this one is it's half of what i'm making um in this role that i have uh no benefits and uh benefits are important to me right so um as i'm as i'm he told me he was gonna get me an offer like the week that um i was the week before i started interviewing like everyone or being interviewed by everyone at the company um that i'm working for now um he said he was gonna get an offer for me and um yeah i didn't wanna i didn't wanna tell him that i was looking for like i might get another offer until i had a firm one or like i didn't want to reject his offer until i had one right um and so yeah um something happened and so he told me that like friday right that he was gonna send me the offer on like monday and i was gonna start on april 18th right and so something happened and he didn't get back to me and i didn't push it because i'm trying to get the offer from the other company and so i'm scheduling the interviews back to back to back to back so monday tuesday wednesday thursday i'm getting these these interviews out of the way just like getting pumped up you know bringing energy making sure i hit it off with anyone um and then yeah they get me the offer on thursday there's a i have the interviews in the morning and like by late thursday afternoon i have the offer i'm good i'm like let's go um and then he calls me like friday he's like hey sorry for the delay i uh whatever and i was like dude like i'm still shaking from the scam so i don't want to tell him no until i have a firm knowledge of this um that this company's real but he calls me on friday and the offer letter was very detailed versus the other one the other one just said like this is your salary you get a bonus you have insurance um and this offer it was like you know there was a signing of the ceo's name um it was on like company letterhead um it was way more detailed right so i'm like okay this is real let me tell him because i don't want to screw him right he's a friend of a friend um i've interacted with him on twitter right um so yeah i tell him like dude i got this other offer you can't beat it um so you're gonna need to find someone else right and then also during that week the week before i started interviewing um i got a part-time role as an seo coordinator right so this company's in like north carolina it's like a little above minimum wage part-time so i'm thinking yeah i can do this job in the marketing manager role right so they call me they offer me the job on monday and they tell me they need references i completely forget this because if you tell me something i'm going to forget it i need it in writing so they call me on friday while i'm i'm talking to someone i'm talking to someone for the paid media job right so um i i i don't answer the phone i don't call them back right because as soon as he calls me back or as soon as he calls me i go [ __ ] i forgot the references so i'm like okay let me let me just not do this um and then i send them the email with the references on monday um no that was the monday when i was interviewing so that same they sent me i send the references on monday like they tell me i have the job right no offer letter yet though and then that's when i started interviewing so i'm confident in this role and then i'm interviewing for no i'm i have this job right and but i'm still trying to get another job right so um they never got back to me which that works out right because you know both those two roles together still don't equal the amount of money i'm making in in this role that i have right so it worked out right okay um some stats so i applied to over 1200 jobs on linkedin indeed um some other websites zip recruiter uh i had over 80 interviews this took about six months um i over 80 that i can track because their phone calls if it wasn't in my calendar i didn't count it right but there were there were like random interview calls um yeah so like 80 interviews 1200 applications six months but it all led to um a role in paid media so yeah that was great um i'm still gonna work on seo of course because i have smashing themes but my manager told me that um i can still work on arrow drawings so um i'm excited for this rule and of course um since i talk about on this podcast what i'm working on um if there's anything that you know it's not proprietary i will talk about um you know i can talk about what i'm learning so now this this podcast goes from seo wordpress domains to seo wordpress domains and paid media so yeah this is a super long episode if you made it through this far um tweet me email me let me know say hey i finished the episode or like just two words paid media right tweet me those email me those i would like to know um i appreciate it because that means you're a hardcore fan thanks for listening have a nice day bye