Being the drama queen that I am, a lot of you might remember that I quit my last job back in March and didn’t sign an offer for my new job until some time in the middle of May. However, what a lot of you don’t know is that the company that I work for now had actually spoken to me twice, once in March and once in May – which lead me to get hired. I’m talking about this like it’s some cool story but it’s not that cool, I’m fully aware. So what happened was that literally the day after I had my last day at my last job, I started the interview process with my current company. A few calls, interviews, and emails pass and they lost authorization to hire me. This had actually happened to me three times with three different companies as at the time, the economy was doing poorly.
I get burned 3 times because the economy is bad and . . . yeah. So anyways, I go to Europe to live, laugh, love, I go to Texas to embrace my inner yee-haw, and I go back to my old high school to coach my high school rugby team in order to remind myself of who I was before I ever worried about things like “career.” Somewhere in the middle of me coaching high school rugby though, I am still itching to go back to work. I missed having a purpose and I think coaching rugby, reminded me that purpose was what I was looking for, not necessarily me trying to make money (although that’s nice too).
So in my itch to go back to work in this horrible economy I realized that there are probably a lot of other people who are unemployed and they’re probably also using LinkedIn, Indeed, etc to find jobs. And for me, it’s not working. I am applying to all these jobs, nothing is sticking, and I’m starting to lose hope. I’m thinking about quitting working in advertising altogether. What can I do to get back in the industry, to recoup all the time and effort that I’ve put in? The answer is easy, I zig, while everyone else zags. I will make a TikTok.
I hate LinkedIn culture. It’s people trying to be corporate and fake just so that they can seem respectable in a way they’re not. I hate it, I don’t like it – I’m just me on LinkedIn, just a polished turd. But anyways, in an effort to be a polished turd, I decided to make a tongue and cheek video about why someone should hire me. The recruiter who interviewed me the first time around saw it and asked me if I was still unemployed, I told her I was and the rest is history. To be honest, I didn’t even realize that a TikTok got me the job until I met that same recruiter in office the other day. She was telling someone else in her talent acquisition team about how she hired me because she saw my TikTok.
The lesson of the day is that, for some people the standard way of doing things isn’t going to cut it. If you’ve been told that you’re overweight and that you need to lean out, maybe cardio isn’t for you – maybe try something like playing sports. If you’re finding that working for a boss isn’t for you, maybe you become your own boss. There is no right way that’s universal, however there is a right way for you due to your unique nature of who you are and how other variables in the world react to your uniqueness. I know that there are people more qualified than me to work in my spot. People who are smarter, more talented, more diligent – but they’re not as funny as me. And to be honest, I will weaponize this charm and imagination wherever I go in this world. I’m too ugly not to.
