The “oh shit” moment didn’t hit me until late into my senior year in college.
I was graduating in three months and had no idea what to do next.
I had no job prospects. I only interviewed with one company and didn’t make it past the first round. With graduation looming, one question loomed:
“Now what?”
I worked on answering that question for the next decade. First by working at family restaurants, then moving to Los Angeles to start a career in Hollywood from scratch.
After Hollywood, I worked in product development in online education, and today I’m a product manager at an education tech company.
I’ve bounced around. I did a ton of internships and often worked for free. Some jobs lasted a few years, others a few days. This collection of articles is everything I’ve written about managing my career, and hopefully, it’s helpful in managing yours.
How To Land a Job (even if you’re not “qualified” and have no connections)
Most of the below articles pertain to my experience in Hollywood, but the same principles applied to make the shift to education and tech.
- How To Land Your First Hollywood Job
- The Truth About Being a Hollywood Assistant: My Time Working for Dennis Lehane
- What I Learned After 7 Years of Working For Free
- How To Turn Your Hollywood Internship Into a Job
How To Get Good At Your Job
At a bare minimum, we spend 40 hours doing our jobs. If you’re going to spend that much time doing something, you might as well enjoy it. The path to enjoyment is to get damn good. I believe this is more about our mindset towards work and less about “finding your passion.”
- Read Trash, and Other Habits that Launched My Career
- 8 Lessons From Working At I Will Teach
- This Is My Job
- To Learn, Start Small
- The Show Your Work Method
How To Network
Building a strong network and building your career go hand-in-hand. How you feel about the idea of networking (i.e. “it’s sleazy”) is irrelevant. When you get good at it, it becomes fun and profitable. Eventually, you discover the true high of having a good network is not the opportunities you create for yourself, but the opportunities you create for others.
- Everything You Need to Know About Networking (Especially If You’re Shy)
- 27 Rules of Hollywood Networking
When You’re Feeling Stuck
There was a span of years where for every one step forward, it felt like I took two steps back. This is a natural part of progress, like erosion creating gorges and tributaries, and especially if you follow a non-traditional career path. These articles are not how-to’s but rather my reflections on moments of uncertainty.
…or if you want to read all the articles on careers, click here.