>> I think education is really the key, is
really the passport to following your passion.
For me for example, I worked in staffing and
recruiting my undergrad degree was in business
and I loved it, I very much enjoyed
it, working staffing and recruiting
and sales, helping people get jobs.
I felt that I wanted a little bit more
and I wanted a feel that I had I wanted
to make a little bit more different.
So I you know I call on one of my
clients, one of my accounts which was USC,
the School of Social Work was one of my accounts
and I started learning a little bit
more about what social work was.
I didn't know what social work was.
I never knew what social work was, really
no exposure previously to a social worker,
but the more that I learned
about it the more that I thought
that this was really something
that really called me.
And I do think sometimes you know social
work can really be seen as a calling,
a lot of people thought I was crazy to leave
a really you know good paying job to go
into social work that maybe you
know wouldn't be a paying as much.
With that, the peace that I got
out of that was the importance
of doing what we call information interviews.
You know reaching out and in my
case was reaching out to professors,
reaching out to students to learn a little
bit more about what a social worker does,
what you could do with a social work
degree, what people love about social work,
what are some of the challenges
etc., I could go on and on.
I believe in that.
I for a time didn't really
know what I wanted to do.
So I did a lot of these informational
interviews with people
to find out what their typical day was.
So one piece of advice I would give to
individuals is really to go out and research
and talk to people and see if that profession,
see if those occupations
really speak to you right?
And then from there continuing that networking,
continuing that informational interviews,
that's how I got my job here at USC.
You know maybe about eight years after I
graduated I reached out to a top administrator
and did an informational interview.
I said you know what I'm working here at
the hospital, my experience is in staffing
and recruiting, I'm looking for a change,
I'm looking for something
non-traditional, what do you suggest?
She said come to this meeting and
these were heads of non-profits,
I knew that I didn't really want to do that.
But it worked out really well because
when I was there a student raised his hand
and said I hadn't gotten a job yet.
Our department was not there at the time.
I said you know what let me do a
free career development workshop
on resumes interviewing networking.
I had never done a workshop before in my
life, took me a lot of hours, dozens of hours,
I did it for free, then I got hired on as a
consultant, was there for a couple of years,
helped launch this non-traditional social
work program with our assistant dean,
this non-traditional social work and
from there you know the rest was history.
So again the importance of developing those
relationships maintaining them eight years later
I was able to reach out and worked now
working with you know this dean I used to work
with when I was in student government.
So that's the importance of those
so those are some of the things
that I would you know say are very important.