Gen Z job seekers should be willing to work for free, long hours, ‘willing to do anything,’ says Squarespace CMO
Gen Z job seekers should be willing to work for free, long hours, ‘willing to do anything,’ says Squarespace CMO
After landing her first job thanks to the Yellow Pages, Kinjil Mathur has climbed the ranks of Conde Nast, Saks Fifth Avenue and Squarespace to the C-suite.
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Ask her to lead by example.
She claims to have done so:
"I went to the business listings and I just started calling up companies and asking them if they had internships available and that I would be willing to work for free.”
It worked. Mathur’s first foot in the door of employment was at the travel firm Travelocity during her first summer at the University of Texas. She did admin and research for its general council—all for free.
I wonder how the money worked at that stage in her life. Was she living off loans? Was she living off wealth from another source?
I just started calling companies and asking
Immediately I don't trust whatever advice she's dispensing. You can't just "call places" or "walk in with a resume" anymore. The phone numbers are all automated systems that will never put you in front of people who can hire you. You need a badge to get in anywhere that'll give you an internship which you can't get if you don't work there, and if you did somehow talk to someone they'd just shrug and say "I don't know how that works, just go to our website and apply there"
Even ignoring the "let them eat cake attitude" it's obvious she doesn't even realize how hiring works at her own company. I guarantee you that her advice would not work at Squarespace
Yep, it was her generation that quickly pulled up the ladder behind them.
I imagine it's something along the lines of calling people at companies who her family knows. I just assume when rich people say nonsense like that, it's just networking or nepotism that normal people don't have access to.
Ya, and when rich people get an internship, they are not expected to actually do work. But they somehow believe that they are actually doing work and they believe they did hard work.
Highly likely that there was some connections to grease a bit of the wheels of commerce.
All these "i worked as an intern" usually have some connections that "picked" them from that intern pool. The other interns usually tend to be the fall guys. "So sorry all of you missed out but this person is the bestest!". While being the son/daughter/friend/family of someone in that company.
I used to work at an insurance company, and I ran the internship program for my department once. When we were doing the interviews, one of the candidates was from my geographic area, which is pretty rural and not many of my coworkers were from anywhere near there. He’d launched a free tutoring program at his high school and carried it on a few hours a week through his first couple years of university until that point. For paid work experience, he had mostly agricultural work, because he had to support his family.
I’m realizing now that I may have been a little naïve about it, but no one else even wanted to consider him compared to the students who were able to do many more extracurricular activities and were able to dedicate more hours to non paid work.
What I’m trying to say is that even if nobody is actively corrupt, it’s a structurally classist system.
What I’m trying to say is that even if nobody is actively corrupt, it’s a structurally classist system.
Yep ... this.
Whether there are lies or nepotism or completely inapplicable experiences or just confirmation biases ... the very idea of the internship to get your foot in the door is classist.
The idea that you have time to burn for free for the sake of your career is classist. The idea that an economic system premised on everyone being employed somehow should work by having those employees constantly "hustle" to get employment is classist. To speak of these notions as universally applicable without acknowledging their classism ... is classist.
I wonder how the money worked at that stage in her life.
People can do a lot if mommy and daddy support them regardless. That's why making things work for recipients of nepotism should not be the basis of the economy.
Probably parents money. But even if it were a loan she'd have to have had more privilege than most to get to that position anyway.
This is where using your chemistry schooling to make street drugs comes in.
I just started calling companies and asking
Immediately I don't trust whatever advice she's dispensing. You can't just "call places" or "walk in with a resume" anymore. The phone numbers are all automated systems that will never put you in front of people who can hire you. You need a badge to get in anywhere that'll give you an internship which you can't get if you don't work there, and if you did somehow talk to someone they'd just shrug and say "I don't know how that works, just go to our website and apply there"
Even ignoring the "let them eat cake attitude" it's obvious she doesn't even realize how hiring works at her own company. I guarantee you that her advice would not work at Squarespace