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In this episode, I spoke with
Ismael Verduzco III, aka DJ Ish, Social Marketing Lead at LinkedIn. Ish graduated from the University of California, Merced with a B.S. in Management. We spoke about life at LinkedIn, how he found his way into tech and his role as a Social Media Lead.
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Show Notes:
- 01:16 – Welcoming Ismael Verduzco III
- 01:19 – About Ish
- 02:18 – About going to school in University of California; from urban area to the countryside
- 03:08 – Things Ish does in his free time
- 03:38 – Social media expert at Linkedin, fitness enthusiasm and DJ engagement – How does he organize himself with so many things to do
- 05:47 – Time of relax – Downtime
- 09:24 – How Ish got to Linkedin
- 15:57 – Role description
- 17:14 – Process for making content
- 19:13 – What makes a good headline for Linkedin
- 21:55 – The project Ish is proudest of
- 25:39 – 60 MM Latinos in the USA but only 3% are in Tech. What can companies do better to bring diverse talent in. Ish’s viewpoint
- 27:03 – What is life at Linkedin like
- 28:40 – Next play/challenges as a Social Media Lead
- 29: 45- Next Play Concept
- 30:28 – What does Ish likes best of Linkedin besides their people
- 31:48 – Last words for audience
About the episode:
Linkedin has grown in the past 5 years, and in 2016 was acquired by Microsoft. They started off with 6000 employees and today have doubled. One of them is Ish, a Dj and fitness enthusiast, working as the Social Media Marketing Lead of
Talent Solutions, one of their four business brand channels, finding different content to inform HR managers, recruiters and talented professionals on latest recruiting trends.
Ish was born in Southern California, and graduated from
University of California, Merced with a B.S. in Management, a college way back in the countryside with only 4000 students, where in his free time hosted concerts and events on the campus, was part of a business fraternity co ed, and a Dj on weekends.
He shares his professional career all the way from being an assistant operation manager in
24 Hour Fitness to LinkedIn, as well as his path through the company. He started with a contract role opened up specially for him as a Social Marketing and Event Coordinator in charge of recruiting events supporting their talent acquisition, then as a product manager, helping people in recruiting, marketing, and communications to attract and hire the best talent, and then in social media, his actual role.
We talked about how he organizes and schedules his vast agenda minute by minute, his process for doing content, the authenticity needed for a good headline and fun channels to bring your own self to work , recruiting events, the reason for being a Unicorn in the company, next challenges in social media and the concept of Linkedin’s Next play.
Mentioned resources:
Key Takeaways:
- Organizing himself >
- Outline minute by minute what he will be doing that day, and being flexible when bad things happen and pivot on the spot
- “Having time off doing things that are not necessarily productive, makes you feel free and puts away worries. Steal away!”
- When wanting to work on a project he goes to his notetab on his phone (that uses for productivity) and will randomly get ideas for projects to work on – “Someday maybe” list > not committed to do something, but know it is there – “Being flexible goes a long way”
- Getting to LinkedIn >
- He got his first job at LinkedIn because he was relentless and showed a lot of interest. “When organizing events you have to be relentless, a necessary grip”
- Content >
- The process for doing content depends on the purpose of it
- “Fun Fridays” > work with a content calendar and each day has a different theme, best day is friday because it is fun. He has to think of a fun meme relative to pop culture and tie into recruiting. “Can be super tough because recruiting, talent and HR are very specific, but having the chance to put a creative mind on that, and somehow twisting a game of thrones theme meme into HR and getting a thousand of recruiting professionals to comment on different issues, is super cool”; Have a content counter with a different theme for every week
- A good Headline >
- A good headline for LinkedIn would be “Something descriptive enough to tell what you do without being specific enough to say what exactly it is”
- “About authenticity and bringing your own self to work on your channel” Fun ones: Indeed, Tech enthusiast, Diversity champions.
- Best projects >
- “Open Mic is the best recruiting event in the Bay Area; the most authentic and fun”
- “At recruiting events you have to justify the bottom line and how much money you are spending, but can have fun as well” ”Even though you are not looking for a job and live in the Bay, look it up”
- Hugo > “As an ERG participant, I see that a lot of times companies will give you money for your diversity group to get pizza or whatever, and you want to talk about the things that affect your perception of the company and making it more inclusive”
- “Being able to share the experience of an event answers questions at scale” “Events are inclusive, but if you are not fortunate to live near the Bay Area, you are quite out of luck”
- ”Unicorn” > “When you build a community, it is hard to leave, it is about culture and people”
- “Most of interactions you see are through social media”
- Next Play >
- His CEO uses “Next Play” concept all the time: ”If something is done, what is the next we are going to do, what is our next play”
- Culture concept at LinkedIn > ”What is your next play in your career journey? If it is at LinkedIn, awesome, and if not, we wish you the best of luck and will support you!”
- He likes about LinkedIn >
- Because of side projects done at the company, Ish has been able to get into his actual role
- Opportunity goes back to one of the biggest tenants of their platform and is creating opportunities for others
- Last words > When breaking into Tech, use people in your network and reach out to people online, Linkedin and Latino online communities such as: Techquería, LinkedinGroups, MeetUp, Eventbrite
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Who is Hugo Castellanos?
Find out about him on linkedinThanks so much for listening to the show! If you want to know more about this or comment on the show, please join us on LatinosWhoTech or go to Conexiones
