- Here's the thing that no one says about all jobs.
It does involve a little bit of luck.
(upbeat music)
Hi everyone.
We wanted to talk today about how
we got hired at Buzzfeed.
- A lot of people ask this question,
so we decided we would answer it.
How long have you been at Buzzfeed?
- Okay, I have been at Buzzfeed for almost five years.
- At Buzzfeed, that's like a long time.
So, you're kind of an O.G.
- Yeah, I'm definitely a vintage person.
Let's flash back.
(pew sound effect)
It is the summer of 2013, and I am unemployed.
I just got fired from my last job as an assistant,
so I'm feeling really good about myself.
- Did you know that like, a firing was a-comin'?
- No, no, no, no.
It was the Monday after my birthday.
I was a bad assistant.
After I get fired, I had brunch with my friend
who used to work here at www.buzzfeed.com,
the internet website.
She said, "You should come work for Buzzfeed."
And I was like, "What?
"Like, I could never.
"They would never hire me."
Even then, getting hired for Buzzfeed
was like, not an easy thing.
I spent most of the summer
writing all these community posts, before I got hired.
There's a community section on www.buzzfeed.com
that anyone can post to.
And sometimes, they'll take the best community posts
and they'll kind of promote them to
the main www.buzzfeed.com site.
They sometimes hire from community.
I like, trialed and errored,
I wrote posts all summer.
I kind of liked it.
Like, I was having a good time.
And then I wrote a post that was called,
Things That Are Annoying About Being A Female Sports Fan.
It did really well.
I think it got like, half a million views.
Based on that, I got an interview.
Well, I had to interview with my friend.
So I prepared really hard.
I know they were looking for people
who were really good at stuff that
no one else at Buzzfeed was good at.
You know, that's kind of what Buzzfeed's
always looking for.
It's people who are good at things
that Buzzfeed doesn't currently have.
So I came back and interviewed with her boss,
and for that interview I had to talk about like,
things that I saw online that went viral
and why I think they went viral,
stuff that I found, that like other people hadn't seen
that could go viral.
I had to pitch a bunch of like, article ideas.
I had to talk about like,
why I thought specific articles of mine had done well,
and why things hadn't done well.
I spent most of the summer
really working towards this job.
Then I want to say two months from the day
that I first started writing for community,
I got hired.
My learning didn't stop once I got hired.
It was still like a big learning curve.
It still took me, I want to say a good six months,
to really find my rhythm.
That's my story, but Fred,
you have a different story.
- I have a different one.
So I actually moved to L.A. for the internship
at Buzzfeed, from New York City.
So that was a big move for you know,
just what I thought would be a three month internship.
- Wait, how did you get the internship?
- In New York City, I was working at 30 Rock for MSNBC.
I was actually what they call an anchor P.A.
I was pretty much like, printing off all the scripts
for the anchors, and then like
being on-call in the studio for breaking news.
There was however, a lot of down time,
during which I watched a lot of Buzzfeed videos.
It was a one year contracted position, paid hourly.
It was getting down to the wire
in terms of like, me needing to find another job.
I wanted to stay in New York City.
Like, I was applying to all these media jobs.
Nothing was coming to fruition,
and I had maybe like, two months left on contract
and I was like ---
- What are you gonna do?
- "What the hell am I gonna do?"
But also, I had always wanted to move to L.A.
And so I was like,
"Okay, this is what I'm gonna do.
"I'm gonna take a vacation to L.A. for one week,
"and I'm gonna find a job."
- What?
- Along with all the down time
that I spent watching Buzzfeed videos,
I was LinkedIn stalking.
I found the editor of Buzzfeed News
and I emailed her.
She gave me the email address of
the head of the unscripted department at the time.
I sent him an email, and I was just like,
"Hi, I'm gonna be in L.A. in a week.
"I would love to connect and possibly have a meeting
"just to chat and talk about potential opportunities."
I get to L.A., I go on my other meetings
that my friends help me set up,
and those went fine.
Those were just at the NBC location in L.A.
Basically got down to the last two days
that I was in L.A., and I followed up with an email like,
"Hi, I'm still here."
He looped me in with Ned Fulmer,
current Try Guy, former head
of the internship and fellowship program.
Ned responded, he was like,
"Hey, you can pop by the office tomorrow."
Gave me the address.
This was early March.
He was like,
"The next cycle of interns start in April."
He said, "Email me when you apply."
- I should say, this was a really really nice gesture.
- It was.
- He did not have to do this.
- I know.
I think the reason that it went well was
because I was so prepared.
I did have specific questions.
I went back to New York City,
and I started the following month.
So I probably had three weeks
to pack up all my crap in New York City.
Moving across the country for an internship
was not ideal for me.
Although I was really happy
and thankful for the opportunity,
it was still very scary.
There were no guarantees after this internship.
Preparation meets opportunity, plus a little bit of luck.
- If you're not prepared for that luck,
it doesn't matter.
- It doesn't matter yeah.
And I was determined.
- You were like,
"I'm gonna get a job in a week."
And you (bleep) did it.
- Yeah.
And I was truly on a time crunch.
My income was about to be cut off.
- I just dilly dallied around all summer.
That's where all my savings went.
Yeah, and then I had no money.
Okay, so Buzzfeed wasn't your first media job.
- No.
- It was my first writing job, my first media job.
I say that to say, I did not have experience.
- Boo, you're killing it.
- But, that's 'cuz I had to work at it.
- I'm not recommending that anyone
take the same path that I did.
I was actually pretty annoying.
- This was during a different time.
So, we should preface this by saying
that you should not email people from Buzzfeed
and ask them for informational meetings.
I can't tell you how many emails we get
where it's just like,
"Could I just have a meeting with you
"so you can talk to me about
"whether or not I wanna think about working at Buzzfeed?"
- Or to pick your brain.
- Don't do that.
- Don't say pick your brain.
- Don't do it.
I'm not saying don't email people to be like,
"Hey, can I ask you about Buzzfeed."
Like, sometimes that does work,
and you have to come at it like from
a really really prepared and like succinct perspective.
- I studied.
- So I feel like take-aways from this are
be prepared, study the content that does well,
understand why it does well,
and then figure out how your unique perspective
can like, kind of use those models
to like make that content do well too.
- And I just say, take those leaps of faith,
but you have to be prepared.
So, if you enjoyed this video, comment below.
Let us know if you wanna hear how
other members of Lady Like got their jobs
here at Buzzfeed.
- 'Cuz we all have very different paths.
- Very different paths.
(upbeat music)
- Hey, Unsolved is on a new channel.
And now your part.
- Subscribe here. - Subscribe here.
- That was my part.