Zee Arnold, founder of UX Teacher Prep, spills the tea on her incredible journey from a 15-year teaching career to becoming a remote UX Researcher in just 5 months. Join Zee as she shares strategies, tips, and tricks to help you land your first tech role outside of the classroom. Discover how to showcase your transferable skills and escape burnout while finding the balance to unleash your creativity. Since her transition in 2022, Zee has been supporting other teachers in their career pivots by sharing her story, roadblocks, and valuable lessons learned along the way. You’ll also hear inspiring stories from other teachers who have successfully transitioned to creative tech careers such as UX Researcher, UX Writer, UX Designer, and Product Manager. Gain insights into the job search process and learn what to expect beyond the first 90 days in your new role. If you're ready to break into the tech industry and regain time for your health, family, travel, and all the things you deserve in life, hit subscribe and prepare to transform your future. Don't forget to share this podcast with a teacher friend who's ready to make their next move!
Ep 13. Job Search Tips with Recruiter Sarah Janosz
•Zee Arnold•Season 1•Episode 13
Audio Player
00:00
00:00 | 25:27
Ever considered the leap from the classroom to a professional role in the creative industry? In this episode, I delve into this transition with the help of Sarah Janosz, a Creative Recruiter with a wealth of experience in creative placements. Sarah shares her career evolution, providing you with an authentic perspective on the nuances of such a shift. Our discussion goes beyond the conventional job-seeking advice. Navigating the leap from education to a creative career demands more than a simple desire for change; it involves a strategic approach to resume and portfolio building, job applications, and interviews. She emphasizes the significance of transparency in the recruitment process, especially in the creative sector where a portfolio often speaks louder than a resume. If you’re eager to pivot with purpose and finesse, learn from our shared experiences, and consider this your official invite to the tech realm—let's connect on LinkedIn and turn those possibilities into your new reality!
Guest Bio: Sarah Janosz has been a Creative Recruiter at Cella by Randstad Digital for almost 3 years. Her goal is to help talent through the interview process and do her best to get them to the offer stage. She helps candidates with their resumes and shares tips and tricks to help them stand out in the interview process so they can land a career they’re passionate about. She has a bachelor's degree in exercise science and a minor in psychology and is passionate about exercise and mental health.
Hello teacher friends, coach Z here. I'm sure you see from the title that we have a recruiter in the house. In today's episode I interview Sarah Janis, who I personally worked with when I was leaving the classroom. She's been a recruiter for almost three years and she has some gems to drop for you. We're talking about resumes, interviews and best practices for working with recruiters. I am so excited to get into it. Let's go.
Narrator:
Welcome to the UX Teacher Prep Podcast, the ultimate destination for educators who aspire to break into the field of user experience and product design. Your host, zee Arnold, a 15-year teacher turned UX researcher, is here to guide, coach and mentor you through every twist and turn as you make your career transition into tech. If you're ready for a more satisfying career and lifestyle and you want the balance to unleash your creativity, this podcast is for you. Now for the show.
Zee:
Hey, Sarah, it's so great to have you on the show today.
Sarah Janosz:
Yeah, I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Zee:
Yes, so you know, I'm super excited to learn about how transitioning teachers can work with recruiters, and just to have a recruiter on the show is amazing, so I'm excited to talk to you today. So can you start by telling everyone a bit about who you are?
Sarah Janosz:
Yeah, my name is Sarah Janosz. I've been in recruiting for about three years, been at Cella my Cella anniversary is actually coming up in July and this is like my first like staffing agency job pretty much ever and the first time me working in the creative. So definitely been learning a lot over the past couple of years, been helping talent find creative jobs all over the place, when it comes from social media content creators to program directors at pharma companies. So I've seen a lot and I definitely talk to a ton of different people and what I definitely love most about working in the creative space is everyone that I talk to is usually very passionate about what they do, very fun and very creative, very easy to talk to. Yeah, that's basically kind of my background in recruiting, so creative recruiter.
Zee:
I know there's different types of recruiters out there. Can you talk about what a creative recruiter is and how that's different from a different type of recruiter?
Sarah Janosz:
Yeah, I would say it definitely depends on the company that you work for. I know maybe there's like tech staffing firms, like, for example, which I don't know if we when we I actually looked up when you and I first connected, it was back in like February of 2022. So since October 2022, we integrated with Randstad Staffing. I don't know if you're familiar with them. So they're a huge global staffing firm that has like sciences, technology, all these different types of industries, so they kind of added us in to do all the marketing and creative. So you know there's tech recruiters like industrial recruiters, recruiters I mean I'm sure there's. You know there's in-house recruiters, so like, for example, for teachers. I'm sure they're HR reps, hr admins that do recruiting for schools. So all different types of recruiters.
Zee:
Yeah, hr reps I know they have like talent specialists, depending on the company. Yeah so, and then the other thing I wanted to ask was how is a recruiter different from a sourcer? Because there's like so many different levels of you trying to interview with a company and meeting with different people before you actually get to a hiring manager. So what is the sourcer?
Sarah Janosz:
That is a great question. I'm glad you brought that up because that's kind of how I technically started At Cella. I started as a sourcer. And what they are. How I explain it to people the easiest way is they are kind of like the reverse of a recruiter, where as a recruiter I get a job assigned to me and my job is to find that specific talent for that job. But sourcers, they get the talent and help them find that job that they're looking for. So as a sourcer, to get to know the talent, you have to see what industries they're interested in, what their career goals are, and go into our company system or look at the clientele and what type of jobs we have open and see if they can match with any of the jobs that we currently have.
Zee:
Oh, okay, that's interesting. Okay, so you started off as a sourcer and then you went into recruiting. Yes, so what was the thing that inspired you to go into recruiting in the first place?
Sarah Janosz:
That's a good question. But what's kind of funny is Cella, They found me, like I was deep into the job hunt three years ago, no idea what I really wanted to do, I just knew I was the place I was in. And they found me and I did a ton of interviews. I asked a bunch of questions. I'm like, hey, I have no creative experience and luckily they took a chance on me.
Sarah Janosz:
But recruiting for me started technically when I was a graduate assistant for a college in Davenport, Iowa, where I was a grad assistant for the cross-country and track team and a lot of that is actually recruiting. So I was picking up the phones at night texting all these high schoolers of potential students and potential athletes to see if they wanted to come join our team and be a student at our school. So that's how I kind of learned how to do active listening, like can this person be a good asset to a team? Is the school a good asset or a good place for them to go? Does it check all their boxes? Go? Does it check all their boxes? So that was kind of something I didn't really expect, because the reason I did the graduate assistant role is because I wanted to get into coaching, but then I ended up loving it for other reasons and now I ended up here. So it's been pretty crazy.
Zee:
Okay, so let's get into what I think a lot of teachers want to hear about, and that is the whole application and interview process from a recruiter standpoint.
Sarah Janosz:
I've had a couple jobs that kind of translate into creative, especially for a teacher. I feel like as a teacher you have to be creative. I don't know how teachers keep all these little humans engaged for so long I can't do it. So I feel like there's definitely tools and things that teachers can put on resumes to make them stand out for so long I can't do it. So I feel like there's definitely tools and things that teachers can put on resumes to make them stand out for creative jobs. But it's definitely, I would say, start small, build that resume and try to get the experience, whether it be like maybe freelancing as a PowerPoint designer. I know teachers obviously the US use PowerPoint a lot. There's little things like that, little projects here and there to kind of build that resume, because getting into the creative space it is pretty hard coming from a background where you didn't go to school to become a designer or anything like that.
Zee:
Okay. So when you say PowerPoint creator, I'm thinking the first thing that came to my mind was like instructional design or just like designing things. So are you saying that they should maybe use that as a stepping stone, or are you talking about like creating a portfolio? What exactly do you mean by taking those small steps?
Sarah Janosz:
Yeah, potentially, I feel like, especially for thinking of, just like my clients and the type of roles that I work. A lot of roles require portfolios because clients want to see what you know designers and instructional designers, kind of like you said can create and what they have created in the past, see how they use the specific tools and things. I know you, being with UX background, it's all about showing the process and everything too, so that always definitely helps with those types of roles.
Zee:
So what would you say to teachers who are trying to position themselves, to get recruiters to help them find a role? Because I've worked with Cella before in the past, right, and I think Cella is a great organization. I've also worked with Randstad as well, and when I was transitioning from teaching, I didn't really know the difference between just connecting with a hiring manager versus a recruiter and the whole like who's who and what should I be saying to each person and how does each person contribute to the process?
Sarah Janosz:
So what I want to know is how can teachers better position themselves to work with a recruiter? I would say be honest with your experience and find ways in your examples, when you're like doing initial interviews, on how you have a strong work ethic and how you can bring those tools that are technically transferable into a creative type role, from teaching to the recruiter or the hiring manager, whoever you're talking to.
Zee:
Okay, so the transferable skills, and when you say be honest, so I'm thinking a couple things came to my mind.
Sarah Janosz:
I was thinking.
Zee:
You know, I've heard, when teachers work on their resume, maybe they use some language that's more of a corporate language as opposed to classroom language. And then is that what you're talking about when you're saying be honest, or is there something else that is coming up as, like teachers potentially not giving the full story? What is it that you're saying when you're saying to be honest with recruiters? Are you saying be honest about your timeline? Like? What is it specifically? If there's anything?
Sarah Janosz:
oh man, I feel like it's not like specific, it's just overall, like I am yeah, like especially just even not even teachers, just all types of anyone who wants to work with recruiters like being honest and open with what you're looking for, what you're open to, what your experience has been that only helps us in the recruiting process.
Sarah Janosz:
Say like, like you know someone I do really want to submit a talent over to a client, but they didn't tell me that they have other interviews going off and they might get an offer soon. Like just telling me that ahead of time, which many, many recruiters will ask, because usually when you're open to work, you're not just interviewing at one place and then also just being honest with you, know your experience. Try not to lie, especially in the creative space. Like if you say, oh yeah, I've worked with, like Adobe Creative Suites or I've worked with these design tools and you haven't, that'll definitely people hiring managers and art directors and product managers they'll notice. That's why it's always very good to have a portfolio too, because then they know what you're capable of.
Sarah Janosz:
Yes, definitely. Or even just coming up with for teachers especially that don't have specific design skills or they're trying to get into design or anything like that, Just doing like a passion project. I see a lot of students who are trying to break into the job market. Let's be like, yeah, I did this passion project to come up with an app or design this banner ad for this company and it could be just like not real at all, but something that they created to show that their skills with specific tools.
Zee:
I like the idea of passion projects because there's so many things that you can do to demonstrate the skills that you're learning, whether it's from a boot camp or a course or whatever it is. There's so many things you can do to demonstrate that, and so I also talk to teachers about volunteer work. So what would you say if you're trying to recruit someone and they have volunteer experience? Let's say they're coming from teaching or somewhere else and they're trying to get into the creative industry how do you feel about that volunteer experience in the creative space?
Sarah Janosz:
I would say it's better than nothing, and especially if it's been published or on the website, if the company actually uses it like that's huge.
Zee:
Okay, yeah, so it's better to have some type of passion project and some type of experience in the industry, as opposed to just going straight from one industry to the next. Is that what you're saying?
Sarah Janosz:
Yes, definitely.
Zee:
Okay, okay, good, good. So basically, recruiters have your best interests in mind, so you really have to let them know like the whole scope of what you're going through, like if you're going on other interviews, and like what's your timeline and all those things. Because I remember when I started working with recruiters, it was like I didn't know what to expect, what they were going to ask me, what should I have prepared? And you know, there's some basic things right, like I guess, do you want to do contract roles? Are you open to that? Are you open to travel? But then there's some things that I wasn't really sure about. So I guess you have to kind of do the footwork to know what you want to tell your recruiter.
Sarah Janosz:
Yeah, and I can definitely tell you. We're going to ask you about what type of opportunities you're open to, what you know, the meaning or, like, what motivated you to do this, apply to this role or say yes to my LinkedIn message. We're going to definitely ask you those questions to understand where you're at, because, especially if we end up talking about the specific role and you're not a good fit or you don't think it's a good option for you, having what you're open to, where you're located, what your schedule and availability is like for interviewing, can definitely help find something out. Okay, that makes sense.
Zee:
Super helpful. So is there any specific advice you would give, like on the resume writing process or the resume submission process that you see, maybe something that's a pain point that you get a lot of times?
Sarah Janosz:
Yes, definitely I would say my biggest tips for people who are either new to the job market or entering the job market definitely try to keep your resume to one page. I know a lot of designers and creatives want to make it pretty. They want to make like all the colors and you don't need all that. That's what portfolios are for, because sometimes, like especially I mean not just you know in recruiting and things like a lot of companies, you in ats systems, like they might not pick up everything if you have photos of yourself and fun little little art everywhere on your resume. So it's in people's best interest to keep it clean. Definitely no headshots if possible, because that could actually bring up a bias to the hiring manager. So you definitely don't want that. A summary of your goals or I would say something that you're looking to do, potentially a couple, not a whole paragraph, just a couple lines, obviously have education on there, your jobs and I would definitely the job and the timeline that you were at that job and, of course, the title of your job you were at, along with just a couple bullet points of your responsibilities. And then I would say if there's one dream job that you see and one dream company that you want to be at.
Sarah Janosz:
Take the job description and try to tailor it to your resume. The more keywords that you have from the job description in your resume, the more likely you are going to pop up in the ATS. You're going to be flagged to say, hey, this person has the skills and the tools for what they're looking for. Now I'm not saying copy paste the whole job description because I have seen that and I just well, there's a couple of times where I'm like, hey, so this is a wonderful resume. But you clearly copy pasted the entire job description onto your resume like word for word.
Sarah Janosz:
So don't do that. But then that's another thing going back to. If you are gonna take some things from the job description, be honest. If you haven't used Figma, but you see it's on the job description, it's a must have, then I wouldn't put it on there because they might ask you about that. And if you don't have a specific project or skills that you've used with the tool, then it's probably not a good fit for you. I would say those are like the main thing. I know designers love to make it pretty, but it does not have to be anything crazy.
Zee:
I'm actually glad I'm a UX researcher and not a UX designer, because I don't have to think about the design as much. But I see the Canva you know the Canva resumes and I'm like, ouch, it looks nice. It looks really nice with the headshot and everything. But at the same time I hope that's not the one that you're submitting for the job, because I feel like so many things, like you said, will get lost in the whole system and they probably won't even come up properly on the screen in the first place.
Narrator:
So super important.
Zee:
You're dropping some gems, what else you got? So I wanted to ask also about, like, the application process itself, because I know a lot of teachers and non-teachers are kind of just do this spray and pray, where they just like send out 100, 200 applications and then hope for somebody to contact them, and sometimes what I see is that they're applying for so many different roles in so many different fields and it's like it's not really narrowed down to something specific, and so I wanted to hear what you thought about that and, you know, any tips you have for the application process itself.
Sarah Janosz:
Yeah, I would say, if you do submit an application anywhere without you know, talking with a recruiter or a TA or anything, obviously look for people. Linkedin is your biggest tool and I know you've talked about it on this podcast for a couple episodes of networking and the importance of networking. I listened to that one a couple of days ago hundred percent network connect. See who you have mutual connections with people, especially if it's for, like, a company in your area with the same industry that you've worked at or someone that you know works there. Just always, always, always network.
Zee:
Yeah, that's a big one. I mean, I met you last year and here we are again having a conversation about something totally different. So just keeping your network open and just remembering. I think a lot of times teachers forget that it's not just connect, connect, connect, but it's connect and make valuable connections and make those long term.
Zee:
Check in on people, see how they're doing, see how their life is going. Did you get that role you're looking for? It's a real, genuine connection, at least for me. Every single person that I connect to on LinkedIn, I connect to them in some way where we're having conversations in the inbox or we're checking up on each other, and it's not like I'm just connecting to everybody. I see there's some kind of connection there. There's some kind of relationship, whether we're looking for the same roles or whether we went to the same school or whatever it is. But it's not just a one and done type of thing is what I'm trying to say Exactly.
Sarah Janosz:
And I feel like the more of the stronger the connection that I make with a talent like when you reached out to me, I was like I remember you One because your name is really unique, but I remember. I'm like yeah, she's a UX researcher. I didn't even have to look in my system for our notes because I've seen you post on LinkedIn. I've seen you just connect with other people and mutual friends. So, like, LinkedIn is a really really good tool for that and I would say, especially if a teacher puts open to work on their LinkedIn page and a recruiter reaches out to him, just say yes, If they are interested in talking to you, connect with them, Even if you think the role is like way out of your league or you're not interested in it. Just connect with them. It's about that now, where maybe they know someone else, or world is a huge place but it's also super small to do.
Zee:
Yeah, I love that. Just take the interview, just connect with the recruiter. And I think also there's some hesitation there with teachers, where teachers are not really used to the LinkedIn space, you know, and so teachers have recently, over the past few years, started migrating over to the LinkedIn space, and sometimes you hear a story of a teacher who a recruiter reached out to them and then it was some type of a scam, you know, and they're hesitant to speak to people who are just inboxing them as recruiters, you know. So how do they know who's a real recruiter, who's not a real recruiter? That type of thing? That's a really good point.
Sarah Janosz:
I totally get that too, because, yeah, it's. You know, I've been. Before I came here I was definitely scammed a couple times, so I totally get it. I would say it's funny how many times I will reach out to talent and then I will look like an hour later and see how many people have looked at my profile. So that's why in my profile, for my LinkedIn profile, I try to seem as humanistic as possible.
Sarah Janosz:
I'll talk about my love for fitness, my love for Disney, like I'm not a robot, arguably though Disney fans could be a little crazy, but definitely look into the company too. Definitely, I feel like there's always recommendations and things. I'm sure there are mutual connections. Make sure they are real people too. But I can see how that is very especially because a lot of our messages and that's another thing too when I reach out to talent I try to be personable. Yes, I'm sending out a lot of messages at one time, but I try to put enough information out there for them to know that I am a real person and I'd love to connect with them. I'm not just a robot being like, hey, I have this role, can we talk about it? Kind of thing.
Zee:
Yeah, yeah, because we don't want people to be out here getting scammed. But I know that you're a genuine recruiter because I've worked with you in the past and I know that you have people's best interests in mind. But it's good to know that teachers can reach out to recruiters, they can respond and they can have these meetings and interviews based on getting connected to a recruiter. I feel really good about that.
Sarah Janosz:
And I would say for teachers who are trying to get out, be open to the type of role that you want. I mean I can say, just being here, a lot of people who I work with used to be teachers are now sourcers or like they would start at Cella. My sourcer on my team right now she was a teacher before coming to Cella. So just as a teacher role like, just be open to new opportunities and sometimes you do have to go down a peg to get back to you know, go back up kind of thing, especially if you're trying to revert from teaching. That's another and like same thing with me. Like I didn't really want to know where I wanted to go before I found Cella but I was open to any and all conversations with people that were interested in chatting with me.
Zee:
It's all about being open to any conversation because had I not started like looking into different roles and just being there, I guess, researcher that I am and looking up things online, I wouldn't have even known that UX existed, you know.
Zee:
And so just being open. There might be something out there right now that a teacher's listening to this and they don't even know that career exists, right. And so just being open to like you could do so many other things. And you know, if somebody wants to talk to you about a role, check it out and see what it's all about. I like that.
Sarah Janosz:
Yeah, I would say, especially someone I sympathize with a lot of teachers right now Like I get it? Yeah, I really do it's, it's, they're very, very important to society, but I know it's, it's a lot and my mental health and I totally get it.
Zee:
Yeah, it's tough. It's tough right now and I know that you're big on health and fitness and mental health and all that, just like myself. So I just wanted to ask you a little bit about that, like in terms of how you know your health has affected you in your career transition. I know you said you were on the market like three years ago and you were stressed and stuff like that. So how did that affect your transition? How did that affect your transition?
Sarah Janosz:
It's hard for me to say because I feel like as soon, it definitely was a struggle with me interviewing. I can kind of recall when the manager from Sella reached out to me and she was like, let's like, let me know when you can connect and I was like, well, I'm only available before work or during my 40 minute lunch break or after work. Like I am not that available. I was just I. I was like would look back at the message. I'm like, oh my god, I was so mean.
Sarah Janosz:
I just like I just I felt really bad um, but yeah, we, we ended up connecting and I talked to a few other people. But and what was funny about that whole scenario with me interviewing Stella was not my first choice. Actually, I had two potential offers coming in and ended up not getting the other one. So I was like you know what, after learning about the company and talking to a lot of people, I definitely was like you know what, let's just try it, and I'm very, very grateful that I did.
Sarah Janosz:
But with the mental health and going back to interviewing, I do know how stressful it is Say yes to interviews. You never know who you're going to talk to. You're never going to know if that role doesn't work out that you speak with the recruiter about, something else might pop up and you might pop into their head. You just never, never know. And then always just kind of be yourself. I know sometimes when you are mentally down and it's low energy and just not feeling it, be yourself and just pretend you're selling yourself as best as you possibly can.
Zee:
Yeah, the whole idea of networking and just being connected to people, because you never know what can happen in the future. It's not just about now. I've heard so many stories about people getting calls from someone they spoke to months ago, even years ago, like, hey, I remember you for a role that came up, so that's super important. And just to end off our conversation today, I know you gave a lot of tips and tricks for teachers who are looking to work with recruiters and transitioning, but I do love asking this question at the end. Just a final question, like if you could send a message to teachers who are looking for creative roles in UX and product, what would that message be?
Sarah Janosz:
I would say take all of the training and classes. Look up all the YouTube videos on how to do the UX process, especially create that portfolio. Do those passion projects, volunteer when you can. I know a lot of churches and nonprofits love volunteers to you know. Maybe upgrade a website or fix something on an app and don't be afraid to put your name out there. Those were some really good tips.
Zee:
It was so great to have you on the show today and to get your insight about the recruitment process and how can listeners reach out to you if they want to get connected, to talk about roles or anything else.
Sarah Janosz:
Definitely look at my LinkedIn, invite me to connect. I love to connect and connect with people and talk with people.
Zee:
Okay, so I'll drop that info in the show notes. All right, Sarah, it was so great to have you on the show today and we will definitely talk soon, awesome.
Sarah Janosz:
Thank you so much for having me.
Narrator:
Hey, thanks so much for tuning in. If you like this podcast, hit, follow and scroll down to leave a five-star rating. Then share it with a friend. If you're looking for resources to help you on your tech transition journey, head over to uxteacherprep. com. Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at uxteacherprep for daily tips and motivation. Have a topic you'd like to hear addressed on the show? Send us a DM on Instagram. If you're listening on YouTube, like, subscribe and share. Until next time, be well.
