On my first day back from a relaxing vacation I was laid off from my dream job at Vibe Magazine.
I stumbled out of 205 Lexington Ave in a silent daze, as if someone blew scopolamine in my face and told me to scram. I carried a brown box in my arms with my entire work life crammed in, and went home to watch DVRed episodes of Pardon the Interruption for the rest of the day.
I took being let go hard. I wasn't afraid of being broke, that wasn't it. I was working part time as a consultant for a start up, and I was flush with enough cash to pay my rent three months in advance. Money wasn't the issue.
The sting and the fear I felt came from losing the title that I thought made me special. I was no longer "The Guy from Vibe".
THE JOB HUNT DESERT
I lived in a paradox while unemployed. With more free time in my life since pre-k, I suddenly had "no time" to work on my own projects, those career mixtapes I wrote about yesterday.
What I did have time for was running my traditional job search, something I had never done before while working in entertainment. My resume got tweaked more than a heroin addict. I consumed books and blogs on career management and could regurgitate 12 tips for cover letters if you asked me to.
I gave my head to a hunter and asked her to please, please find me an employer who's willing to eat me alive. That metaphor is slightly less dramatic than the anxiety I felt at the time. My lucky run in the game is over, I thought. Time to put the social media toys down and get serious about my career.
RETURN OF THE KING
It took me 6 months of moping, and then prayer and reflection to stop trying to fit in with the rest of the industry and return to doing things my way.
I learned that layoffs and turnover are a part of life in the entertainment business. True stability comes from having a strong personal brand (yikes, that word again) that attracts a steady flow of good looks for you career.
And what is the most important ingredient in a strong personal brand? Being unique.
COP LIMITED EDITIONS
What makes people line up at the Nike store? Is it for the weekly shipment of white-on-white Uptowns? No, everybody got those.
People line up for the limited editions. Sneaker heads get excited about being first, and they'll pay triple the price to be one of the only.
With Vibe, I first landed the job as mobile editor because I was a limited edition. My skills were rare. My talent was scarce.
My first boss there, Lynne d. Johnson told me that the managing editor was nervous about hiring me because I blogged something mildly negative about Vibe. However, she pulled the trigger, seeing I was the only candidate back in 2006 (pre-iPhone! pre-Foursquare!) doing any real thinking or work in the mobile space.
And why was I so interested in mobile? It was my own drive to have my blog read far and wide, from computers to mobile phones, that made understanding mobile a necessity.
My work on the edges of media is what made me valuable to Vibe in the first place. But backwards me - those personal projects are what I let lapse when my career stalled.
TRIPLE THREATS HAVE ALL THE FUN
So, how do you craft a rare personal brand for yourself? Dilbert creator Scott Adams has the best advice I've read on creating a unique edge for yourself so you'll always attract new opportunities in your career.
Scott writes that to become one of a kind you should learn 3 useful skills and become the top 25% in each. It's a clever way to make yourself a true limited edition.
At Vibe, I had 3 skills that made me valuable:
- I can write
- I know Black music
- I know web marketing
No, my pen game wasn't as sharp as my co-worker's, Shanel Odum. And no way did I know my music like my cubemate, Mariel Concepción. However, neither of them could rock an Ominiture report like me. It's not something they teach you in a journalism class.
When my second boss, John Demarchi planned a search arbitrage move to boost Vibe.com's traffic, the eyes of our super creative staff, from Danyel Smith on down glazed over. #NoShots on Danyel and John. They were just speaking different languages. As for me, I was bilingual :)
John's idea was a strategy I experimented with on my own blog. He was surprised when he pitched the idea to me, and I was able to finish his sentences. My reward for this one of a kind mix of skills? John gave bumped my salary from 35K a year to 45K and placed me over Shanel and Mariel.
Unique is better than better.
THE SOCIAL MEDIA TRAP
I have too many friends who are in the situation I found myself after Vibe, including the entire staff of the magazine, which folded last year. They are un- or underemployed, and wondering if they should tuck their talent between their legs and go to the local municipal for a job.
They're flocking to social media, not realizing that its 2010 - having your own Youtube channel won't make you special anymore. A tricked out LinkedIn profile won't bling your career.
If you're bland and lame, and like everyone else, social media is just another opportunity for people to ignore you. But if you're unique and remarkable, and have a mix of skills that place you in your own category, the word about you will spread, not matter what you do.
Speak on it Jerry Garcia:
"You do not merely want to be considered the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones that do what you do."
Go and be great. Just don't do it like me.
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Haven't you heard?
I retired this blog 3 years ago, but now I'm back with a new project, Eminem style. Before Marshall changes his album name again, I plan to start a new blog about careering in the entertainment industry, and shut down this one forever.
Like what you read today? Read the new blog, Career Green Light that just launched!
vibe sucked , all they ever did was ride the major artists nuts. all the stories were commercial . you are probaly better off now
Posted by: mixtapes | 2010.04.18 at 10:20 PM