I Was Hired

It’s been a little over a month since I wrote this post, Getting WooThemes Attention, and I’m very happy to report back that I got the job!

Just like that I was wisked away into full-time employment with WooThemes as their new Community Manager. I started immediately on March 1st, and it has been so great on two levels. First, I’ve found a job just out of college. It’s a wonderful feeling to be valued by a company, and know that your skills learned and honed in on over the last 18 odd years of school have paid off. Secondly, I can say I work for WooThemes! The latter part is what still boggles my mind. I am now an employee of one of my favorite companies? How did I land such a gig? Consider me a lucky, lucky fellow as only 9 other guys can claim the same. I really wanted to write this post not to boast that I work for Woo, but to show you my insight into applying for this job and what it apparently takes to get the attention of great companies. I hope that perhaps it’ll be helpful for other young adults my age still swimming in the giant pool of job applicants.

Before I begin though, I definitely must say thank you to all my friends and family, as well as anyone else who helped share my page and application. I’m very humbled and thankful for the help and well wishes.

This whirlwind of a journey started when I came across a tweet from WooThemes, they announced that they were hiring and posted a link to the job description on their WooJobs job board. At the time, I had been doing free lance work to buy groceries and all those life necessities. I was even planning on building a theme modifying idea around WooThemes, like many others have done. I also love photography and videography and was doing photo shoots and making videos to help as well. I had been applying to local businesses and places like Panera, but with no luck. I was often turned down for being over qualified, and potential employers were afraid I would find a better job and leave soon after being hired. I obviously jumped in with both feet at the chance to apply to WooThemes.

The application had a job description and required just an email describing why you’d be a good fit for this position. I typed up the best email I could, had my girlfriend proof read it and sent it off with fingers crossed. Shortly after sending that I sat and thought, that email might be decent at describing my passion behind WooThemes but there’s got to be something else I can do. Luckily, I was able to combine two of my passions and over a weekend put together my Hire Me WooThemes page. I pulled a couple of all nighters putting together the video and the page, and definitely glad I did.

Once that process was complete, I started in on promoting the page and campaign to get hired at WooThemes. I actually took out two ads to try and gather support. One on Reddit and the other on Facebook. They actually did pretty well as far as page views went, but as you can see the Twitter & Facebook buttons sit at around 50. Not ideal conversion… 🙂

Here are some of the stats from that weekend, major boost in traffic compared to what this little ol’ blog normally gets.

In all honesty the hire me page and video helped a lot, but as you can read, it wasn’t the true reasons I was hired. They hired me for my passion and individualism for wanting this job. I wanted to work at Panera,  and I wanted to work at the local bike shop, but more than anything I was hoping to make some sort of an income at those jobs. I do love Panera’s food, but how passionate am I really about selling pastries and sandwiches? I love, love, love riding my bike, but would I really be passionate about tuning up bike after bike after bike? I just want to ride mine.

These potential jobs didn’t spark the intensity from me that WooThemes did. It’s plain to see too, I didn’t create a video or page for them did I? So, for me it all boils down to this. Everyday I wake up excited to answer emails, gather feedback, work on blog posts, manage different Woo properties, etc… I have a fire inside to put my all into this company and hopefully help them to continue their great success. I also appreciate that I’m not just a pawn to them, my perspective and feedback is valued no matter how much of a noob I am. One of the benefits of working for a smaller company. 😀

So in your job search, definitely show some enthusiasm. Be unique and be you, I was always frustrated throughout school that I couldn’t create a unique resume. Always had to use the same layout, font and structure as everyone else. Well, I think being true to myself this time definitely paid off as I got a job I could only dream about. Best of luck in the future, and thanks again for the support. 🙂