CAREER COACHES BRING a world of instincts, interests, and experience to the task of helping job candidates put their best foot forward. This month, for example, we feature an Apprenticely coach/talent recruiter who’s been studying Japanese since she was a teenager and advises her candidates to march to their own drumbeat—that is, as long as they know how to write a professional email.

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Where did you grow up, and what kind of career did you think you wanted to pursue?

I grew up in the Conway/Morrilton area. And I wanted to teach English in Japan. That was my biggest dream, so I’ve been studying Japanese from the time I was 14.

That’s quite a goal. What made you want to do that?

I really loved the Japanese culture and was very much interested in being in a place that was a bit more community oriented. In Japan’s culture, it’s not really about individualism there, whereas in America, we’re all about the individual. There’s good and bad in both, in the extremes. But I was very interested in traveling and experiencing something that was so different from what I grew up in.

Tell me about growing up in that part of Arkansas.

My world was very limited because I lived in the country, so we didn’t have access to cool technology or cool opportunities to go experience new things. Basically, it was a farm area with churches everywhere, and that was it. So my world view was limited to Baptist churches and farming.

The biggest thing we had in Morrilton was the high school. That was where everybody was on Friday nights. I mean, there was nothing else to do. It was your typical Southern small town, very limited. And Japan intrigued me for a few different reasons. They have bigger cities there. Tokyo’s a huge city, Nagasaki’s a huge city, all these really different places.

I’ve never been to Japan, and it’s still my dream. I’d love to buy property and live there. I guess Japan for me has always been about something so completely opposite of what I know.

You wanted to teach English, so you’re a fellow English major?

Yes. Graduated with my degree in 2017 from UCA with English as my major, my minor being Asian studies with a focus in Japanese, and then also a focus in ESL—English as a Second Language. I didn’t go the teaching route for a couple of reasons, mainly because they were focused on teaching English in America, not ESL. But I could add on some ESL courses to my major and have that as my focus, so that’s what I ended up doing.

So you must be a reader. What do you like to read?

I was introduced to medieval literature in college through one of my professors, and I really loved it and enjoyed it. I don’t really have a favorite per se, but anything that’s similar to Lord of the Rings is right up my alley.

I also love plays, and my husband got me into sci-fi, so I’ve been reading some of that as well. Finally, I’ve been really enjoying reading period pieces, specifically from Korea. Anything to do with Asian history, I’m very interested in.

Speaking of your husband, he brought his guitar to one of the parties, so he’s obviously a music lover. How about you?

Oh my gosh, I’ve been feeling very nostalgic lately, so I’ve been listening to late ’90s, early 2000s pop, stuff that was popular when I was younger: The Cranberries, The Fray, some Matchbox Twenty, The Goo Goo Dolls, the Spin Doctors, Everclear. I miss the good old days.

One of the questions I like to ask is, Do you have heroes?

I do. I don’t know if anybody would know them because they’re my heroes, it’s personal. I admire the actress Fran Drescher. Besides being a fashion icon, she’s also stood up for what she believes in. She never had children—that wasn’t something that really interested her, and, as a fellow childless woman, I really looked up to her about that. She followed her own passions.

She’s also a big advocate for unions. Actually, I think she’s the president now of the Screen Actors Guild. She was really integral during that writer’s strike. But she just really inspires me to walk to the beat of my own drum, follow my own life path, not letting others influence me. Her husband ended up coming out as gay, and they still have a really great relationship to this day. She still loves him and supports him, but their relationship looks different. I thought that was really beautiful. A lot of people would feel betrayed for something like that, but I think the way she handled it was very classy and just shows her heart. But yeah, she is just so herself. Dolly Parton is another one who really inspires me.

In a sense, the two of them are alike. Dolly does that aw shucks thing, and Fran was that ditzy woman on “The Nanny” TV show. But obviously they’re both focused, tough-as-nails women.

Very much so. I like women who use their femininity to break barriers for other women.

That leads me to your work at Apprenticely. You do IT recruiting for our ReSkill program, and on LinkedIn you bill yourself as “Equity Advocate and Ally IT Recruiter, Career and Growth Coach.” Tell me about the importance of that to you.

I was raised by a strong woman, a single mom who worked two jobs. But it’s the little things, like the fact that she drove this big old Chevy pickup truck that was a standard shift—that was our vehicle growing up. I know it might seem silly for some people, but my mother very much showed me you don’t have to accept the limitations that people put on you because of your gender.

That was huge, probably the biggest influence on me. I don’t really fit into a very feminine mold in a lot of ways. I’m a very tall woman, almost six foot tall. I was never a small dainty person. I’ve got a size 11 shoe in men’s size—I mean, I’m a big girl. So because I didn’t really fit into that mold of “a feminine woman,” I was just like, Okay, fine. I’m going to do what I want to do anyway since I’m not feeling accepted in this one space. Let me just be who I want to be.

And I’ve definitely still felt limitations being a woman. I’ve even gotten the question in interviews, “What are you going to do in this role once you have children? How are you going to handle that?” Without them even knowing that that’s not a part of my plan.

I understand in a way, but also, that’s illegal. You can’t ask that in an interview. I have walked out of an interview because of inappropriate questions being asked. I’m like, “You know what? I don’t think this is the place for me. Sorry.”

I know that opportunities feel limited in this world, and sometimes we will box ourselves in if it’s just to get by, to put food on the table. But I firmly believe in my heart that you attract what you put out. If you don’t want that energy to come back to you, if that’s not the position you want to be in, you will find the right thing for you. The right company culture will come.

Personally, I think more important than any paycheck is, are you going to feel respected there? Are you going to feel like your ideas are valued? Whether you’re a man or a woman, younger or older, Black or white, are you going to feel like you matter?

How do you bring all this background, these interests, and this philosophy to bear in your work at Apprenticely?

For me, coming into this role, it’s super important to have empathy for the people you’re speaking with, because not everybody had that same encouragement that I had growing up—to be confident, to be proud of who you are, to be proud of your skills and okay with not being good at everything.

I’ve talked to a lot of people, especially women, who are just now entering the workforce for the first time. Maybe they got out of high school, immediately got married and had kids, and for a lot of them, that’s where their self-worth is—being a mother, maybe being a housewife, something along those lines.

I have to come into it with empathy that they’re starting from a different place than I do, and their values are different than mine. And that’s okay. The fact that they’re bringing in something different is valuable. They have a different perspective than I do. For me, a big philosophy is to listen and learn from them. They’ve got something to teach me as much as I have something to teach them. That’s really it for me. I try not to go into anything thinking I’m the expert.

And you deal with IT mostly, right? We’ve seen IT change a lot in the three years you’ve been at Apprenticely. How has this change affected your candidates, and how do you talk to them about it?

For people who are trying to get into it right now and they have zero IT background, it’s going to be difficult. The entry-level positions are just not there. That being said, for almost every single job that I see, whether it’s directly IT related or not, you’re going to need to learn how to use A.I. We offer courses now covering A.I. essentials, A.I. prompting, how to use A.I. responsibly. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, you’ve got to learn how to use it.

We’ve definitely moved away from entry-level positions with things such as coding and developing. Entry-level positions are still there for IT support, which is amazing—that’s a really great place for people to get their foot in the door, and it’s typically going to be the easiest pathway for them too, rather than coding and developing, skill sets that take time to develop. I’m seeing that as a general trend in IT.

I’m also seeing a lot of people who’ve been in it who are getting laid off recently. And that brings up another point that I really want to make: People have got to learn how to network. I’ve talked to so many people who don’t want to network.

They’re terrified of it. They don’t know how to do it. They don’t know what it looks like, and it’s so different in a post-COVID world.

There are so many more things online, but you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to jump on the Zoom call. You’ve got to send that follow-up email thanking them for their time, making yourself stand out, building that rapport with people.

But they’ve never had to do it before. I mean, I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to recently who’re like, “I’ve never even had to interview for a job. I’ve always had a job in my field.”

More and more people don’t know how to do community in general, and that’s a bigger issue than just networking.

What do you mean, “do community in general”?

Community: Do you know who your community is? Do you know the companies that are in your community? Do you go to town hall meetings? Are you invested in your community? I feel like the people who are, are the people who’re actually finding jobs. They’re visible, and they interact with other people who know about opportunities.

We hear a lot about soft skills, and I want to know: How does your liberal arts background come into play in your work with Apprenticely?

I’m sorry to say that a lot of people these days don’t know how to communicate through the written word. They don’t know how to send a professional email. I get emails with no punctuation, literally saying things like, “Hey, hey, hey,” like they’re Fat Albert or something.

And I’m like, “I’m your recruiter, dude, not your buddy.” It’s a professional relationship and people weren’t taught how to write a professional email or just to communicate professionally. So while I sometimes get frustrated, my background helps me help them learn to communicate better.

That’s a big part of my job. When they write me an email like the one above, I send them an email back and say, “Hey, here’s the answer to your question. Also, here’s a link. Let’s talk about how to write a professional email because I want you to make the best impression you can.”

Researching is another skill I use in this work. I had to learn how to do research for my degree, but people today typically don’t know how to research properly. They believe everything they see on the Internet. So it’s been helpful for me once again, because I can start teaching people even little things like how do you know that the job you’re applying for is a real job? There are fake jobs being posted out there. I never knew my degree would be used in this way, but I’m happy I can use what I’ve learned to help others.

Last question: What would you like people to know about Apprenticely that maybe they don’t already know?

I guess one is that we exist. It’s amazing to me that a lot of people still don’t know that we’re available to them.

I also want them to know that ours is a community-driven effort. If we don’t have our partnerships, we can’t succeed. This is not something we can do by ourselves. We can’t hire people and put them to work.

So if people want us to succeed, they need to be, one, involved in their communities. They need to know what’s going on in their communities. This is a big part of client development—we’re making those partnerships with community organizations as well as with employers.

I would love people to know that the candidates who come into our programs are such hard workers that they want to succeed. They just need that opportunity. And without our community, we can’t give them that opportunity.