Landing a Job in Podcasting: Insider Tips – PCI 392

[Speaker 0]:\nIf you really, really want a job at a specific place, that application, that resume you submit needs to be custom. If you got your heart set on being at a certain location, there's no guarantee. But I guarantee if you really focus it, you're gonna make it into that second stack of let's talk to them. \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nYou're listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting. With all the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting, welcome. Let's dive in. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nThis is Todd Cochran, CEO and cofounder of Blueberry Podcasting. \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nAnd I'm Mike Delve, VP of customer relations here at Blueberry. \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nAnd I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist here at Blueberry. So securing a job in the podcast industry can be a bit more creative than other fields. There's no formal training, but if you have the skills, you'll be lucky enough to find something. I mean, the three of us did. Todd provided this to all of us a little bit. You know, finding a job \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nin the podcast industry really involves a mix of networking, skill development, strategic job searching, and we're gonna give you some steps here to help you navigate your way into a podcasting career. And I will start out by having a failed podcast does not give you a license to be a consultant. \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nIt's true. You know, a little tongue in cheek, but, you know, Mike is probably gonna weigh in here quite a bit today. Yeah. Here here the thing, you know, if you're gonna you're gonna be on a podcast platform as a podcaster, you first have to have a podcast. Well, same thing with being a consultant to other podcasters. You gotta have some sort of skill that they don't have that you can sell to them that's of value. And if you don't know what you're doing, well, what are you gonna do to help other people? Well, there's really two sides to this too. There's, like, coming to work for Blueberry. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nRight. The skills you needed there, you need marketing, you know, all the typical job skills. And then there's the skills to help podcasters. So there's really kinda a couple of different. And then, you know, there's associated companies that have podcasting subsets of businesses. So there's jobs. Companies, \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nall kinds of stuff. And Well, yeah. Okay. There's there's \n\n[Speaker 2]:\ndefine what you are interested in. Right. Yep. And then figure out what you are also good at and how you can use that in something applicable in podcasting. You know, Mike, you're you got here because you had been having your own podcast. Todd, you just built this from the ground up at the beginning of podcasting. I worked in radio and had marketing experience. Right. It all kinda came together \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nfor all three of us in in different ways. But just as a podcaster alone, if you're doing most of the stuff yourself, you have some skills that Absolutely. May be useful, you know, maybe not a podcasting company, but maybe a company that needs to start a podcast that doesn't know anything about it. And you having your own show, you already have skills like managing feeds and distribution, show planning, production, recording, editing, all that stuff \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nthat the average person may not have or the average company that wants to start a podcast might not have. And and more often than not too, what will happen is, and I've seen this happen time and time again, is that someone is listening to your show will say, oh, I would like this individual to be the voice of my business or maybe they're gonna fit the role of, so your potential employer will know more about you than you will know about them when maybe that phone call comes. So it really kinda works as a content creator if you play your cards right. And this is what happened with Kirk, my executive producer of my show. And he was picked up largely because of the stuff he did for my show by a radio station to be for a nighttime talk show being an executive producer over there. So, again, that wouldn't have come unless he had done well, first of all, he was doing his own podcast. And number two, he was producing mine, you know, doing the preproduction work. So I think that, no matter where you're working in the space or not, if you have your show, you're definitely in a better position. And it's really one thing that most people don't think about is if you are if you have a job today that is let's say you're in PR or marketing or you're on executive level or wherever you are, and if your job might just your current job just may give you the additional qualifications on top of what you're doing your podcast about to land that big job in a company. Now the economy has been a little bit tight and there will have been a lot of layoffs, but there's huge opportunities for those that are that are hungry out there. And it probably starts, and this is something I've never had to do. So I I can't speak to this at all. It's really building a portfolio or a resume per se. \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nI might I might disagree there is because in the grander scheme of things, you know, in the in the traditional sense of finding a job and you hear things like building your own portfolio, that that experience that you have, as long as you're kind of documenting that hands on experience and kind of have a way to showcase what you are doing to a potential employer, \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nthat is really what they're looking for. So And, again, I I said I hadn't had to do that personally, but I think it's a value for sure. Oh, yeah. Building a portfolio. My son is building a portfolio for his photography business now, you know, and and I think that's what everyone that is striving to get into a business has to have, is is a portfolio. And that is not necessarily just the resume that's gonna get you in when you're working in a creative marketplace like this. Yeah. Your portfolio more so is just a great example of \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nyour your accomplishments. As opposed to a traditional resume, it's saying, like, here is the actual work of what I have done alongside, like, here's how I got here. So I think it's just it's a fancier way, but it's also a lot more helpful. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nIt's kind of ironic too, is one of our talking points today is contribute to existing podcast. Well, in my case, exactly, I said within my audience, I'm looking for someone to help me produce the show. Mhmm. And a fan of the show said, hey. I'll do it. Now I did pay. There wasn't a free you know, I compensated him for his work. So but at the same time, not everyone would be in a position. So maybe \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nThat's kinda how Blueberry started too. You called out you called out on your show. You Yeah. This person, that person, the other person, and here we are. So maybe even \n\n[Speaker 0]:\na volunteer position. You know, maybe you're running social media. Maybe you're helping show notes. Maybe you're helping create chapters, bio. So you whatever it may be, whatever you're contributing, that adds to the CV or the portfolio of work that when you're getting ready to apply to work within the podcasting industry, AKA and again, that's full spread whether it could be going to work for, you know, for This American Life or or, you know, going to work for for a company like Blueberry or wherever it may be in the scheme, having all this information definitely raises your street cred. Because the last thing I wanna do is spend six months training you on what podcasting is and the benefits and blah blah blah. I'm gonna hire somebody. I want them to be able to at least have \n\n[Speaker 1]:\na knowledge of, okay. I I've got a little bit of background on podcasting even though you may not be directly working in the space. Is it so we don't have time in this economy to spend six months training somebody. And if you do get in at a, you know, a company like Blueberry in this instance, you know, even if you're hired for one thing, you're gonna be doing a whole bunch of other stuff. Most of these companies are are somewhat small and, you know, we don't specialize as much. So, you know, the broader skill set you bring to the table, the the more likely you're gonna get hired. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nAnd I would hope too that anyone that was going to apply and, again, I know it's a big stretch because it's a little bit of a different world now. I would hope for at least that they would have looked at the about page and maybe listened to the last episode of this podcast. You know, you know, in in a minimum, you know, if you really want that job, I know Mackenzie, you know, your perspective might be a little different on this, but I think going into the work in an industry, you know, you you gotta put a little time in. \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nI think it's definitely definitely different getting a job nowadays than it was when I started here in twenty fifteen. I I did my homework about the company. I definitely, you know, found out that you guys were also podcast creators. The the position now is so different in that people are applying to just dozens and dozens of jobs, like, a week because hiring has just Yeah. Changed and gone downhill in the past couple years. But I think in this scenario, it there's there's the the expectation of, like, a culture fit as well Yeah. With anything that has to do with creative content. That might not necessarily be the case at every type of position because, like, Blueberry doesn't create content. But depending on if We are now. Something that you it's depending on, like, if you are, you know, kinda pitching stuff like that of, like, here, we should do a show about this, that I think is when people need need to be, like, more diligent of, like, I wanna look up this person and see what they like. It's all there's so much networking involved that is that is widespread online as well as events and conferences. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nYou know, and I think too is very evident when we were just at a recent event. Had someone come up to the table and introduce themselves, asks me if they if we were hiring, tell me the type of job he was looking for. And I kind of appreciated that because he I could tell that he'd paid the fee to come to the event because he wanted to work in the podcasting space. And he, you know, went direct to the source, and he went table to table to table. And I was like, that's that's it. Something about us though. That's that's an in that's an individual who's gonna get a job, you know, because he's engaging and going direct to source and probably, you know, ninety nine percent of the other candidates would never consider doing that. But \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nit does tie into social media and forums, events, and conferences. And It doesn't hurt to be a stalker. I mean, that's how I got here. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nSo I don't know if you were a stalker per se, Mike, but maybe, you know, a little. I hung around a lot. I think you were a productive stalker, which changes \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nthe perception a little bit. Hope you were were trying to help. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nBut, you know, just like any other company, we we post the job boards. \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nAnd How I got started here. It was Yeah. Very basic. We need an admin assistant type of person. I was fresh out of college and knew I wanted to work in this type of medium and just kind of went in knowing that you guys I you specifically said in an interview, we need help in all areas. We just need another we need another person on board. Right. And I I was very, like, enthusiastic about that as well. I was like, okay. I would like to learn a little bit of everything as well. So, you know, that's just kinda how it evolved. It's a bad analogy, but I used it in a meeting today. I said, I need I need another ditch digger. You know? Yeah. Yeah. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nAnd that's really you hate this you you don't want to imply it that way, but when you're a small company, you know, there is sometimes you put a job posting out and you say, okay. These are all the tasks that we're gonna want. And next thing you know, you got eighty two tasks on the list and people see that, and they go, oh my god. I don't wanna work there. Reality is we have eighty two tasks for each person sometimes. So but, you know, we try we do try to focus. It's not like, Mike, I'm gonna send you over and make you start coding next week. That's that's not gonna happen. But I think it's important and as we look at resumes, you know, I used to laugh when people would tell me because I never, you know, I never read resumes in my entire life. And and and then someone said, oh, you'll look at a hundred resumes and you'll get three or four that you pick. And I tried to experiment many years ago. We were I can't I don't know who we were hiring, but I had listly essentially printed out, like, a hundred resumes. And And maybe it wasn't that many. And I had picked three or four to go to the next level. And my daughter was at the house, and I said, hey. Just read through these resumes, and you pick the ones that you think should should go to the next level. She picked, like, five I think I set aside five or six, and she got, like, more than eighty percent of the picks that I picked, and she didn't even know the business. And so make sure that resume and make sure that CV is up to date and it's focused and and, you know, don't spray and pray that you're gonna get an interview. Make sure that that make sure that that one page, no more than a page resume has enough there to to catch my catch our interest. Because really we're scanning and we're looking and say, oh, and and we don't care about age, all that stuff. We're looking at qualifications. And I I think that's, you know, a big part of it is we used to get so many resumes, and we're just like, no. Why did that person apply for this job? So I think it's important to to be very, very specific when you're when you're when you're job hunting. \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nI'm sure at this stage, it's incredibly discouraging the way that people have to just kinda do that. Would you call it, like, the spray and pray nowadays? Spray and pray. Yeah. Yeah. Of, you know, people have to just apply to so many, but that's just kinda where it comes down to let me get like, the one that you're really the ones that you're really interested in and think that you actually have a chance, that's the ones that you really, really need to be doing your homework on because we we hopefully, like and other companies, you know, find that person. It just has to stand out that way of this would be a logical fit, and they actually, like, have the interest. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nAnd I and it doesn't take a lot, you know, to to attract it it doesn't take a lot of effort. Let's put it this way. You can tell that as you're reviewing job applicants that bunch of times there's been no effort at all put into, \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nyou know, they just they said, oh, here's one. I'm let me throw it at that and really wasted my time. Yeah. Reminds me of guest pitches for shows. You know, you get these these you know, this would be a great guest for your podcast, and and it's totally not somebody that would even be close to your subject matter. Well, same thing with a job. You know, if you say, I'd love to work for Blueberry as a voice over artist. Well, we don't need a voice over artist. You know what I mean? Again, \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nin the future, if you've got the right outreach, maybe. So it's about that it's about pitching, you know, that cold outreach. \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nYou could be in the right place at the right time on a cold outreach. Actually, that does kinda remind me because I remember when I was interviewing, they were like, what have you been doing before this? And I was like, well, I just graduated. I just worked at the Abercrombie and Fitch headquarters for a while, because that's in Columbus. And I was like, I just did hiring. Like, I know it has nothing to do with this, but I just worked in the HR department. And they were like, well, actually, we we will hopefully be hiring more people in the future. So that would be helpful. And I was like, okay. Great. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nYep. We do that. But again, I think if you really, really want a job at a specific place, that that application and that that resume you submit needs to be custom. If if you got your heart setting on, you know, being at a certain location, you know, you need to put that to any it's not there's no guarantee, But I guarantee if you really focus it, you're gonna make it into that second stack of let's talk to them. Yeah. You'll have you'll have a chance better than just Then the then the ninety the ninety percent of the resumes that I basically say no to. And it's all now online. So we just review and it goes into one column. Yes or no. And then the yeses are reviewed by a group and that those that get yes is then get to the first stage of being able to do an interview. So \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nit's it's not that complicated. But if your resume sucks, you're you're you're a goner. One one of the key things is also staying up to date on the industry. I mean, podcasting changes like you wouldn't believe. You know? Like, last last week, we did we're talking about exclusive content and how that's changing. Well, the whole industry changes, and what's needed might shift. And if you're keeping up with it, that that shows that you're really interested in the industry. And it's, you know, it's really important if you're gonna do freelance, you know, being a a consultant or whatnot. If you don't know what's going on in the industry, you're not gonna be as useful to your to your company or your own freelancing. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nI I probably spend, hours a week, you know, probably four or five hours a week listening to shows about the industry. They're created by people in the industry to keep up with what's going on in the industry and getting different perspectives. And if you're, you know, you're doing that and you actually want to be in the podcast industry, having that up to date view because, you know, if if something has happened, let's say, in the last two or three weeks, and you're in the interview and I ask you, what do you think about x, y, and z? And maybe if you have been listening to shows about the industry, you would have caught up on what's new and not what was. I think that's really, really important as Mike said because for even for me, I spend a lot of time keeping up with what is going on overall. And one way to date yourself is to, you know, to be a year behind on what's really happening. Yeah. If you if you say, hey. I wanna get podcasts on iTunes in an interview, you're you're out. So freelancing is big right now. Websites like Upwork, I, you know, I have people some people really have bad things to say about Fiverr. \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nBut when I was on a budget, and fiber fiber really helped me in a few ways. Good and bad, they're just like anywhere else. And, you know, if you stand out on fiber, if you're gonna be doing that kind of work, you know, that you could do alright there. And, again, you know, there's Upwork freelancer. There's there's lots of podcast related stuff you can do on your own or you can kinda create your own job. I mean, that's what you did, Todd. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nWell, I kinda fell into it. It it was, you know, made it up as we went. Yeah. \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nBut, you know, you could do consulting about content and production, that kind of thing. You can do technical consulting that you know, if I ever had to go freelance, that's what I'd be doing. You could be an audio editor. You could be a text editor, you know, for show notes and whatnot. You know, you can do a lot of this stuff freelance. In fact, a lot of podcasters hire these people. And, you know, the the one thing you gotta watch out for is know what you're doing. Because the worst phone call I get in tech support is my client blah blah blah blah blah. You know, then I brace for impact because a lot of times it's something that they should have known. \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nAnd, you know, not that they're all bad. In fact, there's some really good ones out there. But, you know Well, there's different ways to go about it. And being being a consultant, whether it's tech, content, whatever, kind of the biggest thing that you're doing on a regular basis is just problem solving. My client has this problem. If I don't immediately have the answer, now my problem is figuring out, like, what is the answer to this. And and the scenarios in which someone just calls you up and says, like, I know absolutely nothing, is disappointing when they haven't done any research other than I will ask this guy. That's the the initiative has to be there for, I feel like, these people to do, like, a truly good job. They have to be, like, head down trying to figure out what is the good solution to this. Not just, this guy's gonna tell me one way about it. Sure. But, you know, there's there's \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nlots of things in that you can do that don't require a lot of knowledge, you know, like voice over. You know, if you got a good voice and a good recording setup, man, you can make some decent money doing intros and outros and and other kind of voice over work. Or you could you know, if you've got the talent, you could host other people's podcasts. You know, that that's a good gig to get into. If you're if you're of, you know, like a broadcaster, you know. I know a lot of x radio people that that now host podcasts and not necessarily their own. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nI think though when it comes to stuff outside of consulting and being an editor, hosting, you know, basically being a host around the podcast, if you want to get into a company and you're on ground level, being an intern at Blueberry has paid huge dividends. Yep. We've hired, most most of our dev team started as interns. They intern for a season. Sometimes folks came back for a second, and we're like, hey. When you get ready to graduate, we, you know, we call us first. I've heard you say that countless times over the years of whenever you graduate, whether that's next semester or three years from now, call us. Yeah. Call us. And, you know, you've got a home here if we have a job offering, a job opening, and that has, that's paid dividends. Now if I have to go out and do a search for a new employee at some point, let's say we have a team member that moves on to a new opportunity, the first thing I'm gonna go go to is I'm gonna go back to the intern list, and we're going to reach out to those that were interns here before and say, hey. What are you doing these days? You're looking for a new challenge. Because if you do a good job as an intern at a company, you are almost, you know, with few exceptions guarantee. And I think this runs across the entire industry. Mhmm. You're almost guaranteed a job. So, you know, we we had a intern that that we absolutely loved. We gave her a a made her an offer on a job. She she took the offer, but a better opportunity shortly thereafter appeared for her. We're happy for her. She went off to a different position and is doing what but it was exactly what she wanted Mhmm. And couldn't be happier to have been part of that progression for that individual. So I think in the end, with the way the world is today, people are just happy to hold on to their job because of the way the market is, but there's still opportunities out there. \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nYeah. That also brings up the fact of, like, whether you're doing an internship with an actual company or if you wanna go more so the create your own content route. Something that we just released is a fifty percent discount for college students to purchase our hosting plans. You know, if that that hands on experience that people are trying to get, we wanna make it more affordable and easier for you to access. So when people are signing up, they can get fifty percent off whatever hosting plan that they're getting for a full year just because we want students to be able to create content, and we know that the the lasting you know, \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nthe future of podcasting is younger creators. Yeah. But it's it's addicting. You know? You you get a little success in a podcast, and and you wanna stick with it. Mhmm. You know, getting getting a cheaper price, you know, while you're in school, that'll definitely help kick start you. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nYeah. Having hey. If if I was doing a job interview and it was someone that was getting ready to graduate and some I said, what, you know, what do you think about the podcasting space? I said, well, I do my own podcast. I mean, you immediately almost go to the top of the stack Yeah. At least from a from a from a consideration standpoint. There's lots of other factors, obviously, but, you know, you have definitely increased at least if you wanna work within this space. And it doesn't matter if you go to work for NPR, you go to work for Amazon, you go to work for, you know, whoever you're going to work for. And you're in this media space, if it's media related, and you've got a podcast under your belt. Successful or not, doesn't matter. It just matters that you did one or maybe you're continuing to do one. I don't even know if I'd go listen to it. It was just a simple fact that, hey. I I got a clue here. I think it's it's huge. And if, you know, if you're gonna go to work for YouTube, would you not have a YouTube channel? I think you would. Right? You you would you would at least be trying. \n\n[Speaker 2]:\nOr at least appreciate what YouTube has. You know? You might not be a a creator, but probably a watcher. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nSee and that goes into something that I've always said has been part of the success we've had here. A large majority, everyone on the team, almost everyone that did not on the dev side, but almost everyone on the production marketing team has been involved. They're done or do or have had a podcast and understand the challenges of it. Or been on a been a guest on one. Because how can you how can you not be empathetic with the challenges of a creator if you're not \n\n[Speaker 1]:\ndigging that trench yourself, you know, or have dug that trench yourself and understand the challenges of growing the show. So And it doesn't, you know, have to be a super popular podcast. Just Yep. Get out there and do it, and that gives you the experience that gives you the technical, the promotion, all that stuff that you you you'll understand where the challenges are. \n\n[Speaker 0]:\nAnd that maybe there opens up an opportunity where you learn where the challenges are and maybe you're the one to have the solution to those challenges and being able to be a consultant in that specific area. So you never know. Mhmm. I think in our closing statement here is navigating podcasting can be both challenging and exciting. Yeah. We run into this every day here, and you have to have this continuous learning. You cannot it's, you know, I'm it's no secret. I'm getting a little older and you have to teach the old dog new tricks. You have to stay, you know, abreast of what's happening in the space. And if you don't, you'll time yourself out. So if this continuous learning and active engagement is really a key, you know, there's often said I've often come back from an events, oh, I wish I could hire so and so. You know? And I've all and I've said that, you know, kinda, you know, you get ready for a job change, definitely call me. You know? It it is one of those situations where \n\n[Speaker 1]:\nyou do by being involved in the community. People get to know you and it's it's could be a key to finding your place in the industry. This is this is always, you know, this this job has been I I call it my dream job, and I know that sounds corny and, you know, I'm not trying to suck up or anything, but this is awesome for for what I like to do. And, you know, you could find your place in podcasting for sure. Thanks for joining us. Come back next week. And in the meantime, head to podcast insider dot com for more information, to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. To check out our latest suite of services and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry dot com. That's blueberry without the e's. We couldn't afford the e's. \n\n