Alumni Spotlight: Zane Gray, Class of 2018

        This summer, we caught up with Zane Gray, a distinguished 2018 alumnus from JCBE, who shared his journey of navigating career changes and the vital role networking played in his success. As Zane recalled, “It was March of my senior year when I realized that this career path that I'd been planning for four years was not what I wanted to do.” His story highlights the importance of internships and building meaningful relationships to shape a successful career. Read the full interview below to learn how Zane’s connections guided him through his professional journey!

Q: Hi, Zane. Thank you for coming. Please introduce yourself to our students and briefly tell about your background. Where do you work?

A: Sure. So, my name is Zane Gray. I'm a recruiting manager with Robert Half here in the upstate of South Carolina out of our Spartanburg office. So, basically, what that means is I'm a real estate agent, but in the job market. I help people buy and sell jobs. I help companies fill needs, help candidates to get the job of their dreams, basically, this is the goal.

Q: Oh, okay. Interesting. Describe your career journey after your graduation. Maybe you had internships before that helped you to tailor your career path?

A: Sure. So, I did have several internships and those are very key for college students. I did make one critical mistake though. My three internships while I was in college, I interned with a law firm. Well, four. I interned with the State Senate down in Columbia. I interned with SpinX gas stations here in their business management training program, which was great, but I was an accounting student. So, my accounting internship in audit with EY. The problem was I waited until my last semester in college to do that. And I actually did it in Germany. I was doing the Landshut international dual degree program. And, so, long story short, I had kind of a uniquely bad experience. And I decided that was not something that I wanted to pursue. I think, if I had been in the US, it would have been much better. But anyways, the situation was, it was March of my senior year when I realized that this career path that I'd been planning for four years was not what I wanted to do. And the problem was that I had already committed to doing my master's of accountancy at Clemson, already paid the down deposit, and enrolled in classes. So, you know, it's a very awkward situation as you can probably imagine. But I was able to kind of get through that thanks to my network. I did this, I finished the master's of accounting program at Clemson and did the CPA exam and what not. But through my network, I was able to find another job out of Clemson that was really valuable. I enjoyed it.

Q: Did you always know what you want to do? So, where you started majoring in accounting, how you can envision your career path? Or you just play it by ear?

A: Yeah, well, there's a couple of things there. So one, I didn't get it right on the first try or the second try because I majored, I started out as a business management major. Then I transitioned over to accounting because basically if you are in management, you don't really understand accounting. But if you understand accounting, you can manage people and be a CFO.

So that's kind of why I wanted that. That background. And then the second thing is I made another pivot out of my Master's of Accountancy program. So, I kind of almost changed twice there. So, you definitely can do it. But in general, what you want to do is you want to think about things that you enjoy, that are in demand here in the upstate, because I could enjoy watching Netflix, but you're not going to get paid to do that, right? So, you have to look at, in this case, if you live in the upstate and you want to stay in the upstate, you want to look at what the surrounding economy demands, right? And then, you know, which one do I really like best? It looks like it's got a good kind of future career track. So, that would be my advice for students. And then as you go along, what's important is to do two things to one, build relationships in the field, because at the end of the day, you know, your professors are fantastic, but what you really want are, you know, if you want to, if you decide you want to be in marketing, right? What you really want to do is make friends with a bunch of marketing managers here in the upstate, who can tell you all about their day-to-day. And so you'll have a really good idea of what that career track looks like, what you need to do to get there, and if that's right for you.

And then the second thing is, and often these go hand-in-hand, is you want to get internships where you're able to actually experience that hands-on. Because a lot of times you'll find, hey, I really love this, or hey, I don't love this. And that's fine. But you need to have the experience because...

Q: To decide, yeah.

A: Yeah, exactly. Because, you know, the... four-year college degree, and sometimes our students will do a graduate degree in accounting or an MBA or master's in business analytics. You know, those can all be great options, but they're significant investments. It's expensive to do a graduate degree, for example, or even an undergraduate degree. So, you want to make sure that if you're doing that, you're going to get the return on investment, and that's what you really want to do.

Q: Yeah, exactly. How hard was it to get your first job after graduation? And how you ended up in Robert Half?

A: Sure. Well, there were basically two career pivots, which was kind of a career thing for me. So one, what I ended up doing after graduation was not what I thought I was going to end up doing, right? I was planning to go do the Master of Accountancy program at Clemson and either go be an industry staff accountant, as opposed to working in public accounting or even teach because I really liked interacting with students. So, as I was interviewing at community colleges, I was interviewing with some companies for like staff accountant jobs. I was interviewing to be a financial advisor. I was interviewing for a bunch of different things. And I got a call from Hannah Terpack, who's the director of career management at USC Upstate, who was my advisor and, actually, my boss. I sat in your seat when I was here. And she said, hey, Zane, I'm going for promotion to, you know, they want me to be a director of career services at the main campus. Would you write me a letter of recommendation?

And I said, sure. Here you go, Hannah. Done. And I didn't think anything about it. And then a couple weeks later, she calls me back and says, hey, I got the job. I need somebody on my team. Would you be interested? And I was like, this is not what I thought I would do with my life, but send me a job description. And I was a little bit uncertain as to long-term what I wanted to do at that time, but I knew that that would kind of make sense for me and I would really like working with her. So, I put a really heavy weight on working with someone that I knew I would enjoy working with. So that was one theme actually that carried over to when I joined Robert Half. This was not what I was planning to do with my life. I was actually planning to get into financial advisory at Bank of America, Merrill Lynch in Spartanburg made me a very nice offer. I got exactly what I wanted. But one of my buddies, actually, I went to Upstate with, the value of networking, had been bugging me to come join him at Robert Half for a couple of years. And I said, well, hey, I'm going to do something. And so, if you want to make me an offer that I'd be crazy to refuse, let's do it. And it ended up working out. It's not what I expected. But basically, the point there was the value of networking, a nd I really chose both of those roles because of the people that I knew I would be working with that I respected and would like working with. So, I’m fortunate, I think. I was right on both decisions.

Q: But no regrets, I guess.

A: 1No, no regrets.

Q: That's great. But I totally agree that the people and team that you work with matter. And sometimes it's even more... like crucial than the actual job that you do because you feel like comfortable. I know what I'm talking about because I had the same issue in my previous career path. Did you have any interesting transitions or challenges through your career journey and how did you overcome this?

A: Yeah, well, I'd already highlighted a couple. So specifically, you know, one problem. It's very important for college students to, one, do internships, and then, two, to do them early on in their career. I already mentioned that I waited until the second semester of my senior year intentionally, actually. I intentionally did this to have my accounting internship, which ended up being a problem. It made sense at the time, but it ended up being a problem. And I was really able to overcome that through my networking, and I knew people, right, and I was able to get the right job out of college. So that's how I overcame that. But yes. The two things that I would really encourage students to do are really focus on the internships and the networking piece.

Q: Okay. What advice would you give to current students facing the similar challenges? I guess like pay more attention to internships. It will be the key.

A: Yeah. And the George really does a great job of having career and internship fairs. As you know, you help plan them. So, I would really encourage students to, one, go to those events, go to the other events like the Wells Fargo Speaker Series and Financial Literacy Series and other events that are going on at the George. It's a great way to meet people. You know, you leverage LinkedIn. It's basically a Facebook but for professionals, right? And so, it's very easy or relatively easy to build out a professional profile, start connecting with your professors, people you meet at these events here at USC Upstate, and then ultimately kind of reach out and to kind of bridge the gap in the communities.

A couple things, you know, one, specifically with LinkedIn, you can reach out to folks who are in whatever field you're in. So, if you're a supply chain, you know, you can reach out to a supply chain manager at, you know, whatever company with a message and say, you know, “Hey, we haven't had the pleasure of meeting, but you look like you're where I want to be one day. Could I buy you coffee sometime?” Right. Yeah. And of course, not everyone will answer you. And some people may say no, and that's fine. But some will. I mean, some of our students, you know, have gotten interviews with CEOs and other kind of well-known folks just by doing that. And so that's a very valuable networking tool that I would encourage folks to use. And then also you can join organizations in the community that are specific. So obviously we have like internal here …

Q: Like professional associations?

A: Yes, precisely, yes. So obviously we have like our own internal accounting club here at USC Upstate that students participate in. But externally in the Upstate you have the Institute of Managerial Accountants that has a Spartanburg chapter and a Greenville chapter. And you have the South Carolina Association of CPAs that has both a Greenville chapter and a Spartanburg chapter. And so, for example, what I would do if I were a student, and this is where I didn't do as good of a job. I kind of joined the internal organizations, but I didn't participate as much in the external organizations. And those are the ones that, for the purposes of building your network and internship seeking and job seeking. That is more important. So, I would encourage that.

Q: Okay, thank you. What are your favorite memories of being a student at the George?

A: It's probably the people for me. The professors were fantastic. We had a great group of students. I've got long-lasting friends, a lot of folks I'm still in touch with. I do business now with a lot of the folks that I went to college with, which is important. A note on always having a good reputation, which is very helpful on the back end. Specifically, a lot of the events, you know, obviously the classes are generally great. Sometimes they're harder than you want them to be. But so, you know, I really like the events like the career fairs and the speaker series or, you know, things like VITA that the college business does.

Q: It's more like volunteer stuff, but still you.

A: Yeah, things of that nature. Because you're growing and developing in your career, but you're having a really good time doing it, basically. Yeah. It's kind of work, but it's fun at the same time, if that makes sense.

Q: Yeah, it does. Can you share a particular success story or maybe a proud moment of your career?

A: Sure. So, my partner Tim and I were basically tasked a couple of years ago with building the Spartanburg office for Robert Half for our specific line of business. Tim had worked with Robert Half for several years, but he just came over to a new line of business that he had worked in before. And then I joined him as well. And so basically what we're doing for the greater Spartanburg area and also Western North Carolina, we were able to grow that business very quickly. And specifically, there was a point last year, I've been too busy to check the metrics recently, but there's about 300 offices of Robert Half here in the US. And we were number one in the US by percentage of roles filled. Not in terms of our volume. The guys in Atlanta just blew us out of the water on volume. So that was definitely a proud moment. And we've had a very good time doing it, and we've been happy that we've been able to serve our clients and candidates in a way that generally everyone's very happy with.

Q: This is great. Actually, yeah, you have to be proud of this. Seeing the result of your work is always satisfying, especially when you see a good result. How did your time at the JCBE prepare you for your career? Maybe you gained some crucial skills or specific knowledge or maybe network was the turning point?

A: Yes, there's a few things. One, you're right, the networking is very helpful. In terms of technical skills, obviously the JCBE has different concentrations and I had an accounting concentration, so I can't...

Q: Now we have majors.

A: Majors, excuse me. It was before. I can't speak too much to what the supply chain concentration or major is like, but generally one, I found the accounting courses were very spot on in terms of what they were teaching and the applicability to the real world specifically. Microsoft Excel, and this is maybe a good news and a bad news. The good news is I was really thankful for the experience that we had being able to use that in some class projects. There's really no such thing as too much Microsoft Excel experience. And probably, you know, particularly, I'm sure if you go to work in management or supply chain, you know, you're going to be using it in a different way, right, than accountants do. But Microsoft Excel really makes the business world go round in a lot of ways. So, I really encourage folks to learn this, to learn and kind of hone in on some of those abilities. And, you know, there can be a lot of times where, you know, even if you're not, maybe not qualified on paper, but you impress someone and you're able to really communicate, you know, your skills, you can get a job that way. But yeah, off the top of my head, I would say that's a big one.

And then... What was the question again?

Q: How did your time at the JCBE prepare you for your career? Skills, knowledge?

A: Okay, yeah. Oh, well, here's another one. I did... When I was at the JCBE, I did the Landshut program. A lot of people are not familiar with that. So, it was an international dual degree program. And I was actually, I did it in four years. I think I was the first person to ever do it in four years. Normally it's a five-year program. But normally the way it works is by the time you are done, you get a bachelor's degree in business in whatever major from USC Upstate, plus a second degree in international business from our partner university in Landshut, Germany, which is near Munich. And so... You know, when you come out of the of a program like USC Upstate at the end, you basically have to communicate when you're trying to get a job. You know, what is unique about me. Right. Relative to, of course, you're competing with all of the other students that are graduating from Clemson and Lander and wherever. We're all great. And so, you know, that's one thing that I didn't necessarily do it to be unique, but it's one thing that helped me.

Q: You can emphasize this.

A: It was, yeah, you can emphasize that in interviews. You know, a lot of the employers here in this area, I mean, you have BMW and all of their suppliers, right, that happen to be German. So even if it's not necessarily German, there're a lot of international employers here in the Upstate. And they really value and understand those cultural differences. Just a couple of weeks ago, I closed a deal with a client out of the Asheville area. It was a German family-owned company, and one, it was helpful. I didn't have a full conversation with them in German, but it was helpful that I was able to speak some German to the plant manager who's German. And then two, the person we placed in that role was a USCF State alumni who I went to college with who also speaks some German, right? So that's a very real example of how it can make a difference.

Q: Great. What advice would you give current students about making the most of their time at the JCBE? How can they get the maximum of the opportunities they have?

A: Sure. So first, you do need to do well in class.

Q: Succeed academically?

A: Yeah. So first, you do need to do well in class. But maybe one thing people don't understand is it's usually not critical to have a 4.0 GPA. And I graduated with a 3.92, so I'm a fan of good GPAs.

Q: Tell me about this.

A: Generally speaking, what's going to be more important and make a bigger difference in your career are the internships that you have and the relationships that you build specifically. So if you give me a choice, and it's great if you can do both, but if you give me a choice between a student with a 4.0 GPA who has no work experience in college, they have no relationships or connections with whatever field they're trying to get into, versus a student who has a 3.4 GPA and they've done an internship or two and they're involved in whatever club or organization here at USC Upstate, or a club here in the Upstate and they're building relationships, going to career fairs and doing all those things. The person with the 3.4 GPA is going to beat the pants off the person with the 4.0 GPA who does nothing but study, right? Both in terms of their earnings. I don't know if you know this, but the average salary differential for students who do internships versus students who don't is between $ 5,000 and $10,000. So, normally, and I know that because…

Q: It's significant, especially at the beginning of your career, but I think it's overall like… You can feel this.

A: Yeah. I mean, when you're talking about entry-level salaries, depending on what field you're going into here in the upstate, $45,000, maybe $50,000, depending on what you're going into, you're talking about the ability to increase your earnings immediately by 10% to 15%. And I know this is true because I've placed USC Upstate students with and without internships into those jobs, and I have the offer letters in my inbox to back it up. So, it really is very real. So that's one big thing. And then, of course, again, the relationships.

Q: Okay, if we'll consider a student who doesn't work throughout the academic year but takes only summer internships, very narrowed down to their major, and another student who has a job to get by, to pay for the school, like some part-time job throughout the year, who will benefit most of their job experience? And this getting by job just to make the living will not match their major or concentration.

A: So, it's the students that do the summer internship that is focused on whatever their career field is that will see that additional money. You really don't give bonus points in terms of salary or hireability or anything like that for... you know, working at McDonald's or like I worked at SpinX gas stations while I was in college. It was a great employer, big, big fan. I'm still a customer to this day, but you know, that specific experience didn't, wouldn't necessarily have carried a lot of weight for me. What would have said as an accounting student would have carried a lot of weight as the audit internship that I had with EY because that's directly applicable to any entry level accounting job. Those are the students, the students that have those types of internships are the ones that are going to, have a much easier time finding a role, they're going to get hired quicker, and they're going to get paid more versus, you know, hey, I'm working 20 hours a week at Bojangles.

Q: Yes, but what about transferable skills? So they could, like, bring them on a table, but will it, like, make the difference?

A: What do you mean make the difference?

Q: So having, for example, two, like, continuing years of work experience for example, in SpinX or whatever, in some role, and you gain some transferable skills that you can bring on a table when you're looking for a job after graduation and just having, okay, six months of very narrow, specific experience during the internships. And it's not the same, but would it be... like the game changer or will just benefit you just a little?

A: It will probably just benefit you a little. And I did the exact same thing. I worked all throughout college. I was working, you know, 20 to 30 hours a week, every week. So, there are transferable skills for almost any job, right? So you can be, you know, working at Chick-fil-A or working at Starbucks as a barista and there are transferable skills to any industry because pretty much any job that you get out of college, you're highly likely to be working in a team environment. So, the ability to work well with others is very important. Any basic level of customer service is applicable to almost anything that you go into. Even if you're not directly in a customer service role, I guarantee you whatever organization you work with has a product or service that they sell, and we need to be very focused on what our customer is looking for and satisfying their needs and demands. The ability to manage time, to be punctual, to show up to work, to dress professionally, you know, all those things are very important. And they will definitely help you. There is nothing there that's going to harm you in terms of, you know, getting an entry-level role. But the point that I was making was that the most beneficial thing would be a focused internship in whatever field you're going into. And ideally, you do both.

Q: Oh, yeah. It would be nice.

A: It would be nice.

Q: Yeah. How students can... prepare themselves for ever-changing job market?

A: Well, because it's an ever-changing job market, what that means is…

Q: No chance to prepare.

A: Well, not so much. Not necessarily that, but the point is with it being an ever-changing job market, as you mentioned, the student has to be ever-changing.

Q: Yeah. So, you know, learn all the time.

A: So here, you know, even though we're a college of business, we're not limited to just business topics here. So, in science, there's the whole idea of evolution, right? Yeah. And the point is everything is constantly changing. All of the companies here in the upstate, they get new technology, they get new products, they get new services, right? And some, for example, the softwares that companies are using today, companies were not using them 8, 10 years ago when I was here as a student, right? What you have to have as an individual is, we as a college of business, do everything we can to stay up to date on tech tools and technologies and current practices. And, you know, our goal is to kind of give you two things, one, here's the best of the best that is today. That's going to kind of help you immediately right out the door. But then two, and I think perhaps even more important is the ability to learn and grow and evolve and develop long-term. And that's something it's, that's a skill that's difficult to teach, but it's really quite critical to have. Some people will do that in a tangible way through perhaps pursuing a graduate degree, an MBA or something like that, whether it's immediately after college or years down the line, or certain industry relevant certifications, you know, it's possible that there could be, you know, in human resources, for example, you have SHRM, that's the certification that, you know, most all HR directors and VPs have, right?

So, you know, that's something where a student might graduate in business management from Upstate and then go get into HR and then, you know, a couple years down the road they want to get promoted while they go back and do their firm certification right so we're always continuously learning and evolving as we grow along. And of course YouTube is very helpful it's informal, you don't get a degree, but you might be amazed how much you can learn.

Q: The tech people, I think, would be the great example because…

A: Sure.

Q: You don't have to have like, you can have a computer science degree, if you know how to do stuff, and you can show it and you have a portfolio or something like this. So definitely, if you have a knowledge, I think employers wouldn't be, like, too bothered with certificates if you can do the job. At least, that's how it worked in my country. If you can do the job, nobody cares. What advice would you give students who, they're, like, kind of sitting on the fence and do not know where to move, how to find the right path for them. So, they don't know what to do when they become adults, literally.

A: Well, so maybe the best thing to do is to begin with the end in mind when you're evaluating career options. So specifically, and I referenced this earlier, you can look at job boards like LinkedIn or Indeed or things like that. You can talk to career counselors here at USC Upstate. But basically, what you would want to figure out is in this, assuming you want to continue to live in the upstate of South Carolina area, which most of our students do, you know, what are the big fields that, you know, there's a decent number of opportunities, right?

If you're looking to be, you know, a leading biology, leading research biologist, Spartanburg, South Carolina is probably not for you. We don't have really big labs here, right? So, you know, you can look at... where there are really good opportunities and just kind of make a list of, okay, well, these are the fields that look like they're gonna be pretty good outlook and say, okay, well, which one of these do I like or not like? And then you can go try to meet some people in those fields, maybe do some internships and things of that nature. So, if it were me, I think that's probably how I would do it.

Sometimes students try to do it the other way and they try to say, well, what do I like doing? And I've seen some students make that mistake where it's like, well, I like doing this, but you may not necessarily be able to get a job in it, if that makes sense. So that would probably be my best advice.

Q: Okay. What are three things students should keep in mind to be successful in their transition from college to their first job after graduation?

A: Number one, do you know what percentage of all jobs are filled through networking?

Q: Like 60?

A: Yeah, you're about right. 70 to 80%, maybe 60. It depends on which article you read. I don't know an exact number, but the point is the vast majority of roles are filled through networking relationships. Both the jobs that I've had post-graduation have not existed online. There's not been a job posting anywhere. My phone rang and someone said, hey, we've got a cool opportunity. Would you consider it? And obviously that's a much better position to be in because someone's calling you and saying, hey, will you talk to us about this versus... you know, you being one of 150 applicants that apply for a job and you have to convince the company to talk to you, right? So, you know, number one thing is to build the relationships. I really can't stress that enough. And you really can't overdo it on that. You know, number two is internships. And then probably number three, you know, in addition to your classwork is the extracurricular involvement, you know, being, I mean, you don't have to be the president of the club or whatever, but just being involved in some organization whether it's at the George, on main campus, in the community, relevant to whatever your field is. I think if you do those three things, it's going to be almost difficult to fail. I mean, you're going to be highly likely to succeed.

Q: What skills or qualities do you think are the most important to success in the modern business world now?

A: The first thing is usually… so, you might be amazed at how many people just don't care or maybe aren't as passionate about their work as you might think. So, you know, I would say what you really want to do is you want to go into a field where you really love what you do to the point that you're really focused on it. You're always thinking about how can I get better and be better at this. The people who are, of course you have to be smart, but you have to be focused and determined and always improving and evolving. As we mentioned, kind of the lifelong learner to constantly hone and get better at your craft. And what happens is no one starts out being great at whatever they do. It just doesn't happen on day one. So you constantly get better and better. I'm constantly getting better and better. You know, we're good at what we do, but we can be a lot better. Right. And so it's a question of, thinking about how can I be better in implementing it. The people, you do need to have, you know, intelligence, right? And you do need to have, you know, some energy and some work ethic. But what's important is to kind of take those two things and try to figure out how to get better and better as you go along, right? And then of course, integrity is always, you know, critical, right? Because you want to do the right things the right way, even when no one's looking. And, you know, those things combined, they kind of snowball over time, right? To where you build a reputation over time and that's what you want.

Q: You're like placing the jobs, connecting employers, and recent grads a lot. What's probably the most common mistakes in the job hunt or resumes you see among recent grads?

A: So, do you mean specifically to resumes or to interviewing or just generally?

Q: Yeah, in general. Like, maybe something like beat all of the charts.

A: Well, so the first thing is in the job search, you have to have a very good resume. Then there's two things you need to have a very good resume. First is you have to have very good content to put on the resume, which is doing well in school and getting some internships and part-time jobs and being involved in community and extracurricular activities, maybe getting a minor or a double major, those sorts of things. So that's the content that you put on the resume. Like neat. Yeah.

But then the second thing is you have to format it appropriately, which is where a lot of times our career services team comes into play because students “I didn't know how to write a resume” and that's fine. But, basically, students need to make a good rough draft and then take that to career services so that they can make sure that it's in a good and presentable manner because, you know, you might be amazed. It's almost like, you know, applying for jobs with a bad resume is almost like trying to cut down a tree with a really dull ax. Like it just, you're not going to get very far. So, you know, number one, make sure the resume is in good shape.

Number two, you need to get that resume into the hands of people that are hiring, right? And under ideal circumstances, you would love to get it directly to the hiring manager. And that's why I point out it's really critical. And I think students, I underestimated this, and I think a lot of students do, that the relationships, which is why I've brought that up several times, is it's very good to apply on Indeed and LinkedIn. And those are very helpful job boards. I encourage folks to do that. But a lot of other people are doing that too, right? So that's kind of the equivalent of knocking on the front door of the company and saying, hey guys, can I get a job? It's usually a lot easier to kind of get in the back door or the side door where if you have, you know, relationships with a hiring manager, say if I'm in the, say if I want to get into human resources and I'm a student at USC Upstate, but I participate in the Spartanburg human resource SHRM chapter, right? So, it's quite possible that a human resource manager could come up to me as I'm approaching graduation saying, hey Zane, you know, my HR generalist just left to take another role. She got a promotion. I need someone on my team. Would you be open to have a conversation? We haven't even posted the job yet, but I'm letting you know about it. So this is a good position to be in. We much prefer this. So that's why we really prefer the, you know, relationships and networking angle.

And then third, once you do those two things, resume plus networking, relationships, job applications, that equals interviews. And of course, it doesn't matter if you do the first two things well, if you screw up the interview, you're not getting the job, right?

And what's important there is, one, to have researched the company beforehand, the people that you're meeting with beforehand, the specific job. And to come prepared with really three things.

First, you need to be able to answer the tell me about yourself question that starts basically every interview with a highlight of your specific experiences that would be tailored to a job and why you'd be a good fit. And then number two is you need to have a tool bag of talking points prepared. Prior experiences and internships, projects that you did in classes, things of that nature that tie back into here's how I can help you do this job and be an asset to your team and make your life easier. Remembering it's not about you. The employer is not going to give you a job offer because it's in your best interest. They're going to give you a job offer because it's in their best interest. You have to understand that. And then third, once you've done that and you've had those talking points, At the end of every interview, there's always what questions do you have for us? And it's important to come prepared with, here's five or 10 questions about the role. Tell me about your ideal candidate. You know, what projects, are there any specific projects I'd be working on in the first year? You know, tell me about that, you know, things of that nature.

Q: Like what would be the typical day on this role? Something like that.

A: Correct. Yes. So, you want to have a handful of questions prepared just to show that you've done your research, honestly, you're probably just gonna have questions naturally, but just to show that you've done your research, you're prepared, inquisitive, and kind of eager and ready to go. And if you do those three things, plus bonus points if you follow it up afterwards with a thank you note, preferably handwritten, but email works, and you do that across not just any one job, but if you do that across five or 10 jobs, you're highly likely to get the offer that you're looking for.

Q: What advice would you give yourself while you were here in college?

A: Yeah, well, there's a couple things. For one, and this is specific to accounting students or maybe a little bit specific. We have a program called VITA here at the George. It's volunteer income tax assistance where we help low-income families prepare their tax returns for free. I did not participate in that program, and I really wish I would have, and it even beyond accounting, I would encourage any students to participate in that because it's really good. It's basically internship experience you can put on a resume. And you're going to get class credit for it. And you're going to have a really good time doing it because the people in there are really good. And what's helpful is, you know, a lot of the tax topics that you learn, whether you go into accounting or not, just from personal individual income tax is going to be very helpful to you throughout your life. I've, just from tax topics, and of course, I was an accounting student, So, I took the tech, more technical accounting classes. But just from learning some of those topics, I might have already saved enough money to pay for my USC Upstate degree, just, from legally, minimizing your taxes. So anyways, that's one thing that I wish I had done that I didn't do.

A second thing is I wish I had been more involved in external organizations. You know, I told you, about how important those are. I was involved in a bunch of internal organizations. I was actually involved in too many. At one point I was in seven organizations, and I had to drop a couple of those. Like, guys, I'm good at time management. This is too much. Yeah. So, but, anyways, I wish I had done a better job of networking externally and participating in local upstate organizations relevant to specific industry groups. So that was probably thing number two.

And then thing number three was I really wish... I did do three internships, but I'll still say I wish I had done more. And importantly, I wish I had done them sooner. So those are probably... maybe the three things that if I went back that I would do differently.

Q: Great. Thank you so much for your time and thank you for sharing your experience with us.

A: Oh yeah, you're welcome.