Marketing Happy Hour - Career Advice That’s Out of This World | Sylvester Placid of NASA

Episode Date: August 12, 2021

It’s job hunting season and we’re here to share crucial career advice with you from NASA’s Communications Strategist and former public speaking professor, Sylvester Placid. Learn why Sylvester says “cover letters aren’t dead” and find out his top tips for landing a career for a large corporate organization. Grab a drink and listen in.  ----- Other episodes you'll enjoy if you enjoyed Sylvester's episode: Ask MHH: 5 Tough Career Challenges + How to Navigate | Cassie and Erica Productivity 101: How to Hustle Sanely | Jess Massey of Hustle Sanely How to Build Brand Loyalty | Kara Salazar of Southwest Airlines ____ Say hi! DM us on Instagram and share your favorite moments from this episode - we can't wait to hear from you!  Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. NEW: Check out our website! NEW: Join our email list! Connect with Sylvester on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/splacid/ Follow MHH on Instagram: https://instagram.com/marketinghappyhr Follow MHH on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketing-happy-hour/ Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter, Marketing Happy Hour Weekly: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/marketing-happy-hour-weekly-6950530577867427840/ Join our Marketing Happy Hour Insiders LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9238088/

Welcome, everyone, to the Marketing Happy Hour podcast, where you'll hear career-defining advice, powerful social media strategies, unique creative tips, groundbreaking influencer marketing tactics, and more from marketing experts that represent some of the world's leading brands. Go ahead, grab a drink, and join us for this week's episode. This week's update comes from social media today. TikTok recently shared advice on how brands can establish a presence on the platform and generate results they want to see. Their advertising motto is, don't make ads, make TikToks. And they say that the

four keys to an effective marketing strategy on TikTok are the following. One, engage like a user, meaning to join conversations and build a community. Two, think TikTok first, stating that creativity, culture, and trends start on TikTok. So thinking TikTok first allows your creativity to scale with the dynamic nature of the platform. Three, build a narrative, meaning start new conversations. And four, create with intent, noting that authentic creative content performs best because it resonates best with the TikTok audience.

Now, I think that's a great approach for brands on the platform. I know I scroll past the branded ads so quickly, but I do have a few brands that I follow because I just love the way they're using TikTok. They're using it not to push sales, but to build brand recognition and that brand love. So what do you think? Please feel free to slide in our DMs over on Instagram at Marketing Happy Hour. That's at Marketing Happy HR. This week, Eric is chatting with Sylvester, a communication strategist for NASA. Pretty cool job, right? Well, he's also a previous public speaking instructor and mentor for students at George Mason University. We're taking a career focus this week as Sylvester shares his best tips for interviewing,

landing a career with a large corporate organization, and the fact that he says cover letters are not dead. We've spoken to him in the past and walked away with some of the best career advice we've ever received. And we know you will too after listening to this podcast. Listen in with us. Hey, Sylvester, how are you? Hey, good, Erica. How are you? I'm doing pretty well. So as you know from our Clubhouse session, we do always ask our guests this, but what is in your glass tonight? It is marketing happy hour after all. So I am a sparkling water aficionado. So I just got back from Houston a couple of weeks ago, and they have a really good sparkling water. They're called big swing. You can only get it

in Texas. And I had to bring a lot of cans back with me. It's so good. It's so bubbly. It's, it kind of gets you through that tough go at the end of it. I enjoy having a glass but Topo Chico is kind of my my other favorite but I wanted to get this one while I was in Texas. What is the brand called again? It's called Big Swig. Big Swig. And is it flavored or is it just bubbly? It's flavored. The one I go for is Key Lime. It's a little bit, you know, a little bit more mellow. So I, yeah, I enjoy, I enjoy having that. Oh, awesome. I'm headed to Austin at the end of August. So I'll have to look around and see if I can find it there. Yeah, they're actually from Austin. So you shouldn't have any problem finding it. Oh, there you go. That's awesome. Well,

it's so great to chat with you again. We did have you as a guest on our clubhouse session earlier this year. And we really enjoyed our conversation about, you know, career advice and things along those lines. So cast listeners a brief insight into how you started your career and then built it to what it is today. Sure. Yeah. Thanks again for having me. I had a lot of fun with you guys on the clubhouse session. So I'm a communication strategist for NASA. I've been doing this for the past three years or so, but I had an interesting path to getting here. I studied communication, mainly marketing and journalism in undergrad. And then I went to grad school and specialized a little bit more in globalization and media and politics. So I didn't really have a strong focus coming out of school.

And I was in the D.C. area at the time. So my first couple of jobs were in federal contracting and management consulting. I worked as a contractor or a consultant for a couple of different were in federal contracting and management consulting. I worked as a contractor or a consultant for a couple of different government agencies, the Patent and Trademark Office, the National Institutes of Health. And I wasn't really sure how I was going to use my communications background in those roles, because what I was doing was a lot of business analysis and project management stuff. And, you know, to be perfectly honest, it was kind of dull and boring. But as I kind of progressed through my career, I started finding more and more opportunities that became more communications related. So my next role was

working for an aerospace and defense company where I was working in internal communications and employee engagement. And I learned a lot there. I learned a lot about very interesting customers like the FAA and NASA. That was actually my first exposure to NASA was working in that job. And I worked for a couple other firms, but I found an opportunity in Huntsville, Alabama to work as a communications strategist for NASA.

It's a contractor role. So I applied for it. And it just so turned out that all of the things that they were looking for in this role, that somebody who understands internal communications, but also some external facing stuff. And then also somebody who's had experience working with civilian federal agencies that just happened to be in my background. And I got called in for an interview. And next thing I knew, I had a NASA badge. So it was it was a long journey to get here. And I kind of, you know, that it just so happens that they were looking for exactly what your background was in. That's awesome. So could you tell us just a little bit

about what the team you work on right now is responsible for at NASA and what your role looks like specifically as a communications strategist? So I work within the Office of the Chief Information Officer and our role within NASA is to provide all of the IT services that help the personnel at NASA be able to do their job. So we provide computers, we provide network services, we provide the applications and connections to cloud services, everything that anybody needs at NASA to be able to accomplish the missions that need to get done every day. Specifically, my program office is the Network and Telecommunications Services Office.

And we do everything from the wired and wireless networks across NASA to the telephones to live broadcasts. And one of the more interesting things that we do that's taken on a lot more importance over the last kind of 15, 16 months or so is we provide a lot of the collaboration services for NASA, like WebEx and Zoom and video conferencing. So when we were all sent home on mandatory telework about almost a year and a half ago now, the stuff that we provide ended up being much more important to NASA than when I first came on board. I never expected, I don't think any of us did, that we would all be working from home as much as we have. So the office that I support does all of

that for the agency. And it's been a very interesting and kind of unexpected journey over the last couple of months while we've been on telework. I bet that that's awesome. That's really cool to see how it has pivoted over the last couple months here. Well, I guess not a couple, many months of this pandemic. So that's really awesome. What would you say are a few pieces of advice you have for someone looking to land in a position that's similar to yours? Yeah, and I think it's probably good for me to be a little bit more specific about what I do before I give any sort of advice. So as a communication strategist, what I do is really raise awareness of the work that my program office does. So, you know, NASA is a huge agency. We've got 11 centers or locations across the country. Everybody is kind of in their own space and, you know, no pun intended, but it's very difficult to collaborate and integrate

things across the agency because everybody's so separated. And that was the case even before telework. So my job is to raise awareness of the work that my program office does. I'm not the person who's out there making configuration changes to the network and setting up telephones. But I work for a lot of smart people who do that. And so my job is to make sure that our internal customers within NASA know who we are, how to get in touch with us, how to order services, how can we keep them updated on what's going on with services, if there's a WebEx outage or if there's an issue with telephones. I'm responsible for all that communication.

So there's a lot of day-to-day communication that I do, but my role as a strategist is to really set the three- to five-year plan for the program office, which included branding, logo, what our strategic themes are, and how do we want to be perceived for the work that we do across the agency. So hopefully that's helpful for people to understand what exactly I do every day. But as far as the advice that I would give, when you think about the journey that I've had, you know, there was a lot of things along the way that I didn't realize would be valuable for me later. You know, when I was working in some of those more boring roles and doing kind of business analysis work, which is very important, but not quite for my own personal and professional interests. I gained a lot of experience in

understanding how the federal government makes decisions, how they purchase IT, how they manage decisions around that. And that ended up being very valuable for me when I was applying for a position in my current role at NASA. So I think if I could give maybe just one piece of advice, it's pay attention to the opportunities that are around you and take advantage of them, regardless of whether or not you think they fit into what you're perceived or kind of your set ideas of what you want to learn or where you want to be. You might not realize the things that are going on around you that you have the opportunity to learn now, they may not benefit you right away, but eventually they might. So you kind of just have to be patient and have some faith that the things that are happening to you are happening for a reason and might help you get to where you want to be later on. That is such great advice. I actually needed to hear that a

little bit myself. I have learned in the past few years here at my career that pretty much everything, every hardship or every little snag in the road is usually just, you know, another thing going into my toolkit for the future. I've seen how things that I've dealt with that I thought were, you know, either just mundane, or just annoying, or something like that. It's always turned around into something that was very useful for me moving forward. And I'm sure it'll continue to happen that way. So that's really great advice, for sure. Yeah, and Erica, the the other thing I would say is the things that you learn, they're not always all meant to be exciting, right? I mean,

it's that work is not always going to be fun. And that's, you know, it's really hard when you're in a role. And I've been there before, too, where you have all these skills and experiences, you're in a role, and you're kind of watching people in your network or other people around you live out their their dream, you know, working for the top five or top three companies that they've ever wanted to work for. And everybody has their own journey, everybody has their own time, you know, to kind of get to that point. Some people never do. And some people get there faster than others. But you just kind of have to believe that what's put in front of you is what you need at that moment. And and try not to dwell on, you know, where you are too much, because you'll eventually get to where you want, especially if I mean, if you're doing something like recording this podcast, or listening to this podcast,

my assumption is that you're somebody who's really engaged and wanting to learn more. And I'm just going to squeeze in one other quick piece of advice. Just keep learning, keep connecting with people, just absorb everything around you. And that can only mean good things for you and your career. That is awesome. That was some golden advice right there. And that kind of leads us into my next question. You mentioned that you weren't exactly sure what you wanted to do right out of coming off of college. But did you always have an inclination towards space or always want to work for NASA? Or what were some of your original aspirations? Yeah, I did. When I was five years old, when I was in kindergarten, I did a summer reading contest at my elementary school over the summer break.

And the person who read the most books, it was like a rocket for reading contest, some sort of rocket theme. And the prize for the person who read the most pages was a set of photographs from NASA, official space shuttle photographs from NASA. That were I mean, it was amazing when I got those. And that kind of just sparked my imagination. So I started watching shuttle launches. I visited Kennedy Space Center, my parents took me there. And, you know, I just became more and more interested in the idea of space, not necessarily going to space myself, because I don't think that I had, you know, the math and science grades to be able to do that, because I'm, you know, I'm more of a writer. But it was something that I was

always interested in. And I never thought that I'd have the opportunity to work for NASA later on in my career, especially not in the communications field. So when I was working in my previous job and I had NASA as a customer, I was like, this is great. This is the closest that I'm ever going to get to NASA. So it was definitely an aspiration of mine and not something that I ever thought would actually happen. And when I was early in my career in communication, I thought that I might work for a PR firm. I thought I might work for, you know, an ad agency. And I never had the opportunity to do those things. And, you know, again, I just, I couldn't understand why at the time I wasn't even able to get internships at some of the agencies that I was

targeting. And, you know, of course, if I had gone that route, would I have ended up at NASA? You know, it's hard to tell, probably not. So it kind of just goes back to having a belief that, that where you're headed is the path to getting there is kind of winding, but you'll eventually get there. Yeah, absolutely. I have to ask, do you still have those photos from fifth grade? You know, I think my parents might have them. It's a really nice set of lithograph photos, like really thick paper. And I would stare at them. There was like, there was like 10 photos, and I would sit there and look at every little piece of the shuttle and every little piece of the launch pad and try to figure out what things were. And I just have to share this funny story. So when I was working for the aerospace company where NASA was a customer,

I had the opportunity to visit the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, which is that huge building that they originally built for the Saturn V. It's so tall that it's got like its own weather system. There can be days where there's like cloud cover inside of the building because of how big it is. that they originally built for the Saturn V. It's so tall that it's got its own weather system. There can be days where there's cloud cover inside of the building because of how big it is. So I was there, and it was just before the shuttle had been retired. And they were distributing the different space shuttles to different museums across the country.

And the space shuttle Endeavor was in that building, which was my favorite shuttle. We got the opportunity to go in for a tour. There were signs everywhere. Everything was coned off and it said, please do not touch. And when nobody was looking, the first thing I had to do was go and touch it because it was like meeting my, it was like meeting my hero. I couldn't believe that I was in front of the shuttle until I had my hand on it. I'm sure that there might be some people listening from the agency who might not be too happy about that. I apologize. But it was just something that I had to do. So that was kind of

a moment where I thought back to those photos. And you know, I was thinking when I was five years old, wow, this is great. And you know, just just to see it in front of me was something that is probably one of the highlights of my career. Wow. Yeah, that's awesome. You'll have to find those photos someday and maybe frame them and put them in your office. Yeah. If we ever go back to an office, I think that's probably what I'll do. There you go. So you did have some interesting tips last time we spoke about interviewing and cover letters. I know Cassie posted a graphic on our Marketing Happy Hour Instagram with your quote, cover letters are not dead.

Can you share a little bit about why you think that is and the best tips that you have for interviewing? Sure, so I've heard a lot of different advice out there. You should tailor your resume for each opportunity you apply for. And I don't think that's quite the right approach. I think what's worked well for me is having a pretty consistent resume that lists all the skills that you possibly can think of to have. And then actually, you know, kind of taking a little bit of extra time and using the cover letter as your way

of calling out things in your resume that align with the position that you're applying for. So when you tailor a resume for each job that you're applying for, you're assuming that the hiring manager or the recruiter or the computer system that you're submitting that to has the time or the ability to go in and read, you know, most of what's on your resume. And most of the time, people don't really have time to do that. So what I found is that if you put together just a short cover letter with two or three paragraphs, or even just, you know, four or five bullet points that say, this is why I'm applying for the job. Here's some things on my resume that I think are really applicable for this position. Here's why I'm contacting you, please contact me for an interview as soon as possible.

It's just that little extra step where somebody can say, well, I don't have time to look at this person's one or two page resume, but they put a couple of bullet points here that I can probably read through and then quickly make a decision as to whether or not they want to interview you. You can't guarantee that that will definitely get you an interview, but I think just taking an extra step of a cover letter, addressing it to a real person, trying not to address it to a company in general, but going out on LinkedIn and trying to find somebody in the organization, a recruiter or hiring manager that you can actually address that letter to. I think those personal touches tend to

make a difference. Yeah, I hear that tip all the time of going on LinkedIn and looking for the hiring managers. Do you have any tips around how to find the correct hiring manager on LinkedIn and looking for the hiring managers, do you have any tips around how to find the correct hiring manager on LinkedIn? I know it's probably there's probably a lot of them at different places. Yeah, so you know, I don't I don't want to, you know, make have there be a perception that everything in my career has been perfect, because I've been I've been laid off several times, I've been out of work several times. And sometimes it takes a little bit of creativity and hustling to get out on LinkedIn and kind of put yourself out there.

So what I've done in the past, and that's had some success for me, is I always apply for the position on the company website. But what I try to do for my cover letter is when I try to find that person on LinkedIn, it could be the hiring manager, it could be a recruiter, they may not be in the right department. Just find somebody out there

that you can address your cover letter to in the organization. Once you've submitted your application, what I do is try to contact them on LinkedIn. Some people have the ability to receive messages even if you're not connected with them. But if for some reason they don't have that enabled, I've just guessed their email address.

So it could be cassie.tucker at nasa.gov, you know, I just I just guessed what that person's name is, and guess what their their email address is. And sometimes you'll get a bounce back. But there have been several times that somebody has responded and said, you know, I'm not the right person to contact for this job, but I know who is, I'll forward your materials over to them. And I think, you know, probably the point of me telling this story is that the times that I've done that, I've never had anybody say to me, why are you contacting me out of the blue? You know, that's not, that's not appropriate. I've never had anybody say that I either don't get a response, or I say, I get a response that says says I'll forward this to the right person.

So you just never know what could happen that would help you stand out. And I think me being me, I would prefer to have a little bit more kind of ownership over who gets my materials rather than just submitting it to an online application and hoping that somebody eventually sees my resume. Sure, absolutely. And it doesn't hurt to try. So that's a great tip. What would you say is something that you wish you knew early on in your career that you know now? I would say being patient, you know, not not feeling any sort of pressure to be somewhere where I'm not in my career, working for somewhere other than I am. I think looking back on it now, every single job that I've worked for, you know, every manager that I've had, the good ones and the bad ones, they've all taught me something. And it's really hard to be in the moment and kind of be thankful and have an appreciation for where you are in that moment.

But one of the things that I've tried to do as I've gone through my career is be thankful, you know, be grateful for where you're at and try to find one or two things that are positive, even if you're in a difficult situation, if you don't quite like the work that you're doing, or you don't quite like your team, or you don't quite like your manager, try to find one or two things that you've identified as something that's valuable or something that you've learned from your current position, just to make it easier to be in that role until you can find your next role. I mean, I think right now in the environment that we're in, a lot of people are thinking about where do I go next? Am I really happy where I am? And the grass is always greener, but I think if I could tell my younger self something, it would probably be there's at least one or two things in every single job that I've done, no matter how boring or how dull it could have been in the past that I've taken to my next role and it's served me well. That's awesome advice. Yeah, I've been

seeing a lot of articles come out recently that talk about how this time period after the pandemic is going to be huge in terms of career shifting and people finding out what they want to do, even if they're years into a career and maybe they're just not satisfied. So if that's the case, what kind of pivotal advice do you maybe have for somebody who's looking for a new career path or something along those lines that's not necessarily in the field that they're in currently? Or can you speak to that? Yeah, and I think a lot of people have been calling it the great resignation. And I think, I think the great resignation is is an okay term, I think a probably a more accurate term would be, it's the great kind of shift or the great kind of revisiting where people

are looking at their priorities and going, okay, is this really where I want to be? And that may not necessarily have to do with your job. That may have to do with the location that you're working. What type of flexibility are you being given by your employer? I think the last year or so has shown what companies really feel about their employees. How much flexibility are they giving them? How much information are they sharing with them? How much communication are they providing? If you don't like what you're seeing, then it's probably not going to change if the pandemic

situation gets better. So I think a lot of people are thinking about their priorities from a career point of view, but also from a personal point of view. And I think there's a lot more flexibility now that's being offered by some companies, not all. And so I think people should take advantage of that and say, you know, I don't like where I live. It's a little too expensive or it's a little too congested. Maybe I want to go somewhere a little bit cheaper, a little bit for my quality of life to be better. Now that may come with a change of lifestyle because oftentimes when you're leaving somewhere expensive

to move to somewhere cheaper, your salary might not follow you. In fact, most of the time it doesn't. In fact, that's what happened to me. I had to take a cut in pay to come down to Huntsville from the DC area. But I would say that my quality of life improved significantly to make up for it. I don't have as long of a commute. I don't feel that I have as much stress and pressure as I did living in a

bigger city. So I think people should, and it's not something they should do by themselves. I think they should probably sit down with friends and family and try to figure out what are some things that are important to them in their job and in their lives. And is now a good time to try to make some changes now that they have the opportunity to do that. Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. Well, that kind of concludes our short interview here. How can people keep up with you? So I'm not big on social media in my personal life. I am on LinkedIn for my professional life. So I try to post updates about different activities that are happening at NASA and in the space industry in general. And some of the work

that I do for my program office, I try to share that periodically on LinkedIn. And then of course, if I have the opportunity to join you and Cassie on podcasts like this or other opportunities that I'm speaking on like a panel or a webinar, I try to post those on there on LinkedIn as well. So feel free to send me an invite to connect on LinkedIn. Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. Thank you, Erica.

It was a pleasure. I know Erica and I got so much out of that podcast this week, and we really hope that you did too. If you enjoyed this week's episode, please consider rating and subscribing the podcast. It would help us out a ton. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram. You can find us at Marketing Happy Hour. That's at Marketing Happy HR on Instagram. Check us out for marketing updates, new speaker announcements, and more. Next week on the podcast, we're gonna have Steven.

He's the manager of social media for Universal Parks and Resorts. He's sharing how to diversify content across social media platforms and how they entertain guests after they step out of the Universal Parks. We can't wait to share it with you. See you next week.