Empowering Job Seekers: A Conversation with Jackie Cuevas, HR Pro and Career Content Creator
The Coaching Corner had the pleasure of diving deep into the world of career success with the dynamic Jackie Cuevas! 🚀 With an impressive background as a former recruiter and a current HR powerhouse, Jackie is bringing a whopping 9 years of industry prowess to her role as a sensational career content creator on TikTok. 🌟 Get ready to be captivated by her infectious passion for life transformation, where she's all about turbocharging your job search, supercharging your resume, acing interviews, mastering networking, and so much more. 🎯 If you're on the quest for unparalleled guidance in conquering the job market, look no further – Jackie is your ultimate ally, standing by to propel you to greatness. Our interview with Jackie is below:
Can you tell us about your background and what inspired you to become a career advice content creator?
I first started in recruiting in 2015, and have been in HR for the past 4 years. I’ve always been passionate about helping people, so my career path has been so fitting! And to be quite honest, becoming a career content creator happened by accident. I downloaded Tiktok at the end of 2019, literally having 0 clue how to use the app. It wasn’t until I posted a video showing an example of an email you should NOT send potential employers where I started getting a lot of activity. When I had initially posted it, I thought it was commonly known, but unfortunately, I read a lot of comments that didn’t understand what was wrong with it, or wanted to know what a good email looked like. So I started posting more and more career-related content ranging from resumes, Linkedin, networking, and interviews, especially since I had the foundational knowledge (from recruiting) to be able to do so. Now almost 4 years later, I’ve grown to over 216k followers and have had amazing opportunities to partner with some big brands!
What are the most common challenges you’ve seen people struggle with when trying to advance in their careers?
Not having access to the resources or information to know where to start. The internet has SO much information that it can be intimidating, or even crippling to even want to take next steps. I’ve really liked Tiktok because you can absorb information in an engaging way.
The biggest challenge people face is taking the very first step to WANTING to try and advance their careers. We’re our own worst enemy, so we often stop ourselves from doing things because we think we’re not good enough or we’re not capable. And that is why I kept posting on Tiktok;
“I wanted to empower people to feel confident in themselves and in their job search journey that they can achieve anything they set their minds to.”
What are some essential skills or competencies that professionals should focus on developing in order to advance within their company?
Focus on possessing skills that make you invaluable. For example, are there any gaps on your team? If your team heavily uses spreadsheets, is there anyone on your team who is skilled in the many advanced functions of Excel or Google Sheets? If not, I would take it upon yourself to LEARN those skills to be that SME (subject matter expert)!
And some more general tips:
1) Know how to give your elevator pitch; you never know who you’re going to meet while you’re at the grocery store!
2) Don’t be afraid to network. As scary as it can be, expanding your network will always be a benefit. Knowing how to communicate with others in a professional setting will work to your advantage.
3) Feel more comfortable with public speaking and presenting in meetings. Don’t think that you always have to be the loudest person in the room, but if you participate and share input in meetings, being visible and providing value is powerful.
In your experience, what are some of the most effective ways to network and build relationships to help advance your career?
Get to know people outside of your team within your organization; go grab a cup of coffee, have lunch outside of the office, and get to know people personally. Building rapport through small talk can really help build and establish great relationships that could be useful to you later down the line. It’s possible that the people you meet could potentially be a reference or referral source for you in the future.
What topic of your career advice content has been the most popular among your audience?
Resumes and how to write strong bullet points. We never want to be basic on our resume, so it takes effort to be able to describe your job responsibilities in a solid way that demonstrates results, value, and impact. Don’t just put WHAT you did; describe HOW and WHY you did it!
Can you share a specific success story or case study from your career advice content creation that had a significant impact on someone's professional journey?
I’ve received many DMs and comments of followers/people who have used advice from my videos to help them in their job search, interviews, networking, etc. and have landed new jobs, so it’s messages like those that motivate me to keep going!
You can find Jackie on:
-The Coaching Corner Team
Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.
