“It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” — Grace Murry Hooper
Name: Ryan Paugh
Age: 27
Occupation: Community Manager at Brazen Careerist
Did you go to college? Where? Yes. Penn State University.
What did you study? I studied Film & Media Studies before settling on a Journalism major + a Business minor.
Where do you work? I work at Brazen Careerist, which I also co-founded.
Where are you from? I’m originally from Annandale, NJ, but currently live in Madison, WI.
Why did you pick this career? I almost feel like my career picked me. I started blogging about Generation Y at work after college and met Penelope Trunk. Along with my friend Ryan Healy, we started Brazen Careerist with Penelope and the rest is history. Being the Community Manager just seemed to be the best fit for me. I love working with people and that’s what it takes to build a strong community.
What are your future plans for your career? Beyond Brazen I’d love to start working with other brands, helping them build their own online communities. I’d love to take the knowledge that I’ve gained over the past 3 years and use it to help somebody else.
How did you get involved in this career? Blogging. I owe it all to that. Without Employee Evolution (which was my first blog, now I blog at http://www.ryanpaugh.com) I wouldn’t have found Penelope and started a company.
How did you prepare yourself for this career? I didn’t. I really couldn’t. Starting Brazen Careerist was a leap into the unknown. Sometimes you just need to take a leap and see what happens.
And if you just happened to land in this career what made you stay? Perseverance. I actually feel like I went through hell when we first started the company. It took me awhile to find the place where I fit (almost a year), but once I did I started learning more and more every day.
What are the downsides to this profession? Long and unpredictable hours. We’ve pulled a lot of all nighters to roll out new products. Although, that’s kind of fun and exciting to do every once and awhile.
What is a typical workday for you? I wake up, make sure that everything looks right on Brazen and leave some new comments for people. I read some blogs to find out what’s going on in my community. Then I start working on my to-do list which is a mile long 🙂
How might this job be a stepping stone to other professions? I’m hoping that people see the work that I’ve done at Brazen and think that I can yield the same results for them. Building a community from the ground up is so exciting and I’d love to do it again for somebody else.
What is the single-most important piece of advice you can offer a person pursuing this career? Doing a lot of favors for people is a piece of advice that I’m thinking a lot about right now. I’ve made some of my best professional connections through helping people, not expecting anything in return. People aren’t just going to hire you because you’re skillful. They’re going to hire you because you’re likable, too.
Volunteer yourself to an online community that you really like. Believe me when I say that their Community Manager can use your help. Use that opportunity to find out what it’s like to be in the trenches. Volunteering is great and you’ll also make a lot of great connections along the way.
All local stuff. I think that helping out with local communities is really important. Currently, I’m focusing on getting more involved with Madison’s local start-up community on a bunch of different projects. Beyond that, I like to work with kids. In the past, I’ve volunteered at the local teen center hanging out with kids who have no place to go after school.
What’s a funny memory from your college or high school days you are legally allowed to share?
Crap. Legally? I was at a tailgate once and a friend of mine slapped me in the face with a piece of raw chicken. After that happened everyone started throwing meat at each other. It was weird.
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