It’s hard to get a job these days – just ask any Gen Z graduate at risk of becoming “unemployable” – but Squarespace chief marketing officer Kinzil Mathur says it’s always been that way, which is why he had to get creative when he started his company nearly 20 years ago.
The New York-based executive worked in the slippery worlds of technology and fashion, rising through the ranks at Condé Nast, Saks Fifth Avenue and Foursquare before becoming chief executive officer of Squarespace, a software services provider valued at $6 billion.
But contrary to the perception of Gen X and older millennials as having it easy, Masser didn’t expect to be able to land a job straight out of his finance degree back in the 2000s.
Like many graduates today, she recalls being “unsure about the future” and thinking outside the box to gain real-life work experience.
“Every summer I would look for an internship,” Mathur told Fortune. “I just wanted to gain experience.
“When I was a freshman in college – way back when – we used to have phone books. They had these yellow pages with the names and phone numbers of every business and person in the city.
“I went through the list of companies and started calling them and asking if they had any internships available and if they would be willing to work for free.”
It worked: Masser’s first job was with the travel company Travelocity during her first summer at the University of Texas, where she served on the company’s board of directors doing administrative work and research, all for free.
As it turned out, having that experience on her resume was worth it for her.
One internship led to another
For Mathur, that first internship had a snowball effect on her career.
“The next summer, that experience will help you develop the next experience, [and] And so on,” she added.
“By the time I was a senior in college, I had enough real-world experience that when I went to interviews I could talk about the real world, and I could talk about business in a way that resonated with the interviewer, because I’d been in business for a little while.”
Before graduating, Mathur was offered a full-time job as a technology consultant with global consulting firm Protiviti.
“I was in my 20s advising people much more senior than me on all things technology at the company,” she adds, “so you can imagine the dynamics. It was not an easy job.”
The Yellow Pages are gone, but shooting isn’t.
Although the Yellow Pages ended its publication after more than 50 years in 2019, finding a future employer has never been easier.
The story continues
Like Mathur, many Gen Z graduates today are thriving by relying on strangers to help them get a foothold in the job market.
Last week, Ashley Spiliopoulou told Fortune that she stumbled across her dream employer, Emerge, on Instagram. Instead of waiting for a PR firm to hire her, the 25-year-old emailed the company’s founder directly with the subject line “Hustle Suggestion.” And it worked.
A year later, she works as a senior account executive at Emerge and describes emailing employers as a “life hack for avoiding long interview processes.”
Basant Shenouda, a Gen Z graduate, used the LinkedIn networking platform to see conferences that recruiters were posting about, and landed an internship through it, which she still uses three years later. She then worked as a waitress at those events, armed with stacks of resumes to hand out to recruiters.
Meanwhile, 24-year-old Ayala Osowsky was using her 20-hour work week at a pizza place outside Washington to try to get poached by D.C.’s elite. During her shifts, she wore a baseball cap with her university’s logo on the front and launched into her elevator pitch whenever a customer asked.
After a month of selling himself while delivering pizzas, Osowski landed his first internship.
Once you open the door, don’t stop trying.
A cold call, email, or tweet might open the door, but your efforts don’t stop there.
“Once you get an internship, you have to take it very seriously,” Mathur warns. “I did, and it led to a full-time position.”
After all, employers can close their doors just as quickly as they open them.
That’s why Mathur suggests that unemployed Gen Zers need to forget about the things they want from a future employer — lots of work-from-home opportunities, short hours, high salaries — and just start working.
“The list of criteria for who graduates or is in college now is very long,” she said, adding that your generation will become picky.
But for now, her advice to young job seekers is to do the opposite: “If someone can give me any experience, I will be forever indebted to them.”
Reflecting on his own success, from internships to jobs and finally to Squarespace, Mathur asserts that “early in your career, you need to be willing to do anything.”
“I was prepared to work for free, I was prepared to work whatever hours they needed, even nights and weekends. Travel was not a priority,” Mathur concludes. “I had to be prepared to do anything, any hours, any pay, any work. You just have to be open.”
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com.
