The KAJ Masterclass LIVE with Khudania Ajay

Video Version

Khudania Ajay: Welcome to this very special edition of the KJ Masterclass Live, the show that ensures you profit from your time spent here with experts, either through their industry insights, information, or simply by learning from them. Today, we have Annie Margarita Yang joining us live from the US. She is the best-selling author of "The 5-Day Job Search". Welcome to the show, Annie.

Annie Margarita Yang: Ajay, thank you so much for inviting me here. I am so excited to share with you all today how to craft a personal brand that's totally irresistible to employers based on tips from my book, "The 5-Day Job Search". And if you listen all the way to the very end, you'll learn how to get a 10% off discount on a signed paperback copy. So stick around until the very end.

Khudania Ajay: Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you for that, Annie. You are welcome to the show. Very well. And not just, you know, you're welcome to India in this online form, but not just in India. A lot of people, because the topic is such, will benefit from what we are discussing: crafting a personal brand that gets you hired. So my first question to you, Annie, is this: We talk about personal branding for people who are a bit established. They hire agencies, they do so much work to build a personal brand for themselves. That happens mostly in the corporate sector. How do you build a personal brand when you are just beginning to look for a job? How does that work? Help us understand personal branding in that context.

Annie Margarita Yang: Well, let me tell you this. People think a personal brand is something that you have to pay a professional to create. It's something you have to take a course on. It must be so difficult. But the fact is, you already have a personal brand. Everyone, regardless of what they've put online or haven't put online, already has a brand. They just don't know it yet. So if you're not online at all, if you don't have any social profiles, your brand is the "I don't have a brand" brand. And if you're the kind of person who posts online about going to Starbucks yesterday or what you ate for dinner last night, your brand is the "this is what I ate for dinner last night" brand. Your brand is essentially how other people perceive you, how they view you. You don't really get to dictate what other people say about you, but you can control what you put out online, what you curate. If you keep posting things that position you as an expert in your field, your brand becomes, "Wow, this person must be really good at their job." That's what it is.

Khudania Ajay: Okay, okay. So, is there more to it beyond posting images or videos? How do you, considering you have written a book titled "The 5-Day Job Search" and have a media kit, share with us about that. Tell us about your book. How does one continue to get hired even before putting in significant effort in applying?

Annie Margarita Yang: Let me explain how you can get hired.

Khudania Ajay: That would be utopia.

Annie Margarita Yang: You can receive opportunities without even applying for them because I get opportunities all the time without ever applying. How you do this is detailed in my book. I actually have a checklist there, and there's also a free resource on my site related to this. The number one thing I think that people can start with is getting a really good, impressive headshot. Now, please do not just take out your iPhone and snap a headshot of yourself. Don't tell me you're going to a wedding in two weeks and ask if you can use a nice wedding photo because you're already dressed up in a suit. That's not the image you want to portray. What you should do is search for the best headshot photographer in your city. Additionally, book a same-day hair salon appointment on the day you're taking the photo, and also schedule an appointment with a makeup artist. The effort that goes into looking great in your headshot is really about the preparation. This includes getting a good night's sleep for three nights in a row, staying hydrated so your skin looks fresh, getting a fresh haircut along with a blowout, and employing a makeup artist to ensure your makeup is camera-ready. Just because your everyday makeup looks good doesn't mean it will translate well on camera. The last 20% of the effort is actually the photographer's contribution. Taking this step is something I've found valuable here in the U.S. I'm not sure about India, but in the U.S., it's quite an investment. You might spend around $500, but I must say, it was the best $500 I ever spent at the beginning of my career when I was trying to establish myself and create my personal brand.

Khudania Ajay: Right. Right, Annie. So let me ask you this, especially from a newcomer's perspective. Once I've posted a nice picture and done whatever I could, how do I make this message reach the potential employers? Those are the people who are going to be more interested in what I can do for them, apart from my friends. So, apart from your face.

Annie Margarita Yang: The next thing is, what I encourage people to do is understand that many have imposter syndrome. They always think that there's always someone else better than them, and they think, "Okay, maybe I'm not a good candidate," and they lack confidence. So really, what this process is about is gaining confidence in yourself that you are the right candidate. So what I encourage you to do is sign up for the free trial of LinkedIn Premium for 30 days. Then go and search for everyone who has the title that you want. So for example, if you want the title "hotel manager" on LinkedIn, you search for "hotel manager" to find out everyone who has that title right now. And you look at their profiles. What did they do well? What did they not? What stood out? What impressed you? Take notes. Write it all down. And then you do something similar for yourself, but in your own style. Like for example, if they wrote a headline that you liked, you think, "Hmm, that was pretty good. Let me try that for myself," but with your own twist. If you like the fact that their banner used a photo of their city, you might want to do the same. Or if you liked that their banner was branded in a color that matched their headshot, that might be another style you might like. These little things contribute to how an employer would view you. Definitely, your headline, your banner, and especially your bio. The bio is really important, even if you are just fresh out of college and seeking an entry-level job.

Khudania Ajay: Right, right. And let's look at this personal branding thing from, and the looking out for a job in three different aspects. One is the starting point. You are just out of your college or business school. Business schools generally have their campus recruitment and all, but straight out of college is different. Then there's the middle-aged segment, 35 to 40. And then there's someone who is around, say, 50 plus. How do they approach branding? Because at every stage, someone will find some disadvantage in you. Nowadays, people don't look at many advantages. They always find disadvantages. For a newcomer, they'll say this guy has no experience. For a middle-aged person, they'll say, this guy has been in one industry. How does he shift sectors? And for someone 50 plus, they might think this guy will demand a lot of money, and we can hire three younger people for his salary. How do you then build a brand that's also calibrated to the market reality? How do we do that?

Annie Margarita Yang: Let me tell you this. In my experience of landing a job offer in three days and getting multiple offers without applying, like six months ago someone offered me a CFO position that I turned down, I don't think that's the case. If you have a really good personal brand, people are jumping at you. They're not looking at, "Well, you don't have experience" or "You're too old because you're 50". If you're really good at crafting this, you can do it. So again, what I recommend you do is you look at where you want to go. Don't focus on where you are now. It doesn't matter where you are now. What matters is where you want to go. So, I'm going to go back to the hotel manager example because I personally did research into this. If you look at a hotel manager, how long does it take to become one? If you're just a front desk agent now, it's a 10-year process. What kind of promotions are required to get there along the way? When I looked, there were like five different supervisory promotions to eventually become a hotel manager. Now, that's not an instant process, right? So what people have to start with is wherever you are now, you look at the next title you want to target. Let's say the next title from a front desk agent is the front desk supervisor. Well, then you start looking at front desk supervisor roles. You Google those listings. You take a look at what they're really looking for in an applicant. And in fact, I have a way that I've been teaching my clients on how to analyze these job listings to become an ideal candidate. And also, you have to analyze existing people on LinkedIn who are front desk supervisors to see what are they doing well and what are they not? And how can I be a step above them so that I'm seen as the best candidate for this job? It's all about the research.

Khudania Ajay: It's all about the research. So let me ask you about your building of a personal brand. When you said that you keep on getting job offers, you've done a lot of hard work early on. You were born to Chinese immigrant parents, and that means you've likely gone through the challenges many face when coming from different places, especially from this side of the world. But what intrigued me was that you were getting accounting offers, even though you didn't have experience in accounting. That led to your understanding of the financial line. So tell us about it. How did you build that persona or personal brand that led people to offer you jobs, even when you didn't have that specific specialization? Here, people with specialization are struggling, or maybe they aren't doing it right. I want to understand: What did you do that made you so successful?

Annie Margarita Yang: I've often wondered why I was getting these offers when I felt unqualified. In fact, I've had people tell me, "You're not qualified for this." I've always questioned why I was the one landing these jobs instead of someone with an accounting degree. I've experienced imposter syndrome because of it. Over time, I've come to realize it's all about how I've presented my narrative and how I tell my story. For instance, when I applied for accounting positions, what caught people's attention wasn't my lack of an accounting degree. Right above my education section on my resume, I mentioned being the author of "1,001 Ways to Save Money." When interviewers saw that, instead of focusing on my lack of a degree, they were impressed that I wrote a book. In interviews, they'd ask, "You're an author? How did you write a book?" I'd explain that it's just a list, and anyone can make such a list. But they were still intrigued by the idea of me having written a book, thinking that writing must be challenging. If I could write a book, it showed that I could commit to challenging tasks. That quality was what they were looking for in a job candidate, not necessarily the degree. That's how I initially got my foot in the door with accounting jobs. But really, anyone can write a book. In "The 5-Day Job Search", I teach the same system I used to write my book. I had taken a course on how to write a book in 40 hours, and I simply followed their system. That's why I didn't think it was such a big deal.

Khudania Ajay: Now I get it. You see, nowadays there are so many book writers and the biggest thing they are trying to do with that book is personal branding. That's what it's about; it establishes you as an authority in your field. You did that quite some time back and your potential employers were smart people. They understood that this person is very dependable, someone who can show up at the right time, and be responsible about money. So that was good. This is something good. What have you dealt with in your book, "The 5-Day Job Search"? Can you actually get a job in just five days? I keep reading things and even top managers find it difficult to have a job in a six-month period, especially in these times with a lot of layoffs and all. The great resignation is quite fitting. A lot of people are wanting to get into the workforce while many are wanting to go out. It's a very difficult world out there from my point of view.

Annie Margarita Yang: Well, the thing is, what I talk about in my book is for all three of those job searches where I landed them in a week, I applied to 50 a day. I was really desperate back then because I was willing to do anything. If people were going to reject me, I was okay with that because I wanted to make my mark. I said I'd do anything, even if it took applying to 50 jobs a day. In the first job search, I decided I'd keep applying to 50 jobs a day until I landed a job. Even if I got an interview, I wasn't going to stop until I had a job. And what I found is the wider you cast your net, the better your chances of landing a job. When I actually ask people who are struggling to find a job and they say they've been searching for six months and you ask them how many they've applied to, they often say 20. When you ask, "20 a day or 20 in six months?", they respond, "20 in six months". That's too few. It's like dating. Everyone understands dating is also a numbers game. I had a friend who told me she's been struggling to find a long-term boyfriend for six years. When I asked her how many dates she went on last year, she said six. I told her that's not enough. If I were her, I'd go on three dates a week. Over the course of a year, that's 150. There's no way you can't find a good guy in 150. The same thing applies to looking for a job.

Khudania Ajay: Absolutely. Absolutely. You talked about building a personal brand. Fine, I build a personal brand. And then I find that, okay, what I built is not working, or maybe I need to change gears. It's like your investment portfolio; you calibrate it according to the changing market conditions, or maybe the way you want to build it up as per your needs. So, how do I relook at my personal branding? Because it can get jaded, it can fade. A different perspective might be needed. So, what is the best time to relook at your personal brand? Six months, one year, five years, what's the time?

Annie Margarita Yang: No, I actually think about my personal brand literally every day. What's on my mind is, how can I improve my personal brand? Now, I won't have an answer necessarily every day, but that is literally the question I ask myself. And when you ask yourself good questions, your brain will start coming up with answers. You might look for something to improve. For instance, a lot of my branding was built with my YouTube channel. I'd look at my first video, which wasn't the best, and think about how I could improve it. I gave it my all, but things can still be improved. Maybe I need better equipment, better lighting, a better microphone, or maybe I can frame it better. Perhaps I'm too close to the camera and should sit back a bit. Or maybe my makeup needs to be adjusted. I received comments about my lip gloss being distracting, so I considered changing my lipstick. I also looked at the way I dressed. Some colors I wore made my skin look off, so I thought about finding colors that made my skin glow in front of the camera. For me, over the last eight years as I've built my brand, it's been a continuous process of looking for little things to improve. It's not something I revisit just once a year.

Khudania Ajay: Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, let's get back to this book. For people who are more interested in the book, what is in it? What are the answers? What are the solutions they will find in this book of yours?

Annie Margarita Yang: This book focuses a lot on mindset. I think what people didn't expect is that they thought they would just get straight tactical steps—step one, step two, step three. While that's in the book, there's a lot about mindset. I teach you how to overcome your limiting beliefs, such as thinking, "I can't do it," or "I'm not confident." Or fears like, "If I don't get this job, I'm going to be homeless. I'm desperate. I need something to pay my bills." The problem is that many people, when looking for a job, fall into this mindset of fearing homelessness or not being able to feed themselves. And when you finally get into an interview with that mindset, the employer might sense that something's off. They might think, "This person seems a bit too needy." What's really being sensed is the energy of desperation. No one finds that appealing. Someone confident walks in and says, "I want to be here. I don't need to be here." versus someone who conveys, "I need to be here. I'm willing to do anything. I want this job because I need the money." That's not attractive at all. So in the book, I teach you how to shift out of that mindset because it can be a vicious cycle.

Khudania Ajay: Right, right. So where can one get this book? From Amazon, obviously, or are there other places one can get it?

Annie Margarita Yang: Honestly, yes, on Amazon is where I put it. I've googled this book. I don't even know where it is. I've found it on Walmart. I've found it on Barnes & Noble. I see it on Books A Million. So wherever you find it on Google to buy the book, it's available. But I'm also selling it on my website. So, if you go to annieyangfinancial.com and use the coupon code KAJ10, you can get 10 percent off. And if you live in the United States, it will also come with free domestic shipping. On top of that, for a limited time only, the books will be personally signed by me. So you have to act fast.

Khudania Ajay: Absolutely, absolutely. Do you have a copy of the book with you?

Annie Margarita Yang: Yes, I have it right here. Here it is. Thank you so much. It'll be like this, personally signed.

Khudania Ajay: Wonderful, wonderful. For people who want to learn more from you, directly from you, what is the best way for them to get in touch with you? You are the go-to finance guru for many, so I'm sure a lot of people also want to have suggestions, not only about job search but about other things related to their work area as well.

Annie Margarita Yang: The best way to connect with me is on LinkedIn. You can go to https://www.linkedin.com/in/annieyangfinancial. Or you can also email me. My email address is annie@annieyangfinancial.com. Again, though, maybe you don't need personal help from me because, hey, I do charge money for personal help. I have a YouTube channel. You can also just search on YouTube for "Annie Margarita Yang", and you'll find a lot there.

Khudania Ajay: With this, it's a wrap on this very special edition of the KJ Masterclass Live. Thank you so much indeed for...

Annie Margarita Yang: Joining us. Thank you so much, Ajay, for this interview today. I really appreciate it.