The Outward Hire: Recent Episodes
Xavi Ablaza
A podcast about all things hiring. Each week Xavi Ablaza is joined by job seekers and hiring managers who share their stories and unique tips on the current hiring landscape.
Harvey Sison is a full stack software engineer and project/product manager from Quezon City. He started learning how to build applications during his freshman year in the Ateneo de Manila University. He then fell in love with User Experience Research and Design when he worked as an executive board member of User Experience Society, a student organization passionate, a student-run organization that advocates and practices human-centered design. In his third year, he founded with his friends, Developer Student Clubs Loyola, a student organization in the Ateneo de Manila University powered by Google Developers that uplifts communities through technology.
Besides being active in extracurricular work, he is currently a freelance product manager at UpChoose, a fast-growing e-commerce startup from San Francisco. Also, he's working as a part-time platform engineer at Exora Technologies Incorporated, one of the leading tech-energy solutions companies in the Philippines. Furthermore, he's taking an IT internship with Procter & Gamble Philippines.
Richard Parayno is a Philippine based product designer at Makisu. He started his Product Design and UX Design career during his years in University where he started becoming active in the student start up scene, attending different start up events, and networking with people in the industry. His educational background was information technology but later discovered his love and passion for uncovering issues, providing strategic solutions, and exploring the more ethical side of design in breaking negative biases.
Richard is also a community member at the Philipines Web Designer Organization and the community manager of his own online community called Tambayan 404.
In this epsiode of The Outward Hire, Xavi sits down with JJ Agcaoili, a designer from Stoko Design Studio, a Philippine based design group.
JJ is an Information Design student in Manila, Philippines. Since his highschool days, he has always been interested in the arts and wanted to choose a course that would allow him to express his creativity in a more practical way. He shares his story about how he got into design from a video game he would play with his friends in highschool. He also talks about the design industry and what it's like freelancing based from his own experience working with a group of friends in a design studio. Aside from this, he shares amazing design concepts and even life advice that can help motivate listeners to pursue their own dreams.
"Dont be discourage when you see people who sound genuises on social media or maybe if you're a Lambda Student for example maybe if you see coding brainiacs on Slack, what you see is just a highlight reel. No body is born like that {...} we're just regular human beings and people don't reveal the struggles they face before they got big."
On this episode, we sit down with Daniel Wallen, a freelance internet architect who shares his previous and current job search experience. Daniel runs a pet adoption website called tripets.com showing adoptable pets in the community in the tri cities of Tennessee while doing his job search. He attended Lambda School where he zeroed in on specific roles that would lend well to his previous experiences working at a marketing agency. Now he applies to jobs as a sales engineer, growth hacking content, marketing, community management while doing his freelancing gigs.
As a freelancer, his mission as an Internet Architect is to build digital real estate that attracts and converts at a scale while you're asleep - helping promote websites of clients and find customers at a faster pace especially during the pandemic where online presence is vital.
"Only compare yourself to the person you were yesterday and as long you beat that guy or gal [...] you'll be fine." - Daniel Wallen
What happens when an OPT Student in San Francisco is laid off during a pandemic?
In this first episode of The Outward Hire, Xavi sits down with Ramona Arora, an OPT Student working as a Business Intelligence Analyst at Touch of Modern. Here, she shares her job hunt journey and the lessons she learned a long the way. From landing her first job to eventually getting laid off in just 7 months, Ramona had to push herself and hustle her way through her job search - from networking on Linkedin to doing mock interviews with her friends, Ramona did everything she could to land a company and job she loved.
Aside from her job at Touch of Modern, Ramona is a huge advocate for women in the tech community. She is the Chapter Lead at Products by Women - San Francisco, a communuty network for women in innovation and tech.
You know what they say, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going", - and that's exactly what Ramona did.