Getting a Job in 2026 - Everything You Need to Know!

Most people can do the job. Right. Yeah, yes, I'm so good at Excel. Let me tell you all my like hockey that I can do and all these things like no one cares. The bigger part is can it imagine myself working with you if we got stuck at the airport together and we're chilling in the lounge and we're like all right, we got three more hours before our flight keeps. Am I going to just want to just get up and just take an earlier flight because I don't like talking to you or am I going to be like wow, I actually really enjoy your presence. And so the job search is an equation of time you spend versus the effort that you put in. Post on those two things, you will get a job guaranteed. What's up, rich friends? Welcome back to another episode of "Nentworth and Chill" with me, your host Vivian2, aka Yerich BFF and your favorite Wall Street Curly. We're officially halfway through January and what a year it has already been. It feels like an eternity. It has been 2026 for three months already. I don't know about you, but it seems like everyone's hitting the vision boards extra hard this month, new job, new house, new routine. And of course, more money. Everyone is locked in on that new year new meme mentality for 2026. But how are you going to lock in that promotion? How are you going to turn your dream life into a reality? Thankfully, our guest today knows a thing or two about building your ideal career. He's inspired so many people to take control of their professional growth, offering free resume, cover letter and job resources to his 3.5 million followers, helping them land interviews and offers. So if you're looking for a change in 2026, listen up. Everyone, please give a warm welcome to career coach and co-founder of Wonsulting, Jerry Lee. Woo! Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Jerry, we're going to have so much fun. Let's do it. Before we get started. You know, I have to ask, fun little icebreaker, what is your 2026 New Year's resolution? Okay. So I have one professional, one personal. Personal? Is that one I get a six pack? Jerry. That's why I didn't eat any of the McDonald's I brought you. That's so rude. Root. Yeah. That's inspiring, Vick. You are tempting me and saying, I'm going to have a six pack. I literally, as soon as you said that, I was like, Jerry, you just brought me a bag of fries. I was like, I'm going to have a six pack. I'm going to have a six pack. is gonna help you win over 80% of the applicants. The second thing I would do is really make sure that your resume is up to par. If I've been doing this for almost seven years, I've talked a lot of people about resumes. And the number of resumes I see that are just such dogsh it. - They are so real. And it's coming from people who like follow me, talk to me and like, "Jerry, what do you think about my resume?" And I'm like, "Do you want jane in my video?" (laughing) That's crazy. And so I think there's a lot of, there's a sense that because there's so much information out there, the bar has been raised. I don't think that's the case at all. If you can do step one and step two really well, that's gonna put you ahead of 90% of people. And then at that point, you have to give yourself grace because the time it takes to get a job has increased, giving the amount of effort that it takes. And so giving yourself a little bit more grace to say, "Hey, it's gonna take a little bit more effort, "it's gonna take a little bit more time." I think that's important. If you do those three things, I think that is a recipe for success. - Mm-hmm. And you mentioned it, what are the features of a dog shit resume versus a really good one? - So a great resume is something that I should look at. I can look at really quickly, go, "This person, definitely in marketing. "This person in sales, this person in engineering, for sure. "There's no doubt about that." - Yeah. - The dog shit resume is all the ones that I look at, one that are two pages, three pages. - Oh. - No one's spending three pages looking at your resume. I've done small experiments where I put eye trackers on recruiters. - Ooh. - I got them to look through resumes and they didn't know there was an eye tracker. And I was just like, "Oh, just let me know "when you want me to look through the next page." They would never look at the second page. So I just go, "Ah, reject, ah, interview." And so I was like, "That to me was crazy "because I'm like, no one is looking at "second page on a resume." I even did this to read Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn. And he still was like, "Yep, no, second page resume, "doesn't matter." And so nobody wants an essay. I should be able to look at your resume to go, just a person knows exactly what they're doing. And the second most important thing I think goes back to what I said before, is specificity. I should know exactly what you're doing in marketing, what you're doing in sales. It can't just be marketing. It has to be influencer marketing. It has to be paid marketing. It has to be brand marketing. That's so, so, so important. If you could do those two things, you've already just stood out. But still people are looking to listen to this and not do it as crazy. - And there was an actual tip that you taught me, and this was like years ago, there is a specific letter or shape that your resume should look like. - Yes. - Can you explain that to us? - So, the recruiters read an F shape on your resume. What they'll do is they'll scan the first part of your resume, most likely that'll, the one that they're looking for, is they're looking for your most recent company and your organization. They'll read your job tire, your company, they'll maybe read a couple of bullet points. They'll might read your second or third job, and that's it. That's all you get. And so, if you know that you have to solve for those six seconds, well, those six seconds better be the most impactful six seconds where someone looks at that and goes, "Oh, so easy. Your experience is ABC, boom, interview." And if you're not, if you're not passing the six second test, well, you're not getting the interview. - Mm-hmm. What is your take on, don't make fun of me. Having weird interests on your resume. Okay, so here we are. - Okay, what interests? - So, on my resume, I actually put weird interests, so interested in watching gangster mob movies. - No, with, no you don't. - Yes, I do. - No, you don't. - I did, and when I tell you, when I was interviewing at JP Morgan, the number of interviewers that were like, "So what's your favorite mob movie?" - You'd write gangster mob movies. - Yeah. - That's crazy, man. - Is that really? - No, that's bold, that's bold. I like that. - Okay, but they would ask me what my favorite mob movie is. And that way, we would burn 15 minutes of a 30 minute interview talking about good fellows, so they couldn't ask me any technical questions. - Yeah, that's part of it. - They would run out of time. And they'd be like, "Ah, I guess you were cool." - Yeah, that's so smart. So, interviewing is a different beast. A lot of people think it's about, "Oh, I need to sell them on what I can do about the job." And that's part of that, for sure. But the bigger part is, can I imagine myself working with you? - Yeah. - But I think most people don't really spend enough time focusing on. So what you did was very strategic. You put something highly niche, highly specific, to maybe, to what, like, a lot of finance pros may like to do. - That was smart. - Yeah. - I like that. - Genius. - Big, big, big brain. - Genius, I love that. But I think that a broader point of interviews, people look for three things. Can you do the job, which may probably make up 30%, 40% of someone's decision making? - That seems light. Like, it's very low, actually. - Yeah, because at the crux of it, most people can do the job. - Right. - Right. If you're interviewing for a marketing manager, there's a hundred people who have done it before. - Right. - The bigger part is, the second thing is, can I imagine myself working with you? And there's a big cultural element that I think a lot of people miss. And exactly that. If we're, if we're, one of the things that we talked about in consulting recruiting all the time is the airport test. If we got stuck at the airport together and we're chilling in the lounge and we're like, all right, we got three more hours before our flight leaves. Am I gonna just want to just get up and just take the earlier flight because I don't like talking to you? Or am I gonna be like, wow, I actually really enjoy your presence and you're really cool to hang out with. - Yeah. - Super important. And the last thing is, can I imagine you staying? One of the worst-- - Staying. - Yes. One of the biggest things hiring managers hate doing is they hate spending time focusing on recruiting. On average, at Google we used to say, it takes about six months to get someone fully onboarded. So if you're only there for a year, you're only getting six months of value before you have to start the whole process all over again. So retention is really important. And so adding those latter two things as part of core focus, as part of your preparation, super important. - Cool. Okay, so like we've now talked about how you should be making yourself really, really niche. What a relatively decent resume looks like. Let's go down this process. Like we're doing this together. - Yes, do it. - Say you send out your resume to all these different places and a couple of places are like, yeah, actually, we will be giving you a first interview. - Nice. - How do I prep for that? How do I make the best first impression? How do I knock this out of the park? - So there's three areas I really highly, how you recommend that people focus on. The company, there's some basic level, high level stuff that you should understand about the company. How they make money. What is their product or main product or service? How does it work? And more importantly, what is your opinion about a product or service? Is it good? Is it bad? That's what it's like to be a product or service. And that's what it's like to be a product or service. - So what's the most important thing that they can improve? Those are four core things that you need to study, at the highest level. The second thing that you need to understand is the actual team. What does the team actually do? If they're general marketing, well, what do they market? Have you seen anything that they've done before? That you admire or don't admire? Really important. And the third thing that most people miss, is you need to know the interviewer. You need to stalk the shit out of the interviewer. Looking up the person and I found their Instagram. And I saw that they were really, really into Star Wars. And so I was like, okay, well, I haven't ever watched Star Wars. I don't even like Star Wars, but that doesn't mean I can't act. So then when they're in the interview, we were like, oh, it's like, how are, you know, you first five minutes, oh, how are you good? How are you? I was like, oh, you know, I was watching like the latest like Star Wars movie that came out. They're like, oh, really? What do you think of it? I'm like, oh, yeah. And then I had wrote a little note about like what I thought about it and they're like, oh my gosh, wait, I love Star Wars. But no way. You love Star Wars? That's crazy. So what you're talking about for the gangster mob movies, you can manufacture that. Yeah. And again, if you know that 50% of a hiring manager's decision is whether or not they can work with you, well, play that to your advantage. Stock the shit out of them, find them, find a common interest. And if you don't have one, make that your interest for the next two days. And that's a way that you can really elevate yourself beyond just, yes, I'm so good at Excel. Let me tell you all my like hockey's that I can do and all these things, like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, yeah, they care, but like, they don't care, you know? Okay. So we've nailed the first interview, which is usually I feel like kind of it was like a vibe check. Yeah. Nothing crazy. But then we kind of get into second and third rounds at this point. Yes. How do we prepare for those? Some of these interviews might be technical. Some of these interviews might be with more senior management. Like, yes. What are the things we can do? So most likely during these interviews, you're going to be talking to three levels of people. It's going to be your peers, your manager, and their peers and executives. And so generally, the way I like to think about it is the people who are your peers. They're the ones who are going to get to be the most technical interviews, the more in the weeds of-- So imagine you were on this team. How would you do X task or how would you solve Y project? And those are just times where you really got to flex those skills. Managers are going to think a little bit more about your longevity, a little bit more soft, and they might go a little bit technical, but they're trying to understand you as a person and as a professional, because they have their team to assess their actual skills. Executives. The number one thing they care about is how you think, what motivates you. I remember one of the questions I got when I was interviewing for a director level role was, how do you build trust? And we spent 30 minutes talking about how I would build trust. And it's a lot more theoretical, but it's important to them, because they're like, well, if I'm going to put you in front of my leadership team, I want to make sure that I'm not going to embarrass myself. And so I would say those three categories of people ask those types of questions. Well, Jerry Lee, how would you build trust? What was your answer to that? So at the time, what I said is the way that I would build trust, I would use data to make sure all my communities are data driven. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm like, oh my god, I'm killing this shit, but that was a very average answer. But what I would do now is I would say, I listen more than I speak. And so I think especially in those more leadership level conversations, you'll often hear a lot of people just, they have a lot of voices and they say a lot. Very rarely do you think, do you see people who are very calm put together? And they'll just say three sentences, five sentences in the room and everyone will listen. And I think those people maximize the value per word that they say. And I think being that person, I think builds an immense amount of trust more than being data driven and seeing how they analysis and all this stuff. [LAUGHTER] OK, so now we have two routes to go down. Sure. Let's do the easy one. You don't get it. OK, yeah. Well, actually, let's back up. After each of these interviews, is there something that we should be doing? Are thank-you notes still cool or are they lame? Yeah, you should be going up, you should be finding their office address and delivering a cake to say, thank you. I can't stand you. I can't stand you. Thank you notes. Absolutely. That's baseline. That's bare minimum of what you can do to just-- That's table stakes. Table stakes. One of the additional things that you could do that I would recommend you do these for roles that you're genuinely excited about. I put together a three-four-slide presentation. First slide, quick summary of who you are through two, three, four bullet points of your experiences that are most relevant to the role. And slide number two would be, here's exactly what I would do if I were to join this company, 30, 1690. 30, 1690 being 30, 60, and 90 days. First 30 days, I'm going to do this. 60 days, I want to do this. 90 days, I want to do this. And then the third slide is going to be a little bit more details of projects that you think that the team would take on that would prove to be impactful. You could be completely off. You could be completely wrong. But the most important thing that I think a lot of people try to look for is this person willing to go above and beyond. How proactive is this person? And if you can go and show that during the interview process, that's going to show so much more than you saying that you can do a really good job at making presentations. We'll actually show them. And so I recognize that this requires a lot of work and time. But I think if you really want to stand out ahead of the process, this is what I recommend. And we at one soul team now have about 40 people on average would interview anywhere from about 10 to 15 people per position. Can you guess the number of people who have done something like this? I would say it's-- you could count it on one hand. Yeah. Probably about three. And all three of those have gotten hired. A lot of those have shown characteristics of what we will look for in the role. And more importantly, they showed us that they actually understood the role instead of just being like, yeah, I would do operations. Oh no, you would do operations for the one-sulting AI, where you would help solve ABC problem. Oh my god, that's amazing. Immediately green flag. There's basically been one guy in Republican politics who's argued for a regime change in Iran for years. And for America to take a proactive military role and making it happen. Ambassador John Bolton, President Trump's former national security adviser. But now, even Bolton says Donald Trump is messing it up. As far as we can tell, he did no preparation of the opposition actually inside Iran. No coordination, no effort to see what they would do, no effort to support them to provide resources, money, arms, if that's what they wanted, telecommunications, just no coordination at all. And they don't seem prepared for it. How Trump lost the Republican party's biggest around war hawk. Today explain every weekday and on Saturdays, too. Yeah, OK, I love that. Now we got to go to the fork in the road. Yes. If you get rejected, these days, it sometimes feels like they don't even tell you. Yeah, they'll ghost you and they won't even work at you. So how do we handle that? So five step follow-up rule. Follow up five times, give it three days each between each follow-up. If they don't answer, just assume that it's rejected and move on. What you don't want to do is be hung up like a hung up ax. You're like, oh my god, I'm really hoping that they're going to call me. No, they're not going to give a shit about you. If anything, you're a number on their spreadsheet that goes, no, don't, you're out. And so recommend you follow up five times. And give it three days between each follow-up. And if they don't follow up, that's gone. But I do think that a lot of people take these rejections as points of failure. But I actually think those are points of data. So for example, if let's say you apply to 100 jobs and you get 10 interviews, that means-- and let's say all those interviews bombed. Right? That means-- let's just-- in the worst case scenario. OK. That means, well, the good bad news is, you just don't need to apply more jobs. The good news is, is that those are 10 data points that tell you that there's an alignment from your resume and type of job that you're applying to. That part is going really well. Therefore, do not change a single thing on your resume. Do not change a single thing about what you're doing to get those interviews. Whatever you're doing, it's working. Now you know that, OK, something in the first round interviews going wrong. And you have to assess and be honest with yourself, which of the three is it? Is it that I'm not telling them I can do the job? Well, is it that I'm not telling them I like Star Wars enough? Or is that because-- or am I telling-- am I giving a signal that I'm going to be a flight risk? And if I join the company, I'm going to leave after a year. Yeah. Try to figure out what that is is really important. It's like, are you smart enough? Are you likeable enough? And are you going to stay? That's exactly right, yeah. And then if you get for long-in-the-interviews, and let's say you're at the final round, if you get to the final round and you don't get the job, at that point, it's not a reflection of you. It's most likely a reflection of someone else's judgment of you to say, this person was just 3% better. Therefore, I'm going to give this person a job. That's 3% better. That doesn't mean that you weren't good. That just means that their perception of this person was 3% better. And so if someone is getting a ton of final rounds and they're at that step and they're not getting the job, I would tell them that's the best possible scenario in a job search process apart from getting the job. Because that means you're doing everything else right. And it's just a matter of time. And so the job search is an equation of time you spent versus the effort that you put in. If you can just focus on those two things, you will get a job guarantee. I love that. Thanks, Cliff. You will get a job guarantee. You will. Let's say you do get one. Yes. OK, so typically what I've found is that you just get this random call from a number that you do not have saved. And it's somebody in HR. And they're like, hey, Jerry, I'm calling from XYZ Corporation. I'm calling with some good news. We'd love to extend you an offer to do XYZ here. And sometimes they'll preview the number and the pay on the phone. Sometimes they don't. They're like, we'll send that offer to you in your inbox. How do we handle that? The first thing is I think that happens sometimes, the other times that will happen is they'll email you to be like, oh, he like, would you want to set up a quick five minute chat? And that's a worse because you never know if they're going to just reject you on the spot. They'll be like, you were great. A team loved you and we're so excited. They do. They take the time to reject. They do. That's the most fucked up thing ever. Because you're like, oh, my God, I can't wait. And the emails are so vague. It's like, do you have five minutes of chat later this afternoon? You're like, is that a good thing or bad thing? So in the market. Yeah, today you just don't know until you know. But assume that you know the first step is to be excited, show excitement. It does not matter what they offer letter states. Be excited. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. I have all this energy. Do you mind saying that over emails? So I have it on paper. I'd love to review it and get back to you as soon as I can. The offer is not real until you have something written down. Yeah. That's like that is baseline level of what you should do. The second thing that you should do is you should always take that pay and compare it to what the market says. Now, the way that you do this is you look at the years of experience of job title, of the job that you're going for. So let's say it's five to eight years. Then you look at the function, marketing. You look at the location, go, okay, it's in New York, and you look at the size of the company. Is it a Google or is it a startup? All four of those variables will impact the size and expectation of what the market will value, your skill set, and what you should be comparing it to. Let's say you have those numbers. And I highly recommend using chat to be teach, just do all the research for you. Then you want to hop on the call. I am not a big fan of email, because it's so easy for them to just scheme behind the scenes. There's a lot of easy, it's easy for things to get misconstrued over email. Hop on a call with them. And first thing you want to do is you want to sound like, hey, I'm so excited. I'm so thankful and excited that you give me an offer. And the biggest leverage point that you have is you are, the team has spent probably over 10 to 30 hours at that point to get you an offer. And they want to sell you. So your value and your power negotiation is so high at that point. And you need leverage to share it. Because if they already want you, like they have already taken the time to interview you, they've probably taken the time to interview other people. Feedback, discussions, emails, so much has gone into it. That at that point, they are at your mercy, right? And I think a lot of people forget that. And recruiters don't want you to remember that. So. So for everyone listening, it is so important that you remember you have value and the most value at that point in negotiation. So you go into the call, sounds super excited and you have to remember that the recruiter does not care about the compensation. Like if they give you more compensation or not, it does not affect their pay. Right. Right. That he isn't coming out of their bank account. Exactly. They're just like, how quickly can I just sign you, get you in so I can just focus on the six other roles that I have to hire for? And I would know this because my girlfriend is a recruiter. Oh, amazing. Yeah. And so what happens is you want to help on the call, hey, I'm so excited. But there's one last thing that I'd love to talk about before I can sign and sign and close the software. And you want to say, the buzzword that people love is the fair market rate. The fair market rate for this role is X. Compensation is Y. Well, can we do to make up that number? And you go silent. You don't say a single thing. And there might be awkward too. Click mute, whatever you scream, whatever you need to do, whatever you need to do, but do not say a single thing because you have given out the question. And on there, and they're going to give you one of the responses. They're going to say, they're going to give you one of the possible answers. They'll give you the buzzwords. You know, Viv, I really appreciate that, but part of the reason why our composition package is unique because we're going to have faster promotion cycles. And we also have all these benefits and yada yada yada. And your answer to that is always going to be. And that's exactly why I interviewed here. I'm so excited about that. And that's why I'm even considering this. And so I'm so thankful for that. If we can get this last thing done, you have me. You go on mute. And the two other possible scenarios is they'll say, let me take it back to the team, at which point you have a much higher likelihood that they'll say, yes, or they'll just say yes on the spot. But in the worst case scenario, they say no. Then at that point, you want to start negotiating all the other things. Like, hey, then can I work from home or can I have a six month check-in point to get a performance review? What I don't recommend people is to negotiate everything up front. Hey, yeah, so I noticed that there's a lot of things wrong with this contract. I want salary. I want a performance bonus. I want a relocation bonus. I want this, this, this. It becomes a really overwhelming for the recruiter because then they have to take that to the leadership team. The leadership team is going to look at that and go, they're asking for seven things like, oh, my God. It's just so much of a bigger headache. And so the second stage negotiation, if the compensation fails is then you want to start negotiating other things. And so that's the way I would structure negotiations. Yeah. Equity, you know, extra flexible working arrangement to pick up your case. Exactly. Yes. Wow. I feel so ready to go get a new job. All right, Vib, let's roll play now. You're ridiculous. But I also want to talk a little bit now that we like have walked through like a good process. What are some of the most common misconceptions that you have heard around work and career and interviewing? I think one of the biggest misconceptions I've heard is that working 10 years of working is the same as doing 10 years of first year experiences. So let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me. What does that mean? Let me move it that down. So someone could be doing the same type of work for 10 years straight. The other type of person could be advancing in their careers for 10 years. Those two people from a compensation and money perspective are going to be making a seriously different amount of money. The concept in this job searching space is you always want to be earning where you're okay just doing the same thing over and over without any career advancement, knowing that you're just doing it because they're paying you really well. Or maybe you're okay taking a pay cut because you're saying I'm okay taking a pay cut because this skill is going to help develop me to get a much higher paying position in two to three years. Let me give you an example. So for example, let's say that someone is currently doing accounting and they're like, hey, accounting is not my thing, but I am very much okay, but I really want to get a much higher paying job. They might say, okay, even though they're five years into accounting that are making good money, they might say the path for financial freedom for me is that I need to be a software engineer and I need to make the big bucks. And what it might take to get there is they might have to go through a further continued education and they might have to go to a junior level which might decrease their compensation in the short term, but in the long term might significantly increase their compensation. And so I think there's, when people think about having seven years, ten years of experiences, I think it's really important that you think about is it the ten years of the same experience or is it ten years of growth experience? That's actually really wise. You got to be learning or earning. Learning or earning. That's the principle. That's crazy. What is your best advice for someone who wants to earn six figures? Because I feel like there's this headline now that's like, well, you know, six figures isn't what it used to be. How do we get people not just like jobs, but good jobs? Yes. I think when people, if you're, if you're main goals compensation, unless you don't care about anything else, right? I think the thing that you need to be looking at is you need to be looking at careers or where you are in your career and what it would take currently in your career to get to $100,000. Let's say that you're in accounting and you realize that it's going to take me six years for me to get into accounting or it's going to take me six years for me to earn that six figure mark. And that's the amount of investment I want to have to make. That then becomes your baseline. If you're going to spend six years to earn $100,000 in accounting, well, where else could you put that time and effort in other areas? You gave a software engineering example. Trade work is extremely lucrative that I think many people don't think about enough and potentially think about investing that time there. So I think if you're thinking about making six figures, it's important that you understand how long would it take for you to do that in your current career? And if you're to invest that time into other spaces, what would that be? And so doing some research around what the top paying skills are, for example, one emerging market that is extremely popular. Many people think about is there's a lot of AI adjacent skills. So for example, data labeling is a hot new. I don't even know what that means. Oh my gosh. Data labeling is crazy. The short of it is these, like, Chachi, Patee, Gemini and all of them, they're hiring people with skills, accounting, music. It doesn't matter what it is, what they are. And they will pay you anywhere from $50, $152 per hour to basically fill out homework assignments. Now those homework assignments then get fed back into Chachi, Patee for it to get better. And those jobs are called data lablers. It's really interesting. This is probably emerging in the past two years, but AI companies are throwing money at it in its extremely lucrative, and crazy, and very flexible. It's literally like an intelligence race. Very much is. And data is going to win. And so if you have a skill in nursing, in accounting, whatever, you can monetize that in addition to your core job as a data labler. So understanding what the emerging fields are, I think, really important, especially in the world of AI. And speaking of an intelligence race, why don't we turn back the clock for some of our listeners who might be younger, maybe they're in school or kind of thinking about what they want their future to look like? You've heard the phrase, follow your passion. Oh, God, yeah. There's obviously a lot of tension between following your passion and actually doing what pays the bills. That's right. How do you reconcile that? How do you think about money, stability, passion, all at once when choosing your career path? I think the core of the answer is find a $90, find a $9 to $5 that'll pay for your $5 to $9, 100%. I am currently what I believe to have the best job in the world. I get to focus on a problem that I'm deeply passionate about. I get to build a company. I get to speak to millions of people. And there are jobs. I actually hate what I do on a daily basis. But that's because at the crux of it, and there's also a lot of parts I love about it. But at the end of the day, it's a job. And I think the more that you interweave and connect your passion and a job, I think for some careers you can make work, but I think the more it becomes a job and less so about a passion. And so I think it's really important that people bifurcate it, try to mix it and see if that works in a part-time capacity. But I think as soon as money's involved and expectations and stuff, I think that the joy and fulfillment of passions really disappear. So for me, one thing I really like to do outside of my $9 to $5 is I will find classes to learn new skills. I actually did six months of singing. I've done three months of stand-up. This is all new information to me. We've been friends for a very long time. This is something I've done maybe over the past two years. But every six months, I take on a new hobby completely unrelated to it. So singing, stand-up. I did improv. I did cooking. I did scuba diving. Now I want to get into colored theories. I want to understand colors. I want to send it for a class. Are you Snoop Dogg? Like water-up side quests. Well, these fulfillment in ways that my job can. Right? I really like the idea of starting from scratch, knowing nothing and Viv. Oh my God. My singing class. They, the day before a class started, we get an email. Welcome to Singing 101. Be prepared to sing for five minutes in front of class. Thanks. My way, you're done with your singing for five minutes in front of people? And I was like, okay, everyone's probably bad, right? It's fine. I get there. There are people who literally sound like for all Williams. I'm like, oh my God, these people have such beautiful voices and my voice cracks. And the first song I choose is Justin Bieber. No. I'm like, everyone knows Justin Bieber lyrics. Yeah. What the problem is is I've never sung it without the voice. Without the voice. And so I was like, without the Justin Bieber part. Without the Justin Bieber part. And I only knew the chorus. And so when he started to be, I was like, when do I start? Oh. [LAUGHTER] You know you love me. I was like, oh my God. But I love that feeling. And I think that feeling of like, oh my God, I'm so nervous. I don't know what to do to build up my confidence, figure out what it means to get good, try my best to accentuate that skill. Once I'm at the point where I'm like, okay, I need to spend a lot more time to invest before I get really good. Then I wanted to go into somewhere else because I really like that feeling of like starting from nothing. Something new. Yeah. I love it. You love doing new. I love that. That makes sense because you'd recently just went to Antarctica. I did. Which is like very new. I loved it. I loved it. OK. All right, all right, all right. I want to talk about you personally. Yes. OK. What is the best thing you've ever done for your personal finances? And like, what is the number one money lesson that you wish you could tell everyone? I think the best personal finance decision I've made in my career was buying my parents at home. Tell me about that. This was probably back in 2021 where-- well, so for context, the reason why this was so important to me is because I come from a family of immigrants. And when my parents and family immigrated here, our number one goal was to have our home. That was something that we dreamt of and talked about a lot-- The dream. The dream. And that was our American dream. And growing up, we really-- we come from humbled beginnings. We really struggled financially, culturally, just trying to fit in and trying to see where our place is. And only up until I got my first full-time job at Google, what is I like, hey, I might be able to have enough financially leeway for me to try to make this thing happen for my parents. My brother and I in 2021 put our money together, just go, parents, surprise, we have a home for you. And so that was a moment where I felt financially free, because that was a point where I never felt like money was not weighing me down anymore. It felt like a way has been lifted off my shoulders from like, I could retire now and just be free. And I could live on the streets and be fine. I didn't want to do that. Right, certainly not. Yeah. But you got what I'm saying. So for me, I think that was the best decision. I have invested my money much earlier, which probably wasn't the smartest financial decision. But to me, it was the best emotional decision that I could have ever done, because that had given me enough of a mental headspace for me to take risk and go all in on my business. If I had not been at that point, there's no way I would have been comfortable enough to say no to a $200,000 a year job. Right. No way. OK. I got some quick rapid fire questions for you. Talk to me a little bit about what you think is the most common interview question and how we should answer it. The most common interview question that most people don't think is an interview question is how are you? What a 99% of people say. Good. Good. How are you? Good. OK. Let's get started. That is the best opportunity for you to show a little bit about your character. Ask me how are you? How are you, Jerry? Viv, I'm so good. I just came back from Antarctica. And I'm so tired. And my little sunburn, but honestly, I'm feeling pretty good. How are you, Viv? Oh, that's good. Yeah, right? That's really good. Because then you're like, well, wait. You went to Antarctica. Wait, tell me about that. You force a conversation for the recruiter to step outside of their interview shoes into their human shoes. And the more that you can do that, you hit the second quality that people look for. Do I like you? The more that you can interject those things into the parts of the interview, the better. So how are you? Is the first interview question that most people don't think about that they should spend more time thinking about? That's a good one. OK. Now, on the flip side, what is the weirdest question you've ever-- have either been asked yourself or have heard someone has been asked in an interview? The weirdest question I've ever been asked is what is the most unpopular opinion you have? Wow. I'm like, what are you trying to measure? And I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I literally sat there thinking for three minutes. And the only thing that could come to mind was about pizza. I was like, I guess pineapple doesn't belong on pizza. He was like, why? I was like, I just don't think that he's good. He said, OK. And I got rejected. Oh my god. I was like, was I supposed to have some built out answer? Crazy. I was like, I don't know how to answer that. And I still don't know. But I don't know why you would ever ask someone that question. That's so weird. My gosh. I'm going to have to go home and think about-- I don't even have an answer for that right now. How would you answer that? Most unpopular question or most unpopular opinion? Well, here's the thing. I have a lot of unpopular opinions, but I wouldn't want to offend that person. OK. You know what I mean? It's like-- Because you don't know anything about that person. And you don't want to give, I guess, an answer that could potentially offend them. Offend them. Yeah. And you can offend people in a lot of different ways. But that was probably the craziest interview I've ever gotten. That was just like-- Oh, what? OK. What is the best money advice you've ever received? The best money advice I've ever received was time in market beats, timing in the market. Oh, did you get that from me? Oh, I don't know. I might watch a couple of videos. You're so funny. Yeah, you're such a kiss ass, but honestly, it's working. What about your worst financial decision? Tell me about your down bad moment. Like, the most broken ever been. OK. I think I'm a huge simp, OK? Oh, my gosh. So when I was in college, I was dating this girl who I thought was Asim and Mary. I'm like, oh, my god. I'm like, married and all this stuff. And at the time, I would work part-time internships so I could earn money for myself and try to live my life. And almost every doll that I earn, I was like, oh, my gosh. If I could just treat this girl and fly her out and-- Oh, my gosh. Scraping. I was like, I had nothing. I had like $300 in my bank account. And I would just earn $300 for my internship. And I go, OK, awesome. I have $300. Now I could fly my girlfriend. And at the time, I didn't know anything about like putting money away for taxes and all that stuff. And so when I owed like $2,500 at the end of the year, I was like, you don't have that money. I was like, oh, my god. I don't have that money. And so that was probably the dumbest decision I've made because I didn't budget any of my money. I never thought about it. I was just like, oh, anyone who's in love has spent anything for their partner. And that's what I did. Super decision. And you didn't even end up with her. No, I did it. Oh, my gosh. She was the experience, quite the experience. And it's so funny, too, because your girlfriend now is like, wonderful. She's amazing. And so this is just really funny. What is one thing that you splurged on without guilt? Experiences, like Antarctica. This past year, when I turned 30 last year, oh, my god. I went to seven continents. And the-- All seven. All seven in that year, in 2025. And the reason why was because I remember I had a professor in college. He was like in his late 60s, early 70s, the most accomplished professor on campus by far. He was like, part of the Navy worked at this consulting firm 20 years. It was crazy. I remember once I walked up to him after class, and he was looking at his phone, right? And I was like, Professor, I have a question. He ignored me, he was looking at his phone, and I was like, he opened up his broth. He had his broth IRA open. It had $11 million in it. And he was like, what question do you have? But during that class, he disappeared for two weeks out of the blue. I was like, sorry, guys. I went to Antarctica for the first time. Before he asked, yes, it was amazing. Let's continue class. He was no BS, just on it. But I thought to myself, and I was like, damn, you're someone who has all this money, all this achievement. And for the, you went to Antarctica for the first time, and you loved it, and you talked about how amazing it was. But like, you didn't do that before in life. And I feel like, to me, the bigger lesson there was, I don't want to let work or any professional commitments prevent me from having to do my life experiences. I, for example, we rescheduled this podcast because I was going to Antarctica. And I talked to God. So, from me, experiences, something I will never, bad night, to spend on. Amazing. OK, so now that we are wrapping up our conversation, Wonsulting has an incredible AI tool. Can you tell me a little bit about this and how I can use it? Yes. Wonsulting AI is the only platform where we cover the end-to-end of the job search. We help you figure out what job titles you should go for. It's your resume good enough. What jobs you should be actually applying to, we'll have a tracker to help track all your applications. Are you applying to the right amount of jobs? How many interviews are you getting? Oh, that interview rate is bad. Let's go back to your resume. So we use data to help you identify where you're stuck in the job search, help you provide all the right tools to get you better, and actually help you get a job. That is what Wonsulting AI is. It's literally what exactly we just walk through, except step by step. step and you like actually help people with their personalized situation. That's exactly what it is. We've been building it now for the past three and a half years, three years, and we have a team of about 40 people to help us do it. I'm so impressed. Thank you so much for being here. You've been a treasure trove of wisdom. I feel like my audience has to have learned a lot. Tell us where we can find you and find one something. You can find us at onesulting.com. You can also find me at JerryJH Lee on all social media platforms. It's not JerryJH Lee that a lot of people think. JH is my crane name. So JerryJH Lee. Amazing. Thank you so much. It's such a blast. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Network and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you like the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via [email protected]. Follow Network and Chill pod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related news. And you can follow me at your rich BFF for even more financial know-how. See you next week. Bye.