Miguel Sanchez : 0:10

Welcome to First Gen 101, the podcast where first generation graduates share their stories and career tips. I am your host, Miguel Sanchez. In this episode, Gina Villazhinay, a first gen graduate in corporate recruiting, shares invaluable advice for aspiring professionals. She discusses how to navigate college life, Master networking and seek mentorship. Emphasizing the importance of leveraging every opportunity to build a successful career. This is an episode worth listening to more than once. back to another episode of the first gen one on one podcast today. I'm very excited to have Gina, Gina. Welcome

Gina Villazhiñay: 0:56

Thank you for having me. Very excited to be here today.

Miguel Sanchez : 1:00

we're going to start right from the beginning. Tell me about your background.

Gina Villazhiñay: 1:05

Thank you, Miguel. So a little bit about myself. I was born in Ecuador I've been here in the States for most of my life but I still consider myself a Latina and I go back to visit my family in Ecuador as much as I can. but I always hold my immigration story very fond to my heart and my values because Of where I am today and the path that it took from and the hardships that it took for me to get to where I am today. I have five years of experience in the career services space in higher education. and then I am working in corporate recruiting now. At one of the big four, and that has been an extremely awesome experience, where I'm able to leverage my passion and my skill set to make an impact in the workforce especially for college students who are trying to figure out kind of their career paths in the business world as well.

Miguel Sanchez : 2:08

Great. And so you mentioned you're from Ecuador. how, how old were you when you moved to the United

Gina Villazhiñay: 2:14

Yes, I was about to turn 10.

Miguel Sanchez : 2:17

So you lived most of your life here in the U. S. And so tell me about you, those years in high school where, you know, When it was time to start thinking about college, how was that process for you? How did you start thinking about college and how were your parents involved in the process?

Gina Villazhiñay: 2:34

Yes, great question. I would say for me, I was very fortunate to go to great high school where I felt like a lot of my decisions and In terms of college decision making came from my peers and I was very fortunate to grow up with my brother, Bruno, who impacted a lot of my life in every aspect specifically in helping me navigate the college like steps of applying. In addition to having like good friends that kind of guided me through the process, I also had my brother too, who was two years ahead of me. So was always like doing it first. I would learn from him and then do it myself

Miguel Sanchez : 3:19

when you were putting your list together of the different colleges, it sounds like your brother had a big influence. Were you thinking of the big name schools? And when I say big name, I mean, the schools that most people recognize. Columbia, NYU, et cetera. What was that school list for you? how did you come up with those schools?

Gina Villazhiñay: 3:40

for me. My thought process wasn't really the name. It was more financial. I knew I couldn't go to a private school. I had to limit myself to just state schools given my family's financial kind of freedom to an extent. And that's what I did. And I saw my brother. Do the same and it worked out for him and actually we ended up going to the same school. So when I was a freshman, he was a junior in college and it was great because all of his friends were my friends and we always did everything together. So it was a really even though our school was like six hours away from where we live, I always felt at home because he was there as well, my brother.

Miguel Sanchez : 4:17

so you're with your brother in this school did you visit the school before you officially matriculated? Did you visit other schools? How was that exploration? And did your parents visit the school with you at some point?

Gina Villazhiñay: 4:31

Yeah. I did visit the school. I ended up going to, I think they had some family slash siblings weekend at Geneseo and I was able to like really enjoy my time. During that weekend and just see the community. And so I felt like I could see myself there for the next four years. And then my parents did visit when we had to drop my brother off. Such, it's such a different world to them. They don't. They're very smart people, but this is just something that they've never experienced themselves. They haven't experienced it in their countries, let alone in the States. So it was something that I looking back at it, they must've been so scared to just be like, yeah, my son must know what he's doing too. So let's just drop him off six hours away and hope that he can figure out the rest and same with me. So it was definitely scary, but. They knew that they prioritized education and they made those sacrifices to help us get to those schools as well.

Miguel Sanchez : 5:31

what was sort of your career goals and what was your major at the school?

Gina Villazhiñay: 5:36

Yeah, it was so scary. I honestly had such a hard time my freshman year in every aspect and I felt like I needed to, you know, the typical Latino parents who are like, you have to be a lawyer or a doctor. And me knowing that I didn't really care, to pursue a degree in law or. medicine. I gave it a shot. I did. I thought I wanted to do pre med every single freshman does. And so the first intro classes were extremely hard. I figured out that it wasn't for me. And then my Sophomore year, when I had to finally declare my major, I ended up going with sociology and communication. And my thought process there was okay. Being able to work with people and like those two degrees, I feel like I love working with people and being in a team setting and every job to some capacity has that. So I felt like I could adapt. That to any job I wanted to do after college. And then thinking through what internships were because even as a recruiter now yes, you have to have a specific major and a solid GPA to be considered, but it's really like the experience that you have, whether it's your server or a waitress, or you work at your school's cafe or our student worker through the federal work study program. Like those are such strong. Opportunities that you can include on your resume to then be able to stand out. And those skills are very much transferable skills that not everyone has, and you can speak to on an interview. So I always often look at candidates who have those leadership skills or have those jobs that we consider they're just jobs. But if you're. Having those like creating those skill sets in a work environment while also going to school full time and maintaining a good GPA It's it doesn't go unnoticed and recruiters very much know that as well

Miguel Sanchez : 7:45

I'm glad you're mentioning these details and advice from your work. The heart of this podcast is to provide as much advice as we can And so you're in your first year of college and you talked about some of the challenges Mostly about your major and changing your career path. at what point during your first year of college, did you realize I am a first gen student? At what point did you realize there are students that seem to have a better handle of what's going on? And can you provide some examples?

Gina Villazhiñay: 8:18

Yes, Geneseo had a great access opportunity program that I was part of and so from the beginning We had a summer program In this program, I was able to learn about what it means to be a first generation student. A state school in upstate New York. But I was able to learn. It was a college one on one essentially, but it didn't really hit me because the demographics and everything, I felt like I was almost at home. I felt like it didn't hit me until it was actually a social setting where someone had mentioned something to me that I was like, Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm a college, I'm a first gen here. A minority here very much and it was just eyeopening to me and yeah, it was just in a social setting that I like did not anticipate that at all. And it was just like, Oh, okay. Yes, that's me. The people that when I was like, Even if it's a like they're naming a stat. I know it's about me that they're mentioning it about so it was it was very Interesting and a little hard to cope with at first because I don't think a lot of people like labels And so for me, I was like, huh? Okay, so I fall under that category, but what can I do? It also gave me kind of motivation to keep doing better and, doing more like internships and proving myself,

Miguel Sanchez : 9:39

You mentioned internships a few times and how important it is to have jobs during college. What were some of the internships you had during college?

Gina Villazhiñay: 9:49

I was very involved more on the student activity side where I was in our student government. I was one of the directors in the board there. I was part of a lot of like health alliances, clubs that were there. And I had leadership roles there. I was in a Greek life organization there. And then in terms of internships, I was able to work with one of the directors of, I believe it was like the community alliance as well, that I was able to kind of learn more about. The leadership and of the school and different committees that they have as well that help run a school and keep the students safe as well. So there's more leadership roles. And then in terms of internships, I was able to do we had like externship programs and like shadowing day programs. So I took advantage of all of those programs. The ones that stand out to me now I was able to shadow for a couple of days during some sort of spring break, the director of the communications department at PepsiCo, and we still, to this day, keep in touch, whether it's one message quarterly, like on LinkedIn, we still stay in touch and just being able to see myself like at that time, there was some Superbowl coming out. And, I think it was the one when. Beyonce was the half part of the halftime show. And she wasn't able to share a lot of details, but in terms of what goes into the day of the, like the halftime show, but she like to prepare for all of that, it's a lot, but, and so I was able to be in those rooms in those conference calls. And it was just really cool to me.

Miguel Sanchez : 11:25

That's impressive. And, you know, you mentioned the relationship with this other person. And so, speaking of mentors, how did you find mentors during college? And maybe you can talk about the importance of mentors

Gina Villazhiñay: 11:39

Mentors are so important in every aspect of your life and every stage as well. I'm very fortunate to have found the mentors I have, but in college I would say my academic advisor, one of my academic advisors, I know he has to advise me and provide me with support and stuff, but there was, and he was in my communications department. So he was great. I just felt like he was looking out for my best interest. And when I was failing at things, like he would help me see things holistically and be like, okay, you're going to get through this. Like you got this. And one semester I was like taking 22 credits. It's it felt impossible. And I also needed to, because I wanted to graduate on time. And I ended up doing a bunch of like different internship programs as well. So it was a lot that I was taking on, but he was helping me see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I think an academic advisor could be a great source. and then just their friendships. I felt like I was able to thankfully surround myself with really great. Friends that helped me get through really tough times. And I didn't know it at that time of you have to find a mentor looking back at it. I feel like you become the people you surround yourself with. And so I was very fortunate to have found a solid group of friends. Like I felt like in college I had so many friends but you really learn I feel like after college and like through life, like who you're really close people are and you keep them really close to your heart. But in college, just think of the people that you work with in like a supervisory almost level. Whether it's your supervisor from your federal work study program or your academic advisor or your professor, The awesome thing about college is that people are there because they want to help you like the professors are there because they want to help You like to get a professorship full time It is so hard and so they wouldn't be doing that if they don't have the passion to give back and teach So I just I think that having that thought process, and if you resonate with a professor, then ask them for advice things like that, could really help, especially first gen students, if they see themselves relating to a professor, and they want to, Ask them a question, just set up time with them, like 10 minutes of their time. But I think having done that initiative is crucial to that mentorship. So initiative and also consistency. So it's not you like messaging them every single day, but maybe like once a month or once a quarter, you check on them and, just say, Hey, how are you? Like happy holidays. Maybe set up time to do a coffee chat, whether it's virtual or in person, which is, I think a little more impactful. But. You can still get the same message across.

Miguel Sanchez : 14:23

Can you talk to us about how was getting your first job and some of the practices that help you get the, your first job out of college?

Gina Villazhiñay: 14:35

I feel like college prepares you for so much, and they have all these career fairs, and I cannot stress the importance of trying to get internships or some sort of work experience under your belt before leaving college. I feel like higher ed is amazing, however, I feel like every school should have it embedded in their curriculum to have a required requirement to have either an internship completed or some sort of relevant work experience in order for them to graduate. Because just because you have a degree doesn't mean doesn't guarantee you a job. almost all schools, honestly state schools, I can speak to that have a career services department. I feel like I took advantage of their career services office and that was super helpful. So I definitely urge every student and also you're paying for that for those resources. So if nothing else motivates you, just know that you're also paying to have a career services office in your school. They can help you with mock interviews, creating your cover letters, and resumes as well. Having an updated profile for LinkedIn, your updated resume a standard cover letter that you can tailor it specifically to every job you're applying to and then preparing for interviews, I think are four things that can really set you up for success. For me, I felt I started applying through different application platforms and then I figured out that I wanted to be in like a helping, like I wanted to be helping people. That's also in every single job you're going to be helping people. So I had to narrow it down near my home. where was I going to be working? And. I ended up figuring out that I wanted to work in higher ed and the jobs that I was starting to get more traction was in the higher ed roles. So I ended up just targeting my search to specific roles. And then. I ended up at Mercy University now as a career counselor, and then I spent about five years there where I was also able to have the school pay for my MBA, And then I ended up at the firm that I'm at right now, which was at that time, my dream job. And I had something that when I was working with career service at career services straight out of college, I remember advising students in the business school and being like, wow, this is so exciting for me. This is the time type of jobs you can have. And. And the big four and I prepped them for those roles. A lot of the accounting students and they got the roles and then through me prepping the students, I was also able to connect to the recruiters in those sectors and. Long story short, I was able to finally make a breakthrough and come work in corporate recruiting, which is very exciting and never a dull moment. But just having, being organized and having the right resources or the right tools updated for you. Is super helpful. So people are like, what's LinkedIn? Like everyone can have a LinkedIn when you Google your name. What is, what are the first couple of things that show up? One of them should be your LinkedIn. And I know it could be scary to put your information out there, but everyone's like, All the recruiters, if they're looking at your LinkedIn and you have an updated profile, it makes you look like a more legitimate person. And the big thing with that, though, is make sure that it aligns with your resume. I've seen a lot of, I've been in a lot of situations where the resume does not align at all with what the LinkedIn profile says. So just make sure all the data that you include on LinkedIn is up to date as well. And that's what I would say. Just be consistent, organized, and Don't give up. I had so many interviews and made it to last rounds and then they were like, no, but just don't give up. The right door will open up for you when it's meant to be.

Miguel Sanchez : 18:30

If you're thinking about a graduate degree, think about a role in higher ed, if that's the career path you, you want, because some schools will help you pay for graduate They call them tuition remission, and they have other names for it depending on the school. So if you're someone who's thinking about earning a graduate degree, perhaps you don't want to have that debt burden, you may want to consider that as an option. That's just an aside. I wanted to highlight that point because I think it's very important. And so what made you choose an MBA over other graduate

Gina Villazhiñay: 19:05

Great question. To your point earlier and just make sure to look at programs as well. I'm a big, Believer of if someone else can pay for your higher ed education, go ahead. Look for yours, any scholarships you can you can apply to and get but there are grad graduate assistantships as well, that if you have to be a very strong candidate, but if you're part of, if you help, I think to be a TA or a TI, like you can get some sort of reimbursement for your graduate program as well there. but what made me choose To get my MBA was I always wanted to do a business degree. I just never, I was too scared to even try in college, honestly. And by the time that I saw all the benefits of what a business degree could have, I was like a junior or senior. In college, it was too late for me. And because one of the population of students I helped at Mercy University, were students in the School of Business, I felt like I resonated a lot with them. Not only because Mercy University is an HSI, School serves first gen nontraditional students, which is a population. I'm very passionate about serving as well. I just wanted to give it a shot and it was very challenging, but it was very worth it. And I decided to get my degree, my concentration in managerial analytics, as opposed to human resource management, because after having. Various coffee chats with different professors in the MBA program. The big thing that stood out was when one professor told me with data, being able to understand data and tell a compelling story to an audience is going to be applicable in every aspect of your job I felt like I could make a bigger impact if I have that managerial analytics background as opposed to the HR background. and it definitely paid off because everywhere we go, it's data, everything's data driven. The more you're comfortable with data and different tools, the better off you are

Miguel Sanchez : 21:04

What are some of the challenges you've seen for first gens as they're applying for jobs? What are some things that they can just get start working on? I know you mentioned the LinkedIn, the resume. What are some other things you believe first gen students should be working on?

Gina Villazhiñay: 21:18

I would say that. Networking is top of mind. So it doesn't maybe you have parents that, haven't had a corporate job or, have more of those like just different jobs. Like I know my dad worked in construction. My mom is a housekeeper and very proud of them for those jobs. I, myself, during my summers in middle school and high school, work with them or any break, I would work with them. And I think that's, One of the reasons that I have such a strong work ethic is because I saw how hard they struggled and worked and they never complained ever. And to me, that's an inspiration because Now, when I'm helping students, I try to work with populations that you know, the needed the most. and they didn't have a wealth of networks to provide to me be like, Oh my, my daughter, my, my mom's. Or from work or has a connection at work or, it wasn't that I always have to create my own networks. And so creating your own network starts your freshman year of college. Also your senior year of college. Stay in touch with those professors. I know I stay in touch with one of my communication professors and he is great and provides mentorship to me to this day as well. But I would say you specifically when you attend career fairs, I know they can be so draining I've run them before and i've been part of them before they're extremely draining But the recruiters at the companies that you're at stay in touch with them connect with them on linkedin And follow Crossed off your to do list because now attending specific recruiting events on from the business side. I might see a hundred students and only two people follow up with me And just say, thank you. It was great meeting you at X, Y, and Z event. This is who I am. And I attached this to my resume. I would love to chat about the opportunities at your company, but also do your homework as well. Look at the site and be like, okay, I also did my research and saw that this role is posted. What can I do on my resume to stand out? So those things like you being proactive about reaching out to the recruiter and then you also doing your own research, looking at the career site instead of just being like, okay, let me know what jobs I should apply to. You can be like, I researched your career site and saw that these are the openings. Which ones do you think like what can I do to stand out like that to me? It's okay i'll pause and help this candidate a little bit more over the other candidate because Hi, I met you at the career fair last night Like, let me know what jobs so if I do that's so it's all about relationship management and people skills as well. Networking is huge. Don't be scared. People are at these events because sometimes they have to, but a lot of them are because they're passionate about helping you find a job as well. That's my piece of advice. And just don't be scared to put yourself out there either. Be professional on time and do your research before.

Miguel Sanchez : 24:14

And to Angie, now, is there anything you want to share that didn't cover that people should know?

Gina Villazhiñay: 24:21

As a college student, you're exposed to so much. It's so overwhelming, Surround yourself with people that you admire and be very selective with your friends in terms of You want, you are the people you surround yourself with. And in college, you're constantly surrounded with friends. and instead of being part of say five different clubs on campus, select one or two and be heavily involved in those and make it a bigger impact in those, as opposed to doing more. And then don't be scared to ask for help. Reach out to your academic advisor, the tutoring center, your schools, they're there to help you. And know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel with all the finals and exams that are always happening. I just felt like extremely, I felt so much anxiety because there was just so much to know and you want it to always do well in school. And it's always about, it's not always about what you know, it's more about who you know. So that's where the networking plays. a huge part as well. And if, I'm always happy to help or anything I can do for my, first gen community, I'm always here as a resource. It was a pleasure being here. We go.

Miguel Sanchez : 25:33

And with that thank you all for listening, staying tuned for our next episode. Gina, thank you for being here

Gina Villazhiñay: 25:39

Thank you.

Miguel Sanchez : 25:39

Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the episode. Subscribe to this podcast and share it with a friend. Don't forget to leave a review. Until next time.