As the Class of 2021 prepares to go out into the world, many of them will be challenged by the protocols of a job interview. Not everyone is comfortable being quizzed on why they could be the best candidate for a position. And many highly qualified graduates may fail to achieve positions they deserve due to an unsatisfactory interview.
Peter Hubbell of Greenwich is seeking to rectify the problem with his company Apply:you, which offers a series of workshops to help recent college graduates ace their job interviews. Hubbell is a longtime advertising professional ”” having held executive positions at Saatchi & Saatchi before starting his own agency BoomAgers in 2011. With Apply:you, Hubbell promises to provide “Madison Avenue techniques” for neophyte job seekers.
In this edition of Suite Talk, Business Journal Senior Enterprise Editor Phil Hall speaks with Hubbell about his new endeavor.
What is the genesis of this new business?
“I came up with this idea about 15 years ago. In the meantime, I started my own ad agency focused on baby boomers called BoomAgers, wrote two books and became a leading global authority on marketing to people of age.
“I had a couple of events recently that prompted me to take Apply:you and move it from the back burner to the front burner. One was right before Covid with the intergenerational strife that culminated in the ”˜Okay, boomer”™ expression. I”™m 61 and accumulated incredible life experiences and I”™d like to believe that young people would like to listen to what I have to offer.
“The second was the virus itself ”” opening up the papers every day and seeing that this is the great job-eating virus. We”™ve got another four-and-a-half million entering the workforce this May, so I said to myself, ”˜If I want to make beneficial use of all of my years of advertising experience, now”™s the time to lean into that.”™”
How does Apply:you work?
“Apply:you is a series of practical workshops that help the participants understand their personal brand and how to articulate a personal brand story. This is based on the notion that most of these kids have; they feel that if they simply go to a better university or get better internships, that they will get the better jobs just because there”™s linearity in that.
“What we”™re doing differently is we”™re leveraging Madison Avenue branding experience versus being human resources people. What advertising people do for a living isn”™t to create ads ”” we create differentiation. At the core of our philosophy is teaching these kids not how to be better, but how to be different, because you need to have a strategy, you need to stand out and be remembered for being something different.”
How do you tap into identifying what makes people different?
“We start with a self-discovery workshop. Everybody has their thing that makes them great ”” you just have to discover it. Many of us, as adults, don”™t even know what our differentiating thing is that makes us special and unique and attractive.
“From self-discovery, then we determine how to craft a story that brings that to life. We work with them on the art of storytelling in a way that”™s engaging.
“Now, you”™ve got a story of leadership or of creativity, agility or your ability to inspire other people. And, so, an employer hears that and suddenly you are a very different applicant than all the others who just came in and answered questions that they couldn”™t anticipate.”
Are you conducting group workshops or one-on-one coaching?
“We offer one-on-ones for an individual who wants more hands-on attention, and we have group workshops. We are doing some virtual offerings, just because of the practical limitations of the pandemic, but now the vision is to be live.”
“Imagine a bunch of college seniors who are home for Thanksgiving or for Christmas. And we get a hotel room at the Hartford Grand Hyatt with 100 kids in there and we run a program. It”™s that type of a live program with workshop leaders who are former advertising and marketing professionals who understand branding ”” and they”™re also inspirational-type people who are good on their feet.”
What do you see as a potential challenge in reaching your young audience?
“It”™s interesting, because the jobs that all the kids want are going to require hard work. And what many of them don”™t understand is you have to work hard to get those jobs.
“We”™re really trying to target the self-motivated kids who understand that it is important to have an advantage. It”™s not about data or having connections ”” it”™s about you, really knowing what makes you different, special and unique and being able to articulate that in a persuasive way.”
How much does it cost to participate in this workshop?
“We want everybody to participate, so we”™ve priced it along a continuum to allow people to engage at whatever level of extensiveness that they want.
“We started on social media to offer a college graduation product that parents or grandparents can get ”” the perfect gift for the graduate who has everything except their first job. And that”™s an hour-long introduction to our program at $395, which can be taken at any time over the course of a year.
“We then have a group workshop (that”™s) three hours long, so it”™s a more robust curriculum, and that is $1,795. And then we have a one-on-one program that is five hours in total length that begins with a free consultation with the workshop attendee and or parents. That”™s a no-obligation free one-hour consultation.
“Then, there”™s a three-hour hands-on workshop and a follow-up session where we help the workshop attendee with the work that they”™ve done on their brand story, helping them polish it do a mock interview, and that is $4,995.
“You might say, ”˜Well, geez, $4,995 feels like a lot of money.”™ It”™s not a lot of money when there”™s only one class standing between you and a job after your dad has spent $225,000 on your education.”
What are your ultimate goals for the program?
“Boomers are legacy driven and they want to help teach the next generation. What we”™re saying is, ”˜Let”™s help Gen Z get off to the very best start that they can with their future careers by helping them discover what makes them great and then helping them to articulate that.”
