November 1, 2022 • 32 mins
Ravens Senior Vice President of Human Resources Elizabeth Mearman and Talent Acquisition Generalist Jasmine Chiazor talk about getting an NFL job, the Ravens’ diversity initiatives, how to build an inclusive company culture and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
So you want a job in the NFL, Well, you're
in luck. I've brought in two experts to tell you
how to do just that and what the Ravens do
to build a positive and inclusive work culture. Once you're here,
meet Elizabeth Merman, Senior vice president of human Resources and
Jasmine zor Hr, generalist focused on talent acquisition. So the
(00:30):
question that I think all of us that work at
the Ravens get all the time, and now I have
the two experts here, so I'm gonna hit you with
how does someone get a job with the Baltimore Ravens.
Do you want me to? Okay? Thank god, I think
you take that one? Um A million dollar question now. Um. Also,
I'll give like three pieces of advice, I guess, and
then I can turn over to you maybe. UM. So
(00:52):
the first thing I would say, UM, is to network.
Network network, That's how I got my job. UM. So
I would say to you, will link to take kind
of any opportunity that you can to add to your
resume to meet people. UM, reach out to people on LinkedIn.
They're always willing to talk to you for ten minutes,
if that's what it is. UM. The second thing I
would say is to get your documents in shape. So
(01:13):
make sure your resumes in shape, make sure you check
your social media, make sure your linkedins and tiptop shape.
You have a cover letter that's tailored to the job
in the position. UM, make sure you follow up in
the interview process, you stay persistent. And then the last
thing I would say would be, UM, being willing to
take an opportunity that you maybe hadn't considered before. So
whether that's like a game day job or a seasonal job,
(01:34):
or maybe a job in a department that you hadn't considered. UM,
just being willing to get your foot in the door. UM,
A network meet people. Yeah, I would say that's great advice.
I'd say probably the number one thing is figure out
what you want to do and start doing it in
college or high school or as a hobby. And we
had a lot of people who say, I want to
(01:55):
I just want to work for the Ravens. I don't
care what I want to do UM. And that's great,
because it's wonderful that we have millions of fans that
would love to have a job here, But we really
want someone who is an expert in their field. And
we only hired the best. It's a highly competitive industry,
so you just can't say, hey, I want to work
there and I don't care what I do. You really
want to show us that you're the best at what
(02:16):
it is you do do and we need you to
do that here for us. I think you hit on
a really good point there that I think there's this
misconception that the only way you can get a job
in sports is to like study sports management, and there's
so many other roles here in the organization that I
don't think people are really aware of, Like is that
what you guys have seen? Like we have every job
(02:36):
that goes into any other business. I don't think people
realize that we have people in finance, we have people
in h are we people on social media, Like any
other job that any other organization has is here. And
I think there's this misconception with kids in college that
it's just sports management to get a job in sports exactly,
or you think sports agent, you know, sports management, sports agent,
and that's really not true. We have m b as here,
(02:59):
We have of people who are experts in marketing and
sales and um medical and the medical field. You know,
you you just can't go to sports management to be
an athletic trainer. We have PhD employees here, so you
really need to pick what it is you like to
do and and learn about it and get experience in
it and apply for a job in that particular area
(03:20):
of right, Jasmine, I think you touched on something that
I hadn't really thought of, as the social media and
for me working in social media, like that's the first
thing I look at when someone's applying for a job here,
and they'd be so surprised, like what people have on
their public social media profile. Definitely, But that's just like
a really good point that I think a lot of
people don't think of, especially when they're young. Um. There's
(03:40):
also some high profile people here who started as interns,
and I think that's something that people don't realize that
people come in, get that internship experience and work their
way up. So any like high level people you can
think of that started here as interns, like Eric Costa
chats to you or SVP of Public Relationships, Eric to
Asta started as an intern as our general manager. George
(04:03):
cokena A lot of people on the football side, for sure,
Patrick Leston was an intern. He's a VP and PR
Brad Downs was an intern and he's our s VP
of marketing. It's interesting because a lot of people get
their start in the sports industry through a full time internship,
which the term internship I think is a bit of
(04:24):
a misconception here it's a full time job. It's really
a full time job. It's just not a permanent job.
So oftentimes you take it and that is your foot
in the door. To Jasmine's point is take the opportunity
to get your foot in the door because it can
lead to a lifelong career that really climbs the ladder.
If that's what you're interested in doing. Is that something
that you can kind of like predict when someone starts,
(04:46):
or it's just kind of putting your head down doing
the work and kind of being in the right place
at the right time when opportunities do arise, like that
sort of thing. It's probably a little bit of both.
I mean, we've had interns come through here and we're
like they're they're gonna move on, and that's okay, But
that's often more rare because we have such a vigorous
screening process for our interns and the fact that our
(05:07):
interns play such a critical role for us, and in
terms of the roles that they do with their fan facing,
they are actually doing full time jobs. So we're looking
for the best and the brightest um and it's a
little bit of timing. Often it's more so, I think
the actual performance of the person than it is the timing.
Because there have been people that have come through and
(05:30):
they've been amazing interns and we didn't have a job
and we made one for them, Or there have been
interns that there are opportunities and they have not gotten it.
They've been beaten out by potentially someone who was an
intern two or three years ago, or an intern at
another team who beat them out potentially in the interview process.
So it's really you making the most of the opportunity
(05:51):
as an intern with us. Speaking of the interview process,
what's your biggest pet peeve during the hiring process? So
something of something a candidate would do that would be
a pet peeve. Yes, we're really we're sticklers with thank you.
We are sticklers with thank you. We prefer handwritten after
(06:12):
the interview, yeah, thank you. Yeah, we prefer handwritten. That's
kind of um. We're we're actually sticklers for just grammar
and writing, it's really a lost art. If we get
an email from a candidate that says, hey Jasmine or
you know, hey Elizabeth, I'm like, hey, you know, hi,
(06:33):
you know something more professional? You know, um, something just
a little more professional and buttoned up. We like that's
that's probably our biggest pet peeve typos in your type
of for sure, when they're actually in the interview, I
would say, people that don't have questions, um, I think
you know. Because we have multiple stage to a lot
of stages to a lot of interviews, people are like, oh,
you know, I got my questions answered. But sometimes if
(06:55):
that's your first time meeting with someone, you can come
across like you're not interested, We're not quiring exactly. So yeah,
sometimes when you don't have questions, how can you not
have any questions? Right? You have to have a question.
You have to have a question. Like the one that's
always gets me is like that you mentioned it before
that I'm a Ravens fan. I'll do anything, and that's great,
Like we love that you support the team, but I'm like, okay,
(07:16):
but I need to know, like can you do social
media or whatever job you're interviewing for, Like we want
you to have that skill set. So I guess on
the flip side, what says people apart in the hiring process?
Is it doing those things you's coming prepared, having questions,
all of those things. Yeah, definitely, I would say following
up to because you know, most we're giving the position
(07:37):
to one to one person, so there's going to be
people that are declined, but there's lots of times where
it's like, you know, maybe we didn't pick you for this,
but you'd be great for another job. So that follow
up saying contact with the person um remaining, you know,
sending emails to the hiring manager, just checking in, talking
about any updates in your life. I think that really
makes an impact. I think the research and preparedness is
(07:59):
really impact. Well, you know when you sit down and
you meet with someone who has done a little research
on our website. I mean, our your social team does
a great job where we think we're everywhere. We're probably
not everywhere, but we think we're everywhere. We would like
to be everywhere, right, and so it's pretty easy to
do a quick search of our social channels and our
website to know a little bit about us, and those
(08:23):
that don't, you know, we've we've asked questions about what
do you know about the Ravens and I'm like, well,
we know you used to be in Indianapolis. Yeah, actually no,
we really weren't. Okay, So right, So you have people
who just make assumptions and they really don't do the research.
And as you know, working here it is it's more
than a job. You know, it does really become a
(08:46):
part of your life. It's not who you are, but
it becomes a part of your life and you become
your fanism changes. And so if you're not really understanding
what that means, and you just say, hey, I want
to work for the Ravens because I really like being
a Monday morning quarterback and that's really fun for me.
Or I like tailgating and I like just being close
to the team, that's not gonna work because most of
(09:07):
the jobs are not that close to the team, and
most of the jobs really require you to be an
expert in what it is you do and work really hard.
And so if that doesn't convey in the interview, we're
not going to pick you right in. Fandom kind of
changes when you work for the team anyways, Like you
kind of lose that side of it a little bit.
One of the things it's really interesting to me about
the hiring process too, is when you have people coming
(09:29):
from another team and so you haven't maybe an intern
for the Packers, it's going to interview for a full
time job here, vice versa, And it's wild to me
that the general manager has to approve that. And I
heard that like literally during the draft, eric A Costa
is getting calls about and like someone wanting to interview
one of our interns, which is just like crazy to
me that the football side and the business side like
(09:49):
overlap in that way, because you wouldn't think that the
general manager of the Baltimore evens cares what a social
media intern or whoever is doing, but I mean he does.
But right, the tampering policy is wild just to begin with,
particularly as applies to interns, particularly interns that are winding down.
So typically at the draft are interns are winding down,
they were beginning to look for full time jobs. So
(10:10):
the fact that they have to get permission to look
for a full time job is a little bit odd.
And the fact that it goes through the general manager
is also very odd. You know, when you have an
organization of three hundred employees. He doesn't know every single
intern that we have. He or she hopefully one day,
doesn't know that. So it is an interesting process when
you have to do that. It's a little I understand
(10:31):
it much more for full time positions because you don't
want to be, you know, other teams cherry picking your
top talent. So you don't want, you know, the packers
to come and take your social media manager, you know,
two weeks before the playoffs, because you really need that person.
So I understand that. But the interns is a little
bit odd, and that wereard easy. It is crazy, Elissa,
if you've seen a lot of growth here in your
(10:52):
time and the organization, so how have you seen the
organization change? And I guess even from the number of
full time people that were here when you started, to
how much we've grown just numbers wise, we've probably more
than doubled. I think when I started, we had just
about a hundred employees and we have, um at last
count about two. In the terms of full time employment,
(11:12):
we go up too, closer to a thousand if you
count players, our game day staff, and our interns and
seasonal staff. So um, we've grown, you know, this is
really dating myself. When I started, we had one person
in the Internet department. I worked in Internet, but that
was their title Internet coordinator. So UM. A lot of
(11:34):
the changes come in the form of these spaces, digital
spaces and social spaces and just ways that we can
connect with the fans that we really couldn't do fifteen
years ago. Um, which is a pro and a con
because we can connect with you without you actually coming
to a game, but we really want you to come
to a game. So it's a balance. And so that's
probably the biggest evolution I've seen. UM. And then maybe
(11:57):
post COVID is football is an in person business. You know,
you can't practice remotely, you can't really work out remotely
with your strength and conditioning coach effectively. UM. So it
was a lot of in person business and we really
have shifted, particularly on the business side, to do a
little bit more flexibility remotely. But our culture is really
an in person culture, and so we're still balancing what
(12:21):
that looks like in this post COVID error, I would say, right,
and even your team has doubled even more so it
was just you originally, it was just me. It was
just me. People would take a job here, and they
would show up at my door and they didn't know
how much they were getting paid, and they didn't know
if they got vacation. And I was like hi, and
I'm like, who are you? Like, I just started today.
(12:42):
I'm like, oh, that's great, you know, um what's your name?
So we've put all of that aside. People know how
much they are getting paid, they apply for jobs. Now
it's pretty awesome. But yeah, our team has grown significantly.
Was just me and then there was two of us
and now there's five of us. Um, two of us
in payroll and um actually four of us now in
HR so six of us. So recruiting is also a
(13:04):
big part of your world. And I think there's another
misconception that we have all these jobs that so many
people would do for free. But finding those right people
in too, put in the right roles is obviously a
huge responsibility. And I know, Jasmine, your role is really
focused on recruiting, especially on the minority talent side. So
what are the Ravens doing now in that space? Yeah,
so we do do tradtional recruiting. UM so reaching out
(13:25):
on LinkedIn social media, UM, I work with hiring managers
to get their job descriptions ready, posting them to multiple platforms. UM.
We also have a big I guess it would be
considered a recruiting networking event or HBCU career combine that
we have every year UM so that gives HBCU students
a chance to see what the many careers are that
exists in the sports UM field as well as figure
(13:46):
out how to get into the field, how to be
successful network with other students and professionals. So we do
that UM and then also a big part of my
job is just maintaining relationships with people UM cool colleges
and universities and keep building that pipeline into our club
or maybe other teams as well. It's really neat. Yeah,
how we like kind of change our process and how
we go about interviewing candidates and like what is it
(14:07):
important for that process? Is sort of focus on have
we changed our process? Oh man? UM So, a big
thing that I've been focusing on, a big project, I
would say, is making sure that our process is equitable.
Our interview process is equitable. So one thing that we've
tried to make sure that HR is involved in all
of our searches from intern, game day, seasonal, full time everything, UM.
(14:30):
But also making sure that all of the candidates are
being considered UM equitabiliefs and making sure that you're UM
looking at skills across the board that are needed for
the job. UM. I would also say making sure that
you're asking the same questions that people that you're interviewing. UM.
You're not having any leading questions things like that. UM,
You're just giving everyone a fair chance at the position.
(14:51):
And I think something that's interesting too, that like we've
all kind of talked about, is that these perspective employees
are also like interviewing us, and so it's important for
them to see that someone that looks like is reflected
in the interview process and to make sure that this
place matches them. So how do you kind of go
about that? Yeah, so we try to make sure the
search committee are the people that are interviewing the candidate,
(15:11):
is a diverse committee, UM, gender, anything represented on that committee. UM.
I try to work with them in their questions beforehand,
making sure they're not asking any illegal questions if they
have a woman in the room, asking them when they're
wanting to have kids, or asking about daycare and anything
like that, so just making sure that you know, asking
questions are really aimed at can they do the job,
(15:31):
would they be successful? Um? And then just making sure
that they have time to ask questions at the end
and get a feel for us, give them a tour,
make sure we know them as much as they know
us by the end UM, so we can make a
good informed decision. I would say that our interview process
is pretty in depth. It's typically not just one person
interviewing another person. We have a committee, a panel of
(15:51):
what we would call stakeholders that are invested in that position,
even at a very entry level coordinator position on up
to if we're hiring of senior vice president or a
vice president. So the candidates come in and they spend
a fair amount of time here, some times a full day,
but no less than three hours, so they really have
the opportunity to get to know the people who were
(16:13):
on the panel. They can ask questions, they can get
a feel for the culture, they get a tour of
the building, they can walk around, they can really just
immmerse themselves in the culture and see if it's a
place that matches them just as much as they match
what we're looking for. Right and it makes sense. As
we talked about, there are so many interns who have
been here so long that like making sure that intern
hires the right decision because people do stick around, so
(16:34):
making sure it's a great fit from the beginning. And
I remember coming here when I was interviewing, it was
like a full day. It was exhausted, but it was
the whole day. I was living in New Orleans in
the time, and I think my flight was like New
Orleans time, like three or four am, and I don't
think I got home until midnight and was working the
next day. But it all works out. And you probably
met no less than twenty people when you're in your
(16:55):
day here, and you had a couple of meals with
different people, and that gives everyone an opportunity to get
to know whether you wanted to relocate your life here.
You know, it's a big decision, and not only relocate
your life, but as we mentioned, sports is not a
forty hour week job for most positions, and as you
well know, working in social media, I don't know no
(17:16):
one ever turns it off. So you know, you really
have to know if this is something that you would
feel good about promoting or dedicating your life too, and
that's important to us. And that's really what makes our
culture great is if we want everybody to contribute to
winning and we want them to be you know, we
call it play like a raven or whatever whatever that
(17:36):
term is that fits for you, as are they a raven?
And if and we can feel that through spending more
time with a person than just either a lot of
companies are doing just zoom interviews now they don't even
meet the people, um so they don't know that much
about them, and or a one hour interview with the
person who's going to be your boss and nobody else,
nobody just works just with their boss. You know, that
just isn't how we operate here, right, And I think
(17:59):
things like the h B see you and kind of
the relationships that you have kind of make it easier
for someone to understand all the facets that go into
the organization and kind of like we talked about earlier,
all the different roles that exists. Like I think that
was really cool to see a lot of the students
get out of that, like, oh, I can be working
for the bossmore ravens, but do like X, Y and
Z job, which I think is really unique that we
do do that to kind of prepare them ahead of time. UM,
(18:22):
kind of on the still sort of from the diversity standpoint,
but the NFL has placed a really big emphasis on
getting women from the college level of football to the NFL.
And something we've talked about is sometimes those roles look
really different and a lot of times, you know, the
talent coming in might be on the admin side. And so, so,
what challenges have you seen kind of with the NFL's
(18:42):
approach versus like other ways that we've got about it.
I guess I would say in college, if you were
at a big school with a big sports program, there
are many more administrative roles in terms of recruiting athletes
to the school, planning events, scheduling, even player engagement. There's
(19:04):
a lot more athletes. There's a lot more opportunity to
do what we would call football operation jobs at a
college than there is in the NFL. There's one person
that does operations here, there's really one person that does
player engagements. So a lot of times, since the women
are doing it potentially for the men's football team, they
are supporting an administrative role in college, and then the
(19:27):
NFL is bringing all of them together saying Okay, if
you want to be a coach, you want to be
a football operations, you want to be a scout, whatever
it is that you want to be, come and to
this event and we're going to try to help you
find a job. And the OPS people are looking for
jobs that don't necessarily exist at our level. We don't
have recruiting events. We don't. You know, it doesn't work
that way. We draft the player or we trade for
the player, and that's what it is. So, um, we
(19:50):
don't really have those kind of jobs. So, however, the
skills are transferable. We do have marketing events, and we
do have community events, and we do have hr events,
and the women what we really need to do is
transfer their skills and say, okay, well you're planning an
event for a recruiting trip to Florida. Well, you know
(20:10):
when we're planning training camp, which is an event for
three thousand people a day out here, those there's the
same skill set. So perhaps you want to be looking
for a job in marketing because there are thirty jobs
in marketing and we hire fifteen interns a year which
lead to jobs versus one job in operations. So we
probably could do a better job of of just letting
(20:31):
people know what the jobs are. At the professional level,
they are different than the college level, right, that makes sense.
So when the person gets here, when they when they
have the job, they finally made it here, they got
their foot in the door. What sets the Ravens apart
in your mind as an employer in the sports industry,
because we hear the horror stories of you know, everyone
works long hours, but a lot of times you're not
(20:52):
treated well on top of that, and obviously here at
the Ravens we are. So what do you think sets
us apart. I've never worked in another sports team, so
I'll say I don't know, but I have learned to
other companies, and I would say in terms of the
benefits that we get here, they are really second to none.
In um. Number one, you have the opportunity every year
to potentially go to the Super Bowl, you know, which
(21:14):
if you're a sports fan, that's really the ultimate end goal.
And so we have a winning product on the field,
which is really important, which leads to a culture of
winning and everybody feeling like they belong in our ownership
and our president tries not to make too much delineation
between football and everybody else in the business side of it. UM,
so that I'd say that's number one. But on top
(21:36):
of that, yes, we were a long hours, but we're
treated really really well. I mean we're sitting in our
own podcast studio right now. It's very special. UM. We
have a building that's beautiful. We are provided meals. You know,
if you work as much as you work, you get breakfast, lunch,
and dinner every every day. UM decide. When I was
on maternity leave, I was like, I'm starving because I
(22:00):
have yes and I had to cook all my food
and it was like, Okay, this is insane. I don't
want to make breakfast. I don't have to make lunch.
So when I'm at work and our benefits are really
really unheard of, our health benefits. UM. We still participate
in the NFL pension plan, which is just amazing. UM.
(22:20):
You can retire at fifty five years old, no one
ever does, but you can get your benefits until you're
sixty five. So some perks that you know old school
companies had, the NFL still has. In addition to these,
you know, pretty glamorous benefits of potentially going to a
winning a Super Bowl, so it's hard to compete with them. Yeah,
and I think like even there, it goes beyond like
(22:42):
the benefits to to me, like, I think we've made
so many strides, and like the culture aspect, which you
kind of alluded to, Like we have a Diversity Action
Committee that the three of us are all a part of,
shameless plug, and I mean it's really cool because we
as an organization are really cognizant of the culture that
we have and continuing to push that forward, which I
think is really unique. Like I think it would be
really easy in the NFL to be like where the
(23:03):
NFL where great, everyone wants to be here, but it's
like when they get here, making sure that that's still
a positive experience for everyone I think is really special. Yeah. Yeah,
and I'd say we still have barriers that we are
breaking down every day, you know, and we are steeped
in a lot of tradition. Historically men have been in
coaching roles. Historically they've been in player personnel roles, and
(23:24):
women have been more support roles. They've had a lot
of women on the on the football operation side, but
in support and so we are really breaking some barriers
and hiring women in leadership roles over there, but we
still have a long way to go. Um, and we
are cognitive it and the d A c IS does
really raise challenging questions. Have we thought about how we
(23:47):
did that? Is that the way we're going to do
it forever? And sometimes you're it's painful and you're like,
why is this? I gotta lean into this what's going on?
Because that is something that we need to change. But
we are empowered here to make the changes that we
need to make. In fact, we have a maternity leave situation.
We're probably going to change that. We have a pretty
generous maternity leave policy um or we call it post
(24:09):
pregnancy leaves to whoever actually has the baby gets nine
weeks of paid leave and um, but you have to
be here a year. So why why you have to
be here a year? Because that could be a barrier
to entry for a woman who is either pregnant or
considering having a baby before she's been here a year.
So we're like, well, that's kind of silly. Why don't
(24:29):
we change it? And so we're going to you know,
so you just get it right from the jump, because
that's what we should do. But um, so we have
to constantly kind of push that envelope and think outside
of the box and make sure that our culture is
actually inclusive and there aren't barriers for entry. So one
takeaway from for listeners we had to give them one
piece of advice to a prospective employee. I'm to put
(24:51):
you on the spot. What would that be? I'm gonna
send this to everyone that messages me on LinkedIn from
now on. Oh Man, really didn't put me on the spot.
I think mine would be take whatever opportunity you can get,
even if it seems small. So attending a conference, Um,
I've seen a lot of freshmen at career fairs and
(25:11):
they're like, I'm not even close to eating full time job,
but I just wanted to say Hi, I love that.
So just taking any opportunity you can to network to
meet people, UM, I think it goes a really long way.
I would probably say that same thing because I think
that serves you well in life, even beyond getting a job.
You know, take every opportunity you get. You may not
(25:35):
take every interview that you get. You don't necessarily get
offered every job, and if you do, you don't have
to take it. But take every opportunity in life that
you can to learn something else, and if it feels uncomfortable,
lean into why it feels uncomfortable. If it feels good,
you know, continue down that path because there's a lot
of pressure at in ninth grade to figure out what
(25:56):
you want to do with the rest of your life,
you know, and you don't really know that in my
forties and I still don't know what I'm gonna do
with the rest of my life. But so continue to
take opportunities to learn, and you may fall into something
that you really love that you wouldn't have really paid
attention to unless you gave it an opportunity. So this
could be a game day job, it could be a
training camp, internship. It could be something at your college
(26:17):
or your current job, or someone's like, hey, do you
want to volunteer on this committee or this board, and
you find your passion for something. So I really do
think that's probably the best advice I would give to someone.
I love that. I think people always say that no
one's journey is a straight line, you know, And I
growing up, i'd always talk to adults that had like
a job that I thought was cool, But it's not
like they had that job right out of college, you know,
(26:39):
like everyone's path takes these turns, and like I remember
when I was a freshman in college, I had to
have a seminar credit, and I thought for sure I
was gonna be premed, gonna go sports med, like that
was gonna be my path. And I took this seminar
that was TV journalism just because it like checked off
the box of seminar credit and I ended up loving
it and through that, like I got this position in
that and like that just spirals. So you just you realize,
(27:00):
ever know, you never never know. And I mean I
didn't go to I didn't really know HR was a
thing in sports, and you know, it wasn't it right
kind of fell into it and I was a sports fan.
But so you just have to kind of. Um. I
got some good advice even as relationship from a woman
who used to work here who I loved and I
was dating and it wasn't She was like, Elizabeth, you
(27:22):
have to uncover every rock, Like Okay, that's exhausting, but okay, um,
and she's right, you just have to. You have to
give everything a try because you just don't know. That's
so true, all right, last thing for you are purple
hot seat. The three rapid fire questions, they're not as
hard as the other one, Thomas. First one is for
(27:44):
both of you your favorite Ravens game, super Bowl. Oh yeah, sorry,
just Sorry's the only one that was here for that,
Tony raven schemes. So I joined during COVID, so I
really didn't get together too many. I would say my
first one, which I don't even remember what that was. Um,
it was probably a preseason Yeah, it was probably a
preseason game, and I was got to stand, like, I
(28:06):
don't know where were you from at I'm learning the
parts of the stadium, but like I just got to
see the lights and the fireworks, and like it was
just different seeing it from an employee perspective versus like
being a fan and knowing that I'm involved in the
success of the team. Um yeah, that was You might
be the only person in history to ever answer that
question as a preason. Yes. A second one, his best
(28:29):
job perk since I have the two people in charge
of all the Oh man, these are hard supposed to
be rapid fire as it changes, but the food is
got to be food. The food has got to be
the best job per or tickets. Oh yeah, tickets were
good too. I love food trucks. I'm a foodie. So
(28:51):
and you telling me a food trucks here, ice cream
anything like? Yeah? Yeah, so for fans, I don't know.
In addition to us having free food every day, we
also in food chucks that we can use once a week,
which is great. And then my hr them to question
resume or cover letter. Oh my good man, resume even
though the cover is really important. But I'm gonna say resume. Yeah,
(29:14):
I agree, barely barely interested about so cover letter is
still important to you, guys. I feel like some people
still lost the art of the cover letter. Yes, they
have so important. I think you always have to apply
with a cover letter. You should always apply for a
cover with a cover letter. And the thing about a
cover letter is it should be tailored to It shouldn't
be the same cover letter that you're sending out for
(29:35):
you'reine wrong organization and so um. I think in the
rapid fire world, people just fire off and they just
can submit their resume really quickly and they don't necessarily
do the cover letter. But the cover letter is still
really important. We will decline, people will put in the bottom.
This is a fun fact tip for anyone who's applying
(29:56):
for a job is to read our job prescriptions all
the way through to the bott um before you apply,
because if it says a cover letter is required and
you do not submit a cover letter, we will ding
you because you didn't follow the instructions. And it's a
very attention to detail position, and so we have many
people who just don't do it and they don't make
it to the next step because of that one. Always
(30:18):
read the direction, always create the direction. Thank you so
much for joining me, ladies, think it informative for everybody. Thanks,
thank you. Since my conversation with Elizabeth and Jasmine, their
team has made even more forward progress. The post pregnancy
leave policy has been updated to twelve weeks of paid
leave at a hundred percent and the option to add
(30:40):
on an additional week of vacation for a total of
thirteen weeks paid at one. Their team focuses on three
strategic goals to recruit higher and retain diverse talent, to
maintain a culture of inclusion, and to challenge the status
quo and continue to push the needle forward. If you
to keep an eye on current openings, all positions are
(31:03):
posted on Baltimore Ravens dot com and are LinkedIn page
and each position receives a high number of applicants, but
all applicants receive a thorough review. One thing that I
hear often is it's all about who you know. And
as someone who got my first NFL internship without already
having a foot in the door, I want you to
know that's not the case. Building a strong resume and
(31:25):
being a go getter, you can make your own way.
My two cents I'll leave you with is to be flexible.
I've moved to two new cities for opportunities where I
didn't know anyone and was far from family and friends.
And your opportunity might not come at the team you've
always been a fan of, and that's okay. Trust me,
It's real easy to change alliances when someone else is
(31:46):
paying the bills. And finally, don't be afraid to take
an opportunity at a quote unquote no name place. Smaller brands, teams, leagues,
et cetera often offer the most possibility of getting true
hands on ex varience. When we're hiring someone, I'd rather
them have more hands on experience than just be able
to put a big name company on their resume. It's
(32:08):
all about doing. When you are at the point in
your career when you can choose where you want to be.
It's great to find a place like the Ravens where
the organization cares about fostering and inclusive culture and has
great benefits. And I'm not just talking about the Orange
Juice machine anyways. If there's anything I or someone in
the Ravens organization can ever do to help, please don't
(32:30):
be afraid to reach out. We're always willing to look
over a resume or answer questions and I hope this
was helpful. As always, if you're enjoying the podcast, don't
forget to leave a review and rating, Subscribe and tell
all your friends I'll talk to you soon.
So you want a job in the NFL, Well, you're
in luck. I've brought in two experts to tell you
how to do just that and what the Ravens do
to build a positive and inclusive work culture. Once you're here,
meet Elizabeth Merman, Senior vice president of human Resources and
Jasmine zor Hr, generalist focused on talent acquisition. So the
(00:30):
question that I think all of us that work at
the Ravens get all the time, and now I have
the two experts here, so I'm gonna hit you with
how does someone get a job with the Baltimore Ravens.
Do you want me to? Okay? Thank god, I think
you take that one? Um A million dollar question now. Um. Also,
I'll give like three pieces of advice, I guess, and
then I can turn over to you maybe. UM. So
(00:52):
the first thing I would say, UM, is to network.
Network network, That's how I got my job. UM. So
I would say to you, will link to take kind
of any opportunity that you can to add to your
resume to meet people. UM, reach out to people on LinkedIn.
They're always willing to talk to you for ten minutes,
if that's what it is. UM. The second thing I
would say is to get your documents in shape. So
(01:13):
make sure your resumes in shape, make sure you check
your social media, make sure your linkedins and tiptop shape.
You have a cover letter that's tailored to the job
in the position. UM, make sure you follow up in
the interview process, you stay persistent. And then the last
thing I would say would be, UM, being willing to
take an opportunity that you maybe hadn't considered before. So
whether that's like a game day job or a seasonal job,
(01:34):
or maybe a job in a department that you hadn't considered. UM,
just being willing to get your foot in the door. UM,
A network meet people. Yeah, I would say that's great advice.
I'd say probably the number one thing is figure out
what you want to do and start doing it in
college or high school or as a hobby. And we
had a lot of people who say, I want to
(01:55):
I just want to work for the Ravens. I don't
care what I want to do UM. And that's great,
because it's wonderful that we have millions of fans that
would love to have a job here, But we really
want someone who is an expert in their field. And
we only hired the best. It's a highly competitive industry,
so you just can't say, hey, I want to work
there and I don't care what I do. You really
want to show us that you're the best at what
(02:16):
it is you do do and we need you to
do that here for us. I think you hit on
a really good point there that I think there's this
misconception that the only way you can get a job
in sports is to like study sports management, and there's
so many other roles here in the organization that I
don't think people are really aware of, Like is that
what you guys have seen? Like we have every job
(02:36):
that goes into any other business. I don't think people
realize that we have people in finance, we have people
in h are we people on social media, Like any
other job that any other organization has is here. And
I think there's this misconception with kids in college that
it's just sports management to get a job in sports exactly,
or you think sports agent, you know, sports management, sports agent,
and that's really not true. We have m b as here,
(02:59):
We have of people who are experts in marketing and
sales and um medical and the medical field. You know,
you you just can't go to sports management to be
an athletic trainer. We have PhD employees here, so you
really need to pick what it is you like to
do and and learn about it and get experience in
it and apply for a job in that particular area
(03:20):
of right, Jasmine, I think you touched on something that
I hadn't really thought of, as the social media and
for me working in social media, like that's the first
thing I look at when someone's applying for a job here,
and they'd be so surprised, like what people have on
their public social media profile. Definitely, But that's just like
a really good point that I think a lot of
people don't think of, especially when they're young. Um. There's
(03:40):
also some high profile people here who started as interns,
and I think that's something that people don't realize that
people come in, get that internship experience and work their
way up. So any like high level people you can
think of that started here as interns, like Eric Costa
chats to you or SVP of Public Relationships, Eric to
Asta started as an intern as our general manager. George
(04:03):
cokena A lot of people on the football side, for sure,
Patrick Leston was an intern. He's a VP and PR
Brad Downs was an intern and he's our s VP
of marketing. It's interesting because a lot of people get
their start in the sports industry through a full time internship,
which the term internship I think is a bit of
(04:24):
a misconception here it's a full time job. It's really
a full time job. It's just not a permanent job.
So oftentimes you take it and that is your foot
in the door. To Jasmine's point is take the opportunity
to get your foot in the door because it can
lead to a lifelong career that really climbs the ladder.
If that's what you're interested in doing. Is that something
that you can kind of like predict when someone starts,
(04:46):
or it's just kind of putting your head down doing
the work and kind of being in the right place
at the right time when opportunities do arise, like that
sort of thing. It's probably a little bit of both.
I mean, we've had interns come through here and we're
like they're they're gonna move on, and that's okay, But
that's often more rare because we have such a vigorous
screening process for our interns and the fact that our
(05:07):
interns play such a critical role for us, and in
terms of the roles that they do with their fan facing,
they are actually doing full time jobs. So we're looking
for the best and the brightest um and it's a
little bit of timing. Often it's more so, I think
the actual performance of the person than it is the timing.
Because there have been people that have come through and
(05:30):
they've been amazing interns and we didn't have a job
and we made one for them, Or there have been
interns that there are opportunities and they have not gotten it.
They've been beaten out by potentially someone who was an
intern two or three years ago, or an intern at
another team who beat them out potentially in the interview process.
So it's really you making the most of the opportunity
(05:51):
as an intern with us. Speaking of the interview process,
what's your biggest pet peeve during the hiring process? So
something of something a candidate would do that would be
a pet peeve. Yes, we're really we're sticklers with thank you.
We are sticklers with thank you. We prefer handwritten after
(06:12):
the interview, yeah, thank you. Yeah, we prefer handwritten. That's
kind of um. We're we're actually sticklers for just grammar
and writing, it's really a lost art. If we get
an email from a candidate that says, hey Jasmine or
you know, hey Elizabeth, I'm like, hey, you know, hi,
(06:33):
you know something more professional? You know, um, something just
a little more professional and buttoned up. We like that's
that's probably our biggest pet peeve typos in your type
of for sure, when they're actually in the interview, I
would say, people that don't have questions, um, I think
you know. Because we have multiple stage to a lot
of stages to a lot of interviews, people are like, oh,
you know, I got my questions answered. But sometimes if
(06:55):
that's your first time meeting with someone, you can come
across like you're not interested, We're not quiring exactly. So yeah,
sometimes when you don't have questions, how can you not
have any questions? Right? You have to have a question.
You have to have a question. Like the one that's
always gets me is like that you mentioned it before
that I'm a Ravens fan. I'll do anything, and that's great,
Like we love that you support the team, but I'm like, okay,
(07:16):
but I need to know, like can you do social
media or whatever job you're interviewing for, Like we want
you to have that skill set. So I guess on
the flip side, what says people apart in the hiring process?
Is it doing those things you's coming prepared, having questions,
all of those things. Yeah, definitely, I would say following
up to because you know, most we're giving the position
(07:37):
to one to one person, so there's going to be
people that are declined, but there's lots of times where
it's like, you know, maybe we didn't pick you for this,
but you'd be great for another job. So that follow
up saying contact with the person um remaining, you know,
sending emails to the hiring manager, just checking in, talking
about any updates in your life. I think that really
makes an impact. I think the research and preparedness is
(07:59):
really impact. Well, you know when you sit down and
you meet with someone who has done a little research
on our website. I mean, our your social team does
a great job where we think we're everywhere. We're probably
not everywhere, but we think we're everywhere. We would like
to be everywhere, right, and so it's pretty easy to
do a quick search of our social channels and our
website to know a little bit about us, and those
(08:23):
that don't, you know, we've we've asked questions about what
do you know about the Ravens and I'm like, well,
we know you used to be in Indianapolis. Yeah, actually no,
we really weren't. Okay, So right, So you have people
who just make assumptions and they really don't do the research.
And as you know, working here it is it's more
than a job. You know, it does really become a
(08:46):
part of your life. It's not who you are, but
it becomes a part of your life and you become
your fanism changes. And so if you're not really understanding
what that means, and you just say, hey, I want
to work for the Ravens because I really like being
a Monday morning quarterback and that's really fun for me.
Or I like tailgating and I like just being close
to the team, that's not gonna work because most of
(09:07):
the jobs are not that close to the team, and
most of the jobs really require you to be an
expert in what it is you do and work really hard.
And so if that doesn't convey in the interview, we're
not going to pick you right in. Fandom kind of
changes when you work for the team anyways, Like you
kind of lose that side of it a little bit.
One of the things it's really interesting to me about
the hiring process too, is when you have people coming
(09:29):
from another team and so you haven't maybe an intern
for the Packers, it's going to interview for a full
time job here, vice versa, And it's wild to me
that the general manager has to approve that. And I
heard that like literally during the draft, eric A Costa
is getting calls about and like someone wanting to interview
one of our interns, which is just like crazy to
me that the football side and the business side like
(09:49):
overlap in that way, because you wouldn't think that the
general manager of the Baltimore evens cares what a social
media intern or whoever is doing, but I mean he does.
But right, the tampering policy is wild just to begin with,
particularly as applies to interns, particularly interns that are winding down.
So typically at the draft are interns are winding down,
they were beginning to look for full time jobs. So
(10:10):
the fact that they have to get permission to look
for a full time job is a little bit odd.
And the fact that it goes through the general manager
is also very odd. You know, when you have an
organization of three hundred employees. He doesn't know every single
intern that we have. He or she hopefully one day,
doesn't know that. So it is an interesting process when
you have to do that. It's a little I understand
(10:31):
it much more for full time positions because you don't
want to be, you know, other teams cherry picking your
top talent. So you don't want, you know, the packers
to come and take your social media manager, you know,
two weeks before the playoffs, because you really need that person.
So I understand that. But the interns is a little
bit odd, and that wereard easy. It is crazy, Elissa,
if you've seen a lot of growth here in your
(10:52):
time and the organization, so how have you seen the
organization change? And I guess even from the number of
full time people that were here when you started, to
how much we've grown just numbers wise, we've probably more
than doubled. I think when I started, we had just
about a hundred employees and we have, um at last
count about two. In the terms of full time employment,
(11:12):
we go up too, closer to a thousand if you
count players, our game day staff, and our interns and
seasonal staff. So um, we've grown, you know, this is
really dating myself. When I started, we had one person
in the Internet department. I worked in Internet, but that
was their title Internet coordinator. So UM. A lot of
(11:34):
the changes come in the form of these spaces, digital
spaces and social spaces and just ways that we can
connect with the fans that we really couldn't do fifteen
years ago. Um, which is a pro and a con
because we can connect with you without you actually coming
to a game, but we really want you to come
to a game. So it's a balance. And so that's
probably the biggest evolution I've seen. UM. And then maybe
(11:57):
post COVID is football is an in person business. You know,
you can't practice remotely, you can't really work out remotely
with your strength and conditioning coach effectively. UM. So it
was a lot of in person business and we really
have shifted, particularly on the business side, to do a
little bit more flexibility remotely. But our culture is really
an in person culture, and so we're still balancing what
(12:21):
that looks like in this post COVID error, I would say, right,
and even your team has doubled even more so it
was just you originally, it was just me. It was
just me. People would take a job here, and they
would show up at my door and they didn't know
how much they were getting paid, and they didn't know
if they got vacation. And I was like hi, and
I'm like, who are you? Like, I just started today.
(12:42):
I'm like, oh, that's great, you know, um what's your name?
So we've put all of that aside. People know how
much they are getting paid, they apply for jobs. Now
it's pretty awesome. But yeah, our team has grown significantly.
Was just me and then there was two of us
and now there's five of us. Um, two of us
in payroll and um actually four of us now in
HR so six of us. So recruiting is also a
(13:04):
big part of your world. And I think there's another
misconception that we have all these jobs that so many
people would do for free. But finding those right people
in too, put in the right roles is obviously a
huge responsibility. And I know, Jasmine, your role is really
focused on recruiting, especially on the minority talent side. So
what are the Ravens doing now in that space? Yeah,
so we do do tradtional recruiting. UM so reaching out
(13:25):
on LinkedIn social media, UM, I work with hiring managers
to get their job descriptions ready, posting them to multiple platforms. UM.
We also have a big I guess it would be
considered a recruiting networking event or HBCU career combine that
we have every year UM so that gives HBCU students
a chance to see what the many careers are that
exists in the sports UM field as well as figure
(13:46):
out how to get into the field, how to be
successful network with other students and professionals. So we do
that UM and then also a big part of my
job is just maintaining relationships with people UM cool colleges
and universities and keep building that pipeline into our club
or maybe other teams as well. It's really neat. Yeah,
how we like kind of change our process and how
we go about interviewing candidates and like what is it
(14:07):
important for that process? Is sort of focus on have
we changed our process? Oh man? UM So, a big
thing that I've been focusing on, a big project, I
would say, is making sure that our process is equitable.
Our interview process is equitable. So one thing that we've
tried to make sure that HR is involved in all
of our searches from intern, game day, seasonal, full time everything, UM.
(14:30):
But also making sure that all of the candidates are
being considered UM equitabiliefs and making sure that you're UM
looking at skills across the board that are needed for
the job. UM. I would also say making sure that
you're asking the same questions that people that you're interviewing. UM.
You're not having any leading questions things like that. UM,
You're just giving everyone a fair chance at the position.
(14:51):
And I think something that's interesting too, that like we've
all kind of talked about, is that these perspective employees
are also like interviewing us, and so it's important for
them to see that someone that looks like is reflected
in the interview process and to make sure that this
place matches them. So how do you kind of go
about that? Yeah, so we try to make sure the
search committee are the people that are interviewing the candidate,
(15:11):
is a diverse committee, UM, gender, anything represented on that committee. UM.
I try to work with them in their questions beforehand,
making sure they're not asking any illegal questions if they
have a woman in the room, asking them when they're
wanting to have kids, or asking about daycare and anything
like that, so just making sure that you know, asking
questions are really aimed at can they do the job,
(15:31):
would they be successful? Um? And then just making sure
that they have time to ask questions at the end
and get a feel for us, give them a tour,
make sure we know them as much as they know
us by the end UM, so we can make a
good informed decision. I would say that our interview process
is pretty in depth. It's typically not just one person
interviewing another person. We have a committee, a panel of
(15:51):
what we would call stakeholders that are invested in that position,
even at a very entry level coordinator position on up
to if we're hiring of senior vice president or a
vice president. So the candidates come in and they spend
a fair amount of time here, some times a full day,
but no less than three hours, so they really have
the opportunity to get to know the people who were
(16:13):
on the panel. They can ask questions, they can get
a feel for the culture, they get a tour of
the building, they can walk around, they can really just
immmerse themselves in the culture and see if it's a
place that matches them just as much as they match
what we're looking for. Right and it makes sense. As
we talked about, there are so many interns who have
been here so long that like making sure that intern
hires the right decision because people do stick around, so
(16:34):
making sure it's a great fit from the beginning. And
I remember coming here when I was interviewing, it was
like a full day. It was exhausted, but it was
the whole day. I was living in New Orleans in
the time, and I think my flight was like New
Orleans time, like three or four am, and I don't
think I got home until midnight and was working the
next day. But it all works out. And you probably
met no less than twenty people when you're in your
(16:55):
day here, and you had a couple of meals with
different people, and that gives everyone an opportunity to get
to know whether you wanted to relocate your life here.
You know, it's a big decision, and not only relocate
your life, but as we mentioned, sports is not a
forty hour week job for most positions, and as you
well know, working in social media, I don't know no
(17:16):
one ever turns it off. So you know, you really
have to know if this is something that you would
feel good about promoting or dedicating your life too, and
that's important to us. And that's really what makes our
culture great is if we want everybody to contribute to
winning and we want them to be you know, we
call it play like a raven or whatever whatever that
(17:36):
term is that fits for you, as are they a raven?
And if and we can feel that through spending more
time with a person than just either a lot of
companies are doing just zoom interviews now they don't even
meet the people, um so they don't know that much
about them, and or a one hour interview with the
person who's going to be your boss and nobody else,
nobody just works just with their boss. You know, that
just isn't how we operate here, right, And I think
(17:59):
things like the h B see you and kind of
the relationships that you have kind of make it easier
for someone to understand all the facets that go into
the organization and kind of like we talked about earlier,
all the different roles that exists. Like I think that
was really cool to see a lot of the students
get out of that, like, oh, I can be working
for the bossmore ravens, but do like X, Y and
Z job, which I think is really unique that we
do do that to kind of prepare them ahead of time. UM,
(18:22):
kind of on the still sort of from the diversity standpoint,
but the NFL has placed a really big emphasis on
getting women from the college level of football to the NFL.
And something we've talked about is sometimes those roles look
really different and a lot of times, you know, the
talent coming in might be on the admin side. And so, so,
what challenges have you seen kind of with the NFL's
(18:42):
approach versus like other ways that we've got about it.
I guess I would say in college, if you were
at a big school with a big sports program, there
are many more administrative roles in terms of recruiting athletes
to the school, planning events, scheduling, even player engagement. There's
(19:04):
a lot more athletes. There's a lot more opportunity to
do what we would call football operation jobs at a
college than there is in the NFL. There's one person
that does operations here, there's really one person that does
player engagements. So a lot of times, since the women
are doing it potentially for the men's football team, they
are supporting an administrative role in college, and then the
(19:27):
NFL is bringing all of them together saying Okay, if
you want to be a coach, you want to be
a football operations, you want to be a scout, whatever
it is that you want to be, come and to
this event and we're going to try to help you
find a job. And the OPS people are looking for
jobs that don't necessarily exist at our level. We don't
have recruiting events. We don't. You know, it doesn't work
that way. We draft the player or we trade for
the player, and that's what it is. So, um, we
(19:50):
don't really have those kind of jobs. So, however, the
skills are transferable. We do have marketing events, and we
do have community events, and we do have hr events,
and the women what we really need to do is
transfer their skills and say, okay, well you're planning an
event for a recruiting trip to Florida. Well, you know
(20:10):
when we're planning training camp, which is an event for
three thousand people a day out here, those there's the
same skill set. So perhaps you want to be looking
for a job in marketing because there are thirty jobs
in marketing and we hire fifteen interns a year which
lead to jobs versus one job in operations. So we
probably could do a better job of of just letting
(20:31):
people know what the jobs are. At the professional level,
they are different than the college level, right, that makes sense.
So when the person gets here, when they when they
have the job, they finally made it here, they got
their foot in the door. What sets the Ravens apart
in your mind as an employer in the sports industry,
because we hear the horror stories of you know, everyone
works long hours, but a lot of times you're not
(20:52):
treated well on top of that, and obviously here at
the Ravens we are. So what do you think sets
us apart. I've never worked in another sports team, so
I'll say I don't know, but I have learned to
other companies, and I would say in terms of the
benefits that we get here, they are really second to none.
In um. Number one, you have the opportunity every year
to potentially go to the Super Bowl, you know, which
(21:14):
if you're a sports fan, that's really the ultimate end goal.
And so we have a winning product on the field,
which is really important, which leads to a culture of
winning and everybody feeling like they belong in our ownership
and our president tries not to make too much delineation
between football and everybody else in the business side of it. UM,
so that I'd say that's number one. But on top
(21:36):
of that, yes, we were a long hours, but we're
treated really really well. I mean we're sitting in our
own podcast studio right now. It's very special. UM. We
have a building that's beautiful. We are provided meals. You know,
if you work as much as you work, you get breakfast, lunch,
and dinner every every day. UM decide. When I was
on maternity leave, I was like, I'm starving because I
(22:00):
have yes and I had to cook all my food
and it was like, Okay, this is insane. I don't
want to make breakfast. I don't have to make lunch.
So when I'm at work and our benefits are really
really unheard of, our health benefits. UM. We still participate
in the NFL pension plan, which is just amazing. UM.
(22:20):
You can retire at fifty five years old, no one
ever does, but you can get your benefits until you're
sixty five. So some perks that you know old school
companies had, the NFL still has. In addition to these,
you know, pretty glamorous benefits of potentially going to a
winning a Super Bowl, so it's hard to compete with them. Yeah,
and I think like even there, it goes beyond like
(22:42):
the benefits to to me, like, I think we've made
so many strides, and like the culture aspect, which you
kind of alluded to, Like we have a Diversity Action
Committee that the three of us are all a part of,
shameless plug, and I mean it's really cool because we
as an organization are really cognizant of the culture that
we have and continuing to push that forward, which I
think is really unique. Like I think it would be
really easy in the NFL to be like where the
(23:03):
NFL where great, everyone wants to be here, but it's
like when they get here, making sure that that's still
a positive experience for everyone I think is really special. Yeah. Yeah,
and I'd say we still have barriers that we are
breaking down every day, you know, and we are steeped
in a lot of tradition. Historically men have been in
coaching roles. Historically they've been in player personnel roles, and
(23:24):
women have been more support roles. They've had a lot
of women on the on the football operation side, but
in support and so we are really breaking some barriers
and hiring women in leadership roles over there, but we
still have a long way to go. Um, and we
are cognitive it and the d A c IS does
really raise challenging questions. Have we thought about how we
(23:47):
did that? Is that the way we're going to do
it forever? And sometimes you're it's painful and you're like,
why is this? I gotta lean into this what's going on?
Because that is something that we need to change. But
we are empowered here to make the changes that we
need to make. In fact, we have a maternity leave situation.
We're probably going to change that. We have a pretty
generous maternity leave policy um or we call it post
(24:09):
pregnancy leaves to whoever actually has the baby gets nine
weeks of paid leave and um, but you have to
be here a year. So why why you have to
be here a year? Because that could be a barrier
to entry for a woman who is either pregnant or
considering having a baby before she's been here a year.
So we're like, well, that's kind of silly. Why don't
(24:29):
we change it? And so we're going to you know,
so you just get it right from the jump, because
that's what we should do. But um, so we have
to constantly kind of push that envelope and think outside
of the box and make sure that our culture is
actually inclusive and there aren't barriers for entry. So one
takeaway from for listeners we had to give them one
piece of advice to a prospective employee. I'm to put
(24:51):
you on the spot. What would that be? I'm gonna
send this to everyone that messages me on LinkedIn from
now on. Oh Man, really didn't put me on the spot.
I think mine would be take whatever opportunity you can get,
even if it seems small. So attending a conference, Um,
I've seen a lot of freshmen at career fairs and
(25:11):
they're like, I'm not even close to eating full time job,
but I just wanted to say Hi, I love that.
So just taking any opportunity you can to network to
meet people, UM, I think it goes a really long way.
I would probably say that same thing because I think
that serves you well in life, even beyond getting a job.
You know, take every opportunity you get. You may not
(25:35):
take every interview that you get. You don't necessarily get
offered every job, and if you do, you don't have
to take it. But take every opportunity in life that
you can to learn something else, and if it feels uncomfortable,
lean into why it feels uncomfortable. If it feels good,
you know, continue down that path because there's a lot
of pressure at in ninth grade to figure out what
(25:56):
you want to do with the rest of your life,
you know, and you don't really know that in my
forties and I still don't know what I'm gonna do
with the rest of my life. But so continue to
take opportunities to learn, and you may fall into something
that you really love that you wouldn't have really paid
attention to unless you gave it an opportunity. So this
could be a game day job, it could be a
training camp, internship. It could be something at your college
(26:17):
or your current job, or someone's like, hey, do you
want to volunteer on this committee or this board, and
you find your passion for something. So I really do
think that's probably the best advice I would give to someone.
I love that. I think people always say that no
one's journey is a straight line, you know, And I
growing up, i'd always talk to adults that had like
a job that I thought was cool, But it's not
like they had that job right out of college, you know,
(26:39):
like everyone's path takes these turns, and like I remember
when I was a freshman in college, I had to
have a seminar credit, and I thought for sure I
was gonna be premed, gonna go sports med, like that
was gonna be my path. And I took this seminar
that was TV journalism just because it like checked off
the box of seminar credit and I ended up loving
it and through that, like I got this position in
that and like that just spirals. So you just you realize,
(27:00):
ever know, you never never know. And I mean I
didn't go to I didn't really know HR was a
thing in sports, and you know, it wasn't it right
kind of fell into it and I was a sports fan.
But so you just have to kind of. Um. I
got some good advice even as relationship from a woman
who used to work here who I loved and I
was dating and it wasn't She was like, Elizabeth, you
(27:22):
have to uncover every rock, Like Okay, that's exhausting, but okay, um,
and she's right, you just have to. You have to
give everything a try because you just don't know. That's
so true, all right, last thing for you are purple
hot seat. The three rapid fire questions, they're not as
hard as the other one, Thomas. First one is for
(27:44):
both of you your favorite Ravens game, super Bowl. Oh yeah, sorry,
just Sorry's the only one that was here for that,
Tony raven schemes. So I joined during COVID, so I
really didn't get together too many. I would say my
first one, which I don't even remember what that was. Um,
it was probably a preseason Yeah, it was probably a
preseason game, and I was got to stand, like, I
(28:06):
don't know where were you from at I'm learning the
parts of the stadium, but like I just got to
see the lights and the fireworks, and like it was
just different seeing it from an employee perspective versus like
being a fan and knowing that I'm involved in the
success of the team. Um yeah, that was You might
be the only person in history to ever answer that
question as a preason. Yes. A second one, his best
(28:29):
job perk since I have the two people in charge
of all the Oh man, these are hard supposed to
be rapid fire as it changes, but the food is
got to be food. The food has got to be
the best job per or tickets. Oh yeah, tickets were
good too. I love food trucks. I'm a foodie. So
(28:51):
and you telling me a food trucks here, ice cream
anything like? Yeah? Yeah, so for fans, I don't know.
In addition to us having free food every day, we
also in food chucks that we can use once a week,
which is great. And then my hr them to question
resume or cover letter. Oh my good man, resume even
though the cover is really important. But I'm gonna say resume. Yeah,
(29:14):
I agree, barely barely interested about so cover letter is
still important to you, guys. I feel like some people
still lost the art of the cover letter. Yes, they
have so important. I think you always have to apply
with a cover letter. You should always apply for a
cover with a cover letter. And the thing about a
cover letter is it should be tailored to It shouldn't
be the same cover letter that you're sending out for
(29:35):
you'reine wrong organization and so um. I think in the
rapid fire world, people just fire off and they just
can submit their resume really quickly and they don't necessarily
do the cover letter. But the cover letter is still
really important. We will decline, people will put in the bottom.
This is a fun fact tip for anyone who's applying
(29:56):
for a job is to read our job prescriptions all
the way through to the bott um before you apply,
because if it says a cover letter is required and
you do not submit a cover letter, we will ding
you because you didn't follow the instructions. And it's a
very attention to detail position, and so we have many
people who just don't do it and they don't make
it to the next step because of that one. Always
(30:18):
read the direction, always create the direction. Thank you so
much for joining me, ladies, think it informative for everybody. Thanks,
thank you. Since my conversation with Elizabeth and Jasmine, their
team has made even more forward progress. The post pregnancy
leave policy has been updated to twelve weeks of paid
leave at a hundred percent and the option to add
(30:40):
on an additional week of vacation for a total of
thirteen weeks paid at one. Their team focuses on three
strategic goals to recruit higher and retain diverse talent, to
maintain a culture of inclusion, and to challenge the status
quo and continue to push the needle forward. If you
to keep an eye on current openings, all positions are
(31:03):
posted on Baltimore Ravens dot com and are LinkedIn page
and each position receives a high number of applicants, but
all applicants receive a thorough review. One thing that I
hear often is it's all about who you know. And
as someone who got my first NFL internship without already
having a foot in the door, I want you to
know that's not the case. Building a strong resume and
(31:25):
being a go getter, you can make your own way.
My two cents I'll leave you with is to be flexible.
I've moved to two new cities for opportunities where I
didn't know anyone and was far from family and friends.
And your opportunity might not come at the team you've
always been a fan of, and that's okay. Trust me,
It's real easy to change alliances when someone else is
(31:46):
paying the bills. And finally, don't be afraid to take
an opportunity at a quote unquote no name place. Smaller brands, teams, leagues,
et cetera often offer the most possibility of getting true
hands on ex varience. When we're hiring someone, I'd rather
them have more hands on experience than just be able
to put a big name company on their resume. It's
(32:08):
all about doing. When you are at the point in
your career when you can choose where you want to be.
It's great to find a place like the Ravens where
the organization cares about fostering and inclusive culture and has
great benefits. And I'm not just talking about the Orange
Juice machine anyways. If there's anything I or someone in
the Ravens organization can ever do to help, please don't
(32:30):
be afraid to reach out. We're always willing to look
over a resume or answer questions and I hope this
was helpful. As always, if you're enjoying the podcast, don't
forget to leave a review and rating, Subscribe and tell
all your friends I'll talk to you soon.
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