The Job Forum

0:00:00
Welcome to the Job Forum. My name is Mana Azizoltani and I am a PhD student at the Harrah College of Hospitality here at UNLV. On this show we discuss the journey through college and into the workforce with recent graduates of different disciplines. Welcome to the Job Forum. Alright let's get this party started. So in today's special edition of the Job Forum I'm happy to have my good friend here, Mason Molina. What's good? He's going to talk about his rather unconventional journey into the workforce. Do you want to give a little introduction?

0:00:35
Sure. Yeah. I was born in... Before I got here, Monna said, Mason, don't tell me your whole life story. And then I started with, I was born... Oh, here we go. Okay. So I was born in Pensacola, Florida. And then... No, I'm just kidding. I actually was born there, but I'm not going to start there. I went to high school at Coronado and then I was kind of deciding where is it that I want to go to college. And I was completely unmotivated, so I chose UNLV. And I decided to fall back on my good old university here. And the entire purpose of that was, I mean, you know, if you went to high school here in Nevada, UNLV's kind of not the place that everyone goes to, especially if you go to a school like Coronado and you go to the senior thing and everyone's like, oh, I'm going to Notre Dame, I'm going to Columbia. And then you see people that are going to UNLV and it's like, yeah, we're just going to UNLV. So that was me, I decided to just go to UNLV. But then I got here, I moved out and I decided to live on campus. And while I was living on campus, I started to see that there's a lot more opportunity at this university than I ever expected and I was living on campus decided to become a resident assistant I was a resident assistant here for two years had room and board covered for that and then on top of that I decided I went into college undecided and eventually found my way into finance because I really liked economics and I was told that economics and math was was was what finance was. And so I just decided to kind of keep going on that track right there. And I just went along with the classes, did an internship in investment banking at Union Gaming, which was a local boutique investment firm here. And I realized that I hated it. And yeah, no, I hated it. I did not like the culture. And if this was just a microcosm of the 90-hour work week in order to earn $150,000 a year. It's not worth it. Why have $150,000 if I can't live? At least that was my personal idea. And so I also happened to be really Catholic. My senior year of high school, I had this conversion moment on a retreat. And from then on, all throughout college, I stayed active. I did summer programs where I went out to summer camps and did youth ministry there. I love youth ministry. I think high schoolers and middle schoolers are the funniest people on earth. They will tell you the worst things about yourself that you didn't know were there. And so I was doing that, and after I left college, I spent my last semester abroad in Madrid, and then the coronavirus happened, and that kind of put a boot in that, and I was kind of annoyed. And, but you know, everyone's life kind of sucked, so what do I have really to complain about? And I came back and I just, I finished up my classes that were supposed to be in Madrid in my bedroom, just like everyone else, and I was like, I don't know what to do next, but I felt as if though I had a calling to go out and do a full year of mission work, and I really thought I was gonna be doing ministry for the rest of my life. And so I went out and I lived in the mountains of North Georgia from August of 2020 to August of 2022. And I just got back just like three three months ago and I was like I don't know what I'm gonna do but in the process I started dating this girl her name's Dara she's beautiful she's wonderful if she hears this she knows I said this. And then I just knew that that was the reason why I wanted to come back. I knew that I wanted to come back and I wanted to date her. I wanted to potentially marry her. We'll see what goes with that. And what comes with that is needing a job. And I had a finance degree. And with my finance degree I knew that I don't know what I'm going to do. And I was looking at sales. Being a missionary I had to fundraise. So I had to raise, I think I raised over $45,000 over two years. And I just realized, oh, I'm kind of, you know, I like people, I like talking to people, I like telling my story, I believe in certain things, and if you do that, you can make some money doing it. So I figured, why not try sales? And what's the natural place with sales? Auditing. And so I ended up as an auditor at an accounting firm because I was on LinkedIn and I knew a friend, I knew a guy who, knew a guy, actually a guy who went to my church, his dad works at a firm in town called Ide Bailey, a plug to Ide Bailey, and they decided to give me a shot, even though I don't have accounting courses and I have a long way to go to becoming a CPA, but here we are.

0:05:05
All right, well, okay, well, thank you for your life story, Mason. You're welcome. Let's break this down.

0:05:13
Okay.

0:05:14
So, A plus B.

0:05:15
Where do I want to start?

0:05:16
Assets equals liabilities plus stockholders' equity.

0:05:19
Poor guy's been studying so much for his job interview. Now he's trying to spit out the facts. Yeah.

0:05:24
I don't need the interview. I'm already in.

0:05:26
Come on. Yeah, true. Good point. So, all right. Most kids, they dream of getting a job when they get out of college, right? That's like their whole goal in college is so they can go find a job. You didn't. Oh, that wasn't your dream while you were in college. Do you want to talk about that decision?

0:05:44
Yeah. I always knew that I wanted to do something with purpose. On top of that, I always knew that I didn't have this super huge passion for anything, which sounds really bleak and and sad and miserable. But I love hanging out with people. I love going out and seeing the world. But what person doesn't love doing that? And my dad loved – he knew from the age of 11 that he wanted to be in the Air Force. And so he went and he joined the Air Force. He was an officer and flew F-15s, and he knew that after watching Top Gun that that was what he wanted to do when he was 11 years old and that was his goal. And I kind of grew up and I was like, oh, maybe I'll do the Air Force and I didn't want to do the Air Force. And then I was like, maybe I'll be a lawyer and I didn't want to be a lawyer. And these high prestigious things, like you have to be motivated to do them because they take a lot of time. And I was never fully motivated in doing them. Again, I just liked hanging out with people, I liked doing whatever. And so kind of going through college, that was just what I was looking at. And look, no 16 year old goes, I want to be an accountant. No 16 year old goes, I want to become a researcher at a think tank, right? But these are real jobs that people just, you you find your way in life. And so I knew that I loved doing ministry, but the eternal conundrum with ministry is the fact that it doesn't pay. And I know that I want a family. I know that I want a rather large family and I'd like that quicker and you do need a nice check for that. So what are you going to do? And part of that comes into my own personal beliefs, right? I was able to kind of rectify that with, again I'm very Catholic, the very beginning of Genesis women are given periods at the fall and men are told they have to work, okay? And so that's just like the real thing is like you men are told to toil and labor in Genesis And that's that's where we come from and so in my mind like I know that I'm gonna have to work and you know You don't have to hate work But if you enjoy the people that you're around you enjoy the work that you're doing You're going to end up realizing like okay here. We are because at the end of the day Pick your passion if you don't necessarily have to work Would you still be doing it my bet would be that 90% of the world would say no, right? Like if I didn't have to put food on the table I wouldn't be doing this. And so there we are. That was kind of like my thought process into eventually finding my way into like I need to get a job. Okay. All right. Do you know what you just talked about? Yeah, I talked about how I feel like I need to work because I have to work.

0:08:31
Okay.

0:08:32
So, you talk about how you feel like you need to work because you need to work to make money or to support your family and, you know, live the lifestyle that you want to live.

0:08:43
How did you balance that, like, I need to work with, like, I need to serve? Balancing I need to work with I need to serve comes with the fact that in order for me to serve I need to work. At the end of the day the biggest serving I can have is having a family and I can do youth ministry after I have provided for a family, which led me into going, okay, what's a career that I can actually start to provide for a family that gives me the ability to create space in order to help out in the communities that I'm in.

0:09:17
Understood.

0:09:18
Okay. All right. I want to back up again to like where you're in college, right? You're in college, you don't really know what you want to do with your life. I mean, that's most kids that are around here, including myself. I mean, I'm no different than anybody else. I didn't know what I wanted to do until I got a master's degree. I still didn't know what I wanted to do. How did you deal with that pressure of like finding out what to do and then how did you overcome that and say, look, I'm going to do what I feel like I need to do internally?

0:09:48
So the pressure came from feeling as if though I need to be successful, whatever that is. And that really only existed my freshman, sophomore, and junior year of college. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. I've been doing this for the longest time. So I'm in accounting right now. The most logical path from that is CPA. Just because I'm an auditing intern at Ida Bailey, does that mean that I'm going to be a CPA? No, like anything could happen between now and two years from now. But you know, this is it's just one step at a time. And I would like to think like, okay, this is what's going to happen. But I was just talking with a senior yesterday at lunch and a senior manager and we were just, you know, a lot of people leave public accounting. You get in, you realize this is for me or this is not for me. Same thing kind of was happening where the pressure started to fade away whenever I did not think that I needed to be any specific thing anymore.

0:11:09
Okay. And then how did you, so I'm sure, so you talk about how you don't need to be specific anymore, right? And you talk about how there was pressure that you felt to be successful. How important was it to realize that your definition of success might be different than what society has?

0:11:32
How important was that?

0:11:33
Yeah.

0:11:34
I'd say it was deeply important for me to be able to just like get out of bed but it's not that important for me as far as like finding a job. So like there's this there can be this crippling at least for me there was like this oh my gosh you know I'm not going to the most prestigious university in the world oh my gosh I'm not number one in my class oh my gosh whatever it is right but like it was important for me to be able to find to find my own Okay, I'm getting up and I'm gonna start actually walking but as far as how important is it for life like I'd say I'd say It's pretty important. I don't know if I answered your question there. That's okay So now you so you decided you're in college you decided to go on your mission What the things that you learned on your mission that helped you grow as a person or helped you grow professionally or helped you or just taught you how to be a human? The mission was, it taught me a lot about humility, a lot about perseverance, and a lot about being independently dependent, if that makes any sense at all. It's kind of a paradox there. But the humility comes from the fact that you're doing a lot of work, a lot that you're not paid for, and a lot that goes unappreciated. And finding a deeper push to keep going, and then even to find a meaning to say, I'm doing this for another person. And so in that seeing the value of other people. And then going into perseverance, right? Like during summer camp we were working six days a week from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. The actual work would be from like say 9 to 6, but on top of that you're also doing the socializing, you're doing the praying, you're doing the whatever, like there are added things that are required that aren't necessarily actually the work. And so all of that combined it really gets you tired, tattered, and beaten and whenever I would go back and I'd say, okay why am I doing this? And I just go back to my commitment and just having the the discipline to be able to follow through with my commitments, right? And that is something in this world that is lacking and so often people are told like, oh this is actually a bad space for you, maybe you should leave, or oh this isn't good for your mental health like maybe you should leave. There are moments where things are actually not good for your mental health and someone should seek help and do whatever. But also we should get back to praising people for having the perseverance to get through something that is incredibly difficult. That is what builds character and I think for me, you know, I'm in a moment right now where I don't know a lot at my firm but okay I'm going to have the humility to ask questions and the perseverance to push through. And then to be independently dependent, I can't be successful without someone else, but they can't be successful if I don't actually pick up my torch and try and like help them out. And so I need to have the awareness to like learn more, and that's going to be able to put me in a space that allows me to better help the superiors and whoever it is that I have. And all of that translates directly over into whatever job that it's in. Even in just, I've been at this internship for three weeks now so far, and it's like today I was helping the front desk lady put on, her name's Marsha, she's a great woman, I was helping her put on name tags because we have an office party coming up. And then I just keep going around every single office and saying, hey, do you still have work? Like, do you have work, do you have work, do you have work? Eventually they're giving it to me, but it gives me a chance to like get to know them and talk to them. And so, like to not give up and to not shy away from showing them my face, showing them that I'm eager and that I wanna learn.

0:15:31
I think that's so important. I love the independently dependent. We're gonna like coin this term right now. Independent dependence, you know, you needing a person to help you grow and them needing you to help them get ahead too. I mean, it's like the whole employer-employee sort of relationship, right? Independent dependence.

0:15:51
Independent dependence. That's what they were talking about when they wrote the Declaration of Independence. Yeah, the Declaration of Independent Dependence. Yeah, George Washington. That's right. Well, I like that. So we talked about how your mission was so valuable to you in your formation, how you got to this point now. So you're here now at your internship, and you're learning, you're in the workforce. You mentioned that you go to people's offices and chat with them and whatever. It seems like you learned a lot of soft skills on your mission, as well as growing as a person. How does that translate now to what you're doing? Yeah, naturally Being we would do things on the mission Like homeless ministry, we call it mall ministry. So those two different things homeless ministry was us going and we would make different lunches and then we would go into the streets of Atlanta, which is a very like downtown Atlanta is a rough place and there are Piedmont Park or wherever it is, like there are a lot of homeless people and a lot of people who really need help and who don't have, they don't have food and they're not able to access anything. And so we were to go in there and right, you would think that our goal was to like go and convert them or whatever, no, like that wasn't the goal. The goal of us going there was to create a lunch and give it to someone and then just have lunch with them and that was it and we would sit there and we would talk with Them we would get their name. We would ask them Hey, do you know of any shelters around here that way that you can go to me point them in that direction? That was the whole purpose of it was just that a lot of times these people are passed by every single day and No one pays any mind to them and in order to do that You have to be like it is a humbling experience to walk up to someone who is homeless and it's like, oh yeah, I'm doing this. And then you start doing it and you're like, oh, I'm scared because I don't want to get attacked. I don't want to be yelled at. I don't even know if they appreciate me. Like all of these things are the questions that you have. A lot of times you go up to them, excuse me, how are you doing today? And they don't say anything to you. And it's like, oh, okay. Well, this actually, like, if you can get past that and you you have the humility there like that transit translates over directly to the workforce of me going up to the partner of the firm he has so many other worries on his mind than a new intern coming in and having lunch with him but it's me going up to the partner of the firm and saying hey can I take you out for what can I take you out to lunch and he's like no but I can take you out to lunch and then it's just like getting to know him in that specific manner right whereas otherwise that might not happen and establishing a connection with those who have been around in the industry for forever like that's the best way that you're going to be able to learn and

0:18:38
grow and all the good things. It seems like you you were able to like learn about contact people and also like building relationships and relating to people it seems like a lot of what you learned on your mission was just being a human, just connecting.

0:18:56
It's being a human, connecting, it's seeing people for who they are, and it's all just, it's developing relationships. Which is what, I mean, at the end of the day, when people talk about networking, when people talk about soft skills, when people talk about anything, you just have to, you really have to genuinely enjoy people and I happen to be someone who genuinely enjoys people sometimes to a fault.

0:19:22
Yeah, yeah, no, I completely agree. A lot of times when people talk about networking, we go to these events and we walk around all different booths and we try to talk to everybody, we think it's so important, but at the end of the day, if you were to meet one person at one of the booths and sit there and talk to them for the whole hour, I think that's just as good networking as just passing out your business card to everybody that was there, you know? And I think that, like what you're saying about building a relationship with someone is so, so important, because I mean, nobody's gonna remember who you are. Nobody's gonna wanna help you if they don't know you, or if you don't know them, you know? Like if you just walk around and talk to people, like, okay, cool, but they're not gonna remember your name.

0:20:02
I mean, it ties directly back to the fundraising experience that I was talking about. Anyone who's in sales knows that it's all about relationships, whatever it may be. But if you're doing fundraising, you're asking people to financially support something that is not going to give them anything back in return. So the nice thing about sales is that you get a product for putting up with someone's pitch. You don't get a product if you're doing fundraising. The best thing that you get is knowing that you've helped out in the world a little bit. And that's just in the absolute raw emotionless view of it, right? But really what's deeper behind fundraising is I'm doing something that is important. And this thing happens to be something that doesn't earn a lot of money, right? The camp that I work at, they don't net in the green. They need donors every single year in order to be able to operate. And this place operates so that people can have their lives changed. Okay, well we're going to need workers. And in order for those workers to be able to function, they have to have salaries. How do they get salaries? Salaries need to be fundraised. So I have to call my friends and family and I have to ask. I mean you were – you and your family ended up donating in a way. And so that was really nice. And it's saying to them like, look, I'm going to go do this thing. I need help. And that first time it's really intimidating. But then throughout the year you keep in touch with those people. You say, hey, how's it going? How's your family? And I don't even ask them about money or whatever it is. You just – you keep in touch with them. And then you're saying, oh, Mana, how's your mom? I know she's going through an accounting program. Oh, Mana, your mom finished the accounting program.

0:21:34
What about me, dude?

0:21:35
Come on.

0:21:36
You can ask about me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to Spain. I know you're doing great, okay? but but like Checking in with someone and then following up by saying like oh I listened to you last time and then that made it to where come June my Goal increased and I had less time to fundraise and so I'd call people and I'd be like hey Can you give me more money than last year? And I don't have as much as much time to tell you about it?" And they'd say, sure. And I'd be like, oh, this is so easy. In three phone calls, I was able to get half my salary that I needed for the entire year. And once it was like, oh, these relationships really matter. And not even building forward to, you know, it was someone who I was friends with in high school. His dad worked at a firm that was able to see that there was some type of value here, and it was like that network connection for sure, and the relationships that you build, 1,000%.

0:22:32
How important is that over just like, how important is the quality of the connection versus the quantity of the connections?

0:22:39
The quality is everything. The quality is everything. Because if I know 1,000 people and I barely know them, then it's like high. How much can they attest to my character whenever I get to the interview? Like probably very little. By having good quality connections, you're able to actually get to the places that you need to go and it's all about helping each other. It's not in any malicious way. As long as you're doing it with a genuine intention of like actual love and care. Because if you start doing it in some shallow, I'm just doing this to get whatever, like people can see through that.

0:23:13
So I want to ask you too, like,

0:23:15
you got a job in audit, right?

0:23:17
Yeah. How much did they expect you to actually know audit?

0:23:21
I don't know. My guess is very little. My guess is very little. I have what's called an eyed guide. His name is Raymond and he is great. And I'll talk to him and I'm like, bro, I'm just like nervous. I don't know, cause I feel like I have no idea how I got here. And he'll just go to me and he's like, dude, don't worry, you're an intern. No one expects anything from an intern. He's like, I'm a staff member, they barely expect anything from me. Now once you get to senior, they actually start expecting a lot from you. But, you know, you've done a couple years to put it in there. And so like, how much do they expect me to know? I was up front with them about how little I knew, and so I'm guessing very little.

0:24:04
You know, it's crazy to me to think that like, you go through a degree in accounting, right, and you learn, or you go through an accounting specialization, audit it, and you go through this degree and you learn all these things in college, but then when you get to the workforce, they don't expect you to know anything.

0:24:16
Yeah, well, I was talking to this guy who is, he just finished the, I think the master's program of accounting at UNLV, talked about how great of a program it is, which it is a great program. It has like a 70% passing rate of the CPA exam.

0:24:27
I think they have a 100% job placement.

0:24:29
And a 100% job placement, great program. But he still is a tax guy and he's like, yeah, it's just still completely different than when you get in class, because when you get in class, they set up the problem for you. And then you get in the real life and like I'm in a situation where, okay, they say that there's this amount of cash, so I need to know like I want to ask them to provide a bank statement that actually verifies the cash or he's on the tax side he has to actually find the messy numbers of people who don't keep track of their finances in an orderly way and know how to get that information you need to find that stuff that's not stuff that you're able to replicate in a classroom and so like the they do a good job of prepping you with the theoretical knowledge I mean I think I definitely lack I need to review my debits and credits and all the good stuff that go on there. But they don't prepare you for the real world because it's just not possible. It's just not possible.

0:25:20
Yeah, I got it. So we're running out of time here. Do you have any last advice that you want to give to students or people that are starting out in the industry or just anyone in general? I feel like you have really, you always give me really good advice whenever I ask you for it. So maybe you can pass the baton.

0:25:38
Oh man, I don't know. Give me one second. All right, it's been one second. I'd say that the advice that I have is think generally where you want to be in life, like generally. Start mapping out that path. Start walking on that path, but be open to whatever comes in front of you. And so what I mean by that is I know that I am highly interested in business evaluation and mergers and all these other things that happen within any professional industry, right? But in order for me to get there, I need to put in the grunt work of being an auditor and intern and associate, whatever it is, and actually get the designation, put in the years to become an expert etc and that takes time and that in order to get wherever it is that you want to go it's going to take time but if along the way like you're following what it is that you want to do like don't ignore that just just keep walking on that path whatever it is so for instance for me right i know that that's where i want to go that i'd like to get to a point where i'm financially independent and I am a financial professional. And so I'm walking on that path towards CPA-ship, which might lead me to becoming a partner in a firm

0:26:58
if I stay with one.

0:26:59
Or I might not. And that's kind of the thought, is just think generally where you wanna go, picture that, walk that way, but be open to whatever comes in front of you. Yeah, I think that's great advice. I echo the same thing. I mean, I think me and you have had similar paths, right? I mean, like we tried something, didn't like it, had pressure to keep going and kind of kept going and didn't like it still and then, I don't know, took a little curve ball and came back and now we're doing what we're quote unquote supposed to do. Yeah, and even bigger than that advice, I would say don't take my advice. Like find a mentor. Find someone who is a professional, right? Because a lot of the times, like there's only so much, Mano, that you and I can teach each other about how to get where. We can help each other, but the biggest people who have helped me are the CEOs that I've met, that I've like kind of hung on to, the people who I've looked up to in my life, and actually have their stuff together.

0:27:54
Well, they say you're supposed to have like three, and I'll actually, I'll leave us with this. We're supposed to have three different mentors in our lives. One, someone that's like well above us, that's where we want to be. Someone that's not necessarily below us, because I want to say that loosely, right? Someone that's necessarily, let's say someone that works really hard in high school.

0:28:13
Not in a dominant way, but someone who's not at the same part.

0:28:16
Not in the same part of life, right? So for example, for me, it's my little cousin who is 17, he's graduated, he's in his first year of college and he's just killing it. Yeah. And also the one, and this is the one I think is the most important, is the one that is on your level. And in that sense, Mason, I have you. I look up to you so much and you, in your own way, have taught me so many different things and I always appreciate that and having you around. You're so kind. And so thank you so much for being here. And thank you for sharing your wisdom.

0:28:47
Thank you for inviting me here and for putting up with me.

0:28:50
Hey, someone's got to keep you on track, right?

0:28:53
Someone's got to, you know, and the crowd will never know how.

0:28:58
Hey, who knows? But anyway, thank you so much for coming. Of course. Thanks so much for listening to The Job Forum. If you want any more details or have any questions, visit my website at manaziz.com. M-A-N-A-Z-I-Z.com. M-A-N-A-Z-I-Z.com.

0:29:15
Welcome to The Job Forum.

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