Successful Berklee Alumni #199: Georgeta Seserman

Georgeta Seserman
Listen to the interview or download it.

Graduated in 2018 with a major in Professional Music. Principal instrument: voice.

Position: Full-Desk I.T. Recruiter at Motion Recruitment., a large tech recruiting firm with many offices in the United States and Canada. Georgeta is one of a bit over fifty people in their Chicago office. On her team of five, Georgeta is the one “full desk” recruiter, meaning that in addition to finding good candidates for open positions she also reaches out to companies who need talent.

Overview: After graduation, she moved in with her parents in NYC, planning to do music full-time while working a number of side jobs for money. She was working extremely long hours and by late 2019 was feeling unhappy, unhealthy, and like she had failed. Then the pandemic hit and she found herself unemployed for the rest of 2020. Georgeta moved to various places, and realizing she needed a job, applied online for remote work. She got a sales job at Yelp!, not realizing it was a sales job when she applied. After a few months, Georgeta felt it was not the right job for her.

On a whim, Georgeta applied to Motion recruitment, figuring if she was going to do sales she’d rather do recruitment, where she’s directly helping people. The initial screening call went very long as she and her future-boss really hit it off, and the next stage interview turned into the final interview, ending with a job offer. Hired into her current job, she hit the ground running, lining up candidates at a furious pace. Soon she received a de facto promotion to full-desk recruiter.
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You can see Georgeta’s LinkedIn profile here.

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Choice Quotes: “What a client needs constantly changes–the interview process changes, or someone gets mad. It’s always exciting; there’s always adrenalin flowing. I also love getting to call people and tell them they have a final interview or even a job! I had a candidate who had been stuck in a fairly low-paying job and I was able to place him someplace much better and really improve his life. On the business side, I enjoy having adult, business conversations, advising both job seekers and companies about the job market.”

“My relationship with music is healthier these days. Music feels less like a chore and something I’ll fail if I don’t do it all the time. Now I do it to feed my soul. I have this stable 9 to 5, then my art happens in the evenings and weekends, which is the prime time for that anyway.

“The biggest thing I learned at Berklee was the grind! I was always doing something, involved in something–that drive come from Berklee. And it served me very well in my current role. Also at Berklee I learned about building relationships, being able to connect to people, listening to them.”

“Don’t be afraid to go into sales. The most successful people from Berklee I’ve seen have gone into sales or recruiting. If you’re having a hard time doing the arts ever day don’t freak out–it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. There’s a lot of aspects of music you can carry into your 9-5 and still be successful. Do what you want to feed yourself and feed your music.

“Before getting on this path, I felt extremely lost and like I’d failed in everything. I never thought I’d see myself be so good at a job, and enjoy it and just be happy with my situation. Just know that if you’re just coming out of school you’re seeing the real world for what it is: exciting but also scary as heck. If you’re feeling lost, it’s not going to be that way forever. Find what excites you and just go for it. You might be in a bad place initially, but that’s how it goes. It will get better.”

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See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.