Brianna worked hard to finish her undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon a year early. While she initially planned to jump straight to law school, she deferred those aspirations due to burnout and decided to enter the workforce instead.

Her career began with Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s Management Trainee Program, where she honed skills in customer service, business operations, and team management. Within 18 months, she advanced to a full-time management role in Portland and later transferred to Nashville. There, Brianna transitioned to AT&T in a sales role, primarily for financial reasons.

Seeking greater alignment with her personal goals, Brianna decided to move to Dallas and shifted into the field of recruiting, inspired by a conversation with a sorority sister who was working at Aerotek, a large staffing agency. Brianna joined the same agency in 2021, recruiting for warehouse roles during the pandemic.

She found that recruiting spoke to her interest in helping and advocating for people and built on her interpersonal skills, while providing clearer work-life boundaries.

Through intentional networking, Brianna then connected with Zillow’s VP of Talent Acquisition, securing a contractor role with the Seattle-based tech real estate company’s recruiting team. She then became a full-time technical sourcer in 2022, focusing on identifying top engineering talent while working fully remote. Recently, she transitioned to a recruiter role, expanding her responsibilities.

Q&A with Brianna

"I'm sort of irrationally confident in myself and that started with my PathwayOregon advisor. I had a lot of aspirations and ambitions when I came to UO and her message was always: “You can do whatever you want to do here and I will support you.”

Her belief in me, and just the way we connected, was really important to me. Ever since then, in every job that I've had, I've looked for that. I always link myself to someone who believes in me and who can help guide me to where I want to go."

"Resilience, to keep pushing forward and believing in myself. For a while, I felt really lost. I remember, at Enterprise, driving rental cars and thinking, “What did I get a degree for?”

But I’m glad I had moments like that because they kept me pushing. They were reminders that I did work so hard for my degree, and that I should be doing something where I’m exercising the skills I learned. 

Delayed gratification is a real thing. Realizing that has helped me get to a place now where I feel like everything is starting to click."

"If you are applying to a role, make sure your resume includes keywords from the job posting. As recruiters, we use algorithm-based technology to identify keywords in your materials, so synchronize your resume to each posting to help make sure it actually gets in front of real people. 

I would also investigate and do your research on the company. Read employee reviews. Try to identify who recruits for the role you’re looking at and reach out to them personally on LinkedIn.

But networking will always be #1. How I network today is not how I networked when I was fresh out of school. Do research on networking. There’s nothing wrong with using ChatGPT or just Googling “best networking practices.” If you don’t know how to do something, learn how."

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