Meet the BeamTeam: Our Career Journeys—Stephen Greet

This newsletter will be part of a monthly series titled “Meet the BeamTeam: Our Career Journeys.” Each newsletter will focus on an interview with one of our awesome team members about their professional path and how they came to BeamJobs.

Keep reading to learn more about this month’s star, Stephen Greet!

Note: responses have been edited for clarity, flow, and length, but the original intent of the responses have been preserved.

Stephen Greet

Co-founder and CEO

· In summary, what do you do every day at BeamJobs?

I guess I sort of do a little bit of everything: marketing strategy, product strategy, accounting, and corporate compliance. For a long time, I was the one doing the work. Now I’m in a managerial role, where I inform strategy and remove roadblocks, among other things.

· When you were a kid, what did you want to do when you grew up?

For my entire life, I wanted to be a doctor. In high school, I became an EMT and was really committed to that path. Then I went to college, the University of Pittsburgh, because I’d gotten accepted to medical school there.

· What changed your mind about becoming a doctor?

My older brother was a doctor, and I saw the crazy hours he had to work for such a long period. I had a crisis of confidence sophomore year where I wasn’t sure I wanted that life for myself; I didn’t want my career to be my life.

It’s largely that you have to be really passionate, and I didn’t have the passion to justify the years and hours you had to put into it. “Would I be miserable?” And I thought the answer was, “yes.”

In hindsight, I’m very happy with that decision.

· How did you proceed after switching paths?

I was always good at math, but I didn’t know how that translated into the real world. Then I learned about data analysis and data science and learned how people distill data into something useful. I got an internship at Pittsburgh doing something similar.

To say I enjoyed it was a stretch, but it was tolerable, and it gave me enough credentials, so that provided a path for me.

· How did you end up at BeamJobs?

The one offer I had out of school was at Geico, and my job was building models to basically power their online quote system. It was a very regimented and uninspiring environment that didn’t incentive good work. Maybe week two of doing that, I had this realization, “Is this what my entire life is going to be?”

That was the moment I started exploring how to change my course.

I listened to a lot of podcasts, did a lot of reading, and I had this crazy side hustle where I analyzed data for optimal fantasy sports lineups. I was contemplating doing that for a while, but I knew I needed another job, so I started applying for tech roles.

I got a job at Chegg, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. My two bosses had sold their company to Chegg, so they had first-hand experience doing exactly what I dreamed of doing.

They transformed my entire way of thinking about entrepreneurship. They would help me test ideas I had and were so supportive of me thinking about trying to start my own thing. It removed the ceiling on my ambition—they had confidence in me, and that gave me confidence in myself.

· What was the most unexpected part of your career journey?

When I was at Chegg, it was best job I could have hoped for. I loved my colleagues and the work I was doing, but I was still unhappy because I felt like a cog in the machine. Day one of starting our own business was a wakeup call, and not in a good way. The chasm between what you want and where you are is so wide.

You had guardrails your entire life, and now you’ve set them on fire with no one to guide you. Oops.

· When did you feel like you crossed that chasm of “I can’t do this?”

After a couple months operating as a tech recruiting agency, we got our first customer to schedule a call, and that was a really good day.

· What made you want to start a business with your brother, specifically?

We have a long history of fighting with the ability to make up, but more realistically, he’s the smartest person I know, and our skill sets complement each other. We balance each other really well, and there’s no risk of souring the relationship, which is so important when starting a business.

· Do you have any regrets about your career path?

Quitting my job before we had something proven as a company. We could have cut out those first two years of exploration if we tried things while we had jobs. It would have taken more time and more effort, but I wouldn’t have eaten into my savings with no promise.

· Where do you see the future of Beamjobs?

We started with our resume builder to build a relationship with job seekers, and we’re going to start on our vision of being an entire platform. We want to be the brand that people think of when they contemplate looking for a new job. We want to help with every step of the process for every single type of career with highly specific advice and tools.

And we want to build a company that people want to work at. Having this business offers me a lot of freedom in my life, and it’s really important for us to offer that same flexibility for anyone who works for us. We want to make sure that people are happy and treated well.

(Speaking as an employee, I can say they’ve achieved that!)

To round out this email, here are some fun facts about Stephen:

I ran a 100-mile race called the Pine Creek challenge.

·My favorite TV show is Mad Men.

·I have two rescue dogs, Lila and Poppy.