What type of person fits in workplace culture in SF?

[vision33r]

Social media firms are not forward looking tech firms. They are really media firms that hires tech people to run their services but they think like media folks. I worked for one many years ago and it still bothers me that they believe they are tech when they don't have any true forward thinking well verse tech minds at the management layers. Everything they talk about is how to bring in more traffic and nickle and dime development and technical services. If they see something new, they'll just got out and acquire it or lease it's service to make them look high tech.

You will hit an age and race/sex ceiling there very easily while you're there.

I remember at one place, my manager was only 25 and spends 1/2 the day gaming and rest of the night hanging out skate boarding. When I came in as a consultant I brought the skills to help them solve problems. They were clueless and depended on consultants to do any skilled work.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by LeeWong

Both. I'm not really choosy at this point. But SF might have the edge, since I would be looking at non-tech marketing jobs as well.

If you haven't chosen a home yet, you should look all over the Bay Area. The "silicon valley" still has plenty of older companies and enterprise IT infrastructure companies that have older workforces and would be more amenable to a 40 something: NetApp, EMC, Cisco etc. Salesforce.com is established enough to hire older people. Also look at hardware and consumer electronics companies. They are full of more established people.

[likealady]

Originally Posted by jade408

To be frank, early stage companies tend to be collegial aka everyone picks coworkers based on how much they want to have happy hour with them. The companies may mature, and start looking for adults once they are fairly established. There aren't so many of those. Social media marketing jobs, particularly entry level ones, seem to want someone who is digital native age - you are too old at 40-something and starting out. You'd be better off trying to do content marketing.

Saas is a mixed bag, not a lot of older people. You may want to focus your efforts on the old guard tech companies. They have more adults and have grown out of culture fit = happy hour. Those hip mew startups and saas companies? The odds are you won't get an interview.

This has been the experience at my startup job, too. Too many young people under 30, but that's another problem entirely for me. In my last job, our team was still fairly young, but since the office was outside the core SF/Silicon Valley area my coworkers were more normal, less "Peter Pan" types.

OP, I'd suggest looking at more established companies or "teenage startups" (like Yelp or Facebook age), and as Jade said, less social media and more on the content marketing side.

[TheGoodUsernamesWereTaken]

Originally Posted by LeeWong

I'm a 40-something Asian-American male, trying to get a job in social media marketing in the SF Bay Area.

I'm aware of the hurdles. I'm middle aged, and I'd be starting from scratch. But that's the hand I was dealt.

I'm curious: how competitive is the job market in SF? Is it any different in Silicon Valley?

I guess I could pass as a younger person, if no one knew my age. But I'm concerned about the culture, which I imagine is youth-dominated, socially liberal, and one I might not feel totally at home in. I'm pretty laid-back and tolerant, so I could work in an environment like that, if interactions dealt with work only, and not on any politics or social issues that would force me to take sides.

Why do you have the mentality that you must fit in / adjust to the masses as opposed to being confidently your own self, whether unique or not? If you can do the job, who cares about the rest.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by TheGoodUsernamesWereTaken

Why do you have the mentality that you must fit in / adjust to the masses as opposed to being confidently your own self, whether unique or not? If you can do the job, who cares about the rest.

To be fair to the OP, there are some places that have a definite tribal culture, and the tribal "rules" include long crunches, late hours, playing hard as a team to blow off steam, and in some, tech bro culture.

I was not joking up above about the beer taps in the break room. I have personally partaken when on visits to certain firms.

Heck, I even recall a time at a big, big name firm, about 10 years ago. One day a keg showed up in the break room. Ultimately, it was fitted into the refrigerator and remained for quite a while. It became a tradition, the keg fridge, and was reupped multiple times. I had to watch it to avoid getting a DUI driving home.

It may be difficult for everyone to fit into such environments.

If a person has a major family life and many so called "adult responsibilities" it may be well nigh impossible.

We all need to face the music about our work places and any potential work places.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

To be fair to the OP, there are some places that have a definite tribal culture, and the tribal "rules" include long crunches, late hours, playing hard as a team to blow off steam, and in some, tech bro culture.

I was not joking up above about the beer taps in the break room. I have personally partaken when on visits to certain firms.

Heck, I even recall a time at a big, big name firm, about 10 years ago. One day a keg showed up in the break room. Ultimately, it was fitted into the refrigerator and remained for quite a while. It became a tradition, the keg fridge, and was reupped multiple times. I had to watch it to avoid getting a DUI driving home.

It may be difficult for everyone to fit into such environments.

If a person has a major family life and many so called "adult responsibilities" it may be well nigh impossible.

We all need to face the music about our work places and any potential work places.

We had a Kombucha keg and a beer keg at my last job. It was easily visible and normal behavior on friday at 3pm to grab a beer to close out your day. The current job only has a beer keg and beer fridges on all floor. There is less of a friday habit here.

[LeeWong]

Originally Posted by likealady

OP, I'd suggest looking at more established companies or "teenage startups" (like Yelp or Facebook age), and as Jade said, less social media and more on the content marketing side.

I really have no marketing or advertising experience. How high is the demand for C/M'ers? Lately, I've been considering public relations, which seems like an interesting field too.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by LeeWong

I really have no marketing or advertising experience. How high is the demand for C/M'ers? Lately, I've been considering public relations, which seems like an interesting field too.

Content marketing is in far more demand than social media. Sometimes the content marketer will inherit social of it is a not the most critical channel B2C companies have more impactful social media and have full time social people. But most companies do not need a full time social person.

Content marketing does website copy, emails, landing pages, ebooks, case studies and a whole host of other marketing material. The skills needed are being a good writer and being able to distill complicated ideas in plain language. Their are more ages represented.

It is probably too late for you to jump into PR at an entry level. It is as cliquey and youth driven as tech. Probably worse.

The entry level jobs are filled by former interns. It is also a very popular field for new grads and there are fewer opportunities theses days with industry consolidation. Companies don't really value PR anymore. And the PR firms no longer relies on cheap labor for tasks like briefing books and researchin articles by the journalists that are going to get briefed. The internet and google have made it easier and unnecessary. There is hardly a need to even write press releases. And you won't have the connections with influencers that are a key component to the job.