Cynthia Hunt

What is the most useful piece of career advice you got as a student, and who gave it to you?

When I was 21 years old, a very successful peer gave me the best advice I've ever heard. He said, "Cyndi, you're very driven and you'll be successful in whatever work you pursue. The only advice I have is this; decide which part of your job you hate the most - or like the least - and do it first thing Monday morning every week. If you'll do this one thing, you'll find that work is far more enjoyable ... because the worst part of your job is out of the way on Monday morning. The rest of the week will be easy." Best. Advice. Ever.

How did you pick your career? Did you know all along?

Not at all - I had no idea I'd be in this career when I began college. I began college in Architecture - out of state - and did well enough ... but, realized very quickly I didn't enjoy the work at all. So, I went back home to St. Louis, Missouri in the middle of the US - and began figuring out what I wanted to do. I knew I was creative and wanted to draw ... so, I enrolled in Art School and completed my first degree in Commercial Art & Advertising. (Many years later, I would return to college and obtain a 2nd degree in Journalism from Wash U in St. Louis.) After college, I worked as a free-lance artist for a while, until I discovered it was too isolated - I missed being in a work environment with other people. Even though I'm an introvert, I'm also naturally very extroverted (I guess they call that an 'Omnivert,' now?) - so, I listened when a cohort made the suggestion to get my Realtors license and begin selling real estate. Who knew I'd be really good at sales? Not me - that's for sure. I worked as an independent contractor in real estate for about 8 years and was very successful. In that job, I learned my artistic nature served me well in that I could create stand-out marketing materials for my clients ... plus, my highly empathetic nature made it easy to assist clients in finding what they wanted. However, being 'in business for myself' as an independent contractor had one significant challenge ... if a deal fell through (as happened on occasion) I wasn't paid. After 8 years of hard work, I decided the 'not being paid' risk was an aspect of self-employment I no longer wanted to accept. As a result, I began looking for sales jobs at corporations since those were roles where I could leverage my experience and be assured of receiving a regular paycheck. Eventually, I found one at Sprint ... where I stayed; moving from Consumer Sales to Corporate Marketing to Business Marketing and finally, Business Sales during the wonderful 21 years I spent there. In 2012, when Sprint was purchased by Softbank, I decided it was time to move onto another opportunity. I found a job listing on LinkedIn (yea ... that really happened!) and began my Business Sales career with AT&T in May, 2013 and have loved working here ever since. I'm never bored - I use my creativity and people skills EVERY single day ... and I'm (happily) well-paid for my work. Perfect spot for me.

What is it like when your job gets tough?

I work as a Business Sales Lead for AT&T - my team and I sell all AT&T products to worldwide corporations who's headquarters are located in Los Angeles, California. We have a list of 6 large accounts for whom we are the primary contacts at AT&T - if our customers need anything at all from AT&T (even if what they need isn't related to our area; like personal mobile phones or DirecTV service in their homes) - we are the ones they can call to get help. As you can imagine, there are times when one of the 240,000+ AT&T employees does something that makes one of our customers unhappy ... its inevitable - technology is unstable and unpredictable, at times - plus, human nature is such that ... well, people make mistakes - it's bound to happen. When that does happen - my customers usually call me ... to 'vent' - and that can be very tough. Many times, my team and I have had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the thing that went wrong - however, since we're the customer's primary contact, listening to them and addressing their concerns adequately, is our job. Those days are tough - although, they aren't the worst. The toughest days are when there is just SO much to do and not enough hours - or resources - in the day to get it all done ahead of the customer's (or the internal AT&T) deadline. Those are the days when the pressure is very high ... and everyone's fuses are very short. Everyone is scrambling, trying to get their piece of the puzzle completed - often times, they're doing this while super frustrated because someone they were relying on (for some action or piece of information) hasn't responded yet - other people are clamoring for attention since the team has been 'heads down' on this large project for a couple days now and all of the work outside of the project is beginning to pile-up - plus, management is 'pinging you' asking for a status on the key deliverables or what they can tell executives about the projects' success thus far - while team members are tired and a bit frayed from working extra hours ... you get the picture. Its not unlike what you deal with during finals or during a very high-pressure time in your life. On those days, I often hear one of my previous boss' voice - he used to say, "Cyndi, you need to slow down sometimes, in order to speed up." It always sounded odd to me in the midst of the pressure and chaos - and yet, every time, it would turn out to be absolutely true. So, in those moments when I want to yell or throw my laptop out the window (LOL!) ... I remind myself to stop - to literally stop whatever I'm doing. I no longer listen to everyone in the discussion and I step outside of the situation I find myself in. I imagine myself in the film THE MATRIX when Neo would walk around all the people who were very still ... and I look at the predicament as a whole. Often, I'll do something for a minute that's completely unrelated - as a distraction for my mind ... like, answering a couple questions on CareerVillage. :-) During that distraction, I'll ask myself, 'what do we require?' and 'what is missing that we don't see yet?' The answers to those questions are always very simple ... for example; "The challenge is with someone at a higher level than our team, so its time to engage my boss and allow him to reach across and prioritize our ask with someone in charge," or "The team has lost sight of the customer and we need to reel it back in - step out of the internal procedures - and regain our focus in order to know the best next step," or "Everyone has done all they can for today - now, you must give others the time to respond and re-engage tomorrow." Discerning what is within our control and what is someone else's to control is an ongoing challenge in business - especially in large corporations. Being adept at that is often called being an intrepreneur ... or someone who's 'inside' a corporation behaving like an 'entrepreneur' (someone who owns their own business outside of a corporation) - FYI. Very often, in my experience, when we find ourselves so deep in the problem, we need to step out from it to see where to go next. I guess its the old 'seeing the forest for the trees' analogy. Of course, I don't always remember to do this ... but, it works like a charm whenever I do.