The Keys to the Office: Meet Your Host, Kristina Butler!

Hey there future leaders. I am Kristina Butler, certified HR professional and founder and creator of The Keys to the Office where I teach young black and brown students everything I know about charting a career path and gaining powerful experience to build a solid resume.

Let's jump in.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

I am excited to have you all here today. This is just a Kristina episode. Um so, this is laid back, of course future episodes will have guests and all that fun stuff. We’ll do some interviews, we’ll have questions from the audience, but today is just me and you and of course a song comes to mind. I won't sing it, I promise. Um, but I'm excited to be here today. It is an honor and a privilege to see this dream fully realized and for me to have this platform, where I get to share unfiltered, transparent, candid, whatever word we wanna plug in there. Best practices, right. How to do it. How did I do it. How did I help others do it. What is the ‘it’ we are even talking about, right? So it's that career journey, ‘its’ that's career path, ‘It's’ that what do you wanna be when you grow up? Ok so what are you gonna do now, right? I’ll tell you all, I thought I wanted to be a teacher, I thought I wanted to be a social worker. Obviously, I didn't go down either one of those paths and for good reason. I started working at 13 years old. I was in a boarding school in Richmond, Virginia which I absolutely loved. If the boarding program still existed I would highly recommend it but I started there and I was a computer lab protector and library protector, um eventually became a receptionist at the front desk which I loved. I loved answering the switchboard and hearing my own voice, imagine that. I am a Leo by the way, so yes I loved hearing my own voice, and then from there I eventually move back to New York which i, you know, where I was born and raised. Shoutout to queens, and started working after school for an oil company, random, because we didn’t have oil, But I started working for this oil company as a telemarketer after school. I also volunteered for a domestic violence program. Um so by the time I was done with high school, at 16 , and graduated I had a full blown resume, right. Full blown resume at 16 with some solid work experience and I'm gonna take a minute to pat myself on the back, which I recommended you all do when you've been able to accomplish something so incredible, okay so we’ll talk about that in a future podcast. But listen, if you don't brag on yourself, who will? Ok, alright, I'm… there we go. Just feeling all of it, like you go into these interviews. Ok…there…see? There I am, the mind works constantly sharing tips, ok. Just because you asked, because I heard you ask, I'll drop the tip, then we’ll jump back into the episode. So, get close, grab your pens, grab your notepads, digital or paper. Here's tip number one, episode number one. Brag on yourself during the interview and for that you need something to brag about and I'm sure we can talk about what that looks like and come up with a list together but that's your opportunity to brag on yourself. I have interviewed so many people who will say something like this and I quote “you know I don't wanna brag or you know I don't wanna toot my own horn”, why not? This is the platform to do that. Ok. ok. That was tip number one, see that's how this mind will work. It's kind of ADD, right so I will think of something as I'm speaking or as I'm listening to someone, I'll make a note of it and I'm like I need to share that like I didn't , you know, uh accrue all these years of HR experience and then kind of just keep it to myself so that was tip number one. Feel empowered to brag. Um alright so 13 to 16 ish, give or take or whatever, built this resume had all these friends asking for help writing a resume, help finding a job, “Kristina how did you do it" and then fast forward after working for years, um college, children all of that stuff. Um that has made me who I am today, um. I jumped into financial services and I quickly realized there weren't enough people who looked like me, ok. So fast forward to now. Where my focus for the past several years has been on getting more individuals into this industry, specifically financial services, who look like me and different roles and I realized I wanted to share that, I wanted to share the different paths. I wanted to educate our students on what the industry looked like. Because let's be honest, it is a white male dominated industry. Period. No sugar coating it. It's what it is. And I wanna change that. You know, I wanna change that. Ok listen, I'm gonna tell you why. I know- I-. This is gonna be good, so pull up um. I wanna change that because- couple of reasons. One, the shift in generational wealth. We, black and brown folks, now have more money. We are now passing more money down to our children. Ok, when we walk into one of these branches, one of these offices, we should see someone who looks like us. We should have the option to sit across the table from someone who looks like us. Who will help us, allocate our resources? Who will help us plan for retirement? Who will help us because they understand us? They walked in our shoes, they’ve experienced some common cultural things, they've experienced stuff. That's my goal, that's where this comes from. This deep desire to see myself when I walk into a branch and then that spiraled. That thought spiraled into, you know what, Its not just this industry Kristina. There's so many industries out there that could use someone at the mic, saying these are options in this industry. Here's something to consider, here's how you get promoted, here's how I got started right, here's who mentored me, here's the networking group I joined, here's what I really thought I wanted to do, here's the college course I signed up for here's how I've used them, or not, in my current role. Like all those things need to be talked about, there needs to be a platform for that so here I am. Every episode will be packed with guest interviews. We’re gonna focus on a few industries to start this season and then dive all into various industries. I have some attorneys who wanna get in front of you all, I have some medical professionals who just want an opportunity to talk to you about the different roles and of course, shoutout to tech, because we’re getting into tech and those career paths as well. So here it in my voice. I am excited! This is my first podcast, this is my first episode. Please don't expect perfection, expect passion. ‘Cause that's what you will get, in every single episode. Alright, I think that covers it. I think that about covers it. This is an opportunity for us to talk… for us to dialogue. For me to share, for others to share, but it's not one sided- It's not one sided, I need to hear from you all, okay. I know what I wanna share but what do you want me to share? Hahahaha. I am excited. Get excited y'all and I promise not to sing ever again. I'm kidding. I make no promises. 

*Huge THANK YOU to my teenage daughter for writing the transcript for my first podcast episode! :)