Yaxin Xie, Employer Branding @ TikTok

Hey everyone, I'm Ingmar. I'm your host for today's episode of the Graduate Garage Guide podcast. And with me is Yacine. Usually I introduce people with their title. Yacine works for TikTok, but she just told me that in their culture they don't really use titles much. So Yacine is responsible for employer branding.

Yeah. Thank you for having me here, Ingmar. Yeah, as you said, it's a very specific culture that we have, unique. I'm part of the global employer branding team, and I've joined the company TikTok for almost 4 years, started in the pandemic time. So employer branding, I'm looking after the EMEA strategy, so that's overseeing over more than 20 markets across Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Yeah.

Amazing. And we'll get to the point where you joined TikTok as well in your career journey. I'd like to start at the beginning. So you studied in your bachelor's, you studied English literature.

Yeah.

In Shanghai.

Yeah.

And you also recently just moved to London.

Yeah.

And then you did a master's.

Yeah.

Columbia in the US.

I did a master's at University of Pennsylvania, UPenn. Yeah. That was more focused on intercultural communication. That's where I got more interested, like exploring different cultures and really just to dive deeper into communication field. And also obviously language as like the vehicle of conveying different cultures. That's where I started my journey as English language and literature. So it seems like a smooth transition for me. Yeah.

Many students who are listening to this are currently at university, and some of them are asking themselves the question, after my bachelor's, should I do a master's straight away, or should I go into the world of work? What was going on in your head when you were at that stage?

That's a really good question. Actually, I kept asking myself that same question. What if I'm back like 10 years ago, would I do the same decision? Maybe this is a little opinionated, but I would suggest maybe after the bachelor degree, give yourself more time. You don't have to go directly into a curriculum, academic curriculum again, unless you feel like you're more like into the academic world. But I would encourage maybe go to do more internships, join some graduate programs, or just do some gap year exploring. Not necessarily directly in the career and not necessarily in the academic world. And then maybe you can start to, depending on the different types of jobs you do, and then decide what category or different functions I like and then dive deeper. So if I make the same choice again, I probably won't go directly straight into master.

Yeah, not directly, but you went because you went directly.

I went directly. Yeah, but I think it has its pros and cons. Pros is it's a very consistent, to be honest, 6-year study, 4 years undergraduate and 2 years an extra master's. So you feel like you've been a student enough in higher education. Then definitely the cons is you feel like, oh, I may lack some real-world experiences even though I can do internships, but you have time limited because you only have 24 hours a day. So my suggestion would be go explore first through some different opportunities of career, and then maybe later in, in the career, like 2 to 3 years in the field, and then go to an MBA or a master's depending on your need. Yeah.

And then after your master's, you entered the marketing world. Yeah. And we'll talk about that as well, but I'm curious on how you made the decision to, in your master's, pick communications. Were you going into that with or always thinking that you want to work in marketing once, or is it just because you were interested broadly in the topic?

That's also a way to find what people are most passionate about, what I'm most passionate about. Even nowadays, I find some people don't even know what I'm actually interested in. So my journey starts being I really love to do PR because I started in PR industry, like public relations. And then into digital marketing and then starting to do a lot of like advertising campaigns because I work mostly— before I joined TikTok, I work mostly in the advertising agency and PR agencies. I think it's through my internships and through my chat with the people in the industry, I find that maybe at first it's just fascinating and it seems like very fancy position. So that's a very premature, not mature reason to join, but it looks like you can go to a lot of events, you can interact with a lot of celebrities and creators. But until I was in the industry, I know how much work and hard work you have to put behind those glamorous moments. For any single event, you need to do briefing books for yourself, for your team members, or if you're shadowing a celebrity, then you have to make sure they understand what the procedures of the event. There's so many preparation needs to go to that one moment that people shine. So I think we just need to find what sparks you. It could be a very stupid reason like mine. I just find it interesting. I want to see what the real— what was like, how does that things go. But also it could be maybe someone's long-term habit or reading interest through a book or surfing on internet, they find something interesting. So I think there could be different reasons to decide which field you jump into.

And maybe now talking about consumer marketing and PR, could you take us once more behind those scenes? Because some students here are probably interested in going into that field as well. How did a normal day-to-day role look like when you were in that space?

Yeah, so I definitely firsthand experienced the traditional media to nowadays we call digital media. Traditional media is mostly where you would contact the journalist from the different press media and arrange like maybe a photo shooting for a product or preparing a press release. That was like the traditional PR world. And then with so So many social media comes up in the recent decade. Obviously, there is like influencer marketing that you start to do product seeding, and you would like maybe, you know, your brand has a new product coming and you want to make sure you warm up the market a little bit, and you find maybe on Instagram, whatever social media, or TikTok could be, and then you see who would be the an excellent ambassador, but a mini ambassador, not necessarily a celebrity, to help me promote, promote a brand, but more naturally. And then we can co-branding the storyline. So a lot of the videos that we see on those social media, not necessarily alone by influencer themselves, but it could be like they work together with us that we're working behind the scenes on behalf of the brand. If we work on agency, we usually serve a brand on retainer basis. So that is like maybe a year-long or many years long contract, or it could be project base, for example, new product launch or event, then that's only one single product. So daily work, there's nothing similar. I think every day is a little different. There usually is a timeline for the product development, and then there's also like PR events pre-arranged, maybe the next calendar year. You would need to design that together with the brand team, the brand PR team. So there are different types of opportunities to explore their industry, I think. Yeah.

And when you joined in your first job then in an agency, Shanghai-based, did you get a lot of face time with people? Because that would, you know, originally drew you into this space. If you could put a percentage on it, on your, say, average working day.

Yeah.

How often did you get to interact with people versus how often were you interacting with a laptop?

Yeah, good idea. Yeah, let me think about— I think 70% you're probably interacting with people, and then that 30% is like you're doing some paperwork, like drafting proposals and everything. And everybody worked really closely, like my team members would just sit around me, so it's more like team atmosphere. You work on different projects, but you play different roles in that one project.

And before we go to TikTok, do you still remember how many companies you applied to after your master's to land your first job, or did it just happen straight away, or how did it happen?

Yeah, I think my first job, it happened very naturally. I'm not that type of person would do hundreds of applications online. It's more like The moments usually happen, I feel like there is a click between me and that job position, between me and that company. It could be a one sentence I read in the JD, I feel, oh, this really is what I want to do, or it's a person I talk to in the company, I feel like, okay, they're doing the job I want to do, and that makes me reinforce my kind of like my willingness. I feel like I belong there, and then I would do a very intensive preparation for that company, specifically for that company.

Interesting.

So nowadays people, I think, are more advanced than me. They probably do more preparation for different types of companies, which I encourage. I think that's good. But important thing is just to make sure it's customized for the roles that you apply for. Yeah, that's very important. So for me, maybe less than 30 jobs I apply Yeah, but that one is actually my top one in my, like, in my head, and I just got it.

Amazing.

Yeah, I think sometimes you have, like, you have that, like, belief, and then you just make it happen.

Yeah, you said correctly, there are those strategies. You can play the numbers game and apply to hundreds of jobs. And we see that nowadays more and more people tend towards that strategy, also because it's much simpler, because you can leverage AI to write applications. Definitely happens much more quickly. I also believe that in those times, people who are kind of very, do very, very personalized applications, they would stand out. Going to now to TikTok. So how did you then, because you were working on consumer marketing, PR, what sparked your interest in employer branding and how's that different? To what you were doing before?

Yeah, I think, so first about how I ended up doing employer branding. Employer branding is actually very new, I think. UK is probably the most advanced around in the world, but even in UK, I don't think you can find this industry or this job 15 years ago. It's not even there. So employer branding, in a simple way I put it to explain it, it's like HR plus marketing. So previously I talk to consumers of a product, but now I make sure my communication audiences are the candidates who are potentially talents that could join our company. So the communication, I think the methodology of how we use or talk is the same. It's still that Marketing 101 methodology, but it's the audiences are different and the product, quote, it's not necessarily a product we're trying to sell. It's more about people's confidence in a company, the company's mission, the company's culture. The company itself consists of so many people work there, so it's even harder to sell a company than a single product. Yes, exactly. So that's going to be quite different, and I think my career, I would consider this as a career switch because it's like a diff— even though they may be aligned with a big marketing umbrella, but sometimes some of the other companies, they put employee branding under the HR department. It really depends on the structure of that company. I feel like I was in— because I've already did do consumer marketing for 5 and 6 years by that time, I feel like I'm a little not tired, but even though you do different brands, you see all events, but the strategy you use, the campaigns you use, I feel like it's similar. Yeah, there's in a sense, yes, there's like a step 1, 2, 3. It's like a formula, you know, I'm going to pitch clients in this way and they, I'm gonna get it and I get it. So I feel like I kind of know how that works. But in terms of trying to attract people, it's a little different. And I think that's very fascinating for me. By that time.

Interesting. What are some of the key differences? Now you comparing it to consumer marketing where you're trying to sell a product and you have, you said that at one stage you probably arrive at a framework and you know exactly what to do with this client and this campaign. What really changed for you when it came to employer branding?

I think on two different levels. The first level is because previously I work mostly in agency and then move to TikTok. It's a more bigger organization. Organization as a corporate, even though some people regard it still as a startup.

But has a startup feeling to it.

Yes, yes, yes. But, but I think that's very different. Is previously you're in agency, the agency is there, the client is there, you know, okay, you are my client, I'm going to bring you to, to my strategies and proposal. But now there are many invisible internal clients in the organization because there's so many teams working together towards maybe a same goal or different goal, and then which makes working together cross-functionally, collaboration, very important. That part I think needs some other efforts strategically to make sure it's a win-win for different teams to work towards the same goal and everybody can benefit from there. So I think that's one biggest difference I experienced. And the other part is definitely the nature of the work is different because I learned so many things in the HR world. So HR from what's the basic, like, from people like talent acquisition partners hire people, what kind of processes they're going through, what challenges they have, and how can I, on behalf of the employer branding, provide resources for them. And they don't necessarily tell me on my first day. It's more from proactive, like reaching out to understand and then position the company as a product. Then how can we make sure we describe the company correctly? Then that goes to the employee value proposition. It's very important. And there's so much more. It's basically the whole lifecycle from someone being a potential candidate to they were interviewing with us. Maybe they finally join us, and then even to alumni, they left us. So the whole experience they have, we have to make sure their feeling of the company is consistent. It's not going to change in any single one process. So it's very different.

Interesting. Maybe we'll just use what you've just described there, this journey of a candidate who first maybe hears about TikTok, then decides to apply. And we're talking about early careers, we're talking about students here. And follow this person until they get hired. And I'd love to begin with the question, what is TikTok looking for in people when they're making hiring decisions, and how can you stand out as an applicant when you apply to TikTok?

Maybe I can share more, especially for early career candidates. Definitely, in general, we look out for people who are proactive and super hands-on. I think that echoes to, like, the no-title culture we have. There's really no hierarchy in the company. You don't know people's ranking in the company. And we use our internal communication tool called Lark. It's like all-in-one message tool. So basically, if I want to message our CEO, Sho, it's just one message away. I can message him. And so it's really encouraged people to roll your sleeves and start to take responsibility on day one. So I think someone very proactive, take initiatives, we're super welcome. But I also think TikTok isn't the place for everyone. I have to emphasize that the speed and the pace of the working is very fast, and that's why we want people to be flexible and especially are not afraid of unknown, because a lot of things we do are pioneering. When we first started a product, we don't even know it's going to succeed or how it actually looks like, the product features. So we want someone to experience or experiment together with us. We accept mistakes, but I think we always want to learn from mistakes and then reiterate on that. I think for people that showing that kind of mindset or they have previous examples that can prove that will be really thriving at this atmosphere. Yeah.

Interesting. I was just going to ask about then we talk about these, but they would probably get evaluated in an interview process then, but how can you stand out with your CV? But you kind of answered it, which is that if you can display experiences like those or situations where you learn from your mistakes and you're very proactive in your communication. So maybe that is a tip to people out there applying to TikTok. And when they join your organization, nowadays a lot of young people are considering employers based on how can I develop my skills in that organization? How can the organization help me unfold my potential? How does TikTok enable young people to grow?

Yeah, I think one good thing, if you— I would like to invite you to have a tour in our office, then you will see there are actually so many young people there. And I believe some of the young people are already taking really big responsibilities on their roles and making huge impacts on millions of users on our platform. But also for early career candidates, we have really a lot of different programs. There's like graduate program that's specifically designed for students have mostly up to 2 years experience, I think. And it's a regular contract and you will just work like full-time like everybody else. So there is like a constantly mentoring program to make sure there's mentor body. And then there's like different social events held between or among the early career groups. And also because the company is very global, so we don't like say someone entered in the UK office only interact with UK employees. It's not like that. It's very global. So in real time, you can speak to employees maybe in São Paulo or in Singapore, and all of them bring extra perspectives to ourselves. If we're new here. And there's also internship programs, like summer internships, that are both open for undergraduates and graduate master's degree students. And I think we recently also opened internship programs specifically for MBA and PhD students. But that really depends on which business teams they are trying to hire, and then the position is a little different from team to team. And for UK, I believe we also have the— if a student have maybe a requirement from their academic curriculum, they need to finish a 1-year full-time internship, we have that industrial placement as well. So there's a lot of different programs, and I would highly encourage everyone to check out our career website. Koreastiktok.com or you search TikTok Korea on Google, that's the first thing you will see. And there's an early career tab, very detailed, like what kind of eligibility they have.

I checked this out, by the way, because I usually check it for every company that we have on here. And the UI and UX was probably one of the best that I've used so far. I have to say, I really liked it. What happens if I join TikTok and I'm joining as someone who is say consumer marketing, but then I discover very quickly that this is not for me. I'd love to work in employer branding. What happens? Can I change roles within the organization? Do you support people?

Yeah, I believe, I think internal mobility is very important, even for, even not only for early careers. For us, maybe I have been in this position for 4 years and I suddenly decide I don't want to work on this team anymore. We have a very established internal mobility mini career site, I would say, but it's only visible for our internal employees. And our talent acquisition partners and HR VPs, they will post the jobs in this internal job site as well. So to encourage internal employees to apply internally, and the process is very similar to external, but the good thing is because you're already in the company, you know, you can see who is the hiring manager for that position. I would encourage just go reach out, have a coffee chat, or really see who are on those team and what kind of projects they're working on. Can I help? My suggestion for anyone wants to do maybe a transfer is while we are in job A doesn't limit you to explore job B, and maybe you can see if job A and job B has some similarities or collaboration. Again, cross-functional collaboration is very important, and then make that happen, and then that brings benefits for both teams, and then it's easier for a transfer. Maybe relocate or transfer to another team.

That makes sense. What are some of the things that— so TikTok does stand out as a brand. We just talked about kind of the startup association or like more of a kind of younger, dynamic company. Talked about speed as well. What really stands out about TikTok when it comes to your culture as compared to other organizations?

Yeah, I think I touched a little bit upon that, like the no hierarchy part and we are super proactive. In the company, we actually have 6 values. So the 6 values are more like the guiding principles for as a ways of working, like a very entrepreneur mindset, like always day one. This is one of our key principles. And then we make sure no matter someone is 1,000 days in the company, still work as their day one. And that's very important. And we also really value diversity and inclusion. I think in this company, diversity and inclusion is just in its nature. It feels like it's so global, the company itself. There's so many different people coming from different backgrounds, and as I said, we don't really just kind of label people by how many years of experience they have or what are their previous big name employer is. We really want to distill into the basics of a person's characteristics to see if they have the potential to grow. I think that's more important than just the CV itself. So it's really, it's really through conversations with the hiring managers, and even in our interview process, you'll see it's usually not only for you interview with the team members in your team. Sometimes you got to be interviewed by cross-functional teams because there's so many collaborations happening. So that's also value, like, people's who we are in our essence.

Yeah, amazing. I think we already learned a lot. Is there anything else that students should know about TikTok or anything else that you'd love to say?

Yeah, I think I just want to say keep positive. Like, we have our tagline for the early career employer brand. It's like inspiration does I think it's perfectly captured.

What is it? Inspiration?

Inspiration does infinite.

Does infinite.

Yeah. So it actually shows there's so many opportunities out there, even though maybe someone don't make it to the dream job, but through years of experience, like hard work is going to make it off. I think it's just stay positive mindset. Yeah, I think that's important.

Amazing. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah.