Unique Careers at Fidelity

Justin Martell Welcome to the Side of the Desk podcast hosted by Fidelity Jobs and the Women's Leadership Group. We're here to have deep discussions on the authentic experience of being a working professional in today's ever-changing workforce. Justin Martell Welcome to our latest episode of Side of the Desk. I'm your host, Justin. Today, we're going to have a really unique topic. Fidelity has more than just finance roles. Justin Martell We have more than just technology roles. We're going to be showcasing and discussing some of our more unique careers here at Fidelity. I'm joined by two guests who both happen to be named Ryan. Ryan Y and Ryan R, thank you for joining me. Justin Martell Ryan Y, we're going to start with you. If you could introduce yourself to our audience, give us your job title and then Ryan R, if you want to follow up, that would be a great way for us to kick off. Ryan Yaghmoorian Sure thing. Hi, everyone. Ryan Y here. My title here at Fidelity is a director of and content creator and I sit in the social media product project area as a member of the squad that focuses on brokerage, digital assets and digital experiences. And I use my experience in gaming and content creation to help, create, promote and engage on our platforms like Discord, Reddit and Roblox. Ryan Ruiz That's unreal. I love that. Ryan Ruiz I am a senior manager, video producer, sitting within the communications function. Now, you may say, What the heck is that? Within communications function, now we support the CEO of our direct reports, internal communications, anything that goes enterprise wide. So it's really it's really fascinating to see everything come across the board because we're also involved in channels as well and really being able to cater the content to whatever channels needed Ryan Ruiz for the message. Justin Martell So we have social media, we have gaming, we have production, creativity, and all in one here on this podcast, which is super interesting. When I was looking for jobs years ago, when I came across Fidelity, I just thought every role had to do with managing people's finances. I would never think that we have such unique roles like you each have. Justin Martell Ryan, let's start with you. Justin Martell Talk to us about your day to day role here. Justin Martell Fidelity, Ryan Ruiz as a senior video producer, Ryan Ruiz it's really on a day to day basis. Is very quick and Ryan Ruiz very hectic, which I kind of enjoy the environment because from one moment you can start your day off as in our morning meeting and where we all discuss some products or any issues that come up throughout price or new things are just coming in that are urgent. Ryan Ruiz And then we can go ahead and Ryan Ruiz flip a switch and we're going right into video production, whether it's what we're producing right now, the, you know, side of the desk or as a podcast or going on to a video shoot with the senior executive Ryan Ruiz and then we'll put another switch will go into writing. Right. And so Ryan Ruiz it's so amazing how we're able to wear multiple hats in our roles and on a day to day basis, going from again, shooting, editing, Ryan Ruiz directing to then playing a talent in a in a video or even just writing a script or helping to improve a script. Ryan Ruiz It's just such a crazy day and such an energetic day. I just love to have every day. Ryan Yaghmoorian So my. I'm going to split my day to day up into the different projects that I work on. So one of the one of those sets is the innovative social platforms. I keep mentioning Discord and Reddit, and on there we are. You know, there's a regular content process where you look a few months ahead, look at what is coming. Ryan Yaghmoorian Decide what you want to put out and then work on producing that content so it can be released on time. But then when it comes to something that's more one off or a big project, not something that's recurring, something like our Roblox game there, there's more compartmentalized steps that you only do once. You don't do it again and again. Ryan Yaghmoorian So initially you get a brief and create something, ideate something, and then what you've done that, you concept it and then you have to build it and test it and then get ready for release and then promote it. So all of these are different steps that you go through only once. And then the third one is I sometimes do on camera work. Ryan Yaghmoorian So stuff like that. Once in a while it's like I drop everything and today is a shoot day and it's like I'm on set at a commercial shoot or something where my day looks totally different. And overall there are like with any corporate job, lots of meetings that I go to, but there's a decent balance of what I call cave time where I have an assignment. Ryan Yaghmoorian I got to open up programs and create something. Justin Martell Ryan R, it's steal terminology that you use on the production side of things. Let's keep it rolling with you. How did you land in this role? What was your journey like? Where did you begin? Take us back in time and how you ended up here at Fidelity. Ryan Ruiz Yeah, so I graduated college in 2016 Ryan Ruiz I had a relationship to Fidelity here that landed me actually had a contractor, intern contractor, and then just happened to develop into another role of a Ryan Ruiz production coordinator. And then I said, I want to take the next step and becoming a producer and now just taking it even further, step back, like looking at school, our school sociology, which was just mostly for me, was as a matter of how do you navigate the spaces and create and create and build and problem solve. Ryan Ruiz And so as I bring it to the, you know, it's a video production, I was really interested in video production, advertising and marketing and then just happened to run with it and just learn get deeper into video production, which has been nice to really understand this side of the realm of, you know, overall advertising, branding. Justin Martell Ryan while let's go to you, tell us about your journey to get to getting here to Fidelity. Ryan Yaghmoorian So I'll start like Ryan our dead and say that I graduated from college in 2013 and my first role was at a different financial services firm, a more predictable job that you might have there. But still in marketing. I worked in the marketing department and specifically I ran one of their Twitter handles. They had just started leveraging Twitter now called X, and they needed someone to come in and start start one from the ground up for their tax department. Ryan Yaghmoorian So literally opening up the native platform and creating the account and starting from zero followers while I was there, somebody that also worked on the team, recognized my Twitter fingers and gave me the opportunity to tweet for the Boston Marathon. So I was able to do that for a few years as as a contract job where I would follow the race and get things like splits, who's in the lead, who's coming up, who won, the context of it all. Ryan Yaghmoorian That was a really fun job that I had. And then during all this time, I was competing in gaming tournaments, a game that I wanted to play competitively. And while I was there, I learned that I wasn't very good at the game competitively. But what I was good at was commentating over the game. The tournament organizer asked me to commentate and initially if anyone doesn't know, I'm referring to like when you watch a ball sport game, there's a play by play person of a color person to talk about the game, that exact thing, but over video games instead. Ryan Yaghmoorian And initially I was reluctant, but eventually I got on the mic and I immediately got positive feedback. People really liked what I had to say. I think it was my excitement, my hype around what I was talking about that got them excited. And so that and this actually connects too closely to what Ryan does. That is where I learned how to broadcast myself specifically use open broadcast software OBS to because that's the software that they used. Ryan Yaghmoorian And I took that new learning home and I started streaming myself on Twitch and there I found success streaming a different video game. Ryan Yaghmoorian Then while I was there. So I'm still at that initial finance job and I said, I really want to do something that is more relevant to me and my interest tweeting about corporate taxes just wasn't as fun as I thought it would be, and I wanted to find something cooler. Ryan Yaghmoorian So I started looking around for a gaming job and I was able to find one at, a company who builds competitive rosters and competes in games. And there I was able to sharpen my teeth and learn more about social media, get it on the and run all of those accounts and doing all of that. Ryan Yaghmoorian Everything that just that just preceded gave me the eligibility, the experience needed to get a job like I have now, where I get to be the gaming subject matter expert. What I was told in the past is that it was my the combination of having my traditional job and also succeeding as a twitch streaming that people were willing to give me a shot and say, you know what, this guy, this guy is for real. Ryan Yaghmoorian I can give him a gaming job. Justin Martell something about your job that may surprise people. Ryan Y it's let's keep it rolling with you. Ryan Yaghmoorian I'll start this off by saying maybe this doesn't surprise you anymore because you just learned that or you have learned that I am the gaming subject matter and work on our gaming projects. But what is surprising about my job here at Fidelity is I do get to play a decent amount of video games at work. Ryan Yaghmoorian We created a Roblox game and so I first ideated that and works with the team to create that game. And then once the game was at a playable state, I had to play it a lot, learn everything I could about it, put tell, find every bug that I could and report it back to the developer. Also find things that we wanted to change or adjust. Ryan Yaghmoorian So I did get and then after it's done, I need to go in the game and create content. So that's something that I like to do outside of work, but I got to do at work as well, which is go into a video game and this one in this case, one that we created and create content around it to promote it. Ryan Yaghmoorian And now that I've said all that, it may surprise you to know that I do also work on more traditional fidelity stuff that you may expect, like more traditional financial products. Justin Martell Very surprising. I did not know that about you, so that's very cool. Ryan R, how about you? Justin Martell What's something that would surprise people to learn about you and your specific job role here? Ryan Ruiz Yeah, I would say some things that surprise people is that yes, we're at a finance company, which is more so a tech company as well. Ryan Ruiz But I would say that like the things that we get to work on is beyond the traditional finance conversation. We don't we do. We work with non-profits. You know, we're able to to work on new technologies and really present that in a very creative way, which is fascinating because who would have thought like you could bring in puppets, you can bring in characters, you can, you know, build out scripts that are kind of like in a movie scene, you know. Ryan Ruiz So it's just like it was really fascinating to learn everything. And also that's another thing I caveat to my team that like I learned everything on the job and I think that that's what's kept me here so long is this that I'm excited every day to come to work. I'm excited to learn something new. I'm excited to work on new technology Ryan Ruiz and just figure out what's the next cool thing that's going to come out. Ryan Ruiz And I think that's also that breaks a tradition of video production in the sense where you have somebody that has a role in each segment of the of the role of the production. But the nice thing about our team is that we get to where every single had a project manager, shooter, storyteller, executive producer. It's just it's so fascinating overall when you think about what goes into a film or anything like that, we get to come up with own ideas on our own or collaborate across the board and really be able to push the envelope and figure out different ways how to get the message out. Justin Martell For sure. And I can tell you that working in social media, I certainly deal with a lot of stereotypes in terms of what people think I do day to day. And Ryan, why you probably deal with this on your end as well. But, you know, people think that all me and my team do all day is create content or that we just sit around and play on Facebook or Instagram all day. Justin Martell And obviously there's a lot more to the role and to our team than that. What are some stereotypes or even myths about your respective roles that you hear that maybe isn't true? Ryan, Y, Let's start with you. Ryan Yaghmoorian Well, jumping off how you set it up, I think there's layers of stereotypes that when I describe my job to people I have to work through. So let's say I met someone on the golf course and they have no idea who I am or what I do when I first say I work at Fidelity, a bunch of thoughts immediately come to their mind, he trades stocks, he works on spreadsheets. Ryan Yaghmoorian He's a numbers guy. When none of that is true. I work in the marketing department and I've never been good with numbers throughout my whole life. And so then the next layer is social media. This is what you were mentioning, Justin. When people say, you're on the social media team, they might think he writes tweets or creates Instagram posts or, you know, the more traditional platforms that you that first come to mind when you hear the term social media. Ryan Yaghmoorian But really I work on the more unique, innovative emerging platforms that I mentioned before, Discord, Reddit and Roblox. So when somebody here I work at Fidelity, their first thoughts are very distant from what I actually do here. Justin Martell Yeah, pivoting to you. Ryan R, I mean, I think you probably get asked all the time like, do you just sit around and make cool videos all day? Justin Martell And obviously there's a lot more to your job and what you contribute to the firm. Tell us about some of the stereotypes that that maybe you hear. Ryan Ruiz Yeah, and Ryan, I'm right there with you. Whenever you bring up fidelity, people automatically think that, you manage my 401k. I was like, No, that's not what I do. So it's always a Ryan Ruiz fascinating conversation because it always comes down to wait, how is this even a function? What do you do? Like, I don't understand and I just get very confused, which is the funnest part, because then you get to actually like storytelling. Ryan Ruiz Like this is actually really fun. What I do and especially the people I work with, you know? So I would say some of the stereotypes that I get is do I sit around, you know, just trying to come up with new ideas of creating something, something funny is like, no, I think it goes beyond that, where it usually comes down to them having a conversation is that I have to really think in depth about what this message is actually going to how is it going to be perceived and who is it's actually going to. Ryan Ruiz And then the I think the challenging part to which we all we all have to we have to be a part of is that process of what's okay to say and what's not okay to say, what hoops can you get through and whoops, you can't get through. So I would say when it comes down to it again, just circling back to the to the question is just that some of stereotypes is that, you only you only shoot with a camera. Ryan Ruiz You can't do too much other things or you don't really get an understanding of what else goes on. It's like, no, like I think where I'm at actually gives me the widest view of the company because I get to touch so many different topics. I get to see so much of what's happening inside the company, outside the company, which is again, it's the most fascinating thing to be able to be in this role and be able to learn all at the same time, at the same pace of what you're doing, your profession, which, Ryan Ruiz I think is a Ryan Ruiz rare occurrence in most roles. Justin Martell What are what are some pieces of advice that you would have for people who would like to tap into the industry is that you're both respectively in. Ryan R, let's start with you. Ryan Ruiz a few things I have in mind. First thing I'd say is network, and it doesn't matter how high up or how down low you you go in terms of the sort of part of what happens, whether a mid-sized manager or executive or your first year, you know, first year associate. I think the biggest thing is just talking with people, learn what people do and show that genuineness that you're actually interested in them. Ryan Ruiz Because I think that you can really tell that difference between when somebody's having a genuine conversation with you versus, like what do you do to try to their to The point is like, let's have a conversation if that's the case and, and I will say to that point as well, just as much as you're networking, also understand how you develop your own brand. Ryan Ruiz Now, I wouldn't say that you have to be a perfectionist in your own area. I would say that you have to be working on your craft, whether that's gaming, whether that's you want to be a storyteller or you want to be in finance. You have to show some type of example of things that you can do or talk to an example which you can do. Ryan Ruiz And it doesn't have to again, it does have to be on a major, major platform. What you're doing it on, I would say, you know, even the example random example would be gaming, like how do you enjoy your gaming? What things do you think about when you're going through gaming? The strategies, when you think about monetary was going into a game like whatever again you're playing, right? Ryan Ruiz I just think it depends on how you can tell your story and that's the strongest that I can, I can really push is like, what is your story? People want to find out about, especially recruiter or the person is going to hire you. It's like, can this person really fit into my team or can this person persevere and push through the things that they have to get through in order to be at that point where they hope they can get to are beyond? Ryan Yaghmoorian I, I really like what Ryan said and agree with all of it. What you mentioned about networking and having a genuine conversation with people is one piece of advice I want to give on that that I was lucky enough to get recently is or if you don't know how to do what Ryan and I just described, I talked to a salesperson about it and they really laid it out well, because salespeople, although that's extremely far from my Ryan Yaghmoorian role, that's what they do all the time, is just stay up to date, stay in someone's ear, stay on top of mind, so that when an opportunity comes up, they think of you. But that doesn't mean that you're banging down their door asking, Hey, next, cool job, give it to me. It just means having, like Ryan R said, that those genuine conversations where you are engaged with what they are doing just as much as you're thinking about what you want to do, that's really good advice. Ryan Yaghmoorian And also I want to talk about what I have relates to what Ryan was saying about go out and do what you want to do. That's really my advice, and I alluded to it earlier that I went out and started doing what I wanted to do, making gaming content before anyone gave me a shot. No one gave me a shot to do it. Ryan Yaghmoorian I started my channel, started broadcasting on it, found success, and then pointed to it and said, There it is. If this is if you give me a shot, this is what you got access to. It used to be that I'm going to go I'm going to go back a few years here and talk about radio. So back in the day you couldn't like today just boot up your computer and use the Internet to broadcast what you're saying to anyone who would listen. Ryan Yaghmoorian Back in the day, you needed terrestrial radio and the way that you got on was by begging, sending emails, begging in person, but literally begging for can I have the two a.m. to 5 a.m. slot please. The worst slot you have. If you just give it to me, I'll prove myself there and then you'll give me, you know, the middle the day and then the morning commute time, which is what everyone wants. Ryan Yaghmoorian But today, and I alluded to it earlier, we live in a world where you can set up your own microphone, your own camera, and whether it be gaming or production or whatever it is, what you want to do, you can use those tools to take the first steps to do in doing whatever you want to do. So you can point to and say, this is why you should give me a shot instead of just begging. Ryan Ruiz And I'm just going to double down on that. Right. I think that's also huge. Kudos to you as well for how you got to where you are because you know, from listening to your also your your journey is just that you put your passions, mixing your passions at the same time with what you're doing for work. And I think that like doubling down on yourself and really leaning into what you want was a huge accomplishment for yourself and obviously where you're at now. Ryan Ruiz So huge kudos to you Ryan Yaghmoorian I appreciate it. And that's something I wanted to share with the audience as well as I assume that if you're listening to this podcast, you are interested in making your work something that you are genuinely passionate about, and that is something that I didn't have at the start of my career. But as you just alluded to, I just work step by step until I made it there. Justin Martell and. Justin Martell I think that's the biggest thing that's come through to me hosting this is the passion that you each have for your respective roles. So as we wrap here, one last question I'd love to ask both of you and Ryan R, we'll start with you. What's next for you, Fidelity or in your career? Ryan Ruiz yeah, I my next chapter, you know, I'm looking at what things are emerging in technology and and that goes to whether it's virtual reality gaming, you know just different components of things that I find interesting, which I'm a gamer as well. And I also like virtual reality. That's two examples why I brought those up. Ryan Ruiz But it's just that it's so fascinating how you can learn and teach through technology without having to be fully present. Now, I don't want to eliminate that aspect of being present, but I think there's a mix between for me, I see my future as teaching technology and combining maybe also some of the skills I've been working on here. Ryan Ruiz The printing production, storytelling. I think that's something that I realize I'm not going through that thread through anything I do in my future career, but definitely something that I want to hold on to the to the to my dearest so I can see that's where I'm headed. Justin Martell Ryan Y, I how about you? Where is the future for you? Ryan Yaghmoorian So I am going to talk about the future. But in the present and the future, I want to continue doing what I'm doing, advocating and being a part of gaming projects. Obviously it's an interest of mine which we've covered, but I genuinely believe that gaming is a great marketing channel just like any other. There's some crazy stats out there about how many gamers there are and how you can reach them. Ryan Yaghmoorian So it's just as powerful, if not more so, than music, TV, the traditional platforms. So I want to keep advocating for that and keep working on whatever it is that Fidelity wants to work on in gaming. For the future, first, I want to take a quick trip to the past. So I started my career journey with when I graduated college, but one thing that I strategically left out but I'll bring out now, bring up now is that when I first got to college, I wanted to be a graphic designer. Ryan Yaghmoorian That is what I initially thought I wanted to do, but I always did think I was going to work in marketing with that. But it turns out that I have absolutely zero artistic talent, and I got I moved over to business for that reason. So recently here at Fidelity, when I got hired initially, I was in a strategy role where I was building briefs, making cases and following through on what it is that I presented. Ryan Yaghmoorian But very recently I was given a creative role. So shame on you to whoever told me I had no talent and couldn't have a creative role because now I've finally circled back there. And so my future I want now that I'm finally here, I want to learn everything it is everything there is to know about being a creative, what that means, and how I can continue to evolve my job here to do more of what I've been doing, but also lean more into my new creative lane. Justin Martell To Ryan's, two amazing stories, two very inspirational journeys. Thank you both for joining us. I know I found this conversation to be super interesting and resourceful. Audience, I hope you do as well. Thank you both for joining us. We appreciate it. Ryan Ruiz thank you for having me. Justin Martell be sure to like and subscribe to Side of the Desk wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow us at Fidelity Jobs across the social media landscape. Justin Martell Thank you for listening to this side of the desk episode and thank you to our recording studio and editors who make our episodes possible. For more information about working at Fidelity, check out Fidelity Careers dot com.