'Your Network Is Going to Build Your Net Worth': An 18-Year-Old Landed Her Dream Job By Cold Emailing. Here's Why the Tactic Still Works The Virginia-based teenager set out to gain any experience that she could in the real estate agency. What she learned, in the end, was much more valuable.
By Emily Rella
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
Cold-calling (and cold-emailing) may seem like an old-school strategy in today's job market, but the move may be more of a lost art — a high school senior is going viral after she used the tactic to land her dream job as the assistant to a millionaire following her graduation.
In a clip that's now been viewed over 4.1 million times, 18-year-old Eileen shows snippets of her life as an assistant.
@eileeninvests be intentional with your actions & it will hopefully get you places ? #millionnairemindset #networking #financegirls #financegirlys #selfgrowth ♬ Pink White - Sped Up - INDRAGERSN
"Be intentional with your actions & it will hopefully get you places," she captioned the clip.
In a follow-up video, she explains how she managed to get the gig.
"I basically just reached out to a bunch of different brokerage companies, because at the time, I was interested in learning more about real estate," she said. "You need to make sure that you include something that you can offer to them in the email because they're not going to just take some random person on the internet."
@eileeninvests Replying to @gibby #greenscreen ♬ original sound - eileen
Eileen said she began working for a Virginia-based real estate company called The Collaborative as an unpaid intern after being contacted by CEO Alicia Soekawa. Four months later, she was offered a paid position of personal assistant, which begins this summer.
She noted to one commenter that she was able to take the position unpaid because she still lives at home with her parents as a high school senior.
"To be honest, it's not really about the money that you're gonna make," the teen candidly told viewers. "Because truthfully, I'm not getting paid a crazy amount to do this. It's more so about the connections that you're building. Because, you know, building your network is going to build your net worth in the future."
She stressed being genuine to viewers and the importance of being able to keep pushing and not taking it personally if an email doesn't end with a response.
"Anyone can do it," she said. "You just have to put yourself out there."
Eileen noted in the comment section that even though she's learned so much from Soekawa through her internship, the most important thing she's learned is that she doesn't want to be a real estate agent.
Sometimes, experience pays for itself.
