{"id":9329,"date":"2021-04-29T16:02:41","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T16:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2021\/05\/10\/talent-tenacity-and-timing-lead-to-connection-between-trustee-and-job-seeking-senior\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:40:27","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:40:27","slug":"talent-tenacity-and-timing-lead-to-connection-between-trustee-and-job-seeking-senior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/talent-tenacity-and-timing-lead-to-connection-between-trustee-and-job-seeking-senior\/","title":{"rendered":"Talent, tenacity and timing lead to connection between trustee and job-seeking senior"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a partner and chief diversity and inclusion officer of a law firm with clients worldwide, Yendelela Neely Holston \u201903 gets hundreds of emails a day. But when one arrives from a www.furman.edu address, it stands out from the pile.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a special place in my heart for students who have the courage to reach out,\u201d says Holston from her office at the Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton law firm in Atlanta. \u201cI never reached out to alums as a student; I always thought it was a bother. But I admire people who do, and I want to encourage that type of behavior as a life skill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Case in point: On March 10 of this year, Qwameek Bethea \u201921 sent his first email to Holston \u2013 and by April he had accepted a job as an internet analyst at Kilpatrick Townsend.<\/p>\n

\"photo

Qwameek Bethea ’21<\/p><\/div>\n

Bethea was looking for opportunities to pursue during a two-year gap before attending law school, and knew he wanted to gain experience at a law firm in the interim.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had heard so many amazing things about Yendelela from my professor, Dr. Marian Strobel, and pre-law advisor, Maya Russell, that I have actually wanted to meet her for a while,\u201d says Bethea. \u201cI also knew that she went to Duke Law and had a passion for social justice work, so I was honestly inspired. I took a leap of faith and sent the email. I knew that she was a very busy person, and she didn\u2019t know me personally, so I wasn\u2019t sure what would happen. When I saw that she responded, that gave me all the motivation I needed to keep fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it happened, their correspondence coincided with a new job posting from Kilpatrick Townsend, seeking an internet analyst.<\/p>\n

\u201cYendelela never directly told me to apply for the position, but I noticed when I looked on the firm\u2019s website that the position had been open since January,\u201d Bethea remembers. \u201cWhen I saw that, I completed the application that same night. I stayed up until 3 a.m. I even completed all the optional sections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bethea also sent his resume to Holston, who then sent it along throughout Kilpatrick Townsend. The resume made the rounds, and the firm offered Bethea the job on April 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe killed the interview,\u201d Holston says.<\/p>\n

Holston, a magna cum laude Furman graduate and a member of the university\u2019s Board of Trustees, says the internet analyst job is excellent preparation for future law students.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt allows you to work in a law firm and have exposure to attorneys and the type of work that we do,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a nice landing spot for people who are interested in law school.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an internet analyst, Bethea will spend his days with a team of trademark attorneys, paralegals, secretaries and other staff scouring the web on behalf of the firm\u2019s clients, looking for potentially infringing or problematic content.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am still amazed that I was able to get a job in a big law firm out of undergrad, and with such great competition,\u201d Bethea says. \u201cI know that this will only serve to strengthen my applications for law school. I have always known that I wanted to become an attorney, and I hope that my time at the firm will solidify that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was not, however, the first step in the job search for the senior majoring in philosophy and politics and international affairs, whose ultimate dream is to be a law school professor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I applied for this position, I had put in applications at various jobs across the country,\u201d he says. \u201cIt has been very difficult considering the number of experienced workers who are seeking new jobs due to the pandemic. I realized if I really wanted a job, I would have to adapt my approach. As a student ambassador for the Malone Center for Career Engagement, I understood the importance of networking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Networking with Holston also brought Bethea in contact with Raina Barbee, a former Kilpatrick Townsend internet analyst who is rejoining the firm as an associate this year after getting her law degree. The firm\u2019s Legal Scholars Program, Holston\u2019s brainchild, helped Barbee and other diverse students navigate their first year of law school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very committed to increasing diversity in the legal profession,\u201d she says. \u201cSo if there\u2019s something I can do to make sure there\u2019s one more Black person making connections in the field, I\u2019m going to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of this might have been possible without The Furman Advantage, Holston and Bethea agree.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of The Furman Advantage is that network of committed alums and that mentorship for the students,\u201d Holston says. \u201cYou can reach out to an alumni you\u2019ve never had a conversation with, and people will go the extra mile because of The Furman Advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am truly thankful for Yendelela,\u201d says Bethea. \u201cShe didn\u2019t have to respond, but she did. If she didn\u2019t, I don\u2019t know where I would be today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a partner and chief diversity and inclusion officer of a law firm with clients worldwide, Yendelela Neely Holston \u201903 gets hundreds of emails a day. But when one arrives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":9330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,70,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-top-four-news-2nd-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}