I’m starting a podcast: where? with Sepehr

Building a podcast helping young professionals figure out what they want to do post-study — my journey and what’s next

Check out our website and socials here.

The story

Entering my Commerce degree, I had my mind soley focused on one thing and one thing only — finishing my degree with as little hassle as possible so I could pursue my one true love: law school. But I quickly realised (literally after the first week of uni) that endless readings and studying for three more years could not possibly be of interest to me. And when I had this realisation, I suddenly found myself aimless and lost — just like most of my peers.

But I’ve always been good at doing one thing — not being afraid to ask for help when I needed it. And so, over the remainder of my uni days, I spoke to countless people who had been in my position not long ago, about how they went about finding their purpose and through what graduate pathway they might execute it. I soon realised that the most useful conversations I was having, was with people who were early on their careers; those who could relate to the sense of aimlessness that I felt during my time at uni. I realised that:

• People who were still at uni were able to relate to the issues I was facing but often times did not have the answer; sometimes they might have figured it out for themselves, but did not have a holistic enough view of what was out there to give proper and informed advice.
• People who were very senior were able to provide amazing professional insight into their industries — ones that I would have never thought of myself; but had often been in an industry so long that they were (often unintentionally) biased in the advice they would give. It was difficult for them to place themselves in my shoes, having been in them so long ago.

By the end of my degree, I had a relatively holistic view of the resources out there to help graduates make the critical decisions that dictate the early stages of their career — what industry role they want to go into, what they want to optimise for (eg. pay, work-life balance, impact, people, exit opportunities), who to surround themselves with, etc. I realised that so many amazing resources exist to help students to figure out how to get these hyper-competitive roles, not to mention great conversations (eg. podcasts/interviews) with senior leaders from these industries.

But what about talking to people who have just faced the same problem as us: graduates?

The mission

I started where? with Sepehr, with one simple vision:

To help young professionals get a better picture of their options post-study, by having relevant and transparent conversations to current graduates from a range of backgrounds.

How I plan to achieve it

Each week, I will release a conversation where I speak to highly ambitious, young professionals from an assortment of backgrounds — from:

• More traditional fields, eg. management consulting, finance (eg. investment banking, asset management) and tech
• More ‘eccentric’ fields that few go into, eg. founding a company, real estate and even making a career switch into something completely new

Our conversations are varied and flexible — I have the simple mandate that most of what my guests and I talk about are about their professional journey as a graduate and young professional. Naturally, some topics that come up again and again are what the guests studied and why, how they went about figuring out what to do during their time at uni, applying for their roles, then transitioning into talking about their experience in the roles and what they’re thinking of doing after. I try not to just talk about the present — I allow guests to reflect on the ups and downs of their journey hitherto, and what they might have in store for the future, and how this ties in with their life outside of work.

How you can help

1. The obvious one — please follow our social media accounts to stay up to date with our episodes. Even if you can’t listen to every one, I would love your feedback and suggestions on the parts you do listen to.
2. Share with your friends and others you think might benefit from this kind of content (even if they’re not your friend!)
3. Provide feedback and suggestions. If you have any thoughts at all regarding the podcast, I want to hear them! I’m building this for an audience which even I’ll admit, have a different set of needs and preferences than myself — there’s no doubt going to be flaws in the way I try to gauge what my audience wants. If you have any comments at all, I’d love to hear them — re. my selection of guests, the types of conversations I’m having, or even anything relating to the promotion and distribution of my podcast.
4. Recommend guests. If you know someone who would make a great guest on my podcast, I’d love to hear from you. If you’ve graduated, that might even be you!
5. Reach out with promotion and partnership opportunities. I plan to grow the podcast organically — if you know of any great distribution channels that I could pass my podcast through to reach the ‘right’ audience, I would be open to considering them all.

Thanks for reading! Our first episode is launched tomorrow (Tuesday, 20/3) — I can’t wait to hear what you all think!