Eric graduated from Princeton with a B.A. in Economics. He currently resides in Bloomfield, New Jersey and works at Silicon Valley Bank as managing director of sales operations and go-to market strategy. 

This interview is part of the Career x Identity series, which provides students a look into alumni career trajectories with a focus on intersections of career and identity. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How would you describe your own identity and its impact on your career?

I’m a Black male, and I say it this way because it affects how I perceive my job. When I walk into a room—especially in the banking world—it is quite often that even if there are a lot of males, there will be very few Black or brown people sitting in the room. So, in some regard, the male identity helps me feel comfortable in a room, but, being Black, that same room can sometimes feel like a very foreign space. However, you gain your confidence in your voice over time and that’s a natural progression.

Identifying a certain way sometimes means you have a different starting point. People who have been part of this network or have done this for generations have people they can talk to about why things work this way and how to adjust around these things. I am grateful to have my wife (who is also Class of 2010), but otherwise I just have to navigate on my own. I’m kind of making it up day-to-day, which is fun but also scary because I don’t have that set of data to come back to. 

What helps you relate to other people in professional settings, and vice versa?

I think what’s interesting is that when you start off, it’s almost this lunchroom scenario, with kids who look different from each other going to different parts of the lunchroom. But what you quickly realize is that you actually have more in common with people who look nothing like you because of common experiences. 

When I was interviewing at SVB with the bank president, I thought we wouldn’t have anything in common. But when he mentioned Bradenton, Florida, we found commonality when I said I trained down at IMG Academy there as an athlete, and he shared that his daughter went there. We went off on a thirty minute tangent about sports mid-interview. I had walked into the room assuming I had nothing in common with this human being and through just conversation, realized that actually, our passions were immensely, tightly aligned.

You find those commonalities if you’re willing to. We can’t change who we are on the surface, but what we can do is get to know people on a genuine level and get to know really who they are, what they stand for. I think these bonds are often immensely tighter than the ones that are just on the surface or skin deep. 

What were some challenges (if any) you faced in the workplace that were directly tied to your identity and how did you overcome them?

I’ve been in situations working at companies where people weren’t treated fairly or they weren’t rewarded for their accomplishments. At the end of the day, that to me is a very strong sign that that’s not a culture I want to be a part of. Sometimes it’ll be you, but sometimes it’ll be peers or bosses that you have a connection with and you just can’t stand for things that don’t align with  your morals. You don’t have enough time on earth.

Also, make sure that you’re building advocates in your career. It’s not fun to be out on an island by yourself in a sticky situation, but it’s often hard when you’re in a sticky situation to find the advocate that can help you navigate at the last second. Building those relationships is really important.

What advice do you have for students who are trying to determine if a company they’re interviewing with has a culture that’s a good fit for them?

I think the biggest piece of advice is actually knowing what you want and sometimes that’s hard early on, which is natural. As you’re starting out, think about group projects or extracurriculars at school. What are the things that rub you the wrong way and what are things that excite you?

For me, I love solving big problems. I love people who are equally empathetic. I like to have fun. So that means I look for companies that exude that. There are thousands of jobs that would take Princeton alumni or any alumni who are smart, capable, and ready to go to work. But where you want to be and where they need you to be might not always align and you have to be honest about that.

I’ve often found that the people who know me well usually know when something’s going to work out decently or not, so I ask them to give me an unbiased opinion based on the background of the company and their knowledge of me. 

What has helped you gain confidence in your professional choices?

We’re all faking it until we make it. The second you get comfortable with the idea that nobody has a clue about what they’re doing, the better off you’ll be. 

Understanding your network is a big piece of it too, whether it’s your peer network or mentors who can help you think through and understand some of these problems. None of us have enough time in our lives to go through every single scenario possible, but if you can borrow the experiences of ten, twenty, thirty other people, you can accelerate your learning. 

The last thing is not being afraid to interview. I’ve learned more about companies and business and how things work by just talking to people, and interviews are a pretty harmless way to do it. Interviews for me are how I’ve learned about a ton of businesses, and then I go back and teach myself the things I wanted to learn to fill in the cracks. 

Overall, a little bit of fake confidence, a network that can help you get knowledge, and the courage to meet with companies and learn what they’re about and have conversations put you back in the driver’s seat of knowing what you want and being able to navigate through it all with confidence. 

For students who are thinking about their identities, what advice do you have about how that may play a role in their career development and exploration journey?

Use your identity as your superpower. It is your differentiator. Even if there are two Black males in a room, my identity goes deeper than just being a Black male. Whether it’s being a Black male father, a Black male athlete, a Black male Christian, you can put all these things together into one sentence. I say it this way because the sum of your experiences gives you a unique perspective on the world and it’s up to you to figure out how to use that unique perspective to both present a differentiated story to a hiring manager, a team, or a company; but also how you genuinely internalize that story and add differentiated value in all your everyday walks and experiences. I think if you don’t own your identity and understand it in an intimate way, it puts you in a bit of a situation where you're not able to use your whole self and not being able to do that limits you from hitting your ultimate high. 

How did your experience at Princeton prepare you for your career?

I just threw myself out there. I didn’t come in with a preconceived notion that I knew what I liked and what I didn’t like. Over time, you realize how to prioritize ruthlessly, which is important for future life. You also get to realize how you hone in on what you want to do. For me, that was a really important learning exercise and learning at school versus learning it at work was a really safe environment. 

But on the career side, I honestly left not having a clue what I wanted to do. I think I spent so much time learning and joining and exploring on campus, that I didn't really take that broader view. Being at a liberal arts school, I didn’t know what any of the general skills companies wanted were and that was the biggest learning curve out of college. The first three to four years of my career, I just explored and took a chance to learn about careers in the real world and that was life-altering.

People are always around campus and there are always ways to ask questions. Be proactive about trying to figure it out because no one is going to force you to do anything after you leave the perfect path of school. You have to push yourself out there in order to learn.