Tal Shmueli is a Marketing & Advertising professional with a background in social entrepreneurship.
His journey had an unlikely beginning, doing all sorts of jobs in the field of informal education (building ecological mud huts in the Israeli desert is just one example).
With no academic background and zero relevant experience, Tal insisted on making a change in his life, eventually landing an internship in a creative agency.
Several years (and roles) later, Tal now works for LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions team, leading their activity in the Israeli market.
What are you working on these days?
Of all the questions you asked me – this is the hardest one to answer which is a bad sign:
struggling to say what I’m doing these days means that I’m stretched too thin and need to re-focus my energy.
What I should be doing is ramping up my new role and ensuring I invest my efforts in making our customers more productive and successful.
What was your first position In the Startup-Nation?
My first ‘real’ job was as an intern in a creative agency, Leo Burnett, supporting our international clients in their advertising efforts.
What was your first job ever?
My first job ever was cleaning toilets in my hometown’s cinema.
I loved being close to the films, but the proximity to the urinals – not so much.
And yet – it was a small price to pay for the joy of watching movies and experiencing them again and again with different audiences, gradually noticing more and more nuances and ‘reverse engineering’ how emotions and feelings are generated from thin air.
What life-event or moment affected your life the most
One day, in between jobs and after sending my shitty CV to 10s of places, I was sitting by the phone, waiting for ‘the world’ to call me.
‘The world’ did call me, but instead, a Recruiter offered me a job, it was my bank, letting me know my check bounced back and that my rent is past due.
This was the trigger that made me get off my lazy ass, stop waiting to be discovered, and take responsibility for my transformation from an Educator to an Advertising Professional.
Best advice you got or would like to share?
It’s less painful (and potentially more rewarding) living with the outcomes of the things you’ve done, than it is lingering in the shadows of the things you didn’t do.
Give it enough time and even the shittiest moments becomes great stories or an interesting part of your resume.
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