The US job market has been brutal for the past couple of years — layoffs, hiring freezes, roles disappearing mid-process. Landing a full-time role at a company like TikTok right now isn't just hard, it's genuinely impressive. One of my mentees just did it, and I want to share what we worked on across three rounds of mock interviews.
The role was essentially an account manager position — helping brands get more out of their TikTok ad spend, and convincing them to invest more of their budgets on the platform. Because the job was focused on a specific advertiser vertical, I had her go deep on that industry before anything else. She needed to understand how those brands were currently using TikTok versus Instagram and YouTube, where TikTok had a real edge, and where it didn't yet. Her job was going to be making a commercial case for TikTok, so she needed to already know the talking points before the interview — not figure them out on the job.
Client-facing roles also require proof that you can handle difficult situations with grace. So we prepared a few stories from her past experience — moments where a client was unhappy, where something went sideways on a campaign, and how she turned it around. The key structure for these is: here's what happened, here's what I did to fix it, here's how the client responded, and here's what we built from there. Ideally the story ends with them expanding their investment or deepening the relationship.
Her background was a mix of internships at brands and agencies in both China and the US. I coached her to be selective about which experiences she led with depending on the audience. For brand-side experience, she emphasized e-commerce results. For agency-side experience, she focused on clients in the same vertical as TikTok's target advertiser for this role. Even as a new grad, she could make a credible case that her experience was relevant — if she told the story right.
She also discovered that one of her interviewers was a fellow alum. I told her to bring it up naturally in her intro — not in a forced way, but as a genuine connection. Sometimes a shared background creates a little warmth that makes the rest of the conversation easier. There were setbacks along the way — enough that she nearly gave up. But she kept going, stayed focused on the preparation, and it worked out. If you're in the middle of a long, frustrating search right now, stay with it.
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