Ana De La Cruz

I definitely attribute my success to resilience. SEO wasn't an easy field to find mentors in, especially when I was joining, and it's still volatile today. So many things can change when it comes to search, there are more search opportunities, more apps for people to research brands, products, and services. It's very volatile in that way, and it wasn't easy to find mentors. I had to be very, very resilient and very adaptable. I did meet people that were great and very supportive, but they came and went. They came into your life for a little bit and then moved on and weren't really available anymore. But they left behind a lot of great skills for me to learn from, and they trained me really well and helped me transition into this field. But I would say resiliency is really what attributed a lot to my success.

The best career advice I ever received came from somebody at NBCUniversal, and she told me, no one really cares about your feelings. They matter, but no one really cares. You have to learn to just adapt, lead, and focus on your own personal goals. That advice has helped me so much because there are moments where all you want to do is complain, all you want to do is scream and shout, and that can sometimes cloud even your own judgment. When you're transitioning and trying to prove that you are good at your job, you can't let those emotions take control of you. You have to take control of them, because people will only see you as that kind of person, and that's not your intention. Your intention is to bring awareness to issues, but you can't do that when you can't earn people's trust. At the time, I was transitioning and so emotional. I didn't know what I was doing, I was really scared to take on new opportunities, and she told me, stop focusing on your emotions. No one's gonna care about those. Sure, you can bring them up and say that you feel fear, but you can't rely on them. People are gonna say aww, but they're not gonna care. You need to prove yourself, you need to push yourself, you're capable of anything if you move yourself out of the way. It can be harsh, especially when you're going through it, but I think it's the best advice I got because imposter syndrome is real. She was like, you know, no one's gonna care, girl. You gotta just do it. If this is what you want, just do it. You'll be able to talk about your feelings another time.

Right now, SEO is in a bit of a transition in terms of expanding our knowledge and our skills within AI and AI search. There's a lot of that happening right now. The field is very volatile because so many things can change when it comes to search. There are more search opportunities for people, more apps for people to download and do their own research on a brand, product, or service. Due to my ability to think outside the box, I build a lot of scripts and workflows and pipelines, and I create internal systems that help us complete tasks at a much faster pace. I've been doing this for the past 3 years now, focusing on automation and building tools, getting comfortable within the AI computer science and computer engineering space, learning about machine learning and natural language processing in ways that actually improve my workflows.