Josh Sapan, a Fortune Society volunteer and former Executive Vice President for AMC Network and producer behind the groundbreaking TV shows Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and Better Call Saul, shared his insights with participants on important strategies when applying for jobs. 

Casually seated in an office chair among his audience in the NEST, Sapan emphasized that collecting background research on a company can make or break an applicant’s interview. 

Sapan stressed the importance of ‘doing their homework’ on a company they are interested in working for, especially on things like the company’s mission, recent developments and their main products. He stressed the necessity of having questions prepared for the interviewer as well as engaging them in conversations about the company in general. 

Members of the audience eagerly listened, offering their own insights on how to use hiring tools such as LinkedIn when exploring different career fields. Sapan was happy to engage with them. 

Sapan’s involvement with Fortune began a few years ago when a friend took him to Castle Gardens for a Thursday night community meeting. Hearing from the residents about their lives and personal achievements, he immediately knew he would be returning to Fortune in the future.  

“I was really moved by it,” said Sapan. 

Sapan has hosted four career presentations so far, each focusing on a different aspect of the career hunt many of Fortune’s participants will encounter.  It was clear that Sapan had the interests of his audience at heart regardless of the fields they aspired to work in. He asks each participant about what they would like to do and the skills they already possess to be successful. With Sapan, participants talk out next steps in achieving these goals and careers. 

Years later, he hasn’t lost the feeling of wonder that struck him at that first community meeting. As people were filing out the door, Sapan was energetically talking about one participant he met that downloaded PDFs of movie scripts to learn about the filmmaking process. Sapan was impressed by his eagerness to learn. 

“[They] kind of just blew me away,” said Sapan. 

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