I’m Laura Lorta (pronounced, Loud-Uh, not Lore-uh…you are free to pronounce it however is easiest for you if we are going to be colleagues, but if we’re going to be friends, I insist on the former). I’m a coffee-obsessed mom of two kids, one of whom is recently taller than me, and I am the Queen of Job Hopping. By the time I was 26, I’d already had 18 jobs and, last year alone, I worked for 7 different organizations. My lack of consistency in my profession isn’t due to a lack of ability (I was a teacher for 7 whole years!), it’s more a desire to follow all of my interests. My motto is that life is too short to be just one thing until you die.
We’ve all had that moment in a job interview when the person sitting across from you (or on the screen in front of you, if you’ve been on the job hunt in the last few years) excitedly says “So, tell me a little about yourself!”
I’ve been to many interview skills sessions where the advice given is to nail down what they call your “elevator pitch.” You should be able to sum up all the wonderfully interesting things about you–complete with both your personal and professional background, your unique skill sets and a fun fact–in under 90 seconds. After all, nobody has the time for you to launch into a monologue about all the things that make you, you.
And that is why, my friends, when I get asked this question, I respond with “Well, how much time do you have?” At which point both the interviewer and I have a good, awkward chuckle and I spit out basic facts that are relevant only to the job I’m trying to land.
Suffice it to say that I’m not a fan of that question because, for me, it is physically impossible to sum up all the wonder that is me in under 90 seconds. However, for the purposes of this post, I’ll try to keep it under 600 words.
In today’s post-Great Resignation world, it’s pretty common for people to be part of the gig economy, but I was doing this way before it was cool. In fact, the idea of choosing a major in college was ludicrous to me. I vividly remember asking my counselor why he thought it was a good idea for me to choose the thing I’m going to do for the rest of my life at the age of 18. Of course, it wasn’t his idea, but you get my point. I’m proud to say that I made it through college only switching my major once, landing on Entrepreneurship because it seemed applicable to any and everything. Translation: I didn’t have to choose a career path. I just needed to get my paper that said I was ready to take on the professional world.
Once I graduated, I tried to find at least an industry I could stick to–I swear, I did. It was just such a challenge! Not only did I find myself constantly wanting to try something new but, once my first kid came along, I realized that there were few (if any) jobs that were designed for a working mom and still paid well. I thought I’d found the perfect career when I became a teacher but that didn’t pan out, either (although the events of the 2020-2021 school year had a lot to do with that). So, in the summer of 2021, I decided that this would just be my life–following my interests and seeing where they take me, which is how I ended up here at Austin Moms Blog.
Currently, I’m making my living as a marketing operations analyst for a very cool company that connects brands and content creators to create social media ads. It’s a fun job and I work with people who don’t suck (a true blessing if you’ve been in the professional world long enough) but my calling at the moment is to be a published author. My dream is to hold a book in my hands with my name on the cover, a dedication to my father written on the first page.
I’m excited to be part of this community and to, hopefully, bring you all along on my journey to publication.
So that’s me, in a nutshell, and in only 734 words 🙂
