The best career advice today isn’t coming from college advisors—it’s coming from our favorite TV shows. Tanner Stransky, editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and Ed on Campus director, searched for the best advice from the small screen to apply to the real world for his new book, Find Your Inner Ugly Betty: 25 Career Lessons for Young Professionals Inspired by TV Shows.
Tanner got his start in magazines by interning at Meredith Corporation’s Des Moines, Iowa headquarters while attending nearby Drake University. He then interned at the now-defunct Teen People as an American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) intern, which is when he first met Ed! Tanner immediately started an Ed chapter at Drake, and, when he moved to New York City after graduating, he became director for all Ed on Campus chapters.
Before joining the Entertainment Weekly staff, Tanner worked at ON DIRECTV, a TV magazine for DirecTV users, and then worked for The New York Post. Now, he spend his days at EW writing and reporting about all of his favorite television shows and stars—including Ugly Betty! Luckily for us, Tanner took some time to talk to Ed before his book comes out on May 6th.
Q: What inspired you to write this book?
A: There are a lot of career books out there, but I thought it’d be fun if there were one that used pop culture as a jumping off point. The truth is that career advice is basically common sense—and it’s hard to bring much new to it—but if you can filter it through some other, fun perspectives, it becomes new again.
Q: How did you choose the title? Why Ugly Betty?
A: Betty Suarez is an undeniably good role model for young professionals starting their careers. In so many ways, she’s our generation’s Mary Tyler Moore. Granted, she doesn’t have to deal with the whole should-women-be-in-the-workplace thing (thank goodness!), but she’s representative of the struggles and triumphs of today’s young adults. So the point of the title is that we all have a little bit of Ugly Betty deep down in us, and hopefully, this book will help bring that out in everyone who reads it.
Q: What surprised you the most during your research?
A: The stories I got from what I dubbed “real-life Bettys!” Some of them were so fantastic and proved that the workplace really is such a jungle for young professionals. In the chapter titled “Keep Up Your Guard,” my “real-life Betty” tells a story about this young girl in the advertising industry who went out of control at a work party and her antics ended up in the Page Six gossip column in The New York Post. Talk about a shocker!
Q: How have media-oriented shows and movies changed the way that people think about these jobs?
A: There has been such a frenzy and focus on magazine writers and editors lately, from The Devils Wears Prada to I’m With Rolling Stone to even—and I shudder even mentioning this awful show—The Hills. And I do think Hollywood has glamorized the magazine industry. It’s not a huge problem really, but it’s so funny to now meet so many people who are just fascinated by the magazine industry. I mean, it’s definitely a great place to work—as so many of you Edsters out there know—but the idea that it’s just parties and clothes and hanging out with celebrities is totally ridiculous. And actually, Ugly Betty does a good job of portraying Betty’s job pretty realistically. Granted, everyone around her—from the other assistants to diva Wilhelmina Slater—are totally ridiculous, but in general, Betty does what an assistant-to-the-EIC would do.
Q: What’s the best advice from the book about succeeding in the workplace?
A: I really love the message of the first chapter, titled “Kill ‘Em with Confidence.” Basically, it gets to the heart of what Betty is all about: believing in herself. As cheesy as that may sound, confidence is what has made her so successful in the workplace. She was no fashionista—heck, she didn’t even know what Mode magazine was—but she went into her job as an assistant with a panache and style all her own. Bosses and co-workers can tell when you’re scared, but my advice is always to just fake it until you can make it. It has worked for me so many times.
—Kristen O’Gorman
15 lucky Edsters will win a free autographed copy of Find your Inner Ugly Betty. Send an email with “BETTY BOOK RAFFLE” in the subject line to findyourinneruglybetty@gmail.com for your chance to win! The deadline to enter is 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, May 7th.
