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heroica
DEFINING YOUR OWN IDEA OF SUCCESS: AN INTERVIEW WITH INDEED’S BLACK INCLUSION GROUP CO-CHAIR For the readers who don’t know you, can you introduce yourself?
My name is Lilian Oke, and I am a field marketer and the Black Inclusion Group Co-chair here at Indeed. I have been at Indeed for close to five years now. My role is to not only help all people get jobs but also shed light on important D&I topics through my Co-Chair role. I am originally Nigerian, but I was born in London and lived in Ireland for the better half of my childhood – twelve years, to be exact. I have been in the tech space for close to nine years now (wow, it’s crazy reading nine years back! Time flies!); I have learned so much and enjoyed every second of it. I initially studied to be a doctor, starting out with Applied Bioscience but thought damn cultural expectations. So, I dropped out of university and became the black sheep in my household because I refused to follow the path expected of me. I went on to study what I was passionate about, which was Media Communications and Journalism at the University of Buckingham.
You run an uplifting social media page outside of your 9-5. What made you start, and what is the mission?
It started with me just wanting to show other people that you can actually live a good life and set your own ideas of success. So many people around me at the time that I started working had limited beliefs about finding jobs, a work/life balance and what that meant, the industries that would accept you, and so much more. I wanted better! I did not want to subscribe to the belief that I could only be in certain roles and that everyone that went into a 9-5 role had to live, work and then die or stay in roles for ten years plus. I wanted to travel; I wanted to enjoy the work I did; I wanted to prove a point to my family. It’s hard for others to believe your vision when everyone around you is doing the same thing or there is a lack of representation where you are trying to go. I remember applying for 150 jobs a day before landing my first amazing role after ten months post-graduation – funny because I was using Indeed at the time, and now I work for them! With this in mind, I wanted to document the journey on social media. It is still crazy to me just how many people found the content interesting enough to follow. A few years later, I can count 42,000 followers and two viral videos (11 million views on TikTok and 2.5 million views on Instagram) across two platforms. I am still going, still trying to inspire and motivate the masses while achieving my idea of success. I encourage people, especially women, to work on defining their own idea of success and figuring out what it truly means to live in an authentic way for themselves.
