“I was unemployed for about a year and a half after I graduated, and the job market was hard, no different than probably what people are experiencing today.”
Roy graduated into a wall. Marketing degree in hand, agencies closing their doors, applications disappearing into a pile so large it felt bottomless. The year was 2008. The advice everyone gave was to keep applying. So he did, traditionally, persistently, and for a long time, unsuccessfully.
Then Career Edge changed the geometry of the search.
“What was great about Career Edge is it shrunk the pile down. It had access to a lot of great companies – one of which was TD.” 
The goal was clear: land inside a big corporation, build from within, move laterally without leaving. But the road there had a detour first, a job interview that didn’t end the way it should have.
Roy had applied for an executive assistant role at a marketing agency. Not the dream, but a foot in the door. The interview went well. The hiring manager said so himself. And then he didn’t offer the job.
“He told me not to set the bar so low.”
It stung. And then it landed. Because when you’ve been hearing no for over a year, you start to shrink; you apply for things beneath you just to feel like you have a chance. That hiring manager refused to participate in it. It was, as Roy calls it, “the most thoughtful piece of advice early on in my career.”
Energized, he went back to Career Edge, and when that door seemed to close too, he found a way to open it again. He applied to TD with a different name. Got the interview. And walked in, after dozens of rejections, with something he hadn’t had before: nothing left to lose.
“I actually just wore pants and a basic sweater. I had this chain hanging out.”
The interviewer noticed the cross around his neck, a First Communion gift from 1986. Asked about it. He answered honestly, a little self-deprecatingly: I don’t really know how to throw away a cross.
She laughed. And in that moment, Roy knew.
“It’s that connection, right?”
Twenty years later, he’s still there and still thinking about that interview. Not because of what he said about marketing strategy or organizational structure, but because of what happened when he stopped performing.
The lesson he carries into every conversation with early-career talent now is the same one he had to learn the hard way: “If you’re already getting invited into an interview, the technical stuff is already understood. What he wants to make sure is you’re a good fit for their team, that you’re someone they can go grab coffee with.”
The metaphor he keeps coming back to is simple and a little funny, but it sticks: “Human beings have this detection system where they can tell phony. It’s the reason we know the difference between a real apple and a plastic one. When you go in for interviews, and you look like a plastic apple, you know not to eat it, and you know not to give them the job.”
The deeper version of this, the one he shares when he’s in a leadership role mentoring someone younger, is about the cost of code-switching, of performing a professional version of yourself that has nothing to do with who you actually are.
“When that discrepancy between who you are outside the office and inside the office is so stark, it will be an additional weight that holds you back. It takes a certain level of vulnerability. And it’s hard to have when you’re early in your career.”
But that vulnerability, he’s clear, is not weakness.
“In a business environment, you’re sometimes told you need to project strength. But in my experience, it’s actually the opposite; it’s being honest, being vulnerable, being transparent. Those can be forms of strength. Ask for help. Raise your hand. It’s like a kid who’s learning how to walk. Why are you going to pretend you know how to do it? Hold someone’s hand. Those things are okay.”
And for Career Edge, on its 30th anniversary, from someone who gamed the system just to get back in: “I’m a very strong advocate for the program. What Career Edge does really well is they have a pipeline into these corporations, with roles tailored for entry level. You have a closer link into the company than you would just generically applying through a corporate website, especially now with AI filtering out applications. There’s a clear role, a clear structure, so the person hired doesn’t feel lost in the system.”
Then, with a laugh: “The only thing I would say is I wish it paid a little bit more than $1,200 a month. But it did lead to bigger and better things, so it was okay. In the long run, it all worked out.”
Want to learn more about Roy and his journey, watch the full video here