Hasanna Birdsong: Career and Advice for NCC Students

Hasanna Birdsong hopes Northampton Community College (NCC) students took away an important message from her talk with them at the recent Spartan Summit and Executive-in-Residence event, “Sparking Career Success,” held on March 19 on Bethlehem campus. “With enough passion and hard work, anything is possible,” says the managing director of Adept Packaging in Allentown. “The sky is the limit. Don’t let the people around you, the place where you came from, or the circumstances that you find yourself in stunt your growth.” 

This year’s Hal Shaffer Memorial Executive-in-Residence, Birdsong, discussed her career journey and offered tips to NCC students. 

As a single mother waitressing at Olive Garden to work her way through school, Birdsong didn’t suspect that upselling a table of customers would help launch her career. 

“Every day when I went to work, we had a contest to see who could do the most upsells,” she says. “One day, this group of people came in for lunch, and I upsold them everything. If you wanted a Coke, I was offering you one of our Italian sodas because those didn’t have free refills. And if you ordered breadsticks, I would say, ‘You’ve just got to have the alfredo sauce to dip them in.’” 

One of the people she served that day was a manager at AT&T and told Birdsong that she was one of the best salespeople he’d ever seen. He asked her to work for him at an AT&T Wireless kiosk in the Palmer Park Mall in Easton. She accepted the offer, excelled, and found that she enjoyed helping people. While co-workers were looking only for the next customer who could get them a commission, Birdsong gravitated to people seeking help with a problem. 

She later moved to the Express-Times, becoming its top salesperson and earning a promotion to major accounts. While working there, she was also asked to help launch LehighValleyLive.com as the online sales director. 

By filling those roles, Birdsong says, she realized that she preferred working for a smaller organization because she could make a bigger impact, solve problems more quickly, and maintain her integrity more easily. After becoming vice president of advertising for Advance Media, owner of The Express-Times, in 2009, she started a business to conduct sales for clients, then became director of sales and marketing for Azzure Group, a private equity firm, four and a half years later. She stayed two years before joining Adept Packaging in October 2019 as vice president director of sales. She was promoted to managing director one year later. 

Birdsong told students they must set themselves apart as a job candidate. “Intellectual curiosity is one thing I always want to see. I also want a work ethic. When I’m looking at a resume, I like to see that someone is a leader in a sport, drama, or another group, or that they’ve had a job. Also, service to others tells me the person cares about people and not just themselves.” 

Students might get discouraged in their job search, and Birdsong tells them the best way to get noticed is to make personal connections and inroads to the company where they want to work. “There are resumes that never get to our recruiters because they’re filtered out by AI. You want somebody to give your resume a personal handoff. Create a target list of companies, and establish relationships with people. It doesn’t have to be a recruiter; it can be someone in the department you want to work in,” Birdsong says.  

Birdsong stressed using LinkedIn to your advantage. “Look at the LinkedIn accounts of people who graduated from your college. Find a way to connect with people, and leverage those connections to help you get a job. Be upfront about the fact that you need help. When people are asked, they most often want to help. Do the work to get people to validate your LinkedIn by giving you recommendations or endorsing your expertise in a particular area. Consider joining LinkedIn groups related to your field; the people in those groups are great for networking. They also offer on and offline networking or learning opportunities.” 

Guarding your image is just as important to getting hired, Birdsong says. “Remember that you have to be professional. For example, if you’re on social media, it doesn’t necessarily have to be you in a suit and tie, but you don’t want it to be you with a beer funnel either. There are eyes everywhere; be careful what you put out there.” 

As a final thought, Birdsong wants students to know, “People with imposter syndrome should be more confident because they are the ones blocking the ability for the world to see their greatness. We all have things to learn, and nobody’s perfect. Nobody has all the answers. Be vulnerable and brave enough to speak up, and share your ideas and opinions.”