43. How to Network Your Way Into a Non-Clinical Social Work Career with Niteesa Brooks, MS, PMP

Social Work to Wealth Podcast - Taylor & Faith

Social Work to Wealth Podcast features Niteesa Brooks, MS, PMP, discussing her transition from clinical social work to non-clinical roles in program management and consulting. She shares insights on leveraging social work skills in corporate settings like pharma and FinTech, emphasizing networking, rebranding, and strategic self-marketing.

Key takeaways

• Rebrand your skills—don’t lead with 'social worker'
• Use LinkedIn to find and connect with fellow social workers in non-traditional roles
• Adapt language to match industry jargon (e.g., 'participant' vs. 'client')

Transcript preview

Welcome to the Social Work 12th Podcast where we're challenging the idea that social workers shouldn't care or talk about money. Hi, I'm Taylor. And I'm Faith. We're two licensed clinical social workers who know firsthand the challenges of navigating this field. In this podcast, we're here to empower you with practical tools for managing your money, advancing your career, and building long-term financial success so you can do more than just get by. your host of the day and I have Natisa Brooks here to chat with us about program management and her journey into macro and all of that. So yeah, super excited to have her here today. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here and thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. So you're last time we talked about, this was like two weeks ago. You're still in a career transition, right? You haven't gotten a new job yet? I have not. I have not. Okay, tell us about kind of like, what's going on with that, what you're hoping for, what, yeah, what job you're hoping to get, where you're at with your job search? I feel like that's a really interesting way to start, because it kind of introduces who I am. So, like you said, I'm a program manager, and so I'm looking for a role that's more senior, and so the transition is me actually leveling up. So I'm taking a step up in my career, and so I'm looking, and so, of what I'm doing is very intentional. A huge part of it is making sure that my resume, part of the way that I'm interacting with people as well is more like on a senior level because those are some of the roles that I'm looking into as well. A culmination of all the things that I've been doing has led me to start my own business, which is called Quiet Blaze and it's a lot of what I've already been doing. And so, Blaze is an execution advisory firm where I'm working directly with high growth companies to help them build the processes, infrastructure, standard operating procedure, all those different things to help them scale and grow. A lot of times when companies are trying to grow, they get buckled down in processes and so I'm there to help them build it out. So I'm really excited about building it out. So I'm really excited about building build it out. So I'm really excited about my own business, but also at the same time looking for my next full-time role. And so I'm really focused on actually looking in the pharmaceutical space, which is different from what I've been looking at. Previously I worked in startup, so I worked with digital health companies and I've partnered with pharmaceutical companies, but now I'm actually looking to work in pharmaceutical companies. So I'm looking to work in delivery, excellence, launch excellent. and still around program management. Okay, if, wow, you said a lot there and I'm like, I understand half of what you just said. No, I get it. I know. Let's take into that. Yeah. Let's dig into this. So you said the company, your consulting company, how did you explain that? Yes. So essentially, like let's say you have a programmer project that you're working on or just like you have this idea, If you were to hire me, I would come in and help you build like a process to enable you to make it go forward for you to launch it for it to actually scale. And so I would come in and say like, hey Taylor, like this is kind of like the standard procedure that we need to. For example, like we're here, we're doing a podcast. If this was like your project that you were coming to me to say, I would like you to help me. Like every time that I host this I want to make the entire project or program be a little bit more seamless. Like, yeah, you come in and like help me with the system and booking and you know, writing, what all the tasks I need to do to like publish this podcast. Exactly. And so I would help you in the background to, like if you were to say, Nantisa, these are some of the things that are not necessarily going the right way of what I think that I would want it to personally be. But I would come in and help you, I would help you. I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, information from you and help you build out that infrastructure to it is what it is that's just an example on yeah no definitely so what kind of companies are I mean it sounds like you can work with a lot of companies but like what type of companies are you hoping to work with I'm focused on health care companies and financial technology companies I've always worked in the health care space so I'm still focused on health care technology but also financial technology as well Okay, so that's a little bit of like interests, what's going on now. Let's go back to school. When did you graduate? 2018. Which feels like in 18? Almost a long time ago. It feels like a long time ago, right? I graduated in 2018 too. I graduated in 2018 too. It does. Yes. That is almost eight years ago, like next month it'll be eight years since. And Faith. I wish you could meet here but she also we went to the same grad school and yeah she graduated the same year and it's just like wow we've been in the field for this long like I guess I know stuff you know you do you do so 2018 what were your internships you went to Columbia University what was your focus in school so a lot of people don't know this I wanted to be a sports psychologist Ooh, okay, that's cool. And so my mentor at the time was like, you should go the social work route because if you go the social work route, you can do your clinical hours and in the sports psychology world it's very convoluted, I'm just going to say that. And so what do you mean, what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? So I say that because if someone has a PhD in psychology, they actually, I'm not going to say can, but they're doing less. than someone that has a clinical social work experience. So they're not able to clinically diagnose someone when you have a PhD in psychology. And so the reason why my mentor at the time had said, I suggest that you go the social work route is because I could have done my clinical hours. If I were to have gone that route or I did my clinical hours in social work, that would have been equivalent to someone that had did a PhD in psychology. but also had done their clinical hours. And so there's a huge difference between someone that has studied a PhD in psychology versus someone that has done social work and has done their clinical hours. And so that was kind of like the advisement that I was given. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So, you decided to go social work. because of all this advisement. Yep. Yes, but PhDs can diagnose so I think that's an odd that's an interesting. Well a clinical psychologist can diagnose. Mmm yeah I guess there's different types of PhDs. Yeah. Right right there's different types of PhDs and that's why that advice had been given to me that you don't have to go that whole psychology route you get through a clinical and social word you can diagnose that the clinical master, you can diagnose at the clinical and social word you can diagnose at the clinical master master level before you're even a PhD. That was the advice that was given to me. I see. Okay, so we're going into school, want to be a sports, social worker. That's exciting. It was, and then all of it got thrown out. And now you work with pharmaceutical companies and FinTech companies. And yes, we need to dig into this. Yeah. So what was your focus in school? It was general practicing. which is like it's just like a bunch of words. And is that mean? Yeah, I was gonna say it's a lot of this again convoluted it's basically like I did a mix of clinical practice and also more on like the entrepreneurship side so I did take classes and pharmacology I understand like the clinical aspect of social work but I also understand like the entrepreneurship evaluation so how do we actually evaluate a program that were involved in? I took statistics as well so it was a little bit in supervision, staff and supervision. I also took like a motivational interview in class so it was a little bit of clinical side but also the entrepreneurship and more of like the business aspect of social work. Yeah and also like kind of that mezzo macro like program evaluation I feel like that's like here huge. That's like a really good skill. Yeah. Yeah. You could do that as a consultant or you can do that like as you know a W2 employee like that's really interesting. So what were your your internships? So I my first year I was doing direct clinical practice. It was more sports psychology. So I was working with youth sport athletes and I was doing one-on-one counseling with them. Awesome. Thank you. I did not like it though. Oh. I think maybe you're like the first probably not the first but maybe like third or fourth person I was like I didn't not like that. Yeah. It just wasn't for me and I think sometimes you know when it's not for you. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely and I think that's one thing about like grad school. I think that's just school in general the practicums. I think we try so hard to get the one we want you know and if we don't, then we don't, bond, but I think all of these experiences are learning experiences, to help you figure out what population you want to work with. You know, it's like, yeah, you got the one you thought you wanted to do, you know, the population you thought you wanted to work with and you were like, I actually don't like this, you know, that's still helpful information. You're completely right. And then my second year I was interning at New York Presbyterian and I was working with, it was a collaboration between New York Presbyterian, Columbia University and Derek Jeter's Turn 2 Foundation. And so I was actually implementing school-based mental health programs with schools that were partnered with working with Derek Jeter's program. You know, it was also a very new experience for me because it was a Sport Youth Development League that we were implementing in schools. So it was basketball and baseball. And so there was the element, the program management piece around that was was we were working in, these are elementary school students that we were working with. And so they were between like fourth and sixth grade, like that's like nine to 12 years old. So we were working with them and then working with their principals and their teachers and recruiting them. We did tryouts, but we also had a mentorship program and it was all around like a social emotional like psychology and doing mentorship group. We did tryouts, but we also had a mentorship program and it was all around like a social emotional psychology and doing mentorship group, like psychology and doing mentorship group. understanding what are the things that they're actually going through as an individual and then also how that relates to sport in sports like you know letting out that aggression or letting out that piece of them but I had I'm an athlete I've never played basketball never played baseball so it was a very different experience for me but I was able to do two different things I was one able to work directly with students of like running the mentorship program. So I was there mentoring the students. We had goals and we would meet on a weekly basis. This is like out in the Bronx, New York. I never grew up in the Bronx or anything like that. So that was also a very different experience for me being in New York. I'm from New Jersey. So it was a very different experience. But have like the goal setting working one-on-one with the students to understand what are their goals not only academically but also in terms of like physical, what are their goals, working with them to understand that and then within the program doing that. But then on the outside, working with the teachers and the principals and more of the senior staff to also get them to understand what mental health and health literacy looked like. So we were also doing workshops with them, with the health professionals at the schools and the teachers and the educational professionals to understand, or to get them to understand, or to get them to understand, or to get them to understand, or to get them to understand, what that looked like implementing that on a school-based level. So it was a mix of both and that's where I learned like that mezzo, like it can actually look like two different things. That's super fascinating. So with that role, I'm thinking about the person I have in mind right now is like a social worker who's in their career, but like what you just described, that sounds super interesting. Would that social worker who was doing that for their career? Are they... who are they employed by like how do you how would you go about like finding that job yeah that was specifically like an internship so that was my second year of being in that program but did you work with so you didn't like you didn't work with someone who your supervisor oh she was a social worker okay and she did she work at New York Presbyterian she did so she had it was a very unique situation she had funding from New York Presbyterian Because that's a hospital. Yeah for people who don't know that's a hospital. That's so interesting. Yeah, so she had funding from your Presbyterian and she had funding