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Do you want to help your network find jobs? Many of us do! Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly how you might be able to help your network that is productive.
Learn some strategies and tips on how to support job seekers from Andrew and Scott in this episode.
Don’t miss these Topics:
What is coaching and how can I coach others.
How to be available and supportive.
What to do when people ask for your help to find work.
When to ask questions and when to give advice.
Side effects and benefits of supporting others.
Building skills like understanding, empathy and helping others find their own way.
Who and how to reach out proactively.
Offering and doing mock interviews.
Thoughts on reverse brainstorming or being the “devil’s advocate”.
Facilitating networking connections.
Don’t ask for a resume unless you have a job or capacity to 100% endorse for a job.
Do for one what you wish you could do for many.
Create template for responding to outreaches you may not be able to give full attention.
To John, singers radio I’m Scott. I’m Andrew this production is meant to provide meaningful support for you listener to find a great career faster whether you’re working or not. Today’s episode is brought to you by the anatomy of the networking conversation. It’s an e book and a free resource that we’ve created that you can download at seekers radio DOT com. Today’s episode were talking about how you as the listener can support others around you as a coach or a support mechanism to help them maybe in a time of need. Yes. We’re not talking about the kind of coaching that Andrew and I do where there’s a process that we help people get through that. We’re looking at outcomes and everything else coaching can actually be. Done in many different ways and and just just professional coaching. There’s the difference between the kind of coach that instructs and the other kind of coach that works with self-discovery, and we’re not going to go down that road. What we want to do is to set up the idea of making yourself available to help other people work through their stuff to be a resource. You think okay I’m not in a capacity I don’t have the capability. I’m not trained up or have the experience that Scott in Andrew have what value could I possibly have to those around me that are in need of employment that’s what we’re talking about as just as uncomfortable as it is for them to be looking for employment, it might be as equally uncomfortable for you to talk to them about it right for a number of reasons for whatever. There’s lots of reasons. especially if you are also looking for work, you don’t you’re not working at the time and somebody is asking you for advice. I worked to why. They right if I had all the answers. Well, that’s the thing. Often. We find the answers through helping other people and it’s something that I’m sure you’ve heard I’m sure we’ve even talked about it to some degree in prior podcasts the idea of making yourself available to to network with people to talk to other people you get as much if not more of the conversation than the one asking you we want to start by saying when someone asks you to coach them say yes. It doesn’t matter if you are the best coach in the world, what matters is that you are there for them. And it may not be that they’re asking you to be coached. They may just say, Hey, i. need help and that’s an admission on their side that they appreciate you. They honor potentially your contributions in your your advice, your perspective, it’s not them. Coming to you and demanding right something back. It’s them coming to you with open hand saying I need help. It could come in another form where people are reaching out to you thinking you might have a job. This is an opportunity to reset conversation and actually help them through potentially a networking process to execute best practices. But right now at a very basic level, all some people really need is someone to listen because they may not be getting responses on applications they may not be getting interviews, they may reach out to you from a position of. Nervousness and self doubt and perhaps even anxiety just be available I mean it’s not as difficult as we make it sound say, yes, there’s something that comes by asking questions and that’s I think the difference between a coach and a consultant right so when we’re coaching, we actually have a different hat on where were asking questions to get to space that you already want to go. So we’re not trying to lead you to a space you. You maybe don’t Wanna go or that’s mutually beneficial for both of us that would probably be closer. To sales and leading somebody to a destination that I want them to go would be manipulation of the highest degree. We don’t want that either. But what we’re talking about here in terms of your capacity to be available is just ask questions you know, what are you experiencing where you know you don’t have to make any statements you don’t have to offer them anything other than your ear to listen and ask questions that’s going to do a couple of things for the audience. By the way, it’s going to allow you to be seen. As somebody who cares which is always good. So that’s a reputation you get to take away. So you do get benefit not by telling or You know doing these other activities that aren’t gonNA lead to any kind of positive outcome for both of you. One of the things that comes to my mind as I think about being unemployed especially unemployed for any period of time is the idea of not being heard when were in the the the work place one of the things that I talked about internal communication and.
00:05:06 – 00:10:18
Internal Service is the idea of gossip and how every company you’re going to hear especially in HR. Oh, gossip is a bad thing. It’s destructive. It’s poison. It’s this that and all of that is true. It happens for a reason and it’s usually because someone feels that they’re not being heard will that is absolutely true when we’re in a job search, there is no one then there to hear us one of the things that that I learned in my coaching training was to start the conversation with what’s going on for you. It isn’t about giving them a gripe session or letting them complain. First of all, we judge Griping and complaining way too much mainly because generally people don’t understand how to help others get solutions but that’s a different conversation. The idea is let them be heard. By being that listening ear, you’re allowing the other person to feel heard to feel like you’re there to listen that you’re actually someone who cares. These are all really nice things to feel you’re helping them by getting it out getting it out of their head if you’re taking notes so much the better because then you can start looking at any patterns that may show up things that they’re not noticing and then. By. Asking more questions about what they understand about what they’ve just talked about they can start putting things together for themselves. You have to come up with the answers because they’re going to do all that for themselves and you just eliminated a dependent relationship. There’s been fit all around that not only are you building reputation and you’re adding value but this is a what what goes around comes around kind of thing. That if you help this person and then you’re in that same space six months a year two years from now then you have somebody you can lean into that. You demonstrated that you were that type of person and the there’s an opportunity there for you to open a door that that maybe it was closed before I would say as you’re asking these questions, my tendency for example, is to them because I. Connect. I. That is what I seek in any interaction is that connection and I have a habit when I hear them telling me their story I, then tell them my story that kind of mirroring is natural. Everyone does that to some degree now people like me we tend to to share easily other people tend not to share so easily and that’s okay. The idea of sharing needs to go back and forth. If you’re like me pay attention to what they are saying. Behind the words that they’re using because. So often, and this is the the although Stephen Covey gets the credit for it. It was said long before him will you listen to reply not to understand it happens in most of our conversations where someone will say something that triggers a thought on my hand I stopped listening except for that opening so that I can reply instead you can connect just as well. If you listen to what they’re talking about and ask another question asked a question that helps refine what they just said. To, get them one step farther or to be a little clearer whatever that may be. Get in the habit of asking a second question. That is going to help not only that person feel that you care. It’s going to help them actually get ahead in their own path and you’re now practicing a skill you can work for yourself and you’re not in a position where you just constantly adding advice I know I as a man I suppose you could say it that way. I’m always looking for ways to fix things to make things better right. So I’m always looking for the solution before I’ve had a chance to understand the problem. I don’t know that that’s necessarily dealing with sex I think most us at least in the United States we are taught as we grow up in business that we need to be solutions oriented. We need a solution what problem you’re trying to solve. I can’t tell you how many times in how many organizations I’ve been in whether as an employer consultant they asked me well, what problem are we trying solve? Why do you need a problem? What if you want to do something proactive? Well, we’re not accustomed to doing that it doesn’t have to be your solution that needs to be found here. Maybe you need. To Guide them through asking these questions so that they find their own solution, which is far more valuable because they’re actually going to be motivated to do it, and when they come to you the they know that you’re going to act in this way. Then you’re not in a position of hand to give advice after advice after, and now I become the reputation of guy that has all the answers and none of them were in the market none none of the good questions to help me, and then when you go to knock on that door six months a year from now, it’s not going to open.
00:10:19 – 00:15:03
So. That’s something to think about now and and I’m sure as you through and listen to some of our podcast episodes. You’re probably gonNA think of somebody that is going or is exhibiting some of these things that we’re talking about and what I’ve gotten in the habit of in this is taken, some practice is actually reaching out to that person right when. I think about them if I have time if I’m in the middle of something that’s different. I usually think of it as going to sleep at night or as I wake up at five in the morning. Yeah. Well, I mean not a good time to talk but that’s a good time to say what I really need to reach out to this person. Follow up not from a position of self interest but from a position of you know, are you okay are you getting through this search? All right. There’s gotta be somebody that you know that comes into your mind during the day or during our conversations on seekers radio that you should reach out to, and if it does you should yes. Yup I agree that in the habit of shooting people we talk. At. Don’t should yourself you should do this I. I completely agree don’t pass up the opportunities when somebody comes to mind and I’m not suggesting that there’s some mystical aspect of this worse He’s thinking of me on. It it’s just don’t lose that opportunity. Hey, you came to my mind today. How are you put yourself in that person’s position? Doesn’t it feel good when somebody calls you out of the blue and says, Hey, I was thinking about today how you doing right and then you can ask those questions what’s going on for you right now what are you learning through this time? Whatever it is that they’re telling you how does this apply to what patterns they’ve seen or where they go because you’re going to get as much or more out of that conversation as they do. To get in the habit at part of being an effective leader or somebody that’s in the marketplace looking for opportunity, you may be an Aja, but you don’t know that you need another one just yet. But as being proactive yourself by reaching out to these people offering support you really laying the groundwork so that if that does happen, you’re you’re prepared right another thing that I really like that you’ve just reminded me of is offering to those people that you know who are looking for work to do a mock interview just to practice their interviewing skills because as the interviewer you have to be aware of what those interviewing skills are, and you’re simply reinforcing your own interviewing skills by being the interviewer. Absolutely if anyone this is my advice if anyone asks you to help them through a mock interview, say, yes you both benefit and it’s something that super easy you don’t have to you don’t have to really. Reach out to anybody or coach anybody just hey, it’s an interview right something. You could even offer I suppose to do for that person. You know if you ever have an interview I’m open I’m open to helping you with that. So if you’re the type of person that’s really good at those interpersonal communications or or perhaps you’re in a domain where you’re doing a lot of interviewing yourself and so it’s second nature to you to see what’s good or what’s not that yeah that would be something. You could easily role play and provide an invaluable tool to help these folks be ready. Now, I don’t know outside of helping somebody meet their future spouse. Right that you actually introduced that person to their spouse. I. Don’t think there’s anything higher than that than helping somebody find a good job. and. So if you had even a little bit of contribution in that process, it feels good. Feels real good. Does doing something for others supporting other people in their moment of need helps you in yours it gets you out of your own head. It gets you out of your own cycles. Those those vicious circles that you can that your mind can get yourself in putting yourself out there and really. Starting, to think in new ways. Now, another thing we may have talked about this concept at a in a prior podcast, but I thought it applied here to is the idea of doing reverse brainstorming and where that came in in my own thinking was the idea of playing devil’s advocate. Okay. So you’re talking to somebody who is struggling with something and you’re going to play devil’s advocate my first thought was. Be Very careful because I’ve been the devil’s advocate in the past and all I did was shut the person down more because I kept asking questions that triggered their doubt.
00:15:03 – 00:20:12
So if you’re dealing with somebody who is in that situation where they’re just sort of spinning in their own, a process that I learned relatively recently over the couple of years was reverse brainstorming. It’s a hypothetical conversation so you’re already by. Setting it up as hypothetical you’re talking about what is not real? It lowers the stakes somebody can get out of their own head. Okay. We’re going to do something a little differently. What reverse brainstorming does is instead of going for what you want brainstorming the outcome you want you brainstorm the outcome you don’t want. So let’s say you’re looking for work. Well, what can you do to fail at getting a job? Let’s put out on a piece of paper, a whiteboard whatever you have available to you. Let’s look at all the things that you can do to prevent yourself from getting a job and you start writing all this stuff. Now take it to the next step. So somebody actually reaches out to you to do some networking. What can you do to make that fail and you’re right all those things down that’d be fun exercise wouldn’t it? You now have a list of all the things that you can avoid doing. That are going to take your chances do the things that are the opposite of all of those ideas or I could stay at home. Okay. Don’t stay home I could tell the person now. Don’t say no. Reverse brainstorming is a very simple and very successful way to start coming up with ideas that will lead you to success and you don’t have to play devil’s advocate to do. It could be that instead of calling it reverse brainstorming you just talk about a hypothetical third-party, right? Okay. My friend Jerry or my my my sister Sophia or something. And that way it’s not you and it’s not damage some other third party that’s doing that what what are they doing? What can they do to fail I? It’s like a an Avatar. Now, living vicariously through third party but I but I can see how it’d be super valuable getting somebody unstuck. You have somebody that comes to you. They’re stuck. This is a way to get them unstuck. The other side effect that happens is at some point you’re going to start laughing because the IDs get a little bit silly Dick. They’re still true they sound silly and so you’re you’re laughing about all these things that you are. You have to do to fail the the light that shines on what you can do get so much brighter I. IT’S A. Process that I’ve used a number of times. Now over the last couple of years, I find it to be helpful in some fashion every single time on top of that, you’re probably looking at the possibility. If you’re weld network that you could connect this person somebody else hotel in your network, it’s just making sure I. Think the challenge had there’s if this person is not displaying to you the best practices that are known for networking, you may be reluctant to do that. What that means is if it makes sense for you and you think it would be. A warm introduction to send this person to the next one on the list. So to speak, then do that and maybe even help them through that by educating them or providing suggestions on what they should talk about riotous third party another thing and I think of someone in particular that I talked to a while ago that they had that experience where this other person helps them get to the next step and the interview didn’t go well and so that other person didn’t want to recommend my acquaintance in the future the conversation. I WanNa have with that other. person is don’t say no, it may not have gone the way you you had hoped there is still room for a discussion of value there, and if not to help your friend to get employed by that company at least have a conversation about what the company is looking for, and that allows all parties to come away from it being in a little bit better situation rather than just letting it sit at oh, it didn’t go well. So I I like the idea of coming back and not necessarily doing a retrospective. What can we learn from this I? Think? That’s an important conversation to have. If you’RE GONNA go to the effort of recommending somebody for a job. Shouldn’t you then also perhaps take the next step and help them prep for the interview if your your corporate policy allows that then by all means? If they are as good as they say they are in you know them why not? Right? Why not offer to hey, do you need prepping for that interview? Yeah. Now they say no, and then they fail and they tank. Well, it’s another thing if you’re going to be on the committee, exactly one of the difficulties of of knowing someone in hr or the hiring manager in the first place a who if they cannot recuse themselves.
00:20:13 – 00:25:02
It could make a little awkward so that that’s a different conversation. The idea of making the introductions helping the person prepare following up with them. These are all ways that you can then help other people. which pays off in your own search and we do have. I do have a resource actually on my own website that’s a networking checklist. So it’s something that’s easy to transmit to other people so that show yeah. I’ll put that in the show notes. So if you’re interested in endowing copy of networking checklist. I’ll put that in the show notes as well as the. Request that you can get for the Anatomy of networking conversation and the discussion Scott that you and I have had until now is been what can we do to coach people in in a positive way? That’s helpful. I think it’s also valuable to determine at least call out what may not be helpful for for you to do so they can avoid. Yes. So that you can avoid doing these things and potentially pointing this person in a position that’s worse than when they came came to you excellent in the first one, I can think of is is asking somebody for a resume that you intend to do nothing with. Now. You’re not. You’re doing it intentionally are doing it to end the conversation because you don’t want to have it or it’s uncomfortable or you think this I just don’t know what to do here. I agree. and. That goes beyond the interviewing and networking and all and one thing I learned years ago as I got started in the HR and learning and development space never ask a question that you’re not prepared to do something with the answer. So by the same token, if you’re going to ask for a resume and you’re not going to do something with it, that is a big no, don’t do that. Ask for it do something with it or don’t ask for it. Yeah. I if they’re looking for a job and they come to you and you ask for a resume, what they’re thinking in their mind is you have a job for them or at least you’re going to pass it to the person who does and that you’re gonNA put your thumb on the scale or perhaps offer of recommendation or endorsement So just what they’re thinking, that’s what their mindset is. So when you’re taking that resume without that, then you need to be clear why you’re doing it and with that said, if you just say, well, send me your resume is there harm in in? Forwarding that to your hr department, this is something that I’ve run into with a number of people what what do I do with it since the jar it doesn’t need to be soliciting a specific job or soliciting an interview for a specific job. It doesn’t have to be anything other than, Hey, I know somebody who would be interested in work for the company here’s the resume. So at least you’re actually doing something with that resume you never know what may where that may lead I if you’re going to take that step to send it to hr please follow up with the person you took the resume from sure. Let them know you did that end. And with the next step might be because he here’s what happens. They’re still sitting there waiting for a phone call to get an interview. Okay. So if you’re just handing off the HR wiping your hands of it, not that that’s bad. No, I think there was that that’s the least you could do. That’s okay if there isn’t any anything else for you to other than to give that then you go ahead forward to take charge and then you tell your friend I forwarded to HR I don’t know if they’ll do anything because don’t know what positions they’re actually going to be posting know that someone received it, and if you happen to hear back from them, you can use my name doing something with it is more important. The other thing is telling them to look online at the jobs available unless you really have a job for them often I hear people that go and they meet with somebody at the. Company Oh, just go to the online portal and look at the jobs I having been in that situation in my career. I find that to be rather off putting I. Lose his certain amount of respect for the person says just go to my my website and look for the open jobs because that means they either don’t know why I’m talking to them. They don’t care enough to look in advance if this is an off the cuff conversation, they weren’t planning on talking to me any of that. That’s great. If someone comes to you and says, Hey, i. be interested in doing an informational interview because of where. You work at least take a few minutes to look at your own job postings just out of respect for the person who’s WHO’s coming to you look at is an opportunity to pay it forward.
00:25:02 – 00:30:02
Honestly. So this person comes to you and you say go look at the jobs online and then that’s it. Really if you’re GONNA do that why here’s what they’re thinking they’re thinking oh well, we’ll go there and this person’s going to advocate for me. They’re gonNA put me for a recommendation they have a job for me. Okay. So if they’re encouraging me to go to the website and look at the jobs They have one for me or they’re gonNA advocate for me. Here we go back to setting adequate expectations ultimately by coaching or supporting other people. What you’re trying to do is help them and by not doing things, you are not helping them we really want to encourage people don’t ignore the request says they come in if you cannot help someone tell them you’re not in a position to help as much as you might like to, at least they get resolution to their outright right but avoiding them or not responding to them is just plain rude and no response is still respond. So I would say avoid that. The upfront be gentle with them. If you cannot help, we recommend we’re both open network irs we we will network with just about anybody because we understand the value of networking I have no idea if this total stranger comes and asks me to network what the mutual benefit may be I may want to ask some questions. The idea is if you cannot be honest about it, it’s okay say yes. Whenever you can I know that there’s people listening To this podcast that are so busy and they get so many requests every day that they they just can’t possibly spend time with everybody. I. Get that and the philosophy that I’ve heard that I really like is due for one. What you wish you could do for many. So even though you’re not meeting everybody pick one person maybe a week that you feel like, okay this is my one person and not that you’re being charitable, you’re being realistic. And, you’re doing for them what you wish you could do for everybody something else that goes hand in hand with that is if you are getting the same request, say for instance, you work in HR and you’re always getting the request. Hey, can I. Talk to you for advice about how to interview whatever if those are coming in consistently have some kind of response that you can copy and Paste that you are then providing them resource that can help them. Maybe you send send them a link to to job seekers radio DOT COM that way you’re not ignoring them. You’re not being rude. You are saying I’m sorry. I’m not in a position to help you right now. This is where I would suggest you turn for that kind of help and that way they’re still getting an honest. Response from you. That is at some in some fashion helpful to them and I’m not saying that job seekers radio DOT COM is the answer to all of it, send them to someone or some organization that can help them. And I’ve also seen people do posts unlike lengthened what have you how to get hired at my company? So there’s a company that you work for like aws I shall somebody did that this is how you get hired at aws. Here’s the leadership principles and they just laid it all out right so that if you WANNA get a job with our company, here’s everything you need to get that done. So I think that was intentional in that it allowed him to hold everybody at arm’s length and he can just point them to the Arctic. That’s a brilliant idea. So there’s other ways to get around that. So all right while we WANNA thank you all for joining us today. Check out the link in the show notes for itunes. Subscribe. You’ll get future episodes. You’ll be able to keep up with what’s going on and most importantly, you can provide a rate and review we want to hear from you whether you felt this was helpful or give us the review and how it helped you. We love to hear from that about that. We also want to hear from you with your questions. We love trying to provide some answers to questions remembering that we’re not just giving advice we’re really trying to help. You discover what’s going to work for you send US those notes at I tunes, you can get the show notes in resources on whatever podcast player you have on your mobile device or should be a link down there. If you prefer to go to the website, you can do that as well. It’s job seekers radio DOT COM forward slash zero eight two and that’s typically for folks that are driving you know sometimes you you can’t just go to your phone and Click the link. So that’s where he had find all the resources we talked about, and the show notes with more details while I’m Andrew and I’m Scott and in the words of Andrew Iskender and I’m paraphrasing.
00:30:03 – 00:30:15
Kindness, is not doing something for someone else because they can’t. Kindness is doing something for someone because you can. Thanks everybody. Thanks fighting.
Anatomy of a Networking Conversation
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Welcome to job. Seekers Radio I’m Andrew. This production is meant to provide you. Meaningful support is a listener to find a great career faster whether you’re working or not. Today’s episode is brought to you by the anatomy of a networking conversation e book. It’s a free resource. You can download at job. Seekers radio DOT COM in today’s show. We’re talking about overcoming self doubt in your job search what I’ve found in recent times, is it? There’s a lot of doubt in the marketplace. You have value. That’s what I’m going to start with. You have value. It’s just finding the place where you can use your that can use your value. Yes, and who will appreciate your value absolutely, so we’re going to talk today about some top doubts and some solutions some things that you can do to resolve some of those doubts or mitigate them or worthy. Get your right, and that’s that’s where I wanted to start. Love the idea you have value find the place that acknowledges that appreciates at the same time. Understand that everyone has self downed everyone. Again if you have no fear, no doubt then the you may be disordered. The idea of self doubt is so universal that overcoming. Self doubt really is the key. It is not eliminating you won’t. Recognizing learning to manage, it is a far greater more important skill, then trying to eliminate it because it’s not going to happen. It may be evidence of empathy and compassion. Actually that you’re downing doing something because it might impact somebody else that’s great could be. Necessarily if we’re talking your language right now and your job seeker listening to this session, or perhaps your energy job in your just unsure your next move, you might be dealing with things like you know. Do I meet these requirements of this role. Will the interviewers like me right will ever find a good job as good or bad as the last one I’ve had in, and can there be anything better. Maybe it’s I’m current with ’em. Current with the job market are my sills valued right? You’re questioning things then you’re in the right place I would agree. You’re in the right place. So the first one that we really think about here’s job requirements and many of the people that I coach will look online postings right. They’ll look at. Do An inventory as great analytical do. Because I work with a lot of analytical engineers that sorta chicken they they liked to deconstruct the job description and say do I fit? Do I not fit? AM? I? Interested? Am I not. Doubt right this. Look at that and say well. You Know I. Don’t mean one hundred percent of the requirements so I’m not gonNA apply for that I’ll tell you from an HR perspective job. Descriptions are wish in most cases now it’s true that some companies will create the job description based on the person doing the job, so it’s just listing out the things that this person is currently doing, and there’s a reason for that and I’m not knocking that when they are then looking for the replacement, they will look at all of the things that that person. And then they want the next step up. However wonderful that person may have been, they still want the next one to be even greater, and so they’re looking at this and and making everything sound Rosie remember that a job description is the wishlist with their posting it online. You were the one that came up with the study Do you remember where that there was a study done? Interestingly enough by a company that would make applications on behalf of candidates right so the? They would just do that automatically for them I don’t know if there was some back end system that did that or a bottle, or if it was actually people just typing these. These things in for you copy paste because all that is really to put your stuff in down in an ats applicant tracking system is data entry, so you’re highly qualified. If you’ve done at least what fifty applications for data entry job, right? The idea was the tract everything when they applied and when they got responses and they they actually mapped out that people who meet somewhere between fifty I think it was fifty eight to ninety percent requirements that that range is what got interviews and people below fifty percent, or somewhere in that area were just as likely not to get an interview somebody who is ninety to ninety five per one hundred percent. And you think about that. If if this is a wishlist, somebody has all those skills they may be over qualified for the position, and so that may not get the attention I think it’s important to remember that your skill set is unique to you. It does have value and finding the organization that values it will take some time effort.
Anatomy of a Networking Conversation
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Welcome to Job Seekers Radio I’m Andrew. I’m Scott this production is meant to provide you the listener meaningful support to fight great careers faster, and that’s whether you’re working or not. Today’s episode is brought to you by the anatomy of a networking conversation e book. It’s a free resources you can download at job. Seekers radio DOT COM in today’s show. We’re talking about making career decisions without fear. Now I don’t know if you’re ever goes away. No, it’s an. It’s a manageable thing maybe depending on. Yeah. and. Really we brought this to the four because of a lot of things that are going on, not only in our our lives, maybe or even in our coaching interactions, but also in just in the world in society. In general, we’re dealing with a pandemic. We have the black lives matter movement. We have a lot of political unrest going on just within the United States, not to mention what’s going on around the world. There’s a lot going on that. Can create fear and so we’re just going to talk about career in the job search and again. That’s whether you’re working or not. Fear is involved. Regardless of where you are it, it’s one of those things where you might even feel like. Is it really fear or is there some other emotional feeling? It’s great to explore that and that’s basically where we’re going to go and we acknowledge. Right Scott that outside influences can either fuel or Exacerbate your fear. So we’re not gonNA cover that part of it, but we acknowledged that that exists we’re talking about. Is it possible? Is it possible to make career decisions without fear? Yeah I. Remember I’m going to paraphrase probably badly, but I believe I know it was an army general that said it. I believe it was pat that made the comment that fear. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to act well in spite of it and again that’s probably a poor paraphrase, but you get the just, and I like to come back to that thought whenever I am looking at something that is triggering fear in me. Is that if I can make progress? However, small that progress is if I’m still moving in the right direction. It’s still progress can I do that while managing my fear, and that’s really what works for me, the idea of managing it not getting rid of it. You can’t I can’t i. in fact I read an article not too long ago. That suggested that those who actually do act without any. That’s a disorder so. That helps me feel better about managing my fears well when I first heard that question I was like well. Maybe maybe you can manage these career decisions without herb. Maybe not it really just depends on your perspective absolutely, and now if you look at it from a position of being employed in you have assets in the bank, and all these different things, then you’ve built up really a fortress of protection where making decisions is a little bit easier because you’re not fearful of what may happen. So really. It just depends on each person’s perspective. In how you process these different things you might be thinking about. That’s a really good point that if you’ve got a lot of different options whether that’s through planning or any other thing, you know you’ve got the money in the bank you. You’re now living with your. Boyfriend or girlfriend suddenly this. It’s not just your income. All of these things are different ways of coming back to that. What are my options? What it? Where is my fortress? That’s a good idea. And letting go of one thing for another is something I kept. Thinking about is that Hey, I’ve invested my time. My energy my skills. In this place that I’m out or just come from. Can It really let go of that and grab something else in there? Some fear there? Because guess what there’s change anytime, there’s change there’s fear and anxiety and disruption, and you go through these different cycles, and some of it also might be job search related right I look at job. Search and I used to do job search this way, and now I need to let go of that and try a different way, so we really advocate the networking piece. That’s why we give people. The Anatomy of networking conversation e-book is to give them the tools to be successful in doing something different. So that means hey, maybe I have to let go a little bit of what I think. Job Search should be and try something that’s different at to move forward so let go of one thing and going to another sometimes can create fear, but it also creates opportunity possibility shirt, right? It’s all based on perspective.
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Authenticity is a characteristic that can often go out the window when looking for work. In the harried and eager interest to meet the employer’s needs and expectations, the job seeker can lose themselves.
Andrew and Scott share strategies and tactics on how to be genuine and stand up for the strengths that job seekers bring to a role.
Don’t miss these Topics:
Being “you” in a job search focused on your strengths.
Mindset of truth to yourself over pretending to be something you aren’t.
Balancing financial needs and job satisfaction.
Holding desperation at arms length.
Complete assessments to get more clarity and access a professional to help you identify your strengths.
Increasing the satisfaction in your job.
Nothing Lasts Forever.
Stand up for your strengths in the interview.
Reinvent yourself to something you want.
Consider a vanity project that makes you feel good.
welcome to job seekers radio. I’m Andrew and I’m Scott. This production is meant to provide you the listener meaningful support to find great careers. Faster whether you’re working or not. Today’s episode is brought to you by the anatomy of a networking conversation. It’s an e book and a free resource that you can download at Jobseeker’s radio DOT COM in today’s show. We’re talking about the art of being you in job. Search one of my favorite phrases that A colleague of mine says to me all the time. Is You be you? I’m sure most of us have heard that phrase did that come with the snap. No he he means it really very sincerely you can snap yes. Of course. He’s he really means it. He wants people to be as authentic as possible. Because it’s in learning. Who People really are that. We can then leverage their strengths. And that’s one of his themes in his career is to to work with your strengths. When you’re looking for something better at in a job search of any kind often feel like you have to change who you are to meet somebody else’s expectation you have to Discount your strength. Sometimes because you feel like they may not be valid. And that’s often what happens in people that I work with have been laid off from somewhere. They felt like they’ve been rejected. They’re going into a situation. Where Jeez the stuff that I did must not be valuable so I need to reinvent myself and that might be true. You may want to reinvent yourself but if that’s your choice great it may be but it isn’t necessarily the truth and there’s that element of well if this didn’t work anymore then now. I have to fake it and and we hear this all the time. Fake it till you make it well that works but is it really sending the messages. You want to send if the message doesn’t matter and you’re faking it because you are learning how to do it better. That’s definitely add approach can take. I don’t discount that at all to your point if I suddenly feel like I have to change who I am in order to now be acceptable. That kind of faking. It is probably going to either backfire on you or it’s not going to work at all people that are looking at indeed dot com or the job postings at a company They look at that job posting. Oh I can do that. I can do that. I can do this too and look at all these things that they can do without. I saying Is that really what I want to do? I really want to do that. Because if we look at everything based on just a capability model where we’re checking all the boxes. We may end up. Disatisfied I don’t know that that’s a natural approach you know not to mention there’s opportunities where you know what? I can’t do that and I should probably take that job because I don’t have a choice. If you don’t have the ability or capacity financially or otherwise to say no yeah that that may be something to consider and don’t discount the validity of that situation for those who are in it because if you’re really feeling desperate because you’re out of money or you’re going to lose your home or whatever that that is those are very real concerns and I don’t want people to feel like we’re discounting that in in any fashion. There is still the sense of doing the things that bring you something that brings some enjoyment that keep you going and often those who are associated with our strengths. As we’re looking at that we we think about ourselves. What is it that I’m good at going through that list? Oh Yeah I could do all these things. Would I enjoy doing them? In this scenario if there are things from my past what I enjoy doing them again bringing those skills back to the four answer is yes then by all means you know. Apply talk to them about that if you can get the interview. That’s great if the answer is I would go back to do those things because I’m starting to feel desperate okay. There’s a different approach that I would recommend than simply applying and trying to be somebody that you no longer are because that will be detrimental to you in the long run. Not Everybody is one hundred percent clear on their strengths or even what they look like or even how to communicate that to other people. We always recommend you look at some assessments but you can do a self reflective exercise just to remember the things that you enjoy you bring up a really good point is something that I want to suggest to our listeners. If you’re going to do one of these assessments and I’m thinking for example strengths finder. It’s one that I’ve used like it. It uncovers where an individual’s strengths may be.
Anatomy of a Networking Conversation
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Job search can be a challenging and rewarding experience. When you learn new techniques and try them out, some may work others might not.
What happens when you get to the point when you have tried everything. Nothing seems to be working! Don’t miss this episode where Scott and Andrew discuss strategies to invigorate your search.
Don’t miss these Topics:
Taking in and evaluating the advice you are receiving.
What to do when everything you have tried doesn’t work.
Mindset and activities that can support or defeat your efforts.
welcome to job seekers radio. I’m Andrew and I’m Scott. This production is meant to provide you the listener meaningful support defined great careers faster. And that’s whether you’re working or not. Today’s episode is brought to you by the anatomy of a networking conversation. It’s an e book a Free Resource. We have for you at job. Seekers radio DOT COM in today’s show. We’re talking about what happens when the advice runs out in your job search and it just doesn’t seem to be working you’re still out there looking haven’t found a job yet I think there was a recent situation that you had Scott. Yes other eager. Probably fill us in with one of your clients right. I was just having the conversation recently with somebody who is not complaining but expressing his frustration with the fact that he has been around the job seeking block for awhile now. He’s relatively new to the area but not new to his field and that industry is represented here in the Portland area. He’s talked to a lot of people. He is very well connected in the right places. He’s received a lot of advice from both of us from others and nothing has worked yet. He’s been working with Everything with from startups to established companies all sizes and shapes and nothing quite has worked out to give him a foothold. Right gainful employment right or at least the final set of interviews or a process. That looks exactly normal. He’s gotten close in a couple of situations but it’s it’s not anything that really has delivered anything even even a temporary contract position and I’ve been there a lot of what he was describing was stuff that I lived through during my years of unemployment. And so I. I had a great deal of compassion for him under these circumstances because he’s truly frustrated. He’s tried everything he is. At least his last job was at a higher level so we talked about the fact that there. Aren’t that many jobs in this metropolitan area on that level in the field and we talked about his efforts to branch out. He’s looking at at companies of different sizes. He has applied for jobs of at Lower Levels. And when he he is then asked why he’s applying for a lower position because he’s now over qualified and you can’t get a job when you’re overqualified which doesn’t really make any sense. Other than the fact that the a lot of companies are too afraid to hire someone that they’re then they feel they then have to replace. Because they’re gonNA move onto something else when I talked to. Hr PEOPLE WHO Express that fear. I also tell them well. What are the chances that they may be able to help your company move up within your company that would be a really great higher? Then there’s there’s fear in Balkh he’s been at this for a number of months. He’s in a situation where he has a family to support. And what do you do that? The one thing that I keep coming back to is keep going. And that’s really the the answer to the question keep going. Yeah and it’s nothing that we can’t work with and the challenge that a lot of people have is they come into a situation and they put a date out there. I don’t know if you’ve ever done this but I should have a new job by this date doing what I did where I came from. And now I’m putting all these undo Stresses on myself that are forced and and one of the things. We’re talking about. Today is the advice. Where is the advice coming from? It comes in different forms. How I process the advice and take an internalized. What’s good for me versus what’s actually worked for somebody else right well. You’re you’re mentioning the the stress. That comes with those deadlines at times. Those deadlines are real. I think of the guy that both of us know who was looking for an hr a learning and development position. Who has money was running out my give a date. At least where he had drawn the line in terms of his comfort zone and I have a friend down in Los Angeles who was in exactly the same situation where he was going into his long-term savings because his unemployment had lasted a lot longer. The expected there are times when that deadline is real. But it doesn’t mean that it’s always as hard as you think it might be one of the things during my unemployment. That resonated with me was the idea that nothing is permanent. And when you’re thinking when you’re at the bottom of the well so to speak that you feel like you fallen into when you got laid off or otherwise became unemployed.
Anatomy of a Networking Conversation
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Getting noticed by a hiring manager can take some effort. You have interest in a company or even a specific position, but are unsure about how to get on the radar.
Scott and Andrew discuss some strategies for finding hiring managers and getting their attention.
Don’t miss these Topics:
Getting around the applicant tracking system (ATS) and recruitment processes.
Reverse engineering the roles and industry trends based on research to craft attention grabbing mindsets.
Leveraging industry associations and relationships to get introductions.
Position your expertise to align with current events and trends.
Tracking and keeping tabs on hiring managers of interest through authentic engagement.
Identifying problems you solve or can help them avoid proactively.
Incubating and updating hiring managers with valued content.
Be an extension of the hiring manager’s work by becoming a subject-matter expert (SME) and bringing information back to the team.
Share the truth about your capabilities and accomplishments.
Volunteering alongside hiring managers with similar interests.
welcome to Job Seekers Radio Andrew and I’m Scott. This production is meant to provide you meaningful support to find great careers faster. And that’s why they’re you’re working or not today. We’re talking about getting on the hiring managers radar this can be challenging and it’s going to be different in every situation but we want to talk about this in just general terms because often there are ways to get on the radar that either we forget about. We don’t know about or that. We sure whether or not it’s going to be effective and so we don’t try and I think the first step is you gotta try what you know. Hopefully we can build on that today. Today’s episode is actually brought to you by the anatomy of a networking conversation. It’s an e book that Scott Ni- put together to free sort resource for you on job. Seekers RADIO DOT COM. You can download that at your leisure. The challenge with getting on the hiring managers radar is feedback. That I’ve gotten from a lot of job seekers that I coached those ones that are working in ones. That are not that are just trying to get. I don’t WanNa say around recruitment or talent acquisition. But really they WANNA talk to a human being and often. They’re not able to because of all the layers of process that stand between them and the company so many companies now are using automated systems to go through a recruiting process and so it is difficult to get in touch with a human being and we recognize that. Turn the tables just long enough to to think about why they would wanna do that. I can’t really blame them. Having been on both sides of the coin both as a hiring manager as well as a job seeker. The hiring manager needs help anymore. I don’t know. Many companies that have a lot of recruiters are a lot of people that have the bandwidth to be doing a lot of the sourcing. Most the recruiters I know have an enormous number of tickets open for positions that they need to hire people into and it can be daunting so the automated systems that they use help them to find people with the right qualifications at least with the right keywords. So all of the PODCAST THAT. We’ve we’ve already done where we’re talking about how to get into that. All of that still applies. Hopefully we can maintain a sense of empathy for those who are going through all of that processing the ones that are reaching out using these automated systems. We want to help them to find us. So that’s really elite sort of the the perspective we WanNa start with today. Part of this is really reverse engineering. The roles you’re interested in in identifying. Then okay what are some of the challenges that are common in the industry? What are some things that the company has facing is Is there a trend? That’s happening. That’s relevant. Have you been able to navigate that trend in the past that that would be relevant to that hiring team and also where are we in the employment cycle? We go through this with the economy and we see it time and time again where the economy is getting really strong or has been strong for a period of time. Unemployment is low. I’ll give the caveat. That employment is never as low as the numbers that we hear. Say It is. It’s true that unemployment does go through the cycle so the tactics that company us will also change based on the volume of applications. They receive the number of qualified candidates that are currently in the the job seeker pool. What is the competitive environment? Like in terms of being an employer. Do they have to work harder to find someone to fill the job and so they have to sweet deal? Somehow all of these things play into that cycle so be aware of where where we are whenever. You’re looking where we are in that. That employment cycle and many of these hiring managers are easy to identify because most of them at least in my experience or online din and the big question I have from clients is. How do I find the hiring manager? Did you look on linked it? Well there’s one hundred of them great. Got One hundred people. Now that you can network with that you don’t know. Is it that one or that one or that one? But it doesn’t matter because right that Mo- some of them are gonNA respond anyway. Sure and those who do will probably be able to lead you in the right direction the right direction but linked him also offers filters that you can use in that search so you can. You can search for specific words so if you if you’re looking for a position you’re looking for that hiring manager for a position that you’ve been in or that you’re familiar with should be able to figure out what the titles are at least some keywords that you can filter that search and Lincoln is not the only source though of work in industries where there is an industry association which means there are people from a variety of organizations. That do what you do.
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076 The Absolutely Best Ways to Cope with Impotent Leaders
welcome to job seekers radio. I’m Andrew and I’m Scott. This production is meant to provide you the listener meaningful support to find great careers faster. Whether you’re you’re working or not in today’s episode. We’re talking about healthily coping with impotent leadership and internal politics and what do you do in. Your leader is really a red head. Hot Mess Yeah. It’s a topic that comes up often you. There are many articles out there. A quick Google search will get you there. We did want to talk about it. Not because others have it but because I think we have a voice to speak we both have experience with toxic leaders. I think everyone WHO’s been around this block more than once has and it’s surprising to me that it continues to be such a common instance? I guess what what makes some specific boss or a certain environmental is going to depend a lot on how that person or organization has grown into the position. They’re in so there’s going to be a unique set of reasons. I don’t think we need to really analyze the reasons why they’re there. It’s really just. How do we cope with this situation? And especially for those who have had a lot of experience in their work and then suddenly find themselves back in a situation that feels toxic or dealing with a leader. Who doesn’t seem to lead? Well it can be really frustrating. So we I WANNA talk about this from a sort of a step back in how we can help ourselves to cope with these situations and find ways to improve awesome. Tell me if this sounds like you. Have you ever had a new boss or a new leader. Yeah I think we all have. Have you been promised things that didn’t happen Many times okay. Tell me this sounds like you is the leader. Favoring somebody else over you never never happens right now or maybe you feel isolated you know working remotely as do. I sometimes feel isolated. I’m not getting face time or I’m not getting recognition or I’m not. There’s certain things I’m not getting really it comes to our own perceptions are we actually perceiving this accurately and so. That’s a really good caveat to start the conversation sometimes times. We don’t see things as clearly as they appear. What we WANNA talk about isn’t so much dealing with the times when we misunderstand ended when we want to encourage everyone to to look at that objectively tried to get as much input about it from co workers or other leaders or people who used to work work with with these people because you can always find that out on linked and do your due diligence to determine whether or not this is truly a toxic situation or your leader really isn’t a good leader whether that’s true impotence? In the sense that they don’t have the power to make positive change or maybe they just do play play favorites. Let let’s or they choose not to make a decision. They abdicate. Certain responsibilities that that’s another thing that we see all the time but we’re going to assume that you’ve done your due diligence and that you have confirmed in a relatively robust way that yes. This is the case that you’re dealing with that. They are in in fact a poor leader and I would encourage also people that might be looking for work. This is an opportunity to make sure that you validate everything. Yeah and make sure that you identify ideal leader and questions for you to identify. Okay how do I know. This person is my ideal leader or not. That really comes down to interviewing the interviewer. I’ve run into a couple of interviewers over the years that I’ve done interviews that they don’t like that they feel like they’re being controlled or they’re losing control of the conversation and I acknowledge that I would recommend to our listeners. Not to worry too much about that because most professional recruiters others whether it’s in house or consultant they appreciate those interview questions coming back to them because they know you know what you’re talking about. They a understand how to respond to these questions. Because they’re asking them the really good interviewers actually like it when you interview them because now you can start really focusing using unfit and this is where that toxicity is going to make. Its first appearance. We all put our best foot forward. We all want to see the good in the other people. especially if you’re out of work and you need a job you want to see this in a very positive way and I’m going to fit in and I’m going to make make this a great interview. You can’t leave your objective hat at the door. You have to interview the other person to ask those behavioral behavioral questions that are going to give you the insight on how they handle conflict. How do they handle favouritism? How do they handle these things? That add to the toxicity doc society in the workplace.
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075 Top 4 Things You Can Do To Find Meaningful Work in a New City
welcome to job seekers radio. I’m Andrew and I’m Scott this production. This podcast is meant to provide you meaningful support to find great careers ears faster whether you’re working or not. Today’s episode is the top four things you can do to find meaningful work in a new city. This is a really common circumstance that people find themselves all the time. It could be that you’ve relocated to a new city because your spouse or significant other has. You’re you’re going along with them. It could be that you had an opportunity to try something different because you were out of work and you wanted to move moved to a city that you really wanted to try out. There are so many reasons but it is. None of them are uncommon. The one I run into most often Scott is. I’ll have somebody come. I’m here on maybe an H1B Visa. And they bring a spouse along and the spouses some of them I’ve seen are like MD’s PhD’s I mean they’re highly educated. They have decades of experience. And they’re in a new country and they don’t know what to do and it’s a new environment and new experience and really we want to give those people an opportunity entity to really know that there’s four things that you can do today to change that circumstance or that situation. One person that I’ve been talking to recently has has come to the Portland area from New York City actually I’ve spoken to a couple of people from upstate New York and they want to be here. They both came here with great expectations. One because he wanted he and his family wanted to try out Portland though. They weren’t familiar with it. They’d heard a lot about the other. One actually got a job out here. In both cases they weren’t familiar with the people here they didn’t have a lot of friends. They had some acquaintances but thought they didn’t really know where to start and they’re probably in some shock. Yeah new surroundings getting used to new culinary norms shore. That idea of shock I I think is something that people are expecting when they go to a city especially when they th- chosen this city. Oh they heard so many good things about it it and how welcoming the city may be and how newcomers are really treated very well and they get there and they still find themselves sort of isolated. They don’t the people they don’t know how to take the next step or even what the next step out look like and so that shock is probably what everybody has in common. What most of the folks that I know are there in this situation? They do have financial capacity. They have a runway Brian on the they’re not really being stretched a capacity but they really really want to get back to work sure because they were highly valued in the country or the place they came from and now they’re in a place. Where wow this is the first? This is weird. I’m in a new country new city. I don’t really know anybody. I have all these skills and I just don’t know where to take him so the other thing is yes. They have financial resources but also they have a visa or What would you call it? A the the spouse might be hurting H. One B. But there’s a separate permit to work. They have to obtain Brian. So we’re not gonNA talk about the permits legalities right. It’s constantly changing or certainly not subject matter experts. But it’s important if you’re coming to a new country that you figure all that stuff out I will mention there are. We’re going to be some people who do come to a new city and we’ll put you in quotes in that scenario. It could be that they’re coming to this place either they haven’t been there for for many years and this is sort of coming back home. Maybe they’re moving in with a A relative for a temporary situation because because they can’t afford to stay where they were given the fact that they are no longer working and so they’re now say they’re moving in with her sibling and they’re going to land a job before before they get out on their own. That’s another scenario where they’re in a new place without having the network already established so all of these are possibilities las abilities how we we can’t take a lot of time to talk about the specifics on each one. But all of these do have some commonalities. There are things said all of us can do when we’re in that new environment. The number one thing to remember is that this is a perfect excuse so this is number one of the four. This is a perfect right excuse to do networking and when you reach out to people. Hey just give them your situation new country new city don’t know anybody. Would you have time for me. I don’t know anybody that would say no to that kind of approach in its very low stakes. It’s not hey find me a job and say I’m in a vulnerable place here and normally people will lay out a red carpet especially help you out. If you can tap into any individual who has really happy to be in their location you can find those goes on social media really you know. Hey isn’t it great here in any kind of question ask those the people that you can contact through social media to say. Hey I’m new in town and I’m trying to meet people who can show me around who not necessarily in the sense of take me to these different tourist sites show me around in in the sense of where our are people like me.
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074 The Top 10 Worst Assumptions You Can Make In Your Career
locum job seekers radio. I’m Andrew and I’m Scott this production this podcast is meant to provide you the listener meaningful support support to find great careers faster. And that’s whether you’re working or not. Today’s episode is brought to you by the anatomy of a networking conversation. This is an e book doc. A free resource that we’ve created and you can download it at job. Seekers radio DOT COM do it today. Don’t miss out. Don’t Miss Today’s episode. We’re talking talking about a very common situation. That comes up the ten worst assumptions you can make in your career and this is coming from combined. Work Experience no no say accounting. Yeah I have. We have a lot of experience and making these worst assumptions. We leave and and I wish I could say that I don’t anymore Is Part of the human. I’m an experience. We do make assumptions and sometimes they don’t lead us where we think they should. We want to go over a list of things that we think are the most those common and probably the worst assumptions that we can make when we get into conversations whether that’s in an interview in a networking conversation in a work conversation. You’re on the job and maybe you’re having an important conversation with someone else. Then again. It may be what you think is an unimportant conversation that might lead somewhere. These are assumptions that we have made. Generally we would agree that these were trip. Everybody up and it’s not like we’re not still making some of these assumptions. We’re we’re just articulating these to actually speak to ourselves as well as we go through our careers to make sure that we’re taking consideration of all of them and not assuming assuming that we aren’t going to have an assumption we do we will always. How do we minimize the impact? That some of these assumptions have and and if we can avoid these that we’re gonNA be talking about. I think it’s going to help get us to where we WANNA be. The first assumption is assuming others will see your performance and you’ll be offered a promotion because of it. We all hope for that. We are working in a culture where hard work pays off. That’s that’s the myth and for a lot of people that actually works. There’s more to it than just hard work. We want to make sure that people have their eyes wide open to all of the things that happen. We talk about politics at work. Nobody really likes. I can’t say nobody. Few people really enjoy the politics at work. Many people have figured out how to navigate it. I’m reminded of when I first came out of college. I got my first job out of college at a Columbia Sportswear and it was a company any. I really wanted to have a long career with and I made an assumption that if I worked hard kept my nose to the grindstone right. Did good work and that people would see. See it and put me into a slot and say hey you know. If you’re going to consider somebody for that position you should look at Andrew and that never happened at least not for coming and then when it got to the point where that position came open and I wanted and I applied for it they said I wasn’t qualified so the interesting thing is even though that I knew I can do the job. They were aware of any of the things that I had done. And so many times we hear people say oh well. I don’t want to toot my own horn or for. I don’t want to sound conceited. Will you can take that too far if you never to your own Horn and you never talk to people about your accomplishments the things that you are able to do especially when it comes to learning and growing in your career. They’re not going to think about learning and growing in your career. Who else is going to speak up for you? If you’re not going to speak up for yourself one of the things that I think about when you were talking is what do you call it. When you withhold the truth? Oh well that would be a lie of omission right so so if you have the truth inside of you should not share with somebody. I like that perspective. Yeah that’s how I look at. I encourage all my clothes coaching clients to do that have taught me me work hard. You’ll be recognized. Always be humble. Don’t talk about yourself. All these things that fall under the category of manners and they’re still that’s not to you say you shouldn’t follow those ideas and think it was a silent cynic talk about leadership needing humility and there are a couple of others that have talked about that. But I’m pretty sure it was signed that that was the one that I was watching at the time An interview that he had given where humility is the sort of the linchpin for leadership. But you can be humble while still letting people know about the things that have worked for you and that where the achievements that you have been able to make that brings us to the second worst assumption option you can make in your career and that is assuming your boss your manager your leader. Whoever it is? Your coworker has the same values. You have he professionally speaking.
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073 The Number One Hidden Secret to Career Success
welcome to job seekers radio. I’m Andrew and I’m Scott. This production is meant to provide meaningful support to fight great careers faster eastern whether you’re working or not today’s episode is brought to you by the anatomy of never came conversation. It’s an e book a free resource to download at job seekers radio DOT COM in. It’s our free gift to you. Today’s episode we’re talking about the number one hidden secret of career success. Yes there are a lot of ways to look at success I remember in my youth feeling that as an actor or the only measurement measurement of success would be that Academy award or a Tony Award. Whatever that might look like and I remember hearing someone say no it really is just winning? Whatever it is? You’re going for whether that’s a specific part whether that is getting a paid gig being just voice talent whatever that might be that all of these are measures of success and I remember totally dismissing that Of course I was also in my teens and probably lacked any life experience audience to be able to make a judgment on in the first place so as we talk about hidden secrets we really do. Come back to the idea that it could be something. That’s really right in front of you. It’s amazing how when we look at our careers and we think about success. We’re always looking for the easy way. The the path of least resistance for getting to the path of least resistance. Maybe it takes a little effort. But I’M GONNA make it too easy street right. Something that does require effort On any of our parts and and really when we talk about the tools available accessible to us in career and we talk about success the first one. That always comes up with anybody buddy. I coach is the resume and we talk about success for resume. What does that look like? We have spoken on resumes a lot and we always come back to the idea that the best way to judge a resume is to use the one that works the one that gets you calls. And that was advice that I got from a Recruiter and head hunter that I had turned to to ask we what works for you and she turned that around on me. Well what works for you. What gets you the calls? That’s the one you should use. Her point in the larger conversation was to try a lot of them. Use the works trial and error improve. Always always look for ways to attract an interview through that method Shurmur that document. We do want the resume in this case to be interesting to let people know what you have done. Most importantly the value you brought in whatever it is that you had done. So that’s why they talk about accomplishment so if you’re on the sales side what what kind of sales percentages were you dealing with you know. Put the numbers in there. You make it recognizable for the people that you’re sending the resume too so they can see. There is value behind the accomplishments or the tasks that you were responsible for one of the reasons you may actually be on this podcast right now is is perhaps your resume is not working for you and that is a way to determine whether or not to move to another method sure in the method. We often advocate. And you can probably see that from virtually. All of the episodes we’ve put together is networking. And when we look and talk about success when it comes to networking what are we really talking about to use the resume analogy. I like to think of. It is a snapshot at my experience. So if that’s all I’m giving people as I’m networking king really. That’s about meeting New People talking to people that may be able to give me information advice and all of that. It’s not just a one and done thing. It’s not like the resume Somme where they say. Oh well can I have your resume. You handed to him than you think you’re done. No there’s still work that needs to be done one of the things that they can help you do as your networking is to you. Say whether or not this resume would be something they respond to. Does this actually trigger their interest and it gives you something else to talk about the idea of having a project to work on where you’re asking people for Information and advice. The resume can be that project as you’re looking at networking. It works the same way. You have to to do the things that actually bring results okay. What results are you looking for? The first thing that Andrew you and I deal with in terms of the conversations that we have with job seekers is going to group events whether that’s a job fair or an association trade show or any one of these common networking groups. oops I have spoken to a number of people who say yeah. I’ve done that. Didn’t work for me. Wooded how did you approach it and what were you hoping to get out of it. Exactly how do you measure success zest and another thing that they fall into is that’s the only kind of networking they do. So they’re out they’re going to the groups they go to a lot of groups but they’re not trying to get any deeper and in some cases they’re actually when pressed they will admit it.
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00:05:02 – 00:10:00
It’s critically important to your happiness, and there’s if you’re of the opinion that it doesn’t matter if I’m happy as long as they’re happy. I will be. You, really need to be careful walking down that road. I’ve also heard that doubt that is in somebody’s mind. I’m over qualified for that role, and that’s kind of I. Think it different kind of out in that. If I apply for this thing, they’re not going to ask me in. Because I’m overqualified. That’s more of A. I. Don’t know if that’s EGO or Well, there’s there. You know it’s still the. Yeah there’s fear involved in probably because those of us who have been in that situation where we applied for job that was lower than the one we left. Yes, we’re over qualified for that job, but. The Way I actually landed lower position job was. By explaining why I was applying for it in the first place. That afforded me. I was in a time in my life when I didn’t want the responsibility of managing a large team, and for good reason, all I needed was to have the conversation with them as to why it’s a reasonable doubt that you would get as many interviews by being terribly overqualified, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get an interview. Networking going to help strengthen the ties to that. If you know somebody on the inside, who can let the the recruiter or hiring manager now? Hey, I know somebody who has overqualified this for this position, but it’s actually what he’s looking for. Networking is going to definitely benefit, and if you’re at one end of the spectrum, Hey, I, don’t have the skill to match that role so I’m not going to apply, but then the other end of that spectrum is I’m overqualified. GonNa apply anyway just so I can have an application, and then in both of those cases. You don’t get an interview right so you may be a perfect fit for one of those roles. That’s kind of in the middle. And you don’t get the interview or you don’t get any response. You get nothing ghosted. Call whatever you want our. Then it just kind of fans, the flames of doubt that you have the skills necessary to be successful in the marketplace now in pursuing things like education or certification or Gosh. I need to retool because you presume that because somebody has not answered your request on an Ats that you are somehow doubting your skills right and I, think that’s very dangerous and very expensive and very expensive yet normal dangerous expensive. I I completely agree with you. I. Think about those who? Disliked the free phrase. Give up because most people looking for work. Don’t give up I know I. said this in prior podcasts at times. It’s good to take a break. Define how much time you’re just not going to to look for while take a rest because you’re more prepared then after that rest to put the energy back into it, but it also gives you an opportunity to start thinking differently sort of in the mind of resilience. If you keep thinking the same thoughts and you keep getting the same results. That’s going to start feeding itself if you take that break and allow yourself to let go of the doubt. Two. But to just accept it for what it is, and then to think about what could happen, that would be good. Allow yourself to think on that for a while. You’re probably going to get back into that job. Search with a renewed sense of energy and drive and something just popped into my mind is we’re producing this right now? Is that Hey, my mind even wanders when people are talking. Start thinking about different things I hear a dog bark in the Vafa. It’s not in. It doesn’t doesn’t have anything to do with. You Scott has everything to do with this this this mind of mine that just kind of can wander. Everybody and something I’ve seen you. Do you probably down you? Write your ideas down. Yeah, I have to. Because, my my head is a scary place. And and my memories good, but it’s not perfect, yeah. I like about doing that if I’m taking notes of the idea that popped into my head, I can then. Pay More attention to the person who’s speaking and I let people know. Hey I’m going to be taking notes while we’re talking doubt doubt. I doubt I’m going to get an interview now. This often comes from people that we interact with it. Breakfast club that have been looking for a long time, right? They feel like they’re doing all the right things and many times they are and many times they are, but they’re just not getting an interview, and so they get to a point in their search where they feel like.
00:10:00 – 00:15:07
I’m never gonNA find anything. From that point of absolute anytime used never or always or any of these admirably right, it’s all absolute, and there is no absolute. Well I guess there are some. Like death and taxes and stuff like that, but no taxes are still in choice. You can go to jail. Lose your. Life. But. It’s still there. It’s still there, but I’m thinking about okay I doubt I’m ever going to get an interview, because my my never ending job search, and so I feel that there’s a point at which there some insecurity that enters the equation because of their doubt I’ve been there I know people who have been unemployed longer than I was. But I was unemployed for three years at one point during the recession, and that was a tough tough time. It messes with your head. Talk about self doubt and wondering if I’m even higher, -able absolutely goes through went through my mind, constantly two things that I did I talked to the people cared about me. Who are actually supporting the at the time because I was one of those where I had no money laughed, my family was helping me. There was also the idea of never give up. You just don’t give up. Keep moving forward and Dick warn guy here. In Portland, that I met at the time who was giving me a lives. We were having a networking coffee together, and he was the one that gave me the definition of progress of movement towards a worthy goal. And pointing out the fact that it doesn’t matter if it’s. Three miles three yards three millimeters. It is still progress towards the worthy goal. Don’t give up. And I finally got a job, and it was exactly the job I was looking for, and did it last forever. No nothing does, but that’s the other part of that lesson. Is this period that you’re in? How ever doubtful you may be about? Your prospects is the situation you’re in right. Now will change if you haven’t read Eckert Talas the power of now read it. It is only the situation you’re in. It does not define who you are, so it does not define. Your value does not define your ability to be hired. It is simply the situation you find yourself in now. Don’t give up. That is great. I would also recommend considering how you can use that as fuel because a lot of times you get into that situation. You don’t think there’s an end and there is a learning, but use your situation as fuel to do things that you maybe wouldn’t consider doing before like. I think that’s probably one of the things that drew you to breakfast, Club. Not that you’re looking at different job, search groups and untrue, you were I was going to as many as I can go. Job Is at here. You’re in a situation where you know. If you don’t continue doing something than you. You get what you get as my wife says you don’t throw a fit for. You, don’t you? Don’t put something in you. Don’t get anything out. That’s a great memory. I think about our frankly on who actually was the one that put me in touch with you to get involved with breakfast club. And it gave me an opportunity to get back into leading something because I had come out of the leadership role, it got me back into taking the steps of working with people and helping them and leading them through whatever processes. It totally changed my perspective, doing something for other people became. The reason for me to get up at that morning. It was your turns. Able Yeah. Oxygen, so that somebody to take away from this, even though you may have anxiety in doubt and fear, and an uncertain t that doing something for someone else will yield positive results for you I know we were going to mention. Sit Not being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Doing something for other people can be the light in the tunnel. You’re not looking at the end of the tunnel yet. You haven’t turned that corner, but it turns out the light. It can make a huge difference by just getting involved in something that is not. Job Related. It’s just getting up and doing something for other people. Yeah, the category, the never ending job search sometimes that doubt. that things just won’t get better I think some of us that have suffered a reduction in force. Understand that right, we understand the doubt that comes with that. I also know that you can retrain your mind to say that every time I’ve had that situation I’ve gotten something better and for me.
00:15:07 – 00:20:03
That’s true now better means different things in each one of those situations sure and it may, it may be something you want it. That’s better. It may be something you haven’t considered. That is better, but it’s better than you expected. I think that’s a perfect and one of the ways you overcome. Doubt is looking for that. You look for what was better out of that situation while I’m no longer at this company. I don’t have to deal with that a hole in in. In Finance or or whatever you know. Or the toxic right whatever that is, it’s like if you start looking seeking out these positive things in a bad situation. That’s when you Kinda. Doubt and you’re able to do things that you didn’t think were possible now. We also made out that anyone is hiring today. I hear this a lot that you know. We have the pandemic and all the unrest, and all these people laying off and is done employment in forever right when you start hearing the headlines you start thinking. Wow, is anyone hiring of the answer is yes. Everybody’s I always assume right. My mindset mindset is everybody’s hiring, so if I think that that I know there’s opportunity especially at companies I’d. I’d love to work for so much of what we talk about. Really is nothing more than a mind game. It’s dealing with what’s going on between your own ears. So if that’s what gets, you started the idea of everybody’s hiring. Do it tell yourself everybody’s hiring. The point is most of the time. It’s true even if they don’t have an open position that they’ve posted on indeed, there are many companies out there that can hire you if you get in front of them. The challenge is getting in front of them. But. It doesn’t mean that they’re not hiring and that’s always been. The challenge has got is getting in front of the right people the right company at the right time. Is always been the challenge. And if you are getting in front of the right people at the right company, and it’s the wrong time, the right time is coming. Don’t burn the bridge. Do stay in touch all the things that we’ve been telling you in other podcasts. Build that relationship because when that time comes up, they will think of you and if they don’t then. If you’re regularly keeping in touch with them, you will remind them what it does. Scott is an actually put you in a position of strength, because now I showed up early to an opportunity that not maybe not exist right now. in the reason that’s important is because the relationship has preceded the opportunities, and now you have things in the right order of operations. Meaning I’m not reaching out to somebody after something’s posted, and now I’m reacting, and what kind of reputation of I developed, and now it got the order of operations all wrong and the likelihood of me getting that opportunity has diminished I. think that’s absolutely right building the relationship. I is always going to help you. The other thing I hear. Is I doubt I doubt such and such company is hiring because they have a hiring freeze on, and that may be true. I’ve I’ve talked to people just within the HR world that there has been a moratorium on hiring that does not mean they’re not looking for you. It means that they may not be allowed to hire you in the way that they would normally want to or the using the their standard processes. I will say that even in a hiring freeze some organizations when there is when they haven’t need that, you can fill can get around that rule. Don’t not do your search because the company has a freeze, find someone inside that you can talk to about what the situation is now and whether or not you can do informational interview. Yes, just to find out what’s going on inside I I’m reminded of rich Lamotte who who wanted to work at Nike and when he wanted to work at ninety. Guess what they’re hiring hiring freeze, but as soon as a hiring freeze was lifted. When did he have? He had the reputation the other. He had the connections he’d have. We’ve mentioned him on a prior podcast so if you haven’t heard his name, it’s because you haven’t listened to the PODCASTS. What struck me about his story so profoundly? That when he was interviewing for the job, he got I believe it was for the one that he he landed. They thought he was already working. Because He. He spent so much time there on the campus. He was there all the time or often enough that they thought he was already employed. So if you’re looking at a company, especially a large company that’s well Silo D- that can happen to you as well, but don’t not reach out to them because you’ve heard.
00:20:03 – 00:25:03
They have a hiring freeze. Bad Economic Times are still good times to get hired and that’s exactly. Exactly, the time you want to reach out to somebody, because then you’re not, you don’t have a veiled request right right? You don’t have that elephant in the corner called job It’s more organic conversation and actually works better for you sure, and if you’re opposed or at least resistant or hesitant to network, this should be good news for you because you don’t have to talk about the job in the corner I. I also think about those who are employed and are doubting their ability to get into the better role or the better company, or whatever that is now working going to help you there, too, because if you’re in a role where there are others at other companies in your same type of role and their networking organizations that already exist for that whether it’s sales research, they’re all out. Yeah HR there if there is A. A National Association get to that Association and start networking with your peers in other companies because you can talk about all the things that your current company is doing without giving any indication that you’re looking to get away, you can have those conversations where it is not the threat and people will see you in that nonthreatening way the idea when you ask someone if they know of any jobs. We all WANNA help. Instead. If you’re going with the idea of just, you’re working on something and you’re looking for information advice. It takes the pressure off the person that you’re talking to. We’re in a position to get promoted than hiring freeze comes in then maybe some of these external forces with the pandemic. Come in, and you stop all of your activity that position you for that promotion thinking it’s never going to happen right I. Doubt This will ever happen for me because of all these different things, so you’re not insulated whether you’re working or not. Just because you have job doesn’t mean you’re not going to be considered for a promotion in fact I. I can encourage I can encourage even more that just about every organization is not going to be the same once. This thing has processed good. They’re going to have to reorganize. They’re going to have to have new people hired. Why because they haven’t been hiring people that worked in go away. It might still be there and it might just be delivered or donning the white done in a different way to think there aren’t opportunities in your company means that you’re oblivious to reality one of the points I absolutely agree with you if you’re considering working for a company that is currently badly impacted by the pandemic or any of these. These other reasons and that they’ve had to furlough people when they come back their new self, they’re going to need people probably with new skills as well so if you are that person with a different skill set than the people that they had to let go. That may put you at the head of the line. Don’t ignore that possibility as well the more time you spend on the inside, talking to people about what’s going on in their organizations, the better your going to be prepared for presenting yourself as that person that they need. The process is set up properly with the relationship I and I will give you the same advice, folks. Folks that I’m giving to most of the leaders that I’m interacting right now whenever you’re in a pandemic or a crisis or things are uncertain, you need more communication, not less communication and in a job search or in a process where you’re trying to establish relationship during this time where we’re all remote, that means I need to communicate more through different methods that I may not comfortable with right to get what I want, do more communication and be alert and cautious. When you work from absolutes. We mentioned that so anything like never always these absolutes are going to trip you up and put you in a this all or none mentality. Just is not helpful in getting you to the next level in your career as those self-doubt start to to get the better of you, there are things you can do. We’ve talked about especially getting out of your own head. I’d say that’s probably your first step. So when you hear those absolute start to come in, that should be a cautionary flag for you. I need to get out of my head from it. Let that be your tool. The moment you sale I’m never going to okay time out. There should be like a referee inside your mind. That gray’s of whistle says Yo timeout I know I have to do that. Occasionally self-doubt, it’s normal. Overcoming self doubt is not the same as eliminating self-doubt, and it’s learning how to deal with it. Not Try to ignore it. And one of the resources you might consider actually that I hadn’t thought of is I.
00:25:03 – 00:27:07
do a live broadcast every Friday on a Lincoln. So, it’s a Lincoln. Life Three PM Pacific Time Friday and I make it available to anybody, and so if that’s you, please go ahead. visit linked in profile will be listed in the show notes, or you can reach out to us through the website. Absolutely you need additional support. During these difficult times both Scott have made a commitment that we would make ourselves available. Let us now. To Talk to you if you have if you need some kind of direction, and if you need additional support, of course, we do have coaching programs that we could offer right, so go to job. Seekers radio DOT, com forward slash zero eight one download the e book that we did the Anatomy of networking conversation. Listen to that. Take the take notes on what you can do when you’re on the in the website. Send us a message and let us know how we can help. Help you. Either one of us will be will be happy to help will thank you for joining us for this episode of Job Seekers Radio the other thing you’ll see in the show notes is a link to items, and in that link you, you get the chance to do a couple of things I. If you want to subscribe on I tunes, and that happens to be your platform great, go ahead and do that. You’ll not only get subscribe, but you’ll get future episodes. The other thing that allows you to do provide us a rate and review, which is really helpful in getting the message out about this job. Seekers Radio that we’ve put together I think if you’ve gotten value of this, my guess is somebody else could too so rate review. Maybe even share with a friend or family member a colleague. Whatever’s whoever’s in your circle that you can think of that might benefit from this session or any of the other episodes we done. We would really appreciate that. Yes, we will well I’m Andrew and I’m Scott, and in the words of William Shakespeare modest out is called the beacon of the wise from. Everybody by.
00:05:09 – 00:10:02
You remind me of an Oprah Winfrey quote that a friend told me I I can’t quote her specifically, and it was many years ago, but the idea is. She was talking about money and making money and bringing money into your life the. The concept was you are holding on to the money that you have so tightly that your hands are closed. They are not open to accept more this I think applies in the idea. When you you have to let go of something. If you’re going to grab something new, you don’t really have a choice. So what does that look like coming back to managing the fear? Don’t let go of the thing that’s keeping you alive, but you like other things that are just nice to have right I was talking to somebody recently, who didn’t want to give up his. starbucks that he would go every afternoon to get his tea iced coffee, and just this was a tradition that he’d been doing for many years now, and it’s just. It’s what kept him feeling grounded and life continues so because I can count on getting this, and without addressing the fact that he is spending. How much money every week on coffee! It’s like you’ve got a an expresso machine at home. Make, you’ll save money? But he he didn’t want to let go of the the cocoon comfort that that routine brought him. Okay, it’s a decision fine now. Don’t complain too hard about not having an extra fifty dollars a week, but I mean who knows what comes after complacency, but maybe. Adversity because I think if you stand still for too long something, something’s GonNa Knock. You over. So here’s the thing is that he found that thing and hugh hooked onto it in that brought him safety and that so that I think that’s natural for all of us to be seeking some degree of safety or comfort now if we don’t have it somewhere else. And that is within his control, and really. If we’re talking about control in fear, they’re kind of. Two sides of the same coin sometimes is that that that which you don’t control creates fears, alright and right, and yet. What are you really control? We’re GONNA. Talk about that actually on a future episode, but I think part. This is really deciding what it is. That seems so fearful, yes, and seeing how to mitigate or manage that. Interesting timing I woke up this morning from a dream. Truly was I ended. No. No A networking colleague friend of mine was in it interestingly and we to try and make it very short. We were sneaking into his friends building. His friend had the PENTHOUSE in a high rise, and we were going to camp out on rooftop, which was against the rules, and so for some reason we were taking a back door to get up to his friends penthouse, but the back door, the back stairwell and and elevators didn’t open into his this this penthouse you had to go outside on an eight inch ledge to then walk at the top of the building, bright walk into over to his friends. A penthouse and his kids are in there. I can see them through a window. They’re playing. My friend went in. He didn’t have any problem walking on this eight inch ledge, however, many hundred feet above the air above the ground he walked in, and it’s like I have a phobia. Falling I cannot do this. And by the end of the dream I came to the decision. That I am not going to try I’m not doing this because I’m going to honor this feeling in myself. I’m not going to do that. I will find something else to do so here. We get to the point. Let’s say you are the type where you simply are too afraid to go to that networking event. Don’t. Don’t kill yourself. Or get into that existential fear. If that’s where you’re gonNA. Go find other ways because it’s finding the alternatives that is going to build your self confidence, so the idea of. Am I going to be uncomfortable. Will by all means jump into that you’ll learn how to get comfortable. Are you going to be gripped with terror? Maybe you don’t want to do that. And, that’s okay. Baby steps. Yeah, it’s like that movie. What about Bob Have you seen that now? I haven’t been steps out the door baby steps.
00:10:02 – 00:15:08
Now I have a vote. It’s a great movie. You should see what about Bob. I’ll put that in the in the show. Like to see that. Sometimes, they think of fear. You can think of fear as an acronym and many people call it false evidence appearing real, yes, and what that means mentioned that in an earlier. I’m sure that we have. And it bears repeating in in the current time. It’s hard to find peace anywhere today. Yeah, other than my backyard. And I love doing. Yard therapy. I Love Garden therapy myself. You and I are on the same. It’s there. But you’re right. Doing things that that scare you I think is different than things terrify you. Yes, because there could be something that scares you, but you’re using that maybe as a mild excuse not to do anything, but then there may truly be something that terrifies you like walking on an eight inch ledge. You know however many stories that sky. And and you’re right. However, there’s always a baby step. That’s why I brought up. What about Bob? There’s always a baby steps you could take. Yes, what is one small step by could take to get more comfortable with networking? Maybe that’s downloading the anatomy of a networking conversation. Maybe that’s just practicing with a trusted friend yeah. I don’t know what that looks like I mean we can’t go to starbucks and tap somebody on the shoulder anymore. That’d be a little weird. But I think about a conversation. I was having with someone who really were they said Oh. I can’t ask my family to do that. Why had not if if you’re with people who truly care about you? They will probably say oh, by all means, please. Practice makes perfect I. don’t care who you practice with I. don’t care if it’s the dog practice. There isn’t anyone who cares about you that you cannot go to. If you cannot go to them. They don’t care enough about you. Put that where it belongs right, but turn to the people who do care about you because they will I promise you. They will work with you on. This is more important to get the practice going. For those of you, that may find that difficult and still challenging I always flip it around right if the roles were reversed. From a hundred eighty degree perspective and someone came to you for help, would you? Would you say us? Yeah? And what would you do and how would you help? Yeah, right, so you’d walk through the steps. Okay, so then you doing the same thing for that other person or to that without the person makes a whole lot of sense. Doesn’t it right? I had that same conversation with a number of people? And that’s okay. One of the things conflict coaching that we talk about as the main idea of dealing with conflict is to gain another perspective, and there’s a lot of guessing and making suctions and everything to gain that perspective, but the idea isn’t to suddenly let go of the conflict it’s. How do you manage that? We yourself because that’s where conflict conflict really exists. If you have actually done something about it. You know you have. Responded to that person review retaliated. You’ve done something to make them upset. Now you’re into dispute separate process. Gaining another perspective is going to help you, and so if that’s what would you do to help the other person? They came to you with the same idea. What would they say? How would you respond? If. They said to you what you said to me. How would you tell that other person? Listen to your own advice. Well, it having not everybody is self directed that way. Of course. That’s why this podcast exists, so you can get that perspectives and maybe tried out, but some people may need to leverage resources, and whether that’s through a friend or family members kind of the low bar. If you will the safe space to start, these things other people may need outside help from say a coach like. US or Some sort of career job, catcher, counselor, or e AP, or whatever yeah, I would say first of all if you are currently working and you have your working for a company that has an employee assistance program. They often have counselors. Counselors will be able to give you some job coaching as well as personal coaching. And the company pays for that that that is available to you. If you can’t afford a coach well, if you can’t afford a coach, please. Hire a coach because they probably if they’re charging. They’re probably experienced enough to be able to help now. You have to go through some with them. therocess. See if they’re going to be helpful to you, but with that said I do recommend hiring someone if you have the wherewithal to do so if you cannot.
00:15:09 – 00:20:04
There are a number of places that offer sliding scales, and if you seriously, if you have zero money, which especially during this pandemic, there are people who have gone through all their resources. Trust me had been there. I feel for you. There are services out there where it’s unending scale, and if that means zero, you pay zero talk to someone. Find someone the end and there are a. it’s a quick Google search in your area, and because people will do this over the phone. These resources are available. Do your research and that that same research is valid even though EA. The Police Assistance Program is free software company, but it’s free. Using employee doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still do your your vetting or your research, and and you know what I found is just doing that research in explaining my situation, too many people to see if there’s a fit I actually get a resolution. As you’ve talked us. Talk to your four or five times. What these different people and you’re like I’m good. I feel better now. If you’re looking for a specific outcome, great five conversations with different coaches, you made realize what outcome you actually want and then can start working towards that that’s great. If you’re also like a I, can’t think of his name and he didn’t know what he wanted to do. Okay, that’s a different question, so you don’t know what outcome you want. Let’s talk about what you’re actually interested in doing because if you. If you don’t know what you’re going to make at the end of this cooking session. Anybody’s guess which agreements are going to work for you right often. I see people that I coach always look at the end right there. Looking at the end before they’ve seen the beginning and the challenge with that is if you, if the end is a moving target, and it’s moving around with every job posting. You’re seeing you don’t know what the end is trying to. Get, you have what’s called entity crisis. Yeah, now that’s a great point and part of that is just looking past your fear and saying okay, this is what I love to do, and that’s more like self, advocacy and say. Hey. I have permission to be happy. I have permission to do things I. Enjoy I have permission. It’s your life your career. You get to choose what you WANNA do. Now that, said once you choose what you WANNA. Do make sure you advocate for it, and that’s what we’re talking about with the networking and. That’s something that has helped me overcome. Fear personally is saying this is what I enjoy doing, and if it’s something that’s strong enough. There’s nothing GonNa stop me. You. Know what I mean I. Do and I you. You reminded me of someone that I’ve been talking to recently who? Has a great deal of skill. He’s got great experience. He’s a musician great experience. As a teacher, a middle school music teacher, and for whatever reason he left that job and to make money, he took a job in financial services well, he doesn’t feel very strongly about financial services. He in fact doesn’t really enjoy the job and he’s. He’s told me recently. He’s been kicking himself for taking the job in the first place because it doesn’t align with his personal values, it was decent money and provided a regular paycheck, and he’s been there for like five years five years in a job. He doesn’t like it well. The the work itself he likes because it helps people, and that’s really what he’s about is helping people and helping them. What I really appreciate about him and why we become good friends is he keeps telling me you. Do you don’t fit into somebody? Else’s idea what you’re supposed to be you, do you? And that’s his his goto phrase you, do you be you one of the other and so here? He is giving the advice of Ugo. Be You go, do you and yet? He’s not. And When he finally admitted to me that he’s got six months of income in the bank, he could be without work. For six months? He is in a relationship. He is not the only is. In the household. And he said to me one of his fears is, he has a chronic health condition. He needs the insurance and I asked him well. Have you used the obamacare for lack of a better ACC? Yes, thank you. I asked him. Have you used the benefits in the past? Well, no, okay well, they are available to you. There are a range of different programs you can get on, and of course they they have different prices.
00:20:04 – 00:25:22
You have a spouse or another person. You might be able. That’s a qualifying event short. Get on their their insurance. The difficulty though is that he he has very specific needs that may or may not be covered irrespective of a pre existing condition what he uses. He uses equipment that may not be covered by all insurance. Okay, that’s great that that is a reasonable fear. He also told me that on July third. He’s going to have his next health checkup. Where every all the prescriptions and everything else that he needs will be taken care of and I told him. If you don’t tell me the following Monday that you’ve tended your resignation, I’m going to ask you why because you have all the resources available to you and you have skills that are going to be needed again just within a few months, so you probably won’t go that whole time without work waiting to say and if you can teach music remotely. Yeah, he’s amazing I. Know Him through. E learning authoring and other Internet based work. There isn’t anything he can’t do in things that drive him. So here were overcoming a fear of reasonable fear. But you have the resources set up. It comes back to what you mentioned at the beginning. He established a fortress. Avail yourself of it. Take advantage of that. Well I mean that’s a good point. If you have some sort of extenuating circumstance, your false evidence, appearing real is that you will, you will not have access to any of that stuff. When you leave someplace else, you can go procure it on the open market right, and it just may be a little more expensive right, but it’s not as expensive as Cobra Right which and that’s where his fear was base because when he was when he left teaching Gig. He paid for Cobra with insanely expensive. Anybody who pays for it it well that that doesn’t transition to something else I very soon afterwards I. It was crazy. I did years ago one of my layoffs and I. I let it lapse because I couldn’t afford it. Yeah, well, in spite of the fear, I think one of the more practical things that we can do is think about these things on paper. Look at the pros and cons just lay everything out and and see with the logical. That’s hard for some people, especially if they’re feeling type people to see the logical solution, right or the logical next step with that’s where conversation with other people comes in I. I’m one of those I feel my decisions I if I don’t believe in it, I don’t make that decision if I do make the decision. Even when the logic wasn’t a part of it I I admit that hopefully I have the sense to talk to my logically minded friends, because they’re the ones that come back and say. Did you consider this? What is going to be the outcome of that? And they helped me see the logic so that we had a mini coaching session right before. Before the podcast at seriously, and this is one of the things that networking can do for us now it’s it’s a little different in the zoom world anymore. With the pandemic going on and people are staying socially distant. We’re doing everything on online, but you still have the ability to get. Those other perspectives staten. That can help ground you when you need that especially, if you’re dealing with fear well, if the fear is coming from the outside world like that from pandemic and black lives of whatever you know, all those things are valid right almost. Conversation. Right what we need is more conversation, not less right and we can’t. We can’t use this as an excuse not to reach out and have a conversation with somebody. I’m thinking even right now. Somebody I should probably write their name named L. Because I needed to contact them because they’re not. They’re not in the healthy place, right and what they needed somebody to reach out to them to maybe calm their fears, not not do deal with their fused just calm. Those fears a little. One of the things that you just triggered, my head was the idea of carrying the way to the world on your shoulders. I didn’t mean to trigger you by the way. Don’t don’t turn me into human resources. To wait a minute you. But It’s true many especially those who who have a great deal of empathy we carried away to the world on our shoulders, and were were getting in our own way so again, getting other perspectives, talking to other people about their situations is a really good way to start looking things a little more objectively. Another idea that I ran across before we got together today. Today was the idea of doing things for other people, and it really is about getting out of your own head, and getting into helping others get out of their heads, and it’s really interesting how that can turn your own thinking around just by involving yourself with other people, and and if if this current day and age hasn’t shown US something is that? Maybe we’ve been a little too selfish.
00:25:22 – 00:30:04
A little low empathy, and we should demonstrate to others more compassion, right and help them by getting groceries, or you know if if they need their lawn cut and they can’t physically do it. Go do that for them. So sure There’s lots of things that we all can do, and you can probably think listener right now. There’s there’s people that have basic needs right now that you could fill, but really it’s taking inventory. What is your? What is your head space? Look like today and what consuming most of that space and. Once you acknowledge it and can see it. You can work with it I I think about conversation I had with one of my kids when she was still in middle school. And the idea of there is no truth that I cannot handle. Because if it’s true, I know where to start or at least I know what I need to be working toward in this case. If you’re looking for a job, okay with that. If, you’re clear on what that job needs to be. Keep working towards that. Networking is our primary recommendation that there are other things that we can do when my head space is now filled up with whatever’s happening in the world. Your idea getting it on paper. Maybe that’s typing and onto your computer screen. Whatever works for you getting out of your head onto? Something else can really helped to focus the mind. It also helps you to stop thinking about all the other things that you’re reading on social media or whatever if you’re like me where you you go to social media to connect with your friends, and then you start getting upset because of all the things that posting don’t go to social media, right or connect with that friend in a different way. Come on right is that? Anyway brought me back to something I read a number of years ago. About someone who was saying, call me you send him a text message. They respond with. Call me you leave a voicemail voicemail. They’re not going to leave another voicemail for you. Other than say call me and they are forcing their friends to actually talk and I would recommend that. Don’t text people don’t send emails to people. Talk to people, so if you are overwhelmed if you’re fearful, whatever it is talk to people because it makes a difference in how you process thinking sometimes fear. Is You not wanting to take a risk in there certainly is risk, but there’s also reward is, so we talked earlier about. The reason I bring up is that people are often fearful because they think they’re taking a risk in your mind can play tricks on you. That’s Oh. That’s a risk. But, then you don’t get the reward either. One of the things in coaching practice that we talk about is look at the pros and cons. Everything has a risk doing nothing has risks sometimes doing nothing is the right thing to do. Because the risk of doing something are greater time not sure that that’s always true right? Look at the pros and cons figure out what your alternatives are. What are the pros and cons? What are the pros and cons for others who are involved in the conversation? And then you have a more logical rational way of looking at what those risks are because if it turns out that change actually provides less risk than staying the same. It’s easier to make the change. That’s a change management tool and change management is something you can keep for the rest of your career. Absolutely everybody should be working on learning right. Learning is a key skill in today’s marketplace, my opinion of course. That’s borne out right. Leadership is a key skill in today’s marketplace, right? And continual learning is the best way to become a leader, but right now you gotta talk through all this philosophies, but we’re just trying to give the listener here a perspective. On only how we’re aligned in our philosophies on a lot of these things, and that part of this process is finding people you trust that share your values so that you have less fear Yup, well that does it for this episode of Job Seekers Radio you can find all the show notes and the resources jobseeker’s radio DOT com forward slash zero eight zero and don’t forget. You can download the free resource anatomy of a networking conversation e-book along with companion audio.
00:30:04 – 00:30:54
Yes, I’ll fill in for his Scott. HEAD OVER TO I. Subscribe to get future episodes of this. We appreciate your time. And if you use I tunes, there’s also a link in the show notes for rate in review. Now appreciate that there’s two parts to that. There’s the rate which is the five star thing and the review is where you actually type something right and send us questions. If if you’ve got something on your mind, and it’s not, we don’t. If you are fearful and you don’t have anybody to reach out to. There is a contact us button on the website now we’re happy to. Please reach out to us if you need any support at all, this is Andrew and I’m Scott and in the words of anonymous. Hey, he’s my favorite philosopher and boy has he been prolific and not of a said do something today that your future self will thank you for. By everybody.
00:05:02 – 00:10:07
It’s providing suggestions and I really liked to set up a that. This book offers however getting the Book and getting it the report and just applying what it says about US specifically from the assessment in the book probably not enough I would recommend seeking out someone who is either certified as a trainer in that assessment or at least somebody with a lot of experience in using it in the workplace to get a bigger perspective other than what you’ve just glean from reading a book because it is going to be a little bit different for you than it was for the author so exactly what is written in the report or in the book is going to need to be more a little bit for it to be truly effective for you so I would recommend talking to those of us who are trained in. This can help you find the way to adapt it looking at things that whether it’s one of those assessments or other activities that bring you energy that that really give you a morale boost. It is vital. You’re doing these things so that you don’t wear yourself into the ground and then wonder why you don’t have any energy the morale come from remembering that you did something you did it. Well guess what you probably got paid too and so it’s having those three components thinking. Yeah I did the thing. I enjoyed it and they paid me to do that. It was crazy and it may not have been one hundred percent of your job. But how do you increase the percentage of that in your in your work well and we just had the conversation about things? Not Being Permanent. You know. Your unemployment situation isn’t going to last forever. Your poor employment situation is going to last forever. You’re really good. Employment Situation isn’t going to last forever. The idea then is if you’re continuing to do things that bring you energy. You’re going to keep those strengths sharp. Hopefully you’re always working on projects to keep your skill set at the cutting edge however you wanted to define it up to date if you are in a situation where you have done these things and you did them really well and it felt really good. If your unemployment situation isn’t going to last forever please keep doing the things you love doing because people will see that and hopefully hire you to do it again. It also would directly relate to your capacity to be resilient search. If you’re seeking all the things that you enjoy and are good. At and often we see people fall down the networking or even doing the applications or or even. Their interview is so jaded because they’re looking at all these things that they can do. And that’s what the job requires but they’re not inspired by it Enthused to go into that situation Going to impact your your capability or you’re at least your ability to present yourself positively in the marketplace. The reason we encourage you to take a look at these things you’ve done that you enjoy is because that becomes part of who you are and that’s what you’d present to people and when you do the interesting thing is people can feel it. It feels different when you present that to some sure. So look at those strengths. Lean into those strengths and communicate those strengths because often. That’s what people want. There’s also we’ve talked about this to the idea that when you’re talking about something that brings you passionate results right that you’re really excited about the do. Well you speak differently. You come alive you light up. Whatever phrase the person may use they are now seeing you in your best light that gives you the impression of confidence and that is what attracts people to you. I I think about the conversations. People have whether it’s a political presentation you’re at some conference or whatever and somebody gets up to speak whatever that may be a rally it’s true on the corporate side as well when someone gets up to speak and they have that sense of being alive and passionate about what they’re talking about and they are confident people are drawn to that. So if you’re working on things that bring you that kind of energy and people are seeing you talking about it and they need something along those lines. You’re far more likely to get the next conversation if you want to reinvent yourself. That’s great I think that that can be very healthy. It can be very rewarding. Don’t feel you have to in order to be somebody that you’re not because that disconnect is actually going to be visible as well. You’re not going to have the same sense of confidence or the same sense of of getting lit up by. You’re going to come across differently and it’s really easy to forget that you did those things and it was fun. It was positive. Sometimes you feel like you don’t have permission to feel that way and if you’ve been in job search long enough and taken enough you know knocks to the Chin you know You know you start thinking okay.
00:10:07 – 00:15:13
Well jeeze maybe I should do is just put in applications. There’s no sense to this. Whole thing anyways. Why should I care? Well you don’t care. Why should anybody else? That’s so you should really not lean that Reggia in remembering and re presenting and taking a look at those successes over and over again and then when you go to interview. Stand up for yourself advocate for this thing that you enjoy doing and often if they need that thing. They’re going to hire you to do it absolutely for those of our listeners. Who are really feeling down that they just are to beat up to make that kind of progress her to to stand up for themselves. I implore you to talk to people who will then help build you back up because you do bring value to the table. Your perspective is unique and someone needs now that sounds like a platitude but there is truth to that and if you need to go to the show notes to find out how to contact. Us contact us. We will help you with that. Because we know the value that unique perspectives bring to the workplace? And you just haven’t found it yet that that’s not uncommon. Many people are there but it also brings a bit of accountability back to you. Decide what you want what you want to do. Andrew you and I were talking about the the idea of a vanity project and some things that I’m currently working on. Are these really just vanity projects that make me feel good? What if they are they make me feel good? It’s worth doing even though I haven’t had necessarily the outcome of landing the next client in whom that ability or that activity may be part of what they do. I’m I’m really charged up because as I work on this it’s starting conversations with other people who are of a like mind who are looking for the same kinds of results and now this feels good so it keeps me going. This is what happens in job. Search the longer it takes to find the right job the more you need these things that bring you that sense of joy and that’s why we talk about always have a project in mind right something. It gives you something to talk about other than I’m looking for a job and really. The focused objective should have a number of components in is not all inclusive. But I would definitely be saying. This is the kind of work I want to do. This is the kind of organization I WANNA be in and then put name on that so for example I just need a Job. Is any focused objective. No it’s a generality at best sure and so be more specific. I’d love to be a director of learning and development for sportswear manufacturer in Portland Oregon. Well I wonder how. Many of those could bio as a matter of fact a handful. There’s a of those Barlett. Where at the idea is okay now? Now that doesn’t mean that the objective can’t change. Of course it probably will but make sure you have something. That’s very focused until you pull on that thread long enough and hard enough and if there’s something at the end of it great Poland another thread you bring up a good point because I remember when I was in school. I wanted to go in a specific direction and I know this is true. A lot of people the deeper you get into it the more you realize that it’s not really a good fit if I forced myself to keep going. I’m not sure I would have been happy and I. My own daughter did the same sort of thing when she was going through school. She was working on her master’s degree thinking. She wanted to go into occupational therapy. She interned with an not and decided. This isn’t really the workout wanted to do. And then she got into the kind of work that she is absolutely passionate about and his wildly successful ad. She had a focused objective of what she wanted to but she was willing to change that focus to better suit her own style and strengths and she knocked it out of the partners. She learned. Yeah what she did is she tried on that pair of shoes. Whatever you WANNA call as your There’s don’t feel so good. Yeah right or they’re too tight or there’s a there’s not enough arch support whatever that looks like rates. Trying another pair of shoes. Yeah it’s okay you don’t have to have it all figured out. It’s just really helps. If you have a a focused objective c know what direction to go to pull on that thread until there’s nothing there Learn more about yourself and not uncommon that you go through this process and you identify all these strengths. But you really don’t know how to effectively communicate that to the outside right if you haven’t decided what you WanNa do in the first place. It’s going to be very difficult to communicate to other people what you can do for them. Even if the job you’re applying for isn’t exactly the way you have described what you want to do if it still hanging all the right things ringing all your bells okay.
00:15:14 – 00:20:06
How do you communicate that effectively and concisely to let people know what your focused objective is and how you perceive your ability to do these things again to have the confidence in that conversation? Because you’re not just reiterating your resume right. You’re not regurgitating something else and you’re not trying to be somebody you’re not you’re really coming back to all of the research and trying on that you have done. You are now being authentic. There is a an element of integrity. That people are really reading in You. This is I think the best way to approach your job search from the beginning and that can influence all of your marketing tools like Lincoln and resume even your branding statement introduction to people We encourage everybody to kind of steer away from a title at company which yes might be your objective. But it’s not something I would share in a brand new statement per se other than as a closing out item to get introductions other and we talk about that in the anatomy of a networking conversation e book which is a free download. By the way for everyone listening you can just go to job. Seekers. Radio DOT COM. You put in your email will email you a free. E Book couldn’t get any better than free of but the idea is if it’s not uncommon that even if you know your strengths is really hard to communicate them effectively and consistently right That’s where you might lean into a coach a job search buddy a mentor the local career center at Your Community College. Whatever is available to you I would lean into that so that you can get a better feel for how to communicate. Even toastmasters would place. Yeah to test your messages so that you can take what’s inside and get outside. There are all sorts of resources available. That either don’t have any cost at all or have minimal costs that are still worth the investment. You make a point though that I wanNa make sure we touch on. And that is you’ve got to stand up for yourself and you have to stand up for something. People have to want to follow what you’re talking about on some level now. That doesn’t mean that you have to get political or you have to stand up against anything. It’s really about knowing what you bring to the table. Understanding what those strengths are and what you want to do with them and assert of a sense that this is what. I’m going for because now people will be more likely to listen to what you think you’re going to do when you get there. And does that align with what they’re looking for and are you flexible in that to maybe bring that attitude or approach into the work that they have that they’re looking to hire and may be more that with you? Your your your strength is Is Your calling card. It’s it’s your competitive advantage. Yeah you WANNA be something to somebody rather than all things to all people when you stand up for yourself that might be based on whatever philosophies you have. If you’re a leader you should probably have a set of philosophies that you bring to the table. What are those philosophies? Khazei vary is many as there are stars in the sky. There’s leaders have different philosophies and you need to practice communicating bat. You may know what your philosophies are. But if you can’t communicate that concisely it’s not going to come across as effectively so I would recommend practice those statements. And what is the difference between a leader and a manager? I mean we go into all these different things but the idea is. If you’re not standing for something then you might as well stand for nothing. And that’s you kind of putting your own spin on what you bring to the table to that role at the interview so five in an interview. I’m not I’m not telling somebody here’s all the things I do to meet all the requirements that you have to identify where your strengths play in that role and say hey. This is what I bring to the table and you stick that up front and center in the interview and you stand on that now. That doesn’t mean that you’re telling them how they should be doing their work. And I’ve seen that happen tour. Where oh well you need to do this. And that and what they’re meaning is this is how I would approach it. But they actually say the words I. This just happened to me this just in the past week where someone was thinking. She was giving advice to she was talking to but instead yeah she was telling them. These are the things that you need to do. And these are the things that you need to avoid without taking into consideration that she was talking to people who had more experience doing these things than she had.
00:20:06 – 00:23:50
Be careful on on how you present that when you’re saying these are the things that I have to offer. And this is how I’ve offered in the past. These are some things I’d like to do a little differently. That’s a completely different conversation. I WanNa know more what we’re suggesting is if you go to an interview. Don’t prepare on how you can fit every single requirement. It’s that’s not a strategy. Well it is a strategy. But guess what is the strategy everybody’s using and if you don’t stand four yourself and your strengths right not what they wanna hear but what you have to offer in if it aligns with what they want. Then you’re at an advantage and if you have the sense to ask the questions early enough. What their pain points are and you can board that any way you like. But really one of their top priorities and filling this position. One of the first things that this position is going to be working on. You can actually tailor that conversation that because you know what you’re good at what where your strengths are and what you WANNA do. You can tailor your response to meet their needs as well as perhaps in the conversation uncover some needs. Maybe they don’t even know they have yet. What can I really can. I really talk about myself in that way. Wouldn’t that be you know kind of arrogant and self aggrandizing and won’t they think of kind of all about me? No that’s the purpose of the interview. Oh okay now how you come across it. It’s possible died tone of voice the way your messaging that it’s possible. That may come across that way so I would say practice with people who will give you candidate advice candid feedback on the way. You’re presenting Nancy. But with that said the interview. Is there for you to Your Own Horn? And if you’re the type that’s has oh. I don’t want to come across as being conceited and so I’m not GonNa talk about myself. That is the purpose of the interview. Be You when you go to the interview. Sometimes you try to mold yourself into what they want right so I need to change who I am at present myself in a way that attractive to all the things that they want to be like them rather than myself. What happens if you’re who you are and where your strengths are and how you can be passionate about this work? And suddenly they want to change what that job looks like because they like what they see. Wow were they really do that yes they do? Does that actually happen? Yes it does. It has actually happened for me. Well okay I’m in okay. Good so the idea here folks is. There’s only one you to just be you. You be you you be you. Thanks everybody we appreciate your time and attention here today. Everything that we’ve talked about you can read in the show notes are available at Jobseeker’s radio DOT COM forward slash zero seven nine. When you’re there we have a free resource and I like free. It’s called the anatomy of a networking conversation. It’s an e book that comes with companion audio really helps you is your networking conversations in a pragmatic way. That gets results. Also in the show notes as a link to itunes. You could just click there. If you’re on your little iphone right now and leave us a Rayton review. We’d really appreciate that it helps us. Spread the message about the podcast. While I’m Andrew and I’m Scott and in the words of Zig Ziglar Honesty and integrity are absolutely essential for success in life all areas of life. The really good news is that anyone can develop both honesty and integrity. Thanks everybody always tell the truth about you.
00:05:04 – 00:10:02
How how can you see the end when it feels so dark and deep and the fact is and it’s a fact nothing lasts forever? There is a day that you will be employed again and as difficult as it feels when you start telling yourself that. Wow I must be unemployable if I can’t get that job that’s not. The truth is just the story. We start to tell ourselves because we don’t have a better answer because everybody else’s so lucky where I they’ve found the job and I didn’t so there must be something wrong with me. Something wrong with the process or the activities. I’m participating in and all the advice that you give Should be considered a suggestion rather than. Hey this is something you ought to go. Do you know the only people I know do this. And are successful right. And that’s another thing that drives me crazy sometimes about these books that that people are selling. Oh this is the way to success. This is the only way right to success and even a dollar sign attached to it. Yes that’s the only way for reminds me of the story. We’ve heard years ago about send in one dollar for the advice on how to get rich and you put that advertising out to the whole world and if everybody sends you a dollar you become rich. That’s the point it sort of the same thing with these self. Help books that you read. You’ve got to take all of this stuff with a grain of salt because what they’re telling you is what worked for them and that’s great. If the advice you receive works for you. That’s great so now it works for two people. Maybe it works for ten people or maybe even a hundred people but it is never going work for everyone by the same token the advice. That doesn’t work for anybody. Hell I work. It will work for at least one person to your point. Used these suggestions if it’s something you have tried. And this was part of my conversation with another friend of mine who is currently employed but looking to get out of a toxic situation and not feeling like he’s getting any traction the idea is okay so something that maybe had a little bit of success for your showed some hope. What can you do that? It’s just slightly different following the same basic principles of the things that don’t work for you. Is there anything you can learn from that process that you’re going to take with you as you do something different so that you can then tell the story of what worked for you when it lands the point is you have to keep going in order to try something different right and that comes down to mindset we talk a lot about mindset here and what I’m hearing is hey these people haven’t mindset that I doing all those things? And here’s the result expected in. I’m not getting that result. Was that valid result to expect and maybe adjusting the mindset to say hey I expect that everything I do should lead to an interview. Let’s just use that as an example if I if I do. Networking is that leading to an interview. In how many networking do I need to do right? So this is my political pragmatic. Mind thinking that if I have a mindset that says I need to talk to ten people a day in order to get this and I don’t get this and I need to see what I’m doing here that’s wrong or needs adjustment or is that you know an effective measure to get that expected outcome exactly. And you’re really touching on something that we also talked about on the past but I want to bring up again. It’s the idea of expectations. Can we approach our activities whether it’s networking the conference other conversations that we’re having can we approach these things and do these things without a specific expectation and simply being open to what it might bring and this actually ties back to the example of the first guy that we were talking about? He’s trying not to have specific expectations. But simply being open to whatever comes from the conversations. He’s having and I think in his situation. You just had an expectation. Though well it it’s it’s more of it open to something. Openness is more of the mindset or talking about then an actual expectation of a specific result. Because he’s not saying I’m going to have X. result what he needs is a job. He’s approaching these different conversations. I think from a pretty healthy perspective of saying okay. Let’s just see what because he’s made that adjustment? Yes you’re saying is that his expectation may be. Hey this conversation is gonna lead directly to a job and when that didn’t happen adjust expectations. Sure Right. I think that’s a reasonable until his expectations are now tailored to the conversation.
00:10:02 – 00:15:05
He’s having or the situation he’s in and then he saying okay. I’m open now that this conversation may just lead to another conversation or it may lead to nothing or but he’s been doing this for awhile now that he’s starting to feel frustrated because it’s not landing anything or at least not something that’s actually bringing in the money to support his family which. I totally understand that. That was not a static situation dynamic in so if I see my my my savings by resources might assets going like this better. Be doing more stuff on this side or to get something to backfill that that Burn rate. How do you answer that right? It was he had going. I can’t answer that he right. And that’s why we we seek advice from other people is to get different perspectives to say okay. I think this is something I should give a shot. And that’s really what we encourage all of our listeners to do. Just give it a shot. And I also think about those that we’ve heard at the breakfast club and some of the other Networking opportunities where someone will bring up an idea and they say oh well. We’ve tried that. Well how about this l? No I tried that too and had six years ago even has earned. No but the idea is okay. How could you do the same thing but differently? You know the same idea. Change it up somehow too often our frustration and disappointment. Keep us from trying something just a little bit differently because I totally understand. We don’t Wanna waste our time. I don’t want to waste my time either. Trust me I get that. Is it a waste of time? If you’re doing it differently when you think about the evolution of species it’s not suddenly they grow a whole new set of limbs that takes a long time and it’s one little mutation after another if you approach a job search similarly to say if I if I do the same basic things but I’m going to tweak it just a little bit on this chromosome what’s going to be different. The exploration then can bring its own value. Its own energy where you’re not focusing on. Oh I have to have this end result now if you keep doing that. It’s really not getting you anywhere. Why can you do? That’s bigger? That may change things up automatically. You’re still coming back to the same idea that you have to keep going. You can’t just stop because then you’re guaranteed not to get right. Well it’s much like I don’t like to use football. Analogy is very often if you look at the Kansas City chiefs this season they. They’re starting quarterback went out for a part of the season and so they had to put a new guy in. We can’t keep running the same plays with the new quarterback that maybe doesn’t have the same skills as the other quarterback you have to make an adjustment and so they they ran different plays while he was filling in for the injured quarterback happening that he. I think he won. Four out of five games or something. Because the coach had enough sense to counsel his people to let’s run. These plays a different way. Let’s come up with a different set of place and see if these work that you’ve just rang a bell in my head with that were having conversations with one of my corporate clients specifically about deploying your people against their strengths because ultimately people are far more engaged when they’re doing things that they’re already good at or things that they’re already passionate about so if you are adjusting those plays on the new guy strengths. And you’re getting good results. Think about the morale boost. That has well. The same thing is going to be true in job. Search whether you’re employed or not you are going to have a unique set of strengths. Your skills are going to be a little bit different from the person who’s advice you’re receiving. So how do you more the advice into something? That is actually going to employ your strengths. Because they’re going to be different from everyone else that you’re talking to It’s not like you hang up your strengths and your weaknesses and everything in the closet to job search. You Know I. It’s you have to look at part of the networking piece. Do you think your strengths will play two and the other parts. Maybe you don’t leverage those as much right and Because I’ve seen a lot of people who are expressive and the networking is really easy for them. But the other person doesn’t have a chance to talk. And that doesn’t go anywhere until it. So we’ve talked about styles preferences really knowing your style preference or your strengths is going to help you do some of the things. So that’s how I would morph it. I would say I’m Gonna more of this thing that you know. Networking is kind of a expressive right and External what they call it in extroverted extrovert.
00:15:05 – 00:20:18
That’s what it is if your personality is such that you’re going to thrive in that environment by all means jump into it if you’re going to be drained in that environment. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to push yourself to part but this comes back to that mindset idea if you know your strength is not getting out and meeting fifteen people in one evening to push yourself to do that may be helpful to some degree to expect the same results as the person who thrives in that environment. I think that it’s fair right. I don’t think that’s a fair expectation for you to set for yourself so instead if you’re looking at the things that you’re hearing from others and comparing what is their skill set. Where are they most comfortable? What is their style preference? Compared to mine I can do the things that we have in common based on our common strengths. And maybe not push myself as hard to do the that. I’m not strong at because if you’re familiar with with strengths finder. You will understand that. You’re not going to make the same kind of progress in those areas. That are not your string right so instead of setting yourself up for that kind of failure and then tearing yourself down because you didn’t succeed how about shifting your mindset into focusing on the things that you do well and then you are strong where you are strong for as long as they’re leading to the outcome desirable for Employment. Sure because there’s a universal truth about employment that I’m aware of that. Nothing happens until you have an interview because that’s the thing that immediately precedes offer. Typically okay how do you define the interview? How many there still some sort of measuring stick okay that they used to say okay? You’re the right person. Here’s the offer. Whatever that measuring stick is typically. It’s interview and and so the truth is that an interview is a conversation dialogue. Yes and and the Nice thing about networking. It’s a conversation. It’s a dialogue so it’s prep for an interview so now I’ve changed my mindset. Not that networking is this weird strange thing that I go and I try to convince you to put me in for a job right. I and I practice my interview Skill Sheriff Story Whilst Good Question Have Accommodate Times. Have we talked to people who tell us the story that they were having just a conversation? And it morphed into an interview. It doesn’t happen as often as the formal interviews where a job opening has been posted. You go through the process but it does happen and these things happen for people who are open to them but that is a mindset. It’s not about getting all the advice and something clicks necessarily. Sometimes that happens a lot of times. That happens that’s not the story for everyone. The story that does work is that it is going to change. I need unfortunately even the good times don’t last forever. The bad times don’t last forever. You will find the job or a job that is going to be better than your current situation. Things will get better. It does get better and what I heard here. Today is a couple of things as a job seeker. Somebody that’s even employed looking for something better always be tooling up on the job seeking cy agree and do some learning there. Find out how to write the great resume how to do a good interview. Always be tooling up on that side of things so that you never run into a position where we decide. I’m not gonna take anymore advice because it’s all up kiss right right. We’re excited you know what this advice thing is not for me. I’m just going to do what I think is good which isn’t bad but then. I’m not taking other new information. So then what if the market changes now? I’m in a bad position. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is the mindset I would have for networking as a suggestion that you might want to run through your filter. Right is I want to identify an ideal and that is I wanna find an interview or a conversation that Morse into an interview. And I’m going to keep doing this thing until I find one of those and so that’s Kinda like motivation to keep going. Which is something we’re talking about here is keep going well. I’m going to keep going until I find that I’m coming back to a one of these conversations that we’ve mentioned before. Just how do you keep going when you haven’t found it yet? There there comes a period when you get tired right. You’ve tried all the job search fatigue. Right take arrest. It’s okay pending on how badly you need the the income that may determine how long the rest happens. Fine rests where you can so that you have the energy to keep going. Don’t stop just because you’re not getting traction doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep trying to to to more this to do something a little bit differently but to keep using the advice that you’ve you’ve received so far it is going to be different dependent upon what level of position you’ve had in the past and what how much of that might be in your specific market.
00:20:18 – 00:23:31
It’s going to be a little different for everyone. What doesn’t change is that? It is not permanent. And you have to keep going until you decide not to work anymore right right. If you’re deploying where you could do that I guess you could but the idea is. Hey you know what even if I have something? That’s good for me now. Does it mean it’ll be good for me in five years? Oh that’s learn to write or or even ten years and it’s the people that I coach that have been in the same company for Twenty Twenty five thirty years that come out and are like I never thought this would happen to me right and I can just tell you when I see the look on their face. I don’t want to see it out in anybody’s face so I’ll give you the free advice here. Take it for what? It’s worth reading through your filter right as a suggestion. Don’t ever think anything as permanent and always be looking not that you’re looking to leave not that you don’t Wanna stay at that. You’re open to opportunities for market research. Think about blockbuster us what’s that The video heavy right. Yeah no but your point. So there were all sorts of indicators suggest that the market was changing around them the employees who have been in any company for twenty five years if they’re not doing the market research to see where the trends are going and whether or not they have the skills for the newer kind of work that’s happening that’s a gap and that’s something that we talk about in my field about. Skilling up and making sure that people are ready with the skills that they are going to need for the next iteration of the job they currently have. These are things that everyone can be working on a constant level. Keep Looking. It isn’t about getting out of your current job especially if you love your current job and you wanna stay in it. Knowing what’s out there will help you in your current job. It comes back to the idea of keep going. Keep doing the things that you you feel. You need to be doing to survive. What can you do a little bit differently to find? Better outcome. Better Opportunity writer outcome. Keep swinging So that does it for this episode of Job Seekers Radio you can find all the show notes and Resources Job Seekers radio DOT COM FORWARD SLASH. Zero seven eight. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Job Seekers Radio Your investment of time and attention is truly appreciated. Head on over to itunes. In fact there’s a link in the show notes to take you right to itunes and it really be helpful for us if you would actually do a rate and review a so that we can get some feedback to make this better production for you and also to spread the word about Job Seekers Radio. We also want your comments and questions. We love to answer those. We do episodes periodically to answer a listener questions. So please send us a few more. We love getting those. Well I’m Andrew and I’m Scott and in the words of Tracy McMillan. Everything works out in the end if it has worked out yet that it’s not the end by everybody stay in the game.
00:05:01 – 00:10:01
And whether that’s the industry that your company is in or the industry of your discipline for my own example. The Association for Training and Development Ata as the Association for Training and Development. It covers all industries but it is specific to those of us and the learning and development world. Then you also have the those in For example the medical industry you have the people who are in an industry these associations will depend on what it is you do but they will be able to help you find people to start conversations. Let them know what it is that you’re trying to accomplish to expand your network to expand your contacts within your industry to develop new skills perhaps looking for new opportunities. Whatever that might be work with people in your affinity group that can help you and that really comes down to then. I just identifying that leader once you’ve identified that leader. I think it’s important maybe to put together a profile on them. Not that I’m looking to put together a dossier but I really WANNA see. What are they talking about? Where did they were they coming from? What what sort of things can I find? What I google their name. There’s a lot published anything. There’s a little bit of research that you can do on the front end in order to position. Whatever it is. You’RE GONNA put out there in alignment with what that leader is interested in and we can talk about values. We’ve talked about that in prior podcasts. We can talk about areas of interest that are both professional or personal for these individuals. And it’s not like we’re trying to teach you how to stalk someone this is really about. How do I have a conversation? That is then meaningful to the other person. Once we know who some of the hiring managers may be in an organization whether they have a position open or not isn’t the point these are people who have direct reports and therefore will at some point need to bring someone else on the team. They lose a team member. Whatever you’re already preparing for those conversations and that’s the point is just keeping track keeping tabs on. This leader is really important primarily because if you decide to make a person a mentor or even a thought leader than you probably. WanNa keep in regular contact ’em overtime if you’re connected with them already on Lincoln. You can make comments on the things that they post. You can reply to come as they make on yours or other people’s like showing up at the gym if you keep showing up in these different platforms to simply engage not to show how important you are. Or how knowledgeable you are but just to join the conversation. You’re going to create that sense of trust with these hiring managers. You will get on the radar without having to say. Hey I want you to hire me and really it’s positioning yourself too. So once you understand this hiring manager saying okay what problems do I solve? And if you position yourself as a solution to a problem then you’re going to be seeking problems to solve and you don’t offer the solution until you know there’s a problem right. This is another conversation that we can have with those who will be hiring. What are your pain points? Or what problems are you solving? There’s also the conversation of what problems are you trying to avoid? What do you see as potential for your organization that you are actively trying to improve on before you get there before it’s a problem? I’ve had conversations with people recently certainly from a development side of. How do we become proactive? When what we’re trying to do is solve problems while problem solving is a reactive function. So how do you turn that around to be proactive? Well what is it that you’re trying to accomplish? What outcomes does your organization want in terms of its schools and now we can do things like for example reverse brainstorming. Which is okay. We’re going to approach this. How do we totally screw this up? And you use the worst thing that could have right. And how do we make that worse thing happened? What’s great about this is now you start to often see the humor in it. You’re creating a conversation that most people don’t have that becomes memorable but also it’s how to identify the things that are going to trip you up. It’s a great way to proactively problem solve before problems. Show up and when you become adept at this not only will you have had a more positive conversation with these people who may be hiring. They will see you as a problem solver without having to be reactive and really that applies also to internally if you’re in a company and you’re trying to get on some of the folks that I’m coaching right now our our at a larger organization and these people are starved for time. You know and everybody wants to get on their calendar. And how do you manage that? And how do I make my fifteen minutes more important than somebody right minutes and that competition starts to come in and really Part of this process is putting yourself in a position to give that person regular communication.
00:10:01 – 00:15:05
Just as course of your work and that sometimes doesn’t require getting fifteen minutes on their calendar that could just be having project update right. Here’s the project we’re collaborating on together. Wanted to keep you posted on. What’s going on? I also think about what when we think about values and goals. What are the hot buttons involved? What do we need to be sure that we’re we’re giving positive information about how we are? Achieving around those hot buttons can also be a really helpful conversation. It’s not that you’re solving. Their problem is that you have a mindset of providing solutions. And if you know what they’re put buttons are you can actually lead into that very comfortably. Those regular check ins do more to create credibility than simply having a good answer. The other way to create credibility is to actually go to some of the industry events that the leader or the hiring manager doesn’t just have bandwidth time to go to absolute so now you can be that that sage right the industry sage that is always going to the industry events and bringing the latest things to hiring team once you establish that communication with the hiring manager that you can be an extension of their work. That y’all do the legwork for them they actually would appreciate that. As long as you’re bringing back the value from these activities the other thing to think about is what meetings can you sit in on to gather information A present consistent resource you know I think oh I think of all these meetings. We see on C. Span where there’s a committee meeting and you know the the congressman’s upfront. And there’s like five staff members behind the camera not quite uncanny quality camera but you know not aware that they’re being filmed. Yeah yeah there. There are so many of these that actually happened that we don’t think about in terms of our participation as we’re trying to get on somebody’s radar. We may have restricted bandwidth. We may not have the time to attend all these other things. So that may be a conversation you have with your current leader or boss to try to free up a little bit of time and that that’s going to look different depending on the kind of work that you do. Here’s where at least for me. My ability to communicate my own brand statement my personal branding statement. Okay that needs to align with my company. The brand that. I’m working four when I can talk concisely about the value. I bring as an individual into these conversations. That’s actually going to inform the conversation I have with my boss where I’m asking. Can I have a little extra time to do? X Y and Z activity. Yeah and then you go do. Xyz activity bring back. Bring back the value that then maybe saving them time because now don’t have to go do it or they can rely on you to be a consistent force in the organization to make that kind of thing happened and that’s going to make you more visible to other leaders who then can see you coming under the radar as being somebody. They want to bring on board doing good work. I mean that’s what it is. It’s really just demonstrating to people around you that you do good work so part of this problem that I see with a lot of people is hey. I don’t like to Brag. I don’t like to toot my own horn or whatever Being that they’re hiding right. That’s what it is. They’re really hiding behind in keeping all of their capabilities secret. And if I have some strength inside of me I want other people to know about. Maybe they just haven’t identified that or are willing to embrace what that is right now. You’re reminding me of a quote and I wish I could remember who said it i. Most people are most afraid of success. It’s true the and they don’t realize it. S The channel. I don’t really horn. Tooting Your Own Horn in an appropriate and helpful way is not conceit. You’re not being stuck up by telling people what you bring to the table if anything helping them help you. And this becomes a symbiotic relationship. And isn’t that what we’re trying to do? A bid that it actually helps the manager is the company helps. You helps has got to be able to toot your own horn to some extent. So don’t be afraid to do that. You don’t want to be a clanging cymbal. So that you’re like just constantly that it’s annoying. It’s very annoying. But there’s you absolutely have permission to tell the truth about the things you’re good at and the things you enjoy doing so that you can advocate for your own data’s faction your own happiness so then if you know what brings you satisfaction on the job you know what interests you you know the direction you. WanNa go now. You have another filter to us. Which leaders do you? WanNa get onto their radar. You have now away to focus your efforts in the right directions because the more you do the things you love to do the more energy you get the more passionate you become the more of an expert you appear to other people because they see how you’re tapping into this this is one of those virtuous circles these are ways for you to get involved and be seen as a thought leader or as a good person to have on the ground and people want to be around.
00:15:05 – 00:20:01
They don’t WanNa be around a milk toes. Person Keeps everything why it? It’s just not very exciting. I’d rather be around people that got going on. That are full of energy that understand who they are no what they bring to the table and they have capacity that that’s exciting it demonstrates life well and you don’t have to do that on the job either. You can do volunteer work. You can get out there and do things. Maybe it’s not even involved in your work when people know that you are volunteering your time. That says something about how you feel about your community. Your worldview depending of course on what voluntary work you’re doing or the organization you’re doing for. Here’s another opportunity to expand your network doing things that you really are interested in doing. You may take that a step further and volunteer to do project. Hey I see this thing. I think there’s a project there. I’d like to volunteer to take that on and really you’re demonstrating to a hiring manager. You have that capacity. Sure and that. You are proactive. And you’ve identified a need and you’re ready to address it now. We think about different resources that we can turn to to find these sorts of opportunities. There’s the business journal from your city and every large city in most the smaller cities have a business journal if not called the city. Business like Portland Business Journal Los Angeles Business Journal. There are others like that. You look at the news sources. If they’re making an announcement that something is happening. There’s nothing wrong with contacting someone in that organization. Say Hey I see this happening in the news. I would love to know how I might be able to get involved in that. What volunteering opportunities might you be offering it? It’s not hey I want you to hire me. It’s hey how can I volunteer thing might just hire you? Yeah there’s lots of hiring managers that have lives outside of the job and that might include the American Cancer Society or diabetes. Well we have whatever we have a mutual friend that’s involved in the Alzheimer’s Organization. There are all sorts of different groups out there doing this kind of work that you can now get involved in and meet people expand your network. You can find them on social media whether that’s facebook or linked in or any of the social media platforms out there. I look at it kind of like a circle by that I mean. Hey you know if you’re trying to get on the hiring managers radar there’s the gravitational satellite right around that person and just not close enough to the hiring manager to get sucked into that to get sucked into the vortex but I guess what I’m suggesting is there’s always somebody that’s a little bit closer to that hiring manager than you are and often they. There’s somebody that each leader that I’ve ever met relies on is kind of like they’re sounding board or the go-to person or someone that they can how them to be influenced by because they value that person’s opinion and if you can’t get to the hiring manager one way you get on their radar as maybe through their executive admin or a potential here that you happen to play squash with on Saturday afternoons or something. I don’t know that brings us back to your one of your early ideas of doing the search on linked to find the Harry Manager. Look at the peers. Look at the other people. Who are the various people on that level that you might be able to connect with just to get some information about the company? What does it like to work there? What what are your current strategies. I mean I’m just interested in the industry. Whatever that looks like because that’s going to tie tie you right back into where you need to be. There’s more than one door into the organization and it’s either through the hiring manager. The peers could be somebody in sales or somebody in finance that you end up bumping into just kind of serendipitous at a weekend event maybe a wine tasting or crawl or some sort of faith organization. That happens to go to your church. Sure all of the the the potential conversations somebody in the grocery line. It’s not that you should be talking about your employment situation in every conversation you have keep that in. Mind that any conversation. You have could go there so that if you have your personal branding statement written out in practice that you can jump into that opportunity as soon as it presents itself because you never know where when it’s going to happen it may be just a stepping stone. We do want to encourage you to look for any opportunity. All Opportunities Don’t feel like you’ve exhausted the mall because you probably don’t restrict yourself keep an open mind because you’ll be surprised in how many opportunities actually come up if you’re just ready for them. Keep your eyes and ears open at all times. Well that does it for this episode of Job Seekers Radio You can get all the show notes and resources and job seekers radio DOT COM FORWARD SLASH. Zero seven seven. We want to remind you that we do have the book. Called Anatomy of networking conversation. Is there it has companion audio? Avail yourself of it. It’s totally free. And it’s one of the best ways to get on.
00:20:01 – 00:20:45
The radar of hiring manager is to do your network to your networking excellent in a somewhat pragmatic direct. Way If that works for you. But getting on their radar it could involve the networking piece and that is one of the resources we have. It’s totally free. Our gift to you. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Job. Seekers Radio we really do appreciate your investment of time and your attention head on over to I tunes and subscribe to get future episodes. While you’re there. Please leave us a rate and review. We really do appreciate that. And we. We want your feedback. You can also give us feedback or ask US questions on job seekers radio DOT COM and according to Mahatma Gandhi. Be The change. You want to see the world. I’m Scott I’m Andrew. Thanks for being with US aggregrate day.
00:05:01 – 00:10:05
And certainly if you’re in a role the approach might be a little bit different or in that. Hey if I’m working in already under this person what do I do now and Dan really need to find a way to continue to perform and asking to be really hard. Because you feel like you’re doing it to get their approval or acknowledgment or whatever her But performing well for yourself and for the organization and maybe even the people that you work alongside find some motivation there to still perform embroil for a purpose that other than the leader. That might be hosing. You totally agree. The idea that I would start with. There is determine as best. You can what they truly value the toxic boss or at the ineffective leader is probably going to say something about the values instead aligned with the organization’s aspirational values. You know those things that they put on their website that we believe in this and that and that’s what makes us such a great company. Come worker okay. Yes yes because you should expect that what I found though is that every individual leader has their own personal values and it may be that. It’s something they don’t don’t really WanNa talk about because they either don’t recognize it as it is the recognize that it’s not really in line with company values. So they’re not gonNA talk about. What did they ask about? What does performance look like so when it comes to the question how am I performing? Well define good performance and then you document that all the way along and that’s what you’re talking about with that leader to ensure that you are meeting that leaders expectations and what does good performance. Look like Doc. So you’re setting the ground rule that they can trust you to get your job done and with toxic bosses or impotent bosses. That is the foundation. You must establish so that as you do start networking with others either in the organization or in other organizations that you’re still standing on solid ground and really. It’s time to take take the high road you’d have someone suggesting is yes. Perform well and find motivation to do so. Maintain composure if this person is truly toxic they’re gonna find ways to screw you up the diplomatic and like you said tracking everything if it’s just the fact that this is an arm’s length leader and they’re just out to lunch which does happen. Maybe an in two years from retirement. They’re biting whatever the reason might be. I’m reminded of what Simon Senate gave advice to the millennial generation and that is be delete. Delete that you wish you had and that means if this leader is not the one I wish I had and I want to have bi weekly one on ones then. I’m just going to schedule lows into his or her calendar and I’m GonNa take control of that interaction and that’s great advice in fact it’s interesting because The last big company that I worked with did exactly that the they actually launched a shift in their their one on one program if you will. It wasn’t a formalized program. But what they we’re doing was creating a tool within their company intranet their portal for employees a process or a platform where they were going to put the responsibility for scheduling those one on one interactions on the employ not on the leader and so DNA anyway was to empower those employees ways to take charge of their own careers which for some employees that were ready to do that. It was a great tool for those for whom this wasn’t they weren’t ready for. They sort of got left behind and it really didn’t help very much for them. That has been a growing experience for them to the idea that be the leader that you want to have a this is one of those principles of leading without authority where you are trying to influence people you wanna get their buying so you have to adapt to their style or you have have to connect with their values again. These are things that you can do to help to empower yourself in getting what you need. This is all valuable experiences as well. Because if you’re acting like the leader that you WanNa have guess what it won’t be long before you’re leading other people for real right and that person is going to be. Who knows where at at some point you need to make a decision and that is do I want to stick it out here? I want to see the course. Well is it worth doing that. Do I also need to be looking outside at alternatives. My suspicion is both hand. Yes if you’re in a situation and this is going to be different for different people depending on the role of the responsibilities. They have the the kind of work that they do. If you’re in a situation where you your company encourages or at least allows you to volunteer your time or to spend time away. Obviously the limited amount of time away from your desk for those organizations that pride themselves in in being active in the community they will generally speaking allow you a little bit of time to do things on your own. They may expect that to be job related and maybe they don’t. The idea is that you have a little bit of time. A little bit of bandwidth to start doing things that bring you something of value to yourself.
00:10:05 – 00:15:18
And if you’re lucky enough to be in a situation where you’re working king for the company and you’re performing well you’re connecting with your leader in ways that they feel comfortable with your productivity. Then you can start doing other things give you exposure in the outside community where you can be a subject matter expert in these different networking groups who are association meetings or whatever that might look like so now. You’re building your network outside of your company to your point you may then get the call from someone where they want to recruit you into into their company so you can actually escape the toxic boss. This is the perfect scenario. You know the the way things we want things to to be you can also be networking inside inside your organization in ways that don’t undermine the credibility or reputation of your boss instead shows your ability to provide right value to the company in other ways or in other places which then gives you a stronger position in the first place and what I was thinking in this way is that and we’ve said this another podcast cast is. We should always be looking not that. We’re GONNA leave but that we should be aware I am when opportunity comes. I’m always the type of person I’m all ears eyes and ears open to any opportunity opportunity. That comes my way that also applies to learning new skills. Meaning if I have an impotent leader than I need to maybe get into some more communication heavy the education so that I can actually lead this person the way I want to be led and that might mean things like crucial conversations. I think there’s other things that are similar to that. Were you can learn how to communicate your needs to boss without being angry pissed off needy. These educational opportunities are then giving you do things to talk about with your bus. Hey this is something I learned. And what do you think of that. And so you’re actually having a constructive conversation with your current boss about things that you’re learning joining that may help. I’m also thinking about companies that provide education assistance. In other words they will pay for part or sometimes all of the costs involved in getting a degree different ways for you to get out there and look at ways to really find the satisfaction on your own. It’s not that you’re going to be always just doing whatever you want. There are probably going to be some restrictions. You have the ability to branch out to do something different. And as long as you’re doing things that you can come back to your current boss to say what value is being added by the fact that you’re learning these things. The chances are pretty good. God that is going to serve you well. One of the things I was trying to get at is if I have a new leader. That’s on boarding in now. Minorities are a little bit different than they used to be. I need to take some time and invest in that person episode before I start through that process of discomfort in fear uncertainty. And this isn’t the way we used. I used to do it right. And you don’t WanNa get stock when you get a new leader. You really need to invest the time proactively as part of a Covey’s seven habits. I have those pasted everywhere are now is be proactive if you have a new leader scheduled time on their calendar. Get to know them even though they’re on boarding maybe you could be part of the on boarding experience. It’s an opportunity for you to begin again especially if you have a leader that was either good or bad or whatever. And they didn’t take with them. Well I also think about a time when the group that I was working with got an you later. There was a reorganization in the company and a new leader was assigned to our group and there were a couple of us that were certified in change management methodology. It was my colleague. Actually that started the process in taking our team through the change management process so we looked at what is the awareness of the new. You way of doing things. How aware were we of the values that this person brought into this group as the new leader? What was our awareness awareness? The depth of our awareness of how this is all furthering with the reorganization furthering the goals of the organization. How did we fit in in this new realm the idea of desire did we want to do this and in fact more than half? The team laughed after the reorganization. Those who Stayed were the ones that could then realize in some fashion a way to keep the desire to work there while they improve both their situations and their network so that’s just the first two steps of the methodology. We actually took it all the way through to determine where we stood and that was really helpful actually using on on the job the skills that you had learned a real situation exactly huge huge. Because it’s seven point you’re probably going to need to engage a third party known as human human resources potentially over the people organization or warrant they. How employee assistance program where they have outside counselors? You can talk to whatever it is. It’s important that you all recognize that if this is having an effect on you personally is probably having an effect on your emotional status your ability to cope with even simple things things that you need to exercise your capacity to leverage those third party resources within either within HR which isn’t always helpful.
00:15:18 – 00:20:09
But it somebody you can’t talk to to and sometimes just talking to somebody can make a huge difference I will say having worked in. Hr for as many years. As I have an and I totally advocate four their help many many. HR people are there to help you. I will remind our listeners. That H are often the individuals meanwhile the function Russian of that department is to protect the company. If you feel like you need to talk about things that are going to be uncomplimentary of the company or your leader. I would recommend that you turn to an outside source I to process that so that you can learn the right language or approach so that when you do talk to human resources versus you’re doing it in a way that is not making you look like you’re the enemy of the state because they will have a responsibility to protect the company from liability. That’s their role. Just be careful. Be Mindful of that and an EA he assistance program that is offered. Do take advantage of it. They are an underutilized resource for employees. You may also look at things like exercise. There’s a lot of different coping mechanisms stress. reducer stress reducers baby even even engaging a coach would be held out. If you feel like you got it together mentally but you just need to work through some conversational role play great. You can engage a coach like Scott Scott or myself Were more than happy to help you. You can certainly contact us through the website job seekers radio DOT COM. I know I offer initial consultation. Short one for Free A- As do I think most most counselors do anybody who’s there to be a mentor for those who charged. That’s great for those who don’t that’s great too. I remind myself even though my budget. It is strict that you get paid for. In all of these cases most people get involved in it because they want to be helpful. Do reach out to anyone anyone who puts themselves out as a mentor coach and these could be many different people i. It doesn’t just have to be somebody in your company or a coach like us. It could be somebody through toastmasters and toastmasters is a great place to identify people that are in a capacity to help that way. And I think that’s a conversational. Yeah role playing so forth and you’re meeting meeting people on various levels with various perspectives. And all of them are interested in helping you. I also think about the trade associations there’s usually someone involved that is whether it’s community outreach. Or some sort of learning and development aspect of that association. They’re going to be highly respected and experienced individuals who will also be willing to to mentor or to work as some kind of sounding board for you. Don’t forget at these people are there and they want to be helpful leverage these resources often. You feel like you’re alone person on an island like Tom Hanks and castaway. And it’s just you and Wilson also you know don’t feel like you’re isolated or without capacity to access some of these resources that are available to you and if you’re listening to us you clearly clearly have the ability to get in touch with us. If you’re looking for something other than the kind of coaching that we do. We probably know someone who can help you. So don’t hesitate contact. We’ll put you in the right direction. Ryan point you in the right direction at least something that we haven’t really addressed directly is when you’re feeling frustrated or I angry about the situation of having that impotent leader or maybe you’re outside of work you’re not working right now and you’re trying to avoid getting into another toxic situation always have someone on your side to whom you can vent because if I end up battling all that up and maybe you’re not the type that’s terribly communicative a few. You don’t share your feelings. It is really important. Let me say that again. It is really important that you vent those frustrations to someone else. Not The person person who’s interviewing you and if you have invented it it will come out in an interview. Oh absolutely both of us have done enough interviewing to see this as a regular thing you know the people who are angry and guess what the people who are angry are not the ones that are getting the jobs and they know that you’re angry. Yes you can’t hide these emotions. It better to process assist emotions and a safe environment. Where where you or somebody else or not going to get injured? Don’t pick on your spouse. I don’t think the people Litter closest event or go back to the same person at hammer of all the time. It’s not good either. Yeah reach out to someone. Have make sure that you’ve spoken to that mentor. Especially especially someone that will give you the honest feedback that you need and yeah you’re still sounding kind of angry about this and then talk to some. It may be a professional counselor or a therapist who can help you choose the language that can express your true feelings because you do need to be authentic.
00:20:09 – 00:22:27
which is a topic of a future? PODCAST will be doing. You need to choose language that keeps it from expressing anger or frustration. Because what you’re looking for is is the fit that’s going to keep that frustration from happening. And you don’t want to escalate it. You don’t want to escalate a frustration into anger and something that you’re GonNa regret th there’s also so the idea and I’ve I’ve seen this to where we’re interviewing someone that has legitimate. Gripe but now they’re bringing that into this workplace. Yeah no less resolve that before you get hired. Have that ability the the person to vent your frustrations whatever those feelings are. Be sure that you’re doing that before you get into the networking and interview conversations. Well that does it for this episode of Job Seekers Radio You can get all the show notes and resources sources at Jobseeker’s radio DOT com forward slash zero seven six. We also want to encourage you to download the book that we’ve created it’s called the anatomy of networking in conversation. It’s a free resource all the information that you need in terms of a natural networking compensation and it comes with companion audio. So if you’re the type of person that love listening to Scott Ni- I don’t know who wouldn’t that’s also great so you get the book and get the audio to go with it. Well thank you for joining S. for this episode of Job Seekers Radio Your investment of time and your attention is greatly appreciated. There is a link in the show notes for Itunes and this is the the eight hundred pound gorilla in the podcast space. And we’d really appreciate it if you just take a few seconds took over there and leave a rate which is a five star will up to five stars give us whatever stars you feel are appropriate and then also review which is where you get to type in some information about what this podcast is meant to you and how we can be better in this podcast in the future. Sure you can also give us that feedback on job. Seekers radio DOT COM also. Include your questions. If you have questions that are coming up in your job search perch go ahead and send those to us. We do enjoy answering questions in various podcast that we do. Well I’m Andrew and I’m Scott and in the words of Bob Farrell of Farrell’s ice cream parlors inspiring self-confidence starts by taking away your employees fear of failure or loss of thanks.
00:05:11 – 00:10:02
Where do I kind of affinity? Yeah the idea that I want to network just to get to know people to your point the stakes are really low there and if we approach this with the idea that everybody likes to give information advice. They’d like to be helpful when all you’re asking for us to meet people that is a low enough bar that anyone can feel comfortable reaching out and saying let me help you especially when you go to those areas where they pride themselves on helping in people Portland happens to be one of them now whether or not they follow up. Well that’s a different topic one that we’ve actually already talked about in a prior podcast. Portland has a reputation of being being very welcoming to people and offering help. Here’s the opportunity and if the bar is low they will help. The biggest thing is just to have enough courage to get out of the the house Into a situation that might not be comfortable. especially if there’s a cultural barrier there is some cultures. It’s like okay. If I’m the spouse coming along young and I happened to be female. I’m to be the the diminutive Stand behind my husband kind of person and it just depends on the patriarchal society versus a matriarchal. Whatever that is no that here in the United States is perfectly acceptable to approach anybody and have a conversation so have some courage get out there eliminate that fear and just go for it? We’re not suggesting that you try to be somebody that you’re not or that you abandoned any cultural norms that you bring with with you honor those but at the same time that also will help you filter the kinds of affinity groups or opportunities that you avail yourselves because you don’t I don’t want to deliberately put yourself completely outside your comfort zone unless that’s something you normally do and I know people who love to get out of their comfort zone on a regular basis. Yes they do things with a group of people. They’ve never met or whatever because they get something out of that. They are in the minority. Really most people will be more comfortable with those that they they already know where they have commonalities. As I said we’ll get to that in a second. We do need to make a choice to get out of the comfort zone to go ahead and face that fear and it’s not that the fear isn’t normal or it isn’t real real or or even helpful. Actually it can be. We want to practice those skills that help us to reach past that so that we can get to the people that we need to talk to to set up those networks because we know so when you do the thing you fear. The death of fear is certain The number two of the four things is flock together. Often people come to newtown new city city new country. And what I’ve seen is they don’t realize they have this tool called linked in and even if they’re from out of the country. I haven’t seen anybody that could maybe identify at at least one person that went to the same college or one person that worked at the same company way back when well I have found that at least talking to the people from out out of this area whether that’s from a different part of the states or from another country I find it remarkable. How quickly people find someone from their home? I have not not yet met someone who is the only person in town from wherever they’re from. Maybe that’s just because I don’t know enough people seriously I I have yet to meet someone where there there isn’t another person from that home wherever that may be somewhere in proximity and so there are ways to find those people we do encourage people to find those as with those natural commonalities to start the conversations. What did you do to get more comfortable in this area? What challenges are you still facing even though Oh you’ve been here for X. amount of time it’s a natural conversation that is actually going to be really instructive on different things that you can do or things that you can avoid doing to get into your local community more effectively and you’ll have people who naturally support you in doing so because I’ve had a lot of interaction both when I sold real estate I helped a lot of folks from India and so my Indian clients selling real estate. And Those I’ve been coaching as a career coach. What I noticed is hey I know where the Indian grocery is I? I know the the restaurants are least the good ones right and the ones that they tell me to go right and there’s places of worship I mean. If that’s your thing you would be so surprised if you just took some effort to find a grocery arrest right or a place of worship if that’s your thing or not that’s up to you. They’re still going to be people there. Certainly only in the United States we are absolutely an international country I can think of three halal grocers all within in my local area to Indian. Grocer’s I know of three Asian groceries in the greater area all of these and when I go to these different in businesses I am the one.
00:10:02 – 00:15:03
WHO’s the odd man out because I’m not free outsider? But I love the food so I by of course I’m also interacting with with all sorts of different people and I’m the type that when I go there they are looking at me. Like why are you here and not that they actually question it. They want to know the depth of my knowledge of what they’re selling. Obviously and I actually enjoy being the one to say. I don’t know anything about this helped me and they do and we build those has relationships. They’re also different places where you can go where you can discover those affinities quite by chance. I think about the liquor store that is closest to my home where we generally go most often and it’s a Middle Eastern family that owned said and we’re almost like family same thing for a restaurant restaurant in downtown Portland. We are regulars at this restaurant and their Lebanese and they treat us like we’re family any of these different places basis that you think of just in terms of Oh well I’m GonNa go enjoy food that from home or I’m going to go do this activity because it reminds me of of whatever group if you’re talking to the people who work there or who frequented often that you see these faces coming back that can happen at the gym and we’ve talked about that before different in places where you have those commonalities you have the same interests or similar goals strike up the conversations and let them know you know. I’m looking to expand expand my network. They will help you. The other thing I would suggest is if you go to to meet up dot com or what is it. Event right is one that we use in often. You can either to create your own or you can find a meet up for people around your area of affinity or interest and so that’s something we’ve always talked about probably have done a podcast or two. Yeah and mentioned some of those resources. So we’d encourage you certainly to download all the past episodes and binge those if you want to or pick and choose the different episodes that might apply to your a situation. I’ll also remind our listeners that we do have the book the net with the Anatomy of networking conversation. Once you find these groups then then go through the the book and remind yourselves of the different things you can do during those conversations so you really getting the most out of those conversations to to help you take your next steps. You can find the show notes in the resources at job. Seekers radio DOT COM forward slash zero seven five which will have the show notes for this this particular color episode Number three is leveraging. Your spouse’s relationship sent that would include significant other best friends. Whoever that those people that are closest closest to you whatever brought you to the area or whoever came with you if you know other people in the area have that person your spouse whoever it is introduce you to other people and then allow you to network beyond that one of the things that it’s sort of an aside? I think it’s really important for everyone to have their own friends. Not that they would share that with their significant other. It’s somebody that you can lean on other than your significant other to keep that networking conversation going. I know it takes us out of our comfort zone to do that. I have found that to be very helpful for both parties. Because neither of you feel like there’s a burden happening about getting the other person into a job. The experience that I’ve had with spouses specifically is that they come with the spouse the spouse’s working like like all they’re working unwanted bother them just getting rancher your on boarding there in kind of you know the ninety day probationary period or whatever you call it. They’re trying to get their feet wet at work. It really hesitant to leverage the relationships of their spouse and that’s understood and that’s totally understandable. That doesn’t mean that your spouse doesn’t run in circles for example with my Indian clients. I don’t know there’s probably eighty percent probability. They’re playing cricket okay. And the fact that they’re in a cricket league means that they have now personal connections or that you can leverage outside the office before we get too far out of the office one of the things that I think it’s important to remember. Is that when your spouse for example will just just keep on. Using this scenario your spouse is the one that brought you to the area and has a job and obviously is going to be working with and connecting with people. Well at work those other people want to get to know your spouse and so if your spouse is talking about you and the fact that you came together that you are looking to increase your your network. The chances are pretty good. That more than one person at your spouse says workplace will offer to say hey let me help or would at least be open to the idea of introducing both of you to their significant other and so people have a natural proclivity to help others. It’s one of the things that we can count on in human nature. It’s not inappropriate to leverage those to a certain degree to say yes. Let’s go ahead and make those connections John’s in my advice to someone who is new to the area.
00:15:03 – 00:20:07
I’d say encourage your spouse to talk to his or her coworkers about you and about your interests and the things that you are interested in doing because they will be able to help you make those connections. Don’t assume that they don’t want to. They probably do and they don’t. I know how to bring it up. If you’re not asking for it just opened the door things will happen is amazing. How how many times you just knock on a door opens and things happen? If you don’t knock on the the door and the door doesn’t open the nothing will happen so the opposite is true. So the fourth thing to think about if you’re in a new town in new city new country is joining things. I think this is probably probably one of the most helpful things that you can do. And of course the gym comes up. I we’ve talked about it so I won’t Belabor it the idea that when they see you day after day after day they begin to trust you not because of anything that you may have said or done with them prior. It’s because they trust you to show up that’s different from the person that they once. If you walk up somebody you’ve never seen before they’ve never seen you and you try to strike up a conversation. I’m not suggesting that’s not going to be successful zestful if they’ve seen you fifteen times before it’s probably going to feel much more natural joining things especially like Jim. It can really help. Start the conversation simply because they’ve seen you especially if you join up for a special class and there’s a group and it’s Kinda captive setting maybe doing yoga just using that as an example apple. I think that’s the case before and after those kind of group classes to say. Hey let’s go grab a coffee or hey let’s go get some lunch or or extend. We’re here can you think of another group classes. Acid I should be taking a expand my my strengthen the corners and start out the conversation. And how long have you been doing this. Have you been going to other places to do this whether it’s racket ball or or yoga or good example any of the classes and you can talk about. It seems that you have a great capacity for this. You have quite quite an ability of. How did you get there and striking up? These conversations. Remember that the experience of that class or that activity also also helps to bond and I know spoken about tour groups for example where something big happens and they end up staying friends for life. The same sort of thing happens opens here where you build those relationships because you’re doing something together. It’s not just that you see each other but you’re actually participating together for a similar goal or at least to make it through that class and this is now your fourth class together. We’ll speaking of classes. You can also sign up for a class at the community college or a free session at the library are- or whatever that is join class where you know there’s going to be people and maybe it’s around an area of interest that you have similar to joining an association the local the chapter if you’ve already been connected with a trade association of some kind of those where you have a seminar and often these these different learning activities whether it’s at the library. Whatever they’re going to ask you to turn to the person next to you and have this conversation? You now have somebody that you can start the neck. Networking working conversation with is so the other thing is tells masters and I know that Cleon has a spouse this a lot I do too. That toastmasters is a great way to get your feet wet with communication here in the united estates if it’s a new country for you there’s always people there because you know what it’s not toastmasters unless you’re speaking right in front of an audience. I’ve talked to people and I will also admit to actually saying this. That public speaking is something that I’m already doing. And so the question is why would I go toastmasters and I will admit that you still hill can build your skills even if you’re an accomplished speaker. The idea isn’t so much that it’s going to transform you into wonderful public speaker. Although that may be true through this is really about getting together with people who are interested in doing the same things together and in this case it’s talking about public speaking. It is any affinity the group where you’re working together you’re having conversations with people and when you’re not talking about the task at hand you’re going to be getting to know each other. Here’s yet another way you to join something where you’re going to build those commonalities therefore building relationships and being able to expand your network and I haven’t been to a toastmasters club yet that didn’t and have somebody there that was in leadership and willing to help you and they find out that you need a job in. They’re willing to help you. Prepare for an interview or inept Dushi to some folks. I’m hook you up with the local resources that are available or job seekers. That’s just normal in a certainly we recognize that the traditional job search is probably something something you’re gonna be doing. You’re likely to be looking for jobs online and making applications going through interviews So don’t ignore that side of it right there. Those are the natural troll things that people do all the time and when we say the top four things you can do. We’re not talking about the only four things you can do to your point. We expect you’re GonNa be going through this anyway but these are the top four things that we find are most helpful that are beyond just getting the applications out there.
00:20:07 – 00:22:59
It’s things that you have control over it’s Ways for you to build a network. I mean there’s so many things that you can do when you come to a new place. We’re trying to narrow it down to those things that we think have multiple values right and the most potential. The job search here in the United States might be a little bit different than what you’re used to and that’s going to be true from one side of this country to the other one in different brain from one company regents absolutely from one recruiter to another from one. Data doesn’t change that much. Yeah these are going to be different. Aren’t and exploring. The differences actually can help you in multiple ways. Don’t be afraid of those differences. Lean into it. You’re mentioning Yoga at the beginning of the concepts that I came away with early in my yoga practice is leaning into the challenge and how that simple concept granted definitely applies to your Yoga no-go class. It also applies to every other challenge. You have in life if it’s dealing with traffic if it’s finding the work whatever it is lean into it really stay grounded go out of your comfort zone do new things but don’t be afraid to try something new while you’re working within your realm whether that’s is your affinity group or whatever just a reminder we still have for you a free resource. It’s called the anatomy of a network in conversation. And let me tell you what this is. This is actually in e-book it’s free to you only have to do is go to the website jobseeker’s radio DOT com. It’s right on the homepage. You can also get the show notes in resources at job. Seekers radio DOT COM forward slash zero seven five. We mentioned that earlier and this book is not only in the book. It’s an opportunity for you to have the companion audio episodes from the podcast that are associated with that same series. Exactly we want to thank everybody for listening to this episode of Job Seekers Radio Your investment of time and attention and is really appreciated head over to itunes that link also is in the show notes on your mobile device. They’re the IPHONE. I guess it could be an iphone because that’s where I would. I everyday expects but if you hit the link there on your iphone in whatever podcast APP you’re using it’ll take you right over to itunes and you can leave a rate which is one step in the second step. The is a review in each time. You do one of those things. It really helps. Spread the message of what we’re trying to accomplish here on job seekers radio and that is to make this the single best resource source for job seekers on the interwebs. We also encourage you to subscribe to get future podcasts. And then to continually provide US feedback. If you have questions questions that are coming up. We enjoy the question and answer episodes that we do. So please send those are way as well and you can find those job seekers radio website as well well with the show notes and resources. Why Andrew and I’m Scott in the words of Jack Kerouac Olive? Life is a foreign country. Love it thanks everybody bye.
00:05:01 – 00:10:02
Of course well regardless I would say that no human being has exactly the same values that I have now. The advantage of working in an organization where where values are a part of the culture meaning that they are stated they are aligned. All of the behaviors within the company are supposed to fall in the Guidelines of those values that makes it a little easier but we’re talking about categories or some broad generalizations for those values but every single individual is going to have their own set of values based on a plethora of factors and none of them are going to be the same so making the assumption that somebody values the same things just because we’re working the same organization or on the same team. Doing the same kind of work is a huge mistake. I think of one of the clients on coaching at a local organization here very large one by away and I keep thinking about you know this idea of leadership and she’s going into this interaction saying this is leadership. What I’m getting from? My leader or is not leadership. It’s something else and that’s where you come into situations where you have conflict and we would not encourage you to get into a conflict without some productive reductive positive outcome to process speaking specifically values had. I’ll never forget the conversation. I had many years ago with a director director with whom I worked several years prior to that and I was complaining to her about this exact scenario where I had a boss who. Let’s just say the successes assesses that she achieved didn’t seem to be tied to her actual work and I was going into some detail with my director friend who stopped opt me and told me but Scott. She’s doing what heard leaders value. They just value something different. And that was an important moment in my professional career was to realize that I’m not necessarily aligned with these individuals specific values. It was a learning moment for me. Learning is the key to success in today’s market now is the third assumption. You can make is assuming everyone works as hard as you. Yeah and there’s the other side of that the assumption that no one works as hard as you both of them were talking about hyperbole really and it’s like saying always always or never neither of those has ever true there’s always some gray area. Everything is shades of gray. If the idea is that you work really hard be be sure that people know that you work really hard. Just you shouldn’t be wearing this as some kind of badge of honor because you’re not the only one who works that hard. They’re probably are people who are working harder than you. And so how do you deal with that. Well if I find out that there’s somebody who works harder than me how do I emulate them. How can I work with them? especially those who work really hard and are getting noticed. What’s the secret sauce there? How can I learn how to make that secret sauce? It boils down to your definition initiative of hard work and everybody’s definition’s going to be different sure is I’ve heard of. I haven’t met this person yet of leaders that are like the twenty eighty four seven version of a manager right. There are sending you emails at two o’clock in the morning expecting a response. They’re working every weekend right there. The twenty four four seven leader and they think they have to do that in order to be perceived as an effective leader. Or they’re telling you because they used to do your work. This is the one that seems to Dr everyone crazy as it seems to be universal. They’ve done your work so they they will tell you how to do your work. And they don’t understand that they have just shifted into micromanagement. Went and I have yet to meet the worker. Who wants to be micromanaged now? There are some who actually use that in their favor so they don’t have to do the critical thinking. We’re going to set those aside side the idea that your you work harder than everyone else or that. Everyone works as hard as you were really coming back to the idea that people have different values they have different indefinite of success. In to your point they have different definitions of what hard work really is rather than making the judgment between them. Let’s learn what works six. What is it about that? Person’s work the one that you think has had success. What have they done that you have done that? You have the things that you have not done. What is that combination a nationwide? Can you learn from them because if you have if you start out with the sense of curiosity you’re probably going to get a lot. Further than living in that state of hyperbole only that brings us to the fourth assumption. PD backing on what Scott said. And that’s assuming you don’t need to learn anything to be successful right huge mistake. Take Huge Mistake. I’ve got all sorts of stories on this I’ll try not to talk too much As if that would happen. No I two stories come to mind instantly. The first one was talking talking with a very good friend of mine who actually is a consultant in and does leadership coaching himself. He was telling me a story about Out negotiating with a business leader.
00:10:02 – 00:15:17
Who Basically told him? Oh No I don’t need this development but I want you to train my people and I’m here to tell tell you that doesn’t work if the senior leader is not in the trenches with his people learning with them and sponsoring that learning opportunity with a sense of accountability accountability and mutual learning and growth. And all that It’s not going to work. And so he told this guy okay just write a check. I’ll bank it and we’ll call it debt and the leader looked cut him funny. He said if you don’t participate in the learning you’re wasting everyone’s time and I don’t want to waste my time. I’ll just take the check and run and of course. He was escorted handed out the door. His point was if you’re not learning you’re not leading and there are others stat. Tell that story as well. I have some some quotes on that on my own website. There’s also a situation of my client companies that I’m currently working for. It was really interesting to me. I was asked to do some training specifically play on style preferences for the Organization and rolling this out to the group and one of his managers had suggested that the level of leadership over him when benefit from this so I contacted them and his leader told me he’s already been through the basics and he didn’t need it fast forward three months data leader was was let go because he wasn’t growing with the organization. It’s sort of. Here’s real life example of if you’re not learning you’re not leading and the assumption assumption that he didn’t have to learn anything more at least on this topic. The thing is that an indicator of actually his attitude it ended that part of his career career. And it could end your career to whether you’re leader or not right if you allow yourself to atrophy. That muscle is not going to be effective. If you want to me well how should on style. Well how do you stay up to date exactly you know. Here’s the thing. Is that the skills required to be successful. Ten years ago aren’t always as skilled successful today. So what’s going to be needed in ten years if you’re not growing with whatever it is that you’re working with. How are you going to be ready? I mean I think my dad that way. He was a civil level engineer and he was a big drafting. Kinda Guy Right. He had that big drafting table. You know the pencils and erasers and the slide rule I mean everything thing manual sure and then autocad came on the scene right so now I have cad computer. Aided drawing program that does all this stuff for me he wasn’t willing to learn that -Tario And he became irrelevant now. It’s also interesting when when you think about Assuming you don’t need to learn anything there’s also the aspect that assuming assuming that what you learned in the past isn’t going to help you and then we sort of shift the tables to getting back to basics. The work that I do specifically is about getting back to the basics of human interaction. And how that doesn’t change. It’s the tools we use that changes as I work with organizations on Skilling up employees because that organization knows that. There’s a subset that they’re not going to be relevant anymore. But they don’t want to lose their employees. So how do we build their skills. Also that they’re ready for the next iteration of work that they’re doing. This is the kind of thing that we’re an organization that is smart enough to realize that they have to skill up out there people for the future. Those people actually have a fighting chance to stay relevant. But how do you do that on your own. Well the idea that you don’t have to learn anything new you to stay where you need to be. That’s going to be the first thing you want to jettison. Get rid of that idea. Keep learning and there are so many examples out there of top hop leaders in business top leaders. I think in just about anything. It could be something outside of business. One of the key things that they keep talking about is this thing. Never stop learning that brings us to the next assumption and that is assuming everybody has the same information or the same available information or or. I guess this could be. No one knows more than you. You’re the subject matter expert. I think that’s a good position to be in. It’s not where I would want to live all the time I because that means I’m not growing there’s also another side of that. The the idea that someone should know something that may or may not be true. I think where I liked to get people to start with this. Assumption is what is happening right now. Okay so maybe you do more no more then a lot of other people and I think about someone. I know. I’m actually related to him. Who knows a lot about a lot of things but he also is completely devoid of empathy? And so there’s a lack of self awareness there and the idea that he knows more than so many other people and he actually knows what to do with that information. That’s great for him he. He’s been very successful in his career. He makes more money than Moses. An amazing how good his life is now. I would be really interested to find out if he actually considers itself happy because not all his behavior says he has the idea that he assumes that he knows more puts him in a certain certain box and people talk about as being something of a Prima Donna and being a know it all and that’s not necessarily where I would want to be.
00:15:17 – 00:20:03
There’s also the side that okay. Hey everybody else knows more than me and does that. Put me in a situation where I’m approaching everything that I’m not enough that also in. Yeah that is a liability ability on unto itself. If we also made the mistake of assuming that the person that I’m talking to should know something we can open a door that we didn’t didn’t really intend to open and that has also happened to me. That’s often when you get stuck in your in your own mind or your own work and you assume somebody around you. You can see what you’re doing right and the objective. And maybe they were. Maybe you assume they were even copying on an email. Not only that. But you’re assuming they actually read it. The experience I’ve had most often was having a conversation with someone that we were talking about. Leadership Skills and what it would take to build that person’s division in terms of how to get people people moving along to overcome the problems they were having it specific branches of their business that sort of thing and so she put me in touch with her leader. It was basically an interview where she was talking to me about value that I might be able to bring the organization and I assumed that she had the same knowledge as the person who had introduced me to her and and in fact I was mistaken. She did not have that knowledge and instead of exploring the information that I had given her she was more afraid trade of how she might look bad if I were to come in with an understanding of other aspects of her company any totally blew up in my face because I made the assumption that she should know the same thing as hurt subordinate and that was a problem. So what did I learn from this test. My assumptions I ask for clarification. Asking questions makes a huge difference because I had a similar experience. But it’s because I got a new leader and they assumed that I knew all of the things that they talked about the last year ear as regards to policy and execution of coaching. And I didn’t I didn’t have any of that information. And so instead of her coming and saying hey well what don’t you know. Here’s what you have to do. That brings us to the sixth assumption and that is assuming everyone communicates the way you do right. I do a lot of work in this space around style. Preference Communication preferences the whole interaction preferences. The model that I use is disk and there are a lot of brands of disc Out there but I do a lot of work with organizations on this and it really ties into what had happened to me with The leader that I was talking about this is true of all of us in terms terms of our instinct communication. We assume that everyone thinks and communicates the way we do that. Everyone approaches life. The way we do yes. There will be some differences that we can have an intellectual awareness about but we still approach things based on our own way of thinking and communicating. This is basically where conflict lick begins. Because I’m going to judge myself by my intentions and I’m going to judge others by their behaviors and I will judge their behaviors based on what I would be thinking or feeling if I were to do or say the same thing. Well that’s the first problem bringing coming back to the example that I just talked about this this leader or who didn’t know what her subordinates. New I also expected that she would communicate with me the way I understood her style preference to be. Because she is the influential windchill type and she’s very enthusiastic and very positive. What I’ve failed to remember in that moment was how she behaves at work is different for whatever reasons and I won’t go into the reasons why I think she does behave the way she does? She took what I had to say in a way that would be different for her her if she were to say the same things or to bring up the topics that I brought up if she were to do it she would be thinking or feeling something very different and what I lacked act in. That moment was a recognition of her responses to the information that I was giving I was just giving her information I thought she already knew I was just confirming. That was my mistake steak and she probably gave me some communication cues that I missed granted. It was over the phone I still. I miss them because I was assuming that I had read her correctly in terms of her communication style about her values about all these things instead what I have been able to do since that conversation because I still have some interaction with her. I’ll be a distant. It has been really instructive for me because now I can approach her in a more correct way if you will certainly more effective effective way and still be authentic that brings us to assumption number seven assuming the norms and the accepted work practices that you’re involved in stay consistent when you get a new leader or even a new team member.
00:20:03 – 00:25:03
Oh that is a good point. I’m working right now. With an organization that has a new senior vice vice president coming into a large division. Actually this is the third one. I think they’ve had just within the last six months. So we’ve seen some huge turnover among senior leaders as well as a middle managers. Heaven only knows what has been going on with their their frontline employees. They’ve been dealing with a lot of change at the highest levels and so the idea that that new leader is going to come in and simply pick up where they left off is a huge mistake huge mistake. Because there’s there’s a reason why the old leader isn’t there. There’s a reason why this new leader was brought. And it’s probably not to maintain the status quo. This is where it requires a little heightened awareness ernest on your side to not assume that that leader in the norms that you remember were valid are going to continue and that means you need to make sure you confirm take some extra steps meet with your new leader understand what the new norms might look like moving forward right and make sure that you know what those are before you start down the path of continuing with the norms that were and then you run against the norms. That should be right and you have a problem and I also think about how this applies to. Those who aren’t in an organization mutation are not currently working. And they’re looking for work if you know who the leader used to be. Don’t assume that the practices that that leader the former leader had are currently currently in play under new leadership. I can think about an organization that I actually under customer but I happen to have some contacts within the organization. Shen where I know that they have a new head of HR and so just a people side of their business has shifted rather dramatically just in the last few months since the new HR are person came on once again. If you know that there’s been a change don’t assume that what used to be true is still true things may be changing and that may actually actually be your opportunity to move into a really good position and where your skills can shine. Always keep your head on a swivel. Yeah always keep your earthly the not on the Pike. Yeah exactly well you want to be there that brings us to assumption number eight assuming that your career isn’t where it’s supposed to be isn’t about you. Let’s unpack that a little bit. The idea that your career isn’t where it’s supposed to be all right. This brings us back to what we were talking about. Someone should know. Oh something there are. No should don’t should yourself yeah it gets messy. Don’t go there so when you’re thinking about where my my career is supposed to be. What really matters is where you are? What are you dealing with right now and I come back to Eckert toll? I and I know that that he became popular after Oprah talked about the power of now it actually was a really good book for me to read it resonated a lot when I came away with is you can’t do anything about where you are versus your goal role without addressing. What is happening right now? Because that’s the only thing that matters what’s happened in the past yes you can learn from it. That’s the part that matters. But that’s what you carry in the now. What happens in the future? It hasn’t happened yet. There’s nothing you can do about it other than what you’re doing right now if your career isn’t where you wanted it to be that’s a different thought. Don’t don’t go to the place of where it’s supposed to be because now you’re shooting. I should be somewhere. Well accept the fact that you aren’t now you can move on onto whether or not it’s all about you. This is where ownership comes in. We need to own where we are right now. We need to own the path up until today today and yes there may have been some influences that enchanted us. There’s no doubt about that. Take ownership of what today is giving you and decide. Where do I want to go in the future and make that adjustment and if you can do that ownership is really something that I would encourage everybody or the word responsibility? I’m responsible for my career. I’m taking ownership of my career. I am the arbiter. The agent of change coming back to the idea of hyperbole. The always are never. I really really struggle to help people who say oh well. It’s always about me. I’m the common denominator in all of these failures. So that must mean blank. No it doesn’t it. It’s never an always situation. Isn’t that kind of irony. There the idea though is yes. There are elements that you played into. And that’s the the part that you own. That’s where the responsibility comes in. But there are things outside your control as well so then you moved to the other side. Oh well it’s people succeed only because of the brakes that they’re given no that’s not true either. It’s not only the opportunities that they faced. It’s really a combination of the two. Am I in this position. Now because I’ve lacked breaks. Wchs well yeah maybe in some cases but it’s also based on some of the choices that I’ve made now is it completely based on the choices I made some people say yes I oh I think there’s an element of chance involved in the world.
00:25:03 – 00:30:04
The chance of getting those breaks one percent of actors and I think that might even be generous. One percent of actors really become household names one percent that means ninety nine percent. Never do but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t successful in their careers that they they weren’t really good actors. It just means that they didn’t have quite the same combination of breaks decisions all those other things. Some of it is on the other side. This says where I think it really pays to avoid blaming. Oh thank blaming somebody else blaming yourself blaming your circumstance ask blaming the world or the political leader of the day that you don’t like here’s the thing just the blame much like assumptions blaming doesn’t do anything conductive it doesn’t I find it to be counterproductive it slows you down. It takes your focus health. What you need it on? And that’s anything. Blame is the most counterproductive active effort. You’ll ever make so instead. What can you learn from it? How can you grow? That brings us to assumption number nine. Assuming accompany won’t fire air layoff. Terminate your employment just because you’re invaluable. Oh yeah or indispensable. That’s great their PROMS for that. Let’s just take for a moment. The idea that you are Are indispensable it you put yourself in a situation where you are the only person who can bring the value you bring to your organization. I have serious red flags flying in my head when I meet these types and they do exist. My first question is how on earth can can you move on with your career. If that’s your status that you are the only one who can do what you can do because there will come a day when that is no longer relevant. And you’re setting yourself up for that moment of suddenly being Willy Loman and not being able to move on with the world who has left you behind behind big big red flags of around being that indispensable but it also means that you can never take a vacation you can never take time off you can never be As good of a leader as you might be by developing the people around you. There’s just so much wrong with that picture. Well the think regardless of your circumstance that that any company isn’t gonNA fire layoff or terminate. You is foolish. Thanking every company has a situation where they might be going through some financial. WHOA I’m I’m not after the motivations of a layoff and I may not agree with it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or it’s not reality because coach these people every day? I know there’s people out there that felt felt like. Hey I was with this company. Twenty twenty five thirty years. I gave them my heart soul. I have their logo tattooed on my my backside. Whatever that looks like okay? They’re that big of a fan for our listeners. He pointed to his arm. When I’m suggesting is is you can take it too far that hey I’m such a big Fan as this organization they they would never do that to me and to make that matter? Even worse is when you’re working for a company that says Oh that’s not our culture we don’t lay people off. Oh my goodness yes they do. I’m working with an organization that that is their motto albeit unprinted. They tell people all the time. Oh we’re not the type to lay people off. They do. We’ll just fire them. That’s not allow right. No I mean termination however you WANNA define it. The idea that you’re making the assumption that that you will not be laid off is a dangerous one because when the day comes when you or your colleague is it will change the way you view your company opening and you can prevent that by having an open mind and open is all of the time. That doesn’t mean that you have to become cynical. It doesn’t mean that you have to be distrustful distrustful. It does mean that you have to approach this that there are going to be times when the worst does happen. And you have to ask yourself if you’re prepared for it. The flip side sided that one. Though Scott is the idea that you’re completely dispensable to person who’s indispensable and the one that never thinks they’re good enough completely dispense so that we talked a little bit about that before but this is really where it comes into play the person who thinks that. Oh well I don’t have enough value to offer the organization as a manager manager or a leader. How do I get that person? Engaged enough to really be of value and they may have good reason they may they may have some reason for are feeling that they’re self-doubt takes over okay. I’m not going to suggest that those who deal with anxiety or depression or some of these other things that that really do play the real part of the workplace that they don’t have real reasons for having those feelings and that they can suddenly just talk themselves out of it I don’t mean to cast a net Over all of that but what I am suggesting is for those who approach their work that they are never good enough. They probably wouldn’t have been hired if they weren’t good enough. Let’s let’s change that conversation to talk about where they are good enough.
00:30:04 – 00:35:03
What does that look like and to work on that sense of self confidence because they do bring bring value to their work they do bring value perspective their history? The things that they’ve learned all of this can be used to their advantage and the advantage of the organization Asian they were can that’s really self-defeating situation that we need to help them through that because that can then lead to. Oh I’m assuming things will never get it better. Rhyme assuming there’s nothing this is the end right and then you’re like okay. How can it really get? This also plays into those who have been unemployed for a while especially the long-term longterm unemployed. I you know I’m an employable. Well that’s not true. Either you’re currently in a situation that you need some new perspectives. So what does that look like. And maybe baby bearing them up with the people who think they’re indispensable. I don’t know there needs to be a balance here. The advice that I would give someone in that situation especially in the dark place is is to say. Let’s have you talked to people who can talk about the value that you do bring and to build yourself up. From that point of view I would also give the the advice to say for instance a leader who thinks that they know more than everyone else or that they are in fact indispensable. Let’s talk about. How Oh you would prepare for that scenario of where you aren’t relevant anymore? What do we need to do in that case? And it’s not because you’re bad on either side of that. It’s how are you growing and are you too protective of your work and are you unwilling to hand some of that work off to somebody else so that you can take a vacation right right so as as a leader. I want to be able to see my team Pricey. Where’s the hurt? Where can I make better something? That’s not as it should be and that approach will also help you. If you’re the one in the dark place that how can I help others. Because that’s generally speaking an easy way to get out of that. Dark place is to start helping others. I well let’s get out of that dark place right now right with the tenth and final assumption assumption number ten assuming that people trust you and the flipside ride assuming that people don’t wow so where do you go from there. I mean I mean that right. Now we’re you know I’m not going to disclose too much but the leader that I was following at my company company had a medical event. And he’s no longer in the workplace okay and so someone is filling in for that person and this person. I don’t trust because I don’t know. Oh them right. The person that left complete one hundred percent trust or pretty close to right. So what do you do in that situation. You have to start over again and I think that’s true you also of those whom you distrust that you have a real reason not to trust. They are still good things that can come of that. It’s just going in with eyes wide open and I think that’s true on both sides of this coin at everyone trusts you or that. No one trusts you. Walk into every interaction with your eyes wide open and thinking thing about how can you serve the person in front of you whether that’s a leader a subordinate whomever how can I be of service to the person that I am currently dealing with because if I have that approach and with my eyes wide open to see how am I impact on this person. How are they responding? What are their values? And I’m not going to make a judgment on the first conversation either the first interaction I want to start watching for patterns. What are the values that this person holds through through their behavior? How am I validated ing than understanding those values well and accurately? How am I able to provide service to this person person within the realm of my work? But how am I able to help that person. I want to think about how how I’m landing how. I’m impacting how what I bring to. The table can be impactful to the observant of the other person. What patterns are there? How can I adapt my communication style L. or the way I talk about certain things whatever that is I wanNA make sure that? I’m not making assumptions. That trust has been established quickly or that trust cannot be established quickly. I want to be able to read what’s happening right now. And Watch for patterns over time just because you have or don’t have trust doesn’t I mean you can’t give trust meaning there’s things like you said you approach the situation and you give the trust with your eyes open. Think of it that way. If you’re giving trust what is that look like you know you give something to somebody else without expectation of return or volunteer. Do a project when you know they’re overworked right so there’s things that you can do. That will make you feel good about making a contribution or without having trust and so that’s where you might take some ownership at the situation and just because is you don’t have trust doesn’t mean you can’t perform no. I totally agree with you. And I think about the the concept that whatever you put out there is mirrored back to you and we think of this often then in terms of leadership and of course this comes through in my leadership.
00:35:03 – 00:37:53
Coaching all the time that it is incumbent upon the leader to show trust. I and I don’t remember to whom the quotas attributed but the idea that the only way to make someone trustworthy is to trust him. There’s there’s an element of Truth Matt. So I- talking to leaders about trusting in their people and they will get trusts in return. That’s not unique to leaders. I will do that with my leader to reveal certain feelings or be vulnerable to a certain point. I don’t Overdo it. I don’t reveal too much or I try not to but I will at least establish a certain level of vulnerability so hopefully hopefully I will get that back. And in showing up time after time in authentic and open way the likelihood that the other person will show Woah similarly is increased because they want report and acceptance. Sure just like you do so. That’s IT folks. That’s the ten worst assumptions. You can make I think in your career we helped this has brought value to your interactions moving forward if you want to follow up with us to get some more specific information action about the situation you’re currently in. We’ve got a way to do that. First of all go to job seekers radio DOT COM forward slash zero seven four. And and you’ll be able to see the show notes and all of the resources available for this topic on the ten worst suctions and at the same time. Go down to the bottom. And you’ll see a free resource and that’s the anatomy of a networking conversation. It’s an e book that’s got knives put together with companion audio. We did this series of podcasts. On the topic you can certainly go. Listen to those on on our website links and the resources are in a single document for your easy use in application -cation so ahead and go to the website. Download that our free gift to you. So with that said you’ll also be able to give us some feedback and that’s where if you Have something you want us to talk about in a future podcast than answers. The questions based on what. We’ve just discussed today. Please send us that information. You can find that on our website you can also go to itunes and you can subscribe to get future episodes. You can also leave us a review and in that review. ooh That’s another way for you to get feedback to ask US questions to let us know what’s on your mind. We are committed to making this a single greatest job seeking podcast on the Internet. We’ll want your help and doing that too. That’s why we need your help with topics questions anything on your mind right now. Guess what someone else probably has that same in question. That’s right and a lot of what we do comes from that so with that said I’m Scott and I’m Andrew in the words of Mark. Parker curiosity is life. Assumption is deaf. Thanks everybody bye bye.
00:05:04 – 00:10:05
They’re actually looking for ways to disqualify group networking and as avenue and the president makes them uncomfortable comfortable or they’ve made up their minds already that for whatever reason that it’s not going to work so if they’re looking for reasons why networking isn’t going to work group. Networking isn’t going to work. They’re going to find that and instead it brings us back to what our mentor clan has talked what about in his group is to one of the three key points to get out there and learn something. Well if every single group that you go to is an opportunity to learn something okay. So this one didn’t work. What did you learn what happened in? That event didn’t work for you. Why didn’t it work for you? And that’s really the information and as I’m talking to people say oh well never does work for me why you could say the same about individual nats right is that people go into one on one situation and they come into with best of intention and their intention doesn’t always get them what they want which they assume might be an interview so they’ll bring their resume they’ll sit down with somebody and say hey you’re working had a great company where I see an open position. Here’s my resume. And then it doesn’t work I say networking doesn’t work because I approached it from that perspective and the outcome outcome were really looking for is as you mentioned Scott Learn something maybe get some advice or direction or even get introduced to somebody else now. If invitation for an interview comes in was that really the success I was looking for and you don’t set yourself up for success if we have unrealistic expectation. That’s absolutely true. You also also won’t see this if you enter without an open mind because I would say just look at it from from an artist. Point of view talked to any painter. I personally do glass art photographers. You name it whatever. The the art form is often we get our best successes through mistakes through things that didn’t work out the way we expected them to Specifically with glass art. I’ve come up with some of my nicest pieces because what I was actually going for. It didn’t work. And so I take that and I make it into something something else that ends up being better than what I had already had in mind. Networking is no different. If I go to a networking event and I’m not getting the outcome that I wanted and let’s say just because is this is something that that is a nice starting point. I’m going to meet three New People in this networking event. I’ve never met them before. I’m going to have a meaningful conversation with whatever that looks like right. I I’d say that’s a good approach to a networking event. And maybe I only talked to one person. Does that mean I have not succeeded because I have reached a goal that I walked in with the answer or is yes. It is in fact a failure if I learned nothing from it. Yeah well if that works for you sure it may not work for me to meet three people. It might mean gene success for me is I just WanNa have one person that I talked to a hiring manager and that means I have to talk to own lunch sort of team. People it just to meet one hiring manager but if I set myself up for success I do have an objective and that works for me. The idea is I’m not failing by having having a really good conversation with one person. It may not have been the goal that I walked ten. With what if that one person can actually introduce me to three other people. It’s still a success. What we’re doing? We’re coming in with some assumptions. The idea that we have to reach a specific goal in order for something to be a success and that is not not necessarily true in fact the more we try the different things the easier. It’s going to be to recognize success when it happens and the best analogy that I bet for this is going fishing. You have to cast your into several different kinds of ponds and rivers to figure out which one is going to be the one for you you. You may end up pulling up a fish one that you don’t like here’s the thing you know. It’s so funny about that. When I was selling real estate? I was coaching through a company and he called Mike Ferry and Mike Furious. I’d me coach. Steve Powers I remember this conversation like it was yesterday and it happens every year January. I it’s the largest number uh of expired listings of the entire year. Okay that means he said to me and I remember this vividly. There’s a narrow channel and all the fish are going going through this little channel. How can you not afford to be there? Fishing win the Fisher running through the channel. Yeah so not only do you need to have your lines ends in the water but you actually need to be fishing yet. You have to be paying attention. I also think about those who who say oh well yeah the group thing never worked for me so I’m just going with one one. That’s all I do. Okay that’s going to be a problem because you’re not actually paying attention to where the fish are going and the reverse is true. Oh well one on one doesn’t work for me because I’m just not not good at asking people to introduce me to other people so I’d rather go the group thing okay I. I’m not saying you won’t find success that I will suggest that you will be limiting yourself instead. Pay attention where the fish are and that tends to be cyclical as well you think about if you’re looking for government jobs.
00:10:05 – 00:15:02
When is the time that the hiring usually happens? What’s after the fiscal year begins But that’s not the only time it’s also as the fiscal year is ending because these government agencies or their contractors have to spend their money or they’re not gonna get it for the next next fiscal season. Pay Attention. What what can you learn from all of these different things that you’re doing cast your bait into the pond or the river or wherever the fish are to figure you’re out what is going to work for you and keep doing that? Keep your eyes open for other things because you don’t know where the fish may go next time. Keep making the effort keep measuring in some way until you figure out what it is that works for you and my guess is it’s going to be a combination of things that brings us to another idea in career and that is the key skill. I believe we just completed a decade. We’re in a new millennium and have been for twenty years now and really the key skill today in in the marketplace my perspective of course is the capacity to learn new things and what we need to look at in terms of success in learning new. Things is having capacity to know why I should be doing. That’s the first step second step. Is You get to decide what does it do. I want to learn. And how do I WANNA learn it. And they’re obviously as many different different options for how to learn something as there are learning opportunities lists endless over the holidays. I was at a party. Some good friends of mine were hosting and I happen to meet the Chancellor of a university. There didn’t know him from Adam. We’ve ended up talking having worked in higher. Ed In my past it gave me an ability to talk about out commonalities. What was interesting was in the work that I do now as a trainer and consultant I create training opportunities for people and sometimes they ask for a blended learning opportunity meaning some of it online some of an in person so there’s pre work there’s post work all of that stuff that might be done online and so it makes the in person part richer? Okay so you’re you’re only there to to actually practice the skills that you may learn through the online source and it turns out that this chancellor chancellor had brought with him to his university somebody who was an expert on blended learning heap introduced me and I had a follow up conversation with this professor. About how do you you back up. The success of blended learning with data and I went with the express goal of finding out what the data was that that supported the benefits of learning specifically in other words. What this study’s where have they been done? What do they show that? Prove that blended blended learning is actually as effective as impersonal earning. Well I did not succeed at that goal because come to find out at least according to this professor there really isn’t any and we could go into other conversations about why what ended up happening. What we ended up talking about was? How do you make a blended learning wing situation work and yes the evaluative process is definitely there how you approach it may need to change and this is something that I hadn’t really considered in this context? There were a few things that we talked about though and one of them was building a persistent community. And that’s a term. I had never heard before the idea idea was to create and in this case online a community where people can chat about things they can talk about the paper. They’ve just written or the article that they’ve just read and how this relates to the things that they’re working on but it’s an online platform for them to keep the conversation going while in my work reinforcement is a a big part of what we do. The online learning is a way to get the learning into their hands and so the in person part is how they practice at. That part isn’t going to change the A key. Learning moment for me in this conversation was there was a whole realm of conversation that I didn’t even think about despite the fact that I’ve been through it myself south into different context. All of a sudden there was a connection job seekers can create for themselves a persistent community. Exactly what does that mean in terms of what works for you. Well that’s going to depend on what works for you. That’s part of the empowerment moment if you can then take what you’ve learned and you can create some kind of persistent community think about the job seeking networking groups that you already attend you the listener. You’re already attending some of them somewhere right. How do you keep the persistent community going for me so far? It’s been pretty random. I think about Nancy whom I met. Gosh a decade ago. I hadn’t really thought about this but it was ten years ago that we met she and I stay in contact not often regularly probably every six months or so we just paying each other. It had never dawned on me that that’s the beginning of a persistent community. How can we be more intentional about that? So for for some people it may be an excel spreadsheet.
00:15:02 – 00:20:05
And I know injure. You’ve talked about that. Oh yeah well having some kind of job search or career. CRM customer relationship. Can you get management really. It’s something that we talk about a lot in sales. Is You need to know your customer shore really well. Yeah in one way to keep track of all of that especially if you have. It’s like I don’t know how many are in your network on Langton but I’m over seven thousand now I mean how do you keep track. I can’t possibly keep in touch with everyone. No Oh I can’t either right. We think about our parents would have had rolodexes got my mom had one of those. I actually just ran across one. I was going through stuff and the ad it. What’s really interesting? Interesting is for me. I was of the generation of rolodex users. Where you had the little punch card and so you didn’t actually have rolodex cards? You had a Rolodex where you put. Somebody’s he’s business card. You punched holes or the you know the slots whatever and then you just slip the business card in an ooh. That was all the rage back when I was doing that. But I have all these business business cards at people I didn’t know and I had written on the back of some of them. However there are people for whom that still works? Don’t stop using it if it works if it works for you keep using. That’s the skill we’re talking about here is using the one that works for you. Excel for me. It’s actually notebooks keeping the notebooks and flagging the ones uh-huh literally by color the conversations that I’ve had and so I can go back to a notebook that I’ve used in the past sort of journal idea although I’m not journal or I yeah I do keep track of the people that I’ve talked to what we talked about. And so those things that I wanNA remember I can flag and if I’m looking for a specific kind of memory or we’re learning whatever that is I go back to the color okay. That’s what works for me. There are so many other out there and some people actually have access to salesforce and some of the other other platforms right and I use sales flair for my business. I’ve seen people use hub spot. There’s a lot of softwares service type of solutions out there to keep track back in my job search in my career and nobody ever thought to do it that way there was somebody actually developed when back in the day when the dot com thing was going on and it never took off primarily. I believe because Lincoln came on the scene and really they’re looking to displace a lot of what’s happening in that space. My mom I still remember. She had literally a metal box with the flip over lid and it had three by five cards in it. And that’s how she kept in touch with her believe it or not she was a printing broker and this says how she kept. Track of people was a three by five card now and it doesn’t have to be. Its whatever’s going to keep you going one of the things that we keep. Keep coming back to. Is You have to be the one to make the effort. Whatever the form that works for you it means that you have to put the effort into it to get out of it? What you want there is no easy street? And that’s the biggest challenge I have in coaching. People is that it doesn’t necessarily life doesn’t necessarily get easier here. I also come back to the idea that specific efforts will get easier. The quote that says the more you do something the easier it becomes not because the the thing itself has changed but your ability to do it has and so as we’re looking at the measurements of success and what it is that we’re trying to do so in our job seeking in our career. What is that that secret to success will first of all you have to be able to define what success is and that is going to be individual to you and your situation nation Andrew? Dance what you’re trying to achieve for some of you. It may just be a job. Kamajors need to get on base. Maybe your objective his jaw and measuring all of your things things against that and if it works for you guess what then that was the right measurement for me personally. It is a job where I can feel like I bring value. That’s going to make a the difference in the lives of the people that I’m working with and as a trainer coach that makes sense and generally able to do that. Is it working the idea of fulfiling career. All of us walk in the door wanting a fulfilling career how do we measure that success what does fulfillment really need. And if I I need to lower my standards for that fulfillment in the short term. Will they lead to the higher standards that I’m actually going for. If you can say yes to that then that doesn’t mean it’s failure it means it’s a step that you know it’s funny you bring that up. I am really attracted to great leaders. Yes and for me. A A measurement of success is regardless of how many people I need. I’m always looking to me what I would define as a great leader and that certainly has certain characteristics. Yes so I’m I’m always looking for those people to create you know as we talked about earlier that community. Actually you bring up another point that I think about when talking about great leaders often we read the articles. On what what. What makes a great leader right and we’re thinking about? How do I internalize this so I become a better leader? There’s also the idea that these should be traits that I’m looking for and other people then there are those who they don’t look at their own performance.
00:20:05 – 00:24:04
They’re looking at the other people I well. They need to look at their own performance. It’s turning it on its head How do we look at things differently so that we see as we go back to the basics how that can work but how it can work differently for us so that we gain greater success it also could be an awesome company? We Now we talk about awesome company in a generic sense for each one of us. We need to define what that is. What is an awesome company? Look like what are their values. What is their mission? Statement what benefit sedate provide do they have great leadership and so for each one of us we may be out to measure Azur or say. Hey you know I’m just really looking to work for an awesome company. Nothing wrong with that. That’s great one thing I would say. Just as a caveat to that is some some companies are in fact awesome. They have the right values. It’s totally in alignment and everything is absolutely great. Until of course you meet the people inside inside the company always remember that you’re dealing with human beings and it’s never going to be quite as good as they say it is and I don’t mean to sound cynical. It’s keep the lens of realism in your glasses. Because that will help you to discern what is real and what isn’t real because you can always deal with the things that are real in positive ways speaking of real. I think you’ve realized we’ve gone through most of this podcast and not actually actually told you the number one hidden secret of success we sort of hinted at it. Well we we did hint at it and hopefully you caught it. But what is the number one secret of success. The hidden secret success don’t give up don’t give up keep making. The effort changed things as you go try little differently. The whole premise is the secrets into our success. Whether it’s one or a series of parts the secret is usually something that has been in front of us the whole time. We simply haven’t haven’t recognized at so that is my challenge to our listener to look at the things that you’re currently doing. Try to look at them differently. Which one of these? He’s could still be the key to your personal success. I think about clan who says the answers are all inside of you. You already have them. And I I am a firm believer in that. It’s simply that we haven’t looked at that diamond in the rough and recognized it for what it was. We do have the answers in front of us. We simply have to Polish them one of the tools. You have right in front of you right now. Is the show notes in resources. For this podcast episode you can find those at job. Seekers radio DOT COM forward slash zero seven. Three the other source is the book that we put together the Anatomy of networking in conversation. We want you to download that at job seekers radio DOT COM. And then while you’re there we would really appreciate it if you would send us some feedback. Let us know how the book is helping you how this topic of the secret. The Not so secret secret. It can help you. We’d love love to hear of your successes. We’d love to hear about your challenges so that we can get a little deeper into this to help you figure out what the best success really really looks like but we want to challenge you. Don’t give up do us a favor in the show notes. There is a link to itunes for you to leave a rate and review. It’s also a great great place to subscribe to get future episodes so please head over there. The link is right there in the show notes. That is something you could do as a favor to us so that we can spread the word about about what we’re trying to accomplish here this labor of love that we have called job seekers radio. Well thanks everybody. I’m Scott and I’m Andrew and in the words of Simon cynic doc. Don’t quit never give up trying to build the world you can see even if others can’t see it listen to your drum and your drum only. It’s the only one that makes the sweetest sound. Thanks everybody bye bye.
