DAY 3 - Win in This Job Market [Reverse the Search LIVE]

Hello and welcome to Reverse the Search Live. So good to be here. I'm Madeline Mann. Go ahead and put a 3 in the chat because it is day 3 of our 5-day masterclass. Holy camoly, it's so good to be here. And today's session is how to win in this job market because I'm hearing from you This job market feels different. And frankly, that's true. Let's talk about the strategies that are working now that weren't necessarily on our radar 4 years ago. So let's see who's joining us here today. All right, I see Robert's back. Priya's back. Annie, hello. Brown, Lady Sarah is back again. Good to see you, Jeffrey. Good to see you back again. Oh my gosh, so many familiar faces. Lady T, hello! So good to see you guys. Oh my gosh, uh, good to see you, Connor. Hello. Um, oh my gosh, um, oh my gosh. Oh no, I'm so sorry, Karui, got a rejection on the final stage, but you have me. Oh my gosh, I am here for you. Let's turn your fortune around. So good to see you all today. So what do we got going on? Well, this week we've been doing this for 3 days now. Day 1 was about what, what's costing you job offers. A lot of us think what we're doing wrong in the job search is actually the wrong, the wrong diagnosis. And so we actually went step by step through the process to figure out where you need improvement. So definitely go back, revisit that session. Because it was quite dense and figure out exactly what you need to do to elevate in this competitive job market for these high-income roles. Day 2 is get companies to compete for you. So it's really how do you turn on that job shopper flair where companies are not just saying, okay, we could take him or her as our next hire, or we could do anyone else. No, we want them to say, oh my gosh, I hope this person accepts. We need them. And so we went through 9 components of job shopping. And you figured out, hey, which ones do I need to step it up on? Today we got Win the Job Market. Tomorrow we have Open Doors with the Right Conversations. So a lot of us, we're going for these senior level roles that aren't necessarily posted online, or a lot of roles that are just kind of inundated with applications. And so how do we talk to the right people in a way that feels authentic? Let's talk about it tomorrow. And then day 5 is Turn Interviews into Job Offers. I'm seeing very specific things that are converting right now in interviews, some advanced strategies. We'll walk through that on Friday to make sure that we are not going through this process like my friends in the chat who are losing out in the final round. That session is for you, my friend. And so we have our agenda today. So we'll start with our announcements, which I'll just hit us right off the bat. Hello. Coaching program is open for $1,500 off. I'm really excited. It's fun to see the people funneling into the program. You can start today and you can just head over. We'll put the link in the chat. We'll put the link in the comments. Standout Job Search. It's my premium coaching program. If you have any questions about the program, you can head over to this page. You can read all about it as well as there's a place to ask your questions here and our team will literally respond video, voice, like we will get back to you. Authentically to figure out, okay, is this the right situation for your career path? Because let's make sure it all fits. Second is we're going to go over the getting, getting a pulse on what's happening in this job market. Third thing on the agenda is the 4 strategies that are getting results in this job market. Then we're going to go into a case study. Then we're going to go inside Standout Job Search, my coaching program. I'll get a little bit more detailed about what that is. And then number 6, we're going to do interactive Q&A as we do. And each day, truly, you put your questions in the chat. I answer them. I don't know any of your questions ahead of time. It's just kind of fun, free-flowing. It's your opportunity to get access to me about whatever is on your mind. All right. So I've just been hearing from so many of you asking, what is the deal with this job market? And I hear you. You are not crazy. The job search really is harder. And I— for those of you who've been following me for a long time, you might know how hard it was for me to write this on a slide because for the longest time I did not admit that this job search, that this job market was tougher because first of all, the data wasn't reflecting it. Unemployment was still low. Number of job openings was still high. But when we actually looked at the day-to-day experience of job seekers and the day-to-day experience of companies, it's very clear now, both from the data and from, from the actual experience, it is harder. So you're, you're not going crazy. And here's one stat that really stands out to me as something that is truly wrong with what's happening right now is— and when I say wrong, I don't mean like morally wrong. I just mean what something that's making it harder is the number of job applications an average candidate sends has risen by 239% since ChatGPT's release in 2022. That's according to Glassdoor. And we're really seeing that across companies and across roles. And so I do always like to pair the doom and gloom with the pep in your step, the success stories. We are seeing a lot of our clients with over 3 interviews a week happening right now in this moment. So I just want to say that, okay, you know, sometimes we can be very distracted by me saying things like, oh, it's really hard. But just know that every success story is evidence that it is possible for you in this job market. So just don't— the job market being hard and you landing a job are actually two separate things. I mean, obviously they're, they're commingling, but you can still be that person who lands for job offers, just like Tuong said yesterday in her case study, right? There's, there's not, there's no cap on how much potential you have to reach. So I want you to close your other tabs, mute your phone, lock in, do not be multitasking during this hour. We're moving very quickly. I'm always trying to fit as much as I can into this time. So don't let this be a wasted hour. And say it with me. Mind clear, all ears, offers near. Mind clear, all ears, offers near. Let's go. All right. So what is your current impression? What's your impression of the current job market and how does it feel different or not? Maybe it doesn't feel different at all to you from your past job searches. Put that in the chat. Take like a minute or so to write your answer because I am going to be going into the chat and reading them because I want to create this session around the people who are here with me now, the hundreds of people who are here with me now. I want this to be around your perception and what you're experiencing. So what is your impression of the current job market? How does it feel different or not from your past job searches? Let me know in the chat. Because I'm hearing from a lot of you things like, in this market, do I have to settle for a lower salary? Take a step back, change jobs. This is very common, especially for a lot of my clients that are director and VP level. They're thinking, Okay, what do I need to completely change? And it's a good question. And I've also heard a lot from folks is that interview processes seem less predictable. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Very true. And now more than ever, hiring processes are getting derailed and delayed for reasons often unrelated to you. Okay, I'm going to take a pause from this presentation, actually move over to what you're actually experiencing. So I'm seeing at this point, taking a salary cut for income. Yep. No response most of the time. All right. I'm seeing things about ghosting. The resume has to be a perfect match. Mm. That's a good point. I'm not sure as I barely began to look. Definitely more detached and less human than it used to be, says Kelly. That's an interesting observation. And I think you're right. More ghosting, says Sergio. Barry says harder for older workers. I think it'd be interesting for you to elaborate harder in which ways. We'll be actually talking about that in today's, today's case study for sure. I've been ghosted more often than last time I was job searching. I'm curious, when you guys are saying ghosted, are you saying ghosted where you apply and never hear back, or are you in an interview process and then never hear back? I'm very curious. Because I think definitely if you're applying and you never hear back with the number of applications, yes, I definitely see that happening. But I'm curious if it's even in the interview process. I feel like there's a lot of hiring freezes. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. Very challenging, especially for those in public service administration. Yes, absolutely. No response for applications. Okay, that answers that question for me. For, for that. Yes. AI and chatbot responses. Okay, so let me go back down. So it's both, both, both. When I, when I was asking the question about, you know, are they responding, are they ghosting you for the application or for the interview? Interview a few times and didn't hear back, says Jeffrey. Oh my gosh. Yes. Okay. Interview and never heard back. Wow. Oh my gosh. And we talked about this. This is actually a quote that I put up on one of my slides on one of the earlier days. I can't remember if it was day 1 or 2, but it was, it was about how hearing nothing is worse than hearing no. Like, put yes in the chat if that's the way you feel as well. It definitely, I feel like that is such a painful experience. More evergreen empty job listings. Okay, this is really interesting. This is really interesting insights. Thank you all for sharing this. I'm seeing other people say yes, ageism. Yes. Okay. Wow. Way more contracts. Oh yes, I agree with that. Way more contracts. Okay, y'all, this is fascinating. You guys have to read the chat. I'm glad I put a lot of them up on the screen because there's a lot of gold in it. And yet, okay, I'm seeing a lot of yeses. Cool. So yeah, and I saw a couple of people talking about this in the chat of processes getting derailed and delayed. And this, this truly is happening a lot. 25% of job seekers said that they went through a hiring process where the company ended up hiring no one. So put me in the chat if that has ever happened to you, because it's a lot more common than we expect. And your job is to silence those fearful voices and instead make them realize that they would be losing out by not hiring you. Because here's the thing. Yes, there's certain elements of this we truly cannot control. You know, they do a bunch of layoffs, then someone resigns, then they decide to reorganize the team, then they add AI to certain things, and then they, they really get frozen of, oh my gosh, we don't know exactly who to hire here. Should we hire two lower, lower level people? Should we hire one senior person? It gets very confused. Okay, I'm seeing lots of yeses and mes in the chat. So, but there is an element of if you can be the person to show that you are the right match, you can really allay a lot of these concerns because remember, you are a high-ticket purchase. Like if there is any doubt about purchasing your services, they're going to freak out. And so it makes me think about my client Matt, who's pictured here, he actually was going for sales leadership roles. So, and actually it was funny enough, and he's come on and talk about this himself, and he also became a mentor in our program and has helped tons of clients and mentored them all that. But he said that actually the most uncomfortable part of the job search was selling himself, and he felt really inauthentic. And he would, you know, because he just thought that selling yourself in the job search was things like, Well, I have a degree in technical sales and I have 20 years of experience and I have this and I have that. And that's not what actually selling yourself in the interview is. And so he learned the job shopping methods. And one of the key things that he introduced into his interviewing was becoming more like a coworker. So for example, his interviews stopped being, well, I have this and I have that. And aren't you impressed by my education and my experience? No, it was he started asking really good questions and his interview started feeling like strategizing sessions where it felt almost like he was like the interim head of sales and they could feel what it felt like to work with him. And so by the time it became the choice of should we hire him or not, it was very obvious of like, it feels like he's already on the team and also feels like we need him because we're already getting a preview of what it would be like to work with him. So that was huge. And that was really all of the job shopping strategies. All the feedback he got in the program was so cool to see him transform like that. And so how do I win in a job market that looks completely different than ever before? Well, let's talk about it, because I do have 4 strategies that I've been noticing on top of all the other strategies we've been doing this week. I mean, look, I'm trying to give you so many different strategies because when I'm trying to coach hundreds of people at once, there's only gonna be certain things that resonate with you, but I'm trying to give you the whole kitchen sink. All right, so one thing that I've seen is selecting the right in-demand target. So this was teased a little bit earlier, but I wanted to actually show a little bit of how the sausage is made. It's a little bit vulnerable here. So this is a message that a client said. It's essentially a summary of what this says is, look, I've been doing everything Madeleine's been telling me to do, and it's not working. And I'll be real with you, this— these messages do happen in my program where people will try things. They'll say, I am stuck. And I love it when they say this because it's my opportunity to be like, all right, like, I'm a doctor, I'm going to diagnose. Let's figure this out. And so I asked her several questions and I already was pretty familiar with her search anyways. And I was like, boom, it's clear. You are phenomenal. We're just— your targeting's wrong. Like, we need to— let's, like, let's reopen up your one-page career vision. Let's select different job titles and go after those. And I'm not saying that we were selecting like, oh, we're going to change careers now because this is the issue. It's more of like if you were going for, say, VP of Internal Communications and then you're thinking, oh, there's not that many of those jobs. Okay, so then should I shift to VP of Communications, which isn't that different? Or actually, should I go for even a bigger umbrella, which is VP of marketing? Right. So it's not like those are all in the same job family. She didn't like completely change careers. But anyways, it was like, okay, like, let's figure out exactly what are the roles and how we're going to target them. And literally within days, then she posted, I just got sourced. And she hadn't gotten sourced at that point. And so that is why it's like so many of us, you know, we think that something's broken, but it's really about getting to— is it— could it be you know, lacking that high demand target. So that was super cool to see, um, in her situation. So next we have, um, as a strategy is moving quickly. Now if you have been following me for a while, this one is just— I have never said this before, um, before like this job market. And really truly what we're seeing is being fast in the job search is just more important now than ever. So there's two main things I teach when it comes to actually landing more interviews. That's the reactive and the proactive job search. Right now, let's just talk about the reactive. Reactive means that you see an opportunity like it's posted online or something, and then you're reacting to it. Okay, I need to get an application out or I need to contact someone in the business or something like that. And what's happening here is we're hearing, you know, I'm seeing it firsthand. And we're also hearing from a lot of recruiters and businesses that they are absolutely overwhelmed with applications. So this is Bonnie Dilber, and she posted this. And my heart sunk when I read this. She mentioned that, okay, in the last 24 hours, I've gotten over 300 applications. Should I just close? You know, should I just close applications because I got enough? Shouldn't I find someone there? But you saw at the beginning of this presentation, people are more than double sending more, more than 2 times sending more. What am I trying to say? They're sending more than 2 times the amount of resumes they used to, but they're not more than 2 times more relevant to these opportunities. They're just blasting out more. So it's sad because that means that a lot of companies are reaching a max number of applications and then closing. Their interviews. And that is super, super annoying because it's like, okay, from my experience, a lot of the people who actually apply not in the first day or two are usually some of the best candidates because they took time to reflect on the role and tune their resume and all that kind of stuff. And so, you know, that's actually something I prioritized when I was building out, my, my, this, the platform, this, the Standout Job Search platform is, okay, how do we make it as fast as possible? Now, you heard this from Tuong. You're also going to hear more about this from, from Navneet today on his case study. One of the ways to be as fast as humanly possible is to, is to be clear about what you're targeting. Right. I know I sound like a broken record, but let me just show you what, like a summary of like being super clear about what you want. Looks like. So this is what I'm talking about. So, like a one-page career vision, like knowing exactly what you're targeting, understanding the logistics, understanding your target companies, like having everything, here, you know, so that is really super important as well as just being able to have built your resume from the ground up using something like the Glory Formula. And then being able to just like quickly tailor it based on the specific opportunity. I don't think you need to over-tailor things. This tool like will give you tailoring suggestions that are like real quick and efficient. I think sometimes we might be over-tailoring our resumes, but sometimes it is really nice to kind of just get some like really good touches on the top there. So next we have, and hang Hang with me here. Okay. Don't, don't lose me. Don't let me lose you. So what you need to brand yourself as face sunscreen, right? Just hold, hold, hold for a second. Right. So you might know this. I don't know. I'm a frequent user of sunscreen due to how pale my complexion is. But you may use it less than I do. But basically, you might know that face sunscreen is usually in a smaller bottle and, you know, is more expensive than a big jug of body sunscreen, right? And, but people will still pay it, and people will specifically have their face sunscreen, and they will value it greatly. Um, but yet, if you look at the ingredients of a face sunscreen And I did this. I didn't realize that my point was going to be so black and white. But basically, their ingredients are the exact same. And I want you to put in the, in the chat, what percentage more do you think they charge for the face sunscreen versus the body sunscreen? Such as, per ounce, right? So do you think they charge 10% more, 50% more, You know, 100% more, like whatever you think, like put, put that in the chat. Uh, I want to see your guesses. But anyways, the difference between these two sunscreens is literally that one has fragrance, the other doesn't, and they put in a smaller bottle and they sell it for more. Uh, now the, the formulation is slightly different, like it's the same ingredients, but I think the face sunscreen is a little bit thinner, um, as far as like the feel of it, but Uh, yes, it's, it's really, uh, that really makes a difference. Okay, so let's see what the guesses are here. Oh my gosh. Oh, you guys are so good at this. Okay, so there's— I'm seeing it all across the board. I actually, I'm gonna be honest, I didn't think you guys were gonna get this right, but I actually have seen multiple people, uh, get it right approximately. So I'm seeing everything everywhere from 300% to 20%. Lady Sarah says 50% at least. Nazli's says 150%. Yes, I'm seeing a lot of 150, I'm seeing 45, 25. Okay, 3 times more. Wow. I— okay, so here's, here's the answer, you guys. Oops, here we go. Here's the answer. It is 118%. I didn't think you guys were gonna go over 100%. I'm— I was like, wow, I thought I was going to blow you guys away. But, but it's true, right? You know, it's— they're charging 118% more for this face sunscreen. But I want you to realize I'm not just like doing something cute here. This, this could— this idea could change your life if you let it. And it's honestly, it's frankly like a big part of my secret sauce of why my coaching works is Psychology is psychology. People are people are people. You are being hired by people. So psychology that, that marketers use for other situations can often translate into the job search. And so this idea of people want to feel that something is serving a specific purpose and they will pay for it more, they will seek it out. And you know, and that can be some of the most profitable things that they sell. And so when you're thinking about the job search, you— one of the curses we have is we try to be too open. We try to be too much to everyone. And yet that's why we're not getting as many— getting sourced on LinkedIn as much. That's why our salaries aren't as high. And the funny thing is, is that you might think, well, Madeline, I know I would probably get a higher salary or get more job offers for these B2B SaaS companies if I was exclusively a B2B SaaS, you know, professional, but I've done a lot of other things. I've done a lot of different industries and all that. No, you still need to, you can keep your ingredient list is the same, right? You don't need to change your skills. You don't need to change anything about yourself. You do need to change your packaging. You do need to present only those skills in the B2B SaaS industry. You do need to put that forward. And so many of us are not doing that. So many of us are like, but I actually can go all over your body as sunscreen. So shouldn't I say that? No. That is such a huge, huge thing. And you know, again, I'll show, I'll show you my secret sauce. Who cares? It's At this point, my website, like this, all these tools are so, so difficult for anyone to duplicate that I've felt like very comfortable showing it because before, all these people would pay for my services and then like try to resell them by like taking everything off the website, but now you can't do that. So anyways, so yeah, so let me show you some of the secret sauce. So Everything, like the reason why the LinkedIn gets so high converting is really like it always comes back to like your target jobs, your target industries, like all these things, like every single thing is, oh, it's never like, oh, we're just going to give you kind of like the default, you know, this is what's good for your LinkedIn. No, it's always custom to the opportunity, such as, let's see, for Stand Out Interview. You can do these like mock interviews that give you detailed feedback and monitor everything. You can do it based on your profile, or you can also do it based on a job description. But it's never just like generic interview because you cannot get real feedback about your interviewing unless you actually know what you're interviewing for. And so it's, it's like, and you'll see, you'll hear this also in Novnitz. Case study today, it's like that's one of the reasons why he won and he landed an offer at Amazon. It's like being that face sunscreen instead of the body sunscreen. It's like really speaking to it, being like, I have all the same ingredients, but I'm going to position myself as this higher tier thing. And y'all, this, this strategy will absolutely change your life. I guarantee it. It's a bit complex, and like I said, that like that's the case for every single piece of the job search is like starting with that end in mind. I never start with like, what makes you great and all that kind of stuff. It's always— and then even, oh, even though I didn't show you guys, but even the COVID letter, the reason why the COVID letter is so high converting is because it starts— doesn't start with you. It starts with the opportunity. So anyways, that's a super, super important thing. So keep that in mind. BFA sunscreen, BFA sunscreen, if that makes any sense. So Next, we have focusing on interactions over applications. Okay, so, uh, really what's important here is that yes, it's super important to get applications in, but I literally, I don't care that you tell me how many applications it is. Okay, but how many interactions were paired with those applications or interactions just in general? And so my A lot of my clients are constantly getting interviews and referrals because they're really measuring their job search in interactions. And I'm curious to know, how many interactions have you had in the past 7 days? Go ahead and pop it in the chat. You know, and if it's, if it's 0 to 3, okay. All right. Let's, let's maybe add this as a goal to get a bit more. If it's 4 to 9, I'm really liking that. That's good effort. And then if it's over 10, it's like you've got momentum. I love to see that. So go ahead and put in the chat what, how many interactions you've been doing and we'll kind of see what you've been up to. So, oh, I'm seeing some, some of them come through the chat. Okay. We're starting off with some zeros, which I respect. Like, like we're calling it out. We've had zero interactions. That's okay. But we're recognizing that. Okay, so I'm seeing Andrew says 8. Oh, wow, Andrew, good job. Jeffrey says, okay, 4 to 9. All right, there's, there's some, there's some movement there. Okay, Shaky says 1 really solid one, which quality is important. So, but this is also an area where it's like, every single person you know, and every single person you talk to either has a job or knows someone who has a job. So sometimes getting that quantity is actually really helpful. Yes. Okay. And then Priya says interactions as in recruiter context. Not necessarily. So interactions are generally when you are talking with really anyone and you're, you're telling them that, you know, a little bit about what kind of roles you're targeting or anything like that. You're kind of letting them be aware of what your goals are. And seeing if anything happens from it. And sometimes it's more of just like talking to them about where they work, if that's maybe a target company. And so, yeah, and it could even be just like, you know, communicating back and forth on LinkedIn comments, right? It could be a lot of different things. So that's a great, that's a great question. And, you know, when we look at the job search plan here. So, it's just super important that we're reminding ourselves, hey, have a certain number of networking interactions. You can set your goal for what you want, but then it's like, okay, how do I, how do I find these people? Because I feel like that kind of goes along with your questions of, well, what counts as an interaction? So it's talking to people you already know. That's a great interaction. So that this tool helps you with that. Meeting people. There's, there's obviously there's a way to like, you know, email people and we help you generate those, that outreach. But also there's 8 other strategies that have nothing to do with cold emailing people. So just know that cold emailing is not the only way. And so I want you to put in the chat, how have you or how are you going to change your job search strategy for this job market? So either based on the strategies we've talked about today, what are some of the things you're going to augment for the future? Or maybe there's something you're already doing that's working, and please share that in the chat so we can source some good stuff. You know, the fact that hundreds of us are here, let's take advantage of our numbers here. So go ahead and pop that in the chat, and I will share with you guys another case study with Novnit and He was so great. And I did end up editing this one a little bit just to make sure that we were keeping it really concise. But I don't think we lost anything really important. I think all of his key points are contained in this video since he couldn't make it here tonight. And so, yeah, we're going to dive into Navneet's case study. Navneet, thank you so much for joining me.

Sure, Madeline.

Well, I really want to dive into your job search experience because you are a senior level professional and you went through this entire, you know, experience in this job market. And obviously this job market felt different than your previous job searches. So tell me about that. Before we met, what was your job search like and how did it feel different than other job markets you'd Yeah, so, so again, thanks for inviting me.

So research, I maybe I took it lightly. I said, oh hey, I have so much of experience, so it should not be a big deal. And then even though I started having interviews, but they were not going anywhere, right? So even after I got my resume done professionally, even after my LinkedIn profile was upgraded and all those things, Uh, yeah, it was interviews after interviews, but nothing was sticking. When I came across your book and your program, I was like, okay, let's at least— I think it's more structured, right? And let's, let's go ahead and try that, right? So that's, that's where—

Were you struggling with— were you landing interviews but not getting offers, or was, was it at both stages where it was tough?

It was more of having interviews, but they were like, oh, we found somebody else. So it's a standard email response you will get, right?

Job interviewing is a skill, right? Like, that's— and that's so important because you're obviously really good at what you do, right? You worked at great companies, all that. But then you go into interviews, you're like, this is a completely different skill set. How do I win in this environment despite having the correct skill set? Got it. And so then you got into the program. Walk me through some of the, the strategies and the things you did that really helped you to do much better in the job search.

Yeah, I think the best part I liked about the program was that weekly community check-in, right? Like where we all get together. Right. And I think that that helped a lot, right? Because mentally it's not like you're just talking about your struggle, your journey, right? Like you're listening to others, the things that worked for them, that things that did not work.

Because yeah, exactly. It's, it's— we are all so close to our own experiences. We— it is tough to, to edit our own selves or whatnot. That's why having a coach is so helpful. But also hearing how other people are doing it, you can immediately see, oh, that was good or that was bad, right? It's so much easier when it's someone else. And so then to have those data points of like, oh, these are the questions you're being asked. Oh, here's how you're approaching that. You know, we also had quite a few people like interviewing at similar places, the same places. And that as to you. And so that was really interesting as well. So I, I love that that's what you picked up on and that you were attending the sessions and that was, that was making a big difference. When it came, what were some of the other things that you feel have been like really important for you in this job search that ended up allowing you to land such a good role?

I think the whole thing about why, why you want to join a certain company, right? So having that background, right? Like, okay, the type of role, because sometimes we just apply for jobs and then we get stumped when we are asked like, hey, why this role or why this company, right? So I think going through that whole spreadsheet where you put your vision, you put your purpose, you shortlist the type of companies that you want, I think that also helps because otherwise, yeah, you're pretty much going after everything, which is not the right thing to do, but that's how we react, right? So I think rather than responding, you're reacting.

That is such a good point. Yes. And just to clarify for those listening, so what Navneet's talking about is the One Page Career Vision, which is essentially the first step, which is so interesting because, you know, you're, you're a professional who, you know, you have, you have two decades under your belt. You, you largely kind of knew what you wanted. But even for you, that process of saying, okay, let me be precise, let me understand exactly what I'm looking for and kind of going through those exercises and getting exactly that profile of exactly what you're looking for. And then what is so powerful about that is exactly, you are now clear. You're able to articulate it to companies and companies love it. They love when a candidate knows exactly what he wants and speaks it. And then when you speak it specifically, and the company can deliver on that, they start selling you on the opportunity. Did you experience that?

Absolutely, right? I think, I think it's, it's also the whole prep work, right? Before, I used to think like, I can just say the same thing across, right? But no, you have to tune it to the company, to the role, because sometimes engagement manager or project manager or program manager, there are some nuances that you need to highlight, right? And trying to understand, right, like how this role is going to help, um, at the organization, right? Because sometimes you just say, oh, I've been doing this for 20 years, right? So they know why they need somebody like me. But I, I think having that clarity during the interview process— so some of those things don't come naturally, right? Like you have to listen to other people. And I think the, the approach that you have with your the whole reverse process, right? I think those are some of the things that make you think more, right, rather than, yeah, I'm not going to apply and if I'm lucky I will get through the process, right? So I think it doesn't work that way.

Exactly. I'm curious because we didn't really have a chance to talk about this, but did you ever have any concerns about ageism during this process?

Uh, I did not feel that way, right? Because it's like the things are on paper, but I at least I did not feel that way, right? I think, yeah, some people may have that experience, maybe in my next search, who knows, right? So, right, but that is always back of your mind, right?

So, so yeah, yeah, yeah. And we have a lot of people go through the program, actually 40% of the clients who go through Standout Job Search report that ageism is one of their concerns.

Right.

And what's been so great is that we, we are— we don't keep data on people's ages, but we do keep data on the number of years that they have been working. And we've seen no correlation between time to hire between someone who is, you know, a, you know, shorter number of years working versus longer. So it is— it can be tough. And there are, there are definitely elements of ageism of ageism in, uh, when in the hiring process, but there's very clear ways to overcome them. And I feel like you embracing the job shopping approaches completely made it so that any of those worries just did not have to exist. So I love to see that. Um, anything else? So when, when you actually got in the interviews, you say that you, through the program, you really learned how to Improve Your Interviews. What were some of the things in the interviews that you think gave you the edge?

Yes, I think being prepared, right? Because before, I used to not even practice, like, how I'm going to tackle these 10 or 15 questions. Like, how you would share, like, hey, you should prepare these questions beforehand, right? So now I write it down and I practice and practice and tweak it based on the role and company. So that also helped a lot, right? Because sometimes it's like they may ask a question that is back of your head, but you did not prepare because you're like, okay, if it comes, I will somehow answer it, right? But I think doing the prep work was critical, right? Like practicing, right? How you gonna like take a minute, right? Like don't take more than a minute to tell about yourself and then let them ask more questions. Before, I used to like talk for 5 minutes. So some of those things I would not have paid attention because it's like, hey, nobody's telling me that I should not be talking for so long, right? So I think some of those simple things, I think, are more impactful.

That is— I've gotten that feedback a lot, is people will say, I actually, after going through your program, I prepare almost less for interviews because it's not that you're spending a massive amount of time preparing, you're still preparing, But you're preparing for the right things and you realize exactly, you don't need to prepare an 8-minute answer to tell me about yourself. It's actually understanding where you can be more concise and precise. And, and actually that's enough. And not only is that enough, but that's what they prefer in certain situations. Or even we talk about the why did you leave your last job answer. I'm always like, make that just one sentence, right? Like you don't have to. So many people kind of go like they have to overexplain all this kind of stuff. And then getting feedback on each of your interview answers can be really helpful from a coach and all that. So that's a really good tip to really kind of not necessarily prepare more, but prepare the right way and the precise way, right? Specific to that company.

Yep, yep, yep.

And so what were your results?

So I would say since September, then I started feeling like, okay, I'm getting some offers, right? Like some were contracts, some were others, right? Like, and then I ended up accepting the one from Amazon, right? And that's, again, that was an experience in itself with the rigor that they have and not knowing, right? Like what I will, whether I get picked accepted or not, right? But the amount of preparation that I did for whatever they call the loop interview for like 5 hours on a day, I'm like that— I'm so proud of myself because now I have something that I never thought I have done so many good things because I never looked at it from that angle. So now I have a file that I look back like once a month and see, okay, because now I'm working on preparing it.

So good. Yes, exactly. Once you have the job shopping skills, you never lose them, right? Like, you continue to have them. And, uh, I just, uh, talked to Tuong, uh, another client. She ended up like landing a job and then didn't like that job, and so then within a month she landed her next job because she already had everything like locked and loaded, ready to go. And so I, I love that. And, and yeah, congratulations on—

thank you.

Uh, I think it's already been several months at Amazon, so Great. And we have quite a few people from this program at Amazon now, which is really cool to see. Well, it was such a pleasure having you in the program and thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your experience. I'm going to send you away with a Wi-Fi high five. All right, good stuff. Oh, Navneet, what a guy. What a guy. So glad that he was able to come on and share his experience. Of really what, what made the difference for him. Right. And it's always so interesting of— I feel like we've had 3 days of case studies and each person kind of had a different thing that they felt like gave them the edge in the job search. So hopefully, depending on your situation, maybe you're more of a Navneet, maybe you're more of a Paul, maybe you're more of a Tuong. You know, there's different flavors. And so you can kind of feel out what is most like your situation. Now I'm going to dive into a bit of what is Standout Job Search. I've been hearing from the team that the questions are like, okay, what are— there's different types of plans and what do you actually get and all that kind of stuff. So I'll take a few minutes here to share with you what the heck is Standout Job Search. It's my coaching program that is designed specifically for high-earning professionals who don't have the time to figure out this alone, but don't want to risk missing another bright opportunity. And so really, like, what actually comes with it? So what you get is a custom plan, okay? What you should do each week so you stop wasting time. Then you get the exact targeting so that you can reduce rejections and Increase your confidence because you know exactly where you're going. I thought— I always think it's so interesting, like someone like Navneet, who when he came into the coaching program, he's still very clear about what he wanted. But even going through that and getting his targeting, it made him even faster and even more attractive to these companies. So it did reduce rejections. You'll, you'll get the help to get noticed, right? So you'll get custom feedback on resumes. And your LinkedIn profiles to get more interviews. So this whole idea I'm talking about of be the face sunscreen, you often need some additional help to make sure, okay, are you coming across as the face sunscreen? Are you coming across as something else? Right. So you also get to unlock hidden opportunity. I know for a lot of you who are going for more of these like competitive roles and the even more high-level roles, you often need to find the gatekeepers. Or, or even find the roles that aren't posted online. And so we have a lot of different strategies that you can pivot between to make sure that happens and get the right feedback to make that happen. You can master interviewing. Okay, this one is probably the one I'm most proud of, is turning people who are just struggling so much in interviews to be an absolute offer machine. And being like, just imagine every time you get an interview with a company, you can now start imagining what your future would be like at that company because you know you're going to do so well in the interviews. That's the feeling that so many of these people have once they learn these skills and then negotiate your best offer, right? There's few conversations that are as high stakes and clearly convert to dollars than the negotiation. And they will say, you know, we help our clients with negotiation. And a lot of times that conversation will just pay for the entire program just in itself of the increase that happens there. So as far as just understanding the cost of simply not doing this, so hundreds of wasted hours of focusing on the job search, taking time away from things you actually enjoy doing or being in a job you'd actually like. Amazing opportunities slipping through your fingers. You have this idea of like, oh, it'd be so great to work there. And then you get that rejection email and it hurts so badly, or you never hear back, which is, as we talked about, was even worse. Making a poor employment decision because you don't have the leverage or clarity. Right. I saw someone in the chat was like, yeah, I'm not going to make a poor decision. I'm going to wait for the right opportunity. And I think that's really good. I think that's fabulous. But let's just make sure we're not waiting too long. And then the loss of over $12,000 a month for every month that if you're unemployed, that's lost money, right? For about $150K salary, which is kind of around what some of you guys are targeting. Even if you're targeting lower than that, if you're targeting $100,000, that's $8,000 a month. Like that just goes down the drain so quickly. And I'm not trying to rub it in or anything. It's just I've realized talking to job seekers, they're like, oh yeah, you know, that is, that is lost money every single month. And so it's super important that we're expediting this process if we're talking about the dollars and cents. Now, of course, the benefit of action is you get those hours back, right? The more time we're spending job searching is kind of just like wasting our lives, you know, until we actually finally get the offer. You get to go job shopping. For your career. So you're now open to so many more opportunities that you get to shop around and think, oh my gosh, I'm so excited about this next chapter versus being like, oh my gosh, please get me through this horrible experience. I'll take anything, right? That shift, as well as frankly, you're guaranteed to win. If you go through this program and you give it your all, you truly follow it. Like Tuong said yesterday, she's like, if you get in this program, just Just do what Madeleine tells you to do. And I've never seen anyone put their whole heart into the program and not see incredible results. So it really is just like, okay, if you're going to step into it, make it happen. So the goal is to minimize your time investment while maximizing your chances of landing the right role. And most people at your level don't struggle because they're not capable. They struggle because they don't have the time or the structured support to execute at a high level consistently. I always have a coach. Like, I have a business coach, um, I have a wellness coach, uh, people who are, you know, top of their sport, they always have coaches. People are top of their businesses, always have coaches. Probably a lot of the executives at your company have leadership coaches. Coaching is a reflection of you trying to reach your highest potential, not of necessarily of like, oh, something's wrong or anything like that. So it really is to make sure that you are reaching your full potential, getting the best possible opportunity to improve your financial situation, to improve your emotional state, to be in a position where you're super proud to tell your family members about it. You're happy to at the dinner table be like, oh my gosh, let me tell you what my coworker said today. Or let me tell you about what I did at work, like the amazing things I did, all of that. And so a bit about what is in the actual program, because I know how this can maybe get a little confusing. So there's 3 tiers. The Core is a, is a level that we just now opened up. This is the very first time we're offering it. And it's basically more self-guided, right? You still get the custom job search plan. You still get access to every tool I showed you, and you still get access to Madeline AI. The over a million words are in there of my intellectual property. I guard it so carefully. You get access to all that, plus a group coaching call once a a month. And so in that one, that price is as low as $387 per month. So that one's like the most accessible, as the payment plan, I mean. So then the guided is the one, like every single success story you've heard, every case study you've heard, everyone, all of those people were in guided. I can tell you that with full confidence, they all chose guided. And that's because That one is you get the entire platform, everything, but you also get unlimited asynchronous one-on-one coaching. Oh my gosh. And boy, do people use it. We have not capped it yet. And so get in here before we cap it. But essentially, yeah, you get feedback on everything. Every single resume you create, you can get feedback on it. Your LinkedIn profile, your interviews that you do, we'll listen to your interview recordings, all of that. To make sure that you are getting all the feedback you need for your personal situation. And that one does not have private, like, Zoom meetings. Okay. There is— there are like weekly coaching calls and all of that. But then the white glove one is for when you really want to meet one-on-one with a coach. You want your hand to be held throughout the whole thing. You want them to be editing your resume themselves and maybe kind kind of building out some of these things for you. So this is like really kind of getting your, your handheld throughout the whole thing, which is really great, especially if you're limited on time and you really want to kind of like have it be more done with you, done for you type style. So Core is $3,497. If you invest in Guided, that is $6,497. And if you go White Glove, That is $11,497. Now we are doing a special promotion during— until May 25th. So we're actually taking $1,500 off. So, um, Core is, um, $1,997, Guided is $4,997, and, um, White Glove is $9,950. So, and you can go check this out, we'll link link below, uh, where you can access all of this information and you can go ahead and enroll. And, uh, there's also payment plans as well to make it more accessible, so you can spread out your payments over time. Now, we did actually add some bonuses, so we made it so that just— we're just sure, we're sure this is going to work for you. Um, just give, give the program a chance right, actually do the work, actually hit the milestones. And if you go through it and you don't feel like you've got value, we don't want your money. Within the first 90 days, we'll give you your money back as long as you actually gave it a college try. We do not want these people who are coming in, like, scamming us, like trying to pay for it and then be like, well, I didn't do any of the work, you know, give me my money back after I stole your intellectual property, right? Like, no, we don't play that game. Just actually try, right? So there's no risk to you. This is priceless. You can try it and be like, huh, I'm going to win or I'm going to get my money back. Then we're also giving you the Show, Don't Tell Idea Generator. We talked about this, I believe, yesterday, but it's essentially a tool that allows you to stand out to employers, show them how you are, how you work. And this is a tool that helps you come up with ideas. It comes with how to build out everything. It's It's really cool. And then the LinkedIn VIP workshop. So if you know you want coaching, and it doesn't matter which plan you get, enroll by this Friday. So it's a little bit early. This is the fast action bonus, painful, boom, you get the LinkedIn VIP workshop. That's with me. We're going to sit down, we're in the workshop, I'm going to be going over people's LinkedIn profiles, giving you feedback on directly on your profile, you're going to implement it on the call, it's going It's going to be great. I've gotten so much good feedback on this session. Okay, so this is the overview. Do let us know if you have any questions about which one is right for you. We're happy to answer. Like I said, like if you go to the page, there is a place where you can ask your questions and all that. Also, I emailed you. I emailed you a lot of this information. I've been emailing it to you every day, but this most recent day, check that one. Because there's some good information in there. Um, and yeah, you can head over to selfmadeway.com/learn. We'll put it in the chat, we'll put it in the comments as well. And I'm excited to see you come in and hang out with me and everyone landing great jobs. All right, cool stuff, guys. Now we're gonna move into the Q&A. So you know how I do this, I do it real loosey-goosey. You start throwing questions in there and we just start popping them up. And, and we just kind of go, we kind of shoot from the hip here. So go ahead and pop your questions in the chat. And oh yeah, I'm seeing, I'm seeing questions about payment plans. Yes, yes, there are payment plans. Definitely. I'm not gonna go over all the payment plans because, because yeah, you have it there. And I know it's kind of like, there's like 3 different things, blah, blah, blah. It's just too much information for me to talk on here. But yes, there are payment plans, and we're happy to, to pass those along to you. Cool. What days and times are the coaching calls? So we, we typically do them in like the afternoons or evenings, like North American time. So typically around, around those times when most of them are. All right. Okay. What is— is a cover letter really important? I've heard that they are not even opening cover letters from one recruiter. Why am I getting constantly rejected with tailored resumes? Why am I failing? So for the COVID letter question, it's funny because it's like I always hear this. From the context of, oh, I talked to a recruiter, I talked to a couple recruiters, and they, you know, I heard from one recruiter. It's because you talk to one recruiter, and I'm sure that he or she never opens a cover letter. But that does not— that's not representative of everyone, as well as there's usually trends among like larger companies, especially employers that are popular, that are competitive, a lot of people want to work there. They're, they're, they're household names. We all know they're not reading cover letters. Not really. They have, they have too many. They're getting too high quality of candidates that they just have to look for a cookie cutter candidate, someone who perfectly fits, you know, the square peg in the square hole, that they don't have to look at cover letters. Right. But a smaller or midsize company that doesn't get as many high top tier candidates, they want to know about you. They want to know why. They will put someone through who shows more passion and more intentionality because the, the percentage of the culture that you are at a smaller business is so much greater than if you were to enter a large business that they care about those things so much. So the COVID letter can make a huge, huge difference. So, how can, how can I not get stuck optimizing each step of the search? I want momentum, but I put 100% into each job I'm interviewing for. Then if it fails though, falls though, I don't have a backup and have to start over. Yes, this is huge. So I think maybe you are, maybe there's a bit of perfectionist tendencies here and a little bit of overpreparing. This is something when I have talked to, like Nicole, you can check out her testimonial on my YouTube and on my website. She was someone who did this where she would put everything into every process. And she said that when she used my interview checklist, she goes, you cut my prep time to like, like it to a tiny fraction. Because it's not about preparing everything. It's about preparing the right things. It's about being that face sunscreen to them in that very specific moment. And so, yes, I think it's really about like actually maybe paring down what you're doing and focusing in, but also never take your foot off the gas when you're in an interview process. Because one of the reasons why most of my clients are reporting landing multiple offers is not because every single offer is super attractive. Like, I'll admit it, like, sometimes, like, you'll hear a lot of people saying, like, like, Tuong, when she got 4 offers, not every single one was like that really good salary that she wanted at the really great company. But she used those offers to get more offers. And so you, if you take your foot off the pedal when you're getting serious with another company, you are actually making it less likely you get that offer with that company and then less likely you can parlay that offer into other offers. So that's really, really important. All right. Do you recommend sending a thank you note after an interview, says Jennifer. Yes. Yes. In that interview checklist that we have after every interview, we have the, you know, send a thank you email. It has a know exactly what to say. It makes a difference. I won't necessarily elaborate that much more. But the one sentence I'll say here is companies want people who want them. And when two candidates are equally qualified, they will go with the person who seems to want the opportunity more every time. All right. So, let's see. Kelly says, how necessary is it right now to apply within the first few hours that jobs get posted? It is more important now than it has been in the past. Now, I don't want you to feel like, oh, I lost my chance because I didn't do it in the first few hours. I don't want you to think that. But frankly, it is, it is helpful. It is helpful to do that. I would I would try to if at all possible. And that's why we need to learn. That's why I built these tools is because I want you when you apply quickly to not be like, all right, well, Madeleine told me to do this quickly, so I'm just going to do this. I'm going to do it sloppily. It's like, okay, use the tools to do it quickly, but do it well and do it in a way where you feel confident in the foot you're putting forward. All right. Oops, what did I click? So I had a long tenure in an industry but then took a year and a half break. Now I want to go back to my previous role. How do I address this on the resume and the interview? Yeah, I mean, so this— when I see clients with this kind of background, I'm like, perfect. You are perfect because you have the goods. Right. You have— it's buried, but you have the amazing background. And so I'm like, oh, you're, you're, you're an easy case. You're an easy case. With job shopping, you would be completely made over very well. And it really comes down to, okay, unearthing those experiences and not focusing on the things in the other industry and really making, making everything about what you did before top of mind, both in the resume, on your LinkedIn, in your interviews because we just, we get autobiography syndrome. We have to talk about all of it and that gets us in trouble. Okay, so what is the magic formula that turns someone from a body sunscreen to a face sunscreen? So the formula is truly is getting away from thinking about yourself and instead thinking about the employer. We are, we are too close to ourselves. We are sitting in a bottle. We can't read the label. We are all. And this is why I've found coaching to be so satisfying, because I will even coach other career coaches who then go on a job search, because even though they know a lot of these things, they are too close to their own situation to be like, okay, no, I'm focusing on the wrong things. That's That's not what they want to hear. That's not what they want to hear. So you really need to get away from yourself and see yourself from a third person perspective, which is really hard to do, but it's definitely not impossible. And especially with the job shopping strategies, it is, it is absolutely in your reach. So yes, you can definitely become a face sunscreen. It doesn't sound catchy, does it? It's just like, I appreciate the metaphor, but it doesn't sound catchy, does it? It doesn't sound sexy. Okay, so let's see, how do you use one offer to get more offers? So when— what people don't realize is that you— that companies will sometimes drag their feet, they will kind of like put you on red, they will ghost you, and when you are in demand, you start the timer, right? Not only being in demand, not only does that prove that you are someone that they should want, so now they suddenly want you more. Y'all, this is all psychology. It's the same psychology that works in the schoolyard, the play yard of every kid wanting the same dump truck. It works here. And then second, it now starts a timer. And that is kind of like a, okay, we have to, if we want to keep this this person, we have to move faster. Let's get this person into this person. Um, and then sending the right communication. So that's something I coach my clients on a lot, of like, okay, say this to them. Um, say this to get them to, you know, do this, and, and, uh, you know, get them to not think that of course you're, you're like, oh, I, I have another offer, forget you. No, actually creating a dynamic where they're saying, oh wow, this person is in demand, but they also want us too. Um, let's see. Oh, Jeffrey says superb session. Thank you so much, Jeffrey. Thank you for coming 3 days in a row. Love to hear it. Um, so this question says, do you have guidance on how showing thinking and strategy when answering interview questions versus stating process? How showing thinking and strategy would answer interviews versus stating process. Okay, so, so what you're saying is how to— do you have any guidance on how to show like the thinking and strategy versus just— okay, okay, this is— I like this question. Okay, so essentially what I believe this is saying is instead of just being like, uh, I did this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this is the result, which is actually a pretty ineffective way of answering interview questions. That would have worked 4 years ago. That's the way most people answer, like, behavioral interview questions is like, tell me about a time you worked with a tough coworker. Well, here's what happened. Here's the situation and here's the actions that happened. And then here was the result. And that's actually not really effective. What's more effective is what you're referencing, which is showing the thinking and the strategy. We— I actually have— so in, in my program, we have like a, we have a whole behavioral interview section. And there are ways, like for each aspect of the STAR or the CAR formula, there's ways to zest up each column, right? One of them's called like, kind of like create some drama. Like there's, there's ways, and then you get evaluated on how you're zesting it up. And what's so important is, like, I'll give you one of the ways that it, like, critiques you is you, you do want to show the stakes. So often we forget to add the stakes of, you know, I had to complete this project in 8 weeks. Now, normally a type of project would, like, this would take at least 12. And, you know, you know, I, I was trying to get in contact with person, but they weren't responding. So I had to come up with different ways to make sure that, right. So you're actually, a lot of times people would say, I had to do this project on a short deadline, right, instead of like really helping us to understand the stakes. So adding things like that can really help. And there's, there's a lot of different other things you can do as well. Let's see. All right. So I see the question. There are a bunch of HR platforms with a bunch of different ATS. How can I assess my resume as the ATS does? Mr. GPT says I am a 95, 97, 100. But the thing is heartbreaking. Uh, yeah, so I— look, maybe you're a master at prompting on ChatGPT, but if you're just asking it like, hey, here's a, here's a job description, here's my resume, what do you think of it? Probably you're gonna get the most generic stuff because that's the way, that's the way like ChatGPT works is it takes the most generic information from online and like, and puts it all together for the most probable response, not for the highest quality response, which is why I really, I didn't, I like the prompting that I have built, y'all. I think I did a video once, I maybe I'll, if you guys are interested, I can, I can share the details of how laborious it was to build out the AI functions on my website because I had to un-teach these AI platforms how to like stop thinking the way they were, like adding all these like fluffy words to resume bullets and like self-descriptors and all these like crazy silly things and all this kind of stuff. So anyways, there was so much untraining that actually made me more, more cynical about like using it. And also it's like it's creating this like depression for you where you're like, oh, ChatGPT says my resume is great, but I'm not getting interviews. And so that is— I think you, you probably want some actual legitimate feedback from someone who's actually trained in that. I mean, that's also another reason why I made it so that I actually have like a, an AI version of myself, because I saw a lot of clients going to ChatGPT, getting like really bad advice. And but they were doing it because they're like, it was like 2 in the morning, Madeleine, you weren't going to respond to me at that time. So I just wanted to go, I just like, you know, played around there. I'm like, okay, here, I built this tool, like you play around with this one. So anyways, I know it can be super demoralizing when you, when you kind of get this like other feedback. Alright, so Let's— oops. Well, let's get back to the Q&A. Oops. What are the start and end dates of guided? When is the LinkedIn VIP Day? Is all this still TBD? That would be okay. I just want to ensure I don't have conflicts. Thanks. Okay, so I'm pretty sure I know this off the top of my head, but maybe don't quote this. So start and end dates of guided. You can start as literally the moment you want to. Now we are doing like our first session together, I believe, one week from today. So you can— if you were to enroll today, you would be able to get into the platform. You'd be able to get started. You'd be able— you'd be accessing our coaches immediately, all that stuff. But for like our group call, that would start, I believe, next week on Wednesday. As far as the LinkedIn VIP session, that I believe is the third week of June because we wanted to give you a bit of time to be in the program and like get your bearings. So I believe that's happening June, maybe June 22nd, I want to say, probably around June 22nd. Okay, cool. I'll see you in there. All right, y'all. Oh my stars. I'm seeing some Wi-Fi high fives in the chat. And yeah, David's complaining about AI in the chat. Yes, I like it. But yeah, it gives us some terrible answers. I want to get some Wi-Fi high fives in the chat. Y'all, we are now more than halfway through this week. This has been an absolute pleasure. Huge shout out to you. I'm seeing so many familiar names and faces in the chat, which has been so wonderful. You are dedicated, you are here, you're locked in, and everything you're saying in the chat really is helping to fuel future sessions and, and what I do. So it's been really cool to interact with you. I'm gonna send you away with a Wi-Fi high five, and I will see you back tomorrow for day 4. Okay, we're gonna get into more relationship building, networking, all that. Thanks so much, everyone. I'm seeing lots of wonderful comments. Another awesome session. Oh, thanks so much for that. Very cool. This has been my absolute pleasure. I will see you tomorrow. Same time, same place. You all are the absolute best. Yeah. Cruz says, thanks so much. It was super duper helpful. Oh, you like my color jacket? Thank you so much. All right. Wi-Fi. Hi-fi.