How to Choose a Career - 6 Steps to Launch an IN DEMAND Career You LOVE - ft. Career Contessa

Hey, everyone. Welcome. So today we're going to be talking about are you ambitious but unsure about what your next career step is? Do you want an in demand career that you love but you can't seem to find the right fit? Well, put me in the chat if that sounds like you, because today I'm joined by Lauren McGoodwin, CEO of Career Contessa and the author of Power Moves, as you can see. And we are going to tell you the six steps to choosing the right career. I mean, we both have an HR and recruiting background. We both have dedicated so much time and effort to helping thousands of people land career defining jobs. And so, Lauren, it's absolutely a pleasure to have you here on Self Made Millennial for the second time.

Yes. I'm so excited. Thank you for having me.

Yes. And thank you to all of you out there who have come to the Live. Hello. So good to see you. And so, Lauren, I was thinking we would start this off because we have both been on the employer side and you're a recruiter at Hulu. And can you tell the difference between resumes where someone is a career changer who knows exactly that this is the right next step versus someone who sends in a resume but isn't totally sure. They're kind of applying to a lot of different jobs as an experiment to see what sticks. Can you tell the difference between those people?

Absolutely. Like within seconds you can tell the difference. It's everything from how they apply. So if they just applied online versus they applied and they found a way to send it to me directly and they wrote an email note with it with their resume, it's usually totally clear by their bullet points. So, yeah, pretty quickly. What about you? I'm sure it's the same.

Yes. You can tell even when you see, when you see someone who has also rebranded their LinkedIn profile and that's matching their resume and they're fully all in on something and you see that they've written a few blog posts about that industry. Maybe they haven't worked in it yet, but they have these little cues that say, I'm fully committed to this industry. And yes, it's a totally night and day. So I'm glad that you see that too.

So let's start with there's six steps that you have identified that are really the keys to building your career and finding the right one. So the first one is the determining your career ideals. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Yeah. So I call them your career ideals. You kind of have to speak Lauren here. So your career ideals are essentially your wants and your needs. So identifying your must haves, your deal breakers and your nice to have. So I think what happens with a lot of people and you know, we have this phrase in recruiting called spray and pray where you spray your resume everywhere and you pray that one of us will pick it up. That's not how it works. How it works is exactly what Madeline just said. It's where you have a lot of intention behind the role you are applying to the company, the industry, all the things. So that really starts with your career ideals. So take a step back and think about what are your must haves. It could be from how big of a team do you want to work with? What type of industry do you want to work in? What type of role do you want to work in? How much money do you want to make? Do you want to have a commute? Do you want, um, is there a certain perk that you need to like you have to have to make your life run? Right. So what are your your must haves? What are your nice to haves? What are your deal breakers? An example I always use is like commute. Obviously right now that's not as applicable, but for example, if you had, you know, a schedule where you really could not work, somewhere where you had an hour commute, which most of us would hate, that then your nice to have might be. Look, my nice to have is to have like a 10 minute queue commute. My must have is that the commute must be 30 minutes or less. A deal breaker is anything more than 30 minutes. So it's just getting like crystal clear on what are your wants and what are your needs. Salary is obviously a really good one to be really clear on. And we have a free worksheet on Career Contessa called figure out your next career move. If you go to downloads. And I basically will prompt you with a bunch of questions for you to think about what is it that you really want, you need in your career? So that is a really good place to start.

Yeah, I think that that's a really interesting thing because I think once we get into if we jump right to the looking for job descriptions or even interviewing at a company, we often get a little bit clouded about, ooh, picturing us at those different types of companies and sometimes we ignore those core values of I actually want to work somewhere where it's merit based and not so much of just an industry where it's all about who you know and not what you know and really taking A step back and being, am I going to let my hobbies and passions guide this or am I going to let my values and my career ideals guide this?

And I think you're totally right. I think people get really excited when they see that there's a job opening at one company and all of a sudden they want to fit themselves into it. And the problem is, is that it's like trying to fit yourself into a relationship where, you know, it just doesn't work. Maybe it doesn't, maybe it's fine for the first, you know, three months, but guess what? The cracks in the foundation, foundation start to show. And that ultimately, I think is why people end up in jobs where they'll say stuff like, you know, in the very beginning I thought it was perfect for me. It's like, well, no, now that you look back, there were some, you know, some signs that this wasn't actually going to be the right fit for you.

Exactly. Okay, great. So we've taken the time to really understand what we want and need in our careers. What are those deal breakers. And then step two is to self reflect and take inventory of what you offer.

Yeah. So this is where you actually need to understand and you need to be able to describe it in actual words and be concise about it. What are your strengths? What are your skills? And maybe another thing you can use some self reflection on, especially if you've been recently laid off, is what did you like in your last job? What did you hate in your last job? What projects or even like people or departments gave you the most energy when you were working with them? You felt really energized. It was easy to work on the task versus the ones that drained you a lot. So those are some self reflection questions. In order for us to kind of figure out where we want to go next, it's really important for us to figure out what has worked for us up to this point. The other question you can ask yourself is, where have I been successful in my la, in my previous roles or in my role currently? That's also required for my job. Right. It's awesome that you are, you know, the best socializer, but maybe you work in an industry where you don't have to do that at all. I'm sure that's nobody's job, but the point being is like, it has to be something that is required for your job that you're also really good at. So take time to answer those questions. Understand what are your strengths? I'm all about people taking assessments, Strengths finder All those good things are great. My only issue with them is that if you go to your hiring manager and say, I'm very woo, my strength is woo. Okay, how does that pertain to us? Like, what is woo and what language? You know, what's the metaphor for woo in the workplace? If you're a recruiter, is it that you are able to create a really great candidate experience and make someone feel really comfortable? Right. So like, there's woo and then there's using language that actually describes what you're doing for that organization. So get really clear on your strengths. Understand what do you bring to the table, what are your unique selling points. The other thing you can do is besides just, you know, do some self reflection, I would also encourage people to.

Keep a work journal.

Maybe you do that for 30 days and at the end of every single day you take stock of like, did I get any compliments today? What did I accomplish today? When did I feel the most strange? So, you know, sometimes these are really big questions to answer and they're hard to answer in a split second. So don't expect this to happen overnight. The last tip I would have for you to figure out how to answer this is you can go on what we call a listening tour, which is you go ask other people who you work with, what do they think your strengths are? If they had to recommend you for a project, what. What immediately comes to mind? So those are all good things to start with to help you answer those questions.

Yes. I love that. I think a lot of times people can see things in us that we don't necessarily see in ourselves or maybe take for granted. And I have done the strength finders and those things, and I think that, yes, use the right way, they can be extremely powerful of you getting clarity again about having that kind of external view of what your strengths are. I do have a strength finder version, um, where it tells you your top five strengths, called high five. It's a free strengths test. Um, Barry will put it in the, the chat and also link it in the description. Definitely use that because it can. Yeah, it's. It's free and you can try it and you can get those top five strengths. Um, I think what you said is really interesting about not just. It's not just the strength or not even just a, like, let's say some. I'm sure there's a lot of event planners out there right now who are shaking in their boots, like, what do I do next? And maybe they think their strength is event planning, but that's kind of like, what is the result of your strengths? So often the thought is like, well then I should be event planner, I should be a wedding planner. But like, what are the core strengths there? Is it organizational skills, project management, communication, Excellent. Coordination, building, creative experiences. And when then you go out and talk to people in different careers and you listen to, for if, if their career pat. Career path has, where they're talking about organizational skills, if they are doing project management, you say, oh, actually maybe our careers, maybe my strengths could actually be represented in that career path.

Yeah, this is, and by the way everybody, this is what we talk about when we talk about transferable skills. You probably have heard that buzzword many times and it, it, I think it's sometimes irritating for people, especially when they're trying to transition careers. Cause they're like, everyone keeps asking me what are my transferable skills? This is exactly what we're talking about. You know, before I was a recruiter, I was an administrative assistant. Totally different job titles, totally different industries. But some of them, some of those skill sets are really transferable. Right? So when you're an admin assistant, you're there to coordinate a lot of logistics. You're there to create an experience for people that's organized and really positive. It's, you know, as a recruiter, that's, that's part of the job description as well. So I think that it's just important for people to know like these transferable skills is exactly what Madeline's talking about. But also, you know, being an event coordinator is, you know, the overall responsibility. It was the, the outcome or what you were doing. But that doesn't mean that you can't use events as like virtual events or think of events as like people, you know, like the project could be something totally different. Doesn't always have to be, you know, an event. So I think that's great. And I, I think again, like none of this is easy to think about, you know, in a, in a 10 minute YouTube conversation. This is stuff that truly people, if you really want to answer these questions, it's like keep that work journal and for the next 30 days just write all this stu.

And then evaluate it all at the end of the 30 days. So you have just like a ton of information and a ton of research that then you can come up with like, okay, I looked at all this and here are the main themes that describe my strengths and my skill sets.

Yes, I love that. And I just want to throw this in because you triggered a thought for me in that Especially right now, really keeping your ear to the ground of what, what are the desired types of roles? Like there are, they're hiring people right now to go and, and help organize, you know, movie sets with, to make sure that they're Covid safe. Like maybe that's what you're helping with or maybe you. I help someone become a, actually a webinar mediator moderator. And that, that then became their new role of moderating webinars. And it's a totally. It's. These are things, these are jobs that. Not that they didn't ex exist before, but kind of, they didn't really exist before, but really saying how these transferable skills. I love that. Yeah, great. So let's move on to step three then. So finding your target companies. So tell us more about that.

Okay, so this kind of goes back to what you were just saying about job titles and maybe they didn't exist before. I hate telling people to focus on a job title in their job search because I feel like that's super overwhelming and like that's basically just like closing your eyes and be like, I'm going to pick that one. You know, like it's. You just go on LinkedIn and whatever is available that day, you go for it. I just don't think that's a really proactive approach to a job search or ultimately a career, you know, successful and fulfilling career. So what I would recommend instead is now that you have your career ideals, now that you have an idea of what your strengths are, now the next thing we want to do is come up with a list of target companies. Now there's two parts of this. The first part of it is you just list out any company that sounds cool and interesting to you. Any company. And the reason why it made the list could literally be my best friend works there. It doesn't have to be super extensive. Just I would say try to hit a list of like, I don't know, 20 companies. Ideally right now, if you are urgently needing a job, then try to find companies that you know are hiring right now so you can research them. And most of the companies that are still hiring are like screaming it from the roof, letting people know because they know that they can get great talent. So that's part one. Then part two is go research everything you can about these companies. So this goes back again to that very first point we were talking about, where we can always tell when someone has researched the company when they apply with that resume. Anyway, so take these 20 companies and learn everything you can about the company, their website, go on Google searches, read about their leadership, if they have a blog, their Facebook, their Twitter, their Instagram, everything you can. And, and you want to try to learn, you know, do they have a value or a mission statement? Who are their leaders? How are they treating their employees during this time? So take again like a running list of notes of just every facts and figures you can find. Some other good questions that you might want to know is how are they funded? What do they sell? What are their products and services? Who are their clients? I remember when I was doing a list like this one time, I put on there a website that I visited regularly to read their content. That was the reason why I made the list. And the more I researched it, the more I learned from their values and mission statement that that probably wasn't actually a very good fit for me. So the point is, like, what you see on the surface is not the same, right? We want to go a lot deeper. Now that you've gone a lot deeper, you're then going to take all that research those 20 companies and you're going to compare them to your career ideals. Now they don't have to match perfect. And of course, you know, we need to be flexible with our career ideals. And it's kind of, I always joke, it's like getting an apartment. You're not probably going to find everything you want within your budget. You're going to maybe have to pick your top three things. But the idea is to cross off the companies that you know are just absolutely not fit. It's cool that you still love them, but they're just not the places where you want to work. Maybe you're able to narrow that down to, I don't know, five, five to seven companies. And those are your target companies. Those are the places that you are going to focus your job search on. Instead of focusing on all that other stuff out there, you're going to focus on those seven companies. And what I think is a more successful approach to a job search is to take those companies and then basically work your way backwards into them through, you know, informational interviews and networking. You'll know how to. If you're going to make like a, you know, a blog post or a portfolio site or do something to be able to show them, not just tell them that you're a good fit there. You can tailor all of it to those companies.

Companies. Yes, I think I completely agree. So many people. And it's weird because a job, a job board is, is created in a way where you write in the job title and the location. It's almost telling you, focus on the job title, don't focus on all of these other factors when really the industry is probably going to be one of the major foundations as far as pertaining to your values and your career ideals. So being pretty strict on industry and, and also it's. It's more difficult to switch industries. So it's good if you can find one that you really are passionate about. And, and then. Yeah, and then the company, if that's, you know, you can always get into a company, get into a role that's pretty good, and then move into a role that's even better, as long as it's the right place for you to be and to grow your career. So I think what a lot of people are probably wondering is, okay, they're probably on everyone's list, are just the top companies that everyone's heard of and everyone interacts with on a daily basis. I personally don't think that, you know, your entire list should be made up of just those names. How do you find other target lists, like target companies to add to your list?

Yeah, that's a. That's a really good question. So if you find. Let's say your company is Facebook, right? Okay. So you put Facebook into LinkedIn. LinkedIn will tell you companies that are similar to Facebook. You can start there, click on those, and then see what else it says is similar to that. And, like, keep that little scavenger hunt going until you find something that is maybe not exactly like a social network, but maybe it runs similarly. Maybe they have. They're known for. You know, at the end of the day, Facebook is turning into more of an advertising company. So maybe you end up looking for an advertising agency that does a lot with Facebook or something like that. So I think it's. It's following the breadcrumbs a little bit. I totally agree, too. Like, if you are, especially if you're transitioning careers and you're starting out the really big companies that are incredibly competitive, you can always work your way there. You can find a, like a bridge company or a bridge job on your way to the bigger ones. Right. An example of this might be, let's say you want to work at Hulu. Okay. Hulu is in the. Or it's kind of the overlap of entertainment and tech. Okay, well, maybe you could start with an entertainment company at a much smaller entertainment company or a production company or something like that, and then work your way toward, you know, getting a job at Hulu. Maybe you Start working at Hulu in customer support. And this is, this happens a lot. That place too, as you start somewhere where you're like, look, I can do this job. It's not my dream job, but I want to start there and then I want to work my way into something else that's, you know, there are so many options also for if that's, you know, ultimately what you want. I interviewed this woman. She, Candice Morgan. She used to be the VP of inclusion and diversity at Pinterest. And I loved how she used the phrase. She said Pinterest doesn't hire for culture fit, we hire for value fit. And so I think at the end of the day, finding a company that that's what you align with them on is their values is more important than it being a Google or Facebook or anything like that. Or by the way, there are plenty of people who work at those big companies and don't like it. You know what I mean? So just because those are the names that you've heard doesn't mean that you can't do further and further investigation and learn about a ton of really cool companies. The other places you can look for more companies. Glassdoor in her site, if you're really into startups, there's built in. So I know, like built in Los Angeles. Yeah. Career Contessa. We have companies on our site. Fairy God boss. There are a lot of resources that are. The muse is another good one that has a lot of companies. So also just don't, don't only shop at like the big box stores, aka LinkedIn and indeed go to the smaller career sites as well. And then also like, you know, when you have informational interviews or you talk to people who work at those companies, look at their LinkedIn profiles. Where did they work before? If your dream is to work at Google, go find some Google people on LinkedIn. Where did they, where did they start their career? So those are all good places to kind of again go on that little scavenger hunt.

I love that, that hack of. Yeah. And just finding, finding anyone who has the job title that you would like someday and just tracing their career path and seeing which companies have hired that job title in the past. Those are companies that have that role and you know, there could be a path for you into that role at that company. And yeah, I think built in, I love those, those sites that shows a bunch of companies that are built in different cities. And then sometimes I'll just type in if you just, if you know your industry and your city, you can Say like top health care companies in Los Angeles, you know, top blank in blank. Blank companies in blank city. Right. And, and then you get lists of companies and it's not usually only the, the, the top names, but also a lot of others that can give other ideas.

Yeah, no, I think that, I mean these are all amazing ideas and I think it also should come down to, on your career ideals, do you want to work for a really big company, a medium sized company or a small company? So that will also help you kind of. You can do even more specific searches via company size, for example.

Yeah, and we, I think we, we haven't touched on that much about informational interviews. We've mentioned them a couple times. Do we maybe want to hover here for a second second and go. I mean, I don't, I have a feeling how you feel about informational interviews. I think they are the cornerstone of uncovering your career and really making sure that you're also networking and building meaningful relationships. I wanted to kind of see what, what are your thoughts and what role informational interviews should play at these stages.

I mean, everything. I'm speaking from experience. I got my job in recruiting at Hulu after being an administrative assistant. So no recruiting experience, no tech experience. And I did it through information interviews. So the way I did it is I reached out to over 70 recruiters on LinkedIn, had informational interviews with them over a nine month period to learn everything I could about recruiting. And all those conversations also helps me even get more specific. So I thought I wanted to be a recruiter. You and I both know there are so many different types of recruiters. So all those conversations helped me narrow it down even further that I wanted to be a university recruiter. Once I knew that that's what I wanted to do and I wanted to work for a tech company, it was a lot easier to be successful with my job search. So out of the 70 people I reached out to, about 30 of them got back to me. So if you're doing cold informational interview reach outs, just keep reaching out, keep finding people. It's okay that you either get no response or no, there's other people out there. And then when I left my job at Hulu and they asked me if I knew anybody who would be a good fit, it was somebody I had had an informational interview with. She reached out to me like nine months before and she was so impressive and I was like, I don't know if she'd be interested, but here's her name and her email and she got the job. So, long story short, of course I'm a huge fan of them. I think it's really important that you do them well and you do them strategically. So that means not wasting people's time, being really impressive when you do reach out to them. Having a learning goal in mind, not asking for a job. I think one of the biggest issues I have with informational interviews is that people kind of abuse other people's time. If you're going to reach out for an informational interview, connect the dots to them about how they can help you, why you're reaching out to them, make it easy for them to say yes, so you don't need to ask for a zoom. A phone call will do. 20 minutes is all you need, and you should be directing the conversation. I really hate when I get on an informational interview and I feel like I have to be on and I have to run the whole conversation. So, you know, it's about being impressive and leaving them with a really good example of what, you know, an experience with you. And then I would say the biggest key here is to make sure that you follow up and you maintain the relationship because something's not, maybe not going to come out of the first phone call. But guess what? You can stay in touch and then that can lead to something down the road. So I'm a big fan of. Twice a year, I like to send seasonal touch bases or emails with people I've had informational interviews with. So New Year's and fourth of July are my timing and I usually just give people an update. I hope that they're. Well, if they've had any updates. I mean, that's why I love connecting with people on LinkedIn, you know, if they've had a new job change or something like that. But you can also stay in touch with them. I have this one woman who stayed in touch with me for a year and she would just kind of give me periodic updates on how her job search was going. I never had anything for her, but guess what? If I had, I totally would have thought of her. So when you, when you stay in touch with them and you reach out on a regular basis, you're staying top of mind and that's what you want, basically.

Absolutely. It's. It's trippy how your story is so similar to mine and in that my first HR job had never worked in HR before. Zero experience in hr. It was through informational interviews. Again, I was talking to tons of different people in different industries, trying to figure out what I wanted. Then I was like, ooh, this whole people operations thing sounds really interesting. Talked to way more people. And then I think nine months after my first conversation with one of those people that she's the one who ultimately gave me my first HR job. But it wasn't right away and it was, it was a relationship that I was able to nurture. And so as far as, and I'm sure you know, in your career now, you've sat on the other side of it for so long of people wanting your time is, do you have any advice as far as that, that reach out of making sure that you are saying the right thing. And, and I mean, I think you said 40 out of 70 responded. Just for anyone out there listening, 40 out of 70 people responding is an amazing success rate. One out of five, you're still rocking it. So what do you think helped with that success rate of the response rate?

I think a couple things. One, LinkedIn wasn't nearly as salesy in marketing as it is now. So there was a lot less noise overall on LinkedIn. There's a lot of noise on LinkedIn. But the other thing is I would connect with people on LinkedIn. So I would send them a note saying, here's why I'm connecting with you. Or once they would accept my connection, I would get their.

What would you say in that note?

So I usually would say something like, you know, my name is Lauren McGoodwin, I currently work at the university I worked at. I'd love to connect with you here and learn more about your career path. Like, it was usually pretty straightforward. I think back then they even had like a shorter amount of space or like less characters you were allowed to say. But I basically would send something just so they didn't think I was like spammy, right? And so.

I think any sort of little note helps. The other thing is, once they would connect with me or add me as a connection or accept my request, I would send them an email or I would get their email address. So once they accept you, you can get people's direct email addresses. So I always use their email addresses. I never use LinkedIn messenger, which I think is also important. And I would also put in the subject line informational interview request. And I would put my name because I didn't want to like make it seem, I don't know, I didn't want to play games with them either. I know people are busy. So I would say right away in that initial email reach out, like, thank you for accepting my LinkedIn connection as a Bit of background. My name is Laura McGood. I currently work here. I've been really interested in pursuing a career in recruiting. Would you be willing to give me 20 minutes of your time so I can learn more about your career path, how you got there and why you love it? I'm available any day after 3pm or so. It was like really simple. So I made it so they. I could get all of the answers right away from them.

I love that. Yeah. And I think, I think essentially what you said is I would love to hear your story.

Right.

Which I think is something that if you.

Everybody loves to feel like you're interested in hearing about that.

I want to hear your story, your path, you know, from being an administrative to recruiting to CEO of Career Contessa. What an amazing journey. I would love to hear that. Oh wow. You know, it feels really good. So that is some great insight. And I will link in the comments in the description. I believe Barry will throw it in the chat of a guide of how to do an informational interview. So I know sometimes we get a little bit deer in the headlights when it, when it's time to hop on the call. There's questions there that help you walk through, you know, day. Their day to day career and getting some great insights about the skills to build and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. Just one thing I want to add because you mentioned how I started career contestants. So one thing I will say is make sure that you do your research on the people first and you're not asking a bunch of questions that you can find for free online already. I'm fine answering that question. People ask it. But it's sort of one of those things where I'm always like, you have 20 minutes with me and you're asking a question that you can absolutely find the answer for online. So I would advise that people. And it's also really impressive for you to say something like, hey, I read about you online and I saw that you started it this way and this way and this way and whatever details you find and then ask a specific question. Right. It's the same thing as like showing off in an interview how much prep you did.

Right? Yes. Especially. Yeah. Someone, someone with your kind of visibility, if they don't, if they don't come to the table with, with that pre knowledge it. There definitely is like a lack of effort on their end. Right.

That'd be like someone asking you if you're on YouTube. It'd be like, well, yeah, yeah, right, right.

It's like y. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely am. Yeah. So. So, okay, so let's move to then we, we have step four, which is fill your skill gaps.

Yes. So look, once you know where you want to go, what you offer, if you have any skills gaps, you have to fill them. Maybe you've got transferable skills, but maybe the job that you want to move into is in project management and you actually don't have the project management software. Or maybe you really want to move into event. Event management and you've. Or virtual event management. And you have. No, you've never run a virtual event. Okay, then you can practice by running a virtual event. And so the idea is, where are you right now? Where do you want to go? If there's anything that, you know, maybe the recruiter or the hiring manager might be like, hey, you don't have this or that, and we're specifically looking for it, especially if they say it in the job description, then that's an area for you to really focus on right now. Let's say you, you know, you want to go into the same job that you've been doing and you love it, and it's just that you got laid off and so you're looking for a new company. So the skills gap isn't necessarily maybe a skills gap, but it's more of a professional development. Like you've got this free time. How are you going to use your time? The other thing that you could be doing right now is just focusing on your professional development. So taking courses in communications, leadership, interpersonal skills. Because I guarantee that whoever you interview with next, they're going to ask you, how did you spend this free time? And if it's not learning new skills or doing things that are going to add value to the organization, then find, like hard skills and find some. You know, everyone calls them soft skills. I like calling them human skills. But find some human skills that you can develop, which is always the area where ultimately the most successful people are usually pretty good. Those skills.

Yes. I think, especially if you lack experience in a field, I say, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this, I say you spend some time, 60% of your time building experience. So volunteering, like for, you know, a, an organization where you get a leadership role or something in that, or building your own personal project or building your own, you know, website where you're tinkering around the things, 30% of that time building relationships. So getting out there, having informational interviews, getting to know people at these target companies, and 10% of the time reading books taking classes ultimately because 60%, I mean, the, you know, 90% of the reason why you get your next job is because of your experience and who you know. And so I'm curious to hear how you feel that and going off of that. How do we even then begin to build this experience during this time?

Yeah, I 100% agree with your ratio. I think the 60, 30, 10 is perfect. And if anything, I would say if you. If you're like, I really don't have a ton of skills that I need to learn, well, it's gonna. Coming up, it's all gonna be about who can. Who can show and not just tell. Like, everybody's gonna be able to say how awesome they are. But can you show me? Can you. Do you have a portfolio site that shows all the amazing work that you did at your last company? You know, if you were an event planner, if you were in project management, can you enroll in some online course where you create, you know, an example project and you can show that to them? I had a friend who had an last week and they didn't ask her to present or make a deck or anything like that, but she took it upon herself to make a deck because she was like, I got an interview during this time. I want to impress them to the max. And so that, I think is actually going to be the big thing moving forward is it's going to be all about who can show and not just tell. The only people who really get away with, like, peer telling is because they had a referral or somebody else who the, you know, the hiring manager or the recruiter trust and they're vouching for them. So the relationships are important. But that usually happens if it's somebody you've already worked with in the past who can kind of vouch for what it's like to work with you. So you really want to be able to show that off. I would also say that, like, because that's important and being able to work well with people matters. That's another thing you could spend time is, you know, getting some LinkedIn recommendations. Everybody has opinions about whether those are actually worth it or not. I always look at it like, hey, you went the extra step to ask somebody to do it, so that means you care. I mean, I think that's better than nothing. But for me, I love when people apply for jobs and they have an amazing resume, an amazing cover letter which shows that me. And that's interesting to read and shows me that they know how to write, and then they maybe have some Other example that shows they went above and beyond. I think that's amazing.

Yes. I think with building this experience, you know, it's, it really is, it is a show, don't tell type of way, but it's, it's, it's often the other way. And that I see all these cover letters, all these resumes about people self describing. I'm a problem solver, I'm collaborative and I actually tell them to rip all that stuff out. I say don't even include that in the resume. It's about saying, here's the actual value of here's what I accomplished. Here's the hard skills I bring to the table and I'll link. Also, I go much more deep into the, all that resume stuff of exactly how to build out the resume in my resume revamp masterclass. So I'll link that in the comments and in the description and Barry will put it in the chat. But I think that it's, it's. So I think I would actually be curious to hear from you. How many times in your recruiting career did someone create a project specifically for the company, specifically for Hulu or whoever else, and they were not asked to do that? How about like, what percentage or even like, can you count it on your hands?

Yeah, maybe, maybe 5% between Hulu and Career Contessa combined. I mean a lot of them were assigned projects that you said not assigned, so that took the number way down.

Yes. Okay, so I would say, I would say probably 5%, maybe, maybe fewer. Which is so bonkers to think about that. Just to paint a picture for everyone out there listening, we might be saying projects and you might be saying what, what the heck, I don't even know how to start. I mean it's as simple as. I just had a, a student of mine in my standout resume course. He, he did this whole survey for, for Facebook and he, he sent out the survey to his friend and got over 100 responses. And it was just all about their experience, what they go to Facebook for. And he was going to provide some recommendations on different ways of targeting different people. And this data is not great.

Well, stratified data that is perfectly manicured. No, but he's showing the way he would think through a problem the way if he had a data set, how would he synthesize that? And then he's showing it to Facebook and saying, here's, here's how I think through this problem. It's not about being right. It's about showing that effort and showing. And you know, you can do this without having ever have any experience in the field. You're instead showing that you know how to do this work.

Yeah, we had. I mean, it was an assignment, but we asked somebody once who was applying to work on our content team specifically in partnerships. We asked them to make a sample proposal for a partner. I mean, that's an example of somebody who maybe wants to work in partnerships or something like that. You could have made that when you applied for the job, or you could make an online portfolio site that just shows. Here's what I've done in the past. We also had a writer apply for us to write for us at Career Contessa. And she did something similar where she sent us a sample article where she. It was about maternity leave, and she went out and surveyed as many people as she could. And so her article was, like, miles ahead of everybody else's, because she had. Yeah. And it was like, wow, if this is what you do when you're applying for a job, imagine what it's like when you come to work here. So I completely agree. I think people are gonna have to get creative. There are a lot of ways to show, not just tell. We live in this visual world, obviously. And obviously, you know, there's tons of resources, and there are plenty of people, whether they work in finance or in design, who are able to use portfolio sites to showcase their skill sets.

Absolutely. Okay, so that takes us to. Now we. We've built these skills. We've spent a lot of time building this experience. Again, we've gotten creative. Maybe it's, you know, your. Your neighbor up upstairs, you know, has a brewery, and you're helping them with their. Their accounting or whatever it is. You know, you're. You're just trying to find experience anywhere you can and being really scrappy about it. How do we then do step five, Update your materials.

Yeah. So now that you have filled the skills gaps, now you get to actually polish your resume, your LinkedIn profile, your portfolio site, your elevator pitch, all the things that you're going to need to actually apply for the job. This is where being able to tell a really cool story in a cover letter. I know some people think nobody reads cover letters. Here's the thing about COVID letters. You don't know who reads them and who doesn't read them. So you might as well write a great cover letter. I've had plenty of hiring managers where when they can't decide, guess what? They read the COVID letter. So I always tell people this too. You have to remember, as humans making Decisions about humans. There is no, like science. And it always is this way or it's never that way. So it's always better to err on the side of, you know, going above and beyond. And I know what people are thinking is like, I'm so tired of applying for jobs. I start off really strong and then I get tired. Well, that is why we are focusing on only applying to some jobs at very specific companies. Because our goal is not just to keep you busy applying to jobs all day long. We want you applying to the right jobs.

Absolutely. And applying to those jobs and building relationships within those companies so that we're not necessarily getting stopped by.

Just a database that's going to hold our resume. Ultimately, databases don't get you an interview. People get your get you an interview. So as as many, you know, touch points as you can get of actual humans to read the resume, the better.

Yeah, yeah. And I would say for the resume, my best tip is please make it aesthetically pleasing and easy to read and easy to find what I'm looking for. I mean, people, again, kind of have these notions that there's like this box of rules that you're not allowed to have. You know, other sections, you can do whatever you want with your resume, but you should make it so that it's easy for me to read it and find what I'm looking for. So, like, I'm a big fan of people. Like, I love a two column resume and I love having the second column as an area where people put, you know, their contact information, their education, their skills, their software. I like having that there. You might mention software in your bullet points, but guess what? It's so easy for me to see it in that call, you know, right hand column where it literally says software. So that's what I'm a fan of, one column. Obviously for certain industries that are a lot more traditional, I mean, you can make the call, you probably know what's a good fit. The other thing you can do before you actually apply is maybe see if somebody else will give you feedback on your resume. Those are good options too. I mean, at the end of the day, the people who know the resumes the best are the people who are looking at them all the time who either work for that company or in that, those roles. And so you can work with career coaches and recruiters all day long, but everybody's always going to have their own unique opinion based on their experience.

So more kind of creative resumes maybe with graphics and charts and stuff. Yes or no?

If you're applying for a creative role, then yeah, absolutely, that might be necessary. Charts and graphics, that's not for me.

I'm okay with a little color, but I don't want it to be distracting. I think the most important thing is that I want to be able to find what I'm looking for. What I usually tell people is the rule of thumb for me is your resume is a snapshot of your very specific experience as relevant to the job and the company. Your LinkedIn can show kind of your whole story and your portfolio, site or your, you know, an example, if you want to include like a one page PDF or a PowerPoint slide or deck or whatever it is, that's where I would get more creative with it. But that's my preference. And also for most of the roles that I hire an interview for, they're not calling for graphs in the resume.

Yeah, and so I'm a career changer. I am moving into completely new career. What should my LinkedIn headline say?

Yeah, so what I'm so the LinkedIn headline, I think they allow you up to 40 characters. And the idea there is to put as many keywords into the headline as possible. Because LinkedIn works just like Google, works just like Pinterest. These are all search engines and as you know, recruiters are able to search for the people who fit their what they're looking for using keywords. So for mine, for example, if I was a career changer and I was an admin assistant wanting to be a recruiter, I might try to find phrases that would be similar but not like a lie. So maybe it's candidate experience, maybe it's project management. So I might say admin assistant and then put like a line and say like candidate experience or.

Project management. You know, I might try to use some words that would be in a recruiting coordinator job description and then see if I could put those into my keywords. You don't want to be dishonest. You're just trying to connect the dots and use as many of those key words or phrases that the recruiter or whoever might use in order to find that talent.

Got it? Got it. Do you think it's a lie if that person, let's say you don't have a job right now, but you have been, you know that your neighbor upstairs with the brewery, you have been volunteering and helping with their accounting. Can you put accounting in your headline?

I think so, yeah. As long as you. If they say, okay, tell me about your accounting experience, you say, hey, I volunteer for my neighbor. He Owns a brewery, and I do all of his accounting for him. I use QuickBooks, I do this whatever. Like, yes, that's. That's the dishonest part, is to be like, I'm an accountant and, you know, and I'm a cpa. Yeah, that's the part that's dishonest, I think. You know, also, at the end of the day, LinkedIn allows you to say things a certain way and phrase them a certain way. So in those in the experience section or in the summary section, that's where you get to tell a little bit more of the story. So you could also put something in the headline like accounting, payroll, Finance, you know, you could just expert. And then your summary, you could say, you know, for the last 10 years, I've worked in event, event marketing, and I've been really focused on making a career transition into accounting. Right now I'm volunteering, you know, so that summary is where you also. And it's also a very keyword rich section for LinkedIn. Yes, I love that.

I love that kind of, you know, you're branding yourself a certain way in the headline, and then you have your experience, but then in the about section, the summary you can elaborate on. And what I like about that is.

Talking about your passion for why maybe your event experience brought you to this new path and what makes you so passionate about it. You're focusing not so much like dwelling in the past, but more of like, here's the story of why this makes so much sense now and why I'm excited and why I'm interested in.

You're connecting the dots and you're not making us work hard to connect them. You know, and almost always there's some transferable skill. Right? So it all comes down to finding some job descriptions of what you want to apply to and then kind of tweaking your LinkedIn for that.

Perfect. All right, so let's bring this in to step number six. Start networking and applying.

Yeah, so this is what we were just talking about, where 30% of your time should be spent networking, having informational interviews, building relationships with people who can maybe get your foot in the door, maybe recommend you for the job, maybe be the person where after you've applied for the job, you email them and say, hey, I recently applied for this job. I don't, you know, if you have the email address of the, you know, the role says it reports to this person. Do you have their email address? Or can you put in a good word for me? Or whatever you need to do, that's what that's for.

Perfect. Great. And so. And so then we. Yeah. And then we. We hope for the best. And at this point, it's so amazing because I feel like a lot of people start with step six. I once had. I was once on an interview with someone who was a career changer, but I thought her transferable skills looked good. It was for. She was. She was interviewing to be an executive assistant. And I go, okay, so what makes you so sure that. And being an executive assistant is the best next step step for you? Like, what steps have you taken to solidify that in your mind? And she said, well, this has been my first step is applying to this role and talking to you. And I said, I'm not gonna hire you. Like, it's because. Because you want. You don't want to be someone's career experiment. You don't want someone to come into your job in a month. Just be like, oh, oops, this wasn't what I thought it was. And then. And then dip. You want someone who knows, this is my next career step, and here's why. And I've done the hard work to figure that out.

And it is hard work. It's six steps.

That's a lot of hard work.

And also, I mean, you guys heard my story. It took me nine months to have those informational interviews. If you don't think that, like, wowed the pants off of the people at Hulu, because they were like, she's spent, like a year and a half trying to get this career. Like, she's dead set on this. Like, of course that makes you, like, sets you apart from the competition. The other reason why that makes me cringe is because obviously we all know what's happening in the world. The competition just got much stiffer, and we literally had a complete 180 where there was more power in the hands of the employees, and now there's more power in the hands of the employers, meaning there are fewer job openings and there are people who can actually get those jobs. So that means that if you aren't doing this in that way, they absolutely don't need to take. Take the chance that you might like it here. It just. I just highly, highly, highly doubt that that's going to be successful with anybody. Unless maybe you have the most amazing recommendation and someone swears by it. But the recruiter would speak up and be like, I don't. I really don't want to do that, because you know what? The recruiter knows they're just gonna have to hire that role. Again in six months when they wake up and decide they don't want to do this. And who wants to do that?

We've all seen it happen. Yep. Why don't we take a couple questions.

Before we go here?

So thank you, Barry, for putting all these great questions together.

Mandisa says, what recommendations do you have if after years of working, have finally found your right career? Does a varied background make you go to the trash bin when applying to jobs?

I don't think so, no. I mean, I think that having a variety of different experiences, you're going, it's all about the spin, right? You're going to want to spin that as a strength. And how does that. At the end of the day, this is all about how do you add value to the organization? How is your variety of background experiences good for them? What do you bring to the table that makes you unique? So, no, it's absolutely not a bad thing. It's only a bad thing if you are not able to spin it in a way that makes it look like a strength.

I completely agree. It's always a sales page, not a Wikipedia page. It's just that the top things of each role that pertain to the job and get rid of the rest. Don't worry about telling your whole story. Just focus on the best stuff. I completely agree. And I'm sure, yeah, that is an extreme in some cases to have that.

And like, I would come up with like a general theme like, look, I love solving problems, so I'm always going where I can. I feel like I'm up for the challenge of solving a problem. That's why I've worked at a lot of different places. Right. Like all of a sudden, that's all that's amazing. Because they're like, oh, we have problems we need people to solve.

Exactly. Okay, so.

Okay, so here's one. Wendy asks, how do you have a portfolio when the work you do at a company is confidential?

Oh, that is a very good question. So you're not going to be sharing names. Instead, you can use a portfolio to showcase your interests in the field. So maybe you use. You set up a squarespace site and you talk about the fact that, you know, you're a project manager for a large corporation that deals with confidential information, but you have a huge interest in, I don't know.

Entertainment. And so this is your space where you talk about industry trends and you interview people. So you could also use a portfolio site to just showcase your interests, especially if you're a career changer and you want to go from this confidential situation to something that's like more that you can talk about. So that's another idea. At the end of the day, yes, things are confidential and you don't want to share them publicly, but you probably going to have to be able to talk about things specifically enough that the, the next company you interview for understands, like, what did you do? You know, so, so just keep that in mind. Like, obviously you don't need to be publicly sharing the secrets, but like in the interview, find ways that you can explain what you did in a way that provides enough detail that they can understand that you're going to be a good fit and have the skill set.

I love your suggestion about blogging about the industry and the trends. Because working in hr, I can't create a blog of all of the employee sensitive information, but I can talk about, here's why I'm so invested in this, this field. And that's a great thing that you can do. Before you have experience in a field, you have a portfolio site where you're talking about the industry, where you're talking about this company, where you're talking about your career path. Already there. Oh my gosh, it's. It really bolsters your reputation.

Yeah.

Okay, let's do another.

Do you. If you plan to start at a company in one role, and this is from Alicia, so if you plan to start at a company in one role and then hope to move into another, more desirable role, should you tell the company upfront what you want?

That's tricky. Probably not. It depends on the company. I think. Obviously, like, there are some companies that are very like, for example, like a customer service role, right. Where they're like, the way they sell it to you is to say, like, hey, a lot of people start here, then they move into other stuff. Right? And you can say, that's exactly what I want. I really want to grow my career here. You don't have to name the specific role you have your eye on, but otherwise, no, probably not. And also it might change. You know what I mean? So, like, I would say it's not because you're being dishonest, but because you want to leave things open and flexible for yourself.

I completely agree. I, I would say that the question is, where do you see yourself in five years is sometimes a trap because you're basically, I don't know, at me as someone who does hiring. If, like they're immediately talking about the next role, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, like I'm going to be.

Rehire this role in a few months. Like, this is such. This. The cost is not worth it. And so, yeah, I think that's fantastic advice and completely. It's completely honest that, yeah, things could change. And as you see things in a company, it might evolve. So, Lauren, I just want to say thank you so much for joining us today, and I do want to give you a moment. I do want to hear more about Power Moves.

Yeah. So my book is coming out on May 19th. It's called Power How Women Can Pivot, Reboot, and Build a Career of Purpose. Talks about a lot of the stuff that we talked about today. It's got actionable worksheets, interviews with a ton of amazing, dynamic women, and just. Just all the. The best culmination of the. All the career advice that's come my way. Not only having been a recruiter at Hulu, but also running a career site for women for the last seven years. So this is definitely meant to be a career guide that helps people who are job searching, but also people who are looking to grow in their current roles. If you go to power moves book.com you can find a ton more information about the book and also you can pre order it. And if you pre order it, between now and May 19, 2020, we are offering over $300 worth of companion resources for free. All you have to do is pre order the book, and then you put your order number into a form and we send you all that information.

So it's really, I think, for. We were talking about just like spending an hour every week, 10% of your time reading books, listening to podcasts. I mean, this is exactly what you could do. One of my favorite tips I tell people is like, you can kind of kill two birds with one stone. With the networking is like, start a book club, find five friends, tell them all to invite another friend, order the book, and then have a book club talking about professional development. Those are not only more enjoyable, but also you have the accountability of other people. And. And you're also networking and building relationships. So, yes, I mean, if you. I think pivot is kind of the buzzword of the. Of the season right now, but pivot is important, but so is learning how to reboot and to sustain, because success is a work in progress. It's. It's not a single destination or a moment in time. So this is really about teaching people how to embrace their own career development completely.

Lauren, it's been so great to have you here. Thank you. I got to get a wi fi high five.

Yeah. I love it. Thank you. Thanks.