The Job Search is a Marketing Campaign: 6 Steps to Position Yourself to Win with Marty Gilbert

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life.

This show will be more powerful for.

You if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

This week we're going to be talking about the why of better way to find a better way and share it. So if this is your why, then you're the ultimate innovator and you're constantly seeking better ways to do everything. You find yourself wanting to improve virtually anything by finding a way to make it better. You also desire to share your improvements with the world. You constantly ask yourself questions like what if we tried this differently? We what if we did this another way? How can we make this better? You contribute to the world with better processes and systems while operating under the motto I'm often pleased but never satisfied. You're excellent at associating, which means that you're adept at taking ideas or systems from one industry or discipline and applying them to another, always with the ultimate goal of improving something. And so today I have a great guest for you. His name is Marty Gilbert. He's the founder and CEO of North Shore executive networking group NSENG. It's the largest job search organization in the U.S. the group is comprised of over 12,000 members, with one member landing a new job every day. Over the past 14 years, Marty's networking meetings, webinars, workshops and job search coaching services have helped over 3,000 professionals land new career opportunities. His trademark what the hell approach to job search has enabled many job seekers to to more effectively position package message and promote their value to target companies and key influencers while creating career opportunities within the hidden job market. Now Marty is also a frequent job search speaker at large industry associations and several university alumni groups including Harvard, Yale, Cornell, New York University, Howard, Chicago, Michigan, Indiana, Miami, Loyola and several others. Marty, welcome to the podcast.

Great. Thanks so much Gary. Great to be Here.

Well, this is going to be a lot of fun because you and I share the same why. And I'm looking forward to going back into your life and letting our audience get to know you. So can you take us back to where were you born? What were you like growing up? What were you like in high school?

Sure. I was born in Madison, Wisconsin, but moved to the Chicago area at the age of five. We lived in the northern suburbs of Chicago. I was a big sports enthusiast. I was a very competitive baseball, basketball and soccer player in my early years. And I also had opportunities to do a lot of public speaking as a rather young person. I went to a great high school. It was the largest high school in the United States in Evanston, Illinois. In fact, at the time, we were the same size as Northwestern University. We had close to 6,000 students in the school. And it was a very diverse group of individuals of all different races and religions and backgrounds. That was great. Which, of course made going off to college so easy because I actually came from a more diverse organization than the school that I decided to go to. But I was always, you know, the kind of person who was willing to take chances, do something different. Maybe, you know, it was part of my, my curiosity to just find things that I'd never done before, try them, see if I like them, and if I do great, then I'll, I'll stick with, you know, some of those things. So I would say that I was probably a pretty curious child and boy, did it make a difference in my life as I became an adult.

So if we had seen you now we're in high school with you, and there goes Marty walking by, what would we have seen?

Well, you know, I, they would, they would see me with fairly long hair, I had wire rim glasses. They were very popular at the time. I was always, you know, participating in competitive sports, you know, after the school day. And then, you know, I was a pretty good student during the day in classes. So I think that, you know, I had a pretty well rounded background and I had great parents, you know, who really instilled in me and my brothers, you know, a lot of great skills. And I think that we've carried them on through into our married life and now grandparenting, especially for me, being a first grandparent just about six weeks ago, so. Oh, wow.

Well, congratulations. That's exciting.

Yeah, very, very.

Okay, so graduated from high school, very big high school, off to college. What, what did you, what college did you go to? What did you major in? How'd you pick that Yeah, I, I.

Went to school at Miami of Ohio. In fact, I was accepted at both the University of Illinois and Indiana University. I was interested in business. I knew Miami had an exceptional business program. And I decided I didn't want to go to a very large university, which in Illinois and Indiana were. Miami at the time only had about 8,000 students, which was not all that much bigger than my high school. But I thought in an, in a, in a college setting that would be fairly intimate. And I decided I wanted to go something smaller. So I ended up with Miami. I majored in business and in marketing, and I was very happy with the program. It was a much more conservative school than my high school, but it was a gorgeous campus. And of course I made so many great friends there and ultimately led me to deciding after graduation to not go right into the working world. I decided to take a year off, earn some money during the summer. And with the money I saved, I took off with a backpack and went to Europe. Thought it would have been a two month trip. Well, six months into it, I was still traveling. And back then you could live and travel in Europe on $5 a day. They've written books about this. And I followed that book so closely. And so I started off, you know, my venture, you know, in getting off a plane in Reykjavik, Iceland. There were only two of us that got off the plane. And the cheapest way to get to Europe at that time was on Icelandic Airlines. And I remember you could travel round trip for $360. But I decided to get off the plane because, well, gee, it's, we're in Iceland. I'd never met anybody who had ever been there. So you know what, that was a place I decided I was going to stop at because the next plane wasn't going to come for four more days. So it would give us, give me a chance to see what it's like. But then, you know, moved on and traveled, you know, you know, in England and Scotland for five weeks, Central Europe for several months, and then spent a month in Spain, a month in Morocco. So I crossed over into North Africa and then a month in Italy, five weeks in Greece, and then a month in Israel, and before I knew it, it was seven months. And boy, I had seen a lot and experienced a lot. And when you travel outside the United States, it's a fantastic opportunity. But when you travel alone, it's especially different because you have to learn how to entertain yourself, but you have to really be able to be very outwardly focused, make friends along the way. I Created friendships with people all over the world, you know, teaming up with people in different countries, particularly from Australia. There are a lot of Australians that leave Australia for a year or two at a time because it's so far from everywhere else. And. And just, you know, made some great friendships and had some pretty phenomenal experiences in the process, and that really changed my perspective on life.

What year was that?

That was back in 1976 through 77.

Okay. Strangely, I did something similar and went to Europe, but only for a month, but was there a part of that by myself. So I have a little bit of a sense for what you're talking about. You have to be outgoing. You have to meet people. You can't just. But that's fun, right? And I. Same book. Same book, right.

Every day was an adventure. Right. Because no two days were exactly alike. And, you know, I was charting out my plans for each country I was going to be in, which cities I wanted to go to, what I wanted to do. There I am pretty organized. And. And that served me well because I. I didn't waste a lot of time doing nothing. I always had an agenda for and what I wanted to accomplish.

So what do you. If you could sum that up in a couple of sentences, what did you learn from your time there? What were you hoping to gain by going to Europe and traveling by yourself? And then what did you gain?

I wanted to see all these places that I had heard about that had historical significance, but I wondered to have the opportunity to see if I could hold my own, if I could hold my own by myself and really get by, you know, without having, you know, a safety net. And I decided I would keep traveling until my money ran out or until I got tired of traveling. And the fact is, I think that, you know, I hope to learn a little bit about myself, and I absolutely did. No question. I think it built up a lot of confidence in me that I wasn't expecting necessarily.

And it was great because I, you know, I. I learned so many things, not just about myself, but, of course, about so many different kinds of people that I was meeting along the way, both other travelers as well as local people. And it was just, you know, for me, a learning experience all the time, because I was doing things, seeing things that I was doing and seeing for the very first time. And it just made. Made me look forward to every day that was up ahead because I knew there'd be some great things sitting there waiting for me to experience for sure.

Okay, so seven months in, you said top time to go Back to the US Time to get a real job and get moving. What you came back to, what and what happened from there?

Well, so I came back to the States and I started to. I'm trying to recall this. I started to work in advertising. I got a job in copywriting. I was interested in advertising. I always thought that you may remember this TV show called Bewitched where Elizabeth Montgomery was a witch and she was married to an advertising executive. And I wanted to be a writer in an advertising agency. So I came back to the States, I got a job with an ad agency. I worked there for about a year. And what was in. And again I was the only writer in the company was not a big firm. But as I got further into it, I knew this wasn't a place that I was going to necessarily make a long term career out of. And in the advertising world there's a magazine that used to come out every week called Advertising Age. It was the bible of the advertising world. It would always tell you what's going on in the advertising world, who are the big advertisers, what are they doing? And to analyze different ads that were that were taking place by the major agencies on a global basis. But in the back of the magazine they always had a classified ad section for great jobs. And I happened to come across an ad for an international copywriter. And it was with an advertising agency that I had only learned about a couple days before because Advertising Age had produced the list not only of the largest US ad agencies, but the largest international agencies and the largest advertising firm in the world, far bigger than any US agency, happened to be a Japanese firm by the name of Dentsu. And they were looking for an international copywriter with at least 10 years of experience. And here I was sitting with one year. And so I wrote to them and I sent them some samples of some of my writing and some mockup work. And I told them a little bit about my travel in Europe and apparently it really piqued their interest and they wrote me back. And there was no Internet back then. Everything was through letters, right? So it took a long time. But I did get a letter back from them rather quickly and they said, look, we're flying to La inch and to New York and we're going to be interviewing about 25 writers for one spot that we've got open and we'd like to fly you to New York to interview you there. So I said great, I'm happy to do it. And I went out to New York and I came into the Interview. And I didn't know it, but I was the youngest person that they were interviewing and the interview went well. We spent a fair amount of time actually not just looking at my writing, but also talking about my travels. And they were very interested. And it was a Japanese fella and an American who was the creative director for the five foreigners that were the writers for the 6,000 person company. So picture 6,000 employees, only five of which were not Japanese. And so the interview went well. And at the end of the interview I said, look, I said, I'm going to be sticking around New York for one more day. I've got a friend from school that lives here. Spend a day with him. So if by any chance you guys should make a decision on who's going to get this position, please feel free to call me. This is the hotel I'm staying at. One way or another, I'd just be interested in knowing. They called me back early the next morning and said, you know what, we'd like you to come back into the office and if you're interested, we'd like you to sign a contract with us. I couldn't believe it. I was the last person they interviewed and I got the job. And they, I can tell you it wasn't because of my great experience, but it was that I was able to demonstrate to them an ability to adapt to a very foreign environment. And this is why I go back to what we learn by traveling internationally. They had experiences with foreigners that were great writers that had come over to Japan and within a couple weeks said, you know what? I can't handle this. This environment is too different for me. There's nobody speaking English. All the signs are in Japanese. How do I get a rot? I can't, I can't live like that. So, and the company, you know, provided me and the other four riders with all, you know, with, with housing. They paid our transportation to and from work. The only money I had to spend was to entertain myself and feed myself. And, you know, it was a big bump for me. And of course, my, the cost of living in Tokyo, as you can imagine, is very, very high. My, my apartment probably cost way back then, probably about 10,000, but I was paying nothing. And so I was living much less expensively in Tokyo than here in Chicago. And so, you know, it had so many benefits to it. But the, the most important thing is, is that I really got to know and understand the Japanese culture because every art director I worked with was Japanese. All the cameramen, all the, the models, and anybody who was involved all the account executives and all the clients. Everything I wrote. In many cases, I had a, you know, interpreter with me when I was making presentations. She would have to translate it into Japanese. She would then translate it back to me, their response back into English. I mean, it was fascinating opportunity. And the company is just phenomenal. And every client was any Japanese company you and I could ever think of. Toyota, Nissan, Honda, all clients, all the camera companies, all the electronics manufacturers, and everything I wrote appeared as full page ads every week in Time, Newsweek, businessweek, and Fortune magazine. So I built up a great portfolio of work that I never could have accomplished here in the United States.

Wow. And how long did you do that?

I did that for about two and a half years. And then when I came back to the States, I took the long route back. I decided with some of the money I had saved and most of it I was sending back because money market funds were paying 17%. So I was sending a lot of money back. But I set aside money to travel and throughout Asia. And so I took the next four months flew. In fact, I was one of the first foreigners to fly and visit China, because Richard Nixon had only opened up trade with China only about 12 months earlier. And so I had a chance to spend, you know, a week and a half traveling in China by myself, and then all throughout Southeast Asia. Went as far north as hiking in the Himalayas, up in Nepal, as far south as Bali, where I spent a couple of weeks down there in Indonesia and everywhere in between. And it was just fantastic. And then came back to the States and I re enrolled in an MBA program that I had started while I was working for an ad agency in Chicago. I finished that up and then went to work and started looking for jobs with international companies so that I could leverage. Now, what made me really unique from other folks, and I wrote a letter to Motorola, who was Chicago based, Their world headquarters were in the Chicago area. And I told them about my experience in Japan, and again got a letter rather quickly, came in for interview, and within a week had an offer because they wanted to crack the Japanese market and they had products that they were willing to invest in to get in there. And I could help them understand what it would take from not just an advertising perspective, but how do you have to start to think like a Japanese consumer? And what sorts of things would get them interested and excited and. And that led to, you know, helping them market products all over Asia and enter a lot of new markets that were just developing on a global basis.

Wow. And so how Long were you with. Well, you know what, before we go there, just something maybe for the listeners that. I went to a lot of countries that were quite different then than they are now. Right. You show up as a white guy in Japan, and they probably hadn't seen too many white people. Same thing with China. Right. You were like a giant probably there. And what was that experience like?

Well, you know, in Japan there. There was not much English there because there weren't many foreigners. And so I had. There were, you know, I took some lessons initially when I got there. Most of my friends ended up being Japanese. So I was hearing and learning and asking questions. Much better at understanding what was being said rather than being able to speak it fluently. But I. I just, you know, I thought it was great because when you talk about living in a foreign environment, you can't get much more foreign than. Than the Japanese culture. And the people were so great to me because I was so much younger than any foreigner they'd ever had there. So a lot of people kind of took me under their wing and brought me into a part of the environment in Tokyo that was just pretty incredible. Very busy, very crowded, you know, professional people stuffers, as you get onto the subways, pushing you in with white gloves. So many old traditions that are a part of the everyday life. But. And China was so undeveloped. There were only five paved roads in Beijing. Okay. And you've probably seen what Beijing looks like today. Back then, there was nothing. The highest, the tallest building was five stories tall. The Beijing Hotel. I stayed in a youth hostel. The fact is that there would, you know, there were people all over these incredible squares, but it's dirt roads. And so, you know, it's hard for a lot of people today to envision some of these cities like that. There was only one truly developed city, and that was Shanghai. But it didn't have tall buildings because it was very European, very Portuguese and French architecture. But it was great. And traveling throughout the other parts of Asia were fantastic. I went to Myanmar when it was still called Burma. You were only allowed to travel there for seven days. You had to get in and out because it was so controlled by the government. But, boy, you talk about a really primitive environment. Nepal too, parts of Indonesia and Malaysia. I really thrived in those environments because I liked the idea of looking and acting different and everybody else around me. There was something really exciting about that.

Yeah, I can imagine. And, okay, so you're back in the US you're working for Motorola. How long did you work for Motorola? And then Kind of take us on your next journey past that.

Sure. I, I stayed with Motorola for 15 years. It was a phenomenal company. During the 15 years I was there, I saw the company grow from 3 billion to $30 billion in annual revenue. I saw the, you know, the number of employees grew to 140,000 on a global basis. But most of the growth was coming from the international markets where I was spending the bulk of my time. And so the international revenue was only 5% of the business, but by the time I left, it was 55%. And most of that growth was coming from different countries in Asia and then developing nations like India and Brazil, where I also was spending time to help map out plans and introduce new products and get involved. And of course, I. I did have a sales assignment that moved me to Hong Kong. While I had been with Motorola for about 10 years, they came to me with a great opportunity. They said, you know, our single largest customer in Asia is located and based in Hong Kong. We want to find somebody who's going to, you know, manage that. That single customer. Initially, I said, boy, it sounds like a great job. And they said, you know what? That job is yours. We want you to Hong Kong and manage the Hong Kong sales team. And I, I turned it down. I initially turned it down. Lo and behold, I, I said, look, you know, I was, I was 20, 10 years earlier. I was living in Japan. I, I came back to the United States just as single as the day I left. And I said, I'm a lot older now. I'm, you know, about 34. And I said, the thought of coming back years later just as single as the day I left, I felt a little bit more intimidating at this point in my life. They said, I'll tell you what, you go do your business in Beijing, and after the week is over, you come back and you let us know what you think, but just give us some thought. And I changed my mind. I said, this is silly to let my life be run by whether or not I think I'm going to ever get married. But wouldn't you know it, I ended up meeting my wife in Hong Kong. She was working for a large multinational firm out of Manhattan, New York. They had sent her to Hong Kong to oversee design and quality control. We ended up meeting. Her assignment was up. She had to go back to the States. And I asked her to quit her job and come back out because my, my assignment was just beginning. So she did, and we ended up getting married. We came back to Chicago, got married, I resumed my assignment in, in Hong Kong. She, in the meantime, had set up her own business in Hong Kong, was doing a lot of great design work, some for some pretty famous companies, including Walt Disney. And, and then we started up our life back here again. I went, you went back, you know, continued with Motorola, but eventually I decided to leave. You know, interesting stories. When we had gotten married, we decided to start our family rather quickly, as I remember. We, we went to what is sort of like a Lamaze class in Hong Kong and they gave us a list of 10 things you got to make sure you bring when you, when it's time to deliver and go to the hospital. And number one on the list was toilet paper. That's when I turned to my wife and I said, you know what? We're not having this child here.

We're coming back to the States. This child was created in Hong Kong, but it's going to be born in the US and we moved back when she was about almost eight months pregnant, which typically they wouldn't let you do today. And of course, Hong Kong has changed a lot, but this gives you a sense for just how different it was back then. And we started up our life here. And eventually I decided after about 15 years to leave Motorola.

Okay, so you leave Motorola. And what was next? Is that when you started getting into the. Well, you tell us.

Yeah, I got, you know, I started. I wanted to work for a smaller business, right. I wanted to see what it was like to have a, you know, be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. And so I wrote to a VP of marketing role with a company here in Chicago area by the name of Stats Incorporated. They are the largest data and analytics company in the sports industry. They are the official statistician for Major League baseball, basketball, football and hockey. They would provide, you know, John Madden all of his color commentary for NFL game of the week. I interviewed with them and this is an interesting story. I interviewed with all the, you know, all the, the key executives in the company. This was for a VP of marketing role. They came back to me after a few rounds of interviews and said, look, we're down to two people and you're one of them. I said, great. Came back in for a final round of interviews. And then the, the founder of the business came back to me a few days later and said, look, I just want to let you know that we've decided to move in the other direction. We went with this, with this other individual. And so I said, look, if you've got a couple of minutes, I'd like to come in and talk to you. I'd like, I'd like to hear, you know, a little bit about what led to your decision. And so I sat across from him, you know, later, a couple of days later, and I said, you know, I thought I was a great fit for this job. I mean, I come from a sports background. I'm really passionate about, you know, what you guys are. He said, you know what, it wasn't that tough a decision for us. I said, really? He said, yeah. He says, because I think you would have become bored with this job. He says, it wasn't enough for you, I think you would have wanted more. And I looked at him, I said, you know what, I appreciate your candor. And quite honestly, the job I would really like is your job. I said, I want to run this company and if at any point in time you're willing to turn the reins over to somebody else to run it for you, I said, I'd like to be first in line. And we parted company. It was a friendly conversation, but six weeks later he called me back and he said, you know what, you planted an idea that I have never considered because I've been running this company for seven years. But you know what, my real passion is writing the software. And the company was really big in fantasy sports games which has just exploded here. And he says, I would love to be able to go off and do more software development with our software developers and have somebody else running this because honestly, I'm tired of dealing with all the customers. And we were providing all the data to every website, the, the official, all the baseball box scores in every newspaper across the country was coming from a, you know, Stats incorporated sports reporter. And, and so two weeks later I had all the senior people now reporting to me and I was running this company. You know, eventually the company got, got sold to Fox TV and I subsequently started working for some other mid sized companies along the way, many of which were private equity backed. And you know what, it's a different animal. There's, there's a, there's a pressure. When you're in a senior role working for a PE backed company, that's very different than working for a publicly traded firm. It's, it's all about the bottom line and how do we get this company working better over the next three to five years so we can flip it and make our money and move on to our next investment. Right. So yeah, saw a lot of that.

How long were you there?

It's, that's probably about, I guess about probably about three, three and a half years and, and subsequently worked for some other, you know, mid sized companies. I ended up going back to Motorola for three years, but the company had really changed and I was managing a very large team of people but I hated, I, I hated every day of it. And, and so I just subsequently, you know, I, I changed jobs quite a few times during the course of my career. Sometimes of my own choosing, sometimes not. But I started up this little accountability group about 15 years ago when I was in a job search. I pulled together five other people who, like myself, had had good careers but for whatever reason were on the outside looking in. We were all looking for our next career opportunity and you know, started out in a panera bread with six people, then 12, then 25 and 50 and I moved us to a bigger location and then I landed, I landed my job. But I really liked what I had created and what this group had become and most importantly, the purpose and mission behind it. It was to help people to shorten the time it takes to find your next job. And it's one of the one question no job seeker can ever answer is how long is it going to take me? Don't know. Don't know. And so what I've done is I've created a business, the North Shore Executive Networking Group to help people to shorten the time it takes to find their next job. As you mentioned, through my coaching services, through the webinars and workshops I conduct in building, you know, the in person networking events that I've only started up again, you know, since COVID has, has started to subside. And you know, I've helped over 3,000 people to land jobs. I've got, you know, at least one member landing a job every day. It's, it's the most, it's the most important work that I've ever done. It's the most rewarding work I've ever done. And, and I get great emails, you know, on a weekly basis from people that said, you know what, you saved my marriage. I'm able to, you know, to move on with my life. People have landed some really nice jobs and, and the methodology that I've, you know, been teaching them is very different from what other people that are in this space or that are in the job search coaching space because I don't come from HR or talent recruitment and probably 99% of the job search coaches or career coaches do, they come from that. And, and I tell people this is a marketing exercise, you gotta be able to position package message and target your value to the audiences you're trying to reach, whether they have a job for you or not. And that's in part how this, you know, this what the hell approach to job search has come about. I'm applying a lot of the theories and concepts that I've always done and have come natural to me in launching new products. And I tell people this is no different. The only difference is you are now that product, and we've got to do everything for you that we would typically do for any new product or service we're bringing to market. And that is standing out, creating visibility. What's the value you bring? And so I've created these 13 what the hell moves that some people find somewhat unorthodox, but they get you the visibility that you want. And when there's 200 people applying to every decent job that's out there, you've got to find ways to make a difference. And the whole idea of what is your why, okay. When it comes to being a job seeker, you've got to be able to address that. Because I'm sitting on a stack of all these other people who also think they're the best candidate for the job. Why should I be talking to you as opposed to all these other folks? And so the value that you bring, just like any product we buy, is what's going to sell, but you've got to be able to communicate it and be able to position yourself in a way that you separate yourself from all the other candidates that want this job just as badly as you do.

Yeah. And so you've got to know who you are, right?

Yep.

Because how are you going to talk about yourself if you don't even know.

That's a problem for so many job seekers. It's interesting. So many people we've all been grown up to talk about, we, the team. Well, we are not trying to get other people a job. It's all about you, the job seeker. And so this is your opportunity to brag. And you've got to be able to distinguish yourself versus other individuals. And, you know, as you and I have talked about it, it all starts for a job seeker with your value. What are you all about? You know, so, you know, we got to dig into, you know, the accomplishments that they've had in their career that they oftentimes are shy to talk about or that they've had so many that they've lost sight of the value they bring. And so, interestingly enough, is that so many of the coaching clients that I work with the ones that have the toughest time describing themselves are the marketing people. Now I tell them, why is that? Because you've made a living out of writing about other, other products and services. Yeah, but I'm not comfortable talking about myself that way. And so I have to bring out of people and have upfront conversations and meetings to dig into their past so that I can write about them. And so I help put together their resumes, their LinkedIn profiles, the COVID letters, the value proposition. And then how do you start to differentiate yourself versus all these people that are just not only the people that are out of work, but think about this. About 40% of the employed workforce is not happy with where they're working, and they are looking too. So the competition is not just that 4% of the population that's unemployed that is virtually considered zero employment in, in our economic world, but it's all these people who are working that aren't happy. No. You be able to compete against them as well.

So for the listeners, Marty's why, which we talked about was to find a better way and share. Right. You can hear it coming through loud and clear. He's always looking for a better way. He's come up with a better way to help people with the job market to navigate it in a way that gets them notice, gets them the job. Now, how he does that is by making sense of the complex and challenging. So he's very good at solving problems and figuring things out on the fly, as you heard throughout his life. And then ultimately, what he brings is a deep understanding, the depth, the knowledge, the detail, the nuance, the little thing that makes the big difference. And so, Marty, how does that feel to you when we talk about that? And then how does that translate into the type of coaching that you do and what you do with your. With the people that come to you to help them get a new career?

Yeah, it translates very, very well. I mean, I'm very comfortable with being different from everybody else. I've kind of, you know, that's been one of my pursuits. Right. We all want to feel special. Right. And, you know, and sometimes, you know, veering away from what has been the traditional way of doing things can lead you to, you know, to a path that can be far more effective. One of the things that I did that, that is so different from everybody else who is a coach in the career development or job search space is that I first developed a community. So I've got a community right now of 12,000 people that either are actively in a job search or have been in a search and have landed, they all know me, I have credibility with them. And so it's not like I have to go out doing a lot of prospecting for clients. When I've got this audience of people where I've developed a reputation with, I think it's been very positive. And so I'm a known entity. And at the same time I've been developing a reputation, particularly on the LinkedIn platform, by becoming a very active participant and posting things on a fairly regular basis about my perspectives relative to job search and what it takes, you know, to land a great job in a shorter period of time. So again, I have a following of about 32,000 people on the platform that are interested in hearing what I have to say. For me, I'm happy to share, you know, the advice. And I tell people there's no one right way or one single way to find a job, but you've got to think of it as a multi channel marketing approach because there are many ways to make yourself visible, whether it's through digital means or through in person networking or things that you place on paper. But you've got to do them all and you have to do them all well. And so that's where I spend a lot of my time with folks, helping them to realize they, they have a lot of value and it's up to them to communicate it. So I work with them on how to communicate it. Okay. And at the same time, you know, how do you then perform? Live in an interview where a lot of people get intimidated and somewhat nervous, you got to get comfortable with it and you've got to turn an interview into a conversation no different than what you and I are doing right now, because that exudes confidence. And so it gets built up over time as we, as we start to go through their history and understand who they are, what they do, how they do it and how that has intrinsic value to the potential companies, not only that have jobs, but one of the biggest opportunities are with the hidden job market. And these are companies that have chosen not to advertise jobs, but are relying more on their own employees to make referrals. And to me, that's a great way to avoid those 200 to 1 odds because most job seekers aren't going after that. And so again, sometimes veer off the path. You'll find some great things there.

So I'm somebody listening right now and I'm not happy in my current career, which is a lot of people, or I'm looking to get back out into the workforce and find my next step. What's the path that you take them on? Take us through, you know, real quickly, like what happens for them. They're working with you now. They've hired you to work with them. What do you do for them?

So the very first thing that I'm going to do is give them a homework assignment. It may take them a couple hours to do, but what I'm going to ask them to do is to identify your seven most significant achievements in your background. And for each one, there's three parts to the story. What's the challenge that you faced? What were the actions that you took and what was the impact or results of your actions? Begin, end. Give that story to me in those three steps without getting too wordy, But I want to understand what you've done and to the extent that you have any quantifiable metrics. Great, include them and take me through each of those seven stories. But I want you to write them down first. And it's a great exercise for people because most people don't do this. And they come into that meeting with me. We do it all on zoom. We have a two hour meeting up front where we're going to review their homework assignment. We're going to talk about the stories and talk about positioning and some of the, the key phraseology and words that will distinguish them in the marketplace. And they go, you know what, I got to tell you, this exercise made me feel so much better about myself. It's a problem for a lot of people because the job search can be a very frustrating and disappointing and, you know, a very depressing situation for so many people, particularly when you have others that are relying on you. I've had plenty of job seekers that have one or two kids in college. It's a pretty expensive bill to have to, you know, to live with when you don't have income coming in. And so we go through that, you know, go through basically a cataloging of their experience and then, you know, I'll talk with them about, okay, great, now I've got a better understanding of who you are and the things that you've done. Let's, let's figure out how we start to transition that and put pen to paper. And oftentimes they want me to do the writing for them, which I'm happy to do. And I start to translate that in initially to their value proposition. It might include a branding statement. I said, because one of the most important things of a job search is you got to make yourself memorable well, people that are driving product sales create slogans every day we can memorize. Well, we remember many of these. We remember the music that went along with them. Well, as a job seeker, you've got to have a branding statement because you got to make yourself memorable. And so we talk about that. I'll create branding statements for people if that's what they want. And then we start to break it down to the individual components, their resume, their LinkedIn profile, the COVID letters that can open up a door that a Resume and a LinkedIn profile sometimes can't. And I know that two out of three job seekers don't bother to write cover letters. And they tell me why it takes them one to three hours to customize each one. And I said, well, what if I could show you how to write them highly tailored, in less than 10 minutes? They go, well, you've got my attention. And so I teach people how to do that. I said, I'll write the first one for you, but you're going to have the framework in which you can now create your own library of these plug and play modules. I'll write the first four. And now you've got speed and customization both working together. And typically you have to choose one or the other. And so that's another component of it. I'll train people on how to interview better and I'll do mock interviews on Zoom like this, and we'll record them, play them back. I tell them, you know, what do you think how you answered some of these questions? Well, geez, I didn't realize I wasn't as fluid as I thought I was. I said there were a lot of you knows and likes and ums and so's in there that are really non words, but they're giving your brain one second to think about what you want to say. There's nothing wrong with pausing. Pausing is a very powerful tool because it oftentimes gets people wanting to know what you're going to say next and as opposed to filling in that space with, with other words. So we get into a lot of, you know, details because people need the tactics. I don't talk theoretically. And everything that I teach my job seekers to do is something that I myself have implemented in my job searches. So they, you know, they are tried and true. I know they work. And sometimes it's just a matter of getting people to get over the resistance to trying something that they've never done before, like picking up the phone and calling a hiring manager that you've emailed that hasn't responded to yet? I said, it's not a difficult call. I feel so uncomfortable. It's going to put them on the spot. I said, that's okay, because do you like being unemployed? It's not fun, right? You got to get over these obstacles. And oftentimes the biggest obstacle is the job seeker themselves. And so we've got. There's a bit of a psychology to, you know, to the process to get them to be willing to be a little bit older, to take chances, and to seek out opportunities that other people aren't seeking. And that's, to me, is where the magic starts to happen.

I love that. So, Marty, last question. What's the best piece of advice that maybe you've ever been given or the best piece of advice you've ever given?

I think it's probably the, you know, along the way I've been given advice, but it's probably come in very subtle ways. I think the best advice that I typically give to people is take chances. You got to be willing to take chances. That's what the, what the hell approach is all about. You know, most people take the easy path. I'll hit submit and I'll hope for the best. And if they like me, they'll call me. I can tell you some of the greatest candidates for jobs never, never get an interview, you know, and the fact is, I tell people you can get rejected by this applicant tracking system, which is nothing more than a piece of software that sends out automated rejection emails. I said, just because you got that, that rejection doesn't mean the game is over. And I've gotten plenty of job seekers interviews even when they've been rejected by this automated system. Because we go around it, you got to get to the people that have the ability to make decisions and that own the budget. And it's a select group of people, but we can find those people on LinkedIn and now start to message to them directly. Even though they may not even have a job for you today, you can plant seeds that will make things better for you in the weeks ahead, or as in my case, sometimes can create an opportunity that doesn't exist. So I love it. Big Daniel.

So, Marty, if there are people that are listening right now that are want to work with you, follow you, learn about your community, join your community, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Well, my email address is M. Gilbert nseng.com they can go to the website nsenginc.com Take a look at my YouTube videos. I've got a lot of them out there. And my address is@marty gilbert1 on YouTube. But I would tell them, you know, if there's anybody that's interested, you know, go ahead and take a look in the website. You'll see so many resources in there. You know, I've got about 18 webinar recordings, three workshop recordings. Those are 90 minutes and three hours each. I've got in person networking for those folks that are in the Chicago area. I do these LinkedIn live events that anybody can come to, and we get really nice turnouts and, of course, be a networker. So much of the job search is your ability to connect with, you know, with people that can help you and people are willing to help you. And I tell people that are in a job search, there's a good chance more times than not that the person that's going to be the conduit to your next job is going to be somebody you did not know before you started your job search. I said, and it will happen faster if you continue to create more and more connectivity into people. Because it's always, you know, somebody introducing you to somebody who introduces you to somebody that gets you to the place you want to be. That's the magic of LinkedIn. Right? And it's just a great formula, and you just got to be willing to do it.

I love it. Marty, thank you so much for being here today, taking the time to work with me and our audience, and I really appreciate your expertise.

Great. Well, thanks again for the opportunity. Take care.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.