Bankrupt U: Grow, Show, and Bestow Your Value. Get a big payout from your college investment

Welcome back to the show for another episode of Don't Let College Bankrupt You. That's bankrupt you as in university, or maybe bankrupt you as in Y-O-U. My guests, as usual, are two college professors, Drs. Bill Quain and Joe Korabi, who pay you back. During this series of shows, we'll talk about what colleges really don't want you to know and provide some guidance on how to keep your costs down and prepare for a more successful post-college career. And that's really our focus today. We're going to talk about grow, show, and bestow your value after those 4 to 6 to 8 years of college. Bill Quayn, Joe Carabi, always a pleasure. Thanks for making time to do yet another show in the Bankrupt U series.

I had to be here, Gary.

Gary, good morning. Thanks for having us.

Wonderful. So, so, Bill, this is Chapter 5, Grow, Show, and Bestow, and it's a playbook. It's guidance for students and their families. And you started off by talking about this continuing and pervasive myth that college is the best route. College is the best route to become successful, period. Talk about that.

Well, it's, it's the government, the media, Colleges themselves especially, they keep telling you what you need is that degree and that degree will unlock it all for you. And so what's happening is students are spending 4 to 6 years, sometimes longer, just waiting until they get that degree. And then what they find out is that degree isn't worth anything. It's, it's what you, you, what, what you, what value you have built inside you that is what you're about to sell to somebody. And colleges never talk about selling. I mean, unless you're in some kind of specialized sales program or courses, the colleges never talk about the fact that you're going to have to actually convince somebody to give you money once you graduate. And you'll have to do that for the rest of your life.

And the value piece, you're really saying that the value isn't the college degree, it's what the person earned that college degree does with it. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Yeah, that I, you know, I talk to a lot of young people, as does Joe, and you do too, Gary, and they seem to have this idea that it's become a plug-and-play sort of society. You know, you do certain things and then people all of a sudden seek you out to give you money, and it just doesn't work that way. You, you've gotta actually build value in you. And that value is in the eyes of the beholder. Joe will talk about that in a minute, but that value is inside you. It has nothing to do with your degree. Well, it can have something to do with your degree, but you know, every year thousands of students graduate with those degrees. And the trend now is to be sending out hundreds of resumes on Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and the others, and just waiting. And, uh, that's too late.

And, and Joe Kurabi, again, thanks for joining us on the show. Bill just referenced a section in the book called— that you guys call Value Is in the Eyes of the Buyer. Talk about the buyer and, and their perspective on— and then Bill does a good job of giving you money. That's what they're doing in return for skills.

Yes. And once again, good morning, Gary, and, uh, Value, it's really interesting. Colleges would like you to believe that they're going to create your value, and I don't buy into that in any way. It's almost like a supply and demand factor. The determination of value is done by the buyer. All right? Now, we got to remember, a buyer wants you to work for them because what? They may not have the time, they may not have the skills, or for that matter, they may not have the desire to do something. They're looking for somebody who can fill that void. And I think that's the key word here. All right. The buyer has a void that needs to be filled. All right. And if you don't have the value to fill that void, you're out of luck. So that's the premise of the whole thing about value.

And, you know, let's, let's get an example, Joe, and say I've got a Bachelor of Science in biology and I just graduated. How many other folks might be applying for the same kind of jobs I'm applying for?

Yeah, and that's the critical thing. You've got to be able to show what separates you. And remember that most employers are not just looking for somebody who can do something. All right. You know, they're building organizations. So it's also how do your— how does your contribution or your contributions, you know, make everybody around you better too? All right, so your value is much more than just what meets the eye. It's what can you bring to the organization. So, you know, there are, like you said, there are hundreds and thousands of people with various degrees. Okay, what makes you special? You know, what makes you— the term I always use with my students is what separates you from the masses. All right, how are you going to get the employer's attention?

You know, I'm going to digress from the book for just a second because I have counseled many college students and we do practice interviews and that kind of stuff for the jobs that they want. And when we get the compensation piece, I always offer after we've had the first set of interviews that you're going to get a job offer and they're going to say, here's the compensation, whatever it is. And I always teach them that that person making the job offer has a piece of paper in front of them that shows salary ranges for skill levels, experience levels, education levels, those kind of things. And know that no matter what that job salary offer is, the best question to ask is always, how much flexibility do you have with that? Because I make the case, no, no buyer— in this case, employer— cares how much you need. They don't care how much you want. They care how much value you provide to them. Is that a fair way to approach that, Joe?

Well, without a doubt. And I love the way you just said that. I usually say that an employer determines this is what the job is worth. I mean, that's just really funny. Is there any flexibility in this? Well, maybe it's like, okay, this is what I had in mind for the job, but can you give me something else? I mean, is there something that you have that that I wasn't counting on or I didn't see, because then, you know, maybe there is some flexibility. But you, you have to show the, the buyer that, that you've got more than what the buyer anticipated.

And so, Bill, that goes back to the value question, doesn't it? What value do you bring?

Well, and, you know, Gary, I, I, before the pandemic, I travel around the country and actually around the world talking about this, this particular subject here. 'Cause I wrote a book called Money Talks Finally, the first ever interview between man and money. I actually interviewed money and money told me a lot of great things. But, you know, people would come up to me after my talk and say to me, how do I get paid what I'm worth? And I said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, I'm not really, I don't feel like I'm getting paid what I'm worth on my job. And I said, yes, you are. I mean, whatever they're paying you, that's what you're worth because you agreed to work for that amount. That's the amount they offered you. You know, now if you want to get more, here's a clue to everybody. Nobody ever pays you for work you are about to do. You know, so you, you've gotta, you've gotta start providing value to them long before you get the money for that. You know, you got to walk in there to that interview. Well, I mean, these days, hey, even getting an interview is crazy because you got the algorithms for Indeed. And so if you've waited till you graduate to start making yourself look valuable and building value, you waited, you know, 4 to 6 years too late. You got to start freshman year becoming more valuable and your college will fight you every way on that because they don't want to be They don't want to bother with that. They want to be teaching the things that they have on the, you know, that they're on the roster already. They want to teach you sociology and this and that. You got to break through that barrier and start looking for the sub— for the courses at your college that were actually going to make you a more valuable animal.

Joe, you got a question?

Yeah, just real, just real quick. You know, I had this conversation with some of my I had a class last night and I had this conversation with some of my students. And let's just say that you have a yearly contract that expires on June 30th, as many people do, right? And you're not happy with your compensation. You know, the great thing about having a contract that ends on June 30th is that you become a free agent. Alrighty? So you don't have to work for what you're working. So why don't you just go out there and see what somebody else wants to give you? All righty. And you're going to be very, very surprised because you're going to find out that you are most likely you are getting compensated at the correct rate. You may think you have more value, but the buyer doesn't. So go out there and try to be a free agent and see what happens. I mean, it happens all the time in sports, and there are many, many, many guys who don't have a contract when the season starts.

And this is my video visual reminder. I'm gonna make an edit here. I'm gonna talk about LinkedIn. Um, are either of you comfortable talking about students showing their value using LinkedIn?

If not, I'll probably— well, I'm probably not as comfortable with that, but I could talk about that.

Okay, let's do that then. So Bill, we talked about creators showing value, demonstrating value, and there's, there's software tools out there, there's social media tools out there like LinkedIn If I were a student just graduating from college or hey, even in my college career, what kind of guidance would you give me in trying to demonstrate value using a tool like LinkedIn?

Well, first of all, again, Gary, I go back to the fact that if you're just getting on LinkedIn when you're about to graduate, you're 4 years too late. Yeah. You know, you gotta create a LinkedIn account the minute you get there. Now, the minute you get to college. Now, here's the thing, use your career resources office or whatever it's called on your campus. I mean, these are people whose job it is to help you get a job. And so they'll help you grow your value. So, but now we're in the point of showing value. LinkedIn is a fantastic way to show value. You can put pictures up there. You can put, hey, here's what I do. I tell my students, because I do a lot of projects in my classes, you know, and so I tell my students, let's say you build a big Excel worksheet or something like that. And Gary, we have a— in the book, we talk about my daughter who actually did this. And, you know, she created a very— now she has got a master's degree in hospitality and she's working now as a assistant director of business analytics for a big resort down in Florida, doing very well. But when she went to get that job, she took this Excel spreadsheet, which is very complicated. And rather than just posting that on like LinkedIn, what she did was she made a screen capture video for it. You can go, there's a thing called screampal.com. That's screampal.com. Joe and I do not get any, well, first of all, it's free. So, So we don't get anything from the screen. But you can get— you can bring up your spreadsheet and do a video tour of the spreadsheet because you don't want to— you don't want to send a spreadsheet to somebody and maybe not have them understand it. That's wasted, you know. And then you put the link to that video, you put it up on YouTube, you put that link on LinkedIn.

Yeah.

You know, and you draw attention to it. My daughter Kathleen, What she did was she made one especially specifically for the particular job she was looking for. And she put it on YouTube, sent that link down about a week before her job interview. Meanwhile, now everybody's circulating that link around, you know, and they're all watching this. And she got hired. Actually, the job she applied for, they— when they saw this this LinkedIn video, they said, we have a better job for you.

This true story.

We have a better job for you than we were— than you were— the one you were applying for, because we didn't know this could even be done, you know. So it was a great thing. So, so yeah, LinkedIn is wonderful. You can start following other people. You know, you need to be— you need to be showing your value starting freshman year. Any little thing you do, trumpet it. And can I say one more thing too? Sure. Here's another great video tip. Whatever job you're on right now, let's say you have a job in the summertime, you're at college, do some video there and give people what we call a JTV. A JTV— I have all my internship students, I'm teaching internship this course this summer, and my students all have to produce a JTV, a job tour video where they give a tour of their job, what they do there, and how it provides value for their employer. And they put it on YouTube and I tell them, hey, then use that for LinkedIn, you know, and get that out there so people can, can, can have a quick reference and they can just pass that around everybody. And you say, oh, listen, let's say you're a server in a restaurant, you know, and maybe you're not applying for a hospitality job, you're applying for a marketing job or whatever. You talk about, hey, here's what I've learned. You know, I got to get— I got customers out there who want me, and I've got the restaurant who wants me to sell more. You know, it's, it's, it's bam, Gary. That makes all the difference.

And Joe, when we talk about using social media tools, Really, any kind of career starts with relationships, right? How are we established?

Well, I've always believed that. I've always believed that there's never— you can always, you can always build relationships, you can always build interpersonal skills. And takes us back to, you know, what are employers saying are some of the weaknesses, uh, of the, of those in the job market. And, you know, it really comes down to 3 things: time management skills, professionalism, and critical thinking. And, you know, professionalism and time management can incorporate so many things. Just the simple fact of looking somebody in the eyes when you're talking to them and knowing when and when not to use your phone. And how about just showing up for work on time? You know, colleges don't teach those lessons. And you know what, it's really— It's really embedded in the whole culture of college. Think about it. It's okay to, quote, have 3 cuts in this class and still not be penalized. Now, how in the world is that going to translate to your boss, your employer? It's okay to miss 3 days of work and you won't be penalized. I mean, you just think of some of the lessons that are being taught. In college. Oh, you didn't do really well on the test, but don't worry about it, I'm going to curve all the grades so everybody will look good. I mean, it's a joke. I mean, come on, that— how in the world is that creating, you know, the type of person that, that, that somebody wants to invest in? I mean, it just makes— this makes no sense to me, Gary. It just makes no sense. It's incongruent. With the real world.

Hey, Gary, quick, quick, quick story. I talked to my brother-in-law this weekend. We were talking about summer jobs we had, you know, a long time ago. He's my age. And he was telling me about— he was, he was a— we're at the Jersey Shore here. And he was— when he was 16, he was a dishwasher at a big restaurant that— it's closed now. That was— this was, you know, 50 years ago. Or almost 45, 45 years ago. And, but what happened was he was living with a bunch of friends, and they got kicked out of their apartment because one of them had a big party while he was at work. He gets back, his clothes are on the front lawn. Landlord threw them out. So he has no place to live. But he said, he said, you know, I was the only dishwasher at this place that showed up on time every day. And so this place gave him a— they cleared out a room for him upstairs at the restaurant and let him live there for the rest of the summer because he was so valuable to them just because he showed up on time.

So, and then I guess the last part of this show, um, grow, show, and bestow. Bill, step us through the scenario. I have found that first post-college job. How am I going to bestow my value in those first weeks, months, and years?

Well, it's— it is more difficult to bestow your value because you don't have all that much of it, which is why you're getting paid what you're getting paid. That's what they call a starting salary, because they're going to be investing in you as well. They're going to be teaching you things. But here's what you want to do. Every chance you get, you want to help somebody else succeed. So, so every, every day you're on the job, you know, well, first of all, do your job, you know, get there on time, wear the right clothing, you know, don't spit on the floor, all the good things you have to do. But, but every day I want you to be thinking about, okay, how do I help other people be successful where I work? This will change everything for you because once you start bestowing value on other people, see what happens. Gary, when you become valuable, you develop what is called mentor equity. And I, in another book I wrote, I talk about the 5 kinds of equity you want to build up. And now when you, when you have equity, you own something. You know, your degree has very little equity with it. You know, your diploma, it's you that has equity there. And what you want to do is you get to the point where you are actually getting aid to bestow equity, your, your, your, your mentor equity, your value on other people. And that's when you start, you know, if you're in a corporation, that's when you start rising up through the ranks. If you have your own business, is when you start making your own business more valuable because you've made everyone else in the business valuable.

And, and Joe Carabi, as we wrap this up, you talk about teamwork a lot, and that's kind of what Bill's talking about here, isn't it?

Without a doubt. I mean, every once in a while I'll slip to an analogy about sports. I mean, you probably found that out.

Every once in a while, right?

Every once in a while we'll slip into a sports analogy. But, but, you know, think about it. You know, a running back doesn't score a touchdown unless the offensive line knocks the defensive line out of the way. All right. So, you know, when— and the thing about making somebody else— I'm going to pick up on what Bill said here. The interesting, interesting thing about making somebody else look good is that you feel good. You feel good about yourself. You feel good about, you know, the camaraderie of the team. And I got news for you. There's a reason why running backs buy offensive linemen Rolex watches. All right. Because they realize that, you know, without them, they're not going to function. So I'm a firm believer in building a team approach, but you got to earn that. All right. You got to give— you've got to— you've got to give other people a chance to grow, use your skills to help them get better. And you just can't be jealous. I mean, just, just do it, man, because it's going to make you feel better. It's going to make them feel better. And they might even take you out to lunch. Who knows?

Gary, I'll end with one quick thing here, and this is a hard thing to say. People are gonna have a tough time hearing this. Gary, you might even— I wanted to wait till the end on this because you might even cut this out in the editing, but here's a hard message to students and to recent graduates. If you can't find a job, you're getting paid what you're worth.

Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Well, the book is Bankrupt U. The co-authors have been our guests for a series of shows, Drs. Bill Quain and Joe Carabi. Always a pleasure. Bankrupt U: Students, Parents, and Alumni Are Going Broke. We've talked about all those. And Colleges Don't Give a CRAP. And Bill, what does the CRAP acronym stand for?

Creating Richer Alumni Playbook. And Joe and I do give a crap. We give you one right in this book.

Very good, guys. A fascinating series of shows. Thank you very much, and we'll keep going.

Thank you, Gary.

Thanks, Gary.