In this 6‑questions‑in‑7‑minutes interview, Professor Pete Alexander talks with Mark Hirschberg, a startup CTO, longtime MIT career‑development instructor, and author of The Career Toolkit. Hirschberg shares his passion for teaching and explains why most companies suffer from a lack of soft‑skill training, urging leaders to invest in skills such as public speaking, networking, interviewing, and negotiation. He emphasizes that skill growth can be incremental—just a few hours of focused learning can yield massive ROI. Hirschberg recounts his first non‑trivial job teaching chess in middle school, illustrating how creating a role to fill an unmet need can launch a career. He recommends fellow author Olivia Fox Cabane (author of The Charisma Myth) as a guest and directs listeners to his website, thecareertoolkitbook.com, where the book, a free app, and additional resources are available.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
My name is Mark Hirschberg. And while my day job is as a startup CTO, I've also spent the last 20 years teaching a career development class at MIT. And I'm the author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You.
Mark, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Question number 2, what is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry?
I love the teaching that I do within universities and now what I do with the book. Because the feeling I get helping other people, seeing the difference I make as they pursue their own happiness and success in their careers, it's just a wonderful sense of accomplishment and warmth that I get.
And I can hear the passion in your voice. I love it. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
How to train up and develop your staff. We unfortunately do not teach the important skills in school, and we don't teach it within our organizations. And so everyone suffers. Everyone works at a suboptimal level.
Mm, I like that. That's very insightful. Thank you. Question number 4, other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice would you give to other business leaders?
It goes to developing these skills in yourself and in other people. When you think about the skills you have, we're all experts in some area. But what happens is we're limited by the areas where we're not strong. So consider that classic— some deep expert, whether it's a professor or business expert, who's not strong at, let's just say, public speaking. So, wow, he's really brilliant, but, uh, no one wants to listen to him. His ideas don't come out well. And if he could just get a little better at public speaking, not being the person on stage at TED Talk, but just being a competent public speaker, his ideas would come through so much better. This is true for all of us, not just with public speaking. With our leadership, our team building, communications, having an extensive network to reach more people, our ability to negotiate, all of these skills make us stronger or hold us back when they haven't been developed. And as I noted earlier, we don't really teach it or develop it. So putting a little bit of time into these skills, we still have to, of course, focus on our core. In my case, in technology, I have to stay abreast of the new technologies. But putting some time into these other skills, not becoming the world's greatest expert, but strengthening them makes us so much more effective in whatever our area of competency is. So doing this for yourself and for your team and organization is going to return massive benefits.
I really like that a lot and completely agree with you. Do you find that increasing the— your level of skill in a particular area, do you have to spend a lot of time doing that, or is it just incremental in your experience?
It's typically incremental because unfortunately we're starting from zero. Think about skills networking. No one's actually sat us down to talk about networking. Interviewing— most executives I know have had zero training in how to actually interview a candidate. So if you spend just a few hours, you're not the world's greatest expert, but you're so much better off. So investing just a few hours in each of these topics, massive ROI. Mm-hmm.
I really like that. And you know, you're investing in yourself. And as a continuous learner, you're not going to get stagnant. So I think it's wonderful advice. Thank you. Question number 5, what other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
My friend Olivia Fox Caban, who wrote The Charisma Myth. Wonderful writer, wonderful speaker, wonderful book.
Thank you for that. I look forward to reaching out to her. And our final question, question number 6: please tell me about your first job.
My first non-frivolous job, other than the kind of babysitting or shoveling driveways, was teaching chess when I was in middle school. In fact, even elementary school, I used to go take chess lessons. I was a competitive chess player. And then the person who was teaching stopped. He moved away. There was no one to teach chess at the community center. And my mom said, why don't you do it? So I went back to community center. I was in high school at this point and said, hey, you used to have a chess program. No one's teaching it. I know chess. I can teach it. And so I ran the program. And that was a critical insight because so often throughout my career, I have generated a job that didn't exist. It was not, hey, we're looking to hire this. I went out and said, I see a need here, can I fill it? And that was the very first time I did that.
Oh, I love that. And I love the fact of creating a job because when you're able to create the job, you can mold it in the way that you can be most successful. Am I right?
Absolutely, yes.
Great story. Thank you for that. And Mark, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
You can go to my website, thecareertoolkitbook.com. We can learn more about the book, get in touch with me, download the free app, or look at many of the other resources I have listed on the website, thecareertoolkitbook.com.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
