Ep. 43: Unspoken Truths for Career Success with the Job Doctor Tessa White

Welcome to the Pub Date Podcast, the show where two book broads discuss what should happen before, during, and after your book publication date. Brought to you by Broad Book Group with your host Vanessa Campos and Jen Dorsey. Welcome, happy Friday! Welcome to the Pub Date Podcast. Hi Vanessa, how are you today?

I'm great. It's raining. I spilled coffee on myself and my dog peed in my house, but it's Friday.

Awesome. It's time for the weekend. It's almost 5 o'clock.

It's almost there.

We're getting there. We're getting there. Well, we do have something to celebrate, and that is that we have an amazing guest today. We are so honored to have Tessa White join us. Tessa, you and I, we have had a history this last year together. She's got an amazing book coming out, so I want to just give a little bit of background on who Tessa is, or as she titles it on her website, my credentials for stuffy people, which I think is fantastic. Tessa's been the head of HR for a lot of fast growth companies. She's worked with Stephen Covey. Some of the companies she's worked with include UnitedHealthcare, Sunrun, which was, I believe, Vivint Solar. Is that correct? Right, right. And she serves on the Board of Trustees for Utah State University and the Utah Valley University Women's Success Center. And most colloquially, she is known as @thejobdoctor. So if you have been on TikTok and you have seen the Job Doctor, that is Tessa. We are so thrilled to have you today to talk a little bit about your experience of marketing your book on TikTok, BookTok, and also to talk about the book The Unspoken Truths for Career Success. Welcome to the show.

Oh, thank you. This is going to be fun because this is an unusual— I think it's an unusual journey and an unusual marketing technique. I think I'm a first-time author, but it's been really fun for me to experiment.

So talk to us a little bit about how you got involved, um, spreading your message on TikTok and on social media, because I just think it's so fascinating.

Oh, well, it started because I wanted to write a book and I found an agent, and when I talked to that agent, she said, you're a nobody, you're just another HR person, nobody's gonna read your book, and I can't sell it unless you have followers. Come back to me when you have followers. So I said, okay, I'll go get some followers. And my daughter posted some things on TikTok. I couldn't even navigate TikTok at all at the time, and I forgot about it. 3 days later, my son calls me from California and he said, Mom, this can't be true, but my girlfriend said you were on her For You page. Are you on TikTok? And I went and looked, and I had 10,000 followers after 3 days. And I have averaged 1,000 followers a day since then, which to me is absolutely crazy. That I have that many followers on social media. I am the most unlikely influencer on the planet.

I think that is fabulous. And what was that first post? Do you remember?

It was about jobs. So it was a call-in, kind of a call-in radio show type format, and I was giving advice on, you know, how to get seen and resumes, how to interview, and it just picked up steam and went crazy at a time that converged with when everybody was at home during the pandemic and looking for career advice. And it just, it was the right timing, the right experience. Everything just converged and it went crazy.

Wow, that is fantastic. I love it. And I love following you on there. I learn something new every single time.

Thank you.

So in your TikTok journey, the pre-book journey, you kind of had that as a goal in your mind. So When you set out to, to really dig into that, how did you plan what to put on it? I think that, that confuses a lot of people. They don't know whether they should just sort of, you know, post what they're feeling that day or what pops in their mind. Do you have like a content calendar that you use, or what's your method to your—

I've tried content calendars. I can't do it. It hits me when it hits me, and it still does. And so I have to just I, I read voraciously, so I read a lot of business articles and trends, and then I have a Rent My Brain consultancy. And as I hear different trends, I immediately will go in and do TikToks. And what I find is I might do 5 in a day and, you know, spread them out during the week, but when I've had somebody come to film them, I can't do it that way. It has to be in the moment. And as a result My TikToks are janky. I mean, sometimes I have no makeup on, sometimes mascara smeared down my face. It hits me when it hits me. But I have found that people respond to the content and actually have a lot of forgiveness about everything else, the film quality. And when I tried to do some really professional ones, they didn't do nearly as well. I think people want to see authenticity.

Absolutely. To me, when I get on there and I'm definitely not on there as much as my kids are, I will readily admit that. But when I do and those for yous pop up, it is. It's, it's the most compelling stuff is just people being themselves. And I think people have a BS-o-meter and they know when it's highly stylized and produced, right?

I agree.

Yeah, yeah. And that is definitely— authenticity is one of the reasons why a lot of authors, um, I think end up writing a book, because they share their story. Like you, I mean, this may be the fourth career book that I've picked up in the last 2 years since the pandemic started, and they're all written really differently, so they're all bringing different value. And so I really appreciate that you've gone in and it's just like, it's now, it's happening, and it's just like, turn it on and go. How long did it take you to actually— I'm gonna say the courage, because I don't have the courage to do that as of yet, to actually like, just go, let's do this.

Well, if you mean go do this, write a book, that was always the goal. If you mean go do this, be an influencer, it was never the goal. It just was fallout from wanting to write a book. And I, I just, something happened when I hit about 52, when I quit my corporate job at the height of my earning potential, I was making bank. I just one day woke up and I had no more fear. I don't know why that happened, but suddenly I wanted to try water skiing or, you know, jet skis. And I wanted to try things I'd never tried before. I didn't dare. And I just thought, I'm not getting any younger, let's go for it. And it, it is really a gift to not be fearful. And it's, you know, when I started posting the TikToks at first, the first few I did, I immediately erased. I went, oh my gosh, this is horrible. I look horrible. I sound horrible. Nobody's gonna listen. And then I thought, you know what, what the heck, let's go for it. Let's just see. And the more I allowed them to just live, no matter how ridiculous I thought I sounded, I realized that nobody's watching close enough or that close. I'm my greatest critic, and I just started to put out the content whether people liked it or not, and I figured I would find my audience, and it, and it worked. So I've tried things I never would have guessed I would have tried. It's really fun. It's really fun to live without fear at this age.

Absolutely. And speaking of that, we are also Facebook friends, and I noticed that you went fishing this weekend and you caught these massive fish.

Yeah.

That is amazing. I mean, talk about no fear. I wouldn't even know where to start to go out into the wilderness and do something like that. I loved your pictures.

That was one of the things I said. I saw an opening and I went, hmm, I think I'm going to sign up. And I read Shonda Rhimes' book Yes, and she said, say yes more. So I started saying yes more, and it opened up everything, you know, deep, deep friendships. It opened up opportunities with books and television and media and It's just been incredible for me over the last couple of years.

Well, and especially since the book came out, because you've had quite a whirlwind, uh, book launch. You, you've been to New York and Vegas. Tell us a little bit about that, because I don't think everyone gets to have that kind of experience. So what was it like?

I know, ordinary girl has amazing experience. I'm just me. I'm just this little old me. We went to New York and my, uh, picture was up on the billboard in Times Square, which was really trippy to see. And we went around to businesses like LinkedIn and we did a man on the street videotaping for media because we've got Jimmy Fallon and some other shows really interested in that format to do Job Doctor as a guest. I mean, can you imagine me standing in the middle of New York at— with a microphone asking people career questions? How crazy is that? And yet I did it and it was fun and it was really successful. And then I went from that to New York to the first big keynote on the book. And again, I'm going to LA in a couple of weeks and we're just going to keep going on this great journey. And what's happening is, as people hear about it, we're getting more and more calls— what a gift— to go visit other companies and share the message, because there really is an adversarial nature between employees and employers right now. And if the book can help make people and companies partners again, it's just very well-timed message to have a book out on that topic right now. So Here's hoping for more success.

Definitely. And, and speaking of the book, it's The Unspoken Truths for Career Success, and I know it very well because we got to work on it a little bit together. But talk to our, our listeners a little bit about the kinds of truths that you hope to, to uncover with this, and, and really what the goal and the messages of the book.

The message really is around what's happening, I think, with employers. Burnout is a real thing, and if you study it, the real root cause of burnout is a lack of control. And I think people are feeling a lack of control in the workplace, especially you get layoffs. And so how do you balance out the power? This is not about stick it to the company at all. This is about how do you speak the company's language and how do you balance out power by having a greater voice. So I teach people what I've seen, the thousands upon thousands of case studies of people and the conversations I've seen behind closed doors that everybody misses out on, and what helps people get ahead. How do you say the right words? How do you have the right conversation? How do you create balance for yourself and boundaries for yourself at work? And how do you ask for a raise? How do you get leverage in a company? How do you— what are politics really and how can they help you? What about promotability and how do you create your own top performer plan and get feedback so that you know how you're viewed in an organization and don't have to wait once a year to get 10 minutes of bad feedback that you can't interpret? So I just try and help people with all the things that really are the most common concerns that I think snag people up in my experience.

Sure. And you mentioned the word politics, and I know that's something that we talked about a lot during the development of the book and how people really view that maybe too literally. They don't really see that politics, at least corporate politics, that's something that you can really use to your advantage if you know how to navigate it.

Yeah, I think people think of politics as the bad guy, the bad thing in the room. As I did. You know, I can remember there was a guy, I called him Golden Boy in the book. He just seemed to get all the promotions and everything, and it was so frustrating. I'm like, I'm not going to play the game like him. But when I could step back and reframe it, which the book teaches you how to do, you understand politics is nothing more than how a company values work getting over the finish line. And there's 5 principles of politics, and I, I lead people down this path to say, how do you analyze your own company by observing and know what your company values? And there's a politics scorecard, so you can actually make the adjustments you need. For me, I was applying the work politics of healthcare to a fast-moving tech company. It never would have worked. I, I would have been fired. But if you read it correctly and make the adjustments, it can make the difference of whether you like your company and whether you succeed and whether you fail.

Oh yeah, and culture plays such a role in that too. I mean, they kind of go hand in hand, right?

Very much.

Politics piece and the culture piece.

Very much. In fact, some people like to call it culture. I call it politics, but very, very closely related. They're in the same family for certain.

Yes, it's about way more than eating birthday cake in the break room, I think.

Yes, it is.

That's there too, but, you know, Bagel Friday and all that stuff. Well, you know, the book I just think is such a gift to the people who read it because you, you really do speak from the heart in it. And to me, that is such a value from a subject matter expert like yourself because you're not taking it and making it overly academic. It's not dry. I mean, you, you write in a very fun and engaging style that just makes people love you. And I think that's what is your secret sauce, I guess, on TikTok as well.

So I do believe people don't want theory. They don't want big long books and, and how do I apply this theory. People want quick, actionable. How do I do it? They just do. And so that's why the book is more reference guide and manual than it is read from start to finish, you know, chronologically. I have charts. Do this, not that. Here's the script. Here's the case study on this so you know how to apply it and make it really, really simple for people to get across the finish line. Some of these concepts.

That is so great. I'm going to use it for sure. I think we all are. Vanessa, do you have any final questions for Tessa that you'd like to bring up?

I actually do. I was actually— and this is something that I was always— I'm always hesitant to buy a new author's first round of books because it's always a hardback, especially with a publisher, you know, like HarperCollins. That is usually the first edition. But then I picked— I went to the store, I picked up my copy, and it's a paperback. And I love you for that. I love you for that. I love you for that. I love you for that. But tell me why. What, what was the decision, and how did you get them to actually make this call?

I am a firm believer I wanted a good partner that understood millennials and Gen Z like I feel I do. I mean, my last company was 4,000 millennials and Gen Z and 10 adults in the room, and so I feel like I understand the audience pretty well. I said they don't buy hardbacks, and they don't read cover to cover. They are skimmers, and I'm a skimmer. Our attention span is shorter. And so I wanted a book that had callouts that you could literally read the whole book by just flipping through the pages and getting the bold callouts and going to the chart to reference how to say that thing or do that thing with your manager. I felt like it was a model that would resonate with people more so than a cover-to-cover book that is written in a really traditional way. I even made them change the font on the inside because I wanted it to be a different font than, than most people are reading. And thankfully they agreed.

I love that you, you have that partnership with them and they were able to listen to you because it's very, very few and far in between where it's like, oh, it's the first book and it's a leadership book and it has to be a hardcover and it has to, has to. But I also, you know, if you, if you've gotten a chance to take a look at the table of contents, I love— and I gravitated toward this immediately because because your titles are The Lies About Performance, Lies About Power, and it's just like, at being mid-career and trying to figure it all out, you feel like companies are lying to you, and I love that. So I really do appreciate that. Was that something that they fought you on? I'm just curious.

That's actually a great question. The book was originally titled The Lies That Got You Here: How to Reclaim Your Workplace Satisfaction. They made me change the title, and it was very hard because they said negative titles we click on to read articles, but we don't buy negative book titles because we want to get better. So they made me reframe it in a more positive light, and it was a really hard title to settle on. So that's why Everything Starts with Lies, because I kept the inside exactly the same and we just came up with a different title on the outside.

Well, I love that they let you keep those because I'm like, yes, the lies that they all tell us, right? And the truth that you know, you don't get to hear unless you're behind those closed doors. So I really, really appreciate it. I love this. I love that it's in a paperback. It just speaks to my, my, my geriatric millennial heart.

You know, if you, if you like, if that resonates with you, I'll tell you the chapter you should read. You should go to the chapters on promotability because I go through the 5 stages of career growth and tells you what to expect at each stage in your career. What are the fatal flaws? What are the things you can expect? The skill set that you must know how to do, or it's going to hold you back in your career, and what's going to surprise you. I find that people that are about mid-stage in their career are really resonating with that section, and it's really helpful for them.

And I love that you break it up into 3 different chapters. So if you're in early stage, mid-stage, and senior leadership— so I really appreciate that. For those of you who haven't picked up the book, pick it up. It's chapters 9, 10, and 11. Go straight there.

I had to fight for those, by the way. Jen probably knows that I had to fight to break those into 3 separate chapters, but I felt so strongly about it that they made the book longer, agreed to make it longer so that we could cover those.

Yeah, it was very important.

Yeah, I agree.

Well, where can people find you and learn more about you, Tessa, aside from reading the book, which they are all going to do?

They can go to thejobdoctor.com. That's where you find out about me and my products. And I have a new podcast out that is— we didn't expect it to go so fast and to be killing it, but it's killing it out there. And it's called The Job Doctor Is In. So if you like my short spurts, this is a dive deep. We have a call-in from real people, real problems, and we solve the problems on the call. And I give them the scripts and the way to navigate it. So I think that that would be something worth your listeners looking into. And Job Doctor Tessa is me on all the social platforms. You can find me Fantastic.

And I know you're going to be there. You're not going away anytime soon because great success is happening for you. We're so happy for you. Thanks so much for joining us today. It has been lovely, and we hope you'll come back.

Thank you.

You bet. Well, we want to thank our producer Paul Roberts and our executive producer Emily Carpenter-Pulskamp from Little Red Communications. We'll see you next time. We hope that you gained some valuable insights into the world of book publishing. Head over to broadbookgroup.com to learn more about us and all our services, and be sure to check out all our social media @BroadBookGroup. Until then, keep publishing.