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Eggs 450: Unlocking Human Potential with A.J. Mizes · EGGS! The Podcast

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Now back to the show. Hey, everybody.
1:38
Welcome back to another episode of Eggs Podcast.
1:40
Today's special guest is AJ Mizes, the founder and CEO at
1:43
the Human Reach. AJ how are you, man?
1:45
I'm doing well, Ryan. Thanks for having me.
1:47
Hey Mike too. Thanks so much for making time
1:50
for us, really appreciate it. Yeah, we really appreciate it.
1:53
Do you want to give us a brief overview of who you are and what
1:57
you do? Absolutely.
1:58
So I am the founder and CEO of The Human Reach, which is a
2:00
human potential institute based in California.
2:03
We're based in San Francisco, although we have 30 teammates
2:05
all over the world, and our prime mission is to help get
2:09
people from being stuck and frustrated to thriving and hired
2:13
and growing in in in their roles.
2:16
So we mainly work with directors, VP's and above to
2:19
help them discover what they want to do, why they want to do
2:21
it, then ultimately go out and put a plan together on how to
2:24
get it. And my background is in HR and
2:27
recruiting. So I've been working in HR and
2:30
recruiting for about 20 years. Most recently I was at Facebook
2:34
for the last 6. I stopped working there in 2023,
2:37
although the Human Reach was founded in 2020.
2:39
So we've been at this for about four years.
2:41
I work with thousands of clients and we're, we're, we're a pretty
2:45
massive team now, which is, which is really fun.
2:48
That's awesome. That's really cool to see it go
2:50
from, you know, just you to thousands of people and it's
2:53
need to see something like that grow.
2:55
Can you everyone, you know, you hear Facebook and you're like,
2:59
Oh my goodness, you want to tell us a little bit about working
3:02
with them and you know, the company culture and then your
3:07
decision to leave. That's kind of a a job most
3:10
people are fighting to get. And then, you know, for you to
3:13
go off on your own and leave a company like that, that's, that
3:17
says something. Talk about a mind F.
3:20
Yeah, right. That definitely was.
3:23
And I, I loved working at Facebook slash Meta, what
3:28
they're known for now, but I was there for six years.
3:30
It's a really amazing place. And it was amazing for a couple
3:33
of reasons. One was because of the people,
3:36
and you hear that a lot from folks, but they were honestly,
3:39
the folks at Facebook were the smartest people I had ever
3:41
worked with in my career. And I think it enabled me to
3:43
learn how to run a really great business, how to lead the right
3:46
way, how to set goals and help hold a high bar and how to hire
3:52
really smart, talented people and making that high bar.
3:56
So in addition to that, I was the HR director for a group
4:01
within the augmented reality, virtual reality space.
4:04
And so we had about 10,015 thousand people in that arena.
4:08
So I had a huge HR team. And the other kind of reaction
4:11
that I get is, oh, HR and and you know, HR is the bad guy or
4:18
bad lady. And the the cool thing with
4:21
Facebook is that HR folks were not there to like push paper,
4:25
make sure people were doing their W nines and W twos and,
4:29
you know, firing people. The way in which Facebook
4:33
designed the HR role is to be a coach to leaders and to people
4:39
in that underneath those leaders.
4:42
And so my primary goal was to coach leaders to be better and
4:45
every VP at, at Facebook, how to hold everybody to really high
4:50
bar, how to motivate, how to design and grow teams.
4:53
It was very, very strategic, almost like a consultant.
4:57
And that kind of turned the page cause before Facebook, I had
5:00
been used to maybe traditional HR.
5:03
And so I, I really think that they're on the cutting edge.
5:06
But to go up to the story of like why I left Facebook.
5:09
So I come from a family of entrepreneurs.
5:12
My grandfather and my, my dad were, were all CE OS or
5:16
presidents or founders of companies.
5:18
So kind of in the DNA, I suppose.
5:20
But the story that I tell is that when I was 22 years old, I
5:25
was sat down by ACEO of a company I was working for.
5:28
Sarah Monkey shout out if you're watching.
5:31
And she told asked me like, Hey, what do you want to do in your
5:35
career? Like after you work at premier,
5:36
like what's your goal? And I thought that was such like
5:40
an astute question to ask. And also I was kind of like
5:42
taken aback because I was like, why is the CEO talking to you
5:45
about what I'm going to do afterwards?
5:47
But the answer that I gave her was I wanted to start a company
5:50
that was going to help people and I didn't know what I was
5:54
going to do, But it's it's some sort of product.
5:55
I wanted to run my own company one day and she has supported me
6:00
ever since. I was back in like 2000, I don't
6:03
know, 11. And so you know, I was in 2002
6:08
thousand 20. I was kind of sitting on my
6:09
couch. I was thinking about like I'd
6:11
been at Facebook at that point for about 3 years and I was
6:13
thinking like, hey, how do I want to contribute to the world?
6:17
What are people coming to me for?
6:18
And they were coming to for career advice for executive
6:20
coaching, leadership coaching, HR consulting, etcetera.
6:23
And I was thinking about regret and if I was sitting at a bar at
6:29
a restaurant and some young kid came up to me and was like, hey,
6:31
AJ, what's 1 big thing that you regret in your life?
6:34
It would, I would have said not starting my own company.
6:37
And so I had to work through a lot of fear.
6:39
I had to work through a lot of angst.
6:43
And it's all to leave that 'cause it was a cush job, right?
6:46
Golden handcuffs like name brand company, very hard to get into.
6:50
But ultimately, regret or the fear of regret was the thing
6:53
that motivated me to go out and do this thing.
6:56
Yeah, that's a really interesting observation.
6:58
I mean, I think that that's something that a lot of people
7:00
fight with, you know, and it's interesting about the time that
7:04
your business came in and through COVID and all that
7:06
stuff. Seems like there were a lot of
7:07
people in that kind of window there, especially like during
7:10
shutdowns and things like that where people did start to maybe
7:13
think this way a little bit, which was, you know, they'd had
7:15
a career all these years. But like now all of a sudden
7:17
I've got some time to myself and, you know, maybe I'm not
7:21
happy doing what I'm doing. And, you know, so there you
7:23
notice that there's sort of a trend of people, you know,
7:25
starting businesses or changing careers or doing different
7:27
things. You know, some people are just
7:29
chasing benefits, you know, maybe they wanted remote work or
7:31
whatever, you know, different things like that.
7:33
But people definitely started to, I think, take a little bit
7:37
more of a an inventory of how they were feeling about where
7:39
they were working and things like that.
7:41
And prior to that time, they ain't well.
7:43
And maybe no other way to get to that.
7:45
Like, I don't know if people would have really had such a
7:47
monumental shift in their in their mindset.
7:50
So I think that that's a really interesting observation.
7:52
One of the other things I want to do.
7:53
Oh, sorry, Mike, go ahead. Oh, I was going to ask, you
7:57
know, that it, it sounds like there was a kind of an overlap
8:00
there before you left Facebook. And when you kind of, you had a
8:05
few years where you're already kind of doing the coaching
8:07
thing. Was that by design or was that,
8:12
was there something that you, you hit a, a goal where you're
8:15
like, OK, I've got enough of a income stream coming from here
8:19
that I can leave comfortably? Such a great question.
8:24
I think so the, that's the long story or the short story is that
8:28
I, I was overlapped. But the, the longer story is
8:30
that I actually left Facebook in 2020 to start the human reach.
8:33
I was doing it full time for about 9 months.
8:35
And prior to leaving Facebook, I kind of made a decision in my
8:39
head and I talked with my partner to say like, Hey, what
8:42
do we need to see from an income perspective to like give us an
8:44
insurance net, you know, something to jump into so that I
8:48
can leave Facebook full time and really pursue this.
8:50
And so we came up with a number and, and then that's was my
8:53
pursuit of like, how can I go get X amount of dollars in
8:58
consulting contracts or coaching engagements for what period of
9:01
time? I got it in 30 days from setting
9:04
that number, which was like, I, I think key for me 'cause I
9:07
needed something to go after and target.
9:09
And then some of it was serendipitous.
9:11
Some of it, you know, you put stuff out in the universe and it
9:13
comes back to you. And so I got that number.
9:17
I did. I was full time in human reach
9:19
for nine months. And then Facebook ring Ring gave
9:21
me a call. And they were like, AJ, we want
9:26
you to come back and lead A-Team ARVR, the one that I joined in
9:30
the last stint. And we want you to build this
9:33
team. It's you, blah, blah, blah,
9:34
blah, blah. And so I was, I was at a
9:36
crossroads and I was like, OK, do I keep doing human Reach or
9:39
do I go back to Facebook And I, you know, said, hey, I have a
9:46
company that I've started, it's doing pretty well and I can see
9:49
the momentum building. Would you let me run it on the
9:51
side while I'm at Facebook? And I said it, we don't give it.
9:56
We don't give a crap. You can run your company.
9:58
We don't, we don't care. So I went back and I went back
10:01
for about two years, grew the ARVRHR squad and then
10:07
simultaneously still running Human Reach.
10:09
And then in January of 2023, I had had enough.
10:12
I had kind of soaked up as much as I could from that company and
10:16
they were really starting to take off at Human Reach.
10:18
And so I left for a second time. Yeah.
10:22
Well, that's good. And it's actually an interesting
10:23
perspective too, because like, I mean, even going into my own
10:25
business, there were a lot of years that I thought about
10:28
starting my business. And then basically it took a
10:30
layoff to kind of nudge me out the door, right?
10:33
I I was never in my situation. I wasn't quite brave enough to
10:36
take the step. And if I hadn't been sort of
10:38
shoved out the door, I wouldn't have realized, oh, this is
10:40
actually better. Like, this is a better place to
10:42
have been. Yeah.
10:43
And so I think a lot of people, you know, in trying to conquer
10:45
their own fear, I think you did it in a very smart way, which
10:47
is, you know, set some milestones in terms of financial
10:50
metrics so that you don't have to feel that squeeze.
10:52
You know, and I, I also, and maybe we can dive into a little
10:55
bit this notion of setting goals and chasing and trying to, you
10:58
know, achieve goals. I think just strictly by having
11:01
a number to chase, you know, that that probably put you in a
11:04
better position to achieve it. Then you know, you know, you
11:07
mentioned earlier that your business goal is to start a
11:09
business that helped people. Well, OK, well, that could be
11:12
anything, right? So it's pretty ambiguous goal,
11:14
but I need to make X number of dollars per month in order for
11:17
us to be happy or we need to have X number of dollars into,
11:19
you know, in savings or something to to float me for,
11:22
you know, a few months. Those kind of metrics I think
11:24
are, are things that people can actually work towards and
11:26
achieve. And I think just by bracketing
11:28
that, you know, and saying that this is the goal, it makes it
11:32
infinitely easier to achieve, I think.
11:34
Yes, 1000% and it, and it's so funny that you mentioned that
11:37
thing about like the genesis that gets you up to go do the
11:42
thing and in this case, start a business.
11:43
And like when your back's up against a wall, sometimes that
11:45
forces us to like look at all of our options and do the thing
11:49
that we want to do. But what I've, what I've found
11:51
and maybe that Ryan, this was true for you, is that like that
11:54
maybe that regret piece came in or like, hey, I think I would
11:57
really be like, I want to figure this out.
12:00
Like I want to see if I can start a company and run a
12:02
business. And I think what gets in the
12:04
way, especially like with people that we work with, is like that
12:08
fear factor of like the, the, the conversation between your
12:11
amygdala and your cortex and your brain, like the thing that
12:13
keeps you from doing something that your brain perceives is
12:15
going to kill you. And so I had to personally work
12:18
through that a ton, a ton, especially in the first like 12
12:23
months of running the company. Like there's scary stuff that
12:27
happens and you're, you're, you're used to AW roll like
12:32
getting a paycheck every two weeks.
12:33
It's the same amount and getting your benefits covered and
12:35
getting all the things right. And in at your own business,
12:38
your income goes like this. And so you have to get used to
12:42
that. And it takes, at least for me,
12:43
it took me 6 to 12 months to really get used to that.
12:47
And I wouldn't have, I wouldn't be on this side now like very,
12:51
very comfortable with it had I not just gone through and take
12:53
the first step. So.
12:55
Yeah, no, I think that's great advice.
12:58
Let's talk about the the first year of the human reach, like
13:04
figuring out, you know, this is what I want to do, then
13:07
acquiring clients and then growing the business.
13:11
Yeah. So the first year I was offering
13:14
three products because it's I don't maybe Ryan and Mike you
13:17
you can relate to this, but I was offering like a bunch of
13:19
different things. So it's like who's going to buy?
13:21
Who's going to? Who's going to?
13:23
Have to have one that's affordable, I have to have one
13:25
that's not. Exactly.
13:27
And like, so I was offering HR consulting, executive coaching
13:30
and career coaching. I kind of wanted to spread a
13:33
very large, you know, cast a wide net so that I, I was seeing
13:37
kind of what, what, what would hit.
13:40
I got immediately like two or three HR consulting clients.
13:44
I got like two or three HR, excuse me, executive coaching
13:47
and then several career coaching.
13:49
So didn't really help me figure out like, OK, I know there's a
13:52
demand for all three of these things.
13:54
So then it was like, OK, what do I enjoy doing the most?
13:58
I know there's a demand for all of this, but like, where do I
14:00
find the most joy? And while I'm definitely a
14:04
subject matter expert in HR consulting, it was like super
14:07
boring. And I was working with not all
14:09
of the CEOs, but I was working with some CEOs who just didn't
14:12
really get the people stuff. And so that was really
14:14
frustrating 'cause I would parachute in.
14:15
I would like try to coach and like talk about, you know, how
14:18
we need to design HR stuff. And, you know, it was kind of a
14:21
tug of war. So I was like, OK, I don't think
14:23
I want to do HR consulting anymore.
14:25
And then I was just exec and coaching and once I focus on
14:28
those two areas, it just like blew up and it was me and one
14:32
other coach and A and an admin at the time.
14:35
And then over, you know the the last three years career coaching
14:39
in our program, career amp has been just like growing like
14:44
gangbusters, which has fueled all the growth at our company.
14:49
Yeah, no, that's very cool. Well, so I wonder one of the
14:52
things that I wanted to talk about and maybe it kind of
14:54
pertains to goal setting a little bit, but also just sort
14:56
of in your own business and in your own life and stepping out
14:58
and becoming an entrepreneur. But then also in like the way
15:01
that you're coaching people through executive career paths
15:04
or or things like that is I think especially nowadays maybe
15:07
more than ever. But I don't know, it seems that
15:10
we spend a lot of time chasing dreams that aren't necessarily
15:13
our own. And so, you know, we catch stuff
15:15
on social media, we see what our friends are up to, we look up to
15:19
different people or whatever it is.
15:20
And it seems that a lot of times we end up grafting those dreams
15:23
or those ideas or those thoughts or those paths onto our own.
15:27
And so I wonder if you have any insights just in like working
15:31
with the people you work with or in your own experience in sort
15:35
of setting goals or being able to, I guess, I don't know, talk
15:38
to yourself and figure out what it is that what you actually
15:41
want. Because I think that there's so
15:42
many people, especially, you know, like you mentioned to me,
15:44
you worked at Facebook, right? A lot of people go, Oh my God,
15:46
you know, what a place to work at, You know, so it's like, oh,
15:48
I want to work at Facebook too. But do you really like, you
15:51
know, do I want to work at Facebook or is it just because
15:53
AJ works there? And I think it's cool, You know,
15:55
it's like, so a lot of times we end up just kind of grabbing
15:57
those things and they're not going to be fulfilling.
15:59
They're not going to be satisfying.
16:00
It's not even really what we want, but we're just doing it
16:02
because we think it's the thing. And so I wonder if you have any
16:05
insights on on sort of navigating that and sort of I
16:07
got I guess finding ourselves. Yeah, that's such a great point,
16:11
Ryan. And the a recent LinkedIn study
16:13
actually showed that three out of four people feel stuck in
16:16
their careers. So think about it, That's 75% of
16:18
people out there. Three out of every four people
16:20
that you know, are feel stuck. So it's a pandemic.
16:22
It's like an it's epidemic that's that's tackling or, you
16:26
know, going across the United States right now.
16:28
And a big factor is what you just hit on, which is people
16:31
following careers that their parents told them that they
16:33
should do that their culture, sometimes religion or their
16:37
friends, you know, and they, they, they climb a ladder just
16:40
because their friend is moving in a certain direction.
16:42
So we have like doctors and lawyers who come to us and we're
16:46
like, I don't wanna be a doctor anymore.
16:48
And they're like practicing positions and they're like, Get
16:50
Me Out. Like, I can't do this anymore.
16:52
I did this because my parents wanted, you know, sons and
16:54
daughters that were gonna be doctors, lawyers.
16:56
So it's, it's a big thing. So what we do is a lot of times
17:01
what folks try to do is they just try to especially if it's
17:03
like a slight right turn to what they were doing instead of like
17:06
a hard pivot like a doctor to a marketer or something.
17:09
But the first thing that we do that they do sometimes is just
17:12
go start to applying for things like fix the resume and like go
17:15
cast a really wide net. And what's happening in the
17:18
market right now and has always been true, but I'd say is
17:22
definitely more so now is companies are hiring specialists
17:25
and not generalists. And so you really have to think
17:28
about what you want to do, why you want to do it, and how you
17:32
have some proof in the pudding to show that you can.
17:34
And so the way in which we do that even before starting your
17:38
resume or your LinkedIn or stuff like that, is we have folks go
17:41
through a series of exercises to really understand like what
17:44
brings them joy, like the activities that they're doing,
17:46
even they're a doctor and trying to pivot to a marketer.
17:48
Like what are you doing day-to-day that you love as a
17:50
doctor? And what are the things that you
17:51
don't like doing? I'm just using this in it as an
17:53
example. Then we have them to go back
17:55
even further and we start talking about like, OK, what did
17:58
you love doing as a kid? What was something that you that
18:00
you fascinated you or that you found yourself drawn to or you
18:02
lost track of time as a kid? Then we haven't taken
18:05
assessment. And then we marry.
18:08
We marry all those things together to really understand
18:10
the patterns and themes that exist between all three of those
18:14
things so that we're finding a direction.
18:15
We're not just saying, oh, I can do marketing, I could do sales
18:17
and I can do customer success or, you know, whatever it is,
18:20
we're picking 1 based on all of those things.
18:23
We're coming up with a rubric of what a good role would look
18:27
like, what needs to be their company, with your manager, with
18:30
the team that you would be working on, all of those things.
18:32
So then we can go talk about branding, resume, LinkedIn cover
18:36
letter. Then we can start to generate
18:38
stories about how to talk about yourself, and then we proceed
18:41
forward from there. I like that it's, I, I think
18:46
it's a lot of people are, I'm a Jack of all trades.
18:50
I can do everything. I'm, I'm a generalist.
18:52
I, I can build a website and I can design it and I can do the
18:55
front end and I can do the back end.
18:57
And I can, you know it and, and really what you're doing is
19:00
you're just muddying the waters. But if you can specialize and
19:03
hone in on one specific area, it, it, it kind of opens more
19:08
doors for you and, and people will start looking, reaching out
19:13
to you to try and get the services specifically.
19:16
Like I specialize in SEO. I specialize in this and they
19:19
know that you're good at that. And then they come after you for
19:22
that. I've been guilty of being the
19:26
Jack of all trades. I, I do a little bit of
19:28
everything. And, and I, I know I'm guilty of
19:31
that. And mainly it's because I, I
19:33
like doing all those things. And so it's kind of, it's not a
19:37
necessarily a problem for me. I, I specialize in, in one
19:41
specific thing, but I, I do other things just for fun.
19:45
And so it's not necessarily a, a problem for me, but there are
19:49
people that when they, they're so general and so broad, it's
19:53
hard to kind of narrow down what they're really good at and what
19:57
they really enjoy doing versus they can do it.
20:02
And I, I actually, I listened to a podcast that you were on
20:05
earlier where you were talking about people who.
20:11
They, they do stuff and they're, they get known and they're good
20:15
at it, but they don't enjoy doing it.
20:17
So then they end up building this career and this job that
20:21
they don't enjoy doing, but they do it because they're known and
20:25
they're good for it. You maybe talk about that a
20:27
little bit. Absolutely.
20:29
So I love talking about the 7030 rule.
20:31
So the American Psychological Society ran a study almost 2
20:34
decades ago which really talked about looking at people's
20:37
day-to-day, what they were doing day-to-day and the task and if
20:41
you enjoyed it or not and their fulfillment from their role.
20:46
And what the study found was that people who are working 70%
20:51
of the time and things that they enjoy and are good at are way
20:54
more likely to be fulfilled in their roles.
20:55
So then the question is, what does the 30 represent?
20:58
So the 30% is, are the things that we have to do that just
21:02
come with our job? So the example that I give is
21:04
like as Ceoi have to, you know, look at finances.
21:08
I have to be the kind of, you know, accounting.
21:11
I have to understand the money part and run pivot tables and
21:14
all that jazz. Do I like doing that stuff?
21:16
Absolutely not. But is it something that I have
21:20
to do? Yes.
21:21
And so then you look at the 70, the other stuff that I'm doing
21:24
in my role, which is growing A-Team, setting up processes,
21:28
understanding growth goals, setting vision, like I love that
21:31
stuff. And so when I talk to people,
21:33
you know, and, and I talk about, oh, you need to find something
21:35
that's fulfilling. It's not like 100% of the job
21:38
needs to be fulfilled because that's just like, if you find
21:40
something that's that way, let me know because we'll go, we'll
21:44
go make a lot of money together, but, and be really, really
21:47
happy. So I, I try to also talk about
21:49
like what's your 70 and what, what do you shoot?
21:53
What do you want to be doing 70% of the time up to 70% or even
21:57
more. So that's where you're
21:59
optimizing for fulfillment. Yeah, No, I think that's really
22:03
smart and I'd like to maybe stay in this area a minute longer and
22:07
just talk about sort of, you know, choosing our specialties.
22:10
So you know, you mentioned the companies are looking for
22:12
specialists more than they're looking for generalists
22:14
nowadays. And I I think that's probably
22:17
true. I'm saying that in my experience
22:18
anyway, but as you encounter people who are trying to make
22:22
these sort of bigger career pivots, you know, maybe not
22:24
doctor to marketer, but you know, the, I don't know, product
22:29
designer to product manager, I don't know, I'd say, you know,
22:32
so, so it's kind of in the same realm, but you know, maybe they
22:35
don't like doing this, but they'd rather be doing that.
22:37
So but they don't have any work experience doing that.
22:40
They don't have their, you know, formal education maybe isn't in
22:43
that, you know, they, they don't necessarily have the chops to be
22:46
a specialist yet. How do you work with people who
22:49
are like committed that this is the path I want to go?
22:52
And do you help them formulate a plan?
22:54
Like is it go back to school? Like, I mean, do you actually
22:56
work through that? Or is there a way to sort of, I
22:57
guess, market yourself or try and identify characteristics in
23:00
your own ability that might qualify or appeal or at least
23:04
get you the interview and then, you know, maybe you can do the
23:06
rest from there? Absolutely.
23:08
OK, so three-step process here for people who are making
23:11
pivots, the first step is you need to look at financial
23:14
runway. So what like if you were to
23:16
like, if you're unemployed especially, what is your
23:19
financial runway look like? Is it 3 months of cushion?
23:23
Is it 6? Is it 12?
23:24
And understanding kind of your financial constraints cause
23:27
unfortunately or fortunately, how you look at it, we live in a
23:29
capitalist society. We need to be able to pay for
23:31
your bills. So we always have to look at
23:33
financial runway first. If you have a short financial
23:36
runway, it probably will not behoove you to make a career
23:39
pivot at this point. And So what we, what we work
23:41
with people on is how do you like get into a role that is
23:45
perhaps akin to the one that you just left if you're unemployed
23:48
and have a short runway and then how do you pivot once you're
23:51
there? So we give people strategies on
23:52
how to pivot once they're in that company and, and can
23:56
shorten the amount of time that they're not on payroll.
23:58
The second is that if you have a long runway just to say you're
24:03
employed and you want to make a pivot so you're getting the
24:05
income, but you you want to make a change, it's a lot easier to
24:09
do this because technically it takes a little bit longer of a
24:12
time. If you look at statistics on
24:13
career changers, it's usually like 6 to 12 months to make a
24:15
pivot versus like 4:00 to 6:00 if you're going to an akin roll.
24:19
And we help people tell their story in a different way.
24:22
So let's say you're going from a product manager to like a UX
24:26
designer or something like that. There are things that you're
24:28
doing as a product manager that is that are doing things like a
24:32
UX designer. And so sometimes like today,
24:35
take this example, for instance, like building a portfolio,
24:39
sometimes it's going to a boot camp and building your skills
24:43
around a certain methodology in UX.
24:45
Sometimes it's doing a hack 1/4, a hack a month at your current
24:49
job, doing UX things so that you have more accolades and value
24:55
that you're able to talk about on your resume in that vein.
24:58
So you're still doing your job as a product manager, but doing
25:01
some things as a UX person. So that's the second piece.
25:04
And the third piece is doing things like for free to get
25:13
experience. Great places to do that would be
25:17
like at nonprofits, at like a friend or family members company
25:20
and to kind of like do things on the side to show that you have
25:24
that expertise and not only that you've done the thing, but
25:27
you've gotten results. And so a lot of times what
25:31
people don't understand is that, you know, as a hiring manager, I
25:35
want to know that you can do the job.
25:36
Most times, sometimes I can, I'll take a, you know, a, a left
25:40
something out of left field and willing to invest and teach
25:43
somebody. But most of the time hiring
25:45
managers want to hire people who've done the job.
25:48
And so you have to be able to show that.
25:49
So those are three ways that you can do so.
25:52
So that's your role at at Facebook and HR.
25:56
You probably interviewed a a wide variety of job applicants
26:00
from software developers to designers to marketers to just
26:05
wide varieties. Is there any key interview, like
26:13
is there any advice that you could give someone who's going
26:15
through the interview process to stand out that that really stand
26:20
out to you? Like is it a follow up e-mail?
26:23
Is it certain questions they ask?
26:25
Is it, you know, the way they format their resume, their
26:28
portfolio? It's probably a combination of
26:30
all of the above, but there's there might be one or two
26:33
Nuggets that you could throw in there that that people have done
26:36
that just stood out to you. Absolutely.
26:38
So you're right, it is a combination of all of those
26:41
things. But the the the two areas I'd
26:43
say that people trip up the most on is they don't prepare before
26:46
the interview. They think they can walk in and
26:48
wing it. And we have clients all the time
26:50
who come to us. They've been unemployed or
26:52
looking for a year and they've been made it.
26:55
They've made it to final rounds and they have not gotten the
26:58
ring or the offer. And it's mostly because people
27:04
don't know the A, well, they're not preparing, but B, they don't
27:06
know how to tell stories in the right way.
27:08
And you think of an interview, it's storytelling.
27:10
It's talking about the David and Goliath story about the
27:13
different things that you encountered in your role, how
27:15
you conquered challenges and the results thereof by you
27:19
conquering the dragon or slaying the dragon.
27:22
And a lot of people struggle storytelling, but they also
27:28
struggle to talk about themselves in a specialist point
27:30
of view and really sealing the deal.
27:32
And I'll tell a story for like, even like the little things to
27:35
get in the way, which is when I was in a recruiting role about
27:39
10-15 years ago, I was working with a hiring manager and the
27:42
hiring manager had two finalists that we had presented to them
27:45
and they were torn. They were like, we don't know
27:47
how to make a decision. They're so great.
27:49
AJ, what would you do? And as soon as they said that,
27:52
they got a ping on their e-mail and it was somebody who had sent
27:55
a thank you note first. And so guess who they chose
27:59
because they couldn't pick, They chose the person who sent the
28:01
thank you note first. And so I tell people all the
28:03
time it's, yes, it's a combination of all these things.
28:05
And it can be as little as like being the fastest person to send
28:09
a thank you note because they're torn between two candidates.
28:11
And so that was the thing that tip, the tip, the scale.
28:15
No, that's a great example. I mean, I think any time you're
28:17
talking about, you know, trying to find a position, you know, I,
28:19
I have a son that's trying to be recruited for college football.
28:21
And I was trying to explain to him that, you know, basically
28:24
what you're doing is a job. You're asking your coach to give
28:26
you $100,000 education for free, right?
28:28
I mean, you're not thinking about it in, in terms of like a
28:30
paycheck, but it's a big expense that, you know, there, there
28:33
somebody's paying for this. And so, you know, so I've just
28:37
encouraged him, you know, make sure you're reaching out to
28:39
coaches, make sure you're sending emails, you're following
28:41
up, you're, you know, checking in, you know, periodically,
28:44
things like that, like getting on the radar, right.
28:46
And I think as that pertains to job hunting, you know, it's not
28:50
like, hey, I wanna go work for Apple and be an executive at
28:53
Apple today. It's like, OK, well, for the
28:55
next nine months, I'm gonna be, you know, liking their LinkedIn
28:59
stories or I'm gonna choose a couple executives to follow
29:01
around and learn from their experience.
29:02
I'm gonna build a build a real life relationship with these
29:05
people. And then when the time comes or
29:07
an opportunity presents itself, then I'm in a position to give
29:10
something a little extra, right? I can, I can say, Oh, well, you
29:13
know, you wrote that article some time ago or, you know, I've
29:16
been studying this thing that you were doing or, you know, I
29:18
love what you did with X or, you know, whatever it is, and it
29:20
just gives you that little extra something, right?
29:22
And it could be a think, you know, it could be whatever else.
29:24
But I think the goal is, or the moral of the story is that it's
29:27
all about relationships really. And we we develop a, a close
29:31
relationship or a quick relationship, I should say, like
29:33
with an interview, you know, I mean, it really is, I mean, I
29:36
don't know, obviously some skill is involved or, you know, you
29:39
need to be competent to do the job.
29:40
But I think, and maybe I'm over generalizing, but I mean, it
29:43
seems to me like a big part of it though, is can I stand to
29:46
work with you? Are you going to be a good
29:48
person for the, you know, a good fit here?
29:50
You know, and and so I think that that's a big chunk of maybe
29:53
we under appreciate. You know, it's funny, just, you
29:57
know, tying this back to my kids football thing.
29:59
So he's a big New York Giants fan and they and they got a
30:02
season of Hard Knocks on Max running right now.
30:05
So they just had their second episode and some of the coaches
30:08
were talking about a guy they're the college combine and they're
30:10
trying to, you know, pick a couple new players or whatever.
30:12
And the conversation they were having was like, Oh yeah, you
30:15
know, he's the sweetest guy. He loves his family, takes care
30:17
of all these people. Oh, and this guy's kind of a
30:19
Dick. And he's, you know, whatever.
30:21
And it was like, and they picked the guy that was the better fit,
30:24
right? And my son goes to me and he's
30:26
like, why would they care? Like, I mean, we need the best
30:28
athletes, right? I mean, you're looking for the
30:30
best guy. And I was like, well, the
30:31
problem is if you bring in a poison dude and he comes in your
30:35
locker room and he sucks and people hate being around him and
30:38
all that stuff, it's like that's going to be bad for team morale.
30:40
Like, you might be the best player on the world, but I mean,
30:43
short of like a Michael Jordan level talent, like if you're
30:45
intolerable, people just take the next best guy.
30:48
And so, so anyway, so I mean, to long, long retort here, but the
30:52
whole idea is just, yeah, I think you're right that it's
30:54
about building relationships and about, you know, doing the best
30:57
you can in the short period. And just something as as simple
31:00
as a gesture, like sending a thank you, you know, can really
31:02
go a long way and sort of establishing your character or
31:05
the kind of person you are. Absolutely.
31:08
And the like, the maybe like sub point to this is your resume is
31:12
the thing that gets you a ticket to the interview.
31:15
So you have to be able to prove that you can do the job that
31:17
you've done it before, that you have the results.
31:18
And the interview is like, can I stand to work with you?
31:21
Can I do I like you, you know, or, or, or do we have a good
31:23
rapport? Is there a good ping pong here
31:25
to our questions? Are you answering things
31:27
honestly? Right?
31:28
Like so the trust factor is getting built via a relationship
31:32
in in the interview itself. So yeah, 1000% agree with you.
31:36
It's funny, I actually, I reached out to you on LinkedIn
31:42
to come onto this show a long time ago.
31:43
And I don't even know how I came across your profile, but I do
31:46
this a lot where I'll find someone that's intriguing or, or
31:50
a expert in a field that I want to go down.
31:52
I've, we've gone down and we've interviewed a bunch of audio
31:56
engineers, like the audio engineer for Iron Maiden and
31:59
Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars and all these guys reached out through
32:02
LinkedIn. And what I'll usually do is I'll
32:04
send a, a quick message saying, Hey, I, I like what you do.
32:08
I just wanted to connect so I can follow your work.
32:10
And then I'll, every time I see something, I'll like it or I'll
32:13
comment on a post or, and, and start trying to build a rapport.
32:17
And actually tomorrow I'm taking a a online class with the guy
32:24
that records all the NPR Tiny Desk series.
32:28
And he's doing a field recording class.
32:31
And I've been working this guy for a long time trying to get
32:34
him on the show. And I actually, I dropped 80
32:37
bucks to take this online class just to try and build that that
32:40
rapport with him a little more. And hopefully one of these days
32:44
he'll be on the show. But stuff like that, just
32:46
actually having the back and forth instead of the cold e-mail
32:49
like, Hey, I like what you're doing.
32:51
Come on our show or, or straight to the point where you're trying
32:54
to sell right out the door. That's an instant red flag for
32:57
me. And, and when people do that to
32:58
me, I just don't reply. And if they do it again, I don't
33:02
reply. And if they do it a third time,
33:03
I block their account because it's, it's not a, a mutual thing
33:08
here. People that actually are
33:10
interested in what I do ask me about it and try and, and, and
33:14
build that rapport. I'm, I'm an open book, but if
33:17
you're just a sales pitch, I I don't want anything to do with
33:20
you. Yeah.
33:21
So Yep, that's such a good, that's such a good point, Mike.
33:23
And I think the, the piece on like flattery is like the thing
33:29
I guess I wanna emphasize about what you just said, which is
33:31
like flattery gets you a long way.
33:34
And people may not like emote the way that you want them to
33:38
when you're when you're like physically on the front, when
33:40
you're giving them a piece of flattery like that or a
33:43
compliment. But on the inside, it's a
33:45
totally different understanding, a totally different feeling.
33:48
And it gets you places. And so yes, to everyone
33:52
listening, flattery will get you places.
33:56
Anyone. Of course you don't be fake,
33:57
but. Yeah.
33:58
Well, and that's the thing, right?
33:59
I mean, flattery can come from a natural place or an honest
34:02
place, right? I mean, like, if you're open to
34:04
it and you've got the personality, and this is
34:05
obviously going to be a characteristic that people would
34:07
look for in a potential employee.
34:09
And if you tend to just be a person who carries yourself in a
34:12
way that's kind of thoughtful, kind of kind like whatever, it's
34:15
pretty easy to compliment somebody or to be nice.
34:17
And it doesn't have to come off smelling like something fake or
34:20
like you're just trying to get this job out of me.
34:22
You know, I think it's pretty easy to be authentic.
34:24
It actually probably takes a little bit more work to fake it.
34:26
And if you're faking it, you might even want to ask yourself,
34:28
what are you doing in this interview?
34:29
Like maybe this isn't the one for you.
34:32
Exactly. Like I can't tell you how many
34:34
times I get messages in my inbox that are like, hey, AJ, do you
34:37
have any coaching jobs available?
34:38
Or like, AJ, do you have any accounting jobs available?
34:40
And I'm like, hey, I'm not a recruiter, so no.
34:44
And you clearly haven't looked at my, my stuff versus a message
34:48
that comes to me and says like, hey, Aji saw you on this podcast
34:52
or I saw you on Fox last week. And I really loved what you said
34:56
about blah, blah, blah. And I, you know, I just have to
34:59
keep in touch. I am way more likely to accept
35:01
something like that because they've done the research and I
35:03
know that like they are being genuine about it versus someone
35:07
who's like reaching out for trying to get something from me,
35:10
you know? Yeah, instant red flag for me.
35:13
Yeah, You mentioned that the resume is the gatekeeper.
35:17
It opens the door and the portfolio is part of that as
35:21
well. I'm sure as a recruiter these
35:26
days, it almost seems like your resume is processed by like an
35:30
AI bot 1st to get through that first door and then it gets in
35:34
someone's actual hands. Is, is that accurate?
35:37
Is that is there a way you can format your resume to get past
35:41
that first virtual gatekeeper? Yes, so half, half truths there.
35:49
So every decision that's made for well, I shouldn't say every,
35:54
I'd say like 80% of all decisions that are made in the
35:56
recruitment process are done by human.
35:58
There are several things that could be you could be what's
36:02
called auto screened out. And those are things like number
36:05
of years of experience, the your salary requirements, your
36:11
location, like if you need a visa sponsorship or not.
36:15
Like those things sometimes can be set up in an applicant
36:17
tracking system if they answer the quote UN quote wrong way to
36:20
be to be what's called an auto reject.
36:23
But aside from those things, you are likely going to be either
36:28
moved forward or rejected by an actual human.
36:31
So the way in which to like move through the the gatekeepers, if
36:36
you will, is to one, make sure that you have a results oriented
36:39
resume. So how are you talking
36:42
quantifiably about the achievements that you've done,
36:44
not just the duties, not just like the things that you
36:47
covered, but like because you did XY happened, right?
36:53
And why being the quantifiable thing so increased by 100% or we
36:57
grew the team by 200 people or we brought $200 million to the
37:02
bottom line, whatever that is. Like those are examples of
37:04
quantifiable metrics that gets you what we call an interest
37:07
peak. And so you want to peak the
37:10
interest of the human that's looking at your resume so that
37:14
they give you a call. So that's that's one way.
37:16
The other way is especially if you're making a pivot instead of
37:21
of talking about your experience, like under each of
37:23
your roles with, you know, the company title, the dates, blah,
37:26
blah nature into the things using what's called a functional
37:29
resume. So if you don't know what that
37:30
is, go Google it. But a functional resume helps
37:33
you break down what you're what you're doing by like orientation
37:38
or the OR like a topic. And that's a that's a way to
37:41
kind of help a reader understand without talking to you, what
37:45
you've been doing, why you did it, and the results therein.
37:50
Yeah, no, that's interesting. And the other thing I would just
37:52
add, and it kind of goes back to what we were talking about a
37:54
moment ago, is just like every job I've ever had, my entire
37:58
career has come by virtue of somebody I knew working
38:01
somewhere and, you know, a relationship that I built and
38:04
that kind of thing, right. And so even today, I mean, in my
38:08
own business, I've been out of my own for nearly 20 years now.
38:11
And, you know, I mean, dipping in and out of of places and
38:13
things like that. But generally on my own or
38:15
largely on my own for 20 years, we still get people who are
38:20
former people I worked with in the agency, or I get a referral
38:22
from somebody I worked with once, or I get a, you know,
38:25
whatever it is, But they all come that way.
38:27
It's not AI mean there isn't a, or at least in my experience,
38:32
like submitting resumes has not worked for me yet.
38:34
Maybe one day and maybe I'm making all the mistakes, but you
38:38
know, but in my situation, almost everything has come by
38:40
virtue of the relationships I've built.
38:42
And so I would say, you know, and this was my advice to a
38:45
bunch of young like UX designers that I was talking to.
38:47
I was in a forum on LinkedIn and they're all these people
38:49
complaining that they're putting in, you know, 100 resumes, 200
38:52
resumes, 300 resumes, all this stuff and they're not getting
38:55
anything. And you know, I understand it's
38:56
very frustrating and very challenging because it feels
38:58
like you're doing work, right. It feels like I've done a lot of
39:00
work. I mean, I've made 300 resumes
39:02
and in the, in the very limited job resume stuff I've done, I
39:06
mean, I, I get very frustrated with some of these resumes that
39:09
are trying to make you jump through hoops a little bit.
39:11
And I understand why they're doing it.
39:12
But at the same time, from, from the perspective of I'm just
39:15
filling out a million resumes, it's very frustrating when
39:18
you're, you know, they're asking, you know, well, if you
39:20
were the captain of a pirate ship and you guys came out upon
39:23
an island, what are you going to do?
39:24
You know, it's like, you know, so I mean, it's like, OK, yeah,
39:26
yeah, yeah. You're having fun, but I think
39:29
this goes back to a bigger point, which is you don't need
39:30
to submit 300 resumes. You need to identify 10
39:33
companies that you actually give a damn about and try it and find
39:36
your way into those companies, right?
39:38
So learn everything about the corporate culture.
39:40
Go nuts on your pirate ship paragraph, You know, let them
39:43
know how amazing a pirate you would be and you know, all that
39:47
kind of thing. Because it's like filling out
39:50
those stock resumes. I mean, if ATS is going to
39:52
screen anything out, it's that stuff.
39:54
It's these really generic resumes where I've just, I'm a
39:57
UUX designer right out of college.
39:59
I have a stock resume that I built using a Word template and
40:03
I'm sending this around to the, you know, 200 employers.
40:07
Like most people are just never even gonna see it and so.
40:09
Actually, I saw a LinkedIn post the other day where an HR guy
40:13
was talking about how with ChatGPT and everything,
40:16
everyone's sending in these ChatGPT cover letters or quick
40:21
responses and people are going to the point where they're not
40:24
even like they're just copy and pasting it and they'll get the
40:28
top little snippets from ChatGPT saying it was generated by chat.
40:33
Here's a response to your answer.
40:35
And then that's actually getting sent in on the cover letter.
40:38
And and that's it's stuff like that, that instant Nope, you're
40:43
out here. So, yeah, sorry to interrupt,
40:45
Ryan. No, no, you're right.
40:47
But I mean, it's my point, right?
40:48
I guess is basically, I'm a little long winded, so forgive
40:52
me, but I mean, like the point here really is just like, if you
40:56
don't care, don't bother, right? It shouldn't just be about
40:58
getting a check or duping some employer into hiring you or
41:02
whatever. Like, especially if you want to
41:03
find any kind of happiness in the position you take or if you
41:06
really want to pursue some career goal or something.
41:08
Like you should probably be somewhat invested in the place
41:11
you're trying to work. You know?
41:12
I mean, all the, the big stories you hear are, you know, they
41:15
try, try, try again, right? I mean, they, you know, rejected
41:18
by Apple, rejected by Apple, rejected by Apple.
41:20
But I finally got my foot in the door, you know, And it's like,
41:22
oh, OK, well, now I'm in. But it's like, but if they'd
41:25
just not gave a damn if it was Apple and Dell and everybody
41:28
else and they just went to every computer company with the same
41:31
resume, pretty tough to I guess do a great job as an applicant
41:37
if you're not that interested really.
41:40
Yeah, totally. And I mean you, Ryan, the thing
41:43
about like what you mentioned about you getting a job through
41:47
people and not through like an application, I completely relate
41:49
to. That's exactly how I've gotten
41:51
all my roles. In fact, CNBC just ran a study
41:54
last in the last eight months that 80%, eight, 0% of people
42:00
who got hired in the last calendar year were hired because
42:05
they were referred or like given an introduction to somebody at
42:09
the company. So that means only 20% of the
42:11
time are you going to land a role that you are applying to
42:15
via job board or online. So yes, relationships are 1000%
42:19
key. And Mike, your your thing on AI,
42:21
on AI, what's happening with applicant tracking systems and
42:25
the road maps of like building these applicant tracking systems
42:28
is that are building an AI detectors to say like, Hey,
42:32
what's the likelihood that this was built by AI, this resume or
42:35
this cover letter or what have you and likelihood not.
42:39
And So what we tell our clients, and I'll tell all of your
42:41
listeners is do not use all AI. You can Absolutely.
42:46
That's a wonderful tool to get ideas about how to talk about
42:49
your experience, but do not copy and paste it and put it in any
42:52
of your materials because it's getting to the point where SSMS
42:55
are going to be like flag for AI.
42:56
This is not correct. And so brainstorm with AI.
43:01
It's a wonderful tool, but do not copy and paste.
43:04
Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, you know, especially if,
43:06
you know, a lot of people are using like, let's just use
43:08
ChatGPT as an example. I mean, you know, he maybe
43:11
we'll, you know, get past this technologically.
43:14
But I mean, like even I can read ChatGPT and it has kind of tone.
43:17
Great. And if everybody's using the
43:19
same model, right, So we're all on ChatGPT 4 O or whatever it is
43:22
now. And I mean everybody sounds kind
43:26
of like ChatGPT. You know, it's like, I mean it's
43:28
great, it's amazing. It's leaps and bounds in
43:30
technology, but at the same time it's like, well, yeah, but
43:33
everybody's using it. So it just sounds like everybody
43:36
you know and yeah, no. Anyway.
43:39
The. Vernacular, the vernacular, the
43:41
tonality, like it's very detectable now, maybe in the
43:44
future it won't, it won't be. But you're right.
43:46
Like I even same thing like when you know, obviously clients are
43:49
writing stuff about, you know, writing back to us as a coaching
43:53
follow up or like writing a thank you note back to A to a
43:56
interviewer and they're sending us like, Hey, can you look this?
43:59
I can, I can tell like almost instantly if it's AI generated
44:02
or if it's from their heart. Yeah, it's funny.
44:05
It's one of those things that I don't think people factor in,
44:07
which is especially if I've had an interview with you, I know
44:10
how you speak, which probably has a, you know, at least some
44:13
similarities to the way that you write, you know, because this is
44:16
how, how we do it generally, you know, we kind of write the way
44:19
we speak. And so if you said, you know, if
44:21
I, I speak to you and it's, you know, very casual language and
44:24
all the stuff, and then all of a sudden I get this hyper formal
44:26
letter using giant words or whatever, like I'm going to go,
44:29
huh, this doesn't sound quite right to me.
44:31
And so, I mean, so it's funny, there's just some like giveaways
44:33
and you know, and, and back to the, the notion of, you know,
44:38
actually giving a damn about the places you, you want to go to
44:40
work. I mean, if you're if you're just
44:42
going to do ChatGPT, it's like, how into it are you really?
44:45
It's kind of maybe not in the place you should be focusing
44:48
your energy. You're not gonna be a great fit
44:50
for them. You're not gonna be a good
44:51
employee. And ultimately, you end up kind
44:53
of wasting everybody's time. Exactly.
44:55
Exactly. And again, use AI to brainstorm
44:58
things that you wanna say. Or maybe an eloquent way of
45:01
putting a sentence together. But copying and pasting isn't no
45:05
go. I I've used ChatGPT for multiple
45:09
things for writing song lyrics and getting an idea for that to
45:13
kind of change it. And then my favorite use case
45:17
for ChatGPT was a cease and assist letter for someone who
45:20
was using my logo in a YouTube channel that.
45:23
They shouldn't be. And so I, I had it write a cease
45:26
and assist letters to sound like a lawyer and it it sure sounded
45:30
like a lawyer and they took it down.
45:31
So it works if there's a use case for it, but you don't.
45:35
You don't send a copy and paste cover letter.
45:38
You need to. You need to go through and edit
45:41
it, make it sound like you and make it sound like a human being
45:45
and not ALLM. Yeah, well.
45:48
And that's the thing. I think that really is the the
45:50
point, right? I mean, even with all the things
45:52
we've discussed so far today, it's like it really is the human
45:55
piece of being human that's important, right?
45:58
It's not. I mean, yeah, you can fill out
46:00
the resume, but it's probably more about how you come off in
46:02
the interview. Are you a good person?
46:04
Are you whatever we're basing it on, right?
46:07
There's all these different factors, but inauthenticity
46:10
stinks and almost everybody can pick it up and you might get
46:13
away with it a little now or here or there or whatever.
46:16
But largely if you're being inauthentic, you know, using
46:20
authenticity as as to mean, you know, being truth or all are
46:22
honest or, or representing yourself in a in an honest way,
46:25
then you know, you're going to be just fine.
46:28
I mean, so you don't need to, you know, try and do all this
46:31
cheating and all this stuff because it's just like, I don't
46:33
know, I think there's always going to be a place for just
46:35
like humans being humans, you know, like even with, even with
46:38
the tech. Totally, yes.
46:40
And going back to the small things, right, like the thank
46:42
you versus the person who didn't like if you had two thank you
46:45
notes or a piece of communication and one of them
46:47
you was kind of like, I think this is AI, one of them's not.
46:50
It could be a deciding factor. So you just never know.
46:54
Yeah. Small things, right?
46:56
Speaking of small things, how important is a polished LinkedIn
47:00
profile? So important.
47:03
Incredibly important. What what things are you looking
47:07
at? Are you looking at like
47:09
engagement with other people in the industry?
47:11
Are you looking at how it's laid out?
47:15
What are the key factors in the LinkedIn profile that stand out
47:18
to you? Yeah.
47:19
So the first, it has nothing to really do with the human eye.
47:22
It just has to do with showing up in the algorithms.
47:24
You have to be able, you have to go to like pick the, the
47:27
algorithm has to be able to pick up on the amount of keywords
47:29
that are associated with the role that you're going after,
47:31
which is also why being a specialist versus a generalist
47:33
is really important, right? Because you have stuff that
47:35
talks about sales and customer success and talks about
47:38
marketing like you're, you're not populating enough on the
47:41
algorithm because your, your net is too wide.
47:44
And so being really specific, that specialist piece is really
47:46
important. So then you have like all of the
47:48
keywords and the niches that you have to have in order to show up
47:51
on a search, right? Because as recruiters are
47:52
looking for people, the algorithm dictates where you
47:55
show up on their search results. So the first thing is that the
47:59
second piece is a lot of times we see people not update their
48:03
LinkedIn profile. So it's like super outdated or
48:05
just list the companies. It doesn't talk about their
48:07
achievements like you would on a resume that absolutely should be
48:10
there. I mean, you're about section,
48:12
you're not pulling your highlights and the things that
48:14
you're most proud of there. So that help help bring the
48:17
reader down your profiles. It's basically like a sales page
48:20
if you think about it. And then the last thing that
48:22
I'll mention is your headline. Your headline is so important.
48:25
Actually is like one of the most indicative things of showing up
48:27
higher on the algorithm is like what keywords are your are in
48:31
your headline? Yes, but also like what is it
48:35
that you do not just like director HR Facebook, but like
48:40
like what's your most proud achievement?
48:42
Like I help teams the double in size in 12 months or I, you
48:46
know, whatever your most proud achievement is and putting that
48:49
in your headline too. It's very, very valuable real
48:51
estate. Yeah, that's right.
48:55
That's I I didn't realize how important that was in in just
49:00
the algorithm section of it like the keywords and is, is the
49:04
headline the most critical portion to actually say I'm a
49:08
front end developer focusing on JavaScript, next JS, node,
49:13
whatever Mernstack. Is that supposed to be in your
49:17
headline, or is that supposed to be in your summary?
49:20
Both. So the way that algorithms work
49:23
as they look for repetitive keywords, the amount of times
49:26
that you're using same things or akin keywords.
49:29
And so in your question and Lisa, in this case, it would be
49:34
both. So you want to list those things
49:35
in your headline, but you also want to talk about them more in
49:37
your summary and then also underneath each of your roles,
49:40
OK. I wanted to ask you and, and
49:44
maybe this is a weird question because I imagine most people
49:46
come to you looking to, to jump ship or maybe move to a new
49:48
company or maybe even choose a new new career path altogether.
49:52
But I wonder if you have any advice for people who maybe
49:55
they're in the right job, but they're not getting what they
49:57
want out of it because they're burnt out or they've lost track
50:01
of, you know, maybe they're, they're, you know, what got them
50:03
there in the 1st place, right? So maybe it's not that they
50:05
really need to go somewhere, but they, they've lost for whatever
50:08
reason, that juice. And we talk a lot sort of like
50:11
in the general zeitgeist about finding our passions and chasing
50:14
our passions and doing all these kinds of things.
50:16
And I think a lot of people dismiss that stuff out of hand.
50:18
But I wonder too, you know, if, if there are techniques or ways
50:23
of sort of getting our passion back, like if we really are in
50:25
the right spot, but we've kind of lost that spark.
50:28
Absolutely. So there's a model that I used
50:31
to talk about this and it simplifies this into two levers
50:34
that you can pull. So if you're finding yourself
50:36
that you're not happy, maybe you're not growing, you don't
50:38
like your manager, whatever the case may be, think about these
50:41
two levers. So there's two, the two levers
50:43
are there's what we do. So product manager, UX, UI,
50:48
whatever. It's the what we do and then
50:50
there's where we do it. So the where we do it is your
50:53
manager, the industry, the size of company, the, you know, all
50:57
the things that come just with the company or the industry that
51:00
you're in. And so a lot of times when we're
51:02
talking to people about like, oh, I'm just so unhappy.
51:04
I don't get it. I would, I would say 7 times out
51:08
of 10, it's they love the what they don't like the wear.
51:13
And so they're, they're having to pull that lever.
51:15
So then it's OK. How do you come up with a list
51:18
of criteria of things that you do want and maybe that could be
51:21
derived from things that you don't like right now at your
51:23
current company, But how do you come up with that?
51:25
What we call a good options rubric that talks about the
51:27
things that you do want. And so the what isn't changing,
51:29
but the wear is changing. And then sometimes, right, three
51:31
out of 10 times, it's the what. And so then it becomes some of
51:34
those other things that we talked about in terms of looking
51:36
back into your history, of your accolades, your childhood and
51:40
looking at those patterns. And so I encourage you just to
51:43
think about like if, especially if you're stuck, if you were to
51:47
change the where, but you were doing the same stuff.
51:49
So if you're maybe like, I don't know, you're working at a hedge
51:52
fund and you're like, as a financial person, but like, I
51:54
love dogs, right? And so maybe it's like, I want
51:57
to go work in the pet industry. So if you were doing the same
52:00
things but in the pet industry, what different feelings does
52:03
that bring up? Yeah, I know it's interesting.
52:07
Yeah. I think it just kind of goes
52:08
back to what we were saying earlier about, you know,
52:10
sometimes we get caught up kind of in that FOMO thing, right?
52:12
We're looking at other people who seem to be having all that
52:15
fun or maybe that grass is greener kind of thing.
52:18
Yeah, I think sometimes we make ourselves unhappy even if
52:20
there's really not something wrong.
52:21
So I think those are good ideas. Yeah, the what and where made me
52:27
think of does Simon Sinek's start with Y?
52:31
You know, like get your your dart centered and then go from
52:34
there. So if you haven't heard that,
52:38
there's it's a quick 5 minute little video on YouTube and it's
52:41
got billions of views just because it's very good advice.
52:47
So go, go look that up. Simon Sinek start with Y and
52:51
it's a short little talk. It's great.
52:54
We're kind of at that time where we usually try to keep these
52:56
around an hour. Do you want to tell people where
52:59
they can find you? How they can reach out and look
53:02
you up? Absolutely.
53:04
So you can find me on all social platforms at AJ Mises MIZES, and
53:09
then if you are interested in some career work, you can visit
53:13
us at training.thehumanreach.com.
53:17
Cool. Well, thank you so much, AJ.
53:19
That's been awesome. Likewise, Ryan.
53:21
Mike, thanks for having me. Absolutely, and thanks so much
53:24
to everybody who tunes in to the show this week and every week,
53:27
and we'll see you guys next time.