Jumpstart Your Job Search

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today we're delighted to be speaking with Greg David, who is president of Lock and Company and Information technology and Human resources Talent acquisition Organization. He has a strong commitment to providing advocacy for job seekers and moderates. A monthly session at the Union League Club in Chicago. And in fact, Greg, I found out about you because I ran into an alum who loves your sessions. So I know you're super busy. Thank you so much for making the time.

Greg David: Thanks for having me. Wonderful to be here.

Anita Brick: Lots of questions. Let's start off with a question from one of our executive MBA students. This person said the idea of becoming a job magnet instead of a job seeker is really great. How can I make this happen? I'm shifting career paths and I'm at a more advanced stage of my professional life.

Greg David: You know, that's a great question. I hear this one quite a bit. The key for becoming a job magnet, essentially what we're doing is we're leaving the old model of job search, where traditionally we have been jobs as job seekers flocking to a light in the new model of job search. We are the light and we have to get the models or the jobs to come to us.

In this case, for someone who wants to become a job magnet, it's really critical that they expand their traditional job search process to include virtual technology, social media. It's important that they really develop clear branding, that they're very clear in describing and articulating their value to the organization, then increasing their physical network, people that they see at physical networking events, but also increasing their virtual networking capability so that they're leveraging the right people into the right organizations to articulate that brand, that value. Once it's consistently done, that begins to attract opportunities to us rather than have us pursue them.

Anita Brick: It's a great point. You know, there was another executive MBA student, to your point about networking, and she said, I find it fairly easy to have a first networking conversation or connection, but I struggle with how to have a second conversation, a second connection. I know people are super busy, but it's really hard to keep it going. Any suggestions? Greatly appreciate it.

Greg David: The key is and again, this is a little bit troubling for folks because when we do meet people that we want to engage with, especially if we've had a good connection initially where we really click, it's hard to get them to continue to participate because they're busy. And oftentimes what people do is they start to strain the relationship by too much, too soon.

So what I recommend is when they do network, whether it's face to face or virtually, they really need to make a number of contacts so that there's not a select few that they're smothering. Ideally, the number of contacts to add would be at a physical event roughly 25 or virtually try and add 10 to 15 connections per day.

Anita Brick: Wow, that's a huge number. 10 to 15 per day. Okay, but tell me why I'm not going to interrupt. Sorry.

Greg David: Initially might be a little bit challenging, but once someone's consistent, once they learn the basics with tools like LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, some of the other tools that are out there available to us SlideShare, Indeed.com, YouTube, even a lot of this starts to take on a life of its own. And then our daily work is really the feeling of our virtual brand that we've established.

The key is to enlarge our network on a daily, weekly basis so that we're not focusing all of our attention on 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 people. That really does, in fact, help quite a bit when it comes to them not being overwhelmed by you. The other thing is, when you do reach out, give them something.

And this is really important when you go to physical events, make it all about them. When people network, they have a tendency to network with their hand out where they want something. What I've learned is that if I go to physical networks or I network virtually, when I focus on the other party, what their needs are, and I learn about them and I make it about them, they respond to me a lot more favorably.

And then when I do reach out afterwards, I try to give them something, whether that's an article, whether it's something that might help them with something that they express to me that they're having pain with, or if they're also doing a job search. I tend to become a job search buddy. I'll end up sharing opportunities that I run across in organizations that might fit them, especially if they're in a different discipline than I am.

Anita Brick: I like this idea, and I like the idea of not asking for too much too soon, not feeling like you're desperate. So you're focused on a few people. But if you're getting numbers like that, we're talking on the low end. If we're talking about 70 new people a week on a virtual basis, how do you make sure that you have quality relationships, not just a bunch of names in your LinkedIn contact.

Greg David: List, what you're really building as you're building a network for the remainder of your career, you're not looking to extract necessarily something out of each person that you connect with today. But what you do to keep in touch with them, especially on sites like LinkedIn and so forth, is you regularly, daily share content both to the general network that you have.

But what you also do is you use that network like participating in group discussions and so forth, to add commentary or even initiate discussions to reach the network of your network. And that's really where the size of your virtual footprint comes into play. So even though it sounds like a lot, how do you keep it going if you're active on virtual technology, evangelizing about what your subject matter expertise is by sharing content, you'll find that staying in touch, keeping them up to date, and massaging those relationships in that network becomes quite easy.

Anita Brick: Got it. There is an alum and he said, I currently work in Detroit but would like to find a position back in Chicago. I'm typically only in Chicago on weekends. How do you recommend that I reconnect with my network, and how do I identify opportunities in Chicago since I am largely remote?

Greg David: He's got two advantages right off the bat, actually. Three Detroits are so close to Chicago. It's not quite a suburb, but it's easily navigated to come back here quickly and easily and often. So the fact that he's close by is good versus someone being on the West Coast or the East Coast towards a little bit more challenging. The other thing is that he's got the university as an alum.

He's got these resources here, he's got connections. All the people that are part of the university that he hasn't met yet, that he doesn't know, attend events at the school, if there are events on weekends sitting back and of all, virtually. I find that a lot of times when folks even get on LinkedIn, they fail to really connect to people from their academic background.

And what an easy, fast way to create contacts simply by reaching out to other people in the various groups or University of Chicago for Booth. The other thing is that if he's coming here regularly on weekends, he has some sort of personal family friends network probably already existing, tapping into that, getting these folks to be, in a way, his little army of networkers locally.

And then engaging with organizations virtually. And then what he does is as his activity builds and as he begins to see that he's coming up with opportunities using Fridays or Mondays as opportunities to interview, where maybe he arrives back in Detroit Monday afternoon, or he leaves Detroit early Friday morning to meet with a firm. These are the things that he can begin doing to really try and get some traction.

Anita Brick: Got it. There was an evening student who had to ask a follow-on question to that. It's great your ideas. There are a lot of really good ones. How do you not just find the time, but how do you actually anchor that time in the midst of, in his case, job, family, school?

Greg David: That's quite a challenge. It's easy to do if you start out with a good strategy. The first thing that someone in that case needs to do is real simple. Take a pen and paper and map out what your day traditionally looks like and what I have found, especially with folks that I've worked with one on one, is that they think they don't have the time.

But when we start to map out really what their Monday through Friday looks like during the week when they're the busiest, generally what we find is that there's opportunities for them to slim down some of their commitments. There's opportunities to create little pockets of time and to really build the new model and adapt to it. It doesn't take a tremendous amount of time.

It really is the initial building and then the feeding and caring. So if we take a look at mapping that out and then what we do next is we establish some very simple, clear goals. This is what I want to accomplish in the next 30 days, the next 60, the next 90. We put some type of timeline together to work against so we can then implement metrics.

And then I recommend taking a look at a real basic goal setting program. Maybe something by Brian Tracy, the motivational speaker. He has videos that are free simply going through some of those mini programs and taking a look at the step by step things that we can do. And again, it's a building process. So a month down the road where they're at, it really is possible.

Anita Brick: I'm a big proponent of that. I, in fact, have this little clock on my desk that has two timers built in, and one actually is 15 minutes because I can do just about anything for 15 minutes. If something looks like a big, onerous task like job search, 15 minutes at a time just makes it, at least to me and the people that I work with, a lot more accessible. So I love that idea.

Greg David: When you have a sense of urgency, it really does help you achieve more in less time.

Anita Brick: Yeah, I agree. That said, there's a weekend student who's feeling a bit overwhelmed and he said, I'm in the midst of a job search and feel overwhelmed by the many things that other people control. Like they're getting back to me. What advice would you give me to get some traction and even get a bit of control back?

Greg David: That's another tough one in a job search. In the virtual model, the more that we succeed at it, the more opportunities that we come across, the more connections that we make, the more we hand control over to other people. And that's normal. The most critical thing is to not try and take that control away from those people. A lot of times people ask me, how do I get that control?

My response is, let's change how we look at that, because I don't necessarily want that control, because the only way to get it away from them is to wrestle them to the ground and take it, which generally doesn't work well in job search and style. I changed my mindset and I determined the things that I can control, and I isolate the things that I cannot control.

I focus my energy on what I can, and then what I do is I use subtle strategies, little techniques to perhaps nudge the things that I can't. But I put all of my being into those things that I can. And when I look at the things that I can control, I can control how much time I spend daily and weekly.

I can control how quickly I learn daily, weekly, and monthly. I can control how quickly I take what I learn and rapidly implement it. I can control how I expand my network. I can control what my subject matter expertise is. I can control articulating my value to others. I can control all of these things, plus sharing content, engaging others.

So when I have people focus instead on those and then apply points of measurement, their goals versus reality. And then each day, each week, do four things: start, stop more or less. What can I start doing that I used to do? Or I learned that I haven't done anything to create a difference? What can I stop doing? What things get in the way?

Checking email first is one of those big things. You know, checking email. You could lose an hour right there and get sucked into things that aren't necessarily your priorities. So you're busy, but you're not necessarily working on the highest priorities for the day, doing more of things that enrich your success, and then doing less of things that detract.

So focusing more on what I can control, kind of letting go of those other things and then increasing the volume of activity, you'll be so busy you really won't have time to worry about nor concern for all those things that are necessarily moving ahead that are beyond your control.

Anita Brick: Got it. There are two alums who were struggling with two very different stages in the job search. So the first one said, I've been doing some consulting here and there, but haven't had a full time job in nearly seven years. How can I convince people that I'm willing to do and can be good at a job that maybe is even a step down from where I was with my last employer, so I can get myself in the door and I can prove myself from there.

Greg David: We create a story. We create a brand. Because one of the advantages of having done consulting, going from gig to gig, is that I experience a lot of variety, a lot of diversity for a technologist, it's a variety in diversity of hardware and software of different applications, different industries for people that are maybe in the sales and marketing arena and so forth.

Again, there's different experiences and that makes me more valuable when I go to an organization, because I bring all of those experiences with me that could be beneficial or properly branded, and then the value is properly articulated. The key is to brand that and sell it that way. If properly explained, that plays very, very well in today's climate.

Anita Brick: Okay, so adding one more dimension to this, what if a person is not happy that it's been a lot of freelancing and solo gigs over the last seven years and is either directly or indirectly apologizing with his words or with his affect, what would you advise him to do to move past that?

Greg David: The key is to not make excuses and to look at it a little bit differently. There's a lot to be said for the people that go to work for firms for a long period of time, and they stay, one might say, well, but then they only know one environment. The value that they bring to me is too narrow.

I don't know if they'd work in my culture because they've only lived in one culture, or maybe two cultures of different organizations. Even though people might look at the multiple jobs as a downside, people often today look at 1 or 2 jobs in a career as negative as well. The key in both situations is being able to articulate the value that one brings. And that's where people struggle, because they haven't actually sat down at the beginning of this whole process and determined, what is my value? People often describe themselves by their title, and that's really a problem because it doesn't show any value. Also doesn't mean anything. I'm an accountant, I'm a programmer. These are labels, and that's the problem. No one wants to go out and hire an accountant or a programmer.

There's a lot more that they do want to hire. So when we analyze what firms want and what we analyze, what really makes a difference about us, what's really special about us, what do we do that's better than other folks to do what we do, what makes us different, what makes us stand out? And we focus on that and we can articulate it quickly, briefly, and it's meaningful to the other party. That's part of the solution. But if I start off on my heels and I'm defending things with my language, then the brand I'm creating is a negative one. And that's why people have negative results.

Anita Brick: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Well, here's a variation of that theme. And this happens if I'm an evening student and then we'll come back to the other alumni evening students . What advice would you give to someone who has 17 years of experience in financial services, but has changed jobs and companies frequently? The result being that I don't have significant experience in one place, but 2 to 3 years of experience in several places.

Now, this may sound like I'm a well-rounded candidate, but I found that it seems to be career hindering. Most recruiters, hiring managers and resume screeners don't know what to make of me. Does it go back to articulating the value again? But how do you explain when people want depth? How do you explain that well-rounded candidacy?

Greg David: It's challenging, and there's a couple things I think that the person can do strategically and tactically when dealing with that issue. Because, let's face it, 17 years of changing jobs more often is going to absolutely create an upfront image of someone being what they might call a job hopper. And firms don't want to invest in people today if they know that it's likely that they're going to be a risky hire.

They're going to leave in 12, 18, 24 months. Turnover is extremely expensive, and there's nothing more frustrating than putting your whole heart and soul into training an employee and then having them leave. So really, what we do in this case is we have to also be able to tell a story, part of that branding piece. And let's look at financial services.

I can't think of another industry that has been in consolidation mode more than financial services. If we take a look at the number of banks that used to exist, the number of brokerage firms that used to exist, and we take a look at how many there are today. I mean, it's a much, much smaller number. And with all of that, consolidation brings a lot of job loss, brings a lot of reorganization, layoffs and so forth.

So if the person's able to show a clear, logical transition, we're simply the victim of an industry and consolidation, then that's one of the parts of the story that they can tell. If they can alongside that, show evidence of performance, achievement recommendations, awards for work that was done well, that helps buffer that suspicion that maybe it's them, not the industry.

Worst case scenario. Let's just say that they were kids in a candy store. And, you know, as soon as something was no longer new, they jumped to something that was if that's the case, then what you want to do is you want to look at other parts of the country that are really hungry for people. What it might mean is maybe taking a transition period for about 2 or 3 years, moving to another market where they're hungry for talent, they're willing to take on folks with this type of background because they need to, and then transitioning back to the geographic market of their choice once they've established some form of stability.

Anita Brick: Got it with 2 or 3 years be enough because it seems like that's already the pattern with this person.

Greg David: It might be if we look at what we can do to articulate that brand of why this has happened, tell a good story, be able to show the value and achievement that we've had along the way, and then maybe get a little bit creative about looking at alternative markets. It's a great, simple way to buffer them.

Anita Brick: Issue, and a lot of it is a story. I mean, it goes back to the other person. You have to feel comfortable with your story if you're making it up, and even if it's true and you feel uncomfortable and of course you, because you want it to be true, then the other person won't believe you.

Greg David: It has to be positive. Any time someone brings up anything negative in any of this process, it doesn't matter if the whole world would agree with them. You never bring up anything negative. You never use negative branding to leverage yourself. It just doesn't work. And so anytime you become defensive, you know someone can ask you a question that might make you defensive, but the choice to be defensive is yours. And if people learn how to deal with these things and negotiate them to a point of zero where it's no longer a factor, they're going to find that the process works quite well.

Anita Brick: Well it's true. I remember my first manager when I was in corp dev in banking. He would ask me a question and I was like, ready to defend a position because it's my first job and all that good stuff. And one day his name was John. He said, Anita, sometimes when I ask a question, you don't have to come in with a bag load of evidence of support because sometimes it's just a question. You don't need to be defensive. Just just come.

Greg David: In the game of interviewing. Questions that are asked are just to see how someone might respond, right.

Anita Brick: I want to.

Greg David: See someone told me that they're flexible. Someone told me that they deal well with change. And let's face it, every organization today has to be prepared to be flexible and deal with change because every organization goes through things. If we're looking for people that are flexible, can change the world, can think on their feet, yet they can't do an interview. Guess what? That's evidence that they probably can't do it on the job either. So people need to be prepared that it's a game of chess, I agree.

Anita Brick: So an executive MBA student said, what would you say is the most common mistake? You see, career changers with more than ten years of experience making, especially when they're moving from a technical role to more general management. And ultimately, how can I avoid it?

Greg David: It's really important in almost every industry today to avoid the traditional path of growth, the traditional path of growth. As we succeed, move up the corporate ladder, get paid more money is to become extinct. And what I mean by that is, and I've seen this in every functional area where I've worked with people, that every time they move up, they really move away from the core of what their value is.

And as they move up in the world of technology, they become less technical, more administrative. They sit in more meetings, and they become further and further away from the front lines. The challenges to design and seek out roles, both internally with organizations and externally, that are going to keep someone healthy. And what healthy means today is no generalist background, no sedentary administrative skills.

People can't lose whatever that is, that knowledge of their core being. Because when they do, then they hit the street. They find out that it's very, very hard. And then they think it's age. It's not really age. I know a lot of 90 year olds, 20 year olds, and I know a lot of folks that are older than I've worked with, that have more energy than anyone.

It's about learning. It's about taking that knowledge and using it. Because let's face it, knowing and not using is like not knowing it all. So taking that knowledge and using it, continuing to stay relevant and current within the area of the industry that they're in, and making sure that they intentionally turn down promotions or move to organizations even when they're completely happy, because it's healthier for them to be in a more fertile, growing environment that keeps them more relevant.

Anita Brick: So you're not saying don't move to a management role, correct? You're saying make sure that your management role to really thrive anchors to the knowledge and the expertise that you have that you want to continue to use?

Greg David: Yes. You know, if you're in accounting and you keep getting promoted and all of a sudden your job is really that of a very highly paid administrator, and you're not tied to the core business really whatsoever. I see that happen a lot. You're expensive and you value your impact on a day to day basis. You may think it's pretty good because you have a big title and a big office.

It's not an expense now. You're actually a risk for the organization to maintain you because you're not offering any value directly to the bottom line. A ship only needs so many captains to roll, right. So you have to be very, very surgically strategic when you move away from the core so that you don't move too far away, and then your learning slows and you become mostly an expense.

Anita Brick: Very, very important people will talk about when you're going into this new company is your role core is that function core because it it's way on the fringes. It's easy to lop you off and have someone, even outside of your company do those kinds of roles. So that's a very good point. Very, very insightful.

Greg David: You raised something that's that's when it comes to evaluating opportunities. I find that almost 100% of the people I run into, if they do it wrong and they're smart people, smart people look for five things. They look for a job that they're interested in, the role, the scope. They look for a great boss. They look for great peers.

They look for a company that they want to be part of, whether it's the culture, the mission, what have you. And then they look for an industry. This is an industry that I want to work in. People tell me that that's how they measure opportunities. I tell them, don't do that. That's really dated. The only way to measure opportunity is with one question.

That's it. Will time in this role make me more marketable and make me more valuable, more in demand? Because if all those five things are true, yet the job is not going to make me more marketable, more in demand than I am not managing my career properly. And here's the problem is that usually those people that have done that, I meet them when they're in their 50s and 60s and they're in trouble.

But they were so smart in their 20s, 30s and 40s because they used those five fingers to measure those five things. And at the end of the day, all they simply did was change the name on their paycheck and the amount of the paycheck. And that's not the purpose of becoming more successful. The purpose of becoming more successful is to know more, be more, do more, and be more valuable.

Money follows knowledge and experience. It's not the other way around. And that's why so many people see in the latter part of their careers, their income starts to go backwards. It's harder for them to land because they didn't necessarily design the first part in the middle, as strategically as they could.

Anita Brick: I love that question. That's a great question. Speaking of questions, do you have time for two more questions?

Greg David: Absolutely.

Anita Brick: Okay. This question from an alum, he was in the middle of a job search. And job search was actually going great. And then they wanted to check references. And so here's the context for this. His new employer is demanding at least 1 or 2 references from his current employer. So how would you approach getting proper references and support?

If you're very valuable to your current employer and you're leaving, would cause challenges or even raise competitive concerns, this seems to be a trend that I'm hearing more of. It used to be that no one would ever contact your current employer, and especially in some fields, that's sort of the final thing before the offer is official, official, official. They'll go and talk to your other references first, and then they want to talk to someone inside your current organization. How would you play that out?

Greg David: First part of this is about the new model. So if someone finds themselves in this situation, the first thing is to realize that they have waited too long. It's kind of funny. People will tell me, well, I can't really do anything on LinkedIn because my boss will know I'm looking for a job. That statement shows that that person doesn't even understand LinkedIn, because LinkedIn is not the job.

Search for the people who are really relevant today, and who really manage your career and understand their career and understand how it's changed. Understand that virtual technology is a way for us to demonstrate to our current employers, to other parts of the organization, really just to mankind, what our value proposition is, what our brand is. If I'm using LinkedIn and the other tools properly, what I'm doing is I'm building a portfolio online, which includes, by the way, recommendations from previous supervisors, stakeholders, customers, peers, yeah, executive management and so forth.

If I'm preparing all of that and I'm doing it proactively. So if someone today hears this broadcast, if they take nothing else away from it, but get started today with these tools with an incredible sense of urgency to create now, design now, be proactive. 30 to avoid situations like this where now it's risky. It's only risky because I designed it poorly.

Nonetheless, here we still have the same question. Let's say that okay, great. Well, that's all great, but this is a real problem for me today. Then here's what you do. You simply explain to the company you try, not do, but try and negotiate to a point of satisfaction that maybe they hold off right now because it would put you at risk.

I have found, because I've seen this go up, that every company that I've approached on someone's behalf or I've coached them to go back to the company has backed off and said, okay, that's reasonable. We understand. But let's say that they're hard lined about it. Let's say they're that 1% that says absolutely not. We want to talk to someone now.

Then what you need to do is stakeholders, customers, peers, bosses who have left, senior executives who perhaps have left pictures of awards. Okay. If you have awards that you've received. So as people start to do this type of thing, get awards, receive other annual reviews, keep copies of everything, document everything. And if they've done that, they'll be able to show physical evidence to them.

So instead of maybe contacting the firm, they could read the files, look at the pictures. Let's see examples of work. Let's say there's a PowerPoint associated with it, a user manual, something that's documented. The boss sends out an email telling everyone of the great job everyone did and named you specifically. That's the type of information you bundle into a portfolio.

You might be able to get away with using that type of content to satisfy the need, but if not, then you simply try to strategically pick possibly some of the people from that organization that won't put you at risk. But here's the problem if someone is still sitting there and they're stuck, they don't have any of this, then really what that means is they have to use this as a learning experience.

Anita Brick: That makes perfect sense. And collecting things. Like you said, obviously that portfolio can include things that are proprietary or confidential, but I love the idea of keeping track over time. Sometimes we can also go to people who used to be at that organization, but if someone gets stuck, give our office a call. We're more than happy to help with it. I think you laid out a whole array of things, which is really good.

Greg David: Well, there's a unique thing that you can do. I've had people go to vendors, go to firms that were doing work there that witnessed the work. You know, if you make it personable and you make it logical, most folks are going to go along.

Anita Brick: At that point. If you are their candidate, they don't want to lose you either.

Greg David: That's when you have leverage. And so to some degree, you never want to take never want to take the reins away from others. It's just not, it's too risky. But if you're logical and you've done a good job creating value and you appear reasonable, most folks are going to work with you.

Anita Brick: Agree? We like to wrap up at the end with some really tangible takeaways. So when you think about actions that can be taken, what are the top three things that you would advise someone to begin doing today? Who wants to excel in a job search, whether that job search is now or in the future?

Greg David: The first thing is we have to change our attitude about job search and career management altogether. The first thing we have to understand is that we have to retain that loyalty to ourselves, to our future, to our family, and not be handed over like we have for so many years to our employer. Part of being looking at that way is to also see this is a wonderful opportunity.

You have an opportunity to take control of your life right now, do some self-analysis and alter, modify or change every part of your life right now. So if you look at this as a neat opportunity for you to redesign that, you're going to approach the whole set of activities much differently than someone who looks at it negatively or looks at it in fear.

The second thing besides attitude is you have to learn how do I become the like? It's not just about having a LinkedIn profile. It's not just about having a good looking resume. It's about literally becoming an evangelist of subject matter expertise so that the people who don't know you can find you quickly and easily and reach out to you before they reach out to others.

And I've had people tell me, well, I don't have subject matter expertise. And here's the funny thing. Those people learned how to articulate their value, build a brand and do that, and they wound up having the system work for them. So everyone has an opportunity. This doesn't just apply even to professionals. It's really about us articulating. So I've got to learn.

And then the last part is do they have to do it? Repeat, do it. Repeat. In my mission of 15 years, donating and volunteering a lot of my time and resources to spreading the word, it's really about deciding to take control and really own this. And career management is about doing this actively, not in a reactionary state. I put all of the powerpoint presentations out of my LinkedIn profile so that if people aren't able to attend, they miss, they're located elsewhere. They can't make it to our events. They can still get the content.

Anita Brick: Thank you. So much for doing this. A wealth of knowledge, wealth of information and inspiring to thank you so much. Thank you for continuing to do this work and making the time for us today.

Greg David: Thank you Anita. Thanks for having me. The more people we help, the better.

Anita Brick: Absolutely. Totally agree and thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.