Welcome to a special careers transition edition of Total Picture Radio. This is Peter Clayton reporting.
Joining us today in New York is Beth Ross, a certified career and executive coach. Her background includes a distinguished career as an executive search professional maintaining a bicoastal practice and executing select executive searches.
Beth’s coaching practice is global in scope. Her sessions with clients in the greater New York area are in person, while working with individuals in other areas and time zones by telephone. The protocol includes all areas of the job search and career transition process with particular emphasis on interview training.
Be sure to visit Beth’s feature page in the careers transitions channel of Total Picture Radio. That’s TotalPicture.com for resource links and show notes. Beth’s website is BethRoss.com.
Beth, welcome back to Total Picture Radio.
Peter: One of the things you and I had talked about is the fact that people who set themselves up like that, you never know what’s going to happen. A relative may show up or somebody internally may show up at the 11th hour right before they’re ready to make you the offer and say “oh, I’m really interested in this job.”
Beth: That can happen, and we were just talking before this interview about a company that’s now going bankrupt. Last week, they may have engaged interviews for about five people who are now going to have a big, big, big disappointment because the company is in a downsizing mode. And that can happen.
Mergers, acquisitions may be going on behind the scenes. We never know about these things, that you might have, as a candidate, the unlucky honor of sitting there, interviewing for a job that whoops – is going up in smoke. It’s not going to be there.
So you just never know.
Being turned down may have nothing to do with you. It can have to do definitely with that person on the other side of the table, particularly in that first interview. Getting past the gatekeepers in today’s world is real, real, real important.
Decision makers are busy; they don’t want to spend their time on doing this. So the whole interpersonal interaction with people that you’re talking to, particularly if you’re aren’t … try doing this with someone who is very senior in accounting … “I don’t really like to talk to people, I like to crunch number.” Well, you’ve still got to interview.
Peter: I want to do a little role playing with you. Let’s pretend I am a marketing director at Citibank and I’m part of the 17,000 people that are going to be laid off. I come to you and say “oh my god, now what do I do because the banking industry seems to be in real contraction. This is where I’ve worked my whole career. I’ve spent 20 years working in the banking industry. Where can I go?”
Beth: Lots of place, particularly if you’re a marketing person as you said. Citi is one of those places where – you’re right – people could go and they could be … Hewlett Packard was the same way – lifers. Because it was such a good company, why in the world would you want to go anywhere else; you can have all kinds of career paths within this organization and people choose to do that and they’re encouraged to do that and are well taken care. Suddenly, maybe the best thing in their whole life has just happened to them, because new doors are going to open. They’re going to have to open.
If you’re a marketing expert, and you certainly know what the banking industry is doing right now, and you come and you sit down in front of me and we start talking about – I have a number of exercises I run people through to find out really what lights them from within. These are not tests; they’re just things that we really talk about.
Because people may not have for those 17 years dared to say I wish I were doing this and this and this. And a marketing person ought to be an expert on branding. If you could do it inside the bank, you can do it somewhere else. But now we’re talking about changing industries; we’re talking about becoming an insider in some industry where you’re really an outsider, and that’s when we get real serious about how do you do this. What about trade associations? As you say, we can learn everything over the Internet. Networking suddenly takes on a whole new hue in these situations. Yeah, this is going to hurt, this is going to feel real desperate.
Now, I’m jumping all over the place in what I’m talking about, but I do have a protocol. I do have a methodology I use with people who are in this dilemma of I have to reinvent myself. Because we’re having a lot of people … you can be at the wrong place at the wrong time. It has nothing to do with you, your competency or anything else; but it’s so scary because it does have to do with how you make your money, how you take care of yourself and your family and all the obligations in life and so on.
Peter: Beth, what is your impression of these online networks, like LinkedIn and Facebook, do you think these are valuable resources that professionals should be using to continue to market themselves and promote themselves?
Beth: That’s a fascinating world, and we’re going to see more and more of this social networking. I get wonderful reports, particularly my friends who recruit exclusively. That’s what they’re doing now; they use LinkedIn for candidate development and so forth. They also get a lot of inquiries that they wouldn’t get otherwise.
You’ve got to remember that this stuff takes time. Networking is not something that just happens with the click of a finger, you’re going to get a lot of people who call you who want to figure out how they can use your knowledge and so on, forgetting that networking is a two way street, it goes back and forth.
I think basically it’s good and everybody is hooked into it now. So the jury is still out. I can’t say to someone don’t do that.
Peter: What haven’t we covered in this interview that you would like to share with the audience about either career transitioning or what… sort of the focus of this interview has really been on is strategies for going in and acing an interview.
Beth: Yeah, we’ve talked a lot about interviewing. But you and I had talked about beforehand about this being about the demise of the traditional career. Right now the big operative word in our world right now with the political upheaval and so on is ‘change.’ The world of work is changing, even as we speak, in ways that we don’t even understand yet because we don’t know what’s going to be happening with the economy and so forth.
But I think that the biggest thing that all of us – we’re all workers one way or the other – we have to stay very alert to the fact that you’ve got to be creative, you’ve got to be innovative, you’ve got to be enthusiastic, you’ve got to be hardworking. It sounds like a bunch of platitudes, but it’s really not. You’ve got to put that together in how it’s going to work for you. It might mean working for an organization, a company, a corporation and so forth. And as you and I discussed, there are still good jobs out there; we’re just going to be finding them in relatively untraditional ways.
Don’t expect Monster to list all the jobs that you’re going to go after, or heaven forbid you post your resume up there. This is about the social networking sites too; do you want your resume there because who is going to get it and who is going to use it – because they can, because that information is there.
A lot of things are really different. That would be the thing that … every individual’s situation is unique. Of course, I’m a career coach and of course, I want people to come and use my services. I’ve written an article from this business of why and how to choose a career coach.
I will say one word about that. You can go to the Internet and troll around and find out about everything that you didn’t even want to know about it – because everybody has got a good website. I think mine is outstanding, it’s good and it draws people and so on. But then you’re going to talk to people, because different is not better or worse, but it’s different. People have different protocols and different methodologies. Some people will give you tests and tests and tests. If you want tests, you’ve got to go somewhere else. Ah, many career coaches (most, in fact) are either therapists or have been. And that’s okay – totally. But I have to tell my clients, hey, if you need a shrink, you’ve got to go somewhere else because I’m a pragmatic businessperson, I think I’m really unique in that I come out of a very distinguished background in retained executive search. I’ve kept up with the world of work jobs and so on; I know what it’s like.
This is, again, why I do so much interviewing training, I think that I can really get people into a mindset that will make them effective interviewers. They’ve got to do their own communication; I’m not going to be there holding their hand when they’re interviewing.
Back to what’s the one thing I would really want to say to people and that is you’re going to have to keep on reinventing yourself, you’re going to have to keep on making yourself better. The future is upon us, it is now.
Again, the last word I’d like to say is whatever that job is you have right now, it is not your last one. So you’ve got to be thinking about – I think you said this, Peter, not your next job, but maybe the next one. You must dream about that, think about that, prepare for it because it’s coming.
Peter: Beth, thank you so much for joining us again on Total Picture Radio. It’s been great to have you on the show again. We look forward to doing so again in the future.
Beth: Thank you.
We’ve been speaking with Beth Ross, a certified executive coach and executive search professional based in New York City.
Be sure to visit Beth’s feature page in the careers transitions channel
of Total Picture Radio.
Joining us today in New York is Beth Ross, a certified career and executive coach. Her background includes a distinguished career as an executive search professional maintaining a bicoastal practice and executing select executive searches.
Beth’s coaching practice is global in scope. Her sessions with clients in the greater New York area are in person, while working with individuals in other areas and time zones by telephone. The protocol includes all areas of the job search and career transition process with particular emphasis on interview training.
Be sure to visit Beth’s feature page in the careers transitions channel of Total Picture Radio. That’s TotalPicture.com for resource links and show notes. Beth’s website is BethRoss.com.
Beth, welcome back to Total Picture Radio.
Peter: One of the things you and I had talked about is the fact that people who set themselves up like that, you never know what’s going to happen. A relative may show up or somebody internally may show up at the 11th hour right before they’re ready to make you the offer and say “oh, I’m really interested in this job.”
Beth: That can happen, and we were just talking before this interview about a company that’s now going bankrupt. Last week, they may have engaged interviews for about five people who are now going to have a big, big, big disappointment because the company is in a downsizing mode. And that can happen.
Mergers, acquisitions may be going on behind the scenes. We never know about these things, that you might have, as a candidate, the unlucky honor of sitting there, interviewing for a job that whoops – is going up in smoke. It’s not going to be there.
So you just never know.
Being turned down may have nothing to do with you. It can have to do definitely with that person on the other side of the table, particularly in that first interview. Getting past the gatekeepers in today’s world is real, real, real important.
Decision makers are busy; they don’t want to spend their time on doing this. So the whole interpersonal interaction with people that you’re talking to, particularly if you’re aren’t … try doing this with someone who is very senior in accounting … “I don’t really like to talk to people, I like to crunch number.” Well, you’ve still got to interview.
Peter: I want to do a little role playing with you. Let’s pretend I am a marketing director at Citibank and I’m part of the 17,000 people that are going to be laid off. I come to you and say “oh my god, now what do I do because the banking industry seems to be in real contraction. This is where I’ve worked my whole career. I’ve spent 20 years working in the banking industry. Where can I go?”
Beth: Lots of place, particularly if you’re a marketing person as you said. Citi is one of those places where – you’re right – people could go and they could be … Hewlett Packard was the same way – lifers. Because it was such a good company, why in the world would you want to go anywhere else; you can have all kinds of career paths within this organization and people choose to do that and they’re encouraged to do that and are well taken care. Suddenly, maybe the best thing in their whole life has just happened to them, because new doors are going to open. They’re going to have to open.
If you’re a marketing expert, and you certainly know what the banking industry is doing right now, and you come and you sit down in front of me and we start talking about – I have a number of exercises I run people through to find out really what lights them from within. These are not tests; they’re just things that we really talk about.
Because people may not have for those 17 years dared to say I wish I were doing this and this and this. And a marketing person ought to be an expert on branding. If you could do it inside the bank, you can do it somewhere else. But now we’re talking about changing industries; we’re talking about becoming an insider in some industry where you’re really an outsider, and that’s when we get real serious about how do you do this. What about trade associations? As you say, we can learn everything over the Internet. Networking suddenly takes on a whole new hue in these situations. Yeah, this is going to hurt, this is going to feel real desperate.
Now, I’m jumping all over the place in what I’m talking about, but I do have a protocol. I do have a methodology I use with people who are in this dilemma of I have to reinvent myself. Because we’re having a lot of people … you can be at the wrong place at the wrong time. It has nothing to do with you, your competency or anything else; but it’s so scary because it does have to do with how you make your money, how you take care of yourself and your family and all the obligations in life and so on.
Peter: Beth, what is your impression of these online networks, like LinkedIn and Facebook, do you think these are valuable resources that professionals should be using to continue to market themselves and promote themselves?
Beth: That’s a fascinating world, and we’re going to see more and more of this social networking. I get wonderful reports, particularly my friends who recruit exclusively. That’s what they’re doing now; they use LinkedIn for candidate development and so forth. They also get a lot of inquiries that they wouldn’t get otherwise.
You’ve got to remember that this stuff takes time. Networking is not something that just happens with the click of a finger, you’re going to get a lot of people who call you who want to figure out how they can use your knowledge and so on, forgetting that networking is a two way street, it goes back and forth.
I think basically it’s good and everybody is hooked into it now. So the jury is still out. I can’t say to someone don’t do that.
Peter: What haven’t we covered in this interview that you would like to share with the audience about either career transitioning or what… sort of the focus of this interview has really been on is strategies for going in and acing an interview.
Beth: Yeah, we’ve talked a lot about interviewing. But you and I had talked about beforehand about this being about the demise of the traditional career. Right now the big operative word in our world right now with the political upheaval and so on is ‘change.’ The world of work is changing, even as we speak, in ways that we don’t even understand yet because we don’t know what’s going to be happening with the economy and so forth.
But I think that the biggest thing that all of us – we’re all workers one way or the other – we have to stay very alert to the fact that you’ve got to be creative, you’ve got to be innovative, you’ve got to be enthusiastic, you’ve got to be hardworking. It sounds like a bunch of platitudes, but it’s really not. You’ve got to put that together in how it’s going to work for you. It might mean working for an organization, a company, a corporation and so forth. And as you and I discussed, there are still good jobs out there; we’re just going to be finding them in relatively untraditional ways.
Don’t expect Monster to list all the jobs that you’re going to go after, or heaven forbid you post your resume up there. This is about the social networking sites too; do you want your resume there because who is going to get it and who is going to use it – because they can, because that information is there.
A lot of things are really different. That would be the thing that … every individual’s situation is unique. Of course, I’m a career coach and of course, I want people to come and use my services. I’ve written an article from this business of why and how to choose a career coach.
I will say one word about that. You can go to the Internet and troll around and find out about everything that you didn’t even want to know about it – because everybody has got a good website. I think mine is outstanding, it’s good and it draws people and so on. But then you’re going to talk to people, because different is not better or worse, but it’s different. People have different protocols and different methodologies. Some people will give you tests and tests and tests. If you want tests, you’ve got to go somewhere else. Ah, many career coaches (most, in fact) are either therapists or have been. And that’s okay – totally. But I have to tell my clients, hey, if you need a shrink, you’ve got to go somewhere else because I’m a pragmatic businessperson, I think I’m really unique in that I come out of a very distinguished background in retained executive search. I’ve kept up with the world of work jobs and so on; I know what it’s like.
This is, again, why I do so much interviewing training, I think that I can really get people into a mindset that will make them effective interviewers. They’ve got to do their own communication; I’m not going to be there holding their hand when they’re interviewing.
Back to what’s the one thing I would really want to say to people and that is you’re going to have to keep on reinventing yourself, you’re going to have to keep on making yourself better. The future is upon us, it is now.
Again, the last word I’d like to say is whatever that job is you have right now, it is not your last one. So you’ve got to be thinking about – I think you said this, Peter, not your next job, but maybe the next one. You must dream about that, think about that, prepare for it because it’s coming.
Peter: Beth, thank you so much for joining us again on Total Picture Radio. It’s been great to have you on the show again. We look forward to doing so again in the future.
Beth: Thank you.
We’ve been speaking with Beth Ross, a certified executive coach and executive search professional based in New York City.
Be sure to visit Beth’s feature page in the careers transitions channel
of Total Picture Radio.
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