Find Your Dream Job: Insider Tips for Finding Work, Advancing your Career, and Loving Your Job

You will find competitors in whatever career you choose. No matter how small or niche your field, some people always stand out in your profession.  Education, experience and other advantages contribute to these people’s success, but how you lead you work life can makes a huge difference, too. One of the best ways to stand out in your field and in your career is through creative collaboration. Embracing mutuality--sharing of your strengths, acknowledging your weaknesses and partnering with others with complementary skill sets--strengthens your professional credentials in an increasingly interconnected economy. And people who can facilitate collaboration are best positioned to solve employers’ most pressing challenges. This week on Find Your Dream Job, our guest expert is Kare Anderson, Emmy-winning journalist, TED presenter, and author of Mutuality Matters and Moving from Me to We. Kare believes that collaborative problem solving is the key to a dynamic, engaging and impactful career. She shares her thoughts on how to improve mutuality and the value of team collaboration. In this 32-minute episode you will learn: Why collaboration is a valuable, in-demand skill in the modern workplace How to leverage your professional networks to facilitate collaboration How to embrace mutuality as a tool for networking and job-hunting Tips for improving your teamwork skills--even if you’re an introvert Communications tools to facilitate collaboration This week’s guest: Kare Anderson (@KareAnderson | LinkedIn)Journalist and SpeakerAuthor, Moving from Me to We, Mutuality Matters, and moreSan Francisco, Calif. Listener question of the week: Is it a bad idea to accept a job working for or with family members or friends? What should I consider before accepting? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: The Life Hack Blog - The Ten Things Good Team Players Do Differently Psychology Today Blog - The Introvert’s Guide to Surviving Teamwork The Big Interview Blog - Answering Behavioral Interview Questions on Teamwork Say It Better with Kare Anderson Moving from Me to We Mutuality Matters Slack.com Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard:  This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host, and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and by our book, "Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond)." To learn more about the book and the new edition that we're publishing February 1, please visit macslist.org/ebook. Whatever career you choose, you'll find competitors, no matter how small or crowed your field may be, some people always stand out in your profession. Education, experience and other advantages play a part in these people's success, but how you lead your work life can make a huge difference, too. This week on Find Your Dream Job, we're talking about how you can advance your career by combining your strengths with the complementary skills of others. Our guest expert this week is Kare Anderson. She and I will talk about specific steps you can take in your professional life to break out of the pack. Ben Forstag has several online tools you can use to improve your teamwork skills, and Cecilia Bianco tackles the question that comes up in every workplace: Should you hire family and friends? We're in the Mac's List studio, and I'm here with Cecilia and Ben. First of all, Ben, welcome back from your paternity leave. Ben Forstag:   Thank you. Mac Prichard:  Congratulations on the new son. Ben Forstag:  Thank you. Little Fox, as we call him, is doing very well. Mac Prichard:    I love that acronym. Well, it's a pleasure to have you back. Now, when you two think about peers you've had, either at school or in the workplace or elsewhere, who've stood out, what have you seen them do? Cecilia Bianco: I think the biggest thing that stands out to me is how engaged someone is in their field. If someone's really focused on attending events, workshops, and joining the right groups for their career, I think that goes a long way to making them stand out. Ben Forstag:    One thing that I've seen that I really like is people who maintain active and high quality blogs. I think this is so important because it shows a dedication. This is something you do weekly or on a regular basis. It positions you as a subject matter expert regardless of how big or small that subject is. It's quite notable when you are the subject matter expert on it. Third, it is a showcase for good quality writing. I think those things are so important, and it's just a great way to position yourself with employers and other professional prospects. Mac Prichard:    I think the common denominator that runs through both of the examples that you two have shared, and they're great examples, is a topic that our guest is going to talk about this week, which is the importance of giving to others. She has a book that we'll talk about, "Mutuality," but the idea is this that by helping others and being part of a community, whether it's by writing a blog or participating in professional groups and/or going to events, you're giving of yourself, and you're thinking about the needs of others and how you can help. First, let's turn to you, Ben. I know you have a resource for our listeners this week. What have you found? Ben Forstag:     This week I want to share three blog posts all about the importance of teamwork. When I say that word I know some people are rolling their eyes, and other people are getting great big smiles. Teamwork is one of these clichéd words that really divides people. What do you think Cecilia? Are you a teamwork person, or a work alone person? Cecilia Bianco: I'm more of a teamwork person. I think, as you said, it's become really important in today's work market. Almost all of our listings have that listed as a qualification: How do you work on a team? Mac Prichard:   I enjoy teamwork, too. I have to say when I was in graduate school, I got a lot out of that experience. One of the most important gifts I got was they had us work in study groups, and I had not done that as an undergraduate. That gave me the experience to work with others and helping others in the group, and I found I got a lot more out of my education as a result. Ben Forstag:  I'm of two minds when it comes to teamwork. Part of me really sees the value in it. It's undeniable that this is a skill that employers are looking for. I would guess that ninety-five percent of every job description that we get here at Mac's List includes teamwork as one of the things they're looking for. At the same time, when I was in graduate school, team projects were always those projects where I thought, "Oh man, now I've got to do extra work to cover up for other people." It's something that I'm always working on, and I know I can improve on. That's why I thought this was an interesting topic. It also feeds into what we talked about earlier about working with others and giving to others in a team environment. The first post I want to share comes from the Lifehack blog, and it's called the "10 Things Good Team Players Do Differently." As Cecilia mentioned terms like teamwork and team player are often used so much they lose all of their meaning. I really liked this post because it outlines some basic behaviors that make someone a good team participant. Here are the ten attributes of team players according to the blog: They're reliable. They're unafraid of failure. They share information. They say what they think. They don't dominate meetings. They stay positive. They understand and respect team dynamics. They know when to say "no." They are adept at problem solving. They go the extra mile. This all sounds great, Mac, right? This is exactly the kind of person you want to hire. Mac Prichard:   Right. Ben Forstag:    If I had any criticism of this blog piece, it might be that this sounds like the ideal person. A good team player is a just a great listener, does everything right. I do like it because they are concrete things to think about, and how you behave in the office, and how you work with your colleagues. Just things to keep in the back of your mind about how you could improve your relations and your productivity with others. If you heard that list and you thought that doesn't sound like me at all, my next resource is for you. This is a post entitled, "The Introvert's Guide to Surviving Teamwork, and it comes from the Psychology Today blog. As I mentioned earlier, I actually consider myself something of an introvert, and I know how difficult it can be to assert yourself in a group setting. I like this post because it outlines some mindsets and skill sets and deliberative practices you can use to become an effective team leader. The general idea here is that introverts play an essentially role in effective teams. You're needed for the team to be effective, and the role you play as an introvert is being the level-headed listener, the aggregator of good ideas, and the implementer of group decisions. I love this quote from the blog. The author writes, "Extroverts love to talk, but are much less enthused about having to walk away and do the work. This is the introvert's chance to shine. You can be the one who puts your hand up and to work on a project offline." I think that's an important thing to keep in mind because teamwork requires different kinds of people. If it's just a bunch of talkers, nothing is going to get done. Lastly I want to share a blog for how you can talk about your teamwork skills with a prospective employer. As I was thinking about this subject yesterday, it really struck me that what a challenge it is to illustrate your skills as a team player in the interview process, because in most of the things we're doing in an interview is trying to show how great ... like you're the number one guy, you're the expert in everything, you have all the answers, and teamwork is not one of these skills where being the guy with all the answers is an asset. That's often a liability. This post had some interesting answers on how you can answer behavioral questions related to teamwork. It comes from the biginterview.com blog. I'll have the URLs for all these blog posts in the show notes. It's a very long post, but it includes some sample interview questions around teamwork, discusses why employers are asking these questions, and provides some strategies on how you can best answer these questions in a way that shows the skills you have as a team player without bragging, without going over the top, and really presenting yourself as an ideal candidate for their needs. Cecilia Bianco: Your point about focusing on behavioral interview questions I think is really important because if you're trying to act like a team player in an interview, the best way to do that is through examples, so being prepared with examples that show you're a team player is a great way to go. Mac Prichard:    I think your point, too, Ben, about how in interviews there's a tendency to try to please the prospective employer by saying I can do everything and I'm a star in everything. I think smart employers know they're not going to get a hundred percent of everything that's in a job description, and a candidate can't do everything. I think it's important for candidates to remember that, because if they are hired, they will be part of a team. They will have strengths that they can bring to that group, but they can't do everything. If they're managers themselves or they become managers one day, they're going to recognize the value of being able to identify strengths in others, and draw people out in those strengths, and give them opportunities to display them. Ben Forstag:       Really, that's the value of teamwork essentially. It's a way to maximize people's strengths and cover up their weaknesses by combining compatible strengths and collaborating that way. Before I leave I just want to share this one awesome quote that I came across. It's about the value of teamwork, and this comes from Bill Gates. He said, "Creativity is less of an individual characteristic than it is an emergent property that surfaces when people convene around a problem." I think that kind of gets at the heart of why most employers nowadays want you to be a good team player because it helps you come up with unique, good solutions to problems that individuals by themselves can't figure out. Mac Prichard:  I think together a team is stronger and an organization is better for it. Well, thank you Ben. Ben is always looking for suggestions, and he's always thrilled when he hears from people who have ideas for him, so please write him. You can reach him at ben@macslist.org. Now let's turn to you, our listeners. It's time to hear from Cecilia Bianco, our community manager. She's going to reach deep and far into the mailbag, and pull out this week's question. Cecilia, what do you have for us this week? Cecilia Bianco: Actually our question this week came from Twitter, not the mailbag, and it's, "Is it a bad idea to accept a job working for or with family members or friends? What should I consider before accepting?" I personally worked at a family business, and I know it can definitely create tension among other employees. There's a lot to consider and talk about before you accept the job. The most important thing you can get do is set boundaries with the family member or friend before you actually take the job. Ben, I know you've worked with family before, too. What ground rules did you have in place to make it a successful experience? Ben Forstag:   A few years ago I was working at a nonprofit, and my father actually got hired by the nonprofit as a consultant to do some sales work for them. It was a tense situation, but we made it work, and mostly because we had a couple informal rules. One of them was when he started I made it clear that I had no managerial authority over him, and he had no managerial authority over me. We worked in two separate departments and had two separate people that we reported to, which helped. I also removed myself from pretty much any decision that had to do with what he was doing. You're not always able to do this in an organization. Fortunately in the organization I was with there were enough other people that could pick up the slack, and I could step out of some conversations simply because I just didn't want to be involved with that piece. Then the third one, and I think this is the most important, is I made a deal with my father. We weren't going to talk about work when we weren't at work. I think it's important to have a work life and a private life. If your private life turns into a second work life because all the same people are in both camps, you lose that area to decompress and to relax. Off hours we didn't talk about work. If he had a complaint about work or I had a complaint about work, we didn't talk about it to each other. We just pretended that that didn't exist. It was a unique situation, and we made it work. I think it really depends on your own specific circumstances, though, of whether it's a viable option. Cecilia Bianco: Those are all great suggestions. I think the most important main thing to consider is if you're confident that you and the family member or friend in question can treat each other as you would any other coworker or boss. Knowing everything you know about them, as I'm sure you know your father very well, are you going to be able to put aside that knowledge and treat them unbiasedly? Especially once office conflict comes up or any situations arise, you want to be able to treat them like you would a coworker that you haven't known your whole life. Mac, have you ever worked with a family member? Mac Prichard:   I have. My dad had rental properties from many years. He would hire my brother and I and I think my sisters as well to paint apartments, move tenants and put up wallpaper. I wasn't good at any of those things. My sister, Katie, is a star at wallpaper, and she is still papering walls decades later. We all had jobs, but we tended to ... After a stint with my dad, I worked in restaurants or in other places. Cecilia Bianco: Was it a good experience or a bad? Mac Prichard:  It was a good experience. He was basically a small business owner, running his rental properties. Being part of that, going with him, watching him work with tenants, deal with leases, purchase properties, work with realtors, he brought us all along, and we got to watch that firsthand and participate in it. I think we learned some valuable lessons as a result. Cecilia Bianco: In that situation it sounds like it was beneficial because you were probably given a little bit more opportunity to learn since it was your father who was the boss rather than maybe another boss. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. I certainly learned from my other jobs in high school and college, but I think a family member is always going to take more of an interest in a relative, a child or other relative. Many families, I think, want to see their kid succeed in that business as well, and so they want to make that happen. Cecilia Bianco: That makes sense. Two different situations but the same answer. It's okay to accept a job from a family member. Our main point of advice is just to sit down, and get those ground rules in place, and make sure you're on the same page about how you want the work relationship to go. Mac Prichard:  Well, thanks Cecilia. If you've got a question for Cecilia, you can send it to her via Twitter and also by email. Her email address is cecilia@macslist.org. Cecilia, for the benefit for our listeners who on Twitter, how can they reach you via your Twitter handle? Cecilia Bianco: They can tweet @Macs_list, or they can tweet me personally @Ceciliamfbianco. Mac Prichard:    These segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of our book, "Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond)." We're taking a complete Mac's List guide and making it even better. We're adding new content, and we're publishing the book on multiple eReader platforms. There's a new version of the book coming in February of this year, February 1 actually. For the first time you'll be able to access "Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond)" on your Kindle, your Nook, your iPad and other digital devices. Up till now it's just been available as a PDF. Now for the first time you'll be able to get a paperback edition. Whatever the format, our goal is the same, to give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. To learn more, go to our website. Visit macslist.org/ebook, and you can sign up for our eBook newsletter. We sending out publication updates now, and we're sharing exclusive book content. We're also providing pre-sale prices that are available right now. Let's turn to this week's guest expert. Kare Anderson is a public speaker, author of "Mutuality Matters" and other books, and an Emmy award-winning, NBC and Wall Street Journal reporter who now writes for Forbes and Huffington Post. Kare's TED talk called The Web of Humanity: Becoming an Opportunity Maker has attracted more than 1.7 million views. Her diverse set of clients includes Salesforce, Novartis and Skoll Foundation. Kare, thanks for joining us. Kare Anderson: I'm honored. We share an interest in making our work serve the greater good. Mac Prichard:    I appreciate having that bond with you. I've been very impressed reading your blog over the years about your writing about the importance of human connection, and how much it matters to us all, and what a difference it can make in our careers. One of the topics that you've addressed is how people can stand out in their job search, at work, or in their career by making the most of their social connections. Tell us more about that Kare. Kare Anderson:    I believe it not only makes your life more nourishing, but you stand out when you cultivate relationships with people who have adjacent talents to yours and when you cite and praise the thought leaders and the people in your line of work, your profession, your industry or company. Whenever you shine a spotlight specifically praising people for actions they took, especially in front of people who matter to them, you shine too. I think people notice you. It's always nice to have people offer you a job before you're looking for it even if you don't want it, and that's one way to do that. Mac Prichard:  I think many people will hope that will happen, that someone will approach them and offer them a job. That might happen by posting a resume or a profile on LinkedIn, or getting in touch with an executive recruiter. They just have to sit back and wait for that call, but in your writing you have a different perspective. You say that you can make that happen but there are steps that people have to take. Can you tell us more about that? Kare Anderson:   One of them is I believe in clarity and specificity. The more you're clear and specific on your talents, and the flip side where you're not, the more you might see situations, markets that people are trying to serve, new markets they might be entering, what's missing in their company that might leverage more value or visibility to their current customers and prospects. Then when you do that writing about those situations, if you're prone to writing, is helpful or citing them. When you're talking to customers say, "Just as so and so does this and this company does this, we fill in the gap in between, and we think we want to meet the high standard they do," specifically citing the benefits of companies that you might want to be in or how [to serve 00:19:30] situations makes people more aware of you. I think it's good to also be proactive and be on the lookout for leaders of companies that you admire and say, "That's a company I like. I like what they're doing. I like the way they do that. I wonder if there's a way my talents could serve them." So there are ways to be proactive, but also, of course, ways to be clear and concrete and specific when you're being interviewed. Mac Prichard:    Tell us more about examples of that. If someone goes to a professional association, they see people who are those kinds of leaders you described a moment ago, and they think they can be of help to them, or they're not sure how they can be of help. Let's break that into two parts. First of all, they know they want to be of service to someone. How can they figure out how they could be beneficial to them, and then how might they do that? Kare Anderson:   First of all, learn a little bit about ... that person does well or something where you think there's a gap for them, and when you're at a conference or a social gathering say, "I've long admired your capacity to do this. I wonder if we could talk a bit about it because I have a shared interest in serving that market or in that situation, and I want to give you some suggestions and see what you thought of them. I'd love your candid advice frankly." What if ...? If they say that, say, "What about this? What if we did that?" Recently I'm a big fan of analytics [geeks 00:20:56] for example. I think there's certain occupations where there's growth, and they're certainly one of them. If they say "I notice you have a great product. I notice that you get a lot of good testimonials. That shows that you're doing a lot of things right. Would you be interested in exploring how to understand more deeply the profile of the kind of customer you serve, the traits they have in common both as it relates to your product but also in other parts of their life?" For example, I found out a team I work with of analytics geeks that surgeons happen to like fine wine and male surgeons especially. They also like certain lines of clothing when they're out of the hospital. So when the analytics said we've found this out about the profile of the customers you're serving, these surgeons, can we propose that we join with your marketing people to find efficient ways to reach them in other unexpected places and to perhaps partner with some of the organizations that reach them in those situations so you can stand out more? So they were coming at it differently. Or thinking about a nursery. I'm working with a nursery. There's five outlets. I suggested to them stand out, not only sell plants but offer three options to keep your business growing. Offer to sell the service of people who will plant the plants for them, whether it's for an individual organization or to create a landscape design that can go with the plants and/or provide regular maintenance plus suggestions of when to add what kinds of plants to their business landscaping or their home. That way the person offering that, they may be a landscaper, they may be someone who's just seeking more work at a basic level planting plants. I admire the people saying, "Let me help you differentiate your product by what I can do to help you. So that was just two examples. Mac Prichard:    Those are great examples. What I like about those as you were talking is that you're thinking about the needs of the person you want to help. Kare Anderson:  Yes. Mac Prichard:    You have the services they might require. Whether it's you're running a business and you're trying to identify the needs of potential or current clients and how you might need them, or you're looking for work and you want connect with a potential employer, it all comes back to the needs of the person you want to have that relationship with, and how you can help meet them. Kare Anderson:  That's very well put. I call it triangling, triangle talk. First referring to you, say, "Is this an interest of yours?" or "I noticed you're doing this. Am I on target? May we talk about something a way I think ...? I know a person who could help you or I could." So it's you, me and then us, which is increasingly rare in our culture by the way. Mac Prichard:   I think making those connections with others and being a kind of broker can make a huge difference. You've written about the work of Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, about the value of giving to others without any expectation of getting something in return. You've talked about that in your book, "Mutuality." Can you tell us more about the book, the main idea? I know you've got some practical steps in that book that you share with readers about how they can act on that idea. Kare Anderson:     I'd be glad to. One of the things that's important about Adam is he said givers are among the least and most successful, so it's how you give. Because one of my hot buttons, which I'm trying to work on, are people who are unhelpful givers. They give something that clearly demonstrates they don't really know you, and so you try to act genial back. But in "Mutuality Matters" I believe the future in our increasingly connected world is to cultivate relationships with people of complementary talents around sweet spots of mutual interests. The more you do that you'll have more lenses on a situation. You can innovate faster. You can see an opportunity or solve a problem better. In that attitude you don't do it just when there's a crisis. You do it ahead of time. You can, in effect, becomes what Joe Calloway calls a 'category of one,' where you're the only person that combines a strength, that's somewhat unique, with a network of people where you can call on them, and they will call on you. It's not quid pro quo, but it's an ebb and flow of mutuality over time. Thus you can stand out wherever you are at any level of a large company or small one. That's why I like intranets, by the way, for companies because an intranet is a internet within a company. A lot of them ... badly designed so it looks like more work, but when it's done right, and this just makes my heart sing, when you can ask for help internally from each other, you see who keeps asking for help but doesn't ever get asked for help, and you see who's the most helpful. Again going back to Adam, he said it's not leaders we should look for in an organization, but who offers the most helpful assist most often. They provide the assistance that people want. They add the missing link. They help become the glue that holds groups together. That, I think, is increasingly what individuals need and organizations need to stay agile. Doing that is in your enlightened self-interest. I also think it makes for less conflict and more conviviality when you're speaking to a part of someone saying, "You can do this." Like I'm a fast thinker. My business partner's a slow thinker. Doesn't mean one's smart and dumb. I'm an extrovert. In some situation he's an introvert. We're now realizing the reverse may true. But we can do and see things that the other person can't and vice versa. That's my wordy way of saying why I like mutuality. It also makes it fun because you say, "Oh my gosh, I never would have thought of that. Mac Prichard:  Our skills and our weaknesses can complement others when we're part of a team. I wanted to get back to your book. You had talked about specific ways in the book that people can promote mutuality. Can you tell us more about some of those steps? Kare Anderson:  I think the first thing in promoting mutuality is to speak to the side of someone you most like and admire, especially when they're not demonstrating it, because it's not how people feel about us when they first meet us. It's how they feel about themselves. I think [citing 00:27:47] to two or three other people, one of my favorites, a thing that three unexpected allies could do together around a sweet spot means they often will like the experience they have on one action, and they'll like you for making it happen. Those are two ways to spur mutuality and where they're more likely to be pulled toward you and think of you. If you give enough other people what they need in their life, you often get what you need, even before you know you need it, from people you sometimes didn't think could provide it. I think that makes for a productive and satisfying life [in 00:28:20] mutuality. Mac Prichard:    I think that's well said. Well, we'll include links to your book and to the two authors you mentioned as well. Thank you for joining us today, Kare. Kare Anderson:    I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I love your notion online of work backwards. I call it reverse engineering. Have that end goal in mind for you and your team. Mac Prichard:   Well, thank you. You can find Kare online at her blog, Moving From Me To We and at her website sayitbetter.com. We'll include links to both of these sites in the show notes. Thank you again for joining us today, Kare. Kare Anderson:    I was honored Mac. Thank you and thank the team. Mac Prichard:   We're back in the Mac's List studio with Ben and Cecilia. What do you two think? What are some of the important points you heard Kare make? Ben Forstag:  I really liked the idea that she put out there that there's a huge professional value to networks, and not just for advancing your own career but as a service in and of themselves. One of the key ideas here is that your unique skills and your ability to bring in other people with their own unique and complementary skill sets, that's a huge asset for a professional for solving problems on the fly. It's something, frankly, we don't think about our networks like that very often, but we should. Mac Prichard:  I agree with you Ben. I think each of us is a kind of impresario or broker person who knows lots of people with skills and can bring folks together to solve problems. When we do that, it does create opportunities for us. Ben Forstag:    And there's a value-added for being that person who can bring everyone else together. Mac Prichard:   Right. Cecilia Bianco: Your last point, that's what I took away from the most, thinking about who's the most helpful around you. If you are that person that's providing the most value and help, then you really stand out and are someone people are always thinking about. Ben Forstag:   I liked her point also about ... she called it intranets, and a lot of organizations have those, but there's also a lot of communications tools out there. One is called Slack. It's like a chat tool that organizations use so their teams can collaborate openly. The idea that when you put it out there into your network that, "I need help with problem X" and other folks jump and address that problem for you, that mutuality there, that give and take of each person contributing their unique skills, that's where the magic happens. The more we can facilitate that process through technology and through our own willingness to embrace that, the better results we're going to have both professional, personally and for our organizations. Cecilia Bianco: I agree. As Kare said, it definitely makes your work life a little bit more fun. Mac Prichard:   Well, thank you both, and thank you our listeners. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find that dream job. In the meantime visit us at macslist.org where you can sign up for our free newsletter. It comes out every Tuesday, and there are more than a hundred new jobs every week. If you like what you hear on the show, please let us know by taking a moment to visit iTunes and leave a rating and review. The benefit of that is that it helps us help others because the more ratings and reviews we receive, the higher we rise in the iTunes charts, and the more people learn about the show. Thank you for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

According to one estimate, 80% of employers Google candidates before inviting someone in for a job interview. What will people see when they Google you? Photos from your college spring break trip to Mexico or an up-to-date LinkedIn page? What impression will you create online? That you’re the life of the party or an accomplished professional? Using social media in your job hunt isn’t only about playing defense. Facebook and other personal accounts can make a big positive difference in your career. This week on “Find Your Dream Job” Mac talks with Joshua Waldman, CEO and founder of Career Enlightenment, about how to use social media in your job search. Joshua is the author of Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies, and he’s also written for Forbes, Huffington Post, Mashable and the International Business Times. Joshua’s career blog, CareerEnlightenment.com, won the About.com Reader’s Choice Award for Best Career Blog 2013. When he’s not writing, Joshua presents keynotes, trainings and breakout sessions around the world. In this 28-minute episode you will learn: Why your online profiles matter Tactics to leverage LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter in your job search and career How to improve your online profiles and use them effectively Common mistakes professionals make with social media How to appropriately send “cold call” requests on LinkedIn A free tool to clean-up your social media accounts This week’s guest: Joshua Waldman (@joshuawaldman | LinkedIn)CEO & Founder Career EnlightenmentPortland, Ore. Listener question of the week: I'm thinking about asking to connect with someone on LinkedIn. The problem is -- I've never actually met them. Is this ok to do? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: Scrubber.social Viral cat video (Psycho Cat Beats Up On Vet) from former colleague, Jennie Day-Burget CareerEnlightenment.com Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies Free InMail Templates LinkedIn Profile Grading App “Nasty LinkedIn Rejection Goes Viral” Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Wing it” and “job interview” are two phrases that should never go together in the same sentence. Before you walk into an interview, you need to prepare yourself, do your homework, and practice what you will do and say. But how do you prepare responses when you don’t know the questions? And what, besides having good answers, contributes to a successful interview? This week on Find Your Dream Job we talk about the interview process and share tips on making a great in-person impression with a prospective employer. Mac chats with executive recruiter and career coach, Janet Brumbaugh, of Janet Brumbaugh and Associates. Janet helps her clients hone their interview skills by video-recording them in mock-interviews; she then reviews the tape with the jobseeker, to identify mistakes and opportunities for improvement. In this episode, Janet shares her expert advice on how to your own interview performance and outcomes. In this 33-minute episode you will learn: The specific research you should do before an interview What employers are looking for during the interview process How to make the interview less of an interrogation and more of a back-and-forth conversation The questions you, as the candidate, should be asking at the interview How to respond to oddball interview questions This week’s guest: Janet Brumbaugh (LinkedIn)PrincipalJanet Brumbaugh and AssociatesWest Lynn, Ore. Listener question of the week:  What questions should I ask an employer in an interview? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: 10 Weirdest Job Interview Questions of 2015 GlassDoor.com Janet Brumbaugh and Associates Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

HAPPY NEW YEAR! We hope you all had a festive holiday season and that you're staring 2016 re-energized to build the career of your dreams! To kick off the new calendar year, the Mac's List team is sharing a bonus episode of Find Your Dream Job, featuring one of our most popular guests, Aubrie De Clerck of Portland-based Coaching for Clarity. In this 3-minute episode, Aubrie reads "Portland's Threads--and Yours", her contribution to the Mac's List ebook, Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). If you’re looking for more advice on developing a brand that attracts employers, check out Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). The 2016 edition, available February 1, includes new content and will be available on a wide range of e-reading devices, including Kindle, Nook and iBooks. You will even be able to order a paperback edition! To learn more, sign-up for our ebook mailing list at www.macslist.org/ebook. When you join this list, we'll send you publication updates, insider ebook content, and special pre-sale price discounts. Make 2016 the year you land your dream job! Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard:    This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host and publisher of Mac's List. On this bonus episode of Find Your Dream Job, we're bringing back one of our most popular guests, Aubrie De Clerck of Coaching For Clarity. Aubrie is included as one of the local job search experts in Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond), and in today's episode, she'll share her contribution to the book with you, our podcast listeners. Here's Aubrie De Clerck reading "Portland's Threads--and Yours", from Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). Aubrie DeClerck: In any search, it's up to us to tell our story: Who we are, what we can do, and how we stand out in doing it. Our story is not simply about identifying transferable skills. To find fulfilling work, we need to communicate our threads, the things we're best at, the things we can't stop doing even if we try, the things we do naturally are gifts in a way that creates confidence in ourselves and shows our value to an employer. Take Portland as an example. We all know about keeping the city weird, but what is consistent about the town that filters into all the community does? What are Portland's threads? Here are two: unrestrainable creative self-expression, and ongoing commitment to environmental protection. How do we know with confidence that this is truly what Portland is about? If we were writing a resume for Portland, we would give specific examples. For unrestrainable creative self-expression, think about our food and drink: Microbreweries, coffee roasters, adventurous, award winning restaurants and farmer's markets. As for the arts, International Film Festival or Jazz Festival, Tango Fest and monthly art walks. Our annual events that include the Bridge Pedal, the PDX Adult Soap Box Derby, Tour de Coops and Time-Based Art Festival. Then our iconic local businesses: Powell's Books, food carts, Hollywood Theater, and Voodoo Doughnuts. As for our ongoing commitment to environmental protection, we have compost at the curb. Sixty-three percent of all of our waste is recycled. Investment in public transportation, including our new MAXX Orange Line, strong urban growth boundary, buffer bike lanes, LEED certified buildings and more. With clear examples identified, how do you assign value to them? What do these threads mean about Portland? To me, they create a great quality of life and keep our community vibrant, essential components for a city I choose to live in. As you create your personal brand, ask yourself: What are my threads? How do they give value to others? Mac Prichard:   If you're looking for more expert advice and insider tips like those that Aubrie just shared, check out Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). This is the definitive guide for finding meaningful work, whether you're in Portland, Oregon, Portland, Maine, or anywhere in between. We're making the book even better. The 2016 edition will include new content and be available on a wide array of e-reading devices, including Kindle, Nook and iBooks, as well as a paperback edition. For more information, visit www.Macslist.org/ebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you get a nonprofit job? This is a big question that we hear from all kinds of job seekers: recent college graduates, corporate employees who want to switch careers, and government workers who want to continue to serve the public. Like the question, the nonprofit sector is big. Almost 11 million Americans work for nonprofits in all kinds of jobs, from running soup kitchens and serving Girl Scouts, to managing organizations with billion dollar budgets. Starting and maintaining a nonprofit career can be challenge. There’s a lot of competition for social good gigs, and professionals in the private sector may perceive cultural barriers to entry into the nonprofit space. Plus, there’s the question of how to making a living while working for a nonprofit.   This week on Find Your Dream Job Mac talks with a nonprofit expert: Allison Jones, Marketing and Publications Director at the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. Allison previously worked at Idealist.org and as a career-focused journalist. In this episode she discusses the different pathways to entering the nonprofit sector and her tips for building a rewarding social good career. In this 34-minute episode you will learn: Why you need to get specific when you think about a nonprofit career Different ways that people enter the nonprofit space What nonprofit hiring managers are looking for in new employees The most enlightening questions you can ask in nonprofit-focused informational interviews Why language matters when you apply for a nonprofit job Salary and benefit expectations for the nonprofit sector This week’s guest: Allison Jones (@ajlovesya | LinkedIn)Marketing & Publications Director Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (NTEN)New York, N.Y. Listener question of the week:  How important is volunteer experience when applying for nonprofit jobs? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: CharityNavigator.org GlassDoor.com Salary.com Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (NTEN) NYU Wagner Career Tracks Exercise Idealist.org Craigslist.com National Council of Nonprofits - Find Your State Nonprofit Association Heather Krasna - Jobs that Matter Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. -- FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard:    This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard your host, and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and our book, "Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond)." To learn more about the book and the updated edition that we're publishing in February, visit macslist.org/ebook. One of the most common questions we're asked at Mac's List is this, "How do I get a nonprofit job?" It's a big question, and we hear it from all kinds of people. Recent college graduates, corporate employees who want to switch careers, or government workers who want to continue to serve the public. Like the question the nonprofit sector is big, almost 11 million Americans work for nonprofits in all kinds of jobs, from running soup kitchens to serving Girl Scouts. We don't have all the answers for you today, but we can help you get started. Joining me as our expert guest this week is Allison Jones. She's the Marketing and Publications Director at NTEN. That stands for Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. We also have the Mac's List team Ben Forstag our Managing Director and Cecilia Bianco, our Community Manager, and they have resources and answers to questions about the nonprofit sector. Let's get started and begin by checking with the Mac's List team. Cecilia, Ben, how are you two this week? Ben Forstag:       I'm doing awesome. Cecilia Bianco:  Doing really good Mac. Mac Prichard:    Good. Well let's talk about nonprofits jobs. Now tell me, have either one of you worked in the nonprofit sector? Ben Forstag:       I spent 15 years in the nonprofit sector, in Pennsylvania, in Spain, in DC and most recently here in Portland. Mac Prichard:    Okay, and do you have one big lesson from that experience you want to share with our listeners about your time in the nonprofit world? Ben Forstag:       I think the big thing that I share with people is that a lot of times there's a stereotype that nonprofit careers, you can't do well in them. That you have to be the starving artist of sorts, but I think nonprofits are becoming increasingly professionalized, and you can have a career in which you do well for yourself and do good for the public as well. It's a really rewarding career. Mac Prichard:    How about you Cecilia? Cecilia Bianco:  I haven't worked for a nonprofit previously, but through my work at Mac's List I've met a lot of people who are in that sector, so I'm pretty familiar with that, and I would agree with Ben, that that's a big misconception that's starting to change. Mac Prichard:    I've worked for one nonprofit directly and like you Cecilia worked with a lot of different nonprofits as a vendor and partner, and I have seen a professionalization of the sector throughout my career and it's a good sign to see. Let's turn to Ben, who every week is out there exploring the internet looking for resources you can use, whether it's a blog, a podcast, or other tool. Ben what do you have for us this week? Ben Forstag:       So because we're talking about nonprofits this week, I wanted to spend a little time talking about the website Charity Navigator, and how it can be a resource for people who are looking for jobs in the nonprofit sector. Charity Navigator as I'm sure you know is mostly known for its scoring system for charities, foundations and other registered nonprofits. Each year they review the public filings for thousands of local, regional, and national nonprofits, and they award stars based on each organization's financial viability, transparency, program spending, and other factors. These stars have become quite a big thing in the nonprofit community, as a star rating can have a major impact on potential donors. I know in my own experience, one organization I was in went from three stars to two stars. It raised a lot of questions from our donors about what's going on. Mac Prichard:    It's a tool that Charity Navigator often comes up in the media when it releases its information about the percentage of a budget a nonprofit spends on fundraising, and there are organizations out there that spend far too much on development and not enough on services, and that's one of the facts that Charity Navigator tracks. Ben Forstag:       I should say that Charity Navigator is not without its challenges. There's some serious questions out there in the media and in the nonprofit community about how exactly they give these ratings out, but for today's purposes this is the big site that people go to for evaluating nonprofits, so we're going to use that as the source. While Charity Navigator's primarily a tool for donors, it can also be very useful for job hunters. You might recall that several weeks ago we talked about the website Glassdoor.com, a website with salary, hiring, and internal culture information about different employers. At the time I mentioned that Glassdoor didn't have a lot of information about nonprofit organizations, particularly smaller nonprofits. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah that's definitely true. Ben Forstag:       Yeah and that's a function of a lot of nonprofits tend to be smaller to they have fewer employees and ex employees to fill out Glassdoor evaluations. Well Charity Navigator does have a lot of this information that Glassdoor's missing, giving potential job seekers a great sneak peek into how those organizations operate. They do this by pulling information from each organization's 990 Form, which is a public financial document that nonprofits are required to file each year by the IRS. On Charity Navigator you can find out fairly detailed information on the nonprofit's financial and management history, which is really important when you're looking for a stable workplace. You can also see roughly how much money you spent on programming versus administrative or fundraising expenses as Mac pointed out, and what programs received the most support within the organization. Cecilia Bianco:  Ben, can't you get a lot of that information just from the nonprofit's website? Ben Forstag:       Good question Cecilia. Sometimes you can. While it's generally a best practice to include this kind of information on an annual report on the company website, not all organizations do this. You know, everyone's trying to put their best foot forward when it comes to their website and their public presence. In general I think the information on Charity Navigator tends to be a bit more impartial and data-driven, omitting a lot of that marketing jargon and cheerleading that you might find on those organization's own website. You can also get a sense of what the salaries are within a given nonprofit. If you go to the full 990 Form, which is available on Charity Navigator, you can see the organization's annual budget and the salary of top leadership. It's not going to tell you everyone's salary, so don't go looking for what the secretary's making, but from this information you can infer a general salary range for other positions in the organization. For example if the Executive Director is only making $45,000 a year, it's probably unlikely that a Program Director is going to be making the same amount. This kind of benchmarking I found really valuable when I was looking for nonprofit jobs. I had a real firm minimum salary requirement, and many times the nonprofits I was interested didn't list their salaries on their job postings, and a quick check on Charity Navigator told me if it was worthwhile applying for a particular position in that organization. If you're looking for nonprofit jobs I'd really encourage you to spend some times exploring the opportunities available on Charitynavigator.com, and I'll have the link in the show notes. Mac Prichard:    Great, well thank you Ben. If you have a suggestion for Ben, write him directly and we may share your idea on the show. Ben's address is Ben@macslist.org. Now it's time to turn to you, our listeners. Cecilia Bianco our Community Manager is here to answer one of your questions. Cecilia what do you hear from our community this week? Cecilia Bianco:  Our question this week is, "How important is volunteer experience when applying for nonprofit jobs?" We get this question a lot because volunteering, a lot of people don't necessarily want to do it, but it can be really worthwhile. From the people I've talked to, I think volunteer experience can be a bit of a leg up when you're applying for a nonprofit job. When there's a large pool of applicants who are all saying that an organization's cause is their passion. Showing that you've donated your free time towards this cause is definitely going to help you stand out, but the importance of volunteering also depends on what type of work experience you already have. You might have already worked in that nonprofit's area, so volunteering isn't as important because you're already showing that you're passionate enough to pursue a career in it. What do you two think, do you think volunteering is necessary? Ben Forstag:       I don't think it's necessary but I think it's a good idea. I think this is a form of networking that doesn't get employed enough. When you volunteer for an organization you shouldn't do it to get a job, but it certainly gets your name out there and you get to meet other staff members and other people in the community, and in doing so I think you improve your brand and your standing within that community and within that organization, so that if or when a job opening does become available you're a known commodity and someone that they know and trust with that position. Mac Prichard:    It's also a way of covering gaps in your resume. You can volunteer for a position at an organization that you want to have experience with to make those contacts, and obviously you do it in order to be of service, but while you look for work having even a part-time position, volunteer position within an organization, gives you a credential you can use to plug those gaps because sometimes, particularly for people mid-career, job searches can take three, six or even nine months. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah definitely. I think if you're unemployed and looking for a nonprofit job, volunteering is a win-win because you're adding to your resume and showing how much you want your work to support a certain cause, and as Ben said it's a great way to meet people who might be able to advocate for you when you go to apply at a certain organization. They might know someone who knows someone who works for your dream nonprofit and it can be really beneficial to volunteer because of this. I know I've heard plenty of stories of this happening in our nonprofit community, so it's definitely a win-win. Mac Prichard:    Good. Well thank you Cecilia. If you have a question for Cecilia please email her. Her address is Cecilia@macslist.org. The segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of "Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond)." We're making the complete Mac's List Guide even better by adding new content and making the book available on multiple e-reader platforms. When we launched the revised version in February 2016, you'll be able to access "Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond)" on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, and other digital devices. You'll also be able for the first time to order a paperback edition. Whatever the format our goal is the same. To give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. For more information visit Macslist.org/ebook and sign up for our ebook newsletter. We'll send you publication updates, share exclusive book content, and provide you with special pre-sale prices. Now let's turn to our guest expert Allison Jones. Allison is passionate about making the world a better place. As a proud nonprofit geek she has built her career in the sector, helping organizations leverage communications to fulfill their missions. Currently Allison is the Marketing and Publications Director at NTEN, and that stands for the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. Before that she worked at Idealist.org where she launched and managed Idealist Careers, a publication for purpose-driven professionals. Allison thank you for joining us. Allison Jones:    Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited about this conversation. Mac Prichard:    I know our listeners are too. We talked earlier about this in the show. We get this question a lot at Mac's List, how can I get a nonprofit job. With our listeners thinking about that, what do you encourage them to consider when they look at a career in nonprofits? Allison Jones:    Sure. My first gut reaction is to say well be more specific, right, because I think a lot of folks when they decide that they want a nonprofit job they usually coming from a place of ... Maybe they have a personal moment, that made them want to enter the social sector so maybe they noticed something in their community, they have something happen in their personal lives, maybe just like, "I want my work to be different," or perhaps they met someone who seemed to have a really awesome career in a nonprofit and it made them think differently about what their own career could be, which are all great starting points, but I think the nonprofit sector is so big that to say that you want a nonprofit job doesn't actually get you very far in terms of finding a job that you want. The first thing I would say is to be a bit more specific. Mac Prichard:    That's a great point. What steps have you seen people take to get specific? How do people narrow down on a particular goal? Allison Jones:    There are a couple things you can do there. If you're completely new to the sector and you're not quite sure where to start, I actually encourage folks to just look through job descriptions. Get a sense of what's out there by seeing what's out there, and that might sound a little tedious but there's an activity from NYU Wagner where they encourage you to do exactly that, to collect at least 50 job descriptions and then analyze them for patterns. You're drawn to this organization because of it's cause, so you notice that you really like organizations that focus on poverty or the environment or what have you. You're drawn to this job because of the work itself, so perhaps you notice that you really enjoy writing and a lot of the jobs that you point out are jobs that require writing, or even you're drawn to a job because of where it's located. You're passionate about certain areas. Looking for patterns in the things that you're drawn to. If you feel as if you're just completely coming at it with fresh eyes for a new career, I think that's one way to start. Another way to start is to actually talk to people who seem like they have interesting careers in the nonprofit sector in the form of informational interviews. I give a lot of informational interviews and I've gone on a lot of informational interviews, and they've been really, really helpful for me and my career. Mac Prichard:    We're big fans of informational interviews here at Mac's List, and I want to return to your point too about job postings. There are a lot of job boards out there aimed at nonprofit careers. Do you have any favorites that you want to give shout-outs to? Allison Jones:    I used to work at Idealist.org. Mac Prichard:    One of our favorites. Allison Jones:    I was there for three and a half years and even before I started working there that's what I used to find opportunities so definitely Idealist being one of my top favorites. Mac Prichard:    Great, and it pains me to say this Allison but I know there are people out there who haven't heard of Mac's List or Idealist.org. Could you tell people about Idealist and why it's such a great place, because we're big fans of it. Allison Jones:    Sure. Idealist.org is a global nonprofit that connects people to resources and opportunities in the community they need to take action on causes they care about, so what this means is we're really not well known for our job board, and I haven't checked the stats lately because I don't work there anymore but when I left there were well over 12,000 nonprofit jobs. Actually not just nonprofit jobs but 12,000 jobs in nonprofit social enterprises and government agencies, listed around the world, and there are also thousands of volunteer opportunities, thousands of internships, and if you're curious just about organizations, if you just want to know what kind of organizations are out there doing work in causes that you care about, I think there were over 100,000 organizations using the sites so you could look up profiles of organizations just to get a sense of who's doing what, so it's a really great place to just go and start looking for ways to get involved. Mac Prichard:    Great, and to your earlier point it's a great place to find those job postings and begin to identify those posts, look for those patterns. Any other sites you want to give a shout-out to before we get back to informational interviews? Allison Jones:    Other then Idealist, this may sound really strange but I've heard good things about finding opportunities on Craigslist. It's another way, particularly for smaller cities I think that tends to be a go-to for a lot of people posting opportunities. Mac Prichard:    Good. One other suggestion that comes to my mind is I know every state has a nonprofit association. Sometimes they have different names. Many of them do operate job boards. Allison Jones:    Yes. Also add to that NTEN also has a job board. Particularly if you're interested in opportunities in tech. I think one other way is to look for organizations that have a very specific focus, either in a cause or a profession, so if you're interested in social work looking at social work associations, if you're interested in technology looking at NTEN, that kind of thing. Organizations that act as associations or gatherings for folks in specific places. They tend to also list opportunities as well. Mac Prichard:    Okay good, so people have taken the time, they've looked at job postings, they've identified positions, they've discovered those patterns that you've described, now they're ready to go do informational interviews. What are your top three informational interview tips for people who either want a career in the nonprofit sector or want to make a mid career switch into the nonprofit world? Allison Jones:    I think the first is to just prepare. Thinking of what you want to get out of the interview and craft some really great questions. For example, my favorite question is, "What do you wish someone had told you before you got into this field? Where were you before you got to this organization and this position?" Finding out about people's career paths I think is a great way to let you know the different ways that people arrived in their work, and that can give you insights in terms of the kind of skills that you need to brush up on. If you're having these informational interviews and everyone's telling you for example, "Yeah if you want this role grad school is really important," then you know that perhaps grad school is a step that you might want to take. For me I think these informational interviews are also very surprising in the sense that in quite a few fields people have various pathways they take, and I think that that's something that makes the nonprofit sector somewhat unique in the sense that there's no ... If you want to work in a nonprofit sector this is the specific path that you must take. Of course that varies depending upon certain roles, but I think you'll in informational interviews and the kinds of roles that you're looking for you can really get a sense of the different pathways to finding a great career and getting insight as far as what people in your chosen profession have to do, what certain kinds of organizations are looking for, and their candidates. Preparing for informational interviews to get a sense of pathways and honestly what it takes to excel in a certain role is a really great way to make a use of them. Mac Prichard:    One question I hear from listeners when I encourage them to do informational interviews is they say to me, "How do I know that was a successful meeting? What should I expect to get out of that conversation?" What do you tell people when they ask you that question Allison? Allison Jones:    I think you get what you put into it, but I think for me, when I've gone on informational interviews, I tend to go in with a very specific need, and specific questions, and I feel successful at the end if I'm able to take another step towards what I came to the informational interviews for. For example, you never go into a informational interview asking for a job. That's just sort of ... You can ask about people's paths, what it takes to build a career in this field, what hiring managers might look for, but it's generally known that you don't ask for a job right then and there. What I found in my experiences of going on informational interviews is I felt comfortable ... I usually end up with clarity or a way to take action on something in my career. That has looked like, "Oh I thought I wanted to work at this kind of organization but I actually don't anymore," or, "I thought that I wanted to go to grad school but I don't anymore," or, "I've just learned there are plenty of opportunities in this particular field that I didn't consider before and I want to add that to my search list." It gives me clarity and I think that a successful informational interview gives you clarity and makes it easier for you to take another step toward where you want to be. Mac Prichard:    I think you're making an important point because often people tell me they want to stay open to all options and one of the benefits I see from informational interviews is it provides that clarity, that direction, and gives you insights into what doors you should continue to knock on and those that maybe that you want to keep closed. Allison Jones:    Exactly. Mac Prichard:    I bet you get this question a lot about profit jobs, I hear it to. What about salaries? What expectations should people have if they want a career in the nonprofit world, or they're thinking about moving into that sector? Allison Jones:    I think a couple things. One is to know ... How do I say this. I think at first it starts with you being clear about what your non-negotiables are, right. If there's a limit, if there's a minimum that you must have in order to take care of yourself it's okay to turn down jobs if they don't reach that minimum or they don't meet that minimum. The reason why I bring that up first is because I've found that people tend to be a bit more, you know if they're committed to a cause and want to make a difference they tend to overestimate their ability to deal with a certain salary, and they end up getting very frustrated, especially when you're working on something that doesn't necessarily have an end in sight. If you're working on eradicating poverty you may have milestones and goals over time, but obviously you're not going to see the end of poverty at anytime over the course of working at an organization. Being clear about what you need in terms of salary and in terms of other benefits is very important. I also encourage folks to think, and I just mentioned this, to think in terms of total compensation. If the salary issue comes up and its not what you'd like it to be, it meets what you need but not what you want perhaps, in my experience I've found folks are very open to different kinds of benefits and to just having that conversation. All that being said I actually believe that you can have a great salary in the nonprofit sector, you just have to look and you have to ask, and that can be really tough. You can do research. There are some websites like Salary.com. You can look at an organization's 990s and 990s I think only tell you folks who are making over $100,000 at the organization if I'm not mistaken, but that can still give you a sense of, if you are going for an executive position or if you want to get a sense of the top salaries that does give you a good picture of what that looks like. There are ways to get a sense of what salary options are in terms of your research but definitely going in with a sense of what you need is very important. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. What are some of those other benefits besides salary that you can get from the nonprofit world or that you should ask for? Again, I think people are reluctant to ask for things and when they're in a negotiation for a position that's when they have that opportunity and I think they're either reluctant to step up and ask or they don't know what to request. What sorts of things can people ask for in addition to money? Allison Jones:    Vacation days. And sick days, I've definitely seen that. Any other ... Help with transportation, so if folks depending on where you live, covering gas or your public transportation cost is another thing. Professional development support and resources. What funding is on the table for you to go to conferences and get the PD that you need to excel in your work. There are a bunch of different things and you can definitely do some research on that, but just again the point is to be very clear about what's most important to you. Mac Prichard:    Okay. People come to nonprofit work often because they have a calling or they want to make a difference. They feel a sense of purpose, but the job search basics still matter don't they? Allison Jones:    Absolutely, absolutely. Mac Prichard:    What are the ABCs that you can't ignore, whether you're looking for nonprofit work or any kind of job? Allison Jones:    I think first of all following directions is really important and it's funny, when I worked at Idealist, I was able to talk to quite a few hiring managers and I hired some folks from my team as well, and it's surprising how many folks don't follow directions, whether it be, "Answer these three questions in your cover letter," and people just aren't doing it. Stuff like that. Not following directions is not just a matter of the hiring manager's trying to test you, but also it's more of a matter of this actually helps us read applications and select candidates easier and faster if you follow directions. Making sure you do what's being asked of you. Tailoring the cover letter and the resume to the job itself and that in and of itself can be a bit of a conversation but what that really means is you're looking at the job description, what are they looking for the candidate to do, what kind of candidate are they looking for, not just in terms of qualifications but also in terms of attributes and characteristics. Are they saying they need someone who can thrive in a fast-paced environment, or are they saying that they need someone who's collaborative? Being able to indicate not only your successes as they pertain to the needs of the job but also your ability to fit in in terms of the attributes and characteristics that a person will need to do in that work. Focusing on your accomplishments. This is something that I've seen in a lot of resumes where it's just like, "I worked at X place and I did X things," versus, "I worked at X place and did X things which resulted in increasing revenue, decreasing turn-over," whatever have you, but making sure it attaches to some key accomplishments. Being clear about why you want to work there should be in your cover letter. For organizations that are mission-driven, who their entire purpose is to have an impact I think being clear about why you want to work in that cause, why with that organization, and not just because it seems like a cool place to be but really something specific is important. Finally just proofreading. Error free, easy to read, decent margins, those are also really important things. Mac Prichard:    We're coming to the end of our interview, but there is one question I want to raise that we get a lot. It's from people who have been in the private sector for five, ten, fifteen years and they want to make the transition into the nonprofit world. They tell us they struggle, they're not sure how to describe what they've done and make it appealing to nonprofit managers and hiring managers. How have you seen people address that Allison? Allison Jones:    In a few ways, and first I actually want to ... There's someone in particular who I just thought of, Heather Krasna. She's a dean at Columbia University School of Public Health. She is brilliant at this sort of thing, really working with sector-switchers so I definitely recommend her as a resource. Mac Prichard:    Let's get a URL from you and we'll put her in the show notes. Allison Jones:    As far as just making the sector switch, first I think networking is really important. I think having people who can give you an inside look as to what's required to work in a nonprofit because I think in some ways there is some suspicion of private sector folks. Are you coming here because you want a break? Are you coming here because you think it will be easier? There's some suspicion I think from nonprofit folks. Not all the time and not in every case, but just the wondering of ... You need to be able to answer that question of why. Why are you making this switch and being very honest about that. I think making language tweaks in your resume, cover letter, so instead of saying things like, "client or customer," you might want to say, "community or constituent," or something like that where it makes the most sense to do so. The transferable skills are important as well, so things like if the job you're going for requires you to be a great public speaker, that's something that you can call out in your resume and cover letter as things you've done in different contexts so it's a skill that you don't necessarily need to have developed in the nonprofit sector. You could have developed it anywhere. But you want to make sure you pull that out or call that out rather in your materials as something you have done in different contexts and they've still resulted in great things. Finally getting nonprofit experience where you can. Obviously finding a full time job is awesome and ideal, but if you've been on a board, if you've volunteered, if you've offered your consulting services pro bono, those are all experiences that are valuable because they indicate that you've done some work before trying to apply for a job, that you have some experience with a nonprofit sector and that you're not just coming at it blind. Mac Prichard:    Great. Well I think that's the perfect place to stop. Thank you Allison so much for joining us. Allison Jones:    Oh no problem. Thanks for having me. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. You can find Allison on Twitter. Her Twitter handle is @ajlovesya, and she also has a LinkedIn profile. We'll include links to both her Twitter account and her LinkedIn page in the show notes. Thank you Allison Jones. Allison Jones:    Thank you. Mac Prichard:    Okay we're back with the Mac's List team. Cecilia, Ben, what are some of the key takeaways from our conversation with Allison? Cecilia Bianco:  What I took away was that no matter where you're at informational interviews in the nonprofit world are the best way to get connected, and I think she made a lot of good points about how to go about that and why it's so important, because we know from talking to the Mac's List community a lot of people are getting jobs through meeting people in the community and the easiest way to do that is through informational interviews. Mac Prichard:    Good. Ben how about you? Ben Forstag:       I liked her point about how important it is to follow instructions in a job posting. It reminded me of a job I used to work at where as part of the hiring process they would put in slightly anachronistic rules into that job posting and one of the ways they weeded out if the applicant was detail oriented, was, did they follow the rule. Things like, "Put this as the subject line in the email when you email in your resume and application." They wouldn't even open up an email unless it had the right subject line in it. I think it's important to really read through the application, make sure you're following all the instructions they give, because there is a reason behind those instructions and oftentimes it's just to winnow out the numbers of applicants. Mac Prichard:    Yeah, I thought she had good practical suggestions both on informational interviews and the application process that would apply not only to the nonprofit world but the private sector as well. Ben Forstag:       Yeah, definitely. Mac Prichard:    Yeah, so good stuff. Well thank you both, and thank you our listeners. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. In the meantime you can visit us at Macslist.org where you can sign up for our free newsletter with more then 100 new jobs every week, and if you like what you hear on the show please help us by leaving a review and a rating at iTunes. This helps others discover the show and helps us help more job seekers. Thank you for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Millennials, the 54 million Americans born after 1980, now account for more than a third of the workforce in the United States. Perhaps more than any generation, millennials stand out for wanting meaningful, purpose-driven careers. And they have brought new ideas about decision-making, management style, and work-life balance into the workforce. Millennials face challenges, too. Many started work in the middle of the Great Recession, which may result in up-to $100,000 of “lost” wages during their lifetime. Those lucky enough to find jobs were often overqualified. And there’s a stereotype that millennials are high maintenance and overly demanding. This week on Find Your Dream Job Mac talks with Paul Angone, an author, career coach, and advocate for millennial workers. Paul has dedicated himself to helping millennials overcome their fear of insignificance and find purposeful work. He believes that the secret to a great job is building your “signature sauce”--aligning your strengths, skills, and values around a need or problem that can be solved. In this 34-minute episode you will learn: The myriad motivators for millennials workers (it’s not just about a paycheck!) Why failure can help clarify your passions How to build genuine relationships when you network The recipe behind your own “signature sauce” Why you should watch out for OCD--“Obsessive Comparison Disorder” The best thing millennials can do to get a job they love This week’s guest: Paul Angone (@PaulAngone | LinkedIn)Founder, All Groan UpAuthor, All Groan Up: Searching For Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job! and101 Secrets For Your TwentiesSan Diego, Calif. Listener question of the week:  How can I stand out as a recent college graduate? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: Answering the Three Career Questions: Your Lifetime Career Management System AllGroanUp.com SignatureSauce.com All Groan Up: Searching for Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job! 101 Secrets for Your Twenties Twentysomething Problems--as Told By Eggs Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. -- FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard:    This is Find Your Dream Job, a podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and our book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). To learn more about the book and the updated edition we're publishing in February, come to our website. Just visit macslist.org/ebook. Millennials, the 54 million Americans born after 1980, who came of age in the New Millennium, now account for more than a third of the workforce in the United States. Perhaps more than any generation, Millennials stand out for wanting meaningful careers, and lives that balance career and family. They are also the first generation digital natives. Millennials face challenges, too. Many started work in the middle of the Great Recession, and entering a labor market during a recession can mean up to a hundred thousand dollars in lost wages during a lifetime. Those lucky enough to find jobs were often overqualified, and there's a stereotype out there of Millennials as high maintenance workers who are overly concerned with titles and status. This week on Find Your Dream Job, we're talking about Millennials and the search of meaningful work. Joining us for our interview segment is Paul Angone. He's an expert on Millennials and the author of 101 Secrets for Your Twenties. Ben Forstag has a book for us that any generation can use to map out a career for meaningful work, and Cecilia Bianco has a question from a new college graduate just beginning a career. But first, let's check in with the Mac's List team. I think we have all three generations represented here. Ben Forstag:    I think you might be right. Mac Prichard:  For the benefit of our listeners, do people want to self-identify? Cecilia Bianco:  I'm a Millennial. Mac Prichard:   Okay, good. Ben? Ben Forstag:   I was born in '79, so I'm right at the cusp between Generation X and Millennial. Mac Prichard:   I'm a solid Boomer. I was born in 1958, so we have good representation here. Let's move on with our topic this week. Ben, you're out there every week looking around the internet and what have you found for us this week? Ben Forstag:       Mac, can you hear this sound? Mac Prichard:   That's very analog of you. Ben Forstag: It is, yes. I'm sure they have this book in digital format as well, but this week I'm talking about the physical book, and it's called Answering the Three Career Questions: Your Lifetime Career Management System, and this was a book that was recommended to me by Russell Terry, one of our long time listeners. The book is by author Bruce Hazen, and it's a really interesting read. The author has a very clear goal with this book, and it's to help people avoid the one-job-in-a-row trap. Too often, people see their career as simply the narrative of all their jobs, one after another, and you sometimes see that in their resume. Hazen says that people should really see their career as something different than the sum of their jobs. It's really a holistic narrative about what you find important, what you find interesting, engaging and satisfying as a professional. In a sense, he's flipping this on its head. The career should dictate what jobs you have and not vice versa. This is a concept I know we've talked a lot about in the podcast. In episode 2, Dawn Rasmussen called your career "the stream that runs beneath your current job", and even some of the practical tips we've provided around branding, resume building and interviewing, you can see this recurring theme of your career being a driving narrative behind your professional life. In his book, Bruce Hazen frames career management around three questions that professionals should regularly ask themselves. Those questions are: One, is it time to move up? In other words, do you need a development strategy to progress in your current organization? He makes a really interesting distinction between promotion and progression here. Promotion is about moving up in an established organizational hierarchy; getting a promotion essentially, while progressing is about improving your own subjective satisfaction with your job. He has this great quote: Up has dimension and not just direction, so moving up could mean adding complexity or authority to your work, enriching the job you've got, a lateral move to a job you like more, changing location, or even in some cases, moving down the hierarchy to a job that you prefer. Mac Prichard:    I think as people think about their goals, it's important to remember titles alone aren't going to bring you satisfaction. Sometimes I think people think the only change that's a good one is one that has you moving up the hierarchy of your organization, but sometimes you might have other goals. I think for example, when I was working in the governor's office, I had an opportunity to take a position in politics with a group of state legislators and I turned that down to work for the State Purchasing Bureau. People said, "Why would you do that? Isn't that a step down?", and it was actually what I needed at that time, which was steady work, well-paying work, and it was a great opportunity for the year that I did that. Eventually it led me to another position in communications, which has been my career, but people I think here, Ben, shouldn't get hung up on just always moving up and up and up. Ben Forstag:  Yeah, and I know in my own career, there have been a couple of times when I've taken a step down the hierarchy, or at least as it looked on paper or as it played out in my paycheck. At the time, a lot of people scratched their heads and I even questioned that, but in the long run, that ended up being the best possible move I could make because I ended up liking the new job more, and it helped me transition into new fields that I might not have been able to do so otherwise. The second question here is, is it time to move out? Is it time to move to a job that better aligns with your interests, passions and needs? Do you need a strategy to transition into this new organization or field? The question here is really fit. Does your current job or organization fit with who you are as a person? Hazen provides different tools to ascertain fit, with a lot of tests around measuring work values and ethics and things like that. He also outlines strategies for professionals who realize their current position isn't a good fit for who they are. Cecilia Bianco:  I think this one's great and it would be so good if people would sit down and do these tests before they start looking for a job and interviewing, because if they know what they want as far as fit, they're going to have a much easier job search. Ben Forstag:  Yeah, I think fit is so important, and I know I've been in jobs where I just haven't been a good fit for the organization and it wasn't my fault or the organization's fault, it just wasn't an alignment. If you can get clear about what a good fit is before you start the job, that's clearly a benefit. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. Ben Forstag:     The third question here is, is it time to adapt your style for greater success? That is are you in the right position, but not getting the right traction or the right results in that position? This question is really aimed at people who have the right technical skills to succeed, but need a new approach to their colleagues or to their organization. Hazen shares a couple of different strategies for using your skills in interacting with others, all with the intent of improving your productivity and satisfaction with your current job. When I talked to our listener Russell about this, I asked him why exactly he liked this book so much, and this is what he said: "I found it helpful to break things down to three basic questions and to emphasize that through our careers, we keep coming back to these same three questions." I really, really liked what Russell said here, and I totally agree with him. I think the strong point about this book is that it does bring all these questions back into the center of the conversation over and over again, so I strongly suggest to anyone who is looking at career management tools, check out this book. Again, the book is called Answering the Three Career Questions: Your Lifetime Career Management System, and it's by author Bruce Hazen, and we will have a link to the book in our show notes. Mac Prichard:  Thank you, Ben, and thank you, Russell, for that suggestion. Do you have a book or a podcast or website that has been helpful to you in your job search or managing your career? Let Ben know about it. You can write him directly, and his email address is Ben@macslist.org. Now let's turn to you, our listeners. Cecilia Bianco, our community manager is here, and she answers one of your questions. Cecilia, what do you have for us this week? Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah, our question this week is how can I stand out as a recent college graduate? I personally think the best way to stand out as a recent grad is to have an established and strong personal brand, so your goal should be, if an employer looks online for you, are they going to view you as a professional or a college student? Obviously, the goal is to look like a professional, even if you haven't graduated yet. Are they going to be able to tell what your career interests are based on what they find about you online? Something I was required to do in my college program before I graduated was to create a personal website that showcased my experience and my goals for the future, and this was a great way for me and my classmates to really stand out. It made us look a bit more polished and prepared to start job searching because it forced us to figure out the type of job and industry that we could realistically apply for and have a good chance of getting. Beyond just building your personal website, your social media profiles, your resume and cover letter and your business cards should all fit with this personal brand that you're building for yourself. One girl in my program I was very impressed with. She created a logo for herself and used it to build a template for her website application material and it really made her stand out. She had no trouble getting interviews because her branded materials made her look like a seasoned professional rather than a college student or a recent grad. Mac and Ben, what are your thoughts on how college grads can stand out? Ben Forstag:   I think the number one way that anyone can stand out, whether you're a college grad or an established professional, is good writing. It is so rare to find someone who can write concisely and clearly nowadays, and anyone who does that is a real valued commodity I think in almost any organization, so whether that writing shows in your portfolio or the writing sample you submit as part of your application or even the language you use on your website, the more you can showcase good writing ability, the more you'll stand out with employers. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah, that's definitely true, and building a personal website is one way to get your writing and your message about yourself really clear. Ben Forstag:   Yeah, and definitely good writing is part of the brand that you present about yourself. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. Mac Prichard:   Yeah, I think good writing is always effective, no matter what your age or what stage you are in your career. For recent college graduates, it's a tactical tip, but one thing that can make them stand out I think, Cecilia, is just having a business card. It's old-fashioned, but it fits in with your earlier point about having a strong personal brand. When I meet recent college graduates, often they don't have cards, but they either ask for mine or would I offer them a card. There's an opportunity there to be on equal footing by sharing a card of their own. It's easy to do and is a way of distinguishing yourself. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah, definitely. The people in my program, since we all had cards, when we would get sent out to networking events, we would talk about how some of the employers, they would be shocked when we handed over a business card, and we hadn't graduated yet, so that's definitely really important. Ben Forstag:    Two points about business cards: One is they do make you feel like a professional when you have them and you start handing them out. You feel like hey, I've made it. The other one is you can get business cards really cheaply online, like ten dollars will buy you five hundred business cards, so it's definitely a good investment and a really cheap investment as well. Mac Prichard:  Yeah, and you can get them for free. There's services that do that, but they're branded by the company that produces them, and I think spend the five or ten dollars it takes to get one with your own personal brand. Ben Forstag:  Definitely. Mac Prichard:  Okay, well, thanks, Cecilia. That was a great question. If you have a question for Cecilia, you can email her. Her address is Cecilia@macslist.org. I noticed today on Twitter, Cecilia, one of our listeners was tweeting at both of us, and she said that she'd sent you several questions. Cecilia Bianco:  Oh, yeah, I already got her questions. Mac Prichard:    Terrific. These segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). We're making the complete Mac's List guide even better. We're adding new content and we're making the book available on multiple e-reader platforms. In February, we'll launch a new version of the book, and you'll for the first time be able to access it on Kindle, Nook, iPad and other digital devices, and for the first time, you'll be able to get a paperback edition. Thank you, Ben, so whatever the format, our goal's the same. We want you to have the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. For more information, go to our website. Visit macslist.org/ebook. You can sign up for our e-book newsletter, and when you do that, you'll get publication updates, exclusive book content, and we'll provide you with special pre-sale prices. Now let's turn to this week's guest, Paul Angone. Paul is a leading voice to and for millennials. He loves helping millennials uncover their unique signature sauce to find where their passion, purpose and career collide. Paul is a best selling author of 101 Secrets For Your Twenties and All Groan Up. He's also a national speaker and the creator of AllGroanUp.com, which has been read by millions of people in more than 190 countries. Paul, thanks for joining us today. Paul Angone:      Oh, thank you for having me. It's an honor being here. Mac Prichard:   Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Now Paul, millennials stand out for a number of reasons, but what is most striking I think about this generation is their desire for work that has purpose. Why do you think it's such an important value for millennials? Paul Angone:     Yeah, that's a great question. You're right. When I look at all the research I've done over the years, all the blog articles I've written, all the emails I've received from millennials, really all over the world. I don't think this is just solely in the United States where we're at, but I think this is worldwide. If I distill it down I think one of millennials' greatest fears is insignificance. Is this feeling of I'm doing work that has no point and my life is kind of meaningless. I'm just showing up everyday going through the motions. I think millennials are truly at their core for the most part really driven by trying to find this meaningful work. Trying to find purpose and trying to do something that feels like man, this really means something important to me and I'm not just getting a paycheck or working for the corner office. Millennials really aren't wired that way. They have different motivators than just a pay hike. They really want to find work that is drenched in purpose. Mac Prichard:  How do you see millennials get clear about that purpose? What do people who are successful at chasing their purpose do? Paul Angone:   That's the million dollar question, isn't it? That's the tough one. It can become very difficult. I know for myself it was a very frustrating process in a sense because I loved hearing about I want to follow my passion, I want to do work I'm passionate about, but I was really struggling with how do you figure that out. How do you find what you're passionate about? I didn't have a clue. I was going through college doing all the right things, getting the good grades, trying to pick the right major, pick the right internship, taking these steps. I felt like if I just kept taking the right steps up there somewhere was going to be success. Up there somewhere was going to be my passion. Yet when I got up there I still felt as lost as ever. Maybe even more lost because I didn't know what my passion was. For me, and I think for a lot of millennials going through the same kind of process, is that it is a process. It takes time and it takes one thing in particular that I don't think a lot of us think about or want to think about, but I think one of the really big clarifiers to finding your passion is failure. I didn't really want to hear that or understand that when I was searching for my passion, but I think failure becomes that great clarifier. Because when you've failed at something but yet you want to keep doing it, well then you've found something, there's something there that you're really truly passionate about. Mac Prichard:  Let's explore that because I think that's one thing that many of us are taught to avoid at all costs is failure. Paul Angone:      Exactly. Yeah. Mac Prichard:   Why do you think it makes such a big difference for people who are trying to find their purpose? Paul Angone: I think it's easy to say that you're passionate about something or you're excited about something that you are achieving a lot of success in. Or maybe you're getting accolades for or getting good grades or you're getting money to do it, but when those externals start going away or in my case I really wanted to write a book. I was passionate about wanting to help specifically twenty-somethings that were struggling in kind of the what now of life after college. Yet for years I couldn't get a publisher to say yes to anything I was writing. I couldn't get people to return emails. I thought my email was broken at one point because I couldn't get anybody to return an email of mine. I quickly realized that I was truly passionate about this topic, about helping twenty-somethings, about trying to write and speak to them because even through all the no's and rejections I still kept showing up and I kept writing and I kept pursuing it and hammering away at it. I really figured out that that was something I was truly passionate about. Where other ideas that I had, other pursuits, business ideas, things that I did when I hit those first couple of obstacles like all of us will, I quickly quit. I quit that dream. I went another way because really I wasn't in it for the right reasons. I wasn't truly passionate about that endeavor. Like I was when I was writing and trying to really reach twenty-somethings. Mac Prichard:  Okay, so there's a big difference between enthusiasms and passion. Tell us how can you figure out what is your passion. Does it require failure or is there a shortcut? Paul Angone:   Well, I think we'd all be lying to ourselves if we thought failure wasn't a part of it. You know? Mac Prichard:  Okay. Paul Angone:  Just like any good entrepreneur, and I've actually tried to infuse more of this in my lifestyle, I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur before, but I've kind of become and entrepreneur through circumstances. I'm trying to develop more of what I call an entrepreneurial mindset. I think what entrepreneurs are really good at and what they understand is that failure is just that learning process and when they release products even in the business realm they beta test products. They release version 1.0. Basically they release something that they know is not complete, that they know is not perfect, that they know in some respect will fail and that's kind of the point because they know that they'll learn so much through the process and the feedback and the test groups and those kinds of things that when they create version 2.0 it's going to be better. I think for all of us, whether we're an entrepreneur or not, when you're pursuing something and you feel like yeah, this is something. I feel alive when I'm pursuing this. I feel passionate, these words that we say. It's not having that fear that you're going to fail. Because the possibility for greatness and embarrassment both exist in the same space. You really can't have one without the other. Mac Prichard:    Okay. For millennials who want to pursue their passion, and I meet many every day who do, they should expect fear and that failure will be part of that process. It's a good feedback mechanism. It shows you that you're on the right path particularly if you persist and you keep getting up even when you're knocked down. Now, once people have figured out they need to follow that passion and be persistent about it, what are some of the other career challenges you see for millennials? Paul Angone: Yeah and I think following your passion and pursuing that, it's such a big overwhelming word. Mac Prichard:    It is, yeah. Paul Angone:      I even have to break it down. That's why I love talking about this metaphor of finding your signature sauce because it gives me a great mental image of what I think the metaphor looks like. When I talk about finding your signature sauce I mean the blend of ingredients that are coming together within each person to create that kind of flavor, to create that passion, to create that signature sauce that they want to serve to the world so to speak. I think even in this idea of finding your passion, I think we can unpack that even more for millennials or for really anybody and break down I think some key ingredients that go into that. For one of those as millennials are pursuing their career and trying to find jobs that align with that, one I think it's really a simple way is finding something that your strengths and your skills align with. I think for a lot of us we become passionate about something and we want to keep pursuing it when we feel like we're good at it, when we have some skill sets that resonate with that, that we have some strengths that we really lend to this arena that makes us feel good when we're doing it because we're achieving some sort of success in that endeavor. It doesn't have to be all about failure, you know? There is the skills and strengths that are a part of that. Then another crucial ingredient I think that aligns with that is your values. Mac Prichard: Lets talk about values and the difference they can make, Paul. Paul Angone: Yeah. Yeah, to make it personal for me and when I started realizing this is I felt like a strength of mine, and this can be up for debate and your listeners can debate this if they want, but I felt a strength of mine was communication. I felt like I loved speaking, I loved writing, I loved communicating ideas. I always thought I should try to do a sales job because then I'd be in front of people, I'd be speaking, I'd be using that strength of communication. Yet I took a couple sales jobs and I was absolutely terrible as a salesman. I was just terrible and I hated it. I didn't enjoy it. I started realizing that I had a value of being authentic. Authenticity was a really crucial value of mine. Actually in a couple sales jobs when I felt like I was selling something that I didn't really believe in and I felt like I was being inauthentic it actually kind of undercut my strength. My strength was no longer that strong because my value was more important to me. Really it was that value of authenticity aligning with my strength of communication and then that was where my sweet spot was. When I really get passionate about something like helping people, helping twenty-somethings, giving them hope and truth and hilarity, I get excited about that because I really believe in it. It really ties in with my value. Mac Prichard:   Okay, so I want to move onto some other topics, but before we leave this idea of the secret sauce and the ingredients, you talked about the importance of skills and strengths and recognizing values. Are there one or two other key ingredients you want to share with people? Paul Angone:     Yeah, I think another really big one that was really the driving force behind me pursuing and pushing through obstacles is I think people when they find a passion and when they talk about something they're passionate about, a lot of the times it directly relates to a need or a problem that they really want to fix. We see needs and problems very differently depending on our background, our story, where we're at, the way were raised. All the different intricacies that make us us. Even you and I mac, we might see problems and needs in a very different way. I think for all of us, when you're pursuing something that is bigger than yourself, and it doesn't have to be huge. You don't have to be changing the world here. Maybe it is, but maybe it's even a problem that you see in your current job. Maybe you see something that can be optimized and could run smoother. Or maybe it is that you see homeless people in your community and you see that as a huge need that you want to do something about. I think sometimes when we take our strengths and our skills and we take our values and then we align those with really serving or trying to solve a need or a problem, man, I think that will push you through more obstacles than anything. That's really what my story was about was pursuing a need and a problem where I felt like there was a lot of people that needed this information and needed kind of this hope and insight. Even if I was getting rejected I felt like this is such a big issue, I'm going to keep doing it because if I'm not going to do it, who else is? I have to keep hammering away at this. I think something will work out. Mac Prichard:   I think that's excellent advice both from a strategic point of view, but for job seekers in general because when employers are looking for help they've got a problem. They have a need that has to be addressed. Understanding that need and knowing how your strengths and your skills can help solve that problem I find puts candidates who can do that at the front of the crowd. So excellent advice Paul. Paul Angone: Exactly. Mac Prichard:  Let's talk specifically about millennials and maybe some tactile things. Is there one thing that you recommend every millennials do to get a better job? Or just a job. Paul Angone:     Yeah. Yeah, there's so much nowadays and I guess I'll hone in on one thing. Typically when we're talking about the job search and all this it can be very overwhelming, but we all know that a lot of job opportunities, we've seen the stats, they'll come through networking or through relationships. I know for myself, networking was always challenging for me because again, it's kind of that value of authenticity, but I think a lot of millennials feel this way where it can kind of feel inauthentic. Or you're going to a networking event and maybe you feel like that used car salesman that's pushing your business card to everybody and trying to get an opportunity or trying to make a pitch, your elevator speech so that you can get that job. Really for me, when I started thinking about it more as what I call relation-shipping, so not networking per se, but relation-shipping. Why I call it that is because I feel like when you're focused on building just relationships and giving to people and adding value and when you're meeting people you're not just pitching them on your elevator speech about how amazing you are, but you're just asking them questions about how amazing they are for the first five minutes. You don't say anything about yourself. That becomes such a more effective way to build relationships, but also in a turn, a byproduct of that is people like you more. They want to help you. Now when they have a job opportunity maybe they think about your first because people love being able to talk about themselves. If you can ask them good questions and focus more on relation-shipping, building value added relationships, man, I think that's really going to set you apart instead of talking about yourself and being a me monster at a networking event. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. I think that goes back to your earlier point, Paul about thinking about the needs of others and their problems and how you can help solve them. Paul Angone:      Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mac Prichard:    Not thinking just about your own needs. Paul Angone:    Exactly. Mac Prichard:  Yeah. Well, your first book was 101 Secrets For Your Twenties. Can you do a lightning round of those secrets for us? Paul Angone: Oh sure. Yeah, there's 101 of them so it's always hard to pick my favorites. I think one of them that has resonated with a lot of people is to watch out for what I call the new OCD. Which it's not the OCD as we typically think of, but it's obsessive comparison disorder. I think for a lot of millennials especially this is so prevalent nowadays, especially through social media. I think for any of us that is going through transition, that is maybe trying to change jobs or you feel like well, I'm not doing my passion right now. I'm working in a coffee shop or I'm selling insurance. I'm not really that excited about my life. It can become very hard when you're looking at social media and you're looking at the perceived amazing-ness of everybody else's lives and what we're showcasing on social media. Which isn't always the most accurate truth that I think most of us know, but it doesn't feel that way sometimes. Watch out for what I call obsessive comparison disorder. Because if you're always measuring yourself up to the images that people are putting up on Instagram or are on Facebook, you're always going to feel lacking or you're always going to feel like I'm not enough. I think that's a really big one. Mac Prichard:   Okay. Excellent advice. We're coming to the end of our interview, Paul. Tell me, what's next for you? What do you have coming up? Paul Angone:   Yeah, for me I'm really excited actually about an online course that I've started called Finding Your Signature Sauce. I just took my first group of students through it just now and it's been amazing to be able to walk through this process with people and go on a deeper level than just through blogs or books, but actually have a personal relationship and get to know a lot of people. That's probably the thing that I'm most excited about right now is just refining that and really helping people through that process of finding your signature sauce and all that entails. Mac Prichard:  Great. Well thank you, Paul. Tell our listeners how they can find you online. Where can they learn more about you, your books and your work? Paul Angone:     Yeah, they can find me at my main website is AllGroanUp.com and groan is spelled like you're groaning in pain, All Groan Up. I like to say that it's pun-derful, is my go to joke. Yeah, All Groan Up. They can find me on Twitter at Paul Angone, A-N-G-O-N-E or they can find me at SignatureSauce.com. Any of those websites or through Twitter. Reach out if you have questions. Id love to connect with you. Mac Prichard:    Great and we'll be sure to include those links in the show notes. Thanks for joining us this week, Paul. Paul Angone:  Thank you, Mac. Mac Prichard:   Well, we're back with Cecilia and Ben. Tell me, what do you think we're the most important points you heard Paul make? Cecilia Bianco:  I really liked his point about how to tell what your real passions are. He mentioned that if you fail at something and you keep doing it because you enjoy it so much, that's how you can tell that you're passionate about it. Following that I think is really key when you're a millennial trying to find the career you want. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. I identified with that too. In my 20s and 30s I worked on a lot of election campaigns. I worked on a lot of losing campaigns and I kept showing up every election cycle. We won some, but I was so passionate about that work and the opportunity it offered to make a difference I kept signing up for campaigns even when we lost. Ben Forstag:       I liked his point about finding a problem that needs to be fixed. I know for me personally that resonates because I find the most enjoyment in my work when there is this problem. It doesn't need to be a giant problem. It could be how to increase the open rates on an email for example, but having that problem to explore and to test things out, that really animates a lot of where I find enjoyment in work. Mac Prichard:   Good. I think that was good advice not only for millennials, but for any generation. Well, thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. In the meantime visit us at MacsList.org where you can sign up for our free newsletter with more than 100 new jobs every week. If you like what you hear on our show you can help us by leaving a review and a rating at iTunes. This helps other job seekers discover the show. It helps us help more people. Thank you for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you hear the phrase “technology sector” you probably think of multi-billion dollar companies like Google, Apple, or Facebook. But you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to work in tech. There are opportunities across the globe, both in offices and in working at home. It is one of the fastest growing labor sectors, and the jobs pay above average salaries. And it’s not just for startup founders, engineers, or coders. The experiences, skills and values that serve you in one field--whether it’s marketing, sales, communications, HR or anything else--can be used in the diverse tech field. This week on Find Your Dream Job, Mac chats with Albert Qian a high-tech digital marketing and product marketing manager, and founder of the tech-centered job community, Albert’s List. Albert has helped professionals around the country find rewarding work in the technology space. In this episode, he shares tips on how you can make the jump into big tech. In this 34-minute episode you will learn: Backgrounds and skills that help people thrive in the technology sector How networking makes all the difference in landing a tech job How you can use your humanities degree to find a technology job The benefit of code training academies and what to look for in technology bootcamps This week’s guest: Albert Qian (@albertqian | LinkedIn)Founder, Albert’s ListAuthor, The Social Media EcosystemOrange County, Calif. Listener question of the week:  I have an upcoming interview, and I’m curious how I should prepare my online profiles. What are employers looking for when they Google my name? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: GlassDoor.com - Highest Paying Jobs In-Demand Hongkiat.com - To 10 Websites to Learn Coding (Interactively) Online Code Academy TreeHouse CodeTree Khan Academy Albert’s List Coursera U2Me Workbridge Associates Tech In Motion Events Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. -- FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard: This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host, and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and by our book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. To learn more about the book and the updated edition that we're publishing in February, visit macslist.org/eBook. Thanks for joining us today. When you hear the phrase "technology sector" you probably think about multi-million dollar companies like Google, Apple, or Amazon. You don't have to be in Silicon Valley or Seattle to work in tech. It's no wonder many people move to these places to work for technology companies, however. This sector grows faster than the rest of the economy and the jobs pay above average salaries, but there are opportunities across the globe, not just California or Washington state. It's a field not just for startup founders, engineers, or coders. This week on Find Your Dream Job, we're talking about tech jobs. Ben Forstag has an online site you can use to find the highest paying jobs in the sector. Cecilia Bianco has answers for what you need to do when any employer googles you. Finally, I'll talk to an engineer who helps people find tech jobs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. First, though, let's start as we do every week by checking with the Mac's List team. Ben, Cecilia, how are you two doing? Ben Forstag: I'm doing great. Cecilia Bianco: Doing really good, Mac. Mac Prichard: Good. It's great to have you both here in the studio. Now, tech jobs. Before you all came here, did either one of you work in the technology sector? Cecilia Bianco: Yeah. I actually had an internship at a startup in college. It was called NOUO and it was a database for everything going on at the university restaurants, bars, and what to do on the weekend. It was an interesting experience. Ben Forstag: When I was in college, I was an intern at Compuware in Detroit. They are a software services company. I was in the marketing department so I wouldn't call it a tech job per se but it was where I first learned how to use HTML which has been a great skill for me. Mac Prichard: I have not worked in the tech sector. I had the good fortune, way back in the early 80s when IBM first introduced their PC's, to work at a non-profit that actually bought them. That was, in those days, bleeding edge technology. I learned all about floppy disks and Wordstar 3.0. Speaking of discovery, let's turn to Ben who's out there every week looking for resources that you, or listeners, can use. Ben, what have you learned for us this week related to technology? Ben Forstag: Mac, since today we're talking about technology I wanted to share two different blogs that I found, specifically blog posts, around technology. The first one comes from Glassdoor.com which is a resource we talked about last week. This comes from their blog which is around all kinds of workforce issues. This blog is the 25 highest paying jobs in demand. It's a list of the highest paying jobs that there's a huge demand for, as you would guess. The key takeaway of this job post is that almost half of the jobs listed were in the tech sector. I wrote out the top tech jobs. They are software architect, software development manager, solutions architect, analytics manager, IT manager, data scientist, security engineer, hardware engineer, database administrator, and software engineer. I don't know what most of the jobs do, I'll admit, but these are all jobs where the average salary is well over $100,000 a year. There's clearly a lot of money and opportunity in the tech sector. Thirty years ago our parents or grandparents might have been urging us to go and be doctors or lawyers because they thought that's where we were going to make a lot of money and take care of them in their old age. Nowadays, parents are probably urging their kids to go off to Silicon Valley and become software engineers and analytics managers because that's where all the money's at. Mac Prichard: That's an impressive list. I know we'll include that in the show notes, too. Ben Forstag: I'll include this specific URL to this blog post in the show notes. The key, I think, here is knowing the coding languages that are most in demand, if you want to get into the tech sector. I did a little bit of googling and what I found were the most in demand languages were SQL, Java, JavaScript, C#, C++, Python, Ruby on Rails, and iOS Swift. Cecilia, I saw you shaking your head when I read that list. Do you know any of these coding languages? Cecilia Bianco: (laughs) No, I don't. I did recently discovered that Mac's List runs on SQL. While I have no idea how to run it or anything about it, I know what it's called. Ben Forstag: You know we've got it. How about you, Mac? Mac Prichard: I'm doomed because I don't recognize any of these languages. I have some Spanish but I don't think that's going to cut it. Ben Forstag: Ten years ago, I thought I was really advanced because I know HTML. No, I don't know any of these either so I'm doomed as well. Here's the good news for all of us in this room and all of our listeners, you can learn almost all of these languages online, in your home, in your pajamas, and often for free, which brings me to my next blog resource for the week, which is a blog post on a website called hongkiat.com. That's H-O-N-G-K-I-A-T .com. (I don't know where these names come from!) The blog is the top 10 websites to learn coding, interactively, online. There are a lot of different websites out there where you can take courses, where you can learn just about any one of these languages, and other tech skills. Some of these websites you may have heard of before, Code Academy, Codetree, Treehouse, or Khan Academy. Khan Academy, I know, has been making the news a lot recently because they teach just about any subject you want to learn. The really cool thing about this is most of these sites offer at least some free training. You can scale up and pay for extras, but the baseline on most of them is free. The one reason I really like this hongkiat.com blog post is it gives a good summary of what each site teaches in terms of what languages you can learn, price point of what you can get for free and what you have to pay for, the teaching methodology, and the difficulty level for each online course. They have a matrix at the bottom of the blog post that displays all this information in a really easy and intuitive way. I would suggest you check out this blog post. It's, again, the top 10 websites to learn coding, interactively, online. I will have the URL in our show notes. Mac Prichard: Great. I know that our listeners will look forward to seeing that. Thanks, Ben. If you have a suggestion for Ben for a resource you think would be valuable to our listeners, write him. His email address is ben@macslist.org. Let's turn to you, our listeners. Cecilia, our community manager, is here to answer one of your questions. Cecilia, what are you hearing, this week, from our listeners? Cecilia Bianco: This week our question is, "I have an upcoming interview and I'm curious how I should prepare my online profiles. What are employers looking for when they google my name?" I think they're looking for a few different things, but the main reason an employer is googling you is to check your credibility. They want to see what pops up when your name is googled. Are you saying who you say you are? Do your online profiles align with what you've said about yourself thus far in your cover letter, resume, and any other correspondence you've had with them. Especially if you're applying for a tech job, this is important because you want to make sure what's popping up in a google search, that whatever comes up shows your credibility in your field. Are you a part of online tech groups? Online communities that are having conversations around the technology sector? Are you tech savvy and active online in social media, and with tech writing? Firstly, I think to prepare you should start by googling yourself and seeing what pops up. From there, you can focus on what you need to improve. Mac and Ben, I know I've googled my own name before, have you googled yours? Ben Forstag: I have. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I've got a last name that is not very common and it's probably the case that I know, or am immediately related to, any Forstag out there in the world. If you are a Forstag and you don't know who I am, please give me a call so we can chat. I have googled myself. I get the usual mish-mash of old posts that I've written for Mac's List, or other websites, my social media profiles, press releases I've written for other organizations. I would like to make one quick addendum to your suggestion, though. When you google yourself, I think it really helps if you're in blind mode or user mode on your browser because Google remembers a lot of your search history, and that doesn't show you what everyone else out in the world is looking for or finds when they type in your name. If you use, I think it's called "Guest Mode" in Chrome, or Blind Mode in other- Mac Prichard: I think it might be called Incognito. Ben Forstag: Incognito Mode in Chrome. That cleans the slate and shows you what everyone else in the world sees when they google your name. It's a good way to see what other folks see. Mac Prichard: I have googled myself and it is a good practice because you want to see what others will see about you. I made a deliberate effort some years ago to make sure I filled out online profiles for common sites like LinkedIn, Yelp, Facebook. Those are the ones that pop up. Cecilia Bianco: I saw a lot of the same stuff when I googled myself. Past work, past blog posts, and all my online profiles came up, which I think is a good thing. After you google yourself, you want to figure out where you can improve what's popping up on Google. The first and most important thing to focus on is LinkedIn because you can get the most value out of an employer looking at your LinkedIn profile and it's really common to want to see that. If your LinkedIn profile isn't popping up, what you want to do is change the URL on your LinkedIn profile to include your full name. That way, it'll make you a little bit more searchable. That's pretty easy to do. You just hit edit profile and you'll see it pop up so you can make a change to that long URL.LinkedIn is very important to make sure that's popping up. It's good to have your profile setup and ready to go for an employer to see before you even apply for the job, because they might google you right when they see your resume. You want to be prepared for that. Once LinkedIn's taken care of, you want to see what other social media accounts of yours are popping up, if they are. You want to make sure you don't have anything on those accounts that you don't want an employer to see. If you're using Twitter and Facebook, you want to make sure your privacy filters are set to only show things to strangers that you want them to see. They can be great tools to support your credibility because if you're showing on all your social media platforms that your interests and passions and things you like to talk about are the same in what you've said in your job application, that demonstrates that you're a credible applicant and that they're going to trust you more. You want to make sure those are all cleaned up before you apply. If you don't have time to clean them up before applying, just make sure your privacy filters are locked tight with just what you want them to see. Mac, we've talked about this before. I know you've googled past job applicants. What were you looking for when you did that? Mac Prichard: Two things. One, I wanted to see that track record of accomplishment or experience in the area for the job that they were applying for. I think you're making a really important point, Cecilia, about the importance of showing rather than telling. People can say that they're interested in a topic or they have experience in an area, but if you go online and you see that they've actually done work and there are examples of that work then that's very powerful. The second thing I'm looking for is what clients and colleagues will see when they google that person because if I do higher than candidate, as an employer, they're going to become part of the time. The image that they're projecting to the world becomes part of our company's brand. I want to make sure that that aligns with the values and the mission of our firm. Cecilia Bianco: That's definitely really important. One last tip, the more profiles you're active on and feel comfortable with an employer seeing, the better. This gives you the most control over what's going to pop up into the Google search and what they're going to see when they google you. Overall, the easiest way to control what an employer will see if they google you is to google yourself and then determine where you can improve. Mac Prichard: Good. Well, thank you, Cecilia. That's excellent advice. If you have a question for Cecilia please email her. Her email address is cecilia@macslist.org.These segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. We're making the complete Mac's List guide even better by adding new content and making the book available on multiple eReader platforms. In February of next year, we'll launch the revised version of the book and you'll be able to access Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond on Kindle, Nook, iPad, and other digital devices. You'll also be able to get, for the first time, a paperback edition. Whatever the format, our goal is the same, to give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. For more information, visit macslist.org/eBook and sign up for our eBook newsletter. We'll be sending you publication updates, share exclusive book content, and provide you with special pre-sale prices. Let's turn to our expert guest this week, and that is Albert Qian, who is a high tech digital marketing and product marketing manager. He's originally from Silicon Valley and he now works in Orange County, California. He's also the founder of Albert's List, a Facebook Jobs Community with more than 10,000 members that includes recruiters, hiring managers, job seekers, and more. Through the use of social media, Albert has helped fellow group members find work at companies like eBay, Google, and GoPro. Albert, thanks for joining us. Albert Qian: Thank you for having me on, I really appreciate the time. Mac Prichard: It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Let's talk about tech jobs. When people think about technology they think, "These jobs are in Silicon Valley, they're for coders, engineers. If you don't have a degree in electrical engineering you're out of luck." What's been your experience? Albert Qian: My experience is that when you look at the entire technology and high tech ecosystem for what's out there, there's actually a lot of opportunities available even for people who aren't engineers. I was out at the Golden State Warriors basketball game on Sunday and I ran into somebody who is a designer, so User Interaction Designing, UI, UX, that kind of thing, which is a really hot field right now in the area of high tech. You have a lot of people who need to design their websites, their web applications, there mobile applications. When I asked her what her background was she said that she was somebody who had gotten a degree in counseling psychology with an emphasis on education. I've seen similar stories where people who have psychology backgrounds also get jobs where they're in project management, PMP roles where they're working on, and with, engineers on getting a lot of products to market. There's a lot of different areas. Mac Prichard: Let's pause there for a moment, Albert. I can imagine our listeners thinking, "I've picked up my BA in Psychology. How do I make the leap into design work and doing user experience testing?" How do people make that journey? Albert Qian: I think the journey is made where you think about a product as just an end user, right? Many of us have smartphones today. We, no doubt, use a bunch of different applications whether it's on our phone, or on the web, we're all Facebook users, Twitter users, Uber users, things like that where we're using all these different apps. The way where we can apply a Humanities degree into a technology job is by applying our very own experience. Obviously, there's a little bit of knowledge in needing to know how some of this technology works and domain knowledge will always set you apart, but because we're all the end user of so many different types of technology today, we can always have the power and the ability to share these with the technology teams that we work with, and take those ideas into fruition into a product. Mac Prichard: Technology matters but so does human experience and understanding human behavior is always a marketable skill in technology. Albert Qian: Right now, you see a lot of technology that's out there on the market, a lot of prospective users. It takes a keen human eye to be able to look in-between, where you have the ability to use that technology, the solution to be able to really get users to come and user the product and stay using the product. Mac Prichard: For people who don't have psychology degrees, I know there are a lot of other opportunities in technology. Can you talk a little bit about that and the kinds of backgrounds and skills that help people thrive in this sector, outside of engineering. Albert Qian: I've seen people who have English degrees get jobs where they're doing things like technical writing, they are marketing specialists where they focus on writing collateral, or doing blogging content for a lot of technology companies that realize that they need to find a way to reach a broader audience. There are folks who can go into technology sales. If you're able to speak the language and also use your charisma in being able to sell technology products to others, that works as well. There's everything along the lines of the post-engineering process. Once you create a product, you've got to find a way to sell it. Selling the product includes everyone from product marketers, to sales folks, to people who manage social communities, to people who do the accounting/finance stuff in high tech, and really everything in-between. Mac Prichard: How do you see people break into that world, Albert? Whether it's after they've graduated or perhaps they're mid-career and they experience in another field but they want to break into technology. What do people that stand out or are successful at that do? Albert Qian: I think understanding the important of a particular domain is important to start out with. I think knowing what and why the technology is important is something that people are always looking for. Even though we live in such a technologically connected world a lot of people are great at using the technology but they don't understand why the technology is important from a business perspective. Mac Prichard: Albert, when we're talking about the domain, explain that for our listeners? Albert Qian: A domain would be a technology area. For example, one that I'll use is cloud computing… Mac Prichard: There's a lot of opportunity there and it's important to know the field that you want to focus on. What about training if you want to break into technology, there are code academies out there, online training schools, how helpful can those be to people who want to work as programmers, particularly those who didn't have that training in college and, maybe, want to make a career switch? Albert Qian: I think it's an interesting way to go about switching from one career into another. I've spoken to people who have taken these courses and people who are naturally interested in programming and they see people in these courses ... I've seen the example where these types of courses can really be beneficial for somebody who is interested in coding. One of my friends from college decided to go and take one of these 12 week boot camp courses. Now, he leads a technical team at a startup out in Santa Barbara. That's an example of where it is successful. Another one of my friends took one of these courses as well and now she has transitioned from an account management sales role into a product management role for a company out in Boston, Massachusetts. Have there been successes? Absolutely. I think, on the other hand ... I've spoken to programmers, as well, who look at this type of audience and they question whether they really get a lot of effective training out of it. On one hand, while you do know how to code, your ability to be creative within this coding knowledge is somewhat limited because you're working from a very limited perspective where, maybe, understanding coding isn't necessarily a natural forte of yours. This goes back to the original point where within technology and the technology sector, there is not necessarily a need to just become a programmer and that's just technology in its whole. As we've discussed throughout this podcast ... If you have the skills to be able to write, you can be a marketer, you can be a technical writer. If you're a person who can talk to people and to a very good job on that, you can be a salesperson. You can be an account executive, you can be a business development individual within any of the companies that work in tech out there. If you have in degree in, say, accounting or finance, you can go work in a money perspective in many of these different companies. You can do very well for yourself. Programming doesn't have to be the end-all, be-all. However, there are a lot of different resources out there for people who want to pursue that path. Mac Prichard: When does it make sense for people to get training in programming? If they want to be a programmer? Can that be an asset if they want to be a project manager or work in marketing or sales or communications in tech? Albert Qian: I certainly think that being technical is very helpful, especially in an area where you might interface with a lot of engineers. If you are a web marketing individual and you want to launch a product, being able to talk about the interactive features of a website may help a lot. Being able to talk about how something can be marketed as a product marketer when you're interfacing with your social media manager who may know how to code can be really helpful once in awhile. A lot of the jobs these days are merging together. Your technical writer may need to know how code works and write about how that works from purely a writing perspective. Mac Prichard: Coding can help, and other skills matter a lot, too. If someone is thinking about getting training in coding, and you mentioned your two colleagues that have had a positive experience, what advice do you have for people who are shopping around for either an online course or a boot camp or a code academy? What should they look for? Albert Qian: For the boot camps that exist in 8 to 12 week increments, a lot of them have interesting payment plans where either you give them the $15,000 to start and they put your through that process. Or, there are ones that take a portion of your salary when you start. That's one pricing model that exists out there. Another model out there that exists are the massive open and online courses, the MOOC's, that exist. You can go to websites like Coursera, or Code Academy, or U-2-me.com and you can pay for anywhere from $30 to $200 to $300 course where you can do self-directive learning on coding. I think when you're doing the coding learning process, it's always important to have a project in mind that you're doing.If you're just doing the code to learn how to code, you don't really get much out of it. If there's a website that you'd like to make, or a business that you have that you'd like to improve upon and develop a web application, or a mobile application, I believe that's usually the best way to take and the best course of action to approach with when it comes to learning how to code and gaining technical knowledge. Mac Prichard: Have a project that engages you and actually produces a result. Stepping back to shopping for a course, you mentioned 3 different options, and they have 3 different price points, obviously, but are there any warning signs that people should look out for when they're considering signing up with one of these boot camps or an online course? Albert Qian: There's a lot of financial consideration. For example, there's a lot of these coding academies that have popped up in the last couple of years that have already seen their doors close. If you're learning how to code and you go to one of these coding academies that ends up closing after you leave, you may be no better than where you began. I think name recognition counts a little bit. I think understanding the practical outcomes of what you're learning is also important as well. If you're going in and you know you want to do front end web development, knowing the right types of languages that you're going to be taught is a very important first step. That's one thing as well. Looking at reviews from students who have attended in the past and seeing where they've landed and going with that as well. Mac Prichard: Look for companies that have a track record, have good reviews, and can talk about their outcomes and how they've helped students. Albert Qian: It also doesn't hurt ... If you do want to go on Coursera or u2me and you find yourself a $15 course that teaches you how to code, you can't really lose with that. Having a little bit of extra knowledge never hurts. Mac Prichard: Let's move on. In our earlier conversation before this interview, what struck me was when we were talking about how people find tech jobs, you brought up a lot of techniques that I hear about any job search. One point you made that stuck with me was that networking still matters. Can you talk more about that and how networking can make a difference in getting a tech job? Albert Qian: Networking can make a difference because you put yourself in front of a live person. If you email people, they have the option to ignore you. If you call people, they have the option to never return your voice mail. Putting yourself in front of another individual and putting your best foot forward is always a plus. Humans respond very well when they see somebody that impresses them. Going out there and giving out your business cards in a reasonable method, obviously, and immersing yourself in front of a lot of people who speak tech, perhaps even a lot better than you do, is really a great way to start. If you're in a major metropolitan area around the country, there are quite a few, actually, events one can attend on a bi-monthly basis. They can meet up with people who work in technology. Mac Prichard: Ours is a national audience. I know you're in California, but are there groups that you see that operate across the country that our listeners might want to check out? Albert Qian: Yeah. One major one that I've gotten to know a little bit here in my time in Orange County is called Workbridge Associates. They host an event in all major cities across the country called Tech In Motion. Tech In Motion is a monthly networking event. Sometimes, they have content, sometimes they don't. Various technology professionals in technology marketing, people who program, all get together to share insights, exchange business cards, and get to know each other. I think, just from my understanding, they've got people in Seattle, Portland, the Bay Area, LA and Orange County, Chicago, Tampa Bay, New York City, Austin, Texas, and so many more. Mac Prichard: Excellent. We'll be sure to include that in the show notes. We're coming to the end of our interview, Albert. What else would you like to share with our listeners? Albert Qian: I'd like to invite any of your listeners to look at joining Albert's List. We, are you've mentioned, are that marketplace where we bring together job seekers, recruiters, and numerous opportunities. Like what you do with Mac's List. We have a main California group that you can find under Albert's Job Listings and Referrals. We also have groups that cover Seattle, Austin, Chicago, and New York City. We invite you to join. You can go to our main Facebook group at bit.ly/findyournextjob. That's B-I-T . L-Y / find your next job. All one word. You can also visit us online at albertslist.org. We currently just have a signup page for our email list. We send out emails every 2 to 3 weeks which includes everything from an update on the jobs report that the US Labor Department sends out every month to highlights of jobs that have been posted in our group, to upcoming live networking events, mainly available in the San Francisco Bay Area, where you can meet other professionals and get referred, and just get to know the people in your community. Mac Prichard: We'll be sure to include both of those links in the show notes. Albert, thanks so much for joining us this week. Albert Qian: Definitely. Thank you, again, for having me. Mac Prichard: Great. We're back with Ben and Cecilia. Now, what did you two thing of the conversation with Albert? What were some of the most important points you heard him make? Cecilia Bianco: I really liked what he had to say about applying for a tech job just with experience with human behavior and human experience and what a user experiences on a website. I think that's good to have in your mind going into an interview at a tech job. I think it can be a lot more valuable than I ever thought it was from what he said. Mac Prichard: I think you're right. Working the technology sector isn't just about coding. The experiences and values that can serve you in one field, whether it's marketing, sales, project management, human resources are also valuable in the technology sector. What about you, Ben? Ben Forstag: I think Albert went back to one of the golden rules of job searching which is networking and how important it is to network within the field that you're interested in exploring. I like the way he put it when you show up at a networking event, it's really hard for people to ignore you. It's an opportunity for you to present yourself in a positive light in front of people who matter and decision makers at companies. Mac Prichard: I agree. It doesn't matter what the sector might be. Human connection still matters. People always will tend to hire people they know or people that are recommended to them by people they trust. Well, thank you both, and thank you, our listeners, for listening. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. In the meantime, visit us at macslist.org where you can signup for our free newsletter with more than a hundred new jobs every week. If you like what you hear on our show, you can help us by leaving a review and rating at iTunes. This helps others discover our show and helps us help more job seekers. Thanks for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever thought about striking out on your own? Maybe you want to start a nonprofit, a private company, or a consulting practice. Perhaps you want to be “solopreneur”--a one person startup. Whatever road you choose, you need think about carefully about the road ahead. Being a founder offers many benefits, but you should be clear about why you want to do it and understand what it takes to succeed. This week on Find Your Dream Job Mac talks with serial entrepreneur Russ Finkelstein. Russ was co-founder of Idealist.org, as well as several other nonprofit and social good ventures. He also mentors entrepreneurs who are working to build their own startup organizations. Russ has experienced success and failure as a founder and shares his experience with our listeners. In this 37-minute episode you will learn: The good (and bad) reasons for starting your own organization The importance of mentors, advisors, and people whose opinions you can’t ignore The different stages of the startup process, and how the role of the founder changes When to go it alone and when to partner with a co-founder The three questions you must answer when starting a new organization This week’s guest: Russ Finkelstein (LinkedIn)Founder and Managing Director, Clearly NextAdvisor, The Talent Philanthropy ProjectCo-Founder, Idealist.orgPortland, Ore. Listener question of the week:  I'm thinking about self-employment but not sure if I’m ready. What are the big issues I should consider to make my decision? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: ChrisGuillebeau.com Pioneer Nation World Domination Summit The $100 Startup ClearlyNext The Talent Philanthropy Project Idealist.com Ashoka.org Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. -- FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard:    This is Find Your Dream Job, a podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want and make a difference in life. I am Mac Prichard, your host and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and our book, "Land your dream job in Portland and Beyond." To learn more about the book and the updated edition that we're publishing in February, visit macslist.org/ebook. Thanks for joining us today. This week on Find your dream job, we're talking about how to be a founder. Have you ever thought about striking out on your own? Maybe you want to start a non-profit or a private company or a consultant practice. Whichever option you chose, you need to think carefully about the road ahead. Being a founder offers many advantages but you need to be clear about why you want to do it and understand what it takes to succeed. Our expert desk this week, Russ Finkelstein has helped start two organizations. One was quite successful, the other one failed and now he's part of a third start-up. Later in the show, Russ will share his story and his dos and don'ts for founders. But maybe you don't want to start your own organization. Maybe you want to be a solopreneur, a one-person start-up. Ben Forstag will join us and he'll discuss a book and resources you can use to launch your own venture for $100 or less. Cecilia Bianco, as she does every week, answers our listeners' question and this week, she'll share with you five key questions you need to answer before you leave your day job and start your own show. So how about you two, have you ever thought ... Ben and Cecilia about after Mac's list perhaps starting your own organization? Cecilia Bianco:  I don't know if that would be the right thought for me, seeing all the different blogs and articles we see about it. I just think I'm not ready for all that risk. I can't think about it yet. Mac Prichard:    Okay. You think about the risks that's involved. Yeah, I can sympathize. And Ben? Ben Forstag:      I want to work for you forever Mac! No, I fantasize sometimes about starting my own business but there are a lot of risks there and at this point of my life, I'm not quite ready to take those risks. Mac Prichard: I'll share with you. I've been self-employed now for eight years and when I first started out on my own, I had a day job that kept me busy half-time and then the other half, I was running my public relations company, [inaudible 00:02:30] Communications. People would say to me in those days, "How does it feel?" And I would say, "It's like standing on a dock and you got one foot in a row-boat and it's slowly drifting away from the dock and I've the other foot on the dock and I can't decide where I should shift my weight," and eventually I chose the boat and here we are, eight years later. Ben Forstag:       Thanks for making that decision. Mac Prichard:    It's great to be here. Ben, let's take it back to you. I know you have a resource of the week you want to share with us? What have you discovered for us this week? Ben Forstag:       Since we're talking this week about going out on our own and doing your own things, starting your own business, being your own boss, I thought this would be a good time to talk about Chris Guillebeau Portland-based entrepreneur, business writer and motivational speaker. Chris is a really interesting guy. By his own admission, he's never held a regular job. Instead he is consistently found ways to turn his ideas into income, so that he can avoid the regular 9-5 lifestyle. What his real passion is, in addition to business is travel and he probably talks about and writes about how he's been to all 175 countries on earth all before the age of 34. So my resource this week is actually going to be Chris' website which is chrisguillebeau.com. His last name is French, as you might be able to tell and that's spelled Guillebeau and I'll have the URL in the show notes. His website is the place where you can access all of his products that he makes available. He's got a blog where he talks a lot about work productivity. To some extent he is a what they might call a productivity ninja about how you can be more effective with email and in working in your office, working in your own business and other writers contribute to his blog as well and write about the same thing and almost everyone there ... the way they support this lifestyle is through their own start-up companies and they're all solo entrepreneurs. Chris also has written several books. A lot of them are pretty well known. Mac referenced one earlier, it's called "The Hundred Dollar Start-Up," and this outlines a general business model for how you can start your own business starting with a blog around a very focused subject and building off from that. He also wrote a book called, "The Art of Non-Conformity: How to live on your own terms by exploring creative self-employment for radical goal setting, contrary in travel and embracing life a constant adventure," and a third book, this one I've actually not heard of. It seems interesting. It's called "Born for this: How to find the work you meant to do." All these books are available on his website and you can check him out there. He also coordinates several big events and I know, Mac you've been to some of these and Cecilia and I just got back from one. He hosts one called “Pioneer Nation” which is focused around small businesses and improving how you do things, how you launch, how you market yourself. Cecilia and I went to this about a month ago, got a lot of good stuff out of it. Then he has one of the best named events I have ever heard called, "World Domination Summit" every year. I've not being to that one. I know you have Mac. Mac Prichard:    I have. Ben Forstag:   Can you talk a little bit about it? Mac Prichard:    I have been twice and it takes place over a weekend and there are both speakers who talked to a large group and smaller sessions as well and it's very inspirational. I think it offers a lot of benefits. The two that stand out for me are that it provides a weekend that helps you get to think about your goals and purpose in life and where you want to go and provides some ideas about how to get there. Then the second benefit is the community that it brings together and I've stayed connected as many people have who have attended World Domination Summit with what other people call themselves WDSers and they've had some good friendships and good professional relationships come out of both of those. Ben Forstag:    Yeah, and one of the recurring themes throughout the events and the books and the blog and this is something we've talked a lot about on our podcast here is really getting focused and knowing what you want to do, what you want to deliver and why you want to want to deliver it. Getting to why is what they talk about a lot. So, his website, chrisguillebeau.com is really the portal to the books, the blog and the events and I'd suggest our listeners to check it out. I'll have the URL in the shout outs. Mac Prichard:    Okay. Thank you Ben. Let's turn to Cecilia. Cecilia is our community manager and she joins us every week to answer you questions. What do you have for us this week Cecilia? Cecilia Bianco:  Our question today is, I'm thinking about self-employment but not sure if I'm ready. What are the big issues I should consider to make my decision? First off Mac obviously has a lot more insight into this question as a business owner but I'll give my best answer and then we can hear your input Mac. In my opinion, you need to start by asking yourself these five questions to determine if your really ready. Do you know what you want to do and who you want to serve? Do you know what your main source of income will be and have a plan in place to effectively promote and sell it? Do you have a support system of professional contacts, mentors, family, friends and other resources to help you as you get on your feet? Are you prepared to take on the risks associated with running your own business? Clearly I mentioned earlier, I am definitely not. Lastly, do you have a backup plan or financial cushion should your business fail? Mac, how did I do? Did I miss any big issues? Mac Prichard:  I think this is a great list and I think you had almost all the main points. One thing I wrestled with is when I was going through this process was mindset. I had always worked for other people and I never saw myself as an entrepreneur and I think in the popular culture, people think business owners are people who are kind of born into it, maybe they have a family that runs a small business or they are going to Silicon Valley and they're going to start a tech company. I think I would challenge our listeners just to think about experiences they've had in their careers where perhaps they've organized events or helped a non-profit keep going or they've involved in school groups and those all require entrepreneurial skills and when people think of themselves in that light, I think it makes it easier for them to make that leap. In my case ... I think I've talked to both of you about this. I have been involved in a lot of political campaigns over the years ... Electoral politics is a passion of mine and a campaign is the ultimate start-up because it takes place over a short period of time and requires investors and there is the product, the candidate and you know on election day whether or not you have a sale. That would be the only thing I'd add is mainly a mindset. Cecilia Bianco:  Okay, great. Each of these questions, they take a lot of thought and planning to address but once you do, I think you'll have a clear path forward and be able to see if your mindset is in the right place as you mentioned. One last thing, there's also a ton of resources out there to help you as you think through these things and today you mentioned a great book and two amazing events that are great examples of ways to get help figuring it all out, so looking for those opportunities in huge before you get started and if it's possible, talking to people like Mac and other entrepreneurs and business owners and seeing how they got started, what problems they encountered and things they wish they would have know before jumping in is a great way to evaluate yourself from hearing about their experience. Mac, Ben, anything to add? Ben Forstag:       I would just go back to what I mentioned two minutes ago which is really getting to the question of why. Why are you doing this. One reason for any entrepreneur is going to be income. They need to pay rent and they want to take care of their family but hopefully there is some bigger why behind it animates what you do and the clearer you are about why you are doing this and why you are taking this road less traveled, that's really going to give you the guidance you need when you have a rough patch in your business or when you're struggling. That's going to provide you clarity and inspiration moving forward. Cecilia Bianco:  Definitely. Mac Prichard:    I think that's spot-on Ben. Thank you Cecilia. If you have a question for Cecilia, you can email her. Our email address is cecilia@macslist.org. The segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. We're making the complete Mac's list guide even better by adding new content and making the book available on multiple e-reader platforms. Now, when we launch the revised version of the book in February of 2016, you'll be able to access Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond on your kindle, Note, Ipad and other digital devices and for the first time, we'll have a paperback edition. Whatever the format, our goal is the same. We want to give you the tools and tips you need to get in vogue. For more information, visit macslist.org/ebook and sign up for our ebook newsletter. We'll send you a publication updates and share exclusive book content and provide you with special pre-sale prices. Now it's time to hear from our expert guest. Joining us this week is Russel Finkelstein who is managing director of Clearly Next which helps people of all incomes build life-long fulfilling careers. He is also a senior advisor to Tel Misanthropy which increases investment by funders in the non-profit and social change work force. Russ serves on the national board of the young non-profit professionals network and he was a founder and associate director of idealist.org. Russ, thanks for joining us. Russ Finkelstein:  Thanks for having me. I'm very impressive on paper. Glad to chat with you. Mac Prichard:    Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you here. So, starting your own gig. Let's talk about that. What should people think about? Whether they want to create a non-profit or perhaps a consulting practice or a private company. Russ Finkelstein:    I think I always start with the reasons why people want to begin something. I think very often people when they are thinking about making any kind of transition, there is a lack of clarity as to the rational for why they want to do that. So very often someone is like, "I have got the worst boss and I'm going to go and I'm going to make ... I'm sick of having bosses because all bosses are awful. I'm going to go to some other place and start up my own thing and life is going to be easier and plentiful. I'll have my own schedule." I think there is a notion that ... sort of a simplistic notion that that's going to happen. I think the starting point is understanding, one, why you want to do it and then given that, what's the reality of making that kind of transition. Mac Prichard:    So don't flee from something. Actually be working towards something. Russ Finkelstein:  Yeah. You have to do your best not to be reactive. It's being proactive to stuff that's taking place in your life, in the given workplace but also understand the kind of lifestyle that you want and how it connects to what it would mean to start-up another endeavor. Mac Prichard:    Okay. So you've been through this process several times now. What are common steps that worked for you that listeners should consider taking as they think through whether or not they should strike out on their own? Russ Finkelstein:     One of the first things, it just comes down to research. It just whatever the en devour is, whether it's in the non-profit sector or consulting or for profit. It's understanding what the void is, what is the thing that you are going to fill. Are you credibly in a position to go and fill that? How easy is it to develop business? How risk averse are you around having to be a rainmaker. A lot of it is really doing internal work to understand what you want and then the other thing because we do wonderful jobs we'd be lying to ourselves. Like we are an amazing at lying. One of the things when I was working on the start-up that didn't go ... one of the things that's I've always told myself is that, if you work hard enough you can work through anything. And it was one of those things where I reached at a point where I realized with all your possibilities which was the start-up that I hated working on my own. I felt very isolated and even though I had advisors. One thing I would always recommend to people is, have a conversation with people you trust. I always call them people of standing which are people that you communicate well with, you trust and you're not going to be dismissive of. Very often we reach out to people that we're comfortable with, so our parents, our partners, our best friends, sibling ... but it's also very easy for us to dismiss that and dismiss their opinions. That for me is a really important thing and even in the start-up mode, I had some people that I trusted but I realized actually more than just checking things out and having them vet for me, I had to feel like someone was all in the way that I was. It was just hard for me to do that and I had to learn that. Mac Prichard:   So first get clear about the void or the problem. The void you're filling, the problem you're solving but then be clear about what you want out of the experience and turn to trusted advisors to help you think that through. Russ Finkelstein:    Yeah. The people who know you best who can push both on your ideas and can give you real feedback on how sustainable those ideas are and then given what they know of you, how realistic it is for you to be that person moving ahead. Mac Prichard: How do you find those people Russ? Are these co-workers or ... Obviously they're probably people already in your life or maybe they're not. What have you seen work well and not wanted for yourself but for others in both identifying these trusted advisors and then building a relationship with them? Russ Finkelstein:      Sure, I think people get hung up on this awful word known as mentor. My least favorite words because people have this notion that there is going to be this one person that has all the answers for everything and that they're going to make an official request of someone to be their mentor and they will sit at their feet and learn everything. In fact what happens is, in life you interact with who have expertise on specific things that you might need ... instead of thinking about one person giving you feedback, it's just really thinking back on the people that you've worked with who have built a relationship with, who trust you that you communicate well with and they may not be able to give you feedback on the totality of something, but they can give you the feedback on pieces of it. There is a woman I'm working with in Chicago who is working on a start-up and when we've chat about it, she's classic case of the great cutting away of the good. The challenge of I'm afraid of sharing a thing for fear that it might be good enough. With her, I've mentioned a couple of people that she can start with. Like two people who are safe people who are really smart so she can feel really comfortable that, one if they've read through something, it's likely to have been well vetted and two, the other challenge a lot of people have is who are they to do this thing. Who am I to be the founder of this thing. In fact that's going to come up later on when it's time for funding or other kinds of support, that who are you will certainly come up. But initially, I think very often when people struggle with that, one of the things that I will often tell people about is, think about your friends, think about those people that you really respect and you know that those individuals can chose who they are going to spend time with, who they are going to make themselves available to and if you respect and think highly of those people, then that in itself as a sign that you are onto something, that you are someone who has merit in the world, your ideas have merit in the world and sometimes it's just sort of the latter of confidence and you've got to build a solid initial foundation of sharing with a couple of people and kind of build from there. Mac Prichard:    You touched on this. I think some people think a mentorship has to be a formal relationship with an agreement or regular meetings and I've certainly been approached and I know you are often with people who have a specific question about a particular problem and I might not hear from those folks again for months or maybe even several years but I feel good about having that conversation because they've approached me about something I can actually help them with. Russ Finkelstein:      And even as a mentor ... There is a gentleman I work with who graduated from MIT early and therefore bright and is working on something that I barely understand. Like I can get maybe 30% of what he's talking about but I can help him with the structure of what he's doing. His ability to get your toaster and your refrigerator talking to one another is completely beyond anything I'll ever be able to grasp but I understand what he needs to move this thing ahead and to feel confident about it and to prioritize things. So it really is just to understand that different people have different traits but also that he and I communicate really well in terms of process. Mac Prichard:    Who shouldn't be a founder? Are there people that should just take themselves out of the running right from the start? Russ Finkelstein:  I don't know that there is anybody who shouldn't ever be a founder. I think that it's just a question of understanding the reality. So if you're somebody who for example, doesn't want to ever have to deal with raising money, getting clients any of the associated things that are involved with being a founder, that's going to be difficult. Maybe you look into co-founder-ship which is a whole other thing given your skill-set. I think you have to ask yourself how comfortable I am playing the kinds of roles that are necessary for that work and just again be really clear about the lifestyle because if someone could decide that I'm going to begin my own consultancy and say, "Okay. I'm going to keep my job. I'm going to do it on the side." Some things are slow build and some things require you to be all in very early on. I think it depends on the nature of that thing and what again, I keep using this lifestyle word but what’s you're mortgage like. How you're taking care of ... you have a family to deal with. What does that take care of in terms of your hours, what does your partner do if you have one in terms of dealing with the bill. A lot of this stuff involves a lot of other relationships and you're making very specific choices. There was a start-up that we never have mentioned to you. When I was an idealist in the first five or six years into idealist I had been thinking about an idea that since nothing has ever really happened with it. I'm never going to do it. It was in New York City and it was developing something that would be for LGBTQ non-profits. It was going to be an organization that both built the capacity of the organizations and also run as a volunteer center within that community. I was interested in it and I spoke with people who wanted to be on the board and I was able to do some perspective fund raising and then I got to the point ... I got to the tipping point of defining, am I going to go and be that person or not and I decided do I want that to be who I am, Do I want to be the person who is in front of the cameras, who is doing interviews and that shapes who I want to be in terms of a public person. Even now with Clearly Next, I'm at a moment where I'm doing this podcast but by large, my preference is a lot of one to one conversation of working with founders, to build big things. I love one to one career conversations but I'm not necessarily the guy who's looking to be the big public speaker. I'm not necessarily somebody who wants to go and have to be heavily published and I'm in a moment where I probably going to have to start doing that which makes me a little bit uncomfortable but I'm working through it. Actually you can see by virtue of my speaking into this microphone. Mac Prichard:    Okay. It's good to have you work through that and I'm intrigued by your point earlier about co-founders. When does it make sense to invite co-founders and what do you look for when you're doing that? Russ Finkelstein:  It is so messy. I think the challenge is distrust. The challenge is if you use someone who ... If there are two people who have come together, who organically have developed in that way, I think that's fine. But if you use someone who is taking a running start at something and you've said, "You know what, I need to have someone with more technical jobs, programming jobs." Very often you'll see there is an idea person who is maybe comfortable with sort of fund-raising and some elements, I really need to have someone who can code or can do certain types of tech and those kinds of people are very difficult to find because they are very much in demand. But I'd say that the challenge is an equal report in interest in the work itself and developing the trust. Like early on, with Idealist for example, I remember maybe the first six to nine months in, I had a conversation with Amy and I said ... So my thing is no one will ever work harder than me. I don't ever like it when anyone is working harder than me at any project. We would work from 8AM till 2AM many night during the initial phase of idealist and somewhere I said, "I need you to share power more because I can't continue working this hard and not feel like I have ownership." I think it can be really challenging for people on the ownership side and depends on the personality of the person who is founding and what they're founding but I think the trust thing that was really huge. There isn't one place to find it. There isn't sites like founder dating or other kinds of sites but it really is, there is a level of trust there and I've known lots of guys speak to founders all the time and that challenge of trust and a lot of people start something but what happens is people ... There is usually a person who's in it way more than the other person. The other person is testing out several things and deciding which one is going to move. So you're always going to feel ... Basically everything ... I think everything is like dating. You're ready to make a committed relation, you're ready to have a committed relationship, you want to get married and she's like, "You know, this might be good but I want to date five or six other people. Let's see like whether there is attraction and let's see where there is movement," and I think that can be really hard when you're committing and you're there and you're just like, "Well, if she's not available, If I want to do this things that's he's not producing them." The gentleman that I was chatting about from MIT for example, he gets hit up all the time from people who want to do projects because he can code like crazy. Mac Prichard:    So think about trust, and it can be messy and I guess I want to dig in a bit for us because what's the difference between looking for a co-founder and just hiring somebody to help you? Russ Finkelstein:   I think the difference is always around relationship. The thing that I was mentioning with Idealist, the notion that someone is really committed in the same way, it could just feel different. It could feel like, you're paying me a salary of X and by the way, the other challenge of course is very often start-up mode whether there is a salary to draw from even. It's always one big issue versus equity or other things. But I'd say that I think that's a big part of it is the notion of how invested that person is in that work. I think it could just be really difficult. One of the reasons I ended up doing so much senior advisor stuff is I need a lot of people who are starting things and I can go emotionally from zero to sixty on people's projects. I love ideas, I love concepts so if someone starting something that they're really interested in and I naturally gravitate towards, "Okay, let's think about that," and I'm interested in both the programmatic thing but also the emotional well being of the founder because very often founders are pretty emotional sort of fragile states because they have to always offer up this image of "I'm on top of it. I know everything. I'm smiling," and I think that weighs on them quite a bit. That notion of having to be just to know everything. I was at a fellowship retreat not so long ago with a group of founders of stuff and we had our cohort met and two thirds of the group of ten were just crying over this issue of like how difficult life was and how hard it is to try to always have to have this sort of mental of perfection, of being bright and shining and on top of things and impressing funders and donors and staff. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. It can be challenging to keep the game face on but I think you're making an important point not only for people who are thinking about founding their own organizations or practices but just people in the workforce in general. We don't all have to be perfect. For the benefit of our listeners, you're first start-up was idealist.org and I know that many of our listeners are big fans of that website where it provides positions for people interested in non-profit work around the world. Then you were involved in another organization called "All you possibilities" and that didn't go so well. We've all had our failures and I certainly have and now you're involved in a new group. Just quickly Russ, can you take us through those three organizations in just a few minutes. Let's start talk about Idealist. How did you know that was going to take off? Russ Finkelstein:   I didn't know it would take off. We never do ... Mac Prichard:    But in some point, you open the doors and then you've worked hard and then it wasn't a start-up anymore. It was a successful organization. Russ Finkelstein:    After four or five years, we finally had gotten to a place of being desperate for money and we started charging people to post jobs. We had no choice and that took off. But for a very long time, every single time we would see a new big non-profit sector website appear. We would be like, "Oh my God. That one looks way better than ours. That one is going to just kill us. We're never going to be able to last." I'd say it took us a very long time to feel really comfortable with that. We got to a point ... you get to a point where you start to feel a little bit more [inaudible 00:29:11] in terms of how people are very aware of you in certain places. You start hiring people of course, but you feel anxious much of the time and even now and every single one of the things that I participate on this side, you never take for granted that thing is going to take off. You just don't know. You see too many things come and go to be sure of that. So I think that's one of the challenges. I think with all your possibilities, part of it was I just kept waiting for a sign. I got to a place with Becker and [Green 00:29:47] where I was a finalist. It didn't happen. I was like, "Well, I guess that's my sign." But it was more just like this emotional difficulty of moving ahead. Mac Prichard:   I want to talk a little bit about that because we ... I think we all whether we're starting an organization or we're involved in a project at some point we have to make a decision to let go. Tell me when you decided ... First of all what was all your possibilities and very quickly and when did you reach a point where you thought it wasn't just going to go forward? Russ Finkelstein:      The idea was that it was an opportunity to go and offer mentorship and locational opportunities advice for LGBTQ young people. I really like the idea of that and connecting people geographically and letting people find based on certain ways that this helps identify whether location or faith or background et cetera. I've done a lot of work thinking about it. It was a very good idea and I just wasn't at that moment equipped to deliver on. It's one of those things that remains in my head as a thing that I come back to. Conceptually, I tend to have these flashes of ideas of things that I have to do and will sort them out and share them. I got to a place where I was just like, "Why am I having difficulty moving this thing ahead?" Actually as that was happening, and I was struggling, Elliot who is at Clearly Next, he and I ... Mac Prichard:    So he is one of your fellow co-founders at Clearly Next. Russ Finkelstein:      He is one of the founders for Clearly Next. That was three of us, Bill as well. We've been introduced about the year and a half prior to a second conversation. The first conversation, it was 20 minutes of him talking at me and then 20 minutes of my talking to him. "Okay. It was great chatting," and it will follow. Just like we both had a piece and then we were done. Then a year and a half later, a funder said, "You two should talk," and then a year and a half later another someone from a [inaudible 00:31:48] one of those places said, "You guys really should talk," so we spoke again and we were just at different places emotionally. We realized that we were just ... we needed to have another person that we could work with to move ahead. Mac Prichard: And this is how you got Clearly Next off the ground. Russ Finkelstein:   Yeah, that's how we started really working and he also had previously been a founder and was a recipient of the Ashuka. He had also been accomplished. The other thing that happens ... I mean this is not a conversation about what happens or you could be a one hit wonder, that's a whole other thing. But I think there is this notion of you've start an organization. Do you have another thing ... Is it an idea that matters enough, is it a thing that you care about enough that you want to go out and you have the energy to do it again. So when I was at Idealist, I was in my 20s and I had just ridiculous energy for stuff and it wasn't ... There is a thing about social capital. You're less nervous earlier on like "Am I going to look bad or am I going to embarrass myself in front of people," and actually move along further along your career, you have more in clarity about that. So you're more aware than, I think that was another part of the endless possibilities. I was like, "Either I personally do this." When I talk to people about founding a thing, I always will sort of say, "Here are the three questions," which will be what's the void you're trying to fill, how are you going to sustain this long-term and then I'd say, "Everyone is going to ask who the hell you are to do this." If you can give me those three things, that will take us a long way towards seeing if this makes sense. What's the void, how do you know it's a void, what's the research you've done, how you're going to make sure this is going to continue going long-term, is there a market whether a non-profit or consulting or for profit, how do you know there is a market, how do you reach to that market and then when people look at it at some level, they are going to say, "Why should I listen to you versus the other people?" I think you should always have to come up with the responses to that and that's challenging. Mac Prichard:    Those are great questions though and I think that's a great point to close the interview. Thanks for joining us Russ. You can find Russ online in two websites; Clearly Next and Talent Philanthropy. Those URLs are clearlynext.com and talentphilanthropy.org. We'll be sure to include both sites in the show notes. Thanks Russ for being here. Russ Finkelstein:   Awesome. Thanks for having me. Mac Prichard:    All right. Take care. We're back in the studio. Cecilia, Ben what you two think? What are the two take always you got from that conversation with Russ? Cecilia Bianco:  The main point it brought home for me is that some people are just suited for this type of path and one way to figure that out that Russ talked about was being okay with not knowing where it's going to go and being okay to take that risk, work really hard and see if it pays off or not because some people just can't be in that type of mind sets so I got a lot from the interview that was probably the main thing for me. Mac Prichard:    So don't be afraid to take the risk and go down the road but also recognize that you may find as you do that that it's not the right path for you. Ben? Ben Forstag:    I really liked his point about having a support system around you, whether that is a mentor or a advisor or maybe a board member if you're starting a non-profit. Having a group of trusted people that you can bounce ideas off of and that you can listen to and who can't ignore. I think it's so important because having a support system around you, people who can listen to you, validate your ideas or sometimes play the devil's advocate and say, "That's not a good idea. That is so important to success. Mac Prichard: I agree. I think that's excellent advice. Whether you're thinking about starting your own gig or thinking about you're next job.. Well, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week with more tips and tools you can use to find your dream job. In the mean time, please visit us at macslist.org or you can sign up for our free newsletter with more than a 100 jobs every week and if you like what you hear on the show, you can help us by leaving a review and a rating at Itunes. This helps others discover our show and helps us help more job seekers. Thanks for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may want a gig with a cool corporation like Nike, Google, or Apple. Perhaps you’ve targeted a big government agency or a nonprofit. Or maybe your goal is to land a job with small employer. Wherever you’re going, one day you will send your resume to a human resources (HR) department. For many job seekers the human resources department can seem like a black hole–a place where applications disappear without a trace. But there is a science to working with HR; and, when you know how the process works, a human resources department can be your gateway to a great job. This week on Find Your Dream Job Mac gets the inside scoop from long-time HR professional, Melissa Anzman. After 13 years in corporate human resources, Melissa started a new career as a career advisor, author, and business coach.  Melissa shares her tips on how to navigate the HR hiring process and make it work to your advantage. In this 38-minute episode you will learn: How to get your foot in the door with an HR department What HR is looking for in candidates, resumes, and cover letters How your interview with HR is different from your interview with the hiring manager How to make HR representatives your advocate in a job search Why you shouldn’t try to work around the proscribed HR hiring process This week’s guest: Melissa Anzman (@melissaanzman)Principal, Launch YourselfAuthor of How to Land a Job: Secrets from an HR InsiderCopper Mountain, Colo. Listener question of the week:  How should I prepare to negotiate my salary? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: GlassDoor.com Salary.com Launch Yourself Tips for Writing Post-Interview Thank You Notes How to Interview For your Audience STAR Interviewing Response Techniques How to Land a Job: Secrets from an HR Insider Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. -- FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard:    This is "Find Your Dream Job", a podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and our book "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond". To learn more about the book and the updated edition that we're publishing in February, visit macslist.org/ebook. Thanks for joining us today. This week on "Find Your Dream Job", we're talking about how to work with an employer's human resources department. You may want a gig with a cool corporation like Nike, Google, or Apple. Perhaps, you've targeted a big government agency or a nonprofit or maybe your goal is to land a job with a small employer. Wherever you're going, one day you will send your resume to a human resources, or HR, department. Many employers rely on human resources staff to advertise, accept, and screen all job applications. Before you get to see a hiring manager, you may have an interview with someone in human resources. Should you try to go around the human resources office and talk to a hiring manager directly? What do you do if the HR people never call you back? This week, we'll talk about these and other questions with longtime human resources insider, Melissa Anzman. She'll share her secrets for what you need to do when working with an HR department, but first, let's start as we do every week by checking in with the Mac's List team, Ben Forstag and Cecilia Bianco. How are you two doing this week? Ben Forstag:       I'm doing good, Mac. Cecilia Bianco:  Doing really good. Mac Prichard: All right. It's good to see you both. Now, in your careers, have you two applied for jobs through human resources departments? What happened next if you did? Ben Forstag:       I remember back before email when sometimes on job listings they would say, "Hand deliver your resume and cover letter to the human resources department." I remember a really cold winter afternoon in Cleveland, Ohio where I went downtown, went into a big office building to drop off a resume, and I got to the human resources department. No one was there. The door was open. There was a counter, the lights were on, but no one would respond when I was asking like, "Hello? Anyone here?" I ended up just leaving my resume on the counter and walking out. Mac Prichard:       You didn't write at the top, "One we must interview"? Ben Forstag: That would have probably gotten me better results than I got. Mac Prichard: Okay. Ben Forstag: The results I did get were ... No one ever called me back. Mac Prichard:   Oh. Well, that sounds like a pretty lonely place. Ben Forstag:      Yeah. Maybe it was good that I missed that opportunity. Mac Prichard:   Yeah. How about you, Cecilia? Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. I've done some online applications to HR departments, but I've never really heard back from them and I never get contact back until I've tracked down a hiring manager on LinkedIn or however you can find 'em. Mac Prichard:   Yeah. I've had the most success with hiring managers. As Ben was telling his story, a memory that came to mind was going Downtown before a deadline on a Friday afternoon and dropping off my application. It was at the reception desk. The receptionist had two large boxes and they were filled with dozens of resumes and packets. I never heard back from them, either. Ben Forstag:   Was one box labeled "Yes" and the other one labeled "No"? Mac Prichard:    No, they were kind enough to wait until the doors were closed to do the sorting. We'll talk about human resources departments because there are ways you can work with them effectively. Melissa knows how to do that and she's going to be sharing that with us. First, let's turn to you, Ben. Every week, you're sharing with us different resources you've found. What have you located this week on the internet? Ben Forstag:    Today, we're going to be talking about the website Glassdoor.com. Now, I know we've mentioned this in passing last week, but I think this resource deserves a little bit more attention. We're going to spend a few minutes just chatting about it. Mac and Cecilia, have you guys ever used Glassdoor.com in your own job search or for some other research purpose? Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. I actually look at it all the time. Sometimes to see what employers are posting on Mac's List and making sure they're legitimate. It's just a great resource overall to find out about your local job market. Mac Prichard:   I've looked at it too as part of my research to figure out what are good salary ranges for the Portland market. As you know ... In addition to Mac's List, I run a public relations company and I want to make sure that I'm offering the best and most competitive salaries I can. Glassdoor is a great way of helping to determine that. Ben Forstag:       Sure. Like many things, Glassdoor has its pros and its cons. I want to sort my conversation today around the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good thing about Glassdoor.com is this is an opportunity to get a sneak peek inside the culture, the salaries, the benefit plans, and the general office environment in lots of different companies. You can go onto the site, you type in a company name, you type in a city, and it spits out a lot of information about what people are getting paid at the organization in general terms, whether they like their office environment, whether they would recommend the job to a friend or a colleague and so forth. You can see the salary ranges for different job titles both nationally and specific to your city. As we know, the same job title could have vastly different salaries in New York City versus Portland, for example. You can learn about the hiring procedures through people who have been interviewed, find out what the interview process look like in terms of ... Was it a phone interview? Was it in person? Were they grilling you with real hard questions or was it a "get to know you" kind of process? You can find out how candidates were recruited, whether it was through sending in an application online or they were recruited by a recruiter or at a job fair and so forth. That last piece is really important because if you want to work for an organization like Nike, for example, you might find that sending in an application through their HR system is really not the best way to get a job there. The best way is through a job fair or to talk to a recruiter. Even if you're not looking for a job, you can use the salary tool to see what other people with your job title are getting paid. As we just mentioned, this is really valuable if you're looking to negotiate for a starting salary or for a pay raise. You can show what your comparables are and say, "This is what the market rate is." Mac, you just mentioned using those comparables to set salary ranges, so it sounds like this is something that you're familiar with job seekers doing. Mac Prichard:    It is. Employers, as I mentioned earlier, look at it too because ... When you're hiring staff and you want to keep people onboard, the old role is true: You get what you pay for. You want to make sure that you're offering the most competitive wages and salaries you can and doing this kind of research will help you do that. Ben Forstag:   That was the good part. Now, we're going to be talking about the bad part. Mac Prichard:    Okay. Ben Forstag:     Glassdoor.com ... It really works best for larger organizations. It's not much help if you're applying to a small organization with just a handful of employees. I took the liberty of looking up Mac's List. We're not on there. I looked up Prichard Communications, your other firm, Mac. They're not on there. Mac Prichard:    Okay. Ben Forstag:     Nike's on there, Intel's on there ... A lot of big Portland firms and firms all around the country and the world are there. The reason for this is because all the data they have is submitted by actual employees or former employees. The larger your workforce, the more likely you're going to have people submitting information about you online. Also, Glassdoor is not great for nonprofit organizations. I looked up several nonprofits that I've worked with and only one of them was listed there. If you're looking for nonprofit backgrounds, probably a better place to start would be on the 990 forms that you can find on places like Charity Navigator. That's how you would find out what the executive director is being paid, what other high level executives are being paid within organizations. Mac Prichard:    Why do you think that's so, Ben? Is it a reflection of the size of many nonprofits? Is that why we're not seeing them pop up on this site? Ben Forstag:     I'm guessing so. A vast majority of nonprofit organizations are pretty small. We're talking less than five employees. The same rule that applied to the for-profits: The more employees you have, the more likely you're going to have reviews online? It applies for nonprofits as well. Much of the data, as I mentioned, is provided by current and former employees, so the data tends to be a little bit skewed either very positive or very negative. Not a whole lot right in the middle. You ready for the ugly? Mac Prichard:   Sure. Ben Forstag:  Okay. The ugly is, if you spend too much time on Glassdoor, you start finding that some of the reviews are very, very negative. People really slamming their former boss or the former organization. They had a bad experience at a company and so, they just want to take revenge. All the reviews are anonymous, so people feel that they can go out and just write whatever they want. Now, one organization that I worked with in the past was listed there. It was a small organization and there was a very negative review of that organization. There was enough data in this anonymous review that I knew who wrote it. I would suggest if you have something negative to say, think twice before you write anything on Glassdoor.com, especially if you work in a real small organization. You don't want to burn bridges if you don't need to. If someone can identify you through any information you leave on that site, that really destroys any kind of professional credibility you have moving forward. Certainly you can't use that organization as a reference anymore. That's the good, the bad, and the ugly of Glassdoor.com. Mac Prichard:   Thank you, Ben. Do you have a suggestion for Ben? Write him and we may share your idea on the show. His email address is ben@macslist.org. Now, it's time to hear from Cecilia Bianco, our community manager. Cecilia is in touch with you, our listeners, throughout the week and she joins us to answer one of your questions. Cecilia, what do you have for us this week? What's the question of the week? Cecilia Bianco:  Oh thanks, Mac. Our question is, "How should I prepare to negotiate my salary?" The main piece of advice I have for this is to do your research and go into a negotiation extremely prepared and knowledgeable. Ben's resource this week is actually a great place to start. Glassdoor, Salary.com, and other websites like these allow you to see what other people in your role are making. You can compare your offer to the local market and see how it matches up. As Ben mentioned, you can search nationally and locally, so always try to narrow it down to salary specific to your city. Sometimes they don't have enough information to provide an average, but it's still a good practice to always check. Then, an easy to get good local information is to ask your peers, family, friends, really anyone you're comfortable discussing this with in your professional network. That can help confirm or support your online research, too. Ben and Mac, I'm curious if you've used research like this when you've negotiated in past jobs. Mac Prichard:    Well, I have to say ... As the two of you speak, I'm just reflecting on the fact that you both have anniversaries coming up after the holidays. Ben Forstag: Speaking of which, Mac ... Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. Mac Prichard:    As your employer, I better check out these sites and get ready for those meetings after the Christmas holidays, but seriously ... I am serious on that. I have used research like this in negotiating with employees or when I've had jobs myself and have approached employers. It's good to have the facts in your corner when you're making the case for either a higher salary for starting a position or for an annual adjustment. How about you, Ben? Ben Forstag: I haven't. I wish I had this data like three or four years ago. When I moved from Washington DC to Portland, I really struggled because I got a job offer, but because the cost of living is so different between those two cities, it was really hard for me to evaluate what my value was. I was making one amount in DC and for the comparable job in Portland, the job offer said the value was significantly less than what I was making in DC. I just didn't have the data behind me to justify whether that was a good offer or a bad offer. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah, definitely. It's really important to know the local market. Then beyond that, I think it's important to think about the job you're negotiating for specifically. Reflect on how competitive the applicant pool was and if the employer's been hiring for the position for a long time. Basically, the harder it was for the employer to find you and hire you for the job, the more negotiating power you're going to have. I know negotiating can feel really uncomfortable, but it's important to get paid what you believe you deserve. Just prepare yourself to really make it easier because the more prepared you are, the more confident and ease you're going to feel when you start negotiations. Mac, from your point of view as an employer, what types of research or negotiation tactics do you feel are effective? Mac Prichard:  I always find it persuasive when someone shows me data for salaries for comparable positions in the local market. It could come from the websites that you cited. I also hear from readers all the time that they often look at Mac's List not because they're looking for work, but they're curious to know what jobs like theirs are paying. Visit websites and job boards to pull those kinds of figures and I think you'll be much more effective in making your case. Something else I want to say about negotiating salaries ... There's research out there that shows that men are more likely to ask for higher salaries when they are negotiating for a job for the first time or for raises than women. I think the employers expect to hear those requests, so I encourage you whatever your gender. Do your homework. Take some time to study negotiating techniques. It'll pay off because once you're in a job, you're setting a base, a foundation, that will likely be that, a base, for several years upon which annual increases will be made. Don't be afraid to be assertive. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. That makes sense. I think that one thing we commonly see is that people undervalue what they bring to the table, especially after a long job search or they're just afraid to miss out on an opportunity because of what they want to be paid. Really, as Mac just said, it's better to talk it through in negotiations with an employer rather than accept the job at a salary that's going to make you feel undervalued through each raise because you're not going to get a twenty percent raise ever, likely. It's better to do it when you're just starting. The worst that can happen is that they say no and you have to compromise. Don't forget that you can also negotiate for better benefits if the salary you want is really just out of reach. Mac and Ben, anything to add? Any last tips? Mac Prichard:    I think ... Any candidate is at their most attractive to an employer when there's an offer on the table. That's the time to ... As you say, don't be afraid to ask. The worst thing you're going to hear is no. If you don't ask, you won't get it. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. That's true. If you're interested in more tips on figuring out how to talk about your value to an employer, you'll find several blog posts on Mac's List if you search for "salary negotiation". Mac Prichard:    Well, thanks, Cecilia. If you have a question for Cecilia, you can email her. Her email address is cecilia@macslist.org. The segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond". We're making the complete Mac's List guide even better by adding new content and making the book available on multiple e-reader platforms. When we launch the revised version in February, you'll be able to access "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond" on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, and other digital devices. You'll also be able to order a paperback edition. Whatever the format, our goal is the same. To give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. For more information, visit macslist.org/ebook and sign up for our e-book newsletter. We'll send you publication updates, share exclusive book content, and provide you with special pre-sale prices. Now, let's turn to our expert guest, Melissa Anzman. Melissa is a certified executive coach who helps people get on the right career track and enjoy success in the workplace. She's worked with hundreds of people to grow their careers to the next level. Before starting LaunchYourJob.com, Melissa spent thirteen years in the corporate world as a human resource leader. She's also the author of "How to Land a Job: Secrets of an HR Insider". Well, Melissa, thanks for joining us today. Melissa Anzman:   Thanks so much for having me, Mac. It's always fun chatting with you and your team. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. It's a pleasure to have you here. Well, let's turn to our topic today "human resources departments". I have to say, Melissa. When I was doing my homework, I was looking online on this subject and words like "guards", "gatekeepers", and "black hole" kept popping up when I was searching under "human resources" and job hunter-ing. Why do you think human resources departments have that reputation? Melissa Anzman:      Yeah. It's definitely one that's unfortunately common and not very flattering of a distinction. Human resources departments get a bad rap because they really are sort of the face of a lot of behind the scenes work. When you're applying to a job, there's one person in HR that you'll talk to usually when you need help with the application, another person in HR takes care of it and then, there's that comp, compensation person, who does sort of the ... What your offer'll be and so on and so forth. A lot of times, HR gets a bad rap when it comes to the hiring process because they are the gatekeeper in that they're the first line of defense to get your foot in the door at a company. As you've learned in a previous podcast with Jenny, with Job Jenny I should say, Jenny Foss, the first step is usually the online application system. A lot of times we blame HR, who are people, for things that something a system may have kicked in or kicked out. Mac Prichard:    I'm glad you brought that up because HR departments aren't going away, so we have to work with them whether we're hiring managers or applicants. Let's talk about how you do that and some effective strategies. Let's start. How do you recommend listeners approach an HR department? What's a good way of getting started? Melissa Anzman:     Absolutely. There is a science to working with HR. Unfortunately, the science is going to be tweaked a little bit depending on the company and the size and all of that fun stuff. There's sort of three ways that you can work really well with them in order to get your foot in the door, in order to move along in the hiring process, and so on. The most important one is understanding and realizing your own personal value proposition. HR ... If you sort of put your feet in their shoes, HR gets a ton of resumes. Lots of qualified candidates particularly for super cool awesome jobs, right? They're also getting those resumes and applications from people who are cream of the crop. Top tier, high potential, great talent. It's up to you to market yourself and really showcase for them. Make it easy for them to say yes to you. Know what value you bring to the table and tell them that early and often and repeatedly during the process. Mac Prichard:    What are some practical ways that people can do that? I'm an applicant, I'm not afraid to bang my own drum, or toot my own horn, rather. How can I do that? I've got to fill out a form, I may not be able to get somebody on the phone. What have you as being on the other side of that door inside an HR department seen work well? Melissa Anzman:     Your resume is your first tool if you're going to go blind. I would say the thing on your resume is I don't want to read a bullet point list of skill sets you have. That doesn't help me as an HR person. What I want to understand ... I want to see results driven, metric driven information on your resume of what you've done. That whole "show, don't tell me" is so important when you're applying. Another way you can do that is how you follow up. That's sort of the second thing of networking and outreaching. How you follow up, you have to consistently reinforce your value proposition. This is why you have to meet me before you move any further in the process. If you can convince an HR person to do that, you'll go far along because they are sort of that gatekeeper. To do that, you just have to showcase who you uniquely are. It's your approach, it's leveraging all the tools in your toolbox. If you're online, making sure that you're positioning yourself as a subject matter expert in that field. If you're using just a resume, it's super detail oriented, data driven, metric driven information, so that the HR person is not guessing your capabilities. You also have a great platform on LinkedIn. LinkedIn allows them to research you whether it's for a first time or they're just looking or they're a sourcer or maybe they're following up on a resume. You really want that to be a good calling card for you as well. Mac Prichard:    Know your value, document it with metrics, facts, and figures, and put that in your application, but don't stop there. Look at the other opportunities you have online to make your case through your LinkedIn profile as well as demonstrating your expertise, your leadership, in the field through blogging or participating in forums. Tactics like that. Is that step number one? Melissa Anzman:   Absolutely. That is step number one. I would just like to say one more thing on that. When you're writing anything that goes towards your value proposition, make sure each sentence answers the question, "So what?" Why would the resume reader or the HR person care about that sentence or bullet point or metric or whatever that is? Get really tight on your messaging because you don't have a hundred times to make an impression. You really have one. Be super clear and concise and efficient with your words and answer "So what?" every time. Mac Prichard:  Great advice, Melissa. Now, what's the next step? The application's in, the online platforms are in good shape. What should an applicant be doing next to connect with HR and get beyond them and in front of the hiring manager? Melissa Anzman:             Yeah. The second step is one that I personally dreaded for a long time myself. It's kind of the tried and true step, but it's about networking and outreach. I think the word "networking" in this instance is a terrible fit because what you have to do is you kind of have to pursue or make some outreach or try and get on a first date essentially, right? You're trying to get this HR person interested enough in you that they want to date you, that they'll ask you out. To do that, you don't just send an email to someone. Although now, you probably do less than that with all the apps out there, but when you're talking about work, you have to follow up. I don't mean you send an email to the careers@entercompanyname.com website. You spend ... It takes ten minutes or so on LinkedIn and Google to find the email address of a hiring manager or find the email address of the recruiter. You send them a note and you express your interest. You think about your value proposition and you show it to them in your email super short and sweet. Let them have their contact information. You've sort of opened the door for a first date. Mac Prichard:  Melissa, I just want to pause there because I can imagine some listeners saying, "Okay. All I have is careers@mydreamcompany.com. How do I find the name of the recruiter or the hiring manager? I can figure out how to get their email address once I know the name, but what's the secret to getting that name?" Melissa Anzman:   Yeah. I mean, getting the name is hard and I have some suggestions on a post that you can definitely include in the show notes, Mac. Essentially, you have to think like a researcher here. This is kind of a skill that went to the way ... I'm going to sound really old now ... Went to the wayside with the internet and Google. You need to do your research. That's about searching for the company ... Here's how I'd do it on LinkedIn. I'll search for the company and I'll put sort of the company and the department that I'm interested in, or the department and recruiter. Then, you'll see a list of names that pop up that fit that thing and you want to filter it down to "current", etc, etc. When you start looking at profiles, LinkedIn gives you some suggestions on the right-hand side. I tend to find the suggestions to be super helpful because good recruiters in particular usually have their "I focus on this area at this company." You can usually find pretty easily the recruiter's name by just narrowing it down on LinkedIn in that regard. Mac Prichard:  Good. That's step number two. You've found the person you want to connect with, you've thought about ways to network with them and reach out to them directly, and make that case. What do you do next, Melissa? Melissa Anzman:       The next thing is something that people forget. Just completely forget. That's really understanding and knowing your audience. Not all people on the hiring process timeline or the candidate experience are created equal. When you're dealing with a front line, so the first point of contact recruiter, they don't know details about the job you're trying to do. What I mean by that is they don't know the nitty gritty details of the technical aspects of your role. They have fifty, sixty ... I don't know, hundreds sometimes, at some companies of requisitions open across their table. Their expertise is to recruit, not to know your department. When you talk to them, they are looking for culture fit, your personality ... They're trying to understand if you have the basic skills for the role, so you're using the right jargon and words that describe the position as someone else has described it to them. They are not at all interested in knowing about the super nitty gritty details that make no sense to anybody outside your industry or your position much less, during that process. As soon as you start talking to that person around things that make no sense to them, you've lost them. They're already tuning out. Mac Prichard:    Okay. Technical skills matter, but save that for your conversation with the hiring manager. I just want to clarify, Melissa. When we're talking about recruiters, we're talking about people within an HR department who are tasked ... Whose job it is to recruit people for that company. We're not talking about headhunters who might be under contract working outside the company. Melissa Anzman:               Absolutely. Sorry for that. Yeah. When I say recruiter, it's always that internal resource within HR that's responsible for getting people in the door for the role. Mac Prichard:  Okay. Now, I'm often asked, what about just bypassing HR altogether? I think sometimes people think, "If I could just go around the HR department and get in front of the hiring manager, all my problems would be solved." What's your reaction to that? Melissa Anzman:   Well, it's hard. There isn't a one size fits all there. I would say be very careful if you do that, right? You're not going to be creating any friends or anything of that regard to do that. Also, at most companies particularly in different states and just sort of what state laws are and all of that fun stuff, you do have to go through the official hiring process to get an offer. I am all for you making that first connection, that first introduction, that first outreach, whatever it is with the hiring manager directly, but you should also instantly get on the right train. What I mean by that is get onto the process that the company wants you to go through. If you're a great candidate and you're sort of someone that that person, the hiring manager, loves anyway, it's going to make no difference other than the fact that you're going to actually walk into a company with friends instead of having HR as an enemy. Mac Prichard:    Okay. I also hear from people who ask me, "What can I do after I've applied for a job and I get a rejection letter from HR? Should I call the human resources department? Should I still try to reach out to the hiring manager?" What options do people have at that point in the process? Melissa Anzman: Well, I think it depends on how far along in the process you got. If you just applied and got an auto-generated email or even a personal email saying, "Thank you for your application. We're going in a different direction", that's where the conversation should end. There's nothing you can glean from it. Maybe it was an internal candidate that they hired, maybe you were too late in the process. I mean, there's just so many things and they're not going to tell you. That would be that case. If you're further along ... Let's say you've been interviewing with them. You've seen somebody in person or you've talked to someone in person. I don't really recommend that you continue the conversation unless something odd happened. Maybe you're just sort of not feeling like you got closure or an answer or something like that, that would be the only case where I would say continue. Usually, they are restricted by some laws to tell you what went wrong in the interview process, right? They are going to be very careful if you ask them that question. They're not really apt to helping you improve your interviewing skills going forward unless you created a good rapport with that recruiter. Mac Prichard:   Okay. Now if you are invited in for an interview, often you start with the human resources department and then, advance on to a conversation with the hiring manager. Are those two different conversations and should people prepare for them in different ways? Melissa Anzman:  Absolutely. They are night and day different conversations, or they should be. If they're not ... Take a step back and level set yourself going forward. When you're interviewing with HR ... You need to talk about you and yourself and your personality and your strengths. That kind of focus. Really high level, "I'm a fit for this organization." When you move to a conversation with the hiring manager, they're thinking about different things. They want to know ... Can you do the job? They're going to ask themselves what a pain or not pain you will be to manage. I know I'm not supposed to say that, but it's true, right? When we're trying to hire someone, we're like, "How much work is this going to be for me?" You want to make sure your conversations are geared in that regard. They also want to understand more about you as a person. What makes you tick, what motivates you, if you would fit on the team that's already there, as well as those technical skills. It's a very different conversation with the hiring manager than it should be with HR. Mac Prichard:  What's the best way to follow up on those separate conversations? Melissa Anzman:    I always believed in a thank you note. I have a little template on my site which, again, feel free to include, of when to send an email thank you versus when to send an actual thank you note and when in the process. Any time you talk to or meet with somebody, you absolutely need to follow up. Email is a little bit more instantaneous, so that's great for a lot of different situations, but there are definitely some levels and some roles that you want to write an actual handwritten thank you note. Mac Prichard:    We'll be sure to include a link to that page in the show notes. We're coming to close of our interview, Melissa. What are some other things that our listeners should think about? Melissa Anzman:  Yeah. I would just say when you're interviewing, we have a tendency as we're very nervous in an interview to ramble on. It's a skill you can absolutely learn and get better at. I always recommend that you practice what I call "STARS". That's a pretty typical term, but it means everything that you answer, every single answer in a interview conversation can be framed around a specific situation or task, the action that you took, and the result to the company for it. That's only three sentences if you want to be super efficient to get your point across. By doing so, not only are you adding a lot of value to the conversation and making that HR person or the hiring manager love you because they know you know what you're doing, but you're also keeping them engaged in the conversation, which has a lot longer of a tale for your winning, I guess, through the process ... Through your success through the process, I should say. Mac Prichard:  That's terrific, Melissa. I know that we've been talking about human resource departments, but ... Would you have different advice if an agency doesn't have an HR department, particularly, the smaller employers? Are there things that would be appropriate to do that you haven't described here? Melissa Anzman:  Yeah. I mean, I think when an organization is smaller and don't have the HR resources, usually the hiring manager or someone else is managing the process. You're almost cutting out a middleman a lot of the time, which is great, which is in the favor of the candidate every single time. Instead of following up with HR, go directly to the person that you should be working with or outreach directly to the hiring manager because you have that opportunity. I would still say make sure you know your audience in the interview process. It may not be an HR person, but maybe you're meeting with a finance person who's going to care a lot about a lot of different things than your hiring manager. Just keep that in mind, but it will play out a little differently by cutting out a middleman. Mac Prichard:    Great. Well, thank you, Melissa. You can find Melissa online at LaunchYourJob.com. You can also buy her book "How to Land a Job: Secrets of an HR Insider" at her website and on Amazon.com. We'll be sure to include links to your website and your book in the show notes. Thank you again, Melissa, for joining us. Melissa Anzman:  Thanks so much for having me, Mac. Mac Prichard: We're back with Ben and Cecilia. What did you two think? What were some of the most important points you heard Melissa make? Cecilia Bianco:  I got a lot out of that. I think she has ... An inside view that we don't hear a lot, particularly about not going around HR. Sometimes we hear it's a lot easier if you can get straight to the hiring manager, but clearly that will do more harm than good in the end if you get the job. I thought that was a really important tip. Ben Forstag:   I liked that she outlined the process to work with them because I think, in my perspective, it's always been if you send your job application to "careers@", it is the black hole. Nothing's going to happen to it. I've just stopped doing that in my own job searches, but it does sound like there is a process and that if you follow the right steps, you can get some traction going through HR. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. I think that's an important point and to know the process. There's a leadership talk I attended once at a conference. The one thing I remember ... It was delivered by a retired US Naval Officer. He said, "Learn the system and make the system work for you." Having that insider perspective, Cecilia, I agree is really important. Knowing that process and doing the homework to uncover it and understand it can pay benefits for you down the line. Good. Well, thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. In the meantime, visit us at macslist.org. You can sign up for our free newsletter there and you'll find more than a hundred new jobs every week. If you like what you hear on our show, please help us by leaving a review and rating at iTunes. This will help others discover our show and help us reach more job seekers. Thank you for listening.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you want a job that lets you make a difference in the world you’ll likely consider a career in public service.   A government job--at the local, state or federal level--can offer you the opportunity to address issues that matter, such as education,  the environment, and homelessness. You can find positions suited to every interest and skill, from art history to zoology. And the work itself can be gratifying. But getting your first government job can be challenging. The application process usually requires patience and persistence. And managing a career in public service requires thoughtful planning. This week on Find Your Dream Job Mac talks with Kirsten Wyatt, assistant city manager of West Linn, Oregon, co-founder of the organization Emerging Local Government Leaders, and host of the GovLove podcast. Kirsten is passionate about helping talented professionals enter the public service sector and shares her tips for anyone looking to get a job in government. In this 38-minute episode you will learn: How you can explore your passion (and help others) with a government career Tips for building a network to help you transition into a government job New tools and protocols for applying for government jobs What the government interview process looks like Creative ways support your government job search This week’s guest: Kirsten Wyatt (@kowyatt & @elgl50)Assistant City Manager, West Linn, Ore.Co-Founder, Emerging Local Government Leaders?West Linn, Ore. Listener question of the week:  What's the best way to start my job search? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: Nonprofit Organization of Oregon Hatch Innovation Lab GlassDoor.com BestPlacesToWork.org StrengthsFinder Emerging Local Government Leaders GovLove Podcast Josh’s Job Search Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard: This is "Find Your Dream Job", the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host, and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and by our book, "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond". We have a new edition of the book. It's coming out in February and you can learn more about it by visiting macslist.org/ebook. Thanks for joining us today. This week on "Find Your Dream Job", we're talking about government work, how to get it, and how to manage a public service career. If you want a job that lets you make a difference in the world, you're likely to consider a career in public service. A government job can offer you the opportunity to address issues that matter such as education, the environment, and homelessness. You can also find positions suited to every interest and skill from art history to zoology and the work itself can be very gratifying. Getting your first government job, however, can be challenging. The application process usually requires patience and persistence and managing a career in public service requires thoughtful planning. If you're thinking about applying for a federal job, Ben Forstag has a website that you'll want to check out. It uses employee surveys to tell you which agencies are the best places to work for different groups, including veterans and women and others. Not sure how to get started pursuing a career in public service? Cecilia Bianco has a set of steps you can follow to get clear about what you need to do next. Then, we'll turn to this week's expert, Kirsten Wyatt. She's the co-founder of a national association for government professionals. Kirsten will share her advice about how to navigate the government application process and she'll tell you what you need to do to have a successful public sector career. Before we get started, I want to give a big shout out to Cecilia, who last night wowed a crowd here in Portland that was interested in finding work in the nonprofit world. Cecilia, what were some of the ... Did you have a good experience? Cecilia Bianco: I did. Yeah. It was a great experience and it was a good crowd. I think they were really engaged with learning about how Portland is different and how you can get a nonprofit job specifically in Portland, which as you know, is mostly through networking and informational interviews. Mac Prichard: Yeah. Any other key takeaways you want to share? Either from your presentation or your conversations with people afterwards? Cecilia Bianco: Yeah. I think the biggest takeaway for me is that people know they need to network, but they don't know how to get started. I think talking about that with them and giving them practical advice was the most important part of the night. Mac Prichard: Good. Ben, I know you and Cecilia organize these events throughout the course of the year. Can you tell our listeners more about them and how they can learn more about it? Ben Forstag: Sure. Each year, Mac's List organize four different events on our own. They're quarterly based. These tend to be focused around specific topic areas. How to get a job in communications, for example. We also partner with the Nonprofit Association of Oregon and a local incubator group called Hatch Oregon to put on a series of presentations called "Career Pathways to Doing Good in Oregon". That's what Cecilia was speaking at last night and that also happens four times a year. Mac Prichard: Good. Well, visit the website if you'd like to learn more about those events and let's turn to this week's regular segments. Every week, Ben is out there exploring the internet looking for blogs, tools, and podcasts that you can use to help in your job search. Ben, what have you discovered for us this week? Ben Forstag: Mac, I am so excited to share the resource this week. This is a website I found about three months ago, but I've been holding onto it just for today's podcast. I'm super excited to share it. Mac Prichard: I can see you vibrating in the seat. Ben Forstag: Yeah. This combines two of my favorite things. One is public service jobs and the other one is data. As you and Cecilia know, I love data. I love looking at spreadsheets and all that kind of stuff. Mac Prichard: Yeah. You're definitely a number cruncher. Ben Forstag: The resource this week is a website called bestplacestowork.org. This is like a Glassdoor website specifically for federal government agencies. If you are interested in working for the federal government, this is a website you can go to to learn about the internal culture of the government agencies. Mac Prichard: Great. For the benefit of our listeners who might not know about Glassdoor, it's a website that has information from employees of companies who share insights into supervisors' styles ... Good bosses, bad bosses, basically, as well as information about salaries. Ben Forstag: Yeah, and so this is specifically just the federal government. Each year, the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially manages the entire federal workforce, conducts this survey of all federal workers across three hundred and eighty nine different federal organizations. I mean, they ask a series of questions related to employee satisfaction, employee commitment, and other topics that would measure how good of a workplace this is. The questions they ask are things like, "Do you recommend your organization as a good place to work? Are creativity and innovation rewarded in your agency? How satisfied are you with your involvement in decisions that affect your work?" These are really kind of getting at what is the day to day experience for workers in these agencies. From these responses, they assign employee satisfaction scores to each federal agency and then, rank the agencies against each other. Best Places to Work is where the public can go to review all of these scores. Agency rankings are sortable by multiple demographic groups. For example, you can look for the best federal workplaces for women or the best agencies for veterans or the best places for younger workers versus those for more seasoned employees. All these rankings come from the employees themselves saying what their experience there is. Mac Prichard: Were there any surprises when you looked at the data or agencies that stood out, Ben? Ben Forstag: Well, I was actually going to ask you and Cecilia here what you thought of all the federal agencies out there, do you want to take a guess at which agency had the highest employee satisfaction score? Cecilia Bianco: Oh, that's tough. I think I'm going to pivot to Mac on this one. I have no idea. Ben Forstag: Okay, Mr. Government Work. Mac Prichard: I'm guessing it's not the Veterans Administration. Ben Forstag: It is not the Veterans Administration. Mac Prichard: Yeah. Okay. I give up. Ben Forstag: Top ranked for the last three years is NASA, which is awesome. Mac Prichard: Yeah. Ben Forstag: They're loving sending people up into space. That's good. Mac Prichard: Well, I know we may be dating ourselves here because these podcasts will live on for a long time, but if you've seen "The Martian", that is like a love letter to NASA. It's one of the few movies coming out of a Hollywood studio I've seen in recent years that shows government doing a good job, government actually working. Ben Forstag: Hmm. Interesting. I'll have to check that out. Mac Prichard: Yeah. Ben Forstag: Do you want to take a guess at what the worst ranked agency is? Major agency? Cecilia Bianco: Mac, any ideas? Mac Prichard: I don't want to disparage any agency, but- Cecilia Bianco: Yes. Mac Prichard: Guessing and that not being correct. Ben Forstag: Well, I'll go out there. I thought it was going to be the IRS. Mac Prichard: Oh. Ben Forstag: It's not. It's actually the Department of Homeland Security. Cecilia Bianco: Hmm. Ben Forstag: Again, this is all from the employees themselves voting on their own experience. One of the interesting things here is they rank all these different organizations, the large agencies, the mid-size agencies, and the small agencies. One of the things I really liked about this website because I am a dork like that is all of the small little sub-agencies that exist out there.For example, the top ranked small agency, or sub-component, was the Surface Transportation Board, which I've never heard of. The worst rated government agency of all the categories for every demographic group? This one scares me a little bit. The Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board. Cecilia Bianco: Yikes. Ben Forstag: The folks who are working there are not happy. Cecilia Bianco: That's not good. Ben Forstag: No, it isn't. Mac Prichard: What's scary too is I've actually heard of the Surface Transportation Board. I've worked for three transportation projects in my career, so I'm familiar with that one. Ben Forstag: Okay. If you're interested in working in the federal government, you should definitely check out bestplacestowork.org to get a feel for the culture in each agency. Even if you're not planning on working for Uncle Sam, I think you can find some good value on this site. Check out the methodology section and the questions included in the employee survey.I talked about some of those questions earlier. There's about fifty four of them that they ask. These are the kind of questions you should be thinking about when you're evaluating your own work situation or perhaps, a prospective employer. It really gives you a sense of what the culture might be in those organizations. Mac Prichard: Good. Well, thank you, Ben. Do you have an idea for Ben? You can reach him at his email address ben@macslist.org. He's waiting to hear from you and he may share your idea on the show. Now, it's time to hear from you, our listeners. Cecilia Bianco, our community manager, is here to answer one of your questions. Cecilia, what's your question of the week?Cecilia Bianco: The question today is, "What's the best way to start my job search?" This week, I know we're talking about government jobs, but I'm going to give you some basic and important tips to get your job search started that will be applicable to whatever field you're interested in. Because I speak with so many people who are looking for work, I pick up the most common problems that they're dealing with. What I've been hearing a lot lately is people are starting their job search before they actually know what they really want to focus on and what job they really want to be in. This is making it a much longer and more painful process for them. Mac, I know you talk to a lot of people as well. Have you noticed this? Mac Prichard: I have. I see it not only in conversations I have with people who tell me about their job search, but frankly, I've experienced it myself. Early in my career, I struggled with goal setting and being clear about what I wanted and probably spent far more time than I needed to on different searches as a result. I'm glad you're bringing this up. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah. It can make it really hard. My first suggestion to people having this problem is, before you even start your job search, take some inventory of yourself and what you really want from a career. The easiest way to start thinking about this is to really figure out your main strengths and your main goals for what job you want right now. With your strengths, I don't mean thinking about a mental list of your skills, which we see people do all the time. I mean knowing how to talk about your strengths to a potential employer before you start applying to jobs, so being prepared with examples and past evidence that show your strengths rather than listing them off. As you guys know, almost every job on our list is asking for writing and communication skills, but employers don't want to see a resume or cover letter or hear you in a interview just say, "I'm a strong communicator." They want you to show them rather than tell them. If you're prepared and you know your strengths and you know how you can prove them, that's the best way to nail down what type of job you're going to be good at. For this example specifically, you want to really think about any past awards you've received, successful campaigns you've been a part of, if you've increased an online following or even revenue through communications work that you've done. That's one main way to narrow down what your real strengths are is by being able to prove them. Another reason it's important to know your strengths this well is because you want to find a job that you're going to be good at. Ben, you've touched on this in past episodes. Can you reiterate your thoughts on why people should be in jobs that really fit their strengths? Ben Forstag: Yes, Cecilia. I think no one likes going to work and being unsuccessful day in and day out at their job. Any time you can get a job where you're exercising your strengths, you're always going to end up being more productive and probably happier at the end of the day. I talked about the strengths finder test several weeks ago on the podcast and I think what's so great about that is it helps people reframe some of their personality types around strengths and gives them tips on operationalizing how they could use those strengths in the workplace. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah, definitely. I've found that to be true in my current job. I know my strengths are the skills that I need to excel at it, so it makes me happier throughout the day as I'm getting things done. Mac Prichard: I'd like to add, Cecilia. I so agree with your point about the importance of showing rather than telling because when people do that, they have a terrific advantage, particularly in the interview process. One thing I've seen candidates do when I've been on interview panels that allows them to show rather than tell is they ask questions about the needs of the employer.They say, "What are your biggest problems?" What happens when that the employer responds is that you get an opportunity to think and reflect about how you have approached that problem before and to tell a story. Not to say, "I've got great communication skills", for example, but "I had an experience like that earlier in my career. Let me tell you how we approached it and how we solved that problem." That's a very unique thing to be able to do and helps you distinguish yourself from the other candidates in the process. It's to your point about the importance of showing rather than telling. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah. I think the way to get good at that is by knowing your strengths really well. That's really the starting point. Mac Prichard: Absolutely. Cecilia Bianco: The next thing I want to talk about is really knowing your goals because that is really, really crucial. I don't mean long-term where you want to be in ten years. I mean your goals for your career right now and what type of job you want to be in. You want to think about the company culture that you're going to enjoy the most, the impact you want to be making, and what your day to day responsibilities are going to be that you really want to be in charge of and you're going to enjoy day in and day out. If you think about these things and you have them nailed down, when you go to look at a list of three hundred jobs, it really makes it easier to focus in on the ones that are a right fit for you. When you go into an interview or write your application for a job you know you're the right fit for, we've found that you appear more genuine and you're more likely to get the job because the employers can pick up on that. It's important to be authentic and show you really are the right fit. You're not just saying you're good at this, you're good at that. You really are good at this and you really are good at that and you really want to be at a company that supports a certain type of environment. Those are my main tips for how you can get started. Mac and Ben, anything to add? Ben Forstag: I just want to reiterate your focus on being focused and knowing what you want to be doing for a career. We talk to a lot of job seekers and I completely understand the mentality of "I don't want to close off any options, so I'll do anything" or "I'm open to any opportunity". I understand that. I've been there.At the end of the day, I think employers really want someone who's focused and committed to certain types of work instead of the person who'll do anything or the jack of all trades. It really does shorten the job search process when you do find focus and passion behind that focus. Mac Prichard: Yeah. I think that's a very important point you're making, Cecilia. This idea that you really do need to be clear about what you want because employers will pick up on that. They'll pick up on your energy, as you say. You just make it easier for employers to say yes to you when you focus on your strengths and what you're good at and what your passionate about. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah. That's definitely true. Also to Ben's point, when you're focusing really hard on a specific type of job, it makes your next steps easier, which the next steps when you're starting a job search is to target organizations and people you need to talk to that can help you. Really overall, just get some focus before you start. Mac Prichard: Okay. Well, that's very good advice. Thanks, Cecilia. If you have a question for Cecilia, please email her. Her address is cecilia@macslist.org. The segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond". We're making the complete Mac's List guide even better by adding new content and making the book available on multiple platforms. When we launch the new version in February, you'll be able to access "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond" on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, and other digital devices. You'll also be able to get a paperback edition for the first time. Whatever the format though, our goal is the same. To give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. To learn more, visit macslist.org/ebook and sign up for our ebook newsletter. You'll get updates, exclusive book content, and we'll provide you with special pre-sale prices. Let's turn to our expert this week, Kirsten Wyatt. She is the co-founder of ELGL, an acronym that stands for Emerging Local Government Leaders. ELGL is a national organization with chapters across the country that connects, communicates, and educates about public service. Now, Kirsten writes frequently about government for the ELGL blog. She also hosts the GovLove podcast and serves as the assistant city manager in West Linn, Oregon. She studied politics at Willamette University and earned a master's in public administration from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Kirsten, thanks for coming to the Mac's List studio and joining us today. Kirsten Wyatt: Thanks. It's great to be here. Mac Prichard: Yeah. Let's start with some broad questions. Why should somebody consider a career in government? Kirsten Wyatt: Well, I think the thing that's amazing about a career in government, especially local government, is that no matter your interest or no matter your passion area, you can find a job. As I was getting ready for this podcast, I was poking around on the county website. They're hiring dentists, they're hiring engineers, they're hiring levy experts, they're hiring budget analysts. Really whatever your passion is, government has a place for you. I think that's really exciting because then you get to have a career where you're exploring your passion, but you're also doing something to benefit the greater good. To me, a local government career is tremendously rewarding. You have a lot of abilities to learn new things and grow your career and grow your personal self. To me, that's why I've pursued a career in local government and why I always encourage other people to look to local government. Mac Prichard: Good. If someone is at the start of their career or they're thinking about entering into public service, what are some of the issues they should think about as they lay the foundation for a career in state or local or the federal government? Kirsten Wyatt: Well, I think it's important to remember that sometimes you don't just get to walk into a job. This is true in all industry sectors, but in government, often there are going to be minimum requirements related to getting a job. It's important to make sure as you are finishing your college career or building out your resume that you find some ways to get your foot in the door and get some of that relevant experience that government wants you to have when they're hiring. Mac Prichard: Let's get tactical for a moment. What are some steps that people can take to get that foot in the door? Kirsten Wyatt: One of my favorite stories is of people who decide they want to make that jump into government and so they take time on their own and volunteer at the local level, be it on a city budget committee, on a local planning commission. Using that, their free time, to get that experience that local government wants to see on a resume. You may be coming out of undergrad and you maybe have a lot of really theoretical or philosophical perspectives, but you don't have that kind of boots on the ground perspective. Taking some time, your own time, to get those relevant skills is really important. I love hearing the stories about someone who dedicated a year of Tuesday nights volunteering on a historic resources board because they really wanted to become a historic planner or something like that. I think that those types of things take a little bit of effort, but it really pays off in the end. Mac Prichard: I've seen that happen in the world of politics, too, where people who are active in their neighborhood volunteer for a committee and then, end up working for an elected official at city hall. Kirsten Wyatt: Absolutely. That's a great example, too. Mac Prichard: Yeah. What advice would you have for somebody who wants to get their foot in the door and maybe they want to make a mid-career change? Kirsten Wyatt: That's a tough one. I think one thing we've found from ELGL is finding a way to build a network in local government or in government is a really critical way to make sure you're building out those connections, so people can start to realize that the skills that you have built up over the years in the private sector are transferable to local government. That may mean building a network where the city manager of a certain city knows that you are a top notch communications expert. Maybe you've only worked for a consulting firm or a private company, but you're able to take those skills and make that transfer over to government. That's what we really try to promote through ELGL is making those sincere real connections regardless of what industry you're in. If you have an interest in public service, we want to help you make those relationships. Mac Prichard: Let's talk about the hiring process. When I talk to people who are interested in breaking into government whether they're coming out of college or graduate school or they want to make a mid-career switch, they tell me that they're intimidated. The process seems opaque, hard to understand. Break it down for our listeners. How do government agencies hire and what should people keep in mind when they're starting that application process? Kirsten Wyatt: Government hiring processes are horrible, but they are getting better. It was just as recently as two years ago that my own city, we created our first fillable form for our job application. Now, I'm proud to say that our local government as well as many others in the region are adapting a standardized application aggregator called NEOGOV. You can just fill in all of your information and then, use it to apply for many government level jobs. I was listening to your earlier podcasts and I am also a font snob. What I have found in local government that's hard is that they want you to put your application materials into a standardized format. That doesn't give you a lot of room for creativity or to show your flair. It's also aggravating because you may fill out an application for one city and then, you have to go in and fill out a whole other application for another city, typing in the exact same information. You don't get to go and pass out a resume. There's a different process and approach and that's just because government wants to be standardized across all of our hiring processes. It can seem more tedious, I think, than just uploading or submitting a resume. Mac Prichard: Once people ... If they're fortunate enough to live in a community where you can actually apply online or whether they print out a form and fill it out by hand, what are some strategies and tactics they should keep in mind when they do that? Kirsten Wyatt: Well, my number one advice is to understand the form of government that you're applying to. I have seen so many people contact the mayor about a job that they're interested in in a council manager form of government, which is just entirely inappropriate because the elected officials have no role in hiring. Same thing with really wanting a job, but not looking at the hierarchy or the way the organization is structured. When you're making that call to say, "Hey, I'd love to learn more. I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee and talk about this job", you're calling the entirely wrong person. I think that sometimes just having that really basic self awareness of the job that you're applying for and then, how you go about building that connection or that ... Show your involvement with that organization, you really need to be aware of what you're doing because you can just shoot yourself in the foot right off the bat. Mac Prichard: Okay, so don't call the mayor. Kirsten Wyatt: Don't call the mayor. Mac Prichard: Don't call the city counselor. Kirsten Wyatt: No. Mac Prichard: Who might you call? Who would it be appropriate to reach out to? Say you see a job at the local parks department and you're very excited about it. You're Leslie Knope. You want to be there. Kirsten Wyatt: Well, I think, first and foremost, you reach out to your network. Mac Prichard: Okay. Kirsten Wyatt: You reach out to that network you've already established and maybe there's someone that works in the adjacent city parks department. You reach out to them first and you say, "Give me the scoop on this job." Then, once you've realized that it's a really healthy and stable environment, then you potentially reach out if your person in your network advises you to to the hiring manager and just say, "I'd love to pick your brain. Learn more." You also need to be careful and make sure you don't overstep and seem like you're trying to sidestep the actual process that's going on, which again, gets back to why having that network is so important. A great example. In Tualatin recently ... Which is a really well run organization. They have one of the best city managers in the nation. It's one of those places where you want to work. They recently had two jobs come open in a very short span of time. It became really widely known in the local government community before they even advertised those positions. A lot of that is because Tualatin has put themselves into the center of a network where they're sharing information constantly about the work they're doing and the opportunities they have. Once you're able to insert yourself into that network, you're going to find out about things before they're even posted or advertised. Mac Prichard: Networking matters. We had another guest on the show, Kirsten. Jenny Foss talked about applicant tracking systems that are very common in the private sector. These are automated processes that look at resumes or other application materials identifying keywords. Is that a practice in government as well? Kirsten Wyatt: As we become more sophisticated and we're using tools like NEOGOV, it's becoming more possible or more likely that you're going to see an application screening process that's going to look for those keywords that were in the job description. Kind of echoing what she had mentioned in the podcast, making sure that you're tailoring your resume to that job description that's in that system is key. I mean, but that's kind of common sense. You don't want to just blanket the world with resumes.You want to make sure that if you're applying for a specific job, that you're tailoring your skills and abilities to match. Sometimes with the volume of resumes and applications that are coming in, there needs to be a rational nexus between your application and the job that is being advertised. I think that that's just ... That's not rocket science. I mean, you can go through the job description and find those keywords and make sure that you pull out the talent skills and abilities that you have that match those. Mac Prichard: I think that's very sound advice. When I first started applying for jobs in Oregon government when I came to Portland many years ago, I didn't have much success. Someone coached me about the importance of including keywords in my application materials and it made all the difference. I found I started getting interviews after I did that.When people after they've done the networking, they've gotten the lay of the land, maybe they've gotten their name in front of the right people, they've filled out the application materials. Now, they're walking into an interview. What should they expect when applying for a government job? What's different about this world and how can they prepare for it? Kirsten Wyatt: I'm seeing a rapidly changing way of interviewing in local government. I think a lot of this is because we're seeing more of a community interest, especially in certain level positions, to make sure that it's not just that that person is going to fit well with the existing staff, but how are they going to interact with their citizen advisory groups or citizen groups that they are expected to work with? In West Linn, I've seen interview panels that have been comprised just mainly of the supervisor and maybe one or two key staff people. When we get to that department head position or higher, I'm seeing panels, two or three panels, that take a good portion of the day. We're having citizens come in and sit on a panel, we're having peers that have the same position from other local government agencies sit on another panel, plus the department head team really trying to make sure that that fit is there. I think local governments are becoming more aware that when you make an investment in an employee, you need to make sure you get it right the first time because it's a really expensive mistake when you hire a bad fit. I've seen local governments become stronger at building out a panel or an assessment center-type situation that really helps identify who's going to become a key part of the team. I've also started to see for more technical positions, more testing and assessment, which I personally am a big fan of. When I was originally hired as a budget analyst in Virginia, I had to do a pretty extensive Excel test. At the time, I was a little surprised by that. In retrospect, it really helped them weed out people who didn't have just higher than average Excel skills. I'm a big fan of that, using those types of tests for finance positions and things like that. Mac Prichard: Just to go back to interview panels, Kirsten. When you served on those panels or you've talked to colleagues who have led them, what kind of candidates stand out? What do they do to break out of the pack and stand out as a candidate? Kirsten Wyatt: Well, with local government, it is so intensely unique. Every local government likes to think that they are amazing and the only local government that has the best library in the world or the best parks and rec department. They're proud of their history or their historic district or their urban renewal district. The candidates that stand out have done a healthy amount of research.It doesn't mean that they can sit there and recite every fund balance in every account, but it means that they have a real understanding of the community's values. Then, they weave that into their answers. If a community has a strong belief in their historic area, trying to make sure that your answers relate back to that value or that principle that that community holds dear, I think is important. It shows that you've done some research. It shows that you understand the audience that you're talking to. A really easy way for candidates to do that, especially for those higher level positions, is just go to the budget document or the council goal list. Find out what the priorities are for that year and then, really tailor your responses in your interview to what you're read in those documents. Mac Prichard: What kind of role can an online presence play when someone is applying for a job? How can people use online tools to be successful? Kirsten Wyatt: This is something I find very fascinating because for a long time, I think those of us in government felt like we shouldn't have an online presence. That we needed to kind of be these really kind of stiff and boring bureaucrats. Lately, I'm hearing from more and more recruiters that they want to see people who have an online presence that reflects their passion and their interest in public service. One recruiter even told me that they'll look through a Twitter profile. If you're sitting in an interview and you say, "I am passionate about economic development. Economic development is the most important thing and that's why I want this job." Then, they look at your Twitter feed and they realize that all you tweet about are the Kardashians and funny cat pictures, they start to question are you really talking the talk when you are applying for this job. One thing that I've seen and that I've been very proud of from an ELGL perspective, but just also from seeing how, especially younger people are getting their foot in the door in local government, is using platforms like the Mac's List blog, like ELGL, to write and share information about their job hunt or about their career interests and then, parlay that into opportunities. One of my favorite stories, and I know we've talked about Josh before, but a young man out of the University of Oregon wanted to work in government, but he had no experience. He had a ... I think just a general maybe political science degree. He needed to get his foot in the door and so, he started writing about informational interviews that we set up for him. ELGL would set him up with different people in the region and he would sit down with them and kind of pick their brain about their job. It was his chance to kind of get some background about all of the different roles that local government can play. In the course of doing that and writing about it, he had an informational interview with the City of Portland. The woman at the City of Portland was very impressed with his writing ability, also his poise and his presence. She offered him a temporary job and then, that temporary job led to a full-time job. Now, he's getting his master's in accounting and he has a lifetime of local government accounting in front of him, which may not sound that exciting, but I think it's really exciting for him. It's exciting for me to think about someone with that talent and that drive putting themselves out there and then, parlaying that into a full-time local government job. Mac Prichard: I remember that blog series very well. I think it was two or three years ago now. Kirsten Wyatt: It was. Mac Prichard: Can you remind me? What was the title? Was it "Josh is Looking for a Job"? Kirsten Wyatt: It was "Josh's Job Search". Mac Prichard: Right. What so impressed me about it was, I mean, he did the informational interviews and he wasn't afraid to reach out to some high level people. Local mayors and senior people in state government, but then, he went an extra step. He did something I hadn't seen done before, which was to write about it. By doing so, he just grew his circle of contacts and his network exponentially. Kirsten Wyatt: Well, and I think and as you've discussed in your podcast series "Writing Skills" ... It's something that we all want our employees to have, but sometimes it's really hard to measure because when you submit a writing sample, you submit the very best. When you're doing something where you're actively blogging or sharing information using some of these platforms that we have regionally, you're really showing that you can communicate clearly on the fly. That you're a great communicator. We had another guy who graduated from one of the top MBA schools in the nation. He moved out to Portland with no job, which many people do. He took a job as a seasonal worker with the parks and rec department in Tigard. Then, by building out his network, by making sure people knew that he had skills and abilities beyond cleaning bathrooms and mowing lawns, he was able to find full-time work using his network that he built through ELGL with the City of Beaverton. I think, again, it goes to show that sometimes you have to put yourself out there, maybe take a job that you think is beneath you or not exactly what you want. In the process, you're really showing that you're willing to work hard, get the experience you need and then, step into that role where you can make the difference. Mac Prichard: Okay. Well, I think that's a great spot to stop at. Our listeners can find Kirsten online at elgl.org. Also, at Twitter: @elgl50. Again, you'll be able to find these links in the show notes. Thanks for joining us today, Kirsten. Kirsten Wyatt: Wonderful. Thank you for having me. Mac Prichard: Take care. We're back in the Mac's List studio with Ben and Cecilia. Tell me what do you two think were the most important takeaways that you got from our conversation with Kirsten? Cecilia Bianco: I really liked her story about Josh. I think it was a good story to show an example of how someone can show the writing skills that they have and communication skills while building their professional network, which is clearly key no matter what field you're in. Mac Prichard: I like that story, too. I remember reading those blog posts and Josh's personality really shone through. I found myself looking forward to the next installment in the series as it unfolded. How about you, Ben? Ben Forstag: I was excited to hear that governments are modernizing their application systems through the NEOGOV site and other automated tracking systems because I know that government hiring ... It's a really difficult process to navigate if you're not familiar with it. All that being said, even with the new systems, I know it's a difficult field to get into and so, I think Cecilia's point about networking is really important. Mac Prichard: Yeah. I also appreciated her points not only about networking, but just the picture she drew of the process and the different things you could do in reaching out to people, growing your network, how to manage the technical parts of the application. Again, I think I meet people who are interested in working for government, but getting started and navigating that process can be challenging. I think Kirsten has given our listeners a road map for how to move forward. Well, thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. In the meantime, visit us at macslist.org. You can sign up there for our free newsletter with more than a hundred new jobs every week. If you like what you hear on our show, you can help us by leaving a review and rating on iTunes. 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