Tips for Work and Life with Andrew LaCivita

There's Mount Olympus Mons. The tallest mountain in the solar system. True. Or, if you haven't been to Mars to climb that doozie, perhaps you wanna hike up Mount Everest here on Earth. I hear Asia is lovely this time of year. Honestly, though, I just care about climbing Mount Andy. Maybe you want to focus on climbing Mount Whatever-Your-Name-Is. That's what life is all about. Climbing your personal mountain. (Wouldn't it be totally cool if you actually had a mountain named after you?) Anyhow, since you're readying my newsletter and I talk about careers, let's make this message about being the best version of you you can be. To cap off my solar system metaphor, today's podcast is about motivating you to reach for the stars. Let's get rolling with The Step You Must Take to Maximize Your Career Success! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

"Show me the money," said every job candidate ever! More is always better. We don't need to be greedy and money isn't everything, but it's something. All I care about is you get paid what you deserve or at least what makes you happy. Today, I've got two wonderful Jedi-mind tricks where the employers won't know what else to do but give you more money. Please enjoy the 2-tip medley and think of me with every automatic deposit. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Can you just tell me what you want so I can eliminate you from this wonderful position because I can't satisfy your needs? Good. Grief. Why do employer's ask stupid questions. Maybe, if I was going easy on them, I'd ask, "Why do employers not ask questions the right way?" I mean, the way that'd yield the actual info they need to make a good decision about hiring you. Have you ever been asked in an interview, "What are you looking for in your next role?" Did that question make you sweat and break out in the heebie-jeebies? It should have. Because it's a Yes/No question the employer is answering for themselves based on the several words that are about to come out of your mouth. The interviewer just wants some assurance you're interested in the role. No good can come of you answering this question in any detail or with any specifics. At best, you're letting the interviewer know you are essentially interested in the job you're interviewing for. At worst, you're saying something that eliminates you because it doesn't fit. Wondering what to do? Say? As in exactly say? Let's get to it! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Ever want to dig into how a company actually operates? As in, how they truly behave? That'd be a good thing to do if you're job interviewing, I'd think. You don't want to be joining a company you won't like! First question: Do you even know what kind of culture works for you? Let's say you do. Can you get over your freshly-inflicted bruises that tend to shine overly-bright lights on recent issues at the expense of investigating all the other cultural traits you want? You know what I mean… I want to make sure they don't work me too hard. My last company did that. You become myopic on this issue to find that, yes, in fact, this new employer of yours doesn't require you to work too hard. Except, after you start working there, you discover they are very political, confused, generally don't have a good strategy, or high employee satisfaction. Second and third questions conflated: Do you know WHAT questions to ask and HOW to ask them so you are actually getting evidence of their behavior? Fourth question: And how to do this without incriminating yourself? As in, if I ask about work like balance, they'll think I don't work hard. Etc. Etc. and Ha and ha. Okay. I can practically hear you wiping the sweat off your eye brows. Let's get to it and get you some questions and answers… If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Job searching stinks. There's just no two ways about it. It makes no difference how awesome you are at your job. Job searching is rough. It's unnatural. Today's podcast is on some job search tips and also the Andy-formula for everyday stress-self-management! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Evaluating potential employees has confused companies for all time. Most of this confusion stems from looking at the wrong things and in the wrong order. Take a listen to this week's podcast to get the data-backed view of how to hire right! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Got asked a great question a few weeks back at Live Office Hours. The person asked if he should stay at his company or transition every 3-4 years. He has aspirations of being a CEO at some point in the future and was wondering whether the variety or longevity would better position him. Have you ever wondered this? You might be thinking, well, Andy, I just need a job. This is moot at the moment. Or, hey, Andy, you're a mind-reader! Well, what do I often say? "Your trajectory matters much more than where you are at any moment in time […] any moment in time is just that. It's over in an instant." You will eventually be faced with a scenario like this. And, even if it's just a matter of changing jobs, you'll benefit from the philosophy, whys, wherefores, whats, and how-to-thinks in today's video clip. Take in at your leisure so you can stay on that not-so-leisurely, skyrocket-like trajectory! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

When interviewing with a senior executive, you need to be ready for different types of encounters. Whether the interviewer asks you, "What questions do you have for me?" or "Why should be hire you?" or "How will you make us a better company?" or "Tell me how you did that project?" the good ol' storytelling tactics you typically use to explain your projects, what you do, and how you do it won't be enough. You need to take a different approach, which, good news, I'm serving up today… If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

What's up with "TESTS" in job interviews? As if job interviews aren't rough enough, why, for the love of all that is holy, would employers push us job seekers over the edge with tests? These "tests" come in all shapes and sizes. Most of them are ridiculous, but, since I don't universally run hiring for the world, we'll need to deal with them. (Feel free to start a petition if you want to see if you and I can completely reform hiring for all mankind.) I know you want to know what you should do before you take one of these little buggers. Spoiler alert: Nothing. Don't do anything. As in anything. As in no thinking. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Zero brain power dedicated to this. That's if the employer wants you to take a personality or aptitude or "fit" test or something of that nature. If it's a case study, by all means, knock your socks off. That's because those are cool and good predictors for future success. I pulled today's clip from one of the 1,478 times I was asked about "tests" during various Live Office Hours sessions. You get my cheery thoughts on them and a little story about one of my recruitment clients who used them and the expensive dinner she bought me after she lost our bet… If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Skills. You have 'em. I know you do. Can you demonstrate them? Do you know which ones to shine the light on? It's important. Always. Just more important now. Inflation is hovering around 6%. Unemployment is roughly 3.6%. Our US Fed is trying to manage inflation by raising interest rates. We're trying the disinflation thing which means a slowdown in the rate of inflation even though inflation is still positive. The last 10 times this happened, for every 2% reduction in inflation, unemployment went up 3.6%. (That's historical fact.) It's linear-ish, so each 2% drop in inflation means 3.6% increase in unemployment. So, let's carry a few numbers. That means if we want to get back down to ~ 2% inflation, we might be adding 7.2% to the unemployment rate = 10.8%. Ouch. I bet when you opened this email you didn't think you'd be getting an econ lesson! Don't worry. You have me. You read my messages. You prolly watch my videos and join my live shows. You're covered. I'll continue to keep you updated on the skills, tips, tricks, and techniques to keep you razor sharp, employed, and getting paid well! Check out this week's all-out lesson on which skills employers love and why… If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy