Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
On episode 4 of the Informational Interview 2.0 podcast, Heidi Scott Giusto and Kevin Anselmo share reactions and thoughts to three different articles related to networking and creativity:
Article 1: How To Get A Job Often Comes Down To One Elite Personal Asset, and Many People Still Don’t Realize It by Julia Freeland Fisher
Article 2: 5 Employment Myths Busted by Don Alexander and Ted Benson
Article 3: Making Money During The Pandemic: How COVID-19 Is Leading A New Wave Of Creativity by Adrienne Jordan
[thrive_leads id=’2433′]
About Kevin Anselmo
Kevin Anselmo is the founder of Experiential Communications and author of Maximize Your Impact: How Academics Can Communicate Knowledge Through Traditional and Digital Media. He created the Global Innovators Academy, an initiative that helps students be more marketable and innovative in a digitally disruptive world. The first course in the Global Innovators Academy – Interview an Innovator – helps students learn important communications and networking skills, while creating a strong professional digital footprint.
About Heidi Scott Giusto
Heidi Scott Giusto is a consultant, coach, speaker, writer and editor. She specializes in proactive career management and helps individuals and businesses succeed when the stakes are high. Learn more.
TRANSCRIPTION
Kevin Anselmo
Welcome to episode number four of the informational interview 2.0 podcast. My name is Kevin Anselmo.
Heidi Scott Giusto
And my name is Heidi Giusto.
Kevin Anselmo
Heidi, how’s everything going today?
Heidi Scott Giusto
Doing well, yourself?
Kevin Anselmo
Can’t complain, share with me a highlight and share with our audience a highlight.
Heidi Scott Giusto
Of today, a highlight is that I got confirmation that I will be part of a group of trainers who are going to be serving PhD students in Europe. There’s a consortium there and over the course of a few years I will be giving some workshops for them so that was really exciting. I’ve been in conversation with coordinators for a good while and I got confirmation today that they’ve chosen me so that is exciting.
Kevin Anselmo
Wow, well done. So I guess the podcast will not be the number one highlight of the day recording this episode.
Heidi Scott Giusto
It is always the number one highlight of the day.
Heidi Scott Giusto
And how about you?
Kevin Anselmo
Well, after some technical difficulties, I actually have recorded I don’t know how many podcasts over the course of my life, I’ve never had an issue where my earphones just died. So actually, one of the highlights is I figured out that my earphones was a problem. I’m actually just happy to be talking to you and happy to be building into our content today. So for our audience, we’re going to be doing something a bit different. Today, we are going to be exploring three different articles. And at the outset of each article, we’ll try to paint a picture for you about what the article is about. And then Heidi and I will just share our reactions to those different articles. So on that note, I will get into the first article, and this is an article that came out in CNBC on December 27, 2019, “How to get a job often comes down to one elite personal asset and many people still don’t realize it”. This article was written by Julia Freeland Fisher. She is a Director of Education Research at the Clayton Christensen Institute. Basically, this article was really about the power of networking. I will share three bullet points and then Heidi and I will just have a little conversation about those bullet points and reaction to those. So one is research shows that 70% of all jobs are not published publicly on job sites. And as much as 80% of jobs are filled through personal and professional connections. That’s one point. One of the second bullet points is in a dramatically shifting labor market, the importance of networks in having a successful career only stands to grow. And then the article also delves into this concept of the network gap, which Jeff Weiner talks about a very interesting to learn about that. The network gap refers to the advantage some people have over others and accessing opportunity based on where they grew up, where they went to school and where they went to work. One of the interesting things that stuck out to me was just about the power of networking. How do we go about creating our networks? And for me, one thing that I’ve tried to do throughout the last couple of years of running my business and one thing that I’m trying to do through my Global Innovators Academy, and one thing that you and I are going to be doing is to build our networks by creating content, which is not something that really delved into too much here in this article. But networking we think about going to initial connotation usually is going to a mixer and me frankly, I don’t know about how you feel it. I hate going to mixers. I usually stand there and feel like really out of place
Heidi Scott Giusto
I look for the one person I know.
Kevin Anselmo
Yeah, I love reaching out to new people. I love having in depth conversations. I’m not a big fan of being in a setting with lots of people and feeling the pressure of having to network and feel I haven’t really seen much return on that. That’s one key point. The other thing I was thinking about is the power of our previous experiences in using those previous experience to grow our network and to use that network on an ongoing basis. I have particularly seen this to be true in my business where a lot of the individuals who I worked with particularly when I was working at IMD Business School in Switzerland, a lot of those people moved on to other roles. And it’s been fascinating how there are many instances where individuals moved on to other roles. And I ended up working at other schools because of those connections. It does take a lot of work, though to nurture those relationships.
Heidi Scott Giusto
Yeah. So for me, one of the interesting takeaway points from the article is absolutely the whole thrust of the article is the value of network. And there’s the really interesting point that I have found to be just anecdotally true, young people tend to undervalue their networks. And one of the point the authors making is that by building a network, it can be powerful and can be a powerful lever for equity and opportunity and how, by networking, some of us can also then give back. They’re linking this idea of networking into your point of view needs to be meaningful. It’s about building relationships. It’s not just let’s go to a mixer and just chit chat. I think you know, I edited some books and some of those books are about business networking. And the author of one of them has said and Ivan Misner who CNN has dubbed him the founder of modern day networking, they think that’s their words. In this article, it starts with it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and Ivan furthers that and saying it’s not what you know, or who you know, it’s how well you know each other. So I think that’s probably why it’s the same for me, I go to a big event and I just stick to the wall and find that one person I know that’s not meaningful. I mean it is with that one person but you’re not connecting with a whole bunch. It’s more of the really getting to know people, nurturing that over time, having it be a relationship and that can really be helpful long term. And I love that this article talks about how you can be giving back by mentoring and then even mentioning some of the places where you can go. So if you want to be a mentor, like there’s a place called the Database, mentoring connector data.
Kevin Anselmo
Yeah, I checked it out.
Heidi Scott Giusto
I did too. It’s really cool. You can create a profile, you can set all these parameters of who you want to be mentoring, and that is that is really giving back. It’s helping younger people build the network, it can help close an equity and opportunity gap. So I thought it was a great article. Great.
Kevin Anselmo
So another thing that I want to throw out a bit for you, Heidi, when you think about some of the people that you’ve worked with, over the course of the years, you know, let’s say you have a core group of five people who you think are your biggest fans, and you think they are going to be the ones who recommend you for whatever, they’re just going to help you. And then you move on. And those quote unquote, five biggest fans, they’re just not really there, they’re not really helping you. Has that been true for you or not necessarily?
Heidi Scott Giusto
Well, that’s a good question. I’ve never really thought about it in that way. What I guess I can say is that I have sometimes been surprised by how effective certain people are in really connecting you. And it seems like there are some people who are very aware of the power of making those connections and referring you and mentioning your name all those things. And then I think for a lot of people, they just don’t maybe don’t recognize that as something valuable. But what about you?
Kevin Anselmo
So for me, it’s really interesting, kind of built on a point of a book I read by a fella by the name of David Burkus. But David’s book is called Friend of a Friend. It’s all about networking, highly recommend this book. But it’s funny, I think about people who were my biggest fans in some of my former jobs, who I thought would help me in different ways and I reached out to them to help me in different ways, whether it’s like a referral, or can I help you do XYZ and it was just like, I didn’t really get great responses from them. And I can think of one particular example where there is an individual who I worked with for a couple of years, and I frankly did not like this person. I don’t think we worked really well together. Yeah, we’re so friendly. Really funny, this person ended up referring me to a really significant project. I kept in touch with her as a friend. I can think of another time where there were a couple of colleagues who I had worked with were what they were quite arrogant and not really people I’d want to spend a lot of time with. Both of these individuals have given me very interesting assignments over the years, and we’ve become friends we keep in contact where I didn’t necessarily view them as people who I would be keeping in touch with down the line. And actually, David Burkus’ book, the reason I mentioned that, kind of underscores he did research on this and it’s oftentimes like your lukewarm relationships are the people that can help you the most. And so I guess I want to share that for others is like think about “how can you nurture?”, “how can you grow your network?” and “how can you nurture your network by proactively engaging with those lukewarm contacts”?
Heidi Scott Giusto
Part of it too, is about the circles so that your closest friends. You all know the same people.
Kevin Anselmo
Yes. Exaclty.
Heidi Scott Giusto
So that’s where it’s the ones that you don’t know as well or it’s not quite as strong of a relationship but they obviously respect you, find you credible and all that. And then that can really be the powerful connector.
Kevin Anselmo
Yep. Okay, great. So we will include a link in the show notes to this CNBC article, Heidi now, do you want to tee up this second article?
Heidi Scott Giusto
Absolutely. So this article is called “Five Employment Myths Busted” and it is on the website called GeneCoda, which is an executive and professional search firm and the authors are Don Alexander, who owns GeneCota. I know him, he’s local to my area in North Carolina, and he has a co author Ted Benson from Corralling Chaos and the five myths that they discuss. I’ll go through them and I’ll give their explanation. Myth number one, networking is the best way to find a job. Myth number two, turnover cost is 10 to 75% of annual employee salary. Myth three, 80 percent of jobs aren’t advertised. Myths four, people leave bosses, not jobs. Myth five, technical skills determine hiring. One of the things I really like about the articles on this blog, they are data driven. So I really like that and the facts what they have found by doing their research and I think we can have an interesting discussion around this. Networking alone won’t find you a job is number one. Number two, it’s expensive to lose workers. Number three, most jobs are visible somewhere. Number four, poor bosses are not the primary reason people leave jobs and five soft skills decisive in hiring decisions, and I thought this was interesting, especially in light of the article we just talked about, which is all about networking. And what they found is that more than 50% of all hires come through electronic means meaning job boards and career sites. So the myth that 75 to 80% are from networking, they have some evidence to the contrary. And I’d be curious to dive a little bit more even into their data, because I’m just curious about all of that. But I think it’s interesting for me, it’s validating because I see a lot of my clients, they get strong referrals, but a lot, they apply online, and they get called. So that was one of the things that I found interesting, not saying that networking isn’t important, but it’s not the end all and be all when it comes to taking charge of your career.
Kevin Anselmo
So I move on that point, I guess I don’t know if the word is take issue, but I guess you know, the article isn’t titled five employment myths busted. So he’s talking specifically about employment. But I guess this point about networking and almost devaluing the role of networking, I look at it a little differently, let’s say. You might apply for a job on a job board on some sort of listing somewhere. But oftentimes, you find out about those opportunities because of your network, right? Because we don’t have all the jobs out there available, just like top of mind are at our fingertips. Oftentimes, we need people to direct us to those opportunities. And oftentimes, there’s other people working at those organizations. So I think just because you apply for a job via some sort of advertisement somewhere, doesn’t necessarily mean that networking didn’t play a role in that.
Heidi Scott Giusto
Yeah, that is the point that I would love to discuss with Don at some point, just to especially just knowing him I know he is very thorough, so I’m sure that there’s some research that backs his claim, and he cites sources, but that was the big question I had to that’s it sounds like this may be very specific of Oh, I heard it, you’re hiring Kevin. And you say, Yeah, I am. And I say, Oh, great, like, which is different if they’re only accounting for that, versus to your point? Oh, yeah, we’re talking and you let me know about a job and it is posted on LinkedIn, but maybe I wouldn’t have seen it if it wasn’t through my network.
Kevin Anselmo
So I mean, the other thing for me about this is that this looks at networking in a way that I see as very transactional. So I want a job I will network I have a different view anyway about what networking is. For me, that’s kind of how I interpret he doesn’t define what he means by networking here in this article, but for me, it’s kind of inferred that it’s a bit transactional, like I will network, I will find a job, I will be happy, thank you for the person who helped me fine. And I look at networking much more as you and I Heidi, I’ve been networking for years, I haven’t necessarily said okay, I want to get a job from you. And I look at networking much more to is like kind of give and take, How can I help others?, How can others help me?. I think that’s the other thing where I have a different viewpoint on this myth number one.
Heidi Scott Giusto
I think that what they’re responding to maybe I’m not sure is the idea of going to these formal networking groups. Maybe for job seekers where it’s, oh, there’s some recruiters there, there’s some companies there, and there’s the job seekers, which it can feel more transactional, frankly, for the people engaging in it. So I think we’re agreed on that. Something that I found really interesting as well, is that their evidence showing that contrary to that 80% that is being tossed around about the hidden job market that eight most jobs are on this hidden job market, 80% aren’t posted anywhere they find that most jobs are visible somewhere, and perhaps most relevant for what some of our interests are for the purpose of this podcast is that the top reason that they found from this Korn Ferry survey with almost 5000 professionals is that a lot of people even though a lot of people think oh people leave bosses. The top reason that people gave for leaving a job is that they’re bored. And when I work with clients one to one when they’re ready for a move, more often than not, it has something to do with Oh, I’m ready for a next challenge. Yep. They’re not feeling like they have a chance to innovate or be challenged. So I found that that was really interesting. And it speaks to the importance for employers of making sure they create creative work environments it but welcome innovation and all those good creative things.
Kevin Anselmo
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I could think about in my career, the left jobs where I like my bosses, I can also think of times where I left jobs because I didn’t like my bosses. But yeah, I think oftentimes, these headlines, people leave bosses, not jobs. I don’t think it’s ever that simple. Usually, there’s 58 factors that go into why someone might leave. Boredom, it certainly does would resonate high on the list for many, I’m sure, but I always think these things are quite nuanced and that people leave bosses, not jobs. I think that makes for a nice title somewhere. But things are always more nuanced than what it appears.
Heidi Scott Giusto
I think things are always more complex. I find too that, yeah, maybe someone leaves a boss. But more often they leave for a particular reason like that it’s more, they don’t believe in the leadership of the company. Yeah, as opposed to direct boss. So should we move on to our third article.
Kevin Anselmo
So the third article that we want to delve into is entitled, making money during the pandemic, how COVID-19 is leading a new wave of creativity. This article is by Adrienne Jordan. I’ll give an example when the whole COVID-19 had started and businesses are suddenly shutting down. It’s obviously scary for many and I talked to a friend and my friend basically said to me, like, oh, wow, your consultants are going to be the first to really suffer from this. And I’m like, Oh, thanks very much. Appreciate the encouragement. And
Heidi Scott Giusto
Now you’re gonna tell me chocolate isn’t healthy.
Kevin Anselmo
Thanks a lot. And look, there’s obviously a lot of suffering that’s happened. And there’s obviously you have the situation being what’s been the last couple of months, that business is going to look different, and people are gonna have to work differently. I guess I have tried, though to surround myself with articles like this with content that is positive finding the opportunities within the disruption. With a group of interns that I’m working with reading a book called Corona marketing by Joe Polizzi. And this book is a fantastic book, but it’s also about how several years ago during the financial crisis, he had just started his company and that was a real opportunity. So one way you hate to say the word opportunity in the midst of the disruption when people are dying, and there’s more hardship. So I want to state that at the outset here, but the reality is that we have to work with the environment we’ve been dealt, the cards that we’ve been dealt. And this idea of the Creator economy is something that this article talks about. I guess I try to view life this way, it’s like when there are disruptions when there’s change, there’s inevitable change. Where are those opportunities? So in this article, some different examples of that, that I found quite compelling, anything that stood out to you Heidi.
Heidi Scott Giusto
Yes, this article really resonated with me because they talked about how this content creation is being used to help other people. So we do have this unified experience now. So everybody is going through this. We’re all experiencing it in different ways. But I think there’s a lot of shared common ground. And I have found that that, to your point of trying to look for the positive and being optimistic, it’s been great to me to see how helpful people have been and I know for me, I felt very limited like, well, what can I do, I’m not a doctor, like I’m not going to be working in the ER to help people. But in my own way, I have tried to do some volunteering, where I’m helping to put content out that aligns with what I what I’ve used, what I’m able to offer this world, I’m able to offer career advice, and I think it’s great that people and companies are showing they’re nimble. And they’re trying to I mean, of course they’re trying to survive. But they’re also trying to help. And it’s interesting how people can do this in different ways. And it reminded me this is going to be a time for innovation. I did a quick look of what are companies that started in 2009-2010. So during the last recession, and I created a little list of WhatsApp who doesn’t use SAP now Venmo, Groupon, Instagram, Uber, Pinterest, Square, Slack, they’re all these companies. Now granted, a lot of those are tech driven. But there’s going to be opportunities for creativity for innovating, and it’s exciting not to downplay. This is a very scary time. It’s a sad time, but I also think we’re going to see a lot of creativity that we’re probably going to have new businesses and business models that we just hadn’t even imagined three months ago. And that can be exciting.
Kevin Anselmo
Yep. So just a statistic here, Shopify saw its subscription revenue grow 34%. Shopify, basically the platform for small businesses to create dashboards to create ways of doing business. I have the distinction of owning Shopify stock when it was $130 a share and then I sold it at 117. And it’s now 800. So come to me, come to me for stock advice. I’m happy to give you some of my stock advice.
Heidi Scott Giusto
Noted.
Kevin Anselmo
Yeah, I put that on my resume for investing. But the point being people are creating jobs, creating companies. I read an interesting article about the fact that you know, there’s all this talk about, oh, there’s gonna be a baby boom, because I actually get divorce boom, potentially. A guy by the name of Mark Schaefer, somebody whose work I really respect a great marketing expert out there. And he kind of talked about the idea of a content boom because so many people have the opportunity to create interesting content and to think differently. I have to say personally, I’m obviously there’s a ton of better examples out there than me. But a couple months ago, I was thinking, how should I be working differently? And I thought about you know, a lot of the college students who need internships and those internships perhaps were bended by the Coronavirus disruptions and I started this internship program. And I’ve been really thrilled to be working mentioned on a previous episode, thrilled to be working with seven really great students, including one who’s on our call, who will be editing our podcast, Ashley Gunter, who’s a student at Rollins College. but anyway, it’s just been obviously there’s a ton of better examples than it’s something where, okay, here’s the cards that were dealt, like what can we do to help others and try to advance their own businesses at the same time?
Heidi Scott Giusto
Exactly. And I actually I mentioned you I was on a call With the professional association of resume writers and career coaches, I was a guest on this series called spotlight on you they are using to reach out to members during this time and I was talking about stories of people who are hiring. And I say, Well, I have a collaborator launching a podcast with and I know, you know, it’s just one example. But he hired in terms, you know, you have to look, but it’s not to say there aren’t 36 million people unemployed right now. But you play the hand you’re dealt, you do the best you can do what you can. And I think if we all do that in whether it’s creating the content, which I do think we’re all seeing this more content creation. Yeah. But I think it’s going to be an exciting time to see what else are going to see coming at us. I mean, in my own little neighborhood, when I go out for a run, there’s this house, where now I run by and there’s a woman recording herself teaching an exercise class. So I’m running, and I hear her say, “Come on ladies”. I’m keeping running. She mean, who would have thought that an exercise class would be taught partially in your driveway partially in your garage? Yeah. Not to take away from the seriousness of it all, but lots of really interesting things I think we’re gonna be seeing here.
Kevin Anselmo
Yep. So this podcast, again, is all about how you know communications can spark innovation and career growth and read this article. We’ll include it in the show notes and has some useful points to consider as you think about how you might want to think about innovation and creativity in the midst of these times of disruption. So that’s a great place to leave it, Heidi. Episode four in the books. Heidi, did you want to give a preview of episode number five in the interview that you did?
Heidi Scott Giusto
Ah, so I interviewed Rob Pearson who works at Emory University in the Laney graduate school and we are talking all about the great things that Emory University is doing to help prepare their students for their future careers.
Kevin Anselmo
I am looking forward to that episode and for our listeners. So you’ll probably hear a lot of different types of formats on this podcast as we get rolling here. So we’ve had the episodes focus on specific topics. We’re trying out this episode here, let us know what you think of us kind of delving into a few different articles. And then Heidi and I will be doing separate interviews with different individuals who can shed light on this topic of communications that can spark innovation and career growth. So we look forward to hearing your thoughts. Heidi, anything you want to talk about that you’re working on for me officially put a bow on this episode.
Heidi Scott Giusto
So as you know, I’m always working on resumes and cover letters and LinkedIn, but a couple of larger projects are in the thick of some book editing. And that’s interesting and lots of fun. How about you?
Kevin Anselmo
Yeah, so I guess what I’ll use this podcast is kind of update about this project that I’m working on with these seven bright college students on the Global Innovators Academy. So this interns have, for the most part have gone through some of the course materials. And they are now reaching out to people they want to interview. And I know at least one interview took place so far. And it’s been really, as I mentioned in the previous episode, a ton of fun working with the students. We have a group call this evening. And one of the things that we’re doing is looking at other social media brands, and each student has picked a brand. And we’re then going to look at what they’re doing positives and negatives, and then think about how we should be using social media to promote and to communicate the value of the Global Innovators Academy. So I am looking forward to that call.
Heidi Scott Giusto
Excellent. I would love to be on that call.
Kevin Anselmo
I’ll share with you all the key learnings.
Heidi Scott Giusto
Please do.
Kevin Anselmo
Sounds good. So to our audience, thank you very much for listening. We really appreciate your time and attention. We know you have a lot of listening options at your disposal and appreciate that you would take time to consume our content. So this is a wrap on episode number four. Be on the lookout for episode number five and till then take good care and so long for now.
Heidi Scott Giusto
Bye. Thank you.