Accelerate Your Career & Grow Your Network | Dr. Tessa West

23:49And it's like, great, the team got the outcome. You've been covering for the below average person, but that's not going to lead to the promotion and the payoff that you're looking for. Yeah, I think we have a real problem right now. And I'm cynical about everything. And that includes teamwork. And teams are great. Everyone loves a strong team. There's lots of research indicating that a good team, blah, blah, blah. But being in a good team can hurt the individual player, especially if you're on a strong team with lots of cohesion and a team that actually does perform well. Because there are norms of picking up the slack for each other.

24:23There are norms that managers don't have to overmanage those people, that they can kind of be hands off and let them do their business. They don't need to intervene anytime there's a lack of clarity around who's supposed to do what because the team can figure it out. And people feel really good about themselves. The norms are positive and they're strong. And that's what gives people satisfaction at work. It's what makes them engaged. The problem is all of those things that feel good and are actually good for the team hurt the individual players a lot. And it's mostly because the people who are making decisions about your promotions aren't getting that data about individuals contributing a little bit extra to teamwork or having a positive vibe, you know, a good vibe in a team, no one gets promoted for that.

25:11It's what makes us want to go to work and why we like staying late. We don't get promoted for it. And I think there's a real problem there. There's a real mismatch. And I think managers inadvertently actually contribute to this and they, they encourage it. Even if people aren't going to get promoted for those behaviors, they encourage them and they feel good. No one likes a free rider. You know, we like the person who helps out and we like being on these strong teams. So I think there is a dark side to even really effective teams that people aren't talking about that hurts these individual players who are doing these things.

25:41Yeah, we had Cal Newport on and talked about this hyper connectivity that we have around teams now as well. So for a lot of this stuff of covering for other people or doing a little extra work or helping them out, that person had to come to your cubicle. They actually had to be in front of you and next to you and ask for that favor. And now it's happening on Slack. It's happening through email. We're so connected. And we just feel like if we just pick up the Slack, pun intended, if we just pick up the Slack of everyone else's messages and everything else that they're doing, like maybe we'll be able to get ahead and maybe we'll be seen as promotable.

26:14But in actuality, that's not what management is seeing in these situations. Yeah. I'd also say like, I love Cal's work around this because he gets at the nitty gritty of why we're not productive. And a lot of it is because we're being really nice and we're helping people out. There's great research on if you look at, if you're an anthropologist and you look at the layout of an office and why people are not productive when they're interrupted, it turns out that not all interruptions are created equal. And people who are actually more distant from you, who don't know you that well, and you're not like super tight with at work, they interrupt much more strategically.

26:46They actually wait until there's a, you're in between tasks. There's a pause. You're not, you know, right in the middle of writing a text or an email or whatever. They come by strategically because you have boundaries with that person and they think it's rude. And there's a norm against kind of stepping over that boundary when you're really close to people, both physically and, you know, also emotionally, and you work well together, those boundaries are gone. And so we interrupt each other constantly. And we're not thinking about how that task switching is, you know, leading us to not encode those memories for the future or whatever.

27:19I've never walked down the hall to my best friend who also happens to be the chair of the department and thought, oh, I better not interrupt that sentence she's writing because it's going to really influence her at a neurological level and her ability to encode a memory for later. I just walk in and go, my God, guess what just happened? You know? And I think we all do this to each other. And that is the downside of having like very effective workplaces and working with people we like with. And so I think a lot of people go through this, like I'm doing all the right things. I feel great. I love the people I work with, but I'm just not getting anything done and I can't quite figure out why.

27:51So the book has a great opportunity for you to self-assess. And I think as I was sharing a little bit earlier, many of us will recognize a few of these categories that we could slot ourselves in. So picking up the book and going through the self-assessment, walk us through the next step once we've recognized, okay, now I understand what's making me unhappy. It's a combination of two things. What are those steps we should be taking? Yeah, I think people are afraid of taking any step unless they're ready to quit their job. And I'd say, slow down. I don't even get to that part until kind of the end of every chapter.

28:24I think the next step is actually really figuring out, is this a career you're even remotely interested in or a job you're interested in? And I build out the networking opportunity and strategy for each. I know people hate that word networking. I don't like it. I'm like a closeted introvert. It feels super cringy to DM people on LinkedIn or wherever. The good news is I give you really concrete advice on exactly what to say and to whom. And even down to what to put in an email. Don't send a direct message. In an email to someone that you want to network with, framing up the questions. And I think, you know, the main thing about stage two, figuring out whether this is even an interesting career for you, is just talking to people who have worked in that or who have transitioned from that or to that just to learn what the hidden curriculum is and to ask people questions like, before I started this job, nobody told me that.

29:18Finish the sentence. And you'll learn all kinds of weird, quirky things about a career or a job that is not advertised on the website. And so the idea is just to get above and beyond what's actually advertised for the company and get down to the nitty gritty of what it's actually like. And you're still not even resume building or applying for anything yet. The next stage, you're starting to get a little bit more concrete about where you want to work. The networking strategy gets a little bit more specific depending on whether you're taking a huge leap elsewhere, you're doing something kind of more narrow.

29:49And there you're going to be much more strategic about talking to potential hiring managers. Believe it or not, these people love talking to potential job candidates. They don't find it, you know, onerous at all. They're looking for strong fits just like you are. and talking to hiring managers and even recruiters is a really good strategy there. And then it's not until you're kind of at the end where you're ready to resume build an interview that you even need to take any kind of leap. And I walk through the specific questions you should be asking, mostly to uncover things that aren't advertised, assumptions you might have.

30:26I think of the interview like a first date. Don't assume that someone's dating profile is completely representative of who they are. You know, I put a piece of advice of saying who wrote the job ad, because I think that could be a pretty eye-opening question. Who wrote the dating profile is probably also something you might want to ask if you're out there. Maybe not quite like that. But, you know, the parallels are there. And so I think you can get pretty far in the exploration process before you need to hit a submit button. And I recommend that you actually spend some time really exploring and you don't just submit the same resume to a million places.

31:04I think the biggest mistake people make is they don't tailor the resume, the cover letter. They submit the same thing. And I've talked to enough hiring managers and recruiters to know that nobody looks at those. Also the easy apply button. No one looks at the ones that come through that route either. You need to actually submit it through the company website or through the hiring manager personally. So yeah, those are the, I do the kind of four main steps, the same for every of the five types. Yeah. With my clients, I consider the job posting, the resume cover letter, a lock and key. The lock is the job posting.

31:39You need to fashion a key that's going to unlock that opportunity for you. You can't just blitzkrieg your key in every single lock you see. You got to really think about, you know, what are you choosing to highlight and what is that narrative that you've built through your career? Many of us don't think that we're building a narrative when we're in this role. We're trying to please management. We're trying to get that next stage and maybe that promotion or that raise. And we don't think about the story that's been built with our track record. And then all of a sudden we're in a situation where we're interviewing and we need to put together a narrative.

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35:10People are afraid of doing that because they think more is better, busier is better. But then they just look like they went on a wild goose hunt and they had no idea what they were doing or why. And so integrating all those things I think is important. The narrative is really interesting because we don't talk about storytelling a lot and, you know, and learning how to career build or learning how to interview. but everyone I talked to told me that a good non-fake story, you don't need to make up a whole bunch of experiences that happened to your neighbor. Don't do it. You know, that really kind of tell not just sort of all your successes, but what you learn from your failures too.

35:49And I think people are kind of afraid of doing that. Like I really screwed this up, but here's what I learned and here's how it brought me to the next stage. You know, I talked to someone who like was a lobster fisherman for many years before getting into recruiting. And he somehow managed to like bring those two things together in an interesting way that I'd never thought of. And it made him really unique and interesting. You know, like I sold shoes at Nordstrom's before I became a professor. And I think I found more commonalities between those jobs than I have in any other academic thing that I did before for landing here.

36:21So finding those connections is important. I think practice this um try out your narrative on different people um see how it goes I'm sure you find people are a little bit terrified of sharing um they'd rather just go into the interview and screw it up than like embarrass themselves in front of five experts which is which is crazy we should just embarrass ourselves in front of five experts so yeah I do think that that narrative that storytelling that that weaving together and then be honest about what stuff was disjointed. Like, yeah, I took this turn to the right. Didn't work out. So I came back and I went back into that other direction I was doing.

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37:39That could be you with our X-Factor Accelerator. Live implementation sessions, daily accountability, and weekly missions and exercises to hone in your new skills. Don't just take our word for it. Ask the execs, engineers, and military badasses who've stepped up their game with us. Head over to unlockyourxfactor.com to jump in. Your mastery of influence starts now. Let's unlock your limitless potential at unlockyourxfactor.com. So on the narrative piece, when our clients are lost, I often recommend asking themselves why. Why did they seek that role? Why did they seek that skill? Why, after that failure, did they jump to something else?

38:24And the more clear they can get on their why as they go through their resume and they go through their journey, the easier it's going to be to find and craft the overarching narrative that's really going to resonate with people, especially outside of your industry. Because what we're going to talk about as we go through networking is sometimes in order to get out of that unhappy state, you got to leave industries. You got to change completely. And if people can't hold on to a narrative from what your resume is sharing and all the bullet points, it's going to be really hard for you to land that role.

38:54Yeah, I think this is really fascinating because I also find that when people start to get miserable and they sort of they know deep down why and it's an existential reason, they wind up doing funny things at work like taking on passion roles, you know, roles that make them feel good but don't necessarily help their career. and they find whatever weird little roles are tucked in in their organization that nobody wants to do and maybe aren't even compensated, but they're still technically going to work, and they're still doing stuff, but they're taking on these kind of, you know, non-promotion relevant roles.

39:34Sometimes those are mentorship roles where they're doing a lot of good for people, and leaders are happy to hand these off to someone. In fact, they're dying to do it. committee work. This happens a lot, you know, running things. No one's running the latest conference or whatever the thing is that makes them feel engaged at work, but doesn't have to do with their actual job. And I think once you start finding yourself taking on those roles in an effort to find fulfillment in a real role that you don't like, then you're in a danger zone. Your resume is going to have like a whole bunch of what looks like volunteer work on there.

40:04And I've worked with clients where I'm like, this should be like in the volunteer section. And they're like, what do you mean? This is what I spend 90 % of my time at work now doing. I don't really do the stuff I'm getting paid to do. I'm like, okay, well, you're not doing your actual job. Let's go find something else, you know? Yeah, and as you move up, are you driving outcomes or are you doing tasks? And I think a lot of times it's easy to take on the task because you check it off the to-do box and all of a sudden you feel really good in the moment. But in actuality, it's not moving anything larger forward.

40:36that's going to be really hard to translate on a job interview or a resume for someone else to take interest in you if your job is starting to just get very task heavy. Yeah, I think a lot of people don't even know what outcomes they're driving. I think that I'm shocked at how many people when you ask them, what are the outcomes? What are the company based outcomes you've contributed to? They're like, what do you mean? You know, because their boss never told them they're like, step four and 100 step process. And they're never actually getting that information. You got to talk to your boss and say, can we talk about how I am contributing to company-wide or team-wide outcomes in some concrete way?

41:13Because I don't actually see what role I'm playing. In science, this happens all the time. When you do research, you might run 500 participants through an experiment, but you never see what ends up happening with that experiment, whether it gets published, what it says. And then you apply to graduate school and you're like, you know, in my lab, I do physio. It's like, I put blood pressure cuff on 400 people. No, no one's going to care about that. That's not interesting task. You know, they did drive an outcome, but they can't articulate what it is. And that's the number one reason why they don't get in, actually, you know, and I think that's one of the big reasons why people don't get jobs they interview for.

41:47They can't articulate how what they did mattered to anything above and beyond, you know, them just saying, I finished the thing. You know, I did the job. One of my recent executive clients joined because he was the runner up. and the problem with being the runner up is there's a lack of feedback so you never quite understand why you think on performance reviews and everything that you've heard that things are going well but then when you stretch to apply they either elevate someone else internally or they reach outside the company and they take that role from you and you've been passed over a few times now really starting to wonder well what is it that I need to be doing and how can I get out of this runner up position.

42:30So what are some of the more common roadblocks that you see that runners up face that they're not aware of? Yeah, I mean, some of these are really tricky. So one of the big ones is you don't have as much status at work as you think you do. And by that, I mean, you don't have as much respect and admiration and influence over decisions that you believe you actually have. Status is complex. It takes a lot of work to accurately gauge it. And no one tells us when we don't have any. And so we might assume that people put us in higher regard than we actually do. So learning how to go into a room and see, for example, if I say something in a meeting, do people follow that up?

43:10Do they build on that idea? Or does it always kind of fall flat and then the conversation goes in a new direction? Little things like that can tell you how much status you have. How long does it take for the boss to respond to your email versus other people's? You know, that's a status quo. So that's one of the big ones. I think, you know, a few of the other ones are something we've talked about, which is you take on roles that give you high visibility, but low actual influence over outcomes that matter. The big ones are running employee resource groups, which are great. You get maybe a monthly or quarterly meeting with the CEO.

43:43You compress the flash. You get to impress them. They say, thank you so much for all of your hard work. We really value ERGs here. And then they forget your name like four seconds later. So that's another big one. And then I think, you know, taking on a million different tasks, but not seeing how they contribute to the bigger whole is another one. And then I'd say kind of the last major big one is the role you hold now doesn't have a natural next extension role. You know, and in fact, the skills you need to do really well at your role are very different from the skills you need for the next one up.

44:19We see this a lot in sales. I talk about an example in my book of someone who was really, really good at driving sales in a specific region, you know, in the West. but she wanted to be president of the whole North American part of the organization. She had these kind of deep, strong network connections in her region. But to be president, you need a lot of broad, kind of thinner network connections all over the U.S. And because what it took for her to sell was the opposite type of social network, she simply didn't have the network that she needed to do well at the next thing. And so they always hired externally for that role.

44:56They just pluck someone who already had those kind of wide, broad network connections across the whole U.S., even if they didn't have like strong sales experience in one region or didn't know how to lead a team. They had those network connections. And she was not even ever told that that was going to be an issue. So that happens to a lot of people, I think. Yeah, the network blind spot, I think, is a really key piece that many people miss out on when they get so focused on skill collection and understanding outcome. But as you move into a leadership role, you're essentially expected to start bringing business and opportunity to the company and organization and find areas that you can actually bring, whether it's another client or an investment or synergy with another company.

45:43and that happens with relationships. That's not going to happen with skills. That's not going to happen with managing your team even. So often we don't think about the people skills beyond who we're interacting with and the fact that partners, they're bringing business, they're selling business, they're trading on these relationships to move the company forward. It's not just about making sure that the people you're managing do the job and drive the outcome, but have you spent any time building out relationships outside of the company? Or have you focused too much on team building and relationships internally?

46:18Yeah, I think that's another one of those dark sides of being embedded at work and staying in one organization for a really long time. I found in my research that the stronger your affiliation is with your company, the longer you've been there, the more you've climbed up internally, almost like 90 % of your network connections are from people that you see every day at work. We feel even guilty networking outside of our organizations, unless we go to some kind of conference or we're on a board or something like that. We don't see any need or purpose of networking in competitive organizations, parallel organizations, companies that we could be doing business with that aren't directly relevant to our role.

46:58And I think you're absolutely right. It's a major networking blind spot and one that some of us are even taught. Like, why would you talk to, you know, the people over for me, it's like, why would you even talk to those folks at Columbia psychology, they steal everybody from NYU, you know, the fact that I got caught, like having dinner with someone from Columbia once it was like, Ooh, you know, what if she got up her sleeve, you know, and that's silly, but it but it's definitely true. And then all of a sudden, you get promoted, and you're like, crap, I don't actually know anyone outside of this building.

47:29Like, this is bad. I know everyone in it. I don't know anyone outside of it. I don't know, you know, why we lost to that, that the competitor, I didn't talk to the client, they didn't tell me I'm not besties with our competitor. So it's a real issue. And I think, you know, to give people a little bit of credit, they're encouraged to make these strong, deep connections at work. They're not encouraged to branch out. Yeah, it takes some effort to follow up with people who've left the company and manage those relationships after they leave. You know, that's one thing that I've recognized in a lot of the clients I work with is that they're really good at maintaining the relationships with team members, even if they've been promoted within the company.

48:07But it seems like once someone leaves, like, they're on the other team now, I don't really need to interact with them. And then all of a sudden, you're like, crap, I'm about to lose my job or I haven't been promoted. Now I have to reach out to them instead of maintaining that connection upon exiting. And those are actually really great opportunities to get some clarity on status. So you bring up a great point that internally, we're very uncomfortable sharing status with one another. Truthfully, transparently, where you stand in the group. Maybe you're being laughed about at the water cooler. Maybe you're being left off of some meetings or there's a hidden Slack channel that you're not a part of that's going on.

48:44And you have this blind spot around status. But you can ask people that you have relationships with when they exit the company, be frank with me. I know you're leaving. What's going on? I'm actually looking to advance my career and get that opportunity for that feedback. And maybe you'll discover that, hey, this culture, this team isn't as invested in me as I thought. And it might be time for me to start exploring my options outside the team. Yeah, I love this idea of talking to people who are sort of recently exited or in the middle of exiting from your team or your organization or whatever. I think there's a lot of taboo around doing this, you know, especially if somebody was laid off or they didn't leave on good terms with a boss that you feel like it's almost like, and I'm going to make a million relationship parallels.

49:29It's almost like, you know, I've been through a divorce. I had friends of my ex-husband and I, and they didn't know whose side to be on. Right. Like, am I allowed to talk to this person or is that not being, you know, am I cheating on the organization for doing that? Am I doing something that's like a social taboo? Like, absolutely not. I mean, people leave for all kinds of reasons. You don't need to make the conversation around why they're pissed or why they left or, or whatever. Sometimes it is useful to know if they're getting offered a better compensation package elsewhere. And then you can learn about those social comparison others that we had talked about earlier.

50:01But I think asking those tough questions around status is really important. You know, asking them, you know, I feel like I weighed in a lot in meetings, but my opinions never really shifted the direction of the team. Did you also get that sense? Just as like a shared reality check around your perceptions Or, you know, I feel like our manager really supports me, but maybe they don't have as much status as I thought they did, which is another reason why people don't get promoted. They love their manager and their managers are number one cheerleader. But that person walks into a room and no one listens to them.

50:33It's kind of like a heartbreaking reason. So you might have learned they might have learned during their exit interviews. If they did one, what what's up with their own manager? What's up with the structure of the hierarchy at work behind the scenes that they weren't aware of? And sometimes we get too comfortable with our managers and we take for granted that we have this great working relationship and then there's a change in leadership. So, you know, oftentimes with drifting away from the role that is happening because now all of a sudden you recognize there's new leadership, they have new expectations and new ways of doing things.

51:06And now, holy cow, there's this gap between what I was doing before under my other manager. And when we get so close to the manager, of course, it's very easy to only hear the positive nuggets about ourselves and have an inflated ego around how we're performing without getting that clarity how others are viewing us. Yeah, I think this whole kind of falling in love with a particular leader at work, whether that's the CEO or your manager or whatever, is a really dangerous thing that happens to a lot of people. when I surveyed people who are drifting apart, I think most of the reasons why we're relational, their team changed, who they reported to changed, those relationship dynamics have changed.

51:46And we've never historically thought of those as like real interpersonal relationships, right? Like boomers would say your manager is not your girl, unless they are your girlfriend, but But, you know, that's a different category. But now we expect empathy and, you know, some type of kind of emotional intimacy from our workplace relationships. We expect it all. And then when that person leaves, we feel like we don't recognize the job anymore. And so I do think a little bit of distance or knowing how much is going to translate from one person's style to another is really important. And to get to your networking point earlier, I think one of the biggest missteps people make is maybe they can figure out where they are in the hierarchy, but they don't know how people above them rank relative to each other.

52:30They don't know which bosses are friends with which bosses and which bosses are enemies with which bosses. And that top part is convoluted and it's scary. And you really have to talk to a lot of lots of different folks to figure that out. But don't assume that everybody, because you love your manager, everybody else loves your manager. And then remember, my favorite social psychology finding is just competence and liking are very different things. And people just because they like you doesn't mean they see you as competent and the same is true for your manager. Yeah, I was talking to a client recently about preparing for an offsite.

53:02And I encouraged him to seek out people in other locations, people who are not under his manager now that he had been promoted into this new role. and take opportunities, whether it's at lunch or dinner, to sit with new people and meet new people just to get a sense for exactly what you're talking about. What are these hidden relationships that are going on above me? And where is there some opportunity for me to hop on a collaboration with another manager in a project that I wouldn't have been aware of? How can I see how my manager is viewed by the rest of people? If you stay in your manager's shadow and you only hang out at the offsite with people you already know, I know it's uncomfortable to stretch yourself in that way, you can have a warped view of what's actually going on with the political dynamics within the organization.

53:47Yeah, I learned more in a 10-minute meeting that had a senior dean and a junior dean and 10 faculty members about the dynamics among these senior leaders than I did in my 16 years here that predated that and just hearing what they said about each other. I could just tell from where people sat, who got the coffee, who was allowed to interrupt, to who could just get up in the middle of, you know, the dean talking and go to the bathroom. That's like a crazy move, right? Who gets away with that? Who can do that without that dean sawing and going, excuse me, Tony, you couldn't just wait, you know, like moves like that will tell you a ton about status dynamics.

54:27And for that reason, you know, you want to try to come to the office when those rich, juicy social opportunities exist, not when everyone's going to be in a cubicle on zoom and you're sort of like kindergartners doing parallel play like each in your own little space. Well, I want to touch a little bit more on networking because I know audience members are cringing. I'm an introvert as well. And I always viewed it as less important than just being really good at my job and, and my outcomes that I was driving. And then I recognized that the hidden power of networks in a real way when I was in graduate school and how then all All of a sudden I recognize, wow, I'm actually the one left out, even though I'm doing majority of the work.

55:07So what are some mistakes that you're seeing people make around networking? And what are some simple strategies that maybe our audience can start to implement, even if they're happy in their job? Because I highly recommend we don't wait to network until we recognize we're one of those five buckets. Yeah, I always think it's good to network. Even if you want to get, even if you're happy and you want to get promoted and you want to know what the going rate is for someone in your role, the best way to win a negotiation is to information seek and to come in with more information than the person you're negotiating with.

55:37And so if you can kind of say, well, you know, the comparables are all getting a 10 percent raise in this organization. They're going to be like, OK, well, I have to actually take this person seriously. So networking can be useful for that. I think the biggest mistake people make is they send an instant message to someone that says something generic like, are you struggling with too many tasks at hand? Let's set up a 30-minute call. And that's all it says. And it feels spammy. I think what you want to do is you want to send someone an email. I would actually avoid DMing people if you can. That just really lays out the specific questions you have and make it a little bit personal.

56:16Oh, I found you because we both went to the same college and it looks like you worked for this organization I worked for. One sentence, so it doesn't feel like spam. It says why you want to talk to this person in particular, followed by a request for a 15 or 30-minute chat with three questions you want to ask this person. You know, I'm looking to maybe move careers. I've noticed you've been at this organization for 10 years. Here are three questions I would love to ask you if you're willing to give me time. And if you do these three kinds of specific things, people are much more willing to actually hop on a call.

56:47In fact, I had to reach out to a lot of strangers when I was interviewing people for this book. And as long as I followed that, they always wrote me back and said, yes, the thing is, remember this. People love talking about themselves. Even if you're quiet and shy and feel uncomfortable, this isn't a self-promotion talk. This isn't a talk for you to tell them how great you are and how they should give you opportunities. This is just information seeking. You want to learn about their experience and their careers and what they've done right and what they've done wrong and the hidden curriculum. And they'll be happy to tell you about themselves.

57:17Just don't try to make it about like a self-sell. And I think that's where people are afraid of networking. They don't want to make it self-promotional. Networking doesn't need to be self-promotional. It's just about learning who you are. You will promote by asking people interesting questions about themselves. Just like when you're on a date, you should do the exact same thing. No different here. Follow those guidelines. And even the most uncomfortable introvert can kind of get past the awkwardness of a networking conversation. There's so much embedded in there that I want to unpack for the audience because we've all been on the receiving end of those messages.

57:48Can I meet you for 15 minutes? Can I pick your brain? Hey, I connected with you on LinkedIn and now I'm going to harass you to try to get some time with you. So the first thing is, and we've consulted with meetup.com around making their hosts more successful and getting people to attend. If we don't know where it is, we don't know anyone there, and we're unfamiliar with things, we're less likely to take action. So you want to actually make them more familiar with you. You want to time box it of what the request actually is, and then give the questions ahead of time so they have a frame of reference of like, what am I going to be talking about?

58:20Because pick my brain, I'm not interested in brain surgery. I got a busy day. I got a lot going on. I'm trying to get promoted, and I have no context for what it is that you need from me, so I'm going to ignore that message. and it also gives them an out that if they can't even make time, maybe they can respond to those questions in that follow-up email. So you still get some more information in the request if they can't meet, whether virtually or in person, from what you're asking. Yeah, and I'd say specific questions are good. You're going to feel a little utilitarian in this approach. You know, I want to know specifically exactly how you got from here to there.

58:54And you can frame it in like a less utilitarian way, what you don't want to do is be so general and say something like, I want to hear about your career journey. Every time I get that, I'm like, really? I don't even know what that means. My career journey. I've been on many journeys, you know, don't use generic language like that. You know, if you're going to have chatbot write your request, that's fine. But just be careful. You're not falling into the using words that chatbot recognize, like delve, which is like a word that shows up in chat you know so you've got to pass the turing test a little bit i think are people they don't want to feel like they're talking to a chat bot even if they actually are um and i also think you want to give them an out you want to say i'll 15 minutes um don't send a link to your calendar until they've agreed it looks presumptuous and it irritates people to be like i would love to hear about your journey here's my calendly And like, wait, I didn't agree to this journey conversation.

59:51Why am I getting a link to your calendar? And I have to now do the work of finding when it's convenient for you to talk to me about my journey. So perspective take folks. That's all you have to do. I just encountered a new one where they actually just give me a calendar invite. And all of a sudden I have something on my calendar later this afternoon that I never agreed to. They skip the Calendly link and they're like, I'm now on your calendar. Yes or no? Are we meeting? Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. That's a little stalkery. Presumptuous. That's much. Yeah. How do I get this off my calendar? And I don't even want to decline it because I don't want them to know that they can do it again.

1:00:27How do they even get in there to begin with? Like that level of access is like. They found my email and all of a sudden they're, they're sending me the calendar invites. Oh, that's a little, that's a clever little trick move. I think those people are trying to make you think you agreed to something and then we're busy. So we're like, if that would have happened to me, I got to be honest, I would have just taken it because I've been like, I must have said yes to this. And I just can't remember. Oh, wow. I'll be honest. It's been sitting unresponded to it's in the little grayed out box on my calendar.

1:00:59And I don't want to hit decline because then they know they got the right email decision paralysis. You'll decline it after the time has passed or just never. So they can just live with uncertainty of whether you're going to show up to that Zoom call or not. Yeah, I love that they're sitting there for 30 minutes waiting for me to hop on because I haven't responded at all. The last piece I want to touch on, and I've talked to a number of clients who feel awkward in the interview process of asking questions. And they hear this advice, an interview is a date. You should ask questions. It shouldn't just be one way you responding to their questions.

1:01:35And I know you have great examples of specific questions you should be asking through the interview process to really give you some clarity before you make that leap. Because let's be honest, we all want to jump when there's a net in front of us, when we feel really comfortable about that next move is. So let's remove some of that ambiguity through the job interview process by asking the right questions. Yeah, I think people have a fear of asking anything at all because they're afraid if they ask, they're going to look ungrateful. And that they are treating these two players as if they're equal status when in really their lower status and should just be doing the answering.

1:02:12Every single hiring manager I talked to said, if you don't ask any questions, we're never going to hire you. If you ask really general questions, we're not going to hire you. If you ask questions that are just flipping the script on us, we're not going to hire you. Like, oh, you asked me about my research. Tell me about your research. Like, no, you know, and this happens to be all the time. I'm like, why do I feel like I'm now being interviewed? And so, so the fear is you don't, people are, they don't ask questions because they don't want to look like they're interrogating, interviewing, misstepping all those things.

1:02:43And so instead they just nod their head and smile and try to impression manage the entire time and hope they get the job. The questions that I recommend are tailored for each of the kinds of goals you have. and they're all sort of approved by hiring managers. I think even little things like who wrote the job ad can be really important. My favorite question, which not everyone is comfortable asking, is tell me the ways that the last person failed at this role. Because I, you know, losses loom larger than gains, and I don't want to know just what it takes to succeed. I want to know what it looks like when you fall flat and what those missteps were.

1:03:19And the answer to those questions should be specific, including, you know, we hired someone who was missing the skill or missing this experience. And we thought we could make up for it with skills training or whatever. And we simply couldn't, you know, you want some kind of humility in those answers and you want insight. If they don't really know why the last person failed, or there's a revolving door of talent for that particular hiring manager. And the real reason is that person or the person you're going to report to, those are red flags. And so I think you want to give a, you want to ask specific questions that show that you're looking for fit, that you're not just looking to get hired, you're looking to stay there and you want to succeed.

1:03:57You want to know how your knowledge is going to be transferred over from your old role doing IT to this new role of baking Cinnabons or whatever. And you just, you have some notion of how those skills transfer, but you're not quite sure you're on the right path And you can test that, those assumptions. And I think these are really important. And I think get over the conception that you're here just to answer their questions and to impression manage. They don't like people. Most hiring managers don't like people who don't ask specific questions around the dark side of a job, the hidden curriculum, what it looks like to fail, and how you're going to get over some humps that everybody knows you're going to have to get over.

1:04:37Yeah, I think it's so key to recognize that this is an opportunity and the questions that you're asking to demonstrate to them that you actually are a great fit for the role and you care about fit. Because nothing makes them look worse than hiring the wrong person and you don't want to be on a fast track to a PIP. You want to make sure that you can hit the ground running and exceed expectations and skyrocket your career chances in this new role. Yeah, I think the nature of the questions you ask, you want to ask questions that showcase that you read a lot about the company, their history. You know, a lot of people actually don't know anything about the organizations they're hiring for.

1:05:18They maybe know about the role and their task, but they couldn't tell you, you know, how long the organization's been around for, where they have acquired, you know, how many offices there are. And so you don't need to come and be like, I'm going to brag about all my knowledge, but the questions you ask could be relevant, right? I noticed that there was a giant merger four years ago. Can you tell me a little bit about how that influenced the degree to which teams are functioning across these different parts of the organization? Oh, this person actually looked into who we are and what we do. And so you'd be surprised at how many people don't know anything about the job.

1:05:52They know about the job. They don't know about the place that they're looking at or that they're interviewing for. Yeah, and I know in my experience, sometimes you just want to keep the recruiter happy so they keep feeding you more opportunities. So you show up and then all of a sudden you are completely unprepared. So it is important to recognize that, hey, let's not waste people's time with just practice interviews that you don't care about. And let's invest a little bit in bringing our best foot forward into the interview itself. I know you said you're a cynic to start. I'm curious how you're feeling about things as we move forward and what your advice is for our audience here in closing.

1:06:29Yeah, I mean, I've actually, I feel a lot more hopeful about the future of jobs as long as people are willing to do some of these hard things. I think insofar as we are not willing to ask uncomfortable questions or do some deep dive research and slow down our job search, we're just going to keep hopping from frying pan to frying pan. And so, you know, there is no kind of quick fix to your unhappiness at work. They're going to have to do some kind of deep psychological digging, maybe admit some things to yourself that you're not super comfortable even thinking about around what actually makes you happy, what makes you anxious at work.

1:07:10And this process should be slow. And you should be applying for a handful of jobs a week, not a ton. And so I think I'm much more hopeful in the sense that we know what it's going to take to actually get there and find something better. But what it takes is having some awkward conversations, just getting people to sort of get their feet wet and embrace that. I'm now starting to study awkwardness in my lab. And one thing we're realizing is awkwardness is very much something that takes two people, but it lives in our heads and we perseverate on it long after our interaction partners do. So if you have an awkward networking conversation, don't feel like every time you see that person on LinkedIn, they're thinking about how awkward you are, what a mess you were for misstating something on their resume.

1:07:53They're not. They forgot about it already. And those missteps are just going to be part of the process. So, you know, as we all crawl out of our socially awkward pandemic selves, we're going to have to kind of just get used to more one-on-one conversations and FaceTime. And I think once we can do that, we can really move the needle on actually finding something better and networking in a more effective, productive way. Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. And there's so many great exercises. I'm happy and excited to share it with all of our executive clients who are on this career journey. And I know our happiest clients have recognized that it's OK to take on multiple identities throughout your career.

1:08:29It's okay to leave an identity behind and take on a new challenge and seek out a new identity instead of finding yourself in an unhappy dead end. And there's just so many great strategies in the book to get yourself out of those unhappy moments and find a career that's fulfilling and worth pursuing. Yeah, most of us were successful. We have gone in a couple really strange directions along the way. And, you know, in those networking conversations, ask people about those strange directions. You see successful people and you assume they always knew what they were doing from age 10 on. That is not the case.

1:09:03Not at all. Well, where can our audience find out more about the book and all the great work that you do? So you can check out all my work at tessawestauthor.com. There's also quizzes you can take from the book that give you immediate feedback on sort of where you stand on all these dimensions we've talked about. If you're interested in my research, you can go to tessawestlab.com. Thank you so much for joining us, Tessa. Thank you.

1:09:36This week's shout out comes from Ron and I'll let Ron tell you himself. Hi, this is Ron Palermo and I'm a corporate lawyer. Taking the X Factor Accelerator is one of the best decisions I have ever made. If you want to consistently show up as a high value person, someone who makes a great first impression, effortlessly makes new friends and connections, and enjoys deep and authentic relationships, X Factor Accelerator will get you there. The AOC team is passionate about what they do and are totally committed to your success. And most importantly, they know how to get the results you want. My only regret is not taking the program sooner.

1:10:14If you are serious about showing up as the best version of yourself, I urge you to sign up for the X Factor Accelerator. You will be so glad you did. Thank you, Ron. It's been a pleasure working with you as well. 95 % of your success or failure in life comes down to who you surround yourself with. David McClellan of Harvard did a 25-year study on the characteristics of highly motivated, successful people. The people you habitually associate yourself with determine the level of success you achieve. Who you let in your inner circle has a huge impact on your beliefs, your values, and your actions.

1:10:49Here's the kicker. We Think of them as your personal board of directors. Surround yourself with winners and magic happens. Imagine transforming your every day just by upgrading your tribe. We created a free mini course for Art of Charm listeners with our best networking strategies and mindsets. Social capital networking is not just another networking guide. It's your doorway to turning acquaintances into lasting connections. Real relationships that push you towards your goals, both personal and professional. Head over to theartofcharm.com slash SC to get your free mini course. All right. Well, if you enjoyed this podcast, please head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show.

1:11:32It means the world to us and it helps others find the show. And before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. Go out there and have an epic week. Yeah, I remember you. You were the bad boy You threw your love away Like it was just a toy And you sold the world You're a song of a tragedy Cause you had your taste All black on the yesterday Yeah, but I remember you Oh yeah, I remember you You are my, my, my, my, my You are my, my, my, my