All Episodes

January 5, 2025 31 mins

Happy Sunday!

Let’s start the New Year with a BANG! Shall we?

Full-fledged job search lesson today.

10 major tips on how to win your search in 2025!

Key download you must take if you don’t already have my 10X10 formula.

Inside the video and booklet, I hit the gamut from getting your requirements in order to resume writing to searching to interviewing and negotiating.

Took me 31:10 to get that all in.

So, pour the coffee or cocktail depending on whether it’s 8 AM or 5 PM by you, and enjoy the show!

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 (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook.

5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here!

--Andy

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today I want to talk to you about job searching make sure you're positioned for 2025 recently I
have been Distributing my 10x10 job search formula I put together this booklet that uh that I think
will really help you look at the 10 kind of the 10 key aspects of job searching what I think are
the 10 most important success factors if you have not grabbed this booklet yet let me show you what

(00:26):
what it looks like it is a PDF that really breaks down the different areas and gives you a chance
to make an assessment of how effectively you're doing it based on some guidelines that I give you
so there's an assessment up top which is really nice and then toward the back there's this grid

(00:47):
that addresses each of the 10 areas what I think are the common mistakes that people make and then
what I would rather you do so if you haven't had a chance to grab that recently please feel free
to take it it's free today we're going to go through 10 of those steps I want to call out
a few of the biggest mistakes that I think you're going to make along the lines of each one of them
and then what what uh what I would like you to do instead cool here's the 10 tips so I want

(01:13):
to talk about 10 aspects of the search I want to talk about the mistakes you're going to make so
we'll start with the mistakes and I want to lead with the pro tip number one and I just
can't believe how many people don't do this and for illustrative purposes uh two days ago in the
evening and last night in the evening I did boot camper case studies with a couple of individuals

(01:39):
who were massively successful except that they both talked about one of the biggest mistakes
they made or the biggest trouble they had was figuring out what they could do a lot of things
but figuring out what they wanted and instead of doing this first they started searching pull
resume together started interviewing only to realize they were going through their approach

(02:02):
half coed so number one biggest and most critical step because it sets the whole tone for your
search it's like the drive in golf it sets up the whole hole okay is you've got to know what you're
looking for and What Makes You Happy Now I want to be really specific here I'm not talking about well

(02:26):
I want to work for this company and I want that job and that's going to make me happy there are
actually a lot of different organizations there are a lot of different job types you might want
to open up your own business you might want to work uh for an organization just a different
organization you might want to change careers what you think might make you happy might not

(02:46):
actually make you happy in reality and you need to do this from the ground up it's not that I'll
know it when I see it I've seen too many people make major mistakes in in their decisionmaking
processes and the choices that they've made in their career because they didn't know before they
started what success looked like as it relates to the environment that they're going to thrive

(03:08):
in thrive in putting themsel in a position that surrounds themsel with all of the things and and
things could be people it could be the environment it could be physical location it could be the type
of work it could be the type of resources it could be many many different variables but you need to
know what is going to make you successful and what is going to make happy and if you don't go through

(03:31):
this exercise I guar dampe you there's absolutely no way to know for sure if you're making a good
choice it's all based on Hope and hope is not a strategy it's also not a very good plan so what
do I mean by your criteria well what a lot of people do is they think they know what will
make them happy this is mistake number one or or they just feel like well if I can work for that

(03:58):
type of organization or if I could have that type job without truly understanding all the parameters
or they're going into an organization they're interviewing and on the surface everything looks
great but they're not asking the right questions or getting the right information which means they
have blind spots there's something called the spotlight effect when you're making a decision

(04:19):
basically what that's a fancy psychological term for only the information that you have
is the information you're using to to make that decision when there's so many other things that
you don't know so you're deciding with incomplete information and that's what a lot of job Seekers
do you don't ask a lot of questions you don't ask the right questions you don't dig deep enough

(04:41):
what identifying your criteria will do for you is it'll actually give you a list of aspects for you
to know I want these conditions I want these parameters I want these type of people I want
this type of culture I want a big company a small company I need a certain amount of compensation
maybe benefits are more important to me maybe I want to travel maybe I don't all of these

(05:05):
things that make you happy you need to be able to investigate them and if you don't have them
you're going to be making you're going to be making a decision without all the information
and he who has the most information at least makes an educated decision so if you want more on this I
released a video a while back called how to start your job search in the right place I talk about

(05:27):
your happiness factors I talk about a number of other things but you got to do this first
because this drives the second part of what you do is actually the investigation process so a lot
of you come to the shows or ask me online and you say what are good questions to ask an employer and
technically what I want to say to you without just giving you an answer is what do you need what do

(05:50):
you want now there are questions that I would ask any employer because I want to understand
Financial stability I want to understand their strategy I want to understand if they're a market
leader if they're not a market leader what are they going to do to become one or what are they
going to do to better position I want to know am I working in a strategic arm of the organization
there's general questions that I would want to ask just to understand the overall health of a company

(06:14):
but but those questions just because it's a great company doesn't mean it's a great company for you
and a lot of people join great companies that are not really a good fit for them because why
because they didn't do this self aare people always put themselves in position to succeed

(06:34):
by surroundings or creating an environment that they thrive in because they know themselves well
and they don't sacrifice this they achieve high goals because they're self-aware people who who
lack self-awareness which is 85% of the people that walk the planet don't do this so when you
get into the investigative part you should have loads of questions and these questions should

(06:57):
start with what is it that I want want I want a boss that behaves a certain way maybe you need
somebody that you want to Mentor you or maybe you need somebody you want to leave you alone
Any Which Way whoever you work with you want them to always have your back there's certain things
about the boss there's certain things about your teammates there's certain things about
the physical location of the company the commute how much travel um whether the organization is

(07:20):
going to be investing in its people in you in your training what you're going to do how you're going
to contribute all of these other things so how important they are to you is going to determine
which questions you ask to investigate every time you investigate a company and every time
you ask a question you're always looking for two things is this a good company and is this a good

(07:42):
company for me just because it's a good company for you might also mean it's not a stable place
how many people out there have actually taken a job that they loved but the company fell apart
or how many people joined an organization they thought they would love but the role was really
bad or the environment was really bad okay now when you get into the investigative part by the

(08:04):
way this is step one this is step two you do not put your resume together first you figure out how
to evaluate the employers that you're ultimately going to Target which is what you what you should
be doing before you put the resume together if you can't come up with 50 questions you making
a good career choice is blind luck it truly is and there's no reason you can't come up with

(08:27):
50 questions why because when you grab this book for a few bucks I give you 75 great questions to
ask before you take any job so there's there's no reason you shouldn't be able to align your
questions to your criteria people in the job search coaching program that I mentioned earlier
I give them a spreadsheet to start this process it has 86 rows in it meaning it breaks down all

(08:53):
the most popular happiness factors and criteria and all the sub criteria and all the ways that
they should be investigating those things you need to make sure that you are armed and ready and you
do this before you send a resume out so that when somebody says hey this is great can I talk to you
tomorrow you say yeah I just need like 20 minutes to brush up on who you are and what your company's

(09:16):
all about because I'm all ready because I know my questions I know what I'm looking for I know
the environment I thrive in show a hands who doesn't have this who doesn't who doesn't have
this who doesn't have the self-awareness stuff who doesn't have the questions who struggles with
well I'm not sure what to ask there's no reason for you to do that give me a show hands in the

(09:37):
chat hi there
vasu show hands all right I know we're on a delay all right third thing once you know your direction

(09:58):
once you know your criteria once you know your path it's about marketing you now your resume is
not a work history document this is pitching you part one the next card is going to be pitching you
part two your resume does not equal your work history you do not need to list every single

(10:18):
thing that you did every day from the moment you were 22 years old and you had your shiny
new degree or maybe you were 18 and you rolled out of high school so you started working no one cares
what they care about is how are you going to help me do you care that I put awesome estimating
models and client and account exec methodologies together to grow a portfolio of clients no you

(10:42):
don't care about that you care about me helping you with your job search or maybe your leadership
development so your resume is about them not you your career profile is about them not you
your career highlights are about them not you your professional work experience is about them
not you but what a lot of you do is you want to talk about everything under the sun that you can

(11:03):
do and it creates a real problem in marketing you selling you the storytelling narrative and
helping people understand who you are and how their lives are going to change because you're
going to work on their team so employers are like they're people right they're not companies they're
people who hire you right companies don't hire you systems really don't hire you people hire

(11:27):
you people give people jacks people want to know how their lives and their businesses and their
companies and their teams are going to change as a result of hiring you they buy transformation they
don't buy features what a lot of people do is they try to stack their resume with the skills because
they think that the skills are what get interviews which isn't true and then you're going to tell me

(11:50):
Well Andy don't I need to have the right keywords because I need to put my resume into the applicant
trashing system and I need a snowball's chance in hell that somebody will actually see it because
I've stuffed so many times these particular words that they seem to want to hear that I have these
skills no first that's a bad way to job search secondly that's not actually what makes them

(12:11):
want to talk to you it's the impact you made as a result of doing something you did so when you put
your resume together don't think backwards think forwards first what problems do they have what
goals do they have how can I change their lives the target employers the target bosses the target
teams that I want to go into how can I showcase showcase it's like the news of you right and news

(12:38):
needs to be newsworthy not every single thing that you did every single day so think forward so when
you you're pitching you on the resume make sure you're designing a resume that is forward leaning
based on the employer goals and the employer's problems next thing is when you pitch your res

(12:59):
to them it's about them not you how are you going to change their lives you can use evidence of the
past to illustrate that I was able to do it for them this is what I'm going to be doing for you
but you need to know a couple of things in order to pick the right historical impacts skills facts
experiences whatever it is you're going to shine in your whether it's a cover letter that you're

(13:23):
going to attach into the applicant trashing system or whether it's a cover letter or an email you're
going to to send with your resume which you know is my favorite way to do it if you follow me I
like boss hunting I like teammate hunting I even like recruiter hunting and HR person hunting I
don't like systems they're not a great way to get a job so make sure that you talk about how their

(13:44):
life is going to change if you're wondering how to do that in a cover letter I give them away free
number five when you search big mistake that most people make is they go into the applicant trashing
system if you're wondering what the applicant trashing system is it's the Online Career portal

(14:04):
or it's a third-party application service or an aggregator like indeed.com or Careerbuilder
or whatever you're searching for jobs on their site or the job listing on any corporate website
company XYZ says this is where our careers are these are where our open jobs are that's the
applicant trashing system that's a system it's not a human even though a human had to load some stuff

(14:27):
into it you spending a half an hour trying to get your resume formatted uploaded sent in tailored
attach the cover letter type out your work history and all the nonsense that you go through usually
falls on deaf ears it actually doesn't usually even get the ears um and a lot of times it just
filters you out what I want you to do is Target individuals and how do I want you to do that well

(14:52):
the first thing that I want you to do is I want you to think about what are the organizations
that I want to work work at because those are the types of organizations I'm interested in they're
the type of organizations that have products and services I would be interested in building
accounting for selling marketing or whatever you do or helping the employees who do all of

(15:13):
that or recruiting for the employees or managing the employees or creating the entire HR structure
for all the employees or all the other stuff or delivering the mail to the employees whatever it
is that you want I and I would Target those types of organ ganizations but then there has to be an
intersection between what is what is it that you want and what is it that you are able to

(15:36):
do and you need to find the intersection of how to Showcase what you've done that's in alignment with
helping the organizations you want to work for achieve their goals by overcoming their problems
and there has to be a need for this and so you can do that irrespective of your background so
so I mentioned I did a couple case studies uh last couple days this woman last night who I

(16:00):
worked with who's a boot camper who got her job uh last year uh I worked with her she was had a
new business that she had created and was in the business for six years and did absolutely nothing
not even remotely close to what she had done as a corporate professional in alternative Investments

(16:21):
and she she opened up her own entrepreneurial organization small business it was 6 years old
and she didn't understand how all the things that she had done in her business applied to
going back into the area that she had before she opened her business and one of the things that I
worked with her on and she actually shares this in her story is how to extract all the aspects

(16:44):
of what she did and how to make it look like these are very valuable assets to help future
companies achieve their goals and so how you do that is going to be based on where it is you want
to go what you're going to pluck and cherry-pick from your background even if you're just changing
companies but are going to use the same function should be a should be in relation to what those

(17:05):
organizations want to achieve now I want you to Target people and for those of you that that that
go to the Andy School of job searching you know I promote the job search challenge you can check
that out free on my YouTube channel or you can and and grab the job search challenge product that we
have that's a premium product or you can join the job search coaching program where you can get the
full product for free any which way I want you targeting people not systems and so boss hunting

(17:31):
is one of my favorite techniques you can check that out on the YouTube channel but that's the
way I would go about that and then the other thing is when you're networking when you're networking
what a lot of people do is they get fired they get laid off or their stay-at-home parent reentering
the workforce or they've been out of work a year or they took a breather or they traveled around

(17:52):
the world or they're a trailing spouse because the husband or the wife moved States or countries or
whatever it is and then what they do is they panic and then they send out a message and just say I'm
out of work does anybody know of anything where if they don't send a mass LinkedIn message like that
they email their friends or text their friends or tweet them or fax them or whatever and say I'm out

(18:13):
of work do you know anything that's not very good number one it's very very hard for your network to
actually help you and actually one of the case studies she said that I was reaching out to my
network but I wasn't helping them help me they wanted to help me but I was not instructing them
properly so that they would get back to me quickly or with with direct answers to what I ultimately

(18:35):
needed what solves that is a network map now you can build a map by starting with what is it that I
want is there a company I want to go to all right what's the company is there somebody that you know
that could get you to the company I would call that person first before I called my best friend
who knew no one at that company I would try to call an acquaintance because why because you want

(19:00):
to start with the end in mind where is it that I want to go and who can get me there this is so
critical because if you if you run your job search based on companies and not position you'll know
where you want to go then you can find somebody in the organization who could let you in like a
boss or a teammate or or if you have relationships inside the company call that person first if you

(19:25):
know somebody who knows somebody call that person to get an intro to somebody but you want a map
you want to know where you're going and then who's going to take me there it's like this for anything
if you want to speak and an event maybe your industry has like a global conference once a
year they're looking for speakers well I want to I I'm going to try to figure out who who hires

(19:46):
the speakers or who who is getting the speaker volunteers or whatever it is for that event I'm
going to call them directly or I'm going to call somebody who knows them or I'm going to see if I
know anybody who knows them or anybody that runs anything at that conference map who can get me
there and you go that route and then you instruct the people along the way hey I'm trying to get

(20:06):
into Northern Trust I'm trying to get into another big Bank do you know anybody at JP Morgan Northern
Trust this or that is much easier to network than hey I'm out of work do you know of anything next
thing as we transition into the interviews if we transition into the interviews what most people
do is they prepare they do they do so many things wrong I I I could take three days and still not

(20:32):
explain to you all the mistakes that people make when they prepare for interviews but let's talk
about the preparing part first off it's not about skills and it's not about questions they ask it's
not about skills and it's not about questions they ask it's about information they need to know
about the impact you're going to make in their environment so they can figure out if you're

(20:55):
going to be a good employee for them based on what they buy transformation they don't buy skills or
features what do most people do what questions are they going to ask me and what story am I
going to tell them to satiate them on what's my greatest weakness and tell me about a time you had
a disagreement and what's your leadership style yawn those are terrible interview questions and

(21:17):
if you're prepping for your interview based on what you might get asked it's a terrible way to
get a job so I want you to think about the impact you've made everything is a deduction if she's
telling me a story about how she did that and how she made that happen she must have this skill this

(21:40):
skill and this skill to pull it off if one of the steps in the process is I had to put a business
case together and Pitch it to the management team I'm just going to automatically assume you
know how to put a business case together and you're persuasive you get you can ring up in
points by just showing them the steps and the impact you follow me give me a show of hands

(22:06):
this is a super big deal I can think four times faster than you can talk so unless you want to
bore me with the details and get me to yawn and shut down this keep leading me keep leading me in
a quick Pace that makes me extrapolate all you had to do now you might be thinking well Andy

(22:27):
if I don't explain to them chapter and verse no they don't want chapter and verse if they don't
know that you can do certain things believe me if they wanted more information they'll ask you what
supersedes and Trump's detail is talking about the impact you had and getting that out early
showing them you had a structured approach to Res to to resolving or implementing or attacking or

(22:53):
whatever giving them a minimal amount of detail for illustrative purposes only underneath each of
the activities that fall in line with the result you made happen which you already told them in
the beginning you led them to believe you were successful and you also foreshadowed the exact
result that occurred and if you don't know how to tell a story This Way check out my video on

(23:16):
the on the job search formula guaranteed to get you hired I talk about my car technique uh it
it's context up front there's a couple of parts that take you through an outline or an approach
roach and then the activities underneath that for each of the steps and then you Echo the result at
the back end so you're going to hit them with it twice so this this to me is a big deal when you

(23:41):
prepare it's about what do I need to tell them that's going to show them I'm going to be able
to help them achieve their goals by overcoming their problems I want to know that in terms of
the impact you've made perhaps exact goals you've helped others achieve that look just like mine
and I want you to know the problems that I likely have because you've already encountered them right

(24:04):
so when you come to me and you need job searching help and you say I'm a 47y old man in Germany and
I'm in this field and we put resumes together this way I've already solved that problem I already
know how to do that I already know how to network in Germany because I've had dozens and dozens and
dozens of Germans work with me to attain their job so I've seen those problems I've already handled

(24:25):
them you may have the same ones they have you may be in the same field they have but I guarantee you
have 90% of the problems they had that's what you're saying when you're telling a story in
an interview about how you're going to go about doing something or or if you're telling a story
about your past when we get into the interview we talk about impact you can bring these things up so

(24:46):
speaking of it's a good segment when you get into the actual interview it's again about their needs
so any story that you're going to tell should start with a story about helping them achieve
their goals use stories that they will very easily see how you're going to change my life how you're

(25:08):
going to change my team how you're going to change my results how you're going to help my
customers how you're going to get me compliant how you're going to reduce my risk whatever it is that
you do as a function you need to be thinking in advance about what it is they need what problems
they likely have even though you might not know specifically what problems they have because you

(25:28):
won't know specifically what problems they have until you get into the interview your stories and
the the preparation that you do should be aimed at what it is they need to hear based on the goals
you know they have the problems you think they likely have whatever alerts you could get from the
job description that highlight the things you're responsible for the skills that they're looking

(25:50):
for all of that can be embodied we I helped a woman in HR the other day and we were looking at
a beautiful opportunity for her and it covered just about every aspect you would want to touch in
HR there was strategy there was leadership there was development modeling there were processes and

(26:13):
compliance there was systems there was building High performing teams working with the business
units this the whole array so I didn't worry about we didn't prep her and she didn't prep based on oh
how do you lead teams no we never would prep for a job interview that way I said Okay I I saw the

(26:33):
job description do you have a story I asked her do you have a story that talks about where you
set the strategy up how you rolled it out how you helped the businesses build these high performing
teams by using these systems and so on she says yes that's how we're going to prep we're going to
work that story then there was another story but you you got to put yourself on offense because no
matter what questions they ask you you're going to be able to tell them that story because that story

(26:57):
is what they need to know it's not what they ask it's what they need to know you could back into
that story any which way you want again if you want more on this check out that video I mentioned
earlier the next thing I cannot get over I would never ever ever waste a breath or a keystroke in

(27:18):
my life ever why would you not thoughtfully put together an ongoing communication in the form
of a thing thank you after your interview now the thank you note I have a thank you note that
you can grab for free or it's on page 83 of this book and that's your opportunity to continue the

(27:44):
dialogue now at a minimum send them a thank you email highlight why you're the best person for the
candidate reiterate how interested you are in the role you don't have to write War and Peace okay
just something short and sweet and they might even get back to you or they might not and it's okay if
they don't but don't waste an opportunity for you to reiterate why you're the best candidate not to

(28:07):
mention thank them for their time not to mention tell them how interested you are don't miss this
step Lots on the YouTube channel on that and then the last thing I want to cover is make sure
you negotiate now in in 99% of the scenarios you should negotiate because in 99% of the scenarios

(28:31):
and this is somebody I'm gathering my data from placing as an executive recruiter more than 600
people negotiating 600 employment agreements 600 salaries bonuses and all stock and all that and as
a career coach over another thousand people who I've helped negotiate we did a couple last week

(28:51):
I'm telling you 99% of the time you should ask for more money of course I'm going to leave room
for that small small situation where it would be borderline insulting for you to ask for more money
depending on what the company did but you should go armed and you should make sure that you make

(29:12):
the ask okay so I want to I want to I want to I want to buzz through these now I want to reiterate
what I just went through what I just went through was an element of each of these areas so we talked
about getting your requirements in order we talked about making sure that you've got a lot of good

(29:33):
questions remember if you grab the interview intervention book package you get the interview
intervention hard cover sent to your house you get the ebook and you get an audio book and I dump
in an extra booklet called how to interview the employer 75 great questions to ask before you take
any job that's 7 us bucks it's a good deal the ebook for interview intervention alone on Amazon

(29:58):
is is n bucks uh when you Market yourself with the resume just make sure you're thinking forward not
backwards when you're pitching and emailing them or cover letters or whatever you want to highlight
how you're going to transform their team their company their lives when you're searching remember

(30:18):
you're targeting individuals not organiza you're targeting organizations and individuals with those
organizations not systems when you network you want to have a map when you're preparing go on
offense not defense think about what do they need to know and what stories can I tell them
that will show them how I'm going to transform their life when you're interviewing make sure

(30:39):
you're doing the same thing what are your goals what are your problems specifically and make
sure that you are backing into what I call your power stories to make sure that they see you're
the right uh person for the job don't ever miss an opportunity for continuing the dialogue via a
thank you and also make sure you are negotiating all right on this part of what I wanted to share

(31:04):
with you today that's a wrap on those 10 things make sure you grab the free booklet
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.