Ep 205: The Power of Your Past: Transforming Everyday Experience Into Career Gold

Ep 205: The Power of Your Past: Transforming Everyday Experience Into Career Gold

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey there, and welcome to Money and You. I'm Michelle Perkins,
your host. My search for more fulfilling work led me
to career in business coaching, where I stumbled upon a
game changing discovery. Money issues often start with our mindset
and habits.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
You see, our.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Relationship with money is the key to overcoming those frustrating
financial obstacles. As an entrepreneur, coach, and problem solver, I'm
passionate about helping you create a great relationship with money,
because turns out that's the foundation for a limit free life.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Each week on Money in You, I speak.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
With amazing guests about all things money, mindset, practical tips,
and everything in between. We're here to give you new insights,
education and empowerment, so money can be one of your
favorite relationships. So join us for some lively conversations and
let's transform your financial life together. Well, hello, and welcome

(00:57):
to another episode of the Money in You podcast. I'm
Michelle Perkins, your host, and very excited to be here.
We're going to switch gears just to tad. In the
next couple of shows, We're.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Going back to my origins.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
We're going to go back to some career discussions, and
we're going to get into some conversations, some great conversations
about finding your best work and learning how to find
those jobs that you really want and build a career.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
So it's fitting.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
I think people are all over the place right now
in terms of their outlook on employment, and so I
thought it would be great to bring a couple experts
in who are going to talk about very different things,
but all within the realm of that particular topic area.
So yeah, I think it's really needed right now. Things
have really changed too. From my look back now almost

(01:53):
laughing about when I started career coaching, how different it
was fifteen years ago to today.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
So so much has changed.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
And even then I used to tell people I would
get people clients who had you know, LinkedIn wasn't around
when they got started, and so but it's progressed in
so many different ways, and some.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Of the old things still still really matter.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
And then there's some great new tools and ways to
achieve your goals in terms of your career and your
job search. So, without further ado, I have a terrific
guest that I'm really excited to talk to, and his
name is Ramon Santition, and he's the founder of persuasive
interview dot Com. Before he was an interview coach, he

(02:40):
was a tax consultant for the world's biggest accounting firm,
the world's biggest oil driller, and the founder of his
own tax practice. Ramone teaches his clients how to be
more charismatic, feel and look more confident, shows them the
right way to brag about themselves during interviews, and turn
interviews into job offers. He's been quote by US News

(03:00):
and World Reports, CBS, Yahoo, CareerBuilder dot Com, Chicago Tribune,
and many others as an interviewing expert. Is clients think
he's pretty great, and he tends to agree.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I love that. That's confidence.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Ramon, Welcome, Hi Michelle, thanks for having me. Happy to
be here.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, I'm so happy you're here. And you know, it
was funny.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
I didn't plan this, but I happen to have this
week's show and next week's with people who are really
well versed in career, the career world and career transition
and finding those those jobs that you want.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
And you're both quite different in who you serve, So.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Tell me a little just about background, you know, going
from being a tax person to being doing what you're
doing now with interviews and interview prep.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, you know, so my background is in accounting. I
was wanting qua accountants. I went to University of Texas
at Austin, which at the time was the number one
accounting program in the country, because I wanted to be
an accountants. One thing I did learn when I became
an accountants, or when I was in school for accounting,
is that it wasn't the most technical person that got

(04:11):
the job. It wasn't the one with the highest grades.
It was the person who presented themselves the best during interviews.
For me, I'm very much an introvert, and when I
was in college, I'm a first generation college students and
I didn't have any connections. I didn't have any related
work experience. I was not going and I didn't have
the best grades. Yet somehow I always got the job

(04:34):
above over people who maybe were on paper, better qualified,
better student for the role. And I realized the reason
I did that was because I was very prepared, plain
and simple. You we mentioned about LinkedIn, how back then
it didn't exist. So this is twenty five years ago
when I was in college and LinkedIn wasn't even around.

(04:56):
Websites were barely being a thing becoming a thing. And
what I would do is I would go to the
library to get magazines on these companies I was interested in,
get the Wall Street Journal, and I would read and
I would kind of poke around, and that helped me
prepare for those interviews that I always did really very well.
So from there I was helping you know, obviously my friends,

(05:16):
and then friends of friends and then acquaintances. At some
point a stranger started calling me for help with their
interviews and their resumes. And at some points I decided
to make a business out of it, because actually the
point was I was recently married and I had a
new born daughter, and all these people were calling me
to help them with their resumes, and I didn't have

(05:38):
time to help them because I want to spend time
with my wife and the daughter. And I said, you
know what, I don't want to say no, but maybe
if I put a price tag on me, people will
go away by themselves because they'll say, oh, I thought
this was free. Again. For years, I was doing this
for free, and I said twenty five dollars. I think
twenty five dollar would be a good thing. So people
call me and say, hey, can you help me. I said, sure,
I would love to you, but it's gonna be twenty

(05:59):
five dollars and that was, oh well, I thought it
was for you. Never mind, thank you was like okay,
thank you. I did to say no. They say no themselves,
like okay, good and that worked really well for three months,
and then at month three, someone called me, hey, I
need to help with my resume. I said, yeah, twenty
five dollars and they said sure, let's do it. So
that's something to become. That's when I officially became an

(06:20):
interview coach when someone paid me the twenty five dollars. Obviously,
since then my rates have gone up, but uh, you know,
that's that's how actually the business got started. I didn't
mean it to be a business. It just became a
business by itself.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, oh I love that.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
And yeah, that's happened to a couple of people I
know who were accountants too, who just sort of fell
into something else and it just took off. So, I mean,
I was an accountant as well, and I got into
career coaching for similar reasons. But my area that I
was really interested in was I would you know. We
worked as teams and we'd go off and do audits

(06:55):
or projects and consulting projects, and half the time people
were talking about they what they were going to do
next and what they really.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Wanted to be doing, which wasn't this, but you know,
this was like the foundational part.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
And I just found it fascinating, you know, just how
many people were really looking for something else.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
And I thought, wow, you know, and I was too,
and so it just became kind of.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
A fascination of mine as to how we choose our
career and and what makes the most sense for us
and what makes us most happy, but also you know,
works the best for us with our talents and our skills.
So yeah, I think it's a really interesting area. I'm
still fascinated by why and how people choose to do
what they want to do. And I think what you're

(07:39):
doing is so important because we can figure out what
it is that we want to do, but that path,
there's a gap there between what we're doing now and
what we want to do, and somebody like you can
come in and really kind of pave the way to
figure out what the jobs are and.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
How to get there.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
And that was always a bit of a piece, you know,
that stops people because they don't know how to do that.
But a career coach or somebody like you is going
to be able to help see if that way can
be creative for them and then give them the right tools.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah. You know, one thing I'll mention to you is
that I actually struggled a lot in this path that
I've taken since then. So, you know, like I mentioned,
when I was in high school, I wanted to be
an accountants and I worked really hard so I can
get into the more one accounting program in the country.
So from eighteen to twenty two to twenty three, I
was focused on being an accountant. I got a job
at PwC, the largest accounting firm in the world, so

(08:38):
I was like, okay, I'm here. At some points I
realized that that's not what I wanted to do anymore.
But so I struggled a lot with that because I
was thinking did I waste my time? Did I make
a mistake? Because like I mentioned, I'm a first notion
college student. I paid my way through college. My parents
didn't help me out. I worked two jobs through college

(09:01):
to pay for school, and so at you know, twenty eight,
twenty nine, thirty I was like, did I waste the
last basically ten years focusing on this goal that I
don't want to do anymore? And I struggled a lot
with that because I didn't know, you know, maybe I
should have done something else, should have had a different major.
And that's when I was kind of thinking about this

(09:21):
career coaching thing. I read a book. You might have
heard about it. It's pretty popular. It's called What Color
Is Your Parachutes? Of course, and that helped me out
figure out that I didn't make a mistake. Eighteen year
old me wanted to be an accountant, and he took
the steps necessarily to be there to get there, and
he did, he reached his goal. Thirty year old me

(09:42):
wanted to do a different thing, So eighteen year old
me was not wrong. He did the right thing for
what he wanted to do that point, thirty old me
wanted to do a different thing in his career and
he took that. Maybe I don't know, And so it's
been fifteen years since then, maybe the next fifteen I
want to do something. I don't know, But I allowed myself.
I forgave my eighteen year old self, and then I

(10:05):
realized I don't need to forgive that guy. That guy
was right, he did what he thought was right there
he would be wants to do something else. Let that
guy do something else. And again, late on my career,
I want to change. I can. That's the beautiful of
the time, of the era that we live in. We
can change a career path.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, you know, thank you for bringing that up.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
It is I love kind of the philosophical part of
all of this because you bring up a great, great point.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
And I know I started out.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
I didn't start an account I didn't want to be
an accountant, didn't even know what accountant was. I had was.
I got a criminal justice degree and I was actually
doing some white colored crime investigative work with the Attorney
General's office and as an internship, and I learned and
they basically told me, you know, if you like this
at all, you need to do some accounting.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
So you can understand the numbers behind all this.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
And so I sort of fell.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Into it in a very odd way.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
And there's and originally I think I want to be
a psychologist when I was eighteen. So you know, there
is a there are a lot of mind games we
play when we try to pursue our interests, and so
I think that's why a lot of people don't, because
there's so much of the you know, the outside world
and your inner world telling you you know, this is

(11:19):
a mistake. You've already invested all this time. You know,
you can't just change whenever you want. You know, a
career is built on all of this time. And I mean,
I hear, I hear twenty five year olds saying, you know, gosh,
I don't really love what I do, but I'm too
old to change.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
I mean, I'm so happy that you said that, because
I think we should always be kind of feeling free
to change. I mean, we do change. You aren't who
you you know, were at eighteen, and neither am I.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
And and yeah, it's a beautiful thing because this world
is more accustomed to people changing than our parents' world,
which it was a giant no no back then. And
actually another reason I went into career coaching was because
my dad made a big shift when he was about
forty five and changed his career.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
And it was a drama.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
I mean, you know, the whole world thought it was
the craziest thing that anybody could do, and it did
have a big impact financially and every other way on
our family. But then he built a second career that
he loved, and you know, I think he lived to
ninety four because he had work that he loved for
that whole second part of his life. I think it's
a really important component for our health and everything else.

(12:31):
So anyway, I think that's wonderful that you brought that
up and that people kind of reconcile these weird messages
in their heads about change and.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
What career they're in.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
We don't know until we try a career. That's the
other thing people. You know, I'm sure this happens with
your clients. People get very stressed about you know, what
if I don't like it? I mean, what if I
don't like this career path? What if I don't like
this job I'm interviewing for. You know what happens?

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Then I'm working so hard to get it and it
doesn't work out. I mean we can't.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Actually you can reassure them, you know, with some of
the data around it, but nobody knows until get in there.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
And the majority of my clients are college students and
they are looking for a career path based on their major.
So a lot of computer science, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering,
that kind of stuff. So they are fairly sure that
what they want to do. But yes, you're right, that
fear comes in. It's like, well, you know what if
I accept this job offer, am I going to be

(13:32):
stuck for forever? And then they kind of start spiraling,
and I was telling them like, look, just because you
apply doesn't mean you're going to retire from that job
right now, Let's just apply to the job, get the interview,
meet those people, have the second round interview, third round interview,
get an offer, and then you can make a decision
you want to work there or not. Whilst you start

(13:53):
working there, you can leave just And I was telling
them like, look, they said, well what if I leave
in a YEARL like, look, this is a business you're
running now, a business of you. A company can fire
you on day one just because they want to. You know,
most companies in the country here, I think probably even
in the world, they're at will. So they can just
fire you just because, not because you're DoD anything wrong,

(14:14):
not because they hate you, not because they dream bad.
That's just how it is. So if a company can
fire you on day one, you can also quit on
day one. I don't suggest they quit on day one either,
but yeah, there's one time like, look like you're not
going to be married to these people now for the
rest of your life. Get the apply for the job,
and that's one step at a time. There's a lot
of steps between you applying and you actually be starting

(14:36):
working there. So let's start with that and work away there.
If at some point you don't like the company or whatever,
you can always turn down the offer or reject the
interview and continue your path. But you don't have to
be dead sting like, well this is going to happen
if I apply. No, I not allow that stuff going
to happen at all. Let's just wait one step at

(14:58):
a time. We'll cross that bridge when we get to Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
I love that, and I know, you know your students
are telling you that, or your graduates, but I'm also
hearing it from you know, people in their forties and fifties,
who are you know. They get in the interview and
then they immediately start thinking of all the things that
you know might be problematic if they get this job.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Well, they haven't even had their first interview and they're.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Worrying about you know how bad it could be. So
it's it's interesting where our brains go. You know, we
race ahead and worry about things that are not worth
worrying about at that stage. But you know, for I
don't know if you agree with this, but talking to
young people, I sort of feel like whatever you do

(15:43):
in your twenties is pretty valuable for the future, even
if it has nothing to do with, you know, your
future career. I mean these jobs I worked for great
companies and accounting and I'm very, very happy I have
them on my resume because it opened doors for me
to do other things. But you know, I didn't stay

(16:05):
forever and I don't even do that work anymore. But
I'm still really glad I had the experience. Sometimes as
an entrepreneur too, I feel and maybe that's just because
it was my own path, but I really am happy
that I had the corporate experience that I had just
for learning purposes. It helped me to be I think

(16:25):
about a business owner.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, I always
tell my clients, I low these kids. I call them
kids because they're half my age, but you know, they're
twenty two, twenty three, twenty four, and they tell me, well,
you know, I've worked at a life guard and I'm
trying to get an aerospace engineering job. I actually even
put the left guard on my own resume. I'm like, no,
you should put it because there's a lot of things

(16:48):
that you show that you know by putting that job
on there. First of all, you know what a job means.
A lot of times people don't know what a job means.
What does a job mean? That means you show up
at a certain time, There's a certain dress code you follow,
there's a certain team work that you have to do.
If you don't leave just because you leave, you leave

(17:10):
when the work's done. You talk to your boss. That's
what a job means. A lot of companies, especially for
entry level positions, they don't want to spend money trying
to teach someone a college student what a job means.
If you had a job before, they say, hey, this guy,
this girl. They know that they're supposed to show up
on time, there's a certain dress code, all these things
that a job means. So that I don't have to

(17:31):
waste my time trying to teach this kid what a
job means. They can already hit the ground running. I
can show them how to use the software, take measurements,
whatever is that we do here. But at least I
don't have to show the kid, Hey, you can't show
up at ten thirty with your Starbucks and say, hey,
you know, why is everyone already going to lunch? You know,
that's not what a job means. So I tell him, like,
let's work on that and put that on your resume.

(17:54):
That's the first thing. Second thing like that, like a lifeguard.
I remember I did a seminar one time at Rochester
her Institute Technology College RT and someone said, I'm a lifeguard,
you know, but that's not nothing to do with my
job that I want to do. I can't remember the
guy's major, but I said, tell me about your job.
What did you do? Well? I sat on a little
tall chair, kept an eye on the kids at the pool.

(18:17):
I said, uh, did you tell people not to run
that kind of stuff?

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (18:23):
Did you ever save someone? And he's like, yeah, actually
I saved two people. I was like, well, tell me
about one of the time. He said, well, a little
girl was drowning. There was a big party. Uh, they
lost track of the little girl, and luckily I noticed
that she went underwater. I pulled her out, We gave
her CPR, you know, just like in the movies and
water start coming out, and you know, I saved her
and she was alive. And I said okay. So he said,

(18:47):
but it's not a big deal. And I was like, okay,
hold on, hold on. So you're telling me, in other words,
that you saved someone's life, you kept someone from dying.
It's like, yeah, okay, what does that teach? What is
that show that you know you can act under pressure?
You are responsible? And I said what did you do
after that? Did you start crying? Did you go home?
It's like no, I continue my shift, like you know.

(19:09):
It was like so two more hours before the next
guy showed up. And I said yeah, and you're committed
to the job. So those are things that you can
tell the story during the interview. When you're doing for
aerospace engineering or whatever your major is. It's like, yeah,
I don't have experience in this, but guess what tell
me a time when you worked underpression. I got an example.
There's a time I said, the little two year old
girl from drowning, and let me tell you to do that, right,

(19:30):
What better example than that? And it doesn't have to
be that dramatic. It could be anything else, like well,
the time when I was flipping fries or you know,
flipping burgers and the fry guy didn't show up, so
I did burgers and I did fries, so I was
able to do both. We got we got the Lynch
rush in, but we got everything out on time. People

(19:51):
were happy and my boss was super excited that, you know,
nothing fell behind and no one got angry at him
because we missed up in order. That's another great example,
even though dramatic the first one, but that's a good
way to explain to people, Hey, I've done this, I
can act under pressure on committee. Whatever it is, right,
there's always stories there. So I always recommend students, like
always to get an internship re da to your major.

(20:13):
But if you can't do that, get a job somewhere,
any job. It doesn't matter what it is. We just
get a job.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
I couldn't agree more. I mean job skills. Like you said.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
I had a recruiter friend of mine say that everybody
should work in a restaurant or a retail store at
some point because the fact that you were able to
do the things that you said, show up on time,
work for kind of not great people necessarily, you know,
usually the managers aren't the best in those environments. You know,

(20:47):
all of these are just the most basic of job skills,
but they're so necessary, and you're right, employers want to
know that somebody is already cross that bridge, you know,
and knows what it's about and doesn't have like a
fan of the idea of you know, some of these
things like showing up bunk time.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
But and I love that you brought up so many things.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
There's so much psychology around this really as we're talking,
which I love, you know, the fact that we dismiss
things that we've done that are actually important.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
And I think the only way.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
To for people to see that is for somebody like
yourself to sort of interview them about it and get
to because they don't have you know, none of us
really know the right questions to ask ourselves. But if
somebody like you comes in and ask them these kinds
of questions, suddenly they have a whole new realization that
their experiences that they've been thinking are silly and unimportant

(21:40):
are actually contributing to, you know, some of the skills
that they're going to have that they can translate into
whatever job they go in. So it's it's really important,
especially for younger people. They really don't.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
See that, and they do try to hide. There seems
to be this idea.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
My son and I have had this conversation because when
fashion in school and now he's doing computer.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Science, and so he wants to like kind of not
mention the fashion part.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
And you know that has itself so many things, creativity
and all kinds of things that would not only contribute
in the future, but differentiate him.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
I mean, the entire world is.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
A computer science major right now, and they all have
good grades, they all have a lot of things. So
how do you differentiate yourself from somebody else?

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Yeah, you know what I tell my clients is, you know,
we don't want to compete because if you compete, there's
a chance you're going to lose. What you want to
do is that out smart? And I was like, okay,
so don't because if you say, well I have a
four point zero like, well, there's going to be someone
else with a four point zero plus. Or we'll have
this major. Well someone's gonna come with two majors, or

(22:48):
have an internship. Someone's gonna have three internships. Right, So
you can't you shouldn't compete. You're always going to do
this because someone's always tall or smarter, richer, whatever, Right,
I tell them out smart, So how are you gonna
not smart people? And that's one of those things in
the background that most people dismiss about themselves come into
plays like that, Like the fashion industry is like, yeah,

(23:10):
there's a lot of creativity. So yeah, this guy has
a major and computer science and maybe in better code
than I do. But I can bring talents from this
field that no one else has, because who's going to
mix fashion with you know, computer science. One person is
and that's only when you've got so might as well
go heavy on that. And I always tell them like
there's something there, we just need to develop the story.

(23:33):
And I always encourage them like that excit, you know,
like you said, I help them through this exercise. But
if you're gonna want you want to do this at home,
I say, okay, think about what's the challenge you face
at your job, at your last job, but whatever jobs
you're talking about, think about that first and think about
what happened, what did you do, what ends up happening?
And the second thing I would say think about what

(23:53):
is something you were proud of from that job. It
doesn't have to be like, well, I save the company
from going back. It can be as simple as like, well,
the one time when there was a big lunch rush
and no one else shout up, said for me in
the cashier, and we took care of the whole thing.
And I was very happy because I was able to.
I never did fries before until that time, because but
I always kept an eye on the fry guy and

(24:14):
see how he did his job. So I kind of remember,
and I put the fries and they came up perfect,
and some guy who said, hey, those are the best
prizes we ever had from here and that's the story
and developed the story. You know, how can you put that?
Put it there, sit down, think about it, think about
that Chinese your face and something you're very proudful in
that particular job.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, that's great. And this idea of storytelling is crucial.
I don't know if it was back in my day,
but these days it's really important to you know, everybody's
got their sort of little bullets, you know, with their
achievements and their successes. But to create a little story
out of that versus just a statement that you know, oh,

(24:55):
I'm very good at whatever. It's much better to weave
together a story that sticks in somebody's mind where a
statement will be forgotten. So I love that you're talking
about that. Is that one of the key things that
you help people do in terms of interviewing.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yeah, because a lot of times people what they focus
on during an interview they want to have an interview.
And I said, forget about interviews. That your competition to
have interviews. What you want to have is a conversation.
So what is a conversation. It's a back and forth.
You asked me something, I answered it, But then I
asked you about something, and I give you some other
information that I give you makes you come up even

(25:32):
better questions for me about me, not just the questions
that HR told you to ask on the little form.
So if you are engaging, entertaining, and or educating, and
if you can do all three at the same time
when you're answering questions, you're going to get that job.
Why I'll repeat it again, If you're educating, entertaining, and

(25:54):
or engaging, that's as long that's perfect. You answer right there.
You can speak as long as you want to as
long as you're doing all three. If you're doing all
three at the same time, even better. Why Because people
hire people they like. The most technical person doesn't get
the job, the most qualified person doesn't get the job.
They hire the person that like the best. And that's

(26:16):
what you're trying to do, right, You're trying to be
the person that like the best. How do you do
that by having a conversation like this is a I'm
going in a circle argument? Now have a conversation. How
do you have a conversation by asking questions to I
just this isn't the test. A lot of times again
my students they think, well, I need to have my
perfect answer for the tests for my interview. It's like

(26:36):
no and innyview is not a test. Any answer can
be the right answer. You just have to present it
the right way. No one's ever going to say tell
me your biggest weakness, My biggest weakness is my time management? Wrong?
The answer we're looking for was you know this other one?
That's never going to happen. Right, there's not one right answer.
All the answers can be the right answers. You just
have to present it the right way.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Oh, this is so good. I literally talk about this
all day. I find this so fascinating. We can't, so
I want to hone in on some of the really
important things here. What are you seeing with kids who
are getting to a.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Stage where maybe they've sent a lot of resumes out,
not much is happening, and they're starting to feel a
little defeated.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
How do you address all of that?

Speaker 3 (27:25):
I tell them, see where are you getting stuck? A
lot of times these students get interviews, but they don't
get an offer. So I say, well, maybe where you're
messing up is the interview. Maybe we have to focus
on that. Sometimes there's seeing a lot of resumes and applications,
but they're not getting interviews. I said, okay, well maybe
the application part is itself is wrong. Maybe even the
resume is wrong. Sometimes they're getting interviews but no offers,

(27:47):
and we realize the resume is what's palm. They're getting
interviews for the candidates on the resume, but then that
resume doesn't match the candidate shows up. So when the
interviewer says, hey, well I was for this person on paper,
but the person that showed up it's not this person.
So there's something there So what I tell him is like,

(28:08):
let's see what we're messing up, and again, let's develop
that story. Who are you? This isn't about memorizing the
script either. This is about knowing yourself. Like if I
ask you what is your son's name, you don't sit
down and memorize your son's name like okay John John John,
okay John John. No, you just know your son's name.
Same thing if I ask him what's your mom's names? Like,

(28:28):
he doesn't sit down like what is my mom's name? No,
you just know the story. So he developed the story
the time you save someone at the pool, you know,
the Hamburger example. There are stories you have. You just
have to sit down and develop them. So what I
tell him is like, let's see where the problem is.
And then also, you know a lot of times parents
call me and they say, well, I told my son,

(28:50):
I told my daughter to reach out to people to
go to like a pirate in person and like give
them the resume. But they're not doing it because that's
not what you do.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Now.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
A lot of times students are tell me, well, I'm
applying online and I say okay, Like it's always like
the no, Like guys, everyone's right here, No one's wrong.
You should apply online, but don't apply to the quick
apply on LinkedIn. You know, do an actual application. Go
to the company's website and apply to that job there.
But also, your parents are right, Maybe you should go

(29:22):
talk to someone. You don't have to talk to them
in person. Maybe maybe you can reach out to them
on LinkedIn. And also people. LinkedIn is for connecting with people,
it's not for applying for jobs. If you want to
apply to a job, go to the company's website apply
to a job there. If you want to connect with people,
go to LinkedIn. Talk to those people. Again, you're trying
to get talk to people because those people are experts

(29:44):
at what they do. You know, they are experts at
being an accountant, at being an aerospace engineer. So try
to find the people that work with the companies you're
interested in, talk to them and see maybe they'll give
you some insights about the company and the interview process.
Let's say I don't care about any poss or whatever. Okay, fine.
The reason you should be reaching out to people is

(30:05):
because you need to start building your networking muscle, especially
for my clients. This is not the last job they're
going to get this is a co op. This is
an internship. Maybe in the first job out of college.
But guess what, in two to three years, you're probably
going to get another job, or going to need to
get another job because you're gonna get laid off or whatever, right,
or you maybe want to get promotion or whatever it is.

(30:27):
You don't want to start looking for connections three years
from that when you need a job next week. If
you start building that network and muscle, it's like any
other muscle. You know, if I'm going to be in
a body given competition, I don't lift weights in the
morning up right, I start three years before lifting weights,
eating right, getting ready for the competition. So I was

(30:47):
telling them, like, start building that networking muscle, talking to
people feel comfortable. From there, we can take it to
having a video call of a phone call, even an
in person meeting, a networking event. Can you build your
way up there? But there's a lot of aspects of
the job search. It's not just link applying more. I've
had people that tell me students they're twenty two and

(31:10):
they said, I think the record was like five hundred
and seventy applications and one semester and they didn't get
a single interview. And I said, okay, here's here's the problem.
I said, well, he went to your conserrator services and
career Services said you got to apply more. I was like,
you're just not applying enough jobs. And I said, okay,
here's a problem. You know, you're twenty two at that time,

(31:32):
I think it was like forty three or forty two.
I was like, for easy math, let's just pretend I'm
twice to reach right, you're twenty twenty two times two
forty four. You say you applied to five hundred and
seventy jobs this semester. I'm twice your age. I haven't
applied to one hundred jobs in my life. I said,
there's a problem with your application process. Something is. Your
resume is off, something off. So applying more is not

(31:55):
the solution. We have to take a step back and
what are we doing wrong here? Or maybe what are
we not doing rights? A lot of times it's just
you're not applying to the right jobs. You're doing the
quick apply, which again I tell people who don't do that,
you're just wasting your time. It's a it's a you
feel like you're applying to jobs. So when your mom
ask you how many jobs are you applied today, it's

(32:17):
like fifty. Your mom's real happy, but you're just cond
throwing resumes until the void. That's not going to get
you anywhere.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah, yeah, I And and sometimes when people start getting
a little you know, worried and a little desperate feeling,
they will apply to a lot of jobs that aren't
even aligned.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
With what they do.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
They're just like, I got to get a job, you know,
so they start.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Applying to everything, and then that feels like effort, but
it's wasted effort, and then that really makes you feel,
you know, even.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Even more defeated. But it's it's like you said, it's
it's a waste of time.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
But we don't know that because we live in this
online world and we're like, oh wow, everybody says apply online,
but applying online is of course you have to do it.
But I feel like there's all this other things that
have to supplement it. I mean, you do need to
get on LinkedIn and see if you can connect with
other people at the company, or you know, there's multiple

(33:14):
layers to all of this. And I still find, especially
with the older folks, networking is everything.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
I mean, I don't know what the stats are.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Now, but it used to be like eighty percent of
jobs or you know, there's some networking because there's some
connection with a person that helped them to get that job.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
And I see it all the time.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
I recently saw somebody get a great job that she wanted,
that she applied to a year ago, and she didn't
get it. And then the same job came up again
at a different location and she applied. But you know,
I said, go back and talk to the person who
you liked a lot, who you interviewed with last year.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
And sure enough, she got it this time. But I
think it was as much connecting back with him as
any else. Yes, you know, and it's hard for you.
I understand it's hard for young people, especially the face
to face kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
To do this networking, but it has to be done.
And I think a lot of times people a student
especially think like when they hear networking and you're going
to get a job through a connection, they feel like
that means you need to make best friends with one
guy or one girl and they're going to help you
find a job. Like, no, this is I don't want
to say it's transactional because you do have to build

(34:30):
a relationship, but also it don't have to be your
best friend, you're like BFF or anything like that. It's
talking to people, getting to know them, see what they
do with their company, and a lot of times they'll
give you insights.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
You know.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
I've had many times where clients we may we find
the right person to connect with at a company, and
they'll say, hey, yeah, I know we have a job posting,
but actually we already know who they're going to hire,
so feel free to apply, but you're probably not going
to get it. I guess what that says is some
time because we know we're not going to get it.
Or they'll tell us again, hey there's a hiring freeze.

(35:03):
They're not already hiring anyone for that role. Feel free
to apply, but I don't think's gonna happen. Sometimes they'll
even tell you, hey, make sure you review this material
or this topic or you know, coding, because they're going
to ask you about that to during the interview because
I went through the same interview. Or they'll say hey,
same to your resume. I'm going to give you some
feedback on it. And then after that you can apply.

(35:25):
I mean, there's a lot of insights that we can
get from connecting with people, and we don't have to
a lot of times people say, well I need to
connect with a thousand people. It's like I OBUs see
the more the better. But that's not the point. It's
not about how many people are connecting with the We
want to find the people who want to help. Some
people will you know, ignore your connection request. Some people

(35:47):
will accept it, but they won't follow through. And then
some people will accept it and send you some ideas
and insights. Those are the ones we want to find.
And again, we don't need everyone. We just need those
people who want to help and give us some insights
so that way we can move forward and see where
we need to improve on what we're doing well, and
you know, maybe even get the job. Maybe they'll I

(36:09):
had so many times where they'll say, let's have a
zoom call, just a rouandom person we'll connected with. They'll
have a zoom call and they'll say, hey, that went great.
You might have another call, but this time my boss
is going to be on It is that cool with you?
Let's say, sure we get ready for that call and
at you know that second call, they'll say, Hey, we've
got a spot up and would you like to join
the team. And what's super crazy is like they will

(36:34):
fill out the job application the day they're filling out
their payroll information, because they'll say, like, well, you never
actually applied for this job, but whether way can you
apply for the job after you give us your routing
information for your paycheck, can you fill out the application?
It's so crazy, but it happens all the time. Why
And it's because of those connections. Again, they're not like
the best friends ever. There's just a connection you made

(36:55):
and they want to help, you know.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
I'm just so I don't want to run out of
time before we talk a little about a specialty area
that you help people in, which is folks on the spectrum,
So can you tell us a little about that?

Speaker 3 (37:14):
And yeah, you know, so I've been working with I've
been doing my interview practice with for the last fifteen years. Professionally,
I work with a lot of CFOs C level executives,
CFOs vice presidents of those kind of people. And at
some point a mom called me and she needed help
with her college students, and I helped him. We've got

(37:34):
great results, and you know, I started helping more more students.
At some point later on, another mom called me and say, hey,
my college student needs a job, but he needs help
because he's on the spectrum. Are you familiar with that.
I'm thinking, well, I've heard of autism, but I'm not
sure what it is. And she explained to me what
it was. Basically, some people on the spectrum high functioning

(37:57):
autism Aveburger of different terms depending on who you're talking to.
They struggle with interviews because they don't read body language
the way neumal typicals do. Maybe they take things to
literally sometimes and sometimes they just don't know exactly how
to present themselves during an interview. They could, I mean,

(38:18):
like most of us, we get shy and nervous during
the interview. So I said, chure, I'll help them. And
then within thirty days he had like two or three
job offers, great job offers, like great companies. And you know,
his mom called me back crying and saying like wow,
like I was hoping he could get a he was
a computer science measure, and she said, I was just

(38:40):
helping a job at a computer pair shop where he
could just you know, get his credit for a co
op so he could graduate. But you gave him a career.
And this wasn't through some hire initiative, right, this was
just a regular old job that all the other kids
apply to and he beat them for that job. And
she said, what was the secret? Well, the secret was

(39:01):
that most times when people prepare for interviews, they don't
really prepare. They just kind of go over their notes.
And when someone teaches you how to prepare for an interview,
they just kind of tell you, like have a firm
handshake and smile, and it's like, well, what does that mean?
What I do is I teach the what and the why,
which most people don't. And I do that because that's

(39:25):
how I train my executives, my CFO, is my vps.
This isn't like have a firm handshake. Those guys and
girls like they know what a firm handshake is, but
sometimes they need to know and get that feedback of Okay,
is this firm handshak firm enough or is it two
firm or or the smile or you know, I need
to point out the things they need to work on.
And when I explain the why to the college students,

(39:46):
I can see them and eyes like there's like, now
I know the rules. Everyone's been playing this game around.
I mean, I never understood why I have to do
a firm handshaking. It just keeps some time me do
it from handshak or what a good resume looks like?
Or what a good interview question in his life? Not
the one you get asked, but the one I want
to ask. No one ever told me that. And when
I explained to them the why and the how, that

(40:08):
really helps him out. And you know, the results are
right there. The proof is in the pudding. They get
these awesome jobs, awesome careers, and they get the calls
from the mom crying and telling me, you know you
allowing me to have dreams. I never love myself. My
worry was what is he going to do when I'm gone?
Because they told me he couldn't walk when he was little,

(40:29):
that he couldn't talk, that he couldn't go to regular school,
that he wouldn't go graduate high school, that he couldn't
go to college. Then people told me he's not going
to be able to get a normal job. And now
you prove them wrong, Like he has a career. Now,
now he can support himself, He can get a promotion,
he get to raise, he gets four one K, he

(40:49):
has benefits. He might even be able to support a
family one day. Now I can think of maybe I'll
have grandkids, and they'll tell me that's the dream I
never allowed myself to have because I was so worried
about what is going to happen to him. When I'm calm,
now I don't have to worry about them. He has
a job at Google, at a Facebook. He makes more
money than we do, right, so that's to me. Then

(41:11):
I've focused my shift from or my shift from focused
from executives to working with people on who are neuro divergent.
Because to me, that's helping some executive earn one hundred
thousand dollars more with a more fancy title. It's fun,
it's exciting for me. But helping a college student who

(41:33):
again someone fifteen twenty years ago told his mom, Yeah,
this kid's not going to be to talk ever, so
just put him somewhere, put him on the home or something.
To helping that kid get a job at a name
brand company like Amazon, Facebook, Google, you know, Blue Origin,
you named NASA. That to me is very rewarding seeing

(41:57):
it helping a kid get to everyone and said to
him and to his mom, just could rune him off,
he's not gonna do anything. And now he's working in NASA,
he's doing policy for the White House on AI. You know,
to be that's very rewarding. I know there's you know,
I don't want to get positible. There's talk out there
people who said like, oh, these kids can't do anything,

(42:17):
because then on the spectrum of as they can do it,
they could probably do it better than we can. And
I'm very happy that I'm helping these students get to
where they want to be instead of writing them off
and said, well, just just work some job, any job. Now,
these guys are prepared, they're college educated, they're well trained,
they're very smart, and helping them get to where they

(42:40):
want to be. And we're I guess even where people
said they couldn't get and putting people wrong. To me,
that's a lot of fun, very rewarding. So I'm very
happy to be part of that process.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Wow, well, thank you, And that's beautiful work. And I
agree with you.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
I mean, typically very smart individuals who just need a
will help with the you know, the communication and everything else.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
But we'll do a great job at the job. So well, Ramon,
you kind of brought us full circle because.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
One of the greatest gifts I think in life is
to have a purposeful, meaningful, you know, job that you
can go to every day.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
So you're proving that out.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
I mean, you've found, you know, something that brings you
great fulfillment and enjoy and that's what I think everybody
should have.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
And certainly, you know, sometimes it's hard to get there,
but I think your your route to this.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
You know, you probably wouldn't have predicted back when you
were twenty years old, but here you are. So I
think that's the other thing is sometimes we have to
trust and have a little faith that we just keep
moving forward into what we like and into what we're
good at, we'll find ourselves at a pretty interesting place.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
So thank you so much. And can you let people
know how to find you and how they can contact you.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Yeah, they can go to my website, pursuesive interview dot
com and they have a lot of articles that parents
can read and their students can read to help them,
you know, with the job of the Rey process. Yeah,
they can also go to LinkedIn. You can find me
under my name Telmos and or you go to LinkedIn
dot com backslash I n backslash interview coach, and you'll
find some articles there that I uh any success stories.

(44:28):
Every Friday, I try to put what I call offer
a little Friday and I put a text or an
email that I got from a student's uh celebrating the
job offer again a lot of times and I tell
them students like, look get ready because when it happens,
happens quick. Sometimes it just takes a while, but when
it happens that they'll get two or three offers the

(44:49):
same day, the same week and there, and I would say,
look celebrated, because again in their minds, the are like
one day I'm going to get a job. And then
they get a call they hey, we have an offer
for you. I'll send it to you in five minutes.
Uh okay, And it's like okay, well what are the
balloons where it's like the slow clapping, nothing like that happens.
And I tell him like, look enjoy it, like this

(45:09):
is very exciting.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
Now guess what we're going to negotiate and you're gonna
get ten thousand dollars more And like no, I can't
do Like yes, you can let me show you. And
I said, okay, when everything is said and done, I say, look,
do this. Well your first paycheck, go take your parents,
go get a Hamburger, and you buy the by the
pay pay the bill. Uh. And they're gonna be blown
away because I mean they've they've helped you a lot.
But uh but yeah, I mean let's celebrate the achievements

(45:36):
and and when it comes by when it raised a porse.
So but you have to show up every day. You
have to do it every day. You don't just build
the muscle. It doesn't just show up. You have to
show up, go to the gym, lift the weight. Sometimes
it's gonna suck, a lot of times it's gonna suck.
You're gonna cry, it's gonna sweat. You know, it's gonna
hurt sometimes, but you will get there. You just have

(45:58):
to show up every day.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Well, Ramo, this has been great, and you left it
just at a point where we could have had another
entire show on negotiating that salary. So I might be
asking you to come back if you would not mind.
But thank you so so much for.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Being here and sharing all this. There is I know
a lot more that you could have shared, and a
lot more I could have asked. So I hope people
will get in touch with you and reach your articles
and get to know you, because I think you're a
fantastic resource.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
And I'm so happy that you were on and that
people can, you know, know you so spread the word.
And yeah, thank you so audience, thank you for listening.
I hope you enjoyed the show. And obviously there are
many people that you could share this with and I
would certainly love for you to do that. And while
you're at it, subscribe and rate and review the money

(46:53):
and you show, And thank you so much for listening,
and we'll see you next week to book the tap

Speaker 1 (47:06):
Book.