March 25, 2025 • 42 mins
I talk with job search expert Steve Dalton about his radical approach to landing your dream job-- WITHOUT applying online! As the author of 'The Job Closer' and 'The 2-Hour Job Search, Steve advocates for a networking-based strategy and explains the importance of asking for advice rather than referrals.
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⌚ TIMESTAMPS - How to Become a Data Analyst w/o Applying 1000 Jobs
00:00 - Introduction
02:18 - Steps to effective job searching
05:06 - The 2-Hour Job Search
10:54 - Asking strangers for advice vs. applying online
18:35 - Earned referrals vs. online referrals
20:24 - PremiumDataJobs.com and DataFairy.io
24:37 - Effective outreach messages
27:18 - The Role of AI in Job Searching
28:16 - The 6-Point Email
34:00 - Ed Bernier's "Three-Hour Rule"
38:57 - Advice for job seekers
🔗 CONNECT WITH STEVE
🤝 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daltonsteve/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dalton_steve/
🎵 X: https://x.com/dalton_steve
💻 Website: https://2hourjobsearch.com/
🔗 CONNECT WITH AVERY
🎥 YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@averysmith
🤝 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/averyjsmith/
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/datacareerjumpstart
🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@verydata
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Dalton (00:00):
But you have an interview with every company you've ever wanted.
(00:02):
And the round one interview is thisfind somebody in your job of choice at
that company and have them recommendyou to another person at that company.
That's it.
Avery Smith (00:10):
This is Steve Dalton and Steve is the author of the two hour
job search, and he's been helpingpeople find jobs for the last 20 years.
And in today's episode, he'llexplain his rather radical
philosophy on how to land a job.
Without even applying online.
So if you're sitting here and you'relistening and you're like, man, I feel
like applying online is pointless.
(00:31):
Steve Lokey kind of agrees with you.
Steve Dalton (00:34):
There is no way to systematically beat online job postings.
Avery Smith (00:37):
Okay.
Okay.
But what should you do instead?
Steve Dalton (00:40):
The data supports networking is a better approach.
Networked referrals are 12times more likely to get a job
than an online job applicant.
It makes sense to go afterthe 12x versus the 1x.
Avery Smith (00:50):
In this episode, Steve and I will teach you exactly.
How you can ditch the black hole ofapplying online and instead network your
way into landing your first data job.
So let's go ahead andget into this episode.
So Steve, you are the author ofthe two hour job search and the
job closer, both of which werepublished by Penguin Random House.
(01:10):
So that's, that's a big deal.
You're kind of one of the only peoplewho has like, like a go to thought leader
in the industry for, for finding a job.
Can you just give us like a big pictureof like what your philosophy is?
And, you know, what you'd kind ofdo if you needed to find a job.
Steve Dalton (01:26):
Absolutely.
I think there is no shortageof tips on job searching.
What I do is not tips.
I do instructions.
I was a former chemical engineer,so I like process, but it was really
the 08 financial crisis when Irealized people were overwhelmed.
They were losing theirjobs, getting laid off.
When you're stressed and concernedabout your welfare, you don't have
(01:46):
the ability to curate tips into ausable format, but you do have the
ability to follow instructions.
If you want someone to bake you acake, you don't hand them a list of
ingredients, you hand them a recipe.
And I figured that made more sense for jobsearching than just giving people tips and
telling them to figure it out themselves.
Avery Smith (02:01):
That makes a lot of sense because B, when you're looking
for a job, you're usually like verystressed and almost frantic, right?
It's, you're not reallythinking coherently, and so
it makes a lot more sense.
Okay, like this is step one,this is step two, this is step
three, so on and so forth.
So I like that.
It makes a lot of sense.
Uh, what, what are those steps then?
Steve Dalton (02:21):
Really, first step above all else is find a set of instructions
that you trust and, and stick to it.
I mean, that is the key.
That is the answer to almost everyproblem you will face in your life.
Like, find somebody who solvedit before, ask them how they
did it, follow that template.
But largely, when it comes specificallyto job searching, the first step is
basically, before we spend dozens of hourslooking, let's spend one hour deciding
(02:45):
where to even look in the first place.
That involves somethingcalled the LAMP list.
Let's take the universe of allpossible employers, put them into
a logical subset, according to ourtastes, and then put them into a
logical order of attack based on mostpromising odds to least promising odds.
Second step is once we've got our toptargets identified, how do we reach out?
to people at those organizationsmost effectively to get them to
(03:08):
agree to interact with us in realtime so that we might be able
to convert them into a mentor.
Then step three is what do you say toa person to convert a total stranger
into a potential mentor in a 30minute conversation that really the
whole two hour job search processis born out of the realization that
there is no data that supports thatonline job postings are beatable that
customizing your resume in any way.
(03:29):
Increases your odds ofgetting an interview.
There's literally no data thatdemonstrates that, which is deeply
troubling because people have verystrong feelings on how important it is.
But there's no expected, like.
return on your investment, in myopinion, that's deeply troubling.
So if there is no way to systematicallybeat online job postings, that leaves
(03:50):
networking as your best result.
The data supports networkingas a better approach.
Networked referrals are 12times more likely to get a job
than an online job applicant.
So it makes sense to goafter the 12x versus the 1x.
Avery Smith (04:02):
I tried to experiment with this.
And so I posted a job on LinkedIn.
I made it very clear, no oneshould apply to this job.
I said, don't apply to this job.
This is just a test.
This is only a test, a closed test.
I wanted to test with some of myaccelerator students to see like which
one of them would rank the highest.
Well, I got about 550 applicationsin about 24 hours before
LinkedIn shut down my experiment.
(04:23):
Um, so first off that goes to showthat people, even, even when you see
that there's like 500 applicants ona job, like I can guarantee you that
90 percent of those people didn'tread the job description because
I said literally over and over andover again, do not fuck this job.
This is a test.
But when I got the results,it was really interesting.
It made no sense to me.
Like the, the top candidate through theLinkedIn ATS was a terrible candidate.
(04:43):
And for the longest time, I waslike, I was going to make a YouTube
video about this and I still have it.
Cause I was like, I can'texplain what happened here.
Right?
Like my accelerator studentsweren't ranking that high
in the LinkedIn algorithm.
I was like, what the heck is going on?
And then I talked to a recruiterabout it and they're like, yeah,
the, the LinkedIn ATS is very bad.
Like they hate it.
So it's like, it's like, how are youeven supposed to, anyways, how are
you supposed to play a game when likethere's no rules and it makes no sense.
(05:06):
And anyways, it's, it's terriblyhard with, with all this being said,
like the title of your book, thetwo hour job search, is it possible?
To land a job in like two hours?
Steve Dalton (05:16):
I imagine theoretically, but the two hour job search that the two
hours in the title does not refer to theamount of time it takes you to find a job.
Uh, it refers to the amount oftime that it takes to get as far
as you can on your own before yousimply need the help of others.
So put another way, if it were noon and myboss were to tell me, Steve, you're fired.
Start looking for a job right now.
By 2 p.
(05:37):
m.
I'd have gotten as far asI possibly could on my own.
At that point, I simply need otherpeople to make any further progress.
But in that two hours, I can set up acompletely strategic and science based job
search that maximizes the efficiency of aninherently inefficient subject, which is.
Getting other people's help.
But, and from that point forward, Ican give exact instructions for what
to do if then it's a massive flowchart.
(05:58):
There's exact instructions for it if youfollow the first two hours according to
the recipe of the two hour job search.
Uh, but a lot of people will, who aren'tfamiliar with the book, will say that
you can get a job in two hours or thatyou have to do two hours of work per day.
And it's neither of those things.
It's no more than a half an hour of workin most days, and you have weekends off.
Uh, it's meant to be very finite,because usually if you're job searching,
(06:20):
you have other responsibilities.
Maybe a, a, another full time job.
Maybe you're takingcare of family members.
Maybe you're in school full time.
Like, you just don't have twohours a day to devote to this.
Getting the most bang for your buck.
That's really what the two hour jobsearch is about, and the two hours
has to do with how long it takes youto get set up to succeed in a, a, a,
an advocacy based job search ratherthan an online posting based one.
Avery Smith (06:42):
That's so cool, because I feel like most people would look
at job searching as like a very solo,uh, and lonely activity, but you're
saying, hey, two hours on your own,and then you got to go be social
in your job search, essentially.
Steve Dalton (06:54):
Yeah, it's, it's off your shoulders, like, people will ignore you,
it just happens, but in two hours, youcan get as far as you could possibly get.
So there's, there's some feelingof success there, just knowing,
okay, I'm, I'm set up for success.
I'm going to have to ride somestatistical waves in the future of
people who choose not to respond tome and some who do, or some who, uh,
(07:14):
pretend to be helpful at first, butthen prove themselves not to be helpful.
Like, but it only takes you two hoursto set yourself up for a much more
long game focused and increasinglySuccessful job search compared to
that same amount of time spent onlineapplying to postings ad nauseum.
Avery Smith (07:31):
I think that is so important because I actually did a poll
on LinkedIn and I said, you know, howdo you, how do you search for jobs?
And 80 percent of people said that,you know, they, they browse job
boards and they, they hit apply.
And then I did a poll the next day and Isaid, like, how'd you get your last job?
And like 67 percent were eitherlike recruited or, or referred.
And so it's like, okay, we're doinglike the reverse 80, 20 roll where
(07:55):
we're spending 80 percent of our time onsomething that doesn't even get, you know,
that gets literally like what I guess alittle bit more 30 percent of the results.
But what you're kind of saying is likethe whole applying online thing is broken.
And like, There's not even really a goodchance that's going to lead you anywhere.
And you're kind of sayingto ignore it, right?
Steve Dalton (08:14):
I use it very, very judiciously.
I did a LinkedIn post myself where Iasked readers to assume that online
job postings interview rate was 0%.
How would that change your search?
And then as the conversation andcomments kind of built out, I started
saying, well, it's pretty close to 0%.
So why aren't we doingthose things already?
Uh, because it's, it's kind of negligible.
(08:35):
My deepest concern with online jobpostings and, and, and advice that guides
job seekers to investing in that moreeffectively or more efficiently or, or
with more volume is that you don't learnanything from applying to jobs online.
You don't get smarter.
You are no better a candidatetomorrow than you are today.
If you, even if you spent eight hoursapplying online today, but when you
(08:57):
reach out to smart people in your fieldof choice and ask them how they got
so good at their jobs, you do becomea stronger candidate day to day.
You develop a better understanding.
You become more conversant intopics you find interesting and
would like to pursue a career in.
So online job postings, there'sa time and a place for them.
Namely, for your top targets, whensomeone tells you you need to apply,
(09:17):
or for your non top targets thatyou're not networking with, go ahead
and apply when you have downtime.
Uh, but that's the bigbenefit of having a LAMP list.
It tells you, here is your benchmark,here are your top six that you
should be networking with becausethey're that important to you.
And outside the top six,do whatever you want.
It's, it's your spare time.
You could apply to job your bottom34 or you could go see a movie
(09:37):
or have a meal with a loved one.
Things that will more predictably provideyou a positive return on investment.
Avery Smith (09:43):
Interesting.
So I like what you said where you'relike, you could apply for jobs online.
You're not necessarily learninganything, but if you're reaching out
to people, first off, you're meetingpeople, you're expanding your network.
Second off, like you're going tohave a conversation with them.
You're probably going to learnmaybe what they do at their job.
You're going to maybe learnhow they got their job.
And so you can kind of startto get smarter in this process.
(10:03):
Um, I can hear people in the YouTubecomments already, and you know, they're,
they're saying, okay, that's great.
But like when I reach out topeople, they don't respond.
So it's like, that doesn'tfeel very fruitful.
Steve Dalton (10:14):
No, uh, no, it doesn't at all, but it's, it's rather unfortunate.
We as a society are so used toEquating success to something very
close to 100 percent effectiveness.
If you take a step back and youlook at something like a baseball
player, the best baseball playersin the world get paid millions of
dollars to only fail 70 percent ofthe time that they go on offense.
(10:34):
There aren't any good non sportsanalogies like that people
can really relate to though.
Publishing, like academicpapers I've heard.
Not everybody does that.
Uh, I was a chemicalengineer, you were as well.
Getting a 30 percent was an A onmost of our tests back in the day.
Uh, so it felt great to get a 30%, butmost people don't see a success rate
of 20 percent and think that's good.
But it is absolutely good when you'rereaching out to strangers to ask them
(10:57):
for the gift of their time and knowledge.
If you're hearing back 20 or 30 percentof the time, that's really good.
You will have to kiss a lot offrogs to find your prince or
your princess in this process.
But the prince or princesses that you findare so dramatically worth the investment.
You get smarter.
You have more eyes and earslooking out on your behalf.
You have people empathizing with you.
You have mentors directingyou on what to do next.
(11:20):
So it's not all on your shoulders alone.
There are just so many advantagesto that, that approach.
Avery Smith (11:25):
Uh, do you think that, so I think the term that you use and
I'm, I'm like, I'm a data career coach.
I'm not really a, a formal career coach.
And, uh, I'm, I'm halfway in between likelanding a job and teaching data analysis.
So I think the, the, the, the termthat a lot of people use in your
space is like, is it the interviewrate or the applicant rate?
And that's like the total numberapplications you send out before
(11:46):
you get an interview, right.
Or the percentage that youget, is that the right term?
Steve Dalton (11:49):
I.
Can see how that would be a term.
Yes.
Avery Smith (11:52):
Okay.
Steve Dalton (11:53):
I don't support it.
I think that is an outdated metric.
I don't think there's any correlationbetween the number of applications
you submit and how successfulyou are in your job search,
Avery Smith (12:03):
which is, well, that's exactly what I was
going to say is, is like.
People, people rather justapply online because they feel
like it's more productive.
But if you sent, let's say, let's sayevery time you apply for a job, you
cold apply for a job online, you sendalso one of these like cold messages
for an informational interview.
Do you think the percentages wouldbe pretty comparable for like the
(12:24):
number of times you hear back?
Steve Dalton (12:26):
No, I think you'll hear back from strangers far more frequently than
you'll hear back from online postings.
I also did another post on LinkedInrecently that challenged job
seekers to imagine if applyingeach online job application, you.
Submitted cost you 1.
How would your job search change?
And then again, over the course ofthe comments, people realized, Oh,
wait, the cost is more like 20 or 50.
(12:47):
If you factor in mental anguish,effort, time, confidence, all the
sort of ancillary costs that goalong with applying to jobs online.
I think what keeps people away fromnetworking with strangers, and I think
it's comforting to think nobody willrespond because that absolves you from
any obligation to try it or to move.
deeply invest in it.
But I think what holds people backfrom pursuing it with rigor is
(13:09):
that they've never been taught.
I think a lot of people feel someembarrassment that they don't know
how to do this networking thing.
Everybody tells you to go network likeit's self evident, but nobody ever
actually teaches you how to do it.
And that's just cruel.
I think that's a failing ofhigher education to be honest.
We It is a unique skill.
I think if you ask a stranger on thestreet, if they're good at networking
people, this surprises me, people oftensay, yeah, I'm good at networking.
(13:31):
And I'm like, that doesn't matchwhat my students say in my office.
Tell me more.
And they'll say, well, never.
I'm placed on a new teamat work or at school.
I get along with my teammatesand some of them become friends.
And I tell them, okay,that's reactive networking,
otherwise known as cooperation.
We learn that naturally aswe age to survive proactive
networking is what I teach.
How do you reach out to a strangerwho's not expecting to hear from you
(13:52):
or have a relationship with you back?
That's a total unique skill set.
You would never blame an adultwho doesn't know how to swim if
they've never been trained to swim.
Or speak a foreign languageif they've never been trained
to speak a foreign language.
Why are we so quick to blame people whodon't know how to proactively network
when nobody has been trained for this?
The good news is it's a skillyou can learn and I have exact
instructions for how to do it.
Avery Smith (14:11):
It's that's very fascinating.
Um, remind me, do you stillwork at Duke or not anymore?
Steve Dalton (14:15):
Not anymore.
After 17 wonderful years, I left in 2022.
Avery Smith (14:19):
Okay, good.
That means I can, I can talkabout, uh, colleges a little
bit more, uh, freely here.
Um, my point here is, yeah,you're a hundred percent right.
That if, if we, if we go back and we talkabout like, okay, most people are landing
their jobs for being recruited or referredand we go to college to get a job.
Like, why is that such a, like ancillary?
If it even exists in college, right?
(14:39):
Like I went to the university of Utah,there is career services there, but
like, I don't, I hardly ever went.
And maybe when I went, I didn'treally find it all that useful.
I do think if I went to Duke and I had,you know, you as a career resource,
that would be really helpful, but itis, it is silly to me that like, if
like networking is what gets you jobs.
Why do we ignore it somuch in higher education?
Steve Dalton (15:00):
Considering how many classes we are required to take as
core curriculum, I'm still stunnedthat the ability to pay off our
debts and provide for our lovedones is not one of those classes.
To me, this is a life skill.
I think it's, it's, It's just, it'sa moral and ethical failing on the
part of higher ed to not ensurestudents graduate with these, with
that skill, knowing how much moneythey've invested in the institution.
(15:23):
I feel like genuine frustration andanger that it doesn't get more attention.
I think part of the reasonis that when you're a hammer,
everything looks like a nail.
Most universities are run by tenuretrack faculty whose job searches are
nothing like their students job searches.
It's a whole parallel system, but theydon't have a lot of understanding for
(15:43):
how that process works when there's notperfect infrastructure provided for you.
And a fleet of recruiters helping youmove from one organization to another.
So to me, it's, it's, uh, it'sa, it's a crisis of leadership.
I do think schools who get thisright faster will enjoy an advantage
in the marketplace, but we'renot where we need to be on this.
Avery Smith (16:02):
If I was cynical, I would say that, uh, colleges have no true
incentive to get you a job as theyjust want you to go to more school
as, as a solution, but, but I don'tthink that's actually how it is.
But Maybe.
I don't know.
Okay.
With, with that, uh, I would like to trademy political science one on one for a
networking class taught by Steve Dalton,but I think I'm a little bit too late.
(16:23):
Um, okay, let's, let's give them, andI know in your books that you go into
like a masterclass of how to actuallydo these, these reach outs and you
know what to say, but in short, likeif I have never sent a cold message
before in my life, if I've never donelike an informational interview, um,
if I've never, maybe I've never eventalked to a stranger before, like.
What do I do?
Steve Dalton (16:42):
Most important thing you can do first for this process is forget
you ever heard the phrase sell yourself.
Uh, it is so damaging.
It hurts people.
It's easy for career coachesto tell you to do it.
And it's so counterproductiveand outdated.
When we sense sales pitches coming ourway, our guards go up, but success in the
modern job search means bringing strangersguards down systematically over time.
(17:04):
Hey stranger, you don't know me,but here's 10 reasons why I'm
awesome is not a great way to reachout to someone who didn't ask for
that email in the first place.
There's a great body ofresearch on this topic.
It's called switching fromsocial norms to market norms.
Where if you offer, if you ask astranger to help you move a couch out
of a moving van, this is an experimentby Dan O'Reilly that he talks through
and, and predictably irrational.
(17:26):
You are just as likely to get a stranger'shelp if you offer 0 than if you offer 50.
But if you offer 5,you're far less likely.
Then either of the other twoscenarios and he calls the switching
from social norms to market norms.
When you ask for a favor, you aresuccessful a fraction of the time.
Uh, as soon as you offer compensation,it's not a good deed plus 5.
That's not what motivatessomeone to do it.
(17:47):
The good deed goes out the window andit's purely an hourly wage calculation.
The people who help you find jobs are notgoing to get promoted for helping you.
The stock price isn't going toshoot up the day that you start.
The reason they're helping you isout of the goodness of their heart.
And some people are wired that way.
We just need to find those people.
It is so much easier to ask a stranger forthe gift of their time and knowledge in
an outreach email than to sell yourself.
(18:08):
So not only is the email easier towrite, it's more successful and it
attracts the right kind of Collaborator.
Uh, so that's really the first step.
Forget, sell yourself,forget you ever heard it.
I wish that would die a fierydeath, but people keep repeating
it, but learn to ask for favorsand again, it's a learnable skill.
You've just never beentaught how to do it.
Avery Smith (18:27):
Very, very interesting.
Um, I want to sit here for a, for a secondhere because I almost want to push back
a little bit because there are some.
I think many companies have like anemployee referral program, right?
Where, where if you helpplace an employee, um, you
might make like 500 bucks.
I mean, that is somewhatof an incentive, correct?
Don't you think?
Steve Dalton (18:45):
Uh, it is, again, it's another sort of dated type of
infrastructure because I think whenpeople are trying to game that system as
an employee, you're trying to minimizeyour investment in a, uh, a job seeker.
So job seeker reaches out.
The person says, I don't havetime to talk, but here, use this
link to apply to your job online.
Uh, because everybody kind of doesn'tunderstand how powerful referrals are.
(19:06):
They think that's a referral, and it is,but the problem is the word referral.
The referral includes things like that,where there's no relationship form.
Uh, it's, I don't have time to talk.
Apply through this link, but Icall that an online referral.
Online referrals are points of parity.
They're easy to get, soyou get what you pay for.
Contrast those.
You have other people who willcomplain that referrals are, are,
they just, uh, they're nepotistic.
(19:27):
They help the rich get richer.
Uh, and I, I agree it, somereferrals are like that.
You, your, your dad goes to thesame country club as the CEO.
That's also called a referral, buta very different kind of referral
than just put my name down on yourapplication or apply through this link.
I call those birthright referrals.
Yeah, there are no skill on your own.
Like you just were born to theright family at the right time.
(19:47):
So congratulations.
Uh, and some people have these,they'd be fools not to use them.
But most of us don't have those.
So what is our option that Icall those earned referrals?
Do you have the ability to take a strangerat an organization you'd like to work
for and turn them into an advocate?
That is a real skill that will beuseful in any job at any company.
So you're actually demonstratingin the way that you approach
(20:08):
that you have valuable skillsthat the company will will value.
But ultimately, like, don't equateonline referrals with earned referrals.
Earned referrals providelasting benefit and knowledge.
Online referrals provide about whatyou'd get from not having an online
referral, which is basically nothing.
Avery Smith (20:24):
All right, if you've enjoyed this episode so far and you're
like, Yes, networking is the way.
I want to be networking toland my first day at a job.
Then you're going to absolutelylove these two things that I've
built from absolute scratch.
They pair really well together andthis is like basically a cheat code.
To actually doing what we've beentalking about in this episode.
The first one is premium data jobs.
com.
This is my premium data job board.
(20:46):
It costs money.
It's not free, but it's going to saveyou so many hours a week in a month.
It's totally worth it.
So it's just a normal job board,but the difference is here that
every job that you look at here willhave a recruiter, a hiring manager.
An individual contributorthat you can reach out to.
So like, for instance, thisdata analyst job is pretty cool.
If you're like a physical therapist,like this would be really relevant
(21:07):
to you because it's a data analystat a physical therapy company.
Once again, just kind of looks likea normal job description, right?
But when you click apply now, it'sgoing to take you to a LinkedIn post
where like the hiring manager, therecruiter, or someone has posted this job.
Um, and we tried to do it really quickly.
So you can see that this was posted.
This was posted three days ago and we,this was posted online three days ago.
(21:30):
So we were one of the first peopleto help you apply to this job.
And what the cool part here, hereis you can actually open up this
person's LinkedIn profile andactually talk to this person, right?
We can send a message to them.
In this episode, we've talked aboutwho to reach out to and what to say.
And so when you're just gettingstarted, what I highly recommend
is checking out DataFerry.
DataFerry, like, like alittle magical nymph, right?
Has this really cool tool.
(21:50):
I built DataFerry, uh, as well.
You can go to the cold message composerdown here, and this is actually using
AI and R framework in the background.
So it's not just chat GPT.
It's Chachapiti plus all of our knowledgeand all of my frameworks on sending
cold messages and select, you know, whoyou're actually, you know, sending it to.
So in this case, a hiring manager, andthat's going to ask you some questions.
It's going to ask you to put intheir, their LinkedIn profile so
(22:11):
that we can get to know this person.
And it's giving the AI bot alot of context on who you're
messaging and why you're messaging.
And the combination of premiumdata jobs and DataFerry is honestly
really deadly in your job search.
So you can actually get startedfor free with both of these.
The first one is goingto be premium data jobs.
com.
The second one is going to be data ferry.
io.
(22:31):
Go check these out and at leastget a feel for how you could
possibly do this on your own.
Let's get back into the episode.
I like that what you said earlierthat some people are going to be
intrinsically motivated and we wantto just kind of find those people.
Um, I've definitely seen that in, in mystudents and when I was at Exxon mobile.
And, uh, I was posting a lot of LinkedIn.
I was growing a ton onLinkedIn at the time.
(22:52):
People would reach out all the time.
Hey, can you help meget a job at ExxonMobil?
And some of those peoplewere from like India.
And I was like, sorry, I don't havea whole lot in common with you.
I don't even know what it's like.
I haven't been to India.
I haven't, I haven't gone from India tothe U S to work at an American company.
Like, I don't really knowa whole lot about that.
And.
For those people, I was one, tobe honest, less motivated to help
(23:14):
because I couldn't relate as much.
But if someone at the time whenI was at ExxonMobil, Exxon is
really about like career hires.
So they're very, they hired to retire.
They're like what they say, right?
So they're very like, they'rein the college game quite a bit.
And they don't recruit out of theUniversity of Utah, which is where I went.
And because of that, there's only,I was one of three people to, from
(23:34):
my school to work at Exxon Mobile.
And I was, I was really proud of that.
Right.
Cause that's like, there'snot a whole lot of us there.
So if someone from the University ofUtah reached out to me, it was like,
Hey, how do I work for Exxon Mobile?
I was much more intrinsicallymotivated to help them because
I was like, yeah, go you.
It's like, I want a fourth person here.
Let's, I know the exactjourney that I did.
That'll be really relatable to you.
So like, here's what I did.
(23:55):
Let's get on a phone call.
Go talk to this person.
Go talk to that person.
And like, It's the same ask, but tobe perfectly frank, I was so much more
motivated to help another, another ute.
I mean, it didn't have to be, youknow, it could have been anything.
It could have been someone thatgoes to the same church as me.
It could have been, you know, someonethat likes soccer, like whatever.
They related to me in some way.
All of a sudden I was like,Oh, I see myself in you.
(24:15):
And I, I, my experience is kindof what your experience might be.
So I have a lot more to offer andI'm also more motivated to help.
Does that, does that make sense?
Is that kind of what you're saying?
Steve Dalton (24:23):
Yes and no.
Commonality is great when youhave it, but a lot of us don't
have commonality with people.
Like if we're targeting a smallorganization, they don't, a
person can go to the same school.
I don't have anything in common with them.
What, what then do I just have to resignmyself to never being employed again?
I would say the better way to writethat outreach email is not can you
help me get a job at ExxonMobil?
It's hey, do you have some timeto talk about your experience
(24:43):
in data science at ExxonMobil?
Your, your insights be greatly appreciatedbecause I'm trying to learn more about Uh,
data science in the oil and gas sector.
Okay, now I'm not asking you for a job.
I'm asking you how you got sosmart at your job, which is a
much more fun conversation totake up, to take someone up on.
I mean, obviously, you'd rather thatperson have gone to your same school so
you can talk about the old times and lifeon campus, but barring that, I think,
(25:06):
and I can't blame the students thatwere reaching out to you to ask, ask you
point blank and, and starting from zero,like, can you help me get a job at your
organization despite not knowing me?
Because that, thatinvolves risk on your part.
That involves you spending social capitalon someone that you can't vouch for.
Scary.
Which is dangerous.
So, the better way, I can't fault peoplefor doing that because again, they've
(25:27):
never been taught how to do this.
And that is on higher ed.
That is not on job seekersmaking a, a perfectly reasonable
assumption that I should.
Be direct.
I should tell people what I want.
I should ask for theassistance I'm seeking.
Uh, but it's not how you get a strangerto, to lower their guard enough to,
to invest 30 minutes in you and see ifyou're someone they want to advocate for.
Avery Smith (25:47):
That makes a lot of, a lot of sense.
It reminded me, we, we had a, a,another career coach on, Daniel Botero.
And one time he told me, um, if youask for a referral, you get advice.
If you ask for advice, you get a referral.
Steve Dalton (26:00):
I, I had a salesperson give me their variant of this, which
is if you ask for time, you get money.
If you ask for money, you get time.
Avery Smith (26:07):
Yeah.
Steve Dalton (26:07):
Um, so, uh, a, a, a development person actually
trying to raise funds for,for universities and stuff.
Uh, same thing's true.
I, I, it's a weird quirkof American culture.
We're known the world around for beingvery blunt and direct, but we have a
couple of weird exceptions to that.
Negative feedback.
We don't we're not very direct.
We like the sandwich.
Here's something nice.
(26:27):
Here's why we're having the meeting.
But here's another nice thing.
And we're really indirect about jobsearching and coming from outside the U.
S.
I don't know how you're supposedto know that about the U.
S.
That we have these weird blind spots orexceptions to always being pretty direct,
which The more heterogeneous your societyis, the more you have to like put things
in words because you can't rely on apause or eye contact to convey meaning.
(26:50):
Same way.
People just, people need to be taughtthese things and nobody's teaching
it and that really frustrates me.
Which is why I wrote, I don't actuallylove writing, but I hated the idea
that only students that were wealthyenough to afford business school
and then happened to choose Dukecould access this methodology that I
developed to help people find jobs.
So I wanted to put it in the handsof anyone at the library card.
Avery Smith (27:12):
Well, we appreciate you doing that.
We appreciate both those booksand we appreciate you being here,
giving us a glimpse into it.
When people are starting to writethese like messages and cold messages,
do you think it's okay for themto utilize things like ChatGPT?
Steve Dalton (27:25):
I would if ChatGPT were good at it.
But ChatGPT is oftengarbage in, garbage out.
People think to use ChatGPT onthings it's not great at in the
job search, like cover letters.
Uh, outreach messages on the problem.
There is cover letters.
It learns on what's on the Internet.
That's how chat GPT improvesoutreach messages that learns
from what's on the Internet.
(27:45):
And those messages on the Internetare very market norm based.
Like here's all the value that Iwould bring to your organization.
Here's why you should takeme seriously as a candidate.
So it's really not great at the thingsthat you think it should be good at.
It's great at other things in thejob search, figuring out what you
wanna do with your life, for example.
It's surprisingly good at that.
It's great at helping you understandwhat projects you would do if you
(28:08):
actually were hired to do a company.
It's great for helping you brainstormcompanies that you'd like to work
for in the first place, but itis not great at writing messages.
Uh, so the, I teach somethingcalled the six point email.
In the two hour job search.
It's under.
75 words long.
The body of the emailis about 46 words long.
This is not a long emailand it's pretty formulaic.
(28:28):
It's it's basically a fill in the blankexercise, but it's been evolved over tens
of thousands of iterations of practiceand and modification and a B testing.
If you will, that is moreeffective at getting in touch
with that target audience who isIntrinsically motivated to be helpful.
Chat GPT is not thinking in termsof who is my target audience?
Oh, it's people who areintrinsically helpful.
(28:49):
What's the best way toget in touch with them?
Oh, it's to ask them for the giftof their time and knowledge using
social norms rather than market norms.
So it doesn't have the wholephilosophy of the two hour job search.
That's why the two hour job search hasa lot of philosophy and science in it to
demonstrate here's why this makes sense.
Here's the, the research backing thisapproach as being a more fruitful.
(29:09):
line of investigation than sellyourself and spamming lots of people.
Avery Smith (29:13):
I think that's true for everything you could almost do in
ChatGPT is like, it's okay at whatevertask you give it, um, but it's probably
never going to be a proven framework.
And maybe when you combine it withlike a proven framework and, and some
of the creativity to, to kind of getyou started like a warm start, I think
that, that can be, that can be powerful.
(29:34):
But obviously like the, the mostsuccessful cold messages probably
are plastered all over the internet.
They happened in text messagesand emails and LinkedIn messages.
So chat GPT won't have access to, to that.
What other, what other like techcan you use in your job search?
There's.
There's a, I don't know if you've seen,um, I just have one of my students
in the accelerator ask about it.
I can't remember the product name.
(29:55):
We don't give them the plug, butlike some, some sort of like AI tool
that like goes out there and appliesto like millions of jobs for you.
What, what, what like technologycan job seekers use that you
think might have some use?
Steve Dalton (30:07):
Honestly, I think it's, I would put it this way.
Online job postings used towork back in the era of monster.
com circa 2000.
Online job postings were great.
And then they started becoming less greatas more people found out about them.
And then AI came on the scene andcompanies were using AI to weed out
candidates and candidates startedusing AI to apply to more jobs.
So with more applications and more AIweeding you out using rules that you
(30:30):
can't understand from the outside,I would argue that the success rate
on online job postings has gottenworse over the last few years.
There's just more applications out there.
So by definition, like, okay, if,so if online job postings continue
to get worse, and then we have ghostjobs on top of that, an estimate
saying 20 percent of those jobshave no intention of being filled.
A lot of those postings have alreadyhave someone earmarked for that position.
(30:52):
So like if online job postings getworse, the alternatives have to
become more attractive in comparison,even if they don't get better.
And that's how I feel about networking.
Like, yes, you can find botsthat will apply to many jobs
that you may or may not want.
But wouldn't you prefer a job thatyou want to a job that you don't want?
And wouldn't you prefer to besmarter tomorrow than you are today?
All, like, mass applying justdoesn't pass the smell test.
(31:16):
If ever, if it works,everybody would do it.
And if everybody did it,it would stop working.
So it's not a protectable advantage.
What is?
Important right now isshowing that you have that.
It feels like we'regoing back to the future.
Like networking was never thisimportant for our parents because they
had some geographical protections.
They would look up for jobs inthe one ads of the newspaper
back when we had newspapers.
(31:37):
So networking is more importantnow than it's ever been before.
It's I call it a universal round one.
You have an interview withevery company you've ever
wanted, and they all have this.
They've all agreed to standardizethe round one interview and
the round one interview.
There's no time limitand it's already started.
So you can start whenever you want.
The round one interview is this,find somebody in your job of choice
at that company and have themrecommend you to another person
(31:59):
in that function at that company.
That's it.
If you do that, you've got a, you'vegot a first round interview the
next time they have an opening.
And I think people are just like,Oh, that sounds so hard, but is it?
I mean, a, you haven't learned it.
So assuming you've learned it.
Is reaching out to strangers and askingthem how they got so good at their job
harder than the soul crushing work ofapplying to online job postings over
(32:20):
and over or constantly trolling to seeif there are new postings that have
gone up in the last 24 hours becauseyou read somewhere at one time that
applying in the first hour makes youa more attractive candidate for some
reason, is that really who companies want?
Are the person who's living to see thatthe latest job posting in the last hour?
There's, there's lotsof problems with it, so.
In terms of technology thatI recommend, I love AI.
(32:43):
I think it has its place in thejob search, but you have to be
judicious with where you use it.
I really like Crunchbase forhelping you brainstorm companies.
I love Hunter.
io for helping you identify email contactinformation for people at companies.
But I really like the technologythat I think is most important is.
Technology in the knowledge sense.
It's learning how to reach out tostrangers and ask for the gift of
(33:04):
their time and knowledge effectively.
Avery Smith (33:06):
I read a tweet recently that said in the future, we might
pay for AI less experiences.
Like we might, we might like pay apremium for like, no, this has no AI.
This is just human to human interaction.
So I think that that definitely you, youcan really stand out if you're able to.
To make that human connection.
I want to go to, to you talking aboutlike, when you do these cold applications,
(33:30):
it's a little bit like, like a black box.
Uh, you don't really know a hundredpercent why if you ever get an
interview, why, and when you getrejected, you certainly don't
really know why you get rejected.
That's, that's really frustrating becauseif you're putting hundreds of applications
out there and you're spending hundredsof hours, like into the system where
the game is unknown, there's no rulesto the game, uh, or, or, or maybe there
(33:52):
are, but, but you can't know them.
That's not really fun.
Um, and that kind of leads you to kind of.
Kind of your, your resumerole, I guess it's, it's Ed's.
I can't remember who Ed is, butthis is Ed's three hour resume role.
You want to explain what that is?
Steve Dalton (34:04):
Sure.
Ed was my supervisor, uh, my lastsupervisor when I worked at the career
center at the business school at Duke.
And he had this greatphrase that I loved it.
He said to whenever we'd have a newcohort of students, he said, assume that
your job search will take you 100 hours.
I want you spending no more thanthree of them on your resume.
And I just, I love how succinctand how proportional that makes
(34:26):
people see the, the role of theresume and in a greater job search.
Again, it's free.
It is free for every career coach outthere to say something like you need
to customize your resume for onlineapp, any, every online application.
I see that regularly.
I, what I don't see is any data thatsupports that that actually works.
So the upside is completely unknown anduncertain, but the downside is certain.
(34:46):
That takes you time and effort tocustomize every resume for every
online application, even when youknow the online application response
rate is pretty close to zero.
So to me, that is malpractice.
Uh, if there's no proof that it works,but the costs are certain, like, I
don't know how you can sleep at nighttelling people that they should do that.
Ed's three hour rule justprovides some context.
That 97 hours, a lot of people will bragabout how long they spent on the resume.
(35:10):
The problem is like nobody agreeson what a perfect resume looks like.
What we do agree on is what agood enough resume looks like.
The 80 percent resume.
We kind of agree on that.
It's error free that theformatting all lines up.
It's easy to read.
There's some white space.
I understand clearly whatthe flow of your career was.
But once you get to a point where feedbackis subjective rather than objective,
meaning it's a matter of opinion, nota matter of fact, like that margin is
(35:33):
clearly misaligned versus I think youshould move up your action verbs here.
Like then we're getting to apoint where you are exerting
effort with no certain upside.
And that's not a good value proposition.
I just, it breaks my heart when I hearpeople work with professional resume
reviewer, resume coaches, and they gettheir resume, what they think is perfect.
And they think that until they showit to literally anyone else, because
(35:55):
everyone's an expert on resumes.
And then they feel like, Oh, didI just waste a bunch of money?
It's really heartbreaking to hear that.
My recommendation is doyour best with your resume.
Don't spend more than three hours on it.
Um, I talk about this in mysecond book, the job closer.
How do you get it done in three hours?
There it's pretty easy.
Actually, most people, when theystress out about their resumes,
they're not They're not stressedabout what actually matters.
(36:17):
What I mean by that, there was a studyby the ladders done a number of years
ago that showed that 80 percent of, uh,human resume reviewers attention was on
the following items, the companies youworked for your job titles, your dates
of employment, and your school attended.
What all those things have incommon, they are the things that
you can't change on your resume.
They are objective info.
What we stress about is not theobjective info, it's the bullet points.
(36:38):
And the bullet points intotal, we're getting 1.
2 seconds, compared to 4.
8 seconds for all of the objective data.
So nobody's reading it.
And if they are reading it, theyalready like you, which means you've
done some networking or have areferral of some sort, which is good.
Uh, so because there's just nopositive return on investment of
hours and hours of effort, I recommenddoing your best on your resume.
(36:59):
I frankly recommend brainstormingyour interview stories first and then
using those to populate your resume.
Chat GPT is great at condensing yourinterview stories down to bullet points.
Um, that's one of its strengths.
Uh, so, and that way you don't have todo double work when it's time to prep
for interviews, but that's not how mostpeople are taught to do a job search.
It's always resume first, uh, cover letterfirst, then we'll practice interview
(37:19):
skills once you start getting interviews.
But I think the three hour rule is just anice way to remind yourself, do your best.
What they're, what they care aboutare the things that you can't change,
not the things that you can change.
So just do your best on thethings you can change, and you'll
get better at it over time.
Avery Smith (37:33):
That's really cool.
Um, yeah, really neat that like Cause,cause you're right, if you give your
resume to literally any people, likesomeone's going to nitpick something
and say, you should change it.
So there obviously is no perfect resumeand it's maybe more, maybe at the
beginning, there's a lot of science to it.
Like you need to tryto get it past the ATS.
You need it to make sense.
You don't want to have misspellings, butlike you said, maybe once it hits maybe
(37:55):
like that 70, 80 percent mark, it becomesmore of an art, uh, than the science.
Steve Dalton (38:01):
It's attempting diversion, though.
It's the devil you know.
And I think the same goesfor online job postings.
There's some comfort in knowing thatit's going to ask you to upload your
resume and then type in all the stuffthat wasn't in your resume anyway.
Like, you know that you know the drill.
Asking strangers for the gift of theirtime, you don't know that drill and it's
scary, but it's Just a more human andhumane way to go about job searching that
(38:22):
makes you a stronger candidate over time.
But that time has to come from somewhere.
So you can't afford to spend 50 hourson a resume, even if it were perfect
and everyone agreed it was perfect.
You still need people to lay eyes on it.
And online job postings don't do that.
That gets a computer to lay eyes on it.
And you don't know like howflawed the computer algorithm is.
A lot of that.
Data on early AI computer algorithmsfrom ATS systems show they were
(38:45):
racist or sexist or like biased inways that we couldn't even predict.
So like, yeah, don't wearyourself out on your resume.
There are bigger fish to fry, butit does involve moving away from the
devil, you know, to one you don't know.
Avery Smith (38:57):
Okay, Steve, well, you've given us a complete masterclass of how
we can network as aspiring data analysts.
What is your last bit of advicethat you'd give to, you know, anyone
who's in the job search right now?
Steve Dalton (39:07):
Gosh, just the best piece of advice I ever got from my favorite
boss in strategy consulting was Steve,at some point in your career, you'll
be asked to build a rocket ship.
You won't know how to build a rocketship, but step one is always the same.
Find someone who's built a rocket shipbefore and ask them how they did it.
If you're a job seeker, don't putthis on yourself to figure out.
I've done thousands of job searches.
You've done one, two, five, maybe even10, but I'm in a much better position
(39:30):
to curate a set of instructionsfrom all of the intellectual capital
that's out there than you are.
Why should you be expected to do that?
Isn't that my job?
Isn't that the job ofpeople in my position?
So don't blame yourself for not knowinghow to do something you've never been
trained to do, but do seek out a setof instructions that helps you get it
done more effectively and, and humanely.
(39:51):
Uh, that, that's the, the singlebest piece of advice I could give.
Avery Smith (39:54):
I love it.
Steve, thanks so much for joining us.
We'll have all of Steve's links in theshow notes down below, including both of
his books, uh, which are very awesome.
If you couldn't already tell by this,this episode, uh, as well as some
of his LinkedIn and other resources.
Yes.
Steve, thanks so much for being with us.
Steve Dalton (40:09):
My pleasure.
But you have an interview with every company you've ever wanted.
(00:02):
And the round one interview is thisfind somebody in your job of choice at
that company and have them recommendyou to another person at that company.
That's it.
Avery Smith (00:10):
This is Steve Dalton and Steve is the author of the two hour
job search, and he's been helpingpeople find jobs for the last 20 years.
And in today's episode, he'llexplain his rather radical
philosophy on how to land a job.
Without even applying online.
So if you're sitting here and you'relistening and you're like, man, I feel
like applying online is pointless.
(00:31):
Steve Lokey kind of agrees with you.
Steve Dalton (00:34):
There is no way to systematically beat online job postings.
Avery Smith (00:37):
Okay.
Okay.
But what should you do instead?
Steve Dalton (00:40):
The data supports networking is a better approach.
Networked referrals are 12times more likely to get a job
than an online job applicant.
It makes sense to go afterthe 12x versus the 1x.
Avery Smith (00:50):
In this episode, Steve and I will teach you exactly.
How you can ditch the black hole ofapplying online and instead network your
way into landing your first data job.
So let's go ahead andget into this episode.
So Steve, you are the author ofthe two hour job search and the
job closer, both of which werepublished by Penguin Random House.
(01:10):
So that's, that's a big deal.
You're kind of one of the only peoplewho has like, like a go to thought leader
in the industry for, for finding a job.
Can you just give us like a big pictureof like what your philosophy is?
And, you know, what you'd kind ofdo if you needed to find a job.
Steve Dalton (01:26):
Absolutely.
I think there is no shortageof tips on job searching.
What I do is not tips.
I do instructions.
I was a former chemical engineer,so I like process, but it was really
the 08 financial crisis when Irealized people were overwhelmed.
They were losing theirjobs, getting laid off.
When you're stressed and concernedabout your welfare, you don't have
(01:46):
the ability to curate tips into ausable format, but you do have the
ability to follow instructions.
If you want someone to bake you acake, you don't hand them a list of
ingredients, you hand them a recipe.
And I figured that made more sense for jobsearching than just giving people tips and
telling them to figure it out themselves.
Avery Smith (02:01):
That makes a lot of sense because B, when you're looking
for a job, you're usually like verystressed and almost frantic, right?
It's, you're not reallythinking coherently, and so
it makes a lot more sense.
Okay, like this is step one,this is step two, this is step
three, so on and so forth.
So I like that.
It makes a lot of sense.
Uh, what, what are those steps then?
Steve Dalton (02:21):
Really, first step above all else is find a set of instructions
that you trust and, and stick to it.
I mean, that is the key.
That is the answer to almost everyproblem you will face in your life.
Like, find somebody who solvedit before, ask them how they
did it, follow that template.
But largely, when it comes specificallyto job searching, the first step is
basically, before we spend dozens of hourslooking, let's spend one hour deciding
(02:45):
where to even look in the first place.
That involves somethingcalled the LAMP list.
Let's take the universe of allpossible employers, put them into
a logical subset, according to ourtastes, and then put them into a
logical order of attack based on mostpromising odds to least promising odds.
Second step is once we've got our toptargets identified, how do we reach out?
to people at those organizationsmost effectively to get them to
(03:08):
agree to interact with us in realtime so that we might be able
to convert them into a mentor.
Then step three is what do you say toa person to convert a total stranger
into a potential mentor in a 30minute conversation that really the
whole two hour job search processis born out of the realization that
there is no data that supports thatonline job postings are beatable that
customizing your resume in any way.
(03:29):
Increases your odds ofgetting an interview.
There's literally no data thatdemonstrates that, which is deeply
troubling because people have verystrong feelings on how important it is.
But there's no expected, like.
return on your investment, in myopinion, that's deeply troubling.
So if there is no way to systematicallybeat online job postings, that leaves
(03:50):
networking as your best result.
The data supports networkingas a better approach.
Networked referrals are 12times more likely to get a job
than an online job applicant.
So it makes sense to goafter the 12x versus the 1x.
Avery Smith (04:02):
I tried to experiment with this.
And so I posted a job on LinkedIn.
I made it very clear, no oneshould apply to this job.
I said, don't apply to this job.
This is just a test.
This is only a test, a closed test.
I wanted to test with some of myaccelerator students to see like which
one of them would rank the highest.
Well, I got about 550 applicationsin about 24 hours before
LinkedIn shut down my experiment.
(04:23):
Um, so first off that goes to showthat people, even, even when you see
that there's like 500 applicants ona job, like I can guarantee you that
90 percent of those people didn'tread the job description because
I said literally over and over andover again, do not fuck this job.
This is a test.
But when I got the results,it was really interesting.
It made no sense to me.
Like the, the top candidate through theLinkedIn ATS was a terrible candidate.
(04:43):
And for the longest time, I waslike, I was going to make a YouTube
video about this and I still have it.
Cause I was like, I can'texplain what happened here.
Right?
Like my accelerator studentsweren't ranking that high
in the LinkedIn algorithm.
I was like, what the heck is going on?
And then I talked to a recruiterabout it and they're like, yeah,
the, the LinkedIn ATS is very bad.
Like they hate it.
So it's like, it's like, how are youeven supposed to, anyways, how are
you supposed to play a game when likethere's no rules and it makes no sense.
(05:06):
And anyways, it's, it's terriblyhard with, with all this being said,
like the title of your book, thetwo hour job search, is it possible?
To land a job in like two hours?
Steve Dalton (05:16):
I imagine theoretically, but the two hour job search that the two
hours in the title does not refer to theamount of time it takes you to find a job.
Uh, it refers to the amount oftime that it takes to get as far
as you can on your own before yousimply need the help of others.
So put another way, if it were noon and myboss were to tell me, Steve, you're fired.
Start looking for a job right now.
By 2 p.
(05:37):
m.
I'd have gotten as far asI possibly could on my own.
At that point, I simply need otherpeople to make any further progress.
But in that two hours, I can set up acompletely strategic and science based job
search that maximizes the efficiency of aninherently inefficient subject, which is.
Getting other people's help.
But, and from that point forward, Ican give exact instructions for what
to do if then it's a massive flowchart.
(05:58):
There's exact instructions for it if youfollow the first two hours according to
the recipe of the two hour job search.
Uh, but a lot of people will, who aren'tfamiliar with the book, will say that
you can get a job in two hours or thatyou have to do two hours of work per day.
And it's neither of those things.
It's no more than a half an hour of workin most days, and you have weekends off.
Uh, it's meant to be very finite,because usually if you're job searching,
(06:20):
you have other responsibilities.
Maybe a, a, another full time job.
Maybe you're takingcare of family members.
Maybe you're in school full time.
Like, you just don't have twohours a day to devote to this.
Getting the most bang for your buck.
That's really what the two hour jobsearch is about, and the two hours
has to do with how long it takes youto get set up to succeed in a, a, a,
an advocacy based job search ratherthan an online posting based one.
Avery Smith (06:42):
That's so cool, because I feel like most people would look
at job searching as like a very solo,uh, and lonely activity, but you're
saying, hey, two hours on your own,and then you got to go be social
in your job search, essentially.
Steve Dalton (06:54):
Yeah, it's, it's off your shoulders, like, people will ignore you,
it just happens, but in two hours, youcan get as far as you could possibly get.
So there's, there's some feelingof success there, just knowing,
okay, I'm, I'm set up for success.
I'm going to have to ride somestatistical waves in the future of
people who choose not to respond tome and some who do, or some who, uh,
(07:14):
pretend to be helpful at first, butthen prove themselves not to be helpful.
Like, but it only takes you two hoursto set yourself up for a much more
long game focused and increasinglySuccessful job search compared to
that same amount of time spent onlineapplying to postings ad nauseum.
Avery Smith (07:31):
I think that is so important because I actually did a poll
on LinkedIn and I said, you know, howdo you, how do you search for jobs?
And 80 percent of people said that,you know, they, they browse job
boards and they, they hit apply.
And then I did a poll the next day and Isaid, like, how'd you get your last job?
And like 67 percent were eitherlike recruited or, or referred.
And so it's like, okay, we're doinglike the reverse 80, 20 roll where
(07:55):
we're spending 80 percent of our time onsomething that doesn't even get, you know,
that gets literally like what I guess alittle bit more 30 percent of the results.
But what you're kind of saying is likethe whole applying online thing is broken.
And like, There's not even really a goodchance that's going to lead you anywhere.
And you're kind of sayingto ignore it, right?
Steve Dalton (08:14):
I use it very, very judiciously.
I did a LinkedIn post myself where Iasked readers to assume that online
job postings interview rate was 0%.
How would that change your search?
And then as the conversation andcomments kind of built out, I started
saying, well, it's pretty close to 0%.
So why aren't we doingthose things already?
Uh, because it's, it's kind of negligible.
(08:35):
My deepest concern with online jobpostings and, and, and advice that guides
job seekers to investing in that moreeffectively or more efficiently or, or
with more volume is that you don't learnanything from applying to jobs online.
You don't get smarter.
You are no better a candidatetomorrow than you are today.
If you, even if you spent eight hoursapplying online today, but when you
(08:57):
reach out to smart people in your fieldof choice and ask them how they got
so good at their jobs, you do becomea stronger candidate day to day.
You develop a better understanding.
You become more conversant intopics you find interesting and
would like to pursue a career in.
So online job postings, there'sa time and a place for them.
Namely, for your top targets, whensomeone tells you you need to apply,
(09:17):
or for your non top targets thatyou're not networking with, go ahead
and apply when you have downtime.
Uh, but that's the bigbenefit of having a LAMP list.
It tells you, here is your benchmark,here are your top six that you
should be networking with becausethey're that important to you.
And outside the top six,do whatever you want.
It's, it's your spare time.
You could apply to job your bottom34 or you could go see a movie
(09:37):
or have a meal with a loved one.
Things that will more predictably provideyou a positive return on investment.
Avery Smith (09:43):
Interesting.
So I like what you said where you'relike, you could apply for jobs online.
You're not necessarily learninganything, but if you're reaching out
to people, first off, you're meetingpeople, you're expanding your network.
Second off, like you're going tohave a conversation with them.
You're probably going to learnmaybe what they do at their job.
You're going to maybe learnhow they got their job.
And so you can kind of startto get smarter in this process.
(10:03):
Um, I can hear people in the YouTubecomments already, and you know, they're,
they're saying, okay, that's great.
But like when I reach out topeople, they don't respond.
So it's like, that doesn'tfeel very fruitful.
Steve Dalton (10:14):
No, uh, no, it doesn't at all, but it's, it's rather unfortunate.
We as a society are so used toEquating success to something very
close to 100 percent effectiveness.
If you take a step back and youlook at something like a baseball
player, the best baseball playersin the world get paid millions of
dollars to only fail 70 percent ofthe time that they go on offense.
(10:34):
There aren't any good non sportsanalogies like that people
can really relate to though.
Publishing, like academicpapers I've heard.
Not everybody does that.
Uh, I was a chemicalengineer, you were as well.
Getting a 30 percent was an A onmost of our tests back in the day.
Uh, so it felt great to get a 30%, butmost people don't see a success rate
of 20 percent and think that's good.
But it is absolutely good when you'rereaching out to strangers to ask them
(10:57):
for the gift of their time and knowledge.
If you're hearing back 20 or 30 percentof the time, that's really good.
You will have to kiss a lot offrogs to find your prince or
your princess in this process.
But the prince or princesses that you findare so dramatically worth the investment.
You get smarter.
You have more eyes and earslooking out on your behalf.
You have people empathizing with you.
You have mentors directingyou on what to do next.
(11:20):
So it's not all on your shoulders alone.
There are just so many advantagesto that, that approach.
Avery Smith (11:25):
Uh, do you think that, so I think the term that you use and
I'm, I'm like, I'm a data career coach.
I'm not really a, a formal career coach.
And, uh, I'm, I'm halfway in between likelanding a job and teaching data analysis.
So I think the, the, the, the termthat a lot of people use in your
space is like, is it the interviewrate or the applicant rate?
And that's like the total numberapplications you send out before
(11:46):
you get an interview, right.
Or the percentage that youget, is that the right term?
Steve Dalton (11:49):
I.
Can see how that would be a term.
Yes.
Avery Smith (11:52):
Okay.
Steve Dalton (11:53):
I don't support it.
I think that is an outdated metric.
I don't think there's any correlationbetween the number of applications
you submit and how successfulyou are in your job search,
Avery Smith (12:03):
which is, well, that's exactly what I was
going to say is, is like.
People, people rather justapply online because they feel
like it's more productive.
But if you sent, let's say, let's sayevery time you apply for a job, you
cold apply for a job online, you sendalso one of these like cold messages
for an informational interview.
Do you think the percentages wouldbe pretty comparable for like the
(12:24):
number of times you hear back?
Steve Dalton (12:26):
No, I think you'll hear back from strangers far more frequently than
you'll hear back from online postings.
I also did another post on LinkedInrecently that challenged job
seekers to imagine if applyingeach online job application, you.
Submitted cost you 1.
How would your job search change?
And then again, over the course ofthe comments, people realized, Oh,
wait, the cost is more like 20 or 50.
(12:47):
If you factor in mental anguish,effort, time, confidence, all the
sort of ancillary costs that goalong with applying to jobs online.
I think what keeps people away fromnetworking with strangers, and I think
it's comforting to think nobody willrespond because that absolves you from
any obligation to try it or to move.
deeply invest in it.
But I think what holds people backfrom pursuing it with rigor is
(13:09):
that they've never been taught.
I think a lot of people feel someembarrassment that they don't know
how to do this networking thing.
Everybody tells you to go network likeit's self evident, but nobody ever
actually teaches you how to do it.
And that's just cruel.
I think that's a failing ofhigher education to be honest.
We It is a unique skill.
I think if you ask a stranger on thestreet, if they're good at networking
people, this surprises me, people oftensay, yeah, I'm good at networking.
(13:31):
And I'm like, that doesn't matchwhat my students say in my office.
Tell me more.
And they'll say, well, never.
I'm placed on a new teamat work or at school.
I get along with my teammatesand some of them become friends.
And I tell them, okay,that's reactive networking,
otherwise known as cooperation.
We learn that naturally aswe age to survive proactive
networking is what I teach.
How do you reach out to a strangerwho's not expecting to hear from you
(13:52):
or have a relationship with you back?
That's a total unique skill set.
You would never blame an adultwho doesn't know how to swim if
they've never been trained to swim.
Or speak a foreign languageif they've never been trained
to speak a foreign language.
Why are we so quick to blame people whodon't know how to proactively network
when nobody has been trained for this?
The good news is it's a skillyou can learn and I have exact
instructions for how to do it.
Avery Smith (14:11):
It's that's very fascinating.
Um, remind me, do you stillwork at Duke or not anymore?
Steve Dalton (14:15):
Not anymore.
After 17 wonderful years, I left in 2022.
Avery Smith (14:19):
Okay, good.
That means I can, I can talkabout, uh, colleges a little
bit more, uh, freely here.
Um, my point here is, yeah,you're a hundred percent right.
That if, if we, if we go back and we talkabout like, okay, most people are landing
their jobs for being recruited or referredand we go to college to get a job.
Like, why is that such a, like ancillary?
If it even exists in college, right?
(14:39):
Like I went to the university of Utah,there is career services there, but
like, I don't, I hardly ever went.
And maybe when I went, I didn'treally find it all that useful.
I do think if I went to Duke and I had,you know, you as a career resource,
that would be really helpful, but itis, it is silly to me that like, if
like networking is what gets you jobs.
Why do we ignore it somuch in higher education?
Steve Dalton (15:00):
Considering how many classes we are required to take as
core curriculum, I'm still stunnedthat the ability to pay off our
debts and provide for our lovedones is not one of those classes.
To me, this is a life skill.
I think it's, it's, It's just, it'sa moral and ethical failing on the
part of higher ed to not ensurestudents graduate with these, with
that skill, knowing how much moneythey've invested in the institution.
(15:23):
I feel like genuine frustration andanger that it doesn't get more attention.
I think part of the reasonis that when you're a hammer,
everything looks like a nail.
Most universities are run by tenuretrack faculty whose job searches are
nothing like their students job searches.
It's a whole parallel system, but theydon't have a lot of understanding for
(15:43):
how that process works when there's notperfect infrastructure provided for you.
And a fleet of recruiters helping youmove from one organization to another.
So to me, it's, it's, uh, it'sa, it's a crisis of leadership.
I do think schools who get thisright faster will enjoy an advantage
in the marketplace, but we'renot where we need to be on this.
Avery Smith (16:02):
If I was cynical, I would say that, uh, colleges have no true
incentive to get you a job as theyjust want you to go to more school
as, as a solution, but, but I don'tthink that's actually how it is.
But Maybe.
I don't know.
Okay.
With, with that, uh, I would like to trademy political science one on one for a
networking class taught by Steve Dalton,but I think I'm a little bit too late.
(16:23):
Um, okay, let's, let's give them, andI know in your books that you go into
like a masterclass of how to actuallydo these, these reach outs and you
know what to say, but in short, likeif I have never sent a cold message
before in my life, if I've never donelike an informational interview, um,
if I've never, maybe I've never eventalked to a stranger before, like.
What do I do?
Steve Dalton (16:42):
Most important thing you can do first for this process is forget
you ever heard the phrase sell yourself.
Uh, it is so damaging.
It hurts people.
It's easy for career coachesto tell you to do it.
And it's so counterproductiveand outdated.
When we sense sales pitches coming ourway, our guards go up, but success in the
modern job search means bringing strangersguards down systematically over time.
(17:04):
Hey stranger, you don't know me,but here's 10 reasons why I'm
awesome is not a great way to reachout to someone who didn't ask for
that email in the first place.
There's a great body ofresearch on this topic.
It's called switching fromsocial norms to market norms.
Where if you offer, if you ask astranger to help you move a couch out
of a moving van, this is an experimentby Dan O'Reilly that he talks through
and, and predictably irrational.
(17:26):
You are just as likely to get a stranger'shelp if you offer 0 than if you offer 50.
But if you offer 5,you're far less likely.
Then either of the other twoscenarios and he calls the switching
from social norms to market norms.
When you ask for a favor, you aresuccessful a fraction of the time.
Uh, as soon as you offer compensation,it's not a good deed plus 5.
That's not what motivatessomeone to do it.
(17:47):
The good deed goes out the window andit's purely an hourly wage calculation.
The people who help you find jobs are notgoing to get promoted for helping you.
The stock price isn't going toshoot up the day that you start.
The reason they're helping you isout of the goodness of their heart.
And some people are wired that way.
We just need to find those people.
It is so much easier to ask a stranger forthe gift of their time and knowledge in
an outreach email than to sell yourself.
(18:08):
So not only is the email easier towrite, it's more successful and it
attracts the right kind of Collaborator.
Uh, so that's really the first step.
Forget, sell yourself,forget you ever heard it.
I wish that would die a fierydeath, but people keep repeating
it, but learn to ask for favorsand again, it's a learnable skill.
You've just never beentaught how to do it.
Avery Smith (18:27):
Very, very interesting.
Um, I want to sit here for a, for a secondhere because I almost want to push back
a little bit because there are some.
I think many companies have like anemployee referral program, right?
Where, where if you helpplace an employee, um, you
might make like 500 bucks.
I mean, that is somewhatof an incentive, correct?
Don't you think?
Steve Dalton (18:45):
Uh, it is, again, it's another sort of dated type of
infrastructure because I think whenpeople are trying to game that system as
an employee, you're trying to minimizeyour investment in a, uh, a job seeker.
So job seeker reaches out.
The person says, I don't havetime to talk, but here, use this
link to apply to your job online.
Uh, because everybody kind of doesn'tunderstand how powerful referrals are.
(19:06):
They think that's a referral, and it is,but the problem is the word referral.
The referral includes things like that,where there's no relationship form.
Uh, it's, I don't have time to talk.
Apply through this link, but Icall that an online referral.
Online referrals are points of parity.
They're easy to get, soyou get what you pay for.
Contrast those.
You have other people who willcomplain that referrals are, are,
they just, uh, they're nepotistic.
(19:27):
They help the rich get richer.
Uh, and I, I agree it, somereferrals are like that.
You, your, your dad goes to thesame country club as the CEO.
That's also called a referral, buta very different kind of referral
than just put my name down on yourapplication or apply through this link.
I call those birthright referrals.
Yeah, there are no skill on your own.
Like you just were born to theright family at the right time.
(19:47):
So congratulations.
Uh, and some people have these,they'd be fools not to use them.
But most of us don't have those.
So what is our option that Icall those earned referrals?
Do you have the ability to take a strangerat an organization you'd like to work
for and turn them into an advocate?
That is a real skill that will beuseful in any job at any company.
So you're actually demonstratingin the way that you approach
(20:08):
that you have valuable skillsthat the company will will value.
But ultimately, like, don't equateonline referrals with earned referrals.
Earned referrals providelasting benefit and knowledge.
Online referrals provide about whatyou'd get from not having an online
referral, which is basically nothing.
Avery Smith (20:24):
All right, if you've enjoyed this episode so far and you're
like, Yes, networking is the way.
I want to be networking toland my first day at a job.
Then you're going to absolutelylove these two things that I've
built from absolute scratch.
They pair really well together andthis is like basically a cheat code.
To actually doing what we've beentalking about in this episode.
The first one is premium data jobs.
com.
This is my premium data job board.
(20:46):
It costs money.
It's not free, but it's going to saveyou so many hours a week in a month.
It's totally worth it.
So it's just a normal job board,but the difference is here that
every job that you look at here willhave a recruiter, a hiring manager.
An individual contributorthat you can reach out to.
So like, for instance, thisdata analyst job is pretty cool.
If you're like a physical therapist,like this would be really relevant
(21:07):
to you because it's a data analystat a physical therapy company.
Once again, just kind of looks likea normal job description, right?
But when you click apply now, it'sgoing to take you to a LinkedIn post
where like the hiring manager, therecruiter, or someone has posted this job.
Um, and we tried to do it really quickly.
So you can see that this was posted.
This was posted three days ago and we,this was posted online three days ago.
(21:30):
So we were one of the first peopleto help you apply to this job.
And what the cool part here, hereis you can actually open up this
person's LinkedIn profile andactually talk to this person, right?
We can send a message to them.
In this episode, we've talked aboutwho to reach out to and what to say.
And so when you're just gettingstarted, what I highly recommend
is checking out DataFerry.
DataFerry, like, like alittle magical nymph, right?
Has this really cool tool.
(21:50):
I built DataFerry, uh, as well.
You can go to the cold message composerdown here, and this is actually using
AI and R framework in the background.
So it's not just chat GPT.
It's Chachapiti plus all of our knowledgeand all of my frameworks on sending
cold messages and select, you know, whoyou're actually, you know, sending it to.
So in this case, a hiring manager, andthat's going to ask you some questions.
It's going to ask you to put intheir, their LinkedIn profile so
(22:11):
that we can get to know this person.
And it's giving the AI bot alot of context on who you're
messaging and why you're messaging.
And the combination of premiumdata jobs and DataFerry is honestly
really deadly in your job search.
So you can actually get startedfor free with both of these.
The first one is goingto be premium data jobs.
com.
The second one is going to be data ferry.
io.
(22:31):
Go check these out and at leastget a feel for how you could
possibly do this on your own.
Let's get back into the episode.
I like that what you said earlierthat some people are going to be
intrinsically motivated and we wantto just kind of find those people.
Um, I've definitely seen that in, in mystudents and when I was at Exxon mobile.
And, uh, I was posting a lot of LinkedIn.
I was growing a ton onLinkedIn at the time.
(22:52):
People would reach out all the time.
Hey, can you help meget a job at ExxonMobil?
And some of those peoplewere from like India.
And I was like, sorry, I don't havea whole lot in common with you.
I don't even know what it's like.
I haven't been to India.
I haven't, I haven't gone from India tothe U S to work at an American company.
Like, I don't really knowa whole lot about that.
And.
For those people, I was one, tobe honest, less motivated to help
(23:14):
because I couldn't relate as much.
But if someone at the time whenI was at ExxonMobil, Exxon is
really about like career hires.
So they're very, they hired to retire.
They're like what they say, right?
So they're very like, they'rein the college game quite a bit.
And they don't recruit out of theUniversity of Utah, which is where I went.
And because of that, there's only,I was one of three people to, from
(23:34):
my school to work at Exxon Mobile.
And I was, I was really proud of that.
Right.
Cause that's like, there'snot a whole lot of us there.
So if someone from the University ofUtah reached out to me, it was like,
Hey, how do I work for Exxon Mobile?
I was much more intrinsicallymotivated to help them because
I was like, yeah, go you.
It's like, I want a fourth person here.
Let's, I know the exactjourney that I did.
That'll be really relatable to you.
So like, here's what I did.
(23:55):
Let's get on a phone call.
Go talk to this person.
Go talk to that person.
And like, It's the same ask, but tobe perfectly frank, I was so much more
motivated to help another, another ute.
I mean, it didn't have to be, youknow, it could have been anything.
It could have been someone thatgoes to the same church as me.
It could have been, you know, someonethat likes soccer, like whatever.
They related to me in some way.
All of a sudden I was like,Oh, I see myself in you.
(24:15):
And I, I, my experience is kindof what your experience might be.
So I have a lot more to offer andI'm also more motivated to help.
Does that, does that make sense?
Is that kind of what you're saying?
Steve Dalton (24:23):
Yes and no.
Commonality is great when youhave it, but a lot of us don't
have commonality with people.
Like if we're targeting a smallorganization, they don't, a
person can go to the same school.
I don't have anything in common with them.
What, what then do I just have to resignmyself to never being employed again?
I would say the better way to writethat outreach email is not can you
help me get a job at ExxonMobil?
It's hey, do you have some timeto talk about your experience
(24:43):
in data science at ExxonMobil?
Your, your insights be greatly appreciatedbecause I'm trying to learn more about Uh,
data science in the oil and gas sector.
Okay, now I'm not asking you for a job.
I'm asking you how you got sosmart at your job, which is a
much more fun conversation totake up, to take someone up on.
I mean, obviously, you'd rather thatperson have gone to your same school so
you can talk about the old times and lifeon campus, but barring that, I think,
(25:06):
and I can't blame the students thatwere reaching out to you to ask, ask you
point blank and, and starting from zero,like, can you help me get a job at your
organization despite not knowing me?
Because that, thatinvolves risk on your part.
That involves you spending social capitalon someone that you can't vouch for.
Scary.
Which is dangerous.
So, the better way, I can't fault peoplefor doing that because again, they've
(25:27):
never been taught how to do this.
And that is on higher ed.
That is not on job seekersmaking a, a perfectly reasonable
assumption that I should.
Be direct.
I should tell people what I want.
I should ask for theassistance I'm seeking.
Uh, but it's not how you get a strangerto, to lower their guard enough to,
to invest 30 minutes in you and see ifyou're someone they want to advocate for.
Avery Smith (25:47):
That makes a lot of, a lot of sense.
It reminded me, we, we had a, a,another career coach on, Daniel Botero.
And one time he told me, um, if youask for a referral, you get advice.
If you ask for advice, you get a referral.
Steve Dalton (26:00):
I, I had a salesperson give me their variant of this, which
is if you ask for time, you get money.
If you ask for money, you get time.
Avery Smith (26:07):
Yeah.
Steve Dalton (26:07):
Um, so, uh, a, a, a development person actually
trying to raise funds for,for universities and stuff.
Uh, same thing's true.
I, I, it's a weird quirkof American culture.
We're known the world around for beingvery blunt and direct, but we have a
couple of weird exceptions to that.
Negative feedback.
We don't we're not very direct.
We like the sandwich.
Here's something nice.
(26:27):
Here's why we're having the meeting.
But here's another nice thing.
And we're really indirect about jobsearching and coming from outside the U.
S.
I don't know how you're supposedto know that about the U.
S.
That we have these weird blind spots orexceptions to always being pretty direct,
which The more heterogeneous your societyis, the more you have to like put things
in words because you can't rely on apause or eye contact to convey meaning.
(26:50):
Same way.
People just, people need to be taughtthese things and nobody's teaching
it and that really frustrates me.
Which is why I wrote, I don't actuallylove writing, but I hated the idea
that only students that were wealthyenough to afford business school
and then happened to choose Dukecould access this methodology that I
developed to help people find jobs.
So I wanted to put it in the handsof anyone at the library card.
Avery Smith (27:12):
Well, we appreciate you doing that.
We appreciate both those booksand we appreciate you being here,
giving us a glimpse into it.
When people are starting to writethese like messages and cold messages,
do you think it's okay for themto utilize things like ChatGPT?
Steve Dalton (27:25):
I would if ChatGPT were good at it.
But ChatGPT is oftengarbage in, garbage out.
People think to use ChatGPT onthings it's not great at in the
job search, like cover letters.
Uh, outreach messages on the problem.
There is cover letters.
It learns on what's on the Internet.
That's how chat GPT improvesoutreach messages that learns
from what's on the Internet.
(27:45):
And those messages on the Internetare very market norm based.
Like here's all the value that Iwould bring to your organization.
Here's why you should takeme seriously as a candidate.
So it's really not great at the thingsthat you think it should be good at.
It's great at other things in thejob search, figuring out what you
wanna do with your life, for example.
It's surprisingly good at that.
It's great at helping you understandwhat projects you would do if you
(28:08):
actually were hired to do a company.
It's great for helping you brainstormcompanies that you'd like to work
for in the first place, but itis not great at writing messages.
Uh, so the, I teach somethingcalled the six point email.
In the two hour job search.
It's under.
75 words long.
The body of the emailis about 46 words long.
This is not a long emailand it's pretty formulaic.
(28:28):
It's it's basically a fill in the blankexercise, but it's been evolved over tens
of thousands of iterations of practiceand and modification and a B testing.
If you will, that is moreeffective at getting in touch
with that target audience who isIntrinsically motivated to be helpful.
Chat GPT is not thinking in termsof who is my target audience?
Oh, it's people who areintrinsically helpful.
(28:49):
What's the best way toget in touch with them?
Oh, it's to ask them for the giftof their time and knowledge using
social norms rather than market norms.
So it doesn't have the wholephilosophy of the two hour job search.
That's why the two hour job search hasa lot of philosophy and science in it to
demonstrate here's why this makes sense.
Here's the, the research backing thisapproach as being a more fruitful.
(29:09):
line of investigation than sellyourself and spamming lots of people.
Avery Smith (29:13):
I think that's true for everything you could almost do in
ChatGPT is like, it's okay at whatevertask you give it, um, but it's probably
never going to be a proven framework.
And maybe when you combine it withlike a proven framework and, and some
of the creativity to, to kind of getyou started like a warm start, I think
that, that can be, that can be powerful.
(29:34):
But obviously like the, the mostsuccessful cold messages probably
are plastered all over the internet.
They happened in text messagesand emails and LinkedIn messages.
So chat GPT won't have access to, to that.
What other, what other like techcan you use in your job search?
There's.
There's a, I don't know if you've seen,um, I just have one of my students
in the accelerator ask about it.
I can't remember the product name.
(29:55):
We don't give them the plug, butlike some, some sort of like AI tool
that like goes out there and appliesto like millions of jobs for you.
What, what, what like technologycan job seekers use that you
think might have some use?
Steve Dalton (30:07):
Honestly, I think it's, I would put it this way.
Online job postings used towork back in the era of monster.
com circa 2000.
Online job postings were great.
And then they started becoming less greatas more people found out about them.
And then AI came on the scene andcompanies were using AI to weed out
candidates and candidates startedusing AI to apply to more jobs.
So with more applications and more AIweeding you out using rules that you
(30:30):
can't understand from the outside,I would argue that the success rate
on online job postings has gottenworse over the last few years.
There's just more applications out there.
So by definition, like, okay, if,so if online job postings continue
to get worse, and then we have ghostjobs on top of that, an estimate
saying 20 percent of those jobshave no intention of being filled.
A lot of those postings have alreadyhave someone earmarked for that position.
(30:52):
So like if online job postings getworse, the alternatives have to
become more attractive in comparison,even if they don't get better.
And that's how I feel about networking.
Like, yes, you can find botsthat will apply to many jobs
that you may or may not want.
But wouldn't you prefer a job thatyou want to a job that you don't want?
And wouldn't you prefer to besmarter tomorrow than you are today?
All, like, mass applying justdoesn't pass the smell test.
(31:16):
If ever, if it works,everybody would do it.
And if everybody did it,it would stop working.
So it's not a protectable advantage.
What is?
Important right now isshowing that you have that.
It feels like we'regoing back to the future.
Like networking was never thisimportant for our parents because they
had some geographical protections.
They would look up for jobs inthe one ads of the newspaper
back when we had newspapers.
(31:37):
So networking is more importantnow than it's ever been before.
It's I call it a universal round one.
You have an interview withevery company you've ever
wanted, and they all have this.
They've all agreed to standardizethe round one interview and
the round one interview.
There's no time limitand it's already started.
So you can start whenever you want.
The round one interview is this,find somebody in your job of choice
at that company and have themrecommend you to another person
(31:59):
in that function at that company.
That's it.
If you do that, you've got a, you'vegot a first round interview the
next time they have an opening.
And I think people are just like,Oh, that sounds so hard, but is it?
I mean, a, you haven't learned it.
So assuming you've learned it.
Is reaching out to strangers and askingthem how they got so good at their job
harder than the soul crushing work ofapplying to online job postings over
(32:20):
and over or constantly trolling to seeif there are new postings that have
gone up in the last 24 hours becauseyou read somewhere at one time that
applying in the first hour makes youa more attractive candidate for some
reason, is that really who companies want?
Are the person who's living to see thatthe latest job posting in the last hour?
There's, there's lotsof problems with it, so.
In terms of technology thatI recommend, I love AI.
(32:43):
I think it has its place in thejob search, but you have to be
judicious with where you use it.
I really like Crunchbase forhelping you brainstorm companies.
I love Hunter.
io for helping you identify email contactinformation for people at companies.
But I really like the technologythat I think is most important is.
Technology in the knowledge sense.
It's learning how to reach out tostrangers and ask for the gift of
(33:04):
their time and knowledge effectively.
Avery Smith (33:06):
I read a tweet recently that said in the future, we might
pay for AI less experiences.
Like we might, we might like pay apremium for like, no, this has no AI.
This is just human to human interaction.
So I think that that definitely you, youcan really stand out if you're able to.
To make that human connection.
I want to go to, to you talking aboutlike, when you do these cold applications,
(33:30):
it's a little bit like, like a black box.
Uh, you don't really know a hundredpercent why if you ever get an
interview, why, and when you getrejected, you certainly don't
really know why you get rejected.
That's, that's really frustrating becauseif you're putting hundreds of applications
out there and you're spending hundredsof hours, like into the system where
the game is unknown, there's no rulesto the game, uh, or, or, or maybe there
(33:52):
are, but, but you can't know them.
That's not really fun.
Um, and that kind of leads you to kind of.
Kind of your, your resumerole, I guess it's, it's Ed's.
I can't remember who Ed is, butthis is Ed's three hour resume role.
You want to explain what that is?
Steve Dalton (34:04):
Sure.
Ed was my supervisor, uh, my lastsupervisor when I worked at the career
center at the business school at Duke.
And he had this greatphrase that I loved it.
He said to whenever we'd have a newcohort of students, he said, assume that
your job search will take you 100 hours.
I want you spending no more thanthree of them on your resume.
And I just, I love how succinctand how proportional that makes
(34:26):
people see the, the role of theresume and in a greater job search.
Again, it's free.
It is free for every career coach outthere to say something like you need
to customize your resume for onlineapp, any, every online application.
I see that regularly.
I, what I don't see is any data thatsupports that that actually works.
So the upside is completely unknown anduncertain, but the downside is certain.
(34:46):
That takes you time and effort tocustomize every resume for every
online application, even when youknow the online application response
rate is pretty close to zero.
So to me, that is malpractice.
Uh, if there's no proof that it works,but the costs are certain, like, I
don't know how you can sleep at nighttelling people that they should do that.
Ed's three hour rule justprovides some context.
That 97 hours, a lot of people will bragabout how long they spent on the resume.
(35:10):
The problem is like nobody agreeson what a perfect resume looks like.
What we do agree on is what agood enough resume looks like.
The 80 percent resume.
We kind of agree on that.
It's error free that theformatting all lines up.
It's easy to read.
There's some white space.
I understand clearly whatthe flow of your career was.
But once you get to a point where feedbackis subjective rather than objective,
meaning it's a matter of opinion, nota matter of fact, like that margin is
(35:33):
clearly misaligned versus I think youshould move up your action verbs here.
Like then we're getting to apoint where you are exerting
effort with no certain upside.
And that's not a good value proposition.
I just, it breaks my heart when I hearpeople work with professional resume
reviewer, resume coaches, and they gettheir resume, what they think is perfect.
And they think that until they showit to literally anyone else, because
(35:55):
everyone's an expert on resumes.
And then they feel like, Oh, didI just waste a bunch of money?
It's really heartbreaking to hear that.
My recommendation is doyour best with your resume.
Don't spend more than three hours on it.
Um, I talk about this in mysecond book, the job closer.
How do you get it done in three hours?
There it's pretty easy.
Actually, most people, when theystress out about their resumes,
they're not They're not stressedabout what actually matters.
(36:17):
What I mean by that, there was a studyby the ladders done a number of years
ago that showed that 80 percent of, uh,human resume reviewers attention was on
the following items, the companies youworked for your job titles, your dates
of employment, and your school attended.
What all those things have incommon, they are the things that
you can't change on your resume.
They are objective info.
What we stress about is not theobjective info, it's the bullet points.
(36:38):
And the bullet points intotal, we're getting 1.
2 seconds, compared to 4.
8 seconds for all of the objective data.
So nobody's reading it.
And if they are reading it, theyalready like you, which means you've
done some networking or have areferral of some sort, which is good.
Uh, so because there's just nopositive return on investment of
hours and hours of effort, I recommenddoing your best on your resume.
(36:59):
I frankly recommend brainstormingyour interview stories first and then
using those to populate your resume.
Chat GPT is great at condensing yourinterview stories down to bullet points.
Um, that's one of its strengths.
Uh, so, and that way you don't have todo double work when it's time to prep
for interviews, but that's not how mostpeople are taught to do a job search.
It's always resume first, uh, cover letterfirst, then we'll practice interview
(37:19):
skills once you start getting interviews.
But I think the three hour rule is just anice way to remind yourself, do your best.
What they're, what they care aboutare the things that you can't change,
not the things that you can change.
So just do your best on thethings you can change, and you'll
get better at it over time.
Avery Smith (37:33):
That's really cool.
Um, yeah, really neat that like Cause,cause you're right, if you give your
resume to literally any people, likesomeone's going to nitpick something
and say, you should change it.
So there obviously is no perfect resumeand it's maybe more, maybe at the
beginning, there's a lot of science to it.
Like you need to tryto get it past the ATS.
You need it to make sense.
You don't want to have misspellings, butlike you said, maybe once it hits maybe
(37:55):
like that 70, 80 percent mark, it becomesmore of an art, uh, than the science.
Steve Dalton (38:01):
It's attempting diversion, though.
It's the devil you know.
And I think the same goesfor online job postings.
There's some comfort in knowing thatit's going to ask you to upload your
resume and then type in all the stuffthat wasn't in your resume anyway.
Like, you know that you know the drill.
Asking strangers for the gift of theirtime, you don't know that drill and it's
scary, but it's Just a more human andhumane way to go about job searching that
(38:22):
makes you a stronger candidate over time.
But that time has to come from somewhere.
So you can't afford to spend 50 hourson a resume, even if it were perfect
and everyone agreed it was perfect.
You still need people to lay eyes on it.
And online job postings don't do that.
That gets a computer to lay eyes on it.
And you don't know like howflawed the computer algorithm is.
A lot of that.
Data on early AI computer algorithmsfrom ATS systems show they were
(38:45):
racist or sexist or like biased inways that we couldn't even predict.
So like, yeah, don't wearyourself out on your resume.
There are bigger fish to fry, butit does involve moving away from the
devil, you know, to one you don't know.
Avery Smith (38:57):
Okay, Steve, well, you've given us a complete masterclass of how
we can network as aspiring data analysts.
What is your last bit of advicethat you'd give to, you know, anyone
who's in the job search right now?
Steve Dalton (39:07):
Gosh, just the best piece of advice I ever got from my favorite
boss in strategy consulting was Steve,at some point in your career, you'll
be asked to build a rocket ship.
You won't know how to build a rocketship, but step one is always the same.
Find someone who's built a rocket shipbefore and ask them how they did it.
If you're a job seeker, don't putthis on yourself to figure out.
I've done thousands of job searches.
You've done one, two, five, maybe even10, but I'm in a much better position
(39:30):
to curate a set of instructionsfrom all of the intellectual capital
that's out there than you are.
Why should you be expected to do that?
Isn't that my job?
Isn't that the job ofpeople in my position?
So don't blame yourself for not knowinghow to do something you've never been
trained to do, but do seek out a setof instructions that helps you get it
done more effectively and, and humanely.
(39:51):
Uh, that, that's the, the singlebest piece of advice I could give.
Avery Smith (39:54):
I love it.
Steve, thanks so much for joining us.
We'll have all of Steve's links in theshow notes down below, including both of
his books, uh, which are very awesome.
If you couldn't already tell by this,this episode, uh, as well as some
of his LinkedIn and other resources.
Yes.
Steve, thanks so much for being with us.
Steve Dalton (40:09):
My pleasure.
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