September 11, 2023 • 41 mins
In this riveting episode of Growth Talks, we sit down with the entrepreneur and podcaster, Danny Leonard. As the founder of Ramped, Danny is on a mission to reshape the job market, ensuring that job seekers and employers find their perfect match.
With his unique insights and firsthand experience, he delves deep into the challenges faced by fresh graduates and those looking to pivot in their careers.
From the inception of Ramped to hosting the popular 'The Ramped Podcast', Danny's journey is nothing short of inspiring. In our conversation, he generously shares invaluable tips and tricks for those on the hunt for their first job, as well as sage advice for those aiming to climb the career ladder.
Whether you're a fresh graduate, someone looking to switch careers, or an employer seeking the best talent, Danny's insights are a goldmine.
Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation! Tune in to hear Danny's full story and gather the tools you need to navigate the ever-evolving job market.
📚 Suggested books:
https://amzn.to/3r4KvNM
🛠 Suggested tools:
https://www.loom.com/
https://slack.com/
👍 Follow our guest here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielpleonard/
https://www.youtube.com/@rampedcareers/
https://www.rampedcareers.com/
🧲 Watch my free lead generation course:
https://gaito.link/skillshare
🤖 Watch my free ChatGPT course:
https://skl.sh/3ZKHFcV
🙏 Subscribe to the channel:
https://gaito.link/subscribe
📚 Download the Reading List:
https://gaito.link/gtbooks
With his unique insights and firsthand experience, he delves deep into the challenges faced by fresh graduates and those looking to pivot in their careers.
From the inception of Ramped to hosting the popular 'The Ramped Podcast', Danny's journey is nothing short of inspiring. In our conversation, he generously shares invaluable tips and tricks for those on the hunt for their first job, as well as sage advice for those aiming to climb the career ladder.
Whether you're a fresh graduate, someone looking to switch careers, or an employer seeking the best talent, Danny's insights are a goldmine.
Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation! Tune in to hear Danny's full story and gather the tools you need to navigate the ever-evolving job market.
📚 Suggested books:
https://amzn.to/3r4KvNM
🛠 Suggested tools:
https://www.loom.com/
https://slack.com/
👍 Follow our guest here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielpleonard/
https://www.youtube.com/@rampedcareers/
https://www.rampedcareers.com/
🧲 Watch my free lead generation course:
https://gaito.link/skillshare
🤖 Watch my free ChatGPT course:
https://skl.sh/3ZKHFcV
🙏 Subscribe to the channel:
https://gaito.link/subscribe
📚 Download the Reading List:
https://gaito.link/gtbooks
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Chow, everyone, and welcome backto Grow Talks. I'm your host,
Raphael and my guest today is DanieLeonard. Hi, Danny, how are
you today? Hi rough, Goodto be with you. This kind of
second appointment we had because actually Iwas a guest in your podcast, maybe
(00:21):
like a week ago maybe less Yep, yep, that's right, sup.
Yeah, it was, it was, It was, it was. It
was really nice. It was reallygood with a good talk, good shots
on, really excited about this,you know, kind of second part.
We usually start, you know,these conversations here with a very simple one,
(00:45):
with a classic tell us about yourstory, tell us about yourself.
You know who's Danny, uh,you know what you're passionate about, and
also what you're doing at the moment. Sweet. All right, well,
I'll jump in at a high level. Let's go personal first. I am
a father of two, a husband, a brother, a friend. I
(01:07):
live in Los Angeles, California.I'm from Minnesota, Minnetonka, Minnesota to
be more specific, and I spentyou know, the vast majority of my
life in the Midwest. And professionally, I am in technology. So right
now I have a startup which Ico founded with two others called RAMPED.
(01:30):
We are fixing the job search atscale for job seekers all over the place.
The job market is really tough rightnow. We have a bunch of
we have a bunch of free toolsthat get job seekers power search and empower
them to take their job search backinto their own hands. And then we
have some some some paid offerings aswell that make the job search super super
(01:53):
easy. But my mission today withRAMPED and our mission has been, let's
fix the job search. Let's makeit more equitable, Let's give folks hours
back in their lives and make iteasy for everybody. And Darren say,
I was well off fun. Let'smake the job search a little bit of
fun. Usually it's not fun anadult exactly. You'll say that your mission
(02:19):
now is to fix it. Whydid you use the world fix it?
I mean, what's wrong with it? Yeah, so a bunch of things.
I could probably go on for hoursabout this topic. I've been living
in it for the last four years, specifically with RAMPED, but before that
I've been a hiring manager two thousandsof different sales manager salespeople. So that
(02:40):
what that looks like back in theday and what has actually existed for many,
many years. Is you build thismassive funnel of resumes if you're talking
about the hiring manager side or theemployer side, and then you immediately immediately
cut around eighty percent of those resumesfor a variety of some legitimate some because
(03:01):
you can't handle the flow. Othersmaybe at some companies for illegitimate reasons,
which we won't get into on thisconversation. But what you're doing is you're
building this big funnel for no reason. The reason that you're doing is just
because you want, you know,to post a job and get as many
applicants as you can. It's almosta entity numbers thing. What also is
(03:23):
a huge problem with that is theresume by itself is a big, big
issue. This does not share whatyou are doing today, who you are
as a person, what your upsidepotential is. The skills that you have
are not represented on your resume.The resume is very specifically supposed to just
be a billboard of who you are, and folks don't understand that that is
(03:46):
being used for a variety for areason. Some people want to tell their
lives story in their resume. Otherpeople don't know what an employer wants out
of their resume. Really, what'shappening with the resume today is it's getting
sucked into an applicant tracking system onthe employer side. And that's just a
simple piece of software that takes resumesin from all jobs, from all job
search sites. It gets sucked inand talent acquisition volks or recruiters are just
(04:12):
looking for keywords and that is whatis helping or that is what is acting
as the filter for a lot ofthese job seekers. It's just simply a
keyword search on these resumes. That'snot good enough. So when I say
fixed the job search, I meanlet's empower teams to use skills, to
(04:33):
use upside potential, to use desiresto use the person actually is instead of
what's demonstrated on the resume. Potentiallythey're linked in potentially a cover letter like
these are silly, silly assets thatwe need to get rid of and replace
with what is actually the person's skillset and their upside potential and desire to
(04:55):
succeed in that role. And thenand then in that specific company, I
was talking with a friend, Ithink a couple of days ago about something,
you know, kind of related tothis. We were talking about the
fact that most people on LinkedIn,they how can I say this? They
(05:15):
only show you know, Valady metricsin terms of, you know, the
info they want to share, youknow the successes they had. And you
don't actually know a person from theirLinkedIn profile. And there is something you
know, uh, you know,the hidden part of the iceberg about that
person. You know the career thatthat person made that you will never understand.
(05:41):
You will never get it from justfrom the LinkedIn profile. And this
is super interesting because you say somethingvery you know, kind of similar related
to this. So how can youfix that? I mean, if the
CB is broken, if LinkedIn isnot enough, what's the trution? Is
there a solute then what's the solution? So oh by and by it but
(06:03):
ramped we are building the solution.I don't think the solution, the perfect
solution, exists today. I thinkthis is many years out, if not
a decade away, let's just callit. But the resume has existed since
the fourteen hundreds and there's been verylittle innovation on the resume since that time.
We are still applying to jobs thesame way that my parents applied to
(06:27):
job. Drop a resume, sendit to hiring managers, drop a resume,
talk to your network, have themsend its hiring managers. Those are
pretty much the same steps. Now, what can happen today is instead of
a resume being the core asset,or maybe a resume and the LinkedIn profile
that you create, which there aretons of great benefits to both, what
(06:50):
you could be doing is you couldbe chatting with some sort of either AI
or some sort of platform that getsto know you on a really deep level.
That's what we're trying to build atRAMP. That's what we're building at
RAMP is once I submit to you, hey, look, I'm really interested
in working in an environment that issupportive, competitive, motivating, transparent.
(07:15):
Okay cool. Then either the AIor the person or whoever it is in
the future, whatever it is inthe future, says okay cool. Here
are some ideas based on the thingsthat you're looking for, of careers or
of jobs that could be a reallygood fit for you. Tell me a
little bit more about the skills youhave before I surface some jobs. Okay,
(07:38):
and then you move further and furtherdown the chain. Right. So,
now, okay, here are sometitles that I have here as some
companies that I have that appear reallyinteresting to you based on what you've told
me. And by the way,we have three interviews lined up. They're
already with hiring managers. You seemlike the perfect fit. Do you want
me to get you these interviews?Right? So it's less spray and pray,
(08:01):
it's less drop a resume that couldrepresent you, and it's more,
Hey, I already know you,or the platform already knows you. RAMP
already knows you're really well. Weknow what your desires are, we know
what your skills are, and weare proactively surfacing roles that are really good
fits to you. Now, let'stake this even a step further. So
let's say that that's just one exampleof your job search. Ramps want.
(08:22):
RAMP wants to be there for yourentire career. So what does that actually
look like. So let's say you'rein seats already, you are an individual
contributor. I'll just use an examplethat I know really well. So let's
say you're a high performing sales representative, but your aspiration is actually to be
a marketer, and it's to bea programmatic marketer. And you just have
(08:43):
never told anybody that, but youthink you could be really really good at
that. So in the background,as your being a proactive, highly productive
salesperson, you're telling RAMPED like,I really want to be a marketer.
Can you please set me up forsuccess as a marketer? And RAMPED would
ask you questions like, Okay,do you have SEO skills? Do you
(09:05):
have sem skills? Do you knowhow to launch a Facebook ad campaign?
And if you say no, RAMPEDwill also surface curriculum to you. We'll
say, hey, look, takethis SEO course, take this programmatic ads
course where you can launch a Googleads campaign or Facebook ads campaign, get
the certification, and then present itto your current hiring manager and Taylor,
(09:31):
I've been a great salesperson. Ireally want to go into digital marketing.
Do you have a fit here atthis specific company? If they say no,
go back to Rampage hire a manageror my manager said no, what
else do you have for me?Cool? Here's three jobs that are not
only willing to take a chance onyou as somebody who is a high performing
(09:52):
salesperson but no marketing experience, butthey actually have interviews already lined up.
They saw your profile, they knowyou are a little bit we've community did
ramped has communicated this to them already. The interviews are there whenever you're ready
to take them. So it's more, it's more thoughtful, it's more based
on skills. It's more just assessingwhere you're at as a human, as
a professional, and then surfacing thingsthat already are available. You just don't
(10:16):
know where to find them yet.M Ah. It feels like I don't
know if it's the right ward,but to me, it's like a kind
of an assissant. Is that isthat good word for? Yeah, we
think of it more as a asa coach, but an assistant is great
as well. Right, So somebodywho is or something that is a career
(10:37):
coach that just sits alongside you andyou can chat with all all the time,
right, Like, Oh, Ijust had this one on one with
my manager. They told me I'mreally good at X, I'm really bad
at Why how do I improve it? Why? Cool? Here's a course
do you want that? Or here'san initiative, like go talk to three
people at your company that have donethis in the past. Maybe that's a
great, great place to start,right. So it's a pro active career
(11:01):
coach, and I like the ideaof you know, integrating training in the
process. That's quite cool. Uh. In your experience, Uh, have
you seen any let's say, bigchanges, big shift in the way you
know, new generations look for ajob. I was reading an article I
(11:24):
think it was maybe always something likethat, an article about how you know,
gen Z has very different Uh,you know priorities when they look for
a job. You know, forexample, they don't care about I don't
know, like a car or youknow, an insurance or a phone,
(11:48):
those kind of perks. Uh,they won't I don't know, work from
home, you know, something completelydifferent. Have you seen any kind of
you know, important shifts in inthis Yeah, so I what I have
seen out of gen Z. Let'slet's start with the top level insight on
gen Z. So, gen Zthere obviously the future. They grew up
(12:09):
in the information age. They grewup with access to immediate, immediate feedback
on nearly anything. Right, theywant to assess what a video game looks
like. They've already known how tosearch for it, and they probably have
ten TikTok videos showing what the videogame looks like and how to play it
and all the guides. Right,They've grown up in that environment where me
(12:30):
as a millennial, I got tosee kind of both. Right, I
saw a life before the Internet,and I remember my childhood being without the
Internet. And then at some pointit flipped, right when I got to
like eighth grade, ninth grade,like everything was was on the internet.
Everything was online, but the Internetwas just being created. So I know
both. And then you know,further up the chain, less and less
(12:50):
of their childhood or less and lessas their adult life was was with the
Internet. So they know so muchinformation, they know how to search for
it, they know how to stresstest it. So for some of these
careers and some of these jobs thatare out there, gen Z already knows.
Hey, look, I'll I'll usean example that I've seen a lot
of memes from gen Z, folks, is if you're selling insurance and there's
(13:13):
major players out there that sell insuranceor have that type of role, gen
Z has a true perspective of whatit's like and the downside and the upside,
and often that's represented in like thatshort TikTok showing the odds and ends
of how bad it is to bean insurance agent or how you have to
go in quotes sell your friends andfamily on this insurance product before you go
(13:35):
become a high performing insurance agent.So they already know kind of the good
side and maybe the humorous downside.And what they're doing with that information is
they're trying to uncover rules that fittheir specific needs or specific lifestyle instead of
what I'm accustomed to. When Ijumped into the workforce, my parents straight
(13:56):
up told me, take whatever jobthat you can. The first job that
comes to you, run at it, really, really work your butt off,
stay late. That's not the samevirgen z. That's that's not the
attitude that they're they've been told.It's not at the attitude that they've searched
for and found on their own.That's not good or bad. I'm not
having I don't have a strong opinionon it. What I will say is
(14:18):
for me, my perspective is Icould not have existed in what I am
today without knowing the in office environmentof my first job. I was very
fortunate to land at a tech companythat was on an extreme growth path.
It was called Group On. It'sstill around today, but that company,
(14:39):
you know, I started as employeenumber of fifty to seventy five range and
it just took off right. Wewere adding hundreds of people a month at
some points, and it was rocketshipgrowth. And they're bringing in top talent,
and I got a chance to meetand chat with and have meetings with
something really really really impressive people fromall walks of life, all age.
(15:01):
And I'm not suggesting all day,every day and it's mandated, But I
do think there's a place that genZ maybe isn't familiar with and doesn't necessarily
know what they don't know on theinoffice presence. So they may say I
want to work remotely, I wantto work whenever I want. I want
(15:22):
to just plug in, plug alug in, lugout. But there is
some benefit to having an in officepresence and to be around people that no
different things than you or no morethan you are, no less than you
to teach, to learn from,to get mentored by those folks. And
I don't think gen Z has thatperspective for a variety of reasons, not
(15:43):
the least of which is some oftheir professional career has been impacted by a
global pandemic or pandemic where people justhaven't been able to go into an office,
so kind of a kind of aRambley way to say that gen Z
is so innovative, so thoughtful,so creative. If I think if they
could, if they could pair thatup with some of the really great stuff
(16:07):
that was happening pre pandemic in termsof office presence and in terms of getting
mentored being around people that that haveseen it and done it before, I
think there's a there's a really bigwin for for them, but also for
the rest of the workforce as wellto learn from gen Z as well.
Thanks for the assist because I wantedto talk about the pandemic a little.
(16:33):
How's the situation. I'm always wonderingif the uh, you know, the
job market is back to how wewas in twenty nineteen, or you know,
if the two years of pandemic kindof left you know something that you
know as always as changed the marketforever. What's your what's your take on
(16:59):
that. That's a good question.I don't think it's back to twenty nineteen.
I'll give you the kind of theshort answer. We were. We
launched RAMPED officially in June twenty twenty, but really the pre launch or the
beta launch was January twenty twenty,so we saw pre pandemic, the first
(17:22):
scary part of the pandemic where everythingshut down, tons of layoffs right away,
the big boom back right hiring overhiring, tons of people looking for
jobs, you know, currency,money flying everywhere from from government, from
government printing. And then now whichhas just been this like slog of let's
(17:47):
call it like depression, but Idon't know. It wouldn't call like an
actual depression, but depressed hiring cycles. So we've seen a lot in this
two three, maybe even four yearperiod. It's not back to where it
is or where it was. Peopleare still not going into the office.
I don't think they're ever going tomandate some industries as well, But I
don't think anybody's ever going to mandatefull time back in the office, with
(18:07):
no exceptions. I think the futureof work is hybrid, and I think
it is probably these some part ofthe week in the office or some part
of each month in office. AndI think the ideal form of that is
neither hybrid, nor remote nor anyof these taglines. It really is be
(18:32):
in the office for the times whereit is necessary to be in the office,
and those times to me feel likebrainstorming, feel like action decision making
meetings feels like where we need somecross functional collaboration and it is not hey
(18:52):
show up at eight every day,leave at five every day, uproot your
life to be in a specific location. Now I will calvey out there with
like some some teams do benefit frommore in office presence and not I am
biased, but I've seen a salesteam, a really high performance sales team
(19:17):
in office, and I've seen salesteams out of office, and I do
feel like there's this emotional connection orinertia that is built by being in office.
Now, you know, not everyindustry is technology, so you know,
some healthcare like actually being in thehospital, like that's that's you're gonna
have to be. If you wantto be a doctor, you're gonna have
(19:37):
to be in office right most mostof the time. But I do think
the world is not back to whereit is. I think it will change,
and I think I don't think we'llbe back to where we were,
but I do think the future islooking bright and there will be benefits or
a silver lining from the pandemic interms of how we work and also mirror
(20:02):
that with maybe some things from thepast, but also where we're going in
the future, which is there's reallycool collaboration or even like you and me
talking right where I'm in LA,you're in the UK. We can now
do that and that's accepted, wherebefore I was like, you know,
like everybody's in the opposite doing onthe office and you're not part of the
company. If you're enjoying this episode, please check out my lead generation course.
(20:23):
You can watch it for free onGuido, Dot link, slash skill
share. G Ai t. Asan entrepreneur, marketer or business owner,
you know how crucial lead generation is. In this course, I'll be sharing
with you twenty proven tactics for leadgeneration in both B to B and B
two C markets. You can watchit for free on Guido, Dot link,
(20:45):
slash skill Share g A I tOh. You'll find the link in
the description. I feel like,you know, most companies are kind of
you know, still working on findingbalance, finding a solution, finding you
know, the best way to organizeeverything. I mean I can see here,
(21:07):
especially for you know, like corporatesand big big companies in London.
Uh, they try to force everyoneback to the office like for a while,
and it didn't work. It didn'twork you know, after two years
working from home, if you realizethat you can you know, like save
money, save time from commuting andstress you know, and everything else.
(21:33):
Uh not everyone wants to go back, you know, five days a week
in the office. So I feellike they're kind of you know, building
a new model, finding the perfectbalance. Maybe. As I said before,
each company's different, you know,different culture, you know, different
environment. Makes sense. I usuallylike to ask my guests for some tips
(21:57):
and tricks for you know, basedon their experience, and I want to
do the same with you here today. So do you have any like suggestions
for you know, people that arelooking for a first job. And then
I'm asking I'm gonna ask the samequestion in a moment for people that want
(22:18):
to build a career. But let'sstart with you know, people that are
kind of out of the university,they're looking for the first job. What
can you share about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a really
good question. Obviously, I knowit from a professional tagline of like what
we what we recommend to somebody comingout of college. I want to put
(22:41):
that aside and just talk about someof the places where I wish I would
have up leveled and the advice Iwould give myself coming out of college.
So I came out of school intwo thousand and nine. It was actually
a different crisis at that time.It was the global financial crisis, right,
And I came out of the Universityof Michigan's Business school being told for
(23:03):
the last three years that you're goingto get an investment banking job, where
you're going to get a consulting job. Those are the two paths. They're
the most important paths, and that'sall you should be focused on. And
naturally, when I graduated, thosejobs evaporated. So there were some,
of course, but you know,the financial markets in the financial industry was
really heavily incted. So I waslost, to say the very least.
(23:26):
And I was really hard on myselfat that point in time too, So
I wanted that job. I wouldI would take these finance interviews and the
investment banking interviews, and I wouldn'tbe getting any of them. I probably
got rejected from forty different banks,and I thought at that point in time
that I was a big failure.I felt I felt awful, like I
(23:47):
had not experienced that type of rejectionprofessionally. I really didn't even really have
that much professional experience at that time, but it was like really tough on
me and tough on myself and Iand I took it really personally. What
I should have done back in theday is I should have been optimizing for
some more risk or some more riskier, riskier opportunities. So what I mean
(24:15):
by that is take big swings,right, you want to join a big
startup, you want to take acomplete pivot in your career, you want
to take some time off, whateverit is that feels the best to you
in that moment. Make sure theupside is there for you as well.
So what I wish I would havedone is really thought about it, Okay,
what do I want in the nextone to three years to set myself
up for my broader career? AndI should have been oriented around learning,
(24:41):
around being around the smartest people Icould find, the people with the biggest
networks I could find. That iswhat I wish I would have told myself.
Now. Luckily I actually lucked intoan environment like that, but that
was not intentional. Group On hadsome of the best minds of technology.
There, had some of the brightestpeople, but that was not thing that
I had planned for. That wassomething that I lucked into. I would
(25:03):
have been a little bit more thoughtfularound, Hey, look, take some
time to self discover what I'm actuallypassionate about. Try as many different things
as I can. At that pointin time, I want to finance.
It's what I was said on Iwish I would have thought, Hey,
look, maybe it's important to learnmarketing. How do you learn marketing?
Take a marketing internship at one ofthe coolest brands that you could find.
(25:25):
Right Go and find the fifty topbrands and apply to be an unpaid marketing
intern. That's totally cool. Orfind a hundred of the absolute best entrepreneurs
that you can find and cold messagethem and figure out which one will take
you on as an assistant or amentee or an intern in any way that
(25:48):
they will hire you. Be aroundreally really smart people, Be around the
biggest network of people you possibly can, And the biggest piece of advice I
would have given myself as it's okayto fail. I did not think that
at all at that point in time. I was so hard on myself.
I thought failure would define you nomatter what part of your career. And
I'm still learning like, it's okayto fail, fail often those many times
(26:12):
as you can, but just makesure you're one kind of like failing up.
That's a stupid cliche buzzword thing tosay, But make sure you're learning
from each failure and you're taking thatalong the way, and try not to
repeat the same mistake twice. Theother piece of advice that I would give
myself as your reputation does carry withyou. So whenever you are thinking about
(26:33):
a career switch or a career changeor the next step, just remember the
folks that you are around in thatfirst career, the folks that you are
with in your first path, theyare all going to be promoted at some
point in time. They may evenbe your boss in the future. They
may come back and work aside youin a future career, future life,
(26:53):
future job. So try to dowrite and try to be kind to everybody
you work with, and try toadd value to everybody who you interact with.
M This is a great insight.I love it, and I have
a follow up question that I lovethe idea of. You know, you
(27:14):
said try many different things, soexperimenting is important. Also, we talk
a lot about you know, testingand experimenting on this podcast, but we
usually talk about it, you know, when we talk about like marketing,
you know, this kind of stuff. But I understand that it's important also
when you are looking for a job, when you're building a career, you
(27:37):
know, when you're trying to figureout what to do with your life.
The follow up question is, youknow, related to the topic of working
for free. I totally agree onthat, but I also realized that it's
kind of a you know, hottopic. So every time I say to
you know, I don't someone thatI said just me on online and ask
(28:02):
for you know, keeps, Isay, oh, go work for free
for you know, someone that youlike, a startup or you know,
a creator run entrepreneur. It's alwayskind of risky to say that. But
what do you think on that?I think there's are like, you know,
a moment in life when you haveto do it. It's kind of
(28:22):
like super useful. So there's probablya little more nuanced than just giving this
like, oh, go work forfree for somebody advice. Let's let's take
a step back on that one.I am I am not in anybody's financial
situation. So if you can't affordto work for free. Don't do it.
That's too risky, right. Ifyou're not gonna put food on your
(28:44):
table, if you're not gonna beable to support yourself or your family,
that's that's a that's a red line, like you can't cross that, and
that's okay. There's no tremendous upsidefor working for free versus not working for
free. There are situations where thatcould be the case. I think it's
okay to maybe work for free withsome conditions if the upside is warranted.
So I'll give you an example ofsomething where I would think and my first
(29:07):
role would be able to work forfree if I had the opportunity to work
next to Mark Zuckerberg back in twothousand and nine, and he said,
Hey, Danny, I think yourbackground is super impressive. Come be an
unpaid intern at Facebook in two thousandand nine, right like early days,
(29:27):
and you'll be in charge of runningsome crazy cool social experiments with our with
our with our social campaigns. Thatwould be in a you know, that
would be something where I would belike, Okay, I probably can't get
this anywhere else. I would probablyalso recommend to myself that I do negotiate
a little bit at that point intime and ask for maybe a stipend or
(29:47):
to cover some some monthly expenses,but not being an example of something with
tremendous upside where I think probably workfor free. I don't always recommend working
for free. I think you shouldcertainly value your work, your experience with
some price, and I do thinkit's really important for people to get paid
exactly what they're worth or more thanthey're worth for potential upset as well.
(30:11):
So I just think in the earlydays when you're starting your career, take
big swings and make sure the riskreward profile is in line. Like you
can shoot for the fences, youcan shoot for the stars. You can
shoot really really high in those earlydays, not that you can't later in
your career, but there's more attachments, you have more responsibilities, you have
(30:33):
more to lose. Potentially in theearly days, you really don't have much
to lose. Like if you're takingan internship, let's say you're not even
working for free. Let's say you'reworking for a very low amount and it
fizzles out, you find that youyou know, I took I took a
marketing internship, and I realized threemonths and I hate marketing. That's fine,
right, do right by the peopleyou look, work alongside, and
(30:55):
find the next thing. Right,Maybe you want to go into customer service,
maybe you want to go into till, maybe you want to go into
a restaurant. Just try things untilone starts to click or feels like the
right one for you. And andthis is probably also, you know,
a good suggestion for people that arealways looking for, like, you know,
(31:15):
the perfect job. Yeah, ifyou experiment a lot, you have
a lot of you know, possibilityto find the best job for you.
But I don't think it's going tobe the first one. That's why you
have to try a lot of differentthings. I mean, some people get
lucky, for sure, and itcould be the first one is the one
they stick with. And you know, my mom has been accountant for her
(31:41):
whole career. She's worked at thesame place for nearly her whole career.
That's just rare. Now that doesn'texist as much. And if you are
fortunate to land at someplace that youabsolutely love and stick with, more power
to you. I have a fewfriends that have done that, and that's
really cool, and it's it's it'sI admire their career path because I've just
found something that they love and I'vestuck with. But I think from what
(32:04):
I've seen building Ramped and from mypersonal life and my friends and family,
I just I think that's super rarethese days. So keep trying until you
find something that clicks and it doesn'thave to be or I love marketing,
so I'm gonna stick with marketing.It could be like I really love working
with customers, I really love supportingthem, and that could be the the
foundational piece that leads you to arestaurant or leads you to you know,
(32:30):
working in operations at a startup leadsyou to some are totally different hospitality,
right, like it leads you someare totally different. But that core of
like I really like to serve customersand I really like to see them happy.
That could take you a long life. Yeah, I love it.
I love it. And what aboutpeople that already have a job, but
(32:51):
they are you know that when acareer or they are kind of you know,
looking for something better in their joblife. An he keeps and tweaks
you want to share with us.Yeah, I kind of balanced this this
one. I've given this a lotexcuse me. I'm somebody who doesn't like
(33:14):
to settle. I will probably sayI'm like more impatient than not. However,
I do think you know when youare feeling I'll put some I'll put
some things out there. There's nothere's no direct framework on this one.
But if you're in an environment whereyou're not supported and there's no upside,
and you feel like you're working fora potentially a bad boss or a bad
company, it's okay to switch,right, It's okay to quit, It's
(33:36):
okay to switch totally totally cool.It's really hard to decide when that right
point in time is between giving uptoo early and like when it's just bad,
like a bad fit. I thinkyou feel it in your gut first,
at least I have. When youfeel it in your gut and you
know you're gonna fight it, that'swhen I feel like it's time to make
(33:58):
a change. Now, be alittle thought full around that change. Don't
just quit said unseen unless it's reallytoxic, then by all means get out
of there. But don't just quitand don't have a backup plan in place.
I think it's important to at leastestablish a plan, put some thinking
around this plan and figure out whatyou want next. There's tons of resources
out there today that didn't exist whenI was at a career transition that can
(34:22):
be helpful, not the least ofwhich are located on our platform RAMPED,
but in other avenues too. LinkedInis an amazing resource for you to stress
test some of the things that you'rethinking. So if you feel it in
your gut and you want to makea change, search some of the keywords
that you're feeling or some of thethings that you're thinking, and you will
find a ton of stuff on LinkedInrof. That's how we connected in the
(34:44):
first place. Right, There's justtons of insight, tons of guidance out
there that you can use. Youknow, you can probably go to TikTok
and find a ten steps to makea change in your career. But there's
just a ton of information. Iwouldn't trust anyone's source quite yet. I
would gather all the information and makean assessment based on where you're at and
(35:05):
based on some of the upside potentialthat you have. I would not recommend
quitting. I would not recommend burningbridges on your way up. I would
definitely recommend being transparent with your bossto the extent that you can when you
have decided and when you have aplan in place to get out, and
just make sure that you do yourbest to support the folks around here,
(35:29):
to support your current company. Butat the end of the day, you
got to protect yourself first, andyou are number one. You're your number
one advocate, You're a number onesupporter system. So you know yourself better
than anyone else, and you canalmost throw every piece of information that I
just every piece of guidance that Ijust said, out the window, because
if you're feeling really, really terriblein a work environment, you know,
you know first when it's time toget out. Usually if you way copy
(35:54):
the morning, you know, andyou feel that you don't want to beat
in the office, you just startthinking about you know, I don't want
to say quit, but you know, change something at least, yeah something,
something's got to change. And Irespect that feeling and I've acted on
that feeling several times in my career. Yeah, me too, me too,
That's why I was sharing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally,
(36:15):
Danny. We usually end these conversationswith a couple of questions on you know,
books and tools. I want tostart with books. Do you have
any cool books that you want toshare with us? It can be,
you know, related to the topicof today, but also everything else,
something that you're reading at the moment, or something that you really loved,
(36:38):
whatever, something that can be usefulfor my community. There's one book that
has changed my life more than anyother book out there, and I wish
I read it when I was eighteenor sixteen instead of when I ended up
reading it, which was like aroundtwenty seven. And that is the book
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. An incredible book and a glimpse into
(37:05):
history and recent history, so notso long ago that it probably doesn't apply
or some of the learnings are likea little bit our kick, but enough
of a perspective into business in theearly nineteen hundreds, maybe a little bit
before, of some of the legendsof business back then and what they did
in their time to set them upfor success, and some time tested insights
(37:29):
and learnings that have come out ofthat book for me as well. I
genuinely wish that I read that whenI was eighteen. It should to me
be required reading for anybody who ispursuing a career in business or even thinks
they want to go into business.So many, so many cool learning,
so much historical perspective, and Itook a lot from that book. Yeah,
(37:51):
I'd recommend it to everybody. Whatabout tools? Do you have any
tool, any selftware that these kindof you know, really important in your
day to day routine or that youI don't know, use with your team
or that you want to share withus. We're we're a distributed team.
So the tools that we use mostoften to keep ourselves in check and keep
(38:14):
ourselves aligned and SYNCD up. Oneis LOOM, one of my favorite tools.
Actually got the opportunity to work alongsidethe early team, and I wouldn't
call it a coworking space, butI was on a project and they were
working out of the same building asthe team that I was with at the
time. So I've seen them kindof from their infancy and warms my heart
(38:34):
a little bit that they that theyhave achieved such such great success. The
products amazing, The tools that theycome out with are amazing, so we
use them all the time. I'mbig on Slack for distributed communication. We
use that often. That's not likea unique or new tool per se.
But it's something that we've been leveragingquite aggressively today. And then you know,
(39:00):
if you're a job seeker, Ihave to shout out Ramped. Go
to ramped. It is a freeAI based tool. You will find so
much value packed into the product offeringsthat we have. We have a cover
letter writer that will write your coverletters that will save you minutes if not
hours right away. We have aresume builder that will build you a customer
(39:21):
custom resume. We have interview prepthat will prep you for any interview that
you're you're you're about to embark on. And it's all free, so you
can use the based platform for free. You know, I gotta give our
product team credit where credit is due. It is really impressive and my co
founder Mitch has spearheaded and a reallyimpressive initiative for job seekers. Of course,
(39:45):
guys, I will share all thelinks in the description below Danny before
saying by where they can find you? Read you, follow you so late
and LinkedIn is the best place tofind me. I am super active.
We post daily post tips and tricksfor job seekers all the time. Hit
(40:08):
me on LinkedIn if you want tocommunicate directly you can find my email probably
pretty easily from there, but shootme a note and I am always available,
especially if you were a job seekeror you need some career guidance.
I've been able and fortunate to speakwith hundreds of thousands of job seekers since
we launched ramped back in twenty twenty, and I have a wealth of knowledge,
(40:32):
not even tuoting my own horm andjust have heard so many crazy stories,
heard so many great stories, heardso many successful stories, and I
want to share more guidance with thecommunity whenever I can, and your Polt
Coast of course, yes the RAMPpodcast. I didn't even shout that out,
but then you can catch you onthe RAM podcast and about a month
(40:52):
after this recording, but yes,absolutely the RAMP podcasts are about to launch
season four very very quickly, andis on that as well, so please
come there. I will evolve thelinks in the description. Denny, thank
you so much for your time.It was great. Thanks, Ralph,
I have a great one. Thanksfor listening to this episode of the podcast.
(41:13):
I hope you enjoyed it and you'lllearn something new. Make sure to
subscribe to us on YouTube and Spotifyto stay updated on new episodes. With
your support, I can continue tobring great content and great guests to this
podcast. So hit the subscribe buttonnow and I'll see you in the next episode.
Chow, everyone, and welcome backto Grow Talks. I'm your host,
Raphael and my guest today is DanieLeonard. Hi, Danny, how are
you today? Hi rough, Goodto be with you. This kind of
second appointment we had because actually Iwas a guest in your podcast, maybe
(00:21):
like a week ago maybe less Yep, yep, that's right, sup.
Yeah, it was, it was, It was, it was. It
was really nice. It was reallygood with a good talk, good shots
on, really excited about this,you know, kind of second part.
We usually start, you know,these conversations here with a very simple one,
(00:45):
with a classic tell us about yourstory, tell us about yourself.
You know who's Danny, uh,you know what you're passionate about, and
also what you're doing at the moment. Sweet. All right, well,
I'll jump in at a high level. Let's go personal first. I am
a father of two, a husband, a brother, a friend. I
(01:07):
live in Los Angeles, California.I'm from Minnesota, Minnetonka, Minnesota to
be more specific, and I spentyou know, the vast majority of my
life in the Midwest. And professionally, I am in technology. So right
now I have a startup which Ico founded with two others called RAMPED.
(01:30):
We are fixing the job search atscale for job seekers all over the place.
The job market is really tough rightnow. We have a bunch of
we have a bunch of free toolsthat get job seekers power search and empower
them to take their job search backinto their own hands. And then we
have some some some paid offerings aswell that make the job search super super
(01:53):
easy. But my mission today withRAMPED and our mission has been, let's
fix the job search. Let's makeit more equitable, Let's give folks hours
back in their lives and make iteasy for everybody. And Darren say,
I was well off fun. Let'smake the job search a little bit of
fun. Usually it's not fun anadult exactly. You'll say that your mission
(02:19):
now is to fix it. Whydid you use the world fix it?
I mean, what's wrong with it? Yeah, so a bunch of things.
I could probably go on for hoursabout this topic. I've been living
in it for the last four years, specifically with RAMPED, but before that
I've been a hiring manager two thousandsof different sales manager salespeople. So that
(02:40):
what that looks like back in theday and what has actually existed for many,
many years. Is you build thismassive funnel of resumes if you're talking
about the hiring manager side or theemployer side, and then you immediately immediately
cut around eighty percent of those resumesfor a variety of some legitimate some because
(03:01):
you can't handle the flow. Othersmaybe at some companies for illegitimate reasons,
which we won't get into on thisconversation. But what you're doing is you're
building this big funnel for no reason. The reason that you're doing is just
because you want, you know,to post a job and get as many
applicants as you can. It's almosta entity numbers thing. What also is
(03:23):
a huge problem with that is theresume by itself is a big, big
issue. This does not share whatyou are doing today, who you are
as a person, what your upsidepotential is. The skills that you have
are not represented on your resume.The resume is very specifically supposed to just
be a billboard of who you are, and folks don't understand that that is
(03:46):
being used for a variety for areason. Some people want to tell their
lives story in their resume. Otherpeople don't know what an employer wants out
of their resume. Really, what'shappening with the resume today is it's getting
sucked into an applicant tracking system onthe employer side. And that's just a
simple piece of software that takes resumesin from all jobs, from all job
search sites. It gets sucked inand talent acquisition volks or recruiters are just
(04:12):
looking for keywords and that is whatis helping or that is what is acting
as the filter for a lot ofthese job seekers. It's just simply a
keyword search on these resumes. That'snot good enough. So when I say
fixed the job search, I meanlet's empower teams to use skills, to
(04:33):
use upside potential, to use desiresto use the person actually is instead of
what's demonstrated on the resume. Potentiallythey're linked in potentially a cover letter like
these are silly, silly assets thatwe need to get rid of and replace
with what is actually the person's skillset and their upside potential and desire to
(04:55):
succeed in that role. And thenand then in that specific company, I
was talking with a friend, Ithink a couple of days ago about something,
you know, kind of related tothis. We were talking about the
fact that most people on LinkedIn,they how can I say this? They
(05:15):
only show you know, Valady metricsin terms of, you know, the
info they want to share, youknow the successes they had. And you
don't actually know a person from theirLinkedIn profile. And there is something you
know, uh, you know,the hidden part of the iceberg about that
person. You know the career thatthat person made that you will never understand.
(05:41):
You will never get it from justfrom the LinkedIn profile. And this
is super interesting because you say somethingvery you know, kind of similar related
to this. So how can youfix that? I mean, if the
CB is broken, if LinkedIn isnot enough, what's the trution? Is
there a solute then what's the solution? So oh by and by it but
(06:03):
ramped we are building the solution.I don't think the solution, the perfect
solution, exists today. I thinkthis is many years out, if not
a decade away, let's just callit. But the resume has existed since
the fourteen hundreds and there's been verylittle innovation on the resume since that time.
We are still applying to jobs thesame way that my parents applied to
(06:27):
job. Drop a resume, sendit to hiring managers, drop a resume,
talk to your network, have themsend its hiring managers. Those are
pretty much the same steps. Now, what can happen today is instead of
a resume being the core asset,or maybe a resume and the LinkedIn profile
that you create, which there aretons of great benefits to both, what
(06:50):
you could be doing is you couldbe chatting with some sort of either AI
or some sort of platform that getsto know you on a really deep level.
That's what we're trying to build atRAMP. That's what we're building at
RAMP is once I submit to you, hey, look, I'm really interested
in working in an environment that issupportive, competitive, motivating, transparent.
(07:15):
Okay cool. Then either the AIor the person or whoever it is in
the future, whatever it is inthe future, says okay cool. Here
are some ideas based on the thingsthat you're looking for, of careers or
of jobs that could be a reallygood fit for you. Tell me a
little bit more about the skills youhave before I surface some jobs. Okay,
(07:38):
and then you move further and furtherdown the chain. Right. So,
now, okay, here are sometitles that I have here as some
companies that I have that appear reallyinteresting to you based on what you've told
me. And by the way,we have three interviews lined up. They're
already with hiring managers. You seemlike the perfect fit. Do you want
me to get you these interviews?Right? So it's less spray and pray,
(08:01):
it's less drop a resume that couldrepresent you, and it's more,
Hey, I already know you,or the platform already knows you. RAMP
already knows you're really well. Weknow what your desires are, we know
what your skills are, and weare proactively surfacing roles that are really good
fits to you. Now, let'stake this even a step further. So
let's say that that's just one exampleof your job search. Ramps want.
(08:22):
RAMP wants to be there for yourentire career. So what does that actually
look like. So let's say you'rein seats already, you are an individual
contributor. I'll just use an examplethat I know really well. So let's
say you're a high performing sales representative, but your aspiration is actually to be
a marketer, and it's to bea programmatic marketer. And you just have
(08:43):
never told anybody that, but youthink you could be really really good at
that. So in the background,as your being a proactive, highly productive
salesperson, you're telling RAMPED like,I really want to be a marketer.
Can you please set me up forsuccess as a marketer? And RAMPED would
ask you questions like, Okay,do you have SEO skills? Do you
(09:05):
have sem skills? Do you knowhow to launch a Facebook ad campaign?
And if you say no, RAMPEDwill also surface curriculum to you. We'll
say, hey, look, takethis SEO course, take this programmatic ads
course where you can launch a Googleads campaign or Facebook ads campaign, get
the certification, and then present itto your current hiring manager and Taylor,
(09:31):
I've been a great salesperson. Ireally want to go into digital marketing.
Do you have a fit here atthis specific company? If they say no,
go back to Rampage hire a manageror my manager said no, what
else do you have for me?Cool? Here's three jobs that are not
only willing to take a chance onyou as somebody who is a high performing
(09:52):
salesperson but no marketing experience, butthey actually have interviews already lined up.
They saw your profile, they knowyou are a little bit we've community did
ramped has communicated this to them already. The interviews are there whenever you're ready
to take them. So it's more, it's more thoughtful, it's more based
on skills. It's more just assessingwhere you're at as a human, as
a professional, and then surfacing thingsthat already are available. You just don't
(10:16):
know where to find them yet.M Ah. It feels like I don't
know if it's the right ward,but to me, it's like a kind
of an assissant. Is that isthat good word for? Yeah, we
think of it more as a asa coach, but an assistant is great
as well. Right, So somebodywho is or something that is a career
(10:37):
coach that just sits alongside you andyou can chat with all all the time,
right, Like, Oh, Ijust had this one on one with
my manager. They told me I'mreally good at X, I'm really bad
at Why how do I improve it? Why? Cool? Here's a course
do you want that? Or here'san initiative, like go talk to three
people at your company that have donethis in the past. Maybe that's a
great, great place to start,right. So it's a pro active career
(11:01):
coach, and I like the ideaof you know, integrating training in the
process. That's quite cool. Uh. In your experience, Uh, have
you seen any let's say, bigchanges, big shift in the way you
know, new generations look for ajob. I was reading an article I
(11:24):
think it was maybe always something likethat, an article about how you know,
gen Z has very different Uh,you know priorities when they look for
a job. You know, forexample, they don't care about I don't
know, like a car or youknow, an insurance or a phone,
(11:48):
those kind of perks. Uh,they won't I don't know, work from
home, you know, something completelydifferent. Have you seen any kind of
you know, important shifts in inthis Yeah, so I what I have
seen out of gen Z. Let'slet's start with the top level insight on
gen Z. So, gen Zthere obviously the future. They grew up
(12:09):
in the information age. They grewup with access to immediate, immediate feedback
on nearly anything. Right, theywant to assess what a video game looks
like. They've already known how tosearch for it, and they probably have
ten TikTok videos showing what the videogame looks like and how to play it
and all the guides. Right,They've grown up in that environment where me
(12:30):
as a millennial, I got tosee kind of both. Right, I
saw a life before the Internet,and I remember my childhood being without the
Internet. And then at some pointit flipped, right when I got to
like eighth grade, ninth grade,like everything was was on the internet.
Everything was online, but the Internetwas just being created. So I know
both. And then you know,further up the chain, less and less
(12:50):
of their childhood or less and lessas their adult life was was with the
Internet. So they know so muchinformation, they know how to search for
it, they know how to stresstest it. So for some of these
careers and some of these jobs thatare out there, gen Z already knows.
Hey, look, I'll I'll usean example that I've seen a lot
of memes from gen Z, folks, is if you're selling insurance and there's
(13:13):
major players out there that sell insuranceor have that type of role, gen
Z has a true perspective of whatit's like and the downside and the upside,
and often that's represented in like thatshort TikTok showing the odds and ends
of how bad it is to bean insurance agent or how you have to
go in quotes sell your friends andfamily on this insurance product before you go
(13:35):
become a high performing insurance agent.So they already know kind of the good
side and maybe the humorous downside.And what they're doing with that information is
they're trying to uncover rules that fittheir specific needs or specific lifestyle instead of
what I'm accustomed to. When Ijumped into the workforce, my parents straight
(13:56):
up told me, take whatever jobthat you can. The first job that
comes to you, run at it, really, really work your butt off,
stay late. That's not the samevirgen z. That's that's not the
attitude that they're they've been told.It's not at the attitude that they've searched
for and found on their own.That's not good or bad. I'm not
having I don't have a strong opinionon it. What I will say is
(14:18):
for me, my perspective is Icould not have existed in what I am
today without knowing the in office environmentof my first job. I was very
fortunate to land at a tech companythat was on an extreme growth path.
It was called Group On. It'sstill around today, but that company,
(14:39):
you know, I started as employeenumber of fifty to seventy five range and
it just took off right. Wewere adding hundreds of people a month at
some points, and it was rocketshipgrowth. And they're bringing in top talent,
and I got a chance to meetand chat with and have meetings with
something really really really impressive people fromall walks of life, all age.
(15:01):
And I'm not suggesting all day,every day and it's mandated, But I
do think there's a place that genZ maybe isn't familiar with and doesn't necessarily
know what they don't know on theinoffice presence. So they may say I
want to work remotely, I wantto work whenever I want. I want
(15:22):
to just plug in, plug alug in, lugout. But there is
some benefit to having an in officepresence and to be around people that no
different things than you or no morethan you are, no less than you
to teach, to learn from,to get mentored by those folks. And
I don't think gen Z has thatperspective for a variety of reasons, not
(15:43):
the least of which is some oftheir professional career has been impacted by a
global pandemic or pandemic where people justhaven't been able to go into an office,
so kind of a kind of aRambley way to say that gen Z
is so innovative, so thoughtful,so creative. If I think if they
could, if they could pair thatup with some of the really great stuff
(16:07):
that was happening pre pandemic in termsof office presence and in terms of getting
mentored being around people that that haveseen it and done it before, I
think there's a there's a really bigwin for for them, but also for
the rest of the workforce as wellto learn from gen Z as well.
Thanks for the assist because I wantedto talk about the pandemic a little.
(16:33):
How's the situation. I'm always wonderingif the uh, you know, the
job market is back to how wewas in twenty nineteen, or you know,
if the two years of pandemic kindof left you know something that you
know as always as changed the marketforever. What's your what's your take on
(16:59):
that. That's a good question.I don't think it's back to twenty nineteen.
I'll give you the kind of theshort answer. We were. We
launched RAMPED officially in June twenty twenty, but really the pre launch or the
beta launch was January twenty twenty,so we saw pre pandemic, the first
(17:22):
scary part of the pandemic where everythingshut down, tons of layoffs right away,
the big boom back right hiring overhiring, tons of people looking for
jobs, you know, currency,money flying everywhere from from government, from
government printing. And then now whichhas just been this like slog of let's
(17:47):
call it like depression, but Idon't know. It wouldn't call like an
actual depression, but depressed hiring cycles. So we've seen a lot in this
two three, maybe even four yearperiod. It's not back to where it
is or where it was. Peopleare still not going into the office.
I don't think they're ever going tomandate some industries as well, But I
don't think anybody's ever going to mandatefull time back in the office, with
(18:07):
no exceptions. I think the futureof work is hybrid, and I think
it is probably these some part ofthe week in the office or some part
of each month in office. AndI think the ideal form of that is
neither hybrid, nor remote nor anyof these taglines. It really is be
(18:32):
in the office for the times whereit is necessary to be in the office,
and those times to me feel likebrainstorming, feel like action decision making
meetings feels like where we need somecross functional collaboration and it is not hey
(18:52):
show up at eight every day,leave at five every day, uproot your
life to be in a specific location. Now I will calvey out there with
like some some teams do benefit frommore in office presence and not I am
biased, but I've seen a salesteam, a really high performance sales team
(19:17):
in office, and I've seen salesteams out of office, and I do
feel like there's this emotional connection orinertia that is built by being in office.
Now, you know, not everyindustry is technology, so you know,
some healthcare like actually being in thehospital, like that's that's you're gonna
have to be. If you wantto be a doctor, you're gonna have
(19:37):
to be in office right most mostof the time. But I do think
the world is not back to whereit is. I think it will change,
and I think I don't think we'llbe back to where we were,
but I do think the future islooking bright and there will be benefits or
a silver lining from the pandemic interms of how we work and also mirror
(20:02):
that with maybe some things from thepast, but also where we're going in
the future, which is there's reallycool collaboration or even like you and me
talking right where I'm in LA,you're in the UK. We can now
do that and that's accepted, wherebefore I was like, you know,
like everybody's in the opposite doing onthe office and you're not part of the
company. If you're enjoying this episode, please check out my lead generation course.
(20:23):
You can watch it for free onGuido, Dot link, slash skill
share. G Ai t. Asan entrepreneur, marketer or business owner,
you know how crucial lead generation is. In this course, I'll be sharing
with you twenty proven tactics for leadgeneration in both B to B and B
two C markets. You can watchit for free on Guido, Dot link,
(20:45):
slash skill Share g A I tOh. You'll find the link in
the description. I feel like,you know, most companies are kind of
you know, still working on findingbalance, finding a solution, finding you
know, the best way to organizeeverything. I mean I can see here,
(21:07):
especially for you know, like corporatesand big big companies in London.
Uh, they try to force everyoneback to the office like for a while,
and it didn't work. It didn'twork you know, after two years
working from home, if you realizethat you can you know, like save
money, save time from commuting andstress you know, and everything else.
(21:33):
Uh not everyone wants to go back, you know, five days a week
in the office. So I feellike they're kind of you know, building
a new model, finding the perfectbalance. Maybe. As I said before,
each company's different, you know,different culture, you know, different
environment. Makes sense. I usuallylike to ask my guests for some tips
(21:57):
and tricks for you know, basedon their experience, and I want to
do the same with you here today. So do you have any like suggestions
for you know, people that arelooking for a first job. And then
I'm asking I'm gonna ask the samequestion in a moment for people that want
(22:18):
to build a career. But let'sstart with you know, people that are
kind of out of the university,they're looking for the first job. What
can you share about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a really
good question. Obviously, I knowit from a professional tagline of like what
we what we recommend to somebody comingout of college. I want to put
(22:41):
that aside and just talk about someof the places where I wish I would
have up leveled and the advice Iwould give myself coming out of college.
So I came out of school intwo thousand and nine. It was actually
a different crisis at that time.It was the global financial crisis, right,
And I came out of the Universityof Michigan's Business school being told for
(23:03):
the last three years that you're goingto get an investment banking job, where
you're going to get a consulting job. Those are the two paths. They're
the most important paths, and that'sall you should be focused on. And
naturally, when I graduated, thosejobs evaporated. So there were some,
of course, but you know,the financial markets in the financial industry was
really heavily incted. So I waslost, to say the very least.
(23:26):
And I was really hard on myselfat that point in time too, So
I wanted that job. I wouldI would take these finance interviews and the
investment banking interviews, and I wouldn'tbe getting any of them. I probably
got rejected from forty different banks,and I thought at that point in time
that I was a big failure.I felt I felt awful, like I
(23:47):
had not experienced that type of rejectionprofessionally. I really didn't even really have
that much professional experience at that time, but it was like really tough on
me and tough on myself and Iand I took it really personally. What
I should have done back in theday is I should have been optimizing for
some more risk or some more riskier, riskier opportunities. So what I mean
(24:15):
by that is take big swings,right, you want to join a big
startup, you want to take acomplete pivot in your career, you want
to take some time off, whateverit is that feels the best to you
in that moment. Make sure theupside is there for you as well.
So what I wish I would havedone is really thought about it, Okay,
what do I want in the nextone to three years to set myself
up for my broader career? AndI should have been oriented around learning,
(24:41):
around being around the smartest people Icould find, the people with the biggest
networks I could find. That iswhat I wish I would have told myself.
Now. Luckily I actually lucked intoan environment like that, but that
was not intentional. Group On hadsome of the best minds of technology.
There, had some of the brightestpeople, but that was not thing that
I had planned for. That wassomething that I lucked into. I would
(25:03):
have been a little bit more thoughtfularound, Hey, look, take some
time to self discover what I'm actuallypassionate about. Try as many different things
as I can. At that pointin time, I want to finance.
It's what I was said on Iwish I would have thought, Hey,
look, maybe it's important to learnmarketing. How do you learn marketing?
Take a marketing internship at one ofthe coolest brands that you could find.
(25:25):
Right Go and find the fifty topbrands and apply to be an unpaid marketing
intern. That's totally cool. Orfind a hundred of the absolute best entrepreneurs
that you can find and cold messagethem and figure out which one will take
you on as an assistant or amentee or an intern in any way that
(25:48):
they will hire you. Be aroundreally really smart people, Be around the
biggest network of people you possibly can, And the biggest piece of advice I
would have given myself as it's okayto fail. I did not think that
at all at that point in time. I was so hard on myself.
I thought failure would define you nomatter what part of your career. And
I'm still learning like, it's okayto fail, fail often those many times
(26:12):
as you can, but just makesure you're one kind of like failing up.
That's a stupid cliche buzzword thing tosay, But make sure you're learning
from each failure and you're taking thatalong the way, and try not to
repeat the same mistake twice. Theother piece of advice that I would give
myself as your reputation does carry withyou. So whenever you are thinking about
(26:33):
a career switch or a career changeor the next step, just remember the
folks that you are around in thatfirst career, the folks that you are
with in your first path, theyare all going to be promoted at some
point in time. They may evenbe your boss in the future. They
may come back and work aside youin a future career, future life,
(26:53):
future job. So try to dowrite and try to be kind to everybody
you work with, and try toadd value to everybody who you interact with.
M This is a great insight.I love it, and I have
a follow up question that I lovethe idea of. You know, you
(27:14):
said try many different things, soexperimenting is important. Also, we talk
a lot about you know, testingand experimenting on this podcast, but we
usually talk about it, you know, when we talk about like marketing,
you know, this kind of stuff. But I understand that it's important also
when you are looking for a job, when you're building a career, you
(27:37):
know, when you're trying to figureout what to do with your life.
The follow up question is, youknow, related to the topic of working
for free. I totally agree onthat, but I also realized that it's
kind of a you know, hottopic. So every time I say to
you know, I don't someone thatI said just me on online and ask
(28:02):
for you know, keeps, Isay, oh, go work for free
for you know, someone that youlike, a startup or you know,
a creator run entrepreneur. It's alwayskind of risky to say that. But
what do you think on that?I think there's are like, you know,
a moment in life when you haveto do it. It's kind of
(28:22):
like super useful. So there's probablya little more nuanced than just giving this
like, oh, go work forfree for somebody advice. Let's let's take
a step back on that one.I am I am not in anybody's financial
situation. So if you can't affordto work for free. Don't do it.
That's too risky, right. Ifyou're not gonna put food on your
(28:44):
table, if you're not gonna beable to support yourself or your family,
that's that's a that's a red line, like you can't cross that, and
that's okay. There's no tremendous upsidefor working for free versus not working for
free. There are situations where thatcould be the case. I think it's
okay to maybe work for free withsome conditions if the upside is warranted.
So I'll give you an example ofsomething where I would think and my first
(29:07):
role would be able to work forfree if I had the opportunity to work
next to Mark Zuckerberg back in twothousand and nine, and he said,
Hey, Danny, I think yourbackground is super impressive. Come be an
unpaid intern at Facebook in two thousandand nine, right like early days,
(29:27):
and you'll be in charge of runningsome crazy cool social experiments with our with
our with our social campaigns. Thatwould be in a you know, that
would be something where I would belike, Okay, I probably can't get
this anywhere else. I would probablyalso recommend to myself that I do negotiate
a little bit at that point intime and ask for maybe a stipend or
(29:47):
to cover some some monthly expenses,but not being an example of something with
tremendous upside where I think probably workfor free. I don't always recommend working
for free. I think you shouldcertainly value your work, your experience with
some price, and I do thinkit's really important for people to get paid
exactly what they're worth or more thanthey're worth for potential upset as well.
(30:11):
So I just think in the earlydays when you're starting your career, take
big swings and make sure the riskreward profile is in line. Like you
can shoot for the fences, youcan shoot for the stars. You can
shoot really really high in those earlydays, not that you can't later in
your career, but there's more attachments, you have more responsibilities, you have
(30:33):
more to lose. Potentially in theearly days, you really don't have much
to lose. Like if you're takingan internship, let's say you're not even
working for free. Let's say you'reworking for a very low amount and it
fizzles out, you find that youyou know, I took I took a
marketing internship, and I realized threemonths and I hate marketing. That's fine,
right, do right by the peopleyou look, work alongside, and
(30:55):
find the next thing. Right,Maybe you want to go into customer service,
maybe you want to go into till, maybe you want to go into
a restaurant. Just try things untilone starts to click or feels like the
right one for you. And andthis is probably also, you know,
a good suggestion for people that arealways looking for, like, you know,
(31:15):
the perfect job. Yeah, ifyou experiment a lot, you have
a lot of you know, possibilityto find the best job for you.
But I don't think it's going tobe the first one. That's why you
have to try a lot of differentthings. I mean, some people get
lucky, for sure, and itcould be the first one is the one
they stick with. And you know, my mom has been accountant for her
(31:41):
whole career. She's worked at thesame place for nearly her whole career.
That's just rare. Now that doesn'texist as much. And if you are
fortunate to land at someplace that youabsolutely love and stick with, more power
to you. I have a fewfriends that have done that, and that's
really cool, and it's it's it'sI admire their career path because I've just
found something that they love and I'vestuck with. But I think from what
(32:04):
I've seen building Ramped and from mypersonal life and my friends and family,
I just I think that's super rarethese days. So keep trying until you
find something that clicks and it doesn'thave to be or I love marketing,
so I'm gonna stick with marketing.It could be like I really love working
with customers, I really love supportingthem, and that could be the the
foundational piece that leads you to arestaurant or leads you to you know,
(32:30):
working in operations at a startup leadsyou to some are totally different hospitality,
right, like it leads you someare totally different. But that core of
like I really like to serve customersand I really like to see them happy.
That could take you a long life. Yeah, I love it.
I love it. And what aboutpeople that already have a job, but
(32:51):
they are you know that when acareer or they are kind of you know,
looking for something better in their joblife. An he keeps and tweaks
you want to share with us.Yeah, I kind of balanced this this
one. I've given this a lotexcuse me. I'm somebody who doesn't like
(33:14):
to settle. I will probably sayI'm like more impatient than not. However,
I do think you know when youare feeling I'll put some I'll put
some things out there. There's nothere's no direct framework on this one.
But if you're in an environment whereyou're not supported and there's no upside,
and you feel like you're working fora potentially a bad boss or a bad
company, it's okay to switch,right, It's okay to quit, It's
(33:36):
okay to switch totally totally cool.It's really hard to decide when that right
point in time is between giving uptoo early and like when it's just bad,
like a bad fit. I thinkyou feel it in your gut first,
at least I have. When youfeel it in your gut and you
know you're gonna fight it, that'swhen I feel like it's time to make
(33:58):
a change. Now, be alittle thought full around that change. Don't
just quit said unseen unless it's reallytoxic, then by all means get out
of there. But don't just quitand don't have a backup plan in place.
I think it's important to at leastestablish a plan, put some thinking
around this plan and figure out whatyou want next. There's tons of resources
out there today that didn't exist whenI was at a career transition that can
(34:22):
be helpful, not the least ofwhich are located on our platform RAMPED,
but in other avenues too. LinkedInis an amazing resource for you to stress
test some of the things that you'rethinking. So if you feel it in
your gut and you want to makea change, search some of the keywords
that you're feeling or some of thethings that you're thinking, and you will
find a ton of stuff on LinkedInrof. That's how we connected in the
(34:44):
first place. Right, There's justtons of insight, tons of guidance out
there that you can use. Youknow, you can probably go to TikTok
and find a ten steps to makea change in your career. But there's
just a ton of information. Iwouldn't trust anyone's source quite yet. I
would gather all the information and makean assessment based on where you're at and
(35:05):
based on some of the upside potentialthat you have. I would not recommend
quitting. I would not recommend burningbridges on your way up. I would
definitely recommend being transparent with your bossto the extent that you can when you
have decided and when you have aplan in place to get out, and
just make sure that you do yourbest to support the folks around here,
(35:29):
to support your current company. Butat the end of the day, you
got to protect yourself first, andyou are number one. You're your number
one advocate, You're a number onesupporter system. So you know yourself better
than anyone else, and you canalmost throw every piece of information that I
just every piece of guidance that Ijust said, out the window, because
if you're feeling really, really terriblein a work environment, you know,
you know first when it's time toget out. Usually if you way copy
(35:54):
the morning, you know, andyou feel that you don't want to beat
in the office, you just startthinking about you know, I don't want
to say quit, but you know, change something at least, yeah something,
something's got to change. And Irespect that feeling and I've acted on
that feeling several times in my career. Yeah, me too, me too,
That's why I was sharing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally,
(36:15):
Danny. We usually end these conversationswith a couple of questions on you know,
books and tools. I want tostart with books. Do you have
any cool books that you want toshare with us? It can be,
you know, related to the topicof today, but also everything else,
something that you're reading at the moment, or something that you really loved,
(36:38):
whatever, something that can be usefulfor my community. There's one book that
has changed my life more than anyother book out there, and I wish
I read it when I was eighteenor sixteen instead of when I ended up
reading it, which was like aroundtwenty seven. And that is the book
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. An incredible book and a glimpse into
(37:05):
history and recent history, so notso long ago that it probably doesn't apply
or some of the learnings are likea little bit our kick, but enough
of a perspective into business in theearly nineteen hundreds, maybe a little bit
before, of some of the legendsof business back then and what they did
in their time to set them upfor success, and some time tested insights
(37:29):
and learnings that have come out ofthat book for me as well. I
genuinely wish that I read that whenI was eighteen. It should to me
be required reading for anybody who ispursuing a career in business or even thinks
they want to go into business.So many, so many cool learning,
so much historical perspective, and Itook a lot from that book. Yeah,
(37:51):
I'd recommend it to everybody. Whatabout tools? Do you have any
tool, any selftware that these kindof you know, really important in your
day to day routine or that youI don't know, use with your team
or that you want to share withus. We're we're a distributed team.
So the tools that we use mostoften to keep ourselves in check and keep
(38:14):
ourselves aligned and SYNCD up. Oneis LOOM, one of my favorite tools.
Actually got the opportunity to work alongsidethe early team, and I wouldn't
call it a coworking space, butI was on a project and they were
working out of the same building asthe team that I was with at the
time. So I've seen them kindof from their infancy and warms my heart
(38:34):
a little bit that they that theyhave achieved such such great success. The
products amazing, The tools that theycome out with are amazing, so we
use them all the time. I'mbig on Slack for distributed communication. We
use that often. That's not likea unique or new tool per se.
But it's something that we've been leveragingquite aggressively today. And then you know,
(39:00):
if you're a job seeker, Ihave to shout out Ramped. Go
to ramped. It is a freeAI based tool. You will find so
much value packed into the product offeringsthat we have. We have a cover
letter writer that will write your coverletters that will save you minutes if not
hours right away. We have aresume builder that will build you a customer
(39:21):
custom resume. We have interview prepthat will prep you for any interview that
you're you're you're about to embark on. And it's all free, so you
can use the based platform for free. You know, I gotta give our
product team credit where credit is due. It is really impressive and my co
founder Mitch has spearheaded and a reallyimpressive initiative for job seekers. Of course,
(39:45):
guys, I will share all thelinks in the description below Danny before
saying by where they can find you? Read you, follow you so late
and LinkedIn is the best place tofind me. I am super active.
We post daily post tips and tricksfor job seekers all the time. Hit
(40:08):
me on LinkedIn if you want tocommunicate directly you can find my email probably
pretty easily from there, but shootme a note and I am always available,
especially if you were a job seekeror you need some career guidance.
I've been able and fortunate to speakwith hundreds of thousands of job seekers since
we launched ramped back in twenty twenty, and I have a wealth of knowledge,
(40:32):
not even tuoting my own horm andjust have heard so many crazy stories,
heard so many great stories, heardso many successful stories, and I
want to share more guidance with thecommunity whenever I can, and your Polt
Coast of course, yes the RAMPpodcast. I didn't even shout that out,
but then you can catch you onthe RAM podcast and about a month
(40:52):
after this recording, but yes,absolutely the RAMP podcasts are about to launch
season four very very quickly, andis on that as well, so please
come there. I will evolve thelinks in the description. Denny, thank
you so much for your time.It was great. Thanks, Ralph,
I have a great one. Thanksfor listening to this episode of the podcast.
(41:13):
I hope you enjoyed it and you'lllearn something new. Make sure to
subscribe to us on YouTube and Spotifyto stay updated on new episodes. With
your support, I can continue tobring great content and great guests to this
podcast. So hit the subscribe buttonnow and I'll see you in the next episode.
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