Part 1 of 3: Career Tips and Hints

So thrilled to share this episode all about career! Take a listen how I suggest three things that might be helpful to move your career forward. I help my roommate Anne while she goes through a job search and give hints in the right direction. Also, an update and a very sincere thank you!

TRANSCRIPT

Career Tips and Hints:

Into: Strangers no more this is Sincerely Yours, I’m your host Cece Denno

Cece Denno:

Welcome back to the second episode of Sincerely Yours. I am beyond thrilled, I have been so grateful for the tremendous encouragement and excitement I have received from everyone; because of the first episode. I just want to extend my most grateful thankyou’s to everyone. It has exceeded my expectations. With the encouragement and excitement surrounding the podcast, I have more motivation to move forward. So, one thing I did not realize when I initially thought of the podcast, and what I wanted to accomplish and create for the podcast to be about the audience and for the audience, is that I need an audience. I definitely missed that factor. So, like I said in the first episode; if you are struggling with anything need help with anything, definitely reach out to me,  because I love helping people. I made a career out of it, that is actually the first thing I’d like to focus on. So while, I am building an audience, and trying to get everyone behind the project, I was thinking of doing a three part series. This episode will focus primarily on career. Considering that we spend, the majority of our waking lives; waking up and going to work, being at work, and hanging out with the people at work. Its a significant part of our lives. I’ve been through it all. I’ve been through the most terrible of jobs, and good jobs, and other good jobs. From a wide range of experiences I feel I have a really good handle on things. I’m going to put together some recommendations, some advice and hopefully, we can go from there.

Cece: Courage, you need courage people. This is one thing I used to struggle with when I was at my dead end job. I was in an environment that was negative. I constantly did nothing right. By design, the jobs were set up that way. Only being at other jobs, I found that there are jobs that are supportive. That do give you the proper amount of responsibilities rather than being set up to fail. Despite all the negativeness one thing I strongly encourage is courage. My next suggestion would be to develop a skill. It used to be that you could get by on being good with people. Now I strongly believe that you need to have a specific skill or trait, that is marketable. Either it is going to be in coding that is extremely popular, and can definitely land a job. One thing that I’ve done for my specific job, is I’ve learned analytical skills and underwriting skills that is very specific for insurance. Now, I know this does not sound very glamorous. Don’t hate me. There is something to be said, because, if I had know at the start of my career how valuable gaining experience in something specific as underwriting or claims handling I would not have believed you. Out of no where, when you have a specific skill that is marketable these things begin to happen.

Sound clips of job offers.

Cece contin’d: Holy cow recruiter emails. If you had told me at the start of my career that I would be contacted for available jobs, when I was begging companies, please hire me please hire me; I would never have thought that. Lastly, what I recommend is that you have great tools. I know its not rocket science people! So as I was saying. You need to have three tools on top of being prepared. That resume has to be top notch. Your cover letter exceptional. A suit that fits. Its hanging in the closet. However you can be prepared and ready to be called into an interview.  Here’s a really great example. My roommate Anne has been job hunting, and I offered to help prepare for some interviews just for some feedback. Here’s a little of how that went.

Wind chimes:

Cece: Do you always send them out like this?

Anne: No!

Cece: Do you do the your address, date, their address?

Anne: I have a craft that I usually put in it. I take it and I go through their requirements. I take the requirements and I have an example of how I’ve met their requirements.

Cece: oh…

Anne: That is my typical cover letter, that is, I don't know what that is.  Nobody should ever look at that every again.

Cece: Well it goes to show, right …

Anne: That’s why when I got the email the next morning I was like, do the have right the person. I kept checking my name at the top of the email, and I was like, it says Anne! It says Anne, and it my phone number too.

Cece: I know its just so funny.  Well, I mean now you know that anything you submit could potentially be a job interview. And of course my brilliant words of wisdom. Be positive.

Anne: I was actually really thinking about that.

Cece: You need to be really positive. And even a mock interview to go along with it.

wind chimes…

Cece: Ok, Anne its so good to meet you, here take my hand. Welcome to Nova. Did you have a hard time getting here?

Anne: No.

Cece: No trouble at all? Alright, well I guess we should just get started. Here at Nova I’m sure its no surprise, but we actually have extremely high standards. If you could just describe your ability and how you work under pressure? How do you handle deadlines.

Anne: I make sure, I always know when my bosses need something done by. If I don’t have a deadline from them, I assume its not to high on their importance list. If you need something done in an hour and you don’t tell me you need it done in an hour, and I have something that is a priority, that’s what I’m going to be doing. I have to juggle five people schedules, sometimes I have seven peoples schedules depending on who I’m coordinating meetings with.

Cece: These are people doing the same thing?

Anne: People at different levels in the venture capital firm, or companies we’re looking at. I email with CEO’s. I email with executive assistants I email with administrative assistants, I also deal with the associates and the partners in our firm.

Cece: Very Nice.  Ok.

Anne: Ok.

Cece: And now, we’re just looking to hear back if she got the job, I think she did.

Cece: So there you have it, when you put together courage, developing a skill, and when you have all the tools already put together; I think you’ll be well on your way to finding yourself in a good position. Lets move forward.

Just as a disclaimer, don’t worry people. I am not leaving my job. I love working in the city, I have such a blast with everybody. I just want to through some suggestions out there for people that might need some assistance or guidance, and hopefully I can give them a boost in the right direction.

Now for some updates: I have some very good news. I actually have an email address. If you would like to further our discussion about career or moving forward, or if you just want to give me a resume, I can take a look at it, any interview tips anything like that; we can even do a mock interview like we did with Anne. If you want to reach out to me my email address is sincerelyyours@writeme.com. Even if you want to give some feedback on the show; I’d absolutely love to hear from you. Another thing just to throw out there this podcast was brought to your by…. crickets chirping … SERIOUSLY though, if your interested in doing a sponsorship for the podcast please get a hold of me.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode of sincerely yours, as much as I’ve enjoyed it. If you’re looking forward to the next episode, the second part to the three part series, we’ll be talking about something that I love and that’s MONEY!

Outro music.

P.S:

Cece: Hey guys just wanted to give you an update. We heard back,  Anne got the job! Yay.