Effective Strategies for a Job Search - SCPD CBA CSULB

[Speaker] Are you ready to go? Okay. Hey, good evening. My name is John Davis. Thank
you for having me come. I've spoken to the business college here before. Just really
quickly I don't want to be a talking head the whole time. So we're gonna get a lot of
audience participation hopefully. I've got some handouts for you. But the reason why
am I here is that I run a search firm, an HR consulting firm, and we also do staffing.
So basically the job hunting and getting people jobs and consulting with HR departments on
who to hire and who not to hire and that's kind of all I do all day long. When I was
your age I didn't know what I wanted or what I was doing to be honest. All this stuff sort
of evolves. One thing that I don't want to do is just present my agenda without really
getting an idea of what's important for you and kind of where you're at. But I just want
to see a show of hands how many full time students are here or relatively full time
students? OK anybody a working adult right now? Okay so just about everybody is a full
time student. Okay. Let's see. One thing that I do want to do and I'm just gonna take some
notes is what do you want to get out of this? I mean I basically just want to be an open
book for you, share with you what I know. I've been doing this stuff in terms of HR
and the career world for about seventeen years. So I wanted to share with you what I know
what's going to help you at this you know point in your life and make the next hour
and a half interesting. So in terms of what you want to walk away with today is there
a couple of things to come to mind? Go ahead. [Student] How to get a job.
[Speaker] OK so how do you get a job? We'll definitely go over that. So how do you get
a job? What else? Anything specific about how to get the job?
[Student] How do you measure likeability? [Speaker] Your likability factor? That's a
really good question because a wise manager told me once, people hire who they like. You
know all this stuff about your skills and all that stuff is all fine and wonderful but
people hire who they like. Yes? [Student] How to tour a specific industry
that you're interested in? [Speaker] Okay. Okay. Excellent. So I'm gonna
write these down so I don't forget. What else do you want to walk away with tonight? Anything
I can share with you? Anything else comes to mind? Yeah?
[Student] I guess basic , what to include and what nor to include on
the resume, how to structure ... [Speaker] Okay so that is an excellent question.
Doing a resume is almost an entirely different workshop but we'll touch on that. Anything
else come to mind that you want to walk away with? Okay so we're good. You're all so quiet.
Okay. So yeah? I heard somebody somewhere. Nothing? All right so anyway... Basically
what most people do, they think they're doing a lot when they're on the internet and they're
sending out resumes and looking on Indeed, and looking at Craigslist and whatever and
that's all fine and wonderful, but there's a couple of different things that you can
do which are really going to get you an advantage. And basically this is what we're talking about
here but, how many of you are planning to do an internship? Okay. Excellent. I did a
couple of them. I studied a totally different field than HR, but I did get into my field
of study and I did three internships and I'm really glad that I did. That got my foot in
the door. So that's absolutely key. So we've covered that. So you guys are good. And I
want to test you in just a second. The second area is obviously ads. You know, what you
see posted online. Agencies and headhunters. One thing about networking, I never liked
that word "networking" because it reminded me of like what does that mean? You go to
a party and exchange business cards and have drinks? You know what's networking all about?
But anyway what are your thoughts on networking, getting your internships? What's worked and
what hasn't worked so far? Anybody? Nothing. There's gotta be something. Okay, who wants
to define networking for me? Go ahead. [Student] Meeting people on that type of market
and building a relationship and network with them.
[Speaker] Absolutely and then what about building the relationship part? What would you about
that? [Student] To build a relationship?
[Speaker] Yeah. How would you do that? [Student] By getting to know them. Getting
to know more things about the market, the industry, the company that they're part of.
[Speaker] Absolutely you learn about them. People love to talk about themselves. It's
really, really easy, "Hi, I'm John Davis. I'm an HR consultant. What do you do?
[Student] I'm a full time student. [Speaker] Okay, you're a full time student.
Are you studying a particular field? [Student] International business.
[Speaker] Oh wow. Okay. So what will you do with that when you're done?
[Student] Well I'm looking forward to doing international business mostly in a multinational
corporation and doing mergers and acquisitions.
[Speaker] Okay. Okay. So excellent. Very good. Thank you. I appreciate it. Something that
is important also for you to do in this is informational interviews. Have any have you
done any informational interviews so far? Go ahead. Can you tell the class about what
you did. [Speaker 14] a couple people
in this room with Coca-Cola Refreshments. So it was informative to say the least. It
was what they expected out of you in terms of the approach that you have to take.
[Speaker] I'm gonna have you back up for just a minute. How did you get the informational
interview? [Student] How I came across...? I found the
flyer in this classroom on the floor. I'm not kidding.
[Speaker] So was it literally like representatives-from-Coca-Cola-were-gonna-be-here-today sorta thing?
[Student] They just left, yes. [Speaker] Oh wow. Okay. So then, so you found
it through school obviously, you got to talk to them. Who were they? Like what was their
role in the company and whatnot? [Student] One of them was a district sales
manager presenting and someone else had taken a, I guess you can say, an internship type
position So there're two aspects of how to work for Coca-Cola.
[Speaker] So did you go in with any questions about what you were gonna ask them? What did
you ask? [Student] Simple questions on what methods
to use when answering behavioral type questions. [Speaker] OK so behavior based interview questions.
Any other you know thoughts or strategies going in and talking to them?
[Student] There was a limited amount of time. [Speaker] Did you walk away with a business
card or like what happened? [Student] business card and
keep my resume. [Speaker] So what are you going to do as a
follow up? [Student] Follow up? I actually have an interview
next week. [Speaker] OSo you like scored big time. I'm
just curious like if you want to share. You shared with me that you're interested in in
international business. How many of you have kind of an idea of the discipline or the industry
that you want to go into? You know the difference right? So the discipline is basically your
role. So discipline like accounting or human resources or management. And then the industry
obviously is oil and gas, healthcare, you know advertising, whatever. How many of you
are you know pretty clear on those two? OK so would you say on the industry or the discipline?
[Student] Discipline [Speaker] OK and what discipline are you going
into? [Student] Management
[Speaker] Okay so when you say management, that's a universe. OK, so have you thought
about the industry you want to apply your management skills in?
[Student] I was thinking about starting off in retail and ultimately just kinda gaining
the operations management side and obviously branching out.
[Speaker] How long until you graduate? How much time until you're gonna graduate?
[Student] It would be December, maybe Fall 2012. I'm thinking about prolonging it cause
I wanna do the Smith Program cause I'm a finance major. So I might take advantage of that.
[Speaker] But as far as the retail world is concerned, have you targeted any company so
far? Okay, which ones? [Student] Target, Kohls, and a friend of mine
who's working for Toys R Us in the corporate... [Speaker] OK have you been able to get inside
and talk to any of these folks? OK awesome. And can you just share with the class what
your experience was like? [Student] Well I made it to the second round
in Target and um... [Speaker] So you just actually interviewed
for a job. You didn't go in to sort of asking questions and doing an informational interview.
You went in and interviewed. [Student] I had an informational interview
on campus and I moved to the second round. So we went to the actual site and location
and, yeah, just pretty much had that experience and that's fine.
[Speaker] When you got in there what surprised you the most about the interviewing process.
[Student] That they know exactly what they're looking for. So you're not it.
[Speaker]So it is the executive management program at Target right? And then did you...
Have you been able to talk to anybody from the other stores?
[Student] For now I'm very focused on campus. So I'm the vice president for a student organization.
Usually, I'm very busy. And I'm just lining up all my ducks in a row, staying focused
on my GPA. I'm now following up just because I know I'm gonna graduate a year from now.
So I'm just kind of networking, building my contacts at this present moment.
[Speaker] Okay. Okay. Excellent. Somebody else raised their hand that said they kinda
knew what direction they're going in. Can you share with us? Is it the discipline or
the industry that you want to work in? [Student] More of the industry. I'm really
interested in sustainability. [Speaker 0] Okay so like green architecture,
housing, environmental? [Student] Consulting and green businesses.
[Speaker] OK so when you say consulting, that's a universe too. So part of what, I'll give
you the handout in just a second, part of the reason why I put a dartboard target thing
on is because the more clearer you are on what you want you'll get there. If you don't
know what you want and where you're going, you'll be all over the map and so it's just
so important to even name a couple of things that you might be interested in doing and
just trying them out and you know my philosophy especially with people in your age group is
try different things and go talk to people in different industries. A lot of people say,
"Oh gee I want to be a doctor. I want to be an attorney." Well those are two universes.
Do you want to be an ER doc? Do you want to be a surgeon? do you want to be a family GP?
What is it that you really want to do? Because those are three really different tracks. The
same thing with being an attorney. I mean there's corporate attorneys. There's people
that have to do workers compensation law, that do civil cases. It's an entire universe
and so what I recommend is to find people who are doing what you're interested in doing.
A lot of people will come up to me and say, "Well I want to get into like entertainment."
Well what do you mean entertainment? Like be in front of a camera? Behind the camera?
Do you want to be on the corporate side of entertainment? You wanna be with a movie studio?
I mean what do you want to do? So the closer you get to sort of being clear on what you
want, the easier this is going to become for you and I know graduating can be really overwhelming.
You don't know what you're doing but now this is a good time to go out there and you know
talk to people. You'd be shocked that you know in your own network, people's parents,
relatives who work for various different kinds of companies that you can tap into. And people
love to help other people especially when their careers and they love to talk about
it. So anyway I just want to sort of come back to you because that seems like you know
a big world. So do you have some ideas on how you might narrow that down just a little
bit? [Student] Well, I know that Accenture and
Deloitte have sustainability departments that they're developing. And I'm really interested
in implementing sustainable practices into actual business policy. So on the business
policy . [Speaker] Okay. So in other words as part
of a company's standard operating procedures or what it does, it would be a sustainable
or green organization. OK excellent. Excellent. I'm gonna move the camera again. So as far
as you know the informational interview piece, it's not something that you're really gonna
use until you're more clear on, you know, what you want to do. And I know I'm gonna
teach another workshop on evaluating a job offer. But really I kinda geared it towards
sorta helping you sorta figure out what you want to do with your life when you get out
of college. Because it's hard enough just to get a job as it is. It's hard enough just
to plan your route. But do you have a sense of sorta where I'm going with the informational
interview piece. That is just so, so important for you. And usually I suggest that you just
come up with a couple of questions. If you run into somebody from Coca Cola or Target,
or Deloitte and Touche you know, "How did you get into this industry? What type of educational
background you know do you have? "Where do you think this industry is going? And what
advice would you give to somebody in my position who is about to graduate in a year or so about
getting into your organization." So I would say just come up with four questions. You
don't come asking for a job. You just simply come asking to learn about what they do and
take interest in them and they'll share information about how they got to where they're going
and hopefully give you some referrals. And that's another thing that's really important
about the informational interview piece is just getting referrals out of folks who are
going to get you to the decision maker who's going to get you a job. And then at the same
time you're here on campus and they have job fairs. So there's other routes but these are
just a couple of routes to take. Directly is when you're looking at finding a job and
you come up with the target list and again there's maybe a couple of big consulting firms
out there. There's only five or six of them really at this point in time. Maybe three
big ones like Bain or Deloitte and Touche or McKinsey and Company. I mean they're you
know some of the big players in the consulting world. You do research and you just go after
them. And that's another way to get a job. ...for you which is gonna just sort of put
you miles ahead of most job seekers is when you're thinking with your business hat on,
when you're thinking strategically. For instance most people again going back to how they look
for jobs, they go on the internet and they apply and that's kinda what they do and they
wonder why you know people don't get back to them because you know ten thousand other
you know resumes went in there. When you've developed a roadmap for yourself, you know
being somewhat clear on the industry that you want, somewhat clear on the discipline
that you're gonna be in. Then you can approach the job market with some good business reasons.
Let me just ask you what are your ideas in this economy about what industries are doing
well right now and why. Any thoughts ? Yeah. [Student] I know for a fact the health industry
is growing [Speaker] Right. So the healthcare industry
and what are the reasons driving that would you say? Like the growth in the healthcare
industry. Why is healthcare industry doing better than you know another industry let's
say? [Student] There's a lot of people who need
to take MediCal. [Speaker] Right. Right. Exactly. OK so one
of driving the reasons actually is because the baby boomers you know all those people
that were born after World War Two, they're you know getting to the age where they're
about sixty and they need a lot of medical care and therefore the capacity in the medical
industry needs to expand. Did you have a comment? OK. OK. So we have healthcare is one and if
I had a white board, I'd write in there. I'll let you guys take notes if you want. Obviously
you'll take notes if you want. OK what other ideas do you have about you know put you business
hat on. Instead of being the average job hunter, who are you gonna go after and why?
[Student] The same baby boomers [Speaker] Could you tell everybody who PNG is? And Proctor & Gamble
owns brands like... [Student] Ole, anti-aging, and stuff
[Speaker] Right. So likeI think that they're the parent company of Johnson and Johnson
and just sort of most of the stuff in the grocery store is probably related to Procter
and Gamble somehow. OK so you're saying like consumer products that could very well something
that you wanna ago after. Yes? Go ahead. Yeah, technology. Is there a certain area of technology
that you would see that's growing? And I would say let's split it into two categories: hardware
and software to begin with. And there's Telecom but tell me what your thoughts are on technology.
[Student] Technology? Yeah of course. Technology is increasing day by day. Starting from the
green energy movement, solar technology, recycling, everything else. Different kind of technologies
you'll see and they won the case with the US and Europe.
where we're gonna be in ten years from now. [Speaker] Excellent. Very, very good. That
is an excellent answer. I have a customer. It's called Mash Anema. It's in Hollywood
and they develop all of the kind of like apps that would go in your phone but they also
do animated commercials and that's just huge because consumers are just crazy for more
and more apps that they can download. So that's you know developers and people in that universe.
I mean that's something that's really growing right now. What other you know... If you put
your business hat on, what are some other areas, other industries of growth that you
can think of off the top of your head? Social media? OK and I would sort of tie that in
with technology. Anybody that's dealing with the foreign market and we call the foreign
market the BRIC countries. That stands for... [Students] Brazil, China...
[Speaker] Russia and India. OK because they have a thriving economy so companies that
are selling products to these companies are doing very, very well. Companies that are
just selling internally or domestically here in the US are not doing as well. But for instance
like an example would maybe be in the car industry with General Motors. For some reason
the old models, not the Oldsmobile brand, what is one of, yeah, the Buick brand in China
is like huge. And that's fueling growth here domestically and creating jobs and so that's
an example of going after a company where you've kind of done your research on them
and they're selling to one of these countries. The other thing is like creating a plan of
action like are you guys in any classes right now where you've developed a business plan.
You know, so you've all done that. The same thing for your job search is to sort of use
these methods and you know write out a plan about sort of like how you're gonna get from
A to B. And again going back to what not to do and that is just answering online ads.
And again maybe you've heard this term but you hear a lot about what's called the hidden
job market. There's not really such a thing as the hidden job market like all these people
are conspiring to hold on to these jobs haven't really emerged yet. I mean the jobs are there.
They just haven't advertised for them. And you want to get to them before they're actually
posted or before the entire world knows about particular positions. So anyway these are
like your main methods and I hope this answers about you know how to get a job and so we've
got tools about how to interview, and resumes, and things like that. And I think you've got
some of this and other modules. But in terms of methodology, in terms of getting a job,
these are it right here. OK have you ever heard of the book What Color is Your Parachute?
by Richard Bowles? Richard Bowles is like the grandfather of all you know career counseling
and he's got some statistics around this. So anyway if we were to break these down,
so we've got ads, recruiters, and agencies, networking, approaching employees directly,
and combining direct approach with the networking as sort of a strategic approach. What's your
guess on the return rate on ads? Five percent? Fifty percent? Ten percent? What would you
think? OK. So let's see what it is. The success rate you know probably the most would be about
twenty five percent. OK head hunters are recruiters and agencies. People like me basically. What
would you say here? Fifty five oh? OK I would say probably in this market in about ten percent
come through agencies or head hunters. OK networking again I'm gonna throw informational
intervening in this one. What's your guess on this one? Okay let's see. All right, so
about a third. All right, and this is the one that scares everybody because they kind
of feel like there's nothing posted then why am I approaching this company? But the reality
of it is, is that every company that's successful, that's doing well has what's called open requisitions
or they're planning to open some positions. So what's your best guess on this one?
[Student] Forty-five to sixty [Speaker] Okay very good. If I had the prize,
you would get it. Okay now talking about being strategic and this is what's gonna put you
ahead of everybody else is if you know what you want, you know what discipline you're
going to be in, you know what industry that you're going to be in, and you've started
to talk to people, that's being really, really strategic. You've just created a roadmap for
yourself and you're also targeting something really, really specifically. Now listen to
me on this, this stuff you guys are gonna use it for the rest of your life. So when
you get good at this, you'll be able to change jobs and advance your career much more easily
than other people that just sort of struggle and flail and how many people here have known
somebody that's been laid off in the last three years if you can raise your hands. Does
somebody want to share like if it's not too personal who it was and sort of you know what
they did when they were getting a job? Does anybody just wanna share really quickly? Okay
go ahead. [Student] It was actually a friend of mine.
She was working in advertising. And when she got laid off, she didn't really have a plan.
She's actually still unemployed. And she'll go out there and she'll respond to ads and
stuff. But with very little success. [Speaker ] Okay, so a lot of time has gone
by and there's this huge gap in her resume and they're thinking, "What's going on with
her?" OK one thing that's a resource for you is... You know we all know what Facebook is,
but for professionals there's something called LinkedIn. Does everybody know what it is?
When you are about to graduate from school, get a LinkedIn account. You're not going to
put your favorite band and what you did and I made cookies and all the stuff. Nobody cares.
You know basically what they want to see is a little bit about you and there's a lot of
professional networks in there and what's cool about this is let's say it again you're
targeting somebody at Kohl's or then you're going to go after Pepsi or Boeing or whoever,
you'll have on trade to dozens and dozens of people who work for those companies and
you'll also have on trade to alumni to meet with. You'll be able to look up alumni that
went here who will be able to help you out. So I would definitely look at that. It's www.LinkedIn.com.
OK so for the last one, this is where and I'm repeating the point you know what discipline
you're going to be in, you know an industry that you want, you started to network with
people in those companies and that industry or that profession and so you're clear on
what it is. What you think the success rate is? So pretty close. Almost about ninety percent.
Any questions so far? [Student] Where do all these stats came from?
[Speaker] The stats came from Richard Bowles. He puts on... He's in the career management
industry. He's kind of like The Godfather and you can actually log on to his website.
I think it's called parachute.com and at any bookstore online. What Color is Your Parachute?
is an excellent book. If you don't know what you want and you want to sort of define that,
there's exercises in it. And so what they do is they have individual clients that they
council and this is the statistics that they gather from that. But anyway, you had a question.
Yeah? [Student] What would you say if you keep on
saying if you know exactly what discipline, what industry you wanna get into if you don't
know? [Speaker] Yeah, that's a big challenge I think
for most people. You know graduating in college is... You're probably gonna change careers
several times but I would say this is where you take your interests ... This will almost
be a completely separate class but take something that you're interested and just start from
there. Do you have some ideas of stuff that interest you or that you like?
[Student] It's not gonna make me a lot of money.
[Speaker] Okay, you don't know that for sure but what are you thinking?
[Student] [Speaker] Okay so you want to be an entrepreneur
in other words. OK so there's a couple of different routes. But there's tons of trade
organizations around restaurants. There's a lot of entrepreneurial groups. And then
you go talk to a restaurant owner. "How did you come up with the money to do this? What's
your biggest challenge with staff? What should I do?" And just starting those conversations...
and it's uncomfortable because you don't always know these people. The stuff that they're
gonna teach you is incredibly valuable. I would encourage all of you go out and do that
and just start talking to people that are doing something that you might be interested.
Even if you don't really know that much about it, talk to professionals in different industries
and they'll really clue you in. And this is going to be just a part of your life learning
process. Any other questions at this point in time? So we've got plenty of time left.
So this is modified. I give this talk to adults more often. And we already sort of went over
this stuff about the traditional job search. But at this point you don't have a lot of
life experience so not a whole lot you can discuss per say in terms of your skill set.
But then again if you've done a paper or worked on a project, that's definitely something
that you can discuss. But going back to what not to do in a traditional job approach, job
seekers will say you know "I'm a nurse. I'm a business analysts. I'm an accountant." You
know blah, blah, blah, blah. So what? Everybody's heard it. They just are wah, wah. In describing
what they want to do and this is the example I use all the time is "I want to work with
people." Like, OK, so do you want to be a mortician? Do you want to be a travel agent?
Do you want to drive a bus?" Because those all work with people. And again if I'm if
I'm networking with you and I say I wanna work with people and you know this guy named
John Davis who's your neighbor who's looking for a job. He wants to work with people. You
have no idea what I want to do. If I'd told you I wanted to be a professor in a university
setting and teach economics that would be, or something in finance or business or whatever
that would really be like, "OK I know this guy named John. He wants to be a teacher blah,
blah, blah." So that's really gonna help you talk about me. You're probably not going to
remember that I work with people. It's just gonna go in one ear and out the other ear.
Let's see what else we got here. The example in the computer field, people target large
organizations so they just think Boeing you know, maybe United Airlines, or Paramount
Pictures. They just look at the large organizations. Describing job search approach. I start at
the ads and I apply online every day. Let's see... There's one thing I do want to talk
about and I'm gonna give you a hand out right now. And this is to sort of drive the point
home. Everybody goes after big companies and that's not necessarily the good place to start.
Has anybody heard of ADP? They're basically the nation's largest payroll provider and
they do some other HR stuff too. This is a study that they put out just in January about
job growth and it's really hard data because you know that's their business to. It's their
business to run payrolls for all these companies. Anyway can someone read for me the third paragraph
down? Sure go ahead. [Student] Employment on large payrolls. Those
with five hundred or more workers increased three thousand and employment on medium payrolls,
those with fifty to four hundred ninety nine workers rose seventy two thousand in January.
Employment on small payrolls, those up to 49 workers rose ninety five thousand that
same period. Of the ninety five thousand jobs created by small businesses, eleven thousand
jobs are created by the goods producing sector and eighty four thousand jobs were created
by the service producing sector. [Speaker] So we're gonna stop right there.
ADP just said it. Who's hiring? OK right. And this is the thing about small businesses,
they also don't have big budgets so they may not be able to advertise on online and this
is where when you're in an industry you start to learn about these small engineering firms
or small consulting firms. These are companies that are really, really generating... I mean
they drive the engine for the economy and let's just go through this. The second page
I'm not so concerned about. Take a look at these charts on the third page and they go
over the economy in the last couple of years. You can see it going back to ‘01 up in through
January of this year and you've got goods producing industries, service producing industries.
So those are big classifications but again goods producing industries, you know cars
and electronics and all that stuff in recessionary times, people would stop buying those. So
you have to be really, really you know concerned or be aware of what's happening in the business
world, where you're gonna look. If you keep going to the other page, chart three and chart
four, it's kind of interesting on chart three when you look at small businesses, medium,
and large, who's really driving the economy in these?And it's the medium businesses according
to this chart. So anyway I just wanted you to just be aware of that and just keep in
mind that when you're looking for a job that small companies don't necessarily have the
budget to advertise and they're the ones that are really driving the economy. OK so I'm
gonna drive the point home again about being strategic and this one again is where you
know you don't have that much life experience so this might be something difficult for you
to talk about but you may have a couple of examples. You know if you've got a senior
paper that you've done, if you've worked on a project, if you've been on a committee,
or you've run a volunteer organization here at school. So in a strategic job approach,
you can name your skills and accomplishments. You can identify your targeted industry. You're
open to small businesses. You approach organizations through a warm lead. I'm gonna go back to
this. What do you think I'm talking about in terms of a warm lead?
[Student] After you build a relationship with someone?
[Speaker] Yeah, absolutely. If you're able to get an informational interview and get
a referral, then that person's going to help you get inside an organization. Yeah?
[Student] I have a friend of mine that graduated last summer and he graduated with the same
thing, international business and he put applications to many jobs but nobody answered. But he went
to a party and one of the companies that he applied for which is Merrill Lynch, he met the Vice President there.
Next week he had an interview. And then he passed the exam and now he's hired.
[Speaker] He's a financial advisor for them? Yeah. Very good. Thank you for sharing the
example. That's excellent. [Student] It just depends.
[Speaker] Right. And this would happen by chance, but he had the good sense to follow
up with the guy. [Student] The vice president asked him ...
Network. He said, "I turned in an application and I called." He said, "I'm sorry, your application
is pending. It's processing but you never got an answer." And after that he said, "Here's
my business card." [Speaker] He made something happen for your
friend which is excellent. [Student] And it was by accident actually.
It was at a party. [Speaker] It was by accident. But still it
happens so it was fate. That was good. [Student] I just have kind of a personal example.
was a design major. I was interested in going out to seminars. So this
is a number of years back. I was interested in learning about the field. I found out that
my aunt was a hair stylist, had a client who runs an architecture firm in Irvine. And do
you know who Rodger Hensky is? Okay well they do all of his homes. So I set up to basically
go interview him. I wanted to go ask him... basically an informational interview. I wanted
to ask him about the industry, what he liked about it. And on my way home from the interview,
he called me and he offered me a job pretty much. I've since then changed my interest
and I'm no longer interested in architecture but you're right. You clearly define what
you want to learn, what you want to do. And if you take action, things kind of start happening.
[Speaker] Excellent. Thank you for sharing that because that just drives the point home. Is
there anybody else that wants to share an example of
you know maybe talking to somebody in
a position of influence? We've have a couple people share. Anything? People use
the word strategic a lot and...