Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Kathryn Minshew: Crush Your Career, Beat Burnout, and Learn to Navigate the New Rules of Work | Career | E191

Starting point is 00:00:00 Anyone considering quitting, just sit with this question of what am I trying to move away from and what would I be trying to move towards? When you have clarity on what you want to leave behind or invite in, it is much easier to either ask for it where you are or go out in the marketplace and find it. We've moved into an era where individuals have to architect their career as opposed to people just getting on the conveyor belt of a large corporation's career development platform. Now people are saying, well, I need to decide what skills I want to acquire and what roles I want to have, which I think can be very exciting and it can also be really overwhelming because the choices

Starting point is 00:00:41 are not so clear cut. What is up Young and Profiters? You're listening to Yap Young and Profiting podcast where we interview the brightest minds in the world and turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your digital. daily life. I'm your host, Halitaha, aka the podcast princess. Thanks for listening and get ready to listen, learn, and profit. Hey, Catherine, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Likewise, I'm super excited for this conversation. So to introduce you to our Yapam, you are the CEO and founder of the Muse. It's a career platform that's been used

Starting point is 00:01:34 by 75 million people to research companies and careers. The Muse was recently named one of the fast companies, 50 most innovative companies in the world, and number three most innovative company for enterprise. You are also the co-author of the new roles of workbook. And today's episode is going to be focused on the trends of the new job economy. And we'll also get into some actionable advice on how to find a career for you and land your dream job.

Starting point is 00:02:00 But Catherine, first I want to learn more about your journey. Before you became an entrepreneur, you were a young girl who had dreams of becoming a secret agent. You majored in political science. You took all different language courses in college and you even traveled across the world. You found yourself working at many different companies and organizations like the U.S. Embassy and McKinsey and McKinsey and Company and the Clinton Health Access Initiative. So help us fill in the gaps. How did you go from international relations to then running the fastest growing career platform, The Muse? You know, it's funny. I think a lot of people have these very winding career paths early on.

Starting point is 00:02:34 And it's really because it's hard to know what you want to do until you actually get out in the world and start doing it. And if you're lucky, you love what you're doing, you enjoy it, you advance. But for most of us, it takes a few tries and a few different attempts before you land somewhere and you think to yourself like, yeah, I could really do this for a decade or more. And so for me, I actually started thinking about my career when I was 13, 14. my family moved to the Washington, D.C. area. And yeah, I became fascinated by international relations, history, political science. And I was like, oh, this is perfect. I will be an ambassador or a secret agent. I have it all figured out. Luckily, several years later, I had the chance to work in a U.S.

Starting point is 00:03:13 embassy in Nicosia Cyprus at the U.S. State Department. And I realized, like, oh my gosh, this is not what I thought it was at all. And, you know, it's kind of jarring when you're in your early 20s. you think you're kind of have something figured out, and then you realize it's very different than you expected. And so I felt very lost, frankly. I had no idea what I wanted. I felt kind of directionless. I ended up having a good friend who wanted to work for McKinsey. And so I went with her to a recruiting event. And they were pitching, we're going to help you solve the world's biggest problems and it's business boot camp. And I was like, okay, well, I have no idea what I want to do. So maybe this is a direction that will kind of help me move forward. And I ended up getting the offer. That's when I

Starting point is 00:03:53 move to New York City. And there were a lot of good things about McKinsey. I learned a ton, but I knew from really a month or two in that I didn't want to be a consultant for the rest of my life. So I was back to square one. You know, what do I want to do? Spending time on job sites and just interviewing and talking to a lot of people about their careers. And out of that experience is really what led to the idea for the muse, because I realized that if it was this hard for me to figure out what I wanted to do professionally and how do I find a job and career that aligns with my values and with my priorities and with the type of life I want to build. If it was so hard for me, I probably wasn't the only one. I love that. So we're going to talk about how to find

Starting point is 00:04:33 the right career for you, which you are a true expert on. But first, let's talk about macro trends. So you wrote this book, co-wrote this book called The New Rules of Work, the Modern Playbook for Navigating Your Career. It was put out in 2017. And the world has significantly changed since then. I mean, you wouldn't have known it back then, but the pandemic, you know, took us by storm. It completely changed everything in terms of the way that we work. So I want to discuss the new, new trends of work. You do tons of research at the muse. So you have plenty of information about how things are now. And so I want to talk about the great resignation. I want to talk about quiet quitting, shift shock, all those kind of key trends that everyone keeps

Starting point is 00:05:13 talking about. So let's start with the great resignation, right? So everybody has heard this. I feel like I've literally heard it a hundred times. The pandemic has emphasized that life is short. People are less likely to stick around on fulfilling jobs. They're quitting, starting their own thing. What is the great resignation? How have you seen it evolve over the last two years? And is it still a thing that employers need to worry about? Yeah, absolutely. So exactly as you said, you know, the great resignation was a massive trend that started really in the middle of 2021 as certain sectors of the economy first started to come out of the negative impacts of COVID. And a lot of employees across ages, across industries, across job types, woke up and said,

Starting point is 00:05:58 why am I killing myself for this job? I want to do something different. And so from a statistical perspective, we saw the highest level of worker quitting by month. This is voluntary quitting, a worker giving notice and leaving their job in many, many months in 2021 that we have ever seen since the Bureau of Labor started capturing these statistics. We also saw things like for every open job, or sorry, for every worker looking for work, there were two open jobs. So employers were not only seeing incredibly elevated levels of departures of churn, but they were having a really hard time recruiting new people because there were so many jobs open as the economy was rebounding from COVID, and so many fewer people looking for work, and the people who were

Starting point is 00:06:47 looking for work had much higher standards. I think this is a really good thing overall, because I think that as an economy, we have been on this journey for the last 10 years that has been empowering workers and giving workers and individuals more power, more control, more leverage, and for employers, it's been giving them a bit less. Now, that said, there's a lot of variations by industry, engineers, and high-tech workers have a tremendous amount of leverage. A lot of workers in retail or other hourly positions still don't have as much. And a lot of people would say still don't have enough leverage. But by and large, I think the macro trend that we've been seeing for quite some time,

Starting point is 00:07:27 I would say since really the early 2000s has been sort of slowly but definitively moving towards workers having more say. And the great resignation was a massive accelerant because all of a sudden, like you said, people realized during the pandemic that life is precious and short, and it made a lot of people say, is this the job that I want to stay in? And there was this kind of perfect storm where as some workers quit, jobs opened up, employers were offering better working conditions, better pay, more incentives to recruit, which made it more attractive for other people to leave their jobs, and the cycle continued. It's also been really interesting. You mentioned we'll talk about

Starting point is 00:08:06 shift shock in a bit, but we've also seen these sort of just not only increasing rates of employees leaving companies in general, but also employee tenure has shortened. So there's a kind of a whole trend of people starting at a company and saying, wait, this is actually not what I want either, and then leaving in short order instead of toughing it out for two or three years, which used to be more the norm. So these dynamics are changing the entire workforce. They've changed what an individual can expect out of their job search, and they're absolutely changing how employers are thinking about not only kind of attracting and hiring their talent, but also keeping them. So there's so much to unpack here. There's so much to talk about. And to your point, a lot of people are calling the great resignation,

Starting point is 00:08:51 the great renegotiation. They're saying, no, it's all about leverage. And a lot of people aren't quitting. They're actually just asking for better salaries and demanding that they get compensated for their work. Whereas I remember when I was in corporate, you just, you waited to get a raise. You didn't really ask for one. And now I feel like it's, I have 60 employees and everyone's always asking for raises because it's normal now. Yeah. I think we've moved into an era where individuals have to navigate their career or architect their career as opposed to people just getting on the conveyor belt of a large corporations career development platform or kind of program and, you know, moving along at the time. timelines set by someone else, you know, from afar. Now people are saying, well, I need to decide what skills I want to acquire and what roles I want to have and what compensation I'm willing to accept. And it's also been interesting to see that companies have been thinking much more expansively. They're not just saying, all right, we probably need to pay more, but they're also saying,

Starting point is 00:09:51 can I invest in professional development or growth opportunities for my team? What about my vacation policy, my time off, my flexibility? What benefits do I offer? And are those a max? for the kind of type of diverse workforce that I want to attract. It is this wholesale reimagining of what does it mean to have a business? How, you know, what is the social contract between individuals and employers? And by the way, you mentioned some of these macro changes. I think one of the other interesting ones is social media has sort of created a environment for many people where we are living parts of our life online. So we know more about our friends' jobs and our friends' companies, there's this tendency to start to feel like, well, my job is not just the way I pay my bills.

Starting point is 00:10:36 It's a source of meaning. It's part of how I define myself and the impact I want to have on the world for people that are thinking long term about certain types of careers. They think about the brands that they associate themselves with or the roles that they take as part of a narrative story about who they are going to be as a professional. So what this means is, again, that employers have a responsibility not to just pay fairly, which of course is very important, but they also have to think about the broader relationship that they have with their people. And whether that's a brand perspective, an impact perspective, a professional learning and growth perspective, there are so many more things to think about as a company and as an individual, which I think can be very

Starting point is 00:11:18 exciting because there's a lot more options. And it can also be really overwhelming because the choices are not so clear cut. Yeah. And honestly, this is so interesting to me. And I have to say, I completely agree what you're saying about social media. I think the other thing with social media is that it's actually giving employees more leverage. I can take myself for an example. I became a really big LinkedIn influencer while I was working at Disney. So much to the point that I was more popular than the CEO at Disney streaming services, which is what I worked for, to the point where it made me so powerful at Disney because they'd be like,

Starting point is 00:11:49 can you help us promote this? Can you talk about this? And all of a sudden, I went from being like a middle manager to being really important because I was the most popular person online at the company. And so the things I said and did really mattered, right? And so it does give you a lot of leverage. And not to mention once I was a thought leader online and was looked at as like a top marketing thought leader, I felt like I never had to look for a job again in my life after

Starting point is 00:12:14 I built that. So I hope we get in to have time to talk about that later. But first, let's talk about quiet quitting because this is a concept that's really brand new. I think it started bubbling up in August is when I first. heard about it. And everyone is talking about it. Damon John is talking about quite quitting even. And funny enough, quiet quitting is not actually about quitting. People who are quiet quitting are not outright quitting their jobs. They're quitting the idea of going above and beyond. And to me, that's not young and profiting behavior. I feel like that's a very passive way to approach your work

Starting point is 00:12:47 in your career. And polling company Gallup found that at least half of Americans or maybe more fit this definition of quiet quitting. I thought that was really shocking. And I have to admit, I thought that maybe this behavior is coming from a lot of the high performers quitting their jobs and what's left behind are people who didn't have a lot of motivation to begin with. Now, that's just my own opinion. But I'm curious to hear, why do you think this is happening? Why are people behaving like this? Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. I think there's a lot of truth in what you said, that we are starting to see a tale of two populations in the knowledge worker workforce. And I specifically call out knowledge workers because I think in a lot of more

Starting point is 00:13:31 service economy jobs, quiet quitting isn't necessarily as feasible. You still have to do the same number of hours, you know, and kind of show up in a more kind of focused way. But for a lot of creatives, knowledge workers, individuals that are primarily working at a desk job, Quiet quitting has sort of taken the media universe by storm because it's such a kind of spot-on, catchy term for a very relatable phenomenon, which is people saying, you know what, I give up. I will give you the bare minimum. I will clock in, I will clock out, but I'm, you know, I'm not going further. At the same point, we also see a large population of the workforce that is doubling down on a side hustle, building up their online or social media presence,

Starting point is 00:14:16 starting to work on a book proposal or, you know, contributing article. Like, I think we're seeing these sort of two approaches to work that are dueling it out. And what I actually think is very interesting is I think we're starting to see companies fall into two corresponding buckets. There are companies that say, we are going to live and die by the strength of our talent. And so we are going to work hard to attract great people. We are going to reward them. We are going to accept that they have high standards for us.

Starting point is 00:14:45 And they should because they're talented people who could go anywhere. And so we are going to up our game as an employer, as someone who offers learning and growth opportunities, offers great comp and benefits. We're going to say, hey, our talent could work anywhere. So we have to convince them that we are the place that they want to do great work. And in exchange, we're going to expect them to go above and beyond. And then you have employers. And by the way, we work with all types of employers at the muse in my business.

Starting point is 00:15:11 But sometimes I will talk to leaders, HR leaders, CEOs, etc. who are like, I don't like this new way of working. I give you a paycheck. You do your job. That's the arrangement. Why is everyone trying to change it? And my perspective would be, great. That's the arrangement you want.

Starting point is 00:15:28 That's the arrangement you're going to get. And that is the type of environment that I think particularly encourages this quiet quitting phenomenon. Because when employees don't feel respected or supported by their employer, much less when an employer isn't working hard to think about how to motivate how to incentivize their people. What is human behavior, right? You get people being like, cool, I will do exactly what you pay me for and not an ounce more. And by the way, I think quiet quitting, it's a very relatable phenomenon because almost everyone has at some time or other felt like that

Starting point is 00:16:00 their work and their energy and their hustle has been taken advantage of. I do think there's a risk in that if the economy hits a road bump or there are additional signs of a downturn, employees that are quiet quitting could be more at risk for layoffs or cutbacks. But at the same point, there are businesses where a lot of employees are taking that step back because the business itself, the leadership, the management hasn't given them a great reason to do anything more. You mentioned before that people are calling the great resignation, what was the word to use of the kind of great renegotiation. Great negotiation. Yes, exactly. I love that. And I was using the term

Starting point is 00:16:40 like the great rethink because I think there's this sense of really talented people that want to give more than the bare minimum are looking for organizations that that encourage that, that reward that, that want that. And people are less likely to just stay around in organizations that don't treat them well because it's what they've always done. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. At Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day. We're 60 people all over the world. And when it comes

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Starting point is 00:19:32 Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. I mean, I personally feel like doing the bare minimum at your job, to your point, is basically being the first one to get laid off. And the economy is not doing that well. I have a lot of friends that are getting laid off right now. So I advise my younger profitors to figure out how to get out of this burnout feeling. Because I think it's burnout at the end of the day, right? When you're just like, I'm fed up. And so I'm just going to give the bare minimum. And so I'd love to hear your thoughts. like how can we re-energize ourselves at a job? Let's say the company is not the worst company in the world. And it's to your benefit to stay at it because their values are good, the compensation is good,

Starting point is 00:20:19 but maybe you're just so burnt out and I kind of had enough. How can you re-energize yourself at that job? What would you say? Yes. So my recommendation would be, first of all, take a step back and think about what are the most impactful things that you could get out of the next three to six months? How much you go about this process, depending on the amount of time that you have and that you're willing to dedicate to it. I would say anything from sitting quietly by yourself for an hour at a coffee shop, journaling about where do I want to be in one year, three years, five years. Are there skills or experiences that I don't have today that will be either critical or beneficial for putting me on the path to where I want to go. And are there small actions I could

Starting point is 00:21:08 take or I should take either inside my job or outside my job that will help move me in that direction? If you have additional time and you want to go a bit deeper, I love the exercise of thinking about what are some of your core career values. What are some of the things that you most want to prioritize in this next three to five year segment of your life? That could be compensation. It could be prestige. It could be creativity, flexibility. There's a lot of different things, and you can even, frankly, Google core values and look through and see what resonates. And then if you want to go a little bit deeper, I would recommend asking a few friends who have seen you in a professional context or former colleagues to kind of play back to you, where do they see you most in flow,

Starting point is 00:21:52 what do they think that you are excellent at? And is there anything from a skill or experience perspective that they think would make you even stronger. And then once you're sort of armed with this kind of condensed sense of the, you know, just a couple of, you can literally pick one to three things that you want to try and learn, do, or accomplish professionally in the next three to six months, then you can start thinking about how might I do that? One option could be going to your manager and saying, I love working here and I want to get back to giving 100,000. But I've been finding that a piece of me is craving a new challenge. And so I was wondering if in addition to the XYZ that is part of my job, you may want to

Starting point is 00:22:38 propose something additional. You could suggest exchanging something that you're doing with something else. You could ask if there are step-up opportunities. I think the idea here is to give yourself a mental framework for what it is that you want to accomplish, why it meant. matters to you. And then I like the three to six month time horizon because it's long enough to actually do something, but short enough that you don't necessarily feel like you're making these lifetime decisions. You're simply saying, okay, I want to step in to a new skill. And it may seem

Starting point is 00:23:13 counterintuitive, frankly, when you're burnt out. Obviously, if you have the time to take a vacation, take a mental health day, those are very powerful things as well. And very necessary, right? Like, rest at the appropriate times is critical to being able to. to ramp back up again. And I find that burnout is sometimes about a lack of excitement or a lack of motivation or a lack of that learning or newness or something that keeps you wanting to push forward. So it's not just about taking a step back. If you take a step back and then you go right back in to the exact same environment, you're liable to get burned out again. But thinking about how you can sort of point yourself in a direction is surprisingly useful, I think, for getting out of that

Starting point is 00:23:55 quiet quitting mentality. Yeah, I feel like you just gave such a great framework for us. And it reminds me of something that Jason Pfeiffer just told me on the podcast. So Jason Fifeer, he's the editor and chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. And he talks about this thing called Opportunity Set A versus Opportunity Set B. So Opportunity Set A is all the things that you are responsible to do at work, the things that you get paid for. Opportunity Set B are the things that you could be doing at work to go above and beyond to learn the new skills that you want. So you just gave such a good framework to apply this opportunity set A versus B.

Starting point is 00:24:29 So I love that. So let's move on to some of your own research, Catherine. According to a recent survey of more than 2,500 respondents from your career site, The Muse, 72% of American workers say that they have experienced starting a new job and then realizing, to their surprise or regret, that the position or company was very different

Starting point is 00:24:50 from what they were led to initially believe. you call this surprise a shift shock and you distinguish it from the ordinary new job jitters. So let's talk about the research you did. Why is this phenomenon happening? Why is it harder to figure out if you're going to like a new job in 2022 versus, let's say, five or 10 years ago? Yes. So I love that you brought this up because I think this speaks to a bunch of these trends we've been talking about. So as you said, shift shock is something that has actually been happening for a long time, but that we've only recently had a name for, which is that, I hope I'm allowed to say this, but it's kind of like that, oh, shit, feeling when you start a new job and you realize, this is not

Starting point is 00:25:28 what I thought it would be. And I actually think that the experience of feeling that surprise or regret when you start a new job, it's obviously not always the case. A lot of people start new jobs and think, wow, this is exactly what I thought I was getting. You know, I'm so excited to work here. But in the past, people had less recourse. Because in the past, leaving a new job in under two years was often frowned upon. I don't know about you, but I remember when I started at McKinsey back in, gosh, almost 15 years ago, someone sat us down and they were like, by the way, this is a minimum to your commitment. And if you leave in less than two years, it will be a black mark on your resume that could hurt your chances to ever get hired.

Starting point is 00:26:09 This message was communicated to so many people. And employers would often really discount a candidate that had a short stint, even one, on their resume. That has a message. That has changed dramatically in the last two years, especially with the great resignation, but also with this rise in kind of a worker or an individual's right to say, well, no, this job isn't meeting my needs. It's not as advertised. And so paired with that shift shock statistics, that 72% of the workforce has experienced starting a new job and realizing it's not as advertised, is the fact that 80% of people now think it is perfectly acceptable to leave a job in under six months if it's not as advertised. And by the way, I think it's the case as well. Most of the hiring managers that we work

Starting point is 00:26:53 with at the Mews are very willing to overlook a short stint. Now, if you have three short stints back to back, that can still raise a flag, of course. But if you have some longer stints at companies that show that you can dig in and be dedicated, but then you have a really short stint or frankly, a lot of employees and individuals are leaving really short stints off their resume. And if asked about a gap, they'll say, yep, absolutely. I left, you know, my so-and-so company because I was offered, XYZ, very exciting sounding thing. When I joined, either it wasn't as advertised, the person who hired me immediately left, the culture was not in accordance with my values. And so I left. And then I went to this new position or now I'm looking for a job. And the vast

Starting point is 00:27:38 majority of hiring managers are like, yeah, okay, that seems right. And so we've seen in two short years, this huge cultural shift, which again, I think it's a positive thing. It's unlocking an individual's ability to say, no, I don't accept this agreement. It's also forcing employers to be more honest about how they recruit because in the past, there were companies that literally relied on a very fancy recruiting process to mask a sort of unpleasant working reality, and they were able to get away with it to some extent because there was a cost on employees that left in short order. Now, because employees are more free to move around, employers are saying, all right, well, we better actually create an environment we're staying at.

Starting point is 00:28:19 You know, it's been destabilizing for some companies that have put a lot of time and effort into hiring individuals, only to see them quit in a short period of time because of shift shock, because of this surprise. But again, I think it's a good thing to encourage more transparency in the hiring process. I mean, I like to use online dating as I, analogy. Can you imagine if you had an online dating profile, you got to go on two to three dates with someone, and then at the end, you had to make a decision about them. And if you said yes, you had to stay in a relationship with them for two years. Like, that would be absolutely terrible.

Starting point is 00:28:53 There's so much that, first of all, that you just don't learn about a company in the interview process, but also people and companies both are not always honest in how they present themselves. And I think the phenomenon of the great resignation, of people talking about shift shock and doing something about it by leaving companies that they feel have misled them or have changed the terms of the game, these trends are coming together to create more of a market incentive for businesses to say, we need to be up front. And the thing is, like, just like every human that you might date has, you know, their wonderful qualities and their quirks or their challenges, almost all companies have incredible attributes and challenging ones. And not all companies are a fit for all people or are going

Starting point is 00:29:39 to be a great place to work for all people, just like not all people are great to be friends with or great to date. But the more I think that there is some kind of upfront transparency and authenticity in the interview process, in the dating process, the more likely you are to make a good match. Yeah. I have to say, I know you've experienced shift shock personally. So have I. I remember when I started my career at HP, I loved that job. It has a job. It has a lot. It had a great culture. I got promoted like five times and four years. And then I got recruited to Disney. And it was like this new shiny object. And it was Disney and Disney streaming in a hot new industry. And I basically got convinced to move over to Disney. And I was miserable. And then I ended up

Starting point is 00:30:20 starting my side hustle on the side because I was so unhappy at Disney. And it just goes to show that like the grass is not always greener. So I'd love to understand how we can actually evaluate a company. And if it's actually harder to do that now, because everything's so virtual. The answer is yes and no. It is much harder to evaluate a company culture in a virtual interview process than it is in an in-person interview process. So, you know, if you have the opportunity to go into a company's office, you know, you're sitting in the lobby, perhaps waiting to be called into the interview.

Starting point is 00:30:54 You can see a little bit of how people interact. Do people seem happy? Is it an open office or cubicles? There's so much that we don't even. realize we're picking up about the work environment of an organization when we are physically in their spaces. And that can be much harder to get in a virtual environment because typically you're zooming one on one with another human. They probably are in their home in a lot of cases or in a single conference room. And so you only get the limited amount of information that they communicate

Starting point is 00:31:22 or that you can sort of see. That said, there's so much more information available online. it's much easier to kind of get the behind the scenes of what a company's like. And there's more comfort with transparency in the interview process, which can help you. So some of my tips for uncovering a company's culture before you join. Firstly, I would say that there's a few different steps. There's online research. There's the questions that you can ask in the interview process and the information you can glean by how you're treated in asking those questions.

Starting point is 00:31:54 And then lastly, there's kind of deep diligence and back channeling to people who work there. So let's take them quickly one at a time. So first, what can you find online? I would recommend that anyone Google a company before your interview. Firstly, it makes you seem more informed. Learn a little bit about whether the company has made any announcements in the press. If you are meeting with leaders or people on certain teams, is there anything about those teams in the news? You can look and see if that company has a profile on LinkedIn, on the muse, on other sites that might give you a sense of what are some of the themes that the company is trying to communicate? Are there any employee testimonials that might be helpful? Just you can do a lighter

Starting point is 00:32:36 kind of research before a first interview and then maybe if you're called back in for a follow on, you may want to go a little bit deeper. There's a lot more information online that will at least give you a sense of where to dig, how does the company want to present itself, and what are some of the things people are saying? Then in the interview process, absolutely ask questions. Interviews are a two-way street. So I always encourage people to ask their interviewer questions about their experience. I really like what I call kind of paired questions or positive negative questions, which would look like this. You might say, I noticed that you've been working at this company for two and a half years. In terms of how you've experienced the company culture and the work environment, can you share

Starting point is 00:33:14 with me one or two of your favorite things about working here and then one or two of the things that might be more of a challenge and someone should know? When you ask someone to give you a really positive thing, something that they like, something that they're excited about, paired with something that is more challenging or a little bit harder, you are much more likely to get an honest answer because, first of all, people feel like they can tell you the things they like, they can tell you their favorite, they can talk up the company a little bit, and then they're more likely to feel comfortable sharing something that is, well, you know, sometimes people here who like speed can find that we move a little slow. And, you know, I don't mind it because we're very collaborative,

Starting point is 00:33:52 we move slow, you know, blah, blah, blah. But like, you'll start to get people sharing with you something that's more true. Also, if someone doesn't let you ask questions or they really rush you through that process, that I would say that's a yellow flag. It's not quite a red flag, but in general, most companies these days should be giving you time to ask questions. They should be encouraging all of their recruiters or hiring managers to talk about the company culture to let you ask questions. So if they're not doing that, like definitely dig a bit deeper. And then as you get closer to the end of a process, you can start to ask more hard-hitting questions. Like, can you walk me through what time of day most people typically log on to Slack and start

Starting point is 00:34:30 answering, you know, emails or when does your first Zoom of the day start? Do you typically end up working on the weekends? You know, whatever it is that are your biggest questions, I think that I would save anything that is kind of work-life balance related that's on a more detail level for near the end of the process when you feel like they're pretty excited about you. Also, it's a bit of a balance. You don't want to give the impression that you're not willing, for example, to work hard. But I think there are sometimes ways of getting around it. Like, hey, you know, I'm really excited and I typically tend to work pretty hard.

Starting point is 00:35:03 But I also just love to get a sense. So my expectations are set up front. How do you all typically work around here? You know, what might that look like? And then finally, if you do get close to getting an offer or you actually get that offer, if you have the ability to look through LinkedIn or other platforms and potentially even talk to someone who can give you a little bit more insight on the company. Do take that with a grain of salt. Not every company is a great fit for everyone, but it can be a helpful way of just understanding

Starting point is 00:35:30 a little bit more. In fact, when I recruit executives to the muse, I will often offer to let them speak to both current and former folks who have reported to me to just understand my style. because again, my perspective is like if you understand exactly what you're getting into and you opt into this job, then you're going to be much more effective, much more likely to be successful than if you join and you feel like, whoa, I didn't know that at all. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. What's up, Yap Gang? If you're a serious entrepreneur like me, you know your website is one of the first touchpoints

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Starting point is 00:37:25 framer.com slash profiting for 30% off framer.com slash profiting. Rules and restrictions apply. Young and profiters. I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their workday wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating. certain things, why they don't feel confident in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled. But here's the thing you need to know. It's not a character of law that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing. Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand your six types of working genius. The working

Starting point is 00:38:11 genius assessment or the six types of working genius framework was created by Patrick Lensione, and he's a business influencer and author. And the working genius framework helps you identify what you're actually built for and the work that you're not. Now, let me tell you a story. Before I uncovered my working genius, which is galvanizing and invention, so I like to rally people and I like to invent new things, I used to be really shameful and had a lot of guilt around the fact that I didn't like enablement, which is one of my working frustrations. So I actually don't like to support people one-on-one. I don't like it when people slow me down. I don't like handholding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do is ensure that somebody

Starting point is 00:38:50 else can fill the enablement role, which I do have K on my team. So working genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce friction, helps you collaborate better, understand why people are the way that they are. It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel, and it's also helped me in hiring. Working genius is absolutely amazing. I'm obsessed with this model. So if you guys want to take the working genius assessment and get 20% off, you can use code profiting. Go to working genius.com. Again, that's working genius.com. Stop guessing. Start working in your genius. Hello, Yap gang. I know my young and profiting listeners want bigger businesses and a better life.

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Starting point is 00:40:30 Again, that's quickbooks.com slash money. Terms apply. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Incorporated, licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Yeah, and by the way, don't be afraid to ask questions in the interview process. I know as being a hiring manager for many, many years, that if somebody asks really smart questions, it makes me more excited about them. I feel like they're smarter.

Starting point is 00:40:56 I feel like they're really engaged. They're really excited. They're prepared. And so that's actually a really good thing. So don't be afraid of doing that. So last question before we get into some really tactical advice on finding your career, landing your career job. And this was actually really great in terms of the interview process and some tips around that. Let's talk about quitting because quitting is really expensive on both sides of the coin.

Starting point is 00:41:18 So talk to us about the cost of quitting, both for employees and employers. And when is actually the right time to quit? Because we talked about like reengaging and re-energizing your current job. But when when is it just time to, even if you don't have a plan B, just jump ship and go for it? So this is a deeply personal decision that is impacted by so many factors, your career filled, your savings, whether you have a safety net, whether you're in an industry that is easier versus harder to get rehired. And so I would certainly say that anyone considering quitting should look at their unique situation, how long they would be willing to go without work, etc. But just in terms of a couple of principles, first of all, I would always suggest that

Starting point is 00:42:04 someone try and talk to their manager or their company, if there are kind of smaller specific changes that might keep them engaged. So many companies these days really don't want to lose their people. And so if it's the case where something that the company has the ability to change, something that they could offer you to stay would make a big difference, I think that it can be really powerful to have that conversation with your manager or with HR. Now, first of all, you have to know what it is that would change your mind to be able to ask for it. So step one, if you're thinking about quitting, is to just again, I would say take half an hour in the morning, maybe even 10 minutes if you're really crunch for time. But I like to give myself a little

Starting point is 00:42:49 bit more time so that some of the deeper stuff bubbles up and just sit with this question of what am I trying to move away from and what would I be trying to move towards? And those can be different things. You may say my colleague drives me insane when he clips his fingernails at the desk or, you know, I'm not being paid enough. I want to move towards more financial abundance. And just, you know, again, get a sense of what are the things that you want to leave behind? What are the things that you want to move towards? Then I think it's a helpful exercise to say, could I potentially do this within my current company, either by transferring internally or by having a conversation with my manager or others to change my current situation, depending on whether you feel like you're in an economically

Starting point is 00:43:34 comfortable or precarious situation. You could choose to have that conversation right away with your manager. You could also choose to go out, get a sense of your market value, maybe even get close to having another offer before you have that conversation. That, again, is a very personal decision. but I think when you have clarity on what you want to leave behind or invite in, it is much easier to either ask for it where you are or go out in the marketplace and find it. The last thing you want to do is quit a job from some sense of vague frustration and dysfunction. Go out, search for a new job, start it, and then realize, in fact, you are in a very similar position because now you don't have the relationships, the credibility, and the tenure of your old job, and you're sort of stuck

Starting point is 00:44:20 in the same place again. By the way, it does happen. It's not like a career ending move. You can recover from it, of course, in a lot of ways. But it is much more advisable to try and get whatever clarity is possible before you quit. And then last thing I would say here is if you do decide that leaving is the right answer, no matter how much you might want to just burn the place down emotionally, if you can manage to do it in a respectful and diplomatic way, it will pay dividends in the long run. I cannot tell you how many times I have talked to someone who was going to make a hire and then did a back channel reference and found out that this individual did something kind of that would be perceived negatively on the way out. It can make it harder for you to get job offers in the future. You know,

Starting point is 00:45:06 it can follow you for a long time. I think typically it's just not worth it. Unless there's something that is illegal and you need to kind of make some sort of structural change, obviously I think that can be positive. But if you're just like pissed, expressed to your friends that you're angry, write on a piece of paper how much you hate your boss, light that paper on fire, feel good inside, but don't, you know, don't do anything crazy in the workplace. And I would say if you leave professionally, you never know when you're going to encounter those colleagues, those individuals again. Yeah, and there's so, especially with big companies, people will leave and come back, right? And I think with the great resignation, they're calling this boomering employees. They're leaving.

Starting point is 00:45:44 Then they're getting shift shock, realizing grass is not greener. Then they're right back to their previous job. So also for that reason, you don't want to burn that bridge. I totally agree. All right. So I know we're running out of time here. So I'm just going to ask one question

Starting point is 00:45:57 about something that's really actionable in terms of landing our dream job. I think we gave a lot of context for people to find the careers that they want. So let's talk about resumes. Yes. And CVs. Because for me,

Starting point is 00:46:11 I think the last time I actually actively looked for a job was seven or eight years ago. And I remember even back then, I would submit my resume into this like black hole oblivion. And I feel like nobody ever read it. It was so hard to like get a call back. And so I'd love to hear your advice on do resumes matter anymore? And what are some ways that we can kind of hack that process so we can actually get some

Starting point is 00:46:32 interviews? So resumes do matter, unfortunately, for a lot of jobs. Not all jobs. If you get recruited through someone reaching out to you directly, you may be able to go through the process without ever submitting a resume. But for most of us and for most jobs that require an office. online application, you're going to have to put together a resume. My number one best tip is to actually look at the job description that you're applying to, highlight any key skills or experiences

Starting point is 00:46:57 that the position requires, and then make sure to the extent that it's accurate that those specific and exact words appear in your resume. Because the dirty secret of online job applications is that a lot of companies are using kind of machine learning to screen resumes. So they will actually have before your resume ever gets to a human, they will have an algorithm look through it and say, check, check, check. Does it have the words that I want? The specific language that the hiring manager has indicated is important. And if so, pass through, if not put in a second tier bucket or reject. And so you can maximize your chance of getting your resume seen by a human by having, and again, it's very silly. Synonyms, we should all be able to use it. But the fact of the matter is,

Starting point is 00:47:42 not all applicant tracking systems are great at deciphering the difference between two or three different words that mean the same thing. So to the extent that you can kind of align the language, great. Definitely keep your resume to one page. If you have something additional to share, I think it's great to include a link to an online portfolio, an online website. You can also include an addendum if you feel very strongly, but I would really encourage people, keep that resume to one page and focus on what you did. Everybody knows that a salesperson, you know, closed deals, but can you talk about going above and beyond, exceeding your quota, coming up with a creative new way to increase business, whatever it is that really spotlights

Starting point is 00:48:22 how you are different, the better. And so anyway, I know we could talk about this a lot longer. There is a lot of great advice on the muse.com if people want to check it out. But those are kind of my like favorite, favorite tips for just making sure that you get noticed so that you have that chance to, you know, to really shine. Yeah, 100%. I think, Catherine, we're going to have to have you back on to really dig deep about how to find your right career and all that actionable advice that we're looking for. So a couple last questions and then we're going to go. So what is one actionable thing our young improfitors can do today to become more profiting tomorrow? Ooh, find someone who you admire professionally and follow them on whatever social channels they're

Starting point is 00:49:03 active in to understand what they're reading, what they're watching, what they're listening to, so that you can start to just pick up some of those little things that may not be obvious from the outside. I love that. And what is your secret to profiting in life? Ooh, I spend time getting clarity on what I want because it's hard to know how to prioritize your time, which activities to say yes to and no to if you don't know what you want. Now, this can be as silly as I'd like to make sure I have time to foster a dog in September. It's personal. It's professional. It's all of the above. But I write a lot of stuff down. I spend a lot of time in reflection. And I think when you know what you want and what you don't want, you're much more

Starting point is 00:49:44 likely to be able to go and get it. Yeah, that is some excellent advice there, Catherine. Where can our listeners go learn more about you and everything that you do? So my Instagram is probably the platform that I'm most active on. I'm at K. Min Shue. I'm also at K. K. on Twitter. And then I would love for people to check out the muse.com. It is the in business that I have been pouring my heart into for the last 11 years. There's so much more advice than I've been able to cover here. And, you know, feedback, thoughts, et cetera. Just hit me up on social. Awesome. Thanks so much. I love this conversation. Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun. Take care. The new rules of work, young improfitters. I loved talking to Catherine about some of

Starting point is 00:50:32 today's hottest career topics like the Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting, and Shift Shock. During the Great Resignation, many Americans changed careers, quit bad jobs, or refocused on life away from work. And more recently, the trend of quiet quitting or only doing what one is paid for has seriously blown up on social media. In fact, I just came across a stat on Gallup that finds that quiet quitters make up at least 50% of the current U.S. workforce. And that percentage is especially high amongst workers under the age of 35. And data now shows that the U.S. workforce is not as productive as it just was a year ago. It seems like people are not producing as much in the hours between their nine to five each day. And in the end, this could have a serious negative effect on the country's well-being.

Starting point is 00:51:19 Productivity is the fuel of our economy. And if it continues to decline, what's going to happen is that the U.S. economy is going to shrink. Quality of life is going to go down. Opportunities will dry up. and innovation and ideas will inevitably go elsewhere. Honestly, this is a depressing trend that I can't stand behind. To me, quiet quitters are doing a disservice to both themselves and their employers. The argument is that people are quite quitting because overachieving at work has gotten them

Starting point is 00:51:47 nowhere previously, and I just can't buy into that argument. Overachievers and people that go above and beyond do get rewarded. And if not by their employers, but by the experiences and skills, that they gain along their journey by taking Opportunity Set A and Taking Opportunity Set B, what I always talk about on this podcast. Opportunity Set A is all the things that you are required to do of your job. Opportunity Set B is all the things that you can learn within your environment that will help you gain new skills that aren't necessarily what's on your job description. That's where you're going to really start to expand and learn new skills and get ahead.

Starting point is 00:52:28 quiet quitting is passive. It's rooted in avoiding meaningful conversations and taking control of your own life. The antidote to quiet quitting is to face issues head on. Stop avoiding and start leading and taking action. That means if you're an employee, get the courage to talk to your manager and discuss your job. See what's expected and what's realistic given the resources and ask for what you want. You'll never know if you don't ask. See if you can negotiate working from home or negotiate a race.

Starting point is 00:52:58 you won't know unless you ask and set boundaries where you can't. Quiet quitting also seems to be an overhyped name for a very old problem. Disengagement from work. If you find yourself feeling in a rut but you like your employer and feel fairly compensated, then try to spice things up either inside or out of work. For example, when it comes to inside of work spicing things up, you can ask for more responsibility. You can sign up for things outside of your role.

Starting point is 00:53:28 can volunteer for internal cultural events like planning your company's holiday party or summer picnic. Now, if you've done a lot of volunteering and raising your hand before at work in the past and you're kind of over it, I would advise you to try something entirely different. And that would be to start a side hustle, start a passion project on the side. I remember back in the day when I worked at Hewlett-Packard, I was there for four years and I was a superstar at that company. I had every job in the marketing department. I always rose my hand. I was the president. of the Young Employee Network, which was an employee resource group where we managed all the different charity events and holiday parties and all that kind of stuff. And I was just over it. I felt like

Starting point is 00:54:09 I had exhausted all my opportunities at work. And I was in a rut and feeling the most unproductive I had ever felt. I was managing my job. I wasn't underperforming, but I definitely wasn't going above and beyond. And that made me feel like shit. I'm not a person who doesn't go above and beyond. And so I knew that I had to make a change. And I decided that I was going to start a side hustle. I was going to start this podcast. I never thought I would make money. I never thought it was going to turn into what it turned into. I literally started it to give back and to start fulfilling myself because I always wanted to be in radio and radio had no money at the time. And so I thought, all right, I'll have this career, but then I'll be happy because I'll be having this

Starting point is 00:54:47 podcast that I love to do. And so I felt that passion for life again immediately and I was my old self at work again as soon as I started working on my podcast. And it never interfered with the quality of work at my day job. I got better at my day job. And that's because contrary to popular wisdom, studies have shown that side hustling doesn't leave people worn out and unproductive from their 9 to 5. Instead, side hustling can actually make people feel more empowered and thereby more productive at the office.

Starting point is 00:55:17 So basically, you work on your side passion project at night, you come to work in a better mood in the morning and you get more shit done. That sounds like a good deal for both employees and employers. So if you're a boss, if you're a small business owner, what that means is that you should encourage side hustles and side projects. And remember, young improfitors, the grass is not always greener on the other side. In fact, Catherine said that 72% of American workers have experienced starting a new job and then realize that the position or company was very different from what they were initially led to believe. So if you have a good employer currently, make sure you try to change yourself for the better before you go and try to try to change yourself for the better before you go and try to. change your environment. But if your employer does not line up to your values, by all means,

Starting point is 00:56:02 make a change. We spend so much of our life working and life is way too short to not be in a job that fulfills you. You want to be in a job that makes you feel like going above and beyond so you can capitalize on that opportunity set B and continue to grow your skills at the most accelerated level possible. You do not have to stay in a job you hate. That's a lose-lose situation for everyone. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast. And if you enjoyed this show, if you learned something new, I highly encourage you to drop us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. That is the number one way to thank us. We often read the reviews on the podcast. So if you want to get shouted out, go ahead and drop us a five-star review. You

Starting point is 00:56:43 could also drop us a rating on Spotify if you listen there or any of your favorite podcast platforms. You can also find me on social media at Yap with Hala on TikTok and Instagram. We're on YouTube now. So if you want to watch our young and profiting videos, go ahead and check out our YouTube. Just search Young and Profiting on YouTube. You guys can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm actually launching a LinkedIn masterclass soon. I'm pretty excited about. So you can find me on LinkedIn.

Starting point is 00:57:08 You can't miss me there. I'm one of the biggest influencers on that platform. Big thanks to my amazing production team. The show has been sounding better than ever. Appreciate all your hard work. This is your host, Halitaha, signing off.

Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Kathryn Minshew: Crush Your Career, Beat Burnout, and Learn to Navigate the New Rules of Work | Career | E191

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