Episode #37: Steven Kekich - Global Contingent Workforce Leader

Steven Kekich, a recognized leader in the Global Contingent Workforce market joins Hiring University to discuss recent trends in the market including the importance of procurement and talent management partnership and interdependence among other topics.  Steven has led global contingent workforce programs including Uber, eBay, PayPal, and most recently Goldman Sachs.

"The balance between procurement who manage cost and talent who are trying to find talent, sometimes at any cost in competitive markets, is really important for those companies looking to build great contingent labor teams."
     -Steven Kekich

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Transcript

Steven Kekich

[00:00:00] Jon Beck: What's up everyone? Welcome to Hiring University, it's John Becker, host. Today we are lucky to have Stephen KK join the show. Stephen, hard to call, hard to put a label on Stephen, but the best of the thing that I came up with is he is Talent slash s p Viam S across contingent statement of work subject matter expert.

[00:00:19] Dare I say gu? And over the course of his career has had stops at eBay, PayPal, Amazon, Uber, and most recently Goldman Sachs. Steven, what's up man? Welcome to the show. 

[00:00:30] Steven Kekich: Hey, happy to be here, man. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. I always start by 

[00:00:35] Jon Beck: asking guests, how they got into this industry.

[00:00:39] Most, if not all of us, didn't wake up or graduate from college and say, I'm gonna get into talent management or staffing. Tell us how you got into this wacky. . 

[00:00:47] Steven Kekich: Yeah,

[00:00:47] it's a bit of a story, but I started my career, in procurement and so I was at, Sears Holdings, buying mannequins and sign holders, , all those types of things.

[00:00:58] And, eventually I went over to the retail side. I got my m I did some management consulting and, I landed at eBay. And it was a procurement role, but it was something that I hadn't bought before. It was labor, and so I was doing these consulting contracts and I partnered with HR who was running the program.

[00:01:23] And as they look to expand the program and classify workers correctly and do all that, I ended up kind of getting into it with them. And so, like you said, it wasn't something that I planned or even knew about, but you know, I found a passion for helping things be e. I'm an operations guy at heart.

[00:01:46] Um, and more so like with these companies, if you can help people find the right role and help the teams get the people that can do that, there's a lot of, value in that and it makes you feel good too.

[00:02:03] And, I think to be with companies that are leading and bleeding and, trying to make a change in the way that we do things and in the world, has appealed to me as well. So it's fun to solve challenges for those types of companies and be involved with that.

[00:02:17] And, weirdly enough, I guess I'm better at it or I have more experience than other people, and so people pay me to do it, and that's all right by me. 

[00:02:27] Jon Beck: I have to imagine that your background and experience in procurement has served you well because the, in a lot of, not all, but a lot of cases, there's some natural tension between talent and procurement and really lack of understanding.

[00:02:41] , fair. 

[00:02:41] Steven Kekich: State. Yeah, and I think one thing that's been good for me is at different stops have been both on the finance side and the HR side, right? There's a lot of people in our industry that they're, they're one or the other, but I've, I've managed a program with the policies, the procedures, the classification, the strategy, but then I've also been part of the procurement organization where it's like saving, saving, savings.

[00:03:05] And one of the reasons I actually left eba, , um, PayPal was, I didn't feel like the value that I was bringing to the organization, you know, from that holistic point of view was really appreciated or received. Right. You know, it was about cost savings and it was about money. And procurement's always gonna be about that, but maybe more so than it should have been.

[00:03:29] And so I, I found a place where I was just a better fit. It's not that. My, my team or my manager or any of that was bad. It's just they had different priorities and I wanted to pursue something different. And then when you go to Uber and it's all about like user experience you get a totally different spin on it.

[00:03:49] And in procurement we're not very empathetic for the onboarding and offboarding or the experience or you know, how that does. But from the HR side, it's totally. Yeah, right. You're looking at those things much differently. And not to say that they don't care about costs, but you know, that's like third or fourth, right?

[00:04:06] Um, you know, the quality of talent, the speed to get there is just as an important, if not more. So I feel like, yeah, I've got a very good blend and I can be empathetic and kind of see it from both. And I take that as a benefit of my experience. I might not be as deep as some of the other people, , but I think that holistic view is gonna, serve many companies and, myself well.

[00:04:34] Jon Beck: So yeah, I, I have to agree with that. And it is a, it's a very fine line and a fine balance and, and that's good perspective for sure. Steven, our industry is notorious, , for coming up with new terms and monikers. We've had the great resignation, then the great hiring, then the great firing, and now quiet quitting and quiet hiring.

[00:04:54] Wh where are we? And where do you think we're gonna be in the next six, 12 to months? And, and full disclosure, you're in the midst of a job, search yourself. So tell us from personal perspective as well. , sitting in the chair managing this where are we? Exactly. It's very confusing in a lot of mixed 

[00:05:07] Steven Kekich: messages.

[00:05:08] Yeah, I think a lot of these are just made up terms for people to feel good about themselves and post on LinkedIn. Um, the world has changed a lot with Covid and just with technology. And I think people have more visibility and choices, and. , that's a good thing. And so as a result of this, the employees, , have probably more power.

[00:05:34] Mm. Um, than, than they used to. But at the end of the day, it's a transaction, right? Where companies need to find people to, get work done at the end of the day, and hopefully be passionate and do a good job with it. And, , you know, where we're at is, it's hard to find that sometimes. Mm-hmm. and sometimes it's really easy.

[00:05:59] And, I think we go through cycles where, companies who are trying to get the people that they need, don't always have the pipelines that they have. And I'm a football guy. I, I love sports. And so I'll bring up, something that's very near and dear and it's got the diversity issue as well.

[00:06:20] Mm-hmm. . So in the N F L there is a big. Push to try to interview and hire minority head coaches, right. It's very white dominated and has been for a long time. And if you look at the open positions in the N F L right now, there's, I wanna say like, five or eight head coaching mm-hmm.

[00:06:40] opportunities. But who is getting the interviews? It's the offensive coordinators. It's an offensive league. It's driven by that. And so if you look at the offensive coordinators in the. , the majority of them are white. Where when you have black coaches in those positions, they're normally on the defensive side of the ball.

[00:07:01] And I forget the exact statistics, but it's, I think there's like three or four times more there. So if you're in an offensive league and you're looking at a pipeline to hire, coaches, that pipeline probably isn't properly. , funded for lack of a better term. And I think the same thing goes to this, like we have a lot of areas that talent just isn't properly funded.

[00:07:24] Mm-hmm. . Right. And it's not the responsibility or the clients don't see it as their responsibility to go. Make that happen, right? They expect people to gravitate towards that and get that training and get that experience and do that. Long-winded answer. The problem with that though is this, none of that happens overnight.

[00:07:44] right? All of these shifts that are happening, they take the time and effort to get there. And so like if we go back to our N F L example, if I need an offensive coordinator, a head coach, well what does that take? I've gotta be a quarterbacks coach, or I've gotta be, a wide receiver's coach and I've gotta go through that.

[00:08:02] And it's more so about giving opportunities to people at those levels rather than trying to find people to, you. Be at the right level at the right time. So I think that's where the United States, our colleges, our university, our high schools need to take some responsibility to do that rather than just leave it up to chance and visas and things like that, cuz there's other countries and areas that are doing it a lot more than we 

[00:08:28] Jon Beck: are.

[00:08:30] . So let me try to unpack some of that cuz there's a lot. That was a lot. I know. I kinda went all over the place. That was good. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna zero in on, you used the word the power back to the employer and there's been a lot written about this with all the changes in the marketplace. You and I were chatting before we started the show about the unnatural cadence of publicly traded markets and what a short time horizon is.

[00:08:55] You referenced it in terms of, education and how long it takes to train employees and that sort of thing. Um, you don't get elected as a politician if you, if your platform is education cuz the cycle's too long. I think the good companies that, I'm gonna ask you a question here in a second, bear with.

[00:09:09] I think the great companies out there are the ones that see the long-term horizon, are investing back in their employees and nurturing and training their employees. Knowing that it's not a quarterly, even a yearly cycle, but a multi-year cycle and a reputation along the way. Can you gimme some examples that you've seen in your journeys where that's happening or maybe areas for improvement?

[00:09:32] The problem of, , the talent gaps and not having enough human beings on the planet to do the work isn't gonna go away. And maybe the college and our education system catches up. I don't have a lot of faith in that. So maybe the onus is on corporate America. Any response to that?

[00:09:46] Steven Kekich: At the end of the day, like you have to solve your own problem and rather than rely on somebody else , to do it for you. And so I. that, um, one example I I used earlier, in a conversation, I think it was last week with someone, was that, there was, I believe it was Microsoft was the company, and they said that we need people to do this job.

[00:10:12] There's nobody that's doing it. So what they did is they set up their. training and bootcamp for it. And so basically they created a revenue stream to say that we are going to make money training these people how to do it. Like we're gonna bring in teachers, professors, accreditations, whatever we need to do.

[00:10:33] I think it was, something that was order of magnitude, like six to 12 weeks. Mm-hmm. , right? Some type of programming certification. So they said, we are going to establish this. We know on top of. Fine. We'll make some money. We don't really care. But what we're incentivizing ourselves to do is to say that when each of these classes graduate, we will offer.

[00:10:58] a select number of them. Job opportunities. Mm-hmm. . So by taking this class, if you do well and we have demand, you automatically get a job at Microsoft. Or or said company. And if you don't, you've paid for this certification that. , not just Microsoft needs, but other people need as well. Mm-hmm. . So, you know, likely the people that were getting this, even if they weren't getting the immediate job, they were much more marketable to the marketplace in doing that.

[00:11:28] I thought that was awesome. I loved it. And I think, at Uber when I was there too, as they were looking to onboard new cities, 

[00:11:42] one of the things that they put together and did is. , how do we build this playbook up to where we get these people who's successful, how we do it, and start to build a profile so that even if as we go through it, we've got some knowledge in this area that we're doing hundreds, if not thousands of hires for 

[00:12:05] we can be a lot more pragmatic and successful in the people that we do hire, , you know, you can build it, you can cultivate it, you can make it successful. But there's a lot of ways that you can do that. And I think my experience in corporate America has been like, , who's responsible for that?

[00:12:20] Does anybody actually go back and look at data or, or things like that? And typically, no. Right. It's not gonna be an HR organization. Normally, it's gonna be the business that does it for high scale or ho high profile roles. , right? I could see like a Google Cloud, right? Doing something like that where they're saying, we hire a bunch of these people, or we're at a critical mass where we can say, this is what's successful.

[00:12:48] This is what we need here. Let's go after this. 

[00:12:51] Jon Beck: I want to. Pull the thread of your comment around Uber and having a profile and a playbook, and let's call it a plan. Yep. Because I think a lot of companies, regardless of size, you know, there may be some leisures go, well, that's Microsoft and they have unlimited resources.

[00:13:06] And of course they can go build training problems like that. True. But having a plan, regardless of whether you're 50,000 employees or 50, is important. and with that plan data important and really no excuse for any company of any size to not have access to data or be able to look at it. And then it's about the tools.

[00:13:27] And I'm bridging the gap here into, you've worked with a lot of MSPs and a lot of tools out there. Where's the responsibility or how much of that plan can come from a third party vendor versus internally? And the supporting tools around that to get the data. And this is also related to diversity inclusion.

[00:13:46] I've had this conversation with a bunch of folks where, with all due respect to all of our M S P partners out there, they have the greatest critical mass of data of anyone. LinkedIn, you can count the job boards as well too, that they could set a baseline. Part of the problem we have is that there's no base on, people say, well, I wanna be more diverse, I wanna have a more diverse employee base.

[00:14:05] Okay. Compared to. With what job function and what geography and there's so many variables and people can't answer those questions. So I, I just rattled off a bunch of stuff, so pick and choose where you want to dive into that, but I, but they're all tightly together. All those, all those issues are the same.

[00:14:19] Steven Kekich: Yeah. I think, I'll step on one thing first and then I'll go to another. I think as it relates to diversity, you're absolutely right about the baseline, and I think one thing that we did at Goldman Sachs is we looked at our own diversity, that we had as FTEs. and, you know, there were goals or targets there, but then as we looked at some of our main consulting suppliers, 

[00:14:44] not everybody, but the big ones, we said, you have to meet or beat our diversity internally, and so let's say we had, X percent women, or X percent minority or X percent, whatever, you have to be x plus. Or greater than X. And so it was a way to say that you are going to help support that trend.

[00:15:09] And that was part of the QBR or the annual business review. So I, I thought that was pretty savvy or smart, where you can look internal and then you can say, Hey, you're at least gonna do better than what we do. Because we want somebody that's gonna be progressive or to support that. Yep. I think you're absolutely spot on with the MSPs, 

[00:15:33] and the amount of data that they have. If I look at a client, I am managing so many other things, I need some source to help me support that. Whether that's an M S P, whether that's a V M S, whether that's, someone like Brightfield that just collects and data is their thing. I need some consultative third party that's going to lead the way and do that.

[00:16:03] And to your point, I think it's an opportunity for MSPs to say that's a differentiator. Or maybe even market in and say, Hey, that's part of our consulting arm. Yep. Or that's, that's part of what we can provide and bring in. Double down on that, , is, I don't wanna call it a new business opportunity, but we are gonna be better than anybody else in that, 

[00:16:25] we're gonna gotta grow our practice or our level of standard for that. And, but that takes money and support and, , there might not be an r o ROI on that right away, so it's gonna take someone that sees the value in it and wants to lead. 

[00:16:41] Jon Beck: I think it is absolutely a business opportunity. I know several of our partners are selling the data.

[00:16:48] We're not their end customer, and I'm not telling them or suggesting I know what, how the right way to run their business model is, but. . I think there's just an opportunity for that to be part of the overall solution versus a, an adjunct, , or incremental upsell. Uh, because at the end of the day, you're just gonna, you're gonna help solve a lot of problems and make it just better for your client.

[00:17:08] And if that's your charter, that should be part of it. I, 

[00:17:10] Steven Kekich: yeah, and I, I kind of view the MSPs like this, right? I think that each of them. Should have a functional knowledge of the basics, and then if you want to go deep on something that's an added subscription or whatever, right? Like for my M S P, for them to run it, I should be able to get the free basic package of everything right across the board.

[00:17:36] They should have that knowledge. But then let's say I want a deep dive into diversity and inclusion or classification, that can be a supplement, you know, for X thousand dollars a year or this, or whatever. You get this type of level of support or access to this data or, it's like a premium subscription.

[00:17:53] I think that makes sense. And then that information, can go into and, and their organization can have, but you know, maybe that's the way to, to build it up or to market it for them. ,

[00:18:06] Time will tell. Let's talk about the tech, 

[00:18:09] Jon Beck: let's talk about the technology. Shift gears a little bit. You've seen a few tools in your day, across your various job functions. Anything out there that you are excited about that's happening and where do you think the gaps still are? As it relates to the talent management slash procurement and all things that we just talked about with good data and whatnot.

[00:18:27] Anything out there that comes to. . 

[00:18:30] Steven Kekich: It's tough for me because I've been at such large global organizations, we're really limited to, you know, really two now three, or four VMSs, right? Mm-hmm. that, that you can realistically use to invoice and to do things globally, if you want that full package.

[00:18:51] And so I haven. Seen as much of like the up and coming ones as I would like to. And so I need to do a little bit more due diligence there. But I think I remember talking with Doug Libi at Beeline a while back. , I really liked the direction that they were going in. And what I mean by that, Not trying to do everything themselves, but rather integrating with, the industry leaders there.

[00:19:22] And, you know, I can be the interface, I can be the brain, but I don't have to build a better time card solution. Mm-hmm. , right? Like again, when I was at Uber, we wanted, um, More enhanced timecards, they wanted geotagging to the location where you had to be at the location to tap in this app and to do it.

[00:19:43] And then what we got is we got a data dump out of this, software that then we had to upload into our V m s. It would be , really nice if that was just integrated. And again, I, I get, you can't really integrate with everybody, but you know, that's where you say, Hey, let's partner with a few of the industry leaders, let's.

[00:20:03] two or three, five kick ass, time solutions that we integrate with. And hey, if you wanna leverage that, utilize one of these, and go down the list with all of that. And I think that, that's the opportunity there is to build that kind of brain or interface and then say, these are the things that we're gonna connect with 

[00:20:26] Jon Beck: I'm nodding my head along the way for viewers who can't see us. , and I think you used the word extensibility if you didn't.

[00:20:33] I would give a shout out to our ATS provider where Job Diva Shop, when we, and we were using a former a t S that didn't have that a p i extensibility and we went to rfp and one of the reasons why we selected Job Diva was. Strong, not only a strong a p i technically, but also a commitment to that extensibility with other third party partners, which is becomes a d n A thing within your company.

[00:20:55] And I think you're right, the new providers have an advantage cause they're cloud-based and they have, , in, faster development cycles and less, legacy to deal with. But it's about your. belief system as well too. Are you gonna have a closed system or are you gonna extend into other third parties because you can't be good at everything.

[00:21:11] Steven Kekich: Yeah. I think the other thing too that's really difficult on the client side is you try to do too much. And I think there's a huge opportunity with implementations to, to set things up a lot better.

[00:21:25] It's really hard because. , if we look at how this happens, you've got a sales team that promises everything. An implementation team that says, no, that doesn't make any sense. And then a client that often wants what they had and they don't try to actually move forward. And I think that was one of the challenges.

[00:21:48] When I was at Goldman Sachses as they were implementing fuel glass, they said, we are going to prioritize getting this up and running as soon as we can. We want to move from the old system. And so the easiest way to do that is build it like, for like mm-hmm. , and so let's get it over and then we can start to enhance.

[00:22:08] I mean, that's, that's a mistake. Like you get one opportunity to make changes and to do change management and to make that big change. And it just didn't work. Like I think they had hoped it. And you could say, Hey, if I'm living in a house and I'm trying to remodel it while I'm living in it, how does that.

[00:22:32] you know, road construction. Yeah. It goes a hell of a lot faster if they shut it on the entire road, but you don't have the road to drive on. Right, right. It creates a huge disturbance. And so the opportunity that they missed is they had a system that worked. So it's like, is it really worth it to spend three or six months more on that so that when you implement the new solution, it's, what you want it to be.

[00:22:55] And again, I. , as we talked about earlier, the pressures of getting things done by a deadline and, and doing that often don't provide the best results, that should be there. So 

[00:23:08] Jon Beck: interesting that so many decisions aren't about money aren't about technology. It comes down to humans and how they.

[00:23:16] Uh, you use the, remodel in your house when you're living it. I always like the frog in the lukewarm water versus the boiling water. It's about your pain threshold and sense of urgency. It's, it's just fascinating. It never, never fails. . Um, Steven, we're gonna move to the speed round here. Um, do it.

[00:23:32] So, so maybe some faster questions, some we may expand on a little bit. And, and let's go through these and, and get to know you a little bit better. First and foremost, are you a, are you a teams person or a Zooms person? 

[00:23:42] Steven Kekich: Oh, I've, I've been Zoom, so I, at Uber we had Zoom. Before it was like, cool.

[00:23:49] I'm very at home on Zoom. 

[00:23:51] Jon Beck: This one should be a layup.

[00:23:52] Uber or Lyft, Uber. Next one might be a little trickier. PayPal, Venmo, or. 

[00:24:00] Steven Kekich: Um, Venmo guy. Um, but Venmo is owned by PayPal, 

[00:24:04] Jon Beck: so Nice. Good, good. Cover. Starbucks, Pete's, Phil's, or other? 

[00:24:09] Steven Kekich: Ooh. Um. being, being where we are. Like, I do love the Phil's like oatmeal, uh, cookie one that they have. That's a nice mix up. But I mean, typically Starbucks is just so many places.

[00:24:24] It's too easy, right? 

[00:24:25] Jon Beck: Hard, hard to hide from it. Um, this one may gm me up a little bit easier to sell lawn and garden equipment or to hire global talent for brand, the LO global. 

[00:24:36] Steven Kekich: Um, I, I could show you some videos. I used to be a social media liaison when I was at Sears, um, and so I do have some experience selling, lawn and garden equipment.

[00:24:50] So I'll, I'll throw you out a YouTube link after this and, you can choose for yourself. 

[00:24:56] Jon Beck: And Steven's, uh, being humble, he, he had a, I think, bought a lot of procurement, uh, through procurement. A lot of stuff first years along the way. Uh, chat. G p T helps 

[00:25:06] Steven Kekich: or herz recruiters, um, I'm learning about it.

[00:25:10] I think technology, for the most part is an enabler, think that we have to understand how it enables and what are some of the things that, could go wrong with it. But, I would say I'm, I'm definitely pro, um, . 

[00:25:28] Jon Beck: Yeah. That's a longer conversation for sure. Pay transparency makes a difference.

[00:25:33] Helps or not. 

[00:25:34] Steven Kekich: I think it's a great thing. I think at the end of the day, transparency again is going to be mostly, mostly good. I think it's funny, you know, going through this, as I look through some of these, the ranges can be huge. Mm-hmm. . But I think the ranges like they also. , help people understand like what level you are looking at.

[00:25:57] Sometimes the years of experience or those types of things, are buried or not easy to see. And so, I think it's. A good thing. And I look at it just to know if I'm kind of on the right track with, with looking at a job and what their expectations are. It helps sort out some of the stuff that I can be more productive.

[00:26:20] Um, and I think at the end of the day, if people are just chasing money they're going to be found out through that cycle. Yeah. So, I'm not too worried about that. We still gotta give recruiters, some level of di. harder 

[00:26:34] Jon Beck: to manage, or I guess are, who's the bad actors or naughty children?

[00:26:39] Contingent staffing suppliers or professional service companies? 

[00:26:44] Steven Kekich: I, it's, it's a funny question because I'll tell you this, like, they're just trying to do their job. Yeah, right. They're just trying to get business and get paid I was gonna say contingent suppliers, because they always try to go to consulting cuz there's levels of control. But, I, some of these contracts that I've seen with the consulting suppliers too, they just wanna, everybody wants to work directly with the business because there's less transparency and there's less knowledge.

[00:27:09] Mm-hmm. . And they're, they're trying to make as much money as possible. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's very shortsighted, because doing stupid things like that can put you on a bad list and ruin the gravy train very quickly. Yeah. 

[00:27:23] Jon Beck: One piece of advice you would give a job seeker when applying for a job, regardless of role, experience, pay, et cetera.

[00:27:32] One piece of advice 

[00:27:33] Steven Kekich: be be yourself. I equate it to dating, right? If, if I'm myself and I'm really who I am, and open to a conversation and learning more about that, you're gonna find out very quickly , if you're a match, if you like this person, if you like this company or not, and.

[00:27:54] that can be very difficult, people get laid off, they have a family, they wanna get back to work or they need to pay the bills. And, sometimes that can put a lot of pressure on people and you force things and that's not saying that you, you can or cannot be more or less selective, but I think if you are yourself and you're true to that, 

[00:28:16] you're gonna have the best chance to find an opportunity that's lasting and that you're gonna do well in Excel with, so, 

[00:28:22] Jon Beck: and that's right for you. So that's excellent. Same question, one piece of advice for any hiring manager looking to hire 

[00:28:29] Steven Kekich: talent. Oh, man. I think that as I've been a hiring manager, , I really look at the role and try to understand what's more important. Is it experienced or is it attitude? Hmm. And there are some things that can be taught and there's some things that I don't need or want to teach. And so I look as I've hired, there's some people where I've said, your experience.

[00:29:04] is a priority and I'm not gonna hire like someone I don't like or that's got a bad attitude. But there's other times where I've said I can teach this skill. Mm-hmm. . And so I want someone that I feel is motivated, that's passionate, that has a desire. Look at me, I've got a lot of experience in different things. I could do a lot of different things sure, I might be able to hit the ground running a little faster or something that I've done before, but a lot of the things I've done potentially are very transferable and I could go and do other things as well.

[00:29:38] It's important to kind of say for the role, what am I looking for? And then try to fill it based on that. Can you teach attitude? Um, yes and no. I think in the right environment, if you support some of those things and you get people in, in an environment, I think they can adapt but at the end of the day, like we are who we are, I mean, anyway, it's very hard to get from a, a 30 minute interview or just an interaction like that. 

[00:30:12] Jon Beck: That's why multiple rounds and different sets of eyes are really helpful. Best boss you ever had and why? 

[00:30:20] Steven Kekich: Oh man. That's a good one. I'm probably gonna go to back to Sears.

[00:30:26] I had, a manager. I was an early professional and, just try to teach me, we would use, we would use examples and, he wouldn't tell me what to do. He'd help explain why it was important and the depth behind it. And so it was more of , a thought exercise rather than, In strategic in nature rather than tactical.

[00:30:52] . And I think if you can instill some of the ideas in people versus just telling them to do something, it allows them to think and to grow and to make some of the decisions. So, one of the things that I still have, we were at his desk and God, this is. 15 plus years ago now. 

[00:31:14] But he drew a picture on just a sheet of paper and there was a stick figure with a guy and he started doing a plate on a pole and he said, you know, spin this plate and then you go to the next one and then you go, next one. He's like, if you don't go back to this first one at some point and spin it again.

[00:31:33] Mm-hmm. , it's gonna, and so, Hmm. The, the idea was like, you have to keep up on things, even if it just takes a minute, even if it's a small thing to go back and spin it once, he's like, you bought yourself some time. Yeah. Or you checked in and if you need to, if it's really low and you need to spin it like five more times, yeah.

[00:31:53] You checked in and, but that stuck with me is that, you have to check in on things and see how they're doing. And you have to curate those relationships and those projects that you have because if you don't, they're gonna fall, they're gonna break. So just one example. But, , I really liked him and I think he made, you're more impressionable at that age, you're maybe a little bit more open to things. And, I'm really appreciative that I had him. So the 

[00:32:18] Jon Beck: spinning plate metaphor I've not heard that.

[00:32:21] That's fantastic. I'm trying to create that visual in my head. Last question, before we wrap. , we put you in the way back machine to the point in time when you started your career, but you have all the knowledge and experience that you have sitting here today.

[00:32:34] What do you tell young Stevens starting his career based on what you know today? 

[00:32:39] Steven Kekich: There is this thought that, or at least that I had, that you do a job. , you get promoted, you do a job, you get promoted and you move up.

[00:32:47] And the reality is, if you want to be a leader or if you want to do some of these other things, you need to fast track yourself to that. You need to gain that skill and gain those mentors and build the relationships and it's not necessarily about doing a good job in the role that you are . So I think part of it was maybe negativity of how business works or the world works or this or that. If you have an end goal of I want to be a doctor, you need to go to these schools and do this training, but if you want to be a c E O, , there's probably a different progression to that.

[00:33:28] Mm-hmm. . And what I've learned over time is that, , you tie your ship to people in life, whether it's the person you marry, the relationships that you have, work, , the companies that you associate with. And that has a big impact on the opportunities that you have. And, where you go.

[00:33:52] And some of it's luck, yeah. I remember when I was at my consulting company, . I was there for a day and I got assigned to a project and I was on that project for eight months. And so that was like my people, and I could have come a week later and been assigned to a different team on a different project, and it probably would've impacted my career differently.

[00:34:14] Like part of it's just, just luck. 

[00:34:16] Jon Beck: It's luck, but I'll go back to your earlier comment about the interview process and being your true, authentic self. Because when you are your true, authentic self, the people that you're gonna gravitate and connect with are not always, but in most cases, gonna be the right people to hit your proverbial wagon too.

[00:34:35] Um, so yes, there's absolutely an element of luck, . , 

[00:34:37] Steven Kekich: we are responsible for the choices that we make, and every day we get up, we make a decision on what we want to do, who we want to be, and how we want to do it.

[00:34:45] And that's immense power, yeah. And so if you, if you can do that, You have a huge impact on who you are and what you do. 

[00:34:53] Jon Beck: Excellent. We're gonna leave it there. Steven, thank you for, taking the time out, to visit , and let's make sure, we do it again if our listeners wanna get in touch with you, what's the best way for them 

[00:35:04] Steven Kekich: to do that?

[00:35:05] LinkedIn. Yeah. You know, find me on LinkedIn. Awesome. 

[00:35:08] Jon Beck: Thank you again. And for our viewers as always, keep grinding, keep faith, keep safe, and we will see you next time on hiring University.

[00:35:17] Steven. Thank you. Take 

[00:35:18] Steven Kekich: care. Thank you so much.