#12: The Modern Job Market | Mike Manoske | Part One

In Episode 12 of The Business 360 Podcast, we speak with Mike Manoske, an International Coaching Federation certified career coach. In part one of this episode, we discuss the numerous services and resources Mike provides to thousands of job candidates that have helped them prepare for interviews, land jobs, and negotiate salaries. 

 We will cover: 

1. Hire Club - A Career Success Community 
2. The Job Search Action Group 
3. The Job Search Manifesto 
4. Job Candidate Mental Health 
5. Average # Of Years At A Company 
6. Clubhouse for Job Advice 

 For more information, visit www.ThinkBusiness360.com 

Transcript

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Intro

Rushab Kamdar 0:03

Welcome to the Business 360 Podcast where we will take a 360 degree view of all things business in under 30 minutes. I'm Rushab Kamdar, a serial entrepreneur, helping businesses, startups, working professionals, and business school students. I'm just living the dream. What's going on, Business Heroes? Welcome to episode 12. This is going to be a two part episode. We'll be dropping part one this week and part two next week. What I like about this episode is that we're going to talk to someone who can help those of you that are job seekers today in 2021. It's why I call this episode, The Modern Job Market. Now whether you are a job seeker or an entrepreneur or an executive at a company, you need to listen to this episode because there's so much to unpack on what's happening today. So no matter what side of the desk you're sitting, there's quite a bit of information that can help you when you're either hiring a candidate or if you are the job candidate. So let's get to it.

Interview

Rushab Kamdar 1:19

On today's podcast, we are welcoming Mike Manoske. Mike is an International Coaching Federation certified coach, but that title doesn't do Mike any justice on his accomplishments. Now, here are some quick facts about Mike. Mike has over 10 years of coaching experience, two decades as a recruiting leader. He's a startup founder in both healthcare and technology. Mike's also the author of an upcoming book called The Job Search Manifesto. And it's based on a successful program that he co-leads and that he helped develop at the Wharton and EMBA program in San Francisco. Finally, Mike's also the director of coaching at HigherClub, which is a job search and career success community of almost 34,000 members. And what I like about Mike is that he brings entrepreneurial and industry insights to help prepare people and succeed in the job world. So Mike it's a pleasure to have you on the Business 360 Podcast.

Mike Manoske 2:14

Oh, Rushab great to be here. I love the work you're doing and the, uh, there's so much of a need for you to get the ideas and concepts that you've been sharing out. So big fan already, man.

Rushab Kamdar 2:25

Thanks a lot, Mike. I appreciate it and for those of you that don't know, uh, Mike and I met on Clubhouse, uh, which is a, uh, new social media audio only app where you can essentially create topics and be, um, a moderator and speak on it. And for those of you that attend those rooms, you can be a participant and engage in those conversations or just an audience member and listen. Um, and how's how's Clubhouse been treating you, Mike?

Mike Manoske 2:49

You know, Clubhouse has been fascinating. Um, I was, and I think we talked about this offline. I was reluctant to go in Clubhouse, uh, partly because I'm busy and the other is gee another social media platform how exciting. Um, I got on there, you know, like I said, I was, I reluctantly reluctantly showed up, but then I started talking to people like you and, you know, the, these really intelligent, interesting people doing frankly important things. Um, and that really resonates to me. Give me a community of people that are like that, and I'm going to fully show up. So it's been a phenomenal experience. We've actually seen growth in some of the courses I teach some of the public courses. Um, lot of interest in the book. And frankly, just getting the ideas that, that are important, that I feel are important for my practice out there. Super rewarding.

Rushab Kamdar 3:43

You have a, you do a weekly room, right?

Mike Manoske 3:46

We're doing several a week right now. Um, you know, we're involving more of our. HireClub is a, is a community of over 34,000 and thank you for the, thank you for the plug on that. We also offer coaching and so as director of coaching, I have about 50 coaches that are part of that community, serving the other community. We've been involving them in Clubhouse. So we've had dialogues in Clubhouse on everything from imposter syndrome to mental health issues. We have a, we have one of our coaches who's not only a certified coach, he's also a psychologist and has done a lot of work in this area. So we're, we're trying to touch a lot of bases around the idea of how do you, how do you get through COVID? How do you get through this pandemic time, but how do you come out better, faster, stronger, and really sustain and grow your career from there? That's really been our mission on Clubhouse and so far great experience.

Rushab Kamdar 4:39

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's funny, I got on Clubhouse in December and there was, I think only a couple hundred thousand. I think it was like the number of 600,000 people on the app. And, um, you know, I think today there's probably like 15 million or something if not more.

Mike Manoske 4:52

15 to 20. That's what I'm hearing

Rushab Kamdar 4:53

Yeah, 15 to 20, something like that. And I had a daily room with someone else. We were co-leading that room. We did it every day for two months straight. It was on entrepreneurship. Every day, Monday to Friday, sometimes Saturdays. And then it just, you know, as more and more people got on the app, it was weird. There's more people on the app, but it felt like a ghost town.

Mike Manoske 5:13

Yeah. Yeah.

Rushab Kamdar 5:14

And then I think it's just because everyone was creating their own topics and, or it became topic saturated and the room started getting smaller and we don't mind the intimate rooms, uh, where, you know, there's maybe 8, 10, 12 people, and then you have some nice discussions, but because it's such a smaller room. But I felt, you know, I found myself kind of, I found Clubhouse kind of lost its charm a little bit. I'm not saying that it's I think it's a great thing. Cause I met you. I've met probably 10 to 15 people off Clubhouse that have made a tremendous impact in my life, including yourself in the last, uh, three months. And, and I've been on people's shows, I've networked with people, I've joined masterminds with them, you know, I've created communities and, and it's helping my own business. So I think it has so much great potential, but I think I just needed a break. So I've been off it really for like the last two weeks. I've done maybe two rooms, um, each week at the end of the week, you know, and then I've just kind of. And same with the other person I was co-leading. He also kind of was like. And we both built a pretty decent following, you know? Um, and then we still were just like, alright, it's not really about the followers. It's really about not wanting to be burnt out.

Mike Manoske 6:16

And I think, I think it's a great point. I'm I'm looking at this going okay. I'm I'm at capacity. I couldn't add any more time if I, if I even wanted to, um. Our, our objective is to get other voices in there. And so that, you know, there are, there are sessions where we're just kind of waving, you know, it's like, oh, sure. You know, we're adding points in, but we're really trying to get, get a broader range of voices. First of all, just for burnout, you know, our own burnout.

Rushab Kamdar 6:44

Yeah. Absolutely agree.

Mike Manoske 6:46

Understand completely.

Rushab Kamdar 6:48

Yeah, no, thank you for that, Mike. And so I wanted to bring Clubhouse up because you do so much in the coaching space. Um, and you know, like I've said, you're career and leadership coach. So maybe you can tell the audience what exactly is your business and you know, who are the customers that you serve and you know, really how you help all these, these people.

Mike Manoske 7:09

So I work with anybody who recognizes that on the, on their career, they need to make a change. And sometimes, and oftentimes that changes. I need to change the job that I have. So as a recruiting leader for 20 years still feels funny to say it, by the way, that was that long. But I understand the logistical part of job search, you know, from, okay, how do I leave? How do I update my LinkedIn? How do I get, how do I talk about myself, interview, negotiate, update my resume. Uh, again, I can't stress LinkedIn enough. That's a huge, such a huge part of this. Um, I have expertise in that area. I provide the logistics side of it. Oftentimes what comes up is a second layer, deeper questions, things around. Wow. You know, I, I, my, my, my self evaluation isn't good. You know, I've got some imposter syndrome. Um, I'm wrestling with quite frankly, my job was brutal and I maybe was struggling with some PTSD. How do I deal with that? So there's the top level logistics, the deeper questions. That gets you through that process. But the next phase of that is, is the second half of my practice, which is how do I do well in the new role? How do I go kick butt and take names and, and how do I, how do I use that next opportunity to bounce even higher into the opportunity after it? So I describe my practice as job transition and career success. I'm an executive coach. But career success really is making sure that when you land in a new opportunity or you're in an opportunity, you get as much out of it as possible. And looking forward, you know. Coaches and coaching is all around forward-looking, you know. We're, we're, we're future based. Um, we're going to get you through this, but the goal is to create skills that help you in the future, just do better and better. We're scaling somebody.

Rushab Kamdar 9:09

That was beautifully said that you're scaling somebody. Uh, you know, and there's something you said in your answer that I think it's really important to highlight. You said some people may be suffering from PTSD. And I think when we hear PTSD, a lot of times, we think it's you know, someone that was in the armed services, they were, you know, uh, coming back from overseas and they've, they've suffered something that that's traumatic, but, you know, I've seen this with entrepreneurs who've had, you know, very, very difficult failures and, you know, we're had the backs of the wall and may file bankruptcy if not, they did. And, and so what have you seen with the job search side, the candidates that, how have they may potentially suffered PTSD?

Mike Manoske 9:49

So they've been in environments. You know, you described entrepreneurs who, who got up to the wall, you know, had some really tough decisions. Uh, it was starting to, it was negatively impacting their personal life. You have the same thing in dysfunctional organizations, toxic workplaces, and you know, one, probably the best way to describe it is someone who actually worked for me. I hired her as a recruiter. Um, she came in from an organization famous for a belligerent leader. You know, the guy who would stand in the hallway and start, you know, shouting F bombs at people. Um, she came into my company, really talented, we're in a meeting one day and I said something and she went white and I held her back from me. I said, well, what happened? She goes, I thought you were yelling at me. And I I wasn't even close. And I said, wow, let's, let's, you know, that's not my style. This is how I work. She became incredibly effective, but she later on said she realized her first two weeks at our place, she was scared because she was afraid somebody was going to yell at her. And, or, or worse. And if you bring that kind of baggage, you know, from a previous role or from a previous experience, uh, from a previous failure, in the case of an entrepreneur, um, you know, that stuff that, that lingers, that's like a rock on your back,

Rushab Kamdar 11:16

Yeah. You know, we're, we're in a decade of consciousness now, right? We're being more self-aware and mental health is so important. And I wanted to highlight that because of men's mental health awareness and for, you know, maybe any, any, uh, executive, uh, entrepreneur, a boss, leader out there that maybe listening to this podcast, you know, to, to have, I'm a big believer in empathy. So to have that outlook and see that when someone is coming in, you know, how you treat your employees and creating the culture around it so that, you know, no one should go to a job and have a PTSD diagnosis leaving that job so.

Mike Manoske 11:51

Exactly. And I think being aware of it, you, you raised a great point, Rushab. Being aware of it is, you know, 50% of it. Um, that, that negative, I mean, we've seen it in personal lives, you know, negative, you know, poor relationships. It's the same thing in your career. And you know, how do you, how do you shed the baggage? How do you get the rock off your back is a key part of my coaching. Because how do you, you can't go forward with that rock on your back. It's just gonna, it's just going to continue to slow you down.

Rushab Kamdar 12:24

Something else that you do I mentioned before you teach at the Wharton Executive MBA Program. Now, Wharton is a great name. Um, and I actually did got my MBA from an executive MBA program. So, um, and I had tremendous value from that, that style of teaching. Um, and you guys developed a program called The Job Search Action Group.

Mike Manoske 12:43

Right.

Rushab Kamdar 12:44

Uh, so I'm just interested in hearing what that exactly is specifically.

Mike Manoske 12:47

Sure. The first thing I'm going to a slight correction. I don't teach at Wharton. Teach, teach is a really loaded word. Um, we built a program and the idea of the program was that about 30% of the students that went through the Wharton Executive MBA program got in the program, very successful career as much like you, um, got in there and went, oh, wait a minute, something here lit me up. I'm an engineer and marketing lit me up or, you know, I'm in marketing and finance lit me up. I want to go do something different. And, um, you know, the, the person who runs career advancement at San Francisco, uh, you know, a good friend of mine, Steve Hernandez really saw this. Steve is also a recruiter. He had 10 years of executive recruiting. Um, and what we recognized was you, they would get into the program. They would, they would want to make a change and they were, they, they locked up. And they locked up because they didn't know the logistics of this because everything in their career had been smooth sailing. Now, a big transition like this. New skills needed to be put in place. So we built the Job Search Action Group around two concepts. One is let's show you the logistics. Let's get you really good at these logistics and turn this into a skill set development. And the second part of it is let's do it as a group. Um, doing this now almost seven years. And we have WhatsApp groups that have, that have been active for seven years. Um, and we go through the logistics of it. Being recruiters, we're going to explain the logistics. Our goal is this becomes a skill set you can use the rest of your career and we've we, we have tons and tons of success stories around, around making this work. Uh, it has been incredibly rewarding watching people continue ,continue the upsurge in their career, continue this trampoline effect to, to, to more and more responsibility. But the better part is watching them not be afraid, not be uncomfortable with the idea of, okay, it's time for me to make a change. Um, and to know that I have a community behind me, it's going to back me when I do that.

Rushab Kamdar 15:01

So, is it a, do you do, um, annual workshops, uh, or virtually, or how has, how has the program actually introduced

Mike Manoske 15:08

It's a 14 week program, um, with seven sessions. Each session about an hour and a half. And we we've identified, you know, the core pieces of a job search. Everything from who do you target? How do you describe yourself? How do you create a brand statement? How do you create an effective LinkedIn profile? Probably the biggest part of it is how do you have, and build effective business relationships? Not networking, effective relationships. We were really that's that's foundational, but you really can't go out and talk to people until you have a comfortable way to describe yourself through a brand statement. Everybody looks at your LinkedIn profile. Let's get that updated. Get out there, talking, understanding how people work, understanding what the needs of their organizations are, understanding their journey. Notice this isn't about yourself. This is really about the outside the outside world. Um, then we can get you comfortable with resume, with interviewing and we even do negotiation. You know, I've done 7 or 800 just as a recruiter alone and then probably a good 3 or 400 as a coach. So we we've got some really interesting approaches that are not typical on how to do these various, these various categories of your job search.

Rushab Kamdar 16:25

So we, we've identified and highlighted, you know, your integral role of, of the various programs or your coaching services on helping the job candidate. And you've basically taken all that knowledge and experience, and you created a book that's coming out this year called The Job Search Manifesto. Um, so why, there's so many books out there, why did you feel there's a need to write this specific one and you know, how does it differentiate, help those that are looking for jobs or trying to move up in their, in their, um, specific industry or company?

Mike Manoske 16:59

You know, it's, Rushab, the question you just asked, and the way you asked it is really helpful because we didn't set out to write a book. You know, we set out to build a program. And about four years, five years into the program, Wharton came to us and said, this is, this is, this needs to be a book and so off we went. What we realized was there's a lot of books on this, but they're, they're either really they're, they're not very deep, they're broad, but not deep, um, or they're very focused on a couple things. Here, just do these couple things. What concerned us was they were also not written by people who've been in the trenches. You know, I've hired a thousand people as a recruiting leader, you know, Steve, you know, hundreds and hundreds on top of that. And what we realized was no one really talked about the logistics of this from, from the, uh, from people who were in the trenches with us. And that was, we saw, we saw books that were, you know, in some cases really fluffy and they weren't helping. So with some reluctance, when we started, we thought, okay, we're going to write this book. Um, and we have grown so much in the process of writing the book. You know, the pause you heard me say was, I, I was thinking about it was going to be so easy. No, it wasn't easy. It it was a really interesting growth process for both of us, but what we realized was we've been giving, and I think I haven't sent you a kind of an early version of the book. Um, we actually been giving that out to students for the last two years. And we've noticed a change. Uh, I provide, you know, I do external, uh, I do an abbreviated version of this at HireClub and I be giving out the books. What I'm finding is having a structure, having a process, not that I want people to follow like this, this, this, this, and this, you know, step-by-step but you have a roadmap, we're seeing an improvement in that alone. So there, we just didn't see somebody that had really developed a good roadmap for this. And if you're trying to teach this as a skill set, roadmap's important. So Google the book.

Rushab Kamdar 19:02

I completely agree. You know, I, I. Frameworks, methodologies, processes. The reason why these are so integral because I have my own, right? I, I teach at business schools across the country, um, and my speaking workshops and, um, I'm teaching them how to think business, the students, I'm thinking of teaching them how to talk business. And I, and I have, I have frameworks, I have a blueprint. I have acronyms on how to network and, and you know, or how to talk the language of business when you're networking. And what I've recognized that a lot of people have great, valuable advice, but if they don't put a methodology behind it or a some type of system or framework, it's very hard for, for the audience or anybody that you're teaching this to, to really grasp it and refer to it. Cause our brain thinks it best when it's organized.

Mike Manoske 19:53

Yeah, exactly. And you know, what we found were there were people and you've see, I know you and I have talked about this and you've seen this people who will stay in unrewarding, uncomfortable if not lousy jobs, because they're too afraid to leave. That the fear of transition is, is worse in their head than actually staying put. And what we're saying is here's a framework, let, let's get some of the fear out of the way, and it's a proven framework. So just like your work.

Rushab Kamdar 20:24

Exactly and the key word it's a proven framework.

Mike Manoske 20:26

Yeah, exactly.

Rushab Kamdar 20:27

Yeah. And that's what you need, right? So, um, well, you know, you mentioned that you gave me an early version of your book and I got to peruse that book. Um, and what I, what struck out to me was this specific statement you said, uh, by the time the average job candidates at 25 years old, um, who starts work, when they reach 65, they will have had changed their job every 4.2 years. So essentially the average working professional would change jobs 10 times in their career. Um, and I, I recently heard, it's unverified, but I'm just, it's kind of hearsay, but I recently heard that even with millennials it's even quicker, it's like every 1.8 years or something like that.

Mike Manoske 21:08

That's definitely correct.

Rushab Kamdar 21:10

Yeah. So, uh, what does that tell you with what's happening in this dynamic of Corporate America and changing of jobs every four years?

Mike Manoske 21:21

So the 4.2 year number you quoted, came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And it's you know, it's a nationalized number. Um, the number is shorter, you know, the 1.8 years is actually about right. You know, we're and is, is becoming more and more the norm. Um, it's, it's really saying that there isn't, I hate to say loyalty is dead, but what I would say is interest is higher. The desire to go do new things is bigger. So it isn't about loyalty. It's about growth and about interest. And I think that's, that's the new norm. So, you know, organizations have to be very prepared and I think smart ones are doing that. Around the idea of, um, how do I, how do I keep the people that are critical in our organization? How do I give them new growth opportunities? Um, if organizations don't do that, if I'm a, if I'm an entrepreneur building a company, I've got to recognize that very likely the people I bring in first, I've got to make sure they have channels and growth paths. If I don't do that, I'm going to lose key people at, you know, if I'm a, if I'm an, in an early stage startup that I founded, if I'm an entrepreneur and I lose those key people, shame on me because I need to make sure that they have growth. Um, that's I, to me, that's one of the key takeaways. And I think particularly for your audience.

Rushab Kamdar 22:49

Well, you know, there's when I think about when you said, you said the word loyalty, you know, gone are the days of, you know, having a 30 year career in a company. And there was this stigma I remember when I was coming out of college and even when I did my MBA where it's like, you don't want to show that you jump around too much on your resume. But I feel that with the shorten years, that is pretty much now the, the, the consistent resume. It's a candidate that's been somewhere every two years. So have companies been conditioned to this and now it's not necessarily they're expecting loyalty, but maybe they're looking at job candidates in a different way?

Mike Manoske 23:28

They are absolutely. Um, it's, it's not a stigma any longer. In fact, in fact, if you've been somewhere three or four years, there's almost a question. You know, why, why, why didn't you grow? Um, I don't want to create, I don't want to create anybody hearing this to think, Oh my gosh, I've been there three years. I'm I'm now failing. No, it's not the case, but you know, you, because businesses now understand. Smart businesses understand that people will, people will move on to things. And the really smart businesses plan that growth for the people so that they move on within the organization. That's to me, the key. I've seen people and I've worked with people and, and, you know, people as well that have stayed within an organization for maybe a decade but have held five different roles. I'm fine with that. You know, as a recruiter, I'm great with that because what it's telling me is this is a person that really wants to contribute, wants to do a lot of good things, wants to grow. And this organization was smart enough to be able to provide that.

Outro

Rushab Kamdar 24:35

Join us next week for part two of our interview with Mike Manoske. Thank you for joining us on the Business 360 Podcast to learn more about our guests. Go to ThinkBusiness360.com. In life, I follow two things that keep me grounded. Number one, if you only listen to someone's successes and not their failures, you've only heard half the story and number two, compete with yourself and help everyone else. You stay classy Business Heroes.