241. The Broken Hiring System and How to Navigate it with John Tarnoff

Unlock the secrets to career resilience and reinvention with John Tarnoff, an executive and career transition coach who has transformed setbacks into successes. We explore the nuanced challenges senior-level executives face, particularly those stemming from outdated business cultures and ageism. John shares his personal journey from the entertainment industry to coaching, offering rich insights into crafting meaningful work opportunities despite a competitive and often biased hiring landscape.

Reflecting on job loss and personal relationships, we highlight the parallels and emphasize the importance of preparation before diving into a new role. The discussion turns to the necessity of having a financial safety net, allowing for strategic job searches and avoiding hasty decisions driven by financial strain. You'll hear real-life anecdotes illustrating the pitfalls of rushing into the wrong job, while we also confront the broken hiring system and its impact on older professionals.

In our conversation, we underscore the power of LinkedIn and authentic networking. Discover how to craft a compelling "About" section that goes beyond the mundane to capture attention and convey your unique mission. By focusing on relationships with top contacts who genuinely align with your goals, rather than mere resume distribution, you can transform your network into a supportive community. Finally, John sheds light on overcoming ageism, leveraging both strong and weak ties, and reframing perceived limitations into strengths that enhance career longevity and adaptability.

🌐 Connect with John:
• Website: https://johntarnoff.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johntarnoff/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johntarnoff/

📚 You can purchase John's book on Amazon:
• Boomer Reinvention: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6L4FQF

Exploring Workplace Mental Health with Dr. Bill Howatt
Learn the why, what and how of fostering a mentally healthy workplace with Dr Bill Howatt

Chapters

• 0:00 Career Reinvention and Ageism in Hiring
• 10:29 [Ad] Exploring Workplace Mental Health with Dr. Bill Howatt
• 11:19 (Cont.) Career Reinvention and Ageism in Hiring
• 16:12 Navigating Job Loss and Hiring Challenges
• 31:46 Crafting Authentic LinkedIn Profiles and Networking
• 36:21 Overcoming Ageism and Building Career Relationships
• 49:33 Career Longevity and Ageism Awareness

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

What if everything you've been told about career longevity is wrong? What if your most valuable contributions as a professional are still ahead of you, and what if the hiring system that's meant to reward experience is actually stacked against you today, we are joined by John tarnoff, Executive and career transition coach. John talks to us about career reinvention, leadership and how to get this broken hiring system to work for you, even in the face of ageism and outdated business practices. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by John Tarnoff. John is an executive and career transition coach that helps senior level executives to make career changes and get jobs, despite sometimes what we see in the industry of ageism, what he calls a broken hiring system and an outdated business culture that can sometimes give people the impression that they're done when they still got so much more to give. There's going to be a deep element of this conversation from both sides. So you might be listening to this introduction going well, that's me. I'm, you know, mid level executive who is going through career transition, and you might need some of John's advice from that perspective. But then there's also the hiring and the business side. So what does it take, and what does it look like when we are recruiting people into our businesses that are in the end of the career, towards the end of their career, they're not there yet, and they've still got so much more to give. How can we make that a better experience for everyone? So I don't want to go any further, because I want to hear from John, the expert on this topic. So without any further ado, John, I would love it if you would say hello to the audience, and I'd love to know about your background and what inspired you to do this work today where you help these people.

John Tarnoff: 2:03

Sure. Mick, thanks for having me on it's great to be on your show. Appreciate it. Hello to everyone out there. So I've been doing this for about 12 years now, and I come out of a entirely different career, a very volatile career in the entertainment business as a film producer, studio executive, took a sabbatical into technology in the 90s, during the bubble, had a startup wrote it all the way up, all the way down. So it's been a bit of a roller coaster for me in my career, and as I got older, went through a number of different stages, got fired a lot. Had to become resilient. Had to really rely on my resourcefulness to continue to find a job, to turn those setbacks into successes. I came up with some techniques, some tools around career survival and when I segued out of my last corporate job into a period where I decided, kind of getting into the second act of my career, was time to do something a little bit more entrepreneurial. I began this consulting practice, which eventually led to the career coaching practice, and here I am today.

Mick Spiers: 3:14

Yeah, interesting, John, you've you've lived it yourself, so you've made a few different kind of career pivots, and also been through the experience of being let go, I've not so I'd love to know what does it feel like. So So when you've been let go either for all kinds of reasons, it could have been a project that you're working on just came to a natural end, or the business decided to go in a different direction, or whatever, what does it feel like when you go through that process?

John Tarnoff: 3:39

So this came into sharp focus for me when I was invited to do a TEDx talk in 2012 subject of the day was transformation. I came out of the film and TV business, the organizers said the topic is transformation. I said, Do you want me to talk about the transformation that's going on with digital and entertainment? And they said, you can talk about whatever you want, and I had been tracking the aftermath of the 2008 2009 recession and how older people were having a harder time navigating the economics of this time. They had lost significant value of their retirement savings, their homes had lost value. So they were looking at a period where instead of being able to retire, coming into their 60s, they were going to have to continue to go to work. But with ageism, all of these factors were contributing to a lot of people kind of falling away, falling by the wayside, really economically. So I thought, well, how do we to the theme of your show. How do we take leadership tools and best practices and create a self leadership program where, instead of relying upon others to give us work, we figure out a way to generate work to become more noticeable, attractive and solution oriented? In our work so that we can continue to earn money, save for eventual retirement and pursue the kind of work that we really get a lot of meaning and purpose from. So that was really the the incentive for me getting into this work, and in the to answer your question specifically about getting fired. One of the things that I talk about in the 10x talk is this statistic that I came up with around my own career, which is that over the course of my 35 years in entertainment, I was fired 39% of the time. And I took the list of jobs that I had over the period of time, and I subtracted the times where I got fired from the times where I quit, or from the time a job or a film that I was producing just ended and came up with that figure, I got a big laugh in the audience, because a nervous laugh. Because, I mean, who talks about this stuff, right? Who talks about, you know, getting fired as a kind of a metric in your career. But the point I was trying to make is that things have changed. In the old days, when we were growing up, getting fired was shameful, and you must have done something wrong, otherwise they would have kept you on, right? I mean, that was the traditional kind of industrial era approach to career. You get a good education that entitles you to work for 40 years, and then you get to retire. Well, you know, those days are gone, and today it's much more about fit and about change than it is about stability and longevity. So getting fired is no longer shameful, and I wanted to make the point that we have to rely on ourselves to understand what our Fit is, where we can fit with an employer or a partner or a client, and the process of getting fired is painful. I absolutely understand that, and I've experienced that, people actually ask me, so you've been fired a lot, does that make it any easier when you get fired again? And my answer is no, it's always difficult. It's always painful. It's always like a kick in the gut, even if you're part of a massive layoff and you're one of dozens or hundreds of people who have been laid off, you're always gonna say, Well, why me? Right? Why was it? Why was I let go, and that person in the next office or cubicle or floor wasn't and you know, the process then becomes one of really focusing in on yourself, reflecting on this opportunity that you have now to double down on what you do, what you do well, and move on from that setback.

Mick Spiers: 7:42

Really good, John. I want to share with you three things that are jumping into my mind as I listen to you talk. First of all, that this can happen to anyone, that it's not personal. It can happen to anyone. And we had a recent guest on the show, John, that brought this to stark realization for me, that when I think about my grandparents, or even my great grandparents era, people used to work for the same company for their entire career, and companies lasted longer than people lived now it's the exact opposite. Now we're seeing people live longer than ever before the age average life cycle is going up, and we have startups that last as little as three to five years. A very successful company might last 15 to 20 years. Well, now we're working longer than companies exist. So if you think that this won't happen to you at some point in your career, I feel lucky. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I'm not done yet, either. If you don't think this is going to happen to you, then you might be kidding yourself. So it could happen to anyone.

John Tarnoff: 8:48

Absolutely and I will. I will just throw in a statistic on this that certainly here in the US, there is statistically a better than 50% chance that if you are over 50, you will lose your job for one reason or another. So I advise everyone who is approaching or over 50 to be very, very mindful of their career situation and to prepare for what they're going to do in the likely event that they are going to lose their job, whether it is because there's change in the company, change in your department, and maybe even change in your health situation, or your sense of what you want to do, you're going to likely change your job.

Mick Spiers: 9:34

Okay, so there could be all kinds of trigger events, and you're bringing it stuck realization as well. That number one, it could happen to anyone. Number two is that it's going to be natural for you to potentially for this to hurt, for you to feel like it is personal, and that somehow you don't matter, that all of this heart and soul that you put into the company, etc, doesn't matter, and you'll be. Let go. Then the third one that I'm hearing loud from you is what then you help people with. Then you've got a pivot, you've got a choice, you've got a point of choice. Here. You can either be the victim or you can be the creator. And someone with a victim mindset would go into their shell and blame the world and wouldn't do anything about it. Someone with a creative mindset would pick themselves up and go, Okay, what can I create from this? What can I do to make my next step? How does those three things sit with you, John?

John Tarnoff: 11:10

Absolutely on target. One of the things that that I think comes up around this, for me and in talking about the pivot, is that we are used to as employees, being in a one down position. We are used to feeling like I am powerless. I am being given the opportunity to do this job. I better not mess it up, and if I do lose the job, there's I'm at a disadvantage. People who have jobs are advantaged. I am not as someone who has lost a job. It comes up, brings up all sorts of questions about, How did that happen? Why me all this? I have to defend myself now in an interview, I am going into this job hunt from an insecure position. That is wrong, that is not necessary, and particularly for professionals who are older, who have years of experience behind them, who have accomplished a lot, who have track records that they can stand on. You want to be interviewing the company as much or more than they are interviewing you. You want to walk into that interview as a peer, not as a supplicant. It's not about being arrogant. It's not about having a chip on your shoulder being defensive. It's about entering into a real conversation about fit again, it's all back to fit. Are you, Mr. Ms employer, the right fit for me? Am I the right fit for you? I don't want to be working for your company if I'm not the right fit right I'm not going to try to persuade you to disregard these aspects of my background that you don't find all that aligned with what you do. If it's not aligned, then I don't want to be there. It's not going to go well, and I don't want to be just wasting your time, wasting my time, trying to make that fit happen for the next year so we can maybe come to some accommodation. No, no, no, I want to get off on the right foot where we're completely aligned going into this and we are partners in the success that I am capable of bringing to you and your bottom line.

Mick Spiers: 13:38

Yeah, really good, John. I'm hearing three things again. Here. One is a good reminder that the interview process is a two way process. You're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you. The second one is then about the fit. What am I bringing to the table? And if you start with that mindset you spoke about before John, that you're coming in with disadvantage, that's not going to go well if you think I don't think I belong here or etc, that's going to really change the way the whole interview process goes. It'll become a self fulfilling prophecy, in some respects, if you go in with that kind of mindset, and then you're looking for that fit on this fit topic. That leads me to the third part, and then the question, how do you do that in a way that doesn't have confirmation bias in it, where you don't just take a job and convince yourself, okay, this is the job without really checking, is this the one that is right for me? You might be in a situation where you've got a mortgage to pay, you want to put food on the table. There's a company there that is almost ready to give you a job offer, and you start seeing what you want to see, to believe that this is the right one, when it may not be the right one.

John Tarnoff: 14:50

It's a great question, and it's a very, very difficult question to tackle, because backing up a bit if you are in a situation where you don't have a cushion to cover a period of no income, you are defeating yourself before you even start. You are pushing yourself into a situation where you're going to have to accept a job that's not right for you. So what I advocate for with everyone, and it's not just my idea you you see this as the number one recommendation from all job related consultants, counselors and coaches, is, have a have a cushion, have six months saved up or more. You. Because you don't want to jump, you don't want to be reactive. You want to be proactive about your career decisions. And given that getting laid off from a job is a massive loss, I mean, psychologically, it rates right up there with death and divorce as being a major loss, you need time to recover. The other analogy, of course, is that jobs are like any relationship, and once you've been jilted, broken up with by your job, you don't want to go into a kind of a rebound relationship, right, which we joke about in the dating world that after a long term relationship or a marriage, you know, you kind of go into, you kind of do reactive things, and you kind of date the wrong person or a few of the wrong people to kind of, you know, settle yourself down and kind of collect yourself and get your head straight before you actually find someone that's right for you. Same thing in in jobs, right? You want to stop. You want to reflect. You want to take some time to think about where you are now versus where you were in that job before that job, and act from a position of clarity, inner resolve, strength. You want to feel like you're ready to go out there again and where you're not feeling so vulnerable in that job interview situation, you want to be clear about what's your pitch now. What do you take away from this last job? What are the lessons that you've learned? What do you want to share with those new prospective employers about where you're coming from. You want to be able to be enthusiastic and positive and confident in that new relationship. So all of this, really, you know, pushes you towards this idea of being prepared for the possibility of a job loss, so that you have the time to really do this, right?

Mick Spiers: 17:43

Yeah, really good job. That's a timely minder for all of us. You got me thinking too as well about my finances, thinking.

John Tarnoff: 17:49

Yeah, but check your bank balances, check that that emergency account, right?

Mick Spiers: 17:54

Yeah, do I have a buffer? Because as you go into that new job, by the way, in addition to giving you more chance to be more selective about where you go next, the hiring process that the new organization may also take longer than you think as well. So the buffers are really good thing. And then, yeah, the word rebound, I think you, you nailed it. That's what it sounds like to me. It sounds like you go on the rebound, and then you start missing the red flags, and you start accepting any job will do and that that's not a good approach.

John Tarnoff: 18:26

So I want to tell you a couple stories that illustrate this from my own experience. I once took a job for the wrong reasons, because I needed to, I didn't have the buffer. I was coming out of a two year job that I had started with. It was a couple of friends of mine who had started a company, and I went to work with them. It was a pivot from what I had done previously. I thought, I'm gonna give this a shot. It was an experiment. Didn't work out for me. We kind of came to a amicable Parting of the Ways after two years. But I really hadn't been thinking about career preparation or Buffer or all that stuff. And I thought, Oh, my God, I need to figure something out. I was recently married, had a young daughter, and I took the wrong job. I was I was rushed by this CEO of a company, and he was all gung ho to hire me. He was based in New York. The guy who ran the LA office where I'm based, had no interest in me coming into the company, and he basically allowed the guy from New York to set me up to fail. And it was six months miserable, six months at this company. And I kept thinking, I'm going to make this work. I'm going to make this work work. My butt off on a Monday morning, he calls me into his office, the LA guy without even looking up from his desk, he says, today's your last day. Clean out your desk. We're going to scorch you out. You'll get your check on Friday. That was it. I was crushed. I was humiliated, embarrassed, shamed, and for years, I did not put that job on my resume because I didn't want to talk about it. I was so embarrassed about the whole thing and I didn't want to talk about it. Eventually, what I realized is that in order to create the future, you have to reconcile the past, you have to reconcile all of your mistakes. You have to be willing to talk about it as I am now, and chalk this up as a lesson. But the corollary of this, or the the, you know, the the the other side of it, was that after my startup blew up in 2001 and I went on this process of trying to really turn my life around and do so in a way which kind of mirror. A lot of the techniques that I subsequently have learned that teach now with my with my with my clients, I had the buffer. And to your point about the hiring process taking much longer than we expect. I eventually got hired at DreamWorks Animation, where I spend most of the 2000s in a fantastic job that they created for me, but it took six months of meetings and discussions and strategy sessions and before they decided that they wanted to pull the trigger and make me that offer. So it was a long, slow burn to get to that and I needed to have that buffer to be able to survive that period and make that work.

Mick Spiers: 21:28

Yeah, really good. John, so So the buffer is really important, the confirmation bias I was talking about before. So if you're going into these interview sessions, the thing I'd like to say is, remember that you're going to spend up to 1/3 of your time at this workplace, so make sure that you're not missing the red flags of No, this is not what I'm looking for, right? So, yeah, really good. Now tell me you you speak about a broken hiring process. Tell us more about what you see are the issues in the hiring process today.

John Tarnoff: 21:58

The broken system, the broken hiring system, if you are applying for a job, on average, you are up against 250 other applicants. That ratio is more than the ratio of top Ivy League college admissions. Here in the US, you have a greater chance of getting into Harvard than you do getting the average job, recruiters spend, statistically, about seven seconds looking at a resume. You are in a call, if you are relying on job application process. I can't tell you the number of people who start to work with me, and they say I've literally applied to 50, 100, 150 positions. And never received a single acknowledgement of my submission, my application, much less an interview request. This gets worse as you get older, because of age bias, and so people go through all sorts of gyrations to hide their age, which I think is a miserable approach to this problem, because at some point they're going to find out how old you are, right? So why are you spending so much time hiding this fact? They're going to figure out that you're hiding it. If they're biased against you, they're not going to hire you anyway. If they're actually not biased against you, they're wondering, what else are you hiding? Right? Why are you so insecure about this? It raises other suspicions. So the system really works against us and makes us crazy around all of these issues. And think about what's going to happen now with AI, many people, more people, are using AI to help them craft their resume, to tailor their resume to a particular open position. It's going to get increasingly automated. AI agents are going to be able to scour the internet for open positions. They're going to correlate those with your background and your resume. They're going to automatically submit you for these jobs. They're going to, in the most sophisticated way, retool your resume to apply. And I think instead of 250 applications per position, we're going to have 25 hundred, 25,000 applications per position, and it's going to be a complete cluster blank. Employers are going to reciprocate. They're going to retaliate. They're going to use AI to sift through the applications to figure out who's the real person here, who is the the non AI resume. So you need to figure out a different way of applying to jobs in this broken circumstance. And that approach is network. That approach is going person to person, building relationships, talking to real people, and creating a ladder, a lattice, if you will, of relationships that could get you referred to a potential open position that would be right for you.

Mick Spiers: 25:07

So I'm going to share a little bit of my own experience here, John, and I'm just thinking about my career. I'm 51 years now, so I've still got lots of time left in my career, by the way, but I think about my career, and apart from my very first job, every job I've ever had, I was either head hunted for or referred for, referred to, every single one I think about, think about the hiring process where I've been the higher. I couldn't put a number on it, but I'm struggling to think of a position where I went with a cold resume. Let's call it a cold. Old resume where there wasn't some kind of third party trust through a referral, where someone has got recommended to me. Look, I worked with this I worked with this person in another company. They were really good, they had the right attitude, they had their and all of that was more important to me than anything I read in the resume, and even any qualifications the person had the referral, and the third party trust that comes with that referral was more important to me than any of those other things.

John Tarnoff: 26:08

Absolutely right. You're making my points. I have the same same history as you do. I've always had a resume. I never used it to get a job. I never submitted it to get a job. It was always through personal referrals, and then they would say, Oh, you have a resume, right? It's like, yeah, okay, well, we'll just send the resume, but, but that was kind of the the icing on the cake, or the cherry on the on the Sunday, it really wasn't the document that was used as part of that process. It was filed away. And I say this to people today, you know your resume is, is a leave behind, right? It's kind of like that little brochure that you leave on a sales call. It's that marker that they put in a file, whether it's a physical file or a digital file. They need some kind of record of of you that they can refer to, but they're not going to use that as the main set of criteria to make the hiring decision.

Mick Spiers: 27:02

At best, what I think happens is your resume will be passed around to the other people that are going to interview you that may not know you. So so you've been you either know someone that's on the interview panel, or you've been referred to that person on the interview panel, and then there's going to be one or two other people on the interview panel who are reading their resume, and there, this is how they're getting introduced to you, but the reason why you got in the door was the third party referral

John Tarnoff: 27:26

Exactly, exactly. I mean, you and I know this. We've been there for others who are not familiar with the process. If you're going to be interviewing 234, people over the course of an afternoon, those resumes there are your cheat sheet. It's like, you don't know the people, but it's like, okay, who's coming up next? Oh, it's, it's this person. Okay, so let me look at the resume, right? Okay, got it.

Mick Spiers: 27:48

Then you push it aside and you talk to the person.

John Tarnoff: 27:51

Exactly.

Mick Spiers: 27:52

Okay, all right.

John Tarnoff: 27:53

So it's a reference, it's not a decision making document.

Mick Spiers: 27:58

All right, so let's turn that into some practical advice for people. John, if someone is listening to the show right now and they're sitting there going, I sent my resume to 50 companies this week, and how do I how do they break that and go, Well, stop doing that and get into the networking that you speak about. How does someone start if they're not comfortable or they're not used to this?

John Tarnoff: 28:19

Right. Lots of questions about networking. Networking starts though with my mind your LinkedIn profile, and now we get into the meat of what I do and how I help people define their careers. Get Noticed, get hired. In order to network successfully, you have to have a clear idea and definition of what your value proposition is. And I call this the superpower. This is the collection of skills, backgrounds, experiences, preferences, insights that you have about the work that you do, the industry you're in, etc. And if you're able to articulate that superpower, capture that. You capture that in your LinkedIn profile, from your headline to your about section to your experience section, you're able to create a successfully create a good picture of what your value is to the target companies that you want to work for. So notice that this is not about being a generalist, where you are appealing to everyone who could potentially like what you do. Hire your skill set. You want to be very, very narrow, particularly if you have a lot of experience, if you're now an older, mid career or later professional talking to a guy the other day who's going to start working with me, and he is now, before we start working together, he's now split between two skill sets that he has developed over the course of 30 years, and in our conversation, I said you're going to have to drop one of these, because you're confusing your audience. You're confusing the potential employers. They go, is he this or is he that? And he says, Well, I'm both. And I said, That's right, but employers want specialists. They want someone who is really focused and aligned with the problem that they need solved. So which is it? Which is your preferred expertise? That's the one that you want to choose, and you want to create your entire self portrait around the value that you deliver when you put this profile together. Because once you've done that. It becomes a lot easier to go into a networking situation, a relationship building situation, and say, Hi, I'm John. Here's what I do, here's the value I provide, here's the result that I deliver.

Mick Spiers: 30:54

Yeah, really good. That's 100% true. We're all looking for specialists, and I think that's going to be even more true as AI really takes hold, the more specific it is about the problem that you solve, the more interesting you're going to be to prospective employees. So we need to know who we are, what we do, and why we do it, what drives us and what what is our superpower, and then we can start building a personal brand that matches that, so that we get people's attention.

John Tarnoff: 31:24

Absolutely and by the way, that I love that you, that you talk about who we are and why we do what we do, because that, to me, sums up the usefulness of the about section on LinkedIn. Most people don't know how to fill out their about section. Many people just ignore it completely. Most of the times, when I see the about section, it's a kind of a text, bio. It looks like the top section of a resume, experienced professional focused on it's like, Excuse me, this is third person. Did someone write this for you? No, of course, you wrote this for yourself. Everyone knows you wrote it for yourself. This is a era of authenticity and transparency. You want to use your about section as a mission statement to share that who and that why and the where you're going with it. What is your ambition? What is your goal? What is the kind of the kumbaya coming together of skills and philosophies of business and and your vision for the future that you want to share with a potential employer who is going to go. Oh, I like where this person's going. I share that vision. I need to meet this person, because it's a real person. It's not just some skills collection here. It's not some drone that's sitting in a desk in a cubicle. This is a real person who could help me develop the goals and the and the success of our company.

Mick Spiers: 32:48

Yeah, really good. All right, so first step I'm hearing is with authenticity, really getting in touch with who you are, what you do, why you do it, what is your vision, what is your dream? Where do you want to go, and being able to articulate that with a level of clarity and simplicity that captures someone's attention, and you said seven seconds before for the resume. It's the same thing with LinkedIn you've got, it's almost like a hook. You need, a hook that describes you authentically in in a couple of sentences that get someone's attention. What next? How do they start networking from if you've got that groundwork done, what next?

John Tarnoff: 33:24

So instead of sending out 50 resumes to 50 companies and 50 job positions, look on your LinkedIn contact list, and you probably have a few 100 people. You may have that 500 plus little designation on on LinkedIn, who are your top 50 people? Who are the top 50 people that you have worked with, that you know, who understand who you are, where you're going, how they can help you is maybe people that you worked with, maybe people you worked for, maybe people who worked for you. You want to kind of do a deep dive on your list and figure out, Okay, where am I right now? What do I really need? Where am I looking to go? You have articulated in your about section, in your profile, this superpower now, how does that match with your network? And those top 50 people for me are the or 40 or 60 or 70 or whatever that is, are the core of your community. And I think it's really important to look at your network as a community building exercise, not simply as a kind of a net that you spread out indiscriminately into the world to just sign people up. You want to find people that are aligned with your way of thinking, and where you're aligned with their way of thinking. It's a cooperative, two way street. It's a real community, and that community will step in and help you succeed, whereas your overall network of everyone you know, we'll be happy to stand by and watch you fail. It's like, oh, it's a shame. You know what happened to Mick, yeah, what's he doing? I haven't kept up with him. Right where your community is going to go. Wait, wait, wait. Mick, you know, let's have a conversation about this. Let's you know, I saw your new profile looks really good. Here's a tweak I would suggest. Remember that thing, that success that you had five years ago? Why don't you talk about that in your about section, right? Where is that? Why is that not on your experience section? That was a really important milestone for you and your growth? Oh, wow, I haven't thought about that. That's great. Let's, let's, you know, let me do that. And they'll say, and now that I you've done this kind of deep dive. Five on your profile, this gives me a much clearer idea of how I can help you. And I've got five people I'm going to call or refer you to, because they could use your services, or they will understand what you do, what you provide, and they're going to be a great connector for you to meet other people.

Mick Spiers: 36:02

Yeah, really good, John. The people that will care about you will help you craft that message, because they know you well. They'll also know what resonates with the people that are going to be on the receiving end. One of the limiting beliefs might be that you're reaching out to people thinking, Oh, I'm going to be in position on them, etc. You may not be. The mindset I'm thinking about here is, don't think about it. I'm approaching John for a job. John knows five people I don't know. It may not be that I end up working with you, John, but you know someone that works in DreamWorks. Let's use that as an example, and you're going to do a an introduction to me, to someone that you know and trust and but now I'm now going into that relationship with the eventual target organization, with a third party, trust driven referral. I'm not going in as a cold resume that gets seven seconds of airplay. So I think there are going to be some people that have limiting beliefs about, oh, I don't want to reach out to my people. I don't want to be a burden, etc, you're not a burden. They care about you, they will help you.

John Tarnoff: 37:05

One caveat about this, which I think is very interesting, there is a common misconception that your strongest ties are going to be your most effective career, building ties the people you know really, really well. There have been a number of studies on this, and it turns out that very often, your strongest ties are not your most effective ties, that the people you know really well either feel awkward or uncomfortable or clueless about how they can go to bat for you, and very often it's the weaker ties, the people who know you more casually, maybe know you from a Little bit of a distance, who turn out to be the most, the most effective and the most you know, productive connections that you have. So you just want to be very careful about your expectations. You just never know who is going to step up and who is not. And as someone who's been fired a lot. I can tell you very often, the people that you really expect are going to help you out. Somehow, they just vanish when you need them, and the people who you don't expect are going to be helpful to you. Show up, become completely dedicated to your success and hang with you through the entire process. And I this has happened to me a number of times, and the DreamWorks job is an example. My reference to into DreamWorks was a guy who was the flakiest person I had probably ever met in my career. You know, canceling meetings at the last minute, you know, not showing up for lunch. I mean, crazy stuff. And of all the people, he was the most dedicated, loyal, diligent, energetic, on top of it to set up those meetings at DreamWorks, who knew, right?

Mick Spiers: 38:53

All right, there you go. All right. So when you're looking through that LinkedIn, your own LinkedIn profile, and you're looking at your connections, and you're looking for, okay, who might be the person that can help me out here. Don't easily dismiss the ones that may just be the secret, and don't necessarily put all your eggs in the basket of of one group of people who may not have the skills and and will to be able to help you. All right, John, we've already given the audience some pretty cool toolkits. When we come to this creator mindset, get out there and create your own career transition. I promised at the start of the show that we'd talk a little bit about some of the ageism and some of the mindsets that go along with that. So what do you see in the process that leads you to think that ageism is still very real?

John Tarnoff: 39:39

Just anecdotally, empirically from the work that I do and the people that I work with, and all you have to do is maybe search ageism on LinkedIn search bar, and you'll see a slew of really unfortunate stories about how people are being ignored. People are being let go, people are experiencing biased behavior in their workplace. So it's out there, and statistically, the number of complaints continues to go up here in the US for the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, the courts that are hearing these cases are increasingly making it difficult for people to prove that there's been age discrimination. Employers are very good at hiding their discrimination, so if they lay off an older worker, they'll lay off a younger worker to go along with it. And by the way, ageism applies across all all of the employment spectrum, so you have. Yeah, younger people who are being denied promotion because their older managers don't believe they're they they have enough experience, even if their ideas are good. And on the other side, you have people who are biased against old people just because they have this misinformation around age and acuity and energy and all sorts of you know, old themes that are completely debunked. So from the employer employee perspective, it remains a problem, and it's a very deeply ingrained issue. Some psychologists say that this is really our fear, our fear of getting old makes us kind of biased against age, because it's a kind of a reminder of our own, of our own eventual fallibility and mortality. I don't know. I mean, I believe that it's really important to operate as a candidate, independent of those of all that stuff that's going on, and really focus again on value and relationship. Because if you are providing something that is needed by a particular employer, and you are presenting yourself in a way which is really clear, really dynamic, really tailored to that employer's needs, they really don't care how old you are. They just want their need taken care of.

Mick Spiers: 42:04

Yeah, really good, John. I think the fit the culture and the value, what? What am I bringing to the table? What problems do I solve? What experiences do I bring to the table? What? How am I going to enrich the diversity of thought in the company that I'm going into, or if I'm receiving it? How is this person going to enrich our diversity of thought now experience and help us solve the problems that we're trying to solve as a company, if I share a little bit of my own thoughts here in my own story. So I'm, as mentioned before, I'm 51 years old, and i i Now don't consider that old. I might have when I was younger, I might have considered 51 to be old, but I don't consider that to be old. Now my career, I spent 17 years in the defense aerospace industry. I spent 17 years in what we call urban mobility, and I'm still in that industry today. I'm now 50, 51, I just so happen I've got 17 years to go before I plan to retire, and if I look backwards and think about everything I've achieved in my two careers, defense, aerospace, and then urban mobility, and then look forward and go, hang on a second. I've got one more of those long chapters to go. There's so much more I can achieve in that next 17 years. And guess what? Version 5.1 of me is a lot wiser than version 2.2 or 1.7 so what I can achieve in the next 17 years is even more than I've achieved in the last 34 years.

John Tarnoff: 43:27

Bravo. I love it. That's exactly right.

Mick Spiers: 43:30

And this is the mindset I think we need to have, is when we're going in as the, let's say, the applicant looking for a new organization, to remember how much more we've got to give now. And secondly, if I'm on the receiving end, if I'm the hirer, wow. Look at the experience that this person is bringing to the table. And they're not done. They've got a long way to go. And guess what? The value they're going to bring now is more than what they would have brought in the first chapter or the second chapter of their career. How does that sit with you?

John Tarnoff: 44:00

I think you're right. I think the attitude shift that you're talking about, I think can precipitate all sorts of positive response from an employer, partner, client, and if you're able to communicate that based on your vision and your enthusiasm, then I think you've got, you put yourself in a great position. The dilemma for many people, and many of the people that I work with, is that they have lost that sense of their future. They have lost that sense of what's the value that I provide? What can I do now? I'm kind of tired. I've kind of come to the end of my rope, working with a guy right now in the media advertising space, very senior guy, who had kind of run out his mojo, had kind of run out. And some of that can happen because it's a bit of a pyramid, right? So there are more positions on your level when you're starting out and kind of getting going, it tends to thin out at the top, because there are fewer bosses and, you know, more fewer chiefs and more Indians, right? I probably shouldn't use that analogy, but, you know, sort of more bosses and fewer, fewer bosses and more employees. So what are you going to do, right? What is your what is your vision? What do you really do you want to become that C suite executive? Is that really where your destiny is taking you? Does that really hold a lot of energy and value for you in your life and meaning and purpose. It might not so you have to figure out, well, where is it that I want to do my best work? And once you tackle that question and begin to answer that question, you will find it a lot. Easier to be having successful engagements and interactions with people, and you don't have to have it all figured out going in. But I think if your attitude shifts and you say, Look, I don't know the answer to this question today, but damn it, I'm going to figure this out, because I've figured it out before. I've had, I mean, in your case, you've had two major career stages that you've gone through. You've done it before. You're going to do it again. You just now have to kind of pick it up from the beginning, start to prototype this and brainstorm this, and engage with your community on these questions, engage and you will figure out the answer. And the more you engage, it becomes a flywheel. Becomes easier to figure out what this momentum is, what the direction is, what the talking points are, what really floats your boat. And that enthusiasm will begin to build back again, and imagine some experienced, dynamic person walks into your office with a clear sense of vision and purpose about what they want to do in their career. You may not have the role for them, the role that they're coming in on may not be the right role, but you're so taken with their sense of self possession, again, enthusiasm, vision that you go, Oh my God, look, you're not right for this job. We'll find someone else for this job. But I want to introduce you to everyone else in this company, because we should find a spot for you or you're not right for this job. But I know five other recruiters who would love to meet you and brainstorm with you about what you could be doing, because you've got so much clear, you know, vision and value, kind of, you know, spilling out of you. We got to find a place for you.

Mick Spiers: 47:32

I can go, John. That's happened multiple times in my career, where I've met someone that captured my attention with their passion, their vision, their attitude, they weren't the right fit for what I was recruiting for at the time, but I referred them off. I went, Yeah, okay, this person's we've got to find the right role for this person. It happens. It happens.

John Tarnoff: 47:52

So one thing about this, which I think is really important to incorporate into your playbook, is that you don't want to look at a job interview as a job interview. You want to look at a job interview as a networking opportunity. Nice one, nice reframe. Don't walk in there thinking, Oh, my God, I hope I get this job. If I don't get this job, I'm really upset. Oh, you know, it's going to mean that I'm doing something wrong. And think about, who is this person? What are they about? What's this company about? Let's build some rapport here as professionals. And if the job works, the job works, you know, if it's not this job, it'll be another job. But I want to, I want to meet this person and figure out who they are, and have them get to know me, and let's be friends, right?

Mick Spiers: 48:38

That's a good reframe, very powerful, and it aligns with what we're saying about networking, but also, what else will happen? Take the pressure off. You won't be so nervous. You won't be so nervous. Yeah, really good. All right, John, this has been a wonderful conversation. I'm going to draw us to a close in a moment and come to our Rapid Round the last four questions we ask all of our guests. Want to quickly summarize some of the things that we've discussed, because I think it's really important to have these takeaway message. First of all, this can happen to anyone. This can happen to anyone. This does not discriminate. In fact, the statistics are now telling us that if it hasn't happened to you yet in your career, will happen at some point. So build your buffer and be ready so that you don't just have to jump at any job, so that you can be more selective in that process as you go along. Then you've got a point of choice. Yes, it's going to hurt if you get let go. It's going to hurt get ready for that. But you got a point of choice here. You can be a victim, or you can be a creator. To be a creator, start listening to someone, John's advice here, articulate with deep clarity, who you are, what you do, why you do it, what problems you solve, what your vision is for your future, so that you're ready to have that pitch to someone, that you can capture their attention and get their interest in a very short period of time, we're talking seven seconds to get their attention. The more work you've done on that the more you're going to stand out. Then the power of networking. Don't leave it to sending your resume to 50 companies. Get into your LinkedIn profile, look at your contacts, and start thinking about who you need to have conversations with in terms of who might be able to help you. And the final one, the reframing around age. Think about the value that you bring to the table. You are not done. You still have so much more to give. I don't care what age you are, you have gifts to give. You have a superpower to give, but you also have the gift of experience, knowledge that you can share with the next generation and employee employers all. Say, look at that person and go look at how much more they've got to give, and how rich that experience is going to be if they bring it into your organization. All right, John, I'd like to now take us to our Rapid Round. So these are the same four questions we ask all of I guess. So what's the one thing you know now, John, turn off that you wish you knew when you were 20?

John Tarnoff: 51:00

The recommendation I would make to myself and to others starting out is find a mentor. That's something that I didn't do in my 20s, and I wish I had.

Mick Spiers: 51:09

Oh, yeah, okay, that's a powerful and the right mentor, and maybe two or three mentors, by the way, it doesn't have to be just one. Yeah, really cool. All right, what's your favorite book?

John Tarnoff: 51:17

You know, you asked me this question, I have to say, looking at all of the books related to work and life and career. The one book that continues to stand out for me is Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It really is for me, a continued source of inspiration, and I use it every day in my practice and in my life.

Mick Spiers: 51:39

Nice. I read it again over the Christmas break. So again, I don't know how many times I've read it, but every time you pick it up, there's, there's a reminder there that helps you get back into the right habits. Yeah, really good. What's your favorite quote?

John Tarnoff: 51:51

So I think my favorite quote is the Winston Churchill quote, if you're going through hell, keep going.

Mick Spiers: 51:58

Yeah, do you want to turn back? You're halfway there? Do you want to turn back and go through it again? Yeah, I do like that one. That's really good, very good. And finally, John, how do people find you? If there's going to be people that are enthralled by what you've shared today and maybe need your help, how do people find you?

John Tarnoff: 52:14

So I am the only John tarnoff on LinkedIn, as far as I know. So you can just search for me on LinkedIn. My profile will come up. Please don't hesitate to reach out and connect with me there. Let's have a conversation on the platform. You can also find me on my website, which is johntarnoff.com Learn a little bit more about my methodology, read some blog articles to familiarize yourself with some of my philosophy of job searching and career building. And I look forward to connecting with any and everyone.

Mick Spiers: 52:44

Yeah, brilliant John, I want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your gift and your wisdom today, but also thank you for all the people that you help. I'm sure you're helping people go through what is a traumatic part of their life, and helping them come out of the other end richer and more engaged and more energized and ready to launch their next career transition. So on behalf of all of your clients, I'm sure they do thank you, but I'm going to say thank you. I think it's really important that what you do and again again, thank you for your time and your and your wisdom today really good.

John Tarnoff: 53:17

Appreciate. It was a lot of fun. And you know, congratulations on having the channel and sharing all of this wisdom with people.

Mick Spiers: 53:24

What an amazing conversation with John Tarnoff. Let me ask you, after listening to this conversation, how do you see career longevity differently? Are you limiting yourself based on outdated beliefs about age and opportunity and if you're in a leadership role? Are you truly valuing experience when hiring? In the next episode, I'm going to be sharing my own reflections on what I learned from John, including the perspectives from the hiring manager and about whether we need to see the world differently. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.