242. Unpacking Career Challenges and Opportunities with Mick Spiers

Discover the secrets to thriving in a tumultuous job market with our insightful guest, John Tarnoff. Ever wondered how to transform your career after 50 or why storytelling could be your greatest asset in job hunting? Tune in as we dismantle the myths surrounding mid-life career changes, highlighting ways to adapt and leverage your rich reservoir of experience. We’ll guide you through the art of personal branding and show you how to make meaningful connections within your network. Plus, get equipped with practical strategies for acing job interviews that emphasize humility and leadership.

Don’t miss our exciting announcement about the Podcast Awards, where you can cast your vote for your favorite guest from our diverse lineup of over 240 episodes. We also share a sneak peek of our upcoming content featuring Garrett Delph, who will discuss how to transform team culture from chaos to clarity. Our heartfelt thanks extend to our incredible team, including the talented Faris Sadegh. Stay connected with us on social media and subscribe to our YouTube channel for your weekly dose of career inspiration and much more.

Chapters

• 0:00 Career Reinvention
• 10:04 Podcast Awards Announcement and Updates

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

What if the way you've been approaching job hunting is setting you up for failure? What if the key to landing your next role isn't just your skills, but how will you tell your story? And what if the greatest opportunity in your career is still ahead of you, not behind? In today's episode, I'll be reflecting on my recent conversation with John Tarnoff, I'll be unpacking the biggest takeaways from that conversation and sharing my own reflections, particularly from the perspectives of a hiring manager. Stay tuned to the end as we give you practical tips on how you can reinvent your career and find joy and fulfillment. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. Today, I'm unpacking our conversation with John Tarnoff about career reinvention, overcoming hiring biases and staying relevant in today's job market. Let's start with the harsh reality the hiring system is tough. When you apply for a job online, your resume is often one of hundreds, if not 1000s of applications. The truth is, the probability of getting hired through a cold application is incredibly small. So what can you do? Use your network, and not just your direct network. Use your network of networks, referrals hold significant weight in hiring decisions, whether they're first party from someone inside the company or third party from a mutual connection. If you're looking for your next opportunity, don't just rely on online applications. Leverage relationships, reach out to connections, and don't be afraid to ask for introductions. The second thing I want to share is that 50 is not old. You still have many years to give one of the biggest myths we need to break is that 50 is somehow old in the workplace, it's not, in fact, with careers now extending well into their 60s and 70s. You may have two decades of more of contributions ahead of you. Many companies desperately need the experience, wisdom and leadership that seasoned professionals bring. The key is positioning yourself as an asset, rather than falling into the trap of believing your past your prime. For me, I'm now 51 and I feel like I've already had two chapters of my career and one long chapter still ahead of me, but now this, in this third chapter, I've got the benefit of all of the experience and the lessons learned that I've collected in the first two chapters of my career. When you think about it, careers at last companies and job stability looks very different. Now. Gone are the days when people work for the same company their entire career. Your career will likely be longer than most companies survive. The average lifespan of a company is shrinking while the length of our working lives is increasing. So rather than chasing traditional job security, think about career resilience, the best way to future proof yourself. Stay adaptable, keep learning and cultivate a strong professional network. Now, what about in the hiring situation? Let's say that you get the interview. What do you need to do? A first tip I'm going to give you is to use real life experiences in interviews, because human skills matter. As a hiring manager, I can tell you firsthand, we don't just want to hear about your technical skills. We want to know how you handle real life situations. Come to your interviews with examples, tell stories, share moments where you handled conflict, managed a difficult team member navigated uncertainty, or drove meaningful change. Hiring managers want to see how you think, how you lead and how you solve problems. Next tip, be yourself and be humble. Here's a piece of advice that's often overlooked. Don't be afraid to talk about your mistakes. Nobody expects perfection. In fact, I respect candidates more when they can openly share a failure, what they learned from it and how they grew. Humility is a strength. Confidence is great, but arrogance is a red flag. Show that you're self aware, adaptable and always learning, and you will endear yourself to the hiring manager. Hiring managers look for attitude, aptitude and mindset, your technical skills. They're just table stakes. What really sets you apart is your attitude, your aptitude and your mindset. Who are you as a leader? How. Your approach challenges. What are your values? Are you resilient? Are you a team player? Hiring managers are looking for cultural fit and leadership potential, not just hard skills. They want to know if you're going to fit in well, or are you going to be toxic and bring other people around you down. So be ready to articulate who you are, not just what you do. Think about how you would describe yourself as a leader, and even more importantly, how would others describe you. And remember that the interview is a two way street. So get ready to ask great questions. A job interview isn't just about the company evaluating you. It's about you evaluating them. The best candidates come prepared with insightful questions that go beyond salary and job descriptions. Remember the person that you're talking to works for the company. So here's an opportunity ask them, What do you love about working here? What's one thing that you would change about this company, and what are the biggest challenges in this role? Look for red flags you want to make sure this is a place where you can thrive. Hiring Managers won't mind those questions at all, and you'll start getting insights into what it's like to work there with this Be very mindful of confirmation bias. Both candidates and hiring managers can fall into this trap of only hearing what they want to hear. If you go into an interview thinking, Oh, this is my dream job. I really want this, you might ignore the warning signs on the flip side. Hiring manager might favor a candidate just because they click with them, even if they aren't the best fit. So stay objective. Listen carefully, ask clarifying questions and challenge assumptions. Be careful that you're not just hearing what you want to hear. If you really want this job, you might be missing the signals that it's not the right job for you. Next tip for candidates, please, please, please listen carefully and answer the actual question. One of the biggest red flags in an interview is when a candidate doesn't actually answer the question the way I see it, they go on a fishing expedition. They start trying to guess what the interview wants to hear. They start throwing out word salad at a million miles an hour, and they're trying to watch your body language to see if they're hitting on the right answer, and that doesn't work well if you don't have direct experience in a certain area, be honest about it, but also share how you would approach it if you were faced with that situation. More importantly, if you didn't understand the question, pause and ask for clarification. Ask what they meant by the question first, before you start spitting out words out of your mouth, you will lose them if you go on a Miranda ring story that shows that you didn't really understand the question. To summarize, some of the key insights from John carnoffs interview, John shared some invaluable perspectives on career reinvention to reframe career setbacks as opportunities for reinvention. A career pivot isn't an end, it's a new beginning that ageism does exist. I wish it didn't, but don't let it define you. The way you present yourself, your adaptability and your mindset matters more than your age. Show them that your experience and wisdom is going to be valuable to them as an organization, and show that you're adaptive and still learning every day, be proactive, not reactive. Your next opportunity won't land in your lap. You have to go out and create it. Use your network. Know your value. Companies need experienced professionals, but it's up to you to communicate your impact effectively. So after everything we've discussed, how will you approach your next career move differently? Are you leveraging your network? Are you telling compelling stories? Are you focusing on your mindset, not just your skill set? How are you going to describe yourself? John Tarnoff reminded us that careers are about constant reinvention, and no matter where you are in your journey, the opportunities are still there. You just have to approach them strategically. I'd love to hear your story. Tell us your story in the comments or send us an email. Tell us about your experience with job hunting. Have you done a career reinvention? Have you done a career pivot? What worked for you, what didn't work for you, I'm going to break in here with an exciting announcement. We're now deep into season five of the leadership project and more than 240 episodes in, and we've decided to launch something called the Podcast Awards, where we're going to be asking you the audience, who has been your favorite podcast guest on the show through these five seasons. Please go to mickspiers.com, and you can find the voting form there, and we'll include a link in the show notes so you can vote on who has been your most impactful guest that we have had on the show in the next episode of The Leadership Project, I'll be joined by Garrett Delph, the founder and CEO of clarity ops, and we'll be talking about the keys to moving from chaos to clarity, to transform the culture in your team or in your business. If you've been enjoying our content, we would love it if you would send us a note, drop us a line about what you love about the show, what you'd like to see us do differently going forward, are there any particular guests that you would like to see us have on the show? So send us an email or leave us a comment. 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.