00:00:00:01 - 00:00:29:16
Mary Daphne
Hello, Advanced English learners. Welcome back. Greg and I have a fun conversation for you that hopefully will also help you with your job search. So today we are going to talk about how to start applying for jobs in the U.S. and we're gonna share some insights and tips for you. All right. Let's get into it.

00:00:33:01 - 00:00:43:24
Mary Daphne
All right, Greg. So we're talking about the job hunt, the job search, how to effectively and productively apply to jobs.

00:00:44:24 - 00:01:01:27
Greg
Yeah, this has changed a lot over the years. When we were younger. The job job search process was very manual. It felt very manual. There weren't that many online resources available. So you basically had to pound the pavement and talk to people.

00:01:01:27 - 00:01:02:28
Mary Daphne
Knock on doors.

00:01:03:02 - 00:01:15:24
Greg
And doors, you know, tap your network, figure out who, who knew who. And, you know, slowly find your way in a very manual way. And when you're submitting your resume, you know, it was done in paper and it.

00:01:15:24 - 00:01:16:06
Mary Daphne
Printed.

00:01:16:06 - 00:01:18:23
Greg
Out it, print it out, bring it in, blah, blah, blah.

00:01:18:25 - 00:01:19:22
Mary Daphne
Sometimes mail it in.

00:01:19:22 - 00:01:25:12
Greg
Sometimes mail it in. Yeah. And these days, a lot has changed, hasn't it?

00:01:25:25 - 00:01:45:19
Mary Daphne
Really has. And I think. Well, hopefully for better and for worse. But now, you know, a lot of it is done through search engines and job search job boards and job sites. Right. And the biggest one, the largest network that you might have heard of.

00:01:46:06 - 00:01:49:18
Greg
Personnel like LinkedIn.

00:01:49:27 - 00:01:50:07
Mary Daphne
Right.

00:01:50:19 - 00:01:54:19
Greg
So who's not sponsoring this, this content? But I wish they were good.

00:01:54:20 - 00:02:18:11
Mary Daphne
Maybe they should. But Linton is amazing because it's very it's very approachable in that you want to like you want to be on there. It feels very much like a social network and it is in a lot of ways, but it's a professional social network and so a lot of people are posting content there now. There's definitely a lot of action on LinkedIn.

00:02:18:24 - 00:02:41:05
Greg
Yeah, LinkedIn has become sort of the nexus for all things professional, right? It's essentially your professional identity, a nexus is essentially a central point where a bunch of different things connect to a hub. Right. And that's the way they like to position themselves for the user as you know. And it's kind of like their living portfolio. Right. They can.

00:02:41:05 - 00:02:42:00
Mary Daphne
Post links.

00:02:42:09 - 00:03:05:10
Greg
Yeah. You can post articles that you've written or that you find interesting. If you have a web page, you can sort of create a LinkedIn page for that web page or business. You can create a LinkedIn and link that to your your profile. Mm hmm. And so you get this really dense and, you know, basically an all stop shop for everything that that is you in the professional world.

00:03:05:10 - 00:03:28:02
Mary Daphne
And then you can add people to your network and you can connect with people because you can sync your address book. And so they'll find your emails and they'll say, Oh, this person from college is on LinkedIn. And that person from that job is on LinkedIn. And then you start building your network, which is important because a lot of people that I've spoken to who have gotten jobs have been from people they know.

00:03:29:03 - 00:03:31:15
Mary Daphne
So you really want to leverage your network?

00:03:31:25 - 00:03:48:20
Greg
Yeah, it's true. You know, we were talking about how much has changed. Yes, that's one thing that hasn't really changed, which is while it's become much easier to find jobs online. Yeah, the knowing a person at that company is still one of the best ways to get your foot in the door.

00:03:48:26 - 00:04:04:06
Mary Daphne
Right. And that's because they know you. They know your work ethic. They know the products you've created, the work that you've put in. They can speak to it, right? They can speak from a very a standpoint of really knowing you.

00:04:04:06 - 00:04:20:29
Greg
Yeah. They can be convince a lot of hiring. I would argue that probably the most important factor of hiring someone is trust, right? Can you trust that this person is who they say they are, that they're going to do what they say they do, that they're able to do what they say they can do. Right. It's that trust.

00:04:20:29 - 00:04:40:10
Greg
And so if there's someone at the company who can vouch for you, that immediately solves the trust part of the equation. And then it just becomes sort of this discussion about cultural fit, like you meld with the culture. But if you can get past that trust point, a lot of the friction has been removed from the hiring process.

00:04:40:11 - 00:05:08:11
Mary Daphne
Definitely. And so a great place to start then that being said, is to create a profile on LinkedIn and upload a professional picture of yourself, polish up, dust off that resume, and then you can manually put in different work experience, education skills. What's really cool now is that for each role that you have and you have had, you can tag skills.

00:05:09:12 - 00:05:24:20
Mary Daphne
So you'll say, you know, writing interpersonal skills, engineering, web development, whatever your skills are, and you can put them in those blurbs so that they're searchable because the SEO will find them.

00:05:24:22 - 00:05:35:07
Greg
Yeah, yeah. Well, the whole second part of LinkedIn that we haven't discussed is for the recruiters, right? Yes. LinkedIn is very helpful. As you know, a candidate.

00:05:35:07 - 00:05:35:21
Mary Daphne
Exactly.

00:05:35:21 - 00:05:36:18
Greg
Looking for a job.

00:05:36:21 - 00:05:37:06
Mary Daphne
Exactly.

00:05:37:19 - 00:05:57:06
Greg
But it's also in fact, it's much more valuable for the recruiters who want to find candidates. You can imagine before there is LinkedIn and the Internet more broadly, it was very hard for companies to go out and find the people they needed. They needed to basically throw a big career fairs and expensive events to, you know, attract the kinds of people that they hoped to attract.

00:05:57:17 - 00:06:15:08
Greg
Whereas nowadays, because we so diligently put all our information online, they can use a tool like LinkedIn to quickly filter through the thousands, millions, hundreds of millions, even billions of people. And find the best matching candidates and reach out to them directly.

00:06:15:15 - 00:06:35:00
Mary Daphne
And a lot of it is let there be if you have a YouTube channel or if you have a portfolio or if you have, you know, any type of evidence of your work online, that's already a huge plus because the candidate or the hiring manager starts to get to know you. At least they get to know your work.

00:06:35:09 - 00:06:49:06
Mary Daphne
And if they reach out to you and say, Oh yeah, we love your nfts, you know, or we love your writing samples, you know, they might approach you because of the living portfolio that you have online.

00:06:49:15 - 00:07:12:06
Greg
Yeah. Having that portfolio is huge. Whatever it is you do, whether you know you're a coder and have a website that you built or an app that you can show or a code repository. Or like you're saying, if you're a photographer, a designer, an artist, an artist. But, you know, it is sometimes harder to have a portfolio if you're more in the services industry.

00:07:12:10 - 00:07:12:25
Mary Daphne
I think that's.

00:07:13:15 - 00:07:35:29
Greg
Like how what kind of portfolio does an investment banker have or an accountant? Right. And so that's where LinkedIn also is really powerful because you can build connections with other people or you can create connections with other people on it so that that helps solve a little bit of that trust dilemma that we were talking about before. If you're connected to a bunch of people, for example, I went to business school, right?

00:07:36:05 - 00:07:43:06
Greg
So I went to Wharton. How do they know that? I went to Wharton. Well, you know, just because I put it on my profile doesn't mean it's for sure.

00:07:43:06 - 00:07:43:18
Mary Daphne
That's the.

00:07:43:18 - 00:07:44:05
Greg
Truth, right?

00:07:44:13 - 00:07:44:26
Mary Daphne
Of course.

00:07:44:26 - 00:08:08:29
Greg
So one way they can tell that it's legitimate is they can see that I'm actually connected to a lot of other people that went to Wharton around the same time I did. So that increases the likelihood. So LinkedIn not only is a great place for showing your portfolio, it's also a great way to prove that you have done the kinds of things you say you've done because people can actually comment on them and say, Oh yeah, he actually did do a great job here.

00:08:08:29 - 00:08:12:00
Greg
Or, you know, she is really good at what she says. She she is.

00:08:12:00 - 00:08:33:25
Mary Daphne
Right. They can endorse your skills. So people if you list 50 skills that they'll show like the top three skills that people have endorsed and then that will be front and center of your profile. And so you might have skills and whatever they are, people will vouch for you. They'll say, yes, Jane is really good at X, Y, Z.

00:08:34:02 - 00:08:40:02
Mary Daphne
And so they can see that. Okay, well, these people agree with you that you have good skills in that area.

00:08:40:14 - 00:08:55:15
Greg
Yeah. And I know we've talked a lot about LinkedIn. We should probably talk about some, some other ways to get jobs. But yeah, one more thing I wanted to add about it, and this isn't specific to LinkedIn, right? There are other hiring sites to do this, too. Indeed. Glassdoor of glass orders hiring them. Yeah, great.

00:08:55:15 - 00:09:02:05
Mary Daphne
They should I think I'll check that. Maybe someone can fact check that. But you're right, indeed.com is a good one. Yeah, yeah, I know.

00:09:02:05 - 00:09:04:16
Greg
The Glassdoor is great for getting reviews.

00:09:04:16 - 00:09:07:14
Mary Daphne
Yeah. Like, what is it like? Companies to work at that.

00:09:07:21 - 00:09:10:13
Greg
It would totally make sense that they also have. I think you're right about that.

00:09:10:13 - 00:09:12:29
Mary Daphne
I thought I saw that recently, but I can I can double check.

00:09:12:29 - 00:09:23:23
Greg
But anyways, one of the other things that that's useful about these sites, these aggregators sites, is that they can provide recommendations to you as well. Yes. So you put in what job interests you have. Yeah.

00:09:23:23 - 00:09:28:08
Mary Daphne
And they can upload your resume and they'll filter out keywords and sites.

00:09:28:08 - 00:09:40:01
Greg
Exactly. So they'll use the information you put on there to select, you know, opportunities that they think might be a good fit for you. So it does a great job of bringing the opportunities to you and bringing you to the opportunities.

00:09:40:09 - 00:09:47:10
Mary Daphne
All right. So the other thing that people might consider doing is something like a networking event.

00:09:47:10 - 00:10:17:08
Greg
Yeah, exactly. So we've talked a lot about using online tools to find jobs. One of the ways that you can do that offline that's also very powerful is going to these networking events. Right. A lot of companies will host conferences or participate in conferences where they send a bunch of employees. If you also attend those conferences, you can go there and actually have a chance to interact with the employees and develop a relationship with them.

00:10:17:08 - 00:10:34:17
Greg
Give them your business card. Let them know that you're interested in the kind of work they're doing and get a conversation going, start to develop some rapport and potentially leverage that to create, you know, more of a meaningful conversation about hiring opportunities at that company.

00:10:34:28 - 00:11:03:08
Mary Daphne
Definitely. And then, you know, you can always show them your portfolio or direct them to your LinkedIn page or indeed page your Glassdoor and try to, like Greg said, get that rapport building going. Because, again, it's not just what you know, it's who you know. Right? And so if somebody thinks very highly of you and they think you, they think of you as a capable and competent person, which you are, you want that person to also think that.

00:11:03:18 - 00:11:15:21
Mary Daphne
And then if it's a hiring manager or cruder, that's even better because they're in a position of power where they might find an amazing job opportunity and they'll tap you on the shoulder for it first.

00:11:15:21 - 00:11:45:17
Greg
Yeah, exactly. And what they find is that what we find in general is that as humans, we put a higher premium on in-person contact. Right. And in-person interactions. And so by going to these events and actually meeting these people face to face, it's, it's it tends to be much more durable and compelling compared to just, you know, scanning a LinkedIn profile.

00:11:45:18 - 00:11:47:09
Mary Daphne
Right. So the telling someone out of the blue.

00:11:47:11 - 00:11:56:27
Greg
Right, exactly. So that in-person interaction can go a long way toward deepening the connection you have with that person versus online interactions.

00:11:57:07 - 00:12:28:08
Mary Daphne
Yeah. And then second best in terms of high def definition would be a video conference call or something like a Zoom or a Google meet where you can see the person face to face. But it's not in an in real life context. It's over the World Wide Web. But that's a second best if you can get yourself to a networking event or a job fair or something where people are congregating to a space, where they're networking and it's a professional event, then, you know, try to make the effort to be there.

00:12:29:06 - 00:12:47:03
Greg
Yeah. And you make a good point, which is there are actually quite a few virtual networking events as well that you can participate in. It might not be as effective as an in-person event, but it is also more efficient. Right. You don't have to go to the event. You don't have to pay for travel and you can do a lot more of these in a single day.

00:12:47:13 - 00:13:05:08
Greg
And so those at least still show that you're, you know, proactively engaging with the company, engaging with things that they do and that they value. So those are definitely a great sort of alternative that that can be more accessible for people than the in-person events.

00:13:05:21 - 00:13:33:29
Mary Daphne
Right. And maybe if you want to get a feel for the company culture or the type like what it's like to work there or just any other questions you have that are specific to a certain company, then you might want to scan their website and their LinkedIn page and see if there are any of these free virtual events that they're hosting and get a sense for them and then, you know, chat with someone from that company, maybe some employees as well, and hiring managers ultimately, if you can.

00:13:34:10 - 00:13:53:02
Mary Daphne
And then if they're and if you like what you see and you have a good gut feeling about it and you say, I want to work there, then you might be able to find something in the in-person setting and get yourself, you know, to that location and make the most of it that way. Yeah. So amazing. And there's so much to say on this topic.

00:13:53:02 - 00:14:18:20
Mary Daphne
We will happily dove more into it. If you feel like this is something you want more insights and advice and suggestions about and just hearing our perspective on it. And then the next thing I'll say as we wrap up is the first thing that you should probably do is dust off your resume, polish it, think about the types of roles, even if you have a job, like what would be the next step for you career wise?

00:14:18:20 - 00:14:41:11
Mary Daphne
Or if you want, if you're looking to pivot and change jobs, what would be that next step? So with that in mind, polish your resume dusted off, get rid of the cobwebs and then put it on line. So do it in the form of a LinkedIn profile and then indeed profile and then a Glassdoor profile and then check some others, see what else is out there and start making those connections.

00:14:41:11 - 00:15:00:07
Greg
Yeah, and when you do that, be sure to be selective about what you put on there. Right? We've all done a lot of things. Yeah. But, and it's tempting to just put it all on there, everything. But if you're looking for a specific type of role, the better thing to do is be quite selective about what it is you're showing there.

00:15:00:07 - 00:15:14:17
Greg
Tell a story that's focused right that way it's easier for the algorithm to understand what it is you've done, and it's easier for recruiters to understand the type of candidate and the type of value that you provide to the company.

00:15:15:03 - 00:15:49:22
Mary Daphne
Amazing. So start with that. And then if you're looking for some interview prep in the interview process practice, you can check out. We have hundreds of lessons specifically on interview prep on the other channel that we have explaining and that's on communication and social skills and public speaking and interview prep. So definitely check that out. It will be linked below so you can find that easily or just go to explore learning dot co and then if you're enjoying the podcast, please feel free to leave us a nice review.

00:15:49:24 - 00:16:10:07
Mary Daphne
You can leave up to five stars and we really appreciate that. That really helps us out and feel free to share podcast and the YouTube channel and then subscribe to our newsletter at Advanced in Moscow. All right. So with that being said, I think we're going to see you in another one of these amazing lessons. All right.

About the Author and the Explearning Academy:

Mary Daphne is an expert in communication, executive skills and professional development. She is the founder of the Explearning Academy, a platform dedicated to helping individuals enhance their social fluency, boost their careers, and elevate their social game. Through immersive group coaching programs like the Executive Communication Lab and self-guided journeys, participants gain the social superpowers and career catapults they've been searching for. If you're ready to take your negotiation skills to the next level and connect with like-minded individuals, visit academy.explearning.co and explore the various plans available. Join the Explearning Academy community and unlock your full potential.

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