finding career zen

Navigating the Job Market: Actionable Advice for Young Professionals

• Pete Newsome • Episode 55

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Ever wondered why your resume isn’t getting the attention it deserves? We have special guest  Patrick Sirmeyer, CEO of the Luxus Group. here to help us dissect the common pitfalls of applicant tracking systems (ATS) and debunk the myths around one-click applications. Patrick shares his wealth of experience in recruiting, offering actionable tips on resume formatting and the importance of specificity in job applications to boost your visibility and response rates.

Discover how to get noticed by potential employers through strategic LinkedIn connections and direct messaging. Patrick emphasizes the value of internships and even suggests taking lower-paying jobs initially to gain crucial experience. We also highlight proactive strategies for career development, including early engagement and skill development to avoid disappointment post-graduation. Learn how networking, creative value-adding, and reaching out to alumni can set you apart, with inspiring real-life success stories to illustrate these points!

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Pete Newsome:

Welcome everyone. My guest today is Patrick Sirmeyer, who is CEO of the Luxus Group. We're going to be talking about strategies to help young professionals stand out in today's very competitive job market. Patrick, thanks so much for your time today.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I'm excited to be on again. I know we chat a lot and we've gone over a lot of topics and projects, but you hit a good one for me when we discussed today's topic, which is really around advice and consultation for those who are getting in the job market and trying to succeed.

Pete Newsome:

Absolutely. It's tough out there right now, especially for young grads, so before we get started, just share a little bit about your background in recruiting and staffing.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I'm currently on year 19, working within agency recruiting business. That's third party outsourced hiring, whether it be contract staff, full-time hiring, consulting. There's different levels to engage and a year number 11 in business ownership. So I have some knowledge deep, and some of it's just kind of a surface level. But you know, like you just mentioned, it's a unique time for a lot of people, depending on which industry you're in when it comes to job searching.

Pete Newsome:

Well, I'll say it for you, even though you didn't say it yourself. You're a true expert in this space and, with the success you've had over the years, and now, with all the success you're having, you have a CEO of the Luxus Group, and you know, like I do, that everyone has an opinion on the job market. Most of these opinions are coming from people who aren't invested in it the way we are, who don't make a living in it day to day. They come from a great place, but what I experience constantly and I know anyone in our industry does is they don't come from a place of great information and experience and knowledge. So, with that in mind, what are some common misconceptions that new grads have about the job market?

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Wow, that's a loaded topic. I could go a lot of directions. I want to start with something like actual items that I would say to anyone who's applying to jobs. We have what's called applicant tracking systems. Any organization that someone's going to apply to a job you receive it's called an ATS. You see a job posting within a website could be Indeed, ziprecruiter or their own internal site and as you go to post your resume and put the information out there, it's going to be received by a recruiter at our company or a talent acquisition, another organization.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

What I find often is that there's so few people who have applied for jobs and they have not looked at the formatting of their resume. If I were to give you a screenshot right now, I have more than 40% of all applicants come through and the name doesn't even come through in a field properly. The title doesn't come through the field properly, dates of employment don't come through properly and if that stuff isn't received and you're one of thousands, you literally get missed. You get missed out on immediately because the data didn't port over and I would just tell people first of all, let's just go and look at the formatting of your resume because there's a chance you're applying and you're getting no replies because the data that you put in did not pour over to the right way.

Pete Newsome:

So this is a this is an important point, and a great one. To start with, there's candidates out there who are applying all day long, spending their day doing that, and their resume is going into these applicant tracking systems with no visibility for them whatsoever, and they have no idea that's happening. That's probably the worst part about it.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

You're right. I see, quite often I think it's Indeed and some others have this one-click apply option. I cringe when I can tell that someone's on a one-click apply because they're applying for irrelevant jobs based on some keyword searches or maybe it's just some of the algorithms that Indeed has suggested a job to them. You know, once again you're going to be in the cesspool of applicants, and I just say that because you can really change a lot just on solving the things that you can control, which is, let's not do one click apply. Let's be specific on what we're seeking and the stuff you can do afterward, like the steps you can take to be proactive or network or maybe be more aggressive to make sure you stand out. Those are some tasks you can do, but just from the application piece, I encourage people one, let's look at the format of your resume. Two, let's not do one-click apply. That to itself is going to put you in a cesspool that you almost never get an email back for.

Pete Newsome:

So avoid the one-click apply. But how do you solve the resume formatting challenge? What advice do you have there?

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Well, there's a lot of programs online. If you were to search for, I can recommend quite about a bit of them. But there's resume formatting platforms that are out there that will. I think it's minimal eight to $10 per month, even just a one time. They'll give you some standardized templates.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

One misconception is the sexier, the nicer with the design focused resume. You might think it looks nicer from some of the graphics that are on it or just the format, but the way that it's formatted won't help you in the application. Some of these organizations online like it's very simple resume formatting with just the proper data and it's clarifying everything you need. So all that information goes through. I actually done a test at one point where I sat in front of someone who was a hiring manager. This is in the healthcare business. They were hiring a clinical director and I had put four resumes in front of this individual physical resume. This is early in my career and I thought these people were qualified for the job and as I did that, I had the individual look at them. I actually timed it on my watch to see how much time they spent looking at each resume and these people were already vetted by us. So we knew they were qualified and they were. This person looked at each resume for nine seconds before they made their decision.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Nine seconds and I thought to myself like we spent a lot more time than nine seconds to telling you who's qualified. But so many people are looking. We're just busy individuals and we all are and I think that finding a way for someone to very easily get information you're providing, comprehend it and know within nine seconds or less that you're someone they want to talk to like we have to be proactive about that as applicants.

Pete Newsome:

So I think of resumes one of two ways. Either as a cover of a book, right, you're browsing books, you're trying to figure out what's interesting to you, what you want to read, and the cover matters. We can say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all judge books by their cover. That's why the covers are so important. And the other way are headlines, whether it's a magazine or a newspaper I'm dating myself by saying that. But even headlines on a Google search, right, that headline makes all the difference. What's going to make you want to click is the same way you should think about what is going to make that viewer of the resume want to dig into the details.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

That's a really good way to say it. You can't fool anyone when it comes to the resume. We oftentimes get applicants who have resumes that are seven and nine pages long, and I think their intent was if I overwhelm this person with the amount of data I have on my resume, I might get selected, but I mean, no one's offering jobs on the spot like that. You still have to interview and be selected. So you're right, a cover of the book is a perfect way to say it, and I think, after you've gotten notice from the cover of your book, your resume, you should have something else that you can do, or something you have online, or some other content, or something that would elaborate who you are from that point.

Pete Newsome:

I often describe or think of a resume as having one purpose, which is to get you to the interview stage. Do you agree with that? I?

Patrick Sirmeyer:

do. I think let me say to your point yes, yes, I agree that getting you to the interview stage is correct, but we're talking about right now, a status where so many thousands of people are applying for certain jobs. I think hurdle number one is can we get noticed and receive a personalized email or call back about a job? First, because at that stage now you get a chance to even showcase even further from your reply email maybe some content Like, for instance, you might reply back to an employer with interest saying, hey, I really appreciate your time and effort and you could find this. You could actually create a template through chat, gpt. But hey, I really appreciate your interest in me.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I did some research on your organization. One of the things I saw about the job that made me want to apply was this I feel as though I've got these skills and I feel as though I want to learn and get better in these skills and I'm hoping working for your company could help me. Like just that, that would be a five minute read email that would the person who sent that the hiring manager, director, whoever it might be would read that and go, wow, this person's really vested already. Like we've got to interview this person.

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, I love that you said that. So let me rephrase what I said a minute ago Rather than get to the interview stage, it's to get to the next stage, whatever that might be. So maybe it is a reply to say hey, thanks for sending your application. We think you're a potential good fit. Tell me more, or at least catch someone's attention beyond that nine seconds, because if you don't catch it in that timeframe you're gone forever.

Pete Newsome:

One of the things that I heard recently from a guy named Steven Greed, who's CEO of Beam Jobs and that's who I recommend for resume formatting we really like the way they do things over there. He said make a point of mentioning the company's name on your resume Great way to catch company's attention. Right, If you're reviewing that resume and you see that in the summary or the objective statement, it's going to catch your attention because you know it was personal and that's what this one-click apply is really stripped away from the application process. Nothing's personal, nothing's meaningful really, and so we don't put much value on it. So that's what I encourage candidates to do, whether it's I don't really like the term cover letter. I think that implies it's sort of a dated thing that implies multiple paragraphs, but find a way to share your cover story, and that could be so many different formats today, from a handwritten note to a LinkedIn message, to an email, as you alluded to, or maybe even in the summary of your resume.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I think you're right. I think about the idea that for every applicant you have to consider out there, there are people who are underqualified for the job, all overqualified, and then properly qualified the ones who are properly qualified. The algorithms will pick up and you'll most likely get selected in that small percentage. But I can tell you right now there's a lot of people searching for work who are out of work. They're overqualified for a job but they're humble enough to go.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Hey, I recognize what the job market is. I do need employment, I have the skills and I'm even willing to do more for this organization with these skills, but I'm being overlooked because fear is. If you were to consider me, I'm going to leave for the next highest paying job. But the idea, in my opinion, is if you're an overqualified individual and you're applying for a job, one of the things you should do is take the time to evaluate and write some information that shows where you can add value to the company, because one of the things I do see lacking with applicants is they are more thinking of what can you do for me, employer, as opposed to them thinking what can I do for you, employer, and I would rather see more people, especially, I'd say, new grads, who don't have as much experience, saying, hey, here's what I believe I can do and provide value, and here's what I'm willing to do for you and if you give me the opportunity and give me the chance to prove it, I'm willing to do it.

Pete Newsome:

And that's what every employer wants. Right, and as a candidate, you have to provide what the employer wants, because that's how you're going to be selected. Whether you decide to accept the job or not is a different discussion. You have to get there in the first place. So I want to ask you about the competitiveness of today's job market, because the Bureau of Labor Statistics, our current presidential administration, they love to talk about how low the unemployment rate is, giving the implication that it's a great job market. You and I know the reality is somewhat different. So why is it important for candidates today to stand out? If you're a new grad, why is it important to stand out in today's job market?

Patrick Sirmeyer:

First of all, those statistics are skewed. We have a whole nother podcast about the factors that we're not considering. First of all, the people who haven't been employed in a long time. Those have gone to the gig economy at 1099. I mean, there's just so many factors within that.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

But if you're a new graduate and you're now looking at employment and you're trying to figure out a way to differentiate yourself we just got done talking about the topic of applying for jobs I would actually first say throw that out. Sure, you can go apply for a job, but unless you're a licensed professional which, depending on what that profession is, there's such a demand for that, if you're going to be in a status where there are some just subjective qualities in which the employer is seeking, you have to find uniquely creative ways to go out there and market yourself. First one, I would say is networking, and not just general networking. The first thing most students think about is I'm going to go to networking events and I'm going to go to all these local produced events that are within my city. I don't mean to that effect. I've been a couple and I've never gone back.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

First thing I always tell people to do is you need to get noticed. Right, you go to the employer that you're interested in, you find some of the departments you're interested in and you start searching on LinkedIn and you start connecting with those people. You connect with a short message hey, so-and-so. I just wanted to introduce myself. I don't think we've connected before, but I love the work you do and I'm very interested in your company. You don't have to put your pitch out there not saying I applied for a job. Look at my resume. No, you're getting noticed. If it's a small enough company, they're going to list off quite a few and I'm going to say well, there was this guy named John Smith that connected with me. And now suddenly you start to get some communication internally within the company where people are talking about you.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

So I would say first you got to get noticed through some LinkedIn connecting and I know this is like not for a lot of people, but I can tell you right now if you're willing to have a side gig, job, whatever it might be, and then go to an organization and say I recognize that I'm not qualified, but I am willing to provide my effort if you give me a chance at a lower pay scale to start, or unpaid to start and if you will evaluate me every three to six months to see if I've learned the skills to actually do this job on a full-time basis or to a relevant pay scale in which you'd pay a qualified person, I'd be interested.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

That's how much I'm interested in working for your company. I can tell you that I currently have an employee right now who came to me six months ago with that same approach. He wanted to get in the recruiting industry and he was willing to go for minimum wage to start because he had no experience, only to take six months to get up to a relevant pay to what I pay someone with experience.

Pete Newsome:

That is such great advice and it's such a small timescale that we're talking about that you can offer that for, and it doesn't have to be for 40 hours a week. It could be for 10 hours a week, it could be for 20. But the education and exposure you will have for that, gaining relevant experience, is worth its weight in gold, and I know that a lot of people on the job market maybe young professionals don't want to hear that. But you have to extend your timeline of your career and think if you spend three months doing that, six months doing that it will pay for itself so many times over in the course of your career. I think it's perfect advice to give.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Yeah, when you do an internship, you know well I actually get quite a few people to ask me for a paid internship and if I were to offer an unpaid internship they're going to go elsewhere. And I recognize it's better to be paid than not. But just keep in mind like the ability to do an unpaid internship shows a lot about your interest and character in that piece. But if you were to do an internship and you go to the supervisor you're interning for and say, hey, in the three months that I'll be with you, I'm curious what do you hope that I will learn or what kind of skills do you expect me to develop? Ask that of the person as you start and then, when you finish, have an exit meeting and say hey, on a one to 10 scale. How do you think I've developed in those skills and what would you say to me on that topic?

Pete Newsome:

When do you think someone should do that? I mean, I wanted to talk to you about things that students can do right, because a lot of times grads won't realize they have a problem until they're getting close to graduation or have graduated and it's time for the quote real world, and then they realize, oops, my degree is not as marketable as I thought it was going to be. So we'd like to prevent a problem versus solving it. So what advice do you have for students? That's a great one, to start with, the unpaid internship.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Yeah, one of the most disheartening things as a college student is to get towards your senior year, or close to it, only to realize that the degree you chose is not going to be the same as your senior year. It only has a couple of paths. One there's very few job opportunities that are going to be specialized within it. And then number two what a lot of people do they go? I'm going to go get an advanced degree master's, you know, doctorate and not to say they're bad, it's just that that wasn't the path you. You deferred the path of, of career development because something wasn't just falling in your lap, and I think that's where I see the difference. It's just we're just not in a time right now in which things will fall in your lap.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

When I look at what someone can do to differentiate themselves, we'll go back to the networking piece. You could do that at a young age and start networking and try to find opportunities. Find people who graduated your college. I keep an ongoing LinkedIn filter search of people who graduated my college at any given time and I just want to see what they're doing. If you had a 10-minute conversation with three people a week who graduate your university or your degree program, only to find out what they're doing. That's wisdom in itself and people would love to give that advice because you know what? Someone might have taken a path that you're on and say hey, let me just save you some headache and I would guide you to go this direction instead.

Pete Newsome:

I recently had a new grad ask me for help. Who wants to work in a certain industry?

Pete Newsome:

And I happen to have some connections there and I offered that I would make a personal referral if he sent a handwritten note to someone who's very much in a leadership position in this industry. Now I've suggested that to dozens of new grads and young people and no one ever does it. No one ever takes that step to write the handwritten note. But you know, as I do, it's meaningful, it stands out, it's different, right, and that's what we're talking about. You've said that you, you want to get noticed. What a great way to get noticed, because no one else is doing it right. Go where the competition is not.

Pete Newsome:

Well, this, this young guy did it and surprised me and he said two days later he called me, said I did, I sent a letter yesterday. Now you gotta make the phone call right. And and I did. And the guy who he sent it to was so impressed I said listen, I did not obligate you to do anything. I assumed he wasn't going to do it, but I'm making the call, I've got to keep my end of the bargain. And he said pete, I love it, I'm going to call him directly.

Pete Newsome:

And this is a guy who is, like I said, is at the top of his industry and made the call and has taken steps to help this young guy. And I love it because you and I know that people who are older, who are in their profession, love seeing that kind of ambition in young professionals, because that's what we want in employees. So we're inclined to help anyone who asks for it proactively.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

You know ambition and the ability to look for creative ways to add value. It takes time. I recognize that everyone's brain is like pre-wired. I mean, you got to think I'm 18, 19 years into my industry, so it's hard for me to think about as my 22-year-old self. Graduating college. I've also been in kind of the sales format, so I've developed those skills and now I've got that confidence. But if I try to go back to my 22-year-old self and think, okay, I didn't have those skills, I didn't have that confidence. I think I was proactive. One thing I would say I was proactive, but not every young adult is that way and I think that takes practice, like everything else, and it will feel uncomfortable the first time you do it. You like everything else and it will feel uncomfortable the first time you do it. You will feel uncomfortable and I think the second time it will, but you'll eventually break yourself with that.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

There's a story that Tony Robbins used to talk about. It was a real estate agent and I don't remember the call, but it was in California and this real estate agent was looking for a way to sell more homes and he wanted to get his name in this really lucrative neighborhood but he didn't know how to break in. So what ended up happening was the whoever with the company was contracted to pick up trash had gone on strike or dropped the contract, and so this really nice neighborhood actually went probably a month. Trash is piling up in the front, it's getting really smelly, and so what this guy did was actually Tony Robbins was the one that gave him this advice, but this guy went ahead and he paid his own dollars to have the trash picked up and he didn't even tell anybody about it. But then later on, when the neighborhood was actually clean, he started a network and meet some people and he let them know that I did that as a value add.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Well, he ended up over the course, I think, selling like 20 or $30 million worth of homes over the course of years within this neighborhood, all because he did something that was a pain point for them. He found it, he did it on his own dime and dollar and he created value there. And then there was something else he was looking for that they were willing to trust him with, and I think the same thing goes for a new graduate or someone. Applying is like go find a mentor or a person that you want and what can you do for that person? What else could you do for that individual that they have a pain point for? And then you get their attention.

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, and you, we want the income right, as anyone who spends time wants to be paid for it.

Pete Newsome:

But what you're going to be paid when you're starting out is is relatively little, even if it is at the current wages, for what new grads are getting. And you have to consider that the person who's willing to take you on as a mentor or if you're going to be an intern, that is, they're investing a lot of time and effort in you, even before they actually write you a check. So that is what I think is so valuable is the ability to learn. I mean, you could almost make a case this might sound silly that that's worth paying someone for, right? I mean, I know what's in my head and the experience that I have that if I could impart on someone just coming out of school, or if someone in my position now could have imparted that on me coming out of school, it was definitely worth more than what I learned in college. But I didn't have that perspective then right, you have to have the experience in order to benefit from it.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I'll tell you. I've told every employee that's come to work for one of my companies. I say look, you know we've agreed to a wage in which you started and we're going to evaluate you every quarter and your performance and every year for some type of compensation change. And I tell them this early on. What I would encourage you to do is you should get to a point in that yearly or quarterly evaluation where you are compelling me to want to change that compensation structure for you in a positive way. I said what you need to be able to do is that when I come to the table and we have those evaluations that I realized that the odds are tilted way in your favor.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

You've done so much for the company that's measurable and that we've talked about that you it's almost like you don't even ask for it, like it should be evaluated in that fashion. I see way too many people that are just as I mentioned earlier, they're looking for like what will this company give me, what will they do for me? And they're comparing all the benefits and that's fine, I get that. You know, I would rather be in a spot where I've given more to an organization they've given me, because it just I just feel like I'm in the power seat the whole time, and maybe that's something I've developed over years, but that's what I encourage people to do.

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, and it's been a popular sentiment over the past few years to not have that attitude and perspective. But I think the pendulum is swinging the other way. I mean, I really have a lot of faith and confidence in what I'm seeing from Gen Z. I'm biased because my four kids are Gen Z and so I'm around their friends a lot. I'm very encouraged. I have a bunch of Gen Z employees now and they are taking that approach. But be careful. What you see and hear on social media suggesting you do otherwise. By doing more, by going above and beyond, which is such a tried and true thing to apply, you have more power than you realize, because when companies downsize, make cuts that's happening a lot these days they're not cutting the most valuable employees, they're cutting the ones who are at the bottom of the list, and not only do you not want to be that, you want to be the one that they're fighting to keep.

Pete Newsome:

And the way to do that is to go above and beyond, and it seems so simple on the surface, but it's not done frequently enough. Why do you? Do you have a thought on why that is?

Patrick Sirmeyer:

One of the things I think about is I think I said to you earlier, before we started recording we're in a time, right now, where we don't measure experience based on time anymore. Okay, so you don't say I have 10 years of experience and you have 12, and you have 15, who has who's more qualified or who has, you know, better knowledge. We're in accelerated learning, really accelerated learning. In the world we live, in, you, someone can come and learn as much as I've learned in two years in my 18. Now, to do that, though, they have to consume all the right information. They have to have a path to consume that. That could be YouTube and videos, and mentorship, and physical work, and there's just a lot of facets to be able to get yourself to that point. But that ambition, though, I don't see as much, and it might be because so many things about our world are convenient right now.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

One thing I was telling you earlier is I would love to see every young adult, high school to college pick a path.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

One of the things I find is, if you don't pick a path of what you want to pursue, of something you're working towards, that is where you start to waver in life, and sometimes when you're young at least when I think, when I was younger if I was wavering and I didn't have a path of something I was working towards, that's when just negative things started to happen in my life. But I've gone down a lot of paths where I've, like, worked towards something. It didn't work to the level I wanted, but I had a lot of knowledge and experience, a lot of memories, and then I took a different path and then that, just over the course of time, added up to the career I'm in today. I just look at many young adults now where I think, oh, if you just need to take a path, because some of them are so I don't know, confused about what to do, they do nothing. And that's usually what happens when people, when they're confused.

Pete Newsome:

Well it's. It's a conflicting message of thoughts, right, Because you do have time. You have this long runway. It's a phrase that I've used you used it earlier before we started recording today where don't feel pressure to know where you're going to end up, but it's okay and necessary perhaps to feel pressure to work towards that end. And that does mean going a hundred percent in whatever it is you're doing, to figure out whether it is something you're going to have interest in, aptitude for, whether you know if you're not good at it. You probably have to have that realization at some point, Right, I always use the example If I want to, if I want to be a ballerina, it doesn't matter how badly I want it, I'm just not equipped for that, right. So that's a reality of it too. But I agree with you 100% that if you are going into college or you're in college now and your major is undeclared, your number one mission should be focusing on figuring out what, acknowledging that it's okay if you're wrong right.

Pete Newsome:

Because if you find out you're wrong at 22, because you went a hundred percent in that direction of thinking that is what you wanted to do, there is no real penalty, right, for that. You have so much time to make up for it. I mean, I look at your twenties as your freshman year, right, and so you have that much time to figure it out. But figure it out by the time you get your sophomore year right, by the time you're 30. So that's the lens that I encourage young people, including my own children, to look at that through is it's okay if you don't know, but it's not okay to not do something about it. Right, you need to be figuring that out as quickly, as fast as and hard as you can. But it's okay to be wrong, and that sounds like a conflicting message at times.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I think we're more likely to see young adults now have multiple careers, more than two, maybe even or three, in the course of their overall working days. Also, because, going back to the idea of accelerated learning not going to be that Pete or Patrick have 20 plus years in this industry I mean we're kind of hanging our hat on that. But like if another young adult says, hey, in my 15 years of working, I was able to accomplish this in in, you know, phase one and accomplish this in phase two and this in phase three. I mean that's a lot of knowledge and that's a lot of experience overall. And we live in this time now where you can take those paths in different directions. You don't have to always go deep and forever.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

And you know we just used to joke. You know, 30 years with one company, I still. You have employers that will service and I look at their LinkedIn. I'm like, wow, this guy's been with a company 35 years. Such a rare bird. I don't see that anymore. You know, I've asked a lot of employers today and maybe you can answer this one for me, which is I asked him. I say how long would you expect an employee to stay with you to feel like you it was a good investment of the time you spent training that person. I ask that quite often and I get a lot of answers. But what do you think?

Pete Newsome:

most employers in their fifties or sixties are going to say I'll say that they probably give you an answer that's much higher than reality and that they would be happy with. I would guess they would answer probably in the neighborhood of 10 years, where you know three to five is probably more realist.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

It's it, you, you nailed it. Three to five is realistic. They want 10. I just eternity.

Pete Newsome:

And it is. It is a dated mentality. The world is moving way too fast right now for that. But I also think it makes sense to go in with an agreement on both sides of is this a good fit for now? We don't know what the future holds, and that's okay. This concept of loyalty is one that I talk about a lot. It shouldn't be part of the deal, right, it should be a day-to-day decision. Almost. You're not getting married.

Pete Newsome:

It's employment. You're trading your time and skill for compensation, and the minute that doesn't make sense for either side, it should be okay for that relationship to end. And if we have that mentality, I think we'd be a lot happier. I'm personally a big fan of the freelance market for that reason, because there's no expectation of future commitment. Right it's. Does this make sense today? As long as we still say yes, it's great, and you nailed it. We don't. That's okay. It's okay to separate.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I don't think we ever talked about this topic. Your philosophy on employment is identical to mine. I say it to the employees probably at least once a year. Usually I say it at like a year-end party or New York kickoff party. I say look, every morning you wake up and you have to make a decision. Is this where you want to be? And I hope that you say yes and then you're going to show it with your actions and your passion.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

But I have the same pressure. It's a reverse side where I have to wake up and decide can I produce a business and a product and the ability in this situation that you want to work for? That you have opportunity, with that you feel you can grow with and like, if I wake up and I do my part and you wake up to your part, like every day, we just make that decision together. But you might come to a point, at one point you wake up one day and say this isn't for me, and then I can feel good about it because we've made that decision every day up until now and we're just going to part ways amicably.

Pete Newsome:

And the truth is it would be hypocritical to suggest otherwise because I've quit every job I've had except for this one. You only end your career having not left one job, either through your own choice or someone else's. So, there's a natural end to things and we have to be okay with that. But I want to get back on track, because you mentioned skills earlier. Talk to me a little bit about skills you think young professionals need to have, and which skills are most important for young professionals to have in today's market.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

So we're going to put technical related skills to whatever career that you want to decide, because if you want the technical skills to whatever career path you're choosing, there's a lot of online programs that you can find that'll help educating those skills.

Pete Newsome:

Like I mentioned, you can do internships, things like that but if you want to be an accountant, you have to have strong accounting skills. If you want to be a software developer, you have to have strong software development skills.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

So in our conversation, we're making assumptions that you're going to have the skills or find a path to develop them, so we're going to put that aside because otherwise you wouldn't be considered. But now we're looking at things like what creates success between you and your potential employer or the employment scenario you're choosing, and that success comes down a lot to communication. So we live in a digital era where we do so much communication over email, text and just different social platforms, and we would all agree that at some point we have assumed improperly or heard a relationship through some form of text-related conversation. I try to encourage everyone my kids as well to have live conversations with people and the idea of where you're trying to find employment or find a good working relationship, you should be proactive. Don't always rely on your employer to do that.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Our good friend that we both know, casey Jaycox, he teaches this format and it's now ingrained in me and I would encourage everybody to practice this. He calls it TED. It's tell me, explain, describe. And it's just this question asking format of deeper knowledge to obtain information from someone. Instead of saying hey, what about?

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Or this, ask more intelligent questions, I'd say, hey, pete, can you tell me about X, y, z, can you explain to me X, y, z? Can you describe to me and by doing that it's conversational, and whether it be the mentor you're looking for, the manager you want to work for, like, ask those kinds of questions and find out? Like I'm saying, networking but be compelling in a way that you can actually have conversation with people that are important and giving you knowledge. One thing I always do on every email, no matter what the email is, I always send an email to somebody and I ask them a question at the end. I want conversation, I want dialogue, I want us to go back and forth, but I never make just statement related emails and I think if you're just trying to network, you want to be able to do that same kind of concept.

Pete Newsome:

I love it. A friend of mine years ago said be interested versus interesting. And I think that's such a simple way to approach having a conversation with anyone. And you could talk to anyone at any time by simply asking them questions, and I tell them nothing about myself. I just ask them questions, I'm showing interest in them. We will walk away from that conversation and they'll think I'm a great guy. Yeah, for no reason, right, I gave them nothing about myself, my interests, my likes, dislikes but I just asked them about themselves. And that is human nature 101. If you approach your business relationships the same way, try to learn about those you're working with, learn from them, right, while you're learning about them. That is all you have to do. And it is such an easy way to hold a conversation with someone without putting pressure of being interesting. Right, because that's hard. I don't want to have to perform. That's stressful. Do you agree with that?

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I agree. First of all, our favorite topic is ourselves. We want to hear about ourselves all the time you ask someone enough questions about them, they're going to walk away loving you. Did you ever see the movie Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith? Yes, Okay, you know that famous scene where the guy's getting out of the Ferrari I think he's a stockbroker and Will Smith's walking by after his rough day and then the guy tells him you know, I'm, I'm a stock broker. Will Smith was having a rough day but, like he didn't have to stop and ask this guy, he could tell the man was successful, but he wanted to know, like dude, what exactly is it you do? And I can tell you right now, success would love being asked that question. In fact, there's a lot of YouTube videos that people just go around and say, hey, how'd you make your millions?

Pete Newsome:

It's just human nature, right, which we can't fight, but we should pay attention to, because that's how success happens right, and we all have to be able to work with each other. Any other skills that come to mind for today's marketplace.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I add value for that individual and I know again, I'm speaking to the bias standpoint because I've worked in sales Point being is like the skills of being compelling through sales and question asking. I would encourage everyone to just take some kind of course or get some kind of training to come out of your comfort zone because it's easy for me. I'm not a full extrovert but I have extrovert tendencies, so of course I'm willing to be inquisitive and ask questions and dialogue and things like that. But if you're an introverted individual and you're thinking like, ooh, that would be like my worst nightmare. You know to go around asking people questions, I get that. But when I say network, I mean you could just talk to your best friend and say, hey, man, what does your dad do for a living? I'm just curious, you know, and your best friend could be like questions that you want to ask people.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

The old book years ago was by Napoleon Hill, where he actually interviewed all these wealthy people to figure out how they made their riches. He was able to figure out, write a book around all these characteristics about that. Now take that well over time. And now we have today different formats of YouTube where you can ask those same questions to people and find out. Where did you get that? But that inquisitive nature, that would probably be the number one skill that I could tell someone to. If not develop, just be in the habit of practicing it.

Pete Newsome:

So I have that book behind me. There's 13 steps, I believe it is that he talks about, on how to be successful, and what's so great about it is that book was written around a hundred years ago and it's universally applicable. Today, the same things apply. The words and phrases may have changed a little bit, but how success happens has not ever changed in our modern worlds. You mentioned earlier about the digital world that we're in. How much does personal branding matter to young professionals today?

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I'm going to write that up. I think this is a topic you and I were talking earlier about the idea of athletes and young athletes. Today and we're living in this world, this evolving NIL name and likeness and the ability to make money from that I think if you I use them as an example like not a professional, but they're pursuing their athletic career, like they go out there in early age and they start to create a personal brand online and digitally. You know, be conscious of what you're doing.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I quite often Google my name to see what comes up in my first school rankings to make sure that the content I wanted to come up, because you know I'm out there and relevant. But if you're in your teens, I know what's most likely is you just got some social media platforms and you're just posting with your friends and you know where you went on vacation and what you did this weekend. I would encourage people to just be more conscious about what you're posting, how you're posting and I don't mean from the idea of, hey, don't post something scandalous because an employer might see it.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I mean, maybe go out there and create your own blog, you know, write your own topics of what you think is important. Go out there and create some content around the things that are most you're passionate about. And you know, I've often tell people that. You know, we live in this time frame where you can, I don't say create an avatar, but you can at least just put out there the information, what people know about you and it's important you want to be found. We live in a time now where it's more skeptical when you can't find someone online than when you can, and so I understand the privacy. If I Google somebody and there's nothing on them, it doesn't mean it's true. It just means that I think there's something skeptical about the individual as opposed to what I could find from them.

Pete Newsome:

There's so much time spent on social media. Young, old, it doesn't really matter. We're all living in that world today, and what I think is so important is to be a creator of content versus just a consumer of it.

Pete Newsome:

So yes, we're all going to consume it, but find a way to create it to help your professional persona out there, for lack of a better way to put it. So if you are a marketer, for example, show some of your digital creativity on there. If you're sales, make compelling videos. If you're in technology, you have opportunity to showcase that too. So each channel has its own nuance. If you're thinking of that, I think it's such good advice that you just gave, and probably the perfect amount of advice is think about how you want to be viewed as a professional, not just as a person.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

We seem to only like micro-size that to sports, when the reality is guess what? As a young adult who's hoping to develop my career, I want to be scouted too. Come find me, you know, find that line and go. Hey, I want to collaborate on something with you because you're really good at X, and if you want to be scouted and you put out content, otherwise you're going to have to be the one pursuing things you know on your own.

Pete Newsome:

And, once again, this is something you can do while you're a student. You can do it in school. Put things that you're learning or apply things that you're learning in class right now. Share your projects online. Start building your professional resume, so to speak, and professional reputation Maybe that's a better way to put it as soon as you can.

Pete Newsome:

I think that is great advice that probably very few young people take advantage of, because they're thinking of the moment right, just like you did. You said you put yourself in the mind of your 22 year old self. I know where my 18 to 22 year old self was, and it wasn't thinking of what was going to be the best thing for me to do for benefit over the next 20, 30 years. That's for sure. I wasn't thinking that at all, but it's an easy thing to add right. Put all your fun videos, but every once in a while, sprinkle in some professional style content and it'll go a long way towards building that reputation. I love it All right, so actionable advice. I've kept you on longer than I told you I would, patrick, but this has been so valuable. Anything that you know resources or overall advice or guidance you'd like to give to someone who's either in school or has recently graduated.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Yeah. So here's easy, actual advice, and maybe it'll take you a lot of places from here. It's going to sound so elementary, but first find a potential mentor. Your potential mentor might just be your parents, one of your parents, uncle, grandparent, neighbor, friend's dad, mom, whatever. It could be a person who's three years older than you, was in your fraternity and now graduated. A potential mentor for a short period of time, meaning like someone to bounce ideas off of and ask some questions. Be vulnerable to ask that person questions. Prepare, I would say, for example, if you're even say we'll just use college, because usually they're thinking of a career at that point.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

You're in college, you're coming up on your junior year I know it wouldn't wait your senior year. You start listing some things of what you hope you'd like to do. You find, for instance, I often ask this question what are you good at Like? What do you have some skills at? Okay, what do you love to do? And we really hope that they're the same. They have some overlap and they're the same thing.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

I find sometimes that I might be good at something and I don't love it. There's something that I love and I'm not good at it. Now the question is which one do you want to pursue? Do you want to go and pursue something you're really good at but don't love? I'd probably not encourage that. What if something you have a lot of interest in, you know skills at? That's going to be a hard hurdle. You're going to have to then take those lists that you're making and go all right, I'm going to have to develop these skills. Or you go I don't know what skills I should develop. There's where your mentor comes in Find the person a couple steps ahead of you and go hey, by the way, I have a lot of interest in this, I want to go this path. What would you do differently? What did you do that you felt like what would be the top three things that I can do right now to put myself on that path? And then you got to start taking those actions.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

When I say make a plan, I know it sounds dumb, but you just start with a list, you take a little action. Something about taking action in the right direction just puts motivation to it, and I often tell people you operate by self-discipline and imposed discipline in most areas of your life. I find that when I was younger, I really needed imposed discipline areas of your life. I find that when I was younger I really needed imposed discipline. I needed to go put myself around people who would tell me what to do until my brain could properly grasp the idea of like. Here's the path I'm on.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Today. I have a lot of self-discipline in my life because I've had to develop it, but I have not as much imposed. But when I was younger it was just all imposed and there's nothing wrong with that. Go find ways where people direct your attention, direct your steps and just follow them. I won't say blindly, but follow them with the intent of I'm going to go down this path for a few steps, evaluate myself and then move forward. So actual items is put down, a list what are you good at? What are you passionate about? Let's see if they align.

Pete Newsome:

Go, find yourself that kind of mentor coach and then ask for the three to five things that you could do to help put you on that path. I cannot think of a better closing statement. So I want to end there, because that was perfect advice that everyone who's young can take advantage of. Patrick Surmeyer, luxus Group man, thank you so much for your time today. This has been wonderful.

Patrick Sirmeyer:

Thanks, Pete.

Pete Newsome:

Talk to you soon.