You don't create job security by being indispensable. Because when you're indispensable, we can't afford to lose you in that job. Nobody can replace you. You're the only person who can do it. So how are you going to grow? But when you're invaluable, you get to grow. You get to move on. You get to work on impactful projects because you're invaluable. I can put you anywhere and you're going to create value. That was a huge mindset shift for me and sort of being like it is not about being the hardest worker at all.

You welcome to the show. I'm so excited you're here. I am Tori. If you're an oldie budy goody, you know that. If you are new to the show, hello. I'm a money expert. I'm a multimillionaire, I'm a New York Times bestselling author, and I fight the patriarchy by making you rich. Like and subscribe. You know the drill. If you like the show, the easiest way to support it is you just hitting that subscribe or plus button wherever you're listening right now.

And it also helps you so that.

You never miss an episode because all of the episodes I'm a little biased are fantastic. Best episodes of a podcast you will ever hear. And it's on financial feminist. Okay, I'm so excited for today's guest. Lauren McGoodwin founded Career Contessa in 2013 after experiencing a gap in career development resources for women who might be job searching, soul searching, leading, and managing or trying to find new ways to advance within their careers. Fast forward to today. Career Contessa is now the largest online career site built inclusively for women. Lauren is also author of Power Moves, how Women can pivot, reboot, and build a career of purpose. She's also the co host of the Career Contessa podcast and an educator and speaker on a variety of career topics. Formerly, Lauren was a university recruiter for Hulu focused on hiring, employer branding and program management. She has a bachelor's in education from the University of Oregon Godox and a master's in communication management from the University of Southern California, where she wrote her thesis on millennials and career resources. Today in the episode, we're going to talk about a couple of things. We're going to talk about how to stand out in a job interview and make sure to be in a place where you can take some notes because Lauren gives about ten really compelling questions that you can ask during the hiring process.

These are twelve out of ten. They're fantastic. How to leverage AI in the application process without losing what makes you unique or taking your personality out of the process. And no, it's not asking chat GBT to write your resume for you. It's just using the tools at your disposal in a more powerful way. We also talk about some hiring myths, whether or not the dream career is something to strive for, how to ask for a raise, and advocating for yourself in the workplace. This is a great one, especially if you're on the job hunt. So without further ado, let's go ahead and get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors. Shut down.

Shut.

I'm just excited to talk to you. I love that we did this on Monday, but I was on your show. We did a little swap.

I know it's always nice when you get to talk to people back to back a little bit.

I know it's more than once. And you were in the whole studio set up, which I think you were like, I haven't done this in a long time, and it's weird to be in studio.

Yeah, no, they were like, you have to come in once a quarter. I was like, that seems reasonable, but.

This is my once a quarter. But no more than that.

Yeah.

Well, we're so excited to have you. I don't know if even you know this, but when I first started my blog, that became her first guess who was getting tagged in every Instagram post I ever created. It was career Contessa. And I probably, whether it was you or a person managing your socials, I'm sure I was on some sort of blacklist or hit list for a long time because it was just like hashtag career Contessa. I'm going to tag you in the corner and hope that people see it, and then maybe they'll reshare it. But I was a big fangirl, especially in the early years.

That is so funny. I love it.

Annoying.

No, I love it. Well, and clearly our loss.

No.

Were we doing. No.

Those graphics, the graphics I was making in 2018, that is nobody's loss.

That is your game.

No, I'm just excited to have you on the show. And it's really cool to chat with you. I always love to ask career experts, money experts who come on the show what their first money memory was.

My first money memory being just like really stinchy. I was the kid who saved every penny. I remember really wanting a pair of Doc Martens and just constantly being scrappy one summer about how I got the money to spend $100 on Doc Martens. This is like, back in those days. So my earliest money memories are just hoarding it and being really scrappy about finding it.

I was the same way. It was very much a piggy bank child where I was just like, how much can I save? And then what can I eventually spend it on? Same thing for me. What was the most surprising thing you found in writing your thesis on women and career resources and what has changed since you wrote it a decade ago?

Yeah. So a decade ago, one of my hypothesis was that by the year 2020, there was going to be more women in the workforce than ever before. And I actually got that wrong because of COVID There were more women who left the workforce that year. But no, when I was writing my thesis, it was like, 2012, 2013. People have to remember this is like pre girl boss, pre lean in, pre a lot of stuff. And so my thesis was essentially, why isn't there a resource about careers that talks about how it's a unique experience for women? I was a woman in the workforce, and I knew my experience was different, and there was monster.com and careerbuilder.com, and that was it. And it was like one size fit all approach to advice. The thing that my thesis really focused on is how is the millennial generation different, and why were we going to come in and kind of change the workplace a little bit? The most surprising thing was really how work needed to change and how it hadn't changed in such a long time, but also probably just very striking that nobody even. Well, still, they kind of sometimes don't care that women are in the workplace.

We talk a lot about more, but then it did not exist at all.

Well, I think it's so interesting because to your point, yeah, there was this huge shift in the girl boss culture of the lean in and the just content about corporate. And that's very much what I fed into when I was starting her first hundred k, or the blog that became her first hundred k, was like, same, okay, stomping the pavement, going to excel in my career. And that's really what motivated me. And then, of course, ironically, yes, I think your thesis would have been true, except we were kind of devastated in 2020 with, of course, a loss of work. But we've talked about on this show before, if you were typically a mother, right, in a stereotypical heteronormative relationship, you were the one who was staying home. And the impact that continues to have on women and will continue to have on women for decades. To come, I think, is just, like, so devastating.

Yeah, we weren't making a lot of progress in hindsight. I'm like, was it the right kind of progress? I do feel like, totally, I will say, I think 2020, when we all pause and we kind of realize, wait a minute, this hustle harder culture mentality isn't sustainable.

So, like, little white feminist coded.

Exactly. All of that good stuff. And I bet into it, too. I remember people coming to me and me, like, career conductor should do this, we should do that. And I was like, look, my experience was being a recruiter before, so I was like, look, my experience is giving career advice. I'm not actually trying to build allah the wing vibes of that female empowerment piece. It was almost like, no, I just want to give some resume tips and job search tips, because I feel like that's a whole gated piece. Obviously, it's a little different now. This is, again, pre TikTok Instagram reels, all that. But getting that advice from people who had been there and successfully done that was truly just based on who you knew and who you had access to, which we know is not accessible for everybody. So 2020, I feel like there's definitely been a bit of a rewrite. I think now we are less focused on telling women how they need to fix themselves in order to make things better and more like, hey, the system is fucked, or this thing is not right. Let's talk about overall cultures. And so that part's really good.

I still like to see the workplaces truly be more human in a lot of the ways that they do things. I think there's a way to mix those things and still be profitable, productive. Some of these headlines that I see in articles today, I'm like, wow, the fear mongering of remote work, or something like that, for example, it's still pretty extreme.

Well, and that's a perfect segue into a couple of questions I wanted to ask you about workplace happiness. So we found in our research that when employees are disengaged from their work, it leads to a loss of $8.8 trillion. So it's, of course, important for companies to establish a welcoming workplace for their well being and for know, trying to be a great workplace to be a part of, but also financially. So do you have examples of kind of workplaces that have done this?

You know, I actually interviewed this woman. She was a Yale researcher, and she said the three drivers of happiness in the workplace are autonomy, purpose, and relationships. And so when you were looking at workplaces that prioritize those things. The autonomy piece, that seems pretty obvious, right? Like you're not having a micromanaging boss, but really that doesn't just come from the micro culture of how your boss and your coworkers exist. That comes from the overall culture. Is this a culture of we force you to be in the office three days a week and we manage your key card swipes in order to do it? That doesn't send a message of autonomy, that sends a message of we're watching you and we're keeping track of things in that way, relationships, who you work with matters. Right. And so does your company promote the person who's the biggest jerk on the team, but maybe they're the top performer, or do they promote the person who lifts the performance of the entire team? These are all parts of culture, not just, again in what I call your micro culture, which is maybe just your immediate team and boss the purpose, right?

So are you aligned and have value alignment with what you're doing? If you do, you're going to be more engaged at work and you're going to naturally be more interested in what you're working on and probably produce better work, et cetera. These things naturally make sense to do. I feel like companies complicate this stuff when they're like, look, hire good people, have a culture that prioritizes trust. Instead of trying to track productivity by how many times you showed up in person, why don't we track productivity based on outcomes? Or why don't we focus more on outcomes than we do? Again, like how many times you showed up in person? Those are things that I think good companies are doing. They exist out there. They are prioritizing that. A good example of a company I really like is Atlassian. They are a remote first company. Or I think their language is more like distributed work company. They're doing not just the work to keep people in a distributed workplace, but to make distributed work work well for people. They run experiments, they let's have everybody use this type of communication tool so that you're not sending slack messages and Microsoft Teams and this and that.

There are good companies out there who care about this. So the good news is they exist. And the good news is a lot of those companies who do this will report those findings and they will use it as case studies and hopefully more companies know. What I find is the good companies, they rise to the top and get the best talent, and all the other companies kind of follow along eventually, or at least we hope totally.

So I really want to focus our time on somebody listening, trying to figure out how do I find one of those jobs? Or how do I find one of those companies? Like how do I put myself in a position to find a company that compensates me fairly and where I do feel passion and where I feel autonomy in my work. And you worked at Hulu before starting career Contessa, and you shared that you chose the role not because you had the most recruiting experience. Right. The most experience on paper to do the job, but because you could clearly communicate why and how you could bring value to the company. And I actually do a free workshop that we'll link in the show notes. Very similar to this, where it's like in many roles, it's not really about your resume, it's about your bridge skills and how well you can tell your career story of here are the skills I have and here's how this leverages, or here's how I can leverage those into the role and into the responsibilities. So talk to me about, okay, I'm walking into this interview and I don't have the best resume or I don't have the most experience, but how can I stand out and how can I actually get the job?

Yeah, absolutely. I'll use my story as the example here because I think personal stories and really actionable tips are the best way to learn. So I want you guys to remember this. I was working as an admin assistant for a university. I hated the job. I was like a lot of people where I really, really wanted to get out of something. So the first thing for me to do was to figure out what is it that I want to do. I remember being at a career fair at south by Southwest. A lot of smart people, their coming by our table. Oh, Hulu. What are you guys looking for? What are you looking for? I'm Hulu. I know what I'm looking for. I have job postings. What are you looking? It's not attractive for a job searcher to be like, I have no idea what I'm looking for. Let me tell you my life story and you see if I fit in. So the first thing you have to do is get some clarity on what it is that you want to do. For a lot of people, that's not going to just happen in your sleep.

You're going to have to explore career paths. You can do this by thinking about what gives you the most energy at work. What's something that you're really good at work sometimes the thing that you're really good at, you're also energized. By it, and maybe you want to double down in that expertise. I happened to get a random assignment when I was an admin assistant to go do some recruiting. So the way it works at a university is we are recruiting people from local community colleges to transfer to a four year. We call it recruiting. It's maybe not what you guys think of, but that was my first introduction to recruiting. From there, I was like, this is what I want to do. I started reaching out to as many people who were recruiters as I could. In fact, the story I like to tell is I reached out to about 70 people on LinkedIn cold connections. About 30 of them got back to me. The reason why I share this is that you're going to get a lot of rejections and you can't take it personally, but these are the stepping stones to where I'm about to take you to.

So with those informational interviews, I learned more about what skills are required. What's the day to day like? I'm gathering intel the way you maybe research before you write a paper or something like that. And the point I'm trying to make to you is with that information, I'm able to then tailor my resume a little bit more, understand what are the really important things that I would want to drive home if someone said, why do you want to be a recruiter? So you're getting those data points. The next step you want to do after you have those informational interviews or power chats, where you're building those connections, because connections are going to be the number one way you find a job, obviously tailoring. You're polishing your materials, like I said, your LinkedIn, your resume, but also creating a list of target companies. So we're at a place right now where a lot of people are saying, like, I need a job, but I also want to be at a company that treats me like a human. How do I find that out? One of the best ways that you can find that out is by the employees who are sharing on LinkedIn.

So follow people at companies if you need a starting place, what companies do you love? You love their products. You use their products every day and you like their leadership. A friend of a friend of a friend works there. It's not a complicated thing. It's just like find, I would say, five to ten companies. Can you follow people or connect with people who work at those companies? Oftentimes employee influencers will share about what their experience is like there. You can also go to their career site and learn there, too. Once you kind of have this melting pot of those things, and you can then leverage those relationships that you've built. You've been able to tailor a lot of stuff. Now, when you get to the interview, you're going to prep like, I mean, Tori, you probably talk about this all the time. You're going to prep really hard for that interview. You're going to know what their company does, what products they create, who their clients are, who you're interviewing with, all that kind of stuff. That is how you're able to then provide the. Well, you don't have any recruiting experience, but why are you the best fit for the job?

Well, here's why I'm the best fit for the job. Well, I just had 30 informational interviews with recruiters. Here's what I learned from them and how my experience directly relates to recruiting. Might not have been called recruiting, but it was candidate experience. It was organization. It was managing high volumes of people day to day. And there we have someone who wants it really bad, understands the skill really well. It doesn't matter that they didn't have that job title before. And if you're on the other end, you're like, holy shit, they did a lot of prep. That's really cool. And they didn't even have to tell me. I prepped really hard. They're telling you by the smart questions they ask. They're telling you by the information they've tailored on their resume, how they answer questions, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. That is super impactful. Everything you just heard, everybody. You're going to back up about five minutes and you're going to listen again. Super impactful. Exactly right.

And it's not an overnight process. People will be like, I need to find a job fast. Okay, then I want to talk about something different then. You're looking for a bridge job. A bridge job is a job that bridges you between where you are now, where you want to go. What I'm talking about is an overall strategy to more like your career versus just a job. I talk a lot about this in my book, but I truly believe that the people who are in the driver's seat of their career, they are proactively driving the direction of their career versus reacting to when opportunities come to them. They naturally create job security for themselves because they know how to job search, they know how to network, they know how to understand what is it that I want and how can I communicate that? What's my value? Right? How do I create value? What's my impact? All those storytelling skills that people talk about, but sometimes you're like, okay, I get it, but what does that mean? That's what that means.

And as someone who hires people now, and you can probably speak to this as an entrepreneur as well, that's really what I'm looking for. Of course I'm looking for somebody who is respectful and kind and hopefully fits well with the team and the culture. But I'm working for somebody, at the end of the day, who's going to provide value because I'm making an investment in my business by hiring this person. And so I need to know at the end of the day that they're dependable and that they can provide the value that I need for this particular role or for this particular task.

Yeah. I used to think that the goal was to be the indispensable person on the team. And what I've learned recently is the goal is to be the invaluable person on the team. You hire a person to do the job, but what happens when the job changes and they go, well, that's not my job. You're like, I need you to do the job that's needed. I need to hire the person who is, like, the player on the field. It's like, I play this position, but I understand what's going on in the game. I understand that what Tori actually needs before maybe she needs it, is for us to go and get these analytics because we need to make a decision. There's going to be a fork in the road about this thing. There's a lot of conversation out there about, yeah, be the person who comes and solves their problem. It's like, look, Tori is not hiring you because she just wants to give you a salary and benefits. Yeah, that's important. But she has a problem that she needs you to solve. And we're trying to understand, are you the person who can do that and how?

And look, I'm not even saying that our hiring process and the way we do it is the best all the time. And there's certainly a lot to be said about the recruiting process in general, like just the peer ghosting, all that kind of stuff. But what I'm saying is that when you are interviewing for a job, keeping those things top of mind, like, my job isn't to be indispensable. You don't create job security by being indispensable. Because when you're indispensable, we can't afford to lose you in that job. Nobody can replace. You're the only person who can do it. So how are you going to grow? But when you're invaluable, you get to grow, you get to move on. You get to work on impactful projects because you're invaluable. I can put you anywhere and you're going to create value. Yeah, that was a huge mindset shift for me. And sort of being like, it is not about being the hardest worker at all.

That is incredibly impactful. I want to talk to you with your recruiting experience, because with all of this experience you had trying to find the right person for the job, what did you learn in the hiring process about the kind of people you're looking for? Again, if I'm sitting on the other side, if I'm a candidate, how can I stand out to somebody like you?

Yeah, absolutely. So one thing people have to remember about recruiters is we probably answer to a hiring manager. Okay. We definitely answer to a hiring manager. So a hiring manager will sometimes come in and give their wish list of what they're looking for, who they think the right candidate will be. We'll work with them to create a job posting. And so it's a little bit like you want to put it all on that one person, but just remember, they're working with other people, too. We all have these stakeholders that we're working with. So sometimes I tell people, I'm like, you can do everything right, and you might not be the right fit it because they already have someone with those exact skill sets on the team. So I only mention these things because everything I'm about to say is like, you can always do everything right, and it's still not a fit. And I think for job seekers right now, that's an important message to be like, just keep putting one step forward because I think there's so much messaging out there, and again, I see this on LinkedIn all the time where they're like, don't do this or do this.

And it's like, no one can guarantee you're going to get a job. But I can tell you some tips that will help you definitely stand out in a positive way. One, the research and the prep that you do, it's going to stand out. You're going to be able to have a better conversation because you didn't spend 30 minutes answering. Tell me about yourself. You answered it in a way that was relevant. Dave Fano from Teal has this great saying of, like, show the 10% of you that's 100% relevant to the person you're interviewing for. So when you've done your prep it's easier to do that. Some other things that really stand out, believe it or not, is how do you make the interviewer feel? Like we're emotional people. It's humans making decisions about other humans. Are you able to connect with them? Are you making eye contact with them? Are you guys creating some sort of commonalities among yourselves? A little bit? How you make them feel and how that emotional piece ties in does matter. And, of course, another really important thing to stand out is the questions you ask at the end. One of my biggest pet peeves was when I would say, do you have any questions for me?

And they'd be like, no, I think you covered it all. I was like, I'm dying. You have my undivided attention. Ask me some good questions. And also your good questions. Most interviewers don't know how to interview, so your good questions create a better interview, right? And so it's like, actually, you can stand out way better than your counterpart because they didn't ask any questions. And with you, we covered so many topics. You're really memorable. And then my last little tip, and I don't have any real research to back this up other than I like it, is whenever I have important things, I always wear a red suit, because at the end of the day, if you don't remember who I am, you're going to remember I was the person in the red suit. And so this is just like, again, something I kind of do to try to be memorable is. And I've been in rooms where they're like, who was the second interviewer we had? And they're like, oh, I think she was wearing a yellow shirt or a red suit. So, like I said, that is just more of a confidence booster for you.

But wear something you feel comfortable in. Maybe an eye catching color will remind them that you were interviewer number three.

I love all of those. And as a theater kid, that's literally what you're told on auditions. Fun fact, especially when I was auditioning pretty heavily when I was growing up, the first outfit you wear to the first audition should be the same outfit you wear at callback, because you want somebody to remember you, and you also truly have to dress for the job you want. I remember talking literally with my mom about, okay, I'm going to go audition for Sound of music, and that's going to be a different outfit than if I'm auditioning for. I don't know. I never auditioned for rent, but if I was auditioning for rent, right, I'm going to wear a different outfit for the kind of part I want. And I'm also going to dress literally for the kind of role that I am looking to audition for. Right. If I am auditioning for Maria, I'm going to wear a different outfit than if I'm auditioning for the baroness. So, yeah, I think that that's a great idea, too. And, yeah, something that, honestly, I don't know if I've ever thought of is like, yeah, the thing with theater is like, yeah, you wear the same outfit so that they remember you, and they're like, oh, that's blue skirt.

I remember blue skirt from last time. She was great. Yeah, totally.

And like I said, I have no real data to back that up except that I've given rooms before. Been interviewing all day long.

Right.

That's sometimes how somebody remembers somebody.

Totally. Are there any pervasive myths that still exist about hiring? What do you want to debunk?

I think the job hopping myth don't job hop. If you job hop, we interview you. No. And if they're not going to hire you because you've had a couple of different jobs in a couple of years, you do not want these people talk about not giving you autonomy. They will sit on you. So, no, I think that's a myth. The green banner, open to work. If you put it on LinkedIn, you look desperate. Look, when you are job searching, it is very important to let as many people know that you are job searching as possible. So please feel free. It's like somebody was quoted and it was like a shame thing. Like, oh, you look desperate. Newsflash, it is a really tough job market out there, and some people are desperate, and that is not helpful. Telling people like, oh, by the way, you should be quiet about it. That's a big one.

I'll say that with laying off, too, if you get laid off. I think there is this misconception of, like, oh, this feeling of embarrassment, which is totally understandable. Every time I see a post of somebody being like, hey, there were layoffs today or something, I was impacted by that. One, that shows me, wow, this person is beautifully vulnerable. Two, it understands that they're brave enough to realize, like, this wasn't about me, actually. And three, I want to help them because they're in a situation that isn't ideal. So this embarrassing feeling can actually be a really great opportunity for you to start making connections again and being open about that.

Yeah. I would add one more that people probably haven't heard a lot, which is people think you need to be super qualified in the know it all. I want you qualified, but I want you coachable. Do not go into the interview as, like, the know it all. I've done this before. I'm the expert on all of this. We want people who are coachable. I want people who understand. That's a little bit of a vulnerability for me. I got to work on that. I'm not saying apply to every job that you're not qualified for. It's important to be qualified. But coachable people, I think, sometimes are like, I'm qualified. I could have done the job with my eyes shut. Maybe that's why they didn't hire you, because you can do the job with your eyes shut. And that's kind of a know it all personality that comes through. And then I think the other thing in terms of job searching, when I was a recruiter, we had this phrase called spray and pray. I'm sure everyone's heard it by now. It's like you spray your resume everywhere and you pray that someone will pick it up.

It's awful. It gives me, like, cringe vibes just saying it. But the concept behind it is instead of applying to every job out there and kind of hitting the apply button, instead spend the time deeply focusing on a couple of things that you're built. And truly, what I think of it as is not necessarily, like, revamping your resume every time you apply for a job, but having that networking piece to it. So instead of applying to every job, it's like, okay, these are my five target companies or my TED target companies. I'm building relationships with people that work there. When the job does open, I'm able to share my resume directly to them. I've already have a warm connection. I can explain to them again why I'm a fit for the role. And that's really important. I think, also to make sure that people understand where the networking piece comes into this. That's why we're doing it. That's why we're networking kind of before, so that we can use it to have that very strong, deep application. It's not about rewriting your resume every single time. That would burn out anybody, right?

Totally. What you were saying before about bridge jobs or just career trajectories in general? I think most people's life and careers are not linear, even though we want them to be, and we think about them like they are. So talk to me about the reality of going through a big career shift, whether you either choose it or whether it's chosen for you.

Absolutely. I also think one of the things that gets us stuck with this is this myth of dream jobs, right? So we believe that there's a linear path out there, that dream job exists. And so our expectation, I call it an expectation hangover, like you are hungover from the reality not happening the way you think it is. So I'm a big proponent of go for the good enough job instead of the dream job. And actually, I just talked to this person. He wrote a book called Everyday Dharma, Sunil Gupta. And one of the things that he talked about in his book was you were able to achieve more by giving 85%. And they basically did this research on a runner who is like this fantastic runner. And in running, usually the idea is like, whoever starts at the front of the pack usually wins. And they were researching, why was this guy winning all the time? Is because he was kind of going 85% all the time versus really strong out of the gate. And I think if that is a good way to describe the good enough job, too, is trying to find that 85% piece or career that you can find that allows you to achieve more, because it's not crazy burnout.

It's not asking you to devote your life. I'm not saying settle for something you absolutely hate. I've done that before, and that's not the answer either. But I think that dream job myth is what perpetuates a lot of this, because it's sort of like the finish line is always moving. I achieved this success, and it wasn't enough. So I'll go for this next thing. I'll go for this next thing. So that's, I think one of the big pieces, kind of mindset, shift wise, that we need to talk about also is dream job versus, like, you got to get out of that. It doesn't exist. You're not a failure if you don't have one. And that linear path, and that is why career transitions are hard. Just first of all, is because of that mindset shift. I also think the things that you need to make a career transition versus kind of that lateral move are different. Let's talk about. There's another term that bridge can be brought into, which is bridge networking. If you're making a lateral move, the people in your network probably are a really good fit. If you're making a career transition, you need to bridge a connection to the next thing.

So who you are connected with already. So it's almost like you're kind of having that starting over feeling, and that makes people feel like career transitions are hard, and they're harder than the lateral moves. And it's like, yes, but they could also be more rewarding. Right? Maybe you've been in that, quote, dream job, linear career myth, and you're trying to move to something else, and it will be worth it, but we need to bridge ourselves to get to that next place.

All of that is super helpful. You were mentioned before, of course. And again, I've been on the side of it where I get to the end of interviewing somebody for her first inter k, and I ask, do you have any questions? And they go, no. And then I'm like, okay, well, that was the biggest red flag. What kind of questions should someone be asking in an interview that specifically get to the true grasp of a company's culture? I remember even struggling with this. As someone who was looking for jobs of like, what questions can I ask without being like, are you good guys or bad guys? How can I determine if this is a good fit and if they actually treat people well?

Yeah, one of the questions you could ask people, for example, is like, what's your calendar like? They're like, oh, we're blocked from nine to five every day. But they just told you in the interview how they believe in flexible work schedules and they don't sit on you. That could be a question. So I talked a little bit earlier about these micro cultures at work. Right? And so there's the culture that you read about on the career site, which, look, again, they're selling you. So they're going to always say the best thing. But then I think about these microcultures, and these are not going to be giving you the scripted interview answers. So what can you ask to actually get that? So to better understand the microculture at your next job, a couple of questions you could ask in the interview, and I'll just kind of list off a bunch, how does it feel to work here? How do you kick off ideas? How do you collaborate? How do you set strategy? How do you give feedback? How do you develop people? How do you socialize ideas? What's the team's relationship with time? Tell me about a person who succeeds here.

Describe their work style. These are so much deeper than the. So what's the interview process like? Why do you like working here? My favorite is, and I'm sure you get asked this, Tori is like, well, why did you want to start her first? Probably told this story a million times.

You don't need to ask a question.

That you can find with a Google search. Right? But asking Tori something like, what does a successful person look like here? What are the traits? What's the work style that is really successful here that gives you so much more information? And you know what? When you ask better questions like that, you have a deeper conversation, and then maybe you have Tori thinking about this, and they're like, wow. The fact that that person's thinking about that or that person was able to talk about their work style, which is not a question I would have asked, and their work style would work really well for our team, or their work style is exactly what this team needs. So those are the questions that I say. There's the culture questions, but then there's the micro culture questions. Your micro culture is probably what's going to influence more of your day to day in the workplace, and that's very important.

Yeah, I think even those questions that you just. I would be so pleasantly surprised to get those in an interview. And it's almost like a date. It's almost like if I can talk about myself, I'm going to be more likely to feel like the date went well. Right. There are studies that show, like, if you walk out of a date feeling like that date went well, it's because you both talked, you both had a conversation. It wasn't just one person doing all of the questioning.

Absolutely. And by the way, all of those questions I just shared, I share them on LinkedIn. So go follow me on LinkedIn. I put this stuff in posts. I'm not one of those people where I have all the answers, but I talk to a lot of smart people, and when they give me good ideas, I share them out. And those were some very good ideas I got from talking to Andre Martin or inspired by him. He has a great book called Right Fit, wrong Fit. And it's all about finding your right fit career. And that's know when you're thinking about what I want to do next. Reading books, listening to podcasts, talking to other people who have done it. There's no one size fit all approach to it. The best thing you can do is talk. This is, at least for me, is learn from other people and then kind of get some of these strategies, get some of these actionable tips, and then start doing. Everyone's always waiting for the right time to do something or waiting till they're confident to do that. Confidence is not. You don't wake up confident. You build confidence by taking action.

So we got to move tit.

Right? What job hunting trends are you noticing right now? And how can somebody take advantage of those?

Well, AI is obviously a big trend. So one thing I absolutely love, and I'm not going to tell you to let Chat GPT write your resume. I will never tell you to do that. I don't even like resume writers. I think it's very important that you do your own thing. But AI is really important and there are so many cool tools out there that can make your job search strategy a little easier. Obviously Chat GPT, you could give it prompts to help you kind of rewrite a bullet point so it's more achievement based oriented. You can use AI tools. A couple that I really love are job scan and resume worded. They're free and they will compare your resume to a job description and tell you what your match is like. Are you a 50% match? Could you improve it? So I really am loving the AI tools as complements to the work that you're doing versus people who are trying to give you tips on how to keyword stuff your resume or people. If it's a hack, don't do it. If it's a like, hey, this thing will help save you time and a little bit of energy and maybe give you some fresh ideas.

Try it. AI is one of them. And also one of the cool things about being able to say that is like, you could also share that in an interview and not be embarrassed about it. You could say, yeah, I use Chat GPT to help me make sure that my resume was tailored for your job description. I already had it, but it's like I wanted to make sure it was even more tailored. That shows that you know how to use AI and you're willing to try out new technology for the person on the other end if that's important to them. For most companies it is right now. Or like, I use Grammarly as a tool to help me write so I have less errors. I'm seeing just a benefit of people adopting AI versus being afraid of it, or again, letting it do the work for them. I don't want to hire someone who lets something else do the work for them. I want to hire someone who's like, I learned this new technology and I found a more efficient way to do an hour of work in 15 minutes. Like tedious tasks, right?

I'm using the tools available to me. I'm not asking them to do it for me because as we all know from all of these famous people jokingly asking chat GBT to write their speeches and acceptance, that's not working. So use them to compliment what you're already doing. Yes, let's talk about raises. What are your big no's for asking for a raise? We've had many conversations on the show about asking for a raise. But tell me about for you, it's just like, no, that's not going to work for you.

I don't like being blindsided by it as an employer. I don't like that. Just like, can we talk? And it's like, can I have a raise? I want it to be a thoughtful conversation. And what I really like, I guess if I can pick the way someone's going to ask me for a raise, or if I were going to ask for a raise, is I would start by having a career only conversation probably about three months before. And in that career only conversation, I would get crystal freaking clear on, what am I doing well, what do I need to improve on? What is making the most impact? What are the things that are the most important? And I would also probably drop a little hint, like, I would like to talk about my path to XYZ manager, or at least the compensation equivalent. I like that. I like kind of a little hint. I actually remember reading Sally Crotcheck's book years ago on it, and she told the story about how there was a man who came into her office basically once a month and reminded her, like, I've done all these amazing things and I hope it's reflected in my bonus.

I'm probably not telling the story perfectly, but it was like he kept mentioning how amazing it was and that he wanted it. And then when it came time for bonuses and raises, it's like he got what he was looking for. Anecdotally, I have friends who work in corporate, and I don't think this is that far off, basically. And so I like to kind of drop the hint, have that career only conversation, and then basically I can use that as my low hanging fruit. Like the leverage of the conversation of three months later. Like, look, here are some things that you told me were important. Here's what I've worked on. I'd really like to talk about the compensation equivalent when you're asking for a raise. I talked to someone who was the director of compensation for Nike, and he had told me basically, like asking for anything less than 10% of a 10% raise, don't bother, because that's probably built into whatever the yearly raises that they're probably doing. And I thought that was like a nice permission slip for a lot of people. But even hearing that, I still just want to reiterate, you don't ask for a raise and be like, I've been here for a year.

Can I have a 10% raise? You don't say, like, oh, you told me to do this thing, now I get a 10% raise. It still needs to be part of a really thoughtful conversation of, like, here's the value I've brought to the team. Here's how I'd like to continue growing with the team. And what else I could do for the team I'd like to talk about. Would you consider a 10% raise? And there are some people out there that will say, don't even name the number. Look, there's so many theories on this. I'm sure you've heard them all. Tori, I truly think it comes down to you and your boss's relationship or your company's relationship. For some people, they're like, if I don't drop a number, they're going to say something really low, and then I have to convince them that here. So I stopped giving, like, blanket advice on that. But I really like the career conversation first, and then you tie that in, you're able to use that to this really thoughtful conversation later. The same thing could basically be said if you are asking for, or you're negotiating for a higher salary when you're interviewing for a job.

If they mention now their salary transparency laws for a lot of companies, and they'll say, our range is 80 to 100,000, ask them what's the difference between 80,000 and $100,000 candidate. And then when you go to negotiate, use that information to explain to them why you are $100,000 candidate. So I think of it the same way. We're trying to get the information out of them so then we can use it later on.

I love the question of, like, what is an $80,000 candidate look like versus what $100,000 candidate looks like. And then, yeah, you have an answer that you can pitch for when you asked for the higher end of the range. Didn't plan on asking this one thing. I think that's really interesting for me as a business owner, when I do get approached by my employees and they're asking for compensation increases, is as someone who runs a financial company that teaches people how to ask for a raise. And I imagine this happens to you is something interesting happens, though, where for all of the education I feel like we've done, there's been moments where team members have come to me and asked for a raise. And it feels like, again, to your point, like, I've been here a year, so I want more money and I'm like, I would love to give you more money, but there are these certain things that I need to see from you in order for that to happen. And so I think that even there is just this, I think, general belief that, okay, I've hit this certain year mark, right?

Like a time, or I've hit. It's usually time based. It's like, okay, I've been here x amount of time, and it's really about, again, to your point earlier, it's about your value, and it's about how you're going to continue to bring value. So if I'm going to bump you up significantly or if I'm going to give you a new title, that's significant. Well, here are all of the responsibilities that are going to come with that. So I need to know that you understand that and that you're excited for that and that you're well equipped for that. Otherwise, you get paid to do the job you're doing. I don't know if I have a question here, but do you see that? Do you encounter that?

And especially in the work that we do, your own advice is basically used on you, right? So it's a little bit of a tricky answer sometimes because you're like, I understand where this is coming from, but I think we're missing some details here. Right. Not everything is connected. And so I think, talk about myths. I think that's a myth that after you've been at your job for a year, you can ask for a raise. You have to be there. Or the other myth related to this one year mark is like, don't quit a job until you've been there. There's all this stuff about the timing, similar to investing, where it's like you don't just put something in and say, okay, well, I don't expect anything out. You expect something, right? You're making an investment in something similar to employers want to continue to make an investment in a person. So it's like tying it to your outcomes, tying it to the work that you've done that matters, right? So a lot of times they'll be like, well, I've done this and this and this and this, and you're like, but do those things matter? Are we talking about responsibilities or are we talking about impact?

Are you doing the job that you were hired to do? Maybe we're talking about a cost of living adjustment. That does happen a lot of times. Those are somewhere, I think, on average, between two and 3%. That's not exactly a raise. A raise is like, you've gone above and beyond. We've created some real value, and we're going to continue to do this thing. So I also think the word raise sometimes is just used inaccurately. It's used to, again, represent something where it's like, we're just talking about you showing up and doing your job, and you expect to get this huge, ginormous, bigger paycheck.

Like, no, I'm paying you for the job. You're already.

And also, how is it tied to revenue? This is my favorite thing where I'm like, okay, so you want me to pay you more? Like, this is such an event. As an entrepreneur, I'm like, if you want me to pay you more to do that, where are we making up that revenue? Right?

Where's that money?

Entrepreneurship is so like, eat what you kill kind of vibe. And maybe in a bigger company, you can't do that. But if you can tie something to a revenue generating thing that you're doing, okay, now we're talking. Now we're making some progress in this conversation, and your ears are going to perk up. Like, I created XYZ amount of revenue. I've brought in the largest partnership I've been able to maintain that partnership. What I'd like to do with this raise is continue to grow and develop here and find five more partners that we can retain for multi year contracts or whatever it is that is. Okay, I'm listening. Because now you're justifying how we're going to afford that raise. That's just like, a quick example. I know not everyone can do that with their career, but I do think it's something to be really thoughtful about when you go in for that raise conversation. If you go in for the raise conversation and you're like, well, so and so. Like, I did an evaluation and I realized that my market rate is really this. We're talking about an adjustment in a way, not as much of a raise, and that's probably, like, something a lot bigger, but it's not based on, I've been here for a year, if that makes sense.

Exactly. I think the word raise gets mislabeled often. But if you are truly asking for a raise, you're asking for a performance based increase, and you just showing up and doing your job, that's what you're getting paid to do. So if you want a performance based increase, it has to be, your performance has increased in some way, right? You've gone above and beyond the job that you have been compensated for.

Yeah, absolutely. Otherwise, we're talking about cost of living adjustment. Like, those are things that are probably going to happen on a regular basis, but they're not that big raise that you hear about, right?

Totally. We talked at the beginning about trying to find workplaces that treat us well and trying to find just happier places to grow our careers. Is there a way to advocate for better policies for workplace happiness?

Yes, obviously, there are employee resource groups that will get together. You can work if they have an employee engagement team, if they have internal comms. Big companies will have these employee resource groups that are not just literally resource groups, but actual departments. So you can do that. But I also think it comes down to sort of the values of the company, right. And so it's going to be hard to be like this one woman show who shows up and is like, I'm going to change the values of this company. Which is why I think it's always very important to do your research ahead of time. There's obviously a lot of great lists you can go on Glassdoor. There's a website called in her site, which is basically Glassdoor, but for women. So how are those companies treating women? Do they offer maternity leave? That kind of thing? But here's what I will say about any database, whether it's a salary database, a company database is go further and talk to real people at those companies. I have a worksheet on my website. You guys can download it, figure out your next career move. And one of the things I ask people is to think about, where do you want to work?

What kind of industries? So it's kind of taking you through the thought process of, do you want to work for a big company, small company? Do you need to commute to an office? Do you want remote? Sometimes those things will naturally filter out where you can work. And then the question is, well, how am I going to find those companies? LinkedIn, look at built in just released their top companies list. You can look at that, right? Like, how are those ratings done? And then again, you always want to go a step further and see if you can connect with real people at that company and ask them, what's the culture like? I saw on your guys'career site that you are a company that really, I don't know, values, transparency. How is that reflected in the day to day culture? And find these thought leaders. Some companies will have these thought leaders or influencers on LinkedIn. See what they're talking about. You're going to have to do your homework. Unfortunately, I'm not a magic eight ball where you can't just shake me up and I tell you, this is the dream company. And one thing I want to tell you is that there is no dream company.

The grass is green wherever you water it. So the grass is not greener over there or over there. It's going to be green wherever you water it. Now, if the soil is shit, then we need to move on to the next thing. But we can do that. You know how to job search. You know how to prepare for those things. And that's what real job security is, by the way. It's not relying on a company to kind of bump you around throughout your career. It's you being proactively driving and kind of saying, like, all right, I know that this is where I want to build my career because this is working really well for this stage of my life. But then later on, maybe I'll do that. So, yeah, I would start with those lists. I think they're never a bad place to start. I would start with talking to people and then start narrowing it down and just, again, manage your expectations. There's no dream company. There's no dream job. Tori and I have, quote, dream jobs, and it's hard. Not every day, so hard. Dream.

This is not a dream job, everybody. This isn't it. There isn't one. Tell me about the salary project. Share about that.

Well, so the salary project is just me being really nosy. It started in, I think, 2016. No, so actually, true story. I probably shouldn't say this about the company, but when I worked at Hulu, someone accidentally sent me every single salary of the people who worked in the company.

Whoopsie.

Yeah, whoopsie daisy.

You get a lot of emails you're not supposed to get. And I do love it.

I do. And you know what? People tell me stuff that I'm like, you should tell me this. But I think when you're a recruiter, you are sort of this, like, trust. It's like having a friend who's a therapist where you're like, I trust you're supposed to because you do. You have a lot of confidential information about people. Anyway, that was very eye opening to me and really interesting. And so when I started career Contessa, it was just a blog series where I asked people to submit something via a Google Doc. What's your job title? Where do you work? Your age? Whatever. It was very popular. And I was like, there's got to be a better way for doing this. And the only salary databases that existed at that time, they would essentially summarize, like, okay. You told us all this information about yourself instead of giving you access to all the data we have. Tori, here's what we think you, as a recruiter who works in Seattle, would get paid. That's not okay. You just took all this data from this person to help you. So anyway, the salary database is not like that. It's completely free.

It's completely anonymous. You put your information in there, and then it gives you access to all of the salary data information that we have in there. There's over, like, 80,000 salaries in there. You can filter them and do what you want with them. Again, I always tell people, use this as a part one of a multistep process when you are doing your market value research, because knowledge is power, but also all it does is help you strike up a conversation or have the confidence to strike up a conversation. Like, I saw this on this database. So now I'm diving into deeper research. I'd really love to. And you want to talk to men and women to do that data research. So the salary project is just a completely free, anonymous salary database to help women. And that's my goal. I don't like the gatekeeping. I didn't like it when I was in college. I felt like, I don't have a dad in a country club who's going to get me a job. Does that mean it's over for me? And I feel like our job as people on the Internet is to help you find the resources.

And let's not make it so hard. This doesn't need to be only the strong survive kind of mentality with this information.

Right? Yeah, it's so helpful. Just like you were saying, I need everybody, I implore everybody to use these resources and then to talk to people. People know you. You're seen as a. These are great, great resources. And then also go talk to people about what you should be getting paid. Go talk to your colleagues. Go talk to people you met at networking events or previous coworkers. Go talk to other people about it.

Yeah, create a peer networking group where you guys talk about career stuff. You talk about salaries, like, find people who have your job title at five different companies and say, hey, once a month, let's get on a call together and talk about stuff. I think there should be way more doing it together and less doing it alone when it comes to your career, too.

Speaking of that, thank you for being here. Where can people go to feel less alone?

Everything is career contessa. So the Career Contessa podcast for weekly career advice, the Career Contessa website Contessa Instagram. The only thing not career Contessa is Lauren McGoodon on LinkedIn where I share everyday career advice. So go check that out. Oh, and my book is called Power Moves how women can pivot, reboot, and build a career purpose.

Amazing. Thank you for being here. This was so helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you so much to Lauren for joining us. You can find Career Contessa anywhere you watch on social media or@careercontessa.com you can also get her book power moves wherever you purchase your books. Thank you so much for being here. Financial feminist as always, I hope you have a great rest of your day. Have a kick ass week and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to financial feminists a her first hundred k podcast, financial feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Field, associate producer Tamisha Grant. Research by Ariel Johnson. Audio and video engineering by Alyssa Medcast. Marketing and operations by Karina Patel, Amanda Lefieux, Elizabeth McCumber, Masha Bachmakiebeth, Taylor Cho, Kalyn Sprinkle, Sasha Bonar, Claire Coronin, Darryl Ann Ingman, and Janelle Reasoner. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolf, and theme music by Jonah Cohen. Sound a huge thanks to the entire her first hundred K team and community for supporting this show. For more information about financial feminist her first hundred K our guests and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com. Closer.