PODCAST: How to Find a Job After Graduation, with Beth Hendler-Grunt

(Image credit: Photo by Lee Seidenberg)

By Sandra Block, David Muhlbaum

published 21 June 2022

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Sandy Block: Right. I’ve been thinking about this a lot because of an article we posted that’s getting a lot of traffic and was actually very interesting to me. It’s a very straightforward title, Gas Prices Around the World. Looking at that list as a reminder, well, and this was even true before, anyone who’s gone overseas knew this, things could be a lot worse. Americans are paying more for fuel these days, but they’re still paying a whole lot less than most other countries.

David Muhlbaum: Yeah. So Venezuela, Libya, Iran. Yeah. Those are the outliers, the places where gas is sold for — sometimes in limited amounts — for pennies, because of government subsidies. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that those places are oil-producing countries. That’s a significant factor as well. So even though oil is a global commodity, this can matter. But actually just because you have and produce oil doesn’t mean you’re going to make gas cheap. The biggest example of this is Norway, which has oodles of oil and gas, but they tax the heck out of it when it’s sold domestically.

Sandy Block: Oh yeah. We’ve got lots of stories about that from my husband’s family who used to actually have a vacation place in Canada across from Detroit and would fill it up with groceries and then throw a blanket over the top so people didn’t know. I don’t know if this qualifies quite as good news, but maybe sort of, is that the other thing that just happened is that the IRS announced that it’s increasing the amount that you can deduct for mileage. This mainly applies to self-employed people or people who may be reimbursed for business miles effective July 1st. This is pretty rare. Usually, the IRS sets the standard mileage rates at the beginning of the year and that’s it for the year. But as our colleague Rocky Mengle explained in a story on kiplinger.com today, because gas prices have risen so much, the IRS raised the standard mileage rate from 58.5 cents per mile to 62.5 cents per mile, which means if you deduct mileage, you’ll get a bigger deduction this year.

Sandy Block: I doubt it. Like I said, it’s pretty rare for the IRS even to do it midyear. Usually, they do it for the whole year. So it’s hard for me to imagine that they would do it again. I mean, it’s kind of a record-keeping administrative hassle for folks and businesses in particular. So I don’t see them doing it again. It’s not a huge increase, but it is an increase, and what I would tell people, if you work for yourself, keep track of your miles because you’re going to want to deduct them.

David Muhlbaum: Welcome back to Your Money’s Worth. We are speaking today with Beth Hendler-Grunt, the president of Next Great Step, a career counseling service in Livingston, New Jersey. We asked her to join us because this is early June and a new crop of college graduates might be sitting down at the family dinner table back home eager to talk about the job they’ve already landed, or they might be up in their room talking to their old stuffed animals about how they have no idea what to do with their lives. So Beth’s business is trying to encourage and create the first situation, connecting new graduates with fulfilling careers. In fact, she’s got a book coming out about it, the title is the same as her firm’s name, The Next Great Step. Welcome Beth.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: Such a good question. So I speak with hundreds of parents who contact me who are concerned and worried about their young adult launching. I think they really, parents, understand the importance of taking this education that they’ve either contributed towards investing in or that their child has taken on debt for and how important it is to really leverage it into a career. I think they see that they know how hard it is or maybe they’re not sure how to guide their young adult into the job market because they themselves haven’t looked for a job in 20, 30 years. I think they’re understanding that this is maybe a little bit more complicated than they understood. It’s not the way it used to be.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: Yeah, no question. No, that’s really common. That’s one of the things that I say to parents all the time. My first question when I call is, "Does your child know that you’re calling and are they open to coaching?" So those are the first two very important questions. Sometimes the answer is, "No, they don’t know. I think they’ll be open, but I’m going to convince them." My answer is that no matter what is they have to want it.

So sometimes young adults have to go through the process and they have to experience difficulty and some pain and a little bit of suffering or realizing how hard it is before they say, "You know what, I have tried what I thought was the way to do it. I have tried to either apply online or make connections with the network that I thought I had and nothing’s happening and I’m really struggling and now I’m ready for some outside help."

Sandy Block: I think one of the barriers to your point, Beth, though, is, I mean, and we talked about this in the interview I did with you for the August issue of Kiplinger’s is that these graduates are going into a really good job market, certainly nothing like anything I ever experienced. I could see a young person saying, "Oh, come on mom. They’re practically dragging me into coffee shops to work there. There’s jobs all over the place. I got this. I don’t need any help."

Beth Hendler-Grunt: Well, let me just say a couple things. One, yes, it’s a good market. It’s funny. I just had a livestream last night for my community and it’s kind of like a boomerang market. So all the things that I told people a few months ago, even like, oh, streaming, logistics, retail, these are great areas. Then all of a sudden the last few days, you hear about Target and all these companies and Netflix that are pulling back. So you kind of are not sure where to focus.

I think what I have found after doing this over seven years, it doesn’t matter if the market is challenging or if the market is red hot, it is still what I’m finding, there’s this disconnect where so many young adults don’t fully understand what it takes to get into the job that they really want. They are not always taught networking. They don’t understand about the scope of all the jobs that are out there. So I think once they start getting into it, it’s a little bit more complex. As we always joke about, they’re just pressing the easy button on the easy apply and thinking that "Someone’s going to find me, they’re going to think my resume is amazing." I think they’re starting to realize you have to really differentiate yourself to really be noticed in this market.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: Yeah. I mean, my opinion is that if you are only applying online, that’s not really a great use of your time because you are competing against hundreds of other candidates, number one. Number two, usually it’s some kind of algorithm who’s looking for keywords, and candidly as a recent grad, you’re not going to have all those keywords. You’re not supposed to, by the way. Your job was to go to school and get an education and learn. You’re not going to have all those keywords and be magically found.

People say, "Oh, well, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on LinkedIn and I’m going to be found." And I’m thinking, LinkedIn is great, I love it, but don’t wait around to be found. That’s not how you’re going to be identified. You really need to find the people first and you want to target them, who you want to have find you, but you have to reach out to them. I think that’s where there’s a lot of this fear of like, "Well, I don’t know what to say and I don’t want to talk on the phone. On the phone? You mean I have to actually call someone on the phone, not text them?" Yeah, it’s hard because they just don’t know. They just don’t know how to do it.

Sandy Block: Well, and I think one thing you mentioned in our interview, Beth, that is something that a lot of young people do by mistake is just, and this is something their parents probably couldn’t do, because back in the day you actually had to put your resume in the mail and put a stamp on it, but they can send out a hundred applications easily in an afternoon. But you say that’s not really a good idea.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: No, I don’t think it’s a good use of your time. Sometimes there’s this feeling, and even parents, because sometimes I’ll say collectively, don’t always understand the process and they’ll say, "Well. more is better. Don’t do 10. Do 20, do 50, do a hundred." But that’s actually not useful. Employers, if you really think about it, they don’t want someone who’s kind of like, "Oh, I just applied because it seemed good or it seemed interesting."

Beth Hendler-Grunt: Or the ones who are studied sports management like, "Well, I love the Mets and I love sports." I’m like, "Okay, don’t ever say that as to why they should hire you because it’s a business. It’s 100% a business." You have to understand. Take a step back. They just have to have some better clarity about themselves and knowing what are the skills that they have that they can bring to an employer that would add value. And it’s not saying, "I’m hardworking." Everybody says, "I’m hardworking."

Beth Hendler-Grunt: It’s saying, "I’m analytical. I am great at research. I know how to problem solve." Then thinking about, okay, what are the types of companies that need those skills? Let me think about what I enjoy doing, what I’m competent at and how can I bring that to an organization. They may not have a job posted on the job board. That’s the whole thing. There’s this hidden job market. 80% of jobs are never, many times are never posted or they’re found by referral because someone wants to know someone who’s in that field. I have this 10 and 10 technique and we’ve talked about this. It’s pick 10 companies that are of interest to you. Then of each of those companies or just amongst those, pick 10 people who are doing the job that you would want to do.

Don’t pick the vice president. You can pick someone like yourself who graduated in the last three to five years, who’s doing something entry level, who can really give you some insight of what it is they do, what it took to get there, what are some of the skills that you need, and you’re going to have so much more insight about it. Maybe I like that job, maybe that’s not interesting to me, but at least you have better information, and the person knows you now and could potentially refer you internally which is how you get yourself into a job.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: What has changed the most? I’m also one of those parents, right? I’ll say we’re collectively in this together. I found my job out of college. I actually was very fortunate. I had an internship 25-plus years ago, but that is what launched my career. I think what’s changed is that there’s such a dominance of technology, and that there’s this thinking that, well, if I just understand that the algorithm or if I just understand the technology, then it will be easy. The truth is, I’ll say we collectively as parents know what it takes. We know that talking to someone and networking with them and understanding what they need and potentially how we could help them, those are the ways that relationships are formed and how people do it.

The part that gets confusing for parents is that they think, and their kids are telling them this too, that the technology will solve for that, that if I just go on Indeed who took my profile and I just apply to a hundred jobs, it will know me and it will then match me to someone else. Or I’ll just go on LinkedIn or I will be on a Slack channel, there’s still that human... As I say to everyone, people hire people, not a computer and not a tracking system, but it’s finding your way through the technology to get to the people who hire. I think that’s one of the biggest misnomers of how do you use technology in the search.

Sandy Block: Well, speaking of technology, Beth, one thing that I found absolutely fascinating in our conversation earlier is I asked you about some techniques for doing a Zoom interview, which is increasingly common and we definitely want to talk about that, but before we get there, you told me there’s something called a one-way interview and the way you described it I found absolutely terrifying. So can you tell us what that is and how someone can sort of nail that process?

Beth Hendler-Grunt: Sure, sure. The one-way interview has become the de facto screening method over phone calls to screen candidates. Basically, there’s a number of companies out there that are doing it, companies like HireVue and VidCruiter, Spark Hire, and it is software that a company, the recruiter or anyone in HR can go in and record a number of questions or they can just type out the questions. They don’t have to even give you a personal feel to it. They could just type the question, tell me about yourself or tell me what are your greatest weaknesses or tell me why do you want to work for us and there is no one on the other side. It is just-

Beth Hendler-Grunt: I mean, we’re on video, but most people, by the way, there’s so many nuances. We’re having a conversation. It’s over video. We’re looking at the screen. Well, you can’t look at the screen. You can’t look at yourself. You have to look at the camera because you want to create that eye contact and that connection with the person. You have to make sure that you have good lighting, that they can hear you, all the things that maybe wouldn’t happen, if you were just on the phone or just met somebody in person. Then the preparation, a lot of these are timed. Sometimes you’ll have multiple chances to record yourself. Sometimes you don’t.

Getting it right, and that practice, if you are not someone who’s comfortable let alone talking about yourself or talking to a computer or a camera, it has a very high level of stress for a lot of candidates. I mean, a lot of our students tell us how much they dislike it, but I say, "Hey, this is here to stay." So we’ve integrated it into our training. We’re going to help. Well, you practice with us so you can get comfortable. But yeah, this is really a massive technology that’s out there in the market of how you screen candidates for the initial call.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: Oh yes. So sometimes there’s this feeling of, obviously we’ve all been home for a couple of years and used to doing our Zoom calls a certain way or taking class. So we tell our students and grads that when you interview over Zoom or any video, that you want to be dressed as if you’re in person. You want to be dressed from head to toe because we have heard of circumstances where sometimes they’ll say, "Can you just stand up for me?" If you’re dressed from the waist up, but you have pajama bottoms on, I don’t know if that happens all the time, but-

Beth Hendler-Grunt: Yeah. I think it’s more of a mental state of mind. I think when you’re dressed from head to toe with the shoes on, even though you’re sitting in your bedroom or home office, it’s like a mental state of you’re going to hold your body differently, you’re going to speak differently because you know that you’ve got your act together and you’re ready to have that conversation.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: I think they are more comfortable with video. I mean, clearly we’ve had to embrace it. But I think sometimes they still forget this is not a class where you can have a messy bed behind you or you have the window right behind your head and then all of a sudden your face looks darkened, you can’t really see what you look like. So I think even though they’ve used it, they don’t always have to be the one facilitating or really being clear about making sure the other person is hearing what they have to say. One other thing we tell people that video tends to dull you down. So you really have to over-emote, you need to smile, even if this is not your disposition because people are trying to make that connection with you over a screen.

Sandy Block: Backing up a little bit on this Beth. The other thing we talked about is networking. Back in the day, and I’m thinking just two years ago, you’d meet people for coffee, you’d go to events. A lot of that still isn’t going on, or maybe you are trying to network with somebody who’s not nearby. What are some good networking tips if you really are not in a position to do a lot of person-to-person stuff?

Beth Hendler-Grunt: Sure. Networking in my belief is the number one way of how people get hired. Just because you aren’t able to maybe see them in person, maybe there’s not that networking event where 50 or a 100 people gather doesn’t mean that you can’t network. An interesting way, especially I felt in the beginning of the pandemic, is that people are almost more accessible because either they’re working remotely or they have more time or they just understand that this is how people will reach out.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: What I tell young adults is that I rarely meet someone, and I’m pretty confident that rarely will you meet someone, if you’re a recent grad and say, "I’m a recent grad and I’m really interested in what you do. Can you spend 10 minutes to talk with me and just tell me how you got there or I’d love to learn about your path?" Very rarely is someone going to say no to that. I mean, it’s different if you say, "I really need a job. I really, really need a job. Do you have anything for me?" You’re asking them to a yes or no question, which is not great, but that seems like desperate and cringey.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: So we just want you to be more consultative. You want to get to know somebody and what are they about and let them learn about you in a way that enables you to connect with people. People are very willing to help out recent grads. I think even my own clients are shocked at how many people actually reply to the request to connect on LinkedIn or the request to then follow up and have a 15-minute conversation like, "Wow, I can’t believe they actually said yes." I’m like, "Yes, because you did it in a way that was professional. It was thoughtful. You looked up their background ahead of time. So you made it easy for them."

Beth Hendler-Grunt: Yeah. I think alumni, who doesn’t love to talk to someone who just graduated from the same school you went to, right? They’ll talk about what was on campus or the sports. So who doesn’t want to be brought back to those times when you were a student? Usually alumni is are our first go-to, and it’s very easy whether it’s through your own university portal, but again, LinkedIn has a tool. I don’t know if a lot of people know about it. It’s called the LinkedIn Alumni tool and every single university is on LinkedIn, pretty much.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: In their LinkedIn presence page, there are these tabs. One says people, jobs and there’s one that says alumni. You can filter by the year they graduated, the jobs they have, what they studied, what their skills are, where they work, who they’re connected to. It’s such a great way to see who’s at the companies that you want to be at or who has the same major as you and what are they doing, what are some other ideas that you maybe haven’t thought about that would give you some direction. So there’s some great tools, free, free resources inside of LinkedIn that I think a lot of grads don’t even realize it’s there.

David Muhlbaum: That’s interesting given how much time and money and effort many institutions have invested in their own essentially proprietary alumni networks. I wonder how those will integrate in the future. I have a kind of challenging question maybe. I’m wondering as you went about being someone coming from the situation as you did with your background and working with students or graduates, I should say, what was something that where the students pushed back and said, "Yeah, that’s not working," or, "Whatever this guidance was doesn’t work anymore?" What was something you had to adjust?

Beth Hendler-Grunt: I don’t think there’s a lot of pushback. Well, let’s just start with this. The students who come to us know that whatever they were doing wasn’t working for them. So they’re ready for a new approach. We say that and be like, "You might hear us teach you things and you’re going to question this. So I love a skeptic. Be skeptical." Sometimes they come to us like, "I’m going to do this. I’m not sure how you’re actually going to help me. I think I know what I’m doing, but okay. I’m in." I think what they don’t realize, I think it’s more of what they’re surprised about. Actually, I mean, we constantly tweak and make sure it’s relatable and they understand it.

Some of the concepts come from my previous actually work as a consultant when I’ve worked with CEOs and we’ve helped them with strategic planning and how do they differentiate themselves and articulating your value. A lot of that I bring into just helping grads in a really simple way. What I think they don’t understand, or maybe they think is hard is, that I’m asking them to sell themselves. I’m actually asking you to talk about yourself in a way without bragging, but you’re stating the facts of the skills and talents and the experiences that you had. That’s hard for our young adults. For some reason, they are very uncomfortable telling someone why they are the right person or why they have the right skills. I’m not saying that you’re the best or the most or the greatest, just the fact that you are competent, you have a skillset, you have an example, you have a story to tell, and they’re uncomfortable doing that.

I attribute that more, I don’t know if this generation just more struggles with mental health, self-confidence, believing that they are worthy. There’s an element where they feel like they had to do it by themselves and that now I’m getting some help and I didn’t really want help. Then there’s also this whole feeling of like, "I want to save the world. I want to be with the company that creates impact and how do I do that?" But I think the concept ultimately that they have to sell themselves in a way that adds value to the company. It’s not like hire me because I had the best GPA and I had the best resume, although they would like that to be the case, it’s really because you’re going to solve a problem for a company because you have a certain skillset and that’s how you have to... It’s like the rephrasing of how they’re able to be of value to an organization I think is probably the hardest part for them.

Beth Hendler-Grunt: The biggest mistakes is just lack of preparation. I mean, Google is the easiest, most amazing resource that can give you so much information in literally 60 seconds. Make sure you know what the company is, what they do, who’s the CEO, what’s the stock price. I always tell them, "Type into Google XYZ company in the news." What is the latest press release or announcement? Did they merge? Did they acquire? Are their numbers up? Are they down? Whatever is the latest information.

Sometimes they’re so in the mode of "I just want to focus on my job and all I have to worry about is the role that I want to interview for." I’m always like, "Think bigger, because they want you to be interested and concerned about the company as a whole and how you can help them and solve their problems and achieve their goals." So I think really the preparation, and they assume that they’re like, "Oh, it’s just a conversation. I can be casual."

Beth Hendler-Grunt: I’m like, "It’s never casual. You’re assuming incorrectly. People are always looking at you. They’re always judging. They’re always deciding from the very first word that you utter, they’re going to make an assessment. So you want that entire persona to be professional, practiced, rehearsed, thoughtful and someone that they know can help their company be successful."

David Muhlbaum: That will just about do it for this episode of Your Money’s Worth. If you like, what you heard, please sign up for more at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your content. When you do, please give us a rating and a review. If you’ve already subscribed, thanks. Please go back and add a rating and review if you haven’t already. To see the links we’ve mentioned in our show along with other great Kiplinger content on the topics we’ve discussed, go to kiplinger.com/podcast. The episodes, transcripts and links are all in there by date. If you’re still here because you want to give us a piece of your mind, you can stay connected with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Thanks for listening.

Topics

Podcast Starting Out: New Grads And Young Professionals

Block joined Kiplinger in June 2012 from USA Today, where she was a reporter and personal finance columnist for more than 15 years. Prior to that, she worked for the Akron Beacon-Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. In 1993, she was a Knight-Bagehot fellow in economics and business journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has a BA in communications from Bethany College in Bethany, W.Va.

PODCAST: How to Find a Job After Graduation, with Beth Hendler-Grunt

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Finding a Job After Graduation with Beth Hendler-Grunt