Unlocking Job Opportunities Without Applying: A Conversation with Melanie Feldman

0:01Speaker 1:This is amazing media production. Welcome to the Switch Pavoit Quid podcast, where we get real and dig deep into the stories of our peers to find out their strategies, their solutions, and insights you need to help inform your career transition decisions. I'm your host, Ayanna Angel, and I started this podcast just after quitting a career in sports entertainment PR to become an author. I've had multiple career lives, from designing jewelry worn by Beyonce to show running and producing award winning podcasts. But my hope is for this podcast to help you ask yourself the hard questions, for you to become more self aware, and for you to ultimately break through whatever is holding you back from taking a chance on you and the life you truly desire.

1:01Speaker 1:This week, we're gonna do a little bit of a throwback. For those who have been rocking with us for a while, you may remember this conversation and hopefully it'll serve as a good reminder for you and for those who are new. Because we have quite a few new listeners, I want to introduce you to a conversation that we had back in twenty twenty one and given the current climate that we're in with so much uncertainty with people's employment, and I've seen I can't even tell you how many LinkedIn posts with people saying keep me in mind for open positions.

1:34Speaker 1:I am open to work. I have been laid off and I'm looking for my next opportunity. I hope that this conversation comes at a perfect time to be a resource to people who are really in need of this resource. We're gonna be talking all about getting a job without applying, So without further ado, let's get into this conversation. On today's show, We're chatting with Melanie. Melanie is a career coach and co founder of Going Places. She's built a successful career by landing roles at her top choice companies without ever applying for a single job. After her first role, she authored Bold, Get Noticed, Get Hired, a book that provides both inspirational stories and the techniques of people who set themselves apart to land their dream jobs. It is now used in college curriculum courses at Lehigh University and Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to her work as a career coach, Melanie is also still climbing the corporate letter at one of Silicon Valley's top tech companies. You all know how I typically feel about the career coach conversation.

2:47Speaker 1:I feel like I'm always talking about this, and that's partially because I'm inundated with coaches. And this conversation was different and unique for me, and I loved it because Melanie is coming from a completely different perspective. She has a skill set that she's learned along the way of actually thriving in her career and being able to go from top company to top company and learning some really key takeaways as to how you can make these strategic moves and not actually apply for our job. So I think you're going to enjoy this chat.

3:24Speaker 2:Let's get started, kind of waking that I wanted to chat with you. I think you have an interesting story in journey because you are also a nine to five employee right now as well, and so share with us a little bit more about how you got into this career coaching space and how you're navigating your career right now.

3:46Speaker 3:You know what's funny is I never woke up one day or you know, through college, was like I'm going to be a career coach it's actually yeah, it's actually kind of funny how that started. And I'll take it back. I graduated from college and I flew back to Hawaii, where I'm from, and I was like, Okay, I'm going to work in New York City. I'm going to crush it. You know. I just felt like on top of the world. I was a finance and marketing major. I played the division on sport. I had three internships, and I thought, Okay, I have this in the bag. And I applied to one hundred jobs a day only to get automated responses saying no thank you. And I just remember these like pain points, probably around three months in, and I remember my mom just being like, how can I help you?

4:31Speaker 3:Like do you want to go to Barnes and Noble and find a book or something?

4:35Speaker 2:You know.

4:35Speaker 3:It was like I realized, like, did I ever learn how to apply for a job in college? Like I don't think so, and so I'm completely struggling. And four months in, at this point, I catch a webinar on LinkedIn by Lewis Howes. He said, I challenge you to reach out to someone you never think you can get in touch with. And I was like Okay, you know, I never really this. I've just been applying for a million jobs and I ended up cold reaching out to a sportscaster at ESPN because I was like, Okay, I want to work at ESPN. I played a sport and I was a business major, so that's the only company I want to work at, which who knows why I was thinking that now, but it's that mentality when you get out of college, you know, clue what you want to do. And I sent that email off put twenty five different emails attached to it because I had no idea what his email was, and I was like, okay, Meil Dot Everett and Everett like. I just threw it out there and nothing happened, and I was like, okay, I'll pause on that. I didn't expect anything. But at the same time, I started just thinking, wow, maybe I should.

5:38Speaker 3:I mean, I have to change something up. At this point, applying online isn't doing anything, and so I started just messaging so many people on LinkedIn and through email and trying to leverage any part of my network I possibly could. And the funny part I on it is I got every interview I ever wanted from every single job that I had on my list. I was like, oh my god, she was the same person. No one ever responded to any of the resumes I had sent out, and all of a sudden, I'm getting responses, which was crazy. Meanwhile, one month later, Neil Everrett calls my phone and he's like, how did you get my email address? I was like, Neil, don't worry about it. But so the funny part was he got on a call with me and the next day I had an interview at ESPN.

6:22Speaker 2:Was that interview or result of that phone call?

6:24Speaker 3:Yeah, so I said, Neil, we just we hit it off on the phone. I was telling him, you know, I'm from Hawaii. You worked in Hawaii, And he was like, all right, what do you want from me? And I was like, all right, well, can I get an interview? And he called the HR department and he got me an interview the next day, and everything after that changed for me, because, you know, I just realized it's all about human connection, and no one teaches you that in college.

6:51Speaker 3:Long story short, I ended up getting a job in New York City. So I ended up cold emailing the CEO's assistant. She got me an interview one week later, I'm flying from Huai to New York City starting and advertising. Knew nothing about the space or anything, and what really interested me was did everyone else land their jobs like this? And I was so curious, and so I ended up writing a book called Bolds, Get Noticed, to Get Hired, which was a complete interview series of like thirty people around the world who I thought did really cool things.

7:22Speaker 3:And I was interested how you landed your first job. So that was a really interesting start to just being in the space. And you know, naturally, I was speaking a lot of colleges after I had launched my book, and I would just get message after message from college shudn't saying can you help me with my job? Can you help me launch a job? And I realized that gave me a ton of energy to help people navigate their careers. And so, long story short, somehow I fell into the space and it's something I just absolutely enjoy.

7:49Speaker 2:It seems like you were crafty with trying to figure out what Neil's email address was, and you were also crafty with probably seeing that there was a job hosting available at advertising agency and then going after the assistant because they're usually the gatekeepers is there something that typically comes up for you when you're recommending for people to take certain actions or certain steps when they're trying to get their foot in the door without a resume.

8:16Speaker 3:Absolutely so. I think there's a few things. One in particular is this mentality of asking people for things. I don't know about you, but for me, it's like I get a lot of LinkedIn messages where people are just asking me to do things and I've never even met them before.

8:32Speaker 2:Yep.

8:32Speaker 3:And it's one of those things where like, yes, you're going to carve out time to help people, of course, but it's this weird, off putting thing when someone's asking for something and you've never met them. I think the first thing that I try to train people on in terms of a mentality, especially from a young age, like even in high school, is don't ask people for things when you're creating a network, and you're building a network from scratch, which you know is the core to getting referred into a company and getting your foot in the door.

9:00Speaker 3:It's about how can you do research on that person and add value? And the only real ask is can I have twenty minutes to talk about you and ask you some specific questions that I have because I find your background so interesting and so inspirational, and so I try to get people out of this mentality of Hi, can you refer.

9:19Speaker 2:Me to this company?

9:21Speaker 3:You know, it's like it just feels a little off putting and I don't think they get the results that you want. And so yeah, that's the first thing I usually talk to people about, is like, we're going to build this from the ground up, and you never are going to ask people for things. Even if you want to get introduced to someone, You're going to write that introduction so all they have to do is press one button to send it off.

9:41Speaker 2:So tell us, how do you get your current position? We know that you are doing other work and you're employed outside of the career coaching work that you do. How did you land this position?

9:54Speaker 3:So, for one, all of the jobs that I've ever had in the advertising space, I've never actually applied online. I really believe like landing your first job is the toughest because it's so competitive, and so for me, it's really been about doing the best work I possibly can and creating a network around me and always having conversations with people and always asking about them and learning about them, because ultimately that's how I've gotten every job. It's we started at one company, people left to other companies and there's an open role at their company and they're like, oh, wow, Melanie would be a really good fit for that. Because I, you know, I try to put my head down and show that I do quality work because right the end of the day, your network is what you have, and so you want people to see you in the best light.

10:37Speaker 3:So yeah, it was it was through my network. It was someone that I had worked with previously who reached out to me and said, hey, Melanie, are you interested in this role? I think it'd be a perfect fit. And I was like, all right, yeah.

10:50Speaker 2:So in the book bull Get Noticed, Get Hired, what did you figure out? Was there a common thing that you were able to come up with or was anything surprising that you figured out from speaking to the people that you spoke do for the book.

11:05Speaker 3:It was really interesting because I chose people with all different backgrounds. It was people who were engineers and in advertising, and you know, I tried to really pick different industries and what I realized were two things. So one, not everyone is extroverted. A lot of people aren't extroverted and don't feel comfortable like reaching out and having tons of conversations. One thing was everyone kind of figured out what their passion was and what gives them energy, and they honed in on that to then focus on that as they were getting creative with how they got discovered, and like what I mean by that is like some people coded websites and so that was like, you know, they made these cool websites to put their resume on and like showcase it. One girl loved legos and so she created this amazing lego of the logo of the company and shipped it over to them and was like can I have a call? Like will I get an interview? It was just interesting. It was like you don't have to be good at one specific thing, but everyone's generally interested in something and it's like, m hm, how can you turn that something into something that helps you stand out?

12:08Speaker 3:And the other piece was, and this is something I speak about a lot, and it's the elimination of fear of rejection. All of these people, when I talked to them and I heard their story, you could easily have said, are you embarrassed to do what you did? Like there were guys standing with a desk on Wall Street and was handing out his resumes like a lemonade stand, and everyone could have easily said are you embarrassed to do these things? And no one would ever say that because they're all really successful now. And so I realized they removed that fear of rejection and they just went with it and they didn't care what anyone else thought. And every single person I interviewed had that commonality, and so it made me really think a lot about that, and I was like, I want to be successful. If anyone wants to be successful, you really have to come straight up with rejection and say I'm okay with it.

12:58Speaker 2:Rejection is deaf definitely a big thing, and I think it holds so many people that is there anything that you can think of that maybe somebody can do to get themselves more comfortable with rejection.

13:13Speaker 3:One of my favorite quotes is you can ask a hundred people out on a date. If you get ninety nine o's, that means you have a date. It's like, okay, you've got nine nine no's, but you have a date, and you're excited because you have a date. And so I always say, like, it's so easy to look back and say, oh, I'm so glad that didn't work out because I wouldn't be here, or you know, really think of rejection as redirection later on. But if you can like in the moment, which is so hard to do.

13:43Speaker 3:It's like I have to remind myself of this all the time, because life is just a series of rejections. It starts really young, right, and it's like everything it's like asking someone to prom getting into college, getting into friend group, like you're just being rejected one thing after another, and soon you can come to realize that if the worst thing that's gonna happen is a no, and you're like, all right, well, I guess I'm okay with that. All of a sudden it's like this weird lift off your test and you're like, all right, what's stopping me? And I feel like so many people fall short of what they can do because they're so scared to fail. And you know, I talk with a lot of parents of students in high school, and I say, be that support system for your kid while they're going through that push them to fail so they get used to it, you know, And I think the earlier we can start failing the better we're going to be as we get older and grow into our careers.

14:41Speaker 1:Ooh, this is the stuff I like to hear on the Switch Pavot or quick podcast. But we will be right back after this quick break.

14:51Speaker 2:Can you think back to a time where you had to make a difficult decision in your career and what was that.

14:59Speaker 3:I were at Twitter three companies ago now, yeah, and I was, you know, on the sales team, and I had this just amazing job and I loved who I worked with. And one of my clients actually, which was a small startup of probably around twenty people. I was working with them for over two years and they had finally come to me and said, do you want to come over here and kind of lead our brand sales? And I thought, I have the most stable job. I absolutely loved my company. I feel so secure. I have the best friend group here. Why would I ever leave that.

15:34Speaker 3:I usually rely on my gut to make most decisions, in the sense of I get that feeling, and if I doubt myself, I usually just overthink it. And so this one took a really long time because I had to think through it, and I ended up making the jump and I went to a startup, which is funny. They actually this year got acquired by Twitter, so it was also a Los circle situation. But you know, I was completely out of my comfort zone. I remember I just showed up the first day and there was just a box on my desk and it was the computer.

16:03Speaker 3:And they were like, okay, go.

16:05Speaker 2:Like no big hr orientation, no passionate.

16:10Speaker 3:You know what, if I never made that move, I don't think I would be where I'm at today in my career. Or I think it's important to get outside your comfort zone and do things that might not always feel safe, because that's how you grow and get better in the exposure I had at that startup, which grew so quickly transform my career, and I'm so thankful that I went with that and felt so uncomfortable in that situation to make that move.

16:34Speaker 2:Had there ever been a time where you got to yourself, I need to step it up, and it's so what did you then do?

16:41Speaker 3:Someone would see Twitter on a resume, see these different companies and say, wow, that's my dream job, and I think for me, like, when I think about stepping it up, like ten years into my career, it becomes more about how can I do more things that give me energy and make me feel good in my day to day, then less. You know, so if I can feel fifty percent of that more than fifty percent of my day doing things that I enjoy and just and usually those are the things that I check off my list first, right, because it's easy, I get it done. And then you know, they have those items on the list that I never get done because I don't love them, And for me, like stepping it up really is in that sense, because it's how can I grow my career? How can I keep moving forward? So my life eventually is just made up of more and more of those things. And I think it's so easy for people to think like, oh, this name company, I need to do this, it's going to be my dream job, and then you get there and you're like, wait, why did I think that? Again?

17:41Speaker 3:It's just like what about this with my dream job? And so, you know, I think for me, it's like I enjoy helping people grow their careers. That's something that like I wake up out of bed and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't wait to do that. And you know, I incorporate that in my nine to five I incorporate in Going Places, and it's like, you know, I know, I love working with clients and doing those types of things. So I usually challenge myself and like I every so often, probably every six months, I put a list together of what's giving me energy now and what stream, and then I try to focus on how do I do more of the energy piece? And it's I think it's important for people to identify that every six months because your life changes so quickly, and you know, what would be on my list ten years ago is very different now.

18:34Speaker 2:How does the work that you do in your nine to five impact or maybe how has it aligned with the work that you're doing with Going Places. It sounds like you work with clients on both sides, So is there any crossover. Is there anything maybe in your nine to five that helps set you up for the work that you do with Going Places?

18:57Speaker 3:Yeah? So, and I might take this in a slightly different direction because I have this this thought around it and it's I actually realized how companies actually hire and what the process looks like. And it was something that I don't ever remember learning. I didn't know, and you know, I've hired people at companies that I've worked at I've been on that side of the of the curtain, and I think, what's so interesting to me? And I don't know if you feel this way too. I onim you're led to believe get your four year degree and you send your resume through online, you have this fighting chance and that someone's going to see you. Yeah. And I only learned that it wasn't the case when I got jobs and when I was in the workforce and I was hiring people. And what I realized, and this is something I try to educate people on. This is why I feel like I really connect with people as I'm helping them navigate and inspiring them to, you know, land the job that they want is actually it doesn't.

19:55Speaker 2:Work like that.

19:56Speaker 3:And the way it works is there is an open wor that manager sends an email out to everyone and says, hey, do you have a great candidate for this role? Send me referral, Send me referrals, and everyone sends them through because one, you know, you want to send good people through. But too, there's an incentive bonus. Every company has it, right, you know, you make what you can make, like twenty thousand dollars at some companies I'm sure it's not like that everywhere, but you can make a lot of money if you get a candidate hired and then the manager gets this massive stack of resumes on their desk, and then all of a sudden they're doing interviews and then you know, maybe a week later the jobs posted online.

20:36Speaker 3:And so what I realized is just this issue. Right, So one, if you apply online, you're competing against thousands of people, and if you happen to be seen, if your resume lands in front of someone, you're behind the ball because you're competing against people who have had multiple interviews and they've been referred. And so I think, for me, what excites me outside of just like what I do in my you know, in advertising and all that, is I want to teach people that you're not just worthless because you're not hearing back, you're actually never seen. And I think, you know, part of building a more diverse and inclusive workforce amongst all companies, it starts by creating that that pool of candidates through referrals. And so I try to teach people, you know, if you want to get your resume in front of someone, you need to build that network from scratch. Develop rapport with people to the point where they're incentivizing they're going to want to refer you in. I want people to learn how to navigate this and know that this is how it works, so then that way they can start this early.

21:43Speaker 2:Has there been any advice or helpful business tips that you've received throughout your career that maybe stuck with you.

21:51Speaker 3:Yeah, my old manager, I just always remember this advice and she said, if you ever want, you know, a promotion or a raise, package it up like a birthday gift and send it to your manager with a bow on it, you know, wrapped up. This advice kind of clicked for me because I realized when you're looking to do something like grow your career within your company and get a promotion or grow you know, your manager is working with so many different people and it's actually a lot of work to help them get a promotion and to get a raise, and there's probably a lot of paperwork involved with that, and so one, you know, it made it clicks for me when I was like, oh, okay, like if I want this, I need to find out how they are submitting this and I need to basically submit it for them. And so it was interesting because I was like, oh, I've never asked the manager what the process was like to get a raise, like what do you have to do? What's the heavy lifting? And then the second piece to that advice was have your manager work with you on the process six months before.

22:50Speaker 3:So most people go into a review and they're like, hey, like, you know, I want to raise, and it's probably already been decided at that point, and I I think it's important to have your manager be on your team and say, listen, this is what I'm trying to achieve. How can I get there? And then asking questions like what is this submission process on your end? Like how can I do that heavy lifting? So it's good to ask those questions early on to figure out what your manager has to do.

23:16Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit about negotiating a salary increase now you have the job.

23:22Speaker 3:I never felt like I could negotiate and this was so much my career and I realized this talking to my coworkers that you know, one day, I you know, you develop a port with your coworkers, and I had one of the guys was the same exact position, with the same exact years of experience as me, and I asked him, you know, I was like, okay, let's just tell each other what we make. And he made ten thousand dollars more than me, and I was yeah, and I was like, how did you get that? And He's like, I asked, I asked, I asked, and I thought back and I go, I never even asked. So my thoughts on negotiating, first of all, is you have to take the emotion out of it. And if you can remove emotion, and it's all driven by research and almost like presenting a case, you're going to be so much more successful.

24:10Speaker 3:And this could be negotiating your salary, you know, to start a job, or negotiating a raise. It has nothing to do with what you want. It has nothing to do with what you think, you know, this is what my coworkers are making or whatever. It's about presenting your case in a very quantitative form to show here's the value that I'm bringing, here's the research that I've done in the market. So I think it's important. There's a lot of resources out there, you know, you can look on glassdoor and different places to figure out what are people making. With my years of experience in my location in this industry, and so I say, you know, do your research, ask your peers who are similar years of experience, and ask them to give you a range, you know of like if they have a similar job or what they're doing. And so have one piece of that is this is my value, and here's the research to back it up. Here are the numbers, and then I think there's this other piece. So when you're working at a company, you know, it's so easy to lose track of the work that you're doing over a certain period of time.

25:14Speaker 3:You might have a review session every year, and so I always tell people, you know, keep a notepad on your computer that it's keeping track of your wins, but all in the form of what your manager cares about in terms of like if you're on the sales side, how are you adding revenue to the company? Like what do you bring in? And really capturing that to show. So when you're building your case out, it's about here's the value that I should be making based on my research, and here's everything I've brought to the table, and hear all the numbers behind it. Here you go hand delivered with a bone on it. And you know, I think part of that too, So when you're working at a company, not only having that piece, but like starting the conversation early is really important because there's a lot that goes into getting a raise outside of just having a conversation, and you know, sometimes your manager has to find the funds and that takes months. But the one piece for me is always taking the emotion out because I would go to the table and I would be so nervous and I would almost tear up when I was trying

26:18Speaker 3:to ask for what I wanted. And then when I started just using numbers and almost making it like a case study, it was like, oh, that was easy because it's not emotional.

26:26Speaker 2:So speaking of getting what you deserve and what you want, what does success.

26:32Speaker 1:Mean or look like for you?

26:34Speaker 3:Success is me getting to have conversations, get people aware of how companies hire, and help them figure out a pathway to landing their job. Every time I have a conversation with someone who's in college or trying to find their first job or navigating, I always just get off the call and I feel like I just feel like my tank is full and I just feel amazing. And what I've learned over the years is it's less about money for me. It's more about how can I do more of that? Because you know, at a certain point it's like if I'm creating my day around things that give me energy and fill my tank, and I'm so much happier and it has nothing to do with money.

27:18Speaker 3:And so the more I can do of that into my life, the more successful I would deem myself. And yeah, that's what.

27:24Speaker 2:I would do that. Thank you so much, Melanie for sharing some of your insights with us. You definitely gave me some light bulb moments. If everybody wants to look more into potentially working with you, or follow your career, or connect with you maybe on LinkedIn, but not ask you for something, how can they find you and keep up with you?

27:45Speaker 3:So our website is you are Going Places dot Com and our handle on social as you go Places.

27:52Speaker 1:Thank you so much for spending time with me and my guests today. I always appreciate your presence. Your presence is a present to me. But you know what would be a bigger present if you shared this episode with somebody, I'd greatly appreciate it, and I guess I will catch up with you on our next episode. Make sure that you are just going out into this world and holding your head high, being the best version of yourself, and being confident in everything that you do, even when you don't always feel so confident. I'm rooting for you, and I hope you know that. So be well, be good, and I will chat with you next time. This podcast is produced by Maziemedia. Maze Media as a woman led podcast production company that works with small businesses and corporations.

28:48Speaker 1:Visit mazimedia dot com for more details on how you and your organization can go from ideation to podcasting. The Ten Ten Ten Ten Ten ten