Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Josef Stetter:
[00:00:00] I said first of all, the word graphic and design are in your job title. You are not allowed to have a black and white resume.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I'm your host, Roberta, if you are looking to improve your communication skills. Both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be
tuning into, and by the end of this episode, please log on to iTunes and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review.
Let's get communicating.

Have you ever heard of a resume whisperer? My guest today, Josef Stetter, is a resume whisperer and corporate culturist. Now if you are wondering exactly what those terms
[00:01:00] mean, sit back, because he will explain to you in much more detail. And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show. Hi Josef.

Josef Stetter:
Hello, and thank you again, Roberta, for having me. What an honor and a pleasure.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Thank you for being here. Welcome. So, Mr. Stetter. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Josef Stetter:
So I'll start with the fact that I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. So the parents influence, you know, go get a good job, get a good career.
I switched careers nine times and in doing so, switched industries and therefore switched jobs approximately 18 times. And every time I switched jobs. I had to get recertified, retrained because there's transferable skills, but a lot of cases they want designations for everything. And along the lines of switching careers, I got into recruiting.
I recruited for small to global companies such as Deloitte and Touche,

[00:02:00] a Protect Pharmaceuticals, tactical consulting services, Acon Construction. You know, I've been a generalist in recruiting, so I've kind of seen the market as a whole, not just one industry. So, And along the process of self-discovery, I was working for a company that owns multiple private colleges across Canada, and I was absolutely disgusted with their career services.

So I kind of wrote a manual. To help students that are graduating from the colleges get hired faster. My VP was very intimidated that I could think for myself and kind of threw me on the bus and I was out of a job very quickly. Wow. And I ended up publishing the book and I've had the honor and the pleasure of helping over 11,000 people land their dream job now in as little as two days.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
WOW! So first of all, the transferable skills, almost like you. I haven't had that many industry changes, but I've moved as well.
[00:03:00] If anybody's listening and that's what they're going through. Can you speak on how? Because a lot of the time, those closest to you make you feel like you are a failure or you have no direction.
Because if you graduate, go with that and just keep climbing that one company's ladder until vice president or whatever. So if you keep changing jobs, there's always that negative noise. No?

Josef Stetter:
Well, there's always gonna be negative noise because we're kind of stuck in routines. So our parents come from a generation where they understood you work for 35 years, you keep your head low, and eventually you'll kind of progress, right?
With the way the world's changed, especially after the pandemic, where a lot more people are suffering from mental health and wellbeing issues. Sadly, the statistics say that 80 to 90% of people in North America hate their jobs. That is a huge statistic when you think about the fact that salary is number seven as to why they hate their job.

[00:04:00] Number one is the way they're being treated. Now, in terms of transferable skills, you have to understand that most job descriptions in North America, unfortunately, are relatively generic. So the difference between a project manager and let's say a director is the words you use to describe the work that you do.

Because a project manager does more coordination between teams and does budgeting, forecasting, reporting, but director does strategy, implementation, or idea and then lets the project manager do the specific things of it. So what happens in both an interview and on the on the resume is that we have been taught to fill our resume with fluffy.

Generic subjective words such as hardworking, dedicated, committed team player with excellent communication skills and interpersonal skills. In 20 years of recruiting, I've met very, very few people that say, listen, I'm lazy. I will show up late. None of my work will be any good, and I really hate people.

[00:05:00] Please hire me. The only time that will work is if you're related to somebody in the company or you're having an affair with them. Now, I'll use, let's say, hardworking. So an accountant during tax season is usually required to work 80 hours a week. So what's hardworking? A hundred versus if I compare that to a nurse, During the height of the pandemic that was doing, let's say, four or five hours of overtime because the other nurses weren't available or didn't arrive on their shift.

So does that mean that the nurse is less hardworking than the accountant because she worked less hours or he, no, it just simply means that there's a different level of stress, but. When you say that you're hardworking, your definition, Roberta, of hardworking and my definition of hardworking could be very, very different.
So it's kind of redundant to say that in your resume or in your interview unless you quantify with an example. So if you go, here's an example of something I did where I was dedicated committed to hardworking, and here's the results I produced.

[00:06:00] The words are meaningless without something to back them up.
Most people when they go to the interview, if they're asked about their strengths, they just kind of give the one word answers and it's autoresponder. I'm hardworking, I'm dedicated and committed team player with communication skills. Woohoo. But realistically speaking, there are different ways. So like I will modify that question and I'll ask somebody, for example, Roberta, if I were to ask one of your closest friends to describe you in three or four words as if they're gonna set you up for a date, how would they describe you?
If your friends would describe you as hardworking, dedicated, committed, that is probably the worst date in history.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Nobody’s gonna wanna meet that.

Josef Stetter:
No, but what's interesting is when I ask this question of people, I shut up and I listen, and I've actually had people rationalize which friend will set them up on the date.
So like, not Sophie, Sophie thinks I'm crazy. So Mary, Mary will say, I'm like, okay. Crazy. Like, because you just told me you're crazy. Without even thinking about that. You said that because you said your friends think that you're crazy.

[00:07:00] Again, it relates to physiology. I'm outgoing, energetic, and bubbly. No, you're not.
If that's your body language kind of thing, right? Because usually your friends will say good things about you that highlight who you really are. So they'll say, you know, I'm loyal. But when you say loyal, there's a level of like, you sit up a little bit and you're excited to say that you're loyal. Yeah. So if I'm looking for an employee that's not gonna leave me every year for slight raise or slightly better opportunity, loyal is a word I want to hear.
But when I ask you what your strengths are, you're not gonna tell me loyal, because we've been programmed to say, cookie cutter, hardworking, dedicated committee, team player kind of thing. And so we need to shift away and change the conversation from autoresponder to, this is why I shine, this is why I'm good at what I do, or great at what I do.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Imagine being on the interview panel and you interview a hundred candidates for the same position, and
[00:08:00] everybody gives the cookie cutter answer. What's that like by the time you get to the 50th person?

Josef Stetter:
Again, and this is, it's a catch 22 because HR have a checklist that they need to fill in that says, you've said certain words at a certain time.
When I coach candidates, I make sure to kind of focus on, let's say results. You know, whether you're using ada, star, smart, whatever acronym. Most people kind of know in the there. It's like, okay, here's what was expected, here's what I did, here's the results I produced. Nobody cares that you know how to do something.
Like, I always give this these two examples because most people laugh, especially at the first one. If you're applying to be a receptionist somewhere and you go to a company and say, I know how to answer the phone. I hope the employer looks at you in shock and goes, really a reception know how to answer the phone?
We did not know that. Unless you live in an igloo,

[00:09:00] a cave, or choose to practice the faith of Mennonite, most people on earth know how to press their green button. Gullo, hello. How can I help you? However, if a receptionist comes to me and says, in my last job I answered 60 calls a day with 12 different lines, I can measure 60 calls a day with 12 different lines I cannot measure.

I know how to answer the phone. Similarly, if I give an example for my own career, I can tell you Roberta, I'm a phenomenal salesperson. I know how to do B2B and b2c and account management and relationship building and lead generation. I've worked in retail. I've done door-to-door sales, I've done car sales.
I've worked in private colleges. I've worked in recruiting. I'm a great salesperson. I've said a lot of words, but have I proven to you that I know how to sell? Not really. You sound generic. So on that pass, if I say to you, I worked for a private college that before I came in

[00:10:00] generated $530,000 for the entire year.
In one month, I generated $860,000 in sales for them. Would that intrigue you, first of all how I got the $860,000 in sales in one month? But would if I show you, how would that convince you that I know how to do sales? Exactly right.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
So got system and results. And it’s measurable.

Josef Stetter:
Correct. So often when I meet candidates that are saying, you know, I've sent out hundreds if not thousands of resumes, there's no job.
I'm like, no, your resume sucks. And you don't know what you're doing when it comes to an interview. Because if you've had one or two interviews in a year, clearly. Something is a mistake, is a blur or a mistake. But the other problem is most people assume that when they get the interview, they can go through all these highlight reels of what they do and how great they are.
But if you're not getting the interview, you need to put the highlight reel on your resume and get that to be okay. You generate $860,000 in a

[00:11:00] month. Tell me about that. Give me the specifics so that I can communicate. Here's the steps I took. Here's what I understood about the market to generate so much sales.
And when you understand what I did, you go, okay, that's a smart salesperson because he understood where the market is and why. For example,

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
When you talk about resumes, remember they, you mentioned keywords earlier. People say, you know, they have 10,000 candidates applying, so HR is gonna pick on keywords of the.
Now 50 people they're gonna interview. So lemme So when they put loyal, hardworking, they're trying to get picked based on those keywords by the computer. Yes or no?

Josef Stetter:
So here's the thing, most people that customize their resume try to add those words, but the algorithm of let's say indeed, which in my opinion is one of the worst places to look for a job, one job posting on Indeed will get between 350 and 5,000 applicants.

[00:12:00] Most companies look at the first hundred. So if you're 101, you're technically out of luck. However, there are loopholes or tricks that you can do. For example, most jobs in North America say, don't call us. Will call you. And most people wait. Call them, say, my battery on my laptop just died. Can you check that?
My application went through? Or my internet has been a little bit wonky. Can you check that my application went through or I never got a confirmation that my application went through? Can you please check that my application went through the moment that HR checks, if you were 180 and now HR checks, you're now number one on the list just because you didn't wait for them to call you.
Correct? Because you called and said, can you check if you got my application? Now you have them on the line. You have two minutes to kind of go, here's one of the things that I've done and here's the results I produced, which I think

[00:13:00] your company will appreciate or value and why I would be a great candidate.
Mm-hmm. Not only that, but you now have an opportunity to ask the hr, when are you starting to interview for this role? So if they say, we're starting to interview next week, and you say, if I don't hear from you in, let's say a week and a half, Can I call back to get feedback on what I can do to improve my resume for next time?
Now, you've given yourself a backdoor to get noticed again, because if in the first batch when they call candidates, they're not too impressed. They now have a reason to revisit your resume. Now, a few things to understand. If you posted your resume, let's say in November on Indeed and didn't touch it, you're on page 7,000 of the database.
Oh goodness. Nobody sees your resume. Most of the big job boards like Indeed, monster, career Builder, Refresh their database between 11:45 PM and

[00:14:00] 2:45 AM Eastern Standard Time. So depending on when you go to bed, go into your resume, press space bar anywhere on the resume, save it. The moment that you press space bar and save it, you've made a change to the resume and therefore the resume gets captured in the database refresh and it's considered a new resume.
No kidding. Just with the space bar. Just by pressing space bar and save. Now that little trick, if you're on page 7,000, you are now in front of recruiters or employers because your resume's coming in the top 50. New resumes, for example. The other thing that you mentioned earlier is most people when they write their resume, focus on the action words.
Managed, directed, liaise, coordinated, communicated, but. The algorithm of most of the job boards scores the technical words that are associated with the profession,

[00:15:00] not managed, directly escorted. So if you are an accountant, they score accountant, accounting, financial statements, general ledger, reconciliation, you know, reporting, budgets, forecast.
Those are the words that are being scored. But most people fill it with managed, and I'm hardworking that get committed team player with excellent communication skills. And that's why they're not getting anywhere because A, they're not hitting the algorithms and B, their resume is fluffy. Again, if you need to hire people, right, unless you're hiring a brain surgeon or some very, very technical professionals, 95% of times in North America, it has nothing to do with your technical skills and more to do with your personality.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Right? The soft skills we'll talk about on this show, yes.

Josef Stetter:
Right. If you're missing a software too, to do the job, if the company loves you, they'll pay for you to train in the software, for example, in

[00:16:00] terms of the technical, but the ability to, I'm going to use an engineer. An engineer that tells me they know how to calculate parallel and serial circuits, what engineer doesn't.
But if they say, I calculated the weight resistance of a bridge to. 3000 pounds for example. I now have something that I go, okay, this is a very specific calculation. It might be a very complex conversation, but I have something to kind of go, are you worth it? If I tell you jokes Roberta, and you're not laughing at any of my jokes, according to you, I'm not funny.
Now I could go and tell the same jokes to 10 people and they're in tears, laughing. They think I'm the funniest person they've ever met. Right? So part of that in the resume too, is when it's written. It's how it's presented and if people are just like, I know how to do this and I know how to do this, or I have experience in this and I have experience in that.
So what, just because you sold lemonade when you were 10 years old does

[00:17:00] not make you a salesperson. Can I share a quick story, uh, here? Of course. Go ahead. Yes. This is both a huge success and a conversation. So I was referred to somebody who is a product manager in social media. And he'd been self-employed for over 10 years and unfortunately ran his business to the ground because he wasn't invoicing properly.
He wasn't following up with his clients and got to a position where he is like, I can't be self-employed. I need to have steady income. Prior to hiring me, he was looking for work for more than seven months and had two interviews and got nowhere. I wrote his resume and I did his LinkedIn profile Within two and a half weeks, Google, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter.
Called him for an interview. Hmm. Because I highlighted how good he was it, what he he does. Right. And they called him. He didn't apply there, they called him just by

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
having that LinkedIn profile that you worked on

Josef Stetter:
[00:18:00] the LinkedIn and the resume optimized to the level. Mm-hmm. Where, for example, most people on LinkedIn go, I work here, I've worked here this long, this is my job title.
So if I used, let's say, estimators in construction, I do estimation. Okay. Are you a general contractor estimation? Are you doing just drywall? Are you doing windows? Like even though it's similar calculation, there's different avenues within estimation that. Certain companies want to know that you have a background in or knowledge in, because obviously, let's say in construction, there's a difference between doing a hundred thousand dollars project and doing a hundred million dollar project, for example, right?

So the quantifiables are very important, but your resume needs to get away from the cookie cutter, black and white. These are what I call the five cardinal sins of a resume, number one. The majority of population uses Aerial Collibra or

[00:19:00] times New Roman as their font. We all do when that become Rome font in Microsoft Word Uhhuh, understand if there's 350 resumes that a company needs to look at, most employers spend between eight and 30 seconds reading a resume.
That's it. So they're flipping like this. It looks exactly the same. They don't notice you. Second mistake that more people make is that their bullets or the black circles, dots, whatever you want to call them, the hyphens or the little squares, most people do this. The third mistake is that they have a section called skills or summary where they say, I have 10 years of experience and I know how to do this and I know how to do this.
Nobody cares. Fourth mistake is, especially now with the market being the way it is, and let's say unfortunately with the pandemic, 65 million people in North America lost their job. Oh, if you
[00:20:00] went and got a part-time job at Dunkin Donuts just to be able to pay some of your bills, and that's the first thing on your resume, they whatever the rest of your career is, because all they see is dunk condos because they're spending eight to 30 seconds.
So if on the first page you have Dunkin Donuts, and then after that you have, let's say Google, Google, nobody reads Google and therefore you get dismissed from it. So creating a functional or chronological resume, especially if you switch careers or directions, is actually counterproductive and harms you because you're not highlighting the relevant or important information.
Did you ever watch the movie Legally Blonde? Yes, exactly. So when spoons applies to Harvard and then applies to the internship, she gives a pink scented resume. And everyone looks at it goes, it's pink and it's scented, but they remember it. Cause it's different, right? So I'm not [00:21:00] saying you need to do a pink scented resume, but you can change the color of your headings.
That breaks the eyes. You can change the font, you can change the bullets that instead of having the black circle, you do like a diamond for example. It's subtle, but it's there. Like if you go to Microsoft Word, insert text box, you can have. Three set formats of your name in a little box or something like that, that just breaks the eyes from the sea of sameness kind of thing.
Mm. This one is writing the generic. I know how to do this and I have experience with that, but not quantifying the results that you produce. Like let's say for your show, if you say, I've had 300 episodes, for example. That's a quantifiable number that gives guests more confident that the show is being seen.
For example, or I have an average of this many viewers on my podcast. Or this many listeners on Spotify, whatever the case may be.
[00:22:00] But that quantifiable changes it from, this is your second episode to you've actually been doing this and you understand the routine and you've been doing it. The quantifiable in everything is what the majority of people are missing.
So in the examples I gave you with the receptionist or the sales, for me, I need social media. That's it. So if someone says to you, okay, I'm Google certified. Okay. Almost everybody's Google certified right now. So what have you done? I've taken an Instagram account from 500 followers to 30,000 followers in three months.
Okay. Now you caught my attention because now you're speaking in conversation that I want to hear about, not the fact that you're certified. Right. And unfortunately, I've been burned by a few marketing agencies that promised me the world and delivered zero kind of thing. Cause. They know what to see.
Welcome to the internet.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Sometimes. Yeah. Unfortunately.

Josef Stetter:
Mm-hmm. Right. So there's a level where with no disrespect to any coaches, I have
[00:23:00] several coaches, I have five coaches that I use right now. But I have an issue with coaches that are a blanket. I help you with everything and they don't own what lane they're in.
So I'll give an example from my own background. Mm-hmm. If someone says to me, you know what? I suffer from bipolar. Can you cure me? My answer is no. I'm not qualified. I don't have enough knowledge or education to cure you. If someone comes to me and says, can you help me write a letter to my employer explaining some of the symptoms that happen or some of the transitions in behavior of my bipolarism so that if I do have an episode, I'm less likely to get fired?
That I can do, I can help you with that because that's part of my expertise in the past 20 years and 25,000 hours that have invested mastering it. But if someone says, can you cure me from bipolarism? No, I can't. And I know that's
[00:24:00] my lane. I know I can't there, but I've met coaches like, you know, personal trainers.
If you're weighing 300 pounds and you're a personal trainer, but you used to weigh 500, I have a lot of perspective and admiration for the process that you've undergone. But if you weigh 300 pounds because you enjoy your donuts, but you work out, I have an issue with you kind of being my trainer. If you're 20 years old, you've never competed in anything at a higher level, you've never had any injuries, and you studied most of your personal training techniques through YouTube.
No disrespect to the videos on YouTube, but I want to know that you, like I for example, tore both rotator cuffs twice, so it's very difficult for me to do regular bench pressing cuz my shoulders lock. So I need to know that a personal trainer understand injuries and can modify some of the exercises, let's say, like do them in an incline so that I'm not hurting myself in the
[00:25:00] exercises.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
The life coaching thing, and I know, like you said, a lot of people lost jobs, so you know, you have some high schoolers just thinking, let me go online, because you do have some online coaches who say, I never went to college. I'm 21 and I've made a million dollars in the last year, whatever it is. So I had an 18 year old approached me wanting to, you know, be my coach.
Here's the thing, I have a friend who at the time was 27. He had finished his masters in psychology and needed to do a PhD so that he can start practicing. Do you know what his university said at the time? They said not now. Go back, get some life experience. Then we will accept you into the PhD program and then you can cancel people over life because it's not just the books.
You need life experience to help with

Josef Stetter:
counseling. I'm not one to judge because they might have been, you know, on their own since they were 14 and figured out life and gone through a lot of tribulations and so forth. But if I
[00:26:00] use my own profession, There's lots of people that go, I can write your resume for 50 bucks.
It's pretty easy. Just go on Google. You find a few words and bada booming. You have a resume. I'm like, no, because this is what happens. People that charge free a hundred dollars, that follow the same cookie cutter pattern, right? The results are very slow or if at all kind of thing. And then when I come and say, if you want me to write your resume, I charge $400.
Why? Because I guarantee that your resume is gonna get you interviews, the quantifiable results.
Whereas in, again, I'm not saying I'm the only expert, unfortunately right now in North America, there's approximately 45 million people that are unemployed. There's another 45 million people that are severely underemployed.
Meaning have a university or college degree, but work at McDonald's, for example, and then there's another close to 30 million going through some sort of education and retraining.
[00:27:00] Mm. The target market of 130 million people in North America alone now indeed, which is the largest draw board, is very proud about the fact that they have 45 to 50 million users.
But that means there's 80 million people, no one's serving. People like military vets. People that are new immigrants, new graduates that aren't getting the information that they need to stand out to highlight how great they are and what they have to offer. At the end of the day, my goal is to help a million people land their dream job, and I also recognize that.
I'm male. You might choose to be more comfortable with a female. You know, if you prefer someone of color because they understand culturally or relevance, for example. Again, nothing wrong with that, by all means. I might not. I'm not saying I'm the only expert. I'm simply saying I know that I'm not for everybody.
Cause certain things I say, you might not be ready to
[00:28:00] hear. You might not like my style or the way that I. Coach you or the way that I write your resume, and when I write your resume, most people, when they see it, they go, whoa, this is very different than anything I've seen. I go on purpose. Because if, again, if you're in a pile of 300 resumes and they're flipping, and let's say just your headings is blue, they flip.
They see blue, they don't read what's on their resume. They just see blue. It just pay attention. Yeah. It got their attention. So they might put you in the yes pile just because it got their attention, or it's formatted in a way that you go, Ooh. Again, it's not details like from my own work experience, like when I got downsized from Fidelity Investments when I was working in finance and I went to now known as Invesco, back then it was known as Aim TriMark.
Right. HR was interviewing me. She's like, it's great that you've done all the back office and you're designated and you kind of know the financial
[00:29:00] industry, but have you ever worked in a call center? And I just looked at her and went, if you flip to page two of my resume, I worked in your call center for six months, and she was like eight to 32nd rule.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Because again, eight seconds means they're reading the top third to the top half. And that's where I said if it's the color, if it's the font, if it's the bullets that you use, if it's a slightly different or creative formatting. Again, I'm not a graphic designer, but Insert Textbox has a few options for me in Microsoft Word that can make the resume a little bit unique.
For example, it doesn't take a lot. It's about getting noticed. I've helped a few people get hired in two days. Two quick stories about that. My wife was working with Autistics children as a behavior therapist. Mm-hmm. Now, she was working for like a private center and she needed to get 97% on her evaluation.
She got 96 and they fired
[00:30:00] her. What? And she was working there for three years and they fired her over 1%. So, of course she cried for a couple days and, and at the time we were still dating. And I looked at her, I'm like, you do realize you're dating one of the top career coaches in North America, right?
Lucky her. And so I wrote her resume on Sunday. She sent out seven resumes on Monday. She got three phone calls. She had three interviews on Tuesday, and three job offers on Tuesday. All for more money than what she was making. I'm an avid salsa dancer. That's my kind of relaxation yoga outlet or whatever you wanna call it.
And when I first started dancing, I had a salsa partner that was still in college, significantly younger, and she calls me one day, she's like, oh my God. Oh my, oh my God. There's this graphic design internship, which is unpaid at one of the biggest telecom companies in Canada. What do you mean? Wanted? I'm like, you're Mr.
Miyagi. Wax on. Wax off. Don't
[00:31:00] ask questions. Just trust my process. I said first of all, the word graphic and design are in your job title. You are not allowed to have a black and white resume cuz the word graphic design are in your job title. So we made her resume green instead of the regular bullets like circles.
She had a little dancing guy that she used as her, her digital art. We did that. She was a barista at a coffee shop. I made that graphic design cuz she got to decorate the lattes and draw images on the latte. Two weeks go by, she calls me you and she goes, they didn't even call me. You suck. An hour later they called her, the director said to her, listen, we are so sorry it's taken us so long to call you.
We received 7,400 applications for 20. Unpaid internships.

[00:32:00] Your resume was one of our favorite. Mm. So because we received so many people, we're gonna do three interviews to select the team. Your first interview is gonna be in two days. So she comes like, oh my God, oh my God, my God. They call, they call, they call.
What I do. You no longer suck. I'm like, first of all, apologize to me. And then I taught her my seven rules to wow. Any interview and have a great story for that too. And I told her, go to King Coles or Staples or Grandon Toy. Print your 10 best pieces of work on the highest quality glossy paper, even if it costs you $40.
Now, back then there was a platform called Flicker, which was very popular with graphic designers to kind of organize their stuff without needing passwords. It's ke clean, it's kind of easily accessible. She showed up to the interview two days later, 10 minutes into the first interview, the director looked at her and goes, listen, I've been running this program for
[00:33:00] over 10 years.
I have never been so impressed with a candidate. As I am with you, I'm not even bothering with a second or third interview. Congratulations. You're my first intern or my first hire in all because again, her resume stood out. The way she interviewed, highlighted how good she was and said the correct, let's say, because in graphic design, technical words like Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop are easy to say and she was able to demonstrate how she uses it to create, you know, whatever products she created in her portfolio There.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
That's it. Speaking of the portfolio, obviously not everybody can apply for a job and be at an interview where they can bring physical evidence of the portfolio like that. Say you're an engineer

Josef Stetter: w
hen you're applying for a job, I'll use it this example. Do you know what happens when you point a finger at somebody or you're pointing at you?
There's three pointing at you, correct? Mm-hmm. An
[00:34:00] engineer can say, I solved this to reduce downtime. By 2%. I increased the efficiency of this machine by 10%. It doesn't have to be huge numbers, right? It doesn't have to be millions of dollars or thousands of dollars. Like even when I was in retail and I sold computers in store called Future Shop, which Best Buy later bought out, I sold 31 computers in one Saturday.
You can still quantify anything you've done. You can quantify if you're doing Agile. Very popular term in technology. Let's say right now, and you're doing methodology, what were the results of the agile systems that you implemented? Like if you had a backlog of 300 tech support tickets, right, and you were able to clear them out in three months, there's something in the methodologies that you used to be able to clear those tickets.
So any job, even if you're a bookkeeper, you're doing reconciliation, how many reconciliations did you handle?
[00:35:00] In a day, a week, a month, whatever, there's always something quantifiable. Mm-hmm. Right

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Now you were talking about the hundred and 30 million North Americans who are underserved. Unemployed. Correct.
What would you say to them right now? Cause you are also a job market advisor, what would you say to them in order to prepare themselves to get back there and

Josef Stetter:
stand out? Number one, start branding your resume in a way that stands out. Don't be the same as everybody else. Be different because more and more companies need the difference, right?
Second of all, go back to the era of personal, like even for retail. Apply online and go in person. If the manager says, sorry, we're not hiring right now. Say, okay, thanks here. I just wanted to let you know who I am. Come back a week and a half later, speak to the same manager. Are you hiring yet? No. Well, I wanted to let you know I'm still super interested in working here.
[00:36:00]
Okay. We're not hiring Come back a week and a half later. Right? If you come back two or three times, they'll find a job for you. Why? Because you've shown commitment more than anybody else that's waiting for the online response, for example, right?

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Similarly, it's funny cause a lot think if you don't bug them, if don't like a pain, That makes you look good, but it looks like being a pain actually works and

Josef Stetter:
gets results.
Let me ask you this. If somebody likes you and your friends know that they like you, but they never ask you out, what are the chances that you'll go on a date? Never. It's the same analogy. You have to understand there is a certain dance to it, right? Mm-hmm. Go networking. Go meet people now. Here's the mistake that most people make in networking.
They come in with the intention of collecting as many business cards as possible. They're not listening to the conversation or being present in the conversation. You
[00:37:00] know how many times people are like, Ooh, you sound important. Gimme your card. And then the next day they email go, I got your card at the networking meeting.
Can I get a job? Who are you? So come in with a purpose. Now, here's the other biggest mistake that most people in the network do. They go in, right for, I need a job. They'll see you. Roberta, go, Roberta, you introduce yourself. I'm an executive. You're like, oh, you're an executive. Can I send you my resume? I need a job.
I haven't earned the right to ask you for it. So one of the things that I teach in my program is how to network correctly. Number one, brand yourself. My favorite color is purple. My business card is purple. If I go to a networking event, I'm wearing something purple, like a purple tie or purple shirt, or this right?
I have like my favorite watch, which is a very unusual watch, things of that so that when I send you a follow-up email, my email says, Hey Roberta, I'm the guy with the purple shirt. So you might not remember my name because you had so many
[00:38:00] conversations in the networking event, but you'll remember my purple shirt.
So from Guy, and a lot of us have there at remembering names, right? I'm one of those sometimes. So for guys, The color of your suit, especially if it's not the blue or the black that everyone is wearing, or the gray a tie, a broach or pin, kind of more creative style in your shoes there. For women, there's a lot more choice cuz you're, the way you do your hair, the makeup, earrings, pin or broach a scarf.
Particular shoes. But it's an association. Now the biggest mistake that most people do is they rush to me, me, me, me, me, me, me. If I'm trying to get a job, I need to make it all about you. You, you, Roberta. So if I were to meet you and we did the Pleasanter, hi, I'm Roberta and I say, hi, I'm Joseph, and you tell me that you have a leadership role.
I want to have a conversation with you that goes, Roberta, you're a leader. What would you say made you so successful? Putting people first, but here's the thing, the higher up you go.
[00:39:00] Unless you're interviewing for a job yourself other than your partner, the less opportunities you get to brag about how great you are.
And every human being loves to brag about how great they are. So if I say, what made you successful? Again, whatever you say, I'll just acknowledge it. Then I follow up with you and say, Roberta, if you look back at your career, what would you say are your three biggest achievements? Now let me ask you a question.
If someone comes and goes, hi, I'm Sam. Can I get your business card? Are you paying attention to that conversation? It's not gonna stay. Oh, Roberta, how about the sweater? Even if they give you a compliment about your outfit or something, if there's no continuation to the conversation, it kind of passes by.
But I'm asking you about your successes. I'm asking you about your achievements. That would be much

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
more memorable, even if I forget your name. But if that's the conversation we had, I will remember

Josef Stetter:
you. Right. So now if
[00:40:00] you asked about the success and you asked about the achievements, there's a way to transition to say, you know what, Roberta, I'm new to the industry.
Would you mind critiquing my resume and gimme feedback? Notice I didn't ask for the job. Yeah, that's better. Why? Because I'm now boosting your ego even more by acknowledging that you're an expert. Now if you critique my resume and gimme feedback, On how to change it. You just wrote the resume of the person you want to hire,

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
and that means even if it's not you, anybody in that position, if they see my resume, they will hire me.

Josef Stetter: Or if I've asked about your successes and achievements kind of thing. And then I ask you to critique my resume. If I come back to you and say, listen, I so appreciate the feedback. You sound like a phenomenal leader. I would love to be part of your team to help you look good. What are my chances? You kept

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
boosting my ego.
[00:41:00]

Josef Stetter:
Correct. But here's the thing exactly. I've had a conversation about your success. I've had a conversation about your achievements I've asked you to critique as an expert for me. Mm-hmm. So now you wrote the resume and says, these are the results I need. Because I'm gonna change your resume exactly what you told me.
Of course. Yeah. So now you don't really have an objection to say to me. And even if you do have an objection, this is where sales kind of like the 80 20 rule go. I'm certain you have people on your team, Robert, that aren't producing at the level that you want them to be. Give me a chance to produce even better than them.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Everything about this conversation. You have made it about me even though it's

Josef Stetter: about you. Correct? Does that make sense? It's perfect. And again, these are the things that I teach in my program. Land your dream job now that people simply need to understand. It's a lot easier than you think if you
[00:42:00] understand the rules of the game.
If you don't come and say, I'm hard working and dedicated, can I get a job right? All 10

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
million of you. We talked about strengths earlier. That weakness question. A lot of people struggle and they say, oh, I'm a perfectionist. Yes. What is your best advice? Cause a lot of people, okay, if I don't say I'm a perfectionist man, what's my weakness?
What should I say, Roberta?

Josef Stetter:
What should they say? There's two ways I teach to answer the weakness question. Understand the design, and the quick weakness question is not to see that you're perfect. The psychology behind the weakness question is to make sure that if. The company needs to give you feedback or constructive criticism.
You're not gonna go postal and kill everybody. Now, the way that I teach this, and comedians do this a lot, the first technique is to kind of make fun of yourself. So to say, you know what? My husband, my mother, my father, pick a person, doesn't really matter, right? Tells me that I'm perfect. But if I had to think of something, I would say my assertiveness,
[00:43:00] for example, whatever weakness you want, it doesn't really matter, right?
But when you say, my husband or my mother thinks I'm perfect, if you've done a good job building rapport, the interviewer will kind of smile and chuck a little bit that. So if you look at comedians like Russell Peters, when they tell a very racist joke, they always have a character, oh, my father was one of the most racist persons you've ever met.
So now when he says the joke, you're laughing at the joke, but subconsciously you're angry at the father, not him. Yeah. Right. So whoever you pick doesn't really matter. Person says, I'm perfect, but if I had to think of something, you could pick any weakness. The other way, which is probably more powerful, is what I call the past, present, future rule.
Lemme give you an example rather than explain to you. In the past, we used to have a problem with time management. Then I got hired by company A, B, C, to do a project that involved 10 people. If
[00:44:00] my work didn't get done, none of their work could get done. And if it didn't communicate, because the nature of the project requires to constantly reprioritize what work is being done first.
Mm-hmm. Then we would be stuck. Not only did we finish the project ahead of schedule, And $30,000 under budget. But we also got recognized as one of the best teams in the organization with an award. Because of this experience at a, B, C, time management is no longer a problem, and I would do whatever it takes to make your great company more money, way better

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
past, present, and future.

Josef Stetter:
I like that. So in the past, this was a situation, this is what you did. To overcome it, and now if this company hires you, mm-hmm. You can only do better because you've already learned what needs to happen.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
For me, also, that weakness question would sound much better if phrased that way, that I have this weakness, I've
[00:45:00] learned from it, I've put in the work, and now this is how

Josef Stetter:
I've improved.
Again, I don't want you to sound like me, so when I coach people on this, I teach them the formula. I give them the bones and I'll let you put on the meat and the spices any anyway that you want. Right? Because the way that I teach, it doesn't matter if you say it front to back, back to front, middle, front back.
It will always work cuz your personality will shine. There's certain things that, again, being a woman, you might be able to say because as a woman, if you call sweetie, it's adorable. If I say sweetie, the listening can be very different because it might be derogatory, it might be sexual, it might be Mm. So there are things that I don't want you to copy me.
I want you to understand why the system works. You know, in the art of conversation, in the art of interviewing, most people are struggling to find a job
[00:46:00] because they go, I have experience. I know how to do this. I've done this. And again, this is their body language. Yep. Uhhuh, I can, right? When you start quantifying results, your physiology will change.
You will sit up more, you will smile. Your chest will be out, or your shoulder blades will be back. You'll be speaking from your diaphragm. Why? Because if I, because it's a fact. So a little trick that I teach people. Is when you go home and speak to your family, your partner, about your job. Yes. There are some days that you were like, Ugh, I did my job today.
I'm glad the day's done. Yeah. But there's moments where you say, you know what? I had this huge problem today at work, and it took me four hours and I was looking at it and I found a way to solve it, and now I'm gonna save the company a hundred thousand dollars. And I'm so excited that I came up with a solution.
That is what you need to not
[00:47:00] only in the interview but also on your resume. Mm-hmm. Because that is the diamonds, the gold that employers don't have time to figure out that you can produce

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
words of wisdom. Joseph Starter, thank you so much. You know what, if I could, I could give you all day, cuz you have so many nuggets to grow for us.
Please come back to the show next time and we can continue this conversation.

Josef Stetter: I would love to and thank you again for opportunity to share some of this ideas. Cause I genuinely want people to succeed. They don't need to do my program, but stop being the same. Mm. I'm happily married. I can tell you my wife married me because I was not the same as.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
That's the formula. Be unique, be different, be you. Mm-hmm.

Josef Stetter:
Right. At the end of the day, you might have 10 20 rejections because they might not be ready for
[00:48:00] your genius, but the 21st will in sales, they teach you, you need seven to 12 nos to count as a no, because the first three or four, they're not listening to a word you're saying.
Like if I were to say, Roberta, you want a million dollars, you're probably gonna know it's a scam. No. I'm like, no, I'm serious. I wanna give you a million dollars. No, if you haven't hung up on me, or even there, as I say, listen, I've been very successful in my life and I want to give back. Right? Look my name up.
Look at who I am. You'll see that I am very wealthy. For example, now you're kind going, okay, so why are you doing this? But like, there's still that hesitation. The next two or three are I want to gather some information to make sure I'm not being scammed. Mm. And then after that, if you've processed the information, I've said, you can make a decision.
You know, if you're looking for a great job, you need one company to say
[00:49:00] yes to you. You don't need a hundred to say yes to you. Yes, it's nice when you have three of them that want love you and offer you, and you can kind of leverage that to get an even better offer. But, but you still need one.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Yeah.

Josef Stetter:
You need one, right?
Mm-hmm. If you do the same thing you've been doing, expecting different results, as we know, that is the definition of insanity, right? And so if your resume is black and white cookie cutter and no one is responding to your resume, change it. Add some results, add some color, change the font, change the bullets something.
Do all of them do one thing, doesn't matter as long as it's different. If majority of job posting say, don't call us. Call them, maybe 1% will tear up your resume because you called. That's not the company you wanna work for. If you want a $5,000 raise and a company is hemming and highing about the raise, don't walk away from that company run
[00:50:00] cuz they'll nickel and dime you on everything in the job.
And I have stories about that, about candidates that would not get a raise for five years until I interviewed them and send them to one of my clients. And. All of a sudden the company had all this money that they didn't have for five years. So I interviewed a guy that was a financial controller for a company that makes blank CDs and DVDs.
He was making about $65,000 a year with a possible $20,000 bonus for five years. The company told him that they cannot give him a raise cuz the company's not making money or enough money. I interviewed him, loved him, sent him to one of my clients who does custom surround sounds for houses that are 2 million and above in Canada kind of thing.
Okay. Like, you know, no wires, everything tablet, right type of thing. My client loved the candidate, asked me how much he's making. I said, he's making 65,000 with a bonus of 20. He goes, fine. I'll give him an offer of $85,000 and $25,000 bonus to come work for me. The candidate quit his
[00:51:00] job half hour after he quit.
His boss came into the office like, you're not allowed to quit. You're the only person that kind of understands the numbers here. What'd they offer you? So he told them 85, 25, they came back and said, okay, we'll give you $120,000 base, 30,000 bonus to stay put. So you had the money. Five years. They didn't give him a raise.
Candidate called me. He's like, listen, I know this company. I know everybody here. What should I do? Called the client. Told 'em what happened to my client's. Like, there's something really special about this guy. What'd they offer him? I told him. He was like, okay, I'll offer him $160,000, $40,000 bonus to come work for me.
Called the candidate again, told him the news candidate quit again. The entire leadership team of the company came into his office, was like, you're not allowed to quit. What'd they offer you? He told them, they deliberated, came back about 40 minutes later, said, we'll give you a base of $200,000, 2% ownership in the company you'll make
[00:52:00] about two 50 a year. Called my client.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Where was all this money in five years? You see, this is why I had wrote this story,

Josef Stetter:
right? I called my client. I'm like, okay, this is what happened. My clients were like, okay, listen, there's something about this guy. Here's what I'm gonna do, and if he doesn't take this offer, he's an idiot.
This is my final offer to him. And then he said, I'll give him a base of $265,000 and 9% ownership in my company. In his worst year, he'll make a half a million dollars. He went, and when I called him and I said, listen, five years, they didn't give you a raise. All of a sudden now they have all this money.
Think about how bad they're gonna treat you because now they have to pay you all this extra money. Right? In basically four and a half hours, he went from making, let's say 85,000. 85, the bonus making a half a million dollars. Wow. Right. And it was all because he presented results. He was himself, he was not in the little box of this is what a
[00:53:00] typical accountant is.
There is always room for negotiation unless they have offered you the highest possible salary in their kind of range that they offer people. But there's things like signing bonus. There's things like gym membership or fitness. Yeah. Yes. That can add up that they might not be in salary, but they save you money.
As part of the equation. Mm-hmm. So there's always opportunities to negotiate, but if you don't have confidence and you haven't presented the results that you can produce, you know, because that's what

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
they both were chasing after Josef, if anybody wants your kind of help, especially in this job market, where can they find your online or on the socials?

Josef Stetter:
So my name as it appears on. The camera, Joseph Stetter is on all social media. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, you can find me for all of
[00:54:00] them, can kind of direct them to, you know, whether they want to work with me or my online course where they can save some money. But they get my 25,000 hours of Mastering Wisdom into an eight module course.
Mm.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
So Josef, s t e. T e r and Joseph is spelled as J O s

Josef Stetter:
E F. Correct. But on all social media platform. I'm easily found.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Thank you so much for being on the show, and like I said, there's so much to unpack and next episode, we would like for you to continue from where we left off.

Josef Stetter:
I would love to be back.
Let me know when you want me and I will be.

Roberta Ndlela (Host):
Excellent. Thank you so much. That was Joseph Stetter the resume whisperer, who will turn your life around, help you to quantify your capabilities and skills. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a rating and the review on iTunes and Spotify, and stay tuned for more
[00:55:00] episodes to come.