Speaking and Communicating Podcast

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Sometimes people had a tendency to say, I, I did this, I did that, I did that thinking that that was what someone wanted to hear. And at that level, you want to talk about how you led teams, how you influenced, how you problem solved and brought people together. Teach yourself. Your career is constantly and should be under construction all the time. Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I'm your host Roberta Ndlela.

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If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review. Now let's get communicating with our guest today. Joining us from New York, Julie Gartell is the founder of Career Prop Solutions.

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She has spent over two decades leading talent acquisition in very big brands that you're familiar with. And she's here to help career professionals on obviously all of us, how to negotiate on how to navigate our careers. And most importantly, what we always ask, why is it that the most qualified doesn't always get hired? And before I go any further, please welcome her to the show. Hi, Julie.

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Hi Roberta, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm really excited that you're here as well. You are such a great fit for this show because we always ask these questions and there've been so many guests with different perspectives and I found that based on your career trajectory, you've been on both sides of the equation. That is true. That is true. Yes. I did see very often leading talent acquisition and interviewing a lot of people.

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Sometimes that would happen in interviewing people. Sometimes I would interview people and they couldn't always clearly communicate their value. As someone who would interview people, if you can't see their value, that's a miss, right? That's what they're there to do. They want to get hired and in order to do that, they have to be able to do it and do it quickly and do it easily for the interviewer.

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When you say that they're not able to communicate, is it nerves? They don't know because they're just nervous that it's an interview and you got Julie. But you know what I mean? Usually an interview panel is about four or five different people from the organization. I think that you're right about that. This sort of even predates a Zoom interview because now, of course, a lot of first interviews are now over a Zoom or a virtual.

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So maybe that sort of quells some nerves. I think it can still be nerve wracking to do a video interview. I think that a lot of people, it can be very nerve wracking. You want the job. I mean, that's usually why you're interviewing, right? You've always historically, and in an interview, you're all dressed up, you're shaking a hand, your palm is sweaty, and they're leading you into a room, and it's one-on-one.

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I mean, for the most part, if you are in talent acquisition, you are the recruiter or in HR, that's usually the first pass. So you haven't had a lot of interviews yet. So you know, as a candidate, that if you don't pass this, you're probably not going to advance. So yes, I do think that there's a fair amount of nerves. I also think that maybe you don't always know how to prepare.

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I think that preparation fuels confidence. What I teach and I didn't realize that it became a pillar of my business is competence. What I'm learning is that people don't always have a lot of confidence. It's not easy to teach. It's not easy to teach and it's not like, you either have confidence or you don't. You can teach it, but it's about preparation. And I don't know if everyone knows how

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to prepare for an interview. And do you find that depending on not just preparation, but because you've worked with the wide spectrum from interns to CEO, if a candidate has done a few interviews before, so they are at some level of the corporate ladder, not just at the beginning, do you find that maybe they are a little more

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prepared or confident or they need less help from you compared to someone who's just starting off because they have no idea what to expect. There is some truth to that. That certainly the more junior folk, they haven't had a lot of experience talking about themselves. But sometimes I would find that even more senior people, they didn't always know how to connect the dots and tell memorable and impactful stories because even at the very high level, you couldn't talk

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only about yourself. was much more about, sometimes people had a tendency to say, I, I did this, I did that, I did that thinking that that was what someone wanted to hear. And at that level, you want to talk about how you led teams, how you influenced, how you, you know, problem solved and brought people together. It was much more about almost the we, but you know,

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higher up people and more senior people thought that it was much more about, well, that that was a sign of almost weakness by saying, like, if I say we, or if I don't say that I did this and I did this, it almost diminished their leadership by saying I. It made them sound that they were the only ones, but they're not. At that high level, it's all about how you might have a vision, but how your

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leading and bringing that vision to life through others around you and how you handpicked your team and how you built a team through talent and how you hired people and that's what it is at the high level. Sometimes they didn't always have their stories together. We were just talking about storytelling and you don't need to have 10 stories. You need to have a couple of stories that articulate your results.

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and your impact that you have made on an organization that I guess show results and that show how you have been successful, but it can't just be about you. It has to be about, you know, the numbers and the metrics and the ROI and your team and who have you promoted. And we're talking about the senior level almost becomes less about you and more about what have you done for the business, for the team, for the department.

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Yes, it's funny you say that because when we talk about the communication and soft skills, we say, okay, when you're a wizard and you just work alone, that technical skill, you being that good makes you then get promoted. But then when you lead a team, you do less of that and more of the now the people skills kick in. So I think that

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based on the candidates who come to you, based on their level, they don't realize the senior ones, like you said, they talk about I, I, know, cause we do the same thing with our LinkedIn profiles. You want to just show that I've done this when I work for this company. So they know, you know, what I'm capable of, what skills I've acquired. But like you said, as someone in leadership, you want to show that I know how to lead a team. know how to influence people towards a vision, as you mentioned earlier.

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And that's important too. mean, listen, you you, you know, you want to try and get that in because maybe that's important to the job, right? You know, you always have to think about what are you interviewing for? What did the job spec say? You know, what's important to this person, um, that you're interviewing with, right? I mean, maybe that's a really important aspect of the position. So if scaling a business to $400 million, you want to be able to get that in, but then you have to be able to say, how did you do it?

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Well, I had to put a team in place. You can't do that on your own. Well, I did it. I did it. I did it. You you have to say, well, I hired five really important people. I pulled in a finance person, an ops person, a product person, and I built this team. However it is that you do that, that's what you want to communicate. You want to tell a story of how you did it, why it mattered, what was the impact and what was the outcome. So that's the story.

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That's the line. You don't want to ramble. You want to be able to take someone through it in a really tight, focused and succinct way. And you want to be able to do it, you know, fairly quickly, like I said, quickly, succinctly in a really impactful way, because that's your job in an interview for them to follow you and to be memorable. Please do those steps again for us. So you want to tell them how you did it?

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Um, how you did it and what was impactful and what was the Right. It's like the star method. It's like the situation, the task, the action, and then the results. I do like, you know, this is the career prep solutions way. I had a T it's called start. The T is to tie it back to the position, whatever you're interviewing for. You want to be able to sum it up and say, and that's.

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what makes it relevant to why I'm sitting here for this interview that we're interviewing for. Because that's how they will see you as an asset as well. When you tie it back to the position. The whole idea of your podcast of communicating is that to take someone through that in a really tight, focused and succinct way is really important. There's no rambling. You just want to be able to make it very easy for the interviewer.

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and you want to be able to pause and have them ask any probing or clarifying questions. And you want to do it in a very storytelling way so that you're inviting and eliciting conversation. It makes you more memorable. So then they can see you in their organization. They can see you running a meeting. They can see you with other stakeholders.

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Maybe they can see you. I can see them with the team, you know, that, that they have, like they can see you. start dreaming the dream. As my mentor used to say, they start thinking of you with the team and in this position that they have in this opening. That start method. If I want to create a very effective LinkedIn profile, should I.

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I that in the way that I write my LinkedIn profile, because I think a lot of us do struggle with our LinkedIn profiles. Interesting. So start is more what I teach for interviewing. That's more for answering questions. How I would say and advise how to structure your storytelling for answering interview questions. That's more of like behavioral interview questions.

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So one of the things that I do for career prep solutions, I do interview prep. That's how I would advise. And we would do mock interviews. And we would talk about, are we going to get a couple of stories in sort of your arsenal as to some of the key questions that people ask? And then we would use like the start method. I also do resume, but then you're asking about LinkedIn. People have sort of this sort of love hate with LinkedIn.

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Regardless of your feelings about LinkedIn, people are still using LinkedIn. Recruiters, HR execs, people in business, from anyone who is inside of a business to those who are looking for a job. People are still going to LinkedIn and looking people up. So you can love it, you can hate it, you can think it's become Facebook for professionals, whatever your view is.

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I don't feel like it's going anywhere. So it is best to have a profile and no one is paying me to say that. In terms of how you should set up your profile, LinkedIn is not your resume. LinkedIn is a social platform, but it has a lot more space than your resume. It is a place to tell your story. It shouldn't be a regurgitation of your resume. It shouldn't be a copy and paste of your resume.

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So where the experience section is, it shouldn't be a copy and paste of, you your bullets from your resume shouldn't go into the experience section. This is a place to show the impact, the value. Your about section should be like your story. Why do you do what you do? That's not on your resume. This is like where your personality should come into play. It's still professional. It's still professional.

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But it sort of gives someone a window into a little bit more of your personality. And why do I say that? Because nine times out of 10, somebody already has your resume. They don't want to go there and see duplicative resume. You should still have a professional picture. Great to have a banner that represents, you know, something from like the workplace.

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and your headline is searchable. So that should be something either that you do or if you're looking for a job, then it should be something that you want to do. But you're about section. It could be, you know, I'm a career prep advisor. This is what career prep solutions is all about. But I'm also saying I'm a marketer. used to work for, you know, that taught me storytelling. It's Chanel and Ralph Lauren, all the brands that I used to so that it gives a window into that that taught me storytelling.

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That's not on my resume. From what we hear, especially now, you know how there is an ad for a potential position and then 10,000 people apply for the job. And what we hear is one, you have AI now, so they will have a sifting process where 9,500 candidates resume as a not even looked at. And then the remaining 500, they either going to look at LinkedIn or

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Just looking at those resume, one, they say make it as short as possible. And secondly, if they do go to your LinkedIn, you also want to impress them enough so that you do get to the next stage. How should your LinkedIn profile stand out? Because you talk about you also help your candidates with branding themselves. The branding happening on LinkedIn. Yeah.

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I mean, sure. You try and brand your profile. I mean, there's a lot of ways to brand your profile. First of all, LinkedIn rewards completeness. It rewards the algorithm. I mean, it's a social media platform just like any other. So it rewards completeness. It rewards engagement. It rewards, you know, your interaction with it. So it's not a set it and forget it kind of thing. You have to engage with it. It has to be current. You have to be on it.

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It's very similar to the other types of platforms. There's a lot of things in it that you can be doing. mean, there are people that don't have a banner, that don't have a current photo, that don't have recommendations, that don't go on it and like other, other things. mean, if you like people's posts, it will start bringing you to the, like, if you're looking for a job, you should be engaging with other people's posts. should be researching companies. You should be.

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looking at leaders of companies that you want to be working for, comment on their posts, reach out to them. It rewards engagement. It rewards research. It rewards you posting. Branding isn't only you putting up, like having a nice profile. It rewards engagement. It rewards completeness, engagement, and you interacting with it.

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Now let's talk about salary negotiations. Back to the interview. You know how when they say, Julie, do you have any questions for us? And you go, how much does a job pay? Yeah. Do you find that a lot of people do that? In New York, years ago, they passed a law that said that we had to put the salary range on the job spec. Oh, okay. And then it rolled out to many other states.

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Compensation Act. so I mean, there was a lot of things that made it so that people didn't do that. But I kind of erred against doing that anyway in an interview asking what it paid. Because the person who says that you're kind of pricing yourself out when you ask, what's it paying? Then they can say back to you, well, what are you looking for?

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Because even though I'm a talent acquisition person, I know exactly what it's paying. I know what it's paying. But see, here's the thing. You want the most as the candidate, and I want to pay you the least. And there's a range. And you want the top of the range, and I want to pay you the bottom of the range. So the thing to ask is to say, so what is the range for this position?

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Because then it kind of opens up the conversation, because then you know that there's a range. And then we can say, you know, yes, there is a range for this position. Nobody really wants to say what it is. Right? You do this dance. You do this dance. But sadly, the person who, you know, usually talks first about it, usually ends up saying what they want. So that's why it's best.

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to usually not say anything right away. Now as a talent acquisition person, someone is going, well, what are you looking for? Well, I'm looking for $100,000. Well, this position is only paying 80. Oh, well, I didn't know that. So then you get into a bit of a wrangle, but you hope that you bridge the gap here and you hope that you're not that far apart, but you hope that you're close enough together. anyway, so let's say that it's a little closer. Well, I'm looking for 100. Well, this position is

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paying 95. Well, okay, well, what you hope as a candidate is that you can say, well, I'm interested in the whole package. Okay. Because now that you've set a number, now I know what you're looking for. So now you have to say, well, okay, well, I'm interested in the whole package. That's your play. Because there's a lot of different ways to get to compensation, right? There's base, there's bonus.

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There's equity, there's a sign on, there's, you know, benefits, maybe you have a family. So, you know, there's not just single benefits. Now you're interested in the whole package. Well, yes, maybe we can get to a hundred, you know, the base is paying, you know, 95, but we do offer bonus for everybody. So, you know, now we're getting a little bit closer. So your play as a candidate is to say, I'm interested in the whole package. The whole package.

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And always negotiate everything all at once. If you want vacation, you ask about the vacation and ask about the bonus and ask about the equity and don't ask, this is assuming you're not in the interview and asking what it pays. This is now you're in the final stages. You've been pulled that you are the candidate of choice and now you're in the negotiation stage. Negotiate all your asks at once. That's very important.

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Don't say, I'm looking for that extra 5K. You know, I got to get to a hundred. That's really important to me because then if they go to bat for you for that extra 5K, maybe they will get to a hundred in the base compensation. But then you come back and you say, well, what about the bonus? I need, you know, an extra 5 % in the bonus. They're going to start to get fatigued by going back. They keep going back every time.

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Asking and asking and asking and maybe they wouldn't have done the extra 5k In the base compensation, maybe they just would have given you a bigger bonus Maybe they would have done a sign-on. you see what I'm saying? They want to look at the whole package and they want to go who and I say they whoever you're Negotiating with is usually not the decision-maker right? They're going back. They're going to someone maybe they're going to the hiring manager Maybe they're going to someone in HR. Maybe they're going to finance whoever it is

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Usually whoever you are talking to, maybe it's your recruiter, your HR person, they're going back to somebody. They want to go in one fell swoop, look at the whole package. What's really important to this person? Let me, and then you rank your asks. It's really important that they get to a hundred K on the base. It's really important that, you know, instead of a 15 % bonus, they get a 20 % bonus. Vacation's really important to them. Instead of 15 days, 20 days, instead of, you know, all your asks and what's the most important ask.

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So you prioritize your asks, you do it all in one fell swoop, and then you say, this is what's really important to me. And if I get all, and listen, you can't be greedy. You know, you have to say, listen, I'm really, you you temper it with very gracious. I'm really excited about this. I'm really excited about this opportunity. You have my yes, are some of these things negotiable. I can live with this and this, but if we can get to these top three things, can live with number four and five, if I get, you know, one, two and three.

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Right. Like I said, you don't want to make them fatigued, especially because you're not in the door yet. Now let's talk about you helping levels even up to CEO, helping them stay employable. If I'm in a leadership position, I'm VP and I keep going up the ladder, what keeps me employable? What keeps organizations thinking she is such an asset to our organization? Are there any more skills that you are

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to stay employable, to stay an asset to an organization the higher up you go. Yeah, I mean, that's something that I've been thinking a lot about and that I talk to clients about. Making sure that you advocate for yourself inside of an organization is really important. So there's a couple things that I mean by that. So one, advocating for yourself, making sure that your boss knows

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what it is that you want to do next. Whether it's in your performance review, don't wait for a performance review. Some companies have them only annually. That's way too long. Don't wait for that. My company actually moved to have them quarterly and that was great. But make sure that your boss knows the impact that you

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are having on the job that you do, on the department that you are part of, on the company at large. mean, maybe your role is maybe a bit junior for that, but the higher up you go in the organization, you're making an impact somewhere, right? That's why you have the job. So whether it's on people around you, on your department, maybe you're managing people, maybe you're managing a department, maybe you're part of something bigger, maybe it's, you you were

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put on a task force and so you're on a project, you are making an impact somewhere. So make sure that your boss, one, knows the impact that you have on whatever it is that you're doing, on your job, on your project, on your department, on the company, and make sure that they know what it is that you want to do next. In the organization, that's how you stay relevant, that's how you stay important.

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Employed if you want to stay at the company, maybe you don't you know, like I said you and I were talking about it Maybe you're disenchanted at your job. Maybe you want to leave that's a separate issue But if you want to stay and you love the company and love the people and love your boss And maybe you want to stay in your department. Maybe you see opportunity somewhere else in another department Raise your hand But no one will know this unless you say something

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One of the things that I actually started doing with my boss, my boss was in charge of two areas, talent acquisition and talent management. Because they were so busy with talent management, I was running talent acquisition and I wanted them to know everything that I was doing. And I was running a huge team and a huge business and it was North America for talent acquisition. So I started an email.

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every week of wins, successes, challenges, and where I needed their help. It was just quick hits, a couple of bullets under each header. And it was really helpful for me so that by the time I got to the end of for a performance review, I knew what I was doing. But it was also helpful every week because it gave us an agenda for our one-on-one. And it helped me at the end of a couple of months.

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It was very helpful because performance reviews were after a year. I mean, you would forget what you did. So it acted as a wonderful thing. I could look back on all of these emails every, and I would build on it every week. It was a great reminder of what I had been doing for the last week, for the last month, for the last quarter. And then I could really use them also for my team meetings, for my other meetings with each of my direct reports.

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It was a great way for me to really remember all the impact and all the things that I was doing. You ask the question that way of what can people be doing, but also in a way of like skills. I also think that it can act as a reminder of if you want to be doing something else, then teach yourself. Your career is constantly and should be under construction all the time.

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It kind of goes part and parcel of letting your boss know what you want to do. But if there's something that you want to be doing and that you feel deficient in raising your hand to say, you know what, can I go to that seminar? Can I do that? I mean, you can be doing webinars and things, you know, hopefully on your own, if it's a free resource, if not ask your company to maybe they'll pay for it. Or you do it to upskill yourself. If there's something that you want to learn and challenge yourself in doing.

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But hopefully you can ask the company to pay for it if it's within keeping of your job. If it helps you do your job better, more efficiently, then by all means, if it helps you learn something and add to your toolbox, then ask your boss about it. And it will show them that you are curious, that you want to stay there. Because have you noticed how also we

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You know, during the interview when they ask what's your five year plan, sometimes are they trying to find out how the trajectory of what you hope to achieve in your career, is it going to fit into this organization? Or are they just generally asking so that they say, okay, if we hire her, this is how we can help her reach those goals. Yeah.

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You'd like to think that that question is not a trick question, right? You know, that it's not to say that, you know, well, I'm going to be out of here, you know, I'm going to be at school or, you know, I mean, you'd like to think that it's not a trick question. Listen, the way that people answer that is I'd like to be here at this organization. Is there a right or wrong way to answer that? It's to say that I'm here at this company, hopefully not in this job. I hope that I've learned some new skills.

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that I'm in a job where I've had, you know, learned something new and had upward mobility and upward trajectory. And gosh, you would hope that in five years that I'm in a different job with some upskilling. Yes. So you hope that that's not a trick question. I would hope so. Any last words of wisdom, Julie? Anything that you think a lot of career professionals are not aware of or are not prepared in, like you said, preparation builds confidence.

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that we haven't mentioned today during this conversation? I think that everyone has a career story and that you should make it easy for someone to understand it. Whether you're looking for a job or whether you have a job, it doesn't matter if you're in or out of a job, that making sure that you understand your value and how to communicate it is a really important thing.

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Exactly. Know your value, know how to communicate it. Words of wisdom from Julie Gartell, the founder of Career Prop Solutions, who's been helping us with building confidence for interviews and staying employable. Thank you so much. This is very important for so many of us. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Roberta.

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My pleasure. Before you go, Julie, would you like our listeners and viewers to reach you? Where can they find you online? They can find me at careerprepsolutions.com, both Instagram and on TikTok at careerprepsolutions. careerprepsolutions.com. Thank you so much, Julie. Don't forget to subscribe, liberating and a review on Apple and Spotify. Stay tuned for more episodes to come.