Digital communication has been at the forefront of our lives since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic when employees were sent home and meetings needed to be conducted through a video platform.  Consequently, many other meetings started to happen in the same way since it never required two people to be in the same geographical location.  But all of that ushered in a new style of communication – it’s no longer making eye contact with everyone in the room, it’s talking to a camera – and that’s one change of many.  Brenden Kumarasamy is a master speaker and trains speakers at all levels – even very young speakers.  He’s held positions at Price Waterhouse Coopers and IBM and now trains high-level executives in making top-notch presentations – both in-person and online.  And today, you’re going to get a masterclass in preparing for and delivering presentations – whether it’s a job interview, an informational interview, a podcast, or making that quarterly progress report entertaining and informative.

GUEST INTRODUCTION

Brenden is the founder of MasterTalk, he coaches ambitious executives & entrepreneurs to become top 1% communicators in their industry. He also has a popular YouTube channel called MasterTalk, with the goal of providing free access to communication tools for everyone in the world.

It’s often been said that when a person looks back over the course of a long life, the regrets they feel are not from things that they have done, but things they didn’t do.  Oftentimes, that comes from not taking a chance early in life and doing something well off of the norm of the traditional career path.  One school that allows individuals to take the risk of flight is Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – originally an aviation school that trained pilots, the school now holds programs in engineering, space, security and intelligence as well as technology, business, and applied science.  In total, seven current or former astronauts have graduated from Embry Riddle and the school boasts an alumni network of over 130,000 along with a faculty that has extensive industry experience.  So how do you figure out what you want to do when the sky is quite literally the limit?  We ask that question with Ryan Mazon as he helps students find their way to their desired star.

GUEST INTRODUCTION

Ryan Mazon is an alum of Florida State University where he completed his Master’s/Specialist’s degree in Career Counseling. He is the program manager for many majors including Maintenance and Homeland Security in the ERAU Daytona Beach, FL Career Services Office. Ryan has a background working with many different offices at Florida State before working for career services, including campus recreation, new student and family programs, and student disability services. He has a passion for serving students by meeting them where they are at and connecting them to the resources they need. In his free time, Ryan enjoys the beach, playing different instruments, and staying active outdoors.

There’s the old adage, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.  Many times, that phrase has been uttered by those that have attained positions, wealth or fame through a relationship – and simultaneously grumbled by those that did not.  Yes, sometimes it takes a helping hand to get where you are going and that makes networking so important – especially in jobs and industries that are incredibly competitive.  This means learning to network well is a skill young people need to learn quickly – and today we’ll give them a crash course – Denise Praul, Networking Expert and Founder of WhiteBoard Learning is our guest on Pathfinders.

GUEST INTRODUCTION

Denise Praul is a Referral Marketing Strategist and the founder of Whiteboard Learning. She is committed to sharing practical real-world information to help business professionals create referral marketing strategies to help business owners stop wondering and worrying about where their next referral is coming from.  She put her referral knowledge to the test in her own property tax consulting business and grew it to a multiple 6 figure business with no additional investment of money or time. Using that experience and knowledge she developed a duplicatable system to help other businesses have the same success.Denise has created a system called Roadmap to Unlimited Referrals that she now trains and shares with other business people to help them significantly grow and scale their own businesses.

So you’re looking for a job – well have I got a great piece of advice for you.  There are people out there that are actively looking for people like you to fill jobs at their company or at a host of companies.  And it doesn’t matter if you want to go into technology, infrastructure or financial services.  They are called corporate recruiters and they can be the catalyst from wallowing in unemployment to reaching for a dream job – and every point in between.  So how do you get in touch with these people?  What do they do?  How can they work for you? 

Adrian Chapman started Cover 3 Consulting out of a career of helping athletes be recruited by big companies after sports were over.  He realized he could impact a lot more people by opening up his services and now serves the transportation and logistics space in building championship teams at the corporate level.

GUEST INTRODUCTION

Adrian is the founder and CEO of Cover 3 Consulting, a recruiting firm that focuses on the transportation and logistics industry since 2019. He also is the founder and host of the “Recruiting Stories” podcast which has interviewed leaders around the country about how recruiting has impacted their journey.

An athlete his whole life, Adrian Chapman learned the value of recruiting early. Adrian was a college football and track athlete graduating from Minnesota State University and had a chance to compete with the United States Bobsled team’s developmental squad for a year. Competing with world-class athletes taught him that it takes not just passion to win at a high level, but unparalleled talent.

With 10 years of experience recruiting and a lifetime of competing, Adrian’s goal is to help transportation organizations build championship teams for a higher purpose. 

There is no greater institutionalized tool an undergraduate student can use on a college campus in trying to figure out life after school than the Career Services office.  It’s there that students get help on figuring out an initial life path to forming a resume and setting up internships and networking opportunities that will give them the best chance to do what they want to do after graduation.  There is no greater institutionalized tool an undergraduate student can use on a college campus in trying to figure out life after school than the Career Services office.  It’s there that students get help on figuring out an initial life path to forming a resume and setting up internships and networking opportunities that will give them the best chance to do what they want to do after graduation. 

This episode of Pathfinders kicks off a series of interviews with the people most involved with undergraduate students in helping them figure out what they want to do.  And today, we start in the state of Tennessee at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Dr. Rob Liddell, Director of Career services at UTC. Part of the University of Tennessee system, UT-Chattanooga offers educational paths in several diverse areas in their colleges of arts and sciences, engineering and computer science, health, education, and professional studies as well as a college of business.  In all, the school offers 39 graduate degrees including four doctoral programs.  The school itself is also located in a city which is exploding geographically and economically and boasts itself as GIG City, for having the fastest internet in the world.  It’s in this environment that Dr. Rob Liddell and his staff attempt to help students find their paths in life and it’s also where we begin our collegiate connection and learn how these offices help their students.

GUEST BIOGRAPHY

Rob Liddell serves the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as the Director of University Career Services. He has worked in higher education for more than a decade in diverse roles ranging from an Employee Relations consultant to service as an average Statistician within a large Student Affairs Division. Rob holds a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Florida State University and a Master’s of Science in Management with an emphasis in Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness from the University of South Florida-Tampa. He has earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction with an emphasis in Higher Education Administration, also from USF, where his dissertation research was focused on college student persistence. Rob serves the Tennessee Association of Colleges and Employers (TACE) and the Southern Association of Colleges and Employers (SoACE) through leadership roles while maintaining active membership in the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). He is a graduate of Leadership Tampa and NACE’s Management Leadership Institute.

SHOW NOTES

0:00 – Intro

2:00 – Dr. Rob Liddell

2:18 – Description of the UTC student body

3:47 – How would you ideally like to work with the UTC student freshman to senior year?

7:29 – Why students need to be thinking about a resume when they start college and not only as they finish it.

9:30 – How many students that come into career services don’t have a clue about life after college versus those that know exactly what they want to do?

11:58 – How do you work with students in encouraging them to pursue something they want as opposed to nudging them in a direction that they might not want...

As working adults, all of us have a great degree of understanding and experience on things with which we are familiar.  A lot of that experience happens to be focused on our jobs and our hobbies.  In those areas, we can offer solid advice and counsel to our children and younger adults that are walking on similar paths.  But one area where many of us don’t have much experience is helping someone get a job in a career in which we don’t have much experience.  It’s then that we sometimes like to call on professionals for a helping hand. But let’s take it a step further.  What if that career coach had children that were at the age where they were starting to think about careers?  What would they do if their own children were the individuals looking for a role in life?  That’s where we land today and talk to John O’Connor, founder of Career Pro, Incorporated.  Because if you’ve ever wanted to know how to get on the inside track, it’s good to know someone that lives on the inside track.

GUEST BIOGRAPHY

John O’Connor – President & CEO of CareerPro, Inc. BA, MFA, CRW, CPRW, CCM, CFRW, CMRW  Among other accomplishments in the world of career services and outplacement, Mr. O’Connor became the first private practice Reach Branding Certified Specialist in North Carolina and is the first Certified Federal Job Search Trainer (CFJST). With a unique fiction writing pedigree with fiction publications, he obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University. He is a sought-after author and contributor to recent career transition stories for Yahoo! Hotjobs, Monster.com, CNN-Money, The Ladders, AOL.com, and in many newspaper publications including the Wall Street Journal. His diversified experience includes serving as a college professor and as a United States Army officer. John is a keynote speaker and corporate trainer offering consultations and HR Services.

SHOW NOTES

0:00 – Intro

2:36 – John O’Connor

3:02 – What are you doing for your kids as a career coach as they start making career choices?

3:40 – Something that surprised John a lot about his own kids.

5:00 – John’s opinions of assessments as an outside objective instrument.

5:50 – Bill’s “Passion Project” – do a research paper on the history of something in which you are absolutely and completely interested.

7:15 – The question that got John going – “what do you want to do?”

9:17 – How much should parents be involved in the process of helping your kids get their first job?

11:45 – Have your child put together an “advisory board.”

13:30 – Do you, as a parent, get involved when you feel strongly that your young person is doing something wrong or misguided regarding their career?

15:07 – Would you go directly to your kid with suggestions about how they are handling a career decision or career preparation?

18:22 – What would you do as a parent if your child wants to do something or go into an industry in which you have no familiarity or experience?

20:28 – GOOD IDEA – Go to an event in which your son or daughter has the interest to see what they find attractive about that career.

22:30 – How do you handle salary negotiations when it comes to making sure that your son/daughter is making a livable/satisfactory wage?

25:33 – What would you recommend not doing when it comes to helping your kids make those career choices?

28:40 – How, as a parent,

Welcome to our new podcast, Pathfinders – all about helping parents, teachers, guidance counselors and anyone interested in aiding young people with the question of what to do with your professional life after school (at any level) is over.

Take a listen to the introduction from our founder, Bill Priestley, and subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

Nestled in the Sandhills of North Carolina is a not small yet not large university.  It’s not young as it started over 130 years ago but it’s not old in terms of its facilities.  It’s certainly out of town surrounded by farms and open pastureland, but not too far, just 45 minutes south of Raleigh.  Its population is small enough to fit inside Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium twice, yet also houses graduate schools in medicine, education, engineering, divinity, and law.  Campbell University is a striking contrast to what people might think of as a typical private undergraduate school.  Yet 5,000 students call it home every year and roughly 800 of them move on every graduation. All the time in between, Dr. Yasmine Farley, Career Services Director, steps in to help those students discern what kinds of careers they want to pursue. 

GUEST BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Yasmine Farley is currently the Director of Career Services at Campbell University. With over 10 years of experience at public and private colleges and universities, Dr. Farley has dedicated her career to assisting the students she works within their career journey. Dr. Farley completed her Ph.D. at Old Dominion University where her studies focused on career and identity development. She is devoted to empowering her students to pursue their passion and find the right path to achieve their goals.

SHOW NOTES

2:37 – What kind of student do you see on campus at Campbell University?

3:49 – How does the Campbell student differ from your experience at previous institutions?

5:31 – Ideally, how do you like to interact with students from the time they get on campus to the time they graduate?

8:04 – How much time (per month, per semester) should a student devote towards enhancing their chances of getting to where they want to go after graduation?

9:31 – How do you go about helping a student figure out where they want to go in life if they have no idea when they first enter your office?

11:43 – What is it you are trying to extract from the student in that interview process that enables you to help them find a direction in life?

13:15 – Does Campbell’s rural campus impact students in terms of career and if so, how?

17:25 – What assessments do you use and how do you use them?

19:50 – How well do the assessments perform in the eyes of the student in terms of how well they can identify with the student’s interests and strengths?

21:19 – How much do you lean on assessments versus the organic conversations you have with students one-on-one?

22:27 – If a student was bent on one specific career, would you solely help them get to that career or would you give them other options to think about?

24:21 – Helping students going to the divinity school in answering a “calling” versus going into a more professional line of work?

26:43 – What do you tell students that have very specific and lofty (some might say “unrealistic”) career ideas?

29:02 – Do you find that when the Campbell freshman arrives on campus that they have an idea of what they want to do that is genuine or do you feel like you have to re-evaluate their ideas to make sure they are doing what they want to do?

30:36 – How do you counsel or coach students who are thinking about going to grad school – be it at Campbell or somewhere else?

For parents, the task of helping a son or daughter find a path in life is difficult in and of itself.  For some parents, that task is made monumentally tougher when the child is demonstrably more difficult to deal with.  Rebellious teens are no stranger to the developing family, but teens that take it upon themselves to be extraordinarily independent or flat out contradictory to their parents’ wishes are an entirely different animal.  Helping parents along in this phase of life is Dr. Audrey Canaff, a psychotherapist in Chattanooga, TN with over 30 years of counseling and career counseling experience.  So how do we deal with those teens that are adamant about living their own lives and making their own choices regardless of what parents say?  Dr. Audrey Canaff discusses this and more.

GUEST BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Audrey Canaff has been a psychotherapist for over 30 years. Starting out in her home state of New York, Dr. Canaff earned her bachelor’s degree from Empire State University and a masters degree in Psychology from New York University. She completed her doctorate in counselor education and supervision from Mississippi State University. She has taught at Argosy University, New York University, the University of Phoenix and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She has over 20 years of experience in counseling, education and program development in the field of mental health counseling, social services, and career development. She has been published over 25 times in journals and psychology publications She has had a private practice since 1978 and currently lives in Chattanooga, TN.

SHOW NOTES

3:05 – What is the difference for parents of teenagers now versus when these same parents were teenagers back in the mid-’90s?

4:39 – How has the conversation of career gotten more difficult?

7:15 – What resources or protocols would you give to parents when talking to their kids about career?

8:48 – What if your son or daughter isn’t keen on talking to people – what other resources would you recommend to them?

10:47 – From a parent perspective, what are the questions they need to be asking in order to make a difficult relationship with their teen better?

11:58 – If the parent might be making this situation worse, how do you self-evaluate that – or can you self-evaluate because so often we tend to think that we are right most of the time?

13:14 – Would you use a relative or a friend to help analyze yourself, as a parent, to see if you might be pushing things too far?

14:08 – If the parent isn’t the issue, where would you start looking for answers as to why the child is behaving as they are?

19:02 – Is it a no-win situation if you know your teen isn’t going to listen to you when it comes to questions like “what are you going to do after school?”

22:37 – Scenario 1 – Teen graduates from high school, has no plans to get a job, informs parents they will be living at home.

23:57 – Scenario 2 – Teen is in college and the parents will only pay for college if the teen chooses a specific major. If they veer from that path, the parents won’t pay for college.

28:24 – Scenario 3 – Teen informs parents of a career decision (she enlists) that was never talked about. How do you get kids to talk about their hopes and dreams when they have been denied so many times in trying to do things they really wanted to do?

In the traditional education landscape, it is not uncommon for a student to take general education requirements and then move onto more specialized courses where they can exert a bit more autonomy and freedom on the content. In this model, students are given task after task to overcome in the pursuit of meeting all of the graduation requirements for a diploma. Simultaneously, and being made far less a priority, society asks these students to make decisions regarding vocation and career in and amongst the issues of meeting scholastic requirements. Dr. Michelle Jones decided that this model was backward – that the student should greatly consider where they want to go with their lives first and then set that as a context for making the right educational and professional choices. To that end, she founded Wayfinding Academy – a two-year not-for-profit school in Portland, Oregon whose number one goal is helping students find a path in life. It’s there where students are starting a new venture and using their education to their own advantage and tailoring it to the life that they want.

GUEST BIOGRAPHY

Michelle is doing her life’s work right now, which is exhilarating and terrifying. During her 15 years teaching Leadership and Organizational Behavior courses in the traditional college system, she had a front-row seat for what is broken about that system. About 5 years ago, she began gathering a group of like-minded badasses around a vision of what a revolution in higher education could look like. After years of helping groups and non-profits organize for social impact as a volunteer (SuperThank, TEDxMtHood, World Domination Summit), Michelle started her legacy project and the Wayfinding Academy was born.

You can watch her recent TEDx talk here.

SHOW NOTES

3:00 – Michelle tells us a little about the path to getting Wayfinding Academy from its inception to now.

5:30 – Do student “find their way” at Wayfinding or do they graduate thinking that this is going to be a lifelong process?

8:40 – Have you found a formula that helps students have that “A-HA” moment?

11:40 – Are you trying to answer the question of “what do you want to do with your life” or “what do you want to be when you grow up” or are you asking a different question?

15:26 – Are you trying to answer a different question than your students when they get there?

17:22 – What’s the best question you’ve heard a student ask regarding their own process of self-discovery?

22:14 – How much does faith and belief come into the conversations that happen on campus?

25:30 – How much weight do you put on computerized assessments in self-discovery – if you use them?

27:56 – What should be the focus of a college course – be it English 101 at a traditional school or Wayfinding 101 which you teach at Wayfinding Academy?

32:11 – Is the current state of higher education predicated on the idea that most people already know what they want to do before they get there (as they have historically)?

28:03 – If a student has very lofty expectations for their career, do you counsel them to have a plan B if they should have a plan B?

36:24 – How can someone get in touch with Wayfinding Academy if they want more information or would like to apply?

40:29 – If you had your druthers,