The Graduate at Work

Today I have the privilege of speaking to Joanne Funch.

JoAnne has worked with hundreds of small business clients since establishing her marketing business in 1996.

In 2007 JoAnne relocated from California to Minnesota. Not knowing anyone in the business community she utilized LinkedIn to reach out and build a network of colleagues and clients.

Since that time, she has served as the LinkedIn workshop trainer for the University of Minnesota, Business & Economic Development Department, a guest presenter and speaker for organizations and conferences locally and nationally.

She has had the privilege of working with Fortune 100 & 500 companies as well as hundreds of entrepreneurs including the largest dairy farmer in Saudi Arabia, helping them to build powerful LinkedIn profiles and implement strategies to leverage the platform.

JoAnne loves to teach and empower others to take control of their social footprint and invest in their professional relationships. This conversation is all about networking, how important it is and how to go about it. I’m super excited about this conversation as I think networking is an essential ingredient of success.

JoAnne Linkedin Profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannefunch/

Jai's Linkedin Profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jolandi-gevers/

Today I have the privilege of talking to Brandon Birkmeyer.

Brandon is a personal branding coach who helps industry experts become content creators. He is a seasoned marketing strategist, an up-and-coming writer, author, speaker, podcaster, and business coach. For over 17 years, Brandon advised and directed brand strategy for top FORTUNE 100 companies including Apple, Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Wells Fargo. In 2018, he launched Brands On Brands, a marketing consulting firm based in Los Angeles, California. He also produces and hosts a top 100 marketing podcast called "Brands On Brands On Brands".

This is a must listen conversation for people just starting their careers and who want to find out more about building a personal brand and I am so excited to share it with you.

Brandon's website: https://www.brandsonbrands.com/

Brandon's LinkedIn profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bbirkmeyer/

Jai's website:

www.thegraduateatwork.com

Today I have the privilege of talking to Reno Perry.

Reno Perry is the Founder & CEO of wiseful. wiseful is a career advancement platform for early-mid career talent to help them land their dream job.

Prior to starting wiseful, Reno worked at LinkedIn for over 4 years, helping connect thousands of professionals to amazing job opportunities across the globe and has relatable experience graduating in the wake of the ‘08-09 recession but was able to differentiate himself vs. his peers during interviews and landed a job at a Fortune 500 company.

He's a first-gen college student that's experienced first-hand the struggles of landing a job and navigating a professional career...a culmination of events that inspired him to help coach others to success.

Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renoperry/

Wiseful website: https://www.bewiseful.com/

TGAW website: www.thegraduateatwork.com

Today I am sitting down with Russ Schwager.

Russ is currently the Assoc. Director of Engineering for Marketing Systems at Chewy and has previously worked for Amazon Alexa, ezCater and a number of startups.

According to a previous colleague of Russ he is a real "out of the box thinker," and there was never a challenge that Russ was not capable of taking on. While his technical skills were top notch; it was really his balance of combining those skills with a real world understanding of how the user would be utilizing the application which made him one of the best developers this person ever had the pleasure to work with

Amongst the many things we talk about Russ tells us about the transition from a start-up environment to a large corporate environment and his experience of losing his job during the Covid-19 pandemic. We talk about the importance of working independently and valuing your customers.

Christine, is the founder of Career Revolution and author of “Get There Faster: The no-nonsense, no-fluff guide to the career you want”. She is an innovator in the space of emerging leader development. As a former Talent Management Executive at Sony, Christine continues to focus her passion and research on empowering a new generation of employees to become the next generation of leaders.

Through learning programs implemented in clients like PlayStation, Hulu, and Dollar Shave Club, Christine continues to address the career development needs of today’s workforce. She is recognized as a leading expert in her field.

Listen to hear how a free internship really set her up for a successful career, what are some of the generational stereotypes in the workplace and how to navigate them. Christine talks about what she learned in closed-door meetings where performance and promotion discussions took place and why it is important for graduates to take ownership of their career development.

The conversation is packed with good advice and insight and I am excited to share it with you.

LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinedidonato/

CareerRev website: https://careerrev.com/

Link to Christine's book: https://www.amazon.com/Get-There-Faster-no-nonsense-no-fluff-ebook/dp/B08CP8XFH3

Wedsite: www.thegraduateatwork.com

Ahmed started his career with a decade of hands-on coding as a developer. He transitioned into management over a 4 year startup stint where he learned about running daily engineering operations, delivering customer & business value, and the importance of culture. He's passionate about technology applied to healthcare and has led teams at Verily, aka Google Life Sciences, and is now a senior manager at Amazon PillPack. He continues to learn every day from those around him and measures success based on meaningful value delivered to customers.

When he is not working, you can find him at the gym atoning for his sweet tooth or manufacturing memories with his wife and 3 boys.

Among the many things we talk about, Ahmed discusses how the mathematical concept of optimization applies to our careers and how he used this concept to determine what to optimize for at different stages of his career. We talk specifically about what recent college graduates should optimize for.

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmishparadise/

Website: www.thegraduateatwork.com

Today I have the privilege of talking to Pablo Gonzales.

Pablo consider himself a professional networker and is obsessed with human connection. He’s used his expertise on the subject to manage a 120 person, $15M construction business at the young age of 25, build various young professional groups for charities, and be named a Latino Leader of the Future by Latino Leaders Magazine and a Top 20 Under 40 for Brickell Magazine.

He’s now a professional speaker and the founder and Chief Executive Connector at Connect With Pablo, a content marketing and community creation agency, proving that community creation is the future of business development.

In the interview Pablo speaks about how working with Young professional charity groups had a profound impact on his career, how important networking has been for his career and how to reconceptualize skills and experience from previous jobs to move into new directions in your career.

David is a software development professional with over 22 years’ experience, including 12 years managing project- and product-oriented software development. David has worked in both small and large organizations and a wide variety of domains (including State Gambling, Open Pit Mining, Domain Registrar/Hosting, Healthcare and recently AWS RDS Oracle). David has recently presented a project to Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon AWS, who gave the green light on it. In a company with hundreds of thousands of employees this is a huge accomplishment.

David talks about the importance of being able to work with other people, how to build trust in the working environment, not burn any bridges and the importance of sharing your knowledge. We talk about balancing helping others where possible while still having your own work to do.

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidshall/

Website: www.thegraduateatworkpodcast.com

How do you go from failing your first year at college to landing a job at a prestigious consulting firm like the Boston Consulting Group?

Sunayna Bholah tells us her remarkable story of how she did exactly that.

Sunayna is a recent university graduate from the University of Cape Town who is now working at the Boston Consulting Group.

Having recently graduated the transition from college to the workplace is fresh in her mind. She also speaks to the challenges she has faced starting her first job remotely.

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunayna-bholah-258108162/

Website: www.thegraduateatwork.com

“What are the odds you’d open your refrigerator door and find a Zombie in there, knitting socks? The odds are about the same that a touchy-feely, language-orientated person like me would end up as a professor of engineering.” Prof. Barbara Oakley

In this episode Jai explores the story of Prof. Barbara Oakley who went from hating math and science to forging a career in it. Jay talks about what a new graduate can learn from Prof. Oakley's story.

Link to book, A Mind for Numbers: https://tinyurl.com/y3lg3qte

Website: www.thegraduateatwork.com