The Grind Podcast

Tuyen has turned her job search around but now has a new problem. She needs to respond to a job offer before she hears back from her dream job. We bring on Phil Strazzulla, the founder of NextWave Hire, to help us learn what a job is really like before we accept. This episode is produced by UW student, Taylor McAvoy.

This week we meet Tuyen, a first generation Vietnamese American who spent her childhood living in cramped motel room that she shared with her entire family. We'll follow Tuyen through the ups and downs of her job search as she struggles to parlay a degree in UX design to a career in Seattle's competitive tech sector. Our guests will be Annika Larson (a recent UW graduate) and Karin Rogers (a counselor at the UW mental health clinic). We'll also have a special update from producer Warren.

David Chase was laid off from his job earlier this year. The first thing he did was post about it on Linkedin. That post got over 1,000,000 views, 20,000 likes, and 2,000 comments. David is our guest this week on The Grind to talk about vulnerability on social media and his plans to create a "Real Linkedin".

This week, we're talking about networking again with Heather Redman, a Seattle-based venture capitalist and executive. To the surprise of many who know her professionally, Heather is an introvert. We talk about how networking as an introvert can make you more purposeful and how she works to keep herself "open" each day.

This week, Ignacio's job search gets serious and he starts making connections. To help him, we bring on one of the world's best networkers, the self-proclaimed "Snooki of Harvard Business School", and Marc's business-school hero, venture capitalist, Heidi Roizen. We talk about why she hates the term networking, the best way to get someone's attention with a cold email, and how to make "networking events" less horrible.  

And we're back! As a holiday present to The Grind, share this episode with a friend. As we start the second half of Season 1, it's a great time to catch-up on Episodes 1-10.  

Today, we meet Ignacio, a young professional who fought his way from a challenging childhood in Wapato to a prestigious tech job in Seattle. So why isn't he satisfied?

Warren, Marc, and (intern) Taylor help Ignacio get started on the job search process by examining his social media. We bring on former LinkedIn employee Ana De Sousa to share her social media tips and help us answer the question: Should we shut off our social media or make it an asset during a job search?

In this episode, we catch-up with Youcef after his summer internship at Madrona. We talk about the self-doubt that he experienced after his first round of internship rejections, how he almost called in sick for his Madrona interview, and what he learned this summer. We also talk about what his internship success has meant to his family and how he's paying it forward with young people in his hometown of Federal Way. This is our last episode of 2017. We'll be back with fresh episodes in 2018. Happy holidays!

Before they can focus on this week's episode, Marc and Warren are desperate for an update from Youcef on his latest internship lead. To cut the tension, Marc tells his most embarrassing work-related story. We also bring on Ambika Singh, the CEO and Founder of Armoire, who tells us how to dress for work and why we should care about what we wear in the first place. Finally, we meet our production intern, Alex, and ask him how he likes his new bosses.

This week, Marc reconnects with Youcef who is struggling with the disappointment of striking out on his first round of internship interviews. Resolute as always, Youcef rededicates himself to the process submitting 150 new applications. Marc and Warren wonder if this scattershot approach is a good use of his time especially after he uncovers a new live lead demanding his focus.

To answer this question, the team consults a hiring manager at a major tech company and the CEO of a small fashion startup. We cover all aspects of the job application process (job boards, cover letters, resumes, referrals) and try to answer the question: "Is it better to be focused or scattershot when applying for jobs?"

Last week, we talked about whether to be honest in interviews. This week, we ask why interviews need to exist at all. We bring on Jason Dana, a professor at Yale School of Management, whose research on interviews was featured in a New York Times Article entitled "The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews." He makes the case that interviews are inherently biased and actually hurt our ability to make smart hiring decisions. Marc and Warren wonder how interviewers and interviewees can do better.

This week our episode is sponsored by Adam Greenberg. Read his blog post about AmeriCorps NCCC here.