The Fabulous Learning Nerds

Scott (00:03.284)
Hey, everybody. Welcome back this week for another scintillating episode of your Fabulous Learning Nerds. I'm Scott Schuette, your host, and with me, my co-host with the most doing his best Orson Welles impression, Dan Coonrod, everybody.

Daniel (00:52.644)
man, Rosebud. There, how's that? How's that?

Scott (00:58.248)
Works real well. So my friend, how are you?

Daniel (01:02.084)
I am fair to Midland, fair to Midland sir. There it is, there it is. I don't know how I'd get by without that trough.

Scott (01:11.186)
You know, it's a little cold outside.

Daniel (01:14.244)
It is cold. actually I have a scarf on right now and I'm gonna I'm gonna take it off because I'm a little bit warm a little bit warm

Scott (01:17.844)
I'm seeing that our audience cannot see that really, but at least you're warm.

Yeah, it's been darn right frigid down here. I've got first world problems. Frigid down here is anything below 60. So it's been in the 50s. So it's cold. man. Put the parka in the earmuffs on, for sure.

Daniel (01:36.334)
Ha ha ha.

Daniel (01:43.703)
I grew up in Pennsylvania. And so like, when I think of cold and I had the, I don't know if I wanna say fortune, but I grew up and I lived in Erie for a little while, in Erie in winter. Folks from there will know it's very, very cold in winter. It is just shockingly cold. And then I'm done with cold. I feel like I served my time.

In cold country, I live in South Carolina now and the same thing like man today The high is only like 50 and I'm like I'm really bummed about that. That's pretty cold

Scott (02:22.366)
very, very, very, very cold. Yeah. But hey, it's just a minute time before it's going to get wicked hot. And then we'll be griping about that for sure. So neither.

Daniel (02:29.4)
Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Scott (02:35.188)
Speaking of hot, Zeta's in the house everybody.

Zeta (02:43.534)
Yeah, it's fine with me. I don't care. It's all good.

Scott (02:52.967)
you

Scott (02:58.42)
Zeta!

Zeta (02:59.682)
Hey there, Scott, how you doing?

Scott (03:01.863)
I'm doing.

Zeta (03:06.254)
that is good to hear, good to hear. Yeah.

Scott (03:07.572)
It's so great to hear. Are you keeping yourself warm?

Zeta (03:11.662)
trying to yeah we got some snow and it's actually still outside which is weird so yeah trying to keep warm doing the best we can

Scott (03:22.484)
Warmth is always a good thing, I appreciate it. Anything new in your world?

Zeta (03:27.199)
not really. new year, new me, resolutions. Yeah.

Scott (03:31.446)
yeah, we could talk resolutions for sure. So what's your resolution?

Zeta (03:35.342)
One, be better to myself. I think that's a good one. And two, never stop learning. So hey, here we are.

Scott (03:41.268)
very appropriate. Danielson, New Year's resolution,

Daniel (03:46.88)
And now I'm feel like a party pooper. I don't do New Year's resolutions.

Scott (03:50.644)
Zeta (03:51.67)
Hmm, party pooper.

Scott (03:53.828)
No way, really? For sure. Okay.

Daniel (03:56.44)
Really? Yeah, for sure. Bogus. That's it. That's one of your resolutions. I want to find more opportunities to work the word bogus into everyday conversations.

Zeta (03:57.442)
bogus.

you

Zeta (04:12.846)
Hey, I did it. You can too.

Daniel (04:16.868)
That's true. That's true.

Scott (04:17.672)
Well, I mean, if that's your resolution, I guess we could do that. I had a friend mine asked like, well, how do you stay on your resolutions and how do you keep going? my response was that Jocko Wellink is one of my heroes. He's one of the guys who does a great podcast, great book, all about discipline. And I just said it's discipline because motivation will fail you. 100 % motivation will fail you. But if you just get in the habit of I'm going to do this because, especially those of us that are trying to get into shape, right?

I'm going go to the gym. Eventually you're going to be, I don't feel like going to gym and that'll be it. But if it's like, I'm going no matter, I'm just going to go, right? That's discipline. Discipline will never fail you. Motivation will always fail you. That's my teachable point of view for this week. Thank you everybody. I really appreciate that. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, for sure. what the heck.

Zeta (05:05.078)
Okay.

Sound advice.

Scott (05:10.281)
I guess so.

Scott (05:14.12)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we got a really groovy and pertinent topic of the week. So without further ado, let's just go ahead and dive right in.

Scott (05:31.376)
Alright, this week, putting your best foot forward, presenting yourself, mastering the job market. So, that time of year, a lot of us might be thinking about doing something new, although it's losing weight, but some of us may be wanting to serve somebody else, another company, maybe grow yourself to grow your own company, and we're just going to talk about how you might want to do that. So Dan.

Putting your best foot forward, what does that mean to you?

Daniel (06:03.096)
Man, so, you I tell you, am, you know, you say it right now. I think there's so many people entering into the space to like look for what comes next, to look for their next step, to look for what they need because maybe the next step with their business didn't involve them. I layoffs have been a thing. We all saw all of the layoffs going on at the last half of last year. Pretty intense.

Especially after a period of just a very hungry and fervent job market. I have lots of friends who are in the space right now looking for work, looking for that next career. And, you know, I ask them, I talk to them like, well, like, what's your thing? What are you doing? What, you know, like, what do you want to do? And I always get like this, like,

Scott (06:37.46)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel (07:01.924)
Like people, get wishy-washy about it. And then they hit the interviews and they interview. And then they're like, I don't understand why, why nobody's picking me. I don't understand. I feel like the last kid in dodge ball, like what's going on. And I think it goes back to that whole like wishy-washiness. I ask people like, what are their passions? That's a big thing for me. Like, what are your passions? What are the things that make you excited?

And once you know your passions, you can go and do almost anything. You can find ways to express your passions in almost any role. But if you can't express your passions to the people who are looking to fill a role, nobody just wants to hire a seat warmer. Nobody wants to be like, I just want to put a warm body here. And if they are, you probably don't want to work there. That's probably not the job you're looking for, you know?

Scott (07:46.216)
Mm.

Zeta (07:53.206)
Yeah, because they're probably cats, like looking for a lap, you know, and they don't pay well.

Daniel (07:59.48)
Yeah. cats, yeah, I was gonna say cats notoriously pay pretty finicky. But like, I'll ask people all the time, like, you know, what's your passion? And then if you, if you know what your passion is and you know what you want to do, what's your elevator pitch? Who are you? How did you get here? And why do you want to do this? It's a handful of questions. And man, I think time after time,

People don't know. We don't get taught how to present ourselves very often, except like dress nice and don't swear too much in public and try to like be polite. That's pretty much, and those are the rules they give us as kids and we don't get a lot of rules after that. yeah, for interviewing, it's a whole skill. Interviewing and presenting yourself is a big skill and it's even more important and more in our face.

Zeta (08:46.19)
Truth.

Daniel (08:56.588)
Like literally there's a job out there called influencer where it's like, hey, how do you present yourself and present things? That's the whole job. And yeah, that's where we're at what I'm talking about. But I rambled for too long and now I feel weird and awkward.

Scott (09:13.628)
And how is this different from any other? I'm just kidding. Hey, so I love, I love where you're starting from. And I think if we could start from the beginning, like having a goal for what you want, right? So if we're going to go ahead and do something new, what is that? Right? What does that look like? and what's important to you, right? And for me, it's like, what's going to make me happy. I just want more money. Okay. Well, that, that might be something that we could talk about, but really, I mean,

Daniel (09:17.912)
Hahaha!

Scott (09:42.142)
You're going to get asked that question anyway. So having a clear understanding about, you know, why you're making the move, whether that's, just need to get a job or I'm going to have something new, having that elevator pitch around that, but it should include things that are, you know, important to you. Right. So in our, in our space for me, it's all about impact. So I've been telling that story a lot, right? So I just want to make the world a better place and I want to have better impact. I want to see the results of the work. Right.

Daniel (10:01.444)
100%.

Scott (10:11.656)
I don't think there's anything wrong when we're talking about impact is to say things like, well, you know, hey, I'm super excited about the opportunity because it's, it's aligning with my personal and professional values. Like write that down folks. Like this is aligning with my personal and professional values. And I think that that that's really great. But if you don't know what you want, you gotta have that first, right? What is it? And then

You know, the question I think that you alluded to, and I want to spend a little bit of time on is this idea of an elevator pitch, because everybody's going to ask you, hey, tell me about yourself. And the mistake I think that a lot of people do is like walk through their resume. And and that's a mistake or your life story. And no one no one cares. Like no one cares. Honestly, no one cares about your life story. If you're seasoned and you've been around for a while and you have a

Daniel (10:54.99)
Yeah. Or their life story. Or their... Yeah.

Zeta (10:55.926)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Scott (11:07.196)
a really solid resume with a lot of different experience on it, that's going to be a mistake unless the interviewer asks you to walk through the resume. Dan, you had a point.

Daniel (11:19.62)
I actually want to butt in a little bit because you say like nobody cares about your life story, but I actually don't believe that. But I think we only have so much time to care. I think people do care about your life story. That's again, most companies, all companies, at least for now, hire people.

They don't hire robots or books, at least for now. So they do want to know your life story. I've heard some executives and some businesses call it like the rule of cool or the share a beer rule. Like, if you were stuck someplace, you want to hire somebody that you would be okay being stuck on a long flight with or stuck waiting for a flight. I don't know if I a hundred percent agree with that. Sometimes you want to,

hire people who are going to challenge you, are going to push you and your business to look at things in different and sometimes better ways. Maybe not always better, but sometimes. I think what happens and the feeling that we get from businesses is exactly what you just said. Nobody cares about your life story. And so we end up building one-sheeters and fact sheets about us.

This is Daniel. Daniel was born. Daniel works in learning and development. Daniel likes working in learning and development. You know, like this real basic, real simple, you know, Daniel worked for this company and Daniel did these three really cool things. Daniel worked for this company and Daniel learned this important lesson and Daniel and already I'm bored telling the joke before I could even finish it. So I can only imagine how boring it is to listen. But

My story is different, just like Scott, I know your story is different, Zeta, I know your story is different. And getting the right story for the right attention span, that's what's important.

Zeta (13:23.554)
especially if you can connect that story with where you want to go. You know? Yeah.

Scott (13:28.052)
Okay. Okay, great. So let me ask a few questions. how long should that story be?

Daniel (13:35.406)
So you and I talked about this not too long ago and this is what I tell everybody is you should have three stories. You should have a 15 second story that's who you are. My name is Daniel Coonrod. I'm a learning and development professional with over a decade experience. I love learning and development. It's motivates me. It's what gets me up every day and it's what's bringing me into the office on Mondays. Boom, short, simple, sweet, a little bit funny. Hopefully that's me.

I feel like it is. You should have a little bit longer one that's who and why. My name is Daniel Krunar. I'm a learning and development professional with over a decade experience in the industry. I love learning and development because I love its transformational power to move people, not just from where they are, but where they want to go and then help them see over the horizon's edge to

possible futures they couldn't even dreamt of before they knew who they were.

That's super short, super simple. It's one extra step. Hopefully you feel excited about that. Hopefully you feel excited about talking to me more about that. And the last one is I call the story and that should be between one to two minutes. And that is who, what, why, maybe where, where's not so important anymore, but who, what, where, who, what, My name is Daniel Conrad. have over a decade experience in learning and development industry.

I love learning development because of the transformational power it has on people, helping people see over the horizon to your next steps to dream bigger. Personally, for me, I knew from third grade, I wanted to be a learning and development person. I wanted to be a teacher. I was sitting in Ms. Popma's class and I was like, I want to be a teacher. And I spent my whole academic career in high school thinking this is what I'm to do. And when I got to high school,

Daniel (15:39.896)
And I got to, it was time for me to go to college. I had been accepted. I was thinking about what I wanted to do. I went to go talk to the teachers who motivated me to go be a teacher. And this horrible thing happened. This wonderful thing now that I look back with experience and time, but at the time, this horrible thing happened where the teachers who inspired me when I said, I want to go be a teacher out of the list to a person, they all said, don't do it. The profession has changed so much and it's so crushing.

I don't want to see it crush anyone else. And that conversation completely changed the track of my life. Because of that, I got into IT and tech. built computers. I did transition PLC to PLC maintenance on textile mill lines. And that led me eventually to a call center where after a few months, they were like, hey, do you want to be a trainer? And it was like a firecracker went off inside of my head. I was like, yes, I do.

Holy crap. And that's how I feel every day about learning and development, like a firecracker going off inside of me. I love it.

Scott (16:49.844)
Cool. I would add one thing to your pitch.

Daniel (16:53.028)
Yeah, what you got?

Scott (16:55.336)
why you're excited to be talking to whoever you're telling the pitch to, right?

Daniel (16:59.78)
So I'll say this, that is important, but that is a separate conversation. That's not an elevator pitch. Like we're talking about ways to introduce and to like say who I am. You should have a separate conversation. First off, if you're not excited about working someplace, consider not applying. I get that we need jobs and I get that we all need work. And by all means, I have taken some jobs that was like, man, you know what I love about this job? The paycheck.

Scott (17:27.508)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel (17:32.087)
Those jobs kept me alive, kept food in my belly, kept a roof over my head, but they didn't usually help me grow, they didn't usually help me develop, and man, I hated almost every moment there. If you are,

Daniel (17:53.124)
Excuse me, sorry. If you are thinking about what is my next step, what do I wanna do? And you've got your elevator pitches, you've got your stories, you've got your setup. You should have a separate conversation about why you wanna work there. What does that company do that makes the world a better place? What will this company do to help you grow and develop? And what can you do to help this company grow and develop? But that's a separate thing.

That's my belief. That's my two cents.

Scott (18:22.152)
Yeah, I feel like that, part of the conversation should come very quickly after who you are, right? Because you know, Hey, we're interested in you. Why are you interested in us? Right? So, I like to put that at the end of my elevator pitch, but you don't have to, but in, in, in congruence there, I think it's really important. Like I'm excited to be here because what you're doing and you should know what they're doing.

Daniel (18:37.699)
Yeah!

Scott (18:49.158)
is in alignment with my personal and professional values. And I'm just super jonesed and stoked that I could go ahead and apply my years of experience and my skillset to create impact for your organization and thrive for many years to come. And I like to put that for many years to come. And you taught me that, Dan.

Daniel (18:49.87)
Hopefully.

Scott (19:13.396)
because nobody wants to hire somebody for 30 days or so, right? We hope that you're going to stick around. And as Dan, I'm a nester. like to plant myself somewhere and add value for quite some time. And my resume speaks to that. no one's going to, by the way, if your resume doesn't speak to the fact that you're a nester, you might want to leave that out. But it's still not a bad thing to say. Like, hey, I want to be here. I'm going to thrive here. We're going to do good things together. The capital T.

Daniel (19:13.974)
Hahaha

Daniel (19:17.656)
No!

Daniel (19:42.008)
You know, I'll tell you, like you and I are on opposite ends of spectrum because I tend to stay someplace for three to five years. I tend to pop in, I tend to try to make some positive changes, learn some lessons, and then it's usually time for me to grow or to move to the next thing.

I'll say this, my father of all people taught me that. Growing up, my father who is an electrical engineer, I remember him and I were talking and I I couldn't have been older than 16, 15 or 16. And he was like, he's like, hey, when you are ready to promote, stay with your company. When you're ready for a paycheck, a raise, leave your company.

and you should leave every three to five years. And I remember thinking as a young man, like, man, how cutthroat is that? How awful is that? Any sense of loyalty?

Daniel (20:47.076)
I, having hopped businesses a few times, moved, changed, developed, hopefully helped those businesses. The people I met inside of those businesses, many of them I'm still friends with, many of them I still talk to, many of them still reach out to me, many of them I've helped consult with after the fact.

Scott (21:04.478)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel (21:14.914)
So the relationships again, back to the people, those connections don't necessarily go away unless you're bad at it. You know, unless you leave a bad example, leave on bad terms, do bad stuff. But the relationships, the people relationships, those can and should stay. When you stay someplace, you I know are a stayer and you build and develop talent.

and do great returns. And that is something that is you are looking for jobs interviews. You need to be able to talk about as like, Hey, you know, if I, if, if when you pick me that I'm here, I'm here for the long haul, I'm here to do good things. I'm here to help you guys grow and develop. I'm here to grow and develop. And by all means, that should definitely be part of your story. I've seen your resume. You should definitely be part of your story.

Scott (22:07.048)
Damn.

Scott (22:10.664)
Well, thanks. I appreciate it. So all right. So we got out of the elevator pitch. We got the why we're here, and why we're talking today, all right? So.

What do I wear? How do I dress? What do I dress? Yeah, for sure. How do I dress?

Daniel (22:22.34)
What are you wearing?

I mean, so I'll tell you, I'll tell you two things. One, you should dress comfortably. I remember I had a job. I was super excited for it. And it was, it was a startup. It was awesome. And I was dressed enough every time I was on camera, even though was remote with my blazer button up shirt, sometimes a tie. Cause cause like, you know, like that's the professional mindset, that old fashioned professional in me. And

My boss one day after a meeting where we had had clients was just like, what are you doing? And I was like, I was like, we had a client meeting. He goes, you look like you've raided the big and tall store before the meeting. And I'm like, man. And he was like, like, we sent you a hoodie, right? And I was like, yeah, wear the hoodie. That's what the hoodie's for. He goes, just relax.

Zeta (23:10.414)
Daniel (23:25.912)
Dress comfortably. And here's a guy who's making lots of money. He's got a business that's worth lots of money. And like, it's a job that I love. So like, I remember I sat back after that talk and all of the work I'd done before, you dress professionally, you dress for the job you want. And in a moment, like here's somebody who, you know, is like, has the...

has like that idyllic, idyllic like setup, that thing that I want to emulate is like, yeah, just be comfortable, man. Now I can't say that for everybody. I think what I usually tell people is, do some LinkedIn stalking, get on LinkedIn, see what people are dressing in their profile pictures of the business you're going to go to and try to match the vibe. Be comfortable, business casual, emphasis on the casual. Because if you are buttoned up and you're wearing your coat,

tight and your shirt is right there up against your neck and you look like you're, you know, raided the big and tall store before you hop on a meeting. That's all anybody's going to think of. They're going to notice your uncomfortableness. They're going to see it. They won't necessarily put their finger on it and be like, Daniel was really uncomfortable because you know, he was wearing a shirt that was maybe a little too tight and a jacket that didn't maybe quite fit perfectly. You know, they're going to notice that they're going to see it, but

they're gonna know that something's not right. Something's not right with Daniel.

Zeta (24:55.63)
So, I about say, so don't dress like Orson Welles, is what you're saying.

Scott (24:55.742)
Say to what do you think?

Daniel (24:55.854)
So.

Daniel (24:59.492)
Maybe don't dress like you were simple at all.

Zeta (25:03.342)
agree comfort casual, comfort casual is the way to go. Dress minimal, dress to impress, but also dress to fit. If you're going to be doing research for any kind of company and you're looking into them, you don't have to LinkedIn stock. just like Scott said, aligning with their values, aligning with the look, maybe even aligning with the culture. If you want to fit in, look the part. It is kind of like dressing for the job that you want is to...

Daniel (25:03.748)
UGH!

Zeta (25:33.88)
just kind of emulate it.

Scott (25:36.104)
Yeah, my thing is I think that when you get to that point where you're in and you're with the company culture, I think that's cool. I agree with you Zeta, just for the job that you want. You only get one shot at a good first impression.

Scott (28:08.404)
For the interview, know dress nice, right? You only get one shot at a good first impression For me, I like to wear a sport coat and a nice button-down shirt my experience is At least at the interview that that should be fine, right? The suit coat with the tie if you want to go that far it depends on the level of the position I think that might be appropriate for you. But you know for most of us, you know, the nice sport coat and a shirt works pretty well

Zeta (28:38.601)
nice blouse and just

Scott (28:40.722)
Yeah. again, so you look professional and you should be, and I can't tell you how many times I've had discussions with people for opportunities where I'm definitely way more dressed up than they are. And that is totally okay. I just want everybody to understand that. I think that that's totally okay. Especially if you're going to make a really good first impression. guess my next question is questions.

Daniel (29:04.537)
Yeah.

Scott (29:08.648)
Right, so they're going to ask you some questions. How do we prepare for the questions? And what kind of questions do you think they might be asking? Is there a way to figure this out, Dan?

Daniel (29:19.332)
So, yes, there is. Most questions, and Scott, we talked about this not too long ago, most questions fall into several different categories. And they really are role specific, but you're gonna look for questions that are like, basically like, I call them past performance or performance-based questions. What have you done in the past that makes you ready for today?

and you're gonna hear questions like, tell us about a time. You'll hear that phrase a lot. Tell us about a time. That's a good big like indicator like, hey, this is a performance or past performance question. And.

Those are the kinds of questions where you just want to think about a handful of times, stories in your past where you've done things like that, like made a difference.

Daniel (30:19.694)
There's no way to perfectly prepare for every scenario, every question, everything. So you want to think about the big things. Hey, here's this time where I did this thing and it was wildly successful. This is how it was wildly successful. And this is how I was prepared to leverage that success. The next one is, hey, here's a time where I did something and it was not successful. It was a failure. And here's how I leveraged that failure.

to maintain momentum for the business. And here's the lessons I took away from that failure. Those are two important stories. You should have the everything went great and I'm awesome story. And you should have the everything went to crap. But important things still happened and I still did okay. And I learned from it. You wanna have at least one version of both of those stories just in your back pocket. You wanna have a couple of stories about how you dealt with setbacks.

how you dealt with unforeseen elements. And probably also a few stories about how you dealt with interpersonal struggles. Hey, there's been times where I haven't always agreed with somebody and sometimes where I've been hot and passionate about it, but that didn't change how I worked with that person. That didn't change how I was able to think about the work that needed to be done. I may not get along with everybody, but we're all working towards the same goal. And that's important to keep in mind. Stories like that.

Next up are like future performance stories or what would you like? Hey, if this happened, what would you do? These are like problem solving, decision making skills. And you'll hear a lot of these questions, no matter what role you're applying for. These are questions that you usually can't like a hundred percent like plot and plan for, but you want to have a few things in mind of how you would handle certain situations.

And you want to make sure that when you couch these questions, you set these up, you're thinking like, hey, like these are like, these are the outcomes. These are the goals. These are the things I'd like to see. A big one is like, Hey, you know, like if you were to join us, if we were to hire you, what would you do in the first 30, 60 or 90 days to prepare for this role? You always want to have that question in your back pocket. When you look at a company, look at the things they want you to do for the role. Think about

Daniel (32:46.936)
How do I get to expertise in this role, in this company culture? And what are the milestones look like at 30, 60 and 90? Like that's something that's definitely wanna have because that's gonna come up. And if it doesn't, you could bring it up and look super prepared. You know, like how would you deal with a situation where if somebody...

where if you had to do something, you maybe didn't a hundred percent agree with. I'm not saying like morally wrong or objectionable, but like, you know, like, Hey, the business, like, you know, maybe the business needs to lay some people off. It's on your team. How do you handle that? What do you do? Or, Hey, you know, we need you to work on a project that you're not comfortable with. A prime example that is a story I bring up that is from my background is I got roped into doing sales training and enablement and

I remember looking at my boss at the time, my boss is like, we really want you to do this. I mean, like you want me to do sales. Like how desperate must you guys be? everybody else already tell you no? Like there's no version of reality where I want to do this. And he was like, Hey, listen, I know, but I need somebody who's got, who's got your skills, your setup. I really need you to do this. This isn't a demand.

But it's a weighty ask, I think is the words he used. And I was like, was like, can you give me a day? And he was like, yeah, you can take three.

And I ended up saying yes. And that yes is important. Yes, for me, for my career, changed how I looked at learning and development, changed how I looked at things that maybe necessarily I wouldn't like to do, but are still important to people and to businesses. As you get higher up, depending upon roles, you can start to see like strategic questions. Like I call these like vision questions, visioning.

Daniel (34:46.914)
strategic type questions. These are questions that show that you are immersed into the culture, that you are a forward thinking force. You see a lot of these in your directorships, sometimes in senior managers, sometimes in your VP roles. These are questions that like, for learning and development, because that's what we talk about, how do you see the role of technology and LOD? Real hot button question right now.

and having a prepared answer for what you think is gonna happen. You don't need to be right, you just need to show them that I'm thinking of the future. I'm thinking of those next steps.

Lastly, when you get into those upper ones, you'll see like leadership questions. Like, and these will probably be a mix of past performance and future scenarios. Tell us about a time you led a team and this happened. If you were leading a team and two of your team members didn't go on, how would you handle it? Those are like the big categories. They'll boil down to past performance, future scenario.

Scott (35:52.5)
Is there anything you'd like to add?

Zeta (35:55.039)
I think Dan covered it pretty well.

would just say, no, have some time to practice the questions, maybe practice with someone else, get pointers, get some feedback from someone, especially if you're going for a job that you're really, really wanting. Yeah, just work through and be like, okay, what are they gonna probably ask? How are my skills and my skillset going to be applied here? And just try your best.

have a weird kind of niche because I'm a designer and I usually just kind of rely on my portfolio. So when it comes to interviews, it's talking and discussing my portfolio. And so it is like really for me kind of eye-opening because usually a picture can speaks a thousand words and you don't have to say those thousand words. can go, hey, here's some examples of my work. This is how I think it's pertinent. This is what I can do. This is what I'm working toward.

So this is pretty eye-opening for me.

Scott (37:06.376)
Great, well that's awesome. I know for me, one of the things that I would recommend for folks in the Love Dance overall list, which is great, but two thoughts around that. Take the job description you got, go to your favorite AI partner, Claude or whomever, and say, hey, here's the job description and what questions might they ask? They're gonna be pretty good at coming up with some questions that you're gonna need to be able to answer. So have that in your back pocket. And you know what I would do is write out some answers, some really nice.

short story answers that kind of show competency when it comes to those questions, right? Doing so is great. think, you know, we all know from learning, you're going to write it out as I write it out actually helps me remember, helps me internalize that story. And that's really great. So I like calling that developing your story toolbox, everybody, just the sheets and sheets of paper. I've got all these questions that they might ask and that's cool. And then an hour before...

the interview either with a buddy, like I'm gonna call Zeta next time. Hey Zeta, you're my buddy. And we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna practice. Cause Zeta is gonna tell me things that I don't know. For example, maybe I say, um, a thousand times and I should be aware of that. Or I have other filler words, um, and I should be aware of that, right? She didn't be able to put that out. But if I don't know a buddy that I could practice with, you practice those stories yourself. So you've had the chance to talk about them and then.

Zeta (38:09.485)
care. Give me a call.

Scott (38:32.03)
When you get to the interview and you're putting your best foot forward, those questions come up. You practiced them. You've learned them. You've memorized them. then you don't have the, tell us for the time where you had to overcome a difficult situation with a fellow coworker.

Zeta (38:38.828)
You're more prepared.

Scott (38:51.348)
Hold on.

Daniel (38:56.772)
Hmph.

Zeta (38:57.262)
For real. I can jump in just real quick because Scott brings up a really good idea of finding the, of finding, you know, having questions that you can then practice. If you don't have a buddy and you need to practice them, just record yourself. Audacity, like it's a free audio software. Now I'm saying now and I'm really thinking about it.

Daniel (38:59.119)
So, so it's got.

Daniel (39:06.85)
hahahaha

Scott (39:16.948)
Yeah, you could do that too.

Zeta (39:27.022)
but it's really good and you can record yourself, play it back, listen to it and say, hey, I need to adjust here. I sound a little bit weird here. I go, Yeah, so sorry. I just wanted to say, just jump in real quick.

Scott (39:43.356)
No, no, I think that's really awesome.

Daniel (39:43.672)
No, that's awesome. I was gonna say the one thing I would caution people against is over preparation.

is building up this massive well of facts and the pressure to feel like you have to memorize them all. It comes down to comfort. can't tell you how many times I've interviewed somebody for some role or whatnot and on paper they are fantastic. Like I look at their resume and I'm like, man, this person's great. They're going to do great here.

And then they get to the interview portion and they're tripping over their words and they're trying to say stuff or worse. They're just doing these really long, weird, awkward pauses as they're trying to bring up, you know, exactly all the things that they need to, if they've memorized or set up. Be natural as often as you can. And that's not easy, especially in today's job hunt.

dystopia we find ourselves in where it's like, hey, good news, you're on interview seven, three more, and we'll definitely be ready to make a decision. It can be tough to not have like this sense of like, I need to memorize this, I need to be, you know, tip top. But it goes back to, I think what I said at beginning, over and over and over.

At least for right now, businesses still hire people. They don't hire data sheets and resumes. You should have the things you've done. You should know your past, hopefully, and you should be able to talk about it and talk about the things you would do and wouldn't do. Scott, you and I were talking, excuse me. You and I were talking not too long ago about a place that you were talking about, maybe interviewing with and

Daniel (41:43.276)
I think I told you that like, when you're interviewing, you're presenting the best version of yourself. But also remember when companies are interviewing you, they're often presenting the best version of themselves as well. And so if you don't like the best version of them,

Daniel (42:03.111)
Don't take the next interview. Don't keep interviewing. This idea of hunting and finding and like, gotta get a job, I get, I 100 % get. But it's more important to get the right job than any job.

Zeta (42:23.662)
truth.

Scott (42:24.724)
Well said. Well said. Well said.

Scott (42:34.558)
Come on, stupid little, there we go!

Scott (42:41.748)
All right, really great stuff, everybody. We could probably talk about this for another hour, but we're not. We're going to come back to it a little bit later. So we certainly appreciate that. What I would certainly love is for people to participate in the discussion. Dan's going to tell us how to do that in just a second. We'd love to get some tips and tricks from you so we can help those people that maybe, hey, I want to get into ID. I want to move from K through 12 and get into ID. It's a really popular thing for us to do. how do we do that? What are some things we could think about? Or are there some things that I want to

talk about as I think about when I want to put myself in front of folks and tell my stories. think that's awesome. So Daniel-san, do me a favor. Could you tell everybody how they could connect with us?

Daniel (43:18.956)
Yes, Scott.

Daniel (43:23.638)
Absolutely guys, you know the drill if you haven't already email us at nerds at the learning nerds calm jumping on a conversation I think this week what we'd love to know is what are you doing to get ready for an interview? What's that process like? How do you feel about the interview process in general? That's a handful of questions But you know, we're curious people if you're on Facebook You can find us at learning nerds for all of our Instagram peeps fab learning nerds And lastly for more information about us what we do and updates WWW dot the learning nerds comm

Scott, back at you.

Scott (43:54.26)
Thanks Dan. Hey everybody, do me a favor. We go ahead and hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, share this episode, this episode in particular with all your friends. We'd really appreciate it. And we'd also appreciate it if you go ahead and leave us a review, either an iTunes stitcher where there is an opportunity to leave a review. helps us get better and it helps this information to get out to more of you. And with that, I'm Scott.

Daniel (44:18.008)
I'm Dan.

Zeta (44:19.212)
And I'm Zeta.

Scott (44:20.658)
And we're your Fabulous Learning Nerds and we are out.