This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, Karen interviews Dr. Dawn Graham and discusses networking, the importance of your personal brand, and how these things relate to switching jobs.

Dr. Dawn Graham is a career switch coach, TEDx speaker, LinkedIn learning instructor, and host of the show “Dr. Dawn on Careers” on SiriusXM. She’s also the author of Switchers: How Smart Professionals Change Careers and Seize Success. 

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We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

About the Episode:

Switching jobs is becoming a common habit in our modern world. Oftentimes, it’s a good thing, too! Dr. Dawn Graham teaches how to properly make a job switch. Networking and your personal brand are two important factors in a successful switch.

Networking

Years ago as the internet was becoming more popular, networking online was easy and convenient. Fast forward to today, we’re bombarded with information everywhere we look. Online networking is still very useful and effective… if done properly.

To make online networking effective, you need to connect on the human level. To make this happen, if you do great work, you must be genuine with others and let your true self shine. Then comes the follow up. Following up with your connections is necessary to make your online networking efforts effective.

Personal Brand

A brand isn’t just for businesses and products. It’s for you too. Many people are scared to display themselves as their own brand, but if you don’t have a strong personal brand, you might get overlooked.

What exactly is a personal brand? It’s who you are and how you present yourself to others. You might work for corporate, but what is it about you that makes you unique? The attributes that make you stand apart are what make you who you are and what make up your personal brand.

When you’re looking to make a job switch, you want to make sure you’re noticed and taken seriously. This starts by networking effectively and building your personal brand. And once you’re finally ready to make the switch, Dr. Dawn shares with you what you should do to make the switch successful in her book Switchers: How Smart Professionals Change Careers and Seize Success.

Episode Spotlights:

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/115
  • Introducing this episode’s guest, Dr. Dawn Graham (3:17)
  • The true spirit of networking (5:55)
  • The future is relationship marketing (6:37)
  • Dawn’s journey (8:20)
  • The importance of building your personal brand (10:07)
  • How a personal brand relates to recruiters (13:18)
  • Make your brand relates to your audience (14:01)
  • The difference in your résumé and your LinkedIn profile (17:53)
  • Job-switch killers (20:10)
  • Why Dr. Dawn wrote her book (22:41)
  • What is a job switcher? (24:37)
  • How to find out more about Dawn (31:44)

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast episode 115.

Intro 0:07
Welcome to the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are, girl. Stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies, and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:24
Hi there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this episode is brought to you by She’s LinkedUp where we teach women simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing that gets you on the phone consistently with your perfect people. People that you can’t wait to have the opportunity to chat with the people that can grow your career, your business and your life and change it for forever. We teach digital marketing with the human touch and you know as this podcast is going live, it is the spring of 2020 we are in the midst of the coronavirus, the COVID-19 pandemic, and boy do we need human touch now more than ever. It’s interesting. I recorded this podcast episode with Dawn Graham, a few months ago before this even or I guess a month or so ago before this even was a thing. And it is the perfect episode for this time, because Dawn is the author of the book Switchers. And what Switchers basically does is it talks about as your as things are shifting and changing in your career. Dawn’s book and Dawn’s work supports you with that. So I think that a lot of us are seeing, maybe considering maybe not maybe maybe not seeing changes, but considering changes as we move into whatever the next chapter of our business in our career looks like. So I think Dawn is going to be a great resource for you. You totally want to check out her book, we’ll put the link to the book in the show notes as well. But lots of good conversation here today, not just for my entrepreneur, friends, but also for people that are looking for a new corporate job or have a corporate job or looking to change from corporate to entrepreneur, entrepreneur to corporate Dawn is great support for you. And the story of how children I met is actually really funny. So I can’t wait for you to hear that. So as you know, if you listen before, if you love what you hear today, we love to hear from you. So make sure to take a quick screenshot of this episode and share it on social media. Tag me. I’m @karenyankovich. Tag Dawn, her social media handles are in the show notes here. And let us know that you’re listening. And what I will do is of course, if you’re sharing my content with your audience, I love to share that with my audience. And I’ll get we’ll both get each other some visibility here, right, and this is how we all lift each other up in this crazy time in the world. in the show notes, there’s also a link for Speakpipe where you can leave me an audio review. I love that tell me what you thought about this show. Tell me what you thought about dawn, tell me maybe if you have a guest that you think we should have, or if there’s a topic you want me to talk about, right? You can basically just leave me a voice message about whatever you want. And you can check all of that out at karenyankovich.com/115. And of course, if you have, if you’re so inclined to leave us a rating or review, we love that as well because that helps us understand how to best support you as we plan out our shows moving forward. So I am going to move now right into my interview with Dawn Graham. So we have Dr. Dawn Graham with us on the show today. Dr. Graham is a career switch coach, a TEDx speaker, a LinkedIn learning instructor and host of the popular call in show Dr. Dawn on Careers on SiriusXM Radio channel 132. She’s a regular contributor to forbes.com under the leadership channel and the career director for the executive MBA program at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Her latest book Switchers how smart professionals change careers and see success combines her experience as a career coach, licensed psychologist and former corporate recruiter to give career structures and strategies to break through obstacles and land the job they want. And I’m so excited to have you here on the show today.

Dr. Dawn Graham 3:58
Yeah, it’s great to talk with you again, Karen. And it’s definitely been too long. I’m excited about this.

Karen Yankovich 4:02
It has, and this is a change because you know, I’ve been on Dawn’s radio show a few times. This is the first time I get to interview you, which is fun. Yeah. Yeah. So Dawn and I met a few years ago, I can’t remember exactly how we met. I don’t know if you know this, but I have was running at the time, a different version of the LinkedIn profile challenge that I’m running now. And one day I just like my email box was like exploding, saying, I heard about your challenge on on Sirius Radio, on XM Radio. And I was like, what the heck, and you go on some topic, and somebody said, you guys have to check out Karen’s challenge. And I was, you know, of course, I teach LinkedIn marketing. So I was like, it was fun to have, like all this activity coming out of the blue one day, but also I reached out to you that and said, I had such a fun day today, as a result of your show today. And I’d love to get to know you, as well. Do you remember that?

Dr. Dawn Graham 4:55
I completely remember that. And I think I think that’s a perfect example of How opportunities come to be is that you know, something, you know, you put yourself out there somebody latches on to it, talks about it somewhere else. And that’s how worlds get connected. So I love that story.

Karen Yankovich 5:11
Yeah. And you know, when I teach LinkedIn marketing, it isn’t always about going for the win immediately, right? It’s about like building relationships that can introduce you to people that can be your ultimate win, whatever that win is for you, whether it’s client or job. So what what you know what I guess my strategy was, when that happened was, well, heck, if there’s, if there’s somebody that has a, you know, a talk radio show, talking about careers on SiriusXM, I need to know that host. And that’s a big part of what I teach. When I do that. It’s not just about like, you know, I didn’t reach out to you, john, and think Dawn’s gonna be a client someday I was like, wow, would be great if I can do it. And I can build the relationship because maybe I can get more visibility for my products and services through her show. And that’s exactly what happened.

Dr. Dawn Graham 5:54
Yeah. And I think when people often hear the word networking, Karen, and they get very nervous because They think it’s some kind of process. But you know, when you look at it this way, using this example, I think it’s two things. I think it’s one doing great work. So whatever you’re doing whatever your expertise is doing it very well. And that’s exactly what you do. So that this person called into my show and says, Hey, you have to check out Karen. And then following up on opportunities when they present themselves like this. So sure, you could have just said, Oh, this is a great day, and I’m very glad this happened and let it go. But you did it. You followed up on it. I think that is the true spirit of networking. And if you constantly are doing those two things, you’re going to start to get a lot of opportunities.

Karen Yankovich 6:36
Yeah, and I think this is true across the board and I I feel like and I’d love to know if you what you think about this, I kind of feel like that is how like that relationship marketing is what fueled sales and marketing and you know, careers 20 years ago, but I think it’s coming back to that now. I think that we’re starting to like the noise is starting to get deafening there’s so much wear Like we’re getting hit, like, almost barrage by so much content and so much stuff, you know, says the person with the podcast but we’re getting barrage with so much content and so much stuff that I think we’re going back to oh my gosh, I can’t just talk to a person who were there to build my business. So I think that it is starting to kind of come back full circle to that.

Dr. Dawn Graham 7:19
I completely agree. I completely agree. We just talked about this on the on the radio show today about the future and how it is coming back around full circle because relationships have always been core to opportunities have never really gone away. But you’re right when the internet became very popular and job searches on the internet and social media. Now this gave everybody a brand new platform, which has been wonderful, but now the novelty is these one on one relationships or face to face relationships. So again, you can definitely use these platforms as an opening but if you want to get to the next level trust is very important and that often comes through building those those one-on-one relationships.

Karen Yankovich 8:02
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And I think that so you know, you have a new book out. So let’s take a step back. So we, we already dove into like topics. Let’s take tell us a little bit about your journey that brought you to being the host of this radio show and coming out with a book and tell us a little bit about your journey.

Dr. Dawn Graham 8:20
So yeah, my my expertise is around career coaching and all things career and the way I got here was actually having some stumbles in my own career. I was with Arthur Andersen when the whole Enron fiasco happened, and you know, that’s a long time ago now so maybe some of your listeners need to look that up. But but it was it was terrible, 100 year old company with a great reputation and 10s of thousands of employees across the world basically crumbled in six months. And here it was a young professional thinking I would spend my career here and I was doing well and getting a lot of opportunities just to find that not only did my job go away, but I spent all my time I’m building my network in that company. So all of my contacts now we’re also out of work and also the brand of that company because of the, you know, unfortunate way that it came to fold was pretty much not very positive, I will say. So I have the, you know, the three things I talk about all the time, which are, you know, strong skills, network, and brand where we’re all kind of crumbling at once, and I thought, I never want to be in this position. Again, I never want to be in a position where I feel like I’ve been, you know, I have nothing and that my security lies with one company because that really put me in a very difficult place. Of course. After that, I made sure that I built a strong network both in and out of companies, I made sure to focus on my brand and I made sure to continuously grow my skills, not just in the company or role I was in but outside of that to that, should this ever happen again. I’d never find myself in that. Place. And then I’ve built basically my career around helping others to do that. And that’s where all this came from.

Karen Yankovich 10:07
So one of the things you said there that I think is really important is that you under you started to learn about the importance of building your brand. And often we think about that, as entrepreneurs, we don’t always think about that as a career employee. We don’t think we have to have a brand. In fact, when I talk to people that are in careers that are in corporate or that have paycheck jobs, about LinkedIn, a lot of times they’re like, Well, my employers, but I think I’m job hunting. And I’m like, on a personal mission to overcome that stigma, because it’s really so important that, you know, I feel like if a company invest in the personal brand, for the people that work for it immediately elevates the company, if all of the people that work for the company have strong personal brands, and that is a different. I think that’s a different mindset that has evolved as this as we’ve evolved through the past 20 years.

Dr. Dawn Graham 10:56
Yeah, and I completely agree. I feel like a lot of people Look at brands and say that’s for a product or that’s for an organization. But here’s the deal. You know, Carla Harris, who has also been a guest on my show said something that I think is really profound for anybody who’s in an organization, which is a lot of the decisions that are being made about your career are happening when you’re not in the room. And when you think about that, if you think about you know, the higher ups you know, the new clients who are coming in know if there’s going to be a merger knows if if there is going to be some kind of layoff, you know, if you don’t have a strong brand and brand being, you know, your reputation for doing good work, your expertise. I mean, there’s a lot wrapped up into that word, but if people don’t know who you are, what you’re good at and what you want to do. Those decisions that are being made may mean that you get overlooked not because you’re not qualified, not because you’re not a great person or a great fit for whatever they’re doing, but because they don’t know about you and what you can do.

Karen Yankovich 11:55
Yeah, it’s so true because skills are important right skills are important, but I think I think skills are, you know, people know how to use Excel and Word and you know, Adobe products and things like that. So, so skills are definitely important. But you’ve got to stand out from all the other people that have those skills.

Dr. Dawn Graham 12:14
You really do. And some people think about that. And they say that that sounds difficult. I don’t know what that means. And, and so I think a good way to look at it is how do you approach your work that’s made me different from other people who do the job and you know, for me, I’m a licensed psychologist. So I bring a lot of psychology into my coaching and into the work that I do. And so that that kind of differentiates me from from maybe other career coaches. So I think people need to start thinking about what makes them unique. Maybe it’s how they approach their work. Maybe they have a dual background, because they switched careers and they can bring those skills in to help but there’s always something that makes your approach unique or the way you do your work or what you focus on or if you’re not sure You can ask people you see, what am I known for what what you know, stands out, because I guarantee that other people will probably tell you things that maybe you don’t see in yourself. And that can be a great way to start understanding the value you bring to your workplace or to your clients.

Karen Yankovich 13:17
Yeah. So So how does this all relate to recruiters because we, you know, we talk a lot about on this on this podcast about entrepreneurs and how to build your brand as an entrepreneur. But, you know, often recruiters could be valuable to us in many ways, not just as we change jobs and change careers. But even as we enter enter a new phase of our new, you know, a new stage of our life or career. So how does how do recruiters fit into all of this conversation about branding?

Dr. Dawn Graham 13:47
Yeah, so I mean, obviously, you’re a LinkedIn expert and LinkedIn is the go to place if you’re a professional, you need to be on there and you need to be you need to have a clear brand and so before we get to the recruiter part, I will say One of the things that we know, especially in 2020, we are we are very, we are very targeted, we want information quickly in bite size. And we don’t want to have to wade through anything that’s not relevant. So I would say, first and foremost, when you’re thinking about brand, make sure it’s relevant to your audience. In order to do that you have to identify your audience. If you’re looking to find a new job, and in a corporation or somewhere where recruiters are looking for you, they need to see this first and foremost, they’re not going to go through your LinkedIn profile or your resume, or you know, whatever other social media they may be looking at and say, Hmm, Karen’s get it all these things, which one do we want to hire her for? They’re not going to do that if you don’t meet their need very quickly, and front and center, they’re going to move on to the next person. So I think that’s, that’s first and foremost is that you have to know who your audience is, and you have to speak to that audience. The other thing is, is not to forget about their relationships, I mean, building relationships whether it’s Executive external headhunters or recruiters if you’re, you know, you’re going to be in a job search, the relationship part still counts. And I think sometimes we overlook that because technology has made it so easy to just click and send and, and you know, like and all that. But I mean, the fact is people hire people, they like people hire people they trust. So I think it’s really important to also build that relationship. And remember that we’re all dealing with people, even though we’re on a computer, there are people on the other side.

Karen Yankovich 15:29
Oh my gosh, I love that. And that speaks to the need when you’re creating your personal brand to make sure that it’s in your voice. Because often I see people on LinkedIn feeling like they have to be really they have to have corporate speak in there. You know, they have to be really have to sound really professional. And yes, you need to sound intelligent, but I think it’s important that it’s still in your voice and that you don’t have to pretend to be somebody you’re not. Because people will people we can feel that in your online presence and feel when it’s really you and when you’re trying to be Someone you’re not.

Dr. Dawn Graham 16:01
Yeah, being genuine is so important. I think that’s why a lot of people shy away from the idea of brand because they feel like for some reason, it’s, it’s not genuine, but it is actually all about being who you are. And picking and choosing those aspects of yourself that are going to be most relevant and impressive to your audience. So it doesn’t mean you’re making things up. But you know, the way I describe it is if you if you’re buying a car, and that car has amazing safety features, airbags, child locks and all that, and you’re selling it to a young family, that’s what you’re going to start out with. But if you’re selling it to somebody who wants to use it to go camping in the mountains, you’re going to start with the features of that car that include the the built in refrigerator and the four wheel drive and all the other things. So it’s like, we have to look at ourselves as complex with a lot of skills and a lot of dimensions and then say which of these are going to be most relevant to my audience and that’s what I’m going to put forward. And that’s completely genuine.

Karen Yankovich 17:03
Oh my gosh, I, I say the exact same thing when I’m helping people with their LinkedIn profiles. Nobody needs to know what you did at that job that’s not relevant to what you’re doing now. It’s not being inauthentic. It’s just irrelevant.

Dr. Dawn Graham 17:16
It’s so true. I tell people all the time, Karen, that, you know, if you look in my background, my resume my LinkedIn looks like guys, I’ve had this perfectly planned career all my life, you would never know that I was laid off twice. That, you know, I tried some things that weren’t a fit. And, and that’s the fact is that we all can create this story. And just because we leave parts out of the story, it doesn’t mean that the story’s not true. It’s just that look, people are very short timeframe. They need to hear the story that grabs their attention. And once you grab their attention, there might be other things you want to add. But if you don’t grab their attention, you’re not going to have an opportunity to do that.

Karen Yankovich 17:52
Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the other things that I say about LinkedIn as it as it relates to personal branding, and I’d love to hear what You think about this is, you know, when you when we think about careers, and recruiters, you know, job searches, we think a lot about resumes. And I think I like to, I like to think about LinkedIn as differently than a resume and that resumes are who you used to be all the things you used to do. But your LinkedIn profile position properly is the person that you want to become kind of a dressing for the job you want. It’s not faking. It’s not faking that at all. But you have to be you have to put forward the confidence in being you know, having the skills and the desire to be this, this next chapter version of you. And that’s what I want to see you portray in your LinkedIn profile, because that is what you know, that helps, like you said early on, like, tell me what makes you different than everyone else. Make it easy for me to pick you. Right. And I think that that’s one of the ways to do that.

Dr. Dawn Graham 18:52
Agreed. I would say that you want your LinkedIn to be aspirational in nature and again, using the skills experiences and every thing that you’ve built, but but framing them in a way that shows what you can do with those things. I mean, the fact is, is that the number one thing any employer wants is, is hunger. And then they’re gonna say, once you have that hunger and that drive, which you’ll show through your achievements and accomplishments, they want to know how you’re going to help them with their mission or their bottom line or helping your clients with with getting their projects done or what have you. And so they want to see that. And I think that aspirational piece is so important, because we’re moving into a time where passive candidates are becoming a huge way that recruiters are bringing on new hires and passive candidates or people who are not necessarily looking but have this aspirational LinkedIn profile that shows their skills and accomplishments in light of what those skills and accomplishments will help companies do and they’re seeing this and they’re reaching out to these candidates are not necessarily looking and starting the interview process and this is where they’re hiring from. So I think knowing that this is Even if you’re not looking today, you think you might be looking, you want a profile that speaks to recruiters who are starting those searches.

Karen Yankovich 20:08
Yeah. So in your book, you talk about some of the mistakes that switchers make with that you wish you had known before making some of your own career switches to any of these applied to like your personal brand. And tell us about some of those, those job switch killers.

Dr. Dawn Graham 20:24
Yeah, so I think one of the job switch killers, if you’re looking to make a functional or industry switch, one of the things that we have to realize when it comes to our brand is that what works for us last time may not work for us next time, meaning there might have been a specific accomplishment that everybody’s been impressed with and that we lead with. But if you’re looking to move into a new function or a new industry, this may not be the most relevant and so you need to look at your background and your brand and see what’s most relevant. So you know, quick example from my from my work at Wharton is I had a student you He wanted to move from the the clinical side of pharma to the business side of pharma and the student had all the business skills and all that but kept leading with the PhD, which is very impressive. Having a PhD in chemistry is ridiculously impressive. But now that you’re looking to do something completely different, the business side didn’t really care about the PhD. They didn’t care that that you know, you had the scientific background, what they cared about was that you had data analysis and that you knew finance and that you had, you know, client experience and this type of thing, which this student had, but she wasn’t leading with it. So when she started leading with that, all of a sudden doors started opening and the best part of it, Karen, was that when she got down to the the final two candidates, they said, Okay, well what makes you different, what makes you stand out and she’s like, well, I also have a PhD in chemistry, and so…

Karen Yankovich 21:56
Which is like, a dream, right?

Dr. Dawn Graham 21:58
Yeah. Bam. So I always say metal. First standout second. And this is a prime example of how that works much worse because what people don’t understand is that the hiring process is actually about elimination, it is not about selection. And elimination is a very different process in your brain. And when a hiring manager recruiters looking to eliminate there, it’s really easy. Oh, you have a PhD, we don’t need a PhD, we need some of our business fields or you have this or you don’t have that. But when you’re down to those final two or three candidates, now it flips and now they want to know what makes you unique. So when you know that the job search process is like this, you can redesign your strategy completely to be more competitive and get where you want to be.

Karen Yankovich 22:39
Very cool. Very cool. Tell me what else prompted you like what what were you seeing that prompted you to write a whole book around this?

Dr. Dawn Graham 22:48
So great question. And I this is a this is a very easy answer. The fact is the job world is changing and hiring hasn’t caught up period. So so we are now Moving into a market where we have hybrid roles, we have portfolio careers, we have, you know, basically hire for project type work gigs, because there’s such a fluidity in the market right now in terms of, of what the needs are globalization, technology, all these things are happening, which means what I hire you for today may look very different from what I need you for next year. And so, so switchers, in my opinion are becoming the new normal, you need to be able to have this agile set of skills and be able to move from function to function and industry to industry. However, what I see is that the hiring practices, although they’re changing, they’re not quite there yet. So we still have applicant tracking systems looking for keyword matches or five years of experience in marketing and this and the fact is, if your switcher you don’t have that doesn’t mean you won’t be a successful candidate, but you’re probably not going to make it through the applicant tracking system. So what I realized is that we’re in this very interesting time where The, you know, career dreams that people have, are not necessarily in alignment with hiring practices that we have. And this book essentially helps you to get past that barrier so that you can land the job you want. And it’s a very tactical practical book around, here’s how to make a career change as a switch. Of course, the techniques work for non switchers as well. But what I’ve realized is that the traditional methods that sometimes you can get away with as a you know, non switcher just are not going to work for the career changer.

Karen Yankovich 24:37
So tell me, I don’t know that we’ve actually ever defined what you what you will define switcher for us. I don’t think we’ve got to defined. How do you define switcher?

Dr. Dawn Graham 24:46
So a career switcher is somebody who’s changing industry function or both industry and function. So, you know, the traditional career path is usually, you know, moving into a similar industry or function or maybe moving up The ladder progressing advancing, but a switcher is going to go from maybe the the manufacturing industry to the farm farm industry or maybe they’re going to go from working in marketing to working in finance. And so these are some pretty big changes that, you know, that people are making today which honestly, are becoming more and more necessary as jobs change and shift and more. But we don’t necessarily have the tools in place to hire or to assess these candidates. And let’s face it, I mean, you know, this to hiring managers are often not trained on how to to select candidates, and that’s not a slam on hiring managers. It’s just not their job. their day job might be accounting or finance or data analysis. And so maybe they hire somebody two or three times a year and they don’t really get trained or get a lot of experience doing this. So to hire a switcher, they you know, they really have no idea where to start. What they tend to do is go away The tried and true skill match or word match and hire those people, which, you know, I’m not saying those people aren’t qualified, but you may have a fantastic candidate who’s a switcher that gets overlooked for the sheer fact they don’t have the right keywords on their profile.

Karen Yankovich 26:16
So could you be a switcher, if you’re going from a career to an entrepreneurial role or from an entrepreneurial role to a career or even from a career to a, you know, side hustle, entrepreneurial role? Maybe, maybe you’re retiring and you want to, you know, just do something different? Can that is that can you still be considered a switch? Or do you really define it as career to career?

Dr. Dawn Graham 26:37
I think all those things are switchers. In the book I talked about, you know, returning after maybe an absence from work, that could be a switcher. So there’s a lot of that, yeah, retirees are great, because a lot of times you’re retired, but you want to keep working, but you want to do something different. So yeah, I address that in the book as well. Because the fact is, it’s really anything that is not the traditional career path. So it’s not traditional for People that work in corporate and then stop and start their own business. So all of the skills and practices we talked about in the book absolutely apply to all those populations. Because the fact is, all of that is based on on building a strong brand, building a network, understanding how to present yourself differently, and in a way that’s relevant to your target audience and not let the great great things get lost in the good stuff. And, and a lot of it to Karen is I weave a lot of psychology into the book. As a licensed psychologist, what I’ve learned is that a lot of the job search is based on human relationships and interactions. And, you know, we all know that humans tend to have communication challenges at certain times and things like that. So I talk a lot about how psychology gets in the way, both from the hiring managers perspective and what’s going on in their mind. Also the candidates perspective and some of the things that trip us up as candidates so that we can kind of wipe that off the table and get around that barrier as well.

Karen Yankovich 28:00
So cool. And I almost feel like you’re kind of almost giving, if you need it permission free will to do this because I think it’s becoming more common. But I think there’s still a lot of reluctance to kind of straying off the what is I don’t even know if there is such a thing as a traditional path anymore. But, you know, I think the days of starting with the company when you graduate college and retiring when you’re 70, you get that same job. I think that’s not happening that often to me. I don’t think that’s traditional anymore. That being said, though, I think that’s still kind of what’s expected. Right. So I kind of feel like you’re giving permission for people to be switchers?

Dr. Dawn Graham 28:34
Yeah, I love I love the way you say that. Because I think that’s what this book does. It basically says, like, this is a new world we’re living in. And for most of us, you know, we’re hanging on to strategies and tactics and ideas that that don’t exist anymore. So to your point, if you you know, you’re not a job hopper anymore. If you stay at a company one to two years Matter of fact that especially in certain tech industries, that’s pretty expected and the flip side is if you stay with a company, ah, 10 years, now employers start to believe that maybe you’re not agile enough to make a move, and why did you stay somewhere so long? So attitudes are shifting. And, you know, applying online used to 20 years ago be like it was new, it was great. It was working. But as you mentioned earlier, it’s so oversaturated now that it’s not working anymore. So I think what the book does is exactly what you said, Give people permission to let go of the old ways of doing things and what used to work and what now is actually getting in their way and to say, look, it’s not me, it’s not that I can’t do this work. It’s that I’m using old strategies and techniques, and that’s why I’m not getting where I want to be.

Karen Yankovich 29:44
Oh, my gosh, well, I I love that you’re doing this because I think, you know, I tend to talk too much to my entrepreneur listeners. And I know that there’s a lot of business professionals that listen to this show. So I’m so glad that you were You know that that you and I were able to have this conversation, and that you bought this book to us because I think that, really that’s what this whole podcast is really about. Not that you need my permission or your permission to do anything, but sometimes we just need to hear it, we need to hear that it is more common than not, especially one of the things you mentioned, too, that sometimes you’re you, you’re, you know, you’ve taken a few years off for whatever reason, maybe you raise kids, maybe maybe you just traveled for a while, whatever. I think that that’s becoming more common. And I also think that it’s rare that you’re sitting on a sailboat for three years, you know that you probably did something in those years, that still positions you maybe around maybe you were you know, working for a nonprofit, you were volunteering, you’re on the board of directors of something, right, those are all things that still position you I think with the skills that put you in a position of leadership to get that new, you know that have that new chapter in your life.

Dr. Dawn Graham 30:50
I totally agree. And the book talks about that there’s a there’s a lot of exercises, ones that who I am map and it really encourages you to look at all those things. You’re Three years sailing trip your volunteer experience and everything and look at yourself really holistically because i think i think we do tend to, you know, start to identify with our label our title our company. And we it’s really hard for us to start to see ourselves different ways, but, but my mantra in the book is no apologies, you don’t have to apologize for anything in your career, whether you were fired or laid off or took three years off, because you wanted to or whatever, you don’t have to apologize, stop doing that, and start owning what you did and showing how it has made you an even better candidate. And I think when you start to do that, again, confidence breeds confidence. So So it’s about taking what you’ve done and positioning it into a story that shows why you’re qualified.

Karen Yankovich 31:43
Oh, my gosh, so cool. So, Dawn, how can people learn more about you? How can they get a copy of the book? I know you spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. So maybe that’s a place people can learn more about you tell us how people can?

Dr. Dawn Graham 31:54
Yeah, absolutely. I’m on LinkedIn. If you if you heard me on this podcast. I’d love for you. To say that in a personal note, so I know where you saw me. You can also follow me on twitter @drdawngraham. Of course my radio show is on SiriusXM 132 every Thursday live at noon. So if you want to call in and ask a question, you can do that. And of course, I have a website as well, drdawnoncareers.com where you can find everything that I’ve done, including all my podcasts and radio shows and my blog and everything in one, one quick place. So lots of different ways no matter what what kind of media tool you’re using.

Karen Yankovich 32:32
Cool. We’ll put links to all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much for doing this. This was such a it was fun to hear what you’ve been up to. And I haven’t talked to you since you’ve since the book has come out. So it’s been a It’s been a while. So I’m glad we got a chance to do this. Thanks so much for being here.

Dr. Dawn Graham 32:46
Yeah. Thanks, Karen. It’s been really fun talking again and yeah, let’s let’s get together soon.

Karen Yankovich 32:51
Sounds good to me. It was so fun to catch up with Dawn. Dawn and I met in person a few times because she does her interviews for SiriusXM Career Talk Radio, in person in her studio in Philadelphia, which is always fun to, to meet up with people in person and what we’re kind of missing now at least I’m kind of missing now that it’s spring of 2020. And I’ve been cooped up in my house for a couple of weeks now. So, first of all problems, you know, it’s really nothing to complain about here. But uh, it was it’s, I’m looking forward to the days where we can start doing these interviews in person again. So don’t talk about a challenge. We’re not doing that challenge anymore, but we are still doing weekly live workshops, you can check them out at freelinkedinworkshop.com, and every Wednesday, I’m doing a live workshop at that, at least in the spring of 2020. We’ve also started doing more YouTube videos, so make sure you check out the link to our YouTube channel, in the show notes and subscribe to that we’re doing lots of LinkedIn tips on YouTube these days. So that’s just a way to get some more support and more connection, right? So again, check us out at freelinkedinworkshop.com, join me for a live workshop. What I love about what we’re doing with this version of the spring 2020 version of these workshops. I’m actually staying on the workshops at the end of the live workshops for as long as you want me to do brainstorming your ideas, there is nothing that we did I teach on LinkedIn marketing that doesn’t start with what is a win look like for you, right? If you invest in my course or my programs, or any one on one strategy, I want to know before we even get started, what does it look like on the other side, right? What is it? What is going to make you say this was the best money I ever invested? And everything we do from that point forward is focused to make that happen, right. So I help you brainstorm those things live on this free workshop every Wednesday. So check it out freelinkedinworkshop.com. If you’ve been on these workshops before, join me again because it’s all new. And I hope to see you there, and we’ll see you back here next week for another episode of the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast.