103: Conquering Your Fear of Becoming a Data Analyst w/ Erick Cuentas

[00:00:00] If you really understand what you want, why you want it a lot of the obstacles don't seem as daunting You know you can break them down

[00:00:07] You can endure the grind to get to the point that you want to be at but you have to understand why you want to do

[00:00:12] What you want to do Welcome to the Data Career Podcast. The podcast that helps aspiring data professionals land their next data job

[00:00:20] Here's your host Avery Smith Hello Data Friends and welcome back to another episode of the Data Career Podcast

[00:00:28] I'm your host Avery Smith and we got an awesome episode for you coming up

[00:00:32] It is with my friend Eric Quentus who has a really unique story of going from chemical engineering to data analytics

[00:00:39] To becoming a career coach and then stepping back into the corporate world as a product manager

[00:00:45] And a project manager and it's a really unique story

[00:00:48] I think you guys will find Eric's journey quite fascinating and his insights as a career coach working with recruiters and job seekers

[00:00:55] Pretty interesting

[00:00:57] There's a few things I really hope you take away from this episode

[00:00:59] Number one is the power of networking in Eric's story and in my story networking is so important

[00:01:05] And it's not as hard as you think it might be you might be like I don't know anyone. I'm an introvert

[00:01:09] I don't know how to network

[00:01:11] Well Eric and I talked about this

[00:01:12] I think we're both pretty introverted actually and we talked about you can just serve people

[00:01:17] Just serve people in consistent small ways and it can really pay dividends in the long call

[00:01:22] Number two we talked about your resume

[00:01:24] Your resume is really just a tool to land you interviews

[00:01:27] And if you're not getting interviews the reason is probably your resume and you can tweak around

[00:01:32] You can say anything you want on a resume. Keep in mind it's just a piece of paper with words on it

[00:01:36] So you can tweak and I'm not saying the lie, but you can literally put whatever you want on a resume

[00:01:40] So for example if you're trying to apply for data analyst jobs or marketing analyst jobs

[00:01:45] And you don't have that term on your resume and you're not getting callbacks try putting it there

[00:01:50] See if it works see if it helps. Let me know if it does

[00:01:53] I'd like for you guys to follow up and the last thing that we talked about is just fear and how fear can prohibit you

[00:02:00] In your career from moving forward and a lot of the times it's not

[00:02:04] Rational fear its emotional fear we're afraid of things that we probably shouldn't be like for example

[00:02:10] If we had to go swimming with sharks, we'd be afraid right

[00:02:13] But if we have to jump in a car we're not really afraid

[00:02:16] But yet jumping in a car actually being in a car is probably more dangerous than swimming with sharks

[00:02:22] So there's kind of a difference between what's scary and what's actually dangerous

[00:02:25] You know posting on LinkedIn is is scary

[00:02:29] But not posting on LinkedIn I would consider that dangerous

[00:02:32] So that's what you have to look forward to in this episode before we hop into it

[00:02:35] I would love to tell you guys about some things that I have going on right now

[00:02:38] As always you can come join the data analytics accelerator

[00:02:41] I have a webinar down below that kind of explains the whole program

[00:02:44] If you guys haven't watched the webinar, please just go watch it

[00:02:47] We have discount code in there as well

[00:02:48] It's a good webinar and I'll teach you guys a lot of things and I'll talk about the program at the end

[00:02:53] Number two we just launched the interview simulator

[00:02:56] Which is my brand new platform to help you guys practice interview questions before you actually land the interview

[00:03:03] So go ahead and check that out. It has a free seven day trial

[00:03:06] So it costs you zero dollars to sign up and give it a go

[00:03:10] Just see if it's for you see if it's interesting see if it's helpful

[00:03:13] Number three, I just recently launched job hunt shortcut with Asa Howard all about the job hunt

[00:03:19] This is like kind of our philosophy on sending direct messages and networking and your job search and stuff like that

[00:03:24] So you guys can check out the link to that down below as well

[00:03:27] As always if you're finding this podcast helpful please leave us a rating in review

[00:03:31] We give you guys free access to a little podcast guide that kind of explains

[00:03:36] The best episodes of the podcast as well as we give you guys free access to Avery GPT

[00:03:41] Once you guys have left a review it takes like 30 seconds and it really helps me because it keeps you motivated

[00:03:47] And also helps other people like you find the show. So a enough logistics for now. Let's go ahead and jump into this week's episode

[00:03:59] All right everyone welcome back to another episode

[00:04:02] Of the data career podcast. I'm here in person at a new studio

[00:04:07] With Eric Quentus Eric welcome to the podcast. Thanks Avery appreciate it

[00:04:12] Eric is a alumni of the Data Analytics Accelerator program

[00:04:16] He's also an alumni of the University of Utah chemical engineering program which I went to as well

[00:04:23] And he's just overall good guy and really interesting guys. That's why we thought we'd bring him on

[00:04:28] Appreciate it now. It's good to be here. It's been a while that we've talked but you know

[00:04:32] That they were here together now. Yeah, I'm happy we're here as well

[00:04:36] So I want to start off by talking to the people a little bit about your journey

[00:04:41] So you've you've done some pretty interesting things where you were in chemical engineering

[00:04:45] Well first off you're from Peru right yeah, okay, so when did you move to the US? I was 12

[00:04:50] So little after 2000 your 2000 2001 doesn't do okay

[00:04:55] So yeah, you moved from Peru to the US you said chemical engineering at the University of Utah

[00:05:01] um you worked for some chemical engineering companies

[00:05:04] Then you joined the data analytics accelerator got into

[00:05:07] Data analytics data science and they needed something really interesting which I was super

[00:05:12] Proud of you and like this just amazed you actually became like a career coach

[00:05:17] Yeah

[00:05:18] And you did that for a little while and now you're back kind of in the chemical engineering world

[00:05:23] Doing like project management and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah

[00:05:26] Is that a fair synopsis? Oh, that's that's pretty accurate. Yeah

[00:05:29] Okay, so you've done a lot of different things a lot of cool different things today

[00:05:34] I want to focus a little bit on what it was like being a career coach

[00:05:40] And like what did you learn because you know?

[00:05:42] I'm technically a career coach, but I'm very focused on like data analytics

[00:05:47] It's like a lot of a lot of people who talk about data analytics will just teach you the skills

[00:05:53] And then a lot of career coaches will just teach you the career stuff

[00:05:56] And so I'm like somewhere in between because like I think you need both kind of going on at the same time

[00:06:00] But I'd love to hear your thoughts just like what it was like being a career coach. What did you learn?

[00:06:05] What are some of the biggest takeaways from that whole journey?

[00:06:07] So that's like the most open-ended question I could possibly give you but I just want to like soak up your experiences

[00:06:13] No, sure thing

[00:06:13] So first off, you know kudos to you actually because I wouldn't have gone into career coaching if it wasn't for

[00:06:20] You know your mentorship for one

[00:06:22] That I would say one of the biggest triggers that helped me get out of a lot of situations that helped me

[00:06:27] Just stay stuck in my career was

[00:06:30] When we did a project called the project screen time, right?

[00:06:33] Very very classic. You just grab data from your phone and figure out where it's going and

[00:06:37] And for me at that time

[00:06:39] I

[00:06:40] tended to complain quite a bit about my

[00:06:43] My circumstances per se my biggest excuse was I don't have time right like I know I have to prepare

[00:06:48] I know I have to explore different careers

[00:06:50] I want to change I have to be the one to do it but my excuse was always I don't have time to do that

[00:06:55] so

[00:06:57] In your program when we went through project screen time, I actually started

[00:07:01] Doing that and I found that I was spending a lot of time on my phone

[00:07:04] And I within the same thing right you you gathered the data you analyzed it you categorize

[00:07:09] You know what's useful? What's not and I found that I was spending

[00:07:13] You know upwards of 20 hours some things that added no value to my life that I they didn't know value

[00:07:18] And I decided to cut them and after some

[00:07:22] You know, I guess detoxing

[00:07:24] Um it gave me a lot of time back and I realized I not have time to do some things so

[00:07:30] I started tackling other issues particular there on my career finance was another big one

[00:07:36] Career clarity was another one and the very clarity

[00:07:38] I think was the trigger of like you know

[00:07:40] Now I feel like I've woken up and and I have a lot more power than I thought I had and

[00:07:45] And it opened the world like I could go into just about any career that I wanted to

[00:07:49] I wasn't tied to any one piece and and then I you know

[00:07:52] I noticed people really needed help in a lot of these

[00:07:55] Aspics and I really enjoyed mentoring them because they would reach out

[00:07:58] They would ask questions and and what became kind of like a service and hobby

[00:08:04] Ultimately became a very strong passion

[00:08:06] And so it became a career coach soon after that

[00:08:09] But I can go into more detail

[00:08:11] I don't know if you have any questions from the people

[00:08:13] Well one thing I guess I forgot to say at the beginning is

[00:08:16] You are a networker extraordinaire and I've I've known Eric for quite a while even before I

[00:08:22] Even before I was really into data or we're right we met right about where I was like

[00:08:26] I actually had my first data analyst job

[00:08:28] But I but I still was looking for like better jobs basically

[00:08:32] And you've always been like a really good networker

[00:08:34] So we'll talk maybe about some of your your networking tips that you have

[00:08:37] That's just one thing I have to say is like

[00:08:39] You've always like

[00:08:41] seen opportunities

[00:08:44] And been able to figure out like okay, I want to go explore that

[00:08:47] And one thing I want to say about you and also

[00:08:50] You know for everyone listening in our audience is I really think life's too short

[00:08:55] To not have multiple careers like

[00:08:57] Like it's kind of boring just to have one career

[00:08:59] So it's totally okay if you're a career changer that just means you're

[00:09:02] An interesting person you're chasing your passion and I think it's becoming more and more

[00:09:06] prevalent and like you said

[00:09:08] If you put your mind to it, I really think you can transfer into any career you want

[00:09:12] Now some of those are going to be harder like if you're like 40 years old

[00:09:15] You want to be a doctor and you have like

[00:09:18] An English degree you're gonna be in school for quite a while

[00:09:21] But some of them like data analytics for example

[00:09:24] Much faster to pivot much lower barriers. So I'm just I think it's so cool that you were transferring

[00:09:29] And you're like I can do anything I want right now. Yeah, no, absolutely was

[00:09:33] I think you hit the nail on the head right is that desire that you really what do you really want

[00:09:38] Is the question you have to ask yourself and an answer honestly because if you

[00:09:43] Really understand what you want why you want it

[00:09:46] A lot of the obstacles don't seem as daunting

[00:09:49] You know, you can break them down. You can go over them

[00:09:51] You can you can endure the grind to get to the point that you want to be at

[00:09:55] But you have to understand why you want to do what you want to do why you want to be there

[00:10:00] And that's the career clarity piece when I did career coaching

[00:10:03] My focus was on helping people overcome fear

[00:10:06] Guess a lot of times we're scared of like hey, what if I what if the grass is not greener on the other side right?

[00:10:10] What if I change careers and I don't like it

[00:10:13] What if this happens what if I get fired what if they figured out on the fraud or whatever it might be

[00:10:17] There's always a lot of fear

[00:10:18] But ultimately my my focus was to help people overcome those fears through preparation

[00:10:23] Particularly in one of those was

[00:10:25] You know, there's your time

[00:10:26] There's your finance you have to control those and then the third one really important is you have to understand

[00:10:32] You know, what you really want what you wanted where do you want to be

[00:10:35] That way when you take different steps in your career

[00:10:39] They're deliberate and not necessarily by chance right? It's not your employer telling you

[00:10:44] This is where I see you one day and two years you can be in this position right?

[00:10:48] You might not want that you have to know what you want

[00:10:50] And that way you can take deliberate action and go to those places

[00:10:54] Yeah, I forgot that you're you can't have like we're like yeah fearless career coaching was kind of your theme

[00:11:00] Which is interesting because

[00:11:03] If you think about it people are probably a lot of the time scared can I actually do this

[00:11:07] Is this going to be the right decision for me and fear is very paralyzing

[00:11:11] And so we often don't take action in our lives because of fear

[00:11:14] But I'm actually reading this book. It's called The Mountain is you

[00:11:17] I know you're a book. I don't know if you've read that one

[00:11:19] Oh, but I'll look at it

[00:11:20] It's it's kind of hoki like

[00:11:23] Self-help book, but it's very direct and one of the things that says

[00:11:27] Humor are wired for comfort not happiness

[00:11:31] And so a lot of the times fear is keeping us comfortable

[00:11:35] But actually fear prevents us from being happy

[00:11:37] And a lot of times we're feeling these emotions

[00:11:40] But these emotions don't even necessarily reflect reality

[00:11:43] It's just what we're feeling in the current moment

[00:11:45] And it doesn't necessarily mean that it's true

[00:11:48] And so I like what you said. It's like okay

[00:11:49] Well, you're scared to get into a new career

[00:11:51] Let's let's break down like why oh, it's my finances

[00:11:54] Well, why is it your finances?

[00:11:56] Well, it's because I don't have you know like what if it goes bad

[00:11:59] Well, what if it goes bad? What if you have a six-month emergency fund

[00:12:01] Like are you okay in that case? Oh

[00:12:04] Okay, maybe I'm okay in that case

[00:12:05] And so it was really like you looking at you know, maybe different parts of their life

[00:12:09] And being like why are you feeling this emotion and what we what can we do

[00:12:13] To have you like not feel that emotion basically

[00:12:16] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think you know, it's

[00:12:19] You know to your point that that fear piece totally paralyzes you and I love that you mentioned

[00:12:24] It keeps you comfortable but doesn't keep you happy and that's

[00:12:26] That's the that's what I found that's what helped me wake up because I realized

[00:12:31] for when I work

[00:12:33] A lot of times you know, I wasn't just in this area the career change

[00:12:35] But it was I saw something or I wanted to bring an idea or challenge the system

[00:12:40] Because it didn't make sense

[00:12:41] But I was like I don't want to be in anybody's bad list right

[00:12:44] I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want to miss out his comfort is good. He's stay there

[00:12:49] But it resulted in in mediocrity I would say you know for my personal

[00:12:53] career perspective and and that didn't vote well with me because I was thinking like

[00:12:58] I'm working but I'm not proud of my work necessarily and so

[00:13:03] Yeah, and then you know when I thought

[00:13:05] Carrier coaching right what do I need to do to prepare?

[00:13:08] I started to look into the finances how much do I need?

[00:13:11] What's my time frame?

[00:13:12] I broke it down because if I think

[00:13:14] Immediately let's make the transition to becoming a career coach

[00:13:18] overnight very very daunting right you point A point B is very far away

[00:13:23] You have to break it down every time

[00:13:25] What's the first step?

[00:13:26] What the basically do you demystify and you know shine the light in the monster and you realize oh, it's it's not that bad

[00:13:33] I mean there's there's things you can do to prepare. There's there's escape paths that you can take if things are not going well

[00:13:40] You have your plan B plan C and ultimately you realize yeah, hey

[00:13:43] It's if if it doesn't work out. It's not the end of the world. You're gonna get a lot smarter

[00:13:48] a lot better more confident you can do it next time and

[00:13:51] And yeah, I was it was pretty liberating to be able to take challenges like that and then you know take a leap of faith

[00:13:58] Asking what the worst case scenario is in all these situations. It's like okay

[00:14:03] You wanted you know to become a career coach

[00:14:05] What's the worst thing that can happen because it's scary you know becoming a career coach?

[00:14:09] Scary doing something new

[00:14:10] But if you like ask yourself really what's the worst thing that can happen

[00:14:13] I feel like that is the most liberating thing on planet earth

[00:14:16] Like I can think of so many examples in my life

[00:14:18] For instance with my bootcamp students inside the D.A. A all of the times they're like

[00:14:22] What if I apply for this job and I don't get it

[00:14:25] And I'm like well, what if you apply for this job and you're exactly where you're at or like what if I send this cold message

[00:14:30] I'm so scared to send this cold message

[00:14:32] Well, what's the worst thing that happens? What's the worst thing that happens if you post on LinkedIn

[00:14:36] People laugh at you people you don't really know laugh at you like

[00:14:40] You can there's so much more upside. There's so much happiness

[00:14:43] That's waiting on the other side of fear

[00:14:46] That you're just kind of sitting there parallelized because it's scary

[00:14:50] But like it turns out if you just be like well, what if it goes terribly wrong what happens and you're like

[00:14:54] Oh, can I live with that outcome then you should you should probably do it yeah

[00:14:58] So let's talk more about like so fear was a big thing that you saw in a lot of your

[00:15:03] Your students a lot of your clients they were like almost parallelized to actually make big moves

[00:15:08] What are some other things common trends that you saw that maybe maybe people

[00:15:12] Misconceptions or myths people kind of believed when it came to changing careers

[00:15:17] So one of them is you know what you mentioned is like what's the worst second happen right the counter to that one is

[00:15:23] You know, but what's the best thing that can happen right? That's that's a challenge

[00:15:27] That's why we do it in the first place right because you have a dream that you want to achieve and the question is is

[00:15:32] Are there results of that dream?

[00:15:34] Work the risk that you're gonna take right so linked into your point

[00:15:38] It's like hey, yeah people might not like a post

[00:15:40] But you mind that changing somebody's life and that's that's what happened with you know a lot of our

[00:15:45] Our comments a lot of the influencers thought leaders of today

[00:15:49] You know they they make a comment and they just triggers

[00:15:52] Some kind of chain reaction and somebody's thought process that leads them to make decisions and literally change our lives

[00:15:57] So yeah, you know by all means go in there share your ideas

[00:16:01] Take those those leaps of faith and don't let fear hold you back as it might impact a lot more people than then you think

[00:16:07] All their trends that I found with people fear was usually

[00:16:10] Fear of the unknown was probably the biggest one

[00:16:12] It was like hey we can we can prepare for the finance. We can prepare for the alternatives

[00:16:17] But what if I get in the car crash? Right? What if I there's an emergency and my

[00:16:21] My savings are gone

[00:16:23] What if the media hits my house? You know like they're good happen. I guess statistically there

[00:16:27] There's a chance it could happen and just that

[00:16:30] That's infinitesimal probability keeps people stuck

[00:16:34] um

[00:16:35] What I found though is just with the people that I've seen I've seen in my own life my parents

[00:16:41] Whether it's God the universe whatever you want to call it

[00:16:45] There's something other always looking out for you and when you're bold enough to take these challenges

[00:16:50] A lot of times it's rewarded you know like

[00:16:53] Hey, there might be a fire, but you're gonna be all right

[00:16:56] You know like one way or another you're gonna be all right. So

[00:17:00] It's it's a leap of faith to a degree

[00:17:01] But it's something that a lot of times calls you and you know you should do it

[00:17:06] It's just you know are you willing to think that's that

[00:17:08] It's true. I mean you could you could we could get hit by a meteor right now

[00:17:12] And like that's that's something that that could happen and it's

[00:17:16] But I don't want to like if you live it

[00:17:18] Live with that thought in your head. You can't really you're not really free 100% to like live

[00:17:22] And you're you're really paralyzed a lot of the time

[00:17:25] But but it's hard especially our we both have kids when you have kids

[00:17:29] All of a sudden you you are responsible. I was gonna say you feel responsible

[00:17:33] But you are responsible for other people other than yourself

[00:17:36] And that becomes you know obviously a big decision

[00:17:38] You don't want to make any decision that would not serve them properly

[00:17:43] But I think for a lot of career changers

[00:17:46] Changing a career is good for for them like especially a lot of the people that end up in D.A

[00:17:51] We have a lot of Uber drivers or a lot of teachers and I love I love my teachers but like

[00:17:58] Teachers a hard job to have kids with you're in school

[00:18:01] For like probably 50 hours a week

[00:18:03] You're not getting paid that much when you become a data analyst

[00:18:06] All of a sudden your hours go down your pay goes up and you're you could work hybrid

[00:18:10] You could work remote and so like

[00:18:12] Sometimes those steps you have to take one step back like a scary step back to take like one or two or three or four steps forward

[00:18:19] And do more stuff with your kids

[00:18:22] Okay, so that was a lot of the fears. Yeah, let's talk about let's talk about like

[00:18:26] When you when you look at them and their job search

[00:18:29] What are some things that they maybe were just doing wrong?

[00:18:31] They didn't necessarily see like some easy things that people when they're on their job search

[00:18:36] They they're doing wrong and they just don't realize it

[00:18:39] Yeah, so I think

[00:18:41] Preparation is one of the big one resume people might like it might not but it's it's still a required document

[00:18:46] So you know

[00:18:48] Even if you don't like it you have to learn to speak the language

[00:18:52] So the biggest thing I saw with resumes is people don't tailor the resumes they

[00:18:56] I mean, it's hard to tailor it to every job

[00:18:58] So that goes back to the clarity piece because you don't have to tailor your resume that much

[00:19:03] If you're looking for a job that you know you want

[00:19:06] This is a challenge particularly for

[00:19:08] New graduates because out of desperation they want anything right

[00:19:11] They want that you just want the food in the door yeah, and so they create a resume

[00:19:15] That's with everything down to like chess club and you know bands and whatever it might be

[00:19:21] Just this smorgasbord of every skill they have

[00:19:24] They counter to that is you know like

[00:19:26] You're speaking to everyone but by doing so you're you're pretty vanilla. You're not speaking to anybody

[00:19:30] Yeah

[00:19:31] And so

[00:19:32] If you really want a project manager job your resume has to say project manager

[00:19:36] Like the moment they read your name

[00:19:39] The title beneath your name should say project manager right now

[00:19:43] I'm a stick that I see people carry transitioners particularly make is

[00:19:47] They feel

[00:19:49] Like because they have not been a project manager for example before they can't claim that title

[00:19:55] And the point is your employer can't give you that title

[00:19:59] It's it's your claim yet who you are right? That's the career you've chosen

[00:20:03] So if you've done all this work if you're confident you can do it by all means claim it

[00:20:07] Just put project manager. That's what I'm going that's my name. That's what I want to be

[00:20:12] And then in the next steps show them, you know what qualifications you have what you've done

[00:20:17] What skills you're coming through a table and and it's you know

[00:20:20] You have to tailor your resume. That's it. That's the first thing I would say when it comes to career

[00:20:24] Who you're searching?

[00:20:25] I like that because I actually looked over your LinkedIn today or yesterday

[00:20:30] And I noticed that all of your titles had changed from when you were in the program

[00:20:35] Because you're trying to go for this project manager job

[00:20:38] And so all of your basically all of your career titles

[00:20:42] Were project related even even when I know maybe that wasn't your official company given title

[00:20:47] What you can do and I think that is so important that people realize because

[00:20:52] Especially with a T.S. With the you know the LinkedIn job algorithm

[00:20:56] You're a hundred percent right that if your resume if you're trying to be a data analyst

[00:20:59] If you're trying to become a business intelligence engineer

[00:21:02] If that term is not on your LinkedIn and is not on your resume

[00:21:07] You basically had no chance. You're filtered out. Yeah, you have no chance and and at least let's say

[00:21:12] Let's say

[00:21:13] We're not saying why like you have to you have to be able to back it up with bullet points that like okay

[00:21:18] My official title was for instance for me lab technician

[00:21:21] But I was analyzing data

[00:21:23] A ton so I had bullet points I could put for data analyst right and

[00:21:28] You have to be able to back it up, but here's the thing if you don't take that leap of faith and that scary step of claiming your own title

[00:21:36] You don't get a chance to even defend it if let's say let's say you say your data analyst even though you're technically not right

[00:21:43] You get to the interview stage. You get past the ats right then they can decide

[00:21:48] The the hiring manager of the recruiter can be like oh this person's kind of making this up or oh no

[00:21:54] They're legit and if they feel like you're legit

[00:21:56] They'll call you and they'll be like hey are you are you legit or not? And like you said if you can confidently have like

[00:22:03] evidence of how you used

[00:22:05] Project management for example for you in your previous roles

[00:22:09] Then you're golden at least you have a chance

[00:22:11] But if you don't give yourself a chance what are you doing? Yeah, no exactly and that's that was feedback

[00:22:16] Because I used to have all my my titles right like I was like quality engineer safety supervisor production engineer

[00:22:24] And my MES engineer and none of those relate

[00:22:27] But yet in all in all of those I had done project management

[00:22:30] I had either you know led projects myself

[00:22:33] I had collaborated with vendors

[00:22:34] I had led the program itself or I was the product owner for whatever this that we're

[00:22:39] Implementing and all of those tie-in very very well

[00:22:42] So what I did is I put you know project manager, but in parentheses. I put my actual title

[00:22:48] They want to know and then like you said the bullet points all basically our project manager related

[00:22:52] They're not to my title right yeah

[00:22:53] So if I did for example systems modeling

[00:22:57] But that's not related to the project management

[00:22:58] I'm not gonna put systems modeling in there

[00:23:00] I have to put the things of like how did I

[00:23:03] How do my skills and what skills that I use that they save time?

[00:23:05] Do they save money?

[00:23:06] They I deliver things on time and with the budget which is what project managers do

[00:23:10] So I just picked that language and

[00:23:13] Show the results. I think that's the other key piece is you have to and you have to be able to

[00:23:18] Show that the work that you do that skills that you're bringing are actually a benefit to the company

[00:23:23] A lot of people also this another misconception they they feel like

[00:23:28] The job description has

[00:23:30] Requirement a BCD you need to be able to use it software you need to be able to do that

[00:23:33] You need to have this scale communication etc

[00:23:35] You know those are at least the skills but you bring in those skills to the company mean absolutely zero if the company can translate those into a profit

[00:23:43] So you have to be able to show how you use those skills

[00:23:46] To make the company better whether it's money time savings

[00:23:49] They usually care about those stupid. Yeah, yeah, you have to unfortunately

[00:23:54] With companies you you have to quantify

[00:23:58] How much time did you save how much money did you save? I always add how many lives did you save

[00:24:03] Just try to make it not always about money, but it's usually unfortunately about money one way or another

[00:24:09] The one thing that I also just wanted to add about titles is like you said MES engineer

[00:24:15] I where was that at Edwards okay? So I'm a chemical engineer or originally right

[00:24:22] MES what does that mean me S is manufacturing execution system. Okay, it's digital software

[00:24:28] Basically this right here is the whole point is they gave you that was the come that was the company given title

[00:24:34] Yeah, so that company given title is not designed

[00:24:38] To help your career move forward. It's designed to keep you in the well not to keep you in the orchard

[00:24:44] But to organize you inside of an org chart. It's like oh, yeah

[00:24:47] That's exactly specifically what he does

[00:24:49] But to 99% of the world that means blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

[00:24:53] Like no one knows what that means

[00:24:55] And so when you put that on your resume unless you're trying to go for that exact same role again

[00:24:59] You're just confusing people yeah

[00:25:01] Instead if you can generalize that title into what's a better? I don't know. I would know it a better

[00:25:06] So for that one it was I mean we did a lot of project management, but it was basically I would say have

[00:25:11] Software engineer in a way you're dealing with software and then digital manufacturing lines

[00:25:16] Okay, so something like that something more simple because I had a student

[00:25:20] I'll keep their name private, but if you're in Canada and this sounds like you it is you where he

[00:25:26] Had like I can't even tell you how many characters. It was longer than a tweet. I swear

[00:25:31] It was like it was like 100 or like 200 characters of a title

[00:25:35] It was like MSBC fee five four three two one engineer

[00:25:40] And I was like

[00:25:41] You got to change that you got to generalize that because

[00:25:44] No one knows what that is except for you and everyone your co-workers

[00:25:48] Like you're the only person on planet earth that actually knows what that role is and so these these titles that companies give you

[00:25:55] they're just

[00:25:57] They serve the company and they don't necessarily serve you. Yeah, yeah, that's that's a little true

[00:26:02] Anyway, so I decided I had to go back

[00:26:04] But yes, I do agree in the bullets you got a show quantification of money saved life save

[00:26:08] What else what are there? What are there like common mistakes did you see people making the job search the other piece would be

[00:26:14] They so for some reason they will spend a lot of time right they'll they'll get their resume and they

[00:26:21] They apply to they call the plan. That's that's one thing

[00:26:24] I mean, it's not the best way you want to have a reference

[00:26:27] But they bless the resume everywhere and when they get call back

[00:26:31] They stop applying and they use focus heavily on that one golden child right that doesn't work because

[00:26:39] Statistically, that's the odds are not on your favor right because you now you still have to go through multiple rounds

[00:26:44] Yeah, the compete against others

[00:26:45] so what you have to do in that case is

[00:26:49] Don't don't assume that your resume is working because one person called you sure

[00:26:52] You have to keep working at it. You have to keep filtering it

[00:26:55] There is this website that I use. It's called skill-sinker

[00:26:58] It basically allows you to grab the job post match it against your resume and say

[00:27:03] If this was an aTS you'll give your ranking you know that want like 70 80 percent

[00:27:08] if you tailor it

[00:27:10] frequently

[00:27:11] Eventually your regular average on-tailer resume for a particular job will be high 60s low 70s

[00:27:19] Which is really good and this is you not touching it at all

[00:27:22] They just means you work at it quite a bit you tweak it a little bit get to 80s and you start getting quite a few calls and so

[00:27:29] What you have to do is you get that interview

[00:27:32] You keep sending resumes. You're gonna keep getting more interviews because now you're stacking the odds in your favor, right?

[00:27:37] You have multiple interviews you can have multiple offers and when when the time comes you can debate

[00:27:43] You can decide. Okay, I have three bats now which one best fits me? Which one

[00:27:48] You know if money is your your goal which one gives you the money which one gives you the title

[00:27:52] Which one gives you the options to move forward which one gives me the co-workers that I want to work with

[00:27:56] Which one's closer to my house which one's remote right you have multiple options

[00:28:00] But if you focus so much on just one

[00:28:02] Even if you get that you're stuck with that one. Yeah, you have no options

[00:28:06] So you need to keep applying and you can always say no you can always say no to job offers

[00:28:10] You can always say you can always decline interviews

[00:28:13] You can't say no if you don't have those

[00:28:15] It's very important that you mention that because I think some people

[00:28:19] Are under the impression and maybe it's my fault that I make it sound too easy getting into data

[00:28:24] Which I do think it's it's maybe not easy but it's simple

[00:28:28] But you're gonna get rejected oh yeah

[00:28:30] Probably hundreds of times like that's that's probably unless you're like really good at networking

[00:28:35] You're probably going to get rejected up. You're probably gonna get a hundred plus rejection emails

[00:28:39] And you're probably gonna get I don't know maybe out of those 100

[00:28:43] Maybe eight interviews and you might not go forward with

[00:28:47] Any of those you might go forward with all eight of those probably not that's probably not the actual scenario but like

[00:28:53] You if you get one interview you got to keep going through the process because that can fizzle out in a second

[00:28:58] And one of the things you said is like they're still there's still opportunities for you out there

[00:29:03] And if you can one of the power positions

[00:29:06] Maybe you can speak to this why this is I don't 100% get it

[00:29:10] But if you tell

[00:29:13] A recruiter or a hiring manager. Hey, I have another interview with another company

[00:29:17] They will put you like you know at the airport when there's like there's everyone walking and then there's the people

[00:29:22] There's people walking on like the treadmill thing

[00:29:24] It's like I always pretend like it's a you're playing Mario Kart and you eat the mushroom

[00:29:29] They will give you the mushroom and they will fly you through their process

[00:29:33] And then if you do that with the other person you're interviewing with they will also give you the mushroom

[00:29:37] And expedite the whole process. Yeah, and then let's say

[00:29:40] We're lucky and both both cases go well. We have offers

[00:29:44] Also, you have dueling offers

[00:29:46] Man, you tell this company. This is what they're offering me. They raise it

[00:29:49] You say okay, well, this is what this company's offering me. They raise it

[00:29:52] That is like the most powerful position to be in yeah, yeah absolutely and that is true

[00:29:57] So I found that it was because that was a piece of advice right when I went when I was actually fresh out of college

[00:30:03] They told me hey if they asked you are you looking for other jobs? You have any other

[00:30:07] You know options always say yes even if it's not and then they were right about saying yes

[00:30:11] When I know it's not true

[00:30:13] But when you do have those

[00:30:16] It does give you a lot of power to tell your story when I was actually job hunting for my role in at swire

[00:30:22] I had actually and they're having about eight different interviews at the same time

[00:30:26] Three of those went pretty quick one of them was delaying

[00:30:29] It was just like well the managers out of town etc

[00:30:32] It's actually the first one that called me swire called me next and by the time

[00:30:37] I had interviewed twice with swire this particular company reached out to me. I had the first interview

[00:30:42] They must have liked me enough, and but I told them it's like hey

[00:30:44] I'm in second-round interviews with this other company and I have another interview

[00:30:48] Find my interview with another company

[00:30:50] They scheduled three interviews within that week to get me an offer on the weekend

[00:30:54] Right, and so they have competing offers

[00:30:56] But they move extremely fast because they realized

[00:31:00] This guy's desirable right like there's other people who want him and they have

[00:31:04] Fairly decent names this other company. So

[00:31:06] That's let's get into the pot

[00:31:09] I don't know how to present know why that that works that way

[00:31:12] But it always does it's kind of like when you're dating

[00:31:14] It's kind of like playing hard to get it's like it's like if this person's single and they have no prospects

[00:31:19] You're not really interested in them. But as soon as someone else is interested in them

[00:31:22] You're like oh, I'm interested in them too

[00:31:24] That's that's awesome. So with with swire for example

[00:31:28] I haven't talked to you about this so I have no idea where the answer is

[00:31:31] I'm hoping I know the answer, but I don't actually know the answer

[00:31:33] With swire how did you find that out like that job opportunity?

[00:31:37] They're working a few. That was the answer

[00:31:40] I was hoping you were gonna say that and I was like I bet you that's how Eric got it

[00:31:43] But I didn't I didn't actually know

[00:31:45] Okay, so if you don't mind walking us through like how you got this opportunity

[00:31:49] You know swire after coming off from

[00:31:52] Like a corporate career break you were you took some time off to be an entrepreneur and getting back into like the corporate workplace

[00:31:59] How did what type of networking did you do? Yeah, so I actually had to use my I had to swallow my own pill right because I'm teaching people

[00:32:05] How to land these jobs a lot of my clients are getting them every now and then I had a client that was

[00:32:10] struggling they would take a bit more some some career trans issues are just tougher than others

[00:32:15] And so I restarted and say hey well now I'm gonna be on the job hunt and I want to have to you know

[00:32:19] Take my own medicines see how that works

[00:32:21] So I gave myself two months because that was that was basically

[00:32:24] The time frame that I had scheduled and that's basically what I felt was this is a good amount two months to find the job

[00:32:30] And so I started to first I started looking for every job that had project manager with the filters. I wanted okay, right?

[00:32:37] So first step on LinkedIn or LinkedIn

[00:32:42] Monster it was a monster. There's other other job. Yeah, basically. I'm trying to find

[00:32:47] The jobs I want not waste my time on jobs. I don't yeah

[00:32:50] So I filtered those out at first very slow first week

[00:32:53] I was finding maybe like

[00:32:55] Handful of jobs and I was like I'm applying to six a week

[00:32:57] This is not gonna last good and yeah in 12 months

[00:33:00] But by actually putting that effort and learning the filters and learning what I'm doing

[00:33:04] I started to actually realize like this is the job start one and they started to appear more

[00:33:08] Because that's what I'm looking for right you if you look for something

[00:33:11] You see it more often if you're evolving a Tesla you start to see Tesla everywhere

[00:33:15] Same thing happened with the job hunt after that

[00:33:17] I started to look for people that I know in the companies

[00:33:20] Everybody that I talk to they basically knew

[00:33:23] Erick is looking for project management, right? Not

[00:33:26] Engineering not leader not executive nothing like project management. That's what it is so they

[00:33:32] Basically branded me as project manager a lot some of them would reach out to me for swire particularly

[00:33:38] I had a friend who was a project manager

[00:33:40] He got let go and I reached out to him said hey actually

[00:33:44] I

[00:33:45] He just got let go so I reached out and said hey, I there's some companies. I want to share with you resources

[00:33:49] You know friend of mine. Let me share with you the company some looking at the roles

[00:33:54] This is some of the tips I found and again just helping somebody out right this is the type of guy that Eric is

[00:33:58] He's taking his competitor and being like hey, here's all my job leads

[00:34:02] And so yeah, so I reached out to him and he gave me a lead. He said is like hey

[00:34:08] This is somebody that I work with before

[00:34:11] He ended up getting an offer fairly quickly and this this this this friend of his I a connection

[00:34:17] He had a recruiting agency. So I schedule a time he met with me and he said you know, I like your vibe

[00:34:23] Let me put you in contact with my recruiter and you know

[00:34:26] And that actually being really good friends with his recruiter. We just

[00:34:29] Click and he told me of this potential offer or I mean this job

[00:34:33] And it wasn't project manager though you were doing a lot of project management

[00:34:38] You had to do quite a bit of stakeholder management as well

[00:34:41] But it was basically IT it was it was it was really interesting and based on the qualifications that I bring all

[00:34:47] All these things they just like you know, I think it'll be great

[00:34:50] So let me take a look at this and and I started to go through the process

[00:34:54] It wasn't necessarily each Java was looking for but in there being a really really good fit

[00:34:58] And so but it was through networking just talk to one person

[00:35:02] Shout to another and networking it's always about looking out for the other guy right the moment they know that you're genuinely looking up for them

[00:35:07] They will get it out for you. I love that

[00:35:11] I think a lot of people think

[00:35:13] Network equals

[00:35:16] You know asking for a job basically

[00:35:19] But what I think

[00:35:21] I think what happens if is they ask for a job and then they get served

[00:35:26] Humble pie basically

[00:35:28] But it will happens if you serve first

[00:35:30] They will ask you

[00:35:33] For a job like work work for for me

[00:35:35] And that's so hard to get because it's like oh

[00:35:38] In order to receive I have to give which is kind of like a a counter

[00:35:42] Toative it's counter intuitive. I mean we're both Christian

[00:35:45] That's like what Jesus says right? He's like serve others and then you'll get you'll get and you're like are you sure Jesus like

[00:35:50] That seems counter into this sure, but I think it's like kind of like the same

[00:35:54] And networking because you

[00:35:56] Had you been like me and thought man

[00:36:00] I'm competitive this person's a competitor. Why would I help them? You wouldn't have gotten this opportunity basically

[00:36:07] Yeah, so service is networking yep

[00:36:11] And for to make it like more applicable for for some of these people who are listening

[00:36:15] They're like okay, well, what can I do to serve? I mean I guess they could do the same thing as you hey

[00:36:19] You know, I'm looking for a data job as well. Here's what I've learned

[00:36:24] And you never know what that could be what are some other examples that people can do to serve do you think?

[00:36:28] I think sharing your resources is is amazing sometimes it doesn't have to be around

[00:36:33] If you're transitioning careers for example, right?

[00:36:36] You might not have that many resources in the career you're transitioning to

[00:36:39] But you you have to understand that the people that you're networking with

[00:36:43] That's not their whole life. Their career is not

[00:36:46] Project management or data science. They have other hobbies. They might like to dance

[00:36:50] They might like to go climbing they might like to go hiking

[00:36:53] If you take a genuine interest in them you start asking questions like what are you doing your spare time right and they'll start telling

[00:36:58] I like to go hike

[00:37:00] Although the sudden you're like hey, have you gone into this particular hike? You know, it's like the best one

[00:37:03] I've had so far it's pretty close

[00:37:05] You just share knowledge here resources and they start to connect because you're giving them something that they want

[00:37:12] Even though it's not in that field that you think they want

[00:37:16] But they do care about right? I mean, there's more than life than just career. Oh exactly

[00:37:20] Shocker I didn't do to me I guess or or there's resources inside the field like podcast. You could share

[00:37:27] a podcast

[00:37:28] Like this podcast exactly you could you could share this podcast with your friends

[00:37:33] Please do so we can be bigger and have cool guests like Eric and pay for these studio fees that we're paying for

[00:37:39] I love that sharing resources is really easy. I think commenting on LinkedIn super easy

[00:37:44] commenting on LinkedIn is really big

[00:37:46] I get

[00:37:47] Honestly, if I'm being honest I get probably five DMs a day

[00:37:51] from people from all around the world

[00:37:54] asking to intern for me to work for me all this stuff right from all over the world

[00:38:00] India and Nigeria, US, Canada, South America like literally all over

[00:38:04] And unfortunately most time I just end up ignoring the messages

[00:38:06] Because I just like a two-minute to respond if I do respondents like no, sorry, I don't have any openings

[00:38:11] this person

[00:38:13] Has been commenting on my LinkedIn for six months

[00:38:17] He's never asked me a thing

[00:38:19] He's just left really good comments. I have no idea who he is

[00:38:23] He just leaves really good comments every single day on my LinkedIn

[00:38:26] And so finally I was like I want to meet this guy

[00:38:29] No idea who he is lives in Nigeria

[00:38:31] And I fired him

[00:38:34] I made a position for him because I was like this person has served me for six months

[00:38:39] He's never asked me once for anything. He's never asked me for a job and boom now he has a job because he served first instead of asking first

[00:38:48] Yeah, and just getting from from LinkedIn comments like that could have been anyone listening to this

[00:38:53] That could have been anyone on LinkedIn

[00:38:55] You know, and it was a huge investment firm because like I mean not that big of a business

[00:38:59] It's just commenting on LinkedIn

[00:39:01] Takes 30 seconds

[00:39:02] But the little investment every day

[00:39:05] Eventually paid off now that's a chance that I didn't hire him

[00:39:10] But it's still worth the shot, I think you know

[00:39:12] He's it's not like it's like painful to comments doesn't cost him any money

[00:39:17] It costs him a little bit of time

[00:39:18] But like even commenting on LinkedIn

[00:39:21] Setting messages on LinkedIn that can be huge

[00:39:23] Yeah, no absolutely

[00:39:24] I think I think you hit on a very very powerful point there and that's like you know

[00:39:28] A lot of times is the small things that we don't give credit to

[00:39:31] They make a big difference right? It doesn't have to be hey, let me drop a little nugget or let me bring you a car or something like that

[00:39:39] it's

[00:39:40] Small consistency that makes you visible and more than anything it lets people know

[00:39:46] You're you're there like you're there to serve because you're you're doing the small things that someone who has

[00:39:52] Altier motives wouldn't necessarily invest and do so it shows a lot about your character when you genuinely serve in small ways

[00:39:58] But meaningful ways it's so impactful because it seems counter intuitive

[00:40:01] But it can make all the difference okay

[00:40:04] So we've talked about a little bit about networking

[00:40:06] We've talked about like you know how to get over the fear of of transitioning into a new career

[00:40:12] We've talked about a little bit about your resume

[00:40:14] How it's really important to have the title you actually want

[00:40:18] You you need to also have really good bullets that one match the job you're trying to go for

[00:40:24] The two that quantify

[00:40:26] Into money what you basically did which could be hard even like I have a lot of teachers

[00:40:31] And it's like oh, I taught fifth grade. That's their bullet point

[00:40:34] But it's like you can turn that into I managed

[00:40:38] 40 clients and a I don't know six figure budget

[00:40:42] To help

[00:40:43] Clients achieve new educational levels. That was my best bullet point ever time

[00:40:49] But the point is like you can kind of abstract numbers out of most jobs

[00:40:53] What other tips do you have for people who are looking to transition and new into a new career?

[00:40:58] I think if you haven't already started quantifying it

[00:41:01] Start doing that now because a lot of people look back in their career and they're like

[00:41:05] I don't know how to quantify it and honestly, they don't it's it's pretty far back right but if you start where you are today

[00:41:11] The best time to find out trees 10 years ago, but the next next time is today. I think I've heard you say that yeah

[00:41:17] Um, that's that's the thing right like start to look at your job where you are right now and ask yourself the questions

[00:41:24] What are the results that I'm bringing that my next employer will want?

[00:41:27] Hmm right so when it comes to

[00:41:30] I speak project manager wing on now when it comes to teachers right you're dealing with a lot of stakeholders. You have

[00:41:37] people kids who

[00:41:39] Are very resistant to change project management is about change

[00:41:43] Right you have to influence without authority because you have to deal with their parents if they don't like some of this style

[00:41:49] Absolutely, and you have to also take care of the stakeholders which are their parents

[00:41:52] I mean ultimately the board of education gives you the rules

[00:41:55] There's your

[00:41:56] Responsors right like it just translates so well to everything you're doing and a lot of times we don't see it

[00:42:01] We're like I'm just a teacher. I just teach fifth grade

[00:42:03] But you're like you're managing people some very difficult people

[00:42:07] And the corporate world is not that different sometimes they act like five-year-olds

[00:42:11] True right and you can bring those skills show them how you done it show how you

[00:42:15] Inspired change show show how you make the change or

[00:42:18] How you made an impact in the way one person did something somebody that was difficult

[00:42:24] They'll you know, that's project manager like sometimes you change the mind of one executive

[00:42:28] And then makes a big difference in the company. You didn't do it

[00:42:32] But you catalyzed the change that made a big impact

[00:42:35] So I think I think we have now two homework assignments to give all of our listeners

[00:42:39] The first one is to share a resource

[00:42:42] Maybe this podcast with someone that that they can you know network worth and team up with and the second one is to

[00:42:49] Think about what you currently do

[00:42:52] And how can you quantify? How can you answer? How much how much money? How many

[00:42:57] Lives how many hours how many hours save like just think about like numbers what numbers fit in your job

[00:43:04] And just do it now just get it over with it might take you half hour. You can play with chat GPT

[00:43:10] I think this is a great great opportunity to use chat GPT to help you brainstorm

[00:43:13] You know, how can I quantify these current bullets like

[00:43:16] That's our homework assignment. Yeah absolutely yeah

[00:43:19] Just you know tailor it figure out what your next simpler with one what's relevant to that role and

[00:43:24] Bring some numbers to you know

[00:43:25] It could be people it can be dollar signs

[00:43:28] And they don't have to be big we just have to be

[00:43:30] There numbers

[00:43:31] Just have to be there yeah you as a teacher by not deal with you know millions of dollars

[00:43:37] but

[00:43:38] What I found in my career is not so much

[00:43:42] How much you're you're handling but how well you're handling it right?

[00:43:46] It's can people trust you to take great care of the things that they're going to give you a stewardship over

[00:43:51] And if you can show that hey, I was given this budget and this is what I made of it

[00:43:56] They'll give you more because that's what that's what great leaders that they'll give you more because they realize you have potential

[00:44:01] Okay, perfect

[00:44:02] Eric where can people go to connect with you if they want to learn more

[00:44:06] About you yeah, so I used to be a LinkedIn all the time now. I'm there more sporadically

[00:44:11] But if you want to reach out to me, you know, LinkedIn is still a pretty good place other than that um

[00:44:16] You know

[00:44:17] Just the way every he'll he'll he knows how to find me. He's a new taught too. You can go visit him in Utah

[00:44:22] But yeah check out his LinkedIn while I have the link in the description down below

[00:44:26] He recently posted a pretty cool picture of him boldering

[00:44:30] Which was pretty sweet and just to just to like parlay that off of me and earlier we talked about you know

[00:44:36] Networking with people and like talking about their hobbies. So if you're a boldering expert

[00:44:41] Eric's pretty new right? I mean how when you start building about six months ago all right

[00:44:45] So he's six months in so if you're like a boldering expert. Oh, yeah

[00:44:48] You want to send him and I know you send them boldering routes or

[00:44:52] I don't know shoes. Oh, yeah chalk chalk is six so

[00:44:56] Anybody that cares about climbing chalk super cheap

[00:44:59] You always need it. Uh-huh

[00:45:01] Unicorn dust is number one. So just

[00:45:03] Give that gift somebody and that's or if you know a better chalk than unicorn dust. Oh, there we go

[00:45:08] Yeah, tell Eric about it exactly. Thanks so much Eric for coming on the podcast. Thank you. We appreciate it

[00:45:17] I hope you guys got a lot out of that episode. I know that I did remember have the term that you want

[00:45:24] In your drop search on your resume

[00:45:26] Make sure you're networking small consistent service goes a long way

[00:45:31] And don't let fear prevent you from taking the next step in your career

[00:45:35] If you ready to take that next step. I'm here to help check out the links in the show notes down below

[00:45:39] Happy to talk to any of you guys

[00:45:41] Hope this podcast is helpful and we'll see you guys in the next episode