Ginny Clarke
Director, Leadership Staffing at Google
Career Mapping for Leaders
Episode Summary
Virginia “Ginny” Clarke joined me on Keep Leading LIVE!™ Ginny is an author and the Director of Leadership Staffing at Google. This live discussion on “Career Mapping for Leaders” has been viewed more than any of my other LIVE episodes!
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Bio
Virginia “Ginny” Clarke joined Google in 2016 as Director, Leadership Staffing, based in Mountain View, CA. In this role, she leads the Diversity, Internal Mobility, and the Non-tech Recruiting teams. Her team of North American recruiters finds and hires senior leaders (Directors +) for finance, sales, marketing, and other G&A functions across Google.
Before Google, Ginny was a Partner at Spencer Stuart, the global executive search firm, based in Chicago. For 12 years, she worked in the firm’s Financial Services and Financial Officer Practices, and co-founded and led Spencer Stuart’s Global Diversity Practice. She left Spencer Stuart to write a book called “Career Mapping: Charting Your Course in the New World of Work,” which was published in 2011. The book provides a framework that empowers individuals to plot and assess their professional competencies and strategically navigate their careers.
After the book was published, Ginny ran her executive search and talent management firm for three years before becoming a Senior Partner for Executive Search in the U.S. at Knightsbridge, a Canadian human capital solutions firm.
Ginny started her career in banking at First National Bank of Chicago (now Chase). After a short stint, she spent several years in the real estate investment management business with Jones Lang LaSalle (“JLL”) and Prudential Real Estate Investors. Her responsibilities included asset management, portfolio management, capital raising, and client servicing.
She earned her BA in French and Linguistics from the University of California at Davis and her MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School. Ginny is the single mother of an adult son, Julian, who works in the entertainment industry.
Website
http://mycareermapping.com/
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginnyclarke/
Leadership Quote
My father always told me, “tell people what you want.” That requires that YOU know what that is.
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Transcript
The key to sustainable leadership lies in the ability to thrive during uncertainty, ambiguity, and change. Grand Heron International brings you the Coaching Assistance Program, giving your employees on-demand coaching to manage through a challenging situation and arrive at a solution. Visit GrandHeronInternational.Ca/Podcast to learn more.
This podcast is part of the C Suite Radio Network, turning the volume up on business.
Welcome to the Keep Leading!® Podcast, the podcast dedicated to promoting leadership development and sharing leadership insights. Here’s your host, The Leadership Excelerator®, Eddie Turner.
Eddie Turner:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to
Keep Leading LIVE!™, the video version of the
Keep Leading!® Podcast. I’m your host Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. I work with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact through the power of facilitation, professional coaching, and executive coaching.Today, we’re streaming live on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. So, I want to say hello and welcome to everyone who’s joining me from those locations. What I’d like to ask you to do is go ahead and hit the like button. If you like what you’re hearing, you like today’s topic, hit the like button so other people will know. Also, hit that share button for me. Hit the share button so that your friends can tune in and they can get a chance to learn from my amazing guest today. And that means they’ll also see the recording later on even if they missed the live conversation.
Finally, I ask you to just say hello. Let me know who you are. Let me know that you’re here. Tell me where you’re from. Ask questions of my guest. And already I see from Facebook. Welcome, oh my goodness, one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, Alexandra Laz, Alex as we always call her. Alexandra, you’re just amazing and thank you for tuning in. I appreciate you letting me know you’re tuning in all the way from London. So, do like Alex, everyone. Please go ahead, put it in the chat, let us know you’re here, ask any questions that you have.
“The greatest danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and we miss but it’s that we aim too low and we reach it.” Those are the words of Michelangelo and those sage words of Michelangelo apply to many areas of our lives. According to my guest today, however, they specifically impact the way we chart our careers. Whether we are a student in school or we are a new graduate entering the job market or a seasoned professional working on our ascent up the corporate ladder, my guest today says we need a map to guide our aim. So, she wrote the book. She’s the author of Career Mapping – Charting Your Course in The New World of Work.
Who’s my guest? It is the amazing Ginny Clarke.
Now, let me tell you about Ginny Clarke. Ginny is an author and she is the director of Leadership Staffing at Google. So, that alone makes her cool, right? There she directs the Internal Mobility and non-tech recruiting teams and she holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Northwestern University. So, it’s not often I get a chance to welcome a fellow Wildcat. So, I would say welcome to my fellow Wildcat Ginny Clarke.
Ginny, welcome to Keep Leading LIVE!™.
Ginny Clarke:
Thank you, Eddie. I’m really excited to be here.
Eddie Turner:
I’m excited to have you. So, before we get started, it looks like we’ve got a couple of other people that joined us. We got Alex giving us a little more feedback. Thank you thank you. And Dr. Marina. She’s joining us.Hi. How are you? She’s joining us from Alexandria, Virginia. Thank you, Dr. Marina. And she’s tuning in on LinkedIn. So, we’ve got LinkedIn. We’ve got Facebook. Thank you for letting us know. And she loves the quote by Michelangelo. I’m glad you love that Dr. Marina. I took that from Ginny. Those are the opening words to Chapter One of her book.
Ginny Clarke:
Thank you for the attribution.
Eddie Turner:
Absolutely. We got to go way back, right?Fantastic. So, what did I miss about your incredible background? Tell our audience more about you.
Ginny Clarke:
I’ll give you the quick version. I grew up in southern California. I went to UC Davis to study Animal Science because I wanted to be a veterinarian. That makes perfect sense. And then I graduated with a degree in French and Linguistics because animal science didn’t feel right once I started flipping sheep and messing with cows. And so, when I graduated from Davis, I’d always been very active at school. I’d been a peer counselor. I’d done a variety of things, worked in the chancellor’s office. I took a job as a recruiter because, as I say, I’d been active on campus. So, I did that for a couple years and then I decided I wanted to get my MBA and move to Chicago, Evanston, to be more specific to the Kellogg School. It was wonderful. I had a great time. I actually served on the Admissions Committee in the Admissions Office, worked there and they gave me a job offer to work in Admissions. I said “No. I have this MBA. I have to go into business.” So, I went into banking at what’s now called Chase. It was then known as First Chicago. I was there for a couple of years and then decided I wanted to get into commercial real estate, joined JLL. It was known as LaSalle Partners back in the day. I was there. Then I moved to Prudential Real Estate Investors. So, I had a career in the commercial real estate investment management business for a number of years before I decided that I wanted to be an executive recruiter. And it was a defining moment that caused that. my father died and I really questioned, he had been my coach and my guide and my guiding light and I just stopped everything, just kind of stopped and I questioned “What is it that I’ve always loved to do?” And I neglected to mention that when I was working in these other companies, I always volunteered to go on campus and interview on their behalf and I loved recruiting back from when I was in college and post college. So, I did what any good person would do. I networked. And just to date myself, there wasn’t internet back then. So, I was just starting up and you had to reach out to people, you had to really develop relationships and that’s essentially what I did. And so, I networked my way into one of the world’s top search firms known as Spencer Stuart and was there for 12 years, became a partner, co-founder at their global diversity practice, worked in financial services and then I left rather abruptly after 12 years, a single mom, because I wanted to write this book. I felt so strongly that people really needed to understand more about how this works. And so, I lifted, frankly, the methodology of the executive recruitment process and applied it for the benefit of individuals who were conducting a job searchAnd so, this is really intended to be something that when I wrote the book, my son was 13, my book is 11 years old, he’s now 24, out of college and I don’t think he reads it that often but I know that at least through osmosis he knows the foundations of it, which really mean you’re clear on what you want. We can go deeper into this but it’s you owning the process versus believing that it’s fate or believing that you just have to sort of raise your hand and hope that you win like “Please choose me.” That’s not the approach at all.
Eddie Turner:
Yeah, talk about that please because those listening are either people who are, as we said in the intro, well off in their careers or maybe we have people who are just starting their careers.I see Jordan Thomas, for example, has joined. He joined us last week. Hey, Jordan, how are you? He is an emerging leader. We have those who are further along like Alex. She’s letting us know she’s from the UK. We appreciate that. and we have Dan Bixby who’s joined us. So, we have people who have different careers and they may wonder “How do I take that step? Is it a matter of raising my hand or is it more involved?”
Ginny Clarke:
Let me try to set the foundation. And the book really walks through this methodology that I was mentioning. So, before just writing a résumé which is where people want to start, there’s so much more to it than that. And, for me, it’s personal. It’s introspection. It’s “What do I really want?” because, trust me, as an executive recruiter, I have met people who say they want one thing and when I’m interviewing them, it’s clear to me that they are not committed, they are not necessarily bought in. Your motivation matters. And not only that. I mean, I want everybody to be happy with what it is that they’re doing, to enjoy it, to be passionate about it. So, for those people that your mother always wanted you to be a doctor or whatever that old story line is, I hope you can shed that and really get in touch with who are you, who did you come here to be, what is your purpose. Those are basic foundational questions that most people fail to ask themselves because they think they’re incongruous with making a living, right? And they don’t have to be. So, that’s where I typically start.
Eddie Turner:
So, asking those foundational questions.
Ginny Clarke:
And then let’s start looking at what’s in your toolkit, as people like to call it. So, let’s do sort of a macro-to-micro analysis of the industries, the functions, the roles and importantly, and you’re going to hear me say this word for the rest of our time together, competencies. What are competencies? They’re skills that you have either [inaudible][11:04] and others are learned. They are not the same as experience. You can gain competencies through experience but, listen, I always say this, we all know people who have lots of experience who aren’t necessarily competent.Come on, somebody came to your head.
Eddie Turner:
No, no one came to my head. I just thought you made a good point.
Ginny Clarke:
Most people kind of smirk like “Oh, yeah” but, to me, and again as a recruiter, that’s what I’ve been trained to do is to look past … Especially I’m responsible for diversity. I don’t know if you said that but that’s diversity at the leadership level within Google. I’m sure they get tired of hearing me say that but competencies applied appropriately are what’s going to level the playing field. So, you’re not looking at just somebody’s pedigree. You’re not just looking at which schools they went to, which companies they worked for, what job titles they held. You need to understand how they did the work to have impact. And that’s the competency. It’s the how. And so, for an individual, it’s important that you understand what your own competencies are before you even try to go out and find a job and convince someone whether it’s a hiring manager or a recruiter that you are the right person for the job.
Eddie Turner:
That’s often hard for people to do though.
Eddie Turner:
So, how do they do it?
Ginny Clarke:
Well, this is what the book is really walking you through. It’s offering you some language, what are the words that you use to describe how you do something and this is where … Again, you don’t just write a bunch of words on a résumé and believe that an algorithm is going to choose you. Some of that stuff does happen but before that and before you get in front of somebody for that screen that we tend to do, a more junior person might screen a candidate for me before I actually see them but you need to understand what are those things, build your narrative. Can you actually talk about how you did something? Why were you successful doing that role? And, importantly, as I did, and I took you through my career trajectory for a reason, I changed industries and functions like four times and I did it because I was deliberate and I knew what I wanted at that point in time and I crafted the language to be able to convince somebody that I had the competencies. I didn’t have prior experience. And you could argue that I had been a college recruiter going into being an executive recruiter. Pretty much night and day. There are some foundational things that are relevant but, yeah … I mean even being in the commercial real estate business coming out of banking. So, you need to be the one to draw the through line and the through line are those competencies – “This is how I did X, Y, Z here’s how I would apply that in your organization. This is what I did at Pepsi but I can do this at Google,” maybe.
Eddie Turner:
You said so much there that I just want to unpack and it’s like “Oh my! I don’t even know where to start.” I think the first thing I would say is you and I met because of an amazing person. You talked to earlier your networking, before the internet came along. And so, we met because of Laura Gates and Laura has actually joined us for this conversation. Hey, Laura. The amazing Laura Gates is a phenomenal coach. So, we want to acknowledge her being here.
Ginny Clarke:
Absolutely.
Eddie Turner:
You said that there is, and I loved your intentionality of this language, there’s no algorithm. When we put together that résumé, you said there’s no algorithm that’s selecting us.
Ginny Clarke:
There can be in some of these companies but that’s what people tend to focus on is like “What words can I use such that the algorithm is going to choose me?” And I’m saying those things happen, yes, but what’s more relevant is that you are writing something that makes sense to a person. And ideally, you will have a connection, some kind of a relationship with someone along the way that might be able to facilitate getting your résumé considered.
Eddie Turner:
Yes, I misspoke that the algorithm will select you. That made me think about my time in H. There’s a job I have not thought about literally until you said this. In college, my first job was that I got selected to work in the Human Resource Department and that was part of how I would pay my bills. And in the HR Department, I worked for the Director of Human Resources. And this is back in the old days. So, you talked about pre-internet. I’m going to talk about when you actually put together these résumés on this expensive paper, extremely fancy and it got sent to someone. And my job was to literally, I was the algorithm, to scan each of those résumés. I would do tons of those. And I was told to look for keywords depending on the role. And it was a big lesson to me because I remember thinking “Wow, these people spend all this money on this paper and it never got to the director. It only got to the little old me” because I was told “If it didn’t say this word, it doesn’t go to her desk.” So, being a specific person who’s making this election or that computer algorithm that you’re trying to get past, you have to really give some thought to this.
Ginny Clarke:
Right. So, that might get you through the door but then you’ve got to sit across from somebody nowadays on Zoom or Google Meet or whatever but you’ve got to be compelling. You’ve got to be able to answer more than yes-no questions. You’ve got to be able to describe the how.
Eddie Turner:
Absolutely. You must be able to do that.Well, I am talking to the amazing Ginny Clarke. Ginny is the director of Leadership Staffing at Google and she’s the author of Career Mapping – Charting Your Course in The New World of Work.
We want to take a quick break right now and acknowledge a couple of people that help me with the Keep Leading!® Podcast. I have several sponsors but there’s one who always renews with me. I want to acknowledge Grand Heron International.
The key to sustainable leadership lies in the ability to thrive during uncertainty, ambiguity, and change. Grand Heron International brings you the Coaching Assistance Program, giving your employees on-demand coaching to manage through a challenging situation and arrive at a solution. Visit GrandHeronInternational.ca/podcast to learn more.
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This is Simon T. Bailey, author, and you’re listening to Keep Leading!® Podcast with Eddie Turner.
Eddie Turner:
We’re back and my guest today is Ginny Clarke.Ginny, the other thing that I don’t know that we gave enough justice to before we took the break is I know what executive search is and I know what Spencer Stuart is because the other thing you and I have in common is I worked Heidrick & Struggles and we’re both from Chicago. So, talk about what it’s like there and what you looked at that helped you form your perspective.
Ginny Clarke:
Yeah, it was an amazing experience. I have to say that this is where I learned the art and science of executive recruiting. I think a lot of people don’t make the distinction but in executive search, there’s a few things that make it unique. First of all, the origin they’re used to. There was a Mr. Heidrich and a Mr. Struggles, a Mr. Spencer Stuart, Mr. Egon Zehnder, a Mr. Russell Reynolds. And these gentlemen had all been in the management consulting world. And, as the story goes, they kind of looked around, they were privy to the movement of a lot of these CEOs and senior executives and they thought “Well, why can’t we make money off of their movement and help facilitate that?” And so, they created these search firms, that was 60 70 years ago, and they grew into these really sophisticated professional services organizations that operate much more like a consulting firm than just an agency where you’re just kind of throwing résumés against the wall. We learned, as I say, the art and science, the methodology that starts with understanding what your client needs and you break down and you sit with these senior clients. An executive recruiter, as I was, the other obligation is to bring in the business, as you know, Eddie. So, you have to execute the searches but you have to also go out and win the business from those clients. And then you have a very robust research team. So, it’s not like you just rely on what’s already in your database. You’re always doing fresh research to identify the individuals that make the most sense for the role and you look at everything. LinkedIn is relatively new in the grand scheme of things. You don’t rely on LinkedIn as an executive recruiter. It’s a good start but particularly as it relates to underrepresented individuals, you leverage contacts, professional associations. There are all kinds of things that you do to find these senior leaders because they’re passive candidates. Most of the people that we deal with are not actively looking for a job. That’s important to note, right? I mean, obviously, just like at Google, and I’m part of what’s kind of considered Google’s internal executive search firm, my team does only 200 searches a year compared to the 20,000 something people that we hire at the more junior levels but the executive recruiting function, there’s a real art to doing it. And this is where I learned even more deeply this whole idea of competency assessment so that you make sure that you’re hiring the best person for the job based on their competencies, not based on relationships, not based on, as I said, that experience thing that people go “Oh, well, they’ve done these jobs.” And I’ve sat in interviews where … I’ll never forget I interviewed this guy who was, as I like to say, straight out of central casting – good looking, former marine, Harvard undergrad, Harvard MBA, had a fabulous looking résumé. My client was really interested in him and I interviewed him over video and I swear to God, I could not get him to tell me anything meaningful. He just kept sort of reciting the same thing. It’s like “I did this. I did that. I did that.” And I said “Well, how did you do this?” And finally, I just kind of threw my pen down and I said “Listen, I’m going to ask you this one last time” because I’m pretty as you are, I’m sure, in the same vein, I know how to ask the same question five different ways to try to get an answer that I’m not hearing. And so, I finally said “Listen, when you opened the door,” for whatever company was working for, “you moved to Asia and you opened the door to that office on your first day. What did you do?” And he kept saying what one would do. And you know what finally dawned on me the next day? Because I ended it as soon as I could. It didn’t even last an hour. And I called my client I said “Listen, I know you’re really interested in this person but I just don’t think they’re right for the role.” And I said “You can meet them if you want to but here’s” and I ran down all the reasons why I didn’t think he was appropriate. And they said “We trust your judgment.” I was like “Thank God” but then it dawned on me, I thought “I think the guy had a photographic memory and that’s what had allowed him to be successful in the military, in school. And while he kept saying what one would do, it was though there was a manual that he was reading from.” And I’m sorry, that doesn’t work for me because I’m looking for people who are problem solving and they’re thinking about new ways to lead and they’re not referring to a manual. To me, that’s what leadership is really about it’s that you understand how to take a situation and make it better to drive change and impact in an organization.
Eddie Turner:
Hence, the old phrase “The difference between book smarts and street smarts or life smarts,” right? So, Mr. Harvard MBA was no match for Ms. Ginny Clarke. And that’s why I wanted to highlight your time in executive search because you were there for 12 years at one of the top firms and you were a partner. I’ve never been interviewed the way I was interviewed at Heidrick & Struggles. And later on, I was taught how they do that interviewing, that competency-based interviewing. That’s the real deal. You can’t fake your way around that.
Ginny Clarke:
You cannot. And I’ve had a couple people, I remember a couple candidates who were kind of like “Well, I don’t think you’re listening to me” and I don’t usually play the card of “I’m the one standing between you and this job that you want. So, I think you need to stand down and show some respect.”
Eddie Turner:
Would you say you let him know “You don’t know Ginny.”
Ginny Clarke:
A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do every once in a while. And I’m 6 feet tall. So, it didn’t hurt that I was standing taller than him.
Eddie Turner:
So, Ginny says “I pull out all the stops. I use my physical presence, my mental acuity, everything.” I love it.Well, listen, we have Jim Root who’s joined us on LinkedIn. He’s in Las Vegas. Jim, thanks for joining and thanks for letting us know that you’re here.
Hamed Mitchell, he’s joining us from Virginia. We got another Virginia person. So, we’ve got good representation on the east coast for this session. He says “High quality content.” Thank you for saying that. I think the content is coming from Ginny but thank you, Hamed. I appreciate you joining in.
And Dr. Marina says “Great insights, Ginny.” So, thank you for sharing those. And she has a question for you and it’s interesting. She’s asking this question because when I said about my time, this is what was going through my head. So, I’ll let you address this. Her question is “Do you prefer the CAR or the STAR approach?”
Ginny Clarke:
Tell me what those are. I’ve heard of STAR but I don’t know CAR.
Eddie Turner:
I don’t know CAR either. Situation-Task-Action-Result. So, I would assume it would be something similar.Meanwhile, Alex has tuned in again. She says she’s inspired by your assertiveness. When you believe in something, it’s easier to stand firm.
Thank you, Alex, for sharing that
Ginny Clarke:
Thank you, Alex.
Eddie Turner:
All right. So, let’s talk about the STAR approach, if you wouldn’t mind.
Ginny Clarke:
I didn’t actively use these. I heard them in my executive recruiting career but they weren’t approaches that I consciously put into motion.
Eddie Turner:
You had that extra secret sauce that you put in.
Ginny Clarke:
I’ve been working my own approach.
Eddie Turner:
Dr. Marina, like I said, I haven’t heard of the Context-Action-Result. Thank you for sharing that but the STAR method is a very popular method of competency-based interviewing. And so, either way you’re going to go what Ginny Clarke is telling us here is to make sure we’re ready to go and not just leaving it to chance.
Ginny Clarke:
That’s right.
Eddie Turner:
Now, you brought up something else that’s pretty important too because you work for the company that’s considered by many to be one of the coolest in the world. You work for Google. You work for a company that’s a noun and a verb. So, what’s that like to be at Google?
Ginny Clarke:
It’s crazy. It’s pretty chaotic actually, especially now that we’re all remote. I mean, one of the things that makes Google so fun is just the work environment. I’m sure you’ve heard of the ping pong tables and the volleyball courts and all that stuff. That’s fun but it’s a very fast-paced pretty chaotic environment I have to say. The company is aligned mostly by product areas instead of business units. And so, they’re kind of siloed and you’ve got senior vice-presidents who drive those product areas for the most part. And then mostly on my side, because the recruiters that I’m responsible for, they’re the non-tech recruiters. And so, we’re supporting Finance, Legal, HR, Communications, Sales – huge organization – Marketing. You must know that Google’s revenue, most of it, over 90% comes from sales. The technology is obviously useful but the revenue generator is in the Sales function. So, it’s a very fast pace. You better be tech savvy to be able to keep up with all of the movement between sharing documents … There there’s a lot. It’s a lot of moving parts. It’s a crazy environment.
Eddie Turner:
Before I became a leadership consultant, I spent time in tech and I was there on that Mountain View campus during my short stint with Dell. I was there for about three years, I think, but we were housed on that campus. And so, we were like just the little kids kind of looking over the fence and the fun stuff you guys do over there because we were on that same campus but you all were the cool kids.
Ginny Clarke:
People always, I think, they believe in the image and I think we found, at least at my age, that few things are what the image would suggest. I mean, they’re brilliant people at Google, don’t get me wrong, but it’s still a company out to make money. And so, you deal with a lot of the same stuff that you’re going to deal with in a lot of other organizations.
Eddie Turner:
No question about it, I’m sure.Well, listen, I got to tell you I have to stop everything right now because the comment just came in and I will tell you Matrice Ellis-Kirk is with us. Can you believe that? Oh, my goodness! She says she’s proud of us both. She was a partner at Heidrick & Struggles.
Ginny Clarke:
We were together at Spencer Stuart.
Eddie Turner:
You were together at Spencer Stuart? I met her at Heidrich & Struggles. And when she walks in, she just was a woman with presence.
Ginny Clarke:
Absolutely.
Eddie Turner:
You talk about owning. She owns it. She’s amazing.
Ginny Clarke:
Absolutely.
Eddie Turner:
What a small world. So, I have not seen her or talked to her literally since 2009. So, thank you, Matrice, for tuning in to listen to us.
Ginny Clarke:
Matrice, you’ve lost your mom. Sweetie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Blessings.
Eddie Turner:
Oh, I didn’t know that.And, of course, her husband Ron Kirk who served in the Obama administration and first black mayor of Dallas. The kirk family is just amazing.
Ginny Clarke:
Amazing people.
Eddie Turner:
Yes, great people. That warms my heart. If nothing else, that just makes this even a better session, Ginny.
Ginny Clarke:
Absolutely.
Eddie Turner:
All right. Finally, we’ll take one more comment from Dan. Dan says “I’ve reached a senior level but gotten a reputation as an expert in one area – Technical L&D. I want to convince companies that I can expand. My due north is to be a CLO. So, your comments about how are very helpful but how can I get past the recruiters? Any tips?”
Ginny Clarke:
I don’t want to contradict myself and because I talked about résumés and they obviously play a role, they’re really important, but it could be that you write a different kind of résumé, more of a hybrid, where you lead with the competencies and then you get into the chronology. So, you lead with the capabilities that you think are most relevant to the job that you want where you’re really carving out and talking about things that are of a non-technical nature, if that’s what you’re going for, and you’re trying to show that capability.Another thing I would say is don’t overlook planting seeds. So, for example, if you’re a member of SHRM or another organization among your peers, get a speaking engagement, write an article, demonstrate your intellectual capital and expertise in a particular area so that you begin to shift that reputation. Reputations can be changed but the onus is on you to do that change. So, think about those two things to start.
And maybe, if you’re rejected with a recruiter that you’ve been having a conversation with, ask them to give you a little bit more detail is what things, did you not touch on certain things, make sure that you are really as well versed as you think you are as compared to the competition in these non-technical areas so that you can show a broader range of skill.
Eddie Turner:
Wonderful. Thank you for answering that question from Dan. I’ll show that question one more time. I kind of butchered it as I was reading it, Dan, but Ginny’s answer is brilliant.And Matrice says “Thank you. This is about you guys.” We are just very grateful that you tuned in.
All right. So, to cap this conversation off, as we’re talking about Career Mapping, what’s the piece of advice you want to give everyone listening that they can take away from our conversation?
Ginny Clarke:
Let me say this. We haven’t really talked much about the pandemic and everything.
Eddie Turner:
I meant to talk about that, yes.
Ginny Clarke:
So, let me contextualize it with that because I think a lot of people are walking around thinking “Oh, this is going to be terrible. I’m never going to get a job.” I talked to someone a few weeks ago and he was panicked. This was the young son of a friend. And I started talking to him and I said “Share with me what’s going on.” And he started talking and I said “So, tell me do you believe that this is going to be hard for you to find a job?” And he’s like “Yeah. I mean, listen, it’s out there.” And I said “Tell me about your other beliefs.” And he was kind of like “Wait, what?” And what I urged him to do was to really check himself because I’m someone who believes in the law of attraction – what you believe is what you’re going to create in your own life. And I’m not oblivious to what’s going on. I get it. I know that unemployment is high. I believe that. All it takes is one job for you to be employed or for you to get some kind of consulting or a contract arrangement or whatever it might be. So, you need to make sure that your mindset is right because if you’re walking in already believing that you’ve been defeated, that shows up. Again, as a recruiter, I see you. I see you and I hear between the words that you’re speaking and I see other aspects of you. And so, if you’re actually defeated or if you’re really confident and really excited, concerned about what’s going on in the world, sure, of course, but excited about what you can offer to a company that might be going through a difficult time itself but still in a position to hire. Those are the things that are going to set you apart. So, really check your beliefs and don’t sabotage yourself by kind of saying no before you’ve even asked the question.And the other thing I would say, and I go deep into this in the book, make sure that you are being deliberate and thoughtful. Finding a job is not like the lottery. People come to me like I’m some multiple listing service like I know about every job that’s out there. Seriously. And Spencer Stuart only did 4000 searches a year, which sounds like a big number but there’s millions, millions. Even today there are millions of opportunities.
And don’t assume that you have to settle. That’s another belief. You don’t have to believe that. You can believe that you’re going to find something that’s going to take you to that next level. Don’t get hung up on titles as much as what other skills are you seeking to develop. So, through that lens, go on out there, chart a course, get your target list of companies together, have a rationale for why you want to work for those companies and what the ideal role would be and put your best foot forward and be prepared to answer those competency-based questions.
Eddie Turner:
Wonderful. We have a LinkedIn user. I’m not getting a name on it but that person says “Exactly.” They agree with you and they say “You walk in the room thinking it’s impossible, it will be.”
Ginny Clarke:
It will be.
Eddie Turner:
Well, Ginny, fantastic. I have thoroughly enjoyed talking to you and I can talk to you for another hour.Where can my listeners learn more about you?
Ginny Clarke:
LinkedIn is probably the best place. It’s Ginny. You can read my name there. The spelling is right. Virginia is my formal name. So, it’s Ginny Clarke. Don’t give this out to too many people, just between us. My email at Google is GinnyClarke@Google.com. So, connect with me on LinkedIn. Don’t ask me for a job, okay?
Eddie Turner:
She gave us the official address, not the Gmail account.
Ginny Clarke:
I’m sorry, I want to know who you are but I’ve got too many other things going on right now to try to chase down a job for you. Google has a very robust site. We post most of our open roles. So, go for it but be selective and make sure that you are really well qualified for the roles and you will get looked at.
Eddie Turner:
Well, I’m going to put this in the show notes so that people can connect to you. I want you all to go out and connect to Ginny Clarke. She’s absolutely amazing. If you have an organization and you want someone to talk about careers, bring her into your organization to talk about careers. She is just amazing.And Dr. Marina says “The growth mindset.”
Ginny Clarke:
Absolutely. That’s right, Dr. Marina.
Eddie Turner:
Hamed says he’s charged up and ready to go.Carol [Inaudible][40:03] has “Great research.”
Stephanie Williams says “As usual, this is great information glazed with golden nuggets.” Thank you, Stephanie. We appreciate that.
And Jordan says “Embracing, not settling will definitely change the trajectory of how you pursue your endeavors.” He says “Great session indeed.”
And, finally, Emma Nguyen, I believe I’m pronouncing the last name correctly, she says “Great session. Thank you, Eddie Turner.” I want to thank Ginny for making this a great session and being my guest.
Laura is saying “Competencies are the way to go.”
And Dan says “Awesome.” Thank you.
Thank you all who joined us from across the social media universe – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook. Thank you so much. We appreciate you all.
I want to thank Ginny again for being here as my guest, talking about how we can map our careers as leaders. Thank you, Ginny.
Eddie Turner:
And that concludes this episode, everyone. I’m Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®, reminding you that leadership is about action. It is about you and I staying busy, remembering it is not about our position our title. It’s not a garment we put on and take off. Leadership is something we must have at our core and allow it to emanate in all we do. So, whatever you’re doing, always keep leading.
Thank you for listening to your host Eddie Turner on the Keep Leading!® Podcast. Please remember to subscribe to the Keep Leading!® Podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen. For more information about Eddie Turner’s work, please visit EddieTurnerLLC.com.
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The Keep Leading!® podcast is for people passionate about leadership. It is dedicated to leadership development and insights. Join your host Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator® as he speaks with accomplished leaders and people of influence across the globe as they share their journey to leadership excellence. Listen as they share leadership strategies, techniques and insights. For more information visit eddieturnerllc.com or follow Eddie Turner on Twitter and Instagram at @eddieturnerjr. Like Eddie Turner LLC on Facebook. Connect with Eddie Turner on LinkedIn.
