- Just ahead on Black Issues Forum, its graduation season.

And for many, that means job search season.

But in this market, a strong resume just isn't enough.

We're exploring what it really takes to land a role and stay aligned with your purpose.

Whether you're fresh out of college or making a pivot.

Coming up next.

Stay with us.

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[bright upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm your host Kenia Thompson.

For graduates stepping out into the world or for anyone in a season of change, it's real out here.

The job market is competitive.

It's confusing, and for many, disheartening.

But what if we told you that the most important resume you'll ever build doesn't start with bullet points, but instead it starts with you.

Today we're talking about what it means to align with purpose before chasing that position and how inner work is the real career preparation.

And additionally, how to show up fully in a job market that's more algorithmic than human.

We will speak later in the show with an HR recruiter to gain insight on what employers look for, but our first guest is the founder of You Are Your First Career.

It's a platform built on the idea that personal development is career development.

I wanna welcome to the show, Amber Richbook.

Welcome.

- Thank you for having me.

- Of course.

- I'm honored to be here.

- Yeah, this is great because we know it's very timely.

- [Amber] Yes.

- We have a lot of folks walking across that stage.

- Yes.

- We have a lot of people who have been in transition with careers.

So I first want you to establish this concept of You Are Your First Career.

How did you come up with it?

- Yes.

- And why, more importantly.

- So You Are Your First Career came during 2020, right before COVID started.

And that was another period of transition where people, where the world was changing and people didn't know necessarily what did it mean to show up in the workplace anymore.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- And it was a lot of the coaching that I was doing at the time, the career coaching was leading people back to themselves because a lot of people had assumed the identity of their workplace.

- [Kenia] Yes.

- You know, experience.

- Yep, I was definitely guilty of that.

Often, I think I still am sometimes.

And so when we talk about flipping that conversation inward, I guess that was the impotence, is that folks who are now doing this personal search.

- Yes.

And it's like, who am I?

Now I have to sit with myself.

Now I have to look at myself and not get ready for physical work, but I have to get ready to work here at home.

- Right.

- Where it's just me and not realizing the noise, the way that there's noise in the world.

There's noise in the workplace.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- So work could become a distraction from who you are as a person.

- Yeah.

- And so where You Are Your First Career came in and it was like you have to look at yourself.

If you wanna master this and grow in your career, you have to know who you are as an individual.

- Yeah.

- You are your first career, so- - So you and I, I mean, we'll just be honest, we're friends, right?

- Yes.

- We've had this conversation often I think over the past few years as we've journeyed through our own milestones.

- Yes.

- Setbacks, whatever.

- Yes.

- And so when we talk about inwardly looking, and we're talking about recent college graduates who are just getting to know themselves, exploring what they wanna do, what does that look like practically for them?

- Yes.

So practically they, they're growing up or they've grown up in an age that we didn't grow up with, which is the amount of influence.

While we had TV and radio, there's so much more noise.

There's social media plus TV media plus radio media plus podcasting.

So they're consuming a large amount of information without understanding how to synthesize and assess it.

So when I speak to college graduates or emerging talent, I always lead them from a place of humility and teach them the grounding principle of humility as they're growing into themselves as young adults and growing into the workplace.

So that looks like, hey, this world is a big scary place because whether you realize it or not, growing from secondary school to post-secondary school, you're going from institution to institution.

And then it's like, hey, go ahead and go out into the world.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- When I'm speaking to young people, I'm teaching them to be self-starters, but also you have to think down the line.

Everything you do today is an investment for tomorrow.

- [Kenia] Yep.

- And so when I was in college, my professor, he used to say this to me, you only have four years to prepare for the next 40 years.

- That that seems like such a huge responsibility to put in those four years.

- [Amber] Yes.

- But when we are looking at that inner work, what are some steps that a graduate student or a recently graduated student would take to actually put that into practicality?

- So if I can speak to you as a recent graduate.

- Yes.

- I would ask first, I would get to the root of why did they go to school?

Why did they choose the major that they chose?

And what ideal, what is their ideal life that they perceived or expect to have?

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- Upon graduation.

Because you have to start with why you're making certain decisions.

Thinking is an important part of these conversations that I have with graduates.

No, you don't have to make a decision for the rest of your life, like a permanent decision in this now moment, but you do have to make a wise decision.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- You do have to make a solid decision.

And then I would ask them, so there's a practice that I take them through, which is called the NPT, Need, Passion, Talent.

Where is there a need, what are you passionate about, and what are you talented in?

What are your skills?

So I don't wanna go too far.

- Yeah, no, I like that.

And I'm not telling y'all who have just graduated that if you hadn't done this, it's too late.

- No, it's not, it's not.

- It's not too late.

- It's not.

- However, if you are watching and haven't graduated yet.

- Yes.

- I think that this is a perfect time.

- [Amber] Yes.

- In that freshman, sophomore.

- Yes.

- Junior year.

- Yes.

- Even your senior year to make that plan.

So let's say that there is someone who's just graduated and they didn't go through that process.

- Sure.

- So how do you now, I hate to use the word, you're stuck in a career, but a lot of mid-career folks feel like that.

- [Amber] Yeah.

- So how do you take those steps practically, still pay your bills?

- Yep.

- And still keep employment?

- So you said a word earlier, which is so important.

You said it sounds like such a responsibility.

One of the things that I tell my children all the time is that being an adult is a responsibility that no one can escape.

- Yeah.

- And that's just, I'm very direct when it comes to the realities of being an adult.

And so it would look like, I have an article on LinkedIn and it's called "The Art of the Pivot".

You have to be able to pivot.

It means accepting where you are in this now moment.

Okay, maybe you didn't do internships.

- [Kenia] Right.

- When I graduated from college, I started at Big Four, but I had never done any corporate internships.

- And that's in the financial industry.

- And that's in the financial industry as an auditor.

I didn't do the steps that you're taught to.

Even what I would share with someone now, hey, do these internships, look into this.

If you can't get an internship, create your own.

How can you look at your experience and make it applicable?

to where you're growing to.

Looking for the translatable skills, looking for the translatable knowledge, looking for what did you learn in this role that you can translate to a different role.

- Yep.

- Sometimes, the other thing that I wanna say is emotions.

Mastering your emotions and not allowing your feelings to lead you.

You have to balance your logic, balance your emotions with your logic, and that's where the inner work of you or your first career comes in.

- So let's talk about that.

We are in the age of spiritual awakening, of mindset shift and change of therapy.

We hear that conversation more and more, especially within our black communities now.

So what does inner work look like?

Is it therapy?

Is it healing traumas?

What does that look like?

- So those things that you mentioned are just tools and different modalities of healing, but you have to do something.

The same way that we all learn differently, some people learn through audio, they learn visual, they learn through written information.

I myself am not a person that can watch something and then implement it.

I have to read the instructions of what's happening in the video in order to learn and apply.

And so that's the same thing that you have to think about with your healing and the trauma.

So why is this important?

When I first went to college, I had two different majors.

Like I was one of the kids that you switch up your majors.

- I did too.

[laughs] - And my first major was like computer science, because I grew up, my father's an engineer, a network engineer.

So it was like the boom of technology.

You need to go in something with tech.

I was bored, I was overwhelmed, I was stressed.

And I'm talking about, I grew up building computers.

Then I was like, okay.

I started working locally in one of the schools.

And my mom's an educator, so I said, "Okay, I'm gonna switch my major to education because," right?

You hear the adults in your life who are like, "This is steady.

This is safe.

This is gonna get you the paycheck.

This is gonna get you the life that you want."

They wanna protect you.

And understanding that all of this guidance comes from a place of protection, but it was like, "I don't wanna do this."

- Well, and not just I don't wanna do this, 'cause the same thing happened to me, right?

I went into medicine first because as a child of immigrants, like that's what we do.

We go into medicine, law, or whatever.

Those careers that seemed profitable, that seemed secure.

But when we think about where our earlier generations have come from and what was secure to them then may not be where we're going in the future, especially when we look at technology and AI and how that's influencing future careers.

- Very much so.

Very much so.

So with AI influencing future careers, there's a lot of fear around AI.

AI is not taking jobs.

I read a post from my mentor, I'm gonna just call her, her name is Coach Jai.

I have never met her, but I follow her work.

And she says, "No, AI is just exposing your laziness."

And I was like, "Oh, wow, this is true."

And so you have to learn how to leverage.

Technology is moving so fast that you have to learn how to leverage it in your role, in your career, and where you desire to grow to.

And bring the focus back to yourself as a human, because us being human beings, we do have special qualities that AI in itself can leverage.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Because it's not a human.

So I hope that answered your question.

- No, that answers it.

That answers it.

I wanna ask one more question before we go to the second half of bringing on our HR recruiter.

But someone's, again, just walked across that stage.

They're in that job search, you know, they weren't fortunate enough to have a job upon graduation 'cause that's the reality for a lot of folks.

- Look, if they are in that position, I'm like, look, you are in a great position.

I sit up here with my makeup, with my bright lips, with my bright nails, with my tattoos, and this is how I was in corporate America and I built myself there.

Whether I'm talking to an emerging talent or an established professional, I'm explaining to them, you have to understand who you are as a person, so you can decide, so that you can decide what company or role aligns to who you are.

In the financial, you know, industry as an accountant and an auditor, there's no way that I can show up this eclectic.

Not because it means I'm not being myself, but it means that who I am doesn't align to that specific industry.

So it will look like this is the perfect time to assess who you are so that you don't have to change who you are because there are peers who have accepted job offers a year prior to graduating, and they're, you know, banging their head up against the window and the door 'cause they're like, I don't know if I really wanna do that, but that's the right thing to do.

- Well, let's pause there because we've been talking about this HR recruiter for like the last 10 minutes now, but you still gotta wait 'cause before I bring her on, I wanna share this short video from Indeed on some tips on how to help improve your interviewing skills through body language and etiquette.

Take a look.

- Arguably the most crucial part of the job search, an interview can make or break an opportunity.

So to help you really prepare, we're gonna dissect and analyze an entire interview from start to finish.

I'll be sprinkling in a mix of tips about body language, etiquette, and how to answer common questions.

For years, athletes have used science and data analysis to improve.

Now, we are doing the same for job seekers everywhere.

This is job science.

Meet Anya, a recent grad majoring in business administration.

She's interviewing for an entry-level project management position.

Note her posture, head up, shoulders pulled back, no slouching and no laidbackness.

The interview begins the minute you walk into the building.

Anya treats everyone in the office with respect while keeping eye contact, from security personnel to receptionists.

Anyone you run into on your way in could be asked to give feedback on you.

Pause.

First, ace those introductions.

Greet everyone in a way that is authentic to you like, "Hey, nice to meet you," and then say their name.

That one always works.

You know, you're more likely to remember their name if you say it out loud when you first meet.

A lot of the time, small talk comes up before any questions.

It's good to have a few current events or topics in mind.

Let's see what our interviewer asks.

- So I wanna hear more.

Tell me a little about your experience and what you'd bring to this role.

- Pause.

When this is asked, they're looking to learn what makes you stand out.

Be honest with your answers.

That means having to pause and think for a second.

That is all right.

Think about your past experiences and how the role lines up with your future goals.

It never hurts to be honest.

- Great question.

Ever since I was young, I've always been the organized one in my family.

Whether it was helping my parents schedule vacations or color coordinating my closet, naturally that lifestyle got me here, project management.

I've been a people person for as long as I can remember.

Plain and simple, I love team building and making sure everyone has a part.

Just the other month... - Oh, just really quick.

Don't speak negatively about previous places you've worked.

Instead, talk about what you've learned.

- I helped lead a team of five to deliver a three week sales project a few days ahead of schedule.

I'd love to bring these things here.

- Perfect, a response like this not only answers the question, but also shows off her personality.

But remember, there's no one right way to interview and answer questions.

Be yourself and let your personality shine.

Be aware of your movements.

Practice polite, confident body language.

Subtly miming your interviewer's posture can actually create a sense of connection.

Of all places, unnecessary movements are hard to ignore in an interview, whether it's tapping your fingers or bouncing your leg.

Be aware and stay present.

- Hey, it's been great chatting so far.

I guess my last question is, do you have any questions for me?

- Ooh, this is a hot one.

Make sure to have a short list of questions for your employer in your back pocket.

Ask the questions you would if you got the job.

If tomorrow was your first day, what would do you wanna know from the manager?

Even if you don't have any burning questions, asking you a few shows that you did your homework and that you really care.

Some include, what do you like best about working here?

What are some mistakes people have made in this position?

What is a goal you're currently working toward?

How will my performance be evaluated?

- Well, I did read that you're expanding your software team next quarter.

I'm curious how you plan to carry that out.

- The interview isn't actually over.

Always follow up within 24 hours with a thank you email to the hiring manager.

This can be a quick note, simply thanking them for their time or a longer one that elaborates on some of the things you talked about.

It's key to leaving a lasting impression.

- Well now that we've looked at the inner work, we're gonna flip the lens to the hiring side.

What are employers actually looking for and what makes a candidate stand out beyond their GPA or their job title?

Joining us now is the HR recruiter that we've been talking about this whole time, Chenae Erkerd, she is an HR recruiter and hiring strategist.

Welcome to the show.

- Thank you for having me.

- We've been mentioning this- - I'm like, I just love her.

[laughs] - Right?

So let's start off by establishing our career landscape right now.

The current job market as it pertains to all professionals and graduates, but more importantly, we're on "Black Issues Forum", our black professionals.

- Yeah.

- What does it look like for us?

- Yeah.

The job market is scarce.

I think it's scarce for every single person, no matter what you look like.

But specifically for Black Americans, especially with the elimination of DEI, and having to not have that requirement behind having to interview and/or hire a diverse candidate.

I tell people all the time, all three of us up here are doubly diverse.

We're women and we're Black, right?

Now add the diversity of natural hair, of Amber's hair is a different color.

You're locked.

I'm not locked, but we braided over here.

Just being able to hit diversity from all lenses and all different aspects and spaces has been eliminated a little bit.

I had a conversation not too long ago with someone about how DEI helped from a recruiter's lens or an HR lens, because it held hiring leaders accountable for needing to look at those skill sets and different types of people and being able to hire them into positions, where before DEI, they weren't held accountable and always having to interview and consider people who look like them.

- How do you combat that as a professional?

You know you're going into a landscape that may not be encountering or evaluating you fairly.

- Yeah.

- How do you, I mean, what can we do?

- So here's the thing, I think the accountability while companies may be eliminating DEI, we don't have to eliminate DEI personally.

So for me, I still hold my hiring leaders, my colleagues, my managers accountable for, we're still gonna look at people who don't look like us, whether the bigger landscape of DEI being eliminated, whether it's eliminated or not, we are still held accountable to ourselves.

And if we have that like walk the walk and talk the talk mindset, then we need to be able to interview, consider, and seriously hire people, whether they look like us or not.

- Right.

- Can I add to that?

- Please.

- So, two parts.

I think that DEI, the importance of it is it helped to mitigate the unconscious biases that we all come to work with.

- Right.

- Plus discrimination.

- Plus discrimination, plus the prejudices, right?

When I go into these companies and I'm teaching their leaders about unconscious biases, sometimes they don't even realize it.

- Realize.

And that's Black professionals.

- Yes, absolutely.

- That's anybody.

- Yes.

- Absolutely.

And then on persons of color, specifically Black people.

Sometimes when it comes to our graduates, those specific that are graduating from HBCUs, the first time that they encounter a non-Black person or a white person is when they get their first opportunity.

So this is why working on our social skills, learning how to connect is important.

And the last thing that I'll say is when I was in corporate, I tell people all the time, I don't lead with those double minorities.

- Absolutely.

- I don't lead with being a woman, and I don't lead with being a Black woman.

I lead with my intellect, I lead with my knowledge, I lead with my expertise.

And then we can discuss, oh, yes, I happen to be a Black woman.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- I wanna ask you, Shanae, what is the difference between looking good on a paper and actually someone that you remember from an interview?

- Yeah, good question.

So I wanna tell you the bad side first.

- Okay.

- So looking good on paper means your resume is organized, it's optimized, meaning the context of what you're saying is clear, it's concise.

We can read it, try to not reading in between the lines.

- Right.

- Then you get into the interview where now because we're in this era of AI and ChatGPT, and Claude AI, and Panda AI, and all the things of AI.

You get into the interview where now you're using AI for your interviews.

- Yes.

- And so, I've actually been in interviews where candidates have used AI to get through their interviews, and while they have not been called out in the interview, that's memorable because you can tell where they may look very good on paper, but in the interview, they're not performing in the way that their paper has said that they should be able to perform.

- What are some of those indicators?

Like if somebody's out here doing that, and they're like, [guests laughing] "No, I'm doing great, but not really."

What are some of those indicators?

- So there is a situation where if you're answering a question, let's say, you type the question inside of ChatGPT or Panda AI or whatever, if you answer the question verbatim that chat GPT gave you.

- Yeah.

- And then me or the interviewer or whoever puts the same question in ChatGPT, and it spits out the same exact thing that you said, that's a problem.

- Yeah, no.

- So that's a pretty big indicator as to how we can tell.

- Go ahead, Amber.

- So I'm just curious, like that's what's happening now.

'Cause, like when we were coming in, it was like, "Make your social media private because recruiters are gonna look."

Now recruiters like you're leveraging ChatGPT to screen your candidates, which is what we shared earlier, like leveraging AI as an asset, and not allowing AI to consume you in the not so good way, so.

- Yeah.

- So let me be clear, I don't use ChatGPT to screen anybody.

- Yeah.

- What I do is if there is an indication from an interviewer they can tell, well, pretty much check on the backend.

- Yeah.

- But I think it's unfair to be able to use AI to screen it in the beginning.

- Right.

- A lot of people have this question of, how do I beat the applicant tracking system?

I think it's unfair to allow AI to do the recruiter's work.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- I don't think that's right.

- So when we think about challenges that applicants face, what are some of the biggest challenges that folks face?

- I think the biggest thing is aligning their skills, like their skills and their knowledge to the right role.

- Yeah.

- And it's not to dream big or go after, but are you truly qualified?

Do you truly have the skills?

Do you understand the role and the requirements and what's expected of you?

Caroline Wanga said - I love her.

- I do love her.

- I love her.

- She's like.

- I'm the woman.

You you were hired to do a job.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And that's what you came to do.

You have to be able to do the job.

So I'm gonna stop there so you can.

- So I will say, I do, I totally agree.

What I will add to that is there is a difference between thinking you could do the job, right?

Versus meeting the basic minimum qualifications that is set out inside of a job description.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- I get tore up for this on LinkedIn all the time about saying, y'all please meet all of the basic minimum qualifications, the prefer or nice to haves.

[all laughing] You would be so surprised of how many recruiters tell people if you only meet 70% of the basic minimum qualifications, then apply anyway.

- Oh wow.

- I'm not one of those recruiters who's going tell you that.

And the reason for that is because you're already applying everywhere.

I don't want you to apply and you're applying to roles that you technically don't meet and qualify for and now you're disappointed.

- Right.

- Because you're getting rejection email and all of that, and adding to your anxiety of needing to get another job, so.

- You just have 30 seconds left.

It always goes so fast, we got so much.

But if folks wanna get in touch with either one of you, Chenae, I'll start with you first.

How do they get in touch with you if they more support.

- Yeah.

Yeah, so they can contact me on LinkedIn, C-H-E-N-A-E. Last name is Erhard, E-R-K-E-R-D. Or they can go to my website which is recruitercous.com, or they can follow me on Instagram at recruiter cousin.

- Awesome, Amber.

- Okay, so LinkedIn, Amber Rich Book spelled just how you hear it.

Check out my website YouAreYourFirstCareer.com.

Instagram at a.richbook.

Now don't come to me for career stuff on there.

[all laughing] - Thank you both so much.

- Thank you for having me.

- It is very helpful, I think personally.

And I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum, and on the PBS video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson, I'll see you next time.

[light entertaining music] ♪ - [Announcer] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.