Are you socially awkward after a year of isolation? So is everyone. In this podcast, Dan & Liz chat about the benefits of work, the anxiety we're all feeling and how to overcome that state of overwhelm in your job search.

Show notes:

Upcoming career fairs: https://www.corridorcareers.com/events

All right. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Liz.

Morning.

Careers and coffee. This is episode number 11. I had to look

that up, but

we're so great at this now.

Experienced podcasters youtubers cool well, by being used today

less. Yeah. Guess what? September 16 we're going back to

having a career fair.

Career Fair. Oh, I pointed the wrong way.

So, so special announcement. Yeah, we are having a career

week and that entire week 13th through the 16th culminating

with an in person career fair at New York City Market. Downtown

Cedar Rapids, Ningbo district in conjunction with Meet me at the

market Thursday night at Ningbo City Market.

Yeah, so you could hop on a veo, and get yourself to the career

fair

and do some yoga and hang out and get some food. And yeah, so

I'm ready. I'm excited. Absolutely. 330 to 630. Thursday

night, I know we're still what to tune last months away. Yes,

three months away. But we're excited. We're expecting up to

30 employers, hopefully, I know, we've already got a few lined up

and many more to come. So we're, we're pumped up for that.

Yeah, I would say the employers are very excited to have an in

person career fair. So I think it's a win win. And hopefully

you have a job by September and you don't even need to come to

our career fair. But it's going to be a really great way to kind

of mix with employers and the the excitement that is new Bo

and just get a sense of what's out there. So maybe you're

thinking "Oh, actually, I'm not going to return to work until

the fall, and my kids are back in school." September 16, is a

little bit after that. So you have time to get people kind of

settled into routines at that point. So it's really going to

be a good time. And career week is all about getting you prepped

for that day in person of, you know, refining your resume and

talking up your, you know, interview skills and maybe just

working over your elevator pitch and, and some of those things,

and we had some good feedback from job seekers who attended

the spring career week, that was just virtual, about how it kind

of helped them kind of get a focus when they were doing their

job search. So hope will do the same for you.

Yeah, absolutely. And, well, we'll put links to where you can

go sign up actually, for career week, if you're interested in

doing that already. I know we've already had several people sign

up and say they want to attend. And I just want to say real

quick, there's a reason why we ask people to sign up and we

capture email addresses and names. And it's because the

employers that attend, they want to let they want to they want

resumes they they want a list of people that were there. And so

it's kind of mutually beneficial, right, you as a job

seeker. Want to get your resume in front of all these employers,

they're at the career fair looking for people hungry to

work. So that's the reason why we ask people to sign up. If you

don't do it on our website, where and we'll put a link in

the show notes here. You can sign up the day of the event.

And everyone that does sign up is in and shows up to career

week or career fair like in person will be in the running

for $50 amazon gift card. So just a little sweeten the deal.

there.

Fifty bucks? That'll go a long ways on Amazon. That's a lot of

coffee.

It depends if you have prime or not - for me $50 doesn't go very

far, but

alright, cool. Well, that's enough about career week/ career

fair. We just want to touch briefly today on unemployment.

And, you know, obviously, you know, right now we're in late

June of 2021. We have a lot of people that haven't returned to

the workforce yet kind of post COVID maybe you bought they lost

their job or you came on employed sometime in 2020. And

then just, you know, for whatever reason, everybody's

situation is kind of different, but not returned to the

workforce yet. Maybe are holding out looking for that right job

or, you know, waiting for the job industry that they work in

to pick back up a little bit more. So, we just wanted to

touch on, you know, some of some of the benefits and

opportunities When going back to work and having a job. And so

aside from just having a regular paycheck, I have a few of these

pulled up on my other monitor right now. But let's I want to,

I want to get your thoughts on having the number two thing they

say aside from a regular paycheck as a benefit is a sense

of identity. Yeah, so I want to get your thoughts on having a

sense of identity with what you do in your job.

That's definitely something that when you lose a job you feel a

loss of is a sense of identity. So sometimes the the sense of

identity that comes with a job isn't something you notice until

it's gone. And I think the main thing there is that it's the

recognition that you get from working somewhere with that

exchange of money, you're so you're getting paid to, to

perform a service of some kind. That exchange, just the simple

exchange that's happening there, tells yourself like

subconsciously, that you have a value. And everyone has a value,

whether they're working or not. So I'm not, I'm not trying to

make a statement about your value. It's just, it's just

something that automatically comes with working. That, that

you have to actually if you're let's say you're a stay at home

parent, you have to kind of like artificially create that sense

of identity through your work as a stay at home parent, but it

just kind of comes naturally when someone is actually paying

you to show up because you're not getting that appreciation.

And thanks for your family for showing up every day. Maybe you

aren't maybe you haven't really special.

Yeah, so yeah, I think that's definitely true. I think it can

go the wrong way. Sometimes when you over identify with your job,

and then all of a sudden, because of structural changes,

or because of the economy or because the way business went,

all of a sudden, you're out of that role. And then you feel

this loss of like, Okay, well, who am I? So, I would just

caution against tying yourself too closely to that job, but it

is definitely a benefit to having a job.

Yeah, absolutely. And glancing down this list a little bit

further. And this, this kind of ties in with that, especially if

what you brought up is having a work life balance? Could you

expand on the importance of having a little bit of a

balance, maybe between what you do at work and what you do away

from work? Yeah, well, this,

This is also a tricky one, why you asking me all these hard

questions, Dan? Um, there is I don't know if there is such a

thing as total work life balance, because you know, your,

your sacrifice, you're making sacrifices every day for one or

the other, your life or your job. But if you don't have

enough money to eat, then you're sacrificing that that need, you

know, so I think work life balance, can, you know, if you

aren't working, and you could get over, you could over and I

don't know how to say this, you can get overwhelmed with the

sense of, you know, the freedom that you have, or all the

different things that you could potentially do, and

inadvertently create roadblocks for yourself. But when you have

the structure of work, it puts things into perspective. And

like, Okay, well, I only have so much time outside of my

schedule, to accomplish my life goals. And so I'm going to need

to be aggressive with those goals to make them happen. I

can't just wait for them to happen. So I guess, because

there's a box there. It might help with, with a little bit of

structure. That when it said, Did I that I hit the mark?

I don't know. Well, yeah. I mean, there's nothing here. It

just gives me bullet points. But yeah, no, I completely agree

with you. I think you touched on a couple things in both of those

points, the sense of identity. Maybe not like I think these are

both very intertwined, right. So it's like a sense of identity

thing. If you identify yourself as your job. I mean, we're in

you work, work, work, work, work. And then you don't have

that. You can definitely feel that loss, like you mentioned.

But then you also maybe didn't have great work life balance to

begin with. And you know, at any at any given time, like you

mentioned, maybe work needs a little more effort. Maybe your

life away from work needs a little more effort. So I agree.

Like there's there's definitely a pole probably at all times in

your work life balance. But those two things are very

closely are intertwined in my mind.

Yeah. If If you come to the end of your work day, and you have

no brain power, and you have nothing left to give, and you

show up at home, and you know, that's not satisfying either. So

there's the you just have to figure out how to manage your

time and say no to some of those pressures that come at you

throughout the day. And likewise, in your home life, the

same thing applies. And so just having that sense of

responsibility to a job, will help sometimes help set those

priorities. We did have a recent story in the Gazette, which I

thought was kind of interesting. And I think it might I don't

know, I related to it a little bit. It was talking about re

entry anxiety, of terror tourists re entering the

workforce, or maybe even those working from home. Being, you

know, told basically, to report back to work now. Okay, next

over, you know, and I just thought it was kind of

interesting. Have you have you ever had a question for you,

Dan, I mean, if you felt this level of reentry anxiety, I

know, because that isn't back yet. But we are gonna be heading

back there in the fall.

Definitely, yeah, um, you know, working from home for so long,

and I live alone as well. So, you know, last year, for

majority of maybe the last 15 months, I didn't, I would go

sometimes days with kind of just seeing myself, except for maybe,

you know, getting outside and going for a walk or something

and seeing some people on the sidewalk. So, I've definitely

felt a little bit of this re entry anxiety. I ran into

somebody yesterday that I hadn't seen in a couple years. And I

was like, I was trying to have a conversation with them. And I

was like, man, I really have become a little socially

awkward, a little socially awkward, but, you know, it was

just, you know, we weren't quite sure, like how far to stand away

from each other, you know, as somebody that I hadn't seen in a

while. And so, yeah, it definitely was like social

events. And I know, on Monday, we had a team meeting down at

our office, and just five of us. And I thought that was an

amazing experience. Because we hadn't had an in person meeting,

or ever tell you what it was. I thought it was really good. to

actually get off, get off of the computer, get off the zoom,

zoom, zoom was great. But you know, it was good to get back in

person and see some faces and be around people.

It was interesting, too, because we've been on zoom for over a

year. And in our meeting, we were able to have two

conversations going on at the same time, which potentially is

a problem, like we should really all be in the same conversation

and not have them. But it's just funny, because like that could

never happen over zoom, because you wouldn't be able to

understand the other person because of microphones and ta

No, and the camera and all that stuff. And yeah. So there's

definitely that I feel that re entry anxiety still, even though

I have a job. And so I just wonder it must be difficult for

job seekers who haven't been working for some time, or maybe

they have not been seeking a job for some time and are now

starting to get ready to to seek a job for the first time in a

while. So there's that gap. And like you said, social

awkwardness is set in for everyone, and all those layers

on top. So I think there are many challenges jobseekers are

facing right now. It's not black and white, you know, like, Well,

you know, if you listen to the news, sometimes they'll say,

Well, if people just would work, you know, we'd be better off.

And it's like, well, it's not that simple. Like there are a

lot of complicated factors that go into whether someone is

seeking work at any given time. And I don't know what the

solution is. But I think I think just setting small steps for

yourself, if you're going to go on that path of reentry to the

workforce. Maybe the first step is just looking at it

application like what are the things that they're asking for

in the application, maybe you're not even actually going to hit

Apply today. But maybe just click that apply now button,

just to see what is the very next step of the application

process because sometimes it's upload a resume. Sometimes it's

create an account. Sometimes it's read this giant PDF and put

all the information in there. It's there's not great uniform

ways. that people can get jobs now.

Yeah, it's not a one size fits all applying for a job. Yeah.

Well, I want to hit on just one more thing. And I know we've

talked a little longer today maybe than we were expecting to.

But I do want to go back a couple couple weeks now we

attended entree Fest, oh, yeah, conference, downtown Cedar

Rapids. And I attended virtually, I think you did in

person, but we are our keynote speaker. His name is Marcus is

formerly incarcerated. And he talked about his path to finding

a job. I don't, I think this holds true for anybody looking

for a job. But he said he got turned down 41 times. And on his

42nd job application, he was an accepted and got a job at a

paint store. And he kind of talked about his story and how

you relate that into starting his own business. And, you know,

now he's, you know, working full time on his own business. But I

thought it was a really interesting story. And it kind

of what resonated to me was kind of strength and numbers, right?

Like, how do you have the ability to get turned down? 41

times, right, like, yeah, and then on that 42nd, try, you get

it. And that's just, that's persistence and patience.

Well think about what actors go through, right? Like, they get

turned down all the time throughout their career, and

they continue to try. And that's just persistence there. You

know, persistence is key. And one of the really cool things

about Marcus's story was that and we'll share, if there's a

link to the entree Fest, keynote, you should definitely

watch it because it was really inspiring for all of us. But the

thing is, he used that job opportunity as a springboard for

his life. And there's, is there something unique and amazing

about clerkin? paint store, he's just selling paint, right? Like

there was a very kind of simple job that he was doing. But he

did it with such joy and passion, that people flocked to

him wanting to buy paint from him. And then it turned into

this kind of, oh, maybe there's something there, maybe I've got

something here. And he became a connector from between

contractors and people wanting to, you know, homeowners wanting

to have someone else paint and actually want to paint. And so

he was able to make that connection there and then built

the business off of that, and then became an entrepreneur

after that. So that treating that next job, like your first

job, it could be, it could be something really interesting for

you, you know, just come at it with a different perspective.

And if you've been working for a while then out of work, it may,

you may feel a lot of like mental blocks about re entering

the workforce. And you may come to a job interview with a lot of

baggage. But if you could maybe just flip it so that you're

treating that job opportunity as potentially your your first job,

just treat it like your first job. You could come at it with a

renewed sense of potential that is going to speak to an employer

in a way that is not going to if you bring all that other Well,

you should hire me because I've got all this experience or you

know, I've been doing this for however long.

They are. Absolutely. And just the I loved the you know, the I

think the interesting thing is, it could have been a paint

store. It could have been a Yeah. Who knows a furniture

store could have been and the thing about a story was like he

said, he was just so passionate and energetic about this, being

able to go and and help people right and serve people and have

a smile on his face. And I think that's just so important. And so

that's just a really cool story. Yeah. All right. Well, we

Yeah, we talked about a lot of things we have it's of having a

job, right.

The benefits of having a job? Yeah, we covered a couple things

there. We talked about career week and career fair, upcoming.

September 16. Is the career fair. Then we talked a little

bit about Mark's story, right? And yeah, and his inspiring

message which, yeah, hopefully we can find a link to the video

and share that in the show notes.

Yeah, so just stay at it. Be persistent. And and try to come

come at your job search with a renewed sense of possibility.

Cool. All right. Let's do it. Thanks a lot. See you next time.