Episode 6 – Transitioning from university to work with David Shindler

January 7, 2015 Podcast

Welcome to episode 6 of the Graduate Job Podcast!

In this episode I speak with author and career coach David Shindler, who guides us through the tricky transition period from university to getting a job. Recently graduated and stuck in a rut, or soon to graduate and you want to make the transition process as easy as possible? Then this episode of the Graduate Job Podcast is for you.

You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Additionally, you can subscribe via iTunes or Stitcher radio.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • Tips to help in the transition from university to work – 2.35
  • How to narrow down your career choices – 4.45
  • The importance of mindset when searching for a job – 5.55
  • The emotional journey you will face in the transition from university to work – 8.45
  • What to do at university to make the transition process an easier one – 12.05
  • How to deal with and learn from failure – 12.55
  • How to hit the ground running in your first job – 19.28
  • The importance of understanding your own personal values and how they relate to your ideal job – 22.28

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

https://dash.bloomfire.com/ (The Employability Hub)

http://www.learningtoleap.co.uk/ (David’s excellent blog and website)

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything (David’s recommended book by Sir Ken Robinson. Click image below to buy on Amazon!)

www.plotr.co.uk/ (Plotr career planning tool)

Check out the image below to see my results from Plotr.  Looks like the world of academia is missing out, although the emphasis on teaching and learning does go some way to explaining the podcast! Interestingly I only came out as 77% compatible with my real career.

Plottr Results

Transcript – Episode 6 – Transitioning from university to work with David Shindler

James:  Welcome to the 6th episode of the Graduate Job Podcast. Today I speak with author and career coach David Shindler, who guides us through the tricky transition period from university to getting a job. Recently graduated and stuck in a rut, or soon to graduate and you want to make the transition process as easy as possible? Then this episode is for you. Ready? Lets go straight to episode 6.

James:  Hello and welcome to another edition of the Graduate Job Podcast. I’m very excited today to be speaking to David Shindler. David is an independent coach, blogger, speaker, founder of The Employability Hub and author of Learning to Leap: A Guide To Being More Employable. David, welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast.

David:  Thank you, James; very pleased to be here. Looking forward to speaking to you.

James: Excellent. I’ve given the listeners a brief introduction but before we jump into our topic today, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about what it is that you do?

David:  Yeah. I think the way I describe myself in terms of what I provide and the kind of value I add is I stimulate insights for job and career actions of students and graduates; but also people working in the workplace. So I do that by coaching. I’m a qualified coach and I’ve been doing it for many years and I also do that, as you say, through various other media whether it’s in person, publicly speaking about topics, blogging and running a website with free resources for graduates and so on. So, my focus is very much on helping people to find their kind of careers and work identities and a direction for themselves. And predominantly there’s three things that I focus on: getting people to have greater clarity for themselves; building people’s confidence based on that clarity; and making decisions that are right for them.

James:  Today we’re going to cover a topic which was inspired, actually, by a post on your blog which I would recommend to anyone, learningtoleap.co.uk, which is transitioning from university to work.

David:    Yep.

James:   And I know it can be a big jump from the world of lectures, pot noodles, students nights out on a Wednesday, to the nine to five of a job. If I was a recent graduate, what tips would you offer to assist in the transition from university to work?

David:    There’s a number of things. I think the first thing is to take a step back. It’s very tempting as a brand new graduate, because you’re feeling under pressure, to go out and get a job and capitalize on that degree and leap into something. If you haven’t done the ground work and if you haven’t done some of the soul searching and thinking about who you are, what you want and what kind of environment you want and what would suit you, you can fall foul of jumping into something and then jumping into something else, and then jumping into something else and then before you know it, after a few years, you’ve been bouncing around the job market rather aimlessly.

So for me, it’s take a step back and think about how you want to present yourself to the marketplace. So, kind of at the heart of it is knowing yourself well enough, but equally understanding how the world sees you and what, how you want to present that to the world and to shape that yourself; that takes a bit of planning and a bit of strategy, et cetera. And so often I say to people, forget the five year plan. Think about the next six months. How are you going to position yourself in employer’s minds? What do you want them to see? And focus in on the best of you, what you want to offer to employers. So that’s my starting point, is to not dive into firing out CVs left, right and center because you’ll be disappointed. It’s more about being targeted and clear, and having a clear plan of strategy about how you want to present yourself.

James:   No, I agree and I think that’s one of the problems that students have when they graduate is, there’s so many opportunities out there and it’s difficult then to narrow it down exactly the right way to go with their first career choice.

Are there any exercises that you would recommend to help people to narrow down that choice and to make the right decision the first time?

David:   Exercises? Maybe I describe it in a slightly different way. What people, many, many young people struggle with is having a clear view about themselves often because they’re never asked the question. So, for me feedback is one of the most important things that students and graduates coming out of the university could do, just getting a sense of the people that know them best and the people they’ve work with, lecturers, and tutors and teachers and friends, etcetera, to give them feedback along what they’re good at, what they’re like when they’re at their best, what they’re particular talents are, what they’re good at, et cetera, because we sometimes look at ourselves and can be quite self deprecating or a bit shy about talking up our positives, et cetera. So, getting feedback, for me, is a starting point and then using that feedback to shape the messaging and communication and personal brand you want to put across.

James:   How important would you say mindset is in this reflective period?

David:    I think this is more important than people tend to think. So, if you think about all the competition you’ve got out there for jobs amongst graduates, you know, lots and lots of graduates with similar qualifications may be in the same sector, in the same area, etcetera, of subject matter. The thing that is going to differentiate them is quite often going to be their attitude rather than the skills or qualifications they’ve got. Quite often recruiters will take the approach of hiring for attitude and then training the individual for the skills once they’ve got them inside the organization. If you’ve got the wrong person inside the organization whose got a first class degree but can’t get on with people, they’re not going to last long. So it’s much more important that you have the right attitude, right professionalism that employers are seeking and not worry so much about the qualifications side of things, because the marketplace is changing. Increasingly employers are saying, you know, it’s not the first thing we look at is the degree. What we’re looking at is well-rounded, well-grounded individuals who have got a bit of life experience and that could be, you know, a range of things from what you do on your holidays, work experience you’ve done in part-time jobs, volunteering, places you’ve been, stuff that you’ve done off your own back, that demonstrate that you’re prepared to roll your sleeves up and have a good work ethic.

James:   Agreed, and as you mention in your most recent blog, companies such as Grant Thornton, and Eversheds are actually removing the criteria for a specific degree class and are more open to students who might have got lower—

David:    Absolutely

James:   –lower grades but have a, you know, a more rounded potential.

David:    I think, again, the challenge for graduates coming out of the university is to take the emphasis away from themselves and start looking at what it is that the company, the organization, the business, is trying to achieve and what it wants to achieve from employment, employing you. So, the focus has got to be more on the employer than on yourself and it’s about that match that you’re trying to get, saying, well, if the organization has got a particular need for a particular job and is trying to go in a particular direction, how do I fit with that? What can I add from my experience that will help that organization achieve that, rather than saying, what’s in it for me? I want to do this. I want to do that. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.   The emphasis has got to be the other way around.

James:   Completely. One aspect that I know I struggled with personally after leaving university was it was quite an emotional roller-coaster of the anticipation of applying for jobs and then sometimes the rejection of, you know, not getting them when you built yourself up to it being the job that you really wanted. What range of emotions would graduates typically go through and what can they do to mitigate these?

David:  Yeah. It’s becoming a really difficult thing leaving university. In fact, I’ve got three daughters and two of them have been through university and as soon as they came back after uni, it’s quite a sort of difficult time, quite destabilizing time because you’ve been surrounded by support and a peer network and you know exactly what you’re going to be doing and get into certain routine, etcetera and then as soon as you leave university you’re quite often going back home and that support network disappears and goes around the country doing different things. You suddenly find yourself, potentially, quite isolated. A lot of your friends may have moved away, etcetera, whilst you’ve been away at university. So you’re suddenly left with this sort of future ahead of you and you need certain resilience and you need a certain amount of self motivation to start to act and to think in a different way. So, shedding the mindset that you have at university of deadlines for assignments, going to the library, partying and just looking after yourself, suddenly you have to start thinking about other people and working in a team, potentially, in organizations and having to get quite pragmatic and that can be quite a tough period of time. So, taking action and being able to do things for yourself, be quite resourceful is going to be really important when you come of university. So, it can be quite, quite sort of a lonely period, I think, for quite a few graduates and they often say they miss their friends and fellow students. And some people will come out thinking, oh, I’m just going to walk into a job, and then find it’s not quite what they thought. So, that can lead to, you know, lowering of confidence. Some people go out with a lack of confidence, in the first place, because they’re not quite sure where they’re going, what they want to do. So, it’s really important to find support at that stage. So, first of all, recognizing where you are in that little emotional journey you’re on. You know, is it something that you’re aware of, or is it something you need to get feedback on to find out exactly what’s needed for you next? So, for me it’s getting the right support around you, whatever way that may be; that’s where coaching can come in but it can also be friends, family; going back to Career Service, for example. It’s a little known fact, I think, for a lot of students that quite often the Career Service will support a graduate for up to three years after they leave.

James:  Okay.

David:   So people tend to think, oh, I’ve left the university. You know, now what?

James:  And, what can students do whilst still at university to make the transition process easier and to ensure that they are ready for applying for work, and for work itself?

David:   The most obvious thing is when you’re at university and you have to start in year one when you arrive and go through, it is to get as much work experience as possible because the more you have an understanding of what’s required in a workplace, the easier it will be for you to a) talk about your experience in ways that translate to what employers want but also will mean that your transition will be easier because you know what to expect. So internships, work placements, volunteering, any kind of work experience whatsoever will stand you in good stead to make that transition easier because you know what is required.

James:  Definitely. We touched upon rejection earlier. Unless you’re very lucky, you’re not going to get the dream job on your first attempt. So, how would you recommend that people deal with failure and try to learn from it?

David:  I think you’re absolutely right about the dream job. I think, managing your own expectations. Where your first job is, is unlikely to be for life. You know, if you talk to anybody, if you were to talk to your lecturers and professors or you would talk to anybody that’s worked for 20 or 30 years and said, did you expect to be here when you were a student or when you were younger, most people would say no. Because most jobs and most careers are nonlinear and lots and lots of things can get in the way. So, managing your expectations; that you’re not necessarily going to start off in a job that, you know, it’s not for life. It’s a starting point and it’s a way of grounding yourself and deciding what to rule in and what to rule out. So a lot of it is about exploring and being curious and experimenting but following things that are of interest to you, things that you’re good at and working things out as you go along; and then it’s about seizing opportunities.

So, quite often people will get rejected and to see it as a step along a journey, as part of the adventure, that will be a more positive way of looking at it rather than thinking I failed. Because we’d all fail several times, many times and it would be extraordinary if you go through life without getting made redundant at some point, finding a job that doesn’t suit you, the company goes bust when you’re least expecting it. These are all things that happen to people in their careers and in their lifetime. So, getting, not taking it personally but understanding that things change and therefore you’ve got to have the wherewithal to deal with that change, that’s not a bad experience to go through. You wouldn’t wish it on people but it happens. So, if things don’t work out—-

I’ll give you an example of the first job I ever had. When I came out of the university I did a law degree and when I came out of university I came to the conclusion I didn’t want to be a lawyer. What I really wanted to do was to be in the movie business because that was my particular personal interest when I was growing up. And I wanted to be behind the scenes, you know, involved in cinema, not in front of the camera. So, I abandoned going to College of Law even though I had a place there and I got myself a job as an assistance cameraman in a film company, a very small company. It turned out that I was, had all the practical skills of Mr. Bean and I nearly wrecked £10,000 worth of equipment by doing something wrong and they let me go. I soon realized that, you know, I came out of that thinking, oh, now what, because my dreams were shattered. But actually it’s one of the best things that could have happened to me because it made me realize that actually what I thought was what I wanted to do, wasn’t. Therefore, I had to rethink, but I also knew I didn’t want to be a lawyer. So, it took me down a different path.

James:   I know when I, in the grad scheme that I joined and a common theme for people is you build up this impression of what you think what’s it going to be and then you join the company and you suddenly realize that the realities may differ than your expectations.

David:    Absolutely.

James:   In my intake of 18 people one of the guys, I think he lasted a week. He just said, you know–

David:    Not for me.

James:   –this isn’t for me, and you know, moved on. And to be honest, there was a lot of people who probably felt the same but, you know, dragged it out for a year, 18 months, when if they had just bitten the bullet they probably would have been in a better position.

David:    Yeah, and I think the learning from that is knowing that what you don’t want as much as what you do want. The way my career progressed was very much a case of observing as I went along, what the things that I was good at and those things that I wasn’t and building that over time so that I could start to tell a story about myself that reflected some common theme. So, for me, I’m quite analytic and I am somebody who is a good facilitator. So, I work well with groups and individuals in terms of facilitating their learning but also, I’m somebody who writes well and is very good with information and data. As time progressed through different types of jobs, those strengths came—all those talents became strengths because I developed them through practice. So, facilitation became coaching. The analytical writing bit became blogging and authorship, et cetera. So, what happens is you start to realize that those common core things you’re good at become the things that define you.

So for me, one of the lessons for graduates is to, you know, acknowledge or at least understand what some of those core things that you know about yourself and other people know about you and build on them because they’re probably the things that come naturally to you. It’s probably the things that will define you and help you to define your place in jobs and careers.

James:   I think that’s brilliant advice. And something that personally in my early career was each job I learned a little bit more about what I didn’t want to do as opposed to what I did want to do. And it’s only as I’ve got older that I begin to think more deeply about what I’m actually good at and what is it that I actually like and, you know, which areas of my skill set do I want to develop and get deeper in them.

David:    Exactly. So for me, you know, the idea of finding the perfect job, perfect career straight off is a bit of a myth and my advice for a lot of young graduates, etcetera, go and explore; go experiment; go try things out; make choices; make decisions based on what feels right and slowly but surely those things will emerge for you. You know, they may not be there right at the beginning but they will emerge because you’ll start to learn from that experience.

James:   Completely. Looking forward and thinking for people who have got the job that they dream of, what can they do to make sure that they hit the ground running and make a good impression in their first weeks or months?

David:    One of the things I think is to strategically shape what, how you want to be remembered, almost. So, it’s almost like, what do you want people to be saying about you when you’re not in the room in six months time? What do you want people to be saying about you to your face in a year’s time, so that you actually start to position yourself in the organization. So, that means you’ve got to get out and about, you’ve got to go and network internally, you’ve got to put yourself across in a way that how you want to be accepted and you being at your best. So, in effect, you’re growing and reflecting your personal brand within an organization. In that way people begin to get to know you; and so sharing stuff about yourself, being proactive, willing to take things on. I always believe that you should say yes more than no because when opportunities come up, projects, opportunities to sit on groups, etcetera, you never know where that’s going to lead you and there’s always something beneficial will come out of it. And as long as you manage that in terms of not overloading yourself. It’s more about risk taking. I think that’s probably one of the lessons I learned is, I wish I had taken more risks when I was younger. I think we all have that kind of fear factor about showing our backsides in front of people or not being up to it, etcetera. I sense also from this generation that they’re more willing to do that, to take risks. So I encourage it. I’d say, you may not know much about that particular topic or whatever, but it’s about your basic personality and your basic strengths that will get you through and you’ll learn about those things. As long as you’re open and honest and have a certain amount of humility about it.

James:    I definitely agree. As you mentioned at the beginning there, in my previous company the question I kept on being asked was, what do you want to be famous for? What is your USP in the company that people are going to know you for? It was a question I found difficult to answer.

David:    It is a difficult one to answer because some people will say, I’m not that ambitious, you know. Or, you know, I don’t really know what I want to be remembered for. So, you can’t really answer that question unless you’ve done some thinking about yourself and what you know about yourself. So self awareness and capturing those things that are true to you help you to start moving in the direction you want to go.

And I think values are really important throughout this as well. That’s another area that we haven’t touched upon but, understanding what’s really important to you is a really good compass for people. So, even if you don’t know where you’re going and what you actually specifically want to do, understanding the kind of, your own values helps you to identify the kind of environment you want to be in. So, for me, my family background and everything about me has been around quality, justice, fairness. So, I knew I always wanted to be within an organization that care about its employees, that did good, has a purpose and so on because that fitted with my personal values. It affects the way I do business now with other organizations because I expect certain standards of behavior in business terms because of that whole value set, and I will go the extra mile to help others and I kind of expect it in return, I suppose, in some ways. So yes, standards and value, etcetera, are important to me. Principles are important to. That then affects the kind of places and people I want to work with.

James:    And as you mentioned at the beginning of the interview, it’s that period of reflection that you have transitioning from university to work where you can begin to think about what it is that you want and the type of company that you want. And if you can do that thinking at the beginning, it’s going to save you so much–

David:     Absolutely.

James:    –trouble down the line.

David:     And you can get help for that. You know, you don’t have to do that alone. You know, I go back to what I do which is helping people to think that through and to think about, okay, you know, if making money is your number one value — you know maybe that’s the number one value you have, is to be as wealthy as you can be, etcetera — but also another value you have is family time, which is going to come out on top if they compete? So then you start to realize there’s a pecking order with these values and if you decide your family is more important than making money, then when push comes to shove and you’ve got to make decisions about jobs, career, etcetera, that’s the one that went out.

As a typical example, for me I once got offered two jobs at the same time. One job was a consultancy job and I got to gone through an assessment center and I’d gone to a second interview and I was just about to finish the second interview and I asked the question, what’s the best thing about working here and what’s the worst thing about working here? And the best thing was, oh, fantastic lifestyle, great colleagues, wonderful work. What’s the worst thing? I didn’t see my children grow up.   So, I turned that job down and I went to another job which was less exciting, less interesting but same pay and allowed me to see my young kids at the time.

But interestingly, as a result of going to that other job, within a month I knew I had made the wrong decision because actually the value that I put higher than my family, surprisingly, was the nature of the work and what it would do for me. So rather than having a boring job and be able to go home 5:00, what I wanted was a more interesting job with varied hours and a more exciting lifestyle and I made some sacrifices. But that’s the value decision you have to make.

James:  And as you said, it’s about careers, are an iterative thing you know, you start in one and where you end up is not necessarily where you thought you’d begin.

David:  No, and I supposed the other thing to say about that sort of nonlinear career, etcetera, is there are still some, there is a pattern to my career which is about identifying those things that have been common threads all the way through. And as I said, certain things to do with coaching, facilitation, analytic, writing, etcetera, have been common all the way through.   They just morphed into different shapes and different environments along the way and have been honed through practice and I think it’s that kind of understanding of yourself and reflection you need to do throughout your career. And when you’re starting out you have to, you have to start to pay attention to that. Too many people of my generation have got to the other end of their careers and said, I didn’t pay enough attention and I’ve ended up somewhere didn’t want to be.

James:  So listeners, wise advice there from David about making the, having those thoughts in the early stages of your career so you can benefit from it instead of looking back in anger when you get to the

So, David, unfortunately time is running away with us.

David:   Okay.

James:  But we still got time for the lightning round which is a series of three quick questions.

David:   Yeah.

James:  So, question number one: Which book, except your own, would you recommend?

David:   I recommend The Element, How Finding your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson. Ken Robinson is an educationalist.   He’s Sir Ken Robinson. He wrote a great book, one of the books that made his name which is stories about the creative journeys of very different people and how they ended up where they did. And it’s very much along the themes I’ve just been talking about and it’s looking at the place where the things we love to do and the things that we’re good at come together. And he tells stories of well known people and unknown people, everybody from Mick Fleetwood, drummer of Fleetwood Mac to Matt Groening who wrote The Simpsons, and lots of people who are not well known, about how they discovered what it was that actually they really wanted to do.

James:   Excellent. I have not heard of that one myself. That’s one I’m definitely going to check out. And details will be in the Show Notes, listeners. So you don’t have to be scribbling down.

David, one internet resource that you’d recommend to help on people’s job hunt?

David:  I recommend www.plotr.co.uk. That’s p-l-o-t-r. This is a brand new site which is a really interesting one because it’s a combination of analyzing — all the things we’ve been talking about, funny enough – your likes and dislikes, what you must-have in terms of your career, that you think you should have; your work style based on your personality; the interests you have; the things you can’t stand; skills you enjoy; your abilities; the culture fit you’re looking for. All those things you can do through a kind of game and you go through various levels of the game and when you get to the end, it identifies the sort of the careers and jobs that are actually existing that you are best suited for. So, what it does is it matches that profile to an enormous database of thousands of jobs, apprenticeships, work opportunities, you name it, and it says, for example, there are 77— Ninety-eight percent of the way you’ve completed that game suggests you’d make a great psychologist, for example. And the jobs that are available for a psychologist are these ones, and there are 88 of them. Click here to apply. So it really does link you, the person, to real job opportunities and real careers.

James:   Excellent and again, that’s a new one on me. So I’ll have to check it out myself.

David:    Try it out.

James:   I will do.

David:    www.plotr (p-l-o-t-r). co.uk

James:   Listeners, I’ll also, in the Show Notes, I’ll describe what they recon my ideal job would be just to see how different it is to my current one.

David:    Good stuff.

James:   And finally, David, one tip that people can implement straight away.

David:    My single piece of advice is start. Don’t wait. So for me it’s just about doing something. A lot of people hold back for the perfect moment; the perfect job; don’t apply for things; all sorts of things. Just do something and as you do something, notice what you’re doing so that in the end you chose insight over hindsight.

James:   Very, very wise words. David, it’s been a pleasure to have you on the show. Before we close, how and where can people find you and what is the best way to get in touch with you and your work?

David:    You can find me all over the internet because I’m quite busy on it. They can contact me via my website, www.learningtoleap.co.uk; there’s a contact page there. Or via Twitter @david_shindler or they can connect with me on LinkedIn. I also, as you mentioned in the beginning, have a website with free resources for students and graduates on how making themselves more employable and again, that’s https://dash.bloomfire.com. All of these are different ways which you can connect with me.

James:   Thank you very much, David, for appearing on the Graduate JOB Podcast.

David:    My pleasure. Thank you, James.

James:   Thankyou again to David Shindler for sharing his thoughts on the transition from university to work, what can be a difficult time made worse by nagging parents and well wishes inquiring what you are going to do with your life. In terms of my 3 takeaways from the episode. Number 1 is reflection. As David said, the time after university should be a period a reflection. The urge is to rush headlong into something, anything. Take a little time out, think about your values and what it is that you are looking for from a job, is it money, training, a work life balance, helping people, and be honest with yourself, if there was a clash in these values which one would come out on top. You might not get the answer right the first time but it pays to get clarity on this early in your career. Use the website David mentioned which is plotr.co.uk, which will guide you through a range of careers based on your skills and preferences. I did this after we spoke and the results were interesting, and I’ve posted them in the show notes at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/transition . So check out plotr, also the listen to episode 4 on career planning with Steve Rook which contains great advice on how to start planning your career. The second key point for me was David’s point on getting feedback on your skills from trusted people who know you. The lecturers, course mates, people you work with, don’t let them sugar coat it but tell you it straight. As David said build on that feedback and let it shape how you communicate who you are in your job search. If you don’t have that network to call on then think about investing in a career coach. Yes there might be a cost, but in terms of your long term career advancement it will pay for itself many times over. As Bill gates said, ‘We all need people who will give us feedback, That’s how we improve’. My final takeaway is for those of you still at university. You can make the transition process a smoother journey if you start thinking about your CV and general experiences as early as possible. Get the work the experience, take on those positions of responsibility in the university societies and start to develop the skills and experiences that employers are going to be looking for, it will certainly help in the long run.

So that was episode 6. You can find the full transcript on the website at graduatejobpodcast.com/transition. Get in touch with us via twitter @gradjobpodcast. Finally please leave a review on Itunes, just like S Lanes did who gave us 5 stars and said ‘Really enjoyed listening to these episodes. They provide really insightful advice and tips. Great to be able to listen to all of this information on a podcast. Look forward to the new episodes!’. So thankyou S Lanes. Do join us next week when we start the first us our deep dives into the getting jobs in specific industries when we speak to PR expert and recruiter Sarah Stimson. It’s a goody. I hope you enjoyed the episode today, but more importantly I hope you use it and apply it. See you next week.

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