Episode 6 - Brenden Kumarasamy - Master Speaker

Digital communication has been at the forefront of our lives since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic when employees were sent home and meetings needed to be conducted through a video platform.  Consequently, many other meetings started to happen in the same way since it never required two people to be in the same geographical location.  But all of that ushered in a new style of communication – it’s no longer making eye contact with everyone in the room, it’s talking to a camera – and that’s one change of many.  Brenden Kumarasamy is a master speaker and trains speakers at all levels – even very young speakers.  He’s held positions at Price Waterhouse Coopers and IBM and now trains high-level executives in making top-notch presentations – both in-person and online.  And today, you’re going to get a masterclass in preparing for and delivering presentations – whether it’s a job interview, an informational interview, a podcast, or making that quarterly progress report entertaining and informative.

It’s often been said that when a person looks back over the course of a long life, the regrets they feel are not from things that they have done, but things they didn’t do.  Oftentimes, that comes from not taking a chance early in life and doing something well off of the norm of the traditional career path.  One school that allows individuals to take the risk of flight is Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – originally an aviation school that trained pilots, the school now holds programs in engineering, space, security and intelligence as well as technology, business, and applied science.  In total, seven current or former astronauts have graduated from Embry Riddle and the school boasts an alumni network of over 130,000 along with a faculty that has extensive industry experience.  So how do you figure out what you want to do when the sky is quite literally the limit?  We ask that question with Ryan Mazon as he helps students find their way to their desired star.

There’s the old adage, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.  Many times, that phrase has been uttered by those that have attained positions, wealth or fame through a relationship – and simultaneously grumbled by those that did not.  Yes, sometimes it takes a helping hand to get where you are going and that makes networking so important – especially in jobs and industries that are incredibly competitive.  This means learning to network well is a skill young people need to learn quickly – and today we’ll give them a crash course – Denise Praul, Networking Expert and Founder of WhiteBoard Learning is our guest on Pathfinders.

So you’re looking for a job – well have I got a great piece of advice for you.  There are people out there that are actively looking for people like you to fill jobs at their company or at a host of companies.  And it doesn’t matter if you want to go into technology, infrastructure or financial services.  They are called corporate recruiters and they can be the catalyst from wallowing in unemployment to reaching for a dream job – and every point in between.  So how do you get in touch with these people?  What do they do?  How can they work for you? 

Adrian Chapman started Cover 3 Consulting out of a career of helping athletes be recruited by big companies after sports were over.  He realized he could impact a lot more people by opening up his services and now serves the transportation and logistics space in building championship teams at the corporate level.

There is no greater institutionalized tool an undergraduate student can use on a college campus in trying to figure out life after school than the Career Services office.  It’s there that students get help on figuring out an initial life path to forming a resume and setting up internships and networking opportunities that will give them the best chance to do what they want to do after graduation.  There is no greater institutionalized tool an undergraduate student can use on a college campus in trying to figure out life after school than the Career Services office.  It’s there that students get help on figuring out an initial life path to forming a resume and setting up internships and networking opportunities that will give them the best chance to do what they want to do after graduation. 

This episode of Pathfinders kicks off a series of interviews with the people most involved with undergraduate students in helping them figure out what they want to do.  And today, we start in the state of Tennessee at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Dr. Rob Liddell, Director of Career services at UTC. Part of the University of Tennessee system, UT-Chattanooga offers educational paths in several diverse areas in their colleges of arts and sciences, engineering and computer science, health, education, and professional studies as well as a college of business.  In all, the school offers 39 graduate degrees including four doctoral programs.  The school itself is also located in a city which is exploding geographically and economically and boasts itself as GIG City, for having the fastest internet in the world.  It’s in this environment that Dr. Rob Liddell and his staff attempt to help students find their paths in life and it’s also where we begin our collegiate connection and learn how these offices help their students.

GUEST BIOGRAPHY

Rob Liddell serves the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as the Director of University Career Services. He has worked in higher education for more than a decade in diverse roles ranging from an Employee Relations consultant to service as an average Statistician within a large Student Affairs Division. Rob holds a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Florida State University and a Master’s of Science in Management with an emphasis in Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness from the University of South Florida-Tampa. He has earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction with an emphasis in Higher Education Administration, also from USF, where his dissertation research was focused on college student persistence. Rob serves the Tennessee Association of Colleges and Employers (TACE) and the Southern Association of Colleges and Employers (SoACE) through leadership roles while maintaining active membership in the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). He is a graduate of Leadership Tampa and NACE’s Management Leadership Institute.

SHOW NOTES

0:00 – Intro

2:00 – Dr. Rob Liddell

2:18 – Description of the UTC student body

3:47 – How would you ideally like to work with the UTC student freshman to senior year?

7:29 – Why students need to be thinking about a resume when they start college and not only as they finish it.

9:30 – How many students that come into career services don’t have a clue about life after college versus those that know exactly what they want to do?

11:58 – How do you work with students in encouraging them to pursue something they want as opposed to nudging them in a direction that they might not want to go?

14:50 – Have you seen a process that works in helping a student go from “I have no idea what to do with my life,” to “I now have an idea”?

17:25 – How do you use assessments in helping a student figure out a little bit more about themselves?

19:40 – How much of the self-discovery process do you want to be based on the findings of an assessment versus the organic experience of figuring out one’s self?

21:49 – What is the toughest and easiest part of the task of helping someone get to where they want to go?

24:50 – If someone comes in and they really know exactly what they want to do, how much do you play devil’s advocate in trying to just get them to think about another option?

27:02 – How do you prepare young people for a life where they probably won’t have one career, but many careers over the course of their lifetime? 30:47 – If students are told by their parents, “you are going to college, you figure it out,” do you (as Career Services) kind of have to rewire the student’s brain to think about a career objective and then work backwards?

32:45 – How difficult is it to deal with a generation which is used to immediate gratification and yet they will probably have to work hard for a time before they can work into the career they want?

36:31 – Do you see a lot of students telling you that they want to remain local after school regardless of what the job is?

37:38 – Is there some tool that you would like to employ that would make your job easier

39:14 – The Pathfinder’s Toolbox

45:50 – Final Thoughts

As working adults, all of us have a great degree of understanding and experience on things with which we are familiar.  A lot of that experience happens to be focused on our jobs and our hobbies.  In those areas, we can offer solid advice and counsel to our children and younger adults that are walking on similar paths.  But one area where many of us don’t have much experience is helping someone get a job in a career in which we don’t have much experience.  It’s then that we sometimes like to call on professionals for a helping hand. But let’s take it a step further.  What if that career coach had children that were at the age where they were starting to think about careers?  What would they do if their own children were the individuals looking for a role in life?  That’s where we land today and talk to John O’Connor, founder of Career Pro, Incorporated.  Because if you’ve ever wanted to know how to get on the inside track, it’s good to know someone that lives on the inside track.

GUEST BIOGRAPHY

John O’Connor – President & CEO of CareerPro, Inc. BA, MFA, CRW, CPRW, CCM, CFRW, CMRW  Among other accomplishments in the world of career services and outplacement, Mr. O’Connor became the first private practice Reach Branding Certified Specialist in North Carolina and is the first Certified Federal Job Search Trainer (CFJST). With a unique fiction writing pedigree with fiction publications, he obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University. He is a sought-after author and contributor to recent career transition stories for Yahoo! Hotjobs, Monster.com, CNN-Money, The Ladders, AOL.com, and in many newspaper publications including the Wall Street Journal. His diversified experience includes serving as a college professor and as a United States Army officer. John is a keynote speaker and corporate trainer offering consultations and HR Services.

SHOW NOTES

0:00 – Intro

2:36 – John O’Connor

3:02 – What are you doing for your kids as a career coach as they start making career choices?

3:40 – Something that surprised John a lot about his own kids.

5:00 – John’s opinions of assessments as an outside objective instrument.

5:50 – Bill’s “Passion Project” – do a research paper on the history of something in which you are absolutely and completely interested.

7:15 – The question that got John going – “what do you want to do?”

9:17 – How much should parents be involved in the process of helping your kids get their first job?

11:45 – Have your child put together an “advisory board.”

13:30 – Do you, as a parent, get involved when you feel strongly that your young person is doing something wrong or misguided regarding their career?

15:07 – Would you go directly to your kid with suggestions about how they are handling a career decision or career preparation?

18:22 – What would you do as a parent if your child wants to do something or go into an industry in which you have no familiarity or experience?

20:28 – GOOD IDEA – Go to an event in which your son or daughter has the interest to see what they find attractive about that career.

22:30 – How do you handle salary negotiations when it comes to making sure that your son/daughter is making a livable/satisfactory wage?

25:33 – What would you recommend not doing when it comes to helping your kids make those career choices?

28:40 – How, as a parent, do you help your child when the time comes when the first job your child takes isn’t working out?  Answer: don’t get caught up in social media, but be cognizant of your brand so that you will be more attractive as a hiree.

32:15 – Dealing with parenting styles that are very lenient or very strict.  Give them more exposure to the outside world – whether they gravitate to it or not is up to them no matter if the parenting style is lenient or strict.

35:19 – The Pathfinder’s Backpack

38:33 – Final Thoughts

Welcome to our new podcast, Pathfinders - all about helping parents, teachers, guidance counselors and anyone interested in aiding young people with the question of what to do with your professional life after school (at any level) is over.

Take a listen to the introduction from our founder, Bill Priestley, and subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.