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Michael Seaver

1/28/21 – Job Search Communication to Reach All Generations

February 2, 2021 by Sheila

Written by Gary Matsuda

Michael S Seaver

What generation do these quotes describe?

“… entitled whiners who have been spoiled by parents who overstocked their
self-esteem. . . how unmanageable they are in the workplace . . . with their inability to take criticism… they’re a generation of basket cases profoundly narcissistic and deprived of a sense of agency . . . in short they’re a nation of wimps.”

”…lazy entitled selfish shallow unambitious shoegazers who have trouble making decisions…”

“Partly I am lazy. I don’t feel like working this summer. I’m writing a book and taking a history course at Columbia. Even the dullest art history book gives me a greater sense of freedom than being imprisoned in an office. I don’t feel like being confined, I want my time to be at my own disposal. I suppose I’m spoiled.”

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents . . . and tyrannize their teachers.”

They are in the order given: Millennials, Generation X, the Boomers and some young punks described by Socrates from about 400BC. If you had trouble associating the quotes with an age group, that’s the point, each generation seems to say the same thing about the generation after them.
Michael Seaver, an award-winning executive coach, leadership consultant, author and speaker was with us recently to get us to think differently about our approach to communicating with another generation. If we go beyond focusing on our differences and we should find more things in common than we think.

KEYNOTE

Too young. Too old. They just don’t get it, so out of touch with reality. While every news post you read seems to support the position on how flagrantly wrong others are, Michael asks must there really be a ‘Generation Gap’? There is if you believe there is. Our natural inclination to be wary of strangers, to ‘size up’ someone new prevents us from creating real human relationships. That’s our brain’s limbic system at work, protecting ourselves from new situations and potential enemies. In just a few seconds it tells us if someone we’ve just met can be trusted so we have to be intentional about overcoming our brain’s natural protective tendencies to create negative emotions, work through some of our biases and actively work to find something in common.

We can do that on an emotional level and he breaks it down with ‘Five Ways We are all Similar‘ that demonstrates human commonality and how we’re more similar than dissimilar and enables us to find better ways to start and deepen relationships.

Credibility – Who do you trust the most?

It turns out the top three credible sources of information for most people are, technical experts, academic experts or a person like yourself.

You would wonder why celebrities are used to promote a product or service when it’s actually more effective to get validation from experts or from people who look like us.

Why is this important? You can use this to ask the right questions to get to the point of trust faster.

When informational interviewing an expert –
• Why do you enjoy your area of expertise?
• When and how did you know it’d become your career?
• How do you use your expertise day to day?

When networking with a person like yourself –
• Walk me through your journey to today.
• What are your most important life lessons learned?
• Why do you continue working for this organization?
• Fastest way to build rapport is to find commonality

10 Principles of What Everyone Likes/Dislikes and Needs

Knowing that these fundamentals are true for everyone, you can apply these to just about any relationship.

You don’t have to know someone’s past or what generation they belong. You can use questions like these to get past small talk:

  • What is your favorite thing to learn about?
  • What recent life changes have you experienced?
  • What do you value in a leader and why is that important to you?
  • Do you have a coach? What has he/she taught you?

Human Needs

Another way to cut through the generational divide is to look at human needs from ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ model.  Absolute life essentials are near the bottom of the pyramid and as these lower needs are met, we grow and build upon each successive need, ultimately to be able to help others.

Although sometimes, life happens. A crisis can quickly move us down a level or more, so the application here is to ask carefully how someone is meeting or has met their needs. With tact, you can ask someone from a different generation –
• Tell me about the community you were raised in.
• From your teenage years, what world events do you remember most vividly?
• What values are you trying to pass to your children/community?

4 Life Stages

Another way to communicate across the generational divide is to categorize life into stages using psychologist Carl Jung’s Four Life Stages:

Like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, as we mature, we find ourselves in different roles and changing needs. As we try to navigate upward in Maslow’s Pyramid, in Jung’s model, we’ll will generally move from left to right ‘Athlete’ to ‘Spirit’. Allowing that ‘life happens’, boundaries between stages are fluid and we can move from one stage to the next on our own time.

So how can we use Life Stages to our benefit?

Common questions to help you connect in ways we are all the same:

• What are your life’s most important goals?
• Have you defined your life’s legacy? What is it?
• What challenges did you overcome? How do you help others do the same?

Five Brain Wave States

Dr. Bruce Lipton’s description of how Electroencephalogram brain waves is associated with different activities and different ages. From birth to age 6 a high percentage of the brains’ activity is spent in Theta and Delta where a child’s mind processes and absorbs a billions of bits of information that tend to stay for a lifetime.

Gamma 32-100Hz: Heightened perception, learning, problem solving tasks, cognitive processing

Beta 13- 32Hz: Awake, alert consciousness, thinking, excitement

Alpha 8-13Hz: Physically and mentally relaxed

Theta 4-8Hz: Creativity, insights, deep states, dreams, deep meditation, reduced consciousness

Delta .5-4Hz: Deep (dreamless) sleep, loss of bodily awareness, repair

All this matters because if you want to connect meaningfully with someone, (and hopefully your brainwaves will get synced up!) ask things such as:

• What did your parents do that you find yourself doing?
• What new habits have you formed recently?
• What do you do to find stillness, to find time to reflect?

Booker T. Washington said, ‘Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way’. Be uncommon by using some of these five ways to find similarities others often miss. If we are to connect with more people and have higher quality relationships use these ideas to find uncommon commonality and appeal to someone’s nobler motives so they will want to offer you expertise or guidance.

HIRING COMPANIES

Cenlar

Robin Stanton, Sr. Recruiter, Talent Acquisition


Most likely the oldest company you’ve never heard of. Unless you’re in the business to business mortgage servicing industry, you’ve like not heard of them. But having been around for over 100 years and still going strong proves they’re doing something right. With projected growth of 40% for the next few years, they act like they’re like a startup.

Some opportunities are:
• Call center servicing
• Support services in claims, loss mitigation and foreclosures
• Leadership

Contact: Robin Stanton, Sr. Recruiter, Talent Acquisition

JPMorganChase

Patrick Groome, VP, Military and Veteran Recruiting Manager


Chase has positions open in everything (not just finance!) from entry level to VP positions but they are looking closely for the soft skills that you bring. If you are a good fit, you’ll have a good chance to find a place anywhere from customer facing positions to back office support. Once you get in (with one of their 111 jobs now open in Arizona), there’ll be plenty of room for career growth.

Contact: Patrick Groome, VP, Military and Veteran Recruiting Manager

Honor Health

Robin Ersland, Talent Acquisition Marketing Specialist


One of the biggest employers in the Valley and getting bigger especially during the pandemic, the needs are ever growing. A wide variety and number of jobs (700 positions!) and career paths are open to you from entry level on up including areas in but not limited to, supply chain, analysis, research, coordinators and security.
Contact: Robin Ersland, Talent Acquisition Marketing Specialist

RESOURCES

Free DISC Assessment
We all like free, so at no cost to you find your behavior traits (which may help point to your values) and what kind of job will likely fit you through our online DISC assessment at:
https://careerconnectors.org/DISC/

For details about upcoming Career Connectors events, click here to visit the events section on the website for dates, times and details about hiring companies and keynote topics!

Filed Under: Event Recaps Tagged With: JPMorgan Chase, HonorHealth, Michael Seaver, Cenlar

4/13/17 – Developing and Living Your Personal Brand

April 21, 2017 by Sheila

Developing and Living your Personal BrandWritten by: Daniel Tetrick

When we think of a brand, we traditionally think about a business or product. Companies work very diligently to craft and protect their brands. After all, a strong brand ties together the perceived value and emotional satisfaction that a consumer receives from purchasing or using a product or service. The concept of a brand, however, also applies to individuals. A job applicant needs to convince hiring managers they will obtain value and achieve emotional satisfaction upon hiring the applicant.

Keynote

Developing and Living Your Personal Brand
Michael Seaver, @michaelsseaver

Michael Seaver is an executive coach and leadership consultant. He is a Certified Professional 12 Driving Forces® Analyst, a Certified Professional Behavior Analyst, and a Thunderbird School of Global Management MBA. Michael sees personal branding as “connecting your life’s narrative into direction.” This entails a concept he calls storypathing, or integrating past experiences into your future. Lessons learned and knowledge gained from past experiences are the building blocks for building a personal brand for the future.

Entrepreneurship
Employment does not have to mean working as an employee for a business, government, or non-profit entity. Employment can also mean entrepreneurship and contract work, and job seekers should consider seriously starting and running their own businesses. Many job seekers have skills and experience gained from their career paths that could be applied successfully to starting their own businesses. Why don’t more job seekers consider being an entrepreneur? A common reason is fear of failure. But as we shall see, failure should be embraced, not feared.

Celebrate Failures
It sounds antithetical to how most of us feel after failure, but failing to achieve one’s intention should be celebrated and rewarded. There is no success without taking a risk. Inaction results in nothing. Everyone hopes to achieve success, but even if you fail after taking action you have gained valuable insight. And those lessons learned are the building blocks for developing your personal brand for the future. For example, while job hopping is not criticized as much as in the past, some hiring managers may question an applicant about recent short-term stops listed on his or her resume. In such a scenario, the applicant should convey the circumstances, acknowledge the mistake, and articulate the lessons learned. For additional information on overcoming mistakes Michael suggests Brene Brown’s book and TED Talk “Daring Greatly”.

Individuality
Individuality is what makes each person’s brand unique, and that individuality is influenced by our various social groups. You are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with outside your family. Think of those five people. What are their characteristics? How are they different? That composite profile is likely a core component of your personal brand.

The Hero’s Journey
Superheroes in movies today follow a common a path:

Introduction of Characters > Bad Guy Wins > Superhero Works to Resolve > Superhero Wins

The journey a superhero takes to overcome failure is not unlike the journey everyday people take to overcome great challenges. And the lessons learned from failure and overcoming challenges are the basis for a personal brand of the future. Here is how to apply the Hero’s Journey to build a personal brand:

1) Take the DISC Assessment to identify behavioral traits, talents, and motivators

2) Past: analyze past experiences

Past by Michael Seaver3) Present: assess current interests and activities

Present by Michael Seaver

4) Future: identify goals and desired outcomes

Future by Michael SeaverCompleting the four steps will result in the discovery of patterns and themes. These can be used to build the guiding statements of a personal brand:

Guiding Principles by Michael Seaver

Using a Personal Brand
• Use branding statements on resumes and LinkedIn profiles
• Tailor communication to fit your personal brand
• Color can play a large role in branding. Blue conveys stability and trust. Red conveys excitement and boldness.
• Body language sends a nonverbal message about a personal brand
• Take a strategic approach to building an online personal brand

Living Your Brand
Need a jumpstart on creating a personal brand? Michael suggests sending an email to those who know you and your work well to ask for their input on your top three strengths and to provide an example when one was displayed. Look for commonalities in their responses. You may have found the start of your personal brand. Finally, remember that personal brands are largely derived from the lessons learned and knowledge gained from the journey taken to overcome obstacles and failures. These lessons often occur during times of great transition: around ages of late twenties and then again around age fifty. Wouldn’t it have been helpful to gain insight from someone who has been through the struggles? Be the person you needed when you were younger.

Hiring Companies

Varsity Tutors
Adriana Martinez, Recruitment Manager
Varsity Tutors provides tutoring, test prep, and other educational services to students of all levels. Its vision is “to connect experts to learners in any subject, anywhere, any time.” With its headquarters in St. Louis, MO, and a local office in Scottsdale, Varsity Tutors provides its services either online or in-person on over 700 subjects. Technology is a priority for Varsity Tutors as it looks to expand its subject list and expand internationally. The typical office attire is casual: jeans and a t-shirt. Current open positions include Sales Representative, Sales Trainer, Sales Manager, Customer Care Specialist, Software Engineer, Tech Support Specialist, and Human Resources Director. Get further information and apply on Varsity Tutors’ website here. Interested in being a tutor? Click here.

Arizona Office Technologies
Octavio Duarte, Corporate Recruiter
Arizona Office Technologies (AOT), a wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox Corporation, is Arizona’s largest consulting firm specializing in workflow optimization. With its headquarters in Phoenix and offices in Tucson and Prescott, AOT provides services and technology related to print and document management. Benefits at AOT include: medical, 401k, PTO, life insurance, corporate discounts, and eligibility to qualify for the President’s Club trip. Job seekers looking for opportunities in sales, administrative, field technician, and warehouse operations can find open positions and apply on AOT’s website here.

Modis
Courtney Cassano, Recruiter
Modis is a subsidiary of The Adecco Group, the largest staffing agency in the world. Modis specializes in placing IT and engineering professionals in temporary, direct placement, and contract-to-hire positions. Benefits that Modis offers its contractors include: medical, dental, 401k, short-term disability, and term life insurance. Modis also provides its contractors with professional development resources and training from its SkillBuilder application. Modis is proud of its recognition and retention programs with its associates. Job seekers looking for positions in application development, project management, data management, web and content development, architecture, or IT infrastructure management can search jobs and submit a resume here.

Resources

Goodwill of Central AZ
Carter Ellis, Professional Career Advisor @GoodwillAZ
Goodwill works with all job seekers. Its services are free to both job seekers and companies. Goodwill maintains a job board with many internal leads from companies across the Valley. In addition, Goodwill provides resources to job seekers, such as career advice, resume preparation and mock interviews. Please reach out to Carter Ellis with any questions.

Closing

Jessica Pierce concluded the event with some final thoughts and reminders:
• Check out Career Connectors’ Career Advice Blog for insight and suggestions to empower and energize your career search
• Take a free DISC assessment courtesy of Career Connectors and Top Talent Consulting
• Utilize the available resources offered by Career Connectors at each event: resume review, career coaching, LinkedIn coaching, financial/insurance coaching, and business portraits
• The West Valley Healthcare Career Expo is April 19, 2017, from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm at The Colonnade at Peoria Sports Complex

Next event is Tuesday, April 25th, 9:00 am in Gilbert: “Start Strong, Finish Stronger: Your Best Self in Your Next Chapter”

Filed Under: Event Recaps Tagged With: Michael Seaver, Varsity Tutors, personal branding, arizona office technologies, Modis

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Career Connectors made the pivotal difference in my search for employment after a layoff lasting a full year. Their dedication to providing a consistent, local and no-cost program and venue to search, network and learn, ultimately provided not only an excellent fit in a new job, but also the ability to regain dignity and the ability to achieve financial independence once again. I am forever grateful to all of the volunteers that produced a program so vitally important to our family
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Career Connectors offered me a one-stop-shopping capability for all of the coaching, resources and connections I needed to perfect my job searching skills.  The package of services, and support I found while attending these workshops over the past 7 months was unique to, and more productive than any other networking venues I attended. I am thrilled to share that I’ve landed with B/E Aerospace in Tucson.  I recommend to all Job Seekers to find out what works for you, and exploit it for best r… Read more
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I own a Leadership Company, and have enjoyed attending the Career Connector events. With gratitude I listen to the speakers you line up… they offer phenominal and practical information. What has struck me each time has been the audience. My heart hurts for them. They are in a desperate place in their lives. I have had the opportunity speak with a few of the people in attendance, and they have shared their stories… I walk away thankful to God for the opportunity to meet these people and they … Read more
Bonnie M.
If you are a job seeker in transition or looking to find that new great position I highly recommend Career Connectors. The search process has changed significantly over the years and Career Connectors will provide you many tools that will allow you to stand out and demonstrate your unique value to potential employers. At each event I had the opportunity to “sharpen the saw” through top notch expert presentations on image portrayal, positive attitude, networking, social media presence, job… Read more
Joe C.
I took advantage of Career Connectors when I found myself unexpectedly out of work and back in AZ.  The ease in using their website to locate meetings and identify subject matter at their weekly meetings kept me informed and engaged.  Their meetings are interesting and provide relevant and useful information toward getting into the right job.  They say that a network event is what you make of it … with Career Connectors they create the events and provide the resources you need to land your next … Read more
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Thank you, Jessica. Although I wasn’t able to meet you personally, I was able to see you working with another applicant and was impressed with your efforts and the excellent platform that your team presented. Thank you very much.
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