Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself
Ticonderoga Learning & Talent Newsletter
What's in this month's Newsletter?
Jobs and Talent
The importance of checking references
Professional & Personal Updates
Jobs and Talent
Multiple Openings – Justworks
According to the talented Jen Fox (Hi Jen!), Justworks has over 140 open positions including many in the People and Workplace group. Roles such as Director of People Ops, DEI recruiting specialists and talent sourcers, Director of Total Rewards, and more. Check them out and email me if interested.
Multiple Openings – Lionsgate
The talented Sony Das (Hey Sony!) is expanding her team. She’s searching for an L&D Manager (Santa Monica, CA) and L&D Coordinator (Englewood, CO). Check out these great roles and let me know if they appeal.
Note: If you’d like me to feature relevant openings in this monthly newsletter, just message me. There’s no cost associated with this… I just enjoy it! I typically feature roles in the talent/learning/people space, but I’m open to occasionally sharing others. I’m quite proud that readers have filled important roles thanks to this Newsletter!
The Importance of Checking References
No, I’m not talking about the three people listed by a job applicant that will undoubtedly praise them as if they were the next messiah.
I’m not even talking about job applicants at all.
I’m talking about employers. Specifically, your boss-to-be. You need to check their references. That is, when you’re the job applicant, you need to do your diligence.
Just this past month, a close friend revealed to me that she was a finalist for a job that looked like it would be a great fit on paper. These jobs are very rare in her niche not-for-profit world and the position had a lot to offer: welcomed new responsibilities, an organization that espoused values more closely aligned with her own, >20% pay increase and a new job title.
But the job would require her to uproot her family and move hundreds of miles away. They were up for a change of scenery, she said, but it had to be for the right role.
And something wasn’t quite right.
She had an initial phone interview with the head of the organization. His style was driven and to-the-point. He wasn’t impertinent but he was rather brusque.
She was invited onsite for an interview and a tour of the office and again found the same thing. “At one point, as we were walking around, he motioned toward where some of the staff sat in the office. He didn’t make any effort to introduce me to them – it was like it didn’t occur to him that I might want to meet them, or vice versa. It’s a small organization, so I’d obviously know these people if I had the job. It was just odd.”
Were these red flags about leadership enough to derail what could be an ideal (and extremely rare) new job? What should she do, she wondered?
What she did do – and what proved to be absolutely critical – is do some homework. She sought out people who worked outside of the organization but had professional dealings with it and its leader(s) and asked them what they knew of the place. At first, the feedback she received was a bit… coded.
“A unique work environment.”
“Very fast-paced and demanding.”
These are not words typically associated with her industry, which is purposefully methodical and practiced. So she did some more digging and finally hit pay dirt.
She found the person who had previously been in this role who described the organization as “the most unprofessional environment I have ever worked.” They articulated the horrible managerial practices of the leader – who, for example – made the entire staff come in every day during the pandemic despite 98% of their work as being entirely remote-capable.
That was all she needed to hear.
So when she was offered what initially looked like a dream job, she politely declined.
The moral of the story is an obvious one: It’s not only the organizations and hiring managers that can do reference checks, you can too.
And you don’t have to work in a niche field where it’s relatively easy to figure out who’s really in the know. Thanks to tools like LinkedIn, with a little hunting you can probably figure out who previously held a job or who might have worked for or with your soon-to-be supervisor.
Message them. Ask them for some candid feedback – they most likely have little to lose in being completely transparent. And when you do, ask them to be brutally honest and specific about their experiences.
We often think about reaching out to people in our own networks who may have some insight. Of course we do. My main advice to you is don’t be afraid to reach explicitly outside your network and into theirs.
Better yet, if you really want to grab the bull by the horns, ask your would-be-boss to provide you with some references (after you’ve been offered the job)! Could you speak with someone who used to report to them but no longer does? Could they put you in touch with former peers of theirs?
This might seem too assertive… but if you feel like this would be met with disdain or outrage, that tells you something.
You’ll spend more time and energy working than you will at just about anything else. Why wouldn’t you do a bit more digging before making a commitment? Organizations do the same with you!
Professional & Personal News
Charlotte is 19 months old today and continuing to become a real kid. It’s such a pleasure to watch her mind become capable of abstraction. She does all sorts of imaginary play – putting her animals to bed, changing their ‘diapers’, and singing them songs. She commands “Charlotte!” (more like “Sha-La!”) as she insists on doing everything herself. She surprises us by stringing together small sentences (“Dada, sit here.”) She even got to enjoy some soft serve ice cream and pizza on a recent family trip. It’s a great age. Maybe she’ll even sleep past 5:15am soon?
I completed my first-ever triathlon this past weekend and it was a lot of painful fun. I’m a horrible swimmer and an inexperienced biker… little did I appreciate that in my current state of ‘fitness’ the running portion would be the most challenging. I enjoyed the competitive aspect of attempting something with no expectations. This was also the most taxing exercise my hip has absorbed since my labral reconstructive surgery 16 months ago – it was painful but held up fairly well. This one was only a sprint-distance (750m swim, 14 mile bike, 5K run) and I’m looking forward to trying a longer distance in the coming months. I don’t think my hip can handle the pounding of a half-ironman yet, so I’ll probably opt for the ‘Olympic’ distance. Anyone want to join me this fall? No pressure (seriously, there was no pressure, as I just wanted to survive)!
I’ll be in Boulder, CO, in early August to put on the inaugural event of Endeavorun. It’s a retreat (vacation + workshop) for runners of all levels looking to improve and I’m extremely excited. Keep an eye on Instagram to follow along!
That's it for this edition - please reach out if I can be at all helpful.
Stay safe, get vaccinated! Be compassionate and intentional.