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The HigherEdJobs Podcast is dedicated to helping higher education professionals find fulfillment in their careers and be the change agents that higher education needs in today's world. Join hosts Andrew Hibel and Kelly Cherwin, along with guest experts, as they examine job search strategies and break down the latest news and trends in higher education.
Andy Hibel 0:04
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs Podcast, Ask the Expert Edition. I'm Andy Hibel, the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.
Kelly Cherwin 0:13
And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy. Today, we're happy to have our friend Matt Trainum back! Thank you, Matt, for joining us.
Matt Trainum 0:21
It is a pleasure every time to be here.
Kelly Cherwin 0:23
So let's get started with our first question from our listener. I would like to get back into college recruiting, but at my age-in my fifties-and given my years of experience, I feel that I am getting passed out. What positions should a seasoned employee like me be applying for in higher education? Matt, what are your thoughts on this one?
Matt Trainum 0:42
Well, there are so many unknown variables here, right? And I think what I'd love to do is provide a couple of thoughts and reflections and then maybe speak to an underlying issue that's in the question for sure. So acknowledging that there are lots of unknown variables here. Generally, when I talk to folks about jobs and what they should apply for, I think you should apply for jobs that you can do and that you are interested in doing that meet your obligations and needs and for which you can make the pitch. Those are the jobs I think people should apply for. And if this person's interested in an admissions world and a job around recruiting, then they should make that pitch and they should go for it. And I'm sure they can find some folks that resemble them in that field, right? The question around, like, "what kinds of positions? What positions based on a seasoned employee," I kind of read that as the perception that they might be going for a role that might be occupied often by younger people, but I couldn't quite tell if they're actually trying to say they want a higher level role or not. So in response to that, one thing I'd say here is that there's a scenario where you get to a position and you look and you say, "the cohort I see in this role does not look like me, and how do I break into that group?" The folks I see in this position don't necessarily resemble me, and what do I do? And that's a really deep question and a challenging space, and I want to acknowledge that it can also be painful and there can be a sense of not being valued or wanted in a space that you know you can contribute in. And it's because of a factor that shouldn't be important. I sense some of that in the question, and I just wanted to surface that and express a shared frustration with the applicant when that might show up. I would also highlight, I can think of in my world, examples of people in roles that are often held by newer professionals and they are 50 or older and having a blast. I have a colleague who was a hall director when I was a hall director and he is still a hall director and he loves it. He's been a hall director, y'all, for 20 years and he is doing phenomenal work. It's pretty amazing. I think there are opportunities for people to be in those positions and we can talk some more about how to do that. But I think there are opportunities that you can escape the age issue. Now, on a real specific note, when age is a concern and worry, whereas I hate suggesting some of these things, I have seen people remove dates. I have seen people thoughtfully position their resume where reviewers who might be thinking about that are unable to notice it as well. And then that gets you a chance to get to the interview, right? If you can get through the paper screening, you can get to the interview. And when you're in the interview, it's not so much about age, but it's about translation and it's about the ability to present your skills and your abilities and sell what you can do. Which, by the way, when you're in admissions world, it's all about selling the institution. So figuring out how to sell yourself in that moment is a good spot. So, a couple general tips here. Just position yourself smartly. Tell them "Why," and make sure the "Why" is about them. We've talked before in this podcast about how people really make these life changes and their cover letters and their interview answers are often about them when it needs to be about the organization. So you need to position yourself smartly by talking about the organization and talking about what the organization needs and how you bring that. So I imagine something like, "20 years of project management tells me that teams need experience that isn't prescriptive or preachy, proficiency that ensures that the work gets done." "A clear ability to reach goals" or just some sentence that highlights your experience, but also doesn't say you're going to be stuck in it, that you're going to be flexible around it. I have mentioned before also not making any of this a career change. I do believe that reviewers look at career change applications more suspiciously. And so you have to present this as a position that you are completely ready for and basically already doing, but just in a different world. And so here's what that looks like. You've got to be able to translate it where it looks like a solid bet to bring you on into the role. And so position yourself smartly is what I would suggest. And we've talked before about translating. And I would completely say this is a translation issue. Make sure that they're able to translate what they're doing for this new opportunity. What do you all think?
Kelly Cherwin 5:25
Well, I think everything you said there was fantastic, and I agree with that. And I know at the beginning you started out saying there are some unknowns to this question here. And I just want to say like, I don't know, you know, this person said they applied to positions in college recruiting and getting passed up. Is it a couple institutions? Is it 30? Like, that's kind of hard to give strict advice, you know, based on we don't know how many institutions. So I guess my advice would be like, don't give up! If this is truly what you want to do, then use the tips that you just suggested, Matt, and translate your knowledge and your experience into explaining why you would be the best fit for that institution. I agree with you. I don't think there's a like, I wish there was like a cheat sheet of like, you know, this is the perfect job for a seasoned employee. It doesn't work like that. You have to follow like where you want to work and what type of role that would be the best fit for you.
Andy Hibel 6:13
I agree with that. And I think knowing that the writer is in their fifties, I think, says a lot about the career stage that they're in and there's limited career runway to do the stuff you want to do. One of the things I kind of made a note into, and it's a little incongruous in the question, the question kind of talks about what positions broadly you should apply, but is very specific in the beginning that they're getting back into college recruiting. This is something they've done before, and I think that's an opportunity to sell your passion in a different way and say, "Listen, I loved doing this when I was younger." And I think if this is an issue that's regarding salary and you're understanding that you're going to take a pay cut to do this, but that's what you want to do? I would suggest addressing that upfront in a cover letter. If you're not a cover letter person, address that in your objective. My objective is to find meaningful work like the work I've done as whatever you did before without making mentioned that compensation is a high priority for what you need. Try to downplay that that's why you're doing this and that's what you're looking at. That might not be the best move for you if compensation is important, but if what you're looking for is that position, I think you're going to have to make that known. I think the other part I just want to point out, and I think this is a hard balance to strike as you try to translate your written materials into an application, I think that if you're looking at Gen X and above, there's a presumption that most Gen Xers have that there's a person reading your written materials. There may be! There may be somebody, particularly if somebody is going to interview you. There's a good likelihood they've read it. But the initial review might not be done by a person and might be done by an applicant tracking system and whatever sort of resume parsing they might be using. If that's the case, I think the delicate balance is you can start thinking, well, this is a machine, so I need all the keywords that's going to click me the top score and get the highest grade on this. But there isn't a top score. There isn't a highest grade. You do need to have a little bit of that, but you can't lose the personality of your resume. Make sure your formatting is correct for an applicant tracking system to read your resume and strike the balance that could be read by either. I don't think you should presume one way or the other. I think if you try to make it more machine friendly, you're going to lose all personality and that resume that somebody's reading it is going to think that chat GPT did in fact write your resume, not you.
Matt Trainum 8:47
I always love Andy's mentions of personality and making sure you show in these conversations. Another point I would add to this is the opportunity to build relationships. If this person is not pressured to change jobs immediately, and then what does it look like to build relationships with recruiters? Most alumni associations let you do this. Let you do this for free, as I do some air quotes there, Right? They're super happy to have you host potential applicants. Many institutions let alums interview the applicants for the institutions. They're certainly happy to have you have folks for dinner as part of those occurrences. So how do you build those relationships in an alumni capacity with whatever institutions you've graduated from so that it looks like you're positioned and know how to talk about a school and represent a school? It is amazing what one addition on a resume where it says, I've been active with the alumni association and I've done these five things. How that suddenly translates and says, Oh, this is what they've done. They were doing this other job, they started volunteering and now they see where this fit comes back in. It's not them just daydreaming about when they were happy at 23 as an admissions officer. Now they've connected it with some current work as well, and so it can bring the circle to full fruition. A separate aspect of that, if you really have the time, might be to join some Facebook groups and even attend a convening or two for admissions or recruitment and see where the current conversation is, because it's certainly possible that you're not in the current conversation. Every now and then, I got to tell you y'all, I take swings at random applicants all the time, and it doesn't usually work. Pretty much every pool I have, I bring in one candidate that feels out of the norm. And normally when that candidate shows up, they sound out of the mainstream. They don't know the conversation and they don't know what's going on. And so it really behooves this person to research and understand what is going on with enrollment. There are probably 20 newsletters that you could get on if you took an afternoon of time and tried to solicit to be on them. So that would be an encouragement I would make as well.
Kelly Cherwin 10:55
That's a great suggestion.
Matt Trainum 10:57
You know, I have one additional small point I will mention. This often shows up in interviews. Be cautious on naming out loud what you think is the weakness that you bring when they haven't asked or talked about it. So if you actually get an interview, then they're willing to to talk with you. And you do need to translate. This isn't about not translating. But it is, I would say, maybe a third of the time I'm interviewing, someone self-discloses something that they think is a weakness and that they're worried about that I would not have thought of or that was not a worry for me. And so now I suddenly have it as a worry for me because they're worried about it. And so I think just being cautious of that, having done these interviews before, I hav had people say, "I could imagine you're really wondering and worried about me translating over my skills from the corporate sector." And then it goes into sort of their life journey. Y'all, I get more interviews that are people's uh, it's like a therapy session for people, right? Here's what happened in my world. Let me tell you about the last ten years. And now, because of those last ten years, I'm at your doorstep looking for a role. And so this is me just highlighting that in the interview, it has to be about the company, the university, whoever you're interviewing with, you've got to present your experience and their world and highlight it and make that connection, and it can't be about you having a journey and self disclosing whatever you're worried about.
Kelly Cherwin 12:22
Thank you, Matt, for that fantastic reminder. And I know the original question was regarding seasoned professionals, and I just wanted to add on to this conversation. If anyone is interested in listening to a little bit more on the topic of seasoned professionals, we had a podcast...June 6, 2023, about a year ago, regarding job searching after 40.
Andy Hibel 12:43
And that might also be a good reference for folks who might be looking at some of these type of questions. Thank you so much again, Matt, for joining us. We really appreciate your time. Hope we get to see you back real soon.
Kelly Cherwin 12:54
Thank you, Matt.
Matt Trainum 12:55
It is a pleasure every single time. Thanks. Nice to be here, and look forward to the next time.
Andy Hibel 13:00
If you have questions for folks like Matt, please email us at podcast@higheredjobs.com or send us a direct message on X@higheredcareers. Thanks, and we'll see you real soon.