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The Brand Design Masters Podcast with Philip VanDusen is dedicated to helping you build the skills you need to design bullet-proof brands - for yourself, your business and for the clients and customers you serve.
In every episode, Philip, his co-hosts and interview guests will share inspiration, ideas, trends and techniques that will lift you to greater heights as a creative professional or entrepreneur - so you can build a successful creative practice, business and personal brand in the Creative Economy.
Brand Design Masters Podcast EP 143
Loren Greiff - Navigating the Job Market Today
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Philip VanDusen:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Brand Design Masters podcast. I'm here with Lauren Greiff, who's a career coach and strategist who helps VP level and above executives land their next role faster and earn more. Her company Portfolio Rocket is a proprietary career curriculum that's enabling people to get found for the 85 percent of the job opportunities out there that are not posted online.
It's a methodology that treats executive job search like what it really is, a strategic campaign to claim your worth. So Lauren shares her knowledge. On LinkedIn to her 25,000 followers and through her top 1% global podcast career blast and a half, which is 30 minutes of weekly simple, powerful and actionable career fuel to keep your success on track no matter where you are in your career.
Lauren also serves as the executive board member at Fast Company and Job Scan has listed Lauren among their top career coaches three years running. And with that, I'd like to welcome Lauren.
Loren Greiff:
It's so good to be here. I'm vibing on your energy. And so thank you for having me.
Philip VanDusen:
Yeah. So we initially connected actually through Maureen Clough's post on ageism and, ageism in the career and just the creative industries is.
That's a problem. And I know you're super passionate about it as well. How do you deal with your clients who are senior level executives, how do you coach them or counsel them on the ageism or the younger ism that's out there these days?
Loren Greiff:
Ageism is the underbelly of every executive's job search.
It's underneath it all. It sounds something like this, I think I have ageism, like it's the cooties, right? And so how I approach it and what I like to remind them of is bigger question, which is what are you building? What do you want to do? Let's put ageism aside for a minute, cause that's alive and well, but what is it that you're trying to do here?
Because most people that I work with. They will tell me, I, I love working. I am so passionate about problem solving. I love impact and making a difference. I'm like great. So with that being said, and as it relates to ageism, my goodness, we've got to make sure you're relevant because if you run your search without the innovations that are available today, you will be reiterating and giving promise and permission to everyone else that is telling you that you're aged out.
So some of it is a belief system. And a lot of it is also in the methodology and the approach. So there's a lot of unlearning that is going on in the job market today. And this applies to founders too. I'm a founder and I had to learn how to do it differently. I'm not knocking on doors and telling people how great I am.
I'm here to solve problems. And I want to make sure that is as accessible. And also as actionable and relatable as possible and the same applies in your job search or in any industry.
Philip VanDusen:
So one of the things that's really important and I know you're passionate about this as I am in branding a storytelling and being able to articulate as a senior person in your career or mid career, late career, figuring out how to articulate what your story is in a really meaningful way that's motivating to people to want to get you on board.
And How do you counsel people around that that building your own story or your messaging?
Loren Greiff:
Yeah. So storytelling is a big part of this. And I just want to make sure that we're very clear. We said storytelling, not script, right? So the script that is the do not use, please do not use this. I am a seasoned executive with 20 years of proven experience.
If you ever say that. It's probably not going to be heard, felt, or remembered. And so we want to just dispel all of that right off the bat. As far as storytelling goes, the idea here isn't that you're not, you don't have to make up anything. It's all there. Now the question is, what are you going to piece together?
And what are you going to take out so that it doesn't become, more in peace? And how do you get to that place where it's deliverable within 20, 30 seconds? And so we go through a number of exercises that are there to distill that down. But at the end of the day, what's really the key areas of storytelling that we work with is, what is the key contribution?
That you're here to make. Why are you here? Why are you interviewing for this company? Why am I on this podcast? Why are we friends? Why are we, what is that key contribution and what will be the impact? from that contribution and what will change, what will transform as a result of that contribution. And so keeping it in a very simple but malleable framework allows people to actually go through more of the deeper work, which is what contribution am I here to stand for, come hell or high water, and what will change for you, company, For you, networking collaborator, for you, as a end user within that opportunity.
And when you have that, even if you don't have all the answers, it starts to whittle away at some of the noise, right? And that's what we want to do is take out all the static and, like people will say to me I'm strategic. Okay, so what's the strategy? What is the specific flavor of strategy that you want to deliver and what will change as a result of this particular strain or, version of your strategy?
Ah, not so easy, but definitely a good way to really start unraveling it.
Philip VanDusen:
I think your point about figuring out how to articulate what the problem that you solve is. And if you're listening to this right now, I want you to go to Lauren Greiff's LinkedIn profile and then also her website, which I'll link to in the show notes, because Lauren does an insanely great job of articulating what the problem is that she solves.
And this is something I coach all my creative professional clients on is there's So many people's websites are like, I am, like you said, I am a scenes and graphic designer who've worked with all these clients and I solve things strategically and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's I don't want to know about you.
I want to know what you can do for me. And that's what most company, obviously company interviews are about, but it's very, it seems to me a very difficult nut to crack to get people to prioritize the problem you solve above yourself. Out of the gate in your LinkedIn profile, in the about section, you talk about like you bullet point the problems that you solve.
That is brilliant as a copywriter. I'm like really impressed. And how do you get to that, how do you get to that problem solving piece and get them to backstage the, the war and peace version of their professional history?
Loren Greiff:
Yeah, some of it, sometimes it is a lot of troubleshooting and the copywriter's code is, and why do I care, right?
So what? Why do I care? So there's some of that very. Basic question asking. But the other thing is when you're working with a client and as we have worked with over now 380 executives in this area, we can see that what it really boils down to is these questions that go deeper and deeper. And so why is that important?
You say to me I want to. Democratize women in technology. And why is that important? Because if I do that, then, women will have a seat at a table, at the table. And why is that important? And so asking a lot more of these deeper questions, you can also start to see that sometimes it's still in the maturation phase.
They don't really know, they've been following some level of script, but they, but it's there, right? And when I say script, I landed in this job because somebody plucked me, because the recruiters thought I'd be good at this because I didn't know what else to do. That's why I went to law school, or that's where I went to, why I got my MBA, because I didn't know necessarily what the real deep, deeper truth was underneath.
And now that I have this degree. I still have that open ended question. Now what? Those things, I get this question all the time, right? Oh, should I get my MBA or should I work with a career coach? You can do both. I don't think that one is necessarily the answer to the other. You could still have an MBA from God knows where and still have difficulty interviewing and still have difficulty building your network.
So it's not going to, they're not replacement, they may be augmentations of each other.
Philip VanDusen:
So let's talk about networking a little bit, because that's obviously a really key point of what you do. And so how, what are your thoughts on building a strategic, like a meaningful strategic network that's going to serve you in your job search or in your advancement in your career?
Loren Greiff:
I'm going to, I'm going to kick this back to you with a ha funny question, which is, In your life, Phil, right? How many times have you been drawn or inspired or want to help a keyword? Not
Philip VanDusen:
Often.
Loren Greiff:
How many people who have led you in their lives have led you as their resume?
In your darkest moments, are you leaning into an applicant tracking system or, something else? So I say this, it's super simple, right? People hire people connect with people build networks around other people. And the basic idea here is that there's probably a million different components of each and every one of you who is listening right here.
Okay. And some of those things are non negotiables, right? One of my non negotiables is integrity. You don't show up, sorry, I can't help you. And so I don't like to work with people or liaise with people who aren't necessarily of high integrity. And I have lots of different ways of of understanding what that is.
So when I do find people that are in it. I'm like, Oh, these are my people, right? I feel good about this. And there's lots of ways to slice and dice that. Networking isn't a I had somebody say to me the other day, you expect me to get on the phone and ask people for jobs. I'm like, no, that's not networking.
That's spam. Don't confuse the two. Networking is a very beautiful. Art form and the art form is about people, relationships, and not looking for an occasion like I need you in order to actually show up with and for them. For every single one of you that's listening, all you need is an opportunity within any given day to show up for your network.
It could be the sky is cloudy and you just want to spread some sunshine. It could be you hear a song on the radio and you send it to somebody. Those little things, surprisingly, are never forgotten. And those are the ways that many of our clients have utilized networking in some surprising ways that have been stand out and memorable, not necessarily cookie cutter or, I'm back on the market and how can I help?
I see that you're connected with so and yeah, there's some of that. That's understandable, but mostly it's under the larger umbrella of how are you showing them that you know them? How are you demonstrating a level of genuine interest? That sounds so basic, right? Like actually care.
Care. Yeah.
Philip VanDusen:
Have a conversation. So say you have an executive who's, or anyone senior who's been at a company for five or eight years and they've had an office and they've let their network go fallow, right? And so suddenly their company's acquired, or they got a new manager and they're on the street.
They got made redundant. And let's get tactical. What would you recommend that they do out of the gate in order to rekindle those network relationships?
Loren Greiff:
Sure. So you're right in in, in the zone here because more than 90, 95 percent of our clients will come to us in in that way and say, my network is atrophied and it's atrophied because I've been so busy, heads down in my job, and I've been so busy that I've let, I've neglected it.
And of course, the first question is do you want to wake them up? Do you want to wake up the people that loved you and knew you when, right? That's the first thing. Yes, I do. Awesome. I want to just let you know, listeners, people out there, it is not like, they are not going to be thinking you're creepy.
Okay. Cause I get that a lot. Ooh, isn't it going to be so creepy that I reached out to this person after 10 years? And I always say would it be so creepy if they reach back out to you? Wouldn't you be psyched? Oh my God, I remember our days when we did this and that. And there's a, a thread of nostalgia that you can really leverage.
So first of all, just like this, dispel this myth that there's, that they're going to be bothered or think that you're, stalking them. Cause that's just a story and not a good one. Second one is we want to, of course, make sure that. Should you reach out to them on a LinkedIn or some other digital platform, make sure that you're up to date.
So they don't they're not, they're, you're doing them a favor by letting them, catch up to where you are and then make sure that you know what they're up to. This is so 101, and you'd be shocked and surprised maybe not, that this small exercise can give you so much leverage, and I'm going to give you a couple of examples of things that you should be looking for.
We're going to go back to LinkedIn. You can use perplexity. You could use Google. You can use any of these things. This should take you no more than three to five minutes, no more than that, but please come to the call prepared. Where have they been since you knew them when, right? And then ask them questions, right?
People love to talk about themselves. So when you ask them questions, how did you land over here? Or why did you move over here? Or how did decide to start your own agency or how is it that you were able to move in house? That transition from agency to in house, that's been really rough for me.
How did you do that? You are essentially like giving them the best gift probably of their day, cause they get to sing their song. And they feel good about that. There's a lot of chemistry that you are igniting. They say it's the same opportunity that you have when you're like, doing drugs and having sex and listen to rock and roll.
You're setting off the dopamine. You're giving them all those feel good feelings. So start with that and then also understand from their perspective, what could you bring to them? What could you bring to them? I know it's been a long time. I'm back in the market. I'm looking for some introductions and by the way, I couldn't help but notice that, since you moved to California, there are some people that I know out there that recently moved, would it, would you be interested in me connecting you to them?
Would you be open to that? Or, certainly, I send, I probably send five books a week because I'm a big nerdy reader, have you read this? Are you interested in reading it? Would you like it if I sent it to you? People don't forget that kind of stuff. And then it's an easy win.
You can do that with an article or anything like that. And then say, Hey, would you want to get on the phone in a couple of weeks? I'd love to hear your POV. So the idea here is to not just make it a one and done check the box. I did the networking thing. It's about having an ongoing conversation and then bringing other people in.
So in those situations, What's so winning about this is that you're the broker. You're the relationship broker between all these people that they wouldn't necessarily get to hang out with if it wasn't for you. And so everybody wins. They win with new relationships and you win because You actually facilitate something and that's very fulfilling.
Philip VanDusen:
So let's pivot a little bit. Let's talk about personal branding. And one of the things that senior people do and when they are suddenly looking for a new role is they have to become visible. And a lot of times for years they have been invisible. They might not have been speaking. Like you said, they have their head down, they're working on the projects, they're, doing the thing and they're exhausted at the end of the day and they haven't been.
Posting content, they haven't been visible in the way that people of authority are now on social media. How do you counsel people to, do you counsel people to get involved in developing content? I always talk about when I'm coaching people, the terror barrier, which is what, something that I had, I graduated from 30 years in corporate and left, a very senior global role.
And when I started posting content on YouTube, I thought everyone was watching me. I thought everyone I ever knew in an executive role was going to be watching me make a fool of myself on YouTube. And the thing was, is that they weren't watching. And then when they started watching a year later, I would get emails from people saying, wow, what you're doing on YouTube is really cool.
I'm jealous. I always wanted to start doing that. What's it like? And so how do you counsel people? Do you say, Hey. Post some articles. Do you say start by engaging in comments? How important is content creation in your world for your clients or your perspective on it?
Loren Greiff:
So we have the training wheel content and then we have the ride your own bike content.
So the training wheel content is commenting, right? It's very it's, It can be easy to do and what we want to do is make sure that those comments are landing with the right eyes and ears so that you are now in that conversation. So if you are a marketing person, you, let's just say, you're somebody and you're an expert in demand generation, or you're somebody who is, really about digital transformation or any of these strains, you want to be in the subset of the people that are talking about what is going on in that industry.
So there's lots of ways to slice and dice LinkedIn. P. S. I was a former recruiter in the executive search world for about 10 years before I left the industry. And I can tell you that LinkedIn does not have to be gross and disgusting and you and yeah, all the rhetoric around Facebook, it's your friend.
It's your friend and it can help you grow in so many unexpected ways. You can sift and sort by posts and all that kind of stuff to find the posts that are talking about the topics that you care about. So please don't spray and spray because then you'll get burnt out and you'll think that LinkedIn sucks.
So you really want to tailor the places where your content and slash comments go. Find the people that are talking about the things that you're interested in and then be able to elevate the conversation from there. For many of our clients who are resistant to writing content, I understand that and we suggest to them that they really build their networks through comments and typically it's someplace around, 10 to 15 comments a day.
If that takes an hour, that's probably that's probably a lot. It's doable. I'm not interested in ever telling somebody to do something that I know that is going to just be part of a white knuckle experience. This is designed very much to excite people and to be able to have some small wins and to be able to build momentum around that.
So the first one, the training wheels. Commenting, commenting, commenting, commenting. You can build your network. I know somebody on LinkedIn, a dear friend of mine, he writes no content at all, his network is off the charts and it's just because of his generosity and commenting. Don't worry about the obligation or the belief system that you have to in order to be successful.
Should you decide that you want to change and really amplify your thought leadership through your own original content? Before you go crazy and just start saying, Oh my God, I don't know what to write about. I don't know what to write about. Cause that happens a lot. I want you to just pick three different buckets.
And we break these down. Some people call them content pillars. Some people call them You know, just their areas and to make it really easy, it's the ones you can talk about all day, all night. I could talk about the job search all day, all night. I could talk about ageism until tomorrow morning.
Like those are the things that you will naturally get excited about sharing. Break those down. And then from there, the easiest way is to set up something. I use my phone. I have a little a little notepad. It says content notes. And since my brain is usually firing up something typically, like when I'm about to jump in the shower or, change the laundry, I'll be like, Oh dang.
And I'll write it down. Don't let those ideas go to waste. I thought of one, I thought of one just this morning and then I was like writing it on some scratch paper. So make sure that they're all in one place because when you go back, you'll actually have, you'll start to build a bank and that's what you want to do.
And use your AI. You don't have to be, an amazing writer. Use AI to help you, but do not cut and paste. Please God make it yours.
Philip VanDusen:
So let's talk about your personal brand, building the brand of Lauren. And so you came out of 10 years of, executive search, right? I came out of 30 years of corporate agency.
And then we're suddenly like. Oh my gosh, this is a brave new world out here. How do I even do the email list building or the podcasting or the YouTubing or the article writing, whatever that is. How, where did, you popped out of executive search. What came first and how did you evolve in your personal brand?
Loren Greiff:
So what came first was a lot of anger, and I don't want anybody to waste a good crisis on, thinking that you can't turn that into something, some really good fuel, because that is. That is not true. So I left and I was mad. I was really mad because I knew that the system was broken.
So I had to slough that off and I got busy with a lot of journaling and in the journaling and I went through them very fast because my handwriting was very agitated. And so I was just like, like all the reasons why I didn't, feel good about what was happening in, in the world of hiring.
And I figured, you know what, like worse comes to worse, it'll be cathartic. worse comes to worse, it'll be it'll be a great purge. And what ended up happening is that I like to think that we all have these CTJ come to Jesus moments, white light moments, moment of clarity, whatever those are.
And I believe that they are always timed perfectly. So when I say don't waste a good crisis, know that it's happening for a reason and don't just discard it and think, Oh my God, this is going to be terrible because the chances are very high that on the other side of that is some unbelievable something waiting for you.
And Somehow I, I believed in that. I knew that. I've always been, in the words of my friends, a bit of a cliff diver. I tend not to have a lot of safety nets around me. I tend to put myself in very uncomfortable situations. And I knew that this was going to be very uncomfortable because the world is not waiting for another coach.
That I can promise you. The world is not like Holding, holding out hope that please another career coach or other coach is going to be coming. And I just said, I don't care, not because I just disrespect other coaches on the contrary. I just have a very clear understanding of the fact that my belief is such that I want to do it differently and I want to provide a different experience.
And so it was very important for. For me and also for people that I could see over my years of experience to be able to answer some of the said and unspoken truths about what their job search would be like, right? The reason why people stay in such crappy jobs is because they're sheltering away from the seemingly greater evil, which is the job search.
Or they just don't know how to do it outside of job boards and recruiters. I don't know what I don't know. Or it's I haven't done this in so long. I don't think I could actually be successful. So listening and listening was a way to really be able to distill this back into something that was truly in, in effort to honor their experience.
And also help them to achieve the things that they deeply are committed to. So I come to LinkedIn every day with that mission. I show up to every call with that because that is my why. And it's also something that I think that I can do in a way that is my own stamp.
Philip VanDusen:
So you journaled like a crazy person and you vented a whole lot of agita about your past role and probably what You know, per, percolated out of that was your mission, right?
Your purpose, which is what you've been talking about in terms of once you had that mission in your heart. And I'm just gonna circle back to the original question, which was like. Did it start with your website and then an email list? Did it start with the podcast? Did it start with content on LinkedIn?
What were your steps? What were one, two, three, in terms of how you built your visibility and your authority in this space as an independent.
Loren Greiff:
I did start on LinkedIn. So because I was a recruiter and I had studied the backside of LinkedIn. I figured, I need to really ramp up on the front side and I hired people.
So I spent money I didn't have. This is probably leading into a very different area. I spent money that I didn't have. I hear every day how expensive coaching is. And what I want to always ask people is expensive compared to what? And so compared to my dream, it was nothing. And I made an agreement with myself and it was 10, 000.
I made an agreement with myself and I said, you are gonna like literally. You're going to get everything that you can out of this and put it into practice. And so I got busy on LinkedIn and started creating content and also concurrently started building out the methodology which we use today for Portfolio Rocket.
So I put that through about three months of proof of concept, went back to all my old hiring managers and said, I need you to break this. And then I went back to all the people on the candidate side. And I said, remember me, I was that recruiter. Now I'm creating the system. I want you to break this.
So between the you two, you guys better come up with a lot of breakage so that I don't launch this thing and find out later where the bugs are. So that took a little while and I was really. Deliberate and patient with it because I didn't want anybody being nice or Pollyanna. Oh, it's so great.
No. That's not what, yeah, and that's not why I'm taking you to lunch. I need you to go and find the holes. And and we're still finding holes because the world is always changing. So it's not like anything is ever locked down and done. Nobody produces a website or, does anything in this world without iteration.
But, I started on LinkedIn. And at the same time was building out this platform through my website. And then, after a little while, I was like I really want to expand and extend the message. And I did that through the podcast and fingers crossed 2025 I'll be doing TEDx, so we'll see how that goes, but I think you always need to have your next What do they call them?
Big, hairy, audacious goals or something that makes you really go, I can't do this. And then, talk yourself out of it.
Philip VanDusen:
So you say that, and this is true, we all know this, that nothing stays the same. No one's website has ever done it. It's a constantly changing sea out there and you, Certainly have your finger on the pulse of the job search and executive search the environment out there.
What would you say has changed? What's different? Let's say post COVID because COVID obviously it was like a major turning point in everyone's professional career. What has changed in terms of how you approach or how you think? Your clients should approach the job market.
Loren Greiff:
So the most important thing with respect to today's job market is
Assuming you are in a leadership role, right? Or you're at a senior level, right? Please do not co mingle with the masses of applicants that are hanging out in the applicant tracking system. So I can tell you this, and sadly, people still go back to the old behavior because we can't stop that. We can only present it.
Thank you. And then offer a solution away from it. There is less than a 1 percent chance, something like, I think it's 0. 47 percent chance of 1 percent that you are going to move through an applicant tracking system and get your next. interview. It's very low. It also is a huge drain on your energy.
So if you're going to go that route, you need to have a very thick skin and know that the rejections will come and they probably won't feel good. If you want to have more feel goods and you want to also not waste your time and have a greater return on experience. and return on investment of your time, go build your network.
The reckoning that has been going on for a consistent period of time but amplified even more since the pandemic. And of course, the over glut of bots in this, in the AI system is that every time that channel gets clogged, which is. hourly, there's another recruiter on the other end wishing that somebody would knock on their door and say, have you talked to so and oh my god, I was over the weekend, I was at this, at this birthday party and I ran into this person. You guys should talk. And those are the most precious gifts for any decision maker because you've taken all the work out of it and you've also come to the table with some level of credibility and reputation and people want to help you.
And that's another also way that ageism works to your advantage. You have a network. Maybe you need to wake them up, but the applicant tracking system is really is not designed for people over 40. It's not. It's not kind and we don't know from company to company where those filters are turned up or turned down, but the point is that there's a lot of, there's a lot of covert things that are happening behind the scenes that you will never know about other than to say you're overqualified or sorry, we're going to be going someplace else.
So we know that there's a lot of euphemisms that are just being used to placate or to protect themselves from saying you've aged out and assumptions that go along with that. So if you're looking to get hired in this marketplace, invest your, in yourself, invest in your message, invest in your network, And don't apologize for your age.
Use it as a leverage, use it as a way to come to the table and be proud of the fact that you can be a crackerjack in pattern recognition, that you know how to read a room. That you can make smart decisions that you don't necessarily need to think about for, hours and hours because your judgment and your clarity is based off of seeing that example over and over again.
Philip VanDusen:
So Lauren, what would you say is, before we sign off, what would you say is The top of your radar right now, what is the most important trend or topic that you're bringing to the public in your own authority right now?
Loren Greiff:
That, that can change on a daily basis.
Cause I run a lot of concurrent themes. I think the biggest one is that you really need to remember there is. No job security. There is nothing out there. You can Google it. You can perplexity it. You could do whatever it is. There is no certainty your next company is going to be around.
We don't know how financially solvent they are. You have no idea people who invest in without their brand, right? They lean into the brand of the company and then, oops, who am I without that identity? Yeah, you need to, the certainty is in you. It's not in some recruiter or some job board or even some coach.
You need to really apply and dig into the certainty within yourself because there's nobody, I hate to say this, but it was said to me and it helped me a lot, there's nobody here to save you. You've got to take some agency over your agency. You've got to really understand it is completely.
completely a world of you have got to put your big girl boy pants on and lead for what it is that you believe in or don't and accept the consequences. So the last thing I'll say on this, and it's deep, but I'm going to say it anyway, is pain has a marvelous sense of intelligence. And when you are good and ready, that pain gets really smart.
And all the other noise seems to go away. So don't think that's a bad thing. It might be a really good thing that you're actually ready to do something different. And I think that's I don't wish anybody pain, but sometimes that pain can be a wonderful motivator since it is so smart,
Philip VanDusen:
Excellent.
Thank you, Lauren. Lauren, it's been so great talking to you today. I'm super excited that you are a new acquaintance and a new friend, and I know that you have an ebook called Unlock the Hidden Job Market. Do you happen to know the URL for that offhand that you can mention? I
Loren Greiff:
Will make sure that you have the URL so that you can put it in there.
Sadly, I don't remember it.
Philip VanDusen:
Okay. No problem. Lauren Greiff, it's really great talking to you today. And thank you so much for sharing all your experience in job market. And with that, we'll see you next time.
Loren Greiff:
Thank you so much, Phil. I really had fun.