On this episode of Prepped & Polished Radio, Alexis Avila interviews Dennis Charles of Boston-based Charles Career Mentoring. Dennis talks about job trends today and how young professionals can stand out in the job market.

Dennis Charles holds Masters in Educational Psychology from Loughborough University in the UK. Prior to this role, Dennis was a high school teacher and professional soccer player and coach.

Alexis:

Hello and thanks for joining us for the Prepped and Polished Radio Show. I’m your host Alexis Avila, licensed guidance counselor, private tutor, and founder of Prepped and Polished LLC. Tutoring and test preparation in beautiful South Natick, Massachusetts. The Prepped and Polished Radio Show is your educational insider. Our show is brought to you by Prepped and Polished LLC where I’m the principal educator. To learn more about our firm you can visit PreppedandPolished.com.

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Our Guest

Joining our show today is Dennis Charles. Dennis is founder of Boston based firm, Charles Career Mentoring where he builds careers with passion. Dennis is originally from the home of this years Olympics, East London. Prior to this role Dennis was a high school teacher, a professional soccer player. He has a Masters in Educational Psychology, and is a proud graduate of, and he’ll help me pronounce this later Loughborough University in the UK. We’re delighted to have Dennis on our show. He’s going to share with us about what’s going today in the job market. Give us some tips on how you can land your dream job, especially for young professionals.

Before we start I just want to make sure listeners have our contact information. Our email address is Radio@Preppedandpolished.com. If you’d like to submit a question at any time, you can use that email address. Often our listeners will have questions as they’re listening or afterwards so we always appreciate hearing from our listeners. So you can email us any time at Radiopreppedandpolished.com. Hey Dennis, are you on the line there?

Dennis:

I’m here with you Alexis. How are you doing today.

Alexis:

Good, thanks so much for joining us. How was your weekend?

Dennis:

My weekend was fantastic, I was actually down in New Jersey. I have a lot of family…

Alexis:

Great.

Dennis:

And thanks so much for having me on the show, I really, really appreciate it. It’s great to be here.

Alexis:

Well, I had the pleasure to meet you quite a few times at networking conferences and I’m really impressed with how you relate to young people. And I just wanted see if you could tell us, start out by telling us a little bit about Charles Career Mentoring, and how you came up with your company?

Dennis:

Absolutely. I’ve been really doing mentoring and coaching and training for my entire life, I was a former high school teacher. As you mentioned, I used to be a professional soccer coach. And worked in summer camps for a number of years as well. The whole time I was really working with young people, and young people being anywhere from probably 5 years old up to 25 years old.

And one of the things I’ve really always loved doing was helping them figure out what they wanted to be doing with their lives. Whether it was younger end of that spectrum, just what were they interested in. What was fun for them, up into the older ones. What did they want to be doing in college.

Whether they wanted to be going into college or maybe taking some time out before they went to college. And once they graduated from, helping them with their career direction. Helping them really get out there. Get a job that for them was fulfilling, in which they can be successful and which they can be satisfied and they can make a contribution to the world.

And so about five or six years ago I said, you know what. I’m going to make a go of this and I began to build a private practice and really enjoyed it over the last five or six years. Just helping out young people, helping them get into the world and really making a difference through the work that they do.

Alexis:

Well that’s amazing. And you’re making a difference for sure. What have you seen in the last five years since you’ve started your practice with the job trends, especially today?

Dennis:

Well it’s really been interesting times, the economy’s kind of been here and there and everywhere. When I first started off it was a case of you got the job, you got the career, you got the credential, and then you could go out and market and sell yourself, and companies would almost be fighting over themselves to hire you. Then of course you went into the recession 2007 -2008 and things changed dramatically. Companies were slashing budgets.

New hires, even interns weren’t getting paid what they were getting. New hires were getting significantly less income that they were maybe five or ten years ago. And what I really realized was those who were being successful were able to standout a little bit and really able to demonstrate that if a company were to take a risk to hire them that they could deliver value. I think ten years ago would hire 100 recruits and hope that 40 would work out.

Now they’re looking at really targeting the 40 recruits and knowing that those 40 they’re going to hire they’re going to work with and stick with. So the hiring process for people coming out of high school, coming out of college has changed dramatically. This idea about what the value I can deliver is absolutely huge for people.

Alexis:

Oh definitely. And I totally hear you said at the beginning when you started five, six years ago. There were companies fighting for clients, now obviously tables have turned a little bit. We have clients trying to fight other clients for jobs, right.

Dennis:

Absolutely, yep, yep.

Alexis:

So, now this is where you I’m sure that you I’m sure that you shine because you are a career expert. But without giving all your secrets away, because I definitely encourage listeners to sign up for Dennis’s program. But what tips if any do you have for standing out in the job market?

Dennis:

The one thing that I hammer away over and over again with the clients I work with about the private clients and those that come to my training are really develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Now what does that mean? Even if you’re going to go work and get hired for another company. You really need to consider: what is the value that you’re going to be delivering?

Why should that company, first of all, hire you? And then consider, given your responsibility, and then consider promoting you. And I believe that comes from having an entrepreneurial mindset. So going in and not just saying all right, this is my job description, I’m going to do it. But just taking that as the basis. Going in to an organization, going into a company and saying this is my job description and what else can I offer.

Where do my skills lay, what’s the value added that I offer, because time and time again, Alexis. I see those that have gone in and interned in a company, have got great, great references are the ones going on and getting hired maybe above those that maybe got better grades throughout high school and college. Those that have really gone in and made a difference within a company, an organization. Been able to demonstrate that, been able to communicate that to a potential employee are the ones getting hired.

Alexis:

Yes, that makes sense. So just kind of having just a little bit more of the networking mindset as well.

Dennis:

Absolutely. Really get out there and build your network. And networks are a funny thing. Of course again, the last five or six years we’ve seen social media explode where those that are on Twitter, on Facebook. You may have 1500 friends on Facebook, but that to me Alexis, is not really networking.

I would rather see somebody with eight really solid contacts then 1500 random, spread out contacts, who most of whom they’ve never met in their life. But if you had five to eight really solid dependable contacts that you could be networking with in your chosen field. And you really developed those relationships and put depth into those relationships and demonstrated that you are a person of substance with those people. Then that’s going to really help you with your leverage.

Now there’s a statistic out there that 3% of all jobs that are filled are not actually advertised. So they’re not getting out and into, we’re talking old school, but they’re not getting out into the news paper. They’re not getting out to Monster, but they’re actually either hired within, or they’re positions that become available and people know through various networks. I’m looking for a position as a graphic designer. Oh, I know a really great graphic designer, you should call John.

So if we’re looking at only 17% of jobs and careers coming from advertisements. You want to really be focused on that 83%, and as you say, networking and building that, as I call it, that bridging capital, is really something that is going to be essential and crucial going forward.

Alexis:

That is cool. Sign me up. So now this might be sort of a redundant question. You know when I go outside you see people who are just struggling to find a job. So what are maybe like a couple tips that come to mind if you see somebody coming into your office just really struggling. Like maybe she’s shy, who’s knows. But just is kind of firing blanks. What would you say?

Dennis:

This is a typical thing I see and this is not everybody, but if this is very common, is that they’re casting their net far too widely. They’re saying, I just want a job. Well, that’s not particularly appealing to potential employee. So what I do get them to focus down and narrow down.

I’ll sit down and through a process of investigation I’ll find out where a potential clients skills are. I’ll find out where a particular clients interests are, and really work out a specific strategic plan from there. Because as you say a lot of people are floundering around or fumbling around. But it’s very difficult to hire someone, just imagine that you’re working for an [accounting] company, and you just want any job. You’re probably not going to get hired.

But if you’re hiring in an accounting company and somebody comes in with the qualifications, with the desire, and says, one of the things I really love about [accountancy] is just at the end of the day when I really get those numbers right, and I can really deliver great service to a client. In fact, I had an internship six months ago with a particular company, and I just really loved the client interface, the one to one. That was the thing that really got me going.

The person is going to get hired. The person that shows up and says, maybe I want a career in accountancy, maybe I just want to get hired, please hire me. It kind of smacks like desperation.

So, one of the things I’ll do Alexis, is really get them laser focused in an area. And work from there. Come up with a plan from there. So if their interest is in computers that such a broad field. But again it’s far too general.

What is your specific interest in computers? What are the skills you have, what are the skills that you can learn, and what’s the value, getting back to that entrepreneurial mindset? What’s the value you’re going to be able to go in and demonstrate that you can deliver to a potential employer?

Alexis:

Well that’s amazing. I like the fact that just focusing really with laser like vision, and just kind of pursuing it with everything you’ve got.

Dennis:

It’s one of those things. I’m a big sports fan, and I find those are successful in sports are the ones that are specialize. You know we have very specialized sports over in the U.S. We have a guy that’s maybe 300 pounds. He doesn’t say, I’m going to try out for the gymnastics team. I’m going to try for the triathlon team. I’m going to try out for the sprinting team. He say’s, 300 pounds.

I can probably be a really good line backer on the foot ball team. Let me put my attention, and focus my attention for three or four, five years on being a line backer, and he’s going to have much more success. My guess is a 300 pound guy is not going to be very, very good at arrhythmic gymnastics, so why put your attention there.

Alexis:

Absolutely. I guess my last question is if you could just share with us a success story that you recently had.

Dennis:

Yeah, last week I had got a text message from one of my clients, because one of the ways I work, I like to work in real time. So I’ll use a lot of Skype, I’ll use a lot of email. I’ll use text, I’ll use phone calls, and of course I’ll use face- to-face. And this guy’s a remote client. He’s out in the Midwest, really nice guy. But just been struggling to find a career that for him is fulfilling. He’s able to make the financial end work, but he’s just kind of running into a series of dead-end jobs. He found it difficult to wake up in the morning and to get himself motivated.

Alexis:

And how old was this guy?

Dennis:

He’s in his late 20’s.

Alexis:

Late 20’s, Okay.

Dennis:

And in many respects, very similar to a recent grad in that he hadn’t just really found that thing that made him come alive. So we really focused on what he wanted to be doing. And what he really wanted to be doing was a lot of customer service. Working with customers in the entertainment industry.

So for the last six weeks I just had him out and networking and building up his skills. Interfacing face to face, one to one, and I get a text message I think it was last Monday. He says, you got to call me now. I think I was with another client. So I call him back a half an hour later and I say what’s going on. I got a job, I got a job, I got a job. He was so pumped and so excited, and it’s an entry level job, and so in his late 20’s.

One of the things he said was it’s not his perfect career, but it’s a place where he can begin to leapfrog onto his perfect career. So for him now the thing is to do. Now he’s got this position, now how can he demonstrate that when a more senior position within this organization becomes available that he should be the one to be hired. That’s the work that we’re going to be focusing on.

Alexis:

Wow. Not only is it a success story, but it hasn’t stopped.

Dennis:

Yeah, absolutely. And really it never does. I think you know, one of the things, Alexis, that I see with skilled people, even folks like Richard Branson from my country most people know him from the Virgin organization. He has coaches, he has mentors, he has trusted advisers.

He doesn’t believe that he can do this alone and he works with others to get input. And ultimately while he takes responsibility and makes decisions himself, he doesn’t do so until he gets a significant amount of input. One of the stories when he started Virgin Atlantic Airlines he went to a guy that had been running an airline for the last 15 years. A guy named Freddie Laker in the U.K. And said, can you help me. And this guy said Freddie Laker kind of really mentored him for the first three years of building up his airline.

Alexis, one of the things that I’ll say about America is that we love to do things, were autonomous, we’re independent, we love to do things on our own and for ourselves and there’s tremendous value in that. I think that reaching out and getting help, particularly in regards to careers, with regards to academic help which I know you do at Prepped and Polished as well. Just that reaching out and getting help at the right time, it really can make a difference.

Alexis:

Well said. Well this is great. Thank you so much. I think it’s really evident that the way that you approach every relationship is just with your methodical, strategic, and you just infuse passion into your students and your clients and really make a difference. I know you deliver, so thank you so much.

Dennis:

It was my absolute pleasure talking with you Alexis. Thanks so much for inviting me on, and thanks so much for having the conversation. I think it’s really important work we both do. And I really appreciate you taking the time to reach out. Thank you.

Alexis:

Oh yeah, my pleasure. Well thank you. This wraps up our show today with Dennis Charles, founder of Charles Career Mentoring. Please visit Charlescareer.com to learn more about Dennis’s company, and while you’re there, definitely sign up for his informative newsletter. I get it, it’s excellent. Thank you again for joining us Dennis, and thank you for joining us on the Prepped and Polished Radio Show, we’ll talk to you soon.

Care to share your job searching experiences? What was one of Dennis’ career tips that resonated the most?

Post your tips/comments below.

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