Andy Hibel 0:03
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs podcast. I'm Andy Hibel the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

Kelly Cherwin 0:09
And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy. Today, we're happy to have Chris Lee back for our Ask the Experts series. Thanks, Chris, for joining us today.

Christopher Lee 0:18
My pleasure.

Kelly Cherwin 0:18
So today's question is what are the best ways to connect with higher education professionals in another state? I would like to relocate to Colorado. Should I use LinkedIn and professional associations or reach out directly to H.R. or other university departments where it might be a good fit? Chris, what are your thoughts on this?

Christopher Lee 0:35
Yes, I think this is a great question. It's a basic question, right about how do you plan it and get inside the network of a different group in order to advance one's job search prospects. But there's a little art involved in how one might go about doing that, because there's a lot of dimensions at play. So, I think the good part is that you get to focus when you're trying to go about a job search. Job search is very interesting in that there's always a lot of opportunity and a lot of possibilities. And sometimes people focus on too many things at once. So it's kind of like the kiosks in the mall or other places where you can walk into a room and they got all these dollar bills floating around. And you see people frantically going after everything where they're constantly moving. And when it's all over. A minute later, they haven't really connected with many, many items because it's too much going on. The best idea probably say because of five. Let me go after that and follow it. So it's the same idea of being random or intentional. Intentional works. Intentional really works when it's geography. The analogy would be you got 50 states and thousands of institutions. So if you're trying to get employment anywhere is harder than saying, I want to go after these type institutions or in this particular location. So the focus is really important. And then when you start focusing, you know, there are two or three things that need to be done first. One is homework, kind of doing some research. Going deep and finding the different resources that are available to help one. And then networking. Right. So the focus and then kind of the follow through. Research is important. It's vitally important. There's no substitute for that. And it takes a lot of time and effort. And this is often where some people fall short. I've had the great pleasure of helping people my entire career. Every single month, if not more, I've helped someone find a job. And sometimes people don't deserve the help because they don't do their part. So they'll call and say, Hey, Chris, I want to find a job in this field. Can you help me? Sure. And then, you know, I'll say, Hey, you know, I wrote a blog about that. Or, you know, talk to this person or whatever. And then the next time I talk to them, they can read the blog. I'm saying, well, so you want me to do all the hard work for you? Or you refer to someone or something and they don't follow through. So the key is there's no substitute for that. You got to do the homework. So if you want to go to Colorado, you got to learn Colorado. All the institutions, you have to learn the state associations, the group and things related to your discipline, effort, etc.. And that's a good starting point. A young lady I'm helping right now, she's in North Carolina. I said the same thing to her. Just kind of ironic. Her question was similar to the question here. And the second time I talk to her, she goes, You know what? That was a great exercise. I did not know the three or four institutions within commuting distance for me even existed. Small, private, liberal, arts, college or whatever, because she works at a big state university. So that's the biggest and most important part is to do the homework. So you can find out what's available because no one can know everything. The bigger the geographical area, the more challenging it is. But if you want to focus on one particular state, it is very doable. What are your thoughts about just kind of the focus in targeting?

Andy Hibel 4:16
Well, first of all, I think in this sort of process, success begets success. It's a pretty daunting task to look at. If I'm in Virginia, like you are, Chris, and I'm thinking about moving to Colorado. That's a lot to just kind of bite off as far as, okay, where do I start to do this?

Christopher Lee 4:36
Yeah.

Andy Hibel 4:36
And I think that that's sometimes some of the challenges when you suggest people are like, Hey, I'm interested in doing this. And I've had that same experience where it's obvious they haven't really followed up with their homework. What I try to do is remind people, this is the HigherEdJobs podcast, so we might take a moment just to talk about HigherEdJobs. But HigherEdJobs actually, in this specific instance is excellent at giving you a great return on your investment for doing your homework. Every position on HigherEdJobs is geo located. So if it's in Colorado, you can go regionally. And once again, if it crosses borders, we can cross borders. People will say Colorado. But if it's five miles off the Colorado border from a place where you want to be, it could be another state. Yeah. So I always kind of caution people. That's a great place to go because you're going to absolutely get, from a geographic perspective, amazing search tools and HigherEdJobs to do that. I'm joining to point you one step further. I sometimes talk of one of the HigherEdJobs sister sites, which is HigherEdMilitary, which I know we've spoken with you before, Chris. But, we also have another sister site called HigherEd360 where we actually provide the links, and we've maintained this for decades, of the job listings things by state of the H.R. offices of colleges are located in the state. So once you start doing that from the search perspective, I think you can get some wind behind your sails and you have some success and you feel like there's progress. The networking is absolutely key and I concur with everything you just said, Chris. I probably would also give a shout out to LinkedIn in this instance because I think there is no substitute. Look at your LinkedIn contacts and see who's located in Colorado. Who know folks who are located at some of those institutions in Colorado. Absolutely do that. But I'd also say, I just think that's a great way from day to day basis of what you're looking to do is what can I do to help my career every day? Start doing that on a weekly basis, reach out to people on LinkedIn, try to connect. Just for the sake of networking and best practices. Go do those things. But when you're in a specific job search, the better connections you can get who help lead you to other connections is what it's all about. Calling and asking somebody about a job that is open and saying, Hey, can I interview for this job? They're going to say, you need to apply for it and go through the process. That should always be their answer. If it's not, I'd be a little concerned, actually.

Christopher Lee 7:09
Yeah.

Andy Hibel 7:09
But talking to somebody and getting their best advice about how to go about a job search in Colorado, and who else you should be speaking to. Is going to lead to fruitful results for you. But to your point, Chris, it is hard, hard work to do something like that.

Christopher Lee 7:25
Absolutely.

Andy Hibel 7:26
I think people really, really need to be committed to it and break the process down in little chunks.

Christopher Lee 7:32
Yeah. Finding a job is a job, is what I say. Right? It's going to take a little time and effort to do your homework.

Mike Walker 7:39
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Kelly Cherwin 8:16
I agree with what you're both saying. And I want to dig a little deeper because I do think that this person that submitted this question, they want to do the work. They're trying to figure out how to network. They're asking if it's okay to reach out to the institution. So, Chris, you know, you mentioned research, but I definitely think it's so important and you talked about networking. So this person said, you know, is it okay if I reach out to university departments where I might be a good fit? So kind of connecting the dots here. What type of research should this person do? Say they connect with the registrar's office.

Christopher Lee 8:45
Yeah.

Kelly Cherwin 8:46
What advice could you give people in terms of what research to do and what to say to these potential connections on campus?

Christopher Lee 8:53
Well, I think the, the middle part. So it's kind of like the beginning and the end and the middle part that kind of connects it to is we'll call it found resources. Right? So we talked about doing research, uncovering resources and networking. So when you do that homework, hopefully you find things like different events where folks in your profession gather could be publications or newspapers. You know, searching HigherEdJobs and looking at the pattern of what people look for and think about in Colorado or other areas or your discipline. You kind of get inside the network. And you learn about things you would not otherwise know about. And once you start doing that, it gives this kind of side benefit that you become a little mini expert. Because you know about the seven associations, the three publications, the government office, which institutions have this program and which institutions don't, and then that makes you conversant. So then when you're reaching out to the network, you have something to talk about. Because nothing falls flatter than if I call, you know, Mike or Kelly and say, Hey, I'm relocating to your community and I'm looking for a job, would you help me? It's like, okay, well, you know, I'm kind of busy and how would you want me to help you? And then you go like, Well, I don't know. I'm just looking for opportunities and, you know, and it's like, okay, so I've got to figure out what's available and what you might be interested in and what you might be able to do. But if you call in, say, Hey, you know, Kelly, I'm interested in working at the X, Y, Z Institute at University of X or this college in this particular program, and I've done this and I know this. What do you think or what might you suggest? So you become a little knowledgeable and specific and you can tell a person how they might help you. That was one of my pet peeves as an H.R. manager were people would call and say, I want to work at the university. Okay, you know, they like and they say, you know, I'm like, okay, well, you know, we got 200 jobs available. I'm like the chief H.R. Officer. I don't know every jobs available because that's not my job. That's what the employment manager's job is, right? I want to help, but you're asking me to look at your materials and figure it out for you. Basically, do the homework. But if you call and say, I'm interested in G. I. S. related stuff and I know you have an institute on this and program on that. And I can say, Oh yeah, and this works in that department, I can connect you. So doing that homework and finding resources and stuff is the glue that puts that networking in that homework to use, right? And it goes back to that foundational part of you doing the heavy lifting in the beginning of finding people, places and things that help you then be an effective job seeker.

Kelly Cherwin 11:38
I love that.

Andy Hibel 11:39
I love that, too. And even in 2024, and they don't like it when I actually save the date on the podcast. So even in today's day, that's still what works. That meeting where you have done your homework of knowing what you want, knowing what you're asking for, and letting the time that you have with somebody be best used to lead to the next sequential step. To get to that person who is in the department that you want to be in, to then learn more about that department in a more informational way. As opposed to tying it specifically to a job that's open and saying, Hey, can I apply for this job? Yes, I can. But if it's an active search, it's a different question than if you're just trying to learn about how to find a job in that area. And you may be at the University of one state and it might be a position open at that same state university, but a different campus or a rival institution that's in state that's going to be, hey, we don't have positions open here at state U, but northwest state U actually has that position open. It might be a really good fit for you. Let me give you somebody over there who you might want to talk to you.

Christopher Lee 12:55
Absolutely.

Andy Hibel 12:55
Those are the things where that's where you come in and you make it easy for the person you're asking for help. And you have some idea in your head of what it is that you want to accomplish with the time that you get from them.

Christopher Lee 13:07
Absolutely.

Andy Hibel 13:08
That that's the way it works. And from a professional who's put in that position, and I've heard from many other professionals put in that position, people like making those connections. They like people were interested in their field and passionate about the same work that they are. So don't be shy about that. Don't think, well, what are they going to do for me? I'm just going to be a bother. Supporting younger professionals is something that virtually every professional I've talked to over the years really, really enjoys and gets deep meaning from the work.

Christopher Lee 13:37
And to put an exclamation point on it, Andy, we wrote a blog post about that right, called Information Interviewing and folks can go do their homework, look that up, and it will kind of give you a step by step about how to go about that process. So that's a challenge to follow through on the idea that we're talking about today, which will put you in very good position to be successful. And I will say here today. I know of no one who has followed that process through having information interviews. If you go to ten, information interviews over whatever appropriate period of time. I know no one who's never not gotten the job. You know, who hadn't been successful. Right. Because it is a process that is well-worn and it incorporates the things that we're talking about today.

Andy Hibel 14:23
I think that's a great place to keep the conversation focused on. But even better, what will make sure will do is let's get that blog post and link it to this podcast and any other places where it might show up on the site. So if you're interested in that blog post, we'll have it right there. Easy for you to read. Thanks, Chris, for being here. If you have any questions or thoughts, please feel free to email us a podcast@HigherEdJobs.com or send a direct message to us on X @HigherEdCareers and please, the author of this question from Colorado. What we'd love to hear is a follow up story. So maybe we can come back with Chris and have a story of you found the job and now what? But we want to hear what happens to your job search. So please email us and let us know. We're all excited to hear. Thank you for listening and we look forward to speaking with you next time.