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

Kelly Cherwin 0:10
And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy. Today we're talking with Kathleen Hermacinski regarding job search advice and tips for new job seekers in Higher Ed. Thanks, Kathleen, for joining us today.

Kathleen Hermacinski 0:16
Thank you both for having me. I appreciate it.

Kelly Cherwin 0:18
Kathleen has been the head of HR at eureka college for four and half years and has worked at the college for seven and a half years. She was involved with CUPA HR, Wildfire Ignite in 2022- 23 and has a bachelor's degree in business administration from Robert Morris university. Kathleen has worked as a college bowling coach in Illinois and is active in a national and state bowling organizations. And we just found out is a professional bowler as well. We are excited to have you today and have this conversation, Kathleen. I'm excited to be here. So today, like I said, we'd be talking about job search advice and tips for new job seekers. And I always think that people can have a refresher too, who might be looking for a new opportunity. So, Kathleen, from your perspective, what are the few of the top mistakes or faux pas that jobseekers make? And I will give you a part to two to that. If someone does make a mistake, how can they recover from that misstep?

Kathleen Hermacinski 1:13
I feel like that's a great question, especially in today's job market. There are so many individuals trying to change jobs, promotions, industries and it depends on the position in the institution and who you're interviewing with, what those faux pas are. So a faux pas to me might not be for someone else. So generally speaking, not asking questions in an interview is a red flag for me. That means you've probably not done any research. You aren't looking into our culture, our mission statement or anything else like that. So ending an interview with no question makes me feel like you're not prepared for the interview and you're not prepared to join my team or my institution. I would also say researching as it kind of goes into that, asking questions, part. Research the institution. Research the correct institution. We had a high level position in our development office. It's been a number of years. Got on the search committee call. We had another VP on the call. We had a faculty director, so it was a decent sized search committee and from the get go everybody introduces themselves and the candidate says, Hi, I'm so-and-so, I'm very excited to be here. And then went right into the endowment numbers of an institution not even closely in name, geographic location or anything to us. And immediately, when you looked around the room, one of my faculty members was just like pulling out his hair. He it was we don't know if maybe this candidate was interviewing for the same position at that institution, but researching the correct institution is going to be at the probably the top of the list and and understanding what the structure is, you know, what the position is so you can ask questions pertinent to that. And then the last one that I've seen here recently is since the pandemic of a faux pas, Timeliness on responding to recruiters and hiring managers. I think it's part of the labor market where people are interviewing for multiple positions at the same time and then they're trying to pivot and give themselves more time in between the offers. But you're losing interest at that. So for example, we recently had one where as the recruiter for this position, I had reached out to this candidate. I called them twice and sent to follow up emails. No response. I marked them in our applicant tracking system that you know, they're no longer interested. That generated an email and then they're replying back to me saying, No, no, I'm interested, I'm interested. Okay, okay, maybe there is miscommunication. Then we bring them in for an interview and then they no show. And so right there, you know, just that timeliness and responding to emails, phone calls and not making the institution or the recruiter wait for it. That is just going to give you a terrible first impression. And talking about correcting it, we tried to correct that one and let the candidate give them a second chance. But when they no showed on that one, you know, we're we're kind of done with that. So those are going to be some of the top ones. And then if I can add a fourth one.

Kelly Cherwin 4:12
Yes.

Kathleen Hermacinski 4:13
Assuming gender and DEI is really important to a lot of higher education institutions, and one of those is assuming gender. So at Eureka College, we have stopped saying Mr. Hibel or Mrs. Cherwin, you want to make sure we're calling them Andy and Kelly just to make sure we're not assuming what those gender pronouns are. And then when you talk about like, Oh, my boss, he or Oh, my boss, she is when you don't know what the gender is on that. So just trying to say we're not necessarily a faux pas, but kind of maybe words of encouragement to not assume gender because we're just in that different type of society, especially in higher education.

Andy Hibel 4:48
Kathleen That was wonderful and I think extremely thoughtful but also comprehensive. I think that one nugget I just want to pick up on is the no show, like the no show to me. I hear that so much more often, particularly post-pandemic. And I think I want to appeal to an early stage job seeker and say two things. I think the most important thing to remember about the nerd show is have more pride in yourself and your candidacy to not know show for. That wasn't too many negative negatives. There. Like professionals know you don't need to show up for every interview you agree with but professionally handled that situation when you want to cancel that simply no showing is not taking pride in your work or your professionalism. And if that isn't enough for you, which I hope it would be, know that the world is a very small place and maybe you will have some interaction with somebody who knows that person who, you no showed. And that is something that will stick with you. People do not take kindly to being no show direct. I think that point I'm really glad you brought that up, that I think that that is really change over the past few years.

Kathleen Hermacinski 6:05
And as a follow up, I feel like it could be anxiety. We're seeing a lot more with the younger generations, that there is a lot of anxiety, especially picking up a phone call. We're seeing less interactions because mainly because of the pandemic. If you think about the last four years, everybody's been kind of glued to their screens rather than in-person. And so what I've seen is somebody followed up with an e-mail like a week after they no showed and said, I'm so sorry. I was overwhelmed and my anxiety got the better of me. I don't want this position, but thanks and it's I don't even know if that's worse than just no call, no show that's there. So and you've mentioned it that it's more prolific, you know, past the pandemic. And I would say that's absolutely true. My white collar jobs have had more no shows in my blue collar positions on campus, which I find to be very interesting because pre-pandemic, that would have been the opposite in our trend, at Eureka College.

Kelly Cherwin 6:57
That's interesting. I actually want to piggyback on that. The comment is about no show, but then the earlier part, when you said about the delay in communication and I know we're kind of focusing on like the early career job seekers. I have three teenagers, several of us have have teenagers, and it's almost like they we don't know what you don't know type thing. And I think they almost think that it's like, oh, waiting couple of days. It's it's fine. I mean, it very well could be to your point where, you know, people are kind of weighing options, but my teenagers kind of think like, oh, couple days is is this totally fine? They'll they'll wait for me. But that's not always the case. Like you said, in those couple days, you're kind of almost writing them off saying they're not interested and we might move on to the next candidate. So for those early career job seekers, yes, communication and prompt follow up is definitely important. So thank you for bringing that up. And actually, I just have one other question on the person that had the wrong statistics and was talking about the wrong institution. How did you guys handle that? Did you correct that person or how do you

Kathleen Hermacinski 8:02
The introduction that he gave was a very nice monologue, you know, so like the whole tell us about yourself. Why this position? Why Eureka College, right. That most interview start that way. It was about a five minute beautiful introduction in for this other institution. And at that point he got so far into it we weren't comfortable. So we continued to ask our questions and we would say like at Eureka College, it's this. And the candidate never apologized or backed up or they weren't our numbers. I want to be very clear. Like the information he had was great, but it wasn't even close to anything that our institution was doing. So that might been a problem on our part. We just let him continue. But still reiterated it was Eureka College within the the rest of the interview.

Kelly Cherwin 8:52
Thank you, Kathleen, for for that wonderful insight. So moving on to, you know, the theme of early career job seekers. What are some common advice that you would give to an early career job seeker?

Kathleen Hermacinski 9:03
Well, the timing of this question is perfect. I have been working with our career services department to do mock interviews for graduating seniors. One of the perks of being such a small school is we do have that one on one touches with our students. So mock interviews. Why not? Even if you're not fresh out of school and you're changing industries, why not sit down and maybe go through what your interview skills look like? Maybe it's been a while since you've interviewed or it's your first time interviewing professionally. Find somebody in your career services office, your HR Person at your institution, a trusted friend, somebody to just kind of sit down and maybe work out some of those basic answers with be yourself. I feel like this is one that you hear a lot, but it's not like you hear it, but you don't hear it. And so be yourself. And remember, you're interviewing the institution as well. So we want to know that you're a good fit for us and you need to be open and honest. And. And what is your personality? What is your background like? We want to make sure that we can help support you and professionally develop you for your next step after you leave our institution. Do you like us, though? That's the next question. Is we have so many candidates that come in and want to they tell us the answer they think we want to hear. That's not going to work out in the end. If we don't know you and you don't know us. I want this partnership. I want this employment to last and retain you for however long I can. I don't want it to end in 30, 60, 90 days because you hated it here or after a year because it wasn't a good fit. So make sure you be yourself and you're interviewing the institution as well. One big thing for me is Know an industry trend for the specific position that you're going in to for. So if you're hiring for H.R., for example, if you're not bringing up the new Fair Labor Standards Act as part of an industry trend that's coming down, I'm going to assume that you're not up to date because that's one of the biggest trends right now in human resources, if it's business, if it's art, if it's admissions, if it's collections, you know, what is one recent topic that's been a point of discussion that you can bring up in that interview. So, you know, like you come across as well informed as part of that position and then oldie but goodie, bring a pen and paper, whether it's the padfolio, a notebook, something questions that we ask in higher education or sometimes two, three, four, five part questions. And so being able to have something to write down what those questions are taking notes you're probably going to meet, at least at Eureka College, our on campus. Interviews can last a few hours, meeting with several different stakeholders, and you want to make sure you're able and have the capability to take down notes and stuff to use for later and ask questions, so on and so forth. So pen and paper.

Kelly Cherwin 11:53
Yes.

Kathleen Hermacinski 11:53
Very easy.

Kelly Cherwin 11:54
I love everything you said and I agree with everything you said and actually, I had a former supervisor that pointed that out. She was interviewing other people and she goes and that person did not bring a notebook and paper to take notes. And it irritated her so much. So that is for for real. That's that's that's a definite yes. And I love the point about bringing in something that's a hot topic in the industry or related to your position. So I know earlier you said make sure people are asking questions. So if you as the the college did not give that job seeker a prompt by asking them what industry standard do you want to talk about? How and when should that person bring in their knowledge like, hey, I want to I want to highlight what I know about this topic, the the FAFSA or whatever it might be. How how can they bring that in?

Kathleen Hermacinski 12:44
I think you kind of mentioned it yourself in the question aspect. So if it's not been brought up, which would surprise me because I feel like that's a question that is being asked a lot is what are the industry trends? But if you're not asked that question and it gets down to the question, so you've asked your questions about culture, what's the day look like? What's the supervisory method, etc., then it's going to be like, i'm curious. I understand. I'm going to use my HR background here that the Fair Labor Standards Act is having a salary threshold increase on July 1st. How is your institution handling that? So you stated what the fact is, what your knowledge is and then asking you, you know, what is the institution done will do you know, what are you looking for? And that way just kind of helps bridge that gap of, yes, I know this and I'm asking you what you're doing. And maybe hopefully they have an answer, but maybe not.

Kelly Cherwin 13:33
It's great advice. Thank you.

Andy Hibel 13:35
Thank you, Kathleen. That was excellent. Last September, you contributed to an article on HigherEdJobs about the five basic mistakes that may be hurting your candidacy. And in it, you had wonderful advice and great advice about recording yourself and looking at how you present and answer interview questions. And when we get to kind of like additional advice questions, you speak a little bit more to that. But that article began with talking about a rejection letter and the firestorm of emotions you might have. And job search can be a very emotional roller coaster, particularly for somebody who's never gone through those emotions before. How do you recommend job seekers find ways to keep their energy and enthusiasm up during a job search process? And when those processes become longer than what the job seeker would hope for? How do you suggest a job seeker describe this sort of process to a potential employer in a in a way that is absent of that emotion?

Kathleen Hermacinski 14:40
Another great question and a specific to a higher education question with a three follow up questions I think that were on the original question. So in order to keep of energy, I think having a strong support system is is going to be key to that, whether it's a spouse, a partner, a coworker that you trust, a family friend, maybe you and a couple of others are all going through and they're looking for a different job. And so to speak, to the testing. You can also do your mock interviews with the support system as well. But being able to have somebody that you can a job search is like Schrodinger's box to me and stick with me while I have this analogy. You're in your current job, you probably have a position right now, or maybe you don't, so you're in that one and then you apply for a position and you're interviewing for that position and you kind of have that job, but you kind of don't have that job. So you kind of have both, and you got to figure out what it is that you're actually looking for. So having a strong support system, somebody to go to to talk about the elations of a good interview and talk about the the disappointments of a of a bad interview can help. But to reference the HigherEdPlaylist, I think sometimes music can actually also really be very helpful in terms of just keeping energy up, but then take a deep breath and just know that you'll end up where you're meant to be. It's a long process and the reason it can be a long process is to make sure it's the right fit for you and the right fit for the institution. And so you want to be able to take your time. And I know it can be frustrating, but we want to make sure the employer and the potential employee find that right fit in order. Follow up, follow up, follow up. If you've not heard anything, it doesn't hurt to ask. I've heard a lot of people in my life that are like, Oh, I didn't hear anything back for four weeks and I'm not sure you know where I'm at in the process. My first reaction is, Well, what did you say when you followed up or what did they say when you emailed them or called them? Oh, I didn't do that. Okay, well, let's start a conversation like they may have forgotten. You may not have the position and they just haven't updated the applicant tracking system or something else like that. So reach out to the appropriate person. So if there is like a point of contact, make sure you're reaching out to the search chair. Maybe it's the recruiter, maybe it's the HR. Office. Reach out to the appropriate person and ask for an update. It can be three sentences. Hi. I hope you're doing well. I recently applied or interviewed or spoke with whoever about this position, and I'm looking for a timeline update. If they respond to you, then great. You have more of an answer. If they don't respond to you, it might be time to kind of move on and move away from that position. It wasn't a good fit overall. Is that ideal? No. As somebody in HR I hate when that happens to others. I try to make sure it never happens at Eureka College. I want every applicant to know where they're at in that process and be as transparent as possible by it just to speak to. It's just going to come back to the support system. They'll be able to encourage you to reach out to that employer or recruiter or whoever it is to try to get a follow up as well.

Kelly Cherwin 17:44
That was fantastic. Kathleen, thank you so much for bringing the idea of following up. I think a lot of our job seekers, no matter if it's a, you know, a newer career job seeker or someone who has been in higher ed for a while, questions like how and when to follow up and what to say. And I like to hear from the, you know, HR perspective that yes, it's okay to follow up, but backing up even further to the actual interview, do you have advice on how someone should should leave that interview, how they should follow up with a thank you? Is it written? Is it emailed? Is there? No, thank you. Now where does that what are the thank you's and subsequent follow ups? Where does that stand today?

Kathleen Hermacinski 18:22
Well, let me ask you, last time you did something for someone else, didn't you want to thank you

Kelly Cherwin 18:27
100%.

Kathleen Hermacinski 18:27
I mean, I feel like thank you's are common courtesy. And so an email is like the very basic. I think if you have the point of contact for everybody you've met with. So if it's just the recruiter and you only have their email address, follow up with an email. If you've gone through several steps and you've met with maybe leadership or you've met with a department or you've met with multiple faculty members, you may not be able to access all of their email addresses, or if you don't remember their names, it's not, you know, publicly available on the institution website. You know, the main point of contact which you had, you could follow up with them and say, you know, thank you so much for for having me. Could you express my gratitude to the rest of the team? However, a handwritten thank you note. I literally put notes in our applicant tracking system when they send a thank you note. That's an actual handwritten one email. Not so much just because that's a little bit less grandeur maybe I'm not sure that's the word I want to use, but it's it's expected. But it's not expected, if that makes sense. So like I would say more of your higher level leadership, I would expect a thank you notes. Maybe the more nonexempt positions, not as much. But again, you want to leave a positive impression with somebody. And after you've taken their time, you are taking someone's time in order to interview for that position. If anything, you're just thanking them for taking the time to meet with you. They didn't have to.

Kelly Cherwin 19:57
I love that advice. It's just basic. Being grateful. Thank you is not that hard.

Kathleen Hermacinski 20:03
No, it's not. It's free.

Mike Walker 20:04
Unless you have buy stamps... sorry.

Mike Walker 20:08
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Kelly Cherwin 20:33
So, Kathleen, I know we're focusing on the early career job seekers. So, you know, a lot of people haven't worked in higher ed before and this might be their first position in higher ed, or maybe they're just switching laterally to another position and some of the skills in the job posting that they're applying for. They might not necessarily have written distinctly in that job description, like maybe they were in customer service before or whatever the role might be. So I feel like at HigherEdJobs, we do get questions about like how how do I use these skills, these transferable skills to apply for a new role. So what advice do you have on using your transferable skills?

Kathleen Hermacinski 21:09
Well, transferable skills are exactly that. The skills you transfer to multiple industries. So have you been a manager at a fast food restaurant before? If yes, leadership, relationship building, conflict management, communication, leading a team, You have all these different skills. If you go more broad and a high level of what the position is, you can pull down those key buzzwords of what that skill of what you've learned from it. Just because it was fast food or just because you were a coach of a travel baseball team, or just because you worked in a bookstore or anything, it doesn't matter what you've done beforehand. You have learned skills, customer service skills, how to talk to people. So go broad, go above if you have IT knowledge. So maybe you've used Jenzabar or PeopleSoft or Workday or PageUp or anything else like that, you might be moving to someone else that has like Paycore or Paycom or something that's a little bit different. But you still have worked with an HR IS, or human resource information system or you worked with a payroll company that that transfers into that new role specifically for the young entering the job market. You're going to have to get creative for what those skills are. And I've referenced a mock interview already, but mock interviews can also help you figure out what those skills are as you're giving stories and examples with your interviewer. And it just kind of helps you figure out, yes, I do have that competency that's there. It just isn't worded exactly the way that's in the job description. And while I'm on it, if I can get on a soapbox for just a moment, I know statistically that men will apply for positions that they're not fully qualified for more often than women. Women tend to feel that they have to hit every box in that job description before they will apply for the position. And I just want to encourage that. Just because you're not meeting 100% of the job description or the position you're applying for doesn't mean you can't shoot your shot, as the kids would say.

Kelly Cherwin 23:10
I love that. And also I love the fact that you said that brought up the mock interviews in the storytelling and the examples, because I am assuming you would advise job seekers, do not list. I'm a self-starter, I am dependable. I am like giving examples throughout their their job experience of how they demonstrated those skills.

Andy Hibel 23:28
And just one quick follow up. I think so much of what we've been talking about absolutely applies to folks who are pursuing the faculty route as well as the administrative problem in this instance. Is there anything with how a first time or early career faculty member might want to think about this differently in regards to transferable skills?

Kathleen Hermacinski 23:49
I feel like any time with faculty it may be this it might just be Eureka College. We have more PhDs than we do post grads for master's degrees. If you've gone through the educational process, even for your bachelors, for your master's, you know, post-docs, you've had presentations. You've probably spoken in front of other students before that right there. You've got classroom experience. It may not be as the teacher or the faculty of that classroom, but you have classroom experience that you can then take over. Public speaking. How does that translate? What is your conflict management in terms of students that come through? It could be if you're coming from K through 12, that's a really great transition. We're seeing a lot of burnout in K through 12 teachers that are trying to get into higher education because there's less parents to deal with and less political red tape I think in higher education at this point. So pull from your background, you're teaching students, where's your passion, Where is the customer service coming from? And you have to be able to tell me why you want to teach my Eureka College students? You know, I'm very particular about our students and our student population. What do you bring? What is your energy? What is your teaching statement and philosophy? Make sure you have one ready to go, especially if you've not been a faculty member before. DEI statements, Philosophy statements, CVs and everything, are really important for that. So just pull from your background. There's almost anything you have in your background you'll be able to pool in order to teach, right? Because you teach in your everyday life.

Andy Hibel 25:18
Thank you. That's wonderful. I think we have one final question and it really kind of comes around. What I like to refer to is kind of the first date of the job search process, which is the first interview. What is your best advice for people to prepare for when they're in that first interview, how they should be doing it? I think there's a lot of different advice floating out there that sometimes is applicable and sometimes is aspirational. What would you say you'd recommend people to focus on what they're looking to prepare for that first interview?

Kathleen Hermacinski 25:53
There's a few things. So first you need to be on time and being on time does not mean be 30 minutes early. It doesn't even mean 15 minutes early these days because when you show up 15 minutes early to an interview, you're probably taking away 15 minutes of somebody's time that they have planned for something else. So 10 minutes, I like 10 minutes. 10 minutes doesn't seem rude for you to wait. Sometimes. It's like Eureka College. We're very rural, so depending on where you're coming from, it's going to be a bit of a drive. Make sure you know the route to where you're interviewing for and how long it takes. Can you drive? Do you have to use a train or some kind of metro, a metro or anything to get to your institution? Make sure you have that planned out so you arrive on time, but not too early. For higher education, I feel like campus tours are typically part of most interviews, specifically for faculty. You want to think about the shoes you're going to wear. I know that's an odd one, but we have a beautiful park campus. That's a bit of a hike. If you want to go around and see all of our academic buildings. And I always tell candidates when they come to campus, you know, be mindful of your shoes, which brings me to the next one. Bring a bag or a padfolio or something. You know, higher education interviews, even if it's the first one, you might be handed papers, you could be handed a business card. Maybe you're handed something else from a student who just happened to see you and was walking by. For whatever odd reason. You don't want to just be carrying those items around in your hands and they're clunky with your keys and your wallet and phone and everything else. So bring it back and don't place the bag on my desk. Just put it on the floor. I don't like when when somebody comes in and just assumes that they can, you know, move in on top of my desk. A drink, a cup. Absolutely. That's fine. You know, keys, maybe a phone. I don't prefer a phone on my desk to make sure we're putting it underneath. Your desk is preferred.

Kelly Cherwin 27:41
Speaking of phones, have you had people look at their phones during the interview? I'm assuming this is kind of a do not do

Kathleen Hermacinski 27:48
I? You know, No, I can't recall anybody using their phone. So that's okay. That's a that's the one positive thing I've got going on that they're not using their phone. But especially for those that are coming out, the mock interviews we recently did on campus, that phone was out quite a bit. So not in a real job setting I've had. But, you know, it's it's hard to disconnect from your phone and maybe even to follow up on that. Put it on Do not disturb or put it on silence or turn it off, because you don't want that distraction going through because we've talked about multiple part questions in higher education. That phone goes off as they're asking the second question. You've already distracted yourself with your shiny red ball syndrome over here with your phone that you didn't turn off. So and then I think it's just a lost art shake someone's hand. I think like introduce yourself, be polite, give a greeting. Hi, my name is Kathleen, and I'm going to give you a firm handshake. That's a personal preference for me. I like when somebody comes in. It's intentional. That's the kind of professional idea I'm looking for and a nice firm handshake on there. So I appreciate that it's not a deal breaker for me, but I think that's just a lost art.

Kelly Cherwin 28:55
I agree. I appreciate the eye contact and handshake as well.

Kathleen Hermacinski 28:59
To follow up just on that on the dress. Because one thing I think that is unique to higher education is the position. So most staff positions, I would say business professionals as business casual, as the bare minimum. Even on Zoom, team virtual interviews, we've had a number of people show up in raggedy t shirts because, you know, we're not seeing the whole body and stuff on Zoom, but I wouldn't necessarily expect the faculty member applying for fashion or art to dress business professional because that's not the industry that they live in. So like we recently have hired a new art professor and the outfit they came in would not be a traditional business professional outfit, but it was striking for the position that they were going into and that kind of helped. I think part of the interview process was that self-expression. So understanding the position, understanding who you're interviewing with, I think that goes into the dress code that's there. But have you ever felt bad for being overdressed or have you felt bad for being underdressed? And I would I would hope you felt bad for being underdressed rather than overdressed because you want to make that good first impression.

Andy Hibel 30:08
Thank you so much, Kathleen, That was a wonderful summary. Like literally if they had their padfolios out right now, you should have taken notes on that. And you have a perfect checklist to prepare for that interview. We've really enjoyed having you. Thank you for being on the podcast. We hope folks who have listened have gotten as much from this discussion as we have. If you have questions for Kathleen or for the podcast, please email us at podcasts at HigherEdJobs. com or direct message us on X @HigherEdCareers. We'd love to hear those. We'd love to have you back and maybe send some of those questions your way and see what folks can throw at you that we have not ready. Thanks so much.

Kathleen Hermacinski 30:51
Thank you. I like to talk so if they have questions, I'm very, very happy to answer them. Thank thank you, Kelly. Thank you.

Kelly Cherwin 30:59
Thanks, Kathleen.