Bonus Dec 27
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[00:00:00] Andrew Hibel: Welcome to the HigherEdJobs Podcast. A brief moment for istener mail edition. I'm Andy Hibel, the Chief operating Officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

[00:00:12] Kelly Cherwin: And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the Director of Editorial Strategy,

[00:00:15] Andrew Hibel: And we're joined today by Matt Trainum, a good friend of the podcast.

[00:00:19] Kelly Cherwin: Hi Matt. Thanks for coming back. Great to have you here.

[00:00:21] Matt Trainum: Well, hey, it's great to be here, so thanks for having me.

[00:00:23] Kelly Cherwin: So the question that we are going to cover, Is from a listener that says, how do you overcome the challenge of competing against an internal or interim candidate?

[00:00:34] Matt Trainum: Well, first I wanna flip this a little bit and ask if it is really a challenge.

I want to come from that perspective because I think we, we start with this idea that that's gonna be a really difficult situation and we build up for ourselves a mental challenge around it . And I'm just not convinced it is. I'm not convinced it is. So I wanna start with a little mind check about is it really a challenge?

Are we tripping ourselves up by focusing on things we can't control? And what good does [00:01:00] it do to really think in that direction? So that, that's just a general overall question that will linger as we talk some more about this. That said, there's a couple things here that I think about when I come upon this situation or when I'm talking to friends who come upon this situation.

First I wanna read the tea leaves a little bit. Is the job widely posted? Are they on HigherEdJobs or is this just on their own website? Are they listed for two weeks and they're down, or are they having the job posted for three or four weeks? So in other words, are they meeting their legal, uh, or internal policy requirement for posting, or are they going beyond that?

Are they paying a search firm? All of those can be indications that they are really serious about their search. And so you can read the tea leaves a little bit and then you can decide, Hey, is it worth continuing in a process if I know there's a strong internal candidate? That's a first few thoughts.

[00:01:51] Kelly Cherwin: I love the fact that you start with the whole mental mind check.

I think that's a great space to start with.

[00:01:57] Matt Trainum: I think the the truth is that you can never [00:02:00] control other candidates and you could ask this question, how do you overcome the challenge of a super competitive other candidate? You do what you always do as a candidate. Which is you show up with your absolute best self delivering as good as you can.

You prepare thoroughly for the conversation, and you come with your game face on and you come as a candidate who's excited and eager to be there. There's a bit of a red herring of this question to me of that's gonna be a mountain we cannot overcome. And I just, I don't buy that. And I think a lot of it is our own approach that we bring to it.

You'll never know the other candidates in the pool. You'll never know how serious they are. So there might be an internal candidate that everyone else doesn't like. There might be an internal candidate, by the way, that everyone likes except for the hiring authority. And so I, I go into these conversations and I think, what does the hiring authority need?

And that, that takes me to, to two things. One is I might talk about how I'm different than who, whoever might be internal or whoever else I might imagine in the pool. So again, kind of expanding this to, how do I present myself versus other [00:03:00] candidates? How well can I talk about the unique qualifications and contributions that I bring?

So I might talk about those differences. And then on the flip side, and you can pull this off, I might minimize those differences. What is the appeal to an internal candidate? I'll ask, I'll ask that of, of my colleagues here, y'all, what is the appeal of an internal candidate? What do you think.

[00:03:17] Kelly Cherwin: They might know the institution they might have, you know, a little bit more background info.

[00:03:22] Matt Trainum: Right? Right. So what can you share that can minimize that? You've got a very short learning curve. You make relationships quickly. Uh, you're ready to act on day one. One of the things I've observed in selection processes is, and I mean this with, uh, with I guess an open heart, people believe what you tell them.

And so if you tell them, h, I'm ready to act on day one, and I adjust really quickly, not only will they write that down if there's some sort of form in front of them, they write down things like that, but they will remember it and they'll go, well, this person's new here, but they're ready to act on day one.

And I think that that can compensate for the fact that they're not internal. So I, I like this idea of talking about how [00:04:00] you're different than the internal person might be. You're coming with a lot of different perspectives. You're breaking the mold some. You're not stuck in the defined way of doing things.

There's a lot of benefits to not be in internal or in an interim role. There's a lot of them. So if I was in this position, I would be thinking about those and at the same time, I'd be minimizing the differences that people might be, um, the positives that they might see in an internal candidate. I would be putting those in my column as well.

[00:04:27] Kelly Cherwin: I love that. Control what you can control. Read the tea leaves, differentiate yourself. Focus on the positives. These are all fantastic, Matt.

[00:04:35] Matt Trainum: Yeah. And ultimately you make a decision. Is this worth my time? Right. I mean, I, I, I have seen jobs in my time that, uh, were posted for 14 days and I got my application in, or, or actually I didn't get my application in on day 15, they were gone and I still sent my application into whatever place I could send it.

The tea leaves there were pretty clear, you know, they're not, they're not really doing a search. And so you have to decide, is it worth my time? Is it, do I wanna [00:05:00] practice? What's the downside of me going through this process? And for some of us, there is a downside. There's an emotional attachment, there's emotional energy that we're spending, and so we have to be able to be willing to give that or decide, not right now. I'll wait till the next job.

[00:05:13] Andrew Hibel: It’s interesting you say that, Matt, because I think that's all great. Irrespective of what other candidates are. So sticking to that, showing what your priorities are and what you think the keys to success in this position are, and that's what's gonna connect with your potential peers.

But I feel like I, I'd be remiss here if I didn't offer a little bit of a personal story. Because I think there's also, let's just say there is a great internal candidate, because that's the question, because I always think the fear is here, you can go through all these different things. One is if it's the internal candidate and it's the brother-in-law of that internal candidate who's the hiring manager, right?

Yeah, sure. You, you, you can say that, but let's put those, don't go down that thinking. But what I want you to think of when you have that [00:06:00] is this story, cause it's actually my story and for me, for my first position in higher ed, full-time position, I interviewed for a job. I did not get that job. There was a strong internal candidate that they were looking at for that job.

I did not get it. However, they liked me so much that they created a job for me within their institution, for me to work in this office. And guess what? I went from competing with an internal candidate to basically being an internal candidate. So remember, if you go there and you're, you're interviewing against a great internal candidate, they're not gonna look at a second candidate who's great and say, ah, it's too bad, didn't work out.

They're gonna wanna work with that person. The opportunity is there, and if you want the rest of the story, part of the process there, and this is what's hard about sometimes working through the process internally in these institutions, that I had to wait for them to [00:07:00] create that position based off of my requirements and then find out from the pre-screening that my initial resume application did not meet the requirements of, of that position, which is amazingly higher ed.

But what I can tell you there, (right), is that experience of going through that is definitely one of the reasons that I was inspired to start HigherEdJobs knowing that this is not an easy process and if we can make a difference in making it a little bit easier, that's what we want to be here for. And particularly in this is a question that has never gone away in three decades of doing this, and I don't think three more decades from now, this question will be gone.

You as the candidate are the only person who can make this question go away in your head. Nobody else is going to give you an answer that satisfies you other than yourself.

[00:07:50] Matt Trainum: Oh my God, Andy. I love it. I, I, um, I was in a search a while back and I asked, is there internal candidate. And, uh, they said no. And I was like, okay, great.

And so last [00:08:00] time I ever asked it, cause I, I realized if they had said yes, what would I do differently? How would I act and how would I, you know, my job is to show up and demonstrate that I can meet what the organization needs at that moment, that I can fill that gap. And if someone else can do it better, great.

I've not gotten jobs that I thought I would be great for and I've had to get to the place of understanding that, that hiring authority knows what they're looking for and has to go for it. And they make a different choice. That's okay. I'm gonna show up. I'm gonna be my best candidate, Andy I like it. I'm not gonna let other candidates get in my head. It's not where I want them to be.

[00:08:29] Kelly Cherwin: Matt, I was thinking the same thing. If I knew there was an internal candidate, would I do anything differently? And the answer should be no. So I'm so glad you said that and Andy, I'm, I'm glad you shared that story. I actually didn't know that about you, but I actually have a very similar story how I got my start in higher ed as well.

I interviewed for an admissions position and they end up going with an internal candidate. I didn't know at the time, but they called me back saying, we don't think you're a good fit for admissions, but we want you for the career services department. So [00:09:00] that's how my career started and I'm glad it did.

Cause I, it brought me to this position today, which I'm so thankful for.

[00:09:06] Andrew Hibel: And maybe this is a good time if, if you're out there and you have one of those stories, please drop us an email at podcast@higheredjobs.com or tweet us at higheredjobs and share your story. I think what would be great is to do a kind of a little recap episode and hear back from other stories of folks out there.

So make sure if, uh, if you're willing to share your story, if, let us know if it's okay for us to talk about it. Uh, obviously leaving pertinent details out. Yeah, it, it's a great story. Matt, one final question for you. Um, little bit of that game, you're competing against an internal candidate and that internal candidate is your twin. What do you do?

[00:09:46] Matt Trainum: Uh, well, it's something about Thanksgiving dinner is gonna show up at some point in the answer here. I love that question. Thank you.

[00:09:54] Kelly Cherwin: Actually I did wanna, I just wanna make one other comment. Matt, you said something about, you know, realizing if it's [00:10:00] worth your time and sometimes, you know, it might be just practice and sometimes, you know, we know that this is difficult.

I'm actually reading a book now called “Daring Greatly” by Brene Brown, and she talks about being vulnerable and going through a job search is taking that, it takes the ability to be vulnerable because sometimes we are not gonna get what we think we wanted. So I think this kind of ties into that, like it's okay to dare greatly and be vulnerable, and as the stories have shared today, that things work out the way that they're supposed to work out.

[00:10:33] Matt Trainum: The vulnerability is also the same vulnerability that happens when you start a new job. So I think there's just something about being in a search where you're opening yourself up, you're opening yourself up by applying, you're opening yourself up by being in those conversations. You're opening yourself up by starting somewhere new and leaving somewhere that you've been.

Um, so there's a lot of vulnerability in all of that, and you'll get through it by getting through it, not by focusing on other people.

[00:10:53] Kelly Cherwin: Thank you for your insights today, Matt. It's been great.

[00:10:57] Matt Trainum: Thank you, Kelly.

Andrew Hibel: Thank you Matt, for being on the show. Thank you. [00:11:00] It was great having you.