Keith Edwards:
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today we are discussing virtual job searching. We are joined by three folks who can help those of you about to embark on a virtual job search feel more comfortable and more prepared. We have people with experience being virtual candidates, virtual hiring managers, and virtual search consultants. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in, alongside, or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope you’ll find these conversations make a contribution to the field and are restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find us at studentaffairsnow.com or on twitter. Today we welcome our new sponsorship partner, LeaderShape. LeaderShape is a not-for-profit organization that has been partnering with colleges, universities, and organizations in creating transformational leadership experiences since 1986. With a focus on creating a more just, caring, and thriving world, LeaderShape provides both virtual and in-person leadership development opportunities for students and professionals. When you partner with LeaderShape, you will receive quality development experiences that engage learners in topics of courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building. To find out more about their virtual programs, please visit https://www.leadershape.org/VirtualPrograms. You can also learn more about their organization on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Is your goal to engage in effective assessment, boost data fluency and empower staff with strategic data collection, documented analysis, and use results for change? No matter where your campus is in the assessment journey, Anthology (formerly Campus Labs) can help you figure out what’s next with a short assessment. You’ll receive customized results and tailored recommendations to address your most immediate assessment needs. Learn more about how Anthology’s products and expert consultation can empower your division with actionable data by visiting campuslabs.com/sa-now. As I mentioned, I am your host Keith Edwards. My pronouns are he, him, his. I am a speaker, consultant, and coach. You can find out more about me at KeithEdwards.com. I’m hosting this conversation today from Minneapolis, MN which is the ancestral home of the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples. Today we are talking about virtual job searching. I’m very excited to have each of our guests here candidates, employers, and search consultants. Let’s meet these fabulous folks. If you could all just introduce yourself with who you are and your role in your institution, and a little bit about your experience with virtual job searching. Margaret let’s start with you.

Margaret Smith:
Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me Keith, happy to be here. My name is Margaret Smith. I use they them pronouns. I’m the Coordinator for Student Organizations and Leadership and the Office of Student Leadership and Engagement at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, Hey, Mac, absolutely. Small Liberal Arts college setting just for some context as well. So what I can bring to this conversation, I went through the virtual job search process when I graduated from graduate school in Spring 2020. So it was a pretty unique and challenging time to be on the job market. So I can definitely speak to that experience. Things have changed a little bit as we’ve made our way through this year, but I think some of the things I went through would hopefully inform other folks. And I planned to touch a little bit on the pros and cons of virtual job searching, especially as compared to a traditional on-campus experience. And then just some tips that might be useful for both job searchers and for folks on hiring committees. This is a little bit about me and what I hope to talk about today.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. We’re so glad you’re here, Margaret. Helena, let’s go to you.

Helena Gardner:
Hello, I am also very excited to be here today. I’m going through a virtual experience. It’s been a very interesting time. I’m Helena Gardner and I serve as the Director of University Housing at Colorado State University Go Rams. And I’m really hopeful to share some tips and advice on how candidates can really promote themselves through this experience from the lens of what employers are looking for and what we’re hoping to see. And again, I think this is one of the most challenging times in their career and to go through a job search at this time, I’m here for you.I want to support you through that and really hoping to share tips and advice from the other side, what you might want to think about as you present yourself and really hold the importance that interviewing works both ways.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. That’s so I’m so glad you’re here to be helpful. That’s really great. Jen, let’s hear from you.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Awesome. Well, hello. My name is Jen Meyers Pickard. I am a consultant at WittKieffer, which is an Executive Search Firm. I am part of our education practice. And so WittKieffer, what that means is that we are focused on search at sort of the Dean level and higher. So deans, vice presidents, provost presidents, across the nation and actually across the world. So I have been part of WittKieffer as a consultant for two and a half years now. But prior to that, I was on campuses for many, many years, almost 20. Most recently at the University of Arizona where I was for eight and a half years, but in my roles I always was in divisions of student affairs, enrollment management, and student success, you know, crossing all over all of those areas. So fit in your seat, do a lot of vice president for student affairs and Dean of students searches. For sure. So feeling very, very connected to that to my groups in my core in student affairs and excited to be here, being a consultant, we’re sitting on both sides, right? We are walking alongside candidates as they get ready and engage in this process and make the important decision to say, yes, I’m willing to potentially move in a pandemic and, or engage, you know, or switched careers and in a pandemic, as well as the employers who are extremely, you know, some, some are more comfortable than others in the virtual realm and doing it this way and literally moving their entire communities into this virtual process, which can at the start feel different. But then in the end, I think has some great advantages, Oh, I’ll hang on to those spots for question.

Keith Edwards:
Jen where did you do your doctoral work.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
I might’ve done my doctoral work at the University of Maryland. Along with you, Keith.

Keith Edwards:
Go Terps. I did not plan this, but my master’s degree is Colorado state, my doctorate, Maryland. And then I worked at Macalester for eight years. So we invited each of you because I know you’re in your fabulous people. And it just turned out to be homecoming week here for them that has no bearing on the conversation, but I’m glad you’re all here. Jen, let’s start with you. You’ve been supporting both, as you mentioned, both candidates and employers doing virtual job searches for a year now. And I imagine you were doing virtual interviewing other things even before that. What do you wish more folks knew about virtual processes?

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Yeah. So it’s funny, you mentioned the prior, right? Because that is actually been something that I think is really interesting. I would say maybe about a quarter to a third of our search engagements were had a virtual component to them. Right. Whether it was mostly, that would be like a semifinalist interview when you do your sort of first round of interviews. So obviously we had some skill and experience in this, but then all of a sudden, you know, the whole world changed. And literally, you know, one week we were on airplanes and the next week we were, you know, sitting in front of our computers 24 hours a day. So when I think about, you know, I’ve really been thinking broadly a lot about, you know, what individuals need to bring to a search setting, right? Or to the process as a whole, not just even, you know, in your interviews when you’re thinking about our current world circumstances, I really think that, and I know my colleagues that would keep her, we totally agree that this is an opportunity for and actually I think the expectation now of hiring authorities, that you are going to highlight your skills and strengths that you have developed as a result of our world circumstance and COVID so whether that’s crisis and risk management that has been, you know, literally laid in your lap, whether it’s online engagement and student success efforts, of course, everyone’s talking about what it’s like to be in the classroom online, but what’s it like to actually create a freshman year experience or, you know, the continued experience for those students who already work commuting and, or adult learners and so on.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
So I think that’s really important. It is important. It is a absolute moment for us to be talking about diversity, equity and inclusion and how we include access into all that we are doing and making our, all of our, and every element accessible to all different types of student populations and faculty and staff too, as well. And then your adapted adaptability and resilience that has come as a result of everything that we have gone through in the past year. So I think one thing I would say in relation to this is do not wait for the interview to bring these things up, do not, do not, do not, these need to be incorporated into your cover letter and into your CV or resume, which, or however you’d like to phrase it. You know, what have you been asked to do what skills again have you gained and how have you sharpened those as a result of COVID, how have those increased your collaborations?

Jen Meyers Pickard:
How have those helped you to understand your academic partners better? All those sorts of things you need to have that in there, both in a metric form, right? Showing maybe, you know, data that is associated with that as well as sort of the qualitative form of all of that. The other piece that I kind of wanted to touch on in relation to that is, is the fact that hiring authority is at least at the beginning of the pandemic, we’re definitely a little more risk averse, I would say, right. They’re nervous about having to hire someone where if they’re even able to hire it all right, cause there’s so many places that are on hiring freezes. If they are given the opportunity to hire, they cannot mess it up. They have to get the right person, which they know to can be a challenge in my, you know, w they don’t want to necessarily not cast as wide a net, but they have to know that someone has the skills and the abilities, or at least the transferable skills to make this job work and to come to campus, whether that’s virtually or in person, and be able to, to, you know, hit the ground running for lack of a better term.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
So I think that, you know, again, this goes back to really being able to show how you have these abilities and skills and can do this work and helping them to feel comfortable that you have the knowledge of behind you to, to engage in this particular,

Keith Edwards:
This is one of the most misunderstood points for candidates as a candidate, you want to be the best you want to be the best resume, the best interviewer, the highest GPA, the most experienced, the most involved in professional associations. You want to be the best. And oftentimes employers are just not trying to make a mistake. They just don’t want to hire someone who will be difficult to the regret hiring who they’re going to have to do disciplinary procedures in six months. Like they just, and so many folks, when they’re hiring are thinking, I’d rather go with safe. This person will be easy to work with, easy to get along with, rather than maybe the better candidate who might be difficult and hard to get along with. So I think that is as I moved from candidate to then employer, that was a really big shift. And particularly as you were mentioning, this gets harder when we have, or thaws or things like that, where we have to get, you know, six weeks of HR approval before we can move forward with a search.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Right. It’s very complicated.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Thank you for letting me interrupt. Go ahead.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Yeah, no, the last thing I’ll mention, and then I want my other colleagues to be able to talk in on this is you know, it’s a time again, and this is sort of, it’s the really broadest sense of the term. It’s a time to be honest about what you need as a candidate and to share those needs, you know, in relation to this particular role. So, you know, now, does that mean that you’re going to get into the weeds of, you know, I need to be in this particular area, you know because of these really detailed things, no, it’s going to be a nod to, you know, and you should be doing this regardless, why this institution, why now, why do I, why do I want to be here and why now? And it’s okay to give a little bit more detail as to the why here and why now?

Jen Meyers Pickard:
I think, and the, the other piece there too, is that, you know, I personally sort of grew up in an area where you just talk about yourself, or you just talk about yourself. You just talk about yourself, like how I’m good in this role. And so on. I think that’s context. I think this texture that by provide sharing a little bit more about yourself and your letter sharing a little bit more about yourself in your first interview and second interviewing and so forth is really important. It humanizes you. And again, it brings us in this time when we’re sitting in interacting with one another on screens, it provides that sort of almost the in-between the meetings types of conversations that we would have had otherwise. And that literally would have been shared anyway, within the committee hiring.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. I’m thinking about walking the candidate from the chairs to the table, I’m thinking about all those little things.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Yes. And, you know, as, as search consultants, we’re in a different space. I’m talking to candidates beforehand. And then when I sit with a committee, who’s deciding who they’re going to bring forward for the next set of interviews, often those questions that come up like, well, why would this person want to work here? I have an answer for that. And I can share that in a lot of the situations for many, you know, that’s a, that’s a small fraction that are getting that extra attention to it, right. For everyone else, if you don’t make the case committee sometimes sort of make it up for you, right. Watch that happen, where they’re sort of developing a narrative that may or may not be true. So help them out, you know, it doesn’t have to be deep in the weeds, but it does need to, you know, nod to the fact of why you’re going to be there or why you want to be in that space.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah, I think that’s so important because when people make up the narratives, it’s filled with all their implicit biases and all the clerks like oppression and systemicisms that coming in. And we’re also reminding me when you’re talking about the year in COVID and everything else, right. Racial, injustice upheaval for racial equity. I’m also hearing so many of our colleagues in Canada and the US were saying, I’m kind of tired of living through once in a generation events. I’m kind of sick of being in the once in a hundred years, flood, cold, shift, power outage, whatever it is. And so I think it’s really wise to not just make this about COVID and virtual, but about the whole actions, insurrections, George Floyd, all of these different things. And and how that plays in. Well, I have a follow-up question for you, Jen, but Margaret, did you want to get in here at anything or ask anything?

Margaret Smith:
No. I mean, I think Jen, you are spot on and I am feeling like you just gave a lot of significant game for free. And I appreciate you saying that this is pre everything being virtual. These are things you should consider, but more importantly, if virtual is your only opportunity, you gotta pull it, bring it and give a little bit more to present who you are. And so I just, I think that was a gift and I wrote my own notes over here. So thank you for that.

Keith Edwards:
Well, well, great. Jen the follow up question I have is what have you seen as the benefits and downsides? What’s the upsides and downsides to virtual processes?

Jen Meyers Pickard:
I think that the, well, this can be an upside and a downside is we’re moving a little faster. And and it meant I’d have to laugh. My academic colleagues in Dean’s positions are like, Whoa, that’s going super fast. And I’m like, it’s okay. You’re going to be all right. You know? But but I have seen us move a little bit faster, right. Because we can be more efficient. We can, you know, more much more quickly organize you know, visits and things like that. So that, that plane tickets, six weeks out, plane tickets, no hotels, no getting caught in snow storms. No. Any of that. So it makes the world a lot easier in that risk.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
What I would say though, is, you know, you as a campus, you need to be ready that if they can get this process done faster, that might mean that they want it there faster, right? Like, so this isn’t going to be, we’re going to wait till the end of the term and you get to make this perfect transition of things, right? Like we’ll in student affairs in general is much better at that than the rest of our colleagues within. I think the Academy side. You know, we do a lot more mid year, mid wherever transitions. But I think that, you know, you need to be asking that and are you ready for that? Right. If you thought this was going to be a summer transition or a January transition, it might be a March transition. And so be ready for that.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
The other piece too, is you might not have to move yet. Maybe if you could be going across the country and you might be able to sit and stay. I have a candidate who was recently placed families in East coast. University is in, you know, mountain time. She’s staying at her institution or excuse me at her institution, her home until the summer, because it made sense with kids, with family, with all that sort of stuff. And the university was completely fine with it. I mean, they worked it out obviously, but and coordinate on that way. So there’s a lot more flexibility, but we also might move a touch faster than we think. I think the other thing is that maybe this is a bit of the downside is we just have to remember that if the minute that you start engaging, you know, in any sort of probably a zoom, right.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Probably not likely to be a phone call. What is you get out of your pandemic world and pretend that you were sitting in a conference room. Yes. You need come looking like all of us here, professional, you know, ready to go, ready to go. So we’ve become very relaxed in our COVID world and I am a little bit shocked at what I see coming. And I don’t care if the committee comes in their PJ’s, you come ready to impress, right. As if you were walking into a giant boardroom, you also make sure that your professional, your surroundings are as professional as possible. Now I always laugh. My home office is in my guest bedroom. You can see the corner of my bed back there, I guess, but what there’s nothing I can do about that. That’s fine. That’s okay.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
But everything else is nice and, you know, it looks great and stuff, and my colleagues, they look great in their spaces too. So, you know, just trying to do those sorts of things. We have kids, we have dogs, we have dogs losing their mind when Amazon shows up, which we could hear my German shepherd at any point here now. So, but that happened, but try to remove the distraction as much as you can, but, you know, just has to be ready. You gotta have the lighting right next to the camera. We all have heard this. You would be shocked how many people show up and they’re like, this to the camera. That’s scary. Nobody needs to see that. So the other piece that I would just say, though, is practice. It is different to be sitting here, having a conversation and looking at the camera and looking at my, you know, Brady Bunch boxes on the, on the screen.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
And so on than it is to be in a staff meeting where we can be on our email and looking at the screen over here and doing this and so on and so forth. It’s very different, so you need to practice, you need to figure out where your notes go. You need to figure out how you’re going to look smooth and transition and all of those things, if you haven’t had the chance to do that yet. And then the last thing I will say is that, well, the other piece too, is, you know, one of my colleagues, Kim Brettschneider wrote an amazing piece called I think it’s a, what is she called? How to ACE the virtual interview. So I would look for that on the WittKieffer site, it was also posted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and there’s a look at better.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Yeah. But the last thing that I would just say is just, it’s, you know, we might not be in the same room together, but there are ways in which this interaction online has become actually in some ways more intimate and connected, right. When you’re in a big room with people far away from you, you can’t see their reactions in the same way that you do on your screen. And so there’s ways where, you know, we’re having a great conversation here. It’s like, we’re on the couch together or in the boardroom together, you know? And so there’s lots of ways where it can still feel as intimate and fun and laugh and smile and bring your personality. Because I think that’s the thing that people are worried is going to be gone. And there’s, you know, you can be inter I’ve seen introverts do spectacular really in this way, you know, and the extroverts as well, too. So, you know, just, just be you and just try to engage in and interact as much as you can.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. I want to highlight two things. I think our previous podcast about what should change post COVID, one of the things was we should just break more rules. We should get rid of more rules. We should eliminate more rules. We just have all these antiquated rules. And one of them is how long will it takes to hire someone? I just heard from we’ll keep, we’ll keep the person on name, but lost an RD an RD quit, hired a new RD in three days and said, you know, we’re in a pandemic. We are in crisis mode. We cannot not have this position filled. HR will figure it out later. They can be mad at me down the road, but we’re going to do this. We’re going to do this as quickly as possible. I don’t think that’s where we want to be, but it’s certainly, maybe it could be less than eight months, right.

Keith Edwards:
To move to a position. And then you mentioned the distractions of dogs, barking, kids crying, whatever happening. I think it really that’s life. Right. And how we handle the distraction, right. The dogs barking is not your fault, but when you handle it with poise and panache, that’s impressive. Right. So how do you handle the reality of the world that we’re in? Helena, you’ve been leading virtual search processes and interviewing candidates. What would you like candidates to know about what folks conducting the interviews? What’s your insight into people leading interviews, conducting interviews and making, hiring decisions?

Helena Gardner:
You know, I, I think Jen hit on very well that you have to do a little bit more to present yourself, to let any employer know who you are and what you’re bringing. And that’s different for everyone. And I found sitting in, on other departments, virtual interviews, the chatter behind the scene that people don’t know. I think we often forget about how, gosh, I like to call it human behavior. There’s there real pieces of I’m looking for these answers, here’s my rubric. But then there’s also how humans receive information. And, as we will all tell you, the virtual experience has changed how we receive and how we interface. And so it’s just really important that you show up the way you want to be received. And that’s just really critical. And Ithink about Jen, you shared about, you know, how to look at your professionalism and in his daily work, I do.

Helena Gardner:
I know that professionalism is under, is under a microscope right now to use that language, to use that word has many different types of perceptions associations with whiteness systemic type things. And what I would offer in this environment, it becomes really important. How you tell your story. So professionalism, isn’t the thing you’re on beneath that is what do you want people to receive about you? How do you want them to receive you? If you are needing to express yourself in a particular way, you have to lead with that. Because again, what is missing is the walk to lunch, the walk to the next interview, the casual pieces, where your personality comes out, right? Where the experience of who you are comes out. And that to me is human behavior. We remember experiences. That’s how brains work. We remember experiences. And so how a person experiences you is really important.

Helena Gardner:
I have seen it very difficult. A lot of student affairs, we do these we do these open forums and we invite the whole campus to come and watch you perform. And what is really interesting in a virtual environment is that you can’t receive the audience. So your energy is off. And you don’t know if people are hearing you, or if they’re feeling you where they got your joke, you know, you don’t have that anymore. Everyone’s muted, right? Everyone’s muted. It feels like you’re talking to the air. Like you are just going and talking and you are believing, you’re connecting. And so it’s just really important that you present yourself as a way of connecting as a way of being, and, and the days are long and you will get tired. And I am tired of being on virtual meetings. I’m exhausted from it.

Helena Gardner:
So to sit through an interview with a stranger, that’s a whole different dynamic, but how that stranger is engaging is what it calls upon. I’m a hundred percent introvert, a hundred percent. I also find the virtual environment to be an opportunity for me to assert myself differently in a way I may not show up and just, I may not show up. If we’re in the same room together, I got my anxiety, I got my nerves, but when I’m virtual and I’m in my house and I have my things, then I can be comfortable again, if professionalism, isn’t your thing. You only need about this much right here. Right? Like you only need this much to tell your story and that’s part of it. And, also you got to do a little bit more, your answer’s gotta be a little bit more thorough. Your examples need to be very exact because you don’t have room for the non-verbal interpretation. You know, you don’t have the opportunity

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Room to stay on longer. Right. Schedules have been even tighter, right. The schedules are,

Helena Gardner:
That is because when it ends, it ends, there’s not, you can go over. You just really have to be exactly. So I think it’s just a really, it’s a challenging time. I actually was talking to a graduate student just the other day about how you leave that impression. What did you share? What did you talk about in the, what, you know, I think that during this time of COVID as an administrator that makes a lot of decisions. I hear my staff share daily that they’re not a part of the decision-making. They felt excluded from the planning processes. And as an administrator, I will always hold that depending on where you’re at, what institution, what style institution you’re going to experience, decision-making very differently. But what do you know about your experience through this pandemic? How have you had to lead differently?

Helena Gardner:
How have you had to support students differently? How have you engaged with parents? What skills did you pull upon, those are the stories you want to tell. You want to talk about how you tangibly have had to lead. And I do think there’s a lot more, that’s gone on in a pandemic during this time. But in fact, because of the level of stress I’m carrying as an employer, it’s on my mind pretty heavily, right? I want to know your whole picture, but I also need to know that if I’m going to bring you in during this time, just like Keith said, just like you said, Jen, I’m thinking about my budget. I’m thinking about the long document I have to submit to get approval, to hire during the hiring chill. I’m thinking about my limited opportunities to bring staff to campus. I’m thinking about the positions.

Helena Gardner:
I couldn’t fill right. And I’m looking at you, like, what are you really bringing? Cause I might need you to do this, to tell your story, tell your whole story. Like we really have to take advantage of this time to be exact and to be I think when my, myself, sorry, saying authentic, what does being authentic mean on this camera? How are you expressing who you are? And to me that does get into things like, yeah, I got a dog, I have a dog. So how do you lead with this is me. Here’s what’s going on in my house up front. Where are you buying your grace so that when you need to navigate that water, you’ve already bought the grace. And now people are like, you do have a dog. I do, I do have a three-year-old they’re going to be three, three years are going to be three. They could care less, but how set up your authentic. So I think it becomes a really important virtually. And you are in charge of telling that,

Keith Edwards:
Right? You’re reminding me, Helena about I think so many candidates particularly really smart savvy ones. They can figure out what they think, the committee, the hiring authority wants, and they can be it. And they usually regret it. Right. Cause if I figure out what Jen wants and it’s these things and these skills, and I perform that in an interview, which I can do. And Jen hires me. I have to now do that every day. Right? So you better it, right? But if you are genuine and authentic, and this is who I am and may say, you’re fabulous, but not what we’re looking for. That might be a blessing, right? That’s a blessing. How do you show up and be genuine and authentic? And if they’re into that, then you get to, you get to be that every day. And that is a load off your, you were also reminding me how important admin assistants used to be in the process as you went to meet with the VP, how you chatted with the admin assistant or didn’t or what, and that I saw that so often, and that has eliminated.

Helena Gardner:
Yeah. And I think that’s where that awkward space happens as we like transitioned between zoom meetings and you’re kind of sitting there and you’re waiting for folks to come into the space. I really appreciate when a candidate is kind of engaging in that moment. It’s a weird moment. It’s a very weird moment to wait for all the cameras to turn on and it can be overwhelming, you know? And, and it’s also your moment to show a little bit of who you are, you know, I think like, wow, there’s a lot of people. That’s okay. How you say that? Why are you overwhelmed with that? People will interpret that. But your acknowledgement of what is happening for you is I think where you get to share some of that personality, right?

Keith Edwards:
Margaret, you did this a year ago. I hope we’re not giving you flashbacks bringing on the virtual candidate. What would you like to share with people who are about to embark on this journey? I feel like you’re the Jedi master to the Padawan. How would you like to lead them forward? Whatwould you like to share with folks who haven’t been through this, on our, about to.

Margaret Smith:
Yes. Thank you so much. Well, I hope I can, you know, offer some guidance for sure. I’m one of many who went through this and I, again I mentioned my context doesn’t get as important because I, again, my cohort of students were we’re being prepared for a normal quote unquote process. And then all of this happened and we were really blindsided. So I will say that’s a lot of what I’m coming, where I’m coming from. And I think that one advantage folks will have now is that we have been on zoom for, what is it? Nine, 10 months at point you have a lot more skill than you probably know. You have a lot more comfortable with zoom. I know that it was still really, it felt like I was wearing mittens. That’s what I kept saying.

Margaret Smith:
Trying to do things with gloves on, like, I couldn’t do things how I normally would. And so I will say like, I bring my comments come from, like it was happening and the jobs were freezing left and right. I and my colleagues in my cohort and others, you know, dealt with a lot of uncertainty around the job search, like just getting to do a job search was huge because so many of them went away. And so I hope that the ones that are out there now are a little bit more on solid ground. I really hope that for this group

Keith Edwards:
And resources, right. The zoom, I guess like this. Yeah. There’s more out there to pull from and learn from than you had.

Margaret Smith:
Absolutely. And so I say that just to hopefully give people a sense of like, you know, more than at least the class of 2020, hopefully most of us. So that’s something to say. I’ll also just kind of the way my brain went with the question Keith was to think about again, sort of just the disadvantages, but also the advantages of the virtual space. And when I’m talking about the virtual job search, I go to the on-campus variance or the finalist round because everything else has, I think one of my colleagues was saying earlier a lot of that was screen was a phone screen was a zoom call. That happened for me and some of the job processes before COVID hit. I was like, you know, on the phone or on a screen with folks. And so it’s really that on-campus experience or finalists around that, that is disrupted in that major way, I think.

Margaret Smith:
And so I’ll start with the disadvantages, cause I like to end on a positive notes personally. So some of the things that I I thought about was you know, the challenge is you don’t get to see the place, right? That’s the biggest thing or meet the people in person that’s obvious. But for me, I know I ended up in the twin cities. I had never been here before ever. So I went a wing and a prayer and lots of internet research. And so that’s something that you don’t get to do, but there is a lot you can, I was up in YouTube. Let me tell you, like, tell me about Minneapolis. You know, like talking to anyone I could talk to you know, you have to, as my colleagues have talked about, there’s a burden on you to present yourself and your personality in a way that you maybe took for granted in a typical day where you’re just walking through space, you have to decide like, am I a person who presents warmth to a camera or do I sit back and just wait?

Margaret Smith:
Like, what does that communicate to your audience? So you really have to think about your face, believe it or not. You have to, I mean, another thing is just you’re relying on websites. So if you’re not seeing things and you have questions it’s on you to ask. But that isn’t, that is a little bit of a challenge. Like you’re going off a lot of marketing, frankly, at the end of the day. A weird thing to say too, and this is maybe just a perspective others have had with other meeting stuff, but you pour yourself into this, this, you know, five, six hours of your life. And then you say done, you close your computer and you’re still dressed up fancy in your own house. And so it’s a strange feeling.

Margaret Smith:
You know, you’ve earned this like moment, but it’s very like anti-climactic. And so thinking about ways that you can like still celebrate that without feeling like, you know, here I am still yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s the nervousness about technology. There’s back to, back to back to back meetings, potentially you’re going to get scheduled for maybe, and then just like eye contact. Like it’s really hard to both look and look, look, look, you know, in a way that, you know, most of us are used to at a table, we can scan, we can look. So those will say, okay, I mentioned those first again, because those are some of the challenges I noticed and disadvantages to the format. However, I do think there are some advantages and I really like to focus on those because I think there are some things I noticed that were positive for me.

Margaret Smith:
So one is, and I, and I will say I’m comparing this to, they did do an on-campus interview process for right before COVID literally, so I got to experience one and then it was like, okay, now we’re in virtual land. So one thing is, you know, if you haven’t done it on-campus for the travel can be grueling, it can be very, very intense on your body. And so you’re, and you’re heading into this really intense experience. So if you’re, that is something that does affect you. And so you don’t have to deal with that, which is a positive. I also thought of the interview as a lot more of open notes than it would be normally, not that you can’t bring notes and you should, and you should have your resume. I do that in an in person interview environment often, but I was able to like lay my notes out in a way that I felt like I had everything I needed right there.

Margaret Smith:
And I didn’t think it would be strange to take that moment to refer to an idea or something. So if you’re someone who like, feels nervous about interviews, that is huge. I would say Oh, you get to focus on, I guess I’ll I’ll comment. Like when you’re, when you’re on, on-campus like every single minute you are on, you are eating lunch, you’re on, you are going to the bathroom, you were on, like you were on all the time. And so you do potentially get those little moments of downtime in a virtual interview, even if it’s a five minutes, like just to get through, you know, what am I doing? That is a definite positive here. If you’re like still wanting to recharge you have less time and resources expended. There’s a lot more accessibility in many ways. Like some of my colleagues talks about a couple more, just, you know when you’re being asked to present, because you’re often asked to put together a presentation it’s really different to be up in front of a bunch of strangers, click, click clicking through your PowerPoint and doing public speaking. It’s really different to like share your screen and talk. It’s a lot. I found it to be much easier and I enjoy public speaking, but I was like, Oh, this isn’t, this is just more approachable because it’s not as vulnerable. Weirdly you get to remember people’s names and pronouns easier. Cause they’re right there. That’s huge. Sometimes you’re like, who was that person? I need to send them a note. I don’t remember.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Google them on the spot. Yeah, absolutely.

Margaret Smith:
Yes. You sure can. Jen, that’s a really good point. And you know, on the flip side you might get more breaks just generally, depending on how your day is scheduled. So again, I, those are just how I interpreted it, but I think really the biggest thing is how important it is to examine your values, to do your research, prepare, prepare questions, because I think we’ve talked about a little bit, but you’re interviewing them too. And so that’s huge. You’re not just a passive person in this experience. You, haven’t got to ask the things you need to know and you need to present yourself and own your experience. Just tackle some of the things that my colleagues have set. So those are some of these ways I interpreted it

Jen Meyers Pickard:
In Margaret thinking about thinking about a couple of things that you said like as far as you know, so if someone’s experiencing a lot of anxiety about moving somewhere where they’ve never been again asking for what you need, right. Is there a staff member who would walk me around best on their phone and give that candidates? You know, again, even if these really high levels, they’re like, this was wonderful to get, to see the new science space or to see this or do that. And they were feeling as attended to if not more so, because a couple of, you know, one or two people maybe were able to safely walk around and do that for them. And so that was really, really nice. Right. And then the other piece, like I was thinking about, you know, these grueling schedules on the side of both the hiring authority and even as a candidate, you’re great.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Let’s what if my interview was not one solid day, but two mornings or two afternoons, or however you may want to mix it up. Right. We, it’s funny to me how we’re so talk about caught in our ways, right? The things that we need to get rid of our role is we have to see you for 24 hours and we got to do it all in one shot and you have to run the gauntlet. It’s like hazing, right? You don’t have to be, here’s the way that I was hazed. And otherwise it’s just not acceptable. You know, does it get more complicated on the side of the, of the university as they have to figure out the logistics of all of that? Yes it does. Does it make it easier sometimes even for those who are doing the evaluation and the interviewing to then be able to have people sort of side by side one another, and then they’re able to say, Oh, well I liked this. And this was different, you know, from the evaluation standpoint, they can do more that there’s it’s easier comparison. Sometimes if those things are more closely connected and so on. And so, you know, just to be creative, we don’t have to stick to it.

Helena Gardner:
You know, Jen, I think that’s, that’s such a solid point. And I’m thinking about interviews. We have coming up where some of our challenges have been these full day schedules. And just really like, this is weird notion that because we’re virtual, we feel like we have more time, but in fact,

Keith Edwards:
No, I don’t know anybody who has more time now

Helena Gardner:
And it’s less nimble. Right. And so I really love that. Spread it out. And I do think in terms of having self agency, right, this is a great time to be very direct in what you need. And if an employer can’t do it, challenge us to say what we can’t do, but then think critically about what does that can’t mean long term, right? Like what is that, what does that mean about your happiness at that institution? I’m an, I’m an honest person. So I would tell her like time, this or that, but I can do this for you. I can do that. I think something that’s always a pet peeve for me. So I’ll just say it just out there in case people see me again in a search process is when you ask a person why you’re interested in this position and they say things like, I really like Colorado and I’m just like, okay, sure like that doesn’t actually do anything for me, but now more than ever, I think it’s a time to talk about what you enjoy about Colorado and how that contributes to your success.

Helena Gardner:
Right? If you are needing to know what an environment is like, and you are asking, can someone walk me around, go ahead and let a person know what it is you’re looking for. For me, I’m always looking for an environment that has some reflection of people of color so that my son has something that he can connect to. I’m a little bit older in life. And so my connections are important, but not as important as my child. And therefore, to be able to say, is there someone on your campus that can talk to me about the black experience in that area? I enjoy Colorado because my family’s a couple hours down a road. And I’ve learned through this pandemic experience, how important it is for me to have support. What would help me is if you would show me your campus because I’ve never moved before and I’m anxious about it.

Helena Gardner:
So help me help me. Right? And to me, that’s why it works both ways. And now more than ever, if, if I like to say, I want candidates to be hungry as an employers, I think we’re really hungry because of that quick turnaround, because of how long we’ve set that I’ve been in a hiring chill for over 300 days now. So if I’m looking for someone finally, I’m really hungry. And I want to be my best self because I want to wrap this up. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get a search again. Well, and you don’t know if this one’s going get canceled. So I think

Keith Edwards:
That if people, if you feel like the employer is moving quickly, it might be because if I can hire you this week, I can hire you. And next week they’re going to shut everything down. So being with that, Margaret, I love what you’re sharing for about your candidate experience. So many very practical, tangible under the radar things we’re running out of time. So if you can real quickly, are there any suggestions you’d have for employers who want to be kind and human to candidates? What would you like employers to know about the candidate experience?

Margaret Smith:
Yeah, I would say just to bounce off what Helena was saying was, you know, offering, if you can proactively offering, like, if you need to learn about any particular pillar aspects of living in this community or at this campus, please let us know. Even just offering that a lot of candidates are still really scared of advocating for themselves. I think because it’s a hiring persons market, let’s say there’s a lot of us wanting jobs and few jobs. So you’re a little bit nervous to ask some of those things sometimes. So you can, you can extend that like, is there afinity group I can talk with et cetera? I would say honesty goes both ways. I think that the staff on hiring committees should be honest about the place that they’re talking about. Again, we’re going off marketing material.

Margaret Smith:
We don’t always know a ton of people at these places. And so not, you know, there’s a balance there, of course, but if you’re selling a romanticized version of your campus or this job it’s not going to set this person up for success either. So I think that’s important about culture and the place. This is maybe an odd one, but don’t apologize so much for that at, not this not being a normal experience. I can’t tell you how many times it’s like, I’m really sorry. Like you can’t have a normal thing. Sorry. We can have you at breakfast. Sorry. Sorry. And I was like, you know what? Don’t even go there. Let’s just accept the reality. Let’s move forward because it’s almost worse to be like, I know it’s not the same, but here we are. I’ll say just one other thing to bring back from earlier, if you can provide like our zoom expectations are X, Y, Z, that helps people.

Margaret Smith:
Cause they’re, I’ve talked to even students who are so overwhelmed by the background question that they literally like, what’s behind you. That they’re like, I don’t know if I should apply. I don’t have the right background. And so if you can just say, use a virtual background or use a blank wall or whatever you have is fine, or we don’t care if your dog barks. Like you can say that that takes a ton of anxiety off the plate at the candidate and shows your values of being inclusive. Let me see if I have anything else. I would just say we’re also going off what we see just in front of us on a call. So if I’m, if I will say, you know, sometimes you go into a virtual call and you see a hiring committee that looks like they are asleep or really not happy to be there. It also tells me somewhere. Yep. Like they’ve been, yeah, exactly. Like they’ve been locked on zoom for hours. It also tells me

Jen Meyers Pickard:
Like, well, this place seems like maybe they are not so happy. Do I want to be here too? So it kind of goes both ways. I know there’s fatigue. And so being honest or at least being a little bit aware, like a candidate is also reading your faces and expressions. It is important to think about. So that’s what I got. Thank you so much.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
You’ve given many of the best practice tips that we give to committees. Now, whether they follow them, it’s different. Right. But the best practice tips, because what you just said about be alive, right? Like the candidate is here bringing their best self. Right. They’re trying their best to do that. Yes. We asked you to keep on mute if you’re in a committee, right. Just to keep pounding on the, on the, on the distraction. Cause we don’t want to make anybody nervous. We’ve literally had dogs, how howling at each other from across the fence. Right. So which is hilarious, but that’s not the right. You know, we have other things. So those are great things. But you know, what’s fun is when I have been in committees where I have a big screen, they fill my entire screen. Right. Yet, even though they’re on mute, they’re paying attention to see their heads nodding. Like, don’t see this because they’re doing,

Helena Gardner:
They’re not looking at their, their cell phones.

Jen Meyers Pickard:
They’re nodding, they’re engaging. When something funny happens, you see them laugh. You know, that sort of thing. The other quick thing, I was just going to say about campus forums. You’re right. It’s horrible. When they’re just like in a vacuum, have someone moderate it. Where’s the conversation between the search committee chair and the candidate. Why do we need to have, you know, get up and give the presentation. We can have a whole other conversation about it if that has any value whatsoever. But like, you know, like have one or two people, moderate it and be sending in questions and things. Because this is not that hard.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Awesome. Thank you all. We are running out of time to quote Hamilton but this podcast and one last question real quick. If we can, this podcast is called Student Affairs Now I want to know what you all would suggest advise, what’s one last thing you want to know for folks heading into this process right now, let’s go with Jen, Helena and Margaret, go ahead, Jen, what do you want folks to know right now?

Jen Meyers Pickard:
I think I like advice. Bring yourself. You bring yourself the, you present your authentic self and if it is the right fit for you and fits the wrong word, if it is going to be a good connection between you and that campus community, you’re going to know it. They’re going to know it and it’s going to work itself out. And if it’s not, there’s lots of other opportunities out there. It might not feel like it right now, but there are, and it will happen.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. Helena.

Helena Gardner:
What I would offer is centering marginalized identities has always been important right now. People want to do it. And therefore what I would offer is it’s not just the diversity question. It’s all of your responses. It is how you do this work in everything. And I’m hoping as we continue to evolve as a people, we’re able to move into that and to be comfortable with that. And look for ways in a time of a conflict, working with the supervisee, managing a supervisor, use those as real experiences. Don’t save how you intend to improve the world for one question, right? Bring your whole self, your real values into every single question.

Keith Edwards:
Great. Love it.

Margaret Smith:
Yeah. That’s a great stuff. I would say. It’s simple, simple message. I think I heard it from my colleagues. They want you to be good. The hiring committee wants you to be good. Yeah. They brought you there because they want to hire somebody. They’re excited. They want you to make their life easier. So be you bring your best, do your best and know that at the end of the day, like those people like have your best intention they want you to do well. I think knowing that in my, the back of my head has always been beneficial for me as I, if you feel nervous, sorry, imposter, imposter feelings come up at all. So that’s my little mantra.

Keith Edwards:
I would echo that because my last words of advice to anybody going into the interview day or the interview process is bring the best version of you. Don’t be like, Jen, don’t be like Margaret, be the best version of you, the mediocre version of you, best version of you, whatever that is today. Thanks to each of you so much. This has been amazing. And I hope it’s so helpful for those about going into this process. It can be really scary and anxiety producing. I think you even so much framing, practical tips, suggestions, and reassurance has been fabulous. Thanks to your help getting us to better understand these processes and moving into it and good luck to all of you who are about to go into these virtual job searching processes. We’re all rooting for you. To our listeners, you can see reminders about this and other episodes by subscribing to the Student Affairs Now, newsletter or browse our archives at studentaffairsnow.com. Thanks to our sponsors today, LeaderShape and Anthology, please subscribe to the podcast and invite others to subscribe, share on social, leave a five star review. It really helps conversations like this reach a big audience, which helps us continue to make it free for all of you. Again, I’m Keith Edwards, thanks to our fabulous guests today who all went to work at great schools and to everyone who is watching and listening, make it a great week. Thanks all.

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