Engineers' Gate
Edition #3: Just say no to NPC talk
You may be thinking, why Engineer’s Gate?
It’s the entry point to Central Park for the New York City marathon.
My favorite place & my favorite event to bring everyone together.
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I’m a New Yorker, avid marathoner, and technical recruiter looking to give back to the city & industry that made me.
I moved to New York City for love on a $15 bus from Boston with 1 taped up suitcase to my name. Now I’m a successful business owner, wife, and mother with a mission to get you to a better place. You define what better means.
Each issue explores:
Reframe of a common interviewing & hiring scenario
Life in New York City
Running insight of the week
Join the journey.
Reframe
Just like managers are tired of hearing you’re looking for a “growth opportunity” when they ask why you are looking for a job, people interviewing are tired of hearing “we have the best people.”
This is what it sounds like after hearing the same line for 5th time from a new company:
What does this even mean?
You have people from the best schools, brand name companies, etc?
Or are they adaptable, lifelong learners, good teammates, etc.?
We know thanks to the Pareto Principle that 20% drives 80% of the results.
Stretching the truth is no way to start a solid relationship.
What can you say instead?
Think about what the person you want to make a job offer to would get after joining your team & delivering.
What would they learn?
New technology? New business process? Leadership?
How would their skills become more marketable?
What are their options at your firm after successful delivery?
What’s your vision for the team? How does it fit into the company’s vision?
In what way could their life improve by working at your company?
Speak to how the person benefits overall from joining your team instead of relying on the company brand name and compensation to do all the speaking for you.
You’re selling whether you are aware of it or not.
You need to differentiate from the other people relying on stale signals.
Not sure if the way you’re selling your jobs is competitive to what people are seeing on the market?
Click here to book a 7 minute assessment.
New York City
I don’t always run 5ks, but when I do it’s at Yankee Stadium.
*5K = 3.1 miles
This is it.
The race that made me fall in love with running & started my marathon journey. The race I trained for in Central Park.
Before this race, I thought that everyone who ran races was super fit & fast.
2 things I was not.
I avoided all things running to not feel like a loser out of my element.
All the nervous energy subsided when I saw what really happened.
All kinds of people towed the starting line that day.
Fast, slow, young, old, serious, casual, from all over the world.
All with the same goals. To finish & raise funds for cancer research.
The positive energy was electric. You could feel it.
The course takes you on every level of the stadium, including field level and behind the scenes past the visitor’s locker room.
Here are a few pics from race day:
My son ran (ran/walked) for the first time this year. He wrote the blue sign on his back in memory of our dog, JJ, who recently passed on.
Made it on the big screen jumbotron. Cool moment.
Iconic NY on the field.
The dugout where the baseball players sit.
Behind the scenes on the course.
I first ran this race to honor my friend’s Mom.
Little did I know I’d be running in memory of my Mom 3 years later, under team name Sue’s Crew.
100% of the funds raised for Damon Runyon goes to the researchers looking to improve outcomes for cancer patients.
I got chills when an email hit my inbox on a breakthrough they made on my Mom’s specific blood cancer.
Running
We all take breathing for granted. It’s an automated process we don’t even have to think about, until we run.
You can suck wind in and out through your mouth burning out quickly. Or rhythmically breathe in and out of your nose, running sustainably.
Exhaling more than inhaling..
Giving more than receiving.
If you’ve never tried it before, play around with 2 exhales 1 inhale or 3 exhales 2 inhales during your next run.
If that’s too much just focus on your exhales.
Notice how you feel.
Come for a run with me in Central Park to test it out.
See you next Monday!
Jen
PS: Please let me know your thoughts on other interview questions you’d never like to hear again.
I read every email.