The Grind Podcast

Tuyen has turned her job search around but now has a new problem. She needs to respond to a job offer before she hears back from her dream job. We bring on Phil Strazzulla, the founder of NextWave Hire, to help us learn what a job is really like before we accept. This episode is produced by UW student, Taylor McAvoy.

This week we meet Tuyen, a first generation Vietnamese American who spent her childhood living in cramped motel room that she shared with her entire family. We’ll follow Tuyen through the ups and downs of her job search as she struggles to parlay a degree in UX design to a career in Seattle’s competitive tech sector. Our guests will be Annika Larson (a recent UW graduate) and Karin Rogers (a counselor at the UW mental health clinic). We’ll also have a special update from producer Warren.

David Chase was laid off from his job earlier this year. The first thing he did was post about it on Linkedin. That post got over 1,000,000 views, 20,000 likes, and 2,000 comments. David is our guest this week on The Grind to talk about vulnerability on social media and his plans to create a “Real Linkedin”.

This week, we’re talking about networking again with Heather Redman, a Seattle-based venture capitalist and executive. To the surprise of many who know her professionally, Heather is an introvert. We talk about how networking as an introvert can make you more purposeful and how she works to keep herself “open” each day.

This week, Ignacio’s job search gets serious and he starts making connections. To help him, we bring on one of the world’s best networkers, the self-proclaimed “Snooki of Harvard Business School”, and Marc's business-school hero, venture capitalist, Heidi Roizen. We talk about why she hates the term networking, the best way to get someone’s attention with a cold email, and how to make “networking events” less horrible.

And we’re back! As a holiday present to The Grind, share this episode with a friend.   Today, we meet Ignacio, a young professional who fought his way from a challenging childhood in Wapato to a prestigious tech job in Seattle. So why isn’t he satisfied? We bring on former LinkedIn employee Ana De Sousa to share her social media tips and help us answer the question: Should we shut off our social media or make it an asset during a job search?

In this episode, we catch-up with Youcef after his summer internship at Madrona. We talk about the self-doubt that he experienced after his first round of internship rejections, how he almost called in sick for his Madrona interview, and what he learned this summer. We also talk about what his internship success has meant to his family and how he’s paying it forward with young people in his hometown of Federal Way. This is our last episode of 2017. We’ll be back with fresh episodes in 2018. Happy holida

Before they can focus on this week’s episode, Marc and Warren are desperate for an update from Youcef on his latest internship lead. To cut the tension, Marc tells his most embarrassing work-related story. We also bring on Ambika Singh, the CEO and Founder of Armoire, who tells us how to dress for work and why we should care about what we wear in the first place. Finally, we meet our production intern, Alex, and ask him how he likes his new bosses.

Marc reconnects with Youcef who is disappointed after striking out on his first rd. of interviews. Youcef rededicates himself submitting 150 new apps. Marc and Warren wonder if this scattershot approach is a good use of his time especially after he uncovers a new live lead demanding his focus. To answer this question, we consult two hiring managers. We cover job boards, cover letters, resumes, referrals and try to answer the question: "Is it better to be focused or scattershot when applying for jobs?"

Last week, we talked about whether to be honest in interviews. This week, we ask why interviews need to exist at all. We bring on Jason Dana, a professor at Yale School of Management, whose research on interviews was featured in a New York Times Article entitled “The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews.” This week, our episode is sponsored by Adam Greenberg. Read his blog post about AmeriCorps NCCC at https://www.thegrindpodcast.com/blog/.

On this week’s episode we meet Youcef, a computer science student from UW-Tacoma trying to break into the tech industry. He’s been getting internship interviews at major firms but hasn’t been able to close the deal. Marc and Warren wonder if perhaps he’s being too honest in his interviews.

Marc catches up with Amina four months after her last update. We talk the MCAT, medical school applications, and dealing with adversity...publicly. We also talk about the difficult life of a doctor and wonder if it’s okay to be unhappy if you’re doing something meaningful. Is our first obligation to ourselves or our community? We’re off next week but back 11/16 to introduce a new voice.

Marc and Warren are two cisgender men, which doesn’t make them experts about this week’s topic, women. And more specifically, challenges facing women in the workplace. Luckily, we bring on Annie Dean, founder of WERK, an online job marketplace for women seeking flexible work arrangements without giving up the leadership track. Annie talks to us about the future of work and flexibility and we test her ideas with two college students and a new working mother.

This week we revisit Amina, a senior at the UW, who thinks she has her life planned out, only to discover, maybe she doesn’t. A summer research job takes on new meaning as she works on developing a vaccine for malaria, a disease she suffered from growing up. Marc brings on New York Times bestselling author Emily Esfahani Smith to help understand the difference between happiness and meaning. And we ask Amina if she still feels 100% sure about medical school.

In Part 2, we reintroduce Amina, a senior at the UW who plans her life to the minute and is 100% sure she wants to go to medical school. Marc and Warren bring on Kat Koh to help them get clear on careers. Kat takes us on a journey and introduces a Japanese flower that helps you plan your life, convinces us that compasses are better than maps, and makes us imagine frogs jumping to lilypads. It’s out there. We endeavour to answer our question: Is it better to have a life plan or live in the moment?