The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music]
scan up nation
one of my favorite things about the
rising tide mastermind
is a session that we do call a full
cup and a full cup is where we bring
a tip or a trick to each other that can
really help improve our regular
day-to-day
and a few months back eric Russo member
of the mastermind and has been on the
podcast several times
he brought to us the rocket book
folks the rocket book is amazing the
rocket book
allows you to take notes just like you
would on any other
notebook but it has a scanning feature
that turns what you write into
searchable text
it makes your notes able for you
to find this was a game-changer for me
and I know it can be a game-changer for
you
we have an affiliate deal worked out
with the rocket book folks so you can go
to scaling up h2o.com forward slash
rocketbook and you can receive 15
off your first order of 20 or more
[Music]
welcome to scaling up the podcast where
we scale up on knowledge so we don’t
scale up our systems
my name is trace blackmore i get the
privilege of hosting
your favorite water treatment podcast
scaling up h2o
nation i know you are ready to get back
to normal and there are so many
organizations
out there that are having their
conventions
in person one of them that’s coming up
it’s right around the corner
is the water quality association wqa
they are having their convention and
expo
july 28 through 30th in las vegas
if you are interested in attending this
you can go to wqa.org
and you can attend that conference in
person they
are also doing a virtual experience
so if you are wanting to attend but
cannot for whatever reason
you can still get great information
from the virtual experience so again
that’s wqa.org you can find out
everything you want to know
about that another convention that’s
going to be
in person is the association of water
technologies
is having their convention and expo
september
22nd through 25th in providence road
island
they are not doing a virtual experience
it is
just going to be in person and if you
are a business owner you probably want
to get there
one day before because on september 21st
they are doing their business owners
meeting
and this is something that if you own a
business you definitely want to make
sure
that you attend folks it’s so good that
things are getting back to normal
we’re getting a lot of the vaccines out
there
people are feeling better about
attending conferences
in person and i don’t know about you but
i miss
seeing all of you last year it is
so good to be able to get back to normal
and see all of the wonderful people out
there in the scaling
up nation not all of the conferences
are coming back yet and one that i need
to inform you about is the legionella
conference
that was coming up this summer they have
decided to reschedule the legionella
conference
to spring of 2022.
to find out more information about that
you can go to
legionellaconference.org i think it’s
probably going to be a while until every
single conference is back in full swing
but really that’s a great setup for
what we are talking about today there
are so many conferences that are
just doing virtual or they are doing a
virtual
experience in addition to the live
experience
and many of us are taking advantage of
that virtual experience
but how do we know that we’re getting
the most
out of that virtual experience well
that’s what we’re talking about today
and you’re going to learn a lot about
what you should be doing when you attend
a conference virtually
[Music]
scaled up nation i’m so happy i can
reintroduce
a returning guest so donna schroeder
is with us today she’s going to be my
lab partner
and donna the last time we had you here
you were helping introverts
know what to do when we went to
in-person meetings do we still do
in-person meetings
well sometimes and hopefully again in
the future
but not right now and for us introverts
the pandemic has been wonderful
because now we don’t have to network in
person
we can do it all these other ways so
that’s what we’re going to talk about
today and you did a great job helping us
out
i got a lot of positive feedback that
wow the tips you gave in that made
people feel less overwhelmed so now it’s
not this
room full of people that they had to
meet they just had to make good
connections with three and so many
people
said wow that just changed my whole
outlook on that
and i’m able to do it so i am really
excited about today because i think
you’re getting ready to do the same
thing with all of these video meetings
that we’re doing today yes and i have
some really good tips about
video meetings and other ways
that we can network without being in
person
the biggest thing for us introverts is
that oh it was such a relief we didn’t
have to go to a conference in person
uh i’ve attended a couple of conferences
online now
virtually and i’m very excited about
that
it was just such a relief for me as an
introvert
but i have some great ideas for all of
your listeners
well i can’t wait to get into that
before we do
would you let the scaling up nation know
a little bit about what your day to day
is like
well i am a career counselor at a
university
texas tech university in lubbock texas
is the most wonderful place to work
and i have the best job in the entire
world
i’m a career counselor i work with all
students
we can help the that freshman coming in
and we can help that alumni who’s been
gone for 25 years
so i get a lot of different issues and
problems and
you know students with questions and
it’s so much fun
so um these are things that i have been
talking to my students about
because at the beginning of the pandemic
you know
everybody who had an internship they
rescinded the offer
and the students were going now what do
i do so
we’ve been working on ways to help
students
network and get their ideas out there
so that they can get that internship or
job now
hopefully this summer got our fingers
crossed
well i just want to add that the water
treatment industry never
shut down so hopefully if any of your
students got
internships with water treatment
companies those are continuing on
i am not sure but we’ve had a lot of
engineers
because they were able to relocate were
able to do
internships and so they might have been
in the water treatment area
well donna you said that you celebrate
because now you don’t have to go to
some of these in-person meetings and i
miss that i want to see everybody
but here’s the thing that that i find uh
different
isn’t it more pressure on somebody to
have a
a picture in front of you or nine
pictures
of people in front of you and now you’re
being examined
over the time of that entire conference
call because you’ve got this
up close view of your face yes
and it is necessary to look like you’re
listening and you’re
engaged and you’re interested so if it
isn’t interesting or engaging you’re
gonna have to learn to act
but the nice thing about that is there
are always gonna be those three or four
people
who will actually carry the conversation
and if you feel like oh i can’t
interrupt
you can always type it in the chat zoom
is wonderful you type it in the chat
everybody gets a notice that there’s
something in the chat
and then hopefully the person who’s in
charge of the meeting will say
oh well donna just asked the question in
in chat donna would you like to announce
that to everyone
and that way i have interrupted and i’m
getting to interact
without me having to just talk over
someone until they give up and let me
have the microphone
and sometimes that never happens yes
i’ve been on those meetings i’m sure you
have too donna let’s say you’re checking
your inbox
and somebody sends you an invitation
for a digital media zoom meeting what’s
the first thing we should do
well you’re going to need to make sure
that
what they’re seeing behind you in that
zoom
meeting is something pleasant to look at
i’m looking at trace’s background and
he’s in his
office and it’s beautiful and it’s well
kept and
you know it’s nice and neat and it’s
something pleasant to look at
he can see me as well and i’m not quite
as
neat and tidy as he is oh you’ve got
some great stuff in the background there
yes i do but we want to think about what
they can see behind you
and uh there is a great youtube video
that only takes a few minutes to watch
and the young man goes through lighting
and background and audio
and all of that and so it’s really a
good thing to
to see what is appropriate and i know
that there are
fake backgrounds that you can choose
some of them work
better than others if you’ve got a fake
background but every time you move it
cuts off your arm or it makes a black
spot
that may not be what you want to have
for a real meeting
that you can do when you and your friend
are just catching up
but you need to look at the camera
you have to make eye contact and to do
that you have to look at the camera
it feels so much better for me to look
at trace’s face
on my computer but i’m not making eye
contact with him when i do that
i have to look at the camera and so you
may have to
you know move the camera up or down to
make it fit you
so that’s one of the things and then
another thing is interesting backgrounds
are good
but more than that you have to maintain
engagement you have to look like you’re
paying attention you’re listening i have
a colleague who got one of these little
fidget things
that’s just like a you pop the bubbles
and then you turn it over and you pop
the bubbles the other way
and she said she uses that because when
she gets
bored she stops listening so
this having her hands giving her sand
something to do
she’s able to pay more attention and be
more engaged
so you’re going to have to try out some
things and see what works for you
and i can send you that youtube link
that uh you can share
sure i will put it on the show notes
page and we will make sure to get it out
there
donna i learned a tip it was either last
year or the year before
and zoom will do this i’m not sure how
to do it on
teams or or webex but if you hover
over your screen there’s three little
dots that will pop up
and if you click on the three little
dots at the very very very bottom
it says hide self view
and that will take away your picture
and i host mastermind calls every week
and we try to encourage people to do
that
it is amazing how that changes the
dynamic
of the meetings is that something that
you do it’s not
i knew that it existed but one of the
things that i do
is webinars and with a webinar
i know that there are people listening
but i can’t see
anybody those are in go to webinar
and so i look at myself on the screen
i’m making eye contact
with myself on the screen to give that
enthusiasm and everything so
i utilize the picture of myself but i am
going to try your hint
to turn off the self-view i think that
that could be very helpful
yeah it’s amazing at how that changes
the meeting it almost feels like you’re
back in the conference room
and you’re not paying attention to what
you look like yes
because we do get concerned oh my
goodness
look i should have combed my hair before
i got up here
yeah that that’s kind of thing it does
happen
i did read a report and it said that
plastic surgeon
schedules are booked higher than normal
because people are looking at themselves
so much
during the day because of that i can see
where people would want
to make themselves look better but i’ve
also had
a meeting where the person didn’t use
their video
so all they had was their name on a
black box
but they said i’m not ready for y’all to
look at me today
and we just went with it so so that
always annoys me
when we’re we’re going to do a video
call it’s not a phone call it’s a video
call
isn’t it a common courtesy to turn your
camera on
yes and i do even if i think oh my
goodness i should have combed my hair
oh you look great today thank you but
maybe it’s better now right after the
pandemic
the university sent everyone home we
still had to do our jobs
and so our only option was phone calls
and video calls with our students
and i would have eight or nine
video calls zoom calls with students
in a single day and at some point you
just
are so tired of that because the
effort and energy of making that
connection
via video is a lot more than if you’re
face to face with that student
so it helps a lot to make that contact
and make that connection if they can see
you
if everybody else on the call can see
you what are some other things that we
do to ensure that we are making that
connection
well along with video i’m going to
suggest
a couple of things and i know that you
have done a podcast on linkedin
so if i’m repeating information just let
me know
but linkedin is a wonderful way to
network
and it needs to be fully utilized
but a couple of things that you can do
is
you can reach out to other people
to make that connection but you need to
keep yourself
front and center you need to keep the
connections you have
aware of you and an easy way to do this
is to post on linkedin
at least once a week okay and it doesn’t
have to be
new information you can share
information that you
read or you can post you know and say
wonderful things about someone else’s
information or
accomplishment but this allows you to
reach out
and build those relationships the other
thing
that you might want to do is to comment
on other people’s posts
that gets your name out there but it
also says hey i’m paying attention to
you
and so that person will go oh let me let
me look at their linkedin and see what
they’re doing
and so that’s really cool i’ve noticed
that
a lot of former students that are on
linkedin
and that i’m connected with are getting
certifications
and they’re you know doing short
term professional development that
allows them to say
oh look i have the certification i
earned this
knowledge those kinds of things so
that’s a really good thing to
add all the time when you’re commenting
on someone else
be positive remember that the written
word
is interpreted by the reader and i might
not know that you’re
teasing or whatever and i’m just sitting
there thinking oh my goodness what a
snarky thing to say
so be positive and when you
offer something that is helpful to
people
they’re going to pay attention to that
your podcast is an example
it’s helpful to your listeners it’s
helpful to the people who are
professionals in your industry
and they’re going to pay attention
they’re going to come back to this
podcast
so i think that that’s another good
thing that you can do
donna from your perspective how would
you differentiate
something you would post on facebook
versus linkedin
well facebook is social this is
these are my families my friends i’m
going to show them the
picture of my beautiful new baby or my
vacation
that’s social you’re keeping up with
friends
and acquaintances but linkedin
is a professional media it’s
professional networking
so you’re not going to spend much time
talking about the new baby or the
vacation that you went on it’s going to
be
about the industry that you’re in the
industry that you want to get into
you want to be reaching out to other
professionals
that you know you offer to help them you
share
knowledge they’re going to be helpful
back to you
everyone loves to give advice so if you
can
you know join a group and put a question
out there people are going to give you
advice
it may be everything you already know
but
it’s still going to be someone who’s
reaching out to you
so linkedin is much more professional
much more focused on career i would
recommend
i have no idea if there is
an or a group on linkedin for your
industry absolutely there is there are
several in fact yes
so join those groups you can
ask a question you can answer a question
you’re giving information you’re
providing help
that’s going to strengthen relationships
but
if there’s not a group out there that is
exactly like what you want
linkedin offers you a way to start a
group
what a great thing to do you start the
group
you’re letting other people come and
join and
you know now you’re the expert with the
knowledge
that they want and so that’s that’s
also a wonderful thing set yourself up
as the expert
that’s a great recommendation a couple
of weeks ago we actually started a group
it happened within our mastermind group
several people are studying for the
certified water technologist examination
and they said we wish that there was a
group that we could ask questions to
well we created one and uh it’s on
facebook
we decided most it was easier to use
facebook and they had some features that
linkedin didn’t
but then we made it so that members
could actually approve
new members so they’re allowing other
people
into the group and they’re getting
they’ll say if i get a question like
this
what are the different things that i
should consider in answering it
and it’s just amazing some of the
dialogue that’s going on there so
exactly what you’re talking about is
happening right now around an exam of
all things
yes and i understand that because i’m
seeing students who have to take the gre
or the gmat or the lsat and they
all want a group they don’t want to
study in isolation
they want that group now they don’t have
to be right next to each other
so facebook or linkedin is a wonderful
way to do that
yeah and it creates that community and
now everybody can celebrate
when that person passes the examination
in fact one of the require it’s not a
requirement
but something that we ask people to do
when they join is put the date
of when they’ve scheduled to take the
examination so we can all root them on
and make sure that we’re giving them
support
oh i love that that is so wonderful so
and speaking of that it’s called the cwt
study group so if you’re studying for
that examination
go out on facebook you can find that and
i encourage
everybody even if you don’t want to join
the group because you’re not ready for
that exam
you still can be looking at you know the
dialogue the information that’s been
passed on
and you can see that people have been
successful taking that exam
and that’s always helpful other people
are able to do this i can
too so this is all about making sure
that we are making those connections
even when we can’t get face to face so
we’ve attended the digital meeting we
with our camera on i’m going to add
then we’ve connected to some new people
that we’ve met maybe we did some
some chatting on the video conference
and then
we connected with them on linkedin maybe
we
shared some information with them or
joined or they told us about a chat room
that we could join
what are some other things we can do
well one other thing
for linkedin that i think is really cool
is that you can write articles and get
published on linkedin
and that’s a whole lot easier than
trying to get published
in trade journals or
scientific journals those kinds of
things so
if you are a really good writer and
it doesn’t have to be a long article but
you can
you know write an article and publish it
on linkedin
that’s going to bring other people to
you
so you know basically if you uh are a
good writer
write it edit it yourself and publish it
and if you’re an adequate writer then
you know find someone who
is a good editor and proofreader and get
them to proofread your articles before
you upload them
but i think that that’s also a really
helpful thing for
linkedin now my thing
is how to connect with that person
directly
and you can do that on linkedin but
i like the idea of email
and snail mail an email everybody gets
so many emails and because everything is
virtual now you’re probably getting even
more emails and so i say
send a letter in the u.s postal service
because
it’s wonderful to walk down the driveway
open that little mailbox and find a real
letter in it something that isn’t junk
and isn’t a bill and that’s just
exciting
and it doesn’t have to be long you know
you can write a little note
you know i’m just thinking of you or i
really
appreciate the help you gave me on
studying for the exam
i wanted to let you know that i passed
or whatever it is
little note cards don’t require
a lot of information it’s not like
you’re writing
you know a page long letter it’s just a
note
but it’s so helpful people want that
connection
they want that feeling of i am seen i am
heard i am understood
and that’s really good donna i want to
share with you
i was with a really good friend of mine
and i was talking with his son
and his son applied for a job of course
other people
applied for this same job and i was
asking him how the interview went
and it sounded like just every interview
that that interviewer was was given that
day and i was asking you know did he
make himself stand out at all i mean
really nothing was out of the ordinary
that he said
and he said well maybe i’ve messed up
how how can i fix that
and i suggested he write a thank you
letter
and he thought that was ridiculous
because what millennial writes a thank
you letter
and puts a stamp on it and all of that
stuff but he did it
he got a call back and the reason he has
that job
is because he was the only one that did
something a little bit different and
what that was is he took
time to write that thank you letter put
the address
on it put a stamp on it take it to the
post office
and then that person looked at that and
that made his application stand out
where it didn’t before he got that job
because
of that thank you letter yes i agree
that is so wonderful because it is what
i tell
students all the time yes you can send
that thank you
email but everybody gets lots of emails
but we very rarely get a note
through the mail that’s just addressed
to us
and that really does make a difference
it makes the interviewer the hiring
manager it makes them understand
this person is doing that extra step
if they’ll do that to get a job they’re
going to do that
in the job and i think that’s really
important
i love getting mail i love getting thank
you notes from students who got a job
my new year’s resolution this year and
the only one i’ve ever been able to keep
is that i will write a note and put it
in the mail
to someone every week i love that
so at the end of the year i will have
sent out 52 notes
and i’ve got a list of people you know
and some of them show up more than once
so
my in-laws show up more than once i
write them notes more often
but it’s it’s just a way to connect
and writing is going to become a lost
art
if we don’t if we don’t encourage people
to continue
that so i’m a big proponent of
handwritten put it in the mail use a
stamp
for the price of a stamp and a little
bit of time
you have made a connection that no one
else will have made
that’s great and i’m sure when we’re
either writing the email
or we’re writing the letter there are
certain things we want to put in those
letters
there are certain things we want to
leave out what are they well
if you’re writing a thank you note after
a job interview
let’s say you got interviewed by three
different people well you’re going to
have to write each of those three people
a thank you note
that’s why those little note cards are
wonderful because
you have such limited space and then you
have to
say different things to each one of them
so
immediately after the interview when
you’ve left
go out sit in your car and write down so
mr smith talked about this and mr
jones talked about this and ms johnson
talked about this
so now in your thank you note you’re
going to say
i’m very interested in your opinion of
whatever ms johnson talked about i’m
very
excited about the opportunity of working
with you
at the name of the company if you have
additional questions
please feel free to contact me and then
sincerely blah blah blah one thing you
never want to say is
i really messed up my answer and so
let me tell you what i should have said
you don’t want to say that
but what you do want to say is
i remember your question about and i’d
like to add
this to my answer so you’re not saying
you answered it wrong
you’re not saying boy did i screw that
up
you’re saying i want to add to my answer
and then you can add what you should
have said in the in the interview
or make it more pointed focused whatever
but you know it’s a sentence or two and
you’re not saying you did badly you’re
just saying i’m gonna add this to my
answer
when we’re just trying to strengthen
that connection
that were we just met on maybe a video
conference for a virtual convention
what should that note look like that
note
is where you are going to offer help
that’s where you’re going to say to them
i really enjoyed meeting you at the
conference you’ve got to
if if you just interviewed they’re going
to remember the interview
but at the conference they may have
talked to hundreds of people
so you’ve got to remind them who you are
and so i really enjoyed our conversation
at the blank
blank conference in atlanta
it was really you know important to me
to make some connections
and and networking so i wanted to
provide this article that i
found that might be helpful to you or i
found this interesting article and i
wanted to share it with you
anything like that when we offer help
when we bring people into
the idea of i can help you
and then they want to help us back
people love to help
and people love to give advice so you
know when you’re
asking you can ask a specific question
you can say tell me how i should have
answered this question
on the certification exam but you can
also ask something much broader
what advice would you give me as someone
just starting out
and now they’re thinking back oh yeah
when i started out i wish i had known
or nobody told me
that i would have to do this in order to
get the job i have now
so they’re thinking back to their own
lives and giving you
really good concrete information
i brought up at the top of the show how
you
were helping so many people where they
didn’t have to focus
on the entire conference they just
focused on
three people or three people are day
what is that same
type of advice how does that boil down
to when we move it to a virtual platform
well depending on how long you’re on
that virtual platform
because if you’re in a face-to-face
conference you’re there all day long
going to different sessions listening to
different speakers
and every time you sit down you’re
probably sitting next to a new person
and there’s there’s a neat way to make
that connection
but on virtual that’s going to be
something that may be very very
individual
for the person because you’ve got to
make that connection and then build on
that connection
so it may be much more difficult to do
that
in a virtual conference so if you say
i’m going to meet three people
and i’m not leaving till i do you may
still be there when everybody else is
logged off but you know if you can
utilize the chat if you can say
oh could we talk offline and then email
that person
it’s going to be a little more natural
but everybody’s going to have to figure
it out the
virtual conference i went to the only
time we actually saw anyone else
was the person who introduced the
speaker and the speaker themselves
and so we weren’t hearing or seeing any
of the other people who were also
attending
that makes it much harder so that’s
when you can utilize chat to ask a
question
if somebody answers your question in the
chat
now you’ve got somebody that you can
reach out to
and say hey let’s talk about this would
you mind
you know could we do a zoom meeting
ourselves later or a phone call and move
it off that platform
i’m not sure what’s the best way i think
everybody’s gonna have to figure it out
for themselves
but there are other ways to network
when you can’t be face to face so
if you’re utilizing all of those i think
you’re going to be fine
donna you mentioned earlier that the
reader
gets to decide which tone they’re going
to read your letter in
are there certain ways we can ensure our
tone is taken more in the way that we
intend it to be
read well one thing i’m going to say is
unless you’re a really good humorous
writer
and everybody gets the jokes when you’re
writing them
don’t try to be funny in an email or a
handwritten note
i am i’m not one of those people who
immediately
assumes oh that’s a joke i’m gonna go
well why are they being so snarky to me
and so you want to be careful of your
wording
and your tone in a written communication
any kind of written communication but
that’s really important when you make a
phone call
and i know phone calls are out of a
fashion right now
everybody has a cell phone but they
never make phone calls
but a phone call is a good way to deepen
a connection
and if you make the phone call you are
in charge
you get to say what you need to say ask
the questions you need to ask
and then you get to close the phone call
you get to say
thank you so much for your help i really
appreciate it
um goodbye and and you
you bring it to an end and that
is something that you know it takes
practice
and if you don’t feel comfortable with
it you can write out a script
you don’t want to read it but you know
you have what you
want to say written down and that’s
always helpful
i once worked with a student that i was
telling her
you need to call up the company and talk
to them
and she was going i can’t do that i just
can’t do that
so we practiced so i was in one office
she was in another office
and i would be the company and answer
when she called me
and about the fourth time she says is
this all there is to it
and i said yes this is all there is to
it
and she said i can do this and it just
took practice
but for her phone calls were just
out of the norm and she couldn’t imagine
what am i supposed to say
and it’s not that hard i’ve seen so many
misunderstandings because
somebody said something in a four-word
text
and then somebody texts back and then
they text back
it would have been so much simpler and
so much easier so much more efficient if
they just picked up the phone
yes i agree and i don’t mind phone calls
because
for the most part i’m anonymous you know
they may recognize my name or know where
i work
but for the most part i’m anonymous
they’re not going to remember me
and so you can ask those questions
and if you get the gatekeeper
the receptionist just make that
receptionist
on your side i’m calling because i need
some advice
is there someone in your organization
who would be willing to
talk to me for about 15 or 20 minutes
give me some advice
about this and that receptionist unless
they just started work this morning
knows who are the nice people who are
the mean snarky people
who will give good advice and who won’t
and if you get that receptionist on your
side
then they can help you they can help you
find the right person to talk to
and then with every phone call the last
question you’re going to ask
is who would you recommend that i speak
to next
and now you have a referral mr smith at
xyz
suggested that i contact you mr johnson
at abc and so now you have a referral
and that does make a lot of
difference for people it’s a lot easier
to
talk to someone who says we have this
connection through
someone else than it is to make that
connection with nothing else
i’m a stranger calling you on the phone
that’s a great point
donna if you could just get one point
across today
about networking in a virtual world
what would it be it’s harder now
but it’s also easier because we’re not
trying to
walk into that room full of people at
the conference
but you have to set goals and you have
to meet those goals
if you made a goal to meet three people
at a conference
well then maybe you make a goal to
interact
with three people every week you send
them a note or you send an
email or you respond to their post on
linkedin
but everything you’re doing is building
that connection
making them feel like you’re a person
that they know
and understand that’s the biggest thing
i think
for networking right now well this has
been very helpful
uh you’ve given me a couple of links and
some tools i want to make sure all of
those are
on the show notes page so listeners can
go straight there
and refer to the material that you
mentioned
last time you were here i asked you my
standard
lightning round questions and i thought
this time we would wrap the interview up
i would do something a little bit
different so you prepare students each
and every day
for those interview questions to make
sure that they
are are showing their best selves to
make sure that they’re answering the
questions properly
what are the top interview questions
that
people should be prepared to answer
oh the tell me about yourself is the
number one because
everyone starts with that and then the
next question the interviewer asks is
probably going to be based on what you
told them and to tell me about yourself
so make sure that in that you are
telling
the interviewer information that you
want that next question to be
what you know and what you can do for
their organization
why you want that job why you want to
work for them
those are really good information
because then their follow-up question is
oh well tell me more about
and you know now you’re guiding the
interview in the direction you want it
to go
so as an employer what’s the question i
should be
asking to everybody i interview
i think that you need to ask a question
that lets the interviewee
tell you what they know it can be
something
very specific or it could be something
very broad
but you want them to be able to answer
the question
so a lot of times we use behavioral
questions
because past performance impacts future
performance so you ask a question tell
me about a time
when and then they have to tell you a
story
how did you resolve this kind of
situation
or what would you do in this kind of
situation
and that’s those are wonderful questions
but
interviewees need to be prepared with
what are your strengths
what are your weaknesses the person
who’s being interviewed can have
numerous strengths but they only get to
have one weakness
and we don’t want to focus on the
weakness we want to focus on
what i’m doing to overcome that or
how i overcame that in the past
so a lot of students will start well my
biggest weakness is
no you don’t have a big weakness you
have a little tiny weakness and it’s
something that you’re overcoming
so one weakness and lots of strengths
what’s the funniest story you’ve ever
heard from a student coming back from an
interview well they all feel like they
did really well
and then they’re just devastated when no
one calls them back or
offers them the job but a lot of
students they have really
you know different experiences so we
work a lot with the agricultural
sciences college
and i had a student it was a class
assignment
so he’s sitting in my office and he just
can’t sit still
and i finally said okay you told me that
you’ve had
lots of interviews so what’s going on
you can’t sit still you can’t think of
answers and he said
i have had lots of interviews but
they’ve all been out leaning against the
fence looking at the cow
and i said i’m sorry i have no fence but
you’ve got to get better at
being in an office i said because
they’re not all going to hand you
walk out to the fence and watch the
couch with you so
he had another couple of interviews and
he did very well
when he got his job he said thank you so
much
and it’s fun it’s wonderful to have
those kinds of
of experiences and to be able to help
the students
well donna it’s wonderful to have you on
the show for a
second time thank you again for helping
the scaling up nation
learn a little bit more about what they
can do better in networking
in a virtual world thank you for the
opportunity i have enjoyed being here
donna is one of the nicest people i know
i have had the privilege of sharing
holidays with her
sharing vacations with her and as you’ve
noticed from this interview
our families are very close again
such a great person and donna is just
terrific
at what she does and how she counsels
her
students one of the things that donna is
an
expert at is resumes and she
was telling me what i need to look for
in resumes and she was showing me
some examples of what she
counsels her students to do in their
resumes
i gotta tell you she has put that bar
very high and when i look at resumes now
i know what to expect and folks
there’s some resumes out there that
they really don’t pass so i’ll just
leave it at that
and just let you know that there are
some exceptional resume writers out
there
and i hope that you’ve got the job of
your dreams
but if you’re putting a resume out there
that doesn’t
really put you in the highest light you
probably want to talk with somebody
like donna and let’s face it if you are
in the water treatment industry you’ve
got the best job out there so i’m of
course
talking to all those people that listen
to scaling up h2o that
aren’t in water treatment that need to
prepare a resume so they can work for
one of our
awesome companies doing industrial water
treatment
talking about setting the bar high
talking about making sure
that we are always getting better
especially when it comes to water
treatment here
is james mcdonald
[Music]
hello scaling up nation the next james’s
challenge as we grow as an industrial
water treatment professional
drop by drop is
[Music]
learn about break point chlorination and
perform a breakpoint chlorination test
on a water sample
what is meant by breakpoint chlorination
do you have water sources with ammonia
in them
and do you even know what is the impact
of chloramines on the free chlorine
levels you think you have in your system
how do you run and interpret a
breakpoint chlorination test
i have personally been involved in
projects for having an understanding of
breakpoint chlorination
gave me an advantage over the other
experts in the room and was the one key
to solving the water system’s problems
be sure to share your experience on
linkedin by tagging it with hashtag jc21
and hashtag scalinguph2o this is james
mcdonald
and i look forward to seeing what you
share
i remember the first time i treated a
pool and learned about breakpoint
chlorination
it is like a magic trick using chlorine
now if you don’t know what i’m talking
about you will
after this james’s challenge
nation i’ve been getting so many
requests to do
another pinks and blues episode
so many out there have said that that is
their favorite episode and i’m there
with you it is my
favorite episode to do but here’s the
deal
i cannot do those episodes without
you i need you to let me know what
questions you have now how you do that
is you go to scalinguph2o.com
you go over to our show ideas page and
you can type
out what you want me to talk about but
here’s what i
really want you to do as soon as you get
to our home
page a pop-up will come up on the
right-hand side
it will say record a voicemail you click
on that
you use your phone your computer
whatever you
have and you record your voice asking me
your question i will play that on the
air
and i will then answer your question
so while you’re waiting for next week’s
brand new
episode of scaling up h2o
why not go to scalinguph2o.com
record your question and then we can get
a pinks and blues episode
out in the meantime try something new
and remember it’s your job to raise the
bar
in the water treatment industry
why do we call our mastermind the rising
tide mastermind well i know you’ve heard
me say before
a rising tide raises all ships
that’s one of my favorite quotes because
it’s so true
the better we do the better somebody
else can do
and vice versa that’s exactly what the
rising tide mastermind
is it’s our members helping other
members to achieve
success and to get there further and
faster to find out more about the rising
tide mastermind go to scaling up h2o.com
forward slash
mastermind
you