Cosmos: 

Welcome back to the show, my fellow extraordinary Americans. For today’s guest, we have Josef Stetter. Josef is the CEO of Celebrate Group, a recruitment consulting, keynote speaking, and outplacement service company that helps companies hire the right people. Josef is also a resume whisperer and career coach specialist who has helped over 12,000 people land their dream jobs in as little as two days. 

He has been a generalist in recruitment for small and global clients like Deloitte, Apotex Pharmaceuticals, Tata Consulting Services, and more. He’s the award-winning and international best-selling author of Canada: Congratulations, you’re hired; it was easier than you thought. And USA: Congratulations, you are hired; it was easier than you thought. 

Josef and Celebrate Group’s Secrets to Landing Your Dream Job and six other books have been featured in Canada. 1, Benzinga Disruption, ABC, Fox, NBC Newswire, and Brains. He’s extraordinary, and I’m honored to have him on the show. Josef, are you there?

Josef: 

I am Cosmos. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.

Cosmos: 

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this podcast with me, Josef.

And Josef, can you tell me, the audience, more about yourself, your background, and how you got started?

Josef:

Growing up, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I switched careers nine times and jobs 18 times. 

So, I’ve worked in retail, I’ve done private education, I’ve worked in finance, I’ve worked in operations. Part of that self-discovery led me to understand what people are going through when they’re either trying to switch industries or careers or get a better job than they currently have. And in the process, like I said, got into recruiting and did very well there. 

And in my first year in recruiting, I generated $760,000 in revenue from an employer. I was in a team of 12. The person closest to me generated 160,000 yearly to reward me for Christmas with a Christmas bonus. The owner gave me cheese and crackers. And when I looked at her, I was like, what is this? She looked at me and said, well, the cheese is from a very high-end Frou Frou grocery store where, you know, they massage the cow for a month. And I look at her, I’m like, do I look like I’m 65 years old and need cheese from, you know, a fruit grocery store? Sadly, the crackers were from a dollar store.

So, I was like, okay, if this is how you’re going to treat me when I’ve generated 3/4 of a billion, I will, or 3/4 of a million, just open my own business. And I opened my firm in 2006. And the rest is, as they say, experiences that I’ve amassed.

Cosmos:

 Wow, the cheese and crackers thing is ridiculous. But in the end, it was a catalyst. You know, there are so many catalysts in life that just change the direction of our lives if you think about it.

Josef: 

Absolutely. Listen, there are always things that, if I look at my life now in Latin, the past 30 years, there are many things that sometimes, when presented to you, you’re not ready to receive as a gift or as an opportunity. Like I was presented Bitcoin when it was $8 a share, right? 

And the way it was explained to me, it sounded like the rich will get rich. And if I buy, you know, 0.005 of a Bitcoin or half of Bitcoin, I’m never going to make any money. Right. Had I invested back in, I don’t know, what it was, in 2008, a thousand dollars, and held it for 15 years, I’d be worth, you know, $60 million right now—same thing with Vimeo. When Vimeo first came to the market, I met the founders of Vimeo, and I didn’t understand their model of compressing the video to the level they’re going to compete with YouTube and stuff like that. 

So I was like, “I don’t see this going anywhere.” And then I thought, “Look where they are now.” So, there’s a level where we are creatures of habit as humans, and we’re often afraid of change. If I may share a quick example, when I was a stock trader and left the bank, I got hired by E-Trade. They were one of my first recruiting clients. 

And I called 37 people who work with me every day about how much they hate their jobs, how much they hate working for the bank, how miserable they are. And I said since I know you, since you’re already licensed, I’ll get you a $10,000 raise, double your bonuses, and better benefits. And since I also know that you do shift work, if you work from 9 to 5, I’ll schedule you to come to shake hands at 8 p.m. If you work from 11 to 8, I’ll schedule you for 7 in the morning so you don’t miss a single hour of work. Care to guess, out of 37, how many went?

Cosmos: 

How many? Like, five, six, one. I was just being ridiculous. I would have assumed many more would have gone with five or six.

Josef: 

Right, right. But then they were like, what if I get the shift I don’t like? I’m like, you’re making about 45 $50,000 right now for the bank. I’m going to double your income. Right. And you’re worried about the shift that you get. I had one person, like, I got used to taking a nap on the way home. I’m like, a nap is worth more than doubling your salary. Right, Right.

The majority of the population will not change unless they want to, Josef says

Unfortunately, we live in a society where, unless people are pushed into change more often than not, most of the population will not change.

Cosmos: 

So, Josef, I needed to ask you this question for the audience’s sake.

Josef: 

Right.

Cosmos: 

So, there are many people in jobs they don’t want to do, and exactly what you said, they will not change unless they want to change. So, how would somebody go beyond their comfort zone to finally get the dream job they want or be in the career they want to be from where they are?

Josef:

 So statistics show that almost 80 to 90% of people in North America hate their jobs. Okay, now here’s the thing. Because they know their routine, most people would rather be miserable than try something else. For example, if you were in a relationship and broke up with many people, the mindset of returning to your ex because you already know them and how they behave is easier than trying again. Second, there’s a level of I don’t know what I’m getting myself into something new. 

So in terms of, you know, pushing themselves, it’s a very broad question, but it depends on the individual. So, if you’re married and about to have kids, you’re like, maybe it’s time that I need to change the circumstances here. For example. Right. For some, it’s like, you know what, you’ve been trying to get promoted for five years, and they’re not planning on promoting you. And it’s like, okay, I’m done being stuck here. For example, salary is number seven among the top three reasons people leave a job. The first reason is a very toxic culture. The second reason is a lack of a clear understanding of what the leadership expects or wants. And the third reason people leave their job is no opportunity for new ideas to be implemented or for, you know, the kind of entry-level to mid-level to make suggestions for improvements that the company will take seriously and do. Right. 

So when I was working in finance, for example, I worked for a mutual fund company. And at the beginning, usually at the beginning and middle of months, you have the NSF where there were insufficient funds to reverse all the transactions. And because we’re talking volumes, it was a big mutual fund company. We’re talking about 1600 letters I had to print and sign in an envelope. And I went to my manager, said, we have a machine that can stuff letters. Why are you paying me for eight hours of work to sit here and stuff envelopes all day? And he was like, well, the machine is in a different site. I’m like, yes, but we have certified secured couriers that can get it from my desk to that machine in an hour. 

So what’s the problem? He’s like, we want to control, to know that we’re sending it out. I’m like, but you realize you’re wasting resources because if, if there’s a lot of financial transactions that need to be corrected, you’re preventing me from helping the team because you’re asking me to do kind of the stuffing of envelopes, which to me is redundant. And they weren’t very receptive to an idea. Because I wasn’t a manager, I was just simply somebody working in the department to go. This would be much more efficient, and we could correct more transactions. So, unfortunately, many companies are stuck in the old ways of, you know, we’ve done this for 30 years. Why would we change it now?

Many companies still have a mindset that it’s a job

you know, I had a client, if I may share that, an engineering firm that specialized in structural engineering. He was offering about 40 to $50,000 below market. And I told him, like, here are the names of people I’ve contacted, their phone number, and their email, who laughed at me when I told them the salary you’re offering. Right? Monster, Indeed, and LinkedIn statistics say you’re way below market. His mindset was, oh, they should just be thankful that they have a job. 

And so I responded, unless you’re looking to hire a new immigrant that doesn’t have North American experience, you’re not going to find a structural engineer with five years of experience. Plus, that’s going to come for $50,000 below market. Now, as a headhunter recruiter, I found him two people. Both of them quit in under a month because he forced them to do 40 hours of overtime, all billable hours unpaid. Right? And when they calculate the salary based on their expenses, they’re like, there’s $500 left for me to take care of my family. That’s ridiculous there. And when I went to him and tried to explain this, he refused to bud. Now, the interesting thing is that his son worked for him as his general manager, and so forth. 

An engineer. His son told me that the company had lost over a million and a half dollars in contracts because they couldn’t handle the volume of work they already had. Right. So your dad would rather lose $2 million. Because if you calculate the losses of also the engineers calling in sick and working less because they’re not getting paid for all this hard extra work, wouldn’t it be easier just to pay an extra 20, $25,000 in salary and I get you people that can do the job and make everybody’s life easier. His mindset was no. 

And so I was like, I don’t run a charity. And if you don’t understand the importance of caring for people, it doesn’t matter that you’ve been in business for 27 years. One negative post on social media and your reputation is a kind of thing. But you have a lot of companies that still have this mindset of it’s a job. It would be best if you were thankful that it’s a job. And they don’t understand that in the world that we live in, there’s access to information. 

You know, websites like Glassdoor give you reviews of companies and people looking and going, okay, these are negative reviews. And it’s not from customers. This is from the employees giving negative reviews, let’s say anonymously. They don’t understand that that affects their desire to work there and their application level. You know, there’s only so much you can do. Part of what I do now as a corporate culturist is to help leadership change the conversation on how to engage their people, keep them around, and ensure they’re happy.

Cosmos: 

So, Josef, what you’re mentioning sounds more like a narcissistic, toxic work culture, which is the number one problem. I mentioned it in some of the videos in Extraordinary America. A lot of people are having this problem. They don’t like their jobs, mainly because of their colleagues’ office politics and all of that stuff.

 So let’s say somebody’s working in a certain industry, and they’re going through that. How would they go about transitioning from that to whatever job they want to get? What would be the process?

Josef: 

I’m going to say it this way. So, in the past, the process would be that you could apply it using like. So, most people focus most of their job search on job boards, like Indeed, which is probably one of the worst places to look for a job because one job posting on Indeed gets between 350 and 5,000 applications. Most companies look at the first hundred unless you know some of the tricks. For example, one of the tricks to beat the job boards is that most job boards refresh their database between 11:45 pm Eastern Standard Time and 2:45 am Eastern Standard Time. So, depending on when you go to bed, go into your resume, press the spacebar anywhere on the resume, and press Save the moment that you press the spacebar. It puts you into the refresh for the next day of new resumes or new kinds of profiles. 

So if you posted your resume, let’s say, in June, and we’re now in November, you’re probably on page six to 7,000 of the database. Nobody sees you. So, just going in every night and pressing the spacebar ensures you’re in the refresh. We’ve also been taught for the past 100 years to fill our resumes with action words like manage, direct, liaised, coordinated, etc. But the database doesn’t score those words. They score the technical words associated with your job. So, if you’re an accountant, we score the word accountant. Accounting statements, general ledger, reconciliation, balance sheet, income statement, not managed, direct, liaised. 

And so you have a massive gap where people write a lot of fluff, like, I’m hardworking, dedicated, committed, and have excellent communication skills. In 20 years of recruiting, I’ve met very few people who say, listen, I’m lazy, I’ll show up late, none of my work will be any good, and I hate people; please hire me now. Unless you’re related to them or having an affair with them, you can get away with that goofiness, right? 

But, you know, indeed, it is not enough. Now, there are strict, for example, even though most job postings in North America say, don’t call us, we’ll call you, right? Call HR and say my battery died when I pressed submit on my application or my Internet disconnected. Can you please check that my application went through?

So if you were, let’s say, 102 on the list the moment that HR checks, if your application went through, guess what? You’re number one now because they physically pulled your resume.

Cosmos: 

Wow.

Josef: 

Now you have two minutes to speak to them. Here’s one example of why I would be a great candidate for this role. To plant that seed they need, look at your resume more seriously. In addition to that, ask them when they are interviewing for this role. So, if they say in a week if I don’t hear from you in about a week, may I have permission to call you back to get feedback on my resume on what I can do to improve it so I have a chance next time? 

So if they didn’t put you in the yes file initially, when you follow up, they would give you a second, more detailed look because maybe the people they chose weren’t fitting the parameters they need. Right. And we’re now in a society. Before I give you the other four techniques, we’re now in a state of a bit of chaos because what’s happening in the world of HR is that half of the employers are terrified of AI. 

So they’re using an old applicant tracking system that usually measures the formatting of your resume more than the quality and content of your resume. And the other half has jumped on the AI bandwagon. However, no one in the industry has defined how they score a resume.

 So if, let’s say, a job has 25 technical terms, and you have 20, you might be dismissed because you have 20 out of 25 and the parameters to have all 25. Right? You might be dismissed because the five you’re missing are more important than the 20 you said you have. You might be dismissed because of one word. You might be dismissed because you wrote the sentence this way; they wrote it this way, and their algorithm doesn’t recognize it’s the same thing.

 So what’s happening is that it’s now making it even harder for candidates to get noticed and hired because the AI in quotation often dismisses the candidate. No one’s seeing whether or not that’s why the call is so important now. So, an online job or 8-applicant tracking system is the first one I recommend the least, but it is that you should spend at least 10% of your time doing it. So, the first day you’re searching for a job, save your search and have it emailed to you daily with new job postings, for example, right? The tricks I gave are to go in before you sleep, press the spacebar anywhere on the resume, and save it, right?

 Make sure you have more technical words on it. Call them and say, my Internet’s been wonky all day. It was disconnected while I was doing the application. Can you check that it went through? My Internet died. My battery died. Can you check? Or even I never got a confirmation. Can you check that it went through? Is there any excuse for them to go to their database? What’s your name? What’s your email? Oh, yeah, we found you, Cosmos.

We know that you’re here, right? Because that pulls you to the top of the list. The second resource should be employment agencies, staffing firms, recruiters, or whatever you want to call it; they already have relationships with companies in the industries that you’re looking to be in, right? 

So, I always recommend registering with at least three big boys. Your, your Robert Halfs, your Rand stats, your Haze, because they’re global, to have offices everywhere and three local specific to your industry. I recommend a minimum of six because I assume half of them will not like you, right? 

They don’t like your accent, they don’t like your name, they don’t like your age, they don’t like where you’ve worked. It doesn’t matter. In North America, we’re very polite. We’ll never tell you why we don’t like you, but we’ll just dismiss you, right? But if you have three that do like you because they already have contacts with jobs you’re applying to, you’re not applying through hr; you’re applying directly to a hiring manager through them, right? Or to a director who would make the decision, making the process faster if you’ve done that. When you speak to an employment agency, a recruiter, a staffing firm, whatever they’re called, the first question when they’re done interviewing you is, what can I do to make it easier for you to market me? For example, do you need me to change the formatting of my resume? Do you need to add anything or change anything? Do you need my references now so that it’s easier for you to get there? Do you need reference letters to give your clients so they are more excited to speak to me? Recruiters make money to place people. 

So Cosmos, if you’re my candidate and I can get you a six-figure salary as a recruiter, I’m making anywhere between 15 and 20, say, 5% of your first-year salary. It is in my interest to ensure that you’re placed again and fit with everything else. So that’s the second resource. The third resource is predominantly LinkedIn, but any social media platform because every company now has company pages on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

 So if you go to those pages and you engage in conversation and make certain suggestions, those companies will look at you, and they will look you up on LinkedIn. The benefit is that you can also see who works for the company, and you can connect. And if you can build rapport with somebody who works in our company, who might be in a different department, might not necessarily be HR, but could be the department that you want to work with. Most companies in North America have some sort of program in place that if, let’s say, you and I have coffee, we have a conversation, Cosmos and I like you, and I’m working for a company, and I recommend you as long as you pass probation. The company will give me between 350 and a $3,500 bonus for recommending somebody I want to work with, for example. Right. 

So use that in terms of resources. Use the LinkedIn Premium profile so that you can message people who are not part of your network. Craft your message creatively to attract attention, get insight, and optimize your LinkedIn profile. Stop. As a real-life example, I have a client specializing in banking and regulatory affairs. So, you know, Wells Fargo just got nailed with $350 million in compliance regulation. Most big banks have gone there because they check in the US, but they don’t check international taxes, that the signatures are correct, that the paper trails there in terms of theirs. 

So, I needed someone who knows how to do sales, regulatory, compliance, and banking. I looked at a thousand LinkedIn profiles. Seven hundred of them wrote VP of compliance. The dates of work and the name of the bank that they work for, that’s it. No other information tells me what kind of compliance they’ve done, what kind of issues they’ve addressed, how complex it was, whether they made money, saved money, or increased efficiency. It’s so completely useless information. Of the 300 remaining, I found 100 that I liked. I interviewed 20 and sent my client eight. My client told me I’d hire all eight if I had the money. 

The problem is that most people, when they write their LinkedIn, do such a half-assed job, pardon my language, that there’s no information there for me to understand if I don’t know you, Cosmos. The first place I’m probably looking is LinkedIn. If your LinkedIn is so generic that it just says you have work experience and these are your job titles, I’m not even looking at you because just because you have a job title doesn’t mean you understand what I need. So, suppose I use the marketing world; for example, there’s a difference between someone who knows how to make videos and someone who does not. In that case, there’s a difference between someone who knows how to do Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or LinkedIn marketing because each has different algorithms. There’s somebody who is different and knows how to do SEO. There’s a difference between somebody who knows how to craft engagement or sales emails. So, if you haven’t indicated your areas on social media, it’s too broad and generic for me. Right? So those are the three. The fourth one, which most people do incorrectly, is going to networking. Ah, right.

 So look on Eventbrite, look on Meetup, go to big events, and stop going in there with the mindset of, ooh, you’re a director or VP, whatever title you have. Here’s my resume. Can I get a job? You have not earned the right. You don’t know that person. So when you go networking, first of all, brand yourself. So my favorite color is purple. When I attend networking, I have a purple shirt, a purple back, and a purple pen, and my business cards are purple. 

So if there is an event with thousands of people, when I do a follow-up email, I’m like, I’m the guy in purple. They’ll remember the purple even if they don’t remember my name. Even my wristband here is metal, but I have a purple wristband that I wear for my watch, so that, again, it’s purple. For example, if purple’s not a thing, you can do a funny tie, a pin, a particular color jacket, or a particular style as long as you’re considering it so that you show up there. But just don’t do blue and gray. That is kind of the standard where everybody is blue and gray. Have something that is a conversation starter or a unique watch; it doesn’t matter. For women, there are a lot more options. But when you go to a networking event, first of all, many people have this mindset of, I’m going to collect 50 business cards. Wrong. Try to have five conversations, not 50 business cards. Now, in these conversations, if you’re speaking to someone who is an executive, make it about them. I cannot emphasize this enough.

So, Cosmos, if I were to meet you through networking, Oh, Cosmo, you’re, let’s say, a director at this company. What do you think made you so successful? Get you to brag about yourself. Then I’ll say, okay, Cosmo, you’ve been in the industry for 10 or 20 years? Okay, what are your three biggest achievements? Can you tell me about them? And I want you to brag as much as possible about yourself because you’ll start liking me just because I allowed you to brag about your greatness. 

And then you can start turning this and say, okay, if you were to mentor somebody in this industry, what would you focus on? And this is where you need to start paying attention to what they say because they will tell you what’s important to them. Now, after they’ve said that, because they’ve already bragged and you’ve had conversations, say, okay, listen, I am in this industry, too. Would you mind critiquing my resume or giving me feedback? Don’t ask for the job. Ask for feedback on your resume. Why am I saying ask for feedback on your resume and not ask for the job? Because first of all, they will write the perfect resume they want to see. And if you’ve allowed them to brag about how great they are. Right? 

When they’ve given you feedback on your resume, you turn around and say, “You know what? I would love to work for you. I think you’re a great leader. I can learn so much from you. I’ve already learned so much from you there, right? I would love to produce results and make you look good.” It’s harder for them to say no because they just wrote the resume they want to hire.

Cosmos: 

That is so good, man.

Josef:

 Right? And. And most people go to networking. Oh, you’re a director. Can I send you my resume? Can I get a job? You know how often I’ve been to networking events where people have walked by me, “Oh, you sound important. Can I have your card? And I’m like, sure. Then they email me. Go, here’s my resume. Can I have a job? I’m like, who are you? Did I even have a conversation with you? Right. But all they did was grab my card. They didn’t pay attention to the rules of networking. Right. And that’s why I said if you brand yourself, it’s also easier to be remembered.

 So whatever your style is, if you have glasses that are a little bit funky, if you have an earring, if you have a watch, or you’re a watch person, you have a bracelet, you have a jacket, you have a tie like a Mickey Mouse.

Cosmos: 

Some people call it peacocking.

Josef: 

Sure. Like, I went to an event where nobody knew his name, but they were like the fedora guy. There was a guy with a super neon bright fedora like neon green neon. He would change the color, but that was a signature. Everybody knew that he had a very colorful hat. So people like, who was the guy who organized the event with the fedora? The green fedora and the yellow fedora don’t matter. But the moment that he said fedora, everybody knew who he was. Right. Even if you don’t remember his name. 

So find your saying. For ladies, you have many more choices because you can do your hair and makeup a certain way. You’re, you can have a necklace that you’re showing, you can have earrings that are set, you could have a pin, you could have a scarf, you can have specific shoes that are very, you know, stylish and so forth. But brand yourself right. If you look me up, everything associated with my name is purple. Right. My website is purple, my material is purple, my background is purple, and everything is purple. Right. 

So it kind of, ah, sets then. So we talked about it. So, online, 10% of recruiters should be 25%, and 25% should be LinkedIn. 25 should be networking. Again, you can type in Google industry-specific networking events because there are usually big ones like marketing, engineering, and accounting events. For example, visit the CPA website and find all their accounting events. Right. Then, the last one, the hardest, takes the longest but is the most rewarding. And that, let’s say I’m going to use what you’re doing with me right now, Cosmo, to reach out to leaders in the industry. Tell them that you’re doing a podcast, right? Ask to interview them because they’re geniuses and they’re Leaders. Get to know them and start talking strategies with them where you’d be like, okay, you know, what have you ever done? So think of a strategy you would want to do in a company and say, have you ever done this? And if they say yes, one of two things will happen. Ask them how they did it.

 So you can compare notes between your ideas and what they’ve executed. It is ideal if they say no and ask for more details, and one of two things will happen. One, they’ll take note and then steal your idea, which is what I hope for, right? Or if they’ve done it, they’ll explain how they did it, and you can compare. If you did it, you would have done it the same way. Now, why do I want them to steal your idea? Because after you give them that idea, if you call them a week later and say, hey, I have 8m more ideas, what do you think is going to happen to, let’s say, the director that’s listening to you now, he’s like, oh, yeah, what are they?

At which point do you now have the ace up your sleeve? Because you go, no, no, no. If you want these eight ideas, who better to execute them than me? And now, let’s set up an interview. Suppose you liked my first idea and found it to be very consistent with how you do or improved on things you’ve done in the past. In that case, there’s a level where imagine what I can do for you if you let me run with some of these ideas to make you more money, save you more money, and increase your efficiency, depending on the industry that you’re in, right? 

And so here’s five there. So if you have about 10% or 10, 15% of your time on job boards or applicant tracking systems, 25% of your time with employment agencies, 25% of your time with LinkedIn and other social media, 25% of your time networking, right? Then, 10% of your time is spent on the customized job for you.

Now, I said podcast or article or whatever because, again, the higher you go, the more people love to brag about how great they are. And unless they’re applying for a job themselves, they don’t get a chance to do that unless you’re talking to their partner. But this is kind of a new conversation with, ” Oh, I can tell you how great I am and what I do, right? Like, you know, as an Expert, I’ve helped 12,000 people land their dream job in as little as two days. Right.

 So I can tell you many stories about that because I’m. I’m on your podcast as a platform. But if you’re inviting me as an executive. Sorry, as an executive, to speak about my expertise or experiences, you’re. You’re also allowing building a relationship where now, based on the podcast, there’s permission to follow up, there’s permission to have additional conversations, there’s permission to bypass the applicant tracking system in HR then because you’re speaking to the decision maker directly, who will end up hiring you.

Cosmos: 

Wow. The last part about the P.O. using a podcast as a strategy is pretty ingenious. I don’t think most people would have even considered that.

Josef: 

And again, even if your podcast is not live, you could say, my episode will be live in a month. My episode is going to be live there. Because, you know, I’ve been on podcasts where they interview me, and the podcast comes out three months later. Because they do editing or they do this, but you want to set it up, or even if it’s because I’m writing an article, can I ask you questions about your experience and your expertise? Right. 

So, when you ask questions, they will reveal strategies that have already been successful and have proven results. Not the strategies they’re doing right now, but if they’re talking strategy for you with you, you can take notes on what they’re saying, and if you’re recording the conversation, and then follow up and say, hey, you know what? You mentioned that you were doing this, this, and strategy. Have you ever thought of doing this? Or have you ever tried this? And here’s what I think would happen if you did it. Now, even if they did it, they’ll come and say, yeah, we did all that. Great. But now you’re intriguing that leader to see that you can think about the strategy and implement whatever they need. Right? I love to use these two examples in any profession because the first one always makes everybody laugh. The second thing people get is if, say, cosmos, you need to hire a receptionist. 

And someone comes to you and says, hey, I know how to answer the phone. I hope you look at that person in shock and go. A receptionist who knows how to answer the phone? I did not know that. Because unless they live in an igloo, a cave, or practice the faith of Mennonite, right? My two-year-old son can press the green button, go, no, right, but if a receptionist comes to you and says, I know how to answer 60 calls a day with 12 different lines, I can measure 60 calls a day with 12 different Lines, I cannot measure, I know how to answer the phone. 

Now, in the same respect, if I give you an example from my career, I can come and say to you, cosmos, I’m an excellent salesperson. I know how to do B2B, B2C, account management, relationship building, lead generation. I’ve done retail sales, I’ve worked door-to-door sales, I’ve done car sales, I’ve worked in private education, I’ve worked in recruitment, and I have a lot of sales experience. Now understand all the words I just said to you are very important for the algorithms of Indeed and LinkedIn because those are the technical words associated with sales. But just because I’ve had many sales jobs does not mean I am good at sales. 

But if I quantify it with you and say, and this is a real example of my career, I worked for a private college that, before I came in, was generating $530,000 in sales for the year. In one month, I generated $860,000 in sales for them.

Cosmos: 

Wow.

Josef: 

Right? Now, here’s the thing. I used to get the wow. And if somebody was interviewing for a job, the next question is how? And as long as I can explain the how, do you think they trust that I know how to do sales? Right? 

So your examples with the numbers are what’s going to quantify the impression. I don’t care that you know how to do something, right? Because we live in an era of an explosion of AI right now, where anybody can practically learn code in a week, right? There are so many free resources you can go to, like Udemy, Corsica, and things like that, where you can get certified in courses and suddenly call yourself whatever you want, such as a professional or an industry. But when you’ve produced results, I can quantify the results, right?

So anything can have results. If you’re an IT guy, you made it faster. You made it 30% faster, and you made it more efficient, right? Again, make money, save money, and increase efficiency. Those are three things that are the reasons that any company hires you, right?

 So you’re an accountant; you automated this. Save time, save money, right? You’re an engineer and built a better version of whatever was built before, right? You’re a salesperson. You made sales; you’re a marketer; you gave me branding marketing. Like you know, if someone says to you, I went, I took an Instagram account from a thousand followers to 15 thousand followers in six months, all organic. You’ve got my attention because you have 15x the number of followers. So now I want to know what organic strategies you use to build that community, to build that following, for example. Right. 

Every company wants that. Right. It doesn’t matter the profession. No one’s hiring you because there’s an empty chair over here, and it looks weird if there’s an empty chair or an empty desk kind of thing. They’re hiring you because, in some capacity or another, you will make money, save money, or increase efficiency. How it works depends on your profession and your expertise.

Cosmos: 

Wow, Josef.

And I wanted to follow up on one question regarding what you just said regarding AI and automation. Right. How do you think it’s going to affect the future? For example, many jobs are lost in North America when AI and automation become advanced. How should people transition to this new world?

Josef: 

Again, I’m going to correct this slightly. A lot of more rudimentary jobs will be lost. For example, McDonald’s already has seven locations in a completely autonomous McDonald’s. Other than the IT guy who checks that all the robots are working, there isn’t one person working there. Right.

So will we lose McDonald’s jobs and low-end retail jobs because we don’t need cashiers, or we don’t need that? Yes. But will we need, for example, people to control the AI? Yes, we need it there, like there’s environmental. Anything with the word environment in the next 20 years will become massive. It’s such an untapped market that people, it’s the same as people kind of saying I have the word it 20 years ago or 30 years ago in the world. Sustainability is another huge factor. Right. 

There is still demand for certain things because AI is now the Wild Wild West show. And this happened when the Internet came to the market 30, 35 years ago. Right. And here’s. I will also give you an example that my CTO loves to use all the time. If you were to open three chats in ChatGPT, in the first one, you would tell your chat that you’re Socrates, and everything you do is based on the highest level of morals and ethics. Okay, in the second one, you say you’re Machiavelli, and the ends justify the means, so get there any means by any means possible. And the third one, which is the most dangerous, you don’t put any parameters at all. Okay, now you go and tell your chat, I need to fire 20% of my workforce.

So Socrates will look and go, well, let’s say you have this many people who are around 75 years old and have already had a long career; maybe we could package them out, right? You also have this group of people that is single, which compared to people that have, that are married, that have kids, if we were to let them go or package them out, probably cause less damage than firing family members, or, you know, someone that has family and kids and so forth. 

So, Socrates will try to find the best, least direct impact approach to letting go of 20%. Conversely, Machiavelli will start telling you how to lie about your numbers and cheat so that you can fire people there. If all else fails, going to a room, close your eyes, go, you’re fired, you’re fired, you’re fired until you get to 20%. And if you have no morals or ethics, even how to kill them in their sleep without, even without getting caught kind of thing. Right now, the last one is the most dangerous. And the reason it’s the most, and this is what’s happening right now with hr, is if you don’t have any conditions or parameters in your AI, you’re letting chat be in Microsoft control your data. There was a company in the news about three months ago, an AI platform teaching or preventing people from becoming anorexic. Right? Bad data came into the AI and not only started teaching people how to become anorexic but actually how to commit suicide because they had anorexia.

Cosmos: 

Oh, wow.

Josef: 

And so the company collapsed from the inside because they had no control. And this is exactly what’s happening in the workforce right now because. Because so many companies have jumped on the bandwagon of AI. Now, understand that machine learning has existed for 80 years. Amazon’s had machine learning because if you type the word A, it knows who you are, giving you what you’re potentially looking for within the first two letters and a few milliseconds of input. Right? But machine learning, or natural, or NLP, natural linguistic processing has existed for years because you have Google, which has had, you know, elements of it. o people are calling it AI, but they’re coming in and saying, okay, I scan resumes for us. But it’s not defining the parameters, whether it’s the keywords, whether it’s sentences, whether it’s the results, whether it’s the resume’s formatting, whether it’s this. 

And so what’s happening is you have all these AI platforms that score your resume, and I can assure you, and I’ve tested this, that if you went to like 7 AI resume builders and scanners, each one would score the same resume very differently. Right. And so what’s happening is that people are going, you know, I’m not getting any responses because I don’t know which standard is used in the AI to measure a resume.

So there’s a level where, again, like I said, you know, and again, this goes back to the job. A lot of job descriptions are very generic. You know, we need someone who’s an excellent team player. Other duties are assigned. Those are pretty much every position in existence. Right?

 Okay. We need someone who has excellent communication skills. Has anyone ever set a standard for how you measure excellent communication skills? Suppose I compare myself to somebody like Les Brown, who has made tens to hundreds of millions of dollars as a motivational speaker. In that case, I don’t have excellent communication skills because I haven’t reached his income level as a speaker. But I’ve taught public speaking, and I’ve taught debate. And since I’ve taken Toastmasters, which I highly recommend to anybody who wants to improve their public speaking, I don’t use filler words like and, or like, you know, yeah, but. And so forth, which makes me a better speaker. But how do you measure excellent communication? I’ve met many people with horrible communication skills, but they’re gainfully employed. How’s that possible? Because it’s just kind of a word we’ve had for the past 30 years. Same thing with hard work. If I compare someone who works in public accounting during tax season, it’s almost mandatory that they work 80 hours a week. 

So what’s hard working for an accountant? 100 hours a week during tax season. And I compare that to, let’s say, a nurse at the height of the pandemic who had to do two, three, four hours of overtime because there weren’t enough nurses or the nurse, the other nurses, didn’t arrive. Does that mean the nurse who worked two or three hours of overtime is less hardworking than the accountant? No, because there’s a different standard of stress and a different standard of expectation. So just because someone works more hours doesn’t necessarily mean they’re more hardworking.

So no one’s ever standardized what the, what I call fluffy terms are because, you know, what’s excellent communication skills, what’s hardworking, what’s interpersonal skills, what’s presentation skills? For example, and I’ll never forget this, I was at an event where Kenneth Cole was speaking, and he pulled out a 36-page speech and read it word for word, and he looked like this for about a half hour. Now, listening to that, I was like, holy smoke, this is a horrible speech. But I also listened to the genius because he had just signed a deal with an Italian leather manufacturer to make shoes. There was a massive conference in New York where all the shoe retailers came, and they pretty much chose their merchandise for the year or the shoes they would sell for the year. And it was too late for him to get a booth at this conference. And so he called the city and said, I need a permit for an 18-wheeler on Saxon Fifth Avenue. And the person at the permit office laughed and said, no one gets a permit in New York for Saks and Fifth Avenue unless you’re shooting a movie or commercial.

So he went to Kinko’s and changed his business name from Kenneth Cole to Kenneth Cole Productions. One word. And then called the city back and said, I’m shooting a shoe commercial this weekend, and I need a permit for an 18-wheeler at Saxon 5th Avenue. He got the permit, hired some friends to pretend they were acting, and had the camera and director chairs. He created so much buzz that he sold because every retailer entering the conference walked into his 18-wheeler first. Before the conference, he sold 300,000 pairs of shoes in one weekend. 

And Kenneth Cole was in existence now again, listening to the fact that he was genius enough to think of the word productions in his business name to get the permit, listening to. And then I did this, and it was like this. And with no icon, I was like, horrible speech. Interestingly, he even acknowledged that he was a horrible public speaker. That’s why he has PR people in the company to do it for him.

Cosmos: 

Wow.

Josef: 

But again, what is the level of me going as a speaker?

No, as a genius marketer. Wow. It’s a kind of thing. And so it depends on which ear you’re listening from. Right? You have to understand that many people call themselves resume writers, and they think it’s pretty easy. You go to Google and type a few keywords. Nowadays, you can chat with GPT and type a few keywords. But if you don’t know how to communicate and you don’t know how to teach even your chat, quantify your results, and understand there, because yes, Chad can scan a job description, go, here’s the keywords, here’s some. But if you don’t know how to score it, format it, and so forth, you know, if you kind of say, like again, I’m going to ask you a rhetorical question.

Right. Have you ever met an accountant who does not know how to do financial statements?

Cosmos:

 No.

Josef: 

Right. So, if you’re an accountant, by default, I expect you to know financial statements. Yeah, but if you can look at my financials and save me 10, 20, or 30% of my taxes, you can defer some of my taxes or offer me solutions that will benefit my business. You’re the accountant I want to speak to. I don’t want to speak to you because you’re an accountant. Tell me you know how to create a balance sheet. Okay, you have a CPA designation.

Lord, I hope you know what a balance sheet is. And an income statement is, of course, kind of. But most people, when they present themselves on their resume and, or their LinkedIn, just kind of go, I know how to do this, and I know how to do this. I don’t care that you know how to do it. When I say I. Employers today don’t care that you know how to do something. They care. How good are you at it? Why are you better than anyone that’s applying? What have been your experiences, or what have been your thoughts that have changed? You know, and here’s to the level that I will say this: I’ll share a personal story and then a similar story from Timothy Ferris. Right. 

So, I was doing a degree in teaching in between things. I was speaking to the business professors, and the business professor mentioned to me that his MBA class just had a case study where, you know, a business is losing a lot of money, and 97% of the students pretty much said outsourcing was the best solution to save money. And as we were having the conversation, I mentioned a few things to him. He’s like, wow, I love your ideas. Would you want to do a lecture for my MBA class? I’m like, yeah, I’d love to. When he’s like, oh, it starts in 20 minutes. All right, let me grab my laptop. I’ll come in. 

And I came into the class. I’m like, okay, so I understand that you guys just did this case study shove hand. How many of you said outsource? Most of the hands in the room went up. I said okay. And then I looked at him and said, why are you here? Why are you wasting money in the NBA? And the room went quiet. I said, if your solution is to outsource, you’re paying for an MBA to ensure you don’t have a job because that’s your solution. Then I asked how many of you would be willing to take a ten-pay cut but keep your job to save the company money. Hands went up. I asked how many of you trust that between your education, experiences, and things you’ve seen and read, you can maybe come up with a solution to make the company more money. Hands or not, that’s the difference in mindset. Because if your solution is the cheapest, easiest to do with the source, you’re saying, I don’t want a job, I don’t need a job, please give it to somebody else. Timothy Ferris wrote The Four-Hour Work Week, the Four-Hour Body, the Four-Hour Chef, Tools of the Titans, and other great books, right? In his book The Four-Hour Work Week, he lectured at Stanford University and asked the NBA students at Stanford University. He challenged him. He said I’m going to be here for about two weeks. I’m running different boot camps and so forth. I challenge you to try to get a personal email. And again, it might not be the correct names, but from Steve Jobs, Bill Clinton, or Bill Gates, right? When that’s impossible, 98% of the MBA students at Stanford University have more security than God. The other 2% went, well, I have nothing to lose. Let me at least try. One student found an article from 1982. I believe it was Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. I can’t remember the name right now. In the article, Bill Gates mentioned that one of his favorite birthday gifts was a red bicycle he got when he was 10. At the end of the article, there was an old Pegasus email address, right? Pegasus hasn’t existed for about 30 years. And he was like, okay, I got nothing to lose. And he sent an email saying, hi, not sure if this is Bill Gates. 

But I read an article from 1982 that said your favorite birthday gift was a red bike. I was curious if you still have the bike—signed student. Twenty-four hours later, he got an email saying, “No, I don’t, but thank you for reminding me of such a great moment in my life. Signed Bill Gates.” And I understand why you started this podcast interview with that.

How do you get people to shift their mindset from stuck and miserable to wanting more and better? First of all, it’s the desire to change. So if you give up before you start because you’re like, this is too hard and thin. Right. That in itself is the problem. Right. Before we married, my wife worked as a behavior therapist when we were dating. She was in a private clinic. She needed to get 97% on her evaluation, and she got 96. Right. And they fired her. Oh, wow. She worked there for three years. She was one of their best behavior therapists. Right.

 So she cried a little bit. And then I reminded her that she was dating one of the best career coaches in North America. Right. So she calmed down. We wrote a resume. She sent out seven resumes on Sunday. On Monday, three employers called her and asked if we could interview you face to face. She had three interviews on Tuesday and three job offers, all for more money. But it wasn’t until she was fired that it was the gasoline to now look for something else sometimes.

Cosmos: 

So sometimes adversity leads to greater.

Josef: 

There are opportunities, but we’re so afraid of adversity that most would rather stay than try something new. How many people stay in bad relationships because they want to be in a relationship rather than not? Yeah. Go back to things that they were, and I’ve had because it’s easier, and they know it. Right. And again, this is a mind-like one. If I may share quickly, this is one of my craziest experiences as a recruiter. Okay.

I had a guy who was a financial controller for a company back then that was making blank CDs and DVDs. Right. His base salary was about $65,000 yearly, and he had a $20,000 year-end bonus for five years. His employer refused to raise him because the company wasn’t making enough money. Okay. I sent him to one of my clients. And this is going back to 2005 and 2006, when he was doing custom surround sounds where, you know, everything’s in the wall. There are no wires to a tablet. This is before. This was kind of the normal. 

But this is like innovative technology back then, where they were selling to houses worth $2 million plus very high-end clientele. My client loved this individual. He asked me how much he was making. I said, the base of 65, $20,000 box, I said. He said, okay, I’ll offer him a base of $85,000 and a $25,000 bonus to come to work for me. The candidate took the offer and quit within about a half hour to 45 minutes. His boss entered his office like the VP and said, I can’t let you leave. You’re too important for this company. What’d they offer you? He told them and said, okay, give me a little time. Came back within, I don’t know, 15 minutes and said, we’ll offer you a base of $120,000 bonus to stay here. Kenneth called me; he said, “Listen, I’ve worked here for 10 years. I know everybody. Like, they just doubled my salary. I’m like, but again, this guy wanted you without their five years; they didn’t give you a raise. I called my candidate. My client told him what happened. 

He’s like, there’s something special about this guy. What’d they offer? I told him, and he said, fine, I’ll offer him a base of $160,000 and a $40,000 bonus to come to work for me. I called the candidate and told him the news. The candidate quit again within 45 minutes. The entire leadership company came into his office, saying, you’re not allowed to quit. You’re the only one who knows the finances and what they offer you. He told them they discussed it for about half or 40 minutes and said, okay, fine, we’ll give you a base of $200,000 and 2% ownership in our company. You’ll make about 250.

Cosmos: 

Wow.

Josef:

 The candidate called me, and he was like, “Listen, I called my client.” I told him what happened. He was like, “Okay, this is my final offer to him. If he doesn’t take it, he’s an idiot.” I will give him a base of $265,000 and 9% ownership in my company. In his worst year, he’ll clear half a million dollars, right? 

And I called him, I said, Lexan, this guy’s come back three times. You haven’t even worked a single minute for him. He’s just gone and made you his right hand, like his CFO, and offered you 9% ownership in the company. This company hasn’t given you a raise for five years. 

Suddenly, after five years, when you have an offer, they can come back and have money. They found money for you. Right. Would they treat you better or worse if you make more money? And I pulled out every psychology trick for him to make sure he took my offer. I got this individual a $430,000 raise in about four and a half hours. It was the most stressful negotiation of my life. More stressful than proposing to my wife?

Cosmos: 

Wow, this is. This is intense. And it’s. It’s amazing, you know?

Josef: 

Right. But you must understand that if you know how to present the value, here are my results. Here’s why I matter. Right. Then companies will understand that. They might not understand it right away because if you haven’t been more proactive in asking for more, they’re saving money, not giving you more. Right. Everybody has their, 

Trust me, as a recruiter; I’ve had situations where I’ve had accounting firms where 20 partners had to sign off on breaking every rule in their standards for, let’s say, someone who spoke a particular language because they were so desperate for somebody who had the language skills, for example.

So this is where I’m going to say, you know, yes, sometimes it’s, you have no choice because they said, you don’t have a job. Sometimes it has to be. This is my breaking point. I don’t want to be here. You know, it’s not worth it for me. Again, from my own experience like, I’ve experienced the most extreme, toxic environments.  I was in an environment where my father passed away 12 years ago; God rest assured. And I was working for a private college doing 80 hours a week. I was working six days a week. And my father had leukemia. And because he, like, he also had a bad heart, he couldn’t do radiation with the chemo. And because of the heart, because of the heart and because of the cancer, he couldn’t bypass his heart. So his breakfast was 18 pills.

 So, when he started his chemo, he went from zero immunity symptoms to immunity. And he got pneumonia. I walked into the owner as if I were the director of operations and was reporting directly to the owner of the college. And I came and said, just rush into the hospital.

I need to go. And she looked at me, goes, no, I think you’re lying. I’m like, excuse me? She’s like, I think you just want time off from work. I’m like, my father is about to die. Is my excuse to get time? I work here six days a week. I work 14-hour days.

Cosmos: 

What?

Josef:

 What? What are you talking about? Like, I think you’re lying. And I looked around. I have one father. I can find another bleeping job. I walked up the next morning and came in with a box. I was ready to be fired. And she came into my office and asked, how’s your dad? And I’m like, he’s still having issues but is stable. I’m going to go back to the hospital tonight. And she looked at me like you weren’t lying.

Cosmos:

Wow.

Josef: 

And I’m like, what the hell is wrong with you? Right? Within two weeks, not only did I quit that job, right? But I reported a lot of nuances in how she was running the colleges to the Ministry of Colleges, Training and Education kind of thing. And I had her shut down because I was like, how can you perceive that? I work here six days a week. I’ve never complained to you about the number of hours I’m there. My dad is about to die. Was your logic that I need time off from work?

Cosmos

Man, that’s messed up. That is, so tone-deaf. Like, I don’t even know what to say, right?

Josef: 

But that’s my point: many companies still have this mindset that you need to work. And the only thing that matters, especially if you’re on the East Coast, is work. People want to ask me what the difference is between the East and West Coast. It can be summed up beautifully in one sentence. On the East Coast, people live to work. On the west coast, people work to live. 

On the East Coast, when your boss says, I need you on the weekend. Usually, the response is, for how long? On the West Coast, when your boss says, I need you on the weekend, the answer is hell no. It’s the weekend, my time; I don’t work, right? But this rat race mentality means I always have to be at work. I have, like, you know, lawyers that are killing themselves because they want to become partners, and they don’t have a social life, and they don’t see their family again. If you have a partner that supports that, you have more power to get ahead. Grant Cardone talks about how when he built his businesses, his wife supported him and let him work crazy hours to build his. To build their dream together. But if you have family, it’s like. And you don’t see your kid, and you have to choose what’s more important: your family, your health, or the money you’ll potentially make.

And, that’s, you know, that’s not for me to say what’s right or wrong. Everybody has their level of priorities and everybody. But you also have to decide. I’ve had enough.

Cosmos:

And I think, no, totally, Josef.

Josef, I want to ask you so many more questions because this is such a fascinating conversation you’re having. There are so many amazing strategies to add to your list. But we’re on the hour, so we have to go towards the close. 

So, I wanted to ask how the audience can connect with you and the Celebrate Group to learn more about you, your work, and everything you do. If they wanted your help, how would they go about doing it?

Josef: 

So, I’m the most active on LinkedIn. I’m the only Josef Stetter on LinkedIn. You know, the celebrate group dot com. Josef, stetter dot com. Have a conversation. I’m also on Facebook and most other social media platforms. I answered it. But if you type in Resume Whisperer, you type in Corporate culturist, you know, stutter, you’ll find me. You know, I don’t hide myself. You can find me on YouTube. You can find me this way and then connect through it because everything is interconnected.

Cosmos: 

That is awesome, Josef. And Josef, I’m so glad you took the time to share your wisdom on this podcast and give us these invaluable strategies and tactics, which most people don’t even consider. They just go up and say, hey, they just give the resume and ask for the job, and like, this is.

Josef: 

Or they send a thousand resumes to Indeed and go. There are no jobs out there because no one has responded to me.

Cosmos: 

Yeah, this is really relevant, valuable information. I’m so grateful you took the time to do this. I do hope that you come back to this podcast later.

Josef: 

I’m grateful for your getting Cosmos and for allowing me to share some of these ideas. I’d love to be a guest on your show whenever you want me to.

Cosmos: 

Thank you, Josef. I appreciate it. And I want to conclude this episode by letting my fellow extraordinary Americans know that. Hey, look. There’s an extraordinary within every one of us. We must awaken it and unleash it. Until next time. Bye for now.