Renata Bernarde
- Mar 4, 2020

How to avoid bad career advice

Episode 20 - The bad and heartless online career advice and how to protect yourself from it

This is an episode I didn't think I would ever record. But then I reflected some more, and it seemed like the right thing to do.

This audio was first a Facebook Live video, and in fact, it is my most popular video. I've been in two minds about sharing it on this podcast because after posting it on my Facebook, it crystallized in my mind that I always want to be a beam of light for you. I want to be positive, motivational, boosting your confidence and resiliency so that you can go through your career transition with my support to achieve your career goals.

Ultimately, I decided that, for that same reason, I had to do this video live, and now I'm sharing it with you on the podcast. Because of my deep concern that people will read this lousy advice online and get themselves into a hut, make bad decisions, and not even realize that these advices are poor and ill-considered in the first place. It's because of situations like the ones I describe in this episode that I finally decided this is enough: I can't just complain about these things all the time. I want to take action and walk the talk. I know I can guide and coach job hunters and help professionals make better career choices, so this is what I've decided to do.

My purpose is to protect professionals in the corporate, government, and nonprofit sectors. Those of us who have to manage our careers over time to ensure it has longevity, and that we can be employed and our skills needed, and our career fulfilling.

I don't plan to do a lot of critiquing in the future, but by doing this one at the beginning of our journey together, I believe it was vital for me to cement my philosophy and what I was trying to achieve, and how I was different, and also for my followers to be aware of potential pitfalls of seeking advices and solutions online. Remember to check your sources, check if the advice applies to your specific situation, validate it by running it past an expert or mentor, and if it still doesn't feel right, don't risk it.

Key takeaways:

Don't quit your job on the first day! Maybe you're there to be that transformation.
Don't quit if your workspace isn't ready for you or your email address. You might be there to create the workspace and develop a whole new area.
Don't quit if they talk about policies but not mission, vision, and values. You're there to serve, but you're also there to transform. They hired you because there is something that you need to do to help your organization. Yes, the purpose is important, and you have to work for organizations that have a purpose. But they don't need to talk about it, and they may exude it.
No, people asking for endorsements on LinkedIn are not bullies! People change cities, jobs, towns, countries. And they may not have a network there to advocate for them, to champion them into a new area or career. And every time you write an endorsement, think about the readership. What is it that an employer needs to know about this person?

And also:

Stay put, keep your job, give them time.
Follow mentors, professionals, and experts that you have your best interest at heart and that you admire. But always have a critical sense to know when they have crossed a line or reached their limit.

I hope you enjoy listening to this episode; lookout for another great one coming up next week!

Note: The free career strategic sessions mentioned in this podcast were only available for a limited time. So if you are listening/reading this in the future, the booking link may have gone, sorry!

Transcript of this episode

Hello everyone and welcome to The Job Hunting Podcast. I’m Renata Bernarde your host. And in this podcast I give you tips, advice and I interview experts to help you nail your next job and have the best career.

My goal is for The Job Hunting Podcast to be a one-stop-shop for you- career enthusiasts, job hunters, professional veterans and rising stars who are keen to learn as much as you can to enable your future career progression and your personal goals. Here you will to listen to experts and professionals that came before you, and are a few years or decades ahead of you, and have great stories and advice to share on how they have achieved their career goals.

Today I will be sharing with you yet another audio of a Facebook Live Video from my Facebook Page, @renatabernarde.co, which you should follow by the way, if you have a Facebook account that is. What I do on my Facebook account is I post regularly and I do weekly Live Videos every Thursdays AEDT. And I use it as an opportunity to deliver unscripted presentations, chit chats on topics that have been on my mind, and I find it really a good opportunity for me to talk to people live and get their feedback straight away and address issues that have been on my mind as I said, get it off my chest and get some feedback from my followers. This Facebook Live video is my most popular video. And I have been in two minds about sharing it on this podcast, because after posting it on my Facebook I really crystalized on my mind that I really really want to always be a beam of light for you. I want to be positive, motivational, boosting your confidence and your resiliency so that you can go through your career transition with my support and achieve your career goals.

But it was for that same reason that I had to do this video live and, that’s why I decided to share it on this podcast, because of my deep concern that people will read these bad advices online and get themselves into a hut, make bad decisions and not even realize that these advices are poor and ill-considered in the first place. It’s because of situations such as the ones I describe on this Live Facebook audio that you are about to listen to, that I finally decided this is enough, I can’t just be complaining about these things all the time, I actually need to take action and walk the talk. I know I can guide and coach job hunters, so this is what I’ve decided to do.

My purpose is to protect job hunters, I hope that you can see that and understand it. I don’t plan to do a lot of critiquing in the future, but by doing this one in the beginning of my journey, which was late 2019, I believe it was important for me personally to cement my philosophy and what I was trying to achieve and how I was different, and also for my followers to understand what I was trying to do for them, why I’m doing this project in the first place including this podcast.

But before we go ahead, if you are new to this podcast, you should join my community! Go to all the https://www.renatabernarde.com/join and sign up. I will send you all the free things like webinars, masterclasses, guides and templates that you can use to help you job hunting. And there are always specials happening, like free consultations with me, and I send you a newsletter every week with the new episode of this podcast and other special content that I put together just for my community. The link to join is also in the episode show notes, and on my Facebook page and Instagram account.

Ok without further ado, here it is. Note that this is an audio that was first done live on Facebook. So if sometimes I say hi to someone, or comment on something that’s happening in real time, well, that’s why!

Good morning from Melbourne everyone. Hi, I'm Renata, I help professionals job hunt and have great careers. And today I'm here to talk to you about some horrible advice I find online. I'm always searching for online articles for my newsletters. So every week on Thursdays I send a newsletter with my podcast and a list of articles that I think are very good for my followers to read if they want to have extra reading and advice for the job, hunting pursuits. And sometimes I come across some horrible shit and I decided to share them with you because I really just can't believe that, you know, people are, might convince others to follow these advice and they are published in reputable organisations that you would follow that sometimes I actually have sent and will continue to send articles from this outlet, but they curate articles as well from, you know, lots of different people.

And this one that I'm going to talk to you about first. And the other one is a tweet that I, from somebody that I follow that I really admire and in fact I like her so much. I've decided today that after this live, I will send her a private message with my thinking and my point, because I don't want to publicly shame anybody. That's not the point. I am hoping that I can share with her my experience and the experience of people I know that have done the exact opposite of what she's talking about and that she understands that her expertise has limitations. And I'll talk to you about where those limitations are in those two situations cause I've done some research on these people.

So the first article is from this week and or sorry last week and it says “Three signs you should quit after your first day on the job”. Bang. Now first of all, somebody that has had a lot of first days on the job in her career, it is a very, very stressful day. It is a very stressful day for you. It also is somewhat sort of, not stressful, but there's some anxiety from other people as well that will be welcoming you and things don't always go to plan. And I have had, I've looked at back at my career in my sort of went to LinkedIn and like every single job that I've had for the past 10 years or more, the first day was always kind of messed up. And if I had followed this advice, which I will talk to you about, I would have quit on the first day. And because you're so anxious and stressed, you are looking to kind of, you know, the bumps to bump into, and the sort of rocks on the road, the challenges, and you’re kind of are hyper aware of issues.

And for somebody that may have like a fight flight, it's like if you're, you have the tendency to move away, you could by following this advice, give up on a job that's perfectly okay. Right? So you have to be careful with that. Not to take advice like this too seriously and put yourself in a situation where you might leave a job that's okay.

So for example, number one, your manager doesn't spend time with you. Now I have managers that haven't been there for me at all my first day, they were overseas. The last job I had, my manager was overseas. He did tell me he wasn't going to be there. He apologised profusely, but you know it's always very hard to be in a new job full of other people that don't know why somebody have hired you and for two weeks you may not know exactly what to do, but you know what? Because he was away for two weeks. I, you just have to wing it if you really want that role, you know if the manager is not there for you, that’s fine.

There was one situation many years ago that's even worse guys. I started the job on the same day that the manager who hired me, the general manager, the state manager who hired me, resigned and left and it was, it was drama. It was dramatic. Nobody knew why I was there. It was a brand, like a newish role with a newish, it was not a new role per se, but it was like a revamped position description and it was different from the other colleagues that I had there and I, I was ghosted like I wouldn't, people didn't really know what to do with me. They weren't really happy that I was in the role. It was the best team I've worked for.

I do, I adore these people. The guy who replaced him, who clearly didn't really know what to do with me in the first couple of months became somebody that I really enjoyed working for. My colleagues, some of them I still connect with these days, they're on my Facebook. The people that worked for me are still connected with me. I had a team, I hired a team. And it was all fine, you know, but the first few days were difficult as they always are. Even if the organisation is uber sensitive and caring, if they are in that place where they can have time for you, they have all of these things that these guy’s talking about. They're very settled and they, they're mature and they are, you know, have great culture and strategy developed. But maybe you're there to be that transformation and that's what, that's why I have a business transformation consultancy.

It's because I'm, I'm okay with that, but I also think that even if that's not your thing, you know, to thrive under stress and pressure like I am, you might need to pay your mortgage and you have, you know, things to worry about. You shouldn't quit in the first day just because your manager doesn't spend time with you. What? I'm, my clients are pragmatic people. They need jobs, they have to have a job and they are also ambitious. They want to have a great career. So we need to pay for our self not to make some sort of career limiting move here.

Okay. The second one, “Your workspace isn't ready for you, neither is your email address”. Now, I am yet to go into an organization that has my email address ready. Maybe it's just where I've worked, but especially in the higher education sector where I've worked, Oh no, the emails they are take forever to get ready guys. Let me just sip my water. It takes really a long time and it's almost like it's a big win and they celebrate. If you start and your email is ready, it's like, yay, it's ready, can you believe it? But most times people misspell my surname anyway. So many times I've come into an organisation and I'm like, yep, no, that's not my surname. It has two Rs. So you know, or they put Renate with an E and that's okay. You know, I'm fine with that. Workspace being ready? No, no.

Sometimes I'm there to actually create the workspace and develop a whole new area. So no. And I just think that it's, it would be great and I think most, you know, again, bricks and mortar or, or being mature organisations would have a workspace ready for you. I've worked for them and they didn't, and I just was fine with that. I don't expect people to babysit me.

“They talk about policies but not mission, vision and values”. Now of all of the three tips as why you should quit on the first day of your job. This one was the one that annoyed me the most because this is a very American way of thinking. I am originally from Latin America. I don't think organisations in Latin America will talk to you about mission, vision and values. I don't think Australia might, but still we would say that, Oh it's so American, you know, and, and we would kind of talk about it in almost like an embarrassed way. You know, many organisations would. Yes they are super important and you have to work for organisations that have a purpose. They don't need to talk about it. They just exude it. Right. So, you know, I, I think that it's important to understand that sometimes there isn't something written down, but if you're there for two, three days, you will know.

You understand that there is a clear mission here that these people care about what they do, that they really love their work, they care about their clients. Even if they didn't start off by sharing with you a mission statement or a vision. So don't expect that. That is best practise, yes, if you studied at Harvard or if you studied at any good university, they would know that you should expect that. But if it's a small midsize organisation, if it's a start up that's kind of growing exponentially, they are still figuring things out. You're there to help them as well. When I go into an organisation with a business transformation agenda, what to help them settle. That's the sort of work that I will do. But I as a employee walking in, don't worry if they don't share that with you straight away. If they talk about policies but not mission it’s because they still don't trust you.

So if they, if they talk to you, and it's very transactional and, and you know, and they will say things like the time you come in and the time you go out and the time you, you take a break and all of that and you feel like, ‘I'm a professional, I know these things’, just you know, be empathetic and understanding. They don't know you that well yet. It may be that the message hasn't really permeated the organisation about how you should treat employees on the first day. In fact, I do also do induction training as well. It's really important, but the mission, vision and values, you shouldn't worry too much about that. If you're in a different country that's not the U S and that's not part of their, the way that the business is done, right? So stay put, keep your job, give them time.

And I think I mentioned in a previous live that a headhunter had contacted me within the first six months that I was in a job. And the reason why she did that, so I mentioned it in a previous live that she told me, “well, if you're not happy, it's a good time to move within that first six months”, right? So give yourself some time. Right? So what's the solution like if you, if you feel that there is a bad vibe, I still think you should stay put and make yourself known. Understand the company's values, figure out your workspace, figure out your email, get to know people, help them with the organisation. You're there to help. You're not there to, to serve. You're there to serve, but you're also there to transform. You're there to, that's why they hired you. They hired you because there is something there that you need to do to help your organisation.

So be that change agent if you need to be, if you feel that it's worth your, your time as you know, as, as a part of your career. But give it six months. And like this head hunter said, ‘if you don't feel it's a good fit for you, it's okay to move’. And I didn't know that and I kind of give that, that advice to, to you and to others as well.

So I'd love to get your thumbs up if you, you know, if you're watching this later and have comments as well about your stories about first days, cause I have plenty of weird ones. I remember walking into the first day in one of my roles and I was, there was just so much paperwork for me to fit through. Like there was just so much stuff in my new office. It was my office, but it was just like piles and piles and piles of things. I didn't know if they were important or not. So my first month was just sort of figuring out what paper work I needed to keep and what I could throw away. It was just amazing. It was so, but it was, you know, it's all part of, part of the job, I don't see that as a problem and I don't think you should quit.

The second one, like I said, was a Twitter that broke my heart because I follow this woman and I read her book and I, this is the sort of person that inspires me and you know, if she's on a podcast, I will listen to it twice. You know, it's really that kind of transformational feminism that helps women understand the structural challenges for them to go back into work. And I, I really have used that framework to help clients and to help me personally as well. But then she wrote on her Twitter something really horrible about people asking her for endorsements, on LinkedIn and how she hates it and how people probably bullies because they are bullying people to write platitudes about them.

I was so disappointed because, look, I'll tell you what, she has never moved countries, in fact, she has never moved from where she lives. She is in this one big city all her life and her career has been very, she doesn't think so. She would probably disagree. That has been fairly linear. I don't think that there has been a lot of career changes so she has stayed in her lane in terms of her expertise and her skills and she's very good at what she does. But if you are trying to move countries, if you are going from Europe to Australia or from in my case Brazil to Australia, it will be very hard for you to, sorry, I had to touch the screen because the power is low. It will be very hard for you to, it will take time to develop a network. So having a few endorsements on your LinkedIn page is really important because it's other people telling people you don't know about you.

And every time I've written an endorsement I've, I, I've thought about the readership. What is it that this, what is it that an employer needs to know about this person? You have to write it in that way. And, I have endorsements on my LinkedIn. All of them I believe are from former MBA students. So I was an MBA career manager for a little while and the MBA students wrote lovely things on my LinkedIn. That was back in 2008, ‘09, ‘10 you know, in LinkedIn was really at the beginning and we were all, I was teaching people how to use LinkedIn and how important it was and we were all sort of testing things and giving each other recommendations. But I think recommendations are still very important for people that are changing careers, that have little network in their new career that they want to pursue.

People changing cities, jobs, towns. And they may not have a network there and they need a network, their network to, to tell others, to advocate for them, to champion them into a new area or, or career. So that's why I think that was, that was not a good tweet for me or anybody who is like looking up to her and thinking, ‘Oh no, I've just asked people to do LinkedIn endorsements for me’. And now she's saying, you know that it's bad and it would make not, I'm very confident in myself, but it would make other people feel really low if they follow her. And she has a very big following of women. And I would hate for people to go on their LinkedIns and delete their, or hide their recommendations because they saw this. So what do you do when you come across articles such as this that are written in publications that you follow for, they're very strong at leadership articles and in career articles, executive articles or you know, people like this woman and you look up to her and then she writes something and it makes you go, ‘what!?’.

So I first of all two things. First of all, follow somebody that you think have your best interest at heart, like me, I do. And I will call out bullshit when I see them, and I will reinforce what is really important to you, what the recruiters and the employers really do look up to and look at your LinkedIn for. This woman is not an employer. She isn't, she’s a thought leader. This man is definitely not an employee. And I checked his LinkedIn. He hasn't had a job for a long, long, long time. So there you go. So you know again, a thought leader, somebody who does a lot of consulting and coaching but hasn't really, I don't think he's ever applied for a job. He was an entrepreneur also so it doesn't have that lived experience. Right. So just be careful who you follow and sign up to my newsletter because I will find the good content for you and I will put them in a newsletter. It only comes out weekly and you can sign up on one of the comments. I'll, as soon as I finish this live, I will write it on the comment of how you subscribe.

I have a lead magnet, we call it lead magnet. I hate that word, but it's a document that I love, love, love. It's called the “Top 10 tips for successful for making job hunting successful and less stressful”. I like the end of it. I know it's a long title, but the less stress was really important because you can be successful but be super stressed. And I like to be efficient and make it really simple when you're job hunting. So that's why that's a very long title for this document that I prepared. So I'll put the link to that below as well. And I was going to talk about confidence today and I decided, you know what, I will talk about these things that have been really annoying me and get it out, get it out of my system and then talk about confidence next week because then it's a good transition. So how do you remain calm and how do you feel confident about your move, your career move, your willingness to go after a new job, your, when do you resign?

You know, we were talking about quitting on the first day. How do you know when it's time to move on to another role? So that's a presentation I did a couple of weeks ago at the Lean in chapter in Melbourne and I'd love to talk to you live next week. And then if you're not here, that's okay because it's going to be on my page and you can see it anytime you want. Okay, nice to talk to you today. Put comments below, if you had great stories to share about your first day on jobs, I love to hear them and talk to you soon!

Hey before you go, if you’re not yet subscribed to this podcast remember to do so, wherever you’re listening to it right now – iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or Youtube. And better still you should also join my community, and a newsletter with the new podcast episode will land in your inbox every week. The newsletter also includes important news and announcements from me, and some extra resources that I curate especially for my community.

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Bye for now!

About the Host

Hello, I’m Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I’m also an executive coach, job hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach professionals (corporate, non-profit, and public) the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.

If you are an ambitious professional who is keen to develop a robust career plan, if you are looking to find your next job or promotion, or if you want to keep a finger on the pulse of the job market so that when you are ready, and an opportunity arises, you can hit the ground running, then this podcast is for you.

In addition to The Job Hunting Podcast, on my website, I have developed a range of courses and services for professionals in career or job transition. And, of course, I also coach private clients.