Melody Wilding: How do you become fully confident and in control of your emotions and experience at work? It’s by mastering your own psychology and that of others. On this show, we decode the science of success, exploring how to get out of your own way and advance your career to new levels without becoming someone you’re not.

I’m Melody Wilding, bestselling author, human behavior professor and award winning executive coach. Get ready and let’s put psychology to work for you.

If you have ever looked for a job, you know how soul crushing it can feel. You’re sending application after application into the void. You’re trying to crack the mysterious code of what hiring managers actually want. You’re wondering if anyone is even looking at reading your resume, and the whole process can just make you feel very powerless.

But what if, instead of feeling like the one who’s desperately seeking approval, you could flip that script and become the one who’s in control.

Well, our guest today is going to talk to us about exactly how to do that, and I am joined by Madeline Mann. She is a former HR and recruiting leader, and she saw firsthand how it actually works.

How do you actually land a great role, and more importantly, what you shouldn’t do. And so she has taken that insider knowledge. She has turned it into an approach that has helped thousands. Professionals, land roles at top companies, you name it, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, the list goes on. And Madeline, I have been following her for years, so I am really honored to have her here.

And it’s an exciting time because her new book, reverse the Search, comes out very soon. And in it, she introduces a completely different way of thinking about job hunting. We’re gonna talk about that today and hopefully give you some tools to feel like you are in the driver’s seat, and you can go from job seeker to what she calls job shopper.

So, Madeline, welcome.

Thanks so much for having me, Melody.

I am so excited to have you here, and we’re gonna get into a lot of what’s inside your new book today. But I wanna start with having you explain this concept of going from job seeker to job shopper. So tell me about that.

Madeline Mann: So the idea of reversing the job search, becoming the job shopper instead of the seeker, is this idea that it’s not just the company that we are beholden to, that they are selecting us, and we are lucky if they deign to give us any attention, but that you can reverse the search. And have companies competing for you, convincing you to join their company.

And the way this works is this idea that when I worked in human resources and I was behind thousands of hiring processes, I saw what these hiring managers and interviewers were saying, and we think that they have hundreds of wonderful candidates to choose from. But really finding that right person who has the right combination of skills, attitude, personality, that ends up being a very small pool of people.

And if you approach the entire hiring process the right way, from the moment they see your resume to every conversation you have leading up until the offer. If you do that in a way that continues to build confidence in the employer, they are going to start to get FoMO that you, that may, they might lose out on this candidate.

And this is how you’re able to get multiple job offers and get those job offers quickly. We have so much more power in the job search than we realize, and that is really what I’m revealing in this book.

Melody Wilding: That’s fantastic because like I said in the intro, it’s so easy just to feel powerless, helpless, resign to the fact that maybe this is not going to happen. And I’ve talked with so many people over the last year especially, who are really, really qualified and not seeing much traction. And you know, I have to imagine that you, you’ve been on the other side of the table, you were in HR and recruiting for years.

And so before we get into what you should do to become a a job shopper. What are some of the biggest like faux pas or mistakes that you saw in your experience, or even today when you’re working with people? What are some of those big no-nos that we should stop doing right off the bat?

Madeline Mann: One of the things that people get wrong is if they are one of these highly competent people that you’re talking about, they have a lot of different skill sets. Maybe they’re multi-passionate and they could do multiple different types of jobs, and they are not landing interviews. Sometimes their solution is.

Well, I’m going to go broad. I’m going to go for roles in product management and then marketing, and then project management, and then sales. And actually this approach is what is keeping them even more stuck. It’s actually much faster and much more effective to go deep and strong into one direction versus split your attention in all these different lanes.

And when I talked about before that companies really want to have confidence in that hire, when you are showing that your attention is split in a lot of different career directions, that is sending up red flags to them. They’re saying, this person seems like a risk. I don’t know that this role is going to fit them.

I don’t know. They’re gonna be great at it. I don’t know that we’re going to be able to retain them. And so that is one thing that is really keeping people stuck. another one I’m seeing is this idea that so many of her friends and family, if someone is, you know, working hard in the job search, very competent, very ambitious, their friends and family, tell them, just keep going.

This is a numbers game. If you just keep putting out applications, it’s going to happen for you. It is a numbers game, and I’m telling you right now, Melody, this entire book, reverse a search and then all of the coaching I’ve done. Strictly disproves that idea. That is a numbers game. I’ve had clients who go for hundreds, sometimes even thousands of opportunities applying online before they get coaching, and then they either never have to apply online again because all the opportunities come inbound.

They fully reverse the search or they are pursuing opportunities, which sometimes happens with certain roles. You still have to pursue some opportunities. But they’re pursuing a handful of them. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, you’re, you’re just looking at a few opportunities versus hundreds, and that is actually much faster than this, like spray and pray approach.

Melody Wilding: Yeah, and so many people will tell me, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening. I’ve been doing LinkedIn Easy Apply for I must have applied to 200 jobs. I don’t know what’s happening. And it’s like, that is the problem. That is exactly the issue here. And so when you, when you say reverse the search, get hiring managers, get people to come to you, are you primarily, like, are we talking about LinkedIn here or are there other mechanisms?

Because I, I think people’s, that’s what people automatically go to when they hear, like, get people to come to you, is that, well, I need to be discoverable on LinkedIn.

Madeline Mann: That largely what we’re talking about. Absolutely. I, there are other ways to get discovered, especially depending on your specific profession. There are also other ways to get sourced to get noticed, so those are important too. But I would say if you were going to focus your attention. Anywhere and where the vast majority of you getting opportunities come to you.

Absolutely. LinkedIn is the center hub, and it’s been that way for a long time. And even when I was writing this book, I was very hesitant to put any tool in the book because tools become obsolete very quickly and I’ve, I’ve been in tech for a while now, so I’ve seen them come and go.

I did put LinkedIn in the book. And I put it in pretty deeply because I realized this is so deeply entrenched in the fabric of hiring and employment right now. That you’re absolutely right. It needs your attention.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. And so what is that? Without giving, we want people to get the book and so make sure you order or Reverse the Search. But what, what is someone who is acting more as a job shopper, what are they doing differently on LinkedIn than the average bear?

Madeline Mann: So one thing that we need to focus on, and one of the reasons why my clients get often over 50% of their interview opportunities, completely inbound, right? They did not apply, they did not approach this company, it’s all inbound. Is because they’re positioning themselves on LinkedIn, as exactly what that company is looking for.

So for me, working in recruiting for many years, for also doing lots of sourcing, which sourcing for any of your listeners who are unfamiliar, is the action that companies do where they’re having their recruiters or they’re literally called sourcers, or sometimes even the hiring managers, they’re on LinkedIn looking for people to ask to interview, and some people say, wow. But this company has hundreds or sometimes even thousands of applications. I mean, top companies like Google, Amazon, they are all sourcing aggressively. and so, but why, why would they do that if they’re already getting so many applications? Because it is a strategic advantage for a company to be going out and pursuing the best talent versus sitting there quietly and waiting for the best talent to come to them.

And so you need to position yourself as the best talent on LinkedIn? How do you do that? Well, you don’t have to be the best at what you do, which is kind of a funny thing is that my clients are not the best at what they do per se. Some of them definitely are, but, but you don’t have to be. They’re the most easily found. And isn’t that the truth for everything on the internet? If you are hiding behind all of this weird jargon and talking about yourself in a way that is talking about your, your past history, but not focusing on what the company’s looking for, that is when you’re going to be hidden, but it’s really all about positioning your profile as exactly what that company’s looking for.

That’s why I said earlier that being very targeted about what you’re focused on can be hugely beneficial to reversing the search, and that is really what sucks in all of those opportunities to a disproportionate amount, to just the minority of people on LinkedIn are getting the majority of these, these outreaches from recruiters.

Melody Wilding: That’s so interesting how, you know, you were sharing the, the counterintuitive idea that actually. Narrowing down, like niching down your resume actually leads to, to more traction. When people think it’s the, the exact opposite of that. And that applying may not actually be the way you’re going to reach people more quickly.

It’s, it’s being discoverable. And it’s funny you say that, ’cause recently I was looking for a new photographer to work with and I had the toughest time finding someone because people just weren’t discoverable. They weren’t coming up in Google when I searched personal branding photographer, I couldn’t find anyone.

And so it, you’re right, that’s how, it’s how we find information now. okay, so then what, what are you changing on your LinkedIn profile to make yourself more discoverable or attractive? To let someone know I’m the right candidate when, job descriptions may describe a certain role, slightly different, or you may want to make a change from product management in tech to product management in consumer goods, for example.

So how do you straddle that line of being like specific and targeted enough without, maybe, maybe tipping over to mm, eliminate certain opportunities.

Madeline Mann: Yes. So one of the, the concepts I walk through in reverse the search is what’s called the glory formula, which is helpful first for your resume, but then you take that work and you bring it onto LinkedIn. And it does start with, as you mentioned, these job descriptions. Of course you are right, job descriptions will say different things, but when you start to see certain themes and you’re able to really, target the, the, the specific hard skills that they’re looking for. I think too often people get really caught up in the soft skills. Now don’t get me wrong, soft skills are what is going to land you the job and keep you the job, but it’s not what’s going to land you the interview. That’s that’s the facts. You need those hard specific skills that are going to land into the interview, and then they’re going to see your soft skills by the way, you answer interview questions such as the way you describe accomplishments. You don’t say, you know, I am a really great communicator. I. You tell an accomplishment that shows that you were able to conduct a project in a way where all parties were clear and able to, execute at a high level.

Right? So there’s just so many things that we, we have been taught to put on our resumes and our LinkedIn profiles. Season professional, you know, who is dedicated and hardworking. All of those words are completely useless. On a LinkedIn profile, it needs to be focused on what the company’s actually looking for, buying like that specific skillset, don’t go so broad. Be more focused.

Melody Wilding: Your technical expertise is worth exactly zero if you can’t influence the people above you. Harsh? Maybe. True? Absolutely. In my new book, Managing Up How to Get What You Need From The People in Charge, I break down the psychology of workplace influence into a clear, repeatable system. Stop letting office politics hold you back. Learn how to get ahead and get your ideas heard while staying true to who you are. Get your copy at managingup.com. Hmm. Yeah. And, okay, so LinkedIn, you know, I, I think we’re talking about things like probably optimizing your headline, your about section. Let’s, let’s say, okay, knock on wood, now recruiters are coming to you. They’re asking you to interview. what about your resume itself? And this is where I wanna, I wanna talk a bit more about the psychology of a hiring manager or a recruiter. I thought it was great when you mentioned that, you know, companies there are sourcers because companies know that the best talent also is passive talent, usually they’re employed and they may be trying to poach someone. So what else, what, even if it’s, if it’s still things before the interview or on your resume, what else? Like help us get in the heads of the people that are looking at us, what is more some of the psychology that’s determining whether they’re inviting us to an interview or not.

Madeline Mann: Yes, so the psychology of the job seeker is job seekers are optimizing for time. Okay? Time is precious. There’s so many opportunities out there. There’s so many different companies. They can’t spend 40 hours a week on one opportunity every week because it just is going to exhaust them. And then there’s these projects that are involved, or these long hiring processes, so they’re trying to optimize for time so that they can get a return on that time and land the offer. Well, we are not realizing that the hiring manager’s psychology is fighting against that. The reason that the hiring manager is making you jump through so many hoops and spend so much time in this hiring process, and maybe making their application process harder than it used to be, is because the hiring manager is optimizing for risk.

They are trying to minimize the risk of hiring the wrong person. Anyone who has ever hired will agree with me that they would rather, take longer to hire the right person than hastily, hire the wrong person and then have to undo what they have done.

And so that is the psychology, is that these hiring managers, first of all, desperately when you get on the interview, they desperately want you to be the right person. They want you to end this monotony of the interview process, because the only reason you hire is because you have more work than you have people. So the people who are interviewing you are overworked.

So first of all, they want you to succeed. That’s important to know. A lot of people don’t realize that. Second, they are terrified though of, giving you an offer because that costs a lot of money and that costs a lot of time when it comes training you and all of that. And so knowing that, that is how job seekers or job shoppers rather, are able to completely turn this game in their favor because they say, all I have to do is to go above and beyond in some ways that actually aren’t incredibly, you know, time consuming, but they just have to find ways to go above and beyond to reduce the amount of risk that they’re posing as a candidate.

And you can even do this, even if you’re a career changer, even if you’re someone who is totally from a different field. But it’s all about building that confidence in your candidacy. So the hiring managers can say, I could definitely work with this person. I definitely have confidence that they would be a fast learner. I definitely have confidence that they will pick up these skills and be great on this team because that person did a good job of making sure that I could see that in the interview process.

Hmm. And does that go back to your glory formula? Does that go back to talking and accomplishments? How, how do you convey that? So the way you convey it is first you, you are right, with the glory formula. You are deeply studying the opportunity to get in the mind of the employer. Because one of the things that is quite different about this approach in Reverse the Search, is something like your resume, or even your interview answers, it does not start with what is interesting about you? What is interesting about your past?

No, it starts with what is the opportunity? What are they asking for? And you build your strategy back from that, and that is completely backwards. From what we have been taught. I don’t know about you, but when I was taught to write a resume, they were like, okay, so what was your best accomplishment at your last role? Okay, let’s write that down. Okay. What was your second best accomplishment? Let’s make it sound really flashy. And that actually ends up being actually quite distracting, from what is actually important for you to land the opportunity.

And so when you’re able to shift that mindset and get in the mind of the employer of what are they actually looking for, that’s when you start to build up the right talking points in an interview. Because here’s the thing, melody is I’ve also trained thousands of people to be the interviewers.

And even if they’ve had 10 months of interview experience or 10 years, most people are bad at interviewing. And so part of the strategies in reverse the search is about, assume your interviewer is not going to ask you the right questions to unearth the important things about you. How are you going to make sure that they hear the right things in the interview to say yes to you?

And that’s a big piece of it, is taking more ownership in the interview, not in a strong arm way where you are pushing the interview in a certain direction, but more subtly. Bringing the conversation to certain talking points that actually leads them to say, wow, this is the best interview of the day. I feel really good about this candidate.

Melody Wilding: Yeah, and what a relief for people, I think to hear that, whoever you’re talking with, whether it is a recruiter or a hiring manager, they want you to succeed. Like what a sigh of relief is, what I feel, because it can feel very adversarial when you get on the call and it’s like I have to prove myself and they don’t want me and I have to show them they want me versus, it’s more making a connection between they have a need that is literally why they are hiring for this role, and I have to show them and highlight the right things from my experience that fill that need. Is that it becomes more of like a, a dialogue and trying to like fit pieces together versus this kind of you versus them proving validation kinda energy.

Madeline Mann: Yes. Is what the company offering the candidate, is that what they want, and is what the candidate offering the company, is that what they want? And having that more sitting on the same side of the table type of vibe to it where it is a it feels more like your coworkers before you’re even hired.

And if you are viewing talking to your coworker as they are superior to you from the beginning, they’re not going to see you as your coworker. You need to show that you are at the same level, but also that you’re bringing your A game, that you are looking to give them the answers they need, but that you are also being a bit more collaborative in the process.

Melody Wilding: Yes. And this goes back to psychology too, ’cause to your point you were saying most interviewers are not trained. They probably feel a little awkward or nervous. They don’t want, they don’t wanna make a bad decision that then their boss or the company is upset about. And so if you can set them at ease, like you were saying before, almost guiding the conversation, they’re, they’re going to like you more ’cause you’ve made their job that day a bit easier.

And I love that point about the power dynamics. Like, don’t put yourself in this one down position. Automatically meet them more as a peer. And also, I, I, I could see how they could almost imagine you in the role they could imagine working with you, which makes it, it makes it that much more convincing for them.

Madeline Mann: Exactly it. When you have that dynamic, you come into the interview. Essentially viewing yourself as a coworker of, okay, this is the person I’m gonna be working with. And so what questions would you ask in the interview if you already knew you had the job? And then the, the questions stop being, oh, what questions should I ask to impress them?

No. The questions become a bit more real about the goals for the role, and you imagining how you would work with that person. And, and so how have you done this project in the past and all that. And when you start to show up in that way, again, the risk starts to melt away because they say, I can picture what it would be like to work with Melody.

This feels authentic. This feels real. I already feel like she’s my coworker. And so really reducing that risk. It’s phenomenal. And, and as you can hear me talking about it, you can see how, you don’t have to have like certain qualifications to reduce that risk. It’s really about the way you show up in interviews, which should be the greatest relief to anyone listening is that this is a skill you can learn.

It’s not something that you have to go out and get another degree for in order to have something, another shiny thing to put on your resume.

Melody Wilding: Exactly. Exactly. And I wanna spend a little time talking about networking because you, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I have to imagine, besides LinkedIn, you know, if LinkedIn is one sort of discoverability platform, I have to imagine networking is also up there too, because LinkedIn can be a bit passive, right?

You’re kind of waiting for people to come to you. But networking. Well, let’s talk about that. I mean, what’s your philosophy around networking, especially when you’re shifting from job seeker to job shopper? How do you think about it differently?

Madeline Mann: Well, a lot of people when they think about networking, they get this cringe reaction. I actually have very little content online about networking because people swipe away, they don’t wanna hear about it. Even though it’s highly impactful, it can land you amazing opportunities that no one else knows about.

And you can slide in, you know, ahead of everyone else. People don’t wanna hear about it because they think of it as inauthentic. They think of it as something where you are asking people for things and that feels greedy. And of course if you view it that way, yes, networking can feel horrible, but if you pivot it to be really focused on adding value and building relationships, and also viewing other interactions as networking, a lot of people don’t realize that there’s networking that they’re doing that can be spun into further opportunities. Such as when you are in a job interview process and then let’s say you get through multiple interviews and you get rejected. You were just networking. You just built relationships. You now have relationships at that company that can be utilized to land a job.

And you might say, Madeline, but I just got rejected. But they saw the value in you to begin with. Just because you didn’t fit that job at that moment. That doesn’t mean that that opportunity is dead in the water, but what people don’t know how to do is how to maintain that relationship and how to turn it around.

I’ve been called the comeback coach because so many of my clients land offers at companies they’ve been rejected at. And so you need to start like seeing people as whole people. It’s not that, oh, I was in this interview with this one person and now that the interview’s over our communication is over.

No people are people. And also those people will go to different companies. Your coworkers, will go to different companies. You now have a network at those new companies. What are you doing to utilize that? There’s so many lower lift ways to network that so many people are just not seeing, and just start viewing people as people, as colleagues, as friends, and stop seeing it as, oh, I need to get something from them and ask them for things.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. And that piece there is what I was going to bring up because that’s what, when, when I’m talking with, with clients or readers, that’s where the most resistance is, is I don’t wanna reach out to people and feel like I’m being needy. I’m asking for something. I’m begging. So how, do you have any like, quick tips around how do you engage your network or even reach out to, let’s say you interviewed at a company last year, and how do you rekindle that without it being all, what’s a natural way to do that?

Madeline Mann: So, there’s a couple different ways. So first of all, simply. Taking interest in people, taking interest in their story, what they’re up to that has value in itself. sharing personal things about yourself. asking people about how they got to where they are in their career. People like talking about themselves. So that in itself is great. But if we’re gonna take it up even another notch, and I go in quite detail, into this strategy in the book, Reverse the Search, and that is 60 Seconds of Value. So it’s this concept where when you’re talking to someone. You, you should always be asking them questions about what they’re up to.

Melody, you have a book coming out, right? So that’s, I already can think of three different things, three different ways that I could add 60 seconds of value to your life, it wouldn’t take much time of mine, but to help you and, and promote your book. And so, but I would have to ask you, Melody, what’s going on in your life?

What are you excited about these days? What are you working on? What’s going, you know, maybe I even ask about your personal life. There’s 60 seconds of value I could add there. If you’re going to Disneyland soon, I could, you know, send you this really good article that I have on how to have the shortest wait times, right?

Whatever that is. And so if you’re someone who is coming into every con conversation interaction of, or even just recognizing what they post on social media and coming to that conversation saying, oh my gosh, Melody, I saw your, you have a, a book coming out. I was going to share it with, you know, I’m, I’m the head of the alumni board for this university. I was going to share it with all of our alumni. Would you be open to doing that? I’m just gonna write like a quick tweet about it. You’d be like, oh my gosh, that’s amazing.

And it doesn’t even have to be, I think a lot of people have this pressure of, well, but I don’t have a large audience. Even I like, tell me if I’m wrong, if I had, I don’t know, a LinkedIn network of 200 people and I shared something about your book coming out on my LinkedIn network, would you still see that as, wow, Madeline really cares about me.

Melody Wilding: Let me jump in quickly to give you a reminder. You can be a team player and say no when necessary. You can be respectful and assert your opinions. You can be perceptive of office dynamics and not be taken advantage of. You deserve to feel fully confident and in control at work. And Resilient, my signature three month group coaching program is your shortcut and the only program you need to get there. Nearly 500 alumni call Resilient life-changing, profound transformational for a reason because Resilient is a best in class live experience with weekly, hands-on coaching, highly actionable tools and strategies, and a supportive community of other deep thinking and feeling professionals worldwide. If you are finally ready to break free from the shackles of people pleasing, overthinking, and burnout that have held you back in your career, then head to melodywilding.com/resilient and get on the VIP wait list. Now you’ll be the first to know when enrollment for the next cohort opens. That’s melodywilding.com/resilient. 100% because it’s, it’s number one, you never know who is in that person’s network. I’ve had this happen where, you know, past clients or current clients will share my book or something, and then someone in their network says, oh, this would be great for our 10,000 person membership association. So you never know.

And also, to your point, just building social capital, that someone cares about you and has taken the time, like everyone knows everybody’s time and energy is short. So the fact that someone would do that for you out of the 10,000 things they have on their plate, it just, it means a lot to people. And those, those are the like surprise and delight moments that stand out in somebody’s mind and really endears you to them.

Madeline Mann: Exactly. Exactly. And I think one thing that, I’ve talked about this before on LinkedIn and someone commented Yep. I always ask. How can I help? And I would say that is not the question you wanna ask you because you want to be asking questions and then you wanna come up with ways you can help.

And maybe you ask the person, you might say, Hey, melody, like I have three different ideas of how I can help you. I can do all three. I can do what? One or the other. Like, would this be of help of help to you? And you could say Absolutely or no, you know that that probably wouldn’t be helpful or whatnot. But instead of me, if I just told you right now, hey Melody,

let me know if you need any help with your book. You wouldn’t really know what exactly to ask or how small or large that expression is of, of what I’m willing to do. It puts you in a very awkward position and likely you would not come back with a request. and so that’s what I really stretch all of your listeners to do, is to be that person who’s a much more active listener and a much more proactive relationship builder, and people will see you as Incr as an incredible person in their network.

Melody Wilding: Yeah, something just clicked for me, as you were saying that, that a thread that’s run through everything you’ve shared today is, reduce the other person’s cognitive load. Whether it’s making sure that on LinkedIn you are, you are very clear with the value you offer, the type of role you’re looking for.

That reduces someone’s cognitive load when they’re looking at your profile and they’re like, yes, this is the person I’ve been trying to find. Or in an interview when you can very, succinctly and concisely compellingly, tell your story rather than having someone meander through your resume and try to piece it together.

And if it’s with your network offering help, don’t just leave it this open-ended where somebody else has to generate the ways you can help them. Give them options and they, they may say, actually, you know what, it would be really helpful if you shared this in your company Slack instead. And so that is, does that sound right to you? ‘Cause that’s kind of like the, like a thread through everything I’ve been hearing.

Madeline Mann: At such a good point, and I never, I’ve never thought of it that way, but that’s exactly what it is, is we forget in the job search, these people have no idea who, who you are. You are plucked out of obscurity. They don’t, they don’t understand how your experience in software as a service sales now makes you a really great product manager in fashion, right?

But to you, it makes perfect sense. But you need to make it simple. You need to make a plain. You need to reduce the cognitive load for everyone involved, and you need to make it easy for them to say yes to you. Just do, and it’s usually just you’re just doing 10% more than everyone else, but you’re getting 90% more results.

Melody Wilding: I love that I, that that is so powerful. Like it is. It is very easy, especially in the job search. It’s actually pretty easy to stand out because most people will not go that just little extra percent they will go the easy apply route. They will just have the same blanket resume. They will show up to the interview and ask the same template questions.

And so it, like you were saying, if you are observant and actively listening and actually integrating that, like it’s, it’s going to take you very, very far.

Madeline Mann: That’s exactly it. Yeah. And what we talk about in Reverse the Search is it’s not that you’re doing more on the job search. It’s not that your job search is taking longer or more time. You’re just doing the right things that stand out.

Melody Wilding: That’s right. And so just before we get to where people can find you, if someone is feeling maybe a bit lost or overwhelmed in their job search right now, what is the first thing you would tell them to do to become more of that job shopper?

Madeline Mann: So what’s so important is, and we’ve talked a bit about this, but I talk about, we need to stop focusing on ourselves, on our story, our autobiography of, you know, we don’t want our resume to be a whole Wikipedia page. We want it to be a sales page. So taking that distance from yourself and instead getting extremely clear on what’s next and then building up your strategy from there.

And it really is because I’ve hear, heard so many people say. I need to apply to so many jobs, Madeline, because I need a job quickly. But that is actually the opposite idea. Instead, you should be saying, Madeline, I need to slow down and become a job shopper and be more strategic because I need a job quickly. Because that’s actually the faster route.

So I think a lot of us stay very busy. It’s called productive procrastination, where we are constantly tweaking things. We’re constantly tweaking our LinkedIn about section and, and making that last edit. You know, we’re changing colors on our resume, whatever that is, and I need you to regroup.

I need you to stop doing those things that feel productive, that feel busy, and change your strategy. Because if you are not landing, a decent percentage of interviews and offers, then it’s not about doing more. It’s about doing something differently, and it’s about tweaking it, getting focused on what the company’s looking for, and being able to convey that in their language, not yours.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. So good. You have to play the translator role.

Madeline Mann: Yes.

Melody Wilding: Yes. Madeline, this is fantastic and I, I hope it’s going to, you know, not only give people a lot of tips, but also that jolt of motivation, like you said, to have, feel like they have more agency and control and power in this process. ‘Cause it can feel very self-defeating at times.

So where can people find you? Where can they get the book? What’s the best place to send them?

Madeline Mann: Well, you can get the book at reversethesearch.com. The title of the book.com, as well as follow me on LinkedIn, Madeline Mann on LinkedIn.

Melody Wilding: You, like I said, you have amazing content. I’ve followed you for years, your videos, your reels, and it’s, it’s awesome. You do such a great job. It’s so much value and I know you do masterclasses as well, so everyone needs to be in your world. But thank you so much for coming today. Appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode of psychology at work. If you enjoyed the show, I’d be so grateful if you could take just a minute to rate and review wherever you are listening. It’s how we reach more professionals just like you. And if you’d like to see even more content on how to feel more self assured, grounded, and in control of your emotions and reactions at work, follow me on LinkedIn or head to the links in the show notes.