Dec. 6, 2024

131: Career Coaching Isn’t a Crystal Ball with Tammi Scott

131: Career Coaching Isn’t a Crystal Ball with Tammi Scott
131: Career Coaching Isn’t a Crystal Ball with Tammi Scott
The John Poelstra Show
131: Career Coaching Isn’t a Crystal Ball with Tammi Scott
Picture of Tammi Scott

Tammi Scott joins me to discusses career coaching. Tammi explains that she and her business partner, Elisa, are launching Empowered Careers Group, LLC, which offers a comprehensive career coaching program.

We explore various aspects of career coaching, including its definition, approach, and benefits. Tammi emphasizes that career coaching is not about providing a “crystal ball’ solution,” but rather a process of self-discovery and strategic planning.

This conversation also touches on the role of AI in career coaching, the importance of networking, and the typical duration of coaching engagements. Tammi highlights the value of having a coach for accountability, support, and guidance through the ups and downs of career transitions. We also discuss the differences between career coaching and other forms of guidance, such as personal training or consulting. Tammi shares insights on resume writing, negotiation strategies, and the benefits of having a career coach.

Our conversation challenges the common misconception that career coaches should provide immediate answers or specific job recommendations. Instead, Tammi describes career coaching as a facilitated journey of self-discovery, where clients explore their ideal work environment, values, and professional aspirations. While coaches can provide specific guidance on resumes and salary negotiations, the core work involves helping clients understand themselves better to make informed career decisions.

Key Points

  • Career coaching is not about getting quick answers but facilitating self-discovery
  • Most effective career coaching engagements last 3-6 months
  • Career coaches don’t provide magic solutions or guaranteed career paths
  • The process involves creating a clear picture of your ideal work day
  • Resume writing receives more direct guidance than other coaching areas
  • AI tools can complement but not replace career coaching
  • Career coaching involves accountability and consistent support
  • Coaches help surface limiting beliefs and handle rejection
  • Career coaching combines internal reflection with practical action steps
  • Career coaches help clients understand their values and preferences
  • The best career management is ongoing, not reactive

Contact Tammi Scott

Credits

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

**John:** Alright, today we’re talking to Tammi Scott once again. Tammi, thanks for joining me again.

**Tammi:** It’s good to be here.

**John:** So I reached out to Tammi again because of a few convergences, the first of which, if you haven’t listened to Tammi’s episode about, uh, sending— like, if you’re in the job search or you’re making a transition or something, if you have not done that and you’re entertaining the idea, or it sounded like a good idea but you haven’t quite done it. I have one person I’m working with right now, Tammi. They sent it out before they were ready. They had 8— they’ve set up 8 meetings, and one of the people they met with so far has referred them to 4 other people.

**Tammi:** That’s really impressive. And just to give some more context for anybody who hasn’t listened to that episode yet, we’re talking about the like the networking email that goes out to your contact list, your people you know, and your family, your friends, colleagues, person at the grocery store, whoever.

**John:** Yes, yes. And the context of this too is, oh, maybe I’m looking to do something new, or I’m transitioning jobs, or I’m unemployed, or whatever the case may be, and you’ve tried applying for 1,000 jobs on LinkedIn and nothing’s happening. And what was great about this one was I shared your episode. I shared an example of your email. They said, oh, I’m totally going to do this. And then you could see all the little like, well, I’m working on it, but you know, I need to get a little— because they’re in kind of this transition of I was doing one thing, I took a break, and now I’m going to start ramping up and looking for the next thing that’s maybe the same thing but different. And so they said, well, I need to get a little clearer. I need to get a little clearer before I send this out. And I said, well, I’m a real fan of starting as soon as you can. So what if this is just the first email? It’s just a warmup and you’re just saying hi for the first time in a long time and you just start there.

**Tammi:** Yes.

**John:** Okay. Okay. I’ll try that. And then when they came back and said, you’re not going to believe this, but 8 people, I don’t know if it was 8 people responded, Or 8? Well, I know they, they have 8 meetings on their calendar to meet with 8 different people as a result of sending this email without even being completely clear about what they want to do next, even though they’re getting clearer anyway. So, yeah.

**Tammi:** That’s awesome. That’s awesome. I love those stories.

**John:** Yes. So today I wanted to talk to you because I keep coming across this notion of career coaching And you and I had— I had been wondering when I was going to get the latest installment of your email because I hadn’t seen it in a while. And all of a sudden it said you said that you were doing a new business— or not a new business, you’ve been coaching forever— but you were doing something around career coaching. So I want you to tell people what that is, and then I have some questions about career coaching I wanted to get into.

**Tammi:** Absolutely, yes. So As you know, I’ve been coaching for years, and my coaching continues to evolve as I do. And I’ve been doing executive coaching for quite a while. And then a friend of mine who was also a former work colleague, she’s an HR executive. So, the two of us, she had worked with a career coach who’s very well known in the industry, and he’s retired. And he developed this great system to take his clients through for 3 months, 6 months. And it’s a very complete system in terms of really diving into what is going, you know, for somebody to get more clear about what’s important to them, you know, and know themselves better so that he can help them in those next stages of their transition, you know, whatever their next career strategy is. And so we are actually gonna be— we’re in the process of working through the contract, but we’re acquiring that program and we’re gonna make it ours. And so we’re in the process of a pre-launch of our company called Career Potential Group, LLC. And our intention is to take that program make it ours and help a lot of clients in the area of career coaching, career strategy, career management. I mean, there’s a lot of— there’s so many— some people think, oh, I’ve got my job, I can just rest on that. It’s like, no, no, don’t rest on that. Most people change jobs every 2 to 3 years. There’s no resting on that. And that would be the— there are some exceptions, of course, But for most people, that’s not the case. So, don’t wanna just rest for 2 years and then all of a sudden be like, oh my gosh, I don’t know where to begin.

**John:** So, what made me think of you as well was what I’m calling the career coach— career coaching crystal ball, which is any number of different ways someone might get referred to me. And I will ask them, you know, what can I help you with? Or sometimes I get a little bit of a kind of a pre-thing is that this is what this person’s And I recently had a situation where someone wanted some very specific guidance based on— they have several years of experience. They wanted very specific guidance as to what they should do next, where they should look, what would be a fit for them. And the more we talked over email before we had a first meeting, I always do a first few meetings with people before we really officially work together just to see if we’re a fit. And they opted out. And because as I started to say, well, you know, why don’t we— we could also look at your values. That could be a place we could look. And they said, you know what? I’ve already done a lot of that work. I don’t want to do that. I am looking for someone that will tell me what to do or where I should look. Because I had been very clear saying, I don’t give specific or explicit Career advice. So that got me to wondering, okay, coaching can be a very ambiguous term. It’s used in lots of different ways. There’s no official definition. But it got me to wondering, what is career coaching? How do you define it? Does career coaching— does— is there a crystal ball? Like, are there coaches? Are there people that look in a crystal ball or pull tarot cards or are like so experienced in life that they know every single career that’s possible out there, that you can just like meet with them, consult with them, and they will say, here’s what you should do. And you’ll— I don’t know if they give any guarantees they’d be happy or anything. But anyway, those are all the things that are kind of swimming around over here in terms of what can you— how can you help me clarify what this is, what you think of it, what you think is possible? This is a horrible question. I’m asking you like 55 questions here at once, so you can pick the one you like. And then to add on to all of this, I even took this to my own coach to say, isn’t this kind of curious? And also in conjunction with— I mentioned before we started here— working with a personal trainer. I’ve never worked with a personal trainer before, and I’m like, this is kind of curious. Like, this person tells me exactly what to do and I will most likely get the results that I’m after. And I’m wondering if as people— are looking for coaches or career coaching. They’re not. They’re looking for a very specific thing and think that someone can give it to them. So with all of that, what are you hearing? And I’m so glad you’re a coach. What are you— what are you hearing in all of those questions and thoughts and wonderings? And

**Tammi:** yeah, well, I mean, maybe there are coaches out there or career strategists out there who would guide somebody, a client, in the way of like, here’s the way you go, here’s what you need to work in, you’ll be happy in this area. That’s not me. That’s not the work that I do. Um, I, I want to really slow the client down and I like get into their world. Like, and I— one of the things that I have clients do is to like write out what their ideal day is. What is like, what, what would they be doing? Ideal workday, let’s be clear. Um, ideal workday, like what would that look like? You know, it’s, do, does somebody wanna work by themselves? Do they wanna work on a team? Do they wanna work at home, work in the office, office environment? The kinds of people that they wanna work with, the kind of work that they wanna do. Is it, I mean, there’s so— you can imagine, I mean, there’s 8 billion people on this planet, and so there are going to be a lot of unique answers to that, and only that person can know themselves, right? And so we want to find out what lights a person up, where do they come alive, and then we want to start to look at that. And then we want to look at their experience. You know, are they wanting, you know, if they’ve been an engineer, do they now want to be a nurse? Okay, well, that’s pretty clear that that’s going to require some education, etc. But we want to look at if somebody has been an engineer, it’s like, okay, well, how, you know, what about it do they like? What do they not like? You know, where in that? So we start to, we just start to put the pieces. It’s like a puzzle. You start to put the pieces of the puzzle together so that you can start to see a more clear picture. And then we have them do some research. What kind of companies do you think you want to work for? Is it, you know, big companies, corporations, organizations, nonprofit, for-profit, all those kinds of things? So, so there’s a lot of pieces of the puzzle, but once you start taking those individual pieces of the puzzle and start putting them together, start seeing, oh, okay, well then there’s a variety of potential job roles that are out there for you. And then even just starting to look, like grab a job role, look on LinkedIn, and then look at the job description. How does it, you know, how does that feel when you read that job description? Does that excite you? You know, what is it about that? So it’s, it’s really— I, I’m here as the coach to certainly guide them, but the, the work is for the client so that they can be really invested in their own career. I mean, that’s the key.

**John:** So in the way that you approach it, understanding that there’s lots of different approaches, how specific How prescriptive, yeah, how prescriptive would you be?

**Tammi:** And say more, like in what way?

**John:** How much would you say, oh, okay, so you have a background in aerospace and public accounting, so here are the top 5 industries you should be looking at.

**Tammi:** Oh yeah, that they’ll do the research.

**John:** That’s their work then.

**Tammi:** Yeah, because I don’t know that. I don’t know aerospace industry or I, That’s not my— that’s not where I have knowledge. I mean, I may have some insight, but I may know nothing about that industry. So that person will know, they know their industry, right? It’s— so they get to do that research, they get to do that homework, but I’m gonna help them identify those pieces of the puzzle. There’s a lot of— it’s like, you know, it’s some people, including myself in the past, have fallen into a career path and it’s just like by meeting somebody and like, hey, here’s a job. Okay, I’ll do that. That sounds great. And that can work. Until it doesn’t.

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Tammi:** And then somebody’s like, I really want something more fulfilling and meaningful. I have so much experience. I have so many skill sets. I want to put this all together in a package and, and put it into a career that really lights me up. So that’s a little different than like somebody coming along and saying, here’s a job for you. And so let me preface that. Let me back up because that could happen. So once a person has some clarity about what their ideal workday is, the kind of community, organization, company they wanna work for, like once they have that, all those pieces of the puzzle, then somebody can come by and say, hey, I’ve got this great opportunity for you. Now you’ve got, instead of just saying yes to it, well, tell me more about that opportunity. Does it, like, how much overlay does it have to what my puzzle looks like? Like, how much of a match is it?

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Tammi:** It doesn’t have to be 100%, but does it match the things that are really important for me and what I’ve already gotten clear about.

**John:** So what I’m hearing is the way you approach it is you have a— you are a facilitator. You are facilitating the process of them doing the work.

**Tammi:** Yeah.

**John:** And it’s not exactly like having a personal trainer or a consultant.

**Tammi:** Correct.

**John:** Or a personal shopper at Nordstrom where you go in and say, hey, I want this, and they’re like, oh, I know exactly what would fit your body type. Or when you did shoes, like, my hunch is people would come in with some sort of specification and you would narrow it down to probably, here are your 5 best choices or whatever.

**Tammi:** Right, right. Yeah. I don’t have the— I don’t have all these jobs at my fingertips that I can offer to somebody and say, here, this is probably the right fit given what I know about you. It’s, it’s different, right? I don’t, I don’t have the end— I don’t have that end product for them. I have the process for them to find their end product, which is their job.

**John:** And this got me to thinking, and I’m curious what you think about this, of taking this to my coach. And we were playing with this and the idea of the initial appeal of having someone tell you what to do. It’s initially more appealing if I just go see Tammi and Tammi or John and they can tell me exactly where to look and what to do, then I’m done. If I go to the gym and meet with my trainer and do the reps that they say, I will be done. But it’s a category mistake. That’s the realization, I guess, that I’m having. And it’s interesting as people come to me wanting this thing that I’m like, I can’t give it to you. And they go away and that’s okay. And just thinking that’s how interesting that is, that I don’t know that we have this idea of a shortcut or a— someone can tell me the answer.

**Tammi:** Well, yes, yes. And that can be comforting sometimes. I get that. I might do a little more telling when it comes to the resume, because eventually you get to the point of crafting a really good resume, and that’s important. It’s not the only thing that’s important, but it is important to have a good resume. And I, I have a client right now that I’m— we’ve been going back and forth on drafts and just getting it better and better and better. And so I, I’ll be very specific in my feedback on, on the resume, you know, so that she can have a great resume. And then 2, like, there’s other components as well, like the negotiation process. I just helped— I just worked with a client who received an offer from a company she used to work for, and she had an offer letter and she said, should I take it? I’m like, well, do you want to take the first offer? Do you want to— I think you can do better. Hmm. I think it’s a great— it’s a great offer, and I think you can do better. Are you willing to have that conversation? So we did some role-playing and just practice, and she had a few back-and-forth emails with the owner of the company, not negotiation, like getting clarity around the offer itself so that we could see, okay, this is what the actual offer, the actual numbers look like. So once she had that, then it’s like, we could look at that and go, okay. And then she set up a meeting with her, with the owner, and we worked out a script for her to say that. So even if she got nervous, she could stick with what she wanted to say instead of not— instead of going off on a tangent or forgetting something. And, and she was able to— she was able to get more than that offer and something that felt Good for her and it felt good for the owner. So it was a real win-win. It wasn’t too hardball. She probably— maybe she could have gotten even more and she just wasn’t quite in a place to do that, but she was really happy with what she— what they settled.

**John:** So what I hear there is, is in that context, more prescriptive. I would call it prescriptive. You’re giving more advice, you’re getting more specific, you’re saying Hey, this is missing from your resume, or this part feels kind of weak, or I think we can get more money here. Would you like to do that? So, there’s an aspect of advice giving, checking in, what do you want? How am I helping? That might be a— so, I guess what I’m hearing is it kind of narrows down maybe depending on where you are in the process. There can be more advice as opposed to, well, if you were to prepare for a negotiation, how would you want to do it? Right. That would be the classic open-ended coaching question that would really bug bugs some people. Yes. They’re

**Tammi:** like, well, that’s why I’m coming to you.

**John:** Right.

**Tammi:** Yes. Yeah, I’m kind of— I, I think that’s a part of wanting to create this, uh, this— ask this part of coaching and the career coaching with my business partner Elisa, in that for me, it’s as, as a female especially, I, I know that I have left in my past career life, I have left a lot of on the table, where I didn’t advocate for myself. I got better towards the later part of my career. I got better at negotiating. But initially, I didn’t have the tools. I didn’t even think that I could negotiate. And there’s an added aspect in there sometimes. I won’t say this is true for all women. I think that because women have been in the workforce longer now, that I think we’re getting better at this, and that is negotiating our salaries and negotiating better salaries. And I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement out there as well.

**John:** What are some ways that career coaching can help that people might not realize?

**Tammi:** I think staying on track and accountability, but also working, having a clear plan. So working out a clear plan with your, with your career coach and setting out some, some strategy for your, for your career search is really helpful. And, and then having somebody to have eyes on what you’re doing or not doing, what you’re saying or not saying. The— when, especially when you start getting into the interview process and having the feedback on the interview of, you know, practicing interview questions and answers, like all of that. I mean, I think it’s— I think about what it might’ve been like had I had a career coach in my early and even a little bit later in my career. And I would think, oh my gosh, to have somebody that was standing behind me, not literally, but that was my partner in this process could have been so incredibly valuable. And maybe I would’ve made different choices in my career. I don’t have any regrets of what I did do, But I may have made some different choices. I know that I would have been further ahead salary-wise in some of those jobs.

**John:** What are the things that career coaching cannot do, maybe beyond the things we’ve already talked about?

**Tammi:** I think what you were speaking to earlier and what it can’t do, at least not my work, not saying somebody isn’t out there doing it, is to find the magic bullet that is quick and easy. I don’t think that career coaching does that.

**John:** And with that in mind, how long is an average engagement?

**Tammi:** That’s a good question. I think I’m still discovering that as a career coach. It depends on where somebody’s at in their— like, if they are at a job, And they’re thinking that they’re ready to start looking for something else, then I would say 6 months is great.

**John:** Hmm.

**Tammi:** To work with a coach for 6 months. So I think that’s a really nice amount of time to just really— they don’t have to— there’s no, you know, there’s a steadiness of the process, but it’s not an overload. If somebody is just laid off, from a job or has been fired from a job or quit, then I think that it depends on their financial situation. So if they do have time, 6 months again is great. 3 months can be really key, and it’s just a— it’s a little bit more intense process. But if somebody’s not working, more than likely they may have that space to do that.

**John:** And then 3 months is still— go ahead.

**Tammi:** Yeah, 3 months is still, still a good amount of time. And then, like, the, the client that I mentioned about the negotiation process, like, I— she came to me with an offer letter. So,

**John:** okay, that’s where you started.

**Tammi:** That’s where, that’s where we started. Uh, I would— I’d like to have started with her earlier, of course, but that’s where she was. So we— I met her there, and then we just— we worked Really, literally for a couple hours.

**John:** But what I’m not hearing is, oh, someone says, oh, I want to find a different job, and they meet with you twice and then they’re done. It’s a— it’s kind of an— it’s an unfolding process.

**Tammi:** It is. And, and there’s a lot— it’s very hands-on. So probably different than when— than a lot of coaches, uh, operate, like in— as an executive coach or a life coach, where you might meet with your client Once every 2 weeks, twice a month, or some— maybe some do once a week. This is a very— a much more hands-on approach. So depending on where the client is in the process, it might be once a week. And then when the interview process is happening, it might be more. When the negotiation process is happening, it might be more. So, it’s very— there’s a lot of— it’s different. It’s not just like, oh, we’re going to meet every other week and that’s it.

**John:** Okay. So, if someone’s looking for a career coach, or they think that they want a career coach, or they’re starting with this whole path, there’s something wrong with their— wrong, they want something different in their career, and they’re looking for— they think they’re looking for a career coach. What would you suggest they be looking for?

**Tammi:** A career coach that is going to work with them on the intern— in their internal world. And what I mean by that is, like you mentioned values before, and I mentioned like ideal workday, and it goes further than that. And I think that it’s important for the coach to know that person as much as possible and for, in the conversation, for that person to get to know themselves as much as possible. So I would say, like, if I was looking for a career coach, I want somebody who’s listening to me, who understands me, who I feel is going to be a great partner in this process with me that I can trust. That is, um, maybe that’s, that’s a starting place.

**John:** Yeah, and, and I would also add to that, which is have an experience with them. My own philosophy on this is we don’t talk about money, there’s no exchange of money until we’re really clear that we’re working together for a period of time. So my encouragement to people would be have the experience of being coached by that person. Have a first session and pretend like, oh, this is the first of many. We don’t know where it’s going to go, but have that experience. And if you have to pay for that experience, I have kind of mixed feelings about that because my approach is I don’t charge for that. I— so,

**Tammi:** agree. Yeah, agree, agree. And one of the reasons that I am working with Elisa, that we’re working together, is that she has a very strong HR background of many, many years. So she is— she has a whole different view of the career coaching experience. I have years of coaching experience working with executives, business owners, et cetera. So we bring that together. I mean, we each work with our own clients, but we collaborate and so that we can support our clients at the highest level possible. And so I might draw upon some of her experience, like the negotiating, for example. That’s— she’s great at that. And I might draw upon that so that I can serve my client in the best way possible.

**John:** In this world of AI, this person that came to me thinking that I could answer their questions based on This seems like the perfect setup. They tell ChatGPT everything about themselves, what they’ve done, and then they say— I mean, it seems like there’s a per— that’s a perfect place for AI. Is that— could that work?

**Tammi:** Yeah, I would, I would even say that to my client if they were really in that question. I would say, you know what, put your whole resume into ChatGPT. Just copy and paste it into ChatGPT and, and then ask it, Anything you want. What roles do you recommend given my resume? And see what it says.

**John:** Well, then why do they need you?

**Tammi:** Well, I mean, we’re talking about just roles in general. I see it as just a— I see it as a great tool. I mean, sometimes I will even plug in a line on somebody’s resume. I might plug that into ChatGPT and say, can you rewrite this, make it make it stronger, make it, uh, you know, whatever I’m wanting to get from that. So I, I use it as a tool. I think it’s a great tool. Nothing wrong with that. I don’t want it coaching me.

**John:** And I’m guessing it misses some of the deeper nuances of— yeah, what would, what would it miss?

**Tammi:** Well, it would miss— I mean, we have a whole process, a whole system that we work with that we take clients through. Somebody could actually, you know, purchase just the, the system itself and go do it themselves. They could do that. Nothing wrong with that. I’d be willing to, you know, agree on a price for that. That’s fine for somebody who’s self-motivated. And there’s something about, of, of being in the coaching conversation that oftentimes It surfaces new insights, it surfaces new ideas that we couldn’t have done each of us individually. I mean, wouldn’t you say that that’s true for you with your coaching clients? Like, you know, they could probably go achieve what they want on their own, maybe.

**John:** Yeah, what was coming to me was the notion of accountability.

**Tammi:** Yes.

**John:** I know I’m meeting Tammi next week and I said I would work on my resume and I haven’t done it. Oh, hmm. And you know, of course there’s all— there’s no judgment in that. There’s always learning. Oh, what happened? Oh, well, I got too caught up in this board meeting and all this other stuff and I never sat down to do it.

**Tammi:** Right.

**John:** Oh, okay.

**Tammi:** So, yes,

**John:** what do we want to do differently? And there’s coaching right there, there’s learning right there. And there’s also just knowing, oh, I said I would do this, so I don’t want to show up to that meeting with Tammi and like totally empty-handed, so I’m going to stay up later than I would have preferred.

**Tammi:** Yes. And there’s also— the process will surface where we get stuck, where we have limiting beliefs about ourselves, about what’s possible. We get our first rejection letter.

**John:** It’s— There’ll be all kinds of stuff there. Yes.

**Tammi:** Then you’re like, oh, I don’t think I can do this anymore. Or you send out your networking email, nobody responds, and it’s just soul-crushing. I think of it as just like the whole process is not just a linear line from point A to point B, you know, point A and then your job is at point B, but there’s a lot that happens in between there. And having a coach, of course, support you through all the ups and downs and the turbulence and the winds and the soul-crushing defeat at times can be so helpful.

**John:** I mean, what’s also coming to me too, having done this a little bit myself, was yes, if you want an answer, ask ChatGPT.

**Tammi:** Yes.

**John:** If you want to go on a path of self-discovery, self-understanding, um, I don’t know if I’d say enlightenment, but there could be some enlightenment there. Just if— yeah, I guess I’m just thinking for someone that’s just thinking, do I want to do this? Do I need to do this? My encouragement would be, if you want to learn more about yourself and that’s fun, this is the perfect way to do it.

**Tammi:** Yes. I mean, I have a coach as I’m building this business.

**John:** I do too.

**Tammi:** Yes. I— could I do it on my own? Maybe. But I want that support because I know what, I know what the coaching relationship can do. It can get me there faster. And it can be— and just the support, knowing that I have that support and accountability is priceless.

**John:** Is there anything else we should cover as it relates to this area?

**Tammi:** Yeah, I mean, I feel like this has just been a great conversation to give some context to career coaching and what’s involved in working with a career coach and the nuances of the process.

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Tammi:** And I think a lot of people, myself included in the past, have operated in, oh, I need to find a job, so I’m going to apply to everything I can online. I was talking to a He’s a recruiter, internal recruiter for a big company. And he said when he posts a job opening on LinkedIn, within 1 day, he will have 1,000 applications. And I’ve heard more. Like, I’ve heard some postings will get 3,000, 4,000 because there’s also the bots out there. Yeah. And I don’t— that just blast resumes to any job opening out there. So you can imagine that, you know, if I was sending in a resume, it’s in that shuffle, not great chances. And, you know, I think that— and not to say you can’t find a job that way, uh, it’s just not that easy.

**John:** No, and it goes back to our previous conversation about networking and who you know and Yeah, I’ve seen some of that recently with, uh, someone that I know that was doing the more LinkedIn stuff, and then they found a new situation and it was through someone they knew.

**Tammi:** Right.

**John:** And, and which is the other thing going through my head there is people get so frustrated with, you know, it’s all AI today and the ATS, whatever ATS stands for, I think is in terms of the resume screening thing. On the other hand, if you’re getting 4,000 resumes, what, what are your options? I mean, you’re not going to read all 4,000. I heard of a situation where I feel like they would just randomly pick 15 resumes from the pile and they would just, they would just pick, they would just start with some and if they could get some good enough candidates, from picking 20 or 30 resumes from the pile and they had 5 people in the candidate pool, they just moved on. They never looked at the other ones.

**Tammi:** Right.

**John:** Why would they? Right. Yeah.

**Tammi:** Yes, yes. And, and I think to just help, you know, in terms of like the career coaching context, is if somebody hasn’t been experiencing a lot of job satisfaction and fulfillment in in the last 5 years, or maybe it’s been longer, that’s something to really explore with a coach. And, you know, it’s to start to refine, given where somebody’s at in their life today, maybe their priority has changed. And so this next chapter of their career, they want to be more intentional about what they step into next.

**John:** Yeah. So if people wanted to get some career coaching or some career guidance from you and your partner, where would they go?

**Tammi:** They can visit me on my LinkedIn page on Tammi Scott, and I’m in Washington State.

**John:** Okay, we’ll link to it.

**Tammi:** And I will soon have our website— we’ll have our website up pretty soon. We’re, we’re working on that slowly but surely. And but for now, LinkedIn page works great. Yeah.

**John:** And I also volunteer Tammi, if you’re wanting to send that newsletter email to your friends to get your network warmed up and all that stuff, and you just can’t get off the dime to do it. I’m sure Tammi would be glad to have a coaching conversation with you. As would I. If again, the whole self-exploration You have no idea what you might find. You might think, oh, I’m a procrastinator. I’m the type of person that can’t focus. It’s always usually something else. So we could kind of zero in on that and help you to send that email. So that’d be fun.

**Tammi:** I’ll make a little plug for Steve Chandler’s new book because I just ordered it and I listened to a podcast of talking about, it’s all about systems. And I’m super excited because the procrastination piece is like, well, that’s just another system. And I, I, I’m guilty of that. It’s like I have operated in the procrastination system and it hasn’t worked very well for me. And so I’m really excited to read his book. And to— so it’s like, okay, it’s time to create a new system that, that works in what I’m up to right now.

**John:** It’s so funny you mentioned that because I was listening to a podcast with Trevor and Steve Chandler just before this, and Yes, it is. It’s so simple. And I’ve also been doing some of it in my coaching because my coach works with Steve Chandler. So I think I’ve been getting stuff via her related to this. It’s been a game changer. And Steve was saying something like, yes, I learned that my memory is a terrible system. Trying to remember things is a terrible system.

**Tammi:** Right?

**John:** So yeah, it was— and the whole— oh yeah, that could be on a whole nother conversation. But yeah, it’s all about depersonalizing everything. Yes, it’s, it’s not personal, it’s just the system. And do you have a system that works or not?

**Tammi:** Yes. Yeah, I look forward to incorporating that more into my work with my clients, for sure.

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