Episode Transcript

Matthew Villanueva 0:00
You’re living off of savings or maybe you’re comfortable but maybe you’re not understand that some elbow grease is needed. Persistence is needed. play the numbers game

Chris Villanueva 0:13
Welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast where our goal is not only to help you land your dream job, but to help you live your best life.

Chris Villanueva 0:30
Okay, so today we have a special episode, I am taking the week off and giving the mic on over to my brother and Co-Founder Matthew Villanueva, he brings a very special insight today. And that is the experience with speaking with literally 1000s of job seekers.

Chris Villanueva 0:45
So I am so excited to have him share his own coffee thoughts, he brings a refreshing take on navigating the job markets, current highs and lows. And he’s going to be sharing some valuable insights that are going to go beyond a lot of the typical things that we’re hearing right now. So Matt is going to again, like I said, openly share his thoughts do respond to us, you can either hit us up on LinkedIn, we have a LinkedIn page, I have a LinkedIn, Matt has his LinkedIn, we’ll make the share that in the show notes.

Chris Villanueva 1:16
But come with this episode with an open mind and think about some of the things that you are currently struggling with or some of the things that you’re even excited about in the job search. Think about what you want to do this month as you power through your job search. So without further ado, here’s Matthew Villanueva on the current state of things, as well as what you can do to become a better job seeker.

Matthew Villanueva 1:42
Thank you, Chris. I feel like the president giving you guys the State of the Union address. I am indeed here to talk about struggles to talk about challenges. What are my job seekers saying and I speak to dozens each day versus right.

Matthew Villanueva 1:57
When I say over 1000 people I’ve spoken to on the phone in the last year, big part of my mission has been to learn from you all, how can we better serve you what’s going on in your industry, what’s going on for you as a job seeker in your market? Hikone media at your level? Of course, I’m also here to welcome in and answer questions for prospective clients, clients who need extra help, things like that. But for the most part of taking this as a great learning opportunity.

Matthew Villanueva 2:27
Now, in this segment, and throughout my time, hopefully speaking with you all, I hope to also get the opportunity to understand the job market as the economists and as the high level, the macrocosm, if you will, we see it as employers or others are seeing it, hiring managers, recruiters, etc. And how I can relay that information to us as the applicants right or if you’re not an applicant yet, and you’re someone who is a potential job seeker, someone who’s being proactive and thinking six months a year down the line, looking internally, externally, whatever it is, how can I inform you on what your options are? I hope and I don’t claim to be that economist.

Matthew Villanueva 3:10
I’m just an avid news reader. Every single morning I sit down on my cup of coffee, I thumb through the headlines on my iPhone, various news apps. I actually live through a real daily newspaper that send to my house. Yes, people like us still exist. Yes, businesses do that. Go subscribe to your local newspaper if you’re not already.

Matthew Villanueva 3:34
I read the Sherm the Society of Human Resource, and management professionals have a newsletter that we that are sent to us every day over email of which Chris and I are members, we need to understand what’s pertinent in in helpful to the HR world as it makes sense to both again employers and to us job seekers.

Matthew Villanueva 3:57
All these things I do, and I read so that you don’t have to. And I hope to give you guys a little bit of an impression of what the world looks like and feels like from a big picture. And again, understanding and analyzing trends, so that you can reflect and change your pattern and your behavior. You can get better results.

Matthew Villanueva 4:17
That’s my aim, at least. And I want to hear from you guys, but the end of this podcast, longtime listeners, folks who are new folks who are acquainted with me already and have spoken to me on the phone as one of my callers, I want to hear from you all, tell me more hop on the phone with me be one of those people that I engage with, that I learned from that I listened to and that I help ultimately we’re also here to help.

Matthew Villanueva 4:38
Chris and I have been doing this for 10 years, over 10,000 job seekers that we have served not only with job application documents, but with real inspiration. So I hope to be that for you. Now, one caveat. We’re gonna go into just two separate ideas throughout this podcast idea number one is stats As I’ve mentioned before, are helpful, but they can be overwhelming.

Matthew Villanueva 5:04
I’m going to give you guys just a couple of stats you can take home today and to ruminate and think about takeaway number two, through what I present to you, there is a method to improving yourself is a method to actually becoming a better, more effective job seeker. And I’ll let you just what that’s like in a second.

Matthew Villanueva 5:24
Number one, what are those stats? Let’s talk a little bit more about that. Well, before I launch into it, understand this, this podcast in these numbers are not aimed for those who see, hey, I need to be the most perfect job seeker, I need to exactly match what’s going out there in the market. And I need to get 100% response rate that is simply not going to happen. This is coming out close to mid 2024.

Matthew Villanueva 5:55
Right? We’re here trudging through the second quarter of the year, things were a little bit slow. Earlier this year, we’re coming out of a monster sleep tumultuous last year with global events with current, you know, national events here in the US, in general, not only economic turbulence, but just a lot going on. In the previous two years. We’re fighting our way through a pandemic.

Matthew Villanueva 6:17
This is not supposed to be a depressing podcast, but it’s already sounded like one. But I’m here to inform you that we’re coming into a market right now that is difficult, that is turbulent. But there are available jobs for you. But there are opportunities and I want you guys to go out there and seek them. But to do it smart. Understand your options. Let me give you guys a couple of takeaways.

Matthew Villanueva 6:38
Again, this is from the Sherm newsletter, we’re coming off of two weeks reporting unemployment claims. We’ll talk probably in future podcasts why unemployment is an important metric to look at why quits might be an important metric to look at. And, of course, why job openings are viewed uniquely valuable and extremely important to look at. But for now, we’re going to be taking a look at unemployment claims.

Matthew Villanueva 7:02
They said and I quote, the unemployment claims data supports the contention that employers are cutting back on hiring, but not laying off workers in great numbers. The subject line was US Weekly job claims 211,000.

Matthew Villanueva 7:16
That’s an astronomical number. And again, going back to the macrocosm, not informing the microcosm, what does that mean for you as job seekers can be a nebulous number and it cannot mean not a lot. It could mean not a lot for you. But they go on to say, with a jobless rate under 4% For the last 26 months and a boost to labor force participation in March. This is the previous month that we’re coming off of from the time of this recording. Here in April.

Matthew Villanueva 7:41
The unemployment picture continues to trend near favorable levels, muting recession fears, fears that I have folks and fears that I know a lot of a lot of people listening have, but they say the unemployment picture shows this and indicating continued normalization of labor supply and demand from pandemic era volatility take away for you things are in flux, but they are consistent and steady. As I told you earlier, keep persisting now that layoffs may be slowing down and you will find your opportunity soon.

Matthew Villanueva 8:10
Once again, I want to give you guys a picture of total available job openings at some point, follow along to this newsletter. If you’re not a part of our letsie Grandma client newsletter, I’ll be making these available in blog or readership format.

Matthew Villanueva 8:23
Number two, this is a follow up this is the following week talking about how US jobless claims fall to 207,000. They said and I quote, though unemployment is falling, which as you recall just from a moment again, the stat was 211 falling down to 207. What is that four to $5,000? In some change, what does that tell us as individual job seekers, who knows it may not be much, but it’s useful to understand and take a look at it.

Matthew Villanueva 8:48
They go on to say the labor market. Though unemployment is falling, the labor market may see some turbulence soon. So good news and bad news. The Commerce Department reported this morning, slower economic growth and expected gross domestic product GDP as we all know it is a measure of the goods and services produced in the first quarter of the year, increased at a rate of only 1.6% annualized pace. This is for quarter one.

Matthew Villanueva 9:12
Again, we’re here in quarter two. According to the Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, economists had forecast an increase of 2.4%. And again, if you’re doing the math and following along 1.6% is a little bit slower than what economists predicted at 2.4. Following what was a 3.4% gain in the fourth quarter of last year. A lot of numbers. Again, what does this tell us?

Matthew Villanueva 9:35
My takeaway for you is you know the economy’s not shrinking, but be wary of impacts to your business. If you’re currently employed, impacts to your industry and adjust your options accordingly. I’m not saying you know, limit those options and take whatever is thrown at you even if it’s a pay cut, even if it’s something in a different market that you don’t want to be in doing something that you don’t want to do and you hate your job.

Matthew Villanueva 9:56
No, none of that but understand your options. Take a look at what’s going on. for you in in your little microcosm, in understanding your options. This also includes timetables I speak with a lot of job seekers who tell me, Matt, I was just laid off, or Matt, I am considering quitting. And I want a job but the following week or by the end of the month, and like, Dude, it’s mid April, how are we going to get you something come the end of April, two weeks, that’s not a lot of time you’re giving yourself what we’re seeing more often than not, as these things are taking a little bit longer.

Matthew Villanueva 10:27
Previously, it I don’t want to be the stat King out here just telling you all sorts of numbers that you’re gonna forget tomorrow. But there is research that suggests that the job search may be on average, six weeks for another report say that it may be on average 10 weeks, which is considerably longer than I know a lot of you want. I talked to many clients who tell me, You know what, it’s taken me about 12 weeks, and that severance pay that I got, you know, hopefully, if you got that this kept me afloat for the last 12 weeks. But I really need something now.

Matthew Villanueva 10:59
Right? So it’s a huge range. And it really it really depends on your job title depends on the level of leadership that you’re looking after. Depends on the industry depends on many things, right? But it’s not taking six days. And it’s not taking two weeks, playing for longer, be proactive whenever possible. And if you find yourself as a job seeker who is not currently employed, you’re living off of savings, or maybe you’re comfortable, but maybe you’re not understand that some elbow grease is needed. Persistence is needed. play the numbers game I told you not to be perfectionist earlier, I think there’s a very real cause in need for perfection in society.

Matthew Villanueva 11:35
At least I hope for all you scientists out there, and anyone who’s in an industry or job function where that truly matters. But the job search is not one of those places where it’s called to be a perfectionist. And oftentimes, we’re gonna need to send out 100 applications and I kid you not these are real stats that I’m hearing from callers day in and day out. Man, I sent out 100 applications. I got five responses back 5% response rate.

Matthew Villanueva 12:00
Those are positive responses. By the way, many of those people have told me Yeah, but I got a dozen that said, No, I got another dozen that, you know, kind of ran me through their ATS system and rejected me automatically. I got another dozen that said, hey, apply later.

Matthew Villanueva 12:13
Things like that. It’s not that depressing. But 5% Yes, that’s still pretty hard, in way, way, way different than what I was hearing a year, year and a half ago, two years ago. Actually, it’s difficult, but you got to play the numbers game. And when you see that job application that says or that, excuse me, that job posting that has 10 required qualifications. 50 preferred qualifications, my goodness, but of those first 10 required you only map up to seven or six, or even five, apply for it.

Matthew Villanueva 12:42
All right, take 15 minutes, use up your resume, put some keywords in there that you think are important. That’s the tried and true Let’s Eat, Grandma method. Send out that application and try it. You know, time is of the essence we all have families, many of us many of you have reached home lives have hobbies, activities, friend groups, volunteering extracurriculars, some of us are going back to school, some of us are in school, some of us are working 40 to 60 hour work weeks, and it’s crazy. And so I’m not an advocate for just wasting your time and in applying to everything that’s out there.

Matthew Villanueva 13:17
Again, going back to knowing your options. But one of those things I want to tell you about persistence and about playing the numbers game is not everyone’s going to be perfectly matched up to these job postings. And oftentimes you are going to send out what I see more typically than 100 applications is at least try out 25 Go up to that 50 mark. And you’ll know by then, what’s working and what’s not, I want to leave you guys with this.

Matthew Villanueva 13:40
My second idea for this podcast is understanding how to make improvements to your life as a job seeker. When introduced to you the idea and the principle called Kaizen and very popular business philosophy, actually Japanese business philosophy.

Matthew Villanueva 13:57
Many of you have been popular for decades, many of you are probably familiar if you’re in any sort of operations land, if you’re in manufacturing, or if you’re in a place where process or product improvement is imperative. And you may have management dictating the way in which you get that done. And it’s an approach that we take here at Let’s Eat, Grandma approach that I preach in practice in my own life.

Matthew Villanueva 14:20
The idea is this, that small incremental changes now, not these sweeping overhauls overnight changes, but small incremental changes now will produce gradual but huge impacts in your future.

Matthew Villanueva 14:36
All right. What does that mean? That means that many of you are probably going to have to try out, see what works now. See what’s not working? Stop, track your results. Repeat. Change something the way you do in order to reflect what wasn’t working. Here’s an idea.

Matthew Villanueva 14:55
We’d number one, get your resume done. Don’t care if it’s with us as a resume writing service. Don’t care if it’s with a friend or family member, a mentor, a colleague, someone who can step outside your body, or even just you, and you have the wherewithal and the ability and the writing chops to really make measurable improvements, because you listen to this podcast, you read our blog. And heck, like I said, you worked with one of our resume writers, but just get it done.

Matthew Villanueva 15:17
Once you do that, again, send out a dozen or so applications. Usually I recommend two dozen, by the way, I told you earlier 25, at very minimum, see who gets back to you who doesn’t track the industry track the job title track the level of seniority that they’re looking for, put that on the spreadsheet and find out, did you get better results?

Matthew Villanueva 15:39
Most of the time, people that work with us do, but there’s often times where it’s just out of our control, it’s out of the client’s control. Again, we’re in a very difficult, turbulent, but still opportunistic market right now. And so the ability is to go out there and see what is working for you and what’s not. That’s Week One.

Matthew Villanueva 15:58
Week two, use our LinkedIn and cold networking approach to send out 10 messages to recruiters or hiring managers in your space. All right, I bet most of you all are probably going to get one response. And that response is probably going to be a no eight is that abysmal, it’s very difficult to do a sales people out there. I know tons of our clients are in that sales roles are probably nodding their heads listening along to this, it is a numbers game, the job search is a numbers game.

Matthew Villanueva 16:26
In particular, sometimes networking in cold outreach can be like that, moreover, but if you can get on LinkedIn, again, we have a tried and true and tested best practices, downloadable for our clients, where we talk to you about this, there’s better ways that you can go about this more smart ways, using leveraging second and third degree connections on LinkedIn, etc. to maybe get that one response to be two responses, but it’s still gonna be low.

Matthew Villanueva 16:52
Try it, see what works. See who responded, you didn’t try it again the following week, and maybe the following week after that. So now you have total volume of 30 people that you’ve reached out to, but again, you know, be tactful with your approach. Don’t Don’t just be spammy. And don’t just say job, give me job, right? That’s gonna get a no every time. But maybe by the end of that third week, using the principles of kaizen using understanding and learning more about yourself and learning more about how to tailor your approach to actually do get better and more effective results right there.

Matthew Villanueva 17:23
You will see probably after three weeks, maybe five people have gotten back to you. And a couple of those were positive couple of them were you know what now right now, but let me pass you on to someone else who might be interested or maybe reach out to me two or three weeks later, hey, check out through a portal online, you may want to apply through there. Or hey, you know what, circumvent the portal, as I do recommend all good job seekers do if at all possible. And let me give you the email, direct email to my HR business partner, or my colleague, or my boss, or my hiring manager, whatever it is, that’s a great way to track and see what kind of results we’re getting there.

Matthew Villanueva 17:57
Week number four or five, I forget where we are, as far as incremental improvements go. But another idea, refine and hone your elevator pitch, something that I know that Chris has talked about in other segments, and I know plenty of other career coaches that we’ve hosted on this podcast, have talked about interviews and how important those are, how important it is to speak the language of the person you are, you’re speaking with. And no, that doesn’t mean speak English, if they speak English, or speak Arabic, if they speak Arabic, or French, or whatever.

Matthew Villanueva 18:25
The idea is that you are understanding what they are looking for, as someone who needs has a very specific need in their business. Most of us are applying. And I say most of us based on my audience. And what I know all of our clients talk to me about are applying within the private sector, you’re applying within a corporate environment, you’re applying within a for profit organization.

Matthew Villanueva 18:49
And heck, even you nonprofits out there, even you government departments, you have very real business objectives and departmental objectives, you need to place yourself in the recruiter hiring managers shoes, to understand what it is they are looking for, what they need, specifically, as far as outcomes from making this hire, and how you fit the bill for what they need. And I know that you know it, it’s just takes convincing them. And so it’s not what sounds good to you.

Matthew Villanueva 19:18
Your pitch shouldn’t be what your friend or what your family member thinks sounds good. Really. And truly, it’s understanding once again, placing yourself in their shoes, and speaking their language. And that’s an important probably probably next step in your journey as a job seeker once you do start garnering those interviews. And if you’re already in that stage, I know interviews are probably one of the more daunting things that people talk to me about.

Matthew Villanueva 19:41
So if you’re listening to this podcast for camaraderie, and just want to commiserate and understand what are the people feeling? Yes, we’re all anxious about interviews, those who are pros, though, and there’s a number of people who call in and say, I just need you to get me to an interview Matt, please just get my resume done so I can persist through this job. aboard black hole look great. We can also help and talk to you about that and work on that for you. There are plenty people who are skilled and well versed when it comes to pitching themselves, but I know a lot of us are not.

Matthew Villanueva 20:11
Alright, I’ll leave you with those ideas, those trends, those analyses, those thoughts, those mats, coffee thoughts that I call them will conclude here. And please stay tuned, hopefully each month if you want to hear from me regularly. I’d love to know if you appreciated, loved hated hearing my voice here and what we talked about here today, if there’s stuff that you want to hear differently, let us know.

Matthew Villanueva 20:32
Also, like I said, Stay tuned and check out our Let’s Eat, Grandma newsletter that I’ll be sending these thoughts out in written format, and where we can just catch up and book a call with me and find out and learn more about each other. I’d love to be a voice for my job seekers. But I’d also love to hear from you and learn from you as well. All right. Thank you again, take care everyone and Happy jobs.

Chris Villanueva 20:58
All right, y’all. That was Matthew Villanueva Co-Founder and COO of Let’s Eat, Grandma, I’ll make sure to include his LinkedIn page on the description of this episode. So excited, we got to bring him in. And who knows, we may have to have him in the future.

Chris Villanueva 21:13
So make sure to also subscribe to us on YouTube, we have a brand new setup for our YouTube channel, we’re trying to revitalize it and bring in a lot of the visual things here. So I would love to see you comment on our YouTube channel. We also of course, have LinkedIn, we’re very present on LinkedIn. So you can connect with me as Chris Villanueva, CPRW and our Let’s Eat, Grandma LinkedIn page is also very active.

Chris Villanueva 21:40
So I just really enjoy doing these episodes, I hope you could feel open enough to share these episodes on your own LinkedIn profile, or shoot me a message about some ideas or feedback you have about the podcast, one of my favorite things is hearing from you as the listener. So I’m so excited to keep moving forward in this crazy world, this crazy year we’ve had so far. And it’s just going to be an amazing ride. And no, we’ll do it together and it’s going to be solid. Take care. And I will see you very soon for some more amazing content.

Chris Villanueva 22:13
Career Warrior Podcast. And before you go remember, if you’re not seeing the results you want and your job search, our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at Let’s Eat, Grandma can help head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages.

Chris Villanueva 22:33
We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search and with our unique writing process and focus on individual attention. You’ll get a resume cover letter and LinkedIn profile that are highly customized and tailored to your goals to help you get hired faster. Again, head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ Thanks, I’ll see you next time.