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Collapse the Timeline to Success Through Networking, Coaches, and Mentors, with Casey Hasten

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Finding a job can be an isolating experience, but it doesn’t have to be. There is a wide variety of support available for job seekers, but according to Find Your Dream Job guest Casey Hasten, you want to focus on 3 key areas of support: networking, coaches, and mentors. A coach will help you make decisions that are best for you. A mentor will walk you through experiences they have personally walked through. A strong network will open up a world of possibilities for positions you never could have known about. Taking advantage of all three will put you on the fast track to success. 

About Our Guest:

Casey Hasten is the director of recruiting and coaching at We Are VIP. Casey also hosts the We Are VIP Podcast and serves as CEO of Success North Dallas.

Resources in This Episode:

Transcript

Find Your Dream Job, Episode 474:

Collapse the Timeline to Success Through Networking, Coaches, and Mentors, with Casey Hasten

Airdate: October 30, 2024

Mac Prichard:

This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life.

I’m your host, Mac Prichard. I’m also the founder of Mac’s List. It’s a job board in the Pacific Northwest that helps you find a fulfilling career.

Every Wednesday, I talk to a different expert about the tools you need to get the work you want.

There are no shortcuts in a job search.

But practicing three good habits can help you find your next job easier and faster.

Casey Hasten is here to talk about how to collapse your timeline to success through networking, coaches, and mentors.

She’s the director of recruiting and coaching at We Are VIP.

Casey also hosts the We Are VIP Podcast and serves as CEO of Success North Dallas.

She joins us from Dallas, Texas.

Well, let’s get going, Casey. We’re talking today about three habits: networking, working with coaches, finding mentors, that you say can collapse your timeline to success. What do you mean here, Casey, when you’re talking about shortening that timeline to success?

Casey Hasten:

Well, Mac, and this has come through a lot of trial and error on my part, because I am actually one of those that’s in their second career, and I’m in my second career because of those areas that you were just talking about.

First of all, the mentoring and coaching came first, and then the networking came later, but truly, whenever you’re looking for a job, 80% of people find jobs through their network. It’s really important that you are constantly pouring into that network and then, of course, mentors and coaches along the way. You learn so much from them, and they can help you avoid those stumbles that you might take or make on your own.

We’re not meant to be isolated and do things on our own, so it’s so valuable to lean on the experience of others, whether it’s through mentoring or coaching, which are two very different things.

Mac Prichard:

Talk more, Casey, about the difference these three habits make when you’re looking for work because you’ve got your own personal experience, but you’re also the director of recruiting and coaching for an organization, so you see what has worked and hasn’t worked with people who are doing job searches. Talk about the difference that practicing these three habits can make in your job search.

Casey Hasten:

Absolutely, so let’s just start with networking first. One of the first things, whenever I engage with a new candidate that I encourage them to do is to get out of their comfort zone, and by that, I mean get out of your house. You’ve got to put yourself in positions where you will meet people, and that person that you meet might not be the person that’s going to help you, but, hopefully, if you are networking and making a good impression, you’re going to be top of mind for them whenever they meet someone that might be able to help you.

It’s important to pour into that network before you need it. It’s very disingenuous if you suddenly need a job and now you’re starting to go out and network. Not that that’s not a good time to do it, there’s no wrong time to start networking, but I encourage you, if you start networking before you need that network, your network is going to be a hundred times stronger when you do need it.

The other thing, and I’ve got some examples here; first, I want to discuss the difference between a mentor and a coach.

A lot of people, you know, talk about these two synonymously, but they’re really very different. A mentor is someone who will share their life experiences along the way to help you, again, avoid those pitfalls and help you to hit that path a little bit straighter. So that’s what I mean by collapsing that timeline. Instead of going in a zigzag, you’re kind of going from point a to point b with the assistance of a mentor who’s been there and done that.

A great example of this recently – through Success North Dallas, we have a program called the Young Executives, and we provide mentorship. Starting next month, we’ve worked out a deal with the International Coaching Federation, we will provide pro bono coaching to our young executives, which is absolutely huge.

Through this mentorship program, I paired a young mentee who is in technology with a mentor who is also in technology but has retired. This mentor had been through some of the great corporations. He started with McDonald’s when McDonald’s was not even a franchise, but by joining those two together, he lends decades and decades of experience, seeing technology change over those decades, to this young executive who’s just getting started in their career.

That guidance can be invaluable. To me, that’s better than a college education. The mentor relies on their experiences to help the mentee along the way.

Now, where a coach differs, a coach is not there to tell you what to do or to give you the answers. A coach is there to unlock the potential within you, to guide you to your own conclusions because we know that when you come up with the path that you need to take, you’re going to own it more. Rather than someone telling you, “You need to do this.” You might not necessarily take that in and own that task.

A coach is there to ask those curious questions, to guide you along your own path, not using their experience at all. We call it in the coaching world, whenever you start using your own experience to help someone along the way, we call that getting in the sandbox because we don’t want to bring our experiences and our past beliefs into that sandbox.

That is your place to play. We’re just there to help you unlock the toys.

Mac Prichard:

Those are the three habits: networking, mentoring, and coaching, and those are the benefits that they can offer a job seeker. What stops candidates from practicing these habits, Casey?

Casey Hasten:

I think the biggest hurdle for a lot of candidates is that they don’t know that they’re out there. When I first transitioned into my second career, I had no idea about the benefits of having a mentor or a coach, and I was like, “Why would I pay for that? Why would I do that?” And as I moved through this professional career and started leaning on those mentors, and they started showing up, and leaning on those coaches, that’s when my trajectory really started to change, and it’s critical that you’re always putting yourself in a position to learn, in order to increase that career.

I’m not saying that you can’t get there without these habits, without these tasks, I’m just saying you’re going to get there faster if you invest in yourself and use these resources.

Mac Prichard:

What objections do you hear from candidates who may be aware of these three habits, or one of the three or two of the three? What objections do they have to these habits, and how have you seen people overcome them?

Casey Hasten:

Well, let’s start with networking. One of the biggest objections that I hear is, “I don’t have time.” Or, “I’m an introvert.” That’s a big one, and one of the ways that I help introverts get over that particular objection is, first of all, again, you have to get out of your comfort zone, and you’ve got to put yourself out there if you want people to find you. Whenever I’m talking about networking, one of the most critical pieces of networking is showing up. You’ve got to be in proximity to those people that can help you. You’ve got to be in the room.

The other objections that I hear to mentoring and coaching is kind of the same objections, “I can’t afford it.” And I understand that, and I understand that it can cost money, but I also encourage my candidates to invest in themselves. That should be your first investment, and typically, once someone engages with a mentor or a coach, they will find the value in return, the return on investment is way more than what they spent for the coach or the mentor.

Mac Prichard:

To clarify, Casey, coaches are running a business. They’re providing a service, and like any professional, they get paid for it. How about mentors? Are there professional mentors who charge for their services, or is this something that people do as a service to others, just to give back?

Casey Hasten:

Typically, mentors do not charge where coaches do. Mentors are typically those that are giving back to society. I see a lot of people who do. For example, I have two mentors right now. One of my mentors is the CEO of a very large company. She is just pouring back into the women’s community through me. The other mentor is more of a life mentor, who, again, is pouring in just to help me on the life side of my program.

Now, coaches are a little bit different. They do charge, for the most part, unless you have worked out a deal, like what we’ve done with the International Coaching Federation, North Texas Chapter, to provide those pro bono services to our young executives, but a coach will typically charge, and again, it’s more like a brain hack because when you pay for something you’re more likely to follow through on it.

Mac Prichard:

Well, we’re going to take a break.

Stay with us. When we return, Casey Hasten will continue to share her advice on three habits that can help you collapse your timeline to success.

We’re back in the Mac’s List studio. I’m talking with Casey Hasten.

She’s the director of recruiting and coaching at We Are VIP.

Casey also hosts the We Are VIP Podcast and serves as CEO of Success North Dallas.

She joins us from Dallas, Texas.

Now, Casey, before the break, we were talking about how to collapse your timeline to success through three habits that you recommend: networking, working with coaches, finding mentors, and we talked about the three habits and the benefits to someone who’s doing a job search of doing these things.

Let’s go through them one by one and just talk about how to do them well. Let’s start with networking.

You were saying that one of the common objections towards networking is people may say, “I’m an introvert.” What do you say to people who say, “I don’t have a network? I don’t know anybody. I can’t network.”

Casey Hasten:

Well, the first thing I would say is you’ve got to start somewhere, and so I would recommend that you go out to LinkedIn, it’s actually become a really good place to find groups that are local to you, so I would recommend going and starting to search there. Also, look on Meetup, look on EventBrite to find events that are coming up because people are posting those events quite frequently. Then, when you get ready to go to your first networking event remember the three A’s, and I learned this from the master networker himself, Bill Wallace, who actually founded Success North Dallas 30 years ago.

He is probably one of the best networkers I’ve ever met in my life and he taught us the three A’s. The first thing is that you need to be available. If people can’t find you, they can’t network with you, they can’t support you, they can’t refer you to potential new opportunities.

The second thing is that you have to be approachable. When you walk into that room, don’t walk in with your head low, your energy low, and your shoulders down and try to hide in a corner. That is not going to serve you. You might as well not even attend that networking event.

The third thing is be accountable. After you’ve attended this networking group, make sure that you are available for follow-up. One of the things that I love to do after I attend a networking event is I schedule one-on-ones with the people that I feel like will best – either I can best serve or can help me. That’s another thing. I always go in with a mentality, there’s a great book out there I love to read called “The Go Giver.” I always enter a room with the intention to give value first. When you show up that way, then people are going to be more receptive to helping you.

Mac Prichard:

Casey, in the first segment, you talked about how working with a mentor can help you find a shorter path to your next job because you can benefit from someone’s advice who’s been there and has experience. Talk about how networking, in the way that you just outlined, can help you get your job faster and easier.

Casey Hasten:

I can give you a perfect example of that. In fact, I just had a conversation with one of my mentees this morning that I helped to find a job, and it really hit two of these three areas that we’re talking about, networking and then mentoring, because first, he showed up to an event that I was hosting, then second, he followed all of these three A’s. He was available, he was approachable, he was accountable, and when I say accountable, he reached out to me after the meeting to help him with his job search. I didn’t do this in a recruiter capacity. I did this in a mentor capacity because his area of expertise doesn’t fall in my wheelhouse for what I recruit for.

We started walking through what he wanted to do, and it was a really great alignment because he was in the middle of switching careers and I had been through a career transition over a decade ago, a very significant career transfer, and he was doing the same thing, and so we really starting walking through those steps and putting a plan in place, much like I did, to help him get his dream job.

About six months ago we managed to find the role that he wanted and we did that because of the networking, because it just so happened that the hiring manager at this place was a good friend of mine, and she wasn’t the hiring manager over this area, but she walked his resume over to the department that he wanted in and he got that job.

He’s been there for six months.

Mac Prichard:

Casey, you’re a recruiter. Why does it make a difference when someone who maybe you don’t know that well, walks your resume over to a hiring manager? Why is that a powerful thing?

Casey Hasten:

It’s a huge endorsement. It means that someone thought enough of you to bypass the system, to bypass the ATS system, which everyone knows is a black hole most of the time and it shows confidence in their ability. That’s a really good question, too, Mac, because this person did not know my mentee, but she knew me, and she trusted my recommendation of my mentee enough to put her name on the line and handwalk it over to the other department.

Mac Prichard:

Let’s talk about mentors. Again, in the first segment, you mentioned the difference a mentor can make in providing advice to help you shorten your timeline to success, to find that next job faster.

Talk more, Casey, about the forms that mentorship can take, and are you working with just one person or might you reach out to many people for help about particular subjects? What have you seen work in your experience as a recruiter and as a coach?

Casey Hasten:

When you’re working with mentors, as I mentioned earlier, I have two different mentors. I have one that’s strictly business and then I have one that’s more on the personal/life side in mentorship, to make sure that I am, for example, making sure that I am taking time for self-care, that I’m taking time to recharge, that I’m taking time for vacations, which I have not done in a very long time. I need people like that to hold me accountable.

When it comes to mentors, it’s important to know exactly what you want to accomplish. What part of that timeline do you want to collapse? Another example, I have a young mentee in the Young Executive program, her goal was to move into management and enroll in her MBA, and she worked with a mentor who was in a very similar area as her, and it’s not necessary that they be in the same industry or have the same career path, but it does help when you’re working with a mentor, so she engaged with him, and very proud to say, she is now in a management position.

This was probably eight months ago that this happened and she’s in a management position and she starts her MBA in the fall.

Mac Prichard:

How did that relationship with the mentor help the person that you just described move ahead? What did the mentor do for her?

Casey Hasten:

Well, I wasn’t privy to their conversations, but I would assume that he guided her along the path to, “This is who you need to talk to. This is the class that you need to take in order to get those management skills. Here’s how you demonstrate, even though you haven’t actually managed, on your resume why you’re ready to start managing a team.”

Mac Prichard:

Let’s talk about coaches. Coaches, like mentors, can come in many forms. You might work with a career coach, perhaps a resume writer, maybe a LinkedIn specialist. Casey, what’s your best advice for figuring out what kind of coaching you might need, and in addition to reaching out to the International Coaching Federation, what are other places that you might look to find a coach?

Casey Hasten:

I think that other places that you might look to find a coach would be online; there are a lot of coaches out there, I will tell you that, and not every coach is the same, and I think it is important, again, to identify what it is that you’re trying to accomplish in your career.

For example, when I took over Success North Dallas, I took over from the founder, who had been there for 34 years, and so just going from a male to a female CEO is huge, not because of the gender issues or anything like that but just because it’s a different mindset. Also, taking over from someone who had run an organization for 34 years, that’s a big change, and so when I was looking for a coach through that transition, I wanted someone who had been through something similar.

My coach that I’m using right now, she is the CEO of a company, but she had just gone through a very similar transition where she took over from the founder of the company to become CEO. She’d already been through exactly what I was going through and so she had already experienced a lot of those pitfalls and a lot of challenges and obstacles that she helped me work through in real time.

Now, when you’re looking for a coach, of course, I do recommend going to the International Coaching Federation first because they are the accrediting body of all the coaching schools and you want to make sure, depending on what you’re looking for, I would recommend that if you’ve never worked with a coach before, that you do look for one that is certified through an ICF program, just to be on the safe side. I’m not saying there aren’t coaches out there that aren’t certified that aren’t fabulous. One of my original coaches was not certified and she was amazing, but I think that it’s important, when you don’t know what you’re looking for, look for that certification because that’s your guarantee, just like a CPA when you’re doing your books and your accounting.

Mac Prichard:

Well, it’s been a terrific conversation, Casey. Now, tell us, what’s next for you?

Casey Hasten:

Well, what’s next for me, we have had some big news here at VIP. About a month and a half ago we were acquired by another company, Smith and Howard. It’s an interesting combination in that Smith and Howard is an accounting firm and we recruit for accounting and finance, so they have wrapped us up in their portfolio of companies and we are really excited about the opportunities that are going to come from that.

Then the other thing that I am passionate about is just bringing thought leaders, just like yourself, onto the We Are VIP podcast, which is a career podcast as well, to share thoughts and insights and ways to skyrocket your career.

Mac Prichard:

You host a great show and I do hope that listeners will check it out soon, and I know that listeners can learn more about you and your work, Casey, by visiting your website, and that URL is caseyhasten.com. We’ll be sure to include it in the show notes as well. I know that you also invite listeners to connect with you on LinkedIn and when they do reach out to you, I hope they will mention that they heard you on Find Your Dream Job.

Now, Casey, given all of the great advice that you’ve shared today, what’s the one thing you want a listener to remember about how to collapse your timeline to success through networking, coaches, and mentors?

Casey Hasten:

I think one of the most important pieces of advice that I received from one of my coaches that I met through my networking, actually it wasn’t my coach, it was my mentor, and this is so important to collapsing the timeline to success because when you do really embrace this advice it changes everything.

It’s none of my business what other people think of me.

Mac Prichard:

Next week, our guest will be Alicia Perkins.

She’s the founder of The Best You Academy.

Alicia’s company helps women advance strategically and elevate their influence, impact, and income without burnout or compromising values.

Everybody has multiple skills.

Which ones should you emphasize when applying for your next job?

Join us next Wednesday when Alicia Perkins and I talk about the profitable skills that matter most to employers.

Until next time, thanks for letting us help you find your dream job.

This show is produced by Mac’s List.

Susan Thornton-Hough schedules our guests and writes our newsletter. Lisa Kislingbury Anderson manages our social media.

Our sound engineer and editor is Matt Fiorillo. Dawn Mole creates our transcripts. And our music is by Freddy Trujillo.

This is Mac Prichard. See you next week.