Career Warrior Podcast #291) Human Connection is More Important than Ever

Episode Transcript

Chris Villanueva:

Even if the tech could write a better resume and spoiler alert, it can’t. It will never replace the biological need for human connection to elicit ideas, projects and accomplishments and all the things that we’ve done in the past LinkedIn Presents. And welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast! If your goal is to transition to more meaningful workm achieve better pay, or reach that flow state at work, this is your podcast.

I am Chris Villanueva, Founder of Let’s Eat, Grandma, the world’s best resume writing service. You can connect with me by following me on LinkedIn just make sure to send a personalized connection request letting me know why you subscribe to this show. Better yet, leave acomment on one of my posts. I will definitely engage with you because this is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. Human connection is more powerful and more important than ever in a chaotic job search landscape, that is becoming increasingly digital, it can become easy to rely solely on online job boards and applications when looking for a job.

However, research has shown that personal connections can play a significant role in landing your dream job. If you’re currently job hunting, or looking to take your career to the next level, this is your episode. So stay tuned because we have some awesome stuff coming right up. All right, key point I’ll open up with it is tough out there more than ever.

Acording to a CrunchBase article, over 130,000 workers and US-based tech companies have been laid off in mass job cuts so far. In 2023, big names, like Disney, Meta, Google and others are making these cuts. And one can argue that this has been done because of the overzealous job market perhaps because of stocks and the volatility there. But the fact remains true of people are more scared and uncertain than ever when it comes to job certainty.

In fact, this is much greater – the amount of layoffs such as today – it’s much greater than it was last year, which we started hearing about this. In the first place, it is tough. According to Michael Keach, a LinkedIn poster, he says, “I’ve applied toover 160 jobs since receiving my layoff notice from Wayfair. I have participated in about 20 hours of interviews, have received no offers, ghosted by recruiters, and have had my fair share of rejection emails. Being open to work has been one of the most mentally challenging experiences my adult life, which includes 20 years military service.”

And this person goes on to say that they’re applying for customer service roles. So Michael, thank you so much for your vulnerability. You are speaking for many job seekers out there and I appreciate your openness. So it is tough. And in 2023, the tech has evolved quickly. Cocial media and advancements on how we work remotely has all evolved so much over the last several years. But as humans, we have not made any major evolutionary changes in thousands of years.

Let’s be honest, we still have this primal fear of rejection, which is connected to our fear of being outcasted by our tribes. We’re still afraid of getting eaten by tigers at the end of the day. So this survival mode can manifest itself through excess adrenaline, anxiety, and other things like this, which are just making things difficult. Go and I’ll give some examples here. According to be MC Public Health, those working at home, full-time or part-time, and those furloughed had significantly higher levels ofdepressive symptoms and those working in their usual place of work.

It is tough. Humans have had a desire to connect with other humans in a world of online applications applying through job boards. Like indeed, it is becoming increasingly easy to send out our applications, but also harder to establish a true human connection. So my point of this podcast, what I am sending this out to the world today to say is we must not lose sight of our human connection. Must, never forget that. We have a strong need and desire for human connection and arecent meeting with my management team. At let’s see Grandma. We had a real serious discussion about AI in the future of the job search landscape.

ChatGPT exists now and can bust out really quick resumes that can give level explanations of what we’re doing our experiences, but even as a resume service, we’ve noticed the value in what we do, it goes way beyond the document itself. It goes beyond the surface level, even if the tech could write a better resume and spoiler alert, it can’t. It will never replace the biological need for human connection to elicit ideas, projects and accomplishments and all the things that we’ve done in the past human connection can help us to think about the jobs that we’d be applying for and human connection could Inspire the confidence, we need to move forward in our careers, some are really practical, dude.

I don’t like to just a spat out principles and ideas and theories. I like to give real hardcore advice so in the online world, again, I’m not crapping online. I think online is the reality of where we live right now but in this world I want you to go out and make a real true human connection out there.

So go on LinkedIn this week and do this method for connecting with people: I want you to spend 25 minutes sending five connection requests to targeted folks within your industry. I want you to take 25 more minutes, posting meaningful comments to those within your network or within your feed. I want youto follow that up by posting an article within your space demonstrating your expertise and then I want youto follow that up with five personalized messages asking for advice. This is the concept of informational interviews and reaching out to people who can help further your career and some sort of way.

If you do this if you really go and try to establish atrue human connection, you will find that your job search isn’t so hard. In fact, you’re going tomove italong way quicker than you think. Build your career tribe. This is a theme that we’ve brought up multiple times within this podcast. Use therapists to process your own emotions, find mentors within your industry. Read the guide you through your own career update. This is one that’s often overlooked find afamily member or a friend who you cantalk to open up about with your job search.

You are not at this alone and I really want you to reach out to people who you were close to you. Because oftentimes these are the folks that can give you thatdeep support. You need contact a career coach, you can help give you clarity. And of course, follow a resume writer or resume writing company such as Let’s Eat, Grandma to give you the tips and strategies needed to move your career forward.

This is what I mean by human connection. It’s not just following a bunch of people and not really building any sort of relationships. It’s actually talking with a human one-on-one about your situation here. So this is my message for today, find a fellow human to connect with on your job search. It is more important than ever and needed in this digital age because it is something that we will never evolve past. And That is always going to be the number one key to moving our lives forward. My final call to action, post this episode and tag me how has human connection pulled you through in your own career.

Leave a comment under newsletter or simply put it in the description of the connection request you send me. Thanks so much for tuning in. I’ll see you next week in the Career Warrior Podcast, and before you go remember, if you’re not seeing the results, you want in your job, search our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at Let’s Eat, Grandma can help head onover to letseatgrandma.com/podcast to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages.

We talk all thetime 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.