在当今市场中获得理想工作:谈判策略、求职委员会及其他 | Phyl Terry
Land your dream job in today’s market: negotiation tactics, job search councils, more | Phyl Terry
Phyl Terry: When you’re looking for a job, you need a spear and not a net. What happens when we’re building a product? Same thing, right? We want this product to be for everyone, but we’ve learned with product market fit that doesn’t work. We need a narrow, clear focus.
About the Guest
Lenny Rachitsky: How did you realize this is a really powerful method versus the way people normally look for jobs?
Phyl Terry: While it’s hard to figure out your candidate market fit, it’s also a relief to know it’s not about you. So what I ask people to do is I ask them to think about what they want and what they don’t want. Now, you might not think that that’s a radical step, Lenny, but most people don’t do that. When they get laid off, they spray and pray.
Job Search Councils
Lenny Rachitsky: This is very much like a product person thinks about new product.
Phyl Terry: There’s no I in team. Well, there is an I in village, and the I in village is that when you start to interview and negotiate, you’ve got to be in charge. I want you to play to win, not not to lose.
Size and Operations of Councils
Lenny Rachitsky: Is there anything else that you think might be helpful to people looking for jobs?
Phyl Terry: If someone did this, it would blow my mind. I would hire them on the spot.
The Impact of Councils
Lenny Rachitsky: Today my guest is Phyl Terry. Phyl is the author of Never Search Alone, which I’ve seen so many people reference as the most impactful thing they read for helping them find a job. Once you listen to this episode, you’ll see why.
Prior to this book, Phyl was on the founding team of the first company that Amazon acquired back in the ’90s, and then was CEO of the pioneering product and customer experience consulting firm Creative Good for over 15 years, where Phyl and the team had companies like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and hundreds of other companies as customers. Phyl also co-authored Customers Included, has written articles for the Harvard Business Review, and has delivered more than 500 keynotes to companies like Apple and Microsoft. This episode is for anyone struggling to find a job or unhappy in the job that they’re in. I promise you, the time you put into listening to this episode will help you find a job that you love.
If you enjoy this podcast, don’t forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It’s the best way to avoid missing feature episodes and helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Phyl Terry. Phyl, thank you so much for being here, and welcome to the podcast.
Emotional Management Is Key
Phyl Terry: Oh, what a pleasure. I’m such a fan of yours, Lenny.
True Community Over Isolated Searching
Lenny Rachitsky: I’m thrilled to be here.
Building a Private Safety Net
Phyl Terry: Thank you.
Candidate-Market Fit
Lenny Rachitsky: I’m a huge fan of yours, and I think by the end of this I’ll be an even bigger fan of yours. What I’m hoping that we can do in our chat today is to help people who are struggling to find a job and especially struggling to find a job they love, actually find that job with actual tips that they can use today in this week. How does that feel to you?
Define What You Want and Don’t
Phyl Terry: That’s great. We have some practical time-tested stuff that I’ve developed over the last 25 years with leaders in Silicon Valley, especially in the product community. We’ve really brought a product lens to reinventing the job search, Lenny.
Lenny Rachitsky: This is a perfect Venn diagram of topics then.
The Listening Tour
Phyl Terry: Yes.
Lenny Rachitsky: There’s a lot of ways I can approach this. I want to start with a question about something that you run, something that you created, something that has had a lot of impact on a lot of people: Job Search Councils. What is a Job Search Council?
Building Relationships With Recruiters
Phyl Terry: It’s a support group of six to eight job seekers, so product people, but it is not just for product people, but the product community really owns this, it comes out of the product community. And what they do is they commit to being with each other, to supporting each other, go through the process of looking for a job and I lay out a methodology, how to figure out your candidate market fit, one of the big concepts in the book. As well as how to play to win, not not to lose. You know what I mean? People are scared in the job search. Here’s the thing, Lenny, that people really have a hard time believing, everyone, I mean everyone, and I work with some of the most senior people in Silicon Valley, I’m talking about CEOs of public companies, I’m talking about chief product officers, VPs of product at great brands, everyone, no matter who they are, Lenny, feels insecure and anxious in the job search. And if you do it alone, it magnifies that.
So with Job Search Councils, there’s this great hack, I didn’t invent this, it’s baked into human psychology, if you put anxious people together and ask them to be open and vulnerable and to ask for help, and we’ll come back to asking for help, it actually flips the anxiety and the fear into hope, into motivation, into accountability and confidence. It’s like, “What [inaudible 00:04:20]?” It’s fantastic. My mother taught me this, we can talk about her at some point, but it’s really powerful.
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s amazing. Your whole book is called Never Search Alone, so the whole premise of how you recommend people look for jobs is to look for jobs with other people. You mentioned maybe it’s your mom, maybe it’s something else, how did you realize this is a really powerful method versus the way people normally look for jobs?
Creating Focused Candidate-Market Fit
Phyl Terry: Yeah. I set up my first council more than four years ago. I set up the first CEO council for internet CEOs in the mid ’90s, and then I’ve run product and CEO council since. But it goes all the way back to my mom. 1960, Lenny, 1960, what is that? 64 years ago? In the San Fernando Valley, my mom was a newly-minted elementary school teacher, and she put together a council of teachers. That group met for 50 years, 5-0, until the year she died. They worked together to ask for help and support each other in their careers. And Lenny, people say to me, “Does this Never Search Alone method work in a tough job market?” And I’ll tell you, it comes out of tough job markets. Absolutely, yes. Starting with my mom.
So in 1974, my dad… in 1976 he left and it was just me and my mom and my sister. He had insisted that she stop teaching, so she lost her tenure and everything. Her candidate market fit was terrible, but she had her council. It was the mid ’70s, and Lenny, you probably can’t imagine how hard it was for a single middle-aged woman with kids looking for a job in Los Angeles in the mid ’70s. It was terrible. But she had her support group and they held her hand. The job she could get, guess what? She had to be an entry level teacher again after having been a senior teacher coaching and advising. It was really tough. So that had a big impact on me.
And then when the dotcom bubble burst, I was running Creative Good, and suddenly there was a depression. And suddenly I’m helping hundreds of people try to figure out their job search. So it’s been going for a number of years, but it goes back to my mom. I dedicate the book to her and the community we’ve built.
Expanding From Narrow to Broad
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s beautiful.
Let me tell you about a product called Sidebar. The most successful people that I know surround themselves with incredible peers. When you have a trusted group of peers, you can discuss challenges you’re having, get career advice, and just gut-check how you’re thinking about your work, your career, and your life. This gives you more than a leg up, it gives you a leap forward. Having a group of trusted and amazing peers was key to my career growth, and this is the Sidebar ethos.
But it’s hard to build this trusted group of peers on your own. Sidebar is a platform for senior tech professionals, director to C-level, to advance in their career. Members are matched into peer groups to lean on for unbiased opinions, diverse perspectives, and raw feedback. Guided by world-class programming and facilitation all running on Sidebar’s technology, Sidebar enables you to get focused, tactical feedback at every step of your career journey. If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re already committed to growth. Sidebar is the missing piece to catalyze your career. 93% of members say Sidebar helped them achieve a significant positive change in their career. Check them out at sidebar.com/lenny.
There’s a lot of elements that you mentioned that we’re going to dig into, so job candidate fit, playing to win. You touched a little bit this idea of settling, figuring out what to settle for. Your mom took a job that’s below what she was doing before, so I want to chat about all these things. A little bit more on these councils. What’s the scale of these? So I think it’s going to blow people’s mind just how many of these are happening and [inaudible 00:09:16]-
Phyl Terry: We have launched more than 2,000 of these Lenny, 2,000, and they’re completely free, completely 100% free. It’s volunteer-driven. We have hundreds of pages of tools. We’ve done a Slack community. We have a free matching program. You can sign up and we’ll match you and put you in a council. Then we’ll give you training, live training. There’s so many volunteers. We have 20,000 hours of volunteer work that’s already been put into this, Lenny.
Candidate-Market Fit Evolves Over Time
Lenny Rachitsky: You said that it’s free. I know these things aren’t free to run.
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Stories of Candidate-Market Fit
Lenny Rachitsky: I saw somewhere that you mentioned that basically all your book sales and also just your own money you spend on running these councils. Talk about that for a little bit.
The Two-Step Strategy
Phyl Terry: Yeah, actually two times the book sales are going into running this. So we have 20,000 hours of volunteer time, but you also have to pay for technology and you have to pay for certain kinds of support. Later we will talk about this, and we’re always looking for more volunteers. I have a process for people to apply if they’re interested in being a part of the team. But yeah, I have dedicated this to my mom, and I’m giving everything to it.
Staying Close to Tech Frontiers
Lenny Rachitsky: What’s the general structure? If someone’s trying to think about how these things work, if they want to join these as we go through it, how do they work?
You Are Not Alone
Phyl Terry: Okay, so you apply at phyl.org, P-H-Y-L, Phyl with a Y. Again, it’s free. We match you behind the scenes. Now, when you apply, we ask, “First of all, are you in a job and looking or are you out of work?” Because we separate those two because they have different cadences. If you’re in a job and looking, we call you a slow seeker because you have a full-time job and you can’t work as quickly. If you’re out of work and looking, we call you a fast seeker and we put you in different groups. Fast seeker or slow seeker. We also ask though, are you willing to be a moderator? Every council needs a moderator, and every moderator is a job seeker who volunteers to do that. If you volunteer to moderate, first of all, you get matched faster, and secondly, you get more training and support.
It’s a little bit more work for a lot more benefit. We’ve gotten 2,000 moderators, Lenny, it’s amazing. And we feel like we’re just beginning. So you apply, you get matched, and then you go through an orientation program that we run live where we tell you how this works and what to expect in your first meeting. And then there’s a whole set of agendas and materials and everything in the book as well as everyone gets a free workbook, a 100-page workbook after they join the community with all of the templates and guides and questions. And then the moderator pulls you together, you work on Zoom or whatever technology, it’s remote typically. And you do a first meeting, we call it meeting zero, where you’re open and vulnerable. People share stories about their lives and who they are, builds trust and get a sense of who people are. And then you move into the process. You meet twice a week typically if you’re in a fast seeker council and every two weeks if you’re in a slow seeker. So that’s the start of the answer. Does that help you think?
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, really helpful. And then you basically are on this council until you find a job, I imagine.
It Will Still Be Hard
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome.
Resisting the Urge to Narrow
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Resources and Links
Lenny Rachitsky: Is there anything you can share around the impact you’ve seen? The reason I reached out to you to come on this podcast is I just started seeing people mentioning that they found a job and maybe the thing that helped them most was your book and being on one of these councils. I imagine there’s a lot of stories you hear and a lot of numbers you could see of just people succeeding going through, so what can you share about just the impact you’ve seen?
Phyl Terry: Well, I posted on LinkedIn today that I was going to be on your podcast and I asked people if they wanted to share stories with me, and over email and LinkedIn, I’ve been flooded with stories from people who are in the process or people who did it. If you like, I can pull up and share a few of those if that would be helpful.
Play to Win, Not to Lose
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, if there’s a few you have there, that’d be really sweet.
Phyl Terry: Okay, so Justin Meats is a chief product officer who’s gone through the process and he posted on LinkedIn today. He said, “As a product leader, I love how it has you apply the product process to your career.” This comes out of the product world, it’s a product lens on the job search, and it’s for everyone, but it really makes sense for product people. And he says, “Not only does your JSC help bounce ideas and help your job search, they also help you keep going and accountable when you’re low on emotional energy.”
I talk about this in the book, Lenny, I say, “Look, most people think, ‘What’s the most important thing to manage during your job search?’” They think, well, maybe it’s their resume or LinkedIn profile or their ability to network or candidate market fit, a concept I introduced I think is really important. All those things are really important, but the most important thing to manage is your emotional balance. I talk about your emotional balance sheet. And for many job seekers, they have more liabilities than assets on their old balance sheets. They have more fear and anxiety, they feel demoralized, they have a hard time going. That’s why these things are so important.
He also says, “Hey, it’s a journey, and the more you embrace it, the more you learn about yourself.” And he says… and this is important Lenny. I don’t have a magic wand that especially in a down market today that magically gets a job. It’s hard. The job search, it can be hard and humiliating at times. I know. This is why I want to create this community, why we’re doing this. We want to give you a place where you can really get the support when it’s hard and humiliating. But the process will ultimately set you up for success if you follow it.
This one woman who just started, she’s a senior product leader in a major financial institution, and she said she couldn’t believe the level of support and openness and vulnerability. We really emphasize people being open and vulnerable, and I’ve learned a lot about how to create that environment. It ties back to asking for help, which I know we’ll talk about more at some point. But when you create that, it’s amazing what people can do together, Lenny. Amazing.
How Resource Requests Boost Salary
Lenny Rachitsky: Just to reinforce this point, people listening may be like, “I’m just going to keep looking for a job. I’ll use all this advice. I don’t need a group.” What’s your best pitch, again, to help people see the value of doing this in a group and joining a council or starting a council?
Phyl Terry: I acknowledge that that’s a reaction that some people have. That’s totally valid. This is unusual, what we’re doing here. This is not how people look for a job. We’re trying to disrupt the job search process. Lenny, this is my quick story. We had a great interview with a couple. Two of them were product leaders. They had met at Amazon and then had gone to have great careers. They both got laid off. The woman joined a Job Search Council right away. She loved it, she raved about it. Her husband, who was also an engineer, was a little more introverted. He’s like, “Ah, this isn’t for me.” She said, “No, listen, you won’t… ” And finally he read the book. Because the book, it works for the product mind and for the engineering mind, it makes sense. He said, “I’ll join a council, but I’m not going to be field connected to people. But I’ll do this because you asked me to.”
He sat in the interview, we have it up on the side, he was like, “Oh my God, I couldn’t believe it. The level of trust we created right off the bat I’ve never experienced in my life. It’s really truly accountability, the motivation, the ability to hang in there.” And so I say to people, ” Look, try it.” We have all these videos on our website with all these people talking. Go look at it. If you want to read the book first and see if you think this makes sense. But try it. You will be shocked in a positive way. You’ll discover how delightful it is.
We live in a world where there’s increasing loneliness, Lenny. There’s so much research about this, the Surgeon General’s book, everybody talking about… And it’s more detrimental to our health than smoking cigarettes. Bowling Alone famously came out 25 years ago. We live in a world where people have not experienced community in a powerful way. I don’t mean message boards, I mean real community. And I think you have a sense of this because you do real community. And that’s what we’re talking about here. It’s real community but with some practical tools and techniques, which we’ll talk about. What do you think? Is that a good response to the-
Best Communication for Negotiations
Lenny Rachitsky: I’m sold. I don’t need a job, but I want to join one. You also just had a really beautiful way of describing these programs as a safety net for people.
The House of Gratitude Exercise
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Does that ring a bell?
Post-Interview Debriefs
Phyl Terry: If we go up to the 30,000-foot level, what are we doing here? What’s our mission? We’re building a private safety net for all those who’ve been laid off or let go. Look, we’re not going to do what the government does with unemployment insurance, we’re never going to be able to do something like that. But the government’s never going to be able to innovate around how to actually look for a job. That’s where we come in. We are trying to build this. We talked about this earlier, Lenny, creative destruction is this economic concept that sits at the heart of capitalism. Creative destruction basically says, “Under capitalism, it’s dynamic. New products and services displace or disrupt old products and services, companies and methods.” It’s why our economy has grown sixfold over the last a hundred years. It’s remarkable. It’s why we have this amazing multi-trillion dollar economy. But it comes with some negative unintended consequences, which is that people both in jobs and out of jobs, they’re anxious and fearful. There’s no program that addresses that.
That’s what we’re going after here. We’re trying to be the solve for the unintended consequences of the thing that is so positive in many ways and that we as product people love because we get to build new products and displace old products. I’ll just say one more thing. The reason you know this creative destruction works so well is if you compare our economy to the late Soviet Union’s economy. They were a planned economy with no creative destruction. So there was no innovation, and eventually it just failed. It just collapsed. It’s remarkable, this is a huge country with a massive military and nuclear weapons, but they couldn’t make their economy work. Why? Because they didn’t have this element. So it’s something to celebrate, but as we celebrate it, we need to have something that addresses the negative unintended consequences. All of us who benefited from this, I think it’s our duty to do something about it.
Lenny Rachitsky: That is beautiful. You’re very good at this. Let’s shift to talking about tactics. Let’s talk about some of the things that you’ve shared. So you’ve mentioned things like candidate market fit, playing to win. Go wherever you want to go. Let’s pick a few and then dive in.
Emotions and Healing
Phyl Terry: Candidate market fit is probably the most important job search tactic in the book, aside from the Job Search Council, and it may be the thing I’m known for. When I die, they coin candidate market fit. So here’s the thing, and this is why this is so important in a down market, when you’re looking for a job, you’re in a marketplace with supply and demand characteristics. So if there’s a lot of supply, which there is right now in the tech world because there’s been a lot of layoffs, the overall economy, there’s been net job additions, Lenny, but those have been primarily in healthcare and government. There’ve been net job losses in tech. We could talk about why that is, but that’s the world that we’re in.
So let’s say you’re a director of product. Two years ago when the economy was great in tech and the job market was great in tech, you could probably get a VP of product role. What about today? Well, today your candidate market fit’s been pushed down because there’s a bunch of VPs of products who are going to take a director role. Guess what? That means you might not be able to get the director role you might need to get a senior manager role or whatever. Now, the important thing about this is it’s not a personal segment about you. It’s the marketplace. And that’s what so many people today in their notes to me said, that it was such a relief for them. While it’s hard to figure out your candidate market fit, it’s also a relief to know it’s not about you.
So what I ask people to do is the first radical step I ask them to take is to think about what they want and what they don’t want. Now, you might not think that that’s a radical step, Lenny, but most people don’t do that. When they get laid off, they spray and pray. That’s the typical, “Let me just… ” Wait a minute, just take a moment. They’re like, “Oh, don’t slow me down.” I’m like, “I’m going to slow you down to go fast.” In fact, what our data shows is that the average job search in the Job Search Council from beginning to end is three months. If you look at the national data for job search, it’s three to six months. So we are at the very low end of the national average. So this is not a slow down, take two years, whatever. No, no. Most people need to put food on the plate, so it’s a slow down at first. And we as product people should understand this. You want to think about your strategy. You want to understand the marketplace, your customer, the product market fit. You’re not going to just go…
You’re going to iterate. First step, what do you want and what don’t you want? That’s the Mnookin two-pager named after Allison Mnookin, who was a member of one of our product councils. So we run product councils and general management CEO councils for people in jobs. That’s a paid program that companies pay for. It’s out of that program helping those people that I developed this methodology that we’re now as a community giving to the world. So Allison, she was the GM at Intuit, and then she spun out a division and ran it as CEO, and she’s now a professor at the Harvard Business School. And about 15 years ago, she was in transition and we talked and she created and we created this thing we called now the Mnookin two-pager. I told her, “Allison, I’m going to make your name famous.” That’s my job. I love her.
Play to Win, Not to Lose
Lenny Rachitsky: Great name.
Phyl Terry: She’s wonderful. And it’s just a simple thing, what do you, what don’t you like and you create it and then you share it in your council. And here’s something cool, Lenny. Let’s say you and I are in a Job Search Council. You share yours, I share your mine. Now you see a few things about what you don’t like. I’m like, “Hot damn, I also don’t like those. I forgot, I got to add that.” Or you say a thing about what you like, you’re like, “Oh, wow, no, that’s really important to me, and I left that out.” So that’s part of the shared learning environment. I’m asking you to do these, but with others who you’re walking it through.
Now, once you have done that Mnookin two-pager, and it’s a draft, you don’t have to get it fine, and not everyone knows exactly what they want, by the way, this is important, especially younger people. But sometimes mid-career people too, they’re like, “Oh, I’m not… ” So I’m not asking you to make a final decision, no, no. We’re going to iterate. Okay, we’re product people, we’re going to iterate.
So we’re going to take this Mnookin two-pager, this draft that shared with our council, and we’re going to go out and do a listening tour. Because guess what? In the job search, we’re the product. We’re our skills and experience. That’s the product that we’re bringing to market. So we have to go see what the market wants. Now we have a sense of what we want, but what does the market want and what does some of our trusted friends, what do they think about what I want and what I’m a fit for? And what do they think I’m a fit for now given the market conditions that we have?
I will tell you, people are terrified to do the listening tour. They’re like, “I don’t know, what am I going to hear from people?” Because I asked them to ask a golden question, if you were in my shoes, how would you approach this? I call that the golden question. It’s such a creative question. It really opens the conversation. But they think, “Oh no, people are going to tell me all this stuff.” No, mostly people tell you this. Once in a while you get a helpful piece of critique, “Oh, you make everything a priority, in which case nothing is, and you could work on that.” Super helpful to know. We all have stuff to work on.
But I will tell you, once people do the listening tour, they’re blown away. I mean, the people who are in jobs, they love, they love helping others if it’s done well. Because guess what? They’re also anxious themselves, and they want to give back. They want to feel like they’re supporting people. You actually end up, and we’re going to talk about this, but when you ask someone for help while you’ve done your homework, you’re thoughtful, they want to help you even more. They become invested in you. So the secret about the listening tour is that not only are you getting market research customer feedback on your fit, you’re also creating a whole group of listening posts, people who are invested in your success.
Learning to Ask for Help
Lenny Rachitsky: Just to clarify on that specific point of this listening tour, you write this Mnookin two pager, which basically describes what you want, what you don’t want, goals you have, what you hate. And the listening tour is find colleagues, friends, people that are other, say, product managers and get their feedback on what you want, what you don’t want, what you hate, what your goals are.
Life-Changing Cases of Asking for Help
Phyl Terry: And what they’re seeing in the market, what they think you’re a fit for.
Lenny Rachitsky: I see. Got it. So it’s like, “Oh, this is unrealistic. You’re not going to get this.”
Asking for Help When Onboarding
Phyl Terry: That’s right.
Lenny Rachitsky: Looking for that [inaudible 00:27:02]-
How to Better Ask for Help
Phyl Terry: And we see both things, Lenny. So some people underestimate their fit, others overestimate it or don’t recognize that changed market condition. The other thing I’ll say is that in the book I have three different kinds of structured listening tour conversations. One I call reverse exit interviews. This is people you used to work with before, go ask them, “Hey, what did I do well, what do you think my strengths are? What do you think I’m a fit for? Here’s what I’m thinking. Do you think I accurately am projecting myself?” The second is your broader network, and that’s where I ask you to do the golden question, “If you were in my shoes… ” And then third is recruiters.
Now, this is an important hack. Recruiters don’t like being barraged with, “Get me a job.” They do like someone saying, “Hey, what do you think I’m a fit for?” asking their advice. And this is especially true if you pre-
And this is especially true if you’ve pre-built a relationship with a recruiter. So anyone listening to your podcast right now, if you’re in a job, I have a really important message for you. When that recruiter calls, pick up the phone even if you don’t want the job, help them, network with them, introduce them to other people, and build that relationship, because whether you lose a job or whether you decide to start looking when you’re in work, you want that relationship.
Now, Lenny, there’s a problem many people haven’t done that. Okay? So part of what we’re doing with the Never Search Alone community is we’re building a recruiter network. We’re finding recruiters who are willing to, in a protected way, do a couple of conversations a month, helping people think about their candidate market fit. And if anyone listening to the show is a recruiter, please come join us and volunteer. We need more recruiters. I know many of you want to give back and you don’t know how. You tell me this. Here’s a way to give it.
Lenny Rachitsky: Mm-hmm. Love that. Okay, and so the intent of this is that you’re trying to figure out, one, what does the market want, and how do I be honest about what it wants because what you want may not exist right now, and then, two, help you refine your pitch and how you’re approaching and who you’re talking to. Is there anything else that comes out of doing this exercise? Because I think people might be hearing this, like, “Ah, so much work. I have enough work to do, all these interviews. Got to reach out to people. I got kids and a family. I have to write this two-pager now and listening tour.” What other benefits do you get out of this, doing this exercise?
Everyone Feels Job Search Anxiety
Phyl Terry: You build those relationships. You turn people on as listening posts, so you light up your network in a way that you… If you just send an email saying, “I want a job,” or if you just go, “Hey, do you have a job for me,” people don’t know what to say. But if you say, “Hey, if you’re in my shoes, how would you approach this, and what do you think if you were me I should be looking for, and what are you seeing in the market,” they love that, and now they’re really thinking about it.
Lenny Rachitsky: And if they see a job that might be a fit, they tell you about it.
Product Councils and Learning Communities
Phyl Terry: They tell you about it. Yeah, and that gets to candidate… Because at the end of this, we’re going to create a very simple, narrow, focus candidate market fit statement at the end of listening tour.
So once you’ve now done this listening tour, now you need to create a focus candidate market fit, and this is tough. Look, again, this is why you need a job search council. You need them to be there with you during the listening tour. Not every listening tour conversation will be a home-run. Once in a while it’ll be a dud. I talk about this in the book, like, “Warning there are some curves ahead.” You could have a conversation… A number of women that I have worked with over the years who’ve gone and done conversations and they’ve gotten frankly sexist feedback… It was not helpful. “You’re too poised,” or “You’re not poised enough.” It’s just this strange set of stuff. So you need your council to help you parse out and interpret what people are telling you.
And at the end of this listening tour, and it never really ends, but once you’ve done 10 or 15 and you’re ready to say, “Okay, I’m going to take a stab at my candidate market fit,” now you need your job search council because you’re going to want… Every bone in your body is going to want that to be expansive, to want it to be broad. Remember, we’re product people, at least those of us in Lenny’s podcast community; what happens when we’re building a product? Same thing, right? We want this product to be for everyone, but we’ve learned with product market fit, that doesn’t work. We need a narrow, clear focus. Same thing with candidate market fit. So I say to people, and we have this whole grid that we give them, “I’m looking for a director of product role in a healthcare, series B startup in San Francisco,” like “Bing, bing, bing,” and people say, “Oh, if it’s so narrow, I’m going to lose…” And here’s the thing, when you’re looking for a job, you need a spear and not a net. With a net, everything slips through.
Now, part two to this, people are expansive, but not reductive. What are you talking about, Phyl? Here’s what I mean. If you give them a specific… If I say to you, “Lenny, I’m looking for a director of product role at a healthcare startup that’s a series B in San Francisco,” well, if you see another FinTech startup that’s in a heavily regulated industry looking for a director of product that’s a series B, you’re going to be like, “You know what? Phyl is looking for that, but I bet Phyl could do that.” You can be expansive. But if I told you, “Hey, Lenny, I’ll take any product job I can,” you are never going to think of me. You’re never going to remember me. You’re not going to be reductive from a broad statement, but you will be expansive from a narrow.
And I’ll tell you, Lenny, this is so hard for people, and this is why, again, you need that council and you need that broader community. And every two weeks we do a LinkedIn Live where we address… We go over these questions again and again because it goes… If I were in the job search, I’d feel the same way, even with all the darn research I’ve done. It’s really hard.
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Lenny Rachitsky: If you’ve been using this metaphor, approaching this like a product person, and this is very much like a product person thinks about new products is there should be a very narrow audience to start with kind of a wedge or an ICP. When someone’s building this, what is a sign they’ve narrowed it enough? Are there a certain number of attributes? What tells you that, “Cool, this is small now”?
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Phyl Terry: So it’s typically three to four attributes, and we give people a whole grid in a set of examples. So we had a woman who was a designer. She was a product designer. And what her product market fit was, she was looking for companies that either did not have a design team or needed to reboot one. So she wasn’t talking about stage of business, or even industry, but that really plants an image in your mind. If you hear about a company that doesn’t have design or looking to reboot design, you’re going to think of her immediately because after you’ve done your listening tour and you’ve created your candidate market fit and your council signs off on it, Lenny, this is important, then you go back out to your listening tour and you tell all those people, “Thank you for your help. Here’s the candidate market fit I’ve come up with.” And you also post it on LinkedIn. You tell the whole world, right?
Now, will that candidate market fit change over time? Yeah, we’re iterative, right? So if you go and go… And the market is changing. What was true three months ago may not be true now. Two weeks ago the stock market was convinced we’re going into a recession, and everything crashed. Two weeks later we’re like, “Oh, no, we’re not going into a recession,” and that affects the psychology of hiring managers and companies. Not just psychology, their willingness to open up, recs and everything else. So things are changing, so you need to be flexible and adaptive to that, which is also why you need the council and why you need to have a good network around you that you’ve asked for help from and they’re invested in you and can be there for you as you try to keep navigating this.
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Lenny Rachitsky: Just to follow us through it a little bit more, when someone is… Someone’s thinking right now, “Okay, what are my attributes,” what’s on that grid, roughly? There’s stage of company, I imagine there’s-
Phyl Terry: Stage of company, industry, level of role and function, of course, and culture.
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Lenny Rachitsky: Is there a set of options you have of type of culture?
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Phyl Terry: Basically everyone wants a good culture, right?
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Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So culture.
Phyl Terry: Sometimes it can be very specific, like, I need a company that has a particular kind of policy for kids, or whatever, remote or hybrid or whatever, that kind of element. But I tell people, make it simple. This should not be paragraphs and paragraphs. It should be a one-sentence statement. You can do a longer thing that you can then share with people when you’re getting into the conversation, but you want something simple that people go, “Oh, Lenny looking for a chief product officer role. Oh.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. It’s exactly like you want your product to feel too.
Phyl Terry: Exactly.
Lenny Rachitsky: I need a SOC 2 compliance, so I’m going to think of-
Phyl Terry: That’s [inaudible 00:36:17].
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, exactly. Okay, so I’m thinking through this list here. So level and role I imagine people get a pretty good sense of where they want to be. Stage, any advice for someone to decide what stage is right for them?
Phyl Terry: If I were coaching someone which, as you know, I do, we would talk a lot about this. But when I’m in the book and in the community, I say, “To figure out stage again, I want you to rely on your job search council and your network and your own experience,” and it becomes pretty… People usually have a pretty good sense, like, “Who was I talking to recently? I need a big…” Whereas many people are like, “I don’t want that. I want a startup.” Okay.
And what I will tell you is that one thing to keep in mind right now is that there are more jobs in the startup world than there are in the established companies in the tech world for product people. That’s where new job creation has been happening. It’s slower than it was before, but the big companies, they’ve just been shedding people. They’ve just been throwing them off. Whereas the smaller companies, there’s more opportunity there. Now that doesn’t mean that… If you can’t stand working at a startup, I’m not telling you you should go there necessarily.
But I will say this, and again, if you need to put food on the table… We were talking to someone recently; they had moved to a new city and then were laid off the next day. They moved for the company, and then they were laid off the next day, and they’re like, “Okay, I need to get a job.” I said, “Okay, yeah, sure. Just know that if you’re going to get any job just to have while you still look for the job you really want, just know that that’s hard. That’s a hard pen. I understand it and I support it, it makes sense, and it’s hard.” It’s harder than you realize, and you absolutely have to keep your job search council, because otherwise you’re going to get lost.
Can I share one story about candidate market fit-
Lenny Rachitsky: Please.
Phyl Terry: … that might be helpful to people? I was coaching… He was an EVP at a traditional media company, but on the digital side, running their streaming business, but it was very much an old economy, old media company. This was not a player in the streaming space. And they smartly recognized that if they stayed there, they were going to end up in a pretty bad cul-de-sac. And by the way, that company’s had layoffs, and they would’ve… So they decided they wanted to go work for a company like Netflix or Apple TV. And they’re someone who ran hundreds of people, corner office, limo, first-class, you know what I mean, in the airplane? What was their candidate market fit? They went out and did this, their candidate market fit, if they were going to join a top streamer was as an individual contributor, Lenny. Because those guys, they didn’t respect much of what they brought from traditional media. And if he had done this search alone, he would not have done that. But to his credit, he decided to take that, and it transformed his career. He’s not someone who had a lot of management experience, but also tied now with one of the top streamers. He’s just done incredibly well. But that is really hard to do.
Lenny Rachitsky: So in this example, when you talk about candidate market fit, a big part of it is what the market wants from you. It’s not like he’s like, “I’m going to go IC.” He just realized as he was going through the process, “This is where I’m actually going to succeed.”
Phyl Terry: He talked to people, and I helped him network with people in Silicon Valley. They were just honest with him. And that’s what Justin was talking about, this can be hard and humiliating at times to figure out… We had another person who was a chief product officer in a startup, and she was great. She helped me with the book, she was an early reader, she’s a member of your community, Lenny. And she realized that she wasn’t getting the right product trend. She was the only product person, and she didn’t really know what she was doing. Well, what was her candidate market fit? It was an IC. It was an IC role, an individual contributor role in a larger tech company. And to her credit, she realized that was the right path for her learning, and she did this before the shoot really hit the fan. I’m in the tech world, fortunately. Just not swear.
I talk about this in the book. Sometimes you need a two-step strategy. Let’s say you want to be a VP of product at a top streaming company or whatever it is, but you not a fit for that today. So the question is how do you step there? I tell a story in the book about a guy who’d been a VP of product. He wanted a COO role. He was not a fit. He was not a fit, Lenny. And it was very clear. The market was telling him, he did the listening tour, but he came back to me and said, “I don’t care. I want a COO role.” So he interviewed with 50 companies. 50. Can you imagine? It took them a year and a half. The 50th company hired him.
10 days later, they were a public company, massive fraud, and they went bankrupt. I said, “Okay. The market is clear. The only COO role you’re a fit for is a company that’s about to go bankrupt.” And he’s like, “Okay,” and he went back to the VP of product role. I said, “If you want to become a COO from that role, where you are today, one of the great paths is to do it from that job inside a company.” Okay? And that’s what he ended up doing. It was a two-step strategy. He couldn’t go straight there.
I’m not talking about people’s innate worth, Lenny. I believe every human is worthwhile person, and I deeply believe in belonging and giving people support and spreading love and creating community. But I also believe in being practical and realistic. I didn’t create this situation. I’m just trying to report to you what the situation is and how you can manage it so that you don’t get stuck. How many people have you seen, Lenny, who get stuck? They get stuck in a bad job, they’re not learning, and then they can’t go from there? They get into their 40s and 50s, and it is tough. A number of people in the job search community who are in their 50s, 60s, whatever, they’re dealing with ageism, they’re dealing with… They’re not close enough to the technology frontier. You got to get closer to the technology frontier, even if that means you’re going to go from the EVP to an IC role. That’s how creative destruction works. The closer you are to the technology frontier, the more new jobs and opportunities there are. The further you are from the technology frontier, the worse you’re going to be over the long run. You might be able to get a better-sounding job in the short term, but you’re going to find yourself stuck.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love your Venn diagram of just warmth and support and belonging, and also just straight real-talk. Here’s the reality.
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: What a combo.
Phyl Terry: Oh, thank you.
Lenny Rachitsky: This is such powerful advice, and I think people might be feeling like, “Yeah, I get it, but man, I don’t want to be a IC again. I’ve been a director, I’ve been a VP. That sounds really not great.” Is there anything else you can share to help people get past that, of like, “Okay, maybe I really should be looking for an IC role again?”
Phyl Terry: Again, if you’re in a job search council, and also you’re in our Slack community, what you’re going to find is that you’re not alone. That’s a big thing. It’s not you. There’s not something wrong with you. This is the market that we’re in. And by the way, the more relationships you build, the better you do your listening tour… One of the tactics, Lenny, I tell people is you’ve got to send out an update note every month to all of your network that you’ve talked to. And it might be, “I don’t have a job yet,” or “I don’t even have any news, but I just want to let you know I’m still going and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and I’m still looking for X.” That could be it. And Justin, in his note, I referenced him earlier as chief product officer, his note on LinkedIn today said, “Phyl told me to keep people updated, and I didn’t do it enough.” Don’t make that mistake. You got to do that.
Lenny, I met with a group of about 50 job seekers recently who’ve been in the Never Search Alone community for more than a year. Okay? They’re struggling. Again, I don’t have a magic wand. But as I talked to them, what was happening? They stopped network. They left their job search council. They weren’t updating their candidate market fit to the changing market condition. I’m like, “You have to do everything. You can’t get passive.” One of the concepts, Lenny, I talk about is you’ve got to be the I in village. There’s no I in team. Well, there is an I in village, okay? And the I in village is that when I’m saying you’ve got to ask for help, you got to be a part of job search council community, you have to be independent and accountable and responsible. I’m not saying you’re not going to become passive independent. This is how you become more independent. This is how you stand up and be even more accountable and responsible. This is how you can do the best search possible in the market conditions that we have.
Lenny Rachitsky: So the advice here is if you’re struggling finding a job, this is a solution. Join a council, bring people on board with you, update people on your progress. These are the things that break you out of that funk that you’re probably in.
Phyl Terry: And it will still be hard. It will still be hard. I wish that weren’t true, Lenny. Now, I will tell you that, look, what’s the difference between now and the dot-com depression of 2000, 2001 and 2? The difference is that we were a much smaller industry then. And people had been in web jobs only for a couple years, where now we’ve got people who are in jobs for 10, 15 or more years in tech who have never seen a downturn, have never seen a market like this. We’ve never seen a tech market like this. It will improve at some point, but right now it’s tough. And I can’t change that, but I can provide tools, I can provide community, I can provide heart and smarts, so that you can get the best job you can get right now.
Lenny Rachitsky: Speaking of advice, is there anything else along the lines of candidate market fit before we move on to more tactics?
Phyl Terry: Just that, again, that you’re going to resist the narrowness of it, every bone in your body. Just know that that’s what everyone is feeling. But go watch… I have this great video online of… He was a VP of product. He was initially masked, but VP of product at Nike. I met him through Marty and Chris at Silicon Valley Product Group. He joined one of our product councils, and then he decided to leave. And he was like, “Phyl, I love you, but this candidate market fit stuff, no. You’re wrong. It needs to be [inaudible 00:46:57].” And so he went out and he actually spoke to a bunch of VCs and like, ” We don’t have any idea what to do with you. You have to tell us something really specific.” He was like, “Oh, man.” So he went, he’s like, “Phyl…” So he redid it, bam, bam, bam.
I tell another story in the book about Dee. She was a chief data officer of a large company in tech, wanted to become a CTO. She had a technology and engineering background, as well as data. She spent a year spinning her wheels alone. I said, “Join a job search council.” She figured out her candidate market fit. It turns out she was a great fit for a mid-size regional bank CTO. And within three weeks she had three offers. A year, nothing. Within three weeks, three offers.
So I can’t guarantee that you’re going to get three offers within three weeks, right? I’m not saying that. Some of you, it might take you six months or a year. And the more senior you are, Lenny, the longer it is. If you’re a CEO, it’s going to take you a long time, unless you happen to be the CEO of Chipotle, who just became the CEO of Starbucks.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. Yeah, I know you’re creating a page that we’re going to link people to, which is, I think… Is it phyl.org/lenny?
Phyl Terry: Yes.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay, cool. And is it going to have this template to help you work out your market fit?
Phyl Terry: There’ll be a link to where you can download not only that template, but all the templates. You don’t even have to join a job search council to get all this stuff. I hope you do. Again, it’s free. I will say, early on people were like, “What’s the trick here? This is free, and you’re going to charge me.” No. No, this is free. Why am I making it free? Because, one, I can, which is cool; second, this is in honor of my mom; and third, I want to create a private safety net for the ravages of creative destruction. It’s great. A lot of positive consequences, but there’s negative ones. And I just don’t love the idea of charging people for this. I charge people for other things, but not for this.
Lenny Rachitsky: And we’ll link people to the things you charge for so they can support you and benefit you in other ways, or benefit themselves in other ways.
Phyl Terry: Benefit them and me. That’d be awesome.
Lenny Rachitsky: Let’s talk about some other tactics. You mentioned this idea of playing to win, and I think within that, there’s this kind of OKR in mission tactic. Let’s talk about that.
Phyl Terry: 50%, Lenny, of the people who read my book, join a job search council, and follow everything I’ve described, the people don’t do what I’m about to tell you, it is the biggest mistake and miss, and I’m really sorry about this. I’m on a campaign, right? So here’s the thing. When you start to interview and negotiate, you’ve got to be in charge. This is collaborative coaching. I want you to play to win, not to lose.
Now, when people hear me say that, they translate it in their brains into, “Oh, Phyl is saying that I’ve got to be a ruthless negotiator.” If anyone who knows me know that ruthless is just not how I am, at least in this sense. No, no, I’m like, “What I want you to do,” and it’s a great tactic that we stumbled upon, and it’s one of the best tactics in the book, and I really hope we can get the other half of the people who are in the community to do this, and your listeners who aren’t involved who decide to join also do this, when you start interviewing, I want you to create your own version of the job description. I want you to do it privately, Lenny, and I want you to create what I call a job mission with OKRs.
Now, most job descriptions, they suck, Lenny. The company doesn’t know what the eff they’re doing. They don’t know exactly what they’re looking for. But I’m not telling you to say that to them, just to be clear. I’m telling you, “I want you to create your own job mission with OKRs.” This is key. It needs to be with OKRs. Now, your audience knows what an OKR is, objectives and key results, and I assume I don’t need to explain that. It needs to be something where you are saying, “Here’s what I think I’m going to be accountable for. Here’s what I’m going to actually… the outcomes I’m going to deliver,” right?
Lenny Rachitsky: At the company that you join.
Phyl Terry: At the company you join. Now, you’ll keep it private at first because drafting it… This thing has multiple benefits. The first is drafting it will help you understand and develop great interview questions to ask them to clarify, what is this job? And they’ll be impressed by that. Okay? The second thing is, once you’ve had a couple of interviews, and it’s a draft… Now, it’s not a full, final thing. This is so important. I want you to pull the hiring manager aside and say, “Hey, Lenny, you’re the hiring manager. I’ve thought about what the role is. I want to make sure I’m understanding it correctly. Can I share something with you?” I don’t want you to email it. I want you to do phone call, Zoom, or coffee or whatever.
Lenny, can you imagine how hiring managers feel when they get this job mission with OKRs? I was talking to a senior guy at Amazon who’s hired more than 2000 product leaders and others. He said, “Phyl, no one in…” He’s part of our product account. He said, “No one in my life has ever done this. If someone did this, it would blow my mind. I would hire them on the spot.” And that’s the message I want these folks to understand.
We talk about silver medals, Lenny. In the job search, the silver medal sucks. At the Olympics, hey, it’s pretty good. You get to be on the podium. But guess what? Silver medal is… It’s almost worse than… Because you were almost there. And we have a number of videos and other things where we talk about the difference, in many cases, between getting the silver and gold has been doing the job mission with OKRs. Companies say, “This is what distinguished you. This is what…” We were like, “Who is this person?” They’re already thinking about what they’re accountable and the outcomes, and naturally they’re thinking about it better than I am, which is fantastic, right? So it raises the odds, but it also does something if you present it…
Again, Lenny, you’re the hiring manager. I show you my job mission OKRs, and you’re like, “Oh, this is fantastic,” but you also say, “Oh, this thing you have here, this OKR, this isn’t part of the role. Well, that’s helpful to understand, but this thing that you don’t have listed is.” “Oh, really?” Lenny, how many times… I’m going to ask people in the audience to raise their hands. How many times have you taken the job A that turned out to be job B? Everybody just raised their hands, Lenny. So this helps to address that, right?
And then if you get the offer, and again, this raises the odds of getting the offer, it then sets you up to negotiate what I call the four legs of the negotiations tool. This is not hard negotiation. This is something the company loves. I actually say, you get an offer and it’s like whatever, 10 million of tech debt here. Does that sound right to you? And are we on board that that’ll be priority one to eliminate the first day I start the job?”
We had two CPOs, both interviewing at private equity firms, private equity-owned companies, about the same size, SaaS companies. One had tech debt of 20 million, one had tech debt of 10. I told them both, “You got to talk about that in the…” So one talked about it in the negotiation, and the company was like, “Oh, that’s great.” They wrote a check on day one. Six months later, the tech debt was relieved. They updated the systems. They were able to get into innovation. A year later, they got promoted to a GM role in addition to their CPO role, and then a year after that, they were being interviewed for the CEO role. The other person, where there was 10 million of tech debt, was kind shy about asking, sort of mentioned it, they were like, “Oh, we’ll talk about it when you get here,” but they didn’t really commit, and they never addressed it. One month, six months, 12 months, 18 months later, he’s looking for a job. This is the opportunity cost of not being set up for success.
Now, again, don’t hear this as antagonistic. We’re not antagonistic here. We’re trying to say, “What’s going to help me succeed?” So one CPO recently was negotiating… I’m not just talking about budget for tech debt or whatever. If you’re a senior person, do you think that team needs more training? Do you need to send them over to Marty’s workshops, over to my product councils, right? Get them into Lenny’s community. The company was like, “You’re negotiating the training budget of the team that you don’t even run yet-”
You’re negotiating the training budget of the team that you don’t even run yet while we’re talking about your salary? Who are you? We love you, we’re going to pay you even more. Lenny, companies love this. And even if you’re a junior person, you’re not going to negotiate budget, but you can talk about mentorship, professional development, will you be able to attend conferences or training? Again, and this is, we’re not hard negotiating this, we’re saying, “Here’s what I think I’m going to need to accomplish the OKRs that we’ve already agreed upon.”
Lenny Rachitsky: This is really cool advice, I want to make sure people super understand it. So an example of tech debt. This person asked, “I need $10 million budget in order to address this tech debt.”
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: I see. So it’s not like, “I believe we will save $10 million if we spend on time.” It’s like, “Here’s how much this team will need and I will need to be successful.”
Phyl Terry: I’m going to need a check for $10 million on day one.
Lenny Rachitsky: I guess you’re right, someone would be shy asking for that. Or that was $20 million actually, that was the one that asked for it.
Phyl Terry: That was the 20 million, that was right. And again, it was not… Yes, people feel really shy about this, but the companies love that they understood what it was going to take. I will tell you what, if the company doesn’t like this, it’s a huge red flag. Huge red flag, it means they’re not serious. But if you’re talking to them, “Hey, I think we’re going to need train the team. I’m going to need to hire three more ICs,” or the design function is weak, or whatever it might be. And then you’re like, “Do you agree? Do you see it this way?”
And they’re like, “Yeah, that’s right. Good. Wow.” You’re already like bang, bang, bang. We haven’t even finished negotiating your salary. And this is so counterintuitive, Lenny. I’m the queen of counterintuitive stuff. Kelly Marcus said it’s counterintuitive, right? But this is as well. People think they’re going to lose the opportunity when it actually wins them. Now, of course, if they marched in and said, “Damn it, you have to do X and Y,” right? That’s not what I’m talking about.
“Hey, here’s how I see it. This is the OKRs. I think we’re going to need this. Does that make sense to you?” And you’re having a collaborative conversation about how you need to be set up for success.
And by the way, if they say, “No, I hear you. I believe you, but no,” then you make a judgment decision. I’m not always saying you turn that away. Well, especially if you need a job, but you’re now going in eyes wide open. You are not going to be able to believe that tech debt initially. You’re going to have to work within that constraint.
Lenny Rachitsky: So I love that we’re getting into negotiation advice by the way, because I was hoping we’d get there. So the advice here is identify something that you’ll need to be successful, and your finding is that when you ask for, and it seems like a financial investment as a part of you joining, ends up leading to a better comp for you.
Phyl Terry: Yes, and I will say that there’s less negotiating room today than there was two years ago because of the market that we’re in. And the data all bears that out, and we see that. But here’s the other piece of data. So I want you to ask for things that tie back to the OKRs that you’ve already agreed on with the hiring manager. This is how this thing connects together, right? It’s like Legos, and then we come to the money and you’ve had this lovely conversation. You’ve shown them how much you’re invested in succeeding. See, Lenny, the problem that every hiring manager has is distinguishing be someone between someone who is a good talker, and someone who can actually make things happen. You know this, right? And this is true every from individual contributor to CEO.
By doing the job mission of the OKRs, and by showing them that draft, you are showing them. Not telling them, showing them that you take initiative, that you’re accountable, that you can make things happen. And then in the salary negotiation, by talking to them about what you need to succeed, you’re showing them that you really want to succeed. And guess who that benefits? That benefits the company, obviously. I want you to do that first and then, okay, so then let’s talk money. Now, 87% of the time, Lenny, when you ask for more money, you get it. Now, that’s a longitudinal statistic, meaning over many years. It’s going to be lower in a moment like this, but you can still ask, and people are afraid to ask. Again, don’t ask in some shark way like some of my friends in business might do. Some M&A negotiators, whatever. No, ask, are you open?
Unless it’s a deal breaker. If it’s a deal breaker, just be open about that. But if it’s not, let’s say they offered you whatever it is. 400 base with up to 100% whatever in some RSUs or options, blah, blah, and you really wanted 450. Lenny, you can say, “Hey, are you open to 450? That was really what I was hoping for. What I think I’m worth, are you open to that? Is that something we can talk about?”
And most of the time they say yes. They may not get you to 450. They may be like, “You know what? Yes, thank you. Let me get back to you.” Or, “No, we could go to 420. Does that work? Great.”
Lenny Rachitsky: You make it sound very easy.
Phyl Terry: Here’s the thing-
Lenny Rachitsky: I hate negotiating. Yeah, go.
Phyl Terry: I do too. And I talk about this in the book and Jason Fried, who you know. Jason Fried’s got this great thing where they have all very clear bans, 37signals, well, at Basecamp. He’s like, “Because no one’s trained in negotiation, how can we expect people to negotiate?” And there’s another thing Marty says about my book. He says what he loves is that companies have all of these resources. They’ve got lawyers and HR people, and you’re there alone.
That’s why you need your job search council. This is when you really need to ask for help because every bone in your body is going to say, “I’m not going to negotiate. That’s going to make it worse,” and it almost never does. And again, you could be a jerk about it, that won’t be good, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about collaborative conversation. I’m talking about what you need to succeed, showing them that you’re thinking about resources, support, budget that will help you deliver on the things that you signed up for. And then asking, are you open if they didn’t quite hit your range.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. The way you phrase it, make it very low risk to ask.
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Do you have any specific advice on doing this over email, over phone call, or in person? Is there something you’re like, “Definitely do it in this way.”
Phyl Terry: Strongly, strongly want you to do it either in person or over the phone live with the hiring manager. Now, some companies won’t let you do that. You have to talk to the HR person or whatever. But as much as you can work with the hiring manager, even if it’s to say, “Hey, I just want to run by you some of the things I think I need to succeed in the role before we talk money with the hiring manager,” or whatever. With the recruiter I mean, and they’ll go to bat for you behind the scenes if you do that. Not guaranteed, but more like.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, that’s totally true because oftentimes you don’t really have a specific budget as a hiring manager.
Phyl Terry: Right.
Lenny Rachitsky: So to you it’s like, “Sure, 450, let’s make it happen.”
Phyl Terry: That’s right. Now some companies like know this and they’re like, “You have to talk to the person we designate the internal recruiter,” but you can also get back to that hiring manager, and even informally. Again, if you’ve built a good relationship and everything is about building good relationships, Lenny. I want you to be a good interviewer. I want you to ask good questions. I want you to listen. I want you to present that job mission OKRs. It shows how innovative and how much you take initiative and how much you’re thinking about this and how much you want this, right? Every step of the way.
Lenny Rachitsky:
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While we’re on this topic of negotiation and comp, is there anything else there that you might want to share that might be helpful to people?
Phyl Terry: In the book, before you do the listening tour, I ask people to do what I call the gratitude house exercise, which is to think about who are all the people in your life who have helped you get to where you are today? I mean, you could talk about your third grade teacher, you know what I mean? I’m just talking on, I just want you to do that, and I want you to do that because everyone has this idea that they’re alone. We have all received enormous help to do what we’re doing, whoever we are. Even the [inaudible 01:05:51] was born to a mother, and they did not make it themselves for their first several years of their lives. We all are born of mothers. We all are born as families and communities. Some better or worse. I had a pretty tough childhood, but there was love.
I want you to do that gratitude house exercise, and then it can sometimes surface people that you’ll go talk to in the listening tour. Might not talk to your third grade teacher, but you’ll go talk to some. Now when you’re going into interview, I ask people to take a moment and re-reflect the gratitude house exercise, remind themselves of everyone they’re carrying with them, to imagine that they’re on your shoulders. All of those people, including your job search council of course, and everyone you’ve talked to and you’re listening to, you’re walking in with 50 people, Lenny, okay? Even people who tell me, “I don’t know anyone.” Now, that is not true. You might not know as many people as I do, okay? That’s understandable. My job is to know people, but everyone knows some people and you bring them with you even metaphorically, so that you feel not alone when you’re going into that interview.
The other thing I say with the interview and the negotiations is you’ve got to go do the debrief right afterwards, Lenny. Because we all have these cockamamie ideas about what happened. We think we did terribly when we did well, we think… We need to talk it through with someone else who can help us parse exactly what happened and really where we’re at. I had a woman who was a director of product, she was interviewing for a VP of product roles. She texted me after the interview, “Oh, I screwed it up,” this and that, this and that, “but they really liked me and we’re going to go to the next round.”
I’m like, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Something is not true here.”
This is just your own imposter syndrome and inner critic. That’s another exercise we ask people to do, by the way, is what we call the inner critic exercise name the critic. Mine is Tub Tour. I was overweight when I was a kid and my dad called me Tub Tour.
Lenny Rachitsky: I learned that tactic from Julie Cameron from The Artist’s Way, she recommends that.
Phyl Terry: Yes, she’s great. Love that book. By the way, it’s on my bookshelf back there.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love that. I think I called mine Jim. Yeah, we had a really good episode. I don’t know if you saw with Joe Hudson, he has a whole series of advice on your inner critic, and his point, and I’ll point to it is your inner critic is always lying to you.
Phyl Terry: I did see that episode. I love it. We all have it. People think, “Oh.” Everyone. And that’s what I love about this moment we’re in too, Lenny. I started in therapy in the 1980s. In the 1980s, you did not share that you were in therapy, okay? Today, we have tennis stars talking about their emotional well-being and their therapy and how they’re doing. It’s beginning to normalize in some really important ways that emotions, they’re not bad. They’re actually really important to the decision-making system, but they can go off in certain ways that can really hurt us.
Lenny Rachitsky: And it feels like these councils are like a lite therapy for people.
Phyl Terry: Yes. I would never want to say the word therapy because of course that implies certification and training, but there’s a therapeutic aspect to it. I feel comfortable saying that, yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay. So on this gratitude house, just come back to it real quick. The reason that is powerful is that gives you confidence to ask for stuff to believe in yourself. You’re worth something-
Phyl Terry: Gives you confidence to walk in there as who you are, Lenny. Not as your inner critic, but as the whole good person that you are. And when you show up, this is one of the reasons job search councils are so important because if your anxiety and fear starts to run away and erode at your confidence, it will hurt your interview. You will not show up well. So you’re not going to even, even in a down market you’re going to get even, you won’t even get the jobs that your candidate market fit suggests you’re good for in that down market. You’re going to slide down a few more notches, or you just won’t get offers, and then you’re going to get paralyzed and feel like you’re really worthless.
And if anyone watching this has been out of work for a while and feels that, let me just tell you, you are not worthless. You are not worthless. I want you to invest in yourself, to prove that to yourself that you’re not worthless. You are worth the investment of this time and energy. I’m not asking you to do this for me, I’m asking you to do this for you.
Lenny Rachitsky: You got tingles when you said that. That was a really powerful message. I’m glad you said that.
Phyl Terry: Thank you, Lenny.
Lenny Rachitsky: So yeah, so we’re on this topic of playing to win. And what you just said is along the same lines is just remember, you’re playing to win. You’re not trying to lose, you’re not trying to find-
Phyl Terry: Not lose, just be really, I just can’t say anything. I just can’t rock the boat. I’m not asking you to rock the boat. I’m asking you to take charge and demonstrate the power of who you are. These companies will love it.
Lenny Rachitsky: When I asked a lot of people to ask you what you’re amazing at, one of those common themes is really good at just asking for help and teaching people how to ask for help, which was actually an topic for a recent newsletter post by one of my newsletter fellows, Natalie. So let’s talk about it. Talk about why this is so important, why you spend so much thought and time on this topic.
Phyl Terry: First, I want to shout out my mom again. So my mom’s name, her nickname was Chic, C-H-I-C. Her friends and family and I dedicate the book to Chic, and she started that first council in 1960, and she asked for help. Of course, she taught me to ask for help, and to start councils. And of course, when I was very young, I didn’t want to do what my mother said, right? You’re not. But I ended up in a bad situation and she’s like, “You’ve got to ask for help,” and I asked my high school teachers for help. I was an alcoholic at the age of 12, Lenny, and things were really spiraling downwards. I was no longer living with my mom, there’s a whole long story about that. I was in a pretty unsupportive position, and she’s like, “You’ve got to ask for help.” And so I did.
And OMG, Lenny. I mean, I was carried by these teachers. And I also have to give a shout-out, and I’m going to cry now to my girlfriend in high school, Karen Kavanagh, whose family had very few resources. They were struggling, but they made a home for me, and I couldn’t have done it without them and some of my other friends and my teachers. I worked a full-time job by the age of 16 and I was going to high school, and I was in a tough situation. It was transformative, Lenny. It was transformative. Did I feel like asking for help was a weakness? I did. Did I think people were going to think less of me? Absolutely. I thought all the things that people think, and it is not what happens.
Now, there is a warning here. If you ask for help poorly, and I’m going to define that, it does end up leading to bad consequences. What do I mean by asking you poorly? I mean, if you don’t do your homework, if you’re asking for someone to do it for you rather than advise and support and give you perspective, we all know that. I get these emails, Lenny. So when I started the product councils, Marissa Mayer was a founding member, right? Marissa Mayer at Google and Miriam Moheed at Amazon. And as Marissa’s reputation grew, suddenly everybody wanted to talk to Marissa.
So I got all these random emails from people I’ve never met. “Oh, I’ve got software, would you please introduce me to Marissa? I think she’d want to license it or buy at Google.”
I’m like, “Who are you? What? That is the dumbest.” Of course, I’m never going to answer that, right?
If they had reached out to me and said, “I know you don’t know me. I have this small software company. I’m not well-connected, but I would love your advice on how to grow this business and what you would do if you were in my shoes,” which I have never received, Lenny, even though I’ve written about it and said about, I would’ve done that phone call.
And then if they have said, “Well, can I talk to Marissa?”
I’m like, “You have not earned that yet. That’s not a statement about your worth. It’s just you’re not ready for that conversation.”
So you can do it poorly. But if you do it well, if you’ve done your homework and you’re open, oh my gosh. There’s four counterintuitive rules here. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of confidence. It both requires confidence and strengthens it, Lenny. That’s number one. Two, it’s not a taking activity, it’s a giving activity. If you do it well, you’re actually being giving to the people you ask. This is really counterintuitive, Lenny. This is what I teach in my product councils. I’m like, “You have to ask for the money.” If you ask for help and you’re open and vulnerable, you’re a smart person.
So at one point, Marissa came in and said, ” Listen, I’m developing a new product. I want to present it to the board, but I’d like your feedback on it first, and what do you guys think?” Am I approaching this in the right way?
People were like, “What?” Google was already a public company at this point. Wow, that, they were just blown away. They were so happy to help.
So if you’ve done your homework and you ask someone who has some expertise in the area that you have, and you do it in this way, “I’d love your perspective and thoughts and how would you approach it?” People feel given to, they feel given to. Here’s the thought experiment that’ll prove it. Imagine that somebody that you respect comes to you for help on an area that you have expertise. And they ask you in this way, how are you going to feel, Lenny? How do you feel?
Lenny Rachitsky: Like they value. Like they value my opinion-
Phyl Terry: You feel honored, and you feel excited, and you love giving. Everyone loves giving, it’s a part of human activity. And you learn more when you give, of course, because it helps you see something new. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It’s not a taking activity, it means you’re becoming more independent, not independent, and it doesn’t hurt your reputation, it improves it. Something I did not understand when my mom was trying to tell me to do this, Lenny. And it took the experience to drill into my head.
And then I will tell you, I won’t name names, but one person that you asked, who’s a prominent product person who’s worked at great companies, right? He said ask him about asking for help. I think he would agree with this. He’d been a member of the product councils for a long time. I think it took years before he really embraced it. I’ve seen many people, they’re like, “Bill, I know you keep talking about this asking for help thing.” And I know there’s something to it, but it is transformative, Lenny. It is transformative if you learn to ask for help well.
I can tell you about Brad Smith at Intuit who toppled the stock price there. But he was a GM. He became a CEO. He was a GM. He ran a project and he didn’t do it well. He lost $300 million for company. He thought, okay, that’s over. But they came to him and said, “What’s your lesson here?”
He said, “I didn’t ask for help. I was pigheaded. I didn’t listen to my team.” That’s a great lesson, and if you really internalize that, then it’s worth it because you’re great in other ways. And he ended up getting to the CEO role. And what did he do? He joined a council, right? And he asked for help. Boom, boom, boom. Stock price goes up 7X in his tenure, okay?
Kenneth Chenault at American Express. Joins in the 1980s, one of the few African Americans in professional roles there. Ends up as a CEO and chairman of the board. First African American chairman of a Fortune 50 company. You ask Kenneth Chenault as I did, how’d you get there? He asked for help. And by the way, what did he do once he became CEO? He got on a CEO council.
And by the way, who asked for help? Well, this is going to blow your mind if you. Warren Buffett. People think Warren Buffett only listens to himself and Charlie Munger who passed away last year. That guy asked for help. Well, it doesn’t ask anybody for help. He asked people he respects and so on, but that guy asked for help. Every single leader I’ve ever worked with that has done well asked for help. And I have data in the book. 85% of the people get to a senior role credit asking for help to help get them there. 85% of the people in a junior role say they’re afraid to ask for help because they think it’s a sign of weakness.
Lenny Rachitsky: Perfect.
Phyl Terry: It’s literally the same number if you can believe that. I couldn’t believe it when I did the data. I was like, “What?” But it’s really, and guess what? If you don’t learn to ask for help and you’re a junior person, you’re going to remain a junior person most likely.
Lenny Rachitsky: When you say ask for help, what are some examples and common times and uses of asking for help? Because it could be like, “Hey, can you just look at this email for me?” Or is it like, “I’m struggling with this project?” What are some things that you’ve seen when people think ask for help do this.
Phyl Terry: One of the things that Kinshaw talks about is what he calls defining reality. So it’s a CEO at American Express, he was constantly just going around and asking different people in the company and outside the company, “How do you see things? What are you seeing? What are you thinking? Help me understand your perspective,” right? So that’s a form of asking for help, for sure. Okay.
Reviewing my email absolutely is a great form of asking for help. If you’re sending a good email, an important email let’s say, and let’s say you have a history of maybe sending emails that don’t get well received, you go ask for help. And by the way, I have a whole workshop where I teach people how to use ChatGPT with some communication models to help you with that email. So there’s ways to do that with ChatGPT. But I still, if it’s a really important email, want you to have eyes on, right?
There’s a woman who became the president of a digital retailer in the United States about five years ago, and then she realized that she had significant technical debt. The project, they were trying to build a new platform, and it was stuck. So we convened what we call a peer coaching call, and I also talked about this in the book. We got three other presidents of retailers, online retailers who had re-platformed and spent an hour, just one hour with her asking them for help. “What would you do if you were in my position?” I mean, bing, bang, boom.
So when people get a new job, by the way, I tell them, do a first 90 days peer coaching call. I want you to talk to people who are in that role today. Not at that company necessarily, but they’re a director of product, they’re a VP of product, whatever it might be. And I want you to say, “Hey, I’m starting this job. Here’s my job mission with OKRs. What would you do if you were in my shoes? What mistakes have you seen others or yourself make that I need to avoid? What should I focus on? Here’s what I’m thinking for my 30, 60, 90.”
Whatever it might be, I want you to do a first 90 days call. Now, let’s say you’re a director of product in a job is going well, and you want to get to a VP of product role. Well then, I want you to do a career evolution call where you’re talking to VPs of product. “Okay, I’m a director. I want to become a VP. How do I get from A to B? Will you tell me?” And that’s another peer coach you call. So these are the things we do in the paid community, in the product councils and stuff. But you can do these on your own, right? And I tell people how to do them on their own in the job search councils.
Lenny Rachitsky: Perfect.
Phyl Terry: Are these helpful answers?
Lenny Rachitsky: Absolutely. I think all these examples you’re sharing is exactly I think what people are wondering. Just like, okay, I see.
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Feels like it’s not-
Phyl Terry: Can I share one more?
Lenny Rachitsky: Please.
Phyl Terry: That’s so great. So Bradley Horowitz joined Google in 2008 as director of product. He had come from Yahoo, but he was initially intimidated. He had a weekly meeting with Jonathan Rosenberg, who was the SVP of product, with Susan Wojcicki. Susan just passed away tragically. Absolutely fabulous person by the way, if people don’t don’t know her, go learn about her. Marissa Mayer, and also another director of product named Sundar Pichai, right? Who is now the CEO of Google. And Bradley, he was nervous, he didn’t know how to be in that meeting.
One of the things I tell people, when you ask for help, use your emotional intelligence, use your product council if you’re in a job or your job search council, if you’re looking to get feedback on, am I thinking about this well? Because I don’t want you to ask the wrong people for help. Someone who’s going to take advantage of that. You have to be thoughtful about this.
He was picking up vibes from Sundar that he was very approachable, that he lacked guile. Bradley told me Sundar just made it easy for him to say, “Hey, after one of these meetings, could I ask you a couple of questions?” And he says, first question he has is, “Is this meeting, is it just me or is this meeting intense?”
Sundar was like, “Oh, no, no, this is intense. I feel the same way you do and I’ve been here for a couple of years.”
So they start to build a bond, and that’s a form of asking for help. It’s like you’re checking, is your experience the same as mine or am I missing something? And then Horowitz who felt relieved at this point, felt more trust with Sundar, decided to ask him another question and this question. And by the way, now Bradley, he’s kind of embarrassed that he asked this question, although I’m really happy that he did, I told him this.
He asked this question, he basically said, ” I haven’t been here very long, but you, Sundar, you strike me.”
“I haven’t been here very long, but you, Sundar, you strike me as a really thoughtful person and great leader. Why is your remit just working on a toolbar for Marissa?” Whoa. Heard the wrong way, that could sound like an insult or something, rather than an honest attempt to understand the culture of Google and how it operates. But again, he had trust with Sundar at this point. And it was an open and vulnerable question, and it was great. Pitch I basically said, “Listen, I don’t worry about title or scope or any of that. I’ve really been focused on just doing good work and letting the right things happen. That’s the culture of Google.” I will tell you that that was more true of the culture of Google in a way that’s not so…
You have to be a little more politically aware at Google today. But the point is not so much the exact question he asked, but that he was open and vulnerable. He was thoughtful about who he asked, and it really made a difference in terms of his entry into Google and eventually led him to the VP of Product role. Of course, Sundar came into the CEO role down the road, but that’s what I’m talking about, right? He was part of the product councils, Bradley. You need to have that sounding board so you can be thoughtful about… I teach people how to map and figure out who their allies are and their blockers and play what I call positive politics. That’s all in my next book, Never Lead Alone, just to give a little. Don’t worry, at least a year away.
When I write a book, I do… I did 400 drafts of Never Search Alone. I had a couple of thousand people help me with it and 200 people read it and use it. I had 2,500 comments and 400 drafts. I like to really dock through this stuff. I’m doing the same with Never Lead Alone. That’s how I know it works, by the way. I’m a prouded person, Lenny. I mean, that’s what we do.
Lenny Rachitsky: [inaudible 01:25:56]. That’s amazing. Let me ask one last question around the art of asking for help. So we’ve talked about when to ask for help a little bit. What are just a couple tips for how to do it well? You know, people come to me and like, “Hey, can you look at this email?” And be like, “No. I’m pretty busy. I don’t know if I have time to look at an email.”
Phyl Terry: Have to think about the relationship, right? Again, showing that this random, small software company wanted to talk to Marissa Meyer. I didn’t know them, they didn’t know me, and they didn’t know Marissa. That’s not going to happen, right? Lenny, if your mom or your close friend or your colleague who you work closely with says, “I want you to look at this email,” you’re going to respond in one way. If some person, let’s say in your podcast community, which is great, wants you to do it, I mean, you have thousands of people there. You can’t do that. People come to me for job search advice in the job search community. I said, “I can’t do that. I can’t scale that. That’s what the Job Search Council and the Slack community is there for. I appreciate you asking, but that’s what the deal is there.”
You got to think about the relationship. Listen to your emotions. This is where, again, emotions are really important for decision making. If your emotions are telling you, “I don’t know if I trust this person,” don’t get all open and vulnerable with them. I want you to learn to ask for help in a counsel format where it’s really safe. You can flail around. You can ask in fakakta ways. There’s ways to ask for help where it’s like… Have you experienced this, Lenny? Where I want you to do me a favor, but I’m actually acting like I’m doing you a favor. Lenny, I have this person to talk to I know is really going to be great for you to talk to, when really I’m trying to get you to give me… Whereas I should said, “Lenny, I have a favor to ask. Would you be willing to do this?” You just say yes or no. That’s the other thing, I really want you to be honest with people about what you’re asking. I never want you to hide the ask.
Lenny Rachitsky: That is really good advice. A lot of times it’s just, yeah, okay, if this is just a favor for you, absolutely.
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: [inaudible 01:28:06]
Phyl Terry: I mean, if people would say to me, “I have a favor to ask. Would you be willing?” “Yeah.” Most of the time I’m going to say yes to that, you know?
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah.
Phyl Terry: Do you get cold introductions, Lenny?
Lenny Rachitsky: Where people introduce me to someone else without asking. Yeah. It’s not a super common, but it does happen, for sure.
Phyl Terry: It almost never is someone you want to talk to.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, that’s right.
Phyl Terry: It’s not like, “Hey, let me introduce you to Sergey Brin,” you know?
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah.
Phyl Terry: It’s [inaudible 01:28:32]. No. It’s like they’re trying to help somebody and you’re doing them a favor, but they’re not being honest.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. Okay. That’s amazing advice. Phyl, we could talk for hours about so many things. You’re involved in so many other things I want to hear about, but maybe one last question before we start to close out our chat. Just a broad question, is there anything else that you think would be valuable for people to know or leave with as kind of a final note around either job hunting, asking for help, anything else? And then I’m going to ask you to share all the things that you do for people that maybe could benefit from one of these other programs.
Phyl Terry: When my book came out, we did a book party in New York and the host of it, very senior product person, got up and said, “The most important thing about this book that I learned,” and they run a Job Search Council, “was, and I said this earlier, but I want to come back to it, everyone feels anxious and insecure in the job search.” Lenny, everyone. It’s built into the fabric of how capitalism operates. It’s not something problematic in your head. It’s the instability of the system, which gives it its dynamism, but which also creates trends in security and fear. Everyone feels that, Lenny. You are not alone. But my saying that is not enough. What I say in the book is that this book is like a cookbook. You don’t get the calories from reading it. You got to actually make the dishes. To experience what I’m saying, you need a Job Search Council and you need to go like, “Oh my gosh, it’s really true, I’m not alone. Even Lenny. Lenny feels this. Holy, I respect Lenny. Wow, look at everything Lenny has done and created, and he feels this way. Maybe I’m not crazy.” There’s so much else to this, but that is such a core point.
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s such an important point to leave with. And just to build on exactly what you just said about me, this strange life that I’ve created for myself, I originally called the project Avoid Getting a Real Job because I was worried about that. I forced myself to try something else instead.
Phyl Terry: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. That’s great. Well, thank you, because you have created something that’s really meaningful to a lot of people, Lenny.
Lenny Rachitsky: Thanks, Phyl. So have you. I’m so thankful that you made time to share so much advice. I think this is going to be one of the popular episodes I’ve done. I think it’s going to help a ton of people, but we’re not done yet. Tell us about some of the other stuff that you’ve got going on. You’ve mentioned product councils, you do coaching, just so people know what else might benefit them.
Phyl Terry: 21 years ago I started these product councils. And by the way, I like to show this Marty Cagan, and I go back to the late nineties, early… He was actually a client of mine when he was at eBay.
Lenny Rachitsky: Wow.
Phyl Terry: And I’ll tell you what happened. We were about to sign a project and he decided, he called me up. Literally, we were signing that day. He called me up, “Phyl, I got bad news.” “I mean, what are you telling me?”
Lenny Rachitsky: Now?
Phyl Terry: “I’m leaving.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Come on.
Phyl Terry: “I’m leaving and I’m starting something.” And he started the Silicon Valley Product Group.
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh, wow.
Phyl Terry: But why am I saying that? Because that was around the time that I started the councils and I started with Marissa. Basically, I went out and did a listening to her Lenny and I said, “Listen, I think for those of us left in the digital world after this depression, I think we need a place to come together that’s not a conference with sponsors and people that are all trying to sell each other. We need a private, safe, secure environment to really talk. Does that resonate with you? Do you want that?” And they were like, “Yes,” so I started this thing and Marty has been involved from day one. He has sent me something like 30% involved with members we’ve had over the years. We’ve had a couple thousand members and he just sends people over, which has been amazing.
And so we have product councils for VPs and CPOs. We also have an associate council program for ICs and new managers. We started that a couple of years ago. It focuses on women and people of color and LGBTQ, but not exclusively. So you can be a white guy who’s straight, whatever, and you’re a product manager. What we care most about is if you’re willing to ask for help, and you’re really committed to being there for each other and being a part of this community and activity. And so that’s what I’ve been doing for years. And I have a great team and amazing… Teresa Torres was one of the moderators of our private councils, by the way, and great friend, and been on the podcast here. Gino, obviously great friend of yours. She asked me to really emphasize asking for help and share some of the stories that I did. She’s just been such an important part of my life. I can’t say enough about her.
We’ve got those and we have CEO groups and we have [inaudible 01:33:31]. That’s my day job. That’s sort of what pays the bills and I’ve been doing for 20 plus years now. But then I also have a series of other learning communities. I’m one of these, I read. If you asked me, “If you had one job title, what would it be?” Reader. I read, Lenny. Books are machines to think with. Books are machines to think with. And I’m on a campaign to get more people reading more because… And product leaders need to read more. I have a whole bunch of book recommendations on my Lenny page, by the way, that are for product leaders, and we can talk about a few of those. But I also run something called the Reading Odyssey, which is a partnership between scholars and readers at Harvard, Cambridge, for lifelong learning and curiosity.
I run the World Business Reading Group for high school students. It’s a high school business literacy. Not financial literacy, business literacy program based on the philosophy of Warren Buffett and Charlie Mugger. And taught by really senior executives, like partners at venture capital firms, hedge funds. And I’m an investor. We have this amazing faculty. It’s pro bono. We’re all volunteer. We have a small charge for middle class families and it’s free for anyone who can’t afford it. And it’s a summer program and it’s going gangbusters. What else?
Oh, Slow Art Day. So one of the things I teach people is that you need to develop mentors. Most people do not have mentors, Lenny. 95% of the people in my community of senior product leaders do not have mentors. And mentorship programs, it’s like the typewriter. Our parents or grandparents have them, but we don’t have them. The companies don’t offer. One of the ways that everyone listening to this podcast today can get a mentor, you can get what I call a dead or distant mentor. Warren Buffett is my mentor, he just doesn’t know it, which is great. I don’t have to listen to everything he says and he doesn’t have to take my calls. Steve Jobs is my mentor. And when I talk about mentor, I don’t mean just, hey, I’m a fan, or I like the products, or I read the biography. I mean really study.
If you really study Jobs, you have to come to 1997. He’s interim CEO. So he was fired from Apple in ‘84, ‘85. Actually, after the Mac came out. He wandered the wilderness for 10 years. He created a company called Next, which wasn’t next. And then in ‘95, ‘96, Apple buys the operating system from Next, and the company is in really bad shape and makes Steve the interim CEO. Interim. They wouldn’t give him the full title. They’re like, “Ah, the business is so terrible. You’re going to destroy it anyway. Whatever. You’ll be interim.” And he does a bunch of stuff, but he gives a talk in 1997. He’s got tattered hole jeans. There’s 300 people at the developers conference. They all are pissed off. And he gets up there and he says, “You have to start with the customer, not with the technology.” And that’s what we’re doing it at. People talk about that customer. If you really study Jobs, that’s what he did.
And what does that mean? I can tell you there’s a lot of product people, Lenny, who talk about customer and don’t really focus. And if you really study that moment and study what Jobs did, it can inform your decisions and actions. So one of the things that Jobs also talked about was the power of art and that everyone needs to go to art museums and that you need to be inspired and it will help you think about design if you create great products. So I started a company, something called Slow Art Day, which has now been in 1,500 museums around the world. It teaches people how to slow down and look. And especially for Lenny’s podcast, I am making free both the teacher materials, the leader materials, and the participant materials so that all of your podcast listeners who are running product teams can go to a local museum and do an offsite and develop more visual literacy, empathy, connection with each other, and an understanding of art that will help them be better [inaudible 01:37:46].
Lenny Rachitsky: That is amazing. I’m going to try to do that myself.
Phyl Terry: It will blow your mind.
Lenny Rachitsky: So you mentioned Marty Cagan and Christian a couple times, and Marty Cagan described Chris as the most interesting person in the world. I feel like you deserve that title. You’re doing so much and so much good and so much variety of things. It’s really impressive. And the amount of impact you’re having is wild.
Phyl Terry: Thank you. It really means a lot.
Lenny Rachitsky: I’m just saying it how it is. I’m really thankful you’ve shared so much wisdom on this podcast with everyone. I think that’s going to help so many people. We’re also not done yet. We’ve reached our very exciting lightning round. Phyl, are you ready?
Phyl Terry: I am ready for lightning round.
Lenny Rachitsky: Here we go. And you’ve talked about books. I imagine you’re going to have an answer for this.
Phyl Terry: Yes.
Lenny Rachitsky: What are two or three books that you’ve recommended most to other people?
Phyl Terry: Of course, I’ve recommended hundreds, but right now what I recommend is Creative Destruction, and I’m going to give your listeners the link to the right book, it’s by a group of French economists. It’s a little bit academic, but it’s so important. It’s so important for product people to understand. It is so important. More jobs get created because of creative destruction. There’s not net job loss. There’s more jobs created. AI is going to create more jobs, not destroy. Everybody got that wrong. Almost everybody, except the people who understood creative destruction. But you have to be close to the frontier. That’s where the job creation happens. And product people, you got to be close to the frontier. You got to do whatever you can. If you’re at a company that’s not close to the frontier, do stuff at… I was working at Moody’s Investor Service and I built one of the first 2,000 websites back in the early nineties, Lenny. I was doing all this stuff outside of work. That was bringing me closer to the technical frontier and was changing my candidate market fit. So I recommend that book.
I also, of course, I recommend Marty’s books. Now, I want to just say again, I don’t want you to just read Marty’s books, listen to his podcast, the great interview you guys did here at Lenny’s. I want you to read and reread those books as if he’s your mentor. And rereading is important, Lenny. And people say, “Oh, I listened two or three times speed on the audiobook.” You are not going to have that deeply inform your decision making. Now what I’ll do is I’ll read a book and then I’ll listen to it as a reinforcement, or I’ll read it and listen to it at the same time. For the important books, Lenny, you got to read them more. And Marty’s books are important.
The last book I’ll recommend is The Manual. It’s a short introduction to Stoicism. People misunderstand Stoicism. They think Stoicism means repressing your feelings. That is not what Stoicism means. It means understanding and accepting your feelings, but not necessarily always being driven by them. Incorporating them. Your feelings are an important part of your decision-making system, but they shouldn’t rule you. And it’s a really important book. I have driven a lot of sales with that book because I really hammer it home in my book. So if you go on to Amazon, you’ll see the book that’s most bought along with my book is that book, right? I have other books I recommend that are on my website, but those are two or three.
Lenny Rachitsky: Amazing. On the listening to things at fast speed, I sometimes meet folks that listen to the podcast and they’re like, “Oh, this is what you sound like at regular speed, because I just listen to every podcast fast.” Second question, do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show you’ve really enjoyed?
Phyl Terry: So there’s a great new TV show on Apple TV that is not getting the audience that it deserves. It’s called Las Azules. Las Azules, the Blues. It’s about the first women recruited onto the police force of Mexico City in 1971 or 2. Of course it speaks to me because 1970s, these are women and my mom and how close I was to her and what I… I saw the world through my mother’s eyes, Lenny, and it really shaped me. It’s a great TV show. I love that. Of course, I love the show that I’ve always recommended and everyone’s now seen it, I hope. If they haven’t, it’s been out for a while, but it’s… Oh, the name just escaped me. The American football coach who goes to England and becomes a soccer coach.
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh yeah.
Phyl Terry: How can I forget this? I’ve recommended it so many times.
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s the guy’s name, right? The character, Ted Lasso.
Phyl Terry: Ted Lasso, Ted Lasso. Thank you. So the kindness in there. And by the way, a great message around asking for help in that. The last thing I’ll say, of course, is the Inside Out movies. The second one came out this summer. Just the way it’s normalizing emotions, again, and helping us start to talk about emotions. Really love that. Okay, what else in the lightning round?
Lenny Rachitsky: So there’s this next question that I cut. I moved to other questions, but I wanted to bring it back with you. It’s about your favorite interview question. You help a lot of people interview and interview better. I’m curious if there’s a question that you’ve heard that you really like.
Phyl Terry: If you are interviewee for a job and it’s a senior level job, I want you to ask, “Tell me about a time that you, the company, brought in a senior level person and it failed, and why?” Because they often fail bringing senior level people into companies. So ask them what happened and why, and figure out how can we avoid that outcome. And hopefully they’re going to have a good answer. I have a whole bunch of questions in my book, but I love that one.
I also love, if you are on the other side, if you’re hiring and you want to check references, I have the most amazing question. The most amazing question. By the way, this is the best thing I learned in my two years at the Harvard Business School. I learned this in my running and growing a small business class. It’s like the best thing I’ve learned. It is, if you want to get references, what you do is you want to leave a voicemail or you could send an email, whatever. And you want to say, “I’m about to hire Lenny. Okay, if it would be a huge mistake if I didn’t bring him on, if you think he’s amazing, then call me back. Otherwise, don’t bother.” And that gets around all the legal blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it’s just it cuts through. I love that question. I don’t know if that resonates with you as much.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. So is the idea if you don’t hear back from them, they’re not necessarily amazing?
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Wow.
Phyl Terry: Yeah. You’re leaving that space there. And by the way, I love doing that for back channel. When you start a job or when you are accepting an offer or interviewing, I want you to back channel that boss a little. Talk to people who’ve worked with them, if you can. Use your network and ask them, “Would you work with this person?” And even say, “Hey, if I called you and told me I was interviewing with this guy and you should only call me back if you thought I should take the job, would you have called me back?” You’d know, and so you can do a form of it that way.
Lenny Rachitsky: Do you have a favorite product you’ve recently discovered that you really love, whether it’s like a digital app?
Phyl Terry: I’m going to give you a very different kind of answer than I would normally give, but I’m hoping you and your community will appreciate this. So I did recently discover it, but I’m going to talk about a book, Lenny. So 25 years ago, a guy named Robert Strassler, who was a business guy, he started teaching at a special high school for kids who were dropping out. And he was teaching them some of the classics like Herodotus and Thucydides, expert, and they couldn’t get it. And the books were terrible because there was no context, so he spent 10 years and he reinvented the format of a history book. There are 120 maps. Each of them he drew specifically, and they’re only relevant to the previous one or two pages. Okay? There’s a margin summary in plain English for each paragraph describing what that paragraph just said. He got the top scholars in the world to write two-page appendices on their expert topic, things they’ve written hundreds of books about, hundreds of pages about, you have to do it in two pages.
And by the way, the publishing world wouldn’t back it. He funded it himself. He hand drew the maps. He spent two years creating a concept index, not just a keyword index. And it’s just blown apart the whole industry. Completely disrupted. He sold hundreds of thousands of copies of these books. They are a masterpiece, Lenny. They have Landmark Series. Landmark. They have new ones coming out. Every product person, in my opinion, should go look at this and look at the product design of this book. It is masterful and it teaches you a lot about usability and the reader experience. I want product people, Lenny, to get out, who are doing digital work to get out of the digital world and look at products outside the digital world for inspiration and thinking, because I don’t want you all looking at the same stuff. You’re going to just create the same stuff. I love tools like Calendly, which I just didn’t… I’ve been using for years, but no one could get it right until they got it right. Those are great. How’s that for an answer?
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s incredible. So what is it called again and where do you find it?
Phyl Terry: And it’s going to be on the Lenny page. If you get on [inaudible 01:47:12], if you do Landmark Herodotus or Landmark Thucydides, either one, you’ll get there. Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh my God. Sounds incredible. Great choice. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often like to think back to and share with friends or family?
Phyl Terry: Of course, we talked about asking for help, and I say that a lot. But I also love, and I said this earlier, books are machines to think with. And as product people, Marty and I talk about this all the time, we have to be thinking. And I coach people all the time, how can I think more? You’ve got to read more because books are machines to think with. Good books. There’s a lot of bad books in the business world, but good books. Good books, thoughtful books. Books that’ll help and shift your perspective, whether it’s history or science. I read widely, and I want you to do the same. Books are machines to think with. That’s probably one of my greatest lines.
Lenny Rachitsky: Final question. Usually I try to make this fun, but I want it to come back to something practical for people. So to leave people with something they could do this week to help them find a job or help them improve the chances of finding their job, what’s something you’d recommend?
Phyl Terry: I have one very simple thing. Go to Phyl.org and sign up for a Job Search Council.
Lenny Rachitsky: There we go.
Phyl Terry: It’s free and it will transform your search. Is it a good [inaudible 01:48:34] answer, or were you looking for something different, Lenny?
Lenny Rachitsky: Beautiful answer. It also is exactly what I would’ve asked you next, which is just where do people go find the stuff you’re up to and learn more about things that we’ve been talking about?
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: There’s phyl.org and then there’s phyl.org/lenny, which has a lot of the templates and things that you referenced.
Phyl Terry: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Amazing. Final actual question, how can listeners be useful to you?
Phyl Terry: That’s such a lovely question. So on the Lenny page at Phyl.org, I outline some ways. We’re raising $100,000 right now to build a platform for job seekers. It will remain free for job seekers. Part of what I’m doing is I’m doing a speaking tour on AI, and I’m taking all my speaking fees and putting it to this, but people can also make a donation just to that. They can also volunteer. And we’re looking for, if anyone’s a Salesforce admin, I’d love to have you volunteer with us. If any of you have really good PHP experience, let me know. If any of you are really good at Typeform or Formsite, which is a tool I don’t like much. By the way, if anyone from Formsite is listening, your tool sucks. You need to really improve the product there. There’s a lot of different ways that you can help, but those are some of the things.
But most importantly, tell someone who you know in your life who’s looking for a job, that there’s a community here for you that’s free, that has all these smart tools and resources and people who are genuinely here to help you and who will help transform your search in this very hard moment. People ask me, “Is this good in the hard moment?” This is born out of hard moments.
In a great job market, it’s easier to say, “Oh, I can just grab a job.” You need to be more thoughtful in the down market. Now, I think you should be in the up market too. This is our moment to be there for people. This is what. And I would love, so many people still don’t know this, Lenny, we want millions of people. We want to help millions of people. We have 20,000 hours of volunteer time already. We want to have millions of hours of volunteer time. We are changing something about the way capitalism works with this community. We are changing this negative consequence of creative destruction that people have just been left to fend with on their own.
Lenny Rachitsky: Well, I’m excited to be helping spread the word. Phyl, you’re wonderful. Thank you so much for being here.
Phyl Terry: Thank you, Lenny.
Lenny Rachitsky: Bye, everyone.
Phyl Terry: Bye. Thank you, everybody.
Lenny Rachitsky: Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.
Glossary
| English | 中文 |
|---|---|
| Allison Mnookin | Allison Mnookin(保留原文) |
| associate council program | 副理委员会项目(associate council program) |
| back channel | 暗访调查(back channel) |
| Brad Smith | Brad Smith(保留原文) |
| Bradley Horowitz | Bradley Horowitz(保留原文) |
| candidate market fit | 候选人-市场匹配度 |
| career evolution call | 职业进化电话(career evolution call) |
| Charlie Munger | Charlie Munger(保留原文) |
| cold introduction | 冷介绍 |
| COO | COO(Chief Operating Officer,首席运营官) |
| CPO | CPO(Chief Product Officer,首席产品官) |
| creative destruction | 创造性破坏 |
| cul-de-sac | 死胡同 |
| dead or distant mentor | 已故或远方的导师 |
| debrief | 复盘 |
| defining reality | 定义现实 |
| emotional balance sheet | 情绪资产负债表 |
| EVP | EVP(Executive Vice President,执行副总裁) |
| fast seeker | 快速求职者 |
| four legs of the negotiations tool | 谈判工具的四条腿 |
| Gino | Gino(保留原文) |
| GM | GM(General Manager,总经理) |
| golden question | 黄金问题 |
| gratitude house exercise | 感恩之屋练习 |
| IC | IC(Individual Contributor,个人贡献者) |
| ICP | 理想客户画像(ICP) |
| imposter syndrome | 冒名顶替综合征(imposter syndrome) |
| inner critic | 内在批评者 |
| job mission with OKRs | 工作使命与 OKRs |
| job search councils | 求职委员会 |
| Joe Hudson | Joe Hudson(保留原文) |
| Jonathan Rosenberg | Jonathan Rosenberg(保留原文) |
| Julie Cameron | Julie Cameron(保留原文) |
| Justin Meats | Justin Meats(保留原文) |
| Karen Kavanagh | Karen Kavanagh(保留原文) |
| Kelly Marcus | Kelly Marcus(保留原文) |
| Kenneth Chenault | Kenneth Chenault(保留原文) |
| Kinshaw | Kinshaw(保留原文) |
| Landmark Series | Landmark 系列 |
| listening tour | 聆聆之旅(listening tour) |
| Marissa Mayer | Marissa Mayer(保留原文) |
| Marty Cagan | Marty Cagan(保留原文) |
| meeting zero | 第零次会议 |
| Miriam Moheed | Miriam Moheed(保留原文) |
| Mnookin two-pager | Mnookin 两页纸 |
| Never Lead Alone | Never Lead Alone(保留原文) |
| Never Search Alone | Never Search Alone(保留原文) |
| peer coaching call | 同侪教练电话(peer coaching call) |
| play to win, not not to lose | 去赢,而不是不输 |
| positive politics | 正面政治 |
| product councils | 产品委员会 |
| product market fit | 产品市场匹配度 |
| Reading Odyssey | Reading Odyssey(保留原文) |
| reference check | 背景调查 |
| reverse exit interview | 反向离职访谈(reverse exit interview) |
| Robert Strassler | Robert Strassler(保留原文) |
| Sergey Brin | Sergey Brin(保留原文) |
| Silicon Valley Product Group | Silicon Valley Product Group(保留原文) |
| Slow Art Day | 慢艺术日(Slow Art Day) |
| slow seeker | 慢速求职者 |
| spray and pray | 漫天撒网、听天由命 |
| Stoicism | 斯多葛主义 |
| Sundar Pichai | Sundar Pichai(保留原文) |
| Susan Wojcicki | Susan Wojcicki(保留原文) |
| tech debt | 技术债务 |
| Teresa Torres | Teresa Torres(保留原文) |
| The Manual | 《The Manual》(保留原文书名) |
| Warren Buffett | Warren Buffett(保留原文) |
Reformatted by reformat_english.py
在当今市场中获得理想工作:谈判策略、求职委员会及其他 | Phyl Terry
文字记录
Phyl Terry: 当你找工作时,你需要的是一把长矛,而不是一张网。我们做产品时是什么情况?一样的,对吧?我们希望这个产品适合所有人,但我们在 product market fit(产品市场匹配度)中学到,这行不通。我们需要一个狭窄而清晰的聚焦。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你是怎么意识到这是一种非常强大的方法,而不是人们通常找工作的那种方式?
Phyl Terry: 虽然很难找到你的 candidate market fit(候选人-市场匹配度),但知道这不完全取决于你,也是一种释然。所以我让大家做的事是,想想自己想要什么,不想要什么。Lenny,你可能觉得这不是什么激进的步骤,但大多数人并不会这样做。当他们被裁员时,就漫天撒网、听天由命。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这非常像一个产品人思考新产品的方式。
Phyl Terry: 常言道团队里没有”我”(I)。嗯,“村庄”(village)里倒是有个”我”,而这个”我”的含义是——当你开始面试和谈判时,你必须掌控局面。我希望你去赢,而不是不输。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你还有什么其他建议,可能对正在找工作的人有帮助?
Phyl Terry: 如果有人这么做,我会惊为天人。我会当场录用他。
嘉宾介绍
Lenny Rachitsky: 今天的嘉宾是 Phyl Terry。Phyl 是《Never Search Alone》的作者,我看到很多人把这本书称为帮助他们找工作最有影响力的读物。听完这期节目,你就会明白为什么。
在这本书之前,Phyl 是亚马逊在90年代收购的第一家公司的创始团队成员,之后担任了先驱性的产品和客户体验咨询公司 Creative Good 的 CEO 超过15年,在那期间 Phyl 和团队的客户包括 Apple、Facebook、Microsoft 以及数百家其他公司。Phyl 还合著了《Customers Included》,为《哈佛商业评论》撰写过文章,并在 Apple、Microsoft 等公司做过超过500场主题演讲。这期节目适合所有正在苦苦寻找工作,或对现有工作不满意的人。我保证,你花在收听这期节目上的时间,会帮助你找到一份你热爱的工作。
如果你喜欢这档播客,别忘了在你最喜欢的播客应用或 YouTube 上订阅和关注。这是避免错过未来节目的最佳方式,也对播客帮助极大。话不多说,有请 Phyl Terry。Phyl,非常感谢你来做客,欢迎来到播客。
Phyl Terry: 哦,太荣幸了。Lenny,我是你的超级粉丝。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很高兴来到这里。
Phyl Terry: 谢谢。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我是你的超级粉丝,而且我觉得到这次谈话结束时,我会成为你更大的粉丝。我希望我们今天的聊天能帮助那些正在苦苦找工作的人——尤其是想找到自己热爱的工作的人——真正找到那份工作,并提供他们今天、这周就能用的实际建议。你觉得怎么样?
Phyl Terry: 很好。我们有一些经过时间检验的实用方法,是我在过去25年里与硅谷的领导者们一起开发的,尤其是在产品社区中。我们确实用产品的视角来重新定义求职这件事,Lenny。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这简直是一个完美的主题交集。
Phyl Terry: 是的。
求职委员会
Lenny Rachitsky: 我有很多切入点。我想从你运营的、你创建的、对很多人产生了很大影响的一个东西开始聊:求职委员会(Job Search Councils)。什么是求职委员会?
Phyl Terry: 它是一个由六到八名求职者组成的互助小组,产品人,但它不仅仅面向产品人,只是产品社区真正拥有并推动了这件事,它源自产品社区。他们承诺彼此陪伴、互相支持,一起经历找工作的过程。我制定了一套方法论:如何找到你的 candidate market fit,这是书中的一个重要概念;以及如何去赢,而不是不输。你明白我的意思吧?人们在求职中是恐惧的。Lenny,有一件事人们真的很难相信——每个人,我说的是每个人,而且我合作过一些硅谷最资深的职场人士,我说的是上市公司的 CEO、首席产品官、知名品牌的副总裁级产品负责人——每个人,无论他们是谁,Lenny,在求职时都会感到不安全感和焦虑。如果你独自面对,这种情绪会被放大。
所以在求职委员会中,有一个很棒的方法,这不是我发明的,它是深植于人类心理学的:如果你把焦虑的人聚在一起,让他们敞开心扉、展现脆弱、寻求帮助——我们回头还会再谈寻求帮助这件事——它实际上会把焦虑和恐惧转化为希望、动力、责任感和信心。就像——“[听不清]“——太棒了。这是我母亲教我的,我们可以之后再谈她,但这真的很强大。
Lenny Rachitsky: 太棒了。你整本书叫《Never Search Alone》,所以你建议人们找工作的整个前提,就是和其他人一起找工作。你提到可能是因为你妈妈,也可能是其他原因,你是怎么意识到这是一种非常强大的方法,而不是人们通常找工作的那种方式?
Phyl Terry: 是的。我最早在90年代中期建立了第一个互联网 CEO 委员会,从那以后我一直在运营产品人和 CEO 的委员会。但这要追溯到我妈妈。Lenny,1960年,1960年啊,那是什么概念?64年前?在圣费尔南多谷,我妈妈是一位刚入职的小学老师,她组建了一个教师委员会。那个小组持续聚会了50年,整整五十年,直到她去世的那一年。她们一起工作,互相寻求帮助,在职业生涯中互相支持。Lenny,人们经常问我,“这种 Never Search Alone 的方法在艰难的就业市场中有效吗?“我告诉你,它正是从艰难的就业市场中诞生的。绝对有效。从我妈妈开始。
1974年,我爸爸……1976年他离开了,只剩我和我妈妈还有我妹妹。他当初坚持让她停止教书,所以她失去了终身教职和一切。她的 candidate market fit 糟糕透顶,但她有她的委员会。那是70年代中期,Lenny,你可能无法想象,在70年代中期的洛杉矶,一个带着孩子的单身中年女性找份工作有多难。太艰难了。但她有她的互助小组,她们握着她的手支持她。她能找到的工作,你猜怎么着?她不得不重新做一个初级教师,尽管她之前已经是一个在做指导和顾问工作的资深教师了。真的很艰难。所以这对我影响很大。
然后当互联网泡沫破裂时,我正在经营 Creative Good,突然经济萧条了。突然之间我在帮助数百人想办法找工作。所以这件事已经持续了很多年,但它归根到底要追溯到我妈妈。我把这本书献给她,也献给我们建立的社区。
Lenny Rachitsky: 真美好。
求职委员会的规模与运作
Lenny Rachitsky: 你刚才提到的很多点我们后面都会深入展开,比如候选人-市场匹配度、去赢而不是不输。你还提到了一点关于妥协的想法,想清楚该在什么问题上妥协。你妈妈就接受了一份低于她之前资历的工作,我想聊聊所有这些话题。再说说这些委员会吧,它们的规模有多大?我觉得光看数字就会让人们大吃一惊——
Phyl Terry: Lenny,我们已经启动了超过2,000个这样的委员会,2,000个。而且完全免费,百分之百免费。完全是志愿者驱动的。我们有数百页的工具资源,建了一个 Slack 社区,还有一个免费的匹配项目。你可以注册,我们会帮你匹配并把你安排进一个委员会。然后我们会提供培训——实时的培训。志愿者非常多,Lenny,我们已经累计投入了20,000小时的志愿服务。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你说它是免费的,但我知道运营这些东西不可能没有成本。我记得你在某处提到过,基本上你所有的书销售收入,再加上你自己的钱,都花在了运营这些委员会上。能聊聊这个吗?
Phyl Terry: 对,实际上投入到运营中的金额是书销售收入的两倍。我们有20,000小时的志愿服务时间,但技术平台需要花钱,某些类型的支持也需要花钱。后面我们会聊到这些,而且我们一直在寻找更多的志愿者。我有一个申请流程,感兴趣的人可以申请加入团队。但没错,我把这本书献给了我妈妈,我也正在把自己的一切都投入进去。
Lenny Rachitsky: 它的大致结构是什么样的?如果有人想了解这些东西是怎么运作的,想在听的过程中考虑加入,它们具体怎么运转?
Phyl Terry: 好,你在 phyl.org 上申请——P-H-Y-L,Phyl,Y 结尾的那个 Phyl。再强调一下,免费的。我们在后台帮你做匹配。申请的时候我们会问:首先,你是有工作在找下一份,还是目前没有工作?因为我们会把这两种人分开,他们的节奏不同。如果你有工作正在看机会,我们称你为”慢速求职者”(slow seeker),因为你全职在岗,推进速度没那么快。如果你目前没有工作正在找,我们称你为”快速求职者”(fast seeker),你会被分到不同的小组。快速求职者或慢速求职者。不过我们还会问:你愿意做主持人吗?每个委员会都需要一个主持人,而每一位主持人都是正在求职的人自愿承担这个角色的。如果你自愿主持,首先你会更快被匹配,其次你会获得更多的培训和支持。
做主持人稍微多一点工作量,但换来的是大得多的收益。Lenny,我们已经有了2,000位主持人,真的很惊人。而我们觉得自己才刚刚起步。所以你申请、被匹配,然后参加我们线上进行的引导项目,我们会告诉你运作方式和第一次会议的预期。然后有一整套议程和材料——书里有,而且每个加入社区的人都会获得一本免费的工作手册,100页,里面有所有的模板、指南和问题。接着主持人把大家召集起来,通过 Zoom 或其他工具——通常是远程的。你们做第一次会议,我们叫它”第零次会议”(meeting zero),在会上大家坦诚而脆弱,分享自己的故事、自己是什么样的人,建立信任,了解彼此。然后你就进入正式流程。如果你在快速求职者委员会,通常每周见面两次;如果是慢速求职者,则每两周一次。这是回答的开始,这样能帮你想清楚吗?
Lenny Rachitsky: 非常有帮助。然后基本上你会一直待在这个委员会里直到找到工作,我猜是这样。
Phyl Terry: 对。
Lenny Rachitsky: 太好了。
Phyl Terry: 是的。
委员会的影响力
Lenny Rachitsky: 关于你看到的成效,有什么可以分享的吗?我之所以联系你邀请你上这个播客,就是因为我开始看到有人说他们找到了工作,而对他们帮助最大的可能就是你的书以及参加这些委员会。我想你一定听到了很多故事,也有很多数字能看到,关于人们通过这个流程成功就业——你能分享一下你所看到的成效吗?
Phyl Terry: 我今天在 LinkedIn 上发帖说我要上你的播客,然后请想分享故事的人联系我。通过邮件和 LinkedIn,我已经收到了大量来自正在进行中的人或者已经完成的人的故事。如果你愿意的话,我可以调出几个来分享。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好,如果你手边有几个的话,那就太好了。
Phyl Terry: 好,Justin Meats 是一位经历了整个流程的首席产品官,他今天在 LinkedIn 上发帖说:“作为一个产品领域的领导者,我非常喜欢它让你把产品流程应用到自己的职业上。“这东西源于产品圈,是用产品的视角来看待求职的。它适用于所有人,但对产品人来说特别有共鸣。他还说:“你的求职委员会不仅帮你碰撞想法、帮助你的求职,还能在你情绪能量低落的时候帮你坚持下去、保持责任感。“
情绪管理是求职的核心
Lenny,我在书里谈到这一点。我说:“你看,大多数人认为求职过程中最需要管理的重要事项是什么?“他们觉得,也许是简历,也许是 LinkedIn 个人主页,也许是社交能力,或者是候选人-市场匹配度——这个概念是我提出的,我觉得非常重要。所有这些确实都很重要,但最需要管理的是你的情绪平衡。我谈到了你的”情绪资产负债表”(emotional balance sheet)。对很多求职者来说,他们旧的资产负债表上负债比资产多。他们有更多的恐惧和焦虑,他们感到沮丧,很难继续走下去。这就是为什么这些委员会如此重要。
他还说:“嘿,这是一段旅程,你越是拥抱它,就越能了解自己。“他说……这一点很重要,Lenny。我没有一根魔杖,尤其在如今的市场下行期,能神奇地变出一份工作来。这很难。求职过程有时候会很艰难、很屈辱。我深有体会。这就是为什么我想创建这个社区,为什么我们要做这件事。我们想给你一个地方,当过程变得艰难和屈辱的时候,你能真正获得支持。但如果你遵循这个流程,它最终会让你走向成功。
有一位刚加入的女性,她是一家大型金融机构的资深产品负责人,她说她简直不敢相信那种支持、开放和脆弱的程度。我们非常强调人们保持开放和展露脆弱,我也学到了很多关于如何创造这种环境的经验。这跟我们之前提到的寻求帮助有关,我知道我们后面还会再聊到这个。但当你创造出这种环境时,人们在一起能做到的事情是令人惊叹的,Lenny。真的很惊人。
Lenny Rachitsky: 为了强化这一点,听众中可能有人会说:“我就继续自己找工作,我会用上所有这些建议,我不需要一个小组。“你最好的说服方式是什么,再来说服人们看到以小组形式做这件事、加入一个求职委员会或自己发起一个求职委员会的价值?
Phyl Terry: 我理解有些人会有这种反应。这完全合理。我们做的事情确实不同寻常。这不是人们通常找工作的方式。我们试图颠覆求职过程。Lenny,我讲一个简短的故事。我们采访过一对夫妇,其中两位是产品负责人。他们在 Amazon 相识,之后各自发展出了很好的职业生涯。两人都被裁了。女方立刻加入了一个求职委员会。她非常喜欢,赞不绝口。她的丈夫是工程师,性格更内向一些。他说:“啊,这个不适合我。“她说:“不,你听我说,你不会……”最终他读了那本书。因为那本书对产品思维和工程思维都说得通,逻辑是清晰的。他说:“我会加入一个委员会,但我不会跟别人建立什么联结。但我愿意试试,因为你让我这么做。”
他参加了那次活动,我们的网站上有相关视频,他说:“天哪,我简直不敢相信。我们一开始就建立了那种信任程度,我这辈子从没体验过。那真的是责任感,是动力,是坚持下去的力量。“所以我对人们说:“试试看。“我们网站上有大量视频,都是各种人在分享经历。去看看。如果你想先读读那本书,看看觉得这是否有道理,也可以。但试试看。你会感到惊喜的。你会发现它有多美好。
真正的社区,而非孤独的求职
Lenny,我们生活在一个日益孤独的世界里。有大量关于这个的研究,卫生局局长的书,所有人都在谈论……孤独对我们的健康的危害甚至比吸烟还大。《独自打保龄》(Bowling Alone)在 25 年前就出版了,名噪一时。我们生活在一个人们未曾真正体验过强有力社区的世界里。我说的不是论坛留言板,而是真正的社区。我觉得你对这一点有感触,因为你做的就是真正的社区。这也是我们在这里谈论的。是真正的社区,但配备了实用的工具和方法,后面我们会聊到。你觉得呢?这个回答还行吧——
Lenny Rachitsky: 我被说服了。我不需要找工作,但我想加入一个。你刚才用了一个非常美好的说法来形容这些项目——人们的安全网。
Phyl Terry: 是的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这个说法有印象吗?
为裁员潮建立私人安全网
Phyl Terry: 如果我们站到三万英尺的高度来看,我们到底在做什么?我们的使命是什么?我们在为所有被裁员或被辞退的人建立一个私人安全网。我们不会做政府做的那种失业保险,我们永远做不到那种规模。但政府也永远不会在如何真正找工作这件事上创新。这就是我们介入的地方。我们正在努力构建这个东西。Lenny,我们之前聊过,创造性破坏(creative destruction)是资本主义核心的一个经济学概念。创造性破坏的基本意思是:“在资本主义制度下,经济是动态的。新的产品和服务会取代或颠覆旧的产品和服务、旧的公司和旧的方法。“这就是过去一百年我们经济增长了六倍的原因。这非常了不起。这就是为什么我们拥有这个令人惊叹的数万亿美元的经济体。但它也带来了一些负面的非预期后果,那就是无论在职的还是不在职的人,都感到焦虑和恐惧。目前没有任何项目来应对这个问题。
这就是我们在做的事。我们试图成为那个正面事物的非预期后果的解决方案——那个正面事物在很多方面都是好的,我们作为产品人也热爱它,因为我们可以开发新产品来替代旧产品。我再说一点。你知道创造性破坏如此有效的原因,如果你把我们的经济与前苏联的经济做个对比的话。他们是计划经济,没有创造性破坏。所以没有创新,最终它就失败了,就崩溃了。这很值得注意,那是一个拥有庞大军事力量和核武器的巨大国家,但他们的经济却运转不下去。为什么?因为他们缺少了这个要素。所以这是值得庆祝的,但在庆祝的同时,我们也需要有一些东西来应对那些负面的非预期后果。我们所有从中受益的人,我认为有责任为此做些什么。
候选人-市场匹配度
Lenny Rachitsky: 说得太好了。你很擅长这件事。我们来转向战术层面吧。聊聊你分享过的一些具体方法。你提到了候选人-市场匹配度、去赢而不是不输。你想从哪里开始都行。我们挑几个深入聊聊。
Phyl Terry: 候选人-市场匹配度可能是书中最重要的求职战术,仅次于求职委员会,这也可能是我最被大家所知的概念。等我去世的时候,他们会在墓碑上刻上候选人-市场匹配度。事情是这样的,这就是为什么在市场下行期这尤其重要——当你在找工作时,你处于一个有供需特征的市场中。如果供给很大——现在科技行业就是如此,因为大量裁员——虽然整体经济确实有净新增岗位,Lenny,但那些主要集中在医疗和政府部门。科技领域是净裁员的。我们可以聊为什么会这样,但这就是我们面对的现实。
假设你是一位产品总监。两年前,当科技经济和科技就业市场都很好的时候,你很可能拿到产品副总裁的职位。那今天呢?今天你的候选人-市场匹配度被压低了,因为有一批产品副总裁愿意接受总监级别的职位。这意味着你可能拿不到总监的职位,也许需要降到高级经理的级别,诸如此类。这里最重要的一点是,这不是针对你个人的评判,而是市场。今天很多人在给我的留言中都说了这一点,这让他们感到如释重负。虽然搞清楚自己的候选人-市场匹配度并不容易,但知道问题不在于你,这本身就是一种安慰。
想清楚你要什么和不要什么
Phyl Terry: 所以我让大家做的第一件事,也是我让他们迈出的第一个激进步骤,就是想清楚自己想要什么、不想要什么。Lenny,你可能觉得这不算什么激进步骤,但大多数人并不会这样做。被裁之后,他们漫天撒网、听天由命。典型的反应就是”让我赶紧……”等一下,先停一停。他们会说:“别拖慢我。“我说:“我要先让你慢下来,才能快起来。“事实上,我们的数据显示,求职委员会中从开始到结束的平均求职周期是三个月。而全美求职的平均数据是三到六个月。所以我们处于全国平均水平的下限。这不是让你慢下来、花两年时间什么的,不是的。大多数人需要养家糊口,所以一开始确实需要先慢下来。作为产品人,我们应该理解这一点。你要思考你的策略,你要了解市场、你的客户、产品市场匹配度。你不能一上来就……
你要迭代。第一步,你想要什么,不想要什么?这叫做 Mnookin 两页纸,以 Allison Mnookin 的名字命名。她曾是我们一个产品委员会的成员。我们为在职人士运营产品委员会和综合管理/CEO委员会,这是企业付费的项目。正是通过帮助那些项目中的人,我开发出了这套方法论,现在我们作为一个社区把它分享给全世界。Allison 曾是 Intuit 的总经理,后来她分拆出一个部门并担任 CEO,现在她是哈佛商学院的教授。大约十五年前,她处于职业转换期,我们聊了聊,她和我一起创造了这个现在被称为 Mnookin 两页纸的东西。我跟她说:“Allison,我要让你的名字出名。“这就是我的工作。我很喜欢她。
Lenny Rachitsky: 名字起得好。
Phyl Terry: 她很棒。这其实很简单——你喜欢什么、不喜欢什么,写下来,然后在你的委员会里分享。有个很酷的事情,Lenny。假设你和我同在一个求职委员会里,你分享你的,我分享我的。你看到我的清单上有几条”不想要的”,我说:“嘿,我也不喜欢这些,我忘了加上了。“或者你说一条”想要的”,我一看:“哇,这对我也很重要,我居然漏掉了。“这就是共享学习环境的一部分。我让你做这些练习,但你是和其他一起走这条路的人共同完成。
聆聆之旅
现在,你完成了 Mnookin 两页纸之后,它只是一个草稿,不需要打磨得很完美。而且不是每个人都确切知道自己想要什么,顺便说一下,这很重要,尤其是年轻人。但有时候处于职业中期的人也是这样,他们会说:“我不确定……”我不是让你做出最终决定,不是的。我们会迭代。好,我们是做产品的,我们会迭代。
我们要拿着这份 Mnookin 两页纸——这份已经和委员会分享过的草稿——去做一个聆聆之旅(listening tour)。因为猜怎么着?在求职过程中,我们自己就是产品。我们的技能和经验,就是我们带到市场上的产品。所以我们必须去看看市场想要什么。我们对自己想要什么有了一个感觉,但市场想要什么?我们信任的朋友们觉得我想要的东西怎么样?他们认为我适合什么?在当前的市场条件下,他们认为我适合什么?
我告诉大家,人们对聆聆之旅感到恐惧。他们会说:“我不知道会从别人那里听到什么。“因为我让他们问一个黄金问题——“如果你处在我的位置,你会怎么应对?“我把这叫做黄金问题。这是一个非常有启发性的问题,真的能打开话题。但他们担心:“糟了,人们会跟我说一堆我不想听的。“不,大多数时候人们告诉你的是积极的东西。偶尔你会得到一条有用的批评,比如:“你把所有事都列为优先,那就等于没有优先,这个你可以改一改。“知道这个非常有帮助。我们每个人都有需要改进的地方。
但我可以告诉你,一旦人们做完聆聆之旅,他们都被震撼了。那些在职的人,他们其实非常乐意帮助别人——前提是你做得好。因为猜怎么着?他们自己也在焦虑,他们也想回馈,他们想感觉自己正在支持别人。你最终会发现——我们后面也会聊到——当你做了功课、带着诚意去寻求帮助时,他们反而更想帮你,他们会对你产生投入感。所以聆聆之旅的秘诀在于,你不仅获得了关于自己匹配度的市场调研和客户反馈,你还同时建立了一整个聆聆哨点网络——一群对你的成功投入了心力的人。
Lenny Rachitsky: 关于聆聆之旅这个具体环节,我想澄清一下。你先写这份 Mnookin 两页纸,基本上描述了你想要什么、不想要什么、你的目标、你讨厌什么。然后聆聆之旅就是去找同事、朋友,其他同类人——比如其他产品经理——请他们对你的想要什么、不想要什么、讨厌什么、目标是什么给出反馈。
Phyl Terry: 还有他们在市场上看到的情况,以及他们认为你适合什么。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我明白了。所以类似于,“哦,你这个不现实,你拿不到这个。”
Phyl Terry: 没错。
Lenny Rachitsky: 就是想要这种——
Phyl Terry: 两种情况我们都会遇到,Lenny。有些人低估了自己的匹配度,有些人高估了,或者没有意识到市场条件已经变了。另外我想说的是,书里我设计了三种结构化的聆聆之旅对话。第一种我叫做反向离职访谈(reverse exit interviews),就是你以前的同事,去问他们:“嘿,我之前哪些做得好?你觉得我的优势是什么?你觉得我适合什么?这是我目前的想法,你觉得我的自我定位准确吗?“第二种是你更广泛的人脉网络,我让你在这里问黄金问题——“如果你处在我的位置……”第三种是猎头。
与猎头建立关系
这是一个很重要的技巧。猎头不喜欢被人轰炸式地要求”给我找个工作”,但他们喜欢你问他们”你觉得我适合什么”,向他们请教建议。这一点尤其适用于你提——
这一点在你提前建立了与猎头的关系后尤其适用。所以现在正在听你播客的每个人,如果你在职,我有一条很重要的建议:当猎头打电话来时,接起来,哪怕你不想要那份工作,帮助他们,和他们建立关系,把他们介绍给其他人,经营好这段关系。因为无论你是丢了工作,还是决定在职期间开始看机会,你都需要这段关系。
现在,Lenny,很多人的问题在于他们之前没有这样做过。对吧?所以我们在”Never Search Alone”社区中正在做的一件事,就是建立一个猎头网络。我们在寻找愿意以受保护的方式,每月做几次对话、帮助人们思考自己的候选人-市场匹配度的猎头。如果正在收听节目的你是一名猎头,请来加入我们、做志愿者。我们需要更多猎头。我知道你们很多人想回馈但不知道怎么做。你们就是这样告诉我的。这就是一种回馈的方式。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**嗯,很喜欢这个。好的,所以这样做的目的是你要弄清楚,第一,市场想要什么,以及我如何诚实地面对市场的需求——因为你想要的现在可能并不存在;第二,帮助你打磨你的推介方式、你的接触策略以及你应该去找谁谈。做完这个练习还有什么其他收获吗?因为我觉得听众可能会听到这里想:“啊,太费事了。我面试都够忙的了,还得去联系各种人。我还有孩子有家庭。现在还要写什么两页纸,还要做聆听之旅。“做这个练习还有什么其他好处?
**Phyl Terry:**你建立了那些关系。你把人们激活成了你的信息前哨,等于点亮了你的人脉网络——如果你只是发封邮件说”我想要一份工作”,或者直接问”你有工作给我吗”,别人不知道该怎么回应。但如果你说”如果你是我,你会怎么着手?你觉得我应该找什么样的?你在市场上看到了什么?“他们会很喜欢,而且会真正开始认真帮你思考。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**而且如果他们看到一个可能合适的职位,他们会主动告诉你。
**Phyl Terry:**他们会告诉你。是的,这就涉及到了候选人……因为在这一切的最后,我们会在聆听之旅结束后创建一个非常简洁、窄而聚焦的候选人-市场匹配度声明。
创建聚焦的候选人-市场匹配度
所以一旦你完成了聆听之旅,接下来就需要创建一个聚焦的候选人-市场匹配度。这很难。再说一遍,这就是为什么你需要求职委员会。你需要他们在聆听之旅的过程中陪着你。不是每一次聆听之旅的对话都会是全垒打,偶尔也会是哑炮。我在书里谈到过这一点,比如”前方有弯道警告”。你可能遇到这样的对话……这些年来我合作过的很多女性去做了这些对话,她们得到了坦率说是带有性别偏见的反馈……根本没有帮助。“你太从容了”或者”你不够从容”。就是一些莫名其妙的东西。所以你需要你的委员会帮你梳理和解读别人告诉你的信息。
在聆听之旅结束的时候——它其实永远不会真正结束——但当你做了十到十五次,准备好说”好吧,我来试着写一下我的候选人-市场匹配度”的时候,你同样需要求职委员会,因为你会……你浑身上下每一根骨头都会想让这个声明尽可能宽泛、尽可能覆盖面广。记住,我们是做产品的人,至少 Lenny 播客社区里的人是——当我们做产品的时候会发生什么?一样的道理,对吧?我们希望这个产品面向所有人,但我们在产品市场匹配度中学到,这样做行不通。我们需要一个窄而清晰的聚焦。候选人-市场匹配度也是一样。所以我跟人们说,我们给了他们一整套网格模板——“我在找旧金山一家 B 轮医疗健康创业公司的产品总监职位”,“叮、叮、叮”,人们会说:“哦,这么窄的话我会错过很多机会的……”但关键在于,找工作的时候你需要的是一把鱼叉,而不是一张渔网。用渔网,所有东西都会从网眼漏掉。
从窄到宽的扩展效应
这里面还有第二点——人们会做扩展,但不会做收窄。什么意思呢?是这样的:如果你给别人一个具体的……如果我对你说:“Lenny,我在找旧金山一家 B 轮医疗健康创业公司的产品总监职位,“好,那如果你看到另一家受高度监管行业的 FinTech 创业公司也在找 B 轮阶段的产品总监,你会想:“你知道吗?Phyl 在找的是那个,但我打赌 Phyl 也能做这个。“你可以做扩展。但如果我告诉你:“嘿,Lenny,什么产品工作我都行,“你永远不会想到我。你永远不会记住我。人们不会从一个宽泛的陈述出发去帮你收窄,但会从一个窄的陈述出发去帮你扩展。
我跟你说,Lenny,这对人们来说真的很难,所以再说一遍,你需要那个委员会,你需要那个更大的社区。我们每两周做一次 LinkedIn Live,反复讨论这些问题——因为我完全理解,如果我正在找工作,即使我做了这么多该死的研究,我也会有同样的感受。这真的很难。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**你一直在用产品人的思维来做类比——这非常像产品人思考新产品的方式:一开始应该有一个非常窄的受众,作为一种楔子或者说 ICP。当一个人在构建这个声明的时候,什么信号说明他已经缩窄到够了?有没有一个特定的属性数量?什么告诉你”好,现在已经足够聚焦了”?
**Phyl Terry:**通常是三到四个属性,我们会给人们一整套网格和各种例子。比如我们有一位女性设计师,她是一名产品设计师。她的产品市场匹配度是这样的——她在寻找那些要么没有设计团队、要么需要重建设计团队的公司。所以她没有谈公司阶段,甚至没有谈行业,但这确实在你脑海中植入了非常清晰的画面。如果你听说一家公司没有设计团队或者想重建设计团队,你会立刻想到她——因为在完成聆听之旅并创建了你的候选人-市场匹配度、并且你的委员会认可了之后——Lenny,这一点很重要——你要回到你的聆听之旅中,告诉所有那些人:“谢谢你的帮助。这是我想出来的候选人-市场匹配度。“你还要把它发到 LinkedIn 上,告诉全世界,对吧?
候选人-市场匹配度会随时间演变
这个候选人-市场匹配度会随时间改变吗?当然,我们是迭代的嘛。所以如果你去尝试……而且市场也在变化。三个月前成立的事现在可能不成立了。两周前股市还确信我们要进入衰退,一切暴跌。两周后大家又说:“哦,不,我们不会进入衰退。“这影响了招聘经理和公司的心理——不仅仅是心理,还有他们开放职位和其他一切的意愿。所以情况在变化,你需要对这种变化保持灵活和适应,这也是为什么你需要委员会,为什么你需要身边有一个你求助过的、对你有投入感的好网络,在你持续摸索的过程中能够陪伴你。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**再带大家往下走一步——当一个人正在想”好吧,我的属性有哪些”,那个网格上大概有什么?有公司阶段,我想还有——
**Phyl Terry:**公司阶段、行业、角色级别和职能,当然,还有文化。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**文化类型有没有一套选项?
**Phyl Terry:**基本上每个人都想要好文化,对吧?
**Lenny Rachitsky:**对对对,没错。所以文化方面——
**Phyl Terry:**有时候可以非常具体,比如我需要一家公司在孩子方面有某种特定政策,或者远程、混合办公之类的要求。但我告诉人们,保持简单。这不应该是长篇大论。应该是一句话的声明。你可以准备一个更长的版本,在深入交谈时分享给别人,但你需要一个简洁的东西,让人一看就说:“哦,Lenny 在找首席产品官的职位。哦。”
**Lenny Rachitsky:**是的。这正好就像你希望你的产品给人的感觉一样。
**Phyl Terry:**完全正确。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我需要 SOC 2 合规,所以我就会想到——
**Phyl Terry:**没错。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**对,没错。好,我在想这份清单上的各项。级别和角色,我觉得大家对自己想要什么定位应该有比较清楚的感觉。那阶段呢,对于如何决定什么阶段的公司适合自己,你有什么建议吗?
**Phyl Terry:**如果我在辅导某个人——你也知道,我确实在做这个——我们会在这方面聊很多。但在书里和社区中,我会说:“要弄清楚阶段,同样地,我希望你依靠你的求职委员会、你的人脉和你自己的经验。“这其实会变得相当……大家通常都有不错的直觉,比如”我最近在跟谁聊?我需要一家大公司……”而很多人会说,“我不要那个,我想要一家创业公司。“好。
我想告诉你的是,现在需要记住的一点是,在产品人的领域,创业公司的职位比成熟科技公司更多。新的岗位创造就是在那里发生的。虽然速度比以前慢了,但大公司一直在裁员,一直在往外甩人。而小公司那边则有更多机会。当然,这不意味着……如果你受不了在创业公司工作,我不是非要你去。
但我想说这个——同样地,如果你需要养家糊口……我们最近跟一个人聊过,他刚搬到一个新城市,第二天就被裁了。他是为公司搬过去的,结果第二天就被裁了。他说:“好,我得找份工作。“我说:“好,当然可以。只是你要知道,如果你打算先找一份随便什么工作干着,同时继续找你真正想要的工作——你要知道这很难。这是一种很难的处境。我理解,我支持你,这说得通,但这很难。“比你意识到的还要难,你绝对必须保留你的求职委员会,否则你会迷失方向。
候选人-市场匹配度的故事
我可以分享一个关于候选人-市场匹配度的故事吗——
**Lenny Rachitsky:**请说。
**Phyl Terry:**也许对大家会有帮助。我当时在辅导一个人——他是一家传统媒体公司的 EVP,负责数字业务,运营他们的流媒体业务,但那本质上是一家老经济、老媒体公司,不是流媒体领域的玩家。他们很明智地意识到,如果留在那里,最终会走进一条死胡同。顺便说一句,那家公司后来确实裁员了,如果留下来的话……所以他们决定去一家像 Netflix 或 Apple TV 这样的公司工作。他是一个管着几百人的人,独立办公室、专车、飞机头等舱——你懂我的意思吧?他的候选人-市场匹配度是什么?如果他要加入一家顶尖流媒体公司,他的候选人-市场匹配度就是一个 IC——个人贡献者,Lenny。因为那些公司并不太看重他从传统媒体带来的经验。如果他独自进行这场求职,他不会做出这个选择。但值得称赞的是,他决定接受这一点,而这改变了他的整个职业生涯。他不是一个拥有大量管理经验的人,但现在他已与一家顶尖流媒体公司绑定了。他做得非常出色。但这真的很难做到。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**所以在这个例子中,当你谈到候选人-市场匹配度时,很大一部分是市场需要你做什么。不是他自己说”我要去做 IC”,而是在过程中他意识到,“这才是我真正能成功的地方。”
**Phyl Terry:**他去跟人聊了,我帮他建立了硅谷的人脉。那些人对他很坦诚。这就是 Justin 说的情况,弄清楚这件事有时会很难、很丢人……我们还遇到过一个人,她是一家创业公司的首席产品官,她很出色。她帮了我写这本书,她是早期的读者,她也是你社区的成员,Lenny。她意识到自己并没有掌握正确的产品趋势。她是唯一的产品人,她其实并不太清楚自己在做什么。那么她的候选人-市场匹配度是什么?是 IC。是一个 IC 角色,一个个人贡献者角色,在一家更大的科技公司里。值得称赞的是,她意识到那是适合她学习的正确路径,而且她是在事情真的闹大之前就做了这个决定。幸好我在科技圈,就不说脏话了。
两步策略
我在书里谈到了这个。有时候你需要一个两步策略。假设你想成为一家顶尖流媒体公司的产品副总裁,或者别的什么目标,但你今天并不匹配。那么问题就是你怎么一步步走到那里?我在书里讲了一个人的故事,他之前一直做产品副总裁。他想要一个 COO 角色。他不匹配。他不匹配,Lenny。这一点非常清楚。市场在告诉他,他做了聆聆之旅(listening tour),但他回来跟我说:“我不在乎,我就是要一个 COO 角色。“于是他去面试了 50 家公司。50 家。你能想象吗?花了一年半。第 50 家公司录用了他。
十天后,那家公司是一家上市公司,存在大规模欺诈,破产了。我说:“好,市场说得很清楚了。你唯一匹配的 COO 角色,就是一家即将破产的公司。“他说:“好吧。“然后回到了产品副总裁的角色。我说:“如果你想从你现在这个位置变成 COO,最好的路径之一就是从你现在这份工作内部去做。“明白吗?他最终就是这么做的。这是一个两步策略。他没办法直接到达那个位置。
靠近技术前沿
我不是在说人的内在价值,Lenny。我相信每个人都有价值,我深信归属感、给予人们支持、传播爱、创造社区。但我也相信务实和现实。这个局面不是我造成的。我只是试图向你报告这个局面是什么样的,以及你如何管理它,让自己不被困住。Lenny,你见过多少人被困住?他们困在一份糟糕的工作里,没有在学习,然后从那里又走不出去?到了四十多岁、五十多岁,就很艰难了。求职社区里有不少五十多岁、六十多岁的人,他们在面对年龄歧视,他们在面对……他们离技术前沿不够近。你必须靠近技术前沿,即使这意味着你要从 EVP 变成 IC 角色。这就是创造性破坏的运作方式。你离技术前沿越近,新的工作机会就越多。你离技术前沿越远,长期来看你的处境就越糟。短期内你也许能获得一个听起来更好的头衔,但你会发现自己被困住了。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我很喜欢你那个维恩图——一边是温暖、支持和归属感,另一边是直白的实话。这就是现实。
**Phyl Terry:**是的。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**什么组合。
**Phyl Terry:**哦,谢谢。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**这条建议非常有力量,我想有些人可能会觉得:“嗯,我明白了,但天啊,我不想再当 IC 了。我已经做过总监,做过 VP。再回去做 IC 听起来真不太好。“关于这一点,你还有什么可以分享的,帮助大家跨过那道坎,接受”好吧,也许我真的应该再去找一个 IC 角色”?
你不是一个人
**Phyl Terry:**再说一遍,如果你加入了一个求职委员会,同时也在我们的 Slack 社区里,你会发现你并不孤单。这很重要。不是你的问题,不是你有什么不对。这是我们所处的市场环境。顺便说一句,你建立的关系越多,聆听之旅(listening tour)做得越好…… Lenny,我给人们的一个策略是,你必须每个月给你联系过的所有人脉发一封进展更新。内容可以是”我还没找到工作”,或者”我甚至没有任何消息,但我只是想让大家知道我还在坚持,感谢你们为我做的一切,我还在寻找 X。” 就这些就够了。Justin——我之前提到过他是首席产品官——他今天在 LinkedIn 上的帖子写道:“Phyl 让我持续更新进展,但我做得不够。” 不要犯这个错误。你必须这样做。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**Phyl,我最近和大约 50 位在 Never Search Alone 社区待了超过一年的求职者开了个会。他们很艰难。同样,我没有魔杖。但当我跟他们交谈时,发生了什么?他们停止了社交网络。他们退出了求职委员会。他们没有根据不断变化的市场环境更新自己的候选人-市场匹配度。我说,“你必须做所有这些事情。你不能变得被动。” Lenny,我谈到的一个概念是,你必须做”村庄”(village)里的那个”I”。Team 里没有 I。但 village 里有 I,对吧?而 village 里的 I 意思是,当我说你必须寻求帮助、你必须成为求职委员会社区的一员时,你同时必须保持独立、可问责、负责任。我不是说你会变成消极的独立。这正是你如何变得更加独立的方式。这正是你如何站起来、变得更加可问责和负责任的方式。这就是在当前市场条件下你能做到最好求职的方式。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**所以这里的建议是,如果你在求职中遇到困难,这就是解决方案。加入一个委员会,让人们和你一起上路,向大家更新你的进展。这些就是能帮你走出困境的方法。
这依然会很难
**Phyl Terry:**而且这依然会很难。这依然会很难。Lenny,我真希望不是这样。不过我要告诉你,现在的状况和 2000、2001、2002 年互联网泡沫有什么区别?区别在于那时候我们的行业要小得多。人们从事互联网工作才几年,而现在我们有在科技行业工作了 10 年、15 年甚至更久的人,他们从未经历过下行周期,从未见过这样的市场。我们从未见过这样的科技市场。它在某个时刻会好转,但现在确实很艰难。我无法改变这一点,但我可以提供工具,提供社区,提供热心和智慧,让你在当下找到你能找到的最好的工作。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**说到建议,在进入更多策略之前,关于候选人-市场匹配度还有什么要补充的吗?
抵抗窄化的本能
**Phyl Terry:**只想再说一遍,你会全身每一个细胞都抵抗那种窄化。要知道这是每个人的感受。但你可以去看看……我在网上有一个很好的视频,讲的是……他是一位产品 VP。他最初是匿名的,但其实是 Nike 的产品 VP。我是通过硅谷产品集团的 Marty 和 Chris 认识他的。他加入了我们的一个产品委员会,后来决定离开。他说,“Phyl,我很喜欢你,但这个候选人-市场匹配度的东西,不行。你错了。它应该是……”于是他出去跟一堆 VC 聊了,人家说”我们完全不知道该拿你怎么办。你得告诉我们一些非常具体的东西。“他这才意识到,“天哪。“于是他回来跟我说,“Phyl……”他重新做了一遍,砰砰砰,搞定了。
书中我还讲了一个 Dee 的故事。她是一家大型科技公司首席数据官,想成为 CTO。她有技术和工程背景,也有数据背景。她独自摸索了一年,原地打转。我说,“加入一个求职委员会。“她理清了自己的候选人-市场匹配度。结果发现她非常适合中型区域性银行的 CTO。三周之内她拿到了三个 offer。一年什么都没有。三周之内,三个 offer。
所以我不能保证你会在三周内拿到三个 offer,对吧?我不是这个意思。你们有些人可能需要六个月或一年。Lenny,而且你越资深,时间越长。如果你是 CEO,那会花很长时间,除非你恰好是 Chipotle 的 CEO,刚去当了 Starbucks 的 CEO。
资源与链接
**Lenny Rachitsky:**对。对了,我知道你正在创建一个页面,我们会把链接放上去,应该是……是 phyl.org/lenny 吗?
**Phyl Terry:**是的。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**好的,很棒。上面会有那个帮你梳理市场匹配度的模板吗?
**Phyl Terry:**上面会有链接,你不仅能下载那个模板,还能下载所有模板。你甚至不需要加入求职委员会就能获取这些东西。我希望你加入。再说一次,这是免费的。我想说,早些时候有人会说,“这里有什么套路?这是免费的,你迟早要收费。“不。不,这是免费的。为什么我让它免费?因为,第一,我有能力这样做,这很酷;第二,这是为了纪念我母亲;第三,我想为创造性破坏带来的伤害建立一个私人的安全网。创造性破坏有很多积极的后果,但也有消极的一面。我就是不太喜欢为此向人们收费。其他东西我收费,但这个不收费。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我们会把你的付费项目链接也放上去,这样大家既能支持你,也能从其他方式中获益。
**Phyl Terry:**对他们和我都有益。那太好了。
去赢,而不是不输
**Lenny Rachitsky:**让我们聊聊其他策略。你提到了”去赢,而不是不输”的理念,我想在这个框架里,还有一种类似 OKR 和使命的策略。我们来谈谈这个。
**Phyl Terry:**Lenny,读了我的书、加入了求职委员会、并且按照我描述的一切去做的人当中,有 50% 的人没有做我接下来要告诉你的这件事,这是最大的错误和遗漏,我对此真的很抱歉。我正在发起一场运动。所以事情是这样的:当你开始面试和谈判时,你必须掌握主导权。这是协作式辅导。我希望你去赢,而不是不输。
现在,当人们听到我这么说,他们会在脑子里翻译成:“哦,Phyl 是说我必须做一个冷酷无情的谈判者。“任何了解我的人都知道,至少在这个意义上,冷酷不是我的风格。不,不,我想说的是——这是一个我们偶然发现的绝佳策略,也是书中最好的策略之一,我真的希望社区里另外一半人能这样做,你的听众中还没参与但决定加入的人也能这样做——当你开始面试时,我 want 你创建你自己的职位描述版本。Lenny,我希望你私下做这件事,然后创建一个我所说的”工作使命与 OKRs”(job mission with OKRs)。
**Phyl Terry:**Lenny,大多数职位描述写得很烂,公司根本不知道自己在干什么。他们并不清楚自己到底在找什么样的人。但我要说明,我不是让你去对他们说这话。我告诉你的是——“我希望你创建自己的工作使命与 OKRs。“这是关键,必须带有 OKRs。你的听众应该知道 OKR 是什么——目标与关键结果(objectives and key results),我想我不需要解释。它需要表达的是:“这是我认为自己应该负责的事,这是我真正要交付的成果。”
**Lenny Rachitsky:**在你加入的公司。
**Phyl Terry:**在你加入的公司。一开始你会保密,因为起草这个……这个东西有多重好处。第一,起草它会帮你理解并构思出很好的面试问题,去问清楚这份工作到底是什么。他们会对此印象深刻。第二个好处是,在你面试了几轮之后,它还是一个草稿……注意,它不是完整、最终的版本。这一点非常重要。我希望你把招聘经理拉到一边说:“嘿,Lenny,你是招聘经理,我仔细想了想这个岗位的职责,我想确保自己理解正确。能跟你分享一下吗?“我不希望你发邮件,我希望你通过电话、Zoom、喝咖啡或者当面来做这件事。
Lenny,你能想象招聘经理收到这份带有 OKRs 的工作使命时是什么感受吗?我跟亚马逊的一位高管聊过,他招过两千多位产品负责人和其他角色。他说——他也是我们产品社区的成员——“Phyl,我这辈子从来没有人这样做过。如果有人这样做,我会惊呆的,当场就会录用他。“这就是我希望大家明白的信息。
Lenny,我们经常谈到银牌。在求职中,银牌是很痛苦的。在奥运会上,银牌还不错,你能站上领奖台。但在求职中,银牌几乎比没有还难受,因为你差一点就成功了。我们有很多视频和其他资料讨论过,在很多情况下,拿到金牌和银牌的区别就在于是否做了工作使命与 OKRs。公司会说:“这就是你与众不同的地方。“他们会想:“这个人是谁?“他们已经在思考自己的责任和要交付的成果了,而且自然而然地比我考虑得还好,这太棒了,对吧?所以它提高了成功率,而且在展示的时候它还能起到另一个作用——
再说一次,Lenny,你是招聘经理。我给你看了我的工作使命 OKRs,你说:“哦,这太棒了。“但你也会说:“哦,你写的这条 OKR,这不属于这个岗位的职责范围。嗯,了解这个很有帮助,但你没列出来的这个才是。” “哦,真的吗?” Lenny,我想请台下的听众举一下手——你们有多少次接受了 A 工作,结果发现实际是 B 工作?所有人都举手了,Lenny。所以这个方法正好解决了这个问题,对吧?
然后,如果你拿到了录用通知——再说一次,这也提高了拿到 offer 的概率——它还为你接下来谈判奠定了基础,我称之为谈判工具的四条腿。这不是强硬的谈判,而是公司会很喜欢的谈判方式。我举个例子,你拿到了一个 offer,比如 25 万美元底薪加 30% 的奖金,这大概是一个总监或高级经理的级别,或者如果你更资深,也许是 80 万底薪,不管什么数字。我希望你去找招聘经理谈——如果可能的话,不要找招聘专员。这个我们后面再聊。然后我想让你说:“这个 offer 很好。我想谈薪酬,但在那之前,我想先聊一些能帮助我在这个岗位上取得成功的事情。我觉得这里有大约一千万美元的技术债务,你觉得这个估计对吗?我们能否达成一致,这是我入职第一天就要优先解决的事?”
我们有两个 CPO 案例,都在面试私募股权公司旗下的企业,规模差不多,都是 SaaS 公司。一个有两千万技术债务,一个有一千万。我跟他们俩都说:“你必须在谈判中提这件事。“其中一个在谈判时提出了,公司说:“太好了。“第一天就开了一张支票。六个月后,技术债务清除了,系统更新了,他们进入了创新阶段。一年后,他在 CPO 之外又被提拔为 GM。再过一年,他被纳入了 CEO 候选人的考察。另一个人,有一千万技术债务的那个,不好意思开口提,只是隐约提了一下,对方说:“等你来了我们再谈”,但并没有真正承诺,最终也没有解决。一个月、六个月、十二个月、十八个月之后,他开始重新找工作。这就是没有被为成功做好准备的机会成本。
再说一次,不要把这理解为对抗性的。我们不是在对抗。我们是在说——“什么能帮助我成功?“所以最近有一位 CPO 在谈判时……我不只是说技术债务的预算。如果你是资深人员,你觉得团队需要更多培训吗?你需要送他们去 Marty 的研讨会吗,送来我的产品委员会吗?让他们加入 Lenny 的社区。公司说:“你还在谈你的薪资呢,就在谈判一个你还没接手的团队的培训预算——”
你是谁啊?我们太喜欢你了,我们要给你更多。Lenny,公司喜欢这样。即使你是一个初级员工,你不会去谈预算,但你可以谈导师制度、职业发展、能不能参加行业会议或培训?再次强调,这不是强硬的谈判,我们是在说:“这是我认为自己需要的东西,用来完成我们已经达成共识的那些 OKRs。”
**Lenny Rachitsky:**这个建议真的很棒,我想确保大家完全理解了。以技术债务为例,这个人说的是”我需要一千万美元的预算来解决这些技术债务。”
**Phyl Terry:**对。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我明白了。所以不是说”如果我们及时投入,将省下一千万”,而是说”这个团队需要这么多,我需要这些才能成功。”
**Phyl Terry:**我需要入职第一天就拿到一张一千万美元的支票。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**确实,很多人会不好意思开这个口。不过刚才那个其实是要两千万,那个开口要了的。
**Phyl Terry:**对,是两千万那个,没错。再次强调,这不是……是的,人们确实对此很害羞,但公司很喜欢他们清楚知道成功需要什么条件。我这么说吧,如果公司不喜欢这样,这是一个巨大的红旗。巨大的红旗,说明他们不是认真的。但如果你跟他们谈——“嘿,我觉得我们需要对团队进行培训,我需要再招三个 IC,“或者设计职能比较薄弱,或者别的什么。然后你说:“你同意吗?你也这么看吗?“他们说:“对,没错,很好,哇。“你已经砰砰砰地把一切都谈好了,我们甚至还没谈完你的薪资呢。Lenny,这非常反直觉,我就是反直觉建议女王。Kelly Marcus 说过这很反直觉,对吧?但这个也是。人们以为这样做会丢掉机会,实际上恰恰相反,它帮你赢得机会。当然,如果你走进去说”该死的,你必须做 X 和 Y”,那不是我说的。
Phyl Terry:“嘿,我是这么看的。这是 OKRs。我觉得我们会需要这些。你觉得合理吗?“你是在进行一场协作式的对话,讨论你需要什么样的条件才能被成功配置。
顺便说一句,如果他们说:“不,我听到了。我相信你,但不行,“那你就做一个判断决定。我不是说一定要放弃这个机会。尤其是如果你需要一份工作的话,但你现在至少是睁着眼睛进去的。你心里清楚,那些技术债务短期内你是没法解决的,你必须在那个约束条件下工作。
谈判中的资源请求如何提升薪酬
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我很高兴我们聊到了谈判建议,因为我一直希望能谈到这个。所以这里的建议是,找出你成功所需要的东西,而你的发现是,当你提出要求——尤其是涉及资金投入的要求,作为你入职的一部分——最终反而会为你争取到更好的薪酬。
**Phyl Terry:**是的,而且我要说,由于我们目前所处的市场环境,现在的谈判空间比两年前要小。数据都支持这一点,我们也看到了。但这里还有另一组数据。我希望你提出的要求能与招聘经理已经和你达成一致的工作使命与 OKRs 相关联。这就是所有事情串联在一起的方式,对吧?就像搭乐高一样,然后我们才谈到钱,而你之前已经有了这场美好的对话。你向他们展示了你多么投入于取得成功。你看,Lenny,每个招聘经理面临的问题就是区分一个人到底是会说漂亮话,还是真能把事情做成。你知道这一点的,对吧?从个人贡献者到 CEO,每个层级都是如此。
通过做那份工作使命与 OKRs,通过向他们展示那个草稿,你是在用行动证明,而不是嘴上说说的。你在展示你的主动性,你的责任心,你能把事情做成。然后在薪资谈判中,通过跟他们谈你需要什么才能成功,你在展示你真的想要成功。猜猜这对谁有利?显然对公司有利。我希望你先做这一步,然后,好,接下来我们谈钱。现在,Lenny,87% 的情况下,当你开口要更多钱的时候,你会得到。这是一个纵向统计数据,意思是覆盖了很多年份。在眼下这种时刻,这个比例会低一些,但你仍然可以开口,而人们不敢开口。再次强调,不要用那种鲨鱼式的方式去要,就像我一些做商业的朋友可能会做的那样。一些做并购谈判的人,不管什么方式。不,你应该问:你愿意考虑吗?
除非它是决定性因素。如果是决定性因素,那就直接坦诚说出来。但如果不是,假设他们给了你某个数字——比如 40 万底薪,加上最高 100% 的 RSU 或期权之类的——而你心里想要的是 45 万。Lenny,你可以说:“嘿,你愿意考虑 45 万吗?那确实是我期望的,也是我认为自己应得的价值。你愿意考虑吗?这个我们可以谈谈吗?”
大多数时候他们会说好。他们可能不会给你到 45 万。他们可能会说:“你知道吗?好的,谢谢你,让我回头确认一下。“或者:“我们给不了 45 万,但可以到 42 万,这可以吗?好。”
**Lenny Rachitsky:**你说得好像很简单似的。
**Phyl Terry:**关键在于——
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我讨厌谈判。嗯,你继续说。
**Phyl Terry:**我也是。我在书里谈到了这一点,还有你认识的 Jason Fried。Jason Fried 有一个很好的做法,他们在 37signals——嗯,Basecamp——有非常明确的禁令。他说:“因为没有人受过谈判训练,我们怎么能指望人们去谈判呢?“还有 Marty 关于我的书说的一点,他说他喜欢的是,公司拥有所有这些资源——他们有律师、有人力资源的人——而你是一个人。
这就是为什么你需要你的求职委员会。这时候你真的需要寻求帮助,因为你骨子里的每一个细胞都在说:“我不去谈判,那只会让事情变得更糟。“但几乎从来不会更糟。再次强调,你可以当个混蛋,那肯定不行,但那不是我说的。我说的是协作式的对话。我说的是你成功所需的东西,向他们展示你在思考资源、支持、预算——这些能帮你兑现你承诺交付的目标。然后如果他们没有达到你的期望区间,再问一句:你愿意考虑吗?
**Lenny Rachitsky:**嗯,你这个措辞方式,让开口变得风险很低。
**Phyl Terry:**对。
谈判的最佳沟通方式
**Lenny Rachitsky:**对于通过邮件、电话还是当面进行谈判,你有没有具体的建议?有没有哪种方式你觉得”一定要这样做”?
**Phyl Terry:**我强烈建议你当面或通过电话直接跟招聘经理谈。现在,有些公司不允许你这样做,你必须跟人力资源的人谈或者怎样。但尽可能跟招聘经理沟通,哪怕只是说:“嘿,在跟招聘经理谈钱之前,我想先跟你过一下我觉得在这个岗位上成功需要的一些条件。“或者别的什么。我说的是招聘经理,不,是跟招聘经理说——我的意思是跟招聘官,如果你那样做了,他们会在幕后替你争取。不保证,但可能性更大。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**对,确实是这样,因为作为招聘经理,你往往并没有一个特别固定的预算。
**Phyl Terry:**没错。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**所以对你来说就是:“行啊,45 万,我们来搞定它。”
**Phyl Terry:**对。现在有些公司知道这一点,他们会说:“你必须跟我们指定的内部招聘官谈,“但你也可以回头去找那个招聘经理,哪怕是非正式地。再次强调,如果你建立了一段良好的关系——Lenny,一切都是关于建立良好关系。我希望你成为一个好的面试者。我希望你提出好问题。我希望你倾听。我希望你展示那份工作使命 OKRs。它展示了你的创新精神,你的主动性,你对这件事的思考深度,以及你对这个机会的渴望,对吧?每一个环节都是如此。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**在我们聊到谈判和薪酬这个话题的时候,你还有什么想分享的,可能对大家有帮助的?
感恩之屋练习
**Phyl Terry:**在书中,在你进行聆聆之旅(listening tour)之前,我会让人们做我所说的”感恩之屋”练习,也就是想一想,你生命中所有帮助过你、让你走到今天的人都是谁?我是说,你可以谈谈你三年级的老师,你懂我的意思吗?我只是随便说着,我只是想让你去做这个练习。我之所以让你这么做,是因为每个人都有一种错觉,觉得自己是孤独的。我们每个人都曾获得过巨大的帮助才走到今天这一步,无论你是谁。哪怕是 [听不清] 也一样是母亲生下来的,在生命的最初几年里,没有谁是靠自己一个人活过来的。我们都由母亲所生,都生于家庭和社区,有些好一些,有些差一些。我的童年相当艰难,但其中有爱。
我希望你做那个感恩之屋练习,然后它有时会让你想起一些人,你会在聆聆之旅(listening tour)中去拜访他们。你可能不会去找你三年级的老师,但你会去找其中一些人。现在,当你去面试的时候,我会让人们花一点时间,重新回想一下感恩之屋练习,提醒自己那些一路陪伴你的人,想象他们站在你的肩膀上。所有那些人,当然包括你的求职委员会,以及所有你交谈过、倾听过的人——你带着 50 个人走进去,Lenny,好吗?即便是那些告诉我说”我谁都不认识”的人也是如此。那不是事实。你可能认识的人没我多,好吧?这可以理解,我的工作就是认识人,但每个人都认识一些人,哪怕只是比喻意义上,你也把他们带在身边,这样你走进面试的时候就不会感到孤独。
面试后的复盘
面试和谈判中我还要说的是,面试结束后你必须立刻去做复盘,Lenny。因为我们对自己的表现总有各种荒唐的想法。我们觉得自己表现得很糟糕,实际上做得很好;我们觉得……我们需要跟另一个人谈谈,让别人帮我们梳理到底发生了什么,以及我们真实的状态。我有一位女性客户,她是产品总监,正在面试产品副总裁的职位。面试结束后她给我发短信说:“哦,我搞砸了,“这个那个,这个那个,“但他们挺喜欢我的,我们会进入下一轮。”
我就说:“等一下,等一下。这里有哪个说法是不对的。”
这只是你自己的冒名顶替综合征(imposter syndrome)和内在批评者在作祟。顺便说一下,我们还会让人们做另一个练习,就是我所说的”内在批评者”练习——给你的批评者起个名字。我那个叫 Tub Tour。我小时候超重,我爸叫我 Tub Tour。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我是从 Julie Cameron 的《The Artist’s Way》那里学到这个方法的,她也推荐这样做。
**Phyl Terry:**是的,她很棒。我很喜欢那本书。顺便说一下,就在我身后那个书架上。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我也很喜欢。我记得我给我的内在批评者起名叫 Jim。对,我们做过一期非常好的节目,不知道你看了没有,是跟 Joe Hudson 做的,他有一整套关于内在批评者的建议。他的观点——我可以推荐给大家——就是你的内在批评者总是在对你撒谎。
情绪与疗愈
**Phyl Terry:**我确实看了那期节目,非常棒。我们每个人都有内在批评者,人们会觉得”哦……”每个人都有。这也是我喜欢我们当下这个时代的原因之一,Lenny。我在 20 世纪 80 年代开始接受心理治疗。在那个年代,你不会告诉别人你在做心理治疗,好吗?而今天,网球明星们在公开谈论自己的情绪健康、心理治疗和状态。这些正在以一些非常重要的方式被正常化——情绪并不是坏东西,它们实际上是决策系统中非常重要的组成部分,但它们有时候会以某些方式失控,真正伤害到我们。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**感觉这些委员会对人们来说就像是一种轻量版的心理治疗。
**Phyl Terry:**是的。我不会想用”治疗”这个词,因为那当然意味着专业资质和训练,但它确实有一种疗愈的层面。这样说我觉得是合适的,是的。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**好的。那回到感恩之屋,简单再说一下。这个练习之所以有力量,是因为它给了你自信去提出要求、去相信自己——你是有价值的——
**Phyl Terry:**它给了你自信,让你以真实的自己走进去,Lenny。不是以你内在批评者的身份,而是以那个完整、优秀的你。当你展现出真实的自己——这也是求职委员会如此重要的原因之一——因为如果你的焦虑和恐惧开始蔓延、侵蚀你的信心,它会毁掉你的面试,你不会表现得很好。你甚至无法——即便在下行市场中,你也拿不到那些你的候选人-市场匹配度所适合的岗位,你会再往下滑几个档次,或者根本拿不到 offer,然后你就会陷入瘫痪,觉得自己真的毫无价值。
如果正在看这段话的人中有人已经失业一段时间并感受到了这种感受,让我告诉你——你不是毫无价值的。你不是毫无价值的。我希望你投资自己,用行动向自己证明你并非毫无价值。你值得投入这些时间和精力。我不是要求你为我做这件事,我是要求你为你自己做。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**你说那句话的时候自己都起了鸡皮疙瘩。那段话真的很有力量,很高兴你说了这些。
**Phyl Terry:**谢谢你,Lenny。
去赢,而不是不输
**Lenny Rachitsky:**所以,我们现在聊到了”去赢”这个话题。你刚才说的也是同样的道理——记住,你是去赢的,你不是在试图不输,你不是在试图——
**Phyl Terry:**不是不输,就是真正地——我就是不敢说什么,我就是不敢打破现状。我不是要你去打破现状,我是要你掌控局面,展现你自己的力量。这些公司会喜欢的。
学会寻求帮助
**Lenny Rachitsky:**当我问很多人你最擅长什么的时候,一个共同的主题就是——非常善于寻求帮助,以及教会别人如何寻求帮助。这其实也是我最近一期 newsletter 的话题,由我的一位 newsletter fellow Natalie 撰写的。我们来聊聊这个吧。谈谈为什么这件事如此重要,为什么你在这个话题上花了这么多心思和时间。
**Phyl Terry:**首先,我想再次致敬我妈妈。我妈妈的名字,她的昵称叫 Chic,C-H-I-C。我把这本书献给了 Chic,献给她的朋友和家人。她在 1960 年创办了第一个委员会,她寻求了帮助。当然,她教会了我寻求帮助,教会了我创办委员会。当然,我很小的时候并不想听妈妈的话,对吧?谁都不想。但后来我陷入了困境,她就说:“你必须去寻求帮助。“于是我向我的高中老师们寻求了帮助。Lenny,我 12 岁的时候就酗酒了,事情真的在急转直下。我不再和我妈妈住在一起了,这里面有一段很长的故事。我处在一个非常缺乏支持的环境中,她就说:“你必须去寻求帮助。“于是我照做了。
天哪,Lenny。那些老师扛着我走过来的。我还要特别感谢——我现在要哭了——我在高中的女朋友 Karen Kavanagh,她的家庭资源非常有限,他们自己也在挣扎,但他们给了我一个家。如果没有他们,以及我的其他一些朋友和老师,我不可能走到今天。我 16 岁的时候全职工作,同时上高中,处境非常艰难。这改变了我的人生,Lenny。它彻底改变了我的人生。我当时觉得寻求帮助是一种软弱吗?是的。我觉得人们会因此看低我吗?绝对如此。人们会有的那些顾虑,我全都有。但事实并非如此。
如何正确地寻求帮助
不过,这里有一个提醒。如果你以错误的方式寻求帮助——我接下来会定义什么是”错误”——确实会带来不好的后果。什么是错误地寻求帮助?我的意思是,如果你没有做功课,如果你是让别人替你做而不是寻求建议、支持和视角,我们都懂那种情况。我就收到过这种邮件,Lenny。当我创办产品委员会的时候,Marissa Mayer 是创始成员,对吧?谷歌的 Marissa Mayer,还有亚马逊的 Miriam Moheed。随着 Marissa 的声望越来越高,突然所有人都想跟她聊聊。
于是我收到了各种素不相识的人发来的邮件。“哦,我有一款软件,你能帮我引荐给 Marissa 吗?我觉得谷歌会想授权或者购买它。”
我心想,“你是谁?什么情况?这也太蠢了。“我当然不会回复那种邮件,对吧?
如果他们换一种方式来找我,说:“我知道你不认识我。我有一家小型软件公司。我人脉不广,但我很想听听你的建议——你觉得我该怎么发展这家公司,如果你处在我的位置会怎么做?“——Lenny,我从来没收到过这样的邮件,即使我写过也说过该怎么做,但我一定会接那个电话。
然后如果他们再说,“那我能跟 Marissa 聊聊吗?”
我会说,“你还没到那一步。这不是对你价值的否定,只是你还没准备好进行那次对话。”
所以你确实可能做得很差。但如果你做得好——如果你做了功课,而且你是开放的——天哪,这里有四条反直觉的规则。第一,寻求帮助不是软弱的表现,而是自信的表现。它既需要自信,同时也在增强自信,Lenny。这是第一条。第二条,它不是一种索取行为,而是一种给予行为。如果你做得好,你实际上是在给予你求助的那些人。这真的很反直觉,Lenny。这就是我在产品委员会里教的内容。我会说,“你必须开口要钱。“如果你寻求帮助时是开放的、坦诚的,你是个聪明人。
有一次,Marissa 过来说,“听着,我在开发一款新产品。我想向董事会展示,但我想先听听你们的反馈。你们觉得怎么样?我这个方向对吗?”
大家都惊了,“什么?“那时候谷歌已经是一家上市公司了。哇,他们简直被震撼了。他们非常乐意帮忙。
所以,如果你做了功课,而且你找的人在你所在的领域有专业知识,你用这种方式去问——“我很想听听你的视角和想法,你会怎么处理这件事?“——对方会感到被给予了,他们觉得自己被给予了。这里有一个思想实验可以证明这一点。想象一个你尊敬的人来向你求助,而且正好是你擅长的领域。他们用这种方式向你提问,你会感觉怎样,Lenny?你会怎么想?
**Lenny Rachitsky:**觉得他们重视我。觉得他们看重我的意见——
**Phyl Terry:**你会感到荣幸,感到兴奋,而且你乐于给予。每个人都乐于给予,这是人类天性的一部分。当然,你在给予的时候也会学到更多,因为它帮助你看到新的东西。寻求帮助不是软弱的表现,不是索取行为,它意味着你在变得更加自主而非孤立,它不会损害你的声誉,反而会提升声誉。这一点在我妈妈试图让我做这件事的时候,我完全不理解,Lenny。是亲身经历才把它深深印在我脑子里的。
然后我想告诉你,我不会说名字,但你之前采访过的一个人——他是一位知名的产品人,在很棒的公司工作过,对吧?他说让他谈谈寻求帮助这个话题。我想他会同意这个说法。他加入产品委员会已经很长时间了,我觉得他花了好几年才真正拥抱这件事。我见过很多人,他们会说,“Phyl,我知道你一直在说寻求帮助这件事。“我知道其中有些道理,但它确实是变革性的,Lenny。如果你学会正确地寻求帮助,它真的会改变你的人生。
寻求帮助改变命运的案例
我可以告诉你 Intuit 的 Brad Smith 的故事,他把那边的股价推上了新高度。但他最初只是一个 GM。后来成了 CEO。当时他是 GM,负责一个项目,但做得不好,给公司亏了三亿美元。他心想,完了,一切都结束了。但公司的人来找他说,“你从这件事中学到了什么?”
他说,“我没有寻求帮助。我太固执了。我没有听取团队的意见。“这是一个很好的教训,如果你真正内化了它,那就是值得的,因为你在其他方面很优秀。他最终走到了 CEO 的位置。然后他做了什么?他加入了一个委员会,对吧?他开始寻求帮助。砰砰砰,在他任期内股价涨了七倍。
还有美国运通的 Kenneth Chenault。他在 1980 年代加入,是那里少数几个担任专业职位的非裔美国人之一。最终成为了 CEO 和董事会主席。他是第一位担任财富 50 强公司董事会主席的非裔美国人。如果你去问 Kenneth Chenault——我确实问过——你是怎么做到的?他会说,他寻求了帮助。而且,他当了 CEO 之后做了什么?他加入了一个 CEO 委员会。
顺便说一句,谁寻求过帮助?这个可能会让你大吃一惊。Warren Buffett。人们以为 Warren Buffett 只听自己的,以及去年去世的 Charlie Munger 的。那个人可是寻求了帮助的。别以为他不向任何人求助——他会向他尊敬的人寻求帮助,那个人确实寻求了帮助。我合作过的每一位成功的领导者,都寻求过帮助。我在书中有数据:85% 做到高管职位的人把寻求帮助归功于帮助他们走到那一步的关键因素。而 85% 处于初级职位的人说他们害怕寻求帮助,因为他们认为那是软弱的表现。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**完美。
**Phyl Terry:**如果你能相信的话,这两个数字完全一样。我自己看到数据的时候都不敢相信,我心想,“什么?“但这是真的。而且你猜怎么着?如果你是一个初级职员,不学会寻求帮助,你大概率会一直停留在初级职位。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**当你说寻求帮助的时候,具体有哪些例子、常见的时机和用法?因为可能是”嘿,你能帮我看一下这封邮件吗?“也可能是”我这个项目遇到了困难。“你见过人们在说”寻求帮助”的时候,具体都做些什么?
**Phyl Terry:**Kinshaw 提到的其中一件事是他所谓的”定义现实”。所以作为美国运通的 CEO,他经常在公司内外走动,问不同的人:“你怎么看目前的状况?你观察到了什么?你在想什么?帮我理解你的视角。“所以这确实是一种寻求帮助的形式。
让我帮你审阅邮件当然也是一种很好的寻求帮助的方式。如果你要发一封重要的邮件,而且假设你有发送不太恰当的邮件的历史,你就去寻求帮助。顺便说一句,我有一整套工作坊,教你如何结合 ChatGPT 和一些沟通模型来帮助你写邮件。所以有办法用 ChatGPT 来做这件事。但如果是一封真正重要的邮件,我还是希望有人的眼睛帮忙看一下,对吧?
**Phyl Terry:**大约五年前有一位女性成为了一家美国数字零售商的总裁,然后她发现自己面临着严重的技术债务。他们当时在尝试搭建一个新平台,但项目卡住了。于是我们组织了一次我们所谓的同侪教练电话(peer coaching call),我在书里也谈到过这个。我们找了另外三位已经完成平台迁移的在线零售商总裁,让她花一个小时,就一个小时,向他们寻求帮助。“如果你处在我的位置,你会怎么做?“效果立竿见影。
顺便说一下,当人们获得新工作时,我会告诉他们,做一个前90天同侪教练电话。我希望你和目前正在担任那个角色的人聊聊。不一定是同公司的,但他们是一个产品总监,或者产品副总裁,诸如此类。你要说:“嘿,我马上要开始这份工作了。这是我的工作使命与 OKRs。如果你是我,你会怎么做?你见过别人或自己犯过什么我应该避免的错误?我应该聚焦什么?这是我目前对30、60、90天的想法。“不管具体内容是什么,我希望你做一个前90天电话。
现在,假设你是一个产品总监,工作进展顺利,你想晋升到产品副总裁的角色。那我希望你做一个职业进化电话(career evolution call),和产品副总裁们聊。“好的,我是总监,我想成为副总裁。我怎么从 A 到 B?你能告诉我吗?“这是另一种同侪教练电话。这些是我们在付费社区、产品委员会等地方做的事情。但你自己也可以做,对吧?我在求职委员会里会教人们如何自己来做这些。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**太好了。
**Phyl Terry:**这些回答有帮助吗?
**Lenny Rachitsky:**当然。我觉得你分享的所有这些例子正是大家在好奇的。就是那种,好的,我明白了。
**Phyl Terry:**对。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**感觉这不是——
**Phyl Terry:**我能再分享一个吗?
**Lenny Rachitsky:**请说。
新人入职时如何寻求帮助
**Phyl Terry:**太好了。Bradley Horowitz 在2008年作为产品总监加入了 Google。他之前来自 Yahoo,但一开始感到有些怯。他每周要和 Jonathan Rosenberg(产品高级副总裁)、Susan Wojcicki 一起开会。Susan 不久前不幸去世了。顺便说一下,她是一个极其出色的人,如果你不了解她,值得去了解一下。还有 Marissa Mayer,以及另一位产品总监 Sundar Pichai,对吧?就是现在 Google 的 CEO。Bradley 很紧张,他不知道该怎么参加那个会议。
我告诉人们的一件事是,当你寻求帮助时,要运用你的情商,运用你的产品委员会(如果你在职的话)或求职委员会(如果你在找工作),来获取反馈——我的想法是否合理?因为我不希望你找错了人去求助,找那些可能会利用这一点的人。你必须对此深思熟虑。
他从 Sundar 身上感受到了一种信号,觉得他非常平易近人、没有城府。Bradley 告诉我,Sundar 让他很自然地说出了:“嘿,这些会议结束后,我能问你几个问题吗?“他的第一个问题是:“这个会议,是只有我觉得紧张,还是这个会议确实很紧张?“Sundar 回答说:“哦,不不不,这确实很紧张。我和你有同样的感受,而我已经在这里待了好几年了。“于是他们开始建立起联系,这也是一种寻求帮助的形式。就像你在确认,你的体验和我的是一样的,还是我遗漏了什么?
Horowitz 此时感到松了一口气,对 Sundar 有了更多信任,决定再问他一个问题。而且顺便说一下,现在 Bradley 对自己问了那个问题有点不好意思,虽然我真的很高兴他问了,我也这么告诉过他。他问了这个问题,基本上是说:“我在这里待的时间不长,但 Sundar,你给我的感觉是——“你是一个非常有思想的人和出色的领导者。为什么你的职责只是给 Marissa 做一个工具栏?“哇。如果听错了,这可能会听起来像是一种冒犯,而不是试图理解 Google 文化和运作方式的真诚尝试。但同样,此时他已经和 Sundar 建立了信任。这是一个坦诚的、暴露脆弱的问题,非常好。
Sundar 基本上是这么说的:“听着,我不担心头衔或职责范围那些东西。我一直专注于做好工作,让正确的事情自然发生。这就是 Google 的文化。“我可以告诉你,这在当时的 Google 文化中确实更接近真实,而现在的 Google 则不太一样了——你在今天的 Google 需要更有政治敏感度。但重点不在于他问了什么具体问题,而在于他是坦诚的、暴露了脆弱的。他在选择向谁提问时很深思熟虑,这确实对他融入 Google 起到了重要作用,最终引导他走到了产品副总裁的位置。当然,Sundar 后来成为了 Google 的 CEO,但这就是我所说的,对吧?Bradley 也参与了产品委员会。你需要有这样一个参谋板,这样才能深思熟虑地——我教人们如何绘制关系图,识别谁是你的盟友、谁是你的阻碍者,以及如何运用我所说的”正面政治”。这些都在我的下一本书 Never Lead Alone 里,顺便透露一下。别担心,至少还有一年才会出版。当我写书的时候,我会——Never Search Alone 我改了400稿。我有几千人帮忙,200人阅读和使用,我收到了2500条评论,400稿。我喜欢把这个东西真正打磨透。我对 Never Lead Alone 也是同样的做法。顺便说一句,这就是我知道它有效的原因。我是一个骄傲的人,Lenny。这就是我们做的事。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**太厉害了。让我再问最后一个关于寻求帮助的艺术的问题。我们稍微谈到了什么时候寻求帮助。关于怎么做好这件事,你有什么建议吗?你知道的,人们来找我说:“嘿,你能看看这封邮件吗?“我会说:“不行,我挺忙的,我不确定有没有时间看一封邮件。“
如何更好地请求帮助
**Phyl Terry:**你必须考虑关系,对吧?回到前面说的,那个随机的小软件公司想找 Marissa Mayer 聊天。我不认识他们,他们不认识我,他们也不认识 Marissa。这是不可能的,对吧?Lenny,如果你的妈妈、你的好朋友、或者和你密切合作的同事说:“我想让你看看这封邮件,“你的回应方式会是一种。如果是你的播客社区里的某个人——你的社区很棒——想让你这么做,你有几千人在那里,你做不到的。人们在我的求职社区里找我咨询求职建议,我会说:“我做不到这个。我无法规模化。这就是求职委员会和 Slack 社区存在的意义。感谢你来问,但那才是正确的方式。”
**Phyl Terry:**你必须考虑关系。倾听你的情绪。这一点上,情绪对决策真的很重要。如果你的情绪告诉你,“我不确定我信不信得过这个人,“那就不要对他们敞开心扉、展示脆弱。我希望你学会在委员会的形式下寻求帮助,那是一个真正安全的环境。你可以手忙脚乱,可以用乱七八糟的方式提问。有些求助的方式是这样的……你有没有经历过这种情况,Lenny?就是我想让你帮我一个忙,但实际表现出来的好像我在帮你一个忙。Lenny,我认识一个人,我觉得你跟他聊聊会特别好——但其实我是想让你给我……而其实我应该说,“Lenny,我想请你帮个忙。你愿意吗?“你说行或不行就行。另一件事是,我真的希望你对别人诚实地说明你请求的是什么。我永远不希望你把请求藏起来。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**这建议太好了。很多时候其实就是,好吧,如果这就是你请我帮的一个忙,当然没问题。
**Phyl Terry:**对。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**确实。
**Phyl Terry:**我的意思是,如果有人跟我说,“我想请你帮个忙。你愿意吗?""好啊。“大多数时候我都会答应的,你知道吗?
**Lenny Rachitsky:**对。
**Phyl Terry:**Lenny,你会收到冷介绍吗?
**Lenny Rachitsky:**就是别人没问我一声就把人介绍给我。是的。不是很常见,但确实有。
**Phyl Terry:**而且几乎从来都不是你想聊的人。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**对,没错。
**Phyl Terry:**不会是那种,“嘿,让我给你介绍 Sergey Brin,“你懂的?
**Lenny Rachitsky:**对。
**Phyl Terry:**不是的。他们是在试图帮某个人,而你在帮他们的忙,但他们并不诚实。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**对。好的,这建议太棒了。Phyl,我们可以聊好几个小时聊很多话题。你参与的事情太多了,我都想听,但也许在结束聊天之前最后一个问题。一个宽泛的问题——关于求职、寻求帮助或者其他任何方面,还有什么你觉得有价值让大家知道的,或者作为最后的寄语?然后我再请你分享一下你做的那些事情,也许有人能从这些其他项目中受益。
每个人在求职中都感到焦虑
**Phyl Terry:**我的书出版时,我们在纽约办了一场新书派对。主持人是一位非常资深的产品人,他站起来说,“我从这本书中学到的最重要的东西,“他本人也在运营一个求职委员会,“是——我前面说过,但我想再回来强调一下——每个人在求职时都感到焦虑和不安。“Lenny,每个人都是。这是资本主义运作方式的内在机制。这不是你脑子里出了什么问题。是系统的不稳定性赋予了它活力,但也同时制造了不安全感和恐惧的趋势。每个人都感受到这些,Lenny。你不是一个人。但仅仅是我这样说还不够。我在书里说,这本书就像一本食谱。光读是得不到营养的。你必须亲自去做那些菜。要真正体验我所说的,你需要一个求职委员会,你需要亲身感受到,“天哪,真的是这样,我不是一个人。连 Lenny 也是。Lenny 也有这种感觉。天啊,我很尊敬 Lenny。看看 Lenny 创造和做成的所有事情,他居然也有这种感觉。也许我没疯。“还有很多其他的,但这是最核心的一点。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**这一点作为结尾真的太重要了。正好在你刚才说我的时候,我自己创造的这个奇怪的人生——我最初给这个项目取名叫”避免找一份真正的工作”(Avoid Getting a Real Job),因为我就是担心这个。我逼自己尝试一些不一样的东西。
**Phyl Terry:**太棒了。太棒了。这太好了。谢谢你,因为你创造的东西对很多人来说真的很有意义,Lenny。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**谢谢你,Phyl。你也是。我真的很感谢你抽出时间分享了这么多建议。我觉得这会是我做过的最受欢迎的节目之一。我觉得它会帮助很多人。但我们还没结束。跟我们说说你其他的那些事情。你提到了产品委员会,你还做教练辅导,让大家知道还有什么可以帮到他们的。
产品委员会与学习社区
**Phyl Terry:**21 年前我创办了这些产品委员会。顺便说一下,我和 Marty Cagan 很熟,我们认识可以追溯到九十年代末、两千年初……他在 eBay 时其实是我的客户。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**哇。
**Phyl Terry:**我跟你说是怎么回事。我们正要签一个项目,他决定了,他给我打电话。真的是那天我们就要签合同了。他给我打电话说,“Phyl,我有坏消息。“我就说,“你什么意思?”
**Lenny Rachitsky:**现在?
Phyl Terry:“我要走了。”
**Lenny Rachitsky:**不会吧。
Phyl Terry:“我要走了,我要开始做点东西。“然后他创办了 Silicon Valley Product Group。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**哦,哇。
**Phyl Terry:**但我为什么提这个?因为那大概就是我创办委员会的时候,我和 Marissa 一起开始的。基本上,我走出去做了一次聆听之旅,Lenny,我说,“听着,我觉得对于我们这些在这次萧条之后还留在数字世界的人来说,我们需要一个聚在一起的地方,不是那种有赞助商、所有人都在互相推销的会议。我们需要一个私密的、安全的、有保障的环境来真正交流。这能引起你的共鸣吗?你想要这个吗?“他们的回答是”想”,于是我就开始了这个事情,Marty 从第一天起就参与了。这些年他大概给我推荐了我们成员的 30%。我们有过几千名成员,他就是不断把人送过来,这太棒了。
所以我们有面向 VP 和 CPO 的产品委员会。我们还有一个面向 IC 和新管理者的副理委员会项目(associate council program),是几年前开始的。主要面向女性、有色人种和 LGBTQ 群体,但不限于这些。所以你也可以是一个直的白人男性,不管什么身份,只要你是一名产品经理就行。我们最看重的是你是否愿意寻求帮助,是否真心承诺彼此支持、成为这个社区和活动的一部分。这就是我多年来一直在做的事情。我有一个很棒的团队,还有很出色的……Teresa Torres 曾经是我们私人委员会的主持人之一,顺便说一下,她也是好朋友,也上过你的播客。Gino,显然也是你的好朋友。她特别让我强调寻求帮助这个主题,分享了我讲过的那些故事。她在我生命中一直是非常重要的一部分,我怎么夸她都不为过。
我们还有 CEO 小组,还有其他一些项目。这是我的本职工作。就是靠这个养家糊口的,我已经做了二十多年了。但除此之外,我还有一系列其他的学习社区。我是那种——我读书。如果你问我,“如果你只能有一个头衔,你会选什么?“读者。我读书,Lenny。书籍是思考的机器。书籍是思考的机器。我正在推动一个运动,让更多人读更多的书,因为……产品负责人需要多读书。我的 Lenny 页面上有一整套书单推荐,是给产品负责人的,我们可以聊聊其中几本。但我也运营一个叫 Reading Odyssey 的项目,这是哈佛、剑桥等机构的学者与读者之间的合作,面向终身学习和好奇心。
Phyl Terry: 我还为高中生运营世界商业阅读小组。这是一个高中生商业素养项目。不是金融素养,是商业素养项目,基于 Warren Buffett 和 Charlie Munger 的哲学。由非常资深的高管授课,比如风投公司的合伙人、对冲基金的合伙人。我本人也是投资人。我们有一支非常棒的教师队伍。全部是志愿的,大家都是无偿付出。我们对中产家庭收取少量费用,对负担不起的人完全免费。这是一个暑期项目,发展势头非常猛。还有什么?
哦,慢艺术日(Slow Art Day)。我教大家的一件事就是你需要发展导师。大多数人没有导师,Lenny。我这个由资深产品负责人组成的社区里,95% 的人没有导师。导师计划就像打字机一样——我们的父母或祖父母有,但我们没有。公司不提供这些。今天听这个播客的每个人,有一种方法可以找到导师——你可以找到一个我所说的”已故或远方的导师”。Warren Buffett 是我的导师,他只是不知道这件事,这很好。我不必听他说的每一句话,他也不必接我的电话。Steve Jobs 是我的导师。说到导师,我不是说那种”嘿,我是粉丝”,或者”我喜欢那些产品”,或者”我读了传记”。我的意思是真正去研究。
如果你真的去研究 Jobs,你得回到 1997 年。他是临时 CEO。他在 ‘84、‘85 年被苹果开除。实际上是在 Mac 推出之后。他在荒野中游荡了十年。他创建了一家叫 NeXT 的公司,并不怎么成功。然后到了 ‘95、‘96 年,苹果从 NeXT 买了操作系统,公司状况非常糟糕,让 Steve 做临时 CEO。临时的。他们不给他正式头衔。他们的态度大概是,“啊,这个业务太烂了。反正你也会搞砸。随便吧,你就当临时的。“他做了一系列事情,但在 1997 年他做了一次演讲。他穿着破洞牛仔裤。开发者大会上有 300 人,所有人都在生气。他站起来说,“你必须从客户出发,而不是从技术出发。“这就是他当时的做法。人们总在谈论以客户为中心。如果你真的深入研究 Jobs,这就是他所做的。
这意味着什么?我可以告诉你,Lenny,有很多产品人口头上说客户,但并没有真正聚焦。如果你真的研究那个时刻,研究 Jobs 做了什么,它可以指导你的决策和行动。Jobs 还谈到过艺术的力量,说每个人都需要去艺术博物馆,你需要被启发,这会帮助你在打造伟大产品时思考设计。所以我创办了一个项目,叫 Slow Art Day,现在已经在全球 1,500 家博物馆举办过。它教人们如何慢下来去观看。特别是针对 Lenny 播客的听众,我现在把教师材料、领导者材料和参与者材料全部免费开放,这样所有正在管理产品团队的播客听众都可以去当地博物馆做一次团建活动,培养更强的视觉素养、同理心、彼此之间的联结,以及对艺术的理解,这些都会帮助他们成为更好的产品人。
Lenny Rachitsky: 太棒了。我打算自己也试试。
Phyl Terry: 会让你大开眼界的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你好几次提到了 Marty Cagan 和 Christian,Marty Cagan 曾称 Chris 为世界上最有趣的人。我觉得你才配得上这个头衔。你做了那么多事,做了那么多好事,涉及领域那么广。真的很令人钦佩。你产生的影响力简直惊人。
Phyl Terry: 谢谢你。这对我来说真的很重要。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我只是实话实说。我真的很感谢你在播客上和大家分享了这么多智慧。我认为这会帮助到很多人。不过我们还没结束。我们到了非常精彩的快问快答环节。Phyl,你准备好了吗?
Phyl Terry: 我准备好迎接快问快答了。
Lenny Rachitsky: 开始吧。你之前谈到了书,我猜你对这个问题一定有答案。
Phyl Terry: 没错。
推荐书目
Lenny Rachitsky: 你最常向别人推荐的两三本书是什么?
Phyl Terry: 当然,我推荐过几百本,但现在我推荐的是《创造性破坏》。我会给听众正确的链接,这本书由一群法国经济学家合著。有点学术性,但非常重要。产品人理解这一点太重要了。这真的太重要了。因为创造性破坏,创造的工作岗位更多。不存在净就业损失。工作岗位是净增的。AI 会创造更多工作,而不是摧毁。几乎所有人都搞错了这一点——除了那些理解创造性破坏的人。但你必须贴近前沿。就业创造就发生在那里。产品人,你们得贴近前沿。你得尽一切努力。如果你所在的公司不贴近前沿,就在外面做一些事情……我当年在 Moody’s Investor Service 工作时,在九十年代初搭建了最早的 2,000 个网站之一,Lenny。我在工作之外做了很多事情。那些经历让我更贴近技术前沿,也在改变我的候选人-市场匹配度。所以我推荐这本书。
当然,我也推荐 Marty 的书。我想再说一遍,我不希望你只是读 Marty 的书、听他的播客、听你和他在这里做的那期精彩访谈。我希望你把他的书当作你的导师来读,反复读。反复阅读很重要,Lenny。有些人说,“哦,我用两三倍速听了有声书。“这不会深入影响你的决策。我现在会先读一本书,然后再听一遍来巩固,或者边读边听。对于那些重要的书,Lenny,你必须多读。Marty 的书就是重要的书。
最后一本我推荐的是《The Manual》。这是一本关于斯多葛主义的简短入门。人们误解了斯多葛主义。他们以为斯多葛主义就是压抑自己的情感。这不是斯多葛主义的意思。它的意思是理解并接受你的情感,但不一定总是被情感驱动。把它们整合进来。你的情感是你决策系统的重要组成部分,但不应该主宰你。这是一本非常重要的书。我为这本书带动了很多销量,因为我在自己的书里反复强调它。如果你上亚马逊,会看到和我的书一起被购买最多的就是这本书。我网站上还有其他推荐书目,但这就是我推荐的两三本。
Lenny Rachitsky: 精彩。关于快速听东西这件事,我有时候遇到一些听众,他们会说,“哦,这是你正常速度的声音,因为我所有播客都是加速听的。“第二个问题,你最近有没有特别喜欢的电影或电视剧?
影视推荐
Phyl Terry: Apple TV 上有一部很棒的新剧,没有获得它应得的观众。叫《Las Azures》。Las Azures,就是”蓝调”的意思。讲的是 1971 或 72 年,第一批被招募进墨西哥城警察队伍的女性。这个故事当然触动了我,因为是七十年代,讲的是女性,而我母亲也是那个年代的女性,我和她非常亲近,我……Lenny,我是透过母亲的眼睛看世界的,这深深地塑造了我。这部剧很棒,我很喜欢。
当然,我也一直推荐的那部剧,现在大家都看过了,我希望如此。如果还没看的话,已经出了有一阵子了,就是……名字突然想不起来了。那个美式橄榄球教练去英国当足球教练的剧。
Lenny Rachitsky: 哦,对。
Phyl Terry: 怎么会忘呢?我推荐过那么多次。
Lenny Rachitsky: 就是那个角色的名字吧?Ted Lasso。
Phyl Terry: Ted Lasso,Ted Lasso。谢谢你。里面那种善意特别好。顺便说一句,里面关于寻求帮助的信息也很棒。最后我想说的是《头脑特工队》系列。第二部今年夏天刚上映。它让情绪这个话题变得正常化,帮助我们开始谈论情绪。我非常喜欢。好,闪电问答还有什么?
最喜欢的面试问题
Lenny Rachitsky: 接下来这个问题我本来剪掉了,换成了其他问题,但我想和你再拿出来聊聊。是关于你最喜欢的面试问题。你帮助过很多人面试,帮助他们面试得更好。我很好奇你有没有听过什么你特别喜欢的问题。
Phyl Terry: 如果你是求职者,面试的是高级职位,我希望你问一个问题:“请告诉我,你们公司之前引入一位高级人才,但失败了的经历,以及为什么会失败?“因为公司引入高级人才时经常会失败。所以问他们发生了什么、为什么,然后想想怎么避免那样的结果。希望他们能给出好的回答。我的书里有一整套问题,但我特别喜欢这一个。
还有一个我也很喜欢,如果你在另一边——如果你是招聘方,想做背景调查,我有一个绝妙的问题。真的是绝妙的问题。顺便说一句,这是我在哈佛商学院两年里学到的最好的东西。我是在”经营和增长小企业”这门课上学到的,这基本上就是我在那里学到的最有价值的东西。做法是这样的:如果你要做背景调查,你给对方留一个语音留言,或者发一封邮件,都可以。你要说的是:“我准备录用 Lenny 了。如果你觉得他非常出色、不录用他将是一个巨大的错误,那你给我回电话。否则就不用麻烦了。“这样可以绕开所有法律上的 blah blah blah,直接切入要害。我太喜欢这个问题了。不知道你是不是也觉得这个有共鸣。
Lenny Rachitsky: 是的。所以逻辑是——如果你没有收到他们的回复,说明这个人不一定那么出色?
Phyl Terry: 对。
Lenny Rachitsky: 哇。
Phyl Terry: 是的。你留出了那个空间。顺便说一句,我也喜欢用这个方法做暗访调查。当你开始一份新工作、或者在接受一个 offer 的时候、或者面试过程中,我希望你对你未来的老板做一点暗访。如果可以的话,和曾经与这个老板共事过的人聊聊。利用你的人脉,问他们:“你愿意和这个人共事吗?“甚至可以说:“如果我给你打电话告诉你我在和这个人面试,并且说你只有觉得我应该接受这份工作时才给我回电话,你会回吗?“你就知道了,你可以用这种方式变通使用这个方法。
最近发现的好产品
Lenny Rachitsky: 你有没有最近发现的、特别喜欢的产品?不管是数字应用还是其他什么?
Phyl Terry: 我要给你一个和我通常会给的很不一样的答案,但我希望你和你的社区会欣赏这个。我确实最近才发现了它,但我要说的是一本书,Lenny。25 年前,一个叫 Robert Strassler 的商人,开始在一所为辍学孩子开设的特殊高中教书。他教他们一些经典著作,比如希罗多德(Herodotus)和修昔底德(Thucydides),他是这方面的专家,但学生们看不懂。那些书太糟糕了,因为完全没有上下文背景。于是他花了十年时间,重新发明了历史书的格式。书中有 120 幅地图,每一幅都是他专门绘制的,而且只与前面一两页的内容相关。每个段落旁边都有一个简明的英文摘要,概括该段落刚刚说了什么。他请来了世界上最顶尖的学者,就各自的专业领域写两页的附录——这些东西他们写过几百本书、几百页的论文,但你必须浓缩到两页。
顺便说一句,出版界没有人愿意支持他。他自己出资。他手绘了地图。他花了两年时间做了一个概念索引,不是关键词索引,而是概念索引。这彻底颠覆了整个行业。完全颠覆了。这些书卖出了数十万册。它们是杰作,Lenny。这个系列叫 Landmark。Landmark 系列。他们还在不断出新的。在我看来,每一个做产品的人都应该去看看这个,看看这本书的产品设计。它堪称大师级,而且在可用性和读者体验方面能教会你很多东西。我希望做产品的人,Lenny,尤其是做数字产品的人,走出数字世界,去看看数字世界以外的产品,从中获取灵感和思考,因为我不希望你们都在看同样的东西。那样你们只会做出同样的东西。我也很喜欢 Calendly 这样的工具,我用了好多年了——之前没有谁能把它做对,直到他们做对了。这些都很棒。这个回答怎么样?
Lenny Rachitsky: 太棒了。再问一下叫什么名字,在哪里可以找到?
Phyl Terry: Lenny 的页面上会有链接。如果你搜 Landmark Herodotus 或者 Landmark Thucydides,搜哪个都行,就能找到。
Lenny Rachitsky: 天哪。听起来太厉害了。很好的选择。
人生座右铭
你有没有一个最喜欢的人生座右铭,经常回想起来、也会分享给朋友或家人的?
Phyl Terry: 当然,我们之前谈到了寻求帮助,这句话我说了很多。但我也很喜欢另一句,我前面也提过——“书籍是思考的机器”。作为产品人,Marty 和我经常聊这个,我们必须思考。我一直在辅导别人:我怎样才能思考得更多?你必须多读,因为书籍是思考的机器。好书。商业世界里有很多糟糕的书,但好书——好的、有深度的书——那些能帮助和改变你视角的书,无论是历史还是科学。我阅读范围很广,我希望你也一样。书籍是思考的机器。这可能是我最常说的一句话了。
给听众的最后建议
Lenny Rachitsky: 最后一个问题。通常我会让这个问题有趣一点,但这次我想让它回到一些对大家实用的内容上。让大家这周就能做的一件事,帮助自己找工作或提高找到工作的机会,你会推荐什么?
Phyl Terry: 我有一个非常简单的事。去 Phyl.org,注册一个求职委员会。
Lenny Rachitsky: 完美。
Phyl Terry: 它是免费的,会改变你的求职。这个回答还可以吗,还是你想要一个不一样的,Lenny?
Lenny Rachitsky: 很好的回答。这也正好是我想接着问你的——大家去哪里可以找到你正在做的事情、更多了解我们今天聊到的内容?
Phyl Terry: 好的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 有 phyl.org,还有 phyl.org/lenny,上面有你提到的很多模板之类的东西。
Phyl Terry: 对。
Lenny Rachitsky: 太好了。最后一个正式问题:听众怎样才能帮到你?
Phyl Terry: 这个问题真好。在 Phyl.org 的 Lenny 页面上,我列出了一些方式。我们目前正在筹集十万美元,用来为求职者搭建一个平台。这个平台对求职者将始终保持免费。我现在正在做一个关于 AI 的巡回演讲,把所有演讲收入都投到这个项目里,但大家也可以直接捐款。大家也可以做志愿者。我们正在寻找——如果有人是 Salesforce 管理员,我很希望你能加入我们的志愿者团队。如果有人有很好的 PHP 经验,请联系我。如果有人很擅长 Typeform 或 Formsite——顺便说一句,如果 Formsite 有人在听的话,你们的产品很糟糕,真的需要好好改进一下。有很多不同的方式可以帮助我们,这些只是其中一部分。
但最重要的一点是,告诉你生活中正在找工作的朋友:这里有一个社区,免费的,有所有这些聪明的工具和资源,还有真心愿意帮助你的人,能在这个艰难时刻彻底改变你的求职。有人问我:“这在困难时期有用吗?“这个项目本身就是在困难时期诞生的。
在好的就业市场里,你很容易觉得”我随便就能找到一份工作”。在下行市场中,你需要更加深思熟虑。不过我认为在好的市场中也应该如此。这是我们挺身而出、帮助他人的时刻。Lenny,我非常希望——现在还有太多人不知道这件事——我们想要触达数百万人,我们想要帮助数百万人。我们已经有两万小时的志愿者时间了,我们想要达到数百万小时的志愿者时间。我们正在通过这个社区改变资本主义运作方式的某些东西,改变创造性破坏带来的这种负面后果——让人们只能独自承受、自生自灭。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很荣幸能帮忙传播这个消息。Phyl,你太棒了。非常感谢你今天来做客。
Phyl Terry: 谢谢你,Lenny。
Lenny Rachitsky: 大家再见。
Phyl Terry: 再见。谢谢大家。
Lenny Rachitsky: 非常感谢大家的收听。如果你觉得这期节目有价值,可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或你最喜欢的播客应用上订阅本节目。也请考虑给我们评分或留下评论,这真的能帮助更多听众找到这个播客。你可以在 lennyspodcast.com 找到所有往期节目或了解更多关于本节目的信息。我们下期再见。
术语表
| 原文 | 中文 |
|---|---|
| Allison Mnookin | Allison Mnookin(保留原文) |
| associate council program | 副理委员会项目(associate council program) |
| back channel | 暗访调查(back channel) |
| Brad Smith | Brad Smith(保留原文) |
| Bradley Horowitz | Bradley Horowitz(保留原文) |
| candidate market fit | 候选人-市场匹配度 |
| career evolution call | 职业进化电话(career evolution call) |
| Charlie Munger | Charlie Munger(保留原文) |
| cold introduction | 冷介绍 |
| COO | COO(Chief Operating Officer,首席运营官) |
| CPO | CPO(Chief Product Officer,首席产品官) |
| creative destruction | 创造性破坏 |
| cul-de-sac | 死胡同 |
| dead or distant mentor | 已故或远方的导师 |
| debrief | 复盘 |
| defining reality | 定义现实 |
| emotional balance sheet | 情绪资产负债表 |
| EVP | EVP(Executive Vice President,执行副总裁) |
| fast seeker | 快速求职者 |
| four legs of the negotiations tool | 谈判工具的四条腿 |
| Gino | Gino(保留原文) |
| GM | GM(General Manager,总经理) |
| golden question | 黄金问题 |
| gratitude house exercise | 感恩之屋练习 |
| IC | IC(Individual Contributor,个人贡献者) |
| ICP | 理想客户画像(ICP) |
| imposter syndrome | 冒名顶替综合征(imposter syndrome) |
| inner critic | 内在批评者 |
| job mission with OKRs | 工作使命与 OKRs |
| job search councils | 求职委员会 |
| Joe Hudson | Joe Hudson(保留原文) |
| Jonathan Rosenberg | Jonathan Rosenberg(保留原文) |
| Julie Cameron | Julie Cameron(保留原文) |
| Justin Meats | Justin Meats(保留原文) |
| Karen Kavanagh | Karen Kavanagh(保留原文) |
| Kelly Marcus | Kelly Marcus(保留原文) |
| Kenneth Chenault | Kenneth Chenault(保留原文) |
| Kinshaw | Kinshaw(保留原文) |
| Landmark Series | Landmark 系列 |
| listening tour | 聆聆之旅(listening tour) |
| Marissa Mayer | Marissa Mayer(保留原文) |
| Marty Cagan | Marty Cagan(保留原文) |
| meeting zero | 第零次会议 |
| Miriam Moheed | Miriam Moheed(保留原文) |
| Mnookin two-pager | Mnookin 两页纸 |
| Never Lead Alone | Never Lead Alone(保留原文) |
| Never Search Alone | Never Search Alone(保留原文) |
| peer coaching call | 同侪教练电话(peer coaching call) |
| play to win, not not to lose | 去赢,而不是不输 |
| positive politics | 正面政治 |
| product councils | 产品委员会 |
| product market fit | 产品市场匹配度 |
| Reading Odyssey | Reading Odyssey(保留原文) |
| reference check | 背景调查 |
| reverse exit interview | 反向离职访谈(reverse exit interview) |
| Robert Strassler | Robert Strassler(保留原文) |
| Sergey Brin | Sergey Brin(保留原文) |
| Silicon Valley Product Group | Silicon Valley Product Group(保留原文) |
| Slow Art Day | 慢艺术日(Slow Art Day) |
| slow seeker | 慢速求职者 |
| spray and pray | 漫天撒网、听天由命 |
| Stoicism | 斯多葛主义 |
| Sundar Pichai | Sundar Pichai(保留原文) |
| Susan Wojcicki | Susan Wojcicki(保留原文) |
| tech debt | 技术债务 |
| Teresa Torres | Teresa Torres(保留原文) |
| The Manual | 《The Manual》(保留原文书名) |
| Warren Buffett | Warren Buffett(保留原文) |
此文档由 AI 分片翻译(translate_long_document)