Hey, what's up, and welcome back to another episode of the Straight Shooter Recruiter podcast. I'm your host, Emily Durham. Thank you so much for clicking on this week's episode, because Mama, we're gonna get political. Yes, I've been watching Succession and it made me realize just how messed up the corporate world is. Perhaps your dad is not a multi billionaire having all of his children fight to take over his legacy. But you know what, the
energy is still there. There are still toxic cousin Greg's, there are still toxic shifts. There are still some kind of unwritten rules about how to play the game and get ahead frankly without losing your mind. And yes, I've experienced some of these things myself. I'm not gonna lie to you. When I first started in my career. You have to remember, I started in banking. And if there is one industry that is unbelievably political and loves a
good hierarchy and loves making things complicated, it's banking. And I made a lot of mistakes when I first started. I remember vividly a couple of times I did something that I thought was normal, and looking back, it kind of was. But in the eyes of the political world. I made a big mistake. I was a corporate rebel. I was embarrassing my manager and I actually got in trouble for these things and got a full on wrist slap,
Like I kind of got side eyed by leadership. So I'm sharing all of this with you so that you can get ahead in your career, because ultimately, if you cannot play the political game at work, you're not going to get ahead. Like I hate to say it, that is just the messed up, fed up world that we live in. But I also don't want you to make the same mistakes that I did because it sucks and I had a lot of anxiety about it and it really made me question my abilities
and my skills. And it's not that I was dumb, it's just that nobody told me that this was going to be a thing anyway. So that's today's episode. I have so much to talk to you about and I'm already excited. Friendly reminder, if you have questions that you want me to answer on the show, click the link in the episode description. It's linked in all of my episodes where you can submit your questions. I've also got it pinned on my Instagram at Emily the Recruiter. But let's get into today's video
slash episode. Wait, I'm not even on camera, it's just an episode. I clearly need to pour a coffee beerby Let me do that and we'll keep going. First things first, when you join a company, I literally need you to assume the worst in them. I don't care if that's toxic. And I know some industries are much less political than others. For example, tech industries tend to be a lot less rigid and like old school than areas like banking or consulting or the government. So just be mindful of what
industry you're in because there will be different norms based on that. But for the most part, you can never truly know the culture of that company until you are in it. Because it is great to do research. I always talk about going online seeing what people say, but you don't know what the intricacies of your specific team and honestly even like your manager and your co workers, and how that impacts the way you need to show up at work.
So I do want to start off telling you that I had my own personal experience with this. You sure did so when I started at the bank, God like five or six years ago at this point. Wait, no, that math is wrong. It's way longer than that. But I refused to age myself, so let's just call it six years. I hate getting older,
but it's fine. It's fine. But anyways, when I first started at the bank, I was super interested in learning about recruitment, and at the time, I was focused on learning and development, which is like basically adult training, internal learning. I really liked it, but I knew I was much more interested in the recruiting side of the world. So I had ended up sending some emails out to different managers internally who managed recruiting teams.
And I wasn't asking for a job. I really just wanted to have a coffee with them to understand what their teams did. Very much was a like coffee chat, just asking a basic question. So I sent that email out to two or three different managers, and I guess it got back to my manager, like my intern manager, and she came up to me basically was like, did you email so and so, And I was like, yeah, Well, I just wanted to get a coffee with them, and I
wanted to learn about recruiting. And my manager essentially told me that's super inappropriate because they reached out to me and I didn't know that you had sent them a message, and I was shocked. I had no idea I had done something wrong. I just sent an email. Even looking back now, I'm kind of like, this just feels like bullshit, Like come on, really, I didn't do anything wrong. But basically what should have happened that I later learned was I should have asked my manager, Hey, I want to
learn about recruiting, can you connect me with that person? And then they would have sent an email. They would have set up time for me, and I wouldn't have been like cold emailing someone internally. Do you want my honest opinion, that is so bs what an uncomfortable, unnecessary, old school way of operating. And also talk about just slowing things down and wasting people's time. This just doesn't feel like an effective use of time. But that's
what was the norm. And as I grew at the bank over those four or five years that I was there, I kind of had to pick up on these things so I didn't make those mistakes again. That's also why I kept getting promoted because I never went around anybody's head. I always asked for permission. I was very by the book. I put every request in writing because that's what was going to protect me in that political environment. All to say, the first thing you need to do is start your first job,
assuming they're political, and start off observing. And you can't straight up ask people, hey, yeah, I'm new here. What's the like political environment? Like? What should I do? What should I not do? There's nothing they can tell you. This is all a set of unwritten secret rules that nobody teaches you, basically to make your life harder. That's all it comes down to. So start your job off by observing. And what you need to observe is what are the different nuances to how people interact? Do
you need to ask for permission to do certain things? Should some emails be written out in detail and others be point form? Are people actually casual on casual Fridays? Or is it like when I was at the bank, which basically meant I could wear flat shoes instead of heels, but the same dress pants. So just fall back and spend the first three to four weeks of this job observing and playing it safe, and you'll get a bit of a
feel of just how conservative an old school this company is. But if you're hearing this and you don't want to have to do this at a company, you are either going to need to be self employed or work in a very cool, chill, laid back industry somewhat like tech, even though to be honest, some tech companies are just as structured and overpowering as some of these more traditional banks too. The next thing you're going to do is always ask
for permission and then ask them to loosen the leash. What do I mean
by that? One of the best things that I did as I started navigating my career in a super old school banking environment is I always aired on the side of caution if I was posting a social At the time, we were using Twitter a lot, which feels foreign now, but Twitter was one of our primary social platforms, and even though I got everything approved in writing the night before posting it, I would always send one last message to the final
approver and say, hey, just triple checking, am a good to post? And sometimes I really covered my ass because there were last minute changes they hadn't told me or YadA YadA, So just really being hyper cautious and double checking that everything is okay for the first couple of weeks is important because then you're going to get a pulse check on if they're going to loosen the leash.
If you start getting messages like, oh yeah, you don't need to ask, or of course, no need to ask, then it's time for you to let go of that sense of control or that sense of needing to triple check everything and you can just start doing your own thing, of course, like within reason, but I would always air on the side of extreme
caution because you really need to think of everything like a game. You cannot walk in here and just start doing the work that you want to do and just start leaning in and asking people for things, because you're going to be perceived as a bowl in a china shop. People want to see you play the game. They want to see you ask your manager if it's okay to do this, and then they're going to want you to put the request in
writing. They're going to want you to play nice with some of the really jerk asshole managing directors, like you need to play the game and be kind of friendly with everybody to figure out where you fit in and how you can frankly manipulate the situation to get ahead. And it's not about being like deceptive, it's not about having unhealthy relationships. But unfortunately, most companies that are a little bit more conservative have boundaries set up basically to see who can't navigate
a matrix complex organization. So if you stop taking everything personally and frankly, stop thinking logically, because going back to my shared experience a little bit earlier in this episode, logically, it's fine that I reached out to a manager to learn more about her team, But if I think about it like a game, that wasn't the rules of the game. The rules of the game
is that your manager is your advocate, your manager is your connector. Therefore, you need to bring your manager into everything you do that might somehow get back to them without them knowing, Like you don't want them to find out from somebody else, even if it's a small positive thing. So I had to stop thinking about this like weight. This isn't logical. Weight, this makes no sense. Wait, this is so dumb, and I had to start thinking about it like this is a game. This is the parameter.
This is the rule of the game. So I need to play along if I'm going to win. And if it sounds exhausting, it's because it is. That's why I left banking. I well, it's one of the many reasons that I left banking, But I was just tired of feeling like I had to put on this mask and show up as this super polished, professional
version of me. I hate that I had to think so much, and not about the work that I'm doing, because I obviously love thinking, but I hated that in order for me to get a response from an HR business partner, I needed to first ask the HR consultants, who then had to ask this person, who had to email that person just to make sure it
wasn't an unrealistic ask. Whereas at the company I work with now, if I have a question, it could be for the CEO and I could send a message and it just well, that might be a pitch too far, but it wouldn't be totally unheard of, because that's not the culture we have. One of the biggest shifts I also had to make to play the game at work was adopting a poker face, and that's not easy for me. I am dramatic af You know this, like you can even hear it in
me voice, all right. But the poker face trick was a game changer because when you are navigating the political environment at your organization, yes, you have to follow rules, but you also can't roll your eyes as you follow those rules. You need to come across as calm, cool and collected. When you get pushed back from somebody, you can't be snippy and bitchy and all of these things. You cannot wear your heart on your sleeve in these
corporate environments. Not every company is like this. This is advice for the people who are in the like hardcore you know, corporate KPMG's Deloittes, Oop, did I just name drop? Probably? And you know what, maybe they're not like this anymore. Maybe things have changed. But just based on what I hear from my clients, based on what I've seen in my career, these more traditional orgs, you kind of got to play this game.
Another little hack that I adopted was this rinse and repeat method where I basically looked at someone who had the career trajectory that I wanted. So maybe they were in my dream job, maybe they were doing a similar job, and I would legitimately watch how they move and I would do that like if they
made a point to email certain people do certain things. I started to do those as well, and that basically became a really easy way for me to make sure I was following the societal norms or like, the social norms of that giving company. But the biggest piece of advice I can tell you is if you don't want to work in a company where you have to add being
a political navigator to the job description. There are some industries you're going to hate, but if you want to work at those companies or right now you have no choice. I need you to think about the political climate or the political environment of the organization you work at as a game, and you need to think about how can you move certain chess players or pieces around on the board so that you can get what you want without stepping on toes, Because
if you step on toes, you're screwed. Like, if you step on toes, it's game over. That's a rap, especially at those more old school organizations. And on the note of political environments at work, let's get into this week's question of the week. Friendly reminder, you can always send these in with the link in my description, But oh my gosh, this one is perfect for today's theme because somebody wrote in and asked, Dear Emily, I want to ask for a raise, but my boss is kind of
stingy with money and doesn't actually want to have this conversation with me. What should I do? How should I bring it up? First of all, you should always be asking for more money, you know why. The worst thing that's going to happen is they say no and then nothing changes. So it's fine. It's really not a big deal. I know today's economic environment is a little bit of a question mark, so it's normal that a lot of us are not going to be getting a year end raise this year.
So I will say, if you get told no at some point this year, I wouldn't lose sleep over it. It doesn't mean that you're not great at your job, but you do need to think really, really mindfully about, you know, the political environment at your company. So make sure that you're asking for a raise because you reason, not because you want it.
You either need to have proved that you bring enough value to the company by keeping a list or a tracker of all of your wins, or you need to come with some kind of market data that says here's how much I could make and I know that because I did this research, or I know that because I have another job offer. So make sure you have enough justification. And the way to have that conversation might vary a little bit based on the company you work at, but I can almost guarantee they are going to want
to have this conversation in person or over zoom. You don't want to do this over the emails, okay, because that's how things get misinterpreted, That's how drama comes up. Like you don't want to go there, So sit down with your manager and start the conversation off in a really humble way. It's okay to say, you know what, I'm a little bit nervous to
have this chat. I've been really enjoying my time in this role. I've done XYZ research and I've seen that I actually might have an opportunity to get a raise, and I wanted to know if that's something that's on the table for us over the next couple of months and just see what they say and
let them take it from there. You are going to get a vibe sense from them pretty quickly to see if there's anything positive coming out at the conversation, but all to say, you got to be polished and you have to have a why, like data backed reasoning, otherwise you're wasting your time. I also got a lot of questions this week about how to start a career as an influencer or content creator, so if you guys want an episode on that, I'm also super down to do it. Just let me know.
But all right, beautiful people, this week's episode was already a little bit longer, so I decided to only do one question that we're answering. But please make sure you are submitting more as we go through, and I'm so excited to talk to you again next week.