Yeah, so just had a second person outreach in the middle of this just popped up on LinkedIn. I was like fascinating.
You suck. No, I hate you Don't hate the player hate the game. Yeah. Okay, oh shit, we're still recording all this. Okay, well, we might as well get on with the episode, it's still gonna be mainly the typical Vanessa format where I just go off in tangents, and you guys try to get a word in edgewise, but you know how I am. But so we'd love you for it. Well, thank you, thank you, I love you. I love both EDM, too, and my brothers Miss Lucy disease, disease, and it's those are okay.
That's one of the best thing is for vocal training, is you do that, and it moves your voice to the front of your mouth. And then after you do that for a little bit, you start seeing the words that you want to say, and it comes out like magical, it's really crazy. If you go higher, they'll come out higher. So it's kind of crazy. And then you get stuck like that for a little bit. So you have to go with lower. So fulfill training. It's, it's about so yeah, we
should do one. I'm sure we can get one of the many vocal trainers to like Seattle boys labs are one of those on here. So I do mine actually through Cleveland Clinic, which is kind of nice, because it's all under insurance. Okay, it's ready. Let's welcome back to another episode of transcending humanity. I believe this is episode 18 Already, which just blows my mind how many of these that we have? This episode, it's kind of a follow up to the Leo and Erica episode about trans
equity in the workplace. This one is about job hunting, while transgender, which is super fun. I've been doing it for quite some time. So yeah. We're remembering go. Why does my brain keep doing this? Am I gonna leave this in? Or am I gonna cut it out? I don't know. So yeah, we're following up on job hunting just it's it's a very topical thing for me because I have been searching for a remote career for a year and a half now. And I'm at least 1500 resumes in. And it's been a
giant pain. Yes. So I kind of figured I'd do an episode on this. So because I know I'm not alone. I'm Japanese hard period, especially with corporate last going out left and right. And the few positions that are are available online, you're up against 1000s, not just hundreds 1000s of other applicants. And I do not envy the recruiting teams to try to sift through all that stuff. So unfortunately, you are subjected to the whims of the ATS systems. I guess that's kind of a redundancy ATS systems
applicant tracking system. That if you don't have everything exactly how they want to see in your resume just gets thrown out. So how many wonderful candidates have been thrown up because of that? How many of mine have been thrown up? Because who knows, but I, I understand why they have to do it. But so my notes on our script here says Vanessa goes off Vanessa about the job market. And I think I just did
that. So gave me this week, we're going to talk about the unique challenges that folks under the trans umbrella when I use the word trans, I use it to incorporate everybody under that trans spectrum. So transgender, either binary, non binary and gender non conforming. So just to make things easier when I say trans, I mean everybody in that little blue, pink and white rainbow. So we're going to be talking about the difficulties that we have when searching for
a career. And we also have a quick segment where we are joined by one of our listeners Blair, who popped on are going to be inserting that in here for you listen to and I would love to be able to do more of these little short five minute listener interviews in the future as well. If you would like to pop on to an episode sometime and say hi and just share your thoughts. So that's enough of me taking over the microphone. Today I am joined by
Rylie. And Taryn, I'm hoping that my video setup here makes that makes sense. Otherwise, I'm just doing plenty all over the place. So, Rylie and Taryn, say hi, do some plugs look cute? What's on your mind? What's going on?
I was gonna say, for me, I love this episode, because right now I'm kind of headed back on the market. You know, I think I'm on my third job right now, since coming out. And this, I totally echo what you're saying, like, in the Bay Area, where I'm at doubt 10s of 1000s laid off. And it just makes it that much harder, and that much more competitive, right to give even an opportunity to break in. But I also had, like, when I first started, when I first came out in 2018, I did get some some
advice. And I think it was early 2020, on how to kind of present and how to apply and how to modify your LinkedIn profile and stuff like that. So people might not be out out. I do have some some tips and tricks that might help. Right, and because you want to be seen, you don't want to like surprise somebody you want to be seen, as you know, in the beginning of the process, right and set that expectation. So happy to share that stuff.
I mean, hey, I, I'm definitely at least two months into my job now. But in the past year, I've had to job hunt twice due to my position being eliminated. So that, you know, it's been a fun time. And like, Finally, since yesterday was the first I actually now have insurance again. So that's exciting. Crossing that refs
threshold off. Oh my goodness, I had, like, I got the cards in the mail, like last week, and I was just like, oh, it could almost taste it, I can almost taste if I have to go to the hospital, I'll be okay. So, you know, just all the fun hurdles of finding a company that has, you know, inclusive health care and all that fun stuff while job hunting. You know, just those sorts of things and just kind of want to talk a little bit on those things as well.
It makes you want to pull your hair out and you're bald, so you must have done it already. Yeah. Um, so
I mean, I'm not gonna lie, though, I did have a substantial more hair before I lost both jobs.
And that surprised I mean, stress does that and stress sucks. Okay, well, I'm going to do a little monologue here. And then I will get into discussion about it. So we talking for a little bit, but I just put up some information about job hunting and trans people in the workplace, which I believe Erica and Leo covered a lot again, listen to episode 14 as well, amazing episode, and we have Leo Caldwell on the episode. So just some notes
here. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality. For more than one in four transgender people have lost a job due to bias and more than three fourths have experienced some form of workplace discrimination. Refusal to hire, privacy violations, harassment, and even physical and sexual violence in the job are common occurrences and are experienced at even higher rates by transgender people. Transgender
people of color. Many people report changing jobs to avoid discrimination, or the risk of discrimination. extreme levels of unemployment and poverty lead one in eight to become involved in underground economies, such as sex and drug work in order to survive and quote. And I also found an article by an organization called McKinsey and Company. I'd never heard them before maybe YouTube. Hopefully they're a decent company, but they found some interesting information on their website,
about being trans at work. Some of their findings, they found that transgender adults are twice as likely cisgender adults to be unemployed. Cisgender employees make 32% more money a year than transgender employees, even when the latter have similar or higher education levels. It's like a whole secondary glass ceiling. More than half of transgender employees say that they're not comfortable being out at work.
Two thirds remain in the closet and professional in professional interactions outside of their own companies. People who identify as transgender feel far less supported in the workplace than their cisgender. colleagues do. They report that it's more difficult To understand workplace culture and benefits and harder to get promoted, they also feel less supported by their managers. And greater transgender inclusion in the workforce would benefit
everybody. Their research found that a concerted effort to increase employment and wage equity for transgender people could boost annual Consumer spending by $12 billion a year. Given more, given them more than 2 million transgender people in the US and 1.2 million people who identify as non binary employers cannot continue to ignore a significant population that experiences system systemic barriers to employment, work performance and career
progression. So that's the two things I found that really kind of tie into this. What do you think of that? It's, it was a lot, but it's some pretty powerful information.
I mean, I feel like that experience kind of mirrors exactly what you laid out, right? With your service. Now I'm on my third company right now, since coming out, so I moved to the Bay Area in 2018, to transition because I wanted that safe space. And opportunity popped up at a, I say, a large OEM in the media streaming environment. So I moved out to Los Gatos, in Campbell in California, and started working there thinking that California was just a safe place, you know,
and I'd be fine. And my, like having members, my own team kind of like us not really inclusive language or ridicule my breast buds, because I started only trying to keep up and not notify the employer. It made me go to jumps. And whenever I like some kind of, I don't know, issue, harassment, abuse, I actually moved to the next job. Right? Good. So I moved over and took a position in cosmetics in a subscription service, it's in the Bay Area. I think it was
their first trans hire. And it was after they had a very public embarrassing pride box, where they have a turf, give makeup lessons in to the trans women were not women. So I think they had to go in and hire a trans person to kind of mitigate that. So we started bringing in some gender non conforming non binary and trans people. And I was one of them, you were the token, I was I think was the first I got a COVID layoff, right? And then, so I, I kind of shared with you
all on our Discord. You know, I am just starting due to my gender marker change, and my name change right through California through the courts. It should be three months, but we'll be done. So I was in that weird place of transitioning. And, you know, so on HRT, like dealing with Kaiser breast growing electrolysis, and looking for a job with an old LinkedIn profile. So in 2020,
COVID Lay off. You know, I think I took some courses in Yeah, that's a such a catch I could do to make it right, I had the privilege of being able to save and add that those resources, started my job search five months later, got a job at a company that I really respected at the time, was super excited, I was looking forward to it almost immediately, I ran into like, transphobic, like abuse, you know, somebody that I had to work for, who was a white male, who generate a lot of revenue
for the company. And at the end of our calls with me and him, it was just, he would end it with Thank you, sir. And it was just little small aggressions like that. I mean, people rated me in front of my team about a month and a half into the job. I mean, it was pretty toxic. Right? So once again, I was like, you know, dealing with all of this and having a pet issued against me. So they were targeting me for elimination because of what he had done. And then I had an opportunity in 2022 and I
jumped. So like I keep pivoting like for me and I don't know if either one of you feel this way but for me, all my third job right now doing it and then still dealing with the misgendering at this job. You know, and I think I shared on social Dennis, I think you saw that where I had a visitor to our building from Euro gender be correctly and the external client walked into my office and two people I worked with 18 months are like Yes, sir. What can I do for you? And I'm just
like, come on. I'm like, Okay, looks like it's time to move on. I started thinking to myself, like God, and like it is still worth it to live in my authenticity. Even if I have to continue to experience this over and over and over and over again. You know, I don't have I don't have what many people have which is like struggling to get a job right by coming out and so your stories always touches me right but the decision you made.
And your implication is that I feel like I'd have a lot of privilege with mine, where I'm moving from job to job, and I'm still dealing with that stuff. So it's like now I've got that kind of priming for another move, right? And all I want is a place that she sees me as me, and just respects me, like I'm looking at a base level of respect. I'm like, you don't have to put me on a pedestal. You don't have to treat me like a warrior queen. Just be nice to me and be human. Like that is
all I'm looking for. You know, I know that. Yeah. And I know, like, I'm privileged with that. Right. So. But yeah, that's kind of my story. And you know, just everything that that McKinsey report says, I've been experiencing, right, where it's just like that kind of having your own co workers not even back you up on an HR investigation. Like that was the other thing too. So it's like, I felt utterly alone. You know, and it's a bad place. And at the same time, they were trying to
punish me. They were asking me to talk to a potential new employee who was trans, so I can make them feel better about it. So you know what I did? I told the truth. Because I prioritize like, exactly where I prioritize my community over business. Yeah. Because I'm like, not going to lower somebody in here to experience what I experienced, because it was like, it was upsetting. Any friend of mine from that job was like, I don't know how you're surviving this. Like, I'd be in
tears every day. I'm like, I'm just, I'm just warming up and just working through it and just keeping my head down and just doing what they're telling me to do and just trying to survive.
But not everyone is able to do that either, though. So you did the right thing. You could have protected somebody from some serious, serious harm. So yeah, you did the right thing. Definitely.
Community always comes first for us. I thought every one of my sibs and and when I say that, I mean to the bitter end, as long as I'm breathing on this planet, I will be with you.
Oh, I mean, I definitely am in the same boat. I agree. I mean, I am very fortunate in the fact that I began my like social transition during my senior year of high school. And right out of that, right, like, during that summer, before I went off to college was able to start testosterone. So like, I essentially went into college, fully presenting as male, and there wasn't very much questioning about it, you know, I had to send the emails to professor's and things like
that. But like, even when I had to get a job on campus, I didn't have any questions about it. People were just like, oh, cool, like, you know, like, nobody really paid much mine. Even like, when I was doing onboarding paperwork wasn't too,
too obvious or anything. And we and especially after I had top surgery, during my sophomore year of college, like I really was able to then like fully, you know, pass without question, there was no like, oh, is the like, a bearded woman or something like that, like, so like, you know, for me, it was a lot, I guess, a lot easier than what trans women definitely go through, there is no questioning that trans men definitely have a little bit easier end on the
spectrum here. When it comes to at least the generalized, you get to a point where you're now passing to the point because of testosterone has given you a beard and you for your lost enough hair, or whatever the case may be, like, there's just this like, quick glance, and you're just Oh, yeah. Hey, what's up, dude? You know, no, really question on it. So like going into it for me, like, it's more of the Do I feel safe coming out than in the work
environment. And so like, most of my employers have not known that I was trans until actually after I left. So like, I have an employer that I worked almost two years or and I was working for them when COVID started. And the only person that knew was like one person on my team and like one person from another team. And that was it. I didn't even tell HR. And now I actually am friends with the former HR person on like Facebook and a
few other places. And they know now and I'm like, I'm so glad you know, because you should have known I'm sorry, I didn't tell you sooner. You're such a great human being I'm sorry, I didn't tell you. But like, I know that they would have been that supportive in the first place. And I should have been that open with. So like, and it's not like they wouldn't have been supportive in any context outside of work or inside work
anyway. But, you know, like, I'm actively now in the position where I didn't use to be remotely active on LinkedIn about being trans. And you know, it was just about a year ago, I believe that I decided to go ahead and share that on LinkedIn and it was right after I was like, go from my job, the first position. And so like, you know, it was one of those things where I was working for a job. And I just decided to be openly trans on LinkedIn while looking for a job. And so I was absolutely
terrified. And even when I did finally get a job, I still was very hesitant about talking about it in the workplace. And I'm pretty sure the only people who know from that job are the people who I have on LinkedIn. So, you know, it's still one of those things where I'm still very hesitant. And even though I'm, like, actively still, kind of like here and there coming out to people in my current position, and like to actually in the past, like two weeks, I came out to a non binary person
we had just hired. And so it was like, hey, I want to let you know, you are not alone here. So and especially because they use they them pronouns. And, like, I want to make sure that, you know, it's not just like a hey, I got your back because I'm an ally, like, Hey, I got your back because I am with you in your community.
Yeah, that's awesome. I guess I'll share my experiences. I've I came out just under two years ago now. And I've only really had one job, it was like this little part time job, but it was owned by a non binary person, which was nice. And for the most part is just me alone with him in the office. But it did branch off into a little retail thing that was helping get their retail company started. And I few days I worked with the employees that I had
hired on to help there. And they were all very, is a very, very, very clear place, which was, which was amazing. But my actual income, what I do is I'm a real estate photographer. I used to have my own LLC that I closed back in November. And it started off, I was able to get clients really easily before my transition back when I was known. I went by Jay. My dead name was Jeremy, I went by Jay. And so my photo, my company was
called photos by Jay. And I was able to very easily build up a network of clients of real realtors in the Northeast Ohio area. And I had, I would say at the height about 50 out of 50 clients, I stayed pretty busy. My work spoke for itself, I was very good. But the world also saw me as as a set white guy. When I came out, my business died instantaneously. I came out in October of 2001. And I had a
few gigs in November. And in December, I wound up having to do a GoFundMe in order to just feed myself, because it just dried up completely. reorders can be a very big advantage, especially here in Ohio. And I found that out the very hard way. I was able to rebuild my business a little bit of nowhere near what it was. But I have a very strong loyal client base that that loves me and I love
them. But it is next to impossible for me to get new clients, which sucks because I'm completely dependent on my clients getting listings. And there just like many listings going in my area right now. So I went from making probably $5,000 A month when when I was photographing as J to between 515 100 hours a month now which, which is why I'm John I'm traveling, because I'm just broke all the time. And I love real estate, real estate photography. I'm really really
fucking good at it. I I'm, I like to toot my own horn, but I know I'm the best real estate photographer in my area. But because he I don't want to suck. So but yeah, that's, that's my history with being trans in the, in the workplace where I've been trans as self employed. And it's hard if you have your own business, that's something that you have to keep in mind if you're gonna come out. I know, a bookshop owner that she has that same problem that she didn't
come out for a long time. And when she did, she lost most of her business as well. So it's stupid when I tell clients about it, the clients that are with me, they're like, why should that matter? You're just here to take photos. Why should trans being trans matter at all? And like it shouldn't but I guess these agents don't Want to send a message to their sellers that, oh, here's this big trade and what to do with pictures? No. So, yeah, that's my experience.
It does not. Yeah, I mean, it matters leave people. I mean, it's like last week I had a real good eye opening about how that how prevalent the hate is in this country. I was in a foreign country and I still stopped the American aid.
You will share that story.
Yeah, I mean, I can share that. Last week, I was in Aruba for 10 days. So I had a really hectic years apart in the first seven months were just crazy busy, swamped. So. I managed to squeeze in attend a vacation between the next set of work dropping off, and I was going to Aruba. I stayed at the Hilton resort, which on their website is an LGBTQ friendly resort. I underestimated how it was important for me because a Rubis was the one of the most LGBT Q friendly plus plus friendly
islands in the Caribbean. So I felt good and then resort like that. I didn't factor in the Americans. And on my first full day, I rented one of those little like grassy beach huts palapa. So I rented one of those. And you know, I mean, but So notice, I'm like, I've got about 20 bikini tops. So I'm out. I'm like laying out on swimming. And I had a white family from the south, sit behind me. And it was funny because she started saying stuff
to the woman. And then she said something to her husband, and he kind of walked around and like, took a good look at me to confirm that I'm a thing. And then they try to have me removed or then move to a different spot, but they're all booked. So they just sat there with their arms crossed, and they're really dark sunglasses on staring at me the entire time. So I just got up and left. Because I'm like, I just don't want to be around that night. And then I went back
to the rental place. So like, I want one for tomorrow. When you sit next to any Americans, and the guy was a Rubin, he's like, what is an American? I'm like, Well, thanks, guys. You're paying like names, but they speak very slowly, like they had a speech impediment. So like, there's southerners, I'd say it and they're white. So he's standing next to more international people, I had no problem like, you know, people from South America, Central America, you know, from the
Caribbean. And it was fine. But still, as I walked through the resort, and I mean, looking like I do right now. And people were clutching their kids and bringing them started, like, I felt like it was kind of like, felt like a monster, in a way. And it was adding stress. But I mean, I'll just tell you that, that group of people, the rental people that helped me, they sent security and service staff to me every day and checked on me, they made sure it was okay. They said it was unacceptable for
what I experienced. And they went out of their way to help. So the people of Aruba were super kind. I mean, like, they know, not having my IDs changed. They asked me for what my name, what my name is, what is your name? You know, and just like I felt seen, right, but then also like, my fellow citizens, were horrible. Absolutely horrible. So it's just something that in California, you know, I would say to my my girls that are in a bubble here, right? Yeah. Sanctuary state, the Bay Area,
super transparently. I mean, I don't experience a lot of looks like I just splitting right in some sitting in this bubble. And I forget that there were 30 states that would like to see us eradicated, corralled in camps, and maybe shocked into straightness. You know, and I saw a lot of that in a foreign country. And I mean, I go to countries that I hope I can escape Americans, right? I still can't. So it makes it hard. I mean, do you staycations are not
cheap, right? upside, like, I've rented something I had to leave because somebody was intimidating me out. I just don't want to deal with it. Because it was their problem. You know, and it's this and that kind of stuff. That's those are the people. I love this. I saw this on social media years ago, but they're like, these are the people that are your pastor, the police officers in your company, the teachers, you know, they're handing your, your fries for a window, whatever it is, right?
These are the people that we engage with every day. And this is what they truly think and this is what they truly do. When they feel like they're empowered to do something. You know, and that goes right into the job hunting. Right. Like, you will meet people like that in the job club. I mean, so far, I've been really lucky. The last for like four jobs I had, I didn't even apply for it. They came to me.
So and I got these things, you know, like hardcore, you know, I mean, I'm like, Listen, I'm out and I'm trans. Like, you gotta be inclusive, or I'm not going to be there, you know, and it's like, I've been Fortunate so far, but still, like, even when I go in somewhere where, you know, it's supposed to be friendly. You know, I still get the abuse of the harassment, like I just shared earlier guy, you know, a stranger, I never met gender be properly and treat
me with respect. Five minutes later my own team that knows me for 18 months just totally misgendered me I'm like, Wow, I'm like, Okay, thanks for that, you know, and it's just it doesn't make you feel good. You know, and I met a CEO that said to me, being trans was not why I
was hired. But he said, the introspection that we all because listen, the three of us and everyone else, when we're looking at our lives, right, and we're understanding and knowing who we truly are, and we embrace that and live authenticity, authenticity.
I heard word.
We live authentically, right? He thought that that introspection if I could do that, in my own personal life, I would be an amazing marketing leader here. Right? And so he's like, you weren't, weren't hired because you're trans, but your process of what you did, and made me think if you could do this here, you'd be amazing stuff. You know, that's kind of word it is
wise words, wise words. Rylie, if you just had that I say rightly. I transcription software already can't handle your name. For some reason. I always have to go through and edit your name on every time. Any time someone says Rylie Rylie Rylie, Rylie. Have you had any, like Clayton? transphobia that you've run into lately, kind of like? Or are you still able to fly under the radar. Um,
so not necessarily directed at me, but like, I had to navigate a fun conversation one time in the workplace with another manager. And it was I had to pretty much end the conversation at one point and be like, Hey, I'm gonna be really just not in a great mood if we keep talking. So I'm just gonna have to stop this, like, where this conversation is done. And like, it was like, I think it was back. Oh, God, it would have been a little over a year ago.
When somebody was it was like, some coach was like, Oh, I'm trans racial now. And it was like, Okay, so that's not a thing. And he was trying to equate the entire, like, transgender trans racial like, thing. And I was like, Okay, please, please stop, please. And like, yeah, I don't know if you remember hearing that about that in the news. But yeah, that was I'd like honestly trying to, like, not let my blood start boiling rethinking about this
conversation. But like, what I ended up actually coming out on LinkedIn, ended up seeing the post, and like, it ended up causing a whole like, office argument, apparently, because I was no longer at that job. So like, it kind of caused it like an office argument in a way. And one of my friends was like, defending me and all this on that. And I was like, You know what, you're a true ally. I super appreciate you like, I'm sorry that your boss sucks.
Yeah, I mean, like, that's probably about the closest, like, I didn't directly have to deal with the aftermath of it. But like, the indirectness of that particular situation is probably the most recent thing that I've had to deal with.
That's trans racial. That that's not a thing at all.
People think they're clever. Do they think they're clever with that? I mean, you know, are they is it something in their day isn't mocking is it cleverness? I mean, it has to be honest. It's just ignorance. stupidity, am I? Yeah,
yeah. It's it's like those assholes that say, Well, I identify as a salad fork. Go fuck yourself. You know, it's we don't identify as we are. But I actually
don't mind when they do that. Because I'm like, Oh, here's another jerk to block. Like, you identify as like, you know, a taco or something. I'm like, Alright, hi. Taco.
I like to spin it and be like, I like to spin it and say, Oh, so you're, you're actually really progressive Ben, aren't you? Like, yeah, like, I have friends who like identify as a rabid raccoon. And I'm like, Yeah, I feel that.
Yeah, no, I can I can get that. So Yeah, there's a delete on LinkedIn. There's a there's a non binary person that is very rare Cooney is it Russia, Russia? I should know offhand, but I don't Russia. Yeah, yeah, Russia. They're hilarious. So but yeah, there, that's their LinkedIn raccoon.
I know they are awesome. I love them.
We have with us today, Blair. Blair, if you'd like to introduce yourself really quick.
My name is Blair, I use eBay pronouns. I think there's a trade going on in the background. So bear with me, and I'm currently looking for work outside of retail. Job prospects, so hard being transmitted, working at the same time,
it definitely is. And being in retail, everybody needs to everybody should be required to do either retail or food service, or, as Lisa says, teaching for at least a year in their life, and the world would be such a better place, because we'd have much more of the day. Yeah, it's very hard. So I love your bowtie. It's adorable. So I just have three questions for you. The first one is, has finding a career been difficult for you?
It has in the sense that you have to go through the whole process of figuring out what jobs to do, but also what gender suits you at the same time.
I can see that, especially when you're filling out like if you're doing any remote careers, and when they only give you the male or female options. So you're in a binary box. And exactly. It's like that's stuff that I never noticed before my transition, but now it's like. So I love companies that are actually more inclusive about that. So how do you do your job search? Are you looking for in person roles or remote roles?
I've been looking for a mix of both but primarily right now I've been looking into like Residence Life jobs because I was an RA in college, to go like a step above that position and get a live enroll. So I can get
out of my parents house. You don't want to live in your parents house for the rest of your life. No, I
really don't.
I don't blame you. I don't blame you. But I mean, it's become normal now for people under their 30s to just because housing is completely unaffordable everywhere you go. So So what are you doing right now?
Right now I work part time for my dad for Prudential insurance as a marketing assistant, and I work full time at Dunkin Donuts about 3040 hours a week.
That's a lot. That's a lot. My next question is do you experience discrimination at work? And I'm hoping you don't from your dad. But how about Dunkin Donuts? Do you get much to get a hard time there? Um,
I get gendered as a woman very easily. Because I don't wear a binder when I'm at work because I worked like eight or nine hour shifts. And you don't wanna do that the whole time every single day. And it is kind of fun to confuse people because you get like the mound with the voice over the headset when you're talking to people and drive through or you got like, ma'am, I mean, sir. I mean, I don't know. Hi. I wasn't trying to confuse you. I'm just trying to live my life
and just want to get your coffee.
Just take your caffeine and go. Yep, exactly.
Exactly. Dunkin Donuts. Every time I go in there, it's just such chaos. Is it as chaotic for the employees as it seems?
Oh, yes. Very much. So. Yeah. Everyone that's grumpy before coffee and after coffee and during coffee.
I can imagine. Do you? Do you to make the donuts? They're in the store in the mornings?
No, we get them shipped in from bakery and Lawrence. Oh, okay.
Okay. I wasn't sure how that worked. So. Okay. And the third. The final question I have for you is, since you've been on the hunt, what have you learned? What advice do you have for other job hunters? What do's and don'ts Have you found
I kind of find that if I keep my disability and my transmit is kind of quieter at the beginning. It's better in the sense that you don't really scare them off as much or you don't set yourself up to fail. Which kind of sucks. I'd love you to be like I'm a trans man. These are my pronouns. Please respect them. I have bipolar. Like, please understand that.
But people will just be like, very much not receptive to that unless you've really kind of glean their tolerance for you and tolerance for people in general and figure that out from there.
It's hard. It really is. So, yeah, it's like, do you apply as yourself? Or do you put on a facade? You know, it's it's heartbreaking that that's even a decision that we have to make.
So no. exhausting trying to mask for other people.
Yeah. Is there anything else that you want to add while you're here and any notes, any insights or meaning,
don't be afraid to go by the name, you want to go by at work, because my parents are slowly coming around to it at home. But at work, nobody cares. They're all like super fine with calling me Blair all day. So it's very affirming to be able to have a workplace that allows you to kind of be yourself on a different level than that.
Well, thank you for hopping on with us here. I'll be plugging your bid into probably about like halfway through the episode somewhere. But it was kind of interesting thing. This is the first excuse me, I'm glad you message me. This is the first time we've ever had just like a quick death spotlight. Spotlight from listeners. I'm excited. Because yeah, you'll see yourself on YouTube. And you'll also hear yourself on the podcast.
And my partners, they'll be excited. There you
go. I honestly think that this would be something fun for us to do. Have listeners pop on, you know, your idea. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us, of course, have a great rest of your day. You too. So let's get into our own job hunting experiences. As I said, I've been doing this for way too long. My background, I ran my family's business for 13 years. And it's given me knowledge and how to do pretty
much everything. I've been focusing my search on People Operations and culture rolls with a little bit of search on operations. I ran the company in its entirety from from HR to marketing to I got certified as a forklift instructor. I did all the sales, I have done all the inventory since I did fucking everything there. So it makes my creating a resume a little bit
difficult. Because I want to have as much on there as possible as a generalist, because I'm going to show employers that I'm a girl that you can just throw out a task, and I will figure it out, because that's what I've always had to do. But it does make finding jobs hard, because I've had to edit my resume, I talked with a wonderful recruiter who gave me some tips, because my resume had my official title at at that business, which is vice
president. And the she she told me straight up, she said that right there is just getting your resume thrown out. Because it's just scary. It's, it's scaring them off. So I modified my titles to be still like showing that. I've managed my experience, but a little bit more reasonable. So that's one thing to keep in mind, especially if you are someone who has been kind of higher up on the ladder at a company, adjust your titles on your resume for that positions that
you're applying for. So I've been doing, I've been looking for roles from all the way up to like senior leadership to entry level. At this point I'm going to take, I'll take what I can get, I just need I just need a paycheck, really, and get some fresh experience. Because I think that is something that's working against me is my experience running that company, I left in 2019. And it was a manufacturing company. And so it wasn't really an online kind of
thing. I didn't have to know all the payroll laws that are needed for a more remote setting. And that stuff I can learn really quickly. I'm not afraid of it. But so my luck job hunting I've had I think I've had a total of three interviews now I think of it but I got very far in a in the process for an executive assistant role, which is another thing I can do because it's again, I did everything so and I they started you off with a with
an assessment. It's like a four and a half five hour assessment that you have to do. And then they did a screening interview, which was kind of backwards. You should really do the screening interview before you ask someone to do a five hour assessment but so I nit I nailed that they were very impressed with my work. And then, and then the screen screening interview I nailed as well. And then the third, the third interview was with the CEO. And like, I was going to pump them like I have this, I
know I have this. And I mean, I can't prove the transphobia here, but it was pretty evident. The guy says, Set white guy, and got me on the call. And I think he was expecting a Sis sis girl when he saw Vanessa, I don't think he was expecting this Vanessa, to be on the screen is before had done any vocal training as well. So it sounded like this when I was doing my interviews, which wasn't really working in my favor. But so I got through the interview, it seemed kind of awkward, but I
still thought I did okay. And I very quickly got the, the know from them. And I since I had gotten that far, I'm like, Look, I want to know why. So I reached out. And he said that I didn't fit their company's oath of growth mentality. And I'm like, I'm a trans woman. My entire life is about growth and teaching people about growth. I mean, look at my LinkedIn profile. Look at my post. It's all about growth. So I mean, I
can't prove it. But I'm pretty sure I didn't get that job because I'm trans. So yeah, I've been I've been job hunting as an out trans person. Since I started job hunting really so. And I, like I could have started back when my legal name was still Jeremy, I could have started to apply as a male with my old name with my dead name. And maybe I would have found the job that way. But I instead decided to present myself as I am, and being very vocal about
trans rights. And people keep on telling me like, Well, why do you mention or asked me? What what do you mentioned that you're trans? In your resume and everything? Isn't that hurting your success at finding a role? Well, yeah, but why would I want to work for a company that wouldn't want to hire me because I'm trans. So I put it out there. And it's definitely making my search more difficult.
But I know when I do find something, I have a much better chance of finding a role at a progressive companies that can appreciate me for, for who I am. So that's my job hunting story. How about you too? What if things been like for you job hunting while trans.
Thankfully, I also work in an industry that is in very much high need because I work I've done a lot of food service and retail, so a lot of hospitality. So I have had decent luck with trying to get jobs when I had my layoffs. i You're probably going to be very jealous of these numbers than as a like I really only had about three weeks of unemployment
between jobs. Both times and I will say that this is also something that's probably working against you is the fact that you know Vanessa being female, I will say that my my partner has a lot of issues when they job hunt as well. And it's unfortunately due to that I can absolutely see the difference in how if I apply for a job and my partner applies for that same job, I'll get a call before them.
I'm not gonna lie I've been tempted to for jobs I've had a quick note from to send an application again with my dead name, and my my former pronouns and stuff like that, just to see if there's a difference, but sorry to interrupt that just popped in my head. Go ahead,
though, but like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Like I There are quite literally, I'm not going to lie like my wife, my wife in their current position like they, they are in a position where I actually applied for the job, and then I got a different job. And so I was like, hey, you know, like I had had this recruiter reach out to me and I was like, hey, actually, I just somebody else that's interesting. But like my wife had part had already applied for the job prior to the recruiter
even reaching out. So it was like, why wasn't there any sort of communication to them, even though they ended up hiring them like my partner, you know, like so like, there's Yeah, it's it's legitimate thing. So but I mean, overall, though, I mean, I definitely will say like, for me with job hunting, like the biggest portion for me now is always trying to not just find the company that's inclusive for the environment in the actual workplace, but like Making sure that the health care is there.
And like, honestly, I spent god it's been I've spent years trying to figure out the right word thing on Google and waiting for the answer to appear on what to even ask about insurance without completely outing myself. Like, I couldn't figure it out for the longest time. And I found out it's basically asking, and most times, you won't get it until you have an actual offer letter there. But like, you can ask what the exclusionary so what's the term
exclusionary? What's the exclusions in the insurance like, what what's excluded, and that's basically like my biggest thing, because like, when I accepted the position, working at a stadium, I was like, sweet, this company is super, you know, progressive. They have an ER ERG, like the whole nine yards, like I was really excited. But then the first time I went to go get my testosterone skirt build after insurance kicked in, I got a letter saying, Hey, we only
cover it for hypogonadism. And I'm like, wait, wait, like, he said, like, I, I've been trying to figure it out and how to ask it without obviously completely outing myself or being like, hey, you know, just in case I ever have a kid who's trans or, you know, like, trying to make up some sort of scenario that
doesn't help me. Because, like, the last thing I would want, especially if everything else about the job seems great, is hey, I give that I'm trans and they just decide, yeah, nevermind, get off, get the job. And it's like, I again, I shouldn't want to take a job where that's the case. But you know, at the same time, bills are a thing and I Yeah, it's fine. I'll take what I can. Yeah.
I was gonna say for me, it's, um, I'm in California. So you have option to do Kaiser, right. And Kaiser is one of the most transparently insurances that I found. Not a perfect health care system. It's an all in one. So when I gotta pick up a new script, I have to stand in line with like, 50 other people. But I had a doctor there that had a trans child. So it's all really good, right? It's like, I'm like, Okay, I like this. Like, I feel seen. He left the system. And I've got a doctor
got his medical degree. I think we talked about that on the Marcia episode. Yeah. You know, left, and I got a guy from medical license in 1959. He didn't keep up with anything. And, you know, now, I gotta go. And my endocrinologist gave me two really good trans inclusive doctors within that system. So we'll switch providers, right, and, but like, one of the first things I ask is like, what are your insurance providers? If Congress is not in there? I'm
like, I'm not interested. You know, because like Cigna, that insurance sucks. Like, I mean, I went through three doctors the why was that? The previous streaming company. So what's your three doctors were like, sorry, never treated anybody like you. Like I felt like a Vulcan just being down inside ship. So it made it really difficult. So I'm like, okay, segments out, Blue Cross Blue Shield spotty, depending on where you are. And I'm like Kaiser lives got problems is the
best for me. But that's one of the demarcations. Oh, no, Kaiser. Okay. Sorry. Bye. You know, and I mean, I haven't had the struggles. The Vanessa has, right. But that authenticity coming out and punishing her. Even though like, for me, I still question I'm like, God, it's, the authenticity is worth it. But I still question I'm just like, God, why can't you just find someone who just breaks his knees? You know, it just seems so fundamental.
Right. But then I think back and just think about other historically marginalized communities. I mean, like, there's companies that probably still have in place restrictions on hairstyles, or dress codes or stuff like that, right? Like, there's all kinds of stuff sitting in the market, and you just gotta be really cheesy, you know, and I know when you don't have something, it's hard to be choosy. But for me, I'm like, I am a little bit more privileged,
right? Like we talked about, and I feel like I can be a little bit more choosy, right? Like, it's not the right fit. Like, I just can't take anymore. Like, I've got seven years more work left, and then I can retire. But it's like, I need to just not be hassled. Let me just do my job. And then so you say you're kind of like, Jane of all trades, right? Like you're just a specialist and operations. I
find the same thing. I mean, everybody seems to also like the other problem, I think, is everybody's looking for these purple unicorns that fly. Right? And it's hard to for like people like us, right? But we've had so much experience and had to like learn face from scratch. Like my first professional job. I had to learn HTML and start coding websites myself. I've done that Yeah, back in the 90s, right. So it's like, back in the olden
times. And, you know, so I have all that experience, and I still struggle with trying to communicate the message out. And I'm also like you were, I come right out with it. I'm like, listen, trans, like, right there straight up. Like I, the advice I got from a recruiter, and this was in 2020. So my old, you know, dead profile on LinkedIn that they just forced me to delete, like six months ago, but I had my old profile up. And she's like, well, if you're trans, put your dead name, like.
So when you look at my LinkedIn profile, you see my dead name? Right? That's because I had the shift. But I haven't changed my name yet. So they want you to represent it as much as possible, right? So that's why I've got pronouns on there. And that's why I put the dead name on there to kind of connect the dots between the
two, right? Wondering about that.
But they were saying that, like, if you're, if you're looking, if you're transitioning, be very transparent about it, right, and be upfront with it. I think that also works against us. But I mean, to me, so I'm very much like you, I'm just like, I'm right now. And I'm like, right out my, because I don't want any kind of like misgivings, I want to be very transparent with it,
and doesn't punish me. I mean, when I got that corporate layoff, it took me five months, and I'm telling you, it was like applying for like 10 jobs a week, you know, for five months to get something, you know, and it was hard. And and I think that did that transmits and I did have an impact on?
Yeah, definitely. Like it's moving on to the next segment just kind of segues very well with that. Next segment is advice and tips and stuff like that, that we have for Job Hunters. One of the big things that both rarely, in turn brought up is insurance. I honestly haven't gotten to the point of even having to worry about insurance with the job because I've gotten that far in any other process. But that is a major thing. And insurance is
crazy. It's also depending on what state you live in, like Rylie and I are in, Ohio, and a lot of insurance companies discriminate against trans people. They're not allowed to. But they do it because I think it's still it's less hassle for them to you know, maybe pay out a lawsuit here there than it is actually deal with us. So like, yeah, you have to find the right
insurance. And for me, like I have my bottom surgery coming up in a few weeks, if I were to get a job that's somehow between that period, I'd have to tell them look, I need to keep my insurance that I'm on for the rest of this year. So I would say ask the HR department if that's an option. If you're on the affordable care act like I am. It's it's easier to pick and
choose with ACA. Companies that are going to cover cover your care because you can actually go through all the plans and compare and contrast when you're selecting. That's why I picked Oscar insurance last year, I use Summa I'll probably go back to Summa next year because with Oscar, I can't go I have to pay out of pocket for my for my trans doctor. And so every appointment cost me 702 dollars, which is fucking insane. But I couldn't get the surgery under the Summa care. So I have to go
back and forth. So pay attention to your insurance. And make sure it's okay that if you do start with another company, and your own insurance that works for you and their insurance won't. Some employers aren't going to let you stay on your insurance, because they have all these package deals and stuff like that. So that could honestly kill the kill the experience for you. Other tips I've come across. Keep your resume simple. You don't need photos, you don't
need all that stuff. It's one of those keep it simple, stupid kind of things. Be sure you don't refer to it. Don't refer to yourself in the first person at all except for it. I believe you can do it in like the summary at the top. But it should always be third person. Be very careful with your language. Be very careful with typos. Vivi, it's a good idea to have a different resume sent to
every single employer. For mine, I write in my headline I put a little plug saying, applying for a blank position at blank company. And then you save the file with your first name, underscore last name and then dash the name of the company. Save it that way for your resume is when random things that I've heard but hopefully it helps, but don't do what I did and apply to a potential dream role.
Were you forget to edit out the the role description and company of the previous company that he applied for and send it to the company dream role that you applied for. So yeah. Other things I found, you want to use actual like figures and numbers. So like say if you increase sales by 30%, put that in there. If you reduce employee churn by so many people put that in there, they want to see numbers, they want to see things that you've actually done. So my resume now has all that stuff.
And explain away any gaps that you have gaps shouldn't be held against you, because we are humans that we should be able to take, not have to work our entire lives. But again, that stuff's used against you. I've also heard for every 10 years that you've been in the professional world, you can add on a page. So my, my resume is two pages that's packed, it is small text all packed together. But so yeah, keep it simple. And another thing that this is a lot
of extra work. And honestly, I'm not very good about doing it. You can you can have aI help you with this. But it's it's Tyrion was talking about the purple unicorn. A lot of these because your first obstacle is ATS system, I did it again, the ATS. And it's going to be searching for certain keywords that your resume has to have that match up with the job description. The problem is, is you don't know what these keywords are, the keywords can be different for every company, it could be
completely arbitrary. And only the company knows what they are. So I have heard that it's a good idea to take some keywords from the job description, and modify your resume a little bit to fit those but I'm not gonna lie, that's fucking hard. And it's hard to be able to find what you need to put in there. So what I've done, I don't know if this is good advice or not. But I've looked for some general words, I see a lot in the different roles I apply to, and I just modified my resume to have those
particular words. And I'm hoping that helps. But again, it's you're up against 1000s of people, when you're doing remote work, when you're looking for in person work, it's it, frankly, it's going to be easier. But then within person work, you also run into the safety concerns like I cannot get an in person job around where I live, because it is just too dangerous. It's dangerous for me to leave my house, just go to Starbucks, let alone go to a company I can be assaulted.
Because I'm very visibly trans. So it turns out there are those are the tips that I have learned from my search. I'm sure there's more. But it's it's a lot. I know that I've been told not to cast a wide net. But I got to the point where I just kind of have to so like parents said that, you know, she was sending 10 resumes a week, I send 10 a day sometimes. So and it's a full time job, it's exhausting, and it wears you down and you are going to run into periods of
severe depression. That happens to me a lot where I just, I just get in a hole. I feel like I'm worthless. I know I'm not I know I have skills. I mean, I got this fucking podcast up and running off the ground from just an idea that a couple of people had. I know I can do shit. But and trans people are resilient. We have skills, like emotional, emotional intelligence, because we have to fight everyday for our survival, which makes us very, very good. And in the
workplace. A lot of people have talked about I believe Erica talks about that a lot. So yeah, off my soapbox. Those are my tips. And how about you too? What do you have for me?
So thank you had, you did have a couple of points I've made too. So resume shouldn't be more than two pages. Like period. Like even if you've got 30 years of experience, you gotta keep it to two. So other tips that I do, and I've been working with a an amazing recruiter in New Mexico that's been helping me rewrite mine and I rewrote mine after 15 years of that, right, like editing it other than me. It's hard. Yeah,
it is. And I mean, one of the points that you hammered on, which I think is incredibly critical. It's like in a performance based job. So like when you did something and you save 30% Or you saved or you managed a product or program that is So that cost $18 million or something, right? Like you drop those numbers in there, because you want to have that statement that bullet point be like, my I did. Here's the problem. Here's what I did. And
here's the savings. Here's the, you know, the, here's what, how I launched on time, or did something like, you know, and I got tons of that stuff. But here's my problem is, I'm super long winded. So my resume was really jam packed. So I broke it down somebody by said seeing from others, is your bullet points should be not two or three sentences a piece, it's got to be one sentence like a compound sentence, like a one robust sentence that talks about
problem, solution result. Right, and just keep it really, really basic. And to the point, I have heard a lot of what you've said from others, about kind of redoing your resume per job. That is really labor intensive. I don't particularly do that. I now really feel that I'm looking at, right. So I'm one of these people before transition that if I didn't meet 90 to 95% of the requirements I didn't apply. Right. And I know that's something that cisgender women struggle with right? syndrome.
Yeah, I mean, I had that like, even before transition, it was like I had that imposter syndrome. And that is the they said, Men, I think cisgender men, you know, they'll apply for something if they meet 70% of the requirements. And I'm like, that's obvious, because I've worked with plenty of those. You know, but it's like, so be really focused on your industry. Like, you and I are both like, where I've done special lists for, but I've also done a lot of operational work and a lot of
generalist stuff. Like I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. Same, right. So like, I have to be very judicious where I'm going. Right? So that makes it a little bit harder. So I don't send 10 a day I send 10 a week, because I'm really focused on those efforts, right. So I'm like, I try to make it the
biggest bang for the buck. But the brief, you know, just that paragraph, you do keep it to like four or five sentences, sentence per bullet point, you know, what the, you know, the issue, the solution and the result. And that should really help. Even like for you Vanessa, like technical skills, like having a section of like what you've done thinking, like, from a systems perspective, or an operation, like no apps or application coupon or something like that, or a certification.
Right, yeah, it's very important.
For the rest of it, put it on LinkedIn. It just, you know, for me, I'd say the one tip I just add on besides that is, if you're comfortable, just lay it out there first, right? When they do the E, I think as a P OC, the equal opportunity or an equal employment, like when they do that they can that I've seen a lot in California, where it's like, male, female, non binary. So it's like non binary. And then the second question is, Are you trans? Right? And then I
like answer that. Just be upfront with that, because sometimes, what you submit to them could be grounds for dismissal. Right. So like, if you don't disclose like a disability, I mean, they can like, I think, like, I don't know if it's legal, per se, but I think people can look at what you submit, as like a statement of like truth or fact and just be like, Well, you didn't tell us that's when you got hired. And you know, and that's like withholding that information. If you can be transparent, be
transparent, right? And start that relationship off with transparency, honesty, and just go from there.
I want to plug in, before I get to your right, I want to click on something that the recruiter I was talking to this, I asked specifically about those EEOC questions. And because sometimes people will say, put to put, do not wish to disclose on everything. And you can do that if you want. She told me that, especially because there are some that you'll apply to that are going to straight up ask you what your sexual orientation or what your gender
identity is. And she said, if they're asking that they care, they're a progressive company that are legitimately interested in it. So just answer it away. So before I used to always just put up prefer not to disclose but now I put female, I'll put transgender face on there. I always click not a veteran because I'm not a veteran. And I click yes to a disability. So because why not? You know, as Karen said, it's, it's, it can be used for you or against you.
So, Rylie, how about you? What do you have for us?
Well, I'm not going to take credit on this one. But when you were talking about explaining career breaks, I had, I had seen this thing recently that talks about if somebody asked you about a career break to say you sign an NDA because they can't ask you them anything about it.
That's an amazing idea.
Right So yeah, you know, that one will be very much in your favor, I think. But, you know, honestly, it's, I had another thought on something that Taryn said, and I can't remember what it was because I was trying to make sure I didn't lose the NDA thought. Sorry. No, I was trying to retain both. And I just, I got so caught up in the one that I forgot the other.
I hate that. You'll remember three in the morning. Oh, absolutely.
And you jump out of bed screaming?
If you remember, just leave a leave a comment on the YouTube video or something. So personal private yet with my kid who doesn't sleep? Yeah.
I mean, I think one thing that we haven't said, the three of us, right is really the network. You know, like, I know, a lot of people don't use LinkedIn until they need a job. And I'm like, that's not the time to prime your network like that. So use this coordinate right away. I don't know if you've seen this, but like, I'll share job boards that I someone, right, like, take a look at these, you know, if you need something, if I'm connected to somebody, you know, reach out to
me and let me make an intro. You know, I mean, like, use your network, use the people that are your supporters, your allies, your friends, right, and activate that to help you. I mean, I do that all the time. You know, it's like, I'll help somebody not expect anything. Then when I need somebody, I know somebody always there.
It's use LinkedIn as a resource. I did what Darren just said you shouldn't do my LinkedIn was dead until I started my job. I had, I think, like, 300 followers or something. And now I just I just reached 2000. And yeah, I was proud of that. And you engage with people. And when I, when I mean, my voice has stopped working. What I mean by engage is, don't just like, don't just like, like, as something that you read, or just don't, don't comment, like awesome or something. Sometimes you can do
that too, that's fine. But when you contribute to something, a post that someone has actually contributed something, do something, say something thoughtful, something that actually contributes to the conversation, because then other people will find that insightful. And then you will find your network growing from there. Post frequently, but don't post too frequently. They say like three or four times a week, try not to use any more than like five or six hashtags.
Unless you're already an influencer, like, you'll see like some of Liam's posts. And Liam puts a shit ton of hashtags on there. But Liam is a top 10 voice. So what you see like that's the top people voices don't follow what they do. Keep it simple. And just try to increase your reach I just learned recently he had, don't put links in your post, put links in the comments. And yeah, if you have a rapport with some people that are bigger influencers, you can tag them. And I've noticed that helps as
well. But the main thing is, is just interact with people and build your network by contributing to the conversation, because that's what LinkedIn pretty much is, it's just conversations. And people that are spilling their brain candy, getting their ideas out there, I do some posts with that, too. Like I've done posts on, you know, my experience with people, people in operations, where, as a leader, I found the most important thing to do is to
listen to people. And my dream role is a position where I can go into a company and just transform the culture from the bottom up. But the up is going to have to listen to what the bottom says. So I don't even know where I was at this point. But yeah, it's it's time to build up your presence. And, and don't wait because it's really hard to do while you're job hunting. Because Jacqueline can already be a full time job. Building up your social media presence is also a lot of work
every day. It's it's slow, it's hard. And but it will benefit because now, I mean, before I just had my connections were just like, my vendors and customers at my previous job. And now I've met all these wonderful people, this podcast came from myself and other people having connections and becoming friends, like everyone on this podcast, We're family now. So yeah, you can, it can not only help you with your career, but it can also enrich your life.
I mean, it prevents future opportunities, you know, and it's like, I mean, I don't post them as much on LinkedIn in the last month or two. I kind of do take away from it because of the algorithm shuts, right? Yeah, it's like, unless you're an expert I just saw, I'm like, I'm just wondering, you see me, I mean, I'm on Instagram, and I'm on threads. You know, I'm
enjoying it. And once it I post something about work, or why we should replace CEOs with gender, and if AI and marketers, you know, and so I'll post something like that. That's an intriguing, challenging thing. And then, because I don't really like I'm like, I'm not supporting like LinkedIn, your grand moms platform, like, I just can't support like what they're doing
in the silencing. It's just funny because I see a lot of people now tagging into that, like, Oh, my God, there's I'm like, no really like to speak to a trans woman or trans stand, you'll see, you'll, you'll see that the silencing has been actually longer than the last three or four weeks. And months. I believe
Liam is going to be doing an episode on that soon. It's very sorry, I cancelled my LinkedIn premium. Because I'm like, why am I spending $43 a month for an organization? That's just not? That doesn't have my back? So LinkedIn for us is expensive. It's very expensive.
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've got it just because I want that full on thing because I need to have that access. But it's like other than that, like, yeah, LinkedIn Instagram on platform like by eventually you'll be replaced with something better.
Yeah, exactly. Really got anything?
Honestly, I don't you guys have hit on that about everything?
Well, I didn't want to just, I didn't want to talk over you
know, you're okay. I'm just, I'm being upfront, like you guys have hit on about everything. I was gonna probably pretty much today. So
it's, yeah, I guess the overall advice is just hang in there. If you need to take a break from it, take a break. Because your mental health is important. It's hard. It's very hard, it's draining. You're gonna get a lot of no emails I've been I've been getting more less less, no emails lately and more. position has been filled emails. So I think a lot of cases, the companies don't take the job postings down. They just they just leave them up. So you could be applying to jobs that
already have someone in it. So which sucks, but what are you gonna do? searching for jobs, there's some websites are easier. And others I really like, There's a website called ATA OTT A, it's great for tech jobs. And it's updated frequently. Sometimes the jobs are a little bit older. But I've done a, I've done most of my job hunting with that. LinkedIn job search is just bad. I'm not gonna lie, it sucks. Like, I want to search for a people,
people and culture role. And so you do even put it in quotes, you put in the search for people and culture role, and it's not going to it doesn't just pull from the title of the role it pulls from the body of the job plan. So like, if the Job says that, like, just in just the talking about company, we're a group of people that you know, have a culture of cultural stuff. And but it's going to
pull that out. So you search for people and culture, and then it's going to bring up all those random things that don't apply. What I found helpful is if you if you find a role that you like, and you apply to it, and then on the LinkedIn page, click the Ask if you apply to the role hit yes. And then it'll pop up a window saying, Do you want to see jobs similar to this one. And that's how you do it. Because then it's going to give you a much better curated thing.
Another thing you'll find that's really annoying, like, if you there's certain companies that you might want to look at, you can go to the company's page and click it and click on the jobs and see what they have. But sometimes they'll have the exact same job posted 250 times. So because they'll have it like focus in it's like remote roles. So they have you know, this jobs in Charlotte, this jobs in San Antonio, this jobs in Cleveland, this jobs in San Francisco, but
it's all the exact same job. So you have to sift through all that nonsense to actually find a different position that they're doing. So that's kind of an annoying thing. As you job hunting, you'll be filling out resumes on different different work platforms, you will quickly come to realize that workday sucks. Some, some of them are like lever is amazing. Some are just super simple. You just enter the information, you can paste your cover letter into a lot of them. Use your cover
letter. I don't know how well it helps but it can't hurt and use a cover letter, even if it's just the same one every time, whatever. But, like with Workday, you're gonna have to create an account. And then you're gonna go in and you're gonna have to enter in all the information that's already on your resume into future windows, which is a pain workday from what I've heard is very useful on the employer end, but it's horribly designed for Job Hunters. So just be prepared for that. So
yeah, I think the cover letter is good. Like, that's where I'm like doing all the personalization, right? We're talking about maybe disclose, like, gender identity, or, you know, where I'm living or you know, what come Yeah, I like adding that color commentary. Yeah, recently, like, I've had a couple that really popped up on the feed online. And in the last three months, and I've got a lot
of time to apply. We felt the physician, but we just wanted to let you know, and I'm just like, oh, my god, please spare me your AI automated. And she's like, don't email where it's like, sorry. Thanks. Bye, bye.
Yeah. You'll get a lot of those, though. I would say maybe five to 10%. You actually hear back from an actual person. And when I get those, I write back to him saying thank you for actually responding to me and not sending from a no reply email. I said, that means a lot to me. And it says a lot about the company. And I've actually plugged the company for that before because it's hard. And yeah, there's something else I was gonna say.
My favorite is when they you interview, they turn you down, like in an automated message. And then they send you a survey, like, tell us about your experience and like, shout quarters, I guess. Know how that's working.
No, employers don't do that to people. And if someone goes through a lengthy process of interviewing, don't send an automated email, have someone reach out and just give a reason why, what, like, if there's a red flag, say it so that applicant can learn. Because otherwise, I mean, it's it's almost like getting broken up with, you know, it's hard via text message. Yeah, exactly. So it's hard are getting ghosted?
Yeah, we Yeah, that happens all the times professionally ghosted, like, or something like, I've had no emails come in, like 1011 months after I applied, I actually, like, my job is this I'll go, I'll search, search my mail folder and be like, I applied to this 2021. Like, no. So if you don't hear anything back, within probably two weeks, I wouldn't expect much from that. So a quick note and cover letters, my cover, I have a standard cover letter that I use for a lot of
things. But there's sometimes roles that I will apply to that, I find a need to do a cover letter very specifically for that role. Like if it's at a company that I have a lot of passion for that they have a mission, I will go into that. So because I would say I'm a job hunter in two ways. I have the the wide net that I cast in order to maybe some I'll catch
something. And then I'm very focused in the focus ones, I go, and I tailor my resume and I tailor my cover letter and stuff like that, when I find those kinds of roles, so but I think both ways are valid. Because you're trying to find a job here. It's hard. But stick with it.
Oh, good tips.
Yeah, we're up on our time. Now here to either you have any closing thoughts. Now, these
are just good tips. And if you need anything, and you're listening to this, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'll be happy to help where I can share job boards and stuff like that. And if you'd like we do here on this podcast, for the love of the goddess smash the subscribe button.
Yes. Rylie, do you have anything?
I was just gonna say, you know, like, same thing. You know, we have a lot of advice, a lot of tips that were in this episode. But you know, there's always one of us that will probably gladly talk to anybody if they reach out to us. You know, whether it be industry specific, or you know, just general job hunting questions, anybody can reach out. And we'll do what we can to help you guys.
Yeah, it's easy to get a hold of us to I mean, you can either find us individually on social media. I'm everywhere has been Australia, but just go on our website, transcending humanity.com. There's a contact form there, and it just sends us an email. And we get those we read them. I usually respond. And sometimes like if there's questions from somebody, I'll just copy and paste the email into the discord and let everybody let other co hosts and stuff and our guests kind of
chime in Gennady on that. So yeah, as Taryn said, hit that subscribe button. Tell your friends, please. Tell your friends we've really we're growing, but slowly. It's hard to grow a podcast. But I know we can help so many people that the feedback we've received from people is wonderful. Having Blair on this episode shows that, you know, we have an impact people enjoy us enough to want to ask them want to actually be on the podcast, which that's super cool. So
again, thank you to Blair. If you most of our listeners are on Apple, please rate us five stars, you can leave a review as well. If you're on YouTube, smash that like button, hit the subscribe button, leave a comment. When you comment. It brings us up in the algorithm because it means that people are interacting. And it also kind of helps offset the trolls. So which it's always funny ones that like trans rights and stuff like that where some idiot will post who cares? What actually
Asal you do? Because you found this random video from transcending humanity has 71 subscribers on YouTube right now. My personal YouTube channel has 217 They're very, very small channels. And the fact that someone found it means they're actively searching hashtags. So if anyone ever says Who cares and you're not a huge influencer, just throw it back at them and say, apparently you do because you found me you're here so whatever. But okay,
everybody, thank you again. Tell your friends please, when you see our posts, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, smash that share button when you see our stuff we post on Instagram we post on Facebook, we post on LinkedIn. We don't have a tic tac yet because frankly, Rylie you're the youngest of us. I'm too fucking old to figure out TikTok I have a TikTokc. I didn't know if I can get at it. We need some Gen Zers on the
show. I need to do a casting call for some Gen Z and let in let them take over that shit because Gen Z they're just fucking miracle workers so Okay, everyone, thank you so much for joining us for episode 18 Oh, transcending humanity. I don't know what the next one is going
to be. We're going to be recording some episodes in advance for me to set releases when I have my surgery so things are going to be kind of all over the place so I don't want to say we have a topic and then it not be the topic because I've done that before. So thank you so much for joining us on transcending humanity i Everyone bye
Bye?
Morning