EPISODE SUMMARY
Mark Herschberg, career-building expert and author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You, learned the hard way about the skills necessary for a successful and dynamic career. In this episode, Mark talks about the inspiration for his recent book and gives practical career-building tips to business leaders and rising talent alike. No matter where you are in your career journey, it’s time to start thinking about your future and setting measurable goals to reach success.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Mark Herschberg is an author, thought leader and expert in career building, speaker, and professor at MIT. An MIT and Harvard Business School grad, Mark has vast experience in not only the tech world but also in facilitating career success.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, Sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
BEHIND THE BOOK
Mark began, “I was a software engineer, and I knew I wanted to become a Chief Technology Officer, so I looked around me and asked, ‘What does a CTO do? What would I need to do to get there?’” What Mark realized was that it wasn’t about being a good software developer. There were all these other skills — leadership, hiring, team-building, having a strong network. He explained, “I had heard of these skills, and I knew they were important, but no one ever actually taught them.” That’s when Mark began developing these skills in himself, ultimately leading him to realize that these skills weren’t just necessary for those at “the top of the hierarchy,” but also for all of us.
When Mark became a manager, he tried to hire well-rounded employees, but he quickly learned that his potential candidates weren’t taught the necessary skills either. This led Mark to develop his own internal training programs. Meanwhile, this issue was even affecting MIT students who, despite their natural intelligence and book knowledge, weren’t walking into job interviews with leadership, communication, team-building, and negotiation skills. To remedy this issue, MIT began to put together a training program.
That’s when Mark reached out to MIT and offered to help. Mark explained, “So they asked me to help create some of the curricula, and for the past 20 years, I’ve been teaching there. Then I realized that I’m only reaching a handful of students a year, and I wanted to reach more.” This realization was the catalyst for Mark’s book, The Career Toolkit.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Clarifying Leadership Experience
“There are lots of people who are leaders, but they’re different types. Do you need a transformational leader or growth leader? Everyone puts “strong communicator” on their job applications. But what does that mean? Does that mean they speak up in meetings? Does that mean they write really good emails or maybe concise emails? Does that mean that they can explain complex ideas to people? These are all different types of communication, and you might not need all of those. So, in addition to the knowledge and experience or these other attributes that we want, we have to enumerate how important a leadership attribute is and what we mean when we say it.”
Zeroing In
“If we really want to focus on leadership, how do we determine that? We can ask them about their experiences. We can ask about hypotheticals. In the book, I break down the different types of questions you can use. But you want to select certain questions and styles of questions to really zero in on that particular attribute and see if it fits what you’re looking for.”
Making A Career Plan
“A career plan typically begins by asking yourself a number of questions. What do you want in a job? But don’t focus only on your job. Also, what do you want in life? Where do you want to live? What type of lifestyle do you desire? How important is income versus independence versus working in a certain area? […] Now, ideally, you’re asking not just for today, but also long-term — where you want to be in 10 years, 15 years. And it’s okay not to have exact answers. But you want to think ahead.”
Your Plan’s Evolution
“I used to play competitive chess. My friend Jason Rosenhaus and I used to teach chess together and he said, ‘Look, when you’re playing chess, you’re just sitting there moving pieces. If you don’t have a plan, it’s random until eventually you get attacked and lose. You need to have a proactive plan for capturing your opponent’s team. Even a bad plan is better than no plan at all.’ But the great thing in chess, you have a plan and you improve it as you go, and that’s true of our careers as well. Don’t just say that you can’t come up with the perfect plan. Come up with a plan, and then over time, refine it.”
How to Evolve
“We think that we’re going to follow a career plan to a T. I just don’t think that happens in real life. And it shouldn’t happen. When we think about our project plans (whenever you’re working on a project that’s more than a few weeks, whether it’s months or years), of course, you don’t say, ‘Well, just follow the plan, no deviation.’ We know we have to do check-ins. Maybe you’re using an agile process that has check-ins every week or two. Maybe you’re just using a process that has monthly or quarterly check-ins. Either way, we do that check-in to determine if we’re on-plan or off-plan. We ask ‘What’s working? What’s not? What do we have to change?’”
“You want to do this with your career plan as well. I recommend sitting down at least once a year to assess where you are in your career plan. And every time you’re about to look for a new job or get asked to work on a new project, take a moment to assess what you want, where you stand, and whether this new opportunity will help you towards that goal.”
Jobs Are Short, Careers Are Long
“I had one employee say, ‘My wife just got into law school. We’re moving to California.’ And my response was, ‘Okay, thank you. I now know I can plan. I can prepare.’ And I’ve had employees who I’ve encouraged to leave the company because I knew that, for their own growth, it meant going somewhere else.”
“What this does for my other employees is helps them to trust me. They say, ‘Mark is a great man. He looks out for me. He takes care of me. I can have open office discussions with him.’ In the short term, maybe it’s going to lose you someone, but the rest of the employees will be more excited to be there. They’ll bring in friends and say what a great manager they have. So I think companies are waking up to this and recognizing it. Jobs are short. Careers are long. So let’s make sure it’s good for you.”
It’s Not Just For Leaders
“The managerial skills I lay out in the book are not just for people with managerial titles. They are practical skills that we can all use every day of our careers. And then, of course, expanding our network brings more opportunities, more knowledge, more support, and negotiations to make. People think we only negotiate a salary or perhaps with a salesperson, but really we negotiate all the time, particularly with our coworkers. Learning to be an effective negotiator leads to better outcomes for everyone.”
LEARN MORE
Looking for your next steps in planning your career? Head over to Mark’s website and check out his free resources for anyone interested in advancing their career. You can also reach out to Mark through LinkedIn or grab a copy of his book, The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You, wherever books are sold.