Interview Tips to Get the Job | Career Transitions | Business Travel | Jaime Stoffer | Episode 112

Interview Tips to Get the Job | Career Transitions | Business Travel | Jaime Stoffer | Episode 112
Voices for Voices is the #1 ranked podcast where people turn to for expert mental health, recovery and career advancement intelligence.

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As you can see, the Voices for Voices podcast publishes episodes that focus on case studies, real life examples, actionable tips and "in the trenches" reports and interviews from subscribers like you.

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Embark on a voyage of transformation with me, Justin Alan Hayes, as we navigate the career metamorphosis of Jaime Stoffer, whose journey from the healthcare landscape to the towering skyline of corporate America is nothing short of inspiring. Jaime unravels the tapestry of her professional pivot, illuminating the transferable skills that propelled her from physical therapy to corporate leadership. Her candid narrative is a treasure trove for anyone looking to harness their innate abilities in new and challenging environments, offering a compass for those aiming to strengthen their personal brand and achieve career fluidity.

Strap in for a rollercoaster of tales from the trenches of business travel, where I peel back the curtain on the blend of glitz and grunt work that accompanies life on the road. From tackling trade show tribulations to swapping stories with fellow travelers, I share the essential survival tips that come with managing remote work and networking that's more than just business card swapping. Laugh along with anecdotes of convention hall calamities and learn why adaptability, a hearty laugh, and a well-crafted elevator pitch can turn chance encounters into valuable connections. Whether you're a jet-setting executive or gearing up for your first business voyage, this is your guide to navigating the high seas of professional travel.

Chapters
0:00 Transferring From Healthcare to Corporate America
12:59 Challenges and Benefits of Business Travel
18:48 Trade Show Set-Up Mishaps and Lessons

#CareerTransitions #BusinessTravel #BusinessTravelTips #TradeShowTales #VoicesForVoices #Networking #CareerGrowth #Japan #Tokyo #Osaka #Singapore #Malaysia #Australia #Sydney #Melbourne #Brisbane #KualaLumpur

Transcript

Justin Alan Hayes: 0:00

Welcome to the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your J Justin Alan host, Hayes, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices. Voices for Voices is the number one ranked podcast where people turn to for mental health, recovery and career advancement intelligence. Our Voices for Voices podcast is all about teaching you insanely actionable techniques to help you prosper, grow your self-worth and your personal brand. So if you're a high achiever or know someone who wants more out of life, whether mentally, physically or spiritually, please make sure you subscribe to our podcast right now. And, as you can see, the Voices for Voices podcast publishes episodes that focus on case studies, real-life examples, actionable tips and in-the-trenches reports and interviews from subscribers like you. Again, if that sounds like something that could help you or somebody you know personally grow personally or professionally, then make sure you join us by subscribing. That way, we can head towards the goal of reaching three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond which we actually reached awareness last year, in 2023. So we're continuing to march along, getting stronger and in broader reach and helping more people by the day, so thank you for that. So in studio today, we are really lucky to have touched on the career aspects of learning techniques.

Justin Alan Hayes: 1:58

Talking a little bit about personal brand, our guest today is going to talk about some of those things, as well as her background and how she transferred from a background in health care into corporate America. So Jaime Stoffer is a health care professional. She's locally from Canton, Ohio. She has a diverse set of skills that includes leadership, marketing, clinical education and product development. Jamie also has a solid educational foundation, with a master's of business administration and a doctorate in physical therapy. She's known for building effective teams, executing marketing strategies and fostering key industry relationships. Jamie, thank you so much for joining us today.

Jaime Stoffer: 2:56

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Justin Alan Hayes: 2:58

Yeah, for our listeners and our viewers. How we connected was through one of your LinkedIn posts that thrown out topic-wise. It was on transferable skills and it caught my eye for a couple of reasons. The main one that I thought of at the time was as an instructor at Walsh University. A lot of my students, whether they're freshmen or sophomore, juniors or even seniors, go into looking for internships or full-time positions or volunteer positions and they think that they don't have the skills to attain or apply to a certain job. Now, well, maybe applying that for a president or a director, those types of jobs that would obviously need some experience to be able to move into those roles.

Justin Alan Hayes: 4:03

A person going through their education, they have a lot of transferable skills, whether it be working with groups, presenting, just doing a simple project that how many projects does a college student do of picking something they did well and all the different pieces that went into it. So that's how I came to know you virtually and then we were able to through a ton of scheduling, holidays and all that fun stuff with everybody is dealing with. They get you in the studio to have you share your experience. So could you maybe get started by talking about your background in healthcare and then we can go from there.

Jaime Stoffer: 4:51

Yeah, absolutely so. I originally actually graduated from Walsh University with my doctorate in physical therapy, so I was started in the physical therapy sector of healthcare. I worked in a variety of settings, kind of bounced around a little bit, trying to figure out where my niche was and where I felt the most comfortable. So outpatient, acute home health, inpatient rehab Little did I know at that point in time. I was actually setting myself up for success later on in the future. But it was a great learning experience for me because I got to experience a wide range of patient populations, different settings, different acuity levels, different billing cycles, all different kinds of things.

Jaime Stoffer: 5:32

But I found in me kind of job jumping that I was trying to find something and I wasn't finding what I wanted. And so I took a role. I was director of rehab for a facility that I needed to focus in on programs to get residents engaged. I needed to get healthcare referrals from the local physicians and local hospitals. So I was doing a lot of marketing efforts to get those items out and I found myself being drawn more to that aspect of my job than what I was doing before. So that kind of was the aha moment for me. I need to start looking for something that's a little more in tune with my strengths.

Jaime Stoffer: 6:08

So I started looking out in the community and started looking to see how can I utilize my degree today, what are my strengths and what am I interested in, which at that time was program development and marketing and so I started looking for roles that could I do program development for physical therapy based companies that are selling products to physical therapists. So I started looking around and I was able to find a position and I was able to do that. So then I transitioned kind of what I call the dark side. I was on the corporate, more corporate based role. So I've been doing that now, for we're coming up on nine years now that I've been on this side of the fence and I'm kind of I'm still working with healthcare providers, I'm still using a lot of those kind of skills, but I have transferred to a completely different focus and different hat that I wear Anytime that I'm approaching a problem or a kind of discussion around a product. It's just a very different viewpoint.

Justin Alan Hayes: 7:00

Yeah, and I think that's helpful on so many levels. When you just talk about different jobs, different areas that you were getting experience with and you weren't really finding at that, you know that first, or maybe the second second rule, like exactly what you're looking for, can you talk a little bit about maybe kind of the emotional side of how it made you feel like once you started to feel like you're in the right direction, once you started going there? Because I think that also could be helpful really to anybody who's had a job and a job you know they might say, well, how am I gonna know and I know, nothing is 100% science, but maybe maybe some signals that you were noticing of, like, okay, what got to that aha moment for you?

Jaime Stoffer: 7:57

Yeah, absolutely so. I think one of the common mistakes I see with people is they tend to generalize when they're not happy with a position. It's like, well, I don't like to do this, don't generalize. You really need to kind of internalize a little bit and figure out and hone in specifically what is it that you don't like? Is it that direct patient conversation that you don't like? Is it the documentation aspect you don't like? Is it and that's on the healthcare side?

Jaime Stoffer: 8:23

But if we take this, you know, in a broader conversation, what aspects to your job and your day-to-day do you see yourself gravitating towards first because you enjoy it, versus areas that you tend to put off to the very last because you don't enjoy doing it. What are those? Now, don't get me wrong. Every single position has something that you don't necessarily enjoy.

Jaime Stoffer: 8:44

However, if you're consistently finding yourself, you know, avoiding getting into the data because you're just not a numbers person, then any kind of an analytic type of position, a business analyst role, is not the right position for you. We need to focus in on your strengths, and so that would be kind of where I would recommend people take a look at is and it's not necessarily a hundred percent. You know, a black and white scenario of you have to hone in on what you enjoy and what your strengths are. But, being truly realistic and it's a little bit of a harsh conversation with yourself if I'm to roll out a list of what my strengths are, I'm not necessarily going to come out with a list of 14 different things I really need to focus on two to three key things that I know I do very well and I enjoy doing it. So what are those items and how can I translate that to a role?

Justin Alan Hayes: 9:32

Yeah, that's that can be cumbersome, and I know for myself and myself personally as well as students, you know they do, they think of that, that list of like oh, 15 or 20 things and and do we really do?

Justin Alan Hayes: 9:50

We just need to hone in on two to three to get it, get us started, because those two to three and for anybody that's taken at least a marketing course you go through so many different areas of marketing with the four P's writing press releases, doing creative briefs, all these different projects.

Justin Alan Hayes: 10:16

But then once you're out of school, unless you're running your own business or at a smaller company, you're really only going to be focusing maybe on one and maybe only a piece of one of those areas that you spend all that time so that really makes sense to what you're saying to find that those two or three things that really match up to to that role. And if you find yourself not enjoying it and granted, sometimes people think like, oh well, I'm never going to find something I'm going to like love and like wake up in the morning and say, oh, I can't wait to go to work or oh, I just had a great day at work, so you'll take it. All those things aside, there are still, like said those, those emotional keys and cues to really help hone in, and it can take some time that it's not always overnight.

Jaime Stoffer: 11:15

And that's an excellent point because I feel, especially if you're younger, you're a student, you're early on in your career, you're in an exploration phase right now. Those first couple years in my career, I didn't know what I wanted, and that's okay. We ask these questions to 16 and 17 year olds, asking them to figure out what they want to do for the rest of their life. I'm 38 years old and I do not have any clue what I want to do for the rest of my life. It's more so trying to figure out what am I good at, what do I enjoy doing and making it so my job isn't a terrible 8 to 5 that I can't stand doing every day and some of those conversations go hand in hand and trying to figure out what you do and what you're strong in, and you carrying that on in your day to day, is going to make you feel better about yourself. If you're constantly being battled with something that you're not necessarily strong in, that takes a toll on all areas of your life, including your mental health.

Justin Alan Hayes: 12:06

Oh, absolutely. So you do quite a bit of traveling for your role. Now how much, if any, do you like the travel aspect of what you're doing? I guess somebody may be listening or watching and saying, oh, I love to travel, explore, go on road trips, and maybe that comes out and a person wanting a role or a job where they're able to have some free time after they do the work when they're traveling for a job.

Jaime Stoffer: 12:44

Yeah. So traveling for a position is interesting and I tend to cut to the negative aspects. First, because travel tends to have this allure and grandeur that people get pretty excited about. The thing with travel is and right now I probably do about 40 to 50% of my job on the road. The rest of the time I am remote and I work from my home, so there is a nice balance from that in regards to we don't have the daily commute going into an office.

Jaime Stoffer: 13:13

However, when you're on the road, it is very similar whenever you're going on vacation. You can have flights canceled, you can go pick up your rental car and there's a two hour line of people you're waiting in. Those things don't go away because you're traveling for business. You go through all the same kinds of things whenever you're traveling for business, but now I've got meetings and everything else that I've got to move around because of hiccups like that, so those same kinds of things occur. The other thing is you're no longer in an eight to five type of schedule. I might leave for a flight at six am. I'm leaving my house at three, four o'clock in the morning. I travel all day. I get to the hotel. I then have to go out to a business meeting or a dinner. I mean it's like I've already put in for the day 16 hours. So those kinds of things happen and it is very realistic. So I do like to kind of point those out and kind of paint an accurate picture of what's going on. But the positives are, of course, you're in new areas, I see new cities, I get to try new restaurants. I don't necessarily sometimes I've joked, sometimes I'll go to Vegas for different trade shows and I won't see the light of the sun for three days because we're inside these massive hotels for all these trade shows and kind of the day to day that goes through that. But there's always nuances of where you're meeting new people. You're building your network. I attend quite a bit of trade shows every year and it is an excellent opportunity for me to build my network and it's something that every time I go to a show I try to walk away with at least another stronger one to two contacts within my network that I know that I can reach out and partner with later on and that becomes that kind of brings this full circle back to the transferable skills.

Jaime Stoffer: 14:45

Conversation is one of the strongest things you can do is build your network, and we hear about this all the time in school. But what does that mean? What does that mean when we say build your network? And so that is kind of having those conversations with someone at a beyond, kind of a superficial level, without a transactional nature. When I meet someone that I want to include in my network, I'm not hoping to gain a sale from them. That's not what the conversation is. It is more so getting to know them, understanding where their strengths and their expertise is, and then them also understanding the same about me. So whenever, six months from now, let's see a media therapist who specializes in pelvic health, I know six months from now and if I have a woman's health conversation come up that I can go. Huh, I've got a contact for that. Let me reach out to her. And so that's what I mean when I say building network.

Jaime Stoffer: 15:36

It's truly about relationships without the transaction in mind. Often I'm reached out to on LinkedIn that people will have various career questions or they'll you know something that's related to my position. They want to communicate. All great, that's all methods, the way to build your network. But sometimes that transactional conversation is too much in the forefront, and I know that you're coming to me just for a transaction. You're not necessarily coming to me to understand how we can get to know each other and understand how we can mutually benefit from our relationship. So that's one of the things that I definitely recommend is don't approach things like a transaction. It's not a customer, it is a relationship and relationships take nurturing. So that means continual communication. You know that means reaching out and saying Merry Christmas.

Jaime Stoffer: 16:25

Like there's things like that, just basic conversation that you're continuing through Get to know them. Do they have kids, are they married, where do they live, how's things like that and you know who they are as a person. That is building a relationship and that is building out your network. And that's probably the biggest thing that I see error wise with people is they treat them like a customer and it's a one time deal. We get the sale, we walk away. That's not a network conversation, that's just yeah, maybe something a little deeper than that.

Justin Alan Hayes: 16:53

Absolutely so. I had a role previous where I was managing trade shows and that's absolutely not my expertise. I'm curious if you have maybe like a funny story and I guess back up on why I say like a funny story set up so individuals might think, oh well, in trade shows in Vegas or LA or nice area, nice cities, but, like you said, a lot of time you might not see. You could be in Vegas for five days and not see the sun. You're inside a massive trade show hall and ours was at the Mandalay Bay and I guess I say funny, I showed up but for the first day of setup and, okay, you're in Vegas and it's not quite peak summer time and it's not quite winter time, it's maybe April, may, so the weather is still pretty warm, decently. And so I thought that when I went to go help set up, I was like, oh, I'm going to Vegas, yeah, we're going to be able to have all this fun, and that was not the case.

Justin Alan Hayes: 18:16

But when we showed up the air conditioning was not turned on, and so that was like something one of my colleagues had mentioned before is that you better be ready, because they're trying to save money. They're not going to turn that AC on until they absolutely need to, and I was going to the night before to start getting the temperature down and that was just like baffling of like, oh no, that's not the case. But then once I got there and it happened and you're moving around, you're lifting things, you're checking on this, everybody doing what they're supposed to do did all the crates arrive? And if they didn't, where are they coming in? Is there something damaged? So we had a kiosk. It was damaged and it had this whole argument of, well, we didn't do it. It was like well, I saw you, you're taking it out, and it banged. And now our team ended up spending like two days trying to fix it. So we lost time. So there's all those I'd say like now I can get back pickups kind of funny, interesting things.

Justin Alan Hayes: 19:28

And then I'll finish by the third thing. Was we the trash. The individuals were collecting the trash, because you have crates, you have boxes, and so you're trying to get everything as fast as possible. You're opening things and there's bubble wrap. There's this all kind of like Christmas, like on steroids, with all the say, all the equipment that's needed, and so there's individuals that come around with their container and you put your trash and they're collecting. And so I had asked somebody who wasn't one of the collectors. We were trying to finish up but there was a couple of things like we needed to throw away. We could just leave them in the booth, because then we need to get the sweeper or under the carpet and so all these things. So I asked the person. I said hey, can you help me take this? He says, oh, they don't pay me to do that.

Jaime Stoffer: 20:35

And I said what do you mean?

Justin Alan Hayes: 20:39

He's like, well, they don't pay. There's people, and there's people to go around with these bins and you put them in there. And I said, I know, and he goes, they don't pay me to do that. And he's kept on walking and it was funny. And then another I say like a folklore legend that was told when I first started at the company was that there was a trade show and there was something that was going on and they ended up killing the lights and killing the electricity because whatever was going on like somebody was not on a treating one of the union groups well, and and so they said you're like, oh well, you know, if you don't help us out and do this, like we're gonna cut the electric. And so they did, they cut it, and it's the day before set. The show was at the start, yeah, and then they had to get fire and inspect around all these things. So some of those types of things, those hiccups, is there I'm sure you have a time to say tons, tons.

Jaime Stoffer: 21:47

Setting up for a trade show is an experience in and of itself. So if you've never done that before, on that aspect it is quite the learning curve. But I kind of equate it to that experience. The first time you set up an IKEA piece of furniture but remove any kind of manuals, like right is.

Jaime Stoffer: 22:05

You have all these pieces of things that show up. You're trying to figure out how they work together, but you wanted to come to a nice looking product at the end of the day. Sometimes you're missing screws, sometimes you're missing pieces. You're trying to figure out how to put this together. It's something you've never seen before. It is very much that same type of experience and it kind of depends on how big your booth is in regards to kind of what kind of labor you have to help.

Jaime Stoffer: 22:29

But I have seen just about everything. I've seen boost, where we've shown up and literally nothing is there. Our, our crate got lost, our package didn't arrive in the the conference starts and it's just us in the booth saying hi, everybody and and hoping that you know it'll show up that night. I've seen products get damaged, I've seen. I've seen people were supposed to be in the booth not be able to make it because of travel issues getting in. So then you're short staffed, just about everything when it comes to. I've seen we've hired help to help kind of put together our booth for us and installed things upside down backwards and you get to the show and you're like what is this?

Justin Alan Hayes: 23:14

it's all done.

Jaime Stoffer: 23:15

I sent a picture does not look like my picture. So just about everything throughout the kind of the trade show world. And you're right that first day I always tell people do not show up in your business attire. Please wear yoga pants and t-shirts, because you're gonna be crawling around on the ground, you're gonna be using a wrench to put something to get here you're, you're.

Jaime Stoffer: 23:35

It's just the nature of the beast in regards to you know, taking care of and setting up a booth. But there's one of the biggest aspects of that area that I always it's one of the first things I do anytime I'm screening somebody to hire is what is your ability to roll with the punches and your flexibility? Look like you're a very structured person. You like things to be consistent. That's okay, but that's kind of that internal self-awareness comes. But if you can't pivot and be ready to completely change what your original plan was, that kind of environment becomes very difficult for individuals because I it is a constant. You don't know what the external variables are gonna be and it could literally be anything from.

Jaime Stoffer: 24:18

I remember one time in particular we were a lot of these trade shows occur in really big cities which the kind of any kind of event space is a union base. So each individual has very specific job duties and very specific tasks that they handle. And I remember being we had hired in a speaker at one of these events and they wanted a table up by their podium and there was a table on the ground and so I naturally grabbed the table. I went to go put it next to the podium to which I got yelled out from union of I'm not allowed to move furniture because it's union. I was like it's ten feet? Yeah, I couldn't. I had to pay for someone to move at ten feet. These, these are the rules, these are the things that get set up. So, but just a lot of nuances and funny stories like that that you end up running into that, you know, occur whenever you're doing trade shows, and the bigger they are, the more interesting it gets.

Justin Alan Hayes: 25:12

So yeah, and into the to the labor point of you contract for a period of time, for an amount of resources. Once that time's up, they're, they're done, they're, they're not hanging around and and so to that point we've had, we had booths where it wasn't finished, like things got in late or it was the labor's fault, the reason why we're running behind. And when I say hey, it's gonna take like an extra half hour, an hour, they're like no, we can't do that, like it's not. And so of course you have to do the rigmarole. I gotta call their manager and then say, yep, like we got, we'll pay it. Let's triple time yeah, so crazy about.

Justin Alan Hayes: 26:03

They're like, if I'm gonna stay like for half hour, yeah, I'm gonna do do this.

Justin Alan Hayes: 26:09

So I think we're at a good spot to pivot to a second episode of that, if that's okay, because we're so many other areas and definitely want to touch, touch on and such fruitful information, so that work for you absolutely okay.

Justin Alan Hayes: 26:31

Well, we want to thank you for joining us on this episode of the voices for voices TV show and podcast. I want to thank Jaime Stoffer for joining us. She is going to be joining us for part two to continue the trade show transferable skill discussion. What, whatever skills she looks for in an interview candidates for roles. She, she was able to talk through you know that, that agility, that flexibility for trade shows, and so maybe we'll be able to find out for other other areas that might not be trade show related and that may help you or somebody you know, just just be able to put some more information in your toolbox and, and at some point might be tomorrow, might be in a month, might be in six years there'll be something I can. I can assure you'll pull away from this conversation. So we're gonna head on to our second episode with Jamie, but until next time I'm Justin Allen Hayes, and we hope that you are a voice for yourself or somebody in need.