‘Forward’ Your Career with Kadima Transcript

​More Elephant Intro

[00:00:38] Jason Rudman: Welcome to the last individual-recorded podcast of the first season of More Elephant. I'm delighted to end the first season by being in conversation with Alan Stein, who is the founder and CEO of Kadima Careers. He and his team are on a mission to level the playing field for underestimated talent and accelerate one million careers by 2040.

And what I love about this conversation is it's a perfect bookend to the first episode of the More Elephant podcast, where Ben Brooks talked about piloting a new career direction. So, couldn't think of a better way to end season one. Alan, welcome to the More Elephant Podcast.

[00:01:18] Alan Stein: Thank you, Jason. So excited to be here.

[00:01:21] Jason Rudman: And we should let everybody know, Alan, that we go way back into the annals of New York City history, and we may or may not touch on some of that today as part of your talking about your journey, but it's great to see you. It's great to listen to you. I love what you're doing, and I think the audience is going to get a tremendous amount of impact from listening to what you've created and, indeed, I hope to take advantage of what you're doing to help them build their career as they go forward.

[00:01:48] Alan Stein: Well, way to set that bar high for this podcast. And you always did that for me. So I appreciate that.

[00:01:53] Jason Rudman: I have no doubt that you're going to exceed it. So where I would love to start, Alan… let's hear about who you are and what led you to founding Kadima Careers.

[00:02:06] Alan Stein: Yeah. So, who I am? I'm a dad. I'm a husband. I am an employee. I've worked for twenty-one (21) companies for twenty-nine (29) jobs, and thirty-eight (38) bosses, including you. And I am really good at getting jobs. I'm really good at getting promoted at jobs. I'm also pretty good at getting fired from jobs. And I'm really good at helping people do all three. Well, not…I can help people get fired if they want to. Most people are not going to use me for that, but I can definitely give them advice on that.

But, I generally coach people now on how to get jobs and how to get promoted at jobs, but mostly how to get jobs. So that's what I do now after working in the corporate world for lots of big logos. I took a lot of that knowledge, expertise, and relationships that I built and started Kadima Careers. It was first a solopreneur endeavor, then I hired a virtual assistant, and now we're a thirty (30) person organization, and we're on a mission to accelerate a million careers by 2040.

[00:03:08] Jason Rudman: It's remarkable. It really is. So what was the More Elephant moment, or maybe a series of moments? You highlighted there that you've had a pretty good career with a lot of prominent logos, your words. So, at what point did you say, hey, I'm going to own my own destiny even more and not rely on the corporate paycheck and build this business?

[00:03:35] Alan Stein: Yeah, I think I probably didn't use the ears of More Elephant for too long, and that's what led me to get fired multiple times. And, I think every time I got terminated, it was for different reasons, but there was a common pattern that I don't work well with hypocrisy, bureaucracy, and illogic and politics. It kind of sets me off

So, I realized that if I went to another company—and I actually did get a job offer from Amazon that I turned down while I was doing Kadima—I would just be waiting to get fired again. So I had to do something differently. What's the definition of insanity? Just doing the same thing over and over again.

So I only did that five times over and over again. The first time I got fired was a different reason, but yeah, I couldn't keep doing the same thing. So I had to find something else and then, because of a lot of other reasons, I chose this path to help accelerate careers.

[00:04:35] Jason Rudman: And so what was it about this path that this was your moment? Because you've got a lot of extensive experience, I view the arc of your career as one of those great generalist arcs where you could go in a lot of different ways. But you felt specifically compelled to help people figure out that if they wanted to work at a corporation or a large organization, here's how you do it to essentially, what I would say is to earn your worthiness as it relates to the job that you do, the work that you do, and more importantly, what you get paid.

What was it about that?

[00:05:09] Alan Stein: I'm just good at it. I don't know. Like it was never hard for me to identify a goal and to achieve it. And before I did this for a living, people would come to me all the time for advice. So when I left American Express, my going away party at that Mexican restaurant down by the pier, I forget the name of the Mexican restaurant, had so many people that came to that event, not because they were a big fan of me, but because I was going to Google.

And so many of those people came to me after, and I wasn't there to poach people from Amex; they were coming to me and they were like, how do you get over here? How can I help? How can I do it? And I started giving people advice with that. And other people would send their friends over to me because they're like, Oh, I heard you're good at helping people get jobs.

So people would come to me for that stuff. I got nine (9) people into Google while I was there, which was a really high number. So people came to me, and I enjoyed doing it. I think you had lunch with me at some point at the Google cafeteria. So, people always came to me asking for help, and I just did it for free. I still do it for free all the time.

[00:06:19] Jason Rudman: Yeah. That's absolutely right. I've been fired a couple of times. Well, actually, I think twice I fired myself, and then one time, yeah, it didn't work out. And I think to your point, if you lather, rinse, repeat, and you always go back and attempt to recreate the same thing, you tend to get the same outcome.

I can actually match you on that a couple of times in my career, where I went back, and I wasn't listening enough to what brings me joy and what the company wanted to do, such that I went into the same version of what had not worked out before. And I think that is a really, really great insight for people as they think about navigating their careers, whether they're an entrepreneur or an intrepreneur.

So let's go all the way back; you said that you're a dad, you're a husband, I know that you're involved in your community. Where does the Alan Stein Kadima Careers story really start?

[00:07:12] Alan Stein: I think when I was fourteen (14). I bought a baseball card collection, and my parents spotted me fourteen hundred dollars ($1,400). They're like, hey, you got to get a job to pay us back. So I got a job at Walbaums, which is a local grocery store, for five dollars an hour, which was good back then because the minimum wage was three-thirty-five ($3.35), so I was pretty excited.

And, it was a bicycle distance away from my house, so that worked. And I've been working ever since, basically. Maybe a few months here or there, well, sometimes during college, the first couple of years, I didn't work as I was getting acclimated there, but I've always worked. 

I've done so many different jobs in so many different industries. I'm on my seventh career, so I've seen it all. I appreciate the different areas, and I've seen that there's this commonality of acquiring a job, whether it's working in baseball, whether it's venture capital, whether it's working on Wall Street, working at the best, like one of the best global brands in the world, at American Express, or Google, like big tech startups.

There's a very similar path that I took looking back on it. I didn't notice that pattern after the first, second, or third one. And there were all slight differences of going, but it's something that I'm good at, and I've done, and I kind of enjoy the hunt.

[00:08:35] Jason Rudman: So let's talk about that. You're a thirty (30) person organization right now; you've grown it from you and a virtual assistant. So, how should people think about what Kadima Careers offers? What's that experience ultimately like?

[00:08:51] Alan Stein: Yeah, so when I worked at Amex, I learned the difference between features and benefits. I always use them synonymously, but they're different. So what we really focus on is the benefit. The benefit of getting people jobs quicker, and on average, it's seventeen point one (17.1) weeks, and more confidently, and with more money.

Getting a job is a stressful time. It has bothered me in my career in the past, like when I got fired from Google, and it took me three and a half months to get the next job. And I got rejected from a lot. I was pretty down. I was like, shit, am I ever going to find another job? But I've gone through it enough that I know people are always going to get another job.

I know the way that we can get people jobs quicker. It's not rocket science what we're doing, but we're taking a very operationally-driven approach to get people more interviews. And when they get those interviews, make it more likely that they get the offers. And when they get the offer, make it more likely that their financial outcome is going to be higher.

[00:09:53] Jason Rudman: Hmm. Let's go a little deeper on, you know, I know enough from you [and] you talk about the power of LinkedIn as a profile; it can either hurt or help. You also talk about how you can help those who work with you to bypass the automated job filtering, keyword-driven process.

So, let's take those as two examples of the benefits of working with you, which are probably part of the feature set of, I'm assuming, good resume writing, how to answer the first question in the interview, et cetera.

[00:10:26] Alan Stein: Yeah. So people focus too much on the resume and their LinkedIn. You do need to get your resume in an objectively good enough shape. And that's not that hard to do. You can get our template for free. You can do AI, get that in good shape, and show it to like one or two people, but that's only going to be looked at by a recruiter for six to sixty (60) seconds.

And people spend so much time and money on that document; it's not going to get you the job. What is going to get you the job in forty (40) percent of the situation, which I think that number is very old and I think very low, but that's what I've heard, [is] forty (40) percent are jobs are acquired by referral.

And if you think about jobs you've had in your career, my hunch is, what percent of your jobs would you say are through referral or through you coldly submitting a resume? 

[00:11:15] Jason Rudman: It is a hundred to zero, whether that be to your point, somebody referred me to the executive search company, or I knew somebody who knew somebody in the firm. But it's one of those two routes versus, yeah, I went to ‘enter the url.com’ and said, you know what, let me just apply.

[00:11:35] Alan Stein: Yeah, like twenty-four (24) out of my twenty-nine (29) jobs came because somebody opened the door for me. Most of those cases, I still had to interview, like when it was my Dad and my aunt Sammy, they didn't really interview me. But the other times, like when got referred...

[00:11:48] Jason Rudman: You surprised me; your Dad announced that they did not, they had no questions. Really?

[00:11:53] Alan Stein: They're like, can you show up on time? How are you going to get here? Do you have access to a car? And that was basically it.

You need to get a referral, and it's not just any referral. You need to earn a referral. You and I were fortunate enough to go to decent schools or have a network around us. For those who don't have that network, it is harder to build one, but it is possible to build one. I graduated from a no-name state school, SUNY Binghamton. Well, some people have heard of it. 

[00:12:26] Jason Rudman: I did. And I spent six months at SUNY New Paltz. So yeah, I know where that is.

[00:12:31] Alan Stein: So you can start from SUNY New Paltz or SUNY Binghamton and build those relationships. But I also want to recognize that some people are very fortunate to have lots of opportunities around them.

So, it was fortunate that I lived in a nice neighborhood, that I could bicycle to Walbaums to get a job that paid five (5) dollars an hour, while other people that were working there were taking a bus from Hicksville to come in and they were paying money on the bus, just so you like to get the five (5) dollar an hour job, because, in Hicksville, it was paying like three-eighty-five (3.85).

But, you need to build relationships, and you need to leverage relationships, and everybody has some. And not to go into that with asking or expecting those relationships to deliver for you, but if you have an authentic and mutually beneficial conversation, people are generally nice. People are going to want to help you; like, before I did this for a business, I did this for just to be nice, and I still do it for just being nice.

[00:13:31] Jason Rudman: Right. I think this is really important. So how do you guide people that come your way and say, that's great, but how do you help them strategize around the relationship because there is a strategy to this.

I feel less so today, but in the past, I would be guilty of the work that I'm doing is so much. I'm trying to keep up with the work; it's really hard to stay connected to people in a way that feels authentic such that if you needed to make the call, it wouldn't feel like it was out of the blue.

I remember the conversation when I reached out to you at Google; you and I had not connected in a while. I think we've got a relationship based on when we were working together, which I think created a level of goodwill. So, how do you guide people when time is precious? We lead busy lives; you're talking about the authenticity of the relationship, how do you guide people to keep up with that and to ensure, again, that it doesn't come across as transactional when you're in a moment of need?

[00:14:34] Alan Stein: So if you go into the conversation with not a transactional mindset [but] going into that conversation to learn and earn. When I say that, I want to learn about the company, learn about what the person's up to, and catch up with the individual. Go in there with the desire to learn.

And go in there with talking, like, More Elephant. You have one mouth and two ears. Go into that conversation listening more than talking because there's research out there. The more that an individual talks in the conversation, [the more] they're going to like the other individual. 

So build a relationship, go in there just to learn, and if things go well in the conversation, you will earn advocacy. You will earn a recommendation. So, the conversation we had at the Google cafe, I don't even recall if you wouldn't even have had to ask me for help because I would have probably said, Hey, how can I help?

But you need to get someone to offer it rather than asking them, Hey, can you put me in for a referral? Everybody is going to say yes to your face and I won't because it just bothers me. I will tell people, no, I'm not going to put you in as a referral. I just can't do that. But most people are going to say yes.

And only fifty (50) percent will actually follow through. And if they just put in a referral without putting in a good word also…now it's just so competitive, you need to earn that authority. You need someone to look at your resume for that six (6) seconds to say, Oh, Jason has worked at Amex, he's worked at BECU, he's worked at all these places. And yeah, let me talk to this guy. 

[00:16:12] Jason Rudman: I think that's right. And what I appreciate about you is your directness and your bluntness, which I think some people have probably told you is a little too much. But I will tell you that I really, really appreciate it. And maybe we're going to get into, yeah, it cost me this and that and this in terms of a role. We're going to get into what you've learned through the firings and ‘let go’s’ and the leavings in a minute.

So, how do we approach that directness? How do you get comfortable with a level of directness that I think is incredibly helpful in this process?

It's not so much just the ask—you have to listen and learn to earn—but part of what you coach people through is asking for their worth in an environment where I think everybody underprices themselves. What's been the revelation there, and how do you engage with the folks that you work with to, again, know and ask for their worth?

[00:17:11] Alan Stein: So, I was just having a conversation with a friend today about this. We do it in a very deliberate way. When we take on a new personalized coaching client, they meet with me. We call it a ‘mindset action plan and positioning call.’ A career mapping call. And one of the questions we ask is how much are you seeking in your next role?

We ask it very open-ended because people use different numbers and everything. But when I meet with them, I tie it down to an actual dollar amount because that's paying your groceries and your bills and everything. 

Next, we ask, what did you make previously? And sometimes we have to ask, what was your high water mark in your career? But almost ninety (90) percent of the time, if not probably one-hundred (100) percent of the time, the number that they are seeking is directly tied to the number that they had before because they're anchoring on that.

And the danger with that is if you're black, if you're a person of color, if you're a woman, who are paid seventy-three (73) cents on the dollar, or you think that you are worth less because you have been paid less…and there are other reasons that people are paid less [such as] coming from American Express versus someone coming from Google, doing the same thing.

My calibration for compensation when I went from Amex to Google was just like night and day, but I had no idea. So anyway, people anchor on what they have. So, teach people…don't even worry about the money. Pick the company, and there's data out there on which companies pay well. We have a list on our website that people can grab the top one hundred (100) companies.

Now, it's not all ranked by compensation. There are a number of factors, but they generally skew to high-paying companies. The money will work itself out, and forget about the title. The title is nice, too. If you're going to a lower-tier company, then you better get a title or money. But if you're going from, I don't know, like rinky-dink bank to Goldman Sachs, you take whatever title, because you're going to get more money anyway. And then, that's going to reset your ability to get something more because you have Goldman on your resume.

[00:19:16] Jason Rudman: That's right. I love that insight. I remember how I found my way to American Express, before Kadima Careers even existed, before you and I had met, where I went, and I said, who are the three companies that I want?

I had no idea about pay, and to your point, Amex has a philosophy of paying, I think we were talking about, it's either the 50th percentile or 75th percentile, one of the two or so. 

[00:19:40] Alan Stein: I think it's fifty (50). 

[00:19:41] Jason Rudman: Right, and we love Amex. I always say, because I've had a lot of folks on, we have nothing but great things to say about Amex, but you don't go there to retire early.

[00:19:49] Alan Stein: We used to do that annual survey, and every year in the annual survey, everyone was very happy with the company, but the lowest-rated item was always compensation. And Ken Chenault, who was there at the time, would always say, Oh, everybody, every company complains about that.

When I got to Google, we complained that we didn't have the right tools. And, we complained about other things, but the compensation was not in the bottom, like, ten (10) things. 

[00:20:17] Jason Rudman: Right. But it's connected to what you said about you go[ing] from smaller company to Goldman Sachs. And I take it back to who are the companies that I want to work for that are both culturally—I can see myself in terms of how they think about the world, what their world view is—. and then what would that brand do when I have it on my CV in terms of opening up apertures next time.

So there's a lot of goodness in your point less about the title and more about the work and who you're doing it for, and the compensation will take care of itself. Except again, to what you said about underrepresented communities, women, people of color, [and] the LGBTQ community.

When women of color, black women, actually are paid sixty-seven cents (67) on the dollar, then the mindset, combined with the historical ‘down-paying’ of somebody that looks like me, also feeds into what is it I can ask for because I've already got a precept in my mind that they're going to discount, they've discounted me anyway.

[00:21:21] Alan Stein: Yeah. Well, here's the trick. You don't ask. Wait until they tell you the number because whatever you ask for, you're probably going to lowball yourself because you don't have as much knowledge as the company does.

So wait for them to propose it first, and it will likely be higher than what you were even thinking.

[00:21:40] Jason Rudman: I love that. And that's really hard to do as well, Alan, depending on how you get into the conversation. You and I have probably engaged, at least once, maybe for you, search has reached out and said, I've got this role. I want to talk to you about it. What are your salary expectations?

And, I have learned, like you, to say generally they are in this range, and that range is generally quite high, and my follow-up question is, do you think that they can work with that?

But there is pressure depending on who the company is and depending on what state you're in, because some states are actually now not allowed to ask to come up with your number. Your point is that you do need to have a number in your head, and the number that you usually start with you have discounted it already.

[00:22:25] Alan Stein: First off, in terms of companies asking what you want to make, they're allowed to ask that, they're not allowed to ask what you made in the past in nineteen (19) states, I think. And there's no way they can ever verify it. They're not allowed.

And when an executive recruiter reaches out to me, I don't even say a number. I just say, Hey, I don't know enough about the role yet; I want to get paid in line with the scope and impact of the role.

And then if they push back again, say, you know what, it really depends on the company. I’ve got to know which company—this is because usually, when exec headhunter comes out, they won't always reveal the company that they're working for.

So, if it was a Google exec search versus Tesla—I don't want to get political here—or just like General Motors versus Google, you're going to have a different asking price based on that. You don't have enough information.

So we always teach people to deflect, defer, and decline to talk about compensation, except in three situations.

One, if you know you're grossly overpaid, then you put the number out front. Two, if you have so many interviews, you just want to head things off and not waste your time. And three, if they give you a homework assignment, like a take-home thing or something that's going to kill your weekend, if not multiple days, you better make sure that they're going to compensate you worth crushing that weekend. And I've done that before, and it's not pleasant.

[00:23:51] Jason Rudman: So the 3 D's. 

[00:23:53] Alan Stein: Deflect, defer, decline.

[00:23:54] Jason Rudman: Deflect, defer, and decline. I think that is awesome, awesome advice. So, how does somebody get started with Kadima Careers? Where's the sweet spot?

[00:24:04] Alan Stein: So, of the people that work with us?

[00:24:06] Jason Rudman: Yeah.

[00:24:07] Alan Stein: Ambitious professionals who want to own their career. That's who we help. And the way we help them are three different modes and it depends.

If you're someone who likes a personal trainer, we have a personal coaching program. If you're someone who likes to go to the spinning class and would like to work in a group setting, we have group coaching. And, if you're someone who likes to do BeachBody at home, we have digital courses. That's with me, no BeachBody, but it's similar. You'll get as good of job results as you will with the BeachBody series.

[00:24:37] Jason Rudman: All right, so personal training, spin class, and the non-Alan Stein BeachBody digital learning.

[00:24:44] Alan Stein: Yes. You don't want to get my one pack. That's not what you're looking for.

[00:24:50] Jason Rudman: So, walk us through each one of those at a very, very high level. I think everybody understands what personal coaching is and group, but again, how does that experience translate through each of those?

[00:24:59] Alan Stein: Yeah. So, our most popular one is a personalized coaching. People sign up. That's actually an application process because we guarantee a better job in the personalized coaching process. So we are going to work with them until they get a job.

Then they meet with me—a career mapping call—where we talk about mindset, action plan and positioning. Different people have to work more on one of those areas often, sometimes multiple. And then they have their choice of; we have twenty-two (22) and growing top-notch, world-class coaches. I know a lot of career coaches who really want to help people and want to give back. And so, we pay them. And, you have access to all these coaches, and they help you through mindset, an action plan, positioning, and helping you to get that job faster [and] more confidently.

We also have expert negotiators. So when people get the offer, we teach them how to deflect, defer, and decline. And then when you get the offer, they reach out to the bat phone. It's me and two other expert negotiators. I'm actually the worst of the three. So I'm only like last resort because I've only gotten one-hundred-and-forty-three thousand dollars ($143,000) for somebody. The other two coaches got four-hundred-and-forty thousand (440,000) and four hundred thousand (400,000). So...

[00:26:19] Jason Rudman: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. whoa. Hang on. Let's see. So, within the context of a single engagement?

[00:26:27] Alan Stein: Yeah,

[00:26:29] Jason Rudman: Four hundred and forty thousand dollars ($440,000)?

[00:26:31] Alan Stein: More. So that was with a Facebook offer. The offer was about seven hundred thousand [dollars] ($700,000).

[00:26:38] Jason Rudman: My goodness. 

[00:26:38] Alan Stein: Got it up to like one-point-one [million] (1.1) something, because the RSUs at these tech companies are ridiculous. And we're just talking about the RSUs, at best in year one. That's all we count. When we say this goes up, this is what happens in year one.

So on average, we get people thirty-seven thousand, four hundred and sixty-three dollars ($37,463) on average but the four hundred and forty (440) and the four hundred (400) are not counted in that because those two were doing it on their own before we recruited them to Kadima Careers. I was like, you guys are better than me. You guys are going to be doing the negotiation coaching for our clients.

[00:27:12] Jason Rudman: Remarkable. That's an amazing story. So that's the one-on-one coaching. How does the spin class work?

[00:27:18] Alan Stein: Yeah. So the personalized also get access to everything. Everyone has access down the chain. The group coaching once a week; I lead a group coaching session, there are three other group coaching sessions led by other coaches. There are masterclasses on mindset and TMAY—tell me about yourself.

That [TMAY] is the most asked question of any question ever interviewed, and you need to have that down. So we work with people on that. We work with people on star stories and how to answer behavioral-based interviews. We basically break down the interview into steps and prepare people to pass every stage of it. Then we bring in guest speakers as well. So Elena [Manova] came to speak to the group; we would love to have you at some point. 

[00:28:05] Jason Rudman: I am happy to do it, my friend, happy to do it.

[00:28:08] Alan Stein: And yeah, so it's a great community. So, that's a group.

[00:28:11] Jason Rudman: All right, so, T-M-A-Y. Why is that so important? 

[00:28:15] Alan Stein: So, every interview goes into four phases. The first is rapport building. You're, like, shooting the shit, and you're like, hey, nice weather, or talk about something. Then, it invariably comes into, hey, Jason, tell me a little bit about yourself or walk me through your resume or what brought you here today.

It's the same essential question. So, outside of rapport, this is the next impression you're making on somebody. And you kind of own this conversation. So, you can steer it in your way. We teach our clients a suggested approach that they can use if they don't have a good one to break that down. And you got to do it within three minutes, maybe four minutes, if you're a senior executive. And you've got to practice it. And we give them tools to practice it.

We're actually just about to launch a new AI product for all the interview skills. It will be giving very specific feedback on tone, the answer, conciseness, pitch, filler words, and everything like that. So, that is the second part of an interview, that ‘tell me about yourself.’ Then it comes to questions for you. And then the last part of an interview is questions you have for the interviewer.

[00:29:27] Jason Rudman: I love the breakdown that you just gave there. You've got a methodical approach, but two things in terms of what you said, as somebody I'm interviewing for pretty senior positions right now. A number of them. The T-M-A-Y is so important.

You said one thing that I don't want to skate past. You've got about three or four minutes, and the longer your career, the more explicit your career is. You've got to be able to pick your moments. And then that open-ended question can sometimes be a derailer for people if they're not prepared. And then the back end.

What so many people forget is the interview's not done when you're asking questions. And the quality of your questions and what you're seeking to draw from me, I write those down. I go back and reflect on them. And if I would throw one more in there, Alan, for you to chew on…

I often ask, what do you think of our company and very often, I get such a politically correct answer that actually is a nothing statement as opposed to here's some things that I think are great, and I looked at that, and you know, it can actually turn into [a] ‘could you explain that for me because I didn't understand it.’ I love those types of responses.

So, I think you said two things there and I added a plus one in my experience, which is, I'm going to ask you what you think about what we do. 

[00:30:49] Alan Stein: Yeah, that's interesting. I used to think heavily about that, like when I was going for an interview about why I wanted to work at American Express, or why I wanted to work at Google, or why I wanted to work at these companies.

When I worked at Google, I realized that they didn't care that people wanted to work there. They just assumed that people wanted to work there. So, it never came up in the interview. It doesn't come up with some companies, but now with Kadima, when we hire someone, I was like, there are all these companies out here [so] why do you want to work for us?

So it depends on where you're coming from, but that is a very important question we ask now. Like, why Kadima?

[00:31:29] Jason Rudman: Situationally, you're absolutely right. There are going to be some companies that are like we know why you're here. There's nothing you can tell us about ourselves that we don't already know.

And then, I think there are other companies that I think…again, look, you are mission-oriented. You're on a mission. Level the playing field for underestimated talent and accelerate one (1) million careers by twenty forty (2040). That's not to suggest that any of the companies we mentioned don't have a mission, but I think more mission-oriented companies always want to key in on the purpose of the person in front of them as to how the work they do connects to what they're joining or to the company they're joining.

[00:32:05] Alan Stein: Yeah, that's actually interesting now that I'm thinking about it because some of the challenges I had and frustrations I had at companies are all these companies have values.

If you go to Google's page or Salesforce's page or Meta's page, they all have these values, but it's all bullshit. So that's probably why they didn't care to ask why that employee was working there.

[00:32:26] Jason Rudman: Hmm.

[0032:26] Alan Stein: So, I just thought of that now, but that hypocrisy sets me off. And when I look at their values page, and it says we care about equality, and yet you look at the board and eight out of nine are men, and they're all white. Whatever. You can say whatever you want.

[00:32:45] Jason Rudman: Yeah. I, I hear you. The third of the three is the Alan Stein one-pack digitally delivered experience. Explain that for the audience.

[00:32:54] Alan Stein: We call it K-JAM: the Kadima Job Acquisition Method. So basically everything that I have done in my career that's landed me jobs and helping people out for two years, we recorded a video of the growth framework. It's called the growth framework.

First, you identify your goals; then you realistically assess your strengths. Then, we teach people how to build that outreach then understand how to work the system because it is basically a game. You’ve got to work the system. Then, we train people to develop the tenacity and the mindset to continue going forward. And then, the high-impact negotiation. We teach everything in a digital course.

So it's ten (10) hours of video, eight modules, scripts, templates, and everything that our clients have, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper. You can watch it at two times the speed if you get bored with me, although I do tend to talk fast. So it's a digital course. People can get that. And if people start with that digital course and they want to upgrade, we don't charge them double. We'd like net that price off as they upgrade to other products.

[00:33:59] Jason Rudman: How would you summarize what you learned from the failures for people? The candor and the forthrightness of owning your experience and saying, yeah, sometimes I got fired from roles. There's a variety of reasons as you said, but what would be the More Elephant moments in there? The kernels of insight that you would share with people who are listening. 

[00:34:22] Alan Stein: My thoughts were like, I was seeing information out there, and I was telling myself a story, and then that was influencing my perspective that got me frustrated and angry that led to emotional outbursts not screaming per se, but saying something stupid or pushing back on a senior leader.

That wasn't right. Well, I think it was right, but it turned out not to be effective. I guess it depends on what right means. So, I think understanding that my thoughts—I need to better control my thoughts because I know my thoughts impact my emotions—sometimes leads to bad results.

One of the terminations was just because I wasn't good at the job, and totally agreed with that one. Not that I didn't agree, I agree with all them, but because I didn't do what was in my power to either shut the hell up or get out of the situation before it led to that.

That being said, every time I got fired, I got more and more money through the severance. And I just met a guy who we're bringing into Kadima who helps specifically with severance packages. So getting fired is actually not so bad. I always tell people—don't quit, get fired. 

[00:35:42] Jason Rudman: I can attest that truth to power. I was displaced at Key. 

[00:35:47] Alan Stein: I love the term displaced. That's what we called it at Amex. Different places call it different things. 

[00:35:50] Jason Rudman: But it was displaced, right? I mean, my role was split into three, and it's funny because I was talking to somebody [recently], and that was six years ago, and it was hard at the time. And took a little bit of self-reflection to admit a couple of things that you said.

The first is what they wanted the job to be, I was not the best person for the job. And then, the second thing is the joy of being displaced… that has paid dividends. That's why I can do what I can do today because it actually allowed me to,be more self-reflective, really define what I wanted to do, and to ensure that I didn't find myself ideally in that situation again, right?

To your point, an honest assessment, but sometimes you're not the right person for the job. They said, well, so and so said that you weren't qualified and they were right. They were right. And here's the thing. I stand here today telling you that I also didn't want the job.

[00:36:47] Alan Stein: Right.

[00:36:47] Jason Rudman: I wanted the job at the time, but on reflection now, that would not have been the right job for me to take for a variety of reasons. So I love that. That self-reflection and that willingness to be honest about that which brings you joy, that which you know about yourself, and then authentically saying, well, that outcome wasn't necessarily a bad outcome because look at all this other opportunity that it actually opened up,

[00:37:15] Alan Stein: Yeah. When you get fired for something because you're not qualified for it and you're self-reflective about it, it's actually a great way to leave. For example, I got fired from the venture capital firm when I was twenty-five (25) because I was not qualified to be a venture capitalist at that time in my life.

Now, I could [have been] but I just don't want to pursue that. They took me out for sushi. I had a great time. I'm still friends with a lot of them. Had a great going away party so I had no ill feelings at all. They said you need to do this. I'm looking down the list, and I'm not qualified to do this. I didn't say it to them, but in hindsight, now that you say that, I was not qualified to do it at that time.

[00:37:55] Jason Rudman: Right. So, Kadima in Hebrew means forward? 

[00:38:00] Alan Stein: Yes.

[00:38:01] Jason Rudman: So what can the world look forward to in terms of what Kadima Careers is attempting to do next?

[00:38:10] Alan Stein: Yeah. What we're trying to do is empower people to be thoughtful about their careers and, whether it's your career or your life, hopefully, people are privileged enough to choose a career that they enjoy and can earn decent money from.

And we're trying to empower people to make those decisions of where they want to go, rather than just let opportunities fall to them because if you just wait for an inbound thing coming your way, or you're just waiting for something convenient, you are going to continue to be surrounded and get opportunities in your circle. It works well if you went to Princeton. It works well if you went to Stanford. It works well if you work at Google. But if you don't have that background, there are ways to get out of that.

You have to work harder but there are ways to get out of that. So we're trying to empower people to be conscientious about their career and say, yeah, I'm going to get ghosted. I'm going to get rejected for jobs I'm perfectly qualified for. It's not about me. It's just how the game is played.

I'm going to keep persevering. I'm going to understand where I want to go, and I'm going to take the right actions to get there. So whether it's a job at a big company, a small company, side hustle, just be conscientious of what you want to do because I believe that most people can achieve that.

There are situations that are non-controllable, like if there's a natural disaster and your whole city is destroyed, yeah, it's going to be hard to get a job for a while, or you might perish. But there are a lot of things you can control, and there's a lot of things you can influence. So, for the things you can influence, focus on those. The things that you can't control, stop complaining about it. Just get off your ass and move forward.

[00:39:59] Jason Rudman: I love that. I guide people, and I think that's such a learned outcome though, Alan…know the controllables. And there are so many things that are outside of your control, and we gave so much time, I think, earlier in our career, attempting to control things that are uncontrollable.

I think I shared with you my advice older, maybe got a little bit more wisdom—I'm certainly a little grayer—would be to be the writer and producer of your play, not the actor in somebody else's.

[00:40:29] Alan Stein: I love that. 

[00:40:30] Jason Rudman: And I think that that is exactly what you just said. You have the ability to write and produce your own play. And I think that's ultimately Kadima Careers can be an adjunct facilitator, helper, listener, and indeed drive to a better outcome in terms of how you negotiate the level of worthiness based on the job that you seek.

[00:40:55] Alan Stein: Yeah. And you might get some inbound stuff that works out well for you and take that. That's luck. And that's also a function of whose network you're part of like, I got my venture capital job just because I played fantasy baseball with this guy. He appreciated my fantasy baseball capabilities, and he reached out to me, asking not for me but for people at UBS at the time, it's like, hey, do you know any friends over there at UBS that could be interested in VC?

I didn't even know what it was at the time. I had to Google it, which is why I probably got fired from it. I was just trying to avoid a bad situation, but only because I was playing fantasy baseball with this guy. We were talking trade, and I impressed him because I was always good at fantasy baseball. It's very analytical. And yeah, so I was fortunate that I was hanging out with that guy in an AOL instant messenger chat room. That's how old I am. 

[00:41:48] Jason Rudman: I can't allow you to date yourself anymore, but you're talking about the stuff that many people will have no idea what you and I are talking about and that is okay.

So, how do people find out about the work that you're doing at Kadima Careers?

[00:42:02] Alan Stein: The best way is on LinkedIn. I post there at least once a day. Do engage with that. Give me feedback on that. You can DM me there. I look at all of them. I respond to most of them. And also, go to kadimacareers.com and check us out. Come to my next webinar. I do them monthly. And last time. we had none-hundred-and-sixty-two (962) people register, so they're pretty popular.

[00:42:26] Jason Rudman: Yeah. And just to give people a sense of how big your network is, you've got sixteen thousand (16,000) or so people who receive your newsletter on a frequent basis. So, you're speaking truth to power in terms of ecosystem and the ability for people to help.

[00:42:42] Alan Stein: Yes, we're trying to level the playing field. Can I say one more thing? 

[00:42:46] Jason Rudman: Go. 

[00:42:47] Alan Stein: I want to tell people about our podcast, The Steer Your Career Podcast, which I had my good friend and former boss Jason Rudman on as well. So, check out our podcast. 

[00:42:58] Jason Rudman: Well, thank you. It was an honor to do that. And for those that are listening to this podcast, depending on when the Steer Your Career Podcast goes [out], know that Alan has a spreadsheet where he actually ranks all of his former bosses. I'm going to leave it there. Although I think the reason that we're talking is, I did pretty well in that ranking.

[00:43:16] Alan Stein: You got a B+. Well, I don't do a stack rank. I just a give grade, you got a B+, which is good because I think there were only a couple of A's given out out of the 30+. 

[00:43:25] Jason Rudman: Oh, I'm not done yet, so I need to talk to you about what it took to get an A in your head. That's for a side conversation, Alan. It's a joy. Thank you.

I always, always love hearing about what you're doing. I think what you're doing matters. You're an agent of change with a great idea that, to your point, is about leveling the playing field and inspiring people to go for what they want. So appreciate the time and we'll talk soon.

[00:43:50] Alan Stein: Thanks, Jason. 

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