Chaz Cirame on the Rules of Networking, Good Enough Resumes, and Becoming a Big Fish

In Brief: Chaz Cirame (linkedin.com/in/chazcirame, recruitbigfish.com), founder of Big Fish Recruiting, joins host Dan Freehling (contempusleadership.com) for a candid and practical conversation on job search strategy and networking. Chaz shares what he looks for in top candidates, especially humility and change-maker potential, and breaks down his top rules of networking, including authentic interest, co-elevation, long-term thinking, and follow-up. He explains how to approach executive search firms and trends in the DC social sector. Chaz discusses the return to office and spotlights trade associations and professional organizations as hidden career paths worth exploring. The episode covers actionable tips on resumes, cover letters, and how to handle applicant tracking systems without “beat the ATS” hype. Chaz also introduces his 5,000+ member community, Rules of Networking.

Recommended Reading: “Designing Your Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.

Dan Freehling (00:02):

Welcome to Forward-Looking Leadership, a podcast for visionary leaders building future ready organizations. I'm your host, Dan Freeling. I'm the founder of the coaching and consulting practice, Contempus Leadership, all in for the social impact leaders you want in charge. I'm honored to be joined today by Chaz Cirame. Chaz is the founder of Big Fish Recruiting and a seasoned political pro with extensive networks across nonprofits, political orgs and campaigns, trade associations, government relations, public relations and public affairs firms, governments and corporations inside and outside of the Washington DC area. He's also the co-founder of our professional development community with 5,000 plus members called Rules of Networking and has talked to audiences across the country about the value of relationship building. While he comes from a right of center background, this won't be a political discussion. Chaz is highly recommended for my network as someone with rare bipartisan credibility and a trusted supporter and connector for job seekers across the political spectrum. Listeners, you're in for an invaluable perspective from a leading headhunter on what he looks for in candidates, making your materials stand out, networking that really works, trends in the job landscape and much more. Thanks for joining me on Forward-Looking Leadership. Chaz,

Chaz Cirame (01:12):

Thank you so much for having me here, Dan.

Dan Freehling (01:13):

Yeah, really appreciate you taking the time to join us and share your insights with listeners, especially at this time. So first, what qualities do you look for in what you call a big fish?

Chaz Cirame (01:22):

For sure, and we do a lot of executive search in very senior roles, but some of our big fish are earlier in their careers, but they are really folks that have that sort of change maker value that they can bring to an organization. Our clients are typically looking for folks that can help elevate their organization and really help them achieve their goals and mission. And we really take pride in helping folks identify folks that are not just going to fill a slot but really transform an organization, help them level up, help them really raise their game as an organization and achieve their missions. And there are a lot of people that play a lot of different roles in achieving their missions, but those are some of the key things we're looking for. We also always scream for humility. We want folks that are going to do a great job but also be great coworkers and great teammates. So humility is also a big value we're always screening for.

Dan Freehling (02:20):

It's great for people to know and great for people to see what you're looking for on the recruiting side of this. For sure. So you have this rules of networking group that's pretty big and I'm sure there's a ton of different rules of networking that you have in mind for this. Which ones are standing out as really top rules of networking for you?

Chaz Cirame (02:39):

Yeah, if I had to make a short list, and I talk about this a lot, the rules of networking a lot, but the top rules are I think taking authentic interest in people, be curious about them, be genuinely curious about them. Don't be a transactional networker when you meet somebody new and you connect with them, look for ways from that first conversation to be of service to them and help them in their journeys. And Keith Ferrazzi, the author of Never Eat Alone calls this Co-Elevation. So you're looking for ways to help them. They're going to be many ways in the future for them to help you, but you just started building the relationship. So lead with generosity and lead with a way to help folks achieve their goals. And part of that is also active listening and really from listening to their name and making sure you remember their name to listening to their goals, aspirations, interests, that'll really help you cultivate a long-term good relationship for it.

(03:41):

And then the long-term piece is another really key central piece that I believe in and work with in various capacities. I never imagined 20 years ago with so many people that I've built relationships with and met at happy hours or at work or other places 20 years ago that when we were very sort of junior in our careers just out of college and looking to build our careers and many times in very divergent places than we are now. But I still work with them as clients, as candidates, as friends and colleagues, partners, collaborators. And so don't just build a relationship for what you need next, but build your relationships for the long term. And then I think the final role that is the most critical one and it really takes networking to relationship building and it turns you from a business card collector to somebody that's going to have these relationships for a lifetime.

(04:46):

And that's follow-up, and it's the piece that most people don't do. Most people don't do it all, very few people do well, but follow up is clutch building good long-term relationships. It's clutch to finding your next job and nothing will serve you better than following up. And if you have a great conversation with somebody and you follow up with them, send a short thank you email, email note. If it was more substantive, write a thank-you note, if it was more substantive, it's a great opportunity to go out and really solidify those relationships and take them to that next level.

Dan Freehling (05:24):

I really love all of these and they sound simple and you're right. So few people actually do these over the long term, which is where it gets actually challenging is to do this consistently and to be there for people and to add value over the long term over a lifetime. So very tactically, how should job seekers engage with executive search firms like yours? Who do you want to hear from? How should they approach you? All of that kind of stuff.

Chaz Cirame (05:48):

So for starters, find the executive search firms that work in your niche and your background and your area, but also look for referrals inside network of folks that have worked with successfully, but also as job seekers. Check out the roles in their website, check out the roles that they're working on, what interest areas do they work in, does that align with your background or where you want to be working in? And then if you see a role that's a match, reach out to the recruiters’ job is to fill jobs. So explain in three or four simple bullets why you're a great match and also explain why this is the natural next step for your career and give your salary requirements and all those other pieces so they know you're a fit for the role. Keep it super concise, keep it super short. The amount of incoming, and I would describe it as random incoming that recruiters get is really amazing and we want to help everybody that we can.

(06:56):

But if we're working on a role, really you need to help convey the message that you're helping the recruiter do their job. And then the other piece I'll say is if a recruiter reaches out to you, even if it's a role that's not of interest, reply back and say, Hey, this isn't of interest. Explain what is of interest. And then if you have the opportunity and there's somebody that might be interested in that role, share their name, helping the recruiter, the folks that kindly reply back and offer a referral et cetera, are the folks that really stick out in my mind as folks that I will want to continue to engage with in the future.

Dan Freehling (07:33):

That's amazing advice and I always recommend this to clients of just being on recruiters. Radars is a very good thing and waiting to really put yourself forward for roles where you would be a great fit and to your point, helping you do your job of finding great candidates for the openings that you're working.

Chaz Cirame (07:50):

And be honest too, if you think you're a stretch candidate, lead with the fact that you're a stretch candidate, but then hit me with a few bullets on why you are good for the role

Dan Freehling (08:00):

And you can give that honest appraisal having done this so many times where you don't actually mind if someone's potentially a stretch candidate, but you can kind of play with who else you're working with and all of this kind of stuff and put it together.

Chaz Cirame (08:10):

Absolutely.

Dan Freehling (08:11):

Cool. This is again just super tactical and helpful for people. What trends are you currently seeing in the job market, particularly this DC area social sector?

Chaz Cirame (08:22):

Yeah, so there are lots going on in the DC area, social sector, lots of changes in the federal government. Obviously a lot of folks particularly in the international development space are being displaced and looking for new opportunities. International development always at the NGO level and in government we're always super hyper competitive jobs and hard to get into and really hard to get your foot in the door and it's going to be a really hard time for a lot of those job seekers as they pivot to what's next. And we talk with a lot of those candidates and the biggest challenge for those folks I think is getting outside of the mindset of doing exactly what they've been doing in the past that their next pivot's probably going to be doing something different. And that's always a challenge regardless of where you are, but if your international development DC based is going to be hard for a long time.

(09:19):

The other things we're seeing, I think a lot of organizations are going to from fully remote that they went to during COVID to a hybrid situation and those expectations are really solidifying. We are seeing fewer fully remote roles, especially for senior folks. We have one client that we work with that basically everybody in the office needs to be in the office for their first year of employment and then they'll let you go remote. But basically you give the trade off that you're not going to move up the ladder in the organization so you can stay remote for a very long time, if not your whole career and you'll get percentage bonuses and things like that raises cost of living adjustments, but you're not going to make it into the senior management if you're not there. And I was talking with a client we were onboarding yesterday and they have no set office attendance policy.

(10:19):

That being said, the folks that thrive, they're in office four or five days a week. And so my advice for folks that are looking for a remote role is really if I was looking for a fully remote work role, I would look at organizations that don't have offices and so there's no place to call you back to. And ideally I think organizations that were fully remote before, I think a lot of organizations, a lot of our clients, a lot of folks I know out there in the space are now struggling with having never really built a remote first culture. And a lot of these orgs that switched overnight in March of 2020 to fully remote are now coming to terms with the fact that they've been lying to themselves for a number of years about how well it's going. And we help organizations on culture stuff. It takes a big commitment to make an organization successfully, fully remote, a commitment of time to fly and get folks together. It takes time over communicating and supporting a culture that really does that. And those are hard things to build, particularly if it was prebuilt in a once fully in office environment.

Dan Freehling (11:38):

Yeah, no, you're so right on great remote culture requiring intentionality in a lot of places, not ever really wanting to do it and just doing it out of necessity and now they're swinging back the other way. It's tough advice for some people to hear, but it's honest. A lot of places are not nearly as amenable to remote if at all as they were even a couple of years ago. So you work with a number of what you call center of center trade associations, so different kind of groups that represent different trade groups and they're generally headquartered in the DC area and I find that a lot of people don't know anything about this whole world. Could you just give us some insight into what this world looks like, what kind of opportunities there are there, how people should think about this?

Chaz Cirame (12:21):

Trade associations are well, and they are technically nonprofits. They're 5 0 1 c six nonprofits generally. So those sometimes they do have a fully nonprofit foundation arm or are just like any other sort of nonprofit, but they represent the interest of an industry and I learn of a new one every day. Every industry you could possibly think of in many, many you've never considered or thought of has a trade association from some of the big ones like the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers to organizations like the Tortilla Manufacturers Association and the Dairy Producers and the Space Industry Association. And if it happens, there's an association that does it and well, they range from budgets of hundreds of thousands of dollars to hundreds of millions most fall in that sort of 20 to a hundred employee type of operation and they have folks that do development and comms and marketing and membership.

(13:34):

So I think it's a great transition for folks that have been in the nonprofit sector to have a sort of another vehicle for their careers and they exist, tons of them will exist in DC almost every trade association has some sort of DC representation slash base. There are also lots that are historically based in Chicago and some of them do a lot of work that's not necessarily based on Capitol Hill and Public Affairs, but they also do work that just promotes the industry and have large trade shows in Vegas or around the country that promote their industry and bring their members together to trade best practices and to create commerce and create business and opportunities and jobs. And it can be also incredibly rewarding work for folks that come from that sort of social sector. If you can help carve out and create jobs in your industry, preserve your industry, it has a lot of the same rewards that the nonprofit sector has, but it also has maybe a little bit more consistency than the nonprofit sector. And it's a great sort of pivot sort of place. It's also a great pivot place if you're looking for a role outside of corporate America, but bringing some of those sort of talents that you have either looking either way if you're looking to leave corporate America but work in a smaller organization, you can bring industry talents to a trade association. If you're in the nonprofit world, you can pivot kind of halfway to corporate America and it may be for some folks it's then a launching pad to move to one of the companies specifically.

Dan Freehling (15:16):

Well thanks so much for sharing that with folks and just double down on recommending people look at these. They tend to be great jobs as Chaz is mentioning. And there's something again to this point of bringing your underlying skillset where there's real opportunity to do that and still work toward things that are making a difference in the world too. And I've had other people that I've worked with and people who I've known as previous colleagues get jobs in, even professional associations too. So another thing for people to check out as well. So basically every profession has some sort of an association just like these trade associations and

Chaz Cirame (15:49):

Some of them are huge, some of them have hundreds of thousands of members and will do their annual meetings with a hundred thousand people. So it's not all sort of small time. A lot of these organizations are doing great work and making great impact.

Dan Freehling (16:05):

That's amazing. So yeah, thank you for sharing that as well. Do you have any in particular that come to mind of even types of these professional organizations that might be worth looking into for people?

Chaz Cirame (16:15):

If you have an area of industry expertise or background? There is one for everybody. We're working right now with cma, which is the Specialty Aftermarket Equipment Manufacturers Association, and they make basically anything you put on a car after you buy it and they represent from local autobody shops up to some of the largest players in the industry and over 6,000 members. They also put on the SEMA Auto Show in Vegas, which is one of the largest shows in Vegas and there's a lot of great opportunities there, but a lot of them you haven't heard of and also, I am DC-based and probably two thirds of our work is DC based, but there are also a lot of these great opportunities out in the states. Every state capital has a trade association, has a whole sort of trade association ecosystem that you may be completely unaware of, but it may be happening in your backyard.

Dan Freehling (17:11):

It's such great information for people and really circling back to the networking point, these are great things to ask around about in your networks and to try to get more information on because there's so many things that nobody has heard of, nobody thinks about, but are real opportunities that are out there right now. So thanks for that jazz. So let's turn to some really tactical job search advice kind of stuff. First on cover letters. I know people are all over the place with advice on these and they seem to kind of wax and wane in importance depending on the time, depending on the recruiter. What are your thoughts on cover letters and how to best go about those?

Chaz Cirame (17:47):

If you do them, do them well. I have a formula for cover letters. I'm great, you're great. Let's be great together.

Dan Freehling (17:55):

I love that.

Chaz Cirame (17:55):

And if you can do that in three succinct paragraphs and really convince the reader that A, you're an incredible writer and you can articulately show that you add a lot of value to the organization and that it can really make a difference. It's super important if you're pivoting in your career or moving sectors to help really it can make the difference. What you're trying to do is trying to help the recruiter or the hiring manager understand what the resume they have in front of them and the piece that's missing to help them make the leap to get your job. That being said, I see a lot of chat GPT cover letters these days and some of them are actually pretty good because they cover letters tend to be pretty formulaic and if you're a skill chat GPT user, you can help it put together a pretty decent cover letter for you using the job description and the mission of the organization and what they do. But you also need to be able to talk the talk of what you just wrote in your cover letter and if there's any sort of discrepancy between that, it's something our recruiters and both a internal recruiter, external recruiters very quickly got to be able to filter out and at that point it then becomes a hindrance.

Dan Freehling (19:12):

I love the formula first of all. I think that's a really strong piece of advice for people to take away from this and this metapoint of you're being able to showcase your writing skills, your communication skills in these and use chat to your advantage. But at the end of the day, you still need to be the one holding the responsibility for writing this, for polishing this, for making sure that this is really singing, especially if you're making a pivot and this is another point that can help you make that help you articulate that. Let's turn to resumes. So you as a headhunter, what do you really look for when you look at a resume

Chaz Cirame (19:50):

In that first 2.7 seconds that a lot of recruiters give to a resume? I want to see a few things a that I can quickly pull information off the resume and quickly determine what they've done and hopefully I'm seeing career and responsibility progression that shows they're really advancing in their career and are growing professionally over time. That's what I hope to see. I tend to think of resumes as very binary. There's good enough resumes and not good enough resumes. And if we have a candidate that we're working with, we'll work with 'em a little bit on their resumes. I tend to recommend a formula of about five bullets on your current job and three bullets on previous jobs. And then if you have a lot of career experience, maybe even just listing some of your early career jobs in a sort of summary paragraph, but one page, two pages. I've not really met any candidates that need more than that, but even if you are thinking about a second page, make sure you're really succinct and really focused on that first page and make sure it's a page turner literally. Because if it's not and the recruiter or hiring manager reading your resume isn't interested in the first page, they're never going to get to the second page.

Dan Freehling (21:09):

It's so good. So really hit your current job hard with what you've been able to do, what you've been able to accomplish. Tell those stories less and less as you go back in time, but you're more showing this progression and make sure that it's super compelling for the reader. And what I'm hearing you say also is the good enough versus not good enough is that really on, it doesn't do any good to obsess about the resume either. You have to get it so that it's really great piece of work, but the networking, all that kind of stuff takes more import than the resume. At a certain point,

Chaz Cirame (21:42):

A thousand percent your experience will get you a job. What you wrote on your resume is not what gets you the job and obviously that's reflective of your experience and you want to hone it and you want to potentially target different things and have different versions of your resume for different career paths you're pursuing, but it's not the words. It's getting that document that explains who you are in front of somebody that's going to be a hiring manager and going to take the time to digest that and then have a greater conversation with you.

Dan Freehling (22:15):

Again, just really great advice for people and I highly recommend listening to that. There's a lot of questions around the applicant tracking system and it's taken on this kind of mythical, it's an AI system that's going to screen out my resume and I need to write to it. I need to buy a special resume that beats the a TS or hire someone to write me a resume that beats the a TS. And I just want to hear from your perspective, how much stock would you recommend the kid that it's taken that how does it work from your perspective? Anything on the a TS question?

Chaz Cirame (22:47):

So I would say the only way to beat the a TS is to get around the A TS and the applicant tracking systems, which is what a TS stands for, are these systems that employers use that if you're on your job hunt, you've definitely seen and they usually require you to fill in a ton more of information than they should because they should be able to adapt it from your resume, et cetera. But where you tell your career story, give 'em all the data, tell 'em when you graduated from college and all these pieces and then they have keyword opportunities, et cetera. I don't know many employers that are using their a TS to with AI or without AI to just keyword search their resumes. The way inside a TS to beat the a s is if there's an opportunity for internal company referral, listing that person after you've talked to them, those types of things that will help you rise to the top of an A TS.

(23:49):

But the key worded piece is I think way overblown, but also it goes to sort of a bigger problem. If you're just blindly applying for jobs and not reaching out to a contact there, working with a recruiter, your odds of landing that job, even if qualified, your odds of actually getting your resume looked at, even if qualified is really, really sparse. And I'll even get a little jab at LinkedIn here. LinkedIn doesn't even use LinkedIn as an applicant tracking system for when they're filling roles, they use one of the popular national ones. And so if you're just hitting apply on LinkedIn and hoping that somebody's going to find that and find your resume through that, it's not a winning strategy for your job search.

Dan Freehling (24:39):

This is I think really spot on advice. Again, there's so much out there, a lot of it is well-intentioned, it's not well-intentioned, but a lot on this that can really throw people off. And the resume is not what gets you the job, don't skimp on the networking. That's where you're going to get connected to recruiters is where you're going to get connected to people, these different organizations that are hiring and being able to use your resume as a vehicle for your experience rather than as something's going to beat the a TS itself is where we recommend people focus as well. So I'm glad to hear that from your end

Chaz Cirame (25:12):

And just to sort of elaborate on that more. So ideally you have obviously a great relationship with the company already or somebody there, et cetera, but you might not. And what I encourage you to do, what I encourage candidates to do is beg, cheat, and steal until you have a relationship there. And that may be reaching out to the hiring manager, letting them know you apply to the A TS. A lot of companies have a lot of structure and it's very important that you've applied through the proper channels before they talk to you. But just reach out and send them everything that's in the a TS because at some companies, send them your application package because at some companies they might not have access to that where they set. But again, the same recommendation I did for a recruiter, a few points on why you're super qualified for the position, why you're interested, and make it succinct.

(26:04):

Share that you've applied through the system, you can share that with a hiring manager. I'd also recommend if it's the hiring manager or somebody else that maybe you have a friend of a friend that works there, see if you can take them out to coffee, see if they'll hop on a Zoom. I always typically recommend, please don't call them informational interviews. Most hiring managers don't have time to do the interviews. They need to do much less informational interviews. It sounds like a painful thing to do. Ask for 15 minutes of their time for coffee or on Zoom and just let them know of your interest. If it's somebody that's not the hiring manager, ask them some other questions about the organization, the culture, and then they ask for them after you've built that short relationship is would you be willing to let the hiring manager know I applied and flag my resume for them? So they don't need to make a big endorsement, they just say, Dan was a great candidate and Dan seemed nice. You don't even have to, they don't have to be able to confess to your professional attributions. But was interesting when I talked to them over coffee and then I think you should take a look at their resume and that's all it takes in many cases.

Dan Freehling (27:14):

So Chaz, what books or other resources doesn't necessarily have to be books do you find most useful for your thinking around job search, around careers, anything like that?

Chaz Cirame (27:25):

So a book that I recommend probably every day of my life is Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, bill Burnett and Dave Evans. And they wrote this book called Designing Your Life. Bill Burnett is the founder of the design lab at Stanford University or the head of the design lab at Stanford University. And Dave Evans is the founder of Electronic Arts, the video game company. And they wrote this book using design thinking, which is usually used for designing things in the physical world. Bill Burnett also was the person that first put a trackball in a laptop when they were making the original MacBook. They were trying to solve for the fact that the Macs were very mouse driven and they didn't want you to have to lug around a mouse every time you opened up the computer. So all of our track pads and balls and how we modernly use a computer laptop is really related to him, but they use this design thinking process of listening and iterating and ideating and prototyping to really tackle what they describe in the book as the biggest design problem that you'll tackle in your life, which is actually designing your life.

(28:50):

And it's, the book is not just focused on your career, but careers are very central and very focused on it, but it also helps you sort of look at some of the bigger issues that may also be affecting your notions of where you want to go in your career. And one of the reasons I recommend the book so much is the book is why I am doing recruiting today. There's a step in the book, one of the exercises in the book is called Odyssey Planning and you have to pick three distinct futures for yourself and then work your way backwards to how you'd get there. And I did the steps and I had the public affairs track I'd been previously on. And then I also have this creative project that I still want to do around small business and how it's perceived in the media.

(29:38):

And then this third piece, I needed a third and I didn't really have a third worked out. And because of some of the work I do with roles of networking and I was doing with roles of networking and just always helped folks find people for their teams and friends, find new jobs, new opportunities, I put recruiting down and then I did the work backwards and I went out and talked to all the recruiters that I knew and I said, what do I not know that I don't know? And everything they told me, actually only one made me want to do it more. So the book has a ton of exercises and helps you really sort of look outside the box to what are the key things that really motivate you, make you happy about maybe your current job, make you happy in life. It has great examples of how folks that have taken, so the book started as a course at Stanford in the design school and then they opened up to all their graduates and now it's opened to all students at Stanford. But now they also written this really great book that I think has potential to help a lot of people pivot in their careers, reevaluate their priorities, and then give you a really sort of thoughtful mechanism to think out big decisions ahead in your life.

Dan Freehling (30:53):

What a great story and a fantastic recommendation. I use the Odyssey map all the time with clients and I actually had the exact same experience with it as well that it was instrumental in my decision to start my own coaching practice. And that was something that I did with a really great coach at the time. And just looking at that path was so interesting and so appealing and it was something I had never fully put down on paper before. So it's funny how these things can work like that.

Chaz Cirame (31:22):

Yeah, and your first two, in my case, my first two options doing that work actually kind of rolled them out for me and as is where I wanted to go next. So the path you're on might not be the right path for you eventually. And there's an old Chinese proverb that says if you're going in one direction and you don't change course, you're going to get where you're already going. And if you're at one of those sort of decision points in your life and you're not happy about where you are, I think designing your life's probably the best book out there to give you some tools to figure out what would make you happy,

Dan Freehling (31:59):

Really love it, really love it. And again, highly recommend everyone checks that out. It's super important book to have and to go through those exercises on Chaz, on the rules of networking, do you mind sharing more about exactly what that is and what that entails and how people can get involved in that if they're looking to

Chaz Cirame (32:15):

Yeah. So Rules of Networking is a 5,000 plus person professional development group. It lives mostly today on Facebook as a Facebook group. It is very much driven by a lot of folks that are in the political space, but something Patty Rausch, my co-founder, and I really thought was important because most political group conversations end up in a worst common denominators comments section, nightmare. We establish this role of no politics and well, most of the folks in the group are very active in politics, a lot of folks from the center. We also have folks that have worked in the Biden White House. We have folks that are chemical engineers and very far away from anything political or social sector, et cetera. But it's a supportive community where folks can talk about their career problems, ask about their career problems, both anonymously and individually and very active community that comes in and weighs in on giving them feedback when they have those experiences, et cetera.

(33:30):

And sometimes we have very specific, very nuanced questions that sometimes I don't even think there'll be folks that'll have answers for in the group, but you have a 5,000 plus very active member community and you have a lot of backgrounds and a lot of connections and folks will chime in and from their experience or the one person they know that works in this space, et cetera, and make a lot of introductions. And it's, a lot of folks refer to it as the only happy place on the internet. And I'm very sort of proud of that moniker and it's a lot of folks that are very excited to help do that co elevation and help folks blossom in their careers. And they're a lot of senior folks that do a lot more mentoring and giving feedback for folks. And there are a lot of junior folks that ask maybe more basic questions, but then there are some real hard, real, real life corporate politics type of questions that come up too, and you really just need outside counsel on. And I think particularly in our, if you're working in a remote environment and you don't have that sort of physical best friend in the office that you can walk over and talk to, I think it provides a lot of folks a lot of that sort of feedback.

Dan Freehling (34:47):

Well, that's a great tagline and quite the endorsement for the group. So I definitely recommend folks check that out. And Chaz, just thanks for all you're doing to support Job seekers. I know you've come highly recommended from people in my network as being super helpful for them, so thank you for all you're doing with that. How can people learn more about you, follow along with you, follow along with Big Fish and get in touch if they'd like.

Chaz Cirame (35:13):

Our website of Big Fish is recruitbigfish.com. If you want to be a candidate, we have, I very much pride myself on trying to make the process easy, easy for you on the candidate side. So we have a resume upload tool and then we have, I think it's like a six question questionnaire basically to help us understand what you're looking for next. If there's a role that you're interested applying for on the website, you can apply in the same manner to the specific role. And then I do a lot of my thought leadership on LinkedIn, so I fully encourage you to follow me on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn name is Chaz Cirame, C-I-R-A-M-E, and there aren't a lot of Cirame on there, so you'll find me pretty quickly and happy to share advice and resources there as well. And I try to write two or three pieces a week on LinkedIn.

Dan Freehling (36:05):

Awesome. We'll put all those links in the show notes at contempusleadership.com. And Chaz, thank you so much again for taking time to join us.

Chaz Cirame (36:11):

Dan, it was great to chat with you and love all your work you're doing and love the podcast and so glad you had me on it.

Dan Freehling (36:18):

Thanks again.

Chaz Cirame (36:19):

Thank you.

Dan Freehling (36:21):

Hey everyone, I hope you took a lot away from that conversation, and if you did, if you could please share it with someone who might find it valuable and take a second to leave a quick review on whatever podcast app you're using. Even just the stars is great. It goes a long way in helping others to discover the show. I'm aiming to bring those of you on the job hunt or supporting job seekers, lots of headhunter and recruiter perspectives now. But also be sure to check out some of our previous episodes and stay tuned for future episodes on all things leadership, career, and organizational development. Here's a clip from my conversation with Amy Rupert Donovan on the War for Talent, the qualities of visionary executives and the future of leadership.

Amy Ruppert Donovan (36:55):

When I talk about integrity, it's not about morals, right? Everybody knows the morals, the moralistic platform we bring into business, right? When I talk about integrity, this is about personal integrity, meaning you're walking your talk, you're aligned, everything you do, everything you say, and the way you behave is aligned with what you say is important. And when you're in leadership, you're in a fishbowl, people are watching this, and the minute you step outside of it, you're no longer credible as a leader. And so that's one of the components that I would put as part of a leadership profession is how do you as an individual align yourself with what you say is most important, and how do you have the courage to live that day in and day out, regardless of what happens.