Episode #34: Steven Rothberg - Founder & Chief Visionary Officer - Collegerecruiter.com

Steven Rothberg, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer at College Recruiter, joins the show to share his observations on the current job market for college grads as well as best practices and guidance for employers looking to attract and hire the next generation of talent.

"One thing that's really important to this generation, thankfully, is that they want to leave the world a better place than they found it. If corporations looking to hire can articulate in their job postings the small piece that they play in helping them make the world a better place, that goes a long way!"

Steven Rothberg, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer at College Recruiter

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Transcript

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Steven Rothberg

[00:00:00] Jon Beck: What's up everyone. Welcome to this edition of hiring university today. We welcome Steven Rothberg, founder and chief visionary officer of college recruiter. College recruiter has been in operation for 30 years. Discerning soon to be in recent college graduates. There are, believe it or not 7,400 over 7401, 2 and four year colleges and universities where.

[00:00:22] Graduates or soon to be graduates are seeking internships. Part-time jobs, seasonal work, entry level, career positions, and college recruiter has over a thousand companies, the federal government, local government and employees who wanna hire these people, Steven and his team 30 year. Steven, if I do the math correctly, you started this when 

[00:00:40] Steven Rothberg: you were 12.

[00:00:42] Uh, actually actually three. Uh, so stop, stop with the insults. welcome to hiring university. Hey, John, it's a pleasure to be with you. 

[00:00:51] Jon Beck: You may have one of the greatest LinkedIn bios, that I've ever read before. , it reads, discipline in the fifth grade for selling candy during math class and in college for running a massive fantasy hockey. I managed to channel my passions into something more productive after graduate school.

[00:01:08] that should be, that's like your mission statement. Tell us about what college recruiter looks like today. Cause I know there's been a lot of iterations and evolutions, and maybe a brief history of the company and how you got to this point. . 

[00:01:19] Steven Rothberg: Yeah, sure. So, really brief history. I founded, I founded that the company in back in 1991.

[00:01:25] So like you say about, you know, three decades ago and for the first few years, we were publishing campus maps, selling, advertising around the border. So we would give the maps to the school for free school would give the map to the student or in. Staff faculty member for free. And we generate our revenues by selling advertising to mostly local businesses, restaurants, retailers, et, etc, around the borders.

[00:01:47] After a few years, we decided that the maps were doing a really good job of hitting incoming students, , the freshmen and we, but really, really bad, pretty much nonexistent for hitting students who were in their second, third, fourth years for sophomores juniors, seniors. So we wanted to come up with another publication that would hit those.

[00:02:07] Seniors and what seniors need more than anything else is employment. So we created an employment magazine, basically the same business model gave the magazines to the career service offices for free. They gave them to the students for free. And then in 1996, this thing called the internet came along.

[00:02:24] Netscape had just gone public Yahoo had just launched. We were still two years away from the first version of Google. We were still, I think, five, six years away from Google earning dime one in revenue. They've done. Okay. By then by, um, I've heard of that. Yeah, I've heard they've yeah, you, yeah.

[00:02:39] It's, it's kind of a neat site. You should check it out if you haven't, if you haven't, yet. So what we did with. Early early, early version of our job board was, we kind of take the same model as the employment magazine employers paid to buy advertising on it. Candidates used it for free. It's the same business model that virtually all job boards use now flash forward, 30 years.

[00:03:01] We're now global. We have at any given time, two, 3 million job postings on advertised on our site. They tend to be part-time seasonal internship and what we call entry level. They require zero to three years of experience. Right now everything's in English. It's not that we don't like people who speak French or Spanish or some other language.

[00:03:23] It's just a software limitation. We could technically run a job that's in. French on our site, but our software would not be able to determine is this a job that requires zero to three years of experience? And we only want those. One of the reasons that that's important is because most of our customers, as you were saying, are they tend to be large organizations, fortune 1000 companies, government agencies, and other employers at higher scale.

[00:03:48] And we get from them what are called feats. They send us a file. Usually once a day, sometimes multiple times a day. And it's basically here are all of our job posting ads. It's amazing how few employers at scale know how many years of experience any particular job requires. They can look at a job posting and somebody can read it and say, oh, well this one says two to five years of, you know, X, Y, Z skill.

[00:04:16] And so therefore, you know, two to five years is the years number of, years of experience we're looking for. But if you say to them, Here are your thousand postings that are on your website. How many of those require year to three years of experience, you're gonna hear crickets. They just have sleep and they, they don't have a good method for determining that.

[00:04:34] So why is that? And we get that, it's a technology limitation. It's, most of the most employers, if it's a staffing company, , and you would probably understand it from that perspective or if it's. A direct employer, some corporation government agency, when a recruiter posts a job to the company's career site, they usually will do that through the applicant tracking system, the, the da the database, the ATS, usually that's what candidates see when they're searching for jobs.

[00:05:04] When they're applying for them, the employer, the recruiter, hiring manager. These, the flip side of that, they see it from a database. They can see who the resumes of the candidates that have applied, but most of those ATS do not have, an, a question for the recruiter when they post it. How many years of experience does this require?

[00:05:25] Even the ATS that do have that or that. Company has customized it to add that field. The recruiters very often don't know how many years of experience it's amazing how many hiring managers will send over a requisition saying, we're looking for this salesperson and not tell the recruiter.

[00:05:46] Here are the actual requirements. The recruiters very often know far too little about what they need to know in order to do a good job. And part of that is like years of experience. Yeah. It's 

[00:05:59] Jon Beck: the breakdown from the recruiter perspective, and gosh, you've struck a cord or hit a nerve with me. is to not be transactional, to be inquisitive and challenged and ask because so much of this business gets.

[00:06:16] Automated and, , there's paper shuffling and it's volume based. And that works to a point in some jobs mm-hmm although I could make the argument that it doesn't, if you don't ask and challenge the question, because I would venture to guess that most job descriptions out there have been a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy that date back.

[00:06:36] Oh yeah. Decades. Right? Right. And so you're taking bad information and just replicating. The opportunity to ask the question and to clarify, and to make sure is gonna increase your odds exponentially for a simple two to five minute. Issue. 

[00:06:49] Steven Rothberg: Yeah. And I'm, I totally agree, John and I I'm, I'm a big believer in not reinventing the wheel.

[00:06:56] Right. But I'm also a, a big believer in improving the wheel. So if there's a, if you're hiring a, for a sales representative and it's for, a chemical manufacturing company in Burbank, California, Whatever right. Go to indeed, go to LinkedIn, go to some sites and run that search as if you're a candidate.

[00:07:16] See what job postings come up. And then that gives you a starting point. Not the ending point. Yeah. So whether you're the hiring manager, the recruiter, the talent acquisition manager, it will give you an idea of, okay. Here's an ad that came up at the top of the search results. There must be some good things.

[00:07:34] This or some terrible things about all the others and use that as the foundation, but there is just no fricking way that some company that you probably have never heard of has the same culture has the same benefits has the same remote work policy as you do. So customize it. Yeah. And make it and make it your own.

[00:07:55] The recruiters very often. The, the ones that I've talked with are under tremendous pressure to be, bring in a slate of well qualified applicants yesterday. And so inevitably what that leads to is cutting corners. And one of the corners that I think they often cut is that two to five minute conversation with the hiring manager, let's go through this.

[00:08:18] So, okay. You need a salesperson for this, you know, for these chemicals that you're. Great. Why does that person have to have a bachelor's degree? And for the love of God, don't tell me because that's what we've hired before, right? That is not a good reason. Yeah. Maybe 20 years ago you could get away with that.

[00:08:37] Maybe you could get away with that three years ago, but today, do you really need to have a bachelor's degree in order to be able to. Chemicals. I doubt it. And when you start to have false requirements like that, you really narrow down your applicant pool. When you narrow down your applicant pool, it takes longer to hire.

[00:08:58] You probably have to pay them more. The retention isn't is all the things that our employers are complaining about now. And it's not like. Everything can be made. Perfect if they had that two to five minute conversation, but I bet you having that two to five minute conversation would reduce their time to hire by probably a week on average and lead to a better applicant lead to better retention.

[00:09:19] Um, it it's it's penny wise, pound foolish. 

[00:09:23] Jon Beck: Yeah. Could couldn't agree more? I wanna expand on that. Cuz I wanna look through your. Service through the lens of the student or the graduate or student to be graduate, as well as the corporation. We're talking a little bit about job description customization and knowing your audience, but what else, what else gets the attention of this generation?

[00:09:43] Because this generation is different and I have some thoughts about it that I'll share yeah. From both sides of it, but what, what if you're looking for that next generation of talent, what's important to this generation. 

[00:09:54] Steven Rothberg: well, one thing that's that when this generation, um, gen Z or zoomers as, as people are starting to call them, which I think is just a playoff of, of boomers that the, the oldest generation that's really still in the workforce.

[00:10:07] One thing that's really important to them thankfully, is that they wanna leave the world a better place than they found it. Mm-hmm , if you can articulate in your job posting the small piece that they. Play in that that's fantastic. So not every organization is going to make the world a perfect place. No organization is going to make the world a, a perfect place.

[00:10:32] But is there something in your organization that you're working to improve your community with? You know, are you, I saw, uh, several years ago, like dominoes filling potholes in its neighborhood. Right. Talk about that. Yep. Whirlpool used to do these wonderful commercials with Reba. MacIntire where they talked about donating appliances to habitat for humanity, which were then allowed people to have their own homes kind of hard to have a home without a refrigerator or range.

[00:11:01] But those things are pretty expensive, but Whirlpool would donate those. That's something that is really appealing to gen Z and. Maybe you have a policy of buying carbon offsets or you have a flexible work policy. Um, at college recruiter, several months ago we started to implement what we call a monthly wellness day mm-hmm

[00:11:24] Everybody in the company gets the same day off. Over and above their regular PTO, once a month. And we usually tie it in with a, with a major holiday. So, you know, the Memorial day weekend Monday's off, we would probably do also the preceding Friday. So everybody gets a four day weekend. Yeah. That kind of thing is invaluable to have that one day we found with our organization that not only did we not have a productivity loss from giving people a day, It actually made them more productive.

[00:11:58] Yeah. They, and it's not that they were working 10 hour days for the four preceding days. It's like, no, we were very clear. We don't want you working more. But boy, when they came back from that long weekend, it was like watching the Kentucky Derby. Yeah. I mean, it's like open the gates and these people came charging out.

[00:12:17] Our retention rate is way higher job. Satisfaction's way higher. If we were to have one of our better employees. Try to get poached from some other company. I'm sure one of the questions they're gonna have is, oh, do you have 12 monthly, 12 that's right. 12 wellness days. That's right. Do, do you offer this kind of PTO, these sorts of benefits and, you know, do you offer remote work?

[00:12:39] The more of those things that you offer, the less likely days you're gonna lose your top employees? And I think that applies to gen Z as well as, you know, an old gen Xer. Like I am. Companies need to look, do a better job of really truthfully understanding what do they do better mm-hmm and, and, and embrace that, but 

[00:13:00] Jon Beck: also making sure that it's authentic.

[00:13:02] Um, yes, and I, I, I appreciate and agree with all of your comments. If you're one of the millions of small businesses, which make up most of the workforce, , I think a lot of people think, well, what can I do? I'm a 50 person, or even a 10 person company, or even a thousand person company. What can I do to impact and change the world?

[00:13:20] Mm-hmm, , you know, the old adage of, of think globally act locally, pick what it is that's important to you and the identity of your company. And mm-hmm, the people that people will, your, your potential workforce and existing workforce will recognize that and buy in and, and, and be part. I do see a lot of companies though, paying lip service to it.

[00:13:38] And I wanna move into the next follow on question. As we peel this back about diversity and inclusion, which is part of this, and it it's obviously has a much greater weight. Um, I think we're making progress. It feels like we're making progress. There's more conversation, which I guess is progress.

[00:13:53] Mm-hmm , it's tricky for some companies to navigate this, for our viewers. You also hold a law degree. So you know, something about. Commentary around that in terms of the authenticity and how to present this in the world that we live in today to college. . 

[00:14:09] Steven Rothberg: Yeah, so it's a big question.

[00:14:12] yeah, no it's and it's, and it's a great question. It's an important question. So one thing is, you, the word that she used, authenticity, just, I can't overstate how important that is. Don't say that you have a fam a family friendly work environment, if you don't. Yeah. Right. Be honest about it.

[00:14:31] There are organizations out there that work their people to death and pay them accordingly own that. Embrace that there are people that want to work like crazy. Yeah. And in return, be paid really well or have great opportunities to gain amazing experience, you know, come with us, give up two years of your life and advance 10 years, you know, whatever.

[00:14:55] Yeah. Just, you know, recognize that the flip side of something that to some people might be really bad is also really good on the DEI side, you know? There are a load of organizations out there that everybody looks like you and me, you know, white, a bunch of white dudes, you know, one of our customers years ago, they literally said that they would only recruit to when I was having a conversation from, they would only recruit sales people from, I think it was like three different fraternities.

[00:15:23] Okay. So right away, it's no women. And fraternities are probably like the least diverse organizations in, in, in the country. And so probably they were heavily Caucasian, Caucasian, maybe the occasional, you know, Asian or, or black student, but you know, why is that? Well, those are the people that have succeeded in our work environment.

[00:15:43] It's like, okay. Does that mean that nobody else would. Does that mean? You're so small minded to think that only white guys from certain fraternities can possibly do this work. It's uh, it's a cop out. Yep. So, you know, if your organization is say 50 people and you've got two people of color, okay. That's probably not enough in the vast majority of the country.

[00:16:07] You hired, you had zero people two years ago. You've gone to two people this year. Okay. Own that. Be proud of that. That's a big step in the right direction. What's your goal for the next year? Maybe to get to five. Yeah. Right. So you want, and so state that, put that on your website, make a commitment to it and tell people what your progress is, what I've seen organizations like enterprise rent.

[00:16:33] Where they're incredibly transparent about their hiring practices. You know, within X days of applying, this is what will happen. And then within Y days of that, this is what will happen. . Just be transparent, be candid. I'll hear employers say, oh, we can't commit to contacting a candidate within three days because we might be really busy.

[00:16:59] It's like, okay, that's fine. What is the longest period of time? It could possibly take you to get back to a candidate? Well, seven days. Okay. So put on your website seven days, you will hear from us within eight, within eight days. Because if you say eight and it's, it's actually seven, you look like a hero.

[00:17:19] Yeah. And, you know, turn on the auto responders, use language that's that's inclusive, you know, just because you wanna hire. More black women does not mean that white males should not apply. Right. But you can say something to the effect of, , we've been around for 30 years, we haven't done as good of a job with DEI as we should have the events over the last few years have really caused us to realize that not only is it the right thing, but it makes business sense to diversify.

[00:17:52] And so these are the commitments we're gonna be making and. Own it, um, be proud of it. And acknowledge your shortcomings. That's that's part of the authenticity. If you pretend that everything is peaches and cream, then the candidates can smell. They can smell that BS from a mile away. Well, and to 

[00:18:10] Jon Beck: recognize that it's a, it's a continual practice.

[00:18:14] Culture's the same way, right. Companies say, oh, we have such a great culture and it's a PowerPoint slide. You know, it, culture is a. Exercise, you have to promote it often defend it, celebrate it. It takes work and mm-hmm and that's true. You know, talking about the DEI initiatives. I mean, everybody, because they had to check the box, put out a statement and it's there and then you ask, well, what are you doing behind it?

[00:18:39] What are you doing to educate your managers in how they hire, what are you doing to look at your statistics and to set your goals and all this, it takes work, but that. The return on that, similar to embracing a work life balance and giving your employees days off, if you do it right.

[00:18:57] And it's not just a one time event, the return on that is, is exponential. So I agree with you. Let's, flip the, table around and talk about our grads and you and I, it's, it's been a while. I, I think since either one of us sat in a classroom or we're in school, , we, we both have kids and we obviously talk to a lot of kids.

[00:19:15] , is it harder 

[00:19:17] Steven Rothberg: for this generation entering into the workforce, 

[00:19:20] Jon Beck: Or not? And, and you can, and I'll, maybe I'll give you my short answer and then I'll expand on it. Technology wise, you know, I hear my peers, of same age. Oh, kids have it so easy today. It's so easy to, they don't have to go to the library and research and they don't have to fax information at their fingertips.

[00:19:34] That's all true. but my personal opinion is I think it's way harder to be a grad today than it was 30 years ago. Do you agree? 

[00:19:41] Steven Rothberg: Or what do you think in, in some ways, yes. In some ways, no. So 30 years ago when I, I graduated, from grad school in 91, so when I graduated was the build up to the first Iraq war.

[00:19:55] And no lawyers, bad, bad job, bad job market, by the way, around then I was not too really bad. Yeah. Really the underlying economy was really strong. The job market was really bad. Um, and nobody was hiring. The company, after company, after company, it's like, well, we're really interested. Please apply. We'll interview you. It might take us 3, 4, 5, 6 months. We're gonna see what this war turns into. If there's, you know, weapons of mass destruction and whatever, then, you know, we don't wanna hire a bunch of people.

[00:20:25] Fair enough. I get that. There have been lots of other times though, where the job market for college grads has been really great. And this is one of them mm-hmm so right now, a joke that I like to tell. If is that a lot of employers have two requirements for potential hires and one is, are you currently incarcerated?

[00:20:48] And the other one is, do you have pulse? And if you can satisfy both of those, you've got a job tomorrow. Yeah. The candidates today, the students in recent grads overwhelmingly are finding it incredibly easy to find employment. What there might be struggling. Often are, is finding a job that's career related that pays well enough that they don't have to live in poverty.

[00:21:14] Mm-hmm and, and right now there are probably some listeners that are rolling their eyes. Oh, college grads living in poverty. So one of the reasons that actually a lot of college grads live at home is that they simply cannot afford the rent yeah. To have an apartment. So when I went to school 30 years ago, Rent might have been 15 to 20% of your monthly income.

[00:21:38] And now it's 40%. Yeah, it was half. When I went to school, the students who graduated with a ton of debt, it was comparable to their grocery bills over the course of a month. Maybe a couple hundred dollars. Now it's not unusual for their student loan payments to be a couple thousand dollars a month. It's a mortgage.

[00:21:58] Yeah. Well, if you're making 40 grand a year, And you take off your taxes now it's 30. And if you you're paying two grand a month in student loans, that's $24,000. So for everything else, you've got six grand. Yeah. Not a lot left that's poverty. Yeah. I mean, how do you do that? You just simply can't. And so what you're seeing is a lot of students who are graduating average, starting salary.

[00:22:24] Like 46, 40 $7,000 and half of that is going to student loans. Yeah. And they just simply can't make a bill of it. Do you 

[00:22:32] Jon Beck: think if we are heading towards, or I guess we're not technically in a recession, we gotta get through another quarter of this. Yeah. The job market still continues to be really strong.

[00:22:43] What's your prognosis for the next 12? does it hold steady? So I guess it depends on what like, what do you think? 

[00:22:50] Steven Rothberg: Yeah, John, I mean, if you had been talking to me a month ago, I would've been more bearish about the economy, but gas prices have come down a ton in the last month. And now literally most of the country gas is under four bucks a gallon.

[00:23:03] Yeah. That used to be crazy. Well, $4, again, that's so much, but, but at least people can see. Decline. And I think that's gonna bolster, consumer confidence and that will help keep us out of a recession. I'd say right now it's in my mind, probably 60, 40 that we're not, technically gonna be in a recession, but certainly there's been a, a slowdown there's, there's a real lack of consumer confidence.

[00:23:27] , I think that the labor market though is so overheated. That it would be really beneficial to a lot of employers to have that cooled off. Yeah. And that will, that will bring more employers into the job market. , I I've talked to some employers and they just aren't even trying to hire.

[00:23:46] Because they just know if they advertise this, you know, pizza maker, job paying $12 an hour. They're just not gonna hire anybody. And so there are employers that are sitting on the sidelines. Yeah. And not even trying. So for every employer that. Needs to drop out because their industry or their business takes a retraction.

[00:24:06] I think there's gonna be another one stepping in. I don't see this as going to really change as the labor market for those of us in staffing, job boards, related industries. These are golden times. Yeah. I, I agree. 

[00:24:19] Jon Beck: And I think, you and I, again, old enough to have seen this movie before I, I went back and looked, I wrote a blog in 2018 talking.

[00:24:27] Bracing for economic slowdown. And this was pre pandemic pre supply chain issues. Because it was so frothy and the pandemic accelerated a lot of this because we were writing checks to people to stay on the couch. And, but at the same time, people were reshuffling all over the country and, the expectations for what is a good starting salary, especially where we play in technology and creative was just, it was not didn't make sense.

[00:24:50] And so I think some of that. Rationality comes back into the market and we get back to some normalcy or at least baseline and that'll help a lot too. So I'm in agreement with you. Let me touch again on the vantage point of the grad. And we talked about, , the cost of, living and wages 

[00:25:08] my perspective is I think it's harder for college grads. because of the expectations that come with social media, I talk to more stressed out grads who are, getting their bachelors in some sort of, general, degree, no specialty, they're smart, well educated, personable people, but they're the level of anxiety and stress around not having it all figured out mm-hmm is 

[00:25:33] Steven Rothberg: really taxing.

[00:25:34] Jon Beck: And I think you can point a straight line to social media where everybody. Crushing it and has it all figured out and has the best life. And I think there's just a lot of emotional, mental, , damage that's being done. That to me, feels like a much hard. engagement than it was when you and I were entering.

[00:25:52] I can remember being hugely depressed and confused cuz I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was a psych pre-med major. And did you know? And then the internet came along and it saved me cuz I serendipitously got that job. I didn't have to look at, you know, Instagram and say what was me?

[00:26:04] All my friends are, are crushing. Do you see the same thing or do you hear 

[00:26:07] Steven Rothberg: that? Yeah, I'm, I'm glad, I'm really glad that you phrased it exactly as you did and, and called out Instagram in particular. I think that Instagram is a bigger problem for girls and boys mm-hmm because there's just so much of the image with, the perfect hair and the perfect lips and the perfect outfit and whatever.

[00:26:23] And I think some of that translates over into the perfect job, the perfect school, and this, all this illusion of perfection is all encompass. No doubt. Now I have three kids in their twenties. And so, it's a very, very, very small non-representative subset. But when I expand that out to see, to look at their friends and what are their friends doing?

[00:26:50] One thing I would say is that they are far more self. Of the damage that social media is doing to them and there's backlash. So there is no doubt that there are many young adults who are being very negatively impacted by it, but I think we've reached a tipping point. And I think we're starting to see some dialing back and getting some improvement, almost like gas going under $4 a gallon.

[00:27:20] It's still really expensive and social. Media's still really harmful to a lot of these people, but I think it's starting to get better. Maybe it's just the optimist in me. I. Do see a related issue with the, with the grads. And this is where I thought you were going, but, but you didn't cuz you went in a great direction of social media, but a lot of employers have this expectation that you're gonna hit the ground running.

[00:27:48] You know, when I graduated in 91. Yes. Your employer wanted you to get off to a good start, but they didn't expect you to be an expert in your field at the age of 21 mm-hmm . And it's just, it's just a, I think a, a really big disservice that organizations do when they don't invest in. And they don't invest in mentorships.

[00:28:12] Yeah. They don't invest in taking that candidate and having them go through an internship or maybe even a rotation program where they spend even a week in three or four or five different departments. So they understand how the company works. And then we point fingers at them. You know, how can you not know this?

[00:28:31] Well, no textbook taught me how the accounting department needs me to fill in this report. You know, you need to tell me that if you want me to do that properly, and a lot of of companies just are impatient. Yeah. 

[00:28:44] Jon Beck: Impatient. But this sets me up for my follow on question, which is work from home because I think a lot of it is a result of the lack of in person and we're a remote first company and I promoted all the time.

[00:28:55] It's worked for us, but I think for recent grads to not have that interpersonal, you know, the interaction and meeting different, it's really hard to train somebody. It is 

[00:29:05] Steven Rothberg: ground up remotely. I think it's. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm 56 to say to somebody who's been basically in the same kind of role for years.

[00:29:15] Okay. Do that same job from home. If you've got a decent home set up, that's not that hard. Hm. And especially if you're gonna say, okay, let's do that hybrid. And maybe you come in once a week or once every couple weeks or something for teen meetings. That's not that hard to say to somebody who's 21 and has never really been in an office environment, or if they're working in a big manufacturing facility or whatever, to just expect that they're gonna know how office politics work.

[00:29:45] Yeah. And I'm talking about the good side of office politics. Yeah. Where you know that. You know, you go to your counterpart in another department and you make her life a little bit easier by going a little bit above and beyond, and maybe a month or two from now, when you need some help, she's gonna reciprocate.

[00:30:01] That's something that's much harder to do. 

[00:30:03] Living 

[00:30:03] Jon Beck: at the Potter poverty line and it's noisy and there's a dog running around that makes it really, really challenging. Yeah. I agree. I mean, we're very conscious of that and try to bring people together. You, you use the term office politics, but what the social structure is and what those dynamics look like, it's the same thing.

[00:30:19] When you're a little kid going on the playground, you figure out how it all works and how people interact with each other. Really hard to do that on a zoom box. 

[00:30:26] The final question that every one of our guests gets, which is the way back machine question.

[00:30:30] Steven, I magically created this way back machine. , we can throw you in there to take you back to 1991. When you started. This company or your first job or experience outta college? What do you tell yourself today based on what you've learned over the last 30 years, with what you've learned, what one thing would you tell your.

[00:30:49] Steven Rothberg: Like going back to 91. Um, if I was to sort of say, Hey, you know, 30, 30, 1 years down the line, do this, remember this? Hmm. And I actually do that a fair amount. So in 91, uh, my boss was the, a senior vice president for Honeywell, which at the time was a fortune 50 company. Yeah. About 80,000 employees.

[00:31:11] I was very, very low on the pecking order. He was very. And so his boss was the CEO of the company. And so I got to sit in on some meetings that no 21 year old or 22 or 23, can, could really expect to, wow. Some really accomplished global leaders. And I was fortunate to have this boss who.

[00:31:34] Not only was willing to bring me into those meetings, but on the way to, and from the meeting, do a brief and a debrief mm-hmm , this is what you can expect. And this is why that happened. And one of the things that has really stuck with me over the years is what he would refer to and you and I were just sort of mentioning it, office politics, and he would talk about office politics in the most positive.

[00:31:57] Sense, huh? It's about collaboration. It's not about quid pro quo. So in other words, John, if I wanna get something from you, I do not need to offer you something in trade, like rate today. If I find it. A way today, next week, next month of making your life better, picking up a project, contributing, coming to you with an idea with no expectation of getting anything in return.

[00:32:27] I know, from good karma, you're gonna reciprocate. And even if you don't the other nine people in that department, Yeah, will. Yeah, he did that over and over again. And that instilled in me to this day, this desire to always look for win-win scenarios and I don't need to have you do something today.

[00:32:53] That's gonna allow me to win. If I can help you win today. I know that's gonna come back to me in spades. Yeah. I think that a lot of young adults don't appreciate. the need to always be looking for win-win scenarios. So I think I was really fortunate , to have that manager at that time of my life, 

[00:33:11] Jon Beck: incredibly fortunate.

[00:33:12] And what a great lesson that the universe will take care of it. If you believe in that in karma and whatnot. Steven, such a treat to have you on. Thanks for making the time before we go tell our listeners where they can find, you , and obviously college recruiter where they're looking for a job or looking to advertise 

[00:33:27] Steven Rothberg: on the. . Yeah.

[00:33:28] Sure. If they wanna reach out to me directly, I'm happy to connect on LinkedIn, linkedin.com/i N slash Steven S T E V E N. Rothberg, R O T H B as in Bravo, E R G, or shoot me an email, Stephen college recruiter.com. And if they're, looking for jobs year to three years of experience or looking to hire those folks, college recruiter dot.

[00:33:55] Jon Beck: Awesome. Thank you again for being on the show. Let's do this again sooner than later, and see if, some of our predictions come true around the economy and, state of the world, for our listeners as always keep the faith, keep grinding, keep safe, and we will see you next time on hiring university.

[00:34:12] Thanks Steven. 

[00:34:13] Steven Rothberg: Thank you.