Diana Alt [00:00:04]:
Hey, Diana Auld here. And this is Work Should Feel Good, the podcast where your career growth meets your real life. Each week I share stories, strategies, and mindset shifts to help you build a work life that works for you on your terms. Hey, hey, hey. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Work Should Feel Good, the show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host, Diana Alt, and today my guest is Shelly Piedmont, and she and I are going to dive into using your strengths for your career transitions, whether that's change or, you know, a full change or a job change. Shelly is a career transition coach and owner of Career gps. I.

Diana Alt [00:00:52]:
I've known her for about five years or so, and I'm so excited to have her as an HR professional for over 20 years. She has read thousands of resumes, looked at way too many LinkedIn profiles to count, and interviewed candidates for everything from entry level hourly positions to senior leaders working in the trenches. She knows a thing or three about how to market oneself in a job search, as well as how to chart a path for growth that actually will make you happy. And I just want to add that Shelly is actually one of the people because of that deep expertise in hr. I have learned a lot from her because I come at career coaching from another angle. So definitely give her a follow. And we'll be putting up her socials and things later. So welcome to the show.

Diana Alt [00:01:35]:
Shelly, how are you today?

Shelly Piedmont [00:01:37]:
It's a beautiful Wednesday.

Diana Alt [00:01:40]:
It is a beautiful Wednesday. What. What's really important, though, is did you celebrate Taco Tuesday yesterday?

Shelly Piedmont [00:01:47]:
No, I didn't. You know what I had for dinner?

Diana Alt [00:01:50]:
I had what?

Shelly Piedmont [00:01:51]:
You have cereal.

Diana Alt [00:01:53]:
You need to do better. Taco Tuesday. I'm celebrating it twice this week, Tuesday and Friday. Going out with my sister on Friday. So today I want to start off with a little bit of a curveball question. But since you and I saw each other just, you know, at the beginning of the month, this is top of mind. What initially got you interested in the circus because you work at that Ringling Museum as a volunteer. So I want to hear a little bit about this because this is not something that very many people know about you.

Shelly Piedmont [00:02:24]:
No, they don't. And partly why I had the breakfast cereal for dinner last night was because I had to rush to the Ringling Museum because I was ushering yesterday for a student production there that was in historic Circus Museum building.

Diana Alt [00:02:45]:
So one with the train?

Shelly Piedmont [00:02:47]:
Yes, the one with the train.

Diana Alt [00:02:48]:
That's the theater set up in the train. Okay, cool. So how did you get interested in that tell the people why you're interested in the circus and also, like, why Ringley in particular, like, how did you end up volunteering there?

Shelly Piedmont [00:03:02]:
Well, I, like many people, attended the circus, and I think for most people, it was a very fun experience. It was very magical. There's lights, color, action, and it was a happy place. So in the town where I live, there is the winter home of John Ringling and his wife Mabel. And there is a whole campus museum there. So we have, you know, museum for circus, and we have a museum for the extensive collection of art that John Ringling purchased during his lifetime, which a lot of people don't know about, but he was a great art connoisseur. And for me, I really enjoy that environment, as well as the interaction you have with people, from local people to people in my state and people across the country. And we have a lot of international visitors as well.

Shelly Piedmont [00:04:11]:
So I just thought was something I would love to share with my community, both local and globally. And so that's why I decided to do volunteer work there.

Diana Alt [00:04:24]:
Cool. Well, thank you so much. We have Linda saying, I remember going to the circus when I was a kid, tent and clowns and all. And for me, like, I remember cotton candy, because it's the only place that you could get cotton candy outside of Six Flags or, like, an amusement park, which you even go to very often. I'm a sucker for cotton candy, so thanks for chiming in, Linda. So how do you feel like your work volunteering at the circus leans into your strengths, Shelley?

Shelly Piedmont [00:04:58]:
Oh, that's a really good question. And I can answer that first by talking a little bit about my strengths.

Diana Alt [00:05:07]:
Let's do it. We're going to nerd out about that because you and I have a few in common.

Shelly Piedmont [00:05:11]:
We do have a few in common. And I think you and I, because we believe in this, we really can understand the connections between things that we enjoy, things that we are good at, and our strengths.

Diana Alt [00:05:30]:
Can you real quick, before you go into your strengths? Like, I think a lot of people haven't heard of CliftonStrengths, and so either you or I need to do a little bit of an intro of what that even is, and then dive in. Do you want to do.

Shelly Piedmont [00:05:41]:
Sure. So the Gallup Organization has cliftonstrengths, and it is an assessment to look at your natural abilities. So these are things that you generally are born with, have demonstrated all your life, and these are some of your superpowers. And the interesting thing about your strengths is you don't even realize you have them because they are so natural for you. You just do these things. And other people are amazed at what you do when you use your strengths. But you oftentimes don't even think about it or think it's no big deal because it's so natural to you. You can't think of doing it any other way.

Diana Alt [00:06:34]:
Let me throw in a little more background on that because Shelly works on strengths as part of a kind of a program called UMAP that she uses in her career coaching practice. And we're definitely going to talk more about that later. I have been certified as a Gallup CliftonStrengths coach. So I chose to spend several thousand dollars having the rubber stamp that I was a nerd in this. The cool thing that I love about cliftonstrengths is it was developed back in the 50s and 60s, so this is not one of the brand new unproven things. Don Clifton is the person that started it. And he was working on this in a time when all of management was incredibly hierarchical and it was all about like kind of yelling at you what you didn't do right. And so he posed the question, what if we studied what was right with people and then did extensive psychological studies and things like that and found these 34 strengths that now are the basis of Cliftonstrengths and that everybody talks about.

Diana Alt [00:07:37]:
So that's kind of how you use them. Shelley's talking about how in the here and now it makes a big difference because it's the stuff that's the genius. It's the stuff you do naturally, but that's the background. Like some psychologist decided he was tired of hearing what was wrong with people. And I think that's pretty brilliant. So, so what are some of your. What are your top five strengths? Top five is the, like entry level report that you get whenever you take the cheapest version of the CliftonStrengths. You can spend your whole life developing them.

Diana Alt [00:08:09]:
What are yours?

Shelly Piedmont [00:08:11]:
Okay, so I have as one of my top learner. And what that means is I enjoy learning. I want to learn something every day.

Diana Alt [00:08:24]:
Same.

Shelly Piedmont [00:08:25]:
If I don't learn something every day, it means that I did something wrong that day.

Diana Alt [00:08:32]:
Yeah.

Shelly Piedmont [00:08:33]:
One of the first things I do when I wake up is I read the New York Times newsletter, daily newsletter. And why I don't read everything on that newsletter. But I always know there will be one or two things on there that I'm like, oh, I didn't know that. And then I can read further about that particular topic.

Diana Alt [00:09:00]:
So do you do you also. Do you ever use that for your Monday number? Shelly has a great series on her LinkedIn of her Monday statistic. And so she's always reporting something. Have you ever gotten it out of that, out of your newsletter, or do.

Shelly Piedmont [00:09:14]:
You get that out of that particular newsletter? No, but I do get my Monday number from several newsletters that I, you know, have in my email box that I know touch on job search and hiring. And so, yes, I oftentimes get that. Great.

Diana Alt [00:09:33]:
Well, the New York Times needs to do better so that they can give you.

Shelly Piedmont [00:09:37]:
They have a lot of different things that they talk about, but not necessarily job search. So that's one close to that, but not the same is input.

Diana Alt [00:09:52]:
Those are my top two, by the way, input and learner.

Shelly Piedmont [00:09:55]:
So input is where you are getting information because you're thinking, I can use it somewhere else. And so I have bookmarks and all sorts of folders where I keep information, because then when somebody needs it or I need it, I have the resources then to be able to pull, to answer a question or deal with a problem.

Diana Alt [00:10:30]:
I call that the hoarder strength, Shelly, because when I dug into learning more about that, because I'm a learner, so what do I do? Go learn about my own number one strength of input. And I call it the hoarder gene. Because you can sometimes be doing input in terms of information, like all those bookmarks and things like that. Sometimes it is things. So that person that always has the tool that you need or the book that you need, that kind of thing might have input really high. And for me, it shows up in it mostly in information and in people, because I'm one of those folks, especially when it relates to career services, that I'm always like, I got a guy, I got a galaxy. Oh, you want to. You want to work with a career coach that uses the umap? Well, let me tell you about my friend Shelly.

Diana Alt [00:11:21]:
I'll refer you over to Shelley. So that's kind of how it shows up for me. I have my top three as input, learner and intellection. And intellection is just that you like to think. So I often say that as much as I love people and I love my work, coaching and all that kind of stuff, I could seriously sit in my house, read books and think all day and be perfectly happy. And it has a little bit of a downside because it causes me sometimes to not take action. And that's why my friend Terry made me an over miss Overthinker sash back there, which a lot of my Clients are very analytical and have one or more of my same top five strengths. So we giggle about my overthinker.

Diana Alt [00:12:06]:
So what else you got in your top five?

Shelly Piedmont [00:12:09]:
So I also have as one of my top strengths, achiever.

Diana Alt [00:12:15]:
Oh, so things done?

Shelly Piedmont [00:12:18]:
Yeah, I like to get things done. I like to cross things off my list. I love to be busy. It is hard for me to just sit and relax, and my husband is always telling me, come on, just chill a little bit. And sometimes hard for me to do that.

Diana Alt [00:12:37]:
Nice. Well, okay, so let's go back to my question that I had before we, like, launched into our. How do we explain? Explain cliftonstrengths. Which of those show up or, you know, do you use as part of your Ringling Brothers volunteer gig the most?

Shelly Piedmont [00:12:54]:
Well, I can tell you I use learner a lot because I am constantly trying to learn more about the family, the circus, the art, anything to do with the ringlings. And so, you know, I'm constantly. If there's an article or something, I'm there. I'm there to read that. That also helps with input because when I do tours, I get tons of questions. Yes.

Diana Alt [00:13:33]:
You know, you have it in your back pocket.

Shelly Piedmont [00:13:35]:
I got it in my back pocket. Oh, yeah, I just read an article about that. Or you would very interested to know this, you know, and oftentimes then I can relate it to something even, you know, modern that, you know, that they can put it into context.

Diana Alt [00:13:54]:
Well, I actually got to take. Is it called the Legacy Tour? Yep. I got to take the Legacy Tour that Shelly had just certified in. My friend Karen Anderson and I both took that tour with her in Sarasota when we were there, and she definitely pulls all of the random information out of her pocket. So. So I'm going to switch gears a little bit from the circus because a lot of people are kind of like, these are professional career coaches. Like, why in the hell are they talking about the circus? So I would love for you to tell me a little bit about your own career journey, how you got into HR and then how you got out of HR and into what you're doing now.

Shelly Piedmont [00:14:33]:
Okay. So I did not have a linear path.

Diana Alt [00:14:38]:
Great. That makes us way more fun. Way more fun. Yes.

Shelly Piedmont [00:14:43]:
I had starts and stops. My. So I went to college and had my degree in economics, and I was like, well, I don't know what you do with a degree in economics. It sounded interesting. So I said, well, if you have that degree, you should be an economist, right?

Diana Alt [00:15:05]:
Yeah.

Shelly Piedmont [00:15:05]:
And so I got a role in working for The Department of Labor doing economic work. And guess what? I hated it. I hated it.

Diana Alt [00:15:18]:
And I like to read about economics, but I think it would be a tear. Like, I almost minored in it. I was one class short. And then I was like, I would be terrible at this.

Shelly Piedmont [00:15:30]:
Well, it was a good job in that I met my husband there, so that's positive. And have great friends from that work. But it was just not a fit for me.

Diana Alt [00:15:40]:
Yeah.

Shelly Piedmont [00:15:41]:
So I had to go back and figure out, okay, what did I really want to do? And I really like the hospitality industry. So I went to school back and got my master's degree in hospitality management and started my career in operations. Well, as they. The role that I was slated to go into, they had a reorg and they just eliminated all those roles. But then I was asked, would you like to do recruiting? And I said, okay, well, I don't have a job. I never thought about it, but it sounds interesting. And so that's the start of going into recruiting. I did for a long time until I decided that I wanted to expand that see that learning thing going on.

Shelly Piedmont [00:16:36]:
I wanted to know more about all of hr.

Diana Alt [00:16:39]:
And.

Shelly Piedmont [00:16:39]:
And so I was given the opportunity and I switched to be an HR generalist. And I still had recruiting underneath in terms of my oversight. And then I used a lot of my understanding of myself when my last company corporate position got acquired and things changed. And because of that change, I realized that job that I had didn't fit me anymore. So I thought about what to do, and it made sense for me to become a career coach because it really aligned with all the things that I enjoy like to do. And for that.

Diana Alt [00:17:31]:
So I'm stalking over on your LinkedIn profile. You started 2018. I feel like you've been doing it like a million years longer than me. Whenever we met during the pandemic, you have Resume, Strategist and LinkedIn and Interview and like the strategies, like all the things you've listed out. To be clear, which of those things do you feel like most aligns with being in your strength, your strengths, because you have helped with people comprehensively with their job searches. So personally, which of those things do you feel like taps into your strengths the best? And if there's some that we didn't talk about, of course we only kind of went into two or three of yours.

Shelly Piedmont [00:18:22]:
That's a really good question. And it's hard for me to say just one because each of those, I approach them in a way that aligns with my strengths.

Diana Alt [00:18:37]:
Okay, hold up. You just said the most important thing you could say. I love this. Okay. So one of my pet peeves with CliftonStrengths is when people try to misuse the assessment. So something we learned whenever we were doing our coach training is that this assessment was not created to help people with hiring. So I could lose my coach certification if I suggested to a client organization that they use it in hiring because it's not approved for that and it could expose them to liability. Similarly, it's not really good and it's not intended to tell you what you should be when you grow up.

Diana Alt [00:19:19]:
Instead, it's intended to help you figure out what is your path to achieving a goal. So sounds like that's what you're getting into. I know I want to prepare someone for an interview or I know I want to help them craft a job search strategy. I'm going to do it my way. So what is, what does your way look like for leveraging your strengths for like interview coaching?

Shelly Piedmont [00:19:43]:
Okay. So that as an example for interview coaching. So my learner is, oh, I am always learning about what is new. What are recruiters saying about interviewing? And so I'm like at the cutting edge of what is happening. So that helps me with my clients to make sure that they are aware.

Diana Alt [00:20:12]:
Of what are you talking about. So when you're saying you're talking about, it could be technology, like here's an AI prep tool you could use. Or it could be like, this is the way interviews are shifting. You know, we used to do this many rounds and now we're doing that many rounds. And skill based is a thing. So expect more assessments and you're going to be able to tell your clients all of that, right?

Shelly Piedmont [00:20:33]:
That's right.

Diana Alt [00:20:34]:
Okay. I use it a little differently for interview prep or my learner. I have a weird ability to quickly understand what people are trying to assess success for a role in an interview. Even if I haven't worked with that inter, I. Even if I haven't worked with that role very much. So for example, I have a client right now that is into like workplace well being and sustainability and that kind of stuff. And that's not one of my main sweet spot areas. She and I started working together because she's in tech.

Diana Alt [00:21:09]:
Like she's worked at, you know, she had like, was it Adobe, like some big tech companies like that that she's worked with? And so for me, I was able to, to quickly go and understand what those roles were about so I could help her prep.

Shelly Piedmont [00:21:26]:
So yeah, and I do the Same thing, which is, let's understand what's happening with that hiring team. What are their problems, what's their pain points. And then that way you can align that to kind of what you bring to what's your value. So, yeah, I do that. I have discipline as one of my strengths. So discipline helpful because I can break down the process of how to learn or what to do. And just in my coaching, it. It will follow logically.

Diana Alt [00:22:10]:
So. Oh, that's great.

Shelly Piedmont [00:22:12]:
For those people that need some structure, it's helpful because I provide that through my coaching. And then I have relator as one of my strengths and that is a lot of that one on one and just understanding people and building those relationships. I love to do one on one coaching because I get to find out about the person really at a deeper level and then that helps me build rapport, builds trust as well as then I can understand kind of what challenges they might face. And we can address that in the interview preparation and, you know, give them confidence based on kind of who they are and what they can do successfully in the interview.

Diana Alt [00:23:09]:
Yeah, I relator is my number seven. And one of the things about strengths is like, yes, you take the test and the things up at the top are natural, but you also continue developing them. So the test is pretty reliable. It doesn't change around a lot. But I wouldn't be surprised if relator had crept into my top five if I did it again, because I've had like probably 2000 hours of coaching since I took the test last, and I. I really enjoy that part a whole lot too. Okay, I want to switch now to talking about how you help people find work. That feels good because that's what the show is all about.

Diana Alt [00:23:50]:
So first thing I want to throw at you is when you think about the phrase work should feel good, what comes up for you? How would you define that?

Shelly Piedmont [00:23:58]:
So since I'm a UMAP coach and I'll talk a little bit about UMAP because I think that will address this.

Diana Alt [00:24:06]:
Cool.

Shelly Piedmont [00:24:07]:
Because UMAP uses the approach that there's not just one way or one thing you should concentrate on for, you know, career success or feeling good about your career or have just having a career that fits you. So we have four things through that process that we talk about in my coaching. So we talked about cliftonstrengths and understanding your innate strengths because that will make you very engaged in the job when you're using your strengths. And your performance generally is very good because you're highly productive. You're doing things that other people can't do. And so that's one part. Another part is your values, your personal values, and understanding what those are. Because many times it is not the work that's the problem, but the environment you are in that your values are not being upheld.

Shelly Piedmont [00:25:14]:
But you need to know what those are, because oftentimes that becomes a vague feeling for. For you, I know something's off, but I'm not sure what. And when you understand what your values are, then you can also understand jobs or organizations or bosses that will align with your values, and that's important for your feelings.

Diana Alt [00:25:40]:
Do you find that it's hard. Do. How hard do you find people? We're live. I'm just. Do you. Do your clients. Do you run across very many that find it difficult to articulate values?

Shelly Piedmont [00:25:57]:
It's very difficult.

Diana Alt [00:25:59]:
Okay, so how do you help them with that? So I just literally did this yesterday as part of a program I'm in because I'm a nerd for values exercises, and I'm always happy when they come out the same or roughly the same. But what do you do to help your clients pull out their values?

Shelly Piedmont [00:26:18]:
Okay, so we use an assessment that helps to prioritize what the values are. But in the coaching, I go deeper because I want to have that person define what that value means to them. Because we can use the same words as an example, meaningful work. But what I believe is meaningful work, and what you, Diana, believe is meaningful work may be very different. Okay.

Diana Alt [00:26:48]:
Yes.

Shelly Piedmont [00:26:49]:
So then we also, then after defining what that means, we look at, like, a present job or even a past job, and we look at, is this a value that you want to be reciprocated back to you? Because sometimes we don't care, you know, about whether someone gives that back to us. But there are some that we absolutely do. And so trust, for example, is one you want. You give trust, and you want it back.

Diana Alt [00:27:21]:
I don't want to spray trust everywhere and not get anybody any back, like correct or horrible.

Shelly Piedmont [00:27:27]:
And then we can look at, well, if it's a reciprocal value, how is that fitting with your present job or a past job so that we can get context. Are you getting it reciprocated back in the content of your job by your boss or your team and by the organizational structure.

Diana Alt [00:27:49]:
I love that. That's really. I haven't really heard anybody talk about that in those words. I feel like when I've worked on it with clients myself, that we get there. But it's such a succinct Way to think about it of, do you need. Do you need this value reflected back at you? Is such a powerful question. Do you need it reflected back at you at work? Do you need it reflected back at you at home? Yesterday I was doing kind of a co working session with two career coaches that are in a master job search strategy coach program that I'm part of. And we were doing a values exercise and we were kind of struggling with, well, is this personal values? Is it values for our business, et cetera? And I definitely am going to talk to send this to those people because I think really what it is is where do I need it reflected back to me is one of the ways that they can answer that question for themselves.

Diana Alt [00:28:50]:
So thank you for that. You helped lots of people today.

Shelly Piedmont [00:28:56]:
And then the third thing we look at is your preferred skills to use or your motivating skills. So we all have learned to do a lot of different things, but some of them just don't interest us. We could be really good at them and we can get a lot of pats on the back because we're doing it. But when you are asked or tasked to do some and use those skills, oftentimes you're going, I really don't want to do it. So it's good to understand what are your motivating skills, the ones that you're just jazzed. You're like, oh, I get to do it today, as opposed to the ones where you go, I get, I have.

Diana Alt [00:29:39]:
To do it today. I have to do that today. Yeah.

Shelly Piedmont [00:29:42]:
And just to acknowledge those. Now, not every job is going to have all of your motivating skills. You've got to do sometimes things that you don't want to do. But we need to look at what is that percentage? Because if that percentage of burnout skills we call that is like 75% of your job, that's a huge problem.

Diana Alt [00:30:07]:
That's a big problem. And the thing that I find interesting with that is it changes over time. Sometimes we had a skill, you know, a skill that was a motivating skill. Is that what you called it? A skill that was a motivating skill early in our career becomes old hat later. We want to develop something different and it can become a burnout skill. That happened with me in, well, it's happened to me a few times, but the one that comes to mind the most strongly was things related to software quality testing. Because I had a period of my career where I did that. And when I tell people that now and they don't know Me for my tech career.

Diana Alt [00:30:46]:
They're like, you did what? They don't believe it, but I did that. I was very successful at it and I even led teams on it for several years. But I got so tired of it, especially the actual testing part. I didn't mind, like leading a team and helping them develop themselves and all of that, but please don't make me spend all day testing software ever again. So I talk to people about that a lot. And whenever my clients, when we talk about what skills you want to use on the next job, I often get back, well, I'm certified in X. And I'm like, well, that didn't tell me if you want to use it. Like, for all I know, the process of certifying in it got you so sick of it that you never want to touch it again.

Diana Alt [00:31:28]:
So.

Shelly Piedmont [00:31:29]:
Right. And a lot of people don't acknowledge that because they'll look at a job description and say, well, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. Sure you want to do it, but does that mean you want to do it?

Diana Alt [00:31:42]:
Yes. Do you, do you also talk about what skills you want to develop? Because I feel like that is huge. Like, if you haven't really done it very much before, how can you help someone understand that it is a motivating skill versus it could be a burnout skill? Like, you might not know.

Shelly Piedmont [00:32:04]:
Well, we. That's part of that assessment will take into account those skills you would like to learn and you think you would be motivated to use, but you just don't have that expertise yet.

Diana Alt [00:32:19]:
Okay. Yeah, for me, I can learn almost anything. Like, I will learn things and then be like, I don't want to do that again. But I like learning because learning is number two. I make lifting strengths. What's the fourth area of umap, Shelley?

Shelly Piedmont [00:32:30]:
So the fourth area is personality based interests.

Diana Alt [00:32:35]:
Oh.

Shelly Piedmont [00:32:37]:
So we all have different personalities and we are attracted to different things because of that personality. So as an example, you can really like problem solving or getting into the weeds and trying to figure out things. And so you will be attracted to the type of work that involves that. There are other people that just really love to work with their hands or they want to have something that's like a product at the end of the day so they can look and say, I did this.

Diana Alt [00:33:17]:
Okay.

Shelly Piedmont [00:33:18]:
So they need to gravitate towards the type of work that will allow them to do that. We've got helpers types and they're like the social people. They want to be helping others so they would Gravitate to things like being in the medical field or teaching or things like that. So it's important to know what your particular personality based interest is because then you can think about as you're looking at careers, does that really fulfill that? Because remember, if it's an interest to you, you're likely to stay more interested in the job, the type of field it is. And when we have an interest in something, we tend to do better at it.

Diana Alt [00:34:10]:
Yeah. I think it's also really cool how some, like no one falls cleanly in one of those categories. Like, it's a really good guide. But I had a conversation. I have a Facebook group that is, it's called the Career Boss Crew. If you want to go to career careerbosscrew.com you can join it. You'd be welcome in there, Shelley. But in that group the other day I put up a question of like, what's the worst career advice you'd ever gotten? And one of the gentlemen wrote a really nice comment about how it's very bad advice, like, find what you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life.

Diana Alt [00:34:49]:
And he talked about how he likes skiing. And he's like a pretty well compensated software engineer, I think. And he's like, I like skiing. And this is what it would be like to work in skiing. You only can work half the year, you have to go be a whitewater rafter, all these kinds of things. You don't make very much money, et cetera. And I countered back to him like, well, software engineering is lucrative, but also ski companies need software too. And so we kind of talked about how you can marry those things up.

Diana Alt [00:35:23]:
Because for him, security and stability was a very strong value. Like he want, he wants the benefits. He doesn't want to live the nomad life in Colorado, half the time doing skiing and half the time doing whitewater. He wants to have a nice house and comfort for his family and all that stuff. So I said, well, look for, you know, would it make sense to look for a job doing software development for a ski adjacent company? So. And he said he's looked before and he's open to it and that he thought maybe a good retirement gig for him could even be just contracting, you know, part time contracting when I don't really care how much money I make anymore. I don't need to work full time for a ski company. So I love all the intersections.

Diana Alt [00:36:11]:
Can I throw at you a little bit of. Well, last week I called it a lightning round and then it wasn't really a lightning round, but it's some questions I want to throw at my guests. What is the worst piece of career advice you've received? Since I was just in that group.

Shelly Piedmont [00:36:30]:
So this is something that was told to me at the beginning of my career, and I believed it until I saw that it didn't make any sense and wasn't accurate. But which is work hard and then you'll get noticed.

Diana Alt [00:36:45]:
Oh, that's. That is probably the dumbest advice that you could give to someone, because how much time do you and I spend trying to help people understand that visibility is important?

Shelly Piedmont [00:36:59]:
Right. And because I was in hr, I would see people who I knew were not the top performers.

Diana Alt [00:37:09]:
Yes. Getting the lives, getting promoted, getting the fives on the reviews, all of that kind of stuff.

Shelly Piedmont [00:37:15]:
Right, exactly. And, you know, when I talk to people about, you know, kind of what's going on there, and you say, well, because, you know, this person was visible, they asked, they wanted to be promoted, and they talked about it, and they went and they did, you know, additional work to do this, you know, and. And so it was very apparent that the person who was down, I'm doing the work and thinking that someone's going to notice them, wasn't happening.

Diana Alt [00:37:45]:
Yeah. And the other thing with that is it's not just like that. Can there are people that steal credit. You know, we know that that happens, but that's not just happening because someone else stole your credit. It's happening because there's so much going on that that person who did make themselves visible is not stealing your credit. They're just saying, here's what I did. So.

Shelly Piedmont [00:38:11]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:38:12]:
Cool. How about what is a red flag in a job interview that people ignore far too often?

Shelly Piedmont [00:38:20]:
For me, I will say this personally.

Diana Alt [00:38:23]:
Okay.

Shelly Piedmont [00:38:24]:
Which is when somebody is not taking the interview seriously. And what I mean by that is they're distracted. They don't seem engaged in that conversation. Those are red flags because they should be on their best behavior when you are in the interview, because they should be wanting to sell you that you are a good fit and that, you know, this would be a good opportunity for you.

Diana Alt [00:39:03]:
You know what I love about what you just said? It works equally on both sides of the desk.

Shelly Piedmont [00:39:08]:
Correct.

Diana Alt [00:39:09]:
Because with some people, I asked that question to, they're going to answer from the perspective of a candidate, and especially if they didn't ask questions that they wanted, and then they got themselves in a bad situation when they took a job. But it's equally important on both sides. I don't Want a candidate that's disinterested. And I don't want a company that's disinterested. So very cool.

Shelly Piedmont [00:39:32]:
They're telling you about themselves. Your first interaction.

Diana Alt [00:39:36]:
Yes.

Shelly Piedmont [00:39:37]:
Believe them.

Diana Alt [00:39:38]:
Yeah. No one's ever going to behave better than they do during an interview.

Shelly Piedmont [00:39:43]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:39:44]:
What is a personal habit or mindset shift that you think more people need to make.

Shelly Piedmont [00:39:55]:
Okay. Is this, is it just in general in their life or for general job search?

Diana Alt [00:40:03]:
In general. However you want to answer it. Just explain how you answered it so the people understand. Okay. So.

Shelly Piedmont [00:40:10]:
So this has been a game changer for myself. And if you remember that I said I was achiever. Which means that was a. That's one of my strengths. But that means being busy. But sometimes you're busy not on the right things.

Diana Alt [00:40:30]:
Yes.

Shelly Piedmont [00:40:31]:
Okay. And to know the difference. So a mindset change or one thing that I have done is to write my goals out.

Diana Alt [00:40:45]:
Yes.

Shelly Piedmont [00:40:45]:
What are they? And then I revisit those on a weekly basis.

Diana Alt [00:40:53]:
And then do you map it to what's on your calendar to make sure that it aligns correct.

Shelly Piedmont [00:40:58]:
So that's exactly so on my daily. Not every day do I work on my big goals. But I should be doing that multiple times a week.

Diana Alt [00:41:11]:
I'm in the same boat. And I, I'm sure the style that you and I have for doing that is different because our personalities are very different. But I look at it the same way. And I actually today I have some stuff I want to work on. Is it the most important thing that I needed to look? No. I got a. I got a resume for a person that got laid off a couple months ago and I have to make progress on that today. So that is my top thing.

Diana Alt [00:41:36]:
I could be very busy with some other stuff. How about what is a totally useless skill that you are weirdly proud of having?

Shelly Piedmont [00:41:53]:
Useless? No. I consider most of my skills I apply for.

Diana Alt [00:41:57]:
I call it weird. Maybe call it maybe call it weird.

Shelly Piedmont [00:42:02]:
Okay. You could say that this is a weird skill. But I can talk about Dawson's Creek and I've seen every episode at least twice. So if you tell me about anything that I usually can tell you the context. I love that.

Diana Alt [00:42:24]:
That's so good. I, I, I like this. The whole idea behind this question is to reveal a little personality that we wouldn't get to do. And we've had double whammy today because we got the circus stuff out of you and now the Dawson's Creek fandom out of you. That is awesome. What is something that you have changed your mind about Recently, I stole this from Adam Grant. He has his podcast, Work Life, and a book called Rethinking. So he loves asking people, what have you rethought lately? What you.

Diana Alt [00:42:53]:
What have you changed your mind about?

Shelly Piedmont [00:42:57]:
So this is not. I can't say this was like, yesterday that I changed my mind about this, but I have thought a lot about what success means for me.

Diana Alt [00:43:09]:
Oh.

Shelly Piedmont [00:43:11]:
And how to really measure that, because traditionally, a lot of times, success is the money you make, you know, or it is for us. It might be the clients, a number of clients that we have. But is that really, truly success?

Diana Alt [00:43:37]:
Right.

Shelly Piedmont [00:43:38]:
You know, and for some people, it is.

Diana Alt [00:43:43]:
That's right. Some people, it definitely is. What have you. What did you discover about your own definition of success?

Shelly Piedmont [00:43:50]:
So when I was thinking about that, I said, what do. It's kind of like, you know, if you're writing your obituary, what do you want people.

Diana Alt [00:44:01]:
Yes.

Shelly Piedmont [00:44:01]:
Take about your life? That is important. You know, and for me, it was. Oh, it really. For me, successes. People that I've helped who went from being confused about what they wanted to do to be clear about what they wanted to do.

Diana Alt [00:44:24]:
Yes.

Shelly Piedmont [00:44:25]:
Okay. Or people that were stuck in a job search, they weren't making traction, and then they had now the tools and the strategy to get them to where they want it to be.

Diana Alt [00:44:41]:
Yeah. I love that. It definitely hits different the number of clients you have versus the number of clients you positively impacted. And one of the things I've experienced. Tell me if you've experienced this too. But I've experienced. Sometimes potential clients will ask, what is your success rate for job seeking? And I'm like, well, that is a very loaded, weird question, because my success is defined by what my clients wanted and what the. The way you mark success might not be what my clients chased.

Diana Alt [00:45:23]:
So if you're really asking how many people got a job within four months of starting to work with me, that is a different question than how many clients were successful because you've decided your goal is to get a job within four months. So I think that that whole what is success? How do we look at it? Is really important. And I try to be very detached from my client. I. I want to understand my client's definition of success, but not be attached to any particular definition of success.

Shelly Piedmont [00:45:55]:
Right. And I can tell you. And I don't know if this is the same for. For you, Diana, but when my clients have this aha. Moment about their career or their life and you can see it on their face, and they're just like, oh, I get it now. That is so powerful. Because they won't go backwards once they have that. They can only use it to go forward.

Diana Alt [00:46:28]:
Yes. And it also, like, it can be disconcerting. Like they're like, oh my gosh, my perspective just shifted. Which is awesome. And then they wrestle with it for a while and then they actually make something of it that is incredibly rewarding. So the last of the not so lightning lightning round questions is what is a common misperception that people have about your work?

Shelly Piedmont [00:46:51]:
Well, I think a common misfortune misconception about how I do coaching and a lot of other coaches, I won't say it for everyone because everyone approaches coaching differently is that I'm going to tell you what to do. My job as a coach isn't to tell you what to do to do because that's your life and it's not my life. What I can do is talk to you, especially with career change, around career change, like so you see lots of different perspectives that I can challenge you when I think you're not seeing something that is pertinent. But at the end of the day, you make those decisions for your life because you have to live your life. I cannot tell you what is the best career for you.

Diana Alt [00:47:56]:
Yeah.

Shelly Piedmont [00:47:56]:
Because you only know that I can.

Diana Alt [00:47:58]:
Yeah.

Shelly Piedmont [00:47:59]:
What? My job is to give you some guidance on how to figure that out for yourself.

Diana Alt [00:48:05]:
Yeah. And what's I, what I, I agree on all that. Although especially the closer related something is to job search, the more likely I am to just have to teach a skill. Like sometimes we just have to teach people a skill in this. But to make decisions, like I'm not going to make decisions for you. I'm going to help you understand what your own values are so that you can make your own decision. And I can mirror back to you. Well, you said your priority was X and now you're considering taking a job.

Diana Alt [00:48:38]:
That's. Why did your priority change? Have we gotten caught up in the process? That kind of of things. So it's a really great point. Yeah. What? Oh, go ahead, please.

Shelly Piedmont [00:48:47]:
I was going to say, so an example of how I would coach when it comes around networking, because that's a tool that you can use for your job search and I encourage that is to provide knowledge about different options and how you could approach it. And perhaps given your personality or your challenges, you know what might be a better option for you.

Diana Alt [00:49:15]:
Yes.

Shelly Piedmont [00:49:16]:
But I can't say you have to do this exactly. That's, that's where it doesn't. For me, it doesn't work.

Diana Alt [00:49:26]:
I love that you brought that up because so much of the perception and so much of what. There's a lot of coaches that I think push too much on, quote, unquote, networking via LinkedIn. And I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Like, there's a. I love LinkedIn. That's my primary social platform. I hang out there all the time. You and I met there.

Diana Alt [00:49:51]:
We're streaming there. And I'm streaming on YouTube and Facebook too. But LinkedIn was the one that I pay most attention to. But I know people that have literally said, I'm just not gonna be hanging out on LinkedIn. Like, it's just not gonna happen. You know, I'll put a clear profile up so it matches my resume, but I'm just not gonna hang out on LinkedIn and they use the freaking telephone, you know? One of my clients that has gone through, I think he's on his second job since we worked together in 2020 because he got laid off of the first one he took. He never uses LinkedIn for networking in a search, but he develops incredibly good relationships with his colleagues. And so when he loses a job, he picks up the phone after he's decided what he wanted.

Diana Alt [00:50:39]:
That is fine. It's completely fine.

Shelly Piedmont [00:50:43]:
What are you working on?

Diana Alt [00:50:44]:
What. What cool stuff are you working on for the future, Shelley? Like, whether it's something that you're doing to build your own business so that work is better for you, or whether it's something for your client. What's going on?

Shelly Piedmont [00:50:56]:
So I have been for this first quarter of 2025, putting together a new course for people who need to quickly prepare for interviews. So for those people that get a call and say, can you come in tomorrow? And they're going, it will walk them through how to kind of think about what they need to do to prepare and quickly and also give some guidance and some of the common interview questions. So I have that, that I'm working on that my goal is second quarter 2025, that that will be out.

Diana Alt [00:51:43]:
And do you have a wait list for that or anything set up?

Shelly Piedmont [00:51:46]:
Not yet, but I will when I closer to finishing it.

Diana Alt [00:51:51]:
Okay, cool.

Shelly Piedmont [00:51:52]:
And then I do have a YouTube channel and so I encourage everyone to subscribe once a week. I, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes, I talk about a topic that I know job seekers are asking about. So check it out over there because I just love to have you see that and always encourage if you have comments. I do answer Those comments there.

Diana Alt [00:52:19]:
Yeah, I love comments on YouTube because I feel like it's, it's, it's such an interest. People think differently when they're on YouTube. It's like they pretend more when they're on LinkedIn. They want to be buttoned up and professional, but they're a little bit more, I don't know, unfiltered on YouTube. So I really enjoy that. What if someone wants to find out more about you? Where should they go if they want to connect with you more?

Shelly Piedmont [00:52:50]:
Well, I am like you on LinkedIn quite a lot and so yes, please feel free to connect with me. I'm going to ask one thing though. If you want to connect with me, please send me a note and please say that you saw this particular conversation that Diana and I had. That just helps me to know where we came across each other.

Diana Alt [00:53:17]:
Nice.

Shelly Piedmont [00:53:17]:
So I know to connect.

Diana Alt [00:53:19]:
Yeah. And I feel the same way. Like if there's anybody hanging out here that sees me and wants to. Now I'm trying to find my own little banner. I'm learning how to work my streaming tool, guys. So there's my LinkedIn and I would love to connect with y' all too. And let me know if you heard me on the podcast because this is brand new to me and I'm really excited about it. So if someone wants.

Diana Alt [00:53:43]:
Do you have an email newsletter or anything like that that people could get involved in?

Shelly Piedmont [00:53:47]:
I do have a bi weekly newsletter. It comes out tomorrow and the topic is my conversations with my 95 year old mother about when she assumed things and was completely wrong.

Diana Alt [00:54:04]:
Stop. You have to also turn that into a YouTube video. Shelly, I think be really compelling. That would be a lot of fun. Get a picture of your mom in there as well.

Shelly Piedmont [00:54:15]:
So I relate it to job search because in job search people assume a lot of things which are totally wrong.

Diana Alt [00:54:23]:
Yes, yes, they sure do. So well, I am, I, I just looked at her website. So if you guys want to join the newsletter, she's got a lot of stuff happening on her website. But just go to my career gps, scroll all the way down to the bottom and sign up. I will be signing up specifically because I want to see this email about her 95 year old mother. So definitely be on there. And I'm popping a couple of things too for people. If you're looking for things that aren't the interviewing that Shelly will have for us in Q2, I have a top job search mistakes mini training.

Diana Alt [00:55:01]:
You can go to jobsearchmistakes.com and grab that and take a look at it. And then also, if you go to is it time to walk? You can get a mini training on whether you should actually leave your job. If you've been sort of having that itch in the back of your mind, this is a really good training to help you with that. And both Shelly and I work with people on trying to dig further into that and figure out what the right thing to do is.

Shelly Piedmont [00:55:26]:
So.

Diana Alt [00:55:26]:
So before we go, what is one piece of advice, one takeaway out of all of this that you would like people to have?

Shelly Piedmont [00:55:38]:
One takeaway is that you can have a career where you thrive, but it doesn't usually just fall in your lap.

Diana Alt [00:55:50]:
I just got the goosies, so goosebumps.

Shelly Piedmont [00:55:54]:
You need to be proactive. And part of that is understanding what a good job for you is. I work with a lot of people to help them figure that out. But, you know, if you're waiting around saying, well, someone is going to give you this great job, or, you know, your career is suddenly going to flourish when it hasn't, that's not. That's not how it works.

Diana Alt [00:56:22]:
I have an engineering degree and I had to take physics, and I come back to the law of momentum. Like objects in motion stay in motion. And then when you think about inertia, object at rest, stay at rest. So get yourself in motion. So. Well, thank you very, very much, Shelly, for coming on. Work should feel good. I'm popping your website up here one more time so people can try to find all the things and sign up for your newsletter.

Diana Alt [00:56:49]:
I'm sure I'll have you back again. You're one of my favorites, and I think that you're one of the brightest voices on LinkedIn, giving really practical information to people that they can use, whether they have the ability to afford coaching or not. So thank you for sharing some of that with everybody today. Okay.

Shelly Piedmont [00:57:08]:
Okay, I'll.

Diana Alt [00:57:10]:
Thank you. Have a good day.

Shelly Piedmont [00:57:13]:
Bye.

Diana Alt [00:57:13]:
Bye. And that's it for this episode of Work should feel good. If something made you laugh, think, cry, or just want to yell yes at your phone, send it to a friend, hit follow, hit, subscribe, do all the things. And even better, leave a review if you've got a sec. I'm not going to tell you to give it five stars. You get to decide if I earned them. Work should feel good. Let's make that your reality.