Our Work & Self Worth

I stick my nose up at no job, and I take pride in that. I was raised with the values that hard work will pay off, and coming from a family of farmers on both sides, I knew that meant blue collar was just as important as white collar, and in some cases more. At a recent Forrester Sales Kickoff we played a game where we had to pick a question blindly and answer it. Mine was, "What was your least favorite job?". To me that was a trick question, you have to be careful how you answer something like that, especially standing next to your Chief of Sales Officer! Luckily I think she and the rest of the group were at least slightly amused by my response...

My answer was genuine and it didn't take much thought. My least favorite job was also a very fun job for many reasons. I played the role of "Manager of Environmental Restoration" with Janney Trust, as you'll see on my LinkedIn profile. This was a very fancy title made up by my brilliant uncle, and in short I was in charge of a piece of our farmland cleanup for pre-sales negotiations. I was literally down in the dirt, sleeves pulled up, workers gloves and boots, and often times a face mask since I was picking up very old and sometimes dangerous trash on a piece of our property. I had the task of digging up and finding things as large as old car parts, to small liquor bottles that had been left by previous tenants from decades ago. I often times was able to take these large loads on my Mom's small truck which I'd adopted as my own, and drop them off at a local landfill. Other times I sub-contracted friends to help, especially when the loads were larger or hard to carry. I reported both my own and sub-contractors hours and mileage, wrote their checks, and understood it was a limited budget so if I hired a friend that meant they were also getting some of the money that I could have earned. It was a fun job, but not a pleasant one because it made the fact that we were finally selling our family farm very real and immediate, so this is why I chose it as a least favorite job above all else.

Coming from this background of honest hard work has always driven the passion in me to help others find work, or to find someone to hire. I took a shot at recruiting with a staffing firm straight out of college, and although I enjoyed it I found it the most difficult type of sales job. I wanted to find everyone a job, but we weren't social services, we were a for profit organization. It makes sense and I understand it, but not only was I limited in helping someone find a job, it was not easy matching personalities and selling people to people. A recruiter has to source candidates, engage the candidate, have them willing to do an interview with you. From there you sell what you hope is a suitable job to that candidate, and finally sell them to your account manager with the job posting. Ultimately the account manager tries to sell that applicant to the hiring organization, and if we are lucky they get an interview. You can put the rest of the pieces together as I'm sure most reading this have been in an interview or conducted one. From this brief experience I would say I was pretty successful in a short amount of time- but I knew it wasn't for me. However, I walked away with an attitude as a lifetime recruiter.

To this day I run a small job board called Greater DMV/RVA/Norfolk Jobs on Facebook. It started out just local to Northern VA where I was born and raised, but I started getting a lot of requests from Richmond and the Norfolk/VA Beach area- so instead of declining them like I had been I expanded the group. It is still fairly small with under 3,000 people (less than my LinkedIn network), and I am very selective in who I allow into the group. I vet almost everyone who requests (to avoid spam) by having them answer their location and their intentions of joining the group. I still get spam every now and then and try to check it on occasion to make sure I can remove those people and their content, but for the most part I'm very hands off. I use to leverage the free insights that Facebook analytics provided, but with my work at Forrester, and my volunteer engagement with AFCEA NOVA Small Business, I leave it on the sidelines and let those in need use it to their advantage in finding a job. The entrepreneur in me wants to promote it every now and then- with nothing to gain other than the hope that someone in need of a job or a new hire is able to find the right fit... or at least be pointed in the right direction. To be honest and upfront many of these are blue collar jobs, and less often but still included some advanced tech jobs - such as Amazon using it to recruit locals which I thought was very cool (keep it up Amazon). A strong economy is not from the top down, nor is it from the bottom up, it is a continuous cycle. Together we can build each other up, understand many of our jobs are needed to serve others for different reasons, and some of our jobs will always change with the adaptations in technology and culture. That part is inevitable, it is a part of our history and always will be.

This post may be somewhat selfish because I am here to promote the group and help it grow. If it continues to flourish I may even expand the territory. My ask here is whether you think you could benefit from the job board or not I encourage you to join, so when you do come across others in need you can invite them to join the group. Of course, yet not obligatory... because of my love for Forrester I'd like to tie this back in with where I started. I turn my nose up at no job, I'm beyond fortunate to have the job I have now, and this can be my very small contribution in the very large concept of the future of work. Check out a very brief blog that is relevant to the future of work right now, and also sheds light on work playing a part in our self-worth, Andrew Yang Pushes The Future Of Work Into The Political Dialogue by Craig Le Clair, including a link to his recent book, "Invisible Robots in the Quiet of the Night: How AI and Automation Will Restructure the Workforce". I strongly encourage my government and military network to utilize industry as we lean on each other for a strong understanding on where our future leads us.

These views and stories are my own, and do not represent Forrester or Forrester employees and their publishing's, AFCEA NOVA Small Business, Facebook, or Amazon.