120: Call The Manager
Call The Manager
In today's episode, we're diving into an essential yet often overlooked step in the job application process: calling the manager. Many of you have been reaching out about applying for jobs, and I want to emphasize the importance of connecting with the hiring manager before submitting your application. Let's explore why this step is crucial and how it can help you make informed decisions about your career path.
In today's highly competitive job market, distinguishing yourself from other applicants is crucial, and one strategic move that can set you apart is reaching out to the hiring manager directly. By making that phone call, you open the door to valuable insights, the opportunity to customize your application materials, the chance to establish rapport, and the ability to make well-informed decisions.
Don't let fear or hesitation hold you back—instead, seize the initiative and connect with the manager before submitting your application. Remember, a simple phone call can be a game-changer in your job search journey. I invite you to listen to the full episode for more tips and guidance on navigating the job market successfully. Wishing you the best of luck!
Key takeaways:
00:43 - The Importance of Calling the Manager
01:43 - How to Find the Manager's Contact
03:31 - Benefits of Calling the Manager
09:43 - Building Rapport and Gaining Certainty
11:41 - Embracing the Call the Manager Process
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**This transcript was automatically generated using Descript.**
Liam Caswell: [00:00:00] New job, same brain. we wanna make sure our new job, like same shit, different day. we wanna make sure that we don't get ourself into that situation. So calling the managers the best way to do this. Hello, beautiful humans. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we are doing a quick, short, snappy episode. I know I always say that, but I promise you today I'm gonna keep it short and snappy. And today I wanted to talk about calling the manager. The reason I'm talking about this is cause lots of people at the moment are contacting me.
You're applying for jobs. It seems like the industry has like a lot of money, even though they say they got no money. But it's evident in the fact that everybody's applying for jobs and they obviously are trying to spend end of year budget, which is great for people that are looking for new jobs. But one thing [00:01:00] that I'll always come up against is that people are like, oh, I wanna apply for this job and I wanna do this.
And I'm always the first person that's like, yes, let's do it. However, when people come to me and they say, Liam, I wanna apply for this job. My first question is always have you called the manager? And the answer to that is always a big fat resounding no. And it's very rare for me to hear that somebody has called the manager and that it's a 100%.
Green light. Let's go. Let's do this. And calling the manager stage is such a crucial stage that I want you to take 10 minutes to just talk about why you should call the manager, get over your fear, dive in, ask all the questions, and suss out whether or not this is the right job for you. Now, some of you are gonna say, but I can't call the manager.
There's no details available. And that's fine. There's no details. There's no details. You can't call them however, We are creative, innovative curious clinicians here at High Performance Nursing, and we ain't gonna let no. Number not being on a job, ads [00:02:00] stop us from calling. So, you know, let's think about what we do in the hospital.
We would get creative, right? We'd be like in there looking online, trying to find their email address on the system. So if you work in the hospital, why not do that? If you already work in the same hospital, the same health district, the same organization, try and find these people. If you can't do that, find them on LinkedIn.
Be a s store cat, right? It's would be the first time I've done it. Find somebody on LinkedIn and say, Hey, I'm looking to apply this job. Do you have like 10 minutes to talk about the role? Trust me, it's so, so important. Or even better, here's one for you. You can just call Switchboard at that hospital and say, does Lynn Ka work here?
Can you put me through? I'm really interested in applying for a job. Or could you gimme his email so that I can send him an email so I don't bother him whilst he's working right, so that he can give back to me in his own time. Do not let the lack of a number stop you from progressing. Now, graduates that are listening to this, there is a caveat to the rule here cause graduate panels probably aren't gonna take 1000 to 1 million calls.
Okay? So most of them won't have that, but they'll [00:03:00] usually have an email. You can email them, ask them questions, make sure the questions you ask them are not in the job description. Okay. I worked on a graduate panel where lots of questions came through and it was like we kept saying, have you read the job description?
Please make sure you consult the job description. And we just ended up having it on like auto pilot just to send back to these people cause they hadn't done it. So just be mindful of that. But graduates, if there is a number there, call them. If there's not, don't stress. Okay? Use what's available to you.
Really dive into the job application and take it from there. Now, the reason why calling the manager is really frigging awesome. It's a little scary, but just remember, managers are. Humans, right? They're just people. And the reason why we feel scared, you guys have hung around here for long enough. Now, the reason why we feel scared, right, is because we're having a thought about calling the manager and that thought's creating fear, like, oh my God.
Like, what if they think I'm stupid? What if they think I'm dumb? Whatever. Insert here thought. That thought creates the [00:04:00] feeling, Ryan, that's stopping you from taking the action that you need to take to get the result of getting the information you need to make an informed decision. Right, like we don't wanna apply for a job and spend all your precious time applying for a job when we don't have all the information as to whether or not this is a good fit for us.
Now I wanna give you like a couple examples. So I'm working with this incredible clinician right now and one of the main reasons I said, Hey, let's call the manager before we even put pen to paper. Is because we've got some really clear career criteria, I'll call it like career filtering that we have, right?
We've identified what this person wants, what they need from a job, and we've identified why they're making this shift, and like they love the reason why, and they've got a really compelling reason why they're making a change in their career. The last thing that we want to do is just jump from one job to the other and have the same situation arise.
Remember I say it all the time. New job, same brain. we wanna make sure our new job, like same shit, different day. we wanna make sure that we don't get ourself into that situation. So calling the managers the [00:05:00] best way to do this. So person that I'm working with right now, incredible clinician, and they have called the manager for one job.
And this manager was incredible and they asked a couple of questions and this manager gave them so much insight into the role, and they were lovely. They were warm, they were open, they were receptive, they were kind, compassionate, respectful. And my client, the nursing client came off the call messages me is like, it's a green light.
Let's go. I'd love to apply for this. Oh my God, they're so beautiful. They're great. And then the same client goes and calls a manager for a separate job, another job at the same level, and has a totally different experience. This manager that picks up the phone very short.
Not overly kind. Maybe having a bad day, right? Could be having a bad day, but there's such contrast, indifference in just that first step. So that's the first reason why I want you to think about calling the manager, is just to feel the vibe of the person. If they're [00:06:00] hiring for the job, they're likely gonna be on the panel.
They're likely going to be somebody that you're gonna be working with very closely. Despite whatever role you are applying for. So you wanna make sure that they actually give off a good vibe and that they're not some like jdd horrible creature. Okay? And I know that's hard and that's very judgmental, but you get to decide.
And you just know. US nurses, we know in our gut when somebody's just like, it's off, right? So use that information and you don't need to beat yourself up or like overthink it. If you have a gut instinct that like somebody's, you're trying to like draw blood out of a stone to get information from them and they don't sound that interested in you, why would you waste your precious time applying for a job to work with them?
Because if they treat you like that before they know you, they're probably gonna treat you like that, if not worse. And that's a generalization, but I'm gonna make it based on my lived experience. They're gonna treat you the same in the job, okay? So just move on and then you've saved yourself. Think about it.
You've saved yourself frigging hours. Now, the other reason why you should do this is because that beautiful manager that picks up the phone that's like, Liam, oh my God, [00:07:00] you sound fabulous. After you've given them your little pitch, they're then going to divulge all of the secrets that the people that are not calling the manager aren't gonna get for their applications.
So what I want you to do, what I teach people to do in our graduate career launch program and our application support is we've got a template and they literally sit there and they ask these questions, and then you take all the notes. All the buzz words that manager says, you write them down cause you're gonna put them in your cv, your cover letter, your selection criteria, and you're gonna take them with you to the interview.
All of the things that they tell you that are unique about the role, based on the questions that we give people in our programs. Then they run with that and these managers provide feedback and they're like, oh yeah, that's a real problem. Or medication's a real challenge at the moment, or these are the things that we're working on, the cultures this blah blah, blah.
You're taking notes frantically. And you're gonna use this, repurpose this information in your application. And why is that a good thing? Because it's gonna make your application even more frigging awesome compared to what it would've been had you not have called and got that [00:08:00] information. For example, if you're applying for a senior role, and when you call the manager, they say one of the main challenges on the unit at the moment is engagement with the staff between leadership and leadership in the floor.
And it's all about culture development at the moment. You can think about where in your career you have helped build culture while you're a great leader, while you're the best fit for the job, and we can weave that through your CV cover letter selection criteria so that it's so appealing that they're like, oh my God, we need this person.
That's the reaction you want to have when you submit your application. Not only that, they then have the added reaction of, oh, that's right. Liam phoned me before a couple of weeks ago, and he was so lovely. I'm so excited to meet him. Right, so you've already given yourself an advantage. They're already biased in your favor.
So good. Why would you not give yourself that opportunity? Does the fear of calling outweigh the benefits of calling hell to the No. Okay, so you're gonna do that. You're gonna call them. Then the other thing that it also allows you to do is not only collect all the [00:09:00] information, identify if it's a red light or a green light.
It also allows you to build rapport ahead of time, and this is just so good for you. It allows you to alleviate your stress and worry. If you get a really great manager and they're like, yeah, apply. We need you. And they say that and they give you all the information. You get a heads up when you go to interview.
It's not the first time you're meeting them. You've met them once before. Right? Even if it's on the phone, you've met them once before, so you just have an added layer of certainty and less stress about you. You're still gonna be stressed, but you have this like, I've met them, I know what I'm walking into.
I know at least one person on this panel, it's gonna be lovely. And that's really reassuring and it's cathartic to experience, so don't underestimate. The power of calling the manager ahead of time. Now we cover all of this in our programs, but really you can do it simply on your own. You just think about what do you want to ask them?
What do you need to know about this job to make an informed decision? What do you need to know that's not already [00:10:00] listed on the job description to make a decision? And then you take your notes, you call them, you put on your big boy, big girl panties. Cause I know what it's like and you sit there and you do it and you're proud of yourself.
And you don't come off the phone and beat yourself up, and you ask all the questions that you need to ask, and you show them how incredible you are, and then from there you make a decision, am I gonna then spend the next couple of hours applying for this job? Or am I not? And the answer might be no. And you give yourself full permission cause you like your reason why.
Because the vibe wasn't right. The job doesn't align with what you want and you've gathered all the information, you can make an informed decision. It's like us giving a medication to our patient without us having any evidence to justify why we'd give it. Right? It's like giving them a 10 law when they don't need that, like, Don't do that in the application process.
Don't waste the time, the drama, the, risks, all of the things. Just create that safety for yourself at the start and make sure that it's the right thing for you. There's such a crucial part in the process. So many people don't do it. And here's the thing, people kind of laugh at me all the time [00:11:00] and they'll say, Liam, I was gonna come work with you, but you told me to call the manager and then I called them and I didn't like it.
And yeah, I'm not working with you anymore. I'm like, that's fine. That's totally fine. I would rather that than you and I apply for a job that you, you're gonna hate. Like, I would much prefer that. So I. Implement the call the manager process. It is the crucial first step at every point in your career.
Regardless, make it happen even better. Go and meet the manager. That's the next evolution of this, right? That's happened for me, and it's a really compelling way to meet somebody, go in ahead of time and meet them, but we're not gonna talk about that today. Calling the manager is a great first step. I've taught you the reasons why it's important, the reasons why you should.
Absolutely 100% do it. Now, if you are somebody, that's calling the manager exploring different jobs right now, whether you're a graduate nurse or a non graduate nurse, we can support you. If you get the green light and you're ready to rock and roll and you're time poor and you just wanna make this as easy as possible and land that dream job that you've just identified is a green light.
Come and work with us. We'd love to support [00:12:00] you. We have programs, different options across all different pay points. We'd love to support you. It's what we do. We are the only nurse led career coaching service in Australia that is completely nurse led, and we're freaking incredible. We're pretty good, and we just want you to land that dream job.
So we will do everything in our power to make that happen. And of course you could access to our call the manager script and everything else in there, but we'd love to support you. Until next time. This has been called the Manager. I want to hear messages from you guys on social media about who you've called and what you identified, and I want you to just de-stress.
Take that step so, so important for your career and it will unlock potential opportunities. You will be so surprised what information they will give you that other people that are applying don't get by calling the manager. Stay safe, stay forever curious, and I'll see you in next week's episode or maybe in our programs chat soon.
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