Mindy Thomas

Mindy Thomas on “Morning Coffee”

Mindy interviews with Mark Iorio and Jim DeLorenzo at RVNTV in Cherry Hill, NJ. We talked about what Thomas Career Consulting offers and how the firm is different from other career practitioners. Whether you are in need of a resume or you’re not sure about what career direction to take, take the time out to listen to this interview.

Jim DiLorenzo:
Welcome back to morning coffee on RV MTV. I’m Jim deal Lorenzo Mark I Oreo and we have a special guest joining us in the studio this morning. Mindy Thomas, who is the president of Thomas career consulting and is about to become one of the newest RVN and TV show hosts with her show Career Chat starting in the first week of March. So, welcome to the team, Mindy.

Mindy Thomas:
Thank you so much. I’m really happy to be here. Thanks for the invite.

Jim DiLorenzo:
You’re welcome. Great to have you. So how did you get your start as a career consultant? Where did you find your path towards that business?

Mindy Thomas:
Well I would say that in the last quarter of 2008, when the crash was happening, I was already a career counselor and a resume writer side doing the gig on the side as most of us had been doing. You have a full time job, you’re working on resumes because people are asking you to write their resumes because they know that’s what you do and you’re doing career counseling on the side. At the time of the crash in 2008, I was recruiting patent attorneys in Washington DC. My job was to penetrate the top firms in Washington and build the pipeline of attorneys. The crash happens in the last quarter 2008. I’m looking around, I’m working as a legal recruiter with lawyers. I’m the only career counselor on staff doing this recruiting. And I’m saying, you know, something just is going down here and y’all better have a second job.

Mindy Thomas:
And I had another gig serving as an adjunct faculty member at Immaculata teaching about six different courses. Accelerated degree. I loved that intensity one night a week. You know, you may do that yourselves. But and you know, I was coaching the other attorneys on the team saying y’all better have a second job because something is happening here. And, frankly I I had just gone through cancer and I woke up the day after, it was like a divine intervention. I remember the day specifically looking like the day of 911, it was crystal clear. Sunny skies were blue. And the inner wisdom inside me said, I know you, I know what to do. I woke up, I never wanted to be in business for myself, but I knew that that moment happened and I went with it.

Mindy Thomas:
Yeah. I knew exactly what I want to do, write resumes and do career counseling and do it for myself. How nice it would be not to report to someone. And I, I just went with it in 90 days, rolled out the website and I was going to specialize in legal recruiting. And then what happened was I found that I enjoyed all the industries. So I initially went into it to recruit lawyers and write resumes for them, but then decided I didn’t want to just have a niche of doing legal.

Jim DiLorenzo:
Why limit yourself? And especially at that period of time with the economy the way it was and, and people looking for a way to advance. Yeah. That’s great. Move on your part. So tell, tell us a little bit about what career counseling means, what it entails and what makes you and your firms so different.

Mindy Thomas:
Well, what makes me different from my esteemed colleagues out there is that most resume writers are just that they’re writers, they’re not career counselors. And most career counselors are not resume writers. True. The career counseling package that I offer is a four session package designed for people who don’t like where they are, don’t know how to get aware of that, get out of where they are. Feel that they need a change. They see the leadership changing in the environment, they’re where they are and they decide like, Oh my gosh, I got to do something, but now I don’t know what to do. Right? So I say this with love… That I work with people who don’t have a clue what to do next. And there’s a lot of folks out there that feel this way. And what we do is we, we do the deep dive.

Mindy Thomas:
There’s an old mantra from Georgetown where I pursued a certificate in executive coaching —those that self-reflect can self correct. So we have to get quiet, we have to calm down. Like Taylor Swift says you got to calm down. And that’s my job is to create more awareness for people around themselves, right? So looking at your personality, your values, the skills you want to use, not just what you’re good at, the realities of your world. We use that as the foundation of making a good career decision. And through that process and using formal tools, informal tools, reflection, and the conversation, we drive the options based on what’s important to you and the skills you want to use against the job market. Because as you know, you can be completely suited for something and there be no jobs out there. Of course, after the due diligence and research has been done, then we can make an action plan or make a decision and then an action plan. Then they can move to the career marketing side of the house, which has to do with resume, cover letter. And of course LinkedIn, right? Yeah. That’s really what the two service lines that I offer, career counseling and career marketing.

Mark Iorio:
Yeah. So you’re getting people to really follow their passion, what’s inside them, what drives them every day, what, what motivates them to do good in the world and then, and then hone that down to skill sets that they have or possess and then go out there and find positions. Right. That fit that.

Mindy Thomas:
That’s correct. And what we’re trying to do is align them with their authentic self. Okay. You can be very good at something. You can have high skill and very low interest. I’m trying to get this up right. Yeah. And match that. Yeah.

Jim DiLorenzo:
Okay. Interesting. Yep. I know that I have worked with some career counselors in the past, both as a client and as my clients and I’ve enjoyed the process. I’ve learned a lot from the people that I’ve worked with and I’ve always found, especially in the last few years, engaging yourself in that passion and finding that passion and going forward with it. And also looking at what for want of a better term, what your vocation is, what your calling is, what do you, what do you feel like you’re doing? And it seems to me that you have found that your calling and you’re trying to share that with other people who maybe don’t quite know what their calling is yet.

Mindy Thomas:
That’s correct. It, I don’t know what I love more. I don’t know if I like the make-over on paper, the resume overhaul or the journey of the counseling process. They’re both equally rewarding and

Mark Iorio:
And then helping people find a slot and actually be fulfilled once they find that slot has to be very rewarding. Yeah. It’s got to give you a big rush,

Mindy Thomas:
Big Time. Especially when they land in the right role. When my clients land, I am celebrating doing the happy dance at home when I get that word because, you know, they’re stunned. They are absolutely stunned that they did it. And I I believe in never giving up you no option to fail the old Marine Corps way. As you know, I grew up with a Marine Corps fighter pilot, so there was no option to fail. God bless your dad.

Mark Iorio:
So let’s go back to the 2008 epiphany right now, which is you pretty much have full employment, right? You’re pretty close to it. You’ve got three and a half percent unemployment. What’s the difference between where we were back, Mindy and where we are today and can you gauge the difficulty between helping clients back then and helping clients today?

Mindy Thomas:
Well, when I got laid off in January 2009 that day, probably 650,000 people got laid off. Yeah. Wow. Wow. I remember that day. And I also remember in just 48 hours I was up on the web and taking that risk and listening to my inner wisdom. I think the difference between then and now is there is this kind of hope that I’ve never seen before. The reason I say this is because my phone is ringing and ringing for both counseling and resume writing. And as I mentioned just last week, Google analytics reported to me that there were 2,788 people that searched for three keywords last month. That’s in the Philadelphia area, right? It was help with resumes, resume writing, and career counseling. Wow. Justin, the Philadelphia area. Just in Philly. Yeah. And I thought, Oh my gosh, there is hope going on. There is, there is so much confidence right now.

Mindy Thomas:
People are happy. Yes. I did see the survey that said 92% of people today are happy with their lives. And I was talking to my mother last night at dinner and we saw, she said, well, you know, what do you think that’s about? So mom, it’s gotta be tied in with their occupations in their jobs and how they’re feeling about their life. People are spending money, they’re going, everyone I know is on vacation and they’re shopping and they’re doing all kinds of fun things. Yup. And so the difference is there’s a hope and confidence happening in this country is real. And the fact that my phone, I mean it’s up 800% from last year, just in one year, the number of calls I’m getting. Wow. So I think that that was a very dark time for all of us. Absolutely. Everybody was unemployed and in the legal market that really plummeted it, you know, back as so many, so many industries. So I feel like you know, taking a risk, people did take risks to go into entrepreneurship and it’s happening now where people are sick and tired of working for other people. Right. I mean how nice is it to work for yourself?

Mark Iorio:
Yes. And sometimes you need that impetus to see, okay, there’s something else out there for me. And sometimes we know what that is, like what you’ve experienced, but also there’s that feeling of, okay, I don’t want to be at the mercy of this situation. I want to take charge of what I’m doing. Yeah. The one thing that hope does for you is it gives you this confidence to say, you know what? I don’t need to be in this position where I’m being treated poorly. Right. I’ve got the confidence, the economy’s better than it’s been maybe in our, absolutely in our entire lifetime. And why don’t I go out and do what I’m passionate about? What makes my heart beat every day? And what makes me want to get out of bed every day rather than working for a person or an organization that doesn’t fit, you know that, that drive, that passion, that North star for us, right?

Mindy Thomas:
Well you’re correct, but the million dollar question is what are you going to do? And that’s where you come in. And that’s where the counseling comes in because people don’t understand that there’s a framework and a process. And I often describe it as like a triangle in making a good career decision here at the top. What’s at the bottom and the, and the foundation is self assessment that then moves to the career options. Then we move to the research and due diligence. Then you can make a plan and an action take an action plan I say. And, and, and so the million dollar question always comes back to, well, what am I going to do? Well, I don’t know unless I do that journey with you. Yeah, exactly, and sometimes people do end up in entrepreneurship, right? They come into career counseling, we’re going to find another job, and then all of a sudden there’s just like another sort of path that they never even expected.

Mindy Thomas:
Just like myself, I never expected to be in business for myself, never, but I felt that it was a divine intervention the day after I finished treatment and I will always credit that that move because I never considered myself to be highly intuitive person. I have become that and I urge people out there watching to listen to themselves because there’s a voice going on and there’s a reason for that. I always say they’re the angels talking to you and trust your inner wisdom. When I meet young people that have high intuition, I always say to them, trust it. Go with it for the rest of your life personally and professionally because you will save yourself so much heartbreak. Then there are folks that don’t have the inner wisdom. I am always giving them books to read. Let’s build on that. Let’s see if we can tap into that because it will never steer you wrong. So in that case, that morning I woke up and I knew it and I, I just went with it. I thank God for that.

Mark Iorio:
No, we’re going to bless you. We’re going to have to take a quick break. Just a great conversation. Thank you so much. You know?

Jim DiLorenzo:
Yeah, really interesting. So we’ll take a quick break and we’ll be right back after a message from our sponsors.

Jim DiLorenzo:
Welcome back to morning coffee on RVNTV. I’m Jim DeLorenzo along with Mark Iorio and our special guest in studio this morning, the newest RVN TV host– Mindy Thomas of Thomas Career Consulting and she’s going to be hosting the new show career chat starting the first week of March. So welcome back Mindy, where we were having having a great conversation and we were talking about that, that inner inner voice, the gut, the gut reaction, the, the trusting your gut. Do you find it people don’t trust their gut and fall into trouble more often than they should or is it something that people say, you know, I, I had that feeling. Do you get that response from people when you talk to them?

Mindy Thomas:
That’s a really good question. I often talk to people that have been terminated and I myself was terminated at a job. It was tragic. It like, you know, you just stand still and say what? Right. And when someone comes in, for example, if, if they just hired me to do the resume writing cover letter and LinkedIn bios and they tell me straight up that they got fired. I ask was it due to performance? What was it due to? People skills? They tell me that whatever the reason is, they tell me about that and I say, now what did you learn from being terminated? And sometimes they don’t have an answer before I move on to that resume interview with them, I’m going to take off my resume interviewing hat and I’m going to put my counseling hat on because I don’t want that to ever happen to them again. Because if you don’t learn from that experience, you will in fact repeat it again. So if people are caring too much about well they didn’t put this program in. So and so is not doing their job and they’re, you know, really ramping up the emotion on the job. I often say, you know what, this is not your company. Right? If it’s your company, you can get excited about that, but it is not your company. And what tends to happen is I think they get so involved, there’s so down in the rabbit hole and so charged up, right, that they don’t realize it’s not about the numbers, the sales numbers, it’s about how you’re getting along with people or not getting along with people. So I really try to stress that. Let’s learn what is it the biggest learning you’re going to take away because I really don’t want that to happen to anyone ever again. Because it happened to me. It didn’t happen again after that. But so to answer the question, I’d say 50% realize they get a feeling they think something’s going on. Sure. If the other 50% they absolutely have no clue. They can’t see past their nose.

Jim DiLorenzo:
Isn’t that interesting? Because I know it when before I started my business, 21 years ago, I had one, I was at one job for 11 years plus and I could see the writing on the wall and I got out the second job in that, in that five year timeframe management change, I saw the writing on the wall, I got out. Excellent. The third time it happened was when I decided to start my own business. Fantastic. But each time I, there were warning signs and I was able to figure that out. The first time it happened I was saying, I don’t know if I want to do this, but I knew I had to do something. But sometimes we don’t recognize those signs. You know? And it’s, it’s, it’s interesting that 50% of the people that you’re talking to didn’t recognize that sign or didn’t see the writing on the wall or, yeah. So you meant, you mentioned a while ago about, about this subject, Mindy, that you do some personal assessments, right?

Mindy Thomas:
We use formal assessments like the Myers Briggs, the strong interest inventory, the Firo B I use, which assesses your inclusion and affection needs, how you express them and how you want them to express back.

Mark Iorio:
So what are these, what are these tell people when they’re, when someone’s sitting in front of you and you, you look at that triangle, right? And this self assessment part is not really been done yet. They really don’t know who they are as a person, right? They don’t know what drives them. They don’t know what’s, you know, what their passion is, et cetera. Then what, let’s say you give them a Myers Briggs, you’d do a Colby assessment or whatever, whatever other assessments you do, then what?

Mindy Thomas:
Well, they’re going to know if they’re working with me, we are going to go through these assessments and discuss, I want feedback if this is not aligned, if you read this narrative about your personality and it doesn’t match, we’re starting back from scratch. We’re going to look at each, for example, the Myers Briggs assesses you on four dichotomies where you get your energy from, how you gather data. How you make decisions and how you order your world there. 16 possibilities. How I use that is as a tool to share with you the specific industries and occupations that people with your personality profile they’re in and they’re happily employed. Right? Wouldn’t that have been nice to have in high school or college? We didn’t have it. You know, we’re boomers, so we didn’t even have access to that. But today, career counselors love those tools, the strong interest inventory, it takes the personality and your interests and then generates the occupations. These are not in stone. We use them as a tool, as a guideline to generate the ideas. And that’s why journaling is so important because we found that adults that right crystallize their thoughts and from that insight comes.

Mark Iorio:
Interesting. That is interesting. That’s really interesting. I like that.

Mindy Thomas:
When I attended Georgetown’s program for coaching just for [inaudible] really, I had my masters in counseling. I just wanted to know what this billion dollar industry was about. Let me go down to Washington once a month for a week, shut down my business and study with this dynamic cohort of 33 people that were fascinating and from all over the world. And we found that, you know, that when we had to present our cases with executives and we had to ask them to journal, even the busiest executives out there journaled, and you cannot believe the insights that we found. Wow. Yes. So if you write, it crystallizes the thoughts and more insight comes, and I’m not asking you to write what your tasks are tomorrow. I’m asking what are you feeling? What are you thinking about? What’s coming up for you as a result of the work we’re doing?

Mindy Thomas:
Because we’re stirring up a lot when we’re talking about you. Yeah. That is really interesting. I liked, I liked that process. That’s really insightful and very helpful. Do you find that the, the, the clients that you’re working with, have they been journaling or this is something, it’s a new idea to them? Very small percentage of journaling. Okay. Very small percentage. And my audience is really recent. College grads, even grads, not grads, college students that are still, they still haven’t chosen a major parents. I’m on the phone all the time with parents and they want their kids straightened out so they invest in the career counseling process. So you have, you have several tiers of packages that you put together for clients, right. Well, on the career counseling side, there’s one package. It’s four sessions. There’s more bang for the buck if they sign up for the four sessions.

Mindy Thomas:
So I’m really not doing one offs and less, only if they already went through counseling with me. So I had an executive recently that didn’t know whether to leave her or stay and we did a, a one off session and then it turned into a second session. He does not make a move without discussing and I feel very flattered that he discusses these issues with me. But we thought that he was going to go one way, comes in and he’s going this way. And then, then after we do the Benjamin Franklin close on both companies, he ends up, and you know what the Benjamin Franklin pros and cons of each company. He ends up going with the first what the gut feeling was that I personally had for him and that he had, we came back to that. And this is not an intuitive executive.

Mindy Thomas:
He’s very much a sensor. He’s a data analytics person and he’s very much into the here and now here’s what we have. Right? But he took so many risks and I’m really proud of this, a particular executive because he is not, he’s risk-adverse and he has gone into his own business and then went back to corporate. So I, I find that, you know, people can tap into it. It’s not impossible to get to the intuitive side. I feel like, Jim, you’ve got this, you get a feeling, you go with it. And that’s why I like to share that because I think it will help everyone personally, professionally, to listen to what’s in here inside. Yeah. How do you find new clients? Well, I’m really fortunate. If you Google resume writing services, Philadelphia come up, I’m on page one for Google that happens to be connected to the Google reviews that my clients, right? So there’s near a hundred there and it’s, you know, really a wonderful feeling when people you know, feel good about the services and the value they get from working with me. So that’s, that’s really how they find me.

Jim DiLorenzo:
That’s great. Yeah. So if you’re looking for help, really you’re looking for help, you’re looking for advice, you’re looking for some counseling, Mindy Thomas and Thomas Career Consulting. You can find her online at LinkedIn. You can also look at her website, Thomas career consulting.com and she’s going to be here on RVN TV every week, beginning in March with a career chat. What are some of the topics we’re going to be discussing on Career Chat coming up?

Mindy Thomas:
Well, we’re going to talk about everyday people that are out there making transitions. People that had the courage to change jobs. They got a feeling something, something is going down. We’re going to talk about millennials that are in business for themselves. We’re going to talk about franchise coaching. We’re going to have an Italian businessman here from Verona, Italy. That is an attorney that went into the wine business. We’re going to have everyday people like you all. So we’re hoping to share that confidence and that hope with our audience because we really believe that change is happening and you can make that change.

Jim DiLorenzo:
Great. Fantastic. Mindy thank you for joining us for joining us. Terrific. Welcome. Welcome to the RVN family. And we’re going to take a break here and at the top of the hour or we’ll be coming back with a movie madness here on morning coffee. But from Mark and I, this is a farewell for today. We’ll see you again next week and look for Rainmakers Roundup and press conference here on RVN TV.