ResEdChat Ep 107: When the Answer Is No: Navigating the Internal Candidate Experience

Crystal Lay:
Hello and welcome back to Roompact’s Res Ed Chat podcast, a platform to showcase people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. I’m your host, Crystal Lay, and I use the she/her series pronouns. Today we’re going to be talking about being an internal candidate. What is my connection to this topic? Well, I have been an internal candidate three times. The first time it was internal to the department, the second internal to that campus, and the third internal to the division.
And so, the term internal candidate could really mean a lot of different things. But today I want to focus on being an internal candidate in housing, and what if you’re not the successful internal candidate, meaning you did not get the job? I think this topic can be a little sensitive and vulnerable, but I wanted to delve into it a little bit more. So I thought, “Who would be open to talk about this with me about what that means to not be the successful candidate in an internal search process?” And I was able to find someone and I’m really excited. So I’ll have our guests introduce themselves.

Jeremy Moore:
Well, hello. Thank you, Crystal for the invitation to be on the podcast today. My name is Dr. Jeremy Moore. I use he/him pronouns, and I’m delighted to be here to discuss this topic. As Crystal said, I think that this is an important topic that we all have probably or will probably face in our career at some point. And I’ve got some little nuggets hopefully I can share from my experience and they’re my experience, and I want to really own that they are my experience and everyone’s experience may be different.
Right now, I currently serve as the Dean of Students at Naropa University. We have the provision opportunity to be one of the only Buddhist inspired institutions in North America, which is kind of a really cool learning environment for me that I’ve been in for about three and a half, almost four years now. And prior to that, I worked at the University of Colorado Boulder for about almost nine years, and then was in the Midwest. I’m a Midwest boy, so I worked in the Midwest for my graduate program and my time as an undergraduate student at Wright State University, and then Northern Illinois. So yeah, thanks for having me today.

Crystal Lay:
Thanks for being here. Again, I want to thank you in advance, because as I am anticipating, you’ll share some pieces that might be vulnerable or sensitive. And so, thanks for being here. I shared I was in three processes. I was one of two brought to campus every time and I didn’t get it, right? And that’s hard. And so, I want to focus in on you. Can you talk to me about your experience as an internal candidate and then how did you navigate not being selected for the role?

Jeremy Moore:
Yeah, so I did really try to spend some time thinking about this question, and getting in my head and heart sauces, as I like to say, really marinated in those a little bit and thinking about what did this feel like? And I went back in time quite a ways. I went all the way back to when I was a CA, a community assistant or RA, a resident assistant as some schools call them. But I remember a time when I had been in… Well, first of all, I was a second round hire as an RA, so that’s a whole separate, we can have a whole separate podcast on that and what that experience was like. But I remember, I think it was probably my junior or senior year as an undergraduate student, there was an opportunity where they had created a new paraprofessional role within our apartment community on campus, one of our smaller apartment communities on campus to basically be kind of a stand-in for the person who had left that was full-time.
And there were several of us that were more seasoned RAs or CAs that had applied for that position. I was so excited, Crystal, because I was getting ready… At that point, I had made my decision to go into grad school, my master’s program for student affairs in the next couple of years, after working with my community director, who was very supportive of me. And I was so excited about the potential of that opportunity and I was pretty devastated, to be honest with you, when I found out that I didn’t get the opportunity. And the other thing that was really tricky, and I think that a lot of times we face this when we’re an internal candidate, was it was me and another really dear, close colleague of mine, another really close friend of mine.
And when I say friend too, remember, we were paraprofessionals, so we were also in that undergraduates head space and heart space, of it’s a little harder when you’re a student, I think in a peer. It doesn’t make it any easier as a professional, but I think that that was a very difficult place to be, because I was still coming into my own professional identity. And so, what ended up happening was they actually hired someone that was separate from either of us, which maybe was the best possible outcome, because I think it removed the ego, right? There’s an ego complex to this that comes up and it removes some of that idea, and it allowed me to also just focus on myself for the next couple of months.
But that was just one example. When I get into more of my graduate experiences and more of my professional experiences, I think the experience there becomes a lot more nuanced, because I was really starting to build my identity, really wrap it around me in a lot of ways, like a coat, that I was a housing professional, I wanted to be a housing lifer. And so, it kind of felt like to me a pretty big blow at times, because I felt like, “Wow, am I going to be able to be in this career field? Am I going to be able to move forward?”
And I had to take time in each of those situations to really reflect on my own value and center on myself, and know that I am valuable and I do have great skills, and maybe that wasn’t the right opportunity for me at that time. And beautiful things happen. And hopefully we can talk about those too through some of our subsequent questions. But some beautiful things have opened, where doors maybe that closed did open. And I know that that seems like a bit of a cliche metaphor, but I’ve learned a lot in that process. So I’m sure we can dig into that deeper through some of our other questions.

Crystal Lay:
Yes, we definitely will. And I appreciate you sharing the range of emotions and the questions that you had. You said you felt devastated, you questioned your value. “Can I go into this field?” And then, also some relief where you are like, “Oh, well it wasn’t me or my friend, they picked someone else.” And then, you mentioned ego. I think there’s a range of things that you feel when those things happen. So after those processes, how important was it, or was it important for you to receive feedback from the search committee or hiring manager? Like, “Why didn’t I get it?” Tell me more.

Jeremy Moore:
Oh boy, this is a great question and I think honestly, I’m going to say it, and it might be a bit of a hot take here, a controversial take. We don’t do a great job of providing feedback in higher education in these processes, and in student affairs in particular. And I have to tell you, I thought about this question pretty deeply too. Of all the years, of all the positions I’ve applied for, internal, external, and all the times, Crystal, that I have asked for feedback, I think I’ve only been given feedback, real tangible feedback, maybe… I can count it maybe on one hand, and that’s kind of sad. And I think that gets into a lot of the liability that a lot of schools and HR departments face, and I want to acknowledge that that’s a thing too. But I do feel like we have an obligation and a service to provide feedback to candidates that are putting their time, talent, and treasure into these processes, because it only helps make folks better.
And so, for those folks who did maybe outside of the process, especially as an internal candidate, maybe some people who were part of the committee or part of the, not even part of the search committee, but part of some of the group interviews, and they maybe pulled me to the side later or they engaged me when I invited them for coffee to have a conversation, and they actually engage with me. I feel so grateful for those opportunities, because those were the folks that were maybe saying the things that no one else would say, that I needed to hear, frankly. And it’s hard sometimes to receive feedback. Sometimes it’s even harder to hear that when people try to say, “Oh, well, there really isn’t a whole lot that we can share with you, because you did a really good job.”
Well, that just kind of actually makes it feel even worse, because I’m like, “Well, surely there had to have been a reason that you decided to go in a different direction.” And I get that we can’t always share all those reasons, but as an internal candidate, there seems to be, for me, when I’m looking at internal candidates in my own processes, there’s more of an investment in the sense of those folks are with us and they’re going to continue to be with us, hopefully.
Sometimes they might decide to leave too after the process. But I would say that the feedback that’s been most helpful is to really for people to say you weren’t able to give a succinct or a specific example. You weren’t able to answer the question clearly. People kind of got lost. I’m an English major, I’m a narrative storyteller, so I know that this is a piece of feedback that I’ve had with me for my whole career, but I need to hear that repeatedly, so I can continue to focus on those things. And if I’m asking that question, I hope that people can arrive and meet me there to say, “These are the things that we would love to see you work on,” so I can become a better professional and a better leader, and a better human.

Crystal Lay:
I love that you got into the feedback that was most helpful, and it’s nice that it aligns with things that you know about yourself. And so, I think the self-awareness piece is really helpful, and then also maybe providing some tools or resources to help them be a different and better candidate moving forward. I think you also highlighted in an earlier answer that you might’ve been a good candidate, but there was someone who has something different that they were looking for. And so, it’s not doubting that, but it still stings a little bit. But I appreciate you noting too, that we don’t do a great job of providing feedback and is that an HR requirement that we don’t, or is it I’m uncomfortable giving feedback, or I don’t know if I can? I think that’s something we need to dig into a little bit deeper.

Jeremy Moore:
And I just want to add one really quick thing too on the flip side of what was most helpful, on the flip side of what was not most helpful. I remember I had an interview process one time many, many years ago, where somebody had provided me feedback and I’m grateful for that, but they had said, “The committee and the folks interviewing felt like you seemed tired, your energy level was low.”
And we hear this a lot, right? I think, and if we do get feedback, the thing that was really a bit of a setup for that when I reflect back on that, Crystal, was it was also a byproduct of the actual interview process. And this wasn’t an interview process. This was one where I actually had flown somewhere. So I had a whole day of travel. I had a dinner scheduled at eight o’clock at night, and I was meeting with students at nine o’clock at night, on the day that I traveled.
And so, I was exhausted, understandably after traveling across the country. And so, it is hard sometimes to show up, and I think we all try to do the best we can, but it is a bit of a setup sometimes. And I think we need to evaluate how are we preparing our processes and our candidates to be the best versions of themselves when they show up on our campuses or in our processes? And so much of it’s now doom, but back in the day when we actually got on a plane and went somewhere to then be said, “Oh, well your energy level is low.”
Well, yes, it was low, because I had been traveling all day and I was just trying to do what I could to show up as best I could. And I probably should have advocated maybe for myself a little bit better in that situation too. But I just wanted to mention that. It’s also sometimes these things are byproducts of how we’ve set up the interview process in itself.

Crystal Lay:
Yes. And so, the feedback that’s not helpful, and I think the connections to the internal piece is, “Well, we expected you to say this thing or do this thing, because you know our processes.”
Is that really a fair assessment, right? And so, I think the expectations we have around how candidates show up and trying to be a little bit more open to, it could be a wellness or medical issue, it could be a flight. Those are things that we really shouldn’t be evaluating folks on, energy level, like what’s energy level versus not interested or passionate, if you can even use that word about the role, or not engaging?
So I think those descriptors are helpful. Okay. Here’s the question for you now. How did you manage the transition after not getting the job? Did you struggle with staying in the role, especially when some of your colleagues may have been involved in the decision making process? Does that make sense? I didn’t get this job. Do I stay? Do I leave? How do you maintain or stay in that particular role?

Jeremy Moore:
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of reflection that I’ve done in those times. And of course you seek counsel of colleagues, right? You seek counsel and you seek a comfort, and relief with folks. And I think having been a hall director and working in on-campus outing for so long, my social community was oftentimes also my professional community. And you have to be really careful about this. And I say this, because when those things are so interconnected, and you may also have other folks that were internal candidates as well in the process, you get to be really careful about who’s your brain trust. Some people talk about having a board of directors, “Who is your board of directors? Who are you reaching out to? Who’s your mentors?” So having people frankly, that are external to the institution is really important I think and key. And even sometimes having people external to our field.
So for me earlier on, I didn’t have a partner, so I didn’t have that kind of level of support that I could go to. I did have my dog, which was great, but he didn’t really talk back a whole lot to the conversation. So that didn’t help me so much. But finding folks that I could connect with that were miles, states away, on the other side of the country that I could talk to, grad cohort members or whatever it might be that didn’t have any connection. That was really important, because I needed a chance to have some objectivity as well. Because also, sometimes when you surround yourself with people that support and care for you, there can be a bias there. There can be familiarity bias, just as there can be familiarity bias with folks in the interview process as an internal candidate. We’ll talk more about that I’m sure later down the line. But you have to find folks that can be your people to talk to and debrief with. And I was devastated.
There was multiple times during these internal processes where I was devastated and I thought, “Am I good enough? Why didn’t I get this opportunity?” You want to rage-quit sometimes maybe, like I’m ready to move on, close this door, close this chapter. But I took a moment, I took some deep breaths and I said to myself, “This isn’t the end. This might be a different beginning.”
And I remember in particular one time applying for an area coordinator position, and I thought for sure I was going to keep moving up the rung of on-campus housing. And that happened, I actually really started to think about different opportunities for myself that I would’ve never explored. So in some ways it was a gift in disguise if I’m being really candid, because it changed the trajectory of my career in ways that I would’ve never thought of, because of this opportunity. I had to kind of in some ways find, figure out what wasn’t working for me and what was working for me, what was bringing me joy.
And I want to be careful here too, because I think we tend to overdo it sometimes in wrapping our identity and our value together in higher education, and in student affairs, and in particular in housing. And that was a hard lesson that I had to learn, that these things can actually be separate. They can be separate, and it can be a healthy boundary to separate them out and that they don’t equate, they don’t always have to be equal, that my value does not equal the fact that I’m in this role or not in this role, and I can still do great things, and I can still serve our students, but I also had to find space for myself in that too.

Crystal Lay:
You just said, “I can still do great things.”
I love that, Jeremy, because I think, again, it’s getting into the value to piece. When you don’t get the job, it’s like, “But these people know me. They know me. I’ve been here. I’ve made all these contributions, I have done all these things.”
And for some people, “This job is me. It’s who I am.”
And if you haven’t made that connection and you’re not promoted, or get that role, you may start to doubt yourself and who you are, and what you bring. And so, I’m very appreciative of you sharing that piece. I think if you choose to stay in the role for whatever time period, what I like that you highlighted is your peers, what they say and how they support you, or maybe don’t support you is so key, because you may have the folks who are saying, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you didn’t get it. I was in the other candidate’s interview. How dare they get that and not pick you,” right?
Or the people who may snicker. Like, “I knew you weren’t going to get it.”
I haven’t seen that part as often, but I think it’s the people, it’s going out to your mentor, it’s going out to external folks and processing, or some folks, if it’s therapy or another trusted human in your life, and talking through that, and making the decision on what’s going to be best for you is what I’m pulling out of the answer that you just shared with me. Thank you.

Jeremy Moore:
And the one quick addition, I always got the quick additional notes here too. The only other thing that I would add here that I think is really important to consider is people are always watching.
So it’s actually quite important in the hours and days and minutes, the minutes, hours and days afterwards and weeks, people are still watching. And so, it doesn’t mean, maybe this wasn’t the right opportunity, but it doesn’t mean one’s not going to come right around the corner. And people, and I have to say, one of the things that I did do is I solicited coffee or lunch. I remember having a great opportunity with our then associate director, such a warm and really supportive interaction. And to have that person, somebody who I looked up to say to me, “I really appreciate how you have navigated this post-process,” and to keep trying, that really gave me the wind in my sails to move forward.
And later, having people say that they were watching me during that process when they gave me positive recommendations or references, to say that they appreciated how I conducted myself. It’s okay to have the feelings. I don’t want to say let’s try to just be very, let’s skirt those feelings. It’s okay to have those feelings, but find ways to do them in ways that we can still conduct ourselves in a professional space. We can honor ourselves, we can honor the process and honor the people who ultimately will be sitting in those seats, and also know that we might need to do something different for ourselves going forward. And it’s okay to say, “This isn’t the right place for me then going forward.”
But how do we do that? How do we move forward with grace and with respect for ourselves, and for the process too? That’s really important. So I just wanted to make sure I added that too.

Crystal Lay:
You talked about the after piece. I also have heard or think about if you are wanting to stay at an institution, you’re almost an internal candidate from the first day you start the job.

Jeremy Moore:
Sure are. You sure are. It’s a bit of a trap. It’s a trap.

Crystal Lay:
Right? You’re always interviewing, every day. You’re like, “I’m already hired. Stop interviewing me.”
So I think there’s this before piece and you don’t always know, like, “I love this place. I think I want to stay.”
You could be three years in. So I would add the piece about from day one, you’re doing your best work, hopefully. We’re all going to make mistakes. And then it’s the growth. So how are you learning and rebounding from those mistakes? You enter a process, maybe you’re not the successful person and you decide to say there can and will be other opportunities for you. And if it’s not in that department, it could be on that campus. So I really appreciate that piece. I do want to talk about the hiring process overall, because you’ve alluded to that. If you have a hiring process and there’s an internal candidate, how do you think it impacts the process? Does it feel different? Should it be different? I don’t know. What do you think?

Jeremy Moore:
Yeah, well, I think you do know, but I’ll say some things about it. I think that it’s really, it is a double-edged sword. You kind of alluded to this a little bit ago, but I think it is a double-edged sword, because on one hand the idea or the presumption is that you have a very deep-rooted understanding of institution, its culture, the students, the needs of those students, the needs of those communities that you’re working with, those neighborhoods, And that you’re carrying that, right? You’re bringing that forward and that these folks have invested in you through training, through professional development, through other opportunities. In theory, that’s the byline behind the scenes. On the flip side though, well, so this can be a significant insider advantage, but on the flip side, it’s also really there can be a lot of politics at play behind the scenes, behind the celestial curtain.
There can be that, I think familiarity bias that I talked about earlier. There can be favoritism, frankly, that can occur. There can be things where people, they’ve seen so much of your reels, the good and the bad, the challenging and sad, the happy and proud, all of those things. And that can really challenge the process in some ways, if the process is not held with integrity. And so, this is why things, when I’m doing processes myself, even today, we have to have matrices. We have to make sure that we’re following HR policies and procedures very carefully to mitigate those things. But I think that being an internal candidate, people are expecting you to give specific examples, because you know the centers that you’re working with on campus, your campus partners, you know the student body well and you know the pain points. And so, they’re expecting you to bring all of those things forward.
And also, it’s a tricky thing, because when people are saying, “Well, what do you think might be some of the challenges of this opportunity?”
Or those kinds of things. It’s harder sometimes to speak more candidly, because you are talking to people that in many ways are directly holding your potential fate in that process or in that thing. You also have to keep in mind your future, more of the long game strategy too, of if I share too much and also how do I honor… Like, if somebody’s saying, “Did you have a difficult working relationship with anyone?”
Sometimes we have those questions that are like, talk about a time when you’ve had a difficult… Are you going to talk about your supervisor? Are you going to talk about your peers? Because people can figure things out very easily when you’ve been somewhere, particularly in the positions I’ve been in where, like I said, I’ve been in institutions for multi-year stretches. It’s very easy. And a lot of people know people, so they can say, “Oh, well he was here during that time.”
And this is for internal or external, to be frank. And so, we have to be very careful I think about how we do that. So having some examples in your back pocket that you can kind of pull from. I usually try to have a couple examples, specifically as an internal candidate that I can kind of, depending on the group that I’m meeting with, if it’s students, if it’s campus partners. Because the other thing is, you have to think about your audience too. How are you communicating with the different audiences if they don’t know as much about on-campus housing or those kinds of things, how are you telling your story? So it’s a double-edged sword, because in one hand you have all this insider knowledge, and on the flip side, you’re expected to wield that so differently I think in a lot of ways. And if you don’t, it’s a bit of a setup, but it’s also a setup, because if you do use it well, that could come back in some ways later down the line. So that’s what I would say about that.

Crystal Lay:
I think it’s tricky, because as an internal candidate, you don’t want to come to the interview being too comfortable and relaxed, right? And you also don’t want to pretend like you don’t work there. So you have to find a really good balance, because people can read through that. And so, I say-

Jeremy Moore:
They sure can.

Crystal Lay:
… like you said, “Have specific examples, be present and really think about what are the things that we do really well as a department, and where are places where we can improve and do different, and how are you going to contribute to that,” right?
There was an internal candidate years ago that I saw who shared some really amazing things, and I realized that they maybe didn’t have the microphone or voice to share some of those pieces until their interview. And I thought, “Wow, what a missed opportunity that they had to wait and hold onto this moment to look for a higher position or elevated position, to share their candid feedback about what we could do differently and really move us forward.”
It was really fascinating. And that’s a different topic altogether too, right? Is making sure that folks at every level have the opportunity to provide meaningful feedback to move us forward. So our field is small, Jeremy, it’s so small.

Jeremy Moore:
Yes, yeah, yeah.

Crystal Lay:
So how do you maintain business acumen? Because I don’t like the word professionalism, I don’t like the P-word, but how do you maintain business acumen and positive relationships after an outcome like this? Because you said you have to feel the feelings, right? You tap into your network. I don’t think you could put a time period on when you just get over it, because there’s going to be some devastation you’ve experienced, but how do you show up the next day? How do you show up if that person’s going to be your supervisor? Are there tips or breathing exercises? How do you get through? You know what I’m saying?

Jeremy Moore:
Yes, I do. Well, work at a Buddhist-inspired institution that’s contemplatively focused. That’s what I say, focus on some mindfulness, do some… We really do a lot of mindfulness activities and things in my current institution, and I’m so appreciative of that, because it’s not something that I think we think about as often. Get a Calm subscription. I got the lifetime subscription. I got that on Black Friday some years ago. No, but honestly, I think it is finding the people who are going to be able to help fill your cup until you’re able to do, sometimes we need that space before we’re able to fill our cup ourselves. We need to have other people help us.
And I’m not just saying surround yourself with people who are going to just say the things that you, just to inflate you. Surrounding yourselves with people who can be objective is really important, because sometimes we do need to hear the hard things, but we need to hear them in a way that we can receive them and it can feel very isolating when we have, it can sometimes feel like betrayal, the big B word. It can feel like betrayal when you feel like, “I didn’t get this opportunity and I really thought that this was something that was going to happen for me.”
And I think it’s hard sometimes having been somebody who’s had to deliver that news to an internal candidate. It’s so important on how we deliver that too and how we keep the lines of communication open. And I’ve had that happen, where people have kept the lines of communication open and said, “If you would like, I’m here to talk more later down the line.”
And I’ve also had people who’ve just given me a very curt answer, and that was that. And that actually is the harder thing, because even if I haven’t taken them up on the opportunity when they’ve offered it, it’s knowing that that door is still open to be able to go through to say, “Well, let’s talk about this a little bit more.”
And again, I understand people can’t always share everything. There’s all those things. And I think we are so risk-adverse a lot of times in higher education, because of all the potential for liability and all sorts of things, but there’s still ways that we should be providing feedback. It’s just like when we do performance evaluations, there should be no surprises to people about things. But what I would say about the business acumen and also just the relationships, one of the things that I did with a more recent internal process, I was in my feelings and I took some time for myself. I took some time off. I went to the movies that brings me joy, did a quick little trip, like staycation kind of thing. And when eventually that new person came, and they came and they were external, because I was an internal candidate, but they hired an external person.
When that person came and they arrived finally, I said, “You know what? I want this person to have a good experience.” It would’ve been easy to say, “I don’t want to put up a welcome banner. I don’t want to do the things,” but I wanted to do that, because that person deserves that, because they didn’t know what they didn’t know. And so, when they came in, I actually didn’t know if they even knew that I had applied for the position, and I felt like we needed to broach that, because we were going to be having a working relationship. And so, I asked them if we could have time, dedicated intentional time to sit down, and they were open to that.
And I said, “I need to let you know I’m feeling a little tender. I’m feeling a little tender about this process and how I was not honored, in my opinion, with the process and how things may have went, and how this is impacting me right now. But I do want to let you know that I’m going to show up and I’m going to be the best deputy that I can be to you, so that we can do our best work together. And I also want to let you know that this isn’t about you. It’s actually about me, because I’m in those feelings right now internally. And this is probably not my forever home at this point, because I need to find what’s next for me and what’s going to bring me the satisfaction… Not the satisfaction, but the filling that I need of my cup. And that I’ve outgrown my pot and I’m ready to move on to that next level. And I’m going to try to get as many skills and professional development as I can, but I’m going to need to move on. And that might not be in the next month, that might not even be in a year.”
And ultimately ended up being about a year and a half, if I remember correctly. But that person was so supportive in that moment, because it could have been a really awkward and uncomfortable conversation. But I also felt like they were probably in a place where they were feeling really awkward if they had been told, and it had been disclosed to them that I had applied, because how do you navigate that as the person in that seat?
So bridging this, having open dialogue, and this again is my experience, and I’m completely owning this, because everyone might not be in a place to do that. And there’s some privilege in what I’ve just shared and my identities, and the role power that I had in that moment as more of a mid-level person. So I don’t want anyone to hear today that I, Jeremy Moore has said, “This is what you should do.” I want you to hear that this is what I did, and this is how that was the outcome. And I know that that outcome is not going to always be the same. It really depends on that person sitting across from you. So yeah, that’s what I’ll share about that interaction and how it was a great interaction, and it really helped set me up for success, so that I could do the work that I needed to do and move forward, ultimately, in my career.

Crystal Lay:
I am hearing process and the people, and how do you separate the successful candidate from the process you went through?

Jeremy Moore:
Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly.

Crystal Lay:
And I think one of the worst things I’ve seen in my 20 plus years in housing is a situation where people are unkind or unwelcoming to the successful candidate, who had nothing to do with the process, other than saying yes to interview. And so, I think it’s being mindful of how we treat all the humans that went through the candidate process, right? It is holding care and support for the person who was unsuccessful, and acknowledging that it’s not a brush-off. This is a person who, like you said, is invested in the institution and cared enough to say, “I’m making a gesture to show that I believe in this place and I want to stay,” right?

Jeremy Moore:
Yeah.

Crystal Lay:
And then, you have this other human who’s like, “This looks like a really cool position. I want to learn more and apply.”
And so, how do you make sure you don’t set it up where you’re pitting folks against each other or creating an unhealthy dynamic for either of the folks, the successful human and the person who did not become the successful candidate in the end? I think that’s really important. I do want to name that sometimes there are processes where you do have questions. Something did not sit well, this did not feel good. And I think if we end our time today without naming that, we have missed the, because sometimes there is favoritism, sometimes there is the bias pieces that you talked about.
And so, I think it’s really important to name that. I want folks, and I want your thoughts on this, I want folks to feel as though they know I have resources. If I have questions about the outcome of a search or a process, or I feel uncomfortable or this thing happened, can I go to HR? Can I go to equity and access? What do I do? And so, I don’t want to spend a ton of time there, but I do want to name it, that sometimes that does happen. There are unfair processes that do happen in our field.

Jeremy Moore:
It’s so true. And I think this has been a real hot topic probably the last decade or so, and even more recently in the last probably five years or so. And there is times where processes, maybe there was some things that were done or said, or that shouldn’t have been. And there can be that bias that I’ve talked about a couple of times. And so, you got to be really careful about this, but I do think it’s important to avail yourself and know what your resources are. Some campuses might have an ombuds office, an ombudsperson office, where it might oftentimes should be a confidential resource. It’s really important to make sure you check with that though. How is this reported up? Where does this office sit in the hierarchy of institutions? Sometimes those offices are completely separated, but are part of an institution with a dotted line to a chancellor’s office or president’s office.
It’s important to check those things though. Always check those things. And you might avail yourself of that HR, the institutional equity office, as you mentioned, those are folks that may be… And here’s the other thing, you can also go into these situations with, “I just wanted to talk to you about a, let’s just say it’s just a hypothetical situation.”
And I talk to my team a lot about this when we’re talking to parents, for example, with FERPA things. How do you use that kind of role play? And then feel it out a little bit before you feel comfortable maybe sharing some more specific details. Maybe you do a second meeting or a second set up process to explore your pieces if you feel comfortable with that resource, because you’ve got to remember that sometimes those folks that you might seek for counsel or support might actually unfortunately not be your best resources.
And so, I mentioned that, not because I want to set fire to any of our systems or anything like that, or say that they don’t hold integrity, but just to say that sometimes that unfortunately is what we might encounter. And so, I think we have to build ourselves up to that place of being able to have the conviction and the courage to do it. It takes courage to do those things. And so, being able to have your support system, your board of directors, your brain trust to do that, and really trying to maintain as best of an attitude, positive attitude as you can. And the last thing that I’ll say here, Crystal, is focus on your controllables. What is within your, all I can control is this right here, the things that are around me directly. So how can I ultimately know what’s within my hands and what’s outside of my hands with the process or whatever has occurred, and how can I protect my peace with that?

Crystal Lay:
Well, Jeremy, every closed door for you has led you to the wonderful professional that you are today. And so, thank you for sharing that. And I think seeing your journey and hearing your advice hopefully will inspire other folks and give them some professional hope as they move throughout. And so, just really proud of you and of everything that you’ve shared, and what you’ve brought to this conversation, and again, what you bring to the field. We’re going to close our time out, for folks who are thinking about being an internal candidate, are there any last bits or pieces of advice that you would like to offer up?

Jeremy Moore:
Well, I have a quick hot take list here. So I would say, how can you demonstrate your understanding of the institution in ways that might be unexpected? How can you add, sprinkle that pixie dust, as Disney would say? Because they’re going to expect you to say certain things. How can you go above and beyond with that? How can you focus on the student impact? What are your KPIs, your key performance indicators? How are you focusing on things like persistence and retention? Think about the job, the next job. How are you bringing those things in to this opportunity today and building on that? And how are you demonstrating that you’ve built strong relationships and partnerships across campus?
And sometimes that’s doing info interviews with those partners before the process, before you actually get to the interview table and doing that. And then, be prepared for the long haul, because it can be a long process. And sometimes you might not get updates and things for quite a while. And you’re waiting, every day. “Has an email come in, have I gotten a phone call? Is there a fax?” I don’t think that we do faxes anymore, but, “Has these things come in?”
And so, be prepared for that, because it’s grueling. When you’re waiting for that information, it can really be impactful for your work. So again, control what you can control. Try to let go of the things you can’t control and try to focus on still taking care of yourself, your self-care. That’s so important. And remember, your value as a human, as a professional, does not have to be connected. And that coat that I talked about earlier that I put on for my identity, I can hang that coat up. I can take it off and I can hang it up when I need to, because that does not define me. I mean, it does in some ways define me, because it’s my professional identity and the things how I’m showing up, but it doesn’t have to be me. So those are the last little nuggets I guess I would share with our audience today.

Crystal Lay:
Those were great nuggets. Like, oh my gosh, this was such a wonderful conversation. Great information, Jeremy, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jeremy Moore:
Thank you.

Crystal Lay:
And being involved.

Jeremy Moore:
It’s been a great opportunity. Yeah.

Crystal Lay:
Thank you. All right, and thanks for joining us on this episode of Res Ed Chat. If you have an idea of a topic or a person that you would like us to have on the show, please let us know by reaching out to Roompact. Take care.