In this episode of the podcast, guest host Dustin Ramsdell chats with Katie Steele, a current Roompact blogger from the Seattle University about how best to prepare for and navigate applying for a job at your current institution. She shares perspectives on going through these interview processes as a candidate as well as managing them as a reviewer. Katie shares tips for listeners to make sure you’re being transparent and evaluated fairly as a an applicant as well as able to provide an impartial view as a reviewer.
Guest: Katie Steele (she/her), Associate Director, Community Engagement & Learning Initiatives, Seattle University
Host: Dustin Ramsdell, Independent Higher EdTech Content Creator
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Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast is a platform to showcase people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. If you have a topic idea for an episode, let us know!
Transcript:
Dustin Ramsdell:
Welcome back everyone to Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast. If you’re new to the show, every episode our team of hosts brings you timely discussions on a variety of topics of interest to hire professionals who work in and with University of Housing, residence life, residential education, et cetera.
And this, if you’re following along, is another in our series that we like to do every year where we take a moment to highlight the wonderful team of bloggers that are part of the Roompact family. And they’re folks that come from a variety and diverse kind of array of backgrounds, and focusing on all different types of content that they’re creating on a monthly basis. So we are here with Katie. So if you want to introduce yourself, Katie, and give a brief overview of your professional background, and then we’ll get into the rest of our conversation that I’m very excited about around internal job processes and stuff.
I’m just excited to get to that, but we’ll start off with your introduction if you want to kick us off.
Katie Steele:
Hi everyone. My name is Katie Steele. I use she/her pronouns. I’m the Associate Director of Community Engagement and Learning Initiatives at Seattle University, which is a small four-year private institution in the Pacific Northwest. I have been working in residential education for about 12 years professionally, mainly at small to mid-sized private institutions, but I also do have some experience working at a mid-sized public institution on the East Coast. And I’m excited to have this conversation today.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, with all of your background and everything, I don’t know if there’s sort of a kind of hidden thread or through line or anything of like, what inspired you to want to join the Roompact blogging team? I don’t know what that sort of is offering you or of what that sort of speaks to maybe from your background. What inspired you to get involved?
Katie Steele:
I think that the big draw for me initially was I had finally gotten to the point in my career where I felt like I had enough experience, and enough things to speak to, and enough to write on that I felt like it would be a valuable outlet for me. And I had never really considered an opportunity like this before.
But the thing that sold me on it was actually the cohort experience. So as I was going through the application process with Paul, I was really sold on this fact that it was meant to be a professional development experience and that we would be able to journey as a cohort with other people working in the field, that also had opinions and experience on different topics. And that’s just been really a life-giving experience for me to be able to get my ideas and thoughts and experiences out digitally, but also to connect with other people in the field and to learn and grow and consider things that I haven’t really encountered in this functional area.
So that sense of community really drew me in and that’s what’s kept me as engaged as I have been.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. And I think that’s an interesting point, because I don’t know if that is as prominent or maybe top of mind or what maybe a lot of people would suspect or like, and I don’t recall if maybe other writers have noted that as much, because I think it is, certainly the other point that you said of folks kind of getting to a point wherever that is in their journey of feeling kind of comfortable putting their voice out there. And maybe they’ve done writing in the past in some form or fashion. They want to kind of scratch that itch again and kind of work those muscles and stuff, but even just like wanting to be of service, providing your kind of point of view.
And then, yeah, I mean, it is just a great kind of byproduct by the nature of, I think, just bringing that thoughtfulness to convening all the writers together and letting them interact. It’s a more kind of longitudinal and substantive kind of networking than just sort of like, “Oh, I just bumped into you at a happy hour at a conference or something and we can kind of chit-chat about do some small talk, whatever.”
It’s like, “Oh, we’re doing a pretty deep year long thing where we can reflect on what’s working, what’s hard, and celebrating successes and all that kind of stuff.” So yeah, appreciate you mentioning that. So like I said, very excited for our topic today. Because I feel like even just through all of my kind of content duration and everything, never really explored people’s experience with, I mean, navigating or managing or seeing internal job processes. So you can maybe just make sure that we’re kind of playing off the same sheet of music here of defining exactly what we’re talking about. But I guess as far as I understand, it’d be that idea of you currently work at an organization, you’re trying to move over, move up into another position.
So obviously anybody who’s applied to anything, they always ask that question like, “Are you a current employee?” That obviously is a major factor, changes some dynamics and everything. So we’ll start very high level, 30,000 feet view here. What has been your experience navigating and/or managing internal job processes?
Katie Steele:
Yeah, so there’s kind of two parts to this. So myself as a candidate, I’ve engaged into internal job processes, one fully internal and then one that I classify as nearly internal.
So my first one was with a previous institution where I was a residence director, and I was looking to move up into an assistant director position. And so I was essentially applying for a leadership role in a department that I already worked in, in a department that I was very familiar with, and knew pretty much everyone in the department and at the institution.
And then also, I think it’s worth noting, I was also one of the people that helped hire most of the people that then were evaluating me for this leadership position. So I had done application review and interview processes for most of my peers that then were going to be evaluating whether I was the right fit for this leadership opportunity.
So that was one experience. The other experience has to do with my current role that I’m in, and I classify that as nearly internal, because in my current role, I took like a 10-year hiatus from the institution that I’m currently at. So I was a grad student here, working in a semi-professional role within residence life. So this had been a department that I had worked in for two years in a live-in role and had a lot of familiarity with this institution.
And then my current role became available about two years ago and I applied for that. And when I was going through the job application process, while I wasn’t a traditionally internal candidate, the thing about this institution is a lot of people are still here. And so a lot of people knew me, remembered me. I had a lot of context on the department.
So I’ve navigated, myself as a candidate, one truly internal process. And then as I said, I kind of consider my current opportunity like a nearly internal process just because I carried a lot of things into that process.
And then managing internal processes as an assistant director and as an associate director now in those leadership positions, I’ve, I think, helped manage and work with current supervisees through about four or five internal processes that they’ve pursued. So I’ve been on the other side of the process as well.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Okay, great. So I feel like we’ve got kind of the whole spectrum here covered, and we can kind of speak from different vantage points. Because I think to kind of dig a little bit deeper and we’ll spend a little bit of time here, because I think on its face, I think sometimes it might be like, “Oh, you’re always going to have a leg up and have an edge in these things.”
But we can give honorable mention to where I think there can be maybe complicating factors in the sense of dynamics like you’re talking about. It’s like, “I helped hire the people that are now evaluating me. I evaluated that.” It’s just maybe just sort of weird or just very unique that other people just absolutely do not have to deal with or kind of navigate and all that, where there might be kind of preconceived notions about somebody who’s trying to move over, move up, or do whatever else.
So I think there’s a lot of important things here to consider. So we’ll try to just kind of lay some of those out and kind of go back and forth on them. But yeah, I appreciate you giving the context on your kind of experiences, but wherever you’d want to start, I guess from managing these processes, navigating them, what is it important to consider here?
Katie Steele:
Yeah, there’s so many things that I can say about this. I kind of would break things down into categories. I would start with the general category of applying in general. I know it seems rudimentary or elementary, but deciding whether or not you actually even want to apply for a position is kind of step one.
And I think about, there’s some questions that I think about, in terms of there’s an internal role that becomes available for you, right? And having some serious reflection with yourself about, is this the right fit for me? So is this a leadership position? Am I the right fit for this role? Is this the right fit for me? Does this position’s profile and scope of responsibility… Is that even something that I want and is it something that I want to do? And then is the institution the right fit for me?
I think often when I talk to candidates or even in my own experience, there have been times where people feel like they should apply for a position because they’ve been somewhere for so long, they’re looking for their next step, and come to find out it’s not actually even a role that they want. It’s that notion of, I feel like I should apply for this. I feel like it’s time.
And then diving a little deeper in my situation, asking those questions of, if I apply for this position, if I go through the application process, can I potentially supervise people that are friends of mine? Can I supervise peers? Can I navigate that transition and relationship, because the fact of the matter is that relationship will change. Whether you wanted to or not, those dynamics are going to shift.
And then also, is this an institution that’s going to allow me to grow? And what I mean by that is, is the institution itself, are the people at the institution, going to allow me to transition into a new role? So, are the people at this institution, are the values of this institution, not only where do I want to stay, but if I am to transition into a new role, are people going to allow me to fully make that transition, or am I going to be forever seen in my old role?
So position for growth. And I think sometimes the answer to that is yes. In my case, the answer has been yes, but in other situations I’ve seen, it’s not, that’s not the case.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. I think those are really kind of important things there. And I think just taking a moment to pause because it feels like sort of a natural point because yeah, I think the first very important place to start is that sort of like self-awareness, kind of exploring within yourself, all these things. Because I think they’re all the kind of natural questions that you’re going to need to have a good answer for, that you’re the one candidate that may need to answer those versus obviously the other people won’t. The ways that you’re going to be going through your own interview process and everything.
And I think you might’ve been getting here, but I think that idea of, you go through all this and I think it’s like you need to have good answers for all of these before you probably even, just obviously, need to let people know versus maybe becoming as a surprise being like, “Oh, hey, Katie’s all like to be the director of the department. Okay, whatever.”
You need to maybe make the rounds and kind of start to talk through this and maybe they can, other folks that you work with can help you answer some of these questions if you feel like you’re still grappling with them. But I think if there’s more you want to extrapolate on and the journey through in terms of interviewing and presenting yourself and all that, but it feels like, yeah, you have to start with all that and then start to raise the flag and say like, “Hey, I’m considering this to the colleagues and stuff that you have.”
Katie Steele:
Yeah, that was actually my next point. So this idea of transparency, and this is going to vary from person to person. But I think some things that I’ve considered and I’ve seen people navigate themselves are, you have to make a decision of how transparent you’re going to be with people about your job search process and particular when you apply for internal roles, you have to make a decision of how vocal are you going to be about that.
For me personally, in every internal process I’ve been in or that I’ve helped others navigate, I’ve encouraged as much transparency as possible. And that has been very intentional for a couple of reasons. For me, I was interviewing to be the supervisor of several people that I had become friends with and that I cared deeply about and that I cared about their opinions. And so, I didn’t want to damage those relationships.
So when I, at a previous institution, when I was applying to be an assistant director as a fourth year hall director, I told everyone when the job application process posted, I told everyone my intention is to apply. And these people were friends of mine. So we had built enough vulnerability and honesty with one another that they were willing to give me their honest opinions. And luckily for me, that was their support, but I made it very clear that I would be applying.
And so everything kind of was out on the table at the very beginning, obviously my supervisor knew that I was applying. And so I was very honest with people from the beginning. I think other people that I’ve seen navigate this process, they’ve been transparent, but they’ve been transparent at different points. So a supervisee of mine decided that they would make it known that they were applying if they got a finalist, if they got to the finalist position.
And of course there were people within the department that knew about it because they were on the committee that was reviewing applications and things like that, but they didn’t make it known widely to the department until they were a finalist candidate. So I think that’s one other way to navigate it.
I’ve also been in situations where I know about an internal candidate that has applied for a position, and they don’t make it known until they are in their interviews on their on-campus or they’re virtual on-campus. And I think what I would share about that is I’ve seen that burn a lot of bridges, and I’ve seen that backfire.
And so ultimately that sense of transparency and kind of journeying through the process is going to be up to every individual person. But in my experience, I’ve seen it bode well where people who are transparent and do get buy-in from the very beginning, I think that can be a part of your discernment process too, in terms of deciding whether or not you pursue a position.
If you go to trusted colleagues and you say, “Hey, I’m considering this move,” and there’s a lot of surprise or maybe more negative reception, or maybe not negative, but less warm of a reception than you’re accepting, or that you’re coming to terms with, that’s probably a good place to stop and ask, “Is this the right move? And am I going to put myself through a process where I’m ultimately going to be disappointed because these are people that can’t support me?” Sometimes I think that transparency can be a huge tool that can work to your advantage.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. I mean, because I think it’s just making sure that you’re doing things the right way at the right time and all that. I agree that I think you cannot be all smoke and mirrors and telling no one and all that. It’s like you need to tell some people, it’s just like, yeah, how do you tell people, when do you tell people, and all that, is maybe where there can be some of that sort of flexibility.
But yeah, I think that is a very important note. And I don’t know if you have any brief thoughts on what would naturally be the next step of you’re the candidate going through this process. You obviously need to interact with people and interview with people who you worked with, but in a way that has them see you as their potential leader and all that. So I guess any brief notes before, because naturally now I’m kind of starting to think about, okay, if you’re managing this process, how do you do all that of important things to consider?
But any final thoughts on this question from you’re the candidate going through an internal process, things to be thinking about as you’re going through an interview.
Katie Steele:
A big piece for me is this idea of, you carry your reputation into an interview process and you carry that reputation whether it’s good, whether it’s bad, whether people are indifferent to it.
So thinking about as you navigate an interview process, don’t assume that people understand or know your current job responsibilities or projects or tasks or experiences you’ve had. And so, in terms of interviewing from a very logistical standpoint, I treat these internal interviews the same way I would treat any other interview. And this idea that you can’t assume that people because they know your institution or know your current role, that they fully understand what that means.
I would also say don’t overinflate your scope of responsibility either. So it kind of seems like a no-brainer, but you’re going to be in rooms with people who also know your work. So as much as you don’t want to assume that people know what you’ve done, you also need to assume that people have a very good understanding of your scope of responsibility, projects you’ve worked on, things like that. And so, you don’t want to overinflate any projects you’ve worked on, especially with people who are in the room that you may have collaborated on things with.
And then also I would say the biggest thing and biggest pitfall I see with internal candidates is they don’t ask questions. So when you get to an interview process, it can be like the nail in your coffin when you don’t have questions. And I know it can be really challenging as an internal candidate to come up with questions, but I think one of the biggest superpowers of being an internal candidate is you have context that no one else has. And so, it’s about figuring out what questions can I ask that are well-informed that not only make for engaging conversation, but also use the context on this institution and department that I have that nobody else has. So those are just a couple tips or pointers that I would share regarding the interview process.
But then also know, again, I said you carry your reputation, and so you kind of have to know what you’re getting into. You kind of have to know who’s evaluating you, what context they have on you, whether those are good campus partner relationships, good supervisory relationships. I think there’s always power that comes from knowing what you’re walking into and kind of the vibe of a process or a room.
Dustin Ramsdell:
It comes down to me not being too cavalier, the idea of like, “Oh, I’m an internal candidate. I’m sure everyone knows me and whatever else.” And it’s like to an extent they do, but make sure that you’re doing it like you would do any other interview, talk about your achievements and your role and responsibilities and all that, and bring those questions versus just being like, “No, I know everything. I know how all this works and all that. I don’t need to ask any questions.”
And it’s like, I think the idea of that as an internal candidate, you do have an edge. I think that’s not just sort of a… I’m trying to think of the right way to frame this, but it’s not just sort of like you have to make that your edge, that intentionality around, I’m going to ask questions, I have context, nobody else does.
Those things kind of swirling in my mind, you can’t just rest on your laurels and be like, “Oh, I just have an X factor by the nature of me being in this process, and I can be cavalier about this and just coast off of that and let that kind of speak for me.” But it’s like, no, you kind of need to speak for yourself and all that. So on the other side, any thoughts around things to consider that are important to you when you are managing a process with internal candidates?
Katie Steele:
Two things come to mind. One is very, very logistical, and this can go for either side of a process, but thinking about who your references are. So if you’re applying internally, and let’s say you’re interviewing for a position or you’re a finalist for a position and you’re technically, let’s say the hiring manager is your current supervisor or someone in your leadership line, you shouldn’t be including them as references.
And I share this because once again, I think some people are like, “Oh, that’s a no-brainer.” But the number of people I see come through processes that I’m the hiring manager and they list me as a reference. And the thing is is that everyone in your department in a leadership capacity is going to be a reference whether you put them down on a piece of paper or not, because once again, you carry your reputation into any internal job process.
I think that being said, another thing you can do as an internal candidate to kind of work that edge is being really intentional about who your references are. So listing references from previous positions that can speak to your roles and responsibilities, but also your orientation for growth and leadership opportunities. Listing campus partners that you’ve had intentional connections with across the institution that maybe normally wouldn’t get called upon, so leveraging those kinds of references.
So particularly in the residential education space, if you’ve done incredible work with a faculty member, that’s a really good opportunity to leverage a faculty reference. If you’ve done really good work with a campus partner, let’s say in like a wellness and health promotion space, that’s another great place to list them as a reference.
Because the fact of the matter is you’re housing a residence life director, your associate director, your assistant director, they’re going to automatically be references for you. They’re automatically going to be giving feedback in a interview application space.
The other piece that’s less logistical, and this is more reflective in nature, is kind of thinking about and doing some reflection throughout the process of, if I don’t get a job offer and this doesn’t work out for me, am I willing to come back to this department in my current role? Am I willing to fully watch somebody step into the role that I wanted so badly? And am I willing to support them in that process? Am I willing to be a team player?
And for me, the answers to those questions have varied, given the processes that I’m in. They’ve also varied for the people that I’ve helped navigate through these processes. So on a personal note, there was an internal process that I was in, where I asked myself those questions and the answer was, “Can you come back to this department if you don’t ascend or if you don’t get this leadership role?” The answer was no.
And then, going further was, “If you don’t get this role offered to you, can you watch somebody else step into it?” And the answer was also no. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think I used to think that those answers were wrong, but really what it helped me figure out is it was time to move on. If I didn’t get an offer from this position or from this institution for this position, what that meant was, it’s time for you to take your talents elsewhere because you don’t have enough grace to watch somebody come in and do this in the role that you wanted.
There have been other times where I’ve had candidates as they navigate a process say like, “Yeah, I could come back to my role. I have enough energy and bandwidth, and I’m not burnt out yet in my current job that I could come back and do this for another year and I actually think I would be fine supporting someone who essentially got the position that I wanted.”
So I’ve seen it kind of pan out both ways, but I think those are really important questions to ask yourself when you’re in a process is like, Can you deal with either outcome? Can you handle ascending and getting the job you wanted, and being able to navigate the messiness that can come with that kind of transition? But equally so, you don’t want to assume that you will get a job offer. And so if you don’t, that can be incredibly disappointing. Do you have enough wherewithal and grace and character to withstand that? So I think both kind of outcomes have to be something that you deeply consider.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. Those are definitely important pieces because I think, just even the kind of logistical references I think is a good call out. And that could even, I guess, be something that happens in that sort of self-exploration phase because it could be like, “I don’t even want to waste time if it’s like… All this stuff is sort of caught up in it, and I’m realizing that maybe I just need to move on or something. Versus it being like, go through the rollercoaster, take the risk and the chance of not getting in, see somebody… It’s like, all right, there’s clearly too much caught up in all this. You might just decide to go a different routes where there’s not so much baggage or all that kind of stuff embedded in it.
But I think, yeah, it is just an interesting piece where, especially if it’s like, “Oh, I’ve been somewhere a long time. I feel like I’ve kind of earned this, but if they can’t really see that or respect that, then yeah, maybe I need to move on. ” And just being like, you don’t have to put yourself through a situation that feels really miserable or additionally so because it’s like, okay, I feel like I should have gotten that or whatever else. It’s just acknowledging, all this is all just very emotional. I always just make the joke about equating job searching and interviewing to dating and stuff. It’s the idea of, it’s just very emotional.
And I guess before we move on from this, I guess having overseen and been responsible for coordinating these, kind of processes and internal candidates and things and just any insights on those sorts of things. I guess sometimes I feel like it’s like they’re posting it for external candidates, but they’re really just evaluating an internal person, sometimes that’s required or not, or even just some of those logistical pieces of just a couple of notes to consider just from your point of view of like, if you’re the one that’s kind of orienting this whole process and everything, what’s something to keep in mind as you’re evaluating an internal candidate, perhaps next to an external one?
Katie Steele:
Yeah, I would share a couple different things. I think this first piece kind of comes from managing and supervising staff teams. I think being really clear and transparent from the beginning about if you’re not on the review committee, you’re not going to know any information about the application process, and you shouldn’t be discussing it outside of that space if you are on that committee.
And again, it seems like a no-brainer, but that’s where I see a lot of drama crop up. If you have internal candidates and people are running their mouths about a process, or they’ve got opinions about a process, it can cause a lot of harm if there’s chatter in a department about different things. So being really clear with your team about, “Hey, this is a sensitive thing. Applying for jobs can be a sensitive process. We’ve potentially got internal candidates.” So, if you’re not on the committee, you shouldn’t be talking about it. If you are on the committee, you shouldn’t be talking about it.
So again, seems like a no-brainer, but I think that really big reminder is sometimes necessary. And I’ve worked on several different teams where that reminder is necessary. And I’ve worked on some teams where I don’t have to give that reminder because they’ve kind of already gotten that embedded in our culture.
The thing I would share about from managing a process, again, seems like a no-brainer, but ensuring that all candidates have an equitable process. So, that’s really important, whether a candidate is internal, external, whatnot. So even thinking logistically, if you’re going to do a virtual interview process, then all of your candidates have to interview virtually, even the ones that are on campus, that physically could come with you to an office space.
If you’re going to ask introductory questions in an interview process of some candidates, like your internal candidates, well, it may seem like redundant information, they also have to get the opportunity to give introductory information.
So, really matching those interview processes fully ultimately not only does it ensure an equitable process, but it ensures a legal one. So I think just from a very logistical standpoint, if you don’t treat candidates equitably across the board, it can come back to bite you. And so, really making sure that everything from your communication to your interview format, to the questions you ask, to the opportunities that you give candidates, that has to be equal across the board.
So it might seem silly as someone who’s managing a process to ask someone that you currently supervise I was like, “Hey, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself?” That might seem silly. You have to ask that question, because you’re offering that opportunity to other candidates. So those are the two big things I would share.
I would also say that as someone who has navigated processes with supervisees, the big thing that I always tell them is, we can talk about this job posting and this opportunity from a professional development standpoint up until you’re a candidate. The minute you submit an application as the hiring manager, I’m not allowed to talk about this with you, unless it’s stuff that I would share with any other candidate.
So from a professional development standpoint, I take my supervision very seriously. It’s probably my favorite part of my job. And so, when candidates are kind of working through an internal process with me, I just make it very clear from the beginning, if you need my support as a supervisor, you’ve got to ask all of those questions ahead of you deciding to submit an application. Because the minute you submit an application, I’m no longer your supervisor, I’m a hiring manager. And so, just being transparent from the beginning about that, I think has really helped my supervisees and other people that I’ve supported through job processes navigate things themselves.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. All important stuff to consider. And I think some good examples there too of where folks might commonly get into the pitfalls and everything. And because yeah, I mean, I think it’s just being able to kind of… I think when you create a structure to check your biases of everybody’s going through the same modality and the same questions and all that, it also is more conducive to on that other side, the idea of people feeling like things are so loose because like, “Oh, they already know me. They’re asking these different questions or whatever else,” like I’m kind of being cavalier about or not really taking this as seriously whatever. Versus just on a holistic level, I think that idea of like, okay, you’re taking this seriously, you’re making sure you’re going through it, riding along the rails just like every other candidate is.
So that just saying something about like, okay, you’re not trying to take advantage. Because I think that’s even the idea of like, okay, you’ve got to harness your edge and your contextual knowledge, but then you don’t want to try to be doing some kind of backroom deal here, so trying to take advantage of whatever.
So yeah, I think the structuring of an equitable process encourages that more, makes it kind of more apparent, I guess, to be able to take it seriously. And that kind of speaking volumes, I guess, of an internal candidate kind of like trips through hoops like everybody else and is taking it seriously and all that.
So yeah, really interesting stuff there. And I think I wanted to get into advice and things here. One specific kind of question for advice or we can kind of bleed this into… We always just like to give that kind of opportunity for final thoughts, advice and resources. But I think one specific aspect of this that can be, I think important is you’re the candidate that wants to go through an internal process. How can you best prepare for your next role while in your current one? Because I think it is that always like, I’ve got so much stuff to do every day. I don’t have enough time. Or that idea that maybe I’m trying to neglect my current responsibilities to get these collateral assignments or something. Just any thoughts and kind of specific advice to that.
And then we’ll go to just any general final thoughts and concluding things that you’d want to share. So yeah, advice for folks preparing for their next role while they’re at their current one.
Katie Steele:
Yeah. I love questions about professional development. I think this is a very hot take. It’s kind of a spicy take, but I hate conferences. I’m not a fan of conferences from a professional development standpoint. I think in our field, conferences have become synonymous with professional development. And I think some of… Well, I think conferences are great and people can get a lot out of them. I think when it comes to navigating internal job processes, the best kind of professional development you can do is actually in your current role.
And I will acknowledge some of this is up to timing and luck. Some of it is the opportunities that present themselves in a particular timeline, but I think in my own experience, some things you can do to really position yourself well for internal opportunities when they come. Depending on how your department is structured, if you have the opportunity to take on like co-chairing or chairing or leadership opportunities for a committee, a task force or a special project, and you have the bandwidth for that, taking advantage of that is really, really important.
And then of course, executing and executing well, so that you have those opportunities to speak to in an interview process, and you have that kind of reputation behind you so that people can see you in a leadership opportunity or in like a specialized place when it comes to helping out the department.
I think informational interviewing is always really helpful. So thinking about, I’m someone, probably because I’m such a future planner, I’m someone who typically knows hopefully in five years where I want to be. And so, I think informational interviewing is really, not only is it interesting and helps you get to know people and helps you grow your professional network, but interviewing people that are in positions that you want to be in, to kind of get that insider knowledge. But it also can be helpful in terms of your discernment. If you’ve sat down with five people and they’ve all said the same thing and that’s not something that appeals to you, maybe pivot and consider other job opportunities.
I mentioned this a little bit, but taking advantage of gaps in departments, and specifically before a supervisor has to ask. So in previous roles of mine, I think I’ve been well positioned to kind of speak to things in internal interviews because of responsibilities that I’ve taken on when a department has needed it.
So for example, in a previous role, we regularly had a consistent vacancy, hall director vacancy. And so, for the better part of a year, there was always a community that needed a hall director in addition to what I was already doing. And so before my supervisors had to come to me and ask like, “Hey, we need someone to support this community.” I would go to them. And at this point I was a fourth year hall director. So I felt like I knew what I was doing. I had enough experience under my belt that I could successfully manage two staff teams, two communities, sometimes three, but I had the ability. I had systems in place that allowed me to do that. It was very hard work, but it was fairly seamless because I knew the job and I knew the role.
But being able to take on more responsibility when a department needs it, to be able to step up and assist with aspects of a vacancy’s job profile when the opportunity presents itself is really, really powerful. And then you can speak to those things in an interview, but it also demonstrates to a department that you’re invested in them. And so, when you’re going through an internal job process, they’re more likely to invest in you if you’ve already stepped up and assisted in those ways.
So I think my next blog post actually is about this whole topic of, what is professional development outside of conferences. Because I’m not a big fan of conferences, I will go and get a lot out of them. But because I’m not a big fan of conferences, a lot of my professional development has been centered around what am I doing in my current role that helps situate me for my next one?
So thinking about, if you eventually want to go, for example, for me, I know I eventually want to go into dean of students work, or if I want to go move up further in residence life, there are gaps in my current scope of responsibility and profile that I’m going to need to exercise. So for me, what that means right now is, on the side as a professional development thing that I’ve worked out with my supervisor, I also serve as a Title IX advisor.
That is outside the scope of my current role. That’s not within the job responsibilities in my current role, but I am getting experience that would lend itself well to my future roles, and just valuable experience in terms of, am I actually interested in this?
And you have to work all that out with your supervisor. These are opportunities that I think I’ve had conversations with different people about in terms of what would be valuable versus what wouldn’t be. Yeah.
Dustin Ramsdell:
And I mean, the transparency piece comes up again. I think just being kind of vocal about this and having supervisors help you and navigating these things I think is powerful. And I think that idea, of even part of even that initial part where like you’re kind of saying being kind of anticipatory of like, I’m hoping to aspire to be X, Y, or Z position and stuff, you’re still doing that self-exploration about like, well, what exactly… Because it might be like, “Oh, I want to get into this certain function. I don’t know maybe what role,” and you can kind of do some exploration on that.
But getting the informational interviews and insights are kind of dabbling and doing that. It is that idea of like you may just really need much more firsthand accounts and not just asking people like, “Can you tell me what this is like”?
Yeah, like you said, if there’s anything comes up again, you’re like, “Oh God, that sounds awful.” That’s helpful. But then it could be like, “Oh, and now I’ve actually done this thing, I know exactly how it goes, what I like about it, what I don’t, and how that might inform my willingness to apply for a position in this area or this type of position.”
So I think, yeah, all really good stuff. And I think I do appreciate the hot take on the conferences because I think obviously it’s not a super accessible option, and it is sort of like this intensive three days where it’s like sometimes you end up getting burnt out from that by the end, and you forget everything that you have heard and talked about with people. So that idea of trying to kind of create that diet of more consistent professional development opportunities that can be all the way from just sort of informational interviews, talking with folks, doing those, sort of collateral assignments of committees and task forces and stuff or just sort of raising your hand to do a thing or chip in, lean into work that needs to be done on your team or others and stuff.
So I think, yeah, all really good advice, but I will leave you with the final word here. If there’s any last bits of advice or specific resources that you’d want to share on this topic that we can include in the show notes.
Katie Steele:
Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I’ll end with is this idea of being consistent. So I think, as someone who has been a hiring manager for internal candidates and then also navigated these processes myself, I think the biggest thing that I’ve appreciated and then also tried to exercise myself is this idea of, be consistent, not only in the way that you show up and do your work, but then once you apply for a position, continue that work. But then also don’t try to overinflate the work that you’re doing. So this kind of is a callback to what I talked about earlier.
I’ve appreciated when internal candidates show up well before they apply for a position, they show up well throughout a process, and then they show up once they’re potentially in that new role. That consistency is really important. So that idea of, once you’ve decided to apply for a position, don’t all of a sudden change who you are or start doing more to kind of like, basically oversell yourself.
I’ve unfortunately seen a lot of candidates in internal processes, they’ll decide to apply for a position and then all of a sudden once they’ve submitted an application, they then decide that that’s when they want to step up and they want to do all these things. And to me, that actually can backfire.
So just this idea of being consistent, you want to show up and be authentic and be who you are regardless of who’s in the room, like before a process, throughout a process, and then after a process.
In terms of resources, I don’t have any specifics that I would share, but I will say my next blog post is going to be somewhat in this vein, of not necessarily internal processes, but kind of this idea of how do you ascend? So how do you position yourself well to take on leadership opportunities? So if this was interesting for any listeners, check out that blog post.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. And I think by the time this episode releases, some of those should be out in the world. So definitely encourage folks to connect with you, keep the conversation going, check out all of your blogs on the Roompact site and just really appreciate you, all that you do, your time as a writer, and for hanging out for this podcast episode.
Katie Steele:
Thank you so much.
