Advertise on podcast: Tips for Work and Life with Andrew LaCivita

Why do people freeze in job interviews? It's not because they can't think fast enough. It's because they're trying to think about too many things at once. What did they ask me? What should I say? Is this the right example? Am I talking too much? Did I answer the question? Do they like me? That's a lot of traffic running through your head when you're trying to have a conversation. 😂 The solution isn't learning how to think faster. It's learning how to think less. That's what today's lesson is all about. Now, let's get you relaxed… If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:   1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Most job candidates think they're ready for their interview. They've researched the company. They've reviewed the job description. They've practiced a few answers. Maybe they've even asked ChatGPT, or the better version, ANDY AI, to throw a few interview questions their way. But interview readiness isn't about checking a few boxes. It's about knowing whether every part of your interview is ready to convince the employer you're the right person for the job. That's why I created the Interview Readiness Scorecard. It helps you evaluate the nine areas that can determine whether your interview moves you closer to a job offer, including: ·       Position alignment. ·       Your introduction. ·       Walking through your resume. ·       Your power story. ·       Behavioral questions and offshoots. ·       The questions you ask. ·       Your communication. ·       Your overall performance. ·       Interview logistics. Before you listen this week's podcast, download your free copy of the scorecard. 👉 Download the free interview readiness scorecard! Then listen to Are You Ready for Your Interview. Wait. Before you race to the video… As you listen, rate yourself in each area. You get exactly zero points for being hopeful. And zero for being optimistic. I want you to KNOW. Because confidence isn't something you build the night before an interview. Confidence is something you earn through preparation. By the end of the lesson, you'll know where you're ready, where you need work, and what it takes to become Coach Andy Ready™ before your next interview. That's our new standard. Ok. Now, go go go! If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:   1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

You know you have the experience. So what gives with not getting the job offer? You're in the interview. Per my Interview Intervention, that means you're qualified. How come the interviewer couldn't see that?! Is it possible you're making the interviewer work too hard to find your value? Possibly? Or, here's another favorite of mine…taking a wee bit too long to get to the point? Oh. Let's not forget…giving them every detail instead of the details that matter? Remember, it's the trailer, not the three-hour director's cut. Any of these issues will literally strip the shine off your qualifications faster than my little Rocket 🚀 can remove the stuffing from his dolly. Don't worry. You have me. And I have a lesson. I know, my lessons are like penicillin for career ailments. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:   1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Are you worried you're too old to get hired? If you're 22, settle down. 🤣 If you're 42, maybe pay attention to this lesson with one eye and one ear. If you're 52, both eyes and ears, please. If you're 62, pull up a chair. We need to talk. Ageism is real. Don't let anyone tell you it's not. But I also don't want you thinking age is a disadvantage. (Have I mentioned I'm now officially in my 60s? 🧓 Woo-hoo!!) It can be a razor-sharp weapon that cuts through corporate nonsense! Consider this lesson your personal knife sharpener. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

You're more experienced. Yay.  But here's a funny.  Just because you're great at your job doesn't mean you're great at interviewing for your job!  I see senior professionals make mistakes in interviews that actually make them sound less senior.  They dive too quickly into the activity. They explain too much. They answer about how they execute instead of elevating the conversation to show how they think. Then, when it's their turn to ask questions, they miss another ginormous opportunity. Your questions aren't just there to help you gather information. They tell the employer what you care about and how you think. You need to be able to communicate the information without polluting your answer with everything else you know. You need to start your stories at the right altitude. (This line took me a long time to come up with. 🤣) You need to ask questions that show your command of the role. And when you speak, your words and your conviction need to tell the same story. Today, I hit some of the biggest interview mistakes I see experienced professionals make. You're too good to let this happen to you. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Most people think influencing someone means making a stronger argument. It doesn't. It means understanding what the other person wants.  Whether you're interviewing, negotiating a job offer, or trying to move an important conversation forward, the fastest way to change someone's mind isn't by pushing harder. It's by helping them achieve their goal. Today's lesson shows you exactly how using a common salary negotiation situation many job candidates face. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

There's a part of the interview process almost nobody thinks about.  The emails you send after the interview. Or throughout the hiring process. Or when you get an offer. Most job candidates assume email is the safest way to communicate. Technically, it's the riskiest. I've seen candidates try to rewrite an interview in a thank you note, send multiple follow-up emails, ask important questions over email, and even negotiate compensation. Oy! Here's the problem.  Email strips away nearly everything that makes communication effective. Your tone. Not to mention your charming personality. You can't explain what you mean. Or why you're asking what you're asking.  When you need to communicate something important, email is the worst tool. Today, let's identify the traps, avoid the mistakes, and make sure your emails help your candidacy instead of hurting it.  If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

One of the biggest mistakes job candidates make is preparing for the wrong thing. They spend hours trying to predict which interview questions they'll be asked. They search for lists of the most common questions. They memorize answers. They rehearse responses. And then they walk into the interview hoping they guessed correctly. There's just one problem, I mean, other than this giving me heartburn. That's not how you score the best in interviews. The strongest candidates aren't focused on the questions. In fact, they don't give one hill of beans about them. They're focused on something else entirely. This something makes interviews less stressful. Not to mention, but I will, your answers more compelling. And let's not forget the ginormous point about how your value teleports itself from you to them at hyper-speed. In today's lesson, I'm covering why most candidates approach interviews backward and what to focus on instead if you want actually get the job. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:   1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

One of the biggest misconceptions job candidates have is that if they're qualified, they'll keep moving forward. Uh, not how it works. Every week, I hear from professionals who have the experience, skills, and background to do the job. They get the recruiter call. Then they never hear from the company again. They assume they weren't qualified. Or, they're totally confused because they believed they were qualified. Hint: They were. So, what gives? Today, we dive into one of the most misunderstood parts of the hiring process and why good candidates get stonewalled before they get to the hiring manager. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:   1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Most people spend a lot of time thinking about what they want. A better job. A bigger paycheck. More freedom. But very few people ever stop to calculate the cost of not getting it. Not next year. This year. And the year after that. And the year after that. That's what got me thinking. What if the biggest expense in your life isn't something you're paying for? What if it's something you're not doing? In this week's lesson, I'm walking you through a simple exercise that will completely change how you think about your career, your growth, and daily choices. Because sometimes the most expensive decisions are the ones that don't feel like decisions at all. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:   1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

If your job search feels harder than it should, it's probably not because you're underqualified, bad at interviewing, or missing the goods. It's more likely… 👉 You're asking each step of the job search to do too much. Choosing the perfect role before understanding the possibilities that exist or how to evaluate them. Eliminating companies before having conversations. Using a résumé to explain your lovable personality and leadership style. Re-selling skills during interviews instead of explaining the results you'll help the company achieve. Explaining what you want during negotiation instead of focusing on what they get. You get the idea. Each step has a purpose. When you overload those purposes with extra expectations, the entire process gets heavier and slower than it needs to be. That's exactly what I break down in this week's lesson. I'll show you how to simplify each stage of the process so your job search becomes clearer, more effective, and a whole lot easier to manage. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:  1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

Sometimes an interview is an hour. Sometimes it's several rounds stretched across multiple days. And sometimes you finally get time with the hiring manager… and the calendar invite says 30 minutes. That's when many job seekers make the same mistake. They think I need to cram everything in. So they start walking through their résumé, overexplaining their background, stacking story after story, and trying to prove every qualification they've ever had. But that's not what a 30-minute interview with the hiring manager is about. The hiring manager is not trying to memorize your entire career history. They're trying to make a few key decisions quickly: Do I like this person? Do they fit our team and environment? Can they help us achieve our goals? What will they actually be like to work with? Today's lesson covers THE 4 areas you absolutely must win when you only have 30 minutes with the hiring manager. Because when the interview window is short, quality beats volume every time. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:   1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

One of the biggest mistakes job candidates make is thinking the interview is only about what they say. So they spend all their time preparing answers and trying to sound impressive. Meanwhile… The interviewers are reacting, signaling, judging, connecting, disengaging, leaning in, checking out, growing skeptical, getting interested, and making real-time decisions based on how they feel. Most job candidates never notice any of it. They walk out thinking, That went pretty well. Then they never hear back. Ouch. Strong candidates don't just answer questions. 💥 They read people. They understand what's going on inside the room while the interview is happening. That's what I'm going to help you do in this week's lesson. Sorta like giving you Coach Andy's X-ray interview goggles. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

One of the biggest mistakes professionals make is assuming that because a company is hiring… the company must be healthy. Uh, sadly, no. Sometimes they're putting fresh paint on the walls and didn't bother to patch the concrete underneath. Today, I have a short, but powerful lesson on how to evaluate whether you're joining a company that's going up… Or is sinking, but just doesn't know it yet. Of course, no one has a crystal ball. But as your dear ole' Coach Andy likes to say… I can see around corners because I know what to look for. In the next 5+ minutes, you too will have my see-around-the-corner goggles. Just ask a few questions and you'll know whether their needle is moving up or down. Smart professionals don't just evaluate the job. They evaluate the future of the company offering it. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:   1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy

I want to discuss one of the most important decisions you make in a job interview. It happens before you ever start speaking. It's not how you tell your story. It's which story you choose. Most candidates default to the example they like the most. The one they're most proud of. The one that feels the most impressive. But that's not what determines whether it lands. The story that sells you best is the one that fixes what's hurting them right now. When you choose the right story, your value becomes immediate and obvious. You don't have to work as hard to explain it. You don't have to hope they connect the dots. They see it. In this week's lesson, I share a powerful analogy that'll help you identify which story will score highest in an interview so you can make your impact clear from the start. If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings: 1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums. 2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel. 3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page. 4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook. 5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here! --Andy