Guest: Jim Citrin, Best Selling Author & Senior Leader, Spencer Stuart | Standing Out in a Competitive Job Market

In this episode of Top of the Pile, host Karen Elders sits down with Jim Citrin, one of the nation’s foremost experts on leadership and career success. As leader of Spencer Stuart’s CEO practice, Jim has advised boards and CEOs on more than 850 top leadership searches over the past 25 years. He brings a wealth of experience as a former McKinsey consultant, Goldman Sachs associate, and bestselling author of eight books, including The Career Playbook, which offers invaluable guidance for young professionals navigating the early stages of their careers.

Together, Karen and Jim explore the realities of today’s competitive job market, where internship and entry-level acceptance rates at top firms rival Ivy League admissions. Jim shares strategies for standing out among hundreds of applicants, emphasizing the importance of clarity, persistence, and developing what he calls the “career triangle” of job satisfaction, compensation, and lifestyle. The conversation highlights how young professionals can proactively balance these factors throughout their careers.

They also dive into practical advice on relationship-building, networking (or as Jim prefers to call it, “authentic connection”), and mastering the art of interviewing. From creating strong first impressions to asking thoughtful, well-researched questions, Jim breaks down the habits that set top candidates apart. Throughout the discussion, both Karen and Jim stress the value of curiosity, resilience, and self-awareness—qualities that help young professionals build momentum early in their careers.

This episode is filled with timeless advice, practical strategies, and inspiration for anyone looking to launch their career and stay at the "Top of the Pile".

Here are a few links to key items mentioned:

The Career Playbook by Jim Citrin

Interviewing to live, living to interview, article by Jim Citrin

Girl Effect, a non-profit, aims to unlock the power of girls and end poverty globally

LAUNCH Career Strategies was founded by Karen Elders and Elyse Spalding. We help young professionals launch a successful career path with expert coaching services. Reach out today for an initial FREE coaching session.
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Transcript

Karen Elders: Welcome back to Top of the Pile. My guest today is Jim Citrin, one of the country's top experts on leadership and career success. He leads Spencer Stewart's CEO practice and has worked on more than 850 top leadership executive and board searches over the past 25 years. He's a former McKinsey consultant and Goldman Sachs associate. And is a bestselling author of eight books, including The Career Playbook, which focuses on career advice for young professionals. So right in the wheelhouse of top of the Pile. His insights have been featured on the Today show, the wall Street Journal, and about a million people follow him on LinkedIn. So very much a thought leader. Graduated from Vassar College and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. He is on the board of the International Tennis Hall of Fame and an incredible organization called Girl Effect. You should check it out, an international organization dedicated to the health and wellness of adolescent girls. Jim is a dear friend and it is a tremendous honor today to have him as my guest. So welcome, Jim. 

Jim Citrin: Thank you, Karen. I am so happy to be here. We've been talking about this stuff since we've known each other, and for both of us, this is a passion. I'm excited to have that conversation. 

Karen Elders: Awesome. , so you've obviously had incredible success advising top brands and organizations on their top leadership at that end of the company. But at the other end, you also share a passion with me, as you say, helping guide these young folks as they enter their career journey. Alright, let's jump in. One of the first things that I feel is good to talk about is I hear constantly from people Ugh, this is such a tough job market. It is, it's very competitive. A couple of stats I'm gonna throw in there. If you're in finance, Goldman Sachs received over 315,000 applications for its 2024 summer internship program. They hired 2,600 of them, which is an acceptant rate acceptance rate of 0.8%. Harvard's admission rate is 3.6. Top management consulting firms hire under 2% entry-level marketing roles. Very common to get three to 400 applications in the first 24 hours. I don't say these stats to depress people, but I think there are a number of reasons why these numbers are what they are. And I think Jim is gonna share a lot of great advice with us today on how to separate yourself despite these daunting numbers. So after all that I throw to you what is your, or what are your thoughts on today's job market? 

Jim Citrin: There's a thought, Karen, that today's job market is. More challenging, more competitive than it's ever been, and that statement has been true for the last 40 years, and it'll be true for the next 40 years. Things get more and more competitive and more challenging. There are some structural things that are going on right now for college grads or young people in their twenties. It's a pretty robust market. The unemployment rate is three or 4%. It's not graduating into a real recession coming outta the financial crisis in 2008. That was tough. But still, the macro factors have a big effect when you talk about the number of applications for these internship programs. Yes, the numbers are daunting, as they are for the top colleges and universities, but also there are things going on where people apply to many more programs, and it's always been competitive there too. , when I wrote the career playbook in 2015, I had all those same statistics. Back then. Harvard's acceptance rate was 4%, but even entry-level positions at the American Red Cross were under 2%. Johnson and Johnson was 1%. So it's always been competitive. It's now a matter of finding a way to get noticed, to focus on the things that you think you'll be great at, and we'll talk about some strategies on how to do that. As you say, it's not to be depressing, but it's hard, and therefore you need the edge. That top of the pile will hopefully help everyone get insights into. 

Karen Elders: It's so true, and I think that even before AI easy apply, and the fact that these it's college applications. It's much easier to apply to colleges these days. And. It makes people rely on quantity versus quality and that spray and pray method that is common. I'm constantly coaching young people away from that mindset. I applied to a hundred jobs last week. So I, I think also to set up, or some of these foundational ideas. I call it the Citrin Triangle, but it's the career triangle that Jim references in his Career Playbook book, and it does test stay on the test of time. And I thought maybe if you could speak to where you came up with that and what it's about. I think that would be a great thing for people to understand. 

Jim Citrin: Super. So I do call it the career triangle, and this is something that is so simple, but I think it's a helpful framework for everyone thinking about the right job and where they are in their career. And here's the thing, there are three factors that are often at war with one another about jobs. And we want them all. We want all three. What are those three? Job satisfaction. We want job satisfaction. Something where you can have an impact, where you can grow, where you can be stimulated, and it's the inherent quality of what you're doing. Number two, compensation money. Money's very important as a way to live and how you go about through life, and that's salary potential for bonus or commissions or if you're in a sale thing, or equity. If you're in a company that does equity. And then third is lifestyle. And lifestyle are things not only the obvious of do you have to commute or do you get to work from home, or is it a hybrid? What are the hours what is the G, what's the location? And then also how much control over your schedule do you So you can, within each of those three things, I think you can put everything about what you want in a job into one of those three categories. Here's the fact, it's almost a reality. You can try and have those three things, but it's hard to get all three things at the same point in time. And what I've seen, and I've studied this, is that. At different points of your career. If you're coming out of college, you're obviously not gonna get the compensation that you will be later in life. You might have to work if you're in finance or in other highly tech, highly demanding things. You might have to work 70 or 80 hours a week or suck it up. To do that, you might have to say look, I'm not passionate about something, but. I have gotta pay off my student loans and I wanna be with my family. Alright. I'm gonna subjugate what I'm passionate, or if you say I'm mission driven, I wanna work in something that is helping people Girl Effect. You mentioned Karen. I'm on the board. This is an amazing organization that serves 20 million adolescent girls in health and wellness and health with information. It's a not-for-profit. You can work for not-for-profit that you're passionate about, but you're not gonna make the money. So those three things are at odds with one another. And the key is to recognize that and then to proactively manage that and to say, , for the next couple of years I might opt, I might optimize for one, or I might move to a different location, and all of that. So it's those three things that form the career triangle. 

Karen Elders: That's great and I think the other things you mentioned in the book, which is a good piece of advice as well, is that in that first phase of early career, which by the way, I think some people think that's the first year or two you're working, but I would say it's much longer than that. At least five to seven, maybe even 10 years that you're working where you're in that first stage, if you focus on learning and learning skills, learning how to be a professional and building your, for lack of better terms, brand in the world of you're a dependable person, you work hard, and all of those key things. So I think another piece that's a central part of my coaching is talking about networking and the importance of it. So I'd love to get your thoughts on that skill and how it matters in a job search 

Jim Citrin: When people. Confront the statistics that we talked about, the hundreds of thousands of applicants and the low acceptance rates. We haven't even talked about trying to reply to a post, a job post on LinkedIn or somewhere else. It's extremely difficult to get a job that way. It's not impossible, and you do have to go through that process at some point, but. Most jobs are gotten through referrals and recommendations. And here's a couple of things to keep in mind. Someone somewhere has to advocate for you, even when you think back to if those of you went to college when you put your college application in the admissions officers. They read applications and then they are all advocating for you. If you are an entry level applicant, someone in human resources or in talent acquisition has to advocate for you. So nothing happens without having the ability to have someone get what you can bring to the table and then advocate for you, the better. The best way to do it is through relationship building. Yes. Let's call it networking. Personally, Karen, as we've talked about over time, I don't love the term networking because it sounds a little sleazy a little bit. It sounds a little anxious and it's oh, go to a networking thing and what are you getting out? What I to do in my brain and what I recommend is think about it as relationship building, recognizing that someone has to advocate for you to, for something so most other. Jobs, as I said, are gotten through recommendations, but it's not through first order contacts. It's your friend of your folks or your college roommate, something. It's usually a second order. Contact someone who you are introduced to by someone who knows you, who then can be in a position to help. And so that relationship building, you'll only get recommended to the second person who's gonna be in a position to help by someone who cares about you, who's got some investment in your success, and usually based on people or if it's fellow alumni of the same university you may have gone to, or friends from the HO from your hometown. The key is to. It's to ask for help and it's better to ask for advice rather than asking for a job. And most people, most young people know that. It's Hey, Karen, can I get together and spend 15 minutes so I can get your advice about my job search? That's a better question than, Hey Karen, I'm looking for an entry level job in marketing. Can you help me? And the answer is probably not. Most people to give advice. But in order to have them help you, you need to help them help you by being crisp in what you are looking to do and why, and it's gotta be encapsulated in a couple of sentences. I've been, ever since I've been a person, ever since I've been a young person, been passionate about. Sports and I played high school sports and so I want a career in sports, so anything that or I care about nutrition and so I'm looking to join a food company in a entry level program where I can learn the science of food and how to market it or whatever it is you need to lead the horse to water a little bit and have them know so that then if they hear. It's oh, I was at a party and someone was saying, I'm looking for someone from my food company and say, oh, I met this great young person who I was introduced to who's passionate about food, and that's how the connection happens. So that's the way to think about it as an ongoing process of relationship building and building out your network that. 

Karen Elders: It's great. It's great. And I to tell. I think one of the biggest things with that is for young people to take this message to heart that you're not bothering anyone and you're bothering someone if you do what you say, which is you're not doing the homework beforehand. And being self-aware and thinking about what you bring to the table and how maybe that person can help you. But otherwise you can't be afraid. And if you reach out once, oh, they didn't respond, you have to try again. Give it a few weeks at least. Don't be afraid. I think that's a big thing I hear and by the way, this is your time, this is your moment when people to help a young person, right? Yeah. Use that chit now. But Jim's right it's, there's a whole study called The Power of Loose Ties by Mark Granovetter, who's a, I think it was a Harvard sociologist. But I think the pitch is so important and , I don't know, not to be afraid. The data will show that over 85% of jobs are gotten through connections of some sort, so that power of loose ties. And so I always tell clients that means you should spend 80% of your time networking and informational calls. Then the balance of your time is applying to jobs and. There's gonna be a little bit of quantity in there, but I love that. And so I think you need to be ready to give that pitch, by the way, in the grocery store at, your parents have some friends over or and also, one last thing I wanna add on that is I always to get the young people to put together, I call it an EMS list, which is early, mid, senior, and. focus on that early career, meaning people who are zero to 10 years ahead of you in their career as opposed to , Mr. And Mrs. That, know your parents because the young crowd is they're in the trenches. They know what it's to interview what the company's all about, what they did it. So I think that's, I think that's important too. Do you agree? 

Jim Citrin: Onr hundred percent. And there is almost ironic that. You think that you need the highest level introductions, recommendations to help get jobs? I'll tell you this from personal experience. Based on the work that I am privileged to do at Spencer Stewart, I work with lots of CEOs and boards and CHROs and for my own kids and who are now in their young thirties and their friends late twenties and thirties. I have always been eager to make high level introductions to people who I know, but what they've all found is that, yeah, it's great to get a, an introduction to a CEO of a company, but they're not gonna hire someone who's in their twenties or coming out of college. It's the people who are three years ahead of you, five years ahead of you. Who are saying, here's the reality. Here's how to get in here. Here's what to look for, and they're the more one in position to help. But coming at it from the top, from the bottom, it's all about having those conversations. 

Karen Elders: Yeah, you gotta, as I say, knock on the door and ring the doorbell and check every back door and side door. But they, what, the other thing that young people should be realize, and I'm sure this, is there's something called a referral bonus, which means, I'm 28, 30, whatever it is, I'm into my career a few years and I refer you. Young person that's come that I've said, I will send your resume into hr. There's often, $2000, 3000, sometimes more cash bonus if that person gets hired. So that's a real, that's real money in someone's pocket. So they have a vested interest in an, in a financial way to help you. Jim, how about on that note, let's say you, you get. The interview you could ask for a first round interview, whatever. What do, what is your advice around some real, critical pieces of the interview process and making a positive first impression? 

Jim Citrin: The art of the interview. Interviewing is still the, where the rubber meets the road in the job process and having the ability to interview well. Is essential. It's also a skill music or math or shooting. Baskets are a skill you can practice and know that you can get better with intentionality. Here are a few real. Not secrets, but facts about interviewing. Having done this, I wrote a post that, we might put in the link at some point. This article that I wrote called Interviewing to Live, living to interview on my whole life of interviewing. And I've done now probably over 15,000 interviews and I , there's been a lot of research on interviews, but here's a couple of things that. If there's nothing else from this podcast that I want you to take away, I want you to take away these two secrets and tricks about interviewing. Number one, interviewers tend to make up their minds much faster than you might realize. They'll make up their minds in the first two to three minutes of a 30 or a 60 minute interview. It's Ooh, do I wanna hire this person? This is science. People and Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Blink. Daniel Kahneman wrote a book called Picking Fast and Slow. Its first impressions, and when you meet friends or something, you'll make an instantaneous decision, but in an interview setting. Hiring managers, literally in the first two or three minutes, whether they are aware of it or not, they will decide, oh, Karen Elders, she's smart. I her background. I want to do this. And then they spend the next 27 minutes of the 30 minute interview and interview looking for data to support the decision that they may have already subconsciously made. So having a very strong opening, a first impression if it's in person looking someone in the eye, a handshake.Mrs. Elders, it's great to meet you. I'm excited for this conversation, as simple as that. And then in the first question, it's tell me what about top of the pile, or Tell me what about whatever the opening is, having a very first strong thing. Or, tell me about yourself. So that's the first piece. Then the second place where people make decisions is at the end and most interviews in the last five or seven minutes, the interviewer will say, so John, what questions do you have for me? And as a young person, it's easy to say, oh no, I'm good. You've you've been very generous with your time.I'm good. That's the worst thing you can do, because they're not doing that to be nice. They're looking for how you're thinking about their organization and the role, and so this is a total hack. Come into whatever interview with three or four questions that you've written down on a piece of paper, on your phone or whatever, so that when they say, inevitably, what questions do you have for me? You say I've done some research and I've got a lot of questions, but if I have time, I've got three important questions. The interview will be , , they'll take you very seriously. How do you develop great questions? Of course you can do all the research on the company and you can try and analyze what their strategy is and do all of that, and you can do that. That could take hours and you probably don't have hours. So if you have seven minutes to prepare for an interview, here's how, what the best thing you can do For the seven minutes, go online and. Whatever organization in the search bar and say you're interviewing at Goldman Sachs or Experian or Dun in Bradstreet. Put in the name of the company and then put Dun in Bradstreet, CEO and a. And what'll come up on that is the interviews that CEO has done on CNBC or at Reuters on the New York Times professionals. Journalists will be, they spend hours doing that and take some of those questions that professionals have asked them and put it in your own words. Understand the questions so you don't sound you're a robot, but they'll say, holy cow, he asked the best questions. That's what gets you the job, is a good first impression. Whatever the narrative is in the course of the interview, but then a strong close with wow. She did her homework. She asked incredibly insightful questions. So that's the interview hack for you. 

Karen Elders: That's awesome. I love that because I think so often we forget. And the other thing you'll, when you watch that interview, maybe it's a, maybe it's a podcast you're gonna listen to or maybe there's a podcast with a V video component, but you also get to see. A little bit of the culture, the mission and all the other things about a company that might not be come through in an article, written article. And you get to hear how they are. They set this the tone for the company. And I love that idea. I think that is such a hack. 

Jim Citrin: So to give you a, to make this come to life. So I was doing the same conversation with the with one of the. Best friends graduating from University of Wisconsin of one of our kids, and he was interviewing at this financial services company and he was he got into the interview and we talked about doing the homework and all of that. He watched a video podcast of the CEO and this company had completed a big merger. And the CEO was talking about the culture of the acquired company and the. The parent company and the challenge of bringing them together. And so this very clever young man took that question, turned it into his own question about, I'm curious about the culture of the organization. But by the way, that's a fine question, but that's not a great question. That's generic. He said. I understand that you, that your company made this big acquisition, and I understand that there was a real clash of cultures between yours and acquiring company. What's winning out in that and what does that mean for me as a potential entry level employee about how to fit in and thrive in your culture? The interviewer was , holy cow. No one had done that. And the knowledge of that merger and then relating it back to himself. He got the job. We're now in August. It's he's finished his first two weeks in the company and off to a great start. 

Karen Elders: I think there's such a theme in basically everything we're talking about. There's certainly a quantity theme in that network relationship. Build a lot, but, and don't be afraid to talk to people that you might think, oh, what could they do for me? Or How can they help me? Don't worry about that. But the quality piece is. age old wisdom of do your homework and do your research. And I think a lot of people will also throw out cover letters even and resumes and , mass produced and then they get an interview or they don't get an interview. And I think it's because they haven't sold. This their own story and or why they should, why should we talk to you? What? And if you haven't been able to convey your understanding of that company and your real desire to work there. And I will often say to young people even, what does that company do? What do they do? How do they make money? What, where do they sit in the landscape of the competition? What is it about that company? Why do you wanna work there? And they'll say, I don't know. I think they're hiring. And it's, I get it, you wanna get a job. But I think the quality piece of doing the homework and having a little bit of. Be a little more discerning in how, what you're, how deep you're going on learning of these companies. And that is a great example of someone who took the time. And that's a little bit of a shortcut, which is nice. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Alright, so I don't wanna take all of Jim's day here, but I think, I don't know if there's anything last. I guess one more thing that comes to mind from you saying that is that hiring managers wanna hire someone who, it costs money to make a hire, right? So they wanna get it right. And whether the CEO or don't, that hiring manager is gonna come down to them. Do they see you as a positive energy of adding a positive value to the company? And I think. As an early career person conveying your curiosity and your eagerness to learn and obviously collaborative, that's more important than probably anything that you can prove as far as, maybe a hard skill or whatever it might be. I, I think that's, I feel that's something that is so critical. If you can show that you are open to learning. I think it's a big part of that first FA phase of your career. 

Jim Citrin: Without a doubt, Karen. So now you've got the job. Getting off to a fast start in the early parts of your career is important. I said in interviews, people make fast impressions and first impressions the same way in your first few weeks on the job and first few months, and then your first year. Simple things that we all know working hard in, in our interactive world. Being responsive, whether it's on your internal teams or email or text or whatever it is. Phone, be responsive to colleagues. Be an energy creator, not an energy drag. Be enthusiastic. Be curious. Be respectful of people's time, but don't be a wallflower. We finished our Spencer Stuart Summer intern program. And we had two of our summer interns and we have I maybe 50 around America. Two of them reached out to me one directly and one through their intern mentor, and they said, Hey, Jim can I spend 15 minutes on a call to. Give you my download from my internship experience and ask you three questions. Of course, I was gonna say yes. I did it to both of them and both asked great questions, told me about their experience, and expressed this positive curiosity about what we do in executive recruiting world and leadership development. And of course, you fall in love with this when young people are . Authentically interested and investing their time and reaching out. So to be honest, I hate rejection and as Karen said, as you said, Karen, in my, my, the nice intro I started as an associate at Goldman Sachs. That was a hard job to get outta business school. But it was in a, in the wealth management area. The early part of that career, you have to be reaching out to potential clients in a sales capacity and as great if brand as Goldman Sachs is. And it is, it's the best. You still get mostly turndowns and I , I didn't that at all and I didn't, you also have to know what you , but being thick-skinned about it and not taking it personally. Is important. It gives that resilience to keep going and it's the quality and a little quantity as well. 

Karen Elders: I , I love that story. It, I was gonna add in that it, it makes me think of Sheryl Sandberg's quote your career as a jungle gym, not a ladder.Yeah. And I think that would be true for yours. 

Jim Citrin: For sure. I'll end by. Sharing, again very open. The left and right turns that I've made. And this is something to be, to keep in mind. Most people graduating from college today will work for at least 10 more likely 15 organizations over the course of your career. Karen, when our parents were in their careers, it might have been two organizations, and with us it might be four or five. So the ability to. Learn, pivot, test, move from one thing to another is a important career skill. But I al also say that careers often make sense in retrospect. And you never know where one thing's gonna lead to the other. And it's fine when you're in your 40 fifties, sixties and look back and say, here's how it all worked. But when you're going through it, you have no idea. And so you have to do your best. Knowing you're gonna make left turns and right turns. The career triangle came to me back when I was, when it started, when I was at Goldman Sachs. When I was trying to, I came outta business school and I wanted to have a great life size a great lifestyle, make a lot of money and work for an organization that I respected and that was prestigious and that was all fine, but I learned because I didn't that selling and the rejection, and I didn't love investing. That job satisfaction is the actual, that's the right criteria. It's not prestige or is it cool or whatever. So that was one, one learning. But then I went to McKinsey in management consulting and I enjoyed it.I was there for five years and I was good at it. I don't know if I would've ever made top partner. Because the people that were geniuses and strategic savants and all that. And then I went into the media business. I was director of strategic planning at a global media company. Great role and decent money and decent lifestyle. But I wasn't good at the role of working in a company. Leading strategic planning, I wasn't that great at it. And so when I finally came to Spencer Stewart and met the people, I was self-reflective of what I'm good at, what I , where I could add value, and the culture in which I'm very comfortable. And it was a beautiful match, but I had left and right turns all the which way and everyone will. And now it all makes sense, in retrospect, as I said. But but as you're going through it, it's much harder, but you'll get it and applying these principles from the Top of the Pile, and you'll get these great jobs and you'll succeed in them. And you'll be hosting podcasts soon. 

Karen Elders: There you go. That's right. I, I think that it's those you've had self-awareness and you've been developing genuine. Important relationships that, so I think that's the main theme of all of this is the relationship building and that self-awareness. But, and the, and it's internal networking is what Jim was describing a few minutes ago, which is, don't forget when you get your job. Meet the person in accounting, meet the person in marketing, meet the person in all the departments that you don't work in. And I think that will make for a more a fuller experience and it, you learn so much. So that's one little last thing I thought of, but , there's so much. We may have to do a part two. It's fantastic anytime. I love it. 

Jim Citrin: But check out The Career Playbook that has great advice for the early 10. To 15 years in your career, how to get the job, how to get off to a great start. And but keep this up. And it's so fun, Karen, to visit with you again. This is a topic as we talked about, we both love. And if we can help lots of young people in their career journeys, doesn't get better than that. 

Karen Elders: It's awesome and I'm, I will link all of that in that article that you mentioned, the intro interview to Liv, I believe it was called.And some other pieces as well as the book, obviously. All right. Thank you so much, Jim. Appreciate it. 

Jim Citrin: Great. Thanks Karen. Always a pleasure.