What is it Like To Be a Nurse 0:58-7:48
ER Nurse Job Description 7:48-13:17
Nursing Careers For Those With Children 13:17-14:33
Pros of Being a Nurse 14:33-15:29
Challenges of Nursing Careers 15:29-16:40 and 19:15-19:55
Who Should Become a Nurse 16:40-17:38
Skills For Nursing 17:38-19:15
What Schooling Is Required To Become A Nurse 19:55-28:28
Nursing Shortage & Where Are Nurses Needed 28:28-31:52
Keys To Success for Nurses 31:52Careers Out There Host Marc Luber: Hey everyone – welcome to Careers Out There. I’m your host Marc Luber and we’re helping you find a career that fits you. In every episode of Careers Out There, we explore a career path by talking to a real professional who does that kind of work – and they’ll share with us what it’s really like – and then all kinds of advice to help you decide if it’s a path you want to pursue. In today’s episode, we’re looking at Nursing Careers and our guest is Kim McAllister. She’s an emergency room nurse in Northern California and a 30 year veteran of the nursing profession! She’s got a great blog that talks about the life and times of being an ER nurse – and it’s called Emergiblog. You can find it at Emergiblog.com. Kim’s got a lot to tell us about nursing careers so it’s gonna be a great episode. Stick around! [theme song] OK we’re back – Kim McAllister, welcome to Careers Out There.ER Nurse Kim McAllister: Hi. Thanks for having me!

[WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A NURSE starts at 0:58]
Luber: Definitely. Thank you for being here. We had a great talk on the phone the other day and you were telling me how a lot of people don’t really understand nursing – that they see it on TV and they really get the wrong impression of what nursing is. Can you tell us about that and tell us what nursing REALLY is like?

Kim McAllister: Yeah. The impression you get from TV is that nursing is basically non-existent and they don’t do anything but basically hover in the background, and that’s not the case. Nursing is not like what you see on TV at all. Nursing is extremely hard work. It’s basically the backbone of the healthcare profession. Nursing is a really demanding profession. Nurses do everything – from resuscitating a trauma patient to teaching health to school kids; from delivering babies to working with the elderly in a skilled nursing facility; from working on a med search floor passing medications and caring for maybe 4 or 5 patients a night to being the sole nurse responsible for a very critical patient in an intensive care unit. And through all that, we might be doing anything from a blood pressure to maybe doing CPR and saving a patient’s life, putting in an IV or dealing with a patient who’s on ten IV drips that are saving his life. In the ER, I might be doing something as simple as consoling a child who’s crying and putting a band-aid on a boo-boo, literally! Or I might be defibrillating, shocking someone’s chest. So nurses do a variety of things but we’re the ones who are there at the bedside actually providing the care that the patient needs. One of the main things nursing is responsible for is teaching. And that’s teaching the patient about their illness, about their medications, about how the illness will affect their life, but most importantly how to take better care of themselves – because nursing just doesn’t focus on the illness. Nursing also focuses on health. It’s a very, very rewarding profession. And it’s one of the most trusted professions. In fact, it is THE most trusted profession. We have been voted the most trusted profession yearly. We lost to the firefighters in 2001 but the next year we got it back! We are privy to the most intimate aspects of a patient’s life from the depths of depression to the highest joys and that’s really, really a rewarding aspect of the career. And then if you’re gonna go to the practical side of it, it’s good pay for the most part, depends on where you are in the country, good pay, good benefits, flexibility with scheduling and there’s no reason to be bored when you’re a nurse because there’s a lot of different specialties that you can go into.

Luber: Now I want to share with the audience the same thing I shared with you on the phone – just my personal experience with nursing. I’ve talked a lot about my mom’s death on the website and how she died of cancer in 2002 in her 50s and she spent a full month, before going into hospice at the end, living in a hospital going through all kinds of treatment. So I was spending a lot of time at the hospital and I was blown away by how hard the nurses worked. I really never had any idea how much of just an intense, serious job – and the two things that I walked away with the most – the 2 things I think about are: hard work and caring. They treated my mom, depending on their age, like either she was their sister or mother. I was so moved by that, you know, after she passed away I had to go back and I bought them this giant Hallmark card just saying “thank you”. And I never thought I would do that [because I didn’t want to see the hospital again at that point] but I was so impressed by how much they acted like they cared -whether it was real or a great acting job. They acted like they cared and they made her feel that way. And they worked hard at lifting and hauling her around and getting her out of bed into a wheelchair and taking her to different appointments and handling her food and keeping her comfortable – everything – bathroom obligations, all kinds of stuff. Very, very impressive. It is an amazing career. Very respectable career. So, I just wanted to share my personal thing there. At least 20 of your 30-plus years in nursing have been in the ER – in emergency rooms – but you’ve also worked in other areas. Tell us about some of the other areas of nursing you’ve worked in.

Kim McAllister: I actually started out briefly working a medical surgical unit at a VA hospital, so I had a little bit of general floor experience and then went into coronary care. That was a wonderful experience. I got to know the ins and outs of working with heart patients. Moved into intensive care and from there one day I thought “I’ll never go into ER, why would anybody want to do that, how frightening could that be, oh my goodness” and we had a low census in the hospital and they said “hey – you can go down and just kind of help out in the emergency room. Orient down there for a couple of days and then if the census is low, you can help out down there”. And so I did and I fell in love with it. Over the years, when I felt like I needed to take a break from the emergency room, felt a little burnout coming in, I moved in to psychiatry and worked in the psych unit for 2 and a half years. That was a fantastic experience. Then moved in for a little while, about ten years later, did some pediatric – in a pediatric clinic for a while. Both of those things helped me when I went back – and I always go back – into the emergency department.

Luber: I think that’s great that you can move around. It really helps to keep the career fresh. Would you tell people that are considering the career that basically in times of hiring you really can transfer around and use your skills in different ways?

Kim McAllister: Absolutely. I think you learn more if you do go to different facilities and you work in different areas. For me it helped because in ER you see everything and you deal with everything anyway. Kind of in ER you’re a jack of all trades anyway. You deal with psych, you deal with pediatrics, you deal with coronary care. So any experience you have in other areas all translate to emergency eventually.

[ER NURSE JOB DESCRIPTION starts at 7:48]

Luber: Um, I just want to say for people listening just on audio, there might be a slight buzz on the audio. That’s just coming from a fan in the computer. We’re not able to get that sound down so hopefully it’s not a distraction to anybody! We are aware of it and just ignore it if you can! Thank you and hopefully you don’t even hear it! Kim, tell us about being an ER nurse – specifically an ER nurse. What’s a typical day for an ER nurse?

Kim McAllister: A typical day in the ER is that there is no typical day in the ER! Every day is different and you really can’t – I always say you can’t appreciate a nice, quiet day in the ER until it’s over because you never know what you’re gonna get. But a usual day when you come in is you basically dive right in. There’s no easy segue in to the shift. When you come in, you walk right out into the department, into the melee that’s in progress and you get your report sort of on the fly from the nurse who you’re relieving and you just basically dive right in! You have an assignment basically at – in California now with the nurse-patient ratios, that’s about 3 to 4 patients, depending on the assignment. You go get report from the nurse who you’re relieving and then I immediately go right in and say “hi” to every one of those patients just to eyeball them, what’s going on, and just get an idea of where they’re at immediately. And it sounds very simple, but for the next 8 hours, I basically am taking care of those patients, discharging and then moving. And the whole idea of ER is patient flow. So you move the patients, you get them in, you take care of them as efficiently and as quickly as possible – now that doesn’t mean rushing – that just means making sure that the labs are done efficiently, that if they’re being admitted that they get up to their room as soon as possible. It’s much more comfortable for them to be up in a regular room than sitting down on that ER gurney for very long. Discharging them as soon as possible so they can get out and get moving and the next patient can come in. So basically you’re doing that for 8 hours. Of course in the middle of all that, you’ve got the patients who are going to have cardiac arrest, emergent situations, have patients that come in with an emergency that need to be seen right away and bump the patients that have been in the waiting room, so you never know.

Luber: So are you the one deciding ? If someone’s coming in, are you looking at them and saying “you’re worse off than this guy over here – you’re coming to the front of the line.” Is it kind of like that?

Kim McAllister: The triage nurse will do that.

Luber: OK.

Kim McAllister: And if the triage nurse says “you’re coming to the front of the line” and I’ve got the empty bed, I’m where that patient is gonna go. And once that patient gets to my room, I’m responsible for doing a full physical assessment on that patient, hooking them up to the cardiac monitors so I can see their heart tracing, getting a full set of vital signs. If they’re a critical patient or in a lot of pain, I’m responsible for getting in an IV so they can get pain medication. I draw blood from that, I make sure the proper tests are ordered, the blood gets t the lab, I’m responsible for monitoring those results and making sure the physician sees the critical results, I monitor any IV fluids that are ordered on that patient, I monitor – this is really important – the patient’s pain level. What it is when they come in, what it is within a half an hour to an hour after I give pain medicine, I monitor their visitors, their family, how they’re reacting to the patient and how the patient’s reacting to them…And what I basically look for is it’s all about the patient and how they’re responding. How they’re responding to the treatments and how they respond to the eventual diagnosis. So I’m not only dealing with the patient, I’m also dealing with the family, I’m dealing with all the ancillary departments: the physicians, the pharmacists, the radiology department, the housekeepers, it’s a healthcare team. And the nurse is basically the backbone of that team.

Luber: Now you’re not in a county hospital, right? You’re not dealing with gunshots and gangs and violence and all the crazy stuff, right?

Kim McAllister: No. If we get any gunshots it’s rare. In my facility they’ll be like walk-ins, so we’re not part of the knife and gun club where I work. I’ve mostly stayed in moderate sized community hospitals, not county, trauma centers or anything like that. So the big action takes place there.

Luber: So if someone watching right now is thinking of going into THAT kind of a situation, would it be just a more intense, crazy kind of pace compared to what you’re dealing with? Just more crazy stuff but an otherwise similar situation?

Kim McAllister: Yup. More of the same. They would get the walk-ins, the family type patients, the clinic patients, the abdominal pain patients, just more of that and then more of the intense trauma, more ambulance trauma, more ambulance traffic.

Luber: OK. And when you’re talking about an 8 hour shift, I believe you said you work the night shift, is that right?

Kim McAllister: Yes.

Luber: So what does that mean?

Kim McAllister: I work from 11pm to 7am. At least in my facility, it’s those hours.

Luber: OK. And so you’re up all night.

Kim McAllister. Yes.

Luber: And then you need to sleep during the day I assume?

Kim McAllister: Yes.

[NURSING CAREERS FOR THOSE WITH CHILDREN starts at 13:17]
Luber: But you’re a mom! So how did you raise children doing that and can other people watching who are thinking of going this route, do something like that? Tell us about that whole path.

Kim McAllister: Actually I’m a night person by nature, so for me it was the shift to choose. And frankly, it’s an easier shift to work when you’re raising a family than it is to work, say, the evening shift. I actually saw my kids. I could work all night, come home, get them off to school, sleep and then see them and actually have a life with my family in the evening before I went to work at night. I was chronically sleep-deprived, I’ll grant you that, but it was doable. Harder is when you’re working 3-11, the evening shift, because then you’re gone. You get them off to school in the morning, you’re gone when they get home and in bed when you get back. But it’s [night shift] definitely doable. And nursing is nice because in most places you can get full benefits for working part time. So you’re not necessarily required to work full time to get those benefits. So…

[PROS OF BEING A NURSE starts at 14:33]
Luber: That’s great. Yeah, that’s a really good thing. What would you say is the most rewarding part of being a nurse?

Kim McAllister: For me it’s knowing that I’m making a difference in somebody’s life every single day. And it doesn’t matter – yes, the shift can be hectic, it can be chaotic, it could be just the most horrible, busy, you feel like you’re sinking under all the workload every night, but when I walk out in the morning, I know I made a difference in somebody’s life somehow that night. They felt better or I made their stay in the emergency department easier because I was there. And to me that’s the most rewarding part. My work means something.

[CHALLENGES OF NURSING CAREERS starts at 15:29]

Luber: Yup. That has to be very, very rewarding. It’s gotta be great. What would you say, then, is the most challenging part?

Kim McAllister: Dealing with people at their worst. Because people who are ill are scared. Their family members are scared. Often times, you know, it’s not the patient that’s the hardest to deal with – it’s the family members, who are all so scared. And they don’t often come across as scared – they come across as angry, or they come across as short, or they come across as, to use a slang term, control freaks. So you’re dealing with many, many different personalities and family dynamics all the time – and that’s the most challenging – it’s coming in to a situation – and in the ER you’re coming in to many different situations every shift – getting a grip on the family dynamics and working within those dynamics to help that patient.

Luber: I can see that for sure. It’s gotta be – it’s a juggling game, right? Because every single situation is different.

Kim McAllister: Definitely.

[WHO SHOULD BECOME A NURSE starts at 16:40]
Luber: What about the right type of person for a nursing career? Let’s start with personality. Is there a certain personality type that you see fit best for nursing?

Kim McAllister: Almost any personality type can become – will work well with nursing – because there are so many nursing specialties out there. Any personality type will find their niche in nursing. The type of personality that gravitates to ER and critical care will be a different type of personality than will gravitate to OBGYN or pediatrics. You’ll find your place and you’ll gravitate to the area of nursing that fits you best. So I would say any personality type can be a nurse.

Luber: So anybody watching that means can….

Kim McAllister: Absolutely. Absolutely. There is a place for you in nursing.

[SKILLS FOR NURSING starts at 17:38]
Luber: Nice! What about skill sets, then. What kind of skill sets would you say someone should really be bringing to the table?

Kim McAllister: I would say you need to be detail-oriented. You can be a perfectionist – it helps – it’s not required but it helps. Most nurses I know have a little bit of OCD in them somewhere. I would say you need to be willing – you need to be smart. Nursing has a heavy, heavy knowledge-base that’s very heavy in the sciences. You need to have an interest in science. If the thought of biology and chemistry and physiology and you’re thinking “ugh”, sorry, you may want to look elsewhere – nursing is heavy, heavy science-based. Good communication skills: written and verbal.

Luber: Being able to talk to all those families, all those different people passing through?

Kim McAllister: Yup. Exactly. And I think you need to have a little bit – I call it emotional maturity, and a lot of that can come with experience. But you need to be able to keep your cool in very tense, very heated situations, because you’ll come across those pretty frequently as a nurse, whether it’s a family situation or a physician situation, and you have to keep your cool. And if you can do that then you’ll do well.

Luber: And a lot of decision-making?

Kim McAllister: Oh, every day. Every minute of every day.

Luber: Yeah.

Kim McAllister: Exactly.

[CHALLENGES OF NURSING CAREERS – PART 2 starts at 19:15]

Luber: Let’s weed some people out. Let’s say “if you can’t handle this, don’t even think about being a nurse, don’t even consider it”. What would that be?

Kim McAllister: If you can’t handle multi-tasking. And I’m talking extreme multi-tasking. In any area of nursing, don’t even try – because that is probably the one thing that a nurse is doing from the time he or she steps in to his unit until they leave. They are multi-tasking.

[WHAT SCHOOLING IS REQUIRED TO BECOME A NURSE starts at 19:55]

Luber: Very good. That’s important. OK. Hear that everybody – multi-tasking! Make sure you can do it! If someone’s thinking that they’d be a good fit for this – they can multi-task, they can do all the other things we’ve talked about, and they’re really interested in nursing, they want to go this route: maybe they’re in high school right now or maybe they’ve already started college. Are there certain classes you would recommend they start taking now?

Kim McAllister: Yeah. If you’re in high school and college both, head for the science department. Biology, chemistry. If your high school offers anatomy and physiology, get in on the ground floor. Go ahead and take it. Take all the science you possibly can: life sciences particularly, and math. Everything you can take, everything you can get, both in high school and in college to start because those will be the pre-requisites for all the nursing programs and classes.

[BSN DEGREES starts at 20:46]

Luber: So then when you go with those pre-requisites and you go to a nursing program, you could be going for an Associate’s Degree or a Bachelor’s Degree. I think this is really interesting about your path. You got your Associate’s Degree in Nursing [ADN] back in the late 1970s, but it wasn’t until 2010, just 1 year ago, when you got your Bachelor’s [BSN]! So you worked all those years and then you JUST went back to school. So it’s like you’re proof that it’s never too late to go back!

Kim McAllister: Nope! You can go back to school when you have gray hair and get your Bachelor’s degree. Yeah, I did! I applied to an Associate Degree program: Maloney in Freemont, got in on the first try, which doesn’t happen nowadays, and I thought I was proud of that ADN and I didn’t need a Bachelor’s and that was that. And then in the course of my blogging, I started reading blogs from student nurses and they got me all excited about nursing. With online and computers and everything, I found Green Bay’s BSN program, the University of Wisconsin, and I did it on line. And I realized – it was an epiphany that how much more I grew as a nurse with the Bachelor’s degree. And it floored me.

Luber: Yeah, I want to learn about that. I want to go back to one thing – you mentioned that people aren’t getting in on the first try nowadays for the Associate’s Degree program. Is that because there are so many people applying to nursing programs? Is that why?

Kim McAllister: There’s 2 factors: There are a lot of people applying – nursing is becoming a very popular career choice and there are not enough nursing instructors to handle the number of applicants.

Luber: Wow.

Kim McAllister: So it’s a 2-pronged issue right now. Yeah.

Luber: Alright. And then let’s go back to you were saying that the epiphany that you had and how helpful it’s been now to have the Bachelor’s, so talk to us about that. How do the two different degrees affect the career of a nurse?

Kim McAllister: You can get your license, sit the NCLEX [national licensing exam] and be a Registered Nurse [RN] with an Associate’s Degree, a Bachelor’s Degree, or actually there’s a 3rd one we didn’t discuss which is an entry level Master’s Degree. So for anybody out there with a non-nursing Bachelor’s, you can actually enter as an entry level Master’s Degree-prepared nurse.

Luber: So that would be like a career change person?

Kim McAllister: Yes. Absolutely.

Luber: OK.

Kim McAllister: And that’s the one I talk to people about who say “I have a Bachelor’s in sociology or physiology and I want to switch to nursing” and I see them going for Associate Degree programs. And I tell them “hey, you can go THIS route too” but anyway, yeah, the Associate Degree programs are pretty impacted right now. And you can spend a lot of years doing your pre-requisites and then waiting on waiting lists for 2 and 3 years trying to get in. So you wind up with a 2-year degree program that took you 4-5 years to get through!

Luber: So you could have just gone for the 4 year program.

Kim McAllister: Exactly. And I’m noticing now on all the job boards, because I’ve been all over the job boards lately now that I have my Bachelor’s: they’re all saying “Bachelor’s preferred”, “Bachelor’s preferred”, “Bachelor’s preferred”, and so my advice is to someone – I loved the ADN program I was in – it was wonderful – I was a good nurse with my ADN – it served me well for 30 years – and I work next to ADN nurses – they are just as good a nurse as I am – and I will defend those programs until the day I keel over, but I think the writing is on the wall that you’re better off getting the Bachelor’s degree. So those who really want to do the ADN program – either it’s more convenient for them, it’s nearby, the program works with their family or their needs, I would say go ahead and get that ADN program and then go ahead and move on and get the RN to BSN Bachelor’s degree. There are so many programs online now that you can do it and work it into your schedule beautifully.

[ADN PROGRAMS starts at 25:22]

Luber: So you’re saying IF they choose to just do the Associate’s Degree first, they should do that BUT, then while working as a nurse, do what you did? Keep going to school on the side to get the Bachelor’s degree?

Kim McAllister: I would even suggest it, because there was something very very good about having all that experience and THEN going on to the Bachelor’s degree that gave me a lot of background for those classes and I appreciated what I was learning more. And then you’re working and earning money as an RN while you’re going back to school! It was – I would recommend it. It was a really good way to do it. But I would say the writing is on the wall and I think that you really need to have that minimum of a Bachelor’s eventually. You can start as an ADN and do well. But you’re gonna need that Bachelor’s.

Luber: OK. And so people who are watching, thinking “I don’t get it – she worked for 30 years without the Bachelor’s – she’s done fine – why should I go through that extra work”….Other than the fact that you’re saying there’s more opportunities now for someone with a Bachelors, are there other things that you’re seeing? Are you dealt with, treated differently or paid differently? Is there anything different beyond that you have more opportunities?

Kim McAllister: I’m seeing more opportunities but I have to tell you, it’s so hard to describe. It’s an internal thing. The difference in that Bachelor’s degree was seeing the broader picture of nursing in the healthcare realm. Seeing exactly what nursing is, getting a broader picture of what nursing does. I was able to see nursing in a lot of different fields. The community health area. I was exposed to a lot more areas than just the hospital. In my ADN program we didn’t discuss evidence-based practice. We didn’t go out into the community. We didn’t discuss professional issues. There’s a lot more exposure in a Bachelor’s program. And I would say I’m not necessarily a better nurse, but I’m a different nurse – in here. So no, here in California, I don’t get paid more, nobody looks at me any differently. I had a colleague say “it won’t change the way you practice because you already practice at a high level – it will change the way you think about your practice.” And for me that was worth it.

[NURSING SHORTAGE & NURSING JOBS starts at 28:28]

Luber: Yeah! If it helps you internally, then that’s equally important, if not more important than anything else. And if it’s opening up opportunities, that’s a huge thing, because everyone wants jobs. And that leads me to the next question because I want to talk about jobs. I’m hearing all kinds of conflicting things out there. I’m hearing on one hand that there’s this huge shortage of nurses and there’s gonna be this giant shortage and all kinds of opportunities. But then I’m reading things in the newspaper saying that new grads from nursing programs aren’t getting jobs because there’s no jobs. So what’s really going on out there? Can you explain that to everybody?

Kim McAllister: It’s the big E. It’s the economy. This is the third time I’ve seen this happen since I graduated from school. When the economy is bad, there are no nursing jobs available. And what happens is nurses who would normally be retiring, nurses who would normally not be working or would only be working part time flood back into the workforce. When the economy improves, nurses who would be retiring go ahead and retire. Nurses who would only be working part time go back to only working part time and then all of a sudden all of these jobs become available. And like I said, this is the third time in 30 years this has happened. Trust me. In the next year or 2, there are going to be a slew of jobs opening. Then what’s going to be happening is as the Baby Boomers start to turn 65, and that’s already happening, there’s going to be more and more need for more and more nurses to care for the aging Baby Boomers. Not only that, but those aging Baby Boomers are full of nurses who are all going to be aging Baby Boomers. I work with nurses who are over 65 in the emergency department. We can’t hang on THAT much longer!

Luber: Ha! Right!

Kim McAllister: Somebody come and save us! It will get better. My advice would be, network to high heaven. If you’re a student nurse right now and you’re doing clinical in a hospital, get to know Human Resources. Go down, make your face known, talk to your head nurses. Network.

[WHERE ARE NURSES NEEDED starts at 30:41]

Luber: You were saying that people should think outside the box if there aren’t opportunities for them in hospitals because there’s other places that nurses are needed. What would you say some of those are?

Kim McAllister: I would say look at long-term care facilities, rehabilitation facilities. Homecare is always looking for nurses. Home care is HUGE. As patients are being discharged sooner and sicker than they used to be, home care is a BOOMING business. Lots of nurses needed there. And as I’m looking, I’m noticing that they’re not requiring a whole lot of experience for homecare either. So that might be a good place to look. One nurse I know was having a hard time finding a paying position. She started volunteering in a clinic to get experience.

Luber: OK, great. So there are opportunities out there today and there’s gonna be a LOT more tomorrow, so anybody thinking about getting into this path now should absolutely still move forward with their plans.

Kim McAllister: Absolutely. Absolutely. It may be a little stagnant now, but that will change.

[KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR NURSES starts at 31:52]

Luber: Good good good! So do this Kim – close us out with some keys to success – for anybody that’s really looking to get into this path, share some advice from your 30 years of experience – share some advice for people so that they can really succeed once they get out there and start doing their nursing career.

Kim McAllister: Be persistent – especially nowadays. Don’t get discouraged. Keep trying. You may not get the job you want, your dream job right now. Get your foot in the door. You’re not gonna be locked into that position forever. Nobody expects you to stay in your first job for 30 years anymore. Get the experience. Any position you get right now is experience. That would be my first thing, especially these days. Second of all be nice to the nurses coming up behind you. Nurses have a history of eating their young. I know that sounds horrible but we do. And so for the new nurses, I would say start new. And for the new nurses coming underneath you, mentor them and help them along. That would be my second thing.

Luber: It’s good karma to do that!

Kim McAllister: Yeah, we could start changing that perception.

Luber: Right.

Kim McAllister: And then I would say don’t be afraid to talk about the profession. Answer questions. Bring people in. Let people know what nursing is like. Don’t be – nurses tend to be very closed-mouthed. We don’t tend to talk to the media, we don’t tend to put ourselves out there. We need to do that more.

Lube: Right. Let people know what a great path it really is.

Kim McAllister: Exactly.

Luber: Excellent. Well thank you for helping everyone HERE learn what a great path it is! Definitely appreciate that Kim, thank you.

Kim McAllister: Well thank YOU!

Luber: You guys, please leave questions, feedback and comments in the Comments section below the video at Careers Out There dot com. Kim, really thanks again, this was great.

Kim McAllister: Great! Thank you.

Luber: Yeah. You guys can find Kim at Emergiblog.com and you can find episodes of Careers Out There at BlipTV, YouTube and iTunes and of course at Careers Out There.com. Thanks again for watching everybody. I’m Marc Luber and look forward to seeing you again soon. Take care.

©2011 Careers Out There

Different Careers in Accounting 1:38-10:55
Most Rewarding Part of Careers In Accounting 10:55-13:50
Skills to be an accountant 13:50-16:48
Education: What does it take to become an accountant 16:48-19:06
Taking the CPA Exam 19:06-25:05
Most challenging aspect of different careers in accounting 25:05-27:45
Breaking in to different careers in accounting 27:45-29:30
CPA Career Paths 29:30-30:21
Keys to success for different careers in accounting 30:21

Careers Out There Host Marc Luber: Hey everyone – on today’s episode of Careers Out There, we’re gonna explore careers in accounting. We’ll be talking to Jeff Elliott of Topeka, Kansas. He’s a CPA with over 8 years of experience in the accounting profession. Jeff’s worked in private accounting, public accounting and in-house at two publicly-traded companies. Today he runs Another71.com, which is an online business that helps you pass the CPA exam. Another 71 is one of the most visited accounting-related sites on the internet. Jeff actually gets 1.2 million page views a month at that site! On every episode of Careers Out There, we explore a career path by talking to a real professional who does that kind of work. They tell us what it’s really like and share all kinds of advice to help you decide if it’s the kind of path you want to pursue. You see, we’re helping you find a career that fits you so you can love what you do! I’m your host Marc Luber and I’m really psyched Jeff’s here today because who better to tell us about accounting careers than someone who can help you pass the CPA exam?! It’s gonna be a great show so stick around! [theme song] OK we’re back. Jeff welcome to Careers Out There.

CPA Jeff Elliott: Thanks again.

Host Marc Luber: Alright, thanks for being here. So, Topeka, Kansas! I’ve gotta say I’ve never been to Topeka, Kansas and it looks like you’re dead center in the heart of America!

Jeff Elliott: Yeah, you’re not missing out on much.

[DIFFERENT CAREERS IN ACCOUNTING starts at 1:38]

Luber: Ha! Nice! So you and I were talking on the phone the other day about all different kinds of accounting careers and I want to get to that. But first I want to separate the difference, so everyone could understand the difference between being a CPA and just being a regular accountant. Can you separate that for us?

Jeff Elliott: Basically an accountant is someone who says “you know, I really like working with numbers” and so they go in and work for a small business, they do their bookkeeping, which means they keep track of how much money is coming in, how much money is going out, what types of things the company owns, how many computers, how many trucks, how many tools, how much money does the company owe to credit card companies and whatever. So basically, an accountant kind of keeps score for a company.

Luber: OK. And then CPA. CPA stands for Certified Public Accountant, but what does it mean if someone’s a CPA?

Jeff Elliott: A CPA is someone who is an accountant who then takes the extra steps to get the additional educational requirements and then takes the CPA exam and then they go on to get licensed by their state. The CPA exam is a national exam but each CPA is actually licensed by their state. So a CPA in California has different licensing requirements than a CPA in Kansas.

Luber: Got it. And let’s talk about some of the different paths CPAs can take. When we were talking on the phone the other day, I learned a lot because I didn’t know any of this! You were saying that there’s the tax side of things, there’s an auditing side and there’s an industry side – going in-house to a company. We all have to pay taxes so we all kind of relate to taxes, so let’s start with the tax side. Tell us what that means. What’s that about?

Jeff Elliott: Well from January through April basically, everyone’s getting their taxes done. And so what happens is you get your W2 in the mail, maybe some interest income statements, you walk them down the street to your CPA and say “hey, here’s my taxes” and they crank out some numbers and say “here you go, mail this to the IRS – you’re getting this much back or you need to write a check for this much.” That’s pretty much what a CPA does as far as the tax side. They can do tax work for individuals, just your average family, they can do tax work for corporations, even corporations have to pay taxes too. And they also do simple things like sales tax compliance work.

Luber: And what’s a typical day for those people? You were telling me that 8 months of the year it’s pretty much a 9-5 kind of a thing?

Jeff Elliott: Yeah, there are CPAs who do both auditing and tax work. So it seems like they’re always in a busy year but people who primarily do tax work, their busy time of the year is early-to-mid January through mid-April and then later on in October with another filing. But that’s when the work is really insane. You’re working 60-70-80, even some work more hours per week.

Luber: Wow.

Jeff Elliott: Many CPA firms require 6 days a week at that time. Some 7. It just kind of depends on what the culture is there within the firm.

Luber: OK. So that really busy time of year, you cut out at one point, is January to April and then October?

Jeff Elliott: Yeah. January through April then all of those people who filed extensions and procrastinated to file their returns, they have to file again in October.

Luber: OK. And then CPAs who focus on the audit side – what is “audit side”? What’s that about?

Jeff Elliott: Well basically people who have money that they want to invest, they can either invest it or save it, like put it into a CD at a bank or if they want to take a little bit more risk and earn a greater return, they look for companies out there like say, Apple. They really like the iPhone, they really like the iPad and they think Apple is doing great things. So they think Apple would be a great place to put their $100. So Apple puts out these financial statements and says “this is how much we earned, this is all the assets that our company has, this is how much we have” and so the investor looks at the financial statements and says “you know, I really like what’s going on with Apple but you know what, I don’t work for Apple so how do I know that any of this is true.” Well a CPA and ONLY a CPA, usually a CPA firm, they go in and go inside Apple and look around and investigate everything and they say “yes, basically what Apple says on these financial statements is what is really going on with the company.” So then the investor can say “you know what – I think Apple would be a great place to park my $100”.

Luber: OK. That makes sense. I get it. And what about the lifestyle for that? How’s that different? Is that a regular 9-5 kind of job or what’s the scoop?

Jeff Elliott: Well auditors, like tax professionals, have a busy season also. There’s some days where they’ll just spend time at their cubicle at the CPA firm but a lot of times they will spend an extended amount of time within the company – like they will physically go to Apple. They probably have this little, small cubicle in this dark room somewhere where they sit with other auditors, maybe a team of 5-10 auditors, and they all sit on their laptops and that’s where they work. So wherever they live, they drive to Apple every day or whatever company it might be.

Luber: OK. So they’re overseeing. They’re watching over everything to make sure that everything the company’s reporting to the public is accurate so the public knows that their investment is based on reliable data.

Jeff Elliott: Correct.

Luber: OK, yeah! Very good. So then, tell me this though – why is it called “public accounting”?

Jeff Elliott: Probably because you’re protecting the public. You are serving the public by doing tax work, you’re serving the public by doing audit and compliance work, you’re kind of the watchdog for the public for the financial sector.

Luber: Huh! And then what’s an example in the – in the intro I said you’ve done public and private accounting. What would private accounting be?

Jeff Elliott: Public is usually where you’re performing a service for the public either doing tax work or auditing work. Private accounting is when you go in and work for a company that is not publicly traded, which means that they don’t sell their corporate stock on any stock exchange. Just some guy started a business and he’s doing well and so he needs an accountant to come in and keep things straight because he doesn’t like doing bookkeeping. He wants to go focus on whatever his deal is. So private accounting you work for a privately held company.

Luber: OK. Got it. Yeah, just wanted to get that distinction because that was tricky to me. OK then we talked about the other thing. In-House, Industry, going in-house to a company to work in the “Industry” side. So that’s the lingo for working at a company as a CPA?

Jeff Elliott: Yeah, usually at a publicly traded company like again, going back to Apple. Whereas before maybe you were an auditor working at Apple but then you think “you know what, I really like this place. I think I’d like to be an accountant HERE.” And so then they go to work FOR Apple. And that’s usually what it means when someone mentions “industry”.

Luber: Now as an attorney recruiter, I was very often moving people from law firms. Sometimes from one law firm to another but a lot of times from a law firm to a company to go as an “in-house” attorney, which would be similar to this.

Jeff Elliott: Yup.

Luber: And everybody – almost every attorney – wants to go in-house to a company. They all think that it’s this beautiful, relaxing, it’s like sitting on the beach – it’s gonna be a whole different kind of career path. Is it that case in accounting? Is there a big difference? Is it a more laid-back environment? What’s the deal there?

Jeff Elliott: Well going to work for industry, while it might have different types of stress than a public accounting environment does – you know you’re not driving some place every day that’s not your normal work office – like you’re driving to Apple every day and next week you’ll be driving to whatever company. With industry, basically you go to the same place every day but in industry you still have deadlines. The same quarterly deadlines and the same year-end deadlines that those auditors are there to report on, you the accountant have to be there to provide them information. And so it’s a little bit different but some of the stress is still the same. So the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

Luber: Right! You’ve still gotta log the hours.

Jeff Elliott: Yeah, exactly.

[MOST REWARDING PART OF CAREERS IN ACCOUNTING starts at 10:55]
Luber: So what’s the most rewarding part of being a CPA?

Jeff Elliott: Well when I worked in public accounting, and I didn’t work for a Big 4 firm, I worked for a small local firm and I had about 15-20 clients, and so some of my clients were liquor stores, clothing stores, I had a modeling agency, I had a mom and pop mechanic shop and basically they do what they do well, and that’s whatever it is. But they don’t know tax law, they don’t want to bother with the books and they have no idea if they’re making a profit or not! They don’t know. And so they bring their stuff to you and then you can sit them down and say “yeah, what if you maybe you didn’t spend so much on this” or “you know what – this service that you’re providing is very profitable, more profitable than some of the other stuff that you’re doing, what if you did more of THAT?” or “What if you sold more of THAT?” And so you are tangibly helping people, which impacts their families and that’s the most rewarding thing I think about accounting, is the fact that you’re helping people. You’re helping people do their tax returns, you’re helping investors make good investment decisions…When accountants don’t do their job, you see what happen with Enron!

Luber: Ha! Good point.

Jeff Elliott: By the way, that accounting firm no longer exists!

Luber: Yup! It took down 1 of the biggest!

Jeff Elliott: Yeah.

Luber: Yeah. Amazing. OK, so that’s great. So the joy of helping other people by having a skill that you’re bringing to the table that’s just one of the elements or factors that’s missing from what THEY bring to the table with their expertise.

Jeff Elliott: Exactly.

Luber: So you’ve gotta really enjoy the rewarding aspects of it.

Jeff Elliott: At least for me, it was always job security. Because accountants, and especially CPAs, they’re always in demand. So I kind of had that peace of mind in knowing that in a recession, of course a lot of CPAs are finding out that even in a big recession it’s still hard to find work, but I always found that I had better job security than my peers. And in any job interview, you instantly have a leg up against your non-CPA peers who are vying for the same job.

Luber: OK, that’s good. Good to know. And it’s getting more and more competitive now?

Jeff Elliott: Yeah. It’s extremely competitive. It used to be that the benchmark was having a Bachelor’s degree to get your foot in the door. Now, with the economy the way it is, now the benchmark is that you need to have a CPA certification.

Luber: OK. So you people have got to be ready to take that test!

Jeff Elliott: Yup.

[SKILLS TO BE AN ACCOUNTANT starts at 13:50]
Luber: So let’s talk about the type of people that should. Who should be going for a career like this? Let’s talk about – you know, break it down. Skill sets, interests and personality types. Who would fit this path best?

Jeff Elliott: Well being a CPA, just like really any desk job, you have to be the type of person who won’t go insane sitting at a desk for 8, 10, 12, even more sometimes hours a day. There are some people who physically cannot stare at a spreadsheet all day. If that’s not you, you shouldn’t be an accountant or CPA. Basically if you want to be a CPA you have to be able to meet deadlines but also be able to handle stress. And be able to sit, be organized, attention to detail, meet deadlines and be able to deal with some stress and perform under pressure. Those are some of the basic skill sets a CPA should have.

Lube: OK. And what about this? On the About page of Careers Out There, I talk about how my neighbor is a CFO at a hospital. He says to me during my years as a recruiter, he’d say “I can’t believe you have this job where you have to talk to people all day. I’d go crazy if I had to do that.” He’s like “I can just be an introvert like myself, I could sit in a room by myself, look at my spreadsheets, I don’t have to deal with anybody, this is the perfect job for me.” I said to him, “if I couldn’t talk to people all day and I had to stare at spreadsheets, I’d light my hair on fire and jump out the window.” So is that the deal? Do you have to be an introvert? Or is it just for THAT type of role where you’re at a company as a CFO? Explain the differences there.

Jeff Elliott: Well being an accountant, a CPA, that’s a service profession. You’re not selling widgets or books. You’re selling a service. So part of selling a service is selling yourself. And so if you work in tax, your customers are bringing their stuff in to you, their tax work in to you, and you can’t just show up and just be all weird! You have to chit-chat, “hey how’s Jonny doing!” You know? “What’s going on with the business?” You have to be able to talk to people. If you work in auditing, you have to be able to number one get along with your fellow auditors, but you have to be able to walk up to the accounts payable clerk and ask for something. You have to be able to knock on the CFO’s door and ask for something too. You have to be comfortable talking to people for the most part. Now granted, in industry, like your friend, your friend works in industry, there are positions that lend themselves to people who would rather just do their job from 8-5, be left alone and go home.

Luber: OK. So the good thing then is there’s different paths within accounting that fit different types of people. And so many people that are considering the path could really find a place for themselves.

Jeff Elliott: Yup.

[EDUCATION: WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN ACCOUNTANT starts at 16:48]
Luber: Alright so let’s talk about school now. Tell us this. If someone doesn’t want to be a CPA, if they’re looking to be an accountant, is college necessary?

Jeff Elliott: No. If you want to be just an accountant, college is not necessary. Granted, you’ll be more marketable if you have your degree in accounting or whatever, but if you graduate from high school or maybe you go to community college and take a bookkeeping class, then you can take your resume and go to whatever small business, some mom and pop shop, whatever, and say “hey, I would like to do your bookkeeping” or you could start your own bookkeeping service. Most clients will not ask you “hey where did you get your degree.” They want to know “can you keep my books straight – yes or no.” So if you just want to be a bookkeeper or an accountant, you don’t have to have a degree.

Luber: OK. And then if you want to be a CPA, what should you study in college?

Jeff Elliott: If you want to be a CPA, the most efficient approach is to get a Bachelor’s degree in accounting and then most states require – all states require you to have 150 hours of college credit in order to get your license and to get certified. Some states require 120 hours, which is about a Bachelor’s degree just to SIT for the exam. But many will still require 150. So when someone graduates from college with an accounting degree, usually it makes sense to go an extra year and get a Master’s in accounting to get – not only do you get the extra hours but then you also get something like a Master’s degree.

Luber: So that means then that you’re getting work experience first? Or you just stay in school and then take the test?

Jeff Elliott: Well I personally graduated with a Bachelor’s degree and went to work for a public accounting firm and got my work experience requirements and then I went to night school to get my extra hours.

Luber: OK.

Jeff Elliott: It seems like a lot of people these days stay on the extra year, get their 150 hours and then sit for the exam right after they graduate from their Master’s program.

[TAKING THE CPA EXAM starts at 19:06]
Luber: OK. So let’s talk about that exam, because it’s a big, ugly hurdle that everyone’s gotta jump over. So tell us all about that test. What do people have to know in order to pass that test?

Jeff Elliott: Basically the CPA exam is regarded as one of the most difficult professional exams out there. In total it’s 14 hours long and it’s broken up into 4 parts which test over financial accounting, regulation – which is like tax, auditing, and then something called business environment and concepts, which is just basic business stuff. And it sounds simple enough – you just study and take it and pass, but it only has a 25-30% first time pass rate and people can study for one section like financial and then walk in and take it. You don’t have to take all 4 parts like you used to all at once. So you could study for financial, go in and take it and the current pass rates are about 50% who walk in and take a particular section of the exam will fail it. So it’s very, very difficult. It’s very expensive. And people also usually need to buy an expensive review course in order to pass it too. It’s probably similar to the Bar review, I’m guessing.

Luber: Yeah! It sounds like it. With the Bar, you could take it only twice a year. How often can you take this test?

Jeff Elliott: With the CPA exam, you can take it 2 months out of every quarter, so 8 months out of the year.

Luber: OK.

Jeff Elliott: The exam has gotten harder than it used to be because it covers more information but the accommodations for taking the exam: number 1 it’s computerized and number 2 you can take one section at a time if you want to. It’s more friendly on exam day.

Luber: OK. I want to give a website here. The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, which is NASBA.org. We’ll put that on the screen and that will show you what you need in your state, what your state requires for you to even sit for the test. Or the other option is you could Google your state’s name and then after that put “Board of Accountancy” and that will pull up your state’s site. The national site has the map and it will pull up your state so you could pull up all that info for your state to see what you’ve gotta do. So let’s talk about studying for this thing. People have the option of the expensive courses. Do you know what those run? What’s someone looking to spend for something like that?

Jeff Elliott: To study for the exam, someone in theory could spend as little as $120 – that’s like $30-$40 per book, up to some courses which cost $2,500-$3,000. Since it has such a high fail rate, people spend a lot of money on a course. If they find out that they don’t really like that course then they go spend even more money.

Luber: Ha! Brutal! So now you’re devoting your career to helping people pass the CPA exam at Another71.com, so tell us about that and what’s going on over there.

Jeff Elliott: Basically Another71 was a website that I started in 2008 when I was just a candidate, when I was studying for the exam. And it became kind of like my online diary of my exam adventure. I developed a following and at the time there were no other CPA exam blogs. I was really the first one out there doing this and I never intended to make a business out of it. It was just a hobby. And then I developed somewhat of a following and then over time I got some sponsors and then I was able to quit my day job and be able to focus on helping people pass the exam through I do phone coaching, I have study guides for sale, and I kind of just give general advice.

Luber: I love it. I love stories like that! In the intro I explained that you’re getting 1.2 million page views a month!?

Jeff Elliott: Yeah, some months I get 1.2 million page views, yup.

Luber: That’s killer! That’s just amazing.

Jeff Elliott: Yeah. I’m now on my 3rd server. There’s different times throughout the year that kill my server. I was in the cloud and now I had to upgrade to a VPN, a virtual private network, to handle the load.

Luber: Ha! That’s great! That’s the kind of problem you want to have!

Jeff Elliott: Yeah! It’s a good problem!

Luber: So after the ugliness of getting through the CPA exam, someone passes, their done, actually – before we even get to that I want to make sure – you had told me that if someone goes to work at one of the big accounting firms – the Big 4 they’re known as?

Jeff Elliott: Right.

Luber: That it’s required that they pass within a certain amount of time otherwise they’re given the boot? Is that the deal?

Jeff Elliott: Well I think the culture within the Big 4 is that if they want to make Manager, they may have to have their CPA credential because there’s certain things that a non-CPA cannot do. So if you want to be a Manager on site at Apple and leading an audit team or whatever, you have to have your CPA designation and I think the culture within Big 4 provides maybe 2 years of leeway before it’s like “Why can’t you pass the exam?” And then people leave.

[MOST CHALLENGING ASPECT OF DIFFERENT CAREERS IN ACCOUNTING starts at 25:05]
Luber: Wow. OK. So it’s really important you guys – you’ve gotta take this seriously! So I want to get back to that question – so after the ugliness of getting through it, you pass it, you’re ready to move on, you’ve got your career started as a CPA. What is the most challenging aspect of that career path?

Jeff Elliott: The most challenging aspect of being a CPA is being able to handle the work-life balance. Maybe it’s a little easier than before because before you had work, family, exam and now it’s just work, family. And but still the hours can be insane, the stress can be crazy…Even in industry, the job that I left before, we had some pretty intense times. My boss threw a candy dish against the wall out of anger and, you know, I heard the F word so many times, you just don’t even flinch after a while. So, people handle stress differently. Some people just cannot have it, they quit, they go do something else, or maybe they move on to like a private industry, private company gig and something a little bit more low key.

Luber: OK. Let’s tweak that and talk about what weeds people out. What is the thing that if you can’t handle this, it’s like so challenging, a higher hurdle, if you can’t handle this, you shouldn’t even go down this path at all.

Jeff Elliott: If you can’t handle the long hours. Sometimes accountants, CPAs have to work from 7 in the morning to 10 or 11:00 at night and then a lot of them travel because they don’t live wherever their client is. So they’re staying in a hotel room. So they show up on site at 7 in the morning, hit their hotel room at 11:00 at night and then have to be at it again at 7 in the morning. And then repeat. A lot of people cannot handle that, especially if they have families.

Luber: That would be pretty grueling. And then it’s also a lot of sitting, right? Like you were saying earlier. Sitting and staring at spreadsheets.

Jeff Elliott: Right. If you can’t handle the monotony of running through numbers and looking at data and I mean, at the end of the day it’s still work. No one ever said work was fun, but if you know that that would drive you absolutely insane and you cannot handle that, then there’s probably better career choices out there for you.

[BREAKING IN TO DIFFERENT CAREERS IN ACCOUNTING starts at 27:45]
Luber: Right. So you’ve gotta really enjoy the rewarding aspects that you were talking about – helping people. That thing that you’re really helping people. So let’s talk now about getting a job. So someone – the rewards outweigh the challenges for them, they’ve got the skill set, they’ve got the education, they’re ready to go. What should they be doing as far as looking for a job? Should they just be going to the Big 4? Should they be doing what you did and looking at smaller? What’s the lay of the land there?

Jeff Elliott: If I were talking to someone today who wanted to work in accounting and did a really good job through school and Big 4 firms wanted to hire them, I would highly recommend that they go work for a Big 4 firm because that’s like your golden ticket. Getting a couple of years of work experience working for a Big 4 far exceeds pretty much any MBA that you could ever get, maybe outside of the Ivy League. I mean if you work for Big 4 accounting and then you go work in industry, I mean, you will, a lot of people come in as a Manager in industry and so if you can go Big 4, I would highly recommend that because that will do wonders for your career. It will jump start it. I did not go Big 4 and I went a different path. I worked for a small company and then worked for a private company and then worked for 2 publicly traded companies. That’s another path. But my number 1 piece of advice is that if you want to be an accountant: out of college go do accounting. Go do public accounting. Don’t go work for a bank. Because you’ll be stuck in a bank. Companies want to hire people with practical accounting experience who have been through tax season, know how to do book work, you know, they want experience.

[CPA CAREER PATHS starts at 29:30]
Luber: Interesting. That’s good advice. OK. Good. Where can people take their career? You said that you get to be a Manager. What would be the entry level title and then where can people see themselves going long term? What is usually the goal and the path here?

Jeff Elliott: Working in industry, it’s pretty cluttered there at the top. But people seem to want to work – to go and be a Manager, work their way into maybe a Director, be Director over a division, maybe be Controller and then maybe be CFO. But obviously not everyone can be CFO and so some people will be stuck in middle management, some people will be stuck as a Director, other people just leave and go do other stuff. Start their own business or whatever.

Luber: Right. So those are skills that will be really helpful in business.

Jeff Elliott: Exactly.

[KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR DIFFERENT CAREERS IN ACCOUNTING starts at 30:21]
Luber: Yeah. OK, so everyone’s got their different goals. Let’s talk about the keys to success to help them achieve those goals. You’ve got those years of experience out there and now you’re kind of overseeing all these people taking the exam. What can you tell people so that maybe they can get a head start? Maybe just some great keys to success for career advice that could help them get a head start for once they’re out there practicing?

Jeff Elliott: Man, I think my number one key to success that I would recommend is that – and it’s pretty simple – is that when you go to work, WORK! Don’t be on Facebook, don’t be emailing. Go in there and kick butt, take names, go to your boss and say “hey, what can I take off your plate” because your boss is busy and your boss needs people to take their workload. If you go in and do your job, figure it out a more efficient way to do your job, knock it out of the way, take more of your boss’ job, streamline it, create a process, knock it out of the way, man, you’re gonna move UP! Because you are valuable. I had a friend who was not Big 4 but worked his tail off and went in and he was looked at more favorably than any of the other Big 4 people in the department. It was crazy. Cause he went in, did exactly the process that I described: streamlined his own job, took pieces of other people’s jobs, streamlined that and just worked hard, man! And that’s it. It’s really weird that my number one piece of advice would be to do your job when you’re at work…

Luber: Ha!

Jeff Elliott: But it seems like 95% of people DON’T do that!

Luber: A lot of people don’t! Very, very good advice. Any other advice? Any other last minute things you want to tell everybody who’s heading out there to the CPA world?

Jeff Elliott: Ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s work. You have to provide for your family. And if you can figure out a way – maybe you don’t like your job, maybe you don’t like accounting or maybe you don’t like sitting all day. But if you see it as a means to accomplish other goals, to better your family, maybe you project your career in a different direction. Maybe see a job that you hate as an OPPORTUNITY to do better for yourself and your family. It’s amazing how a shift in mindset can just change everything for you.

Luber: Yup. Excellent, excellent advice. I hope this was helpful to you guys. Definitely hope it was helpful. Please leave feedback, comments and questions in the comments section below the video at Careers Out There dot com. Jeff, thank you again for taking the time today!

Jeff Elliott: Thanks for having me.

Luber: Yeah definitely. You guys can find Jeff at Another71.com. Definitely check out his site. You can find episodes of Careers Out There at YouTube, iTunes and BlipTV. Thanks again for watching everybody. You of course can find us at Careers Out There dot com. Don’t want to forget that! I’m Marc Luber, thanks again for watching and look forward to seeing you again soon. Take care.

©2011 Careers Out There

To see a transcript of the full interview with Dean Hal Krent about who should go to law school, please visit our new sister site, JD Careers Out There. A JD is a law degree. We’re calling that site JD Careers Out There because there are so many things you can do with a law degree – and many of those things don’t involve practicing law. We get you career video interviews at JDCOT just like we do here – plus we get you mentoring videos from our guest experts on how to handle day-to-day practical career skills like workplace communications, interviewing, networking and more. Visit that site at JDCareersOutThere.com or take a shortcut by going to JDCOT.com.

©2013 Careers Out There

Understanding Economics 0:54-3:11
What Is An Economist 3:11-6:18
Career Paths In Economics 6:18-7:14
Skills For Economists 7:14-8:02
Personality Types for Economists 8:02-9:21
Education for Economists 9:21-12:27
Mentors for Economics Careers 12:27-14:20
Is A Graduate Degree in Economics Necessary 14:20-17:28
College Career Centers are Important For Economics Careers 17:28-18:35
Career Paths for PhD Economists 18:35-19:40
Economic Consulting Careers 19:40-23:47
Career Changes For Economists 23:47-26:34
The Fun Side of Economics Careers 26:34-27:05
Keys To Success for Careers In Economics 27:05

Careers Out There Host Marc Luber: Hey everyone – on today’s episode of Careers Out There, we’re gonna explore the career path of being an economist. We’ll be talking to Ben Wilner. Ben’s a PhD economist in Chicago with over 20 years of experience: first he was a finance professor at some of the top universities, and today he’s a litigation consultant at the global accounting firm of Grant Thornton.

On every episode of Careers Out There, we explore a career path by talking to a real professional who does that kind of work. They tell us what it’s really like and share all kinds of advice to help you decide if it’s the kind of path you want to pursue. I’m your host Marc Luber and since I couldn’t even get through Econ 101 in college, I think today is gonna be a learning experience for all of us! It’s gonna be a great show so stick around.

[theme song] OK we’re back – Ben, welcome to Careers Out There.

Economist Ben Wilner: Hi Marc.

[UNDERSTANDING ECONOMICS starts at 0:54]
Luber: Thanks for being here. So I said in the intro Ben that I couldn’t get through Econ 101 in college. I really couldn’t.

I was at University of Michigan, I was taking Econ 101 and the rule with that class was that of the 3 tests before the final exam, you could only drop the class after the 2nd test. The first test I got a C-minus and the second test I got a D. I usually would get an A or a B so for me to get a C or a D meant RUN! So I ran from the class, cancelled it the second I could, got out so it wouldn’t ruin my GPA and I was always devastated. I felt like an idiot and I felt that I wanted to get into University of Michigan’s undergraduate business program and that immediately gave me the boo t from that opportunity and I wound up going down the law path.

So when we talked on the phone and I told you that I had this issue, you told me that that wouldn’t have happened had I had the right teacher. I thought that was really interesting, because not only did it make me feel like less of an idiot, but it leads to my question, which is do you really feel that way? Do you really feel that most people could grasp economics with the right teacher?

Economist Ben Wilner: I think so. Because one of the things that I’ve found is that economics is like a foreign language and should be taught as such.

As an example, I have a course knowledge of French. So if you put me in the middle of Paris, I can say “how much for the baguette”, “where’s the Metro”, things like that. But if someone asks me a question in French, what I have to do is I have to translate that question in English, come up with an answer in English and then translate it back into French.

And doing Economics is exactly the same thing, where you have to go and take an economic question, translate that into English, use your English logic to come up with an answer and then translate that answer back into the economics language. When I talk to another economist, I can talk from econ to econ because both of us are fluent in that language.

But so often what happens is professors go and teach like the people understand the economics language, but really you need to go and understand the language in order to go and learn it.

[WHAT IS AN ECONOMIST starts at 3:11]
Luber: Very interesting! I like that. I can relate to that from the level of the Grateful Dead or Phish. When I talk to someone who doesn’t know those bands, I feel like it’s a different language! And I like to find when someone does know my language there. Ha! I understand what you’re saying. I love that. Tell us this. What is an economist?

Ben Wilner: An economist is someone who goes and studies how to allocate scarce resources. And those resources can be anything from goods and services to money to crops and strange services that you could never even think of.

Luber: Huh. Now tell me this – when I see economists on TV, they’re always on cable news and they’re always talking about the economy of our country, which is in bad shape right now. And they’re always talking about our country’s economic situation. Is that what most economists do?

Ben Wilner: No. There really are 2 types of economics. There’s something called microeconomics, which is the study of business and individuals, and macroeconomics which is the study of how countries and economies run. So when you see an economist on the news a lot, often times you’re seeing macroeconomists who go and study how the economy as a whole is going to run and make predictions about how the economy’s gonna go.

I was a macroeconomist early in my career and then as my career went on I moved over and now I’m much more of a microeconomist.

Luber: So then a microeconomist is more likely to be found at something like a big company analyzing that company? Like let’s say I work at Apple and I’m a microeconomist at Apple. What am I doing for Apple?

Ben Wilner: So what you’re doing is you’re looking at how consumers would react to the latest product that you’ve developed, what prices potentially you should charge for the product as well as studying what new products are out there and what competition can do to your own pricing.

Luber: OK. Very good. So I want to talk about some of the different examples of career paths people can go down with an economics degree but first I want to talk about what you told me over the phone when I asked you that same question. You said that economics is really a way of thinking. Does that come down to the same kind of thing as speaking the language that you were saying earlier?

Ben Wilner: Yes. So what economics comes down to is a couple basic principles. And once you understand those principles, you can go and apply them in a multitude of different contexts. And so for instance in microeconomics, the key thing is to go and for each additional you would go and get something until and keep getting that one thing until the cost becomes sufficiently high and then you stop going and getting it.

So it’s just that with that one concept goes and drives just about, not just about every, but a fair number of different applications of economics.

Luber: So it’s really all about just grasping that thinking style.

Ben Wilner: Exactly.

[CAREER PATHS IN ECONOMICS starts at 6:18]
Luber: So once you’ve grasped that thinking style, what are some of the different career paths that you can go out and apply it to?

Ben Wilner: Oh there’s so many different career paths that you can do. You can become a straight economist such as myself, you can go be a lawyer, you can go be a sociologist, you can go an investment analyst, a management consultant, there’s just so many different ways in which you can go and apply that economic way of thinking. And so that’s why I think it’s really good to go and have an undergraduate degree in economics, so then when you go potentially to grad school, you can study something specialized but you know the field of economics and have that economic underpinning that you can apply.

[SKILLS FOR ECONOMISTS starts at 7:14]
Luber: Huh! I’m gonna ask you more about that educational path in a little bit. I want to get into that – the issue between just getting an undergrad degree and then going on to grad school. So we are gonna get to that. And I also want to get to your specific path and what you do as an economist, but first I’m wondering who in our audience should consider becoming an economist? Let’s start by talking about skills. What skill sets should people bring to the table?

Ben Wilner: So there are 2 main skill sets that I really think that you need to bring to the table. One is a strong background in mathematics. So much of what I do is very mathematics-based. And the second thing is solving puzzles – because what you’re often times asked is you come up with a question and then you go and use economic thinking and try to put various pieces together in order to come up with the right straight economic logical answer.

Luber: Are you one of those people who does the Sudoku things in the newspaper all the time?

Ben Wilner: I do the Sudoku, Kakuro, KenKen, all that good stuff!

[PERSONALITY TYPES FOR ECONOMISTS starts at 8:02]
Luber: All of them! Wow! Nice! Ha! What about personality type? Would you say this is a path for introverts?

Ben Wilner: You can either be an introvert or an extrovert in doing this. If you’re an introvert, a lot of times you can go and just sit there and solve puzzles and present it to someone who can go and explain it well. Or if you have both an introvert and extrovert in you, then you can go and not only do the models yourself, but you can go out and explain the models as well.

Luber: Huh! And you were saying something to me over the phone about if someone is an introvert, it’s possible to pair up with an extrovert? How does that work?

Ben Wilner: Sure. So what you do is as your career evolves, you will go and there are extroverts who can’t go and do a lot of the modeling that an introverted economist can do and so as time goes on you find a symbiotic relationship and you can pair up together and you both can do very well.

Luber: I like that! So that way anyone can fill in their missing personality aspects with the other partner and then be a killer team!

Ben Wilner: Exactly.

[EDUCATION FOR ECONOMISTS starts at 9:21]
Luber: That’s very cool. So let’s get to education then. Let’s talk about high school first and if someone’s watching and they’re in high school and they love Sudoku, they love math, they don’t need a calculator as much as I do, they might want to be taking some classes right now, right? What classes should they start looking at right now in high school?

Ben Wilner: Sure so not only should you see if your school offers any economics classes, that is key, but then also study mathematics. The more math you know, the better you’ll be able to handle economics.

Luber: OK. So as many math classes as possible.

Ben Wilner: Exactly.

Luber: Then what about this? You told me that in high school you knew you wanted to be an economist. So let’s say there’s other people watching right now and they know it too. They’re convinced this is their path. This is their calling. They’re in high school now. What should they be doing? Maybe their parents are watching on their behalf right now. What should they be doing in terms of choosing a college? What should they be looking for?

Ben Wilner: Sure, so what you want is a college – a big college often times have great economics programs where they have people who do all the disciplines such as microeconomics, macroeconomics and everything in between. So you can go and best study under various professors. I was lucky to study a Nobel Prize-winning macroeconomist when I was an undergraduate as well as a microeconomist and my career evolved from there.

Luber: OK. But people don’t HAVE to go to a big school necessarily, right?

Ben Wilner: No, not necessarily. There are often times a lot of small schools. But you don’t have the breadth of economics faculty at a smaller school as you do at a larger school.

Luber: Would you say that people need to look for colleges that have good graduate business programs? Would that help ensure that the undergraduate classes for econ would be better?

Ben Wilner: Not necessarily.

Luber: OK.

Ben Wilner: There are a lot of great economics departments which are separate from business schools. For instance, my undergraduate degree is from the economics department in the college that I went to and my PhD or doctorate is from the economics department within a business school.

Luber: OK.

Ben Wilner: So it can work either way.

Luber: Alright, great! And then I assume the best major for someone to become an economist would be economics?

Ben Wilner: That would be a good assumption!

Luber: I’m smart! I’m smart, Ben!

Ben Wilner: But then again, if you go and take mathematics, that can also help you along in the process.

Luber: Got it. I picture Good Will Hunting when I picture the mathematics. When you major in econ, do you learn this way of thinking? Is that the main focus of the classes? To learn how to think this way?

Ben Wilner: It really is. So you need to go and get that way of thinking down and that’s one of the most important things I think you can walk away from as an undergraduate in economics.

[MENTORS FOR ECONOMICS CAREERS starts at 12:27]
Luber: And so you were fortunate enough to find this mentor who was a Nobel Prize winner, which if you guys can find Nobel Prize-winning mentors, go for it! That’s my advice for you! Definitely go for it! What would you say, then, about – it’s obviously always important to have a good mentor because it helps to get that advice as a young person from someone who’s seasoned and experienced. They can give you a leg up for sure and help you avoid some pitfalls, mistakes and just grow faster.

But I would assume in this field, it’s gotta be even MORE important since it’s a way of THINKING, to have that person you could talk to to kind of learn how to mold your brain that way. Is that the case?

Ben Wilner: Oh, very much so. You need people who can go and teach you in English the way of thinking. And to go and explain it in a way that is not in a foreign language to you. And then once you get that way of thinking down and once that person teaches you, then you can go running and you’re off to the races.

Luber: Maybe that was my problem! I don’t think my T.A. at Michigan even knew English! Ha! You told me you would definitely advise people to hunt down a mentor. That was something you stressed on the phone, right? Do you want to say anything to everyone about mentors?

Ben Wilner: So again, one thing that mentors do is they’ve been down the path before. They know what you’re going through. They know the ups and downs of going into a career. If someone can help guide you to the path, because going down a path in a career can sometimes be a lot of ups and downs to it – and a lot of downs – and so the more that you can get a mentor helping you through those downs, the better off you are in your career and the more you can just continue on through those down times.

Luber: That’s excellent. Good advice. You have a PhD in economics.

Ben Wilner: I do.

[IS A GRADUATE DEGREE IN ECONOMICS NECESSARY starts at 14:20]
Luber: I want to get back to that issue that we mentioned earlier. The difference between getting a PhD versus just getting a Bachelor’s. What would you say people need to think about? Do they need to get a graduate degree in econ?

Ben Wilner: So if you want to go and apply the way of economic logic and economic thinking, you can just go and get an undergraduate degree in economics and then get something specialized such as a business law or whatever degree afterward. But if you want to go and be an economist, you really need to go in and study economics as an undergraduate and then in graduate school.

Luber: OK. And what is it in graduate school, if you’re learning the way of thinking in undergraduate school, what are you doing beyond spending lots more money in grad school?

Ben Wilner: Sure. So in graduate school what you’re doing is you’re learning how to apply that way of thinking in the math language. And once you learn the math language in your first year of graduate school, you can then go and apply it in many different contexts, many more contexts in graduate school then you can as an undergraduate.

Luber: So then can people just getting the undergraduate degree go out and get jobs?

Ben Wilner: Oh, very much so!

Luber: OK.

Ben Wilner: There are so many jobs out there, again, such as being a management consultant, such as going to do additional study to become an accountant, you can work within finance, you can go work within businesses studying how to set prices for various products. There are so many different things you can do with just an undergraduate degree in economics.

Luber: And if you have that undergraduate degree and you’re out there in the working world, would you be considered an economist? Or are you not considered an economist until you have the graduate degree?

Ben Wilner: Well unlike something such as a CPA society, where you go and say if you pass a test you can call yourself an accountant, there’s no governing body which says who can call themselves an economist and who can’t call themselves an economist. So you’re not precluded from calling yourself an economist, but really to go and study and do true economics, you need some kind of graduate work.

Luber: OK. Is that Bill Clinton over your shoulder?

Ben Wilner: Actually it is! I was lucky enough to meet him at an event and I got my picture taken with him!

Luber: Very nice! That’s very cool. Have you met Alan Greenspan?

Ben Wilner: I’ve heard Alan Greenspan speak in a room with about 100 people before.

Luber: Wow – intimate!

Ben Wilner: But we did not meet.

[COLLEGE CAREER CENTERS ARE IMPORTANT FOR ECONOMICS CAREERS starts at 17:28]
Luber: OK, very good! That’s a very cool picture. So, career counseling. You were telling me that because there’s so many different paths that someone can take with an econ major that it’s actually really important to go to the career counseling department at your college because there isn’t really a set internship kind of program for someone who is in school looking to get a career in economics. Is that right? Can you explain that?

Ben Wilner: That’s right. Because there really isn’t anything like in accounting where you could just follow a path to go and become an accountant. So because there’s so many different things to do, it’s really helpful to go talk to your career counselors who will help you understand the various different paths you can go down as an economist.

[CAREER PATHS FOR PhD ECONOMISTS starts at 18:35]
Luber: OK, good. And you guys should always take advantage of your career counselors because those people are awesome – they know what they’re talking about and they’re there to help you – AND you’re paying for it when you go to school.

So many people pay for it and don’t ever use the services. I know I didn’t – beyond choosing a major – I used it for that help – but not a career counselor. I think they’re really helpful and you guys should take advantage of that.

What would you say is the difference, then, for someone coming out of school with a Bachelor’s versus coming out of school with a graduate degree like a PhD? Does that provide totally different job markets to each candidate and different compensation levels?

Ben Wilner: Yes it does. In going and once you get a PhD, there’s a convention every year, the Allied Social Science Association just after the new year in cities that vary. You go and you interview with various schools and other companies and governmental institutions and other institutions that are hiring economists. So you go and you interview there and that’s only open to people who are going and getting their PhD.

Going and studying with an undergraduate degree, there really isn’t any formal process to go and get a job. It’s really all kinds of different ways and really using your career counselors who can help you down the process.

[ECONOMIC CONSULTING CAREERS starts at 19:40]
Luber: OK. Let’s get to a specific career path so that someone could learn the details of what is happening to a day-to-day basis. Tell us about what you’re doing! Tell us about your line of work now as a litigation consultant.

Ben Wilner: Sure so right now I’m a litigation consultant. What that does is when companies sue each other, so let’s say Company A sues Company B for alleging that Company B did something wrong. Lawyers often times come to economists such as myself to go and help them with the economic , financial and statistical portions of their cases. So that I might be hired to go and calculate how much damage B should owe A because of what B allegedly did. And I could be hired either by Company A’s attorneys or Company’s B attorneys.

Luber: So you’re sitting down with them, you’re applying your special way of thinking to their situation to help determine what that whole suit’s value is.

Ben Wilner: In certain cases, yes.

Luber: OK. And what would happen on a typical day? What type of things would you be doing on a typical day of your work?

Ben Wilner: Well really there is no typical day. Some days I will go and be reading all kinds of documents and studying up about cases. Other times I’ll be running numerical models to go and quantify some aspect of the case.

Luber: So as a litigation consultant, then, are you – and I’ll use this term since it might make sense to a lot of people – are you an expert witness?

Ben Wilner: Yes. That’s what I do is I’m called on to be an expert witness where I will go on the witness stand in the courtroom and go and say what I believe to have occurred.

Luber: So is it as dramatic as everyone sees on TV?

Ben Wilner: Sometimes! But a lot of times things are played out and you know what questions you’re going to get and there are very few Perry Mason kind of moments.

Luber: Ha! And then what’s it like- when you’re sitting on the stand, either in the courtroom or in a deposition, what’s the feeling that’s going through your head? What’s it like to be on that hot seat?

Ben Wilner: You really need to know your facts, know your information, because there’s someone there who’s asking you potentially very tough questions to go and really question and try to disprove some of the things you’re saying.

Luber: Got it. So is someone in your role expected to bring in clients to the business?

Ben Wilner: Yes. So that’s one of the things that I really need to do is go and network and meet with attorneys and go and show them what I and my colleagues can do to really help them help their own clients.

Luber: OK. And so your role, though, you’re not considered a sales person, it’s not like you’re out there as a sales person earning commission. You’re paid a salary, you just need to develop business for your organization that you could bring in and then handle.

Ben Wilner: That’s correct.

Luber: OK. Got it. What would you say is the most rewarding aspect of this?

Ben Wilner: The most rewarding aspect is going and one – solving puzzles, and when you come up with the right answer – and a lot of times it’s very elegant. And also helping people – because a lawsuit can be very contentious and if you can go and do something positive within the lawsuit, that’s always a great thing.

Luber: Nice. What about the most challenging aspect?

Ben Wilner: The most challenging aspect is going and trying to solve the puzzles because the puzzles can sometimes be hard and so you need to study it a lot, think about it from 10, 12 different ways and be able to come up with the right answer.

[CAREER CHANGE S FOR ECONOMISTS starts at 23:47]
Luber: I want to get to the topic of career change – because you’re someone who went through a career change. You weren’t always a litigation consultant doing expert witness work. You were a professor. Talk to us about that. First tell us what it was like to be a finance professor and then led you to change course.

Ben Wilner: Sure. So originally I was a professor of finance at a couple universities within the Big 10. And I went and did everything you’re supposed to as a professor: I did teaching, I won teaching awards, I got published in all the right places, and I consulted businesses. I loved doing all 3 but I didn’t really like the proportions I was doing them in as a junior professor.

So I went and talked to mentors and talked to people to advise me and I really went and decided you know what – I can still do those same 3 things of teaching, research and consulting, but do it in more proportions that I like. And I found litigation consulting and it’s something that I’ve been doing for about 15 years now.

Luber: So how did you make that change? Think of this in terms of other people are watching who feel trapped. Often people who are considering a career change – I don’t want to say wimp out, but they get scared – they don’t pull the trigger. So if you could share the advice on what helped you to make that jump and make it happen and look how well it’s worked all these years – share some advice to maybe help other people who are stuck.

Ben Wilner: Sure. So when I went and decided I wanted to leave academics, I went and called an old professor of mine – someone who I knew and I liked who went on to a new career. And I went and I called her to go and ask her about making a transition and when I went and talked to her, she told me about what she did and it sounded very exciting and something that I really liked.

So I wasn’t planning to go into the career that she was in, which was litigation consulting, but I went and doing informational interviews and talking to people who you might know doing various things and might help you go and come up with careers that you didn’t even know existed.

[THE FUN SIDE OF ECONOMICS CAREERS starts at 26:34]
Luber: Yup. That’s awesome. Informational interviews are DEFINITELY the way to go. Such an amazing way to meet people and learn what else is out there and what’s it really like. That’s kind of what this site is. That’s what I always did – when I wanted to break into the music business and then the recruiting space – just sit down with everybody, talk to them, and learn firsthand what it’s really like.

Let’s talk about this -you were telling me something that surprised me. I think of being an economist as a VERY serious career. To me it SCREAMS SERIOUS! But YOU told me it’s a FUN career. How is it fun?

Ben Wilner: Because again, if you like puzzles and going and trying to solve the puzzles, then once you solve the puzzles and come up with answers and get the a-ha moment, it can be very exciting and very fun.

[KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR CAREERS IN ECONOMICS starts at 27:05]
Luber: OK! Excellent. So let’s do keys to success. Let’s get some advice for everybody. Wear the mentor hat and give everybody that’s watching a leg up by sharing your experience and give some keys to success to them so that they can go out and kick butt as economists.

Ben Wilner: Sure. So it’s again: study hard. Go and really look for what is the logic behind an economic question. It’s so very easy to get lost in mathematics and so if you go and look for the logic. There’s a lot of great books out there – for instance there’s a book called Freakonomics which was written recently which goes and takes the economic way of thinking to all kinds of different contexts: everything from drug dealers and how the drug dealer network works to many other different contexts.

And so a lot of ways that you don’t really think about economics being applied, it goes and applies the economic way of thinking in English, which a lot of people can understand.

Luber: OK, so you highly recommend that book. You say everyone should check out Freakonomics.

Ben Wilner: Yes.

Luber: I’ll put a link to that – an Amazon affiliate link to Freakonomics on the page so that everyone could check that out. Well this is all great, great advice. As always everyone at Careers Out There, we’re helping you find a career that fits you so you can love what you do like Ben does here. Ben, thanks so much for joining us today!

Ben Wilner: Thanks Marc.

Luber: Definitely appreciate it. You guys, I hope this was helpful to all of you. Please leave your feedback, your questions and your comments in the comments section below the video at Careers Out There dot com.

You can find episodes of Careers Out There on BlipTV, YouTube and iTunes and of course at Careers Out There dot com. Thanks again for watching everybody. I’m Marc Luber and look forward to seeing you again soon. Take care.

©2011 Careers Out There

What Is Engineering 1:03-8:50
Typical Day for Chemical Engineers 8:50-15:00
Careers for Chemical Engineers 15:00-17:28
Becoming a Chemical Engineer (A) 17:28-22:13
Education for Chemical Engineering 22:13-25:21
Challenges of Careers for Chemical Engineers 25:21-29:25
Becoming a Chemical Engineer (B) 29:25-30:56
Keys To Success for Chemical Engineers 30:56

Careers Out There Host Marc Luber: Hey everyone – on today’s episode of Careers Out There, we’re gonna explore careers in chemical engineering. We’ll be talking to Joe Sullivan in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Joe’s a chemical engineer in the pharmaceutical industry with over 10 years of experience! On every episode of Careers Out There, we explore a career path by talking to a real professional who does that kind of work. They tell us what it’s really like and then they share all kinds of advice to help YOU decide if it’s a path YOU want to pursue. So we’re helping you find a career that fits you. I’m your host Marc Luber and I’ll be learning right along with you guys today. Joe’s got a lot of great, eye-opening stuff to tell us about chemical engineering so it’s gonna be a great show. Stick around! [theme song] OK we’re back! Joe – welcome to Careers Out There.

Chemical Engineer Joe Sullivan: Thank you. Thank you for having me here.

[WHAT IS ENGINEERING starts at: 1:03]

Host Marc Luber: Yeah. Thanks for being here! So I was telling the audience Joe in the intro that I’m gonna be learning right along with them because I know nothing at all about engineering. Really nothing! So I’m really excited you’re here. When we were talking on the phone the other day we were talking about how this is pretty common. A lot of people don’t know a lot about engineering and a lot of people kind of take it for granted when, in reality, where would we be WITHOUT engineering, right?

Joe Sullivan: Yeah, yeah that’s good! It’s absolutely right. I think a lot of people, they see products in the marketplace that they could purchase, you know, maybe from their shampoo to their, to some devices they have – like, for instance, a lot of devices they use like rechargeable batteries, lithium ion batteries and other things, those don’t just appear after the artists have conceptualized and come up with the design of these wonderful products they want to bring to market. Engineers have to make those visions become a reality by applying science and knowledge to bring those products to life. So chemical engineers specifically, when someone comes along, we might have some chemists, some doctors come along and say, for instance, in my profession in the pharmaceutical industry, this is a drug or a chemical which has certain properties within the body. And if we could just make it on a large scale, we could distribute it to all these people and improve their lives, improve their livelihood. And so this is what chemical engineers do – is they take that idea and say “yes, we have factories, we have big tanks, we have apparatus that will let us make that product on a large scale so that it can be given to many people.” So that’s what chemical engineers essentially do. And you do that by understanding the properties and the nature of the chemicals you’re actually handling. You begin to see patterns in which they behave as you take them from the laboratory in a flask up to the large scale tank. They may behave somewhat differently on the large scale. Engineers understand that and correct for that so they can make a product that’s needed. So that’s in a nutshell….

Luber: You were just talking about pharmaceuticals – and you were telling me with paint, for example, that it’s a matter of making that paint thinner or thicker, right? So that it responds differently when you’re brushing it onto the wall? Stuff like that?

Joe Sullivan: Yeah. Exactly. People take for granted paint, and think it’s just another liquid, when in reality it’s quite different from water if you think about it. Water would just dribble down the wall and it would fall off your brush. Paint is completely an engineered material so that it’s thick. When you dip your brush in, you pick it up and it’s thick. And when you push on the wall, you’re shearing the paint liquid and it spreads easily. It’s called “shear thinning behavior”. And this is a property that is specifically engineered into paint to allow you to get big globs on your brush but yet spread it thinly on the surface of the wall. And so that’s the thing – all these things are taken for granted by the general public because you don’t really get exposure to the level of engineering that went in to achieve the properties that went into achieving the properties in whatever you’re talking about.

Luber: For some reason engineering is not sexy and people don’t care. So it’s YOUR job today for our audience – you’ve gotta make it sexy! So we’ll put that pressure on you so that we could turn on a whole future batch of chemical engineers watching today. You told me a REALLY, REALLY eye-opening story the other day that helped me understand engineering a LOT. If you could take the story about the paint factory and apply what you just said to THAT. How you helped the paint company that you worked at by applying these basic foundations of chemical engineering.

Joe Sullivan: Yeah. So the big story I shared with you the other day is I worked in the paint industry for about 1 year. They, until I was hired, they had basically for I think about 100 years they’d been there, so they’d never really had a process engineer. Or, even an engineer – they had some engineers that are best described almost like they kept the place running, but they never had like a real chemical engineer who understood the nature of fluids, which is all what paint is. So when I first got there, and I got to work out in the factory, they had a particular process where they were making white paint. And in the process of making paint you grind pigment up and as you grind it more and more you get stronger and stronger paint, essentially. And they had had this tank and it would take them up to a week of adding the pigment in the tank and mixing it, agitating it with what you can almost imagine like a blender-like blade in there, like mixing it up, this blade that could be lowered or raised. They would turn it on high speed and it would get mixed up and then they would run it through a mill, which is a bunch of balls that crunch the pigment up more and they’d bring it back into the tank and they’d do it again and again. They had found that this process took several iterations of going around that loop until they got the product out that they needed for the customer in the end. So I said “oh, let me look at this”. I took a sample of paint, I took measurements of the tank, I went back to my desk, I did some calculations – well first I measured the paint and its properties, how thick it is, just some general properties, how heavy it is. Then I went back to my desk and kind of calculated out that they weren’t running it correctly at all! So I went back out, I told them to turn down the motor on the tank and they kind of looked at me like in disbelief and they said “that’s never gonna work, never in a million years.” So what I had established was that they were running the blade so fast that they had put the fluid into what’s called “turbulent flow” and when fluid is in turbulent flow, all the molecules in the fluid, and in this particular instance the paint particles we wanted to get torn apart, are ultimately just dancing around each other because you can imagine like turbulence – when you think of things being turbulent they’re plopping all over each other- but they weren’t really breaking apart. So what I did instead is put the fluid in the tank in what’s called “laminar flow” where the fluid is moving against itself like this in sheets. And in between those sheets, if you can imagine, there’s something stuck between the sheets it gets torn apart, it gets pulled in 2 different directions at once, and that would really break it up very efficiently. So I had them lower the speed so the fluid would settle out into this beautiful laminar flow and sure enough – I was able to grind all the pigment in the tank in like 28 hours! And we just had to do one pass through the mill and we were done! So they went from several days down to 28 hours – and the look on their faces was like disbelief!

Luber: You maximized their output by 7 times!

Joe Sullivan: Yes! Something close to that, yes! So it was a big thing for me and for them to see the power of understanding core principles at work and then leveraging those to get a better outcome. And again, that’s what engineers do. Is you take some time to think out “what are the things affecting what I’m trying to make” and then you optimize those things and you figure them out so as to make the thing better, cheaper, faster, stronger, whatever you’re looking for.

Luber: And then they saw the value of engineering! And that whole story helped ME see the value so I’ve gotta figure it helps the audience see the value too. So you’re making it sexy!

Joe Sullivan: I guess as sexy as paint can be, you know?!

[TYPICAL DAY FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS starts at: 8:50]

Luber: Exactly! For the audience that’s thinking about going down this path, they’re gonna want to know what’s a typical day if I’m working out there. So one of the things you were telling me the other day is that in a typical day someone’s working at an office at their desk and they’re also working in a lab and they’re also in a factory! And that’s pretty typical. Can you kind of explain what’s happening briefly in each of those and how that makes up your typical day?

Joe Sullivan: Yeah sure. So for a chemical engineer, and also like we mentioned, is this was early in my career, especially being in a very strong support position for a factory environment. Typically the day would start off with coming in, hearing what’s happened over night because we’d run 24/7, carrying over the problems from yesterday that we might have encountered. This could be anything from a reaction not going the way we’d planned to a pipe bursting because of freezing to any sorts of issues. Sometimes it could be the simplest issue like a valve not working that then all of a sudden causes all these other cascade of issues. So I need to understand those. Probably in the same trip we might have taken some samples. I may bring those to our testing laboratories that would normally run testing for us. Those samples may require special testing we normally don’t do. And I’d bring those back to my chemists that work in my department with me as well. They’re kind of like – they’re able to run tests that we normally don’t do, come up with new ideas. And then we might all sit down in a meeting like by Noon or something or 1:00 and talk about the issue and pool our data. Everyone comes and I might have gone back to my desk while the chemists are running tests and looked up process data like basically traces of temperatures and pressures and volumes and other things that have occurred out there, like see what that data is. We all come together, we reach a resolution on what might or might not be wrong and then we have an action plan basically to go forward. So I may go back out now, have to implement what are essentially change controls – like we have control processes, and you’re gonna want to go out and you’re gonna want to say “I’m deliberately gonna change the process so as to fix it”. So you might have to do some paperwork, a little bit of paperwork to implement that change but then you get to actually see your change happen, take some more data, come back to the laboratory again, maybe come back to your desk and look at some process data and basically see if your fix worked. And hopefully most of the time you’ve made the right decision. Sometimes you might have a great idea and it didn’t work out. It wasn’t the root cause. So a lot of what we do is we’re always seeking out what we like to call “root cause”. So sometimes you think you found the problem but it’s really just superficially the problem and there’s something else going on that you don’t know yet. It might be that not enough water got in that tank that day. And you might go out and say “oh, we just need to turn the water up” but then you turn the water up and you notice that even THEN you didn’t get enough flow and then you go back and say “Well maybe there’s a plug in the line”. I guess that’s a very simple example but they’re often much more complex.

Luber: No, that’s good – that helps!

Joe Sullivan: You try to work through some issues and as the chemical engineer, you’re all through those places at any given moment so you don’t have a….

Luber: So if you’re running around juggling 3 different environments, it’s hard to get bored! You’re not stuck at a desk all day or you’re not just stuck at any 1 thing all day which makes for an exciting job.

Joe Sullivan: It’s great. I mean you have all these people who have these issues from sitting at their desks all day or whatever. You’re definitely gonna be getting some exercise and you’re getting out and getting some fresh air, you’re getting out and meeting on any one day tens of people so there’s a lot of interaction every day with people.

Luber: I want to run with that and talk about that for a second because there’s a lot of interaction with people. It sounds like in everything you’re describing in a typical day, there’s a lot of putting your head together with other people’s heads. So there’s a lot of teamwork involved. So I want to know who are these other major team players that you’re dealing with? They’re not all chemical engineers. So who are these other players?

Joe Sullivan: Yeah. You actually deal with when you’re a chemical engineer, you’re gonna have peers but they’re gonna each be working on their own processes. So I would be working typically with what we call “operators” or “chemical operators”. So they’re actually out there running the machinery. You’re gonna be working with safety and environmental, so like industrial hygienists. You’re gonna be working with the business end like finance, purchasing. You’re gonna be working with your raw material people – the people that bring the materials on site – you’re gonna need to integrate with them and figure out if the wrong shipment arrived –sometimes that tends to be the source of the problem. You’re supposed to get this product in and this OTHER product came in and you didn’t know it. You might also be working with chemists. I know right now I’m starting a new project where I’m in fermentation. I’m working with biologists. You know you could be working with people who handle all of our paperwork and essentially librarians almost, and then administrative personnel as well. And mechanics. There’s SO many people I work with. So many different types of people. It’s really hard to almost count them all out! Because on a chemical site, there are so many roles because it’s so complex. It’s just like a city. You can’t have someone control all of the city. Rather it’s like a big network of people that all need to find ways in which you interact that creates productive work together.

Luber: So everyone’s like an alderman instead of a mayor.

Joe Sullivan: Yes! I guess so, yeah!

[CAREERS FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS starts at: 15:00]

Luber: To run with your city analogy. So you were telling me that there’s a lot of different things you could do career wise. A lot of different paths you could take career wise as a chemical engineer. Can you tell us what some of those are?

Joe Sullivan: Yeah! Most chemical engineers you’re gonna start your career off 1 or 2 ways: in the laboratory in the design realm where that might be like working in the lab every day essentially to test new equipment or to test whether the equipment could be used for a certain process or to actually sit down at your computer and like design the factory. OR you’re gonna be starting your career like I described out in the factory every morning, basically problem-solving. So that’s how most young engineers start actually. Other things you might do in that role is like validation work where you’re testing tanks and making sure they perform to specifications, things like this. So as you get older then, your options open up a little bit. Usually to the standpoint of you can continue to go down those roles, you can possibly become like a managerial position where you’re managing like a number of engineers or managing like an entire process. So you might be managing like an entire factory or you might be managing a team of engineers that are helping several factories. There’s different roles – it varies. Then after that, after you have gone a little farther in your career, you may become a consultant, you may decide that you have developed so many skills over your career that you now can go out and help other people with processes like yours at other companies. Or you could become a plant manager: someone who is basically managing the ENTIRE operations of the plant. The reason why engineers are well-suited to those positions is that we, as I mentioned before, we’re often in the center of working with all those different types of people. So you get a really good exposure to all the aspects of running a plant. Like all the minutiae that goes on. So you’re often well-suited then to become a plant manager because you just have that base.

Luber: Right! That makes perfect sense. Yeah. And the consultant – they could even be expert witnesses on trials too I bet. That’s probably a big path.

Joe Sullivan: Yeah absolutely.

[BECOMING A CHEMICAL ENGINEER (A) starts at: 17:28]

Luber: Well who would you say then should pursue something like this? What are the right – we can combine skill sets, personality characteristics and interests. Who do you think should pursue this?

Joe Sullivan: People that find themselves interested in math and science. Specifically for chemical engineering they should have some interest in chemistry. For me that always manifested itself – growing up I would always be mixing things together as a very young child. And as I grew older, I began to question whether if I mixed similar things together like that weren’t exactly the same as those like how would the end thing be different. How would the end product be different. And actually one of my very first things – and I don’t recommend this – but we used to take apart fireworks when I was younger. And we’d make our own from the fireworks stand.

Luber: Don’t do this everybody! It’s dangerous! We want to warn everybody!

Joe Sullivan: Right, don’t try this at home.

Luber: Right. Don’t try it at home.

Joe Sullivan: But what we would do is we’d take the gunpowder on sheets of paper and we’d take a file to pennies and nickels and stuff and you start learning about all these things. So I went and filed it in to the gunpowder and it would change the color of the gunpowder. So I always had a natural curiosity about what would happen if I add this or mix this – what would the new result be? That started leading me in the direction of chemistry. And then when I got into chemistry I said “you know what – I don’t know that I like so much the chemistry field, which is specifically like mixing the chemicals every day in the lab. I really wanted, and I think this comes from my background of always inventing stuff as a child, I wanted to make something of my knowledge. So I’m trying to give you an example of myself to give you an idea of the kind of personality – would be someone that’s curious about things- like how they work and stuff – but someone who also wants to take that knowledge and turn it into something new – or something better. So the gunpowder example – that was our attempt to make it better. Because what we found out is when you’d take those all apart, gunpowder was mostly all yellow and we were like “That’s boring”. So we were trying to make it better and that’s like engineering! The other thing I mentioned in there several times – the word that kept coming up – is “curiosity”. And that’s crucial. If you’re out in the factory and you walk past this funny nose that’s going “whirr whirr whirr” and normally it just goes “whirr”, you want to be the person that goes “huh I’d better check that out”. Or “even though I’m a little late for a meeting, I’m gonna go check that out because that really sounds peculiar.” That’s what most engineers are like. Their curiosity helps drive them to solutions. Sometimes solutions to problems no one even knew existed! And that’s the key – when you get to be a REALLY good engineer, you get to be better and better at your predictive abilities and less and less at your fire fighting. So you look at a situation and you say “oh, I’ve seen this situation several times, I think I know what might happen.” And then you’d then try to avoid that. So these are attributes….

Luber: OK. So the curious mind, the problem solver, and the math and science lover. That’s it.

Joe Sullivan: Yup.

Luber: Cool! So what would you say then is the most rewarding part of the whole career? What would that be?

Joe Sullivan: I think the most rewarding part is solving particularly hard problems that there is no solution to. So often times being the first one to discover the issue…I love puzzles – and especially puzzles – I often take the instructions and I crumble them up and throw them in the trash can which someone might think is crazy – but I don’t want to ever know the solution. I want to get to it on my own. Being an engineer is like that often. Almost every day. You’re presented with issues every day there’s not an answer to. You have to go and figure it out. So for me, that’s the most rewarding thing of all of being an engineer. There’s not a written script by which you should follow every day. It’s not entirely up to you what you do every day, but it’s entirely up to you how you attack the problems that are presented to you every day.

[EDUCATION FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERING starts at: 22:13]

Luber: That makes sense! If you’re a curious mind who likes problem solving, then solving the hard problems has got to be a rewarding part of the job! So that makes perfect sense it would work like that. What about education then? What should people – I’m assuming if someone’s in high school they should be taking as many math and science classes as possible, right?

Joe Sullivan: Yes.

Luber: And then college – I assume if you know that you’re interested in engineering in high school, then you should be looking for the colleges with the best engineering programs. But some people don’t figure out until they’re already AT college that they want to pursue that path. So let’s say you haven’t already hunted down the best engineering college – you just chose a university and you’ve started school and you kind of are figuring out in college “I want to do what Joe does”. What should they do at that point? What should they be studying?

Joe Sullivan: Just in general, I want to say that if you don’t take – or some people don’t have an opportunity to take a lot of advanced math and science in high school. I’d like to say that that does NOT preclude you in any way from pursuing a chemical engineering or an engineering degree at all. The only thing I will say is that if those ARE available at your high school and you find yourself NOT taking those, then that MAY be an indication that this is NOT the field for you. This is not something that you’re interested in. So when you get into college, as far as picking a college, you said a “good” college. I’m just gonna say I think a “good” college would be a college that has a large department of the discipline you’re thinking about pursuing. And you can go look this information up on line. So you’re gonna find out that certain schools have larger departments in like chemical engineering, or have a larger department in like, for instance, electrical engineering….

Luber: That leads to another question. Sorry to interrupt you – but do you have to know when you’re starting which kind of engineer you want to be? Or can you start off by taking general engineering classes and then kind of select which focus you want?

Joe Sullivan: No. So if you choose you want to do engineering as a college freshman, you have the option if you want to take Intro to Engineering in your freshman year. When you take that course you’ll be given a sampling of the different engineering disciplines that are available: chemical engineering, electrical, mechanical or some other types. At the end of that class you typically will make a choice about the engineering discipline you want to go into. And then your class schedule will be chosen to fulfill the requirements of that discipline. So for chemical engineering, you’ll be taking kinetics and thermodynamics and all those things like that. After that first entry class, after the first entry classes, you still may be available to switch disciplines. So you may have taken some intro classes for chemical engineering – and they’re not totally worthless for electrical engineering. You can switch. That’s usually in your sophomore year. People will make that choice, usually in the first semester of their sophomore year. After that you pretty much would probably stick with the discipline you’ve chosen because you’re getting into more and more advanced: 200, 300 and 400-level classes that are VERY specific to your discipline.

Luber: Got it.

Joe Sullivan: Does that make sense?

[CHALLENGES OF CAREERS FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS starts at: 25:21]
Luber: Yeah! Definitely. So we’ve talked now about all the good stuff and now we’ve gotten people to the point where they’re in school. Let’s talk about the dark side. The ugly stuff. What’s the biggest challenge of being a chemical engineer? What’s the hardest thing?

Joe Sullivan: Yeah. So most of the processes that you’ll support as a chemical engineer are gonna run 24/7, around the clock all year long. Often times being down can mean tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour sometimes, depending on the value of the product that’s going through the train. And so the downside of being a chemical engineer is that you make a commitment, essentially, when you join a company that you are gonna make your skills available to that company for those processes. And so I’ve had, for me personally, a Thanksgiving dinner interrupted where I had to come up to work to basically get a process running that had gone down during Thanksgiving. I’ve also had a week or 2 where I didn’t see my family except sleeping. You know I was working VERY long hours on a VERY difficult problem. Now that was very short term. Early in your career you might find yourself working a lot of shift work, which means a lot of sleep interruption from the way your natural sleep cycle might be used to.

Luber: That would be like working midnight til sunrise? That kind of a thing?

Joe Sullivan: Yeah, that kind of a thing, yeah. Where you work extended hours would be like on a very specific problem that is arising. When you’re working off – like when I say “shift” – it would be like your shift might be 8:00 at night to 6:00 in the morning or something. And then you might work that for 3 or 4 days and be off – you still get off days but I’m just saying you will be off from the rest of society! Some people like it. I think of that as a downside. Especially if you have a family – that can be a downside because it could just be difficult to see your family because they’re not gonna be on that odd schedule.

Luber: Right. So that’s like the early career phase where you’re building things up, you might have to pay your dues that way.

Joe Sullivan: Yeah but that’s never gonna go away even later on in your career because there’s always gonna be a need for you and when you work on things that run around the clock all year long, there’s gonna always be, even later in your career, there’s gonna be a time when you have to come in at an odd time to either fix something or to see something that only occurs at night. If you were to go into engineering and that was to be your life every day, you’re probably not at the right company. Those types of spans are usually short-term and then you can get back into more of a regular schedule.

Luber: What about the thing that would weed people out? It sounds like – I always like to say “what is that thing where if you can’t handle this you shouldn’t go down this path” – it sounds like from what you were saying about the grueling classes that you have to take to get to the point where you’re actually a chemical engineer – it sounds like THAT would really weed people out and that if you don’t enjoy those classes and you can’t get through those classes then you’ll be weeded out before you even are a chemical engineer. Is that right?

Joe Sullivan: Yeah. I’ll just give you an idea – like when I was in school, me and my friends, we would take the classes and they were TOUGH. But when we’d get done with that tough assignment, we’d all have the same kind of response like “oh – that’s really cool!” You know? “That’s so cool that we solved this really tough problem using this really advanced math!” But if you find yourself looking at such situations with dismay, then engineering is not right for you at all. You know what I’m saying?

Luber: That paints a perfect picture! I wouldn’t last 5 seconds in any of those classes. Not because I don’t think it’s cool but because I wouldn’t understand any of it – everything would go a mile over my head – so I know I’s not for me! Finding employment – let’s talk about that. Getting a job after school – you were saying that traditionally there’ve been lots of jobs out there for people coming out of school but right now a lot of jobs are shifting overseas in this space and now there’s a lot of opportunities overseas in places like China and India? Is that what’s happening with your field?

Joe Sullivan: Yeah. I have a number of colleagues and friends from college who are now working in China, working in India and often times the role that they’re fulfilling, it’s not like they’re going to India to work in a factory under these extreme conditions or something. They’re actually very nice factories in these countries that are being built – a very equivalent to our factories. They are basically acting the role as like a technical advisor in those companies. So they’re going over there and they’re saying “I’m an expert in how to make products like this” and they’ve been hired and they lend that expertise to those companies so as to optimize their processes. Some of those companies – actually in all the cases of my friends – they are all American companies that have locations overseas. Actually I also have friends that are in Thailand, Puerto Rico, Ireland – so it’s not only China and India. I don’ think a lot of people realize that a lot of manufacturing is also going into other countries like those ones I just mentioned.

[BECOMING A CHEMICAL ENGINEER (B) starts at: 29:25]

Luber: Huh. OK, so then if people are interested in international opportunities and working overseas, this could be a path that could help open up those opportunities. If they want to stay here in the States and they’re looking for your traditional job here in chemical engineering would you say internships during school are an important thing for them to try and look for while in college?

Joe Sullivan: Absolutely. I think just seeing the candidates come through here – the ones that have expertise from doing summer internships or what are called co-ops, which is where you leave school for an entire semester and you work at a company – those are extremely valuable. That’s the thing – there’s that old adage that you don’t have enough experience to be hired…… but you can’t be hired unless you have experience – it’s like a Catch 22. Co-ops and internships are the perfect opportunity because companies will scoop you right up, you can come and work usually on these really defined, narrow special projects which are great because you can achieve a certain success and just a few months you’re there, you’re given a very tight goal and you can get this very nice success and something to claim later in interviews. You can say if you’re interviewing “I was on this co-op and we developed this technology”, you know. It’s a nice sharing story to have in your interviews to show people that you’ve really been in the trenches and it gives you that experience.

[KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS starts at: 30:56]

Luber: Yup. It gives you an edge up, a leg up on other people, it can help get that first job. That’s great. So everybody should do that – you should look into those kinds of opportunities – whether it’s co-op if your school does that or internships. What about keys to success? I always like to have everyone close us out with this. Take all of your years of experience and share some advice with people who are breaking into the career path of being a chemical engineer and help them to kick butt. What are the key things you would tell them?

Joe Sullivan: The key things I would tell a new chemical engineer: the first one is to listen to the people who actually work on your process. So go out, interact with those people on a day-to-day basis, make them you friends. They, more than anyone else, no matter what anyone else says, they may more than anyone else know the process backwards and forwards what the issues are. They’re gonna help you solve problems day in and day out. So that’s number 1. I think that – and if your company offers the opportunity, I didn’t have this opportunity when I started here at this company but at the paint company I got to work the floor for 6 weeks. So I actually got to become an operator. If that’s a possibility wherever you go as a chemical engineer to work, ask for it. Ask to do that.

Luber: Because standing in their shoes lets you totally relate once you are on the chemical engineering side so you can understand where they’re at?

Joe Sullivan: Oh yeah! And not only do they see you as a peer and as an equal, in which case then they’re more likely to share issues with you freely and share candid assessments of your great ideas that you’re gonna come out with. But it also gives you insight into things you just can’t get sitting at a desk or going out there only for an hour or 2 here and there. When you’re out there all day long, you get to see that nitty gritty – and I have to say, in the paint plant, at least 75% of my really good ideas came from that 6 weeks I spent out there. I had this list, this running list. So that’s another suggestion. You know – don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions. I get that young engineers, I think they want to look like they know everything. Trust me – no one’s looking for that actually at all, number 1. And I still don’t look like I know everything. I’ll tell you what – looking like you know everything actually shuts people down. It makes them feel like not sharing with you. It’s much better to play the role of asking silly questions and supposedly stupid questions because you get to the core answers first and you make people comfortable about themselves and they’re more likely to share. So those are some advice that people don’t hear all the time.

Luber: Right. That’s great. That’s really – I think that’s really helpful advice. And I hope it helps all you guys watching! Please leave your feedback, your questions and your comments in the comments section below the video there on Careers Out There dot com. Joe – thanks so much for taking the time and sharing all of your insights with us today.

Joe Sullivan: It’s been a lot of fun. I wish everyone the best out there who’s considering being a chemical engineer.

Luber: That’s awesome. You guys could find Joe on Twitter which is where I found him! Joe – tell everyone your Twitter address.

Joe Sullivan: I’m on Twitter at Twitter.com/itche.

Luber: Excellent. You guys, find him there on Twitter. I’ll put that here up on the screen. You can find episodes of Careers Out There on iTunes, YouTube and BlipTV and of course at Careers Out There dot com. Thanks again for watching everybody. I’m Marc Lube and look forward to seeing you guys again soon. Take care.
 
©2011 Careers Out There

What Do Industrial Hygienists Do 0:56-11:02
Who Fits Industrial Hygienist Careers 11:02-17:11
Education For Industrial Hygienist Careers 17:11-22:57
Most Rewarding Part of Industrial Hygienist Careers 22:57-24:43
Most Challenging Part of Industrial Hygienist Careers 24:43-28:43
Breaking In To Industrial Hygiene Careers 28:43-33:$3
Keys To Success For Industrial Hygiene Careers 33:43

Careers Out There Host Marc Luber: Hey everyone – on today’s episode of Careers Out There we’re gonna explore environmental health careers. We’ll be talking to Meagan Yoshimoto Clark. She’s a certified industrial hygienist who works for a health and safety consulting firm in Seattle. On every episode of Careers Out There, we’re helping you find a career that fits you. We explore a career path by talking to a real professional who does that kind of work – and they tell us what it’s really like and share all kinds of advice with us to help YOU decide if it’s the kind of path you want to pursue. I’m your host Marc Luber and until a week ago, I’d never even heard of industrial hygiene careers. So I’m psyched Meagan’s here today to share her more than 6 years of experience with us so we can all learn together. It’s gonna be a great show so stick around! [theme song] OK we’re back! Meagan, welcome to Careers Out There.

Industrial Hygienist Meagan Yoshimoto-Clark: Thank you. Happy to be here!

[WHAT DO INDUSTRIAL HYGIENISTS DO starts at 0:56]
Host Marc Luber: Great. I’m glad you’re here. So Meagan, I was telling the audience in the intro that I’d never even heard of industrial hygiene careers until a week ago when we talked. So can you tell us what that is and what an industrial hygienist does?

Meagan Yoshimoto-Clark: Yeah absolutely! I didn’t know what industrial hygiene was before college either. And my family still really doesn’t understand what I do all that well! But industrial hygienists are scientists focused on protecting people in the workplace: protecting them from potential hazards. We don’t deal with environmental concerns like protecting water quality, protecting air quality. We focus on protecting people at work. So that might be a construction site, it might be a manufacturing facility, it might be a hospital or schools or even homes. There are hazards in all kinds of work environments and people need to be aware of them and comply with safety rules.

Luber: So these ARE environmental hazards, right? You’re saying you’re not dealing with the environment but you mean you’re not dealing with nature in that sense, but you are dealing with the workplace environment, right?

Meagan: Correct. Absolutely. The “built” environment is what we call it versus protecting bugs and bunnies.

Luber: Ha! OK. So someone could be working in a factory and they could be getting exposed to some kind of horrible poison. You’ve gotta figure that out and solve the problem.

Meagan: Yes. And the real challenge becomes in our modern world there are all kinds of new products and new chemicals being developed all the time. And so while we have a good idea about some of the older ones, the newer ones don’t have reliable test methods and we don’t really know what their effect on people will be.

Luber: Ha! You know what I found real interesting? On the phone you were telling me about the history of industrial hygiene. Tell everyone about that.

Meagan: Sure! Industrial hygiene is a relatively new field and it started off about 100 years ago with the realization that your job has a big effect on your health and it came about through physicians examining sick patients and realizing the importance of asking these people what their jobs were. For example, they’d see a lot of men with lung problems who worked in the mines. So it seemed to be a logical connection to make between your job and your health. Another example is there are people who make hats and they use mercury in the felting process and mercury damages your brain and nerves and so you had these people who basically went crazy! And you get the term “mad hatter”, like the character in Alice in Wonderland!

Luber: Ha! I love Alice in Wonderland! So tell me this – you were saying that you work with things like even chemo drugs. I talk a lot on the website about cancer because my mom passed away from cancer and I’ve featured some cancer charities, so I’m always curious about that. And that also sheds some light on other aspects of what you do for our audience – can you tell us an example with a chemo drug what you would do with that?

Meagan: Yeah, absolutely. Chemo drugs are kind of a double-edged sword. They can help people who have cancer but if you don’t have cancer it’s possible to get cancer from being exposed to chemo drugs. And some of the population that might have potential exposures to chemo drugs are those health care technicians who mix the chemo drugs or the nurses who administer the chemo drugs. And so we might have industrial hygienists go in and work at the workplace where they’re mixing and administering the drugs and figure out how to prevent contact with the drugs and keep those health care personnel from developing cancers in their attempts to heal others who already have it.

Luber: Such a cool career! It’s so different! I have so many questions for you – I want to know how you do it and how you know how to do it, but before we even get to that, I want to learn about a typical day so that we could kind of picture what an industrial hygienist is doing just on a normal day. Can you walk us through that?

Meagan: Well I’m a consultant. I don’t have any one particular client. We work for many around the local area. So a typical day for me would be having already coordinated the job with the client and the day we’re gonna show up. I would come into the office and gather equipment and that could be sampling equipment, meters, air monitors and lab forms and all the things we’d need to collect samples and investigate the site. And that also includes safety gear for us.

Luber: Talk about the safety gear. You sent me some great pictures of you. I’ll put them up here. A crazy suit and a crazy mask! What’s that all about?!

Meagan: Yes! When you don’t know what hazards are gonna be in the environment, and often times we don’t, we want to err on the side of caution so we have all these chemical resistant suits and there’s different levels of protection. Probably what you’re seeing there is a yellow suit and that is a mercury vapor-resistant suit. And I’m wearing a respirator to protect myself from inhaling mercury vapors. That particular job was a mercury spill.

Luber: OK, got it. Wow – scary! OK, so go on. You grab all your gear, you put on your gear, you go to the workplace.

Meagan: Yes. I would load up the car, I would drive to the site, and then we’d get there and meet with the client and we usually do a walk through the site just to get the lay of the land and we check out the different processes that they do there. We usually like them to point out the most high-risk ones to us. And then, once we figure out a sampling plan or an investigation strategy based on what we see there, we go and get all the equipment out and collect samples. I REALLY enjoy talking with the employees at the site. They’re the ones who really know what’s going on: where their risks are and they really know the most technically about the process. It’s always fun to hear from them. And I think the info that they give you is very crucial.

Luber: OK.

Meagan: After that we’d collect all the samples and then we’d load back up the car and drop samples at the lab and return to the office, of course making sure we decontaminated ourselves and our gear. You never want to wear gear you’ve worn in the field in your car back into the office.

Luber: Oh right!

Meagan: Yes.

Luber: That makes sense. OK, so then you go back to the office.

Meagan: And then after we get our sample results back from the laboratory, we would then write up a report about our findings. And of course if there’s anything that the client needed to know about immediately in order to make immediate changes to protect their employees, we do that over the phone. Otherwise we write up a report and issue that to them.

Luber: So you take the lab information and write up your technical report – is that report also giving instructions on how to fix the problem? Are you also planning how to remove this problem from the workplace?

Meagan: Yes. We often make recommendations based on those results about how to make the workplace safer and to minimize the exposure risk. That can be changes in ventilation, that can be changing the product entirely, getting rid of the hazardous product and substituting a less hazardous one, that could be minimizing time people are working with that particular hazardous product. Or, in the worst case scenario, if you can’t change any of those then we’d start protecting people with gloves, suits, maybe respirators. But that’s kind of the last resort.

Luber: And then do you guys come in and make those fixes once they’re approved by the company?

Meagan: At times we do, in the sense that we can provide training to the employees and educate them about the product that they’re working with or the hazards that are involved with their process and teach them about health effects with it or signs and symptoms to look for and why protections are important and how those protections work.

Luber: Got it. And so if it’s not you that’s doing the implementation, who would be?

Meagan: The company, our client, would take it upon themselves to implement the changes and do employee training themselves and follow-up. Because they’re the ones there every day. They’re the ones there on site, they have the most access to the process and they can check in on people and do surprise inspections on their employees and make sure that everyone is doing the new process the right way.

Luber: That makes sense. So would the lab be – there’s lab technicians, I assume, who are studying the samples that you’ve gathered, and then they’re reporting back to you in scientific language saying “blah blah blah, this place is poison” and then you’re taking that and putting it into English so that everyone else can understand it? Is that what’s going in to the report you’re typing up?

Meagan: Almost. The laboratory technicians speak in numbers only. So they give us a value. “Your sample had 36 parts per million of solvent” or “your sample had 50 micrograms of lead per cubic meter” and then we take that and, yes, translate it into English and try to phrase it in the reports so that employers can hand that report to their employees and have it be easily understandable.

Luber: Now who’s calling you out to the site in the first place? Is it someone at the workplace who’s saying “I smell poison”? I mean what’s happening that’s starting this whole thing going?

Meagan: Ha! Marc, I hope you’re not smelling poison that often! But yes, usually it’s the owner of the company or a safety manager or a manufacturing manager or somebody who’s in management of some kind. We really aren’t able to respond to employee complaints. There is a state agency that handles employee complaints. But we usually come out at the request of a particular company to help them make their workplace safer for their employees.

Luber: So they’ll have a concern that “there might be something that we’re generating through our daily grind of work that’s gonna be hurting our employees. We want to make sure it’s not, so can you come out, see if it is and if it is, we want to remove that problem or tweak it as much as possible so that it’s as minimally dangerous as possible.” Is that it?

Meagan: Yeah. It could be in response to employee complaints or it could be in response to starting a new process or using a new chemical in their process and they don’t really know what it’s going to be like so they have us come out as a preemptive measure and research that product for them before they start using it.

[WHO FITS INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST CAREERS starts at 11:02]
Luber: OK, wow! This is very cool. Alright, so I want to know how you do this. So we’ll get to formal education in a minute but first let’s go to what skills you’re using. How you’re figuring out whether there’s an environmental issue.

Meagan: Well I think that observation skills are key. And like I said before, speaking with the employees is where I get some of my best information. Also speaking with safety personnel, if that company has it. Always being a fly on the wall for the day and watching what people do. You might have some employees saying “I have developed a rash on my hands” and you notice that that employee is the one employee who’s not wearing gloves in the room.

Luber: Ha!

Meagan: So gently and tactfully pointing that out is sometimes an easy fix.

Luber: In a case like that, sorry to interrupt. So in a case like that, your report would be “hey company XYZ, you don’t really have a problem here, you just have a dumb employee who’s not wearing their damn gloves!” Is that basically what you’d be doing?

Meagan: Ha! I’m not sure I would use the word “dumb”. I would probably say “you really need to create and enforce your glove use policy” is what I would say. Enforce your personal protective equipment policy. Hygiene is huge and just keeping things off your skin or washing up really well before you eat, drink, smoke or apply makeup is a big deal when you’re trying to prevent contact dermatitis or skin rashes.

Luber: OK, wow! And you gave me an example that I really liked on the phone the other day that there might be someone who’s family is sick so they’re concerned that everyone’s taking home toxins from work but it turns out that there’s this one guy at the company who’s always leaving work early because he’s got new babies at home so he wants to rush home early and so he’s not decontaminating every day when he’s leaving the plant or the factory or the office, the lab, and taking home the contaminants, whereas all the other employees are washing down and so that one family is sick because again, it’s like the guy who didn’t wear the gloves you just mentioned! Right? It’s someone who’s not doing what they’re supposed to when leaving the workplace!

Meagan: Yeah. A tracking hazard is a big deal. And you don’t want people taking home contaminants on their clothes, on their shoes and tracking it into their car and then loading up their baby in the same car, and then the baby drops McDonald’s French fries on the floor and then he eats them. So, I don’t know if babies eat French fries, but you know!

Luber: Yeah.

Meagan: But it is a big deal and as part of your observation skills, you would want to, when you’re chatting with this particular person, if they mention how they’re late every day to pick up their kids, you know they might be rushing at the end of the day and maybe not doing as good a job decontaminating as they should, slowing down and taking the time. So you have to be aware of people’s emotions, where their head is at, and that they’re not always thinking safety. So you have to do that for them and give reminders.

Luber: So you’re like an investigative journalist in a way!

Meagan: A little bit in the sense that I think you have to get people to like you if they’re gonna open up to you and tell you about their day and tell you how they work. Nobody likes to have someone standing there watching them work. I would feel mortified if somebody watched me! So they’re nervous already, they may be defensive, you never know what’s going on politically at their company, maybe their health care benefits just got cut so they’re already angry in general and aren’t really in the mood to follow all the rules that they should be to protect themselves but the problem with that is that they’re only punishing themselves if they’re exposing themselves.

Luber: Right. OK so then you’ve got the problem solving skills, the research skills, the investigative skills, so you’ve gotta be really analytical…

Meagan: Yup.

Luber: But it sounds like you’ve also gotta have really good communication skills and good people skills, right?

Meagan: Absolutely. Our audience can vary widely, even within a given day. We speak with engineers, we speak with architects, we speak with welders, we speak with concrete workers, a lot of the people have English as a second language so you have to really be able to communicate clearly and simply and in terms that people can understand. So for engineers, in order to get them on board with us, we get a little bit more technical to get them excited about what we’re doing and what we can help them with. Somebody else who maybe doesn’t really care about those technical details, we try to bring it home to them and say “this is not just about you, this is about protecting your family at home because you need to follow these safety rules because we want to send you home in the same condition you got to work in for your babies.”

Luber: Very interesting. So you’re speaking many different languages in a sense so then you really need those communication skills and to understand how to massage different people and egos.

Meagan: We try to figure out what matters to them and try to use that to get them to be on board with our recommendations.

Luber: Such a unique career! This is really cool. I like this. So let’s see – personality type. It’s gotta take a certain type of personality to be able to do this. Talk a little bit about that.

Meagan: Well I think that becomes the problem: industrial hygienists are scientists but we’re also workplace detectives. So you have to have this balance of good technical background but also be a people person and be a fairly good communicator! So I think that it’s a rare skill set – most scientists who are really, really good scientists don’t care to interact with people that much. They care to be in their laboratory and with their analytical tools.

Luber: You mentioned “scientist”. Are you technically an “environmental scientist”?

Meagan: I would say so. We call our profession “industrial hygiene” or “occupational safety and health” or “occupational health” and I do have a science background, yes.

[EDUCATION FOR INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST CAREERS starts at 17:11]
Luber: OK, yeah. Let’s get into that too. I want to learn about the formal education that’s necessary so that people watching can say “this sounds so cool – I want to be Meagan one day” so they can figure out what kind of education they have to go through. So do you go to college for this and major in industrial hygiene? How does this work?

Meagan: I did, yes. It wasn’t in industrial hygiene, specifically, but I have a broader degree called Environmental Health. And within environmental health is the subset of industrial hygiene and I chose to focus on that. It was a 4 year degree and I do have a background in – they require chemistry classes, organic and inorganic, they require physics, calculus, technical writing and then to get into the major, more specific topics like wastewater management, hazardous materials, toxicology and environmental health overall.

Luber: Wow. Interesting blend of stuff! So then if people want to do this, should they be looking for environmental health programs? What kind of programs at universities should they be looking for?

Meagan: I think that industrial hygiene is an excellent major for the career but I’ve also seen other people come into this career through other majors such as geology, chemistry, biologists, engineers make great industrial hygienists. As long as you have a scientific background and understand how to create a sampling scheme or an experimental method and you understand the limits of the equipment that you’re using, what they’re good for or what might interfere with them. I think that as long as you get your brain inspired by that, you could come to industrial hygiene from any number of majors. I also know several industrial hygienists who don’t have 4 year degrees and while they may not go as far on the career path, they make excellent field staff.

Luber: OK. Huh! I want to talk about that too – for people who DON’T have a college degree. Because you were saying that people can work in this path without a college degree. There are people you’re interacting with. Can you tell us about that?

Meagan: Absolutely. Some of our best field technicians come to us through construction backgrounds. Maybe they helped their dad build houses for the summer. Understanding buildings and the way they work often has a big impact on people’s health and safety inside that building. Another person who was an excellent, excellent industrial hygiene technician was someone who came to us through a hazardous materials remediation company and mold remediation company. They understand how to clean these materials up and therefore have the basic idea of how these chemicals might behave in the environment.

Luber: Wow, OK. That’s great! So then that’s another example where you’d be interacting with them but wearing a different hat and kind of speaking a different language than you are with the engineers.

Meagan: Correct. Sometimes the best representatives of health and safety are those people who have done manufacturing or done construction for most of their lives and the reason is they have an added credibility with the crews or the people who are working the shift because they know that this person has done what they’ve done. They know this person has experienced what they have: has built the airplane, has built the building before, and knows what goes into that. So these people use their added credibility to get other people on board with them.

Luber: OK. Very interesting. It’s really cool. So SO many different kinds of people, with all these different degrees or not even degrees, all these different kinds of backgrounds can come into this path and play a big role.

Meagan: Absolutely. If you’re willing to put in the time and remember the technical importance of things, you can use your background and your social skills in a big way.

Luber: I love it! OK so now tell us this – let’s say someone’s watching right now and they’re in high school and they want to grow up to be you. They should start, I assume, to take lots of science classes? Is that the deal?

Meagan: Absolutely. That’s what I would recommend. And know that as long as you have those classes, you can go in any number of directions. So take your chemistry classes, take your math classes, take your physics classes, biology, genetics, all of those – and yeah, they’re gonna be a little bit tough but if you can make it through, there are a lot of different options.

Luber: I think you said at the beginning of the interview when I said I had never heard of industrial hygiene, that there was a time when you hadn’t either. So when you were in high school, it’s not like you were saying, “I, Meagan, can’t wait to grow up one day and be an industrial hygienist”. Right? When did you figure this out and learn that this was a path?

Meagan: Yeah! I was in my 3rd year of college and still had not declared a major and was getting heavy pressure from not only the university but from my parents to hurry up and get out of school. And at the time, my part-time student job was working as a payroll assistant in the school of public health. And I handled the grant documentation for professors. One day when a professor came to pick up his paperwork from me, he said “why aren’t you a student in this department” and I said “because I don’t know what you do here!” And he proceeded to explain to me what the focus was and asked me what kind of background I had and what classes I had been taking and he said “you could apply today and you could be in this major the following quarter”. And I was really excited about the type of work that he described and figured that was exactly what I was looking for: a practical use of my science skills. I’m not one to be a lab rat!

Luber: Yeah, and this gets you out and about and you’re running around in different workplaces, so you’re not stuck in a lab, yet you still get to be a scientist!

Meagan: Yeah.

Luber: You’re the SOCIAL scientist!

Meagan: Close, yeah!

[MOST REWARDING PART OF INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST CAREERS starts at 22:57]
Luber; Yeah, you get to be social….OK, I want to learn how you break in. How someone breaks in to this career. But first I want to talk about what you would say is the most rewarding part of doing what you do.

Meagan: I think knowing that on a daily basis, I’m making people’s lives better and helping to protect them and their health, whether they know it or not and sometimes whether they like it or not! Knowing that we’re really doing good work on things that everyone is concerned about – staying healthy for their families – nobody wants to get cancer. Nobody wants to, worse, have it be related to their job that they may love. So we really want to help them to do their job for as many years as they continue to want to do it.

Luber: That’s awesome! And I love something that you said to me the other day. This really was a cool quote. You said “my job is like a field trip every single day”.

Meagan: Every day! If you want to see how things are built…You know, I didn’t grow up in an area where I got to see much of that. I grew up in Hawaii. We don’t make a lot of things there. So this job was really my first introduction to being on factory floors and seeing how heavy machinery is built: backhoes, seeing guys clean tanks on fishing vessels…It was a real wake-up call and I have a new appreciation for all of our modern conveniences because there are people in our cities building these things every day and you get to see all of them. It’s like watching that show How It Works, but it’s your job and you’re being paid to stand there and watch it and improve the process as well. It’s cool to be a part of!

Luber: Yeah! So you get to see the behind-the-scenes of everything!

Meagan: Yup.

[MOST CHALLENGING PART OF INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST JOBS starts at 24:43]
Luber: That’s great! What about the tough part? What’s the really tough part about the job?

Meagan: The tough parts are standing outside for 8 hours in snow maybe. We don’t have that too often here in Seattle but you are in inclement weather often. It’s cold or it’s too hot or there’s no shade. You really are out in the elements and there are times when you’re just really so cold that not even an entire package of hand warmers stuffed into your gloves and every jacket pocket you have is gonna help you! So that’s a tough part. The other one is there are some days where you just have to go into dirty environments. Factories are not always clean. So you have to expect that you’re going to be getting dirty that day and wearing junky clothes and expecting – it’s a rare day that I get to wear a skirt and high heels, let me put it that way. Ha!

Luber: Ha! OK. So you’re not gonna be going straight from work to meet friends out for a drink or something?

Meagan: Ha! It had better be a hole in the wall if we are. And sometimes that does happen if my girlfriends are very kind and we go there.

Luber: That’s great. What about this – let’s weed some people out. Some people that are watching are saying “wow, this sounds really cool” but maybe it’s really not for them. There’s certain people where if you can’t handle this, this path’s not for you. What would that be here?

Meagan: If you need to know where you’re gonna be and what you’re gonna be doing on every given day for that week, this job is not for you. The hours are pretty inflexible and sometimes you have to be on the site at 7am and it’s a 3-hour drive away. So you’re waking up at 3 in the morning to get out there on time. So if you’re one of those people who really really likes to sleep in, maybe this isn’t the job for you. But it could be really rewarding anyway if you could handle those hours. You have to be really flexible, you have to be able to just go at a moment’s notice. If the phone rang and somebody needs you out there you go. We don’t do emergency response per se, but we do try our best to respond as quickly as possible to our clients. So you will be running around, you have to do a lot of driving, a lot of travel – not often overnight but sometimes yes for about a week we’ll be gone, so if you need to be home every night, maybe this isn’t right for you. Or if you need to have stability in your schedule, this probably isn’t the job for you.

Luber: And when you go and travel to a site, you were telling me you do a lot of school visits, right? How does a school need your services?

Meagan: There’s been a lot of publicity lately about schools and their drinking water. And so often a parent might raise a concern and want to know if the quality of their child’s drinking water at their school meets code. So we’ll go and sample the water there for them. Another issue that has come up in schools is people think that maybe the building is making them sick. Sometimes it’s true but it’s pretty rare. Schools are older buildings, though. In the United States we really haven’t invested that much in our educational infrastructure in a long time, so a lot of the schools are 1940s, 50s, 60s era buildings. They’re not built to modern standards and so a leaky roof can cause a mold problem and can trigger allergies or asthma in some sensitive populations. So we try to go out there and investigate those issues and often times that’ll involve later speaking with principals or staff and doing risk communication to try to help them keep the problem in perspective and not let hysteria get the best of parents who are really trying to protect their children every minute of every day.

[BREAKING IN TO INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST CAREERS starts at 28:43]
Luber: Right! Of course. Wow. This is such a cool career. I really like this. If I wasn’t such a science idiot, it’s something I’d have to consider. How does someone break in? Let’s get to that now. Because people are watching who want this. They’re going for it. How do you get jobs in this path? Do you take internships? Is that the best way to break in?

Meagan: I think internships can help a lot. Internships are more often through public agencies. Every state or at least federal OSHA [Occupational Safety & Health Administration] has industrial hygienists and you can get internships there for the summer. You could also get an internship at a consulting firm or a large manufacturing company has in-house industrial hygienists and they offer internships. I would say that everyone who’s trying to get into industrial hygiene should be prepared to start off as a field technician, which means you’re in the field all the time. You’re the one getting dirty, but the cool stuff is you are the one who is also seeing all of the activity every day in the field and going on that field trip that you mentioned. And operating the equipment, which for me is the fun part – the gadgets are pretty awesome. But yeah, be prepared to be the field technician for several years and then work your way up.

Luber: And do you learn how to use those gadgets and put on the funky suits when you’re on the job?

Meagan: Absolutely. That is NOT something you do as part of the degree program. That was on the job. But you also have to be a self-starter. If you get a new piece of equipment for a job that you’ve never used before, you have to be able to read the manual and know the limitations of the instrument and know what it will and won’t tell you and be able to operate that without somebody looking over your shoulder. So you do have a lot of responsibility for the technical work.

Luber: So in your first several years when you are new and you’re that field person, are you just thrown out there and it’s just “hey – good luck!” or are you trained? How does that work when someone’s new to really learn this stuff once they’re on the job? How does that work?

Meagan: I think it’s REALLY important to have a good mentor at your job as an industrial hygienist. If you’re a field technician, they wouldn’t send you out by yourself to start with. You would be shadowing someone for quite a long time before they felt like not only could you assess the site yourself but can you keep yourself safe while you’re there because you are responsible for your own health and safety as well. And can you recognize the hazards and keep yourself out of harm’s way. So we want to make sure that new field technicians aren’t gonna walk behind a giant backhoe and get run over!

Luber: That would be bad!

Megan: Yeah!

Luber: When I introduced you, I said you were a “certified” industrial hygienist. Tell me what is certification? Does everyone need it and when do you do that?

Meagan: You can be an industrial hygienist without being a board certified industrial hygienist, which is what being a “certified” industrial hygienist means. It’s that you’re certified by the Board: it’s the American Board of Industrial Hygiene. And you have a certain number of years of experience and you have passed an examination much like the law school board exam but not as many hours. It’s an 8 hour exam. But like I said, there are many people who practice industrial hygiene who don’t have the certification and I did for the 6 years that I’ve been in the industrial hygiene world. It’s doesn’t make or break you, but if you want to, for example, give expert witness testimony, the certification is an added sign of credibility for you.

Luber: So if you guys want to look into that to get certified, if you want to learn about that, you go to the American Board of Industrial Hygiene website, which is ABIH.org. I’ll put that url on the screen and you guys could go check that out and learn more about it. I was gonna ask you where else you can take this career – obviously you just said expert witness testimony – you could be helping lawyers in trials to learn about what’s going on in a specific workplace. Where else? You said that this is the kind of situation, the kind of path, where you’ve gotta really be flexible because you don’t know where you’re gonna be every day, you don’t know what the hours are gonna be, you don’t know each day-to-day situation. So if someone wants to start a family, have children, it’s a little harder at that point to be racing around at crazy hours, going to random sites that who knows what’s going on there. Does someone have to kind of move out of the career path or is there a new place they could take it?

Meagan: I would say you don’t have to move out of the career if you suddenly need more stability in your life. A couple of certified industrial hygienists I know have broken off from their consulting firm and have gone independent. They’re freelance consultants now. So they make their own hours and they choose their clients and they work only when they want to work. So that’s an option. Another option is if you go to a large company and become an in-house industrial hygienist, your schedule is probably more predictable. For example, they would probably ask you to be on-site during their normal business hours, which may be 9-5 or it may be 7-3. So a little bit more predictability if you’re not a consultant.

[KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST CAREERS starts at 33:43]
Luber: OK. Got it. Alright so now what we want to do, we want to close everything out with some keys to success for everybody. So I want you to take your years of experience and share with everyone the keys to success so that if they’re trying to go out and break in to this path, they become industrial hygienists, let them learn from your 6 years of experience so they could get a head start and kick some butt out there.

Meagan: Well what I would say for keys to success are you have to be an analytical thinker, you have to have great observation skills, you have to have a solid scientific background but you also on the flipside have to be a social person, able to read people, understand their cues and use it to infer what might be going on in a space that they’re not actually saying to you out loud. And also I would say building a client base is pretty huge for us in consulting. So people have to like you and have to think that what you’re doing is actually helpful to them and is catering to their goals. So their company goals are to make money and to grow and to have a presence, a marketing presence, and often safety doesn’t fit in with that and safety can be bad press they feel like, so they really want to know that you understand their goals and then they’d be willing to help you. So to be politically aware of the situation is key. I would also say really work hard to get an internship somewhere and network. Industrial hygiene is a small world. Not a lot of people know that it even exists! So everyone knows everyone in the field. That’s what I’ve been learning. I’m still a relative newbie in the field. Most people have been doing this for years plus. There’s going to be a need for industrial hygienists in the future as the elders in the field retire. There’s going to be a gap there so I really encourage everyone to look into industrial hygiene and try it out.

Luber: That’s awesome. I think it’s so cool. I would try it out if I could do science!

Meagan: Ha! I could put you in the yellow suit, Marc!

Luber: What’s that?

Meagan: I could put you in the yellow suit.

Luber: Yeah I do want to try on one of those suits just to be like in that Beastie Boys video.

Meagan: Ha! They make good Halloween costumes.

Luber: That’s awesome! I love it. Please leave feedback, questions and comments at Careers Out There dot com in the comments section below the video. Meagan, thanks so much for taking your time today.

Meagan: My pleasure! Thanks for helping me get the word about industrial hygiene out there.

Luber: Absolutely! So you guys – you can find Careers Out There videos at iTunes, YouTube, and BlipTV and of course at Careers Out There dot com. Thanks again for watching ya’ll. Enjoy it. I’m Marc Luber. Look forward to seeing you again soon. Take care.

©2011 Careers Out There

Marc Luber: Hey everyone – Marc Luber here from Careers Out There. As you know, we’re always talking on the show about how you can find a career that fits you so you can love what you do. Well today we’ve got a special guest. She’s a really inspirational person and she’s gonna share her insights on this. I want you to meet Lisa Nicole Bell. Here she is!

Lisa Nicole Bell: Hey Careers Out There – it’s Lisa Nicole Bell: author, filmmaker and entrepreneur – bringing you my insight on finding a career that you love. So for those of you who don’t know me, I’m the author of a couple of different books – I create all kinds of cool, socially-conscious multimedia projects. That includes film, TV, new media, websites, anything that’s really going to move the social conversation forward as far as a social progress agenda. I also create companies – I’m the CEO of Inspired Life Media Group. We have several companies in the group that all share this objective of creating really inspiring and empowering, actionable content.

So I want to talk to you about how you can go about finding a career that’s a good fit for you. It’s a question that I get asked quite a bit – and as I travel the country and the world doing speaking engagements and talking to crowds of all different sizes, this comes up a lot. Especially for new entrepreneurs – or people who are just looking to make a career change and trying to decide what’s going to make the most sense for them. So here’s the basic formula – before I even explain all this other stuff. Here’s how it works. We have the thing that you’re good at – right? This is something that you have a natural aptitude for, and it’s something that you’re passionate about. It’s something that comes very easy for you. So this is a skill set and this is something that you’re good at. Then we have something that you’re passionate about. This is something that you care very much about, something that you do for hours on end, even if you aren’t being paid for it. These 2 cross at some point. And right here, right here, at the intersection of my arms, THAT is the sweet spot. That is where we find something that’s marketable that you can actually use whether you are seeking out a traditional job or you’re starting a business of your own.

I’m gonna use myself as an example to share how this works because I believe that if somebody’s gonna advise you of something they should have used the system themselves. So here’s how it works for me: I am a communicator through and through. I’m a lover of media. Any type of film, TV, books, anything that deals with communication and media, I love it. So one of the things that comes very easily for me is ingesting large amounts of information, assimilating large amounts of information and then communicating. So my natural aptitude is towards communication: speaking on stage comes very easily for me, working in front of the camera comes easily for me, behind the camera comes easily for me. Any type of talking and communication, writing…What am I most passionate about? I’m most passionate about social change.
So we have the fact that I’m a rock star communicator, we have the fact that I’m crazy, silly, stupid passionate about social change and media and then right there at the middle we say, well what is the way that we can make that economically sustainable? What is the market willing to pay for the intersection of those 2 things? And so there’s a lot of different manifestations that that can take on. I can decide to be an author. I can decide to be a public speaker. I can decide to be an entrepreneur. I can decide to be a content producer. Incidentally, I wear all of those hats at various times.

So my point to you is that no matter what you’re passionate about – whether it’s cupcakes, or dogs or grass, you can find a way to make that profitable for yourself. If you’re looking for a traditional job, then we also want to weave in this whole idea of branding. Because we know that branding is a very important aspect of finding and keeping the right job or the right business in this economy. The old rules don’t apply any more. And so if there is some skill set that you have, if there is some passion that you have, you want to stay very plugged into that as you’re going about this process of sorting out your new career because people really respond to that. When you’re passionate about something, people can pick up on it. People often tell me that my energy is infectious. Other people pick up on that energy and they feel like I’m a moving train and people like to jump on moving trains. So even if you’re applying, again, at a traditional company, this still applies because if you’ve got that energy and you’ve got that momentum, employers want to have that on their team. There’s something called intrapreneurship, which is not – entrepreneurship is going out and starting something. Intrapreneurship is having that entrepreneurial spirit within the corporate culture. So if you’re bringing that to the company, you’re making yourself an indispensable leader by really showing them what you’re made of, showing them how passionate you are, really highlighting the things that you’re best at and you’re strengths and developing yourself in that regard.

So – that is what I have for you on finding a career that you love, something that you’re great at. Whether you are in a career that you love right now and you really want to take it to the next level, whether you’re looking for a traditional job or whether you just want to start your own business, these are the types of thought processes that you want to start having so that you can really do everything it is that you want to do. I hope that was helpful for you. It’s been a pleasure hanging out with you for a few minutes. Visit me on line at Lisa Nicole Bell dot com and I’ll talk to you soon.

©2011 Careers Out There

What Do Mortgage Bankers Do 3:22 – 6:10
Why Is Sales A Good Career 6:10-8:55
Typical Day for Mortgage Bankers 8:55- 13:30
Most Rewarding Aspect of Mortgage Banking Careers 13:30-14:28
Personality Types for Mortgage Careers 14:28-15:56
Skills for Mortgage Careers 15:56-19:11
Challenges of Mortgage Careers 19:11-21:57
Education For Mortgage Careers 21:57-24:13
Mortgage Lender Licensing 24:13-25:18
Mortgage Broker vs Mortgage Banker vs Loan Officer 25:18-31:02
Keys To Success For Mortgage Careers 31:02

Careers Out There Host Marc Luber: Hey everybody – welcome to Careers Out There. I’m your host Marc Luber and we’re helping you find a career that fits you. In every episode of Careers Out There, we explore a career path by talking to a real professional who does that kind of work. They’ll tell us what it’s really like and then they’ll share all kinds of advice to help you decide whether it’s a path you’d like to pursue. In today’s episode, we’re looking at the career path of being a loan officer. We’re talking to Tommy Rosenthal – he’s a mortgage banker at USA Mortgage Company in St. Louis, Missouri. For the past 13 years, Tommy’s been one of the Top 10 mortgage originators in all of St. Louis. He also happens to be an old friend of mine – we grew up ogether at overnight summer camp – so I’m psyched to have him here! It’s gonna be a great show so stick around! [them song] OK we’re back. Tommy welcome to Careers Out There!

Mortgage Banker Tommy Rosenthal: Hey Marc, how are you?

Host Marc Luber: Alright – good to see you!

Tommy Rosenthal: Good.

Luber: We have not seen each other in about a decade, so it’s pretty crazy that this is how we’re seeing each other!

Tommy: It’s pretty funny.

Luber: Ha! It’s weird.

Tommy: It’s good to see you.

Luber: I think we should give our camp, don’t you think, since we grew up at camp together?

Tommy: Oh absolutely. Camp Thunderbird for Boys in Bemidji, Minnesota.

Luber: Bemidji, Minnesota! Home of BSU. I love BSU! Bemidji State University. And you guys, the headwaters of the Mississippi River. So that’s where the river starts.

Tommy: And Paul Bunyan! Don’t forget about him!

Luber: Paul Bunyan! Yes! Was it in Fletch or Vacation where I think they actually showed the Paul Bunyan statue.

Tommy: You’re right! I don’t know if it was Fletch or Vacation but it was definitely one of those.

Luber: It’s one of those. Probably Vacation since they’re driving around!

Tommy: Ha!

Luber: If you guys are watching this and you’re in college or you’re watching from the UK or Australia and you’re looking for a summer job that’s just a great, great, great summer job, because Tommy and I weren’t only campers but we grew up to be counselors one day there too – Bemidji, Minnesota at Camp Thunderbird. It’s an 8 week summer. So starting when we were 9 or 10 years old, we were spending 8 weeks in the woods of northern Minnesota near Canada going on these amazing canoe trips. We would go on 2, 3, 5 and 7 day canoe trips!

Tommy: Absolutely fantastic. And memories that last literally a lifetime.

Luber: Yup! Highly recommend it – if you’ve got kids of that age and you’re watching this because you’re thinking about a career change, definitely consider sending your kids to the camp. We don’t get any money for talking about Camp Thunderbird here.

Tommy: Nope.

Lube: We just truly had a great childhood going here. So…

Tommy: Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. I wouldn’t have been able to meet Marc had that not happened. Think about that.

Luber: Exactly. We got to meet people – as a kid you’re meeting people – as a little kid you’re meeting people from all over! Granted, St. Louis and Chicago aren’t that far apart, but we met people from Little Rock, Arkansas, there were people there from Houston, from Los Angeles, and New Orleans. So you’re getting exposed to accents and all different kinds of people. At the age of 9 and 10 that’s just a cool thing! You’re out there literally in the beautiful woods going on these canoe trips where your tent, your disgusting dehydrated food, your can of SPAM and what else? Your sleeping bags…all piled into your canoe! And you’re literally just canoeing for days and you don’t know where you’re gonna set up your tent or if it’s gonna stay up!

Tommy: Totally! Totally awesome. Stuff you’ll never do again but wouldn’t trade it for anything.

[WHAT DO MORTGAGE BANKERS DO starts at 3:22]
Luber: Yup. Exactly. So we don’t want to go too far down this road because people watching want to learn about what you do. So tell us Tommy – what does a mortgage banker do?

Tommy: Well Marc, mortgage bankers – our jobs are to originate loans – home loans. Meaning if any person or persons are looking to purchase a home – a first home or any home – or refinance an existing loan, we help them out. So we provide the financing to help borrowers out in purchasing a home or refinancing, meaning saving money, on a current home.

Luber: So how do you find these people? What is it that brings these people to you in the first place so that you can do your job?

Tommy: Well our job really is a referral source job. So however you’re able to get referrals is the name of the game.

Luber: So basically when you say referrals, it’s a sales career?

Tommy: Exactly! It is sales 101.

Luber: High-end sales.

Tommy: High-end. Exactly. And the referral source can come from so many different places: builders, real estate agents, financial planners, attorneys. Or friends, co-associates. And then, just like a lot of jobs, it’s kind of a snowball effect. Once you get a name out there, a reputation (a good name and a good reputation), then business comes and comes and comes, including your existing client base. If they like you, and hopefully they do, they’ll come back time and time again to buy their second house, their third house, to refinance, to refer to their friends or their colleagues and it makes for a fantastic way to make a living.

Luber: So when we’re talking about people like co-associates and realtors and all the different people, would that all come down to networking in those circles, in those pools to bring in the business?

Tommy: Absolutely. And networking, again, can come in various different ways. Whether it’s a real estate agent or a builder, it can start off as simple as really a cold call, walking into a real estate office, walking into a home builder and introducing yourself, handing out some literature, trying to build up a rapport with them and then, eventually, after time and time again if they like you, hopefully they say “you know what, Tom, we’ll give you an opportunity – here’s a referral – Mr. and Mrs. Smith who are buying this property and I’m gonna give them your name and have you give them a call and see if you can help them out with their financing.”

[WHY IS SALES A GOOD CAREER starts at 6:10]
Luber: You know I talk a lot on the site about how I spent the better part of the past decade as an attorney recruiter. That’s also a high-end sales job. I love sales! I think it’s a great thing and I’ve found so often when I would talk to people about what I do they would say, “ugh, sales!” They have this idea of the pushy used car salesman or the door-to-door sales guy who’s yelling in your face and just being annoying. I think people have the wrong perception and don’t realize that you’re helping people. It’s consultative, it’s conversational, it’s social. So I’d love YOU to tell the audience what YOU think is special about sales careers and why you think they should consider it.

Tommy: Well Marc, sales – there’s so many great things with sales. Obviously, one thing is there’s no cap on your income. So you work hard and you do well in whatever field it is: mortgage banking or any other sales. The sky is the limit as far as your income, which is really a great opportunity. You’re not tied down to a certain salary and certain hours. You are your own boss per se and you’re gonna do as well as you want to do and are able to do. So I find sales to be fantastic. Like I said, it’s afforded me the opportunity to make a great living and also, because you are your own boss, you make your own schedule. So if you say “you know what – it’s 4:00 on a Friday, my son has a baseball game, I want to go see my son’s baseball game” you’re able to do it! You’re not tied to an office. You know you’ve gotta get your work done. I think sales is fantastic. I think it’s great.

Luber: Awesome. So since it’s a sales job, is it a commission-based path?

Tommy: It is. It’s mainly commission. Generally when you start off, you’re on a draw – meaning there’s a minimum salary as long as you – if you’re not able to hit a small sales range, you’re at least gonna make enough money to get by. If that makes sense?

Luber: So if someone’s new, breaking in, they could pay their rent and eat because they’ll get enough money from that and then they have to kind of run with the ball after that.

Tommy: Exactly. So it’s commission-based . Almost every month you’re gonna have just a little bit different pay. So you have to be prepared for that. But in the end you basically want to average it out and say “hey I had a great year”. You’ll have a couple months that are tougher than others. You’re gonna have some fantastic months that will put a smile on your face.

[TYPICAL DAY FOR MORTGAGE BANKERS starts at 8:55]
Luber: Ha! That’s awesome. Tell us about a typical day for a mortgage banker – and keep in mind that a lot of people watching want to hear more about the more junior level than you. You can work in some of what it’s like at your level as well.

Tommy: Well a typical day would normally be come in the office, maybe just review, go through your emails, get caught up on any phone messages that were left maybe the night before and then usually you’re gonna want to make some phone calls, calling anyone back who’s left you a message or you feel like you need to call and/or send emails. And then, especially at the junior level, you just want to get out of the office. You don’t want to be sitting in the office doing nothing, anything that’s not productive. So you want to be out of the office – meaning meeting real estate agents, meeting builders, meeting with a financial planner or just meeting with ANYBODY who’s a potential client down the line or soon-to-be client. And so a typical day would be after you’ve done your stuff in the morning you then get out of the office, go set up some meetings or make some cold calls in the beginning and then if you’re fortunate enough to pick up a deal you’re gonna set up a time to meet with that customer, do a loan application or at least introduce yourself to them. Eventually, once you start closing loans, you’re gonna find that’s a big part of the day – where you actually attend a physical loan closing, whether it’s a purchase or a refinance. And you’ll go to title companies or people’s homes or they’ll come to you and you’ll close loans. So that’s kind of how the day goes. At night, depending on your work level and what you need to do, you continue that again with phone calls, emailing or appointments. It’s a busy day but also a flexible day.

Luber: Right. And the flexibility is what’s so great about sales. It’s one of the great, great things about it.

Tommy: Fantastic. It’s been GREAT for me. I’ve been able to work hard but also have the freedom to do what I want to do on days when I want to do it and times of days that I want to do it. So it’s just great.

Luber: So for the younger crowd that’s watching, for the people not really looking at this as a career CHANGE but they’re in high school or college and watching this, they don’t know much about loans – they’re not anywhere near buying a house. Walk us through a little bit, just a little bit of detail, on what you’re specifically doing when you’re meeting with someone and helping. You’re looking at different rates that are available to help them? Tell us what that is.

Tommy: Sure. For example, if I’m meeting with someone that’s looking to buy a home, what we’ll normally do is we’ll sit down, whether in person or on the phone and we’ll review numbers and usually the first question I’ll ask someone is “do you have a payment range in mind?” Meaning “are you comfortable paying on a mortgage – are you comfortable paying $1,000 a month, are you comfortable paying $2000, $4000? What’s the monthly number?” Then usually we’ll come up with a number and then you can kind of back in to what loan amount and what type of loan is gonna fit this customer the best. So if someone said, “I can afford $1000 a month” by doing some kind of quick math you’d say “well that might be a loan of about $150k based on a rate of 5%”. And that’s question 1. The other REALLY important question is “how much money do you guys have available for a down payment on a house?” With mortgages these days, you can get in for as little as 3% down, all the way up. You know, if someone said I could put 20% down, you’re gonna put them on 1 loan program and if they said 5% down, you’re often gonna put them on another program. So to answer your question, you’re really trying to figure out what program and loan type best fits the customer and how they’ll be comfortable with the monthly payment and a down payment is how you’re gonna be able to help them out there. So that’s pretty much how it works.

[MOST REWARDING ASPECT OF MORTGAGE BANKING CAREERS starts at 13:30]
Luber: What would you say is the most rewarding part of it?

Tommy: Oh for sure when you actually get a loan approved, which is the goal every time, and – especially someone buying a home – and a first home, when you go to a closing and you see how excited they are to be buying this house and you know you’ve had at least a small part in it, it’s fantastically rewardling. It really is.

Luber: Yeah! It’s gotta be. It’s the biggest purchase and the most personal purchase they’re gonna make!

Tommy: Oh absolutely! Nothing is bigger. You know, when you feel like you’ve helped people out – especially a loan that can kind of be a tougher loan – maybe someone’s had some job issues and maybe some credit issues and you’re able to get their loan and they’re so thankful to you for your help, you feel like you’ve really helped someone out. It’s really great.

Luber: Cool. Let’s talk about the type of people who should pursue a path like this. Let’s divide it. We’ll talk first about personality types and then we could talk about skill sets. But what personality types would you say are the best fit for this?

[PERSONALITY TYPES FOR MORTGAGE CAREERS starts at 14:28]
Tommy: Well I think as far as personality, it’s more of a general answer. There’s a lot of personalities that will work in sales in general and in the mortgage business. My personality is that of having people trust me, being friendly, being accommodating to people’s schedules and meeting times and then – if people like you, I’m just convinced that in life if people like you, you’re gonna get opportunities in business. So I believe that if you’re a motivated person, if you’re a friendly person, if you’re a trustworthy person, it’s a fantastic field for you. There are other ways you could be successful: that’s to be really aggressive, that’s to be just a really, really, really hard worker – at anything you could really be successful that way, but you don’t want to change who you are as a person. For me it’s just being myself and getting a good reputation and people liking you and putting in the hours and you can do great.

[SKILLS FOR MORTGAGE CAREERS starts at 15:56]
Luber: What skill sets would you say people should be bringing to the table?

Tommy: Well you need to be good with math. Now that being said, quick with numbers is a really big asset. You don’t have to have studied math or have studied banking or accounting or anything like that, but if you have a good feel for numbers, meaning someone can ask you a question and without just plopping down on your calculator or computer you can come up with a pretty quick answer. I think that’s a great skill set. That and, like I said, just being someone that they feel comfortable talking to on the phone. So good on the phone, good in person, personable, motivated, good with numbers.

Luber: And like you were – maybe just to draw that connection for people – you were always big with sports statistics. That was something you were always excited about.

Tommy: Exactly.

Luber: So for people watching who are really into that might not be THINKING they’re really good at numbers – maybe they don’t get an A in math class, but they really ARE running numbers in their mind all the time because of sports!

Tommy: That’s a perfect description of my life. I’ve always been quick with numbers, always been good with numbers, loved sports, I can rattle off statistics of crazy stuff, and I was kind of a decent math student. I wasn’t anything great by any means but numbers I’ve always been quick with and liked statistics and like facts. I think it’s served me well in this career. I think people kind of know that you know what you’re talking about and you can say “hey, again, if I can afford $2000 a month what does that mean if you take it backwards, meaning that’s a $250k loan, whatever it’s gonna be”. So right – someone that’s interested in numbers might not say “wow, in my head this would work in this career path” but it really does. It really does.

Luber: And then on your website, on your bio on the company website, it says that you’re a really good listener. That’s a skill too, right, that’s very important in this path?

Tommy: I’m sorry that I forgot that because I think that’s a really, really important skill! You know, you’re on the phone with people a LOT. And you’re meeting with people a LOT. And if you’re doing all the talking, then A they’re gonna lose interest and B you’re gonna frustrate them and annoy them a little bit. You need to ask a question and then listen, take in the information that they’re saying and then respond with an answer yourself. But listening is a really important skill.

Luber: Yup. And in recruiting I’d always say that too! I think it’s the #1 skill, actually, for sales. You’ve gotta shut up!

Tommy: For sure! I could not agree more!

Luber: How could you help someone if you don’t HEAR what they need and what they want?

Tommy: It’s annoying on the other end. I know when people just don’t stop talking, as opposed to listening, it’s frustrating – in anything in life. So you couldn’t be more right. Absolutely.

[CHALLENGES OF MORTGAGE CAREERS starts at 19:11]
Luber: What do you think is the most challenging part of the path?

Tommy: The pro and the cons are the same thing – and that is in sales you’re your own boss and you have the flexibility. And I say that when you have the flexibility to do what you want to do when you want to do it, it sometimes can lead to things like “ah, you know it’s 3:00 on a Thursday, should I or can I go do something else?” So you HAVE to be able to manage your time. Everyone does it differently. Some people go in early and leave early. Other people work late nights and come in late. It really is being able to manage your time well. That’s just something that’s really important. The other thing – on a follow-up to that would be in the mortgage business, like any other field, there are big swings in the market. When I say that I mean rate-wise and really national home sales. When things are hot – rates are low or home sales are high, the business is just roaring. But then when rates creep or home sales slow down, it’s a challenge because you have to really work harder to get every deal because there’s less of a piece of the pie to go after. So that’s a really important thing – you have to be able to take the swings. There will be some down markets and some upticks in rates that you have to be able to survive and continue to get business even in the tougher times.

Luber: So is that the same thing you would use to weed people out? If you can’t handle this, don’t do it!

Tommy: Absolutely. You could probably pull out a phone book in a year, and I mean the yellow pages. If you open the yellow pages and look under mortgage companies in a year when rates are low or listen to commercials in your car, listen to commercials on TV for mortgage companies, they’re just non-stop. Pages in the yellow pages. Commercial here and commercial there when rates are low. All of a sudden rates creep up a half percent or 1% and the strong survive. You’ll see companies close, you’ll see people laid off, you’ll hear less advertising, the yellow pages will shrink…It’s definitely a weeding out. So that’s a really important factor that’s totally accurate as well.

[EDUCATION FOR MORTGAGE CAREERS starts at 21:57]
Luber: What about education? For the people now who are all jazzed up, they like what they’re hearing, is there anything specific they need to study? Is there any specific degree they need to get or can they come from any kind of background?

Tommy: Literally any kind of background. I really believe for salesmen and even the mortgage business, it’s not that important – again, I was a history major with the thought of going to law school. I ended up in sales, in mortgage sales, and I’ve been successful. There are people that study business, there are people that study accounting, there are people that studied political science. I really believe it is a personality and a motivational job. If you’re motivated to sell and to make money and if your personality meshes with customers and builders and real estate agents, you can be great no matter what you studied in college. I do believe that.

Luber: And then what about college period? Is college necessary?

Tommy: Well that’s an interesting question. Absolutely necessary? No. I mean you could – there are people that can do great without college. I mean I think college provides you with maturity levels as far as social skills and communicative skills for a lot of people but not necessarily for everybody. Some people – maybe they’re not great students, or they are talented as far as their sales are concerned. So I wouldn’t say college by any stretch is a MUST to be successful in business.

Lube: And someone would still – people without a college degree, maybe they can’t afford it, or, like you said, they’re not good students, they don’t perform that way, they could still show up with a resume or networking and still land a job? Still land an opportunity without that college degree?

Tommy: I mean they could. If they came in and others see the resume without it they might jump back a little bit, but then if they really impress in an interview and you really felt like they could sell and they could talk to people and people will trust them and they seem knowledgeable about the subject, they could do fine. They really, really could.

[MORTGAGE LENDER LICENSING starts at 24:13]
Luber: OK. Now there’s no specific education, but it sounds like there is a need to get licensed, right? You DO need to be licensed. What is that all about? What’s required there?

Tommy: Well it’s interesting. The licensing is actually a newer item in the mortgage business. Part of the problem in the past has been that there really wasn’t much of a licensing need. But now first you have to get nationally licensed, which basically entails taking an online test that you do quite a bit of studying for. And then at a state level also taking a test. So however many states you want to get licensed in, each state has their own set of tests that you have to take on line. And if you want to get licensed in Missouri or Illinois or California or whatever it might be, you now have to take online tests to get licensed in those states.

Luber: Well I found the website that people should check out. I’ll put the link here on the page and the video – Mortgage Nationwide Licensing System dot org. Mortgage Nationwide Licensing System dot org. That’s quite an address!

Tommy: Ha!

[MORTGAGE BROKER vs MORTGAGE BANKER vs LOAN OFFICER starts at 25:18]
Luber: You guys should go there and it’ll show you in every state what’s required. It’ll show you nationally and state-by-state, so go to that site and that will tell you what you need to do. On the phone we talked about a couple different career paths that are related to what you do. I want to talk about those and if you can kind of distinguish each one for us so that we could figure out the differences. The 3 were: Mortgage banker like yourself, then mortgage broker and then a loan officer handling mortgages at a big bank, like a Bank of America, Wells Fargo. All related paths yet different. Tell us the differences between those.

Tommy: Well here’s the difference. And they are kind of subtle differences. They’re all in general doing the same thing but with slight differences. So a mortgage banker, which is what I am: I work for a mortgage company. We
close loans in our company’s name and we use our own funds to close loans. But then after closing, we sell the loan off to a Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi mortgage, Chase…any of the big companies. So we’re doing everything in our company’s name and then closing. A loan broker – or a mortgage broker – the main difference is they are also gonna originate loans but IMMEDIATELY – BEFORE CLOSING that loan it’s gonna be transferred over to a Wells Fargo, Bank of America. They’re gonna not use their own money in the transaction and they are not gonna close in their company’s name. They’re gonna close wherever they sold the loan to. So the main difference could be sometimes higher fees for mortgage brokers because that’s one way that they make their money by immediately selling off the note. A loan officer at a bank – the duties will be the same but the main difference is where we’re gonna have many different investors that we’ll sell our loan to – a loan officer at a Bank of America, you might walk in and see a loan officer and say “I want to do a loan with you guys” and the only loan company that they’re gonna be using IS Bank of America. They’re not gonna be selling a loan.

Luber: So they only have THEIR rate. They could only say to you “here’s our rate today”.

Tommy: Exactly.

Luber: And YOU have a broader array of rates you could offer?

Tommy: We do. We have a broader array. Which is great. We have more companies we could sell our loans to. Now that being said, one nice thing about being a loan officer at a bank, is they’re also often able to do what’s called portfolio loans, which are the bank can make their own decision on certain loans that are not necessarily by the book, for lack of a better term. So if they think a loan makes sense and their bank agrees that they want to do this loan, they’re able to do that. And that’s one advantage of being a loan officer at a bank as opposed to a mortgage company. Their array of products are gonna be less, their negotiating – meaning their number of different places to put the loan – are less, but there are gonna be certain times when they’re gonna be able to pick up loans that not necessarily a mortgage company could.

Luber: OK. And then would the job between mortgage banker and mortgage broker be a very different job? Or is it still the same kind of sales and commission-oriented hustling type of a role?

Tommy: Very, very, very similar. Again, the only difference really would be often mortgage bankers could be a little bit more competitive because the fees are gonna be down because they’re using their own funds and closing in their name – where a mortgage broker is, for lack of a better term, because they’re selling the loan off so quickly, they may not be able to price a loan, meaning when someone calls in for a rate or talks about a rate, they might not be able to get quite as competitive a rate on the mortgage broker side. But the job description is very, very, very similar.

Luber: And then you’re competing with all these characters, right? You’re not ONLY competing with mortgage bankers, but you’re competing with the loan officers at the banks AND the mortgage brokers, right?

Tommy: Totally! We’re in competition with everybody: different mortgage bankers, banks, mortgage brokers…all of us…because the jobs really are very similar.

Luber: Yeah.

Tommy: There’s definitely competition involved. One thing that’s important to know, again, is if you’re a mortgage banker or a mortgage broker or a loan officer, again it all comes down to if people like you and you’ve got good products and good prices, you’ve got a great chance of success.

Luber: And if someone’s watching and this sounds cool to them, there’s actually a lot of different kinds of opportunities, then, because there’s different places they could go if they actually want to start working.

Tommy: Absolutely. Totally. Any of those. And you know some people might feel more comfortable at a mortgage company, and I have friends who have only been at banks who are more comfortable at a bank. A lot of it has to do with personality as far as – not personality but comfort level of what they’re used to – but you could be successful at any of those. It gives someone out there that’s looking for a career MANY opportunities – they can go any which way as far as that’s concerned.

Luber: That’s great.

Tommy: Exactly.

[KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR MORTGAGE CAREERS starts at 31:02]
Luber: So help those people out – and take your experience now and share some keys to success for those people who are really gonna go for it and try to break in. Share some keys to success so that when they DO break in, they could kick butt like you have.

Tommy: I like that! I would say in the beginning the key to success is literally just meeting as many people as you can. What I mean by that is getting to know as many real estate agents, whether that is going to their office, going to receptions, parties where they might be, going to builders, meeting with financial planners, lawyers. Really just networking yourself right from the beginning to get your name out there – whether it’s playing in a charity golf tournament with realtors, whether it’s going to open houses – the more your name is out there the better you’re gonna do and get a reputation and a name that’s gonna lead you to great success down the line.

Luber: Excellent, excellent advice for everybody. I hope you guys appreciate the advice. I hope this is helpful to you. Please leave your questions, your feedback, your comments in the comments section below the video at Careers Out There dot com. Tommy, thanks so much for taking the time today.

Tommy: Marc, it’s been too much fun. I really enjoyed it – thanks.

Luber: It’s been great. You guys can find episodes of Careers Out There on iTunes, on BlipTV, on YouTube and of course at Careers Out There dot com. Thanks again for watching everybody. I’m Marc Luber and look forward to seeing you again soon. Take care.
 
©2011 Careers Out There