We recently had the chance to connect with Amy Feind Reeves and have shared our conversation below.
Amy Feind, really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: What are you chasing, and what would happen if you stopped?
I suspect you wanted something personal, but I have to say that I am definitely chasing the idea that I can change the career trajectory of people who are disillusioned with work, never launched in the way they had hoped or have been worn down by the career search to the point where they are emotionally and financially drained.
I have been in all three of those categories at various points in my life and every time something or someone has helped to pull me out of the fire. At the same time, I have friends and acquaintances who never made it out of one of those situations, and lost out on the potential for a personally and financially rewarding career.
My background is unique in that I have been a consultant in a lot of different industries and know a lot about what jobs are available to career seekers – part of the issue for most people is that they don’t know what is out there for them. Why? Because no one ever wants to talk about work when they are not doing it. You have to explain a lot of background, acronyms and intricacies that most times feels overwhelming. Or because if you are not exposed to certain industries or jobs, they are just simply not a part of your world view.
I have a. unique point of view and knowledge base to draw from as someone who has gotten into the weeds of a lot of org charts in a lot of companies, and made decisions both myself and on behalf of C-suites about what kind of people work best in what kind of roles.
Because I believe all of this fervently, I feel that if I stopped I would be cheating both myself and my potential audience out of valuable information that could directly impact what they are able to achieve and earn.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I help people find and keep jobs they love. For the past 12 years I have worked with clients at all levels to help them identify what they want to do, how to go about getting hired and making sure they succeed. I believe strongly that (1) there are always good jobs for good people and (2) the way to really stand out in a job search is to be authentic in wanting the job. So I don’t let economic news upset me about shrinking job markets and I start working with people from a foundation of “what job do you WANT?” rather than “what job can I GET?”
My services are unique for three specific reasons.
The first and most important is that I have spent a lot of time (>25 years) on the other side of the table as a hiring manager. While many coaches in my space have experience in recruiting or HR, I actually made hiring decisions.
The second is that during most of that time I was working as a management consultant in a variety of industries where I learned about a lot about how different roles and functions work across industries.
The third is that I have twice had to execute a job search myself that was not simple or easy – I became the resource that I wish I had. I understand that job seekers want strategy but they need tactics.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
Lots of things! Probably the most important is that I believed myself to be incapable of many, many things that I have now mastered or at least endeavored. From a business perspective, that would hands down be my capacity to provide insight and accomplishment to executives, teams and clients (and be well paid for it!).
While fully confessing that I am old (62), I was also raised in a family that was not particularly progressive about the roles that women could play as I was born to older parents. I am #5 in the all Feind-girl line up that stretches out 12 years to parents who started having kids a little late themselves.. In some ways, there was a freedom to having no expectations put on me to become a breadwinner of any sort. There were expectations placed on us, for sure, around education and athletics and values. However, when it came to career there was no pressure and no outline.
Perhaps that is why I take a lot of pride in my own career, and is definitely one of the reasons why I came to focus on coaching other people in their own careers. It has been a wild and overall very fun ride, with a thousand life changing experiences I never expected. I could have easily missed it though! I don’t want anyone else to miss their chance.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Honestly, no.
I never had any delusions that my life would go smoothly. As I just mentioned, my parents were older than most of my peers’ parents. They had each gone. through the loss of their fathers during the depths of the Great Depression while they were still young. It radically altered the course of the lives they were each anticipating. My father was in a lot of aerial combat as a WWII pilot in the South Pacific, and survived being shot down twice. Most importantly, we lost my older sister Patty in her early teens to leukemia. Yet our family always had fun together, and life was always to be enjoyed.
Early in my life I was very grateful for the financial security my father’s commercial success gave us as a family, and the faith that my parents practiced with and for us, Later in my life when the going got tough I thought about the fact that my parents had lost a child – which made anything that I was going through seem entirely do-able.
Have there been times when I have had to radically rethink my life? Absolutely. In those times it never occurred to me that I could not pick myself up and dust myself off after a while. During those times, when both personal and professional were not doing well, I focused on my own well-being first.
Doing what you need to do to get yourself back into the right mental and physical space is really important after a course correction of any sort. I have had plenty of times in the past when things seemed like they were a little too much. I was fired from a job, as I have written about in the past, but that experience serves me now. When someone is let go from a job, I have very specific advice as to when, how and why they need to give themselves grace because I have been let go too.
I unexpectedly became a single Mom when my daughter was 2, and had to transition out of a career that put me on the road constantly into a career where I could be home at night but stay at the same income level. I have put that experience to work as well, supporting clients as the resource I wish I had in that situation.
Giving up, expecting less or not wanting to put yourself out there are all totally normal emotions. But they absolutely do not need to last forever.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Is the public version of you the real you?
Absolutely. I’m not sure that is always a good thing and I’m not sure it has always been true. There are times when I wish I did not wear my heart on my sleeve. As an example, have been looking for a new home and my realtor told me she can tell how I feel about a place instantly because everything I feel registers on my face. Would probably be a terrible poker player.
My younger self may have felt differently. As I have grown in age and career, I have learned a couple of truisms:
(1) People are thinking about you way, way less than you think think they are. They are thinking about how you may be judging them.
(2) How you are perceived matters a lot less than what you actually do and accomplish. I have learned to focus more on doing and accomplishing, and less on how people will perceive me.
(3) There is a confidence that comes with age more than anything else. As you get older, you realize what matters to you and what doesn’t. In general, I think, expending energy to put up a false front falls away as something that really doesn’t matter to you.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
That I was a great Mom.
That even though I was handed a lot of personal challenges in my life, I handled them all with grace, and was not afraid to challenge myself even more..
That I made a difference in my client’s lives by providing them with guidance on their careers.
That I advanced the way that young people approach careers in the business world. In my work I feel I am constantly fighting a war on two fronts. The first is challenging young adults to stop thinking about businesses, functions and roles as black boxes that are impossible to decipher, The second is getting them to understand that they have skills that businesses want and need, even if they have not had a fancy internship.
That I was a positive influence on the success of first generation and low-income students as they approach college and career, based on my pro bono work.
Mostly, I hope people see that I was able to enjoy the ride and never stopped trying.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hireahiringmanager.com
- Instagram: @hireahiringmngr
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyfeindreeves/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hireahiringmanager/
- Youtube: @hireahiringmanager
Image Credits
Elyse Pono
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
