Speaking Engagements

Interviewing Basics:

Getting through a 1st round interview - phone or in-person- including advice on dealing with salary issues, selling accomplishment stories, maximizing positive first impressions with a focus on body language, enthusiasm and appearance, and so on.

In-depth Interviewing:

Succeeding with proof-based/accomplishment questions.

Developing Questions for Informational Interviews and Live Interviews:

Informational Interviewing:

How to ask for a meeting without stalking, and how to use the meeting time to build relationships.

Developing and Researching a Targeted List of Companies:

Teaching why this is the heart of a job search, and how to do it.

Handling Objections to Hiring International Students:

Teaching international students how to take charge of selling their value and how to best deal with objections to the perceived "hassle" and expense of hiring internationals.

Stalled Job Search?

Steps on how to jump start a stale/stalled job search.

Career Primers:

I have separate sessions for several different career areas, meant to be delivered to students early in the year to open their eyes to different career paths. Topics are finance, general management, and marketing.

Recruiter, Friend or Foe?:

Dispels myths about how to work with recruiters - what they do and don't do.

Negotiations:

Best delivered before job-seekers are heavily into interviewing since they often mistakenly harm their future value during the interview process.

Succeeding in your first 90 days on the job:

Opening job-seekers' eyes on why their actions and behaviors on the first 90 days are critical.

Bridging the Generation Gap at Work:

Educates young adults (Millennials) on what hiring managers are saying about them in the workplace - many young adults are completely unaware that they are accidentally demonstrating the very behaviors that hiring managers have developed a bias against. This class also covers advice for changing those perceptions.

Identifying a Target Career Path:

Best delivered with an online assessment as pre-work.

Spin Selling:

Teaching students the nuts and bolts of how to sell anything effectively (themselves in a job search, their ideas when on the job, etc.). This workshop is based on the book Spin Selling by Neil Rackham, and is used by more Fortune 500 companies than any other sales methodology.

Targeted Networking:

In this workshop, job-seekers are walked through the entire job search process, given guidance on how to select a career path, how to develop a target list of companies, how to get informational meetings using Patty's own branded methodology called "Targeted Networking", and how to develop lasting relationships that can lead to jobs.

How to Recruit Top Talent without Paying Top Dollar:

In this topic I first cover how to identify top talent, followed by how to better attract that talent starting with development of an interesting, challenging performance profile for the role in question (winners are attracted to challenges).  I also cover how to identify hard "proof" of past relevant accomplishments when interviewing.

How to Retain Top Talent:

In this topic I challenge the audience to see how (and if) they differentiate rewards and management attention between top performers and average performers in their own organizations. I also cover ideas on making that distinction more clear with top performers, as well as encouraging a possible re-definition of the composition of their NFP's "leadership" team (the positions for members of the defined "leadership team" of an organization quietly morph over time and need to be periodically re-examined).

Defining a Process for NFP Executive Director Succession:

This is one of the main responsibilities of any NFP board, yet it often remains unaddressed. This workshop provides a simple framework for defining what the organization should look for in its next leader (whenever that time might come) based on current challenges. A position description can be created from this framework, as well as a clearer understanding of talent and traits that should be added to the board over time.

Career Planning for NFP Agency Leaders:

I cover identification of each member's dominant style of leadership (usually through a pre-work, quick assessment) and provide a framework for identifying future NFP employers that are most in need of that type of leadership. I would also cover the concepts of: transitioning employment to the for-profit arena, changing geography, changing industries and transitioning to part-time work.

Recruiters. Friend or Foe?:

I cover common misconceptions about the world of recruiting at the executive level, providing valuable insight on how to increase your exposure while protecting yourself from unethical business practices in the recruiting arena.

Executive Interviewing:

I provide specific advice on how to improve the outcome of high stakes interviews at the executive level. As executives we are very rarely the interviewee, so an improvement in our own ability to be interviewed has the potential for a big payoff.

Negotiating the Offer:

As with interviewing, most of us don't get to practice our negotiating skills very often.  This seminar aims to improve the chances of an optimal negotiating outcome.

Leadership Assessment Workshop:

Attendees take a leadership assessment prior to the workshop, using validated MBTI research, to better understand their leadership strengths and blind spots.

Grow Beyond Workshop:

Attendees work interactively on understanding “what got you here won’t get you there” and identify tailored follow-up actions to grow beyond their blind spots.