Jesse Moryn

Career Fair Tips from Crew212

September 17, 2019 by Jesse Moryn Leave a Comment

It’s that time of year again. The leaves are changing, students are back on campus, and upperclassmen are busy forming their post-graduation plans. For Crew212, that means it’s recruiting season! If you want to make the most of this year’s career fair at your school, here are some tips on putting your best foot forward.

Bring Extra Copies of Your Resume

You should plan to leave your resume with every company you interact with – this means you need to bring plenty of copies!

Dress for Success

Look the part when you go to the career fair! Most career fairs will have a business professional dress code, or business casual at the very least. A few days before the career fair, take some time to make sure you have an outfit ready. This means your outfit is ironed, clean, and ready to wear into a professional setting.

Do Your Research

Look up the companies who will be at your career fair. Not only will you be able to form a game plan about which companies you really want to meet, but you’ll also be able to do some preliminary research about the organizations. Knowing about the company ahead of time is a surefire way to get a recruiter’s attention! Having said that, keep an open mind if you see a company at the career fair that may be of interest, even if you didn’t get a chance to research them ahead of time.

Master Your Elevator Pitch

Your elevator pitch is the quick synopsis of who you are and what you do, a Cliff Notes intro that you can say within the span of a short elevator ride. Your elevator pitch should be no longer than 30-40 seconds! If you practice your elevator pitch and have it ready to go, you’ll be more confident and time efficient when you introduce yourself to recruiters.

Ask Thoughtful Questions

This one ties back into doing your research. The worst thing you can do at a career fair is ask obvious questions about a company – information that is readily available on their website or with a quick google search. Ask more open-ended questions that open the possibility of a conversation with the recruiter. If you ask something as simple as “what does your company do?”, you’re not making a great first impression.

Maintain Engaging Eye Contact and Body Language

This is an area of improvement for many people, but fortunately body language and eye contact are both things that can be improved with practice. Make sure you’re showing the recruiter that you’re engaged in the conversation and genuinely want to talk to them. Nothing is worse than coming across as disinterested or distracted!

Gather Business Cards

Get business cards from the recruiters you talk to. You can use their contact information to follow up after the career fair, whether it be with more questions or simply to thank them for their time. Expressing your gratitude and showing further interest in an organization can go a long way towards landing an interview!

Follow Up with Recruiters

Tied in with the last point, it’s important that you follow up with the companies you’re interested in. Keep in mind that while you were meeting with a few different companies, each of those companies were meeting literally hundreds of candidates. Following up can be crucial in standing out from your peers.

Enjoy Yourself

Career fairs often have the unfortunate perception of being stuffy, formal and competitive, with the end goal being landing an interview with the best companies over your peers. If you go in with that mindset, you miss the opportunity to meet the people around you and really enjoy the process of figuring out where you want to be after graduation. On the other hand, if you go in with an open mind and set out to enjoy yourself and meet some great people, you’ll be happier and will come across as an even more likable candidate.

Finding a Mentor in the Workplace

September 5, 2019 by Jesse Moryn Leave a Comment

This guest post is by Ellie Gerst, Crew212 member. Thank you for your great insight, Ellie!

You’re swimming. Cruising through fluorescent-dappled water, exploring corporate castles and finding your place amongst the glittery pebbles and fake seaweed. Consulting can feel like you’re in a fish tank. You’re a piece of the office – a part of the team, but an invisible barrier separates you from the rest. A mentor can be the hammer that breaks the glass.

Why You Should Find a Mentor

A mentor is a living, breathing textbook for your workplace. A resource to get ahead, both in networking and in learning about your business. Maybe they have the same position as you, but have been with the company longer. Maybe they have the position you see yourself in down the line. Maybe their job is completely unrelated to you, but their network could offer you opportunities. Whatever the case, they have connections and insight about your company that could make a huge difference in understanding your role and building relationships within your workplace.

How to Find a Good Mentor

So how do you find a mentor? There are many ways! This can range from asking a fellow co-worker or cube mate to grab coffee once a month, to being formally paired by your manager or a digital pairing tool on your company’s internal website. Here are some other tips to get you started:

Ask your leadership what capacity you have for mentorship and what resources are available to you.
Get to know the people who sit with you, even if you don’t work together directly.
Participate in, or even plan yourself, team engagement activities.

The initiative to seek out a mentor exhibits both interest in your company and a commitment to growth within your role.

How to Effectively Utilize a Mentor

After finding a mentor, the question becomes, what to do? Ask questions. A lot of them. Bring an agenda of sorts to your meetings. Don’t force conversations — but do facilitate. Make it easy for them and let them know that you appreciate the time they are giving you. That being said, don’t feel discouraged if your first mentor relationship isn’t what you expected. You may not land with a perfect match, especially if you are paired randomly, but you are guaranteed to learn something.

Building a network in the workplace is so important in feeling like you’ve broken the fish tank barrier of being new or contracted. If mentorship is an option for you, it could make a huge difference in your consulting experience.

Trailblazers: Women Succeeding in STEM

May 2, 2019 by Jesse Moryn Leave a Comment

Trailblazers April 2019 was a huge success! We would like to thank everyone who made these events possible, both for their support of Trailblazers and for their tireless dedication to helping and inspiring the young women who attend these events. We would also like to thank our hosts for kindly allowing us the use of their space and for being such great partners over the past few months – North Hennepin Community College & Mall of America in the Twin Cities and Corteva Agriscience in Des Moines.

What are Trailblazers Panel Events?

Trailblazers events are educational panel events that Keyot facilitates on a semi-annual basis and are a large part of the way we “give back” to our communities. They create mentorship opportunities by providing young women a chance to meet with other women who are currently employed in STEM and get to know more about what these jobs are like.

This program arose from our founders’ own experiences as women in STEM and their desire to provide guidance to young women who may be considering going into STEM, but who have questions or don’t know where to start. These programs also hope to bring some diversity to our STEM communities, because despite being 50% of the US workforce, women compose less than 25% of STEM workers. For reference, in college, President Anjie Cayot was the only girl in her entire MIS program!

To pull an event together, we start by reaching out to a small number of local women who are working in STEM jobs, who are typically 5 to 10 years into their careers. These women form our panels. We then invite young women from the surrounding community to attend a two-hour event – attendee ages range from early high school to early college.

At the event, the panelists share their stories with attendees and talk a little bit about their backgrounds, what they do for a living, and what a typical day in their jobs is like. Once we make it through all the panelists, we break into small groups so attendees can meet the panelists and ask them any questions they might have.

Trailblazers events give young women the opportunity to meet women just like them, albeit a few years older, so they can really imagine themselves pursuing these types of careers. Our panelists come from all sorts of backgrounds and have all taken different paths to get to where they are today – the one thing they have in common is that they’re all succeeding today as women in STEM and want to inspire others to follow suit. We feel incredibly fortunate for all the young women we’ve been able to impact so far and look forward to many more Trailblazers events – we hope to see you at the next one!

Some Pictures From Our April 2019 Trailblazers Events

North Hennepin Community College

Our first April event was held on Tuesday, April 16^th at North Hennepin Community College. Our panel featured a Manufacturing Engineer, a Business Analyst, a Research Biotechnologist, an Extracorporeal Therapies Scientist, an Epidemiologist, a Manufacturing Biotechnician, and a Physician Assistant.

Robbyn W, Research Biotechnologist at Cargill, explains what she does with the help of a prop – a baby chick stuffed animal meant to represent a microbe.

North Hennepin Trailblazers 2019 2 — Alejandra J, Extracorporeal Therapies Scientist at Medtronic, was kind enough to bring along a complicated piece of medical technology related to her job.

North Hennepin Trailblazers 2019 3 — Alyssa S, Manufacturing Engineer at Teleflex, connects with Trailblazers attendees face to face during our small group breakout session. Behind her, Skarlett S, Business Analyst with Surescripts, can be seen doing the same.

North Hennepin Trailblazers 2019 4 — Keyot President Anjie Cayot along with Keyot Partner Chandler Cayot lead a special parents breakout session to answer questions from the parents of our attendees.

Corteva Agriscience

Our second event was on Thursday, April 18^th at Corteva Agriscience in Johnston, Iowa, just north of Des Moines. For this event, our panel featured a Software Developer, a Project Engineer, a Mechanical Engineer, a Business Analyst, and an Agricultural Research Scientist.

Corteva Agriscience Trailblazers April 2019 2 — A fisheye view of the great venue provided by Corteva Agriscience while our panelists are introduced.

Mall of America

Our second Minnesota event was also on Thursday, April 18^th, located at Mall of America. Our panel for this event featured a Project Coordinator, a Lean Process/Quality Engineer, an R&D Scientist, an IT Security Analyst, a Data Engineer, a Software Developer, an Application Analyst, and an Engineer working in Water Resource Planning for Cities.

Mall of America Trailblazers April 2019 2 — All our great panelists listen while Danielle R, a Lean Process Engineer and Quality Engineer at WCCO Belting, tells us about what she does.

Mall of America Trailblazers April 2019 3 — Lots of attendees for our Mall of America event – we appreciate everyone who was able to join us!

Thank you again to all who attended a Trailblazers event in April! If you have any questions about Trailblazers or would like to be kept in the loop about when our next event is, feel free to reach out to us at info@keyot.com!

Change Management: Micro and Macro

March 29, 2019 by Jesse Moryn 1 Comment

This post was written by Jeanine Rickson, Director of Recruiting

Hats off to all you Change Management professionals and all the consultants who have built change management muscle over the years. My husband and I recently sold our home and 10 acres in Wisconsin and downsized to a much smaller condo in Stillwater. We are 2 people who couldn’t know each other better. We initiated this change, no one was doing it to us. Intellectually we were on board; we were change agents, change champions. Yet, when it finally happened, we weren’t as emotionally prepared as we thought we were.

Throughout the process we both had triggers that impacted our “project” and our plans. We had moments of paralysis and others of “what the heck is the other one doing or thinking” e.g. Why on earth would my husband put 2 measuring tapes in the kitchen towel drawer?! I won’t tell you about my idiosyncrasies. Some paths forward seemed easy and clear to me and others a dense fog of uncertainty. Bottom line, however macro the change, we feel it and respond to it on a personal, micro level.

In the project and client world, teams undergoing change may or may not know each other well and may or may not even like each other. They may be all on board for the change and still hit a momentary stall over an old process they helped build years ago – one that represented a significant moment in their career lives and that they find hard to just toss away.

The rate and volume of change is incredible today. From a recent Forbes article: “It’s clear that keeping up with the rate of digital advancement – for example automation, harnessing big data, emerging technologies and cyber security – will pose significant challenges for future leaders, including our own graduates, and will add a whole new layer of complexity as they try to stay ahead of competitors and innovate,” said Roland Siegers, CEMS executive director.

What we are seeing is that Agile as a framework has increased that velocity – our clients are transforming to stay ahead and innovate faster. Having said that, organizations also reach moments of paralysis or change fatigue. You are living it every day and building your skills.

I would love to hear your change management stories: successes, observations, struggles and wisdom. You know I love a good story! I can be reached at jeanine@keyot.com.

Go Phish: Keeping Your Organization Off the Hook

March 6, 2019 by Jesse Moryn Leave a Comment

This guest post is by Connor Rapp, Crew212 member. Thank you for your insight, Connor!

In 2018, roughly 53% of attacks resulted in loss of $500,000 or more. Every year, Cisco releases a Cybersecurity Report that aggregates the key data from other related studies. Pulled from their Security Capabilities Benchmark Study, which surveys over 3,600 respondents across 26 countries, it indicates just how substantial a breach in your technological defenses can be. Therefore, a question must be asked: is your company prepared for an attack?

What is Phishing?

The common definition of phishing is being contacted by an imposter disguised as a legitimate source in an attempt to withdraw sensitive data. I know what some of you reading might be thinking. Why is this called phishing? There are no aquatic fauna included in that definition. In truth, the name “phishing” is actually coined from the attacker having their target “on the hook” and reeling them in. In other words, you are the fish.

One Phish, Two Phish, Red Phish, Blue Phish

Much like there are different species of fish in the sea, phishing can be considered diversified as well. With the introduction and popularization of new technology, phishing has divided itself into multiple subcategories. For the sake of this article, we will focus on what I refer to as The Big Three.

For the categorical ordering of The Big Three, we will start with the most common form, Deceptive Phishing. As the name implies, the purpose is to mislead the target into supplying personal information or the access credentials that can lead to personal information. Typically, these attacks are mass-produced with no specific target in mind. An example of this is an email sent from “Apple iTunes” stating there was a purchase that just occurred on your account. Luckily for you, a direct link has been supplied from which you can sign into your account and verify the (fake) purchase. Most likely, the website that you will be directed to will look eerily similar to that of the actual iTunes website. When you “sign in”, your credentials (both username and password) will be shared with the attacker. Thus, you’ve literally handed them the keys to your account.
Almost identical in pattern to that of deceptive phishing, albeit with one exception, our second variation concentrates its attack to a limited, if not singular, target. Spear Phishing is personalized in its attempts, where the attackers often have prior knowledge of the victims before launching the attack. As such, it can be expected that this format will be the most common in terms of breaching security of a company.
There are little fish, there are big fish, and there are really big fish. Sometimes, Spear Phishing can be focused on a very high-ranking individual. Attacks such as this are known as Whaling. This variant of phishing is no small matter, as the attackers will typically conduct a great deal of research on their target and instigate with far more organization than other forms.

It should be noted that the three forms listed in this article do not encompass all forms of phishing. There are many niches of phishing and to list all would have made this article far too long. Instead, we will provide a basic anti-phishing education that, if correctly followed, should be able to defend from most attacks.

Finding the Hook

Using a little effort, one might find it’s actually quite easy to distinguish a phishing attempt. Simply looking for a few details can easily reveal a malicious attempt:

A large portion of phishing emails are sent from abroad. This means grammar and spelling are often sub-par and easy to notice for an individual that is fluent in English. It is highly unlikely that a major organization (your own included) will send out an email that is seemingly riddled with errors.
Who is this email from? Was it sent from outside the organization? Be sure to examine the domain name of the email address closely. Often you will see that the email will be from someone not typically in communication with you. If it is from someone you know and the message seems irregular by comparison to how they usually write, they could have very well been phished themselves and the attacker is now using their account to try to get to you.
When was this email sent? Did it appear outside of regular business hours, when it would usually arrive in your inbox within operating hours?
Check the CC’d field. Do you recognize the other recipients? Would it not seem odd that you are included in an email with a bunch of other strangers or people outside of your usual work environment?
Are there any attachments or hyperlinks? Be incredibly wary of attachments, as they can contain viruses. The same Cisco report revealed that 38% of all malicious file extensions were Office, 37% were Archive, and 14% were PDF. Should you examine everything else that I’ve listed for you and decide that this email is still legitimate, then proceed with caution. Otherwise, don’t risk it. Hyperlinks, on the other hand, are easy to check for legitimacy. Simply hover your mouse over the hyperlink (without clicking) for the connected web address. Is the address the same as what the email is promoting? In any case, it’s usually a good rule of thumb to not follow hyperlinks in emails. Typically, you will know what web address you need to go to and where to sign in. The hyperlink can easily be taking you to a website that mimics the original in an attempt to harvest your credentials.

Preparing Your Defense

If there is anything to be taken away from this post, it’s that the education of the work force is one of the most simplistic yet efficient means of defense against phishing. Fortunately, this can be done easily, and the results measured. Host a meeting or two detailing how to weed out malicious emails. Be sure to cover basic cybersecurity principles that all levels of employees can follow. At my previous employer, one way we tested whether these lessons hit home was to make fake internal phishing campaigns. We would author our own phishing emails to have them appear as legitimate as possible, with a few minor tweaks to arouse suspicion.

Should the user activate the provided hyperlink, they would be forwarded to a page that would provide details on how they have just fallen for a phishing attempt, what to look out for, and how to improve. With tests like this, the metrics of how many and which users have clicked on the link can be recorded.

A second security measure that can be integrated with ease would be incorporating an MFA (multi-factor authentication). An MFA is a security measure that has users supply additional means of verification for their access credentials. For example, a personal cell phone number or secondary email address. How does this do anything, you might ask? Say one of your employees had their access codes phished.

The attacker will clearly attempt to use them. However, the MFA will come into action at this point. When you try to log into a computer that is “unfamiliar” with your account, it will request that you provide the additional information that is tied to your MFA. So, if the attacker was not able to retrieve these bits of information, which is highly unlikely in a broad phishing attempt, they will not gain access to said account.

All-in-all, knowing is indeed half of the battle. Simply teaching your workforce how to recognize the characteristics of malicious emails will go far and is a cost-effective way to exponentially bolster your cybersecurity. Don’t let your organization be another statistic for Cisco to write about in their 2019 report.

Best of Keyot Awards 2018 – Care About You

February 20, 2019 by Jesse Moryn Leave a Comment

This article is part of a series. To read Part 1 on the Best of Keyot 2018 Overall Winner, click here.

To read part 2 on the Best of Keyot 2018 – “Drive to Win” Winners, click here.

To read part 3 on the Best of Keyot 2018 – “Lead the Way” Winners, click here.

To read part 4 on the Best of Keyot 2018 – “Give Time & Wisdom” Winners, click here.

To read part 5 on the Best of Keyot 2018 – “Love What We Do” Winners, click here.

Our final Keyot Core Value in the “Best of Keyot” Awards series is CARE ABOUT YOU. The two people being recognized exemplify this Core Value by leading with empathy and caring for our candidates and consultants in all they do. For CARE ABOUT YOU, we would like to recognize Jeanine Rickson (Director of Recruiting) and Annette Germann (Finance Manager). Congratulations, Jeanine and Annette!

First we will chat with Jeanine Rickson, Director of Recruiting:

How did you get started in recruiting?

Jeanine: Networking! A friend and former colleague was working for a small consulting firm and asked me if I had ever thought of recruiting. I had an operational leadership and HR background but had never considered it. I didn’t even know exactly what a recruiter did in a consulting firm, but I decided to be open to the possibilities. They took a chance on me and I started on a path that led me to Laura Kelly and the rest is history!

What do you love most about it?

I have always loved working with people. When you do something you love, it doesn’t feel like work, even when it is hard. I love that the business of consulting is intellectually challenging, always changing, and demands that you be on top of your game all the time. I love learning about the work talented people do and how they do it and the thrill of making the right match for a project and a role. I also love when I can be a part of changing someone’s life for the better, whether it is more money or a growth opportunity or flexibility or even a new direction to a role they can excel at.

Recruiting is a fast-paced role. How many candidates would you say you talk to in a year and how do you manage your time?

Hundreds! Thousands of profiles and resumes reviewed to find the right person at the right time for the right role in the right part of town for the right rate or salary with the right personality and cultural fit! Whew!

This is always a challenge. This work never comes nicely paced out and it doesn’t start at 8 and end at 5. Time management is something I have to work on all the time. I love trying new organizational systems with hopes I never drop a ball. I have had to learn I can’t talk to everyone as much as I would like to. I focus on top priorities for our clients and their needs while balancing working proactively for the unknown future opportunities. I would love to hear how others organize themselves and for any candidate I did drop the ball, please forgive me!

You’re Keyot’s veteran recruiter and we consistently hear about how great you are from candidates. Your authenticity and ability to find the right role for our candidates is inspiring. What do you think are the most important parts of finding a great “match” for each candidate?

Thank you!

I was blessed early on in my career with some wonderful mentors and role models who taught me that great work comes from a motivated team. Motivation is different for everyone and they taught me the importance of truly listening to what each person says, watch their body language, to hear their story and respect it. I work very hard on that. It isn’t that I discover the right match as much as the candidate tells me what their right match is and I hope to connect the dots.

Thank you for sharing Jeanine! Our recruiting team is fortunate to have you at the helm.

Next up is Annette Germann, Finance Manager for Keyot.

What does your role as Finance Manager entail at Keyot?

Annette: Payroll – make sure our employees and consultants get paid (most feel this is the most important)

Benefits – enroll employees into benefits and maintain all our benefits

Consultant Onboarding after hire – make sure all consultants have everything they need to record their time correctly with client and Keyot, as well as any client specific information they should have. I also make sure we have all paperwork in place to ensure we can invoice our clients. I verify all Pay Rates and Bill Rates are correct. For W2 employees, I make sure they have the benefit info needed to enroll in benefits and make sure they sign the Employee Handbook. For IC’s (independent contractors), I collect the proper insurance certificates.

Accounts Payable – make sure all our vendors get paid, including our ICs.

Accounts Receivables – collect timesheets from over 200 consultants, invoice our clients and make sure all invoicing gets done and money gets recorded correctly

Consultant Financial Reporting – create reports that help Partners and back office stay on top of our consultants better with how many hours they are working as well as financial reports regarding consultants for our Partners.

Contact Database Maintenance – make sure ALL of our databases are kept up to date with current consultant contact information

What’s your favorite part of your job?

Tough question because I truly love ALL that I do. I love working with numbers. Most find this boring and frustrating, but I just LOVE numbers. I never tire of them or get bored. I would have to say my favorite though is working with the consultants. I don’t get to do this as much as I used to, but I love helping them and talking to them when I get a chance. Someone at Keyot told me just recently that I am the only person at Keyot who has had contact at some point in the process with every consultant we have ever had. When I think about it, she was right! Nine years ago when I started, it was just me doing all of the back office duties and full onboarding along with the current duties I still do today. I guess I love that fact. I love that I have been a part of Keyot the longest and have been here to support them from pretty much the start. I love that I have been a part of the journey from having one consultant to now having over 200!! Wow how far we have come!!! I love that. As you can see, a favorite is tough to pick.

We hear about you from our consultants more than anyone else in the back office! Our consultants love you because you’re willing to help with benefits, ensure they get payroll and answer whatever other questions they might have. How do you manage to stay on top of things for more than 200 consultants? What advice can you give to any new consultants that might be navigating this landscape for the first time?

I am so happy our consultants feel that way, because I really do make an effort to show them Keyot cares about them. Making the effort is easy because I genuinely care about people in general. It is important to me that people feel comfortable and happy in my space. I have had great mentorship from our Partners to reinforce to me exactly how important that is. They have been great role models for me in all I do.

How do I manage my time you ask? Checklists!!! I am the checklist queen. I get teased a bit about my checklists, but for me they work well. With so many moving pieces to the puzzle of my job, I need them. They work for me. I have multiple very extensive checklists I use to keep track of all the little pieces. It’s like a puzzle sometimes to put everything together correctly and my checklists keep me on track.

My advice to consultants to navigate through our system is to take a few minutes to read through the information they are given. I know it’s a lot all at once, but the information they get is all very important to their new role. I feel if they take the few extra minutes, they will have a good understanding and feel better about how to navigate through our system. When they rush, they miss things and feel confused. I know it can be overwhelming with information, so we are ALWAYS here for them to answer questions. I do feel phone calls sometimes work better and are less confusing.

Thank you for sharing your insights with us Annette. Keyot and our consultants have been fortunate to have you all these years!

Jesse Moryn

Bring Extra Copies of Your Resume

Dress for Success

Do Your Research

Master Your Elevator Pitch

Ask Thoughtful Questions

Maintain Engaging Eye Contact and Body Language

Gather Business Cards

Follow Up with Recruiters

Enjoy Yourself