(Upbeat Music)

Carlos Martinez:

All right, so welcome everybody. This is Carlos Martinez and I'm here with,

Megan Riksen:

Hi everyone. I'm Megan Riksen

Carlos Martinez:

And you know, we're real excited. It's the first interview of the show. We, if were successful. We probably just gave you a little intro about what it's all going to be about this, this semester. Our, our first guest is somebody who we're extremely excited about and probably because we work with him and he signs our paychecks. But no haha,  Troy Farley, he is the Director of the Career Center from the U.P. and honestly, we're just going to get to know him a little better today. How are you doing Troy? 

Troy Farley:

I am doing great, Carlos and Megan.

Megan Riksen:

Thanks so much for coming on, and we're excited to hear your story today.

Troy Farley:

And I'm excited to tell it!

Carlos Martinez:

All right. So you know, let's just kind of go back, at a very basic level. Who are you, where are you from? How did a guy from the U.P. and up in Grand Rapids?

Troy Farley:

Wow, that's a loaded question. I know we have somewhat of a time constraint, but I'll start with being born and raised in the small town of the U.P. called Manistique, and a really unique town. The town is basically a town that was a very blue collar. Either your father was a Miner or worked in the paper mill and my father happened to be a Miner, and it's really interesting to is back, back when I went to school, I graduated high school in 1983, but back when I was in Junior High, when you started signing up for classes as a Freshman, if your dad was a Miner or worked in the paper mill, there was probably a good chance they would talk you into taking Voc-ed classes. So, basically they were going to assume you're going to probably go work in the mine or work in the paper mill.

Troy Farley:

For me it was mining, and so for four years I had very little, I had zero college prep courses, but I had an electrical course. I had a building construction course. So, I had courses that really prepped me for the vocation versus higher ed. Decided my senior year, based on a phone call from coach Klinger, he was the track coach at Grand Valley. Happened to win the U.P.  state final. Had some good times. Out of no where I get this phone call about Grand Valley, and I had heard of this school but knew very little about it and decided. 

 

Megan Riksen:

How far away was that from home?

 

Troy Farley:

Well it was, it was, it, you know, back then the speed limit was 55 miles an hours. So, obviously that added some time. But it was about a six hour drive. And what was interesting, Megan, is that at the time I said, Hey, I'll go to this school called Grand Valley, it was kind of site unseen and any literature, keep in mind, this is 1982 or 83 before the internet so far I was born before you were born Carlos.

Troy Farley:

So I looked up the school, there was not a lot of information other than what you would see. And I remember seeing the picture of the, I think it was the, the, at the time the Amway building, the only tall building in Grand Rapids. And so I thought Grand Valley was in a city. And so I thought I was leaving this small town of Manistique  to move to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Home of Grand Valley State at the time, college, not even university. And I'll never forget because the first time I visited the school was orientation. We didn't do a visit. My folks just tend to, we didn't travel, so we didn't do a visit and we drove down 131 and then we kind of bypass the city and hit Lake Michigan Drive and started heading West. And it was somewhat of a really sinking feeling in my stomach because it started to look more like the U.P. than I thought. And we arrived on Allendales campus back then. It truly was surrounded by cornfields on three sides. Yeah, it was a small school. I think there was probably 6,000 students when I started. Yeah.

Carlos Martinez:

Yeah. And you know, it's funny, I worked four years in admissions and what you just expressed still happens to students today. Right. My, my territory was the thumb area of Michigan. So for us that meant anywhere from around roughly Bay city, Midland, all the way down to like Port Huron in a County. I would visit all those small towns and students would come from those areas and tell me the same things. Even though I had just told them that there are two campuses and they still experienced that shock, which is interesting. So technology doesn't solve it. Yeah. So, so you get to Grand Valley, did you know anyone here, how'd you pick a major that you have a career in mind? How does that process work out for you? 

 

Troy Farley:

So, ironically, I had a good friend in high school by the name of George Masonic, and he was in the exact same position as me. He got a call from the football coach about being a walk on. And so we both decided kind of together, let's go to this school called Grand Valley University, so we roomed together, which, which really was I think instrumental having that bond with somebody from a town, small town you could relate to.

We were both first gen college students and I would say it was a strength, the relationship that kept our freshman year somewhat successful. Where were we? We were both many times at Freshman year. Contemplating not coming back our sophomore year. 

 

Megan Riksen:

And what were the reasons for that? The academics of it? 

 

Troy Farley:

I think it was a combination. I'll speak for myself, not George, but on the academic side, I did not have the college prep courses, and so I think academically it was really hard. For me at the time, Grand Valley did not have all the student support services that we have now, and if they did, I wasn't in a position to go looking for them. Right. 

Carlos Martinez:

Yeah, and there are many students who are the B to C students to be students that, that feel that because they're not getting those A's that it's, it means that they're not better, or it means that they're not smarter when, when a lot of times it's just that their experiences before getting to Grand Valley were a little different. Right. A lot of rural schools, a lot of inner city schools don't, won't have the same resources as maybe some of the schools in the suburbs. And, and we know that the experiences that you are all feeling, at least those of you who are undergrads listening, they're actually really normal. You're not the only one in that boat. And sometimes just, you know, checking in, talking to someone on campus, academic advisor can make all the difference in the world. So Troy, you know, was, was this the buddy that we all hear about, you would get it in, into some experiences with at Grand Valley.

Troy Farley:

So, you know, Carlos, so the answer is yes, it is the buddy, and I think the experiences you're talking about, if I reflect back on those days, you know, you call them experiences, I call them trouble. 

 

Carlos Martine:

I was being nice haha 

 

Troy Farley:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. But, but you know, and when I say trouble, you know, I, I'm very proud of the fact that it wasn't alcohol. It wasn't drugs. It wasn't vandalism. It was more that we were bored out of our mind and we decided to, to, you know, play some, some, some what we thought were at the time of fun pranks. But, but obviously they weren't as fun as we thought. You know, we thought maybe I'm, I'm doing a little deer hunting on grand Valley's campus would be, it would be a good thing to do to kinda pass our board on. There was a lot of deer on Grand Valley’s campus.

Troy Farley:

Unfortunately, and you know, you, you, you shouldn't hunt where you're not supposed to hunt. Right. 

 

Carlos Martinez:

And so what happened when you started hunting anyway?

 

Troy Farley:

 so, so, so before I talk about the hunting, let me, let me, let me, you mentioned a question about, you know, pick picking majors and the previous question we didn't get to, and I think that's really interesting coming from a career services perspective. I didn't know what I wanted to major in and my, my first year, you know, I had a lot of the, the gen ed required classes in nothing really collect, nothing seemed to be connected, but I think it's because I wasn't willing to be connected. I was kind of this isolated lifestyle. I'd go to class, go back in my room and I would hang out or I'd go to track practice. But I never fully engaged into the classroom.

Troy Farley:

But, but midway through my Sophomore year, I think it was in January I got a call from the Academic Advising Center and they, they said, Hey, we noticed you haven't picked a major and I needed to pick a major. And it was extremely stressful. A lot of anxiety, and I, and I went to the center and at the time there was only about three or four people working there. 

 

Megan Riksen:

So you came to the Career Center at that point?

 

Troy Farley:

Well, it was the academic advising, I think that was the name of the center. And they told me that I had to pick a major because I had basically taken all my gen ed requirements, and I remember not having any clue, being a first gen had nobody really to talk to. I sat out in the lobby and flip through the catalog and, and I, and I, and I looked at this thing called business cause somebody said to be good at business.

And then I saw I had to take stats 215, I had to take some math classes, some accounting classes, and, and not have an anybody  to talk to about what business was like. I decided to skip it. It looked really hard and I got to public administration and I didn't look at the program, but what I looked at as a requirements and they found that the classes looked a little bit interesting but not a lot of math, and I was terrified of math. So I picked a Public Administration as my major. And when I went in to talk to my academic advisors that I picked a major, she said, what? I said Public Administration. She said, how did you come to that conclusion? And my answer was, it looks like there's not a lot of math. And you know, she kind of smiled and she says, I'm hoping there's some deeper passion.

Troy Farley:

Then we talked about a class that I was required called Urban Planning or planning. There was a class on recreation and so there was a little bit of a draw to the coursework, but it was basically to pacify the requirement going into my Junior year to pick a major. Sure, yup. Yup. Not a lot of career exploration, that's for dang sure. Right.

 

Carlos Martinez:

And were those classes, what you expected them to be? 

 

Troy Farley:

Yes. But then I found out that, you know, a lot of the, the faculty really pushed you to go work in city government city management. And at the time I was absolutely paranoid of public speaking and when I looked at public positions or city government, you're often given presentations in front of community members. And I also, you know, it's interesting when I, when I think about this now, I did a little research and when I started looking at what it takes to be good at it, most of the communities you live in as a public administration major working in government, city government, either people love you, don't like you, or could care less who you are, and I didn't want that. 

Megan Riksen:

Yup. Yup. Did you have on campus jobs or, or work at all throughout the time that you were a student at Grand Valley?

Troy Farley:

So I did. So I did. I had a lot of financial aid and you know, I ended up working at the physical plant, and I absolutely loved it!  And I worked with custodial services and a couple of my jobs, you know, one was I was working and doing laundry at the, at the physical plant and I would roll up all the rugs on campus. So, one of my jobs were to drive around and pick up all the rugs in the wintertime that were mud filled, salt filled and take them back to be washed. I, I worked in the Kirkhof center for a period of time doing some cleaning. Then I worked in the Field House in the laundry room and at the time all athletes had these bags and he had a bag with your number on it and you'd throw your laundry in the bag and you'd throw in these huge washers and I would wash clothes. And I, and I think I liked it because I could really, really relate to the workers and they took an interest in me as a person as well as being a student. And I, and I always credit Grand Valley for having people that took an interest in people, not just a student.

Carlos Martinez:

Oh, so you're, you're taking classes, you're, you're hunting. You are, are you working at all anything like an internship throughout your time as an undergrad?

 

Troy Farley:

You know I ended up doing an internship my Senior year, but while I was working at grand Valley in the  in the, in the physical plant you know, I unfortunately, you know, my group and I, we got in some trouble and we are, we were, you know, to be removed from the Grand Valley housing program. And this, this was the, the second semester of our Sophomore year and we had no place to live because we then found out that the, the, at the time to off campus housing facilities wouldn't let either of us live there out of on-campus housing and off campus housing. Well basically asked to leave on campus housing with not a place to go to off campus.

Troy Farley:

You know, and what was really interesting at the time is that I can't disagree with the decision Grand Valley made, but what was interesting about it is, is that the day of our dismissal hearing, and I, and I tell this story often the former housing director unbeknown to me had been either resigned or lost his job the day before our dismissal hearing. And so my roommate and I show up, we walk into this big room and there's somebody from the Grand Valley Police Department, there's somebody from the physical plant, there's somebody from housing, and there's somebody from judicial. And we're in this room. And they introduced this guy as the Interim Director of Housing. And his name was Bob Stolll. And at the time I had no idea who Bob Stoll was, but he walked into the room, he sat down, he read our files and obviously he's saw that we were a little bit, did some stupid things, any asked everybody to leave the room.

Troy Farley:

But myself and George, and it was really, we had no idea. We thought, Oh, here we are for one more lashing of our behavior. And he said, and I'll never forget this, he said, what? I look at your files. I don't see anything violent, no drugs, no alcohol. I see two bored kids doing stupid things. And Bob said, I got a plan. He says, and I'm going to bring the rest of the folks into the room in a minute here, but I've always wanted to start a GVSU sportsmen club. And he says, if I'm blocking out my current president or future president and vice president of the organization and let the two of you stay in housing, what do you start the student organization? And literally, I mean, I was, I was so a, well, first of all, he asked where we're from and when we said the U.P. Bob had went to school at Northern Michigan university and was an avid outdoorsman.

But so there was this common denominator connection. And for the first time somebody connected with us individually and, and then all of a sudden, Andy Beechnut, who was at the time, the assistant director of housing kind of comes into our lives and, and so Bob kinda gave Andy, Hey, take care of these two guys. I don't think they're that bad, and I think we can help them. And so Andy then got us really connected. Andy's Andy was really good, you know, Andy said, basically, I'm gonna have you guys work for me, and my first job working for housing was Andy had a weekly newsletter called the John Door. Yes. It was called the John Door for a reason. It's all the campus events were on a 8x10 piece of paper. And my job was walked through all the dormitories, all the buildings, and tape it on the inside of the bathroom door. And actually I kind of enjoyed it because a, it was a sense responsibility, but more importantly, I was building a relationship with this guy named Andy beach now who at the time was assistant director of housing. And that was really kind of cool to have somebody take an interest in me. And so I did that. 

And the following year, I guess it'd be a two years later after doing that, Andy approached me and said, Hey Troy, we're looking at starting our own security system, our own security on campus. You know, the school very well, you know, housing very well, you know, what students do when they get, get bored really well. Would you be willing to help start a security student security program? And by the way, I'm gonna make you the supervisor. So for a year and a half I ran grand Valley on campus security. What was interesting is my hours went up from a work standpoint, but sorted migrates. So did my appreciation for the university and all the things they can do. It's because I saw if you take an interest in somebody, if someone takes an interest in you, it can be a game changer. So, Andy and Bob continue to play a key role in my success.

Megan Riksen:

Right. They both still work here at the university. Absolutely. Gotta be pretty cool for you to get to work now with them.

Troy Farley:

Absolutely. Yeah. And then Bart Markel obviously Bart was the Dean of students I think in 1983 was his first year when Bob kind of gave us the stay, you know, we could stay in housing. It had to be approved by Bart and them. So Bart ultimately met in approved our stay in, so I have this great appreciation for Andy Barton, Bob for believing in me as a student, but more partly as a, as a person. 

 

Carlos Martines:

And I think what's real interesting about your, your story is that many students when they first get to grand Valley, don't know, you know, don't know any folks here. And they might be wondering, well, how can I get connected? How can I meet people? And I think that the, the end result of your story is also the answer to that question, which is by getting involved somehow and there's different studies where if you look at it, it is going to show exactly what you experienced. That getting involved usually  will have some positive connection with grades. The exception is once students get over-involved, right? Yes, so sometimes we get students who it's not just we're running once one sportsman club, it's, I'm on the sportsman club and I'm president of my fraternity and I'm also in residence hall association. And so the key for all of you still trying to figure things out is that you still need balance. You've got to balance it out. You still need time for your homework, you need time for schoolwork and you need some time for yourself even if it's just to, you know, catch up and your favorite Netflix show. 

 

Troy Farley:

But I think too Carlos, you know, to kind of add to that as an, I agree with everything you just said, but I also think, you know, we seem to spend a lot of time with the students who get involved. My main concern is how do we reach out to the students who are not involved and there's many reasons why they're not involved. Yeah. It could be work, it could be family. There are a non traditional student you know, they're commuting from 30, 40 miles away. And what I find is that we don't need to get them involved. We need to show we care, and we need to ask them how can we be of assistance and they're hard to find, but they're there, and you know, you hear me talk all the time about walk and talk, you know, meet a student every day and get to know who they are and where they're from, and the next thing you know, you'll probably likely see them on your appointment calendar. 

 

Carlos Martinez:

Yeah, and you know something else that, that really stood out to me when you were, when you were telling that story is that staying connected somehow yielded results sort of year after year for you led to new opportunities, so now you've ran a couple of clubs, you've ran security on campus. How do you begin to transition out of Grand Valley? How does that process look like for you?

 

Troy Farley:

It was really hard for me. You know, this is an interesting part of the story and, and obviously it's kind of a, you know, there's no, there's no rating on this, but I ended up dating my supervisor that was working on campus security. She was, yeah. You know, and so we started to date and the next thing you know, I decided to go to grad school at Grand Valley in the higher ed program. Not so much because I loved higher ed, but I really liked my supervisor, and she was going to be working at Grand Valley for a few years. So, I wanted to the higher ed program and I became a graduate assistant in housing, and you know, we did that right out of undergrad, right out of undergrad. Yeah. No experiences. You know, I think it's because I was probably in love. 

 

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, it sounds like you had a great experience as an undergrad.

 

Troy Farley:

I had a great gig, really ended well, and I found people who cared about me at the institution and they were still all here. So, so to leave and go to this, this big city called Grand Rapids at the time or to leave the security blanket of Grand Valley would have been really difficult because I still had no idea what I wanted to do or what I even could do. I didn't know my strengths and my weaknesses. I just don't, I had a major, I had an average GPA. And, but I really love Grand Valley. So, I interviewed for a graduate assistant position in run and housing or I say working in housing. I managed four living centers and it was probably from a coursework standpoint. I enjoyed it, but the work might've been the most miserable thing I ever did. I'm not a good fit for you. Well what was, I was doing it for probably the wrong reasons. And when you look at what it takes to run a living center actually for living centers, attention to detail [inaudible] highly structured. No, Megan's already laughing and so was Carlos, you know, they know me. 

 

Megan Riksen:

Yeah. We've worked at home for a few years haha.

 

Troy Farley:

But, but, but it wasn't really what I was good at in Andy Beachnut. So, so you hear that name often. You know, midway through he pulled me aside and said, hey, listen, let's meet, cause this isn't working for you. I know it and it's not working for me. I can show it. But there's some things I think you can do for me and still be a grad assistant. So, he pulled me out of that environment and for the first time I felt failure. You know, I let the school down, I let Andy Beechnut down, but Andy didn't word it that way. It's just what I kind of felt.

 Really what he was doing is propping me up. He saw it was not a good fit. He could see that it really wasn't something I was into, but he knew I had value to the institution in Andy always heard me talking about how the, the processes at Grand Valley for how we do things. Especially in housing, from furniture, from parts, from inventory, from bunk beds to couches. We had no control. We had no idea where things were. We just swim in storage units. So Annie gave me a job to go through every single storage unit in inventory, every single part, every bolt, every nut. And I absolutely loved it. Loved it. Because then I knew when somebody had a question about, Hey, do we have an extra couches? We have extra bed frames. Do we have these sites? Screws? I knew where they were. And so I had this control and what I noticed was, is there were some business features into that.

 I put together a spreadsheet. Back then it was called Lotus. I put a spreadsheet together for Andy, which she was really impressed with. I started doing some accounting functions. So, I found that if you remember early in a podcast I talked about, I stopped at that business major. Yeah. But then I kind of went through it because I looked at the courses, I was reverting back to that with this new role Andy put me in and with, with, you know I think I had 24 credit hours complete in the grad program. I decided it was time to leave, and so I left the institution to go work for a business.

Megan Riksen:

So that still had to be quite an interesting transition for you to move outside of higher education. Completely. So what did that very first connection to that position look like? Was it a instance of not what, you know, who, you know?

Troy Farley:

Yeah. Yes. I didn't know what I didn't know, and the only thing I knew was Grand Valley and higher ed. I decided to find this place called the Career Center on campus. At the time it was called, I think Placement Services. And the only reason I knew how to get there is that there was a friend when I was going to school who said his dad's name was Tom Sakara or at the time to me Mr. Decora, who was a director of the Career Center. And so when I made that decision to leave Grand Valley, I had no idea. The only way I knew how to search for jobs. And I know everybody listening to get a laugh at this was the classified ads in the newspaper on Sunday mornings, you know, and I started looking at all these jobs and I couldn't find anything that seemed to be a fit. 

So I remember talking to Phil and I said, hey Phil, you think your dad would meet with me? I had no idea that the career placement services, that was for us. And so I showed up there. I met Ginger Lang who obviously worked in the Career Center for a long time. And I went in there and I was really nervous. I did not have a resume. I did not have one. And I, and I walked in there and at the time Tom was a unique guy, loved him to pieces. He was helping me, we're talking about a resume and all of a sudden his phone rang, and he started talking to this company and during the conversation he kept saying, I do know somebody, you know. Yup, you're a new company. We'll, we'll put it on our placement brochure that you're looking for this candidate, but he goes, I have a young man, I'm going to send over your way. What I think could do a really good job. And I'm sitting in my chair going, dang, I wish I knew who this young man is, but Tom Sikora knows him really well. 

So he gets off the phone and says, there you go. Your first lead. Oh my gosh. I said, what? He said, I just got a call from this company called Notions Marketing Corporation looking for somebody. And he said, I told them you'd stop and, and drop off your resume. I said, that was me you're talking about. I said, but you don't know me that well. He goes, no, but they don't know that, but you seem to be a fine young man. So, so I literally, I left there on cloud nine. I'm just feeling really good and drove to Notions Marketing Corporation with this resume that we put together.

Walked in there, did not identify who I was. I didn't ask Tom what the protocol was, and so I showed up there. Well they happen to have open interviews for their warehouse that day. And when I showed up there, I filled out an application on a clipboard and then I got an interview intern interview. They said, we noticed you have a college degree. Why are you applying for a job in a warehouse in long story, not in the right place. Yeah, exactly. Long story is it actually became a pretty cool icebreaker for my real interview because I had zero interview experience. I was relatively introverted at that time and very insecure about this business world. And then the story kind of goes on from there, but it was really a great, great run. 

 

Megan Riksen:

That's great. Yeah. 

 

Carlos Martinez:

And you know, we know that later on in time you ended up returning back to the Career Center. Maybe that's a future, a future episode, but one of the big reasons why we were really interested in having you come here is because you do a great job at, at telling your story. But specifically telling your story in a way that relates to your, your particular goal topic. And that's, that's key when it comes to interviewing or networking. Is there any advice that you can, that you would give to folks who are maybe today feeling a little introverted like you did one day, maybe thinks you thinks that you found out, worked for you to improve those skills? 

 

Troy Farley:

And I do. I think that you know, based on this story, you know, I'm not uncommon, there is a bunch of Troy's out there today walking around this campus. Because I think a lot of people think they know what they might want to do based on maybe some Google searches based on some light conversations, but, but really take advantage of the Career Center, take advantage of the services that are available at grand Valley. Take advantage of the relationships you build. Ask them the tough questions, ask them what do you think I'd be good at? and then go down that road. You're going to find that Grand Valley has some amazing resources both in the Career Center and in the relationships you built. And I guarantee you that they're going to be willing to help you build some bridges with employers to do some employer investigation before you pick a major, before you start interviewing for that first internship or full time job.

Megan Riksen:

Sure. Do you think that would have been helpful looking back if you had maybe gotten the chance to do a job shadow in the business world before you even chose the public administration major?

Troy Farley:

So the answer is yes, I really do. But at the same Megan, I look back, it was a fun ride, and I learned probably more from what I did, what I probably either shouldn't have done, or maybe with some better information and wouldn't to have done, but it still was very, informational to my career path. 

Carlos Martinez:

Yeah. You know, one, one tool that has worked well for some students would be coming in to do mock interviews. So when they come in to do a mock interview in our, in our center, we have a little camera, you'll feel awkward at first we do record you, but then we can watch it back together and work on strategies on how to better tell your story, how to better relate your answers to, to your personal talking points. So what that means is that the interviewer can ask you a variety of questions, but you should still be able to communicate those key things that you want them to know about who you are, your experiences and, and Troy, someone who I've seen do that very well when he's speaking to two different groups over time. You know, another thing I've noticed about you that I think is a really strong feature when it comes to meeting new people is you have a habit of asking somebody where's home or where you're from, and then telling them something about their hometown. Where does that come from and why? Why do you do that?

Troy Farley:

You know, I, I think it's because what I've realized is that everybody, including myself, we're very, very proud of our hometown. We're very proud of where we're from. In, in, in times we fail to realize that. And when I look at my background at Grand Valley, it wasn't until Bob and Andy took an interest in me as a person and where I was from that I really connect with them. Other than that, I thought a lot of the relationships were superficial. And what I have found is that, first of all, I love Michigan. I love the country. I love the world too. I love history, and I find that when you find out where somebody from a, they get very passionate, very, very passionate and two, or B, we can learn something. You know, when I asked the question where you're from, I usually do a followup. Tell me one or two things about your town. I would never find on Wikipedia or about watching the news, and I find some just absolute amazing facts and tidbits of information that I really do care about and passionate about learning.

Carlos Martinez:

Yeah. And I, I've seen that happen many times. You see the sparkle in the person's eyes right away and you'll, you see that you've got their attention. Everyone doesn't have that same personality though. And so I think a good, a nice little takeaway is make sure that your interaction is not solely about yourself. So there's a misconception out there that networking is, it's really about what can I get from you? What can this person get from me when one of the things I've learned, just kind of through watching you interact with folks that a lot of it at, at the foundational level is just trying to build an authentic relationship. If maybe we can interact and support each other, that works too. But at the foundational level is, Hey, how are you doing? And I think you're really strong at that.

 

Troy Farley:

Yeah, and I think Carlos, I think you know that, that, that whole foundational level of so important to build, to have a meaningful conversation. We first have to care about each other and we have to trust each other. I tell students all the time, you know, I'm going to build relationships with you as a person and then we'll work on the academic side, the resume, the interview skills, the job search, internship search. But I'm not unique. Most people want to get to know you, but most people sometimes don't know how to start the conversation. And I tell students, when you walk into somebody's office, it's intimidating. I don't care who you are. Find some pictures, find some decoration, find something that they have in their office that you can connect with. If you're into  golf and they got a picture of a golf course in there, ask them about it. If they got a picture of their family, there are Niagrar Falls and you see the falls in the background. Are you on vacation there? Ask about that. Because if you can develop that foundation, the rest of the conversation is pretty natural.

Megan Riksen:

And wouldt  you say that's also some of the building blocks of storytelling? Being able to have that conversation, just to be able to speak naturally to someone else about who you are to tell your story does make that so much easier when you are going up to a stranger in a , you know, more of a forced networking position.

Troy Farley:

Megan, I'm, I am so glad you're in the course of this interview, that you brought up storytelling because that is one of the most important topics. We failed to realize that the ability to tell your story and believe people want to know it, people care about it. It's interesting. It's fun, it's entertaining and getting, know who you are. And as you know, my story has bumps and bruises. Most people's story dies and that's okay. Right?

Carlos Martinez:

Yup. You know what, I don't want to take more, more time of yourself today. I can't even speak right now. It's early. We really appreciate the time you've given us today, Troy. We'll definitely bring you back another day. Maybe learn a bit more about how you transition may career from the business world back into that space where you know, you, you left and so you came back to higher ed. You've been with us ever since. We're happy to have you any parting words of wisdom for, for your new fans? Thanks for having me here. Your Twitter followers are going to go up now. Yeah, this has been a lot of fun, but I think it's important that you understand that, that the folks that work in the career center, I'll have stories like mine might be a little bit different, but I guarantee you're gonna enjoy T listen to their story too. All right, well thank so much folks

Carlos Martinez:

And you know, join us next time as we keep on sharing a bit more about the career world professional development and just kind of hanging out, getting to know us. We hope you stay tuned. Thank you.