The Chris Voss Show with Chris Voss

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Chris Voss: [00:00:00] You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart, you may experience serious brain bleed. CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Strap yourself in.

Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi folks, this is Voss here from the ChrisVossShow.com. Welcome to the show. My family and friends, we certainly appreciate you guys being here.

Part of the big Chris Voss Show family. The family loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as that one time you really made your mom mad [00:01:00] when you sat on the plastic couch. And we all know what that was like as seventies children. Millennials and Gen Zers, or what? There you go.

You never go into the living room. The living room is a showroom that waits for people to come by, if you remember that. And you're never allowed to go into the living room. Is it the living room or the family room? I always get those two mixed up, but you know, the room that mom would never let you go into, but you still had to go in there and dust things.

So there you go. We still love you, regardless of whether you went in there or not. As always, folks, we certainly appreciate the five-star reviews we've been getting on iTunes, and you guys just touch me. You make me weep sometimes with joy when I read stuff like, "What a master of his craft, Chris Voss delivers such a wealth of business and engagement knowledge and delivers so many vital tips and tricks on winning communication and market message empowerment. Great content. Excellent host. Excellent form." And thank you very much, S.K. Moulter. Some of the names on here are kind of interesting. I know who it is, but I really appreciate it. So if you get a chance, go give us a five-star review, support the show, because supporting the show helps more people see it, hear it, and get involved. [00:02:00]

And in doing so, we can bring you more of the show. Unless you want less of the show, then don't leave a five-star review. And we'll just do less. I mean, I have better things to do. I'm just kidding. Go to Goodreads.com, search Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, search Chris Foss. YouTube.com, search Chris Foss. And Chris Foss 1 on the tickety tockety.

As always, we have the most brilliant minds on the show who bring you things that will make you smarter, better. They'll give you the Chris Foss show glow, as we like to say it. That's a trademark, actually. And, in essence, you will become sexier all around. As you walk around life, people will be amazed.

They'll be like, "Holy crap. He's got the Chris Voss glow. He's just... wow. He must listen to the podcast. I must listen to it too." And as always, they are [00:03:00] joining us on the show. We have another wonderful young lady joining us today. Annie Margarita Yang joins us on the show today. She is the author of the latest book to come out on August 6, 2023, called "The 5-Day Job Search: Proven Strategies to Answering Tough Interview Questions and Getting Multiple Job Offers". This sounds like something a lot of people would want, especially those folks over there on the LinkedIn.

Tick tock on LinkedIn, it just doesn't work on LinkedIn, does it? I can get away with Tick Tock. She is a game changer for millennials tired of running on a never-ending financial treadmill. She is a money-saving guru with over a million YouTube views, and she's also written Amazon bestsellers like "The 5-Day Job Search", which we'll be talking about today, and "1001 Ways to Save Money". That's a lot of ways to save money. And we should hear about that as well.

She is not a Gen Xer [00:04:00] or from an earlier generation. Okay, boomer. She's a millennial who understands how crazy the job market and maintaining a positive bank account status is right now. It's always good to keep that bank account positive, I hear. She gets it. She knows the delayed dreams, struggles, and hunger for escape. But here's the thing. She doesn't just talk the talk, she walks it. And that's why we're excited to have her on the show.

Some of the systems she's created make financial freedom feel more like an achievable goal than an unrealistic dream. So if you're a millennial, or probably a Gen Z, or maybe overwhelmed by your student loan debt, finding the perfect job, or wondering how you'll pay all your bills, her latest book has all the tips you're going to need. And if you're Gen Z, you'll want to avoid crushing debt in the first place. I think some of them are already in the college thing, so they might've signed up for it, but the more you can avoid, the better.

Welcome to the show, Annie. How are you?

Annie Margarita Yang: Hey, Chris. Thank you so much for having me on your show today. I'm so excited to [00:05:00] be here today to share insights from "The 5-Day Job Search". Just wanted to put this in here. If people watch until the very end, they'll learn how to get 10 percent off a signed paperback copy.

Chris Voss: There you go. I love autographed copies of books. They're more personal to me and more valuable. I think if anybody ever sold one of my books that I'd personally autographed for them, I'd be kind of offended. 'Cause I'm like, "That was for you, man." But whatever, dude, I see it's on eBay.

So, Annie, give us your .coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs?

Annie Margarita Yang: The main place where they can find me is on AnnieYangFinancial.com. My largest social media right now is YouTube. They can just search for Annie Margarita Yang. And I'm also growing my TikTok; just started yesterday, literally. So they can find me on TikTok with the username AnnieYangFinancial.

Chris Voss: There you go. Well, you should do well on there. TikTok is great for the young kids [00:06:00] and YouTube is as well. The young kids really love both those formats. So, give us a 30,000-foot overview of what's inside "The 5-Day Job Search".

Annie Margarita Yang: "The 5-Day Job Search" is basically a misnomer. I know people like instant gratification. They want something quick and easy, and they think there's some sort of secret to landing a job in only five days. So that's why I got this catchy title here. But actually, if they read the introduction, they're going to find out that to land a job in five days, you have to become the kind of person that's worthy of landing one in five days. So, it's really about personal development and self-improvement.

Chris Voss: This tells me that sounds like one of my dates on Tinder telling me that I need to be more worthy of love. But my mom also tells me that too. I need to be worthy of love. And that someone should get around to it.

I'm just kidding. She's wonderful. So, thanks Matthew Fulton for [00:07:00] calling in. Thank you for sharing your book with us, Annie. Appreciate the comments there, bud. So, what motivated you to write this book? I know it seems obvious, and I may have alluded to it in the biography, but people like to hear it from your words.

What motivated you to write this book?

Annie Margarita Yang: Actually, it's not obvious. I didn't want to write the book at all. I wasn't interested. Writing a book is a huge endeavor. I'm not interested in writing a second book. I already wrote one.

Chris Voss: Dammit. What more do you want from me, people?

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah. But, I honestly think I have some psychic ability. I can hear voices in my head. I'm not schizophrenic. I'm mentally sound, completely. I'm a very smart young lady. I'm just very intuitive. And one day, when I was trying to go to sleep at night at 1 a.m., I just heard ten voices in my head going off.

"You have to write this next book."

"I don't want to write it." And on and on for like an hour. I'm just like, "Leave me alone. I want to sleep." But they just kept saying, "You have to [00:08:00] put this in the book and that in the book." And I said, "Come back in the morning. I need to sleep. I have work tomorrow."

And they wouldn't stop. They just said, "No, you won't listen to us in the morning. You have to write this down now." So, I got up, started writing everything down, and slept at 4 a.m. The next day, the same thing happened, and I thought this was insane.

Chris Voss: Or you're going insane.

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah, it went on for 10 days. What I did was I dictated everything that I heard into my iPhone for the next 10 days. Then I just transcribed it into a manuscript. That became the book.

Chris Voss: Wow! That's one way to do it. "Yeah, I wrote it in 10 days." I tried doing that with the voices in my head, but the manuscript just said, "kill, kill, kill, kill, kill." So, evidently, I have a few personalities, as most of my listeners know.

So there's that. And it says it in that voice too: "go, go, go, go." You know, that sort of thing. I don't know, I can't do the voice. So, there are great tips there. Tell us a little [00:09:00] bit about your origin story, how you grew up. You, I believe, are a millennial, as you've cited in your bio.

How did that shape you and, I suppose, shape the book as well, as you went through this journey of your life?

Annie Margarita Yang: Well, I'm 28 now. I graduated high school 10 years ago, back in 2013. I'm from a working-class Chinese immigrant family. So I'm the first generation here. My parents don't have a lot of money.

And during my senior year in high school, everyone in my school was applying to go to college. 99 percent of people from my school got into college. I'm the 0.1 percent that didn't get in. Not because I'm not capable or qualified, but because I didn't even apply. I was the only student in the whole school that didn't even apply to go to college because it just didn't make sense to go without already knowing what I want to do with my life.

Because I'm a straight-A student, [00:10:00] my whole life, all I've known is school, and I'm like, "Why go in circles?" I see people, after they graduate college, realize, "Oh, I actually don't like accounting," or "I actually don't like psychology, but I've spent $100,000 on this degree. I have to do something with it." I didn't want to do that.

I wanted to avoid that, especially because my parents didn't have money. So that's where I come from.

Chris Voss: And, you know, I've seen a lot of that in life. I went through the same thing when I was 18. I had a Pell Grant. My parents were poor. A Pell Grant to go to the University of Utah. And I started my first company, and I thought, "Well, this company thing seems to be working out. I'm going to run with that." But I knew a lot of people who were going to college and they were changing their major every week. You're like, "How's that psychology thing working out for you?" And they're like, "Uh, I'm doing construction now."

And the next week, they're like, "Now, I'm studying drama." You're like, "What do you want to do?" And I do know, over the course of my [00:11:00] lifetime, I've seen so many people... I've met CEOs who were like, "What was your major in college?" "Ballet." "Ballet?" Like, "What?"

Some of my friends studied liberal arts, and they studied drama and acting. Now, they're CEOs of companies. It's interesting to see people struggle with that. I know the millennial generation had a lot of struggles because they were born into the age of the 2008 crash, the financial nightmare and the great recession. And that kind of scarred them and impeded their ability to hit the ground running a bit, I think.

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah, I totally agree. And that is why, when I was in school in 2012, I was looking at everything that was happening to millennials who were in college or had just recently finished.

I was like, "This doesn't make sense." I was reading the [00:12:00] news at the time, and every day, I just couldn't stop reading about student loans because this was my future, right? I would read about how half of the people who recently graduated college didn't even have a job or they were underemployed, meaning they were working a job that either didn't require their degree or it just wasn't related to their degree at all. I learned that the average student loan debt at that time was $26,000, which to me was unfathomable. And now, today, it's worse. It's $36,000.

Chris Voss: Yeah. And, you know, what's really awful is a lot of it just services the interest. There are people my age, in their fifties, that I see on Facebook, and they're like, "I finally paid off my student loans," and I'm like, "You've been paying that for 30 years?"

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah. That's actually really common. It is. Over 35 years old, really? Yeah. Wow. And the average [00:13:00] person, yeah, get this, takes 21 years to pay off their student loans in full.

Chris Voss: Do they really? 21 years?

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah, it's not 10 years. It's 20.

Chris Voss: See, I owed a mortgage company for 20 years, and I started seeing that at the tail end of it before the 2008 crisis wiped all the mortgage companies out. And I would see doctors who were making like $200,000 a year. They came out of med school and stuff, but their debt service on their college loans was so huge they might as well have been living on a minimum wage income. They couldn't afford nice houses. They couldn't afford hardly anything. And I'm like, "Wait, you're a doctor, and you get paid all this money, but all of it's going towards loan service." So people don't realize a lot of these things. So, you wrote the book "1001 Ways" I believe to save money. Correct? There you go. And that probably had some tips on living frugally and within your means. And now this one, "The 5-Day Job Search", I imagine this is fairly popular on LinkedIn as well, isn't it? [00:14:00]

Annie Margarita Yang: I actually haven't promoted it yet. I'm actually starting my marketing. 500 podcasts? Oh yeah. And I'll share all of those podcasts with people on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on YouTube, on TikTok.

So we're not there yet, but I plan to sell over a million copies.

Chris Voss: There you go. I love your plan, man. You've got a plan, and that's the way to do it. And I know you can with this, especially on LinkedIn because the vast majority of LinkedIn is job seekers, and the recruiters are just all over that thing.

And so that's the place to go when people go there. So, in today's digital age, how does personal branding play into job search?

Annie Margarita Yang: Okay, what people don't realize is that everyone already has a personal brand, even if [00:15:00] you don't have an online profile on social media. You have a personal brand online. The personal brand is the "I don't have social media" personal brand.

And if you have social media, but what you post is "this is what they wrote on my Starbucks cup" or "this is what I ate for dinner last night," your personal brand is "this is what I ate for dinner last night."

Chris Voss: If you have aol.com as your email address, is that a personal brand too?

Annie Margarita Yang: People instantly judge you for what you post online.

So, you know, the saying, "you are what you eat"? For personal branding online and how it relates to your job search, you are what you post.

Chris Voss: Well, there you go. And it's really true. We've talked about this on the show before. In fact, I think we had a bit of a debate on a show recently. And I was discussing what you're mentioning, how now everyone's essentially a personal brand, especially online when you put your profile out there and you're like, "I am [00:16:00] X, Y, Z." You're building a personal brand. I've had people on, like yourself, who have mentioned that on LinkedIn, you need to manage your personal brand. If you're posting a lot of silly things on LinkedIn while you're searching for a job, like, I don't know, nonsensical memes or perhaps some political stuff, job recruiters are going to see that and think, "Not this guy. We can see right through him. He's the one that's going to be in HR every five minutes."

Annie Margarita Yang: And you'll never know it. That's the thing. You'll never know it. You'll never know why they didn't reach out to you for the interview.

Why didn't you get the job? They just simply will ignore you.

Chris Voss: Yeah. It's like on Tinder. No one ever tells you they left-swiped you. You just never know. So you just sit there paranoid all the time thinking, am I getting left-swiped? I don't know, maybe there should be an account that says how many times you've been left-swiped.

So, I have to wonder, would that be brutal? [00:17:00] So, do you think that millennials and Gen Zers get this more than people in the Gen X department? Like I said, we had a bit of a debate about this the other day with someone who didn't think that social media online accounts are branding.

Do you think you guys get this more because you grew up in this digital age?

Annie Margarita Yang: That's not true. Okay. I look at my friends on Facebook. I look at my connections on LinkedIn. They're not branding themselves. Hmm. That's why I'm the one getting all the 5-Day Job Searches. And they're here saying they've been looking for a job for six months.

They still don't have a job yet. Because the things I see them posting online, I'm like, this has nothing to do with your work. They're posting pictures of their families. It's nice. It's a personal Facebook, but you can't avoid the fact that when an employer is looking to hire, they want the best person for the job.

And unless you're showcasing the fact that you are the best person for the job, because you posted something related to your expertise, [00:18:00] not just once, but repeatedly, to build that perception, that's not what they're going to think of you.

Chris Voss: And I don't know if you know this, but there are some heavy internet crawling software programs that companies are starting to use now. They can input your email, your phone number, your name, and they can track down just about every account you own across social media. They can see your accounts and see what you're posting.

They can do a really deep dive background check. If you've got an account on some site that you shouldn't be on or something where you're hiding something, they're going to see it and they'll know.

Chris Voss: They're going to find, they're going to be like, "Uh, yeah, I don't know this person." If you're posting stuff that's toxic or maybe isn't going to

do well around the water cooler at the office [00:19:00], or maybe you're posting something that isn't in line with diversity and stuff like that. There's a lot of these diversity departments now, initiatives, the DAEI, and they're probably gonna be like, "This guy's not gonna work out. He's posting some racist stuff and things along those lines."

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah, this reminds me of something. It's a book I read called "Like Economics". There are four types of people. There's a highly competent, highly agreeable person, highly competent but a jerk (that's probably me), then there's the polite person but incompetent. And then there's the incompetent and you're a jerk.

Chris Voss: No, that's me.

Annie Margarita Yang: Right there. If you're in the last category, no one wants to hire you.

Chris Voss: This is why I work for myself, Annie.

Annie Margarita Yang: In the second and third categories, people would rather work with someone who's polite but incompetent [00:20:00] than an incompetent jerk. So if people see the kinds of things you're posting online that aren't necessarily... well, I hate the word "politically correct". I don't think I like to be politically correct, but if you're the kind of person who sows divisiveness and you definitely show your anger online, just bad energy... Nobody likes bad energy.

Chris Voss: Nobody likes that energy. Nobody likes to work for bad bosses. That's why people leave companies, or bad environments, or bad communities and stuff like that. People don't like that. They want to do their work and they want to go home and all that good stuff. So, how does personal branding differentiate a job seeker in a competitive market and how can it elevate an individual in their niche? How can it bring us up before a brand?

Annie Margarita Yang: Well, first of all, if someone's looking for a job and you want to be competitive, you at least need the LinkedIn [00:21:00] profile. It's like the new resume. The resume can only fit one page. On that one page, you can put, I don't know, three, four job experiences, your degree, and then some volunteer work.

Chris Voss: Maybe that's all you want to make up.

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah. Unless you make the font so tiny that nobody can read it. I do that too. Yeah. You can't fit very much, but on LinkedIn, you can put all of your past job history that's related, and that will help you. It will give you that extra oomph because maybe you've had actually six experiences related to

what you want to apply for, but you can't fit it all on the resume. So I feel like LinkedIn is more of a way to showcase the rest of your background to round you out. Yeah, not only that, you can also make your LinkedIn look very beautiful, very visually pleasing and attractive, right? Along with the bio. I think a lot of people mess the bio up because you can't put that on a resume.

But on their bio, they just put some one-liner [00:22:00], like "I'm an accountant working in the real estate industry. Uh, I'm a guy." What they really need is something that says, "This is who I am. This is what I do. This is what I'm looking for." Yeah. I find when I've hired, I've hired candidates myself, and I'm looking at their resumes, they don't stand out. You know, at first, I wanted to spend at least a minute on each resume because I read that the average recruiter spends only six to 10 seconds looking at a resume. And I thought, I want to be a bit more considerate of people. I want to actually read the resume.

And then after doing that for a few minutes,

if I took the name from the top, I would have thought they were all the same. Wow. I couldn't tell who to give the interview to. So I feel like LinkedIn, if you actually have a LinkedIn URL at the [00:23:00] top of your resume that people can go to and check out, they can see more and see how you're different.

More flexibility, basically.

Chris Voss: So, for someone starting out for a job or launching their own venture, do you think that LinkedIn is probably one of the most important places they should be initially?

Annie Margarita Yang: Especially for a job or a venture, for a venture in terms of the venture, I think it's not necessarily about getting clients through LinkedIn, but the networking and meeting the right people you do want to work with who can help you.

Chris Voss: And I don't think a lot of people know how much background checking goes into it. When we pick people that come on the show, when we, when I look at people to network with, or when I get outreach on email and some sort of offer PR thing, or when someone wants to talk to me about something, I check LinkedIn.

And I'll check social media too. I don't have the sophisticated things that hunt down everyone's emails and websites and accounts, but people have to realize it's out there. I think people are still pretty oblivious, don't you find, not realizing that there's so much of their online footprint that people can find stuff?

You know, I mean, people always find my OnlyFans account.

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah, I was so embarrassed by this because I did an audit of my own online footprint. You know, I started using the internet when I was in fifth grade using this username called Annie love pie, which I don't like admitting to people because it's very cute. Pie is good though. It doesn't sound professional though.

That's true. So, four years ago, I Googled "Annie love pie". I also Googled my full name, Annie Yang, and Annie Margarita Yang, and I found things on there. I was like, "Ooh, this is really embarrassing." Because when I was a teenager, I liked to answer questions on Yahoo Answers and someone had asked, "Why does it feel so good to stay under warm, cozy blankets?"

And I answered that question [00:25:00] and I don't remember what the answer was, but it was really embarrassing. And I thought, "Wow, if somebody searched me, I'd be really embarrassed."

Chris Voss: Yeah. And see, you guys, the millennials, are the first generation to grow up like that with a footprint. You know, us as Gen Xers, we did a lot of stupid stuff and sometimes we weren't the best people, but none of it's recorded anywhere because there was no internet.

Like, you know, when the cop had to talk to us about throwing the football on the street and it hit a car, you know, that sort of stuff or something, and there's no record of that anywhere. It's like lost in the times and memories of people, but you guys are the first generation to do that.

And then Gen Z as well, where you guys literally have a footprint from media life. Like if your parents were really loose on social media, there's probably half-naked pictures of you as a baby on Facebook or something, like, "Hey, there's our cute new baby." And it's like, "Do you really want to have that all hanging out when he finds that photo when he's 20 or his boss?"

Annie Margarita Yang: And that's why the lawsuits have started. People who have turned 18 and have had their parents share their entire life on social media are now suing their parents. Are they really suing their parents? Because it's an invasion of their privacy, and they didn't give their parents permission to do that.

Chris Voss: Wow. This is the 1,000,000th reason why I didn't have kids. But this is interesting, and it's something, as you point out, people need to think about and be aware of. And I imagine you've got to do a little bit of background cleaning once you do this sort of digital analysis, archiving of what's in your history, right?

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah, the first thing that I did was, once I found something that I didn't like, I deleted that account. So I deleted my Yahoo account. I deleted, I had a whole bunch of websites that I made usernames for, like a login for that I didn't even remember I made a login for. I was like, "When did I sign up for this?"

But apparently, I did. So I had to reset the password, and thank God it came to my email. I reset the password, then I closed the account immediately. Some of them I couldn't access, so I had to email customer support and say, "This is mine. Here's my ID, please delete it. I don't want it showing on Google anymore."

Chris Voss: There you go. I had to do that with all of my OnlyFans accounts. And the thing is, there's that Wayback Machine company that scours the Internet and is supposed to scrape everything.

Annie Margarita Yang: So it's supposed to, but it doesn't actually scrape everything. It's every day at a certain frequency. So it's still okay.

Chris Voss: Oh, does it? There you go. That's important. So people need to know this stuff. How important is it when people are building their brand to build some sort of consistency? I look at people like yourself, like on your LinkedIn, you're talking about the same subject, and you're showing that you're a professional in it. You're showing that you're knowledgeable in it. You're building your brand around that. What are some common missteps people do, and how important is it to be consistent and not be all over the place? Like you look like you're crazy.

Annie Margarita Yang: Well, it's really important to be consistent because let's take this concept in advertising. They keep shoving the same commercial in front of your face over and over again until it gets seeded into your subconscious mind. You know, I keep getting fed the Liberty Mutual advertisement. They keep going like, "Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty." I've heard that one, I think, a hundred times. I get it. Right? You have to apply the same concept to your personal brand. Think of yourself as a company. So I see people; they are not even using the same name across all of their profiles. For example, I was on a podcast show the other day, and she introduced her name as Nick in her message. Then I click on her podcast show, I click on her LinkedIn. Her name's Nicolette. Then I get on the show, and I ask her, "Hey, should I call you Nick or should I call you Nicolette?" And she goes, "Uh, you can call me Nick or Nicolette or Nicole, whatever you want, whichever one makes you comfortable." And I thought, "Oh my gosh, you can't even get your own name right? What do you want me to call you?" This is surprisingly more common than you might think. Some people can't even get their name consistent on social media. Like I had someone come to me; her name was like... And she had a middle name here, no middle name on another profile, and then just the first name, last initial on another one. Then someone else came to me, and he told me he thought his name on LinkedIn had to be his full legal name. So it's like Constantine, but then he explains to me because he's trying to get coaching from me, "Nobody in my life has ever called me Constantine. That's the name on my ID. So therefore that's the name on his LinkedIn profile." And I was like, "Hey, there's no LinkedIn cop checking to make sure that everything you post online is accurate. It's not about being accurate. It's about who you want to present yourself to be." That's true. So I told him, "You got to use the nickname that everyone knows you by because if you're getting called your nickname at work, and then you're trying to add your colleague that you've been working with for the last two years, and your name on LinkedIn is Constantine, they're going to be like, 'Who on earth is that?'"

Chris Voss: Totally. Totally. It's interesting how that plays out. And you talk a lot about a lot of good stuff in the book "The 5-Day Job Search." You give them a prescriptive formula on how to get their job search done and what to do. Can you give us a little tease on that?

Annie Margarita Yang: So one of the things that I say is really important [00:31:00] is to get a professional headshot. So what I see people putting on LinkedIn is a photo from their wedding. They think that just because a professional photographer took that picture, therefore, it must be a professional headshot. Those are not the same things.

Chris Voss: Yeah, especially if you're wearing the wedding dress.

Annie Margarita Yang: But for guys, it's the suit. You think that just because they dressed up in the suit and a photographer took the picture...

Chris Voss: Are they going to wear a tuxedo to work every day? Is that what's going on?

Annie Margarita Yang: It's not the same thing. The lighting is different. The background is different. One conveys professionalism; the other conveys a party. Do you think an iPhone photo will work or a selfie? I see a lot of those. No, I want people to get an actual headshot and to look amazing in the headshot, which means you need to book a hair appointment for the same day, just before the shoot, to get a fresh haircut so that you look your best. What I told my hairstylist [00:32:00] was, "Make me look like a famous celebrity. Give me that kind of look." And then you also need to get a makeup artist. Just because you do your own makeup every day doesn't mean, "Oh, you look great." Thank you.

Chris Voss: You're welcome.

Annie Margarita Yang: It doesn't necessarily mean that your makeup will look good on camera. Camera makeup is completely different and requires different application and techniques. So you should use the makeup artist that the photographer recommends. And then, after that, you're prepared for the shoot. Actually, 80 percent of looking amazing in your headshot is all the homework done before the shoot.

Chris Voss: There you go. There's a lot of work that goes into looking good. I know there are photographers you can find locally. They're really good at it. And they can do your LinkedIn photo. You can probably Google one anywhere. But you're right. Those professional photos make all the difference. They know how to do the lighting just right [00:33:00] and hide all your blemishes. I mean, that's why I wear makeup. I've got so many blemishes. It's not even funny. So, what about unique stories to tell? How can storytelling play a role in personal branding?

Annie Margarita Yang: I think what people do these days is, we have a lot of people in my generation, they have a victim mentality. Well, you're much older, maybe you think the same.

Chris Voss: No, I do know that, yeah.

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah, yeah, yeah. With a victim mentality, we like to point out what our identities are. Like, "Oh, I'm an Asian American, so therefore I have a bamboo ceiling." Right? I'm also a woman. I have a glass ceiling as well. I'm a millennial. I grew up in a time where we had the recession and now we have all the student loan debt. Houses are expensive. We can't buy houses. It's all these complaints, right? So I think it's great. [00:34:00] What you can do is, I used to be that complainer. I used to complain all the time. What I did was I took those complaints and I flipped them into a story. So I said, "Hey, I'm just your average Asian American female millennial. I know what it's like. I've been through it myself. I understand your problems." Right. So then I can turn that into a story. One of the things that I did was, even for job interviews, I used to work at Domino's Pizza. I would probably talk about my time at Domino's Pizza in the interview and all the wonderful things that I learned there. For example, when I first worked there, I would complain about coming home smelling like pizza. I wasn't allowed to have my hair down. They always made me tie it up in a ponytail, which I hated. I had to wear a uniform all the time and I had to be on my feet all day. I wasn't allowed to sit down at work and we didn't have set lunchtimes either. So if it was always busy, you didn't get to eat. You just had to work, you know? [00:35:00] But something I learned there was to be grateful for the fact that I get to earn a living from doing something. Because I had a coworker who was blind.

Chris Voss: Oh wow.

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah. He used to work as a sheriff and one day, while driving up to a stop sign, he couldn't see anymore. He had glaucoma and after several surgeries, he was just permanently blind. But he said, "I get disability income, but I'm a man. I want to provide for my family. So I still want to contribute. I want to find some sort of work that allows me to do stuff without my eyes and still be able to help my family pay the mortgage." He ended up working at Domino's Pizza folding boxes. He folded a thousand boxes a day.

Chris Voss: Wow.

Annie Margarita Yang: He's done that for 10 years. And he was so grateful and content. And I looked at him and thought, "How is it that I'm someone who's perfectly able-bodied [00:36:00] with so much potential, and I'm here complaining about working at this pizza place, but he's so happy?" So from this guy, I learned how to be content, regardless of what I was doing, and I would share this story with my future employers.

Chris Voss: There you go. As a side, why do you think your generation has that victim mentality? Is there any sort of reasons why?

Annie Margarita Yang: I honestly don't know. Maybe it's the in thing to do. Maybe it's a way of having camaraderie with other people, feeling like you're a part of something. Everyone else is saying it. I want to be part of it, too.

Chris Voss: I wonder if launching you guys most of the time going into school and college in 2008, which was a crisis point, maybe shaped some of that. I don't know. There's a participation trophy.

Annie Margarita Yang: I don't want to use that as the reason, though, because previous generations had a lot to deal with as well. You know, they had their own problems. Previous generations had to be drafted into the war.

Chris Voss: [00:37:00] I think that's something to complain about, especially if you—

Annie Margarita Yang: Regardless of the time you live in. If you have the right mindset and you follow the right advice, you can still end up doing well.

Chris Voss: There you go. One thing in your book that I've noticed is, I've interviewed lots of people, hundreds of people throughout my owning companies and working for other companies. And one thing you talk about in your book is how to enhance your interviewing skills. How to ask the right questions and positioning yourself as a leading candidate. That's a real skill. A lot of people really need to work on because they, a lot of people, are bad at being interviewed. They're really bad at it.

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah. People, let me tell you, one pet peeve of mine is when I had candidates applying for a position I had open. They just kept saying, "I'm the best person for the job because I'm smart. I have X number of years of experience doing this, and I am [00:38:00] also a great communicator." Literally, everyone said something along those lines: "I'm smart, I have experience, and I'm a communicator." Wow. It's a pet peeve of mine. They don't understand that job interviewing, even trying to land the interview to begin with, is all about thinking about what the employer wants. It's a sales skill, and people never actually sit down to study sales. Like, go to the library and pick up sales books. What can you learn from that? Because if you're actually able to think from the perspective of the employer, then the employer is like, "Oh, this person understands what my problem is and can help me with it." They don't care how smart you are. They just want someone to solve their problem.

Chris Voss: There you go. So, do people need to sit down and think, "What actual skills do I bring to the table?" Just showing up and being like, "I'm smart and cool" won't cut it. [00:39:00]

Annie Margarita Yang: It's not even about the skill because I was doing well in interviews even when I was looking for entry-level positions. I didn't have much skill. The thing is, you need to look for the problem that they're experiencing. You need to actually ask questions. "Why is this position open? What are you trying to achieve? Where is the company going? What is the major thing on the company's mind right now that you guys just can't seem to figure out what the answer is? I would like to ask, if this position had a previous person working there – and it's not something that's just newly created – why did the other person leave?" That's a really good question. I love to ask that. I asked, "Why did the previous person leave?" and they started saying she was so flaky. She said she was sick and the reason she couldn't get her work done on time was because of this illness she had [00:40:00]. They had sympathy for her and they were willing to work with that, but to leave for a lunch break for three hours, I mean, that's not good, right?

Chris Voss: That's bad. She thought it was okay. Stop leaving for work for three hours.

Annie Margarita Yang: Well, this person genuinely thought it was okay. Her desk was always a mess. It was disorganized. So the moment I heard that, all I had to say was, "Don't worry, I got you. I'll show up to work on time and my desk will always be organized. I'll make sure that never happens again." And they were like, "Cool, we like that. We like her."

Chris Voss: Yeah. No, I really like this because people don't ask a lot of questions. You'll ask people, "So, now we've done the interview. Do you have any questions?" And the worst is when they go, "So how soon can I get paid after I start? Because I kind of need the money." And you're like, "Seriously?" [00:41:00] And you're just like, "Are you just going to get your pay and leave then? Is that how it works?" But I like the other thing – asking questions to a prospective employer shows that you actually have a deep interest in the job. And maybe you've done some research like, "Hey, I saw that there are a couple of people on Glassdoor that have written some reviews that didn't like this. Can you tell me about the environment or the culture at your company? Is it positive? Did you guys get rid of Bob, the guy everyone's complaining about on Glassdoor?"

Annie Margarita Yang: I actually did that for one of my current employers. Actually, I still work a full-time job while I'm selling this book. So when I was applying for jobs, he offered me an interview. I wanted to do my research before doing the interview. So, he's a, you know, it's a really small business, so he doesn't post much online. [00:42:00] I couldn't find very much, but what I could find were one-star reviews on Google. So people were complaining, "They didn't give me my security deposit back. They like to steal security deposits." So I went into the interview and I said, "Hey, listen, I tried to find as much as possible about your company. All I could really find were these complaints from tenants. Can you explain? Is it really as bad as what these people make it out to be? Are you really stealing money?" And then he was like, "The most vocal people always complain online. When you do something well, people don't actually go out of their way to give you a five-star review."

Chris Voss: Yeah, they don't. It's only the people that complain. But you know, the other thing that people tell me is, "Well, Chris, you're complaining. We don't get many jobs and we don't get many complaints about things." I'm like, "That's because no one takes the time." And sometimes it's a very valid dipstick when you get a complaint. I mean, that's what I learned in business. [00:43:00] But it shows that you've done the research, like you say, and it shows that you have a real interest in the job. You're not looking for a job; you're looking for possibly a career.

Annie Margarita Yang: Yeah. And you want to go into this interview acting like you have options. Like, "I don't need to be here. I really don't need to be here. I chose to be here today to interview with you." And just don't say it out loud. But it's this attitude, a certain attitude and energy that just says, "I want to be here. I want to learn more." So that's the kind of approach I took with that guy when I was like, "Listen, these one-star reviews you've got on Google, they're a problem. I have options. I don't want to be here, you know, if it's really as toxic or as bad as what people say. I don't want that associated with my reputation. I'm here trying to build up a stellar reputation. I'd rather work for a company that does have a stellar reputation."

Chris Voss: So please, you don't want to be someplace [00:44:00] where, I mean, I remember years ago, this is before the internet, but years ago, I went to work at a car dealership leasing company that bought and sold cars from dealerships. They found buyers and they'd say, "Hey, what car do you want? We'll have it shipped in and get you the exact car you want." And I went to work for them for a few months, and one day the TV news channels showed up on the front lawn and were asking for the owner. And we were like, "What's going on?" Turns out they'd been kiting the contracts and all sorts of stuff in the back room, not paying bills for maintenance, stuff I didn't know about. I was just in sales and I got a job there, but it was kind of embarrassing because you're like, "I don't want this on my resume." It was all over the news. And so, yeah, I've read some Glassdoor reviews, and you can read some of them and be like, "There's a really toxic CEO or manager over there. I just know it." [00:45:00] You can just tell, like everybody is complaining and it's always this one guy. But no, you're right. It shows an interest in the job. It shows you're not just looking for any job. "I've been out of work for a while, I need some money. I'll do anything." That's the one thing I used to hate hearing in an interview. "I'll do anything." You're like, "Wow, dude. So you don't care what job we give you? You just want a job. You don't want a career." No company wants that. I like how you are interviewing the employer because it shows so much when you start asking the employer about the job and you show a unique interest in it. It's like, "Wow, this person really wants this particular job or this role, or they want to work for our company." And it makes you feel very special and personalized as well. What are some things we haven't talked about in "The 5-Day Job Search"? You'd like to tease to get people to pick it up?

Annie Margarita Yang: I would like to tell people they have to apply to 50 jobs a day. Oh, I don't think [00:46:00] that's a lot. When I was doing my "The 5-Day Job Search", I landed an accounting job with no accounting degree. For three job searches in a row, I did it all in under five days. People think it's not possible, but no accounting degree and I got an accounting job in five days. My secret is I applied to 50 jobs a day. Wow. A week. My plan was to keep applying to 50 jobs a day until I actually got an offer in hand. So even if I was scheduled to do interviews, even if I already did the interview, I'm still applying to 50 jobs a day. Wow. It's not about how many people say yes to me. In the end, my thought process is I only need one person to offer something. That was my mindset. I don't care how many people say no to me or completely ignore me, ghost me. I only need one. And, um, I think that's the sales mindset. I think a lot of people, if they apply to 50 jobs a day and they don't hear back, they start getting upset. They think they're [00:47:00] rejected and then they go into this downward spiral, like, "Oh, I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. I don't have confidence. People don't like me. So many other people are more qualified than me." And it's none of that stuff. They create all this mind drama.

Chris Voss: They do. And, you know, I still see that sometimes where I'll see young people and I'll be like, "How's the job search going?" And they'll say, "Oh, I sent out a couple of resumes." I'm like, "You did? A couple? A couple means two, right? Like two?" And there used to be a time before the internet that that might work, because when you put up a job, you might get some calls from the newspaper or something. But now, you put up a job on the internet and you can get like 50,000 resumes flooding your email. And you're just like, "Oh my gosh, how do we process this?" And people don't realize it is a numbers game. Like you say, it's a sales game. The same thing applies to dating. If you want to find a diamond, you've got to shovel a lot of coal, and you have to dig and dig [00:48:00] and dig. Finding the right career, finding the right job, the one that really fits what you want to do, it's a numbers game nowadays.

Annie Margarita Yang: And, you know, I want to share about what you just said right there. In my book, I compare dating and job searching together. I share the story of my friend, a woman who's been single for five years. She's been telling me she wants to get a boyfriend who will turn into a husband. When she came to visit me for five days, she continually complained about how she couldn't find a boyfriend, that nobody wanted her. And finally, I was like, "Tell me the truth. How many dates did you go on in the last 12 months?" She told me she went on six. Wow. I was like, "You're telling me you went on one date every two months?" You're not following the right approach. If I were in her shoes and I wanted to get [00:49:00] a husband, you know what I would do? I would line up three dates a week. On Saturday, Sunday, I'd go on Tinder, just swipe right for everybody. I don't care what they look like.

Chris Voss: Women don't have to do much on Tinder. They just have to sit there and they get 400 messages a day.

Annie Margarita Yang: I'd just swipe and aim for like 150 over the course of a year. I guarantee there's at least one guy in there who could be my husband out of 150. If not, then the problem is with me, not the guy.

Chris Voss: I've seen that in dating where people are overly picky. They think shopping on Tinder or going through DMs is like browsing the Sears catalog. What I've learned about dating is you've got to go on a date with people and see if you have that simpatico energy of connection. And if you don't, it doesn't matter whether they own cars or whatever their asset profile is. Maybe you go on a date with them and they don't smell great. That seems to be a common complaint women have about me on dates. They'll ask, "Seriously, when was the last time you bathed?" And I'm like, "Last week, damn it!" So there's that. But yes, you're right. Dating and jobs, it's a numbers game. A lot of things in life really are numbers games, akin to sales. You're constantly selling yourself. I've had people say they don't like sales and I tell them, "You should go into commission sales; it's good money if you can succeed." They'll reply with, "I don't like selling myself." But we sell ourselves all the time. You sell yourself to someone you date. You constantly sell yourself to a spouse. You even sell your parents on being nice to you or buying dinner. We're always selling the world on who we are, even with the car you buy. Like you said, what you put online, on your LinkedIn profile, is a form of selling. So, there you go.

Annie Margarita Yang: Passive selling.

Chris Voss: [00:51:00] There you go. And so, as we go out, because we can talk about your book forever and you've packed it with so many great details people can see on Amazon. When they're picking the book, give us your final thoughts and pitch as we go out.

Annie Margarita Yang: You guys can land a job offer in five days because I have personally done it three times in a row, and now I get jobs thrown at me without me even applying for them. I got offered a CFO position a few months ago, which I turned down. I wasn't interested, but look, if I can do it, you can do it. I've made this whole prescriptive blueprint that anyone can follow. I didn't hold back. Everything I learned over the last 10 years to get to where I was today, I included it in the book. The book is only $17.99. If you want to get a signed paperback copy with a 10 percent off discount, you can go on AnnieYangFinancial.com using the coupon code VOSS10. That's V O S S 1 [00:52:00] 0.

Chris Voss: There you go. Well, we certainly appreciate that. And, you know, invest in yourself, folks. I know five days seems like, well, get a job in five days, but if you're sending 50 emails or 50 applications every day, that's 250 by the end of a five-day search. So, there you go. I mean, you've got to be able to get an interview out of there somewhere. So, the proof is in the numbers. It's a numbers game. Everything in life is a numbers game when people really come down to it. Thank you very much, Annie, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. It's been fun and informative.

Annie Margarita Yang: Thank you so much, Chris. You're really funny. I really... there you go.

Chris Voss: I try to be there. I try to be. I'm either stupid or funny or both. There you go. For 15 years, my audience has been like, "Yeah, he's stupid, but he's kind of funny too." So there you go. Order the book, folks, where fine books are sold. You can go to Amazon or other places. The 5-Day Job Search: Proven Strategies for Answering Tough Interview Questions and [00:53:00] Getting Multiple Job Offers, available on August 6th, 2023, from Annie Margarita Yang. And give this to all those friends, you know, who still have their kids living in their basement. One thing about millennials and Gen Zers is they take longer to leave. This might be a great gift during the holidays. Buy it for everyone you know who's got that kid who still hasn't left home to see if you can get them out of their parents' basement. So there you go. So fun. Or not, you know, I don't know. Some people like their kids that much. I don't know why. I've seen their kids. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. Go to ChrisVoss.com, YouTube.com/ChrisVoss, LinkedIn.com/ChrisVoss. And you'll probably see this on the LinkedIn newsletter, so subscribe to that as well. Because LinkedIn is huge over there. ChrisVoss on TikTok for the kids. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.