What if your CV was perfect, your cover letter polished, and you still couldn't get a foot in the door.

That is the reality many job seekers are facing right now, and with AI making it easier than ever to create flawless applications, recruiters are overwhelmed by a sea of high caliber resumes.

So one of the listener questions for today is how do you stand out?

Because in today's Asked Me Anything episode, which, by the way, if you missed part one, just go back to last week's episode in your podcast feed, I am going to be diving into listener Tony's question how to differentiate yourself in the job market when everyone else looks great on paper.

We're going to explore what I think your secret weapon might be, what manages like me really look for, and how to avoid falling into the trap of AI slop.

And also in today's episode, we're going to cover how to build truly high performing teams in a highrid world, why critical thinking is more important than ever in the age of AI, and my best pieces of advice for leaders stepping into management roles later in their career.

By the end of this episode, you will walk away with practical, science backed tools that you can use immediately, whether you're job hunting, leading a team, or simply trying to thrive in this very fast changing world of work.

Welcome to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day.

I'm your host, Doctor Amantha Imber.

Okay.

First question for part two comes from Tony.

Tony's a legend because he actually recorded a voice memo for me, and I will put a link in the show notes if you too are an awesome listener and want to record a voice note for me for the next Ask Me Anything episode that I release.

I typically do these about once every three months, sometimes more often.

I get a lot of good listener feedback for this, So anyway, Tony or a legend, Let's listen to the message that Tony left.

Hi, Amanda, this is tony super potential topic for your How I Work podcast, and it's around It's around ways of differentiating yourself in the job market in this environment.

And I've been looking for work myself, and what I'm finding is that through AI, the level of CBS and resumes is at an incredibly high level now and people have become got some great tools to think look fantastic on paper, customize tailor the CV very easily to job descriptions and two roles.

And from a recruiters perspective, from what I'm also hearing is it could be getting thirty forty fifty very high caliber applications.

We're in the past it was a lot easier to sit through to get a shorter list to start screening and challenging environment.

And as I said, the question is really how do you how can you differentiate yourself or what are some tools you can do to do that with the goal of really getting in front of a person face to face or virtually but for a meeting, which is what you're really after.

So yeah, challenging time.

And thank you.

And I'm just on a personal note, I want to I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

I'm doing the GENAI course.

I reached out to you not working and you were really helpful and how I could get on that.

Thank you.

It's been giving me.

It's a great course, learning a lot, giving me a really good purpose as well as focus during this time.

So I really appreciate that too.

Thank you.

Oh Tony, that is such a great question.

That is such a great question.

It's really hard to differentiate yourself in the job market.

And I also know from you know, having done a lot of hiring over the years, it's also getting trickier to really, you know, make decisions about who to shortlist for a role because almost everything's AI generated.

Although having said that, I do find because i'm you know, I'm very much in the AI space, I teach GENAI skills.

It is so obvious to me when someone has just created their cover letter and their resume using AI with no human critical thought that's gone into it, And to me, that's a massive turnoff.

But I don't think that is the same for all people in recruitment and hiring, but who knows.

So my number one piece of advice in terms of how to differentiate yourself in the job market is through video like in this world, where anyone can produce half decent content.

Although please refer to my episode on AI slop.

I will put a link to that in the show notes, because I mean there's a lot of AI slop around and I think the key here is that volume of content does not equal quality anymore or high performance rather, and we you know, just need to change our thinking on that but video.

I mean, yeah, sure you can get the AI to do video, but it's still it's not at a stage where, you know, certainly I would recommend using it for recruitment purposes or like you know, job market purposes.

So get on Loom or use Teller, they are my two favorite video recording tools.

Or just open up your iPhone and record something on your you know, on your mobile phone and communicate.

Communicate why why you have applied for this job.

Why does it match with what you're about and the impact that you want to have.

Why are you perfect for the job.

The applicants that I receive that have given me a video stand out so much more so I would highly recommend that.

And just a note if you are a leader, a manager, or a recruiter that is hiring, one of the things that I have found really useful in hiring people is, you know, we've used the idea of doing job auditions for a while.

Certainly, if someone is applying for a job as a facilitator or inventiologist as we call them at Inventium, we have a job audition where they will actually come and run a virtual workshop for us.

But for people that are more behind the scenes, let's say in a support or an OPS or an admin roll.

Something that I have recently started doing is giving people a job audition task, but asking them to as they're doing the task, record a loom video of giving me their thought process of how they're approaching the task, because I want to know how they think as well as what they can do, but I really want to know how they think.

So that is a little tip out there for people that are hiring.

Okay, next question is from Juliet.

My question for you is to learn about your techniques for developing high performing teams with the shift to hybrid work, different communication mechanisms, workflow, new generations entering the workforce.

I don't think the old pillars work so well now, or perhaps they do, but we need to work on them differently.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Oh, I have so many thoughts on this question, Juliet.

Okay, So high performing teams well, Look, according to the research, psychological safety is critical.

This is where people feel comfortable speaking up, voicing their thoughts.

It might differ from other peoples.

They feel comfortable taking risks, they feel comfortable failing.

Like this is just critical.

I feel like this has been talked about a lot over the last couple of years, and a lot of good outcomes flow from this.

You have better communication happening between team members, you have better collaboration happening, and you also have better growth happening because people are giving each other honest feedback rather than withholding that.

So certainly, like if you're looking for help with psychological safety, my team at Inventium does a lot of this.

Please reach out for a chat.

So that would that is absolutely huge.

Now the other thing, a few other things.

When it comes to high performing teams, AI fluency is key.

I just blanket would not hire someone that wasn't fluent in AI.

Although having said that, because we train people in AI, you know there might be exceptions where they are amazing at a whole bunch of other things, or maybe I've worked with them before and I know that through our training I can get them up to speed pretty quickly.

But for the average high performing team, you need to develop AI fluency.

Again, shout out to Inventium's AI programs.

We've had thousands of people go through them.

Please reach out if you want to help with that.

But if you have a whole team that is really comfortable using AI, you are going to get better results.

Okay, next, energy management.

I actually think that how people manage their energy is more important than how they manage their time.

And look, I'm deep in energy management because that is the topic of my current book, my fifth book that I'm writing that will be out mid next year.

And you need to help people.

It's not about wellbeing, it's about how do you manage your energy?

How do you manage your physical energy, your mental energy, and your emotional energy.

You know, again, this is stuff that I've been thinking about a lot.

We're about to release some programs on this at Inventium.

Drop me a note that's of interest.

But you need to think about this because high performing teams are often the first ones to burn out because they don't have boundaries, and that is a very big problem.

Final thing that I will note here is that there's a whole lot that you can do with the individual, but you also need to look at the system.

Like if you've got people burning out, yes, we can help them manage their energy, but also are they burning out because there's like workload is not evenly distributed.

You know, that is an example where the system is just not working or maybe there's you know, like a toxic culture or a toxic person in your team that needs to be performance managed.

So please look at the system as well as the individual.

Okay, so we've already talked about how to cut through the noise in the job market.

Coming up, I am going to share what critical thinking actually looks like in the a of AI and how to build your critical thinking muscle.

Next question is from Kate.

So Kate asks, I'm a bit wary of the rhetoric if we need critical thinking and people skills in the world of work with AI.

Every man and his dog is coming out with that refrain, and it seems like it's a revelation.

But we're seeing a lack of specificity or nuance in what critical thinking actually is in this context.

What does it look like?

What are the teachable qualities and how should they best be taught?

What are the applied skills?

And how do we know when we're doing good enough?

Okay, here are a few thoughts I have.

I mean, it's a really big question, Kate and I love this question, and here are a few of my thoughts and observations.

So, in the world of AI, like, here's what really good critical thinking looks like it's where firstly, you question everything that the AI spits out, treat every output as a rough draft that needs fact checking.

People are not doing this.

This is why we are living in this world of AI slop and it makes me so frustrated.

I was meeting with someone for a potential collaboration.

This is a couple of months ago now, and I was then sent three documents to look through about how this collaboration could work.

And I opened these three lengthy word documents and they had not had a critical human eye go over it.

And then the ball was in my court to actually go through these documents as a human, spend hours and rework these thoughts when you know, really the person that sent me these documents could have actually just done the human critical thinking work first.

So I you know, I feel like when someone senyds AI slop, it's a very selfish move.

And you know, I think more and more that will become a career limiting move as well because of the frustration it causes.

So when the AI gives you something, challenge the output, like, think about what are the biases that might be baked into this response?

What are the perspectives that are missing and try to actively argue with the AI's suggestions to stress test ideas.

I've spoken on this podcast before about getting the AI to play Devil's advocate.

This is what you need in the world where we're outsourcing way too much thinking to AI.

Then some are they just micro skills that we can look to teach, so you know, really prompt people to be skeptical, you know, learn to recognize when your question is actually leading the AI to tell you what you want to hear.

Confirmation bias is a dangerous thing where we're just looking for, you know, the AI to confirm us and it will.

It's prompted to be a sicker fan.

So you really need to approach the output with some skepticism.

And also context matters so much.

The more context that you can give to AI, the better the output you're going to get.

But also thinking about the context that you haven't given it and using that to think critically, and you know, just like when like just as a little test for yourself, how do to know are you doing this enough?

Are you thinking critically enough?

Think about how often you catch yourself disagreeing with the AI's output more often than nodding along, like when you're using it consistently as a sparring partner as opposed to the oracle of all knowledge.

I do recommend going and listening to the interview I had with Bobby Oohanson, who's a Silicon Valley futurist an amazing thinker.

He talks about AI not as thattific'sh intelligence, but thinking about how you can see it as augmented intelligence.

So you know, in this new world it is not you versus AI, it is you plus AI that is going to get the best outputs.

The final question for today comes from Nerel, and she says, I'm late in my career and after a very long time and not the best experience, my role has been uplifted where I will now have direct reports.

I'm quite anxious about this, but I also want to do this.

Well, do you have any tips, books or podcasts that might be helpful?

All right, let me give you a few tips, Nerel.

Again, I could do a whole episode around this, but let me just stick to a few things.

Okay, Firstly, I think something that is really helpful.

We do this with a lot of our clients that invent him and We also do this at Inventium with the team is we have everyone create a one page operating manual or OPOM as we call it.

So we actually have a template for this where we get people to, you know, write down their strengths, their weaknesses, or areas they're trying to develop the preferred way of communicating.

Are they someone that just prefers to pick up the phone or text message or email?

What are their pet peeves or frustrations, and you know, how do they best receive feedback.

So there are a bunch of questions that you can ask and what I encourage you to do create one for yourself, but ask all your team members to do this as well, and it will create so much more understanding of how to get the best out of everyone.

My next tip is to schedule weekly one on one meetings with all your direct reports.

This is critical, This is not an afterthought.

This is really important interaction and relationship building.

I highly recommend the work of Steven Rogelberg.

Here I will put a link to an interview that I had with him on how to get the most out of one on ones.

I also highly recommend his book Glad We Met.

It is the best book I've read on how to do one on ones really really well.

Be deliberate about them.

You dedicate at least thirty minutes per week, potentially sixty minutes per week.

This is absolutely critical time now in your one on ones.

Another piece of advice I would give here is try to resist the urge to give advice.

Instead, try to be a coach.

Highly recommend the coaching Habit.

There's a book by Michael Bungay Stanier who's also been on this podcast several times, and it is a really simple but effective book on how to coach and the great questions to ask.

Now, this is probably where I struggle most.

I love giving advice.

I love jumping in and solving problems, but that is not your job as a leader.

Your job is to help improve your team's ability to solve problems.

So I will always I'll pause before I have it advice to give, and I'll ask my team, like, what would you like from me here?

Would you like me to help?

Question?

Like you ask you questions to help you find a solution.

Do you think you know what that solution is and maybe you want feedback on that?

Or do you want my advice?

And sometimes I want advice, so I will give it, but I always try to catch myself before I'm about to jump in and give advice.

The final thing that I'd recommend is having some sort of daily reflection technique.

We know from research that leaders that reflect daily or that journal daily are much more effective in their leadership.

So here are some questions that might help.

Firstly, asking who did I help today?

By knowing that you're asking this question, it just keeps at top of mind because if you have to ask answer the question who did I help today, you will be geared towards being more helpful a leader.

Then think about what do I need to achieve tomorrow?

It helps you start tomorrow with more focus.

And then finally, who do I need to spend time with?

This will help you stay really intentional about where you are spending your time because ultimately your time as a leader is limited, so really think strategically who do I need to spend time with tomorrow.

So that is it for it Today's Ask Me Anything.

I hope that there were some helpful, helpful tips in here, And if you have questions for my next Ask Me Anything, either drop me a note.

I'm very easy to find on LinkedIn about the Inba or there is a link to giving me a voice memo and gosh, I love hearing the voices of listeners, so please do that and I will see you next week.

So there you have it, some of my favorite questions from you answered.

If you found this helpful, I'd recommend going back and listening to my episode on AI slot.

It is a perfect companion to some of the things we talked about today, and you can find a link to that in the show notes.

And if this episode gave you something to think about, I'd love for you to share it with a friend or colleague who might need it.

And it helps more people discover the show, and I'm so grateful when they do.

Finally, if you've got a burning question, you can send me a voice note.

There's a link in the show notes.

I would absolutely love to hear from you.

See you next time.

If you like today's show, make sure you hit follow on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.

How I Work was recorded.

On the traditional land of the Warrangery People, part of the Cooler Nation.

A big thank you to Martin Nimba for doing the sound mix