Hello, everyone.

As the title of this video promises, I want to share my single most important career tip that I have learned as both an employee, as someone looking for a job, as someone getting jobs, and especially as the CEO of a company that now employs, I guess as of today, like 11 people. Anyway I've hired a lot, so this is really the tip that I have learned more than any, in terms of how it applies to really any job, any position, any stage in your professional life.

But before I get to my tip, and no, this is not click bait, you will get the tip, I do want to tell you guys about the most important thing I think you can do for your career in the very near term, which is to attend to TFD's Career Day. It is going to be May 15th. It's an all day Saturday conference, so it doesn't even have to interrupt a nine to five workday if you have one.

It is all about career and professional development. It's myself. It's the TFD team.

It's all of our favorite career and HR experts. We have sessions, and activities, and mentorship, and workshops about getting hired, salary negotiation, coming out of school into your first job, changing careers, changing industries, moving up the career ladder. All of that kind of stuff, even networking, and all the other stuff we tend not to think about so much.

There's not only going to be an entire day of interactive learning and activities. There's also going to be a digital goodie bag with all kinds of goodies to help further your career development, as well as a 60 plus page workbook to continue all of the progress we make together during the day, and really achieve and realize your career goals. There's also going to be industry- specific networking happening, so you can meet other people and help improve both of your careers mutually.

As you already know, you're both great people, you attended career day at TFD. Tickets are just $29 and space is limited, so do check out the link in our description to join us for Career Day, May 15th, 2021. I'll be there, we'll be there, and you'll be there.

But now to my career tip. So I thought a lot about this because, of course on TFD, we rarely do videos that are just about one thing. We usually tend to do videos with multiple points.

And there are several career tips that I think are really important, and I'll be sharing some of those on our IG, if you don't already follow us there, in the coming weeks. But I wanted to sum up what I think is the most important quality in our careers, kind of no matter what we do. And really, no matter how we do it.

I wanted to find one word that I felt typified this tip. And for me, that word is conscientiousness. Now it's kind of a long word.

It doesn't roll trippingly off the tongue. So as a writer by trade, I was hesitant to use it. But I think it's really the most important word in terms of what distinguishes you through every single process of your career.

And not just your career overall, but also the entire lifecycle of applying for a job, getting hired, learning the job, moving up the career ladder at that particular employer, and eventually mentoring others. At TFD we've recently hired-- I have been personally in the process of hiring for like, four positions in the past month and a half, two months. So I have gone through, it is not an exaggeration to say, hundreds of applications.

We also are, all the time, hiring for more one- off and contracted things. And in every case when it comes to the hiring process, what really tells you the most about a person before you even get to know them, speak with them, anything, is their conscientiousness. And what I mean by that is, their attention to detail, the demonstration that they really read, or listen to, and truly followed instructions.

They're the kind of people who will follow up with Thank You notes, and make sure to do everything exactly as described, and make sure that they're doing things not just at the very last minute, but really on a great amount of time. So for example, if you say we need this by this day, they're not going to give it to you at 8 o'clock at night, that day. They're going to give it to you that day, during the workday.

Really, it's that level of detail. With each job that we put up, there's usually very specific instructions in the job listing of how to apply for the job. Where to send the email, what should be in the subject line, the body of the email, how to send attachments.

All of that kind of stuff. And the people who don't follow those instructions, any part of it, are automatically kind of disqualifying themselves for the job, because they really are showing that kind of lack of conscientiousness. And as you move through the interview process, being prompt, sending invites, being super clear in your communication, sending follow up Thank You emails, all of that kind of stuff shows that level of conscientiousness that really, for the vast majority of jobs, is going to be what makes the difference.

Now listen. There are going to be some jobs, like if I'm getting brain surgery and my neurosurgeon is like, he didn't go to med school but he's conscientious as hell, I'm going to have to pass on that surgeon. But for the most part, for 90% of jobs out there, the skills are often a little bit more soft and malleable.

And there can be many people who have just the pure skills that are qualifying them for the job, but the difference will usually come down to that level of conscientiousness. And as you kind of move through your employment at that job, and you kind of move up the ladder, and you eventually begin to mentor people who are working behind you, that conscientiousness-- are you the person who sets the agenda of the meeting? Do you-- and by the way, that is a secret power move.

He who sets the agenda of the meeting, and he who takes the follow- up notes at that meeting like, has the power. Let me tell you that. But are you setting that agenda?

Are you following up with notes? Are you directing the next steps and making sure everyone's got them on their calendar? Are you the kind of person who is going to be very conscientious about the work being done, and making sure that you do have an eye to that detail?

Of course, conscientiousness also comprises that reliability. It comprises your promptness and being overall very, sort of reliable, in that regard. But someone can show up on time on a given day, and still not be conscientious about the work that they do or how they do it.

Similarly, I think being conscientious in your speech is incredibly important. You know, no matter how you might communicate in terms of style, really paying attention to the content of what you're saying, you know, are your ideas clear? Are you making suggestions that you've thought about?

Are you asking interesting and critical questions? That also shows a level of conscientiousness, because it really demonstrates that you're paying attention to, not just the sort of surfaced subject that's being discussed, but really sort of the deeper critical level of the questions that you're answering, or the problem that you're solving. We've had the ultimate, true luxury as a small business of TFD to have almost always gotten it very right with our hiring.

And most of our employees, for the length of time that the company's been alive, have been with us for a long time. And each of them really demonstrate a super high level of conscientiousness. They really care about the work that they do, and they're really thoughtful about how they do it.

And there have been many times, especially because this is a creative field that we work in, that we have had the pleasure of working with people who are very talented, who are great at what they do, who have great resumes, who have created impressive work. But ultimately, they lacked that conscientiousness. There was a level to which they were not detail- oriented or really reliable.

And no matter how talented a person is, you will always prioritize that conscientiousness over just raw talent. Because unfortunately, talent that's not being harnessed well in a person is kind of a gamble every day. You really never know what you're going to get.

You really never can truly relax and put faith in that person. So all of that is to say, I do believe that my most important tip, no matter what you do, is to be that super conscientious person. You're detail- oriented, you listen, you follow up, you take notes, you pay attention to detail, you make sure to do things as they were instructed, and make sure to button them up in a way that just feels clean, and neat, and perfect.

It says so much about you. It goes so, so far to really stick out in people's minds to be impressive. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that, for most of the job listings we post, even if we only leave it up a few days, we get hundreds of applications for them.

And when it comes to that level of conscientiousness, about how they actually submitted their application and following all of those instructions, I'm not exaggerating when I say that, that one filter eliminates about 80% of the applicants. So you would be surprised, especially if you're just entering the professional world, just how much being that conscientious person is going to differentiate you. And you may think that it's not enough to stand out, but trust me, trust me that it is.

But I, like I said, I will be giving a lot more of my career tips over on TFD's IG over the next couple of weeks, and I will be deep diving into all of this with our favorite career, HR, professional, development, entrepreneur, et cetera experts, on May 15th Career Day. I'll be there. I'll see you there.

And I'll see you guys on Monday for the Financial Confessions. See ya.