30 Years in the Game: Narric Rome on Staying Curious and Building a Career in DC

Margaret (00:10)

Welcome to Career Pulse DC. Today we’re spotlighting Narric Rome, Traverse Jobs’ longest subscriber. Narric moved to DC from Vermont back in 1994. Since then, he’s done a bit of everything: Hill internships, lobbying, a couple of major campaigns, a stint at the Department of Education, nearly two decades in arts and education advocacy and now working in grant making. For over 20 years, he’s checked Traverse Jobs almost every day, not just to look for work, but to see how the job market shifts and what that says about DC. We’re going to talk about what’s changed, what stayed the same, and what he’s learned building a career here. Welcome, Narric, and we are also joined by CEO of  Jobs, Fraser. Welcome, Fraser.

 

Fraser (00:49)

Thank you.

 

Narric  (00:50)

Good morning.

 

Margaret (00:51)

Narric, how did you first learn about the Traverse Jobs email list?

 

Narric  (00:53)

Well, that would take me back quite a while. I don’t remember exactly. I think I was interning on Capitol Hill and learned about it there as a site or as an email list, I think, originally. But yeah, it was just word of mouth, I think. This was back in the 90s. I think I’ve been on it twice. I was on it in the mid 90s and then I’ve been on it steadily since I think the early 2000s.

 

Margaret (01:17)

Wow, and Fraser, you said that Narric holds the title as the longest subscriber, correct?

 

Fraser (01:22)

He absolutely is the longest continuous subscriber for sure. We talked about this in the origin story podcast, but we launched it in August of 2006. And Narric has been a member that long. So we really appreciate it. And it’s so great to connect with you. And I really appreciate you being on with us today. I think your career path is really instructive to a lot of people – maybe who are just starting out or even who’ve had their first job or two – to understand that it’s not always linear and you’ve had some curves in your career path that came along as a result of jobs that you took, maybe unexpectedly. And so that’s why I’m really excited to talk to you because I think it’s a good reminder to people, especially in this day and age where job security might be a little more fluid for some people. I think that understanding that taking pivots and taking risks and doing things a little bit outside of what you expected is a good thing. So I guess we’ll start from the beginning and see how that went for you.

 

Margaret (02:22)

Narric, what drew you from Vermont to D.C. back in 1994?

 

Narric  (02:25)

Sure, well I was a political science major and a part of the University of Vermont student government where I’m not sure if it was an interest in procedures and legislative bodies drew me to DC, but certainly I was interested in politics and public policy and DC was the place to go in that circumstance. A couple of my friends that were all poly sci majors and interested in social programs and getting involved in public policy, so we all moved to DC – to the Adams Morgan part of DC.

 

Margaret (02:56)

What did you learn during those first Capitol Hill internships that still sticks with you today?

 

Narric  (03:01)

Sure. Well, I was, as I mentioned, coming from Vermont. I started with an internship in Senator Pat Leahy’s office. It was a paid internship, which I felt very fortunate to have. And that was right before the 1994 midterm elections. And then it lasted until just after the elections in 1995. Then I went to the House side for another internship with Congressman Bill Lipinski from Chicago. And those internships were, I mean, I still think they are among the most valuable parts of an education. You get a real sense of if you’re into politics and public policy and certainly working on Capitol Hill.

 

Being an intern, you may be doing some incredibly low interest tasks. I remember Xeroxing news clips every morning, nonstop every single day, 30, 50 pages of news clips to distribute around the offices in both the Senate and the House. But you get a sense of how the offices work, how they operate, the different positions there, the turnover. You get a sense of people coming and going, in terms of elected officials, members of Congress coming and going, and their staff, and you get a sense of where there might be openings and how you might advance your career on Capitol Hill.

 

Margaret (04:14)

And later on from Capitol Hill, you transitioned to lobbying with Podesta Associates. Any lessons from your time lobbying that shaped how you think about advocacy?

 

Narric  (04:24)

Yes, so after those two internships, I went for a year at Podesta Associates, which at the time was a well-known lobbying firm led by two brothers, John and Tony Podesta, who both had impressive reputations in Washington, D.C.

 

What I learned at that lobbying firm was even more about how a bill becomes a law than when I was on Capitol Hill as an intern in those congressional offices. The lobbying firm was involved in a lot of legislation and at that time was working on providing suggested provisions, suggested language to different bills, to different parts of the legislative process. I saw the way that you tried to insert on behalf of your clients, try and work with congressional staff to get some attention to your issue. And so it was fascinating. It was an incredible year and I learned more about Capitol Hill in the lobbying firm than I did when I was on Capitol Hill.

 

Margaret (05:17)

You worked on Clinton’s re-election, then the Howard Dean campaign. What do campaign experiences teach you that day jobs don’t?

 

Narric  (05:25)

Well, the value of campaigns that I found, I mean, for one, they can be thrilling, both in terms of if you’re victorious or also in defeat. I’ve been on both sides of an election in that sense. But you meet an enormous amount of people who are working on the campaigns and those that live in the communities in which you’re serving the campaign. You get a real sense for the energy around the country, the democracy, the energy around voting and electing officials and having representation than when you’re in Washington DC. You tend to forget that there are these forces out there that send elected officials to Congress and they’re there either to serve their constituents and they’ve made promises and pledges in their campaigns. And so you get that sense better when you’re on these campaigns and working up and down the ticket…How elections are won or lost and what that means when they get to Washington DC. And I think that helps serve you in the years to come when you’re thinking about what motivates an elected official or you think about how you can work with that member of Congress, for example, on any set of issues. You can look back to their campaign, you can look back to how they achieved their position and how they may want to stay in office. And so it gives you a sense of the long game and what powers a lot of the folks coming to Washington.

 

Margaret (06:43)

And what was your role on those two campaigns?

 

Narric  (06:46)

So there were a couple campaigns, but the two I think most formal were the Clinton-Gore re-election of 1996 and I worked in Philadelphia in managing the phone banks, when live human phone banks were a major part of the field game. I led the Philadelphia phone bank operation for Clinton-Gore, which meant at least three nights a week trying to run them in a group of lobbying firms and union offices, volunteers making calls throughout Philadelphia and the broader part of the eastern part of Pennsylvania to get out the vote. Then the second campaign was the Howard Dean presidential campaign. That was Vermont. I was in the Research and Policy Office researching Governor Dean’s Vermont record so that we could share it with the rest of the country on the campaign.

 

Fraser (07:36)

When you were with Podesta, you were in this great job, you were learning a lot. Why did you leave that sort of comfort zone? Can you remember why you made that transition to the campaign?

 

Narric  (07:47)

I can. You make a good point. I could have stayed, but Tony Podesta was asked by President Clinton at the time to run Pennsylvania for his campaign. Tony was a major campaign operative over those decades and Tony hired a couple people from his office to come up to Pennsylvania and work for him. And I had been seeking to work on that reelection and I was very thrilled to be asked by Tony to go to the Philadelphia office and to get to work on the Clinton-Gore re-election.

 

Margaret (08:18)

How did you handle the pivot after the 2000 election?

 

Narric  (08:21)

Not very well, actually. You know, as a Democrat, it was certainly a very hard outcome to take. I had been at the U.S. Department of Education and had left for graduate school in New York to Columbia University for a master’s in public administration. I had set up my courses so that I would have a very light load in the last semester, which would have been January of 2001. That last semester, which I had hoped in my strategy, was going to be a Gore administration. And that I would then try and find a position back in Washington in the Gore administration. And that was not to be, and I ended up moving back to Vermont, actually, to get involved in politics and public policy up there.

 

Fraser (09:05)

Post-Clinton campaign, how did you land in the education department?

 

Narric  (09:09)

Yep. So I had heard that when a candidate wins you can be hopeful that you can get hired in that candidate’s office or in this case the administration. And so that was sort of what I had my sights set on. In doing so, the election happened and Clinton-Gore was reelected. So in that timeframe of November, December, January, February, I and many other campaign staff were looking for what was generally called the turnover. Between the first administration and the second administration we hoped that not only that there would be a turnover but that also we were well positioned to move into some of these positions. And I was interested in the Department of Education, but I was interested in virtually any of the agencies and I was interested in congressional affairs work in any of those agencies. Since I had been interning on Capitol Hill and I had been at a lobbying firm, I thought that was probably where my skill set was developing best. So along the way, and this still holds true for current administrations, you’ve got to identify the open slot in one of these agencies. And you’ve got to get back to White House personnel and tell them the slot’s there. I was a campaign staffer. I’m on your list of, you know, hopefully a list of staff to place. And so I struggled through those months with some other friends looking for the right positions. I ended up calling the Department of Education Congressional Affairs Office to get a sense of and ask, “How many staff do you have? Do you think anybody is leaving?” And the young man that I spoke to, who was himself a political appointee, and I had a 15 minute conversation about the roles in that office and he did there and that kind of thing.

 

I had said, well, do you think anybody is going to be leaving any time soon? And he said, well, actually, I’m leaving shortly. And I was like, wow, that could have been the very first 30 seconds of this conversation. But that was the beginning of how I then identified the position that was open. I went back to White House personnel, told them I was angling for this. And then after that I tried to line up some other politically involved folks and elected officials to support me getting that role, which I eventually was successful in doing.

 

Fraser (11:08)

See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. This is how I landed it. I made it happen. Nowadays, we always tell younger people don’t just sit behind your computer and try to find a job. Pick up the phone, schedule that coffee, figure out how the office works, and then have your supporters weigh in for you. We preach it all the time and I’m so glad to have this real life example of how it actually works.

 

Margaret (11:49)

Particularly right now with so many folks who have been riffed from the federal workforce, there is that balance between understanding the pedagogy of advocacy and congressional affairs and being a subject matter expert. Do you have any advice for those who have that pedagogy, understand how Capitol Hill works, but may not necessarily be a subject matter expert in the exact field that an office might be looking for, or even an association, how they may be able to sort of pivot those skills into a different subject matter area?

 

Narric  (12:22)

What you’ve described is a real concern, I think, for building your career path. And I felt that when I had done some congressional affairs work at the U.S. Department of Education. I realized I was functioning as a congressional affairs liaison and learning about education policy along the way. But I wasn’t in one of the program offices where I was doing deeper

programmatic and policy work. It was on my mind and it’s actually what I think tipped the scales towards me doing two things. One, going to graduate school and then two, making the choice between going to law school or graduate school and getting a master’s in public administration. A law degree in my mind could help in any very broad set of things, but also, for me, I was not interested in being a lawyer and it was three years of law school or two years of a public policy degree, which would I thought – and I think came true – would better equip me to have skills to become more of a subject matter expert in whatever field I landed in in the time to come. And so that was on my mind in that way. And then it was hard to think I’m working in a role that is just about Washington procedural stuff. I don’t deeply understand health care policy or technology or any of the subject areas that are so dominant in Washington. It can be a multi-year, decade route to becoming a subject matter expert. Meaning, how you become identified as an expert in DC is a story in and of itself, but it certainly means that you have some exposure and knowledge in some, maybe a very small, finite area of things. But that is and should be a concern for careers and understanding where you can provide the best value and where your skill set lies and what you’re interested in doing. Being a subject matter expert means you are somewhat, and this doesn’t apply everywhere, but you’re somewhat pulling yourself out of politics and perhaps Capitol Hill and you’re going to go work in a field where what you know is informative to the process that’s happening in Washington and vice versa. If you’re not a subject matter expert then you’re managing a congressional office or any kind of legislative or policy shop. You need to appreciate that the knowledge for advancing that public policy will come from other places, think tanks and such. But if you have skills in advancing legislation, that is very valuable as well to whole sectors of stakeholders.

 

Fraser (15:12)

I couldn’t have said it any better myself. That’s exactly it. When I look at job descriptions these days, and particularly when you get more into the senior and executive level jobs, you generally do pivot into another issue area or industry, but the core advocacy skills are what they’re looking for.

 

Margaret (15:54)

That’s very insightful, thank you. Narric, what’s the biggest change you’ve seen in DC’s advocacy and policy job market over the last 20 years?

 

Narric  (16:02)

Well, I was thinking there are two things. One, I think the role of the communications shop and the jobs in communications have multiplied. It was typically a press secretary or deputy press secretary or someone who was the spokesperson at an association, and it was sort of limited in that way. It was also limited in terms of what you need to do … write something and distribute it to your press list. And that was maybe but 75% of the job …  just getting what your boss wanted out there, out there. But now with social media, strategies are needed, the multiverse of information sources, communications and the other sub industries within communications are about leveraging your voice, trying to increase the viral nature of whatever you’re saying is a constant daily, if not hourly battle in Washington for attention. And so to me, that has been a shift when you look at the jobs that are listed for communications – an enormous diversity of from your very traditional spokesperson who can be on camera or recorded and interview with the media to people who you would never see but are sitting at a computer most likely trying to make sure that what you said either in terms of a social media post or just attention to your issues are getting more visibility and that’s an art that didn’t even exist you know, two decades ago.

 

Fraser (17:35)

The 24-7 news cycle has changed the way we obviously communicate, but also it goes into marketing, it goes to your design people. I mean, every aspect of it is touched by that. I would also say that for us in our niche, a lot more information has become available to people as far as searching for jobs. And what I’ve found is there’s so many people who say, I’ve sent out 200 resumes and crickets, nothing’s come back. And I like to think, and I’ve heard anecdotally, that what we do at Traverse jobs, we have real jobs, people have submitted them to us, we have then made them live and available to our members. And so, I think that people in general may hear back a little more often, hopefully, from our employers who are posting with us. And we also are able to provide some jobs that nobody else has. Like on Capitol Hill, for example, we’ve been known for so long that sometimes we get those posts before they even go to the Senate or House job bank. And so, unfortunately the shift has become that people have to apply to multiple, multiple jobs, people not hearing back, people not knowing how to reach out who to contact to even have that cup of coffee and understand how an office works. So we’re trying to preserve that here at Traverse Jobs, but I think it is an unfortunate sort of reality now in the job market that that’s just how you have to go about doing it.

 

Narric  (19:02)

Second, I was going to mention two changes in those 20 years in the job listings. I think the other is similar to communications, but is in the design, being able to convert thoughts and ideas and concepts into graphic images and material and content that conveys or has an advocacy purpose to it. There are so many more tools to be able to do that in multimedia and video.

 

So I think that being able to capture and convey ideas and concepts that way is a skill that is still growing, but certainly has grown and is vital for anyone trying to make a point in Washington, D.C.

 

Margaret (19:39)

 

And since you’re senior in your career, have you been on the hiring end of things in the past two years or so? And could you, if you have, maybe give us a little insight for those that are hiring. What is it like? Are you getting an onslaught of resumes? Is your LinkedIn inbox completely clogged with people trying to reach out? What is that like for folks that are trying to hire mid-level staff right now?

 

Narric  (20:00)

Sure. Well, I don’t have an immediate read in my current role. We are not hiring at the moment, but over my last position, I hired a bunch of folks and there are, as Fraser referenced before, a lot of emails. And when you post something, let’s say you post, as you mentioned, a mid-career government affairs kind of position, you could see 300, 400 applications easily if it’s just sort of a broad, broadly stated “looking for someone, two to four years worth of experience,” that kind of thing. And of those 200, 300 or whatever, there’s going to be a bunch that really shouldn’t or are not going to be what you’re looking for in terms of government affairs. Maybe you’re doing it in some automated fashion and you get a lot more applications. That’s just not necessarily going to be quality applications. I think it has become more challenging for hiring to find good applications. Not that they’re not in your pile. I’m saying to look through your pile and be able to sort of call out the best that you want to move forward with some first round interviews or that kind of process. It becomes harder that way because there is such a volume and you have to put more work into it. 

 

So you may have dozens, and of those dozens, maybe five to ten were folks that people had contacted you about, and therefore you had a sense of like, well, maybe I’ll start with these five to ten and work from there. So I think that the volume and the fact that they’re so sort of fast moving and the applicants aren’t necessarily really working to get into your organization. They are just putting in whatever it is, ten minutes on the application, move on to the next one. And I think that that is unfortunate because that’s not the way that I’ve tried to do my job search or my job hiring.

 

Fraser (21:55)

Yep, we talk a lot about having, you know, a short, but a compelling cover letter that says, you know, hey, I really want to work here and I’ve done my research and I know what I’m applying to and that goes a long way with me for sure. When someone takes the time and I know they haven’t, like you said, just signed up for some service and it auto applies to everything. So again, we keep coming back to this but the personalized touch in the job search is of utmost importance and it really does make a difference for the HR people who are looking through these piles of resumes. It is a lot of content and it is often very hard to find those rising stars in those piles.

 

Margaret (22:33)

As someone who is senior in their career, I would imagine you do get cold outreach from people just trying to learn more or get advice from you. Do you have any pet peeves as someone who’s on the receiving end of those requests for networking? Or is there a how-to of how best to cold outreach someone?

 

Narric  (22:51)

Yes, I’ve had, I’ve both asked for and given a lot of coffees, drinks after work, that kind of thing, where you just sort of give a sense of what your industry has been working in, working on, or what you’re seeing perhaps. And I often am recommending, are you on Traverse Jobs, the job listing site, because that’s a really good aggregator of everything. And so, a pet peeve though is having had that kind of a half hour or hour long chat with somebody, if it’s a job seeker. And I offer, please check my LinkedIn list and if there’s someone there that is connected to the position you’re after, which generally I have a good amount of government affairs people that I’ve stayed in touch with.

 

I rarely hear back from them in the sense of, I might hear like a job announcement, they got something down the road, but in terms of like in their effort to pursue things, I haven’t had as many contacts around, know this person, can you put in a good word? Or just simply, do you know about this organization? What do you think about this job? Because again, as Fraser was referencing, this pace of applying and then sort of forgetting about the job opportunity is happening much faster. And so perhaps they thought there isn’t time to go follow up and then follow up with someone else and have a coffee with somebody to learn more about the organization they applied to seven days ago and figure that that has already passed them. But I think that is well worth it. And those organizations, they continue to hire. That might have just been one job. And that one job may be open or a similar job six months from now. And so if in terms of that long term commitment to building your contact list and understanding where jobs may be, you’ve got to stay in touch with everyone that you’ve been putting time in with, especially since you’re on the topic of job search. And if the prime advice from many people is stay in touch and network, and then you don’t network after that… It seems like it’s a major missed opportunity.

 

Fraser (24:55)

Excellent, great advice, thank you.

 

Margaret (24:56)

How do you approach staying relevant when politics, policy, and funding priorities are shifting? I would imagine you’re experiencing this right now in your current position.

 

Narric  (25:05)

It is, yeah, so anyone who’s looking in DC has to realize that every two or four years…At least if you’ve been working in the Democratic or the Republican Party or campaigns or for those who are elected officials in either of those parties, there’s gonna be a cycle where your party may not be in power in the House or the Senate or the White House. And it is definitely a huge change. I mentioned that internship, when a party changes, when Congress changes control, something like, I don’t know exactly, the number, but two thirds of the hires are for the dominant or for the majority party. And so there’s certainly a lot of turnover. The majority party that’s becoming minority has to chop off some of their staff. And so you have to get used to or understand that cycle and either prepare for it or sort of insulate yourself from it if you can and if you want to because it’s a reality in Washington, D.C. And it’s been happening more often. Democrats were in charge for like 40 years or roughly in the middle of the century and now control of Congress seems to switch back every two or four years and so that kind of turnover is much more present and it has a major impact on and I’m sure the Traverse Jobs  website readership statistics reflects this in the sense of after every cycle. 

 

I think staying relevant to that question, which is, you know, obviously could be an enormous, long answer to know the histories of Washington, D.C. But in terms of job searching, being aware of that turnover, anticipating it and thinking about how it might impact, what were the issues of the campaign and what are the campaign promises of, let’s say, a presidential race, because those kinds of pledges are what may direct where a lot of attention is put, where a lot of advocacy time is spent and where a lot of the budgets of interest groups and others are going to go towards hiring people to work on those issues after a campaign. So I think those are just some of the ways of trying to stay relevant. 

 

And of course, anticipating different issue changes. And when there’s a big reauthorization, technology changes, those kinds of things as well. And at the local level, like at the tactical level, I think in Washington going to different policy talks and being aware of some of these changing issues or how the issues are changing is really helpful as well. There are Republican think tanks, Democratic leaning think tanks, and being aware of where they’re spending their time on different policy conversations I think also helps you stay relevant or helps you understand how to stay relevant a little bit more as well.

 

Fraser (27:46)

Perfect, thank you.

 

Margaret (27:48)

You’ve called Traverse jobs your study resource. How has it been useful for you even when you aren’t job hunting?

 

Narric  (27:53)

Yeah, mean, I don’t know if it’s just curiosity. It’s just a daily thing … a “task” makes it sound like it’s hard. It’s fascinating, I think, that, you know, to see who’s listing what jobs. And again, as you referenced, it’s not because I’m like every day looking to hop from what I’m doing. It’s just simply answering part of that other way to stay relevant is understanding what jobs are being hired. The names of the organizations that are hiring, those are both new. There are organizations that weren’t here a month ago that are hiring, there’s organizations that have been around for 50 years that may be hiring, and to see how they’re either changing the titles, hiring more in social media, hiring for different initiatives that are maybe just a few years in length. But you get a sense of where different organizations are putting their time and effort into human resources. And I think that helps, depending on what your job is, it can help you gauge where if you’re going to be hiring what different job listings look like and how they try to attract the best candidates, perhaps some of the phrasing. You might be referencing current events or connecting to legislative efforts on Capitol Hill that people want to be a part of. And so I think all of that is instructive in following along in the job listings. And I’ve found Traverse Jobs to be the most readily available and direct way of just having the job title, the job organization, and being

able to dive in deeper if you want to and then having the alerts that you can set to specific job listings or industries or whatever or internships if you’re looking for that.

 

Margaret (29:32)

Thank you so much for that.

 

Margaret (29:33)

Fraser, for those that are interested in job alerts, how do they sign up for those on our website?

 

Fraser (29:39)

Sure, so after you subscribe, when you log in, you’ll see a couple tabs at the top of the database there, and one of them is labeled job alerts. And so you can go there and set one up. Or if you’re using our advanced search function. You fill out exactly what you’re looking for. So you might be looking for a certain level of job. You might be looking on the Hill or lobbying or PR, you can choose those categories. And then at the bottom of that advanced search, you can check a box that says, please deliver anything that matches this to my inbox every morning. And so that’s how it then gets set up. You can then search for what you’re looking for.

 

The job alerts, if you aren’t checking your email every day, they are still collecting online. So you can go to the job alerts tab, see what you’ve plugged in for your searches, and it’ll spit it out right there. So you don’t have to redo your advanced search every time. It’s all right there.

 

Margaret (30:33)

Wonderful, thank you so much. Narric, we’re gonna close out with a bit of a lightning round. What advice do you have for those early in their career who are looking to move to DC?

 

Narric  (30:40)

If you’re looking to move to DC, think certainly having a way of being here, I mean, you don’t have to be in DC to obviously be looking for a job in DC. In fact, I remember when I first arrived, I had a voicemail box. It didn’t go anywhere, I couldn’t answer the phone, but I left that number, because it was a local number, a 202 DC number on my resume, so that people would think I was in DC when I wasn’t. So that was an interesting way to do it. Trying to demonstrate that you are either in DC or ready to start working as soon as possible is important because I think it’s a little bit of a flag for HR offices if they’re like, well, this person’s not even here. Even if they might be one flight away and have a couch to stay on, it just feels like it could be a heavier lift. so I think demonstrating your readiness to start is pretty critical.

 

Margaret (31:27)

What do you think is the most underrated skill for a career in advocacy?

 

Narric  (31:31)

Well, if it isn’t clear from the conversation we’ve been having, staying in touch and networking. I mean, networking as a suggestion, as advice is almost a cliche. I think people think networking is sending a couple of emails out, and it’s not. There’s far more involvement and energy that you have to put into it. But it can be fun. Networking is playing on the softball teams in Washington, DC, or Ultimate Frisbee, or whatever the different leagues are, which can be enormously valuable for learning about who’s working where and just how their jobs are going and whether that’s of interest to you. It also includes going out at night to bars and meeting new people is absolutely critical. You certainly have to do the work on the computer and you have to send out resumes and you have to obviously send a lot of emails and stay in touch. But there is a human face to face part because you will learn more that people aren’t interested in emailing you about and they’re more interested in just telling you a story. And that can really help you either maybe immediately, maybe not, but maybe it could help six or 12 months later where you’re like, you know, we had that conversation. I just wanted to follow up on working in this industry or you know, that person or how bad it is to work for that person on Capitol Hill, which could be helpful as well.

 

Margaret (32:46)

That certainly ties into, I think, several episodes we’ve had now where it appears that the through line really is storytelling and why that’s so important, whether it’s through your resume, in your cover letter, or as you’re saying now, with these face-to-face conversations. What is the best career advice you’ve ever received?

 

Narric  (33:02)

Well, I’m not sure if it was career advice or just simply how to make friends, but it was asking people questions about themselves. People love to talk about themselves. I’ve been doing it now for 30 minutes and it is a helpful way of getting to know someone. If you just keep telling them about yourself, that might be a little draining. But it’s interesting and you learn something. I mean, a lot more is freely given when someone’s talking about themselves. And that just might be the way you start the relationship and then it obviously evens out perhaps in the long term. But I think that is a useful technique for networking when you’re meeting someone for the first time in a social setting to show that you’re interested in what they’ve been doing or what they have to tell you, what kind of advice they can give.

 

Margaret (33:49)

Fraser, for those who are interested in learning more or signing up for the job board, how can they do so?

 

Fraser (33:54)

Yep, so we are at TraverseJobs.com and there’s a big subscribe button there on the front page. And once you click through that, it will ask you if you’re new or if you work in the government and you’ll pick your type of subscription and off to the races.

 

Margaret (34:09)

Narric, thank you so much for sharing your story with us and for showing us how to stay curious to keep your career moving forward. If you’re listening and want to see what’s happening in DC’s job market, check out TraverseJobs.com. We’d also love to hear your own Traverse Jobs story. Thank you. We’ll see you next time.