A Career Coach and His Journey Through Time - The Winding Path

By Ken Zwerdling on Mar 05, 2019

How I Found My Calling as A Career Coach - And How I Can Help You Find Yours

A Career Coach in the Making

It all started long ago in 1984 after I graduated from the State University of New York. I came back to live at our family’s home in Oceanside, Long Island (NY).  At the time, there were no personal computers and there was no internet. During my years in college, we had typing rooms where we would go with our reams of typing paper and correction fluid. When I returned home with my degree, I had to find a job the hard way by “Pounding the Pavement”.  I wanted to do what most people living in New York wanted to do, work on Wall Street.  I walked the streets of Manhattan for 3 months, into and out of buildings, checking the names on the directory, taking the elevator up to the high floors, handing out a copy of my resume and then moving to the next building, and on and on. This continued 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, for 3 straight months.  I didn’t have a college degree from a top school plus I had a  C+ average. But I had tenacity. I was determined.  Between companies and employment agencies I went on about 99 interviews. No one would hire me. I once had an interview with a company on the 102nd floor of the World Trade Center. I didn’t get the job, but boy what a view. I had experience from 10 jobs before graduating from college, but obviously that didn’t matter to the employers.

I Didn’t Want to Settle

My family was telling me that I should settle and take a job anywhere, even at a gas station. I said no and continued my quest. I know that the first job after graduation was one of the most important one could take.  It would lay the groundwork for your whole career. Finally, one day, I got a call from one of the many employment agencies working on my behalf. The recruiter said, “Listen, I have an interview lined up for you tomorrow with a firm on Wall Street at 9:00 am”.  I was excited, elated, thrilled. But I was also completely broke. I had to borrow gas money for my car and train fare into the city. The next morning, I got up early, put on my best suit and made my trek into Manhattan. I had to drive from the my house to the Long Island Railroad and ride it into Penn Station where I hopped on the subway (the #1) all the way down to the Wall Street station. I walked up the stairs on to the street and headed towards the building at 85 Broad Street. This walk took me right past the New York Stock Exchange. I was in awe. When I arrived for the interview, I was quite a bit ahead of schedule.  You never know what can happen on the railroads and subway. When I was called in, I met with the supervisor, then with the manager, then with the Vice President. I told them that whatever they wanted me to do, I would do it. If they wanted me to clean the toilets, I would do it. Whatever it takes. I’ll do it. They said they would let me know.

After all the interviews, I headed back home on the subway, then the railroad and then driving home from the train station. This was the middle of winter and it was cold and there was snow on the ground.  On the way from the train station, my car, a 1976 Chrysler Cordoba, ran out of gas. You know the one, “with the rich Corinthian leather”. I had to get out and in my three-piece suit, push the car in the snow to the side of the road and walk home the remaining two miles.  I was cold and I was wet. Not two hours later the phone rang. It was my recruiter. He said, “You’ve Got The Job”. The company was Goldman Sachs. I underwent a background check, fingerprinting, drug tests and even a polygraph test. One week later, I started as a travel and entertainment accountant. After 100 interviews, 99 said no.  One said yes.

Next Step in My Career

I had several more positions in New York City over the next 14 years, including accounting manager for construction projects with a national construction and architecture firm which lasted 5 years. For one of the years, I would travel back and forth to Georgetown, just outside Washington, DC.  Every Monday morning, I would hop on the Pan Am Shuttle (remember Pan Am?) and fly home on Wednesday night to then work in the New York office on Thursdays and Fridays.  My lodging was the company’s brownstone apartment and I was on an expense account. It was a good gig. I thought that at some point the company would permanently transfer me to Washington, but for the whole year, I just kept traveling back and forth. At this point I was really dying to get out of New York.

Opportunity Was Knocking

One Friday afternoon while walking in Times Square, I got a call from my boss in Houston, TX. He said, “I want you to stop what you are doing. There is an opening in our offices in Miami.  We will send you down, put you up in corporate housing for 3 months. You check them out, they check you out, and then we will see what happens”. Of course, my first question was, “When do I have to be there?” He said, “Monday morning”.  I looked around at the chaos in Times Square and without missing a beat said “Yes”.

I was still working for the construction company and as time went on, technology progressed. At one point I had a huge portable Compaq computer. It was about the size of a small suitcase and had an orange-colored screen. Back in those early internet days our best connection was at 14.4 modem speed on a dialup connection. Part of my job involved running reports which I would do over night because it took hours and hours with such a slow connection. I could only hope and pray that the line didn’t get dropped in the middle of the night. I spent a few more years at the construction firm when Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida.  We were without power or any kind of access for several weeks. And to make matters that much worse, it was August….in South Florida. Hot? Humid? No air conditioning! Miserable is an understatement. 

Another Change

I was ready for a change again. I decided to branch out from the corporate world, so I took a position with a small general contractor as the financial controller. This firm specialized in residential construction repairs to homes that had been damaged by the hurricane. There were thousands of homes that were extremely if not totally destroyed, so I thought it would be a good position for a while. I had only been with the firm about 3 months when I realized it was not the most ethical firm. Apparently, I was asking just a few too many questions when my bosses realized that I had figured out some of their questionable practices and I was let go. At the time I was devastated, but I soon realized it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

A Job That Gave Me Life Changing Skills

My next position was as a temporary Associate Financial Analyst in the Corporate Planning Department at Ryder System, Inc. Talk about culture shock. Ryder was a huge company with over 25,000 employees and 5 different divisions (2500 people just in my building). I was responsible for preparing financial presentations for the Board of Directors and presentations for Wall Street security analysts. I would create large PowerPoint presentations linked to Excel models that showed financial results of the quarter. We had great computers, software, printers, and laptops to take home.  I really started learning Excel, Word and PowerPoint.  We were using Lotus Notes (remember Lotus Notes?) Just 3 months into my temporary assignment I was hired as a permanent employee. I was in heaven. I worked very hard and many long hours but I learned a lot. More than I could ever have dreamed of learning.

During this time, I decided to take advantage of Ryder’s financial incentive to go back to school and earn my MBA. I worked full time and went to school every other weekend for two and a half years. Working all day, I would come home to study. It was grueling. But I did have help. Technology made me more organized. I was such a better student than when I was an undergraduate using typewriters. I was an expert at Microsoft products which made me much more efficient. And having spent a number of years working also gave me many advantages over students coming into the MBA program right from the undergraduate without having applied any of the practices or theories. Much of what was being taught, I was already doing.

The Politics and Bureaucracy of The Corporate World

After 4 years at Ryder and getting my MBA, I was starting to get ideas about life outside the corporate world – working for myself. Politics and bureaucracy were everywhere. I was frustrated. And there was one specific day that would change my life forever. The company decided to outsource the Information Technology Department to Anderson Consulting and with that, a few hundred people were let go immediately. I wanted to be in charge of my future, responsible for my destiny. “I don’t want to be 50 years old and have someone come in to my office saying, ‘Hey Ken, today is your last day’. I was 38 years old at the time, so I started planning my new role as an entrepreneur.

Thanks to my knowledge of computers, software, and business I decided to start a Management Consulting firm specializing in writing business plans for startups and expanding companies. Clients would come to me with a business idea and I would create an economic model to prove (or disprove) the viability of the business.

In the late 1990s, the dot.com/silicon valley industry was booming and then it wasn’t – Pop! Funding for startups basically dried up so the need for writing business plans came to a shrieking halt. At the time, my wife, an Italian translator was working for translation agencies around the world. She worked from home, half-time, quite comfortable in her pajamas, and earned the equivalent of most people’s full year salary. It was amazing to watch. I started looking into the business model of these translation companies and thought, “I can do it better”. So instead of demonstrating the viability of business for other entrepreneurs, I became my own client and created a business plan, proving to myself that this business was viable. At the time, internet technology was still web 1.0.

Time to Go Global

This was really the launching pad to me grasping that by harnessing the power of understanding technology, I could change the way I work, and I could change my life. The business model I created was not industry specific, regionally specific, or culturally specific. Honestly? I could do business with anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world. I didn’t need to meet clients face to face. I didn’t have to only be open from 9:00 – 5:00. The whole world became our market. During one period of time we were averaging over 400 visitors per day from 30 different countries. Our website included more than 850 pages and I managed all of it by myself. I couldn't design the foundations of the website because I am not a programmer. But, once it was live, I studied the technology and managed 95% of it on my own. And adding to the balls I was juggling, our agency worked with over 3000 translators across 30 different countries. I had truly created a global company. I used local servers networked among the staff and we had remote capabilities allowing each person to log in from any remote location. This meant that whether at home with sick children, or traveling to see family, staff could stay involved. Every Friday I religiously performed a full back-up of the data using magnetic tapes and then manually carried them off site each week for safe keeping. Over the next 16 years I grew and finally sold the translation company. The technology that helped me start and grow the translation company was now working against me and the future of the translation industry.  It was time to move on to bigger and better things.

Selling One Company and Starting Another

A year before I sold the translation company, I started a bilingual/international staffing and recruiting firm placing multilingual candidates anywhere in the world. I had spent over 16 years intimately involved with global business, culture, communication, marketing, and technology and already had a tremendous technology infrastructure in place that allowed the company to reach out to people anywhere across the planet. And after so many years of tightening belts, finally the economy was turning around. Hiring started to pick up and again, the whole world became our market. With the further development of LinkedIn and Twitter, we could reach even more people around the globe.

We were a 100% virtual company. This new work environment took time to learn bit it really felt like we were in control. But once I got the hang of it, I started thinking differently about work. No longer was I limited to hiring local employees. They could be anywhere in the country or for that matter, anywhere in the world. And all of them would log in to the cloud from wherever they are.

Why Thoroughly Understanding Technology is So Important

Understanding the technology has changed not only where I work, but when and where I work as well. I can tap into the global talent pool for employees and never have to worry about backing up my data or worry ab

out multiple versions of company files. My family and I could travel anywhere in the world for extended periods of time and I can run the business as if I was back home. And with ever increasing technology, a smart phone gives me the ability to be mobile and conduct business anytime from anywhere.  I even worked from my Samsung Tablet while on a trip to Disney World – All the parks had wi-fi. My network of connections is no longer local, it’s global and I have instant access to contact them from a 7” rectangle hanging on my belt. Just imagine an afternoon in the park, I am reading my news feeds on my smartphone and I come across a great piece of content that I feel my connections and followers might find interesting. In a matter of seconds, I can push this content out to thousands of people around the world through LinkedIn and Twitter. This kind of power has “James Bond” written all over it.

Reinventing Myslef Again

A persons career along with their personal life often takes many twists and turns through the years.  Mine was not any different.  After 5 years of running the international staffing and recruiting firm, I decided to close it down.  This was happening at the same time my 22-year marriage was closing down as well.  During this transition period I decided I would take a break from entrepreneurship.  I took a position as the Director of Human Resources, Technology and Facilities Management with a local non-profit.  Although the work was very rewarding, after a year it was evident that after being an entrepreneur for over 20-years, I was not cut out to work for someone else.  It hindered me both creatively and with constraints on my time.  I had too many ideas and too many things I wanted to achieve.  And at 57 years old, I was not getting any younger.  So ,I decided to re-enter the world of entrepreneurship.  I decided to focus on what I knew how to do best and at the same time, help as many people as possible.  Helping people all around the world find work.  My other companies were focused on supporting global organizations.  This company would be focused on individuals, living and working around the world, helping to write resumes, cover letters, registration and setting up alerts on the major job boards and updating and optimizing their LinkedIn profiles.
 

Looking Back

I sometimes think back to the days of waiting in line for an empty typewriter in my college library with my typing paper to write my term papers or walking the streets of Manhattan for months looking for a job. Now I have access to the whole world from my pocket. The thousands of hours I spent over the last 30 years understanding different technologies and software has brought me to this point. I am conducting global business from the comfort of my home, a co-working space or a coffee shop. Most people would not have taken 99 rejections to get to the one yes that lands the first job at one of the most prestigious investment banks in the world. Most people would not read massive amounts of books, newsletters, videos, software and dozens of business related magazines each month for years.  But then I’m not most people. And for sure, I couldn’t have achieved this next chapter of my life by just reading the Getting Started Guides.  I have truly changed my life because of the advancements in technology.  Hopefully my children will take advantage with Web 3.0 and life their life differently as well.

About Global Expansion, Inc.

Global Expansion, Inc. is a unique company that provides Global Executive Career - Job Search Coaching, Recruiting in over 100 countries, Global Employment Outsourcing, Payroll Solutions and Project Based Human Resource Services anywhere in the world., Global Expansion, Inc. can help you Go Global With Confidence ®