Talking with Mike Fitzgerald, Career Coach and HR Placement Trailblazer
I had the opportunity to sit down (via Zoom) with Mike Fitzgerald. Having competed with Mike in the HR placement space for years and hearing such wonderful things about him in our industry, I was excited for our conversation.
Mike spent close to 22 years as a Leader at Gatti & Associates- HR Placement Firm. He later transitioned to be a Life & Career Coach and has been running his own practice for the past four years.
When we first started chatting, I learned what Mike loved most about the HR placement space. He shared, “I loved how I felt part of the HR community….Clark Willmott was a mentor to me…even though he was technically competition…I got to know him and Dan Hill as well as Paul Reardon and Dave Sanford from Winter Wyman…although we were all competitors…we were always friendly and respectful. Bob Gatti and Clark took me under their wings while we were involved with HRC (networking group that stood for (HR Council.) That really says something about these folks…we had a shared responsibility to the HR Community…we all wanted to add value and felt responsible to do so.”
I learned that Mike is passionate about working with people and building relationships. Mike came to the realization over the years, that he was curious about people and their careers. As he explained, “We manage our careers…it is up to us…we need to have the right mindset…attitude…so in my practice now I encourage people to be grounded in a sense of abundance rather than a sense of scarcity…you need to be excited about your gifts…excited about your talents…and not settle for bad jobs or situations…look for something fantastic…don’t settle…shoot high!” He also said that he “encourages people to have ongoing discernment…everything I did led me to the next thing…built on…I adopted an attitude of when it is time to go to just go…when it is time to try something new just do it! When you have options, you are much more free psychologically!”
He was also reflecting on some advice that Clark Willmott gave him years ago and that is to always be a sales person….”whether you are in sales or recruiting or even just interviewing for your next job, you need to learn how to sell….building relationships…influencing…these are skills we all need!”
Given Mike’s reputation in our industry, I assumed that he was a natural in our business but he disagreed with me. He shared, “I never felt like I was a natural…had to work to develop these skills…everything I have ever done is by building relationships.” He went to Gatti because of this passion. He knew he wanted to work there and he knew he would be successful. He also shared a story that sounded a little too familiar! He said, “a lot of things will happen when you relax a bit and enjoy people…I was all uptight at first…clenching my teeth and then after my first placement, I loosened up a bit….I gained some confidence…and when I knew I could be good at this…I relaxed a bit….he went on to explain, “sometimes we have all or nothing thinking and that is an example of a cognitive distortion….these patterns of thinking are grounded in fear…we need to replace the bad beliefs…I learned that there are good people everywhere…we needed to focus on finding them.”
Lastly, I wanted to talk about the current state of affairs and Mike truly enlightened me when we discussed the workplace in this pandemic. He said, “we all need to validate that this is a hard time…yes fear exists…it is also important to set yourself up to not be paralyzed by this however…in the world of business and hiring…it’s not the time to put your career on hold…a lot of people are hiring…it is time to be proactive and work your network. Be open to giving and receiving…life is still happening…business is still happening…it is not the right thing to do to take a year off…to believe no one is hiring is another one of those cognitive distortions…HR people in our network have to come back to that HR community…don’t wait to be isolated…we need to encourage each other to share and take on that mindset…we are part of this community beyond our own work.”
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