Transcript: Michael "Rudi" ...: Hello, and welcome to the What's Career Got to Do With It? Podcast, where we hope to provide a space for honest conversation and information that encourages the listener to take the next steps in their career journey. Wherever you are at in this process, we hope this episode will meet you with affirmation, guidance and maybe some laughs along the way. Ängela Bonner: On today's episode, we will discuss an answer, or many to the question, "How do I find helpful humans and resources to kickstart my search?" I need a helpful human this morning. I think that's a good way to start for us. All sorts of helpful humans, helpful coffee, helpful caffeine, get us going to talk about something that we have mentioned in part, but we really want to dive into today. Really helpful humans, who are they? How do we find them? That's why we titled it in this episode, how do we find them? So guys, people, everyone, how do we find helpful humans? Kai Kelley, Jr.: I think I'll start back just at the point of moving on campus and that first helpful human that I encountered was my RA because they were a good source of information to get me started. So I think that's a first point, that RA in the hallway. Nicole Mitchell: I think for me, it was the cafeteria workers. Kai Kelley, Jr.: Yeah. Nicole Mitchell: If we're talking about as students, we got to campus, the RA and then definitely making friends with cafeteria workers. They would always tell you what day are the days you needed to be there, so make sure you were first in line. And it was more of a comfort thing as well too, right? So I was finding a piece of comfort in this new space that I was going to be in and food is comfort and the people who were handling the food were extra comfort for me. Michael "Rudi" ...: I agree. I think that housing point was a really good one, because those are the first healthy humans you meet. RAs, the RD, housekeeping staff. All those folks are the good kind of introduction to who's who on campus? Nicole Mitchell: Definitely. And I don't want to set this up for everybody because this may not be the same thing, but mine was a person named Dave. Thanks Dave. Michael "Rudi" ...: Shout out to Dave. Ängela Bonner: Sometimes helpful humans find us and Dave happened to be a parent of one of my friends and Dave was basically really instrumental in me finding my next step after high school and he actually went all the way to write a letter for me and I think that shows us the level of which helpful humans may go for us is come out of the woodworks really to come up to us and say, "Hey, I've written this letter and I want to use it as some sort of way to talk to other people about what I think you can do." And it helped in my recruiting journey because I played college football. And I still have that letter to this day and it motivates me. And I feel I can go back to Dave anytime, even though it's been a few years since I've talked to Dave, but I don't want to set that up in saying that, people are always going to come out of nowhere to write you a letter, but sometimes that's how it happens too. And I think the word we have avoided too, throughout this time, has been networking. Michael "Rudi" ...: Dun, dun, dun. Ängela Bonner: Yeah. Because of the weight that it does carry, networking is this thing that really brings a lot of different feelings, emotions with it and causes us to question everything. So that's kind of why we have begun the conversation surrounding helpful humans because that's really what it is, this networking piece. And so, where do you think that... For you at least, where does that sense of uneasiness come from when you think about networking? Nicole Mitchell: I think it's that idea of something being transactional. A lot of times when I'm talking with students about networking, one and I'm sure we'll talk about this, "I don't know how to talk about myself," or "I don't feel comfortable in ta
