In this episode of Career Cafe, Bobby and Karl chat with Nate Marble, HR Director at Discovery Ranch South, about his unconventional career, from managing the Tiki Shack to earning a degree in acting and running a theater company. Nate shares how acting shaped his approach to HR, emphasizing empathy, body language, and communication. He also gives insights into working at Discovery Ranch South, building strong teams, and developing an owner’s mindset. Packed with practical advice, Nate offers tips for students on networking, interviewing, and sharpening relational skills.
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Bobby Hodge 00:00
Welcome back to the career Cafe podcast. I'm your host, Bobby here with my co host Carl, and we have very special guest today. I'm Nate marble, the current HR director of discovery ranch south. Welcome, Nate Nice. Welcome, welcome. Nice to have you on.
Nate Marble 00:28
Appreciate it. Thanks.
Bobby Hodge 00:29
So I ran through your your LinkedIn today,
Karl Rostron 00:33
right? No, there were usually I can just
Bobby Hodge 00:37
go in and be like, Okay, you got this job, this job, and then there's like, two or three. You had a lot of experience all the way back to the tiki shack.
Nate Marble 00:45
Yes, oh, man, you brought that up. Yeah, yeah. We started the tiki shack back in 2010 when we first came here for school, and then sold it to its current, current owners in 2014 Awesome, awesome.
Bobby Hodge 00:59
Well, so today's topic of the podcast that you, that you chose, is what employers are actually looking for, and we'll get into that. Okay, but first, why don't you just tell us a little bit about your your career journey all the way back from the tiki shack and where you graduated school, what your degree was in all of it.
Nate Marble 01:15
Okay, okay, I'll give you the condensed version. We'll get there. So it actually started before the tiki shack. I was working on a family our family farm. We had a sod farm in Tremont, Utah, one of the biggest farms in the region, biggest farm in the state, at least, and it was my dad's farm. And I looked at him one day and I said, I don't want to work here anymore. He said, Okay, well, what do you want to go into? And I said, Well, I actually want to go into theater. And he said, Well, what are you going to do with that? Kind of gave me that sideways look, and I said, Well, I want to eventually open a theater program or something, or be a professor and teach. And my brother in law and I were both in this kind of the same boat, and we decided to move here to Southern Utah. We opened up the tiki shack. Went to school here for theater arts. So I got my BFA here in classical acting in 2014 and we did after that, my wife and I moved to page Arizona, opened a theater company down there for a couple years. After a couple years, we had to close that because of a bunch of stuff that happened. And then the Luckily, the same year we closed that down, UNLV down in Las Vegas, was opening their their three year cycle of program, their master's program for theater performance. I got into that, graduated that in 2019 we stayed in Las Vegas for a little while, working down there, and we knew, always knew we wanted to end up back in Cedar City. I never wanted to be the typical actor that, like, traveled, went and auditioned all over the United States and all that kind of stuff. I knew that, you know, I have four kids, and wanted to end up here in Cedar because it was good for us when we were here the first time, first of all, and second, we knew we wanted our kids to grow up here and graduate high school, which two of them have done so far so, so in 2021 is when we right when right after covid, during covid, we moved back. And then, yeah, I was looking for jobs. I did a couple jobs here and there. And then the performing arts director position actually out at Discovery range South opened up, and I worked and went and did that for a year, and then the HR director was leaving, so I moved into that. And I've had a business background. I've opened up, like the tiki shack. I've opened a couple couple businesses up, and I enjoyed business. I really enjoy entrepreneurialism and seeing like marketing, what makes people tick, but HR was kind of a natural fit too, because there's a lot that is kind of overlaps between the theater performance world and HR.
Karl Rostron 03:53
Are you saying? Go for it? Well, I gotta be careful. I We have HR here too. Yeah, yeah. So are you saying that HR is kind of like acting?
Nate Marble 04:07
Well, okay, you want to go into philosophy, yeah? Acting philosophy, because I believe everybody's an actor. I mean, I agree every little circus ring that we're in every day. You know, I'm a father. I'm HR director, I have different co workers that I work with, and it depends on what line they're on, the director's line compared to the floor staff line. Even here, I'm putting on a show for you guys, and we're putting on a show for each other. So it's kind of like, when are you yourself? You're acting in all of those different circus rings. So yeah, HR, you have to be able not only to put on that circus ring hat, but also see what other people are giving you, and kind of, kind of pull that in to your experience. I mean body language, right? The UN spoken language, whatever you want to call it, it's, it's there, and you can tell, you know, so, yeah, the crossover. It just, it seems now. For me, you have to have empathy. When you're looking at taking on a role in an acting situation, it's just body language and sympathy really is what you're looking at. And so HR crossovers, it's perfect for that. So that's in a nutshell, my journey, awesome.
Bobby Hodge 05:18
So as HR director, I kind of want to go back first. Yeah, you said Visual Performing or just performing arts director. I
Nate Marble 05:25
was a performing arts director at Discovery. So what does that look like? So there's three tiers to that performing arts program. They do music. First of all, so we have a couple different music classes. There's a beginning music class, and then there's what we call jammers, which is technically a covers cover band. Some of the kids can get into that. And we just they, there's, like, drums and keys and singing and all that kind of stuff. And we do battle of the bands three times a year with other programs up north. So that's kind of the more the advanced, but they just cover contemporary music, you know, two or three songs every battle of the bands. And we go there. So there's there's the music side of things, there's the dance side of things. So they everybody is involved in one dance class, and then there's an advanced dance class they can go into. And then there's also the performing arts side of things. So they would do everything theater from beginning to end, whether it's writing or producing theater or and all of that leads up to that performing arts stuff. That we have parents seminars three times a year. And the parents will come on campus and they do a variety show with everything that they've worked on for the duration in between. And they kind of show off their skills, which, for a lot of these kids, they've never been on stage before. So it's fun to watch them get out of their shells, and their parents are just like, I never knew my kid would do something, you know, so, and we have to push them sometimes, but it once they really dive into it, it's really rewarding to
Karl Rostron 06:47
watch. So do you still have hands on in that program as
Nate Marble 06:51
much as I can? Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty, pretty dang busy with with HR stuff. But if, if I like, I love recording, I do, I do voiceover work. And if I can get into, we have a recording studio out there. So if I can get in the recording studio with one of the students and have them record one of their own original poems or something, or we put it to a video, I try to do as much as I can there. I haven't been able to much lately, truthfully, but, but I do love it. I love it out there. Awesome. So for
Bobby Hodge 07:17
those who don't know, what is discovery ranch? What's your guys mission? What are you what are you what are you trying to do?
Nate Marble 07:22
Discovery Ranch is residential treatment center for troubled kids. Technically, we're kind of like a boarding school. Okay? For Kids. We have a accredited school on campus. We have 62 acres out there, and kids friends from all over the United States or all over the world will send their kids to us for a certain amount of time, if they've had troubles, whatever that means, and that's a wide range of things. They can be with us from anywhere from eight to 12 months. That's kind of the average stay. Some will be less, some will be more, and when they range from 13 to 18 years old, okay? And we have not only the school, not only performing arts, but some of the other experiential therapy we have, like equine therapy, so they're working with horses on a regular basis. And then we have rec therapy, so they're like, hiking, climbing, all that kind of stuff. They do backpacking trips. They go to Costa Rica. They've been on a lot of different trips. On the rec side of things. And then we do have our clinical side, so we have therapists out there that meet with them on a weekly basis. So it's, there's about 80 employees right now, between all of that kind of stuff. And again, when we grow we'll grow more, we'll get more, but it's a good place. Usually the kids that have been sent us have been to some kind of treatment before us. So it's not high involvement, I guess you would say, but that's what we do at the ranch. Awesome.
Bobby Hodge 08:45
Yeah. So I'm curious, going from performing arts director to HR director, it kind of seems like a 180 it's at the same company, but how did that like? How did that conversation come up? How did you decide that this is what you were going to apply for next or get into?
Nate Marble 09:05
Well, HR is kind of an interesting place to be, I guess you would say, because some people say that HR directors are there to to protect the company. But I look at it that way, but I also have this other side that's like, No, I want to take care of the people who are taking care of my kid, the kids on the ranch and so, like, we kind of what we're talking about before acting and theater opens you up for that. Because when you have employees come in, you can tell right away. I mean, if you're if you're paying attention to the signs of, like, I don't know, a dispute between employees. You can tell if they're open, if they're closed, off what they're thinking, if they're looking at you in the eye, all of that kind of body language stuff. You can tell now there's a lot of paperwork on the HR side, you know, you got to fill out papers from all over the place, not just for the ranch, you know, but for everything. And I can do that, you know, that's part of my job, and I do it. I was. Just filling out paperwork this morning for an employee. But for the most part, it's, it's a human relations thing. You're, you're relating to the humans, not only on the director side, but the people who who are doing the dirty work down in the in the trenches with these kids all the time. So if anything, acting is relational, you're trying to create a relation with somebody on stage or in front of the camera. Front of the camera. And that's really all you're doing in HR too. You're trying to create a relationship somehow awesome.
Bobby Hodge 10:30
We've had a few HR directors on and I think that when we started this season, it was kind of what you had said, that from what you hear about HR, it's like they're there to protect the company. But every single one that we've had on so far has talked more about that relational side that I don't think we hear a whole lot about that. It's like you're trying to make sure that your employees are taken care of and the people that are drawn to it. I mean, I'm trying to think, well, was anybody that
Karl Rostron 10:55
went to our HR people that's they came through that track? Yeah. Oh, really. No.
Bobby Hodge 10:59
Nobody came out of the business school, it was all either like theater or communications. Was another one, and she talked about that communicating with people and learning how to like, share messages and create a relationship are what's important to him, and that's why it translated well in HR. So kind of interesting.
Nate Marble 11:19
Yeah, well, and I'm finding like, you have your policies and procedures that are there for the company, right? But as long as you are diligent about letting the employees know what those are and upfront, then you don't really have much problems. If they know they've messed up in one of those, there's not much you can do about it, and there's not much they can do about it because they knew that they messed up in one of those. And I've had to hire and fire, you know, people because of that. But most, most, if not, well, I would say 98% of the people that I've had to let go, they knew that they were getting let go because it was, I was just opening up front about it, and we had that kind of a relationship where they could be like, Yeah, I know, I know I screwed up to go so well.
Bobby Hodge 11:56
So Okay, getting into the topic of today's episode, then what employers are really looking for, because you're hiring, firing, what we're gonna talk about hiring for this one, keep it
Nate Marble 12:06
light, yeah, yeah, for sure. Sorry, I was gonna
Karl Rostron 12:10
ask you which was more fun,
Nate Marble 12:14
who you're talking to, and how I look at it, yeah.
Bobby Hodge 12:18
But from your perspective as an HR director, what are the things that you're looking for? Because I don't think you're typically like you have, we have your the career fair, and so you're not typically hiring people with degrees for those like, entry level positions, right? So what is important when you're trying to hire
Nate Marble 12:33
someone? Probably the most important thing, okay, going back to what we've already talked about, is that relationship. If you can create a relationship with whoever you're interviewing with within the first little bit, then you're, I'm not gonna say you're golden, but you have that much more leg of up, leg up on, on anybody else, because it goes back to, and we talked about this a little bit of the job fair, I think, is it goes back to doing your research, finding out if this is, first of all a company that you want to work for, or if it's if you if you align with their values. You know, part of our values are giving these kids a chance to restore choice into their lives. So that's a pretty great value. That's part of our mission statement, and it's what we live by, you know, and so I don't see why you wouldn't want to work there, but it's not for everybody. I have some people that have come in and we've talked to you about what we do, and they're like, I can't do that. I don't know that I could work with kids that way on a day to day basis. But the ones that stick out in my mind are the ones that come in and say, you know, I noticed on your website that you do this, or I noticed that this position is open to what about this? Is there opportunity for advancement. And you know that knows something about what DRS stands for and what we do, and are gung ho about doing that and being a part of it, not only that, but looking you in the it sounds really simple, but looking whoever you're interviewing with in the eye and being able to have a hold of conversation with them.
Karl Rostron 14:00
And yeah, I mean, we've talked before. Kind of been our introduction to this year. I was recruiting manager for years for a lot of places, and it shocked me when someone would come in for an interview and they didn't even know what company they were interviewing with, or you'd look at the resume and they'd forgot to change the title from the last one. I even had some applications. Didn't really even forgot to erase the person's name that they copied the application for. Oh my gosh, you know. And so just that little bit of time from me coming in, I want to show you that I have interest in your company, that it matters enough to me to do a little bit of research to find out what you do, what your mission statement is, a little bit about what your goals are as a company. And I mean that automatically puts you in, like the top 15% of the applicants that come in, because most people don't do it right. And so just that little key that you mentioned there is just so important when you're coming in, to make that initial contact with a person that you want to hire. You is showed that that it matters enough to you to do a little bit of
Nate Marble 15:03
research, right? Right? And at DRS, you know, we're not, we're not your typical college job. We're not your typical I'm gonna go work it. Nothing against Jimmy John's, but I'm not gonna. I love Jimmy John's. This is not a Jimmy John's, not a sponsor, yes, sorry guys, yeah. It's something that takes, requires a little bit more, I would say, passion for what you're doing. And, and, you know, we've gotten to the point, I've been in there about a year and a half, and you can tell the people that come in and are going to be there for a while, and people that come in and are just like, No, this is I'm just throwing stuff out there. Yeah, yeah.
Karl Rostron 15:39
And, and how quickly as an HR person, recruiter, interviewer, manager, you see that and can make that determination, the interview can be cut really, really short, just based off that first 30 seconds on, are you really interested in this job, right? So, yeah, yeah.
Nate Marble 15:55
And going into that, you know, we have, we have a set because of its the difference in what kind of a position this is? We have a set number of questions that we ask, and they're not your typical questions. So this could go back into what we were talking about before, you know, doing the research, but knowing that I'm not going to ask you, you know, yeah, how many things can you do in one hour? I'm not going to ask you that kind of a thing. I'm going to ask you more things like, like, what are your values? How do you work? What's your parenting style? Even if you're not a parent, you know, stuff like that. To really think about that because, because it's not your typical job, working with these kids, it's not easy. We always say that it's not easy, but it is, is very rewarding.
Bobby Hodge 16:35
I guess we kind of touched on this a little bit, just that you're not hiring people with degrees very often, because you're hiring college students, but you
Nate Marble 16:44
have both, oh yeah, oh yeah, totally Yeah. Anybody Yeah. We do have, we have, I mean, we have our floor staff for the people. We call them mentors because they are mentoring the kids. They're really trying to help them be safe from themselves, but also be to where they need to be every single day,
Karl Rostron 17:00
but not a direct responsibility for actions and outcomes, right, right?
Nate Marble 17:04
Okay, exactly. So we, but we do have people with degrees like we've got. We've got a nursing staff that's on site. We have nurses that have been there for a while, and some that are going through the nursing program here that are trying to get internships as well, or clinical therapists. We have, we have some intern or last year we did. We're still setting that up this year, but we have students that have been working for us, that are in the psychology department, that are getting their internships right now so and then we have HR, of course, and we've got residential director, all directors line, most of them have degrees, so there is room for advancement, yeah, if you want to.
Bobby Hodge 17:42
So if someone wants to make a career, say they love mentoring the kids, and maybe they want to get to a position where they're leading the company or, or, I don't know if it's like a head mentor, things like that. What kind of major can they go into, if that's what they're aiming
Nate Marble 17:59
like psychology, family and human development, all of that kind of stuff directly relates to what we do on campus. And we do, we do have like for our last Executive Director, she had been with DRS since it started, and she had been with we were our umbrella company, is the ascent company, and she had been with them for 30 years. She started out as that mentor just started working our way up. You know, you go from mentor to supervisor to coordinator to director to and you can keep working your way up in the company. Of course, there's the ends up there somewhere. You know, I kind of forgot your original question.
Bobby Hodge 18:38
No, no, I think you answered. Okay, did I Yeah, yeah, there's opportunity. If
Karl Rostron 18:41
not, we'll let it something really cool in there. Okay,
Nate Marble 18:46
good, come back and voiceover, whatever you're right.
Bobby Hodge 18:49
Okay, so skills based hiring. Then when you're looking at an a person that comes in to interview, we talked about relationships. But what are the things that you're looking for, as far as like their soft skills, and maybe even some like hard skills that sets people apart from from the rest of those that you're interviewing truthfully.
Nate Marble 19:11
And it goes through cycles, but right now, communication and being able to set strong boundaries is big with us, and that that can apply anywhere, but not only with the kids. You have to have boundaries with the kids, or else things could get weird, you know, but also with your fellow employees and how that works out. The communication side you're we build teams. We build teams of mentors who are under a supervisor, and those supervisors are under a coordinator, and at any time, you know, those teams have to be able to communicate verbally and non verbally, to get whatever is happening in front of them maybe calm down at a certain time, or even just, you know, we're done with lunch. We've got, we've got a beautiful. Full lodge with cook staff, and we're done with lunch, we have to get out of here because we have to go to our next thing. And it's almost, you know, it's five minutes to get across campus within a look. You can, you know, the good staff that the good teams that we find within a look. And you can say, Okay, we got to get outside. Let's start getting the kids rounded up like that. So, yeah, yeah. And that's nonverbal and verbal communication, being able to deal with the situation with another co worker. That's another skill that isn't taught. I mean, it's changed. I think, I think, I think people are scared a little bit to confront somebody about something that's not going right, or they want, they want to see change, or could change within that relationship. What we really try to push them to go straight to that person and be like, Yeah, before you come to me, I want you to talk to them first. You know, not being afraid of confrontation, I guess, is what it is, and being able to communicate through it. So
Karl Rostron 20:58
translate that now into the resume application and interview process. How do you see that? How do you know that? Well, how do what do you look for to cue you in on that kind of
Nate Marble 21:09
stuff? Well, because of the questions, that's one of the questions we ask is like, what is your communication style? How do you deal with conflict? Kind of a thing, we do ask that question, what are three of your values? What is it? What does the word integrity mean to you? Stuff like that? We We really tried to form these questions to find out what how they are going to react in any given situation when they're on the floor, or how they're going to relate to the kids. That's our whole purpose. Because a lot of times we are, you know, we are the parents. We say this in orientation. We're not your friends. We're not their friends. We're really here to help them, just guide them along the path to where they can be independent of this place, the ranch. I think I keep do I keep that? So maybe,
Karl Rostron 22:01
there we go. So you if, if you were to come on campus, and you could teach students for one night, and you will come on campus, okay, what's that deliverable that you would give them two areas, first of all, their general life right now as a student and preparing for a future. And also, what would you tell them to prepare for a career to come and interview with you? What are the two things?
Nate Marble 22:30
Well, so if I were to come on campus and do like a workshop when you do come, or something, when I do come, I would immediately go into I would do some acting still, because I'm an actor. There you go, right? But I would want to teach something or get a group together and talk about body language and communication. That's really what it is. And being open to change the body language and communication is is so important, because if you're not communicating, and effectively, I don't know what you need, and you don't know what I need, and then the communication side is open to feedback and change. That's that would really be the second thing, because if you're coming in already knowing everything about my program, that's that's something that's hard to work with as an employer. We want to and I'm the same way, you know, I'm going to go into my executive director's office, completely different, because I need to know her feedback from me. For me, if you come into my office and you're not open to that feedback, first of all, I can tell right away you're not open just by how you come in. And second, I know that if something does need to change within the company, I'm I might get a lot of pushback from you, and I don't know if, if it's best for the company, I there's some things that I can't control and I need to just push forward. There are times where to have discussion. We've had discussions with our employee base about certain things that we've needed to change and get their feedback from it. But other things I need to know that I can say, you know, we need to do this now, and you're gonna be like, Okay, how are we gonna get this done? Instead of, I don't want to do that, which I have had people say to me in my office. So, yeah, there's a lot there. Yeah, yeah,
Bobby Hodge 24:17
good. Could you give us a snippet I'm curious about, you know, the body language and communication. What should students be doing that they aren't doing? I think everybody thinks, oh, I'm a great communicator, but, like, we've all got stuff to work on
Karl Rostron 24:31
and cover it. From their approaching you at a career fair, versus they're coming into an interview,
Nate Marble 24:37
sure. So at a career fair, I would say, the people that come up to me and this, we just don't think about this stuff. So this is all subconscious stuff that we don't know we're doing unless we are absolutely doing it. I didn't realize I was, like, on stage. I'm a big guy. I'm six two, and I'm, like, pushing 250 almost right on stage. I would try to diminish myself as much as I could. I'd put my hands in my pocket. So I'd fold my arms, because I didn't want my counterpart to feel intimidated by me, because I am such a big guy, and I had a director in at UNLV that finally just said, Why do you do that? And I'm like, I didn't, what am I doing? I didn't even realize it was subconscious for me, something that I learned since I was a kid. Every time I did that, from then on out, I would recognize it. First of all, if my hands were in my pocket, I'd be like, is this serving me in this instance? If it's not, I've got to change. And like my director, he was like, you're paying playing a king in we're not in a theater. You're playing a king in Macbeth. You are not supposed to diminish yourself. You're supposed to have a command presence, right? So when you walk into that interview, are your hands in your pocket? First of all, if you walk into that job fair, are you folding your arms and shrugging your shoulders because you're nervous to talk to me? If you are, try to open that up, see if you can just stop there, the people that I remember the most, and then we put stars by on our little notebooks, are the ones that are actually, you know, face forward, arms down, looking at me really. I can tell they're taking in what I'm what I'm trying to give to them. And then they can be completely honest with me. There's some people that come up and they're like, Yeah, I think I could do that. And other people are like, No, that's not my I'm out of here right? Translating it into the office itself. A good handshake is always it's not important, but it's always a good thing. A handshake walking into the office, if you're sitting in my chair and your knees, or you've got your legs crossed and you're sitting back a little bit that that kind of gives me a standoffish approach, and that it kind of puts off the feeling of like I'm not that interested in what you're saying, even though that might not be what they're thinking on the inside, again, that's a subconscious thing that they've already done. So if you can pull that out, sit forward just a little bit. You don't have to sit forward all the way. Just just show somehow in your body language that you're interested in what's going on in that interview. That puts you leaps and bounds ahead of others.
Karl Rostron 27:01
Yeah, that's when I taught interviewing a lot. I we would call it the three quarter rule, only sit on the front three fourths of the chair. Never touch the back fourth of your chair, because it forces you to sit up. It forces you to lean forward a little bit, and it gives you that interested appearance. Plus, just physiologically, it does alter you breathe better, there's more oxygen to your brain. Everything. You perform better because you are sitting up and leaning forward, right? And so there's science behind it both ways.
Nate Marble 27:30
And I think, I think, I think subconsciously, it's making you more powerful, right? In your own mind, you know, if you put yourself in a position where you are closed off the meager inferior, yeah? Like, you know, if I sat here the whole time with my arms crossed, I think in my mind, without even thinking about it, I'm like, I'm really nervous about this, just doing this, you know, I guess they can see us, right? They're just doing this. Yeah, I'm kind of feeling like, oh, man, that just made me a little nervous. But, you know, just putting my hands forward a little bit, I can, I can cross them because I know I can use them right in conversation, but it just opens me up and makes me feel a little bit more engaged in what's happening right in front of me. So,
Bobby Hodge 28:14
so I do photography, kind of on the side. One thing that I always tell the people that I'm taking pictures of because it's the same thing, of like, they feel more comfortable with their hands in their pocket or kind of closed off. And so it's gonna feel weird the first time you, like, open up and stand up straight. It's like, I've never stood with such straight posture. And it's like, it looks better than it feels. And so students, students, it's gonna feel weird for the first few times, and and then you'll get more used to it, and you'll you'll get used to opening up, and then you'll start to recognize, you know, when you're closing off, like, Oh, I feel weird. I feel less confident, but it's gonna feel awkward.
Nate Marble 28:53
Yeah, and a little trick for that. I mean, watch yourself in a group A lot of times. You watch these groups on campus, and watch the mirroring effect that that has one person. And I, I do this just to play with people, but like, if we're standing in a circle with my kids, I'll just all of a sudden close my arms, and then all of a sudden, two or three other people will start closing their arms, and then you just put your foot backwards a little bit, and the other person start doing that. They'll mirror you. And the whole point of that is to be able to have control of what you're doing in the moment. And if it is something, like I said before, if it is something that serves you, go ahead and keep doing it. But if it's not serving you in that moment, change it just it sounds simple, and I know it's hard, and it does feel weird when you start doing
Karl Rostron 29:36
I learned that when I got in interviews, if I was nervous or anything, my hands were just uncontrollable. They were just flying all over the place. And it was, it was annoying me, even at times, but that, or else, I would just sit and tapped. And I never knew I was doing it until I started watching videos, you know, of me teaching people how to interview and I'm doing stuff wrong. Yeah, you know, um. Yeah, so I got to the point where I knew them, and I walked in and sat down, I locked my thumb, oh, and that way I always had conscious like, control, right? And I can always break and use it, but I knew if I went back to it, that my arms weren't flailing right around uncontrollably, and I didn't know what they were doing. And so, you know, we have the program now that students can use called Big Interview. And it records them doing interviews, and it tracks eye movement, and it tracks how many times I say, um, and and so, you know, practice in anything makes you better and more comfortable. And so it's hard to correct something you don't know you're doing right. And so by watching yourself or having a friend, something you're, somebody you're comfortable with, coming to the Career Center, a mentor, whatever, watch you and work with you. That's how you get better. Because you're not, there's not a class, you know, there's not a semester where you're going to go and sign up for a body language in an interview. We should, we probably should set that up. Yeah, we'll do it all right. But, but it's, it's identifying and then correcting, yeah, and then you become comfortable, yeah. And that's the key to everything. You want to know about me, and I want to know if I'm going to be a good fit, and if neither one of us are comfortable, boy, it's hard to get to that point, right? You know, you leave and I'm not sure how you felt about me. You're not sure how I felt even about the job. And so there's any little bit of that ambiguity left creates problems on both sides. And so anything I can do to take control of my portion of the interview, to feel better, to feel more comfortable, I'm better off, and I'm helping you, because now you can assess me better as a person feeling comfortable than this shell of myself or personification of something that isn't really mean. You can and it's and you can tell yes and so yeah, that that body language, that feeling comfortable in interview is is something that that really is important and and when you come on campus, we'll work on that. Okay, we'll do some classes, all right. But that
Nate Marble 32:07
brings me back to, yeah. I mean, you're coming to an interview, but you need to know if you want to work there exactly. So one other tip, just thinking about the interview process itself, is, while you are listening to that person who's interviewing, you come up with some in, some intriguing, something that has intrigued you about what they said and asked the question at the end. You know, I always ask, you know, is there anything you want to know about us? Yeah, at this company, and the people that are like, you know, you said this, what happens when this happens? Or where do they go at this time, or what happens afterwards? All of that kind of stuff. The people that ask those questions are the ones I'm like, these guys are actually intrigued in this. They're actually thinking about this is, how does that work? Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Bobby Hodge 32:48
So say someone comes in for an interview talked about relationships and that it's important to demonstrate that you can build one. Do you have any tips for, like, what is a quick way that I can build rapport with you in an interview in a way that feels natural.
Nate Marble 33:04
One of the things, one of the first things that you can do is just show appreciation for the interview, and even just by saying it, you know, I really appreciate you taking the time to have me in here. I've, I've learned a little bit about your business, and I want to know more. So that's one of the things. The
Bobby Hodge 33:19
reason I ask is because, you know, it's one thing that we kind of threw out of, like, Oh, you got to build a relationship. But it's like, I don't know how to do that. I know when I've done it.
Karl Rostron 33:28
Well, actually, I've got 30 seconds to do it, yeah,
Nate Marble 33:32
yeah, yeah. Well, this kind of goes back to what we talked about, kind of close to the beginning, is showing that appreciation, but also, like we talked about showing interest in the company, if you only have 30 seconds. Thank you for letting me come. I know you guys are this your residential treatment center for troubled kids. So what does all that involve? Like, showing interest, genuine interest in the company, always goes a long way with me. If you shake my hand and just sit down and I'm like, Hi, how you doing? Tell me about yourself. Yeah, I'm Bob, and I can't, you know, and there's certain questions that I cannot ask. But if, if you're right, and this goes back to acting like, yeah, if you're in an audition and they ask you a question, they want to see you acting. They want to see your life performance. So, yeah. So if they ask me about my family, I'm not just gonna say, I have, I have four kids. I'm gonna be like, Yeah, I have four kids. And my oldest, she's just going to college. And I'm offering up a lot more information than you even asked me in the first place, because I just want to go into this, and I want you to see that I'm a real person, because ultimately, I'm going to work with who I like to work with, and you're going to work with who you like to work with. So I just want to make sure that we're a good fit for each other. So you're interviewing me as much as I'm interviewing you, but I'm gonna, I just keep, you know, keep talking about it and and don't you know you have to go on for 10 minutes about your life, but
Karl Rostron 34:49
not super personal, no, but, but enough to establish a human relationship, right?
Nate Marble 34:54
Right, right, exactly. Yeah, go into it. That interest is all is all important. You. Know, come down and show real interest in what is going on wherever you're going.
Karl Rostron 35:05
One thing I always look for is I wanted them to come in and leave me with three things about themselves that they thought made them better than anybody else I was going to interview that day. What are your three go tos, your three strengths that you really want me to know about you, and am I? Are you telling me, or am I trying to drag them out of Yeah, yeah. So, so I always tell people, come in prepared to share three things, and no matter what, you're going to get those three things out. And if a hard question comes up and you're unsure, tie back to one of those three things, and then you'll be fine,
Nate Marble 35:39
yeah, well, and I'm totally okay if a hard question does come up, like that, integrity question. What is integrity? A lot of people can't answer it. They're like, Well, I've never thought about this before. Then I'm okay with them saying that. I'm okay, you know, I haven't thought about that's a really good question. Little terms, we talked about filler terms. Yeah, that's a really good question, right? And I know that's a good question because I put it together so you don't have to tell
Karl Rostron 36:01
me that, but it gives me now another 10 seconds to formulate something in my head, to come up with a better answer that
Nate Marble 36:06
is true, that is true, but I'm okay with you saying, you know, I don't really know, I haven't thought about that, but that's something I'll definitely think about over the next little while. And come back to you, you can't say that for every question, not for every question. I got to
Karl Rostron 36:19
have something. Yeah, what's work? I've avoided it long enough, right?
Bobby Hodge 36:29
Yeah, kind of our final segment talking about hiring is, where do you see hiring practices going over maybe the next decade? Because we've gone from very, you know, a traditional you need to have some sort of, like application skill that's related to the job we're moving, I think, more relationally in most fields. Obviously, if you're applying an accounting firm, you should know how to do accounting. But for a lot of jobs, and especially student jobs that they're going to hit, what kind of things that they should should they be preparing for?
Nate Marble 37:04
I think we're having a theme here, because, you know, everything is moving digital. We have, we have a website that we use called workable, that I can just send one job post out, and it goes to all these different jobs, then they come right back to me. So you don't necessarily have to have those hard copies of your your application anymore, but if you don't have the relational, the relationship side of things, that just makes it really hard. And I would, I'd say that because coming out of college the first time, so I went for a year clear back in I don't remember when, God, that was a long time ago, but coming out of that, I didn't have the relational skills, and I would just come and sit come and sit with somebody and expect them to get everything out of me. But any if you can build a relationship with somebody, then I think any employer will look at you as a leg up and and I say that also because we are in a digital age, and you know, I see it with my kids as well. The anytime I have a question or just a wonderment out there in the world, my daughter will pull up YouTube or Google and be like, oh, yeah, here is that. And I'm like, Yeah, or that. You know, there's a lot of people just that do sit at home and don't go out. So if you can find a way to go out and get find push yourself, to get relational with people and whatever layer that is, if it's a club, if it's whatever, and then transfer that into the business, I think that's, that's where things are going to go, even with AI right now, I know there's a lot of jobs out there where you can kind of sit back and work on your computer, but eventually, I think everything you've you've got to have that
Karl Rostron 38:38
skill well, and at some point, a Human is going to talk to you to hire you, right? Even if the job may be online, you may have AI, may have talked to their AI to get you to the interview. At some point, there's that transactional human interaction, and so you have to be able to navigate through that, yeah,
Nate Marble 38:58
which I love Chad, right? I use it all the time, but I still have to talk to people right all the time too.
Bobby Hodge 39:04
So I think thinking about that, a lot of our students, you know, they'll go to career fairs when they need a job, yeah, and first of all, that kind of puts a lot of pressure on you, if you're only there because you need but also if you're trying to actively learn how to build relationships, you have to go out and actually build relationships. You can only talk to chat GPT so much before you're like, I need to go talk to a person that I literally don't need anything from and just learn to communicate for a minute. Yeah, and so like our students, when they say, oh, you know, I'm really not looking for a job, or I'm not looking for a career yet because I'm still a freshman. It's like, just come, just talk to people. Yeah. Like, I think that our employers appreciate that too. And it's like, you know, I know they're obviously there to hire people, but they don't want to just sit there all day and answer questions about pay and flexibility. It's like, right? You know, communicate. Just communicate. Communicate
Karl Rostron 40:00
with them. When we bring employers on campus, for whatever reason, we'll have networking nights. We have nights when employers will come in and talk about resumes and applications and even the career fairs that we have. As an underclassman, you're thinking, I may not need I'm not getting a job yet. That'll come in three years, but if I come in and spend time with you and get to know you, and I've get to know about your company. Well, now I've got more reason to focus in class, because I know a little bit more about what a company wants and expects, and I'm on your radar. I developed that relationship. I don't have to wait until that first 30 seconds when hopefully I get an interview with you somewhere down the road. We already have a relationship and and that network is building. You may never have a job for me, but you know me, right. And I may be talking over here to somebody, but you know them too. And so you're building this network. We all know that most jobs are filled by people that the employer either knows and trusts, or someone that they know and trust knows and trusts. And so networking is putting yourself into those circles to where you're in, that that realm of knowing and trusting to and so you're building a brand. Through this whole process, you're building this personal brand, yes, and so that's just that's a vital part that underclassmen may not understand or recognize, come to everything and learn that skill of talking to people and build a network you know, be kind and concerted, courteous, and learn about people, learn about you may have zero interest after you find out about their job and their job, but But leave that on a note to man I was interested in, thank you for your time, and knowing what I don't want to do is just as valuable to me as knowing what I do exactly. And you don't learn that part either, if you're not putting yourself
Nate Marble 41:47
out there a little bit. Yeah, yeah. I never, this is mainly because of my education, but I never, I never knew the RTC world existed, like the residential treatment world, until I got this performing arts job, yeah, and, and I wouldn't leave it right now, I love, I love working in this industry, but I never would have known that unless I would have taken a step to go towards it. And I wouldn't have known it if I didn't have the network to say, Yes, I might apply for that job out there, because somebody knew somebody that was out there, and it was a good deal. The network is so important. So even if you don't think you're building a network, you are building a network. I had a when last I got laid off, I don't know, just because the company was going under a long time ago. And I had a friend in that I would get on a call with once a month. We had a guy's group that we get on a call with once a month, and he was up in Oregon, and he's like, Yeah, I'd hire you in a minute if you were up here. Like, well, do I want to move? I didn't really want to but, but that's the kind of network, you know, if you have friends, you have people that, you know, it's worth it, it's worth it to go to these things, even if you don't
Karl Rostron 42:50
want to, right? Well, you know, you and I both spent time in Vegas, and networking knowing people in Vegas is kind of on steroids compared to knowing and networking people down here, but I can tell you, going through that kind of a system down there, you really learn the skill of being able to talk to people, articulate yourself to people really quickly, and learn how to read people like you've been mentioned all along, because that is just how business is done, and not Just in Vegas, but a lot of parts of the world, you know, and depending upon what industry you're in, that that's the key component. And so, you know, we were talking a little bit earlier about how covid kind of changed the dynamic of people and their interpersonal skills, and the group of individuals coming into the workforce now lack some of those skills because they were pulled out of it, you know, and we learned to deal with things electronically instead of interpersonally. And yet, the essence of business, no matter really what you get into, is that interpersonal communication, that ability to deliver, whether it's sales, whether it is customer service, even in accounting, you have to be able to deal with a customer to find needs and wants and outcomes, and So taking advantage now, as a student of these interactional opportunities that are presented to you, take advantage of whatever there is, and like you said earlier, learn to be uncomfortable a little bit, because that's what makes you grow, and that's what makes you stronger and will become more comfortable. But if you reverse the situation and you come into an interview and thinking, I'm the employer, what would I want to see from somebody in this interview? You know, I've leveraged my I've got a second mortgage on the house. I'm working 90 hours a week. I've leveraged my future, you know, my wife and kids futures. Yeah, to make a business successful, what do I want to see out of somebody to come and work for me, right? You know, I want to see a little interest. I want to see a little passion. I want to see a little bit of I'm willing to do the hard work to make you better, you know, and just by changing the framework of your perception going in and into an interview and preparing for that interview, and even the resume part, putting yourself on paper, what would you want to see from somebody coming in, you know, to make you pull the trigger and say, yeah, man, I'm willing to risk on this person, because it is, I mean, yeah, hiring, training, interviewing, huge financial drain on a company, and so you don't want to mess that up. And so by you coming prepared to an interview to demonstrate those things, I mean, you mentioned the word golden earlier. I mean, that's really you're in the top 10 to 15% of any candidate that comes in, if you can demonstrate you've just put that little bit of time into doing that.
Nate Marble 46:06
That kind of brought up another thought too, is like, is being, having, I know it's not easy, but having an owner mindset, even though you're not the owner, if you're just an employee, having the owner mindset to be like, No, I have an idea this, I see what you're doing, maybe this could make it a little better, or help, you know, and then bringing that to the director's line and saying, This is this idea that I think would make this even better than what we're doing, instead of just like, showing you have that mindset, instead of coming in and saying, No, I'm just an employee, because you're not, you're valued. You are valued, and your opinions are valued, and it might not be something that we could implement, but having that mindset like, I want to make this place better while I'm here, that's what's really going to take you to the next step that's going to take you from the mentor to the supervisor to the court. Exactly, yeah, so
Bobby Hodge 46:56
well, and you'll find out really quickly if you want to stay working at a company based on those interactions. Because if you go to somebody and they just shut you down every single time, I don't think an employee stays there long, even if they can't implement it. If it's like, Hey, I appreciate you coming and talking me. We're gonna discuss this and see what we can do. Like that shows that you care about an employee. Yeah.
Nate Marble 47:17
I mean, it's like that saying, you know, people don't quit because of the money, because of people, because of the people you're working with, and that's the that's kind of the atmosphere we're trying to create out there, is we want, we want you to be a part of this. We want you to have ownership in it.
Bobby Hodge 47:32
Okay? We beat the relationship. Dead Horse. Yeah. Over and over again. If you had one final word of advice for our students that are either looking for a job or just starting out their careers, what would you tell them to what did you What would you wish that you had heard when you started yours?
Nate Marble 47:51
Probably it sounds cliche, but really fake it till you make it. And that encompasses everything that we've done here, like even your body language, if you're not used to being that open and that grounded, fake it for a while, and then you'll start getting used to it. If you're not used to sitting on that front of that chair, just do it. Try it. It may be uncomfortable for a while, but eventually it'll be like, Okay, this is second nature to me. So all of this stuff, if you can put it into practice and just fake it until it's it's there, that's, that's what I would give you.
Bobby Hodge 48:22
Yeah, perfect, that cool. Yeah, Couldn't have said it better myself. Good.
Karl Rostron 48:27
So final question, yeah, Bigfoot, real or not,
Nate Marble 48:34
I am going to be honest. I am skeptical, okay? Because I'm just skeptical you got all the videos and everything, but I'm like, Yeah, but nobody's ever actually come in contact with one, or we haven't seen a dead one in nature.
Bobby Hodge 48:52
I hate that. I've been to the Bigfoot museum now, because I can answer these. I went on a road trip and with a Bigfoot Museum, yeah, and, like, there's a whole section in that museum of just that, of like actual, of like explanations as to why not, pretty much just trying to prove that your skepticism is the whole thing that they say is okay, oh gosh, I can't believe We're getting it all right. So when an apex predator dies in the wild, it's not because something's killed it, it's because it it starts to feel sick, and it goes and, like hides in a cave and dies, and then slowly, like, the bones will deteriorate. So they say that, like, we don't often find bear bones, like bones of bears in the wild, and it's estimated that there's 100 times more bears in the wild than Bigfoot and so, right? So it's like, I hate that. I know that now.
Karl Rostron 49:47
Or if they are intelligent beings, do they bear each other? Did they take
Bobby Hodge 49:51
care Okay, see, that's right. Would you
Nate Marble 49:53
Find A Grave somewhere like, would you find them? Well, do they market? Oh, they wouldn't market. I guess. I don't know. I don't know. Still. Skeptical,
Karl Rostron 50:00
but All right, we won't go into interdimensional beings. Oh, god, yeah, that was like astral
Nate Marble 50:05
projecting, yes, yeah,
Karl Rostron 50:07
we've been there. Those are good
50:09
ones. Good. We can do that another day.
Karl Rostron 50:10
All right, we'll do that podcast
Bobby Hodge 50:12
part two. Okay, so relationships, good, Bigfoot, maybe. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in. Tune in again for another great guest. Thank you so much for coming on. Hey. Thanks for having been great appreciate it.
50:23
You.