Episode #145 – Dependability: the Cornerstone of Value in the Employment Marketplace
Julea: Welcome to “The Animal Health Employment Insider,” podcast brought to you by The VET Recruiter. In our podcast, Stacy Pursell, Animal Health Executive Recruiter and Veterinary Recruiter as well as founder and CEO of The VET Recruiter, provides insight and practical advice for both employers and job seekers in the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession. The VET Recruiter’s mission is to help Animal Health and Veterinary Employers recruit and hire top talent, while helping Animal Health and Veterinary professionals attain career-enhancing opportunities that increase their quality of life.
In today’s podcast episode, we’ll be talking about the character trait of dependability. Hello, Stacy, and thank you for joining us today.
Stacy: Hello, Julea, it’s great to be here with you and I have been looking forward to today’s podcast.
Julea: Stacy, you’ve talked a great deal about traits and characteristics on this podcast, which are important topics of conversation.
Stacy: That’s right Julea. The reason for that is because skills and experience are just one part of the hiring equation. Soft skills represent the other part, and that includes a person’s traits and characteristics. Like anything else, some traits and characteristics are more important than others. In other words, employers place a higher value on some traits over other traits.
Julea: And dependability is one of the traits that I know employers value highly.
Stacy: Yes, that’s correct, and that’s why I want to discuss the trait of dependability today. And one of the resources that I want to draw upon is Napoleon Hill.
Julea: Who is Napoleon Hill, for our listening audience?
Stacy: Napoleon Hill is a motivational or self-help author from the turn of the century. He wrote numerous books on the subject of success, both personally and professionally. One of those books is Think and Grow Rich, which is one of the 10 best-selling self-help books of all time. So to start today’s podcast, I’d like to present something that Napoleon Hill said about being dependable. He said:
“People of character do what they say they will do, when they say they will do it, and according to agreed-upon conditions. They are the leaders, the individuals to whom others turn for guidance, because they have demonstrated that they care, that they can be trusted. If you respect yourself enough to keep commitments even when it’s inconvenient to do so, others will come to respect you, too.” I want to say that last part again, “If you respect yourself enough to keep commitments even when it’s inconvenient to do so, others will come to respect you too”.
According to Napoleon Hill, dependability is the first foundation stone of good character. And I know that Napoleon Hill is not here with us anymore, and he wrote books many years ago, but the topics that he wrote about are still applicable today. He wrote about subjects and topics that are timeless. What he said is just as relevant today as it was when he first said it.
Julea: Can you elaborate on that?
Stacy: Certainly. I’ve mentioned before that everything in the employment marketplace boils down to value, and there are many different forms of value from the perspective of the employer. Skills and experience, as we discussed earlier, are forms of value. So are soft skills. However, just like dependability is the first foundation of good character, it is also the cornerstone of value. And it’s the cornerstone of value in both an individual’s personal life and professional life. But since this is a podcast about a person’s career in the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession, we’re going to stick to the professional sides of things.
Julea: That makes sense. Stacy, What makes dependability so valuable to employers and what makes it the cornerstone of value? When I think of the word cornerstone I think of foundation.
Stacy: It’s as simple as doing what you say you’re going to do. I know it sounds like it can’t be as easy as that, but trust me when I say that it is not as easy as it sounds. I’m going to be very frank when I say there is a shortage of people who consistently do what they say they’re going to do on a regular basis. This includes a shortage of people in the employment marketplace.
Julea: Stacy, what do you mean when you say “consistently do what they say they’re going to do”? Why is that important?
Stacy: It’s important because it’s not enough to do what you say you’re going to do every once in a while. For example, it’s not enough to be dependable every other time. Or two out of every three times. That’s not the definition of dependability. The definition of dependability is doing what you say you’re doing to do almost every time. To put it in terms of raw numbers, it would be mean doing it 99 out of 100 times.
Julea: Wow, that’s a high percentage!
Stacy: Yes, but that’s the only way to brand yourself as someone who is dependable.
Julea: Stacy, when you say brand, are you talking about personal branding?
Stacy: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Every single person in the world brands themselves as being either dependable or not dependable. You can’t brand yourself as being in between. It’s not possible. You can’t brand yourself as someone who is “dependable some of the time.” Being “dependable some of the time” is not truly being dependable.
Julea: And as you’ve mentioned before, personal branding is a matter of words and actions, is that right?
Stacy: That’s right, but it goes beyond that. Personal branding really hinges on the experience that a person has with you. And in the case of dependability, that experience hinges more on what you do than what you say. You can say that you’re going to do this, that, or the other thing all day long, but unless you back up your words with concrete actions, people are going to think that you’re just “blowing smoke.” They’re going to think that you’re all words and no action. Basically, they’re going to think that you’re not dependable. My mother used to say that “talk is cheap”. She also used to say, “watch what people do, not what they say they are going to do”.
Julea: Stacy, what else should we know about dependability?
Stacy: Well, I’d like to go back to Napoleon Hill, who also said this:
“Dependability, like any other character trait, is a habit. Begin today to develop the dependability habit. If you procrastinate or find it difficult to meet your commitments, start small. Promise yourself that you will be on time, for example, and manage your time so that you are. Soon you will find that it’s easier to keep other commitments, as well.”
Julea: So dependability is a habit?
Stacy: Yes, it is. It’s like any other habit. If a person has branded themselves as not being dependable, then they must get into the habit of being dependable. This will take hard work and effort, there’s no doubt about it. However, it’s very important for someone working in the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession to brand themselves as being dependable.
Julea: I agree Stacy. I know you have talked before about how small the Animal Health and Veterinary Industries are I would imagine that word gets around whether someone is dependable or if they are not.
Stacy: That’s right Julea. When you brand yourself as being dependable, you’re more employable. That’s the bottom line. If a hiring manager believes that you’re a dependable person and a dependable worker, then they will want to hire you vs. someone who is not dependable that they can’t count on. That’s because dependability is the first step in the journey toward something even more important.
Julea: What is more important than dependability?
Stacy: That would be trust. There is nothing better than being a person that other people can trust. This is what you would call the “gold standard” of the employment marketplace. Employers want to hire people they can trust, and once they hire those people, they want to keep them as long as they can. However, you can’t be a person that other people trust if you’re not a person who is dependable.
Julea: Or a person that other people see as dependable.
Stacy: Right. And personal branding is most definitely involved at this level, as well. One of the best things that you can do as an Animal Health or Veterinary professional is brand yourself as someone who is trustworthy. When we talk about value, that is one of the highest forms of value there is.
Julea: Stacy, I know that you’ve talked previously about the three main reasons that an employer would hire someone. First, to help the organization make money. Second, to help the organization save money. And third, some other form of value. Does dependability and trust fall into the third category?
Stacy: Yes, but it also relates to the first two categories. If you brand yourself as someone who can dependably make money for your employer or save money for your employer, that’s even better. That’s almost like you’re doubling or tripling the value that you offer.
Julea: It’s like being depended upon to provide a certain type of value. That certain type of value is, of course, valuable, and the fact that you’re dependable is also a type of value.
Stacy: Yes, that’s right! The goal of any professional in the Animal Health industry or Veterinary profession should be to provide as much value in as many different ways as possible. And while they do that, they should also strive to brand themselves as a person who is both dependable and trustworthy. That is how you become more valuable to your current employer, and that is how you become more attractive to potential employers in the marketplace.
Julea: Stacy, thank you for being here and sharing this valuable information with us today. We all need to strive to become more dependable. Before we go today I want to remind our listening audience to check out the Hot Jobs on The VET Recruiter website.
Stacy: Yes, for our listeners who are interested in exploring Animal Health jobs or Veterinary jobs, I invite them to check out our Hot Jobs at www.thevetrecruiter.com. We post new jobs on a regular basis.
Julea: Also if you are an employer working in the Animal Health or Veterinary Industry and you need to hire or fill a critical job opening be sure to reach out to Stacy through our website at www.thevetrecruiter.com Stacy, thank you again for being here today.
Stacy: It’s been my pleasure Julea and I look forward to our next episode of the Animal Health Employment Insider!