Episodes

Weed. Grass. Reefer. Dope. Ganga, Skunk. Mary Jane. Herb. Pot. Whatever you want to call it, It's all cannabis, Marijuana. It comes in many forms and it's a tremendous global legal and illegal market. Here in the US the marjuna reform is spreading like wild pot fire across the country, and this couldn't make me happier. In the US as many states are or have legalized medicinal and recreational marijuana, the market has exploded and with that, created a new industry that needs market support. Since 2009, my guest today, Jared Mirsky and his award-winning cannabis-focused branding and marketing agency, Wick & Mortar have been doing just that. They have been featured in dozens of magazines including Entrepreneur Media, Forbes, Wired, Cheddar, National Geographic, Huffington Post, and CNN Money. 2018 was the most explosive growth year yet, and Wick & Mortar continues to rack up awards and honors such as Top 40 under 40 in Marijuana Venture Magazine and most recently ranked #193 by Entr…

Excited to have my guest Dualta Duherty on the show. First, super grateful as he was one of the first #podcasthost to have me on as a guest about a year ago. He gave me the opportunity to share my journey and pivot into #recruiting. I believe it was his show where for the first time I said publicly that I was let go from Vayner and it was quite liberating. But enough about me. He is also a killer global recruiter, who recruits recruiters and has truly established himself and his brand on #LinkedIN. Dualta is focused on the London Recruitment market right now with an established team that covers the global recruitment market. They place agency Recruiters all over the world with a massive focus on the USA, especially New York and LA. They also work with clients in London, Dublin, Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Auckland, Singapore & Tokyo. You get the picture. I am thrilled to have him on show today to share his story and a whole lot more...

My guest on E31 of #thepozcast is Garrett Mintz is the founder and CEO of Ambition In Motion. Garrett works to connect college students with mentors in their fields of interest so then students can gain greater insight into potential career paths and alumnican have greater engagement with their chapter or alma mater. Garrett is a passionate speaker, entrepreneur, mentor matchmaker, and potential-unlocker who specializes in helping people take massive action to where they would like to be. He works to teach them skills on networking, professional development, and relationship building, and drives them towards achieving their desired outcome. This is what this is all about people, bringing value. I am thrilled to welcome him here to drop some knowledge and share his story.

My guest today, Shay Rowbottom #shayshine is the Queen of LinkedIN content. With over 80K followers and tens of millions of views on her content, she has created one of the most engaging and entertaining brands on the platform. Not only is she a fantastic video creator, but now she is teaching founders and executives the same so they can speak directly to this incredible audience of potential customers and advocates. If you have never heard of Shay and you are active on LinkedIN, SHE is probably doing something wrong! Just kidding. I will be honest, when I first started to notice Shay’s presence, I had mixed feelings and preconceived notions. I was a bit envious of her killer content and engagement. So I did what I do best and decided to take my online offline and I reached out and connected with Shay in June and we had an incredible first conversation. We spoke a lot about who we truly are as humans, what our goals are and we found the common thread of tenacity. I am beyond thrille…

My guests today on #thepozcast are two of the “good recruiters” out there, actually they are some of the great ones because they give back for every placement that their firm makes. Rebecca Oppenheim and Gail Buck are the co-founders of nextOPP Search, a women-owned, B Corp Certified recruiting agency built on a one-for-one model. For every candidate hired, nextOPP donates career coaching services to a survivor of domestic violence working towards financial independence – Hire One Help One©. With over 20 years of combined experience in executive #recruiting they’ve partnered with companies from early stage development to Fortune 500 with a focus on building diverse and inclusive teams. They’re passionate about connecting candidates with meaningful employment and want to empower the next generation of women while doing it. I connected w/ Rebecca recently, talked shop, exchanged war stories and I knew I had to have her and her co founder Gail on to share their journey.

Today I want to switch things up a bit and talk about a very important topic, mental wellness. This is more than a hot topic, its reality and we all need to do a much better job in looking out for ourselves and each other, especially in the workplace. I’ve known my guest today Eric Kussin, an expert in this space, for probably 25 years as we grew up in the same neighborhood in Long Island. We were never really close but always respected and admired each other. In the last few years we connected deeper professionally and the synergy has been fantastic. Eric Kussin is an 18-year professional sports executive, who got his start at the NBA League Office. After five years with the League, he went the team business route and rose the ranks with the expansion Chicago Sky, and later the Phoenix Suns. He then switched over to the NHL, working with the New Jersey Devils, & Florida Panthers. However, a debilitating mental health crisis stopped Eric’s career and life in its tracks for over tw…

Throughout the past 20+ episodes of #thepozcast I have featured the best in class career coaches and branding pros. My guest today, Wendi Weiner is not only one of those, but had a significant ah-ha moment in her career and a major career pivot. Wendi Weiner is an attorney and award-winning writer who has been featured in more than 50 major media outlets (including CNN, HuffPost, Forbes, Fast Company, and Entrepreneur) as a top authority in resume writing, personal branding, and content strategy. As a solopreneur and owner of The Writing Guru, her trademarked namesake company, Wendi creates powerful career and personal brands for attorneys, top-tier executives, and business leaders. She additionally provides high-impact content writing for corporations and major publications, and speaks on the global level about personal branding, resume writing, business professionalism, reputation management, and social networking. Wendi landed on my radar as I have been engaging with top career coa…

On this episode, E26 of #thepozcat, I bring you a master of the art of LinkedIN, tactics, tactics and more tactics. He is a digital marketing Vet who has fully capitalized on LI to grow is own business and teach others with his blueprint course. Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of Ajax Union, a B2B digital marketing agency based in Brooklyn, NY. Joe is a business strategist, marketing expert and certified Google trainer. Joe is the Author of his new book High Energy Secrets, How he lost 95 pounds and has more energy than ever. When he is not Mojovating entrepreneurs at events and on social media he chills in Brooklyn with his Wife and 5 kids, which is his greatest accomplishment. If he is not all over your feed, by design, then you must not be doing something right. Also, he is known to bust out a freestyle rap (stay tuned till the end) I have been connected to Joe for a while and we have some close mutual friends and colleagues. We have had a couple of great chats and I knew I had to have hi…

Over the past 20+ episodes I have introduced a wide range of pros, from coaches, to external recruiters and thought leaders across talent and growth. Today I want to feature a true bad-ass in house recruiter who knew he wanted to be a recruiter out of school and now leads a huge TA division at one of the biggest brands in the world, Nike. My guest on E24 of #thepozcast, Dustin Wishire is a talent acquisition veteran with diverse recruiting experience that spans both agency and in-house corporate settings across a wide variety of industries. He has spent the last 8 years in the athletic footwear and apparel industry. Formerly leading recruiting teams abroad with adidas, he is currently back home in Portland, Oregon leading a team for Nike. He is also a world traveler, proud father, and a massive Portland Trail Blazers fan. Having lived in 4 countries and visited over 30 in his adult life, Dustin is a recognized global collaborator who has been successful in adapting all that he has lea…

As the pozcast continues to build momentum, I continue to work to bring you the best thought leaders in the talent and career growth industry and my guest on E23 of #thepozcast Jill Katz is at the top of the list. As I ventured down my own career journey, Jill’s name, reputation and work came to light through Mike Vacanti (Humans First) and Claude Silver. Jill and I connected a couple of months back on a true human level and I invited here to join us today. Jill Katz is an Influencer, Speaker and Coach that is passionate about shifting the workplace to be more #PeopleFocused. She is the Founder and Chief Change Officer of Assemble HR Consulting, a boutique Human Resources firm that focuses on Organizational Transformation and Employee Experience. Jill brings candid insights, brave questions, humor and empathy to her advisory practice. She is a seasoned executive coach, facilitator, and human capital expert with more than 20 years of success. She is best known for her “3C’s Approach”:…

For me in my own career and personal growth journey, stepping outside of my comfort zone has been an area of development and tremendous growth that has driven my success. It really kicked into high gear when first deciding to go out on my own and launch my own business, but I wanted to take it a step further. My mentor Marcus Glover has been volunteering for years in the penitentiary system and introduced me to Defy Ventures- where they work with incarcerated men and women to mentor and coach them in creating their own business and prepare them for a better life when released. I have been volunteering with them over the past couple of years and it has been tremendous. One of the biggest (of many) take aways is all about “Second Chances”- and putting life in an entirely new perspective. My guest today, Cheri Garcia is the Founder of Cornbread Hustle, a staffing agency for second chances. Cheri is passionate about helping felons and people in recovery find transformation through employm…

The goal of the pozcast is to bring you, the job seekers, my listeners to new, outside the box advice and tactics to take their search to the next level. My next guest, Austin Belcak does just that. Austin is the founder of Cultivated Culture where he teaches people how to land jobs they love without applying online. His strategies have helped people land jobs at places like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, and more without applying online. Austin has also been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Fast Company, Inc., and more. But that’s not his Day job, he is currently Director of Partnership Development at Microsoft. So he most certainly found a way to land a great gig. Recently I was drawn to Austin’s content on LinkedIN and had to connect and learn more about his approach. We had a great chat and I said I need to have you on the pozcast to share and that’s where we are today! Austin brings you a TON of value and actionable advice and tactics how to m…

Over the past 19 episodes I have had HR pros, thought leaders in cultural transformation and seasoned recruiters. But I have not had anyone on who is currently within their career journey specifically, nor have I had someone on who has continued to fight daily. I was immediately drawn to my next guest as I could relate to him directly having fought my own career battles over the past 15 years. Like him, I have been laid off multiple times and have had to dig down deep to harness my tenacity and my dude, Joe Gill is all tenacity. We found ourselves in the same linked in covos, sometimes aligned and other times having good-spirited debate over various topics. Lately Joe has been putting out almost daily content around social media best practices, being authentic and something that hits home super close to me, always adding value or as Joe says “being a valuenecer”, I LOVE IT! After 5 layoffs and surviving thyroid cancer, Joe believes you can overcome anything with resilience, persevera…

I a super pumped to have Bobby Umar on E19 of #thepozcast. He is a Brand marketer, aerospace design engineer, professional comedic actor, teacher — these are some of the diverse roles Bobby has explored to find his true purpose. Now he leads Raeallan to help GenY / GenX leaders find their passions. Bobby is a serial entrepreneur and motivational speaker on Leadership, Connection, Personal Branding and Career Development. He is a prolific 5 time TEDx speaker, and is a leading social media influencer. Bobby is dedicated to causes embracing youth and diversity. He is a proud father and he just loves playing ultimate frisbee and Settlers of Catan, predicting the Oscars, and remembering the lyrics to every 80′s TV show theme song. Bobby has never lost a thumb war, ever. I am going to challenge him when I finally meet him in person. Bobby has authored 3 books and recently named a "Top 7 Networking Guru to Follow". Inc Magazine named him one of the Top 100 Leadership Speakers Bobby is a soc…

I speak about this a lot, I love connecting with fellow recruiters everywhere across the US and abroad. It’s always great to share war stories, talk shop and learn a thing or two from pros. My guest today is a rock star in the world of Tech Recruitment, based in the Bay Area, Brianna Rooney. Brianna Rooney (AKA the Millionaire Recruiter) is the founder of Techees, a highly successful SF-based tech recruitment firm. She also owns a top 100 restaurant mouthful eatery, has an amazing Chef of a husband and two little kids. Diego Danger (yes that’s his real middle name) 5 years old, and a sweet little 2-year-old girl, Lima Ariel. Techees is a firm that places highly sought-after software professionals with high profile,. companies in the Bay Area. Brianna takes the match making approach to recruitment. Hiring is all too similar to dating. If you want to do it right, you have to take the thoughtful road without all the fluff. The saying, “fire fast and hire slow” does not work in the …

Tribe, I a special one for you today. A true heavy-weight tag team match up battle royal. I bring you two of the top trending podcasters out there right now, curators of all that is awesome, Jordan Paris and Mark Metry. Both have been a tremendous inspiration for me to launch and craft The POZ Cast as well as being genuine humble, helpful and authentic humans, for which I am grateful. First up, Jordan Paris is a 21-year-old author, web-developer, podcast host, and former college athlete. He has been featured in Men’s Health, Yahoo Finance, and Nasdaq as a beacon of light for inspiring people from all walks of life. Jordan's podcast, Growth Mindset University, was ranked #3 in the iTunes Training category and is consistently in the top ten. On the show, he interviews young up-and-comers and the most successful people on planet earth like Kevin Rudolf, David Meltzer, Mark Manson, Rachel Starr, and Adam Posner. Jordan is also the founder of The WordPress Rocketeer, where he focuses on d…

I love connecting with fellow recruiters everywhere across the US and abroad. It’s always great to share war stories and learn tips and techniques that work for them that I may be able to incorporate into my practice. In my journey connecting and networking across LinkedIN, I came across Hishem Azzouz, a UK based recruitment pro who has a very unique and strong POV on recruitment. As well, he is the host of the Recruitment Rollercoaster Podcast which focuses on the nuts and bolts of running and building a recruitment practice- its equally entertaining and value add. Hishem Azzouz has been in the recruitment game for a few years. During this time he learned how to utilize personal branding techniques to help him build a successful Recruitment desk. Now he works for an inbound marketing agency that specialises in partnering with ambitions Recruitment agencies. We connected a few weeks back and I asked him to come join us here to talk shop on a bit of everything including how UK recrui…

Continuing the trend, for those of you that have been following along my career journey you may have noticed that I have some guests on that have been integral to my career journey and my next one, Jamal “Jay” Salim is certainly one of them. Jamal was the head of HR when I joined Boombox aka Ergo Interactive. It was a shortstop in my career before I moved over to Vayner but it was critical as I learned a ton in those few short months about myself, tough clients and finding success inside a small agency. More importantly, I made a lasting friend and powerful business connection with my man Jay. Jamal is the VP of HR at Complex, where he is leading the culture of the company synonymous with culture. Prior to Complex, Jay led the HR department at Laundry Service, an Ad Age Top 10 Agency two years in a row, and Cycle Media. Like me, he is Brooklyn Born, him in East Flatbush and me in Sheepshead Bay, which we both take a lot of pride in. Jay is also a Veteran of the US Army, having serve…

For those of you that have been following along my career journey you may have noticed that I have some guests on that have been integral to my career journey and my next one, Jeff Stewart played a pivotal role. Back in 2012 he recruited me for my role at Erwin Penland, my most favorite job that I ever had. I remember a couple of very distinct things from working with him. First, this dude was a smooth operator- smooth as silk. Not salesy, just got it done, all business. Which makes sense as he was a former pro poker player. Jeff had his own pivot about 2 years ago and now today is a talent strategy consultant at LinkedIn who spends his time helping talent leaders from all industries better understand the behavior of their target audiences and competitors in order to craft winning strategies to attract and engage the very best talent and build winning teams. As I mentioned, prior to joining LinkedIn, he was an agency recruiter who specialized in helping his clients hire top-performin…

Knowing your stuff is imperative to success in any industry. And knowing where to find the most up to date and relevant info is gold. However, being able to take that info, synthesize it and put it into practice is what will separate you from the competition. It’s one thing to be aware, but another thing to be ahead of the curve and that’s what Hung has enabled us with Recruiting Brainfood. He has also created an amazing community of like minded, forward thinking recruitment pros that care about our clients, our candidates and our business who want to do things right on all sides of the recruitment equation. I have taken a page from Hung’s masterful curation when creating The POZCAST. My goal is to bring experts from all sides of the industry here to give you actionable tangible advice. This info isnt just for us recruitment pros, but for candidates as well to understand the system and the field that you are playing on so you can use it to your advantage. Whether it be knowing how an…

Katie Loeb is the Director of Brand and Strategy at Loeb.nyc, a venture “collective” that combines smart capital with deep operational resources to a network of startups. Under Katie’s vision, Loeb.nyc has established itself as one of the most unique and nimble venture firms in the space, identifying nascent startups and developing and funding them until fully fledged. In early 2019, Katie led a full rebrand capturing LOEBS futurist and flexible approach. She is also super Passionate about sustainable culture and community within an evolving organization. Katie is also responsible for the company’s proprietary event series, The // or Not Experience, a conference and salon series that is geared towards brand marketers that focuses on the latest trends and tactics in the investment space. The flagship event draws a crowd of over 200 takes place every spring in Southampton, NY. Katie is a leader and expert in the startup/VC space and I am really excited to have her on #thepozcast

Knowing when to ask for help is hard, especially during the job-search. There are pros out there like Kyle Elliott who can give you the competitive advantage to land the job of your dreams. These *real pros can give you the tools and structure you need to be disciplined, focused and a sounding board for advice and direction. O this episode, Kyle drops some actionable tools and tips to help you harness your inner tenacity and crush your search. But more importantly, helps put you in the mindset to put you in a position to succeed. Remember, the job search is the hardest job that you will ever have. But you are not in it alone, there are tons of resources at your fingertips, you just need to reach out and make it happen. I am confident that you will find true #valueadd in this episode. Please subscribe, comment and share! GET INVOLVED >>> ｿ

One of the core goals of the POZCAST is to give those currently within their jobsearch or those thinking about their next move tactical, actionable advice and best practices to give you the advantage. With me today is a leading expert in this space, Kerri Twigg. Kerri has been helping people to figure out what makes them awesome and how to embrace that awesomeness for over 20 years. First as a creative drama teacher and now as a career coach. She doesn’t tell everyone this, but she’s allergic to formulas that make you look like everyone else. You’re more interesting than that. She knows what it takes to land your ideal job, transition into a new sector, and establish your career brand. Hailing from our northern friend, Winnipeg Manitoba Canada, Kerri helps people use their stories to land ideal jobs. And, if you don't know what kind of work you are looking for, she can help with that too. She is more than a career coach, she is a career-artisan, helping job seekers craft their Storie…

On E10 of #thepozcast, I bring you the leader of the #SOSSummit for the job seeker in Dire Straits, Evangelina Leclair. She is a coach, trainer, and facilitator with 18+ years of people operations experience helping individuals and companies build dream careers. She fosters professional development into company culture and address employee growing pains so that managers and executives can focus on growing the business. She is a Dreamer. A Doer. A Trailblazer. She gets is. She has gone from campus to a career at a Fortune 100 company, to a start-up that she helped grow to be a global organization. I've leaned in, transitioned, pivoted and side hustled. Join us as we go deep into actionable, tangible advice for the job seekers out there. Thanks for listening and please subscribe, comment and leave a review if you enjoyed! Thanks!