Courtney Hagen: [00:00:00] College students hear a lot about the advice to follow your passion. I think it's really hard sometimes at 21, or 31, or 41 to really know exactly what your passion is and how you're going to translate that into a career.

Andy Molinsky: [00:00:21] Welcome to From the Dorm Room to the Board Room, a podcast where we provide insights, tips and inspiration for college students and young professionals, so they can make a really successful transition from college life to the professional world and beyond. My name is Andy Molinsky, and I'm your host. I'm also a Professor of Organizational Behavior and International Management at Brandeis University's International Business School, where we record and produce this podcast.

Andy Molinsky: [00:00:58] So, today's guest is Courtney Hagen, who's the Chief Talent Officer for Littlejohn, a private equity firm that invests in mid-market companies. So, in this role, Courtney works with the companies in the firm's portfolio to acquire, coach and develop high-performing talent. Previously, Courtney worked as a Senior Vice President of Human Resources for LVMH. And she worked across LVMH's portfolio of 70 plus luxury brands to create and execute strategic HR programs to support the talent needs in North America.

Andy Molinsky: [00:01:40] Courtney's also worked at PepsiCo. She's done work earlier in her career  in executive search and management consulting with a variety of different companies. Courtney's lived and worked in the US, Europe and South Africa. She did her undergraduate work at Wellesley College, which is probably about five miles from where I'm speaking right now or so in the Boston area and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Courtney, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Courtney Hagen: [00:02:11] It's my pleasure to be here.

Andy Molinsky: [00:02:12] So, tell us about what you do now. I'm sure a lot of people are wondering. It sounds really cool, chief talent officer, but what exactly is that? Tell us about your job.

Courtney Hagen: [00:02:24] Great. Well, I'll start by telling you a little bit about the firm, and then private equity, in general. So, as some of the folks who are listening may be aware, private equity is a growing industry. A lot of companies have investments from private equity firms who are using and getting investor money to find ways to help those investors and make higher returns on their investments through purchasing companies, and then working with those companies to increase their value. So, you later go on to either seller companies to strategic buyers, or to other larger private equity firms, or sometimes to help those companies go public.

Courtney Hagen: [00:03:07] So, my firm has been in business for 22 years, and they hired me about a year and a half ago as their first Chief Talent Officer, fully focused on the idea that the people who lead the companies that we invest in are the best drivers of value and value creation for those companies. So, I work with my investment partners on the companies that we own or are thinking about buying to ensure that we have the right leadership teams in place. Sometimes, we're going out and finding new leaders when we need to, if the company is going in a different direction or need this new skill set.

Courtney Hagen: [00:03:48] We're also working to assess and evaluate the way the team, the leadership teams are working together. And then, working with them to identify what kinds of development programs, strategies might they need to work to better as a team. And also, working with the CEOs and leadership teams to understand what their plans for growth are, and do they have the right kinds of people with the right kind of experience, and skills, and abilities to achieve those strategies, to ensure that the investment pieces that we have made in our purchase of the company is going to be realized.

Andy Molinsky: [00:04:26] So, does each of these companies that your company invests in have their own chief talent officers or do you sort of oversee this process everywhere?

Courtney Hagen: [00:04:36] It varies. There are definitely some of the companies—our companies range in size from a couple hundred million dollars in revenue to a billion dollars in revenue. And in our case, we tend to invest in companies that are in the industrial, manufacturing, or business services segment. So, there is certainly some of our companies that are very experienced as an HR, who are very much an integrated part of the management leadership team.

Courtney Hagen: [00:05:03] Other times, they may be more of a founder-led or founder-owned company that maybe hasn't had as much experience with having a strategic HR partner in the human resources role. And so, I will work with the CEO and with the leadership team to help to develop some new programs, in some cases. Other times, I'm really just partnering with an existing head of HR to help them identify how can they be even better? We're looking across the portfolio, and across these teams, and best practices that exist that you can share. And sometimes, I'm making advice or giving advice on how they can perform better based on the experience of others in our portfolio or experience that I bring to the table.

Andy Molinsky: [00:05:48] Got it, okay. So, that's really interesting. That's a really cool job. And when you were a senior at Wellesley College, was this the job that you had in mind? What did you major in? What were you thinking? Let's, sort of, rewind and bring us back.

Courtney Hagen: [00:06:06] So, I could never have predicted that this was what I was going to be doing. So, I went to Wellesley, and just down the road, and certainly know about this campus as well, and I love that part of the world. I majored in English and Political Science at Wellesley. And so, a double major. What I will say that might be a little bit of an early indication that I've always had a pretty broad range of interest, I have always played an instrument, and I sang in the chorus, and I worked on the newspaper. And I've always had a lot of extracurricular and academic interests. So, that kind of variety of things might have been a little bit predictive of the fact that I wanted to work with a lot of different kinds of companies. I've always enjoyed having multiple things to focus on.

Courtney Hagen: [00:06:51] But in college, I thought I was going to go to law school. And so, I studied English and Political Science. I ended up doing my junior abroad at the London School of Economics. And it was during that time that my eyes were opened a bit to the idea that there could be other kinds of jobs out there in business that might be interesting for me to get experience in. So, I had grown. I'm from the Midwest. My father was a lawyer for the US government. My mother taught drama. I had a very, sort of, public sector upbringing and didn't really know much about the private sector. And so, at the London School of Economics, although I was studying politics, it had an extremely-economics focused flavor to the subject matter. And I thought this might be interesting for me to learn about how business works by going inside a business.

Courtney Hagen: [00:07:49] I also happen to, while I was studying at the London School of Economics, meet the man that I eventually married. And so, one of my other big motivators was to find a job that would let me come back to London after I graduated from Wellesley. So, when I went back on campus my senior year and started going through recruiting, I pretty much interviewed for any company that had a London office. So, I didn't—there wasn't really much more of a plan than that, but I did find—I knew I probably wasn't going to get a job in investment banking, but I started talking to management consulting firms, and going to those presentations, and realizing that that would be a really great way to learn more about business by being in projects with companies in a variety of different industries, working on a bunch of different kinds of problems. And that's how I chose to join Renaissance Worldwide, which was based in Lincoln, Massachusetts, but had an office in London to which I transferred after about a year and a half with a firm.

Andy Molinsky: [00:08:51] So, you took that first job hoping that they would transfer you to London, but not with any certainty, right?

Courtney Hagen: [00:08:58] No certainty, yeah. It was a complete flyer. So, I did take a chance. Before my job started, I was able to go and live in London and work as a temp, basically, for about four or five months before my real job started. So, that helps. But when I joined Renaissance, it was very much with the hope and the chance that I might get to moved to London one day. And after a couple of different client projects, that wish came true.

Andy Molinsky: [00:09:26] It's interesting how real life, personal life intersects with professional life. On this podcast, we're often talking for good reason about work and strategies for success and careers. But personal things matter. And In fact, sometimes, I wonder if having a focus, even if it's a personal focus, like I got to be in London or I got to get to London, actually helps narrow the field because, how else do you make choices at that point?

Courtney Hagen: [00:09:56] It made a huge difference for me. I've got to say that it was also one of the reasons that I thought I might want to think twice about law school. My now husband was going into a banking job, into sales and trading job. And although we were only 20-21 at that time, we were pretty serious about each other. And I knew that if we wanted to stay together, his job was most likely will take him to London, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. And it was going to be hard for me to craft a law school and then legal career that would so easily go to those places. And so, I thought, well, maybe if I open my mind up a little bit and think about other kinds of things I can do, I might be able to find something that's a bit more flexible. And the management consulting provided that to me.

Andy Molinsky: [00:10:49] This is really interesting. Tell us just, for a moment, how you ended up at Wellesley College from the Midwest. What attracted you to Wellesley College in particular?

Courtney Hagen: [00:11:00] Well, I was born in Washington, DC, and I moved to the Midwest when I was four. And both my parents are from Des Moines, but my parents have always been pretty cosmopolitan international, exposing me and my brother to other cultures and to travel from a young age. And I remember talking to my mom about the college application process when I was in high school, and she said, "You really need to be thinking about going to the East Coast or the West Coast. Don't go to some place where you have to come back to Des Moines for culture. You want to go some place that has museums, and amazing libraries, and performances, and things where you can really learn from outside college, as well as inside." And so, that's what prompted my search to the East Coast.

Courtney Hagen: [00:11:55] And as I look at some big schools and some small schools, I really like the feeling of smaller schools. I went to Wellesley, though, in some ways, despite the fact that it was a women's college, I didn't think that was necessarily what I—that I definitely wanted a women's college. I thought I would probably end up at one of the other small leading schools in the northeast. And although I did get accepted to a couple of my top choices, I was just so struck by the people that I met at Wellesley, and the strength of the women, the intelligence, the confidence, and I knew that that was the sort of person I wanted to grow up to be. And so, ultimately, that was what drove my decision. And of course, the beautiful campus as well.

Andy Molinsky: [00:12:42] Exactly. So, let's then move on from your first job to where you are now. Yeah, tell us about your career journey, basically, from that first job to kind of where you are now.

Courtney Hagen: [00:12:58] Okay. So, when I joined Renaissance, I worked for them for about a year and a half in the US, moved over to London, and had a really amazing time in my international role as a consultant. I got to work with European clients. I lived in South Africa for about six months working for a bank as a consulting client there, and had a really fulfilling experience having that international work so early in my career. My so then boyfriend and I were living in London. I was working in South Africa. He was working in Singapore. Our mail was going to our apartment in London. And he had the opportunity to move full time to Singapore. And I got my firm to agree to move me there as well. But the day that I went to negotiate my expat package was the day my firm announced it was splitting into five pieces.

Courtney Hagen: [00:13:55] And I came home and said, "I don't think I can go to Singapore. I don't know the people there. And I'm not sure how the role is going to work." And he came back two weeks later and said, "How about New York?" And I said, "Yeah, I could probably find a way to move to New York." So, I moved with one of the pieces of our firm that was based in the US, and had an East Coast operations, and joined Bridge Strategy Group that continue to do management consulting strategy and growth work for a variety of clients in the consumer, industrial, and telecom industries.

Courtney Hagen: [00:14:27] And it was during that time that I realized that if I wanted to advance my career, that going to business school would be a really good idea. I had studied English and Political Science. I didn't really have any sort of exposure to accounting or to finance, and knew that I wanted to get some of that foundational experience in order to move forward in my career. So, I chose to go to Columbia Business School. We were living in New York at that time. I entered Columbia's January program, which goes straight through in about 18 months. And so, I did not do a summer internship and studied through the summer instead.

Courtney Hagen: [00:15:07] And when I came out of Columbia, I was interviewing for, primarily, marketing-oriented jobs and a little bit more in the consumer industry, which was always my strong interest. So, I always loved consumer companies and ended up choosing to go to American Express in a role that really leveraged my experience as a consultant. I was in these Strategic Alliances and Programs Group at American Express, which was responsible for developing partnerships with companies like JetBlue, and like Costco, and Neiman Marcus, who had American Express cards. So, we were working with those companies to develop the product, and to win the business, and to grow the product between American Express and those partner companies.

Courtney Hagen: [00:16:00] So, I was there for a couple of years and really enjoyed the environment and the work at American Express. I was called by one of my old management consulting partners to help him found a company called Beldon Partners, which was focused on helping professional services organizations do a better job of developing people. And so, the theory here was that in the last couple of decades in management consulting, the apprentice model that had been built on for so long had really started to get squeezed harder and harder for companies to invest the time in their young entry level consultants that they need to come up the ramp, particularly if they're not one of the big four or five consulting firms.

Courtney Hagen: [00:16:51] So, we went in to work with smaller consulting organizations, both at firms and inside the internal strategy groups within big companies to help with critical thinking and problem solving skills, to help consultants to develop faster from being the individual contributors who are doing spreadsheets and writing decks to being project leaders, to being client leaders.

Courtney Hagen: [00:17:15] In the course of that work, I was pitching a search firm. I was pitching a couple of different search firms with potential clients, and I didn't really know anything about executive search at the time, but as I was starting to talk to the search firms, I had a light bulb moment and realized, "Wait a minute. I think I would love to search." And so, I'm one of the—usually, a lot of search people, they kind of fall into it. I'm one of the rare people who really intentionally thought about when I started meeting with search firms and potential clients. And realizing what they did, I realized that it drew on my skills as a management consultant, the work that I had done in consulting that I loved the most really got into how you get an organization to deliver on the strategy that you create. They need advice, how do you make sure that that strategy is communicated to and executed by the organization?

Courtney Hagen: [00:18:09] So, I always loved the people part of the strategy work the most. And I also love client service. I love working with a variety of different companies to solve a bunch of different kinds of business problems. And I realized that solving business problems with people was always a thing that I had loved to do most in my career. And so, I spoke to a number of different firms and really felt that the culture fit was extremely strong with most of the associates. So, I joined the New York office of Russell Reynolds to work on searches in the consumer sector, as well as to work on corporate officers, heads of marketing, and heads of HR.

Andy Molinsky: [00:18:49] Wow. And I know we're not even done yet. So, it sounds like you've got quite a—I want to pause for a second. It's a really interesting journey and how you make sense of it too. Just one quick question about getting an MBA. And I know a lot of students who are interested in business think about MBAs. You've done one. You actually came from a social science and even a liberal arts background. Just what's your take on the value of the MBA? What you got out of it? I think people might be interested in hearing that.

Courtney Hagen: [00:19:23] So, I got an MBA for a couple of reasons. One was that I felt that there was true academic grounding that I would benefit from. And that was true. I really didn't know a lot about how companies are financed, how the banking system works, how the whole financial services system works, how those things kind of fit together in terms of truly how American international enterprise works in a comprehensive, systemic way. And so, I wanted to learn that big picture, as well as some of the detail behind those decisions.

Courtney Hagen: [00:20:00] That's one of the reasons I actually chose to go to Columbia versus the more case-based school, because I felt that the case method, I had done quite a bit of that as my six years as a management consultant. I actually wanted to go take a corporate accounting class, take a corporate finance class, understand what do they mean by a turnaround, what do you mean by venture capital, what are all these different ways that companies are founded, and funded, and grown. So, for me, having solid classroom experience as a liberal arts and social sciences major was really important. 

Andy Molinsky: [00:20:35] Got it.

Courtney Hagen: [00:20:36] The other thing that I got from that experience was the benefit of my fellow students' experience. Learning about what they had done, the kinds of jobs they had taken, what their roles were, what their company did, what they did inside those companies. As it turns out, especially now in my recruiting and talent-focused job is invaluable. I have such a better understanding of what a head of supply chain does because I actually went to school with some people who worked in the supply chain that I might haven't if I have just done this in a purely academic or even business settings.

Courtney Hagen: [00:21:12] d the other thing that was really valuable for me—two more things. One thing was the network itself. I certainly draw upon and enjoy my fellow alumni, the people that I went to Columbia with. We have a pretty tight group. There were 180 of us who graduated in the January class. And we actually just had a mini reunion last Friday and saw about 30 of my classmates together in New York City. So, that was—and having access to and continued interaction with that network has been fantastic.

Courtney Hagen: [00:21:45] And then, the other thing that's been really important for me and my professional life has been, really, the pedigree that it helped to get. There's a certain validity to the degree, I think, that-- a respect that it gained when I'm sitting around the table with my investment partners, who also all have undergraduate and graduate degrees from top schools. When I'm sitting and talking to the leadership teams at the companies that we're investing in, the MBA gives me credibility that, I think, particularly in the human resources field, not everyone gets to benefit from.

Andy Molinsky: [00:22:28] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's really interesting. And I know that from the search firm, you moved to—LVMH—

Courtney Hagen: [00:22:41] Actually, to PepsiCo. No. So, my first year, when I was—

Andy Molinsky: [00:22:43] Oh, it's PepsiCo. Oh, my gosh.

Courtney Hagen: [00:22:45] Yeah, yeah. No, which was a very significant part of my career as well. So, I've had a lot of—I'm younger than than I found or something. I've had a lot of experience that has been really informative. And one of the key roles really was Pepsi. So, I joke that that was really—that was really my first time being part of an HR organization. So, going into Russell Reynolds as an executive search consultant, that was a real light bulb moment where I realized, "Oh, I think this is going to be a career that can really draw my strength, and it's something that can be very successful and be really enjoyable." And I was actually then recruited for PepsiCo. And I got the phone call from a recruiter saying they were looking for someone to come in and help to build out the external executive talent acquisition function for Pepsi.

Courtney Hagen: [00:23:42] Pepsi, historically, does a fantastic job of growing people up from within. So, they are very well known for their ability to hire right from campus and develop people throughout their careers. They are fantastic at training, development, moving people around the organization. But back in 2010, when I joined Pepsi, Indra Nooyi, who is the CEO at the time, had a very clear, somewhat controversial strategy, which was to grow PepsiCo's other product lines, particularly focused on nutrition, and going kind of beyond just the snacks and beverages that everyone knows very well - the Fritos, and Doritos, and Pepsi, and Mountain Dew - to looking at healthy options and really addressing the way that people need to live in the future.

Courtney Hagen: [00:24:36] So, the acquisition of Quaker Oats, the exhibition of Tropicana, Gatorade. Some of the more functional and healthier foods that are part of the PepsiCo portfolio, including joint ventures like Tropicana and other food and beverage products that were critical - I think have been critical over this last 10 years to Pepsi's continued growth and success as people and trends have been changing. That required going to different kinds—bringing in different kinds of talent, different kinds of executives, than Pepsi has, historically, brought on.

Courtney Hagen: [00:25:10] So, when I joined PepsiCo, a lot of the focus was on bringing in talent from other kinds of businesses that you might not have experiences before. So, right before I joined, we brought in a head of R&D who came from the Mayo Clinic. When I joined, we brought in a head of the beverages globally who came out of that division. I helped to bring in the first chief design officer for Pepsi that we hired from 3M. So, we were bringing in people with a really interesting variety of backgrounds, including a lot of people strategy and consulting backgrounds as well, to help shape the future of the company.

Courtney Hagen: [00:25:50] And so, for me, that was really fulfilling, meaningful work. And it was also a great way to be a part of a big organization and learn about, really, top-quality HR. Pepsi does an amazing job with the way that they do succession planning, the way that they do talent analytics, the way that they plan for the future with their talent. So, I learned a lot of outstanding first-time practices from my time at PepsiCo.

Andy Molinsky: [00:26:20] Yeah, it sounds like that was a really—that was—actually, to be honest, it sounds like you got the credential at Columbia, but you picked up a lot at all of these different stops.

Courtney Hagen: [00:26:33] Absolutely, absolutely. I think, yeah, the credential at Columbia was foundational. It was really understanding kind of how business works and how enterprises make decisions. At Pepsi, I saw a lot about how does a successful company operate, what are the different levers. With a particular focus on talent but beyond talent, what are the levers that are critically important? What are the bumps in the road to avoid? How does a company continue to grow? How does a company change its strategy or add to a strategy, and respond to changes in the marketplace, and respond to changing consumer demand? So, it was a really fantastic period of my career, and I'm very grateful for everything I learned at PepsiCo.

Andy Molinsky: [00:27:23] I can't help but think as you're telling your story about the students, undergraduate students, MBA students who come into my office and are very worried about their first job. And you tell them that your first job is not going to be your last job. And as I'm hearing your story, you're a living proof of this, right? That you're—

Courtney Hagen: [00:27:45] My first career wasn't my last career. My first job wasn't my last job. And it's funny because, also, I read people's resumes and interview them for a living, right. So, that's a lot of what I spend my time doing. And for me, the number of different paths that you can take to be successful, I think that was also something that Pepsi helped to teach me as well, right. Seeing how we were able to grow people internally, but then how we were also able to hire people from the outside and give them the kind of experience in the PepsiCo system to groom them, to help aide a business unit, or to be a CFO, or to be a significant contributor in R&D. It's a number of different paths and ways. It's not just one path.

Andy Molinsky: [00:28:31] Yeah, yeah. No, I see that. I see that. And so, we're almost—I guess we're at mile 20 of our marathon.

Courtney Hagen: [00:28:42] From our marathon. From our marathon?

Andy Molinsky: [00:28:43] Yeah. No, it's super interesting.

Courtney Hagen: [00:28:48] So, I was recruited out of PepsiCo. So, as you can tell, I had a very fulfilling time there and love the work that I did, but I also knew that I was getting pretty narrowly defined as a talent acquisition specialist. And I really wanted the opportunity to spread my wings and be a bit broader in the talent space and HR. And while there—PepsiCo does it extremely well. At my level, it was going to be difficult for me to expand into broader HR without a physical geographic relocation. And I was very much tied to New York.

Courtney Hagen: [00:29:30] So, when a former colleague of mine, who was at LVMH, called with the opportunity to come there, and it was really interesting for me because it had a lot of the recruiting elements that I was strong in and, obviously, the background that I had from Pepsi and from Russell Reynolds, but it also allowed me to get much more involved in a broader set of HR issues, including things like employment branding for LVMH, the company in North America.

Courtney Hagen: [00:30:02] So, for your students who don't know LVMH, it's  Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy. It is one of a massive company based—headquartered in France with 70 brands in their portfolio, including a lot of the fashion brands that people know and love, like Celine, and Fendi, Givenchy. It includes beauty brands. Dior, which is also one of the fashion brands, Benefit Cosmetics, Make Up Forever. And then, it also owns Sephora, which is one of the reasons that it's such a powerhouse in the United States. Sephora is a huge part in LVMH businesses in the US. They also owns lots of jewelry brands like Bvlgari and TAG Heuer, and pretty much any champagne brand you can name - Don Pérignon, Krug and Veuve Clicquot. Among them, the most famous is Hennessy, of course.

Courtney Hagen: [00:30:55] So, having that variety of business models to work on, not only businesses and brands, but working with pure retailers, working with companies that are completely vertically integrated like Louis Vuitton, working with companies that are only sold to distributors, working with companies that are manufacturing their own products in the US, companies that are distributing products that are manufactured only in Europe, it was a fascinating variety of companies, and brands, and business problems to work on. And my role was focus on the US talent at the corporate level.

Andy Molinsky: [00:31:34] So, how do we grow and develop people in different brands, and in different parts of the business, and help to develop their careers by moving them to different groups and roles within the company, as well as finding talent from the outside to bring in the kinds of skill sets and experiences that we need within the US.

Andy Molinsky: [00:31:55] And you were there for how long? And then—

Courtney Hagen: [00:31:57] Just about three years.

Andy Molinsky: [00:31:59] Three years. And then—

Courtney Hagen: [00:32:00] I was—

Andy Molinsky: [00:32:01] Yeah.

Courtney Hagen: [00:32:03] Yeah. And then, I made the transition to Littlejohn, which is not quite as a big leap, perhaps, as it sounds, but in some ways, that role at LVMH had a lot of elements of a private equity firm. So, I was reporting to the parent company, to the holding company based in France. And a lot of what we were doing was managing our portfolio of talent. And so, when the opportunity came within Littlejohn to come in to a private equity firm where I can really have a much more direct impact on the companies that we own, as opposed to more of a managed-by-influence impact, which was the way that the LVMH goal is structured, that was what was really most interesting to me. So, the level of interaction that I have every single day with the CEOs and the Board of Directors of the companies that are in Littlejohn's portfolio are really—yeah, those are the reasons why I came here.

Andy Molinsky: [00:33:02] So, you have such tremendous experience in your own career, but you're also sort of at the nexus of a lot of other people's careers. You must say—I think you've got a really good sort of perch to make some comments on maybe misconceptions you think college students have entering the workforce. So, if you could rewind and think back to college and even just sort of what you see out there now, what misconceptions do you think college students have?

Courtney Hagen: [00:33:31] I think one of the misconceptions that college students have is something that we discussed earlier, that your first job is going to make or break you. It can be an amazing experience. It can be something that sets you on a course for the rest of your career, but it can also be a place that you go in with an attitude that's, "Okay, I'm going to come, I'm going to learn something, I'm going to make connections, and I may decide that it's not exactly the right fit for me." It's very difficult to determine that when you're coming out of school, and you haven't really worked in a place before and if you don't really have a sense yet for, "Am I going to be happier and more successful in a small company or in big company? What kind of culture is going to be the one where I am the most successful and where I can really flourish?"

Courtney Hagen: [00:34:18] I think that college students hear a lot about the advice to follow your passion. I think it's really hard sometimes at 21, or 31, or 41, to really know exactly what you're passion is and how you're going to translate that into a career. For me, as I talk about my light bulb moment, when I started pitching to search firms as potential clients for my consulting business, that was when I first thought, "Oh, wait a minute, I think there's something here." And I was well to my '30s at that point. I am grateful that I was open minded enough to make a career change at that point and say I am ready to come in. A lot of people end their search in their 20s and build up their careers that way. I entered later and has had a lot of success, partly because I was very clear about what I was targeting, and what I wanted to learn from the experience, and why I thought I would like it. But I was doing that based on prior professional experience. I don't think that I would have had the same success if I had gone into search in my 20s.

Andy Molinsky: [00:35:27] So, your career, it seems like it's some twists, and turns, and sort of smart thinking about when to leave, what to leap towards. Are there certain questions you think that people should ask themselves at various, sort of, pivot points during their career?

Courtney Hagen: [00:35:46] I think that one of the most important questions that people need to ask themselves and that people don't spend enough time on is what you're going to do. So, I think there's a lot of attention paid somewhere, right? What company should I go to? Where am I going to be the happiest? What's the brand that I like? Who's on the most admired companies? Who's on the best places to work with and all that. I think those are great questions to ask and great topic to research and to understand, but you can go to a company that you think hits all of your criteria. If the job that you're doing in that company, day in and day out, doesn't involve the things, the activities that you like to be most, or even worse, if it involves things that you really don't like to do, then you're not going to be happy there. It's not going be the right fit for you.

Courtney Hagen: [00:36:35] So, I think that it's really important for people—and college students can do this. You can do this at any point in your career, but really to ask yourself, what is it that you love to do? Do you like to write? Do you like to read? Do you like to do research? Do you like to talk to people? Do you like to be in meetings? Do you like to work alone? Do you like to work with people? What is it that you like to do? And then, really thinking about the job that you're interested in and the jobs that you're looking for, the role, not just the company, but the role with those companies. What are the roles that are going to let you do the things everyday, when you get there in the morning, keeping you engaged after lunch and all the way through to the end of the day, and sometimes on evenings and weekends? What are the activities you're going to do that are going to get you energized and excited?

Andy Molinsky: [00:37:22] And as someone coming out of a couple of jobs, or out of business school, or how about for someone who is just leaving college, maybe start an internship or two, but doesn't actually know what those roles—I think it's a great question, but doesn't know what those roles entail. How would you find out, like, what a job—what you actually do want a job?

Courtney Hagen: [00:37:41] Well, that's where I think that collegiate research skills come in really handy, right? That's where you can go, and you can read the Glassdoor reviews, read about people's interviews, and what were they asked in the interviews. That can give you some insight into what are the kinds of jobs they're going to do. That's really also where I think you can use your school's network. And I definitely advise talking to people who are very recent graduates, people who are doing those roles.

Courtney Hagen: [00:38:10] Don't necessarily call the person who is the CEO of the company. Don't necessarily call the person who's the chief financial officer. But if you want to know what does a financial planning and analysis manager do, ask the financial planning and analysis manager. And if it's somebody who you have some kind of connection to, whether it's from your school, or from your hometown, or a friend of a friend, I mean, that's really where the 15-minute phone call, "Steve, can I ask just ask you a little bit about your job?" If they have a connection to you, and they are recent grads, they're probably likely to be much more open and inclined to do that if you're going to ask them to tell you about their job.

Courtney Hagen: [00:38:48] I think those of us who are on LinkedIn all the time, and get to speak to conference, and meet people find it tough to do the networking. There's a lot of time when people call us up to network. It's really with the intention of, can you get me a job? And a lot of the times, the answer is "No, I really can't," but if you're calling me to ask me what does a recruiter do, I'm much more likely to take that call and tell you about it and help me learn. If that's maybe your intention, if you just want to know what do you do all day.

Andy Molinsky: [00:39:22] Yeah, that's interesting. I think a lot of college students would love to know the answers to those questions. Well, one last question for you. And this has been so interesting to hear about your career and your advice. Was there anything from college, actually—you studied, you went to a liberal arts college, a small college, I think you—did you say you majored in Political Science and English, was that right?

Courtney Hagen: [00:39:44] Yes.

Andy Molinsky: [00:39:44] What, if anything, from those days actually sticks with you, whether it's a way of thinking, specific skills, anything?

Courtney Hagen: [00:39:53] Probably, the most important skill that I think great liberal arts education gives you is the ability to think critically and the ability to question a hypotheses, to then figure out how you're going to create a hypothesis, and then prove it or disprove it. How are you going to question somebody else's theory? So, what are the critical things that you need to get to know, and to do, and to go find out, to prove whether something is right or wrong? And that is a skill that it's very difficult to teach once somebody is in the role. And that was actually one of the things that my consulting firm that was focused on professional development was really trying to help people do is get some of those critical thinking skills that they may not have learned as much in their formal education. But to me, the more opportunities that you have in college to develop and practice critical thinking, the more valuable that will be to your future career.

Andy Molinsky: [00:40:51] And those translate into what? Like, what's—can you just give a quick example? And I know I'm putting you on the spot, but like an example-

Courtney Hagen: [00:40:58] No, that's okay.

Andy Molinsky: [00:41:01] Yeah.

Courtney Hagen: [00:41:01] Definitely. So, when I'm sitting with a deal team, in my current role, for instance, and they're saying, "We think you should hire this CEO because they have X, Y, Z experience," and I say to them, "Okay. Well, how do you think X, Y, Z experience is going to translate into company ABC? Why is that relevant here? Why wouldn't we look for somebody who has this other kind of experience? Why would we discount this other candidate that we might be considering who brings a different set of experience, who might be additive, instead of something exactly like what this company already does? What makes us think that the fact that they've done this in one place is going to translate exactly here?" So, it's just knowing how to structure the questions, and how to go about getting those answers, and the multiple routes that you can take to do that.

Andy Molinsky: [00:41:54] Yeah, I can see a lot of applications for that. So, that's good news for those liberal arts students out there.

Courtney Hagen: [00:42:02] Absolutely.

Andy Molinsky: [00:42:02] And so—

Courtney Hagen: [00:42:02] Oh, the other piece of advice I would give, by the way, the other thing I take away from college that I will say, and I don't speak to as many groups of college students now as I used to in a couple of my roles at Pepsi and LVMH, but when I do, I always tell people, get your international experience early. Get it early as you can. If you can find a company that will let you go abroad as part of your rotational experience in your first couple of years, if you can find a place that's open to working on international projects, international experience is so important to so many companies, and it's something that—I've lived in New York for 20 years, but the fact that I have worked internationally in my past gives me an understanding, an open mind, and a level of credibility when I'm dealing with international colleagues that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't had that couple of years in my 20s living in a couple of different cultures.

Andy Molinsky: [00:43:01] I fully agree with you. My career path is similar. I went abroad in college. I, then, worked abroad early in my career as well, and it served me well. It's influenced my career in a tremendous way. So, I fully, fully—

Courtney Hagen: [00:43:13] Absolutely.

Andy Molinsky: [00:43:13] I am fully on board with that. So, thank you so much.

Courtney Hagen: [00:43:14] Yeah. And if you do it early, nobody can take it away from you. You do it-

Andy Molinsky: [00:43:19] It's also-

Courtney Hagen: [00:43:19] Do it when you're young. And then, if you can't—you can't move later.

Andy Molinsky: [00:43:21] Exactly. When you have a family and you're a little-

Courtney Hagen: [00:43:24] Right.

Andy Molinsky: [00:43:24] It's much easier to do it when you're younger, for sure.

Courtney Hagen: [00:43:26] Mich easier to do when you're young and single. Absolutely.

Andy Molinsky: [00:43:29] All right. So, thank you so much. This has been great. I really appreciate it. If people are interested in just - I don't know - learning about you or your company, is there a place they can go or?

Courtney Hagen: [00:43:40] I am most active on LinkedIn. So, they can look me up on LinkedIn. And we have a website, littlejohnllc.com, to learn about the company. and I'm Courtney Hagen on LinkedIn.

Andy Molinsky: [00:43:52] Awesome. Thank you so much again.

Courtney Hagen: [00:43:54] Thanks, Andy. 

Andy Molinsky: [00:43:52] Thank you for listening To From the Dorm Room to the Board Room. If you're interested in learning more about the work that I do and helping people step outside their comfort zones and transition successfully into the professional world, please visit my website, www.andy.molinsky.com. That's A-N-D-Y M-O-L-I-N-- K-Y dot com. And also feel free to email me directly at andy@andymolinsky.com with any feedback or ideas for guests for future podcasts.

Andy Molinsky: [00:44:29] This podcast is brought to you by Brandeis University's International Business School. By teaching rigorous Business, Finance, and Economics, connecting students to best practices, and immersing them in international experiences, Brandeis International Business School prepares exceptional individuals from around the globe to become principled professionals in companies and public institutions worldwide. Thank you so much for listening.