IAM270- Co-founder Helps Job Seekers in Their Quest for Remote Work

After spending countless hours trying to find and verify potential work-from-home opportunities, Laura Spawn knew there needed to be a better way to find legitimate remote work online. That’s why in 2007, Spawn co-founded Virtual Vocations, the web’s No. 1 hand-screened, all-telecommute job board. With Spawn as CEO, Virtual Vocations has helped more than two million job seekers in their quests for remote work. Laura Spawn currently lives in Oregon with her husband and three children.

• CEO Hack: Getting my brain clear before diving into any project or starting the day
• CEO Nugget: (1) Don't try to become an expert in every area (2) Create more partnerships
• CEO Defined: Being a connector

Website: https://www.virtualvocations.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/virtualvocation
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/VirtualVocations
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvl6mSBguVl5NsNtBrb4vIg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/virtual-vocations

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Transcription

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Outro 0:01

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today, Laura Spawn of Virtual Vocations. Laura, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Laura Spawn 0:36

Thanks. Glad to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:37

Glad to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Laura so you can hear about all the awesome things that she has been doing. After spending countless hours trying to find and verify potential work-from-home opportunities, Laura Spawn knew there needed to be a better way to find legitimate remote work online. That’s why in 2007, Spawn co-founded Virtual Vocations, the web’s No. 1 hand-screened, all-telecommute job board. With Spawn as CEO, Virtual Vocations has helped more than two million job seekers in their quests for remote work. Laura Spawn currently lives in Oregon with her husband and three children.. Laura, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Laura Spawn 1:13

I sure am.

Gresham Harkless 1:14

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was the hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Laura Spawn 1:20

Yeah, so well, like you mentioned back in 2007, I had just had my third child, he was just a couple of months old. And my husband and I were both actually in school full-time. And my husband was pursuing a medical degree. And definitely tight on finances. So I was continually looking for something I could do from home, just taking care of the kids and our schedules. So I started looking online, and I was spending upwards of like five to six hours a day looking and it was just really frustrating. I was coming across a lot of great jobs, not ones that necessarily met my skill set back then a lot of them were still computer programming-type positions. Anyway, my brother, he was just finishing up his computer science degree.

So we were chatting, and we were I was telling him about my struggle. And we were just brainstorming and kind of came up with the idea of finding all of these great jobs, not necessarily ones that I could do, but maybe somebody else could benefit from them. So from that idea, we kind of just thought, oh, let's put these up online and see what happens, see if people are interested. And they weren't. And so he programmed the back end, and I continued searching every day and we created this database of screen telecommute jobs. So that's kind of how it all got started.

Gresham Harkless 2:50

Nice. I absolutely love that. And I feel like I don't know if telecommuting and virtual working are kind of widespread now. But I think it's definitely obviously edging in going towards that way. But you were definitely way ahead of the curve in 2007, to be able to stand and see that there's an opportunity there. And I love the fact that you weren't necessarily looking to create a huge job board or anything, you were just kind of looking for something for yourself, and then all of a sudden all these other people need the same thing. And then seems like organizations and businesses as well.

Laura Spawn 3:20

Right. It was just an opportune moment. And really it ended up great because I wasn't finding a lot for myself. But at the same time, I thought someone's got to be able to use these and qualify for them.

Gresham Harkless 3:33

Exactly, exactly. So it worked out in the grand scheme of things. And so I want to hear a little bit more about Virtual Vocations. Could you kind of take us through what people would see and how it serves the clients when they go to the site?

Laura Spawn 3:44

Yes. So when you first come to the site, you are taken to the database immediately of our jobs that will bring up you can do a search just like you would on major job boards, and it'll bring up search results of all different telecommute positions. And we specialize specifically just in listing positions in our database that have some component of telecommuting.

So you're first brought to that have you can register and gain even more access to all of our different job listings. At this point, our staff is finding around 800 jobs per day that we add to the database and that's after screening 1000s. At this point, so we get those added. We have free courses on getting started telecommuting. We have ebooks and industry guides, we call them basically the more popular telecommuting industries. We've created some guides just for people in those careers.

And then we also have our blog, which we post quite a bit of content on and I like to consider that mostly Cornerstone content. It's all really in-depth information on how to handle applying for jobs online interviewing all sorts of topics related specifically to remote work. So that's kind of what people will find when they come to the site. We've also launched in the last year, a Career Services Division, where we have certified career specialists that can help rewrite resumes and your LinkedIn profile and cover letters, things of that nature.

Gresham Harkless 5:27

And you might have already touched on this, but I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this is what you feel kind of distinguishes you or your organization, what do you feel kind of sets you guys apart?

Laura Spawn 5:35

So partly, there are a couple of things that I would say set us apart when I think it is that we are a subscription-based site for job seekers. And you don't see that most job boards are free to the job seeker. And then their model is that they charge the employer, but we opted to charge the job seeker for this specialized vetted database of jobs. And that allows us really to work for them and to make sure that every single job we add is vetted is safe, and legitimate. So that is one thing that makes us unique compared to when jobseekers go and use the larger free job boards, you're never quite sure what you're going to get. Because most of the time recruiters and employers can just post anything that they'd like. So there's not a whole lot of the vetting that goes along behind the scenes by the job board.

But other than that piece, we also like to say we specialize only in telecommuting jobs. As I mentioned before, I find a lot of job boards, that may specialize in remote work and freelance part-time jobs with flexible hours, but we require every one of our positions to allow some level of working from home. And that's really that I think I've held on to that, because that was my initial goal for myself was that freedom of working from home. So I think that's a really important part of it. And a part that we've always held on to is making sure that is a part of every single job listing.

Gresham Harkless 5:40

I think that's absolutely awesome, just because I believe the way the world is going in and things are moving as you said, it's kind of hard, I think even for job seekers when they're applying for a job, which you don't even know if it's really a legit organization, or a company or legit job, or even if it's in alignment with what exactly they're posting as well. So they get the opportunity to kind of tap into your team and your expertise as well, too. To understand that, yes, you have a subscription model, but at the same time, you don't have to lose that time, which is usually everybody's the most valuable thing by trying to figure out is this legit, or not

Laura Spawn 7:53

Right. And that's exactly what it is. We do receive questions from people asking why you charge. And that's exactly what we say is a time-saving tool for you with your job search. Of course, a lot of the jobs that we screen and list are available in other places. But that takes time to go search and find them. So that is that's our service. So yeah, I think most people find that pretty helpful.

Gresham Harkless 8:22

Yeah, I definitely think in the grand scheme of things when you go and apply for different things. And then you go on a job interview and you realize it wasn't anything close to the description, or it wasn't even like exactly what it was supposed to be, I think sometimes rather than go down that route, you have an opportunity to kind of essentially be a partner to understand that you're getting quality, which is always important.

Laura Spawn 8:44

Right, Yes.

Gresham Harkless 8:45

Nice, Nice, nice. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or habit that you have but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Laura Spawn 8:54

Oh well goodness over the years I've tried many different things I've read a lot of books so when I was thinking about this I realized at this point in my life especially now that my kids are older they're not the little kids they were when I started the business by this point I like to just set aside a little bit of time each day before I really get going working and just not always like the apps calm and the headspace I use those but I don't do I guess one being every day or when the same thing I transition or switch it up between walks and quiet meditation or just something to get get my brain clear before I really dive into my projects. So I think in the past, I was always just busy and on the go and diving into everything as soon as I could and it's made a difference to slow down a little bit.

Gresham Harkless 9:52

I absolutely agree with that. I love that kind of example, just because I'm kind of the same way where I do like a lot of variety, but at the end of the day, I would like this same goal, which is to get that kind of quiet time or that alone time to make sure before the day takes a hold of you that you can take hold of it. So whether it be like you said the different apps or walking or whatever, as long as it's being done, and it's hitting the goal, I think that's important. I love that . Now, I would ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Laura Spawn 10:23

Oh, so I would tell myself not to try to learn how to do everything myself, manage every part of the business, don't try to become an expert in every area of marketing content, writing that doesn't be a one-person show, and just surround. I would have told myself to find people to partner with or surround myself with people who have expertise in the areas that I didn't. And then a big one, I think, for me, especially as the business has grown, is to not be afraid to say, I don't know, even as the CEO or the business owner, it's more important to be able to say, I don't know, but I'm going to figure it out, or I'm going to find someone who does. So I think that's probably what I would tell myself to create more partnerships in the long run.

Gresham Harkless 11:15

Yeah, absolutely. love that CEO nugget. And I think like right in line with what you were saying that a lot of times, I feel like you even get a stronger connection with people when you say sometimes you don't know. So it helps to know that you don't know everything, but having that kind of will or that desire to go try to figure out and how it is great, but I think a lot of times people get a connection with people who say they don't know, but I'm going to try to figure it out.

Laura Spawn 11:38

Right. Yeah, that human part of all of us knows that it's okay to admit that you don't know everything.

Gresham Harkless 11:44

Exactly, exactly. So now I wanted to ask you, and I know you touched on this a little bit my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So Laura, what does that mean a CEO mean to you?

Laura Spawn 11:56

Oh, so to me, it means kind of the same lines as what I was talking about, as far as the golden nugget is, I guess, being a connector because as far as I guess, across the years, as we've grown, and our team has gotten bigger and bigger, I find myself more in a role of where I'm talking to my employees in one area of the company and connecting them up with other people in another side of our company that are maybe handling the job research, but they connecting them with our content writers and then helping find new services that would help our business grow, just kind of brainstorming.

So at this point as CEO, I find myself having a lot of conversations with people in all different areas of business and kind of just connecting all of us together so that we're all striving towards the same goal in the business of continuing to grow and ultimately finding more telecommute jobs for people.

Gresham Harkless 12:57

Absolutely, I love that definition in that perspective, because at the end of the day not being caught in every single silo. But understanding the big picture, understanding what the mission is, and being able to make sure that's executed as best as possible. So I love that definition as well. So, Laura, I appreciate your time, what I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and our listeners know, and then how best Of course, they can find out about you in Virtual Vocations.

Laura Spawn 13:22

I would say if they want to connect with us, I mean, our team can definitely be found online, we have social media presence on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and we're very active and responsive there. Also, I just invite people to come and search on our site register. Even though we are a subscription job board, we have an entire section of free positions that we also list. And then we also have our weekly employer posts on our blog. And those jobs are all available free as well, whether you are a paid member or not.

So I would just invite everybody to come check it out. If you're looking for I guess more control in your personal life, your schedule your career, you'd like to be at home more, I think it's a great resource to take a look at and check out and we're always trying to improve it and help job seekers.

Gresham Harkless 14:19

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. And we'll make sure to have the links in the show notes as well just so everybody can check out all the awesome things you're doing and blog content, everything you're creating. And I appreciate you again. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Laura Spawn 14:32

All right. Thank you so much.

Outro 14:34

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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