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Hello and welcome to the Center for Success Career Talk Podcast, a series that provides tips and advice for fine-tuning your resume, networking and getting that first job. The hosts for the series are members of the Center for Success at St. Xavier University in Chicago. Hi everyone, thanks for joining us.
My name is Debbie Beale and I am the Director of the Center for Success at St. Xavier University. I would like to welcome you to our Career Talk Podcast series. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Mr.
Bob Burdell. Bob is the Talent Acquisition Manager at Enterprise Holdings in Lombard, Illinois. Bob, thanks for taking the time to chat with me today. I'd be bigger.
Would you start off by telling us a little bit about Enterprise Holdings and your role as the Talent Acquisition Manager? Sure. Enterprise Holdings is the world mobility leader. We are the parent company of Enterprise Rennachire, National and Alamo Rennachars.
We have a fleet of about 2 million vehicles internationally. We are more than 100 countries, 65 years old and continuously growing. We are a privately held firm owned by the Santa family out of St. Louis with our unique hiring philosophy in that each and every person we hire at Enterprise does start in our Interlevel Management Training Program and grows within the organization based on their performance in the organization.
In each case, the management hierarchy, the person has been an interlevel person's shoes, understanding not just what we do, but why we do it. I started at Enterprise to my junior and senior year of college at the University of Illinois as a management training intern in Orland Park, Illinois. I started within the management track, post-graduation in May of 2000, kind of quickly interrelated by way of the management track and moved into the talent slash recruiting side of the business about 20 years ago. This is what I've been doing growing throughout the majority of my career.
What I do on a daily basis is I know relationships with people that are looking to start their career, whether they be on a college campus or they need to electronically get to know them, educate them on what they have to offer and what they have to offer and hire future leaders with the organization. That's why I'm here today. Terrific. Thank you.
That says a lot about Enterprise Holdings. You'll meet someone that started in their career in college and 20 years later still with the organization. That's pretty impressive. It's a very utopian philosophy and we'll get into this in a little bit, but there are two people coming directly out of school and know exactly what their destination is.
What we do is understand that you don't know exactly what you're going to be, but what we provide you with Enterprise is perhaps or should I say multiple paths. As you develop and figure out who you're going to be, there's only a seat on the bus somewhere for you. For someone looking to enter your company, for instance, what are some of the characteristics that you're looking for? What advice would you give someone in that position?
It's a great question. I'm not looking for any one specific type of person. I'm not looking for 100 of me or you, Debbie. I'm looking for people that demonstrate certain characteristics and skills.
In our management training program, you're certainly going to have to flex on business muscles. It is management. It is marketing. It is sales, it is customer service, logistics and analytics.
It's kind of a hybrid of all those different areas of business. But for the most part, we're going to teach you what to do and how to do it. Most companies will teach you how to do it. What we can teach, what we look to identify within the interview process, what differentiates our greatest employees from the rest are people that are aggressive, people that are internally motivated, people that have that entrepreneurial spirit, meaning maybe to know exactly where you want it in five years.
Maybe you don't. But every day you're going to push yourself as hard and as fast as you possibly can. Do you show up to work each and every day because you have to? What should you do?
Do you show up to work each and every day because you want to earn an extra dollar? Of course you want to. Or do you show up to work each and every day because you want to get better and make your team better at the same time? If people that have that career focus at a post-test job focus, that's key or the indicator of success.
I recommend it to itself in so many different ways. Sometimes it's that former athlete with a very aggressive outward approach. Sometimes it's that Rob Ross cheerleader type that's always positive. Sometimes it's that violent assassin that keeps his or her goals internal.
It can be a lot of different things. But I think the most successful employees in our organization, really any organization, share those key traits. So when a person is gone through your management training program, do they get to decide on the track that they want to take? Or do you identify their strengths?
Or how does it work? How do you end up in HR for instance? Absolutely. There are certainly some steps along the way.
The most important thing to understand is that you always know what you're seeing in the relation to your future and what you need to get to where you want to be. So you'll know what it takes to get promoted. So you're not just arbitrarily wanting in place. Hopefully getting recognized one day.
No. Even a tangible, quantifiable goals and early career-tracking enterprises take you to our management training program which is about eight to 12 months in length, then typically never king setting most cases to assist in the manager location, typically a small volume store to a larger volume store, then upon success they'll become the branch manager of an operation once against small store to large store all within the relative close proximity to home. I was at the average time it takes to be a branch manager at about 27-29 months. From there, once you have success at a branch manager and prove your fluency and salutity within the business, at that point the doors open a lot wider for you at enterprise.
There are many of the advantages to success. to a district type manager of responsibility and financial gain increased exponentially. There are many different divisions of the organization that specialize in different parts of the transportation mobility industries. We've got to specialize in a certain part of the old business argument.
They're the entire back end of business. People like myself that handle one departmental division within the organization. You will always know exactly how to get to be wherever you want to be having to prove the best person for that opportunity. Knowing specifically how to do that.
So essentially you qualify for your performance. There will certainly other people at that same level that you are regardless of where you are in your career. So when opportunities can available, they'll be judged against your peers. So interview against your peers.
The people that get the opportunity will be congratulated. We'll be promoted. They didn't get the opportunity. They're going to be congratulated for getting to the table.
We're going to tell you exactly why they did get a position and what they need to do to get to what they want to be. So transparency is incredibly important in this organization. Once again, people need to know where they stand in order to set accurate goals for themselves. Sounds great.
Sounds like a great model. Everyone has the same foundation and then they get many opportunities to move up. It's worked for us. I mean, there are 65 years, you know, the world's changed.
The world changes every two years. I mean, technology changes, process exchange, but our core values, our employee centric model has been exactly the same for 65 years. And being a privately health firm, we don't have to answer to staff, price or shareholders. We answer what's invested short, medium and long term vision within the organization.
And we believe this employee model is the best number which we are going to fund. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Any last parting advice for our audience today?
You know, I can't. I brought questions, but anyone that's out there that is looking for an opportunity enterprise is a great choice. We're going to buy a great choice without there. So I'm not trying to push you anywhere in my shape or form, but where I go for you is go out there and get it.
When meeting with an organization, companies want to see you do up and we want to be impressed. One of the people that have done their research, one of the people that are aggressive with their intent, they have a certain vision for themselves. You don't have to know every single answer about yourself, but no word you're walking towards, no word you're moving towards, no word you're pushing for. Because other companies want to see you.
One people that are not afraid to blink, not afraid to make a mistake, not afraid to take all the matter, afraid to ask for that promotion. And if you can demonstrate with that, that to us in an interview process, maybe even just a career fair that engages us in a conversation, not engagement, investment by us in a conversation. Often time is a key early indicator that you're going to have to trust in that company. Okay, very good.
Thank you. And thanks again for your time. All right. Thank you.