In this episode, Mike Gardon chats with Lisa Gevelber. Lisa founded and leads Grow with Google (grow.google.com), which is Google’s $1 billion commitment to economic opportunity for all. Since 2017, Grow with Google has helped over 6 million Americans and tens of millions globally grow their skills, careers, and businesses. One of her most significant contributions is the creation of Google Career Certificates, which provide access to in-demand, high paying jobs for people without college degrees. These certificates have provided significant upward mobility to tens of thousands and counting. Lisa also leads Google for Startups, which levels the playing field for underrepresented founders and helps startups thrive across every corner of the world.
Lisa Gevelber has over 30 years experience in General Management, Marketing, and Product Management including over 20 years in Silicon Valley. Her career spans from early stage startups to Fortune 50 companies, including Google and Procter and Gamble. As a member of the global leadership team of Google’s Ads and Commerce business, she led Marketing globally for eight years, helping the business grow from ~$30B to $130B+. For the past 11 years she has also been the Chief Marketing Officer for the Americas Region at Google; accountable for new user acquisition, retention and revenue, brand and reputation efforts, and launching products in new countries.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:
- Lisa’s background
- The future of work
- Why Lisa thinks being a learner is the most important skill
- Grow with Google: what is it, how it works, how it got started
- Google Career Certificates: how it was started, the demand it has seen from job seekers and employers, the certificates that are currently available
- How employers are using Google Career Certificates to help upskill their current employees
- How you can stand out without a degree or supplement your degree with Google Career Certificates
HELP US OUT!
Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! It takes less than 30 seconds and really helps our show grow, which allows us to bring on even better guests for you all! Thank you – we really appreciate it.
BOOKS AND RESOURCES:
- Grow with Google
- Google Career Certificates
- 50% of people will need to be reskilling by 2030 - fact that Lisa mentioned
- 2/3 of Americans don’t get college degrees - fact that Lisa mentioned
- Scholarships are available for Google Career Certificates
- Community colleges now offer Google Career Certificates if someone desires to earn a certificate in a classroom/group setting
- 40% of college graduates are working jobs that don’t require degrees - fact that Lisa mentioned
- Many colleges offer credits for Google Career Certificates
- Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn, Twitter and Grow with Google.
TRANSCRIPT
Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.
Michael Gardon (00:00):
Hey everyone. And welcome to another episode of CareerCloud Radio. I am your host Michael Gardon. I love talking about alternative ways to skill up and that's why today's guest is Lisa Gevelber. Lisa is the CMO of the Americas at Google, and she's also the VP and co-founder of grow with Google Career Certificates. These certificates are a pathway to employment in tech that both subverts and supplements traditional college degrees by providing participants job ready skills in under six months. Right now, Google offers certificates in IT, support UX, design, data analytics, and project management, which are recognized by over 150 companies. And many of these companies, are you using the certificates to reskill their own workforces as a leader at one of the biggest tech companies in the world? I can't resist asking Lisa about her own career journey and how she views the future of work more broadly. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Lisa Gevelber of Google. Lisa, welcome to CareerCloud. How are you today?
Lisa Gevelber (01:00):
Hey, great. Thanks so much for having me.
Michael Gardon (01:02):
Uh, really excited to talk to you. Love, you know, really what, what you're doing with, uh, the grow growth Google platform. And I want to get into that in a little bit, but we also have a chance to kind of talk about some broader implications with, with you and just kind of where you sit in the technology and, uh, and hiring landscape. And so I'm really interested to get into kind of future of work topics and, and kind of pick your brain on those things where I like to start with all of my guests is, uh, I really like to start with a little bit of background on you yourself, and maybe you could start with how you kind of got first introduced to the concept of work. Maybe you can kind of start with, uh, a little story about your first job.
Lisa Gevelber (01:42):
Yeah. You know, I almost don't remember a time when I didn't work actually. So my brothers and I, we put ourselves through through college. So we started, we started earning money when we were teenagers, the intent of saving up to go to school. And so I feel like I've been working my whole life, but the news is I kind of like work. So it's, it's worked out for me. You know, one of my favorite jobs of all time was a really early job. I had, I had the honor of running, uh, a summer jobs program for inner city, high school kids in Chicago. And I did this during one of my summers in college, and it was a really formative experience for me. I really learned a lot about what happens when you give anyone a chance at a job they didn't expect to have the opportunity to do and how transformative that is for someone's life.
Lisa Gevelber (02:29):
And I worked with the most motivated, most interesting kids, and a lot of 'em didn't have role models of parents or other relatives who had had the good fortune of having a good job. And so they might have been the first person in their family who really had a good job. And I think it was really impactful certainly for me, but I think also for them, and that's something I've kept with, I always wanted to find a way to make a bigger, more at scale impact on this problem of economic opportunity. And this job I had in college was really a big part of that.
Michael Gardon (03:01):
Great. So you, uh, again, from a very young age, helped get yourself through college, you went to Michigan, is that correct?
Lisa Gevelber (03:09):
Oh, dead go blue Wolverines are making us proud this year. Thank goodness.
Michael Gardon (03:14):
Uh, I'm a, I'm a Wisconsin Badger, but, uh, you know, really cool, uh, game and last, uh, season that y'all have had. So that's pretty cool. So from Michigan, you know, can you, can you kinda maybe trace a little bit of your career arc kind of from there to how you got to Google, it is what you do today. Something that you've always wanted to do, or, or did you have maybe a, a winding path?
Lisa Gevelber (03:38):
You know, my first big career job coming out of Michigan was at Proctor and gamble, and I was really lucky to get that job. I think they didn't usually hire even undergraduates into brand management at the time most, most people had an MBA. And so, you know, P and G was a really formative place for me. It was a place. I learned a lot of my fundamental skills, but at actually the same skills that I think are making me successful today are things that I learned there. And one of those things was really learning how to write, believe it or not. I made it through college, uh, without that. And I would say, um, P and G taught me to write cuz at P and G at the time, I don't know if this is still true, everything got done and kind of a two page memo.
Lisa Gevelber (04:20):
So you had two sides of an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper, essentially with which to convince the company to make any size decision up to multi-billion dollar decisions. And that really is a, an art cuz you have to have very structured thinking and be able to communicate in a really structured way to write a compelling memo on, on, you know, two sides of a page. So I'm really grateful that my career started at P and G. I was there for several years. And then, um, one of my last assignments at P and G was working on, you know, new product ideas. And that's when I realized I really liked kind of the early days of an idea. I really liked being more of, of an entrepreneur entrepreneur. So after that job, I decided to kind of pack a bag and move to Silicon valley.
Lisa Gevelber (05:06):
And I did that in the late nineties when I really had a, was on a mission to go to an early stage startup, which I ended up doing. I was employ number five, I think at my first startup, like truly in the basement on Sandhill road, just like in the story books. And that was a very different experience
Michael Gardon (06:14):
I describe for our audience, what you mentioned, voice of customer, can you, as a skill set, can you kind of describe that for our audience? What that means?
Lisa Gevelber (06:24):
Yeah. I honestly think Intuit is best in the world at this craft. They teach it, they live it, they breathe it. And essentially I think it really comes from Scott cooks, um, passion. He was the founder. He's actually ironically also ex proctoring gamble, but he is one of the best listeners you'll ever meet. And he believed that the way you build great products is by deep understanding of your customers. And so that's what he taught and practiced and Intuit. And so we used to these things where he called them follow me homes, where instead of like calling a business on a phone on phone and talking to them or bringing them into a focus group facility, you went to their place of business. And that's how you really learned about what they were doing, what they needed, how we could best help. And so many products came actually not just features, but entire products came from those discoveries.
Lisa Gevelber (07:15):
Just one example. And so Intuit makes a, a product called QuickBooks, which is a, basically an accounting or bookkeeping product for small businesses, super widely used. And during some, uh, these, you know, at business visits with retailers, I think what, what the team realized was, well, you know, the bookkeeping accounting stuff great. But actually what we are seeing retailers really need are an affordable, complete kind of point of sale solution. Like start to finish the software, some of the basic devices like a receipt printer, scanner cash drawer. And we could just put all that in a box and make QuickBooks point of sale, make it super easy at an affordable price for people to have like an end to end solution. And at the time this was really revolutionary. There really wasn't anything that was like that for really small businesses. You had to get these huge packages from these established companies that were mostly like, you know, dos space, not even windows based products and it didn't come with all the hardware and everything you need combined.
Lisa Gevelber (08:14):
And so we know the creation of QuickBooks point of sale actually happened from this real important practice of visiting customers and really watching what they were doing, not just asking them what they wanted or needed. Um, and so that's obviously a really great product line now and still many years later and all based on this concept that you go to them and, you know, you kind of shadow them if you will. And from that, you can learn the best, like what do they really need? Cuz sometimes people don't even know how to articulate what they need and by being present with experiencing with them, you can come up with ideas that maybe you wouldn't have had, or they wouldn't have articulated
Michael Gardon (08:48):
At a very startupy skillset there thinking about how all these products and services get, get built, you know, from small companies to large C that's a really interesting skillset and way to think about it. So your, your arc has been kind of corporate to start up to corporate to start up to corporate, if you will. You know, I think what we're seeing overall with the changing landscape around work is a lot of, of this notion that career, maybe isn't just one ladder and there's lots of different ways to kind of approach and, and string together a career. That's what it kind of seems like to me, going into the future, how are you looking at this concept of, you know, future of work and what are the, maybe the big fat actors that, uh, we all need to be considering as we think, and look out into the future and decide what we want to do with our, the rest of our work lives.
Lisa Gevelber (09:43):
Yeah, I'm never one, I've never been one of those planner. People who thinks you just, you know, set a vision and chase it and it all works out just as you expected. And I think that's all the more true these days that things are evolving so fast. Like I don't know, the world economic forum predicts that 50% of people need to be reskilled by 2030, but 2030. Isn't very far away. If you're saying half of the people in all of the world need reskilling. What that really means is that we all need to be really good at learning new things. Right? And I even remember way before COVID, you know, people saying that people of my children's age will have five different careers in their lifetime, not five different jobs, not working at five different places, but will be five different things in their lifetime.
Lisa Gevelber (10:29):
And I think all of that kind of says to us being a good learner is actually the most important skill. And so I think that's true now and definitely true kind of in the future of work. I think the employment landscape is changing. I think that I hope for a more, in a more equitable and inclusive way, you know, one of the biggest obstacles in today's job market is that really high percentage of good jobs say they require a bachelor's degree. And I think the bachelor's degree is, is great. It's good to have a college degree, but there have to be alternative paths for people to get good jobs. You know, we need to make good jobs more accessible to more people. Um, in our country, two thirds Americans don't get college degrees. You know, that means 80 million Americans who are essentially locked out. If you keep that bachelor's degree requirement, it means, I think it's 70% of black people, 80% of Latinos, 70% of rural Americans would be locked out of jobs. Anytime a job requires a bachelor's degree. So, so I hope and believe that actually there'll be additional ways for people to show that they're qualified for good jobs. It's one of the things we're working on here at Google and our growth with Google program. But I think the future of work hopefully can be more equitable and inclusive, but we all have to kind of commit to that and provide the right pathways. And employers need to think a little bit differently about how people can demonstrate that they're ready and qualified, you know, for a job.
Michael Gardon (12:02):
Right? Yeah. So cuz to me, it should be about the skillset
Lisa Gevelber (12:26):
Yeah. So, um, we started working on growth, Google actually, we launched it in 2017, so we've been at it for about four years, years now. And the whole idea was that, you know, the opportunities that are created by technology should absolutely be available to everyone. And we cared about using those, um, technology to advance economic opportunity in particular. So our, our first initiatives were really in this space of how do you enable people without college degrees to get access to in demand high paying jobs. And that was the impetus for creating our Google career certificate program. We started with just one career field, which was it support, which is obviously a big and growing field and has tons of interest. I think, um, interest in going into it support data sets is up like 59 per son, even this year alone. So in demand from both sides in demand from employers, but also, um, from job seekers.
Lisa Gevelber (13:21):
And so we really were trying to hone in on, could we teach people all the skills you need to know to be successful in a handful of these in demand growing well, paying jobs, regardless of what experience or educational attainment you had. And you know, we, we were the first members of the hiring consortium ourselves. You know, we, we did it with a few dozen people in the it support program here at Google. And it's still the way that we teach our entry level employees and it support and data analytics. So we launched now four career certificates and we've graduated well over 50,000 thousand people in a pretty short period of time who are now into these attractive career fields that, that they might not, and that many of them might not have had access to before. So it's one of the things we're, we're really proud of is just this making good jobs, more accessible to more people, which we think in the end leads to a more inclusive and, and equitable job market.
Michael Gardon (14:17):
So it support was a start. And you mentioned there are three more there, four total. What, what are the other certificates
Lisa Gevelber (14:24):
That are live? Yeah, so the Google career certificates are in it support data analytics, user experience, design, and project management. Those are the four we have, we hope to, you know, build lots more and they really do teach you everything you need to know. It's all, I think importantly, it's built for working people. So it's not a bootcamp. You don't have to sit in a classroom all day. Cause that's a luxury that a lot of people don't have. It's all online on demand. You can do it, you know, at your own pace. It takes most people a little over three months to finish a part three months of part-time study. Again, it's not, um, a classroom based experience. And then we have 150 employers plus lots of smaller and regional, more regional employers who have are the graduates. So I think that's the key is we're working with employers as well as the, you know, students to make sure that there's, you know, jobs on the other side waiting for them, uh, when they finish and
Michael Gardon (15:24):
Break it down and democratize some of this, you have to have companies that are willing to recognize not a bachelor's degree, but that a person has obtained some level of skill in, in, in what's required. So talk, just talk to us a little bit about some of the companies that are, that are part of the consortium. Just maybe throw out a few of the names.
Lisa Gevelber (15:44):
Sure. Yeah. Well, it's really fun. It's all kinds of companies cuz a good thing about things like it. Supporter data analytics is that every kind of company needs them, right? Healthcare systems need them. School systems need them, big companies, small companies, nonprofits. And the great thing about these jobs too, is that they're not necessarily coastal jobs. Like you can do them from anywhere because every kind of company needs these fields. So gosh, in our hiring consortium, we have people like Accenture bank of America, Deloitte, best buy Walmart target. We also have a bunch of companies actually who are using the career certificates now to even reskill current employees. And that includes people like nationwide insurance or Amazon Unilever Macy's are actually offering the Google career certificates to even their existing employees as a way to upskill. I think it's really great to see employers making a commitment to current employees. I think it'll also help them retain those employees by offering these great learning paths to even better jobs. But it really, it really runs the, the spectrum, all the, and the, we even have people like the Cleveland clinic is in our, in our hiring consortium. So you can see a bunch of the employers on the website. If you finish the certificates, if you complete them, you get access to our job board, which is where the employers post all the jobs that they're, you know, interested in hiring our certificate graduates for.
Michael Gardon (17:11):
There's no cost to a person who wants to thread that, is that correct?
Lisa Gevelber (17:16):
Yeah. So the, the way it works is we post all of the Google career certificate content on a platform called Coursera. And so, um, Google, this isn't a business for Google, but Coursera charges a monthly fee. As I said, most people finish in three to six months. So they charge $39 a month. So on average, if someone would pay 120 to $240 to earn the certificate to Coursera, um, the payment to them, it's for folks who need financial assistance, there's lots of scholarships available. We made over a hundred thousand scholarships available ourselves just to cover the Coursera fee. But there's lots of ways you can take them without, as a matter of fact, you can, for example, often take it at a community college. We charge no fees and Coursera charges, no fees to community colleges right now if they wanna implement it. And so that's another way folks can get access. That's also a nice way if you don't wanna do it on your own, if you're one of those three people who prefers like a classroom setting or a cohort to do it with you, community college is a, is a good option. And we're in, I think, well over a hundred community colleges now around the country. So I think every community college in places like the state of Connecticut, you know, now offers the Google career certificates as an option,
Michael Gardon (18:27):
Certainly certainly far left, uh, expense to, to learn a hard skill like that than, than obtaining a bachelor's degree necessarily. Is this platform positioned kind of to take on higher education or more as a supplement? How do you view that?
Lisa Gevelber (18:47):
Yeah, you know, it's really interesting, as I said, when we first start did we were using it as a way to kind of level the playing field, give people who might not have had access to these jobs, better access to them. And it was interesting when we looked at our first bunch of graduates, we realized that about 40% of people who were graduating with our certificate actually had a bachelor's degree. And we were like, Hmm, well, why would someone do that? They already have a, you know, probably a great, they have a degree that would get them access to lots of great jobs, but we really dug in on this topic and we realized people were behaving really rationally. In fact, combining a bachelor's degree in lots of different kinds of fields, actually with a high quality career certificate, like ours actually makes you more employable and much higher wages.
Lisa Gevelber (19:33):
So we look at things like burning glass data. They have lots of employment data and they're one of the most respected sources. And um, when we looked at burning glass data, you could see that, especially if you have a liberal arts degree or a humanities degree, if you do combine it with a high quality industry recognized credential, like, like the Google career certificates, you will make significantly more money and lots more jobs will be available to you. I can use myself as an example. So I was a psychology major at Michigan and burning glass. Data will tell you that on average today, people who are graduating with psychology majors are making 30 a year. But if you add a data analytics certificate to your psychology degree, on average, you'll make about 60 and hundreds of thousands, more jobs will become available to you. So what we saw in the data is people are really behaving rationally and actually today in the marketplace, 40% of college graduates, we and graduates are actually, what's called underemployed.
Lisa Gevelber (20:36):
They're working in jobs that don't require a college degree though. They have one, but they're working in retail or other jobs that don't require a degree. And so we realize that it's actually not an or certificate or degree Google certificate or degree. It's actually an and, and so we started working with four year institutions and every day now we are talking with four year institutions about how they could add it into their program. So people are doing all kinds of things. Many universities will now give you college credit for having done the Google career certificate program. So it'll help you graduate faster at a more affordable price. So Northeastern university is a great example. They will give you 12 college credits, which is about a semester it's about four college courses at the bachelor's level for having done the Google, the it support certificate from Google.
Lisa Gevelber (21:26):
And they'll say a right on their website that that would save you 6,000, $200 in tuition by getting your 12 credits in this way. But lots of other universities now do it, the SUNY system, Purdue global there's many. And then we have all kinds of universities that are building the Google career certificates as curriculum offerings, where you can take the certifi it and maybe even bundle it with a few other courses and get either a dual badge from that university and tons of credit. I think Purdue is a good example. The Purdue online university is combines the Google career certificates with their program. You can take like Google it support, plus some management and cyber security courses from Purdue global. And that like bundle will give you 25 credits towards your college degree, which is amazing. So we're working with tons of four year schools.
Lisa Gevelber (22:18):
We talk to them every day and they're doing all kinds of creative things. The university of Virginia has a great program where if you do, if you graduate with a Google career certificate program or the go, if you graduate with have completed a Google career certificate, they will give you a $5,000 scholarship to attend UVA's online bachelor's program because they know that the people who've done, these are really motivated, committed learners, and they want those kind of students, uh, in their program. And they know they can complete, you know, an effectively, an online online bachelor's. So I'm so excited. I think there's never been a time like this in history where there's options for people who aren't gonna pursue a degree there's options for people who are to get these really work based training program so that when you graduate you as a candidate, stand out and can make more money and be, be more employable.
Lisa Gevelber (23:11):
And it's amazing to see the creativity that the four year institutions are bringing to the table. There's like six different models that we're seeing already, that people are doing with these short term credentials like ours, because actually they care about making their graduates more employable. I think we all have the same end goal, which is, is helping people get to better futures and better lives. And so even the four year university system is changing and it's so fun to see all the creativity and be part of it. Like it's really, I think it just is good for everyone. The,
Michael Gardon (23:45):
The collaboration that you're describing is encouraging to me. I mean, I, I think that's just great to hear the kind of collaboration that's going on there. So you're kind of four years in what outcomes are you really looking at in the next four to five years? Where do you think you can take this? How big and how many people do you think you can sort of reach?
Lisa Gevelber (24:06):
The good news is because it's online and OnDemand it's like infinitely scalable mm-hmm
Lisa Gevelber (24:57):
Even in the four fields that Google teaches, there's 1.3 million open jobs right now in the us, there just aren't people trained for it. So that's a big problem for employers too. And Pricewaterhouse does this annual survey of CEOs and one of their recent surveys, four outta to five CEOs say that not having people with the right skills is one of the biggest impediments to the growth of their company. And about half of the CEOs say that the way they're gonna sell all of this problem is by internally reskilling their own people, but you don't want every employer to recreate the wheel and make their own training programs. They don't have the bandwidth, maybe they don't have the expertise. So I think having these already industry recognized credentials is really key, cuz that means that it's easy for job seekers to find on their own. If they don't currently have the kind of job they want, but also it's super easy for employers to offer it to their own employees. And I think we'll see more and more of that too. Especially folks have lots of frontline workers or low wage workers.
Michael Gardon (26:02):
So you guys had a point of view on access and helping people skill up, you know, long before the pandemic. But I gotta ask a little bit about the, the last, you know, year and a half, two years. Has there been any changes, has the pandemic affected how you've thought about maybe the platform specifically or how you've personally thought about the future of work at all?
Lisa Gevelber (26:26):
I think that pandemic has been a huge accelerant to online learning. For sure. There's lots of imperfect things about trying to be a school kid who's, you know, learning online and not in classroom. And that was absolutely terrible. Everyone did the best they could but far from ideal. But I think for adult learners, there's a really new found acceptance of online as a credible pathway. I think that leads to more opportunities for more people because even if they wanted to so many people can't sit in a classroom and it's not even, can they sit in a classroom all day, you know, many adult workers don't for all their own schedules. If you're an hourly worker, oftentimes someone makes your schedule and it's different every week. And if that's your situation, then you can't commit to a class, even, you know, Mondays and Wednesdays, one to two, you just can't commit to it.
Lisa Gevelber (27:15):
Right? So we needed alternate ways for people to have access to the information and the learning opportunities. And I think COVID really Excel that. And I think that's a, a really good thing. I think it also made everyone think a little bit about what do they wanna do with their lives and think maybe about a different aspiration and having more of these opportunities online and available to people will be really helpful to them. So I guess in the end, maybe there are a few good things that, that came from the pandemic. And I think that obviously employers are thinking hard about how do they get talent to come and work for them versus all the other opportunities people have. So that's not a bad thing either if you're, if you're a job seeker,
Michael Gardon (27:55):
Think generally it's all been good for the future of kind of work life balance, quality of life and helping people think more strategically about, gosh, yeah. What do I wanna do with the next 10 years of my life? Um, and how do I wanna set it up? And that's kind of what we try to work with people on as well. I'm definitely a person that's ha already had five careers in my short time here. Um, so I, I, I empathize with that. I run a, a fully remote company. Our, our me was remote before the pandemic. And so it's interesting to hear you kind of go back to, uh, some something you said earlier about how you learn to write at P and G. I feel like in the remote space writing is so much more important because it's not just presentations and it's not just convincing and memos.
Michael Gardon (28:43):
It's just up to, it's like, like there's a soft skillset there to getting the right amount of information, the right amount of context that is persuasive, but not overboard and which channels do I use and, and how do I do all that? Like, this is a really interesting sort of bringing people back to thinking about how we communicate, you know, so I think all of this is good. It's not gonna be good for everybody obviously, but on balance, I think you you're used to the word accelerant. I totally agree with it was like, this was the trend and kind of COVID was a big, a big push there. So at, you know, at Guba, I mean, you're, you're sitting in your, uh, I think you said your daughter's room right now. You're at home. What's the future for kind of going back to work with Google or how are you all seeing that change?
Lisa Gevelber (29:34):
Yeah, I mean, I think just like everyone, it caused us to really pivot as well. So our plan is a three, two option. So everybody needs to come into the office three days a week, but two days a week, if they choose to, they can work from home. So I think that's gonna give people a lot of flexibility and I think it'll be a good also way for people to transition back. You know, if you've been working from home as we have at Google for quite some time now, I think since March of time, 2020, you know, I think it also gives up people a way to ease back into going to the office. I've gone back a few times. We have kind of voluntary return to work at the minute, and it's so incredibly fun to see your colleagues. Like you, you forget how great it is just to have those hallway conversations or to have lunch together.
Lisa Gevelber (30:19):
So a lot of people at Google have had the chance, depending on what city or country they're in to spend a little time back in the office and people are going back in in groups, you know, they'll say, Hey, I'm gonna go back on, on Tuesday. Does anyone wanna go? Cause it's obviously so much more fun if everybody's there and it's magical. I think we all appreciate it even more. I think, you know, it was easy to take for granted seeing your colleagues every day when it was all you knew you, but when you've been at home and you've only seen them, you know, on a screen, just miss the personal touch, you know, and you miss the chance to have those informal conversations. You know, it's not a meeting, that's about a topic, it's a chance to catch up with someone and hear how they are. And I think at least for a while, we'll all appreciate that all the more when we go back. So Google's plan is three days in the office and then two days as an option, you can work from home or, or come in as you, as you like.
Michael Gardon (31:07):
It really seems from, from my conversations with people that I, that I talk to in the corporate world, it, it definitely seems like the, uh, the hybrid is the path forward, you know, at least into the, the, the short term future. And it's probably gonna gonna be a preferred option for, for a long, long time, because I think it's the best of both worlds. You get a little freedom and relaxation being at home flexibility to, to be a parent, to be a, a human being. But then you get to go into the office and see your colleagues and, and, uh, have those interactions. So that's what it seems like to me. And, and obviously Google you're, uh, you're leading the way on this. Well, thank you, Lisa. Thank you so much for being with us. I really appreciate you taking some time and, and giving us your insights. Is there anything that maybe I didn't ask you about that you'd like to leave our audience with?
Lisa Gevelber (31:59):
You know, if they're interested, I hope they'll check out the Google career certificates. Um, you know, obviously you can Google that, but you can also go direct to the URL, which is grow.google/certificates. I, I don't know if, if your listeners have employers, they can also find information there too, about how they can hire, uh, some of these graduates. And, and we also have a section for, for schools who wanna work with us. Who've got some really nice programs going with high schools as well. Um, getting kids ready for the workforce. And since so many of them will make different choices after they finish high school. So there's lots of information on the website for anyone who's interested in learning more.
Michael Gardon (32:35):
And yeah, we'll link to that in the show notes and link to, um, all the other resources you may have mentioned throughout our conversation. Is there a way that, where can people find a little bit more about, out
Lisa Gevelber (32:45):
About you? Oh gosh, well, you can follow me on Twitter, I guess. Um, or, or on LinkedIn. I, I tend to post a lot of stuff about the work we're doing. So there's many other programs today. We focused on the career certificate program, but there's, there's a lot more work to that grow with Google is doing to really help people reach their economic potential. We have a lot of programs for veterans and military spouses. We recently made some big announcements there. So I guess following me on Twitter, it's at Lisa developer or on LinkedIn is probably the best way.
Michael Gardon (33:13):
Okay, perfect. And we'll make sure we link to, to those, uh, resources as well. Lisa, thanks a so much for your time. Really appreciate you coming on and really enjoyed our conversation.
Lisa Gevelber (33:23):
Yeah, me too. Thank you so much for having me.
Outro (33:25):
CareerCloud Radio is a production of careercloud.com. Please review this episode on iTunes. We really appreciate it a lot. And thank you for listening.
