Katalina (00:00.974)
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Career Path. I am your host, Catalina Dawson. Today we will be discussing navigating job transitions. And with me today, I have Stephanie Schenking. Stephanie is the VP of Portfolio Acquisitions at NCB Management Services. Her role includes overseeing client services, back office and specialty services. She is also certified through RMAI with her CRCP.

and certified through ACA with her CCCO. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining me today. It is such a pleasure to have you on. My pleasure. Would you like to share a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are today?

Stephanie Schenking (00:35.987)
Thanks for having me as your guest today. I'm excited.

Stephanie Schenking (00:45.363)
Yeah, I'd love to. So I think one of the things I love best about our industry is that there's no specific path to get to where you want to get to. Let me give you this example. So right out of college, I graduated with a finance degree and got a job at a large bank as a stockbroker. Surrounded myself with people that were just like me, right? Newly graduated, had a finance degree, and our goal was to sort of move up that corporate ladder. But we were all kind of the same type of people.

Katalina (01:15.118)
Hmm.

Stephanie Schenking (01:15.219)
Let's just say the RMAI industry, while we all have the same vision and beliefs and goals, we didn't exactly all come from the same place. So, started at the bank, I was there for about 10 years and I loved the job, loved the people, but then life happened and they relocated. And at the time I had three small kids at home and I had a choice to make. Do I make this long drive or do I become a stay at home mom? And...

I really didn't think about finding a job closer because I had three kids at home. And for me, I feel my heart was like pulling. I need to stay home with them. So I made that choice. I did not relocate with the company and kind of walked away from those 10 years of progression that I had made and stayed home with the kids. Best decision ever. So I was home with them for about seven years and then life happened and they're all back in school and I was inching to use my brain.

I was super involved in everything the kids did, but it was about time for me. And one of my old coworkers called me from the bank and she said she had an opportunity. It was in the receivables industry. I'm like, well, what is that? I don't even know. I mean, I came from the, though I have a finance degree, I came from like the investment side. So she's like, it's in consumer receivables, it's in compliance, which I knew I had a background of. So.

I said, well, let's just do this. And so I joined a debt buyer. So over the last five years from there, I soaked it all in. I soaked in the industry. I learned client services and performance management and training and operations, everything in our industry. I just tried to be a part of, soak in, ask questions. And then life happened again. And an opportunity arose for me with another debt buyer.

for me to jump in and I feel like what I was missing at the time was sort of that leadership. So I made the jump. I made the jump to a company that literally, when I think about it, the way he was able to maneuver his company through growth and change with such grace, I knew I landed in the right place. So I soaked all that in. I soaked in...

Stephanie Schenking (03:35.283)
The best thing, my best takeaway is the people always in the leadership. When I think about how people felt there when I was there, and I know still to this day, he had the ability to empower, to make us feel responsible, included, all of those things that are so important to leadership. And my coworkers became my family. Now that's true with everywhere I've been.

But for having only been there for a year and a half and to have them feel like family almost immediately and still right now, that's what it's all about. And then life happened again. It just keeps happening, right? It just keeps happening. So I got a phone call with an amazing opportunity, which is where I'm at today with NCB management, a job that engages me, it challenges me. I have an amazing mentor and I'm at a place where I'm...

Katalina (04:13.646)
Oh my gosh.

Stephanie Schenking (04:29.555)
constantly learning and growing and that's what it's about. That's to me. That's what it's all about. So that's how I ended up here. I love it. I love the team and I just love being part of Family, I mean that is to me the most important we spend so much time at our jobs so for me that's what I'm looking for and I feel blessed enough in every job I've ever had to have that and Yeah, so that's kind of my story and how I got here. I

Katalina (04:59.31)
Thank you so much for sharing. You have a great past to share. I love how passionate you are about your family. And you know, they say life is what happens when you're busy making plans. So it will just keep happening and happening. And of course in there, I also noticed you made several different job transitions, which is exactly what we're talking about today. So I want to start with discussing some common misconceptions about job transitions. Cause I know you and I had a little bit to say about this.

Stephanie Schenking (05:09.779)
yes. It does!

Stephanie Schenking (05:25.459)
Yeah.

for sure. I think Catalina, for me, one of the things is job transitions do not have to be negative. They're not, I mean, there are quotes on LinkedIn that we see where people are leaving bosses, not companies. And I mean, I think on rare occasion, that might be the truth, but I personally like to believe that people are making job transitions for personal growth, for development, for opportunities.

How lucky am I to actually say that I have loved every job I have had? And that is the truth. I have loved every company. I think part of a job transition that is important for somebody to do is to make sure that they are researching the company that they're going to. That is very important. You can look at a job description. You could look at a job title. But what is the company? What do they believe in? Is that something that you believe in?

how many jobs we all turned down because we looked at and we're like, I don't feel like I would fit there. So I think it's super important to recognize that job transitions don't have to be negative. They just, oftentimes they're quite honestly the opposite.

Katalina (06:37.102)
Absolutely.

Katalina (06:40.654)
Yeah, I personally, that resonates with me so much. So I started in this industry with a company called Prodigal. I love Prodigal to this day. I love Prodigal. I know I'm not with them anymore. I believe in them. I loved my team there. When I chose to leave, it was exactly what you said. It was, I saw an opportunity and it was because in my position at Prodigal, I was the events manager. So I did all of the...

Stephanie Schenking (06:48.435)
Ciao!

Katalina (07:09.038)
We did like 30 something events a year. It was crazy. It was a very full -time job. And then I was also kind of client liaison where I got to travel around, talk to our clients. I loved what I did. I absolutely loved it. And I struggle with a great word to say it, but in a way I was pigeonholed, but I don't want to say pigeonholed because I loved it. But that's what I did. And it was kind of just one sector of marketing.

Stephanie Schenking (07:11.955)
Oh my goodness. Yeah.

Stephanie Schenking (07:28.499)
Yeah.

Katalina (07:35.214)
And when I got this opportunity to work with Adam Parks and branding arc, the doors just opened. There was, I would be doing events. I would be talking to clients, but I would also be getting to work more with marketing deliverables and design and building websites and overseeing a bunch of different things and also getting to dip into sales. And I was like, wow, what an incredible opportunity for me to stretch my legs and learn more. And I have absolutely loved the transition.

Stephanie Schenking (07:40.083)
Yes.

Stephanie Schenking (08:01.011)
Yeah.

Katalina (08:04.654)
and still hold so much love for my previous job. So, yeah.

Stephanie Schenking (08:07.859)
Yes, so same. Sometimes you'll often hear me, I feel like when people ask what my story is or whatever, I kind of describe them using my hands now like a circle, but sometimes I'll say it's like a trivial pursuit pie piece, right? And so I feel like the job that I'm currently in, that was my missing pie piece. My pie, not to say our pie is ever complete, I think we should always be learning and growing, but it was the piece for me that was like missing. I feel like now I have my operations, I have the compliance, I have all those pieces.

but I still want to learn and grow, right? So speaking of one of the things that has impacted me my entire career, I think has followed through from the time I was 21 years old, graduated and got my first job is at that big bank. One of the things that they have was called Kaizen money. Do you know what Kaizen means? It is, it is. So it's just about constant improvement, change, change is good.

Katalina (08:56.142)
I do not know. I know it's Japanese, right?

Stephanie Schenking (09:05.395)
But how we recognized that was the company empowered everyone from the CEO all the way down to the reps on the phone. Everyone was involved in Kaizen. And what that means is if you notice a way to make things better, if you notice a way to make a change, and not just if the company implemented it, but if you were really thinking about how can we make things better? Could you imagine if everyone around us was thinking that way instead of just doing their job? But if they were always had that in the forefront of how can I make things better?

If we all thought that, oh my gosh, what an amazing company. So that's exactly what Fidelity did. So what I love about that is I've carried it on through everywhere I've been at. I've sort of always had that mindset of Kaizen, constantly changing. Change, I think sometimes people get scared, right? So they don't do it because they're unsure or fearful. Change is hard, so that's sometimes why people don't do it, but that's when you learn and grow. And I...

Stephanie Schenking (10:04.211)
I will tell you when I left the company before coming to NCB management, I had a conversation with my son who was training to be a seal at the time. And I loved my job. I loved the people. I loved everything. And I constantly saw him challenging himself and pushing himself and growing. And he made one comment to me that I swear has impacted me. Well, it will forever impact me. But he's like, Mom, we're not built to be on cruise control. We're not built to just

God didn't make us that way. That is not our bodies aren't made. Could you imagine if we just never moved our body? So, it's change is good. It's hard, but it's good. It's how we grow. And I think if we can adapt that philosophy in everything, I think we will be good. We'll do good. And so, if you and I can change the perception out there of, you know, job transitioning is negative when it's not.

Katalina (10:39.758)
Yeah.

Stephanie Schenking (11:02.291)
Oftentimes we're just leaving a piece of our family behind, but we always take them with us. Yeah.

Katalina (11:07.054)
absolutely. I love it. That quote from your son is fantastic. Yeah, your body is not supposed to just be in cruise control. And you also made me think of another saying, and I'm blanking on what the actual quote is, but it's something where like the threshold of where you feel uncomfortable is where you actually change. It's something along that. But yeah, when you feel uncomfortable, it's because you're changing. It's because you're challenging yourself. So on that note, let's discuss some of the...

Stephanie Schenking (11:11.955)
Eh.

No.

Stephanie Schenking (11:25.843)

Yeah. Oh my gosh. So true. Yeah.

Katalina (11:35.982)
crazy challenges that come along with transitioning jobs.

Stephanie Schenking (11:39.859)
Yes, I feel like I've done this twice now in the call it last five years and I think some of this also just comes with age right like I'm not sure I would have loved to have known this at 25 26 But it's one word and that's just being intentional for me. It's I think it's an action word. I think we need to think about it

Katalina (11:57.326)
Thank you.

Stephanie Schenking (12:06.675)
and it requires patience. So a great example would be, I think we need to be intentional about adjusting to a new environment. And I say that because you're the new girl on the block or the new guy on the block, right? So there are things that I think is important to understand. You're not always gonna fit in right away. And so some of that is just patience. I think we need to have patience. That's hard. A lot of us are not great at that. I'm a self -included.

But we have to have patience and we need to be intentional about building those relationships. I think that's very important. I love that quote. Listen, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I want to surround myself with a bunch of smart people in every department. So for me, and it's important when I go to a new company is to set up meetings with each of the departments and not just the manager or the VP or I want to know everybody. I don't need to dig into the weeds, but I want to understand.

How can I help you? How can you help me and how can we work together? So being intentional about building those relationships. I also think the hybrid work environment is, it can be difficult to be intentional about respecting people's time, including your own. And I'm working on that because it's a balanced thing. But I think being intentional about responding to emails and doing it promptly, how you do that at the beginning of a job sets the tone of sort of,

Is Stephanie, is she going to reply to this right away? Where does she put me in her list of priorities? So that to me is huge, is respecting time. And I also think in this day and age with teams, it's very easy to see when people are available and not available and just being respectful of that. And when you're setting up meetings, come prepared. Let's not waste people's time. All of those things are, while they're perceptions, they're real.

and there are things that are in our control that we can actually do. One of my old coworkers, one of the things he said to me when we first started working at work, you know, work from home with COVID, I was like, I don't know if I'm built for this. I love people. I like surround myself with people and I don't know that I can just be in my own four walls. I don't know if I can do this. I'm also not sure if I can turn off work. And that was one of my biggest concerns. And I do have office doors and one of the things like here at home.

Stephanie Schenking (14:29.811)
So one of the things he said to me is when your day is over, whatever time that is, shut your door. Shut your door and do not open it back up until the next, now if there's an emergency, a work thing, sure. But that should hopefully, that physical of shutting the door should hopefully help. And I was like, is that really gonna help, girl? That's exactly what I do now. At the end of the day, I shut my door. I need to shut my door to know not today. You know.

Stephanie Schenking (14:58.355)
And that whole balancing, I think, is so real. We grew up, I grew up in the time of we need to be available 24 seven. And one of my coworkers, she has the ability to set boundaries. And I have always said to her, I need to learn that from you. I need to learn that from you because it doesn't mean that I don't care. It doesn't mean that I'm not working. But I always was saying, yes, yes, yes, yes, I will. Yes, I'll do that. And I wasn't, I can talk about the importance of balancing.

Stephanie Schenking (15:28.019)
for my team, you'll never see me request from anybody on my team anything off of their work hours. I would never do it. Even if it's as simple like it would help me real quick and I just need to know yes or no, I won't do that. So I can do it with everybody else, but I would have a hard time doing it with myself. And in this day and age, we have so many ways that can help us, our phones. We can now, I forget what the setting is on the iPhone, but do not disturb. You could put that on your phone. You can tell your phone, my bedtime is right now.

Katalina (15:40.174)
Yeah.

Stephanie Schenking (15:58.323)
But you can also look at an email and say, that can wait until the morning. And I think it's hard to, it's okay to do that and learning to accept that. So for me, those are some of the challenges that I've kind of, I work on and try to be intentional about anytime I'm in a new space.

Katalina (16:18.094)
Absolutely, and I think you brought up a really good point there. When you looked at yourself and said, hey, I'm not very good at boundaries, having that self -assessment is very critical to your job success in general, but I think it's also very critical to job transition specifically. What kind of role do you feel self -assessment plays in the job transition?

Stephanie Schenking (16:39.859)
Oh man, I think it's actually the very foundational one. I just, I really do. I believe it's important to be honest and vulnerable with yourself. But listen, one of the most important things for me is we all need to save space. You know, they'll talk about, or I say they, but webinars, if you hop on LinkedIn, have a mentor. And I think, I definitely believe in that and the importance of having a mentor outside of the place that you work. But it's also,

vital to have a mentor inside of the place that you work. And I'm not sure, I don't feel like that's stressed enough, but for me, I have to have that. I need to have a safe space. Who's my safe space? Who can I say, am I crazy? Am I doing this wrong? Is this right? Am I on the right path? Is this? So I think you need a confidant, somebody that you can help you because when you start a new job, the self -assessment of you're confident, you got this job, right? You got it.

Stephanie Schenking (17:38.227)
But you also have to have that humility side of, I'm still willing to learn and not everything has to be my way. And I think you will not be successful if you just have that confidence without having that humility. So for me, I think self assessments are vital. I think most people probably read, have you read Catalina James Clear, Atomic Habits? Have you read that book before?

Katalina (18:03.758)
No, I do have the book and it's on my to read list, but I mean, I have a stack of books to read right now. So is it that good?

Stephanie Schenking (18:10.418)
Girl, make that one of your next ones. It is because it gives you little actionable steps. Well, that's actually what the entire book is about, doing little things repeatedly over and over. But there's a quote from there. I'm probably gonna get it wrong in some way, but it's, every action we take is a vote to the type of person that we wanna become. And that is so true. Every little thing that we do from what we eat and put in our bodies, right? That's gonna who we become. From how we think if we're constantly.

Katalina (18:14.062)
Okay.

Stephanie Schenking (18:38.291)
telling ourself negative things, that's how we're gonna act, to how we do things. Very simply, I'll tell you, my son also, the military one also was telling me about a book, I think it's a short read, I've not read it, but it starts with, it was some like Five Star General that talks about making your bed every day, the importance of making your bed, and what that does for your mindset, and how that sort of sets just that day, right, just that day, but it ends up being.

Stephanie Schenking (19:07.891)
every day. And so those little steps that you just take sort of define who you are. And I that so true, like for me. Yeah, so true.

Katalina (19:15.886)
Yeah, that makes me think of, there was a quote on Facebook that I shared the other day that was very similar and it said something like, what you read this year, the people you hang out with this year is gonna define who you are in the next five years. Cause that's your education, your health, your, like you said, surrounding yourself with smart people. It will define who you are eventually. So it's very important. Well, Stephanie.

Stephanie Schenking (19:28.947)
Yes.

Stephanie Schenking (19:35.219)
So true.

Stephanie Schenking (19:40.019)
Yeah, yeah, yep.

Katalina (19:43.342)
Unfortunately, that is all the time we have today. I know it went by so fast. I want to thank you so much for joining me, sharing your experience, your insights and everything. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to have you.

Stephanie Schenking (19:44.851)
Okay, it did.

Stephanie Schenking (19:54.387)
Oh, Catalina, I appreciate you. I appreciate you reaching out, asking me to do this. It's been great, so thank you so much.

Katalina (20:01.838)
Thanks and to our listeners, if you have any questions, comments or topics that you would like to see us discuss, please leave them in the comments below. We will try to get to every single one of them. And thank you all again for joining us today. We will see you in the next episode.

Stephanie Schenking (20:18.131)
Thank you.