life@work

Career Change One Baby Step at a Time

Photo by bobmarley753

If you're feeling overwhelmed thinking about a career change, you're not alone.

You may be feeling pressure to find the "perfect" job, the one that is absolutely better than what you're doing now, the one that is completely aligned with your purpose on this planet.

You may be assuming that there is probably only one or possibly two of these jobs in existence, so you better get cracking, and you better make the right decision.

This is all in addition to the pressure you may be feeling about changing jobs during a recession.

I'd like to offer an alternative view. What if the next job only has to be a step closer to your purpose on the planet? What kind of relief from the pressure could you experience then?

Career change usually is achieved through a series of steps, such as education, volunteering, part-time work, freelancing, and/or full-time employment.

I like what career and life coach Annemarie Segaric has to say on the topic of your next job in this article: "It doesn't have to be perfect."

Losing the pressure to choose perfectly does introduce a new pressure, however - to do something. My basic philosophy on doing something:

Dream big. Yet plan very small steps to get there.

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

How to Get the Coolest Jobs

Alexandra Levit, author, career consultant and blogger, has written a cool book about cool jobs.

Even if you're already established in a career, aren't you curious about what it takes to be an art curator, image consultant, travel journalist or computational linguist? Don't you want to know what a computational  linguist is in the first place?

In How'd You Score That Gig? A Guide to the Coolest Jobs and How to Get Them, Alexandra describes what it takes to break into 60 different careers.

First you take a quiz (I love quizzes!) to figure out your "passion profile":

• The Adventurer
• The Creator
• The Data Head
• The Entrepreneur
• The Investigator
• The Networker
• The Nurturer

Each profile features 8-10 jobs. Alexandra describes what each job entails, how to enter the field, how competitive the industry is, and in some cases, how much it pays.

What I especially appreciate about this book are its focus on jobs you don't normally read about in career reference books and its up-to-date links to resources. I also enjoy the conversational writing style and the interviews with people who are currently doing the jobs.

Alexandra has obviously thoroughly researched each of these careers and doesn't hesitate to share the possible downsides. I like this too.

Whether you're just graduating from college or are considering a career change after a number of years on the job, this book is a helpful guide that you'll actually enjoy reading!

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

Changing to Your Dream Job? Be Patient.

Photo by caspermoller

Career change takes a while.

That's my big declaration today. If you can dream it, do it...but please be patient.

I don't mean to be a bummer and rain on your parade. I really want you to go for that career change. I just want you to keep these things in mind (inspired by this piece on CareerJournal.com):

1. Every dream has its gestation period.

Whether your career change dream has more in common with a chipmunk (31 days to get a new one of these) or an elephant (it's 645 days before this one shows up), you will experience a delay between the moment you want a new career and the moment you get one.

2. Build on your existing skills and network of contacts.

No need to throw out the baby with the bath water. Leverage what you've done and who you know.

3. Plan in phases.

Keep your day job for as long as you can while you work on your career change on the side. This might mean volunteering on a nonprofit board, or taking on a couple of photography clients on the weekends, or studying for the GRE.

4. Fully explore what you're getting into.

We all have our ideas of what other people do, but how accurate are they? Is advertising really a glamorous industry? Is writing children's books really all about inspiring kids? Can you make a living wage as a horticulturist?

Talk to people who are doing what you want to do and grill them, ever so nicely. Find out the dark side of what you are dreaming about. Can you handle the dark side? Is it smaller than the sexy aspects?

5. Find ways to keep your dream alive during the gestation period.

You're going to feel impatient, and you're going to feel tempted to quit. Who or what will keep you going? Plan who you'll call when you're feeling discouraged. Create a visual reminder of your dream and put it on your wall (and look at it).

Changing careers is more like a marathon than a sprint, so it's wise to plan accordingly. This means pacing yourself, keeping your energy up, and understanding the peaks and valleys that are a natural part of the journey.

If you have completed a career change, I would love to hear your story in the comments!

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

Quintessential Careers is a Resource for Job Seekers

If you're conducting a job search and aren't familiar with Quintessential Careers, check it out.

Randall Hansen, a career coach and marketing professor, founded this site a dozen years ago, and it is full of solid career advice, contributed by many well-respected career professionals, and links to job sites.

Quintessential Careers publishes a monthly newsletter called QuintZine, which periodically features a Q&A interview with a career expert. This month it's me!

It's easy to get overwhelmed as a job seeker when you are gathering information online. Have a goal before you enter this content and link-rich site.

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

JibberJobber Helps You Manage Your Career Contacts

I can't believe that I haven't already written about JibberJobber, which is a great tool for both career managers (i.e., all of us, right?) and job seekers.

Jason Alba created JibberJobber as a result of his own frustrating job search process. So what else is an Internet application design expert to do but invent his own tool set that complements, yet doesn't duplicate, other tools out there.

JibberJobber helps you organize all the information you gather during a job search. Where have you sent your resume? To whom do you owe a follow up call? What is the name and number of the hiring manager your friend told you about? Did you remember to send a thank you note after the last interview? You can have all that data in one place.

The especially smart aspect of the tool set is that has features that help you manage your career on an ongoing basis (I'm talking about networking here), not just when you're looking for a job.

I can't tell you how many people I talk to who need to contact people with whom they've lost touch and feel really awkward about that.

Ideally we're staying connected with the past and meeting new people frequently - you know, keeping up our relationships with others. It's so easy to let a really interesting person or a mentor from years past fall off the radar. But it's also easy to keep in touch, especially if you have some kind of system to help you do it.

You can get a free, basic subscription to JibberJobber, or you can pay about $10 per month for additional features.

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

Money Mindfulness and Your Career

I coach people who are making big decisions about their career, so therefore I coach people about money.

Financial rewards and security are for most of us inextricably linked to our career choices. Planning our careers means we're thinking about how we are funding our lifestyles.

And all of that thinking about money brings up big emotions. You know, the fun ones, like fear, dread, and confusion.

A trusted colleague of mine, Debbie Lacy, of The Inspired Life, has put together a two-part workshop on money mindfulness that is happening this spring in Seattle and is all about how to create a more positive relationship with money.

Career decisions are so much easier to make when we have a relationship with money that is grounded in a clear vision of what we want!

Debbie is a superb coach and facilitator - if you're in Seattle and are ready for a money makeover - if you're ready to believe and behave differently with money - check out her Money Mindfulness workshop.

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

The Good Enough Career

Sometimes I'm tired of striving for perfect - how about you?

It's a real gift to recognize when what you have is good enough. It will do. It's just perfectly OK and alright as is.

When was the last time you thought that about your career? Or about anything in your life?

What kind of career happiness would be possible for you if you felt grateful for all the good things about your good enough career?

When we are always striving for something better in our careers, we lose track of the present. We focus on what we don't have (more money, a promotion, a better office, a more interesting project, a more compelling organizational mission, a better boss). We worry a lot, sometimes to the point of being unable to appreciate what we do have. This isn't fun.

I've worked with plenty of people who hired me to help them change careers, jobs or companies - only to decide a bit later that they really had it pretty good where they were and would simply stay put, with a slightly adjusted attitude.

They came to this conclusion after thinking and talking about what was working well in their careers, not just the disappointments. Many times the pros were more compelling than the cons.

I'm all for proactive career development and planning ahead. But there's something to be said for enjoying your good enough career and setting the striving aside for a while.

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

 

Attracting Your Perfect Job

Photo by Xerones

How attractive are you?

I'm not talking about your hair, your clothes, or your winning smile.

I'm asking what you're doing to be attractive to your perfect employer. Assuming you are in the market for a different and more perfect job and/or employer.

This is not a post about the Law of Attraction, per se. I haven't seen The Secret, and I don't have any magical affirmations to offer you.

But I am convinced that we can do a lot to attract the kinds of people and situations we want in our lives.

Stacey Hall and Jan Brogniez's book, Attracting Perfect Customers: The Power of Strategic Synchronicity, is one I turn to weekly as I develop and grow my own business. I have a business, and the business depends on customers. Every business owner has to figure out where those customers are going to come from. 

The tactic of running around, chasing after customers wasn't working too well for me. Imagine that. When I read this book, which was introduced to me by coach extraordinaire, Molly Gordon, I began to think about attracting perfect customers. I created something called a strategic attraction plan. And this changed my business entirely.

OK, so what does this have to do with you and your perfect job?

Everything. You can create a strategic attraction plan to attract perfect customers, a perfect job, mate, perfect vendors, business partners, or whoever. It's not magic, but is a fresh way to look at marketing or job seeking.

The book has all the details, but here are a few highlights:

• You are most attractive when you are like a lighthouse, standing still with a very focused beam of light, than when you are running up and down the beach, shining your light everywhere, trying to attract the attention of all the boats in the harbor.

This metaphor is about knowing who you are - in the case of being a job seeker, knowing your value proposition - and not trying to be what you think everyone else wants you to be. Focus is attractive, diffuseness is not.

Paring the process down quite a bit, your strategic attraction plan is the result of:

• Envisioning your perfect employer (it helps to have already worked for one that was awfully good), writing down their qualities and attributes
• Writing down what you choose your perfect employer to expect you to do
• Writing down what you need to improve to attract your perfect employer
• Working to improve what you decided you need to improve
• Reviewing the plan each day, to keep it alive

Creating a strategic attraction plan for a job search requires that you know yourself well, that you can imagine an ideal environment for you, and that you understand what you can do to make yourself more attractive to your perfect employer.

Just getting to the point of writing the plan takes a lot of thought and exploration! But it helps you become the lighthouse, someone your ideal employer will recognize as a great fit for their needs.

If you've done reading on personal branding, you recognize how closely tied the strategic attraction plan is to developing your personal brand. (Check out the 1997 Tom Peters article that started it all for more information). Dan Schawbel, among many others, is at the forefront of personal branding evangelism today.

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

How to Choose the Best Career Assistance for You

If you feel stuck in a career rut or unsure of how to take the next step in your career path, there are a number of resources you can use to help you move forward.

There are friends, books, study programs, mentors, tele-courses, group coaching, career counseling and career coaching. Choosing from among the options can be a dizzying process in itself.

I am a career coach, and part of my job is connecting people with the resources that are right for them. Career coaching can be a wonderful catalyst, yet is not the best solution for everyone in a career slump.

This article from Lower Hudson Online does a good job describing what to look for and expect from a career coach.

If it's time for you to turn to some kind of outside assistance regarding your career (usually when your spouse and/or friends are just sick and tired of hearing about your career woes!) take a few minutes to think about what exactly you're needing.

• Tactical job search advice?
• Assistance figuring out how your skills could translate to a different industry or career?
• A long term career plan?
• A new resume?
• Contacts in the field of your choice?
• Time in your day to do thinking and planning on your own?
• Someone to be a sounding board and support you?

Also think about how much time you have to dedicate to this exploration, whether talking to another person or group is important to you, and what kind of financial investment you're willing to make.

For instance career books are a great low-cost investment, if you know you have the self discipline to complete the exercises and process on your own.

Career coaching is a significant investment that can yield powerful results in a short period of time, if you enjoy partnerships and can commit the time and energy it requires.

Thankfully, we don't have to figure out everything about careers by ourselves. Knowing what you need will make it easy to find the career assistance that's best for you.

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

Getting Off the Corporate Treadmill

What an interesting post on escaping your cubicle over at Zen Habits, followed by an interesting conversation in the comments!

Mark Hayward is the guest blogger for this post, offering his insights on leaving corporate America, as someone who did just that and runs a business on Culebra.

This is a must-read for all of us who are working on "getting out", as well as all of us who need a little reminding about the power of perseverance, whatever the context.

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com