life@work

What It Takes To Change Careers In Midlife

I get a number of calls every month from people in their late 30’s, 40's or 50's who want to know what kind of process I go through with clients to help them change careers. They’re all revved up about possibility and change. Some of them sign up for the adventure while others, sighing as they hang up the phone, do not. 

Changing careers after 10 or more years is an incredibly daunting task. It’s a complex process that takes a whole lot of energy, creativity, persistence and work. And chances are you are already engaged in a life that requires a whole lot of energy, creativity, persistence and work.

I was interested to read this useful piece that sums up the process of changing careers in mid-life. If you’re thinking about it, I recommend you check it out.

Here is an overview of the steps, with my editorial comments:

• Assess yourself (There are 468 ways to do this, including written exercises and various tests.)
• Know what’s important to you. (Pay, hours, tasks, challenge, industry, people contact, etc.)
• Find out what’s out there (Research online and/or use a career counselor or coach.)
• Narrow down career options. (Between two and four options is manageable and not overly limiting.)
• Talk to people in the field (informational interviews, attend professional association meetings).
• Volunteer, work as a temp, or moonlight to try something out first while minimizing risk.
• Engage your existing network of people to assist you. (This is one of your biggest advantages over younger career-changers, so use it!)

You've heard about all of these steps before - none are difficult to comprehend. A big challenge for most people is deciding exactly how and exactly when and exactly with whom they are going to accomplish the steps.

But perhaps the most daunting challenge is keeping up the interest, momentum and sheer stamina it takes to change careers, while at the same time navigating the ever-changing currents of the river called My Life Right Now.

Just because you're in the midst of engineering a career change doesn't mean you can't go through a re-org at work, or the dog won't die, or your teenager won't test your limits, or your spouse's mother won't need to move into assisted living, and so on and so forth.

It can be tempting in the face of such distractions to give up on your career change plan altogether. But with a little patience, and a caring person in your life to nudge you, you can do it.

I'd love to hear: What made it possible for you to change careers?

Why You Should Be in Love at the Job Interview

What's love got to do with job interviewing?

David Perry of Guerilla Job Hunting offers a clever analogy.

Your job in an interview is to secure an offer. You may or may not actually accept the offer - but after you have it, then you can decide whether you want to work there and negotiate the details.

The way you project your interest and enthusiasm for the job can strongly impact the chances of you getting the offer. Don't be neutral, be in love. Why? It's attractive, pure and simple.

If you're hiring someone, are you attracted to the candidate who's carefully neutral and keeps his cards close to his chest, or the one who tells you how interesting she finds your opportunity?

This is where David's analogy between love and interviews comes in: Be enthusiastic. Don't be afraid to say "I love you" first. Don't play hard to get before you even get an offer. 

There's an art to this approach or it comes off as extremely phony and cloying. If you genuinely have no interest in pursuing the opportunity further, it won't work for you to pretend otherwise.

But if the job could possibly be a good fit, put away your tepid, "I'll think about it" attitude and get the offer.

Tips for Handling Career Fairs

Career Fair
Originally uploaded by espy786

Many people who haven't attended a career fair since they were 22 years old are stopping by now. Seasoned professionals who have been laid off are flocking in droves to these events that have traditionally targeted entry level people.

How to cope with the crowds? Career Journal offers some good tips. Here are the highlights:

    * Pre-register if possible.
    * Show up early. Be one of the first people recruiters talk to, not the thousandth.
    * Identify the companies you are most interested in, and visit them first.
    * Research the participating companies online so you know their mission, products/services, and positions they have open.

Talk with the other fair participants while you're waiting in line - everyplace is a good place to meet people and network.

After the fair, plan to do something energizing. You can bet that the very tired recruiters are going to as well!

Tips for Surviving the Never-Ending Rounds of Interviews

So you've got a one or two-day interview ahead of you, during which you'll meet everyone from the CEO to the janitor. What can you expect? How can you make your best impression and somehow not collapse from the stress of repeating yourself and smiling for hour upon hour?

Check out this article for some solid advice. More and more, risk-averse employers are investing plenty of time in getting to know you before extending an offer.

The good news is that serial interviews give you a great opportunity to assess critical factors, such as how functional or dysfunctional the environment is, and how kooky the people are. One interview alone often can't give you such an accurate lay of the land.

Thriving during a string of interviews can be tough, but if you keep a few points in mind, you'll be better prepared:

• Try to find out who will interview you ahead of time.

Find out anything you can about them on LinkedIn, the company website, or other networking sites.

• Get into a positive frame of mind.

If you arrive expecting to hate the day, guess what? You'll hate the day and others will pick up on that. Talk to yourself as positively as you can. Expect things to go well. Be gentle with yourself. If you've done some preparation beforehand, you have every reason to be confident.

• Expect to answer the same questions over and over again.

Build on your increasing knowledge of the company to add whatever new elements you can.

• Bring lots of questions.

Some people who interview you may not be folks you'd work with often - they are there to find out if you're easy to work with. If you come with good questions to ask, you'll have a way to fill the silence when they're done with their questions.

Of course you'll want to ask good questions of everyone else, too.

• Use break times to jot notes down about your interviews so you can write good thank you notes later.

The names, titles, and conversations may all be a blur if you rely solely on your memory.

Serial interviews make for long days, but ultimately are helpful for everyone to decide whether there's a good match.

LinkedIn is Essential

The other day I met with a client who's a professional in his 40's who is not on LinkedIn. He admitted this fact rather sheepishly, and was not surprised when I "assigned" him the task of joining it and setting up his network.

It's time to get over your fear of transparency or procrastination or whatever it is that is keeping you from bothering to join LinkedIn! Even if you're not looking for a new job, get on there. Like it or not, LinkedIn has become an incredibly useful tool to build and maintain your contacts, and in today's climate, working your contacts is Job #1.

One caveat: don't join LinkedIn if you're not willing to commit. By commit I mean bothering to set up a complete profile, and by complete profile I mean writing compelling copy about yourself, getting recommendations from others and writing recommendations.

Like any other tool, LinkedIn is only helpful if you use it. Signing up and not showing up gets you the same results as paying for the gym membership and staying home to watch TV.

It's easy to prowl around on the site and learn about its features, but there are also more ways you can learn how best to take advantage of LinkedIn. Here are just a few:

• The official blog
• Linked Intelligence, the unofficial source for all things LinkedIn
• I'm on LinkedIn, Now What? It's a book by Jason Alba, and there's a blog, too.

So what are you waiting for?

I'd love to hear your story about how LinkedIn has helped you in your career.

Attention Job Seekers: Being Is as Important as Doing

I empathize with my job seeking clients who tell me how frustrated they are trying to come up with a "value proposition" and write their resumes.

The language used in securing employment and in transacting business in general in the U.S. is heavy on doing, and light on being.

By doing I mean achieving, accomplishing, completing, winning, trumping, securing, scoring, managing, and so on. We are expected to quantify our value and enumerate our measurable accomplishments in order to be deemed a worthy risk in which to invest (i.e., get hired).

By being I mean those qualities that are not by themselves about achievement, although they often make what we achieve possible. We may be inspiring, authentic, honest, strong, nurturing, competitive, tenacious, creative, optimistic, patient, reliable and so on.

Some of my clients feel frustrated that because so much of their self identity is tied to who they are rather than what they have achieved that writing a great resume and being successful in an interview will be a discouraging process.

The truth is that who you are being on the job is every bit as important as what you are doing (at least in most professional jobs). People experience and evaluate us very much on what we show of who we are.

This is why getting your foot in the door of a company or new career through personal contacts can be so much more successful and gratifying than applying to a posted job opening as an unknown quantity. Who you are is immediately part of the conversation - the decision to bring you there is based on it. Articulating the details of all of your spectacular career achievements comes second.

If you are relying on your resume to secure an interview, then I advise that you pay attention to how the job search game is played and make sure your resume is filled with all kinds of doing.

But the good news is that there is room on your resume for plenty of the less quantifiable but equally critical qualities you bring to the table. A good professional resume writer understands this and is able to make your resume a more three-dimensional portrait than a mere list of accomplishments.

Heather Mundell

Dream Big Coaching Services

www.dreambigcoaching.com

How to Choose the Right Career Coach

I'm a life and career coach, and if you're looking for someone to coach you about something in your life or career, I may be a good match for you.

Then again, maybe not.

Coaching, as you can imagine, is not a one-size-fits-all service. That's why it's important to know before you start shopping for a coach what specifically you want. For example:

• Are you having trouble in your job search?
• Are you thinking about changing careers and have no idea where to start?
• Are you looking to advance to the next tier in your company?
• Do you know what you "should" be doing but just aren't getting it done?
• Are you wanting to take your business to the next level?

These are very different challenges. Most coaches will have great interest and experience with some of them and not as much interest or experience with others.

Good coaches will only accept clients who are looking for results the coach is adept at producing. No one benefits from a client-coach mismatch.

This article from Career Journal offers great advice about how to find the right career coach for you.

I'm best at helping people make important career decisions and create and follow through on a plan of action. Want to leave your organization? Propel your career forward? Decide on a career after college? Change some habits so that you'll be a better manager or a better parent away from work? Start a business? Call me and let's talk.

If you've tried everything in your job search and it's still not working, I've got someone in mind for you to talk with. If you need your resume re-written, I know just the person. If you need inside contacts in a particular industry or city, I suggest you find mentors.

When you're highly motivated to move forward toward your goals and are paired with the right coach, you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish in very short order.

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

Secrets from an Executive Recruiter

Attention job seekers!

Thad Greer, an executive recruiter and career coach, has written a new book called The Executive Rules: A Complete Guide to Landing an Executive Job, and it's filled with solid advice to help you land a great job.

I'm always interested in hearing about the corporate hiring process from an executive recruiter's point of view. They have seen it all and heard it all. They know what works and what fails miserably.

Some key points from the book that you don't read everywhere else:

• Why you should submit your resume as a PDF file, not as a Word document.
• The benefits of starting a professional blog.
• Why cover letters are dead.
• How targeting small employers can yield results fast.
• Why you should avoid applying via job boards and what to do instead.
• How to cold call a hiring manager, including an actual sample script that sounds like something you could actually say without cringing.
• 15 must-do's for job interviews (including why you should leave your cell phone in your car.)
• How you are really being evaluated at a job interview.

Anyone looking for a professional position would find useful guidance here. Thad thoroughly explains the how and why of each of his points with helpful examples and anecdotes from the hiring trenches. He also has up-to-the minute tips on how best to use technological tools.

Many of us in a job search want someone to take the mystery out of the process and just tell us what to do. This is what The Executive Rules claims and delivers on: "Learn the specific rules you must follow if you want to land a great job in today's hyper-competitive job market."

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

What To Do When Your Reptilian Mind Takes Over Your Job Search

I've been reading, thinking and talking a lot lately about how our frame of mind so dramatically affects what we accomplish, and of course how we feel when we're accomplishing it.

One fascinating bit of brain science I've been learning more about has to do with the "reptilian" part of our brain - how it helps us, how it hinders us, and how it's not going to stop doing its job (broadcasting fears related to our survival) anytime soon.

Most job seekers are intimately familiar with the urgent and constant messages issued by their reptilian brains:

• "Better not blow this interview, because you're just a hair's breath away from financial ruin!"
• "You know you don't have the experience they're looking for, so who do you think you are applying for this job?"

Definitely not inspiring thoughts, and often paralyzing ones.

The bad news: the reptilian part of our brain is hardwired to believe that we lack what we need and that something terrible is about to happen. Those are its jobs, and it's not interested in changing careers.

The good news: With practice, we can call on the nonreptilian part of our neural complex to watch what is happening. Simply observing what the reptilian brain is up to negates its energy.

Huh?

I think Martha Beck explains this well in her newest book, Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life No Matter What!:

"Remember that study of monks who'd spent years watching their fear from a compassionate perspective and had thicker-than-typical neural matter in the part of the brain associated with happiness. The neuron pathways that carry lizard fears become weaker the more we observe them."

In other words, we don't ignore the catastrophizing, believe it, or struggle against it. We mentally address the reptilian brain, with something like: "Thanks for letting me know - now you can leave the room." We observe the fears and move our attention to the present moment.

We can't do much in our job search when we're flooded with fear. A highly effective way to get into a more productive and effective frame of mind is to ask ourselves, as suggested by Zen master Suzuki Roshi,

"What, at this moment, is lacking?"

We are now in the present, where our needs are usually few and simpler to address.

The next time you feel stuck in your job search, notice whether the reptilian part of your brain is being especially loud that day. Try observing it, giving it the day off, and then turning your attention to the here-and-now.

I bet you will feel freer and much more effective.

Photo by superbatfish

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

How to Explain a Resume Gap During an Interview

We all have a few questions we hope an interviewer doesn't ask. One of the most common such scenarios is when we have a gap in employment.

It's easy to feel unsure and on the defensive when we anticipate being asked, "So, what was happening from May 2004 through July 2005?"

The Pongo Blog features a post written by Rick Saia on this topic. It's as good advice as I've seen on how to explain a gap in your resume.

In a nutshell he advises to keep your explanation brief and factual, highlight the positives, and bring the conversation back to your qualifications and interest in the job for which you are interviewing.

Rick also describes whether and when you should disclose all of the jobs that you have held.

I've worked with people who have felt not only unsure but plagued by the gap in their resume. If after reading Rick's post you still aren't sure how to explain your resume gap, try these steps:

1. Explain to someone (or yourself in the mirror) in very blunt terms why there is a gap. Don't sugarcoat and don't put a spin on it - just be brutally honest.

In this way you get your baggage out of your head and onto "the table" where you can see it.

Examples of baggage could include:

• I did a really bad job of looking for work after I was laid off, so it took a while.
• My boss didn't like me, I was fired, and it has taken a really long time to find a new job. I feel like a loser.
• I quit without any other job in hand and regret my rashness. It took a long time to find work and I think that looks bad.
• I was trying to make a career change, but was unsuccessful. Now I feel I need to get back to my old career, and I'm not happy about it.
• I was depressed and unable to work. Now I'm much better but I don't want to tell anyone I was depressed. It isn't their business, anyway. But what do I say?

2. Differentiate between the facts of your situation and the negative emotional judgments you're making. You might want to ask a friend or a coach to help you make the distinctions.

3. Put away the negative emotional judgments for the rest of this exercise.

4. Working with the facts of the resume gap, craft a 2-3 sentence response to an anticipated inquiry. The response needs to be truthful, yet it does not need to include all of the details or the background story.

5. Make a plan for what you will do with the negative emotional judgments, so they don't take over your job search experience or show up inappropriately during an interview.

It's much easier to decide how to describe a resume gap in an interview after you've had the chance to fully explore the facts and your feelings about it on your own.

Too often we grip our "baggage" tightly, never putting it down and definitely never talking about it. But when we do this, we lose perspective about its significance and what to do about it.

It's possible that the situation you're worried about or embarrassed about might not be difficult to explain at all. Share your baggage with someone else to get an objective take on it and what your options are.

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

cross-posted at Career Hub