Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

Finding a new job

Quit Your Job

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There has never been a better time to quit your job and find a new one.

(I can sense you spluttering from afar.)

(You’re thinking that it’s easy for me to say.)

(You’re thinking I might be certifiably nuts.)

(You’re thinking that I don’t know what it’s reeeeaaaallly like out there, especially for someone who’s young or old or whatever you’ve got going on in your life.)

But I know I’m right about this.

In the county where I used to live, Arlington County in Virginia, unemployment is at 2.2%. That’s a full two percent less than the U.S. average. I’ve talked to hiring people in Arlington and they have open jobs which they cannot fill. Good jobs.

I spoke to a client this past week who’s facing the same issue in Washington, DC. Open positions, no candidates.

Around the U.S., there are a record 6.6 million job openings.

Makes you go “Hmmmmm”, doesn’t it?

Because you’ve been stiff-arming a search for a new job. Sure, it’s crossed your mind. But you think:

  • Job searches are a pain in the butt and take forever
  • No one will hire me because I’m under 30/over 50
  • What if no one wants me?
  • What if I find out my skills aren’t that great?
  • What if I land in a place that’s even more toxic than the place I’m in now?

Shall we knock those down, one at a time?

  • With unfilled jobs across the board, finding a new role is going to be easier than ever
  • People who might have previously been excluded are now included, because jobs must be filled. If you’re qualified, you’ll get a look
  • See “unfilled jobs across the board”
  • If you’ve stayed current with your skills in your current role, you should be OK. If you haven’t, take an online course to brush up your skillset
  • Toxic work place? Let’s drill down on that one

“According to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Yale University report, 70 percent of all jobs are found through networking. A recent survey by CareerXroads shows that only 15 percent of positions were filled through job boards. The survey showed that most jobs are either filled internally or through referrals.” (Washington Post) If you, then, focus on networking and generating referrals for your new job, you can ask about the work environment and office politics. If your friends (the people who are doing the referring) say the place is gruesomely toxic, you can pass on that opportunity in favor of the kind of workplace where it’s an utter pleasure to work.

Those workplaces exist, by the way.

And, studies have shown that income changes more significantly when you start a new role versus small annual increases at your current job.

So, a better workplace plus more money! What’s not to like?

You might say, “But I love living where I live and there are no jobs like you’re talking about here!”

What I hear you say is more about your priorities than anything else. Where you live is more important than what you do.

Which is totally fine. In fact, it’s awesome.

You know what’s important to you – now, own it. Realize that your job exists to support your life, so if you’re unhappy at your job… you can still get a new one. Maybe you’ll have to consider a different field, a different kind of role, a new use of your skills. As long as you stay in your town (honoring your real priority), you should be fine. Plus, you know, happier.

The Great Recession, which happened ten years ago this week, impacted all of us. We got frightened, and gun shy, and maybe a little bit cowed when it came to work. We remember when a lot of our friends and family found themselves out of a job and had a hard time finding something. Anything.

And so we’ve carried that trauma forward with us in a collective way.

Now is the time to lay down that burden, once and for all.

There are jobs out there. Good jobs. Lots of them.

If you’re not happy where you are, go somewhere else.

And if you’re an employer who’s not doing everything you can to make your workplace a good place to work with good pay for all – get ready. People can leave you in a hot minute these days – and they will if you neglect your greatest asset. Your people.

 

The Perils of Being Good

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Let’s say that ever since you were a little, teeny kid you have played by the rules.

You do what’s expected. Maybe even more than expected.

You’re deferential, polite and wait your turn.

You’re a such good girl. You’re a such good boy.

You go to work every day, even when you’re sick, and you miss things like birthdays, anniversaries and tournaments.

They’re paying you so you owe them, you tell yourself.

Your hard work will be noticed someday, you tell yourself.

Because you’re such a good girl – you’re such a good boy – you play by the rules.

Maybe you don’t work – you’re a full-time parent. But still, you’re hyper-competent and you way over-deliver.

Since you’re not working and bringing in any money, you tell yourself.

Everything has to be just so because you’re not working, you tell yourself.

Because you are not just a good boy or a good girl – you have to be perfect.

And the rules are the rules. My goodness, you’d hate to disappoint.

Or show that, perhaps, you’re not really that good (your biggest, most secret fear).

You’ve been living this way for so long that you don’t know who you are outside the rules. You don’t know how to un-conform.

Feels scary to even think about doing things differently.

No one you’ve ever known has colored outside the lines and succeeded.

Well, maybe that one person. Or two.

Or now that you think about it, that friend who left and started his own thing? He seems so happy.

And that woman – the one who went back to work after ten years at home? She’s glowing, right?

Huh.

Maybe there’s an opening. Maybe there’s a possibility. Maybe the old rules are just that – old.

And there’s a new way to be.

One that’s authentic.

Open. Honest. Fun. Interesting. Productive.

Rewarding.

The only thing? You can’t remain a very good girl or a very good boy and get there.

Because good boys and good girls are docile and controllable. That’s why the rules were made in the first place.

What you need to be is: A real person.

Who gets sick sometimes and needs time off and has a family and has dreams and desires and a life of their own.

A real person who won’t put compliance with some arbitrary rules made up to keep people in line over having a life that matters.

Who values living fully over being patted on the head for performing.

A person who knows the rules but sometimes – just sometimes – breaks ’em…because that’s the only way they can fully live.

 

No Coincidence At All

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Rolling the dice concept for business risk, chance, good luck or

Carolyn is a lot like you. Sometimes she’s not sure that she’s doing the right thing.

See, after many years with the same employer, there was a “reorganization” and Carolyn lost her job. And as a woman in her mid-50s, she was worried about her job prospects.

You might go so far as to say she was slightly panicked.

OK, more than slightly.

When you haven’t done a job search in some time, the whole deal can feel overwhelming. Do you work with a recruiter? What do recruiters do, anyway?

What happened to classified ads? How do you sort through all the websites?

Do you still even apply for jobs?

She was spinning, spinning, spinning and getting more and more panicked.

Fortunately, though, Carolyn found me. 🙂

And in our work together, she identified a company she’d long admired where she’d love to work.

Since you all know I’m all about The Connector Strategy – activating your network to help you – Carolyn got busy identifying people she knew at the Ideal Company. By going to her network with a strong ask, she actually landed a phone call with an executive there!

“Yay,” you listlessly mutter. “That’s what’s supposed to happen.” Sheesh.

But there’s more.

The day before that phone call, Carolyn went to a charity lunch and sat at one of those big round tables charity lunch organizers around the planet have agreed to use. Big tables of eight or ten with drooping tablecloths and not enough bread baskets.

You’ve got the vision in your mind, I know you have.

There our heroine Carolyn sits. Tomorrow’s the big call with the networked friend-of-a-friend! She’s running over her key points in her mind, turning them over and over…

And two people sit down at the same table.

Carolyn introduces herself.

Small talk ensues.

And guess what?

Guess where these two people work?

Guess what department one of the heads?

Yes! Carolyn finds herself sitting next to the Senior Vice President Of Exactly What Carolyn Wants To Do from the Ideal Company Carolyn would love to work for!

Can you imagine?

And the rest of the charity lunch went well and I assume there were air kisses upon departure and Carolyn was over the moon.

Three great, strong connections within Ideal Company!

Now, the doubt started. Now, Carolyn began to worry if she’d done the right thing.

Should she have had the phone call with Friend-of-Friend first? Should she not have mentioned Friend-of-Friend to the Senior Vice President? Or was that good?

How do you follow-up in the right way? Was she being too forward? Oh, gawd, what if she’d already blown it?

Fortunately, Carolyn has me.

And I write this now for all of you who begin to orbit the building in worry and anxiety when you’re not sure of the right thing to do. Here’s my advice: “Worrying is a waste of time. All you need to do is to get honest.”

If you want to say to the Senior Vice President, “It was so great to meet you. I’d love to work on your team!” – then say it.

There may not be a job there now, but leaders appreciate honest enthusiasm – especially when it’s expressed about the work the leaders do – and when an opening does come up, guess who’ll be at the top of the list?

Your old views of what’s proper may look like this: One must be reserved. One must follow protocol. One must wait to be asked.

Well, those old views – are they helping you get what you want?

If you find yourself in a happy coincidence (which some might say was No Coincidence at All) where what you want seems to show up like magic, and you ask: “What do I say now? What’s the right thing to do?”

I suggest you say, in whatever words you want to use, the equivalent of: “This is great! I’d like some more of this, please.”

Did Carolyn land a job at the Ideal Company, working in the Department Of Exactly What She Wants To Do for the Senior Vice President she met at lunch?

Don’t know yet. But what we do know is that when Carolyn stopped worrying and started getting specific about what she wanted – stuff started happening.

Which is the only thing you and I need to remember.

 

 

What You Can Learn From Baseball

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hand in baseball glove and ready to catching the ball

Let’s say you’re a shortstop. And let’s further say that you play Major League Baseball.

So that means you’re pretty good at what you do. In fact, you probably make a couple million dollars a year playing baseball.

And yet you have zero job security.

Yep, after all those Little League games, and all those hours in the batting cages, and weeks upon weeks of games – keeping your job is not a sure thing.

Because any player can be traded to any other team at any time.

One day you’re playing with the Oakland A’s and it’s your bobblehead day – then you’re called into the office only to be told you’re going to be a Toronto Blue Jay tomorrow. No bobblehead.

You saw Moneyball, didn’t you? Or Bull Durham? Or any number of baseball-themed movies. They all show the same thing.

One day you’re here, and the next day you’re there.

How does a baseball player do that? How does he go from playing his heart out on a team Tuesday, and playing his heart out for another team on Wednesday?

I was thinking about that. Maybe he doesn’t.

Maybe a ball player focuses less on what team he’s on and more on the skills he has.

Maybe he thinks more like a shortstop than as a Yankee.

That’s not to say he doesn’t high-five everyone in the dugout after a grand slam. Or he doesn’t work on swing mechanics with the rookie. Or doesn’t care about the pennant.

I bet he does.

But he cares about being a great shortstop more.

What can we learn from the attitude of baseball players? What can we make of this emphasis on skills over team?

Over the years, I’ve coached so many people who stay stuck in work that they’ve outgrown, or roles that no longer inspire them. Why? Because they identify – maybe over-identify – with their team. They “get” their co-workers. They know all the rules.  They like their golf shirt with the company name neatly embroidered over their heart.

In their quiet moments, they ask themselves, “What if this is as good as it gets?”

And, of course, employers love to talk about team and belonging to the larger organization as one big family. Which is awesome until you’ve been there for fourteen years and get reorganized right out of your position.

You know it happens. A lot.

So, what if we threw a change-up? What if, instead of saying “I work at Google”(or “I am Google!”), we say, “I am a marketing expert and I currently work at Google”?

What if the belongingness so many of us crave was found in our professions rather than in organizations?

[I hear HR VPs around the world grinding their teeth, don’t you?]

If we owned our skill set as a constant and let our employer be a variable , then it would be easier to have fluidity in our careers. We could always be on the lookout for the best possible place to use the best of what we’ve got. To seek out opportunities to play precisely the game we want to play.

I imagine we’d feel a lot more freedom and a whole lot less “I have to do what I hate or I’m going to get fired.”

You never say that when it doesn’t matter what team’s name is on your jersey. You don’t worry about it when the only thing that matters is how you field the ball.

Own your skills. Lead with your strengths. And keep your eye on the ball as you homer it over the left field fence.

 

 

Tell Me, Who Are You?

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Horse & CarriageThey were at the absolute top of their game. Masters of their craft, they knew exactly what their customers needed.

They knew how different materials created different results, and worked tirelessly to turn out quality products.

They started as boys, became apprentices, and then were masters of their own shops. Esteemed and valued, they were absolute experts in their field.

And it was a field that was dying.

Because these were the buggy whip manufacturers of 1900.

Oh, they knew exactly how to make a whip for you if you had a pony cart. And what to make if you were driving a team of eight. They knew the perfect supple leathers to use, and how to make the best grip for any kind of weather.

They were amazing artisans.

But by about 1930, cars had overtaken the horse and buggy, and fewer and fewer people needed a whip to drive their non-existent team of horses.  In the span of a just few years, the centuries-old whip making industry was dead.

And many people were out of a job.

I’ll bet there were plenty of old whip makers who sat around on porches and complained that the world was a hard place, and lamented that a way of life was gone – a way of life that was good, honest and simple.

I’ll also bet that there were some buggy whip makers who saw the writing on the wall and became leather workers in another field. They fashioned belts or jackets. Or sofas.

Or maybe went outside their trade and became chauffeurs of new-fangled automobiles.

Or started a real estate business. Or went to school.

They acted.

It seems to me that there are always some people who take loss – expected or unexpected – as a catalyst to shape a new identity. They drop an old way of being and exchange it for a new way of living, seemingly taking it all in stride.

And then there are those who don’t.

Isn’t that fascinating? Someone was really great – at the top of their game – as a… travel agent. And rather than say, “I was a great travel agent, and I’m sure I’m going to be a great at something new”, they spend their energy wishing that the entire world would change and everyone would start using paper tickets again. Maybe someone felt so in the zone as a journalist, or a record label executive, or a book publisher – and then technology forever changed those fields.

It seems like some of us bang our heads against the wall desperately trying to find another job just like the one that will never, ever exist again.

Likewise, maybe we’re stuck because we got such comfort and sense of place being someone’s… spouse, child, grandchild, loved one.

Yet we spend our days honoring the gap in our lives rather than honoring the lives that were lived.

It’s important to grieve loss. In fact, it’s vital to your overall health and well-being – you have to understand what happened, and try to find a why…if there is a why to be found.

But it’s what you do when you find yourself in one of these change points makes all the difference.

You need to fashion a new story of who you are – a new identity – which honors the past but allows you to be fully present in the here and now.

To even get started, you have to be brave.

To take the first steps, simply embrace even the saddest loss as an opportunity to create a new identity. Draw strength from how great you were with the person or thing you loved, but move forward fully open to the idea that something new can be something good, too.

Or, alternatively, you can sit on the porch with your complaints and cling to the past.

The choice is entirely yours.

 

Working? Looking? What You Need Right Now

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Last week a friend told me about a job she’s filling and asked if I had any candidates to recommend. It’s a senior job that will pay in the good six-figures, with budget and people authority. It’s with an organization with a mission, and it’s often in the news.

Immediately, I thought of a perfect candidate and told my friend that I’d send over the candidate’s LinkedIn profile so she could get a sense of the person and see if there appeared to be a match.

Now, wait a minute. I didn’t say I’d send over a resume, did I? No, I said I’d send a LinkedIn profile. Because contacting the candidate and getting her resume might take days. Maybe even a week if her resume isn’t current and updated. LinkedIn is quick, and quiet.

This is the new way of the world.

But here’s what happened when I went to LinkedIn and searched for the candidate I wanted to recommend:

  • She had two profiles listed under her name – one was clearly started and abandoned because it had zero information
  • The second profile had one job listed (the one she had the job before last) and no contact info

So, obviously, I couldn’t quietly send my friend anything that would allow her to determine whether to take my candidate to the next level.

Some of you are no doubt wondering about this.

Wondering what the big deal is with LinkedIn. Is it the same as Facebook? Or Twitter? Some of you feel overwhelmed just reading the words “Facebook” and “Twitter”, and adding “LinkedIn” to the conversation makes you a little sweaty and slightly nauseous.

OK. But here’s the deal. LinkedIn has emerged as the single most important thing you can do to support your career.

Back in 2008 more than the stock market and housing prices shifted – work also changed, dramatically. Today, anyone can be fired at any time. Organizations – businesses, non-profits, governments both state and local – cut back and shed employees. To be truly successful right now all of us need to be in permanent job search mode.

And LinkedIn gives you a place to effectively showcase your resume, skills, capabilities and network in a way that’s totally appreciated and understood by the community.

Because everyone else on LinkedIn is doing the same thing.

Now, some people tell me that they don’t want to have a LinkedIn profile because then everyone in the office will know they are “looking” and that would be … bad.

[Of course, if you work in such a punitive office then you really, really need a great LinkedIn presence. Just sayin’.]

But your boss can relax. Tons of opportunities come via LinkedIn – not just new jobs. With the specialized groups on the network, you might learn about conferences or workshops you might not otherwise have heard about. You might get asked to speak on a panel, or write an article which raises the profile of the organization. You might make alliances that generate business for your employer.

Lots of good stuff.

But none of it happens if you have an incomplete or rudimentary profile.

Here’s your task: Get on there, and paste in your bio or write one up. List your professional work history, and note any certifications you have. List your colleges. Get a few people to write recommendations for you. Write a few for other people. Have a good picture of yourself taken (remind me to tell you the story of the guy whose LinkedIn photo was of him with a bucket hat and a beer – he changed his picture to something more professional and spruced up his bio… and was hired within a week. Again, just sayin’.).

And connect with people.

Upload your contacts – LinkedIn doesn’t save the data, so it’s OK – and send requests to people you know and have worked with in the past. Accept requests from people you know and meet at professional networking events. Work toward having around 100 connections at the minimum, because when people search you they will often look to see who you know in common. It’s a good way to create rapport and connection. And to demonstrate your influence.

Someone is reading this right now and saying, “I don’t have any influence and the whole thing feels like an invasion of privacy. I don’t want anyone searching me!”

And I feel you, pal. You’re probably still mourning the loss of the buggy whip manufacturing industry, too.

Times have changed. The way of doing business has changed, too. A recruiter recently told me that if a candidate has no LinkedIn profile, then he or she simply does not exist. Because LinkedIn is a vital tool for people who are trying to fill jobs.

Tell you what – let’s make it easy for you. Just put up your profile and get those 100 connections. Then you can stop, and do nothing more.

Nothing, but watch the opportunity open up. Open up really wide.

[my LinkedIn profile: Michele Woodward]