Reorganizations, layoffs and new (bad) bosses, oh my! It seems like every day I hear about people who were in stable jobs they thought they’d have for a long time when their work situation is disrupted and they found themselves feeling unprepared for a newly uncertain future. Most of the people I hear about have not taken action to create a future proof career. Today it was a government worker who thought she was in a job for life, until she learned she had two hours to clear out her desk (along with about 1000 other workers, nothing personal.) Now, I am a coach so I am probably prone to hear more of these things than the average bear, but these anecdotes track with what I’m reading about the workforce and the job market in general. Change is a-coming, even if it hasn’t already hit you, personally.
Here’s a short, 10-minute video with my core advice for how to future-proof your career.
Whatever you’ve planned for your career, plan again. I say this because I’ve noticed a trend lately among my individual and corporate clients: whatever they planned for the next year is changing as fast as they can get ready for what they thought was going to happen, but doesn’t. Doing more research into how technology is advancing quickly and challenging us to lead and manage in new ways has confirmed that the traditional idea of “career planning” is pretty much gone the way of the dodo bird (even though Harvard Business Review still believes in the 5 year career plan!)
Unfortunately, unforeseen (and some foreseen) changes are impacting the job market and people’s individual careers more quickly than they can “plan” for them. Here’s what the unable-to-plan for career reality looks like to most of us:
Jobs you “grow out of” in a year or two
Job opportunities you were promised that never materialize
Layoffs and reorgs that hit you (or close colleagues) out of the blue
Business/career development strategies that used to work, now don’t
Here are the things that I see people do to weave career planning into their everyday lives to help them deal with ongoing change and an unpredictable future.
Look for a new job every year
Does it surprise you to learn that the average job tenure is 3.7 years in the private sector? If you’ve been at your job for a few years it may be time to start your next job search anyway.
Why look for a job every year? Although no employer wants to hire someone who’s going to leave in a year, just because you look for a new job doesn’t mean you need to take one, does it? The point is not to change jobs every year but to plan to be doing work next year that’s different from what you’re doing right now. This can take several forms including stepping up to new challenges and opportunities next year that you’re not ready or able to take on right now, positioning yourself for an internal promotion or finding a dream job.
When you take on the challenge of always planning to be in a “new” job next year, your planning horizon moves closer. You’ll pay more attention to what results you can produce in the short term (and how it positions you for something new). You’ll start paying more attention to what skills and experience employers are seeking for the jobs you want to be doing next year, which helps you seek training opportunities and new experiences. It makes your networking more goal-directed and relevant to both your current job and the job you think you want next year (networking can help you focus on exactly what you do want to be doing in the future.)
You can do all these things whether you change jobs next year or not. This practice will keep you sharp and aware of what makes you competitive in the employment market, and thanks to the Internet, staying abreast of employment opportunities has never been easier!
Always have a motivating vision of success and tell your boss
Putting your head down and doing a good job is always a good thing and it used to be a decent career strategy. People who produce good results create more opportunities for themselves, right? Sure. Sometimes. But when doing the work blinds you to trends and changes that may affect your job or career, it’s not a good thing at all. It can make you complacent in your current skill set, for example, and distract you from developing new skills in your current job. Also, many employers see someone who just does good work and doesn’t appear to aspire to more as someone they don’t need to invest in.
You don’t want to create that impression! You want your boss to know what you’re striving for. Ideally s/he will help you gain the experience and training opportunity to become better at what you do and get ready for what you’ll do next.
Of course, you may or may not trust your boss with this information, so take this advice with a grain of salt. Some bosses will use it against you or think you’ve got one foot out the door. My advice in this case is (1) confide to your boss about the skills you’d like to work on that will help you do your current job better and contribute to the team and (2) get a coach to help you with the rest of it! Whichever route you choose, don’t get caught blindsided because you never spoke up about your goals.
Set aside small amounts of career development and networking time every week and every month
Of course you don’t always have time to be thinking ahead when today’s work and life takes so much out of you. But I guarantee you that if you set aside 30 minutes a week to think ahead, and 1 hour a month to reflect on where you’ve been and where you’re going, you’ll start moving closer to your future more comfortably and quickly.
Here’s a weekly 15-minute checklist to put in your planner:
What meetings do I already have coming up this week that I can use to help me move toward my goals? (Add a career-related intention to your calendar items to remind you)
What ONE activity or conversation can I add to my week that is primarily career-related (e.g., shoot an email to an old boss to see if she will be at the conference next month and wants to meet for coffee)
What ONE new opportunity (e.g., training, job opening, industry event) can I research this week (schedule the research time on your calendar)
Here’s a monthly reflection exercise to put in your calendar on a recurring basis (1 hour):
What career-related activities did I accomplish last month?
What did I learn?
Are my career intentions still solid or do I need to adjust them?
Next month when I do my check in, what do I want to have learned that I don’t know now?
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Coaching Tips: How to Avoid the Most Common Career Mistakes
Organizations are experiencing another perfect storm in recruiting and hiring. A combination of decreasing employee engagement, increasing turnover and fewer skilled candidates available, is making it tough for companies to get the right resources. Given these challenges to bringing people in, we know that retaining our rock stars and setting up good alumni referral relationships with those who do leave is critical.
And engagement is a problem. According to Gallup research, “an astounding 70 percent of U.S. employees are not showing up to work fully committed to deliver their best performance. Adding insult to injury, 52 percent of those workers are basically sleepwalking through their day, and 18 percent of them are busy acting out their unhappiness.“ That “acting out” usually takes the form of lower productivity or looking for a new job.
In Inc.com recently, Marcel Schwantes attributes the lack of engagement to manager performance, but in many organizations, it is not about managers being bad managers. In my experience many employees are uncertain about how they add value to their organization, where their careers are going and how they can advance. Too many employees don’t understand the connection between their job responsibilities, their personal career goals and their company’s business objectives. Without the connection between the skills that they bring to the table, the ideas of success that motivate them and the organization’s goals, employees can’t see their path forward. That uncertainty, especially when they don’t see an internal career path that interests them, is a source of frustration on the job and frequently a cause for leaving the company. We need to train managers on how to help employees understand their value, help them advance and inspire them to perform. (more…)
“I’m so stressed!” “This is so stressful!” “I don’t need stress in my life right now!”
These commonly heard phrases all point to the idea that stress (and the difficult people who cause it) is something negative that needs to be eradicated from your life. There have been many debates on the best strategies to combat stress in the long-term but everyone is different and this is something that is really important to remember.
Women, and parents in general, often try to find ways to get rid of stress to help manage their many responsibilities more efficiently, like juggling career and family duties. These come on top of the fact that women face additional challenges in the workplace, including sexual harassment and gender discrimination that have been well documented by the media and research as well. So, it’s no wonder that we women feel extra stressed at work. (more…)
Continuing our New Year/New Career theme, this inquiry on top job boards is perfectly timed. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana: I have been looking for a job for several months and have applied for jobs on all the top job boards, but am having no luck. I hired a resume writer that fixed my resume and have had people tell me my resume is strong, but I’m not getting call-backs. What am I doing wrong? – Sad in Sacramento
Dear Sad,
Sorry to hear you’re not having much luck so far in your job search. There could be many reasons you’re not getting responses, including these common challenges:
You’re not positioning yourself well for the jobs you’re most qualified for
You don’t have the right keywords in your applications/resume to line up uniquely with each position description
You’re not being picky enough, and you’re spending your energy on anything that looks slightly interesting instead of the jobs you’re qualified and excited to get
However, based on the way you phrased your question, I think you’re relying too heavily on the top job boards to connect you with your next employer. I know that there are so many online job search websites out there like Monster.com, Indeed.com and CareerBuilder.com (my old alma mater!) and they advertise themselves as having the most job listings, but quantity isn’t the same as quality.
Because they’re so big and attract so many job seekers to apply online, recruiters use the bigger job boards to collect large numbers of resumes that go into even larger databases. The databases allow keyword sorts and algorithmic searches that spit out a few candidates for each job so the recruiter can go through them, but the average number of resumes collected for a job on the top job boards is over 200!
It’s hard for you to stand out in such a sea of text. If the recruiters had time to sort through all 200 resumes for each job you might have a better chance, but no one has that much time (except the computers). As it is, recruiters spend on average less than 10 seconds on each resume they take the time to screen, so unless your resume is a perfect match for the job description, the likelihood you’ll be overlooked is very high. In addition, many of the jobs on these large sites aren’t even real. Recruiters often put out sample positions to experiment with what kind of resumes they’ll receive (to help them write the real one), and/or to fill up their databases so they can quickly pull some resumes as soon as they receive a new search request. These factors together are why fewer than 5% of people who apply online get invited in for interviews.
The good news is that your experience is very common, which says to me that your success rate so far says less about you and more about the job boards themselves. According to these statistics if you keep applying online, eventually you’ll end up in that coveted 5%.
The bad news is that these applications take a long time for you to respond to, and this isn’t an efficient use of your time. It can also lead to a situation (which it sounds like you’re in) where your confidence is shaken.
Be strategic and go where the recruiters look first
The top job boards do have a wide variety of postings and many people applying, but think of them as the haystack and think of your next job as the needle. You can spend all your time inefficiently sifting through straw or you can strategically find a magnet. I suggest you start using a magnet.
One of the best magnet strategies around is plain old networking. Why? Because the minute a recruiter gets a new open job requisition s/he scans their contacts to see who they know that might know the perfect candidate. Some of your contacts are on their lists and the best way to get to the top of that pile of 200 resumes is to get a personal referral from someone the recruiter knows.
Another great magnet strategy is to apply for jobs on smaller sites that are small enough that the recruiters don’t get too many resumes. In each major industry you’ll find specific sites run by professional associations or other groups that tend to have higher quality jobs for that industry than the major job boards. While you may be among a slightly higher calibre of candidates, the number of resumes/opening will be smaller in most cases and the recruiters are more likely to give these site’s applicants greater weight.
Searching the top job boards is still a good idea to help you stay abreast of who’s hiring and what they’re looking for, but I suggest that you be much more selective with your applications and put that extra energy into figuring out which jobs you have the best chance of getting and networking to find them.
Resources you can use
To help you out in becoming more strategic and time-efficient, our Career Transition Program has tons of tips and tricks to help you. Also, you can download a list of the top job boards in 10 industries to help you target your searches more specifically.
P.S. – Have a question you’d like anonymous support on? Write me!
P.P.S. — Need the inside track on your job search? Let me help you without the cost of personal coaching with my comprehensive online career transition program.
Ever want to look into a crystal ball and see the future? What is the future of work going to look like and will you be ready? – Click To Tweet
How will you lead in the rapidly changing future of work? Start by understanding that the workplace is changing and becoming more fluid. Here are some trends to watch for:
Organizations are beginning to resemble organic systems more than mechanical ones, so learn to master change.
As automation takes over rote tasks, people will have to specialize in people, and to succeed you must master human systems.
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana,
My situation is that I am embarking on a second career. I’ve been a career paralegal for 20 years and in recent years earned a masters in marketing and an MBA. When I apply for marketing jobs, I often hear “entry level.” I am a professional, there is nothing entry level about me and many, if not most of my skills are transferable in one way or another. If I can manage high-profile cases and be a project manager on others, I believe with my experience and new knowledge, I can do all things marketing. I want to secure a Marketing Management position, not perform administrative tasks. Where do I begin? – Disconnected in D.C.
Dear Disconnected,
Welcome to the peculiar and exciting challenges of changing careers! The kinds of challenges you’re encountering tend to the be the reasons people are afraid of trying to make a career switch in the first place, but I am living proof that it can be done (more than once)!
Tip #1: Make Your Case
Any time you apply for a job, whether in a field you’ve long been associated with or in a new field entirely, you need to be explicit in all aspects of your application (i.e., cover note, resume, LinkedIn profile and in-person interactions) about why you’re the perfect fit for the job they’re seeking to fill. When you’re changing careers, this really puts the onus on you to help translate your legacy experience into the requirements of the job for which you’re applying. So in your situation you have to explicitly make the case for how your paralegal experience prepares you well to succeed as a marketing manager or coordinator. (more…)
Networking can be hard, nervewracking, expensive and time-consuming. It can also afford you otherwise unavailable job opportunities and ultimately provide you with the tools you need to find success and stand out in your field. Especially as we head into the New Year, when everyone is looking to find ways to improve their business, it’s time to look at some networking secrets that can help you get ahead in 2018.
If you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right and there are specific strategies that business professionals use to be successful, and make connections with the most valuable contacts.
Instead of showing up, getting a glass of wine and moseying around at a business mixer step up your game like you know you can. Keep these networking secrets in mind as you prepare for your next event and you’ll reap the benefits in 2018, as you work with the new members of your network who can help you meet your goals in the New Year.
Your Unique Value is Critical
Relationships are reciprocal. When meeting someone, you want to provide as much value as you hope to get from them. When you provide them something unique it makes you memorable and valuable. This is an important piece of making a mutually beneficial connection. Instead of immediately asking for what you need, provide a solution or opportunity for the other person first. (more…)
Bosses, Do you know what’s really going on in your organizations? According to the Speak Truth to Power Survey I fielded last month, no. You’re often not hearing what your people really think.
According to my unscientific-but-interesting poll, almost half your potential workforce (48%) indicated they are actively withholding their truth in the workplace more than 25% of the time. But guess what? The Corporate Executive Board found scientific corollary data that’s even scarier.
Companies whose employees were afraid to speak up suffered 5.8% lower total shareholder return than those with cultures that encouraged open communications.
Where fear was more prevalent, fraud and misconduct were higher.
59% of companies surveyed said that $1 million worth of harm would have to be at stake for employees to share honest negative feedback (29% said $10 million).
How vulnerable are you?
We all know that everything on the top of everyone’s mind doesn’t really belong in the workplace, but the numbers indicate there’s a disconnect big enough for ethical and lost opportunity trucks to drive through. This is reinforced by the finding that people reported in my survey that they were penalized more often for speaking their truth in situations that were ethical in nature (42%) than in situations which were bottom line in nature (57%). All this leaves you and your organization vulnerable in ways it doesn’t have to be. (more…)
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Hello Dana,
[Note is abbreviated-ed.]
Quite complicated and online advice is scant. I would love to get your advice on the following: A few years ago I joined a well-known organization as a manager. The role requires a specialist and generalist combination of skills, knowledge as well as experience that is unusual and difficult to source. The place has a toxic corporate culture. Many of my staff were long-time, unionized employees who were expecting to be promoted into that position. Naturally, they were very bitter about an outsider coming in above them. Despite my best and extended long-term efforts, only some of them ever really came around about me. As a clique they resorted to workplace sabotage, lies, harassment and so forth in an effort to turn people against me and ultimately to drive me away so that one of them might eventually gain the promotion they were anticipating. (Other than my cutthroat staff, everyone else liked me.)
Due to one of their schemes finally succeeding, I left the organization. The clique started a rumor and manufactured “proof” that I was planning to resign to take another job elsewhere. Executive management believed it, did not bother to check with me about this rumor (this was largely due to the CEO being so strongly turned against me by the clique’s lies) and sent me packing. When the truth came out, executive management was very embarrassed and corporate HQ was abuzz about this for quite some time.
Since my leaving, executive management eliminated some but not all of the nasty players from the organization. The CEO hired external consultants to spread false negative information about me to other potential employers which have cost me several great job offers, as well as to do extensive research into my personal and professional past. Many reliable contacts have indicated to me that these ex-employers want me to return.
[I may have the opportunity to return to the company and the CEO who fired me is now out; there is another executive who is currently in the CEO slot who likes me better. If I go back and this second CEO is in place it could mean an upgraded position, though this is not guaranteed. It’s also not clear that this CEO will stay in place, and the original CEO may even return.]
The organizational climate is toxic. There is a high rate of turnover in senior and middle management. The old position was inadequately resourced in terms of tools, equipment, resources, personnel. The work has not progressed much since my departure, so there is additional time pressure. Executive management has a habit of stringing people along with empty promises (raises, promotions, opportunities). It was a hellish experience to work there last time. If I decline to return, I cannot be sure this ex-employer will stop interfering with my professional life.
My questions are:
When is it a good idea to go back to a bad employer with a toxic corporate culture? Never?
If I am contacted about a possible position, what should my strategy be?
Any advice on negotiating the position to maximize the likelihood that things will work well (my value, leverage, the role, reporting structure, compensation, title, termination clause, etc)?
Would you recommend going back or staying away? Why?
What would be red flags warning me to avoid this ex-employer?
Conversely, what would be positive signs that the ex-employer genuinely intends to make things better?
If things go bad again, how might this be explained to a future potential employer?
If I decide to walk away, what can I do to ensure they leave me be?
I really hope you reply and post it so that readers can get something out of this as well. There is nothing else quite like this situation so available advice is almost completely lacking.
Thanks in advance. Have a great day! – Reluctant Boomerang in ???
Dear Potential Boomerang,
That’s quite a story! Rather than address each question separately, I’ll respond more generally. (more…)
