Accelerate Your Search™ Now

What’s next for you?  Is it a transformation or a simple transition?

Depending on where you live, the seasonal change of summer into fall is upon us.  The changing of seasons often encourages thoughts about what is next in our lives.

If you live in New England as I do, fall is both a landscape and climate transformation.  In my native West Texas, the change from summer to fall is more subtle.   One is a transformation, the other a transition.

Seasons change.  Jobs change.  People and businesses change.  We all grow and evolve.  Sometimes the “what’s next”  is a gentle transition and other times a major transformation is in order.

Whether you are a college senior, mid-level manager or top executive, are you asking yourself:

• What’s next for my career?
• What do I want to do next?
• What do I want to be doing over the next few years?

If yes, these may be signals that you are ready for a shift.  Here is a quick assignment to help you figure out what you want:

• Write one of the above questions at the top of a blank piece of paper, then over several days set aside 9 minutes a day to brainstorm.
• Write down all the possible ideas/answers that come to mind.
• Add pages if needed.
• Don’t evaluate the ideas, just jot them down.
• At the end of the week review all the ideas.
• Move the top 3 to 5 ideas to blank pages and continue to explore your ideas.

As you explore your ideas ask yourself these questions:

• What would it take to do this?
• What would be the impact of this?
• Why do I want to do this?

When you are ready to seriously explore your ideas, discuss them with someone you trust.  Then formulate a plan and take action to create the transition or transformation you want.

Have a comment or thought?  Post it below.

Do you have a question about your search?  Feel free to contact me.

Do you have a target job or employer?  Are you wondering how to find or increase the number of your personal referrals?

The secret is right under your nose — engage your personal advocates.

Your personal advocates are those people who know, like and trust you.  They want the best for you, but you need to keep them in loop if they are to refer you.

Life is busy.  If you do not share what you are up to your advocates may not know.  Help them understand:

• your goals
• your target companies
• the type of position(s) you desire
• why you are a good fit for both your target companies and the position(s) you seek

How do you do this?  One easy tool is an Update Letter.

As you launch your search or prepare for promotion, share what you have been up to, what you are looking forward to doing, your one paragraph resume, and, as appropriate, a personal update in your Update Letter.

Create an initial list of possible advocates by reviewing your contacts, colleagues and co-workers.  Create your plan to engage your advocates by writing and sending your Update Letter and following up.

Accelerate your search — and your success — today!

Do you have tips that have helped you engage your advocates?  Feel free to share them here.

The fourth quarter is upon us.  And, in just 92 days the new year begins.  Are you ready for a successful final quarter of the year?

Below are four essential (albeit, a little unglamorous) tasks to help you improve your personal marketing for fourth quarter and create a solid foundation for a sustainable career in 2015:

1. Be present in the marketplace.  Get out from behind your computer and demonstrate your unique and compelling value in the marketplace.  Connect with others and offer your expertise to a person or organization who needs it.

2. Know your prospects.  Are you effectively marketing to those people who need what you offer?  Who is in your funnel?  Target 10-15 companies who could use your skills and talents.

3. Add to your value.   How will you become more valuable in 2015?  What skills could you add to your offerings?  Seek out opportunities to learn new tech skills or productivity tools.

4. Up-level your image.  Nothing stays the same.  Sustaining success means evolving over time. Review your professionalism and self-management skills and pick an item to up-level this quarter.  Perhaps you could update your business cards or resume?

Consistent focus in these four areas is key and easy to achieve by simply adding them to your calendar.  A year from now you will be glad you invested the time today.

“Do not be fooled by its commonplace appearance.  Like so many things, it is not what is outside, but what is inside that counts.”  ~Aladdin, Disney’s “Aladdin”

When you are ready to move your career forward by searching for your next job, judgment will play a role.  Judgment can be your friend or your foe.  Aladdin’s quote offers a simple tip to help you accelerate your search:  things and people may not be as they seem.

Frankly, placing your snap judgments (not your good sense or discretion) on the shelf during your job search and instead adopting a practice of conscious discernment will accelerate your search.  Discernment is clearly seeing and understanding people, things, and situations by sorting out the facts from your beliefs and emotions.

A job search is filled with highs and lows.  It requires you to draw on your resources and seek the support of others.  For example, the judgement that a job search is a solitary journey ignores the facts.  The truth?  You will not achieve success in your search without the help of others.

Additionally, thoughts such as “I am not worthy or capable or deserving of this position” are judgements.  If you are not aware of these judgements, they can easily become your truth.

Similarly, we often create scenarios about how others will react to us and our resumes.  We rarely know what someone will do before they actually act.  These judgments impede your progress and stop you from achieving your goals.  This type of thinking is more creative than all the amazing animation in all the Disney movies combined.

Failing to shelve these types of judgements may well turn your job search into a long, emotionally draining period of time.  If you cannot discern whether your judgement is friend or foe, find support and ask for help.

Others will help you.  Seek out what you need.  Ask friends and peers to help you sort through your judgments and doubts and locate the facts.

Are you ready to banish your judgements and accelerate your job search?  If you are looking for support and someone to help you see your situation clearly, feel free to contact me.

Is your resume stale and lifeless?  Or is it full of energy and relevant data about you and what you do?

Your resume is an important marketing tool.  If it is as stale as popcorn popped a week ago sitting in a humid kitchen, your reputation, career and next promotion are being impacted.

A resume without energy, pop and sizzle will sit.  In fact, it may never be read.

Think about it.  If you are busy, do you want to read a lifeless, seemingly endless list of job duties or do you want to know who this person is and what they can do for you?  The latter, I bet.  The same is true for busy hiring managers.

If you have not updated your resume in the last 90 days, it is time to do so.  That’s right, update it once a quarter.  Resumes have a short shelf life.

Before you do anything to your resume spend a week with it.  Here’s how:

1. Read it three times a day.  Once in the morning, once after lunch and once in the evening.  One of these times read it aloud.
2. After a week, grab a highlighter and highlight the accomplishments/results you achieved in the last six months or a year.  Where are these within the document?
3. Grab a different color highlighter and mark your relevant brand attributes.
4. Finally, grab a pen and mark out the parts that bore you, date you or are no longer relevant to the work you are doing or want to do.

Now you are ready to begin to update it and make your resume pop.  No more stale, lifeless resume for you.

Are you too close to your resume?  Do you want another set of eyes to give you feedback on your resume?   A resume critique may interest you.

Do you have a resume question?  Post it below.