Networking at Parties and in Social Settings

   Ever been at a party or a wedding reception and you meet someone new? One of the first questions is “What do you do?” Isn’t that great when  you have a cool job that you love. We loving answering that question when we have a great job where we feel some level of excellence in. But what if you’re “between jobs” and someone asks you that question. For example, lets say Jim has recently lost his job and he meets Bill at the bar during a wedding reception.  The conversation  might go something like this.

Bill: Hi, my name is Bill (offering a hand to shake).

Jim: Hey Bill, I’m Jim. How do you know the happy couple?

Bill: Oh, the groom and I work together. You?

Jim: The bride and my wife went to college together.

Bill: So, what do  you do Jim? 

Jim: Oh my gosh, look at the time, I need to find my wife.

   Obviously Jim didn’t realize that this was a great opportunity to network and build his contact list. Bill just told Jim that he is currently working with the groom. Bill is employed, but Jim has no idea what Bill does. He doesn’t know if Bill’s company is looking for a person with his skills and abilities. Why did Jim shy away and not tell Bill that he was recently let go and that he was looking for new opportunities? There are lots of reasons that range from embarrassment to anger to thinking no one give a darn. Regardless of the reason, Jim missed one heck of an opportunity to network. So how would that conversation go?

Bill: Hi, my name is Bill (offering a hand to shake).

Jim: Hey Bill, I’m Jim. How do you know the happy couple?

Bill: Oh, the groom and I work together. You?

Jim: The bride and my wife went to college together. (Starts thinking, how can I bring up my job search?)

Bill: So, what do  you do Jim? 

Jim: Well Bill, I’m in transition now and I’m looking for an opportunity where I could work with a team to bring products to market. What do you do?

Bill: I’m the Marketing Manager for XYZ company’s Widget product line. Tell me more about what you did at your last company.

Jim: Gee Bill, I’d love to but I don’t want to take you away from the festivities. How about I set up a meeting with you so I can go over my skills and accomplishments with you and see if you know of anything where they can use someone like me?  Do you have a card? When’s a good time to call?

   Bill and Jim just met and Bill’s only goal is to make the contact and nothing more. If Jim goes on to pull Bill aside and learn more about his skills and abilities he should go with the flow. But, only if Jim want to continue the conversation. If Bill talks to two or three new contacts at this one party and then follows up with them at a later time, he’s made a great first impression. Additionally, he has also told folks that he was looking for a job without dying of shame. Bill may have just met a new boss or co-worker. 


   So be prepared with what to say at a party or social event. Smile and make good eye contact when you shake hands. And look for opportunities to share with people that you are conducting a vigorous job search.


   Good hunting!

Passion - Proficiency - Profit

   Career coaches often assess their clients on the Three Ps. Passion, Proficiency and Profit. What do you love doing? What do you excel at? What will the market pay for? Often clients tell me that they’ve been doing something for over twenty years and they don’t have any passion for it. In fact they hate what they do! They do it because it paid the bills. Often they say they would have liked to change jobs, but they had a pair of golden handcuffs – meaning they needed to make a certain salary to pay all the bills. 

The 3Ps

   Changing careers or industries requires some serious investigation. Begin with what is your passion: associated with this is assessing where your talents lie. If you are artistic and have been working in an accounting job that doesn’t allow any artistic expression, what did you do? Maybe you took pottery classes to fulfill your talent. But now you’d like a job that allowed you to express yourself, however, you’ve not seen a lot of job postings citing pottery and clay molding skills; so what do you do? 


   Look at all your talents, strengths and passions, and list them. Then what are all the things you are good at? List your proficiencies. What are all the jobs you can do? List the jobs that will pay you a salary that will meet your fundamental need. If we were to set these lists into a Venn diagram, the intersection of the three would point to your target career.


   Changing careers may require a drop in pay or some additional education or training. But if you’ve recently been let go from your job, it’s a good time to assess all your opportunities. Many clients report that changing careers regardless of the salary was the best thing that ever happened to them. Why? Because the three Ps were aligned in their new career. They loved what they were doing and their salary was enough to meet their needs. Lastly these folks also report a decrease in stress and anxiety at the office and at home. 


   Once you know what you would enjoy doing and know that you’d be good at it... there is another world of jobs and opportunities open to you. 

Career vs. Job Transition

  I define career transition as moving from one job type in one industry into another job type in a  different industry. Compared to job transition – moving from one job to another in the same or similar industry – career transition is far more difficult. This is because most people screening applicants are looking for people who have done the job before and they are not looking at all the people who can do the job. This is a result of all the applications a company receives for any given job posting. It makes sense  to screen out as many resumes as possible to get to a manageable number. Later we’ll discuss how to overcome this fact of life.

If we agree that it is harder to transition careers vs. transitioning jobs, why change careers? Let’s look at two examples of why someone would want to change careers. I work with a lot of folks who are over 45 years old. Some of these men and women have been on the same job, with the same company for twenty, twenty-five, even thirty years. Some of these people are really tired, they are burned out, or they are sick of the job and need a change. Some folks are in an industry that cherishes youth and the job’s demands are set up for younger professionals. For example, one fellow was a steel worker who worked building high rise buildings. At 49 he’s considered an old man even though he’s still young to many of us. The saying, “It’s a young man’s game!” really makes the point.  


When I work with clients who decide to change careers the first thing to do is outline the client’s transferable skills as part of a skills assessment. These are the skills that transcend any specific job description but are essential for many different careers and job roles. My favorite one “Interpersonal Relationship Skills” is part of many job descriptions. Often there are parts of our job that we love doing that we don’t realize are completely transferable to several different career arenas.


After we identify the client’s transferable skills, I then shift to discover their key or core competency. This is what the client does best and in many instances what they love doing most. I had a person tell me recently that without a job coach it took her almost two years to discover her core competency in order to shift her career to the job she now has and loves.


With an understanding of my core competency and transferable skills in line, you can now start appraising different job descriptions and careers to move into.  It’s important to realize that letting go of your past to move on to your future career is probably the hardest part of career transition.  There is some effort required to start seeing yourself in the new career. This is important if you are ever going to sell yourself to a hiring manager.  


Next time we’ll look at what it takes to get noticed in a new industry or field.

Transition & Social Networking

   If networking is an active and dynamic process of building mutually beneficial relationships, social networking is a means to growing, maintaining and add to those relationships in an effective and simplified manner. This is true for everyone and even more so for the person in transition.

   Social media tools are meant to aid in your job search and get you through transition more quickly, but they are not meant to waste time, brain power or energy. Warning: Don’t allow your valuable time to be twittered away! That goes for Facebook, LinkedIn and the Internet as a whole. Social networking can be a critical part of your job hunting or marketing strategy. Regardless of which tools you use – Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, you need to:

• Connect with other people
• Build relationships 
• Get exposure and provide help to others

   In the spirit of full disclosure, I was not so quick to jump on the Twitter bandwagon and I was reluctant to get a Facebook account. However, I found Facebook invaluable keeping up to date with family and friends when I was travelling 90% of the time. Yet, as a professional tool I was adverse until my clients started finding me and asking to connect on Facebook in addition to LinkedIn.

   On the other hand, I’ve been using LinkedIn for years and know it is a professional tool that works well. What I have learned about Twitter like Facebook: people started connecting to me once I was out there; in fact, Twitters’ whole model is designed to save time and energy. I recommend The Twitter Job Search Guide: Find a Job and Advance Your Career in Just 15 Minutes a Day by Susan Britton Whitcomb, Chandlee Bryan & Deb Dib.

   I have a friend and colleague Bruce Bixler  @brucebixler49 or http://www.linkedin.com/in/brucebixler49 who is an expert in using social media for fun and profit. Besides Bruce there are many, many opportunities to attend workshops and webinars that are free or very reasonable.

   Networking is here to stay and hopefully you will continue to network after you’ve landed your next job. Likewise, you’ll want to continue to use social media as a way to save time as you stay connected while on the job.

   If you don’t use Facebook or Twitter I suggest you start looking into their benefits and how they can keep you up to date in your industry as well as posted on important data and breaking news concerning your job search. Get an account and start using the tools and soon you’ll be connected to people you need to know.

  

  

Accountability Group or Support Group

   Recently I posted that most of the groups I observed were support groups rather than networking accountability groups. A few folks have asked me to define the difference.  As I thought about that question I asked myself what are the goals of the two groups? Each benefits its members. But each type of group has a different focus, tone and outcome.


Focus

   The principle focus of the accountability group is for its members to achieve a new job or new career, and to utilize the dynamics of a group to change something in ourselves in order to achieve the next step in our career. The support group is there to help someone through a transition. The support group is a safe place to talk about pain and fears and is focused on healing. 


Tone
   While accountability groups should also be as safe a place to talk about ideas and feelings, it is primarily a business meeting with goals, metrics and recognition. The tone of the meeting should be “what business do we need to get done?” The support group really doesn’t have an agenda except that everyone who has a need to heal and feel supported is heard. The hope is that those who feel supported can then feel stronger in the things they need to do for their transition. The support group is more warm and fuzzy without specific measurables. 


Outcome
   The outcome of the accountability group is that everyone finds the next job. Job transition is primarily a sales job and most people looking for work are not trained sales people nor are they prepared to overcome the rejection that comes as part of the sales process. Having a group to help its members focus on the mechanics of the job search via the power of positive peer pressure is the way of accountability groups.  The support group is about healing and having the energy to make the person go. A successful group will answer the question, “Does everyone in the group feel better now?” And hopefully the answer is yes. 

   Finally, both groups’ objectives are to help the members grow and change. So they are not mutually exclusive and one could be a member of either or of both groups because in the end they fulfill different needs.  If anyone in the Western Suburbs of Chicago is looking for a transition support group might I suggest St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, IL. They have an intimate group that meets on Wednesday Mornings.  Contact me if your are interested in St. Barnabas’ group or starting either a networking accountability group or a transitions support group.