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Shary Raske

Welcome to our Courageous Change newsletter! Enjoy reading, and feel free to forward this to friends, family, and colleagues or for that matter anyone who is job searching. 

August 2008

Stuck in Career?  Get Out of the Rut – Three Ways to Move Forward

Professionals often seek out an expert career strategist when what they’ve tried isn’t working. In order to get out of the rut, a career analysis of what’s working, what needs attention, and an action plan is recommended. (See CPR option below) Here are three ideas of how to get out of the rut and move forward: 

Rut One: Poor Organization  Let’s say you know what you want to do with your life, but nothing is happening. Inadequate organization could be the culprit. First evaluate how much time you can spend on your career transition project. If you are working full-time, then 10 hours a week is do-able. If you are not working, try 30 hours a week. Believe it or not, full time job hunters have a tougher time with organization. Job hunters have to re-create the structure that their former jobs provided them. It’s very important to have a plan and stick to it. Do not let people take advantage of your time, particularly relatives. Plan on different ways to say, “No!”   With professionals who are working full time, the challenge is create space in an already busy life. If you are married with children, a family meeting may be in order to re-negotiate some of your obligations to create room for this change. I’ve partnered with Jack Chapman’s More Fun, More Done program to help people with this issue.

Rut Two: Not Understanding the Fundamentals of a Career Change  Many professionals come to me with an idea that all they have to have is a good resume and post their resume to various job boards. A resume and job boards represent some of the tools for a career change, but do not represent the overall strategy. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that people who use many job search methods find jobs faster than people who use only one or two. http://www.bls.gov/oco/pdf/oco2004.pdf . If you do go to this link, you will see that personal contacts are at the top of the list. However, if you don’t have a conceptual knowledge of the four distinct ways of talking to the people and under what circumstances, you may botch the approach to them. Get savvy about job search methodologies. When someone comes to me and tells me they’ve talked to everyone they knew and didn’t get anywhere, 100% of the time they didn’t do it right.

Rut Three: Unfinished Psychological Business  If you don’t have the energy to conduct a career transition project, you might want to be evaluated for depression from a qualified mental health professional. Lack of concentration, pessimism, terror of making a mistake are all signals of unfinished psychological business. To conduct an effective job search you must have the psychological reserves to face rejection after rejection after rejection and still bounce back. It is not uncommon for a career changer to experience depression, anger, and panic at least once. I’m not saying you won’t experience disappointment. You will. The professionals who have made successful searches anticipate the emotional ups and downs of a search and have a plan in place to manage those emotions. Being too optimistic can be as damaging as being too pessimistic. For instance, it is unwise to shut down your job search because you just know you are going to get the offer. First of all you compromise the momentum of your search if you don’t get the job. Secondly, if you don’t get the job and you have nothing else in the works, recovering from that disappointment is a lot tougher. Besides, putting together a plan to manage your emotions, just like Rut One, an accountability partner can be very helpful. You can take career transition action and still feel awful. It just takes patience and gentleness on your part.

Do You Want to Job Interview Better?

Conduct several search-engine searches on the name of the company and the name of the person you are interviewing.  Form three questions from your research to let the interviewer know you are genuinely interested in their company and what they do. An added bonus is to find out how the company is classified by SIC or NAICS codes in a business database and then look up the competition.  If an employer says, “Tell me what you know about our company and our industry.” and you don’t have anything to say, chances are you won’t get a second interview.  Call Shary Raske at (314) 560-1088 or email her at shary@courageouschange.net to schedule an initial Career Planning Readiness meeting.

One Secret for a Successful Career Transition

One of the secrets of a successful career transition is to examine your assumptions.  If you say that you are too old or too young….how do you know?  If you say that it’s too late to make a change…how do you know?  Quit scaring yourself and get a plan, check out the facts, identify the obstacles, and what the go-around to those obstacles are.  If you are going to make assumptions, why not say, “The perfect job is out there for me, and I can’t wait to find it!”
 
Want to be a Better Speaker / Facilitator / Trainer?

Try this tip:  Practice in front of a group.  If you would like to be calmer and more confident when speaking, particularly if something unexpected is said, join us for our next Courageous Speaking Circle, on Tuesday evenings September 9, 16, 23.  Fee is $45 for the series of three.  Call today! Class size is limited to no more than eight speakers.  You may repeat in October and November for greater mastery.
Time is 6:45 p.m, location is in Creve Couer. 

Do you know someone whose career needs CPR?  No, I do not mean resuscitation, although sometimes it feels that way!!  I work with career changers who want to get to where they want to be and get there more effectively!  If you know someone who is complaining about their career, refer them to me!  A Career Planning Readiness meeting may be just the thing to get back on track.   Find out how Shary Raske, Career Strategist, can guide you out of the ruts.  Available nationally as tele-coaching or regionally face-to-face. 
Call today for details (314) 560-1088.