What’s Next in Your Career?
Hi team and happy Thursday!
Only 4 weeks ‘til xmas! But who’s counting right? Last weekend I nailed my 16km below 160bpm and set up this weekend for 17km. At this rate I’ll hit half marathon before NYE then I should be at mara distance by July. The big question is whether I’ll be on track for sub 4 hours or not. I need to stay injury free to make this possible. Also this week I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. Round and round we go. A couple of days missed this week has me playing catch up again. But some good chats with mentors this week has me re-energised to stay focused on the important stuff despite the distractions. This year has been it’s own marathon and I’ll be limping across the line in 3 weeks to collapse and recharge with 2 weeks off – can’t wait! Hope you are all gearing up for your own recharges too.
I’ve had a lot of conversations this past week about career planning essentially, both my own and with others. And here are my tips for what they’re worth, through my subjective lens, from my experience, but I’d encourage you to consider and clearly form your own views. Happy to chew the fat further over these topics if you like anytime 😊
Mentoring – get multiple mentors. Now. You don’t even need to put a label around it and call it mentoring. You could simply catch up with people on either an ad hoc or regular basis for a chat that somehow includes challenging ideas on growth, being your best, where to short or long term, troubleshooting difficult times or advice or direction on something. Look to people who have perspective you don’t. For me I look for those I respect, trust, and can learn from. I have mentors who are older and younger, male and female, public and private sector, who are both similar and different to me in their outlooks, priorities and approaches. I can’t speak highly enough of mentoring. Some of you might have a mentoring type relationship with family or friends, but further to this there is incredible power in being untied personally and also in their ability to be objective if uninvolved. But don’t bother with a mentor if your mind is closed to advice or you’re wasting both of your times.
Coaching – if you want to be the best you can be in some way you need a coach in my opinion. But I have a coaching bias. People often confuse mentoring and coaching and the venn diagram circles can overlap especially if you’re getting mentoring and coaching from the same person. Coaching involves the coach being invested in your success and you working as partners to optimize your success in some way. A manager can be a coach. Usually there is an element of instruction and direction and in most cases the coach will be more knowledgeable or better at improving others than you can do alone. Both mentoring and coaching can involve advice for both the short and long term. Typically a mentors advice is more optional. Coaching services can be very expensive. If frugal, like me, best to find a good leader or manager who you respect and trust and ask them specifically to coach you. I’ve done some executive/leadership coaching training but not everyone has, but you can have the open and honest conversation with them because experience doesn’t always indicate they’ll be better. Like with mentoring, don’t bother if you’re not going to be coachable and willing to break yourself down and grow.
Resume – you should always have an updated resume in the most contemporary format possible. Even if you don’t change roles you should be updating your skills, and personal summary for recency and relevance, achievements, and tweaking if your audience is changing over time. As a rule of thumb you should update your resume if a) you change role, b) every 6 months, c) if the target audience changes or d) significant additions e.g. courses or certificate completion. A resume should have lots of white space, normal sized margins and be 3-4 pages regardless of how much experience you have. When I’m looking at a pile of resumes I’m looking for a point of difference e.g. graphs, infographics, etc. Think about how are you going to stand out in a pile of 100 resumes when most recruiters only look at a resume for 30 secs max. Your good stuff needs to be on page 1.
Written Application – you should mostly accompany an application with a 1-page coverletter with your elevator pitch, main value you offer and why you want the role. The written app should directly link to the role description and your conversation with the hiring manager or panel chair to tailor accordingly. Once again I’d be looking for a point of difference. How will your coverletter stand out? How are you showing me as a recruiter that you understand the role and my needs.
Linkedin – get on Linkedin and make sure you are active not passive but pick an activity level that suits you. Don’t try to be someone else or something you’re not. Posting crap will have a detrimental effect just like a bad profile photo. Be considerate who you connect to – it’s not a popularity contest. Ensure what you like and post aligns to your values and branding. A lot of recruiters now are seeing your Linkedin profile as their first impression of you so make a good one. In some instances the profile is replacing the resume. It’s not a social platform so keep it professional – no one on Linkedin cares about your lunch. About half of my roles in the past 10 years have come from Linkedin.
Networking – what even is it anyway? Firstly define this for yourself because there are a number of different interpretations out there. In my opinion networking is the best way to get perspective on what’s happening out there in the market, in other departments, sectors and industries. If you don’t network do you even have perspective? How? I’d genuinely love to hear. And how is very subjective too. Some people like events, some like 1-1 coffees, and some prefer reaching out directly via say linkedin to connect which maybe then leads to a phone call etc. My advice is start comfortable for you, but the gold is outside your comfort zone. Don’t like groups or crowds? Work up to events. Don’t like cold reach outs? Try getting friends or colleagues to connect you and start with a virtual coffee over Teams. A reach out to a lot of people and a lot of people reach out to me and I highly suggest being someone that offers value – don’t be a parasite. No one wants to be reached out to where it’s all about the other person and what’s in it for them. So position your thinking about what you can offer them. Sometimes you have to give a little to get a little, so offering help, assistance, advice or a connection that helps someone will come back to you if not immediately eventually.
Reads of the week:
Don’t judge the title “stuck in transit” – this is in an inspirational read about uncertainty and growth. Look beyond the words and reflect on how you connect with the content. https://mwah.live/blog/stuck-in-transit?mc_cid=7b931e3cae&mc_eid=667960cf2a
My favourite excerpt:
In order to arrive at what you do now know
You must go by a way which is of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
My take away from this is to go toward a place of transformation we need to be ok not knowing things. Let go of certainty and get comfortable with discomfort. In order to achieve new things and be better we need to let go of that which is holding us back.
Some thought-provoking content re burnout as an often misused term – not saying I agree with the content but very interesting to consider how we use the term, how we prevent and deal with burnout related issues:
Keep well and please prioritise that which matters most! 😊