Knowing When It’s Time to Change Careers

The article 6 Signs It’s Time to Leave Your Job by John Coleman in the Harvard Business Review is a good reminder that our career should be more than just a way to fill the day and earn a paycheck – it needs to be a source of inspiration and personal growth. 

Coleman provides six good signs that you need to do some serious soul-searching and/or move on to greener pastures. However, keep in mind that reinventing or changing your career is a big step and needs to be taken thoughtfully.  Here are some questions to guide the way:

1.       Does your job encourage personal growth? Can you reinvigorate your current position by making small changes like taking on a new assignment or volunteering to organize a strategy session?  This is referred to as ‘job crafting’ and it is a way to create a career that allows you make use of 100 per cent of your skills.  If this isn’t an option and/or your current job doesn’t give you enough space for personal growth, it’s time to move on.

 2.       Have you achieved your goals in this position? Is there a stone left to turn or is there nothing new to aspire to? Making specific career goals for each position is important; however, noticing when we’ve achieved our career goals and need to move on can be just as important.

 3.       Do you look for ways to avoid your job? Do you find yourself procrastinating and choosing ‘busy work’ to distract you from tackling important new projects or finishing old ones?  A profession that fills you with curiosity and anticipation should be able to hold your interest.  Can you power through those big projects to develop positive work habits or do you need a break – temporary or permanent?

 4.       Does your job leave you exhausted or fill you with dread? Take time at the end of each day to listen to your feelings and notice how your job is impacting you.  We need to be able to fall in love with our jobs – at least most of the time! How do you feel about Mondays?  Life is short – so love what you do!

 5.       Are you developing bad habits in this role? Are your work habits changing for the worse? Is your job taking you away from your core values?  If so, you need to let it go.

 6.       Is your workplace making you physically, mentally or emotionally unwell? There are many things that can make a job toxic – like bully bosses or conspiratorial co-workers.  Sometimes it takes a health scare to wake us up.  Don’t let it get to that point – move on!

There are many other signs that you’ve outgrown your current position.  Hopefully, these six questions based on the article by John Coleman can help you uncover if it’s time to re-craft your existing job or let go of the old and try something new.  Regardless of what route you choose, the process of getting there will help you build self-awareness and career resiliency – important skills for the professional road ahead.

Stay tuned for more reviews of relevant, timely and actionable information on how to make the job search easier.  For information on how Career Aviators can make your job search easier, please contact me at donnalynn.clarke@careeraviators.com

How to Become Your Own Career Coach

The article Becoming Your Own Career Coach by Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis in Harvard Business Review first reminded me of cutting my own hair, something best left to the experts.  However, upon further reading, I realized that becoming your own career coach is an effective way to learn about significant self-awareness skills either on the job or as you look for a new one.

Working with a career coach is the best way to build self-awareness and get unstuck, but it’s not the only way.  Tupper and Ellis outline self coaching tips for getting to know ourselves better, identifying areas for growth and overcoming obstacles.  These insights prompt positive personal action, pave the way for meaningful career conversations and improve connections with people in our network.

Self coaching is about getting curious about ourselves and our unique ideas and actions in response to career challenges, “careers can feel uncertain but self coaching is a capability we all have control over.”  Here are two examples of self coaching techniques that help to build awareness:

·         Reflect on career challenges – take five minutes to create a mind map with one specific career challenge in mind.  Consider the who, what, when and why of the challenge to uncover new insights, reflections and possible options for addressing it. Do this often enough and you’ll start to see patterns of behavior that are working either for or against you. For example, reflect on why all your career challenges involve the behaviours of others?

·         Compare intent with impact – set a goal for how you would like to ‘show up’ at a meeting or presentation.  Afterwards ask a colleague participant for feedback with a question such as “what one word describes my approach or impact at today’s meeting?”  This helps to identify whether your intent and impact are in alignment, referred to as ‘self awareness alignment’, or you have a potential gap and opportunity for personal growth.

The authors also present a number of ‘Coach Yourself Questions’ or CYQs to aid in your journey of improved self awareness, such as: “what gives me the most energy at work?” or “what would I like to be true in 12-months’ time?” Open-ended questions focusing on what you can control helps to unlock your creativity and clarify career goals.

The article by Tupper and Ellis provides new ideas for building self awareness that will help create career resiliency, whether you are in a job or looking for a new adventure.  Unlike trying to cut your own hair, being your own career coach is not something just for the experts – it’s good for everyone.  Self coaching builds your capacity to be insightful, reflective and compassionate – important skills for the career journey that lies ahead.

Stay tuned for more reviews of relevant, timely and actionable information on how to make the job search easier.  For information on how Career Aviators can make your job search easier, please contact me at donnalynn.clarke@careeraviators.com

Resume Writing Tips for 2022

Every now and then I run across an article on resume writing that catches my attention.   How to Write a Resume for a Job in 2022  by Conrad Benz in ResumeGenius is that article for me.  It is briming with great tips on what to include in your resume, how to do it and why the information is important. The best part of the article is the visual demonstrations on layout, format and style.

Here’s what made the article stand out for me:

·         Although I am not generally a fan of ‘resume introductions’, the article sold me on it.  For recent grads, the Resume Objective is preferred route because it outlines career goals and aspirations.  For more experienced career-searchers, the Resume Summary is the best option to describe accomplishments and proven skills.

·         The section of the article on resume customization is by far the best I’ve seen.  The step-by-step process demonstrates how the job-seeker can borrow nouns and verbs from the company’s job description to tailor their experiences to the requirements of the position.  Brilliantly described!  Furthermore, the article boils down the basic building blocks of strong bullets: action verb + metric + specific duty.

·         Listing your relevant skills in a resume doesn’t necessarily prove that you’re skilled in these areas.  However, when these skills are incorporated into the resume in different sections, they can catch the eye of the person scanning your resume.  The article provides creative options for including relevant skills, such as hard, soft or technical ones, into the resume for maximum impact.

The article by Conrad Benz pulls together a number of critical components of a good resume.  It’s a great place to start if you’re thinking of a career change in 2022.

Stay tuned for more reviews of relevant, timely and actionable information on how to make the job search process easier.  For information on how Career Aviators can make your job search easier, please contact me at donnalynn.clarke@careeraviators.com

Business Trends Impacting Hiring Decisions in 2022

What’s a New Year without a little crystal ball gazing?  The Future of Work: The Five Biggest Workplace Trends in 2022 in Forbes by author Bernard Marr provides an insightful look into possible scenarios that may play out in the coming year.  For the job-seeker or career-changer, the article offers important considerations and business trends that could impact hiring decisions in 2022.

1.       Hybrid Working: The pandemic will continue to impact how and where we work with three models: centralized (i.e., for healthcare, retail, teaching), decentralized (i.e., everyone working from home) and hybrid (i.e., combined office and home work).  The difference in 2022 is that the worker will have a choice in which model to follow.  This is clearly a win for workers and managers too.  In a report by Loom, 90 per cent of workers and managers are happier with the increased freedom offered by work at home models.

2.        AI – Augmented Workforce: Artificial Intelligence (AI) will continue to replace repetitive work giving workers more time for value-added skills like creativity and innovation.  This signals the importance that employers place on workers who can demonstrate high-level strategic and lateral thinking. 

3.       Staffing for Resilience: Hiring for efficiency has been replaced with hiring for resiliency.  What was considered redundancy or overlapping skills is now considered sensible and flexible precautions.  Organizations need to be nimble and quick to adapt, and job-seekers who can demonstrate these behaviours will be in high demand.

4.       Less Focus on Roles, More on Skills: Focusing on roles related to the hierarchical structure of the organization has been replaced with focusing on skills that offer the organization a competitive advantage.  Regardless of your title, focus on how your skills solved a key business challenge to catch the attention of a prospective employer.  For example, you don’t need to be in a leadership position to demonstrate leadership skills. Focusing on skills also enables the worker to capitalize on new career opportunities that go beyond the role.

5.       Employee Monitoring and Analytics: Monitoring employee activities is not a useful tool for enforcing ideal behaviour; however, it is helpful to the organization for gaining broad insights into workforce behaviour and to provide supports where needed.

This interesting article by Bernard Marr reveals what employers may be thinking about in 2022 and how it could influence hiring decisions.  Consider your work experience and be sure to include in your resume examples of where you’ve demonstrated creativity, adaptability and skills that go beyond your title.  Plus, keep these shiny nuggets of information handy for your next interview.

Stay tuned for more reviews of relevant, timely and actionable information on how to make the job search easier.  For information on how Career Aviators can make your job search easier, please contact me at donnalynn.clarke@careeraviators.com

#resiliency #careeradvice #resume