What to Do with My Job Hunt During the Holidays?

So the holidays are upon us in full force.  For some this can be a wonderful time of year to rest, relax with friends, and remember times gone by.  For others it can be very difficult.  For a job hunter who has been out of work for awhile it can be frustrating in some senses but also a chance to take in the holidays more fully.  I remember being in between jobs during the holidays one year.  It was stressful from the "I have no income" perspective.  On the other hand I was able to enjoy my family and friends more.

So don't let the holidays get to you as you continue to hunt for your next best gig.  The key to any job hunt is your mindset.  How you view your job hunt can make or break you and will ultimately determine the speed at which you gain new employment.

The same holds true of your job hunt during the holidays.  Bottom line, don't drop off the face of the earth and not continue your efforts in your search.  Companies are beginning to hire more now and it should only get better once January hits.  You want to take this time to continue work on defining your target job, editing your resume, preparing for interviews, and especially networking.

I was reminded this morning of what a wonderful opportunity the holidays can be for your networking.  How many holiday gatherings or parties will you be attending in the next four weeks?  What a fabulous time to let friends and family know of your search and what you are looking for.   Keep positive and keep your explanation or "sound bite" brief.  People are happy to help you "research" your next opportunity if they now what you are looking for.

So prepare yourself with a brief sound bite.  I recommend to my clients to include some of these phrases and introductions.
"I am researching new opportunities in the ______ industry."
"As a Director of Marketing I am known for ______, _________, and _________."
"I am an Auditor researching opportunities in the non-profit sector.  Do you know of anyone in that area that I could contact?"

Have fun with it and keep it conversational.  Remember it is not all about your saga.  By asking others about themselves you may discover they work at a company you have been researching.... and you never know what will happen next.

My reminder about the networking opportunities came up when I read an article.  See Greg Ikner's article about how to take additional advantage of these holiday gatherings.

Happy Networking and Have Fun,
Lisa

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

Goal Setting... REALLY? Part 2

Ok, so here is where I let you know HOW to set goals.  I promise it is different that the same old thing (or at least I hope so).

First schedule time on your calendar, soon.  Truthfully an hour should work to start.  So go get a good cup of coffee and settle in a comfortable chair.  Bring a note book and pen and really nothing else.  Turn off the cell phone!  Yes, I said it... turn it off or hide it so you aren’t tempted to surf.  Then find a quiet place.  Make this something to look forward to.  Not a painful task.  Think about it.  This time is all about you.  What else could be better?  

Next, start writing ideas and thoughts for each of the sections.  To make it easier, start off with one area of your life such as Career on one page.  Write “Career” at the top and go from there.  Don’t try to skip through all of them at once.  Stay on one topic area until you are out of ideas or thoughts.  Then move on.

After your initial brainstorming session, schedule another “time alone”, again some place comfortable and pleasant to you.  Personally I sometimes go to the library and other times, I love being at Panera Bread or Starbucks.  If I really do not want to get distracted at all, I go to the library.  If I lived in the south, I would be at the beach.  Go through your list.  If you have hand-written your list, try typing them up so they are easier to read and to edit for the long term.  Unlike many of you my handwriting is awful.  I try to write too fast and it is a mess so I really try to type from the second round on.

Trim down to a few core goals for each category.  Next, break down to monthly goals if you feel daring.  If you feel even more daring, do some goal setting for five and ten years out.  Remember keep things straight-forward, realistic, but will cause you to stretch.

Keep editing until you love what you see.   Get jazzed about the possibilities of what a year from now could look like after you have achieved these goals!  Seriously, get jazzed!  Finally, type them up, print off, and carry with you.   Or find a place where you can access your document at least monthly, if not more often, to look at them, even if briefly, to see where you are at.  Do a little mental check-in as you review them.  Am I making progress or back-sliding?

One of my new goals that I added in 2009, I really like.  It is an annual goal of how many books I will read.  I have never been a strong reader.  Actually I am pretty slow but I have gained a love of reading and want to do more of it.  I read mostly non-fiction so my reading is not usually “light” but every once in awhile I pick up an entertaining fiction book  and read it in a week.   My goal is not just about how many books but it is to really help me gain wisdom and knowledge and to increase my reading speed.  We become faster readers the more we read.

That’s it.  It is not rocket science although to those that don’t enjoy setting goals because they constantly get discouraged, take heart, try it again.  Set more realistic goals and give yourself grace if you don’t reach all of them with a champion flair or with style and grace, it is okay.  Sometimes we stumble along but still succeed.

For instance, my goals for 2009 included getting healthier - which means to me eating better than I do, find an exercise routine that I will really enjoy and gain strength and energy.  Well I did not do so well on this one but I did do some research in the area of nutrition and began taking Zumba classes.  I was reminded in my Zumba class how much I love latin music and dance.  And although it is not an "exercise routine" we got a new puppy which I need to take for walks regularly.  This gets me out of my home office at least once a day.   Some progress was achieved this year.

Even though my “get healthy” goals did not go as far as I had planned or envisioned, I did accomplish more in my career goals.  I finished eight months of certification work for my career coaching and came out with two certifications and a whole bunch more knowledge that I use with my clients every day.  I gave myself “grace” in the get healthy area because I accomplished more than I imagined in my business goals.

I think you get the point.  Go, have fun with it.  Here's to the goals that are yet to be.

- Lisa

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

Goal Setting... REALLY???

Ah Goal Setting!  What thoughts go off in your head when you hear this expression?

For some this is a painful and boring thought of doing the tedious job of thinking up admirable goals and then not achieving them.  Thus, feeling like a failure every year.  So I can understand why many people still do not set goals and write them out regularly.  I would like to have you look at it a bit differently this time.  And for those that do the exercise of setting goals, this is a reminder that it is time to do it again or check in on how you are doing.

I do have to agree with some.  It really does get boring hearing about goal setting every year.  I first began setting goals while in college.  It was in the 80’s and it was becoming a hot topic at the same time when time management became trendy.  I was all gung-ho about setting goals and writing mission statements and then I let it go for a long, long, time.  Marriage and kids took most of my time and I squeezed in a job there too.  So that was it.  Why set goals?  I have no time.

Well, I have come full circle.   Perhaps it is the business I am in or that my kids are getting a bit older and more independent that I am focusing on this again.  Or even more so is that I am finding so many people that are not setting any goals that it frustrates me to no end.  We all have to have goals.  Even if we haven’t written them down.  We have desires in our hearts, don’t we?  But how to see those desires or dreams come into being?   Yes, you got it.  We need to set goals.

Here are my recommendations for goal setting that hopefully will make it less stressful for you.  Because really, the act of setting goals and following up WILL make a difference in your life - if you let it.

Ok, are you ready?  Here it is.  There are various areas in our lives that deserve our time and attention.  And by attention I am saying to regularly evaluate how are you doing in this area.  I recommend to my clients to begin making plans for the next calendar year in early November.  Some like the focus of the school calendar.  You pick, whichever fits your life the best, go with it.

Areas worth setting goals:

Spiritual

Health / Physical

Financial

Relationships

Career / Business

Personal Development

Community

(adjust for your personal needs)

For me I adjust by  adding two more sections;  writing and home improvement.  Since both are a part of my life and really can not be ignored or rolled into anything else, I include them as their own topics.  I don’t want my writing goals to be hidden under career / business or person development because it is both.  Home improvement is constant, so I might as well plan for it.  If you own property, you know what I mean.


Are you still with me? 

Next up... how to do this?   (part 2)

- Lisa

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

Having Boundaries

The article below from FastCompany says quite a bit about our work life balance. What we started off as having flexibility has turned into an anchor. Read below and we'll discuss more at the end....


Work-Life Balance Digitally Destroyed: One in Three Permanently Connected to Employer
BY KIT EATONWed Apr 21, 2010

If you're the sort who takes a sneaky peek at your work email on your BlackBerry while in the bar with pals in the evening, don't feel too guilty.

Web conferencing company InterCall (arguably biased toward reporting people are connected more to work) reports that 30% of U.S. workers who employ technology as part of their jobs feel the need to maintain a digital link to their employer at all times. Weekends and vacations, too. It's not even just about curiosity or misplaced work-place loyalty--25% of employees say that they feel like their job security depends on remaining available digitally beyond normal office hours, and 17% say that if they don't check in while on leave, they'll suffer management's displeasure. Furthermore, 50% of survey respondents said that arranging time off work was becoming much harder.

Can you say "CrackBerry" and "iPhoneaddiction?" And can you add on "Bye-bye any notion of work-life balance" just for good measure? One in three people is basically sacrificing their entire life (in a small, but nonetheless meaningful) way to their employer, which really is pushing the "live to work" saying to its limits. While it's understandable that the recession has strained companies to the point that they'd prefer staff not to take too much leave--particularly as we begin to move into a better economic climate--which explains one of these figures, one in four people are still worried about job security to the degree that they're permanently reachable online.

Technology is supposed to facilitate one's work experience, making tasks smoother and more efficient, not push work so far beyond a traditional 9-5 office-based lifestyle. The way some employers question employee loyalty, or even make hiring and firing decisions based on Facebook data about staff's private lives outside the office is already worrying. And when you blend in the recent controversy about a school disciplining its students about activities carried out in private at home, monitored through school laptops, the alarm bells are roaring. Isn't it time to tell your company that your life is your life, and work-based tech should be kept at work?


So what do you think about this?  Do you do what the article mentions?  I have completely caught myself checking my iPhone during a conversation with friends.  This is not a polite practice and I am conscious of this tendency.   Do we find the very technology which is supposed to give us more freedom in our work life balance is actually chaining us to work 24 / 7?  Please give me your opinion.

An Exercise in Humility

I have a funny story from the world of building a business and being humbled.  As I told you previously I decided to hop out of corporate last summer and be home with the boys.  Although I wanted to be home, I knew I wanted to work.  That has never been a question.  Although there are times when I would have appreciated months away from any responsibilities except home and family, I do like to work and had always wanted to work from home again but only doing what I felt would be important to me not just something to kill time and make a little bit of money.  If that was the case I would rather organize and redecorate my home.  

I was ready to begin doing what I loved and what I am passionate about.  So 2009 was my chance to begin this path.  A path I did not have time to start while working practically full time, 32 hours a week, balancing a family, friends, volunteer work, and having a husband in school full time, who also worked part-time.  So last summer, I began career coaching and working with my friend Meghan on Detours&OnRamps events.

As time freed up from Detours, this winter I began determining my business name and logo and hired a designer to help me with my website, which is still under construction.  The name has been picked and the logo designed.  I love them both.  But then I kept hearing about “personal branding”.  I kept saying, hum, “I wonder if I need this for my coaching business?”  I decided to hear more about it and attended a workshop given by Randi Bussin, who will be a keynote speaker at the May Detours event.  As part of this workshop I was entitled to go through an assessment process.  This process includes requesting feedback about how I am perceived, strengths, weaknesses, attributes, and skills by people close to me, who know me well, and from various places in my past and present life. 

The assessment kicked off about a week ago and it has been a humbling experience in various ways.  The goal of the assessment is to come away with what my perceived brand is from others as compared to how I view myself.  If it matches great.  If it doesn’t then I probably need to fix some things.  The assessment is anonymous so I do not know who responded or what their specific responses are but I can review the data as a whole through out the gathering process.  Although not all the data is in yet and I am not yet ready to have my 25 page branding report produced, I have been reviewing the results.

At times I think wow, that is so great that someone looks at me so positively.  At other times, I view the data and say “oh my gosh am I that bad of a person.”  The weaknesses always seem to get our most attention don’t they?  I need to remind myself that when really compared to the positive comments and feedback, the weaknesses are not many and aren’t anything I don’t already know about myself and are already, or constantly, working on.  But I want to know them and contain them.

I see this enlightenment as an amazing opportunity and am thankful for my friends, family, and colleagues for participating in this exercise.  I am looking forward to obtaining my customized 25 page personal branding report to see what “my brand” is.  I look forward to defining my brand, rollling out my website, business cards and such this spring. 

If you ever wondered what “personal branding” was go check out our keynote speaker’s site or come on May 4th and hear from her yourself.  Randi is one of many special and talented women who will share a piece of themselves and their knowledge with you.  I look forward to meeting you there.

-Lisa

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

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My Detour

Hello friends and other corporate drop outs,

Today I want to share with you my "corporate drop-out" story and basically how I decided to be a full time work from home career coach  I think many of the working parents will relate to my story.  I have had my stint in the corporate world, had kids, and felt the need to change things up with my career.  My corporate background began in human resources, moved into training and development for human resource systems vendors, then to sales engineering still in the hr software world at Lawson Software, then eventually into internet business development at Lycos and most recently Monster.com.

While I was at Lycos I had my first of two boys and after being laid off, I needed to determine next steps for work or a new career.  I struggled about going back full time, knowing that my husband and I would try to have another child within 3 years, God willing.  So I did various part time jobs and had a wonderful mother-in-law that was willing to watch David while I worked a few hours a week.  Then I moved onto a working from home gig, 20 hours a week.  Shortly after starting this job, I became pregnant with my second, Drew.  So I did this part time gig for the next year or two.  When Drew was a year old and David was three my husband and I decided it was time for me to head back to my profession and to be earning something more substantial than what these part time roles were paying.  We were planning on my husband going to back to finish his master’s degree full time within a year and we needed to be prepared financially.  So I headed back to work, fours days a week and had fun with it.  It was a great role in a great company with wonderful people.

Then again, life threw us some changes and I decided to depart Monster.com to be home with my boys after my husband finished his degree.  We made it through two long stressful years of juggling two jobs, a family, and an intense masters degree program in theology, not a light subject.  I and the kids needed to be spending more time together so my husband and I agreed it was time for me to get out of corporate for now.   I began a new career path in what I feel is my calling, to help others in their search for work that first works with their lives and secondly something they are passionate about.  So since my transition out of corporate in July 2009, I have had many interesting insights and stories.  One to share with you next time.  Until then enjoy life, today, and thank you for letting me introduce myself to you.

- Lisa

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

A New Start

Welcome to Fresh Air Coach.  This is my second run at a blog.  My first was really about being a mom.  This one I want to be different.  It is about how we function as employees or entrepreneurs, women, and mothers.  I will give you my personal insights and opinions about career transitions, balancing career and home, and maybe even some thoughts on parenting.  You may agree or disagree with me.  That is fine with me.  I love healthy, respectful, dialogues.

Our vocation and career are just a part of our worlds as human beings.  But it can be a big part, time and energy wise.  So how do we get through the days when we "hate" what we do or we are "let go".  Or how about many of us who would not use such a strong word as "hate" but are not feeling satisfied or passionate about our vocation.  Is this the life we have always wanted?  Or is it time for a change.

What is a career transition?  It can be many things.  Bottom-line it is change.  That is what transition means.  Change can be difficult when it is forced upon us.  It can be exciting when we choose it.  I can be freeing in either case.

As a career transition coach and a job search strategist, I walk with those in that change either by choice or not, to facilitate the discovery of work that is fulfilling for them and fits into the rest of their life.

Do we work to live or live to work?  Do we love what we do or just survive.  I say discover what you love to do and do it.  Get paid well at it because you love it and become an expert.

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."
-Lao-tzu