Despite my exhortations to re-invent and to land a better, more promising job as their next chapter in their career, many clients who come to me for help expect to land a job similar to the one they currently have or just had. Despite the fact that there are many exciting and promising (not dead-end) jobs that they could pursue and despite the fact that with competent help and diligent efforts they could conquer these jobs, it is rare that someone takes this re-invention challenge seriously and lands a job, despite a tough job market. By everyday measures, this would be a tour de force!
These two case studies will inspire you to do what Sally and Jim did to get what they wanted, even though the chances might have appeared dim from the get-go:
On the day she walked into my office a few months back, if someone were to look at her resume they would have concluded quickly that Sally stood no chance of getting into the fast-paced world of consumer web. Anyone would have dismissed her in getting to where she wanted go. But, despite all odds, Sally persevered. Here’s her story:
Sally is 50 and had spent most of her career doing various jobs (a general factotum!), which included working for a city government in its IT department; at a major retail chain as a wardrobe consultant; at an enterprise software company, cleaning up some databases left over from a recently-abandoned venture. She had also started her catering business many years back that closed in a downturn. Sally was out of work, but was willing to wait to get what she wanted!
In late 2009 Sally decided to enter a well-positioned consumer-web company. With zero experience in this highly competitive industry dominated by Gen-Yers (30-year olds), anyone would have predicted her near-zero chance of landing a job in this yeasty field. Undaunted, Sally systematically identified many companies that interested her. From that list she focused on one, which was in the social gaming business and was exploding because of its success in the marketplace. In fact, it was the number-one company for the past few years and surging ahead of its competitors, at an exploding pace!
Sally wanted to get a well-positioned, customer-facing job in this company. After realizing that she had no experience in the social-media, electronic gaming, and in the consumer-web space, she proceeded to find out on which non-profits the company’s top executives served. After identifying one prominent non-profit, which had two of the gaming company’s principals serving on its Board, she decided to volunteer at this non-profit and quickly insinuated herself into its insider circle through hard work, charm, and persistence.
Next, Sally was successful in taking charge of a job that dealt with the social media for this organization. With no previous experience she quickly learned how to get the organization’s information on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. She also started regularly blogging for this organization, where her blog was picked up by other syndicated bloggers. She also feverishly learned how to play the new and popular games that the company routinely churned out and got familiar with them to speak with some knowledge as she was getting the non-profit the much-needed exposure through the social media. Within just four months Sally was now able to drive the organization’s public face through her volunteer work and simultaneously learn all there was to learn about the social media’s power and about how the gaming company’s new games were being touted on these media. Within just months she was not only an expert in handling social media, but also had worked some impressive bullets on her resume to boot!
When the right job opened up at the gaming company for Sally, she prepared her resume with all the language that was now aligned with the job’s requirements and approached the non-profit’s pooh-bah with a request to introduce her to the gaming company’s CEO, who served on the organization’s Board. The non-profit’s Executive Director wrote a glowing letter of introduction, recognizing Sally’s work at the organization, which impressed the gaming company’s CEO. He then passed down that letter with Sally’s new resume to the hiring manager, who had the opening. Sally has already passed the telephone interviews and is being invited to do a series of in-person interviews with the hiring manger and others this week. I expect Sally to ace these interviews and to get what she is striving for.
The second case involves Jim, who was a software development manager at a financial services company. Despite his stellar record and his MBA he was not able to pursue the Product Management positions in his own company. Each time during the past two years someone took the open positions from the inside with relevant experience or someone from the outside in the financial services space. Tough job market made this hard for Jim!
So, Jim decided to look for a Product Management role at an outside company in that space, where a new product was emerging and where his deep development and customer-facing experience would trump his lack of product management experience. Jim re-did his resume to showcase the right experience that headlined how he would deal with the typical challenges that product managers face with a nascent product.
Jim was successful in getting an interview after finding one such company in the right stage of its product evolution. He agreed to be hired as a contract product manager to get the product launched and marketed. Within less than a year Jim was able to leverage his product development and customer-facing experience to launch the company’s brand-new product with much success and media coverage. This gave him the language, missing from his resume to claim a Product Manager job at his previous company.
When Jim’s previous company posted yet another opening for a Product Manager position, this time Jim was fully prepared to compete with all other contestants for that job, despite a tough job market. After a few rounds of interviews Jim was selected and offered the job at a higher level than when he left the company a year ago because of his stellar success launching a new product as a Product Manager (albeit as a contractor). If Jim had been transferred from within his own company previously, this would not have been achievable; most companies only transfer qualified internal employees at the same level, without giving them a promotion!
Jim starts his new job in two weeks!
By: Dilip G Saraf, Career & Life Coach, Career Transitions Unlimited (www.diliparaf.com)