Rejection

When applying for jobs rejection is almost always part of the process, but that does not make it any easier. As I posted earlier I had applied for a job and spent a lot of time fine-tuning my resume, drafting and redrafting my cover letter, checking my online profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and others. Earlier today I received notice that I was no longer being considered for the position.

Photo by Zan on Unsplash

Rejected. Something we humans almost always dreed. From high-school dances to team tryouts and trying a new recipe we are pre-programmed to want to hear something positive from others and have our courage, abilities, and cooking skills validated but we do not always get what we want.

Although I would agree that being rejected and not getting as far a long as one wants is not a fun feeling, this time I feel differnt. Going into this new phase of my career I am more prepared for rejection than in the past as I know what I am attempting to do will not be easy – career transitions rarely are.

I will take what I can from this experience, including how curteous the hiring manager was. A rarity now days as many times it is some genaric automated response that is sent.

No time to waste. Time to brush myself off and get back to the job hunt.

Working Content & Happy

With Covid-19 hitting the world hard in 2020 and still feeling its effects in 2021 I took a hiatus from my career planning and job searching. I did not feel it was the right time to up-end a large portion of my life with so many other things in flux.

Now that things are starting to get back on track, I have opened my career “folder” yet again and back to some career soul searching. Although many things have remained constant since I started to seriously consider a career change many have also sprung forth such as my ever more fervent desire to work remotely, solidly identify with a company’s value pillars and culture, and want to bring in an international component to a future endeavour.

To better organize things this time around I have taken a step back to help better define exactly what it is that I am looking for. With so many varied interests there are many things that I find appealing about a number of jobs or careers for that matter.

As I sought to focus my interests an idea came to mind. Instead, of just writing a resume/cv focused on my results, responsibilities, and the usual stuff, I started to rewrite what I would call an “Enjoyment Resume”.

Pure Enjoyment
Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

What an “Enjoyment Resume” is to me is going through each job that I have had and identify what it was that I really enjoyed doing in that role or at that company. As I started to go through my nearly 20+ year career I began to notice some trends. Some of these included: love to work on varied projects, seem to prefer a smaller company so I can wear many hats, found happiness in working with people from all over the world, loved more strategic and “big picture” work as opposed to more detail-oriented.

Now with this information on hand, I feel that I have a much better sense of who I am in a professional sense and just exactly what type of role and where I am the best fit moving forward in my career.

Can’t wait to get started. So if you are feeling stuck in your career search give an “enjoyment resume” a chance and perhaps you will find it as helpful as I did.

Remotely Considering

remotely considering remote work.

I, as well as many others, were thrust into the realm of work from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There was no transition or no planning just a quick order from my company stating that all workers will now be required to work from home. This order was back in the middle of March. Since that time I have been working from home. Now, this is where things get interesting.

Close to my work from home set up

Pre-Covid-19 I had very little work from home experience. One rare occasions – afternoon appointment, home repairs – I might have worked a morning or afternoon from home but not more than a dozen or so times.

Having been immediately thrust into working from home I have to admit that I found the first couple of weeks somewhat tough as I needed to find a rhythm. Complicating things was the fact that I was in the group have to home school as well. However, once the new routines were established I began to enjoy whole work from home bit.

First of all, I felt that I had more time as I no longer had a commute to consider or all the morning small talk between entering the building and finding the desk. Secondly, I was in charge of my schedule. No more interruptions unless I wanted there to be an interruption. I do not miss the quick pop-by from a co-worker whose pressing needs were automatically a higher priority than any task that I was deep into. Third was just the freedom to set up my schedule. If I wanted to go for a run around noon and then work in the evening after kids went to bed I could. This definitely improved my productivity. The freedom also extended to my work environment. Moving around inside and outside my home helped me maintain my focus and give me a fresh perspective as well as enjoy some of the late spring and early summer weather.

As I consider the next stage of my professional career I would love to continue pursuing a remote work opportunity. I just feel a better worker, more productive and relaxed with a feeling of more control coupled with independence. Remote work …. here I come.

Staying on Track

I started this blog several weeks ago as a source of inspiration and motivation as I begin my career transition journey. After a little bit of success I have hit a snag. I am struggling to “re-brand” myself and pivot my career experiences to a different career path.

Photo by Tom Sodoge on Unsplash

You might say that this should be simple and your right. However, where I am struggling is I am not sure what I am trying to pivot to. Perhaps I can blame my liberal arts education that exposed me to many different ideas, topics, and issues that I feel going in one particular direction will close me off to many other areas. I have found that this hurts when I am networking and people ask me what I am interested in doing? According to many career sites, this should be a fairly easy and straightforward question that can be answered in a couple of sentences. Not in my case, as when I am asked something along those lines I can ramble on for minutes covering a wealth of topics and interests.

Part of me says that this is bad and I need to focus my career interests on something more specific. The other part of me refuses to do this as in doing so I would not be true to my authentic self. I feel that I can leverage my authentic self to help a company or client meet a host of different problems. However, I have not found the way to convey this to others.

I will keep trying and persisting as I know that this journey can be long and full of setbacks. Patience is key.

The Next Steps – Fighting with Numbers

So, I have now stepped out of my comfort zone and have started the transition. What I am struggling with at the moment is how to translate my skills and experiences onto a paper. Yes, it is that resume and cv that is just starting at me on the other monitor. The blinking cursor taunting me as I ponder what to write.

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

What makes this difficult for me is my career has largely been defined in a more qualitative way and the paper is screaming for numbers; sales up 20%, cost savings of 15%, recruited 8 new employees, operational efficiency maximized by 12% and so on. As I work in the world of softer issues my skills have much more to do with culture, comfort, and adaptability than hard numbers favored by today’s job search algorithms.

I feel I bring much more to the table than just numbers. Now, how can I get that on paper?

The Transition Ebb and Flow

I somewhat took my current position out of necessity. I had just moved back to the U.S. after living for nearly a decade abroad, had a kid on the way, and the job market had not fully recovered from the 2008 recession so opportunities were few and far between.

It was not the easiest decision for me to take as it meant putting aside some of my true interests; Latin America, Spanish language, multi-cultural understanding, international business, etc. But, with a lot of personal things happening obtaining something stable did outweigh overall career and job interests.

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

This is not to say that things were all so bad. In the start it was nice to have a steady paycheck and have some consistency in my life for the first time in a while. However, I became complacent and now I feel that I am paying the price. I have sat too long in one spot and as I look to start making inroads back into my true interests the obstacles are bigger than when I first moved back to the U.S. those many year’s ago.

Now, I have been put into a box based on my recent experience and skills that I have developed over the last 5 years. Not that this is bad it just complicates matters as I am looking to moving into a new type of role. All the recruiters and algorithms focus on these skills and experience and not on what I have done in the past and all my career experience brings to the table.