In the middle of it

Since I was informed that my job was going to be eliminated at my current company, I have been in the middle of it. What is the middle of it you ask?

Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

Well, let me explain what being in the middle is at this juncture of my career. It is about finding balance despite being stuck in the middle and being simultaneously pulled in multiple directions.

Part of me knows that I need a job to continue to pay for a place to live and put food on the table. You know life’s basics. The longer my search goes the more this point starts creeping into my conscious.

On the other hand, my mind is telling me that I should take advantage of this opportunity to take some time and find something that I would prefer to do. Maybe this will go hand in hand with the previous point but it might not. This not only entails looking for a job but also identifying skills and continuing education to help me better position myself for those opportunities.

Finally, there is a part of my mind that is pondering a massive career change. Although I have been in the world of business, finance, communications, and systems for a long time, I have always been drawn to international relations and especially Latin American politics.

Lots to ponder and think about at the moment, but sometimes being stuck in the middle deciding what direction to go does have its advantages.

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.

I Have Changed…for the Better

The end of 2020 allowed me some moments to take a step back from the world and reflect and what was happening to me. Many things were positive but I was mostly disappointed with my professional career and development.

I am a frustrated internationalist stuck in a role for a mid-sized upper-midwest based company. I have been spinning my wheels for the last 4 years trying to make things stick but I am not being true to myself. Currently, I am misfit and poorly cast in a role that does not suit me and even worse, does not benefit the company I work for in any beneficial way. I have sat on my ass for too long and it is beyond time that I start taking an interest in myself and what I want to do instead of living in fear of others and of the unknown. I know that I have the tools, the knowledge and the experience to make it work. I need to find the right fit and I know I can succeed.

Now the task is to make these realizations more of a reality. Here is to 2021!

Back into it 2020

Turing the page into 2020 brings new challenges and new opportunities. Looking back on 2019 and professionally it was not a good year for me. It was highlighted by professional stagnation and an eerie level of comfort with they status quo.

I have taken the opportunity to talk to others about what I am looking to achieve and I do have some support out their in the form of family and friends. I struggle to take the first step and put my neck out there so to speak. 2019 was a year filled with “procrastination through planning”. I spent an enormous amount of time moving between different productivity methods and trying different tools always telling myself – I know realize that I was lying to myself – that they best most perfect tool is out there that will allow me to achieve my career goals. Even going into my search and evaluation period I know this to be the case but I let myself by into this fantasy nonetheless.

Some of my early goals for 2020 include:

  • More discipline – stay on target as a Star Wars fan might say
  • More Rejection – that means that I am getting stuff out there
  • More Experimentation – trying different avenues
  • More writing – I find I am a “better” person when I write more on really any topic.