The Proactive Job Search Series: Part 4 of 4
Welcome to Part 4 of our Proactive Job Search Series. If you’ve missed Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3, you can find them by following those links!
In this last part of our series, we’re discussing how you know when your proactive approach is working.
Finding a job is a long (typically 3-6 month), multi-step process.
If we only celebrated the win of getting the actual job, we would NOT make it through the entire process intact.
There are small milestones (that are actually big milestones) we can check off our lists and small wins (again, truly transformational wins) we must honor along this journey. Are you picking up what I’m putting down here?
No incremental step forward in this proactive approach should be underestimated as small.
These are seismic shifts that lead you to a different kind of career and life – one that is on your terms and designed by you.
Here are 10 of the hundreds of shifts along the way that I celebrate with clients…
When you invest the time to think about and write down the work you enjoy doing and what you’d like to learn.
When you’re clear on your superpowers and the unique value you can bring to an organization and your work.
When you can talk about your superpowers. Out loud. With another human.
When you do the research on salaries of employees with similar skillsets and expertise and you decide you will ask for AT LEAST that amount.
When you write an elevator pitch that feels so very you and when you share it with people they say…”Damn…you really know who you are and what you want!” This actually happened with a client on call the other day! (Get my Elevator Pitch templates here!)
When your network is sending you the right kinds of roles and making very relevant introductions for you. You’ve been so clear with them that they know how to help!
When you have your first interview in 5 years and it wasn’t perfect, but you got a few solid answers in and…you didn’t die.
When you don’t get the role you were interviewing for, but they say they want you to apply for other roles at the company. I promise, they DO NOT need to say that and WOULD NOT if they didn’t believe it.
When you feel like you’re meeting interesting and talented people in the process with whom you want to continue to be in touch.
When you feel momentum. You’re getting the right kinds of meetings. You’re confident in how you’re telling your story and your intuition tells you, you’re getting close. In my experience, clients often want to be cautiously optimistic at this moment, but their intuition is usually correct. If it’s not the role in front of you, it’s on its way.
Now, of course – for most of my goal-oriented clients – the new job is the SUPER WIN. And they get there, sometimes in the 3 months we’re working together and sometimes after.
Yet with all of these micro wins (that are really macro) along the way, they feel changed by the time they get to the actual J-O-B.
They’ve claimed their power. They feel agency in their decision. They are ready to expand into this change with courage, as they are.