Rather appropriately, I met up with Tim just before this month’s Tech Tuesday event at the Marshes Golf Club. I’m a fan of networking and what better event at which to meet than Tech Tuesday’s? Definitely a good start. It got better. Tim explained that he’d discovered a real passion for project management through his work in bid support and coordination (all of us who’ve done bids know how critical the project management aspect can be for large ones) and that he’d even gotten his PMP on his own. He’d started to look around where he currently works for these roles and just recently learned that his current role will disappear in a few months. Now he has real incentive.

Tim started to aggressively seek out internal opportunities. There’s one box checked off. My only contributions were for Tim to extend this same approach and focus outside of where he works using Linkedin and face to face networking to better advertise his skills and experience. You cannot rely solely on your internal (current employer and colleagues) network but rather must always be growing it. A lot of us have fallen into that trap. But you need to look beyond what’s immediate and comfortable. That also requires you to think about the story you want to tell to people who don’t know you. Again, Linkedin is that critical introduction tool. 

For Tim, this translates into some Linkedin effort, more external outreach and also a requirement to foster relationships with staffing agencies that seek out project management talent. That would significantly increase his visibility and what he can offer to the people and organizations that can use his skills. 

And yes, I forgot a picture. In my defense, there was food and beer so both my hands were full.... :-)

​Reena and I Skyped late last week. She has recently settled in Toronto, working to support herself while she seeks employment related to her long term career plan. However, this was only one aspect of a longer journey that started with computer science in India, a Master’s degree in Kingston at Queen’s University and most recently has brought Reena to Toronto. As you may guess, she’s a young computer science graduate with a background and serious interest in big data, machine learning languages and business analytics. These are skills and interests well suited for today. All of this is coupled with a sense of adventure and purpose. Reena aptly describes herself as a trailblazer and as woman in a very male dominated field and having travelled half-way around the world on her own, I think that’s a pretty accurate description.

Do any of these statements describe your current situation?

• Not sure what you want to do
• Know what you want but unsure how to land that role
• Job searching but not getting the results you want
• It's been a long time since your last big career change ​
• You're employed but thinking about change

Even one yes means you're ready to  “(re)boot your career”.  Managed well and you land your dream job. Done poorly, you continue to struggle or worse yet, end up with no job at all. The 1 Day Blueprint for Finding Your Perfect Work  workshop is a challenging  yet rewarding workshop on Thursday, October 5, 2017. It's designed for people who are serious about and committed to their career choices. It's a mix of teaching, individual exercises and lots of group discussions providing an opportunity to engage with the workshop leaders as well as other participants in exploring and defining your individual strengths and motivations.

As a PNJ subscriber, you're entitled to a 15% discount on the price. Use the code  PNJ_15.  There's also an early bird discount of another 15% till Sep 22. Finally, recognizing the financial challenges of job seekers and students, we have an innovative offer for them. Like all our workshops, it comes with a full money back guarantee.

Take care,

Len & Tim  

​Fidelia and I met up at IKEA cafeteria splitting the difference between where each of us lived. It proved to be a great place to chat. Over the last 10 years Fidelia has had an interesting path to Ottawa from Ghana by way of Ohio (school), Toronto and finally Ottawa.  That path also led her to discover a passion for people and HR via generalist and coordinator roles. Fidelia’s challenge lies in deciding what she wants to do here in Ottawa as she manages the transition to a new city, family and career choices.

What stood out in my chat with Fidelia was her “people person personality”. You meet some people that are just natural people persons. You immediately feel at ease and enjoy the conversation. Couple that with a sense of energy and that’s Fidelia. In fact, she’s focused that energy on an Ottawa based entrepreneurial project with a friend - Delish Foods and Catering. While still a part-time exercise, they’ve quickly established a solid base and it leaves Fidelia with one more choice in her decision process.

So what’s next? I’d suggest that Fidelia continue to pursue her HR interests. She certainly needs to better publicize and describe her work and successes (aka, Linkedin profile) and the outreach to the local Ottawa business community. They need to understand what she has to offer. At the same time, continue to have fun with her emerging new business. It demonstrates a lot of skills that businesses value.  If it continues to grow then her HR experience might come in quite handy.

Emily and I met up at the Starbucks in the St. Laurent Centre. Emily is a military spouse with London, Halifax, Winnipeg and now Ottawa as places she calls home. Military spouses face a unique challenge of constant movement with often little time (2-3 years) spent in any one location. That makes it difficult to build up work experience and a network in any one location. Yet, that’s just what Emily has done to date.  She has used her time and travels strategically, earning a Child and Youth Care Diploma while successfully gaining work experience and her own network during numerous workplace transitions. She’s landed in Ottawa (actually Russell) with a passion for helping older youth learn life skills, a young family and the drive to make it work here.

Emily faces big challenges in that she must once again map out a new employment market, reach out to key groups involved with youth and introduce herself. We all know that drill. Interestingly for Emily, she offered up an observation that she’s never “not been hired” once she had an interview. So, we know where she needs to focus. For Emily, there’s homework in ensuring she’s well connected to the organizations for whom she’s worked, has letters of recommendation/Linkedin recommendations and of course, builds up a good Linkedin profile as her starting point. There's more hard work in first finding and then connecting with the groups that focus on youth. Her past connections may be help (it's a small world) but it will be mostly up to Emily and basic research, emails and phone calls. Specialized job boards like CharityVillage are good for both jobs as well as the organizations. One thought is that recruiters might also be a great starting point to work in parallel with her own efforts. For Emily, it’s all about getting noticed. 

Oh yes. Given what Emily's accomplished to date, the Batman t-shirt was very appropriate.

Mimi asked to meet up at Holland Cake and Shake. Despite the many temptations I was able to stick with just coffee. Now, Mimi is someone who has her act together. She’s in a contract role that’s been extended once and might be again. However, recognizing that all good things come to an end, Mimi has started her search well ahead of time. Two thumbs up for planning ahead. As a contractor, you’ve always got to be looking, sometimes starting right after you land a new gig.  Mimi is interesting, describing herself as not a really social person, she is an excellent facilitator in assisting groups and organizations achieve their goals. She is driven, likes to get things done and brings this focus to an organization or group with whom she is working. She summed herself up as the "nudge", that makes things happen. I loved that description and suggested she use that as her Linkedin headline and future resume summaries. It’s a great opening line, especially with a supporting story and accomplishments to go with it.

To date, Mimi has been successful in finding roles through word of mouth and on the strength of her resume. Once she’s known, Mimi does well. Her objective is how to become known by more people and in particular, future employers. What Mimi must do, like so many others, she must continue to grow her visibility but with an additional challenge of being uncomfortable with face to face networking. Online social networking does provide an alternative if done well. As always, Linkedin provides a reference point to showcase her skills and experience. Twitter, used in a business and professional setting is a great vehicle to interact and share online to further strengthen and grow your visibility. It will take work but everything’s in place for Mimi.

I forgot to take pics during our meeting (my bad) but did find a nice shot of Holland's menu board, taken by Ethan Adeland (food blogger) and thought it was a great fit.

​ Marisa and I met up for a coffee chat in mid June at Simply Biscotti here in Westboro Village. She’s a recent transplant to Ottawa from the US and interestingly, she has a rich television production and event manager background, with some significant time spent at the Antique Road Show. (Yes, that one and no, I couldn’t extract any juicy stories out of her.) Marisa has the challenge of transitioning from one industry to another, specifically, marketing and project/event management but is somewhat unique in where’s she’s coming from. How do you advertise and apply your skills to a new industry which does not understand your background?

In Marisa’s case, it will be based on taking advantage of her outgoing, engaging and interactive personality. She has the perfect personality and networking skills (not shy) to build up a network here in Ottawa and become better known. Meetup and Eventbrite are two easy and logical next steps. What needs to complement those efforts is ensuring that her online profiles - LinkedIn and other tools match the person with whom I spoke. Like many people, these what's there now does not represent the strong, engaging and energetic person I met. And that’s the person any company would hire immediately.

​Now that you've done all the hard work in creating a solid and well thought out understanding of yourself and what you offer (aka, your foundation) it's time to build out your story and show off. That's what  Your Compelling Value Story is all about.

Consider the words:  Your.  Compelling.  Value.  Story.  First, there is  Your. This is about you. Ensure that you create a story that engages me. You want me to walk away feeling like I know you. I'm curious. Satisfy that curiosity. Then, there is Compelling and Value. This is not a time for modesty. You've worked hard to define yourself and what you do well and in which environments you thrive. Make sure you communicate a strong, engaging message that shows how you solve my problem. Never make me guess or assume. I'm here to be impressed. Last but definitely not least, there is Story. This is where all the foundation work comes together. You are telling a story about you and what you offer. In the end, that's why I'm spending the time researching you. The Career Transition workshop will provide you a guide in how to create your story. 

It's an all day workshop on Thursday, February 23. 2017. PNJ subscribers are entitled to a 15% discount. Just use PNJ_15 as a coupon code to get the discount. And as always, there is a 100% refund policy if you are not satisfied with the workshop. That's how confident we are in it. Check out the workshop and if you have further questions, let Tim or I know.

Len

Bonus Offer:
Every registered participant for our workshop will receive a copy of the newly published career book (Re)Boot Your Career, authored by Tim Ragan and Paul Gibbons. It is a step-by-step process that guides the reader through everything they need to do to figure things out, communicate confidently, and land meaningful opportunities. It is equally applicable to the aging baby-boomer seeking late-career purpose and to the up-and-coming millennial searching for some career traction in our 21st century working world. Take a minute to check out the book and the early reviews.

(Photo by Iskandar Shah/Flikr)

​In the last post I introduced our upcoming Career Transition workshop. It's a workshop that Tim Ragan of Career Constructors and I deliver several times a year.  Today, I wanted to talk about the first step - The Inside Job - building your strong foundation.

We all know the cliche of not being able to build anything without a strong foundation. It is equally true for careers. I have worked with many people on developing a powerful Linkedin profile and in almost ALL cases, everyone struggles and often fails in succinctly and powerfully describing themselves and what they offer - that's your career foundation.

The Inside Job - building your strong foundation  is all about creating a personal assessment designed for the business world, giving you an understanding of what drives you as well as the work environments and teams that are the best fit for you. And therein lies the problem. How do you create an accurate self-assessment? The Career Transition workshop introduces you to a business-centric self-assessment which allows you to characterize yourself in a way that an employer or business partner understands. The concepts are simple, easily understood and will immediately resonate with you. In building a strong business-centric foundation, you have a significant advantage over everyone else. Now that's a real career foundation.

The workshop is on Thursday, February 23rd, 2017. It's a full day workshop and you should come prepared to work hard, be challenged and to be pleasantly surprised at what you can achieve. As a PNJ subscriber, you're entitled at an additional 15% discount on top of the early bird price. Just use PNJ_15 as the coupon code.

Check out the workshop and if you have further questions, let Tim or I know.

Do any of these statements describe your current situation?
> Not sure what you want to do. You could be starting out, mid-career or considering a late career change.
> Know what you want but unsure how to land that role. You have done the hard work but achieving that goal remains elusive.
> Job searching but not getting the results you want. How many of us have been here? There's a reason.
> It's been a long time since your last big career change. Are you complacent or in a rut? There is a way out.
> ​You're employed but thinking about change. Transition from a passive job seeker to an active one. Take control.

Guess what? You're “in transition” and how you manage that transition is the difference between a great job and something that just pays the bills or perhaps no job at all.  It takes time and work. This is the starting point.

The Career in Transition Workshop is a challenging and busy full day workshop. It's designed for people who are serious about and committed to their career choices. The day long workshop is a mix of teaching, individual exercises and lots of group discussions. It's an opportunity to engage with the workshop leaders as well as other participants in exploring and defining your individual strengths, motivations and aspirations.

Between now and the workshop I will be sharing additional blog posts that provide more details about the workshop. They're designed to answer any questions you might have about the session.

As a PNJ subscriber, you're entitled to a 15% discount on the price. Use the code  PNJ_15.  Also, Early Bird pricing is in effect and if you book early you can save an additional 14%. That's almost 30% off by booking BEFORE Feb 9, 2017.  The workshop is scheduled for Thursday, February 23rd from 9am to 4:30pm. You can find more details and pricing on our Career in Transition Workshop page.

​Len