Using RSS feeds to keep up with vacancy postings during your job search with Eric Stoller, an academic advisor at Oregon State University, who also shares his thoughts on higher education, technology, and social justice issues at EricStoller.com and consults with institutions in higher education about technology issues.
From my Google Reader: Higher Ed News and Views, plus other interesting articles on social media, education, etc.
Cook Coaching Programs and Services: Information on my 8 weeks to August Career Coaching Program for student affairs professionals finding themselves “stuck” in their job search; Accidentally on Purpose sideshow, with Sean Cook and Monica Moody; upcoming workshops for high school students transitioning to college, parents hoping to avoid the “helicopter parent phenomenon,” and more.
Call-Ins: Please listen in to the show and call in your questions and comments to (347) 989-0055 or send them via twitter to @hiedcareercoach. I’ll be asking for comments at various points, especially between 3:15 pm and 3:45 pm when talking with Eric Stoller, but callers are welcome to comment on or ask questions about anything we cover, or other issues in higher education.
So the school year has wound down, graduation has passed, and the halls are empty (well, except for those being used for Summer School.) For some of us, it’s time to rest on our laurels for a bit, before planning ramps up for the school year.
But for others, summer might be anything but relaxing. If you have the “graduation-and-no-job blues,” the “I’ve-gotta-get-out-of-this-place-it’s-killing-me itch,” or the “been-here-done-here-now-what?” mid-career crisis, then it’s high time you get moving with your job search, or grad school planning…or you’ll be looking in the mirror this August, seeing the reflection of your discontent staring back at you, and wondering…
“How did this happen? I’m supposed to be doing something great!
…And it’s not this.”
If you find yourself with the blues, the itch, or the mid-career crisis, maybe it’s time to get clear on your interests, evaluate your skills, and start planning for a fresh start this August. Summer represents a second wave of opportunities for job seekers in academia, because many who got a job in the first wave also left a job.
To help those who have found themselves in this position, I’m launching a new coaching program to help them get unstuck.
8 Weeks to August Coaching Program
The “8 weeks to August” program is geared toward job seekers who are determined to start something new this academic year.
The program will be a “hybrid” program…part individual coaching, and part on-line activities and support. It will also be significantly cheaper than a regular 1-on-1 coaching program, because I’m sensitive to the financial aspects of job-seeking in higher education.
Features
2 individual coaching sessions in early June, to outline your goals for coaching, and to review your resume and cover letters, to make sure they are selling your unique skills and experience in ways that match the positions you are targeting. ($200 Value)
2 practice interviews-one via phone, the other via Skype, with feedback about areas for possible improvement. ($200 value)
2 additional individual coaching sessions during the program, which can be used for exploration, goal-setting, additional mock interviews, strategy sessions for specific applications, etc….Really, whatever you might need. ($200 value)
E-mail coaching during the entire program- send short questions or requests to me on topics of your choosing.
Online access to readings and activities that will help you focus your efforts on finding a position that will be a natural match for your interests, skills and abilities.
Group discussion opportunities for all group members, for support and encouragement from other job seekers.
The ability to have private online chats and discussions with me and with other group members about your search.
Benefits
Increased clarity about your career goals, as a result of personalized feedback about your resume, cover letters, and job search strategy.
A more focused plan for your job search, from opportunities to explore options, weed out ones that aren’t a good match, and concentrate on those more suited to your skills, experiences, and interests.
A better understanding of potential obstacles to your success, including practical ones (like lack of training, or poor interviewing skills) and emotional ones, like anxiety, confusion, or poor self-esteem; with some personalized recommendations for skill-building, improved personal presentation, and building self-confidence.
What else do you need to know about the
“8 Weeks to August” Career Coaching Program?
I’ll give you some quick ideas, but you’ll need to go to the event page to get more specifics.
The price point is incredibly good…a significant discount over my normal rates (since it is a hybrid program, with individual and group components, the number of registrants will allow me to do this.)
The number of registrants for this program will be extremely limited, because I want to be able to deliver all I promise, and more, to participants, and turn them into raving fans and the best kind of advertising money can’t buy…satisfied clients.
I will be closing the program to new enrollments next Friday at 12 noon EST.
Every participant will receive a copy of a great book on personal branding.
If I reach my intended target size for this program, one of the participants is going to end up getting all the features and benefits mentioned above, and a significant prize, which will basically be like giving them all their money back.(That’s right–all of it!)
Do I have your interest now?
If you or a friend are “stuck,” and really need to move forward and make significant progress in your job search, wouldn’t it be great to get personal attention, customized resume/cover letter/interview assistance, the support of a certified coach and other job seekers in your field, and the opportunity to get all your money back?
I know that if I was looking for a position, it would interest me.
So don’t wait…visit the program’s registration page (link below) to learn more about this program, what the costs and benefits are, and about my money-back guarantee.
Much has been said lately about the value of social media to job seekers. Since you’re reading a blog post about it, which you probably learned about from a post on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or BrazenCareerist, the value of social media should be obvious. It is likely what brought you here.
So let’s cut to the chase: You know social networking can be valuable, but you just aren’t sure how to do it the right way. Here are 5 great posts that can help you figure some of this out.
7 Secrets to Getting Your Next Job Using Social Media by Dan Schawbel gives some unique ways to use search engines, bl ogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Video Resumes and your blog/rss subscriptions to stay on task, monitor your personal brand, an d get connected during your job search.
This article about a panel presentation by the Sacramento Social Media Club about using Facebook and Twitter for your job search gives some simple but good advice from panelists. I also like the idea of social media clubs. If you have one in your area, this could be a great place to find people who could help you understand ways to use social media to enhance your job search and career.
Alison Doyle offers a good overview of networking sites at her About.Com page. Alison is a great person to follow, and her articles on About.Com are very much resource-packed. I visit often and always learn something.
And listen in the morning:
I am doing a BlogTalkRadio show on using social media in your job search tomorrow (Friday) at 11 a.m. My guest host will be Mallory Bower, Assistant Director of Career Services at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Mallory writes periodically for my other site, HigherEdLifeCoach.Com, and will have some articles on this site soon, as well. Our guests will include some of Mallory’s colleagues at UNCP, including Mike Severy, Director of Student Involvement and Leadership, and newly hired Assistant Director Becca Fick. Twitter was integral to posting the job, getting candidates and to Fick’s eventual hiring. Mike and Becca wrote great posts on their perspectives on using Twitter in the job search. Mike’s post, on the Student Affairs Collaborative Blog, can be found here, and Becca’s guest post at On the Go with Ed Cabellon can be found here.
We’ll also revisit last week’s discussion on “purpose” and what it means to people working in higher education. Plus news, events and perspectives of note in the higher ed/student affairs world. Show is scheduled for 90 minutes to allow call-ins, discussion, etc., but may end after an hour or so.
You can listen to the show by following this link. And you can call in live to ask questions during the interview to (347) 989-005 or via Skype from the show page. (I’ve never really done that, but it is supposedly possible. Someone should give it a try, and let me know how it works!) Please listen in and share your questions and comments. After the show, you can call in and record your comments to my GoogleVoice comment line, 706-352-9467. (352-WINS) and I may play them on the air in a future episode.
So please check out these links, think about how you might use social media to advance your job search and career, and call me in the morning.
Careers are funny things. We spend the early parts of our lives learning through experience and discovery. In our teens, we imagine our adult lives, dream about possibilities, and revel in the wonders of figuring it all out.
Then, as adults, we crush those dreams trying to fit them neatly into a so-called “career”, tug and pull them to stay on some defined path, fret about choices we make until we are sick at our stomachs, and then spend all our energies on efforts to be “successful.” If we aren’t sure, we look for external validation–other people’s opinions, higher paychecks, and opportunities working for the top employers in our fields.
And we wonder why, so often, upon taking hard looks at our lives and careers, we see a jumbled, crumpled mess that we can hardly recognize.
Isn’t it obvious? You can’t force something as huge as your life purpose into a small container and expect it to fit. Forcing it in will only fray the edges. And sooner or later, the whole thing will break in front of you, or simply fall apart.
Buddhists look at life and they see it full of suffering. The human condition, as most people experience it, is like a “wheel out of kilter.” The unexamined life, lived in the pursuit of external validation, will occasionally give you a bumpy ride. And anyone who’s ever been four-wheeling in the mud can tell you it’s fun stuff-until you get thrown off and break your neck when your ATV rolls right over you.
The answer to suffering, then, is to quit wanting the wrong things, and to quit stuffing your life purpose into a box, forcing into a corner, or putting it where other people tell you to put it.
Well, you might ask, “Since there is no perfect job, I might as well find one that will pay me well and leave it at that, right?”
That’s not a good way to look at the situation. You see, your job may be easy to understand and your tasks easy to accomplish, but sooner or later, if it’s not a natural fit, and you lack passion (or lose passion) for it, you will find yourself feeling empty and you will suffer.
In careers, the best promotions and opportunities are not always given to the most qualified content expert, or the person who has shown mastery for a skill. They are just as likely (perhaps more likely) to be given to those who show an interest in the topic, a passion for getting it done, and an appreciation for the process that gets them to the solution.
So you can’t really fake it forever. And you really shouldn’t try.
We hear a lot in the workplace about supervisors who look over their employee’s shoulders, give overly specific instructions for how to do things, deadlines that may not be realistic, and criticism that is neither warranted nor helpful. We call these people “micromanagers,” and the general consensus in the workplace is clear: workers hate to be micromanaged.
Why would your life be any different?
Imagine that you are not merely a planner for your life, but its manager. The employee (your life) looks for guidance, not control. Circumstances outside your realm of experience come up, and your life comes to you with questions, with opportunities, and with new, creative ways of thinking. But since they don’t fit some plan you have, you yell at your life, tell it you know what you want, and send it away crying. After that, your life shuts down and decides not to bring you questions, or help you examine opportunities. And it sure as hell won’t bring you creative ideas, because we all know how that’s going to work out.
In the end, your life is a miserable employee, and you wind up bitter because your plan doesn’t fit the circumstances in front of you. It eats at you until you do one of three things: give up, blow up, or walk away.
Wouldn’t you be a better manager for your life if you gave up pushing for circumstances to be how you want them to be, and started accepting them for what they are, and listening to what your life is telling you?
Of course you would. This is the essence of purposeful living. Accepting how things are, and approaching them with enthusiasm, creativity and an open mind will lead you to discoveries and accomplishments you hadn’t yet imagined.
So maybe it’s time to ask yourself some hard questions. Are you managing your life and career? Or micromanaging them?
Sean Cook, M.Ed., Certified Life Purpose & Career Coach, Publisher & Lead Writer
Sean Cook is a Certified Life Purpose and Career Coach, specializing in work with Higher Ed Professionals. In addition to serving as lead writer/editor/publisher for this site and companion site HigherEdLifeCoach.Com, he provides individual and group coaching, and offers presentations to campus and community groups.
Today, from 12 pm to 1 pm EST, he is again hosting the Higher Ed Life and Careers Show on BlogTalkRadio. Today’s topics: Accidents, Purpose, Job Searching and Twitter. Guests include regular co-host Bryan Koval and Monica Moody, a Life Purpose Coach who also serves as Director of Career Development at Wesleyan College in Macon, GA, and writes a blog on discovering your life purpose at IgnitePurposeNow.Com. Monica and Sean will be introducing a new segment on putting Passion, Purpose and Presence into your life and career. Please listen in (go to show link above) and call in your questions and comments to (347) 989-0055 or send them via twitter to @hiedcareercoach
Editor’s Disclosure:This post reveals that the author is a 40-something interloper on the “Gen-Y” career network Brazen Careerist. For anyone disturbed by this revelation, the author claims to really only read it for the “stories.” And now, on to the show….
The other day, I got involved in an interesting discussion on Brazen Careerist about whether length of experience matters in establishing credibility these days.
The comment that led off this discussion:
The conversation really struck a chord with me, because I think it is central to understanding, and perhaps navigating, the divide between Millennials and their Gen X and Boomer managers. There is a disconnect between their generation, which wants to be acknowledged for their ideas, and those who came before, who do value ideas, but feel they’ve earned respect through hard work and years of experience (and sometimes feel they don’t get it from the youngsters.)
The discussion about the value of experience and status, versus the value of ideas, goes back much further. The young have always felt discounted, the old disrespected, the rich and scholarly have always felt more enlightened than those who work in the trenches, and those who work in the trenches have valued their experiences in life and work more than ‘book learning.”
My favorite example:
Socrates was a great example of someone who was in fact a great teacher (and a guru), but it’s useful to remember that he’s only thought of this way because of what others said about him, and none of that would have gotten down to us, if it hadn’t been for Plato.
Socrates was actually a stonemason, who spent his days in the Forum taking people down a notch, by asking them simple and pointed questions, giving his observations, and playing devil’s advocate. It was Plato who enjoyed his style, wrote about it, emulated it, and taught it in his academy.
So herein lies the crux of the credibility issue: Are you someone who is engaged in questioning as the means for discovery, in debate as a delivery vehicle for new knowledge and points of view, and in mutual interplay between others who might teach you something (including people you may not agree with, or even find to be “small-minded?”) Are you nimble enough, confident enough, and curious enough, to be engaged?
The key to wisdom, then, is to know a good question when you hear it and a good conversation when you are in it. And to ENGAGE.
There are many, many cartoons that depict a seeker going to the mountaintop to ask a wise guru for advice, only to be met with questions. The punchline here shouldn’t be lost on you…this is how people learn.
So you can’t be a guru if you only learn by osmosis, or repeat back what you have learned verbatim. To be a guru, you must light a fire in others for knowledge, ask them compelling questions, and send them away with their minds racing, frenetic, and full of wonder for the search.
And how will you know if you are a guru?
They’ll climb back up the mountain with more questions.
Work with Sean. I help higher ed professionals take control of their careers with tailored services including resume and CV development, LinkedIn profile optimization and networking strategy, interview coaching, and one-on-one career guidance.
