by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Nov 29, 2010 | Career Skills, Coaching, Job Search, Student Affairs, The Placement Experience
I am glad to be presenting on Monday at 1 pm CST/2 pm EST at the BreakDrink free fall conference. The topic will be “Mastering the Job Interview,” and it’s about getting in the right mindset to prepare for your job interview. An extended version of this presentation (and others like it) will be part of the Placement Partner hybrid coaching program that I am opening up shortly and that will continue through May.
This program is a “hybrid” mini-course for higher ed job seekers. Split into 25 sections, this program begins in December and goes through May, the traditional season for academic hiring for the upcoming academic year. There are self-paced activities that you can go through on your own on a Moodle group, and a forum where you can share your questions and ideas with other higher ed job seekers. You can add on webinars, resume coaching and assistance, e-mail coaching and one-on-one coaching.
There are three levels of participation:
- Value edition-Moodle activities, plus occasional free online chats and call-in group coaching.
- Standard edition-Everything in the Value edition, plus free admission to some webinars on job search and career-planning topics. (Value edition members can pay for those webinars they would like to attend.) Plus 2 sessions of online resume coaching and assistance, and e-mail coaching. ($300 for 180 days of access)
- Personalized edition: Includes everything in the standard package, plus 6 sessions of 1-on-1 coaching between enrollment and the end of May. ($500 for 180 days of access.)
The Moodle group is shared between all levels of seekers, and the “Value Edition” is offered at the base price ($180). Users get access to the site for 180 days ($1/day).
To upgrade to the standard edition or personalized edition, participants will be given the options to add these on after registering for the Value edition. Just go to the “Overview of the Placement Partner Coaching Program” and subscribe using the PayPal buttons for the other editions. For upgrades, you have the choice to pay the entire amount, or to spread it out over 6 installments.
Tickets to the webinars will be issued as they are scheduled to participants in the Standard and Personalized editions, and members of the value edition will be offered the opportunity to purchase tickets to the webinars before sales are opened to the general public.
Please contact me at sean@higheredcareercoach.com if you have any questions.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Nov 9, 2010 | Book Reviews, Career Skills, Job Search, life purpose
Last Friday, I was glad to have my friend Mark Dykeman from ThoughtWrestling.Com on my BlogTalkRadio show. We talked about how job seekers could use mind-maps to plan their job search or to come up with a strategic plan for their career.
Mark recently released an e-book called Unstuck, Focused and Organized. I bought it, and have found it is really helping me focus my thoughts on some new programs I’d like to offer, set (or revise) some of my priorities, and basically get my act together. He’s running a great promotion this week on the e-book, the e-book plus interviews with Chuck Frey, Michael Martine, Chris Brogan and Dave Navarro, and all of the above plus one hour of consulting with Mark. Follow the affiliate link above to find out more.
Mark also made a generous offer to give away a copy of his e-book to support an idea I thought would be cool. So this week I am challenging readers to create their own job search or career-planning mind-map and share it. Embed it in your blog or send me a link via e-mail to sean@higheredcareercoach.com. It can be about any part of your search and how you hope to approach it, Just start with a central idea and then explode it, deconstruct it and see where it takes you.
I did a basic mind-map on Prezi that illustrates the Life Purpose Process and its different parts, to give readers and idea of the basic parts of the coaching model I use with clients. The model was put together by Fern Gorin and taught through her Life Purpose Institute.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Nov 5, 2010 | Career Skills, Job Search, Podcast
The hardest part of doing anything is just getting started.
If you are considering a job search this year, you probably all too aware that the hardest part of doing anything is just getting started. This can be especially true for projects that involve putting yourself out there in the public sphere and being judged.
As an academic job seeker, your job search may follow the academic cycle, with a majority of positions being posted by March, followed by interview periods from April to August, and start dates in August or September. So it’s important to a avoid stumbling out of the gate.
Mark Dykeman, creator of the Unstuck, Focused and Organized System
Mark Dykeman, my guest this morning at 11:00 a.m. on the Higher Ed Career Coach Show on BlogTalkRadio, has a good method for getting your plan together: mind-mapping. Mark is the creator of the blogs Thoughtwrestling and the Broadcasting Brain. I met him through Third Tribe (affiliate link), a membership site put together by Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan and Sonia Simone and dedicated to helping small business owners authentically market their products and businesses.
Mark is a well-known and well-connected social media entrepreneur, and a really nice guy. He’s known for helping people get unstuck, focused and organized, and he’s a strong proponent of the idea of mind-mapping to clear out your mental clutter, unlock your creativity, and move forward with new ideas and plans.
I recently bought his new product, Unstuck, Focused and Organized, because I’ve been looking for ways to get more organized and stay on task. I’ve been getting much busier lately, and needed some fresh perspectives on how to organize my ideas and thoughts. I liked it so much that I joined his affiliate program, and invited him to talk about how job seekers can use mind-mapping to move forward in their search.
In today’s BlogTalkRadio show, Mark and I will talk about using Mind-Mapping to et unstuck in your job search and plan your way forward. I was able to ask Mark a few initial questions ahead of time about his program and ways that job seekers could use his approach.
Unstuck, Focused and Organized: Mind-Mapping for Higher Ed Job Seekers
(Questions are in bold, Mark’s answers are inset and italicized.)
How could someone use mind-mapping to plan their career?
Mind mapping could be used in a number of different ways. For example, if there are different stages of your intended career and different milestones, you could use the mind map to examine each stage. Here’s a simple example: have major categories or branches of the mind map to correspond to different levels of corporate hierarchy:
- consultant/team member
- team leader
- manager
- director
- vice-president
You could explore each role in detail, including key education requirements, work experience, networking, mentors, and so on. This would be a useful first step in coming up with a plan. You could also do something similar with the type of companies that you would want to work at as well, focusing on both functional experience and industry segment experience.
If you were planning a job search during the next year, how could mind-mapping help you focus your efforts?
There’s several different ways that you could plan your job search. You could conduct a SWOT analysis using a separate branch for each aspect. You could use a mind map to compare your skills and experience to different types of jobs about there: the mind map could help you find key skills to emphasize in your job search as well as important gaps or shortfalls to consider.
You could also use the mind map to explore all possible ways to network and search for the job, which is much better than firing resumes into the ether and hoping for the best.
What’s the best way to start?
The best way to start mind mapping, if you’ve never done it before, is to use a pencil and a huge piece of paper. Write your central or core idea that you want to explore in the center of the paper. Then start writing down every thought or idea that you can think of around the center of the paper. When you’ve gotten everything out that you can think of, take a few minutes and look at it. Look for connections between things. See if you can group similar things together into major categories. Draw lines between things that could be connected. Doodle and draw on it, if you feel like it, in ways that would be meaningful. Look for holes – things that are missing.
The reason for using a pencil? Because you’ll probably want to redraw the mind map after this first try!
We’ll discuss the features and benefits of Mark’s UFO program and different ways to use mind-mapping to plan your job search and your career in general. He’ll also announce a special promotion he’s running next week.
Please join us at 11 a.m. today (Friday, November 5) for the podcast, and call in with your questions and comments to (347) 989-0055 or via Skype click-to-talk.
on Blog Talk Radio
Listen to internet radio with Sean Cook on Blog Talk Radio
by John Mayo | Nov 3, 2010 | Coaching, Job Search
Part One: Carpet Bombing
My first job search was spring 2008 when I was just about to graduate from the Student Affairs in Higher Education master’s program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. At that time I essentially carpet bombed the field with job applications; I did a national job search and applied to over 40 institutions. It was too much to organize, it got to be too confusing keeping track of everything and everyone.
I managed to find the funding to attend The Placement Exchange in Boston and ACPA Placement in Atlanta. In all I managed to have 20 conference interviews, for those keeping count, thats about a 50% success rate. I was on my way to … disappointment. I was sitting on cloud nine, I interviewed with almost half of the schools I applied at. Well, those 20 interviews only resulted in two on-campus interviews: Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL and Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA. In the end I was offered and I accepted an entry-level position at Point Park University. Its ironic that I had to travel to Atlanta to interview with and accept a position from a school that was literally 5 miles from where I was living.
Now after a few years I decided that it was time to start looking for a new job. It was February 2010 and I was in the midst of job searching and this was my second time going the the student affairs job placement process. I knew I did not want to repeat my first experience, 40 applications, 20 interviews and 1 offer. I decided that I was going to narrow my job search to only one region: New England. I started looking at openings and thats when it hit me; I needed to update my resume and cover letter. It had been a while since I had to use my resume so I wasn’t sure where I should start.
Enter Sean Cook
I had been participating in the #SAchat on Twitter and introduced myself to Sean Cook. I learned that Sean had worked at Penn State and that he had just started his coaching business helping others with job searches, interview techniques, updating resumes and much more. Sean started offering a free support group to job searchers. In this group we were able to discuss a lot including expectations for placement conferences, interview dos and don’ts, resume tips and much more. It was during this free group that I decided to retain Sean’s help one-on-one. So I sent Sean a message and said I’ll pay you please help me!
At first I wasn’t sure what to expect. Here’s this guy that says he knows what he’s doing and here I am looking for help. Well it turns out that it was one of the best investments I made this year. I first started by talking about what I was afraid of and what concerned me. Then in our second session we jumped into interview techniques and reviewing my resume. The best thing we did was a mock phone interview. I’ve always felt I was a poor phone interviewer, Sean taught me several techniques to use during phone interviews. During this mock interview Sean asked some questions I have never heard before, some were really thought provoking and some were easy. At the end we talked about my answers and he provided a great critique. About a week later I was able to utilize the skills Sean taught me in an actual phone interview. Armed with these new skills I went into the phone interview confident and at the end I knew I rocked it.
Job Search: Part Deux
The major difference between my first job search and my second was focus. I was able to focus on the geographical area and with Sean’s help I learned to focus my energy on specific parts of the job search and not everything at once. Throughout my ACPA Placement experience and throughout my on-campus interviews I knew I had Sean as a resource, someone I could call for support anytime I needed him. My second job serach experience was so much better than my first. I had less applications submitted, but a higher percentage of conference interviews and more on-campus interviews. Clearly I had a better experience because halfway through one conference interview I was offered an on-campus interview!
One school I interviewed with was Western New England College (WNEC) in Springfield, MA. I had two good conference interviews so i was confident going to my on-campus interview. I arrived the night before my interview, I was picked up at the airport and dropped at the hotel by a WNEC Res Life staff member. That evening I decided to take a taxi to campus to walk around and get a true feel. I jumped in the cab and had a great conversation about the school and the area with the taxi driver. When we arrived at the campus the first think I noticed was the trees and the buildings. I noticed how quintessentially “New England” WNEC looked and felt. As I walked around, I noticed students playing frisbee, tennis, catch and just hanging outside with friends. Brick buildings, gazebos and lawns, these are things my previous campus didn’t have. I knew that evening I wanted to work at WNEC. I was so confident in myself that during my self-paced tour of WNEC I stopped in the bookstore and purchased a school pennant for my collection.
Ultimately I ended up being offered and accepting a job at WNEC. While I did the heavy lifting, by doing the interviewing and applying, it was Sean who helped me build the confidence needed to be successful.
John Mayo, Area Coordinator, Western New England College
John Mayo is the Area Coordinator for Traditional Housing at Western New England College. In addition to residence life, he has experience working in housing operations and student leadership development at very diverse campuses. Like many student affairs professionals, his family still doesn’t understand what he does, so he tells them that he teaches life skills to college students.
John holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a minor in art and military history from Bridgewater State College, a master’s degree in student affairs in higher education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and is working towards a second master’s degree in organizational leadership from Gonzaga University
Feel free to follow him on Twitter (@jmayojr) and check out his personal blog (http://johnmayo.me/).
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Nov 2, 2010 | Coaching, Higher Education, Job Search, The Placement Experience
Have you ever had a busy time, when you knew you couldn’t afford to miss a step? You knew it was coming, and you made a plan to juggle all your responsibilities, and you were ready, in the words of Project Runway’s infamous Tim Gunn, to just “make it work.”
And then, despite all the planning, thinking things out from different angles, and even planning the contingencies, you trip over some unexpected change in terrain….
Boom. Flutter. Fall.
Flat on your face. Ouch-ey! And you wonder whether you should even bother to get up.
Fall has been kinda like that for me, and I’m finally at a point where I need to start over, focus on some core priorities, and let some other things go (or delegate them out). This week, I’m going to tell you what I’ve been doing with my time, and ask you to help me prioritize a bit by letting me know what you’d like to see.
Part 1: The Blog(s)
Readership was pretty consistent last spring during the “placement conference season” and through the summer. July was the best month for traffic, probably in part due to the “down time” many of us experience right before the August/September madness. Since August readership has been down, and I’ve been struggling to come up with fresh content, in part because I am juggling several other projects now, including a part-time gig with Wesleyan College down in Macon, GA, a hybrid coaching course for placement season, some webinars, some guest posts for other blogs and web sites, and the beginnings of some e-books and other “informational products.” I also helped plan a half-marathon.
I thought I had some good plans for this fall, and a good idea of how to execute them. But I got stuck in a few details, distracted by other projects (who knew planning a half-marathon would require so much work?) and then thrown off by a few life events (both cars robbed in my own driveway a couple of weeks back.) So my blogs are off-track, my business has taken a back-seat to a race, my office is a mess, my schedule is full, and there are days I look back over my shoulder and say “where did the day go, and what do I have to show for it?”
I’ve been teetering between the two big options lately: giving up and bucking up. When I set out to do this, I had idealistic reasons in mind, and some pie-in-the-sky ideas about how I’d turn my interests and idealism into a sustainable business and lifestyle. The reality is that I’ve been stumbling through some of it, and like anyone, I could use some feedback and direction. So I’m turning to you. I’ve decided not to quit (at least not yet).
- What do you think I should do to mold this idealistic vision of helping higher ed job seekers into a sustainable business model?
- What interests you?
- What would you be willing to pay for?
- What do you want?
- And what do you need?
Last year, I did a good job of building up some partnerships and getting guest writers. In July I had a few, and it was the best month for readership for both HigherEdLifeCoach.Com and HigherEdCareerCoach.Com. Many of my regular guest bloggers have started new jobs or had other significant changes in their lives. I’m working with a couple to find time to “get back on the horse,” but I’m also going to bring in some new contributors, so the content can be fresh, and so new voices can find a platform. As I do, I could use your input to help me prioritize any changes or updates to the blogs.
As a reader:
- Which past guest posts have you enjoyed the most?
- Which contributors?
- What topics do you want to read more about?
- And if you are a writer or a fellow coach, what would you like to contribute?
- Should we have more video and audio posts, slideshows, resource lists, tips and tricks?
- Do you like book reviews, product reviews, or “wish list” types of posts?
- How often should we have new posts? I had been shooting for 2-3 per week.
Please share some ideas that will help improve the blog, either by commenting below or by sending feedback to sean@higheredcareercoach.com.
Thanks!
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Oct 8, 2010 | Higher Education, Job Search, Podcast, Who-Dos
Things have been really busy lately and so today we did not have a podcast. I will try to return next week and start getting on a more regular schedule again. I am looking for guests, but have a few tentative topics lined up. Here are a few quick updates on some things worth checking out in the meantime. Thanks for visiting!
- I found a great new web service called paper.li that lets you enter your Twitter username or a hashtag or a Twitter list and it automagically makes an online “newspaper” out of the links shared on those streams. I set one up for my @hiedcareercoach account, and for the hashtags #sachat and #saplacement. Check them out.
- I never announced that I did choose LeaderShape for recognition for the August Who-DO award. I am going to finally get my act together in the next week to post a “who-do” award page and to actually send out the awards to the recipients so far. I plan to announce the September Who-Do next week. There won’t be a poll this time, because I have already chosen who to recognize. Polls will continue in the near future.
- I am planning another hybrid coaching program to begin soon, and go through the placement season. I’m collecting information on people who might be interested through a new list. If you are interested in learning more, sign up here.
- Look for more information about webinars on resumes, networking and job interviewing soon.
