by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Oct 15, 2009 | Career Skills, Coaching
During my 15-plus years as a Student Affairs professional, I have had many opportunities to coach students and young professionals through their efforts to explore graduate schools, navigate the graduate school application process, and to prepare for placement conferences and job interviews.
I have a master’s degree in Counseling and Guidance Services and a generation of work behind me, at one of America’s best universities. I’ve served on many screening committees, and conducted interviews by phone, at placement exchanges, and in-person (individually and as part of day-long processes). I’ve always felt good about my skills in this area, and my track record for helping students and young professionals with their resume preparation and interview strategies has been pretty good. Many people who I have coached have been able to find jobs and get into graduate school. I think that having read through a few thousand resumes and conducting several hundred interviews has given me a pretty good idea what people on the hiring side of the table are looking for. Let me put this experience to work for you.
These experiences led me to my own career exploration, and eventually to the path I am currently on, toward certification as a life and career coach, and starting my own independent coaching and consulting practice.
Over the past few years, a confluence of events caused me to take a harder look at my life, and weigh the security of my current position against a few other things: the satisfaction the position was giving me, and the opportunity costs associated with staying on this secure path. I realized that my current position wasn’t rewarding to me in the ways it had been before, and that changes in my personal life (becoming a father, seeing my parents get older and have health challenges, and discovering I have a neurological disorder) had pushed me to reevaluate how I spend my time and energy. In the final analysis, I realized that I’d moved beyond my job, and that it just isn’t a good match for who I want to be, and how I want to spend my time and energy, at this point in my life.
So I decided to take a major leap of faith and try to work for myself, and create a position that would allow me to do the things I enjoy and feel that I do well, every day. I decided to leave my job, in order to move forward in my career. I’m not leaving my profession (Student Affairs in Higher Education)…I’m just going solo.
I recently began a coaching certification program, which started with a five-day intensive class, and is followed by independent work, a critique of my business plan, review of work with practice clients, and a final exam. From here, the program is self-paced, but I intend to finish by the New Year, if at all possible.
In pursuit of this goal, I need to begin coaching and I need practice clients. I’m seeking 2 to 3 clients, and would like to find higher education graduate students and young professionals and help them explore their career possibilities and manage their job search.
Practice coaching clients will receive 4 free coaching sessions (a $300 value). During these 45-minute sessions, we’ll explore current career interests and directions and any roadblocks in the way of your successful search, so that I can help you plot your course, refine your job search strategy and hopefully, land a fulfilling new position. I’ll be using techniques that are part of the Life Purpose Process ©, a proven coaching method that has assisted thousands of people in finding their purpose and setting new goals for leading successful and balanced lives.
If you are interested, please e-mail me at sean@higheredcareercoach.com and we can set up a time to speak on the phone or chat online, to discuss the parameters of the coaching process. If it sounds like something you would be interested in doing, we’ll set up a regular time to speak on the phone or over video chat weekly, to discuss any issues you are dealing with, and to work toward setting and meeting your unique life and transition goals.
A couple of other notes if you are interested:
- These 4 to 6 sessions are offered for free, and no further obligation will exist on either side of the coaching relationship.
- I will not be asking you for money, credit card information, or enrolling you in anything.
- All sessions will be confidential (between you and me) unless you specify otherwise.
- If you are interested, I need you to commit to a minimum of 4 sessions between now and December 31, because I will need to submit evidence of having practice clients as part of my certification process.
- This is not psychotherapy, and I am not a licensed therapist. If issues arise that are better suited for work with a therapist, I will advise you to meet with one.
- If you are interested in continuing with coaching past the 6th session, we will need to discuss a separate agreement, and those sessions will be billed at a regular rate of $75 an hour.
- While we will discuss ways to improve your resume and cover letters, to target them toward your search, extensive resume and cover letter writing and editing are not included as part of this coaching. Resume and cover letter consulting or editing can be arranged separate from the coaching, and we’ll negotiate a rate that reflects the amount of editing/rewriting/redesigning needed. The minimum rate for resume revision/editing is $125, with additional work billed at $75 an hour.
If you know of anyone else who might be interested, please pass this information along. If you have any questions, e-mail me.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Sep 8, 2009 | Career Skills
Getting a new job can be a really soul-sucking experience, especially in today’s economy. Candidates are a-plenty, jobs are scarce, and even the simplest low-level opening can draw several hundred applicants.
If we’ve come to realize one thing in today’s topsy-turvy world, it’s that colleges and universities are not immune from economic downturns. Budget cuts and a special sensitivity toward raising tuition and fees (because institutions know some people just can’t pay) drive decision-making and hiring, and at some schools, hiring is even frozen.
How can you put your best foot forward and kick-start your job search?
Maybe it’s time for a “tune-up.” For some great advice and perspectives, visit http://www.quintcareers.com/career_tune-up.html
What are some ways to keep your skills current? Visit http://blogs.wsj.com/laidoff/2009/08/25/advice-keeping-skills-updated-during-the-search/?mod=rss_WSJBlog
Why your job search isn’t getting results. http://sweetcareers.blogspot.com/2009/03/five-reasons-your-job-search-isnt.html
These sites should help you examine your strategy and figure out some directions for your search. Do you have any advice to share? If so, e-mail me at sean@higheredcareercoach.com and I will post some of the best advice in a future post.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Sep 4, 2009 | Career Skills
Every August, new faculty and staff arrive on campus, to begin their new jobs. The month is packed full of meetings and preparations, and soon enough fades into memory, as freshman orientation passes, classes begin, and at some schools, football and tailgating roll into town. For new staff and faculty, the excitement soon gives way to routines and normalcy, and eventually, a feeling of being at home.
But what should you do if September rolls around, and despite all your best efforts, you still don’t have a job?
First, don’t give up. Even though academia has a built-in job cycle, people do come and go year-round, and vacancies come up at unexpected times. The beginning of the school year will likely signal some slowdown in hiring, as colleges do their best to have new employees in place before residence halls open and classes start. August and September are times when searches are often back-burnered until people get into a groove and things settle down.
So, here you are, wondering how you found yourself without a job. It’s an understandable response, but don’t spend too much time picking over the finer details of your situation. Now is the time to evaluate your strategy, make a new plan, and put it into action. Thinking about what went wrong won’t get you a job. Only a good plan and a personal commitment to action will get you that.
Some practical action steps you can take to re-start your job search:
Take a good hard look at your resume, and compare the content on it to the jobs you’ve been seeking. Then ask yourself if the highlights of your resume clearly reflect the skill sets being sought. A good way to do this is to print out a few job postings and highlight key skills and job tasks listed. Then look for at your resume and see if how closely your resume highlights reflect those on the posting.
- If your skills match, but your descriptions don’t, change your descriptions. Maybe you aren’t talking the same language as those on the hiring side of the table. If you have the right skills and experiences, make sure you are describing them in ways that will stand out for the employer. After all, they said what they were looking for in the ad. If your descriptions match, then you may well be a good fit.
- If your skills and experiences don’t match, then it’s time for some introspection, as well as some feedback. Are you barking up the wrong tree? Are your expectations (for salary, level of responsibility, rank in an organization) unrealistic, given your current skills? If the answer is “yes,” then you need to right-size your expectations. You may be smart enough to be a director, vice president, etc., but if you don’t have the skills or experience an employer is seeking, they aren’t going to interview you, much less give you a job. Talking to a mentor or friend who works in the same type of position can be a great opportunity to get good feedback about how you can build your skills and experience to eventually land the jobs you are seeking.
- If you have some skills and experiences, but not at the level sought for certain positions, you have a choice to make. Is it time to take a career detour and get appropriate training? Or are you willing to roll the dice, get a job you may not be exactly qualified for, and hope that you can think on your feet well enough to get by? I strongly recommend the former. Careers are not sprints. Slow and steady wins the race. Everyone knows someone who got a job he or she wasn’t ready for, and rarely are the stories their colleagues and co-workers tell happy ones. It’s not where you are next that matters most; it’s where you eventually end up. Make sure you finish the race.
Get resume advice from at least two other people in your field, and at least one person who is just good at spelling, grammar and/or design. Your colleagues can offer insight on what has worked for them, and what they look for in hiring candidates for positions in the field. A person with good grammar, spelling or design skills can tell you if your resume is readable, whether it flows logically from one idea to another, and most importantly, can help you find and correct the spelling and grammar mistakes that might result in your skills and experience being ignored, because they aren’t well-presented.
Keep visiting job sites for higher education, including individual college and university websites. If the site has a personalized “job agent” that returns results of a customized search, set one up. This will keep you connected to opportunities without as much legwork.
Call your friends and colleagues and let them know you are available. It’s true that networking can get you jobs, and this holds even truer during “down times” in the academic job search cycle. In my experience, once the pool of candidates starts to dwindle, or when unexpected and poorly-timed openings appear, employers are far more open to this. This is also a great time for candidates that might be less experienced to leverage qualities like drive, interest in a specific institution, being a known quantity to someone in an organization, and immediate availability to their advantage. If an employer desperately needs to fill a slot, they are likely to be more open to taking a risk on a candidate who has potential but lacks specific experience.
Seek out part-time or temporary assignments. This may not be the most appealing option, but in many cases it’s better than doing nothing. And if you have bills, you really should try to pay them. With the current economic situation, some schools are having to hold off on full-time hiring but are still able to fill part-time and temporary positions, especially if a position is “essential” to the operation, as many direct-service-to-students positions are. The caveat here is that you cannot reasonably expect that every position will result in an eventual full-time offer. But this type of work can help you build new skills and fill gaps in experience, and to network, and these are the things most likely to help you get a job in the future.
These are only a few ways to consider re-starting your job search and refining your strategy. The most important thing is that you don’t give up. Keep exploring, stay connected to your search and your professional network, and keep looking forward. Your next position is out there, waiting for you. You just have some work to do before you find it. Good luck!
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Aug 19, 2009 | Career Skills
Andromeda Galaxy
I work in Residence Life. This means that there are several times of year when I spend more time on campus getting ready for students to arrive than I do with my family. Right now, for example, it’s almost 1 a.m., and I just finished getting some projects done in my residence hall commons to hopefully move us toward being ready this Friday for Fall Arrival and Welcome Week.
Every year, I say I am not going to do this to myself, and every year, that promise to myself and my family falls flat on its face, exhausted, sighing, and maybe even snoring. But despite being really, really tired, and somewhat overworked, I find a strange energy in being here and I know in my heart that it is something that I am both good at and meant to do.
In his book Wherever you Go, There You Are, Buddhist author and mindfulness guru Jon Kabat-Zinn tells the story of Buckminster Fuller, who contemplated suicide one night after business failures got him feeling that people would be better off without him.
As Kabat-Zinn recalls the situation, Fuller instead decided to live his life as if he had died, to divorce himself from investing his emotional energy, time and effort in particular outcomes, and instead to do the things he knew how to do because it made sense, and was in service to the universe.
Working in higher education requires a similar mindset. Not so much from shooting for certain outcomes (this is pretty much the point of education in general) but instead by accepting that in the process of learning, the teacher isn’t the product. It’s not really even the information. It’s the process.
In my department, I am often involved in the interview and hiring processes, and so I’m regularly asked by candidates the usual sorts of questions that candidates ask to see if they will be a good match for the position, or to gauge if they will fit in well with our organizational culture. In answering these questions I spend less time talking about skill sets. . . they are on the resume, or they aren’t. . . and by the time the interview happens, whether a candidate has at least the basic aptitude for the job has pretty much been settled.The resume gets you the interview, the interview gets you the job, and your approach to the job very much determines whether you will do the job, or the job will end up doing you.
It shouldn’t surprise candidates, then, that hiring committees are more interested in determining “fit,” than looking at a portfolio of your previous work, or hearing that you are a superstar of some sort when it comes to one aspect or another of the job.
When interviewees ask “what are you looking for in a candidate?” some seem surprised when I reply that I am not looking for a particular skill set, or something obvious, like being a team player, but instead for someone who understands that working in higher education is a lifestyle, not just a job, and that the people who are most successful are those that can see beyond what they want from a situation and instead can clearly see where they fit into the big picture. In short, those who understand that it’s about the process, it’s not about them.
So, returning to the idea of “fit,” it’s perhaps not as nebulous as one might assume. If you spend your time asking questions like “What should I be doing right now?,” “How will my actions affect others?,” and “What makes the most sense in this situation?,” you are beginning to understand your “fit” at the university, in the career field, and maybe, as well, in the universe.
