Career Change & Executive Coaching

Most people when they want to change career look out of the window one morning and think to themselves “If I make every conceivable attempt at contacting career change gatekeepers then – something will turn up.” Ooops! Wrong. 
 
Only one job in ten is ever advertised and only 10 percent of those are any good! Newspaper advertisements represent the sticky end of the lollipop. They are often entry-level jobs, high-turnover positions, commission-only sales, cons, network marketing, fishing for leads, salary researchers, and government agencies paying lip-service to meritocracy. Only very occasionally do you get a good job or two for which a 100 percent of the competition are applying.
 
So there is the career change amateur (we're all amateurs in finding a job) spending hours of time slaving away, boasting about yourself in cover letters, inevitably discovering that the only result of this effort is to make you look like every other person conducting an ‘original' career change campaign. You all send really sweet letters saying “I though I'd let you know how great I am, please give us a job”. (Anyway the likelihood is high that you will get to interview and make Mistake No 10)
 
It's not your fault. Don't feel bad about going down this route. It is everybody's default position. No one taught you how to do it right. The world is changing so fast and career change methods that worked for your parents may no longer function. After all, it was not so long ago that people used to use white-out to correct typing errors.
 
This is what you should do with advertisements in your career change campaign. Pick out the top ten ads and spend no more than ten percent of your time responding to them. Better still give them a call.

Remember the career change chap I just mentioned who sent off over two thousand applications? I went on to ask him about the eight positive responses he had received during the course of his career change campaign. He said that two of the letters were from HR departments informing him of likely interview schedules, two had admired his applications but said that they had received better qualified applicants, two had been from people selling something and two had been from business men who wanted to meet him in motorway services.

You see unsolicited CVs or resumes are treated as rubbish, scrap paper, wasted effort. You might think I'm exaggerating. Employers never hire CVs. They hire people, so only meetings count. CVs don't get you the interview. You can spend hours on your CV / resume, getting all the great facts down on paper so someone will read it and scramble to the nearest phone to call you. Just, don't hold your breath.

Whatever paper or screen you develop for your career change must be highly market specific and be able to withstand the ‘five-second CV' review test. You need to clearly describe your future. Put the most powerful thing you can do for your employer in Plain English at the top of your CV.

It is no good plaguing friends and family to tell you of any ‘openings' that they might hear about. You might end up on a production line plucking chickens because let's face it poultry-suppliers always have ‘openings' but the dream job with dream salary is never likely to be an ‘opening.' 
 
You've probably noticed by now that the key to career change in the nineties was to take a very proactive, make-it-happen type of approach and people would storm gatekeepers with their talent. If you could prove that you could make a buck for them – they might create an ‘opening' for you.”
 
But times have changed and what worked for you then does not necessarily work now! 
 
Nowadays you still have to be very proactive in understanding what people are looking for, so that you can pick the people you want to work for, speak their language and sell your future. You also have to present yourself as an expert in whatever it that you do and what ever that is - MUST solve a problem.

Have you ever noticed anyone racing around the room with buffet sandwiches and Samosas on a stick dishing out their business cards like a pudding? Hands up who has done this or OK, seen people do this. “Have you got an opening in your company?” People are being inventive hiding from you? You catch a couple in the act and can never walk in the same street, again. Wrong. Poor technique.
 
Friends and relatives don't like being imposed upon. You can burn up your network rather than cultivate it.

We were speaking earlier about career change individuals flinging open the windows in an energetic manner and believing that if they tried every avenue they would conquer the job market. The sister-mistake and perhaps in many ways THE BIGGEST mistake of them all is to think that your chances are much GREATER if you are open to everything.
 
When applicants come to me and tell me that they are not sure about what they want to do, they say: “I want to see what's out there.” Or “I'll get a job on the checkout at Aldi if I have to.” I tell them they must be confusing their ‘career change' with dating. You can meet some nice people in a single's bar but the serious partners you meet elsewhere.
 
Twenty-first century career change is personal, specialised, sophisticated and if you want a long-term relationship – it is going to take some serious research, decision-making and promotional flair.
 
The key to a great job is to get in on the ground floor in competitive niches before everybody starts doing it; develop a specific area of knowledge and expertise that will be in demand now and in the future or lock-in an opportunity to take a mature industry to take it to the top of it's class. You can't stay wide open and hope to be discovered.

Most people spend more time planning a holiday than planning a career change. They start out by grabbing a CV (or resume) and then sending it to all the advertisements they can find. In many ways this is completely understandable because this is what the newspapers would have us believe (sell more papers) and career change is a hard emotional road from which it is tempting to distant yourself.
 
Career change individuals waste huge swathes of time masterminding this bombardment of the media and it really is like winning the pools (lottery). Only a small percentage of these ads are REAL and they have a large CAPTIVE audience.
 
It is even harder for employed career change artistes – they need to structure their job search or they'll never find time to complete it. Career changers at home with the cat feel that they have all day to do easier things than career change slavery.
 
A good career change has four elements:
 
A strategic intent, carefully thought out methodology, preparation, research and sequence of skilful actions.
 
A daily regime that keeps you focused on what you are trying to achieve.
 
Dedicated space and equipment with phone, voice mail and word processing equipment and children who are trained to answer the phone politely or not at all. 
 
It can be tempting to hide under the covers – use a good career coach or competent job-searcher to keep you motivated and on track.

There is virtually no IMPORTANT realm of life where you don't enlist the help of experts.

Your parents can't teach you. Your teachers can't teach you – what they know about looking for a job outside teaching can be written on the back of a stamp. (“I listen to the Archers.” said a teacher mate of mine)

You go to a doctor when you become ill. You go to a medical consultant for an irritating rash. You go to a lawyer to move house. You don't need to - but you manage the risks that life sends you by getting good advice.

One wrong career change can lose you ten percent of your salary. Two wrong jobs can cost ten to one hundred thousand pounds in lost earning and unemployed time. One mistake in salary negotiation can cost between eight and twenty five thousand pounds and after five years in that job, you will have lost between forty and one hundred thousand pounds, dollars, euro, yen.

Invest in yourself and buy the best expertise you can afford – peanuts and monkeys ain't worth it. After fifteen years of in-depth, intensive, one on one career coaching I have developed a career change methodology that simply does away with the drudgery and loneliness of traditional job hunting and does away with job uncertainty for life, guaranteed.

If you'd like to learn even more....then give me a call (or read my book)

t: 0845 2020 244 (internationally +44 (0)121 706 1623)
e: margaret@careersnet.com w: www.careersnet.com and www.careersnet.co.uk

Rowan House, 41 Richmond Road, Solihull, West Midlands UK B92 7RP

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If you would like a chat about your career and how we can help you take your career to the next level - then call me on 0121 706 1623. Coaching clients are often invited for interview at the last minute. So call for a 'Cancellation,' now.