558: The Secret to Effectively Job Searching in 2024

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:00

Job search today is very different than it was 20 years ago. Recruiters and hiring managers are absolutely drowning in potential candidates today. So how do you convince them to give you a chance? A chance for an interview, a job, or even just the time of day? Well, it turns out, it's actually not about convincing the hiring manager or recruiter that your absolute best perfect fit for this job. That's not it. There's not just one secret Jedi mind trick that's going to make them choose you. So what is it then? What matters most when it comes to your job search? That evasive answer is what we break down in this episode of the Happen To Your Career podcast.

Introduction 00:48

This is the Happen To Your Career podcast with Scott Anthony Barlow. We hope you stop doing work that doesn't fit you. Figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that is unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you feel like you were meant for more, and you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:13

If you've ever been in an emergency situation, you know how chaotic it can feel. When you're in an emergency situation, when there is chaos, when there are other things going on, a distractions, etc., you have to be specific. People are panicking. And it turns out if you scream, "Help! Help! We need help." it doesn't actually cause anybody to come and help you many times. Instead, what you learn, and there have been many studies to show that this is absolutely the case in emergencies. What you learn, what they teach in these emergency trainings is that you need to give clear, specific instructions, "You in the pink shirt, I need you to call 911 right away." "You in the corner, bring me a towel", or you know, whatever it is that you need. You have to be extremely clear about what it is that you want, and what you need for that situation. These studies have also shown that it carries beyond emergency situations. Knowing what you want, and being extremely clear about what you want is the very best way to get what you want in most situations. It's all about getting really specific, and that allows you to be able to communicate very differently. And you may have heard me say this on the podcast in the past, but when you know what you want, it becomes easier to ask for what you want. And when you ask for what you want, strangely, you get what you want more often, right? You may have guessed it by now. But the strategy of knowing what you want, and being able to clearly communicate it is the most effective method for job searching today. It sounds so simple. And yet so few people do this. Part of the reason is that knowing what you want can seem abstract. And it's a step that many people will skip right over or think that they can do on a good enough level. But when you get really concrete about what you want, and what you need out of your career, then it allows you to get different results. You can do this by defining first what we call your must-haves. Now we dedicate a large portion of career change, at least the process behind the scenes when we're helping other people, we dedicate a large portion of that process to defining these must-haves. And we use a tool that we call the Ideal Career Profile. It's a very simple tool, think about it as a large checklist of everything that you want or the most important things about what you want and what you need, that creates and adds up to fulfilling work that becomes truly meaningful to you. Now, if we oversimplify the Ideal Career Profile for just a moment, then it's in two parts, the must-haves or the deal breakers, the things that you absolutely have to have for the seven key elements that define meaningful work, and then the ideals. The ideals are aspirationally what we're working towards. You need both of these to be really be clear about what it is that you want. Now if you want to learn more about the Ideal Career Profile, and the seven elements of meaningful work, we'll include links in the show notes and description, to past episodes where we've discussed this and also we go over this in detail in the Happen To Your Career book. However, I want to say all of that to then explain that knowing what you want is not innate. It's not. It's not just a job title. It's not one singular element, like a job where I can work from home, it's really complex. And once you figure it out, it changes everything for you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:06

Okay, so we already acknowledged that most people haven't done the work to get clear on what it is that they want, and what they need out of their career. So they don't really know what it is that they're looking for, even if they think that they do, even if they think that "Well, I'm looking for something that has more growth and a mission-driven company." Okay. All right, let's start. And then they wonder why they're not able to find that, let alone when they think that they do find that why they're not getting those opportunities in a way that's useful for them and the organization. The very common job searching scenario is going on Indeed.com or LinkedIn, and then you find an open role, and then you try to get that job to fit you, right? You look at this, and you're like, "Well, I think this could work, maybe, I guess." And then that's how we lead to long times of depression and wondering why there's no good jobs out there that are actually sound wonderful or the ones that do sound wonderful require 347 years of experience, and also 10 certifications on top of that, either way, it's not a great recipe for mental health. So when you're applying for jobs that just don't fit, the other thing that a lot of people don't think about is your communications, your application, even though when you're interacting with people, let's say that you get pushed through to the interview, even when you're interacting with other people, when you don't know exactly what you want, you don't know how this comes off is generic. You don't realize that it does. Until you've seen it from the other side over and over again. And I've been really fortunate to be involved in a lot of hiring processes, there's literally thousands of them over the last 25 years. And those overwhelmed hiring managers that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, well, the generic applications, generic people coming in, this is what they get bombarded with constantly, is actually not that helpful to anybody, including the people applying. So when you know what you want, this allows you to be able to communicate more specifically, I think we've covered that right? But the part we haven't covered is it comes off as more useful, more interesting, more relevant, and more genuine, which is something that we all are looking for. This is what makes you actually stand out from the rest in a really useful way, and organic way too. Okay, I want to give you a couple examples here, the example and the difference of communication from two specific applicants. And we pulled some of this verbiage kind of a combination together from different types of applications that have seen over the years. And the first is what we normally see when someone's applying to roles or interested. The second is someone who obviously knows what they're looking for, and can truly see themselves in that role. Let's see if you can tell the difference.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:08

Example one, "I am a highly motivated professional with distinctive talents and skills that enable me to effectively educate and communicate the value of products/services, fostering trust with clients/customers. I firmly believe in the pivotal role of hard work, dedication, self discipline, in achieving success for both myself and the company that I represent." I'm not even sure I can get through the rest. It goes on to say, "The values upheld by your organization resonate with me and I'm eager to join your team blah, blah, blah, contributing to the collective success and blah, blah, blah by becoming an integral part of your professional family." Oh, my goodness, this was a lot of words, but it didn't really say anything. It comes across like this person is just saying what they think they should and pulled the rest from ChatGPT. It basically whatever they think the hiring manager wants to hear. This is what people got bombarded all day with. Imagine being a recruiter or a hiring manager or an HR professional talent acquisition, imagine reading this stuff all day. This is what people think they need to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:20

Let's listen to the second one. "My entire career has been customer-focused, and I thrive in this type of environment. The thrill of knowing you impacted someone's life whether that is big or small, with minimal effort or a heavy lift. It makes me feel so freakin good. When I am given the opportunity to be myself and communicate with someone freely without the hindrance of feeling robotic or scripted, I do my absolute best work. In my 14 years with my current company I primarily focused on customer experience and providing what we call white glove customer service. I eat, sleep, and breathe effective customer communication, tone of voice, being your best self, positive word and phrasing, planning and organization follow through follow-ups and so much more. Needless to say, customer service is my passion, and it's something that I truly enjoy. It makes me happy. I strive to provide the best experience possible to each customer as if it were my only one." Okay. Now, this isn't even what I would consider to be a phenomenal response. But you can see the difference, like it is very, very heavily different. One sounds much, much more genuine, it sounds like this is actually what they want. They've put not just some thought into it but they understand themselves enough to be able to communicate in a very different way. And then that very different way, appears to be more organic, more specific, more genuine. And it turns out that we, as humans, we respond to that, we get different results, were attracted to levels of clarity, were attracted to levels of specificity. Okay, so they made their own experience relevant to the job listing on top of it. And overall, it was an enjoyable read. It was relatively free of fluff, or lots of corporate jargon, there's a little bit in there that no one wants to bother with. They also did the most important thing. They clearly communicated what they love doing and explained how the open role fits them. It was built into it. It almost didn't feel like they were, a lot of people call the selling themselves. But in this case, it didn't feel like that. They were just communicating what they loved. Okay, I want to get into something that most people overlook here. If you are communicating what you enjoy and love to do and are great at and in the ways that you can contribute the best, but also, you're getting much back out of that, and you get hired for that, that's a great situation. But let's say that you're communicating the things that you think that you have to even though it doesn't fall into that category of enjoyment, or the right challenges, or the right types of contribution for you, and you get hired for that. That means you're stuck in a situation where it's actually not that great for you. A lot of people miss this logic. And this is where I want to get into the nitty gritty of job searching and how you can use this knowledge from what you need in your Ideal Career Profile to land the right opportunity. Not just any job, your ideal role, or what we often call your unicorn role. Okay, let's first point out the obvious, our society has shorter attention spans than ever before getting shorter by the minute. In fact, the recent research shows our attention span has decreased in specifically just the last 15 years in 2000 even it was 12 seconds, now it shrunk to about 8.25 seconds on average. And the funny thing, this means humans actually now have a shorter attention span than goldfish, who can focus on a task or object for like nine seconds. So how do we break through all of the noise here? Well, what's been proven time and again, is that customizing your interactions actually stand out making them relevant to the person who is listening, relevant and useful to the person that who is listening. Think about it. We live in an age where everything is customized to you. Your phone is set up to your preferences, the ads you see are personalized recommendations, even the music you hear on your streaming services, we've come to expect it at every single term. Customization grabs attention. And that's even true when it comes to job search– customizing your interactions, cover letters, resumes. And guess what helps you do that? Knowing what you want. Since you know what you're looking for, and what you bring to the table, it makes it that much easier to get really specific on how the role or organization you're discussing fits you. You can tailor every interaction to show why your strengths and your experiences are a great fit for the role. This type of customized job search, well, it takes longer than just clicking an Apply button.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:15

Oh my goodness, we have we opened up a role. And by the time this episode airs, it'll have been closed for a couple of months. But we opened up a role and I'll tell you, just recently, we have hundreds, hundreds of applications for this role where people have just to click the Apply button. And then it automatically sends their resume and the resume often has absolutely nothing to do with this. And then, you see the stories all over the place where it's like, "I've applied to 250 different roles." And people wonder why. People don't quite connect the dots normally for how this is pretty much a waste of time. It's a waste of time for the people who are applying, it's a waste of time for the organization itself. What really makes a difference? So you're not just finding just another job. And instead focusing on finding work that truly fits you is this customization. Now, I have to mention how AI can play into this. Like I said earlier, AI can come off as really generic and bland. But this can be really very helpful in a different way, though. If you're using AI to help you distill information or collaboration or get ideas on something, that's going to be very useful. If you're causing AI to write for you, a lot of times, it's going to write in the most bland way possible. It's going to come off much the same way or candidate that we just read earlier came off as very robotic. That doesn't mean AI can't be very useful. Think about job search as a marketing process. And it works just like any other type of marketing. We actually just used AI really recently for creating marketing, and copy for our Airbnb property. We made a big list of all our benefits and all the features that the house has. And then we asked ChatGPT to rank them. And then I asked him to rewrite them so it would fit our particular target market. I shared with ChatGPT the specific target market that we're looking for, and that we want to attract to rent the house. And then I said, "Hey, write a..." I probably actually did write "Hey" you don't need to if you don't want to, but I probably did, I said, "Hey, write a benefits-driven description of our house using these bullet points in 500 words or less." And then it popped out something. And then I was like, "Okay, now take this and make it shorter, make it more concise." And then once it was completed, I went in and personalized it and made it sound like if I were saying it out loud. By the way, that's a super easy secret if you want to stand out and feel more genuine. There are spaces where that doesn't make sense– academic could be an example for that or other professions where you need to adapt to that particular profession, or that particular person, which again, is about customization and knowing your market. In this case, though, writing as if you are talking is a huge hack that makes it feel more genuine. Here's an example of how you're doing this if you're tailoring your resume. Have your list of all your features and benefits. In this case, your results, responsibilities, experiences, achievements, the same things you might normally find on a resume for yourself. And then you're going to leverage AI to find the highest priority ones for a particular target market much the way what we did with Airbnb. In this case, the target market is whoever this resume or application is going to go to. So one of the ways that you can do that is by feeding the job description into AI as well. Then ask AI to find the highest priority, responsibilities, achievements, and bullet points on your resume and ask it to write a summary. And then you can generate multiple different options quickly, as opposed to struggling to write it for yourself, because that's where a lot of people get caught up. AI can do the initial work for you and then you can modify it. Once you have AI write multiple versions, the modification is much much easier, then you can make it sound like you and make it feel genuine. Make sure it aligns with what you actually want. If you're struggling to adapt this to where it feels like you are talking out loud, another simple solution would be to pull out your phone and use the dictate function or talk-to-text and just talk about each point and then take that and modify it from there. Sometimes it's easier for us to communicate authentically when we are saying it out loud verbally. And then once you have it down on paper, you can edit it so that it makes sense and you can come up with something really great. To some people, these might seem like a lot of extra steps in order to go from understanding what you want to be able to communicating what it is that you want. However, when you do this, you up the chances significantly. And I'll share just for me personally, it's been a while since I have personally done a job search although I do personal marketing all the time in various different ways. And obviously this is what we have done for thousands of people over the last 10-plus years now. But I'll tell you, for me personally when I was using the same exact type of approaches, I would get pushed through to the interview process almost every time. It was a rarity that I wouldn't get at least a first-step interview minimum. And the reason is because now we're customizing or tailoring, we're making it relevant to them, and therefore we are standing out amongst all of the other things at the bar is very low sometimes, and you can use that to your advantage.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:27

Now, let's talk for a minute just about recognizing what you want. AI can of course, save you time. When you're job searching today, it can help you get past some of those stuck points, it can help even prioritize for you. There's lots of that it can do. But knowing what you want may save you even more time. Here's what I mean. Completing an Ideal Career Profile helps you focus on jobs, industries, organizations that actually fit you. And consequently, the thing people don't think about is it makes it so much easier to identify if you're applying or going after the right roles, the right jobs, instead of wasting your time applying in interviewing for jobs that ultimately will not end up working out for you. It's very counterintuitive, because it seems like that it's a lot of work upfront to be able to customize, and to be able to tailor for each and every situation. However, if you only need to focus on two or three or four organizations and roles and opportunities until you find the right one versus the story that we just talked about a couple of minutes ago, where you hear it over and over again, like, "I applied to 250 or 350, 900, I applied to 900 jobs." Applying to 900 jobs, even if it's just a simple click easy button still takes a really, really long time– reading through all those job descriptions and finding them like that is insane, and it feels terrible on top of it. Instead, what we're talking about is yes, taking more time, but doing it for a much, much, much lower amount of opportunities because you have a higher level of assurance that these are right opportunities for you. And then it doesn't really come as a surprise when you're customizing, when you're tailoring, and when you are better aligned, when you know you're better aligned with that upfront, that you get better results. Not a surprise, right? When you've done the work to figure out what you want, and to begin applying for jobs that fit and talking to people about those opportunities, even more important than it is, that it's more effective. This process actually becomes more fun because you're interested in it, and you're excited about it. If you're not enjoying talking about those opportunities, or you're not getting excited when tailoring your resume to that job, that's probably a sign. Like even if you don't love tailoring resumes is still probably a sign that you might not enjoy working in that role every day. Pay attention to these feelings. I want to give you an example from Samantha on our team. She's our content manager. And recently this process showed her that she had been applying to the wrong roles for a long time.

Samantha Martin 23:23

Yeah, I found this when I was changing my resume for this role. Actually, I was finally enjoying what I was translating, like, I was taking stuff I actually enjoyed doing in my past roles. The things I actually liked, not just every single thing I was doing or the things I accomplished, but the things I really truly enjoyed in my past roles. And then I was translating those things into what this role was looking for. And I was excited about that, like, it was an enjoyable process because I was talking about things that I liked. And it was just finally all clicking into place and it started making sense. Like in the past, it was so hard for me to translate my marketing experience into what the application was looking for because turns out, none of those roles I was applying for were ever a good fit for me. And I was just continuously trying so hard to make it work. And so it was like red flag after red flag. Because I was like, "This is so hard and grueling to do. Why is it so difficult? I shouldn't be able to write a frickin resume. I'm a writer." But it turns out it wasn't my lack of skill. It was just the universe trying to tell me like stop trying to make this happen. It's not the right role. And when it finally was the right role, I could tell from the very beginning.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:43

Okay, we got specific on tailoring, resumes, tailoring applications. Let's talk about actual interactions with real people where you're, you know, having conversations with during the job search. Let's say you found an open role that fits you, tailored your resume, submitted your application, we recommend taking it a step further. Reach out to someone in the organization, make a connection. It's actually pretty easy to find most people on the internet today between LinkedIn or their company website. A lot of times, I can find somebody in less than five minutes, sometimes less than five seconds. A lot of job listings even have contact information for who the hiring manager is specifically, not all, but a lot. And once you find your method of contacting them, what you want to do is begin to build a relationship with that person inside the organization. Just a short paragraph, like, the example earlier in this episode can really get through when you know what you want and it can connect with that person inside the organization. We had a client, Jenna, who had figured out the exact type of organization she wanted to work with and made a list of organizations that fit that description. And there was one that kept topping the list. So when a role became available, she applied. And then she took it a step further to start building relationships with the people, the real people inside that company. She created loom videos, these are video messages, there's lots of ways to do this. And talked through what she wanted out of her next role, what skills and strengths she could bring to the organization. It's not the perfect solution for everybody but it's a great example. Here's Jenna, talking about how she did this.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:47

Well, it was not perfect for every single situation, but in your situation, I think it was highly effective because, one, as you said, you can put a face to the name, which creates more personal type of approach. It also, in your case, it was a casual company already, like that's how they operate, you had already done the research to indicate that that wasn't just a thing that they did on their website, like, they operate this way, right. So in your reach out, if you're modeling that in the same tone, it strategically feels to them like you fit. And more importantly, you'd already done the work yourself to realize that that's what you wanted. So you're simply answering their call to help them understand why you're a good fit in ways that they don't even necessarily, it's not like on a resume or anything like that. It just feels like generalists.

Jenna Bias 26:28

Just one step of research led to another and I found myself just learning a lot about the company that way. And then furthermore, when I decided to apply to certain positions in their application process, they often would have a little blurb about the hiring manager there. They're very transparent about who would be hiring. And I almost feel like, it's almost like an invitation like, we're telling you, "Hey, I'm the person doing the hiring here. I'm introducing myself to you via the application. I almost felt like it would be a disservice to not then go introduce myself." Like they're almost asking you, how do I felt. And so and I think for me, that made it a little bit more comfortable. So as far as reaching out, like via LinkedIn, or email that wasn't super challenging, it almost like I said, seemed invited. But then I did kind of take it to the next step and created a few loom videos to just kind of further introduce myself, but further express my interest, like face to face, because I mean, you can say so much in an email. But I feel like until you hear someone out and like see their genuine expression, I feel like that goes so much further. And at the end of the day, lots of people are sending emails. So I feel like if you can create a little video and kind of put a face to the name, I think for me that ended up being priceless.

Jenna Bias 28:39

Right. I think too, I didn't mention this but the fear that goes along with it is like oh, the potential of them not responding which: A, I realized now it really doesn't matter. They get so much influx of information. It's like, who cares if they don't respond. But for me, my CEO did end up acknowledging my video and just sent me like a simple email back, telling me good luck on the interview process. And from there, I ended up applying to, I think, four different times through a few different roles. And every step of the way, I just sent her an email updating her on my journey. And she responded to every single email not being like, nothing like extraordinary, but just the response itself was like, to me, again, just as exemplified, this is a company I want to work for. Here's this busy CEO taking time out of her day to just shoot me a quick email, acknowledging the work that I'm putting in to try and be a part of our organization. And then yeah, as far as applying to multiple roles, it just came down to, "I knew this is the company I wanted to work for." So again, rather than spreading myself thin across different companies, I was like, "No, I'm just going to focus here." And even though I actually got denied initially for my current role, obviously in the end, it ended up paying off when I applied the second time and I think a large part of that was because I had already touched base with the hiring manager, we did already kind of have that rapport. And yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 30:06

Okay, so let's dig into that for just a second. What did that look like? Take me through, I think you said you applied for four, how many did you interview for? What did the process look like?

Jenna Bias 30:17

Yeah, so one of them that I applied for initially, to be frank, I knew was, not that it wasn't a good fit, I was just like, highly underqualified. It didn't so much, I think there's a lot of situations where you can pull from your past work, and kind of more fit to fit new roles. In this situation, when I tried to do that, it was a stretch, to say the least. But I gave it a go. And that was one of those situations where I did create a limb for that hiring manager, as well as their recruiter. And I sent her a LinkedIn message just introducing myself. And she was very sweet in her response and transparent in the fact that I probably wasn't going to have what they were looking for in that role. But again, it was the response for me of how they handled it, that didn't turn me away because they were so inviting, encouraging. Not everyone's gonna be a good fit for every role. So I didn't take it personally. Late, fast forward, I applied to one other role that I never actually heard back from because I think what happened is I applied to my current role. And at that point, I had made contact with the recruiter. So I went through the recruiter, like a phone screening, and then got to the first round interview with the hiring manager, which it went great. I really connected and talked about the role, and it was something that I thought it'd be like a really good fit. And then I didn't make it to the next two phases of the interview. So then at that point, we exchanged some emails, she again, when I got the denial email, I asked her just for positive feedback, you know, "What can I do differently? Any recommendations moving forward." And she sent me like a novel, which was super awesome. I could tell she took, like, time out her day to give me feedback. Am I ever gonna be working at her company? It can be she doesn't really even know me. But I think that's because when we had our interview, like, we were able to connect, even though I didn't end up being the pick for the role that time, she could still, you know, connect with me on a personal level. And we still learn a lot about each other. So to me that first interview was still a win, because we fostered like a relationship.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:24

Yeah. Wait, can we dig into that for just a second? Because I think that's a frustration for so many people, like, "Hey, I'll ask for feedback", and they won't get anything. But you got a novel worth of feedback because, not by accident, and yes, this is an amazing organization. And clearly, they value people who are interested in them. But also they don't have infinite amounts of time too. So the reason this worked is you've already started to establish some kind of beginnings of relationship with the CEO. I'm sure those emails were probably forwarded, I don't know, but probably they were forwarded over to recruiting, or maybe they were BCC'd or something else along those lines. You had continuous touchpoints all along the way. Maybe they talk behind the scenes, maybe they didn't. But then you had, as you said, begun to build a connection during that interview, and you had focused on that. So you now have the beginnings of relationships. So now, it's not just some random candidate asking for feedback. It is this person that I know and had a great time with. And that's totally different than when you go to make the ask than just some random person that's out there. So I wanted to take a moment and just break that down because you did a really nice job allowing it to get to that point, so that it worked when you went and asked for feedback.

Jenna Bias 33:40

Yeah, I think a big thing for me, I'm sure it's probably for other people as well, is because I had all those touchpoints. And in seeing institutions that like asking for feedback, I know big thing for me, it was like kind of a fear component. I almost felt like, "Oh my gosh, am I reaching out too much?" You said, oh, they're probably talking behind the scenes, like in a good way. But in my mind, I was like, "Man, are they like, that Jenna girl, she applied again?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:06

Never hire that one.

Jenna Bias 34:09

Yeah, can't get rid of her. And of course, that's just your, like, limiting beliefs that I'm sure everyone has. But no. So then after I reached out, got that feedback, it was great feedback. I rather I was, obviously I was disappointed. But like you said, a lot of people when they get denied are kind of turned off and like maybe would like go the other way. But I was just more intrigued and I was more like on board I sent like a really nice email back. And I told her I was like, "I'm gonna continue to like watch your job board. But if a spot opens up in the future, like, please do consider me." And so sure enough, I did watch their job board here and there. And I think it was two or three months after I initially applied for that role that I happened to notice that the role was up again. And so I just reached out directly to the hiring manager before submitting an application just to kind of express my interest in right away. She was like, "Oh, yeah, like you were actually on my list of people reached out to you this week, I definitely would want you to reapply, if you could just go ahead and submit application like, won't go through the process of interviewing again." So I did that. And then obviously, this time, I made it through the entire interview process, which was that initial interview with the hiring manager, again, I did a mock demo. So a big part of my job is doing demos for my company. So they just, you know, it's kind of a mixture, you can do the job kind of thing. And then I had an interview with my manager's manager. And then the last kind of piece was a call with the CEO. So that was the steps.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:40

All of Jenna's reach-out paid off. She did not end up getting the first role she applied for but she had built a relationship with the people inside that organization. So when a job did become available, she actually turned the tables. And they thought of her as an ideal candidate for the brand new open role, because they already had that trust with her, they already had that familiarity with her. It was easy at that point, very, very different. And more importantly, she actually was getting something that she wanted. Pretty cool, right? Okay, you know, the most effective way to job search. It all starts with you, and getting clarity on what you truly want, and what you need out of your career is the key to this. Once you've done this, it will be much easier to find roles that fit your ideal career profile. And it'll make tailoring your resume, your cover letters, your in-person interactions, much more natural, much more genuine and ultimately much more effective. Again, check out the show notes for links to the resources that we covered in this episode, I think that you'll really enjoy it. Once you've gotten clear about what you want, all of a sudden, that puts you in a much better position to be able to get specific and ask for and then get what you want.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:03

Most of the episodes you've heard on Happen To Your Career showcase stories of people that have taken the steps to identify and land careers that they are absolutely enamored with, that match their strengths, and are really what they want in their lives. If that's something that you're ready to begin taking steps towards, that's awesome. And we want to figure out how we can help. So here's what I would suggest. Take the next five seconds to open up your email app and email me directly. I'm gonna give you my personal email address, scott@happentoyourcareer.com. Just email me and put conversation in the subject line. And when you do that, I'll introduce you to someone on our team who can have a super informal conversation with and we'll figure out the very best type of health for you, whatever that looks like. And the very best way that we can support you to make it happen. So send me an email right now with conversation in the subject line.

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:55

Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Speaker 3 38:01

There was a part of me that definitely recognized that I was, I had strengths, and I had value to offer an organization. But I didn't know how to navigate the next steps. Work out how I could communicate what my skill sets and value were.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:24

Let's say that you took a break from your career. Many people do. I've personally done it. Whether it was for your children, your health, travel, whatever. When it comes time to return to the workforce, it's common to not want to go back to the same work that you were doing before your break. However, if you've only worked in one industry, or done one type of role, or worked for one organization, it can feel well, a little challenging. It can be really hard to figure out how to translate the experiences you've had to a new industry or new role or new opportunity. So the question becomes how do you do that? How do you translate all these experiences in a way that becomes useful to other people?

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:09

All that and plenty more next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Make sure that you don't miss it. And if you haven't already, click subscribe on your podcast player so that you can download this podcast in your sleep and you get it automatically. Even the bonus episodes every single week, sometimes multiple times a week. Until next week, adios. I'm out.