Why New Entrepreneurs Should Listen To Recruiters

can you hear me?, a photo by pj_vanf on Flickr.

If you’ve decided to ditch your cubicle for your own startup, congratulations. No doubt you intend to stay connected to some of your former colleagues, your bosses or your former clients to insure your success—because all of them can help you build your business.

Add an additional remnant of your corporate past to be a catalyst for your entrepreneurial success: recruiters who have come to know you over the years.

Before you diss the recruiters who pitch you new job opportunities while you’re exiting your old one, consider the benefits of continuing your relationship with them:

Recruiters in your field are experts at monitoring the business landscape.  The obvious shift in your relationship is that you no longer rely on your recruiter for resume tips or job leads. But consider that a good recruiter spends hours a day talking to business leaders, conversing daily with  movers and shakers in your industry, negotiating compensation and networking constantly. You won’t ever be able to grow your business in a vacuum. Staying in touch with someone who’s got his ear to the ground for their own livelihood is a person you definitely want in your corner.

Recruiters own the skills you need for your own success.  A new business owner taps into the expertise they’ve developed as an employee and leverages it by selling it in the marketplace. Whether you’re a Subject Matter Expert in healthcare consulting, human resources outsourcing, technology or another line of business, you will have to sell your services quickly in order to launch. You can learn a lot about how to network, set business goals and close deals from a trusted recruiter—simply because their livelihood depends on it as much as yours.

If your startup doesn’t get off the ground, you need to stay current.  Simply put—a lot of startups build slowly or fail. Whether you need to seed your business by working temporarily for another company or you decide to return to work in a traditional role, don’t burn your bridges, Keep in touch with a trusted recruiter that can help you.

Business relationships are like any other; you need to give as well as take. Offer something to the recruiters you stay in close touch with. Share some market news or refer a contact that might consider a job change. Engage in a discussion with them about an industry trend. Keep the dialogue going in both directions and the relationship will last.

What Signals Do You Send In The Workplace?

An Interesting Train - The Fat Controller, a photo by oddsock on Flickr.

We slog through our morning commute on automatic pilot. And some of us stay on cruise control throughout the workday, focusing on and worrying about meeting deadlines or the creation of more PowerPoint decks, but not thinking too hard about what others are thinking about us.

Make no mistake about it—whether we intend to focus on the team dynamic or not, we can’t help emitting signals about how we manage ourselves at work and how we feel about our team. We all wear our personal agenda on our sleeve.

These signals have an impact on our ability to get promoted, and they also impact our ability to keep our jobs during reorganizations or budget-slashing measures. Some days we’ll feel like playing nice in the sandbox with our coworkers; other days we aren’t as pleasant and we shrink back. But bosses and teammates are watching and listening—so it’s important to pay attention to the signals you are emitting.

I’m not a fan of putting people in boxes. But for the purpose of this post I’d like to identify three categories of productive workers that might give you an indication of how you’re being perceived:

The Lone Ranger. This member of the team doesn't place much importance on what others think about how he or she performs the job; they march to their own drummer. The Lone Ranger survives mainly because they are very good at what they do, and so their bosses put up with their aloof behavior or their histrionics. Don’t expect any warm and fuzzy signals from this coworker in terms of project collaboration, or commiseration when you feel like bitching about a difficult client. And if you share your Great Idea with a Lone Ranger, don’t be surprised if they announce some iteration of that same idea at the next team meeting, calling it their own.

The Fixer.  This worker enjoys fixing tough dilemmas on the team—including problems that aren’t necessarily theirs. Still high from the adrenaline rush of conquering the latest insurmountable problem, they look for new ones to fix, including projects that might belong to others. While Fixers generally mean well, they don’t recognize their own boundaries and won’t be happy until they insinuate their personal solutions on everyone else’s projects.

The Collaborator. This member of the team finesses what they were hired to do and executes it within the boundaries of their job description. And while they’re successfully completing their tasks, they consider the bigger picture and offer their assistance to others on the team (but they don’t foist it). They work respectfully on shared projects and believe that the power of many voices is greater than theirs alone. They thrive on the synergy of multiple ideas and the power of teamwork.

Which kind of employee would you want to work with? More important, which kind of employee do you want to be?

Pushing The Career Envelope

move-change-adapt-flex-grow-be-do-richardstep-1a--richardstep-unleash-your-strengths, a photo by RichardStep.com on Flickr.

This time of year a lot of us are contemplating the quality of our jobs—yes, most of us are grateful to have one, but many of us are thinking it might be time to consider a change. There’s a lot that may have shifted in the job-hunting landscape since you last looked for one. You might start to read popular career blogs or accept calls from a few reputable recruiters you know. You decide you will tweak your LinkedIn profile.

But there’s a deeper kind of change in the air that needs to be acknowledged before you seriously consider posting to online job ads. There's a collective change in human consciousness that affects how we should guide how we earn a living. We need to mentally shift into a new awareness that our career paths are no longer linear; that the twenty-year stint at a company with a pension at age sixty seven is going to be as rare as your seventeen year old asking to spend more time at home with you.

Guess what? We can still enjoy our work and find meaning in it--perhaps without even changing our job.

It’s time to challenge our assumptions.  You might be angry about the politics that exist in your company, or the lack of team leadership. The job feels like it’s limiting your growth. Or the culture is not a fit to your personality.

When you shift into job-hunt mode because you are escaping from a bad situation (as compared to a great new opportunity that you are moving toward), SLOW DOWN.

Get to a quiet place and get emotional. Maybe throw a tantrum in a bathroom where no one else can hear you. Then breathe and get really quiet.

Ask yourself if your assumptions about your current job can be challenged:

Could I be happy at this job?

Can I do new things that were formerly impossible?

How would that change look?

Really challenge what you believe. Look at the situation from the eyes of someone who hasn't been disgruntled in the role for a while.

When you walk back to your cubicle, play nice with your coworkers. Then go crazy tapping into what you’re capable of.  

Is Becoming A Contractor The New Norm?

Lavida Cooper, a photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr.

Thirty one percent of America’s workforce is comprised of independent contractors, grown out of corporations’ needs to staff on the fly. With this trend rising, the contract model might become your most likely way of getting hired. After all, it’s easier for companies to end a contract than to terminate a coworker. Firms can successfully outsource their Account managers, Human Resource reps and IT Analysts and reap all of their successes without the obligation of paying for employee benefits and paid time off.

Does working as a contractor make sense for you? Consider these points:

Being independent puts you in the category of Subject Matter Expert. You’re in a position to offer big picture opinions of your business landscape to your client company because you’ve worked in a variety of scenarios. You’re politically neutral when you offer your expertise because, while you are completely professional, you don’t have to drink the company Koolaid. Likewise, you wont be disappointed by the typical two or three percent increase that salaried employees receive at their annual review. You can set your own rates for the duration of the contract—and it's a fact that most contractors earn more than their salaried counterparts.

Looking for job security? Create your own by being great at what you do.  Whether you are in between jobs or you’re looking for a long-term role, contracting might be the way to go if you are really good at what you do. You can charge more for your expertise since you know how to solve your client’s problems. As your paycheck increases, stash as much as you can away for rainy days in between contracts (or for taxes if you’re on a 1099). Stay connected to your network and keep your skills fresh so that you’re poised for the next contract when the current one ends.

You get to steer your own ship.  As a contractor you won’t concern yourself with which rung of the corporate ladder you sit on. Promotional opportunities won’t pervade your thoughts. Corporate politics can be observed from the sidelines. Instead, your focus is on the work itself.

What about benefits and a sense of permanence? It’s true—you won’t be paid for your sick days or vacation time, and it might be hard to carve out time off over the holidays when you’re covering for salaries employees on the team. If you contract through an agency, you may be able to earn benefits and PTO—but given the changes in healthcare benefits, you might be better off funding these for yourself.

I think the biggest concerns a contractor has are those that are focused on the work itself. Often, contractors are hired as a last ditch effort to meet business goals that the permanent staff could not achieve. If you are offered a contract gig, find out early if you’re being set up for success or a failure. Gauge if the client’s expectations for your performance are realistic or not (sell twenty new clients in three months time? You’re an Account Manager, not Houdini).

Remember that when you’re hired on a temporary basis, you are, at first, an expense to the company and not an investment. You won’t receive employee developmental goals and there's not talk of your future. You will, however, be paid well to do what you do best—the work itself. And if it goes well, you’ll be appreciated by the team and be treated well. You might even get picked up as a permanent employee later, if that's your goal.

Contract work is a career lifestyle choice with pros and cons like any other. But it’s a prevailing trend that is seeping into more workers’ lives at a rapid rate. Chances are you will need to explore this option at some point in your career trajectory.

How Loyal An Employee Should You Be?

Loyalty, a photo by geopungo on Flickr.

Most workers these days are content to just be employed. The idea of looking for a better job, within your own company or at outside organizations, seems like a guilt-induced act of blasphemy.

This saddens me because I believe it’s always important to stretch yourself—to learn new skills with the goal of keeping your career fresh, interesting and expanding. And sometimes that means opportunistically changing jobs.

So how loyal should you be to your boss and your company?

First, don’t confuse accountability with loyalty.  Never lose sight of the fact that you must take full responsibility for the job you’re paid to do. That is the definition of accountability. You need to own the good, the bad and the ugly parts of your job—including long hours and backing up your boss. On the other hand, loyalty is about commitment. When you pledge loyalty to your boss, you are differentiating yourself from the fifty other people who have the technical skills to do your job, but may not be as committed as you are.

Loyalty to your boss is great for the boss, but it could kill your career.  As a corporate recruiter, I look for integrity and strength of character in a job candidate. I look specifically for evidence of how you took the opportunity to learn everything you could from each of your roles to grow, develop leadership skills and achieve great results. And believe it or not, whether you have five jobs or fifteen listed on your resume, if the reasons for changing jobs are justified, I won’t hold it against you.

The thing I hate the most is a resume that reveals a candidate whose career was driven by outside forces more than his own.  Your livelihood should be mostly driven by your own choices. When your resume starts to look more like a timeline of the failures of your past companies, you are not steering your own career. Perhaps you’ve been loyal to the wrong people.

Don’t get me wrong—layoffs and mergers have made the employment landscape smaller for all of us. But when I see a twelve-year veteran of a company survive three rounds of layoffs but is now living off the last of the severance her company gave her a year ago, when they finally folded, I believe that her loyalty was a bad personal choice. The signs of the ship going down were there—what was she thinking?

It’s important to treat your career like a small business—the business of you. Dust the cobwebs off your resume and make it current. Keep on doing a fabulous job in your current role, but remember that steadfast allegiance and ridiculous overtime will be forgotten. Instead, doing great work for the right people will be remembered and will take you to your next great role.

Stay accountable on your job but be loyal to yourself. It’s crucial for you to constantly establish new contacts, add new skills and yes—keep your eyes and ears open for bigger, better job opportunities, within your on company and beyond. 

Your Career Path: Are You Thriving Or Just Surviving?

Zombie Survival Guide, a photo by jronaldlee on Flickr.

You might say that the choices we often make in selecting our jobs—or in changing them—are indicators of the economy and the current job market. It’s easy to attribute our lack of ambition to outside forces. In other words, we are comfortable because, simply put, we are working.

This is what survival mode looks like. With a stable job we think we know better than to take a chance on accepting a new one. And so we hunker down.

But does survival mode mean that you should live with the likelihood of never improving your career? Shouldn’t you still try?

Ambition = Good. Mediocrity = Bad?  Believe it or not, this is not a hard and fast rule. If you’re currently out of work, taking a downscaled job that merely pays the bills can be a good option. If you’re good at budgeting your time, you can dedicate some of your week to a menial job while you are networking and seeking out a better job--without the guilt. Paying off a few bills can boost your confidence while you look for your next big career move.

Don’t make reactionary career choices.  In survival mode, you’re working at your current job but your radar is up for new opportunities. It’s very easy to jump too fast into accepting a new job offer. Perhaps the pay is a little bit higher, the commute is a little shorter or the new boss seems a little less toxic than your current one. As you consider your next offer, I’d suggest you ask yourself one important question:

“With this job offer, am I moving toward something I want, or am I escaping from something, instead?”

How does your physical body feel as you consider all sides of the new job opportunity? Are feeling tense, uncertain? Or do you feel peaceful and relaxed?

Accepting a new job to escape is a decision based on fear. Don’t do it.

Moving beyond job survival mode is a selfish act—but it’s well worth it.  If you aren’t working with some degree of passion or satisfaction, doing what excites you, something interesting happens. Even a level of mediocrity will be hard to sustain. Whether you hang out your own shingle and work for yourself, look at new opportunities within your own company or look at roles in new companies, it’s really important to challenge yourself. When you live beyond survival mode, you live with the possibility that job happiness might just be around the corner.

Switching Jobs? Don't Forget Your Personal Brand

Projects & Dreams for 2008, a photo by the Italian voice on Flickr.

By now it’s no secret that our backgrounds are accessible everywhere. I remind my children, as they prepare for acceptance into college and the working world, that our profiles are embedded into the footprint we leave on every Facebook wall and in every blog response. It is inerasable, and it behooves all of us to watch our written words.

But there’s more that needs to be done when you are seeking out a new job. Yes, avoiding irreverent, political or religious rants is a given. But I’d spend more time being concerned with the written and verbal messaging that will actually enhance your personal brand and get you hired.

LinkedIn profiles should exude professionalism—not desperation.  To figure out what you should include in yours, think about who your audience is and how you want them to help you change jobs. You’ll want to be seen as a Subject Matter Expert, whether you’re a junior Customer Service Rep or the VP of Accounting. With a few carefully crafted lines, your profile should demonstrate how you’ve succeeded as you moved from role to role. Even if you had the job from Hell, find something good that came out of it. At the same time, your profile should also exude warmth, noting your career accolades in a soft-spoken but authoritative way.

I’m on the fence about LinkedIn profiles that include any taglines about how they’re looking for a new role. Unless you’re an in-demand Actuary or Engineer, you’re better off omitting this. Believe me, recruiters and Hiring Managers will seek you out if your skills match their needs, regardless of this extra push. Just check off the subtle box that indicates you are open to new opportunities, if you wish. But the body of your profile should closely resemble a perfect resume—a list of accomplishments, where you achieved them and what you're great at. Include Keywords and a few strong endorsements from present and former colleagues, and your personal brand is established. And don’t forget to add a professional photo.

Don’t stop there—branding should include your cover letters, job applications and networking, too.  It’s important for your brand message to be clear and consistent in every form when you network for a better position. When you get actual face time with someone who can help you find a job, be clear with him about what your strengths are. Don’t tell him about your needs—tell him about the value you can add to his company. You can be more vague about what your desired new role is (so you don’t pigeonhole yourself if that role is unavailable at the time) but feel free to tout what you’ve accomplished so far and how you can make a difference to their bottom line. This is especially important during a 1:1 dialogue, but the same message should come through in your cover letters, emails and job applications.

One exception to repeating the same message is on your resume. The resume should be adjusted to the job you’re applying to. You might have five core accomplishments that will appear in any resume you send out, but their order may change for each new role you apply to. There may be emphasis on specific accomplishments over others.

Most people looking at your resume will only give it a few seconds before they move on to the next one. Tailoring a resume to your audience doesn’t change your strong brand; it just makes it easier for recruiters and Hiring Managers to see you as an immediate match.

Inconsistencies in personal brands are common and recruiters and Hiring Managers see them all the time—cover letters that don’t match up to the conversation with a job candidate, indecision over the level of the role they desire, or even worse, a resume that looks completely different from the LinkedIn profile. This tells the interviewer that you might not have figured out where you belong in your career. Or maybe you’re just sloppy. Either way, your message will be lost until adjustments are made.

In your crusade for a new job, make your personal brand a priority. Hack away at the extraneous parts until you've distilled it down to a message that is easy for anyone to find you. Then make sure you are consistent with that message.

Rainy Days and Your Job Search

Rain, Rain and More Rain, a photo by Elizabeth Albert on Flickr.

Not every day in your job hunt is going to hold the promise of a new lead. There are going to be days when the spark of faith in your ability to land a permanent gig seems like a pretty distant flicker. At the same time, tuition bills and mortgages have to be paid; mouths have to be fed.

How do you sustain faith in your ability to contribute again? It’s pretty clear that in addition to creating a strong job search campaign, you have to work equally as hard at not feeling demoralized by your lack of options.

First, choose to focus on your talents and strengths.  Networking conversations and job interviews are opportunities to leave a great impression with others about your approach to your work. Negativity about the economy pervades everyone’s life these days and believe me, the folks you talk to don’t need to be reminded of it. When negative thoughts about your prospects for work pervade the conversation, Hiring Managers and recruiters can smell your desperation.

Instead of letting these exchanges become places to commiserate about the woes of your job hunt, stay on message with your contacts about how you can solve their company’s problems with your talents. Branding yourself as the solution to business problems has a lingering, lasting effect that will help get you hired.

Try a new tack on your job search. All the time.  Recruiters like myself get involved in lots of research. Looking for specific candidate qualifications, I could easily get caught up in look for qualified people down the same path for hours, and expecting a different result would be ludicrous. And so I change threads—looking under different rocks, to use an old cliché, to refresh my search.

Job hunters need to do the same. Try a new thread for your job search. Deviate from your tried-and-true path and look at a different industry, for a change. Instead of focusing only on finding a fulltime role, consider consulting opportunities or contracting yourself for a few hours to different firms each month, capitalizing on your expertise. Modify your resume for each job you pursue—gearing it to the specifics of the position. You will not only raise your chances of finding opportunities, but you’ll feel energized by the process.

Take a break when you feel hopeless. But make it a short one.  There’s a lot to be said about clearing your mind to stay better-focused on your job search. Take an hour each day to exercise. Make a meal for your family. Or pray. Then get back to work.

Faith and Fear over your job search cannot occupy the same space. The day has only twenty-four hours in it--don’t waste this valuable real estate. 

Matching Your Talents Vs. Your Skills On The Job

IMG_5396, a photo by mhowry on Flickr.

Yes—everyone has natural talents; those innate responses to tasks at work that are performed with minimal effort. When you perform them for the first time you laugh to yourself, realizing these where the traits your parents said they watched you gravitate toward as a child. Your talents reflect who you are—and bring you so much satisfaction that you can’t wait to do them again.

In his popular book Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham points out that our talents are intrinsic to our nature.  Our talents are in our DNA and we can’t change them. He states that we have to accept our talents, and instead of fighting against the tide we should refocus our work lives around them.

But your job, your bosses and your clients expect more from you than showcasing your natural-born talents when they hire you.  Specific skills are required to keep the machine running. You may excel at creating client presentations, for example, but you have to balance the department budget as well. Everyone in your finance team considers you an ace at spotting revenue streams and cost drivers, but they need you to crunch the data with accuracy as well.

So how much effort should you put into developing your skills, when your talents are screaming to be heard?

A lot. There are two things you need to remember:

These skills are necessary to your job survival, and they will always come harder than your talents will.

You start by acquiring rudimentary skills for your chosen profession at school. Over the years, you fill in the rest from your bosses and your colleagues. You take additional courses, attend seminars and read books. Since there’s little budget these days for on the job training, you add more skills on the fly. These skills are so important to keep your job, that the ones you’ve added in the past year are a key topic of discussion during your annual review. 

Developing your skill set is a requirement for not getting fired.

But it’s your underlying talent that makes you soar. It’s your natural aptitude that will give you the strength when you’re challenged with learning a difficult skill. Using your talent helps you find the fortitude to come back to work when you have a bad day, and gives you the courage to find partners and others whose talents complement the areas where you aren’t great.

Your personal talents combined with your skill set are an unstoppable partnership. And in those instances when you are good at what you do but you are miserable at work, one of two scenarios likely exists:

--You’ve developed your skills but you aren’t using your natural talents.

--You are using your talents but the environment and the mission of your company is not in line with your own.

When you get an opportunity to add to your skill set, always grab it. But the majority of your efforts should be spent on finding a role where your talents and your values align.

In recruiting, for example, the knack for sourcing hard-to-find candidates, a largely sought after talent that comes naturally to some but is a chore for others, might be lost in a large company that relies on strong branding to lure new candidates. In management consulting, your reputation for meeting client deliverables will offer you little personal satisfaction if you really prefer the mission of a non-profit organization.

Embrace your natural talents. Don’t try to change them because you can’t. Try to find the environment where they are welcome; even embraced. If that’s not an option in a narrow job market these days, then try to adjust your outlook and find a kernel of alignment within your company where your talents can shine and you can feel good about what you are doing.

How To Fall In Love With Your Career All Over Again.

Fall in love, a photo by ` TheDreamSky on Flickr.

The day may come when the weekly marching orders you get from your bosses start to sound more like nagging than directing. It will dawn on you that the aspects of your job that whispered accomplishment in your ear have suddenly stopped, and now sound like nails on a chalk board.

While this isn’t the inevitable outcome of a long career, it’s likely to happen at some point along the way.

Some of you might consider changing jobs. Others might decide to leverage your expertise and trade  bosses in for a set of your own clients in a consulting gig. But a career on your own, versus working for others, won’t make the problem of career malaise go away--not if you carry the same old problems with you.

All of us need to find ways to fall back in love with our work.

First, recognize what well-aligned work looks like.  You should feel liberated by the work you do, not confined by it. Work should feel natural and flow easily without feeling contrived. The nature of the work itself (as well as the people you work with) shouldn’t leave a knot in your stomach all the time, crippling you from doing your best.

Reconnecting to your work isn’t that hard. Here are a few things you can do:

--Slow your pace. Breathe. Take your time and put more thought into your key projects, instead of running on automatic pilot. Be more deliberate as you navigate through your day. You’ll appreciate how the job simply could not be finessed without the addition of your unique talents.

--Connect to others. Take the opportunity to nurture the novices in your field. This gives you the opportunity to deepen the lives of less-experienced people, with the added bonus of absorbing their enthusiasm.

--Stop competing. Let’s face it--there will always be someone smarter, faster, more charming or more politically savvy than you—it’s a vicious circle that you can’t escape. Any focus on besting coworkers or competitors in your field will zap your energy and your love of the role. Accept that your career is not a pissing contest. Instead, allow it to enrich your life while you’re earning a living.

Like the beginnings of a romantic relationship, the early infatuation you had with your career was intense but fleeting. What you want now is sustainable love; the kind that will last a lifetime. You may discover that rekindling a romance with your career isn’t about changing your job after all; it might be more about working through how you feel about it.

Time Management for The Employed Job Seeker

Time, a photo by John-Morgan on Flickr.

When you’re currently employed and looking for a new job, it’s important to learn how to mentally triage your efforts. Unlike the unemployed job seeker who absolutely should make their search a fulltime job by reading books, going after all possible leads and doing extensive internet research, you have to be more disciplined about how you spend your time.

Find quiet moments where you can mentally focus on your job search strategies. It’s hard to mentally switch off the initiatives you put into your current role and try to concentrate instead on a new job search. In fact, it’s very stressful. If you devote the contemplation of your job search strategies to the space when you are commuting to work for example, or on Saturday or Sunday mornings, you’ll have a clearer head about what tasks you need to complete.

First, figure out which tasks will yield the greatest result.  A job search often starts out with busy work. Spending hours applying online to Internet job postings and researching salary sites deludes you into believing you are actually being productive. When you overdo these exercises, you are performing the equivalent of reading about how to lose weight while nibbling on (what you swear) will be your last bag of Doritos. These are the time suckers that will sabotage your search—because it’s been proven that the percentage of job seekers hired from online job postings are minimal.

Networking is the best use of your time—but what exactly does that mean?  Okay, so networking is how most people find new jobs. But you are already employed for eight or more hours of your day and your current bosses own your time. Break down your networking activities into its greatest parts and schedule them into small blocks on your calendar:

·      In-person meetings

·      Phone conversations with decision makers

·      Informational interviews

·      Getting leads

·      Conversations with recruiters

It’s a given that your vacation days, your lunch hours and some of your evenings will be used for these networking activities and job interviews. It really isn’t ethical to do your job search while you are on your employer’s watch.

Don’t job hunt in a vacuum.  Everyone supports the efforts of someone who’s unemployed and looking for a job. But when you’re an employed job seeker you may feel like you’re leading a double life. After all, you should be grateful to be working at all, right? Stop feeling guilty and if you can, find a buddy who is also looking for a new job or sign up for a workshop or support group. Do it for feedback on your activities or for positive reinforcement. Do it to remind yourself you aren’t alone. Spouses, partners and families may be supportive, but no one can empathize with your job search and cheer you on better than someone already in the game.

Finding A Job When You Really Aren't Looking

stumble upon the dark mountains, a photo by cdrummbks on Flickr.

You’re finally in the zone at your job, perhaps for the first time ever. You’re engaged in the work you do and while you’re doing, it you’ve shed the old habits of clock watching and politicking because you’re---content.

But you should still be aware of new career opportunities around you. If you’re wondering why you should bother when you’re already happy, it’s because there are some opportunities around you that you don’t want to miss.

We’re in strange economic times. The truth is that everyone these days should be a passive job seeker. The amount of energy you invest in a mild job search will vary over the course of your career, but it behooves all of us to take these steps:

Update your resume within the first month of getting a new job.  This exercise does two things. It helps you discover your own definition of your new role. Don’t cheat by cutting and pasting the job description that was sent to you when you applied to your job. It’s your chance to put the sexiest parts of the role front and center on your resume. And if you find yourself in the unpleasant situation where you have to look for a new job, the important task of creating a resume is already completed.

Don’t network—have career “conversations”. Talk to leaders on other teams within your company and speak to outside organizations as well. Walk the fine line of passively job seeking by showing that you are intellectually curious about your industry and how you could best contribute.

Have these conversations with one or two trusted recruiters.  Don’t play games. Give the appropriate signals that there are specific roles and companies that you are passively open to.

If you do interview passively, be honest throughout the process.  Be clear about your level of interest and carefully answer the question about what it would take for you to make a change. Nothing will burn a bridge faster than giving clear signals you would accept an offer if the job was based at home, for example, and then declining the offer once they give you the telecommuter role you’ve asked for.

You might be surprised when a passive interview reveals a job you’d be truly interested in. You might find out that your current salary is worse than you thought. Or it might be better than you thought. You might even discover through the process that your current job is exactly where you should be.

Fighting For Your Work/Life Balance

balanced rock in arches state park utah, a photo by Tim Pearce, Los Gatos on Flickr.

Fighting for a Work/Life Balance

When I hate the job I’m in, I focus on my private life. And if things are awry at home, I seek the solace of immersing myself in my job.

The truth is—I want to love my job all the time. Over the years I’ve made incremental career moves that ticked off as many boxes on my happiness factor list as I could possibly muster. The key is knowing what your criteria are.

Opt for clear boundaries.  Most workers will say that doing stimulating work is their number one general goal when they look for work. You also have to finesse separating your work time from your personal time—and to do this, you have to set clear boundaries. Since we’re all electronically wired into our roles these days, it’s too easy to pick up the Blackberry at 8PM when we want to read our children to sleep. Challenge your boss’s expectations of you being on call 24/7.

Find a boss who cares about your results vs. your methods.  Does your manager care more about how many hours you put into the project, instead of the final results? Is she more concerned about face time in the office vs. how you successfully talked that new client off the ledge? If you’re good at what you do, the logistics should be secondary.

If you’re burnt out at your job, try cutting back five hours a week.  Monitor yourself. Did the quality of the work change? if not, adjust accordingly.

Allow your personal work style to compartmentalize your day.  Do the tasks that come easily to you in the morning, if you’re an early bird. For me, research flows better during the early, uninterrupted-by-phone calls hours of the day. For you, it might mean balancing your team budget in the evening. If you’re stressed when the work day is over, find peaceful moments in between the end of work and your arrival home. Listen to books in the car on a long commute home, or choose silence—a scarce commodity.

Your vocation can be separate from your personal interests. Like you, I have a lot of items on my bucket list. And I think it’s fine if they have nothing to do with my career. Many people (especially entrepreneurs) reach for the blend and refuse to settle for anything less than a hobby or personal talent that morphs into a paying career.

I’m okay with pursuing my writing and my art  after I leave the work day behind. It’s a personal choice and there’s no shame in enjoying a career that is just your career. 

Then, the rest of the time, you can explore what makes you human.