Karma for the Career Coach?

By Pamelagrace Beatty

A large company in California was laying off thousands of its employees around the world. The company established a career counseling center where I worked for a year with a team of consultants helping to prepare the ex-employees to find new jobs.  We had a big three-ring binder full of information.  We had power point slides, videos of the right way to interview, small group discussions, and we did one-on-one counseling. For some, it was a slam-dunk.  This was usually the newer, and perhaps younger, people who had been looking for a job only a short while ago.  The sales force people took the ball and ran with it too. They understood the basic premise or approach to finding jobs because they used the same approach in sales. 

Using our process to find work was more difficult for the folks who had been with the company for a long time.  Part of the difficulty was that up until now, the company presented itself as a family affair where its employees had a job for life. This company had been around for a long time and its product was reliable and sold well…until now.  As things will do, something had changed. The company was losing market share. It seemed this would be a temporary thing, or so the leadership thought.  In fact, things continued to get worse, and sales continued to fall.  Finally, out of desperation, the company hired a new president to fix their problems.  The “fix” turned out to be laying off thousands of employees around the world.

Back to the folks who had worked there for years and thought they would retire from their positions. This was a shock.  They had believed the company’s line that they had job security.  Now they realized there was no such thing.  As we counseled them on how to rewrite their resumes, re-shape their backgrounds to fit new jobs, and how to market themselves, some said, “Market myself?  Are you kidding?  I thought YOU were going to find me a job!”

We counselors had tight timelines.  The contract only allowed a limited amount of time to get each employee launched into a new job, and that time limit was unrealistic.  It was not enough to deal with the shock most of the folks were in. And it was certainly not enough time to get them out in the world, presenting what they wanted to do now that they weren’t doing the job they knew so well, and had been at for so long.  We did the best we could and got them as far as we could.  

On the one hand, it was good that the company at least provided career counseling.  On the other hand, the amount of time we had to work with the majority of them was not enough.  Some of that majority retired. Some finally got the physical problems they had been enduring like torn rotator cuffs or hip and knee issues worked on. Some just gave up.

As a career counselor, I couldn’t understand why what we presented was so hard. It was simply a matter of networking.  Telling everyone you knew that you were looking for a job and what job you wanted. I knew it was a different approach, but it was so much better than the standard approach of going on the internet, checking job boards, and applying for a job.  Yes, it is possible to get a job that way but the amount of work and time it takes before you finally land a job can be prohibitive and long!!  It is also discouraging as rejection after rejection comes back.  At that time, companies still sent out rejection emails and letters.  Now, the applicant frequently never hears from the company unless they are invited in for an interview. I felt badly for those who couldn’t get the hang of what we were teaching. I had gotten all my work as a consultant using this method. I knew it worked.  But why wasn’t it working for so many of these people?

Fast forward to 3 years later when I moved to Seattle and, of course, started to apply the method I’d taught for so many years in California to find consulting gigs. It didn’t work. Now, I began to understand why it didn’t work for so many that I was coaching at the career center. There were three key factors that impacted whether the process could be successfully applied:

• Emotional Readiness
• Job Clarity
• Networking

Emotional Readiness

The people at the company had been told this was a “forever” job.  Or at least that was what the company culture said.  Even though things were changing all around them, and competition was getting tougher, the employees must have thought their well-respected product would continue to be in high demand.  That proved not to be so. Many of the employees were stunned when the new president announced the layoffs. Even those of us who were aware of the trends, and the company’s market share losses, were surprised at how many people were being laid off and how quickly.  Consequently, we consultants in the Career Center found our workshops filled with people who looked like they were in shock – and they were.  They couldn’t absorb what we were saying, much less apply it.  Some stayed in shock beyond the time we had to work with them. Our hope was that they would look at the materials we gave them when they were emotionally able to entertain getting a new job and find them helpful.

Job Clarity

Having a clear idea of what kind of work they wanted next was essential.  Looking for a new position can be the perfect time to change to something you might like better.  A large amount of people working dislike the jobs they are in.  It takes as much effort to find a job you don’t like as it does to find one you do.  However, figuring out what you might like to do can take a bit of thinking…and dreaming.  When I have asked a client what would they like to do, the response has been, “What would I like to do?  I would like to find a job!”  Or “Gee, nobody has ever asked me that before!”  That is where the dreaming comes in. When we are tied to a job we don’t love, and are just trying to force ourselves to deal with it on a daily basis, we don’t have the bandwidth to consider what we might really enjoy doing, and then going after that work. But being clear on what it is we want is essential for making the third key factor work for us.

Networking

Telling everyone in our “network,” or circle of people we know, is a very effective way to find new work. According to HubSpot, 85% of jobs are filled through networking. In fact, according to CNBC, 70% of jobs are never published publicly. So those positions posted on the job boards frequently are already filled before your resume is reviewed.  People in your network may know about these jobs before they are even posted. Hiring managers are more willing to consider a job applicant someone they know knows versus vetting a perfect stranger. Some companies encourage their employees to recommend people the employee knows, and even pay bonuses for the referrals who are hired.  Usually, an employee will refer a good possibility to the company because they want management to look favorably on them, rather than blame them for a bad hire.  Even if people in your network aren’t working in the area you are interested in, they may know of someone, or hear of a job that is perfect for you.  One client I was working with wanted to be an administrative assistant to a writer.  She mentioned this to her car mechanic and discovered that his wife was a writer and was looking for someone to help her with administrative tasks.  A match was made. 

When I moved to Seattle and tried to use the process I had taught in California, I clearly saw what the issues were.  The difficulty I had developing a network, and finding work, seemed like Karma for my not understanding why it was so hard for that large group of laid-off folks to get what I was trying to teach them. I was now in their shoes. I was not emotionally prepared for the loss of my friends, and different communities like art, dance, or consulting. I was clear about what I wanted to do, but I had no network here and hadn’t given that a thought when I decided to move. I also didn’t realize that I built my network in California over a period of 20 years. I didn’t have 20 years to build a network now, I needed to find work within six months.   I did it, but it was challenging. 

So, the three key factors work, if you work them. And here’s an added bonus, they work on getting much of what you might want beyond the job arena, from a new furnace to selling your old stereos.  Isn’t that cool?  Try it and see and let me know how it goes.