May 23, 2013

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Find a Better Career

February 14th, 2013

Tough times can shake people’s faith in their ability to make a career change to something better. In the midst of a sluggish economy many people are staying in unsatisfying jobs where they are unhappy and under-employed. To pull free of the wrong job fit or find a rewarding career after a job loss, it’s time to rethink your approach. Here is one important step to take to begin the process of finding a better career.

Discover YOU—your strengths and passions.

Often individuals who thrive consistently have high self-awareness about their strengths and passions. Many successful people including Oprah and Richard Branson, Virgin Air have said a condition for great achievement is passion. When your strengths and passions are applied in your work, your potential and enthusiasm are limitless. People who use their strengths and talents are more than three times as likely to report an overall excellent quality of life.

Once you clarify your authentic strengths and interests, you’ll be a powerful force when interviewing and striving toward your career goals. Do not look for a new job before you identify your strengths because you are likely to become underemployed and mismatched in the wrong position.

So how do you determine strengths to select a path that is right for you? Begin by brainstorming what triggers your enthusiasm and what motivates you. Sit down in a quiet place to list 20 things you like to do. Then look for patterns. Do you prefer working with data, people, things or ideas. You may discover, for example it’s more important than you realized to be physically active and your work should not be behind a desk all day. Or you want to be around busy and loud environments, which might rule out a secluded one-person office. You’ll know a particular career is right when you are curious and enthusiastic about getting started.

Get clear about yourself by answering the following questions:

- What is one skill or strength you do well that you would like to use in your work?

- Which of your previous work results are you proud of—and what were you doing?

- What tasks and topics get your heart racing?

- If you could do one thing in your professional life that would have the most positive impact, what would it be?

After completing the questions, it helps to talk through your answers with someone. Talking about yourself with a peer helps to uncover patterns and shines a brighter light on your skills and interests. It is critical not to isolate during a career move—it’s the kiss of death. Sometimes what you need most is a person who believes in you. It’s interesting that other people often can see for us what we may not see for ourselves. Other people can push us through walls that block us, sometimes just by having a new set of eyes on the problem. Often creative ideas are born during discussions with a different perspective. Many times, all it takes is an encouraging word or new idea from a friend to move forward. But a career change is not easy and next time we will cover the next step to help you handle change.

by Sunny Lurie, Fast Focus Careers

Posted in Blog, Career advice, career change, Career coaching, career counseling, Career options, career planning, choosing a career, Sunny K. Lurie | No Comments »

Thinking About a New Career

January 13th, 2013

A low risk way to test a new career is try it on the side. Many people want to experiment before leaving their full time job. Even if you are busy, “side launching” is a viable and effective way to begin your new career or business. These ideas can help you get going:

1. Be disciplined and consistent about the hours you choose to work on your idea. Is it from 5 to 7am before your family life or other commitments begin — or are late evening hours better? Are you carving out time on the weekends? Be honest and clear with yourself about where to find pockets of time and make it a part of your routine; your road to success will be faster.

2. Decide whether and when to tell friends, colleagues and your boss. You may be surprised by their enthusiasm and support. When I knew I was leaving Key Bank to begin my own company, I told my manager several months ahead and they were supportive.

3. Determine benchmarks for yourself that indicate when you would consider making your side work a full time venture. What would you be willing to sacrifice for a time if it meant being able to devote more energy to your new career? Be realistic but also be willing to go for it! Thanks to Ladies Who Launch for these ideas.

-Sunny K. Lurie, Ph.D.

Tags: Add new tag, career change
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Harvard Bus. Review, Work Today

April 23rd, 2012

Recently published, The Corporate Lattice, Harvard Business Review Press; August, 2010 defines an emerging model more suitable for today’s workforce. At the heart of the lattice organization is a customized workplace that provides agility and options for both employees and employers. Individuals have more than one way to get ahead — and even more than one way to define what get ahead means. For employers, these options create strategic flexibility and drive greater employee engagement, resulting in superior performance. The book’s three key components or “lattice ways” involve:

How careers are built. Depicting career paths as multi directional with moves up and down, as well as diagonally and across. Success is defined and achieved in a multiplicity of ways.
How work gets done. Shifting from nine-to-five, in-the-office to results-driven work through a hybrid of remote and physical locations and communication methods.
How participation is fostered. Moving from top down to “all in,” as technology enables relationships, teamwork and collaboration that can no longer be constrained (or controlled) by the traditional rules of hierarchy.

The pace of change is faster. Organizational structures are flatter. Companies are much easier to see into. Careers zig and zag. Work is done whenever and wherever. Information flows in every which way. And performance and productivity are more dependent upon a highly educated workforce– much more diverse in every respect than ever before.

Together, these changes are forever altering the traditional assumptions on which the prevailing corporate ladder and the command-and-control, top-down management style that defines it were built. In the new book, Deloitte, Vice Chairman and Chief Talent Officer C. Benko and Deloitte Services, Director of Talent M. Anderson make a compelling case that it’s time to dismantle the metaphorical ladder.

The authors show that organizations are indeed making lattice investments — Web 2.0 technologies, career pathways, remote and virtual work sites, social networking, workplace flexibility, inclusion programs, etc.–but through the lens of corporate ladder thinking. These companies are responding with ad hoc, siloed and reactive efforts that fall short of the desired results by failing to also address the underlying “ladder” mindset and structures. By providing a framework to integrate these efforts, companies and individuals alike can visualize the shift and have greater clarity about the changes underway, thereby making both existing and future investments more productive. – PR Newswire. Added to Fast Focus Careers Blog by Sunny Lurie

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Flexibility Beats Passion, Says LinkedIn Founder

March 1st, 2012

Listen up, job hunters…LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman has pulled off something extraordinary in his book-writing debut. He has challenged a well-worn idea — the importance of letting your passions guide your job hunt — and replaced it with something better.

As far back as 1971, when the first edition of “What Color Is Your Parachute?” appeared, career coaches have been urging people to start by figuring out what they love to do most of all. Then, the conventional wisdom says, figure out a way to spend your life in that field, whether it’s being a pastry chef or a hedge-fund trader.

That’s fine advice in a world where we settle into one career for most of our working lives, Hoffman and co-author Ben Casnocha argue in the newly published “The Start-Up of You.” But, the authors point out, such a world doesn’t exist any more. Opportunities come and go at an astonishing speed.

For example, you might graduate from college and then head off to India to be a public-health specialist. If that didn’t sustain you, you could spend the next decade collecting an MBA and then giving management consulting and government service a try. Even those might not be your final destination — you might uproot yourself once more to become a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

Such zigzags shouldn’t be seen as fumbled attempts to solve the “passion question,” Hoffman and Casnocha argue. Instead, they say, bouncing around in the job market is healthy, normal — and maybe even optimal.

The most important virtue, in their eyes, is adaptability. You may have some early ideas about what looks most fulfilling, and you shouldn’t disregard those hunches entirely. But you won’t really know your passions until you discover what you’re really good at, and what pursuits are being rewarded — or at least tolerated — in the marketplace.

In short, the authors say, “you don’t know what the best plan is until you try.”

Building up LinkedIn, as a social network focused on people’s work identities, proved to be a perfect fit. But even that isn’t Hoffman’s final destination. He’s LinkedIn’s chairman but not CEO these days, and spends much of his time as a venture capitalist at Greylock Partners.

For people who aren’t going to soar that high (which happens to be 99.9% of the book’s likely readers), Hoffman and fellow entrepreneur Casnocha offer a series of down-to-earth maxims. Most of the advice is quite good, though a few pointers seem forced. Among the authors’ suggestions:

- Develop an ABZ plan, where A is what you’re doing now, B is a logical next step, and Z is your fallback plan in case nothing goes right. Keep that safe landing spot in mind, and you can take more risks without being one step away from calamity.

- Maintain an identity separate from specific employers. Hey, it’s 2012. Even the best jobs can come and go, as General Motors, Kodak and a host of other companies keep proving. Whether you’re in sales, strategy or pastry decoration, the authors urge you to “Develop a public portfolio of work that’s not tied to your employer.” That way, if one job becomes a cul de sac, you can still keep moving forward.

- Explore new career possibilities via side projects at first. That way you can safely discover if this year’s hobby might become next year’s main source of income. Move up Move down

- Hang out with people who are already the way you want to be. This advice, of course, is tantamount to a plug to join LinkedIn and become an active networker, poster, etc. But it’s a valid idea anyway.

There’s a sunny quality to “The Start-Up of You” that comes from the authors’ decision to focus on the most successful examples of the principles they espouse. (That former World Bank staffer in India, by the way, turns out to be Sheryl Sandberg, now the chief operating officer of Facebook.) If some people have remade their professional identity too many times — like itchy drivers constantly switching lanes on the highway — we don’t hear about them.

But Hoffman and Casnocha finish strong. They point out that the adaptive, entrepreneurial spirit that they champion is found in some of the world’s most prosperous and harmonious countries. When immigrants uproot themselves to get to the U.S. or other places where the entrepreneurial spirit is strongest, they validate the power and the appeal of an adaptive path.

By G. Anders, Contributor

Posted to blog by Sunny K. Lurie, Fast Focus Careers (statements I strongly agree with I’ve put in bold face)

Posted in Blog, Career advice, career change, Career coaching, career counseling, Career options, career planning, Career resilience, choosing a career, Sunny K. Lurie | No Comments »

Consider Being an Adult Intern

July 30th, 2011

Ever think about how to try out a new career? Why do only students get to work in internships? I encourage professionals at any age to seek an internship. Such as a short term project with a moderate salary to help a business or organization achieve a goal they’ve been wanting to complete. Offer your assistance and you get to test drive a new field -it’s great, everyone wins. So why don’t we hear about these opportunities more often? Probably because professionals typically don’t ask for a chance to do it.

I suggest if you are looking for a new career, identify a few organizations where you’d like to work and propose to take on a project for 30-60 days for a moderate fee. You would need clear objectives and outcomes and do the best job possible. After you finish the project, promote your accomplishments in your resume to market yourself in the field. People with the enthusiasm and creativity take on a temporary internship to gain experience, would certainly be impressive and stand out from the crowd. So let’s go companies and professionals – look for ways to get adult internships going – it’s good for everyone! If you want help starting this conversation, please contact us.

- Sunny Lurie, PhD., Fast Focus Careers

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Face Down Your Fear of Change

August 2nd, 2010

The Face of Change

This is a topic many of us are dealing with today. Whether your organization is going through change or you have to change jobs, scary feelings of uncertainty are often triggered. People in the midst of change frequently take a wait-and-see approach that stops progress. There’s no doubt fear and uncertainty are linked with change but you CAN control how you “react” to change. View this time as an opportunity, an opening into a future you can help design. This period is a chance to redefine what you want to be. Focus on the outcome you would like.

If changing your career has become a necessity it’s time for soul searching. This may be the push you need to pursue your passion. Think bigger than your immediate box to stretch yourself beyond your current circumstances. When you do that, you’re 99 percent guaranteed to run up against fear at some point. It just comes with the territory.

Most people will do about anything possible to keep from feeling that fear. It’s one of the biggest obstacles keeping people from taking serious steps towards their dreams. And that’s unfortunate because, that fear can actually be an enormously valuable asset. Fear can be seen as a catalyst to help venture out from a cozy comfort zone.

Fear comes in two varieties: limiting fear and productive fear. Limiting fear stops you dead in your tracks. Productive fear shines a light on potential dangers so you can assess how to minimize or eliminate them. And sometimes the only difference between the two has to do with what you do when you feel that fear.

The fear might be there for a very good reason. For example, let’s say you want to make a career change, but you’re afraid you will not succeed and run out of money. That fear could either be a limiting fear, keeping you from taking any action, or a productive fear, helping you understand more about how to move toward your goal.

Ask yourself two questions to help harness the positive potential of your fear:

What warning does this fear have for me and are they valid? “If I do this, then X could happen.” Be aware whether or not the warnings are valid. For example, the warnings might be, “If you pursue this path and you fail, you’ll suffer a massive setback to your career.” The warning about the massive career setback might actually be greatly exaggerated. I always think like this: If someone took a couple years off to travel around the world, how adversely would that affect their career? Typically not much, especially in the big picture.

What could I do to eliminate or minimize each of the risk factors? For example, rather than flipping the switch and making a change immediately, you might delay for a year and focus on building your network and skills. Take whatever small steps you can towards the new direction while you are still earning money. Also, set aside more money than you might need to start and be realistic about how much time it will actually take.

The more you can examine the fears and put valid fears to use, the more they can be used as a force to move you towards your vision. Don’t let fear and uncertainty break your spirit. You have more power than you know – use it.

- Curt Rosengren
- Sunny Lurie, PhD, article contributor, Fast Focus Careers

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7 Radical Steps to Make a Change

May 6th, 2010

I’m always on the look out for novel and effective career tips. Nick Corcodilos, author of How Do I Change Careers? offers some good ideas to consider. He says, “career changers typically don’t have a network of industry friends, they don’t have a resume stuffed with industry-specific accomplishments, and they often face the dismal prospect of having to jog down a few notches in the corporate hierarchy to make up for lack of experience.”

If those hurdles aren’t enough, they’re often going about the process in all the wrong ways, says Corcodilos. “They’re all victims of brainwashing about what it means to look for a job,” he says. “The current wisdom says to crank up your network, polish your resume and get it out there. It’s all oriented to having you get your documents out there, in the hope that somebody will figure out what to do with you.”

That’s all wrong, Corcodilos says. Instead, job seekers should practice reverse psychology. Enough about you! What about the person at the company who needs to fill the job?

“The notion of building your personal brand is pure bunk,” he says. It’s a narcissistic view of how you get ahead. It’s about feeling the employer’s pain. If you want to pull off a career change, you need to give hiring managers a specific business plan as to why they should allow you into the organization.”

Here is Nick’s radical plan for a job search.

Step 1: Give yourself the freedom to explore. Forget that you’re looking for a job. First, you have to figure out where you want to go. We’re talking “blue sky” here. So head to the library, an old school but shockingly useful treasure trove of helpful information. Forget the Internet. Too focused, too virtual. Right now, you need to roam the periodicals section, allowing yourself the luxury of following wherever your interest takes you. After you’re done reading In Touch and Rolling Stone, sidle on over to the trade publications and start nosing around. Gather up a few publications that interest you, and see if you can find any patterns. Jot down notes on stories that generate a spark. Start drilling down into specific companies, taking notes on their business prospects, their revenue, their problems, their successes. And start taking names. The people mentioned in stories about a company are typically their movers and shakers. You’ll need them for Step 2.

Step 2: Armed with information about four or five–no more!–companies where you think you would enjoy working, pick up the phone or ferret out an email to get in touch with the people on your list. Don’t ask for an informational interview! They’ll drop you like a hot potato! Instead, come up with some thought-provoking question that might inspire the person on the other end of your missive to engage. Ask them what they’re reading these days that influences their work, ask about an industry issue. The point is to establish a connection, get a little more information, and see if this industry is actually one that would be a good fit.

Step 3: Simultaneously, you should be figuring out how to meet more people in the industry you’ve targeted. What are the events, training programs, blogs, online communities, and organizations that attract these folks? If you can connect with some of them via friends, all the better. Just remember: The key is to talk shop with them not belabor them with your career aspirations. Ask for advice and insight–not job leads.

Step 4: If, after all this researching and chatting, you’re still keen on the new industry, you need to figure out how your current skills map to a future employer’s needs. Figure out the work function you’re most interested in and the skills it requires. What are you missing? Do you need more education or training? Is that a deal breaker? You may have to trade income and status for a chance to learn the ropes.

Step 5: If you’re now as up-to-speed as you’re ever likely to be, it’s time to get serious. With a grasp of the problems and challenges your prospective employer is facing, you’re now ready to draft a business plan for the job you want. This doesn’t have to be too detailed. You’re not expected to know the nitty gritty of the company’s balance sheet. The goal is to demonstrate you’ve been thinking about THAT COMPANY’s specific problems, and what you could do to help them.

Step 6: Using the contacts you’ve developed, try to find a manager who might hear you out. This is NOT about answering a posted job listing. This is about all those jobs that never get posted–or don’t even exist until you’ve shown that they should create a job just for you.

Step 7: Now, for the tricky part. Let’s say you’ve impressed the hiring manager with your creativity and charm but you still don’t have the background the other folks on his or her team have. Time to negotiate! Point out your relevant skills and suggest that if you meet a certain number of milestones toward new skills in a certain amount of time, you can revisit the compensation question. Changing careers often incurs costs, but you should treat it as an investment.

The market is admittedly tough, Corcodilos concedes, but “good companies are still looking for good people who can help them make a profit.” Why shouldn’t it be you?

- Linda Tischler, Fast Company

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In a Recession Should I Try for a Better Career?

March 23rd, 2010

Should I Find a Better Job?

A common question we’ve been getting is, “Should I try for a better job during the recession?” The answer is, yes you should! There are thousands of people who are unhappy in their jobs and afraid to leave. If you are losing sleep over the decision to stick it out or plan for a new career, we can tell you from experience-look for a career better suited for you. Why? You can have several positive results when your job is satisfying. Often you achieve greater success, higher job performance, better health and even happier relationships when your work is the right fit.

Continue to work in the old job to pay your bills and start taking small steps during lunch, at night and weekends to do research into other career fields and network with contacts. When you have investigated and networked enough to launch your new career, you’ll know it’s time to leave for something better. Here are three tasks to get you started...

One, determine a specific career you are interested in seeking.

Two, write an action plan with a list of contacts to meet and places to investigate — such as professional associations or educational needs. Be sure to include a due date next to each task and writing it helps to improve chances of doing it.

Three, identify a support person who is very upbeat and motivating and ask for permission to talk regularly during the process. In summary, yes you can find something better if you are focused with a plan and a support person to help you achieve your goal.

- Sunny K. Lurie, PhD., Fast Focus Careers

Posted in Blog, Career advice, career change, Career coaching, career counseling, choosing a career, Sunny K. Lurie, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Coaches Help Move Careers

March 1st, 2010

We have fitness coaches and sports coaches, why not a “career” coach? So follow me here: If research repeatedly shows 50% of employees are unhappy at work and 70% of U.S. workers are not engaged in their work, then wouldn’t it make sense to talk to someone who specializes in helping people explore career options, identify their strengths and move into a satisfying career?

Logical, right? Career experts can get your career moving in new directions.

Consider using a career expert to help guide your career through one of these moves:
#1 Move within same organization with expanded responsibilities
#2 Move within same organization with different responsibilities
#3 Move within same industry in to a different organization
#4 Move using same skills in to a different industry

Practical career advice can help you plan out which move is best for you. The goal is to get into a meaningful career that you find satisfying– and career coaches can get you there.

- Sunny K. Lurie, PhD.

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