YouMap

by Kristin A Sherry

  You can also search a functional skill plus the target industry, such as “Program Management Healthcare.” Get creative with your searches!

  2. Use the O*NET Occupational Database by navigating in a browser to www.onetonline.org. Next, enter the occupation in the Occupation Quick Search box in the upper right corner.

  For example, if you’re looking for an IT project manager role, enter that into the Occupation Quick Search. In the returned results, click the hyperlinked Information Technology Project Manager occupation.

  Near the top of the Summary Report you will see a section titled, “Sample of Reported Job Titles.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports on job titles based on the current labor market.

  For the IT project manager example, you will see in the Sample of Reported Job Titles section the following job titles listed for individuals employed in the information technology project management field. You can paste these titles into the search feature of job boards.

  IT Manager, IT Project Manager, Manager of IT, Program Manager, Project Manager, Project Manager/Team Coach, Senior Lead Project Manager, Senior Project Leader/Team Lead, Technical Project Lead (Project Manager), Transition Program Manager.

  Remember when I asked you to complete the highlighting exercise of your deal makers and deal breakers at the end of “Find Yourself?” Your YouMap® will prove useful here, as you can compare a job description against the deal makers and deal breakers you highlighted in your profile.

  As you research job descriptions, compare those descriptions to your highlighted checklist of deal makers and deal breakers in your YouMap®. How does the job description compare to the skills you have highlighted? Do you see more burnout skills highlighted than motivating skills? Does it appear you will use your strengths in this role? If the job description doesn’t seem to resonate with the “How I’m Wired” section, proceed with caution. Make a note of any concerns you have and bring those to the next step in the process: testing the waters!

  Entering a new career can create feelings of uncertainty and overwhelm for many. You might be wondering if you’ll be as good in another role as you are in current or previous roles. If you’re a recent graduate who hasn’t entered the workforce, you might be even more unsure. Following are several suggestions to test the waters before taking the leap into a new career.

  Informational Interviews

  Informational interviews involve informal conversations with someone who works, or has worked, in an area that appeals to you. You can leverage your entire network to see whom you might be interested in speaking with regarding the opportunities you’re considering.

  Some readers might be skeptical, thinking they don’t have a very large network of people to ask, but your network is probably larger than you think. Here are just a few networking sources you might not have considered:

  • People with whom you volunteer, engage in hobbies, play sports, or go to church

  • Alumni or professors from your academic institution

  • Past or present coworkers

  • Friends and family

  • Professional associations or clubs where you are a member

  • Mentors or business contacts

  • Former or current employees of companies you’re targeting

  • Vendors or customers you know

  • Recruiters

  Your YouMap® will be an invaluable resource for informational interviews because it gives the person you’re speaking with a quick and distilled snapshot of your assets. At a glance, he or she will be able to see the daily work activities you enjoy and the value you bring as described in the My Unique Contribution statement. This enables your networking contact to generate ideas about roles he or she is aware of that align strongly with your profile. In “Show the World!”, I’ll introduce you to creating a networking conversation and a networking sheet to use in these conversations.

  When I was in college studying neuroscience in the Department of Psychology, my mother arranged an informational interview between me and a neurologist she knew professionally. After our meeting I knew neuroscience wasn’t right for me. I was thankful for the informational interview!

  One final note for career changers thinking about what’s next. Remember that for most people a career path is often not linear. In this video, “Seven Lessons About Career Change,” INSEAD Professor Herminia Ibarra and six people who have successfully transitioned careers are interviewed and share some useful lessons about career change.

  youtu.be/NKwYTmHExWQ

  Volunteer Work

  If your potential next career step is one where you have little or no direct experience, a good way to gain experience and test if you like the job is through volunteer work. I performed career coaching as a volunteer and coached hundreds of people by the time I decided on career coaching as my main profession. Shifting from volunteer to paid coaching was a smooth transition because I already had word-of-mouth referrals from pro bono clients. I also created a formal coaching process to guarantee consistent methods to coach each person with excellence.

  A former coworker tried her hand in editing and copywriting for a local nonprofit by volunteering to produce their monthly newsletter.

  Volunteer organizations offer opportunities to dabble in event planning, photography, cooking, life coaching, graphic design, audio/visual production, financial planning, project management, program administration, teaching, training, public speaking, fundraising, grant writing, marketing, elementary education, sales, and much more. Volunteer work can also be a valuable way to gain management experience if you’re an individual contributor considering a move to management.

  Years ago, I volunteered as an Awana Commander at my church. I launched the program from scratch and recruited volunteers. I was responsible for leading and training about twenty-one volunteers. While leading the team was unpaid experience, I contend that leading people who aren’t paid to be there can be far more challenging than managing people who are paid to show up!

  Volunteer work isn’t suitable for everyone. You might be a single mom or dad with limited child care options or working two jobs to make ends meet. If taking on volunteer work would place undue stress on you or your family, you can disregard this suggestion.

  The Side Hustle

  While starting a business on the side isn’t for everyone and won’t work universally with all occupations (like brain surgeons), a side hustle can be another way to test the waters.

  Here are some things to consider when starting a side hustle:

  • First, define your model customer and then the services you might provide your customer.

  • Save six months of expenses to enable you to quit your job. Make radical lifestyle changes if needed.

  • Figure out your services, scheduling, proposal and invoice process before other aspects of the business. Don’t try to build everything at once; concentrate on your operational needs. Perhaps a website can come later, for example.

  • Seek a few unpaid jobs or, better yet, barter and trade services to refine your process and ask those people to write an online testimonial.

  • Interact on social media related to your product or service to generate interest.

  • Emphasize being a giver not a taker. Constantly pushing your wares will turn people off.

  • Develop customer-centric messaging on the pain you solve for your customer. Explain why and what, not how.

  • Go to networking events and share your why.

  I asked side hustle advice from some other business owners in my network, and here is what they added:

  • Laura advises to remember to set aside payments for taxes because you’re responsibl
e for paying them.

  • Michael says to leap! When you’re sitting still, nothing happens.

  • Crystal suggests having business cards with dedicated business contact details to lend credibility.

  • Joseph suggests always keep learning and refining your process. He does not agree that you should ever work for free as it could lessen your perceived value.

  • Raina says to network effectively by engaging with the right people.

  What if you would love to work for yourself, but you have no idea what you would do?

  Sam Horn, CEO of The Intrigue Agency and TEDx speaker, gave me permission to share her story explaining how she created the career she loves and her advice on how you can too. The following was originally written by Sam as a blog post.

  “Finding your passion isn’t just about careers and money. It’s about finding your authentic self. The one you’ve buried beneath other people’s needs.”

  – Kristen Hannah

  One of the keys to doing work you love is to stop thinking you will find it—as if it exists out there intact—and all you have to do is look long and hard enough, and EUREKA, there it will be, hiding behind a tree.

  Work we love more often emerges from doing something we’re good at, something that matters to us, something that when we do it we feels authentic, like we’re doing what we were born to do. It is a result of acting on what calls us and creating a career path that is congruent with what we care about.

  You may be thinking, “Sounds good in theory, but HOW do I do this in practice?”

  Well, here’s how I created my career as a professional speaker/author/consultant. I didn’t even know this profession existed when I was growing up. There was no major or degree in this at college. No newspaper ads with job announcements hiring for this type of work. No map to follow. No directions.

  The work I’m doing is the result of intuitive yet strategic steps I took along the way that honored what I call the Four I’s of our Career Compass. When I had career decisions to make and didn’t know what to do, I checked in with my Instincts, Interests, Integrity, Initiative.

  Invariably, the Four I’s pointed me in the right direction and provided my next step. Honoring my Career Compass has yielded a deep and truly satisfying success that feels right in my heart.

  It started back when I needed to make my first major career decision: What was I going to major in at college? Thanks to my dad giving me an inspiring quote by W. H. Murray and encouraging me to be bold on behalf of what felt right, I had the prescience to honor my four I’s.

  Instincts: My instincts were telling me to follow my heart and study Recreation Administration instead of following other people’s advice to take the traditional option of being a doctor or lawyer.

  Interests: I loved playing, coaching, and organizing sports and recreational activities so studying Recreation Administration was in alignment with my interests.

  Integrity: I wanted a career that added value. Money was not my primary motivator. Doing something that mattered and that would make a positive difference for people was my priority.

  Initiative: I didn’t wait for job opportunities to come my way. I actively sought out and pitched myself into professional opportunities that were in alignment with my other three I’s.

  A college student named Mark said, “Okay, I get the Four I’s, but how did that lead to your current career?”

  “Years ago, I was reading The Washington Post and noticed the word concentration was used six times in the sports section. Tennis player Chrissie Evert said her ability to stay focused despite the planes flying overhead was why she’d been able to win the US Open. A golfer who missed a putt on a sudden death playoff hole said he’d lost his concentration because of the clicking cameras of nearby photographers.

  “I was intrigued. (I now know that when we’re intrigued, opportunity is knocking on our heart.)

  “I thought, 'We all wish we could concentrate better, but no one ever teaches us how. Concentration is the key to success in just about everything—business, relationships, sports and life—but I’ve never seen any books or heard any speakers on this subject. And it matters.’

  “This topic interested me. I felt it was an important personal and professional skill that would benefit people, so it was in alignment with my integrity. And my instincts were telling me there was a commercial need for this and people would pay to be taught how to do it better.

  “I decided to initiate a deep dive into the topic of concentration with the goal of offering public workshops on it. Instead of reading other people’s work, I created a ten question W quiz to kick-start anecdotal research. I interviewed 'everyday people’ to glean their insights and examples. My W questions included:

  1. What does concentration mean to you? How would you define it?

  2. Who modeled or taught concentration to you? Who is a shining example of someone who does it well? Was it a coach, teacher, parent, surgeon, musician? Why are they good at it?

  3. Who is an example of someone who does NOT concentrate well? Why are they not good at it? Are they constantly distracted, preoccupied, all over the map? What?

  4. When is a time you concentrated well? Were you skiing a black diamond slope, reading, with someone you love, working to a deadline? What facilitated that state of focus and flow?

  5. When is a time you didn’t concentrate well? What blocked or prevented your focus or flow? Was it noisy? Were you stressed, distracted, preoccupied, worrying about something? Explain.

  6. Why is concentration important? Why is it to our benefit to be able to do it well?

  7. Why don’t we do it well then? Is it because no one teaches us? Because we have too many things competing for our attention? Because we don’t discipline our mind? What?

  8. Where do you concentrate best? Do you have a special place where you can attain that exquisite state of full focus and flow? Describe it.

  9. What is your best advice about how to concentrate? What can I cover in my workshops that you would like to learn, that would be useful to know?

  10. Who else do you think I should interview about this topic? Who would be a good resource who has valuable advice on how to get good at this?

  “Based on the fascinating answers to this W quiz (and my own experience as an athlete), I developed a step-by-step approach on how to concentrate—no matter what—and offered it for Washington, D.C.’s Open University. At the end of that first program, several participants came up and said, 'We need this in our organization. Will you teach our employees (or association members) how to do this?’

  “That one workshop launched a rewarding career that has taken me around the world and given me opportunities to work with the US Embassy in London, Capital One, INC 500, Boeing, National Geographic, and Intel. It even resulted in a book that’s been featured on NPR, taught at NASA, and was endorsed by Stephen Covey and Dr. Ed Hallowell (a leading expert on A.D.D.).”

  Mark said, “Okay, I got how this kick-started your career. By why the quiz?”

  “The goal is to develop your own intellectual capital. It’s important to bring your own original experience, one-of-a-kind expertise and epiphanies to the table instead of just adopting other experts’ best-practices into your work.

  “‘Street interviews’ with everyday people helps you create a unique body of work. Interview everyone. Taxi drivers. Waiters and waitresses. Friends and family members. Educators, attorneys, athletes, artists, entrepreneurs. People love being asked for their stories and advice, and it steeps you in your subject and guarantees you are addressing current needs and challenges and offering real-life insights that work.

  “Like I did with the topic of Concentration, y
ou can create a quality course, service, and business wrapped around what you know that other people want to know. Creating a replicable, step-by-step methodology provides a shortcut to people’s success so they don’t have to start from scratch and figure it out [on] their own.

  “People will gladly pay for your creation because you’re saving them time, money and hassle by expediting their path to get better at something they care about. If you do this, you’ll never have to 'work’ another day in your life because you’ll be earning a good living doing work you love with people you enjoy and respect. And isn’t that what we all want?

  “Want an example? Woody and Eleanor Ruff were two retired teachers who wanted to write a book about everything their students wished their parents knew. We came up with a perfect title, Long Days, Short Years. Eleanor called to say they’d been asked to speak on a cruise but were going to turn it down because they were on a tight deadline and were afraid they wouldn’t finish their manuscript on time.

  “I said, 'Don’t cancel the cruise! There will be a thousand parents and grandparents on board. What a perfect opportunity to interview people from all walks of life from all parts of the globe. Just take your version of the W quiz and connect with people at meals and while walking around the ship.’

  “They got back in touch to say, 'We were the hit of the ship! Everyone wanted to share their advice about what they had done they were happy about and what they wish they had done differently.’