Category Archives: Career Change

Your Infographic Resume / CV

Posted on by

Last year I wrote that “Your Online Resume is Everywhere.”

Whether it’s Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook, or a personal blog, many smart people have figured out that leaving these digital breadcrumbs for others to follow online can be a wise career investment.

Especially when the others might turn out to be future employers, colleagues, customers or people of “influence and persuasion”.

Here’s an example from the marketing world that I like the look of.

Gareth Case is a b2b technology marketing manager in his day job but also makes time to run a personal blog, and is also active on Twitter as@Gareth_Case.

By following these online trails I can quickly get an idea of who he is, and what skills and experiences he might bring to a future opportunity.

All good career nurturing content.

But here’s what encouraged me to check Gareth out further (by following his Twitter feed.)

Continue reading →

Be Sociable, Share!

Our World Shaken

Posted on by

Seems like no time since I was enjoying ‘Great Depression 2‘ drinks in a Tokyo watering hole back in Dec 2008. However, what the Japanese media calls the ‘Lehman Shock’ kicked off in 2008. And here we are in October 2011, now facing an overlapping troika of massive personal, sovereign and supranational indebtedness whose resolution is by no means guaranteed.

Trying to unravel a complex and dynamic mix of socio-economic variables is beyond most mortals, in my opinion. Yes, political leaders and central bankers believe they know how to tinker with systems and kick cans down the proverbial road of our future. But, and I’m sure they all know this too, it’s well nigh impossible to legislate for human greed, stupidity and stubbornness – theirs, as well as their constituents.

What I’m reasonably sure of is that all systems, whether nature’s or our own, eventually reset in one way or another because they have built-in limits to growth . (For more background see this post entitled, “career Growth Primer – The Malthusian Approach‘.)

At the micro-economic level, if you’re an individual who has in-demand talent, experience that’s valued, and are internationally mobile; your career horizon remains relatively bright. But for those with little experience (recent graduates), or with domestic or extended family responsibilities that require a local presence, prospects are even tougher than they were just three short years ago.

So what’s to be done?

I suspect that, unchecked, the great systemic ‘game of globalization’ will continue to erode differences in real living standards and wages between the developed and developing worlds. Sounds wonderful if you’re in Shanghai or Mumbai but a royal PITA for natives of London, Paris, New York or Los Angeles (including their hinterlands and flyover states.)

For mid-career changers this is not an easy time to make an uncertain ‘leap in the dark’ and I would recommend that if you have a job at present, hang onto it! Yes, continue to build the skills you’ll need to make that career change eventually – assuming the national/international economy makes it through the painful deleveraging and readjustments to come.

Be particularly wary of advice that encourages you to “just go do it”. This may be fine when times are good (i.e. “a rising tide lifts all boats.”) but in a recession / depression requires deep financial reserves and luck to survive what can be lengthy, lean periods.

Four years since my third career change (and my second and probably last mid-career adventure) have taught me that leveraging existing skills and experience is much easier than trying to start from scratch. I highly recommend that you carefully examine your key strengths and see where these might take you in the future. (Ed Schein’s work on “career anchors” was an important step on my journey.)

- About Mark ‘mid-career changer‘ McClure

Be Sociable, Share!

“They’re out of touch, they’re out of time”

Posted on by

Time for another visit to God’s wee country where, despite the media’s obsession with localized rioting and anarchy, most people are just trying to get on with life.

The view from the “Far East” is somewhat different, as fallout from political and financial nukes exploding in Euroland, seemingly on an almost weekly basis now, drifts this way.

Quite simply, the economic fates of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are in the hands of others. One’s locked into externally-imposed austerity and the Euro-project. The other’s dependent mainly on state largese and how deep go the government’s public sector cuts.

There are, however, some chinks of light in the financial gloom; the entrepreneurial technology sector being one.

When a good idea meets well-educated people and the necessary seed capital, great things can happen. A superb example is Andor Technology’s prowess in the scientific digital camera market. (Andor was started in Belfast and maintains its head office there.)

Of course, these successes are relatively minor in the greater scheme of things and the reality is that smart, ambitious and (often) young Irish people are again emigrating in increasing numbers.

And who can blame them?

I did something similar in 1987 and, while I miss my family and the green, green grass of home, the gains have outweighed the losses.

And yet, mortality will have its say one day. In more practical terms, the vitality of youth knows no bounds till tempered by experience. Not sure who may have said that but the message is usually clear enough by mid-life.

And it goes something like this:

Is it true that your career is your own and you form it?

- Mark ‘mid-career changer’ McClure

PS – The post title’s a play on lyrics from that wonderful Hall and Oates song, “Out of Touch”. Are ‘youse’ listening? :-)

Be Sociable, Share!

Mid-Career Change Using Passion, Words and Guts

Posted on by

There’s a lot of talk on the ‘Net about ‘getting‘ a job with the help of social media.

That’s a great thing.

However, long before the Interwebbies snuck into many of our waking moments, the process was called (and still is, actually)…. big drumroll here…

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

As wonderful as social media tools may be for connecting, personal brand building, and all the other buzz phrases, the bottom line in these tough times is that you need to impress other person(s) way beyond what a resume, tweets or emails can do by themselves.

You need to consistently demonstrate from a safe distance, because few of us like job stalkers, what you can bring to a hiring company and its customers.

This involves that strange phenomenon of ‘getting to know’ people and generally ‘shining your light’ so the folks with the hiring power can see it.

Here’s a great example of someone (probably mid-career, from my reading) who had major sweat equity invested in a career in insurance, gets laid off, but refuses to settle for second, or even third best.

Her name’s Jacquie.

I’ve never met her but thanks to my new Twitter friend, nicfletch, I now know something of Jacquie’s story after following Nicole’s digital breadcrumbs to the post I’m about to share below.

It’s by her employer, Jacob Tyler, a full service Brand Communications agency.

An Open Apology to Prospective Jacob Tyler Applicants

This is a great example of how the Web has real power to interconnect people, the searchers and the searching, with ideas in multiple ways. But I’ll bet the main reason Jacquie got that job was from the way she put the words together for someone she already knew and liked.

Study that letter. There’s much to learn.

- Mark McClure

Be Sociable, Share!

Your Online Resume is Everywhere

Posted on by

Back in the day (we’re talking 1990s) I used to spend a couple of hours every year keeping my paper resume up-to-date.

‘The Internet’ was still a phrase used mainly by geeks and required connecting a modem to a phone line, and then dialing into your email. Lord knows if anyone ever got hired online lol!

Anyway, step forward nearly 20 years, and while paper resumes are still handled and looked at, for many hiring managers the first touch will be a digital one.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking:

I’ll just update my paper resume to an online format.

That approach can still work, especially if you have contacts within the corporate world.

But it won’t be too long before the resume as a standalone document will be only one of several online scores that determine whether you even get to first base i.e. an ‘interview’.

And I’m not referring to the daily digital footprint you leave online.  That’s a mainly passive and reactive view of the persona you appear to be. I say, ‘appear’, because at the moment, “on the Internet no one knows you’re a dog”.

(Check out that famous cartoon from the New Yorker magazine a while back.)

No, if you want to become top of mind for many of those looking for talent via the web, you’ll have to start creating an active and responsive trail leading to the real you.

And how is that done?

Well, here’s someone who’s done all of that and more. And who now looks for the same, or better, in the talent he hires.

The article’s titled “Seven Ways to Position Yourself for Unlimited Work, by Joe Pulizzi.

True, the article’s thrust is toward creative types in the media e.g. journalists, freelance writers and marketers.

However, in a vast digital world where talent for almost any career path’s now located far and wide, you will need to be very clear in your online message and presence. Of course, the ‘offline’ you is still very important but there’s a merging of digital with physical coming, courtesy of awesome networked computing power and bandwidth.

Be prepared!

- Mark McClure

PS – This is the final post on this blog for 2010.

I’ll have a short break for Japanese New Year celebrations and then it’s full steam ahead in the “Year of the rabbit”. Happy New Year!

Be Sociable, Share!