July 08 2024 at 10:00AM
Career advice from your Career Coach partner
Happy First Day of Summer, Everyone! 🌞
As we embrace the warmth and sunshine of this new season, it's a great time to reflect on our professional journeys and accomplishments. The job search, I know, continues to be challenging, but summer offers a perfect opportunity to refresh and recharge. Stay resilient and continue to showcase your best self.
Now is the ideal moment to gather all your achievements if you haven’t already been doing so. Remembering your accomplishments will make you feel good, help you reinforce your value to employers and provide you with that needed boost of energy to plow forward with your job search. Commit to developing and communicating your personal brand. Each milestone, big or small, contributes to your unique professional story.
Let me jog your memory with some examples:
🌟 Do you remember when you helped your last employer meet sales goals that got you company recognition? How did you do that? What were your best practices?
🌟 What about the time your coworker had an emergency and you needed to step into his/her role to cover for support when a big client meeting was scheduled that day? Did you help win the client? What was your role?
🌟 Perhaps you created a new streamlined process that saved the company several months of production time? How much time was saved? How did you come up with this process?
🌟 Did you save the company money but identifying alternatives? What did you do? How much money was saved?
🌟 How about the time you partnered with technology to solve a development glitch? How did your team respond? What was the outcome?
🌟 Did you work with cross-functional teams to problem solve a workflow breakdown? How impactful were your communications? Was the problem solved?
🌟 For project managers: After you got Agile certified, remember how you applied your recently acquired knowledge and skills to your company’s transformation projects? What was your impact?
I could go on and on..
And…how are you recording your accomplishments? In a Word document? In a journal? In a file folder? File folder?!! I know, old school! 😊
What about asking for AND giving LinkedIn recommendations?
With this renewed energy, make sure to update your resume, highlighting your most recent successes. Be prepared with solid, impactful responses for your interviews that showcase your value and expertise. Remember, clear and compelling brand messaging is key to standing out, and summer is the perfect time to refine your networking approach.
Let's use this season to not only enjoy the beautiful weather and do some vacationing, but also to position ourselves for success. Stay focused, stay positive, and let's make this summer a turning point in our professional lives!
