Working Your Career Pivot Plan

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

With your Career Pivot decision made and your plan in place, it is time to put the plan into action.

Identify Target Companies

Document for selecting target companies.  Some of the things to consider as you identify prospective employers include:

Location – Are you willing to move?  Many people want to move closer to family, find better schools for their children, further the spouse's career, and many other reasons.  You and your family need to agree on this.

Industry Experience – Do you want to deepen your industry experience or broaden your domain experience.

Target Company Health – Joining a distressed company carries both risks and rewards.  A company's poor health is often overlooked.

As you build your list of target companies, create a list of reference companies.  Your networking efforts will focus on them with the same level of intensity as target companies.

Networking

Networking is the most challenging and most important activity.  Your close personal relationships are valuable, but your weak connections are critical.  In Friend of a Friend, David Burkus demonstrates the power of weak links.  With the right approach, casual acquaintances are willing to help people they know well.

The first goal of networking is to find advisors and get introductions to people who may be able to help you.  For this to work, you need to tell a clear, concise, and compelling story.  You need to make sure your request is both something they can do and does not create a heavy burden.  Eventually, you will reach people who are in a position to give you an opportunity.

Building and leverage your network takes patience and persistence.  It will take time to build the network and begin your conversations.  Be careful what you ask for to avoid asking for too much time or effort.  Wherever you can, offer something of value in return.

Good sources of connections are professional organizations and local networking groups.  Every industry and domain has national organizations with local chapters.  Join a few, attend the meetings, work the rooms, and volunteer.  In most major metro areas, there are job seekers networking groups.  Through these groups, you can learn techniques to aid your job search.

Measure Your Results

For any plan to be successful, it needs to be measured.  Focus your metrics on results that matter.  Here are some examples of reasonable measures and more impactful alternatives.

Remember Goodhart's Law – When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

If you do not see any movement after a while, revisit your plan and adjust as needed.  To find the job you want will take time

As you work your plan, be patient.  A career pivot can take months to happen.  Stay focused and try not to compromise.  If you live in Denver and your goal is to live in Charlotte to be close to family, don't settle for Atlanta because it is closer than Denver.  Whatever your objectives, they can fit into this equation.  Change the word live to our objective and the city names to the appropriate descriptions.

This post also appears on my website's blog page where you will find helpful links to additional resources.  You can also find a short video on this topic on my YouTube channel.

Friend of a Friend by David Burkus is available on Amazon