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Power Networking! Simple Tips to Change your Career Fast

Posted by Career Coach Sherri Thomas on August 6, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

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If you have you been thinking about making a career change, networking should be in your Career Change Toolbox. But, what’s the “right” way to network?

Here are my tips for Power Networking to make a faster career change as a professional or executive.

The next time you find yourself in a room with someone you’d like to meet, look around to see if there’s someone else around your know who could introduce the two of you. Then, keep the conversation focused on them. (It’s not about you! At least not yet, anyway!) So, ask them about their latest marketing campaign or product launch, or comment on something new or interesting that’s going on inside their company.

Next, try to get their business card by simply saying, I’d love to stay in touch – how about if we exchange business cards? Then, follow up by sending a piece of information that you think they may be of interest to your new contact such as an article, or the results of a new study, or a cool website that relates to their business.

The perception you want to create is not, Hey, I’m someone who’s looking for a job. But instead, that you’re a successful professional who’s resourceful, well connected, and who has some similar interests as they do. You want them to see that you as someone that THEY should get to know!

Offer to introduce them to someone in your network who could help them solve a business challenge, or help them save costs on a project, or who is a mover and shaker in the industry. You want them to see you as a resource – someone who could potentially help THEM in THEIR career!

Then, after you’ve exchanged e-mails, then talk about some projects or teams that you’re working on that are successful. One thing that works really well for me is I offer to share tips or lessons learned. I find that by doing this, people who value and appreciate your talents will naturally gravitate towards you.

So after you’ve established a relationship, go ahead and drop a hint that you’re looking for your next career opportunity. And believe me, if they know of any they’re going to let you know!

One final thought, I strongly believe that no matter where you are in your career, we’re always in a position to help out others. Is there someone else you can support by introducing her to a potential employer, or giving a recommendation, or inviting to a networking event? It’s sometimes easy to focus just on ourselves, but remember that when we help out others along the way – the universe gives back to us more than we ever dreamed possible.

The bottom line is that if you want to drive your career up to the next level, you need to make networking a priority. And once you’ve practiced a couple of the strategies, your career will start moving forward in the direction you want to go!

If you’re stuck – get professional help! You never want your career to be sitting on shelf longer than it has to – it means thousands of dollars every month in missed income that you should be making! So if you’re not getting results, then invest in some professional advice wherever you need it -

  1. A Professional resume writer, or
  2. An interview coach, or
  3. Or a career coach

These are professionals who can accelerate your career change and help you get into a new job faster!

Filed under Podcast, career change, change jobs, job search · Tagged with , , , , , , ,

PARADE Update: You Got The Interview! Now What?

Posted by Career Coach Sherri Thomas on July 13, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

PARADE Update: You Got The Interview! Now What?

One hour after Meghan sent her hot-off-the-press professionally updated resume to a hiring manager, he called to see if she could come in for an interview the next day!

Interviewing is intimidating, nerve wracking, and can make you feel like you’re two beats away from a heart attack. But preparing for the interview is much simpler when you realize that there are just five key questions going through your interviewer’s mind.

Here are three of them:

Can you do the job? You need to be able to talk about the skills, knowledge, and training you have that will help you perform the job successfully. My recommendation is that you walk into your next interview with 3-4 “personal career stories” that showcase a career success. Your stories should include: what the goal was, what the challenge was, and what the result was.

What “extras” do you bring? For most job openings, about 90% of the work has been defined but not the remaining 10%. This means you have a terrific opportunity to flaunt any bonus talents that may be of value. For example, if you’re going for a job as a Pubic Relations manager, you may have some experience in marketing or desktop publishing that is not required for the job, but might be valuable to the company.

Where are you a risk? Every new employee is a risk to a company, whether it’s a job requirement that you don’t meet or a skill you don’t have, or the potential that you’re overqualified for the position. I recommend that you beat the interviewer to the punch by stating where you a risk and then reassuring him why it won’t be a problem. If you’re asked what weaknesses you have, respond by bringing up an area that could improvement but quickly add what you are already doing to strengthen that area.

For a complete discussion of all five question, see my best-selling eBook, “Interviewing Smart: Insider Secrets to Getting the Job“

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PARADE Update: Work your netWORK

Posted by Career Coach Sherri Thomas on June 15, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

PARADE Update: Work your netWORK

I’m so proud of Meghan! Today she had a terrific breakthrough. Through a series of powerful questions in our session together, Meghan was able to sort through all of the research that she’s been doing, as well as the wide variety of industries, companies and job roles that she’s had over her 10-year work history – and define a crystal clear career vision that excites and motivates her.

One of the biggest mistakes I see career changers make is being too broad in their career search. Applying for jobs in which they are under-qualified, over-qualified, or simply have no passion for. Those professionals who make successful career changes are laser focused on where they want to go and how they can add value to an organization.

Now that Meghan has defined her career vision and completed her personal Career Success Blueprint™, I can now help her align her networking opportunities, resume and interview responses towards that vision. I’m confident that with her strengths, passions and past career successes we’ll be able to snoop out job opportunities so that she can successfully transition into her dream career! :)

So now it’s time to build and leverage her professional network – and to work her network. I provide a step-by-step strategy for this in my book, “Career Smart – 5 Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand” and a few of those strategies include -

  • Get connected to people who could hire you, or introduce you to others who could potentially hire you. Re-connected with past employers, customers, and colleagues. Meet new contacts by attending industry conferences, trade shows, business networking events, and association meetings that target the industry (high tech, health care, etc.), or the job role (marketing, finance, management, etc.) you want. Try to attend a couple of events each week.

    Meghan made a great connection at a birthday party last week! She met someone who has the type of job role that she’s interested in and now Meghan has set up time with her to learn more about her career path, the company where she works, and her job responsibilities.


  • Network in person and on-line. Another great way to network is by joining LinkedIn.com to connect with other professionals and executives (i.e. Facebook is a social networking site, whereas LinkedIn.com is a professional networking site.) Make sure you create a profile that showcases your career strengths, results, and successes. Meghan is already making great strides in connecting with past colleagues, customers and business associates.


  • Be a resource for your key connections. When you’re in a career change you never want to give the impression that you’re hungry for a job. Instead, you want to be seen as someone who’s resourceful, knowledgeable, and has a wide network. Send out personalized notes and e-mails with links to reports, case studies, press releases, videos, and cool websites that you think may interest individuals in your network. Invite them to business networking events, and introduce them to other movers and shakers. Professionals are drawn to other professionals who are resourceful and well connected.

    The goal is to create a pull relationship with your network so that they are drawn towards you (not running away from you!)

When you’re searching for a new job, remember to stay focused in what you want, stay positive, and believe in yourself. It takes persistence and patience – but you WILL find those companies who jump at the opportunity to have you join their team! :)

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3 Tips to Create a Rock Star Resume to get noticed, get hired and even get a higher starting salary

Posted by Career Coach Sherri Thomas on June 11, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

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I want to give you a very simple piece of advice – and that is… if you’re sending out your resume and NOT hearing back from companies – then you need a stronger resume. It’s just that simple. It’s a good problem to have because it’s completely FIXABLE! If you’re going after jobs that you’re qualified for – but not hearing back from hiring managers or HR managers – then your resume stinks!! You need a stronger resume.

Did you know that your resume can do 3 things

  1. It can get you MORE INTERVIEWS.
  2. It can get you interviews for those jobs that YOU REALLY WANT. And I’m talking about those jobs that make your heart flutter a little bit.
  3. It can help you get a HIGHER STARTING SALARY.

I help clients every day by writing their resume and giving them my step-by-step career strategies. The reason my clients are able to successfully reinvent themselves and transition into a new career is because I give them the exact same strategies that I’ve personally used when I reinvented my own career and successfully transitioned into the radio, TV, professional sports and high tech industries.


So here are my top 3 resume tips to help you get noticed, get hired and even get a higher salary!

  1. Showcase key words. Key words are those skills in the job postings that are listed as the “job requirements”. Key words are different for every job, so you need to look closely at the job description – and what I do is pull out a highlighter and go through the job posting and highlight all of those requirements. And then, I take all of those requirements that I meet – and showcase those KEY WORDS, or those KEY SKILLS right at the top of my resume. Underneath my “Objective” in my resume, I have a section that I call “Key Strengths” and I list in bullet format – those requirements, or key skills, that I have. So that’s #1 – showcasing key words.


  2. Emphasize results. This is the single biggest difference in making your resume stand out from your competition. Don’t talk about responsibilities. That’s boring. Instead, talk about what you achieved for an organization, or what you’ve helped the organization achieve.

    This is how I transitioned into different industries. This is how I got into the Fortune 100 Companies. Because my resume did NOT focus on responsibilities – instead, I focused on results.

    For example, don’t just say that you managed a team of 9 people in the sales department. Instead, say that you led a sales team that generated $250,000 a year for the past 3 years! Or say that your marketing campaign helped generate 3-percent of additional annual revenue, or that you helped resolve an average of 6 customer complaints a day for the past two years!

    That says that you take your job seriously, and take your career seriously! Quantify each of your career highlights in terms of dollars, numbers or percentages.


  3. Show leadership and teamwork. Hiring managers look for candidates who are strong contributors and strong leaders (or at least leadership potential.) Talk about projects or teams that you’ve led – and what the results were. If you haven’t led any projects or teams in your professional life, then highlight any leadership experience you’ve had in professional organizations, sports leagues, church activities or community events.

Filed under Podcast, career change, change jobs, job search, resume · Tagged with , , , , ,

PARADE Update: One (Penguin) Step at a Time

Posted by Career Coach Sherri Thomas on June 8, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

PARADE Update: One (Penguin) Step at a Time

When a career change overwhelms you – take penguin steps In our session today, Meaghan shared that she was feeling overwhelmed. Trying to juggle a career change with managing a family, home and “life” was taking its toll on her sanity.

This is common among career changers (which is why I think so many professionals stay in jobs that are unfulfilling and unmotivating.) Reinventing your career is a step-by-step process that takes persistence, endurance and a lot of patience. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, my advice is to step back, breathe and take penguin steps.

In the movie “March of the Penguins” the penguins took tiny baby steps as they shuffled across the frozen ground of Antarctica. Their steps are tiny but with their focus and commitment they successfully reach their final destination over 100 miles away.

Changing careers is also a journey. Sometimes you can run, sometimes you can walk, and sometimes (like when you’re feeling overwhelmed) the only way you move forward is by shuffling along and taking penguin steps.

Meaghan is in a similar situation. She has successfully assessed all of her experience, strengths and successes, and has determined the type of work she wants to be doing in her next career move. Now, she is assessing the job market to determine the industry that most excites her.

However, she shared with me that didn’t get very far with last week’s assignment of checking company websites, on-line job postings, business periodicals and industry magazines to find those industries and companies she’d most like to work in – because she was feeling overwhelmed.

My recommendation was to break down the assignment into smaller bite-sized chunks (think penguin steps.) So we took out a piece of paper and scribbled out four columns which we titled: industry, company, job role and personal contact.

Through a few coaching questions, Meaghan tackled the 1st column which was “industry.” She was able to quickly define two distinct industries that really excited her – education and food sustainability. This was a great start! She was breaking through mental roadblocks and seeing two different industries where she knew she could thrive!

Next, she quickly identified a couple of companies within each of those industries that she’d like to explore career opportunities. Then, we discussed job roles that she would be qualified for within each of those companies and industries. Also, she thought of a few contacts in her personal network that could potentially provide support.

By breaking up the step into smaller tasks, Meaghan was able to break through the clutter and roadblocks in her mind, and move forward in identifying possibilities to a career that would motivate and inspire her!

Thinking back on my own personal career, I made several job changes and I remember feeling overwhelmed just like Meaghan. Mostly, it was due to fear. Fear of change, fear of failure, fear of the unknown. But what pulled me through was knowing that if other professionals could be happy in their career, then I could do, too!

By looking at a career change as a “process” and then breaking up the process into smaller-sized tasks, it allowed me to take bold steps towards a new career – even if some of them were only penguin steps!

Meaghan’s Assignment this Week
In my book, Career Smart – 5 Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand, one of my strategies for transitioning into a meaningful and purposeful career is to define the industry and job role of where you want to be. This becomes part of your career blueprint (i.e. North Star) in helping you transition into an inspiring career.

Meaghan’s assignment this week is to research a variety of industries and companies, and then complete her spreadsheet with a list of those that would excite her, as well as the job role for each industry and company listed that defines how she could potentially bring value to the organization.

By assessing the current job market and identifying job roles that are right for her, Meaghan is getting one step closer to identifying a more meaningful and purposeful career.

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