Introduction
You’re reading this because you’ve decided to make a change. This is a proven playbook I’ve used to coach countless people making a career change to help them find work they love and to be prepared as best as humanly possible through the interview process to secure their opportunity.
If you commit to “doing the work” – you’ll find that these exercises are as introspective as they are working on your exterior. Whether you’ve left your job or are unhappy in your current one, you need to take a moment for yourself – to step back and reflect. It’s hard to see clearly when you’re in the eye of the storm.
Step 1. Gauge Your Happiness at Work
One exercise I like is from career coach, Ron Nash. He says in order for you to be happy and fulfilled at work, all of the following things need to be congruent.
- You like the people that you work with
- You have opportunities for growth
- You feel like you’re compensated your worth
- You have work-life balance
- You’re passionate about your job – to an extent
In other words, if you hate your boss you’ll eventually find something else. If they’re not paying you fairly, you’ll find new work.
If you’re burned out physically, you may have no choice but to find another career. And ultimately, you may not love what you do – but you must be passionate about it to an extent or else you’ll find another job. If you don’t like your job, it will show in spades.
I often reflect on this prompt annually. You may need a change if one of these are not congruent, but when there are 2-3 you’re even more likely to feel that way.
Step 2. Unplug
The three most common situations are ones where someone has a job and they’re unhappy, they got laid off, or they quit.
The reason it’s so important to take time off is because you need to remove yourself from the situation. Ideally, it would be great if everyone could take a month off, but that may not be realistic for most people.
You can even use 1-2 weeks of paid time off to give yourself the time you need to unplug. It’s like when your smartphone is freezing up or you have too many apps open.
Sometimes you just need to hit the reset button. We can’t think as clearly when we’re stressed out and have a million things going on in our minds.
You’ve earned the right to do this, trust me.
Step 3. Identify Your Superpowers
Years ago a mentor advised that I do an analysis on my strengths and weaknesses and send him the results. You may be thinking, “But Omaid, if I’m identifying my strengths, why would I need to call out my weaknesses?”
Identifying areas you need to improve will help you identify what you’re great at. It will also give you awareness on things you can work on to get better. Spoiler alert: my weakness was time management. Imagine if it was something I completely ignored.
I’m going to share the rest of my example to illustrate how this works. I got pen to paper and listed three things I thought I excelled at:
- Relationship building: I’m able to build rapport and trust in a short amount of time. I’m also able to build the kinds of relationships with clients where they know I have their best interest at heart. My LinkedIn recommendations reflect some of this and I have good stories to expand on it.
- Relentlessly resourceful: When I worked at BlackBerry we were launching a new smartphone and it was at a time when the company stopped shelling out $50,000 to rent out nightclubs. I knew we needed to educate salespeople on the new product and to create hype. I pulled together sponsorships to cover the cost for two events on the west coast and we educated over 550 sales people. Because of this, our region was #1 in sales.
- Strategy: When I was at Google in ad sales, I developed a pitch deck for the vitamins and supplements vertical that we were able to duplicate across the country, which resulted in XYZ sales and helped my peers save XYZ time.
You get the picture. If you have evidence to back up your claim, include it. I still have the video from those BlackBerry launch event which is linked above and I keep it on my LinkedIn profile for anyone to see.
Thus far, everything has been about what you think. The next step is to solicit a few people that have worked directly with you and ask them what they think your top strength is.
Here’s exactly what to say:
“I’m working to identify what my strengths are. Being that you’ve seen my work firsthand, I’m wondering what you think my top 1-2 strengths are? I really appreciate you putting time and thought into this, it will be tremendously helpful for my development.”
My results (from my peers):
- Confidence: You are comfortable in your own skin and it shows in every interaction
- Inquisitive: You know what questions to ask and when to ask them. You challenge the status quo and think outside the norm.
There were some additional competencies but hopefully this illustrates the exercise for you.
his will also identify if there is a gap between what you think you’re good at and what others do.That’s important because it will help increase your self-awareness around this and where you may want to improve.
One of the coolest moments of receiving feedback was when I was in sales training while working at a software vendor. After several days we had a role play to perform. When it’s in front of your peers the stakes are high.
Afterwards the instructor provided feedback on both what we did well and areas for improvement. I’ll never forget when she said to me, “Your superpower is that I never feel like you’re trying to sell me something.”
It’s a simple statement but when you unveil the curtain there’s a lot of meaning behind it — at least for me. It also meant a lot for me to hear that from her and I let her know that.
After putting in the work, if I had to pick only one strength — I’d say my superpower is resourcefulness. I may not have all the resources in the moment to achieve a goal, but I’ll figure out a way to get the job done.
Complete this exercise and you now how a foundation that will springboard the rest of your career pivot.
Step 4. Your Elevator Pitch
Your goal in a first round interview is to get passed onto the next round. If you make the recruiter’s job easy, you will potentially meet with a hiring manager. The recruiter is looking for specific skills and competencies before they can give you the green light.
The question you must prepare for is, “Tell me about your background.”
I’ve asked that question to candidates and most often they speak for three to four minutes loosely about themselves.
They rarely give themselves enough credit for their accomplishments and they don’t take advantage of the opportunity to answer the question effectively.
You want to have a succinct story about your background that illustrates the evolution of your experience over time. You also want to mention the transferable skills you’ve gained that will apply to the new role.
Here’s my example:
“I began my career at Verizon in the business channel where I cut my teeth in outside sales, learning to cold-call and manage a pipeline. Then I spent three and half years at BlackBerry managing channel sales where I learned how to develop c-level relationships and worked cross-functionally within the organization. Then I spent a couple years at Google where I worked with marketers and helped brands craft their online marketing strategy. Currently at Gartner I work closely with leadership at tech startups to help them accelerate growth.”
I can repeat my elevator pitch in 24 seconds. The first three transferable skills are italicized and I’ve purposely stitched them into my pitch so the recruiter fully understands how my experience would relate and lend itself to the role I am applying for.
Recently, a recruiter at one of the hottest technology companies in the universe told me that one of the challenges with recruiting is that most companies don’t hire for potential.
In other words, if you don’t make it clear that you have the experience it will be a long shot to get passed to the next round. That’s why nailing your elevator pitch is essential.
Do this to execute your elevator pitch:
- Write your pitch down on paper, but know it by heart.
- Begin telling your story from the past so you can illustrate how your career has evolved over time.
- Highlight your transferable skills that relate to the role you are applying for.
- Select transferable skills that are different so they all complement your experience.
- Time yourself so your pitch is less than one minute long.
Having trouble identifying your transferable skills? I recently gave a talk and I asked the group to write down the proudest moment of their career.
One gentlemen shared his experience; he was invited to an awards ceremony for the sales team at his company. He had been heading up their IT department, ensuring all the technology was running smoothly.
He didn’t know why he, the IT guy, was invited to such an event. He and his wife decided to attend anyway. At the end of the night they called his name to the stage and he was in disbelief.
They said without him, the sales people wouldn’t have achieved their targets and none of this would have been possible. He was the glue that kept the organization together.
I asked the man why he thinks he received the award, what was the transferable skill that they recognized? “I can communicate with everyone, no matter what rank or position,” he said.
That night he received an award, but he had always had the ability to communicate effectively. You could see the pep in his step and that was a skill he could take anywhere.
Here’s an additional list of transferable skills you can choose from: leadership, team work, active listening, critical thinking, adaptability, analytical skills, problem solving, conflict resolution
Step 5: Define Your Criteria
One company I worked for was a complete train wreck. The experience was so terrible I ended up having a panic attack and taking a step back to refocus on my health.
Hopefully you don’t need a health scare to get clarity, but I knew what I was looking for in my next role.
- I wanted to work with people I trust
- I want to sell something I believe in
- I want to be in a position where I have an opportunity to be successful
- I want to be compensated fair market value
If you don’t identify what’s important to you, then you’re just floating around interviewing for job after job without your compass. There will be so many other metrics that you’ll also weigh like health benefits and upward mobility – but what are the 3-4 that are most important to you right now?
At one point I was interviewing with 18 different companies. My list helped me filter the opportunities. It’s nearly impossible to prepare for a dozen final stage interviews in one week, so you have to focus on the few that meet your criteria.
You might be thinking, “What do you mean work with people I trust?”
I interviewed at one company where the hiring manager was close friends with one of my former colleagues who I trusted because he also was my mentor. It does not have to be someone you directly worked with (but great if it is).
I was in the middle of a pandemic where you could work virtually at a company and never meet anyone. It’s difficult to truly develop trusting relationships in that environment, and I wanted to de-risk my next move when it came to the trust factor.
In another past company, I worked in sales 50-60 hours per week and I was hitting a wall. In sales success is often black and white – you either achieve your quota or you fall short.
There’s a saying, “territory, timing, and talent.” Meaning that if you don’t have all three of these elements you can fail.
My manager at the time told me about this saying and he felt I had the talent, but ultimately it was not a fair territory at that time.
I knew I had the work ethic and the curiosity to learn something new, but if you don’t have a fair shot you’re bound to fail. I needed to remember what it felt like to win again. I wanted an opportunity to be successful.
Step 6. Update Your LinkedIn Profile
Here are the 5 most important aspects to focus on:
1. Your Picture
It’s worth the investment to get professional headshots. Don’t use old photos of you at a party with your friend’s arm wrapped around your shoulder.
Please, no wedding photos. If you can’t make the investment in a headshot for whatever reason, you can use portrait mode on your iPhone.
Ideally you want to be outside with natural sunlight. While there are many AI tools available, I would only recommend using them if they look realistic.
2. Profile Headline
Not only is this your first impression to recruiters and hiring managers, it’s also a mini elevator pitch.
If you work at a company in sales as an account executive, your profile should not be a label of your job. Many people put “Account Executive at ACME Company” which is a fancy term for sales professional.
Your LinkedIn profile is your own – it does not belong to your company. You’ll put your company under experience, it should not be part of your headline. You want to humanize your profile and your profile headline is a great way to do so.
Remember this rule from my editor, “clarity trumps cleverness.” There is power when you’re economical with your words. You don’t want a recruiter to use more brain power to figure out what it is that you do – and you definitely don’t want to confuse people.
As a creator, I interview authors and leaders about career advice through my podcast. Here’s my headline: Sharing the best career advice from high achievers
While it sounds simple, coming up with these eight words took a lot of thought and feedback from others. It had to be authentic to me and I had to differentiate myself from other people giving career advice.
I don’t pretend to be a career development expert, but I’m learning from some of the most accomplished people through my podcast interviews and my goal is to share those lessons with you through the podcast and my newsletter.
Winston Churchill was quoted by saying, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” Don’t spend 6 weeks mulling over your profile headline, but give it some thought. You can always change it later. LinkedIn’s Talent Blog has a list of eye-catching profile headlines to inspire you.
3. About Section
The former CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, had a great example of what an About section should look like. Since he’s left the CEO role, his about section has been expanded to include other interests and boards he resides on. He’s also speaking in third person which I would never suggest.
However, when you read his About section there are a few lessons worth noting. First off, he tells you exactly what he does in the present moment. Then, he shares what he did prior. So he begins with the current day and works his way backwards.
Here’s one of my previous examples:
“I work at Gartner where I help large software companies get the most out of their investment with our content. I’ve also worked in various business units helping marketing and IT leaders and their teams leverage Gartner to help achieve their priorities.
Spent the previous 5 years working in sales at a software company that helped finance and account teams automate their work. Prior to that, worked 6 years in the telecom industry between Verizon and BlackBerry where I managed channel sales for the western US.”
It could be 2-4 short paragraphs. This is truly a summary whereas your Experience section will have more detail about the specific roles. Your resume will be another level of detail which often does not contain public information.
4. The Experience Section
This is where you list your job in chronological order. The goal is to have a short (1-3 sentences) of a description of your role with 2-3 supporting points below.
Here’s one of my examples:
- Managed all sales channels in California, primarily focused on strategic engagement with regional carrier leadership to successfully develop and execute programs to drive incremental BlackBerry hardware and software sell through.
- Worked with various areas of Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and regional carriers to execute sales, marketing, and support strategy.
- Business Unit Q2FY11 Leadership Award Winner
What you don’t want to do is put confidential company information since your LinkedIn profile is public. Could you mention your quota attainment if you’re a sales professional? Sure. But avoid listing your client names or how much revenue you closed a deal for because that is typically confidential information.
5. Recommendations
How much equity do recommendations people have given you hold? Not a ton, but if you have none that could be a red flag. If anything, it shows you haven’t put effort into your LinkedIn profile and online presence. The goal is to have 3-5.
One way to make it more likely to get them – is to do the hard work for the people you might solicit to give you a recommendation. You would reach out to someone you’ve worked with in the past to see if they would be open to it. You can also add in your first message that in order to save them time you can send them a few sentences they can modify as they see fit.
Then you write a few sentences and leave the rest to them. I’ve found this incredibly effective. Remember, it’s not about writing the review for them. But you’ve done the heavy lifting so they can edit the review and take it across the finish line.
I’ve had people ask what it is that I’d like to achieve with the review. In other words, you don’t want all of your reviews to convey the same message. Perhaps you want one review to focus on your relationship skills and another on your business acumen, and so forth.
Step 7. Update Your Resume
The two most important factors of your resume are ensuring it has substance from a job description and accomplishments perspective – and formatting. There are plenty of templates available online for free and those you can purchase for a few bucks. Canva has a nice selection you can find here.
The best piece of advice I received from a recruiter about my resume was to list my best accomplishments first beneath the job description. You never know how much of your resume the recruiter or hiring manager will read so make sure the best achievements are listed by rank.
Below is an example of what is on my resume from my time at Google. While the formatting of this may be different depending on your template, you get the idea.
The summary above the bullet points should be succinct so the reader understands exactly what you did. Then have a few bullet supporting bullet points or achievements.
If you have data to back up your claims, list them here (not publicly on your LinkedIn profile). People over invest time and energy on their resume and skip the previous steps. If you’re short on time, you can hire a resume writer.
Google Inc., San Francisco, CA (2012 – 2014)
Account Executive – New Business Development, AdWords
Primarily focused on identifying and building strategic relationships with mid-market advertisers to plan and execute effective digital marketing campaigns across Google’s advertising platform.
- Secured a $1 million commitment from a client through a 9-month sales cycle.
- Comfortable presenting Google’s value proposition to executive teams, negotiating contracts, and securing revenue with organizations that spend upwards of $150k/year.
- Providing industry insights, data-driven consulting, and comprehensive marketing proposals to cover the full range of online marketing which includes branding, sales, lead generation, and e-commerce.
Step 8. Salary Negotiation
You might ask why you need to prepare for salary negotiation when you haven’t had an interview or received offers yet.
There are two questions you must be prepared to answer which you’ll often get asked in your first interview – which is why you don’t want to practice with a recruiter on your first call. You want to be prepared for these questions. So much so that you’ve role-played and practiced with your friends.
Here are the two questions that a recruiter may ask:
- What are you looking to make?
- What is your current salary?
In some states it is illegal for a recruiter or company to ask about salary history. Google search “states salary history ban” to find an updated list. It doesn’t matter where the company is headquartered. If you live in California for example, no company is allowed to ask your about your salary history. Arming yourself with this information will allow you to focus your efforts on the other question.
Your goal when asked the salary question such as “What are you looking to make?” is not to provide a number first.
If you provide it first you may lose leverage in the negotiation so it goes something like this:
Recruiter: What are you looking to make in this next position?
Candidate: I am looking for get compensated fair market value?
Recruiter: Did you have a range in mind?
Candidate: Not exactly, I take into account the entire compensation package including benefits. Did you have a set range for this role?
As you can see it’s a game of tennis, back and forth.
Jim Hopkinson of The Salary Tutor, has a great response of what he calls the crazy range – which is essentially you answering the question but with a range so wide you’re not shooting yourself in the foot.
If you’re at the point in the negotiation where you feel like you need to respond with a number, I’ve found the crazy rangea great tool. Here’s what it sounds like:
Recruiter: I need to know at least a range of what you’re looking for?
Candidate: Well, based on my research about the role of Business Development and talking to my network about it, I’ve found that the role has a range anywhere from $150,000 – $250,000 depending on the responsibilities.
And then, you don’t say anything even in silence and let the recruiter respond.
What I love about Jim’s book is that you can read it in a weekend and it will arm you with the necessary tools while shaping your approach to maximize your entire compensation package.
However, you can’t read it on a Sunday and jump into an interview the following Monday. Practicing and role playing these conversations is what separates the candidate who caves and the one you gets paid what they deserve.
Remember, almost everything is negotiable. From PTO a sign-on bonus, you have to consider all things outside of base pay or salary.
Lastly, if you’re in a state where salary requirements are required by law on a job posting, take advantage of that information. You can go to LinkedIn and filter the job by your geography and gather the salary range for multiple companies hiring for the same position.
Having real data points will give you more leverage during your negotiation.
Step 9. Interview Preparation Questions
The STAR Method is a framework for answering behavioral interview questions that helps structure your response. STAR stands for situation, task, action, and result.
Example STAR questions may include:
- How did you handle a difficult problem at work?
- How did you resolve a conflict with a colleague?
- How did you set and achieve a specific goal?
You get the picture. Some companies may request you to prepare your responses in that method and that’s okay. However, there is also the CAR Method which stands for challenge, action, and result. This is the method you should prepare for before you have any interviews.
You want to select 3-4 competencies (which can also be some of the transferable skills you listed) and have 2-3 stories written down for each competency.
You can select competencies like leadership, overcoming adversity, teamwork, etc. But as I mentioned earlier, resourcefulness is my greatest strength and I already have an example story I can share, but in the CAR Method framework.
Example:
Challenge: We needed to excite and educate sales reps at cell phone stores to help sell our new product – and we had no budget to do so.
Action: I requested a small budget and encouraged our partners to chip in.
Result: We educated 500 sales reps in 2 cities about our new product and became the #1 selling market during launch.
You want to write all of your competencies with support stories in the method on paper. By doing this exercise – you’ll be able to choose which story makes the most sense during your interview.
It won’t be the first time you’re coming up with these stories because you’ve practiced them and know them by heart.
Step 10. Your Wishlist of Companies
Make a list of five companies you admire and would want to work for. Rather than going to a job board and applying for random companies, I want you to focus on this list.
For some, this may be an easy exercise for you. For others, you may have 1-2 that come to mind. If you need a few more, research companies further.
Part of that process could be understanding where that company is relative to the market. Put aside Glassdoor reviews and executive profiles – are they the market leader in their category?
If you’re thinking about applying to AWS (Amazon Web Services), would you consider working for Google – being one of their closest competitors in the infrastructure industry?
This is the step that people skip the most and they reactive hit the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn as they send their resume into the abyss. This list becomes your compass in terms of the companies you are going to target. Your list can be more than five, but it’s a good place to start.
Step 11. Get Referred In
Most companies hold more weight on referrals from their employees. The best way to do this is to use LinkedIn to reach out to people who work there – even if you’ve never met them.
Here’s what it looks like:
Candidate: Hi Mike, I saw that you’ve been working in sales at Anaplan for three years. I’m trying to navigate my next move and I’’d love to learn about your experience there. Would you be open to a quick, 15 minute call? Thanks for the consideration.
Employee: Sure, how does next week on Monday between 2-4pm work?
In my experience, 85-95% of the time, the employee offers to submit your resume for you. Most companies offer a referral bonus. Remember the next time you apply for a job, there’s an incentive for someone else to refer you – and you’re more likely to get your resume to the top of the pile because recruiters prioritize internal referrals.
Let’s say you send a LinkedIn InMail to one person. Be mindful about how many people you reach out to at the same time. If it’s a small team, perhaps wait a week and if they don’t respond then reach out again or to someone else.
If it’s a larger team or organization, then it may not hurt to reach out to a few people on the same day. If they have not responded to your InMail, you can also select the “contact” icon on LinkedIn as many people have their personal emails listed there.
Trust the process because if you make your list of companies and are disciplined with your LinkedIn outreach it will pay dividends. At the end of the day, your goal is to get multiple offers, ideally anywhere from 2-4 so you have options and can leverage them against each other.
Candidates with one offer can be desperate and they often don’t negotiate out of fear that the recruiter will pull the job. Could it happen, sure. So if you have multiple offers you have more negotiation leverage.
I remember what a previous boss said to me the first day on the job. He pulled me aside and said, “I knew the way you negotiated with us would be the way you’d negotiate on our behalf.” It was a compliment I’d never forget.
Conclusion
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations on doing the work. There is no shortcut to any of this – but with this guide you won’t be aimlessly applying to jobs that are already filled and interviewing with companies you don’t really care about.
You have to take inventory of what’s important to you in order to get to where you want to go. You’ll be more prepared than 95% of other candidates.
Are there are parts of this journey that are important? Of course – you still have to execute flawlessly during the interview process to close the deal.
If you’re at a crossroads or need support along the way, I’m here to support you.