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 Career FITness: Level III    

      A regular routine which include fitness activities may boost your spirits... But learning how to succeed in career transition while becoming more physically fit,  is an achievable goal that will serve you for the rest of your life.

By meeting and beating both professional and personal goals during career transition you will be propelling future successes and the resultant rewards. Having a productive and efficient action plan, your Personal Market Plan during career transition, will serve to focus your efforts, reaping the rewards of patience and persistence in your implementation. 

Success in career project management confers rewards not unlike those in the workplace:

     A well conceived Personal Market Plan will help you to manage your time to get the best results for your efforts. This is the third of a series that will explore how to efficiently employ all five methods of seeking your next right work.  In the marketing metaphor, these five methods would be your "distribution channels."  The alternative of using a "shotgun approach," or papering the world with your resume will simply scatter your time and energy.  Rather, learn to focus your networking efforts to increase your productivity... take the randomness out of the equation by:

  1. Networking through personal contacts

  2. Conducting face-to-face informational meetings

  3. Creatively contacting companies directly

  4. The Internet, representing published openings

  5. Third-party recruitment firms and individuals

Companies spend millions of dollars creating and communicating just the right message to ensure that customers will recall, respond favorably to, and buy their products. Your message, continuously delivered to contacts and hiring managers, can be broken down into two parts:  First, a statement of your functional identity (I am a corporate trainer…), followed by several marketable core competencies that you are "selling" (…with substantial experience in leadership development, performance management and team building.) This is referred to as POSITIONING.

Pre-determination of offer criteria and career objectives are essential cornerstones to the development of a high quality resume, part of the written collaterals of your Personal Market Plan. As your highly personalized, marketing collateral, your resume positions you in the marketplace… qualifies you with your experience, knowledge, skills and credentials… and can target your efforts with appropriate word selection relative to your industries of choice. Take the time necessary to determine your career objectives, and how they best FIT what the market has offer you.

FIT...

How will you assess FIT when opportunities come to your attention?  At the core of your personal marketing strategies is the effective use of the actual words and phrases you use to define the FIT between your motivated competencies and the market's need for services and solutions.  They are so much more than the "the right buzz words," or "keywords" as used in technology driven job banks (or the mirrored resume bank queries)... they are the building blocks of your message.

Most of us learned these lessons back in grade school. 

  1. Word selection... Your choice of words can convey very different meanings.  For example, as a manager, do you direct the activity of your subordinates... coordinate the efforts of multi-level, interactive teams or peer groups... or actually do certain functions to achieve results?

  2. Effective phraseology... Often, the soft measure words used to describe what sort of a worker you are or how you perform your work, are discarded as self-serving "fluff."  However, when built in to powerful, high impact phrases, they serve to differentiate you from others capable of doing the same work.  For example, being a "problem solver" doesn't make you better than your professional competitors... but describing yourself as a tenacious (an adjective) problem solver, or one who solves problems professionally (an adverb), begins to personalize your strengths.

  3. Whole sentence structure... Build accomplishment statements that demonstrate and prove your abilities and experience.  While resumes utilize a truncated syntax that eliminates the repetitive use of the noun "I", correspondence and conversation dictate the more narrative use of nouns.  In all cases, however, use an action verb to convey actual behavior, words and phrases to describe the object being acted upon, and, when possible, state actual results of the activity.  Constructed effectively, a good accomplishment can trigger all the right questions about your strengths...

  4. Focused, behavior-laden paragraphs... to provide examples and offer proof of your strengths and experience.  A typical resume format doesn't allow for much of this proof, but a well constructed message should trigger the questions that allow you to expand a conversation from your actual experiences.  Thus your resume and correspondence can create the dialog of your phone calls, personal conversations and, ultimately, actual employment interviews.

Yes, its worth your practice time to focus on words.  They can create high impact and convey powerful "word pictures."  Your messages will be delivered in three different ways:

  1. Verbal communication (by telephone or in person)

  2. Written communication (networking request letters, cover letters, resumes, broadcast letters, e-mail)

  3. Image (Both perceived and in person, interactively)

In marketing, these delivery vehicles are referred to as collaterals.  And at their core is a simple collection of words that describe the FIT between your strengths and the market's need.  That collection of the right words and phrases, your definition of a good FIT, is the communication strategy of your Personal Market Plan.

Executing your Personal Market Plan requires special attention to positioning, targeting… and YOU. Let’s start with you and your general physical fitness…

Level III: COMMITTED to fitness. You are already involved in a regular exercise habit… regular visits to your gym are an important part of your weekly routine… Participation in a fun sport has become a social practice for you.

Attention to both your physical and career FITness is for everyone, not just the young. Habits you develop earlier in life can be 1) carried over into later years or ... 2) easily refreshed and brought back into play-- or... 3) part of how you may choose to REINVENT YOURSELF at various stages of your career.

So, if you are already paying attention to fitness concerns, look to set new goals, achieve new heights of intensity or stamina. FITness is a dynamic issue, not something you can achieve… then forget, or practice at the same level for many years. Fuel your life-long commitment to fitness each and every day.

The same can be said for CAREER FITness.  During your working years, fully integrate your expanding Personal Market Plan implementation with your regular exercise habits. This creates a "self-regulated accountability" that feeds on itself to increase your productivity and, ultimately, your results. Remember that TIME IS YOUR PARTNER when you apply your imagination to make things happen within your life. Constantly seek out ways to increase productivity and efficiency.

Both physical fitness and career FITness represent a journey rather than destinations. As your life and career progresses, so does the journey. There will always be a next level. The full integration of physical fitness and Personal Career FITness takes time… perhaps, the rest of your career, at least. What are you waiting for?

Learning Points…

FUEL your Market Plan implementation…

Integrate your physical fitness with your career FITness by using your IMAGINATION…

Time is your partner.

"If you practice the way you play, there shouldn't be any difference. That's why I practiced so hard. I wanted to be prepared for the game."

Michael Jordan (1963- )
American basketball player & business person
regarded by many as the greatest basketball player who ever played the game

Vince Lombardi, of Green Bay Packer fame,  wanted his players to concentrate on PRACTICE, drilling on the "little things", the basics, so that they became instinct during the heat of real life. Such is productive mindset during any career transition...

  1. Practice your two minute drill every chance you get.... its the fundamental building material of your communication strategy--your verbal collaterals!

  2. Practice your exit statement... most all potential employers and networking contacts will want to know your current situation and why you are available.

  3. Practice answering both common and tough questions... including pre-offer negotiation tactics.

Now, GO PRACTICE !

COMING NEXT:  This is the last in a series of articles regarding the integration of your physical fitness with your CAREER FITness.  Stay tuned for future enhancement of this Series.

CareerFIT  Overview 

Career FITness: LEVEL I | LEVEL II | LEVEL III    

          >> Home Fitness       >> TOP TEN: Basic Fitness Tips         >> Get FIT

Bob Maher, CMF... The Careerpilot

Bob created his online presence, www.careerpilot.com, in 1994.  He has over twenty years of successful experience in Corporate Recruitment, performance management and Career Management Services.  He is an entrepreneur and innovator in the use of information technology in the recruitment and employment process.  On the Founder's Council of the Association of Career Professionals - International and quite active in their Professional Development, Technology and Chapter Growth initiatives--a frequent speaker at industry conferences and seminars.  Has deliver career oriented services in all 48 continental states in the USA.  Awarded the Association's prestigious "LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD" in 2006.