Your Next Project: Career Transition… It’s a S.N.A.P.

Think back to those endless series of project management seminars you sat through over the years.  The concept, ever intriguing… the content detail, ever fatiguing!  Well, now you find yourself looking for a next opportunity.  You are in career transition looking for the way.  Well, dust off those tired notes because you need them now more than ever…

It’s a S.N.A.P….

The average job search, arguably, takes approximately three months or more—and that includes the hamburger flippers and the delivery people.  Your search for a good “FIT” with your next professional opportunity may take longer.  Which means you’ll have some time on your hands.

“Your next job is the full time process of FINDING your next employer.”  Has your career continuity consultant or job search coach ever used that worn out cliché?  Statistics will tell you that the cliché holds no water… its wrong. 

The average job hunter spends no more than three to five hours per week on their job search… the professional, caught in a career transition, tends more toward 15-18 hours.  The well-prepared person bumps that up toward 24-28 hours to optimize the efficiencies of their Personal Market Plan… Only a desperate fool averages over thirty—territory that leads to frustrating burnout and lack of productivity.

TIME management is exactly where a PROJECT management approach comes in.  You need to manage your unemployment with the same competency that you position yourself to possess in your resume.  If, “… managed multiple projects, increasing productivity by twenty percent—resulting in $400,000 in cost savings in 2001…” spoke to your qualities as a manager, you can do it in your personal life as well.

It’s a S.N.A.P….

The implementation of your Personal Market Plan begins with your clear vision of the “FIT” you’re looking for:  A challenging Product Management role that will allow you to fully utilize your large scale, multi-project management expertise coupled with your marketing skills.

 If you can See it, you can seize the opportunity when it arises.

Second, you must learn to negotiate the HOW of allowing those opportunities to appear on your radar screen.  The first step is creating visibility for yourself so that you are on their radar screens.  Next, you must know WHAT sort of opportunities you seek. 

 Successful Negotiation creates a high quality “FIT”, a satisfying job. 

With clear vision of your career-oriented objectives, your offer criteria and target firm list in place—you are ready to set your action plan in motion.  The efficiency and regularity of implementing your plan is where you can refocus on balancing your real-life’s time management.  Your Personal Market Plan probably includes goals for personal development and rewards… let them both be part of your plan. 

Highly focused Activity turns a fight into your pathway to a “FIT.”

The job market wears a mask that hides the real world of available work… It is the mask created by those that would screen you away from viable opportunity, those that use recruitment advertising and the Internet to create resume flow and big databases from which they get to pick qualified applicants; and those that use traditional job search process to disguise their own networking to find the best “FIT” available to meet their defined needs.

This “reality” creates the highs and lows that most professionals experience when involved in career transition.  Its what requires you to really work at your plan and be persistent with your productive efforts to create visibility for yourself, target appropriate opportunities and be productive with the high quality interviewing that you use to open the right doors. 

Patience and Persistence Pays-off in a balanced life and the best “career FITness.” 

“Career FITness” is no accident.  It is a penultimate journey that always has a next step.  Having the patience and persistence to put all your next steps together, creating a satisfying and rewarding career, carries the pay-ff of true career management.  Career management, then, is that right path to career success and personal life balance within it. 

So why not exercise your way to career fitness, even when you find yourself in an occasional unemployed time period?  First, you must determine what you want to get done besides finding a new job.  Without such goals, you won’t accomplish much.  This sense of personal development and achievement will help fuel your patience and persistence as well.  So you get double pay off for your time and efforts.  You guessed it… 

IT’S A S.N.A.P., II…

Let’s take a test ride with our renewed project management skills. 

SEE IT… My spouse would really like it if I were able to lose a few pounds and learn to play better tennis while I have the extra time available during by brief unemployment. 

NEGOTIATE IT… I listened to my Career Continuity Consultant during basic training and have committed myself to averaging twenty-five hours per week on job search related activities (see above).  This will allow me plenty of time to eat better and exercise wisely in order to lose weight.  I will take a few lessons and practice my tennis to raise my b-level play to “A” at my club. 

ACT ON IT…  To attain this life-balance and achieve all three of my goals will require me to utilize all seven days of each week.  Because I must allow some research and preparation time before all my interviews, I must create a schedule with some built in flexibility.  This will create a different lifestyle for me, so I must be prepared to reward my successes and work on my weaknesses.  Keeping my spouse involved and motivated to support my “multi-project management” will produce even richer results!

PLAN TO SUCCEED…  In the beginning, I will have to be patient as I learn the skills to support what I am about to accomplish.  Already I have achieved something:  I have begun to replace the negative energy of being “laid off” with this more positive approach to accomplishing my goals.  I continue to get up at my usual time… now with a different purpose:  Instead of dressing for work, I get up and go for a walk with my supportive spouse. 

Walk your dog a mile a day, whether you have a dog or not! 

Posted February 17, 2002