Sometimes when we read things we still don't get the whole picture but when you talk to somebody it makes it more real and they can give you really great feedback. To validate those feedbacks by talking to more than one person so that you have a better more validated perspective of that sector or company that you're interested in so draw on your network and start or start building one.
Go back to people and say hi and let's talk and this is not really about asking for a job it's not even asking for advice or help it's just to learn.
Hi i'm renata bernardi and this is the job hunting podcast where i interview experts and professionals and discuss issues that are important for job hunters and those who are working to advance their careers so make sure that you subscribe and follow and let's dive right in hello everyone welcome to the job hunting podcast if you're new here..
I hope you subscribe if you've been listening for a while. Thank you so much i'm getting so many great feedback um emails and messages from listeners saying how much the podcast is helping them get their career back on track so i am incredibly happy and excited about this podcast and i wanted to do a very chatty episode today not like a an episode with a guest just me talking to you and it's an important time here in australia
This week is the end of the job keeper government program that has supported a lot of organizations that wanted to keep their employees employed while we underwent you know quite a heavy lockdown here in australia one of the reasons why the pandemic has been quite mild here because we have had many big lockdowns and control mechanisms in place and one of them has really revolved around the job keeper program keeping people employed well that program is ending has ended by the time i upload this podcast and for that reason i felt like really i wanted to have a a chat to my listeners only 40 of my listeners are based in Australia.
You know it hasn't been easy for a lot of professionals to be unemployed during the pandemic the ones that are employed are probably working extremely long hours and worried about their job prospects and career transitions in the future as well rethinking their plans you know and we're still in the middle of things and it's a good time to keep a finger on the pulse of what's happening but have some perspective that things will start to come back to a new normal once we roll out the vaccinations which in some countries are going really well you may have already listened to my podcast with my friend amir from israel and in other countries are going quite slowly and still underway so we need to wait a few more months until we understand what's going to happen to corporate jobs in the near future and i'm here for you i'm here every week you can we have lots of episodes planned that i think will be interesting for you to listen to next week you will have an episode with a wonderful recruiter based in regional australia talking about what it takes to make a successful transition out of the city and into a country town and i think that that is a great episode and um the week after that i have an international guest once again so keep in touch subscribe and today what we're going to talk about is um probably strategies i have already discussed either by myself or with a guest
In this podcast but still the important things to understand and for me to repeat and hopefully you will take something away from this session and put pen to paper start making plans start getting yourself organized if you have a job or if you are currently in transition it doesn't matter you have to pay attention to your career and make sure you you find the time to make those important plans and develop strategies to keep yourself always an important asset to your organization and to future employers as well and bringing that income in which is what we all want to do
so whether you've been job searching for months or you have just started i really do encourage you to press that reset button there's a reason why one of my online courses is called reset your career i think it's important to sometimes get out of your comfort zone get out of the race and sharpen your focus and go through a list of you know success factors that people like myself have already identified through years of experience years of working with clients that they do work make sure that you are then reviewing and addressing them every day if you are in transition and every now and then if you are employed i hope that by being a strategic and building a healthy job search routine or career planning routine you will be like my clients and have a shorter transition when you are in between jobs and have better career outcomes in the future so regardless of the magnitude of your career goals be it finding a similar job of the one that you have now or had in the past or making a bolder career change moving towns moving careers moving professions the strategies that i'm going to talk to you today will help you ensure that your pitch is crystal clear when you're talking to recruiters hiring managers and having any type of important conversation that leads to better career outcomes for you so first of all number one is understanding who you are as a professional and what you offer employers you have listened to this idea before i'm just top of mind i'm thinking here of my interview with donna burr a few weeks back and she mentioned that sometimes employees go to um head hunters and recruiters and say that they can do anything and everything under the sun and that really isn't helpful for somebody who is trying to position you um against the brief from a client against you know an opportunity that's coming up or that they already have and they're looking for people you really need to be more specific than that so find out what your strengths are what your transferable skills are even though different sectors require different expertise they need common essential skills such as communication analytical skills people skills etc
please write down what your transferable skills are and include them in your job search material not as a jumble of words but it's something that has been thought through that you can explain that you have already done achieved put some metrics to it and um find those most relevant competencies that are applied to you as a professional and whether it be in an interview or your resume or on your linkedin profile ensure that you can speak confidently about those skills that you have listed and that you have robust examples to to give right so it's again not a laundry list of everything you can do it's not a very long list in fact but it's a list that has some good information to back up the claims that you are a good professional so make sure that you make that exercise a priority for you second is to ask yourself what industry sector and organization do you want to work for.
If you are in transition or if you're thinking about taking your next step this is the time to really um ideate to really pen to paper and dream and you know be a bit bolder than what you're doing right now if you are inside a job you really have to pay attention to that job and do it well and so on but if you're thinking about moving on or if you are in transition you can think outside the square now is the time and we have interviewed several people in the podcast before that have mentioned how important redundancies are for that time when you reflect so after you go through the grieving process after you go through the uh sadness of losing your job it's a great opportunity see the silver lining and if you are unsure of where to go next and you're curious or you don't know much about other industries and companies investigate you have the time treat this time as a project and you can read about different industries and companies but most importantly it's great to talk to professionals that work in different sectors so that you really get a on the ground you know information and sometimes when we read things we still don't get the whole picture but when you talk to somebody it makes it more real and they can give you really great feedback validate those feedbacks with by talking to more than one person so that you have a better more validated uh perspective of of that sector or company that you're interested in so draw on your network and start or start building one um go back to people and say hi and let's talk and this is not really about asking for a job it's not even asking for advice or help it's just to learn right this is a very important first step to reconnect to people that you haven't spoken to in a while or to make new connections so for example you can tap into your university's alumni former colleagues associations professional associations friends you know ask what people do where they work and think outside the box as i said by opening up the horizons and considering what else you can do with your career then make sure that you make decisions about where you want to go next before you start your job search yes you can revisit later in fact you should be reviewing your job search strategy constantly but having that sharp focus of being able to tell a recruiter or people in your network look i'm interested in these industries i mean and i'm interested in these companies it will crystallize and make it more interesting for you even to start developing your job applications but also because once you look for jobs there are many opportunities out there and it can drive you insane you know it's very overwhelming
i find that job boards can have the same effect as social media has you just get lost in them and you don't have any focus anymore but if you've made those sort of important strategic first steps of understanding who you are as a professional understanding what your key strengths and transferable skills are your core competencies are then you say okay i want to work for this sort of sector these types of companies you are going into the job search with a sharp focus and it will be less stressful for you and you'll be better at selling yourself as well when you're positioning yourself in job applications
number three once you identify your preferred industry find out what knowledge qualifications experience and skills are valued by the hiring managers in that industry so your research will provide you with important clues that you should use to draft your cover letters resumes and linkedin profiles remember that different companies and different sectors they have different ways of telling a similar story but it's up to you to adapt if you want to change lanes so if you're moving out of government and into the corporate sector maybe there are skills that you have learned to speak about them in a certain way but once you look at a corporate job ad you you say okay i can do this but you you forget to adapt the narrative to that new corporate jargon and wording you need to do that you need to do that adaptation it's really important it happens when you move countries it happens when you move industry sectors companies even have different coaches so make sure that you read the position description and then you read it by reading it i mean you then adapt it and can you can find the nuances of the tone and the words and the jargons and then adapt your marketing material what are your marketing material your cover letter and resume for sure to that new narrative a new way of explaining key responsibilities and achievements and so on a good sector analysis will help you learn the sector's language so that you can better explain both in writing and when you're having conversations how your strengths and your transferable skills can support your new career transition you will feel more confident about your prospects if you do these these steps
number four it it's really important to consider either finding a coach to support your transition or at least finding a mentor because it's not easy to shift sectors and having a mentor can help access information to support that transition it's also not easy to be in transition so if you haven't applied for a role if you haven't been unemployed if you haven't really have to sell yourself in a interview experience or you've done that over five years ago seven years ago you may be out of touch with what you need to do to actually be successful and have a shorter transition period and this is really the sort of work that people like myself do and there are others too that do that and learning how to play that game of recruitment and selection is really important to win as a job candidate in a sea of very highly qualified competitors there your peers and learning how to do that is a steep learning curve so you will be applying and missing out applying and missing out until you go oh yeah okay i get it now and then you learn but it could take months so if you can accelerate that by having the support of a coach or at least having a mentor if you can't invest in a coach that will really help you investing in help at this stage can really shave off weeks or months of unemployment as well as keep you operating at a very high performance and low stress levels why because you know there's somebody there to support you right you know that there's somebody there that you can go to if you have a question if you're working with a coach they probably have a i have a framework so i have a system that is successful that has helped lots of people and we go through that systematic way of not only positioning your application but then reviewing that over time to make sure that it gets better and better and it as we shave off as much as possible that transition period for you because recruitment and selection it's a competition there's no way around it there's nothing i can do and the top players usually have top help so be one of them okay and if you want to work with me you know where to find me just go to the episode show notes and you will be able to find out more details of the sort of services i provide there and i also have lots of free resources that you can download and use them and they are really invaluable they're not just free for uh you know they're free because they're resources that have worked really well for my clients and i want to make them available for everyone because i'm hoping that once you start using them you will see the importance of having more of those resources right so that's the whole point of me trying to connect with you and offer you this opportunity by giving you some free resources they are really really useful especially well i like all of them but i think the one that's being very downloaded recently is the optimized job search definitely that one there people really love and the other one that i like is the um email template for recruiters that one like that that's one of the key um templates that all my clients use and we adapt it for other purposes but that one is free and you can download it so working with a coach is having access to all of these resources templates frameworks that will make your life easier that's the whole point
number five know your values knowing your values may sound like a privilege when you are unemployed and you know you just need a job and all you want is money in the bank again but if you are in a position where you can choose and that's a position that i like my clients to be in then what sort of culture and what kind of organization brings out the best in you right so for example do you work better in an organization where there's a lot of autonomy or do you work better in an organization where you're part of a team use this interviewing process first of all don't self select out of interviews because you think you're not going to be a great candidate investigate do your research talk to the recruiter talk to somebody that worked at that organization and if you have 60 percent of the the the requirements for that role i would recommend that you apply um then use that opportunity if you are catching up with a recruiter if they have shortlisted you if you're going through the interview process think about that as they are interviewing you but you are interviewing them as well and if it gets towards the middle or the end of the process and you are not 100 sure that this organization is for you it's fine right you don't have to take the job just because they offered the job to you that's the truth of the matter and you are also analyzing and assessing values and culture and was this a good experience for you or was it a terrible experience do they make it easy for you or do they make it really complicated and confusing these are clues about what to expect next once you join the organization so don't just take the first thing that rolls up you know and that could be really a disaster in a short term or even long term but you know you want to be in a position where you can be choosy and transitions can be stressful but you don't want to regret your move in a few months down the track because you took the first offer and now you're miserable again right but i'm saying all of this assuming you can have the privilege of making the most out of your transition period right so if you've done reset your career which is my short on-demand course that i have you can sit down and do it in one go and then it kickstarts 31 days of action for you it's very inexpensive it's you know the most inexpensive pro service that i have and it's because i think it's so good i want everybody to have access to it i did it in collaboration with recruiters and you can find it on my website but if you've done that program you know how in the first master class inside that program i explain the importance of being careful when you're resigning if you have if you are opting out of an organization the importance of being careful with the redundancy package that you receive and how to stretch it out and how to build yourself your runway and how to make the most out of that opportunity so that you are prepared for more months without a job so that you can make those the best possible decisions for you and land the best possible job for you as well the the part of the work that i like the most is actually the negotiation the salary you know i have a client and he just texted me to say he got an offer and he's going to earn that's great you know he negotiated it up and he has some other benefits that he wasn't expecting um plus he really wanted to get out of the the job that he has at the moment so all of these things is better to do when you have a coach to guide you through it right not to feel pushed and not to feel anxious about just taking the offer without negotiating it so all of these things you can do more confidently if you have somebody supporting you like a mentor or a coach and sometimes there is no room for negotiation and you don't want to be too pushy because it's not going to end up well for you and it's just going to be that sort of awkward vibe when you first start so sometimes i say to my clients look i don't think there is room here for us to negotiate so just knowing um uh what what the best strategy is when you're signing up a new contract is so great you know i wish i had that when i um i was doing my transitions so keep in mind that you know success occurs when opportunity meets preparation i don't think it's the first time i say this on this podcast
I have it written here in front of me but it's so true success occurs when opportunity meets preparation and i will be you know here for you with weekly podcasts there are lots of content on my website both free and my services and i really do hope that with all of this information you will be better prepared for your next stage of your career it's exciting it's exciting to plan ahead and to take control you know take control back it's your career
it's your salary it's where you spend most of your day even if you're working from home apparently we're working even longer hours from home so it's important to take control and that's what i hope that you do and i'm here for you so if you want to learn more from me go to my website renatabenadi.com continue listening to this podcast it's such a you know pleasure for me to almost every day wake up and see um great emails or messages saying oh i listened to it you know i've listened to your whole catalog and then i got a job and thank you
i got a message from new zealand the other day saying thank you got a job have been listening to your podcast it made a huge difference it's so good i you have no idea how much it warms my heart so thank you to all of you listeners who are following me on this project i love it talk to you soon bye for now.