Written by Gary Matsuda
Your ‘good enough’ is no longer good enough. Excellence is required. As the economy slows, there are more applicants than jobs and you’re competing with so many others with the same skills and experience. But there’s a way to give yourself an edge over other candidates.
Kristi Staab has the secret sauce you may need to stand out. An international speaker, author, trainer, and consultant, Kristi has been coaching and developing individuals, teams, and organizations to excellence in the areas of leadership, sales, and success for over two decades.
Keynote
More Than a Feeling
Emotions exert powerful influence on how we perceive events around us. They seem to come and go involuntarily. Yet you can think yourself happy, sad, angry just by associating with positive, negative or neutral thoughts. But career wise, we don’t do something just because we’re in the mood or not do something just because we’re just not into it right now. You’re a professional, don’t serve your feelings, instead let your values drive your actions.
Developed over time our values are relatively stable and come from our cumulative experiences, how we’ve been raised and lessons learned from difficult times. It defines what is important to us individually and brings context on how we build our character, mindset and actions which can be radically different between us. If situations or people are in conflict with our values, we will feel it intensely and emotions start coming to take control. Most of us aren’t going to seek out trouble, but will try to live in alignment with our values. Do the same with your career search to find the right environment that lines up with your values.
Values Drive Decisions
During the Covid pandemic, many of us have been stripped of our professional identity. Not only are some of us out of work but we’re also isolated, compounding the feelings of no longer being part of a group. Kristi says when we are under stress, we often start doubting ourselves and examining our basic needs which she calls deficiency needs. These are:
- Do I have enough to be safe, protected?
- Am I accepted, part of a group?
- I am enough or do I have worth?
We certainly don’t want to show employers that we need money, are lonely and need our self-esteem boosted! When these concerns become top of mind, that’s where our values can come in to help guide our next steps. With so many of us going through social and economic uncertainty in a competitive job market, we can create an advantage for ourselves if we get out of our negative mindset and into action.
You Don’t Have to Master Your Career Search
While your job is looking for a job, unfortunately you can’t add that to your resume. To be sure, you must put in the work to sell yourself which is an essential skill. But what is it about yourself that you’re selling?
This is where Kristi can help define your true values and make you more market ready. How close you are to a match for your next job and how long you last there depends on the degree to which your values align with the organization. We all know someone who has done something just for the money. How long do they last and more importantly, how satisfied were they? Consider matching as many of your needs, motivations and purpose with your next employer, so you’ll be more actively engaged with your work, bring out your best and embody excellence. Work might actually become easy!
Kristi doesn’t like to see people suffer (that’s one of her values) and instead wants to see people not just to survive a crisis, but to thrive according to their values. Your sense of purpose and mission should be so clear to you that you feel you can power through just about any obstacle in order to achieve your goals.
Find what a company values through who you know in the organization. What’s their mission, have they been mentioned in the news or social media? Use Glassdoor, LinkedIn, expand your network so you might be able to find those who currently work at your target organization. Consider reaching out to ex-employees, they may have valuable unbiased positive or negative insights of their previous employer.
What mindset do you bring?
Check in with yourself during your job search and well before an interview to recognize and stop letting your feelings tell you that because you were laid off that you’re not good enough, not skilled enough or not something else enough.
To help you grow personally and professionally, use professional organizations like Career Connectors who offer so many resources that will fit your needs. For now, you get to reinvest, reset, re-imagine, and renew! When you can bring that to your next job, you’ll be able to inspire others who may have doubts of their own. (Hey, you’ve been there, and you know what it’s like.)
When you’re crystal clear on your values and willing to stand alone you become the motivation, inspiration, representative of what others can become — in other words, a leader. For now, forget virtual. Get values. Get into your mindset.
Hiring Company
WealthWave
Jason Wiseman, Sr. Marketing Director
For those of you who aren’t sure about returning as a corporate employee with a steady paycheck, here’s an opportunity to exploit your values through your own business or side gig. But if you are hesitant about moving all at once towards being an entrepreneur, WealthWave is flexible enough so they can help you transition into something part time. Their mission is to eliminate financial illiteracy that means keeping people from making easy, avoidable financial mistakes.
And speaking of values, Wealthwave is a big believer of personal self-development so you’ll learn much about yourself along the way, including examining what you really want out of life. That sounds hard to beat: being able to build a business plan around what you really want.
Contact Jason Wiseman: 480.861.6111
Email: Jason.Wiseman@wealthwave.com
https://wealthwave.com/jasonwiseman
https://howmoneyworks.com/jasonwiseman
Resources
BestCompaniesAZ
This is a new Career Connectors partnership with several organizations under Best CompaniesAZ brand. Altogether in one place you can find verified, trusted companies who have thousands of jobs (120,000 at last count!) open now. Check them out here to see if any listed hiring companies match your values. For employees who are going through difficult situations, this is a great resource.
Coaching
Career Connectors has a new program to get you remote support in these areas:
- LinkedIn reviews
- Resume reviews
- Career Coaching/Development
- Financial Coaching
- Mock Interviews
Go here for support from experienced pros.
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