Month: June 2020

Use Your Career Story to Stand Out

Posted on by WorkAuthentically

Your career story encapsulates all the things you use to tell other people about your work. It includes your resume and LinkedIn profile, but it also includes things like a digital portfolio, your social media accounts, your personal brand, even conversations you have with co-workers.

If you’re like most people, your career story is the most underutilized tool in your career path toolbox. So let’s talk about how you can use your career story to stand out from the sea of blandness that so often permeates everyone’s career story.

There are many reasons why it’s important to stand out, but the one we’ll focus on is gaining a slight edge.

Think about it. The most pivotal decisions that other people make affecting your career are usually around whether to hire you, promote you, or give you that amazing, career-changing assignment. In all these decisions, is the person that has to make the call is comparing you with your stellar skillset to some skill-less person they met on the street? No! They are comparing you with similarly qualified individuals.

It’s usually a hard choice because any of the people they select will likely be successful in the role or assignment. What ends the tie? It’s the person that has a little extra something, that can tip the odds imperceptibly in their favor. The one with the slight edge.

So wherever possible then, you want to be the person with the slight edge! You want to be telling your career story in ways that are easy to understand and remember so when it comes time for that big decision to be made, you have the slight edge.  How do we do that? There are 3 must-have career story components.

  1. Authority – Show and share your expertise
  2. Advantage – Demonstrate the value you bring
  3. Authentically You – Your unique approach, style and way of being!

Can it really be that simple? Absolutely! As long as you remember that your career story is not simply a point in time resume or LinkedIn profile. It’s ALL the ways you tell others about your work. Things like:

When a co-worker asks you how you think that meeting just went. When your boss inquires how initiative XYZ is going. When you meet someone for the very first time. When you rate yourself on an annual performance self-review. When you chat with co-workers at lunch.

The opportunities to tell your career story are everywhere. You need to decide if you’re going to take advantage or if someone else will have the slight edge for that awesome assignment you’ve been hoping for…

#PositiveAction Share your career story with a close co-worker making sure to include your Authority and Advantage while keeping it Authentically You. Practice until you’re comfortable sharing it at every opportunity!

 

I’ve had people ask me how they can help support my small business during the pandemic, especially if they’re not in need of career services right now. It’s as easy as shopping at Amazon! By clicking that affiliate link, my business earns a small commission (usually 1%) on what you buy. It’s like dropping a penny on the street for my small business to pick up, without all the back and forth and tossing of change!  

Successful Failure

Posted on by WorkAuthentically

We’ve finally made it to the homeschool home stretch. It’s our last week. We did it. I can honestly say I’ve never been so happy for summer break before! In fact, last year at this time, I was worrying about how to balance my work and client commitments with my kids home from school for 3 whole months (different year, completely different perspective…).

Although our homeschool adventure is over (at least for now), I wouldn’t necessarily say it was an overwhelming success. We did what we needed to by focusing mostly on the minimum requirements. It wasn’t always pretty. It wasn’t without crying (by both the kids AND me). But it’s done.

I will not be winning any awards for this work. In fact, I don’t even think I’d win top homeschool teacher in our house! So let’s just move on, shall we?

Work can be like that sometimes. We give it our all, but it doesn’t end up being a success. We aren’t in the running for any awards or even a thank you from co-workers.

Sometimes, that’s because the work didn’t play to our strengths. Sometimes it’s circumstances outside our control (anyone ever built awesome software only to have it decommissioned a few months later when the company gets bought out? Or was that just me?). It’s the amazing report we share with the executive team, only to have it shelved for another time, which is usually code for NEVER! It’s the product we release with much fanfare… only to hear crickets chirping in response.

I learned a lot from my homeschool experience, similar to the times when I failed at work. The learnings can be awful, brutal, excruciating even, but they teach us as well (or better sometimes) than our success stories. Here’s the three things that I was reminded of during this experience. Sidebar, have you noticed that sometimes you’re re-learning a lesson you thought you knew?  Apparently, I needed to be re-reminded of these lessons in a new context.

  1. Doing work aligned with your strengths is critical – there are roughly a kajillion reasons why I didn’t consider majoring in elementary education in college, but primarily because it’s not something I’m interested in or particularly skilled at. This homeschool experience reminded me yet again just how tough and misery-inducing work can be when it doesn’t align to your strengths. If that’s you right now at work, I’m sorry. It sucks. Know that your strengths are valuable, even if your present work conditions don’t see the value. And look for any opportunity you can to do work more aligned with your strengths.
  2. The learning curve is steep AND stressful – this is true for the things you’re excited to learn, but I found the curve to be steeper and WAY more stressful since it was a topic I wasn’t particularly keen on learning. I needed to step up my selfcare game significantly to help with the stress (running, using the familiar to find comfort, old things, etc.) in order to make it through. If you’re about to make a job change, plan ahead and know that you’re going to need more time for stress management.
  3. Always find something to celebrate – making it through to Friday felt like a major accomplishment most weeks and was worth celebrating. Pizza for dinner! There were enough other issues going on that we needed to find any win, no matter how small since it often felt disorganized and downright ugly, but hey, progress was the goal, not perfection. We’d ask what was working for the kids and try to lean into those things. We got VERY creative with schedules and tried things even if we didn’t think they’d work (because nothing could be worse than the first week!). If you’re on a tough project at work right now, the thing your team could use most is some celebration, no matter how seemingly small the win is. Those small celebrations make a big difference. If you're having a hard time seeing all the little things that are awesome, then check out The Book of Awesome, which is sure to help you find something to appreciate no matter what!

I have no idea what the future holds, if or when I’ll be expected to homeschool again. I’ll be slightly more ready if there is a next time, but definitely won’t be holding any space on my trophy shelf for one of those homeschooler of the year awards. Better keep these lessons handy just in case!

#PositiveAction If you’re struggling with something at work, think about how you can apply a lesson you’ve already learned to make it better. We can’t always turn failure into success, but we can definitely improve on it!

 

Important Programming Note: With the shift into summer and school letting out for the year, the blog will be changing to new posts every other week instead of weekly. If you are missing your Work Authentically fix, you can get a more regular dose of inspiration when you follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

Image by AxxLC from Pixabay