finding career zen
Stories and interviews highlighting the unique challenges, failures, and successes encountered on the path to achieving career zen.
finding career zen
Strategically Planning Your Career: Insights from Dynamo Careers' Sonja Price
Have you ever wondered how to strategically plan your career to meet the demands of the ever-changing job market? Pete Newsome Invites expert guest, Sonja Price from Dynamo Careers, to unveil her top insights on this topic that could be a game-changer for your professional journey. Underlining the importance of developing a career roadmap, Sonja urges all professionals to align their passion with market requirements for a successful career.
As they venture into the conversation, Sonja emphasizes the significance of having a robust network in your career journey. She talks about combating ageism in the job market and highlights the necessity of having a professional development plan. They also touch on the topic of self-responsibility in career planning, and how mentors and sponsors can help navigate through career transitions and ensure longevity in roles.
As they wrap up their insightful discussion, Sonja and Pete discuss the pros and cons of job hopping, the importance of building a career network, and the impact of a household name on a resume. Offering a wealth of knowledge, Sonja's expert advice will equip you with a roadmap to navigate your career journey, regardless of the stage you're in. So buckle up and get ready for some valuable insights that could revolutionize your professional life!
You're listening to the Finding Career Zen podcast. I'm Pete Newsome and I'm very excited today to have Sonja Price from Dynamo Careers on with me. Sonja, how are you today? I'm doing wonderful. How are you, Pete? I am doing great. You are the founder and chief career strategist of Dynamo Careers. So let's just start there. Tell me all about your company.
Sonja Price:Ah, okay, well, Dynamo Careers. We've been in business for over 10 years and really our sole purpose and passion is to empower professionals to find work that they love, that's meaningful work that meets all of their objectives and criterias of finding the right type of work whether that means the right level, the right title, the right pay, the right type of work environment, the right coworkers, the right manager, all of the right things that can help individuals really find that satisfaction and fulfillment in their career. Because what we know is that that bleeds over into quote unquote real life as well, right, so if you're not having a good time at work, then that usually has an impact on your overall life satisfaction. So we have a very holistic approach and really enjoy helping people find meaningful work that they love.
Pete Newsome:Everything you just listed. It could be its own show, right? I mean, there is so much complexity to each of those things. People take it for granted, or really maybe that's the wrong way to phrase it probably don't spend much time thinking about these things until it matters right, and I'm sure, like me, you've found through your career I don't want to put words in your mouth, maybe you have it that people need help. People need a lot of help in these areas, and sounds like that's what you're there to provide.
Sonja Price:Well, you know what? I think we all need help in our own way, right, like I've hired my own career coaches in the past when I was in corporate, I now hire business coaches to help me run my business. I have a life coach. Like you know, I personally am one of those lifelong learners and I'm here to, you know, live life to the fullest, and so I find that we oftentimes need, we need, experts that are outside of our own head, you know, to help give us that perspective and help give us, you know, meaningful and wise advice on what should next steps entail and what's the what's the right, next best step? Right, we can always take the next step, but are we taking the best step? And, you know, do we have people in our corner or in our, in our inner circle, so to say, is like do we have people who are cheering us on and helping us find the best path forward for us?
Pete Newsome:You know, one of the things that I found over the years being a staffing company owner for a long time, is that people tend to have folks in their corner who will help and want to help, but they're not always best equipped, and so I'm a huge proponent, and one of the reasons I was excited to speak with you today and have you share your knowledge on the podcast is getting help from friends and family and neighbors is not the same as getting help from a professional, and in many cases it's the wrong advice that's given. Now I don't know if you'd agree with that too, but being a staffing guy, I can tell you we see a lot of bad advice out there until that candidate gets in front of an actual professional in the field.
Sonja Price:Right, yes, I can totally agree with you there. You know, and it's great to reach out and ask for help and some of us have a lot of challenges doing that right. So asking for help, you know, is overcoming a huge hurdle there sometimes, but then we want to make sure that we're seeking the right type of help. So, you know, if you are asking friends and family and neighbors or the mailman for advice or whatever right you want to be asking, like are they the right person to be offering the advice about my career? Do they actually work inside of the industry that I work in? Have they traveled the path that I want to go down? Like, have they accomplished the results and success that I'm looking to achieve in my own career? And if those answers are no, then it might not be the exact right person, because there is a ton of conflicting advice out there and what you want to do is you want to talk to people who actually understand the system. They know the whole.
Sonja Price:You know the ins and outs of the job search. You know, so I know you. You know you own a staffing agency. You're going to know how ATS systems work. You're going to know the backend of LinkedIn, you're going to know what are the keywords that you should be searching for to find the top. You know, top talent for a particular open role. As a job search searcher, as a candidate, you kind of you need to know how this system works as well. And this is you know, if you're seeking a new job, if you want to get promoted, if you want these various different things, this is a game of marketing and sales. So if you're seeking advice from people who don't really understand marketing and sales and they don't understand it inside of the industry in which you work or what you even do for a living, then you're probably going to be getting faulty advice. And that may sound strong, but you know, if you're taking advice from people who haven't traveled the path that you're looking to go, then you might not get the results that you're looking for.
Pete Newsome:I couldn't. You're spot on, and I don't think that sounds harsh at all. In fact, usually when I talk about it, I'm much, you're much kinder than I am. About that, because people do need to hear that, because the wrong advice is worse than no advice at all in many respects, when it comes to things like resumes, job searches, how to interview properly, what to do when you show up for an interview or even what to wear right. We see and hear it all, and as do you, but you touch on something which I really want to focus on while we're talking today, which is having a path right. So the wrong path is certainly bad, but having a path period right, having a career path, is an extremely valuable thing. You talked to me about that just a little bit already, so if you wouldn't mind, let's start there really and dig into what the purpose is of having a plan for your career.
Sonja Price:Yeah, absolutely. I think that oftentimes people wait to they think about getting a new job and sometimes they're waiting until the very end, when they're so fed up with their current job that they're like I just need a new job, I'll accept anything out there. When you have what I call a career roadmap, this is a strategic plan for you as a professional. Not just what are you looking to achieve in the short term, but also what are your medium and longer term career goals. So if you're someone who wants to get promoted and wants to get into those senior level leadership positions, that's not something that happens overnight and it's usually a very strategic approach over a long period of time so that you have this stair stepped approach of gaining the skills, gaining the titles, gaining the compensation, gaining the responsibility and the scope and everything that comes along with that over time. Not everybody is leadership bound. Not everybody wants to be a manager or to run the company, or be in the C-suite or whatnot, or even VP, director, senior manager, whatever level that it might be. But we always want to have a path forward, we always want to have a plan. So you need to know what are the skills out there that are in the highest demand right now. So if you want to be competitive in the job market, you need to know what are recruiters searching for and how does that align with your passions right? So there's kind of I like to think of the job search game a little bit as a Venn diagram. There's like what is the market searching for and who are the employers that are willing to pay for that, and then what are your passions and how do those things align in the middle and what's going to give you kind of that stretch opportunity to continuously grow your skill set? So I see a lot of people that come to me and they're like I need to update my resume. And I'm like great, what are we updating your resume for? And then they've never really thought about it and they're kind of like well, I thought I would just kind of keep doing what I'm doing right now, which there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And if you're super satisfied with what you're doing, great. But if you'd like to make more money or you'd like to grow your skill set in the new area, you need to be thinking about things strategically so that you are marketing and positioning yourself in alignment with what the next thing is for you, and then you want to have like a professional development plan in place for yourself so that it's not just about the next role, but what is that next role going to be lining you up for in the future? Because if you just jump from job to job to job, then you have.
Sonja Price:I have people who come to me who are like, oh, I just kind of like piecemealed my career together and they have all these ad hoc opportunities that are just kind of they've strung together and they definitely have a career, but they're like I never really thought about what I actually wanted to do. I just kind of took whatever the next thing was that was offered to me, and then suddenly they find themselves in this space where they're like my skills are no longer in demand or I've been wanting to get promoted but I haven't been working on the right things to produce the results that would get me there. So you just always want to be thinking very strategically about what's the next thing and then what's the next thing after that, so that when I land the next thing, is that actually going to put me on that trajectory to where I want to be building and growing over a longer period of time?
Pete Newsome:As you're saying this, it makes so much sense and I doubt anyone could hear it and not think well, of course I should do that, but I suspect very few people do and it's kind of crazy when you think about it. We don't go on a road trip. We don't leave town without a map right, without knowing where our destination is, how long it's going to take to get there, where we need to stop along the way, get gas in the car, whatever it might be. But that's nothing compared to how you earn income, how you know what your career consists of you and you would think that something that matters so significantly in someone's life we would plan for right, we would, we would collectively do that. I don't think very many people do. Is that your experience?
Sonja Price:Yes, that is. Unfortunately. That is my experience. You know, I think that and I don't know why, why are where this came from, but I think most professionals Kind of outsource that to their managers and they think that their manager is going to be looking out for them and saying like, oh, you know, pete's ready for a new opportunity.
Sonja Price:Son, you want to get promoted. Um, let me be looking for the right projects for them to help them accelerate their career success and let me help them think about what should come next for them and what is their five year plan, and all that. And you know, in an ideal world we would have managers that care about us at that level. But the reality is everybody is so, you know, strapped for time and energy and resources. We have competing agendas all over the place and ultimately, it's really not your manager's job to do that. We may think that it is an ideal world we want them to be, but most of the time they're just trying to make sure that you're getting the job done and that all of their other team members are getting the job done, that you're meeting your quarterly numbers, that you're, you know, staying in a line with the overall organizational key initiatives.
Sonja Price:And then we have performance review. That happens once a year, maybe twice a year, and generally during those performance reviews it's more like did you meet expectations? Did you exceed expectations? It's not like are you on track with your five, ten year plan so you know we can use those opportunities like a performance review is a wonderful opportunity to talk to your manager about what's next for you, but I found overall that usually that conversation needs to be led by the professional themselves and to you know active, like proactively, be Working with your manager as a resource to help make that happen.
Sonja Price:But you have to really be super clear on what your strategic plan is so that when you have asked, when you're requesting help, that is a very clear request you know.
Sonja Price:So some of that is knowing, like if you want to get promoted, you need to know what results do you personally need to be delivering to be eligible to be promoted at the next level. And then sometimes you need to be asking your manager for the right opportunities to be able to produce those results. Sometimes managers do look out for you and they're trying to help make that happen, but it's not their number one priority. It needs to be your priority and you can. Definitely, if you have a great manager, you can work with them and you can collaborate with them on that. And maybe you need to actually go outside of your manager to get those opportunities as well, and oftentimes I find that sometimes it's just easier if you go to a new, entirely new job to get the opportunity that you're looking for, because sometimes it's much harder to get promoted internally versus just looking for the right fit elsewhere where you can grow and accelerate your skill set In a more predetermined type of way.
Pete Newsome:Well, yeah, I think every, for the most part, managers have good intentions, right, they want to get promoted. They have good intentions, right, they want to support their employees. Because you develop relationships with the people you work with, who report to you. That that's just natural. But if we've established and I think we have that most people don't take full control of their career and have a road map and think far ahead, then it's unrealistic to expect your manager to think far ahead on your behalf. I think that goes, should go, without saying. But I also agree with you.
Pete Newsome:Over time I've noticed, as my career has gone on and maybe this is societal change, maybe this is just a shift in the way we work but there is a perception among I think you may disagree with this with the younger generation that they expect more from their employer. Then I did for mine at a young age. I thought it was a very linear relationship, right, I'm paid to do a job, I do the job. If I succeed in the job, I could get paid more, I could get promoted. But that was it right.
Pete Newsome:I was only looking at my employer as I didn't expect more from them. I didn't care about their politics, I didn't care about their. You know what they represented in society and we all know that is shifted, but fundamentally people still have to look out for themselves and no one is going to look out for you like you, and so if you are relying on that and from your experience it sounds like you hear that a lot People are not that's not the best way to proceed. I think is a very kind way to say. You have to take ownership of your own success in future.
Sonja Price:Yeah, you know, I think often times it's easy to think of a manager as more of like a parental role. You know where that's not really their job. But you're looking to them for advice and you're looking for them to help lead and guide the way. Their job is to ensure that their team meets the metrics for the week, the month, the quarter, the year, and not only that, but they're the middleman. So they're you know they're navigating downward and upward at the same time, right? So they're. You know they have a lot of competing priorities. You know, like I said, in an ideal world it would be great if we all had wonderful managers who did have that, you know, like kind and mentoring, kind of like, oh, let me just take you under my shoulder and show you the ways. And sometimes I've had those managers and those have been wonderful and I've learned so much from them. But it's an unrealistic expectation to think that you're always going to have that kind of manager. And so even if you are fortunate enough to have that at points and times in your career, you may not always have that. And it doesn't mean that all of the other managers are, you know, toxic and like out to get you. It doesn't even mean that. It's just that there's so many competing priorities and if you want your career to be a priority, then it needs to be priority number one for you and then you need to find the right resources to help make that happen.
Sonja Price:So I think oftentimes we look to our manager as being a mentor or a sponsor, and so I don't know you know, I'll just kind of sit discuss what those two terms are, what I mean by them, because a mentor is somebody who's already traveled the path that you want to go and they can help give you meaningful guidance on the exact steps that you should take to get there.
Sonja Price:Sometimes a manager can be a mentor. Then we have sponsors, and sponsors are people who will actively kick it like kick open doors for you, like they're looking for opportunities and even if you're not in the room, they're going to think of you and mention your name and try to help you secure the right, you know, the right next thing for you. So managers can be mentors and sponsors, but there's not a requirement that they be either of those. So if you have that in your manager, great. If you don't, then you need to make sure that you're getting that support and guidance elsewhere and you know, sometimes you're going to find that of, like you know, industry experts. Sometimes it's going to be a coach that you call and hire and have weekly discussions with so that you can stay on track and that you're, like you know, proactively making progress and achieving the results that you're looking for.
Pete Newsome:I think when you have someone from the outside who's not in the weeds with you, their perspective can be so much healthier too. I mean that that's my own personal experience coming into play, where, as when I started my business 18 years ago, it was really hard for me to not have a boss anymore. I didn't have a manager, I didn't have someone to look to and have guidance from, so that was a different place for me to be. But what I realized once I started hiring employees is, intentional or not, everyone has. Everyone is thinking of themselves, right. So if I look at my former employer employers, they lived quarter to quarter, right? If the CEO didn't deliver what the shareholders needed in that quarter, they were looking for a new job. Right, the whole C-suite was looking for a new job. Public companies often work that way. We know that.
Pete Newsome:So if you think that those individuals can look out for your well-being over the course of your career, it's just not practical. And use the word ideal. That sounds wonderful. We should all be so lucky to end up in that situation where no one's worried about hitting quarterly numbers or being on a performance plan or the next annual review. But that's not the world that we're in, and so you really do need that outside guidance. In my opinion, right if you can have that internally, great. But managers change, right, the decisions can be made beyond the control of you or your manager, and that happens all day, every day. So, yeah, that's a risky proposition to me to look for, and I love your definition of a manager I'm sorry a mentor, because that you just put that so well and a sponsor to, but I don't know, do you think it's dangerous to seek that internally or even roll? Maybe not seek it but rely on on those your, your mentor to also be your manager?
Sonja Price:You know, I think it's a case by case basis, because some managers are wonderful mentors and they have the sponsorship qualities as well, but it's not a requirement. You know, most, most companies do not train their managers to do that for their employees. So if you have a manager that does those things for you, it's it's probably just because they're a really awesome person and that's been a huge component of what gives them joy and satisfaction in their career as well. I always I coach my clients to have have your own counsel, you know, have your own board of directors, so to say, like if you're really up to something in your career, create your inner circle of people who are going to help support you in your career in the way that you want. And it's really good to have variety and diversity in that board of directors, right? So it's like it's good to have multiple mentors, it's good to be thinking of who can be sponsors for you, who can help open doors and create opportunities for you, you know, who can help coach you, who can help guide you, who has the wisdom to help you achieve what you're looking to achieve. And if we put all of that into one person which most people do in their manager and then they get sorely disappointed because they're like Well, why aren't they helping me, you know, and they're just doing the best that they can to get their job done. So you know, we want to actually kind of diversify that, you know, out. Like outsource that responsibility across meant multiple different people, because it's always good to get multiple different perspectives.
Sonja Price:And you know, going back to what we were talking about earlier, you know, if your dad was, you know, a director of product management and your product manager, great, let your dad be on your board of directors. But if your dad was a physician and your product manager, it's okay to talk about your career with your dad. But someone who is a physician, you know, one of, probably one of the most smartest, brilliant men in the whole world but they don't know anything about product management and they don't know anything about the types of organizations that you typically are going to work in. And so if you give them your resume and you say, hey, dad, you know, give me some feedback on my resume, he's going to go.
Sonja Price:I don't know why doesn't it talk about scalpels in here? You know, and I'm just joking, right, but it's like you need to be thinking about where you're getting your advice from and who are the people that you know. If you were going to have a board of directors for your career and you only had a certain number of spots, how selective would you be about choosing who those individuals are, and what kind of wisdom and advice are you seeking and are you actively getting that in the way that you're looking for and that is going to actually help you cause or create the results that you're, that you're Seeking, that you're going after?
Pete Newsome:It's so wise and as you're talking, I continue to think about how few people stop and do this, even though on the surface hearing it, you think why wouldn't you do this right? And I think we, because we don't stop and think about it right, we don't. We don't know we should. So, to that point, how early do you think it someone should look to have? Just start to put this roadmap in place? What, what point in your career?
Sonja Price:The earlier the better, quite honestly, right. I mean, even you know, even if someone is in college and they haven't even had their first job yet, their first internship like Knowing how impactful that is, like the very first Experience that you get. What does that help line up as an opportunity for you next? Right, and so some of us are not that lucky or blessed to know exactly what we want to do when you're in college I mean, that's part of the whole college experience is like figuring out what you want to focus on. But you know, if you are taking the right opportunities to gain Experience at a very young age, that will then lead to something else. It's gonna put you so much further down the path and, even if it's not exactly what you want to be doing, moving forward Like having some professional advice at a young age versus, you know, working at a bar over the summer or whatnot there's nothing wrong with working at a bar.
Sonja Price:I was a bartender for a period of time. You know it took me a while to get my career figured out and that's part of why I became a career coach, because you know I stumbled around for a really long time until I really figured it out. But I, you know, I tried my hand at a lot of different things and I became very skilled at knowing how to market and sell myself and to use. You know how to leverage past work experience and past skills to kind of transition into what I wanted to do next. So, you know, I do think the earlier the better, but whenever you have this realization, it's not too late to start.
Pete Newsome:This is so timely you have no idea. So I have, I have four kids my, my, my oldest is out of college. My second oldest is 21, going into a senior year and in colleges, home for a couple more weeks. And we were just talking last night and I said you know, I I consider it to be a gift at a young age if you know what you really want to do, something that delivers value to the world, that you're good at doing, all right, and that you enjoy doing. If you can combine those three things at a young and know what that is, I mean how rare of a gift that would be.
Pete Newsome:I did not have that gift given to me or presented to me any former passion For a long time only. If only we would have had that right, pete. That's it. I mean it sounds wonderful. Very few people do, but I think very few people Pursue it aggressively and consistently to. And what I mean by that is I think many of us are told you'll go get a job Right, that's what society sort of expects of us at a certain age. Go to school, then get a job that's that's what I was told.
Pete Newsome:I think it's awful advice to give to a young person. I think that's just demoralizing advice for anyone to hear, because you should Want so much more for yourself and and to see that you can achieve so much more, and why what you're saying resonates so much and it really is so timely, because you, you, you need to look forward, right? You can't just live in the moment. You and you may have to go backwards a little bit to go forward. I don't know if that's part of your strategy or something you'd recommend to people, but I Know, the sooner you feel you're not on the right path and or even more specifically, you know what the right path is and and you need to figure out how to get there, don't waste any time, make that adjustment.
Pete Newsome:But that takes effort, right? I mean, everything we're talking about takes effort. It doesn't just happen because you will it to be to be so right, so we're. I mean, if you're it, maybe I'll ask you about, you know, different play points in someone's career. So, for the young people, where, where do they start? What, what, what, what should they do to take these initial steps?
Sonja Price:Oh Well, you know, when you're young Sometimes it's hard to you know gain those first few work experiences. So sometimes, just as a matter of like, who will hire me? You know, like, and, but you still want to be strategic with it because you know the jobs that you're applying for. You do want to be thinking about, okay, what skill set is this going to allow me to learn? Or you know, what skill set will I learn? Or, having a particular company name on my resume, does that help build my overall portfolio?
Sonja Price:So to say, you know, if you have, like, a household name on your resume, that can oftentimes really help you get a much better start. You know, so, if you could get an internship with a Microsoft or an Amazon or, you know, it doesn't even have to be those like blue blood companies, but something that has a household name can be really helpful, more so than like an internship with Bob's deli or something like that. Right, you also want to be thinking about what, what skills will you be learning and what opportunities will you have? So you know, if you go work for a big company, they're probably not going to give you that much responsibility, but you're gonna have that household name on your resume if you go work for a smaller company and I kind of jokingly said Bob's deli, but let's say it's you know some, you know maybe some no-name marketing.
Pete Newsome:I always say I always use a name of a bait shack. That's my go-to for for for the. If you're working for Bob's bait shack, right? No offense to the, you know Bob out there, but yes, I know your point I don't know, I.
Pete Newsome:That's why. Maybe that's why I say because I don't but, but but where I'm in Orlando. So you know, if you have Disney on your resume, that sets a baseline if, if and I like to say this, I use this phrase often when directing a message like this at the candidates, because as a recruiter, you see these things over and over and over and it sets a baseline. If I know nothing else about you and that's that's the phrase I use and I don't, I only know what's on that resume. That's the cover of the book.
Pete Newsome:At this point, and I need to decide is this book interesting? Or, even more Appropriately, it's like seeing a magazine in the checkout line at the grocery store. What are the headlines? What's grabbing my attention? And there may be a wonderful story inside, but I'm never going to get to that story if I don't like what's on the cover. So if I see Disney, I Know, I know you were good enough to be hired by Disney, right. Everything else I can figure out after.
Pete Newsome:But each point, oh, and you know, tells a story, you know, like a chapter of a book, and I Love that. You said that because I I know that to be so definitively true, being in staffing, when Hiring managers look at resumes, they look for certain things and it's in its people don't want to see job hoppers. They don't want it. Yeah, they want, and I want to ask you about that in a minute too, because that's a topic that's I see coming up a lot lately. But they want to see certain things that resonate, and and Household names are one of them. They just are right, there's familiarity with those. I guess I don't know.
Sonja Price:Yeah, yeah, household names. Skills, right. What are the skills that you're that you're learning, right? So did you have an opportunity to manage a project? Or maybe it's a project coordinator at first, right, but, and then sometimes it's a matter of knowing how to language what you did so that it Appears is like very meaningful experience. But, like, the skill set is really, really important. So, what's high in demand in the job marketplace right now? Right, well, depending upon what direction you're going, the desired skill set is going to be a little bit different, right, but if we think across the board right now, like, what's one of the biggest things that's hitting the market?
Sonja Price:Ai. Like, I don't care who you are or where you work, you're going to be impacted by AI. So can you, you know, find jobs that are going to give you opportunities to know how to use AI To make that particular role more effective, more efficient? Like, how is AI impacting your industry and the types of roles that you would be in? Right, and so you know I do. I work with a lot of folks in tech and so, like, a lot of the top skills that I see artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science you know a lot of the, a lot of these kinds of things like this. Now, that's not relevant for every single field, but you need to know what's relevant for your field.
Sonja Price:And then, no matter where you are in your career Whether it's early, mid or late career you need to be knowing what skill set that they're looking for and it's not just it's. You know skill set is really important, but it's also like what results did you achieve in that particular position or in the projects that you worked on? So having quantifiable metrics is also very important, you know, and if you're early in your career, sometimes it's really hard to get those results. But you need to. You need to learn to think about things from a metrics oriented perspective because, like you were talking about Pete earlier, like your resume, is the the cover of the magazine right?
Sonja Price:And when I talk to my clients, like there, there's actually research out there that shows that most recruiters and hiring managers, when they look at your resume, they give it a seven second scan. So you got to know, if you scan your own resume, what are the what's, what are the highlights that pop off the page, and that seven seconds are less, and we need to think about all of the things we're talking about right now. What companies have you worked for? What was your title? How long did you work there? What's your skill set, what's your results, and is it organized in a fashion that I can easily scan it and pick out what I need to To know if I should take the next step and actually have a conversation with you?
Pete Newsome:Absolutely. I love it. I love everything you just said and it's so great to hear from, from a different voice, something that we know as recruiters and talk about all the time, that Candidates don't really have an appreciation for because they don't sit in that seat, they don't, they don't see it. And I pointed out something to a friend the other day who was frustrated that she hadn't been getting any responses from Applying to jobs and I said let's look at a couple of the jobs you've applied to and we pulled up on LinkedIn. The first three jobs she applied to had an average it's been a few weeks, I want to say it was like 700 applications Per her for a job. So ask yourself what? Why would my resume get pulled out of that pile versus the others? And let that be your guide as much as anything else.
Pete Newsome:And the reason I wanted to ask you about job hopping is because that seems almost in vogue right now, that that seems to be encouraged in many areas, and I want to separate this because a friend asked me about it. He made a comment on LinkedIn, said Pete, you know, no one should stay in a bad situation and I agree with that right, but job hopping is not a single incident, it's a pattern and you know it when you see it on a resume. And I think you know I Say from experience at hiring managers, hundreds of times have said to me over the years don't want to see job hoppers, don't want to see job hoppers, right. So what do you say about that? What's your take on on that? And then we'll get back to you. Know what we're really here to talk about, but what's your take on job hopping right now? Do you see the trend it becoming pop? Yeah, that it's become a popular trend, like I do. And would you warn against that cautious?
Sonja Price:Caution. Such a good question. Such a good question. Um, you know, I think the answer to that can oftentimes Be different depending upon where you are in your career.
Sonja Price:So if your early career, I think it's much more acceptable to jump around a little bit more because you're gaining experience and, quite honestly, as a professional, for you to help increase your scope and responsibilities and get the results it's gonna help you accelerate your path forward. Jumping around can can be a little bit of a necessity Because otherwise you're gonna get kind of stuck in, bogged down in these roles where you you won't really have the opportunities to progress. And so I think when your early career, it's much more acceptable to have a year here, a year there, this, that, the other, and in some ways it can actually be a really helpful strategy if you, if you play the contract game. So you know, I'll go take a six month contract here, six month contract here you can kind of string together a few, a few opportunities.
Sonja Price:But if you're in the contract world where you're having really short stents, you want to make sure that that's very clearly articulated on your resume so it doesn't look like whoa is just jumping from here to here, to here to here. You want to very clearly call it out that those were contract roles, and sometimes you may actually kind of like group those together Depending upon what you want your overall. I call your resume marketing brochure. So it's like what do you want the brochure to say about you? And so sometimes you may kind of end up combining a few roles together. But if you're very clear and articulate about it and saying it was contract positions, then it's like you know, from the mind of a recruiter or hiring manager, like okay, I understand you're immediately off the hook, right, I mean, that's that's it.
Pete Newsome:It just makes. It makes any doubt or consideration about that go away. You're 100% on point. Yeah.
Sonja Price:Yeah, now, by the time that you get to your mid and late stage career, there's going to be an expectation that you're going to have some longevity with particular organizations or they're going to start to question well, what is your loyalty? Or why are you jumping around so much Like, are you a bad apple? You know, like if I hire you, it's going to take us all this time and money and energy to hire. You know, train, hire and train you and get you integrated in the culture and the work environment and get you, like you know, causing results on particular projects. And if you're going to leave in a year, it's really not worth it because it's so expensive to hire a new employee. So you know, by the time that you get to mid and later stages career career, you they want you to, you know have at least a few to several years with a particular organization.
Sonja Price:Now you have to, as a professional, you kind of have to weigh out the pros and cons of this because in the eyes of an employer, they want to see that you have longevity, they want to see that you have loyalty, they want to know that you're not going to be an expensive hire.
Sonja Price:But as a professional, you need to be thinking about your longer term objectives and you know, all of these different opportunities that you're taking on, is that helping you meet your goals? You know that when we go back to that career roadmap is like what is your long, your short and long term career goals? What's your timeline for each of those things? And you know, is each opportunity helping you meet and achieve that? And then you know what's the right time to stick around to. You know, build and grow and gain the skill set that you're looking for that will make you eligible for the next position, but making sure that you're doing that in a way that you know you do have some longevity but you're not staying for so long either that maybe it could actually be working against you.
Pete Newsome:It's an important. You've made a couple of things, important distinctions there, and it has to do with with that right, you can stay somewhere too long, and I have a very specific example of that that comes in mind. It was a relatively young professional who had only been at one company since coming out of school and it was for 10 years and the the the net advanced. So it was a great looking resume. They did everything right I mean really, you know should be commended. But the manager who hired this person this was years ago, so I don't I'm comfortable telling the story the manager was concerned that they were going to be too set in their ways. They only knew one way to do the job and it required flexibility and agility, as most jobs with big companies do, and and but the can. It was otherwise spot on. Manager hired the person and that was a struggle. It was a struggle for both, on both sides. The company had to probably invest a little more effort into the individual to get them bought into a different way of doing things, and the individual struggled with just being so, the habit of doing things a certain way, and so you can you can get in a little bit of trouble with that potentially, or can work against you, but the thing that you said that I think is such an important distinction for young professionals in particular and we'll get to people my age in just a second but for young professionals who are thinking more in the moment than they are long term, and that's where that's what I think is dangerous and that's really what I discourage against, when it comes to job hopping in particular, because you have to show that you've been able to stick it out somewhere. In my opinion, you have to show that you've dealt with a verse adversity which we know happens after at a certain point, and I think it's usually around the two year mark. Right, first year is a honeymoon period, yeah, you're just. No one expects a whole lot of you. Year two, that's where the rubber meets a road. You're two and beyond, and if you're always leaving after two years, that tells a story, and in the story you can't blame a specific employer if it happens over and over and over. And so while a $5,000 salary increase may seem like a no brainer move, you know when you're 26 years old, 30 years old, you do need to think long term. And so, for everyone listening, I hope you heard Sonia say that. Right, you have to think long term, because that's what it's all about. That's that's where ultimate success is going to come from, in my opinion, so I'm really glad you drew that distinction, so thank you for that.
Pete Newsome:Now, people who are older in their career, more senior, not used to looking for jobs. I think it's easier when you're younger, right, I think, is the older you get, and we've we've seen a lot of, a lot of tough stories During COVID when, when so many people found themselves unemployed through no fault of their own. That was tough. We've had a couple of waves at least I have in my career, gone through that. Those are the toughest ones for me, because in many cases, they've never used online job boards, they've never had to deal with LinkedIn or Indeed or any of these places, and even working with recruiters is new. So I would expect that those folks need a lot of help, and that's my opinion. But is that the kind of individual professional who you can really help with what you do?
Sonja Price:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I work with people at all stages of their career. I think the strategies differ a little bit. The strategies do differ depending upon where people are in their career. By the time that you're in the later stages of your career, you would have hopefully built a really robust network that you can pull from.
Sonja Price:Because I don't want to sound brutal when I say this, so I'll say it as nicely as I can but there is this real thing out there called ageism, and we don't really know it if it happens, because if they look at your resume and they think that they know how old you are, people can put two and two together when they look at your resume. So there are ways that you can work around that and people are going to kind of know where you're at in your career based on your experience or if they see your picture on LinkedIn or whatnot. So, but we oftentimes don't know it if it happens, if people are passing over us because they think that we're too old, sometimes people will think that older professionals are set in their ways or they don't have new, fresh skill sets, or they're going to cost too much, they're going to demand too high of a salary or whatnot. So the later stages in your career that you are, the more important that your network becomes, because then you've had all these people that you worked with over the course of your career that you can then start to talk to about open, available opportunities. And then you have people who are vouching for you and referring you in and it's not just a numbers game. Then, at that point where it's just a resume in an ATS system with 400 other applicants at the same time, you actually have somebody on the inside who's saying, like I've worked with Pete, he's amazing. Let me tell you about this project that we worked on and how he knocked it out of the park when all odds were against him. You know that's the kind of like glowing reviews that you need to get that. You know then it doesn't have to be like that amazing, but it's like you need people to help you at that.
Sonja Price:You know, at that point in time in your career, having a really robust network becomes more important. The later stages of your career that you go Now, if you don't have a network, it's not like you're. You know you're not completely out of luck. It's just much easier if you do have a network to help you. One of the best pieces of advice that I've gotten in my career is build your network before you need it, because you never know when you're going to need it. And when you need it you want to have people that you can call and be like yeah, absolutely, I'll take your call. Sure, let's meet for coffee. How can I help? Who can I introduce you to? And that those don't happen overnight. You know those kinds of connections don't happen overnight, so you know there's like that's one big thing that I would really recommend is, no matter where you are in your career, be actively building your network and maintain that network so that you, when you need to make those calls, people are going to pick up and listen.
Pete Newsome:Yeah, that's not the time you want to find out. You don't have much of a network, right? No, it's to your 100% right. It's too late at that point, yeah.
Sonja Price:The other thing is you know, the later the later that you get in your career, ideally you would find an organization that's just a really great fit for you, where you know what you're contributing, what your impact is and maybe you're going to like settle down and stay for a while. Now, with that said, you know, I think 10, 10 years at any one company is a long time, because if you suddenly get laid off and then you're out competing with everybody else, you know if you show really good track record during that 10 years and you've gotten promoted and you've done different things, cool, fair enough. But there is, like there's always kind of this sweet spot of like, well, stay long enough. So it shows that you've got some longevity, but don't stay too long, that people are going to think that you're set in your ways Right, and you know the later stage that you go, the more important that that career roadmap is, because you want to be thinking about okay, have I made my impact? Have I done what I wanted to do? What else is there for me?
Sonja Price:And hopefully you've been really smart and you've saved for retirement so that, like you know, if something should happen, that you're not like get laid off or reorged or completely miserable in your role and you're not just, you know, saying like, oh boy, you know I'm in my mid 50s and you know I still need to be working for 20 plus more years because I just haven't saved the money to be able to make it financially viable for me to retire. So, you know, I would say like by the time that you're getting to your mid 50s, you're going to want to have a really you want to have that solid retirement plan in place. That like if you did get laid off, if you did get let go, you know that you have some backup plans and you have a network to draw from. You've got some money in savings, you've got a good, solid retirement plan in place. You know that like if there ever was a situation where you were, you know, forced early retirement, like are you going to be in an okay place? Are you going to be like, oh crap, what do I do now?
Pete Newsome:Yeah, I mean, who would have seen what happened three years ago coming right? Never Could we have expected that, so expect the unexpected. In that regard, I know that anyone listening right now is thinking I've not done a fraction of the things I need to do, but that's where you come in, that's why you're here. So how do you begin when someone reaches out to Dynamo and asks for help? Where do you begin? What's your process on working together? And then also, who should call you? Who needs to reach out and ask for help? Other than everyone? Almost everyone is what I'm thinking.
Sonja Price:Well, if you find yourself in a situation that you're ready for a new opportunity, then that's the time to seek out a career coach. I would be honored and delighted to speak with you. Most folks that I work with are ready for a new job, ready for a new opportunity, ready to make more money. That's typically something I really help with is getting that career roadmap pulled together in such a way that we can look to say, okay, here's what you've done in the past, here's what's possible for you moving forward, here's what you want to do, here's the income potential and here's what the next few steps look like. Now let's work on your branding to help you land that next step and make it happen.
Sonja Price:So I've helped clients get new jobs in as quick as one month. Sometimes it takes three to six months and sometimes maybe a little bit longer. The more senior level leadership positions can sometimes take longer, but most senior level professionals are much more selective as well. So I'm always upfront, I'm totally honest with people, I'm very practical and I have a very pragmatic, step-by-step process that we move through one step at a time. It's very high touch, one-on-one coaching and if you find yourself in the situation where you're looking to have more meaning, more impacts and higher income in your career and you're ready to take active steps towards that right now? Then I would love to have a conversation with you. You can find me through my website at dynamocareerscom it's D-Y-N-A-M-O-C-A-R-E-E-R-Scom, and you can also reach out to me on LinkedIn. My name is Sonja Price, s-o-n-j-a-p-r-i-c-e. And yeah, let's just have a conversation and see what happens and we will put all of that in our show notes, of course.
Pete Newsome:So you'll have links to get ahold of Sonja, and I'm just so glad that we were able to connect because you have a business. You have a much more positive way of phrasing a lot of things that I talk about at Nauseam and to hear it from someone who, in your position, who does this. This is what you do and you're an author. You've put this out there. I've watched your videos.
Pete Newsome:So definitely look into what Sonja's been doing and can do for you potentially, and I can tell you I'm just thrilled with the content that you've been able to share so many just valuable pieces of information today in a 45-minute conversation, and, as someone who thinks about it a lot, I know how impactful each of those pieces of advice are. So I can't thank you enough and I know that anyone who works with you is going. That's just the tip of the iceberg. So you know your stuff and I'm impressed and I'm really, like I said, appreciative of the opportunity to connect anyone listening to this podcast with you and hopefully have an opportunity to work together in the near future. So thank you so much, oh thank you, Pete.
Sonja Price:It's an honor to be on your show. You have such a great show and you've got great energy as well. I actually kind of I would love to hear what harsh information sounds like from you. I doubt it's as harsh as you think that it is, but it's been really enjoyable having this conversation and I appreciate the opportunity We'll call it direct, how's that?
Pete Newsome:But no, but it's so good because it's what? When there's only, and when it's coming from one voice, right who that has a specific perspective, it's not as valuable, and our job seekers and candidates hear the same thing from my team over and over. So to hear it from a professional in your space who's coaching individuals and knows things like how to get your resume pulled out from the pile, how to be visible, how you should phrase things and display information on your resume, these are things that every little piece of information matters so much, and it can be the difference, because it's a numbers game and if you're playing, if you're playing it down the middle and you're not, you're not armed with the information that you know and that you can share. You're going to have a much tougher time. I won't say you can't be successful, but it's going to be a much harder uphill climb and I hope anyone listening who needs help will reach out to you, because I know you'll be able to help them. So thank you again.
Sonja Price:Oh wonderful. Thank you, Pete, Appreciate it.
Pete Newsome:All right. Well, thanks for listening and we will see you guys soon. So thanks again.