5 Key Strategies for Building Career Resilience in 2021 & Beyond
By: Emily Kapit
Tags: Job Search, Resume, Career Success, Careers, Career Resources

Resilience Often Starts with Hope — and a Smile.

Everyone comes to me in a crisis. Am I an emergency room doctor / nurse? Nope, but bless them! Am I a crisis-focused therapist or a hostage negotiator? No and also no, though with young kids, I might as well be a hostage negotiator!

No, I am a career strategist / 3X Certified Master Resume Writer and in my 12+ years of running my business, ReFresh Your Step, I have found that clients tend to come my way when they are in crisis mode. Some of those crises are on a smaller (but still important) scale (“My company was just bought and I am worried about layoffs” or “I am graduating from school/retiring and don’t know what I want to be when I grow up” or “My boss is the devil incarnate and I am reaching the end of my rope”) and some are a bit more global in nature (“It’s 2020. Enough said”).

Like I said, everyone comes to me in a crisis and regardless of what it is, I have seen first-hand how critical it is to help clients take a step back from whatever crisis they are facing and develop real strategies for handling the current situation — and future ones. This, my friend, is what I call Career Resilience. We have been working with our clients for years on developing their own strategies for career resilience and 2020’s umpteen challenges have made that need even more vital. As such, let’s talk about the *top five steps you can take to create Career Resilience as we head into 2021.

Good news! These are generally applicable to almost any level, sector, or crisis! From college student to mid-level professionals to executives, no matter what crisis concerns you now or ever, read on!

Career Resilience & Strong Coffee — a Match Made in Heaven

1) Reflect — A key part of building resilience is to start by recognizing what you are up against and breaking that crisis down into key parts before starting to put together a plan for moving forward.

Let’s use an example to illustrate my point. “Lauren” is a recent client whose reason for coming to us was that she lost her job directing operations for a major non-profit as a part of Covid layoffs. She had already been looking to leave because of issues with senior management but was not able to depart on her own terms, a point she was struggling with in conjunction with needing to find a job in a challenging market.

Lauren spoke to me about her fears of not finding a new role, feeling uncertain about her future in the space that she really enjoyed, and apprehension about going through a job search in the middle of a global pandemic when she had previously had the fortune of roles landing in her lap. In short, she felt small when looking at the mountain of a career crisis in front of her.

As is critical with every client and every crisis, I listened to what Lauren had to say. We reflected on each challenge and began to discuss a plan for working through them to get to the other side — landing a job that she wanted to do during the pandemic — we also added in a goal that the job would be a move up and not lateral.

“I finally feel some hope” is how she ended that conversation and hope is a critical part of moving towards resilience — they build off of one another!

2) Reframe — I consider reframing a critical skill for getting through life as it means learning how to see the value and positive in a given situation.

Professionally, I like to take this VERY critical step further and have clients reframe their crisis as not just a learning moment but to use this time for honing in on their Pattern of Excellence (PoE for short). What is a PoE and why is it important? Let’s dig in and then I will bring Lauren back in to illustrate with her story.

A PoE is one’s track record of achievement cultivated throughout their career. Wherever you are in your career trajectory, pulling out the ways in which you have been impactful provides an essential foundation. Think back to each role, especially the more recent ones, and consider what projects / initiatives you worked on, what you did as part of those (or leading them), and the outcome. Remember — qualitative and quantitative results are equally important!

Wake Up, Kick Butt, Rule the Day — Repeat.

Once you have that list — and we can help with that if you do better with a guided template — you can then take the MOST vital step in the whole process: look at your Pattern of Excellence and ask yourself this: “Of all my achievements, what do I want to do more of and what do I want to do less of?” Throw out the “less of / never want to do these again” points and focus on the “I want to do more of these” as you prepare for the next phase.

Why is this so critical? Let’s look back at Lauren for a real-world example. When she went through this process with us, she originally thought she was going to focus more on the fundraising side of her work (an area where she had been quite successful). Once she spent time capturing her wins across the board — and she surprised herself with how many she had — we did a strategy session to focus on what she REALLY wanted to do. By looking at her own record of achievement, she was able to see just how much success she had with fundraising but ALSO with project management connected to company operations.

“Emily,” she said about halfway through that conversation. “I actually REALLY enjoy project management — the details, working cross-functionally, streamlining operations, and more. Can I really focus on that next?”

“Look at your Pattern of Excellence,” I responded. “Do you see examples of your success in those areas?” It was a rhetorical question, really, but one that she needed to answer herself.

“Yes! A ton!” she said and started listing them off.

Not only did we clarify her next steps but we also worked towards how we would align her professional documents (the next step!) as well as boosting her confidence as she prepared for interviews and informational conversations. There’s something about seeing your Pattern of Excellence that just empowers everything about your job search and serves as an integral part of building your Career Resilience. Bonus step: track your PoE over time — we recommend noting them quarterly each year.

3) Reinvent — Here’s the really fun part: getting those professional assets in order! From the resume and cover letter to your LinkedIn profile, updating them is a huge step. I know, I know — resumes and LinkedIn profiles are boring but people are not. The goal is to craft high-level documents that are achievement-based and aligned with your next-step career goals. Want help? We are here for that and there are some other wonderful, highly certified resume writers who can partner with you on getting these optimized for your job search.

Moving back to Lauren for a minute, we did craft her professional assets, focusing them on a Director of Operations role within non-profit and showcasing not just her range of achievements but with a special focus on her success with project management throughout her career history. Almost immediately, recruiters were reaching out after her profile on LinkedIn was updated and hiring managers were responding when she reached out directly about open roles.

From breaking down the Career Crisis Monster to highlighting one’s record of achievement and then updating the documents needed for a job search, we already have a solid set of strategies for career resilience. As they say in those informercials, though, “But wait! There’s more!” because career resilience needs extend to job search strategy, networking, conversation/interview prep, and beyond.

4) Revitalize ­– ­I should note first and foremost that the “Revitalize” step often happens concurrent with the Reframe and/or Reinvent phase(s); they can feed off of each other, depending on the individual’s crisis, situation, and goal.

Networking In-Person & Via Zoom – All in a Day’s Work!

At its core, Revitalize is doing just that: revitalizing what is often a neglected network and outdated set of job search skills. Instead of applying to 30 jobs per day in your jammies (big nope!), I suggest the Funneling Approach. Start big — think about your target industry (no more than two!), narrow down a bit to 5–6 target companies per industry, and then note contacts at each target company. Is the preference actual contacts at each place? Of course — but your extended network can make introductions as well. Figuring out who you already know as well as where you have gaps in your network can help you strategize on whom you can ask for introductions. LinkedIn is a key place to search out 1st and 2nd level contacts per company.

Once you have funneled down to your targeted people, begin to reach out. It does not matter if there are open roles; this is about building or re-building relationships for when roles are open. If there is an open opportunity, apply through whatever online portals they request and then reach out directly to actual human beings to let them know you applied and request to learn more about the role.

A revitalized job search leads directly into interviews (informational and for open roles); preparing for them at this point is all about going back to review your PoE, connecting what you have done to their needs, and believing that you are the distinguished candidate they are looking for.

For Lauren, she tackled this piece while we crafted her documents; she went through the Funneling assignment while we did our content-crafting / editing, started reaching out to key people in her network just to let them know she was looking and wanted to chat informationally about their organizations, and began to schedule discussions. By the time the resume was done, she could send them to people ahead of those scheduled chats while also starting to plan out and prepare for the interview requests that came in once the LinkedIn content was updated. Everything started moving quickly at this point!

She sailed through interviews, including targeted interview prep with me to discuss specific responses to expected — and tricky — questions. A few strategies for tough interview prompts translate well to unexpected questions that inevitably pop up and she handled them beautifully. You can, too!

5) Refine — This stage is all about either making adjustments to your search if it has stalled out for any reason (rare but it happens) as well as negotiating an offer in addition to finalizing your transition a new role.

If you find that your documents are getting noticed but your interviews are not going well or your informational conversations are not leading to additional discussions, I suggest adding in the “Plug & Play” strategy (which is actually useful to know regardless but just comes more naturally to some people). The “Plug & Play” is an amazing tool in your job search toolkit and while it is innate to some, it can also be learned.

At its core, this method is simply asking open-ended questions to whomever you are speaking to about their company / a targeted role and listening to the response. When you hear a point that you know you have successfully done well before and can tie it in later, you have effectively planted a seed of just how amazing your background is for their need (with an achievement-oriented focus to boot!). Learning how to effectively “Plug & Play” further cultivates this “I’m an amazing fit for you” vibe and will likely lead to more interviews and an offer.

Once you do get the offer, you will be in the negotiation phase; I can write an entire book about how to handle that (or speak to you 1:1 about how to lead these) but my main piece of advice is to come to the table with realistic requests and focus on how your PoE will allow you to be an immediate asset for the company / team you are joining. Avoid asking yes/no questions and instead position them as, “How can we work together on this?” instead.

6) Resilience ­­– I list this as a step but it’s really the end-goal that serves as a backbone of your career growth from here on out. You are likely to come up against multiple career crises as you move forward so getting yourself prepared with strategies now — even if that means proactively and without an immediate crisis on your hands — you are that much more likely to tame the Career Crisis Monster before it reaches “Yikes!” level.

Career Resilience truly is about strength and strategies. Said another way, it is taking back control of your career, empowering yourself to move forward and up on your terms, and having the strategies, documents, and support needed to get there. Prepare now to ensure a crisis-proof career trajectory, no matter what this crazy world throws your way in 2021 and beyond.

Oh, and Lauren? She negotiated for $20K more than expected and is ramping up to starting her new role now.

Emily Kapit MS, MRW, ACRW, CPRW is a Career Resilience Expert, 3X Certified Master Resume Writer & the Lead Career Strategist at ReFresh Your Step, a career strategy firm that partners with clients on furthering their career goals, creating high-level documents, and building – what else – career resilience.

She is writing her first book about strategies for building career resilience and you can download a sample chapter here of Sink or Swim: The Life-Changing Strategies for Career Resilience.

www.refreshyourstep.com / www.linkedin.com/emily-kapit / www.facebook.com/refreshyourstep / www.instagram.com/refreshyourstep