Darcy Bevalacqua is a career coach and executive recruiter for senior marketing executives over 50. Nevertheless, this episode has good advice for anyone looking to change jobs and even companies that are competing for talent.
Challenges for companies
I asked Darcy about the state of the job market. Companies are having a hard time attracting talent right now. She verified what I have seen a lot on LinkedIn and that is that companies have a hard time “getting candidates through the pipeline in any reasonable period of time. And so many times they lose great candidates because they take too long to make a decision about who they wanna hire.”
The second challenge is compensation. Companies are giving small raises but job switchers are getting 15% raises. Expectations for flexibility and other factors have changes during the pandemic.
Meet the new boss…
Even with those large raises however, more than a third of people who switched jobs last year are looking to move again. Darcy explained that if you don’t understand what motivates you and what you are looking for you can trade bosses and still end up hating the job because it isn’t any different that what you had before.
One thing you, as a job seeker, need to do is really start to think through what is it that I really want in a job?
What is making me unhappy now? Is it the scope of the job? Is it the culture? Is it the lack of flexibility? Is it not enough collaboration or teamwork? Not enough creativity? You need to really look inside and figure out what are your important skills and what motivates you to keep happy in a job.
And once you know those things and you set your career path, it's much easier to look for those in the new opportunity.
In the current environment, she notes that balance is more important than ever and given all that’s going on in the world, people want to work where they feel they are making a difference and making the world a better place.
Getting yourself through the pipeline
As marketers, I hope you’ll all appreciate this. You need to be able to sell your unique skills and do whatever it takes to find that ideal job. Darcy gave an example of a candidate that was not hired but was the 2nd choice. She felt she could really help the company. Darcy encouraged her to talk to the CEO and offer to help as a consultant to demonstrate what she could do. She ended up being hired as the VP of Marketing and got a (ka-ching!) $100,000 raise.
If you’re an older worker, you undoubtedly have skills. But you might have to think about how you frame those to be relevant in today’s market. This is where some coaching could definitely help.
What about imposter syndrome? I personally believe that most people who have it, shouldn’t worry and some of those that don’t probably should. In any case, Darcy laid out some ideas about how to overcome it and focus on what you know you are good at. You should also trust that anyone who invited you to an interview hasn’t made some awful mistake or been somehow fooled by you.
Finally it’s important to keep up a positive routine. It’s easy to start feeling down when the job search is a string of no’s followed by a yes. Volunteering, exercise and a regular get-together with friends are all good options. You’ve got this.
Chat with Chris about content for demand generation.
Switching Jobs in 2022? How to Prepare