Are You Ready

Are You Ready Yesterday I blogged about my cousin who was hired in just a few days from when he found a job posting on Craigslist. I guarantee he was prepared to have the right conversation when the time came.   He was ready. Last night I dropped in on a network meeting I havent been to for over a year.   The hostess recognized me and at one point said Jason, why dont you take a few minutes and tell us about JibberJobber?   What a golden opportunity to sell the concept to people who needed it.   Two years ago I would have messed it up last night I was surprised, but much better prepared. Today I flew into Orlando for a surprise meeting. I was just here 2 weeks ago.   Due to a series of events that happened from two weeks ago, Im back and here to talk about some pretty serious stuff. I am ready.   Ive been ready for a while. You never know when you are going to meet that key contact whether its online or in person.   It might be from a referral, and it might seem meaningless.   But you have to be ready.   here are some of my suggestions: Know what you want. If you know what you want, then when an opportunity arrives youll be better prepared to react appropriately. Know how others can help you. People will say how can I help you?   It is better to know what to say rather than Im not sure but Ill let you know later. Know who you are. So many elevator pitches suck they are misleading and offbrand.   If you know who you are, who you want to be, and how to communicate it, you can take advantage of those 10 or 30 seconds   you might get.   Not prepared?   Thats okay, you can just mess it up like most people do. How else can you be ready? Are you READY A few years ago, there was a fire on the hillside near our home. This post, which I wrote from a hotel instead of my house, has more information Its interesting to read that post from a few years ago. We evacuated, and then I left to speak in SLC and then jumped on a plane for more speaking, leaving my wife to take care of getting the family moved back in. It was really no big deal, and she was capable but it was weird to have family and work responsibilities, and not be around to be the dad/husband. Anyway, thats not what this post is about I want to share something that I didnt write about in that post. When it was time to go, we drove away with hastily packed bags (including my speaking clothes and stuff for my meetings that week). It would have made the most sense if we drove our van and our car, so that my wife would have a vehicle and I could drive myself to my presentation the next day, and then the airport. But, we couldnt drive the car. Simply because it was about out of gas. We were not ready. Shortly after this incident, I heard someone say that they always have at least a half tank of gas, at all times.  If we had a half tank of gas in our car before this evacuation, we would have easily left in two cars.  But we werent ready. When I got laid off, I wasnt ready. I knew it was coming, just as much as I could see the fire coming over the hill towards my neighborhood. But, I still didnt do stuff to get prepared. What should I have done? I wish I would have: Started understanding personal branding. They say its not who you know, but who knows you, and what they know about you. This means we need to (a) understand who knows us, and (b) figure out what they know about us, or better, how they would describe us.  Then, we would figure out who should know us, and how they should perceive us, and do things to help the right people know the right things (about me). Figured out networking. Networking was a dirty word when I first started my job search. A necessary evil. But man, I WISH I would have understood what networking really was, and started to grow my network.  Wider (meet more people) and deeper (nurture relationships).  Networking is not a bandaid solution for job seekers it is a lifestyle for career managers (that is YOU and ME). Set up a workable schedule. They say that finding a job is your full time job.  I took this to heart I spent about ten hours a day from Monday through Saturday working on my job search.  Unfortunately for me, I was not good at a job search. Luckily, though, I was bad enough that I didnt find a job and had to start JibberJobber instead :p The key to this third point is to set up a schedule, and ensure that your schedule is realistic and something you can and will do. These are my fill the gas tank things I should have done, before the fire came.  NOTE: if you didnt do any of these things, its not too late to work on them now (and forever)!! But I didnt do any of them. Partially because of ignorance, partially because I didnt want to cheat on my company.  How could I network or work on my brand when I was the general manager of a company?  Ah, if I was only wise enough back then to take care of myself! Will you fill your gas tank? Are You Ready Yesterday I blogged about my cousin who was hired in just a few days from when he found a job posting on Craigslist. I guarantee he was prepared to have the right conversation when the time came.   He was ready. Last night I dropped in on a network meeting I havent been to for over a year.   The hostess recognized me and at one point said Jason, why dont you take a few minutes and tell us about JibberJobber?   What a golden opportunity to sell the concept to people who needed it.   Two years ago I would have messed it up last night I was surprised, but much better prepared. Today I flew into Orlando for a surprise meeting. I was just here 2 weeks ago.   Due to a series of events that happened from two weeks ago, Im back and here to talk about some pretty serious stuff. I am ready.   Ive been ready for a while. You never know when you are going to meet that key contact whether its online or in person.   It might be from a referral, and it might seem meaningless.   But you have to be ready.   here are some of my suggestions: Know what you want. If you know what you want, then when an opportunity arrives youll be better prepared to react appropriately. Know how others can help you. People will say how can I help you?   It is better to know what to say rather than Im not sure but Ill let you know later. Know who you are. So many elevator pitches suck they are misleading and offbrand.   If you know who you are, who you want to be, and how to communicate it, you can take advantage of those 10 or 30 seconds   you might get.   Not prepared?   Thats okay, you can just mess it up like most people do. How else can you be ready? Are you READY A few years ago, there was a fire on the hillside near our home. This post, which I wrote from a hotel instead of my house, has more information Its interesting to read that post from a few years ago. We evacuated, and then I left to speak in SLC and then jumped on a plane for more speaking, leaving my wife to take care of getting the family moved back in. It was really no big deal, and she was capable but it was weird to have family and work responsibilities, and not be around to be the dad/husband. Anyway, thats not what this post is about I want to share something that I didnt write about in that post. When it was time to go, we drove away with hastily packed bags (including my speaking clothes and stuff for my meetings that week). It would have made the most sense if we drove our van and our car, so that my wife would have a vehicle and I could drive myself to my presentation the next day, and then the airport. But, we couldnt drive the car. Simply because it was about out of gas. We were not ready. Shortly after this incident, I heard someone say that they always have at least a half tank of gas, at all times.  If we had a half tank of gas in our car before this evacuation, we would have easily left in two cars.  But we werent ready. When I got laid off, I wasnt ready. I knew it was coming, just as much as I could see the fire coming over the hill towards my neighborhood. But, I still didnt do stuff to get prepared. What should I have done? I wish I would have: Started understanding personal branding. They say its not who you know, but who knows you, and what they know about you. This means we need to (a) understand who knows us, and (b) figure out what they know about us, or better, how they would describe us.  Then, we would figure out who should know us, and how they should perceive us, and do things to help the right people know the right things (about me). Figured out networking. Networking was a dirty word when I first started my job search. A necessary evil. But man, I WISH I would have understood what networking really was, and started to grow my network.  Wider (meet more people) and deeper (nurture relationships).  Networking is not a bandaid solution for job seekers it is a lifestyle for career managers (that is YOU and ME). Set up a workable schedule. They say that finding a job is your full time job.  I took this to heart I spent about ten hours a day from Monday through Saturday working on my job search.  Unfortunately for me, I was not good at a job search. Luckily, though, I was bad enough that I didnt find a job and had to start JibberJobber instead :p The key to this third point is to set up a schedule, and ensure that your schedule is realistic and something you can and will do. These are my fill the gas tank things I should have done, before the fire came.  NOTE: if you didnt do any of these things, its not too late to work on them now (and forever)!! But I didnt do any of them. Partially because of ignorance, partially because I didnt want to cheat on my company.  How could I network or work on my brand when I was the general manager of a company?  Ah, if I was only wise enough back then to take care of myself! Will you fill your gas tank?