E. 6 - Career Change Clarity with Marie Zimenoff
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[00:00:08] Melissa Vining: If you're a high performer looking to grow and make an impact, but feeling stuck, underappreciated, and burned out at work, you're in the right place. I'm Melissa Vining and this is the Job Search for High Performing Misfits podcast. I help high performers leave draining jobs behind, reclaim their careers and land roles and organizations where they can thrive. Tune in for tips, insights, and inspiration for your journey to fulfilling work that fits you.
[00:00:38] Melissa Vining: Hello and welcome to the job search for High Performing Misfits podcast. My name is Melissa Vining. I'm a certified career coach and certified resume writer, and today I am joined by someone who has helped thousands of job seekers and career professionals, including myself, rethink their career path, clarify their message, and make meaningful change.
[00:01:00] Melissa Vining: So Marie Zimenoff is the CEO of Career Thought Leaders and the Resume Writing Academy. She has trained career coaches and resume writers all over the world, and she brings a unique blend of strategic thinking, storytelling, expertise, and insight into what it takes to really make a successful career change.
[00:01:19] Melissa Vining: So Marie, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for being here.
[00:01:22] Marie Zimenoff: I am excited to join you. Thanks, Melissa.
[00:01:24] Melissa Vining: Can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and your career path and how you got into this work?
[00:01:30] Marie Zimenoff: I started off in the university setting, and I thought initially that I wanted to be a school counselor. And so I had gone into a master's program where you could become a school counselor, and the first class actually I had was over the summer, and so it was the school counseling class. And I was listening to the school counselors talk about what they did and mostly dealing with parents.
[00:01:55] Marie Zimenoff: And at that point I was fairly young, right? I was 26, 25, somewhere in there. And so the idea of dealing with parents and scheduling high schoolers for classes, I was like, oh man, that just wasn't what I was thinking. I was thinking more my junior high counselor, which is what I loved, but what I realized is that being on the receiving end of counseling was a lot different than going into the profession.
[00:02:19] Marie Zimenoff: So at that time I was also working on campus, I had been for several years. And I thought, okay, well maybe I'll shift and I'll go into career counseling so I could work on campus. And at that point, actually, I went to a counselor at the university as well and started to do some exploration work with a career counselor thinking, well, if I want to go in career counseling, I can experience it myself.
[00:02:43] Marie Zimenoff: So I switched programs. It was in the same school, but just a different track. And so I switched over to the career track inside of the program and started taking classes in counseling, and then got an internship at the local community college. Got another internship with a lady who ran her own career coaching business, and that's when I started to see all the opportunities that are available for people in the career space.
[00:03:10] Marie Zimenoff: And then in September of 2008, I had been applying to jobs at the university in the career center and in the decentralized career centers in the different campuses.
[00:03:21] Marie Zimenoff: And just wasn't getting any interviews, was kind of getting seen as a staff person on campus rather than a counselor or an advisor, even though I had my counseling degree at that point.
[00:03:33] Marie Zimenoff: So I left the university in September of 2008 to start my own business, working with the woman who ran her own business, and teaching with workforce center, writing resumes for people who own businesses all over the country. I kind of dove into the hustle that happens when you start your own business.
[00:03:50] Melissa Vining: And I think a lot of people can relate to that piece of the fact that they're not getting interviews and sometimes it's because they don't fit perfectly into the box. Right.
[00:04:01] Marie Zimenoff: Well, or that the box was, it kept moving. Like at one department, they wanted an engineer to come in and run the career center inside their engineering school, which everybody could see was not the best idea, but that's what they wanted anyways. And then at the career center itself. They wanted people that had that career center experience, which I didn't have yet.
[00:04:21] Marie Zimenoff: And so I was like kind of stuck between that rock and the hard place. And the jobs that I was getting interviews for were across the country. And my husband actually, when I decided to leave the university was when my husband got a job in the town where we lived and I was like, okay, obviously we're not moving across the country for my career right now. Right. I am just getting started. And he was about three years into his engineering career at that time. So, uh, it was like, okay, if I want to do this work, I'm going to have to do it outside of the university environment, at least for right now, because all the roadblocks are getting put up in front of me.
[00:04:57] Melissa Vining: Definitely. And this is something where if people are making a career change, which you are very familiar with and have helped a lot of people do, sometimes they don't really think about all of these different moving pieces. So you were saying, okay, I'm going to do it outside of the university setting. And that's one way of thinking about this transition is like, can I do this in a different setting or maybe in a different industry.
[00:05:24] Melissa Vining: And sometimes when people are feeling burned out in their careers, they feel like they have to throw everything away and completely start over, and that tends to be harder in a lot of ways. I wanted to talk a little bit about this because you talk about the idea of the fact that it could be the role or the team, or the company or the industry, maybe a combination. But instead of trying to throw out everything and completely start over, let's get a little bit more specific about what is really causing the problem, and then take it one step at a time from there and kind of build a plan around that.
[00:06:00] Melissa Vining: So I wanted to ask you, when someone is unhappy at work, what kinds of questions do you find are helpful that they could ask themselves to figure out what's actually causing the misalignment?
[00:06:13] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, and I think it really starts with where is the rub, right? Do I like the work that I'm doing, but not the setting? Like for me, for instance, I was advising and I did like that work, but it was like this part of what I like to do. And I kept hitting walls when I tried to do the other parts, right? Like create programs, or do things that were a little bit bigger.
[00:06:36] Marie Zimenoff: Because the space was trying to say, no, Marie, you belong in this little box right here. And so I knew I needed to grow, but I couldn't grow there. And so I had tried, are there other university departments? Because that would be a faster transition to stay at the university.
[00:06:50] Marie Zimenoff: But unfortunately, what I found was, and this happens to people when they're trying to move internally sometimes, is that the organizations kind of put you in a box. You know you're an engineer or you're whatever, and they don't have a great culture for shifting. And I say culture, not process, because the university had a process, right?
[00:07:11] Marie Zimenoff: You could apply internally, and internal applicants were looked at faster, and all of the process was set up to make it easy to move internal. But the culture was, oh, you're an advisor, and that means you can't be some of these other things. So you have to pay attention, if you're thinking about moving internally, is there a culture that will let you move internally? Because it can be faster, but not always.
[00:07:34] Marie Zimenoff: So in essence, I was trying to change industry and role at the same time, which is the hardest transition for folks. So if you can stay in the same industry while you're trying to change roles, that can be faster, or if you can stay in the same role, and then change industry, and then change roles.
[00:07:52] Marie Zimenoff: So it's figuring out what's really not working, and what you love, and how could you do more of what you love and get rid of some of what you don't like in the smallest move possible, especially in a tight economy.
[00:08:08] Melissa Vining: Yeah, and that's definitely true right now, where the job search market is so saturated and so competitive that it can be much more attainable to do this in small pieces.
[00:08:21] Melissa Vining: So some of what you're saying is like figure out where things are going wrong. And for some people that might be easy, and for others it might be not as easy because it can sometimes be hard to see when you're really in the situation and it just feels bad.
[00:08:39] Melissa Vining: So do you have any other suggestions for someone who might not be able to immediately identify that, what else could they do?
[00:08:47] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, so in our Certified Career Transition Coach program, we teach four different areas for coaches to look at, but individuals can do that on their own as well, which is the interests, which is kind of like the industry or where I'm working. Do I like being in the university setting? Do I like being in the coaching kind of field? If you're an engineer, it's like, well, do you like being in energy or whatever it is. So that's kind of the people I work with, the types of problems I solve, is that interests piece.
[00:09:19] Marie Zimenoff: Then you've got the skills. What do I actually do every day? Do I like actually coaching? Do I like marketing? Do I like engineering? You know, do I like the work I'm doing every day? And those two pieces kind of come together for the what and the where. And those are probably the most important pieces, right? Do you like the type of problems you're solving, the type of industry that you're in, and do you like the type of work that you do every day?
[00:09:46] Marie Zimenoff: Now, that piece might be hard when you're really frustrated because it can be hard to separate the interactions with other people or whatever might be frustrating from the actual work tasks. So I'd sit down and think about, you know, what are those work tasks that I really love to do? How much am I getting to do them in this role?
[00:10:06] Marie Zimenoff: And then how much is that being impacted by the organization, not necessarily the role. For instance, if I was an engineer in a different company, would I get to do those things? Even though here there might be some challenges that are causing me to not get to do those things. Right. So if we look at the what and the where, those are the mainstays if you will. They're kind of the big rocks.
[00:10:27] Marie Zimenoff: Then the other things are the personality pieces of kind of how do I work? What is a good fit for me? Do I want to be remote? Do I want to be in person? Do I want to work closely with a team? Do I want to be more independent?
[00:10:40] Marie Zimenoff: And then also the experience piece. So this is a point that a lot of career stuff doesn't talk about. But in reality, if you don't have experience doing something, it's hard to get a job doing that. So I also want to look at what experiences do you have that you can use to get that job?
[00:11:01] Marie Zimenoff: Here's the thing that stops people in that path. We were just talking to a colleague who's working with people who are trying to transition out of DEI work, because that job category is kind of going away, but they're looking at getting into learning and development.
[00:11:17] Marie Zimenoff: Well, diversity, equity, and inclusion, people are doing learning and development all the time, right? They're creating programs, they're leading programs, they're teaching, they're doing those tasks, but just in a specific vertical. They could transition fairly easy to learning and development because they have that experience, even though it was in a different context.
[00:11:37] Marie Zimenoff: So you want to look at what experiences do I have that help me transition? And you've got to be really digging there. You don't just want to look at it surface level. Because your tendency, especially when you're in transition, is going to be to downgrade yourself and say, well, I haven't done that or I haven't done that. And so you've really got to be careful about that tendency and say, okay, no, I have done that. What experiences do I have that will help me make this transition?
[00:12:05] Marie Zimenoff: So it's the industry, or the where, the skills, the what, the how. And then the experiences that are really going to make it possible for you to make that transition.
[00:12:17] Melissa Vining: And then sometimes once people figure this out and they identify, okay, this is what's going wrong, it can be hard to actually figure out what they want to do next. So they might figure out this is what's going wrong, but then it's like, what should I do?
[00:12:35] Melissa Vining: So your example of the DEI person, they already know that they want to go into learning and development, but what if they don't? What kinds of strategies do you suggest people use at that point?
[00:12:45] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, so that's taking a look, especially at the what and the where. Let's say that DEI person didn't know they wanted to go into learning and development. We could say, okay, what are the pieces of that that you do like? And a lot of times that's a more narrative process.
[00:12:59] Marie Zimenoff: What are the experiences that you've had that you've really enjoyed? You know, you like the developing programs, or maybe they didn't, right? Maybe they liked the workforce part of it where they're looking at what are the gaps and the skills? And how do we build the skills of these folks? And they want to go more into that piece of it. So it's kind of breaking down what you have enjoyed, figuring out what those building blocks are, and then saying, okay, what jobs use those building blocks?
[00:13:30] Marie Zimenoff: And there's a few ways that you can do that. I mean, you can use generative AI tools to say, okay, here are the things that I've enjoyed. What types of jobs might use those same skills? What you want to be really careful about is putting in your old resume, because your old resume just has your old job on it. It doesn't have, these are what I enjoyed about it, those types of things.
[00:13:52] Marie Zimenoff: So you really want to dig in and say, okay, what did I really enjoy? What are some of the stories, the things that I, I did really enjoy? And then you can put those together and either use a generative AI tool, or even your own knowledge, or your friends and family. Who do you know that does a lot of this in their job?
[00:14:13] Marie Zimenoff: There's also tools like O*NET Online through the Bureau of Labor Statistics where you can put in different jobs and then see related jobs that helps you kind of think differently about what other things could you do with those same skills. You can search by skills in O*NET Online as well. It's a very big, like a very expansive program, which is nice, but it also can be overwhelming. So you're just doing a little bit of searching to get some ideas of, okay, what could I do with these skills that I like to use? And so you can get that brainstorm going of the connections.
[00:14:51] Marie Zimenoff: And it depends, again, we're talking about not making a huge move. So some of those tools that show you related job titles might be best, because you're making that smaller step. If you really want to make a big transition, then you might be looking at school, training programs, certificates, etc., that would help you make that larger transition. But I would start with the smaller transitions and kind of see what's perking your interest, what direction is that heading, and then what looks like the further out path if you were to go down that direction.
[00:15:27] Melissa Vining: And some of the time it can be a small piece of what you've done that you enjoyed. Like a lot of times people think, oh, well, I didn't enjoy anything about it. But it might be that it was just a little piece of it. It might be the culture. It might be the people that you worked with. It could be something really small, but whatever it was, pull that out and figure out why was it that that was working for you.
[00:15:50] Marie Zimenoff: And that's that kind of, we call it appreciative inquiry. Of this is what you enjoyed. So as you're saying, dig deeper there. What was it about it? What was it the task, what was the people? What were the environmental settings? What was it that made that experience enjoyable?
[00:16:07] Marie Zimenoff: And you can do that with, it doesn't even necessarily have to be a work experience. So if you've been out of the workplace for a long time, but you've been volunteering or doing things in a different setting that wasn't work, you can take that same idea and say, okay, what did I enjoy about that? Why did I enjoy it? And then you're kind of capturing those same pieces in terms of the what and the where that then you can move forward into the next thing that you're researching and looking at.
[00:16:36] Melissa Vining: And in your experience when you've been working with people making career changes, what are some of the common mistakes that you see people make?
[00:16:44] Marie Zimenoff: So a lot of times, and you said this at the very beginning, it's that tendency to want to blow it all up, right? Light it all on fire. It all stinks. I want something else. So I was working with a lawyer when I first started as an employee of that lady that ran her own career counseling business. Lawyers, they've been in their own practice. They're burned out. They've been running a business and doing the, the lawyering and all of that. They're burned out, and so they want to blow it all up. I just want to go do something totally different.
[00:17:12] Marie Zimenoff: And so usually we'd explore that a little bit. Okay. What would that look like, and what were, what are some of the options? And do some conversations with people that do those outlandish different things. And what would it take to transition into that? And that's where sometimes it starts to fall apart, is when you make a big transition, it takes time and effort, like school and money, to make that transition. And so what seemed like this great idea to blow everything up, starts to look like just as much work as not blowing everything up. And so that person, we circled around, did apply for some lawyer positions at a nonprofit where we could get that feel good, not running my own practice thing, and then found a position as the legal aid, that's not really the right word, but at a university. So now we have this helping feeling, the community feeling, the paycheck instead of the hunting, and my law degree actually helps me get this job.
[00:18:16] Marie Zimenoff: And so we tend to start looking for the totally new option. But what we find is typically the best solution is actually an "and solution," where I'm doing some of the things I used to do and I'm getting some of these pieces that I was missing. Whether that's, you know, the different feel of the industry, different feel of the business, or maybe even a slightly different role, but it's not blowing everything up.
[00:18:42] Melissa Vining: I love that, and I relate to that a lot because when I was trying to make my career change, I was exploring all of these different options, and one of them that I was thinking about was something related to healthcare. And I was thinking it's really in demand, I can use my wanting to help people thing.
[00:19:01] Melissa Vining: And I found that, you know, I had a music degree, so wouldn't want that for anything related to healthcare. I would have to go back and get another undergrad, and now all of a sudden the whole plan sounds like it's too much.
[00:19:15] Marie Zimenoff: And sometimes people do. Like I worked with a woman who'd been a chef and then gone into property management, which I don't think took a huge amount of transition, but then decided she wanted to be a librarian. So she did want the master's degree. And sometimes that's what people will choose, and that's great.
[00:19:33] Marie Zimenoff: It's the research that we want to put into it before we make that big of a decision. That's what people sometimes want to skip over, which if you think about it, doesn't make any sense. Like, you're going to skip over this three month research phase and go spend two years in grad school.
[00:19:49] Marie Zimenoff: Or, I once talked to somebody who wanted to be a pharmacist. They were going to go spend four years in grad school without researching if this was really what they wanted to do. It's like, well, let's take a little time out. Take a few months, or even less if you're really a hustler, and talk to some people who do this thing, and make sure it's really what you think it is.
[00:20:08] Melissa Vining: I see this with a lot of the clients that I work with who are unemployed, and they'll come in and they'll be like, "It's so hard to get a job right now. I guess I better change careers." And what they're not thinking about is the fact that it's going to be even harder to get a job if you're changing careers than it is to stay in what you're doing.
[00:20:27] Marie Zimenoff: Yes, and that is so true, and that applies to jobs that people may think are easier to get. So I was working with an engineer. He had moved to the location with his wife, who was a professor. So she'd gotten a new job. He was a trailing spouse. He had been like a marine engineer or something, and now he lives in the middle of the country.
[00:20:47] Marie Zimenoff: So he had been trying to get an engineer job and couldn't get one. And so he came in and he said, "Well, I think I'll just apply to work at a moving company." And I said, "Well, have you ever done that before?" And he said, no. I was like, "Well, why are they going to hire you to do that job when you've never done it before?"
[00:21:02] Marie Zimenoff: Just because you think it's easy to do, or easy to get. A lot of times doesn't work that way. Sometimes you might find industries that are just in such need and the job is lots of transferable skills, but even like, you know, fast food, they're not necessarily going to hire someone who's never had any food service experience just because you think the job should be easy to get.
[00:21:22] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah. So I want to pivot a little bit and talk about building a career story, because this can be really hard for people, too, and you are so experienced in this area. One of the things that oftentimes the listeners are struggling with as high performing misfits, is that their story doesn't always follow a straight line, and they may have done a lot of different things, and they're not really sure how to tie it all together.
[00:21:48] Melissa Vining: And this can be a challenge whether they're making a career change or they're just in the job search, let's just say staying in the same thing that they've done recently. So what kind of tips do you have for turning a non-traditional career path into a powerful, cohesive story that really makes sense?
[00:22:06] Marie Zimenoff: The first step is to always understand what the audience is looking for. So getting back to that what and where, you've got to have clarity on that. What types of jobs are you targeting? What skills are they looking for you to have used? And the industry, what's important to them? Keywords, yes, but challenges and things that they struggle with, problems they have to solve inside that industry. The more that you understand those things, the easier it is to then pull out from your background and align it with what is in their job description.
[00:22:41] Marie Zimenoff: And we've heard a lot now about skills-based hiring. And skills-based hiring means that instead of requiring, this wouldn't happen, but I'm just going to use your example, so instead of requiring a nursing degree, I say, oh, the music degree is fine as long as you have nursing skills. It doesn't really work, right, but that's what skills-based hiring is.
[00:22:59] Marie Zimenoff: A lot of people misunderstand skills-based hiring to think, oh, that if I can show I've got the skills, it doesn't matter where I got them. And that's true in some sense, but the skills that they're looking for are very specific, and so you have to show you have those specific skills, even if you gained them somewhere else. It's not about you know, great communication skills and all of the fluff. No, they're looking for really specific skills.
[00:23:26] Marie Zimenoff: We can get that from analyzing their job descriptions and those types of things. Yes, communication may be one of those skills, but if all we have is the soft skills and not the hard skills, we're going to have a hard time saying that we can do that job. So if we understand the audience, then we can go into our background and say, okay, when have I demonstrated that skill?
[00:23:49] Marie Zimenoff: How can I tell those stories in a specific way that makes them credible and not sound AI generated? It's fine to get AI to help you, but when you get to the bullets on your resume, they have to sound like, and be, things that you've actually done. So that's where most people fall down, is that they start with this idea of two things. One, they might start with this idea of, oh, I need to fill the gap. So I've been a stay at home mom for three years. I'm going to put that I've been raising kids on my resume. But that skill isn't the skill that the job is looking for. Unless you're applying for a childcare center, then by all means, right? We're going to fill that gap with the childcare. But if you're applying to a marketing job, they don't want to see your kid raising skills, right? It doesn't fit. It's not that we don't value mothers or we don't value military service, it's that we are looking for a specific set of skills, a little Liam Neeson in there, I'm looking for a specific set of skills, and if you don't show me you have those skills, I can't see that you're qualified for the job.
[00:24:55] Marie Zimenoff: So if I've been staying at home, I've got a few options. One, are there things I've been doing during that time that do align, that do show the skills? If not, typically I'll just put a one-liner and we'll fill the page with the things that are relevant, past experience, or, you know, go back to school, start that marketing class online on LinkedIn Learning, whatever it is, where you can get the skill sets that matter onto the page.
[00:25:25] Melissa Vining: And sometimes you'll do this research and you'll find out that you don't really have all the skills you need, in which case people, you know, when I suggest this idea of do some professional development, do some volunteering, put that on your resume, they're like, well, I'm not doing that. But you can start anytime. So you can start right now and you can add it to your resume as the first thing someone sees. If that's relevant, that's going to be helpful.
[00:25:50] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, and there's a little tiny bit of research that shows education is one of the best ways to fill the gap. The best way is to not have it look like a gap, which is if you can go out and do some volunteering that is in the realm, or if you've been doing some consulting or volunteer work that's in the realm, we can build that in as a job and not even look like we have a gap.
[00:26:12] Marie Zimenoff: The second best way is education. And most of the online programs today, they provide an idea for a project. And that's a great opportunity for you to write a bullet point. Take their idea for a project and do the project so that you have something specific and credible to talk about where you've applied your new skills.
[00:26:33] Melissa Vining: I love that because it's not only something you can put on your resume, but you have now a tangible thing to show an employer, which is always going to be more effective than just telling the story by itself.
[00:26:44] Marie Zimenoff: Yes, yes. Yeah. If you can put it in a portfolio of some kind it's even the better.
[00:26:50] Melissa Vining: Exactly. So I have adopted this from you, the idea of not only what you do, but how you do it and why you do it, because that really, really makes a big difference when you are communicating your story, both in something like your bullet points on your resume, but also in just telling it in a networking situation or in an interview situation, and writing it into something like a cover letter or your LinkedIn profile. How is it that you find it's most effective to help people pull out the why and the how, so they can focus on that human aspect of this and not just on their job duties and responsibilities?
[00:27:33] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, so most of the time the action is what comes to people first. So if we're looking at a job description, and it says it wants people to do customer service and be able to answer phones. You go okay? Have you ever done customer service? Have you ever answered phones? They'd be like, sure.
[00:27:50] Marie Zimenoff: Well tell me more. Like when were you answering phones? And then we can get at the why. So what was the purpose? Why did the business need someone to answer phones? Which sometimes can sound sort of surface level, but every action in a business ideally has a business purpose. And for businesses who've been in existence for a while, that's going to be more true, because otherwise they wouldn't pay someone to do it. Once you figure out that doesn't add business value, you stop paying someone to do it.
[00:28:19] Marie Zimenoff: So if I'm working for someone, I think, okay, the things that I'm doing have a purpose. They're either making money, saving money, building, you know, visibility. What was the business purpose for that? Or nonprofit? Same thing. It translates into the nonprofit arena where you're either delivering the outcomes to the community or raising money or whatever it might be.
[00:28:39] Marie Zimenoff: So you're thinking, what was the purpose? That's the why was I doing this action. So once you have the action, you kind of back the truck up and think about the why. And I think about that as the context or the challenge. So you've got your action, you've got the challenge or the context, the why, and then you've got the result.
[00:29:00] Marie Zimenoff: Did you achieve that goal? And how did you know that you achieved that goal? And some stories are going to have a better result than others. You don't want to necessarily throw out a story just because it doesn't have a great result. You just want to keep writing and gathering and thinking, and you may be able to tie some of those stories together with a more impressive result or, depending on your type of work, that result might sound a little different. So if you're doing counseling work, you're talking about client outcomes, that's going to sound a lot different than someone who's doing sales job. Right?
[00:29:33] Melissa Vining: Yeah. And that's where a lot of people get stuck because they think that the outcome has to be quantifiable. And it doesn't always have to be. And of course if you have quantifiable numbers, we want to use them, but if not, it could be something like, my idea was adopted on a larger scale, or I was recognized for my work. It could be a lot of different things. So we want people to think a little bit more creatively to show some of those results too.
[00:29:59] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, again, what was the impact on internal customers or external customers? And that impact can be your result, even if it can't be quantified. And other things can be quantified in those jobs. You know, the number of clients that you were seeing might be the quantifying there or whatever that might look like.
[00:30:19] Marie Zimenoff: Thinking about is there a way to quantify scope? Or those types of things is important, because that makes it sound specific and relevant. And then you're thinking about the result as well. So I use the context action result framework, but you kind of get at it through the action because the action is what most people think of first.
[00:30:40] Melissa Vining: Yeah. So sometimes we throw around the words career storytelling and personal branding. So I wanted to ask you for a little bit of background on that, because sometimes people have heard those terms, but they don't really exactly understand what they mean or how they apply to the job search process. So what is your kind of definition of those things and the difference between them?
[00:31:05] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, so your personal brand, that's something that people really do not understand, right? They think, oh, it's my colors and my font, because that's when we think of business brand, but even business branding, that's not really what it is. When you have training in that industry, in that role, the boil it down is your unique promise of value. Unique means that you really understand who you are. What is your background? What are your stories? Which sounds easy, but a lot of times we just haven't had the time to do that or to really look at it in that way.
[00:31:40] Marie Zimenoff: Then you've got the promise, and the promise is how does it show up over and over and over again? So that's finding those themes or threads of I've demonstrated who I am in all of these different settings. When we have that, then we can connect it to the value. And value means that I'm able to translate my unique promise into how it adds value for the employer.
[00:32:08] Marie Zimenoff: And you can see that if we don't know our unique promise, boy, it really starts to fall apart when we try to connect it to the value of the employer. And that's where people start to either sound hollow or try to use templates and those types of things because they're just trying to say what the employer wants to hear. They're not really including those pieces of them in it, and it really is where they come together, right?
[00:32:31] Marie Zimenoff: It's who am I, what does the employer need, and how am I finding the connection points between those two things? So we've got to do the research on both sides. Who am I? What are my strengths? What does the employer need so that I can connect the dots? And that's what personal branding is, the process of connecting those dots. And it's often done through, you know, a LinkedIn profile, a resume or whatever, but those are the outputs of the process that really runs pretty deep.
[00:33:04] Marie Zimenoff: So we teach a certified personal brand strategist program, and when I started, I kind of thought it was all about the "who I am" piece. Like I knew the audience piece was important, but we didn't have as much depth there. And now actually using some generative AI tools, which actually give you and I and everyone the same access to big data that big companies have had using a lot of money for a lot of years, right? Now we have access to that same big data around trends and so we've been really enriching this understanding your audience piece, and it's just been fabulous to see how it does make a big difference to not just think about who you are, but to really think about who your audience is, and how do you connect those dots through your messaging.
[00:33:55] Marie Zimenoff: And that's what big businesses have been doing for a long time. They've had billion dollar market research budgets that in essence have been doing those same things, but now you and I have access to those same tools to help us do that same work.
[00:34:10] Melissa Vining: Yeah, so now we have the tools to help us with that side, but the tools can't really help us with the understanding ourselves part, which is the interesting thing because you said, you know, it sounds kind of easy, which in theory it sounds kind of easy, but what I find is that most people don't really have that depth of understanding of themselves that they need to be able to actually really effectively communicate it in these materials.
[00:34:37] Melissa Vining: So that actually brings me to my next question because a lot of the times telling your story, writing your own story, can feel really hard. So for someone who might be listening and they're like, "okay, that sounds good, but I'm still stuck. I'm still not really sure how to do that." What would you suggest to that person?
[00:34:58] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, I love building it from the bottom up. So all the activities we were talking about earlier of journaling, when have you been most alive and interested and engaged at work? When have you had your best accomplishments? Just digging in and telling those stories and then looking for the themes.
[00:35:17] Marie Zimenoff: And you can do that on your own. You could share those stories with a trusted colleague or friend. I'd be careful with like a partner because partners tend to color everything with their perception of you, which is different from your work, right? So it could be helpful, you'll get that perspective, but I wouldn't just do it with a partner that you've been living with for a while, because they're going to have a different perspective of you than your work you.
[00:35:45] Marie Zimenoff: So a colleague or someone might be helpful on that end. And you also could, if you're comfortable, put those stories into like a ChatGPT or a Claude or both and ask what themes it sees, how would it define your strengths, your qualities, your brand, and you get some fascinating output from that as well.
[00:36:07] Marie Zimenoff: I wouldn't use that just by itself. I would also do your own analysis. Or have a colleague or friend do an analysis in addition, but that can help you say, okay, here's all these stories. What are the themes? What are the things that happen over and over again? And when you're doing that, you're looking for your strengths. You're looking for like in interaction with other people. So you're looking for a few different things inside of those stories so that you can pull out those themes and then be able to communicate those forward.
[00:36:39] Melissa Vining: So you have been a leader in this field for so many years, and of course as the CEO of Career Thought Leaders, your mission is to really stay at the cutting edge of all the latest job search and career related trends. And I'm sure you have seen the field go through so many changes over the years.
[00:36:57] Melissa Vining: So I'm curious to know what kinds of shifts you've seen in the strategy and approach to career change and what kinds of trends you're seeing right now in how people are effectively navigating career changes.
[00:37:10] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, I mean, career change you know, maybe for 50 years has had some of those same building blocks. What we're seeing now is the idea that it is so quick moving. We are not talking about career ladders anymore. We are not talking about really anything linear. It is much more of a path, or some people have said a river or a jungle gym, or a climbing wall, where it isn't linear, it's a lot more self-directed.
[00:37:41] Marie Zimenoff: But you've got to figure out what are the themes, how am I going to create the through line? Because when there's not a through line, that's when people struggle. When everything feels like these kind of disparate jobs, not only does the hiring manager not be able to create the through line, it usually means the individual isn't able to either, which means they're not able to share why they're a good fit for this new role, because they haven't pulled all the pieces together to be able to do that.
[00:38:12] Marie Zimenoff: I liken it to a tree. And your brand, who you are, what makes you different, and understanding that, is really the roots. And the longer and stronger the root system is, actually the more flexible the tree is. So if I know what makes me good at anything I do, I can transition that into where the market needs me to go. It's kind of like I can blow with the wind a little easier, and if I don't have that strong root system, I fall over. No matter how great of a tree I am.
[00:38:48] Marie Zimenoff: We see it with CEOs, right? If you don't have that real understanding, no matter how great your career has been, or how long it's been, you're going to be more likely to fall over and struggle with adapting to the changes. So we are helping clients understand that the market changes, you can change what you do in it easier when you're really clear about who you are and what you offer at your core.
[00:39:19] Marie Zimenoff: Those pieces that even if you did transition from music to nursing, huge transition, right? Even that transition would carry the same through line of who you are, how you do what you do, and the way that you show up in everything that you do.
[00:39:37] Melissa Vining: Yeah, and that's such an important point, because a lot of times people are only thinking about the skills. And when we talk about this, we're thinking about strengths. We're thinking about like the things that make us essentially who we are.
[00:39:50] Melissa Vining: So like for example, for me, I'm very analytical. I'm going to go in and analyze everything and try to learn something new and try to create a process that makes things more efficient. And I can do that anywhere, in any type of setting. So really understanding how it is that you're showing up is so much more transferable and, like you said, so much easier to make the shifts and to go with the changes that are happening in the market.
[00:40:19] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, and you might still need to go get new training and new skills to do that transition, but the roots that you have are going to protect your sense of identity as you do it. We see right now people getting laid off from tech, people getting laid off from federal, and it's not just the functional transition that is a challenge.
[00:40:43] Marie Zimenoff: Actually, probably that's less of the challenge than the identity piece. Who am I if I'm not a federal worker? Who am I if I'm not a tech worker? And that kind of emotional identity crisis is actually going to cause people more problems than the functional making the career change piece.
[00:41:05] Marie Zimenoff: So if we know who we are and we understand that we can be who we are in any environment, that piece of the transition's kind of like the river is calm underneath. And then we can figure out the stones to walk on. Whereas if the river is raging, because we are in this identity crisis, the stones are going to be covered up no matter how good they might be.
[00:41:30] Melissa Vining: It's so interesting to me because it's been a common theme in many of the interviews I've done already for this podcast, the piece of identity. And I think it highlights how important this is, and the fact that a lot of people aren't really thinking about this. Like a lot of job seekers are not thinking about this piece, and that is just something to really keep in mind as you are continuing this process.
[00:41:56] Melissa Vining: So along those lines, not everyone will make a successful career change. It's a pretty hard process, and it takes a long time. So I'm curious to know if you have seen something that people have in common when they're doing this really well and they are successful, why is that? What is happening for them?
[00:42:14] Marie Zimenoff: I think there's two things. One, that they allow themselves the permission to do the exploration, and then even if they don't make the transition. They're comfortable with where they've stayed. Because I've had several clients that came in, want to do a career transition, hate what I'm doing.
[00:42:33] Marie Zimenoff: Okay, let's peel back the onion, right? Let's really look at understanding your skills, your interests, your values, things that sometimes people think they know about themselves, but if you really take the time to map it out, and look at it and say, okay, this is really what's important to me, then I can say what's not working where I am right now, and what shifts might I make to change that?
[00:42:57] Marie Zimenoff: The challenges come when we give away our agency. So when we say, you know, this isn't working because of someone else. That may somewhat be true, but unless you've got a magic wand I don't know about, we're not fixing those other people. So if we can figure out what is our piece in it, what do we need, and take back that agency, then we can say, okay, I'm going to figure out how to make it work for me, and really being truthful, which sometimes it slaps us in the face.
[00:43:29] Marie Zimenoff: So one of the clients I worked with, he came in and he was younger, I'd say kind of mid-twenties, and he said, I need to make more money. And I was like, okay, great. Let's talk about that. As a coach, I might be like, well, I know that that's not necessarily going to make you happy. Or if you're doing something you don't love and even any amount of money won't matter.
[00:43:45] Marie Zimenoff: I just went with it. I was like, okay, wow. Let's look at that and tell me more. You know, what's going on that's causing that, what's going on in your life, so that I can understand the motivators. Because money is a motivator, but there's usually other motivators that go along with it. What else is important?
[00:44:02] Marie Zimenoff: Well, okay, it's also important, these other things. That I like what I do, that I'm helping people. Okay. You can help people in a lot of different jobs. That idea of "the or" gets in the way. So if I am thinking, well, I make a lot of money, or I help people, that's not true, and it's not helpful. So the other piece is people who are willing to sit in that creative space of what would that "and solution" look like?
[00:44:27] Marie Zimenoff: And this person went into healthcare IT. So they're in that helping setting. They're helping an organization who's saving lives. They're doing IT, so they're making a little bit more money than they would have as a support person. And they didn't have to go back to school for healthcare, because they already had some of the technical background to transition into IT faster. So, you know, looking for those creative solutions.
[00:44:51] Marie Zimenoff: And I think that's where that identity piece is so important, because you cannot be creative if you're in crisis. You just can't. When we are in crisis, we are in fight, flight, freeze. But if we stay there, we cannot be creative. And so we've got to figure out, okay, how can I feel rooted so that I can explore?
[00:45:13] Melissa Vining: I love that. Finally, if people want to connect with you and learn more about your work, where can they find you?
[00:45:20] Marie Zimenoff: Yeah, so CareerThoughtLeaders.com is our landing page. I'm also on LinkedIn, Marie Zimenoff. I am the only Marie Zimenoff, so that's kind of easy to find. And I love to connect with people. Just let me know that you heard me on the show because I don't connect with everyone, because then I would fill up my connections too quickly. But if you're listening and you hear the show and think it would be helpful, please do follow along, uh, YouTube channel as well, @CareerThoughtLeaders, YouTube channel, and let Melissa know if there's topics that she can cover. She's got a, a wealth of experience and a wealth of colleagues at her disposal. So I'm glad that you're doing this series for folks.
[00:45:57] Melissa Vining: Yeah, definitely. Great. Well, thank you again for being here, Marie. It has been so great to talk to you.
[00:46:02] Marie Zimenoff: Yes. Thank you so much.
[00:46:04] Melissa Vining: If you love this podcast, be sure to hit subscribe. Leave me a review and share it with a friend so we can help more high performing misfits find work they love. See you next time.
