Mindy Thomas

What I Love About Proactive Career Warriors

I have to tell you that last week was an eye opener.

If you’ve been following my posts, you know that I have been driving home the point about all of us becoming the CEOs of our careers. Figuring out your developmental areas is the first step in working this plan. Secondly, when we start to take action . . . it’s our next step in getting closer to improving our situation – whatever “black” hole we’re in. You know that as soon as we begin to move that ball down the court, we are feeling SO much better.

That brings me to my point about proactive career warriors and what I love about them. What admiration I have for this client who came in to see me last week. Let me explain. As my client sat down in my office, he began to tell me that he HAD landed a job a few days ago. Wow! That was super. I was thrilled, as I always am, when people land positions they’ve been “gunning” for.

But, seconds later, I was wondering why was he in my office? He landed his job at a major corporation. He’s on his way. He starts the first week in March. Why didn’t he just cancel his appointment? Why is he still going to invest two hours of his time and, furthermore, consulting fees for two hours of interviewing coaching?

Here’s the short of it. . . In spite of landing this job, my client felt like he was “kinda lucky” to have “landed.” The week before he had failed miserably in an interview and, moving forward, he did not want to chance it. He simply didn’t want to rely on “luck” the next time. He sat down and evaluated his ability to interview well and, essentially, gave himself mediocre scores.

His desire to improve a developmental area (his interviewing skills) and build up his arsenal (this is career management to the hilt) was completely driving him. You cannot even imagine the delight I felt when I heard this. And, he wasn’t even reading my blog posts for pete’s sake.

I love when people get it. I think it shows such a high level of personal initiative and, frankly, I think it’s inspiring. It demonstrates that these folks are willing to do the work to stay employed and to win . . . even if this next chapter closes down on us. Again.

The question we need to ask ourselves during these turbulent times is “how are we really managing our career chapters and our moves” in this economy?