Career

Job Searching Lessons from Backpacking on Vermont’s Long Trail

October 19, 2021 by Jim Peacock Leave a Comment

Recently I backpacked on the Long Trail in Vermont with two of my longtime backpacking buddies of forty years. I live in Maine, Rees lives in California, and Howard lives in Washington state, and we had not seen each other face-to-face since our last backpacking trip two years ago.

We have been section hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) together for over 1800 miles since 1981, doing sections ranging from 100 to 400 miles at a time. Rees and Howard have completed all 2600 miles of the PCT from Mexico to Canada, (it helps to be retired), and I’ve completed about 1800 miles. They wanted an East Coast hiking experience, so we chose the Long Trail in the Green Mountains of Vermont, one of the oldest long-distance trails in the country.

We normally hike about 12 to 15 miles per day on the PCT, and sometimes as many as 20. We had heard that the Long Trail was much more difficult than the PCT, so we planned to do about 10 miles per day and figured we could cover an 80-mile stretch from the Lincoln Gap Road to Route 15 near Johnson in eight days.

Just like job searching, things don’t always work out how you think they will when you begin.

Here are 5 lessons we learned on the trail and how they relate to the job search process.

Day one was not what we expected even though we had researched and planned for months. Friends of Rees gave us a ride to the trailhead on Saturday morning. From there the trail climbed up over wet rocks and roots, and up, and up, and up. It was relentless and so much different from the PCT.

Lesson 1 For Job Searching

Make your best plan, do the research on the job market, prepare yourself by knowing your skills and value in the job market, but also prepare for the unexpected.

At the end of day one, we had hiked nine miles and were shocked at how slow we were going. The best we could do was about one mile per hour. It took us about nine hours to do nine miles but on the PCT we could have covered the same nine-mile stretch in six to seven hours. Day two was the same and we realized that completing 80 miles was not going to happen. We needed to adjust and decided to scale back our plan to do closer to 6-7 miles in our eight days together.

This stretch of the trail actually had a rope to hang on to so you could lower yourself down.

Lesson 2 For Job Searching

If you are applying for jobs online or networking to find a specific job, you may need to adjust your career search if those tactics alone aren’t working. Maybe you need to change the message you are sending to others about the skills you have that you want to use in this next job (see blog on Value-added). Or maybe you need to change how you identify job openings. Are there other job boards out there you have not been using like indeed.com or idealist.org that offer other types of jobs?

Don’t get stuck in your unwillingness to change. Obstacles are common in our lives and in the career search process. A willingness to adjust when confronted with an obstacle or difficulty is a healthy way of moving forward in your career search.

Day three we talked with a hiker coming towards us from the north who told us how difficult the Camels Hump mountain climb was. He said, “It’s very steep and incredibly difficult. Don’t go over it if the weather is bad. Take the alternate route around it.” We started to psych ourselves out of the hike. Rees and I were pushing for the alternate route which was a little longer but not as dangerous. Howard is a “goat” and can climb anything and would likely be disappointed.

We hiked up to the trailhead where we had to decide to either go over Camel’s Hump or take the alternative route when a day-hiker came down from Camel’s Hump. He told us we were only 2/10 of a mile from the top and the weather was beautiful! We decided it might be difficult but if it was only 2/10 of a mile, we should go for it. I am so glad we did.

On top of Camel’s Hump Mountain and ecstatic we did the climb

Lesson 3 For Job Searching

One of the strengths of your career search is your network, and we need a strong network for advice and assistance. Sometimes people give advice that is only from their perspective and best for them, but not necessarily for you.

Seek advice but balance it with what you know and remember that sometimes others, even loved ones, are giving you advice that may be old information or based upon another industry, not the industry you are looking at. Take advice from multiple people and then make your own decisions.

Day four we looked ahead and realized that to even complete our alternate plan of 67 miles was going to require two long days over some of the most difficult terrain we’ve seen. After reviewing the maps and elevation gains and losses with a more realistic lens of four days of hiking, we decided to get out after about thirty miles. We were planning to pick up a food supply at that point but instead asked my friend Tim to pick us up and deliver us to my car. We would get a place to stay in town for two nights and then do two days of day-hikes instead of the long-distance backpacking.

Lesson 4 For Job Searching

Being able to adjust your plans and be comfortable with change is a skill all employers look for. We deal with changes daily in our lives—it is how we face these changes and react to them that is important. (Read more about Understanding Transitions)

Maybe you have been looking for one type of job and not finding it. Ask yourself, who else needs my skills? For example, if an auto mechanic is struggling to find dealership jobs, they might consider a bakery that owns their own fleet of delivery vehicles, may need a mechanic. Or a K-12 school system might need a mechanic for their busses. Sometimes getting stuck in one point of view can limit your opportunities.

On day five we had a friend pick us up and drive us to my car where we checked into a hotel the first night and a campground the second night. Then we did two great day-hikes where we could talk with each other and enjoy the views.

Our goal of hiking together is to spend quality time together. We had found that hiking on the steep and difficult Long Trail did not allow us to talk easily because we were focused on watching every footstep on slippery rocks and roots and climbing or dropping down steep sections of the trail. We typically catch up on one another’s lives and talk about goals, obstacles, or frustrations in our lives, and were had not been able to do that on this trip so far. By adjusting our mileage and making the change to day-hikes we were able to spend the time together that we had hoped for.

Lesson 5 For Job Searching

Don’t lose sight of your goals. If your goal is to find a new job that better matches your skills, values, or passions, it may take longer to find that good match. Be patient and know what your goals are for the next move.

If your goal is a balanced lifestyle, don’t take the first job that comes up if it does not give you what you want. Be patient. Of course, there are compromises in our lives and you may have to take a job to earn money before you find that ideal job, but don’t lose sight of what you hope to accomplish. For my backpacking buddies and me, it was spending time together. What is your goal in finding your next job?

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

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Thinking about starting a career coaching private practice?

August 9, 2021 by Jim Peacock Leave a Comment

I started part-time with Peak-Careers while I was working as the Director of Advising & Career at a community college and never thought I’d go full-time with it. After 10 years my consulting business kept growing and growing and I finally took the leap to private practice full-time with Peak-Careers Consulting in 2012.

Here are a few tips I have learned over the years that I wished I had known when I was starting out.

Begin now.
Don’t worry about what you have not done or what you “should” do. Start now and write down what you want to do and how you want to do it. What is your “super-power” that makes you unique? By writing it down it helps you take it out of your head and make it more real. (link to journaling)
Take the time.
The most powerful gift I give myself is my monthly, or bi-monthly, tech-free day-long retreat. You need to find the time to sort out the many details of what you want to do, how you will do it, when you will do it, and who needs to help. Find at least a half of a day where you can leave all the “to do’s” aside and really focus on what your private practice could be.
Set goals.
Just like you do with your clients or students, writing down goals and creating concrete, measurable steps that need to be done is important for yourself as well. Give yourself deadlines on when things need to be done so that you see progress.
And then, share them with someone who can keep you accountable.
Seek advice.
Starting your own business has a lot of moving parts to it. How do you set yourself up? How do you handle collecting money? What legal considerations do you have? How do you write a business plan? How do you market?
Talk to other people who have a private practice – there are lots of social media groups out there.
Consider hiring a business coach.
Definitely check out the Small Business Administration free support near you. Your independence may be important to you, but don’t do this alone.
Trust Your Instincts.
Make the best decisions based upon facts, research, and advice but trust your instincts too. Know when to move forward and when to change directions by listening to the voice…that gut feeling…your guardian angel who is watching over you.
Take the time to evaluate.
Yeah, I know #2 is “take the time” as well but after you get started in your private practice, take the time to evaluate what is working, what didn’t work, and why, what other opportunities might exist. Even if you are busy juggling a full-time job and your side-gig, find the time to think about your business. My regular tech-free retreats are great at allowing me the space to reflect on my business from the 10,000-foot view.
**Added 7 & 8 after original went out because my good friend Scott Woodard pointed out these two important thoughts.

One I would add is to remember that it’s a business. To me, the term “private practice” doesn’t carry enough “heft,” it’s almost like a hobby rather than a business. Scott.

Having come from higher education and K-12 education…I was clueless on running a business! This is such a great point that Scott makes. It really is a business and it really was a ‘mindset’ change for me to think like a business.
The other thing I’ve learned is that I tend to spend a LOT more time in my business (admin, marketing, etc.) than on my business (coaching, consulting). Scott.

I was shocked at how much time I spent on the business side compared to the time I actually provided career coaching. If I wanted to do more career coaching, I should have stayed at the community college where I would see 5+ students every day and more when I taught the career decision making class.

I wish you the best in your adventure of private practice.

I know I will never work for someone again 40-hours per week. I love the independence and creativity of owning my own business.

If you’d like more assistance (see #4 above) you may want to check out the 5-week, discussion-based online seminar Mark Danaher and I are offering in October – November. Building Your Coaching Business.

Micro-Networking to Strengthen Relationships

July 12, 2021 by Jim Peacock 6 Comments

Recently I read the book, Switchers by Dawn Graham. (Read my book review here ). There was lots to like but I can’t get her reference to ‘micro-networking’ out of my head…so I’m going to share it here with you 🙂 I will do this sometimes when I have a song in my head and I grab my guitar and just sing it out.

Dr. Graham writes about the importance of networking for people who are switching industries or occupations. Which is true, but all career coaches know the high value of a network for all of our clients, not just switchers. She refers to micro-networking as all the little things you can do to strengthen relationships.

I, too, have referred to networking as ‘relationship building’ which is a better description of what it really is. All relationships take time and energy to build and your professional network is not different. Some people in your network you will reach out to numerous times throughout the year, like my good friend Bob McIntosh who I have only met once face-to-face for coffee, but many times via zoom. Other relationships only need a contact every once in a great while to keep them in touch with you. Yet each time you reach out, you strengthen those relationships.

Why should you invest your time in micro-networking?

So they don’t forget you
Someone in your network may need you. They may want to ask you for help but are reluctant to reach out. By reaching out to them, they know you are out there to support them.

Each time you reach out, you strengthen the relationship. I could probably come up with more reasons, but realistically, there are two. They may need you to help them and you may need them to help you someday. We all need people in our lives for support – look at this as no different than your personal friends and family.

micro-networking tree image — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

What is micro-networking?

Here is my list of what could be considered micro-networking. I’d love to hear what you could add to this list.

“Liking” “commenting” or “sharing” on social media
Better yet, Dr. Graham suggests repost articles and offer a summary to your network
Bring cookies to a meeting…just because (another example in Switchers book)
Keep track of birthdays and send a note, text, message on LinkedIn. It does not have to be public like on Facebook, just a private message is special. (I texted Sabrina Woods recently…because “someone” had a birthday)
Ask to meet-up and have a chat, face-to-face or via Zoom. My friend and colleague Scott Woodard is moving out of Maine soon and we scheduled a coffee together recently to catch up before he leaves.
Suggest a good book or article for someone. This is one reason that I write short book reviews after I read a book. So that I can simply send a link to someone when I learn they might benefit from that book. (See my book reviews).
Send thank you notes to people…just because. Our individual success is never attained alone. There is always someone you can thank.
Call them. Wow! Using your phone to make a call! Who woulda thought? Yes, I was reading the Maine Biz magazine recently and there was an article about a guy I worked with 20 years ago and what he is doing today at Southern Maine Community College. So I took a few minutes to find his phone number at SMCC and left him a message.

Ok, it’s your turn.
What else can you do to micro-network
and build your relationships?

Why I Write: And Why You Might Want To

June 7, 2021 by Jim Peacock 2 Comments

Recently, I went on another tech-free retreat for the day which I try to do monthly. It is a time to think, read, plan, do walking meditation, and to write. I mind-mapped out five new blogs (one of them is this one). Last week I was working with a student in my Facilitating Career Development (FCD) class and we interviewed each other for one activity and I had a very revealing “aha” moment. She asked me “there are times in our lives when we feel particularly energized and positive. What was yours?”

What immediately came to mind is writing. In the summer of 2018, I started writing my book, A Field Guide for Career Practitioners, and I devoted the first hour of each day (Monday-Friday) to writing. When the book came out in June 2019, I realized I missed writing each morning. In January 2020, I began writing my book on my travels in 1983-84 to New Zealand. Ahhhhhhhh…..I loved it.

writing in my journal — From my New Zealand journal backpacking on Stewart Island on the muddiest trails I’ve ever seen

I love framing up blogs each month for people like you, and I also write a Christmas newsletter to family and friends now for over 30 years. Even my New Zealand book was completely based upon seven steno-pads of notes I took on my 8 months of traveling.

But why write?

Writing helps me remember things better. My strongest learning styles are partly kinesthetic and visual. I need to “see” the words in my head on paper and writing them down is so tactile. Even when I attend conferences, I tend to take tons of notes and seldom need to go back to them after. Just the process of note-taking helps me remember key points. But of course, I can go back to my notes and pick up the salient points from the session whenever I want.

Reflecting on the written words is much easier than reflecting on thoughts and ideas in my head. (See Fuzzy Thinking blog from a couple years ago). When I have an idea that I want to explore, writing it down forces me to get it organized in my head. What are the key points? What are the most important points? Why are they the most important? When that is all in my head, it is difficult to see the nuances.

When it’s written, I can see how to best re-order the writing so it makes the most sense. Obviously, when trying to convey an idea or make an argument, it really matters what order you present them. Ultimately, I want you, the reader, to “get it” or to understand my thoughts better. As an extrovert, I can “throw words out” when talking, but often those words really need to be better organized. Writing forces me to take my extroverted words which are flying around the room, and corral them into some type of organized sense.

As I think about this (and write about it) I realize that I write for these reasons.

To Educate: My weekly career emails, my regular blogs, and my book are all examples of me taking an idea or a practice I know, and share it with others to help them improve.

To Entertain: My Christmas newsletters are a recap of our year as a family, but I work very hard to make them entertaining as well. I’ve kept all of my newsletters over the years, and I know some of my family have kept some of them too.

My friend, Rees, was so disappointed when I converted from the typewriter with all the “whiteouts” (younger folks won’t even know what that is), typo’s, and mistakes, to the computer where I could “hide” all these changes.

Pictured here is my Christmas 1994 Peacock’s Tale with all it’s imperfections.

To Think: I like to journal each morning as a way to slow down and also to flesh out my thoughts on things.

For Legacy: My Christmas newsletters are a bit of legacy, and my New Zealand book about my travels was written for family and friends. Others can enjoy it, but it is a legacy book that I wanted to write for people who know me.

If you are a writer, I’d love to hear why you write.

If you are not writing regularly now, I encourage you to consider creating a routine and finding the time to write, then let me know what you think. (Write it down and send it to me 🙂

Teaching Online is Here to Stay

April 26, 2021 by Jim Peacock Leave a Comment

Covid-19 forced us to move online for our workshops, classes, networking, trainings, and more. I don’t see this move going away.

I have been teaching online since 2003, mostly as a hybrid, but also with my asynchronous 5-week seminars since 2010. My career coaching has been 95% through Zoom for at least five years now. I’m pretty comfortable online, especially for a huge extrovert. But not everyone is.

I love face-to-face workshops, but…online teaching has it’s place.
Zoom Image by Jagrit Parajuli from Pixabay

As you think about that resume or LinkedIn workshop you’ve always done “live” or maybe introductory orientation style workshops i.e. “this is who we are”, or even networking events; here are some things I’ve learned over the years that I hope you can pick up some nuggets to make your online work easier.

BENEFITS

There are many benefits to the online environment, not the least of which is the reduced travel time. No gas, no wasted time getting there, no parking, easy to end, people can attend from anywhere geographically. It is also very easy to record a Zoom or Google Meet session to share with people who could not attend the “live” show.

Accessibility for some people with physical disabilities may be improved and the ability to attend events for working students and students with families, is greatly enhanced.

DISADVANTAGES

This list will be longer…but, again, this technology and delivery system is not going away. It was already growing before 2020, but Covid-19 really amped up people’s willingness to try it…because they had to. Tele-medicine is now much more readily available to people in rural areas or who do not have transportation.

Here are a few obstacles I deal with when teaching online.

You do not pick up on the non-verbals as well as when you do a workshop in-person or on-site, the people who are “getting it” and want you to speed up and the people who are lost and need you to explain something in a different way. Even the people who need a break are harder to identify in the online environment. When you do an in-person workshop all this is much easier to pick up these nuances.

It takes a little more effort to create natural feeling interaction. In a face-to-face workshop, people are bumping into each other getting a coffee or putting their coat away, and the small talk makes it much easier to start an activity.

Zoom-fatigue is real and we need to be careful about over-using zoom.

PREPPING

Like any workshop, the better you prep, the better the workshop. When teaching online, now you have to add on all the technology and online aspects to your prep. I have 5-week long seminars and a 5-month Facilitating Career Development (FCD) class and for these, I always host a “Week Zero”. This week allows people to get comfortable with the Learning Management System and introduce themselves before the actual seminar or class begins. If you are doing a one-hour workshop, this is probably not needed. But there are still things you should consider doing.

Encourage your participants to check for any updates on the platform. You can also send questions or reading or activities ahead of time so that they come in ready to go.

Build in different ways of learning, just like you would with a live workshop. Consider polls, using a whiteboard or a shared Google Drive, encouraging use of the chat area, and of course breakout rooms. If you use breakout rooms, make sure you give very clear directions as to what they will do and keep it simple. In an in-person workshop, if someone is confused, they can just stop you and ask. Possibly assign a person to report out or ask them to do that first.

THE DAY OF

Download the latest version of whatever platform you are using and encourage your participants to do this as well. I discovered that zoom had done something different with their breakout rooms only after I failed to download the latest version. NOT a good time to find that out.

Restart your computer and possibly clear your browser history. Close everything on your computer that you will not be using. It is so annoying, and possibly embarrassing…to see emails or calendar reminders come in. They don’t need to know that it’s grandma’s birthday or your partner is reminding you in an email to turn the crockpot on.

Realize that things simply take longer on a video-conference. Nearly everything does. Getting people in. Asking if there are questions. Saying “please turn on your mike” 20 times takes time. If you have prepared well, you will know what you can skim or skip and where you need to spend the time to get the competency across.

If you are going to have a number of people introduce themselves or answer a prompt, consider setting the order, rather than say, “who wants to go first?” It is often easier to say, “Let’s start with Mike, then Jane, then Maha.” Let them speak, then pick the next three or four.

CONCLUSION

This pandemic stinks. I don’t like it and I’m sure you don’t either. But there really have been a lot of good things that have come out of it. I now Zoom-chat with my four siblings and 95 year old dad spread out over four states. I now communicate with my PCP when in years past I had to make an appointment to go in and see her.

I have used zoom for my career coaching clients for years now and always had to explain what it was…not anymore 🙂 No matter what platform you use, Zoom, Google Meet, Go To Meeting, whatever, people are more comfortable.

How do you plan to leverage this in the future?

Barrier image Image by Saveliy Morozov from Pixabay

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association.

3 Words to Guide Me in 2021

January 4, 2021 by Jim Peacock 4 Comments

Since 2016, I have chosen 3 words to guide me through the year, rather than doing a New Year’s resolution. I find the words somehow lead me to new ideas and actions. Often they are reinforcing thoughts important to me, but there is real power in “sending the message out to the universe.” I distinctly remember in 2017 my word “authentic” continued to come back to me when other people would say to me things like, “what I really like about your work is it feels so authentic.” Yeah, that happened at least twice that year.

Once again, I spent time on my December day-long retreat to think about 2021 and the 3 words I want to guide me this year. As I reflected on 2020, I felt that my two words “rebalance” and “strategic” guided me well.

“Philanthropy” did not live up to what I had hoped. I did provide more pro bono career coaching and I had begun to do some career development workshops for the local Boy’s and Girl’s Club and then Covid hit and put an end to that. I did volunteer at the local food pantry once, but was uncomfortable with the close quarters it required…I am just not ready yet.

I reviewed my journal for the year looking for themes and words that repeated themselves. No surprise, COVID was repeated many times but there was quite a bit of writing about anxiety as well. With the pandemic, social injustice, and the divisive elections, my life seemed to have an undercurrent of anxiety all the time. 2020 is best viewed in the rear view mirror, I believe.

After much thought about the past year and where I want to be in the next year, I have landed on these three words to guide me in 2021.

Understanding ★ Kindness ★ Be

UNDERSTANDING

Understanding ★ As I think about our divided nation, I struggle with understanding the many friends and family who are so different from me politically. I try hard to see their perspective on so many issues, from Trump vs Democrats, mask vs no-mask, and more. I hope that this word will begin to guide me toward learning how they think, what they think, and what motivates them, in order to find some common ground.

The blatant social injustice that is going on in our country hurts me deeply. I have tried to better understand how I have been a part of that injustice in the past and currently, and what I can do to help change it in the future. I have made it a practice to read on this topic, watch TedTalks that enlighten me, and follow people who are speaking about this, like Baratunde Thurston and others, as a way to help me understand the issues. Understanding the issues is the first step in being able to make change.

KINDNESS

Kindness ★ “Be kind to one another” is how Ellen DeGeneres ended her talk show for years. It is a simple statement and simple to follow her advice. Along with understanding people, I feel like the word kindness will guide me forward even when I don’t understand. Maybe it will help me understand people better, maybe it won’t, but if I lead with kindness first and always keep it at the forefront of what I do, it will help me be a better person.

There were times this year that I didn’t feel kind towards everyone. There were people saying and doing things that offended me and my first reaction was negative. I want my first reactions to be kindness first. 2020 was a very difficult year for so many people, financially, socially, mentally, and more. I want to do whatever small things I can to be kind to others and hopefully make their day a little bit better if I can.

BE

Be ★ This word spoke to me. I rejected it initially thinking it was too small and did not carry the meaning of my three words over the years. But then I realized the power of this word in guiding me daily through 2021. I want to be present more. I want to be in the moment at all times. I want to be authentic in how I approach life…in all things I do.

For me the opposite of this word is the “shoulds,” the “want to do’s,” and the “maybe’s. ” As I thought about all the times I say to myself I “should” do something or I “want” to do something, I hope to take those future oriented words and convert my thinking to the present…to be here, wherever that is and with whoever I am with. I want to be me at all times.

Those are my three words for 2021 and below are my three words for the past five years. I have printed them off and tape them to my bathroom mirror, the fridge, my photocopier in my office, and I will begin each journal entry by writing them down before I start journaling. This way I start each day thinking about these words to guide me.

Here are my words from past years. I don’t think they truly ever go away. They were important to me then and still are now, as a clue to who I am and who I want to be.

2016 – Health ★ Mindfulness ★ Focus

2017 – Intentional ★ Authentic ★ Wellness

2018 – Reach ★ Capacity ★ Consistency

2019 – Reflection ★ Purposeful ★ Gratitude

2020 – Philanthropy ★ Rebalance ★ Strategic