WorkWise Q&A: Serving, Driven

SERVING

Q: Dear Dr. Culp, Your article on career-changing caught my eye. How can I learn what careers would accept my engineering skills from the defense industry? Reader

A: Dear Reader, Instead of thinking about careers, think customers served. Internal customers are within defense. For them, career-change by emphasizing skills that you rarely used. This could mean interpersonal skills or project management in a non-technical area.

External customers present an opportunity to do engineering, but in another industry. These could be small firms or large organizations. They also might be persuaded to hire you for a third kind of career-change -- emphasizing lesser-used skills in a new industry.

Think of the departments in an organization where you did some work. These could be ADMINISTRATION, OPERATIONS, RESEARCH, HUMAN RESOURCES, SALES, MARKETING, PURCHASING. Key them in.

Then, one at a time, ask yourself what you did that related to each. Be selective, focusing on accomplishments rather than an endless list of tasks.

Next, identify patterns in those tasks. You might have written reports, interacted with colleagues and employees, served as departmental liaison with the IT staff (COMMUNICATION). You might also have met deadlines, come under budget and headed a team (PROJECT COORDINATION or MANAGEMENT).

DRIVEN

Q: Hi Dr. Culp, Have you seen (or heard) of anyone talking about a “data-driven” job-search as part of the job-search process? I spoke with an author who uses some of these concepts but I was hoping to get your thoughts. It doesn't seem like anyone talks about tracking activities and then using this to measure progress (or successful strategies), but I don't know why. It would seem to be natural, particularly in this environment. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Virtual

A: Dear Virtual, Your question about a “data-driven” job search reminds me of the reader who applied to more than 100,000 jobs online, to no avail. You do have to invite the market to come to you, but applying mindlessly online or in person won’t necessarily get you a job. Your number comes up by combining applications and quality interactions. Track names of people; dates; times; methods; and content of interactions on paper, in e-mails, on the telephone or in person.

But don’t overdo it. Watch out for a job search producing mountains of data. If all you do is apply, your number might well never come up.

Dr. Mildred L. Culp welcomes your questions at culp@workwise.net. Copyright 2010 Passage Media.