Close, but no cigar.

Nearly, but not quite. The etymology of the phrase "close, but no cigar", according to Wikipedia, is "apparently from the practice of giving cigars as prizes at carnivals in the United States in the 20th century; those who did not win would fail to receive a cigar even if they came close". Well, I'm due a cigar, or two, or three.

On this challenging journey to establish the "next step in my career", there have been plenty of job applications, multiple interviews, potential client meetings, and catch-ups with the network.

I have been flattered, humbled and delighted at the generous responses to my LinkedIn and Back2ITSM Facebook group posts, which have included references, referrals, catching up with previous clients, new connection suggestions and mentoring sessions from industry experts. I won't name any individuals for fear of missing anybody out, but you know who you are, and thank you!

My key lessons?

Don't forget your network. I used to engage with my network extensively earlier in my IT career but have dropped the ball, especially since COVID. Never again. I am back engaging actively with the professional bodies in my industry (BCS and ITSMF, to name just two) and am signed up for a number of events later this year. Hopefully, I'll see some of you at SITS24/MSP Show.

Don't get too comfortable. Yep, I may have thought I was "safe" as an employee in the IT sector, but the recent upheaval has been unavoidable. Fail to plan, plan to fail.

Stay current. As much as pure service management and all things ITIL have served me well to date, I've had to pull my socks up and add a few more "complementary strings" to my bow. These have included levelling up and extending my ITIL and Business Change skills with The Knowledge Academy, understanding the "new roles" that have spun out of Product and SaaS economy with the Certified Customer Success Manager (CCSM) path from SuccessCOACHING, and the amazing range of free training from ServiceNow via NOWLearning.

Develop a thick skin. There will be knock-backs, even for those jobs "you can do in your sleep" or you feel you're the "ideal candidate for". The best you can hope for is some feedback and lessons learned. Pull on your big boy/girl/undecided pants, and move on.

Job searching isn't what it used to be. I've been lucky to have landed most of my roles by referral or internal progression, so I haven't had to do much in the way of "traditional job-searching" before. It's hard. Multiple CV versions, bespoke cover letters, phantom job listings with no real job behind them, phantom "recruitment consultants" (not all of you, just the vast majority), scheduling dilemmas and dodgy job descriptions, to name a few! Here are a few of the tools I've used to help me:

• JobScan - great for tweaking your CV and cover letter by aligning them to the job description and highlighting the gaps using, you guessed it...AI!
• Huntr - capture and track your job applications "Kanban-style", with the browser plug-in auto-filling the key details, capturing them in a tracker, and building a "mini-job seeker CRM".
• Calendly - make it easier for the hiring manager, their resourcing department, potential clients, or recruitment consultants to secure a slot of your valuable time without wasting their valuable time, all whilst avoiding the scheduling ping-pong.

But, for now, no cigar.