From Fired to Released: Let’s create a little magic (Part 3 of 3)

There are mixed interpretations on the origin of the word abracadabra. The one that resonates most for me is that it is derived from the Hebrew phrase meaning "I will create as I speak." This seems to align most with the modern use of the word as a magical incantation for creating something from nothing.

What’s more magical than creating something from nothing?

Finding a Job

This is how the job search feels in so many ways: creating something from nothing. At the outset, it can be so confusing and empty – where are we supposed to go? I remember feeling so optimistic, but also so confused.

Again, I need to preface all this with the fact that I can only speak to my own experience. After I took that call to be released into the professional wilds, I stayed in my basement office and played pop-a-shot (set up next to my desk) so that I could refocus my energy and digest my new future. I told my wife, she didn’t believe me, I reiterated that I was not joking, and we took it all in.

Thinking back now, this was an important first move into my unemployment journey because it started a pattern for my next steps. ?

Taking it a step at a time

As a lifelong and chronic multi-tasker, I have always had a problem with taking things a step at a time. I decided that my new job search would be different. I saw that I had the fortune of a long runway with severance, and I accepted that what I’d been doing had not been working. So, I slowed down.

I applied for unemployment using the instructions provided by my former employer. I looked into how health insurance would carry forward and what options were available through COBRA. Also, WTF – who in the world thought that was a good name for health insurance? I don’t know about you, but I grew up watching G.I. Joe. COBRA is the enemy . They are a terrorist organization; might as well call it Al Qaeda-care or ISIS Health.

Also, generally, I don’t want to be in the same room as a cobra. Regardless, COBRA is not as scary as it sounds.

Pulling the Thread

Taking things a step at a time allowed me the space to be more present in what I was doing. This had a gradual yet powerful impact. My focus increased and centered on the most useful actions to drive progress. I reflected on and unwound learnings from my last job search twelve years earlier. Rather than working hard, I shifted to working smart, and that started with a deep look at the big picture both internally and externally. With that lens, I assessed what I looked like as a job candidate, how I felt as a professional, and how I felt as a person.

Honestly, I felt short – short on both skills and vision. I thought about the previous twelve years and how I changed and didn’t change as a person and professional. And I took a step to enrich myself and my skills in a wholistic way by applying for an MBA.

This was something that came about from many, many conversations – with my wife, friends, colleagues, and friends of friends that had already completed programs that I was interested in. Those conversations helped me unpack some things that I hadn’t seen clearly. For starters, I had been treating work like I’d treated my last job search. Doing lots of “work” wasn’t creating a meaningful impact because my goals did not align with the goals of my company. I’d also become complacent in my professional learning and development. I felt like I knew enough to do my job, and I stopped learning. Thinking back on this now, it feels awful to even think that let alone honestly share it and own it. That’s because I changed so drastically over the last few years driven by going back to school and being willing to rethink my assumptions.

Where I’d always assumed that what I was doing was important and meaningful, I reset my approach by starting with the end in mind. By thinking about the outcomes that I wanted to create, I changed the actions that I took to get to them.

This was not an overnight realization and happened gradually as part of the journey, and this journey started me on a path to figuring out something else that I never understood: networking.

Making Networking Successful

Through my pursuit of school, I started having conversations with people I didn’t know – the friends of friends that I got a warm introduction to so that I could learn about schools and programs. Those conversations and the process to get those conversations set up seemed very natural. I was super curious and wanted to learn as much as I could so that I was equipped with good information to make a decision. It was networking without the usual anxiety of networking. This created a foundation to rethink the process and helped me reframe it as a fun activity. Having the opportunity to learn about companies from people on the inside is fascinating.

I sharpened my approach. I wrote, reflected, revised, and practiced my pitch. Who I am, why I’m reaching out, and what I’m interested in learning. The MBA also helped immensely with this once I started taking classes, which reframed networking calls as informational interviews. That shift of simply rethinking the name of what I was doing eliminated a lot of the anxiety that went into it: I no longer felt so undefined, asking something of a stranger without offering anything in return. An informational interview gave us the chance to have a more balanced exchange and clear roles. The person was a subject matter expert, and I acted as the interviewer seeking to learn from their expertise, while also creating a space for them to reflect on their experience and knowledge.

Opening a Door to Recruiters, aka Professional Matchmakers

Networking opened the door to recruiters, who are some of the most awesome people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. They are the professional matchmakers of the world, and they can be the teacher, leader, guide, mentor, and so much more to help unlock the doors to employment. Their job is centered on knowing how to get people hired, so working with them is the best way to fast track a job search.

Some can also help with resumes, and my resume certainly needed that help. I paid a recruiter for resume support, and we worked together to create a clear and uncluttered professional story, which I had not been able to do on my own. We were able to do this because, at the outset, we talked for about an hour so that she could listen and understand who I was as a professional – where I’d been and where I wanted to go.

Clearing the Way

Those discussions challenged me to dig deeper than I ever had before to refine my professional vision. This, along with my ongoing informational interviews, learnings from my MBA, and conversations with other students sharpened my thinking and my approach for interviews so that I was ready once they started. In the end, I had the good fortune of getting two job offers through the recruiter I was working with and was able to choose Plex, a uniquely wonderful place to work.

While there were lots of steps along the way, the willingness to slow down, to rethink, and to reach out for help were the biggest contributors to not just finding a job, but to reshaping my professional identity and taking control of where I was going.

I started this article talking about creating something from nothing, because that's how it felt. While a little magic helps, taking things a step at a time, and continuing to take steps, while reassessing the direction along the way, might contain the most magic of all.

Being released was the best professional thing to ever happen to me. If it happens to you, I hope some of what I’ve shared will help, and I thank you for listening to my experience.

And, as always, thank you for reading this far. If you did read this far, please consider recommending this newsletter to someone you think would appreciate it like you do.

Thanks again and have a wonderful week ahead!

Gerry

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