Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny

~ C.S. Lewis on this #WednesdayWisdom. The loss of a job can be devastating in many ways.?It starts?with the most serious and concerning - your ability to cover your financial obligations, especially to support your family. The most concerning to me as a coach or mentor is how deeply we tie our identities and self worth to our job and careers. Having just learned of a connection who was asked to resign, I thought it was important to reassemble a toolkit of sorts .... insights, trends, and hard earned tips?to help turn the focus from?failure, doubt, hardship to an outlook of opportunity.?Below are a collection of six posts and links to guide any new job/career search.

Contract Terminated, What's Next?

It's time to bring a number of tips and trends together into a single place to help coach the job seeker. Whether you are looking for your first job out of school or you have had a rewarding 25 year career and you need a change, you will find these tips and trends helpful in your search. This article is a collection of learnings and writing with additional content from pro's Dr Julie Gurner, Lydia Dishman, Liz Ryan, Jared Lindzon and finally, Glassdoor. See links below to an end-to-end journey on why, how, and where to breakout, including:

• Trends and Job Satisfaction
• Finding the Right Role
• Finding the Right Company and Culture
• Best Places to Work and Best CEO's to Work For
• THE Toughest Interview Question and How to Answer It
• Day One - Your ReInvention!

Staring with trends and concluding with the methodology to maintain high performance, here is YOUR manual for a career breakout.........

First, to set the stage?Nearly Half of You Will Leave Your Jobs?..... There are a number of reasons that drive job dissatisfaction and Jared Lindzon covers many of the reasons but more importantly 5 strategies that would help create an environment of greater satisfaction and higher retention.

So you say (hopefully to yourself) "I gotta get out of here" or at a minimum you decide to start looking for a new role. You owe it to yourself to understand the trends in the workplace. Lydia Dishman wrote an article for FastCompany.com titled?These Are The Top 5 Workplace Trends We'll See. You'll find some interesting findings of things like non-traditional perks/benefits and surprising trends in the gig economy.

Ok, so now you are out on the street and looking for work. How do I find the company and job that is the best fit for you? What are the characteristics of companies and positions and how do they align to my skills and goals? I wrote an article on LinkedIn titled?Finding Your Perfect Fit and Match. It's there you'll find tips on what you can expect from a company and culture based on size, ownership, and organization structure.

After putting together a profile and footprint of the perfect company for you, head over to glassdoor.com and check out the?Best Place to Work. Here you'll find some solid info on the best places to work. You'll find employee reviews, salary info, and benefits packages. You can go even deeper and research who are the?Highest Rated CEO's?like Bob Bechek from Bain and Company.

You've found the right company and job, congratulations! Now comes the hard part ..... the interview and selection process. Would you be surprised to find out that less than 1.5% of applicants actually land an offer and accept the position? Companies spend nearly $4,000 per successful candidate to onboard them through this process. Sometime during that interview process, you are going to be asked THE question. Shout out to Liz Ryan for her Forbes.com article -?How To Answer 'What Did Your Last Job Pay?'

You've found the right job, the right place, now what? This is a terrific opportunity to reinvent yourself. Specifically, this is an opportunity to take all those things you have heard at the water cooler, in the hallway, or during your performance reviews (if you had a strong leader) and make a course correction. We wrote an article?"Today is Day One of your Reinvention"?capturing three important themes:

1. Reinvent
2. Know Yourself
3. Enjoy the Ride!

In the end, enjoying the ride is important. You don't get many opportunities to reposition and reinvent yourself in a career so it's really an opportunity to breakout and open the next exciting chapter in your journey!

About Mike McNamara:

Mike has held C-Suite, Executive and Senior Sales, Marketing, Business Development, and General Management roles with Equifax, Cox Enterprises, WW Grainger, and Federal-Mogul Corporation.?Mike has led sales, service and operations organizations of over 1,500 associates and accountable for P&L responsibility in excess of $250M.?

Dedicated to giving back, Mike formed The MBAR Group in 2009 with the sole intent of providing pro bono career and business consulting services.?Today he coaches a number of high profile media personalities as well as holding advisory board positions guiding a number of multimedia and small business startups.

Mike earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and a BS degree from Michigan State University.?He is a past chapter President of the American Marketing Association.?Mike and family?split time between their adopted state of?Missouri and family?home in NW Michigan where their philanthropic causes include The Kingdom House - St Louis, BACN in Benzonia, MI., and Samaritan’s Purse, Boone NC.