Intrepid Miami journalist

Introduction: When you're a few months along on your journey to your next meaningful career stop, you typically find yourself sitting in a waiting period. Or it could feel like you're in a holding pattern.

Don't fret though cause this means you've accomplished quite a lot to get to this stage. Your unplanned voyage began after your previous job was eliminated, as mine was on Oct. 27, 2023 as business editor of the Miami Herald, or you decided to seek a fresh opportunity.

You've carefully updated your resume and LinkedIn profile. You've informed your network of former professional colleagues, friends, associates and family that you're actively searching for another position. You've posted a message via social media to a wider universe that you are officially a free agent. In that message, you've indicated something about your work experience and given people at least a general idea the direction you are going on your career path.

Competitive edge: As a reporter and editor for more than three decades, I've added another dimension to market my talents and effectively compete in this hyper-competitive world. I've been chronicling my unexpected journey here on LinkedIn and on Substack . The main purposes are to remain visible and to pay it forward with useful tips and takeaways for other professionals in the same boat as me, but unsure how to proceed. It's been rewarding, inspiring and gratifying on both fronts. People have written to me telling me they are reading, taking notes and rooting for me. Plus I've had hiring managers contact me after reading my dispatches.

Situational awareness: Here we are between months three and six of mine, or your trek, to the next career destination. We are waiting, as I noted at the top, because we have made definitive progress and thereby earned our position at this spot in our transition.

The persistent and consistent networking has yielded information about attractive job openings, prompting you to submit a cover letter and resume. That led to first interviews, usually with a person carrying a company talent acquisition or human resources title. This person merely is trying to weed out and narrow the candidate field for the hiring manager or managers.

Interview game on: Competition for the position or positions you are seeking intensifies and it's truly game on, when you earn a second interview for a particular job. The second interviewer typically is a manager and might be the hiring manager, or at least he or she will have a voice in who ultimately gets hired.

After the first and/or second interviews, days and weeks likely will go by with silence from that employer. You will know it when you're playing this waiting game. So what's your next move? What's your execution strategy to eventually land the job offer or multiple offers for a position or positions that best match your skills, and experience so you can thrive in your next role?

Hurdles to clear: Before I unveil a few tips and guidance, we're going to assume you are what's considered a white-collar knowledge worker. That means, particularly if you are seeking a management or leadership position, you will need to clear the hurdles in three to five rounds of interviews before getting a job offer -- or getting rejected.

And in this post-pandemic world we live in, each of the interviews could be via phone or video calls on Zoom or Google. There might not be a final round of face-to-face interviews for which you drive to, take a train or get flown from Pennsylvania to California -- as I've done done -- to get the chance to make your final pitch in person with key hiring managers why you're the best person for a particular job. You'll likely have to sell yourself entirely via email, phone and video calls in order to land the position you're seeking.

Narrowing the field: As you advance through rounds of interviews, the only thing you can safely assume is your field or pool of competitors is getting considerably smaller. You could have started in a pool of 100 or more candidates. Now you're a survivor in a final group of three to six people still in real contention for the position.

Compete to the finish line: The primary thing you need to keep in mind at this juncture is this competition doesn't end until you land a job offer, get a rejection email from a company or you see a public posting announcing this position has been filled by someone other than you. As a former high school track and cross country athlete, I'm recalling my coaches imploring me to run hard all the way through the tape at the finish line.

With that in mind, you need to have a strategic plan for how you are going to differentiate yourself from other job candidates: how you are going to keep revealing in verbal and written communications with a prospective employer why you stand out as the "best fit" to fill a particular position.

The art of following up: To do that, you need to follow up and then follow up again with an employer -- with the person or people who interviewed you -- after each interview and probably more. You need to go beyond the small talk of thanking them for their time and cite your sincere desire for the job and how you can add value to the particular company. Importantly, you need to do this with succinct, impactful correspondence because managers are pressed for time.

At this point in an interview process, as a reporter or editor whether you are asked or not, you'll want to be emailing the hiring manager samples of stories you've written or edited. Like me, if you've been a reporter and editor at different stages of your career, determine the work samples you send based on reporting or editing positions you are seeking. Provide some analysis with your work samples such as why you wrote the story, change your reporting caused in the community, recognition you received for the work or what your contributions were as an editor of this published story or stories.

Your vision in the role: In addition, it's helpful to envision yourself in the role you're pursuing and let the hiring manager know your plan to hit the ground running should you get the job and include where you hope to be 90 days into your new post.

Being a thought leader: Another smart tactic to separate yourself from the pack of rivals is to view yourself as a thought leader in your field and specifically detail how you can execute that in the position you're vying for. For example, you might see a hiring manager you had a conversation with wrote a work-related post on social media or you read or listened to a media interview with that person talking about topics related to the management or leadership role he or she holds.

That gives you the opening to write another thoughtful email to that hiring manager. You should use your best judgment what to include in this note based on what the person said in the interview or article in which he or she was quoted and the position you've already discussed with this hiring manager. Your note could be as simple as letting the person know you saw the interview. That shows your awareness and amplifies your interest in the particular position for which you are intensely competing.

Showing your value: Or you can go further and share ideas and compelling suggestions to this hiring manager on the topic or topics he or she raised in the interview you heard or the article you read including that person's comments. This tactic shows a hiring manager how you think and puts your critical thinking, enthusiasm and potential value on full display.

To be sure, I'm actively deploying the career management strategy and tactics I've outlined. At this stage of my four-month journey, I'm replicating this with hiring managers at a small group of companies and employers in journalism and outside it in the business arena. The common thread is each position would enable me to contribute my writing, editing, public speaking, strategic planning, change management and leadership experience and skills I've acquired from collaborating with highly talented colleagues in nine newsrooms.

Don't miss this: My key takeaway for you today is the absolute necessity to follow up with hiring managers during each recruiting process to strongly demonstrate your tenacity and talents for specific positions you desire.

Although the approaches and accepted practices have evolved over the decades due to corporate and technological changes, consistently following up has endured as the way to land an attractive job.

If you doubt me, take the story of my late mother-in-law Joyce who died at 90 in November 2023. Back in the early 1950s in Lancaster County, Pa., she was an 18-year-old high school student who wanted a good-paying production job at the RCA plant in town that then made electrical components to power black and white televisions. After her initial job application, every Friday walking home from school she stopped at the plant for a few minutes, went inside to the personnel office. To the person who greeted her there, she identified herself and the job she had applied for and wanted. Then she delivered a simple but powerful message: I'm ready and would very much like to go to work for your company.

'You're hired': After doing this weekly ritual for nearly three months, one Friday the personnel person replied to her: "You're hired. When can you start?'' She started before her high school graduation, worked there in various roles for 35 years, while raising four daughters with her husband. Before she retired from the only employer she ever worked for, she repeated this lesson in career determination to her daughters, grandchildren and many others in her life.

Thank you for reading. Hope you'll return to continue this journey with me to my next career chapter. Please feel free to connect on LinkedIn or on Substack or at [email protected] to offer your thoughts and suggestions.