ALUMNI MEETING NOTES – April 2019

Highlights of the April 2019 Meeting

Participants in transition recommended:

•  Rethinking Your Resume:  Even before completing his Black Belt course, one alumni revamped his resume, shifting its focus from chemical engineering to process improvement.  He is already getting more returned calls.
• Generating Your Own Opportunities: After shifting his resume focus, and applying for a process job in another industry, the chemical engineer became one of two final candidates.  He didn’t get the offer but, upon hearing the news, offered to be available for a short term project.  That offer would help him gain experience in a new industry and the hiring manager help in meeting a critical deadline.
• Staying Open to Possibilities: The newly hired BPG alumni landed a job at a local university; that wasn’t a workplace she was targeting. Still, when an opportunity came up she followed it and liked what she heard.
• Staying in touch with loose — aka weak — network connections: They  really can make a difference. Some studies have shown that weak connections are more likely to help someone find a job than friends or associates.  Two loose connections made the difference  for the alumni who just got a job at a local university.  She sent a former co-worker — someone she had a “cordial” relationship  – a note of encouragement and support after learning the co-worker had been laid off.  It was that “loose connection” who forwarded her information about the job at the local university.  The BPG alumni was one of 60 candidate. When she learned she was one of two finalists, she found another loose connection who worked at the university. That second loose connection put in a good word for her. Our  BPG alumni starts her new job in a few weeks.
• Keep doing the work: You never know when your actions will bring results.  The newly hired alumni told us that after accepting the university position, she got a call from another contact about another opportunity.   By following a process* the alumni had been laying groundwork for opportunities.  You can’t control when you will get results, you can only control what you do to. So keep doing the work.  No groundwork/no opportunities.
• Stay in touch with hiring managers:   Send a note a few months after your interview.  You never know when the first hire may not “stick” or another opportunity opens up.

* For a list of 20 things job seekers should do, read the article “Knowing and Doing are Two Separate Things” by Hanna Morgan, founder of CareerSherpa, at https://careersherpa.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Knowing-and-Doing-are-Two-Different-Things.png.things.job