Do You Bounce To Greater Heights?
…against the laws of physics
Goal: Discuss my search for a new opportunity over the last few months
For the last few months I had a green ribbon at the bottom of my LinkedIn picture indicating I was looking for work. Last night I removed it.
Starting today I have a new job. I am excited about this new opportunity. Maybe I will dedicate an article discussing the opportunity in the future, as much as I can publically share.
So what did it take to land this new role? Let’s start by reviewing what worked for me in the past.
Last time I was looking for work I did the typical activity of sending hundreds of applications. I got a few bites but it did not work.
What worked was sending a congratulatory note to a connection. Once I got a response from that person, we scheduled a time to talk. We kicked it off and pretty soon I made a direct appeal. My connection was at a director level.
Boom…after interviewing with future coworkers I got the job…
So not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I decided to start with a direct appeal to director level folks in my LinkedIn network. When I did a search on LinkedIn I had over 1200 Director, VP or Cxx level connections. I created a note with an appeal that I had lost my job due to Covid along with my resumes and sent it out.
The results from the direct appeal were interesting.
A third respond with a sorry note and some offered to pass my information internally. I was grateful that they were willing to pass my information along to the people within their organization that were hiring.
Another third responded with a note telling me that they were just let go and also looking for a new role.
Last third said nothing…
After those notes, roughly 500 of them, I stopped. I waited for some contact but after a couple of weeks decided that it was not working. I went back to directly filling out applications. During those few months I had a few interviews but I think they were mostly finishing expeditions getting information for people to be hired this year.
Last several months have been rough for finding work. Oil and gas, chemicals, and industrial gasses have been decimated. Houston is full of people looking for work.
With this in mind I decided that it was going to be along stretch until the end of the year before things settled and companies were in a position to start their CAPEX spending. Almost as a sign, last couple of weeks of last year and after the new year began, I started getting a lot of interest, calls, interviews, and finally an offer.
It is important to notice that I did not sit still during my time between jobs. When I am between jobs I work for myself and turn to creative work.
If you remember, I offered a whole course on TIme Management after learning that about 60% of linkedin connections never had a course on Time Management. My hopes were that people would learn and I can interest them in a Time and Energy Management course.
Next I started writing daily articles in order to provide some insight into my thinking process, knowledge, and ability to write. I am almost at 100 articles. Each month we managed to increase our revenue a bit. We were heading towards that cup of coffee money level soon.
After the articles I started creating apps. You might have noticed the video for my app called MyLin. It was created to interest and hook recruiters and hiring managers. I did share it with my recruiter and hiring manager.
Last pivot was in creating a catchy Be Adaptive T-shirt collection. I was able to get that started and sell a few items.
So what would I advise someone who is still looking for work?
I still think direct appeal is the best. LinkedIn is still the way that landed me the new role. I suspect that writing the articles and having a presence on LinkedIn was the most helpful and this is why a recruiter eventually reached out to me with a opportunity.
It might have been a simple search from his end BUT I like to think that being active was helpful. I know that LinkedIn has some powerful algorithms that show content to more people once they see that it is being consumed.
As you can tell after the sucker punch of losing my job, I did not sit and do nothing. I kept trying things and pursuing different paths. Also notice that the number of paths kept increasing and NOT decreasing. Eventually something wonderful was going to happen.
And it did…
The picture above of the young lady bouncing is a great summation. Keep bouncing…
After the dark, the sun will rise. You have to believe it and keep moving. Tip your hat AND keep your head up. Keep working. Work on improving your skills.
This I believe…
Everything that happens to me is for my benefit. It is the best that could have happened for me.
…and a bit of luck..
My sixteen cents….(this is what I earned from Medium.com for Jan. 2021)
I gotta go…my future self alarm went off
PRODUCT LIST 2021
My first product of the year is the t-shirt with a circle. It can be purchased at
https://teespring.com/be-adaptive?pid=212&cid=5819
My second product is MyLin app. It can be viewed following the link below:
My Third product is a clean design T-shirt available on Amazon:
