On Getting Things Done and Being Good Enough

Lately I've been interning with the Career Services office at the master's program from which I just graduated. If you can put aside the laughable irony, it's been a pretty neat gig for someone looking for a full-time position. I sit through these sessions a year later, much more prepared to market myself and am reminded of the best lessons I was too scrambled to retain last year.

But let's be real here: the job search is a struggle. I've not met many people who really have fun finding a new job. I feel lucky to have been exposed to such wonderful services and people willing to help me along the way, but it still isn't easy.

After graduating from Meredith in 2010, I wasn't quite sure what I should be doing and where I was going. Plus things were still pretty rough in the job market. I felt like finding a job was a full-time job and I easily got exhausted and burnt out from all the work and, eventually, the rejections--or worse, the silence!

So when I eventually made it to Fuqua as a student, I stumbled into one of the greatest career search sessions that shook up things.

Steve Dalton, the current Program Director for Daytime MBA Career Services, showed up and convinced me that he gets it. From his work with other students struggling to do everything right and coming up short, he developed an easy to follow system that breaks down the biggest difficulties associated with finding a job: making a LAMP list.

LAMP is an acronym and the 4 steps of Dalton's system:

Step 1: List. List out companies you know of or come across where you're searching.
Step 2: Advocates/Alumni. Using LinkedIn, find people you know connected to your companies. The closer, the better.
Step 3: Motivation. How badly do you want to work for them?
Step 4: Position. Do they have any openings you could fill right now?

After Dalton's presentation, I bought his book The 2-Hour Job Search and read it over my winter break. Dalton takes all the uncertainty out of the job search and reminds you, it's just about getting things done and being good enough. When the recruiters and employers know you're there, it makes things easier on them. Their time is valuable so the less work they need to put into finding someone to join their team, the faster they can move on to other things.

Now that I'm working on my own LAMP list, I feel it's a whole lot easier to stay focused and to settle all the doubts.

Full disclosure: No one paid me for this post. I genuinely believe in and recommend Dalton's ideas and book. Need proof?

Finally excited to get back on the job search path thanks to @Dalton_Steve and his #2HJS! Thanks so much!
— Samantha Cibelli (@samanthacibelli) August 13, 2013

Professional Sponge

Now that I’m no longer a student (again), I’m on a campaign: Operation Employable.

I believe that my internet presence, including this blog, plays a central role in my professional identity, so why not share my movements towards starting a career here?

I’ve learned a lot in my personal development since I started working on it as a part of my identity. Some of this growth has come from attending lectures, reading voraciously, or talking to professionals. I’m constantly sponging up information and I’m certain that there’s someone interested, whether you’re interested in your own development or you’d really like to give me a job. Yes, you!

But in all seriousness, I have come across some insights I’d like to share and some others that I want to explore.

So I wanted to start the Operation Employable series by sharing the ways that I’ve started collecting and making sense of all this information.

Being a writer of sorts, I used a gift my generous mom left me as we set up my apartment in Duke: a journal. Being a person that loves technology as much as I do, I still have a thing for old-school journals. I currently have three journals, but only one is dedicated solely to career development. My handwriting is a modified cursive and I find that the movement my hand makes generates ideas. Sometimes I sketch out plans or flow charts. I always bring it to a lecture or a coffee chat, so I can write notes but still stay an active listener. While it’s not as easy as turning to a search bar to find old notes, I date and title every event and jot down inspiring quotes or great advice in it.

See, I can be professional!

When I’m not writing, I’m often reading and non-fiction development is a hot genre for me these days. I keep up with what I’m reading and other recommendations with my Goodreads account. If you haven’t heard of Goodreads, it’s a social networking site for avid readers that sends great recommendations and opens up conversation for bookworms. You can organize the books however you like on virtual shelves and I have one just for my development books that way I don’t forget titles when I’m ready for a new read.

I also read a lot of articles I enjoy on the interwebs and if there's one I think I can get something out of later, I save it. I’ve gotten some friendly chiding for it, but I created a board on Pinterest devoted to business related topics of videos or articles that are interesting. Sometimes I review them before an interview or keep them handy to send to others when I inevitably talk about how cool such-and-such is that I read about the other day....

So far these are working for me, but I'm always looking for different ideas. I’m wondering if there’s anything else that I’m missing that might be helpful to collect ideas. Do you have some different methods I might use? Do you have some recommendations I should add to my reading list?