Now it’s time to be planning your NEXT job, so you have a much better chance to reach your career goals.

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People are desperate for jobs, and at some point you get so frustrated you’re ready to try just about anything.  But here’s the question:  Do you want people circulating stories about you, or do you want a job?

Read more on my Workbloom blog»

Read more on my Workbloom blog»

That said, here are things that I talk about with clients when they want to improve their résumé:

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Why would this be?

Because your résumé is the beginning of a conversation between you and another person.

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I have just signed up with a coaching services firm, Small Fish Business Coaching, based in Australia. This is a huge leap forward for me and my business, because I’m moving away from working totally on my own, to being in partnership with a rapidly growing group that is intent on improving the plight of small business owners, one at a time.

It also means that I’ve tightened my focus from being all businesses – really much too broad – to be on small businesses. That would typically be smaller than 50 employees or $20M in revenue.

I completed my training, I’m getting my business cards printed later today, I’m now listed on the Small Fish websites in both Australia and the US, I took care of state registration and other logistics, and I’m cranking away on spreading the word.

There’s a lot to do, but I can already see progress. This is a new, exciting phase to my career!

There’s a couple of requests I’d like to make to you:

If you’re a small business owner in Northern Colorado, or know small business owners who really want to improve the state of their business, please let me know. I have a powerful process which can help a business owner improve profits, customer satisfaction, employee motivation, and personal balance.

If you’re a business coach, and you’re looking to team up with people who have a powerful process and great marketing, then you might want to check out Small Fish. They’re looking for great coaches in the US, especially. I’d be happy to provide you an introduction and answer any questions you might have about how I selected them.

And if you want to get a copy of the Small Fish e-mail newsletter, just let me know.

I guess that’s one of the things that makes life interesting.

But what makes you unique? It can come from several places:

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I think it’s a valid conclusion, but there’s more to the story.

If you want to be famous for something, to be at the forefront, you have to establish yourself as world class. You want to be one of the best violinists? 10,000 hours. You want to make a living as a pro golfer? 10,000 hours.

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Here’s the trick:  You promote in a way which is well-founded, or where promotion isn’t the primary message.

Here are a few examples:

• Share the recognition.  The message is a lot softer when a group of us achieved something, as opposed to just my own personal accomplishments.  And it can be more powerful as well, because typically a group can achieve more than just an individual.
• Provide objective evidence.  The fact that I’ve published a book or delivered 433 hours of coaching is more powerful than just claiming that I generally have lots of experience.  In addition, the book is almost always a great conversation starter: people want to know about my writing and publishing experience.
• Relate it to a future goal.  I may not be the world’s best expert yet, but it’s very interesting to tell people about the business I’m building.  It’s not uncommon to find people who want to help me, then find that I already have considerable expertise to offer.
• Demonstrate expertise in a helpful way.  I often sell my coaching services merely by having coaching conversations with people, or as part of a presentation I might give.  When people like the way I come across, they see that I can bring them value in a paid coaching engagement.

More than anything, keep the conversation open, honest, and useful to your audience.  Let that work to build up the impression that you have expertise and experience.

In contrast, soft skills are harder to define because they’re fuzzy, harder to describe, situation dependent, and often avoided by schools.  So why bother?

Because these are exactly the skills which are most portable during your career.  I started out as a programmer, then got promoted to manager.  Every time I moved to a new project I had to learn new technologies, but the core principles of how to work with my team members remained the same.  Although my technical abilities as a programmer are now obsolete by decades, I continue to use core people-related skills that I learned way back when.  Some from kindergarten.

You’ll find lists of “soft skills” at various levels of detail.  They’re often called “people skills” or “interpersonal skills.”  Below that you’ll see things like negotiating, leading, managing, motivating, engaging, conversing, communicating, teaching, listening, and so on.  All very valuable, and worth developing no matter what career you might have.

I’ll offer an additional way to figure out some soft skills which might be important to you:  Imagine that you’ve just had a conversation with a couple of people, which has now drawn to a close.  You depart.  One person says to the other, “That was useful; he (she) was quite ________.”

What words would you prefer to see in that blank?  competent?  inspiring?  articulate?  motivating?  friendly?  smart?  generous?  spiritual?

Pick two or three words that you would strive for, that you would most like to see used in the context of how you affect others.  Sure, you might not feel that you live up to those words today – great.  But if you can identify some ideals for how you will affect those around you, you’ll have a lot more clarity on the soft skills you’d like to develop.  That’s a lot more useful than having a general list of 20 attributes that try to describe the full breadth of human interaction.