S1 E3: Work Smarter Not Harder: Building A Solid Job Search Foundation
Welcome to the third episode of Colorful Futures! In this episode, I'll be sharing my career coaching framework - an approach I've developed to help job seekers build a strong foundation for their search.
We'll be exploring four key components: career discovery, resume crafting, LinkedIn optimization, and creating a job search toolkit. Each of these elements plays a crucial role in helping you navigate your career path more effectively.
I'm particularly excited to discuss how these strategies can benefit my fellow AuDHDers and other individuals with marginalized identities. My goal is to provide you with clear, actionable insights that can help enhance your job search and bring you closer to your career aspirations.
So, get cozy, grab something to fidget with, maybe even a little snack, and let's dive into episode three and explore how you can use these tools to create a more focused and successful job search strategy. 💖
Transcript
Speaker: Liora Alvarez
Hello, my friend. I have another semi-unplanned episode for you today. So what happened was, I was making some content, writing about my career coaching framework and kind of how I approach supporting people in their job search. And I was writing and I reached this like block where I just couldn't come up with how I wanted to talk about or write out a part of this framework in this post. And normally in this situation, I would maybe take a break or I would just talk about it out loud and record myself and then grab the transcript and kind of let myself verbally process through and kind of brain dump on the subject until the right phrasing came to me.
And then I thought, you know what, instead of just doing that for no reason, let me pull up my software, let me just make this a podcast episode because this is, I think, really good information for any job seeker to keep in mind. So if you are new here, my name is Liora Alvarez. I'm the founder of Colorful Futures. I'm a career coach and an HR talent acquisition consultant. And in this podcast, we talk about all things careers and business specifically as it connects with folks with marginalized identities, people who have been historically underrepresented in business, in corporate work, and especially the experiences that match my own lived experience of being queer and neurodivergent.
So when I'm working with someone, when I'm working with a job seeker, when I'm coaching in general, I have a sort of general framework in mind. But the core of this framework starts with building the foundation. And very much like building out a skyscraper, the foundation often takes the longest to do. I live in Philadelphia and I live right in the city and so anytime I see a new building getting built, which seems like it's a lot more frequent these days, but I'm always amazed at how long it takes for them to get the foundation ready, get the basement organized, get all of the you know, the the joists and the concrete and the metal and just like getting the whole framework set up.
They spend so much time on the basics, on literally the part of the building that not a lot of people see the studs, the inside of the walls, the literal foundation, the part that touches the ground that holds the building up. And then by the time that's over and they start actually, you know, installing walls and windows and siding and all of that. That part, I feel like, takes no time at all. I'm always so surprised at how quick that goes, especially when you compare it to the foundation steps. And it's very similar to your job search process and very similar to my career coaching framework.
So when we're building the foundation of your job search, there's four different things that we're working on. The first is the career discovery step, the second is your resume, the third is your LinkedIn profile, and the fourth is your toolkit. Now the first part, career discovery, the role in your job search that career discovery plays is that it provides clarity and keeps you focused. Within career discovery, we take a look at what your career has looked like so far. What jobs have you had? What role were you in? Who were you working for?
Did you ever do volunteer work or do you have activities outside of work that have helped you build different skills and different experiences? And we kind of just do an audit of your career so far. And then we go into, you know, what have you enjoyed doing? What do you like to do? What do you not really like to do? What do you want to take with you in your next job? What do you want to leave behind? Where do you want to go? What does that sort of future potential like next year or two look like for you?
And just as a side note, I think in this step when we're thinking about career goals, a lot of people start to think about like five, 10, 20 years from now, what is a job they're going to have forever? What is like the thing that they're meant to do? And this isn't my approach, especially for ADHDers like myself and many of the folks that I work with.
It is unrealistic to think that whatever we do today is what we're gonna be doing in five years, 10 years, or maybe even the next two years. And so I encourage folks to just think a little bit more in the sort of short, medium term instead of the very long term. So we really dig into all of that. We are discovering what your next chapter of your career is going to look like.
This also includes defining those logistics like salary, benefits, perks. What do you want? What do you need? And what are your bare minimum non-negotiables? You wouldn't accept anything less and you can't accept anything less. Now, it's pretty straightforward to define what that looks like for salary. I would say look at, you know, your basic bills, your bare minimum. So I would call this maybe your survival budget.
What do you need to just cover your basic expenses? Like keeping a roof over your head, getting all of your utility bills paid, like your water, electric, heat, whatever you need to keep your house maintained, your internet, your phone bill. What are those basics? And then I would also add in things like your grocery bill, any medical costs, like prescriptions, just those things that if you really had to cut costs. You could not cut these. I can't stop paying my mortgage. I can't stop paying my water bill, my electric bill, my gas bill, my internet, my phone. Those are just things that I can't go without. Just like I can't stop buying groceries and I can't stop paying for my prescriptions. These are all things that I really need that are non-negotiable that could not be cut.
Maybe you have a few other things in this bucket. For us, we have two cats. things like our pet insurance, cat food, stuff like that's going to be here. And speaking of insurance, you know, car insurance, home insurance, things like that. You also might not be able to cut those down. So keep all of that in mind as well as like, bare minimum debt payments, especially that high interest debt, stuff like that.
So that's gonna be sort of your bare minimum survival budget when it comes to salary. And then the next one up I call status quo. So this might be like, what are your current expenses like? Is there coffee shop expenses, eating out, takeout, streaming services? All of that kind of stuff is gonna be under your “need” section. So that's the middle section. And then the next one up is gonna be your want. That's sort of your dream life.
So maybe you’re maxing out your retirement contributions. Maybe you're setting money aside for emergencies. Maybe you're completely paying off your credit card every single month. Maybe you're buying the fancy groceries. Maybe you're buying the brand new off the rack shirt and not thrifting it. Maybe you're taking vacation. Maybe you're eating out more. Whatever that sort of ideal life looks like for you that matches your values.
And then you'll think through things like, what do you need for health care, medical coverage? Maybe you have kids and it would be a dream to have, you know, a daycare stipend paid for by your employer. So all of that is under career discovery. So you can see it's really in depth. It's really getting into not just the work you're doing and who you're doing it for, but what you're getting in exchange for all of that work.
And like I said, when I started talking about career discovery is that the role that it has in your job search is that it provides clarity and keeps you focused. When you know where you want to go, it becomes so much easier to get there. It's kind of like if you want to travel from Philadelphia to New York, if you just said, I want to travel, then it doesn't really matter where you step because you haven't defined the destination. But that also means that you could kind of end up in any place that isn't necessarily going to be where you want to go.
And might take you further away from, you know, your really long -term vision, your life goals, things like that. So it's really important, especially in this current job market, to get clear on what that next step looks like for you. And it doesn't mean that you have to pick one job title, one role to go after. There's plenty of people that are open to maybe two or three different types of work.
I've worked with clients who, you know, they have mixed experiences and maybe you have one option of perhaps like working in sales. Maybe your other option is working in like content marketing because you have experiences in both. So getting clear on that is going to be really important. That's why this is the first step of a foundation. And the more that you spend on this step, the easier the next steps are.
So if you are able to make sure that all of this is clear to you, you know what you're willing to accept and not any less than that. You know what you would ideally get and then sort of that next step of dream life. Maybe this next job is the stepping stone to get you to that dream salary, dream benefits, dream role. If you are clear on that, everything else falls into place much more easily, which takes me to the second part of your foundation, of your job search foundation, which is your resume.
So once you know the areas that you are considering to get a job in and you know what skills and experiences you've had before that relate and translate to your goal job, then you pull all that together and reflect it in your resume. So your resume really is that first interaction– that first impression in your job search. It's one of the first things that a recruiter and a hiring manager will see when they're looking at your application. And so you want to make sure that your resume is optimized to your career goal and that it's optimized so that it's easy to read. It's easy to very quickly and clearly see that you're a fit for the job. And so you want to make sure that your resume is connecting the dots between your experience and the job that you're applying to.
And this doesn't mean you have to update your resume for every single application. You may find that you have to tweak it every so often, but ideally you're doing it in a way that helps you work smarter and not harder. And the resume's role in your job search, if it isn't already obvious, is to get you interviews. It's to make the recruiter and the hiring manager for the role that you applied to make it really clear to them that you have the skills and experience for the role that they're hiring for.
And it doesn't mean you have to check every single box. It doesn't mean you have to be 100% qualified. But as long as you're able to have it come across that you're qualified for at least half of what they're looking for, then that is what's gonna help you get interviews. And if you spend very intentional time on your resume, making sure that
most,like 90-95% of the content of your resume, if not 100% of the content of your resume features the skills and experience you have that relates to your goal job that you defined in career discovery–that's what's going to get you interviews. That's what's going to help you actually hear back from people and get through that stage. The third part of the foundation is your LinkedIn profile.
And yeah, I know that probably lot of you are not happy to hear that. I know that we have a very much a, I want to say love hate relationship with LinkedIn, but I think it's like mostly a hate relationship with LinkedIn. But your LinkedIn profile can play a really important role in getting a new job. And LinkedIn doesn't have to take up all of your time and energy, but that is a conversation for another time. Just trust me that if you can update your LinkedIn profile, to match the intentional stellar resume that you put together, that is gonna help you attract even more recruiters and hiring leaders for the role that you want.
So as we talked about with resumes, we wanna make sure that we're constantly revisiting our career discovery step, that we're revisiting our career goals, our life goals, our values, so that we are staying on course, that we are continuing to stay in the right direction towards that goal destination, that goal job that we defined in the first part of our foundation, the career discovery. So when your resume is optimized and you've got that all set, then you move on to your LinkedIn profile. Your LinkedIn profile should be curated and optimized in a way that tells your story with a little more personality than your resume would.
So I like to say that your resume can be much more fact -based, straightforward, really just making sure that it's showing and telling your experience and, you know, proves that you have the skills and experience needed for the role that you're applying to. Your LinkedIn profile kind of does the same, but in a way that leans more into like the social, personal side of LinkedIn. So LinkedIn doesn't have to be dry and gray and boring and just kind of stuffy and traditional, we can make it fun. So even your LinkedIn profile picture doesn't have to be like the most formal headshot with like the suit and tie and straight on and like, you know, full face of makeup or whatever you can be yourself.
You can wear what you would normally wear to the office if it's a tie-dye t-shirt like what I'm wearing today, or if you have dyed hair, piercings, like let your personality come through. And that is gonna help you just really show your authentic self from the start and be appreciated for who you are even from as early as the application review.
So your LinkedIn profile would be optimized so that when hiring leaders are searching for talent on the recruiting and hiring side of LinkedIn, they can quickly see through things like your headline that you're kind of hitting those basics of what they're looking for. So like your headline might include keywords that relate to maybe your job title or what you're known for, those really top skills and things that you can deliver on. Maybe it includes some achievements or things that kind of help you stand out. And then your resume is going to be reflected in your LinkedIn experience section with all your companies linked and those descriptions in there. And then you could write out your about section so that it gives people more of a behind-the-scenes look to what your career journey was like and how you got to where you are now and where you want to go.
LinkedIn is one of the top tools, if not the number one tool that recruiters and hiring leaders use to look for talent for their jobs, their open roles. Over 70 % of recruiters use LinkedIn. And I think like one person is hired from LinkedIn like every six minutes or something like that. (*correction: 6 people are hired every 1 minute). The numbers are wild y 'all and people underestimate LinkedIn and they like to ignore it because you know, like I said before, LinkedIn can be kind of dry and stuffy and gray and very like formal and traditional, but it's getting to be better depending on how you curate your feed and connect with people and remove connections you don't vibe with. Like, it can be a pretty cool place to hang out.
LinkedIn has a really vital role in your job search because it helps you become more discoverable by recruiters, by hiring leaders and it will help you tap into what people call the hidden job market. The hidden job market is like the roles that aren't necessarily posted on public job posting sites, on job boards. It's the roles that maybe recruiters kind of are sourcing for, which means they're going out and they're looking for people who might not necessarily be applying to their jobs, but they're going out and seeing, you know, who is out there that might be a good fit for the role they're searching for.
I've had a handful of clients get jobs this way. There's two that stand out specifically that they did not apply to these jobs. They were messaged by the recruiter who was working on the position and the recruiter happened to find their profile from my assumption is searching like we do in the LinkedIn recruiter tool. And these two client received these messages from the recruiter that said they found their profile that they thought they were a good fit for this role they were hiring for. And it turns out for both of these clients, this was their dream job. This was the job that they wanted when they went through the career discovery phase. And they interviewed, they ended up getting the job, both clients got the job, both clients ended up getting their dream job without even applying to it.
But because they had their LinkedIn set up in a way that reflected their resume, that reflected their career goals from the discovery stage, they were able to land a job just from having a great LinkedIn profile. So that's why LinkedIn is so important and why it's included in the foundation, because it really is a helpful and impactful tool that you can have kind of working for you in your job search. The last part and the fourth part of the foundation is your toolkit.
So I have only recently started to use the term toolkit for the fourth part of this foundation. And it was really after I kind of reflected on like what really kind of wraps up the foundation in a little bow to make everything else truly go so much faster, to make that skyscraper just like pop right up and get you those results faster. The toolkit includes things like having your go-to job boards bookmarked, having templates at the ready, having scripts at the ready, creating systems that are repeatable so that your workflows feel smooth and require less and less time and energy to complete.
I can't tell you how many clients, it's like too many to count that I've worked with that often find themselves, you know, they find all these jobs they want to apply to. They might have like 20, 25 tabs open with jobs they're interested in, even jobs that they really, really want. Dream companies, dream jobs, and they don't fill out the application because they're just so overwhelmed by all of the steps that are included. And it makes a lot of sense, especially, you know, like I said, most people I work with have ADHD or were auDHD 'ers and multi -step processes, they are not our strength.
And especially when it comes to applying to a job, there's a lot of pressure, external pressure, internal pressure of getting it right. We are naturally oftentimes kind of bogged down by a sense of perfectionism and just making sure everything is just so before we put it through. And all of these things slow our progress and make it so that it can be
even harder for us to get applications in, let alone intentional, well-thought out applications, which is the secret to getting a job offer, especially in this market.
So when you have your toolkit together, it really lessens the load on your executive functioning. It helps you go from interested in this job to applications submitted and done in a much shorter time than if you didn't have all of your tools organized. So your toolkit helps you stay organized. It helps you reduce all of that mental stress and really removes a lot of the barriers to getting those applications finished. Now I've mentioned this in other content, but the goal isn't necessarily to just get an application submitted. The goal is to fill out applications with intention so that the time that you spend working on it is worth it. So we're not just sending applications just like for shits and gigs. We want to make sure that any of the time, energy, effort, executive functioning that you're pouring into your job search, if it's intentional, it will really reduce the risk of you experiencing burnout in your job search.
I'm positive that probably many of you either are currently experiencing or have experienced. So I include the toolkit in the foundation because it's important that it doesn't get forgotten. For example, cover letters. Cover letters are so dumb. And like we really should just try to get rid of them altogether, but they're still a reality and you're gonna come across them. So my number one tip for cover letters is only submit them if they're required as part of the application.
And I don't mean that the option to submit one is there. I mean that the option is there and there's like a little asterisk near it or it says it's required and it won't let you submit your application without it. That's the only time you should be sending one. If it's not required, there's really no point, honestly. But even a cover letter can take a while to put together sometimes. Again, if you've made sure that you're clear on where you want to go in your career, which is that first career discovery step.
You've made sure all of that's reflected in your resume. So it becomes easier and easier to connect those dots between what you've done and what you want to do and how they relate to each other. Then writing your cover letter becomes a lot easier and you can make this a repeatable process, a repeatable system by having templates. Having a cover letter template is a large part of your toolkit for your job search foundation, as well as things like
having a checklist or having a workflow of what your application goals every day or every week look like. Like how many applications are you going to send it on any given day or throughout the week? And if you have these things defined within your toolkit and you have your, your scripts at the ready, you have your templates set up so that if you need to submit a cover letter or answer an application essay question, it's even easier to sort of plug in what you need and then send it off. And as you go through applications, if you find, you know, this cover letter template doesn't quite work, let me tweak it, or this job is actually kind of really focused on this one little specialty. So let me, you know, make sure that those parts of my resume are, you know, coming up first instead of mixed in or towards the end.
Save every change you make because it most likely will come up again. That way you don't have to repeat your work. You can just do it once and then reference it in the future if needed. And this is all part of your toolkit. So your toolkit over time will most likely build out as you come across situations and then you, maybe there's an essay question that's like asking about what your workflow is like or asking about, you know, what makes you interested in being a supervisor or a leader or something, you know, you can save those in your reference docs in your toolkit.
And that way, if the question ever comes up again, you are ready and you can just copy and paste it in and you're good to go or, you know, customize it a teeny bit for that specific company and you're good to go. So the toolkits role in your job search is like I said, to reduce the load on your executive functioning and make it much simpler and easier to submit applications and work through the job search process. So that's why this is the foundation because everything builds on each other.
And once you have your career discovery set and defined, you have your resume optimized, your LinkedIn profile optimized. You have your toolkit at the ready. The next parts of my framework goes into things like the job search strategy and workflow, the interview process, navigating your offers. It all relates to each other. But if your foundation isn't strong, if your foundation is wobbly, if you haven't spent the time on it, things will start to fall apart.
Your job search strategy gets overwhelming and confusing because you don't actually know what jobs you're going after. You don't know what you're willing to compromise on and what you're not. The applications become difficult to do because you don't have your toolkit at the ready. You don't have your resume, your LinkedIn optimized. So you're not allowing yourself to be open to opportunities to come to you instead of you having to chase them down.
Your interviews become more difficult because you're not confident in how your current skills, your experiences in the past relate to where you're going and you don't feel confident in describing them and talking to those points. And then when the offer comes in, you feel a little overwhelmed, a little stressed, a little like, I don't know if this is really what I want because you never got clear on your non-negotiables on your wants on your needs in that career discovery step.
So that's why the foundation is so important. And that's why it's the start to every relationship I have as I'm going and coaching a job seeker. So I hope this helps you kind of set a framework for your own job search– maybe gives you a better behind-the-scenes look of how I approach helping job seekers. And I hope that it can serve you as well, even if we don't end up working together, providing this sort of step-by-step go-to this level, then this level, then this can be really helpful for our ADHD brain. So we actually kind of know what's next and what we need to focus on first.
So if you've been in your job search for a while, or if you're new and you haven't focused on your foundation, it is never too late to revisit it, make some tweaks. And even if you feel like your foundation is set, you still might find that you go back and make tweaks and adjustments and things as you discover new stuff or you have realizations or you learn something new.
As you go through interviews, you might find that your needs and your opinion changes and life happens too. So, you know, your budgets might change the logistics of, know, what you need in terms of maybe schedule or location or whatever it might change. So these are absolutely flexible systems. But if you are able to take the time to get your foundation set, I promise you the whole process just really comes together much more smoothly so that you can have a sustainable and successful job search. We'll see you next episode. Thanks for listening.