Can you be a generalist in the workplace? - with Steph Gillies of Destination Dream Job

#203: Steph Gillies is a Career Story Coach and professional writer.  She explains the non-linear nature of careers, the three stages of finding a new career, and how to make yourself stand out.

What you’ll learn

• [01:45] How Steph worked 32 jobs in 15 years. 
• [03:30] The fear of specialisation as a multi-passionate person. 
• [04:51] What makes someone a generalist. 
• [7:26] The opportunities to become a generalist within a specialised field. 
• [8:10] What it’s like working in short job positions with high turnover rates. 
• [9:40] Common thoughts to have if you’ve been laid off. 
• [12:06] How to combine jobs in your resume to improve the presentation.
• [13:40] How recruiters respond to combining jobs in your resume. 
• [15:18] The non-linear nature of careers. 
• [19:14] The three stages of finding a new career. 
• [20:38] How to identify what makes you unique. 
• [23:45] Why you should include your hobbies on your resume. 
• [24:37] How to gain clarity in what career you want to be in. 
• [27:21] The type of positions a generalist should apply for. 
• [29:26] How many types of jobs you should target. 
• [31:10] The best jobs for generalists. 
• [32:52] How to know what to focus on in your CV. 
• [36:10] Why your resume needs to be clear. 
• [37:55] What to write on your CV if you’ve taken time off to look after family. 
• [43:08] How to know what a job will be like. 
• [46:16] How generalists can change organisations. 
• [46:57] How long it takes to assess the suitability of an organisation. 
• [49:10] Writing entrepreneur resumes. 

Resources mentioned in this episode
Please note that some of these are affiliate links and we may get a commission in the event that you make a purchase.  This helps us to cover our expenses and is at no additional cost to you.

• Glassdoor
• Reddit
• How to be Everything, Emily Wapnick
• Change Work Life Coaching

For the show notes for this episode, including a full transcript and links to all the resources mentioned, visit:

https://changeworklife.com/can-you-be-a-generalist-in-the-workplace/

Re-assessing your career?  Know you need a change but don't really know where to start?  Check out these two exercises to start the journey of working out what career is right for you!

Transcript

0:00

At a time when it seems that everyone is expected to be a specialist, what do you do if you want to be a generalist? What do you do if you're multi-passionate with lots of interests and you want your work to reflect those multiple interests? That's what we're talking about in this week's episode. I'm Jeremy Klein, and this is Changework Life. Hello and welcome to Changework Life, the podcast where we're all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. I'm a career coach, and in each episode, my guests and I bring you tips, strategies and stories to help you enjoy a more satisfying and fulfilling working life. In my previous career, I was a specialist. I was a lawyer. I advised high-net-worth individuals. If you were in the industry, you kind of knew what I was about, and had I decided to stay in that career and just move jobs, it was pretty obvious what skills and experience I brought. But what do you do when your work history isn't as focused? How do you create your narrative when you've done a bit of this and a bit of that? If you're a multi-passionate generalist, how do you even find a role that will suit you? To help answer these questions, I'm joined by Steph Gillis. Steph is a career story coach who, having had 32 jobs in 15 years, now helps multi-passionate professionals embrace their authenticity and design their career story. Steph, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Now, even if you include various part-time jobs I did as a student, I'm not sure my job count has made it to double figures in 30 years. How did 32 jobs in 15 years happen? Well, I was younger in my career, so I was working multiple part-time jobs. Or when I was in university, I was working a couple of part-time jobs on the side as well. And then I just, you know, I thought that I knew what I wanted to do, and I would try the job, and then I would get bored. So I'd start applying to other jobs and then see what else I could get. And then I'd do those jobs for a little bit, and then I would get bored also, and then kind of move on. And so I eventually did graduate with a social work degree and ended up in the non-profit world. I think the longest stretch I've ever been at a job is five years. And one of those, I was on maternity leave. So technically it was more like four years, but yeah, it was just my, in my younger years experimenting on a bunch of different jobs and different things that I could do. You know, I worked at Starbucks, I taught rock climbing, I was a lifeguard, and I took people on horseback riding trips, stuff like that. There was lots of different variety in my jobs, but, and I worked at a bank for a little bit. That one, that wasn't really aligned with who I am, but it was, it was an adventure. I mean, I learned a lot, but you know, now looking back on that, if I had known about what informational interviews were, how you can communicate with people and understand what a job looks like before you jump into it, I probably would have saved myself a lot of those jobs. You say that, but I get the impression that probably the majority of people don't have that varied a career background, particularly early on. So is this something which was intentional? Did you go out to try lots of different things or did it just kind of evolve organically that way? Yeah, I was, I was raised in a way that was where, where people believe that you had to be one thing, right? So you go to university, you get a job, you work there until you retire. And so I was really worried about finding this one thing. And because I'm someone who is multi-passionate, finding one thing is, sounded really stressful to me. And I was like, how am I going to find this one thing that I want to do for like 40 plus years? I just couldn't imagine that, that happening. And so, so really what it was, I'd be like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. I'm settled. Like, I'm going to do this now. And then I do that. And I was like, yeah, that didn't really work out. I didn't really like that. I'm bored now. And then I would try something else. And so, so it wasn't intentional, however, like I, I wouldn't take it back, you know, I wouldn't, I thought it was a lot of fun and I got really good at applying for jobs as a result of it. And that's probably what led me to where I am today. At least when people have, if you like, started their proper jobs, leaving aside, you know, what they might've done as a student, I tend to think of people becoming more specialists once they're in corporate careers. So where do these generalists come from? I mean, who, who are the people who are generalists and who have tried their hand at multiple different things? And I mean, kind of, you know, once they're fully into working life, if you like, and have left education. Yeah. So, you know, generalists can appear in lots of different ways and there's lots of people who are, they look like specialists in their day job, but really what they are is generalists and how you can identify those people is if, you know, you know, if you're wondering if you're a generalist, usually your manager will come to you and ask, ask you to take on other projects. You might be that person who's like, Hey, that, that sounds really neat. And there's other projects going on at work and you offer to help out with something else or you jump around between teams. Another thing that generalists tend to do is break down those silos between teams. So they tend to, you know, help teams work better together. So instead of having, you know, like the one team here, one team here to one team here, generalists will bring those teams together and, you know, be able to help people communicate better across like cross-functionally those are, those are some things that can help identify a generalist. But one thing to note is most senior level professionals like C-suites are generalists because they don't do just one thing, right? They're managing lots of different things within their job. And so, you know, those are typically the people who will come to me and be like, how do I create my career story? Because I've done so many different things that can be another indication of a generalist. So another people who work at startups, a lot of people who work at startups tend to be generalists because at startups, you have to wear many hats compared to larger organizations where your role might be more specified in startups. There's an opportunity to work across teams to take on lots of different roles. And so generalists tend to appear in those types of positions as well, or they're drawn to them a little bit more. So there's lots of different ways that generalists can show up. Also some people tend to be a specialist in their day job, but then, you know, you look at their personal life and they have lots of different passions that they pursue in their personal life. So it can look lots of different ways, but, but typically you can, you can identify them when, you know, they're at work and they're doing lots of different projects or they're, you know, helping cross-functionally across teams. That's really interesting. What you were saying about silos definitely resonated with me because I think sometimes if, and we'll probably talk about this a bit more, but when you, when you have interests in different things, it can be hard to avoid being siloed in your particular area. So, you know, I was a lawyer in the legal team at my company. When I started to talk about other things, people said, but you're a lawyer in the legal team. Why would you want to get involved in this sort of thing? And that was, that could be quite challenging at times. Hmm. Yeah. I mean, you think about like someone who's a doctor and you might be like, oh, they're a specialist, but there's, you know, my dad was a doctor for many years and he worked, he worked in a family practice. He also worked in a senior's home. He also did some shifts at emergency. So he was kind of a generalist within his specialized field by taking on lots of different roles. And so there's definitely opportunities in very specialized fields to also, you know, be a generalist. It's just not as open if you're, you know, in a very specialized industry or field. Now, when we set up this conversation, we talked about having a case study that we could talk to. And so Steph, you've kindly provided us with Alex, who is a versatile startup professional who's been laid off three times despite excelling in roles across operations, marketing, and customer success. Now feeling uncertain and unemployable, Alex is searching for a clear path forward to leverage their wide ranging skills in a more stable, fulfilling career. This fits in with what you were saying about people who work at startups being generalist, which is something that a previous guest of mine said when you were working for a startup, you are likely to have a hand in lots of different things and not be just the accounts person or just the marketing person or whatever. Absolutely. Yeah. And the tough thing right now, especially is in the tech world, a lot of people are working for startups, but there's a lot of layoffs happening. So this is, you know, a true story of one of my clients who did experience lots of layoffs and they were feeling like, you know, and some of those job positions were very short, you know, just a few months or six months. And so they were feeling as though, you know, they weren't going to be employable going forward. And so this is a great conversation to have for sure. So we've got feelings of uncertain, unemployable. Can you build on some of the thoughts, fears, beliefs that Alex had going around in their head when they just had their third layoff? Yeah. So, you know, I mean, if you look at the job industry, even five years ago before the pandemic, people were asked about any gaps they had in their resume. If they weren't working for a few months, someone, you know, in an interview, they'd be like, why do you have a job gap? And so people were very concerned about filling those gaps and it was rare for people to have a gap. You know, people were always working or they were jumping from, you know, different positions. But then the pandemic happened and, you know, the layoffs that we've experienced since then has been, you know, unprecedented, right? No one's they haven't experienced layoffs like this in the past. And it's just part of like the tech industry is always going to be fast paced, fast moving industry. In this situation, you know, they were feeling that way because they had that belief that, you know, you shouldn't have a job gap on your resume. And you know, if you also look at resume advice, it talks about, you know, excluding experiences that are less than like six months. Every experience should be at least a year or more. And if this person was to do that, they would appear as if they hadn't worked in the past like three or four years. And so that simply wasn't true. And so we really had to think outside the box for this situation, really help them create that career story that can reflect not only their skills, but also, you know, showcase things that typically previous to the pandemic would have been like, you know, resume no-nos, you know, including shorter jobs and, you know, experiencing multiple short positions. And so the way some of the ways that we did that was combining some of the roles together. And so there were two positions that were very similar in terms of what they did on a daily basis. And so instead of separating them on the resume and having two like six month positions, we combined them together. So it appeared as a year long position because there was no gap between those two positions. It was a quick turnaround for them. And then just really, you know, identifying, you know, their most recent position and detailing that out more so that they could showcase what kind of accomplishments they had in their experience, so they could show how they're going to show up for an organization when they do start applying to jobs. And this joining two positions together, was that with the same employer? So it was kind of quite explicable on that basis. Or was there a little bit of, well, I'll let you use the phrase if that wasn't the case. Yeah, no, absolutely. They were not with the same employer. And this is something that I've done multiple times. Typically, you wouldn't want to do it if it's like your most recent position. But if you're looking at positions like two or three years back and you have multiple, let's say someone was in the customer service space and they had like four different roles that were exactly the same, they were just for different employers. What we would do is we would list the multiple employers because we're not trying to hide the fact that they had more than one employer, but we're just having the one customer service title listing the multiple employers and then listing the accomplishments under that one as one position, just because there's no need to have five different positions that say the exact same thing. And so that's a way just to get around not having to repeat yourself in multiple bullet points. But it's not it's not like we're trying to to hide it. Right. Like it's not we're not saying, oh, they only had one employer during this time. We're saying there was two employers. Sometimes we even detail out like this employer was these dates and this employer was these dates. But the bullet points are the same because they were very, very similar positions. So it's just a great way to save space as well on your resume and just to make it a little bit more impactful. So the hiring manager isn't seeing the exact same bullet points for every single position. I can understand how presentationally actually that makes a lot of sense, but I'm curious as to whether any of your clients have got any pushback at interviews when a recruiter saw the, you know, the customer service position and then three or four different companies with three or four different dates. It hasn't experienced any pushback in any of the clients that I've worked with. I mean, we're cautious about it. We don't just combine things just to combine things and try to we're not trying to hide like really hide what happened, but just to showcase, you know, a little bit of to make it simpler for the for the reader. But what I think the difference is when you think about writing your resume is there's a difference between being honest and then being literal. So in this case, they're not being dishonest. They're not lying. They're not hiding anything. They're just not being exact, exactly literal about the exact thing that happened. And, you know, that's that's not necessarily what the hiring manager is looking for. They're looking for someone who can provide the results that they want during during their employment. And so if you can showcase that and then showcase you have a really strong history of working, then typically they've never I've never experienced a problem with that. And I think that's the important here. It's about what you're displaying in terms of the experience of the evidence that you've got the experience that someone is looking for. And you don't, as you say, necessarily have to repeat the same number of things five times for five different positions in five jobs where you're all doing the same thing when it makes sense just to say here are the skills that you're looking for. Well, I had experience of them during this period. Yeah, exactly. You got it. I feel like Alex probably has some confidence building to do here. So how did you approach that? How did you and Alex work together to help Alex believe that there was a future out there? I think the biggest part is just normalizing it. You know, a lot of people come to me and they have gaps in their resume or, you know, they've experienced a layoff and they feel like, oh, like, I don't think that they're not going to call me, you know, like they're not they're going to look at my resume and think this is too messy. We're not interested. But the thing is, you know, it's just really normalizing that so that if anyone's listening and has experienced a layoff or has a very similar story to this, you know, this client, as well as many others that I've worked with, have gotten jobs and they are employable. And so it is, you know, normalizing it that not everyone's career is linear. You know, most people think, oh, well, my career is so messy, but everyone else is just one in this upward trajectory and mine just went all over the place. But honestly, I've written over a thousand resumes and worked with, you know, hundreds of people on their on their career story, and very few of them have a very linear career path. You know, lots of people come in and they, you know, they did one thing and then they're like, oh, that wasn't really what I wanted. And they moved on to something different or they got stuck in a job and they just thought, you know, this is what I'm going to do. And then, you know, 15 years later, they're like, oh, this was supposed to be temporary. And now here I am. So now they want to, you know, change into something different. And so I think the really important part of it is to know that, you know, you're not alone. Everyone's career path is messy. Everyone has ups and downs. Everyone has, you know, loops that they go through with their career. It is very rare for me to see, you know, a career that goes straight up in a line. And so I think that's that's the biggest part about it is normalizing that for for the clients and then also helping them really see what makes them unique and how these situations play into, you know, their strengths and their skills. You know, I've worked with people who have who are new immigrants and they, you know, when they first come to I'm in Canada and when they first come to Canada, you know, they get a job working at Walmart or working at a store doing something just because they want that Canadian experience and be able to learn the language and different things like that. And they're always like, oh, well, this isn't really relevant to my career path. But I think it's very relevant because it showcases, you know, a huge like that's something that most of us, you know, people who are native to Canada wouldn't experience, you know, moving from a new country and learning a new language, being able to assimilate to a new job market. And so I think that's really helping these clients and especially this person here identify what what skills they can bring out from these different experiences and how, you know, maybe being laid off three times lets them be more adaptable and more versatile and with their different. experience across operations, marketing and customer success, they bring a different out of the box thinking view when they come into a new position because they've done positions in all these different areas. And so when they come into a new role, they're able to provide the the view of what it would be like from the customer perspective, what it's like from the marketing perspective, and that allows them to offer some more unique solutions to to the organization. It's interesting what you were saying in the first bit of your answer there about how people do have a tendency to believe that they're the outlier. Theirs is the one with the messy CV and everyone else has got it together and has found the career of their dreams and seems to know what they're doing. When in fact, that's not the truth at all. Everyone pretty much I think being being like, held together and having the defined career path and knowing exactly what you're doing. Those people are probably the outliers. Absolutely, for sure. I mean, like I said, it's very rare for me to see a linear career path. And when I do, I'm always like, wow, like, are you are you interested in this job still? You know, most of them come to me because they want to change. So you know, even their linear career path is something that they're they're looking to maybe change or get out of or do something different. So there seems to be two stages here. There's stage one, figuring out what Alex wants to do next. And then stage two is creating the story that's going to help convince employers that Alex is the person they need. Is that right in terms of the stages to go through? I usually include a stage before that. And the first one would be the self discovery. So really figuring out, you know, what sets you apart, what makes you unique, and what kind of accomplishments you have through your career. And then we go into that career clarity. So helping them identify, you know, what they've liked and what they haven't liked about their previous positions, what kinds of things they'd like to keep doing and things that they don't ever want to do again. And then moving into that build, turning that into a career story, which includes can include the resume, cover letter, LinkedIn, you know, the elevator pitch, which is the answer to tell me about yourself questions or how you introduce yourself in in networking situations. And so that's kind of start to finish. So it's a self discovery, career clarity, and then building into the career story. With the first two, what's kind of like the end product? What when you're describing this process to Alex, what what are they going to get at the end of stage one and the end of stage two before we get on to the third stage? Yeah, so at the end of stage one is really about helping them, you know, identify what makes them unique. And so what I mean by that is, when you look at like a sales professional who's applying to a position, and they say, Oh, the thing that makes me unique is I hit I exceeded my targets every quarter for the past year. Well, that's not really unique in the sales industry. Because I mean, you could find 100 different sales people who've exceeded their targets in the past year. So what I talk about when I say what makes you unique is really diving in and figuring out what makes you different. And you know, when we look at the job market now, because it's so competitive, the only thing that sets us apart is who we are as a person. So our authenticity, our uniqueness, what we bring to the table, that's truly different from other people. So I always ask my clients, you know, what what do you think sets you apart? And they always tell me I'm really good at communication. And I'm an empathetic leader, there's the same thing, almost everyone tells me that. And I mean, those are great qualities, but they're not necessarily things that make you unique. So I had a client who was in sales, which is why I pick on this story. And she was also a yoga instructor. And typically, those two things don't go together, right? You'd be like yoga instructor in sales, those are completely opposite things. But being a yoga instructor was a huge part of who she was and spoke to a lot of her personality and her beliefs and her outlook on life. And so what we actually did was we took that the yoga instructor, we incorporated it into her resume, and explained how being a yoga instructor made her a more empathetic leader, helped her communicate and relate better to people, which then helped her, you know, build her sales skills, because she was able to draw upon, you know, her experience in yoga to, you know, build a relationship, stronger relationships with clients. And so then when a resume, when a hiring manager looks at that resume, they can see, oh, like, no one else is a yoga instructor. And no one else talked about how being a yoga instructor is going to impact her career. And so I've done that with lots of different people who've been, you know, Ironman triathletes, or different things that they have on the side. And you don't even have to be some like, you know, yoga instructor, Ironman triathlete, you know, there are other things within our life that we can draw upon, to showcase what makes us different. It's kind of like the Venn diagram, the uniqueness is in the Venn diagram, there can be this pressure to say, oh, you know, what is unique about me? And you start to think, well, I kind of am just like every other lawyer out there, or every other sales professional out there, but it's finding these additional things. So, you know, I might be the only one, certainly not the only lawyer who's also an amateur musician, but then it's that kind of thing, which that sets me apart a bit further. And then maybe there's something else which I've done. And so, you know, you get this, yeah, just by a process of narrowing down all the things, you're going to be one of a smaller and smaller pool of people who have this particular range of experiences, I guess. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, just like you're talking about being an amateur musician, if you had that on your resume, you know, a hiring manager might see it and relate to that and be like, oh, that's cool. You know, I do that too, or something and that might help you, you know, create that human connection that wouldn't otherwise be created with just a document. So you know, even I would say, again, five years ago, we were telling people to remove their hobbies, remove their interests from the resume. But I actually want to go back to that, because I think that's a huge part of who we are. And but not just listing a hobby section, like, I don't think that's beneficial, just like, oh, these are my hobbies. I really think it's about, you know, telling a story and showcasing how, you know, being an amateur musician, how has that impacted your career or who you are as a person, right? So telling more of that story, than just listing it on your resume. Okay, so that was stage one, figuring out what makes you unique. Stage two, I think you said it was career clarity. Yeah, so it's just a lot of people that come to me are just not 100% sure if this is the area that they want to be in. Right? They're like, you know, I kind of fell into this, or I got stuck in this industry. And I'm just not sure if this is what I want to keep doing, but I don't know what I want to do. And so it's really about identifying, you know, I always encourage people to create three categories, the things they love doing, the things they're kind of okay with doing, they don't really care, take it or leave it, and the things they absolutely hate doing and never want to do again. So I'll give myself as an example, I used to work with kids like all the time, I taught preschool, I volunteered in kids programs, I worked at a nonprofit that was revolving around like after school care type programs. And I actually don't really enjoy working with kids that much, but I was very good at it. Right. And so I was like, Oh, I'm good at it. So I should just keep doing it. But if I you know, when I did this, you know, chart what I loved what I didn't care for, or what I didn't want to do again, it made it clear that I actually I like I prefer working with adults versus kids and teenagers. And so that made you know, that made decision making in my career very different had then had I just kept going with a thing that I'm good at, even though I wasn't really enjoying it. And so we get really clear on what things they're interested in. And then we take those skills, and we, you know, place them into different, what different opportunities there are out there for those skills that you're really interested in the things that you want to keep doing, and, you know, really identifying different opportunities that that are out there, you know, having written so many resumes, you know, I can someone can just tell me their top, like, these are the things that I want to do. And I can provide them with different job opportunities, just because that's, I've seen so many different resumes. And, you know, I've seen so many different skills transfer across, you know, positions and across industries. And so I really think that people's opportunities are a lot bigger than they think they are. And so so that's really about, you know, identifying their skills, and then what opportunities they have out there, and then doing a little bit of research into those opportunities and those jobs to see if they actually would be a fit, because there might be something where you're like, oh, this job hits all the top 10 skills that I really want to do. But you know, they they work in an office, and I want to work remotely, that's not going to work for me or whatever, right. So just making sure that the job does fit into your lifestyle, or, you know, the other things that are priorities for you and your values. So for someone like Alex, would you expect them to be looking for a specialist job or something with a lot of variety, maybe back in the startup world? Yeah, I mean, we live in a specialist world, which is not great news for generalists who have a varied background. And so the tough part about someone like Alex, who has the, you know, three different areas of experience, operations, marketing, and customer service, is if they are applying for jobs, they really need to be applying to three different positions, right. So they'd be applying to operations jobs, you know, whatever the marketing positions, they're interested in those customer success, which means that they need to change their job search strategy for each of those positions. So if they were like, yes, I want to be open to all three positions, that typically means that you need three different resumes, one for operations, one for marketing, one for customer success, so that you can really speak to the hiring manager, when you when you have a resume, or your messaging is, oh, I'm good at all three of these things. And I'm just going to create something more general, you typically don't resonate with anybody. And so just because we live in this world where people want experts, you have to show up as an expert. And then once you get into the role, then you can start, you know, taking on more projects, and, you know, doing more of that generalist work, or like you said, you know, focusing more on that startup stage, you know, focusing more on organizations that are in startup phases, and then you will have more opportunities to be more generalist right away. But if people are looking for larger organizations, they do have to get specific and focus on one, you know, one position. And then from there, they can they can, you know, bring their generalist self to work once they get the job. So would you advise someone like Alex to look for different jobs in operations, customer success, and marketing? Or would it be better for them to make a choice of one and start there? Because I'm thinking that it could get a little bit, I don't know, more stressful and more confusing. If you're applying to three different categories of jobs, it feels like a lot more work. Oh, it's absolutely more work for sure. I usually recommend people have between one and a maximum of three jobs that they're trying to target. Because like you said, once you have three, you know, you're doing a lot more work, you're having to, you know, figure out which you're always pulling on a different resume, you're reading different job postings. So it can definitely be, you know, more work in this person's case, they did apply, they did have a resume for each of those three. And they did apply to each of those positions for a couple of months to see which position like which resume resonated most with hiring managers. And they ended up getting most of their interviews in the operations and marketing space and not very many in customer success. So then they targeted their, their search going forward into the operations and marketing and kind of left the customer success unless they saw a position that they really, really liked. So they kind of focused it on those two. But I typically do recommend people try to focus on on you know, one or two, maybe three, because like you said, it's going to be definitely more work. But if you create, if you start out by creating three different resumes, it's a lot less work. It's when people have one resume and they're like, Okay, now I want to apply to the marketing position, they need to change their resume. Oh, now I want to apply to operations, they have to change their resume again. So you know, having those three different resumes can be helpful. So that if you see a job posting, and you're like, Oh, that one resonates with me, I'm just going to send this version of my resume, that can definitely be more helpful. And then you don't have to spend as much time doing it. But the more targeted you are, the less time you're going to spend job searching, right? So are there any areas which as a general rule lend themselves better to someone who is more of a generalist than a specialist? So taking Alex as an example, would Alex be more likely to find a more generalist position in operations or marketing or customer success? Or does it really come down to the individual companies? It is mostly the individual companies, some companies are really open to having people who have multiple skill sets. And some companies are just not right, they're just they want their specialists, they want you to come in, they want you to do your job, and that's it. So really depends on the organization. And I would even say the industry. But you know, the, the higher you get in terms of leadership and management, the more and more generalist you tend to get. Because you know, once you have to start leading teams, as well as doing your work, and then leading operations and budgeting. And so when you start getting more advanced in your career, you know, taking on leadership roles, you tend to be they tend to just gravitate towards being generalists anyways, because there's a lot of different things they have to manage. But it really, again, like I would say, it depends on the organization. And not all organizations are open to having people who are generalists on their team at this stage. So Alex ended up with three different CVS for the three different areas of interest. How did Alex create the story for each of those? How? How do you go about? Yeah, drawing out the relevant bits of your CV and focusing on them when you've got these three? I'm sure there's some overlap, but potentially quite distinct areas. So when you think about like, the operations position, so what we would do is we would identify the top five skills that each of these positions drew upon. And so and then when you look at the work experience section of the resume, we would identify bullet points that were specific to those skills. And so in so the work experience, description and accomplishments, they don't always change that much. But the way you tell the story can change. So maybe in marketing, we focused more on revenue growth or community engagement for a bullet point versus operations was more heavy focused on the revenue growth or you know, process improvements. And so really knowing what the skills are that you know, an individual that the hiring manager is looking for for those specific positions, and then identifying those and highlighting those in the bullet points is how we kind of identify it. And then at the top section of the resume, like the career summary and the skills would obviously be completely different, and focus on different skills based on those positions. I have another client who had been working for like 15 years in the banking industry. And she was interested in moving into nonprofits. And she'd been applying for jobs for a long time, but wasn't getting any callbacks because her resume was focused on the banking world. And so what we did was we really identified that story why she wanted to make this change. And then, and then we highlighted instead of, you know, we did a completely different approach to her resume, we actually brought up her volunteering experience above the work experience section and highlighted all the different, you know, volunteering experiences she'd done any fundraising, she'd done things like that. And then when we looked at the work experience, we actually didn't talk at all about the banking stuff. We didn't talk about revenue, we didn't talk about anything like that. We talked about the diversity, equity and inclusion group she created, we talked about the team that she led and how she brought them into the community to volunteer in order to give back. And so those were the things we focused on. Those were like asides of her job. But when you're looking at the hiring manager for a nonprofit organization, that's what they want to see. They don't really care about the banking side of it. And so and she was able to secure a director level position, same level position as she was in in the bank in two months in a nonprofit. And so it's really about speaking to the hiring manager the way that they want to be spoken to. And you don't have to put something on there just because you did it, you can take things out and get creative with it. And that's what the storytelling is about really getting creative with it and telling a different story than maybe a traditional resume would. Something that's coming across is there's a tendency for people just to stick everything down on their resume in the assumption that the hiring manager is going to kind of sift out the relevant stuff, and then they will be able to use that to figure out whether or not the person's a fit. Whereas, I think what you're saying is that really, you need to give the hiring manager as much help as you can, you need to make it really, really clear. why it is that the skills that you're highlighting in your resume are fit for what they want rather than sort of leaving it to them to go, well, okay, yeah, this bit's a bit of a fit. Yeah, I can see how this works. This, well, that's not really relevant. Absolutely, so if you think about the average job application gets 250 applicants and one, typically one hiring manager has to decide maybe like 10 or 15 of them to interview and they have 250 resumes to go through, they don't have time to be like, oh, is this, do you think A and B go together here? Like, they're not doing that. They're looking, they want you to tell them. They wanna look at a document and they want you to tell them exactly how you're gonna make a difference. You know, what impact you can have on the organization and whether you have the skills they're looking for. That's all they care about. And they usually spend like six to eight seconds on a resume. And so if you can't do that really quickly, then your resume is gonna get into the, maybe next time pile. And so it's really about, and a lot of people, like you said, they don't know what to put on their resume. And it's really about spending some time really identifying what it is that sets you apart so that you can create a document that's going to stand out when you start getting to the application stage of your job search. And when it comes to tailoring the CV for, in Alex's case, these three different types of positions, is it kind of always the case that there's something somewhere that you can turn around to fit into each of those three? Or do you ever get to the stage where there is a position, a certain amount of experience, six months, a year, where you just can't get that to, you know, it was a sales success position and you just can't crowbar into an operations CV. And if that is the case, what do you do with that? Yeah, absolutely. Like I think about people that I've worked with who took some time off to maybe raise children or to look after like sick family members. They might have a large job gap and they're just not sure how to create a resume. And so what we do in that situation is we add, you know, the stay-at-home parent or caring for ailing individuals, we add that as a job experience. And while it may not be relevant to, let's say like with this person, you know, that might not be relevant to marketing, it does show who you are as a person and it shows, you know, that you are empathetic and, you know, different things like that. And so including those things like, you know, staying at home as a parent and including that as a work experience and then adding bullet points under it, you might not be able to make those relevant to marketing because, you know, looking after your kids and planning their schedules might not be relevant to marketing, but it does show a little bit of diversity. And so if you do have a work experience that isn't relevant to this position, you have a couple of choices. You can, one, you can keep it really short. So just have it there and have like one or two bullet points under it or detail out a little bit more. And then, you know, when you get to the interview stage, it's an opportunity just to talk about, you know, how this experience gives you that diverse perspective or, you know, how this experience has impacted you as a person. Because not everyone, like we said, all their positions aren't going to be exactly relevant to what we're talking about. But even when you think about, you know, staying at home as a parent and then applying for marketing positions, there's still an aspect of customer service involved in marketing. And so you can always talk about, you know, like the customer service side of being a stay-at-home parent or managing multiple personalities while you're trying to care for multiple kids. And that can be something that is relevant towards the marketing stage. And so that can, I mean, you can get really creative with it in terms of making it relevant, but it's, at the end of the day, it's your story and you need to be comfortable telling that story. And so I've had people leave like full, like two-year roles off their resume because they felt more comfortable speaking to a job gap than they did speaking about an extremely toxic work environment. And so it really is about what the individual feels most comfortable talking about and how they can bring a full story to the interview stage. There's a small cynical part of me that thinks that using a two-year looking after the kids gap and trying to sort of describe the experience of that and how that's gonna help you in a marketing role. Whilst I see the logic, it just, I don't know, it feels like a bit of a stretch or am I just being like an old Gen Xer who doesn't understand how things work these days? No, I mean, for sure. And it's not going to resonate with everybody, right? Like I spoke with someone the other day who's my client and she also did hiring for her role in project management. And she said that when people were stay-at-home parents, she actually was like, I definitely wanna interview them because in project management, you deal with multiple, you're always handling multiple tasks and it's very stressful or whatever. And so she's like a lot, and whenever I hired someone who had been a stay-at-home parent, they always excelled in the role. I was able to teach them the day-to-day of what they needed to learn or our specific processes, but they came in and they were able to, hit the ground running and do things a lot better than maybe somebody else would be able to. And so you have to definitely have to get to the right hiring manager with that. But I just like, I think it's a miss to exclude it completely. And whether it's relevant or not relevant towards your current position, if you have a two-year job gap and you talk about what you've done in those two years, it's going to resonate more with the hiring manager than just to be like, well, I sat at home and ate chips on my couch for two years, right? Like you were doing something. And so whether you were taking a course or whatever you were doing, if you have a job gap, it's great to talk about that because it does show some sort of growth and whatever you can provide to the organization like literally like people are like, what did you do? Were you just sitting at home doing nothing or were you doing something? And so if you can showcase some skills and something that you can bring to the table that you were doing during a job gap, I think that's more beneficial. So Alex has these three CVs applying in specialist areas and gets a couple of job offers. Now my guess is that someone like Alex is going to want to go for roles where yes, it may be an operations or a marketing role, but there is scope for this multi-passionate person to get involved with different things. I guess the way you identify that is possibly from the job description, but probably more from interview and discussions with people at the company. Is that right? Yeah, I would say that. Yeah, most like with this client specifically, they asked a lot of questions in the job interview around what the workplace culture was like and different things like that to kind of gain some more of that information. However, in an interview, they're always gonna be on their best behavior. So are they going to share exactly what it's like to work there? Maybe not. So other ways that you can go about it is doing some research into their social media, look at Glassdoor or other online forums like that where people are able to post true versions of what it's like to work there, looking on Reddit if there's anything about that organization. And then you can always reach out to people through LinkedIn that work at that company and ask what it's like to work there, try to get more of a feel for the culture that way. So those are other ways that you can kind of help to understand the culture while they're not all as reliable as being there. It can give you a little bit of an indication to help you make a more informed decision. I mean, that's really the best you can do. But again, some of my clients will find they do all that research and then they join the company and they're like, this wasn't at all what I expected. And then they're back looking for a job again. So that happens, right? Like those things happen. And that's a risk you have to be willing to take when you move from a position. I mean, it's a risk to stay if you're unhappy and you don't want to be in that position anymore. It's a risk on your mental health and everything to stay in that position. But it's also a risk to move on to something new where it could be not what you were expecting it to be or it's not quite the fit you wanted it to be. So you have to kind of pick and choose what you feel is more risky and what you'd be willing to take on. Yeah, and I guess there's an extra veneer to add to that research. So as well as looking at whether company culture is a good fit for you, whether you think you would enjoy turning up and being part of those colleagues, there's also trying to get a feel for the culture as to whether it is somewhere where someone can try lots of things, get involved in different things, act as that sort of go between departments rather than ending up just as this sort of siloed person who's not expected to get out of their box. Yeah, I mean, I've had clients ask in an interview, do you guys tend to work on more siloed teams or do you work cross-functionally just to kind of get an understanding of what that looks like? Because it is not necessarily a right or wrong in an organisation. It's just more about the way they do things and their own processes. So that's a pretty easy question to ask and they should be able to answer that pretty truthfully. So I think that's a great way to find out more. Sometimes I'm curious as to whether or not companies would answer that question entirely truthfully. Oh yes, we're absolutely cross-functional and then you get there and discover that everyone really is in their own box. But anyway, presumably once Alex is there, they can start looking for these opportunities as a generalist to get involved with other things, even if that's, I don't know, being part of the social committee that organises the end of year holiday party or something like that. Exactly, and some generalists who join very siloed organisations, they change things at a systemic level and start helping organisations become more cross-functional. So if you're willing as a generalist to take that on, that is something that some organisations are open to and that can be something that you can bring a huge benefit to the organisation. There's going to be an element of seeing how the land lies before you can do that sort of thing. And also possibly being hesitant about volunteering for things too readily. You know, when someone says, hey, do you want to be a fire marshal? It's kind of like, I don't know, do I want to be a fire marshal? So I mean, how long, and you mentioned sometimes things just don't work out. How long should Alex give it to make that assessment as to whether there really is a future here that will satisfy Alex's generalist tendencies and yeah, that it is a good fit? I mean, that's a great question. And I think that can be a very personal question for people depending, I mean, I've known people who left jobs in the probation period because it just wasn't a fit. And then I've had people give it a year in order to see, you know, how, like if anything changes or if they just misunderstood in the first few months. But I think a minimum, I mean, my opinion and everyone's different. So if other people want to make different decisions for themselves, that's fine. But I think you'd have to give it a minimum of six months to a year to really understand what the organization is about. And, you know, cause if there's, if, you know, you come in during a big change, like a merger and acquisition, you don't really get a feel for what the culture's like because everyone's in transition and everyone's like changes all around. And so you really need to see an organization through, you know, all four seasons to really be able to determine whether or not the culture is something that you want to be a part of or not a part of. And so I think about it like, you know, you know, when you get married, right? You want to see someone at least through four seasons before you get married to see how they act in each season, right? So it's the same with the company before you commit to staying for, you know, however long, it's good to see them through all the different seasons of the organization, you know, the times when they're really busy, the times when they're really quiet, you know, when they might be struggling or when a big change might happen. Those can all give you some data to go off of, but just because you've accepted a job doesn't mean you can't keep looking. So if you're in a job and you're like, you know, I'm not a hundred percent sure about this, just keep looking, right? You can always, companies are not hesitating to lay people off nowadays. So we shouldn't be hesitating to leave a job for a better one if one comes up. Some people, and these are typically business owners, entrepreneurs, describe themselves as unemployable. Is anyone really unemployable? No, I don't think so. I actually love writing entrepreneur resumes. So I've worked with a few of them who like either have shut down their business or have decided to go back to work. And the great thing about being an entrepreneur is your background is so diverse, right? So when we talk about creating bullet points under each work experience that's specific to each position, that is the easiest to do with someone who's an entrepreneur. Because if this person, if Alex, let's say her most recent position was an entrepreneur, it would be the easiest to create an operations, marketing and customer success resume and have the bullet points be very specific to each of those three things because of their background as an entrepreneur. I worked with someone who owned a bike park here in the city that I live in. And he ended up shutting it down and he said he was unemployable. And I was like, absolutely not. And he wanted to get into marketing. And so we really focused his experience running this bike park on how he marketed it and grew it and what those numbers were and the engagement that he got. And then he was able to land a job after that. And so I think people, when they say that, it might be more of like a mindset thing. I can't have a manager again, that makes sense. I can get on board with that. But in terms of being unemployable on the skills side of things, definitely not. If anyone wants to go back to work, they absolutely can. It's just about creating that story on the resume again. So if Alex, having listened to this episode, is inspired to find out a bit more, what tools or resources can you suggest that they might explore to dive deeper into the topic? Yeah, for sure. So there's a book called How to Be Everything by Emily Wapnick. And it's just about, if you're a generalist, she calls it a multi-potentialite. And so someone who just has lots of multiple potentials. And the story, the book is all about how you can incorporate that into your career and how you can be more of a generalist at work. And so it's such a great book and I would highly recommend it. Emily Wapnick also has a TED Talk. So if you're not a reader, you can check out their TED Talk. And it's just a really, really great, great TED Talk. I love it. Cool, and if someone wants to find you, where should they go? I am on LinkedIn. So it's LinkedIn, just my name on LinkedIn. And I also have a website, DestinationDreamJob.com. Links is always in the show notes. Steph, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, hope you enjoyed that interview with Steph Gillis. One of the points that Steph made that I'd like to highlight is this thing about transferable skills. Transferable skills can be acquired in the strangest places. It doesn't just have to be at work, but could be reflected in hobbies or other aspects of your personal life. Which leads on to the second point about crafting the story. When you start with the understanding that your role is to convince the recruiter that you have the skills and experience that they're looking for to fill a role, in some ways it becomes a bit easier and gives you more focus. Yes, it means that you need to tailor your CV, but when you're tailoring it through that lens, it gives you some clarity about what points you can draw out. And it gives you the opportunity to think creatively about where you have acquired the skills and experience. Maybe you've never led a team at work, but you're chair of the committee of something you do outside of work. If you want to find the transcript and links to the resources Steph mentioned, then go to the show notes page for this episode, which are at changeyourlife.com forward slash 203. That's changeyourlife.com forward slash 203. And if you are one of these multi-passionate generalists with lots of different interests and you've come to a career crossroads and you don't know which way to turn, maybe think about working with a coach who can help you to find the clarity about how to move forward. If you've never had coaching before and want to find out more, then you can set up a complimentary 30 minute coaching call with me. To do that, you can go to changeyourlife.com forward slash coaching. That's changeyourlife.com forward slash coaching to see what it's all about. In the meantime, subscribe to the show if you haven't already. There's gonna be another great interview in two weeks time and I can't wait to see you then. Cheers. Bye.♪♪♪