Welcome, welcome.

I am so excited that you are here today for this master class.

We are going to be covering a top level birds eye view of my complete and total process not holding anything back as far as what are the steps that I take? Let's dive in and get started.

It's how to change careers without a demotion or a pay cut with me, Kristen downs from work and worth.

We are gonna be talking about the five stages of what I call pivoting, which is the ability to change careers without a demotion or a pay cut.

OK.

So this is a top level overview.

It's the exact steps.

Absolutely what I do and in what order I do it in now, what is the difference between career changing and pivoting? So career changing when you talk to folks in the world of work, it means starting over again, right? It means going back to school, it means getting entry level position and it means getting early career money pivoting.

On the other hand, is taking your years of experience and using that and all the transferable skills that you have built up to start over in a new field, but at the same title and the same pay and very oftentimes you're increasing your pay significantly.

Now, in my case, with the clients that I worked with in 2022 alone, my clients made 1.

6 million more dollars total than they invested working with me.

So that means if they paid me $5000 let's say they made 80,000 more, they paid me $5000 they made 50,000 more, something like that.

And of course, that's just over the course of the first year of their new employment that builds up over time and increasing your pay significantly in this one move can be life changing over the course of your entire working career, right? Results are never guaranteed.

But these numbers give you a, a sense of what's possible when we work a system to pivot instead of just change careers.

Ok.

So what are those steps to changing careers without having to start all over again? Because who wants to do that? No, it does.

So this is what they are, these are the five steps or what I often call the five phases of pivoting.

So first, it's discovery.

What do you want to do next and why next creation, you're creating all the new pivot materials that you are gonna use in your search, your resume, cover letter linkedin profile and those work samples, then you're going to role play you're gonna practice because you're gonna be conducting amazing interviews with professionals in a totally new industry, right? That's challenging.

And then you're going to be navigating job search in new new fields, whatever you do now, you know where to go, right.

You know what the sites are to search, you know how people act what's expected.

It's gonna be totally different when you're switching and then lastly new beginnings, how do you leave your current position and start all over again in something new? Now, you might be saying that's easier said than done some expletives that I reacted.

What does that even mean? Right.

But don't worry, we're gonna go into it.

Ok.

So you're right to think that that might seem a little vague, but we're gonna get into the specifics right now.

Ok.

So, first of all, who am I? Why am I the person who is talking to you about this? Right.

So I'm Kristen Downs.

I have over 40 jobs in my, over 40 years and I am a multi career pivot.

I have switched industries multiple times and I've also had to do what I call the side step.

When I couldn't go directly in what I wanted to do.

I had to make a smaller side jump.

So then I could make that forward jump that I was looking to do.

And I've been helping people pivot for over a decade now.

And in addition to this work in the career search world, I've also personally done talent sourcing recruiting.

I've been the hiring manager and I've been on a lot of hiring committees or done a lot of culture fits so a lot of experience here now, a little bit about me as a person.

I love jokes, especially on my own.

So I'm probably gonna crack them during this master class.

I've been making pizza every Friday night with my family for over 10 years.

We make the dough and we put together usually two pizzas some nights to get a little wild.

Maybe there's four or something like that.

I'm a mama to a delightful bean.

Who's my son and I love doggies and kitties and I've just recently adopted two kittens.

A five month and 11 month old.

11 month old is the mama and the five month old is the baby.

I love books, love them so much, love reading.

And I also really like disaster movies.

I'm really, really into them.

Ok.

So a little bit about me, my inspiration for this work in one sense, it's Kevin Klein in the movie Dave.

If you haven't seen it, it's a wonderful, wonderful political comedy.

And in that movie, he works in an employment agency and he helps people find jobs.

And one of the things that he says all the time is, uh, everybody works on Wednesday or everybody works on Thursday.

And I've always felt really tied to the idea that, uh, work gives us the ability to feel like our full selves if we can have a healthy relationship with it and helping people find work really um motivates me and it feels like um a little bit like holy work is the way I often describe it.

And then Miss Marple is how I approach the executive coaching work that I do, which is after working over 40 jobs, my over 40 years across many, many industries, I have a really good sense of the politics and the inner workings and what's happening in people's brains.

And I often compare them to situations that I've experienced in my over 40 jobs like the way that Miss Marble and Agatha Christie solves crime.

So my inspiration right there now, I believe that we are all ready worthy and that worth comes with the fact that our work should be both fulfilling to us and it should pay well without toxicity and trauma.

And in addition to that, we deserve to have time with our families, flexible schedules and rest.

That is a point to being alive, right? So that is the foundation for all the work that we do.

Now.

What are we not gonna do? And we're not gonna talk about when we talk about pivoting.

So one, I'm not gonna tell you, go back to school, I'm not gonna tell you that you have to take out even more student loans.

I am not gonna tell you that you have to take a pay cut also like, isn't this great, this little creepy graphic? I thought it was pretty wonderful and I'm not gonna tell you they have to become an influencer if you're not sure what that means.

Often times when I'm talking to people and they're telling me what they've been told to do for their job search, they're being told, they have to post on linkedin every day and write blog posts and give speaking engagements.

Like, what is that? That's just wild.

So none of that.

OK.

No, here is how we are actually going to do this work.

OK.

We're going to walk through this process, the pivot process, right? We already went through these five phases, discovery, creation, role play the games of foot and new beginnings.

But I like to think about it as a nautilus as opposed to a cycle because I believe that though we are constantly going through it.

Each time we go through it, we get a little closer and a little closer and a little closer to the real truth.

Uh And it can be actually rather annoying, right? When you're in a new place that is so similar to a place that you already were and you can see the growth, but you still have to do it again.

So I just feel like the novel is such a wonderful, wonderful visual for what we all experience in this process.

Now, at the center of all of this is your ethos.

Now what is those? Let's talk about it.

What it isn't, in my opinion is your mindset.

Mindset is a great word.

And I myself have talked about mindset and mindset work over the years many, many times, but it's very much been co-opted by the toxic positivity crew that you know how you think about everything needs to be always positive.

You can't admit that bad things happen.

You can't acknowledge them in your workplace, you can't acknowledge them in your own process or somehow you're creating a bad juju bad karma, bringing bad things in your life.

OK? That's not, we're talking about, we're talking about ethos, ethos has many meetings, there's meetings and rhetoric that we're not gonna get into.

But the two that I like to think about is disposition, character and fundamental values, peculiar to a specific person, people, culture or movement and the habitual character and disposition of a person.

So this is about you, right? The center of the whole process is you, it's you and how you think about the world that we must always come back to because it is so easy to make choices that are somebody else's choices and they're not actually yours.

They're not based on your own values, your own character, the way you feel about the world.

And so we always always, always come back to this.

OK? This is the core of the work that we do in this process.

Now, let's dive into phase one discovery.

All right.

So there are two parts to this that I want you to consider and if you have your workbook out great or if you're taking notes separately, that's great too.

Whatever works for you.

Or if you're listening and you're gonna take notes later.

Totally, totally awesome.

The first two parts of discovery, what do we want in our life or not in our life and work? Ok.

So that looks like examining uh I like to be important.

I like to be respected or I hate getting on the phone with people.

I don't know.

And I don't want to do that in my work anymore.

And then number two, what role types or fields make sense based on those wants and needs.

So for example, in that um example that I gave, I don't want to get on the phone with people, I don't know.

So then probably not sales, probably not development, right? Um Maybe not customer success, maybe nothing where you were outward facing outside your organization, maybe only something internal.

OK.

So these are the first two parts that are integral into phase one, discovery, figuring out what you want and what you don't want and then what makes sense for you based off of those things.

And that's how 100 people could go through this process and then come out with 100 different answers based on their own individual wants or not wants in life and work, which could be different.

Now, most people who come to work with me often picked a first career that maybe was based of passion.

Maybe it was based off of what they believe is meaningful in the world.

Maybe it was based off of what someone else wanted them to do, but you most likely have already explored that and whatever that was, it didn't match the life that you want.

Right.

That's why you want to change careers in the first place.

Something that is very hard to do.

If it was easy, everyone would do it, right? And they don't because it's not easy because it's hard.

So you have to start here, you have to start with what do you actually want in your life? You can examine what are the parts of your current career that you don't like and see what would the opposite of that be or what are multiple opposites of that.

That's why this is the foundation of what's next.

That's why this is so important as your first step.

So now you can see where these fit in to our nail list.

They are the major parts of discovery, what do you want or not want and what role types or fields make sense.

Now, let's head on to phase two creation.

OK.

Now, here there are four different parts that we need to create.

Definitely, this is a media work that everyone has to do and it's often I would, I don't wanna say it's the most difficult work.

I don't actually think it's the most difficult work.

Uh I think it's very time intensive but I also think that it's a little bit of shiny object and that people get really focused on working on this and not working on the first part.

So they get, they decide they're gonna make a new resume for something but the field that they pick or the industry they pick, it doesn't match what they want their life to look like.

Uh So that's I think a hold up that people have in this phase of the work.

So now resume cover letter linkedin and work samples.

So resume and cover letter, the most important parts of these is they have to be targeted to the industry, right? So you want to create a targeted resume that shows off your skills and experience and a targeted cover letter.

Now, thank heavens so many jobs in this day and age don't require cover letters anymore.

Thank you so much.

But you can't send a cover letter that you would send in your current industry to a new industry.

They have to be different and they have to be targeted and they have to make sense to the role that you're applying for.

OK.

Now linkedin, it's a little bit different, right? You have to go with a strategy that makes sense based on what you are trying to do.

This is a little challenging to talk about because I don't know what you're trying to do, right? What you're trying to do could require one type of strategy or something else or a combination of two or something like that.

I would say that most often this is where you get the advice to become an influencer, right? And it is the wrong move.

So if you are changing careers and someone gives you the influence or advice, make content uh network, uh find people off of your own expertise or something.

It just doesn't make sense.

It's definitely not the right linkedin strategy for you.

Now, the fourth thing is work samples and you want to make sure that this is representative of your past work, but also your future work.

And so looking through the options that you have grant proposals, policies and procedures.

So pe handbooks, you really want to find something that shows you off in a great light and my recommendation is to pick them early before they ask you for them.

So it's such an easy thing to do.

It's different if you're doing this process when you've been fired or laid off or you're out of work for any other number of reasons, you're a caregiver or you've been sick.

Uh But if you are currently and those are all things that are really hard too, I just want to say, but if you're working a full time, really toxic job can be very hard to do the parts of the process at the same time.

So it is useful to have some of this work done and be ready to share it as you asked for it.

No, you cannot use your current industry's resume.

Your resume is written in a specific vernacular with specific jargon and specific acronyms that y'all get what you send it to someone else.

It's like a different language.

They don't understand what you're talking about.

And so oftentimes I see people sending resumes in for positions that they think their exact match for and then they don't get called in.

They're surprised.

And I said, well, it's because they don't understand what the heck you are talking about.

You are a perfect match, you have great aligned experience, but you didn't use words that they understand to explain it.

And so they're not gonna bring you in for an interview.

They don't understand why you applied.

OK.

So now we can see, I guess again, as we're filling in our novelist here, we have our discovery, what do we want? We're not what, what field types make sense to start and then our creation, we are making our resume and cover letter targeted, what we're trying to do, making a linkedin profile.

That makes sense with our strategy.

Again, kind of hard to say depending on what strategy you're taking.

Uh but avoid the influencer one at all cost and then getting your work samples together, gathering that stuff up.

So you have it, especially if it's gonna be hard for you to turn things around quickly for whatever reason, for whatever is going on in your work or personal life.

Ok.

So now phase three is role play, that's where my theater background comes in, right? Interviewing, interviewing is such an important part of this process if you do excellent work on your resume and you really target it and it's really aligned and they 100% understand why they should bring you in and then they get you in and they have no idea what you're talking about in the actual interview.

It is gonna be a problem and you're not gonna move on, maybe get through the recruiter but not the hiring manager or maybe you can't even get through the recruiter, but you have to be able to deliver an excellent interview in whatever possible avenue they throw at you in a vernacular in a dialect, not a dialect.

Yeah, in terms that they understand, right? You really want to make sure that they understand you.

And then I go through some of the options that you might have for interviews, you might have a recorded interview.

So becoming very common for that first interview, especially for places that don't have a recruiter, hiring manager, the culture fit and the one over supervisor.

And I would say that of these, the ones that you might not experience most commonly are the recorded and the one over supervisor, although they do pop up for the most part, the other three are very much part of the current process that we're seeing in this market.

Now, what you must remember when you are prepping for these new interviews is that there are different conventions and expectations in these interviews than your traditional industry.

For example, I was helping a faculty member prep for a traditional interview and I would ask the question and she would talk for 10 minutes and she had not even started to answer the question.

And so after this happened, maybe four or five times, I said, what is going on? I don't understand why are you not uh answering my question at all? But you're talking so much.

And she said that in most faculty spaces, you are taught to begin before the beginning when you're explaining something.

And I said, oh OK, here we are beginning at the beginning, right? We just need you to start at the beginning.

And of course, we work through the common structure, but it was very different than what she had been taught to do in her conversations as a faculty member.

So you have to remember con conventions are different, the expectations are different and the interviewer is gonna be unfamiliar with some of the terms, some of the acronyms that are very common to what you currently talk about, right? I personally have been a hiring manager where I've sat down with someone and they've been telling me about stuff, like I know what they're talking about.

Like, I work in their office.

I don't work there.

I have no idea what you are speaking about here.

Uh, you, uh, I, I mean, do you think I'm in the closet? Like, how would I possibly know? Right.

I wouldn't, there's no potential that I would know.

You have to remember that in the case, I'm remembering the person worked in uh my field, which was higher education at the time.

So the two important points about this that you have to remember is that you have to understand what they are asking you and then they have to understand what you're saying back.

You are the translator here.

They're not gonna do any work to try to explain themselves to you.

You just have to understand and they're not gonna try to understand you.

They're gonna ask the question and it doesn't answer what they're asking.

They're just gonna move on.

OK.

No, here we are again, our nautilus interviews not really interviews themselves or massive.

There's so many parts and aspects to them, but as far as like within the, the idea of role play, it's just not really one big section is being prepared for those interviews.

Now, moving on to famous four the games afoot.

I'm sure there's someone watching who says Kristen do love Sherlock Holmes and I do, I love Sherlock Holmes.

So that is why one that's, that's like what I say when I'm working with my clients, like the, like we're about to get out there and do it.

Uh And so it felt very fitting and I like the phrase.

So anyway, that's how I feel about when you actually start your job search.

So the job search itself is two words, in my opinion, practical tactics.

Now, what are practical tactics, Kristen? Well, I'm glad that you asked.

So, strategy is everything that we already talked about.

It's your big picture.

It's your vision, it's the big ideas.

It's the way that your past experience and expertise ties into what it is that you wanna do the way that you explain that in your resume and cover letter and all of that.

Whereas the tactics, those are the how the strategy on how to pivot hasn't changed in a decade that I've been doing it.

The tactics on the other hand, oh, they didn't change for a very long time, right? But then when the great resignation started just constant, constant, constant tactics have changed quite a bit over the past two years or so.

So now what are some of the contemporary tactics that you might have to explore while you're doing the search? So one is a linkedin easy apply or applying through indeed or something like that.

So that is an on uh an on on a job search platform site application as opposed to applying on site which be applying on the company's site, right? Uh Those are things that you want to think about understanding how your resume works with the A TS, which is an applicant tracking system.

If you haven't been applying for jobs in the past 10, 20 years, an applicant tracking system is essentially like AC RM.

But for recruiters or HR professionals, and typically you upload your resume and the A TS parses what it sees and then uh puts the information in their system.

Some A TSS do use some A I to review and give you a score essentially and uh put you into a folder, something um like that depending upon the kind of A TS that is being used.

And also one of the other things is the job scams are just wild.

They have gotten really impressive in the past two years.

So I always try to screenshot the ones that I see and uh the ones that people tell me about because it can get pretty intense out there.

And for the most part, people looking for jobs, they're very trusting, uh and they, you know, they want, they want a job, that's why they're looking.

So they're willing to have conversations with people, perhaps when their, their sort of spy sense would have been uh hit in normal circumstances.

Now, these are gonna be different tactics than what works for your current industry or how you currently would go about finding a job.

Right.

And then the job market is changing rapidly as I mentioned before, had been pretty consistent for a very long period of time.

And now it's been uh again, strategy, consistent tactics.

Now, these are gonna be the things that you most commonly hear people talk about.

These are gonna be the things you see in Forbes articles, your friends are gonna tell you what they did and it's useful to pick those up because you can try those different tactics.

But if it doesn't start with smart strategy, then it's gonna be very hard for you to be a pivot and more likely that you're gonna be a career changer.

Ok? So here we are games afoot is all about our practical tactics.

And so what do we have left here in our phase five of our new beginnings, we have two parts.

First, you gotta leave and start over and then you have to establish yourself a new in a completely different field.

That is the fun part.

Now leaving, that's pretty similar to the way you've job, left jobs in the past two weeks.

Notice, maybe more based on what your contract says.

If you have one, you're gonna be what you're noticing, starting over insurance, all that kind of stuff.

If you haven't left a job in 10 or more years, then it's a little bit more challenging, but it's pretty similar to when you leave a job in whatever industry you're currently in.

But starting over in a new field is, is more challenging.

That's where it gets hard.

You're not early career anymore.

So you're not gonna do the same types of things that you did to establish yourself in the beginning, right? You don't have all that time that you can put into it.

Uh You're more likely gonna want to establish yourself more quickly and also uh at a higher level than whatever it is that you're currently leaving.

OK? No, that's it.

This is our complete system there.

You have it.

This is the top level bird's eye view of how I work with my clients to change careers without a demotion or a pay cut.

Now, you can't always understand what these new folks are saying to you.

This happens in every medium, right? I have so many clients where they cannot understand the job postings that we are reading because it's like reading a different language to them, right? And if you submit your normal resume to these folks, they're not gonna be able to understand you either, right? Same thing with the cover letter.

And then also with the interviews, if you work really hard to translate your resume and cover letter, but then can't translate in the interview, you're not gonna move past just getting into the interviews, right? You are the one who's responsible for making yourself, make sense to the people that you want to hire you.

Ok.

Hm.

Ok.

And the way that you do this is by adjusting your resume, your cover letter and your interview style to them, you are responsible and you must adjust and make it make sense.

Ok? If you are watching this master class and enjoying it and feeling like the pivot process could be a good fit for you and you would like to work with me.

You can head on over to my website, work and worth coach dot com.

If you click on the menu, you can see work with Kristen, hit any of these buttons and you'll head on to how it works.

We start with a free virtual strategy session and through that, we pick what coaching framework makes sense and then we get started.

And so we have this 1 to 1 coaching package.

This is the one that I would recommend doing the framework coaching.

So we would coach specifically on the pivot process.

This is a three month package for 3000 with an option to extend either in another three month package or to do this coach on call package.

We work through the whole process.

We meet together twice a month on the 1st and 3rd weeks and we get asynchronous communication back and forth throughout the process.

And then if that seems like not exactly a good fit and you would rather be more self directed with some occasional support, some help, some expert guidance.

The coach on call package is great.

We meet a synchronously, which essentially means uh on your own time.

If you don't think you can set aside two times per month to meet with someone very specifically and you're gonna be doing this just as you can, this might be the best package for you.

So this is 2 50 a month, it's month to month, there's no minimum commitment, you can cancel at any time.

And if both of those don't feel like quite the right fit, you do a one-off session here, an activation session or book a three or a six pack, you can book those directly or here from this page.

And then these start with virtual strategy sessions, which you can click there if you want to get a sense of what it's like to work with me.

If you head over to my results page, you can hear directly from pivots.

Sarah even recorded a video so you can hear from folks about what happened for them and how it worked.

This is the master class where we are right now, right? So you can click either this blue button or this one down here.

And let's just say you wanna say that sounds good.

Let's get and then you send it clarity flow is gonna ask you for your full name and your email address.

This way I know who I'm talking to and I can reply back to you, right? So you wanna go ahead and fill that out and even if this doesn't sound like a good fit you and I working together.

I really do hope that you go through with your pivot because it's so wonderful when it happens and it's worth the work.

So know that I'm always rooting for you and certainly happy to talk about working together, but no matter what, I just want you to win.

Have a great day