Episode 83: Six Tips For Building Relationships with Lisa Lewis Miller

Welcome to The Career Clarity Show, where we help you find a lucrative, soulful, and joyful career path for you!

For today’s episode of the Career Clarity Show, you are getting a solo conversation with me. We’re talking about connecting and relationship building in this upside down pandemic time. Because one of the things that we have always known is so critical to making a career change and being effective in your job search is having relationships. 

For those of you who are longtime listeners, you’ve probably heard me say this a million times and you’re sick of hearing it. But it is still true that every year when the Bureau of Labor Statistics does their research on how people successfully land jobs, they talk about that 70% of people who successfully get a job, got it because of a relationship and a connection and an end.

I’m breaking down my top six tips on how to be building relationships, even in the time of COVID.

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Transcript:

Lisa Lewis Miller  0:04  

Welcome to the Career Clarity Show. If you want to create a career path you’ll love, you’re in the right place. I’m Lisa Lewis Miller, career change coach, published author and your host. And each week, we’ll bring you personal transformation stories, advice and insights from experts about how you can find a more fulfilling, soulful and joyful career. Hello, and welcome back to the Career Clarity Show. I’m your host, Lisa Miller. And on today’s episode of the Career Clarity Show, you might be looking at the calendar and thinking, Oh, it’s a Thursday, the show usually comes out on Tuesday, what’s going on? And the answer is, we have had so many incredible guests, experts, career changers, former clients, other Career Clarity, Show coaches who have so much to share. And we’ve gotten so much incredible feedback from each of you that you’re finding value in the stories that we’re telling, and the information that we’re publishing, that we made the decision to bump it up to two times a week. That means you’ll get double as many guest experts, double as many published authors double as many successful career changers and academic insights and all the good stuff that you’re going to be needing to navigate what’s next. So you never miss a resource. And never feel like you’re doing this alone. We’re so excited to do this. And I will tell you selfishly one of the reasons I’m really excited to start doing two episodes of the podcast a week is because I want to share more from the brilliant people who are part of the Career Clarity Show more intimate community. That means our Career Clarity Show certified coaches. It means case studies of folks who have been through our programs and who have done work with us and how they’ve landed on the other side. And it’s also sharing a little bit more from me, because while I love getting to bring some incredible guest experts on to the podcast, sometimes I want to share some things with you two things that I’m hearing about with current clients, things that I’m seeing in the market, things that are working right now. So for today’s episode of the Career Clarity Show, you are getting a solo conversation with me. And what we’re talking about for today’s episode is connecting and relationship building in this upside down cuckoo bananas time. Because one of the things that we have always known is so critical to making a career change and being effective in your job search is having relationships. You know, I am sure for those of you who are longtime listeners, you’ve probably heard me say this a million times and you’re sick of hearing it. But it is still true that every year when the Bureau of Labor Statistics does their research on how people successfully land jobs, they talk about that 70% of people who successfully get a job, got it because of a relationship and a connection and an end. And that’s not even talking about the hidden job market, which I talk a little bit about in my book, where because it’s difficult to study this estimate, say that anywhere between 40 and 80% of all the jobs that need to be filled in any given year. Never make it out into a public forum like LinkedIn or like indeed, or like any of the other places that you might be looking for roles. So if you don’t have a connection to those organizations, you’ll never know that those roles are there. And they will never know that you could have been the perfect fit for them. So building relationships is critical. But this last year has been a low key dumpster fire. Because we’re not having the you know, sticky floor bar happy hours. We are not having the panel conversations where you can go and ask somebody afterwards to get their business card. We’re not having in person conferences where you can rub elbows with the person who is sitting across from you, or chat with somebody at a water cooler even within your current organization or chat with somebody in the elevator who maybe works in a different company in your same building. losing all of these sort of incidental, casual social opportunities, to build relationships, to build friendships, to build networking connections, has an impact on your ability to do an effective job search.

Lisa Lewis Miller  4:45  

And especially knowing that the job market is more saturated with job seekers than it has been in a long time. And knowing that employers are getting way more applications than they typically get for roles and no That the poor suite HR screeners are being overworked trying to pick a needle out of a haystack of a hundreds of applications for tons of roles they may be filling for, it’s really difficult to stand out. Now to talk about standing out in your professional materials, and making the best possible impact that you can, is something that we’re going to be featuring on an upcoming Thursday episode I’m going to have career coach for for Career Clarity Show, Jenn Smith come on and talk about how to differentiate yourself in that way. But what I want to talk about for today is not so much the brand new side, but the relationship side and how you can still keep connecting and building relationships, when so many of our opportunities to interact and to meet new people have been, have been changed have been taken away from us have turned upside down. So we’re gonna talk about the Let me see him chicken over here at my notes, these six tips on how to be building relationships, even in the time of COVID. You got your pencils ready over there, I’ll start you out with tip number one on ways to make relationships in the time of COVID, which is linked in. Now, I will start this conversation by saying that some of us are really, really over being on LinkedIn, because you’re using it primarily for the job searching function, and you have been doomed scrolling on their job pages for hours and hours, days and days. And you just feel like you hate it. And every time you think about it, you want to throw up a little bit. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  6:38  

Here’s the deal with LinkedIn, on LinkedIn, people are kind of fine with connecting with complete strangers, as long as you can point to some sort of connection, some sort of common shared experience between you and somebody else. And when you get somebody to connect with you on LinkedIn, it’s one incremental step towards building a genuine relationship with that person, I think about it almost like getting your foot in the door with a person. So when it comes to thinking about how to use LinkedIn in a way that feels more life giving, one of the biggest things that I suggest is making a list of the organizations within the kind of sector or industry that you’re wanting to get into, that tend to be local to your geography. Once you’ve made the list of those companies, you’re going to go use the LinkedIn search bar tool a lot, you’re going to become a LinkedIn power user in that search bar, plug in the name of the company, before you hit the enter button, it’ll give you a drop down of finding that company name in jobs in people in etc. Choose that name in people. And what it will do is it will give you a list of every employee who has a public LinkedIn profile, who has said that they work currently at that organization. That gives you a fabulous starting point, to reach out to folks express your interest, plant the seeds of potential future relationships, and get that foot in the door to start to be on the insider list for when they have some openings that could be a fabulous fit for you. Now I know for some of you, you might be saying, Oh gosh, I just saw a posting online for a job at one of these companies, I’d love to just go ahead and apply for that job, I don’t have time to build relationships there, they posted it two days ago, they might take it down next week. If that feeling is coming up for you know that if a job just got posted, it’s usually not going to come down in any fewer than five days. And if it does, it’s typically because they’ve got an internal candidate and your candidacy wouldn’t have made a difference anyways. So you have a couple days to play with on seeking out individuals who work at that organization, reaching out and making a really nice message to them when you connect, and seeing if you can get a little bit of insider Intel or dirt on it, the organization, the team, why they’re filling the role and the highest priority needs for that particular job before you send in your application. So number one, you can tailor your application incredibly, but number two, this person can become an advocate for you internally and can send in your resume and get a referral bonus if you get hired on. So there’s a pretty good incentive for people to be open to talk to you and to connect with you on LinkedIn.

Lisa Lewis Miller  9:36  

So when you’re thinking about connecting and relationship building in this time, making a list of the top organizations and starting to build inroads with individuals at that organization who are willing to respond to you is a great first step in lieu of the traditional happy hour networking opportunities. Idea number two, for continuing to build really ships and meet new people in this time is looking for affinity communities. So knowing that I am a person who identifies as female, a lot of affinity communities that I find in the world are ones that are targeted towards people who identify as women. So, for me, that’s organizations like, elevate dreamers and doers, ladies get paid. And those are some of the more national ones. I also look at affinity communities that are a little bit more local. So when I am looking for entrepreneurs, or women who work in marketing or work in tech, in the general Colorado area, I find organizations like She Says, which has a boulder chapter in a Denver chapter, women who start up with, which I believe was founded here in Colorado, but I think also has chapters elsewhere. And joining these smaller communities, is such a great way to opt into a place where there are lots of other people who say, yeah, networking and relationship building is important to me, too, I’m willing to invest into it. And to find people who are more likely than your average bear to say, yes, if you reach out and say, Hey, I’d love to pick your brain. Hey, I’d love to hear more about how you got your foot in the door, or how you made this career change happen, or what advice you’d give to people who are interested in your industry. related to tip number two, tip number three, is to look for functional communities. So affinity communities are things that have to do more with your sense of identity. Functional communities are things that have more to do with the sense of the the particular job function that you do. So Reddit is a great place to look for some of these functional communities, you can find subreddits, on digital marketing, on product management, on starting your own startup, on moving into user experience, design, anything that’s out there, there’s probably going to be a functional community to support you on. And there are functional communities that also pop up on social networks like Facebook, Facebook can be a great place, because despite how controversial the platform and its founders can be, there’s still a lot of activity and conversation happening there. So think about what kind of terms you might research to find a functional community and pop those terms into the Reddit search bar, the Facebook search bar, or even the Google search bar, just to see what’s out there. And where you might find some like minded folks. Tip number four, for connecting and relationship building in this wild and crazy time, find the online versions of the in person things you would have gone to. So for example, when people realized that this COVID thing was not going away, and we were going to be in it for the long haul, a lot of people transitioned there formerly in person events, to be online broadcasts and webinars. You know, for any of you who were involved in Career Clarity Show live last year, we were having it in April, and oh my goodness, it felt like the world was falling apart in April, we just transitioned the whole thing to be an online event instead of in person. And we’re able to create a really beautiful community of both local and non local folks who were sharing about their hopes, dreams, aspirations, and exciting visions for their future career. So notice the kinds of things that might have been an in person thing. An example in the world that I work in, is in this career coaching space, talent development, and career pathing are really important topics for me to be up to date on to be able to best serve you. There used to be the Association of talent development conference, that would happen in person. And that’s not happening this year. But they’re doing a really interesting, exciting online event that I’m absolutely participating in. And I’m really excited to get to learn from and not have to worry about whether or not my flight is going to be delayed by snow. And whether or not I can find a reasonable hotel. And if I feel comfortable taking an Uber, all of that stuff, none of that I have to worry about which is so great.

Lisa Lewis Miller  14:22  

And you can look for things that might be national style conferences like that. You can look for things that are regional, especially if you’re wanting to move but you don’t live in that area yet. seeking out something that’s regional may allow for you to make some incredible local connections. But you can also look for things that are a little bit more specific to let’s say, skillset acquisition, or niche expertise. The organization that I always think of when I think about something like that is general assembly. They offer all kinds of free mini classes and courses that you can show up to that are both national and really clustered in local spaces, so that you can check With the other folks who are there, build relationships, start to deepen your network, and also build a skill set. And General Assembly and tons of other similar kinds of organizations offer things like boot camps, and immersive and intensives, where you’re signing up for, maybe it’s a week, maybe it’s three months, but you’re signing up for a more in depth learning experience. But by virtue of doing that live together with other people online, you can still, in some ways replicate some of the experiences around connection, camaraderie, watercooler conversations, all the kinds of things that help for you to feel a sense of professional friendship, starting to bud. Other organizations that do these kinds of things that might be worth looking at for online trainings, are places like fairy god, boss, Oh, my gosh, they probably do three or four free webinars online every single week, where you get that double whammy of both upskilling and professional development, as well as an opportunity to connect with folks or even to connect with the speaker. They bring in folks who work at national companies all the time, that you could then have a totally plausible reason to connect with via LinkedIn afterwards and begin more of a relationship with that way. Tip number five, when it comes to connecting and building relationships, think about mentorship. This is a tactic that works really well if you feel like you have been considering a change. But you feel like your current network doesn’t give you a whole lot of connections to make that change. But you feel like you could really benefit from having some more senior oversight and counsel to help you make that happen. When I talk to clients about building a mentorship relationship, I tell them that it can be as casual and chill, or it can be as formalized and structured as you and the mentor want. So if it’s the kind of thing where you reach out to somebody with a couple questions, and maybe you have a 20 minute phone, chat, or exchange a couple emails once a quarter, that might be enough, that might be what you’re needing to scratch that mentorship edge. But for some of you, it might feel really good to set up something where maybe you have a one hour phone call once a month, with somebody who works in the kind of capacity you could see yourself moving into in the next three to five years, who is willing to give you advice, encouragement, and potentially even open up their Rolodex to make some introductions for you to make it happen. I would typically recommend that you pick out somebody to be a mentor, who is a bit further along in their career than you I try to phrase it as think about somebody who is two to four rungs ahead of you on the corporate ladder, so that they still remember what it was like to be you right? You don’t necessarily want to go to the CEO of a company unless you’re only a couple rungs beneath that. But somebody who has moved up, who has learned some lessons and who is willing to share what’s worked and hasn’t worked, both in their own experience and their peers experience to help you be as efficient and effective as you can in making a transition. mentorship is one of those funny things that a lot of us get a little bit of a sort of Heebie Jeebies feeling around, because so often the first thing that comes to our mind is, well, what do I have to give? Why would anybody pick up the phone to talk to me? What do I bring to the table? And the answer with mentorship is that you don’t necessarily have to bring anything intentionally actively to the table.

Lisa Lewis Miller  18:39  

For some people getting to be a mentor, and share their lessons learned in their experience, practice telling their story, and pour into the next generation feels so inherently good and lovely in and of itself, that they are happy to do it for no compensation, no expectation of anything in return from you. But you may be giving them more than you realize, by helping to give them a safe space to rehearse the way that they tell their professional story and work through their professional brand. or giving them your name and your backstory as an asset that they might be able to use to help a colleague solve a staffing problem, or to make a connection for somebody else in their organization may have a lot more social capital than you could possibly know going in. So don’t be afraid to ask for mentorship. The people who say yes, understand how important and valuable it is, and probably have benefited from mentorship along the way in their own career trajectory. Here’s the last thing that I’m going to propose as part of relationship building in the time of COVID. And for any of you who have gone through the Career Clarity Show program, you’re probably thinking to yourself, this sounds a little bit different from some of the things that we’ve learned in the program. And honestly, it’s because as I’ve been doing this work over the last years and you Here’s one of the things that I have come to realize is that we don’t ever want to take any tools off the table. There may be some tools that work more effectively than others. But let’s not take away any tools that might ultimately be the exact thing that you need. So tip number six for thinking about relationship building is getting in touch with headhunters. Yes, I know, recruiters, talking to folks who are hired by companies to fill roles at those organizations. But who typically work for an external agency or work for themselves, these kinds of relationships can be really valuable to make. Because sometimes it is difficult to get an in at the company you want to work for. And sometimes those companies have jobs as part of the hidden job market that a recruiter knows about. Because let’s say that they’re replacing somebody, but they haven’t yet let that person go. So they can’t post that opportunity is publicly available just yet. Or maybe somebody is planning to make a transition out or retire. But that hasn’t become public knowledge within the company. So they need to be a little bit more covert about sourcing somebody to backfill for that position. headhunters and recruiters if you know what you’re looking for, and what matters most to you. And what you value can be really helpful at pairing you up with the right type of opportunity that could fit your needs. I always say to be a little careful with headhunters and with recruiters because ultimately they make their money on filling a role. And getting you to say yes, so you want to be really careful to do your own due diligence and make sure that it sounds and feels like a good fit to you when you talk to people from the organization. But ultimately, they’re most successful when they make sure that they’re really serving you and your needs to. So being not afraid to do some research and googling about who the headhunters are in the area, who the headhunters are in your specific industry, and starting to get on their radar and reach out to them in a way that feels good to them can be a really important step in your strategy. Just being on their radar can sometimes open up possibilities for you. So with those six tips today, I hope that you can walk away from this feeling like there are always new stones to turn to overturn, knows new stones to peek under, to find opportunities to build relationships, to connect, to create business opportunities to create job opportunities, and to help yourself make your transition happen. You don’t have to be sitting there in your current job white knuckling it through until everybody has a vaccine. Because frankly, the future is still pretty uncertain. Who knows what the future is going to look like for in person events at all. It is always good to be willing to be nimble, to pivot to adapt, and to work with what you got to try to keep making the inroads that you need to step into a fulfilling life giving juicy career for yourself. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  23:06  

So sit with these six ideas and think about ways that you might be able to extend at least one of them to give yourself even more chances to build strategic relationships with people who care about you and your well being and who want you to succeed in whatever it is that you’re going to go do next. So that’s all that you get from me today, short and sweet today. But look forward to more of these Thursday episodes, featuring past clients featuring Career Clarity, Show coaches, featuring other guest experts that we’re bringing to the table and we just can’t wait to share with you. And as always, don’t hesitate to give us feedback on what you’re liking what you’re learning and what you want more of feel free to send me an email Lisa at get Career Clarity show.com or go to get Career Clarity show.com and fill out one of our forms or reply to any of the resources that we send you will read every response and want to hear what you have to say. So until next time, may you find some fabulous ways to connect and grow your relationships, even in these wild upside down time.

Lisa Lewis Miller  24:14  

And that’s a wrap. Let us know what you thought about today’s episode. leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Because not only can your stars and words help us find great guests and topics to feature on future episodes. Your input also helps other people find the resources they need to discover the work that lights them up. And make sure to check out my book Get Career Clarity: Finally Finds the Work That Fits Your Values and Lifestyle for the link to order it go to GetCareerClarity.com/book and don’t forget to get your other tools resources and helpful goodies at get Career Clarity Show comm slash podcast. Thanks again for joining us for the Career Clarity Show today. And remember, if you don’t love your work, we should Talk because life is too short to be doing work that doesn’t light you up. Talk to you next time.