Episode 20: The guide to creating a tenacity-driven career with Jenn Smith

Welcome to The Career Clarity Show, where we help you find a lucrative, soulful, and joyful career path for you! On today’s episode, if you think your career path’s been weird, you’ve got *nothing* on career coach Jenn Smith. 

Jenn started her career as the graveyard shift potato chip manufacturing supervisor in upstate New York. (Seriously!) But, spoiler alert: she didn’t stay there forever.  

She’s an inspirational story about the power of tenacity (and grit) when it comes to creating the career you want. (Even when you initially get rejected for your dream job in HR!) 

Jenn found a way to make a professional pivot from the manufacturing floor shoveling potatoes into a HR office job by taking some big career risks, and is now loving the “chapter 2” of her human resources work as a career coach — but she definitely experienced twists and turns along the way. 

When Jenn was trying to map out what’s next, she focused on continuing to ask herself heart- and soul-centered questions and develop deeper awareness of what she loved (and didn’t love). Her intuition and gut led her in the right direction — and she trusted them every step of the way. So, despite feeling like her career was more like throwing spaghetti at the wall instead of a grand plan, Jenn crafted a path within corporate work (and now, outside of it) that fit her 4 Pillars of Career Fulfillment beautifully. 

One of the core components of Jenn’s career satisfaction came from trying a bunch of different specializations within human resources to learn and master each: field location representative, corporate departmental support, global point of contact, and leading a team of recruiters to build the company.   

She also talked about what a role in HR is *actually* like — instead of the stereotype of getting to hang out with company employees all day long, the real deal incorporates components of compliance, risk management, project management, leadership, and team building as well as employee engagement, performance coaching, and hiring and firing. Plus, how the gifts each of these roles gave her became the foundation for mapping out “chapter 2” of her post-corporate career path.  

Listen to today’s episode of The Career Clarity Show to hear about what “chapter 2” looks like for her — and how she learned to differentiate between anxiety versus instincts.

SHOW NOTES:

• Learn more about Jenn (and apply to work with her!) in her coaching profile
• Connect with Jenn on LinkedIn
• Follow Jenn on Instagram at @flourish.careers
• Read the Roadmap to Career Fulfillment eBook!
• Take the assessment on your top pillar of fulfillment here!

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