Gene Nokes

"Tips from the Career Coach"

Gene Nokes is a Career Coach and Business Development executive with a 3o year record of achievement in high-tech markets. Gene has also ministered to the unemployed and underemployed a St. Raymond's Catholic Church, in Dublin, CA since 1995. His specialty is coaching individuals in the high-tech industries of Northern California. He is also very interested in assisting mature workers find meaningful and rewarding work. He offers private career coaching as a lay minister to Christian Churches throughout Northern California.

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Critical Thinking
December 16, 2010 by Gene Nokes
I have been working with a client, Jerry M, who had decided to get a second degree in engineering, against the advice from his college counselor. He was young, but extending himself to earn the second degree was tough for him. He already had a degree in biology. He thought that the additional degree would be good for his career. And he was right. 
 
Critical thinking is the first step in deciding where to direct your career – and it starts with strategy. Most people update their resume, adding the last job and posting it on-line. They don’t want to waste any time and possibly miss an opportunity. This we could call “old school” job search technique. It might work, but chances are that it will require a more sophisticated job search in this recessionary job market.
 
People are getting jobs, but they are not coming easily. It takes critical thinking and this may be something you have avoided since your college days when you set the course for your work career. Many of us have gone from job to job, based on opportunity with little thought about what direction we want our career to go.  
 
Let’s take the case of Jerry M. from above. His success had been in the semiconductor space, but the jobs are scarce and production has been outsourced. His industry is retrenched and jobs are scarce. He has been working hard at finding a new job in this area for a long time with little success. 
 
Together, Jerry and I decided to build a new career plan strategy that calls for using his engineering and biology degrees to focus on the biotech field. We are going to put his education to work for him. We are going to target biomedical device start ups in the Bay Area. The strategic thinking that he did back in his college days is going to pay off as we use his education to reposition him. 
 
Small start up businesses need experienced and well educated employees; people that can hit the ground running. We think that our strategy will be well received. Employers appreciate job seekers that have a thoughtful plan and understand why they want to work in their industry and for their company. It has already energized my client and he is developing a plan for his future. 
 
This doesn’t mean that Jerry completely gives up on finding a new job in the semiconductor space, because he has a lot of his work life invested in this area. All this new strategy does is create a new target area and more choices for Jerry. He can envision working in a new field that is growing. It is creating hope for a new future.
 
Jerry is also interested in Enterprise solutions; selling large ERP systems like SAP and Oracle, because he has sold large complex systems in the past.   I encourage him to take his interest to the next level and investigate job positions that he could qualify for. This would be a third target area for Jerry. Now you may think that all of this is distracting Jerry from doing a disciplined and professional job search; not so. Jerry will be interviewing people in these new target areas and using his elevator pitch to explain why he is researching positions.
 
People are willing to help others in the job search process; it is the American way; especially when the job seeker has a thoughtful plan. One of the rules of social networking is the law of weak links, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_ties   The law concludes that Jerry is more likely to find his new job position through someone that doesn’t know him well. He might very well hear, “If you have that great history in the semiconductor field and you are interested in biomedical devices, then you should talk to …… and here’s why”
 
The real research is done by talking to people and you must be interesting when you do talk with them. It starts with being interested and then developing a strategy to research your interest. Develop a plan to target companies that are interesting and have job positions that you could succeed at. Look up the company on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com) and get the name of a recent new hire. Call that person; tell them of your interest and your past history of achievements. They may not have a job for you but they well could point you to where you can find work. 
 
We all need to be creative thinkers in this new work world. If you feel stymied in your job search, put on your thinking cap. What were you interested in doing when in college? It may give you a clue to where you will find your new position.
Categories: Career Plan, Career Management & Transition, Training, Things You Need to Know
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Comments:


12/17/2010

Thanks for your good points!

An individual who has solid skills, experience and knowledge can translate and leverage them from one industry to another to find new job opportunities. For example, semiconductor industry experience can easily translate to the renewables industry or the biotechnology industry if one invests some time to learn about the new industry. It's part of the reinventing one's career that must happen as jobs have been " globalized" or one's interests change. There are a lot of free seminars or low cost classes - offered by technical groups or by community colleges - that one can take to learn new subjects. So make time to learn new subjects.

Another way to learn new knowledge is to read the relevant trade magazines and attend industry events. And keep up with the news (for example by watching public television shows such as PBS Newshour or National Business Review) so you have some idea of the big picture and trends. Ideally the best time to do this is when you are employed. But it is never too late to start.

Of course, come to a site such as OurExperienceCounts.com to read the news and learn about the tools to manage one's career and professional development.

The " Silicon Valley" here has evolved to biotechnology and internet companies - these industries are where the jobs can be found. With the exception of a few selected companies, almost all the companies involved with semiconductors now have only a small group here in the Silicon Valley, with the bulk of work done overseas in Asia. If your client is open to working and living in a foreign country for a finite period, doing a stint oveseas is an excellent experience. The insights gained will help one's career in the future.

Cal

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