Career Transition: Own the Slow

One frustrating aspect of career transition is that the candidate and organization are moving at different speeds. While the candidate often marks time in hours and days, the prospective employer measures progress on their search in terms of weeks and months. Here are a couple of tactics that help candidates speed up "The Slow" of the organization:

1) Instead of prompting your prospective employer for an update on your candidacy, provide them an update on where you are in your process (eg. others you're talking to, research you've done on their industry, or things you've learned from networking).

2) Schedule a planned indulgence each day. While this seems off task from your search, a scheduled indulgence each day refills your emotional tank- helping you show up better to the prospective employer. Scheduling your search time and indulgence time often speeds up your search. For advice about how to best structure your search time, please see my article called Avoiding the 90-Day Job Search Trap

3) Establish thought leadership in that area in which you are already accomplished but have not had the time previously to demonstrate. One way to do this is to approach your alma mater, trade organizations, etc. and let them know that because you are in transition you have more time at the moment than is typical and would like to give back in the form of teaching a class or providing a talk. Share a recording of this class with the organization that you're hoping to hurry along.

4) Use the new remote employment environment to your advantage by applying to relevant positions everywhere- without regard to geography. Limiting yourself to hearing back about one position within one geography will leave you stuck in the slow lane longer than is necessary.

For more ideas on gaining traction against those obstacles that seem out of your control, please see my article called Regaining leverage in the job search.