DISCO to get a new job!!

What do I do after working in similar positions for few years? Do I change my profile or continue the same? If yes how??

A lot of my friends including myself have faced this situation. We have been working on similar roles and feel that after few years that we haven’t gone anywhere. The initial magic for the job is now missing, we had started off in the most positive sense but now slowly the magic, attitude has faded off… it has wandered in oblivion. We were all plain blackboards when we started off our careers, continuously chalking down our experiences however amidst this activity, we somehow succumbed to erase some of our experiences, rather than attempting to increase our board size!

Now we feel that the job has become monotonous, a feeling of know all has settled in. The next step typically is search for another opportunity, alas but when we reach out to prospects they push us back into the same mould! Not even once realizing what we are capable of… But have we portrayed ourselves correctly, do we have clarity on what should be our next step?

This is the time toDISCO, a small activity which can help us overcome these limitations:

Deep Dive: This is the most important activity which all of us should continuously perform. Many of us while working forget to update ourselves on the various projects, assignments which we have done in the last few years. We need to keep a track of all these activities which we have excelled in, Projects, team exercises, appreciation mails, promotions, excellence certificates, process changes etc .

There is a specific need to do this, as our memory is limited and owing to pressure we tend to forget our best moments!! If we recollect all our experiences/incidents on what we have done in the last few years we would remember only 4-5 achievements.

The best and the easiest way to do this, is to continuously update your CV. Yes, each time you venture into a new project, new accomplishments, just record the same in your CV. Not with an objective of searching for a job but just updating your CV. Be very descriptive rather than the normal bullet points. We can always brief it later (only if we remember what we had excelled in). The advantages here are that whenever you feel dull or you feel to search for a job, glance at your CV and things become really clear. This is the biggest motivator, either to continue your present or change your role. Forget the rules of the CV; short, sweet, 2 pages; just keep recording all what you have done, promotions et al.

Introspect: Once your CV has been updated with all the information, now is the time to introspect. There will be few achievements which had tingled you and sent the adrenalin rushing, in fact even today when you think about it you mentally smile and feel proud. These are the ones which you need to highlight. Remember on these you will be able to speak confidently, they may be a part of your job or maybe not. Similarly there will be few where you were a part of a team and efforts were not really up there, don’t discard these but keep them on low priority. So change your CV from high priority achievements on top to lower ones below.

Specific Roles: Reading your CV again will now help you understand what all you have done; the best is now out on the paper for you to read. You will now realize that a lot of achievements, successful projects are now staring at you. It’s Time to classify similar achievements into specific roles, for eg. In a span of 10 years I have excelled in sales roles, customer service and Operations, hence I made 3 different CV’s for these. Or eg. I have been into Marketing for the last few years hence specify ATL, BTL, Communications (both Internal and External) R&R and then make separate resumes for all.

Compare and Conclude:You would end up staring at 4-5 different resumes, if not more!! All these resumes are yours, and you would now realize that in spite of being in one role you have performed in other roles as well. Unlike to what you had thought, you would have achieved cross departmental functions and would have enjoyed in some projects. The next step now is to compare your projects, achievements, with the industry/company structure, i.e. for eg. Implementing a customer experience research would mean to be a part of Service Quality, R&R can also be taken as internal communications. These are all ways to rein your free thoughts so that you can present yourself better to the bigoted consultants/companies when you apply for a job. Conclude by presenting yourself with 2-3 main CV’s which concentrate on your skills/achievements in that certain field.

Outlook: once the comparison has been done you would be fairly confident on the two things which we started off with, 1) whether I should continue in the same direction or 2) should I move to another field. You will now realize that there are many things which are possible and you can look at trying your hand at those. Also post the conclusion phase you will realize that each of your job activity was linked somehow to the organizations structure. However we had chosen to erase it from our blackboard! Remember Outlook should not be confined only to yourself however look at the structure, job profile applied for. A subtle amount of homework on the company will also go a long way to add flair to DISCO. This homework will help you to speak the relevant activities and present yourself in the best possible manner.

I don’t guarantee that DISCO’ing will help you get a job but certainly it will give some amount of clarity on what you would want to do!! This clarity will surely help in speaking the right things at the right time.

I welcome any comments or advice to enhance the DISCO process as this is based solely on my experiences. DISCO is something which I realized I should have done at the beginning of my career, however better late than never!!