Connections
One of the challenges for first-time and reentering job seekers is a lack of work-related contacts and connections. Getting an initial foot in the door, starting cold, is complex, resulting in a temptation to “take anything.” For younger workers just starting, this can work. They will gain work experience and, if they’ve done an excellent job, earn a recommendation that can move them forward.
For career-transitioning people and those with background challenges, getting “anything” can delay their progress or, worse, set them back. People in this group need a defined Job Search Objective so that the experience they receive and the work connections they make align with their longer-term goal.
I write frequently about the importance of a Job Search Objective, but it may be helpful here to expand on what I mean by connections and contacts. In this instance, I’m referring to people who can assist another person in moving forward in their work or career. Through their current positions or associations with others, these people can make recommendations, referrals, and introductions beneficial to someone wanting to move forward.
Generally, these people come in three forms:
Friends, family, and personal associates.
Networking relationships developed by the job seeker outside of work.
Work relationships, such as co-workers, supervisors, and managers.
Group 1 – Friends, family, and personal connections
Connections of this type can be beneficial if they align with an overall goal, but they have a finite life. They are most useful at the beginning of the work journey, and their usable life correlates directly to the work quality done by the person receiving the hook-up. Do good work, and they last; do lousy work, and they’ll fade away. For new and transitioning workers, this is a resource. However, sad but true, many reentering job seekers have burned all sorts of bridges and have no active contacts outside the helper world; thus, this category may be marginally helpful at best.
Group 2 – Networking contacts
These connections usually come during or after someone’s first or second job or later. Furthermore, some people love going out and networking and are good at it, while (many) others hate it. So, as a practical matter, this form of connection isn’t initially in the cards for new, reentering, or transitioning job seekers.
Group 3 – Work contacts
This is ground zero for most people, regardless of their job-search status. Developing (professional) work connections at a first job is essential to moving forward with a warm send-off rather than another cold-from-scratch start.
But here’s the catch:
The need and the benefit of building these connections is frequently unrecognized. Some people get it intuitively, but many don’t.
So let me be clear:
DON’T OVERLOOK THIS!
At a minimum, the goal of reentering (or starting out/over) is to progress to independent self-sufficiency. These days, this requires movement from one job to the next, working toward an eventual work/career goal. Assuming things go well during the first job, there will at least be some positive work history to include on the resume, which is helpful. But that’s not enough.
Here’s a better way to do this: I would say the following to the job seeker.
First, you should inform select people (lead, supervisor, manager preferred) about your overall work/career goal early in your tenure at the new job. First, do good work and show you are an engaged and solid employee. Then, two or three months after you start, mention what you are out to accomplish in general terms. Keep it casual, using “broad strokes,” but get it out there.
After six or eight months, you should start plotting your next move, which may take another six or eight months to materialize. When the time comes to begin applying, ask for recommendations from the people you shared with—your request will not surprise them; instead, they may be expecting it (while silently rooting for you). What’s more, if you’ve mentioned that you’ve begun searching (discretely and WHILE CONTINUING to do good work), you may find people willing to help beyond just giving you a recommendation.
Developing key contacts (I call them People Links in my book) doesn’t come naturally to some and, therefore, must be approached as a specific, deliberate action. Talking intentionally about your plans doesn't mean chatting with your work besties. And, BTW, I recommend few, if any, work besties at your first job. Instead, do this tactically as an add-on to your Job Search Objective.
Anyone moving to their second job will appreciate not having to start again (cold) from scratch. For those challenged, it can go well beyond appreciation and be the difference between success and failure because restarting the entire wheel when carrying a bag of past issues can be a bridge too far…to say the least.
Onward.
Didn’t Learn It In School
Here are three things most of us don’t learn in school:
How to find a job.
How to work at a job.
How to change careers.
Given that Gen Z and late-Millenial workers are projected to have between 16-18 jobs and 5-6 careers during their working lives, learning about finding, working at, and switching from a job seems like a good idea.
These are projections, so who’s to say how it will turn out? That said, disruption from AI is in the air—not for all job categories, but some professional and tech classifications are in the crosshairs. What’s more, work tenures across the board have shrunk compared to back in the day when five years with one employer seemed short. Today's question is, “What kept you there so long?”
Based on what I see on the recruiting side, how can a young worker NOT have these many jobs when one and a half to three years with an employer seems the norm?
Are they/we prepared for this? We are about to find out.
For those reentering the workforce after significant setbacks, success comes from having the right mindset, planning, and focusing on a specific objective, a Job Search Objective. The goal is to secure a job that closely aligns with this objective. Then, strategically moving to a few more jobs (all connected to the first position) incrementally moving the person toward an eventual work/career goal.
These are planned moves facilitated through work relationships developed at each turn. This approach works for people with significant background snags and can work even better for those unhindered by such baggage, for example, those just starting or those transitioning to a new career.
But 16-18 jobs and 5-6 careers? That’s a lot. Perhaps the goal for young workers should be to avoid this by planning for 8 or 9 jobs in 2 or 3 careers (half what’s projected). The value of considering how many jobs/careers someone will have comes from just that, considering it.
Indeed, workplace change and disruption are inevitable, meaning flexibility and acceptance will be required. However, our young friend could benefit from seeing him/herself as a startup, beginning with a hypothesis (best-educated guess) of how their work and career trajectory COULD go. They have an entry point (their Objective) and a plan relating to what they will learn and earn, along with the key contacts they will deliberately make (I call these People Links).
Rare is the startup where everything turns out according to plan. The same goes for our young worker friend: adjustments and pivots must be made along the way. Nevertheless, just like in a startup, there’s a hypothesis and an execution plan, and there will be things that can be measured. Plotting things out is a very proactive move and can have great value because it provides a baseline (even if one’s projected) against which actual results can be measured.
Contrast this to the many job seekers who react and inevitably drift in the currents of the job market.
Achieving a goal, not to mention arriving at a specific location, is pretty difficult when you drift.
Onward!
The Door’s Wide Open
I wrote about the availability of entry-level opportunities in the job market a few months back. I’m interested in this subject, especially considering the continual push of all things digital on the job market and, most recently, AI and what that will mean.
There’s no shortage of material on how different generations feel about work, including Gen Z and later-stage Millennials’ irritation with my generation’s continual grumbling about work ethic. So, I won’t go there. However, I regularly ask retail managers how things are going in the entry-level worker department, and the same concerns keep coming around. Here’s an article link that nicely sums up the attributes they would like to see in new employees but frequently don’t. I’ll expand on this below. Here's a similar article for those starting on a professional track.
Success at the entry-level can be viewed as a partnership: the young worker-to-be needs to show up with a willing attitude, and the employer needs to provide training and guidance. However, antidotal examples exist in every direction of first-time workers being wholly unprepared on the one hand and employers unable or unwilling to train and guide on the other (or maybe worse, as I refer to it, “the untrained training the untrained”).
The first link lists ten qualities first-time workers should focus on to position themselves to get their first job, which will start their journey of gaining the experience and skills they will need to advance (see the list for more information on each attribute).
Well-groomed / professionally dressed
Reliability
Punctuality
Positive, “can-do” attitude
Courteous and well-mannered
Trustworthy
Self-motivation
Willing to learn
Ambitious
Good oral and written communication
There’s an irony here. Entry-level opportunities abound, yet many who need a foot in the door can’t capitalize on them because they lack things they have never had a chance to learn. Moreover, many businesses are fighting turnover by line staff and managers and aren’t in a position to properly onboard new employees.
All this aside, opportunities exist for those willing to work with intention and diligence. I remember an article I read a few months back about a young manager of a Raising Cane’s restaurant in California. She had worked her way up to store manager. She was local and loved her city and her company role. She worked hard, put in long hours, and was rewarded with income into the six figures when her base, OT, and bonuses were summed. She felt blessed as she loved the work and the people she managed.
Who knows if our young manager had a Raising Cane’s advancement plan when she started? Likely not. She may have devised one quickly once she was through the door and firmly “in.” In any case, she likely understood that just getting through the door wasn’t enough. Success would come to her from having a plan and having or acquiring the tools required to keep her there and move her forward.
Back to the list above. I’ll bet our young Raising Cane’s manager had many of these attributes when she started and quickly learned those she didn’t. Where does she go from here? Regional manager? Area director? And from there? VP of operations with her current employer or another?
It all started for her with an entry-level position, and she’s made the most of it.
Onward!
Who Shows Up?
In 2014, as I wrote the initial draft of Get Beyond Your Troubled Past, I included a section on social media and one's online presence. I wrote the book to help background-challenged persons get back into the workforce, and I had many examples of clients' old posts and online commentary coming back to haunt them. Thus, in some cases, a review, if not a complete scrubbing, of all the old and no longer applicable material was needed for a fresh start.
That was ten years ago, and as far as old things coming back to bite, well, nothing has changed, not only people reentering, but for everyone. Expect interested parties to check you out on the web. If they find weird or inappropriate material, it will hurt your chances of landing the job you are out to get.
But there's a new wrinkle in the fabric. We're now in the digital on-roids AI era, which puts us far beyond old posts, pictures, and text that could place someone in a bad light. New tools and platforms pop up daily (again, we are barely out of the gate on this), making it possible to construct digital personas that aren't anywhere close to the creator. Much of this is done for fun and sharing with friends and family. It's all good, but that's not what I'm getting at in this post.
What I’m focused on here falls under the heading of "enhancement," tweaks and subtle embellishments to one's social media bio, profile, resume, and related materials that come together to give an impression that is not an accurate representation of what someone will find when they meet the person (creator) face to face.
Indeed, some of this is inevitable, as most of us will try to put our best foot forward when interviewing for a new job or meeting someone in a business setting. But there's more happening here, and it involves the all-important first impression. When someone, say, a hiring manager or interviewer, reviews an applicant, they form a digitally-based impression of the person—they get to "know" them digitally. If the candidate moves forward in the hiring process, there will be a virtual or face-to-face meeting. Here's where the rubber meets the road.
The interview process will proceed if the digital persona and the actual person align. Suppose they are way off, to an exaggerated or absurd extent, the interview is over, full stop. The actual harm comes via the middle space, between complete alignment and out-and-out misrepresentation. If there's some degree of incongruence, even slight, between the digital you and the actual face-to-face you, a red flag pops up in the interviewer's mind, perhaps unconsciously.
Suppose you are the only candidate (or the only one left). In that case, the interviewer may move past any vague concerns or schedule another interview with a colleague to get their input. However, if you are one of a handful of candidates under consideration, you may not make it to the next round—even though you matched up well with the others, there was “something” not quite right about you. The interviewer has to shave down the list, and you are out.
What exactly "wasn't right" will be lost in the shuffle. You will receive a softly worded rejection, "We've decided to move ahead with other candidates…" you won't have any idea about any of this, and most likely, neither will the interviewer.
The moral of this developing story is that aspiring candidates, reentry or otherwise, should be aware that this could happen. If life in digital land is your thing, take stock. Consider how you use AI digital enhancement tools, ensuring the actual you and the digital you are aligned. Know this: it will get worse; there's a firehose of AI-powered digital tools headed your way. And with them, all manner of easily tweaked digital personas.
I recommend a minimal (thoughtfully considered) social media presence for those reentering with significant background challenges. Hopefully, a helper or family member will be available to review and guide them in this respect. However, for everyone else, those unburdened (and therefore perhaps less vigilant) by the constraints of big life bumps, well, I foresee potential problems.
Things that fly in the digital, virtual world can and will cause snags in the real world. Stay alert for things (slight and subtle) that are easily overlooked and can work against you.
My approach is process-oriented and designed for alignment because this is where the reentering candidate finds success. The same goes for all of us. When there's something out of alignment, red flags pop up.
So, be aware and be careful.
Onward!
The Job Search Process
Eight steps to reach the top. The purpose of each is to get you to the next one, as they say, step by step.
A sales trainer asks a trainee, “So, what’s the sales process's purpose and goal?” The newbie says, “Well, to close the deal…” The trainer replies, “Nope, the goal is to move to the next step. You will miss a step if you focus on the close (the end goal), and if you skip a step, your chances of success will drop dramatically. Occasionally, customers will close themselves by offering to buy along the way, which is great, but you must not expect it. You will find that 90% of your success comes from mastering and following the process, step by step.”
The same goes for searching for a job, which, of course, involves selling. You are a Seller of Service looking for a customer, your eventual employer. There are exceptions to every rule, but for most job seekers, especially those with background challenges, following the steps in a job search process leads to success.
All this is good, but here’s the rub: most people, left to their own devices, will plunge ahead without a plan or consideration for the process, “What steps? No way, I need to get moving now!” Or panic, “Oh no, steps, process…what do I do, where to go next, OMG?!?!”
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The Process
Typically, the job search process consists of 7 to 10 steps, such as a plan, an objective, a determination of where NOT to look, a resume, a cover letter template, interview prep, post-interview follow-up, and tracking. Here, eight steps, a simple process, repeated over and over.
The game plan is to move each opportunity forward, step by step, following the process roadmap. Job opportunities are considered and selected based on their match to your Job Search Objective. If there’s a match, good; move ahead. If not, stop. The result is that very few job openings will meet your criteria compared to the thousands of job postings. This is fine because anything other than those matching your Objective wastes time and must be ignored.
Back to the sales trainer. She will check in with the trainee by asking, “So where are we with this customer? What’s the next step for them? And what about that one? What step are they on?” If the aspiring salesperson is on the ball, bing, bing, they will know exactly where they are at with each. If not, they may be on the way out the door.
And so it goes with the challenged job seeker. Success comes from knowing where they are at with each opportunity, step two for one, step six for another. No plunge ahead, no panic. It's a step-by-step progression, with care given to doing it right at each step.
That’s the process, and it’s what I teach and promote. It works and leads to good things for reentering job seekers—and everyone else.
So here’s to “process,” I’m all in!
Onward!
People Value
To begin with, a little context. I present capitalism to people reentering the workforce after significant personal and vocational setbacks. I refer to it as the Marketplace, and my point of view is this: like it or not, our American way of life (the “System”) is based on capitalism. Anyone reentering the workforce with misconceptions or grievances about how things work in this respect is at a significant disadvantage. Therefore, some Marketplace orientation fits and increases the odds of success.
Secondly, the recent SCOTUS decision on homelessness is disrupting what has become the status quo. Suddenly, there’s action, policy changes, and encampment sweeps. This is a significant turn, if not a tectonic one, causing quite a stir. Reentry and all aspects of homelessness in America will be impacted.
The SCOTUS decision is a catalyst, setting events in motion. Cracks and spaces have opened in discussions and understandings related to this issue as stakeholders’ positions and points of view are refined, defined, and defended. This is good as it challenges the existing state of things and creates an opportunity for meaningful change.
It’s too early to know how this will shake out—hopefully for the better—for those homeless and everyone else. From a street-level programmatic perspective, I am (somewhat) optimistic yet cautious about predicting significant, large-scale policy changes.
We’ll see.
In the meantime, we can expect more talk of homelessness's root cause(s), such as substance addiction, mental health issues, and the lack of housing—and of course, all these factors (and more) are significant. Yet, as is often the case in our society, the primary structural reason is missing: a lack of money, wealth, and capital. Those with the means and resources can experience the same addiction or mental health problems yet do not (rare exceptions aside) become homeless. Their issues play out off the street, behind closed doors.
In our form of capitalism, human beings gain value through economic participation; otherwise, they have no intrinsic value. Other systems (religious, social, political, etc.) ascribe value to the individual, but truth be told, none are the tail that wags the US Dog. Our economic system categorizes people as Creators (those creating the profit-making entity), Producers (those doing the work in/for the entity), and Consumers (those buying/using the products/services produced by the entity). Individuals must participate in one or more of these categories to have economic value.
Indeed, this is an oversimplification to make a point. In our system, capital flows toward more capital or the potential for more. So here’s the real challenge with fixing homelessness: No capital or wealth exists (there), so there’s no organic flow. Capital and resources must be rerouted against the current.
Milton Freidman said there are four ways to spend money:
Spend your money on yourself.
Spend your money on someone else.
Spend someone else’s money on you.
Spend someone else’s money on someone else.
Addressing and ending homelessness relates to numbers two and four.
In terms of fixing homelessness, I am optimistic about philanthropy, number two. There is real potential for effective and efficient approaches that are innovative, practical, and outcome-based, an area that needs far more study and amplification. To be clear, all approaches to fixing this problem should have one shared goal: to help people become independent, self-sufficient citizens in good standing.
I am not keen on number four, spending someone else’s money on someone else, as this is what the government does. I am not at all anti-government, but I am against inefficient, bloated programs (which I have certainly been a part of) that can’t seem to manage vexing problems like homelessness. Politics, bureaucracy, and competing agendas lead to inferior outcomes and enormous inefficiency such as this. All the while, a random group of thoughtful 10-to-12-year-olds could offer clear-eyed, common-sense solutions after studying the problem amongst themselves for an hour or two. Yes, I know, another oversimplification. I hope you get my point.
I believe in each human's intrinsic value—just because they are human, a person. And yet I have to recognize where I live, in the US, where the rules and dictates of capitalism and the Marketplace are unavoidable. So, I watch this current turn of events with a strong desire that government resource allocators wise up and offer workable, effective, and affordable solutions, but I’m not holding my breath.
In the meantime, I believe Number Two, spending your money on someone else, is the only practical solution. For fixes to work, to help people and reduce this seemingly intractable problem (it isn’t), there needs to be program/facility control and tight obstruction-free coordination with related service providers, which is impossible (well, nearly…) when the government gets involved.
I have worked and managed in such an environment—it’s effective and efficient, and it moves people toward the goal:
To be an independent, self-sufficient citizen in good standing.
Onward!
Homeless II
I posted about the pending Supreme Court homeless case in April. In June, the court ruled that cities can ban people from sleeping and camping in public spaces. On July 25th, Gov Gavin Newsom ordered California state agencies to begin sweeping homeless encampments on public property. Other states and cities are following suit, which I expect to continue, perhaps indefinitely.
The SCOTUS ruling provides the clarity that California and another friend of the court petitioners desired. They can now address the homeless issue with some legal footing—they can sweep.
An April report by the California State Auditor’s Office, citing the state council tasked with overseeing the implementation of homelessness programs, most likely added impetus for the requested clarity on HOW California could manage homelessness. The report noted the state council's failure to track spending or the outcomes of those programs consistently.
Referencing this report, the LA Times notes, “California has spent $20 billion over the past five years dedicated to the state’s homelessness crisis, including funneling money toward supporting shelters and subsidizing rent. Still, homelessness grew 6% in 2023 from the year prior, to more than 180,000 people, according to federal “point in time” data. Since 2013, homelessness has grown in California by 53%.”
According to the Sacramento Bee, the figure is $24B.
Hey, a billion here, a billion there…
Stunning!
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My intention here is not to throw shade on California, although I must admit that $20-24B is hard to get my head around. Anyway, I want to highlight two things:
First, efforts to reduce homelessness should focus on self-sufficiency—that should be the goal. Sadly, as the CA audit report suggests, it is not in many instances.
Second, the homeless population is growing partly due to the cost of housing and inflation in general. Working people, living paycheck to paycheck, slide into homelessness (while still working) because they can’t make ends meet. Some percentage of these will eventually exit the workforce due to the difficulty of maintaining employment without a permanent home. Many will end up becoming someone’s reentry client.
There are well-managed reentry programs nationwide that are doing good work. An over-abundance of funding burdens few. I’ll bet the principals and staffers of these programs could come up with pointed questions related to…
What—?—$20 BILLION?
Wait, what?
Right.
Just imagine.
Onward!
Your Future (Work) Self
For reentry employment planning, I like to use five years. A goal is set five years out from the beginning of the reentry process and then reverse-engineered back to the present.
“This five-year goal includes the work you want to do, where you’d like to live and the person you want to be.”
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In reentry terms, it is a long-term goal. In life terms, it is a mere chapter in someone’s personal story.
That’s reentry, but the idea works equally well for those changing careers or starting out, say, recent grads. It’s helpful to visualize the attainment of this goal—to see your goal, yourself achieving it, and the route you will take to get there. Visualization of this type is used successfully in sports psychology, business, health and wellness, and many other areas.
It's all good, but I want to focus on the path taken—the route. Setting the end goal and seeing yourself reaching it in a mind video isn’t that hard for most people. The route to get there, however, can be another matter. Surprises always happen along the way; this is where most of us swerve off the road and lose out on achieving our goal.
What follows is a simple exercise designed to narrow down the route to your goal, the trickiest part of this type of planning.
Step 1
Start with your five-year goal and, using thoughtful best-guessing, list in reverse order three or four jobs you think you will have from your goal to today. Consider each job to be 12 to 18 months in duration. Add details to each role, but don’t get hung up on this step.
Step 2
Repeat this process, but start from today and work forward to your goal. This time, include more details about the duties you will perform, the team you will be part of, the size and location of the company, etc. Think more about the duration of each role, adding start and end dates for each. This list should look like your work history listed on your future resume.
Step 3
You now have a sequential list of the jobs you will have, each a progressive step toward your goal. To move from one to the next, you will need references from people with whom you have work relationships. Ask yourself, “Who will I need to connect with at each job to help me move to the next?” Imagine who these two or three people might be and list them in Step 2 for each position.
Step 4
After reviewing your list, put on your best-guessing hat again and jot down things that could happen during each job that would challenge you to get to the next. Be creative here, but keep it real! As noted above, this is where many plans fall apart. Unanticipated and unexpected things make it hard to progress to the next job. Think deeply about this step.
Step 5
Look over what you have created. You now have a route map with dates and details covering the jobs you will hold from today until you reach your five-year goal. You have thought about the people connections you will need to make and some possible things that could require adjustments and workarounds to stay on course.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Why go through this exercise? There are many good reasons; here are a few:
The first reason is to visualize the route, not just the end goal, with you giving yourself an attaboy/attagirl pat on the back. Instead, you’ve created a first draft of your personalized job roadmap.
The second drives home the importance of defining your starting point on this journey: your first job and your Job Search Objective. Needless to say, starting off on the right foot is crucial; that’s why having a Job Search Objective is non-negotiable.
The third reason is that it transports you from visualizing to actual planning. Sure, it is a draft, but it is your draft. You own it. In a way, you are now like a startup. You have a goal, a plan, and a starting point. You are prepared to make course corrections and small pivots along the way, but you intend to stay the course and reach your goal.
Reentering, transitioning careers, or just starting out—you, the startup, are ready to launch.
PS - This exercise exemplifies something many might consider but never do. However, folks reentering, transitioning, or panicking about starting out, on the other hand, are sometimes freaked out enough to dive in and imagine the route needed to reach their goal. They do it, and they benefit. They are one step ahead and more aware of what might lie ahead.
Onward!
People Escalators
While researching the importance of first jobs, an article in Forbes caught my eye: The Impact Of Your First Job After College. Although I wasn’t focused on jobs associated with recent college grads, the article offhandedly reinforced my perspective that reentry success starts with the “right” first job.
The Forbes piece points out that career progression for aspiring college grads does not favor switching paths. This is partly due to online hiring algorithms that can pigeonhole candidates and applicants into similar roles as they move forward, making it challenging to explore diverse career opportunities.
To quote the article,
“These algorithms, while efficient in processing large volumes of applications, often lack the nuanced understanding of your potential beyond your immediate past experience. They often overlook transferable skills or the ability to adapt and excel in different contexts.”
So, how does this correspond to reentry and the all-important first reentry position?
First, it is ANOTHER reason to seek the right first job—to pigeonhole yourself intentionally! After all, a unique Job Search Objective aims to position you to penetrate and move forward in a specific field. You want future employers to see you in this light. If a hiring algorithm shepherds you along this particular career lane, okay!
Secondly, being a pigeonhole-ee aligns with your longer-term plan based on remaining in a chosen field. This is not to say minor deviations and role pivots won’t happen; they probably will. However, these course corrections will occur within your selected field vs. moving to an entirely different category of work.
Generally, more efficient digits (AI algorithms) will not make things easier for the background-challenged job seeker. More sophistication will translate into new ways to eliminate candidates well before meaningful engagement. Furthermore, altogether avoiding online applications and evermore savvy candidate tracking platforms isn’t possible now and will only get more challenging. When some facet of new technology drops in your lap (like pigeonholing), recognize it and take full advantage.
Still, the best search plan is based on face-to-face interaction with prospective employers and hiring managers. It reduces the impersonal negatives of the online application process, which is particularly important when mapping out your first reentry position. Your Job Search Objective gets you in so you can do the work, make modest progress, and move on to your next role.
See this first job as getting on an escalator—not any escalator, your personal one. You have to do the work to retain your spot so that you can move up to the next floor. Your task and responsibility is to stay on this industry-specific set of escalators, progressing from floor to floor.
My reentry approach, as outlined in my book Get Beyond Your Troubled Past, is designed to avoid the digital hiring ecosystem as much as possible. My way demands more—it is not the shotgun, resume blast-out method. I emphasize connecting with people thoughtfully and strategically. Imagine that, people, live humans, not bots!
These people will become your personal escalators.
Successful reentry begins with getting your head straight, planning, and developing your Job Search Objective. And it very much involves connecting with people. What’s more, the bigger your pile of background challenges, the MORE you need people. Understanding and accepting this is part of getting your head straight.
Onward!
Engagement and Motivation
According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2024 Report, 67% of US employees are not engaged with their work or jobs. Here’s the breakdown and comparison to global stats:
Engaged: US = 33%, Globally = 23%
Not engaged: US = 51%, Globally = 62%
Actively disengaged: US = 16%, Globally = 15%
So, compared to all the countries studied, work engagement in the US is marginally better, but still, 67% are not excited about their work.
Why?
There’s no single answer. Some factors include remote work, lack of role clarity, turnover, lack of training, and sub-par management. There are undoubtedly many others—and frankly, this is an essential issue with a societal impact that always lands below the fold.
So what motivates the average worker, noting that most are not engaged in their work?
Compared to years past, it does not appear to be tenure, something most of us have seen or experienced anecdotally. From my experience, it varies by individual and industry. That said, the list always includes some or all of the following: salary, bonus potential, benefits, advancement potential, company culture, opportunities for professional growth, and work schedule flexibility/PTO.
Okay, so on balance, US workers are not (very) engaged, aren’t expecting long-term roles and are motivated by the things listed in most job descriptions.
Fine. So, what does this have to do with reentering job seekers?
First, there’s a need for workers—this is good. Furthermore, turn-over rates, especially for entry-level service positions, are high, which is another good thing because the first goal of any reentering worker is to GET IN.
However, once a reentry position has been secured, engagement and motivational considerations will differ from those of the average worker. Four things are critical for the reentering worker on their first job back in the workforce:
Stay in
Develop work contacts
Build work history
Prepare for the next job
This first reentry job is not a forever job—it is short-term on purpose, and job description attributes are accepted rather than negotiated. But engagement? There is no option here; it is a MUST!
Other employees may or may not be engaged, okay, but that does not apply to the background-challenged, reentering person!
And something else. Too often, after a reentering person has settled into the new role, say 3-5 weeks on, it’s easy to start forgetting why they are there. They associate with and begin relating to the other workers who aren’t reentering. They want to belong. Their original motivations (get in, stay in, develop work contacts, build work history…) seem trite.
“Hey, like everyone else, why not think big(ger), more money, bonuses, and advancement?”
No! A MAJOR MISTAKE. Don’t go there.
Keep the focus on the work and plan.
Stay the course. Fit in, but just enough.
Onward!