Working inside a large corporation is one big stress test after another. Layoffs, reorgs, budget cuts, bad managers, rotating leaders.
Earlier in my career, I faced several gritty challenges. For 20 years I climbed the career ladder inside a Fortune 100 tech company between global logistics, corporate marketing, IT, corporate services and HR departments. I loved my different roles and had some terrific successes, but I also lost my job 4 times due to downsizing and leadership churn. After each loss, I was immediately rehired by a different department inside the same company while many of my managers and colleagues were exited out.
How did I get rehired so quickly? By playing offense, not defense in my career. I learned how to build my reputation across the company (not just one department), and put myself in high demand with company leaders and hiring managers.
If you’re wanting more (or bigger) career opportunities, here’s my blueprint to help you become your own rainmaker.
1. Master Your Story
What’s the value you’ve brought to the company? What’s the value you’re going to bring in the next 12 months? Don’t use jargon or vague concepts. Be clear and concise, and quantify your results “in terms of dollars, numbers and percentages.”
For example, let’s say you work in corporate strategy to help innovate and define product roadmaps. Then you might say something like, “I’m on six projects and leading three teams to help our company break into the AI marketplace. Right now, our roadmap has four new products with potentially $100 million in new revenue over the next three years.”
Other pieces of your story you’ll need to master include your biggest successes and challenges inside the company. When you crisply articulate your professional value and worth, and know how to communicate your story to company leaders, you start getting tapped on the shoulder for golden opportunities.
2. Master Your Résumé
How many jobs have you applied for? How many of those were converted into job interviews? If it’s less than 25%, then your résumé needs an immediate overhaul.
Instead of stuffing your résumé with every skill, responsibility and accomplishment you’ve ever had, customize your résumé and showcase only those critical skills, mastery and results that will impress that hiring manager. Hiring managers don’t care about your whole career history. They only care if you have the expertise required to do their job.
3. Master These 3 Types of Opportunities
a) Banked Opportunities
These are gifts that come directly to you (sometimes surprisingly easily) such as a job offer or invitation to lead a bigger initiative. You’ve worked hard and performed well, and because of your results and reputation—you’re rewarded with a new career opportunity.
Learn how to scope the opportunity in your favor. Talk to the manager about expectations, success metrics and how you can best support your manager. Generally speaking, about 75% of corporate jobs have specific requirements. The other 25% may be up for negotiation.
b) Deflected Opportunities
These are possibilities that come your way and, in the blink of an eye, you decline thinking they’re too small, too big or too off-your-radar to accept them. Once, I foolishly turned down a board member position for the American Marketing Association, a 75,000-member organization, because I thought I didn’t have the bandwidth. Fortunately, I was asked again, and I rebalanced my workload and accepted. Within 18 months I became president of the board, which gave me the leadership and marketing expertise I needed to change jobs and begin leading global marketing teams.
Another time, when I was working in that Fortune 100 company in the IT department, my boss offered me a high-risk, high-visibility opportunity that shook me to my core. The project had two previous team leaders. Both had failed to launch the new system, and both were exited from the company.
Now my boss wanted me to step in and lead the team. Everything in my bones said “no.” But when I opened my mind to the challenge and accepted the role, that team and I had one of the biggest wins of my career, which put me into the company’s “IT Hall of Fame” for leadership. Consider, and then reconsider, every opportunity that comes your way.
c) Hidden Opportunities
These are opportunities that are available, but you must uncover or create them. Think of these opportunities as Easter eggs. These are the most missed opportunities of all.
One of my clients had worked in the finance industry for over 15 years when she was abruptly laid off. She came to me for help to get a new job and within three weeks, she had four job offers. These jobs hadn’t been posted on a company’s website. They were created for her because she initiated and led the conversations, offered ideas to solve some of their biggest problems, and shared the results and value she had brought to her previous organizations.
Another client who was a high-performing technical manager came to me for help because he had been working for seven years inside a global satellite company and hadn’t received a promotion in over four years. We developed his career plan, which included working an additional two hours a week to join the highest-profile initiative inside the department. He flexed his leadership muscles, shared his technical expertise and cultivated strategic relationships, which led to not just one but two promotions in nine months!
Final Thoughts…
Successful professionals aren’t successful because they let things just happen. Instead, they make things happen. They know their value and how to build their reputation with company leaders and hiring managers. They know how to find and land job opportunities, take risks, stretch, grow, rebound and even rebrand their career.
I believe that opportunities are around us all the time. Some may require a little sleuthing, engineering, strategic thinking and creativity, but they’re always “out there” waiting for you to find them and grab on!
