As an athlete you trained to react, adjust and adapt to the situations and challenges you faced.  Each down, play, serve or pitch might require you to adjust your strategy or technique to be successful.  If you faced injuries or other setbacks, you had to push harder to regain lost ground.  Your “work” career is very similar.  You go into your professional life with a game plan and if all goes well you enjoy your job and the world is great.  Unfortunately in today’s work environment, everyone, no matter how talented, is likely to experience a lay-off, RIFT, merger/acquisition, re-organization, termination or involuntary career “change”.  One minute you are in the sweet spot of your career and the next… your career is in “transition.”

It is impossible to be prepared for every situation, but each person can and should have some baseline resources and skills in the event they are faced with a career change/transition.  Over the new few weeks, I will provide some basic career survival tips that will help you through the transition.

Part 1 of 5

Your Personal Brand / Profile

Make the most of online resources such as LinkedIn.

Your personal brand or profile is not who you think you are, it is who others think you are.  If your brand does not effectively represent you and where you want your career to go, you will be looking at job applications with very limited success.  

Here are a few things to help improve your brand:

• Make the most out of LinkedIn: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Mastering LinkedIn
  • We also use this link for our students who are building their profiles and it has some excellent instruction and tips: LinkedIn for Students
• LinkedIn Alumni tool shows how to connect with other alums and how to utilize LinkedIn: LinkedIn Alumni Tool
• Make sure your Facebook profile is not controversial – if you are considered for a position, your online presence will likely be reviewed.  Don’t give a potential hiring manager a reason to discount you from an interview or an offer.

Company, Interview and Salary Research

Do your homework. If you are better informed you stand a better chance of success.

You will find a solid company research tool at this link: Baylor Business Career Management – Company Research

When you access Glassdoor from the link above, you will find insightful information about the company you are interested in and you can gain valuable perspective on salaries and interview questions by position.  

We are teammates and fellow “B” Association members and we share a special bond built on sweat, blood and effort through our collegiate career.  If you have career questions, please let me know and I will do my best to address them directly with you or to include it in future segments. 

Sic ’em Bears!

Ken Buckley
Football Letterwinner 1977, 1980
“B” Association Board Member

Kenneth Buckley is the Assistant Dean for Career Management – Baylor Business School.  He has 10 years with Baylor overseeing undergrad and graduate career management for the Business School and is responsible for career development, employer engagement and career placement including 9 years of classroom experience teaching career classes for BBAs and MBAs.  Ken is also a published author in the career field, 2^nd edition College to the Career You Love by Kendall Hunt Publishing.  Prior to Baylor, he spent 24 years of progressive management experience in the technology industry with start-ups and large public companies.