Earlier this week I went to a networking event called The Closers Common, run by my friends Kim Winter and Meghan Martin. At this networking event, the discussion topic for the night was preparing for the job hunt. One of the things that Kim talked about, was that the best time to prepare for the job hunt is before you really need to. I had been thinking about writing a blog post on what I’ve been doing for my job hunt and the topics aligned really well. This post is going to look a little barbell shaped as most of what I have to say is about what you can do while you’re still in your job and what you can do to keep the lights on while you’re looking for your next job.

While you’re working

In the 7 years that I was at my last role, I didn’t spend very much time maintaining my resume, keeping track of my accomplishments, or noting any metrics that I had achieved while I was in the role. These are all things that Kim mentioned would be beneficial for people who are in the job hunt. A few minutes a month can save you weeks of effort when you get laid off. Set a regular reminder for yourself to take an inventory of what you’ve done, and what nice things people have said about you.

Remember to store this somewhere you’ll have access to, even if you get laid off. Don’t keep it on the company laptop or Google Drive. Store it somewhere you own.

I did, however, put a lot of time into building a presence on LinkedIn. While I was in my last role, I used the company’s MCP to add additional context to biopharma news items that I found and posted those on LinkedIn. When I made those posts, if people engaged with the content, I would send a connection request. This strategy allowed me to build up a LinkedIn following of almost 5,000 before the layoff happened, and I’m so glad that I invested the time in LinkedIn. While I was in my role, I figured that building a LinkedIn presence while talking about the company would potentially make someone aware of the company who wasn’t before, and that could potentially lead to a new sale somewhere down the line. Also, selfishly, I wanted to be known in my industry.

One of the things Kim mentioned in her talk about building a LinkedIn presence, was that it’s also important to show that you are a complete human being and not just an extension of the company that you work for. That could mean, in addition to posting about company news or things that can draw attention to your work, also posting about small glimpses into your personal life, other initiatives that you’re driving (like Kim’s work with The Closers Common), or even putting branding on your LinkedIn profile that is not necessarily related to the company. For example, not using the company colors in your LinkedIn profile, photo or banner.

While you’re looking

After the layoff happened, I started to use my LinkedIn audience as a Rolodex to reach out to people to connect with. This time when I reached out to people I would actually suggest having a call. I had probably sent out a few hundred messages asking various people in my network or outside of my network to hop on a quick call and discuss what they were working on and where I could help. Now that it’s been almost 3 months, I have had 92 calls with various people in my network. From these discussions I found companies that are looking to build curation teams in the next 6 to 12 months, companies that are looking for consulting services, and companies looking for customer discovery on a commission basis. Although I haven’t found something that can replace my previous role, I have come across a lot of different opportunities and I’m still trying to shape exactly what I want for the future.

Keeping the lights on

The other thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t just be thinking about a full-time role at another company. Even if you are dedicated to being an employee at any level and earning a salary for the rest of your career, at least while you’re job hunting, you should be open to all the other possibilities for earning a living. 

One of the opportunities that presented itself to me quite early in my job hunt was the opportunity to become an advisor for a startup. If any of you are familiar with The Founder Institute, they have what they call the FAST agreement which is the Founder/Advisor Standard Template. A typical advisor agreement is all equity compensation and so it’s not necessarily going to be the thing that keeps the lights on while you’re job hunting, but it is a great experience to add to your resume. 

If you’ve done the work of building a LinkedIn presence before your job hunt, sometimes you may have job offers come inbound. Companies that are earlier in their Journey May benefit from your experience, and even if you haven’t gone through the process of noting down all of your accomplishments and every metric that you’ve hit by having these conversations with earlier stage companies, it can really help you clarify the strength of your experience and also shape the way that you position yourself in the job market in terms of what services you offer. Of course, the best case scenario is that they offer you a full-time job right off the bat and that could be the end of your job hunt right there. 

Alternatively, by being well known in the industry, there could be companies at any stage that reach out to you for consulting services. Typically that would mean that they pay you as a contractor on an hourly rate which may be higher than your hourly rate in your previous role, but the number of hours probably won’t make up the difference. If you’re doing the work of reaching out to people in your network and having a number of discovery calls, you’ll start to get a sense of what people need in the market and where you can step in to offer your help. 

I’ve also had conversations with companies who mainly are looking for someone to help with customer discovery. Companies in this situation are typically willing to pay commissions for introductions to other companies that are in their Target demographic. If those introductions lead to a sale then you could stand to earn in the range of 10 to 15%.

Wrapping Up

So, while you’re working, it’s important to take a few minutes every month to update your resume with a list of accomplishments that you’ve made, metrics that you’ve achieved, and feedback that you’ve received. Invest the time in building a LinkedIn presence so that people in your industry know who you are and can quickly get a sense of what you can offer.

When you get to the job hunt, start reaching out to your network to have calls with people to see what they’re building and where you can offer your help. 

And while you’re looking, be open to other options for keeping the lights on like advising, consulting, and customer discovery. There’s probably other options available to you that I haven’t even come across in my calls yet. 

This economy has been pretty rough on everyone, but for the people who put in the strategic effort, the number of opportunities is only growing.