Career Coordinates Updated: The Gears Are Turning Again

A Useful Kind of Debrief

I had a difficult time getting to sleep last night. Not because I was spiraling, exactly — but because the gears had started turning again. I’ve been seeing a career advisor, and found myself feeling a sense of reinvigoration that I haven’t felt in a while.

I kept thinking to myself that all I needed was a swift kick in the pants to get myself going again. As it turns out, I did not need a dramatic intervention. I needed helpful advice, a clearer map, and someone outside my own head to point out what I could not see yet.

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Where I Was Before the Meeting

I was feeling quite stuck before. Reeling from various “we thank you for your interest, but we’ve decided to look at other applicants” messages, and one bad interview, I found myself losing momentum. The Depression Beast was working in close proximity with The Fog to obscure my direction. Then The Procrastinator made himself comfortable on the couch and handed me the remote.

While I have been skimming job posts for anything that caught my eye from time to time, I simply wasn’t feeling it. I needed to reconnect with The Spark — that little pixie that shows up when my creativity level is high. I even wrote my last blog post indicating things were starting to change… and yet… they didn’t. I still felt stuck. I was lost and without a direction to turn to.

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The Power of Having Someone Help Read the Map

What I was previously doing was using ChatGPT to help me write various resumes and cover letters. I wanted to appear professional in my applications or how I expressed interest in a specific job. However, I was discovering that I wasn’t getting noticed.

I had a meeting with my career advisor yesterday and she gave me some advice: I need to personalize my resume and cover letters to distinguish it away from every other applicant. “What are some of the things you’re passionate about?” she asked.

Writing my blog and superheroes was my answer. She said my eyes lit up when I told her how much I have loved superheroes and will likely always love them. Her advice was to distinguish my resume from all the others by adding that interest in somehow.

Other tasks she assigned me include coming up with a list of organizations I’d like to work with, drafting personalized cold emails, and creating a networking spiel I can use when meeting people in person.

While it may seem risky to mention a personal interest in superheroes, her point was that memorable details can create connection. The goal is not to turn my resume into a comic book. The goal is to make sure it actually sounds like me.

Boom. Mic drop moment.

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Career Coordinates Updated

When I got home, after a rest, I first reverted to distraction. The second season of the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender series was starting on Netflix, after all. However, I found my brain couldn’t shut off when my head hit the pillow. Poor Diana had to deal with multiple tossing and turning bouts. I kept apologizing to her, but my brain was suddenly working at high speed again.

I began thinking about how I could add in a SuperMell approach to my resume. Not all throughout the document, but in the Professional Summary portion. Then the idea of designing my resume professionally — not in a Word or Google Doc format, which for some odd reason doesn’t work well with formatting for Macs — so I could control what the document looked like.

So there were a few ideas percolating in my brain. Redesign my resume. Somehow personalize the Professional Summary to include a superhero theme without being silly, and some other tasks to work on. Ooh! Maybe I could add in a logo! It suddenly became a thing I had to do as soon as I had adequate sleep.

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The Gears Are Turning Again

My first step was to take the text from my existing resume and import it into Illustrator. Next was to work on formatting the text. While my brain was thinking of ways to do this, the thought of how could I tell this story came to my mind. The kinds of superhero stories I usually like have the hero telling the story. The usual intro: My name is [secret identity], but most people know me by my other name: [Superhero]. Could it be that simple?

I added the intro: My name is Mell D’Clute. Some people know me by my online persona: SuperMell. The rest I kept as is, except I edited the text slightly to continue to sound like I was telling a story. I also added “Storyteller” to my job titles.

I took one of the many logo design ideas from the various SuperMell images that I liked and designed a little logo to go on the front page. Being able to design the resume myself, I was also able to whittle it down from three pages to two, without removing any text. I shared the updated resume with my career advisor and am anxiously waiting to see what she thinks of this.

My next steps will be to continue to do the other tasks that my advisor recommended I do. While next week is a weird one with a holiday on Wednesday (Happy Canada Day!), I plan on getting back in gear with the job search and researching companies to approach. The hidden job market, as it were.

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What I’m Noticing About Momentum

I really enjoy writing this blog — not just this post, but every blog post I write. It has become my personal brand or identity, which was the whole point of having this website. Coming up with the SuperMell persona, and keeping it personal is a very cathartic thing for me to do. So why not adapt my approach to job searching in a similar fashion?

Yeah… Even I find it a little weird that this is the thing that reinvigorated me. Why would adding two little sentences to my resume make me feel like going full gear again? It is what it is.

I now feel motivated to try again. Every day, I will do some job searching. I will also clean a little bit every day as well. Even if I just target one surface a day, if I keep at it, eventually the place will be clean. So I created a little schedule and checklist to do every day. We’ll see how that goes.

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Diana Supports This Direction

Either she supports this new momentum, or she’s just happy I eventually fell asleep last night (well, early morning, technically) so she could get some shut-eye. It’s hard to tell with a cat. All I know is Diana seems quite content at the moment…

She just decided to chase her tail and run around the place like a bat out of hell. What do you suppose that means?

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Final Thought: Course Adjusted, Engines Warming

On my endless journey to my new destination, there have been some difficulties. Navigating the various nebulae that pop up from time to time hasn’t been easy. Sometimes all you need is a little creativity, and some helpful advice. I don’t know how this new approach will work out, but I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

What’s one piece of advice you’ve been given that has been helpful to you? Share it in the comments. I’d love to read about it.