Major breakthrough after four years!

The facts:

Lisa is a 36 year old graduate in Ecology (2003).
She has been working in an office job for four unhappy years.
She had a brief interlude working on the Osprey project at Glentress, Peebles and loved it.

She came to me on 29 March 2008 to look at her cv and make a career change.
She also had a specific job in mind with a closing date of 07 April.
Time was short so we tackled all of the issues head on.

The issues:

Lisa had a great need to be working in an area that related to her degree.
She felt unhappy, trapped and totally demotivated.
She felt she was hopeless at writing a cv and totally lacked confidence.

What did we do?

We talked about what her passions were i.e. outdoors, travelling, all matters relating to wildlife and nature, a desire to share this with other people, her communication skills, her zest for life (slightly dulled at this time), her desire to learn more about all of the above.

We looked at the barriers that were holding her back - these were many but mainly related to her lack of confidence in herself and her abilities.

We did a couple of simple exercises to establish what her main skills and preferences were.

All of the above were taken into account when compiling her cv. This cv was aimed at the specific job she wanted to apply for and whilst Lisa had a very small amount of relevant experience, we geared the cv to bring out her best attributes. These were her travel adventures, interest in the outdoors, wildlife and nature, her ability to share this with groups of people, her ability to recruit and motivate volunteers (demonstrated in the Osprey job).

In the meantime I met with Lisa a couple of times to work on her confidence and belief in her abilities.I also encouraged her to keep looking for other jobs and not to focus entirely on one application.

What happened next?

Lisa made a few phone calls to track her application, thereby making a connection with the prospective employer. After a couple of weeks she was told that there were insufficient applicants, she would be put on a waiting list and the job would be re-advertised.

This raised all sorts of questions and Lisa was convinced that this meant she was not a likely candidate. My view was that this gave us more time to prepare. Lisa visited the place where she would be working to find out where it was and to see what it was like.She bought the most up-to-date book on Woodland Management and started reading. She pulled out all of her University notes and reminded herself why she wanted this job.

The job was re-advertised and Lisa was asked to an interview on 13 June. This was the first breakthrough as she had rarely managed to secure an interview for job applications in the past. Lisa came for a one hour session on interview technique and was ready to face it - even though the nerves were kicking in big time!

What was the preparation for the interview?

Lisa read the very positive cv over and over again to believe that these were her skills.
She visited the website of the company she would be working for, and those of the associated organisations.
We considered the questions she would be asked at the interview and the ones she would ask.
We prepared some for her to take into the interview.
We created a vision board (for fun) and Lisa put her name and new job title on it, with photos of woods, outdoors etc. She added lots of keywords from our discussions - this was all to get Lisa believing that she could secure this job and she was a suitable candidate.
I talked to Lisa about letting her personality out in the interview and not letting her nerves take over.
We discussed what to wear, body language, hitting the right tone ie not too casual.

Interview 13 June - what happened?

Lisa felt it went very well, and she settled into it. She was ready for the questions and asked some herself (from the list she had taken in with her). She felt relaxed (due to preparation and the skills of the people conducting the interview)and came out feeling fine.

Final result!

Lisa was offered the position of Community Woodland Officer with the Community Woodland Trust on Tuesday 17 June. Fantastic news as this means she is back in the field of work she trained for, will be outdoors, will be working with different organisations and will be able to share her knowledge and passion with other people.