This week’s question comes from someone who was interested in hiring us for a one-time ‘reinvention resume’ & cover letter consultation:

Q: What is your success rate with clients for whom you have provided this service?

A: We hear this question periodically from people who are looking for some sort of ‘guarantee’ that they will succeed if they just do this one thing (have the consult, take the class, buy the product, etc.). When I get this question, I am always reminded of those Axe commercials that imply that if you just use their deodorant, you will have women falling all over you. No mention of the guy going to the gym every day to look good, learning from the emotional fallout with his last girlfriend so that he can do better the next time, putting himself out there over and over again and dealing with rejection. They play to the fantasy: just buy this product and you’re magically fixed—no other work required!

Unfortunately, there is no ‘magic bullet’ for career reinvention success (although if I find one, I’ll let you know!). If you hope to land the job of your dreams, you’re going to have to put in a lot of hard work. We give you the tools—but you must pick them up and use them, repeatedly, over an extended period of time, in order to succeed (this is why our Career Reinvention BootCamp and Reinvention Team Action Groups run over several months).

One-time consultations are most useful when someone has already gotten a lot of traction in their reinvention and needs help with a specific situation (crafting a pitch for a particular opportunity, answering the ‘hard’ interview questions, etc). But if you’re coming from a standing start and hoping that after one hour you’ll walk away with the golden resume and cover letter that will magically open doors for you, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Crafting a great reinvention resume takes a lot of work on the front end. You have to research your target market, assess your skills and talents, and identify which ones are valuable in your new field. You must then analyze which of your accomplishments demonstrate those talents in a tangible, meaningful and quantifiable way. Then you must figure out the language of the target career, and ‘translate’ your materials so that they can be understood. Put all this effort on top of the usual work that writing a good resume and cover letter entails, and you are talking about a process that can take a couple of months.

We don’t offer a ‘get fixed quick’ scheme. Every single one of our success stories (and there are many who haven’t been featured on our blog—yet!) put in a substantial amount of effort to make their dreams happen. We offer career reinvention—for real!—to those who are willing to do the work (both emotional and practical) until they get the results….

Have your own question to ask? Email me here; put ‘Newsletter Question’ in the subject.

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This week’s question comes from a reader who asks:

Q: I have been in the real estate and mortgage industry for the past 15 yrs. With the huge decline in our business, I must make a career move. I have for many years wanted to get into the holistic health and alternative medicine arena. I am a RN, but have not worked in the field for many years. I completely ran out of money, lost my home, and must begin working for a salary after many successful years being self employed.

My question is: What field can I get into immediately and even work my way up that satisfies my need to enlighten people about natural herbal medicines, acupuncture, yoga and combines possibly nursing skills and managerial skills and my multi-lingual skills and love of peoples all around the world? Money is an issue for me now; I don’t have the funds to go back to school. I do, however, have a vision of such powerful intent to make and create my new reality and be a part of something greater than myself while still making a decent living…

A: You are experiencing a very common dilemma—trying to balance the desire to reinvent your career with the need to earn a living. Many times we have a big vision of what we’d like to accomplish, but day-to-day realities and needs create pressure. When it’s money creating the pressure, the problem is this: career reinventions take time to pursue, and you don’t have a lot of time when your money is running out.

It may seem tough, but my advice is to get a job, any job, that brings in enough cash flow to meet your basic daily living expenses. It is nearly impossible to pursue a bigger vision when you are continually worried about making the rent.

If you’re living off of savings, depending upon how much time your funds allow you might be able to pursue a position in the holistic health field that takes advantage of the skills you developed in real estate. You don’t say what you did in that industry, but start by seeing if there are similar positions in the holistic health field (i.e. if you were an office manager, try landing an office manager position at a holistic medicine office). If that’s not a viable short-term option, then pursue any job for which you’re qualified that brings in enough cash flow. Once you regroup financially, you can lay out a longer-term strategy for your career reinvention.

Sometimes, hard as it may be to accept emotionally, our career reinvention must happen in stages instead of going for the big dream right out of the gate….

Good luck!

Have your own question to ask? Email me here; put ‘Newsletter Question’ in the subject.