Will Your Reputation Find Your Next Role? 7 Tasks Other Than Waiting

I went through a phase when I was absolutely terrified every time the phone rang. I must have been about 15 yrs old and had recently started working my first ‘proper’ job at the local McDonalds – no more paper rounds for me, I was moving up in the world! Until I missed 2 shifts in a row. In a ‘3 strikes you’re out’ world it was terrifying – suffice to say I had no desire to go back to the paper round…

You’d think it would be pretty easy to work out a shift calendar – not for me. So for at least 6 months, every time the house phone rang I would jump out of my skin and wonder if I’d screwed up again. 

Years later there was a time I remember a similar feeling when I was looking for contract work in the SAP space. I desperately needed to line up a new role. So every time the phone rang I would nervously fumble around looking for my phone, my heart racing, hoping this would the one that came through.

I would do things a little differently now. In fact, I would do things a lot differently. Rather than nervously waiting for the phone to ring I would start taking some proactive steps. And so, as I do in these sorts of situations, I went ahead and made a list of exactly what I would do if I was in the position of looking for a contract role now…

1. Review the market – Do I really know what’s going on?

When I was contracting I used to think I was pretty plugged in to what was happening in the SAP market. Surprise, surprise I wasn’t. As the old saying goes, ignorance is no excuse. Even more so in this day and age where you carry all the knowledge of the world in your pocket or purse.

There is so much information readily available that the challenge is more about filtering what’s relevant than finding something about your chosen topic. So in preparing a review of the market I would look at the following:

·         Technology: what’s happening now, what’s coming and more importantly what does that mean for you and the customers out there?

·         Major players: I’m thinking about this from a consulting perspective; who are the big consultancies in the market and who are the niche players? Who are the ones that have just entered the market? How quickly are the niche players and new entrants growing? Ie are they successful?

·         Major projects: What are the big projects happening in the market? What are the important projects – they may not be big but rather ground breaking or leading edge? 

The intention here is to build a mindmap of what’s going on. From a technology perspective I would want to be in a position of understanding whether or not the skills I have are desirable now and in the future. And whether or not there is a particular skill I have that might make me very marketable right now or in the immediate future due to a recent or upcoming shift in technology. Think Y2K as an example… 

I would also want to understand what the respective consultancies are doing. How are they performing? Are they winning project after project? Are the niche players heading in a specific direction perhaps heralding a shift the bigger guys will have to follow at some point? Are there new consultancies that might need some help over and above standard project work?

And of course, what are the key projects happening or being talked about. Who is running them? What stage are they at? Where are they having issues? 

There are a million different ways to get this information. I suspect coffee will buy you most of it (ironic coming from someone that doesn’t drink coffee) but checking out company websites, blogs and job postings will no doubt help.

2. Time to plan

Ok – so now I really know what’s going on. I know where I should be focusing from a technology perspective in light of my skills. I know what the relevant consultancies are doing. I know what the end users are doing and what projects are happening. Time to make a plan. I’m not talking about a lock yourself in a room for the next 6 months so don’t stress out!

Ash Maurya has leveraged the work being done in the tech space around the ‘Lean Startup’ methodology and developed a framework for putting together a business plan quickly and easily. He calls it the Lean Canvas and discusses it at length in his book ‘Running Lean.’ Your first cut at the one page plan should take you no more than 20min. Time well invested as if nothing else it will get you thinking a little more about the problems that are out there in the market that you are equipped to solve and how to approach them. 

The outcome I would want from this is a list of who is worth talking to (ie projects, consultancies, end users), a summary of the problems they are having and where I can help but do so in a way that not many others (or no one) can. Hopefully it would also get me thinking out of the square a little on a stack of different things too. Maybe from looking at the website of a new entrant it is blatantly obvious they are a bit clueless in certain areas and there’s an opportunity to put together a programme of blogs for them in the area I specialise. Maybe I charge them $x / blog or $y / month to help them out. Or maybe one of the niche players is working in an interesting space and you can offer to go an at very low cost to build some experience.

The idea is to think a bit differently about not only where you could put your skills to good use but also how you might want to price things. Yes, currently we are constrained by and large by the daily rate conversation but I believe that is going to change and probably a lot faster than people expect.

3. Build your reputation

Having put some thought into areas where I can add value I now need to let people know where I can add value. As a side note, in the future the professional services industry will be owned by specialists whose reputation precedes them so if you don’t do anything else, start worrying about this.

Social Media

There are a million ways to start building your reputation. I would start with social media as it’s the easiest. I would focus on LinkedIn and Twitter. Maybe Google+. I wouldn’t bother with Facebook or any of the others at the outset (or perhaps ever). With Twitter I would start using Tweetdeck as an easy way to organise the topics / people you want to follow. 

Before launching in I would ask myself, what do I want to be know for? Do I want to develop a reputation with certain technology? Or in a certain industry? Or maybe a combination of both? Answering this question – what do I want to be known for? – will help guide me in the content I start tapping in to and more importantly the content I start sharing. 

Next step is to set up Twitter feeds and probably make use of a tool like Feedly to aggregate blogs, news, posts I am interested in as well as stay on top of LinkedIn. I would start by simply reposting, retweeting things until I get in the swing. Once a little more comfortable start commenting and possibly using a tool (free) like Hootsuite to get a bit more organised. 

In this way I can quickly and easily start to commentate on those areas in which I want to build a reputation and start to develop a basic personal brand. 

The Next Step – Blogging

One thing is to commentate in less than 140 characters, another is to start contributing your own material. If I really wanted to set myself apart then I would start looking at blogging. As a side note, I have been amazed at the number of contractors that I’ve spoken with recently that have picked up work because someone reached out to them after reading a blog post.

In this you are only limited by your imagination – blog on something technically challenging you have worked on. Write about the issues you’ve helped overcome in a specific industry. Use infographic templates to put together catchy infographics on the difference between new technology and old. 

You don’t have to do it every day – work out a routine that suits you and put something together every week / month and fill in the gaps by sharing and commenting on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Where to do it? Good question. I would start with LinkedIn where every post you publish gets pushed to your connections.

A Website?

Why not? You can buy awesome WordPress templates online for under $50 that are effectively drag’n’drop. Include a homepage, a blog (duplicate your LI blogs but reference your website when posting on social media), case studies of what you’ve done and maybe another page on customers you’ve worked with. It should take a couple of days to set up and will help you stand out from the crowd. Tip – use sites like www.canva.com to find low cost images. There are other sites where photos and vectors are free. 

A Newsletter? A bit more controversial but…

The challenge here is trying to stay front of mind for people that you have worked with previously. As time goes by that group of people expands significantly. And therefore so do the opportunities get phone calls inviting you to work on new projects. If they remember you… So perhaps I would think about putting together a quarterly newsletter (using a free tool like Mailchimp) to blast out to relevant people (end user company contacts, consultancy contacts, other contractors) a short update on things that would be of interest. Perhaps some relevant articles you have found, a blog post or infographic you have authored or maybe a rundown on a conference you’ve been to.

I would be careful about how I do this though – CFOs won’t be interested in how you configured SAP pricing conditions for example. Lift it up a notch and make sure you pick your audience and content properly.

4. Training

If I was nervously waiting for the phone to ring for a new job I would also be looking at what sort of training I could do in the meantime to further develop my skillset. There is so much available online now that it really shouldn’t be an issue slotting a course in when you have some downtime. Whether that’s between roles, at night or on weekends. Work out what suits you best but I would be setting myself a target of completing at least 2 courses every year.

5. Get out and about!

Networking is not about connecting to people on LinkedIn. Networking is about going to talk to people. So I would go and have coffee with old colleagues. Find out what they’re up to. Find out what news they have on projects, consultancies, the industry. All of this will help in building a picture of what’s happening (refer to step 1) not to mention helping build a personal brand because guess what – I will get asked what I have been working on as well! 

Then I would take it a step further – I would arrange to go and have coffee with the Account Execs that work with the vendor (eg SAP AE’s) or consultancies. Offer some insight into their industry or patch based on work you’ve recently completed. Then ask for their views on what’s happening. Or maybe talk to the pre-sales guys instead. Same idea though – talk to them about something cool you’ve just worked on and get their thoughts on how it could be done better.

Once again, this is about not just extending your network but developing your reputation and being remembered for what it is that you do best. You never know who will remember you and pick up the phone when they need a hand.

And once you’ve had 1,000 coffees then whatever you do… don’t go home. Too easy to get distracted. Find a shared workspace where you can sit and work on everything else on this list. In Sydney, St George offer space free of charge at a couple of locations. You just book online and rock up. There are others, mostly focused on startup’s or freelancer co-working spaces that charge by the day or hour. Give it a shot though – you never know who you might sit next to and where that might lead.

6. Think outside the square!!!

I mentioned it earlier – I’ll do it again, THINK OUTSIDE THE SQUARE!!! 

Just because you always used to turn up at someone’s office and cut code doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it. Maybe you can do some work offsite? Look at sites like elance.com or upwork.com.

Maybe you can write blogs for someone that doesn’t have the time.

Maybe you can trade your time for hands on experience in a new area.

Maybe you can help a new consultancy establish a new practice line that you think would complement what they are doing. 

You’d be surprised at the number of times a paid piece of work will evolve from a suggestion on where an experienced set of hands can add value. But you need to take the initiative. 

7. The Last Thing…

At some point amongst all of the above – please make sure you’re CV is presentable and readable. Use a readability tool to review it at least and make sure it is easy to read. Better yet, go on Fiverr or Airtasker and get a professional to sort it out for you.

Enough reading… there’s plenty to do if you want to take charge! And whatever you start, make sure you keep at it. Using tools like social media and blogs take time so be patient and carve out time each day or week to maintain progress.

Written by Joel Stehr

BT People (www.btpeople.com.au) Experienced and expert recruitment for your IT/ERP system Business Transformation projects. APSCo Certified