Kirsten de Greling – Visman on Using AI Smartly in Your Job Search
In Brief: Kirsten de Greling-Visman (linkedin.com/in/kirstendegrelingvisman, claritycompasscareercoach.com), international career strategist and founder of Clarity Compass Career Coaching, joins host Dan Freehling (contempusleadership.com) to share how she helps clients use AI smartly in their job search. Kirsten explains why she started building AI systems after watching clients' applications lose all personality (00:48), and walks through her “own your story” foundation, culture matching, and trigger-event research (05:07). She makes the case for using Gemini's live, Google-integrated search rather than frozen data (07:31), and breaks down her weekly strategy across the public and hidden job markets (11:01). Kirsten and Dan discuss why human connection and networking are still critical even with AI (21:21), her own path across nine countries and path to career coaching (26:02), and why most senior transitions happen before a role is ever posted (33:36).
Recommended Reading: “Working Identity” by Herminia Ibarra. Kirsten also returns often to Brené Brown on owning your story, and points to LinkedIn and Brainz Magazine (brainzmagazine.com) as ongoing resources. Show notes at forwardlookingleadership.com.
Transcript
Dan Freehling (00:05): Hey everyone, Dan here. Welcome to another episode of Forward-Looking Leadership. Today, I'm honored to be joined by Kirsten Visman. Kirsten is an international career strategist and job search coach, and we talk about how she's incorporating AI smartly into her work with clients. Kirsten, thanks so much for joining us on Forward-Looking Leadership. This is such a perfect lead into this. Thanks so much for joining us, Kirsten. On that note, how do you work with clients to use AI to amplify their unique voice to make them fully themselves, fully stand out, fully different, rather than making them this kind of generic mush average kind of a profile?
Kirsten de Greling – Visman (00:48): It was actually an emergency. I started tapping into AI and using AI to amplify their voices when I actually noticed that all my clients were using AI for their applications. And they'd come to me with a CV that ChatGPT had optimized or cover letters that another AI had drafted. And in that process, I got really frustrated because there were no flavors to it. They had sapped out their voice, their souls. They sounded very generic. And in the meantime, they were so-called optimized. And I thought this is not the way to use it. I want to make sure that they use it without destroying their soul, without destroying their voice. And I want to help them use it effectively. And for that to happen, I needed to use AI better and smarter than they did. I'm not a tech person. So initially I definitely had my reservations around it and I actually needed to do a bit of my own mindset work to overcome that hurdle.
Kirsten (02:16): But the realization that the job search market was becoming more and more competitive and no longer straightforward, I thought it's time because what I see is I see my clients sucked into time-consuming, emotionally draining and relentless job search processes and them spending hours and hours of scrolling the job boards and tailoring their applications and only not to hear anything back, to be ghosted, to be rejected and be part of an endless job search process where in the end, the hiring business employer decided to move on with someone else. And I just noticed my clients burning out before they even got to an interview stage. And I thought, this is not okay. They're so absorbed by this job search experience. And if we are able to do this smarter, I can actually give them back their life so that they have space to recharge, that they can be present with their families, that they can just do the things that matter to them, that energize them without being permanently glued to their screens to send in applications.
Kirsten (03:45): So that changed everything about how I run my business. So with them in mind, I started building systems and I started building detailed prompts to serve as real opportunities within minutes instead of hours. And those opportunities were fully fitted to each individual client no matter what their expertise was. I was rolling out weekly market reports telling my clients where to focus their energy based on their experience and expertise. And we were handling the really time-consuming research work by actually handing it out to AI, feeding it so much context about this one client so that the research could be handled, the opportunities could be found without having to spend hours themselves so that my clients could actually spend time on the networking conversations, on the relationship building and on the storytelling that actually gets them hired. We start with something that I call own your story.
Kirsten (05:07): And it's a foundational work where we identify the sweet spot between their strengths, what gives them energy, what is marketable, what can earn the skills and talent that are in need in the market. And with that as a foundation, we use AI to do something that's really, really powerful and that's culture matching between that story and that working identity that comes from that and match that to the potential employers or clients of my clients. Once you are clear on that positioning, AI can help you spot trigger events like a new CEO announcement or a funding round or restructuring, organizational restructuring or a regulatory shift or breaking into a new market. These are actually signals that hiring is about to happen. And my clients, by owning their story, using AI to position them properly and do all the hardcore research, we're able to position them as the answer before the competition even knows there's a need, that there is an opportunity.
Kirsten (06:37): And with that, their opportunities are a lot easier to attract, to create, to get hired really. It's the magic that happens then. Did this answer your question?
Dan (06:55): It's an amazing start to it. And I could go fully down the rabbit hole with you of coaching philosophy and the role of AI and all of that kind of stuff. And I think for the people listening, a lot of other coaches and a lot of job seekers, I want to take this in a really tactical direction with you of that sounds great. And how do they go about doing this? And it sounds like you have a lot of this figured out and you're continuously learning and tweaking and improving it along the way. And I would love to go down that direction with you if that's all right.
Kirsten (07:31): To get into this in a tactical way, you know what? I love Gemini and I use Gemini exactly for this process. When I help my clients tap into the hidden job market, you know what? Any live market insights, you need to do your research, right? It's your market research. And for that, we don't want old data. We don't want data that's frozen and that's there to refer to, but that's not up to date with literally today. I don't want to provide in the search that we do. I don't want the search to be led by a data summary of six months ago. I want to make sure that we know which companies, for example, have just announced funding rounds in the week.
Kirsten (08:32): Which organizations are restructuring right, right now, which leaders have just moved into new roles and are building teams as we speak. And that's where Gemini comes in because Gemini is integrated with Google Search. And what that means practically is that it can pull verified current market data. The URLs are live. The data is real. When I run a weekly job search accelerator prompt for a client on Monday morning, they get actual job postings with direct links, actual people to reach out to with their LinkedIn profiles, actual trigger events happening in their target industries, in their area of expertise in their region, no matter where they live in the world. Because of that integration, you're not getting hallucinated company names or fake job postings. And this is what's really important because my clients are mid to senior professionals. You know what? They may have been looking on their own for a couple of months, not just a couple of months sometimes.
Kirsten (09:44): Sometimes people come to me and they've been on the lookout for opportunities for a year and I cannot send them into the woods with a carrot dangling in front of them. This is real people we're talking about. Their families depend on the financial security that's provided by many of my professionals. And I don't want to have them end up with outreach on information that doesn't exist. On top of it, why we dive into Gemini is because there is the option of a consistency and there's a consistency in results that it provides. So without me having the control over this and just doing this for my clients, I actually help my clients build their own system on this so that they run their searches, tailored to their situation, their expertise, their region, whatever, every week long after our work together ends. So this search that we do is two-sided.
Kirsten (11:01): There's a weekly job search strategy that rolls out and that is really valuable on their reactive job search strategy where we identify live opportunities. And without having to spend like eight hours looking for this, this comes out, fresh opportunities come out within minutes of our search, the start of our search. Now this reactive job search strategy is great and everyone loves it and feels better for it because you know what? There's an actual opportunity, at least that's what we assume with a public JD. But that's also where all the competition lives. That's also where the ghosting lives and the automatic rejections live and where the hundreds of people competing for one role lives. So I bring in a really important hidden market trigger event research. And with that, we really do a deep and thorough search on reliable news sources around those events that point at new potential work.
Kirsten (12:33): I mentioned them earlier on. So whether that's new leadership or entering the new market or whether that is new regulations, any of those. There's about 10 events that we dive into and explore to come up with reliable and trustworthy insights, which we can then take up another... We step into that at a deeper level where we look at who are the key players in this. The key players being people, people that you can connect and not because you're begging for a job, but because you have experience and expertise and a value proposition that is beneficial to them given their current reality. And that's what's interesting because this ties into the cultural matchmaking that I mentioned before, as well as the connecting the dots of the entire career journey of my clients and interpreting the impact of each role, positioning it within the right context for those trigger markets, trigger events.
Kirsten (14:09): So that is something that would take you hours to do if not days yourself. From these two elements within Gemini, there's a third level where I think, you know what? Gemini has an additional deep research feature. And of course other AI platforms have that too. But I really am able to research the entire industry with Gemini that allows us to also pull together the trends, identify those key players and synthesize it into an actionable job search plan, career management plan.
Dan (14:56): So you work with clients to do all of these different own your career story exercises and reflections and all of that, feed that into Gemini, overlay a lot of the stuff that we've talked about here of all the information that would be needed for the public job postings, these trigger events, prompts for all of these hidden market opportunities. And then this deep targeted research as well. And this comes out with a weekly kind of strategy overlaid with a broader kind of strategic plan for clients for these different opportunities. Anything I'm missing from what you've said here?
Kirsten (15:40): No. The output always surprises my clients. I think it's good to dive into what that actually looks like for you. It's like these systems that I've built through that, they actually work as your personal talent scout or your personal recruiter who's looking for perfect fit opportunities for you. And in that process, while it's searching, the way it feeds it to you is coming out, is literally here are your 10 opportunities that you could be applying for this week. Direct links. Why are you a good fit for this? For these reasons? What strengths does it tap into this? Which difference are you able to make through the expertise you've had in the past? And how does that benefit them being whoever is publishing the opportunity? And not just does it give you that, those live opportunities, it goes beyond that where it says you need to also grow and nourish your network and surround yourself with people who are important for your future career activities, who fit your career goals, your career vision.
Kirsten (17:04): I think there's a problem with many professionals in that their network stay stuck in the past. And then at the time that they are on the market for new opportunities, they realize, but my network, I don't know anyone who works in that area or I don't know moving countries. I don't know anyone there.
Kirsten (17:27): And what this job search strategy also includes is about 10 weekly. So I don't want to overwhelm you with all the opportunities because then I'll still give you job search burnout. So I don't want to do that. But I do want you actively growing your network with people who are hanging out in the places and organizations, companies, industries where you want to move. Because these people may, you know what one is I want you connecting with them, having conversations. But on top of it, they bring a network of other people. That secondary degree network in there. And then again, the third degree network are amazing so-called fishing ponds for valuable conversations, future conversations to have and people to connect with because they may have ideas for you on how to move into that space. And again, it's hard to research that one-on-one. And I'm making it easy with the job search strategy where it's like this is an important person for you to know and to meet.
Kirsten (18:55): If you can get a conversation with this person, great. This is why it's interesting for them to know you because what's in it for them is always a big question. It's the whole positioning of job seekers should be about them, them being the employer thereafter and forward facing, future facing, not past facing. So this whole strategy, it's a weekly strategy, applications, LinkedIn strategies on top of it, it gives you wild card opportunities where you're not necessarily considering these opportunities because it's in a very different organizational structure or industry or region. There are opportunities within them that you're not even considering because it's out of your scope. I'm opening up your mind to, well, hey, this is a great opportunity for you because you have the skills, you have the expertise. They want to break into a market where you have been there for why not apply and test your luck?
Kirsten (20:04): So it goes beyond anything that is obvious. It's pretty cool.
Dan (20:14): It's changing rapidly. And it's fascinating how this is shaping up and evolving. And I think the specificity of Gemini as this, I think I've talked with a lot of people who use some of the other tools and have not had good luck with this kind of a thing. So using Gemini is an amazing insight. And then these different prongs of the process and how to go about prompting. And then what I love about what you do is bringing this together with everything that's great about more traditional job search coaching of this really understanding yourself, really talking to people one-on-one to probe the market. This is not replacing that elements of this that cannot be replaced with AI. It's actually teeing you up to be able to do these much more effectively with less burnout and in a way that energizes you. And I think it's really incredible to hear how you're doing this with your clients.
Dan (21:17): I think a lot of coaches listening, a lot of job seekers listening will love to hear this.
Kirsten (21:21): I hope so. I hope so. I think for us coaches, it can also be very isolating. There's a lot of online work for us as international career coaches. Even though we see a lot of people on a day-to-day level, it's often remote, virtual, just like you and I are talking right now. And we're not necessarily hanging out with a lot of other career coaches. And these conversations, it opens up so much potential. And I know that the conversation you and I had before we hopped on today's podcast, it really had my head was buzzing after I thought, "Ooh, there's different elements to bring in and there's a lot more value to be sought in this specific area." And all of that happened because you and I were talking and you're miles away. We're oceans apart. And still that conversation happened thanks to someone else. It's exactly how I talk to my clients is networking is really important.
Kirsten (22:34): And if you don't know your positioning and your offering, no one can help you meet the right people. Well, one question was enough for you and I to be introduced even though we were hanging out in each other's network and we knew of each other. We had never spoken before until someone said, "Kirsten, you need to talk to Dan." And here we are. And I'm open to those kinds of conversations because it makes a difference in how we embrace this new environment. There is a lot of traditional training around coaching in general, whether that's career coaching or any kind of coaching. And I think there's also a concern with how needed will we remain? And AI, the role of AI in the world of work is making everyone ask themselves questions. Will I be relevant? I think this human connection and this authentic positioning is what leads to a consistent career progression success.
Kirsten (24:04): I personally think it's the foundation of everything. In this high-speed, AI-driven world without those conversations, I think we disappear. And I love the fact that we're able to have these conversations around the globe, across borders, across distances we never thought possible when we started. As coaches, for example, the conversations are easygoing and we can be really supportive of each other instead of being fierce competition and that's for everyone.
Dan (24:50): Plus one to all of that. And thanks to a mutual friend Maggie for making the connection here. It's really amazing when people can connect people they care about. And it's showing job seekers how to do this themselves too. It's like we can not just be speaking from on high as these magical coaches who don't actually practice any of this in reality. And it's like, okay, though, I'm doing this myself to stay on the cutting edge of my practice and my career. And this is the practicing what you preach kind of part of this in addition to genuinely being useful for our conversation has made me a better coach. And I think that's something that there's too much of this kind of, again, talking from on high, talking from maybe the ICF competencies are the be-all end-all and that the best thing you can ever do as a coach is to extol these to other coaches.
Dan (25:41): And there's certainly a role for that, but there's also this pushing the practice forward and that's what I've loved about our conversation. So you've made several international career pivots yourself. I would be very interested in hearing from you how you've gone about that and how you work with other people looking to make an international career pivot.
Kirsten (26:02): So the minute I met my husband-to-be, I didn't know he was going to be my husband-to-be, but I met him and I thought, "I'm not so sure this is a smart idea. Here he is a French-Finnish guy and I'm Dutch-Canadian. Honestly, how complex can we make it?" Well, we made it much more complex because we actually stuck it out and we went onto a wild ride 16 years across Africa and India. It was nine countries and it was pivoting from, for me, I've pivoted from international development to education and then to career coaching and entrepreneurship. And even though when we left for Albania, which was our first country and I was the so-called trailing spouse, I honestly thought I wasn't going to stick it out. And I thought this is not for me. Four months into that move, I was like, you know what?
Kirsten (27:16): I'm ready to pack my bags and I go back and I go back to my career because this thing of following my partner around for his career, leaving my job and my support systems and doing this global mobility thing around the globe, it was great. There's adventure and all, but I was also getting very isolated very quickly. And I thought, this is not for me, this isolation. I'm very much a human person. So in that process, one question that changed everything around for that was really like, Kirsten, well, what do you want to do while we're moving around? And that was the best. It's a simple question, right? And it was actually, it was the gold star question for me because what I really, really, really wanted was to become a career coach. And I'd been in the world of business school education for 12 years.
Kirsten (28:22): And even though I'd been moving between different kinds of business schools and universities, the career coaching was showing up as in every role I went into. And you know what? You've got students coming to you all the time. Kirsten, what am I going to do? And I had a lot of answers. And no matter what I tried, and even though that wasn't my title, everyone was coming for that. So that was my big wish. It's like, I want to become a career coach and I want to be able to do this no matter where we go. So if I can just pack up my business in half a suitcase, I'm happy. And as long as we can get internet, that's it. That was the start and it happened like that. And in that process, you know what? We moved to not the most straightforward countries and internet was an issue.
Kirsten (29:22): It was an issue in Albania. It was an issue in Burkina Faso and Cameroon. And I'm still in that process. I am getting my coaching degree, which was through remote learning by calling into the trainings by telephone. Imagine that. Those calling cards, you had to scratch to get cheap rates. Those cards, I had hundreds of those sitting on my desk for three years of coach training. And the magic was it Internet wouldn't work, but those telephones worked. I got my degree while I'm in Burkina Faso and that was the first time ever for my coaching institute to ever have a graduate in. And of course I wasn't Burkina-based so that was a funny context to that. It was not typical, but the beautiful thing of this whole degree was we had to coach clients from day one and we could not do it for free.
Kirsten (30:36): We had to do it getting paid and we weren't confident enough doing that initially, of course. But the result of that was that we became very solid and strong coaches from day one because we were applying what we were learning. And with that, with us moving around, I ended up in countries where a lot of that coaching support wasn't available. So for professionals around the globe working in international organizations in countries that didn't necessarily have the support that people were craving, I was brought in very quickly by professionals within international organizations to help them manage their careers, overcome team conflicts and professional standstills. And with that, the kind of support that I was offering also grew exponentially within levels of professionals that I was coaching. So I initially felt very comfortable only with juniors because I was just starting out right, but that very quickly went into senior leadership where I felt a bit of the imposter.
Kirsten (31:58): I thought, "What am I doing here? How is it that I'm here? How did that happen?" Well, slowly my confidence also grew into that capacity of course and I started coaching high-status career transitions. And the magic of that was the fact that we were in not just straightforward countries with the straightforward facilities. You become very, very creative and open-minded in exploring opportunities. And you also come to realize that the traditional job search doesn't fit everyone.
Kirsten (32:43): And if you're in that position where the traditional opportunities are also not available, you need to break through a whole lot of systems and boundaries and boxes to move forward with your career. And with that, I started to develop the career story element in all my programs that just evolved stronger and stronger as I grew and with the more moves I made and the more people I supported. But the key thing that has come out of all of that is that most career transition, they don't happen by applying along with hundreds or sometimes thousands right now of others for one role.
Kirsten (33:36): Most successful career transitions happen when someone think of you and invite you to apply because they recognize your value, your strength and your ability to help them move from A to B or A to Z, depending on how many elements there are to be solved in between. And they happen often before the organization or company, whether it is profit or nonprofit, it doesn't matter, before it's ready to go public with their need for talent. And through that, a lot of my program support was formed. And I think there's some very consistent advice for everyone who's currently on the market actively applying or considering pivots or considering career moves, transitions across borders around the globe. Doesn't matter where it is that you really want to go. It's like I would like to encourage anyone considering their next move is to translate your expertise into a language that outsiders can understand and not just to list it and to adapt it to fit the audience that you're targeting.
Kirsten (35:27): So that's one piece of advice. And then I think if you're currently exploring a career pivot, I want you to spend more time exploring the hidden job market. At the moment, what I see amongst my clients, I see them spending 80% of their time applying for jobs, responding to job opportunities that they've spotted on job boards or career pages and 20% on conversations and checking out news sources. I wanted to flip it. I wanted to flip it to 80% of your time exploring news sources, having conversations, matchmaking with events that you see happening in your area. Because I know that there's a bit of a debate on how many percent of the jobs are never even publicly posted. And there's fluctuating figures behind that, but the majority of the jobs are never publicly posted. And if you are a mid to senior level, opportunities are born in boardrooms and team meetings where a CEO or a director says, "Who can fix this problem for us?
Kirsten (37:19): Or who can fix this mess for us? Who can clean it up?" We don't have the time, the expertise, the bandwidth, and we need someone now. So by the time a job description is written and posted, time has passed and the evolution of that crisis has also picked up.
Kirsten (37:44): But if there's this person saying, "I've got this crisis. I need someone now. Who do we get in? Who can we have conversations with to explore if they have the area of expertise that we need to fix this?" They're able to move fast while you're slowing down. And you need to understand that at a time that an opportunity makes it to the market, a lot of the times I don't dare put figures to it and I don't want to cause a debate about it. But more often than not, there's already someone in mind and it's a predefined slot. There's a half-made decision already. And if you are very vocal about the solution that you are and people are able to remember you right there in the right moment for the right conversation for a potential opportunity and people invite you in to say, "Can we have a conversation because we've got something going on and we think you could help." I mean, that has you bypass hundreds of applicants, right?
Kirsten (39:07): And there may be a debate on whether that is a fair or an unfair reality, but I'm not there to judge that. It's just what I see happening. And the only one who can sell you as a professional is you. So if you are hiding in the shadows because you're not sure how to position yourself, you are limiting your own opportunities. If you start having conversations with people about what you're on the market for, no one will have to ask you, "Why should we hire you?" People will remember. And with people remembering what you're on the market for, you pop up in the right people's mind at the right time for the right opportunity away from a crowded pond. And that's that hidden market. And I want you to use it wisely because there are a lot of opportunities out there, but they're just not necessarily where you think they will be.
Kirsten (40:22): And I'd rather have you not battle the hundreds of equally talented, brilliant people like you who've also applied for that one public role. If you could be in the conversation before that role has even gone public.
Kirsten (40:40): And those trigger events, those hidden market opportunities, they come from... If you look on LinkedIn, it's really interesting what you can find. They come from an announcement of a new country director or a new CEO. It comes from funding having been awarded to an organization. It comes from a merger. It comes from this regulatory change or expansion into a new geographic market. It comes from leadership transitions. These are really interesting signals. And I help my clients understand how to position themselves so that they are an answer before the competition even knows there was a question. And lastly, if you're having an out-of-the-norm career that hasn't followed the traditional career path and the traditional expectations of people's careers and for many of the international careers, they're the most exciting stories that I hear from people that I meet, clients, conversations I'm having with professionals around the globe.
Kirsten (42:05): And I just think, oh my gosh, listen to that. Look at what you were able to do and what difference you made in that throughout that opportunity. And then I hear there's a certain shame or there's a certain hesitation to share it in detail on their job search journeys because there's a fear that it can work against them if they apply for a more local role.
Kirsten (42:41): There's a job that you need to do for that fear to fall away, to drop out of the equation and for it to really work for you. The one thing you need to do is own the story around it and make sure that your language of your past incredible experience and context within the employer that you're in is translate that to their context and to their language that they get so that it resonates. It doesn't overwhelm. It excites them as much as it excited you for having been part of that role. It's like that is on you. If you feel too global for a role that you're applying to and you get that feedback from an organization, it's like, yeah, we just don't see this work. We think you'll get bored out of your mind if we hire you. And that's a whole different experience and has consequences of course.
Kirsten (43:41): But I don't want you to take that as the norm that you cannot be applying for local initiatives. I think you've missed a step. If that occurs to you and it happens repetitively that the doors are shut because local employers are nervous about your global background, then it's a sign for you to see, hey, there's a language mismatch. There's a positioning mismatch. How can I fix that so that it doesn't intimidate or lose people in the process? And that's on you.
Kirsten (44:31): You don't need to fit into a standard mold, but you need to be able to position it exactly as to what they need. So you have some homework to do in defining what that need is that you want to come and meet and fix. And this is a mistake that I see with a lot of professionals and it breaks my heart in many ways because what I see them do is that they remove everything that makes them unique, hoping to fit in like a typical candidate. But that's a kind of a backwards approach, right? Because in that process you're erasing all the magic of your career journey until now. And that magic is what makes you you right now and which makes you a really awesome hire. So I want you to flip it in such a way that it becomes like a high sought, highly sought after that demand and an interest and a curiosity of them wanting to make it match between the two of you so that they say, "You know what?
Kirsten (45:57): We need you and no one else. We need exactly what you have to offer in our local context because you get us the way you're sharing, the way you're positioning yourself, you're the perfect need for us, the perfect fit." And that takes a bit of effort, but that's where our coaches come in. That's also where I encourage you to ask for help. It's okay not to manage that matchmaking on your own. That's why we're great at what we do.
Dan (46:43): I think that's spot on advice. And I see the same exact thing of people who try to match too closely to the JD a lot of the time. And this is something that's made by committee and often made by AI these days. And the JD is not actually the real problem they're trying to solve. And by the time, to your point, that it gets to a JD, they've either have somebody in mind or they can't find anyone and they kind of want some person who's going to be a generic off-the-shelf candidate for that. And to the debate on the percentages of jobs that are hidden job market versus true public application, what I found on that is that it's the same process on the candidate side will help you for both. So if you want to be a better applicant, it's figuring out which roles you're super well qualified for and would be sought after for.
Dan (47:37): And doing all of this kind of intense networking and research and all of that will help you even if you're applying cold to a certain percentage of roles that's never going to hurt that and actually going to move that forward too. So I think it's kind of a false dichotomy for a lot of people of like I should be spending more time applying and less time doing this kind of networking and research. Regardless of whether this is filled, hidden or by application, this is the way to get to that level of detail that you need.
Kirsten (48:08): I agree.
Dan (48:08): Cool. So what books or it doesn't have to be books these days, but other resources of any kind do you find yourself recommending the most often to people?
Kirsten (48:17): When I started defining this career story and owning your story part element in my area of expertise and in my services and programs, it came from a quote actually from Brené Brown. And it was own your story because if you don't, someone else will tell it for you. It's a quote I keep on getting back into because I think it's a mindset shift that's foundational in everything we do. I want you living your dreams and I want you living your ambitions and I want you feeling excited about what's ahead. And I want you to be able to look back at a life well lived. And I think when you own your story, you stop others from defining you and assuming things about you. So I think that's a quote that comes in very regularly. With respect to career pivots, because you asked about that earlier today as well.
Kirsten (49:36): I love the book and I'm someone who loves reading and I'm still reading books. I spend more time in books than on screens. There's this fantastic book by Herminia Ibarra and it's called Working Identity.
Dan (49:55): Working Identity.
Kirsten (49:56): Yeah. Absolutely love that book. And it challenges the idea you need to find yourself before making a change. And instead, you know what? She argues that you discover yourself through experimenting. And I think my career has been a really good example in that as in how I was progressing through my career within universities and business schools. And with every role, I got closer to becoming that career coach. I was in the right environment. I could see it. I was in the world of education and professional development. And then the question was just like, okay, but what's the right role for me in this world? The world is right, but I want to experiment with roles because there are elements in different roles that I really, really love and it's up to me to define the right cocktail of that. And I think through experimenting takes courage.
Kirsten (51:06): Trying something new takes courage, but that's also where growth happens the fastest. It happens out of our comfort zone. And I think that's what's beautiful in the book as well is like, you know what? By trying out new things and by discovering yourself through that experimentation, your growth speeds up. And I think that resonates very deeply with my clients who feel stuck waiting in career limbo zone and waiting because they don't have enough clarity they feel before they act. And I'm very much someone who encourages clients to start moving in a direction before knowing every step of the way, having all their ducks in a row. I always tell them, I say, it's not ready, set, go. It's ready, go, set. And we direct and that's where we bring in the compass to show the way. So I highly encourage that book. As a summer read actually, summer is a perfect time for some deep inner reflection on holidays, on a beach, in a forest, on top of a mountain, in an airplane or in the car.
Kirsten (52:46): It doesn't matter.
Kirsten (52:49): When we're out of the work mode, it's really, really easy for us to take a bird's-eye view of our life and our career and a book like that. It's perfect timing, I personally think. And I honestly think LinkedIn is a great resource and platform for a whole lot of additional learning and understanding of the job market and understanding of modern job search strategies. And yes, there can also be a lot of useless content out there, but I think if you find people who inspire you and people who share content and topics that they, "Hey, I like it. It resonates." Don't hesitate to hit the bell on their profile so that you see more of their ideas, whatever it is that they share, whether that is their own content or whether that is someone else's post. It doesn't matter, but it helps you to open up perspective to what's really going on in the market.
Kirsten (54:04): And what I love about LinkedIn as a business is that they do a lot of research and they share their data and their outcome of their research a lot and gives you great market insights. And I enjoy that very much so. There's also a lot of fake context there, of course, that's there like in any social media platform. So be selective about what you follow and do check for facts because also there's a lot of garbage out there naturally. But be smart about it and it can be a world of new ideas, new opportunities coming your way that you didn't anticipate and actually weren't out on the market for. So that's that one. And I also think that personally, I contribute to online magazine and it's Brainz Magazine. I love them as a resource, as a resource for personal and professional development. I think there's a wealth of experts hanging out there, sharing their knowledge, their insights, their methods, their look on the world.
Kirsten (55:34): And there's something there for everyone, literally for all industries. And I'm always wowed by the value of the articles that I read there. And yeah, I have a diverse choice of what I'm curious about and what I want to learn about. And I think it's a great in-depth platform. So it takes away from the quick snippets that you find on other social media platforms and it allows you to actually get a deeper context and growth experience. So yes, that takes longer to read. But what I love about it is it stops you from swiping and doom scrolling or midnight scrolling when you can't sleep or taking you down the social media rabbit hole. It actually, for me, what I notice when I'm there is like, oh my gosh, can you tell me more? I love this outlook. I love this new way of doing something where I think, I want to know more.
Kirsten (56:51): What else do you have to say about it? You know what? It creates genuine connection between people, which also open up doors to networking conversations, opportunities that you wouldn't have thought about before away from the high-speed social media platforms. It allows for genuine conversation, genuine connection. And yeah, I think it's easier to find some like-minded people without having to spend hours finding them. Because if an article resonates with you, that is an easy entry point into more like-minded people. So yeah, that's a good one.
Dan (57:50): Great. Well, we will link to all of those in the show notes and encourage people to check those out. Kirsten, thank you so much for being so open in sharing how you're advancing your practice, how you're incorporating AI smartly into the job search with your clients. I think a lot of coaches listening, a lot of job seekers listening will find this immensely valuable and hopefully take a page from Herminia Ibarra's book and start experimenting with some of this in their own practice as well. So how can folks follow along with you and your work and get in touch if they'd like?
Kirsten (58:23): Well, there's multiple ways to do that. I think I'm an active contributor at LinkedIn. You know what? I post regularly throughout the week. That's a place where there's easy access. Pop me a message, drop me a comment, start a conversation if you want, like a quick connection. But of course, email is a possibility which you can find through my website. There's some really good free resources available on my website, claritycompasscareercoach.com and follow along on my publications on Brainz. You will see regular in-depth articles pop up where I take what I share on LinkedIn at a much deeper level and giving you more value, giving you free resources, giving you actual steps to take, context and things to run with to help you move forward. And that's a great free support for active job seekers, I would think.
Dan (59:43): Amazing. Well, I would encourage everyone to check that out. And Kirsten, thank you so much again for taking the time to join us.
Kirsten (59:49): Thank you very much for having me.
