Sharlyn Lauby, Author at Unretirement Project

Do Not Be a Pest In Your Job Search, Do This Instead

December 5, 2018 by Sharlyn Lauby 1 Comment

I recently ran across an article on the site Career Pivot about following up to get a job. There was a sentence in the post that said, “If you want to get the attention of a prospective employer, you may very well have to be a pest, a nice persistent pest but a pest none the less.” I get it and I completely understand why Career Pivot wrote it. Candidates want the job. So, they’re anxious and excited.

As a human resources professional, let me offer some advice. Don’t be a pest. Not even a “nice pest”. What you do want to do is be effective, efficient, and a good communicator in your job search. You want to follow-up and try to connect. But do not be a pest.

That being said, how do you follow-up and not step over the line to “pest” status? Well, here are a few considerations.

Remember the goal of job search. I worked for an outplacement firm many years ago and we always told candidates the goal of a job search was to receive multiple offers. The key word being “multiple”. That means job seekers should be constantly working leads – multiple leads – in the hopes there will be multiple offers. I’m bringing this up because…

Don’t put all of your efforts in one basket. If the goal is to get multiple offers, then candidates shouldn’t be focused on one company or one job. Yes, I’m sure there are jobs that you really like. But if a company isn’t responding, there are other opportunities available. Especially in today’s job market with record low unemployment.

When you go to an interview, find out next steps. Then follow them. I tell recruiters that a candidate should never leave an interview not knowing 1) when the company is going to make a decision and 2) who to contact with follow-up questions. If the recruiter doesn’t automatically tell you, ask the question. Then, once you know, do what the company asks.

Now, if all of these considerations haven’t convinced you that “being a pest” may not be the best approach in your job search, let me toss out one more thing. Do you really want to work for a company where you had to become a “pest” to get the job? Even a “nice pest” to get the job? When it comes to new opportunities, you should be interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you. And if it takes pesky behavior to land a new job, just imagine what your career will be like. Enough said.

Maybe it’s just my perception of the word pest, but when you cross over to the pest category, you run the risk of organizations questioning your ability to follow the rules. This doesn’t mean you can’t contact the company or send a follow-up note. (You absolutely should.) Just be careful about going from appropriate job seeker follow-up to pesky candidate.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Austin, TX

What We Are UP To in November 2018

November 28, 2018 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

Watching| Hidden Figures

> I know I’m really behind in watching this one and just caught it while traveling in November. It’s a great movie about three African-American women mathematicians working at NASA during the space race back in the 1960’s. What a wonderful story about history and the people who made it happen!

Reading| Be Internet Awesome

> I recently discovered a project from Google called “Be Internet Awesome”. It’s a program for kids about how to use the internet in a responsible way. But I’m not so sure about the kids’ part. While there are lots of guides about conducting business on the internet, there are very few about being a good internet citizen. If you’re turned off by the crazy on the internet, but know you need to be there, maybe a dose of internet awesome is for you.

Remembering|Nostalgia

> I ran across an article earlier in November on The Conversation about how nostalgia can be helpful and positive. I can see how it’s importance to have balance. On one hand, I love 80’s music and old cheesy movies. But I need to embrace current technology and processes.

Working On| Catch-up days

> This was one of my goals in 2018 and sadly, I was terrible at it. So, I’m going to try again in 2019. I need to block off a day for catching up around the house and office after a trip. There are emails to answer, laundry to do, grocery shopping, etc. Here’s hoping I get better about this one next year.

Feeling| In it for the long haul

> Based on the comments I read on my Facebook page, the midterm elections wore people out. Me too. I get it. Whether you’re an R or a D, there was plenty to go around. But I’m trying to look on the bright side. Hopefully, people understand the importance of being an educated voter. Get ready because 2020 is starting right now. And when you need to take a break from politics, do it. Then come back, read up on the issues, and make sure you vote.

Planning| 2019 Goals

> Am I the only person saying, “I can’t believe it’s almost the New Year?!” How time flies! Anyway, with the new year, Keith and I will be carving out time to reflect on our accomplishments for 2018 and discuss what we’d like to do next year. In November, I wrote a post over on HR Bartender about the planning tools I use most often. We will definitely be pulling these out for our planning session!

Loving| Cooler weather

> South Florida never really had a change in seasons. We laugh that we didn’t turn the heat on for three years. Something tells me that’s going to change in Gainesville. LOL! It’s not too cold right now, but we are noticing a change in the weather (obviously, I wrote this before it got down to the 20s here in November). I have to admit, it will be nice to have seasons again.

Geeking| Google Titan Key

> I will admit that I’m still trying to figure this one out. I’ve read some articles that this security key is excellent and is used by Google employees to keep their files secure. But I haven’t found setting it up very intuitive. Tech security is important, so I will keep trying to develop a new routine with this device.

What’s UP with you?

Should You Keep To Do Lists After You Retire

November 20, 2018 by Sharlyn Lauby 2 Comments

I recently saw an article on Sixty and Me titled “Should you throw out your ‘to-do’ list after 60?” I certainly hope the answer is no.

I will totally admit that I’m a planner. As a person who likes to plan, I make lists. Granted, all of my lists aren’t created equal. For example, I plan our meals using lists. It helps us save money on groceries and we don’t waste food. I also have a list of small tasks that I need to complete during the day like “buy tickets to see Bohemian Rhapsody on Friday”. I can’t imagine when I retire that I would stop making those types of lists.

Then, I have lists I keep on my Outlook calendar. Someone could argue they’re more of a project plan or regular work activities, but to me they’re very similar to a list. It’s a list on my calendar of the things that I need to accomplish during the day. In fact, I have a regular occurrence on my calendar to write for this blog. It helps me remember all the things I want and need to do. The joke around our house is when it’s put on my calendar, it gets done.

But honestly, I could see that list changing. At some point, I’ll have fewer client obligations so those “to-do’s” on my calendar will go away. The question is will they get replaced with something else like volunteer meetings or just “me” time. At this point, I don’t know. But I do know that I will have to deal with having fewer lists someday. And that I need to be okay with that. The presence or absence of a list is not an indicator of my value or worth.

The other thing that I need to start thinking about is the way I keep lists. Right now, I have a system that includes a paper planner and Microsoft Outlook. I’m not sure that I will always need them. Oh, don’t get me wrong…I still have a few years to make this decision. But it has occurred to me that at some point I will have to part with my planner. LOL! And the question becomes will I be ready when that moment comes. For people who plan like I do, is the answer to downsize planners as an interim step?

Also, will there be a time when I don’t need Microsoft Office 365 and the iWork suite that comes with iMac will be totally adequate? Purely from a financial standpoint, I don’t want to pay for software I’m not going to use. But when do I make that decision? I’m sure I want to do it in time to learn the new software before getting rid of the old.

I know it might sound like I’m overreacting to a simple little article about keeping “to-do” lists but that’s not my point. It’s that at some time, many of the things I do today, I won’t do anymore. Either because I don’t need to, or I don’t want to. How I make those decisions is up to me. I can control them if I want to. And I can make the change experience fun or depressing. The choice is mine.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando, FL

5 Retirement Strategies We Need to Start Planning For Now

November 14, 2018 by Sharlyn Lauby 3 Comments

At this year’s Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) annual conference, one of the early morning sessions focused on retirement strategies. Honestly, the session was more focused on what employers need to do for employees considering retirement, but as I was listening to the speaker, it occurred to me that these are things employees need to focus on too. So, I wanted to share them with you.

Reskilling. It’s no surprise that technology has a huge presence in our lives. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I love walking into a room and saying, “Alexa, turn on the bedroom lights.” And poof! they come on. It’s also fun during the holidays to say, “Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree.” But that means we need to stay up on the current technologies: read about them, try some of them out, and continuously learn. It’s not acceptable to say, “I’m not a technology person.” You’re missing out.

Repurposing. Everyone wants purpose in their lives. The question becomes what is that purpose. I recently took a FREE Coursera course titled “The Science of Well-Being”. It’s the most popular course at Yale University. The subject? Happiness. How to find happiness in our lives and not waste time on hollow pursuits. Professor Laurie Santos talks about the importance of young people finding their purpose. I can see how as we get older, we might need to recalibrate our version of purpose.

Reducing Stress. As I start approaching “retirement”, I understand the comments about it being stressful. Did I save enough money? How will I fill my days? How’s my health? And the list goes on. It’s important for us to have a sense of self-awareness and create habits and rituals that will help us manage stress. I wrote a post over on HR Bartender about “How to Create a Morning Routine”. It’s one of my favorites. There’s also equal time being given to the idea of creating an evening routine.

Reverse Mentoring. I must admit on some levels I dislike the term “reverse mentoring”. Why can’t we just call it mentoring? But I do realize that for many people, mentoring conjures up images of an older person passing along knowledge to a younger person. That being said, it’s time to break that stereotype. We should all look for opportunities to learn from individuals who are different from us. Both in terms of age and other attributes. It can help us with reskilling, repurposing, and reducing stress.

Phased Retirement. It really does make a lot of sense to start test driving retirement before going all in. We can do things like transitioning to part-time employment or starting a freelancing business on the side. This can be a win for both us and the companies we work with. As part of the transition, we can use strategies like reverse mentoring to help us. But it takes being open and honest with the organization as well as having some sort of plan about how we would like to proceed.

The more time I spend writing about retirement, the more I realize how big of a step it is and how much time it’s going to take to prepare. And I’m not just talking about the money part. This is a huge transition in life, sorta like when you move out of your parents’ house, and we need to plan for it.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Kansas City, MO

4 Unretirement Realities We Have to Face

November 7, 2018 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

One of the things that I find interesting is how much retirement conversation is starting to creep into everyday life. And not because I’m talking about this on Unretirement Project. I’m hearing more people talk about retirement at conferences, etc.

On some level, I figured retirement would be something only discussed among people who are retired or very close to retirement age. And it would only be discussed in the context of simply not working anymore. But that’s not the case. Retirement conversations are happening with people of all ages. This is a good thing. We’re starting to demystify retirement. But that also means it’s opening our eyes to what the future holds – both the good and the challenging.

If you have a moment, I would recommend watching author Elizabeth White’s TED talk on the personal finance crisis. Because it has a direct bearing on retirement. And the notion of unretirement.

Regardless of where you are in your unretirement journey, I thought White’s talk had a few harsh realities we will eventually need to face.

Being the first to “unretire” will be hard. Being the first at anything is hard. There are no rules or best practices. That’s one of the reasons we’ve started this blog. Hopefully along the way, we can document some of the great things people are doing and be helpful to future unretirees. But it’s important to keep in mind that we’re one of the first and we will need to use our past experiences to help us along the way.

We will have to change. In her TED talk, White tells us that we need to “Get off our thrones.” We’ve always known that retirement would be a change. But the question becomes how much. Make no mistake unretirement will be a change too. Even though unretirement is designed to ease our transition, that doesn’t mean it eliminates change.

We will need to develop a new relationship with money. Speaking of change, one of the biggest changes we will have to make is with money. In fact, it might extend to all of our resources. How we budget and spend our resources will change. We will need to prioritize our needs and wants. Many of us already know this, but we haven’t had to live it yet. It’s one thing to discuss “tightening the purse strings” and another to do it.

Think retirement strategy, not money failure. So much of retirement is caught up in finances, I think it’s important to realize there are other aspects to retirement. Our retirement strategy includes quality of life, our health, etc. This could relate to money in terms of “Do I spend money on a trip or a pergola for the backyard?” Ultimately, we have to understand what’s important to us to develop a good retirement strategy.

I’m really excited that conversations about retirement and unretirement are more frequent. It tells me that people are planning for retirement as a new beginning. Because that’s what it can be. If we plan for it.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of San Francisco, CA

2 Reasons to Maintain Social Media Accounts As You Age

October 31, 2018 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

It might be tempting as we get older to say, “I don’t need to be on social media anymore.” Well, I’ve recently heard a couple of comments that made me realize being on social media isn’t something we can simply abandon as we age.

Social media helps us find opportunities. If taking on a side hustle is part of your unretirement, then staying on social media should absolutely be a part of your strategy. I ran across a press release from Challenger Gray & Christmas recently discussing what I would call the double-edged sword when it comes to social media and aging.

Organizations have been told for years to use social media for marketing and recruiting. It’s cost-effective and can allow organizations to distribute their message to a wide audience. It totally makes sense.

BUT keep in mind the audience is only the people who are on social media. So, if only young people are on social media…well, you get it. Then only young people get the message. If you’re thinking to yourself, “I’ve survived the past five years without being on Twitter so no need to join now.” Well, maybe it’s time to rethink that. Or if you’re saying, “I only need LinkedIn if I’m going to work in an office environment. Once I retire, I’ll delete the account.” Again, maybe it’s worth keeping. And more importantly…using.

Social media helps to establish our identity. I was listening to an AARP webinar recently that talked about personal branding and they made an interesting comment – having a social media presence is important because it proves you’re a real person. I have to admit, this was both obvious and insightful at the same time.

I don’t know about you but there are many times when a company tries to call me or connect with me that the first thing I do is look them up on the internet. Are they “real”? Or is this just spam? I’m sure people do it with me as well.

Even if you don’t plan to have a side gig in unretirement, it could make sense to keep a social media presence. For example, Keith and I recently met some couples in our new community. We had a nice time and talked about staying in touch. Of course, they’re already retired so they don’t have business cards. I thought, we can just connect on Facebook. Well, they don’t check their Facebook account. They have an account. But it just sits there. So not only are they not using it to connect with people, but they aren’t making sure it’s not a target for hackers.

I understand that there are days we all want to close our social media accounts and shut out the world. But there’s also some really fun stuff on social media. Like this article about gay penguins rescuing a neglected chick at a Denmark zoo. And a lot of really nice people. Bottom-line: social media can bring value to your unretirement and retirement. Start making the investment to learn and use it.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Las Vegas, NV

What We Are UP To – October 2018

October 24, 2018 by Sharlyn Lauby 6 Comments

Watching | Baby Driver

> I know this movie has been out for a while, but I heard so many wonderful things about the soundtrack, I had to check it out. While I thought the movie was somewhat predictable, the soundtrack is awesome and if you like chase scenes…you have to check it out.

Reading | Fair, Nonpartisan Election Information

> This year’s midterm ballot in Florida is over two pages long with amendments! I take voting very seriously, so I’m looking for good resources that will educate me on the issues. AARP recently ran an article listing four resources for election information: VoteSmart.org, RealClearPolitics.com, Ballotopedia.org, and PolitiFact.org. Get educated and take time to vote on November 6, 2018.

Remembering | The “Big” City

> One of the things that we knew we would have to deal with in moving to Gainesville, Florida was the size of the city. The population is about 130,000. We’ve always lived placed with 1M+ populations…and gotten accustomed to all the retail shopping, entertainment, restaurants, etc. that comes with a large city. During our last two October trips, we’ve found ourselves saying, “Oh! There’s The Container Store…” or “Ooooh, can we stop at Sephora?” LOL!

Working On | Tracking

> Weight Watchers has changed their name to WW and announced a new focus on wellness and wellbeing. I really like it. But I feel to get the full benefit that I’m going to have to do a better job of tracking my activities, which I must admit, I’m not the best. It’s all about taking it one day at a time.

Feeling | “Falling” For the Season

> Fall season in October could possibly be the very best. ‘nuf said.

Planning | Holidays

> Since we haven’t completely unpacked from our move, we’re trying to figure out the holidays. Of course, we have no idea how into the holidays people get around here. I must admit that very few people decorated for Halloween. But gosh, when we lived in Cincinnati, Halloween was a big deal. So, were trying to figure out if we make new traditions or keep old ones? Should we unpack the holiday decorations? Decisions, decisions…

Loving | Vionics

> As a speaker and trainer, I spend a lot of time walking and standing. So, I’m trying to be kinder to my feet. Especially since I’ve had two ankle fusions. I’ve seen Vionics for years but finally splurged on a couple of pairs. Very nice shoes, fashionable, quality materials, and most of all – comfortable. It did take some time to figure out the right size, but once that happened…I would recommend them highly.

Geeking | Duolingo

> Duolingo is an educational language app. I played around with it a couple of years ago and tried expanding my Spanish vocabulary. I must admit that I don’t believe I had the right mindset and quickly gave up. I’m not sure an app can make you fluent in a language. But I do like learning languages, so I decided to give it another try earlier in October. This time I’m going to work on my French. And maybe be less hard on myself…we’ll see.

What’s UP with you?