Activating Your Career Dreams to Achieve Work Life Balance

Today,  we are joined by Madeline Mackie, a certified career management coach, nationally certified online profile expert, and a National Resume Writers Association member. Madeline is a career advocate who helps clients build unique resumes and career plans. Today, she will talk about her process of assisting professionals to advance by creating a vision, cultivating the resources and activating their career dreams to achieve their desired life-work balance.

Madelyn Mackie: Good morning, Lauren. How are you today? 

Lauren Francis: Good. How are you doing?

Madelyn Mackie: I am doing excellent. It’s good to see you again. 

Lauren Francis: Yes, for sure. I’ve been so looking forward to this conversation.

Madelyn Mackie: Yes. How have things been going for you as the year comes to a close? 

Lauren Francis: You know, there’s a lot of candidates on the market right now. But it just seems that the hiring has really slowed. It’s a little bit different from years past. We can forget COVID for a minute because that was just one part, but it’s quieter, and I think there are more people on the market. Have you also felt the same? 

Madelyn Mackie: Yeah, many of my candidates who have not found a job yet are starting to panic because things have gone silent. Usually we always see a slowdown in November and December. First of all, the slowdown started sooner than normal. We always see a slowdown, but I’ve rarely seen a complete stop. Right now, it feels like almost a complete stop, and companies are in a holding pattern. 

Why do you think that is? I think it’s partially because of some of the unrest in the world, especially for our global and international companies. They’re just at a pause where they’re like, “There’s a lot happening right now, and we don’t know how this is going to impact us.” 

That’s one of the big things. I also think people are just tired. I think there is a heaviness. I’m sensing out there that companies are just like, “We’re fine. We just need to hold again. Everything is working. Let’s not rock the boat.”  They’re like, “The headcount is fine.” They’re not laying off. that has trickled off. We’re not getting an email or message every other day saying, “This company’s now laying off 30 people, and this company’s laying off 3,000 people.”

Lauren Francis: Yeah, you’re right. They’re being conservative that way. One thing that I haven’t heard in a long time is the layoffs at national staffing agencies. 

Madelyn Mackie: I think it’s a trickle effect because what I was hearing when they were going through the mass layoffs is that one of the departments hit the hardest was recruiting. They laid off their entire recruiting workforce. There have never been as many recruiters in the workforce right now looking for work in I don’t know how long. And I think it’s just trickled down that once the internal recruiters got laid off, the externals said, “Wait a minute, companies are hiring right now. We don’t need as many agents.” And so they’re laying off too, which I find interesting because they laid off their internal recruiters, so you need that external workforce. You need that external recruiting and staffing firms to fill your roles. But they’re like, “Nope, we’re not filling roles.” They really are on a hiring freeze right now. 

Lauren Francis: Absolutely. When you and I first talked, the first thing I admired was your energy and passion. I’m sure you hear that a lot, and I know it’s in your bio, but truly, it is infectious and authentic.  I love that you use the title Chief Career Activator. I have not heard of that title or positioning what you do that way. It’s very inspiring. 

So, today, we’re talking about activating your career dreams. I would imagine in this market that there are different stages or different places where that can actually take root. Right now, it’s a little bit tough. We just talked about the market and what’s going on there. If we could talk a little bit more about what we’re going to talk about today and what you would like to share with people who have the good fortune to listen to our conversation.

Madelyn Mackie: I think the big thing that I see is a lot of people just don’t know where to start to activate their career. For most people, it’s either their career transition is forced upon them because of a layoff, a bad toxic work environment, or internally. There are the external factors and the internal factors.

So, the internal factors are that they just want something different. They want to be promoted, advance, and stay at their company, but they want to do something different. I get a lot from both parties.

I think that’s a good place to start our conversation: Where do people start who want to do something a little bit different in their careers?

I usually have three steps that I talk to people about:
1. Creating a vision.
2. Cultivating the resources
3. Activating 

A lot of people get stuck in creating the vision or cultivating the resources, right? We all love research. We love trying to figure things out. I can, just through our conversation, walk people through those three steps of where to get started, which is creating that vision of what you want and where you want to go. 

Now that you have the vision, the next step is: What do they do next? They need to slow down and cultivate some resources, whether it’s writing their resume, getting some education, doing some market research, or doing some networking. You have to cultivate some resources.

And then, finally, you have to activate with smart goals. That’s the key component of how you stay motivated, right? Especially in a market like this, especially this time of year, how do you stay motivated with your career when right now this is a really great time to coast? Or, you know, a phrase they used a year ago was “quiet quitting.” But how do you keep engaged with your own career and not just let it happen to you? 

Lauren Francis: You’re talking about people who are employed and starting to look and those who are unemployed and looking. There’s probably a difference, right? Could you talk about that a little bit? 

Madelyn Mackie: Sure. So, let’s start with those who are unemployed. The unemployed are like, “What else should I be doing?” They’re looking for a magic formula. They’re like, “Madeline, what else you got?” 

I tell them over and over again that it’s like doing the laundry, right? You got to sort, wash, dry, fold, sort, wash, dry, fold. And the job search is the same way. You have to research, network, apply, interview, research, network, apply, interview. There’s no magic formula. The magic is the consistency, whether you spend five minutes a day on your job search or five hours a week. It doesn’t matter as long as you’re consistent. 

One of the biggest mistakes people sometimes make in a job search is they come out like gangbusters. They’re like, “I applied for 30 jobs, and I’ve reached out to my network, and I updated my LinkedIn profile.” They did that for two weeks, and then they stopped. I think it’s more important that you just spend 15-20 minutes a day. You’re gonna connect to one person a day and apply for one job a week, but you’re consistently doing that.

You’ll actually see better results. It’s almost like the person who works out for three hours one week and then doesn’t work out for the rest of the month, right? 

And then for the person who’s employed and wants to do something different, whether they want to transition internally to another role or department or out of the company, I think the biggest thing to do is, again, that same thing: create a vision, cultivate the resources, and activate to really get some clarity as to what that next job is.

We can talk about the specifics of how to find that clarity. My big thing I tell people all the time is: find the job description for your next job, find the next job you want at the company, and analyze it. Copy and paste it into Microsoft Word, highlight the things you know how to do in green and highlight the things you don’t know how to do in yellow.

What you’ve just done is a skills assessment and a gap analysis that’s visual. Because if you look at that job description and half of it’s green and half of it’s yellow, the yellow things are your professional development plan. Those are the skills you need to be learning. Those are the things you need to talk about with your supervisor and say, “Hey, I want to gain these skills. Can you help me create a plan so that in 12 months, I can take on more projects? Can I participate in meetings that cover this topic that I want to learn more about?” 

Now, it’s very tactile, right? Take a job description. You highlight the things you know how to do in green. You highlight the things you need to know in yellow. You visually see, “Oh, green things are the things I need to write on my resume. The yellow things are the things I got to learn. Those are the things I have to be ready for. That’s the thing I got to ask questions about.”

By doing that, even if you have no intention of applying for a job in the next year or two, you now have a plan. You now know what you’re going to do and what you’re working towards. So, in 18 months, when that dream job comes available, you’re better matched. You’re now 75 percent green. You have three-quarters of the skills you need to know how to do. 

Lauren Francis: That is empowering. I think that, too, with people who suddenly decide they want to make a change, and then it becomes this firing drill, as opposed to this plan that you’re thinking about and processing. It’s sort of like saving for a house, right? It’s a process, and you don’t just jump in. 

I like what you had to say: It’s really up to us to craft our own lives and careers. Sometimes, we put that on other people, like our employer or supervisor, and there are different challenges within organizations, management, and so on. Yet, people tend to say, “This isn’t working because of these reasons.” They then want to leave the job as opposed to investing in themselves. 

Madelyn Mackie: That’s the whole point. And that makes it more interesting, right? You may not want to be promoted. You may not want to change departments. But, if you take the attitude of, “I’m a lifetime learner, and I’m going to continually develop my skills,”  you will become more valuable within the company and you’ll make your job more interesting. You’re essentially writing your own job description by saying, “Oh, I want to do more of this.

I want to use this technology. Let me learn it and then introduce it to the team.” It just makes everything better. When you’re happier at your job, that extends into your personal life, it extends into your community. It has a bigger impact when you are satisfied internally rather than waiting for, “Well, if they pay me more, I’d be happier.”

That’s not gonna happen in this climate right now. I hate to say it folks, but right now it’s going to be hard. Compensations are really frozen right now, but if you could show your value, if you could have an impact, you have a better chance of getting that 10 percent raise. 

Lauren Francis: Sometimes, too, it’s about the journey because sometimes, what you set out to do could change into something that was even better, right? Let’s say you’re with an organization and then all of a sudden, they create a job for you because you’ve invested and the collaboration that you create. I think that sometimes we work in silos and, employers really are looking for people that are hand raisers who are wanting to jump in and have stretch assignments and to do different things. The planning is really great. And to have a coach that helps to craft that. I think this is very difficult to do on your own.

Madelyn Mackie: Yeah. Cause you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know what questions you should be asking. Like that simple exercise of go look at the job description, highlight what you know, highlight what you don’t. So many of my clients are like, “I never even thought of that.” But it’s a very simple first step.

 I was just talking to a client earlier this morning. and she was like, “I don’t know if I should take this job, this job, this job, this job.” And I said, “Do you have an interview?” She’s like, “Oh, I haven’t even applied.” And I was like, “Oh, let’s step back. Let’s step back and get organized.”

A lot of people, when you’re looking at the chaos in your home and you’re like, “I don’t know where to start.” You bring in another voice. Help me figure out where to start. You hire a home organizer to come in and say, “Well, let’s get some bins together and figure out where things put places in the different bins.”

I think working with a coach helps you kind of organize your thoughts and also asks you the tough questions about your career. For example, “Would you be happy in that?” Sometimes that simple question leads to, “I’m happy right now.” And I’m like, “Well, then, why are you going after something else?” “Okay. I thought that I was that’s what I was supposed to do.” 

Lauren Francis: I would think that this process makes a significant difference in the interview process for them, right? Because they are organized. They are prepared. They’ve had so much time to really invest in what their skill set is, what they’re good at, and what they’re wanting to do. Many times people stumble in the interview process because they’re not there. I mean, you could be prepared for an interview, but this part that we’re talking about actually does prepare you because you have more confidence. So yeah, it really makes a difference.  I really like what we’re talking about because it is an investment, like you said, it touches so many areas of your life. 

Madelyn Mackie: It’s not just work. I remember when, in one of my jobs, I was really unhappy. I cannot tell you just how unhappy I was. I would cry on the way to work in the morning, I would cry walking in the door, I’d sit in the parking lot before I walked in the door, and I would negotiate with myself and say, “If you get out of the car right now and go into this office, you can go to your favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch, and I’ll even let you have a little margarita before you come back to the office.”  because I had to bargain with myself.

And it impacted my relationships because I was so unhappy and I was so depressed. It impacted my finances. Cause even though I was making good money, I was spending way more money on Amazon and Zappos and going up to wine country and signing up for wine clubs and I don’t drink that much wine, but I just was trying to find something to make me happy because I was so miserable at the work, even though I was making a good salary, I had a good office. I had a short commute. I actually loved the organization, but the role was not the right role for me. 

It’s actually what motivated me to start my business and to help others start activating their career dreams. You work too hard and for too long and for too many hours to be that unhappy. 

Lauren Francis: No, you’re right. What’s changed for people? I’m just curious. What is different now? What has changed in our lives, in careers?

Madelyn Mackie: I think a lot has changed. And, you know, we harp on the pandemic, even though that’s kind of old news, but I think the scale has shifted that people really, do want life-work balance. It’s not work-life balance anymore. They’re like, “Here’s my life. Here are the things I want to do with my life. Here’s where I want to live. Here’s how I want to spend my time. How can I adapt my job to accommodate this life that I want?” Versus before it was like, “Here’s my work, and I will build my life around this work.”

That is not what people want today. They come into these coaching calls with me and say, “Here’s the kind of life I want. What job could I get that’s going to match that?” And compensation is no longer the dominant factor, right? Location, working from home, and working remotely are more dominant. Flexible work schedules. That’s very dominant. The perks such as what all the tech companies are doing, you know, “we do lunch” and “we do dry cleaning” and all of those. Nope. None of those. I could do my own laundry. Yeah, I got a washer and dryer. I don’t need people to do it for me, right? They’re more like, “I want to work with good people.. I want to work on things that have a purpose, that I believe in, and that matches my values.”

That’s really where some of their focus has changed that I’ve seen in just the last three years. 

Lauren Francis: LinkedIn, that profile and how you show up,  has changed too. 

Madelyn Mackie: Yes. Yes, our brand. People now understand I have a brand. Before it was about social media that people are all like, “Be careful what you post on social media because that’s going to impact your higher ability.” Now it’s really about people taking a more active role and ensuring they have a professional brand that speaks to the hiring community. And LinkedIn is a wonderful tool to help them with that, that I see more traction. People are sharing more on LinkedIn about their career struggles. They’re no longer just putting on a happy face of, “My career is great and I love my job.”

They’re all like, “Hey, these are some challenges that I’m facing. This is what I’m looking for in my next role. This is how my job search is going.” I see a lot of posts where people will say, “I applied for this many jobs and I’m getting these rejections and someone help.” And it’s not just, you know, the younger generation, people talk about the millennials and Gen Z and all of that. It’s not just them doing that. I see everybody doing that. I see everybody saying, “Here is what’s happening. Help.”

Lauren Francis: There’s four generations in the workplace now. Everybody’s in these different places, the four generations, sure, but then it seems like we all want the same thing. It’s not separated as much. 

What are the biggest mistakes people make on their LinkedIn profile, and what are the top three that you tend to see?

Madelyn Mackie: Number one, they don’t have a photo, or a professional photo. I don’t mean you have to go to a photo studio and have one taken, but you need to have a headshot. It needs to be shoulders and above the way you look today, not the way you looked 10 years ago. It needs to be a neutral background. I don’t want to see the hand, hair, or significant other that you’ve chopped out of the photo. It needs to be a nice, clean, high-resolution professional photo. I think that’s a big thing.

The second thing is they’re not putting enough content in their LinkedIn profile. They’re saying, “Oh, I want them to ask me about my work history and things like that.” If you do not have enough content to capture someone’s attention that shows your value, then they’re not going to call. 

So, you need to have a completed LinkedIn headline, which means your work history. You need to show the impact. Just like we talk about on the resume, you need to have results that you’ve achieved at that company for at least your most recent job. 

The final mistake I think people make is they’re getting too cute sometimes with it. They have this snazzy headline that says something like, “Office Magician and Organization Guru.” You have to remember that LinkedIn is a search engine and that the recruiters in the hiring community use the search feature to find you. Even my title Career Activator, no one’s going to put career activator in the search box to find me. It says resume writer, career consultant, and trainer because those are the common phrases and words that people are using to find me. And then, yes, I have Career Activator because that’s my brand. But you have to find that balance. Do not get too cute with it. You need to be searchable. So, your headline, your job titles, the skills section, that lovely skills and endorsement section. Because all of that Impacts the algorithm that searches for you. 

Lauren Francis: Those are all so important. The other thing, too, that I’ve noticed, and I think part of this came with the pandemic, but sometimes people are too, how do I say this, are too, expressive about, about “me.” “I want” or “I need.” And so what an employer will see is: this is a high-maintenance employee. Would you agree? 

Madelyn Mackie: I would. Absolutely. I think that people do not realize you have to give your employer, the hiring community, their, “What’s in it for me?” They don’t want a “Jack of All Trades.” They don’t want a utility player. They want a subject matter expert who gets results. So, your content and your profile on LinkedIn must showcase, “Here’s my expertise, and here are the results that were achieved through that expertise.” 

That’s what gets you hired. Or let me rephrase. That’s what gets the phone call that when they say, “We want to have a conversation with you. You said you led the XYZ campaign that generated the following results. I want to talk about those results. How did you do it?” Too many times I see on a profile, they say, here are all the things I did, but you don’t tell me the impact of all the things that you’ve done. I actually would rather see the impact first because if I see generated 1. 2 million in revenue within three months, secured the largest government contract for the new product, launched a new product within 30 days with no issues, those things make me go, “I want to know more about that.” That’s what makes me reach out to you and say, “Hey, I want to have a conversation with you about some of the things you wrote about in your LinkedIn profile.” And then during the interview, you can share the activities you did. so the results and the impact is really important.

Lauren Francis: Do you utilize STAR method with your candidates?

Madelyn Mackie: I do. STAR: situation, task, action, results. Are you sore? Situation, obstacle, action, results. And I tell them that your resume should be the A and the R, the actions and results, not the situation, not the task. So, the actions and results should be in the bullet points on your resume.

Then you can expand on it in the interview using the star method to answer questions. Even that analyzing of that job description, if we go back to that green and yellow exercise, every bullet that you highlighted in green, you should have a star story about. Every single one.

The way you prepare for an interview is you take that job description, and I use an Excel worksheet or a Microsoft Word table or whatever works. You put one bullet per cell, and then for each bullet, you put the words, Give an example of whatever the bullet says, so manage a diverse team, you put, give an example of managing a diverse team. You write the star story, what’s the situation, task, actions, and the results, and I tell people, keep the situation short, it should be one sentence, that’s a big mistake people make, is in the situation, they want to give the whole back story, they want to tell all the details of all the nonsense and the politics that went on in it, no, no, no, one sentence, I was put in charge of the XYZ project.

The tasks that had to be completed were one, two, and three—three simple tasks—the actions I took. Now, here’s the most important part of the Star Story: Five i’s in the A. Too often, we say we did this, and we were in charge of this, and we coordinated this. But the goal is to showcase your expertise. So, by saying I budgeted, I coordinated with senior staff, I facilitated the meeting, I wrote the proposal, I used this technology on this project, that is sharing your expertise. Finally making sure you have three results. And I say, tie those results first of all to time. How quickly did you do this? So, time, money, if there was any type of money, money saved, money generated, and finally, who was happy about the project? What was the difference that was made? And if you do that, if you follow that formula, a short situation, three tasks, five actions, three results focused on time, money and happiness, you’re going to have a great interview.

Lauren Francis: Absolutely. That’s so energizing to hear you talk about it because, but I think that everything you’re saying makes sense. It’s logical. It is inspiring, and I think it inspires the individual. Yet, to do this alone is hard. It’s so difficult. There’s sometimes when I work with candidates, they’re not really ready. They want those things, but they’re not ready to invest in this way. And sometimes they never are, which is, fine. But, you have to be in a place where you’re ready to embrace these things, because I think it brings up a lot of stuff for people.

We don’t want to be rejected in whatever situation we’re in. It doesn’t matter what part of life it is, whether you’re turned down for a job or whatever. I think what happens for people is it becomes very depressing. I always tell people, “Try not to focus on the outcome. Focus on the outreach.” We cannot control what other people do, but we can control how we react to things. Somebody else can’t ruin our day. You know what I mean? You let them ruin your day. There’s that confidence building and that messaging. You really need to put sticky notes on your desk or do whatever to remind yourself.

I also think that communication could improve for so many. When people receive a call or email that they’re not selected and they don’t respond to it, that is a big, huge mistake because it’s how you show up and how you respond in those communications that creates future opportunities.

This is the most amazing message that we’ve received from someone that didn’t get the job, and they call them. That’s a part of networking.

Madelyn Mackie: Right. It’s all about relationships. And, people say, “Oh, I don’t send thank you notes.” Thank you notes are a huge thing that can make a big difference, especially if it comes from the heart and is authentic. You’re building authentic relationships with this community. It may not be an immediate reaction, but later on down the line, they’re going to remember you. And you never know when that phone’s going to ring with a great opportunity because you built a relationship. 

Lauren Francis: Absolutely. So important. Is there anything else you want people to know that are listening? And also,  I’d like to know a little bit more about how you are structured so that people know how to access part, the services you have to offer.

Madelyn Mackie: I wanna just tell your audience and everyone that you can do this. You can activate your career dreams. Take some time, set aside some time to create a vision of what it is that you want in your next role. Figure out what resources you need and then set some smart goals to activate. Create, cultivate, activate.

You can do this. Pay attention to your career. Many of us, our career happens to us. Instead take the wheel. You drive your own career. That is the best thing that you can do to shape the career and the life that you want.

 For the best way people can get ahold of me. Our firm, Madeline Mackie and Associates, we are a high touch, high engagement boutique career management consulting firm. We can help you with your resume, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, interview prep, job search strategy, and salary negotiations. The best way to reach me is through LinkedIn. You can reach out to connect with me on LinkedIn. When you go to my profile, click that “more” button and reach out to connect.

You can also go to my website, [link] madelinemackey.com and set up a 30-minute consultation with us where we’re going to talk to you about your career story, your background, where you’re coming from, where you want to go and how we can support you. I have a whole team of resume writers, executive career coaches, a client engagement lead, and me, Madeline Mackey, who will surround you in career activation.

Lauren Francis: I love it. It has been so helpful to have this conversation with you and to learn about all that you do and all that your team does to support people in so many different ways. And I really appreciate having you on today.

Madelyn Mackie: Thank you, Lauren. It’s been a pleasure. And you know, our job is to get our clients ready to work with your team.

Lauren Francis: Absolutely. We will continue. Mulberry has a list of [link] Partners We love, and you are on that list. So, we send people to our Partners We Love all the time so they can find people that can can help them in their careers.