Can a Job Search be Gay?
No. It can only be effective or ineffective.
Before attending a SAGEWorks workshop on April 8, The Soul Search before the Job Search, I was curious how career advice in a LGBTQ+-welcoming and inclusive environment would be different. It’s not.
What is different is the feeling of support and understanding. This is the same reason I go to a gay doctor. Straight doctors are probably qualified but I’m less likely to go to one because of my fear of being judged. (The last time I went to a straight doctor, I needed to explain the Black Party so my allergic reaction to a rubber mask could be put into context.)
There were only a few reminders that the SAGE workshop was geared toward LGBTQ+-folk: for example, Dr. Howard Leifman, a nationally renowned career coach, likened the necessity to evolve and reinvent yourself to Madonna’s many incarnations. Vogue!
To help attendees decide what the heck we’re going to do with the rest of our lives, we were asked to complete the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) before the workshop. This tool helps you discover what kind of work is best suited for your personality traits. My MBTI® is an ESFP (Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving), which means I’m ideally suited to be Auntie Mame. Wish me luck.
Being nosey, I scanned the attendees. All genders, sexual orientations and ages were represented with people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and even 80s. While we came from diverse backgrounds and experiences, we were universally disappointed to discover our job hunting skills were very 2004. Sending resumes blindly is out, building a network is in. After all, 80 percent of job placements are the result of a personal or professional connection–so learning how to “work your network” is critical. SAGEWorks can show you exactly how to do that in any of its upcoming workshops or in its two-week employment boot camp this June.
Being only 45-years and 22-days old, and pretty tech savvy, I was surprised to find out how out of touch I was with effective job searching. In 1992, when I last pounded the pavement in earnest, I printed 50 resumes on heavy-stock light-grey stone-textured paper I selected lovingly at The Paper Warehouse. Dr. Leifman will explain how you can stand-out in a sea of job applicants (hint, it’s not by selecting heavy-stock light-grey stone-textured paper from The Paper Warehouse). With so much that’s new to know, I was especially as grateful for Leifman’s expertise as I was for his Madonna references.
— Jeff Stein, Communications Consultant, SAGEWorks
