The Upside of Being In Transition

I am a Job Seeker in Transition.

While being in transition, I’ve had time to reflect, learn some things about myself and learn a new skill.

1.  Through reflection, I’ve learned that I am able to build relationships by adopting a servant’s mentality. I talk about the servant’s mentality in another post “What I've Learned About Building Relationships (Part 1).”  The servant’s mentality is adopting a helping or enabling mindset with teammates.  A quick example is that when I was chairing the FISH! (Social) Committee at Combined Insurance, I helped to move tables and chairs from inside the building to the outside parking lot for company BBQ’s.    My participating in this task built up a lot of camaraderie between me and my colleagues, so much so that I could always count on the same colleagues to help whenever any task involved heavy lifting.   

 2.  I’ve strengthened a skill. I’m the type of person where if a friend suggests something to me (i.e., gives advice), I may not act on the suggestion right away – instead, I’ll file the suggestion in the back of my head and re-visit it as needed at some time in the future.   Around December 2013, a friend suggested that I write a blog, because it could help in my job search.  I didn’t know what I would write about and so I filed the suggestion away.  In December 2014, I wasn’t seeing any progress in my job search and so I re-visited my friend’s suggestion.  I thought maybe I could write about my experience as a Human Resources job seeker, and so my first blog post “Call Me Maybe” was born.  My friend’s suggestion and being in transition both edged me towards pursuing a blog.  Writing a blog is a great way to express your creativity and strengthening your writing skills!

 3.  When you’re in transition I find that you need to be able to strike up a conversation with people you don’t know. For quite a while, I felt a lot of trepidation.  My approach (to overcome trepidation) was to put myself in networking situations where I was forced to strike up a conversation with new people, all the while gaining practice with this skill.  Finally, on May 28, 2016 I proved to myself that I could strike up a conversation with people I don’t know and enjoy doing it!

On May 28th I attended my school reunion at the University of Toronto, and an event at MaRS Discovery District which was participating in Doors Open Toronto.  At the reunion I said to myself that I will sit beside some people at the BBQ lunch and talk to people I don’t know.  At MaRS Discovery District I wanted to go to a particular booth and talk to the entrepreneur/founder who might be there, because we share an interest in health and safety.  (FYI:  I am interested in working in the technology industry, and I look for events to attend where entrepreneurs may be in attendance.)       

The result was that I struck up a conversation with two people at the school reunion and two people at MaRS Discovery District!  I was lucky enough to talk to the entrepreneur/founder who I thought might be at the MaRS Discovery District/Doors Open Toronto event.     

To sum up, being in transition has an upside.  I reflected and realized that my best skill is in building relationships by adopting a servant’s mentality.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I practised a servant’s mentality as an HR professional at Combined Insurance. 

During my transition I’ve strengthened my writing skills by starting a blog. 

I’ve learned a new skill of striking up a conversation with people I don’t know.  Striking up a conversation with people you don’t know helps you to learn new perspectives and helps you to grow as a person.  

You hear about “things happen for a reason” and that “the only constant in life is change.”

I’m here to tell you that being in transition “happened for a reason.”

I would also like to tell you that I share something with all job seekers.

We JOB SEEKERS are RESILIENT and we ADAPT TO CHANGE!!!


Originally Published on LinkedIn:  June 9, 2016
Image Credit:  Pixabay