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Using Your Strengths to Find Your Next Dream Job at Any Age with Gehan "G" Haridy-Ardanowski - Ep 155

• Brenda Meller • Season 1 • Episode 155

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Discover Your Strengths to Find Your Dream Job

In this episode, I revisit a live-a-thon event I hosted in February 2024, designed for individuals looking for new job opportunities. The episode features a presentation by my friend Gehan, a LinkedIn consultant and strength strategist, who discusses the concept of a dream job and the importance of using CliftonStrengths to discover one's strengths. She shares her personal journey, insights on defining a dream job, and actionable advice on leveraging strengths in job transitions. I encourage you to visit the event's landing page for additional resources and playbacks. https://www.mellermarketing.com/wbl24

00:00 Introduction to the Live-a-thon Event

00:27 Gehan's Presentation and LinkedIn Recommendation

01:49 Introduction to G's Talk

03:47 G's Background and Transition Journey

07:09 Understanding and Embracing Your Strengths

12:48 Q&A and Final Thoughts

Connect with Gehan on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gehanharidy/


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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller
(click MORE to invite me to connect and mention you listened to my podcast)

Speaker 1:

Welcome back. Today's episode is a feature from one of my live-a-thon events. I call this a WBL live-a-thon. This was held back in February of 2024. The acronym WBL was an acronym which stood for Working but Looking, and this event was designed for individuals who are working but looking for a new job in 2024.

Speaker 1:

And what I did is I brought in a variety of different speakers, I had some panel discussions, I did a solo talk for myself as well, and recently I did is. I brought in a variety of different speakers, I had some panel discussions, I did a solo talk for myself as well, and recently my friend Jihan reached out to me and she asked me for a LinkedIn recommendation and I realized that I had this great interview with her from the Vault. It's actually a presentation that she gave during my session and I decided to re-listen to it so that I could give her a really thoughtful recommendation. And as I was re-listening to her talk, I realized that, gosh, this is a really great interview and I should definitely give her not only a LinkedIn recommendation but bring this into the podcast. So I'm presenting this to you today to let you know that there's really great insights in here.

Speaker 1:

Jehan's business has grown and evolved a bit as well, and some of the things she talks about in terms of services she's doing today may be a bit different if you go on her LinkedIn profile. But I think that's part of the process of being enthusiastically self-employed you shift, you grow, you evolve your business. So some really great insights in the interview here. I want to encourage you to listen to the full episode and if you're interested in watching the whole playback of her video looking at some of the resources that she offered, you'll just need to go to the landing page for the event. You can still get those playbacks If you go to mellormarketingcom slash WBL24, I'll definitely put the link into show notes for you as well. So I hope you enjoy the insights that she has to offer for you. I'm going to go ahead and get her LinkedIn recommendation ready right now that I've listened to this and go ahead and enjoy the show.

Speaker 2:

Kick us right on off with our very first speaker here today. G and I know each other from Metro Detroit. We've known each other forever and we've remained in contact as our careers have evolved. And G is going to be talking to you today about rich experience. What's next? Using your strengths to find your dream job at any age? And, g, I'm going to let you have the stage now. I'll be back in about 10 minutes Fantastic.

Speaker 2:

And you can hear me okay, right, you sound perfect and you look perfect and I'll be here for you the whole time Fabulous.

Speaker 3:

Thank you and good morning everyone. I'm so excited to be here. Or Thank you and good morning everyone. I'm so excited to be here. Or, dare I say, afternoon, maybe tomorrow somewhere in the world, whenever you're seeing this, it is about 9 am here in Texas, usa, and I'm delighted to be here and talk about an amazing topic. Really, it's all about something that many of us can relate to and hugely passionate about, which I'll dive right into.

Speaker 3:

So, before anything else, I need to share that I am big into quotes, so throughout the few minutes that we have together, you'll hear me splash a few in, and this one's important because, again, the future depends on what you do today. It's very specific and brief, but, if you think about it, you're here today for a reason, so you're going to hear various speakers talk on different topics, and not just for my own, but for theirs as well. Think about these three things. First of all, why are you here today? What brought you here? The second piece of that is what do you really want to gain from being here? And then, lastly, of course, you're going to write all your notes and you're going to get excited, but what are going to be your takeaways? What can you immediately put to action. So, brief agenda, I'll talk a little bit about myself, cover, a little bit about dream job, cliftonstrengths, and a little bit of what that looks like and how you can learn them and sharing your value with those. So I like to think I'm very qualified to be here today to talk on this topic.

Speaker 3:

I've been dubbed affectionately by a colleague over the years as the transition magician, and I've had my own fair share of transitions. I have had 20 plus years in human resources recruitment. Very long story short, I'm a recovering human resources pro, if you will, and current LinkedIn consultant and strength strategist, and really founded an LLC back in 2021 as a result of some transitions at the time, and my mantra right now is I guide you from glum gray to bold yay, by aligning LinkedIn strategy and strengths for visibility and career victory, and that's what you'll find on my profile. So, without getting into my degrees and certifications and all the, I will tell you in the past 20 plus years I've been through six plus termination slash layoffs, if you can phrase it, frame it any way you want, all with some sort of narrative to go with. And so my journey, similar to many of you probably catching this, wondering to yourself okay, what now? What do I do with where I'm at this particular stage in life? Do I keep going down the same clunky road or do I start to pivot? So it's not easy, but the one thing that I really am doing for myself, and encourage of others, is to bank on you, bet on yourself and anything that you really hope to accomplish going forward.

Speaker 3:

So let's talk about a dream job, right? So we've heard it over the years you start off in life you think you're going to be a doctor, a lawyer, an astronaut, a dancer, a physicist all kinds of different professions out there and as you grow up, you're instilled with all these belief systems. But what happens? Life, life, of course, a dream job as we get older, can take on various forms and might not necessarily have that intention that you initially set out with. You may think to yourself years ago I wanted to go into science and become an astronaut, but life got in the way. It's moving in the direction of something completely different. You've got work commitments, you've got health commitments, a bunch of other things that come into play with this. So really, at the end of the day, a dream job, whether it's based on a title, whether it's based on a location, whether it's nowadays, a lot of times a remote role would be ideal and dreamy for people. It can vary and everyone is going to have a different view on how that looks for them. So, really quick example in context for that dream job One of my clients actually she has twin daughters.

Speaker 3:

They're 17. One of them is going to follow in her mother's footsteps in the medical profession, knows exactly, or seems to, what she wants to do. The other one's still figuring it out. And in life, her ideal role, her dream job, is to find something with a reasonable wage quote unquote, literally that's what she said reasonable wage, $300 a month, car payment and wanting to be able to afford a dog and Netflix. So that's a dream job to her. That's what her life looks like.

Speaker 3:

So, as I said, it can vary for everybody and that's something that, based on what your values are and what you want for yourself, you need to figure through first of all what that dream role looks like for you. So the one thing that I really want to impress upon people is that any transition is easier if you believe in yourself and your talents, and many times we get so stuck on the you know what, the things that we've done wrong in our careers, what are our weaknesses, and that's why I'm a very big believer in Clifton strengths. And unfortunately I'm trying to get a slide for effect and apparently the effect didn't take place here. But what you should see on this screen is a big red line that says cross through and weaknesses, because today I do not want to talk about the weaknesses part. We want to lean into your strengths and what that looks like for you in your career. So, really quick story I actually discovered CliftonStrengths formerly StrengthsFinder as a result of being let go from a job about 10 plus years ago.

Speaker 3:

I'd struggled in it for two plus years, didn't know why I was struggling in it and at the end of the day, I was a financial analyst for PwC, number one accounting firm in the world. They found me and I went into a role thinking this is what I need to do and it's a dream company and a dream environment and everything. But the role was ill-suited for me. Amazing firm, an amazing opportunity. But it was just wrong. And the very day that I lost my job, I went to a networking event, sat down with a bunch of colleagues and friends and said hey, I'm here, I just lost my job an hour ago. Everyone had this delightful book in front of them called StrengthsFinder at the time and I took the assessment a week later. Thus my passion for strengths was born. So what are strengths for today's context?

Speaker 3:

Formerly known as strengths finder, now you're CliftonStrengths and it's a performance versus personality-based assessment, really doing a deeper dive into your true talents and who you are and how you perform best and show up at your best self. And these reveal your top five strengths or talents out of 34. So the point of the exercise, going back to that, what are your greatest strengths versus weaknesses? You really want to focus on the things that make you strong. It reveals your true talent, dna and uniqueness and offers several takeaways and, after taking an assessment, to identify those motivating factors and the things that drive you and what your working style looks like, and really gives you that clarity and those talking points and interviews. So, no matter what you do, going forward, it's a way of discovering what it is that you really want to do, so you know what you want from that dream job or what that could look like for you, based on how you want to frame that for yourself. But what are you bringing to it and how are you sharing that with the world? So, recognizing that these are your true talents and what you're strongest at doing and being, it's really empowering.

Speaker 3:

I've been able, over the past several years, to be able to say OK, I was a financial analyst in a role that I was not aligned with. It was misaligned with who I am and what my strengths are. I later learned, for some context, that analytical came down closer to the bottom, and one of the things I'll touch on too is the point of the exercise is never to focus on your weaknesses. You don't want to improve and struggle at those things that you are not innately wired to do and be to the world. You want to focus on the things that energize you and bring you that shine, and to others as well. So this takes you beyond being defined as your job title.

Speaker 3:

So, going back to your dream, your dream job, you want to be a VP of a company, you want to be a CEO, but why? What are you bringing to that? As your truest self? And the quick answer to should I download all 34? No, again, you do not want to focus on your weaknesses and, of course, sharing your value. You do this in your interviews, your talking points on how they align with the role in question. They serve as great icebreakers, they're energizing and you can say hey, are you familiar with StrengthsFinder Clifton Top 5? Those are interchangeable and networking. When you are on LinkedIn, when you're in group discussions, when you're meeting people just having those conversations, you're aligning yourself with people who really want to learn more about you and your value add. And then, lastly, of course, on LinkedIn, you can share that in your About section In different ways. You can talk about your top five and what that brings to your prospective employer and to your network.

Speaker 3:

So, of course, more quotes, the why fit in when you were born to stand out, paired with that go where you're celebrated and not tolerated, and not trying to continue to put your square peg into that round hole that we so often hear about. That's challenging. You want to make sure that the next phase in your life brings you that joy and leaning into the best parts of yourself, as opposed to staying stuck where you've been. So the three takeaways define what that dream job looks like for you. Again, it's taking it a step back from what it used to be, maybe when you were growing up. Learn to understand and embrace your strengths and uniqueness and share them tastefully with the masses, because, at the end of the day, if not now, when are you going to do it? This is a very pivotal time. Whether you've been laid off, pending layoff, considering that transition, what is that going to look like for you going forward? Okay, brenda, how am I for time?

Speaker 2:

like to do now is just see if there are any questions from anyone in the audience that Jihan can answer for you. I was taking some notes. I got some really great key takeaways for folks and, while we're waiting for those questions to come in Ji, if there's anyone that is interested in learning about working with you, can you summarize for us what are those services or those offerings that you might have?

Speaker 3:

I'm glad you asked. First of all, thank you for having me. And, of course, my pivot now involves working with people who really want to not only build, optimize and energize their LinkedIn profiles, but also starting deeper and going further with their CliftonStrengths and I'm a certified UMAP coach and what that does is it basically takes your CliftonStrengths and aligns with your skills, your values, your personality, and it really makes up your complete package and it's an amazing tool. It's relatively inexpensive. I'd love to share more.

Speaker 2:

Let's maybe take one question from our audience, all right. So I do see a few questions on here and I want to bring one up from Lori. Lori says do you suggest sharing your strengths on your LinkedIn or on your resume? What do you suggest? Sharing your strengths on your LinkedIn or on your resume? What do you think? Oh, wow.

Speaker 3:

That's a fantastic question. I briefly touched on this and if you go to my profile on LinkedIn, I think it's a great talking point and I added mine in, not only what they are the top five, but also how they actually can help somebody or guide someone, however you want to frame that. So they're absolutely great. If you do have room on your resume, it cannot hurt, but definitely include that on your LinkedIn profile, because that's all about your personality and value add.

Speaker 2:

All right. Awesome. I see a lot of great notes from people asking is this recorded? Will it be sent to attendees? Yes, all of this will be sent to all of you, Absolutely. I just want to thank you so much for helping to kick us out of this event and getting us started in our mindset and the right place to think about our strengths. So thank you so much for joining in.

Speaker 3:

Everyone. Yes, please connect with me, send me an invite and just tell me you met me here. Thanks everyone.

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