How do we turn down the volume of career and personal growth and increase the sound of impact?
Career navigation is a loud conference hall, Times Square, and the Vegas strip all in one.
First, let’s rewind.
I entered the LinkedIn room and the overall job market when it was mostly people in business casual talking about a session they were holding at an event, and the occasional “I’m looking for work” post. Yes, it was boring, but at least it was clear what people were doing there.
Now, well. It’s…a lot.
Hate to say it, but I kinda miss the old days even if they were a bit boring. No one had to have a shiny brand approach. Everybody and their dog didn’t have a masterclass. It was much easier to see what people actually wanted, and there wasn’t even the concept of MLM job scams.
The fact that people are scamming job seekers…there’s a special level of hell that those folks fit into. That’s an entirely separate topic that I’ll address at a later time.
It feels like the job market as a total is a very loud conference hall with thousands of people yelling ‘over here’, bright flashing signs, and just overall chaos. Getting noticed in this environment doesn’t necessarily mean you have the best thing to say, it just might mean you are the loudest, flashiest, or are giving away something to pull people’s attention.
Ok, so yes, at a conference you might have the prettiest booth, a happy hour, or a massive unicorn to take pictures on, but are any of the people you interact with in your target market? You are collecting contact info and scanning badges like mad, feeling like you are getting leads, but when you go home and try to contact them you get no response (true story).
You might post selfies on LinkedIn constantly to cheat the algo, or have a support pod help forward your content, but in a pinch will all those likes get you a job, a deal, insight, or growth? Job seekers now have AIs applying for 100 jobs a day. I cannot even begin to imagine that’s targeted.
We’re tired.
It’s all exhausting, expensive, and depressing. It’s just gumming up the already broken system. We’re wearing ourselves out for this attention based economy that we are paying to setup, attend, interact, and deal with.
I talk to a fair amount of job seekers who struggle to keep up the energy, differentiate themselves, and protect themselves from scams. They’ve got trauma from toxic roles prior to a layoff, they are exhausted from reject after reject of what seems like they are a grand fit.
The other day, after I admitted I was worn out and out of steam to a coachee, he let in on where he was at. It was an incredible visual. He said “I’m making water to make steam”. We have people tapping into non-existent reserves, pulling energy from the thin air to keep going.
Something has to give. That give can’t come from the people. It has to come from the systems around us.
How do we fix all these problems? I’m not here to just complain.
Do we need things like:
breakout rooms instead that have a better focus on what we really want
systems that don’t repost jobs that thousands have applied to already
a rating system for companies on their interview process and hiring transparency
an ability to hit the mute button
Yes, and more.
Conferences make money off the chaos and traffic.
A massive conference hall wants you to stay in the chaos and mess of the tradeshow floor. That’s where they got their money from to have the conference in the first place is all the booths. Ticket sales make dollars, but those booths also cost a ton. Let’s not even touch the sponsorships.
Those booths are all hoping that they’ll just find one person that will invest or sign a contract that will make their investment and time worth it. Having been on both sides of that scenario, I’ve rarely seen people feel like they got out of it what they need. But these big shows have enough chaos and churn to keep selling tickets and booths, with that vibe of hope of the big sale.
Social media makes money off the chaos and traffic.
Social media platforms are the same. They are compensated by your presence, not your lack of it. Their ads are bought based on potential eyeballs. This is why people have literally said “let’s monetize those digital eyeballs”.
It’s all highlight reel stuff - everyone is keyed up and at their most energized. They are in sales mode, not doing mode. They are all going to 11.
All the world’s a stage
Shakespeare knew it. It’s not the everyday real detail of how any of the people or products truly operate. But it appeals to our emotions. It’s exciting, it makes us feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. We can build up these personas in life and sell them for a living.
If we are merely players, let’s change the game
But where do we truly learn how to do the work, when do we do the work, and does this approach help us really solve the problems of the world? Or does it just bring more noise, waste, confusion, and disconnection?
I can’t imagine think tanks are a full on conference hall vibe all the time, nor are universities, brainstorming meetings, or coaching sessions.
The biggest and most useful lessons I’ve learned in business that I’ve carried with me, and the most lasting relationships and deals have not been from these environments.
They are from the DMs, the 1:1 conversations in a real or digital hallway, or the digging into a problem.
It seems like we’re missing something, here. What if these spaces and events compensation came from getting things done and having an impact on the world?
ChiliPiper recently had a booth at Inbound, a marketing conference, that had a very simple screen.
# of meetings booked
Pipeline generated
Forecasted new customers
For prospects: that meant motivation, they want to be on that screen.
For booth staff: they want to up those numbers
For everyone else around: they get to see it be a game and how a booth actually performs
It wasn’t flashy, it wasn’t dramatic. It was real life.
Why is this important?
Maybe we’re losing the ability tell what’s real, or separate our everyday from the highly curated feeds. We already know that social media’s lens can have dramatic effects on mental health, but yet we’re doubling down.
Would it be so bad if we started building social media to be more real to show true impact. Show the receipts of the time we spend on this planet. Take our focus away from likes:
impact scores on how it helps our communities or planet
rolls up how we protected revenue or teams, or increased revenue or productivity
how we mentor or help others learn
validate other’s work and help highlight it, build a knowledge base
build communities of support around each other
use our collective knowledge to build action plans
Along these lines
Ecosia shows how many trees it’s been able to plant through search
Catchafire.org shows how much time, and the associated dollar value, people have volunteered to organizations in need
What if you could choose a platform to improve on:
deforestation
micro loans
hunger
What if we reduce the chatter and pull in the sound of impact instead?
I’m going to challenge anyone reading this to reach out to a real, actual human - make a goal of doing it at an interval.