I don't know what I want to do with my life: The Career Mapping Guide

Frequency podcast network, stories that matter, podcast that resonate. If I let my 17 year old self make serious adult life decisions for me, I'd be married to a fucking monster. My 17 year old boyfriend, that's a whole podcast, perhaps even a criminal minds, but for some reason we expect 17 year old 18 year old kids really to be making very serious long-term decisions about their career. Everything from what electives they're taking in grades 11 and 12, what college or university or education pathway they're going to take, somehow we expect them to understand what all of the available career options are and stick to that because the shit's expensive. But even beyond the scope of being 16 and 17, apparently at 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, all of these very young ages, we're expected to know exactly where we want to go because if we don't figure out what career path we're actually right for, well we're going to get left behind because if I don't get that analyst job at 20, how am I going to be a director by 30? Today's episode is dedicated to helping you figuring out what the fuck you want to do for the rest of your life. Really listening to clock in with Emily Durham and I'm so happy that you are here and if you are in the mood, you know what, I'll stop it right there. If you're in the mood, why not just leave a rating and a review for the show, it's how we grow and it literally is non-stop free career advice. Hello, you don't know who you're going to help by giving the show a little bit of love. I am deeply passionate about this episode topic and if you have been listening to me for a while, this won't be shocking information, mostly because I think it is so effing ridiculous that we have to make such big career decisions at such a young age, at an age where we are frankly making non-stop bad decisions, at 17, for me personally, I thought I was going to be somehow both a lawyer and an actress, I'll let that sit in settle with you, right? That totally adds up. At the time, I thought, you know what, I can always go to law school later, I'm going to get into theater, I had applied for all of these great theater schools, I had applied to York, I had done my audition, I had gotten in, I was so excited, I did one day of classes only to realize, like hold up, I don't want to do this, you know what I want to do, I want to get into finance, yeah, natural transition, switched my degree, moved into finance. Four days of that, hated it, no surprise, I can't count, that was just bad advice. And after that last, you know, degree switch, to be honest, I was hitting the panic button, I had no idea what I wanted to do, no idea what I was even good at, and honestly I didn't know what the options were, in my head, the only options were lawyer, actress or marrying really rich, three things I have struck out on historically. But the real issue here isn't changing your mind because most people do, most people do switch their majors at least once or twice. The real issue is we don't have access to knowing a how to figure out the career paths that are good for us, and be understanding what those paths even are, and I won't bore you with the rest of my career story, but evidently ended up neither in finance nor theater ended up getting my degree in HR, and it was purely by trial by error, I flipped a coin, I'm not if I'm kidding, but I had to switch out of finance because I was hating my life, I looked at all of the degrees available online that I could move easily into when I was at York University, showed up to York, I saw PR, I saw HR, I saw general business, I flipped a coin, and I was like, all right, I guess I'm going to work in human resources, and that's kind of just how shit shook out for us. We're going to start off with learning how to detach from the notion of a dream job because you cannot dream of work and actually have a career that means something to you. I'm going to walk you through how to narrow down your options, and most importantly, how to actually land that job. I don't know who needs to hear this, but it's incredibly strange to ask kids what they want to do when they grow up or what their dream job is. I think it's strange to ask people to dream of labor, sure you can have career aspirations and want to achieve certain milestones, but the risk of asking these questions generally, but especially early in your career, and even more so when you're really young, is that we only dream of the jobs that we know are available. And think of the media, the media is the easiest way to depict this. When I was young and growing up, which obviously was like what, 10 years ago, because I'm incredibly young and fresh, I would be watching Family Channel. And on Family Channel, what were the careers I was predominantly exposed to? Well Raven Baxter was a fashion designer, and I knew that was probably not going to be me. Lizzie McGuire was eternally in high school, so that was irrelevant, but I basically saw people work in creative industries, work as a teacher, a lawyer or a doctor. My parents worked in general business and insurance, and they seemed miserable, so I opted not to go forward with that. So all of the jobs on my, I wish I could do that list, were all derived based on the things I had exposure to. I didn't know jobs like, I don't know, being an entrepreneur even existed. I didn't know niche jobs in technology even existed, because we're largely informed, especially at a young age, by the information around us. I think this is one thing TikTok and the rise of social media is actually really good for it, because a day in the life vlog of a cheese monger, hello? I would have changed the trajectory of my life, like I would be somewhere, paring cheese, in the most luxurious place in the world. There's also the very real sex appeal of certain job titles, you know? Your parents are going to be extra proud if you're a lawyer. You saw how they spoke about your cousin, who's a doctor, right? And you internalize all of those things, certain job titles, career paths, they feel like they're going to do your family proud. They feel like they're going to guarantee income, they guarantee some kind of status, and not because your status hungry, but because we all just want to do our parents proud. And that can also largely inform the career paths that we get into. A lot of us have done the career path we think we have to do, or the thing that we have the most access or understanding of because of how we were raised. And then suddenly you wake up one day and realize, I don't want to do this forever. Or even worse, I have no idea what I want to do. So step number one, before we can even help you understand what you want to do with the rest of your life, which by the way, by the end of this episode, I guarantee we're going to get you there. You need to deconstruct where the myth of the dream job has come from. The dream job you had as a kid does not have to be the thing you want to do right now. The dream job you come up with at the end of this episode doesn't have to be what you do for the rest of your life. All that's doing is adding pressure, making you feel stuck and removing your ability to change your mind, which is the most powerful thing you can do throughout the course of your career. My challenge for you, as we get into the how to do this, is to stop thinking about the perfect job and start thinking about the dream life. What does your ideal life look like and how do we find work that fits into that? We no longer operate in a job market where if you pick your dream job, you're basically guaranteed to an extent job security. We have seen layoffs if you listen to last week's episode at an all time high. There have been over 1.5 million people laid off in the US alone in 2025 alone. What is a crazy statistic? That is some of the highest we've seen since the peak of the layoffs in the pandemic. Unprovoked. What does that tell us? It tells us you have to stop dreaming of labor and you need to start being selfish with your career path so it fits into your life and not the other way around because the old school way of figuring out, oh, this is what I want to be a doctor because it's sexy career and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Things are not guaranteed anymore. We need to shift and flip the script and I need to personally reform the entire education system. If that works for you, I swear to you, I was on a podcast, my friend to my good pal, Rick, my friend, Rick, he already podcasted a couple weeks ago and we were talking about this and he looked at me and he's like, should you run for education minister and I was like, Rick, love you, buddy. I cast on the podcast 63 times in episodes. I do think that ship has sailed, but we have such an opportunity as a society to better equip people with understanding how to figure out what you want to do, not just because of a stupid fucking career aptitude test, but on an ongoing basis. So your life is not miserable after you graduate. So what does your dream life look like, or at least a really good life, forget about work for just 30 seconds, before you can figure out what you want to do for work, you need to figure out what your life actually looks like in the perfect world. How many hours are you working a week and don't go saying some stupid shit like four hours? We need to be realistic. Are you someone that likes to work a bit more? Do you like structured hours? I personally am someone who loves like a structured nine to five. Are you someone who's okay working mornings or evenings, weekends? What does overtime look like for you? Are you potentially commuting into the office? What kind of clothes do you like to wear? Do you like to have a bit more interaction with people, less interaction with people? Actually think about the structure, the logistics, how do you spend your time? That is the first thing. If you're listening to this, I actually want you to take out your phone or a pen paper, write this stuff down. It is so incredibly helpful. Disclaimer. If you don't know what you want to do with your life and you are 17, that's totally normal. If you don't know what you want to do with your life in your 30, maybe 40, maybe 50, that is also totally normal. You're allowed to change. All you need to have is the tools and the skills to figure out how to evolve overtime because you are never stuck in one thing forever. Now that you've started to think about what your dream life might look like, including the actual nitty-gritty details of how you spend your time, if you like your evenings to yourself, your mornings to yourself, what your dream life would look like. The next thing I want you to do is on your little piece of paper or your phone notes app, whatever sparks joy for you. I want you to write a list of things you fucking hate. Things you hate. I'm talking hate with a capital H. I actually believe you can learn a lot more about what you should be doing for work by knowing what you dislike and paying attention to it. It doesn't just have to be stuff through work, it can be stuff in your personal life. On the list of things that I hate, really dislike numbers at a high volume. I can use data to inform things, but I don't like to work in the leads of data. I personally get very, very bored when it comes to things like catching little errors and little details. I actually don't have a great attention to detail. That's not something that I enjoy. It stresses me out quite a bit. I can't be by myself all day. I absolutely hate it. It is the worst thing in the world. And this is bad. I know I don't like working around kids. I worked at summer camps. It was a long four years. Okay. I just, I can't do it. I need to be around big kids. I need to be around adult. Love kids. Can't work with kids. This list could go on and on. Think of the stuff at school. You really have just like doing historically. Think of things you learned at your internships or even think of things when you're with your friends. Do you hate being the person to make the reservation? Write that down. Do you hate being the person to give your friend feedback on their poor behavior or their bad boyfriend? What are the things that actually give you anxiety and you're like, fuck, I don't want to do this. Make a list. Don't be shy. Throw it all on there. I promise this is going to be relevant. Next. Same piece of paper. Different piece of paper. I don't know. I'm not going to police how you write these things down. I want you to write down all of the things you enjoy doing specifically in your personal life. Of course, you can add things in from work, but think about what you enjoy doing when you're with your friends, your loved ones, your family, write that shit down. For me, certified yapper, I love talking to strangers. Like, I literally, if I'm at a bar and a stranger comes up to me, yep, yep, yep, I'm going to yap the entire time. I absolutely love listening to Ted Talks. I'm always like thinking of, okay, what would I do? Like, what would I talk about? I love presentations. I love improv. I think it's so much fun big X theater kid over here that's always a vibe. I love conversations with people who are like a bit younger than me earlier in their careers. What I'm with my friends, I am the social committee, right? I'm the person planning the games. I'm the person saying, let's go to this restaurant. I love being an organizer, a connector, all of that stuff is so much fun to me. I need to take a deep breath because y'all, I've kept a secret from you for two years. Like a big fat two years and if you follow me on Instagram, or if you're on my YouTube channel, TikTok, LinkedIn, the whole shebang, this might not be something you're totally unfamiliar with, but this week I was finally able to formally announce clock in the book. Yes, clock in, which is like the labor of love, the book that I've been writing literally for two years, first of all, one day I'll do a deep dive on the process because holy cow, reading a book is crazy. It was absolutely bananas, but it's officially here. And this book is truly every single piece of information in my brain when it comes to careers. Everything from how to figure out exactly what you want to do at any stage in your career, how to pivot, how to grow in the role that you have, how to job hunt, how to optimize the way you speak, the way you write your resume, in a way that's AI proof and frankly anxiety proof, all the way to the end of how do you leave a job? Is it time to go? And most importantly, how do you detach your sense of self from your job? Step by step, eliminating that workplace anxiety, so you could focus on the most important thing, getting paid and getting the fuck out of there, okay? So if you're interested in reading clock in, it is on pre-order right now. The actual book physically comes out in stores in May. But pre-sales are actually really, like I didn't even know this, they're really, really important for the success of the book. They really determine like what shelf space they get in stores. So if you're thinking of buying, oh my god, first of all, thank you. I love you so much. I think you're going to love it just as much as I loved writing it. And don't wait, baby, you're helping mama. And honestly, I think you're going to absolutely love it. And the time of year is perfect, it's such a good time for job hunting. We've got new grads in May. So anyways, I can talk about this forever. I will, for the sake of this episode, shut the heck up. But all I have to say is thank you so, so much because this would not exist without you. If you're interested in clicking the link and learning a little bit more about the book or even seeing that sexy cover, because one thing I was very adamant on is this book was going to be cute and we did not disappoint. The link to pre-order is in the description of this episode as well as my link tree. So it will be in all of the episodes at moving forward from this as well. But thank you so much. I'm so freaking excited. Maybe I'll do like a mini-show just giving you an update. That might be fun. We'll see. Click the link in the description of this episode, check out the book. I think it's a very chic accessory and even more chic on the inside. Thank you so much for being here and I'll let you get back into the episode now, but I just had to hop in and share. Now, I'm about to change your life because this is so simple and this is truly all it takes. Take a look at your list of things you absolutely hate doing. Guess what? We are going to avoid jobs that have that like it's the fucking plague. So if there's a job that has a lot of data, obviously that is not a good qualifier for me. But the list I want us especially paying attention to is the list of stuff you like in your personal life. We're going to use that to actually search up jobs with those skills. It's really as simple as that. So when you look at your list of things you enjoy in brackets next to it, write down what skill that is. If you're stuck, this is where AI can be super helpful. I'm not going to lie to you. For example, for me, I love planning things with my friends. That's community events. That literally is a job skill. That is something that will be useful. You love analyzing movies. You love creative analysis. You love looking at true crime documentaries and trying to figure out who did it. You have really deep problem solving skills. You like to get to the root of the problem. You like to investigate. That is a real skill. These are not made up fluffy things. Go through each one of the things that you like, write the skill next to it. And then what we're going to do is look up jobs that align to those skills. And obviously, specifically, the ones that do not include the shitty stuff. That's on your, I hate this list. So for me personally, I know that I enjoy the community building side. I like public speaking, coaching. I love all of that. I love meeting new people. If I looked up on Google right now, jobs where you meet new people, coach people and deliver presentations, I would get career pathways like marketing strategist, like recruiter talent acquisition leader, jobs that I have either done or would be really interested in doing. Again, if you're stuck and you're like, I don't know how to process this, go into co-pilot, type in all of the things you like, all of the things you don't like. And this is not cheating, by the way, this is working smart, not hard. Ask co-pilot. What are job titles, specific job titles that don't include me doing this, but do include me doing that. And you're going to find niche jobs. For example, I was speaking to someone not too long ago, one of my younger cousins. She's obsessed with true crime docs. She doesn't want to work in criminology. Mama's got a bad stomach. She's like, I can't get into this, but she loves watching a documentary and like predicting what the issue is going to be. She also really likes numbers. I was like, do you realize that being a forensic financial analyst is not only an incredibly high paying job, but one of the coolest things you can do where you're investigating high skill financial crimes, and she said, well, that's impossible to get into. Do you know, banks have hundreds of those people working for them? They make over $100,000 here. Hello, it's the little jobs you don't realize exists because we're thinking of the job first, not our skills and interests first. You are priority, not fitting into the binary box of whatever the fuck that job is. And my challenge for you is every two or three years, I want you redoing this assessment, is what you want is going to change. Your ideal life is going to change. Maybe you hit a phase where travel matters more to you. Maybe you're settling down, having kids, flexibility matters more to you. These things are allowed to change and the only way it works is if you redo this exercise every time you get that yucky feeling of what the hell am I supposed to do with the rest of my life. Now that you have determined what you want to do for the rest of your life, congrats on the updated life sentence. This is exactly how we are going to crack into whatever industry you want to get into in 2026. Okay. This is not dated advice. For the love of God, please talk to someone who does this job because a job can look sexy on YouTube. Yeah. It can look real sexy on TikTok. The job description. She's scrumptious. But you talk to someone actually doing the work and you realize this sounds effing awful. So before you put all of this effort into getting new accredations, maybe changing your major, doing all of these things, can we please just take a second and do a little assessment to make sure it actually in practice feels good for you. The best example in the world of this was me with my quote unquote law career. I was convinced, as I said, very much wanted to be a lawyer somewhere in the mix of also wanting to be an actress question mark. I was just trying to do it all. But I had done all of this research online about what law looked like career wise. I knew there was long hours. I knew that it was going to be really intense with articling. It all was fine for me. I was like, no, no, this is great. As I've gotten older, I have met with and worked with many lawyers. And when you actually talked to them about what those long hours look like, the culture of some of the firms, how much they actually get paid when they calculate how many hours they work. And suddenly, it's no longer the sexy job that I saw on suits because what a good show that was. It is much more real, and it's something that didn't really align to the life that I had in my list. And it actually infringed on some of the things on my, I don't want that list. And suddenly becoming a lawyer didn't really feel like the right path for me 100%. My word of caution, before you commit to the bit, please talk to someone who does the work. I wish this was something that we talked about for people in high school or for people in university or freshly graduated, maybe even considering a master's or post-secondary education or graduate education, rather. Just having conversations with people who do the work can be so meaningful. And I don't know why we make it so hard and so inaccessible. Like, imagine that careers course in high school had real people working very real jobs coming in, talking about it. Here's what it's actually like to be a business analyst, I think. Here's what it's actually like to be a plumber and own my own business. All of these things would have been life changing and so helpful. Instead, I took a midwife quiz on the internet and then I had to make scrapbook about it. That was great. Now if the thought of networking makes you absolutely sick, I have lots of great content for you. Or if that's not accessible based on your timing right now, go on TikTok or YouTube. Watch vlogs of people in the career that you want. I'm telling you, you can find so much incredible information there. Although I do think it's best to have that conversation with a real person if possible, it's a very close runner up. The best way to crack into a new industry or change careers or get into your career for the very first time is asking that person that you connected with how I mean, obviously there's stuff that's always valuable. I have so much content on how to update your resume, how to apply for jobs. All of that. Go listen to that. I'll link it in this episode. Like go, go do that. But there's so much value in you asking someone who's in the industry, how does you do this? Because they might give you something you didn't consider. Maybe there was a certain networking event they went to. That's really good. Maybe you go there next. Maybe they have a cousin you they can connect you with that can help get you in. If you ask someone, how did you get into this industry, it's basically guaranteeing a little bit of a blueprint for you that is a bit more niche to your specific interests. Again, if you have any questions about like the LinkedIn of it all, how to reach out to someone, how to network all of this, we cover all of this, but as far as actually how to get into a new industry, ask your contact, how they did it, and then follow my like trial, follow my foolproof steps on how to apply for work, but I'm a big believer, ask that person how they did it. Sometimes there's little surprises in there where you're like, oh, I didn't even think of that all mine group or that forum. TLDR, F the dream job. The dream job doesn't exist. And if it does, it's based off of the jobs that we know exist, which to be honest can be really difficult to navigate at any point in your life, but especially when you're making these massive decisions. Give yourself permission to define your dream life instead so that you actually have permission for that to evolve over time so you're not stuck in whatever fucking job that you've picked so that 10 years down the line, you can say, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going to do this assessment that clogged in with Emily Durham gave me for free. Wow, it would work so well. And then you get permission to change your mind. You ask people for help, you know where you're going. You don't have to be stuck forever and you don't need to have it all figured out. You actually never have to have it all figured out. I don't know where my career is going to be in 10 years, but I trust that I have the skills and the tools to self assess and help me get there. And I'm hoping that you're starting to feel the same. I'm also hoping that to my friends who wrote in for this week's segment of what would Emily do that you are ready because I'm so excited to answer your questions. So I think we're about to dive into it. I'm so ready to hop into hashtag WWE, where are you feeling? I'm so good. I'm back. I'm back this week. I missed you guys last week. We missed you too. You're sad. I'm sad. It was also, but I think it was that time of year for everybody. I mean, I was sick the week before you, so I'm not convinced I didn't get you sick. No, we're back. We're back. We're in it too. I will say though, I'm I think I'm over January already. I'm a little over it. It's a little cold, a little depressing. You holidays taper off like after the QD little like family dinners, you see, yeah, I'm good. I'm ready for the sun. I'm ready to get the fuck as I'm ready to clock in actually in another hemisphere. Oh, like taking out we do clock in international international live show and then use it. See the problem with my brain. I hear that. And I go, yeah, no, it's a business expense. Well, what does show in Barbados in sunny Barbados? And yet here we are. We're going to be doing a lot of things. I'm going to be doing a lot of things. I'm going to be highly responsive because you work together. And the best case scenario is that you stay at your current company in this ideal job. You do that for a year. You've got enough background and then you move. So that's option one. If your boss is crazy, maybe don't do this, but if your boss is normal supportive of your career development, that's like a great way to take this. Another route where I think you could have strategic advantage is going into companies that are specific to accounting and accounts payable. I think if you went to a bookkeeping company. Go into HR there. Like reach out to that bookkeeper company. Reach out to someone who works in AP right now. And have a conversation with them. Ask if they can connect you to someone in recruitment. But get strategic about your industry. I obviously am very biased because I love like into it as a company. And they do a lot of work in the like bookkeeping accounts payable, you know, financial management space. HR loves when you know this stuff, especially in recruitment because you know the space. That's one really great route that you could take and not just into it, but like all of your competitors financial management products think of sage is another great one. You know, all of that would be really, really helpful. The third option and I always say this for people who want to pivot into recruiting. It can be a lot easier to pivot into recruiting when you go into agency, not in house recruiting. So find an agency hiring specifically for areas you've worked in. You might be taking a step back in terms of job title that is realistic in this case. We might be starting as a coordinator for the first year or two. But it's your foot in the door. So my like defined overall game plan. Start asking for favors internally while you're networking aggressively internally target companies that are in the industry. You work in right now for HR positions like that is really the secret mix. It's hard. You will get there. You are kick ass. We are so proud of you and make sure you write in when you get that new job. I think in the next month, I think that's that's very real for you. So send it you good luck. We love you. All right. Can you help me with my career? I'm now handling Google and meta ads account in an agency. Okay. That's amazing. I'm thinking to be an ad strategist and what is the clear path? I mean, everyone is saying work on your skills. That's okay. But in which direction? This is so personal because there are a thousand different directions you can take your career. And this feeling is so normal to be like, okay, I've got a background in this. Like I'm managing all of these ads. What is my next thing? Like where am I going? I actually think the first thing you need to do is the exercise in this episode. Because there are a bunch of things you could do. What do you want to do? And that's the difference. If you get trapped into the cycle of, well, here's the next logical thing I should do in my career. You may very easily wake up one day and realize you fucking hate it because it's not what you wanted. Do that self assessment first, but you have so much you can do. If you're in the ad space, you could go in house to a tech company and do ad management for them. Where it's a bit more end to end where you're working externally with the agency. You do full end to end ad campaigns for in home and out of home. Like all of the digital email, all of that, you could continue an agency, but just change industries. You could become self employed and offer ad services for small businesses, creators like myself. You could apply at Google or meta. You've worked with that. Like your opportunities are endless. And it's going to feel overwhelming until you figure out what you like. What's the stuff you like right now? Do you like having a client? Do you wish you had more clients, less clients? What do you like about the actual work itself? Do you like the data in analytics? Or do you prefer the strategy? Do you prefer the creative stuff in the numbers? Figure out what that is. That's going to guide your next path. And then we can chip away at the next steps. But this is the big trap people can get sucked into is I want to grow what's next. We need to take a step back first and think what do I want to do in order to get there? Yeah, it's I love your your your your mention of the skills and really hounding on that. And like I love that you're so like pro list really write down the nitty gritty. And even if it's very specific and like hyper specific like, oh, I don't like doing x, y and z. But it really is putting that down on paper and seeing like what you don't like doing, recognizing the patterns and that. And going from there 100% because I also think I mean we've all had it where you wake up at a job one day and you're like, I hate it here. How did I get here? It's because we're not checking in with ourselves. Right. And suddenly we think we hate the job. But actually what we hate is I hate these couple of things about the work. The corporate culture is not good. And if I would have checked in six months ago, I would have known it's time for me to apply for a job. It's hard. It's hard to do. It's a lot of work. And it's a lot of hygiene and it feels like there's always something. But it can be a 15 minute exercise once a year. Once you write those down, then you see like what you're not into and what you are into. Is there a specific or maybe like a range ratio to expect what to like and what to not like like what to put up with and you know what to sacrifice. It's a good question. There's certain things in life that are going to be non-negotiable. You're always going to have to work with people. You're always going to have to work with numbers to some extent. The basic skills you kind of just have to tolerate. I would say as long as it's less than 10% of your job, your mental health is probably going to be okay. Okay. Even now, I effing hate doing high volume data probably one day a week. I'm still playing with numbers. And it's just like a necessary evil. Let's keep it to 10% or less. Okay. That's I feel that's relatively. It's doable. And it's always something. And then you get to a job. But there's new things you learn where you're like, fuck, I think I hate this too. And that's okay. That's why we keep auditing. Damn. 10% is actually pretty low. I wasn't assuming you'd say like 3070. I think if the problem is when you started a job and it's 10% when you get promoted, it's 15 and then it's 20. So if you're thinking about the longevity of your career. For example, if I would have stayed in recruiting, the percentage of things I didn't like was very low. It was admin, maybe like 5% of my work week. The more senior I got, let's say it adds a percent every year. I'm going to get to what like 15, 20% admin when I was a director. Right. Okay. That's fine. If I'd gotten to recruitment operations, the role would have been 25% data by the time I'm a director that only grows as your portfolio grows. Right. And I would have been 5050 in that data. And I would have hated it. So you have to think of like what that slope kind of looks like. Do you think and maybe this could be toxic. But do you think in any world, the higher the percentage, like that is okay if you're getting paid a fat check. You know what, let's just get real. Sometimes it is about that. I think it's personality dependent. I personally, for me, take my work home with me more than I'd like to admit. If I really effing hated it, I think that would wear down on my mental health. If you're someone who skilled at turning it off, fuck it. Fuck it. Get the check. We love a big fat check. That's real. No, and we do. You know what I mean live laugh love in brackets, big fat check. All right. This is a chunky one. Let's get into this. Maybe I can read it. Maybe I don't know maybe today's our day breathing. Hi, Emily. I want to start off with how much I admire you and your work. Your podcast has been such an inspiration to me. And you've truly become a role model for my HR journey. I'm always crying. She's not coming out of her nose right now. I love you. I graduated from an HR certificate program last year and was fortunate to land a temporary role in the recruiting department at the same organization where I completed my co-op. Amazing. OK, pop off. Incredible. Unfortunately, my contract is ending soon due to budget constraints, brackets, not performance related. And I haven't had much luck securing my next opportunity. I've applied to many roles across the GTA, updated my resume and refresh my LinkedIn profile, but I haven't received any callbacks yet. It's been a stressful time and I'm starting to feel a bit stuck. I'm wondering if you have any advice on how I can feel better on how I can better stand out as an early career HR professional. Are there any specific courses, certifications or skills you recommend I focus on to improve my chances in this competitive job market? Oh, girl. Oh my gosh. First of all, that was like I'm in shock because that was such a sweet message. Like thank you so much. That was incredible. First of all, congratulations, my friend, because we should take a second to celebrate the fact that you converted your internship into a full-time job. Even if that contract is ending, it's out of your control. And it is so effing hard to convert these days. So huge congratulations. The anxiety you're feeling is natural. You're doing all of the right things. Let's just break it down as far as the actual skills that you need right now. You know what I'm going to say. Don't go back. Here it is. But the skills that employers are looking for, especially in HR professionals is the innovation and tech space that's actually where we're seeing people not measure up. And there's not enough people in the HR more people focused roles leaning into the technological advancements that we're seeing log on to your LinkedIn learning with your library card. So it's free. Take a couple of courses on AI specifically, AI for optimization, speed of work, AI for workflow, all of the stuff where it's an AI course to help you work faster, better smarter, bring that unique layer of expertise. I also am a big fan of joining Toastmasters. Toastmasters is a communication-based community where they meet monthly. I'm not sponsored in any capacity, but I was a part of it probably 10 years ago. They offer really great corporate communication insights. It's great networking. Just a good thing to have on your resume. It's never going to hurt anybody. Other than that, let's let's cool it on the actual skills. What we need is to get you in front of people. That's the real meat and potatoes here. Because when we look at this horrific job market, the reason we're struggling to find new HR positions isn't because we don't need HR. It's because HR costs money and it doesn't make money. So it's the last industry that is going to get net new jobs created companies need to earn a profit. People like us, my recruitment HR baddies, we cost money. So what you need to do is network at your current company. People forget that they're allowed to do this. You're operating on great terms with your employer. Go to your boss, go to everyone at the company who you had a good relationship with and be direct. My contract is ending. I'd love to know if there's anyone in your network I can connect with. Is there anyone you know who's hiring any roles you think I would be good at any opportunity to connect me to this person. Take it to the next level. Go to their LinkedIn. Ask if they're comfortable. If you go through all of their connections on LinkedIn and call out a couple of people you would like to be specifically introduced to this forces people to help you network. Bonus points, if you look at those people on their connections list and see if the companies that they're working at are actually hiring. I would also say get creative with where you're networking. Maybe you join industry groups that aren't HR specific. I think of tech to you. It's a great organization. Basically it's a group of tech people software engineers, product managers, they meet up every month or two, but recruiters always go just to stay on top of what's happening and to poach talent. Go there and chat with the recruiters. Go there and talk to an engineer and be like your company sounds great. Do you know if you guys are hiring you know an HR by chance like that's the stuff that can be really helpful. It is time consuming and it is daunting. The reality is in order to actually get there. We don't need to be investing in the perfect resume. It's all about getting your name out there and it's like horrific and horrible network internally get creative with where you're actually going. And the only other thing I would say with how to stand out as someone early in your career, especially in human resources is to have people hardcore advocating for you and sometimes you need to buy a referral. And it's okay to go on a website like specifically fishbowl dot com and go to the company's website pages that you want to work at because you see their hiring and post on there will pay for referral and you pay your $50 and you got a referral to the company. I did not even know that was a thing. It's so sneaky and unethical. It's actually fucked up. Whatever. I did not know that and it doesn't even guarantee you get hired but it guarantees you're in the system. And it guarantees you get flagged as a referral, which can be a huge help. Okay. So I hope all of this helps. It is a long haul. I wish I had like a magic pill to make it go away slow and steady. My big advice is let's network internally and make that our huge big fat focus so you can get that big fat check. No matter where you are listening to this, if it's early in your career, if it's looking for a career transition, things are going to feel heavy before they feel light. You're allowed to feel frustrated, you're allowed to feel concerned, but take it from me. I promise you you will get there. You will find the right role. You will give yourself permission to pivot. You will be able to change your career. You are not stuck. It's just sticky. It's a slow time and it's not just you. You are not going crazy. There is nothing wrong with your application. There is nothing wrong with you. If the system we can't fix the system, but when you set expectations and understand that you're in the driver's seat, you get to decide where you want to go next and sure we might not be getting there as quickly as we would have four years ago. You're still on the right road. You are still very talented, very capable and very much going to be just fine. Okay. So be easy on yourself. I hope you really enjoyed today's episode. I did. There's nothing that makes me happier, especially at the end, than listening to your questions, especially starting out the new year. Like something about January, I know it's corny. Oh, here goes. Here it goes. I think it's very cozy. Like I love the beginning of the new year. It feels inspiring. And I think especially at work, it can feel like a fresh start. Like it's you have enough time to recharge. You've maybe taken a week off and you're like, okay, I'm going to get that job this year. I'm going to finally make that big change. So here's to a kickoff January. Oh, yeah. I don't want into it now, but January, it's she's still happening. She lost. She lost. She's with us. Absolutely. But thank you for listening. We love you lots and we'll talk to you in the next one.