How piecemeal career advice can hold you back in your career

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: If you’re getting inputs and advice from multiple people you are more than likely going to end up with a lot of conflicting opinions, suggestions, etcetera, and then you have to spend the time trying to figure out, okay. Well, this person said this, but the other one conflicted with that. Who do I believe, etcetera? And it’s honestly kind of like a wild goose chase. Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the Career Strategy Podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients.

Sarah Doody [00:00:46]: You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. Hey, friend. Welcome back to another episode of the Career Strategy Podcast. And today, I want to talk through a mistake that I see a lot of people making in their careers. And this mistake can often hold you back despite, at the time, thinking it’s a good idea. Now this mistake is taking a piecemeal approach to advancing your career or navigating a job search. So, what do I mean by piecemeal approach? Oftentimes, people come to me and they say, I’ve asked so and so to do a review of my resume, someone else to look at my LinkedIn profile, someone else to look at my portfolio, someone else for advice about XYZ, etcetera.

Sarah Doody [00:01:50]: So that’s what I mean by piecemeal approach. Now when you do this, you’re really creating this very disconnected set of feedback and opinions that are guiding you. And at the time, it might seem like a good idea, but in hindsight, what ends up happening is you often end up with a lot of disconnected advice, feedback, opinions, etcetera, that sometimes honestly are conflicting, and that can leave you even more confused than when you started. Right? And so this piecemeal approach, I want to hopefully change how you think about it and give you some alternatives. Before we get to that, though, I wanna dive into an analogy that came to me. I was chatting with one of my friends who, has a physical therapy clinic, and she brought up this topic of how so many people, before they ever contact her, end up trying to piece together advice they find from other practitioners, whether that’s one off appointments, whether that’s advice on YouTube, Instagram, friends who have a similar injury, etcetera. And the problem is they end up with a lot of disconnected exercises and activities that ultimately are not tailored to their specific situation. Right? And we were kinda laughing because we both experienced the same thing.

Sarah Doody [00:03:34]: Right? Whether it’s a job seeker coming to me or an injured athlete coming to her to try and get better, she said so many people come to me, and they say, well, I’ve been doing, you know, these exercises and these YouTube videos, this, that, the other. And the problem is that person that you found on YouTube or Instagram, if you never talk to them, they don’t know your situation. Right? They don’t know the context of, for example, like, previous injuries you’ve had or other limitations or constraints that might factor into kind of your potential, recovery plan for whatever that injury is. So what she said ends up often happening is people will come to her after weeks or sometime months or, honestly, years of trying to kind of create their own rehab plan through this piecemeal approach, and they just never get better. And then when they come to her and she assesses the root cause of a lot of the injuries, the person’s history, and, like, what their body responds to or doesn’t respond to, they’re able to recover very quickly than had that person just continued with this piecemeal approach to their, you know, physical injury, for example. So with that analogy in mind, let’s keep talking about this piecemeal approach when it comes to your job search. So like I said, there are are many people who offer a lot of one off a la carte type services. Right? And I can see how that could be very appealing, especially if you’re kinda mentally doing the math and thinking, okay, well, I’ll get a resume from so and so for this match, and this person will look at my LinkedIn, and I’ll have a few copy chats, this, that, the other.

Sarah Doody [00:05:36]: But fast forward 5, 8, 12 months later, when you really start to add up not just the the money, but also the time that you have been putting into reaching whatever goal you’re trying to reach, sometimes that piecemeal approach doesn’t really work out as cost effective or as time effective as maybe you thought it would. And and like I said, if you’re getting inputs and advice from multiple people you are more than likely going to end up with a lot of conflicting opinions, suggestions, etc. And then you have to spend the time trying to figure out, okay, well, this person said this, but the other one conflicted with that. Who do I believe? Etcetera. And it’s honestly kind of like a wild goose chase. Right? And you’re more confused than when you started. Another problem that I encounter when job seekers come to to me and and my team is that when they’ve gone the piecemeal approach, oftentimes, those people that are offering one off resumes, one off LinkedIn, critiques, etcetera, they’re not taking the time to understand the person upfront. Right? Because, sure, it’s great if you get feedback on your resume, but if the person providing that feedback first isn’t asking you questions to clarify your career goals, what do you want to do in the future, what have you tried to do in the past, And get a really holistic view of your situation, then that feedback isn’t necessarily going to be reflective of your specific situation and your specific goals.

Sarah Doody [00:07:36]: And this is why when I designed Career Strategy Lab’s Job Search Accelerator, the very first thing that we have people do inside our program is to create what we call a career roadmap and a compass statement. Essentially, a a vision for your career because then armed with that vision, you yourself are able to make a resume that aligns with those goals, and your portfolio is aligning with those goals, and your LinkedIn is aligning with those goals that you create in that that career roadmap part of our program. And I use this analogy all the time, but when you don’t have a vision, when you don’t have this roadmap in front of you, you lack a filter to make decisions. And it’s kind of like trying to sit down to write an essay without a thesis. If you do that the essay is going to be meandering, disconnected, There will be parts that just don’t make sense. There will be unfinished thoughts and stories and and things like that. However, when you do have a really strong thesis for an essay or a book or something like that, it makes everything so much easier. It makes every decision about every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence, every character so much easier because you can run it through that filter, which is the concept of a career roadmap or vision statement for your career.

Sarah Doody [00:09:20]: But when you’re just sending your resume off to so and so that offers resume reviews, for example, if they’re not asking for that context, they’re not going to have it. And as a result that feedback may not well, it’s definitely not going to take into account your unique situation, vision goals, etcetera, because that person simply doesn’t have that. Right? And like I said earlier, this piecemeal approach often costs more in the long term and there’s often hidden costs when you take this approach, especially when it comes to the cost of rework. Right? If you’re asking one person for feedback about your resume, let’s say, and they say do x y z, then a little while later someone else tells you to do something different, you’re either going to spend mental time and energy assessing, like, should I do x or should I do y? I don’t know because these two experts are giving me different opinions. Or you run into this scenario of you end up redoing things over and over and over. And my guess is some of you listening right now might be smiling because maybe you yourself are stuck in this trap of rework because you keep receiving feedback that conflicts what you just did. Right? And as, you know, the cliche goes time is money, and the longer that it’s taking you to shore up your resume, your LinkedIn, your portfolio, etcetera, that means that’s more time that you’re not applying to jobs. And the longer that your job search takes, the longer you are either at that current salary you’re at or the longer you’re not earning a salary if you’re unemployed.

Sarah Doody [00:11:14]: Right? And so I know talking about your job search in this kind of level of detail could maybe kinda be a little bit stressful because it’s highlighting things that maybe you’re not actively thinking about. But when you start to think of the ROI of time, money, etcetera in your job search, I think it can sometimes make you realize pivots you need to make that could help you reach your goals faster. So I want to recap some of these reasons why this piecemeal approach to advancing your career is maybe not the best option in hindsight. So number 1, you are risking that you are receiving feedback that is not taking account you as the person and your goals and your situation, etcetera. And just like trying to piece together advice from influencers and random people on YouTube and LinkedIn and Instagram about how to, like, overcome a physical injury, let’s say, you are not having a plan that is tailored to you. And so, like my physical therapist friend said, oftentimes people are able to recover faster because when they come to her, she is able to just tailor and tweak a plan for that person, and then they can become, you know, back to normal, so to speak, a lot faster than if they had just been following random advice off the Internet, essentially. Alright. The next thing, that comes up with this piecemeal approach is this problem of conflicting advice.

Sarah Doody [00:13:04]: And sometimes you’re able to reach your goals faster if you just commit to one kind of approach, one method. And doing that helps you not get distracted by other approaches and other methods that, like I said, might conflict. And then obviously, the the cost element. Right? As you’re going through piecing together resume review, one off coaching session, etcetera, etcetera, bunch of books, this at the other, it doesn’t seem like a lot of money at the time. But then after 6 months or 12 months, if you add all that up, sometimes that could be more than if you had kind of found that that one person or one resource or one team to help you through this entire journey, from, you know, start to finish. Alright. And to recap too, how career strategy lab is different and really helps avoid some of these challenges that come up with a piecemeal approach. And, honestly, this whole episode was inspired because after someone joined career strategy lab’s job search accelerator recently, When people join, we ask them, you know, why did you decide to do this program? Because I’m a researcher and I wanna know.

Sarah Doody [00:14:26]: And this person had said, I had tried the piecemeal approach previously, and it wasn’t working, and the advice felt disconnected. And I thought to myself, that’s a great podcast episode. And after talking with this person, they said what they really appreciated was that Career Strategy Labs job search accelerator really looks at not just your career and getting a job, but you as a person and the overlap of those two things and and how they really influence each other. And also they said they really, liked that by learning from, like, one kind of team, they felt like they would get more consistent feedback, versus their previous piecemeal approach that that they had tried for months before joining us. Alright. So that is all for today. I hope that this maybe reframes how you look at, who you look to, where you look to for help in advancing your career, and maybe helps you realize some challenges with this piecemeal approach that just were not visible to you yet because you were just so focused on other things. So let me know if this episode is helpful.

Sarah Doody [00:16:00]: We love to hear from you. So feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or send me an email, and let me know your experience with piecemeal approach to advancing your career or your job search or achieving other goals that you may have. Alright. And before we go, one quick favor. If you found this episode helpful, can you please take 20 seconds? Just hit pause now. Go to my podcast show page wherever you’re listening, whether this on Spotify or Apple, and give us a quick star review. You don’t even have to write anything. Just hit, you know, 1 through 5 stars, whatever you think is appropriate.

Sarah Doody [00:16:43]: And those star ratings help signal to the good old algorithms that people find this helpful, which then helps us move up in the charts, which is great. And if you have time and you wanna write a review, we love that also, but totally no pressure. Alright. That is all for today, and I’ll see you next week. Thanks for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM.

Sarah Doody [00:17:22]: And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts. Catch you later.