How to Reach Career Resonance: Purpose, Passion and Persistence

Career resonance in my view is a state of existence where you are happy, healthy, balanced, busy and emboldened.  Your life is self-fulfilling because all aspects are generally working together to make you high performing and personally and professionally satisfied with your career and life.  In my coaching practice I see this phenomena from time to time.  To me this is the ultimate state of being and where the rubber meets the road.  It is not to say that it is nirvana but with purpose, passion and persistence you can thrive in a manner that feeds your performance and success.   One such example is my friend Kim Bardakian, who I have known for a number of years in San Francisco PR circles.  Kim epitomizes the outcome of “purpose, passion and persistence.” 

I asked Kim a few career questions to illustrate my thinking.  Take a read.

How did you land your current role as the Director of PR & Partnerships for Visit Oakland?

I was working as a PR and event consultant in Oakland and my contract was coming to an end. I put out an email to my network about potential new opportunities and received a response from someone at Visit Oakland who I had known in the community. She told me about a new position that was opening up and encouraged me to apply. Ironically, the job I applied for was different from my current role. After the initial interview, my boss created my role which plays directly to my strengths—media and relationships. So when people tell me, "Kim, this job was made just for you!" Well, it kind of was!

How did your career lead to your current role?

My career has always centered around PR, event planning and marketing. I began my career at Sony PlayStation, when the company was not even a year old. Our team helped build it to an internationally recognized brand in just a few years. It was hands down the best first job out of college! From there my PR career took off in a variety of industries, including apparel, technology, spas and even a stint at the Catholic Church. Now if you can promote the Catholic Church, you can promote anything!

How much work did you invest to get to your current position?

With my current job, I feel like it's the ultimate culmination of all of my previous experience, combined with the diverse people I have met along the way. Having lots of different experiences have help me excel in my current role since I have long standing relationships in a wide variety of industries. Best advice: never burn bridges, you never know when they come back around.

What characteristics drive your passion?

Passion can't be taught. It's in you or it's not. You feel it or you don't. Fortunately, with this position at Visit Oakland, it's innate to me. I'm often told my passion comes through when I talk about Oakland-- to press, friends or basically anyone who will listen. I love my job and the ability to promote all the positive aspects of Oakland. I get to share what you might not know about the city from things to do, new restaurants to try to where to check out the best views!

What advice would you give people aspiring to land a role that satisfies their career?

As cliché as it sounds, find an industry that you love. Or a product that excites you. Once you delve into that world, you will be inspired to learn more, engage more and simply do better. It's imperative to also network within the industry you want to work in. Join a board or committee to meet the leaders and decision makers. Roll up your sleeves and get involved. Arrange for informational interviews with people you admire and or just want to learn more about their role. Ask questions. And always be ready to help others and make introductions to those who need it. You never know when they come back around later in your career. 

Kim is the Director of PR and Partnerships for VisitOakland, the tourism bureau for the city. She uses her experience, network and passion in her current role to help promote the destination to the media and generate partnerships throughout Oakland.  

Previously, Kim worked in-house with a number of growing consumer technology companies including Pandora and has agency experience with OutCast where she developed PR programs and events with Fortune 500 companies including Amazon, Dell and Yahoo! Kim began her career at Sony PlayStation where she founded and implemented the highly successful product placement program.  

Kim currently serves as a Board Member for PRSA San Francisco Chapter and involved in a variety of other PR and media organizations. A native New Yorker, she holds a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.  She proudly resides in Oakland, CA where she is an avid tennis player.

It’s About the Accomplishments, Stupid! Tell Them Well!

Resumes today are, or should be, more about what you have achieved not about what you do. The job market is so tight in the current economy that it is easy to hear the squeaks and squeals of people reading the thousands of resumes that are targeted at every available job. The problem is that according to a recent New York Times piece “Job seekers now outnumber jobs by six to one.”

So how is it possible to distinguish your resume from everyone else seeking to become part of the selected pile by the hiring manager? Craft a resume that clearly and boldly outlines what you have accomplished for your employers or clients and how you have helped them move the needle.

Here is a recommendation:

1. While I may stir some debate here, develop the resume in reverse chronological order to make it easy for the hiring manager to get a sense of flow of your career. The goal is to make it easy to read for the hiring manager, not you, not your fans and not your family.

2. It’s the accomplishments, stupid. To borrow and twist a quote from former president Bill Clinton. The resume is about accomplishments, not a job description.

3. So get yourself a comfortable working space, your favorite beverage, a pad of paper or an eye pad if you have one and sit down and think long and hard about all of your jobs.

4. Next, throw caution to the wind and write down four to five accomplishments for each position, giving careful thought to what you achieved for your employer, how you did it and what were the outcomes.

5. When you are finished, go back and edit each accomplishment and prioritize them all based on importance.

6. Save all of the accomplishments in a file marked “accomplishments bank.”

7. Based on the prioritization, pick the top three or four for each job and these become your primary proof points for the resume.

8. Also, feel free to mix and match the accomplishments, targeting the type of position to which you are applying, creating a customized resume for each job based on the position specs.

9. And as long as we are talking about targeting, make sure that your both your resume and cover letter are targeted to the position specs and to the company. Organizations either screen resumes by hand or automatically with software that analyzes keywords. If your letter and resume do not contain the right keywords, it is likely to end up in the "selected-out" pile. So target, target, target.

10. Lastly, don't forget the white space. Resumes that are copy heavy can easily get “selected out.” Make sure your resume is clean and easy to read so that it gets “selected in.”

At the end of the day or the “stack of resumes,” make sure your resume is the one that is included. Tell your story well and in a fashion that highlights your accomplishments not your positions.