Hello from 35k feet above the Atlantic ✈️

I write this as I return to the city from my happy place - Key West! Or as friends of mine lovingly refer to it: Key Jess! But really more precisely, Cudjoe Key, where, if you’ve ever heard me share a fun fact about myself in an icebreaker, you probably know I’ve spent the last 25 summers or so with my family diving for lobster offshore The Florida Keys.

For context- a quick Florida Miniseason 101: the two-day sport season occurs every year on the last Thursday & Friday of July when non-commercial fisherwomen & men with a salt water & lobster fishing licenses can hunt & keep 6 (large enough) lobster per day. Although there are a few legal techniques, my family (17 of us total this year!) snorkel in 6-12 ft of water using our metal tickle sticks to entice the spiny lobster out of crevices, ledges & coral heads and place the nets behind them so when they swim backward we scoop them up and bring them up to the boat victoriously.

Well at least, that’s normally how it goes. This year was different - this year was our worst year yet. Our legal limit allowed us to catch 204 lobsters, but this year we caught….5. Just 5 lobsters.

Clarify 💡

Why we (and seemingly the rest of Florida that doesn’t scuba dive in deep waters of the Atlantic and opts for shallower straits of the Gulf of Mexico) performed so poorly this year reminded me a lot of why so many are jumbling their job search.

Let’s dive into why:

The environment is tough.

In the ocean,

• The waters we scour, normally at most 85 degrees, reached record highs of 101.1 degrees, literally hot tub-like conditions. Yes really - for the first time in my life, it felt warmer in the water than on our boat. Yuck.

• The weather worked against us. Although we’ve encountered scattered storms and a bit of wind before, this year we were met with high winds, heavy rain, and white caps that made our offshore journey rough & extremely unpleasant.

In the job market:

• Job growth this past month presented the smallest gains in 2.5 years, with the Labor Department showing 110k fewer jobs created compared to the previous two months.

• Linkedin #layoff posts continue to populate our doom-scrolling as big tech (Oracle, Uber & Microsoft) to Finance (Goldman Sachs & Wells Fargo) to Walgreens, KPMG and Ford join the organizations making workforce reductions.

Both lobster hunters and job hunters lack clarity.

In the ocean - I mean this quite literally. The visibility in the ocean was the worst I’ve ever seen in over 20 years of diving. Against all judgment, the further I dove down - the worst it got, often not even being able to see my hands in front of me and not being able to tell which way was up or down. With cloudy freshwater runoff from daily heavy rains causing this unpredictable variance in visibility, we just couldn’t see the bottom making catching a lobster near impossible. So despite our best efforts with a 4 am wakeup call and 1-hour journey out to our carefully curated list of usually lobster-abundant secret spots in the pitch black of night and stormy conditions, our return on effort was terrible. We have just 5 to show, only due to brute force and merman-like lung capacity of my brother, Eric.

In the job market - I mean that most job hunters are leading with fear and lack the intentionality and clarity that results in a strategic and efficient job search. Most people I talk to are running only a role-first job search - scrolling what’s recommended on LinkedIn or typing sporadic keyword search terms into job sites and applying to roles based on results. Although this is one approach, it should not be your only approach in this job hunt because it’s letting the algorithm take the lead instead of your needs & desires for your next role.

Instead, I work with my clients to develop a different approach that becomes our primary strategy: a company-first job search. This requires clarity in what you’re looking for and what you’re NOT looking for in regards to all facets that make up a role - from the type of work, the structure of the team, the industry, managerial qualities, and all that lie in between.

If you’re interested in uncovering what your own role criteria are so you can navigate a company-first job search, let’s chat (for free).

Connect 🤝

This tip is for absolutely everyone - from those proud of their recent promotion to those looking for that next role: revamp your recommendations. The best way to stand out on LinkedIn and showcase who you are is to let others speak for you and there’s no better way to do that than in the form of LinkedIn recommendations.

Located towards the bottom of your profile on LinkedIn, a recommendation from a manager or peer gives context to who you are and who you’ve worked with.

For job hunters, asking for a recommendation from a former colleague is a great way to reach back out with a clear purpose and rekindle a connection. Although the request will likely take 10 minutes or less of who you’ve requested, psychologically that person will be more invested in your job search and think of you as they come across opportunities.

For those that are just seeking to grow and advance in their current role, solidifying the recommendations of current colleagues is a great way to get live feedback and signal that they are someone you respect and trust.

No matter the intention - here are my top three tips for best leveraging LinkedIn recommendations:

1. Request with intention & focus - in your message asking for a recommendation on LinkedIn make sure to explain why you’re asking that person specifically for a recommendation and what exactly you’d like them to cover (a few bullet points go a long way)

2. Be strategic in the order you accept recommendations on LinkedIn - showcase your strongest recommendation first by accepting it on LinkedIn last. LinkedIn does not let you drag & reorder recommendations yet (pssst LinkedIn product team, email me back!)

3. Offer your recommendation in return - building a strong network is a give & take practice so always offer a recommendation or something of equal value in return!

If this tip was helpful, reply back to let me know & share this newsletter with people in your life that would find it valuable!

Confidently Communicate 🗣️

In a session this week, a client was berating herself for (her words not mine) “f*cking up another interview.” I wish I had the exact stats on it but from my experience, most people (and even more when just speaking of women) think they performed worse in an interview than the interviewer perceived their performance. Whether there’s a lack of confidence, overanalysis paralysis, and/or the underlying anxiety that can come with a job search, often times when I dig in and ask specific questions about why they think this - we uncover a lot of limiting beliefs and self-judgment that just doesn’t serve us and isn’t true.

In this case though, my client had real reason to believe she may have ‘f*cked it up’ - she completely froze when asked ‘tell me about yourself.’

And she’s not alone, this is by far the most common (and in my opinion laziest) question an interviewer can ask but so many people don’t prepare for it in a way that showcases strength and plants the right seeds for the rest of the interview.

I’ll be teaching everyone my proven formula for how to best answer this question and how to follow up after an interview (especially if you think you f*cked it up) in my next group coaching cohort launching in August.

I have a few more spots available at a $100 discount using promo code ‘JUMPSTART100’ - reply back with any questions you may have.

Until next Sunday,

Jess Storiale