One of our early adopter members is Josh Goddard, a talented commercial finance professional who was working through a few challenges with respect to making a career move from his previous role in Rockhampton, Queensland, to move to the city of Brisbane.

While Josh is experienced, has a track record of strong career performance in the past, and a passion to succeed, making this move wasn’t easy initially. While being patient, Josh spent months using recruiter and Seek as the channels for exploring the next role. With his experience and the location barrier, he felt he was often put in the “too hard” basket and the interviews offered through recruiters were well off the mark.

After a number of months, Josh’s urge to make a change increased and he wanted to move his eggs out of the recruiter basket, but didn’t know where and how to do this. Being inquisitive and proactive about finding a solution, he got onto The Outperformer, and specifically the online “Teachable” product that was provided to the marketplace before the current platform was launched.

Understanding the issue 

“After listening to the material on this product, it hit me in the face how I wasn’t utilising my network, or building new connections to support my career goals.” This was not only for the job finding process, but his ongoing development.

After digesting the methods on The Outperformer and thinking through the approach, Josh mapped out the contacts in his career that he could talk to and get advice from about this move. He then booked time out to meet with them all, and given they were in Brisbane, this meant coordinating a few days where he could be there for work, and have breakfast, lunch and dinner with these people.

These included his previous CFO, GM of logistics, Maintenance Manager and a referral made from a previous colleague to a Partner from a big 4 accounting firm, and even his brother who works in the accounting field in Brisbane.

The logic behind most of these people, is that Josh was “tried and tested” in their eyes, so any referrals or introductions would be looked upon more favourably.

Initially, these contacts didn’t have any specific roles in their mind, however discussed his plans which helped Josh gain some more perspective about future decisions he planned to make. Naturally, they all offered to keep an ear out for job ideas.

Recommendations and connections start to work 

Shortly after this, Josh was recommended to one company by one of his contacts, as someone who would be a great fit for their business. And accurately, this was the case and the company made offers to Josh for two different roles.

At the same time, there was another old friend that Josh connected with. While they had a great relationship, it had been some time since they had been in touch. Josh shared his story and this person introduced Josh to a manager in his company. With a similar message, Josh was recommended as someone who would work well with this manager and team.

As luck would have it, Josh had waited months without any success on coming close to a great job opportunity, within a matter of weeks he was offered three jobs across two companies.

Both companies and teams offered what Josh thought would be a great career environment and connected quickly with each manager. Naturally, he could only take one of the roles, and in this case, it was Origin Energy, a great organisation that consistently aims to take on top talent.

Making the decision

To help with this decision, he also leant on his network to think through each offer, company, and the development opportunities and potential they presented.

For anyone reading this, don’t be confused. It is not as simple as getting on the phone to previous contacts and say “can I have a job”, and Josh certainly didn’t approach it this way. And equally, Josh doesn’t have the intention to simply catch up when he wants something.

Josh, like many of the members of The Outperformer, has realised that achieving results is not always about doing the same things everyone else is doing. In fact, traditional methods are not always cutting it in a competitive corporate landscape. Thinking more proactively about this can be the difference between achieving great results, or waiting around with limited opportunity and perspective.

Think about how well you are managing your career and position yourself to attract opportunities? Have you nurtured relationships that are important to career growth? Are others supporting your development or are you going solo?

If you want to get a snap shot of how well you are managing your career, take the Career Health Check. It only takes 10 minutes and could open your eyes to ways of achieving your career goals.