TRANSCRIPT

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#64 - Navigating Career Transitions for Women Over 55 with Kristi Cline

Eric Blake: Are you thinking about getting back into the workforce or maybe even pivoting to a new career entirely, but you're feeling overwhelmed or unsure about where to begin? You are not alone, and our guest on today's episode is here to help.

Eric Blake: Welcome to the episode of the Simply Retirement Podcast, where we want to empower and educate women to live your retirement. On your terms. I'm your host Eric Blake, practicing retirement planner with over 25 years of experience, founder of Blake Wealth Management, and I would not be the man I am today without the women in my life.

Eric Blake: Today's conversation is especially timely for many women I speak with, whether you've recently gone through a divorce or maybe widowed. And you just, or you're just simply looking to create more purpose, structure and maybe even more income in retirement by getting back into the workforce or maybe even changing careers.

Eric Blake: Just recently, I had a conversation with a client a teacher for many years. She's now in her early sixties. She is actually eligible for her retirement pension benefit from teaching. She's ready to leave the classroom, but she's not quite ready to stop working altogether. She wanted to stay active. She looking for something meaningful in that next chapter.

Eric Blake: She wasn't confident about what steps to take or how to get that job search started and make it as effective as possible, and really how to translate her previous experience into something that would resonate with employers outside of education. So if that sounds familiar to you, this episode is for you.

Eric Blake: You're gonna walk away with actionable strategies to help you feel more confident, strategic, and supported as you explore your next professional chapter. For all the links and resources shared in this episode, you can visit the Simply Retirement podcast.com. And don't forget, if you have a question, a topic idea, or a specific retirement challenge you'd like to hear covered in an upcoming episode, you can visit the Simply Retirement podcast.com/ask Eric.

Eric Blake: Joining me today is Kristy Klein, founder and CO of We Write it Now, resumes and Career Resources. Christie, welcome to the Simply Retirement Podcast.

Kristi Cline: Thank you so much, Eric. It's a delight to be here with you.

Eric Blake: I've been really looking forward to this. Actually the client, the story I just told, that was actually the reason I reached out to you and say, Hey, I've got a client.

Eric Blake: She, here's the situation she's dealing with. And we went back and forth a little bit, scheduled a time to chat and then hopefully be able to provide some resources for her. But I thought that would be a great podcast idea as well. And I was really enjoying really enjoy having you on today.

Eric Blake: But if you would just start with your story, a little bit about your background and what led you to start. We write it now.

Kristi Cline: Great question. And again, thank you so much for having me. I am seeing so many people struggle in this area, Eric. So when you approached me with this opportunity to share what I know, I was delighted because I really want to help those out there.

Kristi Cline: It's so messy. And then when you throw in the age factor, it does get very tricky in how you position yourself. So I started, we write it now back in 2019, right before. The big shutdown of the world. So that was timely, not so much, but I started it out of my own failed job search attempt because I thought I knew what was needed.

Kristi Cline: How difficult can it be? A strong resume, a good cover letter, and some networking, right? And if you haven't been in the job search space in the last five or eight years, you have no idea how much it has changed. So when I learned that what I was doing was actually hurting me. It really gave me pause, and then I also found out that age was also part of my problem, and while I can fix.

Kristi Cline: The way that I present myself, I can't make myself get younger. So at that point I had to decide, alright, now what? And I thought, I have all this valuable information that people need. Why can't I take that information and educate them on what it takes to get the interview? What it takes to pivot your career.

Kristi Cline: So I spent all of 2020 basically getting really good at my craft and talking about what it takes on social media. I developed a following and then when things started to open up, I started opening up my services again. And it's just been a fun, crazy, wild ride.

Eric Blake: That's awesome. So I, and I hate to start, with the bad news first strategy, you work with men, women, and professionals in many different stages of their careers.

Eric Blake: So for those that may be in their fifties and sixties, maybe returning to the workforce or making some type of big shift may, maybe a career shift. What's one or two of the biggest mistakes that you do see people make

Kristi Cline: sure, so the biggest mistake that I see people make is. Just filling out an application and submitting a resume with no strategy, no intent, no plan.

Kristi Cline: They think the more that I apply, that is going to increase my odds of getting an interview, and I'm here to dispel that because this isn't the lottery. You need to be intentional with who you are reaching out to. You need to be intentional with who, not who, with what you're applying to, the positions that you're applying to.

Kristi Cline: Otherwise you're just gonna get a whole bunch of rejections and nobody wants that. So that's the first thing that I see people doing is just staying behind their computer and hitting apply. And that's not a strategy. That is a task, it's an action item, but that's not a strategy.

Kristi Cline: So that's the first thing. The second thing that I see, and I don't see this just with older job seekers, I see it with a lot of job seekers regardless of the age, is they were taught that the resume should be a complete career history. And while your resume does include. Career history, it doesn't necessarily need to include your complete career history.

Kristi Cline: And I'll just give you a quick example. If somebody is, let's just say 45, and they've been working since they were 21, your future employer doesn't care what you did when you were 21 years old, right? So a good rule of thumb is to go back about 15 years or so, give or take.

Eric Blake: So when you think about, then also this, let's talk about the kind of this career trend, because one of the things we talk about with clients a lot is if, when we're putting together a retirement plan, a lot of times it, it will include work.

Eric Blake: The definition of retirement has changed quite a bit, especially over the last several years. But if you're, maybe even your id, you feel like your identity has been connected to your job for the last 20, 25, 30 years, or maybe just your goals have changed. What are, what's some advice that you might give someone who's just trying to figure out how to reframe that previous experience for a different kind of role?

Kristi Cline: So first off, I highly encourage people to work with a coach that's in this space because they are gonna be the ones that can guide you with tasks and activities and strategies that actually move the needle. That you're working with somebody that is, that understands the landscape, especially in 20 24, 20 25.

Kristi Cline: So work with a professional that understands what it takes to make that pivot, to make that move. Let's just say if you don't have that ability to hire somebody, then my recommendation would be to first get really clear on. Your values, your the culture that you need to be successful. Get clear on what your unique value proposition is.

Kristi Cline: What do you do better than most people? What do you love doing? What comes naturally to you? Start building a list of those qualities and those attributes, and then we can start to build the kind of role that would be a good fit for you. And it doesn't mean you have to. Day in the same industry, there are all kinds of transferable skills, so if you wanna shift industries, that's fine.

Kristi Cline: You're not locked into it. I will say it might be a little bit more challenging to go into an industry that is completely different than your background. You might start with looking at adjacent industries. That might be an easier transition for you.

Eric Blake: So can you give maybe an example of that, that might fit?

Kristi Cline: Okay, let me think. So if you're in marketing, I always go to marketing because that's my background also. In marketing, there's so many different buckets of marketing. There's content generation, there's digital marketing, there's marketing strategy, all these different marketings, right? So if you're in marketing, you could look at different veins of marketing, but also marketing teams and sales teams work together.

Kristi Cline: So you could potentially look at doing something in sales using your marketing background. That's just one of the ideas that I have off the top of my head. Also, if you're in sales, you could go do sales in another industry, or if you're in communications, you could do communications in a different industry because that would be transferable.

Eric Blake: Okay. Now one, one of the things I found really interesting and for, we're connected on LinkedIn but you talk about, helping clients refine their resumes. That's actually one of the things that I think you're known for is helping refine resumes, their LinkedIn profiles, how important that LinkedIn profile can be.

ProudMouth: Yes.

Eric Blake: But being very intentional about that. What role does customization or what you call targeting and tailoring play in standing out during that job search?

Kristi Cline: Huge. It plays a huge role. I cannot stress that enough. And when you hear from people like myself when we tell you need to be customizing every single version of your resume that goes out.

Kristi Cline: A lot of people panic and they're like, so I have to redo my whole resume. No, not at all. That's not what we're asking. Basically, when somebody says, when somebody suggests that you need to start tailoring or adjusting your resume, we're really only talking about the top third to the top half of your resume.

Kristi Cline: So I'll just give you an example. You have your name, you have your contact information, and then you have what we call in resume world, the headline. And that headline should be the name of the role that you're applying to. So if you're applying for a marketing director role, that's what the job posting lists, that's what your headline needs to be.

Kristi Cline: So your headline can and should change with each application. Another example is what I like to do with my clients is I will throw out on the top third to the top half, a couple of really big. Impacts that you've made. Something that when you leave an organization, what did people talk about that you did so well?

Kristi Cline: Something really impressive. So I try to include one or two of those in the top third to the top half, but those examples, those contributions or impacts that you've made, they might change based on the requirements for the role. So if they're looking for somebody with strong experience in digital marketing with nonprofits, for example, then you would want that call out to reflect what you've done for nonprofits in the digital marketing space.

Kristi Cline: So those sorts of things would be a part of your customization. And the next question that I get from people all the time is, how do I know what to customize? Like, how do I know what they're, how do I know what the company is looking for? And I have this strategy, it's called the mirroring strategy, like a mirror.

Kristi Cline: So you look at the job posting, you review it, and you look at those qualifications and the skills and experience needed, and you go through and you can highlight those items and then make sure that if you have that experience, if you have that skillset, it needs to be reflected in your resume throughout your resume.

Kristi Cline: And most certainly in the top third to the top half.

Eric Blake: One. The thing I was just thinking about, just 'cause we talking about LinkedIn, thinking about, let's say maybe somebody that maybe they've been out of the workforce for 10 years and they're looking to get back in, or somebody that's been in a career for 10 more.

Eric Blake: 10 or more years. What's the biggest change that's happened in that? So over the last 10 years, and maybe even we need to go a shorter distance than that, I don't know, five years, but just thinking about like the importance of LinkedIn as a platform. For job search. What's the biggest change that you've seen over the last five years then?

Eric Blake: Yeah what's the biggest change?

Kristi Cline: The biggest change, gosh, I don't know. There's been so many and LinkedIn is. Really great at adding all these features, but it also throws us LinkedIn coaches into kind of a quandary because things change and we don't realize it. So one of the things that I think has been a very positive.

Kristi Cline: Move a positive shift for job seekers, especially those that are either in transition or have been out of the workspace for a while, is if you go into your professional experience section on your LinkedIn profile, and there is a place where you can add. Your professional experience, like your new role, but they've now added a section where you can add that you took time off for bereavement for a career transition if you had to take care of an elderly parent.

Kristi Cline: Okay? If you're taking a career gap or a career break, the big thing that recruiters are looking for when it comes to gaps in your resume. 'cause I know gaps in your resume is a very hot button right now. The recruiters are more accepting of these gaps as long as you can explain them, because if you don't explain them, then they're left guessing.

Kristi Cline: And what are they gonna guess? They're gonna guess that you're just hanging out hoping that, a good job is gonna, drop into your lap. What they wanna see is what are you doing during this gap and how do I know that you're not just sitting around being lazy? So I always advise people to put something meaningful during that timeframe that you've been away.

Kristi Cline: If you've had to care for an elderly parent that goes on your resume. There are certainly some transferable skills that can come out of taking care of a parent or a loved one. Volunteering. Volunteering is such an overlooked piece that you can put into your resume that shows that you know what, you're not just sitting at home on the couch watching tv.

Kristi Cline: You're out amongst the people. You're having conversations. You are trying to find that next role while you're giving back to other organizations. So volunteering is a great thing that you can put on your resume as a placeholder until you land that next role.

Eric Blake: And I think that's a huge point and I'm glad we actually, we got to this is, we've done a number of episodes on that caregiving piece and thinking that, the majority of our audience being women, that so often falls on the women's shoulders where they've had to provide for a, or be the caregiver for a parent or parents in many cases where they've provided care for both parents.

Eric Blake: And it may be that they've been outta the workforce for 10 or 15 years. I think that's critical that, if it's come a time where, okay, that period unfortunately has ended, in many cases, the parents pass away. Now you've gotta figure out what's next. You're already going through the emotional component of losing a parent or the parents, and now you've gotta try to find a job.

Eric Blake: I think that's a huge, I love that you've pointed that out. I don't know if there's anything else we can add to that might be helpful for, specifically for caregivers or women who have fulfilled that caregiver role. But putting that, the, putting that what you actually did as a, as an enhancement to your resume, I think is huge.

Kristi Cline: Again, I just go back to recruiters want proof that you're gonna be a hard worker, right? Because if you're not gonna be a hard worker, they're not even gonna bother with the interview. So if you can demonstrate what activities you are doing while you are searching for that next opportunity, that's gonna help.

Kristi Cline: Something else that I'd like to mention that will also help as a placeholder is back to LinkedIn. LinkedIn has LinkedIn Career premium. Through career premium, they have this massive training database, so if you need to upskill in your particular area, they have a course for it. If you are transitioning into something new, they have a course for it.

Kristi Cline: It's super robust. It is very affordable. I was just talking to a client last night and they said, yeah, I don't have this one tech skill, but it's really expensive to get the official certification. And so we popped on over to LinkedIn Premium to see if they offer training, and of course they do Now.

Kristi Cline: It's not the same as a robust four to six month certification program. It's a LinkedIn certification. So is it as strong as the other? No. But for people out there that may be short on funds, it's a really good option. Oh, and when you complete something like that, a course or a class on LinkedIn, it goes immediately to your LinkedIn profile.

Kristi Cline: So recruiters see that you are taking these courses. They see that you are investing in making yourself a better candidate.

Eric Blake: That's awesome. So one of the things, and you may not remember even saying this, you, so you and I met originally through divorce transition professionals which is actually a networking group of professionals that focus on divorce.

Eric Blake: But one of the things you mentioned in one of your, you were sharing you doing your 10 minutes presentation about what you do in your services. You talked about for people who may be searching for a job, the importance of like podcasts, listening to podcasts, catching up on terminology, things that you just made that are more maybe up to date.

Eric Blake: Yes. Podcasts may be one example. Are there maybe two or three other, maybe technology examples, but just things that people should do, women should do if they're looking for a job, if they're just not LinkedIn's, just not their thing for whatever reason. Is it networking? Is it podcasts? What are a few other.

Eric Blake: Technology platforms or just activities that they could partake in.

Kristi Cline: That's such a great question. Going back to networking and having these conversations, if you can join industry groups, industry associations, and start networking with people in those groups, that's obviously a very smart idea. LinkedIn does have some groups like that.

Kristi Cline: They're hit or miss on LinkedIn, to be honest. Facebook has some groups like that. They're much better on Facebook, but also if you go to meetup.com and just type in things that you're interested in, those would be great groups to join. It is gonna be important that you can speak their language. So if you're uncomfortable with that, I do recommend doing some research on that industry.

Kristi Cline: And I am in love with, and I hope this doesn't cause too many people to freak out, but I'm really in love with using ai. To help you understand or learn more about a particular technology industry, project, program, whatever. I view it as my personal assistant, and it's so great and so helpful. So one thing that you could do is you could just type into chat, Hey, I'm pivoting into this new area of business.

Kristi Cline: I wanna go into supply chain management, but I don't know a lot about it. Can you tell me where I can sharpen my skills? In that particular area, and it will give you ideas and then you can say, oh, this is so great. Now I live in the Dallas area. Can you tell me what groups or associations I should join that are in the Dallas area that would also help support this transition for me?

Kristi Cline: Honestly. It's your best research assistant tool and you can get a lot done out of the free version. I'll also mention that.

Eric Blake: That's perfect. So I think that's a great opportunity now to step back a little bit and give you the chance to share some of the cool things you're doing. You've recently launched a new coaching package that includes some really powerful tools, mock interviews, job search intelligence, AI features.

Eric Blake: Yes. Can you walk us through what those look like and how they may be helping your clients?

Kristi Cline: This stuff is so good. Eric, I, when I saw it the first time, I was very hopeful. I was blown away, but also very hopeful and cautious. Then when I started working around in IT and playing it, playing around with it and test driving it, I was just like.

Kristi Cline: I can't believe this is such a great tool for my clients. So let me walk you through a couple of the features that I'm really obsessed with right now. So there's a coaching side and there's a client side. And from the coaches side, I can look up what they're looking to transition into. And I can give them the job outlook, how things look now, like real time I get data that is scraped and pulled into this toolkit for me.

Kristi Cline: And I can say, you know what, this is a great area to start playing around in. Or, I know you mentioned you were interested in this, but the hiring is just not happening right now. So this might be tricky for you. So we have data backed insights, which is just super beneficial. On the client side you can upload your current resume and then if you're applying to a particular job, all you do is copy and paste that job description into this spot and it will review your, it will review your resume, it will review the job posting, and it will create a custom cover letter.

Kristi Cline: Based on that particular role, based on the pain points of that company it can also create a brand new resume for you and it can make those modifications for you, which that just blew me away. So that's resumes and cover letters. We talked about networking and the value of networking, especially as.

Kristi Cline: An older person. Can I say that Somebody approaching 50 or above 50, it is gonna be critical that you have conversations with people because it is more likely, I think the number I saw was like 84% more likely to land an interview through a conversation. Oh, wow. Whereas people that were just focused on strictly cold outreach and cold applications, two to 3%.

Kristi Cline: That's huge. So have conversations. All right, so this tool can track your conversations. So remember when I said be intentional with everything you do. At this point, be intentional with the people that you reach out to, that you wanna connect to. When you find those people, you can load them in. You can just click on their profile, copy the URL, drop it into the tool, and it has this spreadsheet and it can track.

Kristi Cline: Your conversations it will prompt you. When do you wanna talk to them? When is the scheduled call? What happened during that call? When are you supposed to follow up with them? How do you know them? All these filters, it's so robust. I just love it. It also gives you scripts because a lot of times I talk to people and when I share with them, you need to be reaching out and asking for discovery calls or coffee chats.

Kristi Cline: They always come back with what do I say? And I understand that people that aren't used to doing that, it feels really uncomfortable. This platform gives you gives you some suggested verbiage to use, which is fantastic. Okay, one more thing. The interview. Piece. On LinkedIn in Career Premium, they had this mock interview tool and it was great.

Kristi Cline: And now it's gone.

Eric Blake: Ah.

Kristi Cline: I know, I, I don't understand why it's gone. The good news is my tool has it, so it gives you these options. And let me just show you, it's not just a mock interview tool. You enter the job posting that you're gonna be interviewing for, and then it will generate. One to five questions based on that information, and you can type in your response and it will give you feedback.

Kristi Cline: But what is even better is if you do your response over audio in the mic, and then it can give you feedback specific to your tone, your pace, all kinds of things. The feedback is just. I can't even believe it works, but it works really well. So it can give you that kind of feedback. Eric, there are lots of other features.

Kristi Cline: I don't wanna bore your audience with everything else, but those are the ones that come to mind immediately and to me, pack the most value.

Eric Blake: And actually we talked a little about different platforms and different things we can do, but actually one of the things that you've touched on already, but I think is important to talk about and that's, one of the challenges I hear often is fear.

Eric Blake: Fear. Whether it's fear starting over, fear of rejection, feeling like it's maybe it's too late to do something different, to do something new. How do you coach your clients through that mindset?

Kristi Cline: That's interesting, Eric, because I do encounter that a lot and really it gets down to having some coaching sessions with me or with another coach.

Kristi Cline: We help you reframe the way that you look at things. So instead of feeling like, oh, I'm 53 years old and I know I have stuff to give, but I just don't know how to present myself, that's what a coach will help you do. They will give you the confidence, they will give you the framework and get you comfortable with articulating your value.

Eric Blake: What I think, obviously if we were to outline the steps, what are the first five steps we should take? One of those I would probably suggest that you would probably suggest is to find a coach, hire a coach. But if there's a listener today thinking, I wanna do something new, but I don't know where to start, what are one of the one, one or two things that you feel like they should do today?

Kristi Cline: So I'm gonna go back to the concept that actually propelled me to move forward and take action and launch my own business. And it's the concept of Ikigai. Have you heard of that?

Eric Blake: I have not, but share it sounds interesting.

Kristi Cline: It's spelled I-K-I-G-A-I. Ikigai. And I'll probably screw this up a little bit, but it's basically understanding what you love to do.

Kristi Cline: What you're really good at and finding people that need this, whatever this thing is, and then monetizing it, right? So my recommendation would be take some time to figure out what it is you love to do, what it is you do better than most. People find industries that need it. Try that out, because the last thing I want you to do is spend the last five or 10 years of your professional life in a position that you're miserable in.

Kristi Cline: Like we want you in the zone. We want you doing things that you love to do. Absolutely. For people that you love to be around and. In order for that to happen, you have to really look at what are your values? What kind of culture do you like? Do you like big companies? Do you like small companies? Do you like individual contributor roles, or do you really like being a part of a team?

Kristi Cline: What kind of companies interest you? So my advice really, now that I'm thinking about it and saying it out loud, would be, create a top 20 list. This is where you could start, create a top 20 list of companies that you're curious about. This doesn't mean that you. Love them. It doesn't mean that you're gonna apply, it just means you're going to explore.

Kristi Cline: And when you build that list of your top 20, then you dig in on LinkedIn, look at the employees that are there and find commonalities. Who would you feel comfortable reaching out to because you share something in common. Maybe you went to the same college together, maybe you live in the same town. Maybe you have several connections that are shared.

Kristi Cline: Just look for those commonalities. Then ask. Ask for a 10 minute coffee chat. Most people have time for 10 minutes, right? So be clear, be specific with your ask. Hey, I'm trying to break my, I'm trying to break into X, Y, Z company. I see you've been there for several years. I would just love 10 minutes of your time so I can learn what it's like to be there.

Kristi Cline: I'd just like 10 minutes of your time to learn about what the culture is like there. Just be real specific with your ask. I

Eric Blake: think that's great advice. And before we wrap up, I wanna, again, I wanna make sure that our listeners know how to connect with you, learn more about your services, your website, any information you'd like to share.

Kristi Cline: Sure, absolutely. So you can obviously connect with me on LinkedIn, Kristy Klein with a k and a C. You can also find information about my services on, we write it now.com. And if you're interested in this coaching platform that I've got and it's really cool, just reach out to me and I can send you, I created a, like an eight minute walkthrough so that you can see.

Kristi Cline: See many of the features and you can determine if it's a good fit for you, and if it is, let's talk. Let's get you in that platform, because the clients that are in there right now, honestly, I can't believe I didn't share this. I've put six clients in there and two of them have already landed roles within two months now.

Kristi Cline: I don't know if it's the platform or not. All I know is that they came to me, I helped them, and within two months of being on the platform and utilizing it, they've landed roles. I think that's a testament to the value that it speaks. I certainly can't guarantee that, but I can guarantee that if you check it out and you like what you'll be impressed if you play around with it for a month or so.

Eric Blake: That's awesome.

Kristi Cline: And Eric, there is a freebie that I would like to offer to your listeners that I think would help, and it's called the Career Compass Tool. And it would be the first step in helping you gain clarity on what you want your next move to look like. So if your listeners want that, just reach out and say, Hey, I heard you on Eric's podcast.

Kristi Cline: I'd love that career compass tool.

Eric Blake: Thank you so much for joining me on this episode, Christy. This has been tremendously valuable. We will definitely share all the links and resources that you have provided in the show summary. That is it for today's episode. For all the links and resources mentioned today, including Christy's website and resources, you can visit thesimplyretirementpodcast.com.

Eric Blake: Don't forget to follow and share our show. Until next time, please remember, retirement is not the end of the road. It is the start of a new journey.

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