Ever wonder what owning a fitness franchise entails? How about the ins-and-outs of helping people find their next job opportunity?
Former corporate HR executive and current executive recruiter, Halley Cowden discusses her career trials, tribulations, and triumphs on the Career Adventurer Podcast.
After spending nearly 20 years at P&G, Halley sought a change. She decided to make a career out of her passion for fitness and became a franchise owner nine months prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
She learned out how to keep a business focused on community connection afloat at a time when social distancing was the norm. She also learned that another pivot was in order. Serendipitously, one phone call lead to a new career as an executive recruiter.
Halley shares her wisdom on career pivots, mentorship, the importance of note-taking, and more built on 20+ years of experience in multiple fields.
Listen to the full episode. You’re sure to pick up a nugget or three for your own career adventures.
Interesting Nuggets
You’ll need to listen to the full episode to glean all of the interesting nuggets Halley has to share. While I’m biased, you’re going to want to hear what a job market expert has to say.
Regardless, if you don’t have time to listen to the episode while driving to work or gliding through the grocery store, here’s a few nuggets for you to know.
Personal CRM
Are you using a career contact relationship management system (CRM)? No, scrolling LinkedIn and interacting with your “closest friends’” posts is not the same thing. Rather, keeping a career CRM is a systemized approach to keeping track of people in your network.
For Halley, keeping a career CRM has made her better at her job as a recruiter. She contends, as do I, that it is a critical tool for all of us. You are more likely to find a job, whether it is with a new company or your existing one, by taping into your network vs. relying on some job application board.
Part of the power of keeping a CRM is notes. Many people have a journal where they keep a record of their interactions with people. Yet, formalizing this into a database (e.g. - within Google Docs) will be more effective. It’ll help you search and serve even more powerfully.
“I want to be able to jump into every conversation and scan what had happened in our last conversation and be like, oh yeah, they’re just getting back from vacation or we have this shared contact. I didn’t fully appreciate how capturing every single one of those nuances about an individual would help me show up to be a better person for them, whether that’s in the recruiting role or a coach role, or a mentorship type role.”
Weed & Feed
When I was a corporate finance geek at P&G, we would conduct an annual exercise called the “By-Size.” We’d analyze the profitability and volume of every single product SKU in our portfolio. It was quite the Herculean task.
The activity was all about self improvement, about weeding out the underperforming SKUS and feeding the over performing SKUS. As you can imagine, no business wants to focus efforts on products that aren’t carrying their weight.
Halley discussed a similar type of activity she performs on her birthday. She reflects not only on the things that are going well, but also on the things she needs to trim from her life. Call it an annual personal Spring cleaning!
“Every year on my birthday, I schedule two to three hours by myself. It’s such an informal process, but so meaningful to my life. I’ve been doing it since 2017 where I make a list of everything I’ve accomplished; everything I failed to accomplish; my goals for next year; the things in my life that are giving me energy and making me a better person; and what are the one or two people or things that I need to work out of my life.”
Don’t Let the Container Define You
In many respects, we’re all trained to be chameleons, to adapt to the environment in which we find ourselves. We enter a job. The rules of engagement and success are either expressly or ostensibly defined for us. If we want to succeed, to advance, to make a mark, to make more money, we must play by the rules.
When things are going well and we aren’t presented with any legal or moral quandaries, this is just dandy. Yet, at some point we may reach a crossroads, we may question success. That’s when knowing how YOU define success is most critical. The best of us do the work BEFORE a disorienting moment — death, divorce, marriage, children, job less, etc. — finds us.
“The biggest challenge that I see with people trying to transition from long-term corporate careers to their own adventure is they’ve never defined success for themselves. They define it based in the container in which they’re currently residing. Success for me has been pretty constant regardless of what container I am in.”
Learn More About Halley’s Path
Halley and I discussed a range of other topics, from required reading to tradeoffs in life.
She discussed how parenting intersects with career success. She shares how executive recruiting is making her a more sound business person because of the range of business models and challenges she is exposed to.
Go beyond the aforementioned themes. Hear all of the lessons she has to offer. Listen to the full episode.
Enjoy! Thanks for you support!
Paul G. Fisher
