Latest / Better Together / From Overlooked to In-Demand: Rethinking Your Career Strategy with Kristi Cline
Transcript
- Meesam curingbusy: Hi everyone. And welcome back to the Better Together podcast. I'm your host for today, Sean Sunsvold, and I'm joined as always by my partner in life and in business, Kelly Sunsvold. Today's guest is Christy Klein. She is a three times certified resume writer, job search strategist, and founder of We Write It Now. After building a career in corporate marketing with brands like Kodak and JCPenney, Christy launched her business at 50 and never looked back. Since then, she's helped over a thousand professionals from rising leaders to C-suite execs, land roles they love and negotiate offers with confidence. She's known for cutting through the noise with bold personalized career strategies that go far beyond templates. Her message is clear. Getting hired isn't just about your resume. It's about clarity, confidence, and knowing how to tell your story. In today's episode, Christy shares what she's learned from coaching high level professionals through career pivots, building a business from scratch and navigating growth. through uncertainty. Christy, I am so glad to have you here for this conversation. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much, Sean. I'm really excited to dig in. Lots of fun here. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation. So let's just start at the beginning, right? What led you to start We Write It Now? You know, if I'm completely honest, and I always tell people this, the thing that really made me ⁓ consider even launching a business, because I wasn't one of these entrepreneurs all my life that dreamed of running her own business. That wasn't me at all. I launched my business pretty much out of desperation and frustration because I found myself back in 2017 in the midst of a job search, coming back, like re-entering the workforce. And the landscape had changed dramatically. And I didn't know that. I mean, what's to change about a resume? know, resume is a resume. No, that could not be further from the truth. And so after a year of trying to land interviews, and I think I only landed a couple to be honest, I had to figure out what's, like, what am I doing wrong? What do I need to do more of? What do I need to do less of? And the big thing that nobody talks about could age be part of my problem. So I met with a bunch of recruiters to try to diagnose what I was doing wrong and to see how I could actually be successful in landing a job. When I walked away from these conversations, I felt empowered for sure because I knew what to do. And I was doing a ton of things wrong that I didn't even realize. But then when I asked them, could age be a problem, the answer was unfortunately yes. And you know, I'm over 50. And it's not easy to get a job when you are. 50 and above. So I had to decide, all right, I can change my strategy and get the interviews, but I'm still fighting ageism. Or I could take all that I've learned, all the knowledge of what it does take to land a role and get that interview and monetize it by launching a business. And that way I am helping others, doing what I love, bringing in an income and really feeling good about myself at the end of the day. And so that's really how the business launched. And I do want to throw this in there because it really was a pivotal moment for me. I had been thinking about launching a business and then I was scrolling on social media and I came across this concept of Ikigai. It's a Japanese concept and I'll probably screw up the official definition, but it's basically identifying what you love to do, what you're good at, creating a need for it, and then being able to charge. And when I saw that concept, it just hit me. This is what I need to do. This is what I was born to do. So I launched the business and I haven't looked back. I love that. It's, we were just talking with one of our other podcast guests about how happiness, like if you can do what you love and what you're good at and get paid for it and support your family, like it's just an amazing combination. And I would say that's wisdom of a 50 year old that you've learned. And so. Kudos to you, I think that's really awesome. You mentioned that your business, I don't know how you phrase it, but you said it's basically born out of, with both purpose and a bit of desperation. Desperation. Yes. What did that time really look like behind the scenes? Like what was going on? When I launched my business in December of 2019, who knew what was ahead of us three months down the road? Yes. Right? And I entered that year, 2020, it's decade yet, and the entire world shuts down. So I came to another pivotal moment. Okay, nobody's hiring, nobody needs my services, nobody's working, what now? And I really couldn't turn back, how long? So I thought, you know, I am just going to continue to hone my craft, perfect my skills, and then start to build a following on social media. Why? because I love social media? No, of course not. It was because that's where everybody was hanging out. Social media, if you're not working, you're scrolling. So I spent 2020 basically just building visibility, building credibility, having people meet me, get to know me, and sharpening my skills so that when everything started to open up, the pump was primed, so to speak, and I'd be ready to go. So, know, 2020 was tough, obviously, but I'm still here, still thriving, and I still love what I do. That's so amazing. Do you make the move and then prepare later or do you prepare so that way you're ready whenever something comes up? Right. And the reality of it is we're always preparing for something. Right. And if we're not taking those actions to be prepared for when that good thing comes, we're almost shooting ourselves in the foot. Right. Also, I agree with that. Also, if we don't create space for opportunities to present themselves, and that's something that I learned last year actually, if you pack your schedule with meetings, events, whatever, and there's no room for opportunity, it's almost like you're telling the universe, don't send me anything, I'm at capacity. So that was another big lesson that I learned from my business. What was one of the biggest surprises you came up against? know, no, mean, frustrations for sure. I would say the biggest frustration in my business has been tech. You know, because I'm in charge of all my systems, so I need to understand how the systems work, how the automations flow, having workflows. And you're likely, if you're starting up a business yourself, you're piecemealing things together because oftentimes you're limited with budget, right? Like if you get a grant for $50,000, that startup is going to look a lot different than if you pull $1,000 from your own personal bank account, right? Yes. In my experience, when you can put more money into it, it doesn't take as long to grow. So back to when I first started and my biggest challenge being tech, I had to find the tools and applications that worked well, trial and error. had to learn. those applications and trial and error. And then all of a sudden AI comes in and it throws a wrench in everything because it has all of these great things that can happen now. But now I have to relearn every single platform. So being a solopreneur is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of time, a lot of grit, a lot of getting down and dirty. but also the things that you learn about yourself, about people, about life. I wouldn't change it for the world. I love the way you said that. It's so like, oh, I feel it. I mean, we're in your, what is this, year six, Sean, of our business. the first three years, I was kind of doing it by myself, or I guess two years, I was kind of doing it by myself, Sean Mazerda. But it's, you have to figure out a lot. You have to get creative and know. know who to ask if you don't know the answer to something. So kind of playing on your experience, you're a three times certified resume writer. That's crazy. But that sounds, you enjoy it and that's fine. In your view, what kind of separates like an average resume from a great one, especially in light of all the AI tools that are out now? Okay. So in today's job market, with it being so complicated and complex, what we're finding in our industry really moves the needle. is taking the whole job search process and look at it holistically. You don't just need to update your resume. You don't just need to tweak your LinkedIn. You don't just need to network, right? You need to have a resume that speaks who you are, your personal brand, your true value, your differentiator, what makes you better than 250 other candidates, okay? And you have to get to that fast. because recruiters are only spending 10, 15 seconds max at the first pass. So you have to capture their attention fast with the compelling information that they want, that they need to decide if they're gonna move forward. So that's the resume. Then your LinkedIn profile needs to carry that same message because recruiters and headhunters and executive search firms, they are looking for candidates on LinkedIn. probably three hours a day on average every single day. So if your LinkedIn profile doesn't share the same message or positioning or strategy that is present in your resume, they're left raising their hands going, okay, what's the disconnect? So everything needs to have the same message. So in terms of approaching your job search strategy, you need to have a beautifully custom tailored and targeted career package to present. It's like a marketing document because at the end of the day, you're selling yourself. And I think, you know, just thinking about somebody in a job change situation, maybe they were let go, maybe they're just frustrated, you know, in where they're at. But I can imagine a lot of people come to you and go, I don't know what makes me different, right? They don't really know how to differentiate themselves. So when you're going through that process with somebody, Where do you start? How do you kind of help them formulate, start formulating that story? Sure. So I do this a lot. I see a lot of clients that come to me later in their career and they know they still have things left to do, left to contribute, but they're not sure what that looks like because they're done trying to climb that corporate ladder and now they're just kind of back at baseline. And so I really start with going back to Icky Guy. What do you love to do? What are you really good at? What are you known for when you leave the room? And that gives me information to help my clients and I start building your personal brand. And it's funny, not funny, it's beautiful actually. It's beautiful when I'm meeting with these clients and after one or two conversations, we're able to craft this narrative about their career, how they started, what were a couple of high accomplishments or contributions that you made, and then combine that with What do you want to do moving forward? How are you going to take what you did so well in the past and prove that up basically to a future employer? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that storyline, it's just, it's so important nowadays to be able to just communicate, you know, what it, you know, how you not only see your own value, but then how you can then be a value to another company, right? That, what you just said, you want to help the reader of your resume, the hiring manager, the recruiter, whoever, you want them to, as they are reviewing your information or as they are talking to you, you want them to begin to visualize what kind of impact you're going to make on them in the future. And if you can get to that point, you're going to get the interview. And if you get that point in the interview and you're able to effectively communicate those sorts of things in different areas that are their pain points, so if you can solve that company, department, organization's pain points, then all of a sudden you've gone from, in your interview, your ranking from ranking number 10 to maybe ranking number three, or two or one. It really goes back to connecting the dots so that they don't have to. The easier you make it on the recruiter, the more the recruiter is gonna fall in love with you and be on their side and realize we need this person. Yeah, it's a really good point. think too, you mentioned the landscape right now in the job search world right now in the U.S. You've helped over a thousand professionals from leaders to execs. What's the biggest thing that most people misunderstand about personal branding and storytelling when it comes to a job search. even know that it's misunderstanding it. I think it's just that knowledge. They don't know the role that a personal brand can play. Having a personal brand, forget what your personal brand is for a second. Having that personal brand, it tells the person reading the material or interviewing you, you completely understand why you are such a strong stellar candidate. gives them, the person, my client, a really heightened confidence level. And confidence is attractive in an interview process, right? So yeah, that's what I would say. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah, you mentioned confidence. think confidence goes such a long way, right? Even in just whether it's just a simple conversation with somebody, but people kind of sense it, right? And they also sense like confidence versus arrogance. Right? And there's like, there's something different about a confident person who, and how they carry themselves versus, you know, somebody who's prideful or arrogant, you know, there's just something different in their personality. Yeah. And going back to the personal brand question, not only does it give you that confidence, but your personal brand attached to you, that makes you more memorable if you market yourself right, because they may not remember your name, but like in my case, I help senior leaders. navigate complex job transitions, right? So they may not remember my name, they may not remember my company name, but they will remember, isn't that that person that helps senior leaders do career moves or something? Like you're still memorable because they remembered that element of your personal brand. But if you're just a name or just a resume writer, insert title, you're not standing out at all, Yeah. So, you know, kind of talking about that and helping people find their value, right? Because if, again, if they've been let go, they're looking at changing, they're just unhappy where they're at, sometimes they don't know what their own value is. And, you know, so how do you, you know, I guess kind of the question is how do you help people understand their own value? To clients that, to your point, have no idea of the true value that they bring because they're so in it. And they associate with similar people that do a similar thing so they don't recognize the value. I will look at it from a fresh lens and I'll really just ask a lot of questions during our coaching sessions. Tell me about some times that you've been really proud of your work ⁓ and then I'll pay attention to what they get excited about, what they don't get excited about. I'll often ask for performance appraisals from the past couple of years. That gives me terrific third party insight into them. I'll never forget this one story with this client. It was so great. I had her on the phone. I was doing her resume and we were ⁓ basically reviewing it for accuracy. And I had called her a thought leader in her personal brand. And she said, I just, I don't feel comfortable with that. And I said, okay, let's explore why. Tell me in your opinion, what a thought leader is. I don't know. said, no worries. I'm going to tell you what a thought leader is. You know, they are somebody that is frequently asked for information and guidance on a particular topic. Does that happen? ⁓ yeah, all the time. OK, great. A thought leader might be somebody that speaks at industry events or is asked to speak at industry events. Do you do that? Yeah. Great. Have you published any white papers or articles or anything like for presentations? Have you presented to senior leadership on your topic of interest all the time? OK, my friend. All of those things make you a thought leader. And then I follow up with, now, do you understand why that matters? No. Okay. Well, number one, it's a differentiator. For you to call yourself a thought leader is one thing. For you to demonstrate it, which you can do, is even better. Thought leaders command higher compensation. Would that be of interest to you? Yes. Okay. So at the end of the conversation, I asked her, Are you okay with keeping Thought Leader on here? And do you feel it accurately represents you and your brand? Yes. Perfect. You know, kind of tying into that a little more of why do you think people, you know, people have such a hard time seeing their own value? Goodness. It's tough. I don't know the answer. I know that it's a very common problem. Most people have that problem. If you look at me, three times certified resume writer, right? So writing my own resume should be easy. Let me tell you, no, it's not. Like I know all my history, but for me to do it, I feel that I'm just too close to it. And I think that might be the problem. I don't know. This is something for a therapist or a psychologist. I don't quite understand the psychology behind it. I just know it's common. And that's why it's so great to get to enlist the help with your career documents of somebody that does know what they're doing. And I do want to kind of... call this out because having your friend help you write your resume isn't rarely a good idea, if I'm honest. It's a great idea to talk to your friend and ask them questions like, in your opinion, what do you think I do well? What do you think I do better? You know, that sort of thing. But the actual writing of the resume, it needs to be done by somebody that knows the nuances of today's job market because there are things you could do that could really hurt your chances of being seen. Obviously, I wouldn't want that for you. you know, that's the importance and the value of securing the services of somebody that really understands what they're doing. And here's another thing I see all the time is somebody has a friend in HR and they're just going to take a quick look at my resume. Okay, what they're really doing is doing a quick spell check and a quick glance that it's not embarrassing, but they don't really know what they're looking for unless... they are a hiring manager unless they're an internal recruiter. Especially, I think, in light of all the areas that you said need to be updated and in sync, because that's great that a HR manager has looked and you have no grammatical errors or those dreaded double spaces after a period or whatever. It's great that you don't have that on your resume. However, if your LinkedIn looks like junk, that would take somebody who's a professional like you. to go in and make it a seamless experience or seamless almost brand. I'll pull out a marketing term since it is sort of like you're marketing yourself. You are marketing yourself that it's a seamless brand from start to finish. You you started the company, we write it now. And what's one thing that you wish you would have known before you started besides how many grammar errors you see on resumes? Yeah, you know, I mean, hindsight, if I were to do it again, I think the biggest thing that I would do differently, and I mentioned this earlier, is I would find a way to get some seed money. And I don't know what that amount is, but I mean, it's more than $1,000. I would get some seed money to start so that I could do it right from the get-go. And then the second piece of advice that I would mention, and it's something that a lot of new entrepreneurs fall into the trap of, is Is your business a true business? Are you operating your business as a business or are you operating your business as a side hustle or a hobby that you get paid for? that, mean, really, you need to get clear on that. Otherwise, you're gonna have several years of struggle. Cause you're gonna operate differently, right? You know, when something's a side hustle, you kind of get that benefit of like, ⁓ it's just a side thing. You've got your main thing that's going on. But then you make, you know, when you make that switch to that, you know, just calling it that side hustle, becoming your main hustle, right? Like you have to look at it completely different because it's not just the side thing anymore that gets your spare time. You have to look at it like it gets all of your time, which means you have to own every step of it, right? From how you brand yourself, how you name yourself, how you sell your product, how you run your finances, everything has to be on you. You're wearing six different hats. How great is it if you could launch a business and only have to wear one hat? That's fantastic, but that's also not realistic for most people. And that's how I started my business. One person, six hats, tons of people that helped support me, lift me up. They would give me free information, free coaching. I really leveraged relationships those first few years. And thank God I had the relationships. Now I'm at a point where I... can be that source for someone else. I love making those introductions. I love saying, here was what my experience was, here's what I would do differently, here's what worked great. I had tons of resources that could help me along the way. And now I get the pleasure and privilege of doing that for others. Yeah, and I know you're on year eight, nine in this, or guess end of 2019, so you're on year six, right along with us. And I know when we talked about it in our intro call, you've talked about like, You've scaled your business up and pulled it back a couple times. You know, what did each of those transitions teach you about staying aligned with that purpose, that icky guy that you were talking about earlier? The biggest takeaway for me was when I had my best year, interestingly enough, my business blew up in a great way. However, what I didn't like is I became a manager of people and a manager of processes. And I found there was like, three months that I think I touched one resume, because I had a team of writers and I started drifting from doing what I actually love to do. Like my favorite part of the business is writing the resume and I wasn't doing that. And I just kind of took note and fast forward, that was in 2023, fast forward to 2026. I'm kind of back, not to swear one, but I'm back to basics with me running everything, but I've also scaled back on what I'm running. So I have missed the time with the client and actual concrete work, tangible work. And that's what my focus is for 2026. I love that. And bringing it back to what you love, you know, like it's just, I'm happy for you. Thank you. So we obviously we call this, this podcast better together and You know, we work together, but there's been many more people behind the Goldberg Media story that, you know, have been made us better because we've been together. What is, what has made you feel better together in your entrepreneur journey? Or is there people that have been specific people, mentors, whoever behind you that's really been that rock star for you? mean, I can think of two recruiters that I am so blessed to enjoy both a personal and a professional relationship with. They have been there ⁓ being a cheerleader, but also resources. They have sent me their own clients, you know, that they've needed help placing. And so I've had a steady stream of new clients and new projects from these referral sources, these recruiters. They've been great. And I can't think of just one person because there's been so many. many. Yeah. And it really is just usually it's a team of people. mean, it goes from, you know, your kids, your spouse, your partner, your friends and, you know, mentors or old bosses, just people who believe in you. And that, you know, I'm glad that it's been many for you. And I think if we were to talk to any entrepreneurial person, it usually is a lot of people behind them. I mean, a lot of people doing different things and it collectively is a force. You know, that I like to think of it as my board of directors, you know, making sure that I'm staying on the straight and narrow with what my passion is, with what I really wanted to design, keeping me on track. How can they get in touch with you and learn more about what you do? Absolutely. So the first place that I love to mention is LinkedIn. I hang out on LinkedIn. I love that platform. You can follow me. It's just under Christy Klein. You can also shoot me a DM. I do check. all of my DMs or you can visit me on my website. WeWriteItNow.com. There's a ton of information out there. I built that website really to provide viewers as much information as I would want if I was looking for somebody like myself. So everything pretty much that you need is on my website. And if it's intriguing to you, I would love an opportunity to just chat with you. learn a little bit more about where you've been, where you want to go, and what your challenges have been. And during that consultation, once I hear from you on all those areas, I'll give you my own recommendation on what I think is going to work and why. And you can decide if we're a fit or not. I'm not for everybody, but I sure do love watching these transformations. And my clients seem pretty happy. I've got a very strong referral base. I would say 60%, 70%. is referrals of my clients. awesome. Yeah, it's big. It's big. that's really great. Well, Kristi, thank you so much for your time and sharing your knowledge, sharing your wisdom about the business. Thank you so much. Thank you, Shawn. Thank you, Kelly. I enjoyed chatting with you all today.