#15. Confessions of a Job Seeker – Nov. 2012
This series is based on a design journal that I kept between 09/12 – 02/13. New? Start here.

Over coffee one day, a friend and former colleague explained her take on ‘authentic networking’. She said it’s really all about asking ‘Who do you want on your team?’ This made a lot of sense to me, especially given the ways that the workforce is changing. Very few people spend their entire careers at one or two companies anymore. Most people now will have many jobs and multiple careers in one lifetime. I think this shift reveals an important truth – careers today are built around people, not around companies.

When it comes to asking who I want on my own team, I think about it broadly. I try to surround myself with people, projects and companies that share similar goals and values as me. These may be people I work with and they may also be people outside of my job. They may be companies that I’ve worked for or they may be companies that I simply respect and want to see succeed. I believe that aligning ourselves and supporting each other in this manner is how we now build our careers. It’s how we collectively work towards our potential.