Hello, my name is Frank Danzo and I have assisted hundreds of people make successful career transitions. How did I get to this point? Here's my story.
It was mid-morning and I was sitting in a company meeting of the human resource professionals of our subsidiary from all over the country when I received an e-mail on my Blackberry. Like a good corporate soldier, I immediately popped it off my belt, and saw that the Vice President of Sales’ secretary needed me to call her office. I excused myself from the meeting and gave her a call. She asked me to attend a 1 P.M. meeting in the Vice President’s office, but when I inquired about the topic of the meeting, she said she was unsure. I immediately called my boss to see if he could offer more information. He told me that he was aware of the meeting; however, he would not be in attendance. In respect to the subject of the meeting, he commented that it concerned “your future with the company”. At that point, I knew what was coming.
Six months earlier, my boss of seven years and two of his peers had traded positions. My new boss was displeased by the changes and I knew it was just a matter of time before he would leave. Three weeks before my call he had resigned. It was time to reorganize and when the dust settled, my job had been eliminated. Twenty years and almost two million air miles later, I was on the outside looking in. The next four months was the most hellish period of my life.
During that time, I wrote my resume at least fifty times, applied for every job that I saw, and slipped into depression. I was out of control both personally and professionally but I was very fortunate to have a great wife, career coach and doctor. One day, I was sitting at my desk at the outplacement office when my wife called. She said she had made a doctor’s appointment for me later that morning. I told her I wasn’t going; everything was fine. Just then, my career coach walked in and together they convinced me to go to the doctor.
When my doctor walked into the examination room, I broke down. Even though he now had a hysterical, middle-aged man on his hands, he was caring and patient with me. He asked me if my children had acted any differently toward me. I responded that they still loved me as always. He said that was because they knew that the true value of a person comes from the person, not their job, title or money.
With assistance from my wife and doctor, I finally got my act together. My wife and I discussed what was important in our lives and the type of job I’d be looking for. We agreed that we didn’t want to relocate, since our oldest daughter was approaching high school and we didn’t want to disrupt her life. I knew this decision would limit my flexibility and make my search more difficult, but I was willing to take that risk for my family.
My former career at the major corporation had been very successful, and I thought that would be a huge selling point on my resume. My resume did open many doors, but whenever I spoke with people from large corporations, they were more curious about what had happened than in hiring me. I began to feel that instead of giving me a great head start, my resume was actually preventing me from returning to the workforce.
During my search, I considered nearly every possible option. I deliberated going to law school but realized it would never pay off at my age. I talked to a franchise broker, looking for that perfect match. My wife thought I had gone crazy when I considered buying a day-care business; then she knew I was crazy when I visited a manufacturer of frozen Italian foods. But no matter how wide-ranging these opportunities may have been, they proved valuable because they helped me eliminate the jobs I didn’t want.
Once I worked through these farfetched possibilities, I became focused and truly began my search. During this time, I met hundreds of people who were willing to meet with me and assist me in furthering my search. Most of those who helped me were total strangers who benefited little, if at all, from assisting me. As I continued my search, I decided that once I found a job, I would create a way to assist others in my situation to pay back, or as one person put it, “pay forward”, the investment others had made in me.
My career coach kept telling me that I had to network if I wanted to find my next job. That advice was dead on, but not very helpful because I had no idea what “networking” meant. My previous work life consisted of waking up at 4:30 A.M., spending up to 70% of my time traveling, and arriving home LATE. When I wasn’t traveling or working, all I wanted to do was spend time with my family. I didn’t invest time in meeting people outside of work, so I didn‘t have a “network” of contacts. Each week when I met with my career coach, her advice was to network, network, network. I eventually figured out what she meant, but I could never get an answer to the question, “How do you network?”
Connecting the Dots
I’m still amazed by the network that led me to that next job. I explained my situation to Andy, whose daughter played soccer with my daughter. Andy had been through a transition, so he could relate to my story. He asked for my resume and offered to circulate it through his company. I eagerly agreed.
After I e-mailed Andy my resume, I kept calling to see if he had anyone willing to talk with me. Almost a month passed before Andy finally introduced me to Chip. I called Chip and he agreed to meet with me, but as we talked, I realized he was in the process of moving to the city for the first time. As I hung up, I thought to myself, “What a waste of time! Chip is new to the company and city; he doesn’t know anybody!” I nearly called back and cancelled.
Nevertheless, I kept the appointment. Chip was a great guy, but he didn’t have any contacts in the city yet. As we discussed the companies I was targeting, he said he knew someone who worked for one of them. They had worked together in Washington, D. C. He said he would try to contact Leon and would contact me if he had any luck. I left the meeting convinced that my instincts had been right; meeting with Chip was a waste of time.
Two days later, Chip forwarded an e-mail from Leon; she would assist me, and suggested I give her a call. When I called the next day, Leon referred me to a co-worker, Nancy, and suggested that we meet. The meeting went exceedingly well and Nancy provided a number of referrals in the city, as well as a referral to another co-worker who I wanted to meet. At Nancy’s suggestion, I e-mailed her co-worker, Bob. Bob asked me to join him and one of his department heads, Jim, for lunch. We discussed the challenges that they were currently facing as they built a new department, as well as my past experiences. After twenty minutes, they told me about a new position they had in the works. We agreed that I was a good match for the position, and they suggested that I meet with Jim the next week to talk in more detail. It was at this meeting that I learned that the job description hadn’t been written, so I volunteered to draft it, which I hoped would accelerate the hiring process. After we revised the job description several times, Jim asked me to come in for a formal interview. The two of us talked for almost an hour, and then I had a group interview with the rest of his department heads.
Two weeks later, Jim called to offer me the position, Director of Project Services. I had successfully networked my way to a new position! It was amazing that I had been able to find a position that had not even previously existed or advertised. Through my networking, I was crossing both industries, consumer products to healthcare, and job functions, distribution to engineering. Thus, I had finally learned the meaning of networking, as well as its power.
After I started the job, I began coaching individuals through their own job searches. I had a steady stream of people calling me and asking for advice. I’ve worked one-on-one with over 100 individuals, and I’m proud that every pupil has worked hard and landed successfully.
Since I could only work one-on-one with a limited number of job seekers, I offered to join forces with a volunteer organization to conduct a networking workshop, thus expanding the number of people that we could assist. Since we started the workshop, I’ve trained over 800 people on the system that worked for me. The more people I worked with, the more I realized that this was what I wanted to do everyday as a professional, and finally I founded Career Networking Pro.
Now I spend my time advising currently employed people on ways to improve their performance; assisting others as they transition from one employer to another; and coaching people between jobs on how to accelerate their search and get what they want.
So if you are in a career transition, stay tuned for tips for optimizing your search.
