Jill Manuel, a news director for more than 20 years, now coaches professionals leaving long-held careers. Her steps: decide what you want to be known for, ask your network what you’re good at, and rewrite your LinkedIn profile to look forward.
For people who have spent years in one profession, the hardest part of changing careers may not be finding a new job. It may be figuring out who they are without the old one. Jill Manuel, founder of JCAT Group, spent more than 20 years as a news director before leaving the newsroom. “I help you uncover who you are outside of that institution,” Manuel said as she shared her steps to pivot careers with TALKEONIMICS. She said she had trouble at first articulating what she had done and how it applied to another field. Her advice, drawn from her own experience and her coaching, comes down to six steps.
How to Figure Out Who You Are Outside Your Job
1. Decide what you want to be known for
Manuel said the biggest question she asks clients is what they want to be known for. Answering it, she said, gives clarity about how you want people to see you. She also asks clients, “what do people say about you when you’re not in the room?”
2. Ask your network what you’re good at
After leaving news, Manuel said, she talked to people she had worked with over the previous 20 years about what they thought she was good at. “I think sometimes people don’t tap into their network,” she said. Those conversations, she said, helped her think about what she wanted and which direction to take.
3. Rewrite your LinkedIn profile to look forward
Manuel said many profiles read “this is what I did, not this is what I can do.” She described a client moving from journalism into communications whose profile framed him as a former journalist. The fix, she said, is to “distill what I did into something that someone else will find value in.” She said she helped that client change how he described himself on his profile, in his writing and in interviews.
How to Make Your Career Change Stick
4. Show how you think
“The best way that you can get people’s attention is to demonstrate how you think,” Manuel said. She said LinkedIn is the only platform that can show a professional audience how you approach problems. Someone looking at your profile who wants to hire you can see how you would solve problems and what you know, she said.
Manuel offers profile work, content strategy, and ghostwrites for some clients. She said she believed she helped one unnamed client get more than 1,000 percent more impressions, a measure of how often content is displayed on the platform.
5. Treat it as a process, and expect discomfort
“You gotta put your scientist hat on,” Manuel said, meaning there are steps you can take to get clarity on your profile and personal brand. She said you also must be willing to abandon the person you thought you were.
It takes time. After leaving news, she said, she was a finalist for two years in job searches outside the newsroom, and employers kept saying, “we really like you, but we want someone that has done this job before.”
Manuel cited Jill Geisler, whom she described as running a media managers’ program at Loyola University, as saying that “adults hate to be temporarily incompetent.” Mastery takes time, Manuel said. “You’ve got to endure the suck.”
6. Get support
Manuel said she worked with a coach during her own transition, who helped her at the right moment. She said fear of the unknown holds many people back, and that concrete steps help. With a plan and support, she said, “it’s not nearly as scary.”
What comes after
Manuel said she helps people focus on the opportunities in front of them. “You can have joy, you can have a career that you love that makes money,” she said. Asked what she wanted people considering a change to know, Manuel said “it is possible” and that there is “a path forward.”