What's in a Linkedin

Finding my way through a pivot

I’ve been thinking about Mulan a lot lately.

This is probably because, since indulging in family Disneyland passes, I’ve been force-feeding Disney movies down my children’s throats. This sounds violent, but they’re happy to oblige, and I promise it makes being at the park so much more fun when they can recognize the characters and storylines.

We watched Mulan a few months ago, and my son loved it. My daughter kept suspiciously asking if Mulan was a princess (she’s not technically, even though she’s presented as such for representation purposes). And I was reminded of how awesome a film it is. I remember seeing it in theaters, and likely haven’t seen the whole thing since.

A couple of weeks ago, my son stumbled upon Mulan 2, since he’s now pretty adroit with the remote control, and we all sat down to watch. Not that good! Still, he enjoyed it, particularly because he is practicing a performance in his afterschool program to “I’ll Make A Man Out of You.” The boys have swords, and the girls have fans, I’ve been informed. I’ll know more next weekend.

On the surface, it’s clear why Mulan has taken up residence in my mind, but I think her lingering presence is serving deeper introspection beyond the princess or not a princess debate.

Mulan is synonymous with her iconic ballad, “Reflection,” sung by two divas, Lea Salonga and Christina Aguilera.

I’ve been feeling this sentiment pretty deeply lately.

I know what you’re thinking. This has to do with my identity as a mother of young children, or as a fully middle-aged pre-perimenopause lady. I did recently dedicate an entire essay to my rapidly graying hair, so…

But it’s not. I’m talking about LinkedIn.

I am a self-proclaimed “bad on paper” candidate. I don’t know how else to describe it. My absolutely crammed two-page resume is not a reflection of who I am inside or as an employee. Hiring managers and applicant tracking systems (ATS) alike can’t seem to––well–– see me.

You know how sometimes, you start texting a story to your friend, stop, and then decide to pick up the phone or record a voice note because it’s just too complicated to type? That sums up how I feel about pivoting my career at 40 years old, except I don’t have anyone’s number, just a P.O. box someone forgot about.

If you’re new here, or I’m one of your real-life Chandler Bing friends (or your daughter, hi Dad) whose job you can’t describe or understand, let me offer a quick refresher.

(Pretend there’s an impressive ’00s rom com montage of my career playing behind this voiceover.)

After graduating with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and a minor in business, I stumbled my way into an almost 20-year (eek!) career in communications, content strategy, digital marketing, and writing. I’ve worked for agencies, in-house, at startups, and often just for myself. This tight list is a bit reductive. I’ve had so many fulfilling and objectively “cool” career experiences and moments, but these are the Cliff’s notes I would offer to anyone who’d indulge me in an interview.

I became very good at what I do, but at some point, I realized my calling might involve more than writing blog posts and Instagram captions for brands and people. So, I did what any sane person who was pregnant with their second child in a global pandemic would do: I applied for graduate school in a field where I have absolutely no experience.

So for the past four years and change, I’ve worked my way through a master's degree and now my second year of a Ph.D. in organizational psychology––all while still maintaining my established career as a writer and strategist in content and communications. I’m happy to stay on this path and in my current role, where I love my co-workers and get to work on cool projects (I just wrote lines for Sarah Jessica Parker!), until I’m able to pivot to a new trajectory that's more aligned with my education.

I’m perfectly capable of holding my present and future simultaneously, but I am getting a little antsy and annoyed at how difficult it is to convince the powers that be to take a chance on an unknown (40-year-old) kid.

Almost 20 years into my career, I am a jumble of experience, titles, and a hodgepodge of creative writing and branding skills, now including literature review, program evaluation, and qualitative analysis. I’m both a master and a novice, an artist and a scientist, an individual contributor and a leader.

Ew, David! I wouldn’t want to touch me either.

Gestalt Principles describe how humans group similar elements, recognize patterns, and simplify complex images when we perceive objects. We like things to neatly fit into categorical boxes. We like to see a linear career path with just enough jobs held to communicate experience, but not so many that you seem unpredictable. We like to see a clear progression of seniority as you climb the ranks with each new promotion or organizational jump. We like to see a steady increase in responsibilities and metrics.

We like to see someone who’s “good on paper.”

The problem is, there’s no more paper. And what’s left are scraps.

A major recession, rampant mass layoffs, dying industries, rising technologies, volatile political leaders, and shaky economies aren’t exactly fertile ground for the prototypical, stable career trajectories that are STILL held as the gold standard in hiring. Millennials (and Gen Z) have been thrust into a growing gig-or-starve job market, and frankly, we’re doing the best we can with what we’re given!

Most career paths are no longer linear.

In this economy?

It often takes a healthy dose of creativity to draw conclusions and connections about the holistic sum of a person’s experience and training. It requires mental math and creative thinking to understand how an untraditional background could, in fact, be advantageous to a role. That’s what recruiters are trained to do, and why we still need to pay humans for this job.

But my best understanding of the situation is that we’re living through the hellish age of AI slop and automated hiring systems that make it easy for companies to post jobs, and likewise for massive numbers of people to apply for them, which in turn forces organizations to use even more technology to manage it all. This creates a non-worker-friendly hiring landscape where candidates are almost forced to use AI to generate applications, since it’s a numbers game at this point, and recruiters or hiring managers (for the most part) use AI to screen them because the intake is too high. It’s just robots talking to each other about real human work.

Not to mention, at least for me, as a particularly linear career-pathed friend of mine (who always gets called for interviews) pointed out, “There are just fewer jobs at our level.” And, now we’re on the precipice of agism on the other side of 40. Yikes!!

Another friend, an executive recruiter, confirmed that there is no way you’re getting a job with a cold application. Even a glowing referral from a current employee means nothing––something I just experienced firsthand last month. I received a form rejection within 48 hours. A strong internal recommendation didn’t even get me a pity screening call. Throw your girlie a bone!

“It’s all about working your current network,” is the repeated advice. That sounds exhausting and bothersome, if I’m being honest. Which brings me back to my girl, Mulan.

I’m impatient for my reflection to show less “mess,” and more “desirable complexity.” In nature, diversity breeds strength. As an organizational psychology Ph.D. student, I can confidently say the academic literature echoes the same evidence-based sentiments around the effects of diversity in elements like cognitive ability and personality on performance, but I’m too lazy to cite my sources for you right now.

Ultimately, the frustration I feel is around the massive effort I put into helping people SEE me for who I am, or rather, who I have become, in the last few years, with little to no return. Even if I connect all the dots, do all the work, and put it in a pretty presentation, people don’t seem to get it. Ok, that’s untrue. Many people I know get it, but the right people aren’t seeing the vision.

So, how did I become so invisible?

I forget how we were connected, but one afternoon in 2014, I found myself on the phone with one of the co-founders of a rising social media agency called McBeard, Alec McNayr. He needed a copywriter. Like most conversations you’ll have with Alec, everything felt easy, and then he got to my resume.

I braced myself for what I knew was coming. Had my explanations and rationalizations ready to go.

“Seems like you’ve bounced around a lot.”

“Yeah…” I was sweating bullets.

“I get it,” he said, matter-of-factly. “You chase opportunity. You’re curious.”

Later, his business partner would bestow upon me one of the best compliments I’ve ever received: “You have a lot of inertia.”

I’ve never felt more professionally seen than under their leadership. They made many, many other employees and me feel like we could be ourselves, and in turn, do the best work of our lives. A true leadership superpower I strive to embody.

I waver in and out of futzing with my LinkedIn profile. I incessantly meddle with my headline, vacillating between showing more of my quirky personality and portraying a more serious “professional” persona. Some days I think, “Hey, if they don’t like who I am, I don’t want it. I’m going to be my authentic self, and the right person will finally find me.” And others, I’m hitting the backspace button in a wild attempt to suppress all the things I love about myself in the workplace.

My current LinkedIn background is a picture of one of the corners of my pin collection board.

Doing this for years on end will drive insanity and convince you that it’s a YOU problem. I’m not eschewing responsibility. Some of it IS a me problem, whether it’s in my control or not. I can’t change my past, and I refuse to tell an inauthentic version of it just to land a job. I know that’s a fast way to wind up in a role or organization that is a terrible fit. I’d rather be patient for “The One.”

While it’s maybe partially a me-problem, there are much larger and more pervasive systemic issues, and I am but one of many casualties. This is the worst entry-level job market in 37 years; government data show that overall hiring is at its weakest level in more than a decade and that “there are more unemployed people — 7.4 million — than available jobs, at 6.9 million.” A Gallup survey found that workers have a dimmer view of their current lives and future prospects than at any point since 2009, which, as someone whose career was stunted that year to working as the assistant manager of a hot dog stand and a server at a tea shop, this checks out for me. But we don’t have an unfying, comprehensible recession to blame. The cognitive dissonance is deafening.

It’s hard to see yourself clearly when it’s not reflected back. External validation is so important. You can only sustain an accurate self-perception for so long before you become an unreliable narrator in your own life.

Ultimately, even though it’s objectively not a good movie, I hope my story ends up like Mulan 2. Not to spoil anything, but after proving her courage, strength, and intelligence in the first film, Mulan receives a second shot to show her bravery and duty to the Emperor, and still ends up getting her man. That’s all I want: a second chance at a new career, a hottie army general by my side (justice for Shang to be considered a Disney prince), and a smart-ass ancestral dragon guardian (voiced by Eddie Murphy or a very good impersonator if we can’t afford him) to watch over me for the rest of my days.

And I guess all I have to do to get it is be better at LinkedIn.