Fellow fans of the show New Amsterdam might recognize Dr. Max Goodwin’s catchphrase – something that always resonated with me.  As much as Max was “The Boss,” his best moments as a leader and manager were when he approached a situation with a heart full of questions about where he can lend his expertise.  He didn’t assume that he arrived with the answers.  Those would usually be a joint effort – and that is a great example of leadership.

Leading with inquiry is also how I like to approach coaching, especially in an area so critical to my clients’ identity.  It’s not my career, it’s your career.  It’s not MY job search, it’s YOURS.  Do I think I bring something to the table?  Absolutely, and I hope to earn your trust by demonstrating my capabilities and discovering how I can help.  I practice the “Teach a man/woman to fish” style because I believe that learning career management skills is far more valuable to my clients than having me tell them what to do (or worse, just doing it for them).  My experience as a trainer – and the joy I feel when I have that kind of impact – has turned me into a “how-to” teacher; and yet, your ownership of the process is the key to a successful coaching engagement.

As I’ve posted on the “About Jeremy” page, a few years ago, I lost my job four times in five years.  That experience not only forced me to get good at finding a job quickly, it also made me very passionate about helping others do the same.  Fast forward a few years (and through grad school) and in the middle of my Dream Job as a Consultant – I was looking for potential colleagues at a job fair and realized how much help I can provide to individuals searching for the right opportunity, for their professional identity, and for their own Dream Job.

Prior to officially launching The Dream Job Network, I spoke with more than 60 people – mentors, friends, classmates, colleagues, new referrals, potential clients, and even potential competitors.  I was not just “practicing what I preach” in leveraging my network, I was also collecting their ideas, getting feedback on mine, and learning more about how I could help people.  Along the way, my network continued to grow – my connections thought of new people I could learn from.  Many of these contacts heard the origin story of The Dream Job Network – why I was thinking about starting a company.  Every single one of them said something along the lines of, “With your professional experience and personal perspective, you are uniquely positioned to help people with their careers.”

I’ve actually been “doing this” for decades (which makes me sound older than I’d like, but it is what it is!).  And I would largely credit Babson College’s Coaching for Leadership and Teamwork Program (CLTP) – fondly known as “The Coaching Program” – for establishing my approach to coaching.  For 25 years, every Babson student went through The Coaching Program.  Over the years, I have learned more about the rigor behind Babson’s competency model and the case study exercises students went through – but when I experienced it as a student myself, all I knew was that my coach was there to help me gain some self-awareness and help me improve in areas that made me a better student, classmate, colleague, and leader.  These days, I try to help my clients and colleagues do the same.

CLTP had such a significant impact on me as a student that I donated my time back – and thoroughly enjoyed it – nearly every semester from when I graduated in 2004 until the program became a COVID victim in 2020.  I’ve even trained new coaches as part of the Babson team, not to mention helping friends and connections.  So, I’ve been “coaching” people for nearly 20 years, including in their job search.  When you add my professional experience – as a recruiter right out of college, nearly ten years in the staffing industry, another 5+ years in training and development before becoming a Consultant (let alone my own experience as a job hunter) – like I said, I’ve been “doing this” for decades!

I often reference this Maya Angelou quote when I describe CLTP because although I don’t remember exactly what my freshman year coach said to me, I remember that she made me feel like I could leverage my strengths to conquer any challenge in front of me.  And so, when I was coaching (including when I became a Lead/Coordinating Coach after a few years with CLTP, and eventually was part of the CLTP faculty), shared my feedback with students in the same manner – to help them gain self-awareness about their demonstrated competencies and how to take on the world.  My goal with The Dream Job Network is to echo that same approach, including by providing resources beyond my own personal time & talents.  Remember those 60 people I mentioned above?  That’s just a fraction of the people I imagine will join me in helping anyone who comes to The DJN looking for guidance and support with their career.  And that’s the same process we’ll start clients with: scan the network for people to obtain advice, share ideas, and get referrals.

My ultimate vision is to build something that truly resembles a network – scaling far beyond what I can do alone, and connecting people across geographies, organizations, and themes.  Yes, we’ll add content – blog posts, research links, videos and podcast episodes.  Eventually, we’ll have training material, workshops, and events.  The Dream Job Network will demonstrate the alignment of talents and skills that certain people have with what other certain people are looking for, simultaneously enabling a dialogue and relationship about those topics.  For example, I imagine the “job seekers” meeting the “job havers” here – but facilitating it a bit better than the chess game I often see play out – and certainly focused more on conversations than counting the number of LinkedIn “Connections” someone has.  That vision may be a long way out, but I hope you will join the network and stay abreast of updates.

In the meantime, I am happily offering coaching services for job searches and career management based on four pillars:

There are a number of ways that people can forge a career identity and build their way up to a Dream Job.  I want to be a part of it, and I am confident in the frameworks, tools, and methodologies I have created.  I am so thrilled to launch The DJN because I know:

When you find that alignment, aren’t you supposed to do that for the rest of your life? So I’ve started this, even if it’s just a “side-hustle” because I still love what I do at Vantage.

If you are dissatisfied with your current career situation, I have one question for you: