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An exhausted man tries to smile for a photo during the first week of his new job…
Between my resume writing services and my video courses I have helped hundreds of people transition into new jobs… however, it had been 5+ years since I did anything like that myself…until now
...and let me tell you, this shit is hard.
If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll know that I recently resigned from my stable, permanent, long-term job to take on a 6-month contract in a department across the hall from my old job (before leaving to take this business full-time… July 31st, baby!).
My old job was absolutely awesome and fun and full of great people, but after 5-years and a devastating missed promotion, it was well-past-time to move on.
On February 4th, I started my new job.
Process Evaluation and Service Delivery Analyst…
which is a cool job but it’s all very new and there are many unfamiliar feelings.
Don’t get me wrong, I love feeling feelings.
I love feeling nervous, out-of-place, and generally uncomfortable… it reminds me that I’m alive, and those feelings usually come when something awesome is happening (or is about to happen)…
P.S., on a related note… I’ve taken up musical improv and let me tell you… I am, what my retired-music-teacher-mother would call, “Not good at singing”… but I love that discomfort… and I’m getting good at rhyming… but that’s not why you’re here… hahaha sorry… let’s get back on topic :)
All that considered…
Now that I’m living this transition experience, I want to share what I’ve found as the hardest parts of transitioning jobs.
My hope is that if you’re going through something like this, or you’re scared about your own transition… you’ll at least know that you’re not alone.
We’re in this together :)
The day I moved to the U.S. for grad school, I immediately became this uber-proud Canadian and started doing Canadian things I had never done before. I hung a flag in my residence room, I started following the Toronto Blue Jays religiously, and I would take every opportunity I could to blast my Canadian-only playlist to anyone who would listen.
It’s so funny how you leave somewhere you’re comfortable with and then suddenly you relate so strongly to how things used to be. What was once annoying becomes endearing and you miss the little things that you took for granted.
I miss a lot of little things…
Like at the end of the day at my old job, each of my colleagues had a designated sign-off for each other… kind of like a “verbal secret handshake”.
I miss annoying my cubicle neighbours by eating baby carrots at a volume that I thought was completely reasonable… ;)
I miss the smell of the kitchen. It wasn’t good… but it was home… the new kitchen is fine… but it doesn’t smell like home.
When you’re in a job for a long-ass time… you generally get pretty good at it. And I don’t mind bragging (I rarely do, hahaha), I got really damn good at my old job.
You had a question… I had an answer.
A problem came up… I knew how to solve it.
A decision had to be made… I’m your guy.
But now…
I know nothing.
I’m a total beginner. I don’t know names, I don’t know acronyms, I don’t know processes, I don’t know anything.
So all day… every day… I’m just asking people to explain stuff to me. I’m reading, I’m watching videos, and I’m eavesdropping a lot.
Luckily for me, my boss has designated these first few weeks as “listening time”. So I’m very grateful there is no pressure to deliver anything yet, but damn… it’s just so hard / different to go from having all the answers to having none at all.
I’m an extrovert. In fact, I’d call myself the extrovert’s extrovert. When I’m all out of energy after a long day, I usually want to find some people I like and just talk things out and chill.
But wow...
In the past 8 days, I’m sure I’ve met over 100 people and it has been draining.
What’s hard is that this energy I use to engage with these people is the same energy that drives me to excel and achieve things. So without that, I feel my wheels spinning a bit.
Even doing little things like writing this blog are hard. I’m sitting here on a Sunday afternoon, only able to write after literally doing nothing at all for my whole Saturday.
The good news is…
I don’t think I’ve got a ton more people to meet in the role.
The bad news is…
Now I have to interact with a bunch of people who “know” me but I can’t remember their names because I met so many people so close together.
That’s okay though, I'm still within the window of time where I can sheepishly ask, “Sorry, what was your name again?”… although that question alone takes up a lot of social energy.
Long story short… I’m tired.
Last week, for the first time since New Years, I fell short of my gym goal for the week. I also didn’t eat my healthy breakfast (bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and a hard boiled egg) that typically fuels my mornings.
I’m also dead when I get home because of the previously mentioned energy drainers, which annoys Ariana because I’m no fun at all.
I feel confident that this is temporary and I’ll settle in before too long, but it kind of sucks that during a time of uncertainty and transition, I can’t count on the things that used to keep me stable.
Patience young Langstaff… the routine shall return to it’s mighty glory.
Every personality test I’ve ever taken has accused me of being overly positive… so let’s embrace that for a moment and share the 4 Best Parts of Starting a New Job to balance things out.
As I stated… I got really good at my old job. Perhaps too good. It all sort of became automatic. In the last week I’ve said the phrase, “I feel like my brain is turned back on” several times.
For that... I’m grateful :)
As with most career moves, a part of the motivation was financial. And because this job is a short contract, it’s all cash (as in, no money going into pension or benefits or union dues or anything) which is great for my current situation since I’m saving up cash so I can supplement my income temporarily when I go full-time entrepreneur (also, I’m enrolled in Ariana’s benefits so health-wise, I’m covered).
Of all people, a Professional Resume Writer should know the value of adding a different job with new responsibilities to my experience. Although I’m not planning on leveraging this experience for a new job, the value of working with different people and having some new, analysis-and-process-focused experience under my belt will be immensely valuable.
You want to see the people you love succeed, learn, and grow. And I maintain a healthy level of love for myself, so mathematically speaking… how can I not be happy for myself?
When people would ask me what I was “up-to” in the past couple years, I would be excited to tell them about the Career Services business, but when the full-time job came up, I was using the word “still” with some disdain… “I’m still in the same job”, not very proud, you know?
Now… I feel great about what I do and I’m proud of myself :)
The challenges are temporary… the benefits will help me for the rest of my career. All this stress will be well worth it in the end :)
Check out my eBook!
December 2017… I was less than 4 months from my 30th birthday and having one of those typical “What Am I Supposed to Do With My Life?” conversations with myself while lying in bed around 6:30am on a Sunday morning (I have no trouble falling asleep at night but in the twilight hours, my mind starts to motor with these big questions and there’s often no falling back asleep).
Things were… fine.
I had a steady, unionized job with a good salary and amazing benefits. I was working with great people and doing things that I, for the most part, enjoyed. But the challenge and uncertainty that I thrive on had faded from the job after 3 years and I was stuck facing the prospect of being overly comfortable. I had a lot of energy and drive and really no outlet for it.
To be honest…
I had spent over a year thinking about starting a business. I wanted the challenge, I wanted the extra income, and I wanted “entrepreneur” to be a part of my identity. I had gone as far as making a workback plan of all the things that I needed to accomplish before any sort of business would be ready to launch. That plan was over 6 months long… I was hiding beneath a list of to-do’s like a scared little puppy.
Until…
On that fateful Sunday morning in December, when I realized I had been hiding, I had what some might call an “F-IT” moment. The next day, I booked the first week of January off from work and committed to spending that week (and what was left of December) doing as much as I could and then just launching with whatever I had.
Sure, I could have spent the next 6 months meticulously pre-writing blogs, building my website, getting a logo designed, writing perfect sales copy, getting my Certified Resume Strategist designation (I didn’t get this until 18 months later), creating a marketing calendar and on and on… but I knew that if I launched now and figured that stuff out as I went, I was probably going to learn a lot more through real world feedback and maybe even make some money during the learning process (which I did). The only reason I wasn’t launching before everything was “perfect” was that I was scared!
→ Sidebar: “HOT DAMN! As I’m writing this, I realized that the procrastinating and fear I was describing is exactly why I haven’t launched my email marketing program that I’ve been coveting (and paying for) since September. Time to kick it into gear, Langstaff! ←
So I busted my butt throughout the rest of that December and then spent the first week of January working full-time to get everything ready… and on that fateful day: Monday, January 8th, 2018, I launched! Was everything perfect? Absolutely not. But I got the damn ball rolling!
Good for me!
I’m soooo glad I launched when I did because I learned so much from actually being live (so launch your damn email list, man!). Here’s a quick list of the stuff I was able to accomplish since the business launched which I probably would be nowhere near if I had decided to wait those six months (which could have turned into a year and so on...):
I’ve earned over $24,000 and counting
I’ve served 126 clients (as of writing this)
I’ve produced and launched 5 video courses on SkillShare.com which have amassed 550 students to date (earning over $1,100 and picking up serious steam)
I got my Certified Resume Strategist designation from the Career Professionals of Canada (the Executive Director of the organization called my sample resumes “exceptionally strong”)
I’ve published 36 blog posts (that seems low now that I think about it… might have to step that one up)
My website has had over 5,700 unique visitors (with December 2019 hitting an all-time high of 627)
And perhaps more importantly than all these small (and big) victories, is the feeling that has come with doing all this. I’ve put in an ungodly amount of hours into marketing, working with clients, writing, and just learning how this is all supposed to work. And sure it feels like work sometimes, but it also doesn’t feel like an option. This is just who I am and it’s what I do.
End of discussion :)
All those feelings of not being challenged and the lack of uncertainty that I crave… gone. And not only that, I just feel more in control of my life… especially at work.
Whenever we talk about government funding cuts that might affect jobs at work… I’m not really worried because I know I have this other income source (and a substantial amount of savings) from this business to fall back on.
When I didn’t get that Manager job I had my heart set on, the idea of having more time to focus on this business was the first thing that comforted me (followed closely by my special lady and rock, Ariana).
When I’m frustrated by “the system” or “the hierarchy” or anything else that comes with working at a large organization (which is increasingly often these days), I can escape to a fantasy of running this business full-time.
The way I feel about my life is so much better with this Career Services business in it.
I know, I know, the blog title said I was going to change my life forever… let me explain:
I’ve got some big plans for year 3. I think I have enough evidence that this is something that I want to invest more time into, so year 3 is certainly a big year for expansion.
I do have visions (and perhaps an action plan) for taking this thing full-time. But it’s not quite time yet, so here’s what I’ve got planned for year 3 that I’m ready to share today:
Launch my damn email marketing program (I’ll tell you what… right here, right now… I’m going to commit to launching in 4 weeks from today. February 6th, 2020, my email list will be live and I’ll start promoting it. There… done. F-it.)
Publish MORE video courses to Skillshare on topics including creating an Amazing LinkedIn Profile (almost done filming this one), Career Exploration, Strategic Networking, and Personal Budgeting (I know this one’s a little outside of the Career Service lens but if you’ve been following me for long enough, you know I’ve been a bigtime budgeter for a long time). If you want to see what I’ve already got on Skillshare, check out my teacher profile here: Greg Langstaff Skillshare.
Launch a line of low-cost digital products including Resume and Cover Letter Templates, Career Exploration Worksheets and some others.
Expand my marketing efforts to video to start reaching a wider audience and helping people in a different way.
Professionalize my marketing planning and materials because… let’s be honest, you all know my graphics are an artistically ill-equipped man struggling with Canva / PowerPoint. I’ve partnered up with a creative agency to help me with some major rebranding.
Also… I know I’ve been teasing this topic a lot, so I promise to soon explain when and how I plan to transition this side hustle into a full-time gig! So excited!
Talk to you all soon!
It’s time to get something off my chest. For the past year and a half, I’ve been pretending to run a business. What I do isn’t running a business. I’ve created an avenue for self employment. It’s not scalable, and therefore in my eyes… not a business. I would love to transform this into a business, and here’s how I’m going to do it!
On a chilly December morning in 2016, on the cusp of turning 29-years-old, I woke up with a panicked realization that I was about to become a full-on adult and I knew absolutely nothing about money.
I had a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing, and a Master of Science in College Student Affairs, and despite being fairly well educated, my financial education was pitiful. My parents never talked about money, they never shared how much they made or how they budgeted, and the subject seems taboo around most friends so I was very much in the dark.
To cope with this lack of information, I had developed a fool-proof plan for my financially ignorant self. I called it, “Spend as little as possible so I don’t run out of money to buy food and die of starvation”. Though physiologically safe, this plan did not provide a lot in the way of an enjoyable lifestyle.
Finishing grad school in May of 2014, I owed my bank and the government a combined total of $47,000. I was unemployed for about 5 months because I desperately wanted to stay in the U.S. but, as a Canadian, that meant I needed to find a university that was willing to hire an entry-level administrator on a work visa that they were saving for distinguished international research professors. My determination to prove I was worth the investment had me basically living in my University Career Center (which eventually sparked my interest in starting my resume writing business, so in hindsight, I can’t complain about that).
Because I was unable to find a job in the U.S. but I was too stubborn to move back to Canada, times got tough. My girlfriend of the time was paying for most of our expenses and I was pitching in what little I could using the remainder of my student line-of-credit.
Without a clear sense of direction or any kind of financial stability, I essentially melted into a shell of my former self. I lacked my normal confidence and I lost my drive to do much of anything aside from play NBA 2K14.
In October 2014, I made the big decision to move back to Canada. Luckily for me, I had worked so hard on developing my resume writing and interviewing skills in my attempt to earn a U.S. work visa that within 6 weeks of returning to Canada, I was gainfully employed!
The job was at my undergraduate institution, York University, planning the new student transition programs and the salary started a little under $60K with an annual step progression.
I spent the next two years paying off debt using a new financial plan I called “Spend as little as possible so I can give all my money to the bank and the government so they don’t yell at me for owing them money” plan.
The plan worked. I was paying off about $850 per month and then whenever I had a substantial chunk of cash in my account, I’d ship it off to either the bank or the government to lower the principal on the loans.
By December of 2016, in just 2 years of working, I had paid off over $34,000, which is about $1,300 per month. I remember feeling proud that I was able to do that with only my fear-based system to drive me.
The problem with the fear-based system is that it causes a lot of discomfort. I hadn’t been on a vacation in years. I only owned three pairs of pants. I rarely went out for dinner or even lived the luxury of buying myself blueberries. It also caused a lot of arguments with my girlfriend, which you know if you’ve experienced any money-centric agruements, is the worst.
So, on that frosty December morning, I woke up and made a decision. I was going to learn about money and take control of my money. Here’s how I did it!
Within that month I read about 8 personal finance books and one, The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy, by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. and William D. Danko, Ph.D. stressed the importance of creating a personal budget to guide your spending.
Now, I’ll admit, I’m a bit of an Excel nerd, so it didn’t take much convincing for me to build a spreadsheet to track all my monthly expenses versus my income. By doing this, I was able to not only track and adjust my spending, but I was also, for the first time in my life, able to identify money I could spend on myself, guilt-free!
I built the budget by making a row for every recurring monthly expense: food, rent, phone bill, metropass, toiletries, gym membership, haircuts, etc. Then I added categories for things I’d have to save up for monthly that I wouldn’t be buying every month like clothes (pants) and gifts (oh yeah, I was also a terrible gift giver during this era. Just ask my mom and her bag of Starbucks coffee beans).
Then, after looking at all the money I was obligated to spend each month to keep my life moving, I could see how much was left over to put into student loans. By budgeting, I was able to see that I could comfortably up my loan repayment from $1,300 per month to $1,600.
After calculating all the monthly expenses, and upping my loan repayment rate, I still had a few hundred dollars left over. So I then created a “Dating” budget line, and an “Entertainment” budget line and even a… “Vacation Fund” budget line where I started putting money aside for my first trip in years!
Adding these pieces to my personal budget meant so much to me. It significantly reduced my financial anxiety while allowing me to spend money on myself and my loved ones without stress for the first time in my life.
As things got more serious with my girlfriend, Ariana, it got easier to talk about spending together. Instead of saying “those cherries are too expensive”, I was able to say, “I only have $45 in the grocery budget for this weekend so if we want those cherries, we can’t have the watermelon”. I find it so much easier to talk about money with literal numbers than in the abstract.
Paying off $1,600 a month from January to May allowed me to whittle down the final $12,000 pretty quickly and then in June of 2017, I submitted one final lump sum of nearly $4,000. I was done! Debt-free for the first time in 8 years with a fully paid-for education.
It felt great!
I continued to use the budget for months after I paid off my loans in order to start saving for my investment portfolio and keep tabs on my spending. After a while, when I got a good handle on my expenses, I stopped keeping track and set up automation with my bank so portions of my paycheck each month would go into investment and savings accounts for things like retirement saving, personal development, and food. And I still know roughly how much I can spend each month on myself, just for fun :)
If you’re interested in budgeting your personal life, sign up for my mailing list and I’ll send you my personal budget template for free along with other similar stories and tips, and tidbits!
Why did I start this business? Really?
This is a tough question. To be honest, I have written an opening paragraph and then deleted it four times now but that wasn’t getting me anywhere so I’m just going to try the stream-of-consciousness style of writing. Bare with me, please.
In December of 2016, as a 28-year-old man, I literally woke up one morning in a panic when I realized I knew nothing about money. I had always been frugal, but that was mainly because the extent of my financial plan was “spend as little as possible so you don’t run out of money to buy food and then die of starvation”.
Lying in bed next to my sleeping girlfriend, Ariana, I googled “Best books to learn about money” and found Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. It was only $8.95 so I went to the mall and picked it up later that day. I read Rich Dad Poor Dad over the next three days and I can’t say I understood much (I’ve read it twice since and taken in a lot more), but it certainly got my financial blood pumping.
I read about 8 more personal finance books in the next month and also had a long talk with my most financially successful friend about savings, budgeting, and investing. After just a few weeks of vigorous, panicked financial education, I had designed a personal budget and created a master plan to pay off the last $12,000 of my student loans in 6 months on only my income as an early-career university administrator (see that story here).
Once I had the budget plan in place and got closer to sending in my final loan payment, I started to think about what I was going to do with all my extra money. I was paying off about $1,600 per month and I knew I didn’t want to just waste that money by immediately upgrading my lifestyle and taking on more expenses. I wanted to play the long game… I just didn’t know what that meant yet.
I did a deep dive into investment research, including reading The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, a 500+ page paper brick that the internet said was for “beginners”. It went waaaayyyy over my head. In the end, I decided to open a Tax Free Savings Account, and invest my money there using fairly safe vehicles like Exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
By July 2017, after one final large lump sum payment of over $3,000 (had to tighten the belt that month), I paid off my student loans and started saving to build my investment portfolio.
The weightlessness of being debt-free was incredible! I don’t own a home or a car (and don’t plan on doing so anytime soon either, but that’s a conversation for another time), so I really had no responsibilities outside of my day job at York University.
I had no debt. I had a reliable, unionized job with good benefits and an enviable pension. I could have stopped there and been fine, but something wouldn’t let me.
You can call this a blessing or a curse, but for as long as I can remember, whenever I’ve had a moment in my life where I felt like I was “good” and I could just coast, something bad would happen to me, usually health related. Maybe that’s why I was afraid to let myself relax, for fear of getting sick again.
I know a part of it was financially driven. Maybe I wasn’t satisfied with the passive 4% to 8% growth I was going to get from my ETFs. Maybe reading about all the entrepreneurs and lifestyle designers like Chris Guillebeau and Tim Ferriss during my quest for financial literacy had me dreaming of a life of financial freedom.
Most likely, it was a combination of fear, drive, and dreaming that revved my engine and got me moving. At some point between July and September 2017, I committed to the idea of starting my own business.
It didn’t take me too long to decide that I wanted to help people find jobs through resume writing and interview coaching. During my last few months in grad school, in 2014, I practically lived in the Career Center, (I’ll explain why another time, but trust me, it’s a juicy tale) and since then, I had become the go-to resource for friends and family members who needed help during their job search.
My next questions were, would people actually be willing to pay for my help, and how could I find those people? These two questions paralyzed me into inaction for several more months, but luckily, I’m a big New Year’s Resolution guy, so on January 8th, 2018, I got my shit together and launched the damn business (forgive the cursing, I just wanted to drive that point home).
Nearly 18 months later, I’m still going hard. Whatever the initial reason was, it was good enough to get me started. What’s more important is that I know now why I still run the business. I love connecting with clients and helping people feel confident about their job searches. It’s been very rewarding to learn how to market myself, develop my reputation and as resume writer and interview coach, and find new ways to expand my business.
As long as I’m able to help people and keep challenging myself, I plan to keep this thing running!
Dear Mom... and whoever else decides to read this blog <3
Ten months ago today, I launched Greg Langstaff - Resume Writer & Interview Coach! Believe it or not, I'm still standing :)
Since January 8th, I have served 43 clients (plus five currently in process) and I owe a great deal of that success to all of you who supported me. Thank you to anyone who passed my name onto some who needed help, or shared my promotional content online, or simply asked me how the business was going. Without you, I am but a lonely man posting memes on his Facebook page.
For all those following along the journey, here's how the first ten months have gone :)
I don’t think enough people share the cold hard numbers when they talk about their businesses, but like a good resume, I want to show you my specific and measurable accomplishments.
My initial goal was to make a modest $1,000 this year. I went onto hit that in February so I set a new goal of $5,000. I've honestly stopped keeping track of how much money I've made exactly (I guess I'll have to figure that out before tax season), but I can tell you that I'm somewhere north of $6,000.
At the six month-mark (after some eye-opening spring travelling with Ariana), I decided that I liked running this business enough that it was time to commit. Here's a quick summary of what committing looks like for me:
July: I registered as a Sole Proprietor with the Government of Ontario.
August: I applied for and was accepted to the Futurpreneur Mentorship program for young entrepreneurs. I now have a great mentor who is helping me expand my business.
September: Record-high month in revenue generation at roughly $1,200.
October: I became a card-carrying member of the Career Professionals of Canada.
November: I am studying for my Certified Resume Strategist designation which I hope to have by the end of this year.
The first ten months have definitely dropped some knowledge into my lap. I've done my best to categorize those lessons for you.
Marketing: You can get it for free, and you can pay for it too.
I've had great success in posting useful content in my social media just to generate awareness in my business and tossing out the occasional sales pitch. To be honest, the content generation does get challenging, and I've been guilty of disappearing for weeks on end. It's a lot of work and I also worry about over-saturating my newsfeed and wearing out my welcome.
I'm also starting to dabble in paid marketing (this is where it's great to have an experienced mentor). I’ve done a bit of Facebook and now I’m messing around with Google Ads a bit, which has proven to be fairly successful so far.
Service Excellence: I’ve also found that the best way to find new clients is to do a damn good job with the ones you have! About 20% of my clients have been referred by other satisfied clients. That's not a bad ROI for just doing your job with a smile... also it's nice to genuinely help people, but that’s not as measurable ;)
People are Amazing: There are a lot of really great people out there. I'm so lucky to get to spend a hour on the phone with each of my clients, hearing all about their incredible lives. I have learned so much about so many different professions that I would have never learned if I hadn't started this business. Talking to people has been my absolute favourite part.
Here's a quick taste of some upcoming initiatives for my business.
Certification: As mentioned above, I'm currently studying to become a Certified Resume Strategist. Just reading the textbook as already validated a lot of my earlier work and given me more confidence in my ability to help my clients.
More Succinct Marketing Plan: Some of you may have heard that I recently moved in with my beloved, Ariana. And you may know that she is a digital marketing professional. So between Ariana and my mentor, I feel great about the direction my marketing strategy is heading in.
Video Course: I've been talking about this for a long time now, but I swear I'm going to do it!
Thanks for reading! If you're thinking about starting a business or you recently started one and you want to talk, hit me up!
