Skills & Qualifications
Choose Your Hard
Last year, my back started hurting. I'm getting older, so I knew what I was supposed to do. Stretch in the morning. A few core exercises at night. Nothing too complicated or time-consuming. But at the end of the day, after sitting at a desk for hours, picking up the kids, and finally getting them to bed, I’d sink into the couch and tell myself I’d start tomorrow. (...Hello Ted Lasso)
Months passed and the pain grew. By the time I finally stopped avoiding it, I was sitting in a physical therapist’s space working through weeks of intensive recovery to undo what a few minutes of daily maintenance might have prevented. The therapist was great. The sessions helped. But the math wasn’t lost on me... the small daily cost I kept avoiding now caused a painful problem.
Job Searching 'Ache'
Many job seekers walk into their search carrying the skills that earned them their last role. Which makes complete sense, honestly. When you're heads-down delivering results, staying current with a shifting market isn't always where your energy goes. Those skills were earned, they were valued, and in many cases they’re still relevant.
But the job market has a way of moving while we’re focused on delivering results somewhere else. And when the gap between where our skills are and what skills are needed has widened, the job search becomes harder than it needs to be. Not because of a lack of talent, but because skill relevance requires ongoing maintenance, just like everything else.
The tension is recognizing that landing the next role means matching your skills to the job market of today... and increasingly, tomorrow.
I learned this firsthand after my first layoff in 2017. I was in sales and business development, got laid off, and started searching across many types of roles. I ended up landing a job as an Innovation Manager — and the skills were there, but honestly, part of it was luck.
Looking back, my candidacy would have been much stronger and my positioning clearer if I'd been intentionally building skills in that direction rather than hoping my background would translate. I got the job. But I don't want to count on luck next time. And I'd rather you don't have to either.
Choose Your Hard
The idea is simple, but it resonated. A disciplined fitness routine today is hard. Dealing with the health consequences of not having one tomorrow is also hard. You don’t get to avoid hard — you just get to decide which version you’re willing to take on. Pay a little consistently, or pay a lot later.
Same goes for our professional skillset.
Sharpening your skills daily is an investment of time and energy. Trying to overhaul your skills in the middle of an active job search, while also managing applications, interviews, and the emotional weight of transition, is a much steeper climb. Neither path is free from 'hard'. But one of them creates momentum long-term.
Relevance Earned Daily
Fifteen to thirty minutes. Enough to keep your thinking current and let your positioning evolve alongside the opportunities you’re pursuing.
The small investments start to pay off in the conversations that follow. You mention what you're learning when networking, and the perception of you evolves. Or in an interview to show how you can solve the problem they aren't thinking about yet, proving value beyond the job description.