Why is Launch Success needed?
“It’s still a giant rock, but at least I now have a pickaxe…”
This is a description of the outcome from a client who felt stuck after graduating college, and who successfully engaged in the FIT Method to take control of their brand, helping them to network and engage with decision makers.
The journey to create Launch Success started with a realization that had been brewing over a number of years.
About 10 years ago, a number of young and super talented engineers in my organization were stuck in their careers. What do I mean by stuck? What I perceived was that they didn’t know how to take the next steps in their career to advance, increase their scope and responsibility, and get the promotions they wanted.
It was a conundrum. These individuals were talented, had imagination, and did great work. They were conscientious, interested in their development, pursued advanced degrees, and were staged for a launch into higher levels of responsibility and roles. But they could not figure out how to get there.
I started to think about my and peers experiences when I was at about the same point in my career. I grew up professionally at large companies, where career paths were mapped out. If your career didn’t match your expectations, you moved and changed companies, taking a risk for more money and responsibilities. If you decided to stay, you networked and promoted yourself by taking on higher risk projects, with more responsibility, driving innovation and changing outcomes for the better. For many, this was the natural order of things, and my generation had many examples to draw on to determine to what degree we wanted to exercise things we could control.
Over the years, through my work with startup accelerators and university-based student entrepreneurial groups, I started hearing more about students and would be young professionals getting stuck, or not being able to get their first job after college. I was hearing this from faculty, my peers who were leading small and large organizations, and surprisingly from, friends who had adult children who were paralyzed by the prospect of moving into the next phase of adulthood.
Interestingly, some of these students were the movers and shakers, the entrepreneurs and risk takers of the student populations, basically the future leaders. Others recent graduates were excellent contributors, with significant academics and practical internship experiences. These graduates are the backbone of all companies, the future innovators, systems thinkers, and the foundations of operations, marketing, sales, and finance professions.
But “getting stuck” seemed to be persistent, and I started to think about why.
What I came up with was that these young professionals are experiencing life in a new way. There is more information than ever at their fingertips and examples of success, real or perceived, everywhere. For a matter of fact, this information feed is like a fire hose spraying information, with social media defining new unrealistic bars, and providing instant gratification and critique. How can anyone get a clear view of life’s next steps when everything seems TOO BIG and out of reach?
I tell my clients in my consulting practice, data is just data, unless the data can be transformed into a form where it can be used to make decisions.
Also, the social impact and headwinds resulting from the COVID pandemic are just how being assessed and understood. The young people that experienced college during the pandemic, didn’t onboard and experience college the same way that other generations did. I believe some of the basic understanding that a natural order of things was lost, because institutional norms and momentum were disrupted.
Our mission is to help our clients navigate their new career experience, building their brand and understanding their best FIT. What you are experiencing is unique for a number of reasons, and our team has created methods to simplify, clarify, and focus your career development and job search.
The FIT Method was developed to build skills and a mindset to sustain you career development and management. Over the course of multiple sessions, the combination of our process and our client’s hard work, we help them to understand how companies hire, and what companies value.
The FIT Process
As executives and coaches responsible for the hiring and developing 100’s of employees, we realized that younger job seekers are not getting the guidance that previous generations received, and the rules have changed. We are committed to unwinding what’s holding you back on your journey towards independence and financial security.
We believe that understanding and controlling your career management is critical. This is an investment in yourself. This investment can help you to understand and FIT your first professional position and plan your career beyond.
About the FIT Blog
The FIT Blog adds depth and understanding to the Launch Success FIT Method. Think of it as a resource to learn more about the methods before signing up with Launch Success. It’s also intended as a resource during and after you’re engaged in the process. We provide definitions and examples on some of the foundational ideas, like the FIT Mindset and explaining Your Vision and Balance. What the FIT Blog reinforces most is that you control more than you think and can have a path forward towards independence and financial security.
About Gary Ainsworth
With over 30 years in working in technology and worldwide operations, and nearly 10 years as a certified executive and career management coach, I’ve gained insights in how companies hire and how career seekers increase their probability of getting hired. I’m committed to helping younger, less experienced professionals understand and unwind what’s holding them back in their careers.
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