“The hardest part is the mental shift,” she says. “Too many people think they’re too old or can’t get qualified for their ideal roles or out of luck if they don’t have the right degrees, and i help them work through that. I tell them they’re grown people who have got to do what they’ve got to do.”
and emails of thanks she gets from past clients. One memorable client success story was a woman who worked in sourcing and procurement. She started as an individual contributor and then became a manager—and ultimately a director—thanks in part to Mackie’s coaching. Changing lives is Mackie’s passion, which she pursues through volunteer career coaching with organizations that support developing BIPOC professionals. She works with low-income job seekers, including immigrants, single parents, and the formerly incarcerated, changing the lives of generations of people—not just the job seekers she assists. “This isn’t just a person who got promotions,” says Mackie. “This is a whole family who can have a better standard of living.” For Mackie, career coaching is a calling, a job, and a passion that is well within her superpowers.
Mackie guides job seekers through a three-step process. “First, you develop a vision for your ideal role and write your job description. Next, visit a few job boards to see if your ideal position exists. The secret is to search by the skills you listed in your newly written job description. Don’t try looking for the job title, as employers make those up, and they’re less standard than we think. By conducting a search using your superpowers, you might find roles you never even considered.” Mackie encourages people to review job descriptions and highlight in green the skills they already possess. Then, in yellow, they should highlight the skills they still need to learn to succeed in their ideal jobs. With the information discovered through this analysis, they devise a professional development plan based on the skills highlighted in yellow to gain the knowledge they need. This can be done through just a few hours a week of online courses. Once you have completed a few training sessions, you are ready to update your resume with the new skills! Mackie urges job seekers to write resumes based on their futures, not their pasts. That means using updated language for your skills and highlighting relevant knowledge to your desired jobs. Finally, she guides employment seekers to land positions using their most powerful resource: their networks. “Even if you’re doing it online, network in webinars or on LinkedIn, recruit people as “ambassadors” to speak for you in professional settings. And join the professional organizations for people in your field of choice.” Mackie also highlights the value of professional mentorship, which she encourages people to seek out through employee resource groups at their workplaces or through online organizations that match employees and entrepreneurs with mentors. “First, envision what you hope to gain from the relationship. Are you willing to be vulnerable and take difficult feedback?” She also reminds people to pay it forward and be ready to mentor others. Mackie views job searching or career advancement as a team sport. Anyone who works with her has a team behind them, which includes a resume writer and career coaches. To bolster her assertion, she cites the African proverb that if you wish to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. From a Side Hustle to a Career Mackie herself fell into career coaching almost by accident, with the help of friends and colleagues. “I was a biochemist for quite a while and wrote a paper on the structure of DNA molecules. Then, I pursued my love of theater, which was hard because I had to find a new job once a show was over. I was always job searching, and I’d help my friends with that.” One day, someone called Mackie, having heard she was a career coach and wanting to hire her. The rest was history. Mackie says that what keeps her going are the testimonials
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