…And the job search is always about marketing. Marketing the brand of YOU.

I’m Anastasia, and I left my job at a major national news organization (yes, you’ve heard of it) and created Joy Adjacent with one goal in mind: to share over a decade of experience as a communications executive, workforce entrepreneur, and eternal optimist to help people exactly like you.

Before we get started, I’d love for you to take some time to poke around. See if we’re a good match. Get a feel for how I serve my clients. Make sure I share your values. Why?

Because career strategists are experts in their fields and approach their work with deep integrity. Your success is the reason we get up in the morning. A powerful career strategist will focus your job search, transform your aspirations into results, and remove the obstacles to your success.

A powerful career coach will focus your job search, transform your aspirations into results, and remove the obstacles to your success.

But that kind of breakthrough trust is a two-way street. The right rapport is everything. Ultimately, your success will be a function of how well you mesh and how diligently you translate your coaching work into action.

So, should you hire me? Explore this website, read my writing, and check out my results. If, after you’ve done your research, my words resonate and fill you with hope, then you’re likely a good candidate to work with me.

So let’s get acquainted.

 The Power of Narrative, i.e. Do You Have One?

Want more proof of the value of a good story? The podcasting industry is worth $480 million, Bollywood is $3.7 billion, and book publishing is $26 billion.

Stories are riveting. They grab our attention and give us a reason to care. To hope. To envision.

But why do stories exert such a powerful effect on us?

Recorded history — a.k.a. writing — is only 5,000 years old. Over millennia before we wrote, we told stories. We verbalized narratives wrapped in drama and finished in rhyme to deliver news, spread information, and pass on the history of our species from one generation to the next. That is how we created communities, how we selected our chiefs and leaders, and how we found common cause against our adversaries — by listening to good stories and passing them on.

As a result of 200,000 years of Homo sapiens conditioning that preceded written language, the human brain is hard-wired to respond to stories — narrative structures with a beginning, a climax, a resolution, and a journey where the protagonist emerges changed.

Today, stories have no less a hypnotic effect on us than they did before we invented written language. Elections are swayed by a politician’s ability to persuade people with a memorable message — the simpler the better. Brands win or lose by their marketing. Oscars are awarded for weeping eyes and swollen hearts.

It is all narrative. Tell a good story, and you have already won.

And do you know who hiring managers are? They are humans, just as hard-wired as you are by millennia of conditioning to warm up to a good story.

Yet over and over (I have read probably 2,000 cover letters over the course of my career in education, workforce development, politics, and news media), I see job seekers treating hiring mangers like computers. Most cover letters are crowded with run-on sentences listing skills they acquired and tasks they accomplished, with no narrative thread to tie it all together. It all sounds meaningless to the person reading the cover letter.

Human beings do not respond to lists.

When is the last time you remembered all seven things you wanted to buy at the grocery store without writing them down? Lists are for computer code and Excel tables. They are easily forgotten and they carry no emotional weight. Have mercy on the hiring manager: remember that she is human, and just like every human in the history of conquest, elections, movies, and great salesmanship, she will be swayed by a good story.

You are the protagonist of your career. So what’s your professional story?

Maybe you feel like your meandering, disjointed, perhaps even random career has no through-line that ties it together and packages it neatly for employers. If that’s what you think, you’re absolutely wrong. You’re also in luck, though, because that’s exactly what I do for my clients. I craft the narrative.

My mission is to excavate your combined work and life experience to weave a compelling narrative that positions everything you have done as a logical progression leading you to this precise point, at this exact interview, to perform this job. And I’m really good at it.

Why am I qualified to do this? 

• Workforce development: I am the cofounder of an online talent matching and workforce development platform connecting job seekers to employers in one of the most challenging employment markets in the world: East Africa. I developed the training and methodology we used to get candidates past the interview and into the job, making me both a battle-hardened entrepreneur and a career readiness specialist. Having started this business, I have also hired, fired, and managed staff, and I know what to look for in a candidate.

• Professional interviewing and storytelling: Long before Gimlet and NPR figured out how to monetize podcasting, I was recruited to launch an interview podcast by a prominent Washington, DC think tank that had been following my political analysis and policy blog since 2005. That was the first time my strong writing earned me an income and a national platform to mold ideas into action. My interviewing and reporting attracted the attention of NBC's Washington bureau, which I later joined as political producer.

• Political communications: I served in the press office of a U.S. Senator and observed first-hand how stories are generated, leaked, and disseminated at the highest levels of government.

• Executive-level media expertise: I bring over a decade of experience from the newsrooms and boardrooms of NBC Universal and National Public Radio. As with most of the past decade of my work, I was in a position to review job applications and hire staff for high-stakes, visible roles.

• Career education: I directed the career department and job placement at a university in East Africa boasting an 85% job placement rate in a very volatile job market.

• Strategic communications leadership: I served as the communications director of the same university, developing communications and marketing strategies to highly diverse audiences, including international donors and funders, local media and partners, and underserved students. I honed my craft developing highly-targeted messages in a context where no two audiences were alike.

This unique intersection of political acumen, crisp communications talent, and workforce development expertise (and admittedly, a good old-fashioned love of literature) is a powerful combination in a career strategist.

Take a look at what my prior clients have said.

Why Invest in Career Expertise?

Consulting. Coaching. What’s the Difference?

Typical conversation:

Them: “So what do you do?”

Me: “I work with private clients on career and job search strategy.”

Them: “Oh, so you’re a life coach?”

Me: “No, I’m a career and job search expert. I consult. I consult on this one thing and one thing alone. I don’t want to know who hurt you as a child and I can’t fix your eating habits. I just know what it takes to get hired, and that’s why people hire me.” 

Since starting out in this industry in 2013, I never once referred to myself as a life coach. I find the concept of life coaching uncomfortable and too close to therapy. Since I have zero expertise on your life, I certainly don’t have the secret to coach you into living a better one.

I do know a lot about this one industry, however. As an expert in this field, clients hire me to advise them on a very specific, time-boxed, and goal-defined problem: get them out of the work they’re in, and into something they actually want to do.

The difference is not at all subtle: I do not coach people through open-ended problems such as personal relationships, unhappiness in life, childhood trauma, etc.

I get hired with a surgical aim: to assess your career situation, inventory your strengths and talents, identify what you love and hate at work, build a professional narrative to market you to employers, and equip you with primetime-ready application materials.

Since I get hired to share my subject matter expertise in recruiting, hiring, firing, building teams, and running companies, I am a consultant, not a coach.

Selecting a Career Strategist

This all sounds great and you’re thinking that it’s time to finally get joy adjacent in your career. So how do you find the right consultant to achieve your goals?

The short answer is, you do what you just did. You read their website, study their theory of change or approach to coaching, and pay attention to whether their words resonate with you. Most career experts are incredibly smart, fiercely inspiring people who are personally and deeply committed to helping their clients succeed.

Powerful career coaches, the ones who are truly dedicated to their clients and show up 110% for their success, will all help you get there.

For every single one of us, this work is much more than a job. It’s a passion and a calling.

But there is no one-size-fits-all formula for success, just as there is no single correct way to be a career coach. You will experience extraordinary results working with any good coach, as long as you put in the work.

So how do you decide? By determining which consultant operates on your frequency.

You’ll achieve the greatest results not with a specific methodology, but through the right rapport.

I take on clients who demonstrate commitment and establish a rapport with me that promises a productive relationship. You should be similarly discerning about the consultants you consider hiring. Always ask for a consultation before making a decision.

To simplify this confusing and somewhat intimidating process, I compiled some questions you can ask yourself before deciding whom to hire.

Questions to Ask Yourself When Evaluating Me or Any Consultant

Do I come across as knowledgeable and authoritative?

Do I have proven experience and an impressive track record?

Does my LinkedIn profile look professional?

Am I someone you can trust with your insecurities, ambitions, and fears?

Can you envision yourself following the plan we put in place together?

Do I speak you language, literally and figuratively?

Do we mesh?

Does my coaching philosophy galvanize you into action?

Are you inspired by my leadership style?

Mission, Outlook, Purpose. What Do I Stand For?

The core values that govern Joy Adjacent are:

1. Trust: My name and reputation are linked to the integrity of my work.

2. Client commitment: Your career is my daily mission. I want you to succeed.

3. Unassailable quality: There is no sales copy here. I’ve created a great service I believe in, and it works.

   …and, you guessed it…

4. Joy: Joy in being able to do the work I love. Joy in serving my clients with passion and purpose. Joy in accompanying you on your journey.

I empower my clients to pursue their career ambitions and equip them with accurate job market information, expert job search tools and interview techniques, and targeted application strategy.

I don’t sell pipe dreams or get-rich-quick schemes, and I don’t peddle infomercials that feed you promises I don’t intend to keep. There is no “career hacking” here, because hacking is just a clickbaity buzzword (unless you’re a programmer, in which case, I’m sorry your trade has become a clickbaity buzzword). You won’t find any predatory “three-step formulas” or “this one secret” designed to manipulate your vulnerabilities into forking over your money.

What you can expect from me is methodology, expertise, and ruthless commitment to your needs as my client.