Ariana, a learning and development specialist laid off in summer 2023, went from zero recruiter messages to 5-7 per week after investing in LinkedIn coaching and one-on-one training. She landed a contract role at LinkedIn with a 35% salary increase, crediting the time and effort she put in over the cost of the program itself.
Chapters
Ariana, I want to say welcome. Why don't you take us back to where were you in your job search before you got coaching?
I unfortunately was part of a layoff. My position was eliminated in the summer of 2023. It was the first time I was with the company for almost five years. I was, you know, top performer, all those things. And all of a sudden on a Tuesday morning I got an 8am email. They were doing some cuts and by 8:30 my laptop was shut off. So it happened super quickly. I had not even a one year old yet, so I was a new mom working full time. My husband went through nursing school, was a new nurse. So it was a lot to digest. My resume was my roles and my responsibilities. It was not my accomplishments. My LinkedIn profile was super outdated. I never really went on to be completely honest, so. So I knew I had to do a complete facelift and I tried it three to four months on my own. It was really hard for me to swallow my ego and tell myself I need help, I'm married. So I talked to my husband and he said, what other choices do you have? Information is powerful and you do this for a living. But it's time for you to invest in yourself. It's the commitment of going all in and knowing that this isn't a gym membership. This isn't something that you pay a little bit and you never really utilize. You might pay a little bit, invest up front, but putting in the work to get what you want at the end of the day is what I was committed to.
What did it look like as far as the number of inbound opportunities you're getting versus after you, such as you attended that LinkedIn VIP workshop and all
of that zero before a big old goose egg was what was what I was getting before, Unfortunately I thought I was doing all the right things. I was doing the reach out. I'm pretty extroverted, so I wasn't. That part of it wasn't hard, but I wasn't saying the right message. I was coming across pretty much saying give me a job.
But what about once you were in the program?
I was Getting on average 5 to 7 reach outs a week from recruiters, from people, even networks sending me job postings that they saw because I was a lot More active on LinkedIn 5 to 7 from straight just recruiters.
What about your interviews? How did those change once you got the coaching?
Ironically, I didn't feel like I was in the interview. It was a genuine conversation because my confidence, I felt so secure in one Myself, especially after being in a layoff, your self esteem can go pretty down. My confidence level came up and it showed not necessarily in what I said, but how I said it. And practicing that just made everything flow a lot better and made it more of a conversation, which eased my nerves as well.
And so tell us, where did you ultimately end up? What was the offer?
I ended up landing a contract role at work, one of my target companies at LinkedIn, where I'm now doing onboarding and talent development learning within their San Francisco and their global headquarters here. As far as the package, I am making almost 35% more of income, which I never thought was possible as a contractor, to be honest. I kind of always had one way of looking for my next opportunity and also now I'm able to network within and there's some opportunities coming up in the pipeline.
I think people have a heavy distrust in doing, coaching and putting their money towards something. And this is not just chump change, right? This is a real investment and a real commitment.
I mean, I had all those feelings, I had those conversations, you know, I was not in a position to go ahead and swipe the card and say, hey, this is, this is something I can do and forget about. I knew what the investment was, but I also knew the investment had to be more of my time and putting that forth than necessarily the financial commitment. I'm a numbers spreadsheet person. Money comes and goes, but the time well spent and the fact that I am still using those templates to this day. So I'm still using the tools that I learned, the tactics, the templates, even now, while I'm still working and wanting to move up.
Winning was the only option. You were going to win. You made it happen and we were right there to be alongside with you in this journey.
