How to leverage thelighthouse to reach your career goals
See below for a playbook on how to make the most out of your lighthouse membership. Feel free to follow these guidelines and of course share your experience in the comments below!
Step 1: Share your career goals, challenges, and interests
Set a new career goal by taking the Career Quiz — a questionnaire asking you to share 1) what you’re working towards (or through) and 2) what kind of professionals you’d like to be matched with.
Your career goal can be anything, from a short-term challenge you’re navigating “I’m going up for a promotion”, to a longer term career topic “Should I get an MBA?”
See below for some examples of career goals that our members have reached on thelighthouse:
- I am going up for a promotion and want help and feedback on structuring the business case.
- I am negotiating my salary and want to role play the conversation and get tips on negotiation best practices from someone who has done it before.
- I am considering getting a certification or going back to school (eg. PMP, MBA, coding bootcamp, etc.) and want to speak with someone who has done it to understand what drove their decision, what the experience was like, and any best practices or helpful resources to leverage should I decide to pursue the same path.
- I am considering a career transition and want to learn more about the new roles I’m considering to make an informed decision. I also want to work with someone to understand how they made a similar transition and how I can get the right skills or experiences as well as best position myself for the new opportunity.
- I feel stuck in my current role and want to speak with other professionals who have gotten ‘unstuck’ before and can help advise me on how they did it and what resources were most helpful.
- I am managing a difficult situation at work and want to speak with other professionals who have dealt with a similar situation to understand how they handled it and what they learned from the experience so that I can better approach my own situation.
- I am looking to be a better people manager and want to speak with other people managers to exchange best practices and learnings to apply to my own team.
- Another opportunity came along and I need to decide if I should stay or pursue the new opportunity and want to get an objective perspective on what the right decision is for me based on my career goals.
- I’m applying to a new opportunity (internally, externally, education, leadership) and want a second pair of eyes on my application (resume, LinkedIn, etc.) or to run through a mock interview.
- I am looking to be a leader in my field and want to learn and share best practices with other industry peers.
- And so much more.
Step 2: Get matched with relevant professionals and resources
Once you take the Career Quiz, our algorithm matches you with professionals who have first-hand experience with the career topic you’re looking for insight or advice on. You will receive 3 matches and can review their profiles to decide who is most relevant to you. You’ll also get matched to a relevant resource based on your quiz.
Who are my matches?
thelighthouse community is built on two key principles:
- We believe in the diversity of thought which is why our community is made up of professionals that come from varying industries, functions, and companies. The diversity of thelighthouse community helps you get matched with people outside of your existing network, thereby broadening your thinking on important career topics.
- We believe in the power of peer-to-peer advice. While career advice from someone who is 10–20 years ahead of you is inspiring, we found that the most impactful insight comes from someone who is at your level, or one step ahead. That is the kind of insight that will be actionable and applicable to your career today to get you where you want to go tomorrow.
Step 3: Book a session
Once you review your match profiles, you can then book a 45 minute 1-on-1 video career session with the match of your choice. Want to book sessions with multiple matches? You can do that too.
You’ll use thelighthouse scheduling tool and booking form to find a time and set a session objective.
Once you have taken the Career Quiz and selected your match, you’re ready to start thinking about how to structure your session.
Check out our Playbook on How to Make the Most Out of Your lighthouse Virtual Sessions.
If you ever need more support, we’re always here to help guide you with confidence and clarify. Leave a commend down below or shoot us an email at yourfriends@thelighthouse.us and say hi!
Written & Edited by Athena Maria Kalamaras
