115. Why Your Job Search Feels Scattered (And How to Get Clear on What You Actually Want)

If your job search feels scattered, frustrating, or like you're spinning your wheels… this episode is for you.

In this second episode of the Job Search Series, we’re stepping back to something even more foundational than your resume or interviews: clarity.

Because if you don’t know where you’re going, everything else—your resume, your applications, your networking, and how you show up in interviews—will feel unfocused and ineffective.

In this episode, I’m walking you through:

•  Why lack of clarity is the real reason your job search isn’t working 
•  What “career clarity” actually means (hint: it’s not one perfect job title) 
•  How to identify what you want more of—and less of—in your next role 
•  The 3 simple steps to start finding your direction 
•  How to use informational interviews and strategic volunteering to test new paths 
•  Why your resume should reflect where you’re going—not just where you’ve been 

If you’re a mid-career woman ready for a career change but unsure what your next step should be, this episode will help you move from feeling stuck to taking aligned action.

🎧 This episode is part of a multi-part Job Search Series designed to help you land the right role—not just any role.

Strategic volunteering leads mentioned on the episode:
Catchafire.org
Volunteer Match (Idealist)

Free Resource

Grab the Strengths-First Resume Template - ideal for career transitions, whether you’re returning after a break, navigating a layoff, pivoting roles, or ready for a change.

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Work with Me

Want an HR expert’s eyes on your resume?
Book a 30-minute Resume Review with Christina - live on Zoom, recorded, and focused on one goal: getting you interviews. 

Want to talk through your career goals and explore next steps?
Schedule a career consultation to see how I can support you. 

Email me directly at christina@hernextchapters.com

Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kohlchristina

Transcript

Job Search Series And The Setup

Christina Kohl 0:00

Hi, friends, and welcome to this week's episode of Her Next Chapters. I'm Christina, and as always, I'm so glad to have you here with me. And if you're listening in real time, this episode is going live on May 6th. Um, hard to believe that it's already May of 2026. Where has the time gone? Um, and also if you've been listening, you know that last week we started a job search series. So this is the second episode in that series. And last week we talked about um, if you're not getting interviews, like what those reasons might be and ways to fix that. So if you haven't listened to that already, I encourage you to go back um and listen to that episode. And this week we're actually gonna take a step back as well to something that is even more foundational to any job search. We're gonna

Why Clarity Comes First

Christina Kohl 0:50

talk about clarity. So I want you to think about when you're planning a vacation. So it's May, so like school's gonna be ending soon for those of you that are parents. The school transition into summer is coming up, so you might be planning summer vacations, right? Of things to do and places to go. Well, when you're planning a vacation, what's the first thing that you do? You pick a destination, right? Do you want a beach vacation? Do you want a mountain vacation? Do you want a historic, you know, be visiting historical sites? Or do you just want to relax? It'd be really low-key. So all those types of things go into planning a vacation, right? You have to plan your destination first before you can book the flight. You don't just show up at the airport and say, what's your next available flight? You don't just get in the car and start driving. So, okay, enough with the analogy. The same is true for your job search, right? If you don't know where you're going, everything else, your resume, your applications, your LinkedIn profile, how you show up in interviews, your networking, that all feels scattered and unfocused. You've got to pick the destination first. And if you're a mid-career woman who's feeling stuck, burnt out, or ready for something different, but you're not quite sure what that is yet. This episode is for you. It's also for you if you've been on a career break and you're ready to come back into the workforce. It doesn't mean you have to go back to what you've always done, right? This is a beautiful opportunity to do some self-reflection and figure out what you want that next career destination to be. All right, so if you're listening to this this episode of in this podcast, you very likely have already built a career. You're good at what you do, but something isn't clicking anymore. You know you don't want to make the wrong move, so you hesitate. Or you start applying, but you're kind of all over the place. You tweak your resume, you look at job postings, you might even get some interviews, but it all kind of feels scattered because you just don't have that clarity. And what I want you to hear is this it's not your resume. It's not that you're not qualified, it's simply that you don't have clarity yet. I want you to focus on that word yet, because it's it can we're gonna help you get there.

What Career Clarity Really Means

Christina Kohl 3:16

So what do we even mean when we hear the word clarity? I feel like that word is overused a lot. It doesn't mean that you have one perfect job title figured out. It simply means you have a direction. So you're not wandering around anymore. If we're gonna go to Europe for a summer vacation, awesome. Well, which part of Europe? What type of experience do we want to have? Same thing with your career. So it means that you know what you want more of, what you want less of, and you can start talking about that with confidence. And honestly, this is where most of my clients start. They come to me thinking they need help with their resume or interviews. But when we really dig in, what's missing isn't their effort or their branding or their written materials, it's direction. What direction are they going in? And when you don't have clarity, your resume ends up feeling generic. Like we talked about in last week's episode, a generic resume like being a jill of all trades makes you stand out for for no one, right? It also means that you're applying to far too many different types of roles. And then those interviews, if you give any interviews, they feel awkward or forced. Like you're trying to fit yourself into what you think they want versus going after something that you want. Very different interview situation. And of course, you wind up second guessing everything. What am I even doing? Because you're not grounded in where you're actually trying to go. And so I was talking with someone recently. She's super accomplished, she gets interviews, but she doesn't feel confident in them. And it's not because she's not capable, it's because she's not fully grounded in her direction yet. So it's hard to show up with clarity and confidence. Okay, so you're probably asking, great, Christina, I get it. But how do I actually get clarity?

Three Steps To Find Direction

Christina Kohl 5:10

Well, first of all, what I suggest, instead of asking, what do I do next? Start with what have I actually enjoyed? What has energized me? What drains me? And what environments worked well for me and which ones didn't. And so looking back at your your past jobs, take some time to reflect on those those questions. Whether that you're currently working and you just know that you're burning out and you're ready for a change, or maybe you've taken a career pause and you're ready to re-enter the workforce. This is an opportunity now to be asking these questions. So the first step is looking back to look at your past and what energized you, what drained you, what environments worked, and which ones didn't. And then the second thing is to define your non-negotiables or your priorities. At this stage of life, you don't just need a job, right? You need a job that fits your life. What is the salary expectation that you have? What is what is what is the minimum that you're giv would be comfortable accepting? And what is your ideal target? Like be amazing, right? To get that type of thing. And which is more important to you? Salary or flexibility or culture or leadership level. So those are some of the things that you need to figure out, which are what your non-negotiables are. So flexibility. Do you still have kids at home that you need to be home at, you know, have the flexibility if they're sick, or do you drop them off at school to pick them up from school? Do you need to work in a hybrid situation or is remote a real priority for you? If if so, it might be a trade-off if some if a role has more flexibility than it does leadership level, or than it does in salary. So you need to determine what your priorities are. And then culture, you know, what type of culture and environment do you want to be in? And a lot of women that I speak to in careers in midlife, they really want this next chapter in their career to be something that has impact and meaning. And I'm sure that's, you know, maybe you can relate to that yours yourself that, you know, I don't want to just go to go to a job just to work or just to get a paycheck. I want what I do to be impactful. And so those are all things that you need to be thinking about as you clarify what you want to do next in your career. And then the step three. So step one, looking back at your career path so far. Step two, defining your non-negotiables, your priorities, you know, what you're going to give and take on. And then step three, pick a direction and test it. You don't need to be a hundred percent certain. You just need to be clear enough to choose a direction and start trying it out. And so often this is where people get stuck. Maybe you've had this experience yourself where you just stay in your head and you're trying to figure it out, like all just, you know, thinking, thinking instead of getting out into the real world. And you might be saying, Christina, great, I'm thinking about it, but I don't know what actions am I supposed to take. I don't have the job. What am I, what do I do? So the place to start is to reach out to people in roles that you're curious about.

Informational Interviews And Real-World Testing

Christina Kohl 8:23

Ask them what their day-to-day actually looks like. Things that they like and things that they don't like. That is how you get real insight, not from job descriptions, not from chat GPT, but from real people. The other thing is to find ways to test drive a direction that you're curious about. That might be a short-term project, whether in your current job, taking, looking for those opportunities. We call that job crafting, where you you let your people around you, your boss, your managers, your peers know that you're interested in these types of roles or opportunities or projects. And so taking that on, it might be doing some consulting work, or it might even be strategic volunteering. And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you've heard me talk about this before. But if you're a newer listener, you might be like, Christina, what in the world is strategic volunteering? Obviously, the volunteering part is pretty queer. You don't get paid and you're doing work. But the strategic part is volunteering in a capacity and something that you are exploring that you would have liked to possibly get paid for in the future. So it allows you to try on a new role and allows you to get back, expand your network, expand your network of who you know, gives you um things to talk about in interviews as you've done it. It also might, as you're doing the work, um, let's say, for example, that it's a website development, that a nonprofit needs help with a website development. And you're like, you know what? I think I could do that. I want to go, I'm gonna go do that for this, for this group. And you go and you do it and you find out I don't like that at all, right? Then you know that, okay, I I explored that and it's not for me. Or it might be the opposite. Oh my gosh, I love that. It was so much fun, so creative. I can't believe I might actually get paid for that. But until you try it on, you don't necessarily know, right? So, first of all, you're gonna be talking to people. Oh, and the other thing I forgot, when you are talking to people, when you're getting these, they're called informational interviews, um you're gonna be, you know, tapping into your network, like, hey, who knows someone? I'm gonna go with that web design. Who knows someone who's a web designer that I could talk to? Um, or graphic designer or whatever it is. And hopefully, you know, someone in your network is gonna know someone or introduce you. And then at the end of that conversation, obviously you're gonna say, thank you. But the next thing you're gonna say is, who else do you know that I should that I could talk to? Who else could you introduce me to? So you're that's gonna be expanding your network and getting those personal introductions.

Strategic Volunteering And Where To Find It

Christina Kohl 10:54

Okay, so the volunteering, the strategic volunteering, there's a couple of platforms out there that are really good to help you um find these type of volunteering opportunities. I mean, if you want to go, you know, pick up trash on the beach or go play with dogs at the, you know, play with puppies at the animal shelter, that's all good and fine. Um, those are not necessarily strategic volunteering, but it it is gonna expand your network, you're gonna meet new people. But I'm talking about professional level opportunities that allow you to test drive um something new, you know, with transferable skills. Obviously, you're not just gonna walk in there not knowing how to do any of it, but where you can develop your transferable skills in a new area. So there's a couple of platforms that I like to recommend. One is called Catch a Fire. It's um like the word catch and then a fire.org, um, where nonprofits put out, you know, here's areas where we need help, and you can search by different categories, you know, if it's IT or HR or event planning, whatever things that are of interest to you. And these could be like a six-week project, it could be a one-hour consultation. Um, and then another one is Volunteer Match, um, which is on Ideal list, and I will link to all of these in the show notes. But these are places where you can explore different avenues and directions without making a full-on career pivot commitment. So you're kind of testing the waters and trying it on. And yeah, you've got to take action. Clarity doesn't come from thinking, right? We get stuck in our heads. I know I'm that way. It comes from taking action, right? And then getting feedback and refining as you go. And honestly, this is why resumes can feel so frustrating for so many people. Because if you don't have clarity, your resume just becomes this list of everything you've ever done instead of a real clear story about where you're going.

Strengths-First Resume And Next Steps

Christina Kohl 12:50

And that's why I created my strengths first resume template. It helps you to start thinking about how to highlight your transferable skills for the direction you want to move in and not just listing past roles and hoping someone else connects the dots. So it's a very different format than what you might be used to. Um, but it is available and I'll put it in a link to it in the show notes. Um, that's a free download that you can have and customized for yourself with a lot of teachables in it. So grab that if you haven't already grabbed it to help you um make a career pivot or a change. And this clarity piece, it is foundational to the work that I do with my clients. Because once we get clear on the direction, everything else, your resume, your networking, your interviews, it all starts to click into place.

Coaching Invite And Listener Questions

Christina Kohl 13:37

So if you're at that point where you're ready to make a move, but you're not quite sure what the next step should be yet, you don't have to figure it out all alone. If you're curious, you can schedule a call with me and we can talk through where you are, where you want to go, and whether working together makes sense. Because once you have clarity, everything else in your job search gets so much easier. All right, my friends, that is it for this week's episode. Uh, stay tuned for next week when we will continue the job search series. And if you have specific questions or things that you want me to cover in the job search series, just shoot me an email. It's Christina at her nextchapters.com. Um, and I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. And be sure to grab that resume template um to help you get started. All right, well, that's it this for this week. Have a wonderful rest of your week, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you. And if you haven't already, be sure to connect with my own phone and say hello. I can partly thank you for listening. Until next time, remember your story is being your own. And your next appearance are ready to be on