In my years of working with career-oriented linguists, I’ve recognized a simple opportunity that more linguists should be exploiting: we need to be having more conversations about career!
That’s why it so exciting to have a version of this book now available in audio book form, one that feels more like a conversation. A conversation about career conversations!
If you’ve never used audible before, your first book is free!!
Be sure to use this link so that they know you were sent by me!
About Bringing Linguistics to Work:
This book has been designed to help linguists bring linguistic knowledge, skills, and abilities to the task of communicating about our knowledge, skills, and abilities in the texts and interactions that comprise looking for a job.
You are not likely to find a job application where the ability to “rigorously analyze language and the social construction of meaning” is being sought. Most employers are not actively looking for a linguist—much as they might need one—simply because they do not know to ask for what we bring. In any career interaction, the onus is always on the jobseeker to make the case, but if it feels harder for linguists, it is because what is being brought is likely wholly unfamiliar. The good news is that we can anticipate this misunderstanding and bring our knowledge of the ways that language structures and is structured by interaction to manage the complexity and ambiguity entailed in helping others to clearly see how our knowledge, skills, and abilities make us uniquely suited for a given job’s tasks, duties, and responsibilities.
I like to think about this showing how it what you bring matches what is needed as a venn diagram:
Your communication task is to communicate the alignment in the overlap. And pPerspective-taking, or being able to put yourself in the shoes of those reading your materials, is key. This begins with knowledge. You need to have knowledge about what you bring, about what they need, and about how what you bring aligns with what they need. It also requires an ability to describe this alignment using language that will be understood, which will also mean having knowledge about their ways of communicating, knowing about their expectations and values etc etc etc.
So, it’s probably no surprise to discover that you have some homework to do. But the good news is that linguists are very well positioned to do that homework—and to do it well. We are experts in language after all. There is absolutely no reason why our resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles shouldn’t be the very best ones out there in terms of effectively communicating an alignment of needs with skills. But more than anything, we need to bring attention to the language we use in networking interactions.
And not just when we are job seeking!
We need to continually participate in open, broad-ranging discussions about our skills and interests, and professional applications thereof. We need to make space for conversations that invite curiosity and establish connection and community. We need to listen for, find, and tell more career stories. Such interactions are a crucial means for discovering what we can offer the world of work. They give us insights into where we are needed and the kinds of things we might be doing, opening our eyes to possibilities we might never have considered. Importantly, they may also create opportunities to do just that. They are also the way to begin a career journey because they afford us valuable opportunities to practice talking about ourselves, to gauge how our message is coming across and adjust it, to solicit feedback and to ask for things!
Get it using this unique link: https://www.audible.com/pd/B07K6S8Y11/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-133187&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_133187_rh_us
Our guest next Friday at the campfire will be Mackenzie Price, telling us about her work at the FrameWorks Institute, where she works with social change advocates to change the public conversation about their issues!