Struggling to make that next step in your community career?

Hey, I am Jono. I have some good and bad news to share.

The good news:
There are more and more career opportunities in community building than you might think.

While COVID-19 has certainly had a very real impact, I am not seeing significant evidence of companies reducing their hiring of community professionals. In fact, quite the opposite, with the large-scale move to digital teams, companies are often doubling-down on hiring community teams.

But this raises the bad news:
There is more competition than ever for these jobs.

The market is packed with passionate candidates who are vying for these positions and they are working harder than ever to get them.

This also presents another realization (the “difficult” news, if you will):
Finding a new job is a nerve-wracking, anxiety-inducing process for most people.

So, there is opportunity, yet competition, and this usually results in worry and anxiety about we measure up.

Do I have the right experience? Is my resume good enough? How do I find the right kinds of jobs? How do I stand out as different? How the hell do I negotiate my salary without seeming pushy?

Ergh.

This can often be even scarier if you are relatively new in your career and feel rather outnumbered by other people with more experience and expertise.

I have more good news though:
You can get these job opportunities with the right approach and a clear, consistent framework.

It is time to break old habits that don’t work

Throughout my twenty-plus years building communities, I have spent a lot of time either hiring community professionals for my own teams or helping my clients to hire community staff themselves.

As part of this work I often see four key mistakes job candidates make:

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They apply to too many companies and experience too much rejection (which increases anxiety)
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They don’t resolve key gaps in their experience and skills (and thus limit their future career opportunities)
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Their resume is disorganized, cluttered,  and doesn’t show their value well enough (which limits interviews)
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When they interview they focus too much on “selling” themselves (which comes across as desperate)

It is not surprising people make these mistakes: we don’t change jobs very often (maybe once every few years at the most). As such, we don’t have a lot of time to practice how we approach getting new jobs and taking the next step in our career ladder.

As such, when most people look for new jobs, they often resort to the boring, old approach: (1) Create your resume, (2) Look for jobs online, (3) Apply for jobs, (4) Go to interviews with fingers crossed that they like you and give you the job.

Fortunately, the four mistakes above are entirely avoidable, but we need a new approach.

A new, more effective, approach

I sat down with sharp pencil, a ream of paper, and some cold beers and mapped out the entire recruitment process, end-to-end, focused on one goal: a more effective, predictable approach for community professionals to get their dream job.

I looked for the weak links in the process. I mapped out the common needs and concerns employers have shared with me, and what I have seen directly. I looked at where the most critical areas of focus need to be for most people looking for a job. I explored the role of our weaknesses, fears, and anxiety in the process.

From this, I boiled the process into four key phases:

I then took my scribbed notes, broke them down into index cards and started designing building out every step of the process and what the ideal approach is.

This resulted in the most comprehensive course in the world, specifically tuned to community professionals. The course guides my students, step-by-step, throughout the entire recruitment proces and how to optimize it.

I am really proud of the results. Here are some of the many areas I cover in the course, broken into the four phases:

(1) Understand The Market and What You Want

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Get Crisp on Your Current and Broader Career Goals

We build a plan focused on the right job for you (that is balanced with your personal requirements and goals)
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Understand What Employers Want

We explore what employers want and tune our approach and strategy to their needs. This makes you much more marketable.
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Understand What Employers Want To Avoid

We now flip the coin and cover what they want to avoid. This helps us swerve around the risks and potholes in the process. 
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Choose the Right Position For Your

Based on your goals, we dig into the different community job types, what they do, the work involved, and what is right for you.

(2) Create Experience and a Powerful Resume

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Build Broader Experience (Without Having a Job)

Experience is critical, and I will guide you through a structured workflow to identify and fill the gaps in your experience and skills.
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Find Your 'Secret Sauce' and get Your Target Jobs

Being different is critical to your success. We will cover how to find your secret sauce and weave it into finding your next gig.
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Identify and Strengthen Your Weaknesses

Our weaknesses can be converted into strengths. I will show you how to do this, and how to integrate this into your career plan.
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Fine Tune Your Resume

Most resumes are boring, cluttered, and poorly communicate experience. I will show how you can optimize every word to resonate with employers.

(3) Find Roles That Match Your Skills

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Create Clear Job Goals and Targets

Save your time and mental energy as we design crisp goals that will guide how you evaluate and persue available job positions.
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Tap Your Network to Open Up Doors to Employers

The most powerful way into a new job is via a “warm referral”. I will show you how it works, how to pick people, and get the results you want.
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How to Cut Through the Noise to Find The Best Jobs

There are hundreds of jobs out there, but not all are a good fit. I will show how to find the right jobs based on your goals.
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How to Apply and Stay in the Loop

I will show you how to apply smartly and stay in the mind of the hiring manager, without pestering or frustrating them.

(4) Fine Tune How You Interview

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How to do Your Homework

Researching new roles is critical. I will show you how to research the company, people, and community, to be fully informed in your interview.
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Interview More Intelligently

Many folks interview poorly. I will show you my five-step approach to tune your interview to your expertise and tie your experience to their needs.
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Negotiate the Salary and Benefits You Want

I will show you how to go into negotiation informed and with an approach that gets you a great deal without being pushy.
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How to Deal With Rejection and Anxiety

For some, the rejection and anxiety can be devestating. I will show you a practical way to convert these darker elements into growth and strength.
All of this provides a comprehensive guide to the entire recruitment process, underlined with practical approaches you can put into action immediately, and all tuned specifically to community professionals.

A complete end-to-end course

I take great care and attention in carefully crafting and designing my courses. My mantra is simple: to provide practical guidance that will have a real-world impact on my students. I am very confident that this course fits this mantra.

The course is available in your web browser, on-demand whenever you need it, and you can proceed at your own pace. You don’t need any special software to use it, and it works on desktop, tablet, and mobile.

The course features over seven hours of high definition video content spread across 25+ lessons. Each lesson delves into a specific part of the recruiment process and provides practical, crisp guidance. The lessons build on top of each other, with tasks and worksheets to build out your learning and career plan.

The course also features over ten worksheets, downloads, and templates you can use to support your overall learning. This helps you to formulate your plan for your next gig as you proceed through the course.

It is one thing to put out a course, but it another thing for your students to love it. Fortunately, the reviews from students have been awesome, and it has been wonderful to get the emails with people thrilled to get their new jobs due to the approaches included in the course.

Here are a few reviews from real students:

“This course is invaluable, whether you’re at the beginning stages of your career and trying to get a sense of what opportunities are available, or whether you’ve worked in the field for years and are trying to level up. Regardless of background, you’ll be given practical, smart, no bull^@%# advice on all stages of the job search, along with worksheets to help you take a step back, prioritize, and achieve results that matter to *you*.”

Angie Byron

Sr. Director of Community + Product Development

“Jono’s self-paced course was an informative and comprehensive guide to the entire recruitment process. He offers invaluable advice and detailed descriptions of what one might encounter through every step of seeking a community position. Regardless of where one is at in their search or career, Jono provides and encourages ample and essential opportunities for ongoing self-reflection. I especially enjoyed how he tied in his personal experiences, which offered key insights into finding roles and working with communities. As someone energized by new and genuine connections, I also appreciated learning more about the importance of building communities for companies.”

Zoe Vaden

Community Manager

“The ideas Jono gives are different from many other job seeking seminars and he really explains things in a way that empowers people to do their best. This course does a lot with helping you to determine what it is you want to do and the best steps to take to get there. It’s a great course for career pivoters because he offers unique strategies to gain the necessary experience and suggestions to help mitigate any potential misalignments or concerns about your work background.”

Sarah Jennison

Community Manager

“Jono’s course provided me with tangible ways to advocate for myself within my current role. Specifically, figuring out what level of expertise I am at and identifying my skill gaps. I was able to take my learnings from this course and work with my employer to correct our team’s job architecture and set an appropriate growth plan between myself and my manager. The course also provided me with confidence in my experience, so if I decide to pursue a new company or position, I will feel like I have more control in the interview process.”
April Lee Uzarski

Senior Tech Community Manager

Curious about the course curriculum? Take a look:

COURSE OUTLINE

Getting Started

Different community roles and how they fit into different organizations
Video   Welcome

Video  The Role Of Community In Organizations

Video  Digging Deeper: Community Directors

Video  Digging Deeper: Community Managers

Video  Digging Deeper: Community Advocates and Evangelists

Interactive Quiz   Interactive Quiz

Zoning In On What You Want

Understand what you want, what the market wants, and connect them together
Video   How To Identify What You Really Want

   Worksheet: How To Identify What You Really Want

Video  What Employers Are Looking For

  The Hitlist

Video What Employers Are Not Looking For

  Worksheet: Strengthening Your Weaknesses

  The S**tlist

Video  How To Differentiate Yourself

  Worksheet: Differentiation Plan

Interactive Quiz   Interactive Quiz

Building The Perfect Resume

Presenting the very best version of you
Video   The Importance Of Experience (And Where To Get It)

Video   Building Your Resume

Download   Resume Template

Download   Resume Examples

Written Content   Essential Items To INCLUDE In Your Resume

Written Content   Essential Items To AVOID In Your Resume

Interactive Quiz   Interactive Quiz

Finding Your Ideal Role

How to intelligently and efficiently find new opportunities
Video   Knowing What To Look For And How To Find It

   Worksheet: Mapping Out Your Goals

   Worksheet: Defining Your Targets

Video   How To Apply

Written Content   Role Hunting Recommendations

Interactive Quiz   Interactive Quiz

The Interview Process

Preparing for and nailing the interview process
Video   Preparing For The Interview: The Company and People

Video   Preparing For The Interview: The Community

Video   Nailing The Interview

Download   The Interview Flow

Written Content   Key Interviewing Tips

Video   Following Up and Staying In The Loop

Video   Negotiating Salary and Benefits

Video   Bouncing Back From Rejection Stronger Than Ever

Download   Worksheet: Managing Rejection & Becoming Stronger

Interactive Quiz   Interactive Quiz

Starting Your New Job

You did it! Now let’s kick ass
Written Content   Starting Your New Job

 

This is by far the most comprehensive course available on the market. In fact, I will go a step further: from what I can tell, it is the only course available on the market for how community professionals can find their ideal job. 🙂

Is it worth it?

It is a good question. You want to make an investment in your career, but is this the right one?

Firstly, without wishing to sound like my head has inflated, I am very confident that my guidance in this course is world-class, industry-leading advice.

As a bit of background, I have been working building communities for over twenty years working across many industries. I led community at Canonical, GitHub, and XPRIZE, and I have worked with hundreds of companies as a community leadership consultant.

These clients include large businesses such as Intel, Santander, Microsoft, Google, Deutsche Bank, and Sony Mobile, as well as small companies such as Mattermost, HackerOne, The Executive Centre, Digital Asset, Glorius Games, and many others.

In addition, I wrote two best-selling books on building communities, I write for Forbes and Harvard Business Review, and have been featured on CNN, Techcrunch, Fortune, Entrepeneur, and elsewhere.

I think where I can offer especially unique guidance is that I work with both executives and community professionals in my work. As such, I can shine a light on both sides of the interview table to ensure you can align very closely with what businesses are looking or.

Secondly, I believe this is a killer price for the course. If you follow the guidance in this course, you will be able to continue to improve your job opportunities, which will lead to greater salary and benefits improvements, and more than cover the course price.

The course price, $399, is the equivalent of a couple of months of Grande Latte’s at Starbucks or a few weeks (likely less, depending where you eat) of takeout.

What’s more, the price is less than one hour of my 1-on-1 consulting fees, and you gain over seven hours of guidance, as well worksheets, industry tips and tricks, templates, and more.

As such, you will more than re-coup your financial investment in this course in your future salary increases, and you can also more than cover the costs of the course by tightening your takeout and coffee belt (with the bonus of actually tightening your belt too by cutting out those calories!)

I do want to be clear about something though: this is going to require work on your part. No course will ever buy you a free pass to your ideal career. If you are willing to make time to absorb the content, follow the tasks and worksheets, and practice, I know this course will offer you enormous value.

Thirdly, I only want happy students. If you purchase the course and you don’t like it, I offer a 60-day money back guarentee. Simple as that. I am not in the business of pissed-off customers.

Finally, I am a firm believer in giving back. 10% of all profits from my on-demand training courses go to Direct Relief. They are a nongovernmental, nonsectarian, and not-for-profit humanitarian organization active across the world with a mission to improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergencies. They are very highly rated on Charity Navigator (4/4) and very efficient with donations.

So, what do you think? Want to make an investment in your career?

$149

Secure Checkout   ·   60 Day Money Back Guarantee  ·   10% of all profits go to DirectRelief

Can’t afford to pay for the course and in an underrepresented group? Email me.

No Experience Required  ·  Complete Online Self Directed Course
24 Lessons
10+ Downloadable Worksheets and Template
5 Interactive Quizzes
Always Available Online Course
Course Never Expires
Includes Bonus Content