Today, we’re talking about career transitions and job searches—and I’m excited to bring on a guest to help us with it: career coach Julia Lynch.
Inside the Bright Method, women gain clarity around where their time is going. And once some see it all laid out in front of them, they realize that it’s not just a “them” issue, it’s that their industry or employer just isn’t the right fit for the life they want. That clarity often kicks off the desire to make a job move.
To help with that process, I brought on Julia Lynch. Julia is a personal brand strategist and career coach who helps high-powered women make bold career moves by networking smartly and packaging their experience in a way that opens new doors. She’s also the woman behind the Instagram handle @smarterinasec and Substack Varsity Reader.
In this episode, we cover:
- The first step you need to take before you even start networking.
- Why it’s your job to create the story about who you are and what you bring to the table—so others can take that story and market you to others.
- Why you should start networking before you need a job.
- How some senior-level jobs are shifting into more “fractional” roles—and what that means.
- What a career coach like Julia really does and how to think about whether working with one makes sense for you.
- What to ask if you’re thinking about hiring a career coach.
We also talk about the reality that if you’ve been heads-down in one industry for a decade or more, it’s hard to know what else is out there—and how working with someone who knows the landscape can help you move faster and smarter.
Whether you’re already thinking about a move or just want to be ready in case you want to make one down the road, I think you’ll find this conversation helpful.
Julia’s website is linked here, and you can set up a free discovery call with her here.
You can also find Julia on Instagram at @smarterinasec and on her Substack, Varsity Reader—she’s a great follow for both smart career advice and fun recs.
Thanks for being here—and here’s to making career moves that better align with the life you want.
Additional links you might enjoy:
- 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.
- 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.
- ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you’re ready for a full time management system that’s realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It’s helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.
Full Transcript
Kelly Nolan: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bright Method Podcast, where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up the bright method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all personally and professionally.
Let’s get you falling asleep, proud of what you got done today, and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in.
Hey, hey. All right, so today we’re gonna talk about career transitions and job searches with a guest on this topic, career Coach Julia Lynch. Many women in my audience learn the bright method and are great, and others gain clarity around where their time is going, are not always happy with where that time is going, and C for the first time with a lot of objective clarity that that’s a result of their industry or their employer.
Which prompts them to want to shift their job. This might [00:01:00] mean trying to work for a different organization or even in a different industry to help with that thought process and the logistical process. I’m excited to have Julia Lynch on today’s podcast. Julia is a personal brand strategist and career coach who works with high powered women across industries to make bold professional moves through the power of networking and storytelling.
She helps her clients launch into new career paths that support their professional financial and flexibility goals. You might also know Julia from her Instagram account and or Substack smarter in a sec, where she shares actionable advice to help her audience level up every day, whether it’s a must read article, a snack recommendation, or a pair of packable pants.
She also shares actionable, thoughtful, smart career and networking advice there too, and I highly recommend following her. Today Julia’s gonna talk about strategies you can employ if you’re thinking about switching jobs, or even some of you might just wanna start employing now in case you decide to down the road.
She’s also gonna explain more [00:02:00] about what career coaches do, what they can do for you, and why they might be worth the investment. I’m really happy to share this information as I think that careers, coaches, job search, support, all of that type of stuff is relatively new, at least beyond the just helping with resumes and interview skills really, when it comes down to like helping think about what is next and packaging your story and your skillset, and helping you land those jobs that are harder and harder to get.
That level of support is relatively new, at least to me. And so because of that, we don’t always know much about what they do and how they might help us and when we might want to hire them. So whether you wanna work with Julia by the end of this or don’t have the need right now, it’s just great to know what options are out there to help support you during job transitions.
Whether you wanna be in one now or not. Let’s turn to the good stuff. Well, hi Julia. It is such a joy to have you on the podcast today. Do you wanna introduce yourself and [00:03:00] just talk about how you got into being a brand strategist and a career coach?
Julia Lynch: Absolutely. So my name is Julia Lynch. I’m a personal brand strategist and career coach based in New York City, and I’m also a content creator, so you can find me on Instagram and substack at Smarter in a sec.
I share actionable tips to help my audience level up every day, and sometimes that’s in the career development piece, and then sometimes that’s fun, lifestyle recommendations, snacks. So. Kelly and I have talked about how we love being service providers who add value to our audiences every single day, and it’s been awesome connecting with women from all around the world in my coaching practice, but then also social media and a bit about how I got into what I’m doing now.
So I have a background in strategy consulting, graduated from business school and kind of, there’s two tracks. Strategy consulting or investment [00:04:00] banking, or at least those were the two tracks that my class took. I went to Kellogg, and throughout my life I was always that person that people came to for career advice.
I’m a natural writer. I was the columnist for my local newspaper growing up. I was a local book reviewer. That was my extracurricular activity. That’s why I call myself a varsity reader. That’s the name of my substack.
Kelly Nolan: I’ve always thought that was so clever.
Julia Lynch: Yeah. And so growing up I was always a natural writer and communicator.
And after business school, many of my friends who some of them grew up abroad, really came to me and said, I, I need your help framing this. I need your help approaching this. And you’re really great at networking and just connecting with people. So I had always had a coaching practice on the side very informally, and I had worked in Asia helping Chinese students get into US colleges.
And so when I moved back and went to business school, I had a small practice [00:05:00] based on some connections that I had there. And so I started sharing on social media and I didn’t show my face at all. It was not anything that was serious. I didn’t even tell my family or friends about it. And that was January, 2020.
And then in March, COVID hit. So I thought, how can I share my expertise and help out in this awful time when I’m fully employed? I was fully employed in strategy consulting at that point, and so I decided I’m gonna go on social media and just say, Hey, if you’ve been unemployed due to Covid, reach out to me and I’m with your resume with.
Help you get the connections you need to drive your career forward. That turned into, I recruited 60 volunteers. We helped hundreds and hundreds of people get jobs and it was an amazing initiative. And I was running this, we were on NBC. It was kind of nationally covered. And so once that died [00:06:00] down. People said, you’re really, really good at this and I wanna pay you to help my sister for myself.
And so that’s what started my practice and I really started with interview prep and resume writing. But it’s really turned into, and I can go more into that, more of the career discovery road mapping. Teaching women how to network, giving them the whole set of suite of tools and and roadmap and filling some of the white space that I think is left in the industry that other coaches don’t necessarily tackle.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah, man, there’s so many things I wanna like follow up on. I didn’t know all of that about your Covid era. Like project. That sounds incredible. And I think that it parlays well into what we’re talking about today and that it’s another kind of weird economic time, tough job, market time, a lot of uncertainty, all that kind of stuff.
And because of that, I feel like there’s this combination that’s been going on for a couple years where. [00:07:00] Companies are laying people off and are demanding more and more of the employees that are still there. And then at the same time, people who might be burnt out and wanna leave are looking around and being like, this is a really tough job market.
So focusing on the woman who’s like, I think I wanna go to a different organization. What are some of the first practical steps you’d recommend that she look into? Maybe not even to jump ship right now, but to just really set herself up? Well, going forward.
Julia Lynch: Sure. So I would say the narrative building is really important because I think a number one, no-no, that I see for a lot of people is they’ll say, well, I’m networking.
And then I’ll say, well, what’s your story? What are you going to market with? You are basically a product. If you think about it, and you’re trying to be seen as a brand new product, but you’re not giving them the marketing messaging to then bring that to their community, their network, in [00:08:00] order to be perceived.
Really that has to come from you, and that has to be a very sustained, clear message that someone can say, Kelly, I know you’ve been in product marketing for the past 10 years. I never envision you as someone who wanted to go into brand strategy. But I can totally see with that narrative how you’re a fit.
So it’s about that. It’s also about the art of networking. And I think when people think about networking, it’s. Something that they do in a time of need. Right. It’s almost dating. You do that when you’re trying to meet someone. It’s very similar. Yeah. But really networking is a thread that you should be doing, unlike dating.
If you’re in a happy relationship, you should not be dating. But networking is that thread that you should have throughout your career. And I think a lot of people have been conditioned to stay at one company. I network to get there. And once I’m [00:09:00] there. I’m set. I don’t necessarily need to do anything more because I’m at my ideal position.
The world has changed a lot in the past five to 10 years in terms of career arc, in terms of seniority, in terms of the fractional career marketplace, and so. If you really build that muscle of networking throughout your career versus have it be something that you do only in moments of need, that’s very critical as well.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah, I just gotta say, I am so glad you’re here because even just getting that clarity, I mean, my brain was like, we’ll just go straight to networking, but you’re right. Like if without the message, and I love this point of really you have to, it’s our job as the job seeker. To package who we are, what we do, what we wanna do, what we bring to the table in a succinct way.
Because if we can’t do it, the person recommending us to whoever definitely isn’t gonna be able to do it. [00:10:00] Correct. Yeah. That’s so smart. Really, really smart. And I love your points of, even if you’re just flirting with the idea of leaving, that is the time to start networking. Like. You’re not ever too early to start really thinking about this stuff.
I think that’s something I wish I had done a better job of when I was practicing, which is so hard when you’re busy. I totally get it. But you know, really staying close to college friends, law school friends, just taking the time to reach out occasionally. I’ve seen friends do that well and it has served them very well ’cause I think they enjoy it and.
They’re served well in the relationship element, but then when they do need something on the job front, they’re not just popping up cold Turkey out of like, you know, they haven’t been there for 10 years. Before we keep going, one thing I wanted to have you clarify something on, ’cause it, it’s very new to me, maybe it’s new to the listener, maybe they know about it.
Do you mind explaining what the fractional career marketplace is?
Julia Lynch: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s say you’ve been [00:11:00] a creative director for. 20 years or 25 years, and you’re live in New York City, you live a fabulous life and you’re used to making 400 K, 500 k. Those kinds of roles are going away at a very rapid rate.
Mm-hmm. And that’s not only in the creative space, that’s also in sometimes the tech space because one role is being replaced by fractional contractors and. I think that for people who have an entrepreneurial spirit and they like the hustle of getting new business, of managing clients, of doing that, then the fractional marketplace, you can actually make a lot more because obviously, yes, you have to take care as an independent contractor.
Yes, you have to take care of your health insurance, but you have the flexibility to work from anywhere positives, but that’s not a. [00:12:00] And the idea of hustling for a new business stresses you out. You are running your own book. So it’s very stressful and kind of overnight this flipped where these really high powered jobs are being farmed out to contractors or people who have a really strong personal brand and strong networks, and a lot of these fractional opportunities.
Maybe that are very good. Maybe it’s a 20 k per month scope for someone that’s being filled through a whisper network that’s not being posted. Wow. So I think that people are really struggling with it, but if it’s a point of strength for you, then you can really capitalize on that. So to give you an example, I worked with an entrepreneur who ran her own business.
And for a of reasons, she kind of wound it down and focusing on. I worked with her to, yes, [00:13:00] apply for full-time jobs, but at the same time, we realized that the fractional piece was actually giving her way more flexibility. She’s making way more than she ever did in the corporate space or running her own business, but she has that muscle, she has that entrepreneurial spirit.
So I think that a lot of women are coming to me saying, Hey, I wanna do the fractional stuff, but I need your help. Frame my positioning, messaging, and building that entrepreneurial muscle to secure some of these retainer type contracts that aren’t necessarily posted anywhere.
Kelly Nolan: Fascinating. And I will just say to the woman listening, challenge yourself a little bit on it.
I am the last person anyone would’ve thought would be a business owner. And so you do have to be up for it. There’s a lot of learning. I’m sure that goes into all of that. But also don’t rule yourself out then from those types of positions. If you’ve never really dabbled in it, it, it can be a lot. I don’t wanna be misleading and [00:14:00] guiding someone down a wrong path, but I just as someone who like never would’ve thought I’d gone this way.
I just wanted to share that. Love it. I’m gonna jump ahead a little bit, but we can always like kind of circle back ’cause it’s all related. What if someone is kind of coming to the realization that maybe their whole industry is not the right fit for them, and we’ve talked a little, I’m sure what we’ve talked about applies as well.
And I know this is a large issue and you probably help clients in far more depth than we can cover today on this front, but how do you help people discover maybe what alternative options are even just at a high level, like, I mean, as someone who I’d wanted to be a lawyer since sixth grade, I. When I was realizing six years in that I, or five or six years somewhere in there that I didn’t wanna do that anymore.
At least in Southern California. I was at a complete loss of where to go. It had been dictating my career path for like 15 years. How do you help someone start noodling on that?
Julia Lynch: Sure. [00:15:00] I say that I’m not really a WOOWOO coach because there are people who are very woowoo, right? Mm-hmm. What color is your energy and, and all that stuff, and that’s excellent, but that’s not really me.
I’m much more tactical and focused, and I say that I’m pretty no nonsense. Yes, I’m a warm, empathetic person, but I’m not a therapist, so I’m really here to give you that actionable advice and feedback that you’re looking for that can help you get to.
Have worked with an, and working with a number of women in advertising. These are all women who are making over 400 k. They are stressed. It’s a client services industry. They’re working 12 hours a day. How can they transition their skills that they’ve built over 20, 25 years into an industry? They’re okay with a little bit of a pay cut.
I would say that’s, and that’s part of the [00:16:00] conversation where. If an industry is changing a ton, you might have to take a little bit of a pay cut to start if an industry sees a lot of growth. So tech is a great industry. I’m not orienting a lot of people to professional services because again, a lot of professional services is being oriented to people who belong to certain market.
I personally have worked with a lot of consultants from McKinsey, BCG Bain, who now are members of some of these marketplaces, and they’re making way more than they did in their full-time consulting role. So I would say that the approach is very personal, but it’s also goal oriented. Yep. What kind of life do they envision for themselves?
Are they okay living a little bit frugally for the next year while they ramp up and build a skillset set in a new industry? And a pay cut is not always the norm, [00:17:00] but if someone has built a specific expertise that they’re gonna take a little bit of a ding potentially if they are looking to move to a new industry.
And I think that a pay cut is relative. You say pay cut and it scares people. A pay cup could be $20,000. Yep. And if you’re making 300 K plus or 200 k plus, that’s not after taxes. That’s really not so material. Mm-hmm. Or your long-term happiness or long-term financial stability for flexibility. So all those different tenants kind of play into that.
So that’s what I would say is we’re looking at what skills do you have that new industries. Are looking for what industries have growth? Where have some other folks in your industry gone? What are the trends? And so collating all those different pieces results [00:18:00] in my recommendation and the roadmap that I will kind of aligned to for them.
Kelly Nolan: Excellent. And I’ll just say this to me, highlights, if you are going into a job search. And even just like thinking about it, I do think that I’m really grateful that it is becoming more and more common for people to work with career coaches because this conversation, I don’t know, we’re in like 15 minutes in, it’s already clear to me.
You just have so much knowledge of different industries. How to approach things, all that kind of stuff. And that’s just something that when you’ve been busy, let’s say for a decade, heads down, working in your own industry, you don’t know all of that expertise. And I am someone, I also worked with a career coach when I was leading law.
It was sadly far less common, I would say. I interviewed five and four of them were like, I help you with your resume and interview skills, and I was like, that’s not really what I need help with. It’s the, as you [00:19:00] said, like figuring out what’s next and the narrative and all that kind of stuff. But what I will say is the person I found was very good at helping me give structure to the process, but also more to your point, like understanding industries, understanding trends, understanding where things are going.
Helping me think of, yeah, let me look at where other people in my industry have landed and see if any of that sounds appealing. All this kind of stuff. So tagging along with that, if someone is approaching the job search. And they’re thinking about it. What are some reasons, you know, feel free to echo what I’ve said or anything else that someone should consider hiring a career coach for this.
That, you know, these can be significant investments, but they can be well worth it. Why? Why do you think that it has those benefits?
Julia Lynch: Sure. So I’m the first one to admit that coaching is a total black box. You are hiring an individual for their expertise and their expertise. Is difficult to quantify and I’m the first one to admit [00:20:00] that.
So first of all, before I go into kind of what I do and how my approach is different, if someone is working with me at kind of the highest tier that I offer, which would be someone who’s 15 plus years into their career, they’re not sure what to do next. They’re feeling very career stuck. They’re gonna need a lot of hands-on support.
That engagement will take about six months. And my model isn’t with you until you land something that you’re happy with. I actually require anyone who is making that investment with me to speak to another client whether or not they have suggested it themselves or not, because I want someone to feel and know from someone else and also make a connection with another dynamic woman that.
Julie is great. Julie is super helpful. Julie is very real and will give you the advice that you need. So I’ll say that that’s not something that a lot of other coaches do because they’re like, I just wanna [00:21:00] make the sale. You know, I’m good. You should pay me. I don’t want that. And also, I’ve had clients who have had conversations with potential clients of mine who have said they’re great, but I think that they’re not gonna respect you or.
All my former clients, you know, are friends and I talk to ’em often, and so they’re happy to share their perspective on that. That’s fascinating. So what I’ll say is that I’m not a traditional career coach for a reason. A lot of other traditional career coaches focus on the resume, focus on the interview prep, and that’s great, but that’s not necessarily.
Giving you the foundation that you need to make a pivot in this insanely competitive job market that’s not giving you the skills to do that. And so I say that my superpowers are networking and storytelling, figuring out what the story is, figuring out what the market [00:22:00] trends are, figuring out how your skills can translate to a brand new industry.
And then also networking. Not only teaching you how to network, but. Tapping into my own network as well. So I say that I’m a super connector. I love connecting people with other people, and I meet with multiple recruiters per week. I have multiple recruiters who are willing to speak to and recommend clients of mine because they know that if I’m working with someone, they’re of a certain caliber.
So I’m not only saying, Hey, talk to Su who you went to college with. Best of luck. It’s really optimizing your own social capital, giving your own approach, and then figuring out, okay, who do I know that’s gonna help you? And that lasts until you find something that you’re thrilled with. So the engagement is also very personal.
You have unlimited access to me via text and email. I have you until again, you find something. [00:23:00] There is a minimum amount of sessions that we’ll do, but I’m not tied to that because every client is different. Yeah. I don’t like 10 Nickle and Dime. You pay me once and then we don’t talk about money again.
Kelly Nolan: Yep. Yep. Excellent. And along those lines, if someone is hiring a career coach, whether it’s you or they’re interviewing someone else, what are the types of questions that you recommend that they ask in that process?
Julia Lynch: Right. So I would say firstly, ask them if you can speak to a former client of theirs, because they should have people waiting at their door to cheer them on.
And if not, that’s a little bit of a red flag. Even if a lot of my clients are very busy and sometimes I’ll say, Hey, this person doesn’t have the capacity to chat with you live. They’re on vacation, but they’ll voice note you or they’ll send you something. Beyond testimonials on the website. Secondly, are they opening up their network to you?
Do [00:24:00] they have connections to some of the places that they’re targeting? And so if not, then I would really think about whether that person is a fit, because yes, the road mapping is super important, but what I do is. I’m helping you with the roadmap, but I’m also helping you with the human capital piece and the social capital piece, which you can’t necessarily quantify that, but that’s very powerful.
Many of my clients have gotten jobs through my direct introductions.
Kelly Nolan: Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Julia, for joining us. I think that I love the strategies at the top of really, really, I mean, that’s so smart. Just to clarify the narrative before you go into networking, understand what your message is, know that it can pivot through your process of networking, but having something to start with will be clarifying for you and the people you’re meeting, which is excellent.
And then just starting Network Eden, even if you’re not. A hundred percent sure you’re going to leave your position starting now. I don’t think you’ll would ever [00:25:00] regret it, so might as well start protecting some time for it. Even if it’s once a month to begin with. I think that could be really, really valuable and thanks so much for sharing about what you do.
I think that you’re right, this whole industry. Maybe because it’s relatively new is somewhat of a black box. You never know what you’re fully getting, what career coaches help with. So I think it’s just really valuable to hear what you do so that people can evaluate just their own process going forward.
So thank you so much. If people would like to learn more about what you do, where do you recommend they go?
Julia Lynch: Yeah, so my email is smarter in a se*@gm***.com. You can feel free to always email me, and my website is smarter in a SEC home. My calend delete is linked there, and you can also follow me on Instagram and sub stock.
I love connecting with women through social media because I know that not everyone is able to make [00:26:00] working of. Free resources and it’s fantastic to share those with women and men, some men throughout the globe.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah. Well, thank you so much and I will just echo, I mean I love everything you share on Instagram, the snacks, the compression leggings, all of it.
She is a super fun follow. So definitely give her a follow at smarter and a sec on Instagram. And when you dig into career advice, I’m always just like the sharpness. The smart element of it is you just bring something to the table that I haven’t heard before. So it’s a really fun to hear what your thoughts are on that front, and sadly, in this economic time, I think that a lot of people need it.
So as Julia said, if you aren’t interested in hiring her or anything like that, definitely just at least give her a follow to understand what she can add value from there, because she will. Well, thank you for being here, and I’ll catch you in the next [00:27:00] one.
