One of the values we live by here at CareerCircle is to be the change you want to see.
When we realized that people&rsquo;s experience went beyond their resume, we created the <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/how-the-360deg-candidate-view-helps-hiring-managers-find-the-right-fit" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Candidate 360&deg; profile</a>. When we saw that the technology industry was sorely lacking in diversity, we started partnering with non-profit organizations who worked with underserved communities.&nbsp;
And this Mental Health Awareness Month, when <a href="https://www.stress.org/workplace-stress#:~:text=83%25%20of%20US%20workers%20suffer,stress%20affects%20their%20personal%20relationships." rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">83% of US workers report job-related stress</a>, we&rsquo;ve decided to tackle how work can be a place for wellness.
Now don&rsquo;t get us wrong&hellip;it&rsquo;s a challenge. But we&rsquo;re a team who has never shied away from a challenge.&nbsp;
In fact, we&rsquo;re the team who recently <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/the-power-of-changing-941-lives" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">helped 941 people get hired in less than 941 days</a> so we know that when we set our minds to something, we&rsquo;re going to accomplish it.
&nbsp;
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Kicking Off Our Wellness Journey Together</h2>
Our wellness initiative kicked off with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-sneeder-a49a723/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Kim Sneeder</a>, our Managing Director, opening the floor to the team to share with her one thing they love about the company culture and one that we need to change.
Because our leadership team and Kim, in particular, has been dedicated to creating a culture of transparency and honesty from day one, it wasn&rsquo;t an issue to be completely honest about what we were facing. One of the recurring topics that was brought up was focusing on wellness at work through professional development, accountability, and more.
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/ewxYLMy9QSG7oMjZAwvH" alt="Image of CareerCircle team making homemade cards for kids" width="488" height="256" class="butter-float-right">
With this feedback in mind, the leadership team invited <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedcapshaw/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Ted Capshaw</a>, a business coach and dedicated leader who helps people and companies grow before tragedy, to speak with us at our <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7048678297672536064" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">National</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7048678297672536064" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">&nbsp;Team Meeting</a> about the 8 pillars of wellness:
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Emotional</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Mental</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Physical</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Professional</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Financial</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Community</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Relationships/Connection</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Spiritual/Values</li>
</ul>
The presentation sparked one of the most important conversations we&rsquo;ve had amongst our team. People opened up about how work interacts with their life and the goals they have to make the changes they need to make. It also prompted the 3 key changes at our company we&rsquo;re implementing.

<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">How We&rsquo;re Supporting Wellness at Work</h2>

After our conversations at our National Team Meeting, we took a pulse survey of our team to learn which pillars are most important to them. Spiritual/Values overwhelmingly took the top spot with mental and physical health tied in second. We knew that we needed to give people space to discover what they valued alongside the ability to live those values at work and be able to prioritize their health in ways they hadn&rsquo;t been.
&nbsp;
<h3 dir="ltr">Team Accountability Groups</h3>
We&rsquo;re an action-oriented company so it didn&rsquo;t take long for our team to realize that we would reach our goals better if we worked together. As our team began to share the pillars that we wanted to focus on individually, accountability groups began to spawn amongst those who shared the same goals.&nbsp;
These accountability groups will be helping to support each other on hard days, provide resources to learn and grow together, and, most importantly, give us a chance to connect on topics outside of our day-to-day work.

<h3 dir="ltr">Company-Wide Development Events</h3>
Beyond our accountability groups and our individual wellness days, CareerCircle as a company is also committing to providing development events that any team member can join. These will be anything from meetings about stress management or building your brand on LinkedIn to fireside chats about the challenges we&rsquo;re facing.
These events will give us a chance to join together as a team to get a pulse on how our wellness efforts are going and make sure that we&rsquo;re staying true to our goal of prioritizing wellness at work.
&nbsp;
<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">Building Your Own Wellness At Work Initiative</h2>
According to a post from RallyBright, <a href="https://www.rallybright.com/feeling-undervalued-at-work/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">almost 50% of American workers have left a job due to feeling undervalued</a>. Investing in wellness at work is just one of the ways that you can help your employees feel valued every day. Building a wellness at work initiative doesn&rsquo;t have to take weeks of market research and sign off. It can be made up of small, but intentional shifts in the way that work happens in someone&rsquo;s life.
We kicked off our efforts by simply opening up the conversation with our team. Asking questions like, &ldquo;What does our company do well?&rdquo; and &ldquo;What do we need to work on?&rdquo; are an easy way to get the suggestions rolling in. Remember that this effort will only work if employees see actual change come from these conversations so only open them when you&rsquo;re ready to take action.
When you&rsquo;ve had those conversations, cater your initiative to what people really want. If the overwhelming majority of employees want more support when it comes to setting boundaries at work and you choose to initiate 5 minutes of stretching at the start of every meeting, you&rsquo;re not supporting the needs of your team. Every team is different and they deserve personalized care.
It is also critical for leaders to know that words need to match actions. While it is wonderful to say that you care about your team&rsquo;s mental health, it means more to provide appropriate time off and a focus on workload management. Remember to also practice what you preach, leading with vulnerability and honesty will encourage your team to come to work in the same way. 

Ultimately, there is always more work to be done to value wellness at work, but we wanted to share the changes that we are making to inspire you to do the same for your workplace. Let us know on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7058848435956801537/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> what you&rsquo;re doing to prioritize wellness at work!

One of the values we live by is to be the change you want to see. Here's how we're doing that when it comes to wellness at work.

Being the Change for Wellness at Work

One of the values we live by here at CareerCircle is to be the change you want to see. Here's how we're doing that when it comes to wellness at work.

When you&rsquo;re breaking into a new industry, like <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/course/google-digital-marketing-and-ecommerce" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Digital Marketing</a> or <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/course/google-ux-design" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">UX Design</a>, Google Career Certificates can help you get your foot in the door and build out a professional portfolio that can help you on your job search.
Here at CareerCircle, we believe that the people, like you, who work their way through a certificate program are some of the most tenacious and valuable people in the workplace and we want to make sure that you get credit for all of your hard work.
On your Candidate 360&deg; profile, we provide space for you to identify the certificate you&rsquo;ve earned, but verifying your certificate by uploading a copy of it will take you even further.
<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">How to Verify Your Google Career Certificate</h2>
By verifying your certificate on your profile, you're proving to employers and hiring managers that you are dedicated to your field and your professional development. Beyond that, profiles with verified certificates are boosted in search results when hiring managers and our own recruiters are searching the platform.
Here&rsquo;s how Google Career Certificate completers can verify their certificate: 
<ol>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation"><a href="https://login.careercircle.com/login?state=hKFo2SBVVm1vZWZGeXN4dEx3QVplMmpqWlg3TWw4NmhmWE9RaKFupWxvZ2luo3RpZNkgVDVkNjVmUHVTQTFkRmpPOExseEJ3UHZxTDhLdE1QU3OjY2lk2SBsaFlwZDE1M3hZVXliOXZVc0lmbVVpYTl6R1NuNG96Zg&amp;client=lhYpd153xYUyb9vUsIfmUia9zGSn4ozf&amp;protocol=oauth2&amp;scope=openid%20profile%20email%20offline_access&amp;response_type=code&amp;redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.careercircle.com%2Fapi%2Fauth%2Fcallback&amp;connection=Username-Password-Authentication&amp;audience=https%3A%2F%2Fcareercircle.azure-api.net&amp;acr_values=%7B%22registration%22%3A%22%22%2C%22role%22%3A%22candidate%22%2C%22social%22%3A%22%22%7D&amp;nonce=ebd4a68cacc6b6cced761a3b2134af82" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Login to your profile</a> and navigate to your dashboard</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Click &ldquo;Add Your Google Career Certificate&rdquo;</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Select the certificate you completed</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Customize your headline and create a job alert</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Click the gray box and upload an image of your certificate</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Select &ldquo;Apply Changes&rdquo;</li>
</ol>

<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/vXlwhJjSXqUMv1MuJpAb" alt="undefined" width="951" height="465" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">

And that&rsquo;s it!
To see a step-by-step of this process, you can view a Scribe training&nbsp;<a href="https://scribehow.com/shared/How_to_Add_and_Verify_Your_Google_Career_Certificate__Rhj30mD7QdaUolNKZ1Ix_w" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">here</a> or a video tutorial <a href="https://vimeo.com/821347213/babffc463f" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">here</a>.
<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">What&rsquo;s Next?</h2>
Once you&rsquo;ve verified your certificate, we recommend you do three more things:
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Set up a job alert based on that certificate: If you didn&rsquo;t do this while uploading your certificate, you can <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/how-to-set-up-job-alerts-to-find-the-right-job-postings" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">follow these steps</a> to set up a job alert based on your certificate and get jobs delivered directly to your inbox.</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Schedule 1-on-1 coaching to continue your career journey: Our recruiters are here to help you and that means you can schedule time with us to go over what you need to do for your job search. The best part? It&rsquo;s totally free to you! To schedule a coaching call, just click the &ldquo;Schedule 1-on-1 Coaching&rdquo; button at the top of your dashboard.</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Visit the Resources page:&nbsp;As a Google Career Certificate completer, you have access to a full Resource page filled with tools to help you on your career journey. Check out the interview warmup tool, resume builder, FAQs from top recruiters, and more!&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
 If you have any questions, don&rsquo;t hesitate to <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/contact" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">contact us</a>!

On your Candidate 360° profile, verifying your certificate by uploading a copy of it will take you even further.

How To Verify Your Google Career Certificate in CareerCircle

On your Candidate 360° profile, we provide space for you to identify the certificate you’ve earned, but verifying your certificate by uploading a copy of it will take you even further.

As one of CareerCircle&rsquo;s recruiters, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pugh-278699161/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Daniel Pugh</a> spends his days scouting for talent from our pool of skilled candidates, preparing candidates for their interview process, reaching out to past members to learn more about their experience, and more. But his career journey actually started with over 6 years in the Air Force and a hearty dose of imposter syndrome to contend with when it was time to reenter the civilian world.


<h2 style="text-align: center;">From High School Graduation to Air Force Security Forces </h2>
When Daniel graduated high school, he faced the same question we&rsquo;ve all faced: What do I want to do?
&ldquo;Do I go to college? Do I take out a student loan which sounds very scary? What degree do I want? Do I join the military? Do I go straight to work? I didn&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; he shared. One of the things that he knew was that, while he loved his hometown, he wanted to explore. &ldquo;I knew that I wanted to go somewhere. I wanted to do something. I just didn&rsquo;t know what and I was okay with that. But I was going to take a leap of faith to find out what that was.&rdquo;
When most of us hit this stage in our lives, we look to the people around us to help guide us. Daniel looked to his family for that guidance.
Coming from a military family, Daniel knew that joining the military was a stable option for him. He understood the roles and responsibilities and it would allow him to get some skills that he wouldn&rsquo;t get otherwise. But, as most military family members know, there&rsquo;s always a bit of competition between what branch would be best. While his father was in the Air Force, his grandfather was in the Army, so teams began to spring up with suggestions of which branch he should go into. Even his friends had an opinion based on what branches they were interested in going into!
After taking the <a href="https://www.officialasvab.com/applicants/fact-sheet/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">ASVAB</a>, he decided to follow in his dad&rsquo;s footsteps and enlist in the Air Force.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I started out in the Security Forces, mainly because it was something I was interested in doing and it was immediately available. It didn&rsquo;t hurt that the beret looked really cool, too. There were positions available on every base which would let me travel the way I wanted to,&rdquo; he shared. He completed his training at Lackland Air Force Base and was stationed at F.E. Warren in Cheyenne, Wyoming. In his time in Wyoming, he started out as an RFL (Response Force Leader) before transitioning into his daily role as an FSC (Flight Security Controller). To say his day-to-day was high pressure is an understatement.
&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t even 21 yet. I was 20 years old, became an E4, and then from that position was responsible for billions of dollars worth of critical weapons systems that were vital to national security. If I had a bad day at the office, based on the type of report, it would go straight to the Pentagon or the President&rsquo;s office just because of the nature of the situation,&rdquo; he explained.
In his role, he had to be perfect. He had to follow direct rules and checklists and there was no room for error.
He loved what he did and he was really good at it, which meant that his first duty station became his final duty station. Despite wanting to travel, Daniel spent his military career at F.E. Warren, where his skills could be used most effectively. When it came time to reenlist or move on, he had to take another hard look at what he wanted to do with his life and his career.
&ldquo;I had a great time, but I wanted to go explore. I wanted to go see the world. Due to my duty position and due to the fact that I did very well, if I continued in the military I was going to have to stay stateside and I realized that I just didn&rsquo;t want to do that. So I made the decision to transition out of the military.&rdquo;
A tip for you:&nbsp;Sometimes the job you&rsquo;re good at isn&rsquo;t the right job for you. That doesn&rsquo;t mean the time in that role was a failure, it simply means that you are ready for the next step on your journey.


<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">Making Leaps of Faith a Way of Life</h2>
While his first leap of faith was joining the military, his next, and more intimidating one, was leaving. 
When going through TAP (<a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/vets/programs/tap" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Transition Assistance Program</a>), Daniel realized that he had no idea how to apply for a job, build a resume, or interview, but he knew he had to figure out how to transfer his skills from a niche military background to civilian work. As he shared, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t just Google, &lsquo;I worked in the military to protect nuclear weapons, what do I do as a civilian?&rsquo; I needed to get some personal help.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s where <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethparker/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Ethan Parker</a>, his best friend and Aerotek recruiter, came in.
&ldquo;Ethan was a huge mentor for me because he understood how to go ahead and take those transferable skills and transition them into different opportunities that I would actually be interested in.&rdquo;
After working with Ethan, he realized that he really enjoyed working one-on-one with people and helping to coordinate projects, troubleshoot problems and, ultimately, be the person you can come to when a problem needs to be solved.
&ldquo;I never would have realized that those skills were something that I already had or that they could transition into a software and tech support role without working with Ethan. Having that one-on-one support from him as a friend and a recruiter was incredible,&rdquo; Daniel explained.
He applied for a role as a Commissioning Agent at General Electric and, given that he had never done an interview before, he ended up staying up the whole night before Googling what happens in an interview, what to wear, what questions to prepare for, and more.
He landed the role and enjoyed his time at GE, but unfortunately was let go in an initial round of COVID layoffs. It was time for another leap of faith.
&ldquo;I was 26, 27 years old at the time, and I have a lot of experience, but I still really don&rsquo;t know what I want to be. I thought, &lsquo;Well, let&rsquo;s try something new. I&rsquo;m going to work at a warehouse. Maybe I can learn more about physical labor roles and dive deeper into that operation process and support people from that angle.&rsquo;&rdquo;
It didn&rsquo;t take long to realize that while a warehouse job had sounded appealing, it wasn&rsquo;t the right fit for him. Once more, he was left trying to define what it is he wanted to do. Then Ethan reached out.
&ldquo;Ethan had continued to be a huge support and he was working here at CareerCircle at the time and called me and went, &lsquo;Hey, you would be a very good recruiter.&rsquo; and my immediate reaction was, &lsquo;No way.&rsquo; I had talked to a lot of recruiters in my life both in the military and out of it and I just thought there was no way that I had the skills for it.&rdquo;
Daniel had a hard time seeing how any of the skills or passions he had could be transferred into recruiting. He had dealt with imposter syndrome before when he was first leaving the military again and it hit him again when he was presented with this new industry to look into.
A tip for you: BetterUp suggests when facing <a href="https://www.betterup.com/blog/what-is-imposter-syndrome-and-how-to-avoid-it" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">imposter syndrome</a>, &ldquo;Making a simple 2-column list &mdash; on one side, &ldquo;Evidence that I am inadequate&rdquo; and on the other side, &ldquo;Evidence that I am competent&rdquo; &mdash; can help bring perspective.&rdquo; Focusing on objective fact is critical for combating that negative inner voice.
But ultimately, Daniel&rsquo;s previous leaps of faith had served him well, so he decided to take one more. He started working on his resume and in that time took the opportunity to learn all he could about what he needed to know to start on a career in recruiting. He looked up what the different types of resumes are and when each should be used, what types of interviews there are and how to help people through them, what employers and hiring managers are looking for in recruiter partnerships, and more.
When he had worked through learning on his own, Ethan reached out with an offer to apply for a <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/jobs" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">CareerCircle recruiter position</a> that had opened up. While Daniel didn&rsquo;t feel quite ready or qualified, he did what he could to quiet the imposter syndrome and applied.
&ldquo;I was a nervous wreck,&rdquo; he shared when recollecting the interview with CareerCircle Managing Director, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-sneeder-a49a723/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Kim Sneeder</a>. &ldquo;I was sitting there thinking there&rsquo;s no way I&rsquo;m going to get this. She actually ended up asking me what I thought I would struggle with going into recruiting and I didn&rsquo;t even try to lie, I just straight up said, &lsquo;Resumes.&rsquo; They had been a bit of a nemesis for me since I left the military and I knew they would be a big spot for me to learn.&rdquo;
Thankfully, here at CareerCircle we care less about resumes and more about a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/building-the-360deg-view-of-you-how-to-develop-a-job-skills-inventory" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">360&deg; view of candidates</a> so Daniel&rsquo;s honesty did nothing to dissuade Kim that he was the right person for the role.
Daniel ended up taking the job with CareerCircle because he loved <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/impact" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">the mission</a> we have to look beyond resumes and help people find the skills they may not even realize they have. He wanted to help bring those skills to light for other people in the same way that Ethan had helped bring them to light for him. In fact, he was most recently awarded our Top Recruiter Award given to those who have produced only the most stellar results for the recruiting team, so we say he made the right choice!


<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">Building the Right Support for Every Step</h2>
&ldquo;The advice I give to everyone when it comes to job searching is to use the resources and connections that are available to you. I look back now and I wish I had used those resources more readily,&rdquo; Daniel shared when asked what advice he would pass to job seekers today.
&ldquo;One of the ones I really wished I had used, and still might in the future, is the free education from my time in the service. I remember thinking, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t want to go back to school so that&rsquo;s not valuable to me,&rsquo; but in reality, I should have taken the opportunity as soon as it was offered.&rdquo;
He now works with his candidates to make sure they know about all of the often free resources that are available to them, like our <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/resume-builder" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Resume Builder</a> and <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/candidates" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">1:1 Coaching</a>.
He also works with candidates to be the support that he needed on his own career journey. As a veteran who has worked in vastly different roles and faced imposter syndrome at every turn, he is able to understand where his candidates are coming from and be the mentor that they need.
&ldquo;My dad has always said to me that the most important thing I can be is happy,&rdquo; Daniel shared when asked how people have supported him in his journey. It&rsquo;s clear that Daniel has taken that advice to heart and found a role that not only makes him happy, but allows him to bring that happiness, support, and compassion to CareerCircle members.&nbsp;
As you move forward in your own career journey, remember that no matter how many transitions you have to face, taking that leap of faith could be the thing that makes your life happier than you could have imagined.
<h3 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">When you&rsquo;re ready to move on in your own journey, you can&nbsp;<a href="https://www.careercircle.com/candidates" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">join the CareerCircle community here</a>.</h3>

Daniel Pugh started his career in the Air Force. Now he's the Top Recruiter at CareerCircle. Here's how he handled his career switch with transferrable skills.

The Power of a Leap of Faith: A CareerCircle Career Journey

As one of CareerCircle’s recruiters, Daniel Pugh spends his days scouting for talent from our pool of skilled candidates, but his career journey actually started with over 6 years in the Air Force and a hearty dose of imposter syndrome to contend with when it was time to reenter the civilian world.

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Staff Writer

142 Articles

Being the Change for Wellness at Work

How To Verify Your Google Career Certificate in CareerCircle

The Power of a Leap of Faith: A CareerCircle Career Journey