Fast Track to More Interviews: Proven Strategies for Leaving Vocational Ministry and Landing Corporate Jobs
Aug 29, 2025
Read Time: 4 minutes
Todd Linder
Founder & Head Coach
Overview
Welcome to the Ministry To Marketplace Minute! Today, I want to teach you how to work smarter in the job search. Especially when transitioning from ministry jobs, even if you don’t feel like your experience is transferable. How can you get offers faster? Here’s a hint: it isn’t applying online. We call it “the Success Equation.” So let’s dive in.
Today's Ministry To Marketplace Minute:
Mindset Shift: Avoid job search burnout and doom scrolling.
Strategy Shift: Transitioning from ministry to a new career.
Do This Right Now: 5 steps to getting marketplace interviews, faster.
Who Will Hire Me?: 5 ministry friendly organizations with jobs for ex-pastors.
🧠 MINDSET SHIFT: Avoid job search burnout and doom scrolling.
Work smarter, not harder.
You’ve heard this before, right? Why do something for 10 hours that could take you two?
Sometimes, I hear that and I’m like… “or work smarter AND harder”
But in the job search, smarter, not harder, is REAL.
Working smarter two hours in a week will get you better results than doing the wrong actions 10, 15, 20 hours each week.
So what is working smarter? We call this the “Success Equation.”
♟️ STRATEGY SHIFT: Transitioning from ministry to a new career.
We measure “success” in this way:
Success = more interviews in less time.
You want a job offer. But you can’t get a job offer without interviews.
So if you aim for interviews, you have more opportunities to get offers.
Connections
ATS, AI, Easy Apply.
These are all decreasing your chances of getting interviews when you apply online.
Especially with your non-traditional background.
The key to getting interviews is through your connections.
Humans hire humans. Period.
But not just any connections. High quality connections.
High quality connections (people who want to help you and actually have the ability to) are the ones that make introductions that lead to interviews.
And the more of those high quality connections you have, the more people can be in your corner and help you out.
Conversations
But you can’t stop just by making a list of great people.
You have to get into quality conversations with them.
A quality conversation is one that helps them to understand
What job title you are looking for next,
What organizations they are connected to that you would be interested in working for,
Why it makes sense with your background and story that this is your next step.
If you can communicate those things and make an ask for an introduction in that conversation, that is a high quality conversation.
And of course, one conversation is good, but more conversations is better.
Reach Outs
So having a high quality and quantity of conversations with a high quality and quantity of connections is what gets you more interviews.
Yay! Great job. You’re now job searching better than 99% of other people.
But that’s just half of success, right? More interviews?
The other half is to do it in less time.
That’s where Reach Out Velocity comes in.
How quickly do you reach out to those connections to start these conversations?
You can have 100 great conversations with connections over the course of 10 years, or over the course of 100 days.
Which one is going to get you more interviews, and therefore more opportunities for offers, faster?
Yes, more reach outs.
The simple math.
This might feel overwhelming.
But the most important thing you can do (after getting clarity on your next job and translating your experience) is…
Reaching out.
If you send one text to one connection every day, for 30 days, maybe 20 of those turn into conversations.
If half of those turn into interviews, then you’ve got 10 interviews in 30 days.
WILD.
And simple.
The Success Equation is your “Work Smarter, Not Harder” in the job search.
✅ DO THIS RIGHT NOW: 5 steps to getting marketplace interviews, faster.
Make a list of 30 people you know who would talk to you about your job search.
Pick one person. Do research about where they work and if they’re connected anywhere you’d be interested in working.
Send them a text asking to connect about your job search, and if you can explore ways they might be able to help.
Repeat daily for 30 days.
Bonus points if you send more than one text every day. Two texts a day = double the math.
🚀 FROM THE COACHING GROUP
After a month of not getting any interviews, in the past week I’ve had 3! This week I have a final on Wednesday for a great role and still have another in process if that doesn’t work out. Glad to be seeing some traction
🤝 WHO WILL HIRE ME?: 5 ministry friendly organizations with jobs for ex-pastors.
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How we can help you:
FREE Ultimate Guide To Your Ministry To Marketplace Transition Our entire process in a free (yes, FREE) guide that walks you step-by-step through the essentials of landing a marketplace job that you'll enjoy, and supports your family. Each section builds on the next: clarity, translation, resume, and LinkedIn connections… everything you need to start seeing traction in your search. You can sign up here >>> Sign up for the Ultimate Guide.
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