Your Ministry Career Questions Answered: Job Titles, Hiring Companies, and Networking for Former Pastors

❓YOUR MINISTRY TO MARKETPLACE QUESTIONS ANSWERED

All of these questions were asked on our “open to the public” group coaching call on Friday last week. We’ll have another one in mid February, so be on the lookout!

How do I know which job title I should pursue?

To identify the right job title, pay attention to the “functions” of your ministry experience. 

The reality is that many jobs, ministry and corporate, have a lot of crossover in the functions and actions. But the wording is all different, and sometimes the combination of what you do is different, so it can be confusing.

Focus on what you do day to day and week to week. 

1. What are the primary functions of your role? What do you do?

2. Then break it down. Within those functions, what are the actions that you take to make the function happen? If you recruit volunteers, do you call people?

3. Then look at the list and find what you’re really good at and what you enjoy. That list is what you are qualified to do in a job.

4. Now you can find jobs with similar functions that will fit. You can use Perplexity to do that, or we have our own in-house assessment called the Career Compass that is step 1 in the Interview Accelerator.

How can I find organizations that are mission-oriented and known for good company culture?

Especially when coming from ministry, this kind of company can be attractive - but also might see your experience in ministry as an asset rather than a liability.

Here’s one practical way you can do this:

1. Create a list of 20 companies that you already know about.

2. Go to their LinkedIn company page.

3. Look at the right-hand side bar, and there will be two sections. The first will be, “companies people are also interested in.” The second will be, “companies people also follow.” 

This is a quick way to expand your list of target organizations by finding organizations that are similar in the interests of people who know the industry!

I go deeper on this subject in this newsletter HERE.

How To Network If I Don’t Have Industry Connections?

This question was asked about Learning and Development specifically, but applies to any type of job or industry.

1. Use LinkedIn’s search bar and type in the following: “ministry” OR “church” OR “pastor”. Hit enter.

2. Click the All filters button and scroll to the bottom of the list to where it says, “keywords,” and type the most common word related to the title you’re looking for into the “Title” blank. These could be words like “sales,” “marketing,” “learning,” or “operations.”

3. That will bring up a list of everyone with ministry, church, or pastor on their profile somewhere, AND that common word in the title that they currently have. 

This finds people with a ministry background in those jobs. You can reach out to them to learn more about their transition, and because they can empathize with what you’re doing, they might be willing to help you, too!