About

 

About Page Natalie GroenigHey, Welcome to ReRouting!

I’m Natalie Groenig.

An HR Professional obsessed with helping career-minded individuals explore, discover, and find jobs they love!

My goal is to help you navigate through the world of work whether it’s creating a career development plan, elevating your job search strategy, helping you write a resume, or just finding some work-life balance. I’m excited you dropped by for all things #careering!

Let’s be honest…

  • Discovering what you want to do with your life and career can cause a whole lotta stress
  • Job searching is never fun, although the thought of new beginnings can be exciting
  • Writing your resume often leads to writer’s block
  • Interviewing makes you feel like people are just trying to decide if they like you enough to work with you (no one likes to feel rejected)
  • We all need to find a way to make a living doing “something” – whether you do what you love or love what you do (or sometimes even hate it)

I get it! I have been there!

Keeping it real…

  • In my 20s I changed careers 3 times (until I discovered my passion for working in Human Resources) – Child and Youth Worker, Teacher, Sales…. then HR! In my 30s, I added Blogger
  • I’m addicted to coffee, red wine, chocolate, crafting, and Netflix
  • Balancing work and life is hard – as a mom of 3, it’s an ongoing battle of mom-guilt and career

About ReRouting

ReRouting originally started as “helping students navigate through the world of work” but by the end of 2020 when Covid-related unemployment was hitting mid-level professionals quite hard, I had colleagues, friends, and referrals coming to me for job search and resume help. This is when it became “helping people navigate through the world of work”…with more of a focus on creating material and offering resources for every stage of one’s career.

What’s with the name ReRouting?

If you look-up the word “rerouting” you will find variations of the definition. Two of the variations that resonate with me are 1. to send someone along a different route, and 2.  the act of choosing a different path.

The definitions will make sense if you continue to read my story below…

When I graduated from University with a BA in Psychology and Criminology, I thought I had it all figured out. I wanted to be a social worker with a local Children’s Aid Society to advocate for children and families that needed my help. But before going to get my MSW, I would work for a few years to get some field experience, pay off my debt, then go back to school. I quickly got my first job, which I thought was my dream job; I was working as a Child and Youth Worker at a group home. It took me six months and being one of the longest standing CYWs at the home to realize that this was not my path…

What happened next…

I felt lost, without direction, and that I spent the last four years focusing my course load on something that I did not want to pursue. I decided I would take some time to think this through and went out on an adventure to South Korea to take an ESL teaching gig. It was such a great experience and a breath of fresh air. I was able to escape the reality I faced of not knowing what I wanted to do while being able to travel and make a really good income. I literally wouldn’t have been able to pay off my student debts as quickly as I did if I hadn’t gone on this adventure!

After doing some soul searching, I decided to take a post-grad program in Human Resources Management. I started the program online while in South Korea. Headed back home at exam time – things were looking up! Then I started applying for “any job” (insert taking a Sales role that I hated) with what I believed was a decent resume. (I had lots of work experience having held a part-time job since I was 14 years old.) For about every 50 resumes I sent out, I would maybe get one interview. WHAT WAS I DOING WRONG? Looking back now, I can tell you it was 1. Yes, I had work experience, but a really crappy resume, and 2. My lack of clear direction. Take a look at this post to learn about the best interview advice I received that helped me launch my career.

Months of job searching while I attended school part-time went by and that feeling like I was going nowhere came back around.

Then the phone rang…

It was my friend’s mom who was managing an Inventory Control department. She knew I was looking for work and needed someone to catch up on filing and run inventory reports. Not my dream job, but sign me up! I had heard a term before that explained this – foot in the door?  That is exactly what it was.

I proved my strong work ethic and got my hands into any additional work they would give me. Sure enough, while I was there an HR Administrator position became available. Ten years and several promotions later, I found myself as a Certified Human Resources Leader and Sr. HR Generalist.

What I have learned…

I realized through my experience and from watching others’ careers progress, is that you don’t always end up where you thought you’d be, or in a career you went to school for. To grow and progress as individuals, we need change. We need to be pushed out of our comfort zones and learn something new.

You may question what you are doing, but that is okay! You’ll experience forks in the road that seem confusing, but you are only building your decision-making skills. You may re-evaluate your education and career decisions, but self-reflection is a competency that you should embrace. It’s okay to have career changes and to choose different “paths”.

Working in human resources, I have had the opportunity to provide career coaching to many students and professionals. I enjoyed it so much that in 2018 I began to build this website with the hopes of helping others find their way through the world of work and reroute them onto their career paths – whether it’s through my stories and blog posts, recommended resources, or courses/services.

Stay a while, take a look around, and connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or LinkedIn!