Thanks to a continued mindfulness practice, when I — and all of my esteemed agile delivery colleagues — were laid off last week, I immediately focused my attention to the expression: begin again.

Too many folks – and I was guilty of this initially – take the [insert agile certification course here], pass the exam, and then wonder why they can’t land a job with their shiny, new [expensive!] badge. They ask, “Well, how am I supposed to get the experience and opportunity to apply my newfound agile knowledge if I can’t get hired in an entry level role?” In this post, I share 4 questions and 7 applications to help you transition to an agile job that worked wonders for me.

While these methods work in most adjacent career fields, I specifically tested them with success in charting my course from being a high school humanities teacher to Agile Delivery Lead/scrum master in a financial firm that operates like a tech organization. I will share these transition steps in the vein of a “stop, start, continue” retrospective.