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You ever clear your throat when you really don't need to? I just did that so many times I felt like something was in my throat but it's really not. But anyway welcome to this conversation today. This working session. I was gonna call this a masterclass but I feel like masterclass that that term is overused.
Speaker 1:For me it doesn't articulate the value that this course brings to the attendees. When I think of a masterclass I think of Oprah, the OG, the exclusivity, the experience, the teachings. This career development session is all of those things. It's designed for you to stare reality in the face when it comes to your career. There's too much fluff when it comes to things like working environments, job demands, expectations, how you really get to the next level within the company.
Speaker 1:Only one side of that story is shown. It's the company photos from volunteer day, these glowing reviews on websites about companies, all the shiny stuff right. And you as a professional have to realize that while these moments may exist, they do indeed exist. There are those dark sad moments that that aren't really over shared. How to handle those frustrating moments when you're so angry or even passionate about something that it goes horribly wrong.
Speaker 1:Finding ways to initiate discussions with leadership to talk about what your future career plans are and spending time talking about you and investing in your development instead of coming to meetings and conversations to provide updates on your deliverables and what you've created updated or analyzed or researched or sent out. But talking about with all the things that I give to an organization, what am I getting out of it? So this is a working session where we address pain points. I added a workbook to this career convo series because these exercises require reflection. In some form or fashion you're in a professional place that's not aligned with where you know and feel you should be.
Speaker 1:Whether that's a job paying you less than your salary requirements, maybe you're unfulfilled in your role, maybe it's the toxic environment. So you have to take some steps back and revisit how you arrived in this place. And in the workbook, there's a lot of brainstorming now that we have an idea of how this conversation is going to go, the things to think about some things to jot down. As far as if you want that C suite job, for example, how do you get there? What do you need to know?
Speaker 1:Who do you need to know? Or better yet, who needs to know you? Because that's, that's the blueprint these days. So by spending some time investing in this working session, going through the reflective exercises, you gain some learning and you acquire tools that will help you land where you want to be professionally. The goal of this session is to land you in a better position for you to realize that something needs to change.
Speaker 1:You know what it you know that something needs to change. You might not know what that thing is but this conversation is designed to help you define what that thing is. And I've divided this conversation into three parts. The first part we're going to talk about self discovery. That's the part that's often overlooked when somebody's looking for a job they jump straight to going on job boards posted for jobs trying to get an interview trying to get an offer putting in a two week notice and then they move on to another company.
Speaker 1:But we need to like I said before take some steps back and do some self discovery and reflection. Then we're going to talk about the job search, the interview process, how to get ready for that, the do's and don'ts, some of my recommendations and things I have actually done in my own career. And then lastly, we're going to talk about the offers, the negotiations, your first thirty, sixty, ninety days. I remember early in my career there was a lot of talk about being ready for those first thirty days. But thirty days is not enough time to get to know a company and figure out if you made the right decision and if this is the right place for you.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk about those things and let's jump into self discovery first. So if I ask questions like what are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? What excites you about the profession that you're in? Starting with questions like that, especially when you're asking yourself, that is the foundation for how your job search is going to go because you have to think about if you're leaving another job or if you want to move into another industry, what is it that's pulling you to those certain things?
Speaker 1:What are you trying to accomplish? What are you hoping to accomplish? And then being able to say or be very clear and specific on what you want to do and then you can say this is my starting point. I am interested in these type of roles in this industry. Industry.
Speaker 1:So now you have a basis for once you jump to the next step which is the job search you don't have to worry about applying to every single job that matches a job title that you're looking for. But you can be very strategic in the roles that you pursue so you're not wasting time number one. But number two, it gets you closer to a job that's aligned with what you wanna do. As opposed to saying, oh, this job is open. It looks like it could be interesting.
Speaker 1:They pay some decent money. Let me apply to that job. It's how a lot of times the job search process starts when in reality it needs to start with okay I am good at general ledger accounting. I love to reconcile accounts and document processes so let me search for my next role where I can own the month end close process. Something like that.
Speaker 1:Real quick off the dome example but it gives you an opportunity to be effective with your time number one and not find yourself in a situation where you applied for this job, got the interview, got hired and you get in the door and the job is nothing like what you expected. When you start with the self discovery you become very clear and you have a plan and you're strategic so you can pick and choose the roles that you want to go after. So self discovery is key. Start there before you even think about applying to a job online. The next thing with self discovery is to check your resume.
Speaker 1:Now hopefully you haven't put anything on there that you can't speak intelligently about. I've seen people trying to doll up these resumes to the point where they just borderline line or the information on your resume those little bullet points under the jobs don't really reflect what you've done. So if your resume is full of fluff, and when I say fluff, mean results oriented media maven creating a lifestyle of bliss is your headline on your resume. What the hell does that mean? What have you done of importance?
Speaker 1:How have you made things easier? How much money have you generated and or saved? Slice and dice that thing. And I tell accounting professionals all the time, we're numbers people. Put some numbers on your resume.
Speaker 1:How many journal entries do you do during close that you prepare, upload, record and if you just say I record entries how many entries? What accounts are they impacting? Because that information gives me as the hiring manager more information about what you've actually done and make the most of your interview time. We're gonna talk about the job search and interviews in a minute but if you are going to interviews and you find people constantly asking you to clarify things on your resume or what does a bullet point mean or how long did you work somewhere or asking you things that should be evident on the resume you are wasting time. If you land a face to face interview that means you have their attention.
Speaker 1:They've seen or heard something about you whether through phone screens, references, LinkedIn that they want to explore further. And the interview is the time for you to sell your services, right? The resume tells them what you do. It's almost like shopping you walk by a store, you see some badass shoes in the window that catch your attention. The shoes that's the resume that's the attention grabber and then you walk in the store because you like these shoes and you want to try them on cause they go with your new outfit.
Speaker 1:The new outfit is the the problem that you have within your company that you need somebody to come in and solve. So now here comes the shoe salesman coming to tell you how bomb these shoes are, why you need them, all that good stuff. That shoe salesman is you reminding the employer why they walked in that shoe store in the first place. Let me know what you can do beyond what you were able to fit on a resume is how to spend your time in an interview. I had a candidate who told me once that my interview was hard.
Speaker 1:I didn't hire him. He told me after the interview. Like, oh, that was hard. Was nervous. It wasn't hard in my opinion.
Speaker 1:I know how I am as a hiring manager and I vet interview screen diligently. But it wasn't that the interview was hard. I think for him the struggle was I asked him a lot of unconventional questions. Part of the reason for that was he articulated his experience very well on his resume and of course I asked him a few questions about his work experience but I asked him things like what's the last book you read? What makes you stand out from other candidates?
Speaker 1:What do you think it takes to be successful in this role? So I think he came into the interview expecting to talk strictly about accounting and AR and reconciliations and the importance of providing support for journal entries. But all of that was on the resume. I needed to know who you are as a person. Out of all these people that I'm interviewing that want this job, why should I hand it to you?
Speaker 1:Why should I offer it to you? And what do you think it takes to be successful in this role is because just like the hiring manager saw something on their resume on your resume that they liked, you saw something in this job description or something about this company that incentivized you to pursue it as your next job. So the answer to that question is very telling because it lets me know is this person genuinely interested in this job or were they blindposting to every open role they saw online? Because if you if you're talking about what it takes to be successful in the role, it requires you to know what the deliverables are and what your responsibilities are going to be. But also you have to be able to take that job description and align it to who you are as a professional.
Speaker 1:And if you know that the challenges are A, B and C, what are you going to bring to this role to mitigate those things? So it's not to be intimidating or to make the interview hard. It's, is this a good use of my time? Is this person here to genuinely pursue this role or are they just here looking for another job? Because I've interviewed people like that.
Speaker 1:I have been interviewed for roles like that and it becomes evident when one person isn't really interested or they're just there for a check the box activity because the recruiter sent you, right? So the next thing I want to talk about is feedback. As part of self discovery, even though this involves other people, this is still a part of the self discovery journey that we have to stop overlooking because that's part of the reason why we keep landing in these jobs and these companies that we don't really like. So get feedback. Start with your performance evaluation.
Speaker 1:What is your boss saying about you? The person who has the most insight into your work. What are your strong areas? What do you need to work on? And don't be afraid of the answer to the question of what you need to work on.
Speaker 1:This is similar to the assessment that you did of yourself. It's good to get other perspectives because what you think you're doing and what you're actually doing can be two different things. You might be out here like yeah, I'm killing it at work, but your boss or your work quality says otherwise. So be realistic in this area. People tend to undermine this part or skip it, but if the only feedback you have about yourself is coming from you, that means you're not in a place where you're willing to see anyone's viewpoint except your own.
Speaker 1:So although you're getting feedback from other people, it's an integral part of what you have to do and you can incorporate that into your plan as you move to the next step to start job searching and interviewing. And a big thing in corporate is these three sixty they've been called three sixty assessments. They've had so many different names, but essentially it's you requesting feedback from managers and peers and partners, people that you work closely with who can give you some unbiased constructive feedback to help you move forward. So the goal is to have all around feedback, whether it's good or developmental. I was about to say good or bad, but you don't want to have this rosy picture that everything you do, you do it well because I don't know anybody that does that.
Speaker 1:So what do you need to work on? Whether it's technical skills or transferable soft skills, who can speak to projects that you've worked on that didn't go well. That's valuable feedback. Ask people who you may have partnered with on a project and something went wrong with the project. Not just the people who you know are gonna say nice things.
Speaker 1:Know what you did wrong so you can correct it. So the next time that somebody asks a person about you they can say, yeah, Nikki worked for me and she worked on a project that didn't go well. But what I appreciate is how she recovered from that by doing A, B and C. Like people still get so antsy about references. If, if me as a hiring manager, if I asked for references, they're like, let me go find three people who love me the most and will say the nicest things about me and I'm gonna put them down.
Speaker 1:But nobody's perfect. You're going to make mistakes at work. I personally like to know what mistakes you're making so we can work on correcting them first. If I feel like something is going wrong, I'm gonna have some conversations and do my part as the owner of my career and be proactive about correcting those. As a hiring manager, if I see somebody on my team who appears to be struggling or who might need some additional coaching or development or maybe need to go to a sales tax conference, we'll have a conversation about that.
Speaker 1:And there are sections in the workbook, career convos, career navigation for ambitious accountants. There are sections in there where you can go through this self discovery process and you can also get some pointers and some tips on how to ask for feedback in a non awkward way. Say, hey, I'm hey, such and such, I'm working on professional development or setting goals for the next step in my career. And I know that we worked on whatever project together. I would love to get your thoughts, your unbiased feedback, your perspective on how that project was, how we can do better, what worked, what didn't, just something like that to let people know, hey, this is what I'm asking for this for, number one.
Speaker 1:Number two, I value your opinion. And number three, I'm going to take the feedback that you give me, whether it's good or bad and utilize that as I work on creating a better me, however you wanna phrase that is I think anybody would appreciate somebody asking for their opinion and caring enough about their opinion to wanting to want to do something about it to make it better. So I'll pause there for this session today. And in the next part, we'll talk about the job search and the interview. And I want to give you some time to digest this episode, get to the workbook, jot down some things, or even jot it down in your phone because part two is going to build off of part one.
Speaker 1:And as I said before, when you go through this self discovery process that sets the groundwork for the type of job search that you will be on, the job journey that you'll be on. And so I want to make sure that you're not wasting your time feeling like you're in a job that you know you need to leave and then you get another job and it's just a continuation of the environment that you just left because you failed to do the self discovery. Too many of us skip that section because we're afraid of what we might learn about ourselves. We're not ready to hear what somebody else might say about us if it's not super nice and, and, and sugary, you know, I say all the time on the working mamas podcast, if this career convo series is the first time you have listened to the working mamas podcast, first, let me say welcome. If you have been rocking with me since this podcast launched almost four years ago, then I appreciate you coming back.
Speaker 1:And it's crazy because I usually take a break and drink something. Have my water today, which I got through this whole conversation without pausing to drink my water. And also for the new listeners, I also share what I'm drinking when I'm doing my episodes. Most of the time it's it's tea or it's my water with lemon and mint leaves. It's whiskey.
Speaker 1:It can be anything. But today it's plain old water. I don't even I haven't even sliced my lemons. And I have not gotten any fresh mint in a long time. But there's a reason for that.
Speaker 1:I actually talk about the reason for that on the original working mommas podcast, which is a podcast about the frolic and frustrations of me being a mama. Thing about the working mommas is it's it's, it's my journal about motherhood, but people would listen and say, well, how do you deal with being a mom and an entrepreneur? Or how are you working your corporate job and running your business? What's your secret to that? And I really want to leave this job, but I think that my employer is not gonna appreciate me leaving.
Speaker 1:How do I have that conversation? So I would connect with moms and we would talk and laugh and cry about things. But there were also professionals and creatives and entrepreneurs and mompreneurs who would be in my inbox asking for my insights or saying, Hey, would you record an episode about how to fix your credit after a divorce? When I first started the work in mamas, I would ask people, what do you want me to talk about? What is something that I could talk about that would make you want to listen to the podcast?
Speaker 1:And I would ask and I got a lot of good feedback and topics, but then I even abandoned that to say, listen, I am going to talk about what is on my heart at the moment. And I appreciate the feedback and people wanting me to talk about things, but I'm not basing this on, hey, what do I need to do to get you to listen to the podcast? I really want it to be about me expressing my thoughts, my views, sharing my expertise, offering career advice, because this is what I love to do. So when people say, Oh, wow, you do a lot. You work a nine to five and you run your business and you have a podcast.
Speaker 1:Everything that I do, everything that's on my plate are things that I love. So it's not this Herculean effort to do things. Don't drag my feet about certain things. Actually was planning on doing something else and I just felt it on my heart like let me go ahead and have this conversation right now because people have been asking me unsolicited and that lets me know that this information is needed. Even if I'm talking to an audience of one, if you are the only person on the planet who listens to this episode, please know that you are going to get 110% from me.
Speaker 1:Because this is what I love. A lot of the things that people reach out about as far as career advice, they're asking about things that I've done situations that I've been in at work. And I share my experience how I dealt with things, but I also share my recommendations as a hiring manager. And I have the perspective of being on both sides of the table. I have been a candidate interviewing for jobs.
Speaker 1:Have been the hiring manager, asking the questions, having the conversations, and evaluating whether or not the need that I have fits with the services that candidates can provide. So I look forward to continuing this conversation with part two of the rear of the rear of the career convos series of the working mamas podcast. That little blip will be in the episode because also for the new listeners, I don't edit my podcast. I say what I want to say I say what what needs to be said. And when I started my podcast, a lot of times I was hesitant because I felt like I need a whole production crew.
Speaker 1:I need an editor. I need this. I need that. But the one thing that I really, really love about my podcast is the organic ness of it. I don't have to create a whole set.
Speaker 1:I don't have to be prepared. I don't have to be scripted. It's just I love the organicness and the natural flow of the conversations. Everything don't have to be formal. Skip the formality sometimes.
Speaker 1:But let's wrap up there. We're almost coming up on thirty minutes. I certainly want to be respectful of y'all time. I realize we have a ton of other things to get done out here in these corporate streets. So thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1:Make sure that you tap into part two And then later part three when we talk about when you get the job, how to make the best offer, how to negotiate any and everything. Then of course, your first thirty, sixty and ninety days on your new job. Thank you for listening. I will talk to y'all soon. Until then, y'all be good and thank you again for tuning in to this special career convo series of the working mamas podcast.
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