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This is the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love podcast, and this is episode 117, I Coach Live. If you’ve never been exposed to live coaching before in the way that I do it, I really want to encourage you to listen to this because I’m really stoked for the difference that it makes when somebody is coached. It’s like if you are getting a massage, it’s different than if you’re trying to massage yourself. It’s a completely different experience and I’m very excited to share this with you today because we had some amazing participants come on and volunteer all sorts of different things. So everybody’s going to have a different struggle, a different thing they’re dealing with. Excuse the baby in the background. I have a baby and sometimes she makes noise. Don’t worry, she’s well taken care of. But, yes, so live coaching is really one of the biggest things that makes the impact.
So people can watch videos and they can have a lot of consumption from the podcast, but when you get coached live, you literally feel like you have been turned in a new direction. That’s how I feel, anyway. I feel like when I’m coached live, I get to go onto the path that I know is now right for me and I get to move forward in a much more powerful way, which is why it leads to faster results. So if you’ve never experienced live coaching before, you don’t really know what it’s like, this is the perfect opportunity for you to get a taste of it. This is what we do every week inside my Six-Figure Curriculum program. We go much deeper. We have all different kinds of issues or things that are blocking us from going forward, or things don’t have to be bad to get coaching.
Like I say, coaching is for already successful people. It’s like you are already doing really well, you already have a lot of success, and sometimes people forget about that. But I always remind them, you have a lot of success already. You are already a successful person and you just want some guidance to be able to get where you’re going faster, do more targeted, more laser-focused actions towards where you want to go. I help you break down why that’s not happening, or if you’re stuck, because we all get stuck sometimes, coaching is the way to get unstuck, and that’s assuming you resonate with me as a coach because not everybody will. So I encourage you to get coaching from a coach that you resonate with, and if you resonate with me join my program because that’s what we do.
I also help you out inside the LinkedIn community where, if you can’t make the calls for whatever reason, I will make sure that you get written coaching inside the community and you’re never left alone spinning on your own brain with questions that you just don’t know what to do next. So that really speeds up the process because you don’t get stuck spinning for any length of time, as long as you’re able to reach out and ask the questions that you need to ask. So, without further ado, this is the live coaching day replay of my four-day life training extravaganza and I hope you enjoy.
Hey there, welcome to the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love podcast. I’m your host, Natalie Fisher. I’m a certified career mindset coach who also happens to want to skip all the BS and get to what it really takes to create real results for you and your career. On this podcast, you will create real mindset shifts that will lead to big results and big changes in your career and your income. No fluff here. If you want to get a six-figure job you love and create real concrete results in your industry and make a real impact, you’re in the right place. Are you ready? Let’s go.
All right, welcome everybody. We are in the last day of the training and today is live Q&A day. That means that anybody can raise their hand, ask a question about anything that we’ve covered in the last three days, ask a question about my program, the Six-Figure Curriculum. We can talk through deciding about joining. I’m going to answer some of the main concerns, main questions that people have before joining. So I’d love to hear from you guys. I want to know what you’re thinking, where you’re at. Ultimately my goal is to help you get to your next career goal, which in most cases it’s going to be a new position. For some of you, it’s going to be a salary goal. So I want to know what that is for you, what you think is stopping you, and now is your chance. Today is your chance to get some help from me directly.
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You should be able to raise your hand. Let me know if the raised hand feature’s not working or something, but you should be able to raise your hand and then that means I’ll bring you on. You don’t have to come on video if you don’t want to. You can just do audio, but we encourage video. I like to see your face and, yeah, don’t be shy. Don’t be shy. This is your time to do it. So I’ll start going through the questions, and I also want to touch on some points about some of the stuff that we’ve covered in the last few days. So, the economy is a big thing right now because if you are not monitoring what’s going into your mind and you’re just watching the news or you’re just looking at things that people are posting because other people are watching the news, you’re going to be bombarded with a lot of negative input.
A lot of things that say that companies are hiring or they’re pausing hiring, stuff is not happening, inflation is going way up. You’re going to be bombarded with a lot of really negative messages, and that happened also during the pandemic, when the pandemic first started. The way that I look at this is, it’s always going to go up and down. The recessions, the economy is going to change. It’s always going to fluctuate, it’s going to go up and it’s going to go down. That’s a certainty. But if we don’t manage our mind around it, we will just see the negative and we’ll just panic and we’ll get scared. So what we need to do is, we need to be open to the fact that things are just reshuffling and just changing.
Lots of people are still getting hired, lots of companies are still hiring, and I’m actually going to be releasing an email about that later on and showing you the evidence of all the positions that are still… People that are still starting in their new positions, things that are still happening, because this is where you want to focus your mind, especially if you’re looking to get a new position because it’s easy to get brought down into a spiral of, this is just not the time or the economy is going to stop you somehow, but it doesn’t, right? You are valuable in any economy when you decide that you are and you do the intentional work to see that evidence as true. So if the economy is something that might stop you from moving forward right now, and you might not even know that it is, it’s just like iPhone apps.
You have these apps running in the background that are draining your battery, stopping you from moving forward, making it really, really slow for your brain, that really powerful computer to run as quick as it possibly can, to run for those things that you want to open up quickly, for the resources to come up. If you picture it as a computer and you’ve got these apps that are lagging in the background, and by apps I mean the thoughts that are just making you slow down. So some of them might be like, “I’m to this. I’m to that. I need this. I need that. The economy isn’t very good right now. People are not getting hired right now. I can’t make that much money doing what I want to do right now. I need this first.”
Why don’t you give me some of those limiting thoughts that you think you have, that you know you have. What do you think those limiting thoughts are? Please share in the chat, one of yours, and then we can go into an example. If it maybe is related to somewhere where you are in the world or something that you think is specific to you and it’s going to present to something that you believe is 100% true, or you believe is probably true. Okay, thanks. So hiring managers perceive I’m too old. Don’t have enough relevant experience. So let’s take both of those. I’ve done a lot of coaching on the hiring managers perceive me in a certain way as well as don’t have enough relative experience. So would either of you be willing to come on to get live coaching? It would be easier if I could talk to you. Awesome. Okay, I’m going to bring you on.
Hello.
Hi. Okay. So I have a few questions for you. Thank you for volunteering. Thank you for presenting your thought. Let’s do it. So, first question for you is, what job are you trying to get? What’s your ideal job?
I just finished a program and I’m trying to get into business intelligence or data analysis.
Okay, awesome. So you have a certification in business intelligence or data analysis?
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Yeah.
Okay, great. So you have a certification. And what do you mean by you don’t have enough relevant experience? What experience do you have?
Well, so pretty much every job I’ve seen is asking for a bachelor’s degree or a few years’ experience. And so I just finished a certificate and obviously don’t have the experience yet, but-
Gotcha. The certificate gave you what? As far as experience when doing the certificate?
Well, we had to do a lot of case studies throughout the program and also learn some data engineering techniques and that sort of stuff. And then there was also a mandatory work placement practicum that was part of it. I got a lot of experience from it, but I’m not getting any responses to my applications.
Okay. Yeah. And you’ve made that mean… The fact that you’re not getting responses to your applications, you’ve made it mean that you don’t have enough relevant experience?
Yeah, it’s either that I don’t have enough relevant experience or I don’t have all the technical skills they’re looking for.
Okay. And on a one to 10 scale, where do you believe it’s possible? One being, I don’t believe at all, 10 being I totally believe it, I know it’s going to happen, where would you say your belief is as far as somebody with your certificate being able to get one of those jobs?
Getting the job I think is an eight or a nine. But getting the interview is actually the hard part. So I don’t know if something’s wrong with my resume.
Okay. So let’s look at the facts of how you’ve been applying. Tell me what you’ve done. How many jobs you’ve applied for and how you’ve applied for them?
In the last couple of weeks I’ve probably applied for 75 positions and I customize my resume to each job to make sure that I’ve got the relevant skills listed on there. And most of them don’t ask for a cover letter, so I don’t bother with that part.
And have you been submitting through a website, Indeed, or how have you been submitting these applications?
The majority of them that I find are through LinkedIn.
Okay. Do you just submit through LinkedIn? Is there an easy apply button? Or how do you do it?
A few of them have the easy apply button, but most of them is going to the website and making an account and all that stuff.
So you’ve been spending a lot of time doing that?
Yeah.
Yeah. Is it where they ask you to fill in all the stuff that’s already on your resume again?
Yeah, but I just copy and paste.
So you’ve gotten pretty fast and efficient at doing that?
Yeah.
Okay. So 75 positions that you’ve applied all of the same way? The exact same process?
Mostly, yeah.
Okay. And zero responses or any responses at all? Like auto rejections or…
I have gotten a few rejections, but most of them just ghost me.
Okay. Yeah. And is there any way for you to know for sure if anybody has seen your applications or not?
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Not that I’ve found. If there is, it’s very limited.
Yeah. So it’s possible that out of the 75 a human hasn’t even looked at your resume. Is that possible?
Yeah, I’m going to guess that probably an ATS system rules me out before it even hits a human.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, this is just telling me that this particular strategy isn’t working for you.
Yeah.
It’s not the only strategy. So if your belief is at an eight or a nine that you can get this job and it sounds like you do have… I would change your thinking, I don’t have enough relevant experience. We don’t know that’s true. I would really question that because it sounds like you have a lot to offer from the certification that you did and I’ve coached many clients who just have a Salesforce certification and they’re able to get a job in Salesforce, who just have a business analyst certification and they’re able to get it.
As long as you’re in line with that belief, that’s good. So now it’s just the strategy that you’re using. You need to get creative and think of how you could pivot that strategy because you know now something that doesn’t work. So what do you think you might be able to… If you know, “Okay, I’ve spent a lot of time doing this. I know that this particular strategy isn’t working.” What other creative ways can you think of that might work for you that you might want to do?
Well, there have been other things that I’ve been trying to work on in the meantime. I asked a few of my classmates if they know any positions because that would give a shoo-in on that end. But I have been trying to do my own projects on the side that I can include with my resumes when I send it. But it’s very time-consuming.
Yeah, and that’s a good thing. One of my clients, he was in data science, he did the same thing. So as he was applying for jobs, he was working on one project that he could talk about. That’s good, but just focus on one thing. But also even if you were to do this project and have stuff to talk about, you’re still going to run into the same problem of not getting your applications through. So what’s a different way that you might… So asking some classmates, that’s a different way and that could manifest into something later. We don’t know, right? But say something’s on the line that’s really important to you, what other things could you think of? If I was like, “I’m going to come and take your first-born if you don’t figure out how to get an interview for this job?” What more might you come up with?
Well, I have tried updating the professional profile that I have at the top of my resume to see if maybe that catches something. And I currently have it reverse chronological, so I don’t know if I need to try another format. I’m basically just stuck.
So what I’m hearing is you’re in very rigid thinking about… And this is not your fault. I’m going to help you expand it. But really rigid thinking in how you’re going to get the job. And it seems to be through your resume, through a system, through something online that you submit like this. And I want to open up to you that there’s a ton of different ways that people get hired and they don’t do this at all. They don’t have to go through an application online at all. So some of those ways, and you need to do whatever works for you, whatever’s good for you, whatever feels good and aligned for you, but it’s going to be talking to humans in any way that you can. And that might be reaching out to people on LinkedIn, in LinkedIn groups, it might be networking events, it might be Slack groups, all related to the industry that you want to get into.
Right.
So data analysis. And humans are going to have much more ability to connect with you and you’re going to open up so many more possibilities that way than you are continuing to do this. Because I know a lot of people they could continue to do what you’re doing and 75 is a lot, and you could tweak your resume,
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continue to apply through this, but just not get any feedback, not know if anybody even saw it. They might not even have looked at it, they might not even be hiring for the position anymore. There’s just nothing… There’s no data for you to go on, right, other than zero to 75. It’s still going to be zero. So if you double that, it’s probably still going to be zero.
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about doing that. That’s the next step that I have, but I don’t know how to go about it. About just sending messages.
Yeah. So, what’s the worst that happens if you just send a message and you don’t really think that hard about it and you just send a message to somebody and tell them what you’re doing, what you’ve done, and offer to have a chat with them?
Worst-case scenario is they ignore me.
Exactly. And then you’re in the same place you are now. But you’ve tried something new so you’re actually ahead.
Okay. I just wasn’t sure if there’s any tips or tricks on how to reach out?
Here’s the thing. Inside my program, I have a bunch of scripts and stuff, but what’s happening here is you’re in a perfectionist mindset, right? You want to get it perfect. You want to make sure that the person you respond to or that you write to is going to respond. You want to make sure you’re doing everything perfectly. And the place to start is just to start with imperfect action. Just imperfectly. There is no right or wrong way to do this. It’s just being human and connecting with other humans.
Okay. And then is there any other option that I could do if it doesn’t work with me trying to talk to people directly? Is there something else after I could try?
So what you’re looking for is a step-by-step process that’s going to be guaranteed to work, right?
No, not really. I’m just trying to have ideas of different things that I can try and then there might be a combination of them, or I might think of something else from them. So I guess I’m just looking for examples of what I could do.
Yeah. And I actually gave you those examples. If you watch this call back, I mentioned four or five things that you could do. So I’ll just repeat them again. You can post in LinkedIn groups, adding value from what you have learned. You can share about the things that you are working on. You can connect with… LinkedIn is huge. It is this huge network where you can have access to millions of people at your fingertips at any time. It’s like a huge conference and you can go and find those data analyst rooms or those business… What was the two titles you said? Data analysis?
Oh, business intelligence.
Data analysis and business intelligence. You can go and find those rooms where people are talking about those things and you can find all the people that are talking about those things and interact with those people. And there’s no limit to that. The only limit is on your creativity in your brain. So I love that you said, “I want to get ideas for other things I can try, but then that might lead me to more ideas.” And you’ll get more creative as you expand. One really important thing to remember is, action leads to clarity. So the more that you take a different action, the more that you’ll get clear when you’re looking for it what other different actions you could take, right?
Right. Okay.
Yeah. So does that help?
Yeah. I at least have a few options to go forward, so I’m not wasting time doing all the applications and getting no response.
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Exactly. Yes. And that’s where you want to go for your next step. And then the one last thing I want to leave you with is, it’s a self-correcting process. So now you know one thing that doesn’t work for you in this situation, you’ll go do another thing and then you’ll tweak, correct, and then go do another thing, until you get it. You don’t stop until you get it. It’s just kind of like you put in your mind, “Yeah, this is what I’m doing,” and then you just keep going, get more creative, go deeper, ask more of yourself to figure out what you’re doing. Yeah.
Awesome. Thanks, Natalie.
You’re very welcome. Thanks for coming on. Okay, cool. We’ve got some more coaching volunteers. I’ll just get you to raise your hand so I know you’re in the line.
Okay. Hey. Hi.
Awesome. How can I help you today?
Okay. I don’t know if you remember just [inaudible 00:20:58] a question. I have an interview for assistant director for Park and Recreation. And once again, I have the experience because I’ve been working for Parks for over 10 years already. I have a master on business administration and master on public administration, experience in project management. One of the problem is that I’ve been called for every interview, for every job that I apply, I’ve been called. The thing is I haven’t received any job offer even though I’m still working for a public organization, but I’m looking to getting something different, a change according to my degree. So even though I have the experience, I don’t know how to articulate that experience. And that’s, I guess, my concern.
Okay. So how many interviews have you been on?
So far 10.
Okay. So you’ve done 10 interviews, and were they all interviews that were exactly what you wanted?
Yeah, one was for… Normally it’s like a high position, director, assistant director. I think that the only one was strategic of analysis, which I was not really into it, but most of those interview was high position.
Okay. And because you didn’t get the offers, what do you make that mean about you?
Well, I criticize myself. Most of the time put me down. Like going back to my comfort zone on the job that I am right now, that I don’t know if it’s really worth it to continue applying. At the same time I like the challenge, but I guess my biggest problem is I blame myself for the way I articulate my thought regarding my experience. That probably I go around, around, around, unable to probably to understand what I’m trying to explain.
Yeah. So you’ve got some negative self-thought going on and the more that you go on interviews, the more that you feel bad.
Exactly. Most of the answer when I ask for their feedback after the interview is that my answer being too vague.
Okay. Oh, so they give you that feedback.
Exactly.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, you do have some information, and also the way that you get anywhere is failing your way there. So the good news is, you’ve got some fails behind you already, so that means you’ve got less to go. And also we need to celebrate the fact that you have continued to go, right? Because it takes emotional resilience to not get the job and then keep going, and then not get the job and keep going. So it takes emotional resilience and you have continued to do that. But what we want to make sure we do
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is that you get some insight after every one. So what you’ve told me that you do know so far is that you feel like you go around in circles and your thought is, “I don’t know how to articulate my experience.”
Exactly.
Right. And so when you think, “I don’t know how to articulate my experience,” how do you feel?
Bad. I mean, it’s like-
Concerned, worried.
Exactly. It’s like a, “Come on, I don’t want to get a job anymore.”
Yeah. Concerned, worried, discouraged. And when you feel concerned, worried or discouraged, how do you think you show up in the interview? In the next interview that you’re going to go to?
With negative thought. It’s like something that I’m trying to learn. I don’t know. Just that you were telling us about blocking the negative thought. And that’s something that I’ve been working on it and that’s what I’m not nervous at this point, but I’m guessing that when I get to the point that I have the interviews tomorrow, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be nervous. And even though I’ve been reading and reading, trying to study, I mean, it’s nothing that I have to study because I have this knowledge.
Yes. That’s the thing. So you have the knowledge, and this is where you want to be very mindful of your thoughts, like the sentences running through your head before you go in and when you go in. So a lot of the things that we’ll do is we’ll prepare our answers before we go into the interview, when really you need to prepare your thoughts. You need to decide on purpose what you’re going to think before and when you go in, and then afterwards. So right now your thoughts are, “I don’t know how to articulate my experience and I’m concerned about it because I don’t know how.” Truth is, you know how to communicate your experience to the point of getting yourself into an interview. So you do know how to articulate your experience because you’re getting through to the interviews.
Exactly.
You see that? So it’s not entirely true that you don’t know how to articulate your experience because you do know how to articulate it on paper. Would you agree?
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. So we want to question that thought because it’s poisoning how you show up. And it is a sentence that you’re thinking, “I don’t know how to articulate my experience.” Well, you do kind of know how or you wouldn’t be getting these interviews.
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. You have a point there.
And how does that feel when you think, “Hm, I might know more than I think about how to articulate it.”
Yeah, I mean, I feel like-
So let me ask you this. Why do you think they’re interviewing you at all?
Because they saw all the experience that I have, because the education that I have, so…
Yeah, they saw some stuff they liked.
Exactly. If not, I wouldn’t be called.
Exactly.
That’s correct.
Yeah, yeah. So, when you think of it that way, how do you feel? And you’re going to keep getting called. You’ll keep getting called because you’ve got that process down, right?
Mm-hmm. I mean, I feel like right now, I feel positive. It’s like, “Okay, I have a good chance.”
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Yeah, exactly. So the thought that you want to change, because what happens is, when you think, “I don’t know how to communicate my experience in the interview,” you feel concerned, worried, discouraged. Your action when you go in is, you give vague answers. You kind of spin around with how you talk. You prove it true that you don’t know how to articulate it in words in the interview. And the result is, is that you don’t articulate it as strongly as you can.
So what do you suggest at this point? I mean…
Yeah, so first I just need to show you. Don’t worry, we’ll get to that. First you need to see that it’s the thought that you’re thinking, that says, “I don’t know how to articulate my experience,” that’s causing this result.
Is the poison that I have on my mind. Okay. The mindset.
Yeah. And the first step is always noticing that that’s the… It’s called the awareness first. It’s really important to have that awareness. So, what would be the upside in thinking, “I don’t know how to articulate my experience in the interview?” Do you think there’s an upside? Can you see an upside to that thought at all?
Yes. It’s like actually I can convert that negative thought, I’m positive and use actually my experience.
I love it. Okay, so your upside is that you’re aware of it now and that you can change it. I love it. Otherwise there’s no upside to actually thinking it though and just keeping it, right?
Yes, that’s correct.
Okay, cool. So, now that you understand that, that’s very important that you understand that. Now we can play with an intentional thought that you want to have, on purpose. So what might you think instead? What would you like to think? And I can make some suggestions for you.
Oh, okay. Can you repeat the question then?
What would you like to think instead? So, we know-
No, I [inaudible 00:29:07] that.
… if we know what doesn’t work. Yeah.
Yeah. That I’m going to get the job. That job is mine no matter what.
And can you believe that? In a one to 10, do you believe that’s 100% true?
Not 100%, but I can say 90%.
You can get there. Okay. So, we want to get to something that you can believe right now, that you’re like, “Yes, that’s true right now,” because the job’s mine no matter what might be a bit of a jump. I think it’d be like, “Oh, I don’t know, I’m not really sure that’s true right now.”
I think I can get… If I go back and think about everything that I have done and all my experience, I can assure 100%, “You know what? That job is mine.”
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, and that’s the trick, right? You need to rewire on purpose, “I’m going to think about everything I’ve done. They would be getting a good deal when they hire me.” And you had some positive thoughts there. You just need to focus them in. Like, “I have the experience. I keep getting interviews for a reason,” right? “I have this experience. I’m not hiding anything. I have what they need. I can communicate this experience on paper. I just need to communicate it in…” And it’s going to be you relaxing, right? Because when you’re not coming from a place of being concerned, worried, or discouraged, you’re going to talk about it differently. And like you said, “I have this knowledge, I know this. I don’t need to rehearse. I don’t need to practice. I know this.”
Yep, yep. You’re right.
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So when you think like that, how’s your feeling? What are you feeling?
I mean, joy right now.
Joy. Okay, cool. And when you’re feeling joyful, what do you think you’re going to say in the interview? How do you think you’re going to show up differently?
With a positive way. I mean, you can see that in my face. Right now, I’m smiling, like I got this.
Well, you’re not actually on video, but I’m happy to hear that. Yes. And when you interview from a place of joy, you’re feeling happier. You’re giving off a more positive vibration to those people receiving your interaction. They’re feeling differently. They’re feeling joyful because that’s going to come off, right? And then you’re going to feel completely differently, which is going to make you take action and talk completely differently. And then, also keeping in mind that you can be more specific about your experience. If they’re telling you that you’ve had vague answers, you can be like, “Okay, well how can I be more specific?” And then you can actually work on that, specifically-
Give more detail.
Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you so much. I think that we should pay you as a counselor instead of coach.
It’s the same thing, really. Whatever helps, right?
Yeah. Thank you.
Amazing.
Appreciate it.
Okay. Well, thank you for coming on. That was great. I’ll put you back now. And, there you go. Hello. How is it going?
It’s going. It’s going good.
Great.
I’m excited be on the call. Yay.
Yay. Me, too. What can I help you with?
Okay, so, I mean, I’ve been following your podcast, I’ve been following your LinkedIn stuff. Honestly, I found you probably about five months ago. I have been a contractor in a contracts position for three-and-a-half years, and I have been hired over, I have not gotten a job I applied for within the same company. Maybe reach out to you, or when I found you was, I went to five different interviews. I felt confident. I felt like, “Okay, let me just get this other contracts role because I have 12 years of experience,” and I didn’t get any of them, and it was within a month-and-a-half and I was like, “Okay, what’s going on?” So, honestly, what I told myself in thinking about it was, “Maybe I didn’t feel like I really sold myself in the interviews.”
When I thought about it, I said, “Well, what’s holding me back?” And I’m like, “Well, I don’t really just want to do contracts.” Even though my position title is contracts manager or advisor, all of my roles have included purchasing, customer support, contracts. So I felt the positions I was applying for were just for contracts and, I guess, in my head I was like, “Well, I’m going to be sitting there doing terms and conditions for the whole day and that just seems really boring to me.” So I was like, maybe because I had that in my head, that was why I didn’t show up for the interviews the way I wanted to.
Yeah, that’s one of the reasons. It’s like you weren’t really all in. They could sense that. You didn’t really want it. It’s hard to get what you don’t really want. Sometimes people think it’s easier, but it’s not.
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And I guess I figured because, hey, I was able to get the interviews and that’s a plus. So I’m like, “Yay.” But then I’m like, “Well, what do I want to do? What do I really want to do?” So I took a month off or stepped back and I started really soul-searching, “What do I want to do?” And I’ve been exploring products marketing-
Nice.
… and I’ve been doing informational interviews, which have been going well. And I’m thinking maybe that’s where I want to go but I’m not 100% sure. So I’m at this place where I’m like, “Well, how do I move forward? Do I apply for these product marketing roles, or do I look for something with a mix of it?”
Yeah, good question. So you’ve been doing informational interviews. What clarity have you gained from doing those informational interviews?
Yeah, so one especially, the last one I did was, the person, I was vibing with them and they were just telling me how, yeah, they’re so… I told them how I didn’t want to do terms and conditions all day and just that one thing. It sounds so boring to me. And they’re like, “Yeah, completely get it. With product marketing, you’re doing a mix of things every day,” and there’s always little fires she’s got to put out, but there’s excitement to it, which I think for me, I would need something with a little bit of change and excitement.
And so I felt really positive about that. I have a marketing degree and I have some marketing experience in my backgrounds. So I don’t know. And they were telling me, they were encouraging me, like, “Oh, yeah, you have most of the skills. You can sell yourself on those skills that you already have and look to build the ones that you need,” I guess. So, yeah.
Yeah, totally. It sounds like you gained some clarity from talking to somebody who was in a position where you felt you were excited about it.
Yeah.
So what would stop you from going after some product marketing possibilities?
I guess maybe that perfectionist thing. I’m just like, “Is this really what I want? Can I trust myself that this is… I’ve done the research and I know what I’m going for.”
Good catch. Yeah. And here’s the answer. There’s no right thing because if you’re like, okay, because it’s just about making a… And knowing that you can change your decision, you can say, “Okay, I’m going to go for product marketing. This sounded great. These are my reasons.” You get to pick the thing and know that there’s no right or wrong. It’s just, if it’s not this, you’ll get closer to what you are going to end up doing. And then you get to choose thoughts that are going to support that decision.
So, so far you talked to someone who worked in product marketing that sounded like you would really be a good fit for that kind of role. You have the skills that you can use to transfer over to that role. And if you decide that, then the benefit of that is you get to start making the little decisions to move you close to a product marketing role. Versus, if you stay where you are in indecision, then you’re not moving any closer to anything.
That’s a good point.
If you’re moving towards a product marketing role, and you can take what this person told you, the kind of organization they work in, you might even say, “Hey, our conversation was so super helpful. I’m leaning towards doing this. Would you have a follow-up with me? I just have a few other quick questions.” Maybe you can get more clarity about their environment and then what you’re looking for. You can take what you’ve already done that’s worked and go a little deeper with it, and then move down that path.
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One of the biggest things of someone being successful is being able to cut ties with that other stuff, and it’s a big fear. You’re not the only one. A lot of people are like, “Oh, I don’t want to decide because I don’t want to make the wrong decision.” And that’s when you stay in kind of treading water, not going anywhere, right?
Yeah, I definitely feel like that’s the hard part is, I do like the level of comfort that I have, I guess, but I definitely am ready for a change [inaudible 00:38:29]-
Yeah, because the way that I like to see it is, you’re kind of sitting in discomfort either way, because the reason why you’re on this call is because you’re uncomfortable because you want to make a decision. But then it’s also going to be a little bit uncomfortable to move into a decision. So you’re going to be a bit uncomfortable either way. So I would choose the one that moves you forward because then at least you’re going to have some clarity and you’re going to have some more insights, and you’re going to be moved further ahead. Because if it’s not going to be product management, you’ll discover what it’s going to be a lot faster by just moving into the product management or marketing possibilities rather. Product marketing. Yeah.
Okay. That’s really helpful.
Awesome. So good catch on the perfectionism. And it is. This is the biggest thing. If you can take this in and be like, “Okay, I’m going to make a decision and move forward with it,” and the faster you make decisions and the quicker you support yourself with the decisions, knowing that no matter what happens, I’ve got my own back. If I change my mind, that’s okay, I’m just moving forward. Then the faster you will discover, the faster you will be successful.
Okay.
You’ve got it.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, no problem. Thanks for coming on.
Yeah, thank you.
All right, I’m going to put you back. I’m going to bring on… Hello.
Oh, good afternoon. Thank you so much.
Hello. Yes, we can hear you and see you. Awesome.
I feel like you’ve just answered so many questions for me just in the [inaudible 00:39:58]-
Oh, great.
And I was so much looking forward to attending each of your days and I had to go to the car shop and have my car repair yesterday, so haven’t had a chance to listen to the replay, but I’m so glad to be here today. I really admire what you’re doing.
Thank you.
And I had put in the chat box there that I felt that hiring managers may perceive that I am too old. I have over 26 years of experience, although I don’t take my resume back that far. I usually take it back 10, 15 years depending on what the job is. My field is corporate communications, primarily internal communications, doing large perhaps technology implementations that impact internal audiences as well as customers and clients. So I’ve worked with a lot of the really big global corporations, financial corporations, technology corporations. Most recently last year I worked with a corporation that was doing a divestiture and their huge division was being acquired by a Japanese automaker, a very well-known Japanese… And that particular company that brought me on as a consultant, the folks were in their 20s and 30s.
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They just wanted somebody that had the experience to take the ball and run with it and help us wrap this up. So those are the kinds of projects I’ve been brought in on. Mostly I’m a contractor and I think that’s in part because of my breadth of experience. Also I’m called all the time by recruiters who are looking for somebody to do contract work, so I do get a lot of calls. I do go to a lot of interviews. This time around, I’ve been at this for six months now. And so, yeah, there have been moments where I’ve gotten very weary of the process but have continued to do it.
And I like your recommendations of using other avenues like LinkedIn groups and professional associations. And although I have done a little bit of that, I get so many calls that I’m constantly updating my resume and submitting that to recruiters who then submit it to… Sometimes they submit it to the managed services folks who then send it on to the recruiters who send it on to the hiring managers who put me in a queue for an interview of maybe the hiring manager or maybe a panel and maybe a series of interviews. So, it’s very time-consuming. I have another interview coming up on Monday.
Okay. So how many interviews in the last six months?
Oh, I would say two to three a month actual interviews.
Okay. Great.
But the calls come in every other day.
Yeah. Okay, great. So you’ve established a presence for yourself. You’re a sought-after professional.
That’s right.
So you don’t need to do work of going to get interviews because they’re coming to you. And the ones that are coming to you, are they your ideal, what you really want?
Well, when the process started six months ago, I was responding to a lot of job opportunities, and finally I decided after having gone on enough interviews that there’s no point to go on interviews where I feel that I may be more senior than what they’re looking for. So I don’t go on those and I only go on jobs that I really want to do because I go to Glassdoor and I check out the companies and I look at people on LinkedIn so I have some sense of who’s the employer. And if they don’t have the kind of reputation that I think that I would feel comfortable with, I just say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” One example is, the last interview I was on was actually, they wanted to bring me in-house and report to the executive VP of communications.
And when the recruiter contacted me I said, “How long have you been looking for people?” They said, “Well, we’ve been looking for several weeks but we’ve determined that they needed somebody more senior and that’s why we’ve contacted you.” And so they immediately said, “We want you to interview with this executive VP.” I interviewed with him and he kept indicating, “Oh, that’s great information. I love your stories. I love your background.” And I said, “Well, so what’s the next step?” He says, “Oh, well, we’ve just started this interview process,” which wasn’t accurate, “and we’d like to hire somebody yesterday but we don’t know when we’re going to hire somebody.”
So I didn’t feel that he was being upfront with me, and even though I sent the thank you note and all that, I didn’t hear back for over a week. And one of the things that I’ve learned to do is, I keep moving forward, but somehow in the back of my mind there’s a little bit of energy being drained waiting to get some type of a response, even if I think it’s going to be “Thanks, but no thanks.” And so I decided, I’ve been stepping up and after a certain period of time I send the note, say, “Thank you,” and very politely bow out. And then of course then I hear, “Well, we’re so sorry that you’re bowing out.” Or, in this case I was told, “Well, thanks for letting us know.” So it seemed like a confirmation that they were glad that they didn’t have to [inaudible 00:45:29].
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Okay, thanks for all this information. What makes you think any of this has to do with your age? What’s the indication?
Well, I do know there’s a lot of research around older women in the workplace and the hiring rate for those, and also older women of color. And I have been tracking people on LinkedIn who researched this and who write about it. And at one point I thought, “Well, maybe I should write a LinkedIn article and just allude to this issue.” And I wrote it and I put it out to a number of colleagues and people that weren’t in the corporate arena, and I said, “Read this LinkedIn article I wrote and tell me what you think.”
And I got all this feedback because that’s what I work off of is feedback. I don’t work in a vacuum. And I determined, ultimately, and many have even [inaudible 00:46:23] said, “Rather than put your focus on writing articles about what the challenges are, why don’t you spend your time working with a coach and also working on finding that next job?” So I decided that it’s not a good avenue.
So, here’s what I think so far, based on what you’ve told me. You could be right and you probably are right, but it might be a bit harder, but so what? You have so much value to offer, so much experience, and what you’re describing, your experience, you could be a young woman that’s white or a young man that’s white and you could be describing the same experience with companies being flaky, companies not getting back to you, putting you through long interview processes and not getting back to you. That happens to all people. So it’s not necessarily because of your age or because of your color, but it’s just, you focusing on it is a thing, right? It’s like, “Yes, this is a challenge, but so what? How do I personally want to think about it?” Right?
Yes. Yes. And I love that you said to come from this place of joy. So once I let go of that article, I just said, “I need to see myself in a place where I’m bringing value and where I am valued. And that’s [inaudible 00:47:54]-
Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah.
But you have been so helpful. I mean, it’s amazing because I’ve tracked a number of recruiters who have webinars and are online, and I’m telling you, Natalie, you really stand out as being somebody who… Very genuine, comes from the heart. You always seem to have a response to people’s questions that indicates you’ve listened very carefully to them and you’re not going to let, whatever their block is, hold you back and hold them back.
Thank you. Thank you for saying that. So, yeah, you summed up who I am, right there, I’m out. So for you and getting to where you want to go, I think what I would recommend for you now is getting really clear on what it is that you want, right? How clear would you say you are on that? The kind of organization, the kind of work you want to be doing, the length. Do you feel like you’re pretty clear on what you want?
Yes. I feel like I’m very clear on what I wanted, and in the case of the last organization, I was like, “Well, that organization ticks all the boxes. Maybe this’ll be it.” But you know what? It does not necessarily boil down to the organization. It boils down, as we probably know, to the hiring manager and for whatever reason that person just did not feel that I was someone that they wanted to hire.
And so when you go into the interviews and you talk, and you were in this interview, what were your thoughts? What are your general thoughts about getting hired in one of these ideal organizations for you?
Well, most recently I’m thinking that if I had the ability to contact organizations and talk to them about what their issues are, and then be able to say, “I’m available to help you address those issues,” that might be a great place to come from rather than always having to be in the reactive mode of working with these recruiters and going through all of these levels. Any suggestions on how to actually get that
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information? Because I know recruiters somehow are able to find out organizations that might need services. I don’t know how they go about doing that.
So, what’s to stop you from just doing some searching and finding some organizations and looking at what they do and what you could do to add value?
I guess nothing stops me. I have done it a few years ago. I’ve really did a lot of research and found a couple of organizations and put together, like, LinkedIn emails to them and connected with CEOs and the like, startups for example. Never really got anywhere.
How many did you do?
Three or four. And I said, “I’m watching your organization and I see that there is no internal communications component, and here’s how that might value you. And I’d be more than happy to come in and take about 15, 20 minutes of your time. And here’s some example.”
So here’s what you need to do.
They don’t know it.
Yeah. So your approach I think is good. I think being proactive in your situation is going to be really helpful because you know what they need more than they know-
Sometimes I-
… sometimes, because you have so much experience and so much to bring. And what you need to focus on is their bottom-line. How is that going to help their bottom-line?
Right. And that is what my presentation, real succinct, lets them know, here’s how-
But in order to get them to give you time to talk to you, you need to indicate that that’s what you’ll do for them. You need to give them that to start with. Because if you just talk about internal communications and how it’s going to help them, it’s not concrete enough.
I have a background in sales and marketing communications, so I have scripted those communications, so they do have an understanding, very succinctly, of what the benefit is and how that might benefit them. And then the interesting thing about one of these companies is, they then went out and hired somebody, internal communications. They made that a particular area of their company.
So, then, what I’m seeing is, is that you did it four times and said, “Oh, it doesn’t work.”
Well, I didn’t say it didn’t work. It’s a lot of work, number one. And I’m always being contacted to apply for jobs that don’t require me to go knock on the door. So you’re saying, “Put a little more energy into approaching the organizations?”
Well, you said that you think that that’s a good place for you to do, is be proactive and go tell them, right? Because you’ve got this energy behind you that says, “I can help. I know how to do this.”
Yes, yes.
I feel like you should trust that, right? And if something comes your way that you think is great, then use your judgment and go for it or not. But I think if you have the desire to go be proactive and go after organizations and show them what you can do, I think you should do that. I just think you need to tweak the way that you’re doing it, right?
Okay.
So you’re like, “Okay, this didn’t work. I’m going to try this.” And also don’t put a ton of time into something that they haven’t agreed to have a call with you. Just send out some more emails, get really good on getting your outreach really good. Like I have a message. I tried a whole bunch of messages to get people to my seminars, and the message had to be something that felt really good to me, something
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that was genuine and really I felt good about. And then I started sending it and I started to get more responses from people. But it wasn’t because I was being like… I could see where the other messages that I was sending weren’t landing with people, right?
Because they were like, “Well, you don’t know me. I didn’t have that problem.” I would ask them… The message, I don’t know what it said. It felt in the way that I was like, “Look, I’m not pressuring you. I’m just informing you that this is what I can help you with. If you’d like to attend, let me know and I’ll send you the information.” And I have a lot of people say, “Oh, I’d love to. I didn’t know you were doing that. Yes, please send me the information. Yes, I want to attend.” Whereas if you come from a place of… And I don’t know exactly how you are writing it, but I think it’s just tweaking and kind of perfecting that process for you could get you a ton of leads coming in and a ton of really good opportunities.
I think you’re absolutely right. Absolutely, right, Natalie, and my mind is already coming up with ways to make that happen.
I don’t have any doubts that you can get that coming in.
You are so… [inaudible 00:54:25] Natalie.
Yay. Well, I’m really glad it was helpful. And, yeah, I feel like if people just knew you existed and what you did, you would have no problems.
That’s right.
And it’s matter of doing that and then matching up with those right people. So it’s a combination of everything. I’m going to send out the replay so you’ll get to relisten to this if you want to.
Yes. And I think you’ve helped people that are in my boat who feel like, “Maybe I’m so senior and how do I fit in and what’s another strategy?” So, thank you.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I know that it benefits everybody when people come on and get coached. So I really appreciate your vulnerability, and you’ve helped lots of people today just by coming on as well. All right, I’m going to put you back. All right, well, that’s what we do inside the program every week, so this is why it’s so powerful to get coaching every single week or watch other people be in that space, because you come away from it and you’re all motivated and you’re like, “Yes, let’s go.” And then you get to do that. You get to up-level and do that every time. So that is what gives you the momentum. That is how you move forward so quickly. That is how you keep having those shifts. So it’s not like it stops at one shift.
It’s like you keep getting the shifts. I need to keep getting those shifts. I go to my coach, I’m like, “Okay, now I’m stuck here.” You don’t stop because you uncovered a block. You’re going to have another block at the new level and the new level. And then having that security knowing that you’re always going to move forward through these blocks because you have somebody to show you a new perspective, whether that be me or somebody else on one of the coaching calls on Tuesdays. And yeah, we uncovered a lot today. I love the idea of being proactive as well. I have a couple of clients who have done that, being very proactive, and it depends. The strategy is going to work differently depending on where you are at your career. So if you have a lot of experience and you have a lot to offer and you’re called to go proactively reach out, then that is great. You should do that.
If you don’t, then your strategy might be different, and that’s what I help you work out. I help you problem-solve it until you get where you’re going. And one thing I want to leave you with is, everything that you do has to be based on your belief that your end result has happened already. And then you work from that place and then something goes wrong, something doesn’t work out, you fail. You are still working from that place. So a belief is not a belief unless it can withstand encounters with reality. So reality, it means not everything is 100% going to go your way all the time. And if it can’t withstand those
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encounters with reality, it’s not really a belief. It’s just a fun fantasy. All right, so we’ve got some questions about the program.
Are all coaching sessions in groups? Can we do private coaching for sensitive issues involving personal matters? Yes, absolutely. So when you sign up right now I’m offering two one-on-one sessions that can be booked whenever. I offer a welcome session while I have time on my calendar to do that. I’m also very available if you talk to the people who are in the program, you can DM me messages, you can schedule. Yeah, so don’t worry, you’ll be taken care of. But in the group it’s very close-knit and everybody there is very supportive as well. And, yeah, you can even come on anonymously and change your name to anonymous if you want to. Beautiful nugget regarding connecting with reality. Yeah, and it’s not a problem. It’s not a problem that sometimes things don’t go your way. You just have to dig a little bit deeper, get a little bit more creative, and that’s what we do.
That’s what I’ve been doing this whole time. It’s why I’m really good at it and really helping you dig. Really good at helping you dig in there until you get it. And that’s why the results come. I know they will. I know it. And when you’re in that space where you’re like, “Yeah, this is just happening. I’m just taking the steps, I’m just figuring it out. I’m figuring out the how, but it’s just happening,” you get to calm down. You don’t have to be worried, you don’t have to be concerned, you don’t have to be discouraged, because you just know. So that’s what it’s like. I invite you to join. I’m going to put the link in the comments again in the chat. You can listen to everybody who’s come on for an interview. I’m going to be bringing on a few more people for interviews, and actually I’m going to start doing trainings with my clients because they go through the process, they come and they get the coaching and they can teach a few things after that.
They’ve experienced it more freshly from a new perspective and they have their own words and they’re very brilliant. So I’m going to be doing that. And if you do watch the podcast or if you do listen to the podcast, watch out for those coming. Just going to see what else you all have to say here. Thank you so much. How soon can we start our session when we register? Immediately. So you sign up and you just let me know you’re in. Respond to me in an email, be like, “I’m in.” I will send you the link to schedule your sessions on the calendar and you can ask me questions right away. But, yeah, you can schedule immediately. Based on your personality and energy I think meeting people in person, community events. Yeah, really good idea. And again, this is going to be different for everybody and we get to explore what’s going to work.
And then the beauty of it is, is once you figure it out, then you get to move on to the next really big cool thing you want to do, and you get to have bigger impact than you thought possible because you’ve moved forward. So, talking about making a decision, you get to decide and you make a decision, you move forward, and then you get to have impact in this industry. You get to put your thoughts and your mind to work on how you can have an impact in this particular realm and what you get to do. And you get to have a lot of fun doing it and a lot of focus. Instead of if you’re like, “Oh, I don’t know what I want to do,” and you stay in the I don’t know for a long time, then you don’t actually get to move forward with the decisions you need to actually move forward with those decisions.
So I invite you to think about joining the program in the same way. If you are not sure if you want to make a decision on it, the sooner you make the decision, whether it’s a yes or a no, by the way, because if it’s a no, that’s a completely legitimate decision. You’re like, “No, I’m not going to join Natalie’s program.” That’s fine, but if you’re like, “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe later.” That’s where you are losing time that you could be spending applying the process, applying the coaching, getting in on moving forward towards where you’re going. So whether it’s a yes or a no, that’s fine. I just encourage you to decide, right? And know that you can have your own back regardless of whatever decision you make.
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There isn’t a right or wrong. You want to listen to what feels good to you, I want you to feel comfortable to come in.
I’m here to answer any questions you have and you will see this on replay. You can watch all the other sessions. I really appreciate everybody who came on and shared their thoughts with us so we could all benefit from the coaching today. Thank you for other inspiring workshop. I’ll be sure to reach out concerning coaching questions. Yes, absolutely. So you can find me on LinkedIn, you know where I am. Thanks everybody for joining me and I will see you in your inbox and I will see some of you in the program because I’ve had some of you already sign up, and I will be talking to you very soon. And to the rest of us who are going to join, I look forward to hearing from you. And, yeah, you can schedule your welcome call as soon as you complete the payment. So I will see you in there. Thank you. Bye-bye.
If I were to sum it up, I would say the most common thing people come to me with is, “I’m going on interview after interview after interview and I’m not getting the offer. What am I doing wrong?” So I’ve put together a freebie where you can get this download completely free. It has the eight reasons that this is happening, and I break down each reason very specifically and how to fix it. So to grab that download, the link is in the show notes. You can click on that link. You just have to enter your information. It’s called The Eight Reasons You’re Not Getting Hired, and I will help you figure that out. I will see you in the freebie. Okay, talk to you soon.