When Looking for a Job, What Should You Consider and Watch Out For?

Welcome to roadmap to the executive suite podcast, a place where we talk about accelerating your careers all tailored to the ambitious woman. We're here to have fun, feel empowered and get actionable steps to get you closer to your dream job and salary, no matter where you are in your career. I'm your host, Claudia Miller, Athena, career coach and corporate trainer who helps ambitious women get the jobs they want, almost getting them up to $100,000 in salary increases. I've been featured in Forbes MSNBC, and Business Insider put me there Top Global list of top innovative career coaches, and the creative 90 day job offer program where I teach career driven women like you my proprietary strategy on how to land a job you love in less than 90 days, all while getting 30 to$100,000 in salary increases, no matter if you're just starting in your career, or you're ready to pivot into the executive suite. My clients have been able to move to the next step in their careers successfully pivoted into new industries without having to take a pay cut and broke it into management without any prior experience. I'm coming to you with a new episode every week on Thursdays with mindset job search, interview skills and sound negotiation advice with actionable strategies you can implement today to help you get ahead in your career. Now let's get started with this week's episode. Hi. So I'm excited for today's topic that we're going to be discussing. And this is a question that I get a lot from job seekers. And it's when looking for a job. What should you consider and watch out for? And I love this question because I'm going to talk about four things that are the biggest mistakes, and I've seen job seekers do a lot. And they end up regretting that. And it's not like your common mistakes. These are more unknown mistakes that people do not necessarily pay attention to or don't really notice or realize. So I'm excited to kind of dive in and really share with you, you know, what you need to be looking out for when job searching and what are some red flags. So if you don't know me, my name is Claudia Miller, and I'm a Career Coach for women in tech. And I've helped my clients land jobs within 90 days or less, and find fulfilling roles and finally get paid what they deserve. My clients on average, get 56% in salary increases. And that translates to anywhere between 30 and even up to $120,000 in additional earned income. So this episode is made for you. So if you're looking to land a new job, or finally get paid what you deserve, this channel is all about helping you get there. So as I was talking, what are some of the things that you as a job seeker need to be looking out for and what you need to watch out and start considering. So the top four mistakes that I've seen is one, if you're looking at different types of jobs, make sure you pick one that accelerates your career. So I've had clients where they'll come to me and they'll say, You know what, in this new job, I'm actually looking at perhaps director of change management, or director of process improvement, or perhaps a director in project management. I'm not exactly sure what yet, but those are the three jobs that have interested me. Now, I will say that they usually they may seem similar in nature, and they usually for the most part are, but they are jobs that one of those jobs will accelerate your career faster than the other two. So that requires research. You know, if you're trying to be Director of Project Management, well probably want to go to the project management role. But what if you're trying to become like a Chief Operating Officer, which one of those three roles will actually get you there? Or what if you're trying to become senior director for global operations, and then, you know, process improvement or center of excellence? Well done, probably the director of process improvement will help you get there. So just be wary of where do you want to end up in the next five to 10 years? And what is that, like that end goal towards your career. Because even though they're kind of similar nature, your skills can be transferable to all three, there will be a role that's going to accelerate your career from where you want to end up in the next five to 10 years. So be very weary of that. And you know, there's a lot of different ways that you can identify that if you don't know how, and want to learn. That's something I go into in my 90 day job offer program where I show you exactly how to start career mapping and identify which one of these roles will meet your lifestyle, help you reach your salary goals and help you achieve or get to your end goal the fastest route. So that would be one thing. The second thing is make sure the company is financially stable. And the last thing you want to do is spend all this time job searching revamping your resume interviewing, applying to those complicated job applications to have you copy and paste everything you have in your resume, and then land the job. And then a few months later, you get laid off. I mean, and we've even seen now that the company would just resigned their offer, they'll take back the offer, because you know, they didn't calculate very well. And now they can't afford to hire you. And you already put your two weeks notice, or maybe you're already already finished your job and you don't want to go back or they just won't take you back. You're kind of stuck in this situation with no income, no job, no prospects or opportunities, because maybe you're ready said no to all the other opportunities out there. And I kind of find yourself in this situation. So there are ways that you can be do diligent and do your research and make sure that a company is financially stable. But that is something you want to be able to do when looking at companies you're applying to, or looking to invest time in that you really have been eyeing for quite some time. research it and sometimes it's like, well, there's no way this company will have layoffs are not financially healthy, you'd be surprised. For example, a client of mine wanted to work at peloton absolutely loved peloton and they were drinking out of the Cooley juice, huge on Pelotonia worked out all the time, that's where they wanted to go. And they're big on health and wellness. I had them do research, and come to show that we anticipated that they were probably gonna do layoffs, the writing was on the wall. So then they spent their energy and other companies that based on the data we looked at, it looked like they were financially stable, and they're actually growing. So therefore they spend their time and efforts. Lo and behold, a few weeks later, peloton announces around two or 3000 people got laid off. So again, you might think it's a really huge big company. But you know, for the most part, you want to make sure that these big companies are not protected from having layoffs, like we've all heard a lot of companies having layoffs, especially during what's been happening. So you want to make sure you start doing your research and you become very diligent to make sure that this company is financially stable. Now, there's only so much you can do. But at least we want to make sure we are proactive and do our work as much as possible to ensure that we're going to company that sets us up for success as opposed to being laid off our in the streets in the next few weeks. The next thing is you want to go into a company that has a good culture. Now, if you've always worked at a company that has a good culture, you're probably sick. While it can be that bad. For the most part, I've had by time clients come to me, they absolutely hate their company, very toxic, they're burnt out, they find out they're being underpaid, they're not being valued, they get passed up for promotions, even though they've been loyal to the company been in for such a long time, you want to make sure you don't trade one back company for another, you don't want to end up at another company where you're going to have to struggle just to get a promotion just to get a measly salary increase, that are already underpaid you have you set up for failure, they don't give you the resources in order to be successful, and so on and so forth. So you want to make sure you go into a company that has a really good culture. And again, there's different ways that you can identify that kind of do that filtering process of happening of to see if this is a good company or not. But you know, just because you're in a really bad company, doesn't mean every other company is going to be great. So you want to make sure that you actually do your due diligence. And again, go to a company that's going to help you thrive, that will set you up for success, that will be really good for your career, and there's a career trajectory, you want to be able to invest this time to go into a company, but maybe then you can set your route. Or it may be that role that finally you get to be the director or senior director or even move it to the executive suite, and that they're investing in you and creating that path for you. So always be cognizant about culture. Now, going to an interview and asking someone can tell me a little bit more about your culture is not the strategy to do it, you're not going to find the answers that you're looking for by just asking the interviewer during the interview. That is something you want to do beforehand. Before you even invest time interviewing or applying to these jobs, you want to make sure that you're actually doing filtering, especially with right now, there are so many opportunities, there's a war on talent, meaning you have a lot of options and opportunities. Don't spend time and effort and energy at a company that's not going to be able to appreciate you value you or give you the toolset succeed. So be weary of that. And then lastly, find a company that sets you up for success and is in a cycle that serves your function. So a prime example is if you're in tech, let's just say you're Director of Engineering. You want to make sure that a company is investing resources on the tech side. So for example, a company just created a new product. They brought it to market and they're launching it and now they're looking to You know, sell it and bring in users. So because this company is in the cycle, that means that they're going to be spending their resources, and allocating all their time and visibility towards sales and marketing, the products already been created. Now they're looking to pump resources, money to the sales and marketing department. Now, if you're in sales and marketing, you're like, that's great, that's my department, you want to make sure that you're in that position, because that company needs to make this successful, they already created the product and already invested in that. Now they need to make this successful. So there's a lot of visibility because of it. And guess what, those aren't that lucky people that were just at the right place at the right time. And their career just skyrocketed. And actually, this can actually be set up, it's something that can be replicated, and then done over and over again. So you don't have to always be that lucky person, you can create your own luck, by doing the research doing the work ahead of time to make sure you're a company that's going to really move you catapult your career. Now, if you're at a company that they are looking to create a new product or service and bring it to market to finally serve a market segmentation that currently they haven't been able to tap into, and maybe a lot of the other competitors haven't been able to do. So guess what, that's where you want to be if you're in tech or engineering roles, why? Because they're going to be investing a lot of money and resources. And there's going to be a lot of visibility in developing this technology, product or service. So as you can see, if you're in sales and marketing, and you're not really going to get much of that budget, and they're just going to move a lot of those allocate those resources to the tech and engineering department. So as you can see, companies have a cycle that they go through, they're either building sallying, expanding. So depending on what your function is, you want to make sure that it aligns with the company cycle, you don't want to go into a company where you're going to have to fight tooth and nail just to get measly resources, you want to be in a company that really is pumping you with resources, setting you up for success. And then that way, all of a sudden, you're getting those achievements, because you have everything to be successful in. And because of it, you get a lot of visibility, and then all of a sudden you start seeing promotions, maybe getting a bigger team, maybe not expanding to global, as opposed to just domestic. And that's how you can replicate that over and over again, like I said, there are specific strategies on how you can identify this. Now if you're like Claudia, I have no idea how to do that. Then, like I said, I have my 90 day job offer program where it shows you step by step how to do this, how to replicate it not only for your next job, but for the next two to three roles, and everything after that. And just Just to recap, the first one is, if you're looking for different types of jobs, there is typically one or two dev Excel your career faster than the other ones. So you want to identify what that is to make sure the company is financially stable. Three, you want to make sure you're going to a company with a good culture. And four, find a company that's going to set you up for success. And it's in a cycle that serves your function. So the reason why this works, and it's very important is you want to make sure that you're in the driver's seat, and you having more control of your job search, we all have limited time and resources, none of us want to spend the next 10 to 15 hours a day, applying to jobs and going through interviews to end up at a company we hate dislike, or we're going to be laid off soon. So you want to make sure you're intentional, you're strategic, you do your due diligence, you do the research, because it's actually unfortunately very common right now that, you know, companies will just take back the offer just because they didn't check their finances, and now they realize they have a hiring freeze, or they just can't afford you, or you're going to have to be laid off soon. And guess what, you're the most recent hire, so we're gonna lay you off. And that's why I want to make sure that you're being careful when you're job searching, you want to watch out for these things, you want to make sure you start considering and start doing your research and due diligence in order to identify the situations and see the writing and the law. And, again, we want to make sure that we set you up for success. And this is exactly something that I show and teach in my proprietary program called 90 day job offer, where I walk you step by step on how to do this, how to replicate this, and how to make sure that your job search is successful, that you land a fulfilling job the next 90 days, and a company that appreciates you and values you while getting paid what you deserve. And like I said most of my clients get 56% salary increases. So if you're interested in learning more about 90 day job offer, as you can see, you can text apply to 844-995-1523. And we'll schedule a complimentary career strategy call with no obligations to see if 90 day job offer will be a right fit for you. So let me know what other questions you have or regards to job searching. And I'll see Next. Did you know I have started 100% free Facebook group dedicated to making job searching easy for career driven women and help them master their interviewing, networking and start negotiation skills. And we're doing free weekly trainings, covering everything from how to sell yourself to increasing your salary by 30% minimum. Plus, you'll be endowed with a network of other ambitious women. So make sure to join us by texting us the word join 28449951523 And we'll see you there