How to Build Confidence While Job Searching

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.

All right, so today we're talking about how to build confidence while job searching. So if you're currently job searching, or you're just not feeling confident in yourself, this video is definitely for you. Maybe you've already been rejected multiple times, you've been applying for quite some time. I've even had clients that by the time they come to me, they'll say like Claudia, I've been job searching for over two years, I've applied to over 200 jobs. I don't know what else to do. And maybe you were ready right now your conference is shut down because of that. Or maybe you have a few interviews that you've had, that you were really good at interviewing, and you went in and feeling great about yourself, and then realizing that you are not a great interviewer. And you're not as confident as you want to come across. And maybe you're not feeling so good about yourself anymore. Or you just been passed up from a promotion. So many times that your current job that maybe you start questioning is whether you deserve that promotion, or if you even wanted mine I've had clients with they'll say like, you know what, I don't think I even want to direct your job. Or they keep telling me that one, A, B and C and I just don't have it. And honestly, it just seems like a hassle. Maybe I'm just not meant to have it at this point. So if you feel you can relate to any of these case scenarios, this for you, like I mentioned, I'll show you how to take control. And finally start feeling confident in yourself while job searching. Because you're not feeling confident. It is going to leak into your interviewing skills or your interviews overall, which will impact how much you've been offered, whether you get offered the job, and also how you're perceived by your hiring manager before you even start your first day of work. So if you don't know me, hi, my name is Claudia Miller. And I'm a career coach and I help career driven women in tech land fulfill jobs, within 90 days or less, while still getting paid around a 56% in salary increases. So my clients are received anywhere between 30,000 and all the way up to 120,000 in additional earned income. And this episode, just to let you know, is all about helping you land the job you want. So here are the top mistakes I've seen people make while job searching that really impacts their confidence. And of course, I want you to tell me like hey, do you relate to any of these? Or how many of these you relate to? So one of the biggest mistakes that I've seen is people take things personally when it comes to job searching. Maybe you've been rejected already a few times. And then you start wondering, maybe I'm not good enough. Or I keep getting interviews, but I don't get the job offer. What am I doing wrong? What is going on with me? All these anyvision are coming through or maybe recruiter not even reaching out to me, I thought I was had a really great background achievements and accolades. And clearly that's not the case. No one is no messaging me. So while all my peers are getting message, what is wrong with you what is happening here? So taking rejection personally and overall based on the results, I think that you can control. They feel they shouldn't be all qualifications in a job posting in order to apply by you going to those job postings and say Nope, don't have that. I don't fit 100% on this job qualification or even 80% I probably shouldn't apply. What am I thinking I thought I was ready for a director role or their senior director role. But maybe I'm not I don't fit all of these qualifications here. Maybe I should just stick to my manager job or my individual contributor role. Maybe I don't want to go maybe I'm not ready for that, you know, Director, senior director level. Or they also another mistake that I've seen is they've never tracked their CI committed athletes and just take it day by day, I know how easy it is to just, you know, go into work and do what you're supposed to do. And you probably have an endless to do list on what you need to be doing. And now you're finding yourself, you've been working at your job for two, three plus years now. And you've noticed that you've never actually checked all your achievements. So maybe there's no way of even measuring that you don't even know where to get started. You don't even know what you did last week. So that seems already like a hassle. They also want to another mistake that I've seen is they misinterpret a toxic workplace or manager for their personal failure. So just so you know, some companies and managers have you set up to fail before you even start your first day of work. Or if you got a new manager, you know, when they started, they set you up to fail. And here's an example. Maybe you were a team of 10. And because of COVID happening and everything, half your team got laid off, but they still want you to produce the same output, maybe they still want you to make the same amount of sales, maybe they still want you to complete the same amount of projects, maybe they still want us to serve the same amount of clients. But there's only half the team don't take that as a personal failure. That is a company setting you up to fail, it has nothing to do with you. So making sure that you're not misinterpreting a toxic workplace or bad manager or bad management overall, for your failure, that has nothing to do with you. And that is a company problem, not a huge problem. The next thing is making assumptions. Oh, I don't have extra year certification, maybe I'm not qualified, maybe I'm not as good as I think I am. Or maybe I need to go back to school in order to get that done. I'm too old, I'm too young. Now. I'm not saying ageism doesn't exist, because it does. But I've always heard from you know, I have clients coming in across ranges like entry level all the way to executive suite. And I've had clients tell me, I'm too young for this role, they're probably looking for someone older, while my older clients are saying, well, they're probably looking for someone young, I'm too old for this role now, or maybe because I'm already my 50s or 60s I'm going to be discriminated against. Now again, I'm not saying that doesn't happen. But sometimes it's just you making assumptions. We want to make sure because there's value in both without any experience. And with experience depending on what the role is, of course, there's always a way to show the value that you have and finding your market differentiator that will make you stand out from the competition. So do not make assumptions whether you've qualified or not qualified, because you don't have a certain degree or certification or you've never done that before. Because we all have transferable skills that for the most part can be used across various roles. So if any of this sounds familiar, like Claudia, actually, I kind of do a few other ones. And just to recap, you know, the biggest mistakes I've seen is people taking things personally that they can't control. They feel issuing qualifications in a job posting, they've never checked their achievements, and you have no idea what you've done, or how much to measure it. They interpret a toxic workplace, or a manager for their lack of for personal responsibility for like that is their failure. And they make assumptions when it comes to the specific job that they're interested in. So if you do any of the following, like I mentioned, don't feel so bad about yourself, because I feel like this is very common. And honestly, I used to do it before I became a career coach and learned all of this about seven, eight years ago. So and honestly a lot of my clients are same boat you are, you know, a lot of them have, their confidence has been shot for sure whether they've already started job searching, and they've received a lot of rejections. Or maybe they just about to start their job search by their company has just never valued them never appreciated them and never promoted them like they should have. So a lot of them, I would say 95% of my clients come in with very little confidence. And this is all the way from entry level professionals all the way to executives, I worked with executives, I mean CTOs, VP of sales, I've worked with cmo CEOs, and some of them are also not feeling confident for various reasons. So don't feel bad about yourself. But I'm going to show you what you can do about it. That way you can really start building and increasing your confidence when it comes to job searching. So instead, here's what you need to do in order to help you or increase that confidence. Like I mentioned, one, do not take things personally, specially on things you don't control. Instead, I want you to focus on the data. So for example, if you're like Tada, I just keep getting rejected. Maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I'm not meant for this job instead. And if you get on a call with me, I'm actually going to ask you, okay, well, how many jobs have you applied to? You can also start tracking that data. How many jobs have been applied to if you're not tracking that data? It's time for you to start now. How many jobs have you applied to and of those, how many interviews have you landed? The rule of thumb is As on average, my clients, for every 10 jobs they applied, they get anywhere between two to three interviews. If you're not getting treated to interviews for every 10 jobs that you're applying for, like you need someone to run your resume, or you need overall, someone to help you with your resume, because that is a resume issue. Not a huge issue. So remember that. So another thing is like, well, maybe you've are getting interviews, but you're not getting job offers. So assess, well, how many jobs did I apply? And of those? How many interviews did I get? Okay, well, you're getting at least 10 out of 10, job applications you get into through interviews. Alright, out of how many interviews are you getting job offers? If you're like, Claudia, I've applied to five jobs, and I've received zero offers, that to me immediately that you need help with your interviewing skills. That's it, it has nothing against to do anything with you personally, like you're not good enough. It is, you're just a bad interview. Sometimes I hate to say this, the person that gets the job is the best interviewer not the best person for the role. And sometimes you've seen this, how did this person get this job? I'm more qualified than them. They haven't even been in the industry for this long. They haven't even done what I've done. Well, it's because you're a better interviewer. That's it. So don't feel like it's a you problem. Whereas like, Oh, you're not good enough. It's just you need to improve on your interview skills. And if so work with a professional, I work with my clients when it comes to their interviewing skills to make sure that they're well prepared, they stand out from the competition, and they know how to take control of the interview. So that's a little bit of like, what it needs to look like, as far as metrics, like I said, measure it and assess what is working, what is not working. And if it's not working, how are you going to get the resources? Or how are you going to get those metrics to get you where you want to be. Also know that just overall, it has nothing to do with you. Like I said, do not take things personally, especially for things you can't control. I've had clients tell me, well, Claudia, this manager was just being very condescending during the interview already, they were saying that I should learn how to stay in my place, and that I'm not going to be doing X amount of activity or responsibilities and that they are in charge of that they need to follow the system. And immediately, I can tell this hiring manager is just intimidated by my client. That's all it is. And it will happen, there are times that hiring managers do get intimidated. Now, again, that is not something that should be a reflection of you. Meaning, oh, maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I'm not qualified for this job. Now, this managers just intimidate by me. Therefore, it has nothing to do with me. So I'm not going to take this as a failure. I'm going to take this as a thank God, I figured that out if I started working there. So let me avoid this toxic workplace. It could also be that they just hired someone internally, maybe someone threatened to leave the job place, or they just needed someone to ramp up because they have really messed up internal systems and they knew someone outside was just going to have a lot of trouble ramping up speed. But that in turn employee has already been able to do the work and can jump in immediately. Again, it has nothing to do with you, it just means the company just either has a very internal system that only they know, or they have really messed up messy systems, that it's hard for people to get onboard quickly enough to get the results. It can also be that they lost funding, as we've seen there been hiring freezes, job offers being pulled back, there's doing hiring freezes layoffs, I mean, there's just so many things happening that again, has nothing to do with you. And it's just what's happening in the marketplace. So again, do not take that as a failure. Oh, I was applying for this job interview. And all of a sudden, they said they're doing three, so I didn't get the job. So I'm a little bit pumped. Okay, well, then we continue applying to quality companies to make sure you're landing at a good company. But again, that doesn't mean you're a failure, it just things happen out of our control. Or maybe they just hired one family member, not for you or a family member, whatever that may be. I mean, I've seen it when I worked at my company, oh seven so knows this person, the hiring manager used to work with them. Now they brought them to this company. I mean, they already had a person in mind. They just wanted to go through that interview process to make it look like equal opportunity. But honestly, this person had the job before that Job was even posted. So that's just to give a little bit of overview, focus on what you can control. And remember, job searching is like dating. You don't want to date everyone. And not everyone is qualified to be a good partner for you. That toxic manager they talked about. Don't want to be there. You don't want to train one bad company for another one, or start working at a bad company. If you've never worked in one and it's horrible. Trust me. I've had clients come to me crying. You know, they just want to leave the company with no other opportunities lined up or job offers because they hate their job so much. So make sure that you start assessing, think about it like they we don't want to date everyone we just need one Good partner, let's find them. And it has no reflection of you maybe have different values, maybe you have different cultures, whatever that is, kind of take that into consideration when it comes to job searching as well. Remember, you don't need to meet all qualifications. And actually data has shown that women feel like they need to at least qualify 80% of a job posting in order to apply, whereas men only feel like they need to meet at least 60% of the qualifications. So you have my permission, if you need it, if you don't great, but you do not need to pay 100% of the qualification in a job posting. And if you do, you are doing a huge mistake, because what's going to happen is, if you fit everything in a job posting, you're probably sitting in a string bored of that job. Because you're no longer feeling challenged, you're going to start testing and hating that job. Again, because it's something you've done all over, you already know what to do it in your sleep, you're hating going into work, you already know this job, there's no growth opportunity. And then now you're just tired of it, you want something more fulfilling, you want that invigorating job, so do not apply to a job if you're 100% qualified. Instead, if you're 60% qualified, apply to the job. What's the problem just apply to it. Worst thing they can say is no. And again, that will be maybe it's just your positioning in your resume or your LinkedIn profile, or coming across on your interviewing skills, then those things can be learned. I teach my clients all the time, I've had clients pivot industries from like, supply chain management to gain. That's how crazy some of my clients have been able to make changes. And again, it all worked with positioning and branding. And then we made sure that our resume cover letter and our interview and answers aligned with that. So again, 60%, qualify and 40%, that's what's going to allow you to learn, that's what's going to make you a really great professional overall, that's what's going to help you keep invigorated, that's what the opportunity is going to be. And again, it helps you stay very competitive in the marketplace. And that's what's going to become your competitive advantage. So make sure you don't meet all the qualifications. The next thing is you want to be doing is tracking your achievements. Now, this is a good thing to do, because it actually is going to help you with your resume and your interviews. Once you start tracking your achievements, that process is going to go so much faster. And if you work with a resume writer, they're gonna love you for it, because otherwise they need to extract that information from you. So it's better just to do it upfront. So this is talking about tracking the projects that you worked on, you know, what are some of the metrics? What are timeline, budgets? What were the outcomes, and transmit, everything can be measured, I have yet to come across a job position that we can track their data. And here's a quick example. I had a client who managed a website. So I had them talk about well, how many people are in their website? I think they were for banking. So how many customers do they have? On average? What is the customer segmentation? What is the age of it? How fast do they take it from a 10 step process to a two step process? Maybe with like facial recognition? Were they a part of that? You know, how many industries are they in? Are they global or domestic? How long did it take to make some of these updates? On average? How many customer service requests or tickets do they get? And of those, how many get completed or resolved? And how fast is that timeline? And what is the percentage of a lot of these issues? As you can see, there is measurement in everything. And if you're like caught, I bet you there's no measurements in my industry. Message me, let me know. And I promise you, I can find a measurement for everything. So make sure that you're tracking all this information. Like I said, many of us don't even remember, I don't even remember what I did last month, I would probably have to look my calendar, and reference a few maybe email to see what I did. But a lot of us don't remember. So make sure you're always tracking it. And again, talking about all these specific metrics. So that way you can add that to your resume, LinkedIn, and you could talk about it during your interviewing skills. Very few people talk about metrics, they talk about it, I worked with various projects, and we've been able to stay within budget and on time. But that's about it. Whereas my clients will come in. I've managed domestic and global projects with timelines ranging from three months all the way to three years. And with budgets from $0, all the way to$5,000,000.90 8% of my projects have been completed on time and on budget. See how different it is. And yeah, I've completed my projects on time and on budget, where I'm being more specific, so you're more likely to believe me. And my story is more compelling because the other person didn't say enough. So that's why it's important to track your outcomes and your achievements. I've had clients too that just With the resume process alone, all of a sudden their confidence shoots up from like a one or two to like an eight or nine, they feel unstoppable, didn't realize how great they are, they've never even tracked their achievements, all of a sudden, they have a clarity of that. And now they're excited to say like, I can't believe I've done this, and I can't believe I've never checked this information. I've been doing so much like no one even comes close to how much output I'm producing, or comparison to my friends or other companies like I'm outperforming them. So again, that comes with the resume work and doing the achievements and accolades, tracking that information. And all of a sudden, like, I've had clients who had low self confidence, but because we worked on their confidence, and their achievements, that by the time they were interviewed, they'd been told your skills are unmatched, no one comes close to it, you'll be getting a call from us. And then that way we can move forward. And that's from a person that was probably at the beginning telling me how they feel like they're not good enough. And maybe they're scared to apply to the next step in their career, even though they've been doing it for over 20 years. Also, the next thing you want to do is that achievement, that list of achievements and accolades that you've done, print it out, make it visible, put it somewhere where you see it every single day, or almost every single day, if that's in your bathroom mirror, then paste it right there. So you can see it while you're brushing your teeth, doing your makeup, whatever that is, if you get to work from home like I do, I actually, if you look at me, you can't see it. But I have like two things up here that remind me of my achievements, because I also need help with confidence that we all have our down days. So I do this for myself as well. And I even have my clients print it out and frame it, it put it in their desk, just so they can remember every single day, how great they are, and all the great work they're doing for those days when we need it. And there are days that we do need a little bit of boost of confidence. So make sure that it's visible. You also want to make sure you really pay close attention to your current and past work environment, has your company or an error manager, have you set up for success or failure. And like my previous example, it used to be a team of 10 or 15. And now all of a sudden you find yourself with a team of six or seven. But still, they're asking the company to produce the same amount of output. And then you're feeling burned out. There's not enough resources, there is a backlog of projects and ticket issues that you need resolved. What that point is not your failure, it's the company's failure for not providing you the tools to succeed in your role. So make sure you're assessing and getting a clearer view. Is this a company issue? Or is this truly something that you need to work on? Most of the time, it's a company issue, from my experience, at least with the clients that I worked with. And the last thing, stop assuming stop assuming that you need to get a specific degree. I've had so many clients, you know that they come to me saying, hey, Carter, I got an advanced degree, or Masters or PhD, I thought jobs are just gonna start pouring in, that that's what I needed. Maybe I needed that MBA, that cost me a lot of money and took me a lot of time. And yet I still find myself with very few interviews, and if so very low offers. Why, like, why is that happening to me? Well, because they made an assumption that they needed a degree in order to move forward most of the time, you don't need an advanced degree. And if so, that's something you want to make sure before you invest so much time and resources and money into something like an advanced degree. So stop assuming you need something and it's that let's make sure we get answers to these unknown questions. So tap into your network, or start building a network to really help you answer those questions that you have. Do you really extra great. If I needed certifications? Which ones are the most important? Is there a good provided that you recommend? What do I just need to know the fundamentals? Or do I really need to do like the ins and outs? Like the coding aspect of it? Or do I just need to know what it needs to do? Questions that could be like, you know, what is the hardest skills to hire for? I know, I see a lot of here in the job posting. But out of these three, what would you consider to be the hardest skills to hire for in this role? This is really set this up person for success? Those are the questions you want to be asking. And some of the times we just don't know about it. That's all we need to tap into our network to get answers to these questions. And that's really what's going to make you stand out from the competition. So, again, I just want you to start really thinking about and assessing if you're not feeling confident, where are those items, from what I mentioned, are you lacking? And if so I provided solutions on how you can improve that and start building up that confidence for your job search. And like I said, it's really important to make sure you're confident throughout your job search because it does impact how you come across in your resume on your LinkedIn profile. And it does leak into your interviewing skills. feels that if you're coming across as very confident in your interviews, then one either you're not going to get the job offer. Or two, if you do, you're probably going to get on the lower salary range. Because you're not position yourself as a top contender. Instead, you're like, Well, I think I can do this. And, you know, I sort of did this really great. If there's lack of confidence in there. If, I mean, personally, I would say, Well, why am I going to offer this person that top salary range where I don't even know what they can and can't do during the interview process, but they're still the best person, I guess, in comparison to everyone. Let me offer them the Lower Mid range of that salary. Whereas my clients, they come in as top interviewers, they are beat the competition. And that's why they always get the top of that salary. Even above it, it's actually very common for my clients to be told, Well, this job only pays 150 comes to the job offer, now they're getting offered 161 65, with additional benefits, and bonuses on top of that, again, it's because we made sure to take control of the confidence, I don't want a lack of confidence leaking into your interviewing skills, which will impact how you're perceived by your hiring manager, before you even start your first day of work. It will impact the offer or the salary that they offer you or even the level, sometimes you can negotiate your job title, I just had a client do that. Again, she was able to do that, because she came across as confident and she was prepared for that interview. So make sure you take care of that confidence because it will impact your overall job search. And if you're like Claudia, this sounds great. But I don't know this for myself, I don't know how to get started. While I offer a 60 minute complimentary free career strategy call, there's no risk, there's no obligation, or we just get on a call. And I talk to you and get to know you a little bit more of know what is happening, how your job search has been going, and what are you looking for. And if I can help you, and if I can help you, I'll even share with you like, here's a strategy that you need to do. And you actually should be asking for this amount of salary because you're being grossly underpaid. And here's how I would move forward in order to get you to the fulfilling job you're seeking along with the salary without making sure we don't leave money on the table. So you have access to this complimentary career strategy call. So that way we could talk one on one and I can get to know you. And I can help you with the confidence. Again, I can't wait to get to know you. So this call is perfect opportunity for us to talk a little bit more about what you're looking for in your next job and the salary that you're looking for as well. So I invite you to this call. It's for my 90 day job offer program. And like I said, this is just one of the many strategies that I work with clients mindset is very important when it comes to job searching. So I address mindset, I just psychology and I also have strategies that help us position you as a top set after candidate, find your competitive advantage. We're going to market that and rebrand you for the job you want, not for the job you currently have. So I invite you again to that call. And I look forward to getting your questions and if you have any other questions that you have when it comes to job searching, please put them up in the comments and that way I'll create my next video based on what you need when it comes to job searching. All right till next week, bye. 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 inside 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 in there 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