I’m calling it out: you’re being too humble and it’s hurting your job search.
In this video, I’m going to help you learn to become more confident in your job search.
Why does confidence in your job search matter?
Because confidence is convincing.
And a job search is actually marketing a product: YOU!
Would you buy a product where the benefits aren’t clear to you?
NO!
So when you aren’t convinced and convicted in the value, benefits, and solutions that you bring to the table, how are you going to convince anyone else?
You have to buy what you’re selling before someone else will.
Here’s the bottom line: YOU are your own job search advocate.
No one else can be a better advocate for yourself than you.
So when I see job seekers getting overly modest or humble in their resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and interviews, it hurts my head and my heart.
When it comes to job searching and writing our resumes, many of us worry that we’re bragging.
But facts about your accomplishments are not bragging – more on that later.
I see women hedging their bets the most.
LinkedIn came out with some data in 2019 that shared women are 16% less likely than men to apply to a job after viewing it.
Now, most job postings suck, as I discussed with Katrina Kibben during #OfficeHours live.
But I don’t think the 16% is because of crappy job postings. It’s because of lack of confidence.
This same study revealed that recruiters are 13% less likely to click on a woman’s LinkedIn profile.
So we’re fighting bias while fighting internal conflict that we don’t have what it takes.
*sigh*
LinkedIn came out with data this week that also showed that 80% of unemployed women are willing to adjust their strategies to land employment, as well as consider expanding their job search net by looking at other industries and professions.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, but what worries me is that women are thinking they need to change something like their career focus in order to land a job, when what they’ve been doing all along is under-selling themselves for the job they actually want.
So that’s where today’s video comes in.
I’m not here to tell you you lack self-awareness or that you need to meditate or anything like that.
I’m here to share with you some strategies to get back to the facts about yourself that will renew faith in yourself.
Confidence Booster #1: Track Your Work Wins
Have you seen that Twitter account that just reminds people to drink water? It has nearly 500K subscribers.
I’m going to start one for reminding you to track your accomplishments because MOST OF YOU AREN’T DOING IT!
How easy it is to forget how we achieved great things at work. Women especially carry the weight of family obligations, and so of course you’d forget!
Unless you write things down.
Starting today, if you haven’t started this already, I want you to build a habit of writing down work wins on a regular basis until you retire. This is your work wins file.
Do it daily, weekly, monthly, I don’t care.
Use a Google Doc, iCloud note, physical pen and paper. I don’t care.
But just DO IT and do it regularly!
What are we writing down?
That project you rocked.
That employee you mentored.
That loss you prevented.
That idea you had.
Anything and everything that you do that has a positive outcome.
Why Though?
You may be thinking “oh gee Kamara, thanks for giving me another task.”
You can thank me later. For real though.
By tracking work wins, you can revisit this list to see a factual representation of the great work you did.
Then you can use these facts to write your resume.
Because many of you are worried about bragging, facts aren’t bragging.
Another thing about doing your work justice on your resume: you’re actually helping recruiters and hiring managers do their job.
If you are the empathetic type, and I know you are, try this on for size:
Do you know how many crappy resumes recruiters have to filter through?
How about you make their day and make their job easier by showing them how qualified you are, using the facts from your work wins file.
They can thank you later for the favour too.
Confidence Booster #2: Take Credit For Your Part
You know why movie credits are so long? Because they’re recognizing each of the individual contributors to the film.
Can you imagine if they just gave credit to “the team?” What is even the point of credits at that point?
I hear far too often from job seekers, especially women, that “I can’t take credit for that. That was a team effort.”
But you’re job searching for YOU not them so what even is your point?
You CAN take credit and should. Remember the favour we’re giving recruiters earlier?
Why Though?
So there’s a difference between not taking credit and not taking ALL the credit.
There are many ways that you can highlight your individual involvement in an accomplishment, even if it was something that was done by a collective. Here are a few examples:
Key Contributor
Key contributor to digital transformation project that resulted in a 35% increase in efficiency.
instrumental
Instrumental in launching new SaaS product to market, achieving $2M in first year revenue.
And the BEST version if it applies to you:
You Led the Damn Thing
Led a $3M marketing campaign that achieved 9M social media impressions in 48 hours
So this way, there’s none of you taking all the credit. The ways these are worded is that you were part of a group that made it happen. With these wordings you aren’t revoking your rights to the accomplishment, and you’re not overselling either.
Confidence Booster #3: Let Others Tell You How Great You Are
Still not convinced that you’re awesome?
Let others tell you so.
I bet you’re told quite frequently how much of a difference you make. Whether by colleagues, clients, and bosses if you’re lucky.
Every time someone sends you an email letting you know they appreciate you, I want you to file those emails in a Positive Feedback Folder that you can revisit when you need a boost.
I also want you to ask for LinkedIn recommendations regularly.
These can be from anyone who you’ve worked with professionally, and enjoyed working with professionally. It doesn’t begin and end with bosses. You can ask clients, peers, and direct reports for recommendations too. They can all speak to a different area of strength of you.
Watch my video on LinkedIn recommendations for more information.
Why Though?
When the confidence isn’t in us, we need to look outside of ourselves for that confidence boost.
With keeping a positive feedback folder and receiving recommendations, it’s like a mirror being held up to you showing you, yeah, you rock.
Also, positive feedback file might have some notes for you to enter in your work wins fil.
And LinkedIn recommendations, well, those are gold.
What’s kind of ironic is that during my live broadcast a few days before making this video, I said that I wasn’t the right person to speak about job search confidence.
So there I was, lacking the confidence to talk about confidence!
I totally get it.
So I decided to take a chance and make this video because after all, I know what it takes to be successful in job searching.
I also get a lot of encouragement and inspiration from your comments on my videos. So thank you!
How confident are you in your job search? Will you apply one or all of my suggestions? Tell me below and also update me when you do.
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