Demystifying Career Feedback: Inside the Career Strategy Lab Critique Process With 3 of Our Coaches

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the career strategy podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients. You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it.

Erin Lindstrom [00:00:38]: Hey. So this episode of the career strategy podcast is a little different. Today, we have on the show 2 special guests. Oh, and me. So I guess that’s 3 special guests, and we’re all coaches inside of the career strategy lab. And what we’re gonna do on this episode is actually talk about feedback. Most people who come and wanna learn from Sarah are looking for feedback on their career materials to figure out how they can get their new job in product or UX specifically. And so on this episode, we’re gonna talk about what makes sense in terms of how to ask, what you should be thinking through when you’re receiving feedback, and how it actually works inside of CSL because there are a bunch of different ways that you can receive feedback and learn from other people’s work and feedback as well.

Erin Lindstrom [00:01:19]: So let’s dive in. I’m Erin Lindstrom, and I’m here with Becca Santilli and Steph Knox, and we are coaches inside of career strategy lab. And today, we wanna talk about the critique process. So if you are someone who has considered joining CSL or maybe you haven’t, but you’re like, I want feedback on my work. Critiques are something that we offer inside of the program. And many times people come in and they’re not sure what to expect. Are we just gonna look at it and give you a thumbs up? Are we actually gonna tell you how to change your bullet points and what it needs to say? Like, what what is this? And so in today’s episode, we want to kind of demystify what the critique process is, why we think it’s so great, but more importantly, why our clients find it so valuable, and share a couple things that you might not be thinking about in terms of getting feedback on your career materials. So with that stuff, Becca, would you like to introduce yourselves quick and tell us a little bit about I wanna know, like, how many critiques we’ve done at this point.

Erin Lindstrom [00:02:17]: I tried to calculate beforehand, but I didn’t. But I would say between the 3 of us, 1,000 at this point. Yeah.

Steph [00:02:24]: Absolutely. I know. So I’m Steph, and I’m a coach here inside of CSL. I’ve been working with CSL clients since the fall of 2021. And I know for me personally, my critique count is over 2,000 career assets with a 1,000 being in the last year and a half only. So really, like, ramping up that process, and that includes anything from portfolio slide deck, resumes, Compass statements, LinkedIn profiles.

Erin Lindstrom [00:02:52]: That’s incredible. Becca, do you wanna say hi and

Becca [00:02:57]: Sure. Yeah. And sprinkle cover letters in there as well. Right?

Erin Lindstrom [00:03:00]: Yeah. Absolutely.

Becca [00:03:01]: Yeah. So I’m Becca. I’m also one of the coaches on the team. I’ve been with CSL for almost 2 years now, and I believe we’re gonna hit 2 years in September. So based on Steph’s math, I think, I’m, you know, close, but maybe almost a year under that. So 1,000? Sure. Yeah. And, again, the range is anything from resume to LinkedIn, Compass statements, cover letters.

Erin Lindstrom [00:03:29]: Yeah. Portfolio, slides, all of the things. And we also in addition to those critiques, we also do demo days where our clients have the opportunity to present their, like, a project in their portfolio to their fellow classmates as well as us, Sarah, and sometimes we have guest experts in there as well to get, like, in time feedback. Because sometimes you can have a great presentation, but presenting it is another whole another world. Right? Making sure we’re, like, speaking clearly and not going too fast and really articulating and hitting the points that a potential person hiring you, like, needs to hear to really understand your full your full story. So it’s it’s really fun in here. Lots of opportunities for feedback. Steph, can you share the process for people? And then I’d love for you to share your personal process too.

Erin Lindstrom [00:04:16]: Like, how do you prepare to do these? I think a lot of people think we’re, like, potentially winging it and, like, that’s not the case. So we’d love to hear a little bit about about how you go about doing thousands of critiques per year.

Steph [00:04:27]: For sure. So for the clients inside CSL, the process is you have access once you join to hundreds of hours of curriculum documents that are gonna help you to get your career materials up to what we would call MVP or minimum viable product, and you move through different sprints throughout your time in CSL. Once you’ve gone through the curriculum for a certain career asset, first would be your compass statement. You’re able to submit that every week up to 2 items for feedback from our team, and that could be myself, Becca, Erin, or Sarah who’s giving you that feedback in a prerecorded format. Or every Tuesday, we do offer a live critique session where we’ll pick 2 items from that week and critique those live. And there’s a certain amount of critiques that come with your time in CSL. The goal is that we would be able to see and touch and have an impact on every single career material so that you’re leaving CSL feeling prepared for whatever’s next for you. That’s applying for a new job, if it’s applying for promotion, or if it’s just having those materials ready to go for when the opportunity comes.

Steph [00:05:28]: From my personal critiquing process, I spend a lot of prep time, not only reviewing what you’ve submitted to us for review, but looking at your client profile and seeing what your goals were and and initial intentions when you joined CSO, where you’re at now, looking at how you’ve engaged with us in the community, knowing what you’ve talked about on live calls that I’ve been on, and also looking at previous critiques that have been done, the progress that you’ve made. Maybe this is the Sarah time you’re submitting your resume and you’re just really hoping to get, like, that final approval, looking at how far you’ve come so that not only, you know, I can give you that green light to say you’ve got an MVP resume, go start applying for jobs, but I can also applaud you for the work that you’ve put in and how how much you’ve improved to that resume during your time in CSL.

Erin Lindstrom [00:06:12]: Beautiful. Becca, would you say your process is similar? Is there anything else that you’re kind of, like, pulling in before you even get started on the actual critique?

Becca [00:06:20]: Yeah. I think very similar in that it’s important to us on the coaching side to get to know your goals and intentions right from the start so that we could really then use that to assess the direction of your career materials from there. You know, we can audit according to what it is that you’re looking to prioritize, and that’s, I think, also why the compass statement is such an important piece of this puzzle to start with. The compass statement is something inside of CSL that is our very first sprint, and it basically becomes your North Star for your entire career journey. And it gets you super clear on who you are, what you do, what from your past is best to leverage so that you could then connect the dots from that past experience to the role that you now desire. And the process of creating that compass statement for a lot of our clients It’s very motivational. It builds confidence. It’s a way to really check-in with yourself and and reflect, you know, personally on how far you’ve come and what value you’re bringing to the table, which can be really beneficial, especially for people who are joining us and they might have been in the job search for a really long time.

Becca [00:07:31]: That could be very, you know, frustrating, and it it really can trigger a lot of self doubt. So I think it’s important to just have this first step, and it and it’s it’s a great confidence booster.

Erin Lindstrom [00:07:45]: Yeah. I think thank you for sharing that. Part of what, like, really stands out to me is the level of context building that happens, and it’s happening on both sides. So on the upfront side, really understanding, like, who you are matters to us. A lot of times our clients, they’ll be on ADP list or have, you know, random connections. They’re reaching out. They’re building networks and relationships. And so they will ask other people for feedback.

Erin Lindstrom [00:08:08]: And they’ll come to the come to our come to our either calls or inside our community and post and say, hey. I got this feedback. It’s different than what I heard. And this is so important because sometimes we get feedback from people who don’t actually understand who you are and what you’re trying to achieve. Right? Like, sometimes we just ask because they have a certain title or we think they’re cool in some way, shape, or form. So having that context about who you are is so important. And then on the other side of that, there’s also people who might be in your industry, but haven’t necessarily hired people or seen inside the hiring process for people who are going for a similar job to you or even in a company similar to where you’re trying to be hired and that sort of thing. And so by having that context on both sides where we’ve supported hundreds of people get hired through this process, and coupling that with, like, who are you and what are you working on, that gives us a really unique, lens to give you feedback.

Erin Lindstrom [00:09:10]: And then the actual feedback, you’re supported both by the curriculum. So you’re learning how to do this forever, not just for this resume that you’re putting together today, but you’re actually building the skill set. And so I love the critique process because not only are you getting, like, the feedback and tweaks that are specific to you, but you’re also really building the skill overall so that any bullet point you do from any time, like, from here on out, if we’re looking at your resume, not only are you improving your resume, but when you start to think action benefit and start to see it coupled and really have those examples, your bullets on anything going forward, like, are going to be better. Right? And that kind of carries through on any presentation, or any conversation that you’re having if we’re thinking about the interview process itself. So it’s really interesting. In terms of critiques and, like, how they kind of match up with live calls, how do you think that, like, affects people? Because we’re working on multiple things, and we have different ways of getting support. Some people might do calls and critiques. How do you each kind of think the experience of CSL works together, or does it not open to opinions and you say, let’s see what you User.

Steph [00:10:23]: I think that the way that we provide an opportunity for clients to show up on live calls, whether that is a portfolio demo day where they’re saying, hey. I would like to present this. I want feedback from the community, not only on my slide deck itself, but my presentation, my cadence, my speech, the words attached to what I’m sharing. But then for also the live q and a calls on Tuesday where people do consent to be critiqued live, but we’re kind of picking those at random. I think the number one thing that that provides people outside of that prerecorded critique setting is to really, like, bust down that imposter syndrome door because they’re putting that asset out there as anxiety inducing as that may be. It is always so it’s so great to see people’s responses of, wow. This was so wonderful. I love this feedback.

Steph [00:11:09]: My resume was so much better than I even realized because they’re getting so much encouragement and support from us inside the community, even their peers inside the community, Sarah providing the critique feedback. So I think it just helps to kind of level up that confidence when you’re able to participate in those live critique calls or a portfolio demo day where people share out live.

Becca [00:11:29]: Yeah. I love that. That’s great. And I think also to add on to that, if you’re just present, just the act of you showing UX, even if you’re not the presenter or you’re not the person who’s getting their submission critiqued, just being on the other end of that call, being present, it you’ll learn so much. You’ll get a lot of benefit because you might hear some things that other people are talking through or they’re asking, and you won’t realize until that actually happens that it applies to you as well, and maybe it answers a question that you didn’t yet think of. So you’re taking in this information, and you’re able to apply that to your materials and your assets, and it still becomes, you know, applicable and valuable for you.

Erin Lindstrom [00:12:13]: Absolutely. As people who are giving feedback, what would you say to anyone who is asking for feedback, whether that’s through the critique process or outside of CSL, just in general, trying to get feedback on your career materials? What tips would you give people to actually get the feedback that they’re looking for? Or if it’s not what to ask, like, what would you tell them to stop doing? What do you want people to know about feedback in general?

Steph [00:12:40]: I think the 2 takeaways I have for feedback in general is, 1, something to remember. There’s actually kind of 2 parts to it. 1 is you can ask a 100 people for their opinion, and you’re going to get a 100 different opinions. So I am of the opinion less is more and being very intentional about who you choose to ask for feedback from. So whether that’s inside the CSL space, submitting that for critique to the coaches, if you have a colleague that you really admire their career materials and their career journey, or you have a mentor, that’s great. And I would be very intentional about who I was asking for feedback from because you can get that feedback overwhelmed. And when you get a 100 different answers from a 100 different people, you’ll be in this perpetual loop of updating your career materials forever, not really ever making progress towards that MVP or minimum viable product. And then my second part to that would be be really specific with your ask.

Steph [00:13:28]: So what exactly do you want feedback on? What are you looking for feedback on? We’ll have some submissions before, like, just general feedback, and we’ll try to provide within that confines general feedback, and then someone could say, I really actually wanted feedback on this. We want everyone to be so, so specific with your ask, whether that’s inside of CSL or you’re venturing outside of CSL for feedback. So, you know, look at this slide. Slide 6 feels strange to me on my portfolio. I feel like it might be too crowded. Does it make sense? Is it clear? And to if you give those specific asks, people are able to meet you right exactly where you are and give you very specific, actionable feedback.

Becca [00:14:04]: Yeah. I think you hit it on the head with both of those. That is my number one is the second point that you made about being super specific with your questions and, you know, just asking questions in general too because I think there’s definitely a lot of people who are under the impression that just submitting just to submit, right, just to get any feedback could be beneficial, and it’s it’s not necessarily true. So if you can be as specific as possible, I think that’s that’s beneficial for you. It’s beneficial for the person on the other end of it. It’s it’s definitely important. And I also think this is along the lines of this, but not exactly another, specific point here is that we talk to a lot of people who have had their work critiqued before. And so there’s, like, this limiting kind of belief that it hasn’t worked in the past, and so it won’t work again.

Becca [00:15:00]: And I just wanna encourage people to kind of, like, expand that belief system. You know? Like like, Erin, as you said, it’s it considering the source of, you know, where you’re going to for this information. And so just because it didn’t work in the past, it does not mean that it’s not going to work in the future.

Erin Lindstrom [00:15:19]: Yeah. Absolutely. It depends who you’re asking and what are you actually asking them and how willing are you to actually take the feedback. Sometimes it feels or you think you want feedback, but when you actually get it, there could be resistance there. And so I think bringing an element of, like, mindfulness to this whole process too of, like, what do you really want? What notice where you wanna push back on things. And then there’s really a discernment process on the other side of this, Coming back to, like, where are you getting this feedback from? Who is it coming from? What context do they have about you and what you want and what have they done before? Who have they supported in this way, to to decide, yes. You know what? I am gonna take this feedback even though, like, I don’t know about this. Right? Or getting some feedback and deciding, like, actually, I’m not because I’ve thought through this and, like, this person actually doesn’t have this thing, So I’m gonna go in this direction.

Erin Lindstrom [00:16:08]: And, like, I know myself best and I know my career. There’s always this, like, interesting power dynamic there. And our goal is always to help you, like, increase your personal power through this process. It’s not about telling you what’s bad or wrong or, like, what’s happening. We’re just here neutrally to meet you where you are and to tell you what based on our expertise and what we’ve seen work is going to work for you. And so I think that’s a beautiful place to be, an amazing opportunity to have. So I hope everyone finds the feedback they’re looking for. You get to ask for it, get it, and then discern what to do next.

Erin Lindstrom [00:16:44]: Shall we wrap here? Anything else you wanna add? Okay. So

Becca [00:16:49]: That’s it. Great. Final note.

Erin Lindstrom [00:16:50]: So that wraps up our episode today about critiques and about the feedback process as a whole. If you have any questions about this or if you want to learn more about how this works inside of CSO, feel free to email admissions at Sarah. And Becca, who you just heard from, is in that inbox, and she can answer any your questions. You can get as granular as you want, like, in terms of sharing details about your work life and what you want with UX. That actually helps us pull the right testimonials and case studies for you and, like, give you data that’s relevant. So feel free to share so we can help you discern whether or not for Strategy Lab is right for you.

Sarah Doody [00:17:25]: Thanks for listening to the career strategy podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Dutti, on Twitter, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or a review on Apple Podcasts. Catch you later.