Episode 108
How to build and maintain confidence during your job search
11 min listen
Episode 1
11 min listen
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Episode Summary
Tired of feeling stuck and lacking confidence in your job search? Look no further. In this episode, we tackle the age-old question of how to build and maintain confidence for the job search. Whether you’re a career switcher, climber, or launcher, we’ve got you covered. Tune in as we dive into three actionable tips that will transform your job search experience and help improve your self esteem while you’re job searching.
First, we debunk the notion of playing the numbers game and guide you towards a more targeted approach. Find out why getting crystal clear on your goals is the key to success. Second, we explore the importance of improving your career materials, such as your resume, portfolio, and LinkedIn profile. Discover how strategizing and reflecting on your past achievements can boost your confidence. And finally, we emphasize the power of getting support.
Don’t go through your job search journey alone – surround yourself with like-minded individuals who can provide accountability and valuable insights. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out, these tips will empower you to overcome self-doubt and build the confidence you need for a successful job search. Don’t miss out on this episode’s expert guidance that will turn your job search game around.
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Discussion Questions About The Episode
- How have you experienced self-doubt in your job search or career? How did it impact your confidence levels?
- In this episode we discuss switchers, climbers, and launchers. Which category do you identify with, and what unique challenges do you face in your career journey?
- The first tip discussed in the episode is to stop playing the numbers game in your job search. What are your thoughts on this approach? How can getting clear about your career goals help build confidence in your job search?
- The second tip shared was to improve your career materials, such as your resume, portfolio, LinkedIn, and cover letter. How do you currently feel about your career materials? In what ways can you strategically update and reflect on your experience to build confidence?
- The third tip emphasized the importance of getting support and not going through the job search process alone. How have you sought support in your career journey so far? What benefits do you think come from being part of a community or having a trusted person to provide feedback and guidance?
Episode Transcript
Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: How can I be more confident in my job search? I am asked this question multiple times a week from people at all stages of their careers, and that’s what we’re going to discuss today. So if you’ve ever felt like you lacked confidence in your job search, stick with me. But in case we haven’t met yet, my name is Sarah Doody. I’m the founder and CEO of Career Strategy Lab, which is a career incubator for UX and product people who are determined to grow their careers in the field of UX and product development and everything in between, whether you’re a product manager, product designer, content strategist, researcher, writer, you name it. Today, I wanna give you 3 actionable tips to help you feel more confident in your job search, whether you are searching for a job right now or you can tuck these away for the future. Now I’m gonna take a bit of a wild guess that at some point in your career, you have not felt as confident as you wish. And, surprise, welcome to being a human. We all struggle with this.
Sarah Doody [00:01:14]: Whether it’s confidence in your actual career materials, like, your resume, portfolio, LinkedIn, or your interview skills, or even confidence in what your next career move should be. Doubt can come out of nowhere and often leaves you feeling stuck like you’re in quicksand. Right? It just feels like you cannot get out. And if you’ve ever struggled with confidence in your career, maybe you felt like you were the only person who deals with this, and I want you to know that it’s not you. I’ve worked with people at all stages of their careers whether they have 20 years of experience or 2 years of experience, and confidence is a theme that comes up over and over and over. Now the key though to dealing with doubt and building confidence is to get clear about what you can control in your job search in your career and what you cannot control, and I’ll go deeper into that in just a moment. But before we get to those 3 tips I wanna give you to help you deal with confidence, I wanna share a little bit more about the types of people that I work with so you can determine which one feels like it relates to where you are right now in your career. And having this context is really important for when we get to these 3 tips.
Sarah Doody [00:02:38]: So the 3 types of people that tend to work with me in career strategy lab or CSL as I like to call it, are switchers, climbers, and launchers. So first up are those switchers, people switching careers. They are teachers, health care professionals, architects, people coming from academia, etcetera. The next type of person we support in CSL are career climbers. They’ve been working in UX for a while, 5, 10, 15, some people 20 years, and they’re ready to move up the career ladder. And the 3rd type of person we support in CSL are called launchers. Launchers are brand new to the world of UX and are typically coming straight out of an education program like a college, university, or boot camp. And now that you confidently know who you are, switcher, climber launcher.
Sarah Doody [00:03:34]: Let’s dive in to these 3 tips that I have for you today, but what you can do to feel more confident in interviews and throughout your entire job search as a whole. So I want you to grab a piece of paper, pause this if you need to so you can write these down and think about them in the coming days weeks. Okay. The first tip to stop getting caught in self doubt and build more confidence in the job search is to stop playing the numbers game. I know you see this out there in a lot of advice, and here’s why you should stop playing the numbers game. Think about your job search like dating. If you were a confident, badass human looking for love, would you go on a date with everyone or would you get really clear about the vision for the person that you want to find? Right? It’s the same with your job search. Stop sending your resume all over the Internet, clicking apply to every job that has the word UX or design in it, and instead take the time to get really crystal clear on who you are and what you want in your future.
Sarah Doody [00:04:48]: And then focus on applying to only those jobs. And the ones that don’t match, don’t apply to those jobs. And just like the world of dating, to meet your match, you might have to work on yourself a little bit too. Keep this in mind as you do a really honest inventory of who you are and the job that you want. And maybe if you notice that you have a specific job in mind, you might realize maybe you don’t have all the qualifications or skills and you need to do some work on you, and that’s okay. It’s just really important to observe these details. The 2nd tip to help reduce that self doubt and build more confidence is to improve your career materials, what I refer to as your resume, your portfolio, your LinkedIn, your cover letter, even cold emails you send. So improving your career materials does not mean throwing your resume in a template that you got from Etsy or Canva or elsewhere.
Sarah Doody [00:05:54]: It means going through the process of really intentionally assessing what you have and strategically updating all of these materials to reflect the most powerful version of your career story and experience. A template is only as good as the content you put Intuit. I want you to remember that. And the effort it takes to reflect on your career and pull out all those meaningful stories is also the process that builds confidence. Right? They go hand in hand. The more that you recognize your skills, your experience, the impact, etcetera. It’s like little Lego blocks that are building more and more confidence. And the act of going back and processing all of this, which you’ve accomplished, etcetera, it reminds you of a lot of things that maybe you forgot about.
Sarah Doody [00:06:46]: And it reminds you what you’re capable of because you can look back in time and remember that project you worked on or when your boss said you did an awesome job or when that thing you created helped save the company tons of time or money, whatever it is. All of those things help build confidence. When you can clearly see your career time line, you will have more confidence. And then when you couple that with the how of putting your accomplishments together strategically and using powerful content and design, that’s how you stand out, and that’s exactly what we teach in successful. It is the combination of the content that you put in it and the design of your resume or your portfolio, etcetera. The 3rd and final tip here to minimize that self doubt and increase your confidence is to get support. Stop doing it alone. So many people wanna do this alone.
Sarah Doody [00:07:49]: So many people think they need to keep all of this in a vacuum. Right? And I get it. You’re the only person who goes on the interview and the only person getting hired. So it kinda seems like something that it’s hard to get feedback from other people. Right? But it doesn’t have to be. Being in a group, a community of people who are on a similar path is so valuable because it’s going to create accountability, momentum, and knowledge sharing. Right? If some person goes to an interview at a company that you wanna work at, you might be able to learn from their experience. It’s so valuable.
Sarah Doody [00:08:30]: Now, obviously, this is one of the perks of being an inside a community like the community we have of people in career strategy lab, but this can also be support with a trusted friend or colleague or someone who is on a similar career path as well. So make sure that you have someone in your corner, someone who gets what you’re doing, maybe someone who’s a few steps ahead of you that you can do this with because doing it alone, it is the exact recipe of how to get stuck in the negative thinking, in the comparison, etcetera, and we don’t want that for you anymore. Okay. So those are the 3 tips for overcoming that self doubt and building more confidence. So here are the 3 tips in a tweet. Number 1, change your strategy so you have clear standards. Instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall, you’re not going to play the numbers game in your job search anymore. Number 2 is go through the process of improving your career materials so you can authentically share really powerful stories about your work experience.
Sarah Doody [00:09:41]: This isn’t just about slapping things into a template. It’s about the content. Number 3, do not go at this alone. Get support and surround yourself with people who provide you with inspiration and insight as you go. And be mindful of who you choose for this because it’s going to be valuable to have someone who maybe works in your area, industry, niche, etcetera, and be mindful of that one too. Okay. That’s all I have for you today. Hopefully, these tips have given you some really actionable things you can do to decrease that self doubt, increase your confidence.
Sarah Doody [00:10:24]: I am Sarah Doody, and as I said, founder and CEO of Career Strategy Lab. If you found this helpful, I would love it if you would share this with a friend, give it a thumbs up, send it to them privately, email it, write a comment, whatever you wanna do to show your support, it would mean a lot. And if you are interested in Career Strategy Lab, you can go to careerstrategylab.com to find out more. And if you wanna follow me on social media, at the bottom of the career strategy lab web page in the footer, we have links to my Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram, and that’s all. I will talk to you later. Have a great rest of your day.