top of page
  • Kim Meninger

Set Yourself Up for Success in Interviews

Updated: May 12, 2023

Set Yourself Up for Success in Interviews


In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about the interview process. Making a career change can feel daunting. It’s a time of great vulnerability, which tends to activate our impostor syndrome and leave us second-guessing ourselves. My guest this week is Gina Riley, career coach, executive search consultant and interviewing expert. She and I explore many of the challenges we face before, during and after the interview process and how to more confidently and effectively navigate the experience.

About My Guest

An authority in career transition, Gina Riley is an HR professional, career transition coach, executive search consultant, and interview skills trainer who applies her expertise working with leaders and executives with her Career Velocity™ System. She holds a master’s degree in Whole Systems Design and is a certified YouMap® coach. Riley has authored many articles to include a series called “How Your Next Executive Role Finds You,” and provides access a free Masterclass and printable workbook that outlines how to start a career transition plan. You can find this and more at GinaRileyConsulting.com.

~

Connect with Gina Riley

To access the free recorded webinar and workbook to aid in the career transition planning process, visit: https://ginarileyconsulting.com/masterclass-series-by-gina-riley/

~

Connect with Kim and The Impostor Syndrome Files:

Learn more about the Leading Humans discussion group

Join the Slack channel to learn from, connect with and support other professionals.

Schedule time to speak with Kim Meninger directly about your questions/challenges.

 

Brave Women at Work podcast by Jen Pestikas

Google Podcast: https://lnkd.in/eyDs-4N

Brave Women at Work: https://lnkd.in/exzT3Am

10 Steps to Being Brave at Work: https://lnkd.in/eABSwGA

Join the free, private Brave Women at Work Facebook Community: https://lnkd.in/esnSb-s

 

Add this podcast to your favorite player:


Apple Podcast
Listen on Spotify
iHeartRadio
Listen on Stitcher

 

Transcript:

Kim Meninger Welcome, Gina, it is such a pleasure to meet you. And I’m excited to have this conversation with you here. Before we jump in, I’d love to invite you to introduce yourself.

Gina Riley Ah, yes, I’m Gina Riley. I am the founder of Gina Riley consulting. I primarily coached leaders and executives who are in career transition. And I work with people for a long time, generally six months or more. And I really get to know and understand, you know, some of those challenges and the, and the self-doubt that creeps in, you know, at pretty much any level. But particularly for those that I talk to regularly that doubt that creeps in and really prohibits us from getting that career movement that we deserve.

Kim Meninger And I think it might be surprising to some to find out that people at that level actually experience self-doubt because a lot of times we look around and we think everybody else is so much more confident they have it all figured out. Right? But it’s, it’s, it’s often surprising to learn that very senior level, people still and maybe even sometimes more so struggle with self-doubt.

Gina Riley I think a lot of leaders feel like they need to have a certain set of armor that they’re wearing, and hold themselves in a certain way. It takes a very special leader who earns a place where they’re very respected, and at the same time can show vulnerability. I’ve seen that as well, and leaders. It takes practice to get there. And it takes, you know, a lot of executive presence to really lock people in with you and have them trust you so they can be with you on a journey of being your authentic self.

Kim Meninger Absolutely. And I want to go even more into what we’re talking about here. But before we do I want to learn a little bit more about you. How did you get into this work? What were you doing before?

Gina Riley Yeah, so my career has been in HR human resources. I started off really doing staffing, and recruiting I worked for Intel for a decade, after getting a master’s degree, I became an HR business partner and was like the partner to one of our VPS, one of the groups and then moved into training and development, which was my passion, creating training programs and training people, I took 15 years off and was a stay at home mom for two boys who are now launched. And in college, a few years back, I got my toe back in the water by working for one of my friends who actually we met at Intel, she has an executive search firm. So I’ve done some executive search for her. I primarily do interview skills training in corporate for her company that’s talents, group executive search. And then after getting exposure to so many people who go through the interview process and really don’t do a good job, it gave me a lot of information to then springboard and create my own company to help people make career transitions better. Because really, it’s not about a resume, a lot of people think, Oh, this career transition, I just got laid off, whatever, I gotta go brush up my resume. And I don’t believe in that at all. And so I created a nine-step model, that’s a process that people can go through so that they gain the confidence along the way, and then they have the storytelling to stand on.

Kim Meninger Hmm. And I think that’s so important you and I agree on that when it comes to resume writing, I think that part of the challenge is we want something that’s immediately actionable. And the resume also feels like a security blanket. In many ways, we’re afraid someone’s going to ask us for it, and we’re not going to have it ready. But a lot of times, we definitely overemphasize the importance of it, and we don’t, we don’t put it in its proper place in the process. And especially if you’re not sure what you want to do, right, let’s say you’ve been coming out of a role that has been missed, I kind of want to do something different. The resume that you would write for, that is not going to get you to the new place that you want to go right so it there’s, there’s strategy there that I think unfortunately, in our quest for speed and immediate gratification, we might miss.

Gina Riley That’s absolutely true. And really that if even all of the resume writers that I’m affiliated with, and you know, talk with a lot on LinkedIn, and behind the scenes, all of them will say you have to know what your target is. And if you don’t know what your target is, you need to do some research to kind of hone and fine-tune that. Otherwise, you’re going to be doing a document that’s a repository of your experiences versus articulating your unique value proposition for, you know, those decision-makers that may hire you. And if you’re not clear, and then it’s not clear on the document. You’re not going to get picked up through an ATS.

Kim Meninger That’s right, exactly. And so what’s imagine and I know everybody’s special, but let’s imagine the average person comes to you and says, I need help. What are they asking for help with what is it that they generally struggle with?

Gina Riley Oftentimes at the beginning thing when I first launched my coaching program, it was I need, I need a resume, do you do that? And but today because I’ve got information that I give people in advance before I chat with them, when I do meet with people, they understand that there’s much there’s more of a process to it. And so to answer your question, they usually say something like, I’m having a really hard time telling my story. I’m a real, I’m having a difficult time explaining my unique value proposition. I’ve been interviewed multiple times, and I ended up being number two, that those are the kinds of those are the problems that I love solving.

Kim Meninger And I hear that quite a bit too. And I think this is an interesting place to dig into because I’m sure there are aspects of what you do that are more mechanical in the sense of how do I tell the story most effectively, but also a big mindset piece to this as well. And you and I chatted offline a bit about the reluctance to use the term I, you know, an over-dependence on the term on the word, we may be feeling like I’m overselling myself worried that not as good as other people might think I am. So can we spend a little bit of time talking about that piece?

Gina Riley Absolutely. I’ve been fortunate to work with an awful lot of humble leaders who you know, and maybe that is, one of the parts of their profile that come to me is they’re humble, and they’re having a hard time getting that story out there. So it’s both men and women, I particularly find this with women, where they, they often will refer to their successes within the weak context. And so I spend time with them finding a balance between, you know, explaining, here’s what I did, as a leader, I set the strategy, I built my team, you know, you know, I, you know, had the cross-functional partners pulled together to make these certain things happen. And then my team and I executed on X, Y, and Z. And these are the successes that we achieved for our company. So you can elegantly balance the two. But if you don’t take competent ownership for what you actually lead, how will you give the decision-maker that confidence?

Kim Meninger Absolutely. And I think this is a big struggle for a lot of people, women in particular, is there any kind of and maybe I’m being overly idealistic here, but is there any kind of a rule of thumb or some kind of shortcut that people can use to, because I think they’re so afraid of getting that proportion wrong. And when you and I were talking before, you can go too far in either direction, especially because women often get a lot of backlash when we advocate for ourselves. So what is that? How do we know that we’re getting the balance, at least in the ballpark? If,

Gina Riley if you say I for everything, I did this, and then I did that. And that’s all the person is hearing on the other end, that can really tank out any interview, in my opinion. I think there’s formulas, though. So, you know, for storytelling in interviews, I use the SOAR method, other people use star par and car I use sort stands for what is the situation? What were the obstacles? What were the actions? And then what were the results. And so when I’m using that formula to help prepare people to tell their stories, first you’re explaining the context. So you give just a brief context, so that now that listener has a place to hang their hat I get while you’re telling me the story. What were the obstacles, is telling them why this story is going to be maybe relevant, you know, to what they’re doing at this company, the actions, this is where you This is to answer your question, the actions that you took, and that we took, I did this, boom, boom, boom, I lead these things, and set all this stuff up. And then my team, what are the results? We accomplished? What now if you did a single standalone accomplishment, take it take, you know, you should take that as a feather in your, in your what is it the cap? Whatever feather in your cap, you know, so if you plan prepared, researched and wrote an article and then gave us keynote speech, that’s all you but you know, but if you’re, you know, you’re running, you know, a sales team and you’re collectively your sales team knocked it out of the park and, you know, sold, you know, 12% more than last year, then it’s Wait, what, what did you do as a leader to set everybody up for success?

Kim Meninger Hmm, yeah. And so what else do you think that people struggle with when it comes to this whole idea of storytelling? And like you said, I hear this a lot to have I keep coming in second, I don’t know how to actually get across the finish line.

Gina Riley Oh, gosh, there’s so many things people do to kind of blow it. And sometimes it isn’t them, maybe it’s really the company had this feeling through the process, the other person was the better fit in whatever way shape or form with all the variables, or it could, could have been as simple as they knew that person better that could have been the internal candidate to have the leg up, I’ve been a part of those processes. I’ve also been, I’ve been a part of a lot of different, you know, search processes where you don’t know what’s going to happen at the finish line. What you can do is try to set yourself up, you know, for success. The deal killer, is when the interviewee isn’t succinct with their, their interview answers. So rambling, rambling is the deal killer, it’s unlikely you made it to the number two spot and have been a Rambler, especially at the executive level. That’s a deal killer. And so you want to go back to those source stories to sharpen what you’re what’s going to be in your, in your bat in your toolkit bag, so that when they’re asking questions about your skills, you’re pulling out the exact right type of story, and then check your, check your own assumptions that you’re using the right story. Okay, so with that story was that the kind of thing that you were looking for? Is there something else I can kind of draw a correlation between the skills that you’re looking for, you know, and the things that I’ve done, so you can understand I can do that job?

Kim Meninger I think that’s such a good point, too. And rambling in my mind can be attributed to a number of things. One is lack of practice, if you’re trying to do this on the fly, you’re gonna have a harder time doing it. But also, I think it’s nerves. And these kinds of situations can definitely be very intimidating. And so I’m curious what you recommend in terms of solutions.

Gina Riley I like for my clients to be the most prepared person in the room and not and that can’t happen in all cases. But you have to kind of be prepared that the people that are interviewing you, throughout the process, are going to be super skilled at interviewing, at any stage of the process, you may have an early career recruiter who’s getting their sea legs, you may have an experienced HR person or recruiter who, who does know what they’re doing, you know, so you have to be able to modify how you’re engaging with these people. But I think the way that you overcome some of these challenges is to be prepared. You’ve done your homework on the company. And you feel some level of confidence about the challenges the company is facing and your role in helping them achieve their goals and success. Also, checking your assumptions and listening, asking good questions, getting the information you need as you have that dialogue because interviews are conversations. It’s not a drill session. Right? So I’m not sure if that totally answered your question. I think being prepared is the best way to tamp down the nerves.

Kim Meninger I think you’re right. And I like what you said about conversations. Because I think about this a lot, too. If you go into an interview with the assumption or almost acting as if it’s an interrogation, you’re not going to show your personality, you’re not going to be engaging or memorable. That’s not a relationship-building strategy. And although sometimes we feel like that’s why we’re there is to have somebody just barrage us with questions in reality. And I think this is where confidence comes into it, too. Everybody’s circumstances are different. I may be looking for a job because I desperately need a paycheck versus somebody who’s maybe thinking, I just want greater fulfillment and my career I have a little bit longer that I can take. But at the end of the day interviews are as cliche as it sounds just as much for you as they are for the organization. And if you’re there primarily to make a good impression, you’re not getting the information you need to assess whether this is going to be the right opportunity for you and I finally conversation. Yeah. And when you feel like you have some leverage or power, right, because I’m here to evaluate you at the same time that you’re evaluating me, I think you come across more confidently there is this sense of I could, I could walk away from this position, because it may not be right for me. I’m not just trying to get them to walk me.

Gina Riley Absolutely. And you can use some terminology that is showing that you’re finding the middle ground. You know, I’m hoping we can find a match. I’ve got questions to uncover more about how you operate what your culture is like what you know what my team will be like that I will lead you know, what are the internal power blood tests that are happening right now, all those smart questions you should be ready with not the Pat stuff that comes right off of a website, like, tell me about your values, all that should be yours, you should have that on lockdown, you should know. Now you’re peeling back the layers of the onion, and you’re looking at what they’re saying about the company in the news. What kind of presses are they putting out on their own? What are the key players promoting and saying on LinkedIn, etc? What research? Can you fuel your, your conversation so you have the confidence? You’re even asking the right questions to see if it’s a fit for you.

Kim Meninger Yeah, and sometimes people ask me, and I’d love your perspective on this too. Sometimes people will ask me, Is it okay, if I ask them about how much they value diversity or something, you know, something that’s attached to a core value that they have? And my immediate response is, if it’s not, do you want to work there, right, if you can’t ask a question about something that you value, but I wonder, are there? Are there sort of third rails when it comes to interviews? Is there anything that you would recommend, aside from the obvious like don’t ask about something you can easily get the answer to online? Is there anything that you think is just not an appropriate question within an interview?

Gina Riley Gosh, I don’t have anything that’s glaringly come to mind. You know, for most of us, we want to understand if someone’s in the right salary range, but we’re not talking numbers early on. That’s, you know, all of that is changing. As we see more pay transparency. I think that each person that comes to an interview just has to have a pretty good EQ and being able to read the room, right, especially at the leadership level, let me give you an example of like, what I mean by maybe not having excellent EQ or emotional quotient is, I interviewed an executive for CEO role who I had an hour with them. And I had about eight solid questions prepared that related to the skills I needed to uncover, to see if they were going to be in a top batch that I would be maybe presenting to the client. I clearly told the candidate, I need you to do a quick Tell me about yourself five minutes or less because I have eight questions. And I really want to learn more about your skills. That’s why we’re here together. When I did the ask them to tell me about yourself, even teeing that up 20 minutes later, they weren’t done with the tell me about yourself. This individual, needless to say, did not move forward in the process, because they could, I mean, this was going to be a CEO of a very large organization. And that was not going to work. That’s reading the room. That’s, that’s one of the, the main principles within executive presence.

Kim Meninger Absolutely. That’s a great example. And I think sometimes, and I don’t know anything about that particular individual, it can come across as either a little self-indulgent, but also just, you’re not organized in your thinking, right? If you can’t work concisely introduce yourself, if you’re not ready for this conversation.

Gina Riley Right, which is what I which you know, to help build people’s confidence, that’s what I’m doing even on the front end of my process is just uncovering what their strengths are uncovering their leadership approach, and then understanding their entire career story so that we have a kind of my own little framework, where we converge all of that into a way that they can tell that story quickly. And most of the people I’m working with have more than 25 years of experience. So it’s a lot to capture. And what I find is most of them get so comfortable with telling that quick story during this because I do it, it’s an arc, that they usually can just move to that last bit and say, Look, I’ve done a, b, and c throughout my career. And recently, I’ve done X, Y, and Z, and I’m uniquely qualified to do blah-blah-blah for you, right? And so it gives them that confidence to like, tell it quickly, in a nutshell. And then gently take control of the interview and say, the reason why I’m here today is because I can really see the thread between this and that and I can’t wait to find out more from you and to answer your questions and see if we have a skill match.

Kim Meninger Yeah, I think that’s such a great way to transition into the next part of the conversation, right? Yes. Yeah. I’m curious to what your thoughts are on follow up so I leave the interview. I’m feeling good about it. I send by Thank you know, do you still like what’s the thank you note protocol and what happens when you’re in a holding pattern and you have no idea what’s going on? What do I do now? And I’m doubting myself and thinking nobody wants me and I don’t know.

Gina Riley It’s exceptionally difficult at all levels, I’m just I’ll just say that. And a candidate can only do what they can control, right? So what can a candidate control, they can send individual email, thank you notes to anyone that was a part of the process, expressing their genuine interest in, in moving forward in the process, maybe one nugget about what they really was particularly insightful. And then one little trick that I have is, you know, I’ll be looking forward to following up with you all circle back, you know.dot.in a week, I’m making this up? Because it depends on what you already learned about the process that’s on you, you gotta be asking, Well, what is your process like? Well, for a CEO search, it’s going to be many, many weeks of vetting people before you even call it down, like, you know, it’s gonna take a while. And so, a lot of times recruiters and hiring managers are not excellent at explaining the process, and they may not know it entirely, because it can get shifted on them. Maybe the hiring manager has a death in the family, and then it takes them offline, that’s literally happened to me in processes. So, it you need to take some ownership and control of the thank you’s and some of that content, contact, but you don’t want to send an email every day, you know, stagger it by a week or so. What I will say is I’ve even had executive-level people interview with the top leader at an organization, send a thank you note one week out, send a thank you note a second week out and not hear back until the third week from the HR person that they weren’t moving forward. And that’s from the CEO who would not acknowledge the thank you note. So it’s not always you, it’s not always your fault. You need to realize that you can’t control everything and forgive yourself for it.

Kim Meninger I think that’s such an important point, too. And a lot of times, we don’t know what’s happening there. To your point, maybe that that message was delivered in good faith that we have this timeline and something in the organization or something in someone’s personal life, derails the process. And that’s not going to be made transparent to the individuals who are waiting, and so not getting too stressed out. Over personalizing, I know, it’s easy for us to say, but I’m a big believer that if it’s not the right fit, for them, it’s not the right fit for you for whatever the reason is, it can be disappointing, it does not mean that you’re not a talented, valuable person with, you know, who has something to offer to another organization. And I guess this brings me to the question that always comes up, which is, is it appropriate to ask for feedback? And why might somebody not give feedback? What are some of the sort of the, the reasons around not sharing feedback?

Gina Riley Yeah, um, for those of us who are experienced recruiters, most of the time, we’re not going to give real feedback that especially would be personal related to like the leadership skills or communication skills. Because it hurts it’s hard to give. And it’s often not well received. We also may not give feedback about a lack of experience. Because once we do that, then and we’ve already gotten an offer out, we’re now rejecting you, we’re being kinda, we’re telling you, but we’re not going to tell you why we’ve picked someone else happens some of the time a small percentage, but it happens and it’s awful. Is the argument start coming? You know, you didn’t ask me those questions, or I do have that experience, but it didn’t show up in the interview process. It is traumatic and painful to give real advice. Now, are there recruiters that do give like real feedback? Absolutely. It’s not, you know, nothing’s 100% With what I’m saying. But we’ve learned not to do it, because there are these people who’ve made it so, so difficult. So what is a candidate to do? You could try to get feedback related to skill gaps, perceived skill gaps, that you may have had along the way, based on the hiring teams decision, that you could then be investigating on how to better communicate in the future. So maybe you have the skill and you better own it. Okay, I think I have that skill, but the perceived the perception of the gap. Is, is important. Now, if you really want the feedback, you better be open to it. And it’s about the other people’s perception that you didn’t communicate something effectively. It’s possible or the other person was just way more qualified than you and they got picked. cool.

Kim Meninger Yeah, no, that’s a really helpful insight, too, because I do think that people feel, you know, it’s that same if someone breaks up with you, right? And you don’t know why. But that sense of that lack of closure is so hard to process because…

Gina Riley It is so hard. Here’s what I would say is, if we back this up one more step, and you’re in the interview process. And you and at the end of the interview, they’ll say, you know, do you have any questions for me? And maybe you do have some genuine questions about the company, the position, etc. One of the questions I like for my clients to have in their back pocket is, is there anything in this hour we didn’t get to discuss where you may have a perceived gap in the skills that I have to be able to do this job effectively, that we didn’t get a chance to cover? That gives the interviewer an opportunity to go, you know, there was this one last question I didn’t get to. And I’d love to know if you fill in the blank. I don’t know that you’ve managed global teams. Oh, yes, I have actually across, you know, two regions, my team size was X, Y, and Z. Right? So what if you walk away from that interview, you never find out that they didn’t know that you lead a global team, that’d be awful. And now, now, you’ve helped get them the information they need to make a better choice.

Kim Meninger I’m so glad you said that. Because I think that’s such an important strategy. Because either you do have the experience, and you can sort of correct the record, so to speak, right? Give them that additional insight that they’re looking for. Or they share with you that there truly is a gap. And now at least when you leave because you can’t change it, if you don’t have it, you don’t have it, right? And if that’s a deal breaker for them, you can’t do anything about that. But at least you know, going out there now I can take that with me and assess is this something that’s going to be critical for me going forward? How would I fill that gap? It just gives us that greater sense of empowerment that we can do something with it.

Gina Riley Absolutely, which all this plays back so well to like, just the whole purpose for your podcast is like how do you avoid going down that sinkhole of imposter syndrome. And there’s so many things that we talked about, you know, researching, understanding, you know, what it is you’re going to talk about preparing your stories, you know, paying attention to your executive presence, there’s like 16, or 17 different aspects of executive presence. That’s like a whole another topic. But one of those was reading the room, you know, and showing up confidently about what you have done, and give credit to your team, but also have confidence in the things that you’ve performed and the results you’ve gotten.

Kim Meninger I wonder… You just reminded me of something and I want to back way up and ask for your thoughts on it before you even get into the interview. We all know that applicant tracking systems have issues, right? And so a lot of times people feel like they apply or they don’t, they don’t hear anything they don’t know if they never got through. What do you advise someone especially because that information is so much more readily available nowadays with LinkedIn, that if I know who the hiring manager is, if I can identify an actual human on the other end of this process, what do you advise people to jump the line so to speak, or to reach out personally? Is that going to alienate the person at the other end? Is that seen as you know, you’re that much more committed? Like what do you, what do you think the interpretation of that behavior is?

Gina Riley Okay, so when you apply to a job and you spend two hours you know, some of these take forever, you’re cutting and pasting all this information and right, you’re spending your valuable time and then what happens you get a dopamine hit that you did something, check the box right? You don’t know how many people are applying for that said job. I’ll give you an example. I was doing a CEO search where our funnel initially was quite wide it was for health care, but the tolerance by the CEO to have somebody not in health care was rather wide at the beginning. So we didn’t include that as a requirement. I had 800 resumes to review. I physically with my own eyeballs skinned 800 resume resumes which I then had to get trifocals This is a true story. So imagine you are one of those people applying and there’s 800 People in my database and a real human is reading them by the way not reading every word I’m skimming to get to the, you know, to call it down to my a category to initially make phone calls right? Well, you, in order to get seen and heard you know you want to get on with Google you want to get on with an Intel you want to get on it that smaller 50-person company, yes, go do research do, do use the search engines to find and make guesses about the hiring manager and or the talent acquisition recruiter staffing team so that you can send them a personalized message and say, Hey, I applied for this job, we’d love five minutes of your time to ask a couple questions. Or, you know, do you know who the hiring manager is, things like that, try to get informational conversations without saying that you’ve applied for a job. That’s another way. If you simply spend your time applying to jobs and not following up, in my opinion, immediately, it’s called the spray and pray method, you spray your resume out, you pray, someone is gonna call you. And according to one of my favorite authors, Steve Dalton of the two-hour job search, it’s like one to 2% of the time, you’re going to even get picked up through that kind of a process. You’re going to increase your odds have to go back and read the book. It’s like 11 to 20%. If you start reaching out and trying to find advocates, and boosters to boost you into the system, to boost you into getting in front of the hiring team. Now, if you’re not qualified, if you don’t meet the qualifications, then you may be spending the wrong you know your energy in the wrong way. But that also might mean that you’re a career switcher, and your, you don’t have obvious qualifications, that is going to take way more work. Don’t bother to just apply that is just, I believe a waste of your time, no one’s going to be able to figure it out from your resume, why you applied for the job.

Kim Meninger Another great point, yeah, I think that it really only fits when you’ve got a background that directly aligns with what is asked in the job description. Right.

Gina Riley Right, because the job of that hiring manager and the recruiters is to find someone that can come in and do the job right now. Unless it’s a first-line employee that maybe, maybe it’s a new college, recent college grad, and the whole their whole careers ahead of them, and they’re gonna mold and shape them, and they have a plan for new people entering the company. We’re not talking about that, really. Because there’s programs developed by a lot of companies to bring in fresh talent. I’m talking at the, you know, people who are at least mid-career.

Kim Meninger Now that makes perfect sense. And I could be here all day with you. I think this is such great information. I will I have a two-part question for you. As we’re wrapping up. Number one, is there anything important, I know, there’s a lot that we could get to but anything that you feel we missed and that’s really important to say in our closing moments together? And where can people find you if they want to learn more about you and what you do?

Gina Riley Oh, gosh, we covered so much. It will be pretty fast and furious. 35 minutes, sir. Well, I guess the other thing I would leave people with is, you know, get centered on your story. Get centered on your unique value proposition. And be prepared to explain that in ways that quickly gets people’s attention, and that you’re not rambling. Because you can see the light go off in people’s eyes once you start talking. If you haven’t kind of gotten that dialed in, right? Where can people find me, you can find me at Gina Riley consulting.com. I actually have, at the very top, a little green button that you can click on and you can download a free webinar. And that comes with a workbook and you can start creating a career transition plan for yourself with like my outline. So you can follow the video content and then start planning for like, okay, what are my unique strengths? What are my values? What are what you know, what are those key results that I’ve had, that I’m really proud of? So you can start putting it together and start seeing if you have any gaps on you know how you’re going about your job search?

Kim Meninger What a fantastic resource and we’ll link to that in the show notes as well. Thank you so much, Gina. This is so helpful.

Gina Riley You’re so welcome. It was fun.

bottom of page