Changing Careers. Changing Career Paths

FEELING DEPRESSED About Your Search? Struggling? Feeling Fatigued?

So, my guest today is Michaela Contreras. Michaela is a career and leadership coach who helps professionals get clear on their values, strengths, motivators, and vision to be able to spearhead their career in a desired direction. The majority of her clients are HR people and professionals, but she also coaches people from all industries and continents.

Catch that one, continents. Michaela, welcome. Thank you.

So happy to be here. Thank you. And where in the world are you? Well, I am in Abu Dhabi of all places.

It’s very hot and steamy here. Welcome to Abu Dhabi. Hot and steamy in Abu Dhabi.

Why wouldn’t it be that way? It’s not like you’re going to get a snowfall. Exactly. So folks, we’re going to be talking about changing careers and changing your career path.

I’ll start off with an easy question. How does someone start doing this? What’s the approach someone should take in beginning this process of changing careers and career paths? Yeah, that’s a million dollar question, isn’t it? 10 million. We have inflation.

Exactly. Well, I think a common mistake many do when we are changing careers is that we are normally quite keen and desperate to go somewhere else, anywhere else, because there’s a reason we want to change. And so we do, we are diving headfirst into whatever is new and throwing our CVs out and hoping it will stick somewhere.

But there are a few steps before getting to that stage and it’s really to figure out what you actually want to do. You know, the question you get when you were a child, like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And it’s, who knows the answer to that question? But a better question is, what are you like doing? What do you like doing? And it makes it a little bit easier, because the first thing you need to figure out is what do you actually like spending time on? And so answering that question as the number one is the crucial first step to getting further. There are a lot of questions that we would continue on that, but that’s really if we are getting from the absolute start, that’s the first question you need to ask yourself.

So it’s, what do you like doing? That could be in your current job, an avocation, anything whatsoever. What do you like doing? And I sometimes think that with many people, they just need to also give voice to what they don’t like doing. So, it’s, you know, from a coaching perspective, I often work with people who aren’t clear about anything.

So I know they know how to be negative. So they can tell me what’s wrong. And then I start flipping it to the positive.

But ultimately, the goal is, what do you like doing? Yeah, exactly. And that’s a good point that you’re making. We tend to, it’s much easier for us to focus on what we don’t like or what we’re not good at.

And because after you figure out a little bit more of what you like doing, you should focus on what am I good at. But people find it very, very difficult to figure out what they’re good at. So I do the same as you do.

I flip it on the other side. What are you bad at? Because there’s no real counterpart. If you’re bad at presenting in front of people, you tend to be a good listener.

For example, if you’re good, if you’re bad at planning, you tend to be quite good at changing your plan and last minute and be more flexible and adaptable. So flipping it on its head is a very good way to approach it. No matter if you ask, what do you like doing or what am I good at? So for HR professionals, when I think of what they’re good at, I tend to think about navigating bureaucracy, getting people to communicate more effectively, herding cats, to use, excuse me, you’re in Abu Dhabi, I’m in the US, herding cats basically translates into, just in case it needs translation for the international audience, it’s getting people to do things that they may not be desirous of doing, but you’re kind of making the cat do something, herding cats.

What are the sorts of things that you tend to hear as you coach people about what they’re good at? Just so I can tickle the audience’s thinking. Yeah. So in terms of what you’re good at, people tend to find things like the typical thing that most people feel like they’re good at is working with other people.

And so they interpret, maybe because I work with a lot of people or into people, but one of the strengths tend to be working with other people and understanding how to build rapport and see it from other people’s perspective and empathy and compassion comes in a lot when I coach my clients. And it’s really that part of emotional intelligence, which is crucial if you’re in an HR role, because it’s exactly, as I said, it’s herding cats, it’s herding a bunch of people who are experts in their things and think that their thing is a priority. And to get them to go listen to your advice and go into the path that you’re trying to pave, it’s definitely a challenge for many.

And folks, if you’re listening to this as a podcast, I started breaking up laughing when Michaela was talking about, I know what I’m doing. I don’t need any help. Because obviously, I do.

And we all need help. It’s the attitude globally that I can handle this no problem whatsoever. So we’re starting off by talking about what do you do well, and identifying those qualities that people like doing and they do well, unique talents or skills they have, things along those lines too, that make them even further stand out.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So there are a few things that you can try. Normally, it’s very hard to identify what you love doing or what you’re good at in yourself, because a lot of those things come natural to you.

It’s something that you have brought with you your entire life. So something that feels completely as part of you would be considered as a unique skill for someone else. So sometimes it’s hard to identify those superpowers that you have.

You don’t even realize you’re having them because it’s so normal to you. And one way to identify those is really to, if you’re looking from a work environment or a career development aspect, the best thing is to go through, sit down with your CV, look at your CV, and think about what did I do really, really well in this role? What kind of situations did I excel in or result? And what did I do to make that happen? And that will make it a bit more concrete and granular, because all of these questions can be a little bit fluffy. And we don’t want fluffy, we want actionable things to go on so we can make changes and we can make decisions and we can go down the road that we want to go down.

So we want to take all this internal reflection and soft stuff and we want to look at concrete things that we can follow. So by doing that, it makes it a bit more specific. If you made something really positive happen in one of your roles, what did you do? How did you act? What did you say? Who did you speak to? When you hit a challenge, how did you overcome it? How did you handle that obstacle that came in your way? Was it by being really politically correct? Or was it to be really direct in your communication? How did you communicate to get what you wanted? And that makes it a bit more easy to identify the actually specific skills that you can take with you into your next role.

Excellent. And it sounds like we’re starting off with getting clear. What are your abilities? Where are you excellent? Or as I like to say, where are you world class? Where are you the best of breed? And it happens naturally and you’re really effective at.

So getting clear is what we’ve been talking about so far. What’s the next step in the process for someone? When they get really clear on what they want and what they’re good at, then obviously, we want to look more externally. What can you do with this? You know what your superpowers are and what you would love to do.

But the next step is to actually go into a direction. And there might be a lot of things that sounds good, like being a rock star or a spaceman. But we also have to be quite realistic about it.

And it’s not something that lots of coaches actually advocate for, because it’s always about following your dream. And of course, you should follow your dream. But we want to make something realistic, too.

So we want to do some research. We want to look at, you know, with my skills and with my motivation and with my interests, what can I do that the world needs? What’s out there? What opportunities are there where I can really execute this? So as non-sexy as it sounds, you’re going to have to do some research and actually look into what, where is the world going? You know, look at industries that interest you. You know, what are the new trends going on and where might there be a gap or where might your superpower fit into it? And it doesn’t have to be existing roles there, because new roles are being created every day.

You know, 10 years ago, we didn’t have diversity inclusion managers. And now we do. It’s almost a given.

And so think about things that companies actually need and that can give value and start to look into those companies, follow their companies, connect with people that work there and do that research and start to develop your network within those areas that you’re interested in. And in the area of practicality, and again, an extreme example, if your desire to be an employee poet, and you expect to make $150,000 a year, as an employee of a hedge fund, doing reading poetry to people, I don’t think there’s a career for you doing that, let alone compensation. But the goal is to figure it out, and to have the conversations with people, so you can learn what you can accomplish, and what might be outside of bounds, and maybe to do it as a hobby, as a side hustle, where you can experiment with that and get some of the pleasure there, and also different types of pleasure in the workplace as well.

Finding The Career That Fits You

How was that for a summary? Wow, yeah, that’s a very good summary. It’s very good. And it actually ties into something I always say, you should wine and dine experiences, just like you would wine and dine dates, because we don’t find the one on the first date, you’re going to have to date a lot of frogs before you get your prince or princess.

And it’s the same with your dream job, you’re going to have to wine and dine lots of experiences before you find yours. And thus, having those conversations with folks allows you to learn what the realities are, what you’re thinking of doing. Because hopefully, you’re wining and dining princes and princesses, who are doing this kind of work at different organizations, and talking with them about what the reality is, what they like about it, where the problems show up, and getting an understanding of what it’s really like, because, again, using that example of the hedge fund poet, you know, I like to do Zen poetry, I sit in a small room and think to myself and write, and there are all these people yelling around me, not probably a good environment for me to write poetry.

So, starting to learn the reality of what it is that you’re thinking of doing, so that you can adapt a little bit, seems to make sense, right? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And to be honest, if you can pitch a hedge fund the value of you doing poetry for them, there might be a job in there for you, because it’s all about giving value.

And ideally, using your network to get the introduction, because I don’t think you’re going to see a job ad for a hedge fund poet anywhere. No, you won’t. You’re going to have to be proactive, which is another thing that is crucial if you want to change career.

Agreed. What’s the next step in the process, Michela? Well, using it, we already touched on it, but it has to be using your network to get to that next stage, because you want clarity, and you want research, you want insights, and then you have to go and do actions, because we can study and we can research and we can talk and we can reflect, but ultimately, we have to make decisions and we have to take actions to get somewhere. And talking to people, connecting with people, engage with people, go to events, might not be a huge amount of events now, they’re starting to come back, but there are a lot, a lot, a lot of virtual events and webinars, and I think something that COVID brought with it, it’s actually that we have very few boundaries now, we can go to events in Australia, you know, we can go to events in Sweden, we can go to events in Nigeria, because we can really, really explore and we can connect with people from all over the world to be able to create more opportunities, because that’s ultimately what we want to do.

If you want to find something new, if you want to change career, we need to create opportunities. And you do that by talking to people, by networking, by creating that value and formulate that to those connections. So, I don’t like to use the word sell or sales, because people get really scared of it, but ultimately, you have to sell yourself and your value and who you are, and that’s how you would be able to move forward.

If you are over 50, here are five mistakes to avoid making that would doom your career change.

And perhaps the substitute term might be persuade people, instead of sell people, persuade people that you have something of value that you can bring to their organization. So, you’re not selling, you’re persuading. Yes.

So, it sounds like the next step is, we’re continuing the conversations piece. And the conversations can take place online, in person, any number of different ways. And you’re right, COVID has changed the dynamics.

So, we’re not always meeting for coffee or tea. Well, in some parts of the world, that’s certainly viable again. But it’s the notion that engaging in conversations.

Now, I know in the webinars, or online conversations, people are sometimes reticent to use chat to reach out to someone and say, I’d like to speak with you after this is over. Could you give me your email address or your mobile number so we can set up a time to speak? But isn’t that a great way of doing it? Yeah, definitely. It’s a great way of doing it.

And to be honest, I love networking with people face to face, so I can understand the awkwardness of trying to do it online. And it has taken me quite some time to get more comfortable doing it myself. So, I completely understand that.

But it’s a great way to connect with people. It’s a great way to engage with people, but you want to take that to the next level. And that is by asking them, should we meet off social media? Would you be able to have a chat outside social media? And I think that people are starting to get quite social media fatigue anyway.

So, I think you would be surprised by how many would be open to just have a 10 minute chat, or a 15 minute call on Zoom to connect with people on a more face-to-face level, although virtually. So, you have Zoom or Teams or FaceTime, provide ways that you can connect with folks. And as I understand in the new version of FaceTime, you can communicate with people who are on Android and on Windows devices.

So, it’s more platforming, independent now than it was previously. Yeah, I didn’t know that, actually. But yeah, and WhatsApp is a great tool, too.

It’s very easy to just connect via WhatsApp, although not yesterday, because everything was down. Of course. So, how do we find these people to talk to, to build our network with, so you can have these conversations? Well, I’m a massive LinkedIn fan.

I think LinkedIn is an amazing tool. I am not affiliated with LinkedIn in any way, so I’m not going to pay for saying that. But I think that LinkedIn is a good tool if you want to have more professional conversations.

That doesn’t mean that you don’t have to put on a persona and be, I think you should bring all your whole self to the platform. It’s all about personal branding. So, show them who you are.

But I think LinkedIn is a great tool because you can, going back to when I said doing research, you can find those companies, those industries that interest you. And then you can, from there, find people who are connected to those. So, you can connect with them via LinkedIn.

So, you can message them, you and I are connected that way, Jeff. Yes. And I have connected with so many interesting people through LinkedIn platform.

It’s a great tool and it’s just growing and growing and growing. And what’s interesting with it is that it’s in a place where Facebook was a few years ago, where you can still be a bit, you can stand out by being more engaged in the platform. Not everyone, there’s a lot of background lurkers on LinkedIn.

And so, by being someone who is building your personal brand, showing up on LinkedIn, posting your opinions or sharing ideas, you will actually, you’re having a unique opportunity to build your personal brand and show a professional network who you are. And that’s a really, really good way if you want to take it a step further. Yes.

8 Steps to Changing Careers

And I noticed in terms of messaging people, you can now do video conversations with a messenger app, not just simply scheduling Zoom or BlueJeans or whatever platform they were previously emphasizing. Teams, of course, because it’s owned by Microsoft, but you can now do native messaging on video with someone. So, you can set up the time and date and just communicate through the messaging app over video, or of course, use Zoom or whatever platform you’re more comfortable with.

But the idea is making a personal connection with someone wherever they are in the world. Yeah. Yeah.

And it’s a brilliant point. You don’t really have to be doing it, have this video function that you can connect with people on. And anyone who has any idea about communication, we know that body language is the biggest part of communication and internal voice is the next one.

And what we actually say is just about 77% or something of our communications will be able to do those with your messages. You can also convey your personality and what you’re saying in a much more effective way. So, it helps those like me who think I’m much better at connecting with people through face-to-face communications than text.

And you have a better shot of conveying who you are and what you can bring to the table. And for those of you who are better with face-to-face, and we’re dealing cross-boundary, I always think of I’ve started using a service called Drift, where you can create short videos and use that as the way of messaging someone. I believe you and I connected and I sent you a 30 second video that basically said, Hi, thanks for reaching out to connect.

I’m curious what prompted you to do so. And what can I do to help you? Message me back. And we start to have a conversation about you appearing on the show.

And you explain where the commonality of connection was. And here we are. And folks, you can do much the same thing where you say, I’m interested in a career like yours.

I don’t have that background currently. I want to learn from you about what it’s really like to work in the field. Can we set up a 10-minute conversation over video or in person if you’re in the same city to have that conversation? It works like a charm.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And you introduced me to Drift video. It was just amazing.

I was, it’s a game changer for me. I think it’s a great way to connect with people. Because ultimately, when you want to create opportunities, when you want to change your career, or if you just want to explore something that is different or new, it is connecting with others.

It’s about engaging with others. It’s about learning new things. And ultimately, that is about talking to others.

So it comes down to making those connections and speaking to people and showing them who you are. And I think if you just go back a little bit to my coaching, one thing that I tend to focus quite a lot on, it’s about empowering people to bring their whole self to the game. Because we have been taught that we should show up as a professional persona.

But actually, people connect with people and bring in your whole self to those conversations and to those interviews, it will get you further. Without a doubt. Now, we’ve got more steps here.

What’s the next step in the process for someone? Next step after connecting to people? Yes. So after you connect with people, you need to engage with them, obviously. And you want to convert that.

You want to convert that connection, that engagement into a new opportunity. So it’s about bringing the conversation from, this is a very nice chat to, I can bring value to you. So by doing that, you need to be super clear.

Again, you need to be super clear of what you want to do, what you can bring, what your value is. And you need to be very, very confident in conveying that. So it’s about not playing small, but playing big, and being able to communicate your value to those conversations.

Because that is when you will ultimately land the job. Because it doesn’t matter that you have a really nice diploma from a nice school, if you can’t convey how that will bring value to the company or the opportunity that you want to pursue. So being able to communicate your value to the person that you’re connecting with, or to that company that you want to really go for, is really crucial.

So it’s not just exploring what you want, what you’re good at, the opportunities out there, but to bring it all together, you need to be super clear on the value, and you need to be confident in presenting that value. That confidence is so important. And I know people become fearful when they engage in a conversation where maybe they’re collecting information, and now they’re going to take that information and try and be persuasive, not selling about their ability to support that.

How do you suggest people switch the conversation from information gathering to the actual ask, or the, this is what I think I can do for you part of the conversation? Good question. I think it’s about first, not approach people with intention, I’m going to start to say them, persuade them to take me on, but approach people and conversations with curiosity and interest. And have more genuine, authentic conversations and see it as making connections and learning.

And once you get to a stage when you think, actually, this might be a good fit, this is interesting for both parts, then ask lots of questions that you think that you can answer. So ask lots of questions to figure out what are the pain points, what are the gaps, what if they had money and time in the world, like what would they want to create? And try to get as much information as possible. And then say, you know what, this that you mentioned here, I’ve done something similar before.

And that led to X, Y, Z, would you be interested in having a conversation how I can bring value to you? And I wouldn’t go for a hard pitch in the beginning, because I think most of us have been getting those really hard pitches before, and it’s a bit off-putting. But it’s actually generally see that you can bring value to it and ask, is it okay if I can present what I could potentially do for you? And if it’s not an opportunity now, perhaps this can happen in the future or near future, or perhaps I can do it in another scale. Perhaps you don’t need a full-time employee, but I would be open to do this project for you.

So that’s another thing, not always someone looking for a full-time employee. But if you are someone who is trying to make a very different kind of career move, it might be a really good idea to take on a project where you show your skills or where you prove that you can bring value. And that can sometimes bring new opportunities on.

Actually, one of my close friends here in Abu Dhabi did that recently. My husband introduced him to his company, and he had a conversation, and he said,