I once had a boss who I’m sure was insane. I don’t mean to be insulting (although I’m probably being just that), but nothing else could explain her madly erratic behaviour, lack of judgement in making decisions and complete loss of memory when her decisions turned out to be the wrong ones. ‘Why didn’t you do that?’ she’d ask me when things blew up. ‘Because when I mentioned I was going to do it you explicitly told me not to and to do this instead’, I answered.

There was no getting through to her, and I’d have disagreements with her pretty much every day about the best way to go about things to get the right results. She didn’t listen, and I left within a month.

That’s an extreme case, but there have been times in other jobs when I’ve had to stick my head above the parapet and persuade all kinds of different management folks that I knew what I was doing and would get them the right results.

I know this is tough for people because I’ve struggled with it myself. Telling someone more senior than you that they’re wrong or that they should really try things your way is a scary thing to do, even more so when your boss or manager seems to have more experience and power than you.

While to some extent that’s true, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the value that you can add and the results that you can get.

There are 3 strategies I’ve used effectively that help massively when you need to stand up to your boss. Get these right, and the rest is easy.

Establish Trust
When there’s trust between 2 people it opens up honest discussion, because there’s no need for blame, ego’s, empire building or one-upmanship. If your boss doesn’t trust you, something’s very wrong. You were employed to do a job because you were the best person to do it, and if you’re not trusted to do it then why the hell were you hired?

If your boss doesn’t trust you, call him on it. Trust is earned by demonstrating capability, but if your boss isn’t willing to see that then you need to point it out. Let them know that you can do the job, that you’ve been doing the job and that they can trust you to do the job.

Establish Autonomy
When you’re able to get things done by yourself and off your own back it shows that you know what you’re doing. Owning your work, getting things done and delivering results rapidly builds a track record and demonstrates how capable you are. If you need to check in with your boss on everything you do they’ll have a disproportionate amount of power over what you do and how you do it – and you’ll undermine yourself all the way to your exit interview.

Establish Credibility
Credibility comes from establishing trust and autonomy, but it also comes from the quality of the work you deliver and the quality of the relationships you build. Deliver great work and have a strong focus on your relationships with your colleagues and you’ll attract credibility like a magnet.

If you get those 3 things in place, you’ve nailed it. Your boss will have seen how good you are at your job and you’ll have clearly established both the value you provide and the method by which you provide it. That makes it so much easier for you to call your boss on something and persuade them to try things your way.

If Your Boss is a Negative Swimmer…

Of course, those strategies are moot if your boss hasn’t given you the opportunity to establish them and if there are no clear signs that those opportunities are coming. That really sucks, because a managers job is to create an environment where you can do great work. If they’re not doing that they’re simply making things more difficult and getting in the way of their empoyee’s future - I sometimes call these kinds of people ‘negative swimmers’.

When you’re swimming you move forwards through the water, using your whole body to propel you; your movements are co-ordinated; your breathing’s in sync; you move through the water with power and grace. Negative swimming is the opposite of those things, and you end up thrashing around, expending twice as much energy, fighting for breath and swallowing half the pool.

Some people just don’t get it.

In that event you need to balance 3 things:

Raise it with your boss
If your boss is being unreasonable, micro-managing your work or getting in your way then you have the right to sit down and talk about it. You don’t have to put up with it.

Make an appointment for first thing in the morning and try to do things away from his or her office. Don’t point fingers, don’t blame and don’t get emotional – state your case and the facts as simply as possible. What happened? What was the result? What was the impact on you? What would make you better able to do great work?

Your boss is human and will have their own character flaws, priorities, workload and personal stuff going on, but also remember that you were hired because you were the best person for the job. Tell your boss just that.

Raise it with someone else
If raising it with your boss goes nowhere or if you want some advice before you talk, raise it with someone else. This could be a colleague you get on with particularly well - someone with whom you’ve established trust, autonomy and credibility with. Have an off the record chat with them to get their perspective and see how other people might have dealt with the situation.

Another port of call is HR. Again, you can do this off the record so don’t worry about getting heavy handed and having to kick off disciplinary procedures (although if it’s serious enough it might warrant it). As long as your boss doesn’t have HR in his or her pocket, they’re there to make the people side of the business work effectively and are ideally placed to advise on the situation and what might be the best route forwards. You don’t need to follow their advice, but do consider it.

Raise it with yourself
If neither of those discussions proves fruitful, you need to raise it with yourself – at the highest level.

Do you want to work in an environment where you’re not given the room to do your best work and where your views aren’t listened to? Do you want to be in a workplace that lands you with a whole load of stress and frustration? Do you want to be in a workplace where you learn to doubt yourself and lose confidence in your ability to do great work. You don’t need any of that, so don’t persuade yourself that you do.

Standing up for yourself starts with having confidence that you’re good enough to get things done in the way you think is best.

If you have that central belief then finding the confidence to stand up for yourself becomes easier. Of course, you need to watch that you don’t doggedly stick to your guns when the evidence clearly shows that another route is better – that will only undermine your trust, autonomy and credibility.

Listen to other viewpoints and consider other factors, but then make your decision and have confidence in it.

I love being interviewed for jobs. Being in a room with a couple of people where I get to quickly build rapport and do a whole lot of trumpet blowing is great fun, and while I haven’t given a bad interview in many years I remember what it’s like to strike out.

Giving a bad interview makes every self-doubt you have real, and it brings to life every fear you have about how crappy you are at what you do. Bad interviews suck. Big time.

Interviews can be blown in the first 30 seconds if you make a bad first impression. Enter the room and throw up on the interviewers shoes, tell them they remind you of a fat Simon Cowell, or take your shoes off and put your feet up on the desk are clearly not going to win you any brownie points, but there are other more subtle mistakes you need to avoid if you want to make a confident and congruent first impression:

1. Don’t forget to smile. An obvious one, but a key one. Entering the room looking nervous, anxious or worrisome will send the message that you’re a nervous person. It’s okay to be nervous in an interview, but that doesn’t stop you from being warm and friendly. Remember to smile, just not too much so you look like a nutter.
2. Look them in the eye. Eye contact is about building rapport and connecting with people. Without it there’s no connection, so be sure to look your interviewers in the eye as the interview progresses. Don’t stare fixedly at your interviewer like a wired Will Ferrell, this isn’t a Saturday Night Live skit.
3. Don’t shake hands like a trout. There’s nothing worse than greeting someone with a handshake only to feel like they’re pressing a tepid trout into your hand, and I’m still amazed at how many wet-fish handshakes I get when I meet people. Smile, make eye contact and give a firm 2 second handshake with a simple ‘Good to meet you’.
4. Know what to wear. I’ve got jobs from interviews where I’ve worn tshirt and jeans, because that’s what was appropriate to the environment I was interviewing for. That’s the point – you need to be dressed appropriately to the environment in which you hope to be working. Go for an interview in banking dressed in tshirt and jeans and you won’t stand a chance, wear the same to an ad agency and you’ll fit right in.
5. Don’t forget their names. Please, please, please remember the names of the people interviewing you. It allows you to put them into conversation where appropriate, and I’m not talking every sentence (that’ll make you sound like Hannibal Lecter). It allows you to refer back to a previous comment (e.g. “As Mandy said earlier…”), to buy yourself time with a tricky question (e.g. “That’s a good question Randy…”) or to use it as a sign-off at the end of the interview (e.g. “Thanks for your time Brandy”). The interviewers name doesn’t have to rhyme with ‘Andy’.
6. Don’t let your body language scream ‘Danger’. If your shoulders are hunched, you’re slouched in your seat, you’re wringing your hands or continually scratching your head you’ll be sending the wrong message. Having a relaxed but confident body language communicates a relaxed and confident individual. Don’t be rigid - you’re free to move in your seat and use your hands to demonstrate key points, just watch you’re not waving your arms around like you’re swiping away fruit flies. A balance between sitting back in your chair and sitting forwards is good – you can give emphasis to points and show you’re listening by sitting forwards, and communicate a sense of ease by sitting back.
7. Leave your shit outside. Interviews can be scary and often you don’t know what to expect. Don’t bring that uncertainty and doubt into the room with you and certainly don’t bring in any personal problems that might be bothering you, put that all to one side before the interview starts. Picture the interview room as a safe place with people who want you to get the job, and remember that the interviewers want to see the best of you, not the worst. They’re on your side.
8. Don’t jump into the first chair you see. Don’t enter the room and grab the first chair you see - it’s not a competition. Move into the room and let the interviewer find their place first. If you’re in a meeting room don’t sit next to them on the same side of the table, and don’t automatically sit directly opposite them. Try to sit diagonally from them if possible – it gives provides a good space between you but doesn’t act like a wall.
9. Pace yourself. Rapport building is about building a connection and a rhythm between you and another person, a rhythm that allows both of you to communicate openly. Many of the things I’ve already mentioned help build that rapport, but pace is one of the most important. If you go racing off at 100 miles an hour, telling them everything about you when they’ve only asked you if you found the building with out any problems, then you’ve screwed the pace up and they’ll be wanting to get you out of the room as quickly as possible. Let them set the pace and follow it.

When people get together for an extended period of time, groups will form. It happens naturally, something left over from the tribe instinct that we mammals still have. I’ll bet that there are groups in your organisation or even within your friends, groups that you may or may not be a part of.

Some people might be into sports and huddle at break-times to discuss the latest game. Some might go to a bar after work to vent about the office and share a drink or three. Others always seem to get the latest, shiniest project to work on and others might be privy to inner workings of the company.

If you’re in a particular group at work – whether the group is connected by a hobby, company politics, demographic or anything else – you’re in that in-group and you’ll have a sense of loyalty and respect towards the other members. Every group you’re not a part of, you’re in the out-group.

Psychologically this can be pretty disconcerting, as every group that you’re not in has the potential to make you ask questions of yourself and introduce competition between groups. Ask yourself enough questions and you’ll start doubting yourself. Compete in the wrong way and your self-esteem becomes tied to the results you get.

I’ll give you an example. When I look back to every work environment I’ve been in, there’s been a kind of inner sanctum that’s separate from the management team, a small group of people from different levels of the company that somehow gathered a disproportionate amount of power between them. If they didn’t like an idea or project or didn’t like the way a piece of work was going, any one of them could change it knowing that they’d have support from the other members of the in-group.

People were aware, even subconsciously, that they had to watch themselves when one of these people were around, some people became very defensive and others would be on the attack. I remember one woman who wasn’t in this group; they were one of her out-groups. She’d take input from any of them very personally, thinking that her work wasn’t up to scratch and she wasn’t valued as a fully-contributing employee. Later, she took everything personally and her self-doubt grew. She left the company after waiting too long, and I saw that she left as a nervous and reactive woman who lacked self-confidence rather than the talented, capable and confident one I knew her to be.

The people in these in-groups aren’t bad or conniving people (or rarely aren’t), it was just the way the day to day power had taken shape in the organisation. The same goes for other groups – it’s simply down to people coming together subconsciously because they share similar values and boost their self-esteem from the sense of belonging they get from being a member.

These groups aren’t right or wrong by themselves, it’s the impact they have and your perception of that impact that can be called right or wrong.

Engage with your in-groups but watch how much attention and the kind of attention you give to your out-groups. You can’t be in every group, and trying to be is a waste of your time and energy just as the time and energy spent being negative about an out-group is a waste.

Looking enviously at an out-group is a clear case of the grass being greener, and if you look disparagingly at an out-group it’s a clear case of ego-stroking - “I’m better than you are” - and probably denial.

If you let your out-groups influence your thinking to the point where you change your thinking and behaviour to win their approval, then you’re already damaging your self-confidence and self-esteem. Stop it right now.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in a leadership position or not, allow your self-confidence to be affected by your out-groups and you won’t stand a chance of doing your best work. Great work comes from trusting what you’ve got and giving yourself the freedom to do your best work, not from putting your attention onto your out-groups.

When I started out as a coach I gave away coaching sessions because I thought I had to. I figured that I wasn’t a ‘proper’ coach yet, and that I had to practice as much as possible to get to a point where I felt like I could charge someone for a coaching session.

When I’m working with a client who’s starting up a service business, whether it’s a coach, and interior designer, a yoga teacher, a sales consultant or a photographer – there’s inevitably a point where they’ll have to decide whether to work for free.

As I commented on Allena’s article, if you have a skill that’s valuable, a talent that’s marketable and you (hopefully) love what you do, don’t’ believe for a second that you need to give those things away for free.

As I experienced myself and as I see with clients, a lack of confidence can get you thinking you have to work for free to get started - and you need to be brutally honest about whether you really need to work for free or if it’s a case of being more confident in your capabilities.

If you work for free because you feel like you have to to get where you want, that you somehow have to pay your dues to succeed or because you feel you’re not ready or good enough to be paid yet, then you need to take a step back and look at things differently (and more confidently).

Do not give away what you can do for free because you lack confidence in what you can do. It devalues you and it devalues what you do.

That devaluation is true for your own sense of self, but it’s in others people’s heads too. When I gave away coaching sessions they rarely worked out, simply because people held the perception that if I’m giving it away that it can’t be worth anything. With the belief that what I was offering had zero value, they weren’t committed to giving the coaching a try in the same way as if they were paying.

Starting out, you need to be willing to figure out a pricing structure that works for you and your target market. Of course, there are always exceptions, and there might be times when it might be wise to work for free. Those times are when it will give you valuable experience, make a valuable connection with someone (which might lead to all kinds of other work, experience and connections) or if it’s something that’s important and relevant to you.

If any of those things are true then go for it - it’s a worthwhile thing to do. Just know when enough’s enough, because there’s always someone out there who’s willing to take advantage of someone who’s generous.

Right now I’m a happy and very relieved man. The Big Messy Project I’ve been running in my ad agency in London is over. Finally. Done with. Delivered.

The sense of satisfaction and relief is enormous – I’ve finally got some room in my head and space in my day for other stuff other than the often spiralling, politically charged shenanigans concerning Big Messy Project.

The good news is that it’s delivered right on time and doing exactly what it’s supposed to – it’s a successful delivery, which is what I’ve worked my butt off to achieve.

But there were times early on in BMP when I wasn’t sure at all whether any of it would be get delivered, and times when I wanted to run away and pretend that it was just a bad dream (worse than the one I have about being eaten alive by a 50ft Tony Robbins).

Those early please-let-me-run-away moments happened once or twice a week. I’d look at the huge to-do list and feel intimidated by the apparent impossibility of delivering everything, leaving the odd task or two sitting on my list in preference of sticking my head in the sand.

And, wouldn’t you just know it, the more I left something sitting there on my to-do list, the more work stacked up around me. The more I ignored something the bigger it got, and the more I let my work slip, the worse I felt about my ability to deliver great work. The worse I felt about my ability to deliver great work, the worse I felt about myself.

I could have said ‘No’ to taking on BMP, but that still, quiet voice in my head told me, ‘Steve, don’t run away just because it’s Big and Messy. You’re better than that.’

In a recent article, Holly Hoffman hits the nail on the head by saying ‘I don’t want to put mediocre work out into the world… I may not be passionate about my 8-5 job, but I am passionate about being a quality employee and co-worker.’

Nice insight Holly. It reminds me of a scene at the end of the movie ‘City Slickers’, when Billy Crystal comes back from his cattle-driving adventure, having previously thought about quitting his job because he just doesn’t enjoy it or get satisfaction from it any more.

With a renewed sense of vigour and a baby cow in the front room, he turns to his wife and says ‘I’m not going to quit my job. I’m just going to do it better.’

All the time you resist the crappy parts of your work that you’d rather not do you’ll never do great work, and perhaps worse, you’ll damage your perception of your ability to do great work. I’ve experienced this myself, and I know that many of my clients do too.

Make a choice to engage with the crappiest parts of your job and you’ll be surprised at the difference it makes to both the quality of your work and your level of confidence.

That’s me when I was around 4 years old (funnily enough I have a very similar polo shirt that I wear now!). Of course, at that age I had no idea what was in store for me, and just a couple of years later when I was around 6 years old I remember being asked by my primary school teacher what I wanted to be when I grew up. I reflected for a moment and torn between two options I said ‘I’m not sure. Either an artist or an inventor.’

I had two pictures - one of me in a huge studio, being swept along in the moment as I created magnificent works of art that would make people weep, and another of me in a lab coat with crazy hair surrounded by bubbling test tubes and all manner of electronic devices as I used all I knew to build Something Amazing (TM). Those two sides have always been there for me (I’m a typical Gemini) - the art and the science, the creative and the logical, the head and the heart.

In my 20’s I got sidetracked by a successful but personally damaging career in IT, which lead to me hitting my quarter-life crisis, losing my self-confidence and having to rebuild myself piece by piece, and I can see that part of the reason for hitting that crisis point is because I came to live purely in the logical part of me and pretty much ignored the creative side.

As a 6 year old boy I’d identified that both themes were hugely important to me, but ended up paying an extremely high price for it when I went forward with a life that didn’t reflect that.

Those two themes persist for me to this day, and a day where I can use my logic and my creativity is a great day because I get to use the things that have always been there and still persist for me.

Another memory that’s been a puzzle until fairly recently, is when I was 13 or 14 in my Religious Education classes. In some classes we’d ditch the normal teaching format in favour of a debate, where the teacher, Mrs Evans, would lead us all in a debate on particular topics related to religion in the world. One day, she asked me to come up to the front of the class, invited me to sit in her chair and told the class that I was going to lead the debate that day.

It felt great - I was sitting in the big chair at the head of the class, I was letting people speak and counter, and I was managing the flow of the whole thing. I remember clearly how much I enjoyed it.

Mrs Evans asked me to lead the class in a debate 3 or 4 times, and never asked anyone else. Why would she do that? I think the only reason can be because she wanted me to see something. To be honest, I’m still figuring out exactly what, but I think it has to do with leading people and bringing out what’s important to them.

Thanks so much Mrs Evans.

The great thing is that my work now - both the coaching and the ad project management - is a fantastic combination of head and heart, thinking and feeling, creativity and logic, orchestrating and leading - and that’s why it works.

I share this all with you because I’ve worked with hundreds of people who come to me with low confidence, not knowing what they should be doing, and they want to figure out how to be more confident so they can go forwards with something that feels right.

They feel stuck, like they spend just a tiny amount of time doing what they love and want more out of their lives and careers. Some of them even wonder if wanting something more is too much to ask for.

In my opinion and experience, having work that includes the things that have persisted for you is absolutely critical in terms of loving your work and getting more richness out of your working experience.

So figure out what your themes are. In your early days at school, what did you want to do when you grew up? What did you want to be when you were a kid? In your teenage years or at college or university, what did you really want to be, regardless of whether you took that route or not? What have been the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of the jobs you’ve had?

What patterns can you see? What are the themes that come out and what still persists for you to this day?

Look at the patterns and themes that have always been there for you. Those things aren’t going anywhere, and ignoring them is ignoring who you are and who you’ve always been, and that’s a sure-fire way to lose all confidence in yourself.

Check out this great clip.

The clever thing about it is that people can relate to both parts – the pessimistic, apathetic part, and the optimistic, hopeful part.

As human beings we all have those sides to us. Some days we couldn’t give a flying fig about things, other days we plug into what matters and get involved. But this clip made me think – what happens if these 2 sides are perfectly balanced, 50/50?

It means equilibrium.
It means that things won’t move forwards.
It means that we get in our own way.

So the elephant in the room is the fact that if Gen Y really wants to move the world forwards they need to shift that equilibrium. They need to shift the balance away from apathy and towards engagement.

The optimism, flexibility and ‘can-do’ attitude of Gen-Y is well documented, particularly with regard to changing the workplace, but I’ve seen indications in my own work and in the writing of others that Gen-Y isn’t quite so ‘can-do’ as they like to think they are. This makes me think that for all the talking up and hopeful interchange, much of Gen-Y will hit a wall where they discover that changing things is much more difficult than they thought.

There’s a big can of worms here, because I’m always coaching people on knowing the difference between the things in their life that they can change and influence and the things they can’t. I’ve seen clients bang their heads against brick walls trying to get things to happen, when it’s either completely out of their control or something that just isn’t ready to happen, so I let them know that it’s okay to stop bashing away against something they can’t change, and that that energy is better used elsewhere.

But maybe that’s missing an important point – that if everyone simply focused on the things that they can change and influence the equilibrium remains intact. Surely to move things forwards in line with the optimistic and hopeful side of us we need to engage with more than the things we can control. We need to engage with the things that seem to be out of control.

I honestly believe that everyone wants their life to matter; that everyone wants their contribution to the world to be greater than the sum of the parts. The problem, of course, is how that can happen in a world that seems to make that as difficult as possible, and how you can deal with the sometimes paralysing fear that what you do won’t matter.

Here’s what I think.

Changing the world, or at least your world, sounds like a mammoth, intimidating, confidence shredding task. But if you shift your own equilibrium, so that you’re spending more of your time engaging rather than not engaging, the rest will follow. Simple as.

It’s much easier to find the confidence and courage to plug into something that matters to you, as it means that you don’t have to worry about whether what you’re doing will matter to the world or contribute to a Big Picture. It just means that as long as what you’re plugged into means something to you, that’s all that really matters.

So by all means engage with something as big or complex as volunteering for a charity, standing on a political stage to make your viewpoint heard, taking part in a community project, working for an organisation with values you connect with or helping a friend in crisis. But it doesn’t have to be big, grand or life-changing. It could also be as simple or as small as engaging with a friendship, giving your barrista a smile, taking time to listen to a colleague’s point of view, making a suggestion instead of making a criticism, or any one of a million other things.

The point is this - if you can decide to spend more of your time plugged into things that mean something to you than not plugged into much at all, then you’ve got something special.

That’s how the equilibrium shifts, and that’s how things change.

Giving an interview can be one of the more stressful things you have to do, and there’s so much advice out there it’s hard to know where to start or which advice you should follow. The thing to remember is that giving a confident interview is a skill that can be learned, just like making a cracking omelette, driving a car or delivering a presentation. Here are my 5 tips to giving a confident and effective interview.

1. Know your subject, but don’t over-prepare
   Years ago I turned up to an interview for a Project Manager position at a medical logistics company, knowing nothing at all about the company or the industry they operated in. Fortunately it wasn’t a job that I wanted, which was just as well because I didn’t stand a chance.

   You need to know your stuff; the company’s products, services, market position, opportunities, etc. Read up on the company prior to the interview, but be careful not to over-prepare.

   It’s also a good idea to figure out how you’ll respond to some likely questions, but knowing your subject isn’t a case of simply repeating memorised information, and if you go to an interview planning on spouting facts and figures there’s a risk that you’ll sound too rehearsed or stilted. Know what you’re talking about but leave room to think on your feet; you don’t have to be word perfect, you don’t need to know everything or have a slick answer for every question.

   One more thing here - sometimes the interviewer wants to see how you think on your feet and might throw a curveball question at you. If that happens don’t overthink it and don’t panic. Buy yourself some time by repeating the question and even saying that you hadn’t expected it. Then shoot from the hip.

2. Don’t sweat it
   First of all, whether it’s a 1st interview or 3rd interview, always remember that the simple fact that you’ve been shortlisted means that they’re interested in talking to you and think you might be right for the job. That’s a good thing.

   Of course, it’s easy to focus on the drama of the interview and loose your cool as a result. A friend of mine was telling me recently about how she panics as she goes through each round of interview, piling on more and more pressure on herself.

   Focusing on the problem and the drama will only ever give you more drama, and that’s exactly what you don’t need. Yes, interviews can be nerve-wracking, but it’s okay to be nervous. Being nervous makes you give a better interview, because you have to up your game accordingly and can use that nervous energy to demonstrate your enthusiasm and energy.

   2 thoughts for you. First of all, how would you approach the interview if there was nothing riding on it personally? What difference would it make if you knew that whatever decision they make is just fine, and is no reflection on you or your ability? A shift in how you perceive the interview and it’s risks can work wonders.

   Secondly, try writing down a step-by-step guide - a how-to manual - for how to make someone else feel like you do when you feel nervous or panicky. How do you start that feeling going? What do you think to yourself that makes that feeling grow? What do you do that makes it worse? Write it down step by step and you’ll be clearer on what you’re doing that gets in your way. Then you can write the opposite how-to guide, countering each step with something else that will get you a different result.

3. Understand that an interview is a 2-way street
   In a survey conducted by recruitment consultancy Office Team, just under half of the employees surveyed said they’d misjudged the culture of a company, and 59% of HR managers said they’d misjudged someone’s fit for a role.

   That’s why an interview has to be a 2-way street. It’s a method of establishing whether you’re the best candidate for a role and if the role and organisation is a good fit for you. It’s not simply about the interviewer pulling out the information they need to make their decisions, you need to get the information you need to make your decision.

   The interviewer is not your enemy – you need to see how the role and organisation fits you just as much as they need to see if you’re the best match for the job. With that in mind, it’s a level playing field - there’s no ‘upper hand’.
   

4. Don’t be afraid to blow your own trumpet
   The whole point of an interview is to sell yourself to the person interviewing you. Fail to recognise that or fail to do it effectively and it’s game over.

   So the first step is to reconnect with your strengths, expertise and experience if you’ve forgotten what you’re about, what you’ve achieved and what your capability is.

   Then you’re in a good place to let your interviewers know what you’ve achieved by means of example - that’s the information they’re looking for.

   The saying goes that an interview is 2 people in a room lying to each other. I wouldn’t go that far and lying during your interview is like dressing a cow in a duck costume and asking it to quack – it’s not going to fool anyone.

   But you know what? Feel free to embellish a little. Big yourself up a bit more. Say that you had a little more responsibility than you did. Tell them that your results were a little bit more special than they were. Those are all valid parts of the interview process and it doesn’t mean that you’re misrepresenting yourself. It simply means that you’re selling yourself and giving a great interview.
   

5. Enjoy yourself
   I’ve interviewed a good few people in my corporate past, and there was always one thing that made a candidate stand out head and shoulders above the rest – the fact that they were enjoying themselves, not just in the interview but generally in their life.

   With one exception (where the interviewer had a serious chip on their shoulder and was determined to make it an unpleasant experience; I doubt anyone took that job) I really love being interviewed, because I get to use some of the stuff I love doing. I get to build rapport with someone, talk about me for a bit (come on, we all like a bit of that), have some interesting conversations and even have a giggle.

   That’s more important to me than being ‘professional’, which in too many cases means squeezing yourself into a box based on what you think your potential employer wants you to be like (more on being ‘professional’ in a future post).

   That’s why it’s important to figure out what’s important to you and what you enjoy, then leverage those things. If you look like the interview is torture or are just generally down-beat, you won’t get hired. Simple as. If you’re engaging with what you’re doing and where you are, that really comes across and will speak volumes.

   An interview is not a personal judgement on your character or ability. An interview is not the end of your world as you know it. Enjoy it, engage with it and bring who you are to the table.

So you’ve applied for the Next Great Job, been through the interview process, battled with pre-interview jitters and have been surprised by how much you want the damn job. You’ve given it your all, you’ve got everything crossed, and you hope and hope and hope that you’ll get good news.

And then you get the call that says you’ve got it and it hits you, “Holy crap, I got the job.”

Now comes the part where it all becomes real. Of course there’s a part of you that’s elated and a part of you that’s rightly excited about what you’re doing, but there’s also that part of you that’s feeling pretty darn scared about what you’ve lined up for yourself and wants to spend some quality time hiding under the duvet.

Is the job too much of a stretch? Do you really have the experience to run that project lead that team have a direct report/take on that responsibility? Will the job match up to your expectations? What will your co-workers be like? Will your new boss be as okay as they seemed in the interview or will they tear off a fake latex head on your 1st day, revealing themselves to be a slobbering, carnivorous monster?

Whatever the new job is, you’ll have a transition process to go through, and that’s a scary thing. It’s supposed to be scary; here’s why:

1. If it wasn’t scary it wouldn’t mean anything. Doing anything worthwhile means that there’s something on the line, and that means that something that might not work out as you want or expect it to. That’s part and parcel of doing something that matters to you, and that’s a Very Good Thing Indeed.
2. If it wasn’t scary you wouldn’t be learning anything. Moving forwards often means that you move out of your comfort zone, which is clearly going to involve some discomfort and fear. That’s okay, without that stretch you won’t be exercising the muscles that give you new insights, new experiences and new skills.
3. If it wasn’t scary you’d be living in a cushioned, protected world. Uncertainty and instability are part of life, and protecting yourself from those things means that you’ll be cutting yourself off from all kinds of experiences and opportunities.

Never forget how capable and resilient you are. Let yourself be scared because that’s where the good stuff is.

A recent study conducted by Catherine Mosher of Duke University Medical Center and Sharon Danoff-Burg at the University of Albany found that 51 percent of undergraduate women prioritised romantic relationships over achievement goals, while more than 61 percent of men did the same.

While that margin might not seem that large, just think how this same study would have turned out 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. This is a pretty new and exciting phenomenon, and it’s seeing young women making a massive impact on the workplace. It shows that women are prepared to make tough choices and work hard to get into their chosen fields and organisations, and it’s clear that things are shifting.

I could talk about why it’s happening - the fact that today’s women grew up in an era when around 50% of marriages ended in divorce, and as Washington based psychologist Ellen Klosson comments, “Women have been aware of the time pressure to establish themselves in a career before starting a family, because of the difficulty of starting this task in their thirties and forties.” – but I’m more interested in what it means.

There are two significant impacts of this shift.

1. Women are thinking about families later and starting them even later. There’s a bunch of apparently conflicting studies out there on whether this is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, and for now it’s an issue I’m going to park to revisit another day (do let me know your thoughts though).
   

2. The bigger concern I have is that there’s a very real pressure for women to perform and deliver consistently. Nothing wrong with that on the surface and you’re more than capable of doing just that, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard women say to me “You know, my colleagues and my friends would all describe me as confident, but I don’t feel it“.

Here’s what happens. You focus on what you want at College, you get a good job that pays well and challenges you. You enjoy what you do, get promoted quickly because you’re talented and deliver consistently and you might make a couple of career moves into other organisations with bigger and better prospects. You achieve a hell of a lot in a short space of time.

Then, when you start getting closer to that big 3-0, something interesting happens. You start asking if where you are is what you really want. You start asking just how long you can keep running. You start asking what else there is for you. And importantly, you start asking just who you are underneath all that achievement and success.

Sure, I’m generalising a little here, but let me be really clear – I see this every day when I’m working with clients and I asked myself the very same questions.

The desire to succeed and deliver is one to be applauded, but only if it means something to the individual who’s putting the hard graft in. Time and time again I’ve worked with women who have achieved great things but who don’t feel it. There’s a transition where the desire to achieve, move forwards and succeed in their field shifts from being a genuine desire into habit – and that’s where the danger is.

The bottom line is that when the challenge and the success stops being personally relevant the meaning and purpose behind everything you do is lost – let that ride for a few years and the price you pay is a compelling sense of who you are and what’s important to you.

Don’t fall into the same trap.