How to Get Your Dream Job as a Woman in Pharma/Biotech

Welcome to Your Worthy Career, a podcast with me, Melissa Lawrence. I’m a career and life coach with all the corporate credit and talent development and organizational psychology, and I help women like you get extraordinary results by being more you, not less. I won’t just help you have a career experience worthy of you, but I will help you build your self-worth to shift what you think is possible and take the action that will create the career you’ve always wanted, whether it’s more meaningful work you’re passionate about, making more money, getting to your next level, or being more effective as a leader. We are shattering the glass ceiling here, the one that exists for women at work and the one we put on ourselves with our doubt and inner critic. Each week, you will get practical teachings grounded in neuroscience and effective career development strategies. You’ll experience deep mindset shifts and the perfect amount of woo so you can run your career with ease rather than your career running you. You were born for more, and I’m going to help you get there with maybe a few dance parties along the way. Your up level begins now.

Hello and welcome. This week, you are in for a treat. I decided to put the training that I did earlier this month on the podcast for you to enjoy now and in the future. There were almost 150 women in pharma and biotech who attended this strategic session. Here is what we covered. The mistakes you’re making now that are preventing you from having the job you want, how you can advance your career as a woman in pharma or biotech without playing political games and settling, three strategies you can implement now that will get you dream job offers and promotions, how these strategies that you are going to learn in this session are effective even when you’ve been told no already or layoffs and budget cuts are looming. I also invited participants to schedule a consultation to join Beyond the Ceiling, which is enrolling right now, but only for the next couple of days. Enrollment closes on Friday, March first. Beyond the Ceiling is a high touch and personalized career and leadership coaching program that is exclusive for women in pharma or biotech. In this group, we define your unique career upgrade, whether it’s getting clear on what you want, getting a new job, getting promoted, or building your skills to be a more effective communicator, influence leadership, have the work-life balance you want, and build confidence in yourself and your career.

You achieve your goals alongside your curated personal board of directors, the handpicked women in the industry who have similar goals to you that you’ll be able to leverage in your network, build your friendship and community, and gain support from. This group is career strategy and personal and professional development that is specific and customized to women in the pharma biotech industry. You can get all of the details and schedule your consultation by Friday at www.yourworthycareer.com/beyond. All right, let’s dive into how to get your dream job as a woman in pharma and biotech, even with budget cuts and layoffs. Hello, hello. How is everyone today? Happy Friday. I’m so excited to deliver this training to you today. You could just drop. I’m going to actually open the chat. If you could drop in the chat, let me know you can hear me okay. Let me know that you can see me okay, that everything looks good on your end. Just pop that into the… Okay, I’m seeing some thumbs up. Amazing. So happy right here. Now, we’re going to be in good company. There’s a lot of people that are joining us today. This is for women in pharma and biotech, so you’re all in good company.

You’re all here because you want to know the same thing. So you’re welcome to use the chat throughout our time today. If you want to say hi, if you want to see the therapy area you work in, the part of the world you’re joining us from, what is your area of expertise, any of that, you’re welcome to put it in the chat. I’m sure everyone will like to see who is all here and what you all have in common. So we have a jam-packed agenda today to get through the strategy and also the shifts in the approach that you’re making to get your dream job in the industry. I would allocate about 90 minutes today to get through everything and then also to be able to answer all of your questions. I’m going to answer your questions at the end. I’ll check in periodically, but I’ll definitely go back at the end till… Oh, we have Switzerland. Amazing. Hello, Alicia. We can go ahead and answer all of those questions so you get everything that you need today. As people join, I’m going to introduce myself. If this is our first time meeting, hello, my name is Melissa Lawrence.

I’m a career and leadership coach for women in Pharma and Biotech. I also host the podcast, Your Worth Career. My background comes from working in the industry. I worked in the industry for about 12 years. My last role was leading talent and development for AstraZeneca on the biologic side in operations. Now, when I got into industry, I got into the quality assurance group. I used to work in government consulting in child welfare of all places, and got really into learning and talent development. I moved into the industry to help quality assurance auditors know how to audit non-clinical toxicology technology data. Not anything I thought that I would be into. I actually had to learn how to interpret non-clinical studies and teach auditors how to do it so that they could audit the studies and audit the reports. It was such a fun job. I went from there into instructional design, into performance consulting, into training roles, leading on the R&D side, and then all the way into commercial manufacturing. I’ve been in small biotech, I’ve been in big pharma, and a number of different areas. I definitely know what it’s like to be a woman in this industry and to navigate the ups and downs.

I know it’s been a turbulent year for a lot of people, so we’re going to talk about that, too. I also have a master’s degree in organizational psychology, so I do approach these topics from both the psychological perspective and the strategy perspective for career development. I think the hybrid is really where you get the most results because you can have the best strategy, but if you don’t approach it from the right mindset, if you have internal blocks and barriers, then you’re not going to get very far in implementing that strategy. You’re not going to implement it as effectively, so we need to marry the two together. That is the approach that I use. I also know what it’s like to be someone who doesn’t know what they want. I’ve been someone that got really frustrated, felt almost like I was making myself feel like I was crazy a little bit. I should be happy with my job. I had more success than I thought I I was going to create. I was the most educated of anyone in my family. I was earning more money than I thought I could earn. And I just was like, Why aren’t I happy?

Why isn’t this enough? I knew I was making a difference in the work that I was doing, but I knew it could also have a bigger impact, but I didn’t know what that answer was. So that was a journey that I had to go through. I also had to go through the journey of getting promoted. I’ve had a role created for me within the industry, and so I help women do that also. So when there doesn’t seem to be an option, we create it for ourselves. You might be surprised to know that within the industry, I’ve been promoted multiple times, but I was told no every time I asked the first time. I had to change my approach in order to get the promotion. It wasn’t that I wasn’t getting good performance reviews. It wasn’t that I wasn’t a dependable, reliable, high-performing member of the team. It’s that there wasn’t a reason from my manager’s perspective other than to support my growth to promote me, and that wasn’t enough. I’m going to tell you how to get over The strategy we’re going to talk about is going to be to overcome these obstacles that you might be facing when it comes to knowing what you want and then getting into a new job, getting a promotion, and driving your career in the direction that you wanted to go in.

Still ahead and get started. Here’s what you can expect from me today. We are going to talk about the mistakes that you’re making right now. There are things that are part of the generic, typical job search, job approach process that actually holds you back and prevents you from getting into your job as quickly as you could or from advancing your career. We’re going to talk about what those are. We’re also going to talk about how you can advance your career without settling, without playing the political games. I know no one likes to play those. And also, I say this in fun, but the Brosky games, you probably know what I’m talking about with the Brosky behaviors that can happen at work. It’s a very male dominated space. Sometimes women can feel like they have to play the same. They have to get into that club. They have to act more masculine. They have to do all of these things in order to get ahead. And so we’re going to talk about actually how that’s not serving you to try to do that and how to thrive, even when you have maybe that type of culture or environment that you’re in.

We’re going to talk about the three strategies you can use right now. I want this to be very action-oriented for you so you know exactly what to focus on when you leave our time together. We’re going to talk about that so you can get dream job offers, you can get promotions, whether it’s now or in the future. We’re also going to talk about why these work. You’re probably like, Why is this different? Why is this going to work? How is this going to help me even when my boss is telling me that we don’t have any promotions in our budget this year, that there’s not your dream job posted, that you’re not seeing what you want out there. This is going to work even when those are your experiences. We’re going to talk about why that’s the case. Then for those of you that are interested, I’m going to invite you to join me in Beyond the Ceiling. So Beyond the Ceiling This is my group coaching program. It’s a small group of women in the industry who are working together. I am your guide to help you figure out what it is that you want.

We’re going to talk about what that looks like and how to get into your dream job, how to upgrade your current role. Everything we’re going to talk about today, I will guide you step by step. The enrollment for that is open right now and only for the next couple of weeks. We’re going to talk about that. Then there is a bonus, which you probably saw in your email, but we’re going to talk about that too. For those of you that schedule your consultation to be considered for that group by Sunday. The last thing I want to mention before we get into this is really that this is the beginning. I know that you might be feeling really disappointed, frustrated. Maybe you’re hitting your head against the wall, or maybe on the other end where you just have a really big growth mindset and you really want to just proactively look at what you can do in your career. Either way, everything that you’ve done to this point that hasn’t worked, we can wipe that slate clean because what you’re going to learn here is going to be different, and it works specifically for you, specifically for women in the industry, this works.

This can be the beginning of you actually taking the reins of your career and creating exactly what you want now and for the rest of the years that you work. That’s very exciting. When I did this for myself, it was a game changer. Who you are, you said this is for women in pharma or biotech who want a better job, who want a different experience with work. You want to feel in control of your career. You want to know that your work makes a difference. My experience working in the industry, something that drew me to the industry, is the amazing work the industry does. We save lives, we help patients, we work on incurable diseases. You want to make a difference. Sometimes you’re not in the right role. It can feel like you’re not really moving the needle, or maybe you can see how your work impacts the bottom line, impacts patients, but you’re not at the scope that you want to be at. You’re not seeing that impact. You think there’s something more for you. You know something needs to change. Maybe there’s more to work in life than this. When I was unhappy in my job, I would come home and spend a lot of my evenings talking about so and so and what they did in that meeting, some of those Brosky tactics.

I would talk about how frustrating it was to not always be heard in the workplace and how I had such good ideas and we always just did the same thing when there was a better way to do it. Or just how I felt like there was just more I could do. I just was not living up to my potential. Overthinking is a problem for you. You’re definitely in the right place. You want to stop doubting yourself. If you don’t know how to get what you want or what it is that you do want, then definitely this is the place for you. This is what you want. This is why we’re here today. Get clarity in what it is that you do want. Maybe you want to get promoted. Deliberately choose your path forward, not let your career happen to you. Identify the path that allows you to grow. If you’re wondering if your dream job even exists and what that might look like for you. Have the skills and courage to stand out and get what you want at work, to feel happy and confident in your career choices, to know that you belong in the right place in your career, to be paid well and recognized without overworking, without working 60 hours a week to try to stand out to show how valuable you are, and without You don’t want to work so hard and then have to like, Please promote me.

Please promote me. Please let me have that opportunity. You want those things to be coming to you. Then know if you should stay or go. A lot of the people that I work with, they’re at this pivot point and they’re not sure. Should I stay at this company? Should I try to hold out? Or should I just give up and go somewhere else? Is that going to be a better fit for me? Ultimately, you want to feel like you belong in your career, that you’re confident in your choices, that you know your path, that you can advance on your terms and get a new job or promotion the way that you want to get it without having to sacrifice your values, without having to sacrifice who you are. You just want to be able to use your talents and skills to have an impactful, meaningful career. That is what we’re here for. This resonates with you. You can put it in the chat. Feel free to have a conversation. We’re engaging all of you. See how similar you all are. You are in the right place because what we’re going to talk about, it works even when there’s layoffs.

Even with budget cuts, even when you’ve been told no, even if you don’t know what you want, even if a reorg is coming, that’s actually a really great thing if a reorg is coming, you can definitely use that to your advantage. If there’s seemingly no options or your ideal job isn’t posted, a lot of us will just scroll online and look for that ideal job and it’s not there. And so then you think it just doesn’t exist. See, yes, yes, yes. Will that come? Okay, so let’s talk about… So it’ll be the first to put my drawings. So let’s talk about the typical way to find a new opportunity. When you’re frustrated, when you want something different, but you’re not sure what, or maybe you do know what, and you’re just seeing what’s out there, this is what we typically do. We typically look and say, Okay, is there a spot on the org chart that I could move into? Is there a promoted role for me where I am? Or is the job posted? If you’re looking internally or externally, does that job exist? Is it posted? Is it promotion time? Which sometimes we just look at timing.

You’ve been in your career for a couple of years, or in your role in a couple of years. You’ve been knocking it out in the park. It’s time for you to be recognized. Does this job make sense based on where you’ve been, based on what you’ve done so far, is it logical the role that you’re looking for? So you might scroll on LinkedIn. And if you’re like me, and a lot of people that I work with, probably have some good days where you’re like, It’s not so bad. And then you have days where you’re doom scrolling the LinkedIn. There’s got to be the better of the best. So that’s something that we can often do. Or what are my coworkers doing? If you’re really feeling down and down in yourself, you might start to look at what are the people you went to college with? Where are they now? What are they doing for their career? What are your colleagues doing? What is your coworker doing that went to another company? Is she higher than you? Did she advance faster than you? Maybe you could do that. Maybe you’re going to do a job rotation. Maybe you’re going to go to another department.

You just start looking for what are all of the ways that I can advance my career based on what I’m seeing. What we’re doing in this situation is we’re looking to external data and circumstances. We’re looking to other people to see what options exist for us. Us. And then we try to fit ourselves into that mold. Because in this situation, if you look at these examples, none of this is looking at, What do I want? How can I create what I want? How do you even know what you want? We’re actually trained not to know what we want, and we’re going to talk about that. We’re looking all to these external things, which is why we get unhappy in our careers. Because even if you land that promotion, even if you get into that next job, it’s not really right for you. If it’s not solving deep down what you want your role to achieve for you, then you’re going to have that honeymoon phase where you’re like, Yeah, I got it, and then you’re going to be unhappy again. And so we want to prevent you from being in that cycle. So why is this a problem?

Now, I did cheat and print this maze out because I was like, I don’t know if I can draw all those lines where you’re going to understand what I’m doing. So this is a problem because what we end up doing is we end up being in a maze. We end up being in someone else’s maze with blinders on. Let’s say you want to get promoted. This is you and you’re like, Okay, I want to get promoted. You’re trying to get over here, right to the end of the maze. You go in and you’re running into all of the obstacles. You’re just trying to get over these hurdles to get to the end so your boss will promote you. You’re not seeing that maybe there’s some other exit points over here, some hidden doors. Maybe this is a shortcut that you could have gone through, but you’re not seeing it Because we’re just focused on what we know to do based on what we’ve always done before and what we’re taught to do. We just try to get through the maze as quickly and efficiently as possible. We’re not really looking at ourselves internally and what we want.

We’re not really looking at other options. We’re not being creative and problem solving. We’re just using what we’ve always known to do. Things to consider is, do you even want to be in this maze? This maze is a construct that you did not create. Do you want to be in it? Is this leading you where you want to go? Are there hidden doors? Are there shortcuts, things that you can do to get out of this maze? Things to consider because instead, we want to get you from A A to B with the least amount of obstacles possible. And this A to B may not be in someone else’s maze. It may not be in your company’s org chart. It may not be in what you’re seeing when you’re scrolling on LinkedIn. It might be something completely different, but we don’t know that. And so then we just struggle in this maze. So let’s talk about this a little bit more. This maze makes sense. Our whole life, we are living in other people’s mazes. When we’re born, as babies. We are born naked. I think we can all agree we are born naked as babies.

And then somewhere along the way, in those first few minutes, someone decides we need to put on clothes. That’s the first time we’re put in a maze. We’re born in a natural way, and then we are shifted to what someone else decides we need to wear. We can all agree we should wear clothing, not saying we should be in a nudist colony. But that’s an example. Then as you grow up, you have caretakers, whatever your environment was as you were growing up, you had influences that were telling you what is a good outfit to wear, what is a bad outfit to wear, what does success look like, what grades should you be getting in school, should you even be going to school, is school even important? You have all of these influences that are teaching you what you should believe about yourself, about what success is, about what’s good enough. That is a form of maze that you are in all based on this external data. This is really the psychology piece we’re getting into first before we get into the strategy. If you’re like, You’re getting a little deep, Melissa, I am. Because I want you to understand that this is part of how we’re operating because we have to address this in order for the strategy to work.

Then we look at getting good grades. You go to school, and then there’s a grading system. Ideally, most people are going to say, You got to get the A’s. Or maybe you had people in your life that were like, You don’t need to get A’s. School doesn’t matter. You can get a C. If you can get a D, it doesn’t even matter. All of that is input. But generally, people in this industry are like, You need to get good grades. You need to do well in school. That’s another thing where then as a child, you’re in this environment where now you just have your caretakers and then you also have teachers and you have tests. When you have tests, you have to study to get an A. So You can get that validation and that approval that you did a good job. Are you following me? Then we go to, Okay, well, then in the workplace, you need to get a good performance review. Then there’s a rating system, and there’s the meets expectations, but all of us as high performers, we don’t want It’s expectations. We want exceeding. There’s only a certain number of exceeding because there’s a curve.

So not everyone that is exceeding can get exceeding, so then we feel like we’re not getting recognized. It’s another way of being in this maze. So we’re just continually given outputs and inputs into our life of what maze we should be in. Here we are and here’s where people want us, and we’re just trying to get there. Whether it’s how we should be, what success looks like, what a good career is, what grades we should on test, if we should go to school, what level of education is good enough, what a good performance review is, maybe for your age or thinking, I should already be at this level in my career. All of that is mazes based on inputs you’ve had in your life. Then on top of it, our brains are working against us. We have a primal part of our brains that wants to make things easy for us, that wants us to belong, like that hurt mentality, don’t do anything different, don’t do anything uncomfortable, don’t do anything that’s risky. And that risky definition is coming from a maze. It’s coming from an input that you had to define what that is, or it’s coming from an experience you had, or maybe you made a mistake and you regret it.

It also wants to seek pleasure, wants to seek pleasure, belonging, wants to avoid discomfort, avoid rejection and fear, and make things easy. When you have a brain that is operating in this primal space, which happens when we’re looking to make change, which happens when we’re uncomfortable, that’s running our subconscious, in addition with all of these inputs of the way that we have experienced life today, it is no wonder that we don’t know what we want, that we look to other people, that it’s hard to stand out, that it’s hard to speak up, that it’s hard to feel vulnerable. It’s no wonder. It makes total sense. It makes sense that we stay safe, that we stay stuck, that we stay in the discomfort of the same over and over. We stay in the discomfort of being unhappy, talking ourselves out of what we want because that is what we’re designed to do. And so then we just continue to struggle. That’s why we struggle with decision making because we have like, Oh, my gosh, we have all this going on in the background of our brains. We have this operating system, and then we have all of these inputs of like, what do I do?

What are other people going to think? Is it going to be a bad decision? Are people going to think that I did a bad thing? I had a client once who we had the consultation call to work together, and she really wanted to do the work we’re going to talk about today. She said, I don’t know. She was in a culture where her parents were just heavily involved with her decision. She’s like, My parents, they’re really unsure about this. They’re unsure about the amount of money. They’re not necessarily confident that this is the right thing. They think maybe I should go back to school. Maybe I should just get another certification for my resume. Maybe that will help me get promoted. They are like, Who is this person online that’s a coach? What is this? They just could not grasp it. She decided that she wanted to do coaching anyway, and so she did. We’re going to talk about her, actually. But within three months, she moved into a new job. She got promoted. She got a sign on bonus. She actually had multiple competing offers. When she did that, her parents then tried to claim the idea.

Her parents were then like, Well, we told you to do that. We’re so glad that you did that. We Or did you the whole time. But that’s just an example of how she had this maze of her family support system, and she broke out of it and got results. But then, of course, the way that then her family’s brain was working, too, was like, Oh, no, we’re included. Of course, you did a good job. We’re all together. No, it all made sense. It’s just really funny how our brains went. The solution. You’re like, Okay, Melissa, how do I get out of this mix? Just stand out to take action on the strategy I’m going to teach you to to get the dream job offers coming to you, to get promotions, jobs created for you. You have to break free of this maze. You have to feel empowered to create what you want. You have to find the hidden doors. You have to believe that they are there and be in control of your results and not be having an employee-student mindset, which is how a lot of us are raised to be, where it’s like there’s hierarchy and you just do what you’re told and there’s a system and you try to fit in the system.

You have to break out of that to create your own past, and that actually creates more fulfillment for you. You not only get the job, you not only get the promotion, you not only define what you want your career to be, but you actually are more effective. If people act just like that example with my client and her parents, the leaders in your organization, the people around you are going to be like, Oh, my gosh, you’re amazing. They’re not going to reject you doing this, even though it feels that way when you’re going to make the change. All right. If you have questions about that, put them In the chat, I will come back and answer any questions that you have about that philosophy around the Maze. Now, we’re going to talk about the strategies. I’m going to dig into each of these individually, but I want to summarize them for you first. The first one is to know exactly what you want first. Why is this important? When you know exactly what you want, not just generally, not just a general role, but the problems you want to solve, the tasks you want to do, the business case for the work you want to do.

When you know at a very granular level what you want to do, it helps your boss promote you. It boosts your confidence and it gets you more job offers. Because if you’re, let’s say, applying to a job and there’s five other candidates that are interviewing for that same job, they can tell in the interview process if you’re just looking to run away from something that you don’t like right now, or if you’re confident and sure that that is the best role for you. When you know I’m only applying and interviewing for jobs I know are the best for me, you show up differently in the interview process, and that energy is going to get you more offers. Because what the science tells us is that confidence outweighs competence every time when it comes to interviewing. And I know that can hurt a little bit, especially for the people that I work with. We’re all very highly educated, put a lot into our education, we put a lot into our skills. But at the end of the day, if you’re not confident in what you want, if you’re not able to position yourself as confident and confident during the interview process, it doesn’t matter what your resume says.

You need to be able to have that skill, and knowing what you want first helps with that. It also saves you time. It makes your effort count, and it gives you a greater return on investment. Instead of scrolling for everything you could do, looking at what you could move into, you only look at what you want. You’re narrowing that net of information that you’re taking in and also the time you’re spending applying for those jobs. You also can tap into the hidden job market because the hidden job market exists. We’re going to talk about it a little bit. It’s very prevalent within the pharma biotech industry. Knowing what you want gives you that confidence, but also When you can speak clearly about what you want and why, you’re more likely to have John to create it for you. You’re more likely to have people be like, We could use someone that did just that. But when you’re casting your net so wide that you’re just like, Well, I could do that, or I’m really skilled in this, or I could do anything you want me to do. That’s not as compelling. Also, you end up with a fulfilling career without regret.

Like I said before, when you move into a job and then you regret it after a while or you outgrow it so quickly, it’s because you didn’t end up getting into the right job for you. When you know what you want first, it saves you so much time in the search process. It makes it more efficient. But then also you’re able to then get into a job that you actually love that you want to stick with. Number two is we need to disrupt the pharma biotech industry and make your promotion or new job that you want to have necessary. We need to make either hiring you, getting promoted necessary for them. We need to disrupt the norms because the generic advice doesn’t work for us. We can’t just keep climbing and hoping that we get their recognition we deserve. We have to do something different. When we stand up on our own and get clear on what we want, our confidence in who we are, we get more job offers. That’s just the way that it works. We want people coming to you instead of you chasing. I don’t want you chasing offers, trying to get people to hire you, trying to get people to promote you.

We want you to be an opportunity magnet where things are coming to you, where you’re selecting what you want and you’re turning down things that you don’t. We don’t want you to mold or me, I don’t want you to mold you or you to be molded into something you don’t actually want to be. I want you to stand out on your expertise. As the thought leader that you are, using the skills the way that you want them to be used instead of going into that maze situation. To have courage, to stand out and not always be trying to fit in and create your opportunity to do that, we have to get out of the maze. To create your opportunity. To make your promotion necessary, to get more interviews, to get more job offers internally or externally, we have to get you out of the maze. Then number three is to learn and master the skills of communication, which is influencing skills and self-advocacy so you can improve effectiveness in your current job and in the job search process. To do that, you have to build tolerance in the discomfort, which sounds okay in theory.

You might be like, Yeah, I do things. I have a growth mindset. But a lot of times we don’t. When it really comes to making big changes, we don’t. To handle difficult situations, difficult people, we have to build up that tolerance for the discomfort to go in and have conversations that don’t feel good. That’s easier when you have these skills to overcome the no. When you get a no from your boss, when you get a no from the interview process, when you’re feeling rejected, you have to overcome that and go into a problem solution focus, which is something that I teach. You need to have strategic relationships. So not just, I’m going to reach out to everyone, I applied to this job, here’s my resume, but we want to have strategic relationships in and outside of your company, and you need to be able to manage up to make it an easy yes, whether it’s asking someone for a referral, getting a job created for you, getting a new opportunity somewhere else, getting promoted where you are. We want that to be the easiest yes, where you don’t feel like they’re doing you a favor or they’re just trying to make sure you don’t leave, but you’re actually feeling recognized and valued for what you do.

Ultimately, you have to be able to be confident to communicate and influence with anyone. When you can When you do that, then you can deliver your value proposition. You can deliver what you do, why you do it. You can ask for what you want, you can problem-solve. All of that starts by knowing what you want first. Let’s talk about each of these individually. Okay, so this first one, know exactly what you want. I framed each of these with what’s in and what’s out. I saw that as a trend for the beginning of the year. Instead of New Year’s resolutions, people were doing what’s What’s out for 2023, what’s in for 2024. So I’m doing a play on that when it comes to the job process, whether it’s getting promoted, figuring out what you want, getting a new job internally or externally. We’re going to talk about what’s out for each of these strategies and That’s it. So what’s it. What’s out? Being so stressed that you can’t decide and then you settle. Instead, when you proactively manage your career and never feel desperate. Never feel like you’re hitting a breaking point and so you need to just quickly take time off because you can’t take it anymore.

Or maybe you’re just thinking, I’m just going to quit my job because I can’t handle this anymore and I’ll figure out what to do next another time. Or you take a job that’s not a great fit for you because you just can’t. You got to this breaking point and you can’t handle it anymore. Is letting perfectionism, people-pleasing, guide your career and staying in the maze. So I will say this, not only because this is… What’s relative to us is what we see. For me, I’ve had my business full-time for four years, but I’ve been developing women in the industry for far longer before that. There’s been a huge uptick when it comes to women trying to figure out what they want, overcoming their internal obstacles, and having jobs created for them. The way that we used to navigate our careers in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, even early 2000s, it’s all changing. Workplaces are changing because they’re seeing people want to have more meaningful careers, but also we’re changing. People are demanding that they have a different career experience, and it’s just helping them advance more quickly by doing this work. It’s all a cycle that’s feeding each other.

I’m just getting so many people reaching out wanting to let go of feeling they need to be perfect, doing things for other people. I’m getting younger and younger people do it. Typically, my clientele is generally upper 30s to 50s is probably the median. But I always have outliers of people that are older and younger. But I’m getting more people that are in their 20s even saying, I’m not happy. I don’t know what I want. I want to talk about that now. I don’t want to wait until I’m older to figure out what it is that I want. And that’s just amazing. And it’s evidence of how the workplace is changing, how our society is changing, how we’re evolving. Anyway, instead of doing this, wait to care more about what you think about your career than what other people think about your career, because that is what is going to make you happy in the long run. No more what you don’t want than you do. This is really common. This is out. Instead, get clear on what you’re going to, not what you’re running away from. It’s easy to know what you don’t like because that’s the pain you’re experiencing now.

We need to get you clear on what you do like, what you do want. Out are unnecessary degrees or certifications to pad your resume. Instead, what’s saving time and money? I can’t tell you how many people I have worked with that came to me saying that they were considering a degree. They were already in a degree program. They were already in a PMP certification. They were exploring a PMP certification because they just wanted to get some momentum, and that would help them with their resume. They thought that would help them get the job, and it would help them get the promotion. That is the way things used to be done. It’s not the way things are done anymore. It doesn’t have to be the way that we do it now, especially as women in the industry. Instead, you save time and money by knowing what you want, and that would just problem solve for you to get it. When you know what you want, everything just can fall into place. Things don’t fall into place when we don’t know what we want because then we’re just spinning around in a circle all the time.

Scrolling on LinkedIn to find the one, like the wedding dress, right? Finding the one. Instead, know what you want and tap into the hidden job market, right? Because something to say about this, which is true for org charts too, jobs that are posted, the ones that you see at work on the org chart, the ones that you see that are posted on LinkedIn or on Indeed, they are not necessarily representative of what the company needs or how that job could exist or new jobs that could be created. Like, org charts are like a snapshot in time. It’s like some leader said at some point, this is the structure we need in order to deliver X result. It doesn’t mean that there’s not a better way to do it. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a unique value proposition to deliver for the business in a unique way and get a new role created for you. Those org charts, they’re not fixed. If you need evidence of that, look at any leader that comes into an organization who all of a sudden wants to redo the organization because they work somewhere else and they liked the way that was there, and so they just move things around to cater to their style.

So org charts, they can change. Job descriptions can change. I’ve helped people negotiate job descriptions in the interview process. They applied for a job that was close to their career protocol, which is the process that I created. Then in the interview process, they were able to align the job to what they wanted and have that changed because they were able to sell them on why it was needed. So it’s not fixed as much as what you think it is. Expecting hard work and performance reviews to be enough, waiting for recognition is out. Instead, you praise an advancement on your terms without overthinking or overworking. Looking inward for your career decisions because you’re here because you want more. This is all about you. You want to be happier in your career. Why would you allow other people to decide what that looks like? That’s what you want for yourself. Only you can find what that is. If you keep defining that based on other people, which again is what we’re taught to do, it’s what our brain chemistry is taught telling us to do.

It’s not your fault that that’s happening, but being aware of that can help you break out of it so that you don’t make decisions based on other people anymore. Applying to every job you’re qualified for or makes sense, it’s totally out. Instead, apply only to the roles and make relationships only with the people that can get you into the job that you want. Finally, being afraid of making the wrong choice, staying stuck, playing small. Instead, you can be certain in what you want by creating a career protocol, which is the process that I created to help you know exactly what you want and create that business case for your promotion or your job. All right. Now, I’m covering a lot today. If you have any questions, just go ahead and put them in the chat and I will answer them. Okay, let’s talk about some examples. For each of these strategies, I want to bring them to life for you with an example of how they were used. The first person I’m going to talk about is Brenda. Brenda was a senior scientist, overworking, she was stressed, not really sure what she wanted. She struggled with advocating for herself in the workplace, wanting to make sure that she was in the right career for her.

She joined me on the ceiling. What happened is she was promoted to principal scientist early on. She started putting out feelers and getting some interest before she joined. Then we navigated that process together. She was able to make more money. She was able to shape her role. Now she’s having conversations with leaders to shape her role to be what is aligned with her career protocol. She’s driving her career in the right direction. They’re seeing her leadership potential. She loves her boss. She’s confident in her value. She’s an A+ work-life balance. That was something she was really concerned about. Before joining, spending time with her family is She was worried, If I join a program, am I going to have enough time with my family? Is that going to take away the little time that I do have? But what you find is when you work with an expert and you follow a specific process that works, you end up saving so much time because you’re no longer all the way out here trying to do all these things, trying to figure it out. Instead, you just follow guidance that is given to you, and we figure out how to make things more efficient, how to make you more productive, how to overcome the obstacles you’re experiencing at work, how to defer and delegate to other people.

So You actually end up having more time. That was her experience. Katherine. Katherine is the one that I mentioned with her parents and the investment that you made for coaching. She was a QA specialist, burnt out, struggling with her boss. She was considered Considering PMP, considering going back to school. She was really interested in data science. She wanted to get promoted. She didn’t know if she should stay or go because of the culture that was going on with her work. She was uncomfortable speaking up and asserting herself with leaders. So her after, as far as what she achieved, she got clear on what she wanted first, and that helped open the doors for her to know, Okay, I could work internally or externally, and these are exactly the roles that I want to target. And she ended up getting promoted, and she ended up getting multiple offers. So what we did is we used an internal and external strategy. And so she was exploring things externally while we were exploring a promotion internally. They turned down and did not give her the promotion internally, but she ended up getting two offers somewhere else in a promotion, so a 25% salary increase with that.

Then she went to give her notice, and then her work gave her a counter offer. It was like, Oh, my gosh, we didn’t know you were going to leave. Could you please stay? She was like, No, too late. She left and she also got a sign-on bonus. She did that without certifications, without going back to school. She didn’t need to spend time doing those things. She just needed to get clear on what she wanted and use the strategy that I’m teaching you today. Then Alyssa, she was someone that was impacted by a layoff, and so she wanted to make sure her next role was the next best one for her. She had some interest from recruiters, but she wasn’t really clear what her specific niche that she wanted and how she wanted her role to be the type of leader she wanted to work with. She wanted to organize that and get really clear. She did that. She also didn’t have a lot of experience negotiating offers without using her prior offers as leverage or her prior jobs as a leverage. She had some problematic stakeholder issues that she wanted to work through, so she was communicating and influencing more effectively.

What happened is she got clear on her role. She ended up turning down jobs that weren’t a good fit because she got clear by knowing what she wants with a clear protocol process, got her dream role, she got a bonus, and she improved her communication skills. This is the power of what can happen when you just get clear on what you want, when you spend time with yourself and get out of that maze. Now, let’s talk about disrupting the industry and making your promotion or a new job necessary. Necessary. So what’s out? Chasing or begging for opportunities, not only because it’s not as effective and it wastes so much time, but it doesn’t feel good. You’re all talented. You all have a lot of strengths, a lot that you give to your careers. You shouldn’t be chasing for opportunities. Instead, we want leaders and offers coming to you for you to be an opportunity magnet. What’s out is playing political games. Instead, stand out with your unique talents and abilities. That’s why confidence in the psychology piece is part of the work that I do because it can feel really uncomfortable, because what ends up happening is, some of my clients are either they’re more quiet or reserved and they’re not speaking up, or the way they’re speaking up is not effective.

So they’re getting so frustrated. I don’t want to say an arrogance because I don’t want it to come off negative, and I don’t mean it in a negative way, but it’s more entitlement. And I would say I had some of that, too, in my career before, where it was like, you’re educated, you know what you’re doing, you know to solve the problem. It shouldn’t be that hard. So you feel entitled to the promotion, you feel entitled to getting that job, and you don’t understand why you’re not getting it. When you’re feeling that way, the way that you’re behaving at work, even if you are trying harder, you don’t think that that’s coming off and how you’re behaving, it is. There are things that you’re doing. There are things you’re saying there’s an energy you’re giving that is not the same as if you knew what you wanted and you knew how to get it. We want you to embrace the responsibilities you have and just be more effective in getting those roles for you. Settling for no is out and said problem solving and making your new job or promotion necessary. Settling for the job as is and said you can mold the job to be the way that you want.

If there are things, like there are some people that go through my process and what will make them happy is just modifying their current job. They think they need a big change, but actually what they need is just a modification. Maybe it’s in scope, maybe they need to be learning something new, maybe it’s a different type of project they want to work on. We could just modify your job description. It’s actually not that difficult. But you have to know what you want first to prevent you from just going to another job or hopping or applying to a bunch of stuff you don’t really need to be doing. Waiting for a job opening, instead, have ideal jobs created for you. Not wanting to ruffle any feathers, putting the company first, instead, put you first. Be the leader, be the expert of your career. Waiting to feel confident to take risks, instead, to try new things. That’s a big thing. It’s a big lesson I had to learn. Sometimes we don’t do things because we want to feel confident. We want to feel confident in the decision. We want to feel confident in what we’re doing.

The confidence comes from doing the thing. We’re confident in the things we know how to do that we’ve already proven we know how to do. Until we do them, we need courage. Courage is what is going to build the confidence. Looking for proof or dismissing what you want. Instead, become the evidence. For me, when I worked at AstraZeneca, I had a great job, and I was fortunate. I had the role created for me. I had a promotion created for me. I was able to create a coaching program there. They really, really supported my development, supported my skills. They allowed me to do whatever I wanted. Not whenever I wanted, but they allowed me to shape the role. The way that I did that was by creating a business case. I demonstrated the value in the work that I wanted to do. I proved it ahead of time. It’s a strategy that I use with my clients. When it got to the point that I wanted something different, I didn’t know exactly what it was. Then once I figured out what it was, what happened is I went to grad school, got my master’s degree in organizational psychology, discovered a different type of coaching than what I had experienced when I was in the industry in the corporate world because this was psychology-based.

I decided to get another certification in coaching, and I decided to take clients at night, and I loved it. It’s just like, Oh, I’m going to go to bed pretty early, I would do clients at night after work, and it would just energize me. And so it became clear that that’s what I wanted, but there weren’t any examples of it. And so I was looking like, Could I do this? I had built such a successful career. I was grateful for the career that I had. Could I really step out and create my own business? And I had a lot of doubt about it. My brain went to like, Oh, my gosh, your kids are going to go to foster care. These are dramatic things that we think are going to happen. Actually, what I ended up doing is I ended up hiring a coach because it became clear it wasn’t the math problem. I had prepared for it. I had the funds. I did all the things I needed to do. And I still was like, I can’t leave my successful career. What if I fail? What if then I have to go crawling back to the industry?

All of the things that our brain offers us when we want to do something different. If I had waited to have evidence, if I needed to find someone who was like me, who had the same background as me, the same talents as me, who wanted to start a business and then to see them successful, I wouldn’t have ever started my business. To be honest, I’d probably be like my clients are, where even if I found that person, I’d be like, Well, They’re not like me. They don’t have the struggles I do. They don’t have the same need for security or stability. They don’t have X, Y, Z. I would have dismissed it. Eventually, what I needed was the courage. I needed the courage to take the step forward and to figure out what is it that I would do if it didn’t work out. Once I knew that answer, then I could just problem-solve. Then I decided, Okay, if my business doesn’t work out, I will just go back and get a job in the industry again. But it did work out. I actually got fully booked in my business within six months. So what you want, you can create, but don’t wait for the evidence.

And it’s not just because I started my own business, it’s what I help people do all the time. Most of my… I think I’ve had maybe five clients go business route over the last four years. The majority are either staying where they are or they’re getting into a new company, or they’re not making drastic changes. Another thing, slimy uncomfortable networking is out. You don’t need to go to these Brosky, beer-driven networking events and pass out business cards to get a new job, to tap into the hidden market. Instead, we just need to build authentic relationships. So I teach you how to do that in a way that feels good to you and doesn’t feel awkward and uncomfortable. Couple more here. Letting lack of direct experience hold you back. This is a big one. Sometimes people, they want to move from the lab into an office space. They want to move into project management from being a bench scientist. You don’t need to have a direct experience to make those moves. I’ve helped people do that. Instead, what you need is the strategy and confidence in your transferable skills to get the offer that you want and to have you get that offer over people with It’s a direct experience.

And that happens when you work on the skills and the strategy that I’m talking about. Tweaking your resume to perfection before applying. I know I’m not the only one that has done this where you feel like, I just need to work on my resume and then I will apply. And you’re looking for the right words, you’re looking for how it can sound so perfect. Instead, there is no perfect template. Actually, we did a workshop with the LifeSciences recruiter in the last round of Beyond the Ceiling, and I’ll just give you that information now. There’s no perfect template. With that said, I do have a template in the program that they recommend in the life sciences industry, especially for leadership roles, but to help demonstrate your skills, whether it’s transferable or in the same. So you do get that if you want a place to start. But it’s not your resume that’s getting you the job, it’s you. So if you’re Instead, we want you to get offers without the perfect resume by standing out as the no-brainer candidate for what you want. Then finally, feeling powerless in your career is so out. Instead, always know what you want and how to get it. That is possible for you if you want to know how to do that, if you want to do that work for yourself.

To disrupt the industry and get what you want, you need to look beyond the job postings. Sell your boss, sell your company or external company on hiring you for what you want. Tap into the hidden job market to get the role created for you or an out-of-cycle promotion by making it necessary. Sometimes the job may be posted, sometimes it’s not, but it doesn’t have to be a problem if it’s not. You can do this once you do strategy number one. Once you know what you want, then you can do this. You got to know that first. Here are some examples. The first one is Swathy. Swathy was a bench scientist. She wanted out of the lab, felt like she wasn’t growing and she wanted to learn how to handle difficult situations at work better, not sure what she could do out of the lab. She was exploring PMP. After she actually moved into her job with a large firm, a company in Alliance Management, and so she was able to move into that role without losing her scientific expertise. That actually was very relevant. She wanted to use it, but she didn’t want to use it in the lab space.

She was willing to take a contract role. This is how we did something a little bit creative for her. We found the ideal role for her based on her career protocol, and then we used a strategy to get her into that role even without direct experience. Then she was able to move into that role, agreed to do it as a contract to demonstrate she could do it, and then was hired full-time within a couple of months. She became a skilled communicator with leadership. Next example is Jen. So Jen works in F&E. She knew mostly what she wanted. She was demonstrating value with stretch projects. She was a high performer, high achiever, well known. She was asked for the job that she wanted, and she was told no. So she asked again. She was doing what she needed to do to get that promotion, to get a new job, and it just wasn’t going anywhere. She kept hitting roadblock after roadblock. She felt very stuck because she felt like she was doing everything right and it wasn’t working. What she did is we actually wrote her own job description. All she needed to do was change her approach.

We got really clear on what she wanted, so a little bit more granular than where she was so that we could create an effective business case and then use communication and influencing with her management by understanding their style to be able to create a plan and an approach that was going to get an easy yes. When we did that, she was able to move into her dream job. Then the third person is in process, so I just have them as ex. Before, they’re in tech-ups, they’re exploring a secondment, moving into another role. They were getting a lot of praise, wanted to grow, but not seeing options within their group. They love their company, didn’t want to leave their company. Where they are now is they did their career protocol, and where they thought they needed to move to another department, they joined to move into the other department. They realized that they actually wanted to stay where they were, and they loved so much about the current job they have, but they just wanted to modify it a bit. And so there was a business case for what they wanted, and so we’re working on writing her job description right now.

Our third strategy, influencing and advocating. So what is out is scratching and climbing for a seat at the table and instead leading the conversation. Having ideas, having things created for you, you can lead that conversation and not have to try to be invisible or try to do what everyone else is doing. What’s out is sacrificing your personal life from work. Instead, know how to create boundaries, know how to defer and delegate. I can’t even tell you how many people will say, I’ve tried everything. It’s just the way the work is. They think it’s just their company, just their team. It’s everywhere. I have very few people that say, I love my work-life balance. It’s great. Most of them struggle with work-life balance but find it’s very solvable. They just need a different approach so that you can have the work-life balance you want. Out is letting stronger, more difficult personalities stop you or control how you feel about work. Instead, to build the tolerance for discomfort and learn the skill to navigate all of these challenging situations at work because they’re never going away. When you learn how to communicate and influence effectively, you take that with you the rest of your career.

It’s going to change your trajectory. You will get more advancement. You will get farther, you will get more opportunities. You will be happier when you’re able to do that. And so learning that skill now is something you’ll be able to have forever. And then also, only having work friends locally. So I had to learn that. I had to branch out when I was building in the industry also. Instead, have strategic relationships that make work easier and have opportunities coming to you. Being frustrated with your boss. Instead, manage up. It’s a skill you can learn. Feeling intimidated with certain people. Instead, feel confident to communicate and influence anyone. These are just skills. Influencing others in advocacy for self, it feels like it’s just you or just these difficult people or you can’t overcome it. It might be something you struggled with your whole life, but it’s just a skill that you can learn, and you just haven’t learned it the right way or with the right people or in the right format before. But it’s something that you can definitely solve. Blaming others, letting ego get in your way. Instead, discover your blind spots.

Take accountability. Empower yourself. Overconsume, prioritize learning over action. I don’t know if you do this, I’ve definitely done this, where if I get so comfortable in the learning, I just need to learn this other thing or maybe this other trick or tip. I just love learning so much I have to actually put boundaries on that for me within this space because I’m in this space of personal and professional development. So there’s so much to learn, so much to teach my clients. And so I have to put that boundary on for me. But that can also hinder you. If you think you need to learn one more thing, do more one thing, wait until another time. Instead, you can do what you want right now. All you need is a simple process. You don’t need to read more books, more HBR articles. You don’t need to find a perfect little framework. You can figure it out right now. There’s a very simple process that has been proven for years. Here are some examples. Erin. Erin is an associate director within clinical operations. She was working for a small company, and she was unsure if she should stay or if she should go.

She wasn’t sure if it was something where she should stay because she’s like, Well, maybe this is me. Maybe I just need to be better at communicating with my leadership. Maybe I need to just learn these skills. She didn’t want to leave and regret it because she had a good relationship with her boss, so she just wasn’t sure what to do. So afterwards, or her after, is what we did is we worked with her influencing of her communication skills, which made work easier. So then she could know, Okay, this isn’t just me. This is actually the culture that I don’t thrive best in. We created her career protocol so she knew exactly what role to go to. She landed her dream job with a large pharma company. She got a huge bump. She got a 50K sign-on bonus, all for something that was lateral. It wasn’t even a promoted move. It was just moving her into something that she really wanted to do. Then Rachel. Rachel was a global vaccines leader. She had imposter syndrome. That’s something that she identified with for herself. She had some new visibility with her leadership role that was causing her to doubt herself.

She had this fear of being found out that she got this job and that somehow they were going to be like, Oh, you’re not really who we thought you were. So she had to work through that. She also had to overcome overworking because she had this fear of being found out. She had this fear that she was going to be found out or that she did approve herself. And so what that created was her overworking all the time. And so she had to overcome that. And so what she did is she got confident in her value. She started working less while her performance went up. She negotiated a pay raise in a promotion within six months. She overcame her self-doubt and her need for validation. And then Christina. Christina is a principal scientist. She’s a high-achieving People Manager, struggled with her boss, doubted her capabilities, and really lacked growth. She wanted to move forward in her career and do something different. And so after, as she got clear on what she wanted, she identified that there’s another area she wants to work in within the industry. And so even though she has direct experience, we’re using a strategy to help her skills be transferable and have using those strategic relationships to help her get a role above other people that have that direct experience.

And now she’s navigating that interview process. So let’s recap. So first, what we talked about in the beginning, make Make this shift. Get out of the maze and create the opportunity that you want. We want to let go of the student-employee thinking. Find those hidden doors, know that they’re there and that you are there and that you are in charge, you are in control of your career. Almost like putting on a CEO hat. Remember, your brain’s motivation to seek pleasure, make things easy, avoid discomfort. This is why change and doing something new is hard, because this is going to pop up every time. It’s not your fault that this is hard, but just know that this is how you’re operating right now, and we need to do something different to get you a different result. We need to make your brain work for you, not against you. Then a recap of the three strategies. The first is to know exactly what you want first. The second one, disrupts the industry. Make your dream job necessary. Number three, influence and advocate for yourself. This is going to improve your effectiveness in and outside of the job search.

So you need to break this cycle. This is the typical cycle we talked about today. You’re unhappy, look for a job, pick based on options or wait, hope you get it, fingers crossed, feel bad if you don’t, want a promotion, ask for it, told no, quit or wait. That’s just a fallacy of women don’t ask for promotions. They do. They’re just often turned down. We need a different approach. Instead, when you’re unhappy or you want a promotion, figure out what you want first. You want to disrupt the industry by addressing your internal and external obstacles. Influence and advocate for yourself and get the job. And this process is going to get you the job you actually want without regret. It’s going to get you into that fulfilling career. So why follow this? You’re like, I don’t know. Why follow this? The results are faster with less effort. You don’t have regret. You don’t get to the end of your life and be like, Oh, I never actually figured out my potential. I never actually got into what I thought I could do. I settled. I should have done this. I should have done that.

You let all of that go when it comes to your career when you do this work. The skills you learn, because we’re addressing it from a personal and professional development perspective, they really bleed into everything that you do and the whole quality of life that you have. Also, this is something that works for pharma biotech. I’ve been using this strategy and this approach with women in the industry for several years. It always works. What you’re doing now isn’t working, right? Or you want You wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be on a job or on a training of how to get your dream job if you had your dream job. So why not try something new? Instead of going in all of these different directions and trying to figure out what to do and getting a mentor and taking a training at work and struggling and applying to a bunch of jobs, you could just follow a simple process that gets you into your goal. And that’s what the strategy does. This is what this mindset shift will do for you. Okay, can you do this? Yes, you can. So that was the teaching portion of our training today. I’m going to check the Q&A, and I’m going to start talking about Beyond the Ceiling.

Beyond the Ceiling. So Beyond the Ceiling is where we do this work together, and it is open for enrollment right now. Only open for two weeks. We get started on March 15th, and I’m going to talk about what we do in this group together. So you can make a decision on whether or not this would be the next best step for you. Because if you went through this training and you’re like, yes, I want that. Yes, I want this. I would love to know what I want. I would love to disrupt the industry. Then this is the place that you want to be. Let me start talking about this. So Beyond the Ceiling. Beyond the Ceiling. Beyond the Ceiling is a high touch, personalized and proven Career Development program to stop feeling stuck, get clear on your ideal role, and get a new job, promotion, or upgrade your current role. If you’re thinking, Maybe I don’t want a new job right now. I don’t want to get promoted right now. Now is still the time to join to get clear on what you do want, and we can start making improvements to your current job and set you up with a strategy to get what you want when you want it.

It might be sooner than you think. In Beyond the Ceiling, how we work on what we talked about today. Knowing what you want first. I take you through a career discovery process. The career discovery process is going to look at everything you’ve done before. It’s also going to look at things that are buried in your psychology a little bit that maybe if you’re so stressed and frustrated, you can’t see. Because when we’re stressed and frustrated, we can’t really see clearly. We also forget things. It really ties everything together that you know in your conscious mind right now and the things you don’t, as well as using some proven science-based assessments that are going, we’re going to put that all together to create a very structured and organized career protocol for you. The career protocol is just like when you think about a protocol in industry. It’s going to tell you exactly the parameters of what type of job you should have, what’s the scope of influence. What’s it going to be if we’re going to get a new job created for you? What type of boss is best for you?

What type of companies are best for you? What don’t you want? You’re going to know crystal clear what it is that you want so you know exactly what to go after and how to get those dream job offers, whether it’s a promotion or a new job. We’re going to disrupt the industry and make that new job or promotion necessary. We’re going to do that by having your personal industry disrupt strategy. Even though you’re in a group with other women in the industry, you all have similar goals. You’re all going through the same thing. You’re going to learn from them, but you’re also going to get personalized strategy. How that looks is like we’re on Zoom together and you say, Okay, this is what my career protocol says, which I guide you through. Then it’s like, This is what I want to do. How can I do that? Then I create a strategy with you. You go to take some action, you come back and report. It’s very personalized and custom to you because nothing about this program is generic because nothing about you is generic. You need a unique approach. We teach you to become an opportunity magnet so that you have offers coming to you instead of you chasing.

So you learn how to become an opportunity magnet. You also know how to create a business case for any job that you want to create, and you have the confidence through courage. So you take action without the confidence. You become the person that creates what they want. And then finally, influence others in self-advocacy. So I call this role, success skills. So foundationally, we want to work on communication skills, on influencing influencing on you being able to know what other people’s preferences are and your own blind spots, and be able to go into a conversation to influence and get what you need, even if you don’t agree with the person, even if they’re not your best friend. You learn the communication influencing skills. That is part of this group. We get you clear what it is that you want. You have your career protocol, and then you have personalized strategy to make your new job or promotion or upgrade to your current role or reality. Everyone gets results. You need to be the evidence. I’ve worked with women in pharma biotech with various levels, everywhere from more entry level all the way up to vice president, and I’m using the same process.

It always works regardless of level, also regardless of area of expertise. If you’re in the lab, if you’re not, if you’re manufacturing or you’re not, if you’re in sales, it doesn’t matter. This process works for you, and the process is specific to the industry. We’re going beyond the glass ceiling here. I feel like it’s so outdated to be like, When they need to shatter the glass ceiling? No, it’s not our responsibility to shatter the glass ceiling, for one. Okay, I could go on a whole rant about that. But we need to go beyond that. We’re not just trying to get to the top of someone else’s measuring stick. We’re not trying to be a statistic on some companies like, We need to have X people in leadership that are women. We’re not trying to do that. We’re trying to get into a meaningful career. We are trying to be certain in what we want to feel confident about ourselves, to have the impact that we want to have, to get a new job, to get a promotion and up your current role on our terms, not someone else’s statistics. Not something that’s trying to be a headline in townfall.

This is about you. We are going beyond that. That’s why I named it Beyond the Ceiling. So what is covered? Every strategy and internal obstacle. Because this is specific to you, there’s a process you follow that I’ve created, but the implementation of the process is custom to you. To you. Every strategy, an internal or external obstacle you need to overcome is covered in this program. Here are some examples of what that might look like. You had your career protocol. We talk about work-life balance. We talk about positioning yourself, marketing yourself, confidence building, influencing skills, communication skills, transitioning into a new role. So once you get into the new role, let’s say two months into the program, you’re in a new role, talk about how to be successful, how to show that you were the right hire from day one, how to protect your boundaries in your personal life, how to not bring in some of the baggage from your past role into your new role. If you’re moving into leadership, we talk about that. Maybe you’re pivoting into people management. So that transition is also covered. Interviewing, negotiating, if you have a posture syndrome, managing up the hidden job market.

These are just an example of all the things that we talk about and cover in this group, and it’s all personalized to you. And then here’s some examples of results that you can get. So these are from real clients. So up to 40% salary increase, writing your own job description, a 50k sign-on bonus, promotion with the same company, promotion with a new company, renegotiating your role. I had someone renegotiate their role and get a 20k salary increase with it. Two promotions in an 18-month span, being the successor for the department head or for someone in leadership at your company, having a role created for them. You have these tangible external things you can achieve, but then there’s also the way And the way that you feel and the way that you talk about your career that’s different. And so these are quotes that my clients have said. My confidence has skyrocketed. I’m in my dream job. I feel better than I have my entire life. I don’t have anxiety anymore. I sleep so good. I communicate well at every level. Leaders are listening. I make decisions easily now. Where did the self-doubt go? I didn’t know that I could get paid this much and love my job.

So your experience with work can completely change. So this is how we work together. You go to www.yourworthycareer.com/beyond. You’re going to get a website page on my website that’s going to go over all of the details, all of the things that I’m talking about here. It’s also going to have a link to schedule a consultation. The consultation is for you and I to come together and make sure this is a good fit for you so I can answer any questions that you have, but also that I can make sure that the program is a good fit for you because your return on investment is important as it is to you. Maybe a little bit more to you, but it’s important to me too. It doesn’t do me any good to have people in my program that aren’t getting results. I want to make sure that this is a good fit for both of us. That’s what that consultation is for. It’s just a 30-minute call. I can answer your questions. I’ll ask you some questions, and we’ll confirm you’re a good fit. If you’re a good fit, then I’ll submit you the payment link.

You will make your payment within 48 hours, and then you will join the program. You will get immediate access to the program portal, which is going to include resources you can start using right now before we get started on March 15th. It’s going to include stuff if you’re in the middle of a job search process. If you’re interviewing right now, there’s resources in there for you to use right now. It’s four months of live group coaching and development for women in pharma biotech. The investment is $7,500 and there’s a payment plan available. It includes a virtual kickoff event. We’re going to come together on March 15th. That’s officially when we’re kicking off. We’re going to go over the program together. You’re going to meet your personal board of directors which is the women that are going to be in this group with you. You’re going to get a welcome box mailed to your home that’s going to have your workbook and some goodies for you. Then also, you’re never alone, you’re never stuck because you get all of this support. We have two coaching calls every week that are custom to you. We meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week.

Private portal with on-demand teachings and tools that you can access 24/7. There’s a private podcast with call replays. If you have to miss a call, if there’s an audit, if there’s something really critical, if you have a vacation plan, you can totally miss the call on those exceptions. Then just hop in and watch the replay. It’ll be available for you within 24 hours, both in the portal and on the private podcast. There’s a curated network. Like I said, while we’re having these consultation calls, I’m curating a limited number of women to be a part of this group. When you’re part of that, you’re going to have this personal board of directors. Let me tell you, the community from the last group was incredible. These women, we create this from the very beginning. You connect on LinkedIn, You have coffee chats with each other. You have access to people from all different levels, all different parts of the industry, and you see you’re not alone. The things you’re struggling with, they’re struggling with too. You get to tap into each other’s networks, you get to have that as a support system. You get to learn from each other and you get to learn more quickly because there’s problems coming on those coaching calls that you wouldn’t even think to ask if we were meeting one-on-one, but you get access to those when we’re together in that group space.

There’s a private community. It’s off of social media, it’s within your program portal. You can go in and ask questions anytime you have them. In between calls, let’s say you get a call from a recruiter or a message on LinkedIn saying, Hey, are you interested in this position? You don’t have your career protocol ready yet. Then you can go ahead and get your answer. You can go ahead and get support. Right then, you don’t have to wait until a call. Everything you need to create the career you want, measurable results, they’re monitored in the group. This is also a measurable program. In the kickoff event, we’re creating your measurable goals. We’re figuring, I guide you through a process to create what are the results you’re going to get in the first 30 days because we have quick wins where you will get results, measure and improvement in your career in the first 30 days. Then what are you going to achieve for the first four months, the four months that we’re working together. Then you’re submitting monthly evaluations. I teach you how to do this. It’s a skill that once you have it, it’s going to exploit your growth more than you can imagine.

I do these for myself also. I’m going to teach you that process, and you’re going to submit those evaluations, and I review them so that I can see exactly where you’re at, I can see where you’re getting stuck, and then we can celebrate your wins along the way. It’s very measured. You’re career-prone call when you go through that, there’s a way you can submit that to me. I will review it. If you have questions about things, I’ll provide a video back to you. It’s very personalized to you. To join, schedule your consultation. There are also some bonuses. If you struggle with decision making, overthinking, perfectionism, we have a solution because this is the bulk of my clients, things that I had to overcome also. First is Confident Decision-Making Workshop. There’s a workshop in there that is very hands-on. I’m guiding you through specific exercises to understand your experience with decision making, to understand, somewhere when I talk about the maze, what is the psychology behind why you’re struggling with overthinking? Then I give you specific strategies to use.

There are a number of strategies. Some of them are asking better questions to help you make the decision, and I give you a list of questions to ask yourself. There’s a 10, 10, 10 strategy. There’s a number of different strategies I’ve created for you. So whenever you’re struggling with the decision, you can go in and you can use those strategies and you stop the overthinking and you stop wasting time. I’ve had people tell me that this literally cured them of overthinking, that they have spent their whole life overthinking, and they went through that training and it cured them. They’re no longer an overthinker. The second one is time management. So I know you’re all busy, right? So believe me, this is not a three-hour or four-hour. These are five-minute practical solutions. You get access to these right away. If you’re thinking, I’m procrastinating, I don’t have enough time. You can go in there and get the solution right away. So these are bonuses you get on top of everything else. And these are available right away. When you build these skills, you are going to have them forever. Imagine not overthinking ever again. Imagine no longer having analysis paralysis or getting stuck in perfectionism.

Because when you’re stuck in perfectionism and overthinking, that shows up at work. That’s preventing you from getting the traction you want at work. You get so worried about it being perfect that you’re not as effective. I was told this before, too. I had gotten feedback in my career of, What was that? You are always offering the Nordstrom solution, and sometimes people just want the Walmart solution. We just want the Walmart solution here. We do not want the Nordstrom solution. And that was their analogy. And I was like, But we should have the Nordstrom solution. So now I get to create the Nordstrom solution for you. But there’s a quick bonus. If you’ve been reading the emails, if you’ve been following along, because you registered for this training, you have an exclusive bonus. So unlike other times, I’m not offering this to everyone. This is not going to be on my social media. You’re not going to see this for other people. This is only for you because you dedicated this time to invest in yourself, to look at the strategy, to look at how you can make a change, and I want to reward you for that.

So if you schedule your consultation within 48 hours, you’re going to get this bonus. This bonus is a one-on-one career Kappa call with me. Being in the industry, I’m sure you know what a Kappa is. A career Kappa call is where we get together one-on-one and you can use it now or you can use it anytime before the program ends. We’re going to come together and we’re going to look at a problem we’re experiencing and we’re going to come up with a solution, and then we’re going to prevent that problem from ever happening again. We’re going to have an actual Kappa that addresses the root cause. Actually, the podcast episode called Career Kappa, where I talk about good Kappas and bad Kappas, and creating a career kappa for yourself when it comes to problem solving at work. I’m going to facilitate this process with you one on one, a full coaching session that you can use at any time. But you have to schedule your consultation by Sunday. You don’t have to have your call by Sunday. But I did open up calls later today and tomorrow, and I normally don’t do calls then, so that we could have this conversation as soon as you want to have the conversation.

We can have it before Sunday, but you just have to schedule it by Sunday, and you will be eligible to get this bonus when you join. It’s time to go beyond the ceiling. We want to create the career that you want. Here is a recap. Beyond the Ceiling process includes your career protocol. It includes the industry disruption strategy. It includes role success skills and everything you need to know what you want in your next move to get a new job, get a promotion, upgrade your current role. It includes a virtual pickup-off event and materials, two weekly coaching sessions for four months, a private community opportunity with women like you in 24/7 support on-demand portal with tools, teachings, worksheets, replays, everything you need, specific to the industry to get you into a better job. Private podcast. The bonus is the comfort decision-making workshop and time management. You have the $48 bonus, one-on-one career capital. That’s the last time I’ve looked at. Let’s talk about questions you might have. I will see what’s on here. I can also answer some of the common questions that I get. All right, let me scroll up. Okay, people here from all over.

See, some of these messages came to me directly. Some of them went to everyone. Okay, let me see this question. If you know what job you want, and even at the company you want, how do you get that job when you have been applying but can’t even get an initial interview and have tried connecting with others at the company? Okay, so what this tells me is that there is a problem with the approach that you’re using. So if you know what you want, so if you’re really clear, here’s where some people can get off course. For example, I used a Jen. She knew what she wanted and wasn’t getting traction. She had asked for it multiple times, but she didn’t know what she wanted at a granular level. What she was missing was the compelling reason that she wanted, so in that job, in that situation, it was the job being created for her, which was going to benefit the company. She needed to know that reason in a way that they needed to hear it, that her leadership team needed to hear it. Then she also needed to improve her communication and also work on her confidence in order to execute on that.

It could be that you’re not granular enough. It could be that you are not coming off effective. If you’re not even getting… Let’s see, how do you get that job when you have been applying, you can’t get an initial interview. You can’t get the initial interview, then I would also say it might be something in the way you’re presenting yourself, so that could be something on your resume. But also, I like to use the traditional career search process of applying to jobs and going through that lengthy process as plan B, not plan A. Plan A is you’re an opportunity magnet and the job comes to you. Plan A is you have relationships with that company. You have people that can introduce you to people in that company so that you don’t even have to apply. I just had someone who’s doing this, who’s following the strategy, and she didn’t even apply for the job. She was meeting with someone and they said, You know what? You’re the perfect leader. I’ve been thinking about you. They used to work together in the past, and they were just catching up. You’re the perfect leader, and I’m looking for my successor to lead this department.

So please send me your resume. I want to present it to the board. She never applied for that. It’s actually a job that’s never been posted. So there’s something missing in the approach that you’re using, Ermie, that is preventing you from getting that interview. And it’s either the way you’re presenting your information or it’s the strategy you’re using with that company, that they’re not seeing you as the talent that you are. That’s what I’d say to that one. Okay. What does it mean to influence? Okay, great question. What does it mean to influence? What does that look like in practice? So influencing is helping someone else see your perspective and getting buy-in for your ideas. That’s how I look at that. So you can communicate effectively. You can share a message. But influencing is when you’re able to help people understand your perspective and get buy-in from them so that you can get what you want. If it’s getting a job, if it’s getting resources for a project, if it is getting a day off at work, if it’s taking vacation when everyone else has asked for that same week for vacation, whatever it is, it’s you being able to communicate that effectively in a compelling way that you’re able to influence other people’s behavior to help you get what you want.

That’s generally what it is. Let me know if that wasn’t clear. I see some consultations with folks. Thank you. I look forward to meeting with you all. Can this be applied as a government scientist where it may be more difficult to create a new role, for example? Yes. I have worked with some people that are not technically in industry, whether they’re people that are trying to pivot into industry, like a doctor, someone with an MD who’s looking to pivot into industry, or someone who’s a post-doc. The strategy still works. I would say that this is something that it works regardless. If you’re in the sciences, generally for women, especially, it’s a different approach than what we’re taught to do, but it definitely works. So for you, being on that side, it would be looking at what is it that you can do to create that role within the government space if that’s where you want to stay, if you get really clear on what it is that you want. Like I said before in the beginning, before I worked in the pharma biotech industry, I worked with the government on the child welfare side, and I had a role created for me there.

)

That was a number of years ago. But in that situation, I was someone that got a role created for me to be the manager of the other managers. We had locations across the state of Wisconsin, which is where I’m from. I was a manager of two sites, and then there were other managers that were responsible for some other sites. These were sites within the Department of Health and Human Services. I had a role created for me to be the manager of all of the managers for the state of Wisconsin, so I was responsible for all of our satellite sites in Wisconsin. That definitely can work in the government space, too. What I use there is similar. I’ve just built upon it over the years. What to do when you got clear on what you want for your career, worked on communication skills and confidence, and got an internship offer at 100%, not in the department you want in a big pharma company. What do you need to clear what you want for your career, worked on communication skills and confidence, got an internship. You’re saying you worked on some of these things and you got an internship, but it wasn’t within pharma.

Is that right, Alicia? I just am very frustrated. I don’t know if I should accept this one. I’m a young master graduate and got a three-month internship in a Syrup Cicero that I loved, but this year, I recently proposed to me a 20% offer. Need advice. It was in pharma, but not in the department I wanted. Okay, so that would depend. I would say if you want to schedule a consultation with me, we can talk about your situation in a little bit more detail because you can always decide. If you know exactly what you want, then you know whether or not this job meets that criteria. If the only thing different is the pay, then that would just be a decision that you could make. If it’s a different department, then I would say that’s not your ideal role. Then I would want to look at how closely does that align to what you really want. Is that ultimately going to get you where you want to go, or is it just not a good fit? And it might be that you would be settling in that role. So that’s something we could talk about in more detail.

)

Okay, so now I have some also in my private Q&A. Let me see. What are some strategies for getting clear on what you want in your next job? So that’s what we do in the Ceiling is we create your career protocol. So when we create your career protocol, we’re looking at not just what you’ve done before, what’s on your resume, but we’re tapping into things from all of the different times in your life and things that you’ve enjoyed. We’re looking at things that you don’t like. We’re looking at some… Like I said, we’re taking some scientific assessments so we can tap into your subconscious. And sometimes if you don’t know what you want or you know more of what you don’t want, it can be hard to answer some of those questions. I have a workaround for that so that we can get really granular in your career protocol to figure out what you want. Once we have that list, then we analyze it to say, Okay, based on this list of items, this is going to be the next best role for you. But that’s what we do within Beyond the Ceiling.

How do you increase your network to present yourself to leaders and hiring managers? So that I take a strategic approach with. So that’s the thing that I talk about when I say, We’re going to have you be an opportunity magnet and we’re going to not do the slimy networking. When you know what you want first, then we want to position you to have relationships with the right key stakeholders. It’s actually an exercise that I have you go through to know who it is you need to be building relationships with internally and externally for your current role and then also for where you want to go. Okay. A lot of great questions. What if you have 10 plus years for TMS, EDMS systems, and cannot get interviews or jobs because of not having the most… Okay. That can be a problem because things change so quickly. We want to look at how have you overcome that in the past or what do you have that would make it easy for you to learn the most current platform. But I would say this is why when we look at the strategy that I shared with you today, there are these real problems that can come up.

It’s not the right to permit or you have transferable skills or you don’t have experience in the exact platform. Those are real things. Or if you want to go out of the lab and you want to go into the office, these things are going to come up. How you get that is by knowing what you want, but we also have to look at your positioning and we have to look at your confidence in how you’re presenting yourself, and we have to bridge those things together, and then also the communication and influencing skills. That’s why it’s different than the traditional approach. Because for you, it might not be as easy for you to go and just apply for jobs. You probably or may not get interviews in those situations. We have to use something different where we’re doing something behind the scenes, where we’re tapping into that hidden job market. There’s a few ways that I do that. We do that in some of the ways that I talked about here. I also partner with specific headhunters and recruiters, and so I bring them in, and they help you also. And so there’s just some inside tricks and tips we use to get growth created for you to get you connections where you normally wouldn’t.

That’s the benefit of working with someone who’s within this industry and has a specialty and expertise in the space as you get those advantages. Any suggestions for how to bring opportunities to you when your current position is ending so you don’t have time to change things, while you are still working. Okay, I’ll go again. How to bring opportunity to you when your current position is ending so you don’t have time to change things while you are still working? I don’t know that I understand that question. Is it that the role is ending? Like you’re losing your job? Like you’re part of a reorder layoff? Okay. How to bring opportunities to you. Okay. And are you wanting to move into industry? Okay, great. I love the chat. Okay. So if you’re wanting to move into industry, then I would start looking proactively, again, targeting what you’re going to want, like knowing what you want at a granular level. I know it sounds so simple, and I know some of you might think you know what that is already, but you can’t underestimate the power that has when you know what you want. It saves you so much time and it helps you direct yourself exactly where you need to go instead of casting your net so wide.

Because especially when you’re internal, too, that can really work against you if you’re applying for multiple jobs, it starts or even the industry is so well connected, people might hear when you’re applying to a lot of different jobs of different types of roles within the industry. And then you end up getting a reputation of like, Okay, this person is just trying to get promoted. This person is just trying to make a move. They don’t really know what they want. When you know what you want, I’ve actually had many clients use me as evidence in the interview process when they get questions like, How do you know this is the right role for you? Or whatever they can say, I’m working with a career coach and I went through this process. And they can talk about it because they went through it. And that gives the hiring manager or your manager so much more confidence that you actually want that job and you’re not just using it as a stepping stone, even if you are, or you’re not just wanting it to get an up level in pay or an up level in title, or you’re wanting to move on a post-doc.

You’re so much more influential and compelling when you know exactly what you want. And just from a confidence perspective, you’re able to share that and give confidence to the people that are making those decisions. Okay, so there are some questions. I I can go into two that I’ve gotten before. If this is helpful, why don’t you think if you have any other questions for me today. I’ve gotten the question, Am I in the program personally? Yes, I am. I am the one leading the coaching calls twice a week. It’s the process that I created. I’m the one in there that is to your community questions. You’re getting my personalized attention and support during those calls and in between. Another question is, I work in the lab. How can I get results if I have to miss calls sometimes? I talked about this a little bit already, but really, the calls are recorded. I understand. I know this industry. I know there’s things that are going to come up. So if you need to miss a call once in a while, there is a process for that. There’s the call replays. They’re up within 24 hours on the private podcast in the portal.

So you can always always go and watch those at your convenience, and then you can come back and ask any questions you have either on the next call or in the community. So that’s totally fine. Well, I get the same results as one-on-one coaching. So one-on-one coaching is different than this group. How it’s different is I see this as really an expedited growth experience because we’re going through so many topics that are relevant to you in a four-month period of time, and you’re also getting the benefit of the other women in the group with you, which you don’t get one-on-one. And that is just an amazing benefit that once you experience it, you will really understand the value of that. You no longer feel you’re alone. You belong in a safe space. You have this community that you will take with you, likely the rest of your life, of women in the industry. These could be some of your new best friends. These are women that are there to support you, that are going to be able to talk about their career journey, the people that they know. You’re going to be able to build relationships.

They’re going to have questions that you never thought to ask. You’re going to learn so much faster than you would if you were going this alone. I can tell you from the last group, we had people that were principal scientists. We had people that were directors. We had people in the middle. We had people in tech ops. We had people in quality. We had people all over the place. We had people in small biotech. We had people in larger pharma. We had It doesn’t matter where you’re starting, you will be in good company and you will get the benefit of that peer effect. Let me see, question. How much does it cost? The consultation doesn’t have a cost. The consultation, thank you for asking that. I didn’t mention that. The consultation is free. So the consultation is 30 minutes. You schedule the time with me and we will talk about your fit for the program and whether or not it makes sense for you to join and just wrap up any questions that you might have on whether or not it’s a good fit. I’ll make sure it’s a good fit for you, and then we will go from there based on our conversation.

)

So if you’re considering joining, I would definitely just schedule that, especially so you can get in on that bonus if you do decide to join. Okay. Oh, this is a great question. It’s like a positive question. What if I get the results that I signed up for before four months are up? So this can happen. This actually happened in the last round. There were two people that joined that were impacted as part of layoffs in the industry, and they both secured roles before the time was up. That’s great because then we can focus more. They can pivot more on communication skills, on competence building, on work-life balance. If you’re going to come in, you define it. There’s so many things for us to work on. You saw some of those examples here. Everything is personalized to you as far as what you want to achieve in that four months. If you achieve what you initially set out to, we just pivot to something else. Because this is personal and professional development that covers really most of your career. We just pivot to something else that you want to put some more intense focus on. That’s great.

You just get more than you get to achieve in that period of time. Do I coach on interviewing and negotiating job offers? Yes, absolutely. If you want to change your job outside of pharma, so I have people ask that, What if I want to start a business? Or what if I’m not sure pharma is for me? Some people get really burnt out in this industry and they start to wonder if it’s even a good fit for them. If that is you, that’s definitely not a problem. You can pivot into another industry. You can pivot into starting your own business. That is all very relevant here. We talked about everything that was included, the results that you’ll get. The program starts March 15th. March 15th, we kick off with a virtual event at 10:00 AM, and the program goes until July fifth. Oh, this was a great question from someone that joined last time, which is what if I’m afraid to speak up? What if I’m afraid to be in this group and really be vulnerable and worry that maybe their problems will be different than everyone else’s? I want you to know that this is a safe space for you.

And if you’re not feeling comfortable speaking up right now, that is the reason to join this. Because you need to be able to speak up and communicate and influence effectively to be successful in your career. You’re going to hit a ceiling that you create for yourself in your career if you’re not able to do that. And so a safer space to learn how to do that than at work, where there’s higher pressure, higher risk, is in this group. Because you’re going to build relationships with these women and with me and you’re easily and quickly going to be able to build that comfort to be able to speak up because you’re going to see other people. Sometimes we get emotional on these calls. Sometimes people are going through really hard things. Sometimes really sensitive things come up, but We are all there to support each other. And that is such a powerful and helpful thing to have in your life. And so if you feel maybe you don’t want to be seen, you’re used to being more invisible, you’re worried you’re going to do the program wrong, you’re worried that you won’t be at the same level.

That is definitely the reason to join because that is what you’re going to overcome in addition to getting the career upgrade that you want. Another question, what if I don’t want to move jobs in the next four months? That’s okay. How good for you that you don’t have that time pressure and you can come in, you can work on improving your communication skills, you can create your career protocol and know exactly what it is that you want, and then you can be driving that ship in that direction and not to take any missteps or wait until you want something, wait until you’ve hit a breaking point and then try to solve the problem. You can proactively guide your career. Remember, that’s what’s in for 2024. So definitely, that just makes it better for you that you don’t have that time pressure that you can come in and then start laying the groundwork for your next promotion, for your job change. You can start taking that proactive action now and not wasting any time and money on things you don’t need to spend time on. That’s fantastic. Let’s see. That was all the questions that I have gotten recently that I wanted to share with you in case they didn’t come up.

If you have questions, continue to add them to the chat. I can stay here a little bit longer and answer any questions that you have. I can tell you some of the things that we talk about, if you want to hear at a practical level what it is that we talk about. There’s the big thing. We talked about the industry disruption strategy, knowing what you want, your career protocol, communication skills, influencing skills. But how that works tangibly, some of the things we’ve talked about, is when your boss tells you that you need to take on another project and you don’t have the bandwidth to do it, and you don’t feel like you can say no. We problem-solve that so that you know exactly how to handle that situation that puts you first and doesn’t sacrifice your performance at all. Or we talk about negotiating job offers, especially if you’re from a place where you’re unemployed and then you feel like you’re not really in a position to negotiate. We work through that. We had someone do that this last round. You’re welcome. Thank you. Very grateful for this insight. I’m so happy. So glad. If you’re going through the interview process and you get rejected, it feels like rejection.

You put everything into this interview and then you don’t get the offer or worse, they ghost you. We process that. I had a LifeSciences recruiter come in last round, and we did a resume workshop. I planned to do something like that again this time. And so you can bring your resume, and we workshop it together. We ask questions that you normally wouldn’t get to ask because you’re in that interview process. You know what recruiters are thinking, and you can get those connections to get you a job even faster. We talk about things like someone had asked, Does LinkedIn learning matter? Should I put that on my resume? And they were like, No, LinkedIn learning doesn’t matter. It’s not going to get you a job. We talk about the hidden job market, the relationships that you should be building. When you’re not seeing your job posted, then we work through, Okay, what can you do now? What else can you do to get you a job offer or get you something that’s going to be close to what you want? We talk about what to do. We just had someone who went through the interview process.

She had her career protocol. Interview went great. Then the CSO wanted to have a follow-up interview with her and had some follow-up questions for her and was doubting some of the things that she would bring to the role. And so we talk about how to prepare for that. What did you… You’re processing yourself as a human. You are a human in this space. So that’s why this is also very different than anything you would get anywhere else. It’s just different from something you would get at work. We’re not putting generic career development tools on you. Everything is something that is proven to work for women. It’s psychology and science-based, and it’s personalized to you. Who wants to go to a training? I’ve gone to many and been like, That was so useful. I learned so much. That was a great framework. And then what do you do? You go back to work and you do the same thing you’ve always done. It’s hard to integrate and implement, and that’s where coaching is different. Because especially in this space, you are held accountable to implementing. Coaching is implementing. We’re working through the real-life situations that you’re dealing with every single day.

The things that you’re afraid to say, the things you’re afraid to ask, that you’re wondering are just you. The boss where you can’t go to your boss or HR because your boss is the problem. Those are the things that we’re talking about, and you’re having a space to really work through and get a solution so you can move forward. So essentially, anything that you’re experiencing that you’re not enjoying in your career, it’s just a problem we solve together. You get the solution, you take the action, and then it’s not an issue anymore. If you run into problems because we talked about how your brain works, you’re going to fail. Sorry to break it to you. But if you’re an overthinker, if you’re someone that struggles with communication, the first time you go to have a conversation, you’re going to do better than you’ve before, but you might not be perfect. You might still need to improve, or you might get this other difficult stakeholder coming in where just like when you were feeling like you were getting effective, someone else comes in and throws a whammy in and you have to learn how to work with them.

That’s going to happen. Instead of giving up or just saying, I’m going to quit or I’m not going to deal with this, you learn how to deal with that. You learn how to tolerate the discomfort. You learn the skills and strategy you need. You’re always successful in your career. You’re never stuck. You’re never a victim to your circumstances at work. You always know how to handle it. You always know what you want. You always know what your next best move is. We talk about three-year planning in the group. I don’t think I have that on the list, but I have a process I use to help you know what goes into your performance review, what goes into your long term individual development plan, how to write that. There’s a guide in there on filling out your performance review, your self-evaluation, like how to know what to put in there, questions to ask yourself before you write it. We talk about long term planning, so you have your career to know what it is that you want right now. But then you also get the three-year planning process so you can be guiding your career and where you think you might want to take it in the future.

So you can be having those conversations proactively. You’re always in the driver’s seat of this program. That’s what you learn to do is to be the driver seat of your career and of your life. And the ripple effect is huge. So many people tell me they have better marriages when they work with me on this. When they hire me to work on their career, their marriages are better. Why? We’re not talking about their partners. It’s because they’re not stressed anymore. It’s because they’re spending more time with their families because they’re giving their partner more attention. It’s because they’re happy. Imagine if you were happy. If you were happy in a job that you loved, how would that be different? How would that change the way that you talk to your partner? How would that change the presence you have with your kids or with your family? Or how you spend your weekends or your evenings? You wouldn’t need to numb out and tune up the world because you just need a break. You would actually feel like you were making a difference in the world and you were in the right place. That’s what we do here.

It’s very empowering. Once you know these skills, you have them forever. You will never have to wonder what to do with your career again. So life-changing work. All right. What else do we talk about? How to say no to your boss. It’s come up. We’ve had someone have a death close to them and processing the grief. Not even just processing the grief, but just like, How do you handle that with work? When you feel guilty for taking time off. We talk about that. We talk about work-life balance. When you have a team person, like someone on your team, if you’re in a matrix organization, so they don’t report to you, but they’re not doing their job, and so you’re always firefighting for them. How do you do that? How do you escalate? What do you do when you escalate? Nothing changes. We talk about that, too. We talk about follow-up, like the ins and outs of interviewing. When you’re going through the process, people are going to be like, Okay, I’m not hearing. When do I follow up? What do I say in the follow-up? We work through that. We work through, I got feedback from my boss, and I don’t agree with it.

How do I respond to that? Just imagine, you have this space just for you to work through every little and big thing that comes up in your career. Hr doesn’t know, your boss doesn’t know. And you have this community of women who are lifting you up and supporting you. And then you have the measurable results. Within 30 days, we measure this, you have improved satisfaction in your current job, even without changing it. It’s huge. All right, let’s see. What is my favorite thing? I will say this last… So we just wrapped up a group of Beyond the Ceiling. We just had our last call this past week. And it was so bittersweet because the group had so much growth together. It was this community of women that now are so close, that didn’t even know each other four months ago. It’s just such an amazing space to be in. I wish I had something like this. When I talk about my career and how I had built this successful career, and I just wish that I had something that could have helped me know that I wasn’t crazy, that I could have something different, I could have gotten into this so much sooner.

I could have helped people sooner, right? But I’m glad that I made the decision when I did, because now I know. Now I’m so empowered. Now I cracked the code and figured out the process. And if you don’t think it’ll work for you, I just want to share a glimpse. So Brenna, who is someone that I’ve talked about earlier, was in this last round. She’s actually going to be on my podcast next week talking about her experience. But she has this great quote. I asked her, so you’ll get a sneak peek right now. I asked her what she would say as someone who doubted if they could get results like her. So you heard her story when we talked about it earlier. And I said, People are easy to dismiss. It’s what we talked about, what’s out and what’s in. People are easy to dismiss that they can do. They get fearful of investing. They get fearful of going all in on them. We will spend money on a refrigerator or DoorDash 12 times a week before we will invest in something that’s for our own development. What would you say to someone that’s like, Well, you have a more supportive husband.

You have a better boss. The things that we do, I talked about how I did this to myself, too, earlier in my career. What would you say to them? Was it like, Yeah, this is just you. This isn’t possible for me. What would you say if they think you’re a unicorn or a Cheetah? She said something to the effect of, I didn’t know I was a unicorn until I became one. I was like, wow. It just sits with me since she said that when we recorded that episode a week or so ago. It’s amazing. I didn’t know I was a no corn until I became one. When I talk about becoming the evidence, that’s something that I did for myself, too, right? I also didn’t know I could have my own business. I wanted one. I wondered if it was for me, but I was worried that I wouldn’t be successful, that I didn’t know what I was doing, that I wouldn’t be taken seriously. All of these things that can come up. And then I created it. And now I have a really successful business, and it helped so many women in the last few years.

But I never would have known I could be who I am today if I didn’t make that decision when I didn’t have the confidence, when I didn’t really know, when I thought I was not a unicorn in a good way, but a unicorn in a bad way. When I thought, Well, they did have my childhood. They didn’t have my experience. It’s easier for them. I have kids. They probably don’t have kids. All of the things that we can tell ourselves. So when she said that, I was like, That is so true. And then she goes on to say, We’re all unicorns. We just have to do the work to see that that’s true. Just think about that. Just believe for a second that that’s true for you. That if you feel like you can’t have more, this might be harder for you. That maybe there isn’t a dream job for you. Maybe you can’t experience things better. That maybe you’re just thinking that way because of what I shared earlier about the maze, about the way that our brain is. And what if me and all of the stories that I shared with you, all of the different clients, they’re all evidence that you can be the unicorn and that once you are there, it’s just like when I said about confidence and courage.

We’re not confident in something until we can do it. It’s why you can be so confident in your technical skills because you went to school, because you have the experience. But then when it comes to other things or your ability to stand out or be a leader in your type of expertise, you don’t feel that way. That’s just because you haven’t demonstrated that skill yet. You haven’t learned that skill yet. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t. It’s the same thing. You become the evidence. You use the courage to become the evidence of what you want to create, and you use the courage to become the unicorn, and then you become the success story. Rhanna, who is on my podcast, she is someone that when she joined, didn’t like speaking up, felt uncomfortable being visible. She led an improv workshop in her last round for the members. An improv workshop. She’s amazing. And she led that for us. She spoke up and led a workshop for the women in the group. And then she came on the pot. She’s so visible now. And that can be you. The things that you want that you see in other people, you can create for yourself.

It just takes action. It just takes doing something different. It takes doing something before you believe it, before you have the evidence that it can be true for you. That’s how we create new things. We have to have our own back, and that’s what we do in this program, is you learn to have your own back in a way you’ve never had it before. You learn to see yourself differently. When you look in the mirror, you see a different person, you see someone more capable. You see someone worthy of having the career that they want. And that feeds into what you create for yourself. All right. Any other questions in Motivational Talk today? I can tell I’m very passionate about this work that I do. It’s such a privilege and an honor to work with all of the amazing women that I do and to see them come into their own through coaching, through this process. Like I said, I wish I had this for myself. I’m someone that worked in talent development. I led talent development with AstraZeneca. I know all of the career development programs out there, all the management and leadership development programs, and I know where they’re faulty.

I know where they don’t work in the application. I know that when you’re there, they’re providing that because they have to. They have to provide an employee development space to be competitive in the marketplace, but they don’t have the bandwidth. They don’t have the capacity to have someone that’s really invested in you. And on top of it, when you work with a coach like me who’s not in your company, this is actually why I left AstraZeneca, one of the reasons, if I was able to build a coaching program there and do coaching with AstraZeneca, is that it’s biased to the company. When you get a coach assigned to you, I’ve had several clients who’ve had coaches that were assigned to them through their workplace as part of a leadership development program. But the coaches weren’t invested in them, they were invested in the company. The company hired them. The company was paying for them. And so they came in, they showed up, checked the box, they gave you your coaching session. But it wasn’t someone that was really invested in you and that you were invested in them. It wasn’t someone you chose that you resonated with that you thought got you and could help you and that you felt you could build trust with.

And that makes a big difference. So when you work with me, I don’t have any investment with your company. That’s part of why when I worked with Dr. Zanica, truth be told, I would coach some people. But when I coached people, HR had to know. If a manager came up as a problem, HR had to know. The manager got informed. If somebody wanted to work somewhere else, I was not. I was supposed to help them see opportunities to stay with the company. But now, when you hire someone that’s your coach outside of work, you not only get the benefit of all of the great… When it’s my background, all of the career and development expertise, but I’m invested in your career. I don’t care about your company, to be honest. Don’t. Whether you stay, whether you go, I care if you’re happy. I care if you have the career that you want, if you feel the way that you want to feel, if you meet your goals. That’s what I care about. And so if your best move is not with them, I’m not going to convince you to stay where you are.

If you’re having problems with your boss, HR is not going to know. Your boss isn’t going to know. I’m there to help you. It’s completely unbiased to your company and all in your favor. It’s having someone really invested in your career, probably more than you’ve had in your life. Because you have a guide, you have someone with expertise, and you have someone invested in your success to give you the shortcuts, to walk you hand by hand with this community of women. It’s something that’s very different. It’s going to change the way that you see your career. It’s going to change the way that you see yourself. It’s going to change what you achieve. Because just like when you go to work trainings and you take a communication skills training, whatever it is that you do, you’re going to get maybe something that’s effective, but it’s not personalized to you. It’s not, Okay, this is the best communication skill for you. Or like, Okay, I know you now, Susan. I know you, and I know how you communicate. I know where you’ve gotten stuck before. Let’s try this specific approach. There’s no one meeting you where you are and adapting tools or frameworks that work to you.

And that’s what you get with coaching. Imagine what your career could be like when you have That level of support, when you have guided personal and professional development, that’s not just the fluff that’s actually grounded in science and actually works. You will experience a totally different career, and your life will be better for it. All right. Thanks, Melissa. This was a fun session to review what we learned over the last few months. Thank you, Alyssa. So glad you were able to join us. I see a number of you are still here for my inspirational, informative talk. All right, if you have any other questions, certainly, you can always message me. Otherwise, I would really encourage you to schedule a consultation. If you’re still here, you’ve heard everything about the program. You’ve heard the strategy. You’ve heard the shifts we’ve made. We’ve heard what will be different for you when you do this work for yourself. The only thing stopping you from having the career that you want is taking the step to create it. And that’s what I help you do. So when you schedule a consultation, we will confirm that you are a good fit.

We will get you started. We will get you in a better career within weeks. Thank you, Melissa. I love what you’re doing to support and empower women in biotech pharma. Absolutely. So glad that you were here. Great. I’m going to end this session here. You will get the replay. If there’s anything that you want to revisit, then you can definitely review it. And if you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, I look forward to talking to you in a consultation. Let’s see what we can do for you in your career and get you into your dream job and something that you really want for yourself. All right? I will talk to you soon.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you’re ready to know your best career move and get into a new job, get promoted, or upgrade your current role to one you love, join me inside Beyond the Ceiling. Beyond the Ceiling is a four-month group coaching program exclusively for women in pharma biotech. Enrollment begins February 16th. Learn more and join us at www.yourworthycareer.com/beyond.