Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep223: How to recover after getting fired. Jade’s Story Part 1.

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

✅ Get FREE GUIDE, newsletter, work with me ⮕ http://www.meiphing.com ✅ Corporate Survivor™ is the ultimate career course for 9-to-5 working professionals, just like *you*, who want to enhance corporate world mindset, skillset and strategy so you can NAVIGATE + GROW your career with clarity, confidence & opportunities... 🚀 ⚡ 📌 ABOUT THIS PODCAST: Welcome to Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing — ex-Corporate Leader turned Career Coach & Founder of The Corporate Survivor™. On this podcast, Mei Phing shares her corporate world insights, experiences and wisdom so you can grow your 9-5 career with clarity, confidence and opportunities. ✅ WEBSITE ⮕ https://www.meiphing.com ✅ FREE GUIDE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/freeguide ✅ NEWSLETTER ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/mondays ✅ CAREER COURSE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ⚡

Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. If you have ever wondered, will I ever feel confident at my job? Will I ever get paid the salary that I want? Then today's episode is for you because I'll be sharing with you a story of the first ever coaching client I worked with back in 2019.

And she is someone who is still in my world today, five years later. So this is a story of my client, Jade, not her real name, but let's call her Jade, who was let go, asked to leave from her job due to poor performance. So her boss basically told her, hey, you know, I think it's not working out. I don't think you are performing and you need to go. So this was something that she was told in 2019 and how she basically rebuilt her inner confidence, her work confidence to someone who is confident enough to really go for what she wants, up-level her career, up-skill, and to be able to pursue the opportunities and to

be able to get headhunted and feel brave with the kind of confidence and competence that you can also develop in your career. So this is going to be an inspiring story, but not only that, it's also to show you that, hey, I can do this too. No matter what setbacks and what challenges that you have in your career, you can always bounce back. Now, before I dive in, it's going to be a pretty long story because I'm going to be sharing with you year on year from 2019 all the way to today in 2024, how she actually rebuilt her confidence and competence to become that level up, you know, confident professional that you know today. So this series is going to be in a simple sort of like three-part series. So part one is going to be year 2019 and 2020, where I'm going to share with you the setbacks that she

faced and more importantly, the first phase of her bouncing back from getting fired at her job. So this is going to be in today's episode. Then the next day, the next episode, I'm going to talk about the year 2021 and 2022, where she really focused on upskilling her corporate skills, learning how to set boundaries, how to organize her work, and how to really regain the kind of confidence to be able to ask for the promotion that she has never, ever, ever asked for in her career. And what happened with that? And in the final part of the series, in part three, I'm going to be sharing with you how she leveled up to change careers to a different industry that she want and more importantly to be able to land a manager job at a big salary increment so this is like i said it's going to be a three-part series but

it's something that i want you to i want to show you the progression year on year and how if you are really committed and consistent throughout your career and you really know what you want and you're ready to apply, take action, then you can also feel the same. So let's dive in to the initial part of the story back in 2019. So in 2019, as you know, I was on a career break because my mom was ill. So I decided to quit my corporate job. And during that time, I was a caregiver, but I was also pretty active on LinkedIn. So this client was someone in my network. So she was aware that I was on a career break. And one day I received a message from Jade. And Jade told me that, hey, Mayping, you know, I kind of have a big issue in my career

right now. I've been asked to leave from my job because my boss is very unhappy with my work performance. So, you know, are you available? Can I get some career advice from you? So at that time, I wasn't even doing any career coaching, but I was like, okay, you know, if someone I knew in the network, I'm like, sure, you know, let's, we can have a one-on-one call. So during the call, Jade shared with me, obviously, you know, she was extremely frustrated and she shared with me that, you know, this was like kind of surprising. She's very upset that, you know, she was let go. And we also discussed all her performance issues.

Now, I really think it's really important that even though I know that, okay, Jade has just been let go, right? Obviously, top priority for her is that she really, really wanted to get a job. But I think it's also really important. And this is the perspective and the advice that I gave her is that before really, really wanted to get a job. But I think it's also really important. And this is the perspective and the advice that I gave her is that before you, you know, rush to go look for another job,

you should really understand like what happened in your current job. Like it's like, what the heck happened to the point that, you know, I got let go due to poor performance. And she was very open to that. And I think it's also a good sign that, you know, having that kind of self-awareness of like, okay, I want to figure out like what's wrong too. So in the first one-on-one coaching call with Jade, we spent quite a bit of time talking about her performance issues. So what I've noticed is that

number one is that, you know, she is someone who is extremely hardworking, which is a good thing. But the bad thing is that she doesn't tell anyone that she's working hard. And number two, she makes a lot of assumptions on her work. So instead of like clarifying whether, you know, the work that she's doing in the right thing, whether she's understanding the core purpose of the work or the checklist or confirming what, you know, the client or stakeholders are saying, she will then make an assumption that like, oh, I think it's kind of like this and, you know, I'm just going to do it myself, right? Because she feels shy and she feels a bit awkward to reach out to clarify. So that's the other habit that I noticed is like, hmm, she makes an assumption instead of actually going to communicate

and clarify, which is kind of a big problem. Then the third thing I realized is that she is highly introverted, meaning that, you know, she is very, very quiet. She feels very awkward around people and she feels that, you know, she cannot communicate well. So what she prefers to do is just, you know she is very very quiet she feels very awkward around people and she feels that you know she cannot communicate well so what she prefers to do is just you know hide behind her desk and then you know get the documents and get the paperwork and emails or whatever and try to solve it herself but the problem is that without clarity without really you know having a full idea of like what her job is right she is then again right back to point two she's making assumptions and it made it is made worse because she is afraid to actually reach out to connect with people to clarify you know to

network and so forth now that's also a fourth problem and this is i would say that the ultimate problem that kind of like got her let go is because again she does work on her own and what that means is that she does not update her boss on the things that she has done or hasn't done, or the progress or any of the updates of her work. So what then happens is that when her boss reviews her work, the boss finds that there are a lot of errors, there are a lot of things that are maybe incomplete, problematic, because again, it comes from the lack of clarity,

because she's doing the work, spending a lot of time, but she may not necessarily have a very clear idea of her boss's expectations. So she did what she thought was right, but it wasn't really the right thing. So that was kind of a bit of an issue. And the second thing is that, you know, whenever the boss hears from her, it's always a problem. And because she finds it difficult to communicate when her boss actually sits down with her and say that you can explain this to me, I don't understand what you're writing and stuff like that. Then she panics. She's like, oh my God, I don't know what you're writing and stuff like that. Then she panics. She's like, Oh my God,

I don't know what to say. Then she keeps quiet, which then signals to most bosses, right? If I've ever worked in corporate, you know that like you need to be able to clearly articulate the work that you have done to your boss. So the fact that she couldn't do that,

she panicked and then she just like stay silent. It's kind of like not a good sign to her boss. So all in all, I would say that it was a problem that grew for a year. She was in the company for one year. And I just want to be very clear that she is someone who has actually worked for like eight years at that point. So she's not a fresh graduate and so forth, but it's just things that, you know, she has, she has kind of like gone through a career journey without having to fix because, you know, it never really reached

a point of like seriousness. But obviously in this company right now that she was in there was a high performance culture and she really really couldn't meet that so because of all of the above problems right she was let go so when i spoke with her right obviously she was very upset but at least she was calm and she said okay you know i know maybe i have the intention of like fixing these things and i hope that you know if i actually get a chance to land the next job i want to fix this but right now you know i i'm very honest with you and i'm telling you that like i have very low confidence so even to apply for the next job i really worry if i'm going to get fired again and i think this is actually a very very normal feeling and i told her the same thing

as well but the good thing is that like, there is a chance to restart, right? There's a chance to actually gain clarity and kind of like start on a blank sheet of paper again. So what I told her at that time was like, okay, right, now that we have listed down a list of like skills and like things that you need to fix, which is like, you know,

corporate understanding, job clarity, work competence, work skills, there is like a list of like things to be tackled but all these skills can only be improved on once she lands her next job so in next one-on-one call with her we talked about the kind of like roles that she can get into so looking at her entire career right she has done a lot of things like she she's done audit, she's done accounting, she's done costing, right? She has done like a bunch of stuff, right? You know, risk assurance, you know, data analysis, like all sorts of stuff, right? By the time I think she has been working about maybe eight or nine years already.

So she's done a lot of stuff. And eventually I told her that, okay, you know, we are not going to apply for every single job because at the end of the day like her confidence is very low so we need to get back into an area in which she already has experienced it and based on the kind of like roles that we discuss we identify that okay you know finance and internal control specialist is something that probably she could excel in because the thing is that her situation is that like, yes, maybe she has aspirations to change careers or like to go into a new industry and so forth. But I will tell you that when you have very low confidence, that is the last thing that

you want to do. So we focus on the things that, you know, at a minimum, she already has the technical skills to do well. Then what we focus on fixing is the corporate skills, right? The understanding corporate world, dealing with people, soft skills, everything that you need in an actual job. But it'll be a lot easier if you already have the technical skills to do the actual job that you're hired for so that was actually the role that i helped her to uh to you know update her resume to really sell her value to craft her value

positioning and to practice for interview as well so fortunately she was able to land a job at an mnc which is a bit of an upgrade from the previous one the previous one was a regional sme so she got an upgrade which is a good thing to join an mnc and she was able to land the role in one month so she was super super happy about that right we had that conversation but on the back of her mind and she also honestly told me that like maybe i'm i still really worried know, that I, now I know that the reasons why the previous job messed up was, you know, I didn't do a good job and I didn't understand all those things that she said that, you know, if it's possible that this job is going to get better.

And I told her that, yes, because that time, as I said, right, she was the first client who worked with me. And honestly, that was around late 2019, early 2020. And that time time you know i i was mainly doing like a few one-on-one coaching because i was mainly on my career break like caring for my mom so i didn't even have corporate survivor at that time right it didn't even cross my mind but what i told this client was like you know what it's a good thing right you landed a new role and there was a bit of an upgrade as well because you're now able to enter mnc and

that's kind of good for your future value positioning and for your future role. So what I'm going to focus right now and I told her the same is that I'm going to teach you everything that I know from me climbing the career ladder and more importantly,

at least the first one to three months, right, the first 30, 60 and 90 days, how to adapt at your job. So as I said, during that time, there was like no corporate survivor. So I was just teaching her around how to adapt at your job. So as I said, during that time, there was like no corporate survivor. So I was just teaching her around how to identify performance goals, right?

How to clarify, how to like, you know, gain clarity on her role, right? How to go through step-by-step processes and understanding her role as well as understanding the task and be able to communicate for boss. So I taught her everything that I have done in my

career and these are all through one-on-one coaching course as i said you know this was like back in like early 2020 yeah so everything i taught her was inspired by my own career and i think this is kind of like an important catalyst for me as well because after working with this client particularly and a few more clients as the years um as the months went on in year 2020 it actually inspired me to create the corporate survivor career course because i realized that there are so many people who are lost and you know thinking about about my own career these are things that i kind of figured out on my own as well i always started a new job i didn't know what to do i was always lost i always wondered whether

is this the right job and will i be confident or this thing i'm so stressed out about this then i realized that okay actually it's kind of a common thing and that gradually inspired me to create and launch the corporate survival career course in late 2021 so anyway back to this um client story and when she started this role in the year 2020 and she has successfully started this role in the year 2020, and she has successfully started this role, despite her low confidence, right? She still landed the job. So what we sort of strategize in year 2020 is like, for most people, they might think that,

oh, I want to get visible. I want my boss to recognize me. I want to get promoted and stuff like that. But we're very realistic. And this client, Jade, she really understands this as well. And I told her that before you can go and get visible get visible before you can go and get recognition appreciation and new opportunities and promotions and so forth you need to make sure that you rebuild your confidence because if not you always feel like an imposter syndrome like you always feel the imposter syndrome you always

feel like you're a fraud because you haven't really like upskilled right the actual clarity confidence and competence so year 2020 we sort of decided that like you know this is going to be the year of like rebuilding inner confidence and really fixing her corporate skills and competence so that was what she focused on for the entire year of 2020 which is really practicing consistency taking action right stepping out of her comfort zone right going and clarify if she doesn't understand the task making sure that her boss is updated on the things that she's doing to be able to get feedback from her boss to be able to reach out to different people start actually

crafting more structured emails starting to learn how to organize her days which is going to make it a lot better because one of the things that she used to tell me is that she's always very overwhelmed and she gets pulled in all sorts of directions. So basically the entire year of 2020 was just focused on, as I said, upskilling. And now that we reach the end of the year 2020, right, usually at the end of the year or the beginning of the year, I always talk to my clients and I say, okay, you know, what do you want to achieve in the next year, right? Because for us working together, I think it's really, really important to always have a goal in mind so that you will stay consistent,

you will stay focused to move to that. So what we agreed on during that time was, okay, you know what? In year 2021, right? Which is going to be the next year. This is the year that she is going to step out of her comfort zone. She wants to work better with more people.

So at that time, right, it was a kind of very, very small team. So she was kind of like mainly working for boss and one or two more people but she knew that like okay after getting like my work organized and that's something that i want to continue building up in 2021 i also want to feel more confident talking to people right i want to like step out of my comfort zone and i want to be able to communicate and collaborate better with other people so it was a good thing that the intention came from her. So I could see that her confidence is slightly getting better based on the lessons that I taught her around work clarity,

work structure, work organization, and so forth. So that was the clear goal that she set out in 2021. And she told me that, you know, based on how I feel, maybe at the end of 2021, I want to ask for a promotion from my boss. But she said that, you know, I'm going to like take my time and I just want to see how I feel, maybe at the end of 2021, I want to ask for a promotion from my boss. But she said that, you know, I'm going to like take my time and I just want to see how I feel first. And I know that this job, right, while it's not kind of like the ideal industry that I actually want to get into and so forth, but you know, I appreciate, I still appreciate this boss and appreciate this company because this company gave me a chance after I got fired by

the last company. So I think she was actually very objective and very rational about it. And I think this is also a big change as well. Because when I first met her about, I would say, one and a half years ago, in mid-2019, she was actually a very emotional person and easily overwhelmed, very scared, very timid, and so forth. But just within a period of time, and I think more importantly, the intention that she's willing to put in and the hours she's willing to put in

to improve her career, by the end of 2020, it's kind of like a situation where, you know, she's able to give me a rough plan on what she wants to do. And that's not really something that she was actually able to do it before. And she was also able to explain it to me

so calmly on what she wants to achieve and she's not rushing it. You know, she's okay to invest a little bit more time And she was also able to explain it to me so calmly on what she wants to achieve. And she's not rushing it. You know, she's okay to invest a little bit more time. If there's a need for her to upskill a little bit more, then maybe when she feel confident enough in herself, in her skills, and in her value, then she's going to raise to her boss if there's a chance for a salary increment or a job promotion. So I'm like, okay, that's perfect.

And that was actually how we ended the year 2020 so the first one one and a half years i'll say it's extremely turbulent time for her especially when she got fired in 2019 and the process of like really looking within and realizing that okay actually you know it's like not exactly that the job wasn't really suitable for her i think she was not really ready for the performance level in that company. And she really struggled because the other thing is also like in the past, you know, eight to nine years of her career, she has always been a very happy go lucky sort of character,

right? So maybe in those kinds of roles and those kinds of companies, it was actually okay. Or maybe those bosses, they were fine with it. And, you know, she was able to meet expectations because she was a more junior level but the moment that she got into you know

the the company in which she got let go of right it was an assistant manager position and obviously the expectations were higher but i think in her mind like she didn't really like you know register and absorb that it was a more senior level position so i think she was behaving in a way like how she would behave as a junior or senior executive which clearly didn't quite work out and the company's culture was a little bit more different because it was really focused on high performance and it was like project based and a lot of like process improvements and so forth which she couldn't really adapt so i just want to give you that actual background before we get into part two and three which i'll share a little bit more on the actual upskilling portion, asking for promotions, increments, actually making a big career change, leveling up to manager, but also changing industry, changing role and changing function as well. tackling and i'm going to be sharing in part two and part three which will be released in the next two days so if you enjoyed this part one of this client story so far and this like i said it's the

first ever client that i work with and she was really the person that inspired me to create the corporate survivor because everything that i teach the corporate survivor right now with things that i taught her in one-on-one coaching week on week right every single month one-on-one coaching every single thing that right now is being taught in the corporate survival because I realized that so many people are lost and confused in their careers and so many people are facing the similar issues. And if I can share this knowledge

and I know that these insights and experiences are so valuable to more people so that you can feel more confident in your career, then that was really why I created the corporate survival. So if you enjoyed part one, make sure that you like and subscribe wherever that you're listening to this podcast episode that i'll be releasing part two and part three in the next two days so if you are interested to know

how she bounced back and continue to rebuild her corporate skills competence mindset skill set strategy to be able to have the kind of like confidence and conviction to ask for salary increment a promotion to be able to bravely take the next move to grow her career to move up to manager to be able to eventually become a people manager if you're able to talk to the ceo at her current job right now then make sure that you like and subscribe and i will see you in part two in the next episode see ya