Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep232: How to switch jobs (without any career regrets).

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

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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. How do I switch jobs? And specifically, how do I switch jobs without experiencing career regret? Hey, welcome, welcome back to the Corporate Survivor Podcast.

I'm Mei Ping, ex-corporate leader turned career coach and founder of the Corporate Survivor, the ultimate career program for non-profit professionals just like you. So for more info about the program, you can go to www.meiping.com. Okay, today I want to answer a very, very important question that so many people are asking me all the time, and that is, how do I find a job that I will not regret? So again, I want to tackle this in like two key categories. So very similarly to what we did in the last episode, I actually gave you like two categories for you to really find yourself in so that you can better focus on like actually what you need to do in order to move

forward and specifically in this case it's actually about job search it's about a career change so the two categories are now the first category is about the regret the first question really is that okay why do you feel that you're going to regret this choice why do you feel that you're going to regret this decision and i found that most of the time, the feelings of regret usually comes from some drama, some problems potentially in your current role. So that's why the thought process around looking for a new opportunity, which is usually something that's very positive, you may feel like there's like a negative connotation to this. You're going in the job search, the career switch with a lot of fear, and usually that's not really a good thing. So again, the first category I want you to really

pinpoint is that, okay, why do you feel like you're going to regret this? Now, the second category actually is going to be a lot easier. And the second category actually is the job search strategy. So again, most people, they go about their job search without any clarity around the roles that they want, what they're actually good at, what they're not good at, and the step-by-step in terms of understanding what hiring managers are looking for so that they can better articulate, position, and sell their value in a way that can communicate with the hiring manager and position themselves as the best candidate. So this is actually a lot easier, which is step-by-step of job search

strategy is basically taught in the Corporate Surviv step by step from career direction career options career interest then to resume writing linkedin as well as preparing for interviews that's actually i think is the easy part so let's talk about what we mentioned earlier which is the regret element now when i speak to many people in my career program, my course members, even many people in my community, whenever I find that they tell me that, oh, I'm going to, you know, how do I make sure I'm not going to regret this? What if something goes wrong again? So usually these kind of like language tells me that,

hey, there's some problems that has already happened, likely in your current role, or maybe throughout your career history, there's there's some problems that has already happened, likely in your current role, or maybe throughout your career history, there's always been some problems. So for example, maybe, you know, as you move from one job to the other, you always seem to have an issue working with your manager, or you seem to always have an issue working with a team member, or you always find yourself lacking recognition, or you always find yourself very disorganized from one

job to the other right from one career to the other even though it's the same boss it's a different boss but the drama right the disorganization right the procrastination all these things continue to happen so this is actually something that is really really important for you to identify because these are actually things that you need to improve in your career so i consider this are like career development so these are like work skills that you need to improve on. Which is why that if you feel that you're going to regret the next job, even before applying for the job, you're already thinking about what if this doesn't work out? It actually gives you a quick indicator that, hey, maybe now is a good time to start improving on my work skills, start improving on my career skills

so that I can make sure in the next job is going to be so much better, right? So to me, this is actually an indicator that you can start improving. So one of the clients that I worked with in the earlier part of this year who actually joined the Corporate Survivor and when she joined the program in February, she actually told me that she's been in the company for eight years and every year it's just gotten worse and to a point that you know she thinks that she's gonna get us to leave and she also listed down a bunch of things that she feel that she didn't do well in terms of like work organization work structure dealing with stakeholders with her bosses so a long list of problems that comes across to me that it has already snowballed from not something that you know just happened like last week or last month but it could have been snowballed over a

couple of years of her being in the company which then leads into outcomes such as not getting promoted right getting very negative reviews and then worsening a working relationship with her bosses and so forth so when she came to me she also told she also asked me the same thing like how many how can i make sure that i can go into the next job that i will not regret like this disaster is not going to happen again so then i told her that okay you know let's actually talk about all these skills that you are going to commit that you're going to improve on right so first thing is actually identifying that hey i there are certain things that maybe i have not handled it correctly maybe i just don't know how and that's normal because

i can tell you that many people working in nine to five careers like nobody really teaches you how to work in the corporate world and nobody taught me to so i had to teach myself but anyway back to the story of this client i told her that okay i want you to go through the corporate survivors three-step framework and in case you don't know corporate survivor is my my career program that's basically helping you to better adapt and perform at your job. So I asked her to actually go through the program and to be able to identify the skills that she is lacking. And more importantly, a commitment on her end that she is going to start improving on these skills, right? So these are work skills, career skills, soft skills, people skills, work organization skills, work structuring skills,

understanding the corporate world. There's a lot of stuff that obviously she cannot fix it immediately, but it's important to have the commitment that, okay, I'm going to focus on developing these skills

as I get to the next job. So once she had that, she told me that she actually calmed down a lot. She's like, okay, actually I'm able to identify that in this current role, I also play the part as to why it didn't work out, right? The drama is partially caused by me.

So that was actually a really, really big realization for her. But I think the good thing is that, okay, she came up with a commitment and a career development plan, a skills development plan that she's going to bring on for her next role. And that also calmed her down a lot, knowing that, okay, no matter whichever role that I focus on to get the next job, I'm going to go in with a career development plan, right? I'm going to make sure that the drama doesn't happen again. And therefore, I'm not going to regret the decision. I'm not going to think it's a bad decision because i have i'm also committed

that i'm going to make this better so then she transitioned into the next part so what i said was the next part right the next part is the actual job search strategy so in fact actually that was a lot easier and currently in my career program the corporate survivor when you sign up you actually get access to my job search strategy lesson. So it's actually a four-week lesson, which is extremely comprehensive. We'll walk you through step-by-step in terms of like your career interests, identifying your career options and articulating your value to sell yourself to the hiring manager. So she went through all of that and then she booked a call with me. So in the program right now, when you join, you get a bonus call with me.

So during this call with me, she told me that surprisingly, she was able to follow the guidance in the lessons quite easily. But every time she identified her strengths and weaknesses, every time she identified if this is a role that she might want to get into, every time she find herself updating her resume, there was a little voice at the back of her mind that said to her that, okay, I'm going to make sure that this next job is going to be a good one. I'm going to make sure I'm successful.

I'm going to try better. I'm going to try harder. So that was actually really interesting because like I said, she's going in even by doing the job search process itself in the process of preparing for the job search. She's really going in with the mindset of like, I'm going to make it a success. I'm going to make it a success. And I think that is really, really important because in terms of like articulating your value, packaging your value, positioning your value, all those are the easy part, right? Ultimately, in my opinion, like my perspective is very simple. We want to get closer to do things that we are good at

and we want to stay away from things that we are not good at. So unless specifically, right, in your current role, the only challenge, now I'll be very specific here, the only challenge is a technical challenge, right?

Meaning that you don't have any people problems, you don't have any organization problems, like everything is fine. The only thing that is not going okay is the fact that you can't foresee yourself, right, being interested or wanting to continue

with the technical aspects of the role. So I give one final example before we end. I'll give an example. So I am a qualified accountant. So which means that if I continue in the accountancy field, a technical requirement of the role is that I need to be very familiar with the accounting standards. Like there's no two way about it, right? That's what makes me, that what is like, what will make me successful in the role. It's like the ultimate foundation, like the ultimate

baseline. So unless, unless that is really the thing that I decided that, okay, no, thank you. I'm totally not interested in pursuing an accountancy path because I really don't enjoy working around the accounting standards. Okay, then that's fine, right? Because that's a technical element that is not going to go,

it's not going to become better as you grow in your career. As you rise up the ladder, it's going to be an even bigger requirement. Then, okay, now it's time to move on. But if you are worried that you're making the wrong choice and the root cause is that there's a lot of drama around managing your work,

managing your boss's expectations, managing relationship with your team members, managing and communicating with your boss, your stakeholders, your clients, your partners, and stuff like that, then that is something else, right? That is actually what we are focusing on today, which is, is this a matter of like the commitment

around making sure that you are aware of the skills that you need to develop, right? Just like I said, as part of your career development plan, then making sure that you are committing to improving these skills, to improving these relationships and to improve your own work performance, like a commitment before applying for the next role, then that's when I would say that you'll definitely be successful at your next job. And back to the story of the client that I told you, since the conversation I had with her,

she landed a role quite quickly as well. She has also started the role. It's been about six months since she started the role. And she sent me an update quite a while ago telling me that she's actually doing really well. She feels very confident and calm and she's just applying the lessons that is taught in the Corporate Survivors 3-Step Framework. So as I said, the program comes with a bonus job search course, but the main program, the 3-Step

Framework actually helps you to better adapt and perform in your role. So specifically, if you're someone who feel like things have been quite chaotic, then you really need a clear structure as to how do you start your role, how do you focus on all the key things that will make sure that you meet your boss's expectation as well as start building your connection and relationship in your company, then I think definitely the program

will be super duper helpful for you. And she's also been really committed to watch the monthly mentoring videos in which I answer questions from Corporate Spiral members on their latest career work as well as job search challenges to teach you how to better overcome these challenges so that you stay calm, confident and in control. So this is really, really the best way that

tackles the root cause on how do you really make sure that you can make a successful career change without any regrets. And there's no regrets because you know that you are committed to make things better for yourself. And that is really the most important thing. So with that, I hope that you take a little bit of time to reflect on your own career, to come up with your own skills development plan, to commit to career development. And I am very sure that your next career, your next job, next company, your next role, you are going to do so much better and you're going to feel so much better than how you're feeling in your current job right now. So with that, I wish you all the best.

And if you want to learn more about the Corporate Survivor and what's included in the main program in terms of like the 3-step framework, get get confident get visible as well as the bonus job search course you can go to www.maping.com thanks so much for listening to this podcast episode and i'll see you in the next one bye