Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep72: Getting a 39% salary increase in MNC job offer.

Episode Date: August 22, 2021

✅ Get My FREE '5-Day Career Growth' Guide + Training 👉 http://www.meiphing.com ✅ Grow your career in the 9-5 corporate world with clarity, confidence and opportunities! ⚡ 👋 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing — corporate career coach, ex-corporate leader who has led multimillion-dollar projects across 43 countries and creator of the ultimate career course for 9-5 professionals, The Corporate Survivor™. On this podcast, you'll learn how to grow your career in the corporate world without getting stuck with Mei Phing's 3-step framework to gain career clarity, improve work confidence and attract new job opportunities. ✅ WEBSITE ⮕ https://www.meiphing.com ✅ FREE GUIDE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/5days ✅ COURSE & COACHING ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ⚡ 📌 ABOUT MEI PHING: Mei Phing Lim is a Professional Career Coach and former Corporate Leader in the financial services and consulting industries. Mei Phing went from a shy quiet introvert to leading multimillion-dollar projects with teams from over 43 countries as the Senior Director and Head of Governance at Standard Chartered, and now teaching 9-5 professionals how to navigate the corporate world and grow their careers with her career coaching course, The Corporate Survivor™. Mei Phing has been featured as a LinkedIn Top Voice 2023, sharing expert career advice in guiding young professionals to plan, navigate and grow their careers. Mei Phing is a keynote speaker on corporate culture, work performance and career growth, and sharing perspectives on what truly takes to build a strategic and successful career without getting stuck. ✅ LEARN MORE: https://www.meiphing.com

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. Hello everyone, this is Mei Ping and welcome back to another episode of my Grow Your Career Online and Offline podcast. So if you've been following my 30-day client success story series, I hope you have been enjoying the episode so far, which were more focused on career growth.

But from this week onwards so the next two weeks and starting from today i'll be sharing with you the client success stories for job search so during the pandemic there are a couple of questions that consistently popped up and there were a lot of people asking me oh mei ping is now the right time to find a job can i actually find a job that will pay me more are there actually really good career opportunities out there because when as i'm looking around i feel like a lot of people are getting let go a lot of people are getting pay cuts so is it really possible for me to find a better job for my career and it's not really the right time right during

the pandemic is not really the right time for me to look out for more career opportunities so these are actually really really relevant questions and I hope that in this series actually inspires you as to how my clients managed to nail better job opportunities in fact they were actually able to grow their career even though I guess it is during this pandemic. And the secret is really this, right? The secret is actually making sure that you have a very solid job search strategy.

So career planning plus job search strategy and the bonus secret sauce actually is a strong LinkedIn strategy as well. So let me share with you guys, you know, a lot of, a couple of, not a lot, maybe like 10 stories over the next two weeks. And maybe starting from today's story, which to me, this is one of like the biggest client successes because for this particular client, she actually got a 39% increment, right? So it's a 39 percent increase in her annual compensation moving from

a public sector company which is actually a pretty big um public company uh public sector company into a private company achieving a 39 percent increase in compensation much bigger brand name much better exposure much better opportunity. So in today's episode, let me share with you how I worked with this client, actually what we did together to help her to achieve this sort of like amazing job opportunity with an amazing compensation package as well. So this particular client has been working for about six years in the, initially started in advisory and consulting in the big four global accounting firms. And later on, she moved on to a government linked public sector company, which is actually a really big brand name in her country as well.

However, she was stuck as a senior executive for some time because, you know, as usual, bureaucracy in the public sector and as you know thanks to the bureaucracy there are actually many layers of work and she being like the senior executive which is pretty much the most junior person in the team ended up doing a lot a lot of the work and actually she has been contemplating job uh you know whether she should look for more uh you know, better job opportunities for some time. But she has never ever taken the leap because she has always told herself, oh, maybe now it's not the right time. And, you know, maybe my work situation will get better. So how

many of you actually feel these things, right? Feel these sort of fears and basically, you know, tell yourself that, oh, maybe now it's not the the right time and then you add on like a lot of excuses because either you're afraid or you just don't believe that there is something out there for you so if you have felt any of those things that my clients felt before i'm sure that you can resonate with her feelings at that time but what really pushed her to take the next step was she was actually involved in a really really big priority project which was actually really critical but what she ended up noticing was that hey how come everybody else is like not really doing their work they were like everybody from the top of the chain all the way to the bottom is just chasing her to do the work then that that was when she came to realize that oh if i'm the

one doing all the work and like you know everybody's relying on me how can they tell me that you know I don't deserve a promotion because you know clearly like you know she's the one doing all the work right so a lot of these things were like kind of like push factor as well so that was actually what led her to became courageous to really start being open to opportunities but however what was actually really interesting is that for this particular client she actually didn't apply for any job like can you believe it she didn't actually apply for any job however when we first worked together we were talking we talked a lot about mindset because i knew that she had a lot of fears um being open to more opportunities and taking the next step so even though right she was a bit half-hearted about it at first but she still

proceeded to upgrade her resume, right? She proceeded to build a strong LinkedIn profile. She proceeded to still learn the effective job search strategies and networking strategies on LinkedIn that I actually teach to all my clients. So basically what she did that even though she wasn't really sure if she really wanted to look for a job at that time, but she was actually really open to building up a very solid foundation. So what I mean by solid foundation is,

number one, you at least need to start thinking about your career plan, which was the earlier conversations that we had. Then number two, writing a strong resume. Number three, building a strong LinkedIn profile. And number four, learning actually how to do your job search and networking strategies on LinkedIn, because job search is more for like active method, but the networking is a bit more of a passive method.

So all these I actually do teach in my classes, in my trainings, and even to my one-on-one clients as well. So she did all the foundation work, even though, you know, she wasn't exactly open at that time because she had a lot of fears, right? So she had all of that. And consistently, even though when she was like you know not really considering or being afraid once she started implementing a lot of my linkedin strategies what happened was that she started getting messages from um headhunters and from some of these headhunters actually from like pretty

good companies as well like these are like from global multinational companies in the private sector even though she was in the public sector and she consistently asked me oh maybe do you think that you know now that i'm in a public sector do you think that people from the private companies from the private sector would actually want to hire me because i've been told that you know um this kind of um transition is very difficult so we kind of like went through a little bit of strategy and a lot of it was actually well positioned in her resume when we worked together, as well as in her LinkedIn profile as well.

So when she started getting a lot of recruiter and headhunter messages from these kind of global, multinational companies, she was actually really excited. But she was also a little bit worried as to, OK, how do I deal with them and everything else so initially she kind of like ignored them a little bit because she was like okay i'm not ready but i think the moment that she decided that okay i think now is the right time and i don't want to be stopped by my fears anymore i'm just gonna like take the leap so that was exactly what she did she just replied to um these i guess like job um rather you know

job job offers or like job postings and actually some of these like job postings are from recruiters actually pretty good like she even for some of them like she even asked okay like what is the pay range and like quite a lot of them actually for five figures right and you would be surprised and and you might even think that oh like you know will recruiters really come to me with like five figure jobs on like linkedin messaging let me tell you right now the answer is yes and that's actually happened to a lot of my clients however whether you get the job or not right it actually depends on like your interview skills and like a lot of other things but having attracting that kind of eyeballs and attracting that kind of like

attention from the right people that is the first step right you can't even attract any of the jobs right then there is no point even talking about the other strategies right so that is like i said the foundation so what happened was that she started really looking into the um the jobs that were actually shared by a lot of these recruiters and like i said actually these are recruiters from really really big companies as well. So there were a couple that she was actually pretty interested in and she decided to go for an interview with a few companies.

So for this particular client was also very interesting because she has been with the existing company for about three years. And what that meant is that she has not interviewed for a really long time. And this role that she was actually going for, I mean, she knew that, you know, they could actually pay her quite well. And of course, the stress was quite high. And they told her that, you know, for your first round, it was only going to be one round of interview.

But we're going to have like four very senior people doing the interview process. So what I actually did with this client is that we actually had like i think two or three interview preparation sessions so what i call these are like the mock preparation sessions and more importantly how we go about this is more like aside from preparing for the standard questions normally how i like to go about interview preparation is that okay let's talk about a question my client will share with me what she's actually going to say right and then i will actually give her feedback and help her reconstruct a better answer because i used to be a former hiring manager i know what hiring managers want to hear and particularly i used to be like the head of department head of a team before so when she's interviewing you know

she's being interviewed by this head of departments and like head of teams blah blah blah like those were positions that i used to help so basically i was able to like help her um restructure her answer to make it a lot more compelling and really addresses the con uh the concern or the real intention of the questions that are actually being asked so she did that she actually went for the interview it actually went really really well and within a couple of days the company actually called her back and said that hey we really really want you and um we are even willing to pay off um for your notice period so also another question i actually get asked a lot by a lot of um potential job seekers is they tell me that oh mayping my notice period right is like two to three months. So will companies actually wait for me? The answer is yes. If, right, you can really demonstrate your value during the interview. So the interview is actually really critical for you

to actually express your value, you know, skills and expertise. And for this particular client situation, she actually had a three months notice which was actually really long so what happened in this situation was the new company the new company paid off two months so they actually paid her two months um to help pay her off pay off her notice period so that she could leave the company in one month which is kind of fair right i mean you also don't want to leave too soon because of reputation yada yada yada but the point i'm trying to make here is that hey if you're really that impressive right sometimes the new company is really willing to pay off your notice period because they just can't wait for you to join like they're like okay why should we wait longer when we have the budget and we really want

you so that's one thing that you could get the other thing that you could also get if you're really very impressive during the interview is you could actually get a sign-on bonus so personally sign-on bonus was something i've also gotten before in my career where the company actually really wanted me to join and by leaving a little bit earlier i will actually be giving up a five-figure bonus so the new company actually paid me the five-figure that i was supposedly going to lose out if i were to resign earlier so this is something i tell a lot of my clients as well never think that you know you are trapped in a long notice period never think that you are potentially giving up a bonus or whatever because always focus on your career growth and really make sure that you demonstrate your value

across the entire chain like from the resume your LinkedIn profile your interview even up to the salary negotiation point there are just so many points that you can demonstrate your value and this is really what my client did as well so when the job offer came actually she was really really really happy because she was like okay she told me maybe I couldn't believe that they're actually going to pay me this kind of money so what um eventually the job offer came it was a 39 percent increment based on whatever that she was making at the point so at the point you know she was basically making a full-time job 12 months salary but zero bonus because her industry was just doing so badly that there was like zero there's going to be like zero bonus for the next few years but the new company 12 months full-time salary two months pretty much

guaranteed bonus because it was actually in an emerging industry that was going to do really well two months pretty much guaranteed bonus they paid off two months of her notice period. And she even got to join a fairly new team working on pretty strategic projects. And she also reported to a pretty senior manager as well. So actually really, really good opportunity overall. And more importantly, she was able to transition out from the public sector into a private sector in an emerging industry

and in a really a global multinational company. So that is the ultimate dream for a lot of people. And I could really see her career just flourishing from this point on. So that is the story. That is the story. But I want to also pull your attention back to really make you understand that you know what we actually worked on the foundational steps the foundational steps are so important and normally when i work with my clients on job search right we will actually go through a six-step process so the first step is always about identifying your career interest and direction because you know what without career planning then you are not going to be focused on anything. It's just going to be very messy and you will not be committed to whatever decision that you have chosen, right? So first step is always about identifying career clarity and direction. Then second step is to make sure

that you actually put together a strong resume, even though you're not, you know, looking for a job right now, but opportunities can find you and when opportunities find you you don't want to you know say that hey you know just because i don't have a resume i'm so sorry and the opportunity may may be gone right then third thing with this client is that you know she was very open to building her linkedin profile as well initially she was also wasn't sure whether you know she wanted to get on linkedin or not but eventually she said okay fine like i think i do need an online presence so she went through my training and really went through like the step-by-step on how to build a

strong profile and that was what she did but the moment she updated her LinkedIn profile and applied the networking strategies that I teach in the fourth step that was when she started getting emails and like messages from recruiters as well so the messages from recruiters actually came for quite a few months but she was not open to it but the moment she was ready for it like guess what she was already attracting so many jobs right so she didn't really have to like put in that much effort hunting and all these things but she was just okay let me have a look at all these job offers that are coming in from the recruiters and headhunters and let me actually think about them so that was what she did and the moment she

identified a few jobs that she was quite interested in then she applied and because she had a really strong resume she applied my various jobs effective job search techniques she got the interview we did the interview sessions together to make sure that she is fully prepped not just you know knowing her resume inside out but actually knowing the secret sauce, which is the recruiters, and I'm not recruiters, they hate hiring managers' point of view to be able to do that interview. Guess what? She actually only did one interview,

but because it was before senior people, that's why we actually did a couple of sessions for interview prep. And lastly, in my six-step program or process, we always talk about job evaluation and negotiating the job offer because there is a very important it's a very important part to actually negotiate to make sure that you are paid the best amount possible right and the fairest amount possible as well and we negotiate

across many aspects of the um of the compensation plan so all in all just wanted to share with you this client success story which to me i think is like one of the biggest client success stories because she really managed to not just make a industry transition but a transition in companies of like different size different industries different nature and more importantly she got a 39 increase in her overall compensation which is which a lot of people would not believe can happen during the pandemic. And guess what? The 39% increase still does not include the additional amount that the company paid to buy her out, right? The two months additional pay that the company has given her to help her leave her old company earlier. So this is a client success story

for jobs, you know, to inspire and hopefully empower all of you who are still wondering if it's really possible to find a good career opportunity or a good opportunity during this pandemic. So I hope that this client success story inspires you and empower you to really take charge of your career and really never stop growing your career even during this pandemic as well so if you enjoyed this episode make sure to like and subscribe and if you want to you know hear more about my client success story definitely do drop me a comment and if you want to share some of your thoughts don't forget to tag me on linkedin as well at meepinglib so with that i'll see you in the next episode where i'll share another one of my client success story in their job search process. So with that, I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!