Megan
Corporate worker facing redundancy
CASE STUDY – MEGAN
Megan came to me after she was notified her position would be made redundant. She worked as an HR Executive for a high profile company. She was part of a larger team facing forced redundancy.
Megan worked in or around the Sydney CBD and preferred to stay in the area.
Megan was not sure what her next career move should be. She had low confidence on what she wanted to do and spoke about applying for Executive Administrative Assistant roles in the Sydney CBD because she delighted in being busy and productive.
Once Robin became Megan’s coach, Megan followed a thorough 10 week coaching process, which involved taking a profiling survey, attending a career transition workshop and several one on one career coaching sessions.
Megan jumped in head first and immersed herself in the learning process – much of it was focused on learning about herself and what made her happy so she could eventually decide what she wanted to do next in her career. One of the stumbling blocks for Megan, was overcoming the limiting belief that she had 10+ years of credible experience but felt that not having a university degree would be a barrier for her to stay in an executive role.
Megan started to embrace her strengths, by naming them and claiming them. We worked on identifying what types of roles would be perfect for her. We did research in the job market on what companies and roles were available, what were the salaries, responsibilities and potential career paths. Ultimately we concluded that Megan would be great as a Chief Of Staff for a large company. She was happy to travel, take on high profile responsibilities and become the glue to an organisation.
Megan set out to find roles that either had Executive Officer titles or duties that were similar to Chief of Staff. We prepared her LinkedIn, resume and cover letters to target these roles. Megan also incorporated her strengths into her interview skills and elevator pitch.
By week 12, Megan had been offered a contract Executive Officer position in the Sydney CBD for 12 months of maternity leave cover. She was unsure whether this was the right one because it was temporary, but we discussed and agreed it was the exact type of role and duties she was targeting, and this could also be a great stepping stone to the next role. Megan accepted the contract role and loved it. A year later, she was made permanent in her current role and given a salary increase. Best of all, after 14 months on the job, the company advised her they would be changing her title to “Chief Of Staff” and award her another salary increase. This was her original goal!
Megan is ecstatic with where her career is at now. Her employer loves her and she was happy to share her story. Her pay increased by 25%, she feels fulfilled in her role and is happy about her future career potential.
Emily
Recent graduate seeking work
CASE STUDY – EMILY
Emily came to me shortly after she graduated from a local university with a Bachelor Degree in Ancient History. She worked her way through uni in a part time job at a big grocery chain and couldn’t wait to find an office job.
Emily lived in the Inner West and it was important that she find something in the city or in the local area where public transport provided easy access to work.
While Emily loved history, she wasn’t sure what type of jobs would match her degree and wasn’t clear how to go about getting a job she will love. Her uni hadn’t given her any preparation or interview training to go out and find her first job. She did know she wanted an office job, after working many years in retail.
After Emily graduated university, she was speaking to a friend about her struggle in how to go about finding a good job, and her friend recommended she contact Robin.
The first thing we did was meet face to face for Emily to share about herself and to allow Robin to get to know her better. Emily came across as smart, bubbly, unbelievably helpful and organised. I could then start to pinpoint her strengths – I suspected she had Positivity and Context. Then we reviewed her resume and I noticed that she downplayed her supervisor role at the grocery chain, because there were many. We talked about this and I helped her understand why this was a great achievement and we needed to call it out more. She had a tremendous amount of experience dealing with unhappy customers, leading sales campaigns and managing staff. This experience speaks volumes to employers!
I also asked Emily to go home that night and complete a strengths survey. Robin got a text that night – “You were right!” with a screen shot of Emily’s top 5 Strengths – Context, Empathy, Intellection, Connectedness and Positivity.
Knowing Emily’s top 5 strengths and after speaking with her, it became obvious she is a great spirit who wants to be part of a team that allows her to contribute greatly.
We sat down together and worked on her resume with her strengths in mind, improving the format, and reordering the content to elevate her accomplishments. We weaved Emily’s strengths descriptors into her resume and her LinkedIn profile. We inserted more human voiced language in her Professional Overview and highlighted her achievements.
After spending 3 hours together, Emily took the ball and ran with it. With her newly polished resume and LinkedIn profile, Emily began applying for jobs and she immediately began getting responses. She had a couple of interviews but ultimately it took 3 months from when she started applying to finding a great job. She was hired by a city council as their Customer Service Officer. Emily was elated!
Emily was able to apply Robin’s coaching and a better understanding of her strengths to confidently target specific office jobs that could leverage her positivity, leadership and proactivity. She was able to find a job within 3 months and is now loving her new role.
Anshul
New to Australia
CASE STUDY – ANSHUL
Anshul was new to Australia and had been working in the marketing industry in India for the last 3 years. She had a Bachelors degree in Marketing but also a Masters in Marketing.
Anshul did not have family in Australia other than her new husband, and thus had no professional network or contacts to assist her in finding a new job. Anshul was eager to find work in Marketing but being new to the country, she found it difficult getting interviews. After a few months of searching, Anshul met Robin at a social event and they exchanged contact details.
Anshul advised Robin that she wanted to find a junior marketing job preferably in the city (Sydney). She was willing to consider part time or administrative work if it related to marketing.
After submitting many job applications she wasn’t successful in getting a new job. Anshul had been on only one or two job interviews, but still didn’t get the job. She was not sure what she should do differently. Robin noticed her English skills and positive attitude were great, so she needed to dig deeper on why she wasn’t landing a job.
First Robin asked Anshul to complete a Gallup Strengths Survey to help her unpack her strengths. Once Robin helped Anshul to better understood her strengths, they weaved her top 5 strengths into her resume summary section and helped her improve her LinkedIn profile. Learning her strengths also helped Anshul prepare for interviews.
Robin suggested that Anshul volunteer at a company to gain some “local” experience and helped her find a startup that needed help with their marketing strategy but they couldn’t pay her. Anshul volunteered with them for two months while she continued her job search. This provided Anshul local marketing experience as well as a job reference for her first Australian job.
The entire solution took about 2 to 3 months until Anshul landed a Marketing Coordinator job. She has since moved on to a more senior Marketing role with a new company as National Promotions Planner.
Through Robin’s coaching, Anshul’s confidence was boosted along with finding her local work experience, which helped launch her Australia marketing career and now Anshul is on her way in forging her career in Marketing.