How BossmakeHer Helped Shawnee Own Her Value

Speaker: Shawnee Parens

Shawnee Parens: How has BossmakeHer changed my life? When I joined Bossmaker actually a year ago, I was feeling very unsteady in my role. I was employed full time, good job, leadership role, but I wasn't happy and I wasn't sure exactly what I needed. Working through BossmakeHer helped me develop clarity about what I really wanted, what success looks like for me, what my values are with regard to my work and my life. And then BossmakeHer gave me the tools I needed and the support I needed to then be very intentional with a job search, to be focused and prepared to present myself with confidence and to learn from some of the setbacks, which ultimately led to me, just accepting a role that I'm absolutely thrilled about. The role that I'm moving towards, really aligns with my clarity statement, it aligns with my vision. I think BossmakeHer provides the space for those of us who are in executive roles but maybe still doubt ourselves to really understand the value that we bring and to feel confident in asserting what we deserve as valuable professionals.

Shawnee Parens: It's hard for me to narrow down to one part of the BossmakeHer program that made the biggest difference for me. I'm gonna give you two. But far and away, the clarity stage has been absolutely critical for me. We don't set aside time or we rarely set aside time to ask ourselves questions about what brings us joy, when do we feel like our skills are being used? What role do we really want? And what surprised me, was that I ended up getting clearer and returning to a goal that I've set in the past, but sort of drifted from through the evolution of the role that I was currently sitting in. The clarity stage was just so affirming for me and gave me an anchor to return to as I was talking with recruiters, as I was thinking about roles, thinking about where to move to next, so that I could really be looking forward to what I wanted, versus just looking for an escape hatch. And that was profound for me. The process of having my resume and LinkedIn rewritten for me by a professional who has experience with recruiting and could hear my story and hear my accomplishments and reflect them back to me was so confidence-building. To have someone reflect it back to me and articulate it for me, was very powerful and gave me some great talking points to draw on through my interview process. But by and large, the clarity stage was life changing.

Shawnee Parens: Three words to describe BossmakeHer and why. Number one is supportive, but very practically supportive, and the tools, the seminars, the weekly workshops, the sessions with consultants to equip me for with determining whether I want to stay where I currently am or whether I want to search for something new, and then giving me the tools as I decided to search for something new. 2, robust. This is a robust program. The resources are robust, and I always left the sessions I watched on recording with some significant takeaways. And then the third one isn't a one word, I'm gonna hyphenate it and we'll pretend it's one word. That's perspective giving. The sessions, with others, as well as especially the conversations I had with my coach was really helpful. I'm going to tell a quick story. While I was meeting with Nikki, after I'd had some disappointment. Appointments and I was feeling very burned out in my job. And I said to her, like, I don't, I don't even know if I can interview right now. Is anybody going to be able to look past this empty husk of a human I've become, which is, of course, very dramatic. And she was so kind about it. She didn't, laugh at me for describing myself as an empty husk of a human sort of smiled. She said, tell me, tell me what you're looking for. And we return to my clarity statement. And I described it to her, and she said, that's not too much to ask. When you are in a situation, you're interviewing and you're talking to someone, talking to the recruiter, talking to the hiring manager about yourself and you're in that situation, you will feel the excitement, it will come through and they'll see what you're capable of. And she was absolutely correct. I, shortly after that conversation, ended up interviewing for the role that I ultimately accepted. And during the interview process, during the like full day on site, I actually felt so excited because I could feel the alignment with my clarity statement. And because I felt so confident and prepared for the interviews that the day was actually really fun, and I could feel the charge that I used to feel, around my work.

Shawnee Parens: I have a good friend right now who is in this experience. She is navigating the job search process. She's still employed, but looking for a better fit, someplace where she'll feel valued. So we've had these conversations and I find myself referring back to BossmakeHer tools. I've encouraged her to engage with a coach or with a resume and LinkedIn writer, someone to give perspective on her experience, what she has to offer. I would also, I've encouraged her and I would encourage any friend going through a job search to network, network, network, and to not be scared of having those conversations because everybody wants to talk to other people who are engaged and interested in their work. Most of us want to give a hand up to each other too. I think the biggest theme I hear with my friends who are in the job search process and that I felt with myself, like we gaslight ourselves, right? We're not feeling good in the work that we're doing. We're not feeling good in our current place. So then we tell ourselves that we're not good at it or that we haven't accomplished anything and getting some perspective through a coach, through a program like BossmakeHer can be really bolstering for our sense of reality, here's what I really have accomplished. Here's the value I really do bring. Here's why I deserve to have the right fit. Here's why I deserve to be somewhere where I am valued and how I can go about presenting that to potential employers. But the, experience of feeling really isolated is so real in the job search process, and it's so real when we're unhappy in the work we do. And being in a program like BossmakeHer provides that perspective and the moral and material support that is so helpful to navigate sometimes a very long and exhausting, process.