On Content People, host Meredith Farley interviews creative professionals and leaders to get a behind-the-scenes look at their career experiences and turn that into actionable advice for listeners. Tune in to hear from experts in various media, and get inspired to find contentment in your own creative career.
Episode #5 Summary
The Cut’s career advice columnist Kimberly Brown has a strong sense of who she is and what she’s doing — but it wasn’t always that way. In her conversation with Meredith Farley, Kimberly talks about the struggles and triumphs of finding her career path. She explores the importance of passion, when to move on from a job, overcoming imposter syndrome and more.
Kimberly Brown’s resume includes everything from being an author, to an advice columnist at New York Magazine’s „The Cut,“ a career development expert, a Global Diversity Talent Acquisition Leader at a Fortune 100 company, and of course, earning a Master of Science in counseling.
It’s easy to think Kimberly was born knowing exactly what she wanted to do. However, she says her path wasn’t always so clear. She studied vocal jazz for 10 years before stepping into psychology and marketing — the two fields that made her the career leader she is today.
Luckily, Kimberly is generous with her career advice. In our chat, she talks about how she got over missing out on her dream job, planned her work through a series of milestones and learned to represent herself in the workplace — and how she does the same for others. We cover:
- Believing in yourself and learning what you’re capable of.
- Having a career strategy.
- When to leave a role you don’t like — and one you love.
- How to spot red flags during a job interview.
- The role of networking and professional associations in career-building.
- What it means to make room for magic in your work life.
View on Zencastr
No matter where you are in your career, you’re sure to learn a thing or two from Kimberly.
Thanks for listening!
– Meredith Farley, Host of Content People
More Content for Content People
Meet Kimberly: Visit Kimberly’s website to learn more about where she’s been (and where she’s going).
Next Move, Best Move: Find Kimberly’s book at your favorite shop.
Brafton: Make room for some magic in your day — read our digital marketing newsletter.
Podcast Transcript:
Meredith Farley
Hello, and welcome to Content People, a podcast where we talk to creative professionals and leaders to get a behind-the-scenes look at their career experiences and turn that into actionable advice for listeners. Tune in to hear experts and get inspired to find contentment in your own career.
I’m your host, Meredith Farley. As some of you know, I used to be the COO at Brafton where I oversaw that creative project management and consulting teams. I’m no longer with the company, but Brafton is still producing this podcast, so thanks, Brafton. We recorded this episode a while ago, so you might hear me make reference to my former role just FYI.
Also, I really wanted to say thank you so much to all the folks who have supported the first few episodes so far. Our listener numbers have been unexpectedly good for such a new podcast. It’s been a passion project for me, and the texts, emails, and comments have been super kind and supportive. It certainly made me feel pretty vulnerable to be feeling my way through starting a podcast, wearing how to really interview folks, trying to accept what my voice actually sounds like, brutal. But one of the benefits of being publicly imperfect is seeing how many friends and colleagues you really have that do wish you well and want to support you. So thanks to all of you. Each and every tiny encouragement has been really meaningful to me.
Okay, enough sentimentality, and on to the show. I’m here with our amazing producer, Ian Servin, who’s the creative director of video and special projects at Brafton. Hey, Ian.
Ian Servin
Hey, Meredith. First of all, I’m super excited to continue doing the show with you. This has been such a fun experience for me to listen to all of these conversations. I’ve been getting so much out of it, and I’m definitely really excited for today’s episode with Kimberly.
Meredith
Oh, yeah, me too. And thank you, Ian. I love working with you. But yeah, I’m also so excited for this episode. Though we’re talking with Kimberly Brown, Kimberly’s a career and leadership development expert, and her book, Next Move, Best Move, is all about how to strategically approach career development by evaluating your past experiences and using them to build a roadmap for the future. She also writes a really great career advice column for The Cut called Your Next Move, which I love. We can link to that in the show notes.
Ian
We covered a ton of ground with Kimberly, and it was super interesting to see how her personal journey taught her all of these really valuable lessons about not only building the career that you want, but doing it on your own terms. And she’s really taken all of that experience and turned that into resources to help a ton of other people.
Meredith
Absolutely. And we have all probably experienced finding a job, figuring out a career path. It can be really daunting and stressful, and I know that a lot of people feel like they’re just making up as they go. I hope that after listening to this episode, you might feel a bit more empowered to take control of your own career journey.
Ian
All right, without further ado, here’s our conversation with Kimberly Brown.
—
Meredith
Kimberly, thank you so much for being on Content People, I’m so excited to have you. Thank you very much. Welcome.
Kimberly
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Meredith
So you are very impressive and I’m so excited to pick your brain about your career advice, your career journey and the advice that you have for folks. I know some of our listeners might know you, but if not, I want to give them a little context and so correct me where I’m wrong here, but so you started your career working career services at universities like Princeton and then you moved into diversity talent acquisition at American Express helping them recruit, retain and advance its underrepresented talent while at the same time you founded your own leadership development company called Manifest Yourself and then in 2021 you wrote your first book, Next Move Best Move and you’re currently also the author of Your Next Move, which is a really amazing career advice column on the cut, which I really love and I’m always excited when there’s a new column out. So one, whoa, and two, did I miss anything there?
Kimberly
No, no, no, that is, that’s about right. I will say that I stumbled a little bit before I came into career counseling, I always tell people that I didn’t just like graduate college and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I definitely stumbled like most people do after undergrad, so there’s a few other odd jobs that happened before I got into a career that I really like. I think that is super helpful because I feel like sometimes people get really successful people and they’re like, man, they were just born knowing exactly their path and their journey. Like what were your stumbles? What jobs did you do? What did you think you might want to do before you got into what you’re doing now? Oh gosh. Well, when I went to college, so I studied vocal jazz for about 10 years, so I was obsessed with music. So I wanted to be a music teacher when I went to college. My parents said that wasn’t happening. I said, well, it looks like I’ll figure out how to pay for my education.
So I figured out how to do it, but the crazy thing is that I ended up changing my major very shortly after that. I think I went to psychology and then I went to marketing. In my book, I tell the story of wanting to be like Shante Smith and Connie Spalding from this old film called Two Can Play at That Game. So if you picture like the really colorful structured suits, high powered, slick back ponytails with like the corner office and the receptionist overlooking Manhattan, I swore that was going to be me when I graduated college. It was not. I worked as a, they called it like a marketing analyst role, but it really was like a data type of role that I was in. A lot of data entry and I wasn’t really enjoying that and then I moved into finance and I worked as a banker for a few years, then I was in college admissions and then I found my way to career services and that’s when I kind of stayed on that path with talent ever since that time.
Meredith
Oh man. I love that. And I guess psychology, marketing, teaching, those are all still kind of aspects and elements of what you’re doing and I can, or I can see them being part of it. Do you feel like you’re pulling on those pieces of yourself sometimes?
Kimberly
A little bit. I feel like hindsight is 2020, right? Everything makes sense when it’s done. My master’s is also in counseling and I think that I used to make a joke that when I did career counseling back in the day, like if your career isn’t going the way you want it to go, then generally like your life isn’t exactly where you want it to be because your career takes up how much time, 40 plus hours a week. So it’s really, really hard to be happy in life if your career is making you unhappy. So I used to say a joke, like if you cry too hard, you may need me and a therapist and you see so many transitions in between your overall feelings about yourself and the world. When your job isn’t going well, so the counseling and the psychology definitely helps. The marketing, when it comes to personal and professional branding, 100% finances is such a huge part of why we work, right, because I’m pretty sure many of us wouldn’t have a job if we didn’t have bills to pay. So kind of having all of those overlaid in my background definitely makes sense now, but I definitely thought I was like treading water when I was figuring it out.
Meredith
Yeah, wow. Well, I’m happy you shared that because I would say even from the outside, I kind of thought, she always knew what she wanted to do.
Kimberly
Oh, no. No, no, no.
Meredith
But what you’re saying, I think, I imagine I’ll ring true for a lot of people, is the idea that kind of how you feel about work is maybe how you feel about a sizable chunk of your life right now. And I think that’s why sometimes examining and talking and supporting people and around work is so important, but also it can be hard to kind of untangle one from the other. Sometimes in your column, when you’re giving great career advice, do you sometimes feel like you’re giving life advice?
Kimberly
Sometimes a little bit because I think a lot of times people ask questions to things they already have the answer to. They just want permission and how you take action. So I’ll bring it back a little bit more. So when people talk about personal branding, they always think about themselves being this completely different human in the world of work. But the truth is you’re the same human, the same human that’s just a little bit more polished right in the workplace, but there’s so many themes that happen at work and still happen at home. It’s just different scenarios that happen. I think we need to stop separating it so much and just kind of look at the whole human. And in the column, I like to just kind of weigh both.
How can you be happy in life and at work? That’s why the tagline of my book is transitioning into a career you’ll love. It’s possible to have some level of love for your job. And I think that just makes you generally a healthier and happier human.
Meredith
Yeah. Wow. I love that. So I really want to dig into your book and your writing. And maybe first, I was wondering if you could walk listeners through your career journey thus far, maybe starting with the careers counseling and kind of moving up to where you are today.
Kimberly
Sure. Sure. So I think that’s taking it back to 2011-ish. That was the first time I got a job as a career counselor. I made that move strategically from admissions to career counseling because I was moving back to working at my alma mater. I discovered I loved higher education after being in finance. But admissions, I wanted a longer term relationship with the student and potentially working with alumni. And because admissions, like most people don’t remember their admissions counselor, right? They get you in and then you go about your life. In career counseling, you get to work with them throughout their progression as undergrad, graduate students and alum. I’ve worked with folks who are age 18 who don’t know what to do with their life. All the way through folks who are in their 60s and looking to pull everything together and do something fun and maybe you don’t want to retire yet. And the first time I saw a student get a job as a direct result of working with me, I was hooked. It was the best feeling in the entire world. I still talk to that student to this day on Instagram. And I just knew that’s where I wanted to go.
So once I knew that I wanted to stay in career counseling, my obsession became I want to be a director of career services. So I looked at different directors of career services and universities that I liked and appreciated and respected and kind of looked at their backgrounds, like, well, what do I need to do? So I’ve mastered career counseling in that first up, I think I’ve worked specifically with business students, the College of Education and Information Sciences. I think I did grad and undergrad in that area. But I didn’t get to touch alumni. So I knew the next job I need to work with more alumni. And I wanted to do more of the employer development side. So I made a transition to my next job. I worked with employer development, alumni programming and alumni counseling. After that, I knew I wanted to kind of get more of an operations, more strategic view.
So I had the opportunity to move to another college where I built out an employer outreach program, which really again pulled in more alumni and I was the first person to ever have that job. So I got to build my team and kind of build from the ground up. At that point, I was an associate director, still loving it. In my book, I have a whole chapter on professional associations.
The reason I’ve been able to move throughout my career really and truly is from networking and professional associations. I didn’t have some of my network already. I use professional associations to find it. So I was a part of, let me see if I can get it right, it’s called NYSCEEA, the New York State Cooperative and Experiential Education Association. It’s like a long, I could just say NYSCEEA, but I forget it. I joined that organization and that got me in touch with people all over New York State and I got into more of the Metropolitan organizations. And by that time, so that had been, that’s 2011 to maybe 2018, all in career services.
That’s when I started to get ready to apply for a director level job that since I moved to the associate director level and I had a job search like many people have had, right? Like sometimes when you’re looking, things just don’t hit. I was top two and I was not number one like Beyonce. I was consistently number two and very upset about it. And I had one particular search that was like, it was heart-shattering. I was number two and I thought I had it. I knew I had it. I was devastated and their number one candidate actually rescinded their acceptance. They came back to me and said, oh my gosh, we’d love to have you. Are you still interested? And I was like, well, you know, maybe this is just fate. So I was like, yes, they wanted me to come back in and meet the team after we had the phone call. And then they ended up rescinding it again like, hey, we’re going in a different direction.
Meredith
Oh, that is brutal. Oh my gosh.
Kimberly
I’ve never really cried over a job. I’ve never really been that upset, but I had envisioned like the trench I was going to wear with the boots like walking through Manhattan at that point. I was so devastated. So then I was like, okay, well, maybe I need to take a step back. My company was doing pretty well at that point. And I was like, I really like DEI, what if I think about moving into a role in corporate America again? And I got introduced to someone through a connection and it was the fastest interview process I ever had. And I had a job at a Fortune 100 company within maybe two weeks. Once I got, once I applied and did all that stuff, like it was very quick through the introduction and that’s how I moved back into corporate and I was the director of global diversity talent acquisition strategy. So globally looking at how to recruit, retain, promote, underrepresented talent and whatever that meant in whichever country. And I loved it.
And I literally, I didn’t leave that job until I physically couldn’t do my business and the job at the same time, probably should have left like six months before I did because I had 100% burnt out. My health was suffering. I was miserable, but I just, I loved my team. I loved, I loved everything about that job.
Meredith
And so that’s when you were working on manifest yourself and were you also at that point working on your book or did that come later?
Kimberly
Oh, so I was certifiably crazy, do not recommend, repeat, do not recommend, but I wrote my book during that crazy period.
Meredith
Oh my gosh.
Kimberly
My book was actually published maybe three weeks after I resigned. So I’m like, I wrote it through that whole crazy period. Yeah. It was very busy.
Meredith
Yeah. So, I mean, I think, you know, in all of your, okay, one more question before we jump into some questions I have about the advice you give, how did the cut come about for you? Is that after the book or during like, what was that process like?
Kimberly
That was after the book. I think the book, I was, people told me like a book is like a business card now since like we’re not seeing people in person. You never know who has it. And I think between the book and my podcast, that’s where New York Mag found me and asked if I’d be open to being a career palamist. Wow. What a whirlwind. Oh, I was so excited. I felt very like Carrie Bradshaw-esque and I don’t know what it is about writing the column, but that’s when I felt most comfortable calling myself an author and a writer after the column. I don’t know why the 54,000 plus words in my book didn’t make me as comfortable saying I’m an author and a writer, but with the cut, with both those combined, I’m like, okay, I’m a writer. I write books. I have a column. I feel much more confident in saying that now.
Meredith
That’s really interesting. So in the book and in your column, you’re giving really great advice to folks who want to be more strategic and successful when they’re pivoting their careers or trying to move up at their existing companies. And I know that each in like a question that you’re responding to is really specific to each person, but I’m wondering if there are common mistakes you see people make or places where folks consistently get stuck and kind of pull themselves back a little bit?
Kimberly
So a lot of it, I think, comes down to belief in what you can do and just demystifying the process. So last week’s column was someone who was nervous about taking a step back in title, but a step up in money. And I think that naturally some of us will be like, what are you talking about? I want more money. Thank you very much. You can call me whatever you want to call me.
But I think the world of work is changing so fast. I read a statistic recently that talks about the jobs that we have today like 10 years ago, most of them didn’t even exist, especially when we’re thinking about marketing, communications, anything in the web. Like there’s so many things that we didn’t have. So sometimes we don’t know what to hold on to. And I think that reader specifically, if I speak to that one, it’s the fear of if I make this step, is it going to set me up for success or am I going to have to explain it and I won’t be able to get hired later? And I think that’s the biggest question is, if I do a, will I still be able to get to be or am I going to be somewhere dribbling the ball by myself and not knowing how to get back to my own career strategy?
I think the biggest mistake people have is probably not hanging up having a career strategy in place. So they’re just guessing and hoping that whatever their next step is, is the next logical one, but not thinking a little bit more long term. So what I explained my career earlier, I said that I was a career counselor. I wanted to become a director of career services. So I figured out what skills I needed and I moved according to what I needed to get to that goal. I think many times people know where they are now and they may or may not know where they’d like to be in like five to 10 years. And they just kind of look at opportunities or they’re going based upon their gut of like, oh, I don’t like this job right now. Like I need to do something else and kind of leaping and recycling almost the same situation just a different company or a different title. So when you’re not moving with strategy, it’s really hard to make good sound decisions for your career.
And I think between that and just not wanting to do the wrong thing, those are the biggest things. I tell people all the time, I’m like, when you look at your career and you look at the next move that you’re making, I don’t like to think too far past like the two year mark. I think it’s important to have that long term goal of that five to 10, a hundred percent. But when I work with clients, I say, okay, where do you want to be in, in 10 years? Okay. So to be there in 10, where do we need to be in five? To be there in five, where do we need to be in two? And then we start to backtrack and really start building plans out in like six month increments of what they need to be working on and what they need to do. When you think of like point A to point Z or that tenure, it seems so far that you’re like, I’ll get there, like I’ll figure it back out, but you have to be a little bit more strategic. I think when we start adding strategy into how we manage our career, I think that’s where a lot of people really begin to see more success.
Meredith
That makes sense to me and that resonates with me too. I really, I like an actionable plan with some milestones and I feel like I can see that being really helpful to the people you’re talking to and work with. What would you say to someone who maybe feels like they are not sure where they’re trying to go, they’re tired, they’re burned out, they know they don’t like what they’re doing right now, but they’re having trouble envisioning something good for themselves even in two years. Like do you have any tools or tips for people who are feeling kind of like, I don’t even know where I’m trying to go, I’m just a little tired, kind of?
Kimberly
Yeah, I think that is so, so common, so common, especially if you’ve been just working like crazy and you’re just unhappy, you’re at the point where like, can I just take vacation for six months and then I’ll come back? Totally get it. So the first thing I ask them to do is kind of take themselves out of their own resume, out of their own experience and really start looking not at their experience tied to a particular industry, but at their experiences and their skills, their passions, just as these singular things, like so they really like working with people. They’re very passionate about sports.
You have a lot of experience working with data and start to see where are the things that you like individually without thinking about a company or anything else. And then really start to look at those things and start to do some informational interviews. I love informational interviews. I’m asking folks in my network for introductions or reaching out to people who are doing jobs that you think are really cool. It sounds so simple, but you really need to understand what is the job day to day? Because it could be completely different from what you think it is.
So I always recommend doing informational interviews to get some ideas and almost set it up like a college application process, right? When we were in high school, they had you essentially do a good, better, best, or I think they called it like your top schools, like the schools that you’d be like, okay with going to, but you wouldn’t be that happy and then your safety school to be happened does not get anywhere else you have the safeties, set up your job search in the same way.
Once you know what your skills, your passions, your experiences are, where you want to put those down, you figure it out after talking to a few folks or even doing some research on where are people, what did it take for them to get there? What different companies do they work at with different jobs that they have and kind of kind of comparing apples to apples, like, okay, this sounds like this may be a good bit. What are the top three jobs you’d be interested in applying to and then start going through that process?
And the more time you give yourself, the better. It takes the average person about six months to find a job, but many times people want to find a job in a month because they wait until they’re so unhappy or they’re in a situation that unfortunately led to them just being really unhappy and they have to go. But if you can give yourself as much time as possible to explore, to do informational interviews, to find out more information on the company, on the colleague, the culture, the managers, hopefully it’ll make your next move much more successful.
Meredith
That makes a lot of sense. And I also, like we said to you about some of us who are waiting too long and they’re miserable and then they’re a little desperate, but when would you recommend, like, when should someone know, okay, now is the time where you need to start exploring your next step, and maybe now it’s time for you to move on from this company, even if you’re comfortable happy you like it?
Kimberly
So I will say this is a very personal decision. I think some folks don’t agree with me. I think one of my mentees recently got very upset with me when we had a conversation about moving. But hopefully in a few years, maybe they’ll appreciate my advice a little bit more. But I really believe in role mastery. If you have a career strategy in place and you know the things that you need to learn in order to get promoted, to get that next experience, try your best to master and take everything from that job that you can. So when you start to feel like your job is almost on autopilot, that’s a time where you should start thinking about it.
And when you told me about your audience, if we’re thinking folks are like 24 to 35-ish most folks, most people that comes around the two-year mark. Okay. Most of the time where it’s really a well oiled machine. So think about year one, you’re still meeting all the people, learning your job, figuring out all the things, year two is where you can really start to put your stamp on things. I don’t want anyone to be in a job where they’re not trying to put a stamp. I do not care if there were 20 people before you in that role and they have a whole set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) of how to do your job. How can you put your stamp, leave your mark on that job and improve existing systems? And once you started to do some things like that, I’m like, ooh, now it’s time to really start thinking about moving, starting to have some informational interviews, starting to get into professional associations, even putting out some feelers with job applications.
That’s what I recommend for the average person. Generally that two-year mark, 100%, I think people should start looking. But at the same time, I always say leave room for magic, right? And magic to me means that it could just be a coincidence. So you meet someone out of the blue and they say, oh my gosh, like I think you’d be really great here. We happen to have a director of blah, blah, blah available, would you be interested? And even if you feel like you need a little bit more time or you were hoping to get that, like you wanted to spend another year, sometimes like take a look. Is it worth you making the move now? Even if you’ve only been in your current job for a year, sometimes magic happens. You have to like weigh the pros and cons because not every opportunity is the opportunity you should be doing when you know what your strategy is.
Meredith
Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. It’s interesting. Also, I’m thinking of it too from the employer perspective of when people hit that level of mastery maybe two years, that’s also when they start getting really good at it because they’re less stressed.
They don’t have to think or work so hard because they know what to do. They can start thinking at a slightly higher level because they can develop more time generally because it’s not taking them quite as long. It’s tricky about how to keep the roles, I guess, from the employer perspective when you notice that mastery happening, keeping people progressing, challenging them, giving them new opportunities within the organization if you’re trying to keep them around because it’s kind of an unfortunate purpose that the moment it’s totally right for a staff member to move on is also maybe the moment they have just like hit a real nice peak as an incredibly confident member of the team.
Kimberly
That’s the hard part when we start talking about internal pipelines because the best pipeline of talent that an organization has are generally the people who are already in it. If you’re forward thinking as a manager, I tell my managers, stop kind of looking at each employee as staying in their lane. You just want them to do that job and that is it. Just get it done. Execute these tasks so that our team can move forward, et cetera, but these are people and they’re going to get bored and by the time they get bored, if they’ve asked a few times, you see someone who’s really looking to move forward, they’re a go-getter, they’re asking for more work or trying to understand things, encourage that, but do it at every level.
If you know, let’s say there’s an analyst, a manager, and a director, you see that the manager is really getting close to moving to that director level. Maybe it’s time to start deciding what analysts should you start developing more. How can they start shadowing that manager? You kind of keep that pipeline coming and thinking about the future, not just for your company, but for your employees, and that’s how you can kind of hopefully combat that. Employees are more willing to wait, more willing to have great conversations, help with training if you’re open and honest. Too many managers say they give no feedback, like, oh, everything’s going great. You know, when the time is right, we’ll just make that move and it’s like, no, you have to be able to put some time on it. What are the exact skills they need to get that promotion? What do you feel is missing so people can constantly be developing and better understanding themselves? Because that would help with retention overall.
Meredith
Yeah, totally, I totally agree. We do a lot of, I think at Brafton, and maybe what you’re talking about is one thing that we do, I would say, pretty well. It’s been incredibly, it’s been an awesome way to keep good people with us and engaged and still growing and also really wonderful to just keep some continuity in the organization.
So I think that totally resonates with me, and I think that’s great advice. And let’s see, you know, one thing that I think when people are thinking about moving to a new organization, especially if they’re really comfortable where they are, you might be really anxious about taking on a new role and then later regretting it. So I was wondering if you could talk about, what are red flags and green flags in a job search?
Kimberly
Ooh, okay, so I think when we talk about red flags, I think when you’re interviewing at a company, it’s important for you to be interviewing them just as much. And I think making sure that they understand, your manager understands, your team understands, do they have a clear understanding of your role, a clear understanding of the career path for that job? Do you get a good amount of face time with your manager, with the team, even with your skip leader, your manager’s manager, to really understand or are they kind of keeping you and your role in like a silo, like you only meet one person and that’s it and you’re hired. I think those are red flags that people aren’t able to ask, don’t have the opportunity to meet multiple people across the team, across the organization.
From a DEI perspective, I think I can’t not say that like you want to see various people interviewing you in the process, races, ethnicities, genders, levels across the organization, you don’t just want to be speaking to people who are let’s say all director level and you’re coming in as an analyst. You should also see some people who are less senior as well, so you’re able to get different perspectives.
Green lights, I think, are more about the quality of the conversation, the depth of the work that you’ll be involved in, essentially the opposite of all the negatives, all the red flags, right? Being able to really speak to those points and make sure that you’re supported, having a really great onboarding plan is always really helpful, especially in this hybrid work environment. So many folks are saying that it’s harder starting in a virtual environment now because you can’t necessarily, you’re not making friends, some of the online events, the Zoom events that are happening, they’re great, like we love them, right? I love them too. I wouldn’t want to go back into an office, but in terms of interacting with folks, it’s a little hard. You never actually get to know your colleagues, you just get to know your team, so how do they combat that? How do they ingrain you in the culture? And I just challenge you to also think about anything that’s really important to you. It’s really, really important to you. If you’re not seeing that or getting a good answer when you’re responding, when they’re responding to a question, I think keep that top of mind.
In your search, don’t be afraid to push to get the information that you need, and that’s another reason why I think networking and professional associations are so important, because when you have the insider information, it makes the interview process even better. There’s nothing like talking to someone off the record about their experience at the company outside of the interview process to help you really make that decision
Meredith
Yeah, I think that’s really, really good advice. That makes a lot of sense. And I would say one thing, so I’ve been at Brafton a long time, 13 years, so I don’t have quite as much on the ground experience with some of the things you’re talking about, but some folks that I’ve mentored have mentioned that there are some jobs, and here’s what you think about this, where they say during the interview process, they’ve felt like, they definitely had a lot of imposter syndrome going on, and they felt like, oh man, maybe I’m just like, I’m not smart enough for this role, I’m already in over my head, I kind of don’t understand the role as they’re expressing it, I don’t know how these people are all related to each other, and then when I sat down with them, I was like, all right, we go to Sally, let’s talk it through.
My take was actually, this organization is not really communicating with you clearly. You, the person I’m talking to, gets it, and you are capable of digesting and absorbing information, but this imposter syndrome and worry you’re feeling is actually the result of, they don’t seem that clear on this role, they’re not answering your questions directly, but it was kind of funny how it was manifesting for this particular person I’m thinking, where they just didn’t feel good enough, and they thought, oh, maybe I’m secretly not smart enough, and this will be the job that blows my cover, I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that, if you feel like that’s common, or not particularly.
Kimberly
I think it is, I think whenever you’re moving to a new company, especially if you’ve spent a good amount of time at your current company, or even if it’s just been two years, it’s an adjustment. Everybody is new, your boss is new, the same way that you are putting on your absolute best face that day in your interviews, they’re doing the same exact thing, so you really don’t know until you get in there. So having imposter syndrome is, I think it’s normal, sometimes I even say that I almost like a little bit of imposter syndrome because it makes me feel like I’m challenging myself and I’m not getting too complacent, but what I ask for my clients to do is really make sure they’re advocating for themselves.
So in the situation you talked about Meredith, if you’re not understanding, ask, don’t be afraid to hop back on another call, I tell my clients all the time, if you need another call, another quick conversation before signing on the dotted line, ask, hey, can I have another 15 minutes with the manager, I have a few quick questions I just want to make sure that I’m clear on, the same way you’re going to go back and forth to negotiate your salary, which I hope you’re doing, is the same way you can go back if you don’t really understand the team structure, you don’t understand the hierarchy scope or structure, the same way when we talked about on the cut the last article about the person who didn’t know if they should go down in title, but go up in salary, it’s, you don’t know the structure within an organization, right?
Titles are so subjective and especially when you start talking about smaller organizations versus mid-side versus large, you may just call something different, call something different in your current company, it can be the exact same thing, but there’s different terminology, all different ways people put it, so I always say when you’re going someplace new, don’t necessarily think that it’s all you, right, you have to learn, that’s why you really need that onboarding period, that training period, the imposter syndrome, it’s a combination of you just having your feelings, right, being in a new situation, being the new kid on the block, but it’s also like you need to learn their culture and you’re not going to be able to learn it until you get in there and start asking questions, so it’s very, very natural.
Meredith
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense and there’s good advice and we certainly like I’ve wrapped in, we get tons of those requests and questions for folks who are trying to hire and usually for us, that’s a green flag too about an applicant to get those questions because we’re like, okay, they care, they’re paying attention, they’re clarifying, they’re communicating well, which are all obviously green flags for us.
So one thing I want to touch on is that I think there are obviously some external forces that impact and hold back women and people of color in the workplace, but I think also sometimes internalized forces inflicted by wrong and harmful messages from media and society that can be easily internalized and also hold people back and I’m wondering if you see like, if there are any thematic disbeliefs or harsh self judgments that you wish you could kind of help people snap out of, are there like mantras or thoughts you think women and or people of color should have in their personal toolkits or just be mindful of?
Kimberly
That’s a really, I think interesting question because I think it puts the onus back on in this case, the woman or the person of color, but sometimes I think is right, but I also think is wrong in some cases because like we talked about, there’s so much happening in the workforce. You could be the absolute best person in whatever job you have, but if you have a company that has a lot of bias, you have a boss who is passive aggressive and shows microaggressions, it does not matter how great you are because that external force is going to keep you where you are. You may not be supported, you may not have mentorship, sponsorship, et cetera, but I think speaking about the person because that’s, you could only control yourself. I think I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’d want them to have a mantra or a way to kind of give themselves more self assurance, but I’d want them to be able to really make sure they can evaluate themselves and understand that not all feedback is about them.
That’s one of the most beautiful things one of my mentors told me is like, not all feedback is about you. So when you’re receiving negative feedback or bias or microaggressions or anything in the workplace, really being able to evaluate yourself and be like, is this true, right? Is it true? So a lot of times in the workplace, black women are a little too aggressive, right? So when you’re sitting back and you’re thinking about, okay, on that project where you’re bossing, yeah, you’re a little too aggressive in that meeting. Were you being too aggressive or were you asserting yourself? Which one? And really think about it.
I know when I’m being aggressive and I 100% can’t be. I am very much aware, but some situations is like, no, I really just said, I think we should go in this direction instead based upon A, B, C. So I think being able to really do some self-evaluation, I think is really crucial. And also understand when it’s a situation that may be an uphill battle that you don’t want to fight. You don’t always have to fight it. Maybe it’s time for you to go. And I also encourage folks, especially women and people of color to find mentorship and sponsorship. I push more on the sponsorships, sponsorship and then mentorship to make sure you always have another advocate for you in the workplace and make sure that you have a good community around you. It could be really hard. I think making sure you have a really good community and even if you are the one and the only on your team and your company, et cetera, just making sure that you’re surrounding yourself with great advocates for you and not be afraid to advocate for yourself. I’m someone who’s been very, I don’t want to say I’m very comfortable because it is uncomfortable, but I am not.
I’ve been in a lot of situations where I was the only person of color and the only woman or the only black woman combination, I was raised in a very small town in Connecticut, where I was one of very, very, very few, sometimes the only minority K through 12. So I’m very used to those situations, even though they’re uncomfortable. So I never want to take away from someone’s experience being in a situation like that. But I think one of the most important things is having support, whether it’s an ally or having another woman or person of color there for you to confide in.
Meredith
That makes total sense to me. I think I really like what you said about like, is it true? And also the fact that it’s like a terrible, it’s an unfair burden to be in the position of having to analyze with a different lens, like is what they’re saying to me about me or not, especially because then if you’re not sure, then some, you know, sometimes the feedback is like, well, you’re just being defensive, you’re not taking my feet back on just like a salt in the wound.
And the idea of having other people around who can be that objective supportive outside voice. So you’re not just in your head makes total sense. How do you recommend people find mentors or sponsors? And actually, I’m not, well, how would you define the difference between mentorship and sponsorship?
Kimberly
Got it. So mentorship for me is more about feedback. It’s more of that more regular conversation you’re able to have with someone who’s been there, done that. The key to most good mentors is that they’ve literally been where you are or they’re exactly where you want to go, like your next step, very direct experience. The sponsor, that is like the special sauce because the sponsor has power and influence and not every mentor has that. A sponsor is able to take you to exactly where you want to go based upon their power and influence.
So if you were to say, Kimberly, I want to work at ABC company, if I had a contact there and was able to call them, like call the hiring manager and be like, hey, you have to talk to Meredith, like no if ands or buts, she’s incredible. And off my word, they give you that interview. That’s what a sponsor can do. It’s making sure you have the influence to open the door and hopefully seal the deal for whatever that person needs. I joke and say that sponsors pick you up from where you are and put you where you rightfully belong because you can skip levels, pick time, skip processes because your sponsor has the power to really make that happen.
Okay, so mentorship, they’ve been there before, they can give you good advice, but like guidance from the sidelines, sponsorship, someone who is going to have the ability to influence the outcome and what happens for you. Exactly. They can literally give you the opportunity. And I think that one thing I always tell folks about sponsors and mentors too is you don’t need to talk to someone everyday.
I think sometimes there’s a misconception, especially in the younger generations about how much you need to talk to your mentor or your sponsor. A sponsor, you generally don’t talk to them a lot at all. Maybe they’re a great mentor as well. You make it lucky and have a combo. But sponsors, again, they have that power and influence, which probably means they don’t have time. You call them in when it is fourth quarter on the clock, like that’s that play that you have at the end with like 15 seconds on the clock. They’re not coming in every day to talk about the day-to-day nuances of the process. They’re there to make that power play for you.
Your mentor, they probably have a little bit more time. That’s important to me. You need exposure to both folks. But generally, most sponsors, because they have that power, you may not be able to get on their calendar all the time. I know I’ve waited months sometimes to get on some of my mentors or sponsors calendar, depending upon how much, what their level of seniority is, what their level of power it influences. But you just have to keep at it. And I think I always, once I’m clear on where I want to go, then I look for mentors and sponsors to advocate and who I can connect with, who are aligned with that.
So I think it’s really important that you discover where you want to go. So then you’re like, okay, if you want to be a director of communications, well, where are other directors of communications? What organizations do you need to go to ColourCom or Namek and find different organizations to talk to and start to target people who are in similar roles in companies that you like? And I think sometimes people do the reverse and they want a mentor to help them figure everything out, but it’s so much more powerful when you do the reverse. And you kind of figure your stuff out that a mentor and a sponsor can come in and magnify your plan and help you get there. And if you have to make some pivots, they can help with that too.
But again, if you kind of have more direction yourself, it’s helpful.
Meredith
Okay. That makes sense. And we can link to some of the organizations you mentioned in our show notes after. Definitely, that’s great.
I know we don’t have too much time left, but a lot of our listeners might have a creative writing background or marketing. And I know everyone, most everyone is curious about how to get a book deal. So because I feel like you are such an authority on how to position yourself for what you want. I really wanted to ask you to talk people through, what was your process for being approached or approaching a publisher or agent about creating a book? What was your writing process like?
It sounds like it was intense because you had so many other things going on. And how did you know what precisely you wanted or needed the book to be about?
Kimberly
Oh my gosh, those are such deep questions. I think normally people ask me like, how is the process writing a book? And I say, oh, it was terrible. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my entire life. Don’t recommend, but I’m doing it again. But the questions are so good.
So number one, I will say that I reached out to a friend of mine who published with Wiley Publishing and I was fortunate enough to get an introduction. And that’s how I landed my first book deal. For the second time around, I’m working with an agent. It’s a little bit different of a process to like shop a book versus an introduction directly to the publisher. I think that when it comes to writing a book, I think one of the things people forget is the marketability of the book, because so many times we have a story, we have something that we want to share, but it’s how do you convince someone that there’s a market for it? How do you show people how you’re going to market your own book and share?
I think the marketing piece of getting a book deal is probably one of the most intense. Because when I thought of writing, and maybe this is just me, I thought of it as some like, I want you to document my experience and put it down on paper and I need to see my name on a shelf or hold it in my hand and it’s very almost selfish. This is like your experience that you want to have. When you’re talking to a publisher, it’s like, yeah, yeah, but how are other people going to like your experience? Are they going to buy your experience? If they don’t buy it, we don’t need it.
The average author, I think they say, they only sell like 2,500 books over the lifespan of the book. And if you think about what it takes to be a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times bestseller, I think is like most of the time, 10 to 15,000 in a week plus pre-sale like the first week of the book and pre-sale. So 2,500, 10 to 15,000 in a week, there’s a big, big gap there. So what I tell folks is think about not only your story, but what is it going to teach other people? How is it going to help other people change, be motivated, inspired, et cetera, buy the words that you have? And what is your marketing plan? What is the plan to sell books? I think that’s a big seller when you’re looking to go traditional, is how are you going to leverage your platform, your network to move these books because just because you publish a book doesn’t mean people are going to read it or know about it. You have to figure out how to get the word out there.
Every publisher is a little bit different. I have a whole team who I had, I had a publicist, I had social media help. So there’s all the things that went toward getting my book out into the world. In terms of my writing process, I worked with a book coach and I had an editor outside of the publisher who I worked with to kind of help me. I worked with one person to help me with the structure of the book. And it was so, so, so helpful and almost reverse engineering. I want people to understand how to put a career strategy together. So what are the elements of the career strategy and how do I tell a story to bring all that together? And then the editor kind of helped me further develop my stories.
I think as someone who I’ve been blogging since 2011, probably. So a very, very long time. When you blog, you’re used to 500 words, maybe 900, 500, I know that’s how long my cut pieces are like 500 to 900, maybe a book is a lot more than that. So when I first wrote the book, I was so used to just making stories quick. I didn’t give the whole background. So the editor, developmental editor really, really helped with that. So when I turned the book into the publisher, I still had edits and things like that, but it wasn’t as developmental.
Meredith
Did you seek out those people to support you or is that something that the publisher was like, hey, you might want to work with these folks, they’re going to be good coaches?
Kimberly
I sought it out myself.
Meredith
Okay. All right. So you were like, I want to do this. I feel like I’m going to need this and you went and found it.
Kimberly
100%. I think that everyone’s process is different. It also depends on the support that your publisher is giving you. Everyone does it a little bit differently. So I think it’s important to ask if you’re looking to get a book deal. Are you working with the editor from the beginning? Do they have you turn in chapter by chapter or do they want the whole manuscript at one time? All of that impacts your writing process.
Meredith
What was your timeline from the time you started to the time you were finished and sent it their way?
Kimberly
Oh gosh. I think I signed the deal in April of 2020, I think, April 2020. I struggled, struggled, struggled, wrote, deleted, wrote, deleted, wrote, deleted until the summertime. That’s when I hired the book coach to kind of help me get the structure together and put it together. She actually works with people who want to self publish, but I’m like, a book is a book like help me out. So she kind of helped me put the whole plan together for my book.
The first manuscript was due in, I think, September. I asked for a month extension. So October turned it in. They gave it back to me with a few edits, a little bit of feedback. And I gave them the final copy, I think, in January and the book came out in June 2021. So my writing process was fairly quick. It was less than a year.
Meredith
Wow. Less than a year.
Kimberly
And for my next book that I’m working on now, I 100% want at least a year to write. Can you say what it is or is that confidential for right now? It’s not out yet. I have two. I want to write, I told myself I want to write three books. So the next one is going to be on leadership.
Meredith
Oh, I’m excited. That sounds, well, it’s really interesting and helpful, and I guess on the marketing plan, but it sounds like the publishers are looking for folks who have platforms themselves so that you can kind of guarantee a bit of your own marketing and sales. Is that right?
Kimberly
A little bit, but I don’t want to say to anyone that like you have to have, like when we think platform, we think, oh, you have to have like 20,000 followers on Instagram. Like, no, you don’t need 20,000 followers on Instagram. But how are you going to reach people? And if you don’t have the reach or community, what are you going to do to get that exposure? So maybe you’ll want a publicist, maybe you’ll partner with people with larger audiences. It’s just about how are you going to get that? You don’t necessarily have to have it because there’s plenty of people who, their book gave them the influence and the reach, but they had a plan to get there. That makes sense.
Meredith
That’s interesting, I guess, for any marketers listening who have always dreamed about writing a book. That marketing background is helpful there.
Kimberly
Can it help you? Yes. Yes. Yes. All right.
Meredith
Well, Kimberly, thank you so much. I feel like you have just, well, actually, you know, there’s one more question I wanted to ask about. So since 2020, there’s obviously been a lot more coverage and talk about DEI in the workplace. And I wanted to take on it. Do you feel like we’re seeing progress? Do companies need to do more or less of anything? And how are you feeling about the progress that’s being made or not made there?
Kimberly
That’s a big, big, big juicy question. I feel like we are seeing progress. And I think especially because of our Gen Z population right now, I think Gen Z is not taking no for an answer. They want progress. They want action. I think it’s forcing companies to take more action versus kind of sitting on the sidelines and putting out an ERG group and saying, everybody who feels like they like the same thing or they are the same thing, y’all hang out together and make each other feel better.
Companies are doing more and going beyond just having trainings on unconscious bias and microaggressions and whatnot. So I do think that companies are making some strides. However, I think consistency and getting help with that is really important. And it’s not a shameless plug to hire a consultant like me, but more of if you don’t understand what to do next, you need to hire someone. Especially equity, inclusion and belonging, whatever order you want to put DEI, DEI, BE in, IND, we call it so many things, it’s a full time job.
And I think for years, companies have been kind of selecting people from whatever under represented groups they felt were important and had them work together. But what’s important is that companies dedicate resources and time to making changes in the companies. And I think that’s the direction that we’re moving into now. And it’s exciting. I do think that companies are committed to making a change, but I don’t think they understand how to ingrain DEI outside of just people. It’s not just your hiring practices and making sure you look around the room and it looks like United Nations, it’s about making sure that there is a sense of belonging for diversity that you can see and not see. But also in how you think about your products, how you market, how you communicate to others. DEI should be ingrained in the business to the point where hopefully we won’t have to say DEI anymore, it’s just how we operate. We’re just inclusive all the time across the business, not just with people. But I think that’s still a good ways to come.
Kimberly
Yeah. Well, that’s kind of a good segue into if people want to reach out to you, what are the best places for them to get in touch or shoot you an email or follow you? Perfect. So I’m on all social media as Kimberly be online. If you want to learn more about me personally, check out The Cut or my podcast, go to kimberleybeonline.com. Or if you’re looking for consulting services for your organization, looking to recruit, retain and engage women and people of color, you can go to manifestyourself.com. You could always just shoot me an email at helloWmanifestyourself.com and I will get back to you.
Meredith
Awesome. We will put every single one of those in our show notes so that anyone who wants to reach out and have a conversation with you has a chance to do so. And thank you so much, Kimberly.
This was so great to get to talk to you. I’m such a fan of your writing. So thank you so much.
Kimberly
Thank you.
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Meredith
All right, everyone, hope you enjoyed our chat with Kimberly.
Ian
We are going to be coming to you next week with an interview with Amy O’Dell.
Meredith
And to support the show, you can rate, review, and subscribe. Those things do make a really big difference, and we appreciate it.
Ian
And that’s it, folks. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions you can email us at contentpeople@brafton.com.
