Kathryn Meisner

Career & Salary Negotiation Coach

Why it’s time to divorce your job title

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You don’t need to contort your work history into a linear career. You know more than you think and you have way more to offer than you realize.

I don’t want to help you cover up your non-linear work history, I want to help you discover and confidently communicate the *value* you bring because of it.

Your difference is your differentiator.

I want to help you transform how you see your skills and experience and ultimately, yourself.

This is what happened with the client below and it’s part of you’ll work on in Guidance Counselling for Adults (registration opens in September but you can apply now to see if we’re a good fit).

Divorce your job titles

In Guidance Counselling for Adults, you’ll divorce your job titles by unpacking all your roles and detaching your skills out from job titles. Then, we’ll translate them into transferable skills and divorce your job titles.

This is ESPECIALLY important if you’re a generalist or switching careers. My guess is that your titles have never really been an accurate description of what you do. Maybe your current job has expanded past the confines of your official title a while ago?

And if it’s helpful, we can have a “job title divorce party” to help you let go and move on from the titles (and workplaces) that you want to leave behind. Let’s burn it down together.

After that?

A sustainable job search strategy that fits your life.

No job search burnout for you.

One of the many challenges of figuring out the next step in your career and then actually finding that role is that it feels like a full time job, often while you’re already working. And if you’re unemployed, you have to also fend off panic about finances.

We’ll be intentional with a clear strategy, the right tools, the right connections, and the right action. All tailored to your specific context.

You’ll leave behind information overload and analysis paralysis.

You’ll take calculated, strategic risks with strong, steady support behind you (from moi).

You’ll find out what’s possible without actually knowing what’s out there.

You’ll be able to confidently talk about your experience.

Remember guidance counsellors?

Some of us had better experiences with them than others, but basically guidance counsellors helped us (or at least they were supposed to help us) navigate the confusing world of university, college, and careers. They helped us figure out what we were good at, sometimes with surprising results. The best ones helped us stay true to ourselves–our interests, abilities, and desires–and avoid directions that weren’t the right fit.

Why should this kind of guidance end after high school?

I became a Career and Salary Negotiation Coach because every career move takes us into the unknown, and every person deserves a calm, encouraging, and experienced guide. I’ve worked with over 500 people across 13 countries to help them find jobs they love in less time, and with salary increases up to $50,000. Yup, for real.

I’ve been called a career therapist and a salary doula.

I like to think of myself as your caring, warm-hearted, and action-oriented career coach and job search strategist, ready to support you with tools and accountability, and to stick with you through the entire process–from getting clear on what you want all the way through to negotiating your salary.

Want to work together? Apply for GCA (capped at 12 people)

Click here to read about Guidance Counselling for Adults: https://kathrynmeisner.com/gca

Find out how my decade worth of job searching wisdom, experience, lessons, practical tools, and collaborative methods can help you transform how you see your skills and experience, transform your job search, and land the job (and workplace) that’s right for you.

Let’s get the divorce party started.

Take care,

Kathryn

PS: The summary? Divorce your job titles. I’ll help you do this in Guidance Counselling for Adults which opens in September. You can apply now to see if we’re a good fit.

 

Globe and Mail: I found out my co-worker is getting paid more than me. What should I say to my boss?

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Since this article is behind a paywall, I’m sharing it here (with permission from the author and the Globe and Mail).

Click here to read this article by Andrea Yu on the Globe and Mail website.

I found out my co-worker is getting paid more than me. What should I say to my boss

If you need support with negotiating or asking for a raise, check out Ask for More, my self-directed online course.

Career grief & how to deal with it

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My job was great on paper.

I had translated a liberal arts degree and a range of generalist skills into a Director-level role at a tech company by age 28.

And yes, I used many of the strategies I teach in Guidance Counselling for Adults.

Back to my seemingly “great job”…

I worked at the kind of place that had beer kegs in the office and where company retreats included performances from big name musicians. The money was great, and I got to travel North America and Europe, staying in fancy hotels, eating amazing food, and drinking fantastic wine.
 
And I was a woman in the tech world! This was something I was very proud of.
 
But somewhere along the line, what was important to me changed.
 
I didn’t really realize it because I was always hustling and didn’t have time to stop and think about what I wanted.
 
I was also probably burnt out.
 
I had internalized the typical definition of “success,” without examining what my personal definition was. At one point, I had known what I wanted. I had known what was important to me, what engaged me and gave me flow.
 
I used to know all of these things.
 
But as life changed for me and as I changed (and grew) the job stayed the same.
 
My priorities had changed but I didn’t realize it so I couldn’t align my job to what was important to me.

Career grief

I didn’t realize it but I was grieving my career. What was, what could have been, what I felt SHOULD have been.
 
For me, mourning my career meant I was also grieving my identity.
 
You might not relate to this (or maybe you do?) but I used to look at my job as an expression of myself, a place where I can get engagement and exercise my strengths. I still have this perspective but back then it was unhealthy.
 
When my job was broken, so was I.
 
Or at least that’s how I felt.
 

I FEEL my feelings

I’m an empath, a highly-sensitive person, and an introvert. I’m a Cancer sun, Virgo rising, and a Capricorn moon.
 
So I really FEEL my feelings. And I can have some big ones.
 
I also got diagnosed with ADHD this past spring. Which as a woman, is something that’s suuuper under diagnosed especially if you don’t have the outwardly visible symptoms of the hyperactive type (which I don’t).
 
PSA: The name “Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder” is not an accurate representation of what ADHD is. There is no deficit of attention, it’s a DISREGULATION of attention.
 
Maybe I’ll share more about this later? Feel free to ask me about this or reach out if this resonates.
 
I mention all of this to say: I really FEEL my feelings and I can have some big ones.
 
And because my feelings can influence my thoughts and actions, my job situation would inevitably impact my mental health and other things in my life (relationships, self-care, community care – pretty much all the things that are important to me).
 

You can have career grief more than once

You can go through career grief (or job grief, as the case may be) more than once in your career btw.
 
I’m a career chameleon so career grief has already hit me several times. I just didn’t have the language for it then.
 
I’ve held roles in the private, non-profit, charity, and tech sector. I’m even a qualified elementary school teacher. And I had to start the mourning process before I could start figuring out my next step.
 
The more import the job or organization was to me, the more I had to grieve, heal, and work to let it go.
 
The more consciously I grieved my career, the faster I moved through this process.

Integrate grief as part of figuring out your next step.

Grief is usually an ongoing process so you’d be waiting a super long time if you waiting until you were totally done grieving.
 
In my experience, and working with people in Guidance Counselling for Adults, you probably need to spend at least a little time grieving and letting go of your current job (or if you’re unemployed, your last job).
 
In the 10 days of Guidance Counselling for Adults, we’ll not only work on WHAT you can do to figure out the next step in your career but HOW you can do it. And grieving can be integrated into this process..
 
Because if all you needed was more information so you knew WHAT to do, you’d have probably done it by now.
 
Starting to grieve is also important if you’re thinking about leaving a PhD, Masters, or any education program.
 
It’s also important when you’re transitioning back into the workforce (like if you’ve been on mat leave or you’ve been home w your kids). You might be excited to be working again but it’s a transition so it can bring bring up some grief.
 
Career grief can also be identity grief.

Career grief can be like the canary in the coal mine. For me, it can start before I even realize it’s time for me to move on.
 
I used to be miserable for months (and one time, for more than a year) before I’d recognize that this was a sign I needed to start figuring out what was next.
 

Marie Kondo your career

If you’ve already realized your needs aren’t being met in your job or your priorities have shifted, take time to celebrate what your old priorities gave you or helped you achieve.
Take time to grieve your old priorities.
 
Marie Kondo your priorities and your job: Thank them for their service and let them go.
 
And then identify and own your new ones.
 
How do you do that? That’s something I work on with clients in Guidance Counselling for Adults.
 
Can we get all of our priorities met? Maybe not.
 
But by KNOWING your priorities and OWNING them, we have a significantly higher chance of getting what we want.
 
Grieving, celebrating, and resilience-building strategies are an incredibly useful but often overlooked strategy to help you find the right job.
 
Working on these things will also help build and maintain motivation throughout your job search and deal with any setbacks or fears you might encounter). This is why I’ve made this part of GCA.
 
What is GCA exactly? 

Guidance Counselling for Adults: Find and land the job (and workplace) that’s right for you – without relying on resumes. 

A 2-week intensive job search strategy & implementation program plus 6 months of coaching, strategy, structure, accountability, and a learning community.

Register here: https://kathrynmeisner.com/gca

10% of revenue will be shared with a Black-led community organization. I’ve committed to this as a part of my anti-racist work as a white, settler woman. Last GCA revenue was shared with Scarborough Mutual Aid.
 
This is *not* an online course where you register and then are on your own.

And if you’ve we’ve worked together before or you don’t need GCA right now, I’d be honoured if you could send this blog post to someone who may be interested.

Guidance Counselling for Adults opens in September but you can apply now to see if we’re a good fit.


How to deal with job search procrastination: A Career & Salary Negotiation Coach’s personal strategies

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Time management and procrastination do not come easily to me. 

This makes doing things I don’t want to do so. much. harder.

As a result, I’ve had to develop a lot of strategies to cope and to work on these things. 

The strategies below are all my personal strategies but they also are strategies that I share with my clients in my one-week intensive, The Pandemic Edition of Guidance Counselling for Adults.

Why? 

Because they can also work for your job search.

What I’ve seen with working over 500 clients over the past few years is that you can know all of the strategies about HOW to job search…

But if you don’t have accountability or a way to deal with procrastination and manage your time, it’s really, really hard to figure out your next step and job search.

The Pomodoro Technique: You can do anything for 25 minutes

If I’m having a really hard time focusing or I don’t want to do something, I use the Pomodoro Technique:

You work for 25 minutes straight and then take a 5 minute break.

Apparently its name relates to the Italian word for tomato, “pomodoro” because it’s based on those tomato kitchen timers things and the kitchen timer (or any timer) is essential to the Pomodoro Technique.

The idea is that you can work on anything – no matter how boring or how hard it is – for 25 minutes.

No distractions, no multi-tasking, no checking your phone. 

Then you take a screen-free break for 5 minutes.

And then you set the alarm for another 25 minutes. 

You do that for a series of four or five rounds and then you take a longer break for 20 or 30 minutes. 

This is actually a strategy I use when I facilitate a coworking session with clients in my one-week intensive, The Pandemic Edition of Guidance Counselling for Adults.

We jump online. Everybody says which GCA homework they’re going to work on during that time. And then we Pomodoro.

If it’s not in the calendar, it’s doesn’t exist

My Google calendar containts my life. 

I’m not a naturally organized person, so I try not to make it too complicated so I don’t get bogged down by the process. 

I have several Google calendars that I share with various people:

  • One for my work
  • One for my family that I share with my husband 
  • One just for me

Sure, sometimes I accidentally add the wrong thing in the wrong calendar but I try give myself permission to be okay with that because getting something in the calendar somehow is better than getting nothing in the calendar. 

I live and die by my calendar. So much so that I even send out calendar invites to friends. 

Because if it’s not in the calendar, it doesn’t happen. 

Time blocking

I time block everything in my calendar. 

Not just dates or that kind of thing.

If I need to do a task, I put it in my calendar for the amount of time that it will take as well as some buffer time as well. 

If I have to go somewhere (well, when I went places before COVID), I’d actually block in the travel time, when I needed to leave, as well as the travel time home. 

I do this for myself but because whoever I’m sharing a calendar with (ie my husband or my assistant), they may need to know how long it’s going to take me to get home or when I’ll be home

Put your phone in another room

I have to find the citation for this but there is research that shows that when you’re touching your phone or have it in your pocket, your brain is constantly staying vigilant looking for an alert. 

This means your phone is taking up some of your attention, even when you can’t see it. 

The solution? 

Put your phone more than one arm’s length away, ideally in another room. And put it on Do Not Disturb so you don’t get any alerts. 

Want to stop procrastinating on finding a better job?

These are just a few of my time management and procrastination strategies, ones that I personally use in my life. 

I’m not a naturally organized person so I have to develop coping mechanisms to help me do things that I don’t want to do or have been procrastinating on.

And if this sounds familiar, these strategies may be useful for you, too. 

They’re also useful for when you’re going through your job search or switching careers.

If you want support – and accountability – with figuring out the next step in your career, check out The Pandemic Edition of Guidance Counselling for Adults and book a time to talk with me.