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005: Tech or Not: Navigating Mid-Career Choices with Tricia Sitemere
92 Plays1 year ago
Looking to make a career change but feeling uncertain in the midst of industry cuts? You're not alone! Join us on this episode where Career Slay Talks with Tricia Sitemere, career coach and CEO of CTRL, ALT DELETE as we discuss both tech and non-tech fields, industry cuts and how to navigate the anxiety of searching for a job while there are thousands of others are also searching. Tricia shares valuable insights and advice on how to make the most informed decisions and stand out in a competitive job market and we talk about the nuances between the US and Canada. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, this episode will provide you with the tools you need to succeed. Tune in now and lets SLAY together!
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Transcript
Common Career Paths
00:00:00
Speaker
The conversations were always around engineering, medicine, law. Law, yeah. Yeah. All of them. It's like a lawyer, engineer, architect, or whatever it is. Architect, exactly. For the parents, you should do. Exactly. And you know, I started undergrad pursuing nursing, and it was not for me. For you?
00:00:27
Speaker
And I changed to communication and advertising, and it was a very big conversation in our house.
Introduction to Curiously Talks and Guest
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Curiously Talks podcast. I'm Brenda Dogbay, also known as the Curiously Mama.
00:00:47
Speaker
And today I have the privilege of having Tricia Sitemere with me for our episode today. A little bit about Tricia. So, Tricia is an action-oriented career strategist and consultant supporting mid-career professionals on their career transition and professional development journeys.
00:01:08
Speaker
She is a published author, an international speaker, an alumna of the University of Texas at Arlington, where she earned her degree in advertising, and Simmons University, where she earned a master's degree in communication management. And she currently
00:01:24
Speaker
resides in Dallas, Texas, but works with clients all over the world. She is also CEO of Control Alt Delete, which I think is just the most amazing name. And so, so happy to have you with us today, Tricia.
Tricia's Career Journey
00:01:41
Speaker
So why don't I start by, you know, asking a little bit about your journey. How did you get into career coaching, career advice, and just let us know something about you.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yes. Hi, Brenda. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited to chat with you.
00:01:59
Speaker
You know, it was a journey in the making, I would say. So I did a bit of career hopping and jumping, you know, after I finished undergrad and even a little bit after I finished graduate school, just kind of aligning the stars for me personally around, you know, what was I good at? What was I interested in? Where could I, you know, build on all of the education that came with student loans that I had acquired?
00:02:29
Speaker
And so, you know, I started in the learning and development space. So writing and facilitating like training programs and then from there transitioned into HR. And so I really started to grow and build a career for myself in the HR space. And one of the things that I was seeing in terms of trends with like working with my candidates since I was specifically working with
00:02:54
Speaker
early talent folks, people that were just finishing undergrad or coming out of an MBA or a master's program is that they didn't feel confident in the career decisions that they were making, which obviously resonated with my own journey doing some of that career hopping and trying out different things.
00:03:15
Speaker
I said I wanted to do something to help. And around the same time I was having conversations with just my friends around
Mid-Career Challenges and Coaching
00:03:25
Speaker
career and life because at the time
00:03:28
Speaker
They were entering that mid-career space. They had been working for a while and starting to feel a little bit of maybe that burnout, a little bit of that stagnation. And so I put together a checklist. It started as a checklist, which then I expanded on to my book, I'm Sick of This Shit. And so after I published, I'm Sick of This Shit, you know, people would reach out for me to help them.
00:03:54
Speaker
uh, with their interviews and resumes and like, what the heck am I doing, you know, with my career at all, which is one of the topics that's in the book. And so it just kind of organically kind of grew from there. And, you know, you mentioned the, the name, uh, control alt delete, and it was actually something that, uh, my husband and I came up with. Um, you know, it stands for take control of your future.
00:04:22
Speaker
all to your mindset and delete all doubt. And it's a personal mantra of mine. It is, you know, kind of that foundational approach that I take when I'm working with my clients. So it's, it's very fitting. It's a 24 seven kind of attitude.
00:04:39
Speaker
And I think it applies to so many things outside of just career, but since that's the space that I play in, I spend a lot of time talking about how you can take control and what kinds of things that you can do to support your mindset and in doing those things consistently and being committed to that growth path or that growth journey is when you begin to really
00:05:05
Speaker
delete all doubt and start to thrive and build that momentum from a professional career development standpoint. So that's
Stagnation, Layoffs, and Anxiety
00:05:15
Speaker
it. That's great. What are some of the things that you're seeing with your clients, especially that
00:05:23
Speaker
I think entry, that's transition from entry level to mid and then that lull that tends to happen where maybe you're not, you're neither a subject matter expert nor an entry level person, right? Like, so you've got a few years of experience under your belt. However, you're not yet in that. So what are some of the things that you're seeing both from a HR perspective and also from that career strategy perspective?
00:05:52
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, it's an interesting space to be in because you mentioned, you know, not necessarily being considered a subject matter expert, but you're also not, you know, as green as someone who doesn't have a couple of years under their belt. And so where I see a lot of, you know, my clients struggle is where do I go next? And what does that look like? And often, you know, the conversation around that is,
00:06:19
Speaker
It's self-reflection. It's a little bit of that career exploration in terms of, okay, I've been doing this for a while. Is this something that I'm enjoying? Am I feeling like I'm continued?
00:06:33
Speaker
to be challenged in the work that I'm doing? Do I like the work environment that I'm in? Another really big question that I ask my clients is, are there skills that you feel like you're missing? Are you taking a look at what your areas of opportunity are so that you can then make an actionable roadmap for yourself and chart out what the path is going to be so that you can come to
00:06:59
Speaker
you know, decisions, opportunities, networking from a stronger place of intention because a lot of people, you know, kind of in that space just feel like it's out of their control and they don't really have an active hand.
00:07:15
Speaker
and kind of the direction that their career is going into. And so- There's definitely be a lot of like this, that helplessness. Yes. Somebody else has my kind of future and my destiny in their hands, right? Right, right. And if you don't clock that, it's very easy to not to be an active participant in what's going on. And I will say that also with a caveat,
00:07:41
Speaker
that there are so many things that are out of your control, right? So things like layoffs, things like, you know, where is there need and demand in the particular industry or type of role that you're interested in? Like all of those things have to be taken into consideration, but that's where it kind of ties back to that career exploration and kind of understanding, hey, where is it that I want to go? Because if you're aware of those things and you know those things,
00:08:10
Speaker
then you can sew in a thread to kind of be ahead of those things or as a response to those things.
00:08:19
Speaker
to kind of help you continue to move forward. Yeah. And that's a really neat segue into what we're seeing right now, not too long ago. So maybe a couple of months ago, there's been a series of cuts in terms of like layoffs, shall I say, especially in the tech industry and, you know, Google cutting 10,000 jobs, Microsoft, Apple.
00:08:43
Speaker
And you know, there's a lot of anxiety that comes along with that. I mean, we're about three years post pandemic for even completely post pandemic. So we're still navigating all the.
00:08:55
Speaker
the effects of the pandemic on the job market. And now these cuts and banks are also now starting to get unstable. So how
Beyond Tech: Security vs Passion
00:09:05
Speaker
can professionals just manage the anxiety while also trying to market themselves in a saturated market of job seekers? Yeah, yeah, that's a very good question. And the layoffs have been
00:09:22
Speaker
just really, really unfortunate. You named a lot of the big name companies that have done a lot of layoffs and it hasn't just been the big names. It's been a lot of other medium to small sized companies. And so I would say we've seen a ton of that across the board and it can be
00:09:43
Speaker
very, you know, stressful, the anxiety of, am I going to lose my job tomorrow? You know, am I next? What am I not doing? Could I have done something different? And so, you know, in one thread, it's almost just like, take it one day at a time, you know, because if you go into every single day with that anxiety, am I going to lose my job?
00:10:11
Speaker
that is going to break you down. It's going to create burnout, which is going to impact how you actually are showing up in the role that you do still have. And it will shake your confidence, right? Yeah. Like it will just show up from a place of inadequacy and lack as opposed to a place of, I got this, I have, you know what I mean? Like I bring something to the table. Right, right. But it's also a really good opportunity, you know,
00:10:37
Speaker
for you to think about where do I shine the most? What are the things that in my career toolkit, as I call it, what are the things that I want to lead with? What are things, if you are in that space where you're like, I don't know, I feel like something could be coming or they've done rounds of cuts in other places.
00:11:03
Speaker
It is a good opportunity for you to activate your network and really start seeing what other opportunities are out there. Maybe what kind of things that you can do to sharpen skills or expand a skill set so that you kind of have something like in your back pocket. And I would say it's very much trying to find a right balance of
00:11:30
Speaker
being prepared and carrying that anxiety with you every single day. Cause you know, as I mentioned, it could lead to burnout, which starts to seep into other areas of your life, which obviously, you know, is not a positive thing to have happen. Um, so definitely activating your network and seeing what's out there. I always tell people, especially that are in the tech space that are facing this,
00:11:55
Speaker
to explore other industries. I know a lot of people are very interested in the tech space because of the benefits and the compensation, which are all fantastic. I have experience in the tech space as well. So I can personally attest, but there are really great companies and really great opportunities that have the compensation, that have the benefits, that have the
00:12:20
Speaker
opportunities for professional development in a lot of other industries. And so don't take those off of the table just because, oh, I want to work in tech. It needs to be explored outside of, oh, I just want to work in tech because of the money. Because if that's the only thing that you're
00:12:39
Speaker
you know, you're looking at exactly, you know, it can be a little bit challenging. And then you feel like, you know, you don't have as many opportunities and you feel, you know, like you're stuck, which, you know, can create that cycle. You're
Cultural Expectations and Personal Path
00:12:55
Speaker
stuck in the cycle of, I can't, therefore I won't, therefore I can't, and it's hard to break away from. And I think it's important. So, you know, one of the things I wanted to get through with this podcast
00:13:06
Speaker
One of the things that I wanted to accomplish with this podcast is speaking to Canadians and Black Canadians at that. And, you know, there's a bit of new one thing between Canada and the States. Honestly, it's not until post George Floyd that we could actually even
00:13:25
Speaker
speak authoritatively about the Black Canadian experience, like up until then we're just subsumed under, I guess we call them, visible minorities. But in terms of the job market, it's very glamorous to see these big Google jobs and, you know,
00:13:44
Speaker
I think sometimes the nuance is lost in the fact that a lot of, in Canada, we pay a lot more taxes. And because of that, there's a lot more money in the federal government, in the provincial government, which would be like your state government, and then the municipal. And because of that,
00:14:04
Speaker
You know, those are the kinds of jobs that parents, especially Black parents, Black immigrant parents, are going to scare their children towards because there's job security, they're well-paying, and they can allow you to have a decent living.
00:14:20
Speaker
The contrast to that is that a lot of, especially first gen, younger, more recent immigrants don't want that because for them it's just these boring jobs and I'm being pushed into these jobs that are not really going anywhere and they're just punching paper. So there's always that allure of these amazing, seemingly amazing careers in tech in the States.
00:14:44
Speaker
but also there's the risk that comes with, again, 10,000 cuts and then you're kind of back to square one. So can you reflect a little bit on that whole kind of African immigrant, newer immigrant experience and the pressure to kind of land on safe jobs as opposed to maybe less secure, but much more like that pay a lot more?
00:15:13
Speaker
I absolutely can't because I have lived that. My parents are both Nigerians, so I grew up in the US as a first gen. They did do a really good job around finding
00:15:28
Speaker
opportunities and, you know, just I mean, the culture shock, learning all of the things that they, you know, don't know about navigating, you know, university systems here, the school systems here, what corporate America looks like here. And, you know,
00:15:44
Speaker
What I would say to that is you don't know what you don't know. And so I mentioned earlier about activating that network. That's very important. But growing up, I have an older brother and a younger sister, and the conversations were always around engineering, medicine, law. Law, yeah. Yes.
00:16:06
Speaker
All of them. All of them. A lawyer, engineer, architect, or whatever it is. Architect, exactly. Architect, experience, faith, you should do. Exactly. And I started undergrad pursuing nursing, and it was not for me. For you? It's not. And I changed to communication and advertising, and it was a very big conversation.
00:16:34
Speaker
in our house. It was a hot topic. How did that go down? Because I can only imagine trying to explain. So you're not doctor, you're not in the medical field. Yeah, my mom was I think now
00:16:50
Speaker
understanding and being a little bit older. She was just scared for me. She didn't want me to have to struggle. They went through so much to come here, to be able to provide a better life and better opportunities for my siblings. And I
00:17:06
Speaker
So, you know, now I understand it, but I think back then I was just like, you know, a little bit frustrated and like, this is not what I want to do. And this is not where I see myself, you know, being successful. I want to pursue other things. I think I was very, you know, frustrated by that, that whole thing. And fortunately, you know,
00:17:28
Speaker
It was not completely lost on me that this was something that could be a challenge. And I found myself in HR and have been able to build a really great career for myself, a really great life for myself, my husband, my siblings included. So I would say that it doesn't have to be those four jobs. And I would also say that
00:17:53
Speaker
the way that people are making money has completely changed if you just take a look at the labor market and what types of roles are out there versus even just when I finished graduate school, when I finished undergrad, there are so many different ways that you can align what you're interested in, what you're good at, what your skills are,
00:18:17
Speaker
into a career that is going to be a great fit for you, that's going to allow you to have a great life. What I will say on the other side of that is, and I keep going back to career exploration and having that understanding of who you are, what makes you tick, what makes you excited. If you understand all of that and you can have those internal conversations and even conversations with
00:18:43
Speaker
you know, people that you know, or your family, friends, X, Y, Z. Once you are clear on those things, then you can start, you know, kind of looking at what exactly is out there and finding, okay, this is what this looks like. You know, not everybody
00:19:01
Speaker
wants a super glamorous
Post-Pandemic Opportunities
00:19:04
Speaker
life. Some people, they want quiet lives. They just want to be able to provide for their children and be able to give them more opportunities than they had themselves. And that really does look different for a lot of people. So I think also being able to have
00:19:22
Speaker
that understanding and have those internal conversations. But Brenda, it was hot in our house for a while.
00:19:32
Speaker
My brother went through the same thing. And I think it's weird, right? Because I'm now the African parent, right? Raising the first gens and trying to be sensitive to these things, but also like when, you know, try not to be overbearing. But some of the suggestions that come through, like, I want to be a TikToker. I'm like,
00:19:52
Speaker
Okay. Try to say, and what else could be out there? But it's true that there's a lot more options and the internet has just blown up the world. And then on top of that, I think post pandemic, there is so many more possibilities in terms of remote work, in terms of
00:20:14
Speaker
just careers that might not have existed or might not have been as accessible pre-pandemic.
Navigating Career Uncertainty
00:20:23
Speaker
So what advice would you give to mid-level career professionals who are at crossroads and really just trying to navigate the uncertainty and the doubt
00:20:39
Speaker
and chart a path forward. And I think, I mean, it's almost always applicable to multiple levels in your career. Because again, wherever you find yourself in, whenever you find yourself in a season of stagnation, all of the emotions that come along with it are quite similar. So what might you, what might you advise? Yes. The biggest thing is, you know, not
00:21:03
Speaker
stewing and keeping it all in, you know, don't be afraid to ask for help and seek out that help for yourself, you know, whether that is, you know, trying to seek out a mentor in a professional setting, whether that is, you know, reaching out to a coach, and I don't just say that because I'm a coach, I have had coaches, so I know the value
00:21:29
Speaker
that coaches can bring in terms of uncovering gifts that maybe you hadn't thought of at the top of your head or helping you strategize or helping you give insight from like an outside perspective. And at the end of the day, you're asking for help and that's to benefit you in terms of where it is that you want to go. What goals do you have for yourself? What do you want to accomplish from your career?
00:21:57
Speaker
So definitely do not be afraid to ask for help and speak up for yourself if you're like, hey, I'm in this space. There's something that feels off. This is not something that I want to be doing. Ask those questions. Don't just push them off to the side because a lot of people will do that. Nobody's happy at work.
00:22:20
Speaker
I don't deserve happiness from my everyday work and my response to that is we spend almost 80% of our life at work doing some kind of work function.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So definitely don't be afraid to ask for help. And then, you know, there is power in your network. And I think you could also tie that back to asking for help and leaning into your network and staying in touch with people. Networking is a two-way street, you know, just because, you know, you feel like you may not have anything to offer right now that that's not necessarily the case. You know, we can learn
00:23:07
Speaker
from each other, we can grow together, we can support one another. And that can look like a myriad of things, depending on the time and what's going on XYZ. So I would say, do
00:23:22
Speaker
those two things to kind of help you continue to move forward and move the needle. And then, you know, just when is a good time to look for a job, right? Like, is there some, what are some of those precursors that help you navigate and land, not just a job, maybe I should rephrase that, like,
00:23:45
Speaker
What are some of the ways in which you can find better alignment in your career so that you're not just looking for a job, but you're looking for opportunities to really line up with your values and your purpose? Yeah. That goes back to being able to have those internal conversations.
00:24:07
Speaker
Like I'm sure you've experienced this as somebody comes to you and asks you, hey, I'm looking for a new job. Can you help me? Your question to them is going to be, what does this look like? What are you looking for? What are you interested in? And if you can't answer those things, then you do need to have those conversations with yourself and kind of figure out some of that stuff. And then once you have a better idea, then you can
00:24:33
Speaker
begin having conversations you can activate your network whether that is you know having a conversation with your manager and saying hey you know i've been doing this for xyz i'd really like to try my hand at something else or you know hey i saw this other opportunity over here can we talk about that being able to you know have those conversations.
00:24:55
Speaker
is going to help kind of guide and drive some of those. The other thing that I would say is, you know, if you are starting to feel that frustration every day of going to work, like I... The Sunday blues, right? Like every Sunday you get that feeling and your gut was like dread and you just don't want to face the weak.
00:25:18
Speaker
Yeah, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, what? You know, when that's true, it's not just Sunday. You're just like, I need Friday to get here like yesterday. You know, don't put those things to the side. Like those are very real feelings. They're there for a reason so that, you know, they need to be explored if you feel like you're not being challenged from a work perspective. And I know not everyone is like,
00:25:46
Speaker
looking for challenges and, you know, wanting to really expand environments, you know, right, right, right. That that's a data point for you, you know, all of these things that you look at from a work perspectives are all data points to help you make decisions. And so if you are
00:26:08
Speaker
in a role and maybe it's super competitive and you're like, hey, I don't like this because I don't want to be in this kind of workspace or this kind of environment, then you can start doing some digging and finding out what may be a better work environment for you. If you're in a toxic work environment and you don't feel supported, all of those things are signs that it may be
00:26:34
Speaker
time for you to start brushing up your resume and understanding where is it that I want to go and what is the story that I can tell about my background, my experiences, and what I bring to the table to set you up for your next role.
Advice on Pursuing Passions
00:26:50
Speaker
All great things. All great things.
00:26:53
Speaker
So maybe as we wrap up, what's some of the best advice you've ever received and what's the worst advice you've ever received? Oh my goodness. Okay. The best advice that I've ever received is to just go for it.
00:27:13
Speaker
If not just go for it blindly, but if you feel passionate about something, you feel a calling for something and you are excited about it, then absolutely go for it. Ask the questions, find out what that pool of the unknown, what it could look like and go for it. The worst advice.
00:27:39
Speaker
is maybe not to talk to you. I was thinking of that, but I'm like, what would be the worst advice? I would say personally, I've been told growing up, the only thing that I would get in trouble for growing up was talking too much in class.
00:27:55
Speaker
Um, and you know, I, the worst advice would be Trisha stopped talking so much because now I talk for a living and I get to work with people. And it was wrong. Exactly. So, um, you know, I guess that would be the worst, uh, advice is, you know,
00:28:14
Speaker
to stop talking. If you're not talking, you're not sharing with people what you're passionate about and you're not put in a position to share your perspective and the gifts and the lights that you have to bring to various topics, whatever they happen to be. Mine happens to be in professional development and coaching and career, which I'm super excited to be able to talk about all day long. So that would be my worst advice.
Where to Find Career Guidance
00:28:41
Speaker
Love it, love it, love it. So where can folks find you? This is my shameless self-promotion plug. Where can folks find you online? You're online, which means you take clients from all over. So we want to share your info as a resource.
00:28:59
Speaker
Absolutely. So you can find me on my website, TrishaSittemire.com that will have information about all things. There's resources on there. There's some skill assessments if you're into that kind of stuff, which can be great for from the exploration and internal conversations perspective. And then there's all the information about how to work with me. I offer smaller sessions all the way up to five to six hour master classes. So you can find me there. I'm on LinkedIn.
00:29:28
Speaker
I'm also on YouTube, so make sure you check out some of my professional development content. I cover a lot of really interesting topics over there. I'm on Instagram.
00:29:38
Speaker
I feel like I'm pretty easy, too, to find and get ahold of. Yeah. Sitemara, they'll Google you and find you. Well, this was delightful. Thank you so much for joining us, for sharing your expertise, and just really looking forward to continuing following your journey. And of course, we have to have you back some time because this is a really great conversation. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Brenda, for having me. Thank you for driving these conversations. I think they're so
00:30:09
Speaker
helpful and can lead to other conversations that are part of your career exploration to help you take control of your future and alter your mindset and delete all doubts. So keep doing your thing. Yes, yes. Well, let's play together.