Workparent by Daisy Dowling

Author:Daisy Dowling [Daisy Dowling]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Published: 2021-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

When you became a working mother or father, chances are you also became so preoccupied, busy, and tired that your attention to career hygiene fell by the wayside. Career hygiene consists of all those things you do to keep your overall professional reputation and future in good form. It includes critical activities like networking, honing your technical skills, staying current on industry news and events, remaining visible to the powers that be, appropriate self-promotion, and raising your hand for unique assignments that can get you further into the career spotlight. It also includes smaller, more tactical items: keeping your LinkedIn profile fresh, having your “key wins and accomplishments” speech ready for when you bump into your boss’s boss in the elevator, and so forth. Technically, none of those things has anything whatsoever to do with being a parent—but if you’re not doing them because you’re a parent, you’re creating some real career headwinds for yourself and may be inadvertently stepping out of contention for that next big gig. If and when you decide to “go for it” careerwise, you’ll want to move back into the front seat, so to speak, on all of these activities. Do an honest assessment, just for yourself: Hand on heart, how much opportunistic networking have you done since the baby was born? When’s the last time you spoke to a professional recruiter? What about the monthly departmental after-work drinks events—have you been going to those? Have you given your career, and not just your work, adequate care and feeding? If not, you’ll want to ease back into doing so.

If you’re in a more acute career-management moment, like interviewing for a new role or pushing your boss for that big promotion, there’s something else you’ll want to do, which is to create a Third-Person Sell—essentially, a concise pitch about who you are as a professional, why the organization can’t live without you, and why you deserve to be in a more senior seat. The Third-Person Sell is a means of pulling together the most compelling aspects of your skills and performance and “packaging” them in a way that feels comfortable and genuine to you, that will resonate with the relevant decision-maker, and that—most important—is easily repeatable. When the CEO of your organization turns to your boss and says, “tell me about [him or her],” your Sell is the two next sentences you want to come out of your boss’s mouth. It’s the senior-leader-resonant version of your professional story.

If you don’t have your Sell ready (and few people do), let’s go ahead and create it. To start, ask yourself, How do I want to be known, professionally? Get into character a little: imagine you’re the head honcho making the hire-or-promote decision (in this case, on yourself). What’s really important to the organization’s success, and why is this person—you—the man or woman particularly equipped to accomplish it? You’re a flinty senior leader, and you’ve got many other candidates to consider. Why is this candidate uniquely qualified? If this

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