In this episode, I discuss ditching traditional career goals and instead embracing your own career vision by audting your career in the past 12 months. I discuss 10 steps to start with at the beginning of 2025 to audit your career.
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‘Tis the season to set big, lofty career goals for the New Year. It rolls around every year, lasts about a couple of days/weeks/minutes to a month and generally ends in a puddle of unanswered emails and too long meetings. If you’ve been there, you know what I’m referring to. You also may realize like me that with time, we may get tired of the big, lofty goals, and want something different. You know the “it’s not you, it’s me” kind of thing, just with your career on a Monday morning instead of the usual Saturday night heart-to-heart. And like so many working women and moms, you may just have come to the point where you’re ready to move on from the collection of scattered, albeit great, goals, and embrace the vision of your career that fits in with your life.
I realized after years of setting pages-long lists of ambitious career goals that I wanted something else. Something more “me”, that lets me be all of me, the mom, wife, writer, nerd and everything in between. After a career change, kids, marriage, and in the throngs of perimenopause, I was over the career hype and fallacy that women should have it all at all times. Basically, I was tired of dating my work goals, and ready to marry my ideal career. There, I said it…
Why Ditch Your Work Goals and Marry Your Career Vision Instead
Your work goals are the guys you pick and go on a few dates with. Your career vision is the guy you marry and stick with (hopefully) for the rest of your life, through the ups and downs, the kids, mortgage, grey hairs and aching knees. Now your career vision may take different forms, quite a few iterations, lots of changes, flexibility and forgiveness, but at the end of the day, it’s still the vision.It still keeps you grounded while teaching you to bob and weave through the obstacle courses of life as a working woman and mom. And no one goes through longer and more arduous obstacle courses in life than women and moms…
So if you’re a working woman looking to be more grounded in your career while still maintaining your professional edge, I’d strongly suggest jumping out of the goal-dating poll into the vision-setting arena. And it starts with auditing your career first. Independently of being an ex-auditor and totally biased on the subject, I’m also a fervent believer of the maxim “In order to know where you’re going, you must know where you’re coming from.” Your career holds a wealth of data that can help you learn about yourself, your purpose and your vision; that is, if you take the time to re-evaluate it periodically, at least once a quarter. And this is exactly what a career audit can provide…
Why Auditing Your Career Matters
Just like a financial audit sheds light on the financial results of a business, a career audit provides clarity on you stand professionally. Not only is it a powerful indicator of your strengths and areas of growth, it’s also an opportunity to reflection on your purpose and alignment with your life path. A career audit can help you determine if the work you do indeed supports you values and priorities, and contributes to your well-being, or if it’s time to make some changes.
Here are a 10 steps to audit your career and set a vision for your professional future:
Step 1: Make an Inventory of Your Achievements
This first step is probably the most underrated, yet among the most critical ones, especially for working women. While many of us tend to underestimate our accomplishments, they can be a powerful source of information for our careers. Whether these are successful projects, professional milestones, or individual objectives, do not discount them!
Ask yourself:
How did I best contribute to my team or organization?
What were my most significant wins at work?
What are the achievements I am the most proud of, and why?
Action Step:
To make this process easier, create your own “Bragging File” by using a spreadsheet or journal to keep track of your accomplishments. In addition to being an undeniable mood-booster, it will also facilitate the process of updating your resume/CV as well as your Linked In profile.
Step 2: Assess Your Growth
Your growth in skills and abilities is your career currency. Assessing how much you’ve grown in terms of the skills you’ve acquired or improved is crucial to auditing your career. So is the practice of flagging the areas in which you need more improvement.
Ask yourself:
What new skills did I gain this past year?
What existing skills did I improve upon?
Are my current skills in alignment with my career progression and industry trends?
Action Step:
To help with this step, create a learning plan for this year including the skills you plan on learning or improving in. Your learning plan may include workshops to attend, online courses or certifications to take, or mentorship in specific areas.
Step 3: Evaluate Your Job Satisfaction
You spend too much time at work not to assess your job satisfaction. It’s about more than just collecting a pay check. It’s also about your fulfillment, your joy, and ultimately your alignment with your purpose.
Ask yourself:
What was your level of job satisfaction this past year on a scale of 1-10?
Did you feel supported and valued at your place of work?
Was your personal life in sync with your career and vice-versa?
Action Step:
Depending on your job satisfaction score, asses what needs to change in your career. It may be considering a new role, seeking a promotion, or making a lateral move.
Step 4: Review Your Performance Feedback
Feedback is a powerful tool to help identify your strengths, areas of growth, as well as the fit of the team or organization you’re in. Reviewing the feedback you receive, whether in the form of formal performance reviews, internal feedback, or informal advice, can go a long way in assessing how you are perceived and making the necessary changes, if needed.
Ask yourself:
What were the main themes emerging from the feedback you received this past year?
What were the areas of improvement and growth noted?
Did you agree with the feedback?
What did you do to implement the advice given?
Action Step:
Create a feedback evaluation file, where you log in the main feedback themes, areas of growth, as well as steps taken to address these. Based on your evaluation, identify areas you will work on this year to address the feedback from last year.
Step 5: Evaluate Your Compensation
Newsflash: the gender pay gap is far from closing. Hence why it is so important to periodically review your compensation. This not only ensures that you’re aware of industry trends, as well as competitive salaries for your role, but that you also keep yourself marketable in your role and company.
Ask yourself:
Is my salary competitive with industry trends and standards?
Is my salary in line with peers at my current organization?
Are my benefits in line with my actual needs (parental leave, healthcare, retirement, etc)
Action step:
Create an “I’m Worth It” Folder that you periodically update with research on the current salary benchmarks for your industry and role. You can use platforms such as Payscale or Glassdoor to conduct your research.
Prepare yourself to negotiate your salary and/or benefits if need be.
Step 6: Conduct a Network Audit
One of the most underrated career assets for women is their network. Sallie Krawcheck, founder and CEO of women’s focused investment platform Ellevest, famously said: “Networking is the number one unwritten rule of success”. And she was right on the money…
The stronger and more diverse your network, the stronger your career…
Ask yourself:
What new professional connections did you make the past year?
Did you nurture your professional network in the past year?
Do you need to strengthen your network, in terms of mentors, sponsors and peers in your field and beyond?
Action step:
Crete a “Networking File” where you log at least one networking event per quarter, and update it regularly as you strengthen your network.
Step 7: Re-evaluate Your Work-Life Alignment
I don’t believe in work-life balance. There, I said it again…At the end of the day, balance is elusive, but alignment is possible. Re-evaluating how well this alignment is working is a priority at the beginning of every year, and frankly, anywhere in between.
Ask yourself:
Did you feel your work was in alignment with your personal life this past year?
Did you experience overwhelm or burnout? When and for how long?
Did you set proper boundaries last year to take care of yourself? If not, why?
Action step:
Commit to setting boundaries in your work this year. It could be not addressing emails after a certain time, or not working on weekends.
Step 8: Fail Forward
Repeat with me: “Failure is not a dirty word.” Research by Borgnovi and Han (2021) shows women tend to report higher fear of failure than their male counterparts, which can negatively impact women in and out of the workplace. Yet, failures are one of the most invaluable sources of growth. Hence why reflecting on what didn’t go well can be so beneficial in a new season.
Ask yourself:
What were my biggest professional failures and challenges this past year?
What did I learn from these?
What can I do this year to not repeat the same failures?
Action step:
By now, you know I love creating reflection-based files. Well, this is no exception. Create a “Failure Journal” to log your failures throughout the year, lessons learned and steps taken to address these. Remember, the more you recover from failure, the better you get…
Step 9: Visualize your Ideal Career
Now the real fun starts…Call me a dreamer, but I believe in seeing the end result before it manifests, that is, seeing it in your mind’s eye. So pause and take a minute (or 100) to dream up your ideal career. Visualize in the eye of your mind what your career looks like at the end of this year.
Ask yourself:
How does your career feel at the end of this year? (peaceful, energizing, inspiring, etc)
What role or work environment is a good fit for you?
What accomplishments would make you feel purposeful and fulfilled this year?
How does your career best align with you personal life and values?
Action Step:
Create your “Career Vision Board” where you illustrate with pictures what your ideal career looks like. If you’re not a vision board type of gal, then consider writing yourself a letter describing your ideal career. Use these all throughout the year to refresh yourself on your vision.
Step 10: Commit to a first step toward your vision!
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your ideal career won’t either. So start this journey with a first step. Decide on ONE thing you can do TODAY to leverage your career audit and move toward your career vision.
Ask yourself:
What is ONE thing I can do TODAY to get closer to the vision of my ideal career?
Action Step:
This one is pretty short. Just do it!
Performing a career audit is not for the faint of hearts, I’ll give you that. Yet, it may be the single most rewarding investment you make of your time and energy as the year starts, especially as a working woman and mom. Reflecting on your path so far, and committing to a career vision that frees you to be all of you, is already a win! And you’re just starting the year…
Will be auditing your career this year? Are you ready to embrace the vision for your career this year?
As one of the only women at work, I used to dread performance review time, especially at year-end. Although I was supposed to know what to expect, it was most often a somewhat unclear, hence stressful experience. However, the more I’ve grown personally and professionally, I’ve learned there is so much more to performance reviews than meets the eye, especially for women. The reality is, performance reviews are riddled with gender biases. Being aware of and understanding these can help in proactively addressing and dismantling these.
Here are 4 types of gender biases to look out for as a woman at work:
Language bias
Research shows there exists a language bias to performance reviews. Stanford Graduate School of Business professor of organizational behavior Shelley J. Correll co-authored a 2020 study which coded the performance review language used by employees at a Fortune 500 company. The study found that based on the gender of the employee, managers tend to perceive the same or similar behaviors differently. This is akin to “gender policing” whereby women are judged differently for engaging in the same behavior as men, experiencing a backlash when they do not fall within gender norms. More specifically, significant biases were found in the evaluations of people’s personalities, potential and exceptionalism. This is mostly due to ill-defined performance review protocols and processes which give way to this bias.
Visibility Bias
Due to innate gender differences between men and women, women are more apt to favor skills such as communication and collaboration than men. Women may spend more time and effort on less visible tasks, such as organizing team events or ensuring team cohesion. Linked In’s 2023 report on global differences in skills shows women hold more soft skills than men, at a rate of 13.6% for women vs. 10.6% of skills for men. Men on the other hand, also due to these innate gender differences, may focus on more income-earning skills, which may be applied in more visible roles. Data shows higher shares of disruptive tech skills for men than women, for instance. These may include tasks such as leading meetings or speaking at conferences.
Because highly visible tasks are easier to measure and quantify in terms of organizational impact and benefit, they tend to rank higher on performance evaluations. Meanwhile, less visible ones may fall to the bottom of the performance evaluation scale. Much of this lends itself to a dangerous bias, and is mostly due to the lack of or poor setting of individualized goals.
Proximity bias
If you’ve ever been in a team setting, you may have noted this bias. The proximity bias favors people who are in proximity, as it is assumed that those in close proximity do more work or more important work. This is especially relevant since the pandemic as remote work appears to help keep more women, especially working moms, in the work force. According to a 2023 Hamilton Project Report, 70.4% of moms with kids under the age of 5 were in the workforce, which constitutes an all-time high record.
However, as more working women and moms may work remotely, they may also fall victim to this proximity bias. Not being present in the office as much as their male counterparts, who may benefit from their partners’ support at home, may penalize women and moms at a larger scale.
Ingroup Bias
Ingroup bias is the tendency to favor those who are members of one’s groups over those who may be perceived as not belonging. This may particularly impact working women and moms who may not be seen as belonging to male-dominated industries, companies or groups. This can also significantly affect women and moms working remotely.
While both men and women can be victims of this bias, women may be more at risk due to the already existing gender biases against women. As men tend to be seen more as leaders, they may indirectly benefit from this.
Recognizing and addressing these biases is crucial in improving the outcome of performance reviews. Some ways to address these include, but may not be limited to, improving the performance review process and protocols, educating managers on these biases, and proactively seeking more actionable feedback.
Have you encountered any of these performance review biases as a woman at work?
The letter came in the mail a couple of days before I even got a chance to open it. It was a routine mammogram I thought nothing of, like most of the other mammograms I had done before. Except this one was a tad different…
The word “abnormal” jumped at me from the page, obscuring the remainder of the letter. I was being called in for a diagnostic mammogram due to an abnormality in one of my breasts. My heart dropped, my mind started racing, the ground suddenly did not feel as quite as firm…I grabbed my phone and started googling “abnormal mammogram”. The results were dizzying in their abundance and gravity…I felt around for the closest chair and sat down…
If you’ve ever received a similar or the same letter or phone call alerting you of a mammogram abnormality, you may well understand how I felt. The gut-wrenching feeling, the drop in your chest, the wobble in your shaky legs…
While abnormal mammogram notifications can be associated with numerous factors, a prevalent one for women over 40 is breast density. It certainly was in my case, and is in that of countless women.
But first what is even breast density?
Dense breasts are simply breasts that have more breast and connective tissue, which is denser than fat. Figure 1 below illustrates various levels of breast density.
Figure 1.
According to the Susan G. Komen website, “about 50 to 60% of women over the age of 40 in the United States have dense breasts”. These statistics decrease significantly for women ages 70-74, with only 20 to 30% of the latter exhibiting signs of breast density. It’s important to note that breast density is not based on weight, as 50 to 60% of women with healthy weights also have dense breasts, in contrast to 20 to 30% of obese women. Breast density can be affected by medications containing hormones, such as menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) and breast cancer treatment medication tamoxifen.
Why does breast density matter so much when it comes to breast cancer?
Due to the heightened breast cancer risk associated with breast density, it is recommended to supplement routine mammograms with additional screenings such as ultrasounds. However, there are yet no specific screening guidelines or recommendations for additional screenings. Lowering breast density also doesn’t necessarily result in the risk of breast cancer decreasing.
So the next time you receive a notification letter after a mammogram, please check for the included breast density assessment. Make sure to speak to your provider about additional screening options and ways of lowering the risk of breast cancer. Most importantly, and while it’s easier said than done, do not panic! Most women with dense breasts end up having to undergo additional breast screenings to rule out any abnormalities.
As for me, going through additional diagnostic screening allowed me to learn and share more information around breast density. As I thank God that all is well, I’m also fully aware that every day is a blessing, and that this fight against breast cancer is our collective fight.
Have you ever wondered how you can advance your career while being a woman, wife and/or mother, and not having to work 40+ hours every week? Have you ever considered cloning yourself so you could do all the things, everywhere at the same time? You’re certainly not the only one. As a working woman and mom, managing your career for growth and advancement, while dedicating the astronomical time society has made us believe is required for it, often seems to fall under the “mission impossible” category. Or at least under one that is far from being sustainable in the long term…
As a result, working women often feel powerless in the face of the many professional and personal challenges facing them as they move forward in our careers. This is only made worse by the plethora of gender biases they encounter in the workplace. What happens next, or even simultaneously, can sadly be summarized as ranks of working women stuck in lower levels of management (when they reach management at all), or exiting the professional stage altogether. This is also known as the “broken rung” , or the phenomenon of women being stuck between entry-level and management positions, which McKinsey’s 2023 Women in the Workplace report identifies as the most significant hurdle on women’s path to senior leadership.
Like so many other women, this is an all-too-common ordeal I wish I weren’t as familiar with. Through my various seasons of womanhood, from early career, motherhood, to mid-career and through my transition into academia, I’ve endlessly wondered how women can possibly build a sustainable career without sacrificing family, sanity and the rest of life.
Well, long after the seeds of this deeply personal yet undeniably collective question began sprouting in my early and mid-career mind, I stumbled upon a career awakening of sorts through the world of academia. While careers in academia are split between research, teaching and service, the true currency of advancement in the academic world is published research work. Which means despite all the various windows of opportunities, urgent and important work in the academic world, academics, and especially women academics, must prioritize their research work. This is even more important for women in the patriarchal academic system, who most often do not benefit from the same expanses of available time than their male counterparts due to personal, service and other responsibilities. Hence the need for women academics, like most other career women, to create the systems necessary for their survival and ultimately, their professional thriving.
It’s in this context that I stumbled upon one of my favorite podcasts entitled “Academic Writing Amplified” by Cathy Mazak, which focuses on helping women in the professorate write and publish more without succumbing to the false notion that they must work around the clock to do so. The advice in this podcast has inspired me to share these three steps to building a sustainable career as working women and moms across industries and fields of work:
Determine what moves the needle in your career
In careers that are more than ever fraught with demands of all kinds, from unending meetings to email apocalypses, seeing the forest from the trees can near mission impossible. Hence why so many of us have been conditioned to believe professional success requires ungodly schedules and unfathomable personal sacrifices. Yet, what if the real problem hid in the professional confusion that constant communication and nagging technology have created over the years?
This is where taking a step back and reflecting on what moves the needle in your career makes a difference. What are the areas of your career that are instrumental to your advancement and growth? What weighs the heaviest when it comes to your upcoming promotion? What has the most long-term impact on your career? Those are the areas where the bulk of your focus, time and energy should be directed. If you’re not clear on what these are, going back to your job description, last performance review, or having a check-in with your managers and peers may help.
Build your schedule around what moves the needle in your career
Identifying the area(s) that move the needle in your career is the first step to building a sustainable career. The next step is putting action behind this, by re-evaluating and re-building your schedule around those areas. When you look at your current schedule, where does the bulk of your time go? Do you spend most of your time on emails and meetings? Is most of your schedule revolving around areas that are not advancing important projects or helping you meet crucial goals?
Very often, when we make an inventory of how we spend our time at work, we unfortunately realize that we’re majoring in minors. Much of our time is often spent on urgent, yet not important activities. Do you want to be known for how fast you answer emails, or for the impactful goals you are achieving? I would bet the latter… If so, consider rebuilding your schedule to prioritize the projects, activities and goals that move your career forward.
Implement habits and systems that help you keep the main thing the main thing
Last but not least, building the systems and habits to prioritize the pivotal areas of your career is key. In her podcast entitled “Academic Writing Amplified” aimed at helping women in academia write research more, author and entrepreneur Cathy Mazak talks about identifying your “tiger time” or “soar time”. This is your most productive, less distracted time of day, that can allow you to tackle your most important work in the most effective way. What is your “tiger time” or “soar time”?
Once you can consistently identify and use your most productive time for your most impactful work, then you can relegate other less important activities to other parts of your day. Are you used to checking your email first thing in the morning, and letting it eat most of your time? Schedule a later time in the day to open your inbox and set a time limit for email-related activities. Are meetings overwhelming your schedule and preventing you from focusing on important projects? Consider blocking your calendar, saying “no” more often, and offering more suitable time alternatives.
All in all, building a more sustainable career as a working woman and mom comes down to an exercise in clarity and habit-building. From reflecting on what is truly impactful in your career, to building your schedule around pivotal activities at work, and finally implementing habits and systems to prioritize the latter, it’s a process. Yet, it is one that can make a world of difference between majoring in minors and endlessly sacrificing at the altar of career sainthood to no avail, and effectively saving time and energy to zoom in on what really matters.
This episode is a summer recap for my working women and moms, looking back at the reality of the summer mental load, the power of doing nothing at all (yes, it’s possible!), and how to make our careers hot again in the summer months (without sacrificing our summer fun in the process).
Listen in!
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Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this week’s episode! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please share it by using the social media at the bottom of this post!
Also, leave me a review for the TCS podcast on Apple Podcasts !
It’s the middle of summer, and I am trying out a new African restaurant with a colleague and a new professional acquaintance while nerding out on artificial intelligence during a work conference. Here I was, actually enjoying myself and advancing my career, while building in some fun and networking along the way. I also happened to meet other working women and moms, who brought their family and kids along, combining family time with career enrichment. But wait, is it actually possible to enrich your career in the summer, while still making time for family time and fun? To my own recent surprise, I have to say it is…
If you have ever wondered if the summer months are not exactly as valuable as the rest of the year in terms of career growth, you’re far from being the only one. For many of us, especially as working women and moms, summer can seem too slow professionally and too busy personally to really push our careers forward. It may even seem as if in terms of career advancement, the summer months may be partially, or even worse, totally wasted.
Yet, while summer is frequently a time of slowing down at work, especially for working parents as school is out for a few months, it can also be a great time to refresh and revitalize your career. As an ex-corporate girl who’s reconverted in academia, summer has gone from being a slower, somewhat aimless time at work, to being a strategic time for my career without necessarily taking away the “fun” of summer.
Here are 10 effective, yet enjoyable ways to revitalize your career in the summer, without sacrificing your summer fun:
Set A Vision for Your Career in the Summer
For many years, I did not even think of setting career goals for the summer months. Without setting a vision for these months, they ended up being aimless and directionless, even despite getting work done.
Setting summer career goals has allowed me to set a vision for these few months, and have a sense of purpose and motivation throughout. Some of my usual summer career goals include some enjoyable networking and learning, rest, (yes, rest!), traveling, and working on a flexible schedule.
Look into Flexible Work Opportunities:
Speaking of flexible schedule, being able to have flexibility in the summer has been a game, and career changer for me. As a working mom with my kids at home during the summer, not to mention travel and vacation plans, being able to build my own schedule goes a long way.
This is where exploring flexible schedule and/or work opportunities comes in handy during the summer months. This also requires planning ahead if flexibility is not already built into your schedule.
Have a Self-Care Plan
My summers are sacred, and part of the sacredness, other than the fact that I’m a summer baby (hello July babies), is the slower pace that favors more self-care. As a mom, not having to drop off the kids at school every morning, and being able to work on a flexible schedule, opens up the possibility of integrating more self-care in my daily routine.
Whether it’s brunch with the girls, or an early morning walk, or a more consistent exercise routine, making a self-care plan you can stick to is key. Often, this also allows to adopt and keep new self-care habits that can become part of our lifestyle.
Develop and Refine your Personal Brand Vision
One of the advantages of summer’s slower pace is the space to think! One of the aspects of my career and business that I take the time to revisit in the summer is my personal brand. Your personal brand defines how you are perceived, and what sets you apart in your field or discipline.
Taking the time during the slower months of summer to think about this can also help you develop your personal brand statement; which comes in handy when it’s time to clarify your career goals, or network more effectively.
Switch up your networking:
Speaking of networking, summer can be an ideal time to network more effectively, and probably, more enjoyably. As the slower pace of work may allow for a more relaxed perspective and lessened stakes as well, it can be a great time to attend industry conferences or seminars.
I’ve fallen in love with work conferences during the summer months. As many conferences encourage attendees to bring their families along, they can be a perfect opportunity to combine work and family time. During the slower summer weeks, they can also be a nice change of pace and an opportunity to experience new places and meet new people.
Build up your skills in an enjoyable way:
I know, I know, who wants to build up skills during the summer when all you want is lay on the beach and catch a break? That’s what I thought until I considered more enjoyable ways of learning during the summer months.
One of the most enjoyable ways for me to learn and build up skills is through books. Summer reading is one of my absolute favorites. Podcasting, books, informal learning are also enjoyable ways to build up your skills.
Refresh your workspace
Last but not least, while you’re on a summer refresh mood, why not use it to refresh your workspace? I love taking this slower time to declutter, redecorate and spruce up my workspace with less work pressure. As a mom, this is also something I can involve the kids in (or use as a formative summer experience or family activity).
As a working woman and mom, while the summer months can be especially busy (hello summer ceiling for working moms), they can also make for a great opportunity to enrich our careers. From setting a vision, to having a self-care plan and networking, we can turn this time into a breath of fresh work air.
