I have an important update concerning my apprenticeship that I thought I should share with you. Recently, Zcash Foundation let me go about a month ago. Why and how?
It’s absolutely disheartening to unexpectedly leave a company. Despite that, I learned important lessons from my employer and from myself as well.
To all my friends and future employers reading this I will be plain, candid, and most importantly, honest about my experience.
A few weeks ago I was headhunted on LinkedIn by an insurance agency called Financial Leadership Group (FLG), but I uncovered shady business practices from them. It turns out they were a multi-level marketing scheme (MLM).
How They Reeled Me In
The director of FLG (we’ll call him Rob) messaged me on LinkedIn expressing how he was impressed by my experience and skills and asked if we could meet at his office for an interview.
Naturally, I had to check this out since since I didn’t want to miss an opportunity. It couldn’t hurt to do an interview and besides, I needed to practice doing them.
We’ve all heard how asking questions helps us learn and it’s especially important during interviews. This is your chance to shine and it allows your prospective employer to know you better.
Asking questions signals to your future employer that you’re interested in them and it increases your chances of hiring.
However, be sure to ask questions that don’t have obvious answers that you can find on their website. For example, if you’re interviewing in a software sales role don’t ask about what their pricing plans are. Asking questions with obvious answers shows you haven’t done your research.
So what sort of questions is recommended you ask? Here are some to help you get inspired.
What is your culture like?
Do you plan to expand in the future?
What drew you to work for this company?
How did you become (CEO/HR recruiter/COO/etc)?
Could you describe the expectations of this job in greater detail?
It’s all in your head. Really that’s all there is to the imposter syndrome.
That tiny voice telling you “You’re not good enough.”
The Doubting Thomas that lives in your head making you second guess yourself.
Do you feel imposter syndrome often? It’s particularly insidious in the way that it sneaks up on you and kills your self-esteem.
Imposter syndrome nags at your soul trying its darnedest to convince you, “You’re a fraud and you fool nobody but yourself.”
Whenever you make progress in life it comes back to knock you down saying, “You don’t belong here.”
I had these same exact thoughts that I wasn’t good enough or I don’t belong here. In fact, I experienced imposter syndrome throughout the Praxis boot camp.
It seemed like everyone else in my class had better technical skills, better work ethic, better knowledge of sales, better accomplished. On and on this nagging voice went.
Imposter syndrome caused me to not speak up and add my two cents during class discussions because I feared I would say something dumb or uninsightful.
I felt I wasn’t smart enough compared to my peers.
So I closed myself off.
Let me tell you this is the last thing you want to do when you’re learning. You need to build social capital among your classmates because eventually you’ll need help and support from them.
In the words of my wise advisor, T.K. Coleman, “Stop trying to prove the voice of resistance wrong!”
He’s right, those nagging voices are not worthy of your time or energy. These defeatist arguments get you nowhere and might even stunt your intellectual growth.
Even if those voices are right, you’re still attempting to be what you’re trying to accomplish and that’s a good thing. Despite my setbacks and giving in to those voices, I still worked hard to be a Praxian and I learned what it meant to be your own worst enemy.
So how did I get over the imposter syndrome? Learn the lingo, learn to navigate your new environment, learn the skills, learn to apply it.
Be adaptable.
You’re not the only one in your group that has imposter syndrome and I can guarantee someone else feels the same. It was the case within my class, at least a handful of us had doubts about our abilities.
Do you see how imposter syndrome questions your worthiness? Honestly, I haven’t a clue if I’m worthy of my lofty goals and dreams.
Why do I say that?
For starters, worthiness is so arbitrary and subjective. Everyone has a different view and every culture defines it in so many ways. There will always be a group of naysayers who say you’re not good enough.
Here’s the antidote to those Doubting Thomases in your head and in real life.
You have the right to try new things, learn new skills, improve yourself. That alone creates new opportunities and open doors for you.
T.K. Coleman addressed this common fear amongst my class.
A personal brand is your reputation. Ed Latimore, former heavyweight boxer and self-improvement guru, built an impressive Twitter presence. In fact, he’s one of the biggest unverified accounts! He shares his wisdom on how to build a successful brand on social media.
In Praxis, every participant (student) in the placement module has a talent profile instead of a stagnant resume. During placement, participants “apply” to jobs by creating value propositions, which are work projects demonstrating the value we can create for a business. So this post is geared towards current Praxis participants who are looking for a leg up on their profiles.
Every Wednesday, we meet on a live call and occasionally the advisors bring on a guest speaker. This week we had Keagan Henson, CEO of BriteBee.
Here are some tips he suggested on how to improve your talent profile.
Your About Me video should be one minute or less, preferably 30 seconds.
About Me video, put past irrelevant experiences behind you. If it’s not related to the role you’re applying to then don’t mention it.
Update your blog regularly.
Blog posts should be short because CEOs and hiring managers don’t have time to read through everything and they usually just skim.
LinkedIn – post, comment, and like posts. Tailor your tagline to specific role you’re applying to. Basically treat LinkedIn like Facebook, except for business.
1Million Cups is a great networking organization. Networking works best in small scale conferences.
Some more professional wisdom straight from Johnny Roccia, my Praxis career coach. In this bit of advice, Johnny explains why you should treat interviews as a getting-to-know-you session, instead of approaching it as an interrogation.
One of the most valuable and exclusive things Praxis provides are career coaches. The main career coach, Johnny Roccia, is a seasoned HR recruiter. I felt his advice was too valuable to pass up so I’ve decided to relay it to you directly from Johnny. If you’re wondering how to write a perfect email for a prospective job, read on.
Yesterday I had a great conversation with one of our business partners who has taken multiple Praxis apprentices. He regularly looks through the Talent Profile and he made note of several things he sees that a lot of people could improve on. Since this is great advice and it’s coming direct from a business partner, I’m just going to pass on exactly what he said to me!
My career coach for Praxis had posted some great advice from one of their business partners. This business partner regularly looks through everyone’s talent profile, which is like a resume for each Praxis student. And he noticed several things that we all should improve on. This is what he had to say.
Every Wednesday in Praxis we have a group video chat and they’re what makes the Praxis experience different from anything else. Here’s the advice I received from today’s call with my career coach.
Doing the bare minimum doesn’t get you far. Even if you do everything right but don’t go the extra mile, you’re less likely to earn a promotion.
Rehearsed answers in an interview sound unnatural.
Interviewers are not there to ask trick questions or have an excuse to get rid of you.
Don’t act like you know everything because it makes you seem uncoachable and that you don’t want to learn.
If you’re asked, “Why do you want to work here?” answer with, I want to be good at X and everyone here is good at it. I want to be surrounded by the best.
If you’re asked, “Do you have experience in X?” do NOT lie because the interviewer might follow up with a question you can’t answer, like “Can you tell me how to program a dice game?” Also, don’t answer with, “I am a fast learner…I am etc.” Instead, say “I will learn on the job,” this sets you apart from the crowd.
Resumes are complete utter BS. This is why demonstrating work is valuable.
Instead of saying, “Would you like to go out for dinner?” Go for, “Let’s go out for dinner on Friday.” It sounds more confident. This can be applied to many areas in your life.
Some sales jobs want you to say you’re taking this job because of money because they want to see you’re motivated by money. But be tactful. “I’m motivated by sales because I have a wife and three kids to feed.”
“What three words describe you?” You can get creative and funny with this interview question. “Just hired now” or “I am Groot.”
