monday what?
MONDAY MINUTES are my personal reflections, learning and strategies that aim to inspire you when drafting your career path. I am a passionate luxury beauty marketeer at the world leader in beauty: L'Oréal. In my free-time, I mentor multiple young professionals and students from around the world, comprising institutions such as Imperial College London & Cambridge University. Throughout mentorship sessions, I have encountered recurring questions that seemed to be top of mind for so many.
Thus, instead of solely just sharing advice on an individual basis, I decided to create MONDAY MINUTES to make this information accessible to everyone who is seeking guidance on drafting their career path. Every Monday, I will share my personal experience on a career related topic such as:
1) How to identify a career path that you are truly passionate about?
2) The interview pre-work, the homework you have to do before an interview!
3) Why are mentors important to achieving your goals faster?
4) Do you really need a short-term and long-term plan?
5) How to bounce back stronger from application rejections?
Multiple of the young professionals that I have worked with had exactly those questions and now landed jobs at their desired Fortune 500 company. Thus, most likely these topics have crossed your mind at some point.
The power of listening to the right people
It seems like such an obvious thing, but truly listening and more so listening to the right people can be pivotal to achieving your career goals. I am a firm believer of lifelong learning for individual growth, thus I constantly seek advice from mentors who have the success that I aim to have in the long run. When the pandemic hit in 2020, one of these mentors told me that “the ability to listen is going to take you places that speaking never could”. This notion has changed my life forever. It was then, when I realized that all my goals that I foresee for my life must be addressed in a different manner. And that manner should be defined by the art of LISTENING. From that day onward, I spent every day researching, learning and talking to professionals who have the success that truly brings me out of my comfort zone and makes me think big. All with the goal to soak up their learning, to listen and to duplicate their “success moves”.
I have come to conclude that there are 2 components surrounding the art of listening:
1) select carefully who you are listening to
To achieve your goal, select carefully who can help you in achieving this goal. You will want to make sure to identify a professional who has achieved exactly the type of success that you aim to have (and dream big here!). You can research these professionals on obvious platforms such as LinkedIn (but I do not recommend to just randomly write people on LinkedIn!), Ted Talk, Forbes, etc. Once you identified the professional, I suggest to research and analyze their career path:
- What development steps have they taken?
- What different functions within a company did they gain experience in?
Once you have studied what the professional has done, research online if they have published any work or if they have engaged in public speaking (check YouTube). Then try to truly study how they are thinking and what their core competencies are.
If the professional is working within the company that you are dreaming of joining, then you can start to analyze the way they think and what strategies they are working on. This will allow you to drop fundamental insights when you land an interview at your preferred company. You will have in-depth insights that go beyond just quickly screening the company’s websites or checking their mission statement or latest product launches.
2) listen, duplicate & execute
You reached out to and got in touch with the professional who you have been studying. Then in a careful and humble manner ask, if they could spare a couple of minutes to share their experience with you. The digital acceleration has allowed a networking trend of digital coffees & catch-ups - leverage that! Should they agree to do so, remember that it is key to be prepared. Use the insights that you studied and listen to the advice you are being given. This advice is gold for you and should be used as your blueprint on your next steps to achieving your goal. Your mission here should not be a one time engagement with a mentor, moreso it should be building a long-term relationship based on a value-exchange! Ask yourself what information may I provide the mentor with? Think digital here, you might be Gen Z or a Millennial, hence you are probably more digitally savvy than your mentor. Leverage that and share valuable insights. Creating a long-term relationship with a mentor who gives you advice is like your lottery ticket to drafting your future career.
And that’s why next week, I’ll outline the importance of a mentor & how to find one!
Monday Minutes are my personal & independent reflections for inspirational purposes only. They are not professional career advice, they simply outline my experience & advice that has been shared with me and helped me personally.