How to Reframe Your Limiting Beliefs in Your Job Search, with Michelle Schafer
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The job search itself is stressful enough without allowing limiting beliefs to hold you back further. If you think others don’t have time to help you, that you can’t reach out to the higher-ups, or that you don’t even have a network, you’re struggling with common limiting beliefs. Find Your Dream Job guest Michelle Schafer is here to destroy those myths. Michelle reminds us that most people love to help others. Senior employees, CEOs, and founders were once likely dependent on others for jobs and advancement. Finally, we all have a network. Michelle suggests you make a list of the groups of people you interact with on a regular basis. You will find your network in your everyday life.
About Our Guest:
Michelle Schafer is a certified professional coach and a workshop facilitator.
Resources in This Episode:
- Are you in a career transition? Find out how Michelle can help you by visiting mschafercoaching.ca/.
- Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Find Your Dream Job, Episode 463:
How to Reframe Your Limiting Beliefs in Your Job Search, with Michelle Schafer
Airdate: August 14, 2024
Mac Prichard:
This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life.
I’m your host, Mac Prichard. I’m also the founder of Mac’s List. It’s a job board in the Pacific Northwest that helps you find a fulfilling career.
Every Wednesday, I talk to a different expert about the tools you need to get the work you want.
One of the obstacles you may face as you look for work might be yourself.
You may believe, for example, that you can’t network well.
In fact, networking is a skill that anyone can learn.
Michelle Schafer is here to talk about how to reframe your limiting beliefs in your job search.
She’s a certified professional coach and a workshop facilitator.
Michele helps you develop a job search strategy so you can find energizing work for companies you’re excited to work with.
She joins us from Ottawa, Canada.
Well, let’s jump right into it, Michelle, and let’s start by talking about how to recognize limiting beliefs. What are limiting beliefs exactly?
Michelle Schafer:
Yeah, this is a really interesting topic to talk about because limiting beliefs are things that stand in our way, and when we’re talking about a job search, these are things that will prevent us from taking action, and so a limiting belief is an assumption. It’s a judgment that we have about an activity or something that we’re engaged in that will stand as a roadblock.
As we’re talking about networking, limiting beliefs can actually stand in the way of networking success because an individual may come to the table thinking about past networking experiences, and maybe they had a bad networking experience, so therefore, they don’t want to reach out to people again. They might think that, “Oh, I’m more introverted, and networking is more of an extroverted activity, so I’m not going to reach out and have these conversations.”
They might think that people are just too busy and therefore, I’m not going to take action. These limiting beliefs, these ways of thinking, prevent us from moving forward in our job search and it can actually prevent candidates from identifying opportunities that could really be a good fit for them down the road.
Mac Prichard:
Does everybody have limiting beliefs, Michelle?
Michelle Schafer:
You know, it’s interesting; in the work that I do with clients, I notice that limiting beliefs are quite common, and they tend to strike, especially with clients who might be new to a city, so they don’t have any network, or they’re new to a country, but these limiting beliefs, I find, are really key for individuals who have navigated a job search before because they have these assumptions about how networking can work for them. I have some clients that I work with that say, “Oh, I’ve reached out to people, and I never heard back, so therefore, networking doesn’t work, and I’m not going to do it now that I’m looking for work again.”
I do see that limiting beliefs are quite common and aren’t isolated to a particular demographic or particular individual.
Mac Prichard:
What can happen, Michelle, if you don’t recognize or address your limiting beliefs, not only in a job search but in your career?
Michelle Schafer:
For sure. You can really stay stuck, and I see this with some clients that I work with. They come to me because they’re frustrated and they’re discouraged that their job search is not moving forward, and when I talk to them about the kinds of things that they’re doing to look for work, I recognize and I help them understand that networking and building relationships comprises about 80% of the job search activities to find your next job and when I talk to them about what they’re doing, perhaps they are just looking on job boards, they are just trying to isolate online opportunities, but they’re missing out on so many other opportunities.
This is something that is so common, and if you don’t address the fact that you’re having some limiting beliefs and actually take the steps to reframe them into more positive thinking, your mindset stays the same. Of course, a negative mindset does not serve you as well in a job search. A positive mindset can really help you move forward, and one of the things that I try to help clients understand where they’re feeling very stuck is networking is just a big word that means, “Research through conversation.”
It means having conversations with others and building relationships, and the reality is we do that every day. Maybe we’re shopping, and we start talking to somebody who’s in line behind us. Maybe we talk to parents at our child’s school and we start to build a relationship with them. We actually have those conversations all the time. The only difference with networking is these are conversations that are really targeted to your job search and helping people understand what you’re looking for.
Mac Prichard:
In your practice, you see common limiting beliefs, and the top three that you’ve shared in your articles about this topic are that people are too busy to help with a job search, that you can’t reach out to top people inside of an organization, or that people might think that they don’t have a network. I’d like to walk through each of those three common limiting beliefs.
The first one is that others are too busy to help with your job search. Why do people believe this, Michelle?
Michelle Schafer:
Yeah, this is a really interesting one, and I’d say it’s probably the number one limiting belief that I see in people that I work with. Which is, people have this thought that, “Oh, I can’t ask somebody else for help. I can’t ask to have a coffee with them. I can’t ask to have a conversation with them because this person probably has all kinds of priorities; they’re probably very busy. I don’t need to add to their plate.”
It’s really interesting because, of course, I’m Canadian, and it’s a well-known fact that Canadians can be quite polite, but this is something that I see everywhere with a lot of individuals that I work with. There’s this incredible hesitation to reach out because they just don’t want to bother somebody. They don’t want to add to all of the priorities that they already have, and really, what that person is doing is they’re assuming that the other person is too busy to say yes.
Even before they ask the question, they’re assuming the person is going to say, “Oh no, sorry, I won’t have time for you.” That’s why that’s a limiting belief, because it really stands in the way of that person even asking in the first place, and the reality is that people really do want to help. In fact, the vast majority of people do want to help. It’s just that they really like to know how they can help, and so when we bring that forward in our ask for a conversation, it can make it really easy for the person to say yes.
Mac Prichard:
A second common limiting belief that you’ve found in your practice is that job seekers think they can’t reach out to top people inside of an organization, maybe, for example, the CEO of a company. Is this true, Michelle?
Michelle Schafer:
It very much is true, and I’ll admit when I was doing a lot of networking, looking for work, I had this limiting belief myself. There seems to be a huge hesitation in reaching out to people who are more senior. Partly because of the limiting belief that I just mentioned, that people would be too busy, and this applies to individuals who are senior in an organization.
As a job search candidate, someone who’s looking for a job, they believe that, “The person that I’m reaching out to is the CEO,” or a senior vice president or an executive director of a charitable organization.
“Well, that person has got so much on their plate. They’re leading the organization. Why on earth would they want to meet with somebody like me? They don’t know who I am. I’m certainly at a much lower level than they are.”
This is the narrative, this is the story that people create for themselves, which prevents them from asking that person in the first place, and again, the reality is even a CEO, this person has very likely had to network for work themselves, and they’re human. They might have a big, fancy title beside their name, but they’re still an individual who has had to engage in this kind of activity.
Oftentimes, people do want to help. People who are senior in an organization want to help as well, but if we don’t ask, we don’t get, so taking those steps forward to ask can be the best thing that a candidate can do to find their next job.
Mac Prichard:
The third of the most common limiting beliefs that you have found among job seekers is that they think that they don’t have a network, and you touched on this a moment ago, but tell us, Michelle, why do people believe this?
Michelle Schafer:
Yes, and this one is mystifying to me, and the reason for that is, as humans, we interact with people all of the time. Oftentimes every day, certainly every week. We go and have our hair done by a stylist, we drop our kids off at school, and we talk to other parents; we have a new neighbor that’s moved in beside us, and maybe we have a conversation with them.
The reality is that we’re not an island unto ourselves. We don’t operate in a silo. We do have people all around us that we interact with. Sometimes, we receive services from these individuals, and we need to have conversations with them.
The key here is to help people understand that your network is actually bigger than you think it is. It includes all of those people that are in our circle that we interact with on a regular basis. A friend of mine in a networking workshop that I attended years ago had a saying, “Look through your network instead of at your network.”
Because sometimes, we can just look at our network, meaning the people that we’re immediately connected to and discount all of those people and think, “None of those people can help us.”
The reality is each one of us knows hundreds of people, in a lot of cases, and any one of those hundreds of people could be very helpful in a job search. Again, if we don’t ask, we don’t get, and recognizing that there are lots of people around us for help, and the key is to ask for help. In a job search, we really need to engage with other people in order to find our next job.
Mac Prichard:
Well, this is terrific, Michelle.
I want to pause here and take a break. When we come back in the second segment, let’s talk about how to reframe these three common limiting beliefs and apply that knowledge to a job search.
Stay with us. When we return, Michelle Schafer will continue to share her advice on how to reframe your limiting beliefs when you look for work.
We’re back in the Mac’s List studio. I’m talking with Michelle Schafer.
She’s a certified professional coach and a workshop facilitator.
Michele helps you develop a job search strategy so you can find energizing work for companies you’re excited to work with.
She joins us from Ottawa, Canada.
Now, Michelle, before the break, we talked about limiting beliefs, what they are, how they effect your job search, and you identified three of the most common limiting beliefs that you see in your career coaching practice.
What I’d like to do now is talk about how to reframe those three common limiting beliefs. Let’s walk through them one by one. The first example that you shared of a common limiting belief was that others are too busy to help you with your job search. How do you reframe this, Michelle?
Michelle Schafer:
Yeah, the one key reminder with this one is just to remind yourself that people actually do want to help, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say probably 95% of the people that you ask actually will want to help. Don’t be discouraged by the 5 to 10% of people that maybe don’t.
When I’m working with my clients, I use a bit of reverse psychology on them, and I say, especially when there’s some resistance to going out and asking for conversations. I say, “Okay, let’s say you’re in advertising, and somebody approaches you and says, ‘I’d really like to talk to you about your career path, what kind of training and education you took, how you found yourself on this road. Would you be able to meet with me?’” And I say, “How would you respond?”
Usually, people will say, “Well, yes, of course I would help them out.” So then I ask them the question, “So if you would help other people, then wouldn’t it be likely true that others would help you.” Then the lightbulb goes off for them, and they realize that, yes, people actually want to help because that’s what they would want to do for other people.
Even if somebody says no to your request for a coffee, you won’t be any further behind in your search, but you could be very far ahead if they say yes.
Mac Prichard:
What’s striking about the example you share there is that it’s a very specific request. You’re not asking someone to let you know if they hear of anything, a job perhaps, but you’re approaching someone who’s working in a specific field to ask specific questions about that occupation.
What kind of difference does it make when you reach out to people, and you’re specific and clear in your ask?
Michelle Schafer:
You get what you ask for, so when you’re really clear with your request, you can get the specific information that’s going to help your search, and I’ll say this to clients.
I’ll say, before you even reach out to anybody, first be clear on how you need them to help, but also think about your questions. What kinds of things would you want to get from that individual that will support and inform your job search? The more that you can prepare and be clear about that when you’re requesting, the better the conversation will be because you’ll be receiving information that truly will be helpful to your search.
Mac Prichard:
Your second example of a common limiting belief that you shared in the first segment is that the CEO or the other top leaders of an organization are too busy to meet with you. How should you reframe this?
Michelle Schafer:
Yes, the reminder here is these senior individuals, whether they’re executive directors or CEOs or other positions within the organization, they’re human, and they want to help too, and chances are they had to do the same kind of networking activity for them to find work.
This one requires a bit of mustering up some courage because I mentioned that this is one that I really struggled with in my own job search because I’ve been restructured twice. I’ve had to do a lot of networking as well, and I remember, in particular, one individual that I reached out to was the Chief Medical Officer of Health for Ottawa at that time, and I thought to myself, “How can I reach out to this person? This person is responsible for every single medical crisis in the city. He’s a busy guy.”
But I mustered up some courage, and I did ask, and you know what? I didn’t hear back for a couple of weeks, so I followed up, so that’s something to remember, too. It’s always okay to follow up after two or three weeks. Well, I was able to reach him then, and not only did he have a few minutes for me, he had thirty minutes for me. He asked me a number of questions, he took my resume, and because of that conversation, I got access to an opportunity with our public health unit. And it was one that was not posted, and I would’ve never known about that opportunity had it not been for my conversation with this individual.
I’m glad that I reached out and it’s a message that I have for clients now. Don’t be afraid to reach out because these individuals are human, and they do want to help and I’ll tell them that story as evidence and proof that that limiting belief can be reframed into something really positive that can support your job search.
Mac Prichard:
In your experience, Michelle, when a CEO or another top leader at an organization says no to a networking request, what’s going on? Why do people say no?
Michelle Schafer:
Yeah, I mean, sometimes people say no because maybe they feel that they’re not the right individual to meet with the person; maybe they truly are too busy. That happens where a senior individual will go back to somebody and say, “I’m sorry, I’m really quite occupied at this time.” But oftentimes, still by asking, even if the response is, “No, I’m not able to help you,” oftentimes, they will get connected to somebody else.
Somebody else in the organization that can provide some real insight into the challenges that the organization is facing and give that person an opportunity to ask some questions.
Again, if we don’t ask, we receive nothing. We are no further behind if the person says no, but if they say yes, we could receive so much information that maybe actually leads to a job down the road, and that’s certainly something that’s really positive.
Mac Prichard:
Your third example of a common limiting belief is that people think that they don’t have a network. How do you recommend reframing this?
Michelle Schafer:
Yes, it’s reminding yourself of all of the people that you interact with on a regular basis. One of the really practical activities that I go through with my clients as a starting place, before developing any kind of networking strategy, is to do a brainstorm. Do a brainstorm of all of the individuals that you interface with on a regular basis, and I don’t just have people talk about this, I have them write it down.
We start, actually, with groups of people. People that you volunteer with, parents at your kid’s school or kid’s sports, neighbors, family members, friends, colleagues, former colleagues, leaders, former leaders, your stylist, your mechanic, people at the gym. Think of all of the groups of individuals, and then I have them take it one step further.
For every group that they identified, now put some names beside that. For example, if you do some volunteer work, think of all the individuals that you do volunteer work with, make a list of those names, and then it gives you a place to actually start reaching out to people. Individuals that I work with are oftentimes really surprised when they actually come up with that list of names.
They start with that belief of, “I don’t have anybody in my network,” to all of a sudden, they have a list of maybe 30 or 40 names. Now they have a plan, and they can actually start to action that plan.
Mac Prichard:
You’ve reframed three of the most common limiting beliefs that you find out there as you work with job seekers. You recognize now that people will make time to talk with you, especially if you’re specific about what you want. You’re open to reaching out to top leaders and asking them for insights and advice, and you’re also recognizing the network that you have.
When you do all of this, Michelle, how’s it going to help you find a job? What difference can reframing these common limiting beliefs make in your job search and in your career?
Michelle Schafer:
Absolutely, there are two key things. One is by reframing these limiting beliefs, you are transforming your mindset from a place where all you can see is limitations to a place where you can actually see possibilities. It’s transforming the mindset from a negative place to a more positive place, and when we’re in a positive mindset, we are open to opportunities, we are initiating conversations, we are seeking out leads to add to our lead funnel, and it’s building more confidence for us along the way.
That’s certainly area number one, where I see the biggest benefits to individuals to reframe those beliefs.
The second area is it’s going to naturally allow you to identify opportunities that perhaps you wouldn’t have known of before had you not reached out to individuals. Because we’re really specific about our ask, maybe you’re asking somebody to give insights of the challenges of their organization, or what their organization is like as a place to work, or what kinds of opportunities might be available and really are good and align with their skills and experience.
When we’re clear about our ask, we receive information; we can receive job opportunities that perhaps will allow us now to apply for a job we didn’t know about, interview for a job that’s really interesting to us, and maybe even secure that job. I’ve seen that happen. Even through conversation, where a parent drops off their kid at a hockey game and they start talking to a parent about the fact that they’re looking for work and that person is a Chief Information Officer at a high-tech company, which is where that person wants to work.
I’ve actually seen it happen where people get jobs through these conversations, but if we don’t ask, if we don’t reframe those limiting beliefs, we’re really putting a big roadblock in our way, and those roadblocks will get in the way of not only our networking success but our job search progression as well.
Mac Prichard:
Well, it’s been a terrific conversation, Michelle. Now, tell us, what’s next for you?
Michelle Schafer:
Some interesting projects that I’m working on. I continue to offer career coaching; I help people formulate what their career goals are and build a job search strategy to support them and find work that energizes them for a company that believes what they believe in. I call that my Simon Sinek why, but I’m also writing a book right now that’s really geared to help people that are in any kind of career transition.
Whether you’re deciding to transition careers or whether you’ve been restructured and the decision was not yours. My launch is going to be in January 2025, and I’m looking forward to that launching soon.
Mac Prichard:
Well, congratulations. I know listeners can learn more about you, your work, and your forthcoming book by visiting your website, https://mschafercoaching.ca/, and that you also invite listeners to connect with you on LinkedIn. When they do reach out to you, I hope they’ll mention that they heard you on Find Your Dream Job.
Now, Michelle, given all of the great advice you’ve shared today, what’s the one thing you want a listener to remember about how to reframe your limiting beliefs in your job search?
Michelle Schafer:
Absolutely, I mean, if I can leave everybody with two quotes, one is, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” So if you don’t ask for a conversation or a coffee with somebody, you’re not going to receive anything.
The second one is, “Look through your network vs. at it.” It’s a great way to help you see that your network is bigger than you think it is, and so if you remember those two things, I know that you will have networking success and you’ll be able to identify lots of great opportunities.
Mac Prichard:
Next week, our guest will be Nicole Serena Silver.
She’s the author of the career clarity guidebook, Vekita Full Potential.
Nicole also writes for Forbes on the future of work and professional development.
It’s painful to lose your job. But unemployment also creates opportunity.
Join us next Wednesday when Nicole Serena Silver and I talk about why losing a job can be a gift.
Until next time, thanks for letting us help you find your dream job.
This show is produced by Mac’s List.
Susan Thornton-Hough schedules our guests and writes our newsletter. Lisa Kislingbury Anderson manages our social media.
Our sound engineer and editor is Matt Fiorillo. Dawn Mole creates our transcripts. And our music is by Freddy Trujillo.
This is Mac Prichard. See you next week.