Brutally Honest Career Advice & Why Your Boss Isn't Your Friend: Isobelle Panton

0:00Isobelle Panton:I am Izzy. I am intending to revolutionise career advice because I currently feel the career advice we really need is not accessible. So something someone told me was around a traffic light system. When you join a company, you've got red, amber, green. You look around and you know the reds. You cannot share with them ever. Amber, they feel like you can trust them, like you two, but you can't. And then green, they're in your corner, you're sort of all fighting the same sort of corporate battle. And those are your people. You might have two of those. You shouldn't have like 10. let's let's talk about bosses if your boss is horrible you're not going to want to do things for them they all know what sort of relationship you you have it is about putting your foot down but if you're in a toxic culture where you're worried about your job all the time but i would say there's no such thing as job security the best founders have been employed before they become founders and i personally wouldn't want to work for a founder that's never had a job in any context this is where my advice becomes a bit controversial where

0:58izzy welcome to the podcast thank you for having me it's great to have you on thank you for being here big question to kick off who are you and what problem do you solve i am izzy um my friends

1:10Isobelle Panton:would say that i am the first on the dance floor and the first one to sneak off as well um i'm everyone's sort of big sister in business i call myself the corporate agony aunt because i think sister has too much of a family connotation and auntie I can get on board with anyone and I am intending to revolutionise career advice because I currently feel that having worked across education and technology that the career advice we really need is not accessible unless you're in a really formal structure like university and a lot of people don't have that exposure or access and similarly once they're in university they might still not be able to access career advice so my goal is to revolutionise it to meet people where they are as opposed to where I expect to find them and that's why a lot of the advice I give is across socials because I think that's where people need to find it.

1:54Nice so if I'm somebody that should be consuming your content can you describe maybe the the symptoms that I'm facing in my world on a day-to-day basis?

2:03Isobelle Panton:Yeah so you might be met with a really challenging boss that you've something you've never experienced before and you don't have a reference or a role model who's come up through corporate to give you that advice you might be significantly underpaid compared to your colleagues or the industry rate but not know how to approach that conversation because money was never discussed in your household you might be coming into conflict with a colleague all the time and not feeling comfortable in escalating that or debating that or diffusing that with them because similarly you never had a dinner table and your family never sat around and discussed it so I think a lot about corporate and navigating corporate and appearing professional is rooted in sort of a middle class mindset and a lot of people haven't been brought up that way so it's any challenges you might face whereby you can't phone a friend or a parent or a family member and you can't access a network that a lot of others do and take for granted so let's maybe start at the the root of the tree then so if i was like a graduate i'm looking to get into my first corporate role there's like a bit of a conflicting narrative of there's a skill set shortage so like surely people are hiring and then there's also this thing of like no one's hiring at the minute because ai and it's the end of the world approach and all this sort of stuff for someone new to the job market who's listening what advice would you give them on what the actual state of players people dislike this but i think that the market will always ebb and flow change with technology grow shrink and there will always be a narrative around graduates and the perception that they don't work hard enough they've not got the experience the side i see is that we have roles at graduate level that are advertised with two years of experience and it's just not possible so this is where my advice becomes a bit controversial where I encourage people to retrofit a narrative that looks like they've had at least two years of experience whether that's you know a paper round when you were 16 years old or selling sweets in the in the playground and showing your entrepreneurial side so I think the market is what you make of it it will always be challenging but the best graduates are the ones that sort of book the status quo and think outside the box in terms of their application people don't like that advice because they say not everybody can think outside the box in terms of application but that's who my advice is for the people that are thinking how else can I get ahead what else can I do more of and inspiring people to realize the true potential in that sometimes getting ahead is connecting with the CEO on LinkedIn and sending a complimentary message another time it might be turning up into the interview and being so well prepared so well versed that you make the whole panel feel at ease in your company so I think people need to stand out more in the process because the world of AI in a skill shortage narrative means that people are looking for extraordinary talent and that doesn't mean you have to be super qualified it doesn't mean you have to have gone to eton or oxford it just means you have to have prepared well truly prepared well and i've also known know your patter well and your point of difference compared to other candidates which i think everybody is capable of could you stick on that have you got any stories of stuff people have done that's worked that maybe wouldn't have if they didn't think outside the box i'll speak firsthand first like works well so like the job that I've just got at the overlap a year ago now um I could have just sort of assumed that I was going to get that because my previous boss was the owner of the new company but and they only asked for a CV and a cover letter I really wanted that job that was my dream job it is my dream job a job in sports and media at an intersection of podcasting which is exploding I really really wanted that first-hand experience so rather than do what was expected of me I put together a full pitch deck on why they should hire hire me embedded videos into it everything that sort of put me across as like a strong candidate and then one of the things on the job requirements was experience of YouTube and I didn't have any at the time and so rather than like shy away from that and just not give any evidence I did a whole slide that said I know what you're thinking I haven't got YouTube experience and I gave all of the transferable skills that I've got from content and content creation that meant that I was still a good fit despite not having that on paper and I think that's an example where I play to my strengths but with my weaknesses I've demonstrated how I've learned time and time again to overcome them so that's one way I'd say I could have quite comfortably probably still got the job without going the extra mile but I did it anyway another one is an interview that we had when I was at University Academy 92 which is also owned by my current boss and someone came in with the Jenga set and it was part of this activity that they wanted to do and we all had to pick this Jenga apart it wasn't well executed it absolutely flopped we talk about it all the time still because it it just crumbled I love the intent I love the intention but you still have to execute these things really well and then I remember a guy that we hired called Matt who was head and shoulders above everyone else when it came to public speaking and he would in the interview in the simulation it was um you pretend the classroom full of 18 year old kids are there who are like the most judgmental age you can get and he got one of them up to dance as part of the the activity and it was really memorable because we were all laughing and he was outside of his comfort zone and the audience were and I think it's just thinking of ways to disrupt what could have been just a normal presentation at the front of the classroom and I think that you know is a microcosm of how people could approach interviews as a whole think about how you can disrupt the process to toe the line but make make a memorable moment of magic for the people in that room who might have met 100 people for that one role oh god I'm so tired I've just been talking to qualified prospects all day without any wait time how have you been doing it Because I've been cold calling people on my mobile, and I reckon I've spoke to one person.

7:22No, no, no. Stop that right now and use Nooks.ai. Why? What does Nooks do? It finds me the right people to call, and it calls them, and it connects with them over and over and over again. So you're saying it's Nooks.ai, and I can just be speaking to qualified decision makers all the time? No other better connection, right? Wow, Nooks.ai. I think that's brilliant. Let's stick on the bit about, like, admitting to the flaws. So that YouTube bit, I think is so powerful. If I was 16 to 18, though, and I'm thinking as you're talking about my partner, sister, who has been applying for jobs, getting rejected, has no experience.

8:00And the the idea of admitting that you aren't good enough or you don't have the experience is probably like so, so daunting when you look at this corporate world. So break that down for us. If you're thinking I'm not worthy or I'm not experienced enough, what advice would you give to those young people about how they should maybe get there first when it comes to admitting to their flaws?

8:23Isobelle Panton:Firstly, they should buy my e-book. No, I'm joking. Link in the bio. No, I'm joking. That's a great question. I think what people are unable to see when it comes to the confidence to do something like that is the times in which they've proved to themselves that they're capable. So let's say your partner's sister is wanting to go to journalism and she had previously never done any journalism until she did a degree prior to that she had no knowledge of journalism then she did a three-year degree or a one-year degree or an online course even and she finished with knowledge of journalism she's proven to herself that she was capable of learning something new and that's all it is to a hiring manager is we have to demonstrate that we're coachable and we're capable capabilities lie in lived experience proven experience where we can exhibit exactly what we've done it's really hard to do that as a graduate unless you've had hustle from an early age but that that coachable element I I love to see that in a person and I love to think I can mold that person to the culture that we have here whilst teaching them the way that we do things because say journalism for instance one newspaper writes differently to another and so actually having 10 years experience is sometimes harder than hiring someone with none because you have to get them around to your way of working so I think see the infancy of your craft as a superpower and then just do the things that you need to do to remind yourself of all the times you've learnt a lot, all the times you've proven that you can go from A, a novice, to B, a middle level learner and try and apply that to the application process.

9:43Isobelle Panton:One thing I do and I think I encourage all the people around me to do, especially my female friends, is ask your friends and family members, someone like you who sees a lot, lives a lot, hears a lot, ask them what they think your strengths are, ask them what they think your opportunities are, ask them where they think you could improve or what you could learn more about because I think that advocacy from your inner circle that you trust really does help reiterate what you're capable of and also makes you feel less um arrogant or showy when you write an application you feel a bit boastful get someone like you uncle jack to check that and say no you've spoke about yourself too small here you need to make it bigger this sounds a bit unfounded where can you give some evidence and get people to peer review your applications because i think that's the fastest way to remember that you are that good at what you're doing and what you're capable of.

10:31I think that's powerful advice. I want to talk about research. So if we think about research for an interview. So this is real top of mind for me at the moment. So we sat an interview this week and obviously we run an agency where, I mean, all you have to do is look on LinkedIn or look on the website. You know we cold call. That's all we talk about, cold calling. And a guy come to the interview and we're talking and he's doing a presentation and he's asking some questions and he just kept saying like LinkedIn campaigns, LinkedIn campaigns, right? And I'm like, LinkedIn campaigns. And I just said, I've got to ask you, how do you think we get results for our clients?

11:06He just looked at me and went, social media? That was a scot.

11:13Isobelle Panton:Put subtitles on that bit. And I was just like, I think we should like call it here because obviously there's like no level of research done. But as we know with like prospecting and sales as well, too much research can maybe like set you up for failure as well so how would you approach what if there's i've got a job interview with fucking do you know ikea tomorrow for their corporate team what what should i be researching what should i know what what am i trying to find out when i research firstly to address that context my biggest bugbear is when people turn up unprepared and they haven't done the research and some of the pushback i get on the internet when i say about thorough research it's we don't have the time if you apply for 100 jobs you might get 10 telephone interviews and you might get one in-person interview are you honestly telling me that you don't have the time to prepare for that one chance that you've got so it wouldn't have taken him a moment to really take him the time to understand it and you cannot tell me that he's got you know 55 other opportunities that look the same way so I think if you've got skin in the game you have to prepare and when it comes to preparation I'm pretty thorough but I think that's where we can leverage tools like AI to help us and podcasts and YouTube and so on to help us gather the information that we need in a faster manner.

12:24Isobelle Panton:Again I get a lot of stick for this because people say this is too much preparation but I think you should walk into the building and know who the owners of the business are, know your career history, I should know your main competitors because it allows me to differentiate my answers that you ask, my questions and answers, I should know your core customer or your ideal customer because everything points to that whether you're in admin, finance, sales, it doesn't matter which role you're going for i should know the challenges that the industry is facing as a whole even anecdotally two or three little anecdotes about ai and skill shortages and so on i would also know if there's anything commercial going on in your business so are you being acquired have you recently made redundancies or restructures because that affects how i answer my questions if you pose a question to me about um what would you do to maximize the number of cold calling leads we get today and i said i'd spend a million pound on this but you've just made 10 redundancies because you don't have the finances that would be a tone-deaf answer so I need to know the situation of where the business sits and once I've understood those those things I would fundamentally always know the company's core products and services because that is that is everything isn't it and so many people would turn up to an interview especially at UA92 and mispronounce the brand name which was so annoying and it's hard to say but how many interviews are you doing just learn it and they would also not fundamentally understand the core products and services in education and i think it's criminal to lose such such a strong opportunity i do think interview processes need to become a bit more informal a bit more comfortable so that they allow people to perform at their best level but at the same time we're stuck with the structures that we've got we're stuck with the interview processes that we're in so you have to prepare for what you're going to be met with in the interview room what about that so because it links nice with that floors piece that you mentioned then like not knowing how to pronounce the brand name properly or maybe putting two and together and getting five what about someone saying just before we start i want to be 100 bang on how am i pronouncing the brand name or i've done a little bit of research i'm not really sure how these two things connect would you recommend i like that i think it shows tenacity and confidence really um again that coachable thing you're willing to like learn something before a high pressure situation that's fantastic i think a company that has a brand name that's really hard to pronounce probably needs to have a think about it to be honest so like they're probably used to it but the amount that it used to happen in the university interviews I used to just think what are you what have you been researching how have you been preparing it was there it was clear as day so yeah going in and thinking how can I demonstrate that I'm not quite sure on something or I've got a bit of a weakness here let me get the correct answer I think that's a good way to go again I'll caveat my advice where by you know any the NHS as an interview structure or something really like the big four accountancy firms I don't think that I'd be met too well i'll be honest but like a more progressive dynamic company i think you'd be okay there yeah is it kpmg am i saying that right hey is it npmk um and then one of the things that i think people fall apart on and like we've had really amazing ones and then ones where you can just tell it's scripted or they've got nothing to say not a bit at the end of the interview where they go have you got any questions for us and then people like i know you can pull the thing out like that or they just don't have anything to say.

15:34We had a guy in my office in Bournemouth who his interview was like, all right. It was a bit all over the place. But then at the end, he won us all around with the questions that he asked, didn't he? It was just like total off of the dome, like asking you, what's the moment in the business where you felt the most worried it wouldn't work? I was like, shit, man, hire this guy. Wow. Therapy session. How do you think people should approach that bit?

15:56Isobelle Panton:The questions at the end. Yeah. Yeah. So there is nothing worse than when you get to the end of the interview and someone has five interview questions, you've already ran to time and there are five really mundane ones. What's your favourite thing about your job? What does a typical day look like when you've gone through it in depth? What's the culture like here when they've come across it, they've already met it? So I think those questions are really important because if someone sits in front of me and says they have no further questions, unless the interview was a two-way dialogue of question, question, question, question, I would be really disappointed because how are you telling me that I've not said one thing in that interview that poses a question that affects your future employment so I think the best questions are not the ones that would fit all interviews if that makes sense so I could prescribe three great questions to you now that you could ask in every interview but my honest advice is that in that interview what has Jack said that's piqued your interest enough to follow up and ask about it again at the end because that shows true active listening like anything in sales I'm going to circle back to a pain point or a pleasure point that you've referenced in the interview and I'm going to ask you about that at the end because it demonstrates twofold I'm interested I'm curious I want to get the job done but also I'm I'm actually like listening properly and I really really want to prove to you that I'm invested in the outcome of the company so I think the best questions are rooted in whatever the conversation was one great question that I think you could script which someone asked me Isabel she's called she said is there anything that I've done in the interview today that you're not satisfied with when it came to one of my answers if so could we remedy that now and there was one question she answered it really poorly the first time around i asked her again she absolutely smashed it and she got the job and i think like again it's that leaning into the vulnerability of weaknesses thing most people would bottle even asking that question and she asked it she got put on the spot again for a question that she struggled with before but because she had the time to think she smashed she did so well and also you kind of like got nothing to lose like may as well go big like go big or go home basically and she went big and she got the job so i've had variations of that before and i think the question that people ask is do you have any uh do you have any reservations or concerns on on the way i performed today i don't like your thoughts on that i think that's a lazy question i think it's a lazy question and i think most people aren't poised to answer it so it's like why are you even asking and also that that infers something behaviorally i think as opposed to a technical question so you can't remedy in that in that moment because that guy that was all over the show your feedback might be you're a bit all over the show i can't do anything in those last two minutes to let you know i'm not oh uh well i miss my boss and then do you know what i mean you're clutching but if you ask me something pertaining to my actual interview performance when it comes to a question then you can remedy that you can go back over that answer but a first impression is a first impression i don't think that's an effective enough question to ask at the end of an interview because i think you'd really struggle to unpick major weaknesses so you've interviewed well and And sadly, you've been rejected.

18:53So you get that rejection. I see loads and loads of stuff on LinkedIn about how we should be dealing with rejections, the best way, the worst way. So some people go through a five-stage process, then hear nothing, which is like an awful way to be rejected. So like, what advice do you give into people when it comes to like handling those rejections?

19:13Isobelle Panton:I try and remind people, it does not feel it at the time, but rejection is not personal. It is not personal that you didn't get that job. it is professional even though it feels like a slight on you and I truly think what's meant for you won't pass you by but that's really audacious advice to give to someone that's struggling to pay the rent for the next month because they're without a job I understand that that is not like a really nice altruistic way to think about the job hunt and what I would say is rejection isn't a reflection of your worth it's just a reflection of a process that you weren't fit for and I would argue that if you didn't get the job you've had a lucky escape because you weren't right for that company they weren't going to hire you and if they did you would have struggled because otherwise they would have picked you i do think that rejection can teach us a lot same in sales if you lose a big enterprise lead you don't just let it go you get the feedback as to why you didn't win it and i think a lot of people shy away from hearing that because it again it makes you feel a bit vulnerable a bit a bit open a bit broken really you have to admit to that but the companies that don't give feedback i think after a five-stage process i honestly think there should be some sort of law around it because it's criminal people spend money and you will leave time preparing for these interviews and then they just go no it would be so hard to automate a questionnaire where they just have to give some generic even answers around lack of preparation or something like that to help that person it wouldn't take two minutes to give to give rejection feedback but i think you should see it as an opportunity to channel that into your next interview i've never left an interview whereby i didn't write down every single question you asked me as soon as i left the room because if I got a second stage that would help me in it and also if I go for another interview in the same industry but a different company I can prepare better for those questions that meant I didn't get the job so I think taking rejection as a learning opportunity and not just licking your wounds because it's stupid and it won't help you is like the best way to go and also when it comes to job applications like it's a numbers game I hear people tell me they've applied for their dream job one application and they didn't get it and they're gutted and now they've got like paralysis by analysis they don't know what to do and I'm like well you only apply for one know that it's a numbers game you're going to apply for 100 jobs maybe before you even get an interview so i think normalizing rejection what i will say is a lot of graduates a lot of graduates have not experienced rejection in a corporate setting and so it's difficult for them at the start and i think it's a big confidence knock but you learn as you go through your career don't you that it's just part and parcel yeah definitely um i saw one the other day that was someone had done four stage interview and the response on the email was just maybe next time it was like sorry you're not being put through maybe next time like i've just done four interviews i think some companies like want you to like bite a bit of that and i just think it's disgusting i did hear i don't know who it was maybe jp morgan or someone like that does a thing where they don't give you the feedback so you don't get the if it's like a c-level job or something they don't give you the feedback so that you ring up and ask for it i quite like that and in doing that they're like right you've passed that's part of the process yeah yeah so um one of the things that i never quite know how to prepare people for me and jack both did like creative degrees i've got a music degree so i had even cooler hair than i have now at left university and i went in like a mismatched suit and all this sort of stuff yeah and then i just don't think i was very prepared for corporate culture and like the things that go on in pecking order and just the way that feels and because my expectation was so off there was like a moment of kind of existential crisis probably in those first few years of like oh my god is this what my life is now like i just hadn't prepared myself over what that actually feels like how do you tend to prepare people for that leap from university to right now you're actually in the corporate world this is what it feels like i think the onus needs to be on a lot of the companies that hire grads to prepare them for that assimilation like i think it's unfair to expect someone to come from a completely non-corporate background or pathway put them into induction indoctrinate them into whatever your corporate culture is and then just be like off you go I think there's a lot of value in giving that nuanced advice as an employer to be like by the way like this is the hierarchy this is what it looks like this is our culture and how it relates to who you ask for help and when you don't ask for help and yeah I think I think companies need to have a lot more sort of responsibility if you will to teach people how to act in their businesses because every business is different so it's hard for me to give that advice I would say going in put your best foot forward put you put you put yourself forward like maybe the one that you would take to church I don't go to church but the version of you that you would take to church or to your strict grandma or granddad's house and listen listen intently because that's how quickly you pick up like the little nuanced bits of politics and so on and so forth but I think a good rule of thumb is around trusting people and when not to and I think that's where people come unstuck in terms of they feel too comfortable in a culture really quickly they overshare with someone in the in the kitchen and then they lose their job or they piss someone off and they're like the card is marked from the start so something someone told me was around a traffic light system when you join a company you've got red amber green you look around and you know the reds you cannot share with them ever do not share with them anything that you don't feel comfortable sharing you have a professional relationship transactionally that's it amber they feel like you can trust them like you two but you can't i'm joking you're both you're both green flags and then green they've proven to you over a period a period of time that you know they're in your corner you sort of all fight in the same sort of corporate battle they've nothing to gain from sharing information that you might pass on to them and those are your people you might have two of those you shouldn't have like 10 because that's just you're yapping with ambers then and i think trust is a big thing that in particularly graduates they they're coming from university where they were with their peers all the time and that kind of translates to a corporate environment where you think you're with your peers all the time but you're not you're with your colleagues and it's a big social change but you're still expected to socialize and you're still expected to put your personality across and do it for the culture so I think it's quite a contradiction it's really difficult.

25:08Do you think there's a benefit to having a boss who's a green or is it better to have a boss who's a red so there's that boundary between you?

25:15Isobelle Panton:Green and at the start of your career green 100 % my first two bosses were definitely greens and I'm still in touch with them now they're both significantly like further ahead in their career than me older than me but had I not had them telling me stay away from him don't say that make sure you don't do this do this I think I wouldn't be sat here even talking to you today because I'm an oversharer by nature I don't know if you've known from this morning quick catch-up that we had um so I think a green boss at the start is really really good really really good and I feel sorry for anyone that has a red because it's not a culture of psychological safety and you're like on edge it's not a nice place to be zach thompson do you ever get sick of calling kebab houses and nannas when you're trying to speak to qualified decision makers i do well i think i might have found the solution 98 correct qualified data which means when you're cold calling you're always going to be speaking to the right person do you know what the solution is it can't be prospio can it prospio let me spell it for you p-r-o-s-p-e-o dot i-o how if you're looking for great qualified data then you know what the solution is prospio.io even with those green bosses though there must be like boundaries because i i know our first like our first two employees and they won't mind me saying this but i remember getting calls at like 11 o 'clock at night like just so you know i've had with the police and blah and I'm just like I'm your boss not your dad like yeah I can't I can give you some life advice along the way and as we progress through the business the boundaries are set so how how do you how how would you navigate those boundaries with with kind of senior peers yeah so if it's green if you've got a green person in front of their senior and you're like oh I've had a fight with my boyfriend and it's affecting my mood I feel like I need to tell them no if you can tell that if you if i want to confide in you jack and you're my boss but you're my friend and you would receive that information and still make sense to you then i need to tell it to you i don't need to tell it to you i only need to tell you the things that directly affect my work okay and if i can't say i've had a death in the family and i'm really upset and i can't come to work have to tell you that it affects my work but i'm not going to cry about it to you i'm going to cry about it to you and i think again we get a false sense of security when we've got a green senior leader that they want to know about everything they are carrying a big mental load as well they have their own life and then they have all you lot as direct reports and I don't think it's fair to expect people to to be responsible for our emotional needs outside of a nine-to-five anything that affects the job let me understand it but please don't talk to me about the fight you've had with your boyfriend unless it really does affect something that I can help you with that being said I have a few favorites who have always helped with they need help finding a flat to rent and they don't drive so I'll drive them around there are some genuine relationships that come out of work genuine friendships but I don't think we should have a one-size-fits-all I think you should lead with caution on both sides because you open yourself up if you're helping with someone who's in a police matter you know you're exposing yourself and your business to reputational risks that you don't even need to touch and similarly if the colleague is confiding in you that's something that could penalize them in a performance review that they don't even realize so I think keeping things work and play very separate one physical thing that I do that everyone seems to understand is at the end of the day when you take your key out of your car or you tap out on the tube or you put your key in your front door that anchor signifies the end of work and the start of home and when you get into your home you're not speaking to anyone at work about work because that's a separate entity to your life that funds your home life your home life should be its own identity it should have a great time you shouldn't be thinking about work and I think that's a good differentiator if I get home and I'm thinking about texting you about something that's going on that day just leave it till the next day you're in your home state of mind i mean that that's great advice i've let well let's let's talk about twat bosses right i've worked and somebody somebody once got me and i think it was ironic but a secret center they got me a t-shirt that said twat boss it wasn't ironic no it wasn't it was me and they were gone two months later um so you're talking there about these boundaries is I I've worked in places where I'm getting messages in the evening I remember I was I was looking through some old notes the other day I remember getting a call from my big big boss at half half seven on a work day so where are you I was like I'm I'm getting ready to like leave why he was like well I'm in early and I'm doing loads of stuff and I wanted to get ahead of the day so can you get in I was like wait a minute am I the twat here like you're not like you've not let me know and you've just expected me or like getting messages late at night like doing this can you do this like all of these like blurring the lines like I think it's great advice for the the next generation like you've got to know your boundaries yeah how how do you navigate those twat bosses that don't know the boundaries I have good bosses that I would come in early for if they rang me if it was a last minute opportunity I would go in because they've earned my trust and respect and I know that it'll yield something for me and that's really all corporate is like what can I get out of it a twat boss that asks that of me you do it one time that becomes the expectation so it's just small little cues that are quite like you communicate back with them in the same medium that they've messaged you on so maybe it's a phone call maybe it's a text maybe it's an email can you do this it's 7 p.m at night you're putting the kids to bed you can't do it absolutely I'll get on it in the morning like going back and maybe job security is something we all worry about and you worry that you might lose your job but that is not a comfortable job to keep anyway if it means it's impeaching on your family time and you actually can't sustain it so I think setting those boundaries from the start even if you're you know further ahead in your corporate career if your boss is horrible you're not going to want to do things for them they'll know what sort of relationship you you have they're seeing what they can get away with and you have to tell them that they can't and it's it is about putting your foot down but it feels uncomfortable especially if you're in a toxic culture where you're worried about your job all the time but I would say there's no such thing as job security you could go in at seven o 'clock that morning and piss the boss off anyway and still get fired so are you better off protecting your peace and your time with your family or yourself do you think there's a thing of having the tough conversation or is it just not worth it about to just get another job you know it's like oh i've looked at my contract and i was under the impression it's this but is it is it something else i think you could have that conversation and things could change but your cards are marked and i think if a culture is that way where they're just going to run you ragged and they don't care about your development or you are being you i'd like to think that all three of us could be the change we want to see in the world and revolutionize that culture from the ground up but it's not worth your time because you're not a shareholder so why do you even care to stay i think the same applies to escalating something to hr if you're having a if you're having an issue hr work for the business all my best friends are in hr so i love hr i love just to say but they work for the business and they have their own jobs to protect they are not your ally they are not your friend and so you could take something to hr or you could refer your boss to your contract all you're doing is saying like i don't agree with this like i'm putting my foot down but i don't think you're going to improve a situation after that so i always say you can have those tough conversations if you're comfortable with confrontation and you think there'll be some result but you should do it concurrently with looking for another job so that if it goes sour or it gets uncomfortable you've got a plan b always have a plan b okay let's let's flip it and we'll save some time for horror stories at the end okay um so i'm i'm in a job that i like i'm seeing lots of green flags and working with lots of greens um and i think okay i've been here for like six months now is it time to start asking for more responsibility a pay rise those types of things what is the best way to to ask for and frame that conversation yeah um six months i would say you should start taking on some responsibilities yourself so on your own initiative without asking and i don't mean like doing the board reports i mean just like do something little that demonstrates you're going the extra mile that you're not being paid for yet i think that's a big mindset shift a lot for a lot of young people you do the work before you get paid for it not the other way around you dress for the job you want not the job you have but in terms of framing that conversation with a manager or your manager's manager it's just a really positive i'm really enjoying my time here i'd really love to talk about how i can grow with the business in the next six months and can we put some time in the diary to do so people find that so nerve-wracking to ask your manager for help about your development they're paid to help you they're paid more than you to help you with your development you hold them to account for your development but similarly no one cares as much as your growth about your growth as you do so you have to take the matter into your own hand and then you sit down in the meeting it's been diarized for a week and you go to them with three or four things that you think you're really good at two things that you think you need to improve on and an ideal outcome for the next six months you have done that research and that is what the job might look like in six month time what the salary might look like in six month time because you've looked on linkedin and you've looked on glass door and you've benchmarked what you think you should be earning in the market and you give them all the information you're not asking them to guess you're not asking them to go away and do anything you're providing them with i'll do this can you promise me this in six months and that's the easiest way to have that conversation go in prepared go in with a presentation if you will of all the things that you're really good at the numbers you've done for the business the customer satisfaction rate that you've improved it doesn't matter what department you're in you have to demonstrate that you've contributed something but being there for six months is not enough of a reason how do you navigate that follow-up then so i've had that conversation and the boss goes yeah yeah okay this is brilliant thanks i'll uh i'll have a little look at this i'll chat to i'll chat to zach about it yeah then what first of all always remember that a pay or a promotion conversation always will involve multiple stakeholders because even if it's a one uh one person founded business they still have to consult the finance department to check that you know they can afford it and so on so know that there'll be multiple versions of that conversation over time maybe suggest a check-in every month for those six months that it's just centered around progression and promotion always follow up on an email afterwards to say hi jack thanks for your time just then blah blah blah blah really looking forward to the potential promotion in december really hope to make you proud and continue working really well with this company you've got it documented it and then i would i would again sales but like maybe we all need a bit more audacity diarize that meeting for six months from then um is his promotion review so it's in the diary and then that's all you can do you can do so much but businesses do change one of the biggest frustrations in my two companies ago was that we get kpis and targets we were all in sales and then another department would not do the numbers so everything got moved and the goalposts for our bonuses would all get moved and everyone got really pissed off about that but it's just business and i used to have to try and explain that to them they might promise you a promotion then there'll be a recession and then they might have to you know make 20 people redundant your promotion will not be a priority such is life and i think people really struggle with that i get a lot of messages about it i've been promised a promotion um and now they've pulled it because they've made it they've restructured and they've made redundancies yeah because they're having to survive so you're not going to get one read look for a new company that's all you can do in that situation and most people do and and it's a shame and i've done that before and i was talking about it earlier but like i jumped from a company because i felt let down and i got promised something and i didn't went somewhere else and i was like oh this is i've really made the wrong choice it's so hard where you're in your 20s but it's like you just want to shake people and let's talk i don't even know if it's a word but let's talk about the abbreviation pip okay it's a performance improvement plan if you are i remember my partner coming home once and she'd been put on a pip and it's like she was just like i don't really get it whatever but if you are put on a pip how do you how do you navigate that because that can feel like a real dig it can be you're not good enough it can be like a rejection within the company it can feel like they're trying to get you out the business how should you accept that and then how do you navigate that i can think there are companies that will say they use a pip fairly and to protect the employee and the company but a pip is nothing but protecting the company and I really feel in most cases I think there was a statistic about 80 % of people that were on a pip got let go so I would I would you know err on the side of caution and look for a new job I would do the pip I would document everything I would hold my manager to account for the things they say they're going to help me for I would go above and beyond to try and turn around the scenario but purely because if I'm interviewing for other jobs it's easier for me to say that I'm performing than it is to say I'm on a pip when i'm in an interview so i think people find this to be a controversial piece of advice but if you get put on a pip that's alarm bells to me and i would be looking for something else and i know that's really negative and maybe not the answer you're looking for but i just think it's so hard to turn around a negative perception of you once even if you do well you overcome the pip you're like oh god what if my numbers dip again next month it's just not a nice place to be if it's something that's really fixable i don't know maybe maybe you just hadn't done enough um I'm trying to think of a reference other than sales.

38:13Isobelle Panton:Maybe you hadn't done enough of the payroll that month and you were in finance. You just didn't get the volume quite right, but you had annual leave. That's circumstantial things. You could fix that the next month. But if your PIP is pertaining to something around your contribution to the corporate culture or something like that, that it's like fundamentally you are who you are and you can't change, I would take that as a sign to look for something else. And then what about people who are, maybe they've got the wrong job like they've made a bad move and they then leave and then maybe they do it again and they leave but then they find the right job for a bit then they have to and there's kind of a few years of just trying to find the right job but inevitably your linkedin or your cv looks a little bit like three months here six months there etc is that still as big a con as it was 15 years ago i really hate people for being so critical of that i used to work at a company that if they saw anything less than a year they'd like would not see you they wouldn't see you at final stage and they'd be really strong candidates you know there's so much around circumstances with CVs that I just don't agree on because if someone has to care for someone in their family or they get ill or they are you know raising children it's never represented in a way that looks good for them I think the saving grace for most people now is that COVID meant a lot of people had that job hoppy thing but on the flip side linkedin there's one guy i can think of and every other month it's like hi open to work landed a new job open to work landed a new job and it keeps happening i feel like jack knows who i'm talking about because he gave me a funny start and so my perception of him is like job hopper ultimate job hopper i think we do well sometimes to think right this is my third job in two and a half three years let me bed in let me see how it's going before i make public announcements about what it is to work there sorry your question was about the cv though i think it's softened the idea of job hopping has softened a little bit but i think it's our responsibility as candidates to be able to jump into that interview and wax lyrical as to why i went left there to there left there to there when you did that and you can't articulate it that's when i think you give people um the people are nervous about hiring you i always say though if you're in the room despite a job hopping on your cv then they don't care that much they've not cared enough to not shortlist yet so you have to just be able to explain why it happened right so is that different than then your youtube point before in terms of like you you know that's in there so i'll lead with it yeah is it different than to say you're probably wondering why these two jobs i was only there for three months let me just get there first i don't think that's a problem at all again depending on the nature of the interview if it's quite candid and laid back then like i don't think that's an issue i think that'll be what they're thinking if you've got loads of job hopping and if they can say why have you applied for this role you could explain why you've applied for this role and then you could also articulate how this role represents everything you're looking for in a culture as you can see from a cv i've been exposed to quite a few cultures and blah blah and nip that in the bud from the start yeah so we're living in this era thanks to people like stephen bartlett simon squibble all these different entrepreneurs of like hustle porn okay and like everyone's thinking i need a side hustle i need a corporate job but i also need to be doing amazon fba i need to be drop shipping i need to be bitcoin and i need to be investing all of these different it was quite cool when i said bitcoin bitcoin yeah i've never heard someone say like i don't think like is it yeah bitcoin bitcoin and so for for young people that are navigating it and they're trying like that they they're trying to navigate this i want to be a bit of an entrepreneur but i also probably should get a job like what advice would you give to them should Should they try it because they're young and go out and do it?

41:51Or should they get their foot in the ladder and like have a job? Like what, what advice, like if it was a young Stephen Bartlett, would you say, actually, no, you should be getting a corporate job or you should be like hustling and trying to make it?

42:01Isobelle Panton:Yeah, I will say I love Stephen Bartlett and I love the journey that he's on. But I think the difference is he's a role model and Simon and all, and Stephen Sinek and Gary Vee, they're all like late 30s, 40s, 50s. And so as a role model to a 20 year old, it's really great aspirational content, but it's not that real a lot of the time because a lot of us are facing the reality of needing to get a job because your mum and dad kicked you out and you've got bills to pay I actually think I can't remember where I listened to it on about the best founders have been employed before they become founders and I personally wouldn't want to work for a founder that's never had a job in any context because I think there's a lot to be learned from being within a corporate structure of how to treat people and how not to treat people and often founder-led business I businesses I have found they dictate the culture from their own crazy reference of life and a lot of it is not appropriate or professional so i think on that basis my advice for young people is go and work in someone else's company let them take all the risk whilst you like figure out whether you are even entrepreneurial because a lot of people aren't like we're like pushing this hustle porn to the whole nation when a lot of people don't care they want to just earn a tidy living and go home and their purpose is not their work and that's absolutely fine I used to really struggle with that notion because I am I am quite hustle pony I'll be honest and I used to think like why isn't everyone else not like that I grew up to appreciate the person that works at the corner shop their entire career that's really happy to see every customer every day has one at life as much as me who wants to do 150 different things so I think figure out what you actually enjoy and what you're passionate about do you are you driven by money or status and things like that or do you just want a nice quiet life that you can go home to at the end of the day i think that's a fundamental thing that young people have to do figure out what is success to them even if it iterates every five years work in someone's business learn from the people around you learn by osmosis ask questions and then you can think about a side hustle and so on and so forth if you can do both at the same time at 18 hats off to you but i just don't think that's a reality for most people so then if i get into this employment job and how am i setting the scene to like because i think about like if i was 21 now and like i want to i want to go in i want to prove myself and i want to get promoted so quickly and i want to be the boss within six months all these different things what what should you be doing that sets the scene realistically to to prove that you're a hard worker and stuff like that but actually i'm i'm sure there can be like a bit of a try hard thing where just know your place for a minute you've only been here how would you help them navigate like setting their stall in the best way when that when they enter into the corporate world I'm a diehard tryhard this is maybe the worst person I've been teacher's pet since I was a small child I've never had a detention in my life which is interesting for someone with such a dry sense of humor isn't it that I would actually be a really good person um but I think trying hard is you have to like be introspective and know when you're actually good at something because if you flog in a dead horse with I want to be a manager but you're terrible with people as an example then trying hard in that space is actually not where your strengths lie so it is being a bit self-aware things I've done to try hard because I'm a diehard try hard to get promoted aren't necessarily all related to my actual job so Friday Bears was a big thing five years ago wasn't it like I would go to them and I would talk to people I played for the staff netball team because I was really good at netball and it meant that everyone else all the other women that played on the team who were quite senior or knew worked adjacent to really senior people would be like Izzy was mint last night on at netball I would try really hard at netball I would get player of the week most weeks and that that became like people's perception of me was like cares about the culture does the extras social wise athletic or like you know pushes herself and that became people's like narrative about me so I think it's about how you create this personal brand identity internally to make people realize that you're on a path for success within their business so it's like how can you identify yourself as top talent that is not just performance based so you know you do 100 dials a day for three hours call time doing 200 dials a day for six hours call time might impress someone once but it's not sustainable and you can't do it every single day but you could fix something in the sales funnel that you've noticed from feedback from customers and therefore save the business quite a lot of money or quite a lot of time or you could see that new starters join and they don't bed into the team straight away because they struggle with how to use the soft phone on the computer you could come up with a 15 minute soft phone induction that helps all those people but you're telling me as a manager or a director that you're going the extra mile even though i'm not asking you to so i think i don't know if i've answered your question but the try hard try hard in things outside of just your actual job that stand you apart from someone else because as you know in sales or marketing or any any facet of the business is you can have a really good month one month but then the next month could be absolutely shit and someone can come in and overtake you so that's not a sustainable way to demonstrate how different you are i think you have to do different things our books are now open if you are sat there wondering where your next sale is going to come from wondering why your pipeline isn't full of meetings with qualified decision makers look no further because the we have a meeting team has got you covered just go to www.wehaveameeting.com speaking of books if you are looking to get better at sales communication and making more money our book sales is therapy is available on amazon now what what made you start posting this out there then in terms of like sharing it with people more broadly on instagram and stuff career advice everyone always came to me with their cvs and so on to help them with and some of it would frustrate me because i think you actually know you actually know this you just don't have like the tools or the confidence to speak about yourself so highly and if anyone asked that you know people at my wedding 200 people I probably helped at least half of that room with like a job application or a cv and I have spent much of my 20s saying what am I good at I knew I was good at talking to people and all that stuff but it never felt like a quantifiable thing that would allow me to create a little bit of a business off the side of it so it just it's come from I genuinely enjoy if you call me up tomorrow and said you got a job as a result of my help I would be so happy like that is actually like such a big driver for me especially when working mums return to the workplace and they navigate a pay rise like that makes that brings me so much intrinsic joy and then in my head I was thinking god I do this a lot I must be able to monetize it and so that was basically where it came from but truthfully when I was at the university a lot of our work was helping widen participation into education helping young people that had no role models in the family that had ever been to university they were on free school meals um they lived in the poorest parts of our community and i think those are the people that have no reference and role model so really i started this because it's a culmination of the thing that i'm good at the thing that i already do for most people the passion that i feel from helping people and a desire for a side hustle because i love hustle porn if i'm really honest what's the top two or three questions that you get asked um

49:18Isobelle Panton:people are always very concerned about resignation they always are scared to resign and but it's not for what you think it's like I don't want to let my manager down do you think it's the right thing to do and that question is I really hate to advise on it because I'm not in your scenario but you've resigned from jobs before you'll resign from jobs again and if your manager resign tomorrow then you'd be left without that manager anyway so a lot about resignation a lot about pay and how to negotiate pay especially from women because i think it feels alien to have those conversations and what's the last one this is the most common one i've finished an interview i think it went well what do you think i wasn't there my advice to that is to pretend it went well let you let yourself know it went well but carry on like it didn't carry on applying like it didn't carry on looking for jobs like it didn't and then if it's come good then fantastic but there's the the odds aren't in your favor really from an interview perspective.

50:13Isobelle Panton:So you shouldn't act like you've backed the job. Have you ever got a job and you're like, you know, you've got that, you know, but you're not going to be cocky about it because you're a bit scared that that will then jinx the outcome. So I think that humble approach is really, is really important. But yeah, so many people like they said this and then they said this. So I think I've got it. But what do you think? Oh, I can't. I don't want to say. Don't know. Sorry. Your DMs must be filled with corporate horror stories. when I say corporate horror stories what are maybe one or two anecdotes that that spring to mind straight away from either your experience or others um because I am a brown female there's a lot around sort of microaggressions racism sort of casual sexism and not knowing how to navigate that I'll be honest I struggle to give advice on that because I've always struggled to navigate that too like I said about HR earlier sometimes things are feelings and hard to articulate as facts so I really my heart actually also goes out to those people because I can put myself in their shoes straight away so I think the toxic side of corporate really comes through my messages and a lot of the time my advice is still to people you know by all means hold that person to account by all means go to HR seek legal help if you need to but you need to get out of there because it's not it's not worth it so that was like that's the first message and then other toxic things is typically around micromanagement or being looked over for a promotion, that's quite common.

51:38I absolutely love this conversation. Thank you so, so much for joining us. Is it finished? We're coming to the end. This is like a break from my brain. Is there anything that you've not said that you want to say? I just love your podcast, guys. It's great.

51:48Isobelle Panton:The Rory Sutherland app is my favourite one. But it was going on about jeans and I've got jeans on today. A lot of people have got it. He's grill about that in the comments. He wears chinos. I don't think. we love you um so thank you so much for joining us i think this has been a master class i think for any young person that's like navigating that world i think there's so much that they can take away um if you were to leave people that have listened to this whole episode with one question what should they ask themselves if there was no social media no online concept right and no one knew what you were doing what would you try if you couldn't fail and people find out about it what would you try what would you do because that is your thing like that's the thing that you need to try and pursue in your lifetime because that is the thing that i think would bring you true happiness do you have the answer my brain went to fishing but i don't know why i think that's more like a hobby thank you so much thank you