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Welcome to Career Convos with Nikki, where I share my experiences as both a leader and an employee in corporate America. In these episodes, I cover everything from finding a job and landing that promotion to managing employees and navigating the unwritten rules as a black woman and disruptive millennial in the workplace. I also answer career questions from my audience, offering advice and insights to help you find professional clarity and pursue your career goals with confidence. I'll talk about accounting a lot as that's my area of expertise but this career advice you can apply regardless of what field you work in. You're in charge, and you deserve it!
Hey, y'all. It's Nikki Winston. Welcome back to another episode of the Working Mamas podcast. Super excited that y'all are tuned in for this episode today. I just have to jump in and really address this topic on today's episode of career combos.
Speaker 1:We're gonna talk about pulling coattails or getting your coattail pulled because I have seen some things these last couple of weeks on social media that people who work in companies have been posting about their employers. And I had to pull a couple coattails, and I always do so with love. Let me just say that. I am not a fan of coaching, of punitive coaching. Anytime.
Speaker 1:I'm coaching somebody I'm going to do so with love because a lot of times the things that happen happen because somebody doesn't know, or like I said before, when I talked about those unwritten rules of corporate America. So that is an article that, sparks a lot of conversation on LinkedIn. So check it out on LinkedIn. You can also go to my blog at nickwinstoncpa.com called the virtual coffee break, and check out all of my career convos discussions, on the blog site. But let me set my table and get some lime water.
Speaker 1:My throat is super dry. And I always have some type of citrus water. It feels better already. I took a gulp of water with some fresh lime juice, and my throat feels better already. But I just had to talk about this today because I've pulled 2 or 3 coattails in the last week and a half.
Speaker 1:And, I mean, I don't know why with the world that we live in now that people feel like everything has to be if it's not on the Internet, it didn't happen kinda thing. If it's not on Instagram, it didn't happen. So there were a couple of instances where I've had people on Instagram and Facebook say things like my job is this or my job is that. Saying something means something derogatory. Something that if I saw one of my people that work for me saying that, I will be calling them into the office the next day.
Speaker 1:And so this one comment in particular that I saw, I replied to the person who who, you know, has been following me for a long time. I follow follow them as well and, we've been connected for a while. So I'm used to seeing her post and the type of things that she post, but this particular one. Just really threw me off because for 1, I wasn't expecting that from her being because I know the type of person that she is. I wasn't expecting it from her but again like I said before a lot of this goes back to people saying things and doing things on social media not realizing the impact that it's having.
Speaker 1:So when I reached out and replied, I said, don't let your employer hold this against you. Don't let this come back and bite you because there might be somebody following you from your company that you don't even know who's following you. Or there might be somebody one of your coworkers might be seeing this and report it back to your manager or anything. And so now they can hold this comment against you either explicitly or implicitly. Implicitly as in you go back to work, and a few months go back, and now you wanna talk about getting a promotion.
Speaker 1:And even though you might be qualified, even though they might have tossed your name around as the next person to be promoted, this one little thing can cost you all of that. So that's what I mean when I say implicit. They might say, oh, well, we're not ready to promote you or whatever reason you got turned down for the promotion. And they might even give you a reason why. But if somebody from your company saw what this person posted, I'm pretty sure they put that in the back pocket to say, okay.
Speaker 1:This gone you know, we're gonna have to keep this in mind when we have any any type of next moves involved when it comes to this person. So I say all of that to say is be mindful of what you are posting on your social media accounts because you have to understand that people have their own perceptions, and 5 people can look at the same picture and have 5 different takeaways from the picture. So if you are in the office from 8 to 5 trying to be this professional corporate person and build this brand, and then you on social media after hours wilding out, that's that's that's damaging for your brand, even if you don't intend it to be. And and that's the other thing where the line is very blurred is when you're posting things for fun versus when you cross the line. So perfect example is somebody goes on a vacation with their friends and they go off to Mexico, because we all love to go to Mexico.
Speaker 1:I know I do. And we decide to go to the all inclusive resort and go to the bar because all the drinks are already paid for and you get fucked up, and then you start taking all these drug photos and selfies, and then you feel like you wanna post it online just to say you're living your best life. Now your friends might be heartening your pulse. Yeah, girl. Get it.
Speaker 1:All this and that. But what happens when your boss sees that? I mean, you might have a boss who's like, girl, have fun or whatever. And they keep it moving. But, again, like I rolled about on LinkedIn, these unwritten career rules, you don't know how that's going to impact you.
Speaker 1:But to know that it can have a damaging effect on your brand is all the more reason why you need to think twice about it. Everything damn Internet. The Internet really is undefeated. Despite everything we see on Instagram and social media, like, there is everything is not for public consumption. Every move you make does not have to be on your Instagram feed.
Speaker 1:I mean, we live in this world now where it's like, if it ain't on Instagram, it didn't happen. And that's not the way that it should be because we miss out on so many moments just by feeling like we have to publicize every single thing that we're doing and the one thing that that really bothers me the most with this point is when people go to concerts Now I remember because because I'm a I'm a I'm a eighties baby. I remember we went to concerts, and we were so hyped. If you wasn't there, you just wasn't there. And now it's like, you don't even have to buy a ticket to a concert.
Speaker 1:You can just get on somebody's feed, and they go and laugh from the whole damn concert. And it's like, well, hell. I was there. I was pretty much there because I I was able to watch it from this person's feed who had these good ass seats. Like, how can you possibly enjoy the concert and that artistry if you more concerned about if you got a good view for the world to see.
Speaker 1:So that's just just proves my point that everything does not have to be put out to the world. We hear people say all the time, I'm moving in silence. Well, if you was moving in silence, you wouldn't you will be silent right now. Don't don't publicize an announcement. You know, you don't have to announce everything.
Speaker 1:I think my leak went either did a live or a video or something where she talked about this a couple of months ago. Like, you don't have to announce everything. Just do it. Or better yet, let us let us find you. Let us find out what you've done, If it's worthy of being sound instead of putting things out just to say that you've done it because now you watered down the product.
Speaker 1:There's nothing for us to look forward to. You've hyped it up all week, all month on social media. Now it's like, oh, okay. Okay. Just put it out there.
Speaker 1:Let us let us see your your talents and and and what you bring to the table without constantly shoving it down our throats. I went off on a bit of a tangent. I just I just had to to say that because I it bothers me that that we are still having to have the have these behavior correcting correcting conversations. And that's a huge part of why I started hashtag career combos is because I had my coattail pulled a lot, a lot, a lot. And sometimes in the moment, you can't really see it, but then when you fast forward a couple years, you get some more experience under your belt.
Speaker 1:You moved up a level or 2, and you start to think back to those earlier days in your career. I did, the midyear review podcast. Let me see which episode that is. But I did the midyear review podcast where I was really just reflecting on the progress I've made in my career. Like, me, it was me 2,009 versus me in 2019.
Speaker 1:I had kept my performance reviews because I felt like from from, like, 2,009, 2010, most of my time at GE, I kept my performance reviews because I felt like this is gonna be good information for me down the road. So episode 8. Episode 8 of the Working Mamas podcast. It's midyear review, me 10 years ago. So I did a flashback to what I was doing 10 years ago and even just reading the reviews that I wrote about myself was, like, my sentences were so just run on and verbose and had all this corporate jargon.
Speaker 1:But hold on, more water. But that's the environment that I was operating in. I'm telling y'all II need y'all to understand what a splash of water with some fresh lime juice will do just for your throat, just refresh you and and snap you back real quick. But I took myself so serious back then and fast forward to 2019, and I'm like, girl, stop. I didn't like a lot of the feedback that my manager gave me.
Speaker 1:And looking back at it, she was actually a 100% correct. So these little mistakes and missteps that that y'all are making now, you have a chance to recover from those, And it's okay to ask questions at work when you don't understand. A lot of people look at it like, well, if I ask questions, they don't think I don't know what I'm doing. Well, you probably don't. And would you rather ask questions and get clarity so that you do know what you're doing or would you rather sit there with so much pride that you work yourself into creating a disaster?
Speaker 1:So now your boss and your peers have to undo the mistakes that you made all because you didn't wanna ask the question because you felt like, air quotes, felt like that was gonna make you look like you didn't know what you were doing when you actually didn't know what you were doing. So it's okay to ask ask. I don't know why it's so hard for me to say that word. It's okay to ask questions at work regardless of what level you are. It's it actually does the opposite for me As a manager of people, it does the opposite for me.
Speaker 1:You coming to ask me a ton of questions, it's like, okay. She he or she is is genuinely interested in what's going on. They really are trying to understand this process down to the root. I respect that. So, again, I'm a reference it again.
Speaker 1:The uncareer, the uncareer. The unwritten career rules that you need to know. Read that blog post. It's on my website, nickwinstoncpa.com. It's also one of my articles that I published on LinkedIn, and I also get questions from LinkedIn every week.
Speaker 1:It's like clockwork. Every Friday, I get this notification on LinkedIn that says you are seen as an expert in your field and these people are looking for career advice for you from you. So I click on my link, and I have, like, maybe 5 or 6 people who have posed all of these different questions to me about their careers. Let me actually I'll be trying to be interactive up in here. So let me see if I can find one.
Speaker 1:I think because I responded to them oh, here's one. So on LinkedIn career advice, you are seen as an expert in your field. Some people are looking for advice that you can help. So when I click the button, there's a person, who wants advice on career advancement within the finance corporate field. So I'll send her a response to that.
Speaker 1:Another question I have is an accounting student who says, how should I ensure that my work and my contributions get visibility within my company? What new skills do I need to move ahead? There's another person, accounting student. I'd like advice on strategies for finding entry level accounting jobs so I can gain some experience while I complete my degree. These are good.
Speaker 1:And there's another person who just wants advice on networking and promotions, which to me, I I think those 2 go hand in hand. So that's that's a great question as well. Another person, new accountant staff accountant wants advice on career developmental activities I should be pursuing. There's a lot this week. There's another person who just wants advice on how to get the right job.
Speaker 1:So, I mean, varying levels of experience. There are some people who are still in college, some people who have just graduated, some analysts and staff accountants work in multiple industries who all have these these questions about their career. So that's a big part of why I do these these career combos episodes as well as my blog post because because I like to share my experiences. A lot of these questions that I get asked are the same questions that I was asking myself in my career, and I'm fortunate to have some amazing mentors and sponsors and advisers who have who have been a sounding board, who have given me advice on a number of different situations, how to move certain things I should be negotiating when I get to a certain level, how to be a leader versus being somebody's boss or somebody's manager, and just so many different things. How to move and shake in corporate America, especially as a black girl.
Speaker 1:There there's a lot. That's really where the the blog post, the unwritten career rules you need to know. That's really where that came from. Is I figured out all these rules through what I call baptism by fire. By walking into it, stumbling, and learning the hard way is how I figured out a lot of these things.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. I know it says a b and c, but you're really not supposed to do that. There's just certain things and I want people to be aware of those so that they don't have to make those same missteps that I made. So I shared 5 things, 5 unwritten career rules that we all need to know as millennials, as professionals working in corporate America. That's another big topic is millennials in the workplace.
Speaker 1:You know, they they almost take this millennial versus boomer thing to like like it's a beef between between generations. But there's a lot of things, especially in the corporate setting, that were established that are conducive to well, not I should say not conducive to millennials. We are when I came out of school, I mean, it was a heavy, heavy conversation about millennials and how our predecessors would work 8 to 5, 9 to 5, all day in the office, whereas we want more we wanna be more geographically independent. And a lot of us adopt this mindset of, I have a phone, I have a laptop, I can work for from anywhere. So what's the problem?
Speaker 1:I don't need to be tied down to an office for 40, 50, 60 hours a week because there are other things outside of this office that are important to me. So when you when you walk into a a traditionally corporate setting with a nontraditional mindset, then you learn a lot of things. You learn them fast, and some of them you learn the hard way. And I don't want people to to make avoidable mistakes just because they didn't know something. And I actually love answering these questions because, I I mean, as a leader and a manager of people, a lot of these things I can relate to because I've been on that side.
Speaker 1:But even as a manager of people, I also have a manager so there's there's this two way coin when you become a leader, you have to manage your direct reports workload as well as managing your own, and that in itself can become overwhelming so knowing how to prioritize and really sharpen in those soft skills are really really important when it comes to becoming a leader and just moving up period. I mean the technical is is important but my philosophy is technical things can be taught. Right? I would much rather hire a new accounting student who's or new accounting graduate who's very green professionally and has the ambition and the drive and the desire to learn and and come in and affect some change. I would take that person in a heartbeat over somebody who has worked in accounting for 7 years and hasn't really progressed and is not really motivated, just looking for a job.
Speaker 1:I mean, I would take that first candidate in a heartbeat because I can teach you about financial statements and how to look for holes in the p and l and how to reconcile an account and how to implement new accounting standards. I can teach somebody that, but I can't teach you to show up on time, to take initiative to do things, to, you know, be excited about being at work. I can't teach that. That has to be innately residing within you. So it's not all about the experience.
Speaker 1:And I learned that when I learned that, I changed my LinkedIn, What is it called? Your bio? So y'all ever been on LinkedIn and you look at somebody's profile and you see, like, detail oriented results, driven subject matter expert with your about section. I'm looking at mine. So I changed my about section when I said, this ain't really me.
Speaker 1:If somebody saw my LinkedIn profile and I really wanted them to know me, like strip away titles, licenses, all of that, What would I want somebody to know about me when they click my LinkedIn profile? So I wrote my profile myself in first person, meaning I, me, using those pronouns because I also see people who have bios in 3rd person. Maybe they have a rationale for that that I don't understand. But my thing is my LinkedIn profile is about me and this is who I am because what and again when I hire people, you know, I'm taking this from a from a hiring manager perspective. When I hire people, I want to know the person behind the suit because 99% of the people who come to interviews with suits on do not wear suits on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:Some of them have pulled this suit out the back of the closet. Some of them probably went and bought a suit just for purposes of the interview. But my thing is the suit is not doing the job and the suit is not why I called you for an interview. I wanna know who you really are so I can know what I'm really getting. And I always said when I started hiring people at the Winston CPA Group, my thing would be come as you are so I can know what I'm getting.
Speaker 1:Like, let's save each other's time. If you don't wake up and wear suits every day, then why would you put on this facade just to come and have this interview with me? And the other thing is when I interview, people have I've heard some of the craziest things. People have told me they have been afraid after my interviews that my interviews are really really hard. They're not.
Speaker 1:It's just me getting to know you and what you can bring to the table and how you can fulfill a need that I have. So you might hear some non traditional questions. Matter of fact, you will hear some non traditional interview questions if you're sitting across the table from me applying for a job. And I mean I do that because again, I need to know who you really are as a person. Like, are if you mess something up, are you gonna get mad and just, like, just go ham on the whole department?
Speaker 1:Or are you just gonna say, damn, I fucked up. Let me fix it and move on? I need to know who you are, and I need to know how you operate and how you work. And you can't always get that off the resume or from a normal interview because the resume and the interview is all about playing up your talents. Talking about everything great that you've done, the amazing people in your life.
Speaker 1:But tell me about the shitty manager that you had 2 jobs ago. How did you manage to go into that office every day? That's what I wanna know. And I did a episode about failure being an option. Because people always say failure is not an option.
Speaker 1:Failure is not an option, but it is on the CPA exam and in real life. And the failure is an option is episode 10. Episode 10 of the Working Mama's podcast. And I say that failure is an option because people feel like if a hiring manager knows something bad or something derogatory about a previous job, that they're not gonna hire them, or that means that they can't do the current job. I mean, sometimes things just don't work out.
Speaker 1:There are great managers and there are shitty managers. There are great companies and there are toxic companies. So sometimes you just get jammed up in the wrong place. And it's totally okay with that. I mean, I'm totally okay with that.
Speaker 1:I I won't say everybody is, but I am. Because, again, it shows me that you are a person and that you're not a robot. Because if everything was all fine and good at your job, you wouldn't be sitting across the table from me trying to come work for me. So, obviously, something ain't right, and we're not gonna just blame it all on the company. So I like to ask hard interview well, I don't wanna say hard.
Speaker 1:I like to ask more personality type of interview questions. I'm curious about what kind of books do you read? What do you like to do when you're not at work? What did you see on the job description that that excited you? Or what type of contributions do you think that you can bring to my department based on what you know about this job opening?
Speaker 1:How do you handle bad feedback? What what you know what? How did your last performance review go? I'm curious. I wanna know it's not to be punitive at all.
Speaker 1:It's for me to see the other side of you. It's for me to see that when I ask you what are your strengths and you tell me all these strengths and then I ask you what are your weaknesses, you're not gonna turn around and say, well, I don't have any. Everybody wants to be the perfect candidate. There is no such thing as a perfect candidate. And most of the time, people are over exaggerating certain things even to the point of lying about certain things.
Speaker 1:I know y'all saw the article about the girl, and I don't remember what country it was, but she lied her way into a a public office position. Money and all, lied her entire way into it. And then I think she brought her brother on and started paying him to do something he wasn't even qualified for. So lying will not get you anywhere, especially this day and age where everything is verifiable. I've had resumes come across my desk where I'll see that a candidate works somewhere.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh, my homegirl work over there. Let me be text her and see if, hey, you know such and such. Oh my god. Yes, girl. Don't do it.
Speaker 1:Like, you can have the the most elegant resume, but it's all about who you know. And the last thing you want is to lie about something, and then you get caught in your own lie. Or like I mentioned earlier, putting things on social media, calling out sick, but 3 hours later, you you got a picture of yourself on the beach. So it's important for all of us, myself included, to be cognizant of what we are posting on social media and what it says about our brand. You have to think about if my boss saw this, how would this would I be embarrassed if somebody saw this?
Speaker 1:You never know who is watching, who's following your social media, who's following your LinkedIn. I've had so many people reach out to me and send me LinkedIn requests, and I always say, hey, is there anything I can help you with? Or what made you wanna connect with me? And they'll say, oh, my coworker liked one of your posts, and I read it, and I liked it too. So didn't know who I was until they saw until their coworker told them about me or liked something that would then show up in their feed.
Speaker 1:You never know who was connected to who. So I'll say it again because I think it's very important, not just because I wrote it, but because I went through it. The unwritten career rules you need to know. I need y'all to read that blog post on my website, nickwinstoncpa.com. You can also find it under my LinkedIn articles.
Speaker 1:I don't want y'all out here stumbling when you don't have to. Just take the advice of somebody who's already stumbled enough for all of us and really work on perfecting your craft. And whatever it is that you do every day, whatever you go to work and do every day, make sure that you are the best at it and that nobody can do that better than you. Also, make sure when you go to work every day, you gonna work with a purpose beyond just collecting the check. What can I improve today?
Speaker 1:Even if it's just cleaning out your inbox. I know most of us probably got 88100 unread emails. I know I do. But think about what you can do better, what you can do differently, and how you can leave your office each day better than how you found it. So if you have a career question, more than happy to answer it.
Speaker 1:You can hit me up on Instagram at mcwinstoncpa. You can also email me your question. My email is nikki@nickwinstoncpa.com. And, I'll be doing some more of these episodes because I'm actually working on a career navigation course that is going to be online self study and just walking through the entire career navigation process from looking for a job, working on your resume, preparing for the interview, negotiating those things that you want, The first 30, 60, 90 days on the job, becoming a manager. I mean, I I really I genuinely love doing this type of work and so I wanna make sure that I give you out all the game and, get y'all ready to to shake and bake in these corporate streets.
Speaker 1:So stay tuned for that. But again, I'm gonna say it again. Read the blog post on my website, the unwritten career rules you need to know. It's also on LinkedIn. That's it for now.
Speaker 1:I gotta figure out what I'm gonna make for dinner and, I'll talk to y'all later. Bye.