Career Growth Advice from Claudia Miller, Career Development Leader | Career Tips for Women in Career Development

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 44
Featuring Claudia Miller

Episode Title: #44 Career Podcast Featuring Claudia Miller, a Successful Career Coach & Negotiation Strategist : Women In Business

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Claudia Miller



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you, encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Thanks for tuning in. Claudia Miller is here with us today. I'm super excited that she's joining us. Claudia is a successful career coach and host of her own podcast, Roadmap to the Executive Suite. Claudia helps career-driven professionals get to the next level in their career. She's helped clients get up to $100,000 in salary increases, as well as flurries of emails from headhunters at big name companies like Google, Spotify, and Amazon. Her workplace expertise has been featured in Forbes, MSNBC, and Thrive Global. Last year, Business Insider put her in their global list of top 23 most innovative career coaches. I am thrilled to have you here. I love all the accolades. I love this. Thank you for joining us.

Claudia Miller (Guest): Oh my God. I'm so excited to be here, Mary. Thanks again for having me.

Mary Killelea: Let's start with finding out why did you want to become a career coach? What's the passion there?

Claudia Miller: So I'll be honest. When I was a girl, I didn't dream about being a career coach. And that was going to be my career trajectory. It wasn't like that. And I happened to stumble into career coaching. And what really prompted me and what I'm really excited about to still be a career coach is really helping professionals, driven, ambitious professionals that have done the work, have been doing everything they're supposed to be doing, but yet find themselves stuck. And they just don't know how to play the game or how to get around it. How do you break through? Do you just happen to be lucky? Are you just there at the right time? Is it network or people who you know? What if you don't come from an Ivy League degree? So, I became a career coach to help those driven professionals actually know the strategy that will help them get and really accelerate their career. And I might myself consider myself like a very ambitious professional. And I checked off all the boxes. I thought I did everything right. And I found myself really sad, disappointed, almost to the verge of crying because I barely had any interviews. And to be honest, I had one interview out of like, I probably applied to about 50 to 80 jobs when I first started out. I probably had one interview. Thankfully, they offered me a job, but I knew I never wanted to be in that position again. And I embarked on this journey to figure out on my own. And I realized how many other people don't know about it. And especially when it comes to start negotiation women tend to get paid way less than our male counterparts. So I'm really on a mission to helping women earn more and helping them break into the next step in their career that they so they definitely deserve. And not only that get paid for what the market is willing to pay for those services.

Mary Killelea: That's excellent. I'm sure you have no shortage of clients because there's so many women out there that need this kind of help. So let's talk about your services. What do you offer women?

Claudia Miller: It really depends on where what the client needs. So I do resume cover letter writing, interview coaching, start negotiation, or just overall areer coaching. And that's really for someone that doesn't know what to do next. But they don't they feel lost. They might even try to change industries or figure out how does this new industry work out or this next type of role. Or maybe they're just trying to break into their first director role, and they just don't know how. And maybe they've been a really great sole contributor, maybe they're doing really well in their performance reviews, but they always get passed up for those promotions. And they just can't seem to figure out how to break into finally move into the next step of their career that they obviously are ready for and have been ready for now for a few years.

Mary Killelea: Being featured in Forbes, MSNBC, and Thrive Global, and Business Insider, those are those are really great, respectable industry leaders. What do you think is your differentiating quality that they saw that really wanted to elevate you?

Claudia Miller: Well, one thing I love to talk about is money, salary negotiation. And I've realized that a lot of people just don't feel comfortable with, or they'll give some very surface level responses like you're just supposed to negotiate, just negotiate yourself, just be confident, just do it. But no one tells you exactly how to do it. What are you supposed to say? Like, what are the word for word scripts that somebody can say when it comes to the job offer or during the interview process? So my strategy is, and it's honestly the way that I learn, I don't like people giving me fluff. I don't like people telling me, just go ahead and do it, believe in yourself and just go and negotiate your salary. I'm very that visual person, but also like show me, I want to hear you say it. Can you give me the scripts? Can you give me some examples? Can you walk me through the process? How do you actually do the research? And that's how I learn.

I realized that there is a gap in the industry where they don't actually walk you step by step. And one of the things with my clients, and even before I start working with them, I want to get to know them professionally, personally, what are they in their career, in their life that's prompting them to seek services? And are they coachable? Just because you want services doesn't mean you're coachable. And what I mean by that is if someone is blaming the economy or anything else, that's why they don't they can't get a job. I can't control that. I can't help you. But if they tell me, hey, I don't know how to sell myself. And I know that's why I'm not getting interviews or getting job offers. That person I can help because they feel they have control and all they need is a strategist or the right person to guide them throughout that journey.

Mary Killelea: I was talking on a previous show with one of my guests, and it really is apparent to me, women don't talk about what we make. So we're kind of in the hole before we even started, because we don't know what our peers are making, what our potential roles are being paid. So I love that you're helping women negotiate salaries and giving them insights to that, because I think that is really a huge gap for women. Let's talk about resume tips. Resumes are so important. Now with the digital world, I'm sure that shifted. What's your three top tips around resumes?

Claudia Miller: Well, one is actually tell a story of what you do, stop being so surface level, a lot of resumes that I see when they're probably have the right education, the degrees, the experience, and they just can't get interviews, and they don't know why. And maybe they have a apply to 100 jobs and maybe received one or two interviews, that immediately tells me there's something wrong with their resume. And when I look at their resume, again, it's very surface level. They will just say that they're managed marketing manager, though, they'll say something like I drove campaigns, drove and launch campaigns for the department, work cross functionally with the sales team and the IT team to execute marketing strategy. Honestly, everyone else is saying that. But tell me, like, so what, why should I carry that you launch a campaign? I hope you have launched a campaign. I am hiring for a marketing manager. I hope you know what a campaign is. And instead, I would change that to, you know, execute it and launch a successful campaign for a new line of business for a demographic between the ages of 25 to 35, that generated over 500 leads and equated to over $300,000 in pipeline in less than two weeks after launch, something like that, that all of a sudden, it shows me that you care to know that what I care as a manager, I want to know that you're a good marketing manager, that there's tangible results to it. And not that I mean, technically, you can say that you had a successful campaign if it's like, let's just say you had a goal of 100 leads and you got 101.

Mary Killelea: Right.

Claudia Miller: Technically, yeah, you over delivered, but did you deliver 101? Or did you deliver 500? Like, we want to make sure that we demonstrate that value. Not a lot of people don't do that. The second mistake I see is people just put everything in their resume. They feel like, I need to tell them everything. Otherwise, like, how are they know everything that I've done? And I have to remind clients that it's not their bibliography. It's not a book. It's a resume. And we've heard the stats six to eight seconds, they'll spend on your resume itself. But honestly, that's the HR person. They're going to spend six to eight seconds. They are not the subject matter expert. They're hiring for various roles within the department itself. There's just so many candidates applying to one job that you really need to capture their attention immediately. And they don't care about everything you did. They're just wondering, do you look like the right candidate that would do a really good job within this role at this company?

Mary Killelea: Right.

Claudia Miller: So answer those. And third, it's really understanding what they do. A lot of clients, even like the executives that I work with, I asked them, okay, so what is your biggest achievement? Like, what are you most proud of? Can you tell me what you do? What's hard for me to say and put it into words? Well, if you can't put it into words, how can I help you write your resume? Like, you can't tell me anything about this? So it's really starting to understand that. And if you don't know, honestly, start documenting what kind of projects are you working on? Why are you working on this? Like, was this prompted by executive leadership? Was this something you found? Was this something that is needed that the customer audience has requested? Start asking those questions about the work that you do, and you'll start to figure out the value that you're bringing to the company itself.

Mary Killelea: Absolutely. I love that idea because journaling or keeping a journal of like impact things that you do when it comes to times like this, or when it comes to networking, or when it comes to doing social posts, it's so good to have that for reference. Speaking of social posts, how would you recommend people leverage LinkedIn today?

Claudia Miller: LinkedIn is a must for most industries, I'll say. Now, if you are maybe perhaps like a truck driver, or a beautician or something, that LinkedIn is not going to be useful for you. Maybe an Instagram might be more like before and after hair photos. But for other professions, LinkedIn is very vital. And I was reading a stat, and I believe it's something around 88% of hiring managers or recruiters and anyone in the interview process will be looking at your LinkedIn profile. And just having a picture increases the likelihood of 14 times of them looking into your LinkedIn profile. You want to make sure you're searchable, that people are able to find you and know exactly what you can do or what you're interested in doing. Most people I'll see is their headline is whatever job title is marketing manager at Acme company, and that's their title. Okay, well, if I'm looking for a marketing manager, no one's really stand up unless they're working at a really good company. Like if I'm Apple, and I see you working at Google, I might want to poach you because you're kind of similar in the industry. Now you have competitor insights. But people don't really know how to brand themselves. I always tell clients, brand yourself for the job you want, not for the job you have. And LinkedIn, now it's a very vital process of the search. And why not leverage it to your advantage. And I've had clients where we've been able to accelerate their job search because they're doing a three prong approach.

And that means one, applying to jobs through job boards, two, they're networking and finding additional opportunities. And three, they have an optimized LinkedIn profile. So now, recruiters and hiring managers are coming to them for job interviews. Those are jobs that they've never even applied to. And all of a sudden, those opportunities have doubled and sometimes tripled. And I've even had clients get approached by hiring HR personnel from Google, Facebook, and like Amazon, reaching out to them to see if they're interested in interviewing for their companies. So it does work. You just need to know how to be able to do it right.

Mary Killelea: The whole landscape of the job market has changed in this past year and a half. What do you see or what is your perspective on the current job market?

Claudia Miller: Well, definitely a lot of companies are moving to work from home. And if they're not, and they're saying we want employees to come back into the office, pretty sure in the next few months, they're going to be fully remote, or at least very partial, like once a week, you have to come into the office. And the reason is, it's really hard to hire for someone to go into the office, especially when we know now that it's not needed. And we've been able, some companies have been able to do their jobs or professionals have been able to do their jobs successfully for almost close to two years at this point. So I do see a lot of companies will be moving to more work from home. And if not, they're going to be in the next few days, because it's going to be hard to hire for some of these roles.

The next thing is, it's a very competitive market right now for talent. So for example, if I'm a company looking for someone that's very talented, I need to make sure that I have a very competitive rate, because immediately I know that that good employee is going to have two to three job offers. So now that the industry now is becoming a norm of offering a retainment bonus, what that means is, if I hire you, and you stay in the role that I hired you for, I'll give you a bonus for staying with me in within the company itself. Because there are so many opportunities out there, especially with people that can really sell and brand themselves and showcase that they're talented and they have the right skill sets, they have so much an advantage where, like I said, I've had clients get even 100k salary increases without even having to move to the next step in their career. It's the same role they've been doing. They now have been able to sell themselves, market themselves the right way, and find the right opportunity that's willing to pay market rates.

Mary Killelea: That's incredible. What are some good tips that listeners can do to improve their interview skills?

Claudia Miller: One is prepare for the expected and unexpected. So, when candidates are going into interviews, we already know they're going to be asked the same common interview questions. Tell me about yourself, your greatest strength, your greatest weakness, why do you want to work here? All these common interview questions, but yet no one prepares for these obvious common interview questions. And I used to do this myself. I did the same thing. I know, and I can help my clients because I did the same mistakes, but going into an interview, I'm like, well, I'll know what to say once I get there. I'll wing it. And after a while, you tend to have the same results. Well, why am I not getting the job offer? Why am I not moving to the next step in the interview process? Well, because you weren't standing out from everyone else. You probably said very generic surface level answers, and therefore that one or two people that stepped out of that kind of norm, were actually being able to stand out. So, if we already know these questions are coming to us, let's prepare. Let's take control of how we want to brand ourselves. What skills do we want to highlight? Maybe stories that we want to tell during the interview so that we have more control of how we are portraying ourselves.

And then the next interview tip is also doing research, understanding what most people do. And if you don't know what most people do, honestly, ask your friends, ask your partner, ask your family members. When you're interviewing or you're about to interview, how do you prepare for the interview? And I've asked my clients and my audiences and followers, and they say, well, maybe I'll look at the website. They'll look at the job description. Maybe they'll look at the LinkedIn profile of whoever's interviewing them if they know. And that's pretty much it. So we already know what the competition is doing. How can we elevate it? How can we take it to the next step? And here's an example of how you can easily take it to the next step. If it's a public company, look through there or listen to their company earnings. Just look at what's been going well and what are they looking to achieve in the next six to 12 months and then create a question around it instead of asking the “tell me more about your culture”. Why do you enjoy working here? I mean, these are very common interview questions. Start asking different questions. You know, what is the hardest skill to hire for in this role? I noticed that during the company earnings that the company is looking to achieve X, Y, and Z in the next six to 12 months. How does this role align to those company goals? Those are very different questions that other people aren't doing it. So, and this can be applied through many areas of their life, whether it's career or business, but what are other people doing? And what can I do at least increase 50-20% better than everyone else?

Mary Killelea: Wonderful advice. When it comes to salary negotiations, what is your best advice?

Claudia Miller: Negotiate. And what I hear is, well, how do I know that I can negotiate? If you're interviewing, you can negotiate. If you're getting the job offer, you can negotiate. If you're currently working, you can negotiate. I mean, there's no reason why you shouldn't negotiate. And I know that there's a stat out there that around 75% of people that ask for the salary increase get the salary increase. So ask, and then two, if you already know that you don't know how, start either researching or hire someone that can help you do it. I was looking, and I'm actually preparing because I do a lot of salary negotiation workshops for different organizations and associations. And let's just say you get offered $60,000, but let's just say you negotiate for a $68,000 salary increase in 10 years that equates to almost $10,000 more if you just assume a 2% salary increase every year. Just asking. And I've even had clients where they're just recently graduated or not even graduated from college yet. It's their first entry-level position. They don't have much experience. And I had a client successfully negotiate a $15,000 salary increase, just because they asked. So, imagine what someone can do if they already have experience and they're moving to the next step and they have industry insights, how much more they can negotiate their salary just by asking.

Mary Killelea: So, we kind of touched on this earlier when we were talking about the job market. If women are interested in pivoting, because a lot of people are shifting more aligned with what their values are or work-life balance, et cetera, what do you tell or how do you help women who are looking to pivot roles, not only roles, but industries? How do their skills get repositioned to apply to that new area that they haven't been working in before?

Claudia Miller: I'm so happy you ask that, Mary. And I don't think I've actually shared this in any other podcast.

Mary Killelea: Oh, good.

Claudia Miller So if you're looking to transition to me, I know what people are thinking. Well, I'm going to have to start from scratch or I'm going to take a pay cut if I'm transitioning industries. One strategy that I always tell my clients to do is if you're looking to change industries, start, and the most common right now has been tech. People are coming from hospitality and then want to go into tech, or they're coming from manufacturing and they want to go into tech. And it could be a company like Peloton, where they're like a health and wellness tech company, or it could be e-commerce like Amazon. So if you're looking to really make this transition, whatever industry you're in, start making a list of all the technology that you work on. So for example, my background is in healthcare and I used to work as a third party insurance provider. So I used to manage Medicaid health plans. I would use, okay, well, in my workday, I use Workday to submit my time and my PTO. So, I'm going to add Workday as a tool. Well, we also use Salesforce to track conversations. Well, I'm going to use Salesforce. I also use Microsoft Teams in order to have that. Maybe I use WebEx to have these Zoom calls. And just start making a list of every single technology that you use, clients that you worked on, who are your vendors. And now you have a good list because now you're coming from the client side and that's worth a lot to the company, because now you can relate to other people that were in similar roles as you.

Maybe you already have connections and that's worthwhile to the client as opposed to someone that has been doing this for quite some time, but it's hard to get that insight. There are professionals out there, and I've worked with them where they might be in sales and marketing, but they don't actually know how their product gets used on an everyday basis. They have no idea. They just know that this is their client avatar and they should create marketing strategies around it. But you coming in as a, coming from the other side, like, hey, I used to work this. I know how to use workday. These were some of the pain points. I wish somebody would have told me this. It took me 10 hours to go through time sheets and approve them. When you bring that into the interview with this tech company, like for example, Workday, they're going to love it. That information is priceless. And it's hard for people to go from industry as a customer, then to the vendor side. So leverage that insight, and that can become your market differentiator. It's an asset, not a liability.

Mary Killelea: Absolutely. And another thing that when I was listening to you was technology is changing so fast. It's actually hard to keep up with everything, but having an aptitude for learning new tech is so important. And what you describe shows that. And I think businesses today will train you on most technologies that's relevant to their business. But knowing that one, you embrace it, two, you have a love and a curiosity for it goes a long way.

Claudia Miller: With the job descriptions and job postings, highlighting green, like the skills you do have, yellow, the skills that you kind of sort of have, and then red skills that you don't have, and then focus on the green and yellow, and then bring that into the interview and talk about those transferable skills.

Mary Killelea: What self-sabotaging behavior do you see most women struggling with when building their careers?

Claudia Miller: I love this question. Well, one thing that I see is I get clients tell me, or even, you know, people that are thinking of maybe working with me, they'll say they want maybe the most common is I want a six-figure salary. I have 10 plus years of experience. I deserve to be in a six-figure salary. I look at their expertise, their accolades, their degrees, and I agree. I'm like, you should be in the six-figure salary job. Actually, I think you should be getting paid $120,000, $140,000 at this point based on what the market is paid for right now. But yet I find that they're applying to jobs that are 60, 80K. Why? If you want a six-figure salary, apply to only six-figure jobs. Don't apply to anything less than that. And the analogy I use is like trying to buy a Chanel bag, going to the dollar store. You're not going to find a Chanel bag. You're not going to find a six-figure job applying to 60 to 70K jobs. And it's not anything like, well, Claudia, I may not have the expertise. I don't have the work experience. You do. I've seen clients where they're getting paid 60,000. They are at a company did a lateral shift, same job, same title, just at a different company. And one client actually went from 60 to making $90,000. No change. They didn't even were looking for a promotion at that point. I had a client that was getting paid 90,000, same type of role, same industry, got offered 170K with 20K sign-on bonus and 40K in stock, just because she changed her focus. If we want a six-figure job, let's focus our attention and energy to that job that pays six figures. And it could be the same job title you're in.

You can actually filter on LinkedIn and Indeed by salary. So just selecting the 100K plus and just start applying to those jobs that are paid more than that. And the other thing is that what I've seen is like, women just don't negotiate. They feel that they're going to come off as greedy, that maybe they're going to get the job offer pulled. We already know we're being underpaid. We need to make sure that we get paid what the market is paying for. And I like to use the analogy of usually when people determine their salary for their next job, they'll say, well, I'm currently making 75. So my next job, it'd be nice if I can make anywhere around 85 or so. Like that'll be really nice. And I'll even take maybe anywhere around 80,000. Well, why are you basing your next job based on what you're currently making? And what I tell clients is, imagine you bought a house for 100K and you're looking to sell your house. Are you going to say, well, I'm going to sell my house for 150,000 because I paid 100,000. Or are you going to sell it for the 300,000 that the market is paying for right now? So, if I offered you the 300K, are you really going to say, no, Claudia, I cannot take the 300,000 for my house. I paid 100. So it's only right. I sell it to you for 150. We're not going to do that. So stop doing that with your salary. Stop basing off your next job or even if it's the same job based on what you're currently making, start charging what the market is paying for those skills.

Mary Killelea: Oh, that's such critical advice. One of the things that you see in big corporations is women or roles, entry level roles are at least, I would even say two years ago before this whole shift, they bring you in low and then you're kind of mentally stuck there. So, then it feels so awkward to make that ask or you feel so grateful for the little raise you get. So, it really is about a mind shift, isn't it?

Claudia Miller: It really is. Because again, like I said, you know, people that make 60, then they feel like they have the next right thing is to make 65 to 68. So then it's 75. Instead, I, you know, when I was working, I only focused on 30K salary increases or above. If I was not going to make at least $30,000 more, I'm not going to take that job or I'm not going to accept that job. So there's always room to negotiate. And in my podcast, I actually bring recruiters, executive recruiters and women in the C-suite. And I asked them what surprises you the most about interviewing people and what they tell me is we have a specified budget for this role. So, I don't tend to give them on the higher end side because I anticipate them negotiating their salary. And if they negotiate their salary, I'm still within budget. So what's most surprising is a lot of people don't negotiate. They just take whatever they're offered and knowing now, and hopefully your listeners are listening to this, like people and mostly hiring managers give you the salary range, anticipating you're going to negotiate the salary. So they leave a little bit of cushion. And even if you go above, let's just say you're, they're offering you 60, and you ask for 70,000, maybe their budget for 68. Then I might be able to say, well, Mary, we try to do 70,000, but honestly, the best we can do is 68,000. Are you still interested in the role? Well, then you can say, yeah, of course I'm interested. Thank you again for checking on the salary. I really appreciate it. And I'm glad that we both came to a number we both agree on, but now you're getting paid 68,000 instead of that 60. So just know that there's always room in the budget, go ahead and ask for it. And then if they really can or there's a big cap, they'll tell you what the cap is. And that could be whether five, eight, 15 or $20,000 more than what you originally were offered.

Mary Killelea: That's fantastic. And I want to hear more about your podcast. Tell us, we mentioned the name of it, but tell me more like who, who's the audience, a couple of your favorite guests.

Claudia Miller: Yeah. So when I started the podcast, because I felt that there was a lot of misconceptions about being in the C-suite and there's not a lot of women in the C-suite. So I wanted to change that. I wanted to bring in women that are executives, tell us about how it is to actually be an executive. Do they really not spend time with their families? Do they hate it? Because those are things I kept hearing over and over again. Oh, I don't want to, I'm fine. Just being up to senior director. I don't want to be in leadership. I don't want to be an executive because I want to make sure I want to, I spend time with my family. I want to make sure I'm not working all the time. I want to be able to have a life and enjoy it. And all the women that I've had on my podcast have told me they get to spend time with their families. They actually have very flexible schedules. They work at companies that are very family focused. So, they know that if they have to go on maternity leave or they have to leave early to go to soccer practice or a soccer tournament, whatever that is, they're able to be because they knew how to set that up and how to find the right company. So the podcast is really aimed for that ambitious woman, whether they're entry level, maybe mid management, they want to break into the director level or maybe they're contemplating is the executive role really right for me? I want to make sure I bring in, you know, executive women, I bring in executive recruiters to tell us exactly how they, how does the process really ran? I feel like no one really tells you. So, I wanted to bring in experts along with me offering career advice to say, now you know where you want to go. Here's how we're going to help you get there. So that's what the podcast is all about.

Mary Killelea: Fantastic. I'll make sure I link to it within your show notes. When you reflect back on your career, what are you most proud of?

Claudia Miller: That I always try to find a solution. One thing I've learned in my life is everything can be learned and everything has a solution except for anything crazy, like if there's death or anything, but in the most part, everything has a solution. So, what I'm very proud of is I could have easily said, well, I did all the right things and I guess I just have to pay my dues or I guess this is just how the way it is. And what I realized is what makes somebody different than me? Why do they get to have six figures by the age of 25? What did they do? And whatever it is, I can learn it. No, I don't come from like a wealthy family. No, I did not graduate from an Ivy league degree. So I'm going to look for people that are in similar situations as me and figure out and even reach out to them and ask them, how did you get there? And even if they did come from an Ivy league degree, how do they do it? Can you tell me a little bit more?

And a lot of these insights can be borrowed. So, I don't need, and what I tell my bosses, I don't need to be in this role for 10 years, just like you were in this role for 10 years, to learn what you learned. If you're that great, if you only understand it, you should be able to condense that in two to three years. And then I'm going to reach out to my counterparts that have been in the role as well in similar industries and roles, ask them what are their best practices? What are their biggest achievements? And then see how I can replicate that. And everything else can be learned. Everything. So that's why people tell me, oh, well, it's going to take me years to pay my dues. Why? Because we're told it's supposed to take years. Or why not learn from those people that are ahead of us, that are maybe have experience and have a lot of results? Why can we borrow that information and then implement it for our own role or company or department and start to find tweak until we get the results that we want.

Mary Killelea: Who's inspired you along the way?

Claudia Miller: There's been so many people. I know that the person that inspires me currently as an entrepreneur is Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx. We love her because she's very empathetic. She's herself. We always have this misconception of like billionaires or people that are very, you have to be very proper and wear suits. And she's the complete opposite. She's very authentic. I mean, I follow her on Instagram. She's hilarious. She's kind, yet she's a leader and she embodies herself and who she is. And she's still making so much change that you just, you just love her, which is why she inspires me and love her as a business and as a person overall.

Mary Killelea: I don't know if you subscribed to Masterclass, but she did a Masterclass and it was an excellent program.

Claudia Miller: I feel like I've listened to every podcast. I follow her on LinkedIn. I saw the Masterclass. I actually read one of her book recommendations that she mentioned one interview that it changed her trajectory when she was 17 years old. And I can't remember the exact name, but it was along the lines of having a growth mindset. Everything in life can be learned and, you know, every instance is meant as a learning process and then you just refine that. But I really enjoyed it. And yes, I love that Masterclass of hers.

Mary Killelea: What does to be bolder mean to you?

Claudia Miller: Being bold to me is doing something even when you're afraid. I definitely believe like success favors the bold. And even like I said, when I was trying to figure out, you know, how can I get promoted, I reached out to people on Business Insider that got featured, 25 and making six figures. I found them on LinkedIn and then I cold emailed them. There's different ways you can Google how to find someone's email or send them a message on LinkedIn. And eventually I started getting interviews with them or not interviews, but they got on a call with me and I asked them, hey, I saw you on Business Insider. It's so awesome. I felt so inspired by your story. Can you tell me how did you do it? Like, I feel like I'm in this situation and all of a sudden, obviously I was scared of my mind to reach out to them fear of rejection. They're probably going to say no or get away from me, weirdo, whatever. But I still did it. And I, and I feel like that's why I've gotten so much success. And I pitched Business Insider and Forbes and to get, I knew I had a great story to tell and my clients and I had the results for it. Now I'm at a point because I developed those relationships. Now they come to me for anything, start negotiation, job interviews. And that again happened because in spite of me being scared and fearful, I still did it because I knew that what was most important for me was to grow and be successful. So here are the steps that I need to do in order to get there.

Mary Killelea: That's fantastic. Such good advice in there. So we are wrapping up, but is there anything that we didn't cover today that you would like to share with this audience? Because I think you have such a wealth of knowledge in this space. So any parting thoughts?

Claudia Miller: Yeah, one of the things that I've seen is whether you are job seeker, if you're currently unemployed or you're currently employed and just feeling stuck or not knowing what to do, there is a solution out there. And you want to make sure you start working on that before it becomes your last option. I've had clients tell me, I'm ready to quit my job. I'll take anything just to leave. And at that point, it's hard for anyone to see that many possibilities. I had a client that was making, I think around like $75,000, got offered $90,000 and I knew that she could actually get a job for $150,000. She's like, there's no way I just want to get out of here. Left the company, took that role. Six months later, she said, Claudia, I hate this job. I'm being overworked. I just changed employers, but I'm still miserable. Then it took us, finally she was ready to say, okay, I get it. I cannot just take any job offer and expect that it's going to be different. I need to do things differently. So, then we worked together. Now we found her that job paying her $150,000. And within nine months or less, she's already getting poached by Google and Facebook for jobs paying nothing less than $200,000. Again, because she then focused on doing the work before she got to the point of a breaking point where there are no options. I feel cornered. I feel like there's no other thing out there. So, if you're wondering, or you've been in your role for more than three years, it's time for you to even see what is the market willing to pay for your services and your expertise and what is out there because there are a lot of opportunities. So, no matter where you are, what the economy is, or who's president or the stock market crash, I don't care. If you know how to do it right, you'll always find jobs. And there are always a multitude of them if you know how to do it right.

Mary Killelea: Where should women go to look at what others are being paid in similar roles or in a role, desired role? I think you touched on it earlier through LinkedIn, but is that the best place and how exactly would they do that?

Claudia Miller: Honestly, the best place is reaching out to people. So, you're going to have to be bold for some of your listeners out there. But I mean, if you look on Glassdoor for a project manager, and I've looked it up, it's like anywhere between 40 and 120. So how do you know where do you fall in, what you can ask for? What I would do instead is look for somebody that used to be a project manager two to three roles ago and then say, hi, Mary, by the way, I noticed you are a project manager at Acme company. And I would love your expertise and insights into just the role itself in the department. And I know that based on your experience, we are both coming from the same industry, would you be open to have a conversation? And then getting on a call with them saying I try to do research on salary, and I just get a crazy range. Would you be able to tell me what is a range of salary that I could ask for? What does the industry typically pay for someone with my skill set? And they feel comfortable talking about it because one, that used to be their role back in the day, they'll say, oh, yeah, back in the day when I was a project manager, I got offered 60 to 70,000 with 10% sign-on bonus, and they gave me stock and all these other benefits. Or they might say, you know what, it was such a long time ago, or it's very different. But what I can tell you is what our company pays our project managers. Our project managers get paid anywhere between 80 and 100 with so-and-so benefits. Then you can ask, well, what makes a candidate get offered 100,000 or on the higher end of that salary range?

And now one, you have the skill sets you need to highlight to be able to command 100K salary. And two, you have a greater range of what to ask for. And I wouldn't even give an 80, 100K salary range. If you know that's the range, I would go in and say, I'm looking for a salary between 90 and 100,000, but I'm sure we can both come to a number we both agree on. And then highlight those skill sets that you gathered from your research that they said that they're willing to pay more for that expertise. And that's honestly the easiest way. There's no website up to this point that I've been able to find that can give you a clear-cut number of what to ask for.

Mary Killelea: And I think negotiating stock, vacation, those types of things have value. And certainly should help leverage you when you're making those negotiations or feeling like you're, what's the word I'm looking for? If you're uncomfortable with asking numbers, there's different ways to get more without asking numbers.

Claudia Miller: Well, it's even all based on priority where someone is in their life. For example, I had a client where she was in the healthcare field and she left her previous role because of medical reasons. But before then she was getting paid 90,000. And we looked at the salary range, did the research and it said the cap was like 140, 145. She got offered 150. So, at this point, she's like, honestly, I already made a jump from 90 to 150. I don't care so much about salary, but I still have some of these health issues that I'm going through. So, we started looking at benefits. And one of the things that I always tell clients, especially if you have children or personally you have health issues, look at the insurance of this new employer. Because I had a client that had a really good insurance. They were moving to the next job. They got a job offer. It looked like a really great deal. When they looked into the insurance, they would have had to pay $1,500 a month out of pocket because this insurance wasn't going to be as good as his current one. So, then we baked that in into that number. So they actually, I think we requested an additional 15 to 20,000 on top of whatever they offered to cover for medical expenses. And they were able to do so.

But you can negotiate professional stipends. I know there's some certifications out there. They're so expensive that you don't have to pay out of pocket. Let the company pay for it. They are stock options, commissions, how often you get your performance review. The faster you get it, the faster you tend to make those jumps and get those salary increases. And you don't have to wait for those 12 months year end. You can bump it up to six months. You can look at title. You can look at stipend, especially now with work from home. I mean, there's just a slew of benefits out there that you can negotiate. They can pay for your gym, whatever that is. It's all up to have that discussion. But people do need to plan for Plan A, Plan B, Plan C. If they can't meet you with Plan A, you need to be ready with Plan C. But that needs to be prepared in advance. Just like I said, prepare for the expected and the unexpected. So those conversations come in easy as opposed to, oh, sorry, we can't do that. We don't even offer that to any employees. Oh, okay. Let me think about it. Instead of like, oh, I totally understand. Thanks for letting me know, Mary. One of the other things that I'm looking for is I really am interested in the certification. And I know it's one of the highest desired skill sets for somebody in my industry, in my field. On average, it's going to cost me around $8,000 to $10,000 a year. And I was wondering if there's any way that the company can pay for the services and how can we close that gap? And that will get me to that number of total comp pay that I'm looking for. Oh, we can actually do that because they get to use it as a write-off. Two, they get to have an employee that's sharpening their skill sets and they can stay competitive in the marketplace. So those are things that you want to make sure you plan in advance.

Mary Killelea: Such great content from you. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing this. Give us your website so people can come check you out.

Claudia Miller: My website is Claudia T. Miller.com. So T as in Tom, Claudia T. Miller.com. And that's where I share a lot of resources, a lot of my interviews, and where I like to share a lot of my free content. So, a lot of your listeners can definitely go to my website and soon I'll be giving a freebie on sound negotiation scripts that you can use during the job offer. So I share with you a few. There's a lot more that I have, especially if you consider yourself an introvert and you feel like, oh, I can't say that. I have word-for-word scripts that I'd be happy to share with your listeners out there who consider themselves introverts. I try to make it so easy that anyone can do it and everyone should be doing it.

Mary Killelea: That's great. I will make sure to link to that too. Thank you so much for being here. It was awesome talking to you.

Claudia Miller: Thanks for having me, Mary. And I hope your listeners found all this advice helpful. And if anyone out there applies any of the strategies I talked about today, I really want to hear about it. I want to applaud everyone's success and I want to hear that it's really working for you as well.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guests. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number 2, little bbolder.com.