Are you ready for a career change but have no idea what else you could do or where to start? Or perhaps you're between jobs or just starting out in your career, but you find the whole job search and interview experience to be overwhelming and stressful.
Meet Ginny Clarke, CEO of Ginny Clarke, LLC and author of Career Mapping: Charting your Course in the New World of Work, who shares with us her journey as a black female, professional and single mom, navigating through work life and managing her own career to becoming an expert executive recruiter.
In this episode, Ginny shares tips on gaining clarity on your strengths and how to communicate with recruiters to level up in your career. Ginny also shares advice on raising your hand for stretch opportunities, asking for help, and why the ability to communicate effectively is so important.
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Highlights
[01:03] About Ginny Clarke
[05:34] How someone discovers their unique strengths in order to communicate to people
[07:40] How do you use those transferable skills to switch industries or switch roles?
[12:19] Struggling with fear and limiting beliefs
[16:04] Patterns that prevent women from showing up with confidence and owning their success
[20:56] Expiring skill sets and stretch opportunities
[24:58] Balancing personal and professional goals and setting boundaries
[30:02] Importance of community
[34:32] Future of work in digital age
[38:00] Advice on digital interviews -
Quotes
“Often what we love to do, is what we’re good at, and that can mean we have to push away what other people expect of us.” – Ginny Clarke
“I’ve watched so many people get locked into one thing and what they don’t understand is they are a free agent and can own this process.” - Ginny Clarke
“Part of growing up is learning to deal with the ambiguity of uncertainty. You can’t be rigid and risk averse because that will limit you.” - Ginny Clarke
“Some of the mistakes women make in interviews and more broadly in their careers, they don’t come in willing to assert, ‘This is what I’m good at and this is how I do it.’” -Ginny Clarke
“Competencies trump experience, you have to be your own advocate. In the digital world, go learn it in your own time to keep moving.” - Ginny Clarke
“Asking for help doesn’t mean you’re weak, if you’re sharing your vision, sometimes you don’t even have to ask for help.” - Ginny Clarke
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About
Ginny Clarke is CEO of Ginny Clarke, LLC. She provides unparalleled skills and insights to some of the world’s leading executive search firms and technology companies. As a seasoned executive recruiter, she brings a unique, holistic approach to leadership assessment, hiring, diversity recruiting, and talent management that is essential more now than ever. Ginny is a systems thinker who can deconstruct processes and behaviors to carefully assess organizational and individual capability. From there, she provides integrated solutions to affect change.
Specialties include Leadership Assessment and Training, Talent Acquisition Process Design, Diversity Recruiting Strategy and Execution, Career Management and Internal Mobility.
Before pursuing her own business, Ginny held senior leadership positions at Google and Spencer Stuart. At Google, she acted as Director, Executive Recruiting. In this role, she led the Diversity, Internal Mobility, and Non-Tech Recruiting teams. Her team of North American recruiters found and hired senior leaders (Directors +) for finance, sales, marketing, and other G&A functions across Google. She leveraged her expertise to build a scaled internal mobility program for Google’s senior leaders and designed much of the infrastructure that supports their executive recruiting function today. At Spencer Stuart, Ginny was a Partner who worked in the firm’s Financial Services and Financial Officer Practices and co-founded and led Spencer Stuart’s Global Diversity Practice.
Ginny drew upon her breadth and depth of experience to write her book “Career Mapping: Charting Your Course in the New World of Work” (2011). The book provides a framework that empowers individuals to plot and assess their professional competencies and strategically navigate their careers. Ginny’s podcast “Fifth Dimensional Leadership” is designed for leaders, thinkers, and future-makers dedicated to creating the conscious workplace of tomorrow.
Ginny earned her BA in French and Linguistics from the University of California at Davis and her MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School. She is the single mother of an adult son, Julian, who works in the entertainment industry.
Links:
Website: https://www.ginnyclarke.com/
LinkedIn: ginnyclarke
Twitter: GinnyClarke