The 3 mindset shifts standing between you and landing that more senior role

Hey {{ first name | reader }},

My client landed a more senior role and a 47% salary increase this month. Read the full story here 🔥

Although rewriting her CV and LinkedIn profile, and preparing her interview stories were a big part of our work together, the work on her beliefs is what really helped her get these amazing results. She needed to BELIEVE she was worth that more senior title and that higher salary first. Most women skip straight past this part and then wonder why a great CV and ‘perfectly’ rehearsed interview answers don’t land them that senior role.

Here are 3 of the beliefs we worked through together. I’m sure you recognise yourself in at least one of these too!

You've been eyeing that Head of Ops role for 8 months, telling yourself you need to do one more course, one more year of experience, or one more win under your belt before you go for that role. In the meantime, someone with 2 years less experience than you applied for that exact role and got it.

Psychologists call this self-efficacy, and what’s important to understand is that you build confidence by doing something big and exciting, not by feeling ready to do it first. Which means waiting to "feel ready" before you apply is backwards. You will feel ready when you’re already in the process instead!

The shift: next time "I'm not ready" comes up when you’re about to apply for a more senior role, write down exactly what you think you’re missing for that senior title. Then go through your last 2 years and find 3 examples where you already did something you would be doing in that senior role, but under a different job title. 9 times out of 10, there is proof you’re already acting at that more senior level. This works because you’re showing your brain evidence that is already stored somewhere, but was tucked away.

You see a friend's "SO excited to announce" post about a Director title and suddenly your own job search timeline feels SO slow, even though 5 minutes ago you felt completely fine about where you were. Psychologists call this social comparison, and it's especially brutal in a job search because you're judging your current journey against someone else's achieved goal. You never see their year 1 through 7, or the 40 rejections before they got that big offer.

The research on happiness is clear that comparing yourself to YOUR OWN past self is better than comparing yourself to others. So instead of trying to stop comparing altogether (practically impossible), change who you're comparing yourself to before you walk into your next interview or negotiation.

The shift: Write down 3 things you've achieved in the last 6 months that you would have been proud of a year ago. Keep that list somewhere close, so that when you catch yourself comparing again, you can remind yourself of the amazing things you’ve achieved. This helps you to force your brain to measure you against you, the only comparison you need.

You call it "supporting the launch" or "helping build the team", when you were the one who ran the whole project from start to finish. Hiring Managers can only respond to what they see on your CV or what you say during interviews, so if both say ‘helped’, that’s the level they assume you have worked at.

There's actual research behind why you do this, and it's called the self-promotion penalty. Women who claim credit clearly get socially punished for it more than men do, so many women learn early to downplay what they did just to be likeable. That instinct made sense in a team meeting. In a CV and a salary negotiation, nobody's judging you for it, but it is costing you that more senior title AND higher salary. With the compounding effect, this costs you thousands of euros a year, every year!

The shift: Go through your CV and your go-to interview stories this week and find every "supported" and "helped with". Replace each one with what you actually did: led, built, owned, negotiated, delivered. Then read it back and ask if it still sounds like a mid-level role, or if it finally sounds like the senior role you're applying for. This works because it tells the Hiring Manager (and yourself as well) what level you actually think and are operating at.

After helping 75+ women in Tech land more senior roles, I know that it’s never just 1 belief holding you back, but it’s usually 2 or 3 working together and keeping you from landing that bigger role you’re aiming for. If one or more of these are showing up for you right now, hit reply and tell me which one, and I’ll tell you exactly how it might be holding you back from landing your dream role.

Talk soon,

Jenn 💜

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