What is your backstory?
I am a personal branding consultant for corporate professionals who want to increase their visibility and attract high-quality career opportunities and … I don’t have the typical corporate career. I have a background in organizational psychology and communications, moved into employer branding, talent assessment, recruiting, and internal communications, and – went to the U.S for an expat assignment as a communications expert.
And, I built my career as an athlete on the side. I focused on mountaineering first and went on my first expedition with a team of friends at age 22 to Kyrgyzstan. Our team did 4 new ascents and we climbed numerous other multi-pitch/multi-day routes. Afterwards, I changed my focus to rock-climbing because training was easier to combine with studying at university and I took my skills to a professional level within the next 3 years. I traveled the world while climbing and while having a corporate job. I had the most supporting bosses allowing me to create my own schedule around work, training and travel.
When I decided to no longer pursue climbing at that intensity, I went all in with my corporate career. But, my career didn’t follow the usual path. So, I had two problems: I didn’t want to start at entry level jobs again. I had to sell my experience I gained while climbing to a potential employer.
Therefore, I had to get crystal clear on my experience, results and benefits for a future employer and I had to use the art of storytelling in my resume, cover letter and in job interviews to sell my strengths and experience to their benefit.
I applied to 5 jobs, got 4 interview invites, got 2 job offers and negotiated a significantly higher salary than initially proposed. I started my new job as a process management expert with the target to improve internal processes where necessary, a job not even related to my expertise, but was hired based on the trust in my skills to not give-up and bite through and therefore be able to do change projects. Once the worldwide financial crisis in 2008 hit the economy I quickly changed into internal communication advising top management on how to communicate the impact of the crisis on associates and changes related to it.
On the job, I understood how independently I had lived my life setting my own targets for my personal development. I realized, if I would depend on the people around me to support me in my career development that I would not be where I wanted to be in the time frame I had in mind and I would probably not make the career experiences I wanted to make.
I had to come up with a strategy to own my career development and to position myself as the go-to expert. I built a vast international network within the company that I worked for, was able to find 3 mentors that truly supported me, without being in an official mentor program, I built professional partnerships and expert networks and managed to be involved in strategic projects to be seen by upper management.
With time, I was seen as the expert others wanted to learn from and work with and I took on consulting other communication experts. I got more and more into the role of coaching top management on their personal branding and communication even beyond the site I worked for.
Without doing anything I got 4 job offers with one of them being an expat assignment.
I chose the expat assignment in the U.S. because it was in line with my desire to live and work abroad to deep-dive in a different culture and because I wanted to bring my English to a new level.
With all the struggles that I had experienced as a woman wanting to build a rewarding career, I never hesitated to pass on anything that had worked for me and started mentoring numerous women inside and outside my own organization and continued to do so while I built my first business. I helped women connect with their story and define their value to an organization. Based on that, they were able to create their career branding materials like resume, cover letter and interview strategy.
On the job, I helped them position themselves as the expert in their field, build natural authority and leadership skills, connect with mentors and expand their professional connection base to attract high-quality career opportunities and build a rewarding career themselves.
While I built my personal branding intuitively with a lot of trial and error involved, I now pass on my experience as a personal branding consultant and mentor for corporate professionals attract high-quality career opportunities and build a rewarding career and life right from the start.
Which people in life inspire you the most? Why?
I learned from two very strong and independent minded women. My grandmother and my mother.
When my grandmother started her own little family in the 1950ies she had to find creative ways of make ends meet and simply be able to feed her family. As she lived on the Eastern side of Germany she faced continued poverty in East Germany.
I know my grandmother as the hardest working mom I have ever met. And, I remember her as the most humorous, loving human being that taught her children and us grandchildren to speak up with an educated and independent mindset on a daily basis. No wonder she raised such strong children like my mom who started speaking up against an autocratic regime as a teenager threatening her life and later our future as a family. In the early 80's, we left East Germany and started a new life in West Germany.
A few years forward my mom started a new position as a project engineer in a global manufacturing company setting foot in a male dominated territory and worked her way forward in that organization.
On the weekends I listened to the stories that happened to her on a daily basis. Gender bias became more than real for me. But with her building on her career within the company and later being a successful consultant for many years, I had seen on a daily basis that being strong as a woman may not be the comfortable, but the authentic/integer way of living.
What do you think makes your work stand out?
I truly care about my clients. Building an honest relationship with them is the basis for me to work towards that change they want for their life and their career successfully. My application process for people that want to work for me already works as a filter. If I see them not being a person I can build that relationship with, I refer them to someone else.
I am telling people what they need to hear in order to move closer to their goal, not what they want to hear. I show them where they are hiding in the best meant belief of protecting themselves. And I help them find a new approach to make that change happen that they desire.
