837: How to Transition to a Better Career Future with Tricia Sitemere

Pete Mockaitis
Tricia, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Tricia Sitemere
Hi, Pete. How are you? Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m doing great. Doing great. I’m excited to talk career, strategery, and mindsets, and finding great opportunities. But, first, I need to hear about you and the oboe. What’s the story here?

Tricia Sitemere
Oh, my goodness. Okay. So, I played the oboe for six years, and, initially, I wanted to play the drums. And I’m talking to my mom about it, and the first thing that she’s really thinking of is, “I don’t want this girl banging drums in my house.” And so, she was like, “Pick a quieter instrument.” That definitely backfired on her because the oboe is not really quiet.

And I would think that it’s kind of an acquired taste just from a sound perspective. And so, I played the oboe for six years, I marched in the marching band. In high school, I played clarinet doing that, and then spent two years in color guard, so I’m a band geek, and I absolutely love music.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. I was going to say, can you march an oboe? But, yeah, all right, clarinet. I did marching band, four years saxophone, in high school. And at one time, I went to the Drum Corps International World Championships in Indianapolis just to see what that was about. It was just as cool as I thought it would be. So, I’m totally down. Totally down.

Tricia Sitemere
Nice. Nice. Yeah, I was at a parade just yesterday, and it was cool to see all of the bands assembled in their band uniforms, and I was like, “Oh, my gosh, that was my life once upon a time.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, I remember we did the competitions, it felt like the most important thing is that we were going to make the state finals. I think at one point, I thoughtfully considered and said I’d be willing to trade a pinky in order to achieve that objective.

Tricia Sitemere
Oh, I don’t think I was that committed.

Pete Mockaitis
It was just funny because I didn’t practice all that hard but I’m willing to part with a finger, I was like, “I know my music, I know my spot, that’s right.” All right. Well, so that’s that story. Now, so your company, it’s called CTRL Alt Delete.

Tricia Sitemere
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I remember back in my marching band days, I would push Ctrl-Alt-Delete a lot on a PC back in the day. Can you tell us what is this organization? What’s your work about? And what’s behind the name?

Tricia Sitemere
Yeah. So, CTRL Alt Delete is a professional development and career coaching company. CTRL Alt Delete actually stands for take control of your future, alter your mindset, and delete all doubt.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, there you go.

Tricia Sitemere
It’s kind of a…yeah, it’s a personal mantra of mine. It is the mantra that I share with my clients. It’s kind of a baseline for a lot of the things that I do. I think it’s very relevant when you think about your career that you do need to be the one that takes control. And sometimes you do need that change in mindset and how you think about things, and deleting the doubt, and being confident in who you are, your abilities, what you bring to the table, your leadership, your influence. Those are all very important to the clients that I serve.

And so, I coach folks one on one, specifically mid-career professionals around career transitions, career advancement and growth. And then I take a lot of the case studies and the things that I’m seeing, the trends that I’m seeing when I’m supporting my one-on-one clients, and I create training programs for HR teams so that they can set their managers up to success, to better support their employees, which, in turn, increases employee retention, employee engagement, those types of things. So, it’s a very rewarding work and I absolutely love it.

Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. Well, I love those three steps there. Can you tell us a cool story about someone who did just that, they took control of their career, they altered their mindset, they deleted doubt? Like, walk us through what did they do and what were the results?

Tricia Sitemere
I will take you back to where this all started, and I would say the first person that I know that had to take control of their future, alter their mindset, and delete all doubt was me. And I bounced around from a bunch of different careers. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. And I had a lot of interests but I was just kind of blowing in the wind. I was like, “Okay, I’m going to go back to school.” I got a Master’s.

And came back to Dallas, I went to graduate school in Boston. Shout out to Simmons University. I moved back to Dallas and was still kind of blowing in the wind. And the first thing that I did to kind of take control of my career and my future was a really deep self-assessment, like, “What do I like? What do I not like? What am I good at? What do I want to be good at? What do I want my career to look like?” And I just started putting a plan in place for myself.

In terms of altering the mindset around that, I studied communication management in graduate school, and I thought that I was going to go into, like, crisis communication, working for the Red Cross, managing communication strategy for natural disasters and terrible things. And that was not a space I wanted to spend my time in.

And for a while I thought I was stuck, I was like, “Okay, this is what I have spent the money for. My parents have already paid for this advanced degree. I have to stay in this space.” And it wasn’t until I started thinking about my situation differently and opening my mindset and being open to what my career was going to look like, and being open to having conversations, exploring different things, I continued to feel stuck.

And so, that was when I was able to alter my mindset. And then the deleting all doubt, I don’t think that this is an off-and-on switch kind of thing. I think deleting doubt is something that takes time. It’s something that grows within yourself as you continue to learn about yourself, as you continue to sharpen skills, and just kind of get to know yourself better.

And so, when I was diving further into, “What is my career going to look like?” I started in learning and development, and then I went into recruiting. It wasn’t until I had gotten used to the role, my confidence started to grow, and then I was really able to start deleting the doubt, like, “Hey, Tricia, you can do this. Hey, Tricia, you’re thinking about this in a really positive way. Hey, Tricia, you have some good leadership skills that are driving the team.”

And then, from there, I was able to have a wildly successful career in HR before transitioning into what I do with CTRL Alt Delete. And so, that’s a story that is personal to me because I lived it, and it was really something that I see in a lot of my one-on-one clients. When they come to me, they are often frustrated, whether they’re not fulfilled in their role, they’re feeling bored, there’s financial constraints.

And I help them put a plan together in place so that they can take control of their future. I always tell folks, “You need to be an active participant in your own life.” And taking control is the first step in doing that, saying, “Hey, I’m not just going to live simply off of the things that I am getting.” If there are opportunities, specific to CTRL Alt Delete, career opportunities, or growth and development opportunities that you’re interested in, you have to take control, and then the rest of the things, they kind of fall into place as you build out your action plan, but that’s an example for you.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. Thank you. Well, can you share with us a few key actions that control alt deleters do or don’t do that many of us just kind of neglect?

Tricia Sitemere
Yeah, I would say toxic positivity and not being completely honest with yourself about different situations. Obviously, we’re talking about the career space, but I think one of the things that my clients are really good at is building that transparency and having those honest conversations with yourself, whether that is in terms of, “I thought I was really strong in X, Y, Z space. And after taking some time kind of digging into it, getting feedback, having conversations, maybe I’m not so great at this.”

That’s kind of where the confidence and that transparency internally kind of cross because sometimes you feel like you’re really good at something, and sometimes you’re not as great as maybe you think you are, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That gives you the opportunity to stop and say, “Hey, okay, this is how I want to improve,” or, “These are some resources or tools or connections that I have access to that will help me get to the point where I want to be, thus letting me do X, Y, Z.” You know what I’m saying?

So, definitely, having those transparent conversations, I will say, is something that I coach to. And for a lot of people, it can be a blind spot that can hinder your career growth.

Pete Mockaitis
So, the blind spot is that they just quickly put a positive spin or sheen on things as oppose to taking a hard look, and saying, “Oh, I’m not so good at Excel,” or copywriting, or facilitating meetings, or whatever that thing may be, and, thus, they don’t ever really get the opportunity to open that door and then begin improving because they’re unaware of the shortcomings.

Tricia Sitemere
Right, to grow.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Tricia Sitemere
To grow, yeah. Another thing that I would say is you hear a lot about having a growth mindset, having an open mindset, and being able to look at all of your opportunities that are being presented to you, and it sounds nice. You’re talking about growth with your manager, your friends, family, whatever, you’re like, “You know, I’m really in a space where I’m allowing myself to grow.”

Well, there are certain things that you have to do in order to foster growth and to actually see the traction and the changes that you want, which include commitment and consistency. And so, it’s nice to say, “Hey, I’m doing all of these things,” but actually doing them and not just saying, “Hey, I have a growth mindset. I’m open to these opportunities,” without the action piece, because that’s really what is important and what is going to drive the change.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very cool. So, then, I’m curious, when it comes to the deleting all doubt, are there specific practices, tools, disciplines that you engage in to do the actual deleting?

Tricia Sitemere
Yes. So, I talked a little bit about having honest conversations, being open to awareness around your blind spots, maybe where you’re not as strong. On the other side of that, there are things that you absolutely excel at, that when someone says, “Oh, my goodness, I need…” you mentioned Excel so I’ll just keep on going with that example, “I need an Excel guru.” If that’s you, that’s something that you can build on so that you can start deleting some of that doubt.

And so, I think looking at both ends is definitely something that will help you delete all doubt. Getting feedback is an activity that I have a lot of my clients do when they’re struggling in that space, and they’re really struggling to decide, “Okay, what are strengths that I want to continue to grow? And what are my transferrable skills?” I work with them to do a little bit of a self-assessment. And part of that assessment, it’s asking for feedback. So, I’ll have them talk to a manager, a colleague, so, it, one, helps them get an outside view of, “Okay, this is maybe a strength I want to work on,” or, “This is maybe an area of opportunity.”

But if they are really good in those things, hearing it from someone else, and having that little bit of external validation is it can be key because it’s like, “Okay, I thought I was good at this in my head, but now I’m hearing from other people who have the opportunity to experience how I deliver X, Y, Z, and they are also very confident in my ability.” So, that’s going to help over time, those check-ins with yourself and getting feedback from others to help you grow that confidence and delete all doubt.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And I’m curious, when it comes to your clients, I imagine, often, by the time they find you, they might be pretty ready to make a change.

Tricia Sitemere
Oh, yeah. They’re like, “Tricia, we need this to happen last week,” and I’m like, “I get it. I understand 100%.” And the other part of that is sometimes career transitions, they take time. There are so many factors that are outside of your control, that we talk about this when we’re getting started, that we’ll take a little bit of patience.

And that’s not a favorite part of coaching, is having to coach to the patience piece but I see it time and time again, those that can be patient, who do the work and stay consistent, committed, there’s lots of opportunities and great things on the other side of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I’m curious, if we find ourselves in that position, where, “Okay, the job is fine. Maybe we should be thinking about making a switch,” can you walk us through kind of the step-by-step and then some of your favorite tactics or tools or tricks you use in each of them to really make a lot of progress fast?

Tricia Sitemere
Yes. The first thing I would say is not ignoring the signs. We know when there have been shifts in our mood and when we’re disgruntled or frustrated or stressed out about a situation, and people will make different excuses for why they may feel like they’re in that space. If you are starting to feel that, explore that, whether it is having a conversation with a friend or your spouse, or a conversation with a coworker as long as it’s nothing too crazy because they’re going to be able to understand some of those key players at work, some of those situations at work.

And then once you’ve kind of have gotten to a place where you’re like, “Okay, I think I know what this is. I think I know kind of where this is coming from,” almost like a root-cause analysis, I always empower people to ask for help. You don’t have to go through all of this by yourself, whether that is help from a manager, you’re like, “Hey, I’m kind of struggling with this space. What can we do in terms of support?”

Coaching. I’m not plugging coaching because I’m a coach, but I had worked with coaches, I have had coaches myself, but then I’ve also seen the impact that working with a coach can have. So, that would also be one of the things that I would recommend. And it’s almost like you have to kind of gather a bunch of information for yourself.

You go into this fact-finding after you’ve had these conversations, and now you’re asking yourself, “Okay, I know this isn’t what I want right now. What do I want?” and kind of dream it up real big, is what I tell my clients all the time. Dream it up real big and then move to, “Okay, I want to be an astronaut.” Obviously, for me, Pete, I’m not going to be an astronaut right now. What does it look like to get to that point?

And then in terms of getting that momentum going, and feeling good about the strides that you’re making, because we talked about patience being a key part of making the change, is giving yourself small digestible goals that will increase and kind of build into hitting some of those bigger goals that you have.

When you set a goal for yourself, sometimes you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, this goal is so far away. I’m never going to get there,” and that can cause some stress and it can cause some frustration. So, breaking it down into those smaller goals and celebrating the small wins, that’s going to really help you get the momentum, get the energy up, continue to keep the juices flowing, and it’ll also help you stay more consistent.

And then another thing that I would recommend in that space of doing that is share some of these things with people that champion and support you. And I’d talked about a supporting cast in my book, and it is really your supporting cast. Just like the lead in a movie, you have the supporting cast that helps make things happen. Sharing the things and the changes and the career aspirations that you have with your supporting cast, they are going to be able to lift you up when maybe you’re having a bad day.

Or, if you hit one of those smaller goals, or a bigger goal, it’s so great to be able to share and celebrate that with someone who is rooting for you. So, yeah, those would be a couple of my tips and kind of the walkthrough through the process. I love celebrating. I celebrate everything. I celebrate everything and, I tell you, it really does make a huge difference to be able to celebrate the person that you’re spending so much time working on yourself. What better project to work on and to focus on than yourself?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Well, let’s say we’ve gotten past the soul-searching phase and we’ve got some specific companies, roles, positions posted that we’re eyeing, and going, “Ooh, that’s enticing.” I’d love it if you could share some of your favorite job-hunting tips, whether it’s on the LinkedIn side, or the networking side, or the resume, or the cover letter, or the interview side, what are a couple things that just work like magic that you’re a huge fan of?

Tricia Sitemere
Yeah, I’m a huge fan of LinkedIn. When I was coming up through HR, I used LinkedIn a ton, both sending messages but being recruited from my engagement and participation on LinkedIn. So, I coach to LinkedIn. It’s not the only way but I particularly really like it just because it connects so many people from so many spaces that you might not even cross paths with in your everyday life.

And so, in terms of, like, if you see a role that you’re really excited about, you can search the title of the role, and you can see other folks that are in that particular space, and you can kind of do a little bit of sleuthing, see what kind of things they post about. Oftentimes, they will talk about things that are going on within the company or within the industry, where their company has been in the news.

All of that information is intel that you can, A, use if you reach out to a particular person or if you’re in an opportunity to network, it shows that you know what’s going on. And, two, all of that information can be really, really helpful in an interview. It shows that you’ve taken the time to investigate and research what’s going on within the industry, within the particular company, or if it’s even a specific team that the role that you’re interested in is on. All of that are data points that you can use in your career toolkit to help you make those connections and build those relationships to get into the role.

So, I would say those are some of the things that I’d recommend for LinkedIn. Connected to LinkedIn, people do not like sending blind invitations or messages on LinkedIn, and I get it because I do get my fair share of, “This is an interesting message in my inbox” kind of thing, but there are ways that you can grab the attention of the person that you’re reaching out, whether it is mentioning something you guys have in common, or you guys went to the same alma mater, or the same school, mentioning something that they’ve recently posted.

There are different ways that you can reach out so it’s not just this spammy message that you’re sending to probably someone who gets a lot of messages similar to that. So, here on LinkedIn, it says, “Hi, I’m a hiring manager.” Some people may reach out to you about X, Y, Z jobs, and sometimes they’re maybe not the greatest message, they don’t really share any information, so there’s no incentive, I guess, on the other end for that person to respond.

And so, doing some of this recon on the frontend is going to help you craft your messages, and type it up, take a deep breath, and send it. Sometimes people won’t respond, but sometimes they will, and those can lead to some really, really great conversations. And then the other thing that I would say, or the last thing that I would say in terms of researching job and reaching out to folks and looking for work on LinkedIn, is following up.

Following up and showing up are huge. They’re so huge. If someone that you’ve reached out to reaches back to you, don’t wait a week and a half to respond. I get things happen but it’s all about keeping that momentum going, so respond to them. If you guys have something scheduled, show up. And that sounds a little elementary but I had spent almost 10 years with hiring managers, and I am always blown away by how many people just don’t show up to interviews and don’t communicate.

And so, I always feel like that’s something worth mentioning. And so, just taking that, building those relationships, having those conversations, sometimes there’s opportunities that are available more immediately, just like with any relationship, networking including, it takes a little bit of work. And so, don’t just completely disregard a relationship because it didn’t result in a job right away.

They might have something coming down the pipeline one month, two months, six months. We don’t know what that will look like. So, continuing to cultivate those relationships is also something that’s going to be super key.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Beautiful. Well, tell me Tricia, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Tricia Sitemere
Feel empowered to create the life you love. I think some would say that sounds corny or that sounds cheesy but I think it’s so important. We have this one life to live. And you should be able to live it on your own terms with things and people and experiences that you want to have a part of your life. So, that’s what I would say.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Beautiful. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Tricia Sitemere
“Everything you can imagine is real,” by Pablo Picasso. And I think that ties in perfectly to what I just said about creating the life that you love. Everything you can imagine is real. And sometimes it does take that shift in mindset to start to bring some of those things to fruition or realize, “Hey, this isn’t exactly what it looked like in my mind but it’s exactly what I’m looking for.” Yeah, that’s my favorite.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Tricia Sitemere
It’s actually a case study, and it’s from one of my favorite books, Mindset actually by Carol Dweck. And it is exploring the impact of a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset and a false growth mindset. And it’s a study and she’s working with children that are in elementary school. And so, it’s like she has one group who are told, like, “Hey, you can do anything. You’re great at all these different things,” and she studies how they perform versus another group of students who are kind of being coached or fed that, “This is not in your skillset,” and she monitors how each of the groups react.

And she uses this study to kind of talk through the importance of fostering a growth mindset and paying attention to the different things that we tell ourselves, and being transparent and honest with ourselves and some of the other things that I had mentioned. And I obviously work with mid-career professionals, but some of this stuff around mindset and feeling equipped starts so much earlier than when I work with them. And so, that wasn’t a study that I was thinking I would come across, and it’s really interesting. It’s in her book, Mindset.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Cool. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Tricia Sitemere
Ooh, I’m a checklist girl, Pete. Do you like checklists?

Pete Mockaitis
I do, yes.

Tricia Sitemere
I’m a checklist girl. I’m a calendar girl. I keep a to-do list. I keep list of several different sorts actually, but in terms of being awesome at my job, at the end of every single day, I will review my list of deliverables, or tasks, or clients I need to follow up with, and just kind of put a cap on my day so that when I get started in the morning, I can hit the ground running.

Or, I can take a look at my list, and say, “Okay, this doesn’t exactly fall into place with what I thought my day would look like because there’s fires, there’s things that pop up,” but I use that as my guide. And then I’m also really big about calendaring and blocking time off to do different things, and that is so helpful. It helps me feel very organized and it’s like, “Okay, if things get crazy, at least I know I have dedicated time to focus and do my very best work on this thing because I’ve blocked out time for it.” So, those are my two biggest tips that I use, my two biggest tools.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; people quote it back to you often?

Tricia Sitemere
CTRL Alt Delete.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, there you go, yeah.

Tricia Sitemere
Which, obviously, is a delight to me. I’ll run into folks, and they’re like, “What are you doing to take control of your future or alter your mindset?” And I’m like, “Let’s talk about it.” And they’re like, “Oh, my goodness, now I’m in a conversation with Tricia. This is going to turn into a coaching session.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Tricia Sitemere
Yes, you can find me on my website TriciaSitemere.com. I’m also on YouTube under the same name, also on LinkedIn, and Instagram. I post a variety of different free resources, information, and tips on all of those. And I look forward to engaging.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. This has been a treat, Tricia. Keep on rocking.

Tricia Sitemere
Thank you. Thank you so much, Pete, for having me. I appreciate you.