What is "Authentic" anyways?
Do you know yourself enough to "be yourself"?
Authentic is to act in genuine alignment with your true self, values, beliefs, and personality, rather than pretending or conforming to others’ expectations.
How many times have you been told, “just be yourself”?
The most common time the tension between “yourself” and “expectations” shows up is in job interviews or a first date. I’ve been with my husband now for 19 years so I am not your resident expert on first dates so I am going to stay in my lane and talk… interviews!
Yes, the interviewer/company says over and over, “just be yourself”… however, a huge part of interviews is the company trying to decide if they want to bet their future on you. If they want you to be in their meetings every week, or be responsible for representing their brand day to day, or if they want to share space with you for an extended period of time. You walk into a meeting of unknown biases and expectations, but are told to ignore those and “just be you”. (Yeah, right!)
In my career history, I have had MANY interviews and very few have gone poorly. In fact, every single final interview that I was invited to — I was offered that job. It is possible that I am the best seller on earth, but in fact, I think the more likely reason is that I am AUTHENTIC. I am CATE in every call, in every interaction, and with absolutely no shame or hesitation. I know my faults, I know my strengths, and I embrace and celebrate both equally.
Authenticity breeds Trust.
Leaders hire people they trust.
If you are like me, you are thinking, “ok Cate, great, thanks for that genius moment but How do I do that in MY interviews?” Great question, I am glad you asked!
As a part of these career interviews, there is a common thread of questions that we always get. It is a variation of, “What makes you different? What makes you special in this huge abyss of interviews I have been doing for days with a bunch of strangers heads on my computer screen? Why should I hire you over everyone else?”
It’s the question we all WANT; finally, our chance to shine! But for many, their sparkle is incredibly hard to articulate… if they even know what it is.
The answer is: WAIT… you aren’t ready for the answer yet.
First, we need to ask the question…
DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR SPARKLE IS?