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Hello and welcome to Biz in Box. I'm M Burnham and today I am thrilled to be joined by an absolute powerhouse in the entrepreneur world, Sarah Davidson. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on today. I am very very excited.
Oh and thank you for having me. I am equally as excited. And I feel like there's a mutual fangirling going on right now.
There is absolutely no way this is mutual because your career compared to mine, Like, we just need to break this down because you will definitely know Sarah from her
brilliant podcast Sees the Ya. But what's truly fascinating is how she completely transformed her live, swapping her career as a corporate lawyer to become the founder of her own widely successful retail brand and emerging as one of Australia's most in a Win Your Voices in entrepreneurship, Sarah is here to share some wisdom about embracing the unexpected and how sometimes having no plan can actually turn out to
be the blest plan of all. Like, I feel like everyone always forgets you used to be in corporate law.
Yeah, even I forget sometimes until we get an opportunity like this. You know, when someone else reads your bio, it just has this extra like nice panache. Then like when you say it yourself and it's like, who is that that they're talking about.
I don't think anyone's ever read my bio. Mine would be like and Burnham. She sometimes likes to work, she sometimes doesn't.
Here she is good lurker. I'll endorse you for the lurking. It's a great skill, you know, in this day and age. Lurking, Yes, is pervy, so bit pervy. I call it thorough, I think, ok yeah, yeah, the marketing spin for every skill you know, I'd call that thorough. Good researcher, attention to detail.
Okay, these are the mean on it.
Put your best foot forward.
This is smart. I'm writing this down already, like this is exactly what we need in these viz Inbox episodes. It's our very own ask us anything so you can get all of your career advice without your boss or colleagues ever finding out. If you don't want them to, we will keep you completely anonymous.
Oh my goodness, I mean m I have wanted to call in many times. So the fact that I get to be here. It is so exciting. And this week I'll be sharing how to make those dreaded tell us a fun fact about yourself moments actually fun. Plus, we will tackle a big dilemma about career pivots. But first let's chat about those tricky job interview questions that always make you second gets yourself.
Okay, yes, these questions are very, very heated for me because I have no idea what to do with this. So we got this cent on our DMS by Charlie and she says, I keep getting asked where do you see yourself in five years in interviews, and honestly I never tell the truth because, like most people my age, I probably won't be at the company for that long.
What are recruiters really looking for with this question? Are they checking if I'm ambitious enough on want management, trying to show their care about my career journey, or just testing if I can politely feb about my commitment. It feels so outdated for twenty twenty five. How should I handle these predictable questions without sounding fake? I never know how to answer this question.
Ever, I love this question because I think it is so well I don't love the question from recruiters, but I love the question in the DMS because I think so many people wonder that these days, like how do you gently yeah, feb about your level of commitment? And I think you're right. I think it is a bit outdated for this day and age to sort of ask about the five year plan, because not everyone necessarily has one,
and the world changes so rapidly. We're meant to have sort of twelve to fifteen careers in our lifetime now. It is kind of an outdated question, but I think most recruiters are aware of that rapid pace of careers. I don't think they expect you to say, look, in five years, I probably will have moved on. I don't think they want that level of honesty from you, But I think it is possible to answer authentically and acknowledge that your five year plan is uncertain, but also show
commitment at the same time. I think they're not necessarily looking for someone who will last twenty five years, but they're looking for someone who can show they have ambition right now and that they can have commitment right now. So I think it still pays to show that you've researched the company and have got a list of ways you could grow within their company and within the advertised role. You can still show that you have long term goals that align with the business and why you'd make a
valuable contribution. I think you can do that without saying I'm going to be here in fifty years time. I think there is a nice middle ground without life and feeling fake.
Okay, this landed in our DMS recently, and it's an anonymous question, which is my favorite one because they're extra juicy, And it says I've been working in corporate finance for seven years and while I'm good at it, I'm completely unfulfilled. I've been studying part time to become a clinical psychologist. Oh but for you, it's something I've always been passionate about. But the thought of leaving my secure six figure job for years of additional training and starting over terrifies me.
How did you know it's the right time to make the leap? What duck should I have lined up? And what advice would you give someone standing at the edge of a major career pivot that feels meaningful but incredibly risky. Oh this is a good one. I love this. I feel like you're perfectly suited to answer this question.
I definitely remember being at that crossroads, and this point in time is my favorite time to encounter someone and to get to chat to them, because I feel like it is it's a real pivotal time. You can either go towards the risk or you could easily shy away from it. And I think obviously we all have a really different risk tolerance and the most important thing to remember is that the right time is going to be
different for everyone. Like, as much as I want to say, leave your job, take the leap, I think you do have to have a really honest evaluation of what your risk matrix looks like. So when I left, I had no mortgage, I had no kids. Sure it was risky to walk away from my legal career, but overall my commitments were pretty you know, I could minimize the risk quite a lot. And my best advice is minimize the risk as much as you can so the leap is
as small as possible. So you know, if you do have a side hustle, stay in it as long as you can until you need to go full time. You don't necessarily need to jump straight away on the flip side. I think if you have looked at your financial position, you do have some savings. Sure you might be leaving a bit of security, or you might be leaving a six figure job. But I make decisions based on future
regret management. What will future me regret more? Will they regret trying and seeing or will they regret never taking the chance and never knowing? And I think most of us would rather try and see because you can always go back. You forget that, you can always just go back to where you were before. I think it's better to, once you've yeah taken account of your responsibilities, give it a go. You'll be so surprised what you can make work and how much more capable you are than you think.
That is such an exciting answer. Also, to jump off of that, do you think there's a such thing as you're too old to change careers? Oh?
My gosh, never, never, And I think there are I can't think off the top of my head. But go and google the people who started their careers sort of later in their life sixties seventies. People who we know of now is like the absolute leader and shining star of the industries. A lot of them only came to that industry later in life, which are just like I
think maybe Vira Wang was one of them. I think she only started designing at forty or I can't think of the list, but go and google it for reassurance that it is never too late. And the quote I always come back to is in ten years from now, you'll wish you started today. So really like the sooner you can start something that you know you're going to want to have done the better, like hy waste a moment wondering when you can, you can go and see.
And I think my other big thing that comes up when I saw this question was when you are about to make a leap, you're going to ask people for advice because it's so scary, like you're going to obviously leave a message in the inbox, but you might consult the people around you ask the right people. When I was leaving law, the exact wrong person to ask for advice was other lawyers, because of course they think the
same as me. They've got the same risk aversion. The people I had to ask was other business people who had left their careers and seen how wonderful it could be. I knew what answer I'd get from which friends of mine, and I wanted to hear a yes, so I asked the people who would give me a yes.
Oh that's so good. It's also one of those things where if you're choosing between two different things, you flip a coin for it, and depending on where the coin lands, if it lands on heads but you wanted to land on tails, then you have your answer. Like there's always one side where you wanted to land a bit more, and that gives you the answer. And I think that's like such just such an exciting answer, Like I'm so excited for this anonymous person, Like I think that's just
the perfect answer for them. And I'm really excited to see you that career shift. And I really wish we knew who you were so we could track you. But that's just an exciting answer. I love stuff like that. It's so much fun. Okay, So I have been working for seven years now and I still haven't worked out the right answer for this one. So Sarah, this is all on you to do. We got this question from Melissa in Sydney and she says, I've just started a new job and been asked to share a fun fact
about myself for the company newsletter. And I'm completely overthinking it. Should these be work related or personal? How much of my actual personality should I reveal? My previous workplace made us share fun facts in person during meetings, where I could at least laugh along and people got my delivery. But a newsletter fun fact feels so permanent and might come across completely wrong without my facial expressions to back
it up. What's the sweet pot? What's the sweet spot for a fun fact that makes a good impression without being too much? Now, I don't want to throw mom and me a under the bus here, but we do this. It's so funny. It's like we've done it since I started here in like twenty eighteen, I think, but before you joined the big company Slack channel and emails and you see everyone they just announced like all the new starters and they have like a little fun fact. And
I remember when I did. It was for the newsletter, and I was like, wait, I just have to write a fun fact that's going to go out to the masses for people not knowing. I had no idea. Watch, I can't remember what I wrote. I think I just read something so dumb, like I have two dogs, like
something so silly. And then when I joined the company and like I was reading everyone else's fun facts, it would be something like, oh, I explored Europe for three years and that's where I met my husband and I had my kids, and I was like, oh my god, Like, this is so embarrassing for me. I do not know how to do this question. But now every time someone does a silly fun fact that MoMA and Maya, I am very excited for them.
Oh my gosh. I mean, as a chronic oversharer who hasn't worked in a corporate environment in a while, I might not be the safest person to ask this question.
Oh my god, Sarah, I reckon, you should just send yourself a fun fact about yourself every day so you know how traumatizing it is doing this.
I'm just going to circulate it internally to myself for the full team to enjoy it. I mean, I may be a bit skewed towards a higher level of fun than the average workplace, but I think it definitely depends on the environment you're going into the industry, the type of office, Like you can probably get a bit of a gauge from the role and the company that you're at.
What they're accepted level of fun would be. I definitely would err on the side of caution, Like I think the way this was worded the question if you're doubtful that they'll understand it without your facial expressions as a backup, I wouldn't use that fun fact, Like, if you're wondering, then probably just don't use it. I definitely go something that you know, Yeah, don't risk it because you never know who will see it. But I also think don't go too safe either, because the point of it is
to start an interesting conversationation. It's to seek out the other people in this company who you might not normally get to meet, and it's your chance. It is kind of a chance. You don't get that much airtime on a mass group company slack, right, Like, you don't get that many chances to say something interesting about yourself that isn't your performance or your role. So I would probably pick something non work related that is actually something interesting
about you. Like I would think about who are the kind of people that you want to connect with in your workplace and what are they going to find interesting? Like what is going to make your time at this company more enjoyable and it would be to find people who have a common interest, So what's that common interest?
So I always answer based on what I want to get out of someone potentially seeing, And like, there's so many facts I can think about if things that I've done that would never come up in the workplace, but I would love other people to know that I've done, like you know, volunteering opportunities, or I love languages and travel, so I'd want to find other people who love that.
Or I'd want to find people in the company who if they thought about an international travel opportunity, they went, oh, well, she mentioned that she speaks other languages, like that kind of thing.
Smart, Oh my god. So you can use it as a strategy.
Yeah, and not too convoluted. But I think people are going to read it anyway, so.
Much better than like my colleagues going, there's that girl who loves those dogs. She loves her dogs so much, she's got two of them.
I love dogs, unless you want to meet other dog lovers, in which case it was the perfect answer. But I think it can be a wasted opportunity to say something interesting about yourself. Don't waste it, because that's probably the only time the whole company will get to hear from you, so say something interesting, be memorable.
Thank you so much for helping us clear the biz Inbox. If you have a work question, please send it our way. You will find a link to submit your questions in the show notes. You can tell us your name or you can remain completely anonymous. It is your choice.
And if you missed any of our episodes, just scroll back in your feed. We'll be back in the biz Inbox next week.
Bye bye, Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on