Selling yourself

I am in the process of applying for some scholarships and job opportunities that require third-party recommendations or references.

When I approached my current employer for a professional reference, she gave me an unexpected response: ‘write a draft and send it to me and I’ll work from that’. She said that I would know the criteria for the role better than her and described it as a useful exercise that her former employers and mentors used to ask her to do as a method for identifying her own strengths, weaknesses and areas to improve upon.

Initially, I thought this might be unethical – but I was assured she wouldn’t submit anything I had written that she was unhappy with and wouldn’t consult me prior to submitting.

I really struggled to freely write about my own strengths. I am usually not particularly shy, and certainly know where my strengths lie perhaps better than my weaknesses. Yet I found it really difficult to outline my strengths to then be read by someone who I can only assume has their own opinions and judgements about myself.

Eventually, I just had to write, guided by two simple premises: what was actually, defensibly, true about my capabilities and performance, and the ways in which that matched up with the assessment criteria.

Often, I find it easy to be somewhat crippled by fear of what people might think of me. Ultimately though, I guess you just have to bite the bullet and do your best.

My boss once gave me a wise piece of advice along the lines of: think of how much time you spend worrying about yourself and assume everyone else is doing the same. That doesn’t leave much time to be worrying and judging others.