Katherine Ann Byam Services

12/11/2023

Always so nice to meet online friends in real life - great seeing you - cheers to health and wellness!!

06/03/2023

Last week I began my 8th month of job search.

In that time, I've done around 45 applications.

Too little?

Perhaps.

But I've been very specific in what I'd like to do, and discerning about the companies as well.

My applications were for sustainability themed roles in strategy (80%), Audit (15%) or in rare cases Supply Chain (5%) - roughly estimating.

By now I've had 9 of these applications contact me for interviews, and received a standard sort of decline to interview email from around 50%. The other 50%? Who knows. My data is in the wind on those applications.

Of the 9 Interviews I had multiple stages in 5 of them.

Of the 5 with multiple stages, I've not received a final job offer - and only 2 of them decided to get on the phone to tell me that I was not selected.

The sticking points I've been told are these:

- You've not done sustainability type roles in a big corporate setting.

- You don't have the specific experience we were looking for.

The sticking points I can ascertain are these:

- Who pivots career from finance to audit, to supply chain to sustainability? perhaps she's not stable.

- I'm not sure you can learn what's needed for this job fast enough

- Or perhaps some other invisible things that I cannot ascertain.

Its quite amazing that with a CV like mine where I've accumulated a portfolio of skills - something we are actively encouraging Gen Z to do for example, an ATS tracker is better able to detect that I have the underlying skills needed to excel at any sustainability role I've applied for, better than the human eye can.

Unconscious bias tends to show up in recruiting despite our best intentions.

As humans we give meanings to things that have no meaning.

In the case of my CV, in general, people are more critical of my multiple career pivots than curious about what I learned from them.

I've also received feedback like "you'd get bored in this role."

With all due respect recruiting teams, that's for me to decide, not you.

There will never be a job that allows me to use all the skills I've accumulated at once, Yet all the skills I've accumulated can be repurposed to match the objectives before me.

[CONT. BELOW]

22/02/2023

MY BOOK DO WHAT MATTERS - THE PURPOSE DRIVEN CAREER TRANSITION GUIDE IS STILL AVAILABLE ON AMAZON!

A bit about the book:

Do What Matters.

This purpose driven career transition guide is for people in leadership, consulting, change programs, and freelancers or contractors working within organisations.

Explore a wide range of perspectives on this journey to take charge of your career and your why, lead change, and gain skills and momentum to sustain the impact you want to create.

Here’s what this book has achieved:

# 1 Best Sellers
# 1 Career Guide UK

Other Best Sellers (UK and / or US )
# 2 in Environmentalist/ Naturalist
# 2 in Political Leadership
# 4 in Green Business
# 4 in Vocational Guides
# 4 in Change Management

Link to purchase at katherineannbyam.com!


           
                             

20/02/2023

In October 2014, my then employer went live with the 3rd wave of a Global SAP migration project. It was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life, given that I was the Subject Matter Expert for Logistics as a Finance Professional with an Internal Audit background! (Thank goodness I love learning!!)

After the project, I started thinking - what could I be doing if I wasn't dependent on this job?

That line of thinking started a chain of events, that culminated in this picture here today.

In 2014, I visited the classrooms at Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM), as my partner suggested it as a great educational choice. I sat into the MBA Accounting class for half a session, sitting next to Chahndra Dal Pont, Tatiana Okutina, and Guilherme Ramos, Francisco Nieto y Torres who were already attending classes there. I helped them in the class (I'm not a qualified accountant for nothing 🙂 and they helped convince me enrol in the programme.

I enrolled full time in 2015, graduated 2 years later with a distinction and specialisation in Innovation Management, and started the radical series of pivots that has defined the last 6 exciting years of my life.

Now my book and bits of my career transition journey are immortalised in the GEM Library below - as Do What Matters Careers is there to help new graduates navigate their career in radically evolving times!

My commitment to innovation was born from my classes there, contributing to why is a global top 5% podcast!

I am so grateful to the incredible experiences and people I've met at GEM, and for the depth of my education there. Thank you to those who've played a major role in this journey:

To check out my book - just head over to my website www.katherineannbyam.com

26/01/2023

Do What Matters is not just an Amazon Best Seller, it's an entire living career transformation system, designed to give you what you need to make the important pivots you need to thrive in life and career.

The podcast and the book consider real modern day leadership challenges on climate, social justice, good corporate governance, and your existence within it.

The book covers topics such as:

The Context and Case for Change
Your Pathway to Self Mastery
Social Credible and Responsible - Becoming an Advocate for Change
Jump but know how to land - Governing your first 90 Days

The podcast covers topics such as:
Do What Matters
The Purposeful Pivot
Share More Waste Less
Busking Through Vulnerability
DEI is my Job
Journaling
Perfectly Imperfect
Productivity
Human Intelligence
LinkedIn
Potential and Purpose
More about the Book Do What Matters
Surviving Afghanistan
Diversity Equity & Inclusion
The Profitable Resume
Networking
Career Climate and Community
Black in Design
The Career Journal Series
Mindfulness and Meditation
Culture at work
Women in Consulting
Women in Tech
Future of Work and Talent
Embracing Only
Gratitude

Celebrating all the podcasts achievements:
Listened to in # 52 countries.
Charted in # 11 different charts
Charted in # 7 countries
Top 20 in # 2 Charts
Top 10 in # 1 Charts
Rated 5 Stars *****
Thanks for your support!!

Do What Matters comes with complimentary resources such as the 9 step career transition template, a linkedIn self audit guide, and other frameworks to help accelerate the transition work.

04/01/2023

For those who want to make a positive impact using their career to make that change. Get the 9 steps career transition system proven to produce great results and resources linked to the book Do What Matters the Purpose Driven Career Transition Guide.

10/12/2022

There's a lot of heavy stuff (and world Cup drama!) On my social feeds this week. I want to take a moment to talk Meghan and Harry.

I was told by one of my Trinidadian friends this week that I'm mistaken to conflate my lived experience with Meghan and Harry.

In 2017 when that couple got engaged, I felt so overjoyed. As one half of an interacial and important to add intercultural couple myself, I was thrilled to see my family nucleus set up represented in such a globally famous family.

Not for a million years would I have thought the British Royal family would have an interacial marriage.

That moment did so much for infusing me with hope, that a time would come that me and my partner too would not be judged.

That when I get to the bank to do some transactions with my partner, the bank teller would stop looking and speaking at my partner as if the bank account in question couldn't be my own.

Or that people would instead of judging us, be genuinely curious about how we make blending our different cultures together work, and empathetic of how challenging that can be at times.

Or interested in how we've grown and changed because of it.

I had so much hope, until I started to see all the racial tropes in the UK tabloids about Meghan.

I can't imagine dealing with all the stuff I have to naturally deal with being an interacial intercultural couple, and on top of that having the media be able to write what ever they want about you whether true or false, and promoting it to millions, getting paid more the more salacious the story.

I'm sure Meghan isn't perfect. Nor is Harry. Nor is the Royal family's household staff. I don't have any information to comment about the Royal family, as they mostly decline to comment on such matters.

But our society in the UK isn't perfect either.

Before you judge the Netflix series, I beg of you to watch it with curiosity. Leave your preconceptions of right and wrong at the opening credits, and just for a moment hear their version of their love life and journey to navigate it in the public eye.

Being a mixed race intercultural couple isn't easy. There are many of us out here navigating this.

02/12/2022

Thanks for sharing this, Lupina!

It;s a brilliant quote from thought leader Melissa Carson -

What’s your favourite quote from my book, Do What Matters?

Drop it in the comments below!

09/11/2022

Often, I think it's not enough.
This is the conversation I keep having with myself, as I spend time, following the news, creating advocacy campaigns, or working on social impact projects with people in my business community.

Yet when I look up from the problems and solutions that consume me, and take a moment to relax, I often feel like the path I've chosen, to become an activist and campaigner for sustainable change, is leading me to a more anxious life, and perhaps even an earlier departure.

Reconciling what is enough, what's in your capacity to do, doing it, not giving up, and still finding those important moments for self-care, reflection and human interaction is incredibly difficult.

Last week I had the rare opportunity to meet up with "Trinis on d road" - translation - Trinidadians in transit, for a rare night of drinks in London, and it gave me some perspective.

With Vidia Woods - we talked about her journey as a CEO of a major food distributor in Barbados to secure shipments, jobs and other challenges throughout the early stages of the pandemic, and the toll the last few years have had on her, and her passion now to support food security on the small island developing state in which she now lives.

With Danielle Belgrave - we talked about the difference she's making as a researcher on topics of Health at an AI and machine learning firm, and how she's managing competing interests as well.

When I meet up with people who in their own ways are working toward their version of a greater good, instead of thinking it's not enough, I realise that we need to shift the narrative.

We need to highlight more stories of solutions. We need to collaborate more with each other on the challenges, and we need to carry the change burden together.

On my podcast, Do What Matters - Career and Leadership on Purpose I will be bringing more stories of people who are navigating challenges from their places of employment, so we can all take part in offering help, support, encouragement, and new ideas from our own different perspectives.

The truth is we are enough together.

and - it doesn't hurt to take a night off once in a while.

25/10/2022

I've had the pleasure to be featured by listennotes, a podcast aggregator site, that ranks all podcasts globally about my work on Do What Matters, Where Ideas Launch, and Purpose in general.

(Link of the article in my stories!)

It's such a pleasure to be featured and have this work celebrated!

Do What Matters now has 15 Episodes and counting and publishes on Mondays with a guest (ranges between 20 and 40 minutes) ,and Fridays with a solo episode from me, usually not more than 10-15 minutes.

The topic is purpose, career, and leadership, and the guests so far have included:

01 Do What Matters - Myself, interviewed by Hannah Barry
02 The Purposeful Pivot Shane Ward - AgroEcologist and regenerative land use advisor at Action Ecology
03 Share more Waste Less with Tessa Clarke - CEO and CO Founder of OLIO • Share More, Waste Less
04 Busking through Vulnerability Sherika Sherard - Actress, Singer Song Writer, London Busker
05 DEI is my Job Kysha Gibson - Partner at Accenture
06 Weekly Tip on Journaling, Myself
07 Perfectly Imperfect Melissa Carson - Thought Leader and Advisor on Business Impact through People Crim Dell Consulting
08 Weekly Tip on Productivity
09 Human Intelligence Juan Luis Betancourt - CEO and Founder of Humantelligence Inc. - the professional dating app between people and companies! (Love this one)
10 Weekly Tip on Using LinkedIn Myself
11 Potential and Purpose - Chris Pirie - CEO & Founder of the Learning Futures Group, and Technology skills Google.
12 Do What Matters - The Book - Myself
13 Surviving Afghanistan - Kirsten Forbes, PMP - Customer Service at Microsoft, formally a Supply Chain Manager at the International Committee of the Red Cross - ICRC
14 Diversity Equity and Inclusion - Myself
15 The profitable Resume Ashley Roper - Global HR Consultant and Coach based in Japan.

Coming up on my next post is a session on Networking from me as well.

Thank you to my guests and to everyone for your support with this career on purpose movement!