Hishem Azzouz talks about the self-doubt young professionals feel when contacting senior decision-makers. He reframes outreach calls as candidate-assessment interviews where you're evaluating them too, and shows how this shift in perspective kills the imposter feeling and lets you act with confidence.
Did you not ever think like, "Fuckin' hell, I'm this like Essex lad, 20-year-old, just calling these people in Italy vice presidents and that. Who the fuck do they think I am?" Did you not ever have that? Did you have to deal with that?
I still get it today, to be fair. I don't think you ever lose that. There's always that sense of, you know, I am only in my 20s, I've not got some crazy degree behind me, you know. How do you overcome that then?
Or not let that like block your performance or hold you back?
I say it to my consultants today is I think like, if I put a vice president candidate in front of you and I asked you to qualify them as a candidate, you would have no issues with it. You would take the call, you would have a very good call, you'd come away with really good information, you'd build a really good credibility because you're looking at them as a candidate. There's absolutely no difference if you approach them as a decision maker. They're still the exact same person. All you have to do is rather than asking them questions around why they want a new job, you've just gotta make yourself sound relevant as to what are you looking for in your new hiring strategy? And you just have to be confident that you can offer a solution to that.
