Bozoma Saint John doesn’t shrink away from the spotlight.
Saint John, 48, was Netflix’s first Black C-level executive as their chief marketing officer. She became Uber’s first chief branding officer tasked with rehabbing the rideshare company’s image. And she made headlines in 2016 when she shook up the stage at Apple’s annual conference despite not looking like a typical “Apple fan boy,” she says.
Saint John’s career moves are as as bold as her personal style. And she has what she considers some well-meaning but misguided advice to thank for that.
“An early manager told me never to wear red lipstick or red nail polish,” Saint John tells CNBC Make It when asked about the best career advice she’s ever gotten.
“She did it with good intention, like, ‘You walk into a room and you don’t want to be too bold. You don’t want people to make opinions of you before you even open your mouth,'” Saint John says.
But “that made me question my appearance in rooms. Being a Black woman who’s quite tall and bold in her wardrobe, I found that it really shrank me.”
Saint John says she decided to ignore that advice and flip it on its head to “be the most colorful, the boldest, the sharpest, the wittiest in a room, and feel very confident in it.”
“I’ve been able to be successful because I didn’t take that advice,” she says.
Saint John continues to go after big changes in her career, becoming a first-time CEO for her own hair and beauty brand, Eve by Boz, and most recently adding “reality TV star” to her resume a cast member of Bravo’s “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and as co-host of NBC’s “On Brand with Jimmy Fallon.”
And she wants you to go after your big career swings, too.
With people approaching a new year with new work goals, Saint John says it’s a good time as any to go after what you really want in your career. “That the pivot can happen any moment,” she says.
Here, Saint John draws on her own career and experience managing thousands to share the signs it’s time to quit a job, how to shape your professional brand, a major red flag when interviewing with companies, and more.
When you know it’s time to quit a job
My advice is usually if you get the Sunday scaries, you’re definitely in the wrong place. If you are coming back from the holiday and you feel the ache in your stomach that you don’t want to go back to your job, or you’re dreading it so much so that you can barely sleep, then I think that’s a pretty big indication that you’ve got to go now.
The big mistake people when going after a raise, promotion or quitting
If you want a promotion or more experiences within your job, set a timeline by which you can hit that goal or decide it’s time to leave. Create a timeline with your boss.
A lot of times people approach that promotion or the raise conversation from a very self-centered standpoint. What the company and your manager wants to hear is how it’s going to help the company and the wider community of your colleagues.
So if you position it as: “By March 1, I want to be promoted to X position, and this is how I’m going to execute my job to get take on more responsibility or help the company achieve X, Y and Z goal,’ that gives you some building blocks and a timeline to get to March 1.
When you’re mid-career trying to get to the next step, you should absolutely have a plan to make sure that you’re talking to your boss with a timeline in mind.
It’s such a mistake to think that this is all you, that you’ve got to put in the ideas for how you’re going to get ahead. If you don’t include your manager in your timeline, they have no idea what what goal you’re trying to hit.
Lay the groundwork so that by the time you have that conversation, everybody is well aware that either you’ve hit the goal to get that raise or promotion, and if you do your part and don’t have it by March 1, everybody’s on the same page: ‘I’m quitting.’
How to be in control of your own professional brand
Regardless of if you’re on TV or you’re sitting in a cubicle, I believe your personal brand is important, and to some degree you don’t have control. So you have to take as much control as possible.
If you’re sitting a cubicle in an open floor plan and somebody doesn’t appreciate your work, your responsibility is to make sure that the brand narrative about yourself is that you’re hardworking or that you’re creative or that you’re a problem solver. Do as much as you can to communicate that brand the same way that you would in front of a camera.
The No. 1 quality she hires for
This is the No. 1 thing: Bring your full self. Don’t try to cut down the edges of yourself so that you can fit in better. The way that you make yourself memorable is to actually be memorable.
There are so many beautifully unique things about each of us, our experiences, the history that we come with, that weaving that into your answers and into the conversation that you’re having is actually what’s going to make somebody remember you.
We often think that as human beings, we have to have similar interests or similar tastes with somebody so that they get along with us and want to hire us. And I think it’s actually quite the opposite. Curiosity, wanting to know somebody because you’re like, ‘They’re from this place, or they’ve had this experience, and that could add to the job because I don’t have that experience’ is actually how you want to be perceived in an interview.
Her biggest red flag to look for when interviewing with a company
If you’re in an interview, and the person who’s talking to you makes it sound as if they’re looking for somebody who’s just like them, run. Run fast, far and away.
You want to be in a place that is going to appreciate and love the unique contribution that you’re bringing to the job. And it’s not just about your business experience. It’s about your cultural experience, your personal experience and your emotional experience.
You’re one of one, so bring it.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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