325: Visibility Without Hustle: Sustainable Strategies for Career Growth and Community Building

325: Visibility Without Hustle: Sustainable Strategies for Career Growth and Community Building

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[00:00:00] Before we get started, I want to share something for my listeners who are navigating grad school or supporting others who are, are you feeling stuck or overwhelmed in your grad school preparation process? Or maybe you're part of a campus program, trying to guide students through it all with limited time.

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Academia and most professional spaces reward the loudest voices and the most visible accomplishments, but not everyone has the privilege, capacity, or desire to be constantly on. Take it from me. I'm [00:02:00] introverted, I'm a spoony, I'm autistic. I don't always have the time, the energy, or the capacity to show up.

So then how do we do that? How do we show up when the system wasn't built for people like us when we don't have the same energy or even personality traits as the loudest person in the room? That's what we're gonna be unpacking today.

Welcome to the award-winning grad school Femtoring podcast. The place for first gen Bipoc to listen in on inclusive grad school stories and learn about personal development and productivity tips. This is Yvette Martinez Vu, a certified coach, consultant and author, and I will be serving as your Femtoring, providing you with insider knowledge to help you reach your personal and [00:03:00] professional goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring podcast.

This is your host, Doctora Yvette. Today we're talking about visibility and we're talking about how to be visible without the hustle. So how do you make sure that you're seen and that you do so on your terms? And this episode is really about career growth and community building at the end of the day. And so I wanna start with.

Emphasizing why visibility matters, especially for first gen folks, especially for Bipoc folks. Especially for Neurodivergent folks. And I'll start by, you know, talking about the career advancement aspect of things. When you're talking about career advancement and career development, a lot of what happens behind [00:04:00] closed doors that sometimes we're not taught in academic and professional spaces is that.

Your network matters, like it or not. A lot of times your advancement relies on who knows you, not just your accomplishments, not just your credentials, not just your skills. It doesn't matter how overly qualified you are, trust me. I mean, how many, how many of us have known a basic or even incompetent person who got a job that we could do better?

Raise your hand. I've been there and I know the feeling, the frustration of seeing someone in power and thinking to yourself, how did this person get the job? And lo and behold, later you find out, oh, so and so was the friend of so and so, and because they had a contact or a connection or a friendship.

They got the job. Is it fair? [00:05:00] No. Is it just No, but it's part of the systems that we're working in and so we want to increase the likelihood that we can get in these spaces and we can actually get these jobs, especially when we know that we're committed to doing good work. So career advancement is a big reason why visibility is important.

Another reason why visibility is important is because times are rough, y'all. This current administration is impacting everybody that I know in direct and indirect ways. A lot of us are feeling pretty isolated. Things are feeling pretty bleak sometimes, and. The only thing we really have is community.

When you focus on increasing your visibility for the sake of community building, you can help combat isolation, and even in times when money is tight, and [00:06:00] I'm feeling that way too, there's always something we can do. To support each other. We can do this through bartering. We can do this through offering other types of support.

And each time I feel like I'm alone in my professional struggles, I'm grateful that I can reach out to a friend or a colleague and be reminded that I'm not alone. And that in and of itself is meaningful to me. So focusing on visibility as a means of community building is also a way to remind yourself that you're not alone and also that you can ask for help.

The other thing too is that if you're not visible. You often are the one that misses out on opportunities. You could be missing out on funding, you can be missing out on mentorship opportunities. You could be missing out on leadership and other job openings that come up. And let me give you a quick [00:07:00] little example, and it's my own example.

When I was in grad school. I remember conferences were so expensive and even the travel grant that we received in our conference only partially covered expenses. It was a tiny fraction of the expenses that it covered. And at one point in my grad school journey, I found out about someone in my department who got extra funding for a conference.

And I thought to myself, hold up, hold up. How did they get extra funding and not me? And, surprise, surprise. They actually asked for it, so just because. Sh. That person at the time asked, and I didn't know that I was allowed to ask for extra funding. They got the funding and I didn't. And that was a big aha moment for me at the time.

'cause I thought to myself, hold up. You can actually ask for things. I just assumed that only what was in the grad student manual only what was [00:08:00] listed online only what was in the university policy was what was allowed. I didn't know that there were. Discretionary funds and certain pockets of funding that certain individuals had, like departmental chairs or deans that I could potentially tap into.

So that was a learning lesson for me. And because I wasn't visible, I wasn't showing up at office hours, I wasn't developing relationships with relationships, several mentors I missed out, and I don't want that to happen to you. And also the last thing I wanna say about why visibility matters is that there's a good chance that if you're listening, you are someone who identifies as first gen in college and in grad school.

And if so, you might also relate to the experience of being left out of informal networks. Or feeling like no one before you has taught you how to self-advocate for yourself [00:09:00] professionally, or maybe you feel like culturally you were taught to stay under the radar. Just do good work and eventually you'll be rewarded for good work.

Like you don't have to be loud. You want to be silent and humble and. As much as I value some of the collectivists and cultural values that come from our families, in some spaces, it's important to resist and push back against it for the sake of the greater good. So in this case, you might be tempted to stay quiet.

You might be tempted to just focus on doing good work, but part of the work. Needs to also be you showing up in spaces and you remaining visible and doing it on your terms because you do deserve to be seen and to be heard. I. All right, so we talked about why visibility matters. I'm also gonna [00:10:00] quickly debunk some visibility myths and go into some actual strategies for increasing your visibility, ideally in ways that don't reify hustle.

I'm not into hustle culture. I want this to feel doable for you. So going back to these. Visibility myths. These are some things that I keep hear a lot when I meet one-on-one with my grad student clients, with my undergraduate clients, and even during q and As and my speaking engagements. One is that. Some folks feel weird or icky with being visible because they associate it with self-promotion.

They're like, oh, this is just for self-serving people who just wanna promote themselves. But in actuality, it doesn't have to mean that everybody has their own reasons for being visible and for showing up. For you, it might mean I wanna be present. It might mean I wanna own my voice and my power, or it might [00:11:00] mean I want to increase the number of connections I build with others.

So that's the first myth. A second myth that comes up is, oh, if you focus on visibility, then really all you're doing is constantly selling yourself. And again, it doesn't have to be about selling yourself. It can also be about. Offerings. Like for me, I think about my work as an nda. I have paid work that helps me to pay my bills, but then I also have a lot of free resources.

And the majority of the work that I do from day to day is unpaid work. So for me, it's, it's an offering. It's me sharing my work for the sake of supporting, helping serving others. You can do that too. You can share your work, you can share your interests, you can share your values, and it doesn't necessarily have to be all about you.

It's about that greater mission or the greater values that you believe in. And then the last myth I wanna [00:12:00] focus on just really quickly, is this idea of visibility is for selfish people. And. Oh my gosh. Like I just get frustrated saying it out loud because for me, in increasing my own visibility. I have been able to not only grow my network and my community, but I've built some really beautiful, genuine friendships with people.

I'm actually seeing IRL, and this would've never happened if I hadn't shown up. This wouldn't have happened if I hadn't made that post. This wouldn't have happened if I hadn't commented on that thing. So visibility doesn't have to be about you being selfish or self-serving. It can be strategic and it can be for community building, and it can also lead to things like collaborations, referrals, recommendations, sharing your network, and just like [00:13:00] supporting one another.

And we need that now more than ever. So those are just a few of the myths that I wanted to debunk.

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So now I wanna transition to a couple of ways that you can increase your visibility. The first way, which might seem really obvious to you, but it's just a gentle reminder, is to attend and [00:14:00] participate in niche spaces.

By this I, I mean, find your people. Where are they? Are they in a grad student org? Are they part of a working group? Are they part of a writing group? Are they part of professional associations, identity-based networks? Employee resource groups, where are your people? Find a niche space and start to attend that space.

So for me, I'm literally recording this episode during a co-working session in a group I'm part of called the Women of Color Podcasters Community. So it's kind of funny, you know, it's that I'm doing this while I'm also actively participating in a group that is niche and that I feel like I belong there and I feel welcome there and supported there.

The second option is to build your own support web, build your own mentorship map. I have recorded an episode on [00:15:00] how to create your own mentorship map, and I have my own FemMentorship map that I'm happy to include the links for those two things so that you can start work on that so that you can start to work on that.

And by this I mean you want to not just rely on one individual and one singular mentor, and instead to find multiple individuals that align with your interests and needs. And to not just rely on mentorship, but also consider informational interviews. Consider finding people that could serve as your sponsors.

Let people know what you're working on and let them know what kind of support you need, and you never know when people might offer their help. Another visibility strategy is to let your work circulate. This is such a great way to not make it about yourself, but make it about something important to you.

Share a paper that you recently submitted or published, you can share. [00:16:00] A blog post, you can share a project that you're working on. Maybe you created a zine. There's always something that we are working on and it can be meaningful to share it with someone else in your community. And it also makes your work findable and accessible to others.

And how many of us want to do this work in a way that's accessible? A lot of us do. And then I've got two more strategies. Another one is about volunteering. But volunteering intentionally and strategically. I'm not a huge fan of doing unpaid labor, but I do think that there is value in selective strategic volunteer work.

And by this I mean you can choose one to two organizations that you believe in and then consider. Is there a role where I could offer my time for free? It might just be one or two hours a week. It doesn't have to be a huge commitment [00:17:00] and you reach out to them and offer you your time in exchange for mentorship or ex in exchange for them training you in exchange for even a referral.

These things can lead to also future opportunities. It can lead to long-term relationship buildings. They might even have an opening and a job later on, and they'll consider you for that. So that's why I wanna mention it. And then the last strategy is all about. Using tools that work for you. This might mean creating a simple academic website.

It might mean creating your first LinkedIn profile, or if you have an outdated one, updating it. My first website was on WordPress. Super duper simple. I used the free template and my LinkedIn profile. I started it in college and I never. Even updated it or used it, and I wish that I had, because I could have started building these long-term connections and even [00:18:00] friendships a lot earlier on.

If you don't wanna use a website or LinkedIn, you can simply send quarterly update emails. So. Create your own little email list of people that you want to, to stay in touch with you and to be updated on what you've been up to. And then you can bcc them and send them all the same email with an update on what you've been doing, what your recent accomplishments have been, what your recent challenges have been, have been, and what types of support you need.

And it's always really nice. I get some of those emails too. And I, I love hearing from my mentees and fems and, and knowing what they're up to. So those are the five quick visibility strategies, attending niche spaces, building a mentorship map, letting your work circulate. Volunteering intentionally and strategically, and then using tools that work for you, whether it's a website, a LinkedIn profile, or using email.[00:19:00]

That's it. Um, the last thing I wanna say is that as you do this, just keep an eye out on your energy. So you might wanna test out a couple of these strategies and see. What feels restorative or easy and what feels like it's depleting your energy so that way you can iterate accordingly and start to do the things that actually feel good for you.

Make sure you set goals. Maybe you have a visibility goal. My goal for networking is usually two networking calls per month. I'm way over that. This year there's been a lot more networking that I've been doing this year than ever before. But in any case, you can have your own minimum goal. And then keep a log of your wins, even if they're tiny wins of like, oh, I just met this really amazing person.

And that's a win because it helps to measure your progress and to celebrate yourself. So that's it for today's episode. I just wanna remind you that. Visibility isn't about being [00:20:00] self-serving. Visit visibility is not about being self-promoting. Visibility isn't about selling yourself. It's about allowing yourself to be known, to be supported, to be remembered, to be remembered, and to have access to the opportunities that you deserve.

Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you all next time.

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