The Skills: From First Job to Dream Job - What Every Woman Needs to Know
‘I wish I’d been able to read this book when I was 20. Mind you, it’s never too late’ Clare BaldingIn The Skills award-winning broadcaster Mishal Husain inspires, champions and encourages women to make their ambitions a reality by focusing on practical skills that make a difference.Gathering together advice for women of all ages, whether they are new graduates, working mothers or simply seeking a career change, The Skills explains:How to present yourself to maximum effect, in person and onlineHow to prepare for quick wins, big moments and plan for long-term goalsHow to gain confidence and authorityHow to navigate the ups and downs of a long working life and build resilienceDrawing on Mishal’s own experience, interviews with experts and with inspirational figures from Martha Lane Fox to Malala Yousafzai, The Skills will guide women in honing the abilities they need to thrive in whatever field they choose.
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4th Estate
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018
Copyright © Mishal Husain 2018
Mishal Husain asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Graphs here, here and here redrawn by Martin Brown; images here redrawn by Joe Bright.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008220631
Ebook Edition © September 2018 ISBN: 9780008220648
Version: 2018-08-16
For my parents, Shama and Tazi
Contents
My journey to this book • Overcoming doubt • Finding my courage
Representation of women • Understanding the gaps • Socialisation
How we talk about girls and women • Stereotyping • Imagery • Reclaiming ambition
Longer working lives • Role models and inspiration • Five-year plans • Learning from those around you
Information-gathering • Critical thinking • Challenging your beliefs • Evaluations and judgements
Navigating the first years on the career ladder • Processes that build confidence • Breaks from work and re-establishing yourself afterwards
Voice, clarity and emphasis • Public speaking • The written word
Body language • Occupying space • First impressions
Social media opportunities and pitfalls • Women in technology • Making the internet more representative • Trolling
Apprehension and anxiety • The importance of practice • Focusing on the immediate task
Big moments and high-pressure scenarios • Appraisals and evaluations • Making a pitch
Developing authority • Mastering your brief • Demonstrating your knowledge
Dealing with scrutiny and criticism • Knockbacks and failures • Learning but not losing your nerve
Managing the different elements of your life • Banishing guilt • Thinking long-term
Direct, persistent, purposeful. Or: uncertain, uneasy, doubtful. One of these sets of words reflects what is required to succeed in my line of work, especially amid pressure to generate new information and understanding quickly. The other reflects what I will most likely be experiencing in reality. After more than twenty years in broadcasting it’s a gap I know and understand – the difference between how everything appears on the outside and how I will be feeling on the inside. But it’s also the gap that led me to write this book, out of a desire not only to be honest about doubt but about channelling it and carrying on regardless.
One particular moment in my own life encapsulates what can happen in the opposite scenario, when doubt takes over – or comes close to it. In 2013, the newly appointed editor of Today, one of the BBC’s most prestigious programmes, asked if I might be interested in putting myself forward as a possible future presenter. You might think the answer was obvious – the role is, after all, one of the most coveted in my profession and I had by then spent seventeen years in broadcast news, thirteen of them as a presenter. Why would I not want to throw my hat into the ring? In the event, however, all I could think about was how hard the job would be – the precision required, the pressure, the scrutiny, the pre-dawn starts. I went home and told my husband it was a nice idea but I couldn’t imagine going for it. He looked incredulous. What would I say, he asked, if one of our children responded to a prospective new challenge by saying ‘Great opportunity but it will be too hard’?
I knew the answer to that one, and it pushed me to go for it. But for the first three years on Today, I fretted about almost every shift. I could not feel at ease in the role, worrying about what might go wrong and agonising over the things that did. And then, in a way that only became clear to me later, a moment arrived when it started to feel different. There was still an element of apprehension about each shift, but the sensation began to feel less like abject fear and more like something I could channel.
To anyone else it would have been easier to appreciate what had happened – I had grown into a new role, gained new skills and begun to feel more at home. Yet to me that outcome was never a given. I now look back and wonder: what if I had bailed out after a few months, or a year or two, and thought that my uncertainty was evidence the job just wasn’t right for me? I would never have discovered what I now know – that time, perseverance and an increasing familiarity made an immense difference.
