In 2007, my ninth year at the firm, I applied for a program called Rising Stars. Each year the firm selected five women who were senior associates or relatively new partners for a year of professional development. That meant life coaching, marketing coaching, and time with firm leadership, including a seat at a directors’ committee meeting and the dinner afterward. It was a chance to meet and spend time with the people with the most power in the firm.
I had a clear picture of the ideal candidate. She was someone I knew from a distance, and she most certainly was not me.
So I drafted my application accordingly. I remember writing something close to, “I may not be your typical rising star, but I’m still someone worth taking a chance on.” Looking back, it read like a dare. Go ahead and find something in here worth accepting. I’ll wait.
The Binder
I was selected. At our first in-person meeting, each of us received a binder containing all five applications, so we could get to know one another.
I read every one. These were accomplished women doing serious work, and every application was apologetic. Each of us had spent more time explaining what we weren’t than describing who we were.
Reading them made me sad. And I couldn’t exempt myself, because my application was in that binder too.
It was my first a-ha moment of the Rising Stars program, and I doubt it was the one the organizers had in mind. I had never seen so clearly how capable women shrink themselves on paper, and I had just done it myself.
Making the Reader Find the Case
Apologetic writing usually keeps the accomplishments in. It just makes the reader dig for them.
The significance of the work gets buried under qualifiers, background, and generous credit to everyone else in the room. The reader has to reconstruct what you were responsible for, what you decided, and what your contribution meant for the work.
Now picture who’s doing that reconstructing. It’s a partner working through a stack of applications or evaluations, usually at the end of a long day. You’re leaving it to that partner to reconstruct the significance of your work. They’ll more than likely take the account you gave them.
Not every qualification comes from a confidence problem. Sometimes you’re being accurate, or fair to colleagues, or careful about how you’ll be perceived, and some of that care is earned and necessary. The trouble starts when the qualification becomes a reflex and shows up in front of every accomplishment, whether it needs to or not.
Where This Shows Up in Your Evaluation
Last week I wrote about starting your self-evaluation fresh instead of editing last year’s. A fresh draft can still apologize.
Here’s an illustrative example. An associate noticed a regulatory change that affected three of her group’s clients. She drafted a client alert explaining its impact, and her partner, Jane, reviewed it before it went out. Jane then hosted a webinar for those clients, and the associate presented the substantive portion.
Version one:
“I was given the opportunity to assist Jane with a client alert on new regulations, which she reviewed, and to participate in a client webinar she hosted.”
Version two:
“I identified a regulatory change affecting three of our group’s clients and drafted a client alert explaining its impact, which Jane reviewed before it went out. At the client webinar Jane hosted, I presented the substantive portion.”
Both describe the same work, and Jane gets her due in both. The first version leaves the reader guessing about what the associate was responsible for. The second tells them.
How Do You Introduce Your Accomplishments?
Find a passage in your draft that describes work you’re proud of. Look at its opening words.
Do they tell the reader what you did, or do they ask permission to count it? Watch for phrases like “had the opportunity to,” “assisted with,” and “was fortunate to.” Is each qualification there because accuracy requires it, or because it always is?
Rewrite the passage so it opens with your responsibility. Follow it with the evidence, then any context the reader needs, including credit to colleagues where it belongs. Precise ownership is more believable than modest ownership, and more believable than inflated ownership too.
Enrollment for my self-evaluation course opens on October 19. Across seven short video lessons and a workbook, it walks you through building a complete draft in your firm’s own format. The course includes one 30-minute feedback call with me. If you want feedback before your submission deadline, plan ahead: year-end appointments will be limited.
It’s $497, and enrollment opens October 19. Join the waitlist here and I’ll send you the enrollment link when it opens.
Control, Influence, Release
People bring their own expectations about ambition and how a person should talk about herself, and those expectations don’t land on everyone the same way. No phrasing will fix that.
What you control is an accurate, well-supported account of your contribution. What you can influence is how well the reader understands the judgment and responsibility behind the work. What you release is the expectation that perfect phrasing will prevent every unfavorable read.
Back to the Binder
Reading those applications, I could see what each of those women had to offer. I wished they had given themselves more credit.
Then there was my application, asking someone to take a chance on me.
We had each imagined a woman who belonged in that program. Somehow, even after everything we had accomplished, we had all written as though she was someone else.
