2 | The 5 Keys to Career Acceleration with Tiffany Uman

Episode 2: The 5 Keys to Career Acceleration with Tiffany Uman 🎙️

Episode Summary:

In this episode of The Shannon Fox Show, I sit down with Tiffany Uman, a globally recognized Career Strategy Coach & Workplace Expert, to uncover the 5 keys to career acceleration every ambitious career mom needs to know.

Tiffany shares powerful insights on how to fast-track your career growth, position yourself for promotions, and build confidence—all without sacrificing your well-being. With 7 promotions in under 10 years at L’Oréal and experience helping professionals secure over $3M in raises, she knows what it takes to stand out and thrive in today’s workplace.

Whether you’re aiming for a raise, leadership role, or better work-life balance, this episode will give you the strategies to take control of your career and start seeing results!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✔️ The biggest career acceleration myths holding you back

✔️ Why hard work isn’t enough (and what actually gets you ahead)

✔️ The #1 mistake professional women make—and how to fix it

✔️ How to advocate for yourself in the workplace

✔️ The 5 essential keys to advancing your career faster

✔️ How working moms can position themselves for promotions—before and after maternity leave

Connect with Tiffany Uman & Grab Her Free Gift!

🎁 FREE GIFT: https://www.tiffanyuman.com/freedownloads

📲 Follow Tiffany on Instagram: @tiffany.uman

Resources & Links:

🚀 Take the Mastery Zone Discovery Quiz → https://theshannonfox.com/mastery-zone-discovery-quiz

📲 Follow Shannon on Instagram for more career tips → @the.shannon.fox

📩 Join the Email List for Career Strategies & Updates → HERE

🎧 Love the show?

👉 Subscribe & leave a review so more career moms can discover these game-changing career strategies!

Kat and Tanner by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/

Transcript

Welcome everybody. I am so excited today.
I have Tiffany Uman here who is a globally recognized career strategy coach and
workplace expert. She is a former senior director at L'Oreal where she achieved seven promotions in under 10 years. She now empowers high achievers to become the top 1% in their own careers so they can quantum leap their confidence, growth, and income without compromising their well-being.
She's a Forbes Coach Council member, LinkedIn Learning Instructor with over 8,000 learners, author, and speaker. Her work has been featured in Business Insider, BBC, The Globe and Mail, Medium, and LA Weekly, and she's been recognized as one of the top 15 LinkedIn experts in Montreal. Tiffany specializes in career acceleration, workplace navigation, confidence, personal branding, communication, conflict management, work life/balance, relationship management, leadership, and more.
Welcome, Tiffany. Thank you so much for joining us today. 

Thank you so much, Shannon,
for having me.
It's great to be here. I love that intro. I'm so humbled hearing all of that.
In fact, we actually just surpassed 850,000 LinkedIn learners this week. I'm just like, oh
my goodness. It's so amazing to be able to support these incredible professionals in
different areas of their career to be set up for the most success.
I'm so excited to be here. I know that's a big theme for the event and a good lead into
today's topic. Yes, that's awesome.
Congratulations. Can we start with you telling everybody in the audience who may not
know who you are just a little bit about you and what got you on this career path? Yeah,
sure. I kind of have two chapters to my career.
The first is more in the corporate space where I had a really fruitful career path
predominantly with L'Oreal, my dream company. Not, of course, without its share of
mistakes and struggles and frustrations and a lot of the things that we don't really learn
how to do and have to figure it out on our own. Although it really did turn out to be an
amazing journey for me and my teams, both excelling them to really accelerate their
career growth and success and myself as well, achieving seven promotions in under 10
years.
I really had this passion for building, building teams, building success, building
sustainable paths for success. And that was a big fuel for me in shifting into the second
chapter of my career and becoming a career coach and workplace expert. I think what
really kind of sets me apart in the work that I do is that lived experience of having
navigated a lot of those ebbs and flows and doing it at a very high performing level, but
of course not by compromising our wellbeing in that process.
That's such an important piece. You could get that kind of growth, but I don't want you to
kill yourself in the process to do that. And so I'm really a big advocate of bringing out
that top 1%, that peak performer in you so that you can absolutely crush your goals in
record time.
You can make more income in your life than you ever imagined. You can land your
dream opportunities, whether internally or externally, and do it, of course, with all of
your personal priorities well intact. I'm a mom of two young kids.
I started my career coaching on my second maternity leave and really built that from the
ground up, now becoming a seven figure business and growing really rapidly. So it's just
been amazing to see this evolution and how I'm able to really give back and support
amazing high achievers in each of their respective fields and functions. We've supported
clients from over 30 different functions and backgrounds now from over 25 countries
have secured over $3 million in raises for our clients and counting.
So I can't wait to see what this year has in store for us, but I'm really honored to be here.
That is awesome. That is, wow, that's a lot.
So could you tell us some of the misconceptions when it comes to career acceleration?
Oh yeah. How much time do you have, Shannon? No, I'm joking, but I'd say probably one
of the biggest misconceptions is like banking on your hard work to do the heavy lifting
for you. And for what it's worth, it's not our fault that we think that.
I used to think that. I know a lot of people I come into contact with think that because
that's what school kind of trained us to believe, right? Our performance was what
mattered. Our grades is what mattered.
And so you enter into the workforce and realize, okay, you know, I'm working hard. I'm
doing the good things. I'm Why am I struggling to secure that promotion? Why is Jennifer
getting it over me? I don't understand what's happening here.
And so when we only bank on our hard work to do that heavy lifting, it leaves a lot of
blind spots. And then we're going to talk about some of those today, which is really my
five keys to career acceleration that you really need to focus on very intently, very
strategically, and very proactively so that you can be in the driver's seat of your career.
What runs the risk of kind of just banking on your work, hoping people are going to
recognize you, hoping people are just going to know who you are and the impact that
you're creating.
It's literally like giving the keys to your career to someone else and just saying here, do
what you want with it. And I'm all about helping you take proactive control of your career
because that's where that acceleration flywheel really kicks in and creates like a lifetime
of ROI in terms of your growth and income. I love that.
That's so, that's so true. Like a lot of it is comes from school. I mean, it is, it comes back
to your grades and what that happens and we're homeschool family.
And so we've kind of, we, they did go to school and then now they don't. And so when
it's not, well, look, I got all the questions, right? Okay. How, you know, there's so much
more to it.
So I love that. There's a lot of facets to consider. Yeah, definitely.
So what are some of the common mistakes you see professional women make? I would
say the biggest one, Shannon is not advocating for ourselves. And once again, I've been
so guilty of this. So everything I'm sharing with all of our attendees here, please know
I've been in these exact shoes, you know, I've kind of had the benefit of the doubt that
people will just know the work that I do know the impact I create.
And I'm also typically very humble person. So this idea of like tooting my own horn and
speaking up and highlighting my work or taking credit for my work, wasn't something
that came very naturally. And I, and I really see that with the majority of female
professionals where there's just this like added battle that we have with ourselves
around advocating for what we do and the impact that we create.
So we do amazing things all the time. Right. But when it comes time to actually
showcase that to speak about that, that's where that that mindset takes over.
Oh, come on, I don't want to be bragging. I don't want to sound cocky. I don't want to be
egotistical.
I don't want this to rub people the wrong way. And then it leads you to not do it. And the
next thing you know, you're kind of on the sidelines, you're stagnating, you're falling
behind your goals.
And it's not because you weren't worthy of those goals or deserving of them. It's that
you didn't pick enough of that proactive stance of showing up for yourself and
advocating for what you want and why you want it. Right.
So what are some examples of how people can advocate for them themselves? Yeah. I
mean, starting point is you need to be able to express your goals, what you want and
your needs really regularly in your work environment. Like this should not be limited to a
performance review setting.
I know a lot of professionals kind of fall into that trap where they only say that things
throughout the year, they kind of do, but not, not to the extent that they need to. And
then they end up in their performance review. And despite maybe getting good feedback
or whatnot, they're just not quite moving forward.
They're struggling to get that raise that they were banking on all of these different
things. And so you really want to have a regular regularity, I would say of conversation
on your goals, on how you want to grow in your role, how you want to grow in the
organization, um, what kind of things you need to do or demonstrate that will support
you in achieving those goals. And the beauty of doing the Shannon really regularly is you
get your, your boss and possibly other decision makers here on the same page as you,
right.
Where it's not like you versus them. It's really us versus the opportunity us versus what
you're working towards in your, in your growth goals. That's probably one of the most
important things is having that continuity of conversation.
It doesn't have to be every day or every week, but you don't want to have it as out of
sight, out of mind. And maybe as a quick cue for our attendees is also not getting too
caught up in just like head down, do the work you want to be able to kind of pull back,
have some spot checks around how you're progressing. Are you really working towards
the goals that are going to help you move that needle? And if you feel like something is
getting in your way, you're constantly putting out fires as an example.
And you're like, I haven't had a chance to like do any of the stuff that I really was hoping
to do this year. That's sort of a flag to go up to say, okay, I need to have that
conversation. I need again, advocate for myself here that this is probably detracting from
what I want to achieve versus supporting me in that.
Right. I love that. I love that.
So how can working moms position themselves best for promotions either prior to, or
following maternity leaves? Cause I know we have a lot of moms here and motherhood
maternity leaves that all kind of impacts promotions. What advice do you get? Can you
give to them? Oh my gosh. Yeah.
This one really hits home for me, Shannon. I've supported a lot of clients either coming
into their maternity leaves, coming back from their maternity leaves and the common
narrative. I hear that they turn around, you know, with, with the support, but what they
initially feel is that maternity leaves have like set them back that they feel like behind,
that they feel like because they've been out of the workforce for a certain period of time
that they, they've kind of lost that momentum or that they're not viewed baby as
competitively as some of their other colleagues.
And the first thing I want to say to all of our working moms is like, you are superheroes.
You know, you have so much going for you. And this is, this is something you can use to
your advantage, especially upon returning from your maternity leave.
But let's talk about going into maternity leave. Probably the biggest mistake that
someone can do is just going on their maternity leave, not having any kind of exit
conversations and hoping for the best upon their return. You have to start planning those
seeds early.
I can use myself as an example. When I was going on my first maternity leave, I had a
very specific goal that I wanted to come back to in a vertical promotion. And I said, okay,
I know that's not necessarily typical to come back to a vertical promotion after a
maternity leave.
And I'm like, I'm going to make it happen. And I did make it happen. But the backstory of
this was I had very strategic conversations with my, yes, my boss at the time, but I knew
that I might not be coming back to that exact team in Canada.
We have a longer maternity leave to around a year timeframe. So you can imagine a lot
can happen within a year, but if you have a smaller timeframe, this could even work
better because there's not as much time out of the market, but regardless, you want to
have those conversations, maybe with your HR team, your leadership team, anyone who
might be kind of influencing some of those internal moves to let them know what you,
what you have envisioned for yourself and what you'd like to be able to continue doing
when you come back, or maybe taking from where you stand right now and what you'd
like to do as a next step. So you're already planning these seats.
Now they might not be able to confirm anything in writing because it always kind of
depends on openings and things that are a little bit more variable, but at least you can
recap in writing what was discussed, what was shared and kind of use that as some
foundational conversation for when you do return. Now, depending how long your
maternity leave is, it could be a good idea to kind of touch base with your organization. If
you're looking to return to that existing organization a little bit before your official return
date.
So not to say I want to come back early. It's not, that's not the message here, but more
just to kind of get a feel of what kind of opportunities they might have in mind for you
upon your return. I want everyone to enjoy their mat leave and take that time.
It's precious. It goes fast, so you don't have to feel the need to rush back, right? You will
be just fine, but at least kind of having that conversation and getting a feeler of what you
can expect. And then that way, when those talks do come back up, when you are about
to return and you're getting reach out to whether from your leadership team, your HR
team, or whoever that, that driver in that decision is, now you can really build, right? And
if it's something totally different or off track from where you were, stand up for yourself,
right? Yes, you have to technically come back to the same seniority level you were
before, but use this to your advantage, right? Give them a glimpse as to what you want
to do.
Be more specific. I can tell you I was coming back from that first maternity leave. It was
probably my favorite and most successful role that I had within L'Oreal at that time,
because I was super focused.
I was more energized. I had a lot more drive to be really, really intentional with where I
put the time and energy in my day. And it helped me to really maximize my own
performance and that of my team and also leading by example of having a good worklife
balance too, in a very competitive work environment.
So it's all about having these types of conversations and setting the stage, following
through and following up, and do not just expect others to do that for you while you're
not there. That's kind of a recipe for disaster. Yeah.
Communication seems to be very key in this whole part of your career. Accelerate, like
have these conversations and advocate for yourself. So I think that that's great.
So how about for those women that are going into interviews? How can they go into that
with confidence and land that job that they really want? What kind of things help them
stand out? Oh yeah. So one of the things you really want to do is nail down your personal
brand. I'm big on personal branding.
This is your story to the world, right? I'm a former marketing professional, so I always
love drawing, drawing parallel with brands, right? When you think of a brand that you
use on the regular, there's likely keywords that come to mind. There's things you
instinctively think about, and that is intentional. That are, you know, the marketers
behind the scenes that are crafting these messages and putting it out there in the world.
But your personal brand is very similar. It's intentional reflections and thoughts and
strategies of how you want others to view you. And it's a very powerful tool when you go
into interview settings, because again, the whole point of the interview is to sell them on
why you're the right fit for the role.
And so by knowing your personal brand and being confident in talking about your
strengths, talking about what sets you apart, speaking confidently about your track
record, being as quantifiable in your results as you can, right? Don't just keep it at the
what you did. This is a big downfall I often see. You talk about kind of the job duty, like
the task, the work itself, but you don't take it to that next step around how you've done
it and the results that it really created.
And those latter parts are very distinct to you as the professional, right? Those are things
that Shannon has specifically done that maybe someone else didn't do in that specific
way. And especially when you layer in the results piece, it shows these interviewers, hey,
if Shannon can drive these results in that organization, then she could totally do that
with us. And I would also say layering on the energy, the motivation, this is so important
to really elevate yourself in standing out as an amazing candidate.
It's not just about having all the checks and boxes that you meet all the criteria. In fact,
job descriptions are really like a wishlist of criteria. It's rare that someone is going to
check off everything.
But if you can be confident in showing up for the majority of the things that they're
looking for, being very tangible in the examples and stories that you share, and that
creates a lot of memorability in an interview as well, and really showcasing, you know,
what you did, how you did it, and the results it created, this is going to be an amazing
and winning interview for you, especially paired with that positive energy, that engaging
energy, welcoming body language, so that they can really envision you as part of their
team. Yeah. So remember, you know, interviews, it's a two-way dialogue.
It's not just about them asking you questions. You're also interviewing them. You are
more than welcome, and I highly recommend asking questions also, so that it does
become more conversational, right? For example, let's say they're asking you like,
Shannon, what would you say are some of your biggest strengths? And so you walk
through that kind of answer with them.
And then as a follow-up, you could say something like, I really want to set myself up for
success in this role. It's something I take very seriously. How do you typically measure
success within this particular position? Right? And it's just like a great segue question
where you're kind of now getting a glimpse of what really matters to them in this
particular choosing of candidates.
And then you could use that to your advantage in the interview. But I would say really
nailing your personal brand, really getting your track record down, coming with the right
stories, doing your research, obviously, ahead of time. Do not ask obvious questions.
Show a level of interest, of intrigue that you've kind of looked into more about what they
do, what some things that can really spark a good conversation in that interview. These
are the types of things that are really going to help you stand out. Those are great.
Those are great tips. I love that. So let's talk about your top five strategies to fast track
your career growth.
Yeah, I know, and I love this. I do, and I've kind of echoed some of it, but I'm going to go
a lot deeper on this. So I would say the first key is growth mindset.
Okay? And we've kind of been touching about this a little bit in our session around
confidence, right? For me, growth mindset is really about fueling the right mindset to
catapult your growth and success. And I often say your mindset will either be your
biggest asset or liability. Like it's up to you which one you choose it to be, but I highly
recommend we make it your biggest asset.
And so this means building up that confidence, right? Removing that self-doubt. Imposter
syndrome I think is innate. It's something that so many of us feel, especially female
professionals.
But for me, it's a sign that you're pushing yourself. Like if you don't feel imposter
syndrome, you're probably not getting out of your comfort zone enough, really, right?
You want to be able to stretch and see that as a sign of opportunity, not as a setback or
as a roadblock for you, right? A lot of it's also around really envisioning the type of
growth that you want to have and knowing that these are possibilities for you. So one
key shift that I really encourage when it comes to growth mindset is coming from a place
of abundance instead of scarcity, right? So for example, let's say, you know, you see
someone in your workplace who's gotten the promotion that you didn't get yet.
And you're like, ah, you know what? Maybe you're thinking a scarcity mindset. If you're
like, you know, like I don't get why that happened for them or like, that's never going to
happen for me now. Or like that just shot my chance right there.
That's a scarcity mindset. You're pretty much taking yourself out of the race. Whereas an
abundance mindset to be okay.
Like, Hey, if they can do it, I can do it too. Or what am I missing? That's going to help me
get that outcome, like in the imminent future, right? You start framing more possibilities
in your mindset as opposed to limitations. And that's a really important and powerful
shift.
You have to believe in yourself and your mindset and that confidence that underlies this
mindset is really going to be pivotal for the type of success that you welcome into your
life. So I would say that's definitely number one, probably most important key to
accelerating your career. And we can talk a lot about that, but I just want to keep it a
little succinct for the I love, I absolutely love, I see that too, because I know like a lot of
these career people, they'll see a promotion, all of this.
And instead of, I really believe your mindset, it all starts there because instead of looking
at it, like you said, in a negative and looking and saying, what skills, what, what, what
skillset did they maybe have that I should work on to get that, or what was it about them
that allowed them to get that promotion now that I can then work on myself and look at
it as a way to improve upon yourself. So I think that that I totally agree. Growth mindset
is huge.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's just so, so integral and even all of the other facets I'm going to share,
right. But it starts with us. It really starts with us and taking that control of our career
acceleration.
I would say the second key is actually really solidifying your distinct personal brand,
right? I kind of talked about this vis-a-vis interviews, but it doesn't stop and interviews
for me, personal branding is an always on strategy. It evolves as you evolve as a person,
as a professional. And it was really about understanding you, what sets you apart, what
differentiates you and how you can use this to your advantage, right? So I kind of talked
about this at the beginning around, not just banking on your work to do the heavy lifting
for me, your personal branding is one of the most important facets that's going to
support your work, right? It's not just about Shannon who is delivering on XYZ project.
It's Shannon who's delivering on XYZ project because she is excellent in her analytical
abilities, or she's the go-to resource for everything XYZ, or it's this, it's this persona that
you're creating and not something that feels inauthentic. It has to be really authentically
you and an extension of who you are, but in a way that people speak highly of you when
you're not even there, that's really the sign that, you know, you've developed a really
strong personal brand. And so knowing your strengths, knowing what differentiates you,
knowing what matters to the company, knowing how to integrate these things together
so that you position yourself really strategically on what matters most, both for you, both
for the vision of the organization, that's really the winning recipe here.
So think of it as like the aura and the kind of surrounding type of energy and reputation
and perception that you're creating beyond just the work that you're doing. Yes. I love
that analogy.
Yeah. It's a big one. I would say the third key is relationship building.
Okay. We cannot go at this career thing alone. You are going to struggle.
Like you are really going to struggle. Relationships is a critical element at every stage of
your career and if you want to accelerate your career growth, you have to get intentional
about these relationships. Yes.
Of course. I think we all instinctively think our boss is like our most important
relationship and they do play a really important role because they're evaluating us, but
there's a lot of other important decision makers in your organizations and beyond your
organization that need to know who you are. I always say this, you know, the expression,
like, it's all about who, you know, for me, it's like, yeah, okay.
It's kind of about who, you know, but it's also about who knows you, right? And that's
where you need to be intentional in creating those relationships, really one-to-one
relationships. Do not rely on your boss to do this. Do not rely on colleagues to do that.
You need people to know you for you and you have to control that narrative. So I really
like framing this as like building that support system, really having support systems
across functions, across hierarchy levels, across departments. And that's, what's helped
me significantly in securing seven promotions in under 10 years and moving across three
different divisions by the age of 28 and working across four different product categories,
which was very atypical for L'Oreal in that time.
Right. But it was because of building these relationships where people knew who I was
and I made an intention behind that of helping them understand the value that I could
bring and getting your name out there. And you don't, you don't have to be extroverted
for this.
I get that feedback a lot of like, but I'm more introverted. That could be one of your
biggest superpowers because you'll be able to build even more meaningful one-to-one
relationships. You start small and build and build until you feel more comfortable going
maybe to some of the bigger, the bigger decision makers, the bigger leaders in your
organizations.
But this is just absolutely critical. Absolutely. I love that.
I just feel like everybody needs to know. And they, and I love that because again, it goes
back to your confidence in yourself that you don't need your boss to be the one that's
directing these relationships. You have confidence and you own that and you go out and
make that happen for yourself because that's what you want and that's what you should
do.
Yeah. And you know, even just to add on that real quick, Shannon, I know that the job
market has been a bit of a, a bit of a gong show this past year to a few years, right? I
mean, whether we're talking about restructurings, layoffs, pandemic, recession, you
know, supply chain crises, like you name it, there's been a, a lot of curve balls thrown
our way. And the most important thing are your relationships, because no matter what
happens, no one can take those away from you.
I can tell you, you know, I have been bringing an incredible industry experts into one of
my signature programs. And it's all thanks to my relationship building over the years,
you know, where they were like, yes, I will be a part of this. It was the easiest.
Yes. Because of all that work over the years that built that trust, that build that rapport,
that built my credibility towards them. Right.
And so if it's just something that pays itself in dividends over the lifetime of your career,
when you know how to do it, right. Let's get into maybe the fourth key to acceleration of
your career. And we talked about it briefly, but it's definitely communication mastery.
Communication is embedded in everything that we're talking about today, but whether
it's around how you're putting yourself forward, how you're giving feedback, asking for
feedback, how you're elevating your public speaking, how you're navigating conflict and
difficult situations, how you're advocating for yourself in your career growth dialogues
and your negotiations and your networking opportunities, communication is just
everywhere. And if you do not realize the importance of communication, I really hope
that this is your, your friendly reminder that communication is easily the number one
skill that will accelerate your career. Like I will stand behind that until the end of time.
It has been integral for me, my teams, my clients, it's just, it's, it's, it's that will position
you so strategically in what you do. And most work problems, most work challenges can
be solved through effective communication. Again, you just kind of need to go know how
to massage those conversations, but I've worked through some really challenging ones
myself.
And I was like, I can't believe that worked, but it did, you know, and now I love sharing
those types of insights because it's really life-changing. Right. And then I'd say maybe
my fifth one, Shannon, and it might come as a surprise to people when we think about
career acceleration, it's actually work-life balance.
I'm a huge believer that you are the most important part of your career. And if you don't
work, your career doesn't work. So if you are compromising your wellbeing, you're
sacrificing your, your personal priorities, you're not showing up for the things outside of
your work, the way that you want to, it is directly going to limit your growth potential.
And so it's really about having a good synergy here of building your work and life
together, not like one versus the other and having the right types of time management
strategies, stress management strategies, knowing how to set the right boundaries
saying no is okay. Right. I want everyone to repeat that.
It's a complete sentence. Everyone say it with me. I can say no, right? Of course I said,
I'm saying different ways of saying no.
So it doesn't feel as harsh and abrupt, but you can absolutely push back on things, right?
Like this is part, it's just the name of the game. You can't be a yes person. Being a yes
person is not going to drive your career acceleration.
You're not going to be known for anything. You're going to be the one that gets
overloaded, overburdened, probably undervalued and underpaid as a result. And it gives
you less leverage in your negotiations as well.
Right? So we need to set those boundaries. We need to push back. We need to be able
to carve the time for our personal.
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