175: Visible, Valuable, Hired: Stephanie Yesil on Career Pivots, Growth, and Why Your Next Job Won’t Be Your Last

0:00 Hello, add up L&D fam. It's your host Holly Owens, and today's episode is straight up fire. Why do you ask? Because I've got Steph Yesl in the house, the brilliant bold bat signalling answering founder of Elevated Careers. And let me tell you, this combo is like Rocket fool for your career pivot. Stephanie's journey from Teach from America to a decade of dominating corporate L&D to building a career coaching business that's helping educators become unapologetic leaders and change makers. And guess what?

0:40 She's just getting started. In this episode, we're getting into how to actually build visibility without drowning in the LinkedIn noise, why your next job isn't your last and why that's a good thing, how to incorporate AI the right way so you don't get left behind, and how to stop overthinking and start owning your transition. Steph drops truth prompts, tactical tips, and real deal advice that's not only actionable, it's truly empowering. She's the career coach with the receipts, receipts, receipts. And if you're not already following her, well, that changes today. Buckle up because this is your sign to calm down, get visible, and make your career transition elevated. Let's get into it.

1:33 Hi, we're ispring, an international team of e-learning enthusiasts who help more than 60,000 clients across the globe succeed with better online learning. Our two flagship solutions are ispring Suite and ispring Learn LMS. Ispring Suite is an intuitive, all in one authoring tool for creating engaging e-learning content, and ispring Learn is an innovative online training platform for onboarding, upskilling, and certifying your teams. We also provide tons of free resources for aspiring and experienced e-learning professionals, conduct weekly webinars with top industry experts, and organize annual e-learning conferences, challenges, and championships. We'd be happy to get to know you and pick a solution that fits your needs best.

2:24 Go to www.icepringsolutions.com to learn more about us, download our resources, and connect. Hello everyone, and welcome to another fantastic episode of Add Up L&D. I'm Holly Owens and I'm your host and I'm super excited that I got this guest on my show. I have Steph Yessel, who is the founder of Elevated Careers, and she's going to come talk to us all about the resources and things she's offers. Steph, welcome to the show. Woo Hoo, Thank you so much for having me, Holly. And I know Jen, you're in the background, but I'm going to give you a shout out on camera too. Thank you both for having me.

3:04 This is wonderful. We are so excited to have you here and I know the audience is going to be intently listening to all the advice you have to give. But before we get into all that, tell us about you. Tell us about your journey. How did you become like this? Founder of Elevated Careers? All the different things that you've done up into this point. We want to know more about you and your story. OK, well, I'm going to, I, I have a pretty rigorous background, uh, ups and downs, left and rights, wins, mistakes, all of that. I'm going to spare you all of the minute details. The big picture is I I went in to Teach for America in 2011, which began my journey in education and learning and development. I had a five year plan, got out right around 4 1/2, started working for corporate.

3:52 I worked for corporate for 10 years in lots of different L&D under the under the giant L&D umbrella, lots of positions, curriculum development, training, facilitating, you know, traditional L and DII helped manage instructional designers. I, I, I I've done it. On. I've I've delivered, I've written, I've I've done all the things because I said yes. When there was an opportunity, I said yes. I'm a utility player. When the bat signal goes up, I get to work and I, I, I'm not afraid to learn along the way. And I realized that on my way to creating elevated careers.

4:32 I've always been the kind of person who has felt itchy in, in constrained roles where I need to help somebody else build their dream. But I know that kind of role, that kind of experience is necessary to eventually build your own thing, as you well know. So I'm really grateful for that 10 years in corporate. And then one day I thought, you know what there is such a market for, for getting the right talent in the right positions unapologetically. And, and my passion is education. I mean, you and I, we can, we'll have a happy hour and we're going to need 2 hours to talk about why I love the power of education.

5:14 But I'm also a futurist and I believe that education is changing and the classroom landscape is, is it's going to go the way of the dodo. So if we don't keep up, we're going to suffer horrific consequences. And I don't want that to happen. So what I do now in elevated careers, what I built is I help great minds in education move into roles that traditionally haven't been the decision makers, but are now becoming the the systemic change makers. And those are the people creating the products and services that are being consumed. So I want to make sure that I'm helping brilliant, wonderful, lovely people elevate their careers into the next chapter of what education is going to look like.

6:03 And if that happens for them outside of the classroom, which in many cases it does, I'm the person to help shepherd them there. I love this story and I know we have a lot of commonality just from seeing your post on LinkedIn and I want to 100% like kudos you. Your marketing is fantastic. Thank you. Love how you market elevated careers and and the things that you offer for free to people who follow you and out on LinkedIn world. It truly is amazing what you have built. And not only that, like you are somebody that people can trust. Like I feel this, this level of trust coming through the screen that I know what you say is something that you've experienced, you've researched, you've helped with other people do it.

6:44 It's like it's not your, not your not just throwing it out there. You're really, you have a lot of weight behind it and I can feel that through the screen. So I just wanted to give you kudos for that. That means the world coming from you. And I want to say to all of your listeners, this is a full circle moment. When I was in corporate years ago, I was following your early work as well. And much of what you posted and much of what you've shared, I, I can literally say the same things back to you about building trust and community. So, and I've, I've borrowed a lot of your, a lot of your, I've vampired a lot of your energy. You don't even know it, but I did.

7:24 And I think, I think it was Maya Angelou that has a quote about the more creativity you, you experience, I don't remember the exact quote. Somebody will somebody needs to Fact Check me on this. But the more creativity you have, the more it produces and I feel like you live that and I'm one of the lucky recipients of of some of your earliest inspiration. So, you know, like I said, community and creativity, we all get to come together and and lift this wonderful group of people. So thank you. Well. I really appreciate that. That makes me very happy that that is happening because you often when you sit on this side of things, you don't really you see the impact.

8:06 It's kind of like I relate to Taylor Swift. She doesn't know the impact that she has on a culture because she's living the experience, which I love living the experience. But it's great to be reinforced, recognize, you know, just kind of telling other people that they are doing a great job. You're the Taylor Swift of L&D. But Jen, Jen's got the quote. Wait, Jen just chatted me. She has a quote. You can't use creativity. The more you use, the more you have. There you go. Thank you so much. And that's it. And, and I'll add on to that, not that Maya Angelou needs my help, but the more you give, the more you get around you as well. So that's the vibe I'm trying to send your way. Is that your creativity that you put out there has been multiplied by those around you?

8:57 I love it and that's the whole intention behind it. So let's talk a little bit about community before we get into elevated careers. I think one of the things that especially the listener struggle with is like, maybe this is more networking or community is like, how do you put yourself out there and build that community or be a part of that community? There's a lot of noise stuff. There's there's so much noise. You're you cut through the noise. Thank you. I can tell you and you, you just simplified it in a way that's so understandable that it's like, I can take this, I can do this right now. So how do you like build this? What do? What do people do? You have to start, you have to start putting your opinions out there unapologetically and and you can be afraid and vulnerable, but the answer to your question, so many people think it's this big complicated thing. It's not.

9:53 Right. If you want to get into L&D, figure out what your niche in L&D is. Do you want to train? Do you want to create materials? Do you want to train other people? Do you want to make curriculum like what's the thing within learning in development that you want to do and self assign your own homework to understand it better. And I'm speaking in terms of career pivoters or early, early learning and development professionals. Figure out what part of learning and development you like and start posting helpful things for other people. And once you start quote solving other people's problems and they can be small, you know, learning and development instructional design. Let's say you know, you Google.

10:45 What are some common problems that instructional designers experience or learning and development professionals experience and find micro problems that you go, oh, I didn't even realize like I do that already. Make your point of view visible. Just make a post, write about it until you find your niche and your voice and the power of attraction will start bringing people to you because you'll start to be seen as the person who goes, oh, I do have something to say about this in a way that's meaningful that people can act on right now. But my advice is don't do long form posts anymore. Action solution and make it palatable, make it easy to understand.

11:35 And that's what everybody wants in the professional learning and development world. They want the L&D professional to see the problem, to see a need and fill a need. That's it. And then just start posting LinkedIn. Start with LinkedIn, Yeah, don't, don't, don't try. And we'll try and do all of the other. Things I tried. It's too much once you're a professional, right, right. And then you can read if you want, if you're really excited to get on Pinterest and TikTok and Instagram and X and you know, all great, but pick a topic and then repurpose that topic across those like again, keep it simple, keep it actionable. That's how you're going to attract people. Yeah, absolutely.

12:18 And one of the things I love about the roles that are in L&D is like, you can really have a job that you're passionate about and like you want to get up and go to every day. Like it truly is something that fulfills you and at the same time you're getting paid for because people like Elsa and Mel Robbins and other people like finding your your path or stuff like that. Like I feel like an L&D, we have that opportunity. Like we have the opportunity to find the role where we get up for it every day because we know we're making a difference. Yes. You know, that's what teachers do. So that's why there's so many transition teachers in this community. So I really appreciate the community and how giving everybody is because I don't, you know, when I transitioned out of education in 2011, none of this existed. None of this existed.

13:07 There wasn't communities, there wasn't resources, there wasn't people focused on learning and development. You really had to fight for like you really need training here. You really need some sort of professional that can help with training in higher education faculty or training your employees or onboarding your employees. You had to fight that. These things were they needed to be done and they were worth it and they had an ROI and all that stuff. I remember those days. It's very, very different now. You are a fellow trailblazer, my friend. That's exactly right. And, and I think it's becoming increasingly popular for, for educators to see these valid pathways into, and I hate to use the phrase, but like the bigger world.

13:52 And I say, you know, compared to the size of one classroom going into a corporate entity or going between corporate entities, you have this ability to, to repurpose your education skills in making learning fun and relatable, even for the grown-ups, sometimes in kind of stale topics or stale industries. You have the opportunity to enjoy what you do and never lose the, the, the educator flame in your heart. So thank you for reminding everybody of that, Holly. That's really cool and relevant. Absolutely. So tell us about elevated careers. How are you helping people when doing what you offer? Give us all the details because I know listeners, if they haven't connected with you, they need to connect with you. Everything's going to be in the show notes, obviously, after we end the episode and release it, but what? Tell us what it's all about.

14:41 So it, it, the tagline is I turn educators into corporate leaders. And it really is about finding the quickest, most efficient, most effective pathway from what you're doing, the work you're doing right now and what you may or may not envision yourself doing next, but you know you want to do something next. I I really specialize, as I mentioned in Educators. Now other people from other industries have come to me. By. Word of mouth. Or otherwise. And I'm very, very fortunate in that my, my and I do I, I very rarely turn people down. If somebody comes to me and says, hey, I need some support, I've got either free resources I can point them to or the two paid resources that Ioffer.

15:36 So, So typically I work with anyone who, who is currently in the education system or was formerly in the education system. So Holly, if you came to me next year and said stuff, I, I was a former educator. I, I've been out of the classroom for years. I want to do something else. I know that you keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on in the world that we live in. Help. I'd say come on in, Holly. You're my kind of person. I've worked with first year teachers, 20 year teachers, administrators, district coaches. I actually have several superintendents I'm working for or working with right now looking for consulting work and part time work in their retired years. Department of Education people.

16:26 Oh, my goodness. I know Evan Pressman has been has been really focused on posting cool things about helping people who are dealing with some of these federal cuts right now. So, you know, like it's anybody touching education, public, private, charter, etcetera. So that's my niche. And what I do is I write. I write every single day, Holly. I'm either putting together A blog, I'm writing my weekly newsletter, I'm posting on LinkedIn every day I wake up and think what is a real time challenge my community is facing and how can I provide a simple solution And I write and I post. So among my free resources, of course I post on LinkedIn every day and they're typically a how to I really don't do I've saved. Some of your stuff.

17:19 Have you not? Going to lie, yeah. I love that I'll send the whole folder to you if it helps you help others. It's all yours. But but yeah, I post every day. I have a weekly newsletter that's normally longer form. You know, you want to do a deeper dive into one real world challenge that I saw that week. A client had to bring something to me and my newsletters. I don't plan them weeks and weeks in advance. It's like, okay, it's summer and you can learn that. Summer bread approach, because I think sometimes when you plan in advance, you're like, oh, I should have talked about this because this is what's happening, right? Now, and that's it. I want to make sure anything that I put out there is timely as as much as Evergreen and relevant like. But some people need to see certain things at certain times and I want to take away as much of the guesswork as possible and I want to take away as much of the stress for people as possible.

18:17 So to list the things ioffer newsletter posts, I have my blog, which really are just how to's. And is this the right job for you? I post jobs from the last seven days for free every single Saturday morning, typically with the edtech and edtech adjacent world. And if it's non edtech, it's something that I have personally vetted that I know an educator would be able to move into ioffer free translatable transferable skills. So I have a packet. One that I absolutely love because I think people have such a difficult time, including myself.

18:58 I use the same one as an example all the time, but that is one that is is top notch. So thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah. And you can find that on my LinkedIn featured section and in the free tools section of my website. I have a free resume, a corporate resume with examples of educator to corporate example language transitions. I have jobs to check out kind of general these are these are this is a board of jobs that other people have transitioned into. Take a look. And it's from finance to L&D to editorial work to entrepreneurship to HR work.

19:40 I mean, you name it. It's just general career paths that people have taken. The majority of what Ioffer, honestly, Holly, the majority of what ioffer is free because I also understand that my niche does not have a lot of disposable income. And so I strive to fix whatever challenges folks are solving without having to go the paid route. This is my full time job. I do have some sponsors you. Have to get paid at some point. Right. I want to continue to be able to do this work for the people I love and in order to make a living and do that, there are a few services, premium services that I charge for. One is my Career Change Accelerator, which is a self-paced course that walks you through in depth all of the steps from what in the heck do I do? I feel guilty.

20:30 I don't like like this feels yucky and scary. Like figuring out how to not feel yucky and scary, or to feel yucky and scary and still be tactical. Moving through what you need to do to make this transition all the way up to after you get hired. The very last module is now that you're in this role, how do you set yourself up for a promotion in one year? How do you think that's a huge? Settlement that's missing in some of these other areas that other things that are people doing. I won't mention any names, but I think that, you know, I've really focused on the pre hire, like the pre hire and the interview. I but it sounds like you really dive, you take a deeper dive and after you're hired, like also stressing the importance of like people asking in the interview, what's the 306090 day plan?

21:15 What's the onboarding plan? And then after that, like what's your next move? Because in today's job market, it's not the same as it was even 1015 years ago. You people average or changing roles every three to four years at this point. So you have to be prepared. You know, as much like I can say that my fiance, he wants to stay in his little his little job because he's very comfortable. He doesn't want to move out of it. But you can't do that or you're not going to grow. Yeah, well, and everybody wants comfort, and changing is uncomfortable by the very nature of changing, even if you're excited about it. You could be scared to death, you could be excited about it, but change is hard no matter what. So that's the point is just having a system to make it less scary and and very much like your fiance. Congratulations by the way.

22:05 Oh, thank you. We can we can geek out about about marriage stuff another time. So expensive. Look, we are if we wanted to make the Buku box just attach the the word wedding to anything literally and just upcharting the planner wedding. Coordinator. Good grief. But anyway, that's that's somebody else's fun party. I digress, but that's the point. Your your fiance, very much like many other humans, want to stay in that lane, want to stick to one thing because it's secure and it's comfortable and there's nothing wrong with that. Like who doesn't? Want. And comfort, right?

22:48 But, but the reason why people often want to do that is because there's not a clear pathway. There's not a clear formula that you can follow. And I have made that formula. I've made that clear pathway, as have many other people in this space. And I'm, I'm super grateful that there are so many people rallying and offering similar services. Yeah, so, so OK. So my people like it's, it's, it's so big now that the transitioning happened that we do need all these people to support the masses into the transition. But I think what you're doing is you're future proofing your business for after the transition happens and what you continue to do to to grow in that. It's just, it's, it's about supporting the total person.

23:32 I'm, I'm kind of a career doctor, right? I, I, I'm not just going to treat one of the symptoms and get you from A to B. I'm going to stick with you afterwards and make sure your lifestyle change is also befitting of how great you are and, and of, of you know what you want to build. That's my job and I love my job. Then the other paid option is one-on-one sessions with me, 60 minute one-on-one sessions that are I, I don't, I don't try and lock people into, you know, like a 10 package, 10 session package. If you and I can meet and that one challenge that you have something we can deal with in one paid session. Cool, I want, I want to put myself out of a job with every single person because I want them after talking with me and taking my course, I want them to feel so empowered that they're like, oh, cool, I learned what I needed to learn. And their futures, their careers are future proof as well. Like that's, that's the exciting part about what I do. I love that and it's so important like you can offer the different things that they can kind of do self pace, but then you can have that personalized one-on-one touch. And honestly, I've done a few of those, like one on ones with people and it's like the personalization that goes into that is priceless because you are getting to sit with an expert for an hour of their time, which is very, very rare and get to tell them.

25:04 It's kind of like it's a therapy session, It's a growing session. It's a like planning goal session. And then after that, when people come to those sessions, and I'm sure they say this to you too, they feel like reinvigorated, they feel motivated. They're like, I, I was, I was kind of giving up, you know? And now I feel like there's something that there's so there's another direction I can take it. There's still hope. And I love that that's what comes out of those sort of things. Exactly. And then beyond that, I don't know what kind of everybody offers some sort of different follow up as well for mine after that hour. So people pay for one hour and in my opinion, it's pretty affordable.

25:44 People pay for that one hour and then I spend another one to three hours after that putting together a written PDF with a table of contents. Here are all the things that we discussed. Here are some jobs that I think you would be great at based on what we discussed. I I hold people accountable. Obviously I'm not going to check in with them every single day. I'd be like have. You checked out checklist #1. Right. But I'm going to make sure when we're done, you literally have a checklist, an organized step by step process for your challenge that you can follow and get traction on that thing that has been making you feel really uncomfortable in this change. Can we talk about everything in one hour?

26:24 No, of course not. And I do have people coming to me saying they expect that they're going to have their career chosen and their resume and LinkedIn updated in one hour. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, as much as I would love that. No, no, no. But we have a plan to do all of those things and and real actionable strategies. So, yeah. And Holly, I'm off camera. One of these days, you and I need to just swap some more stories and some ideas about how we can continue to better support the folks who come to us. Because I know that that through trial and error we have developed cool methods to be top supporters. 100% I'd love to do that cool cool thinking session cuz then we'll share it out with the world. Yes, yes, this could be an ongoing thing. I see some collaborative opportunities here, which I'm sure everybody you have on says that, but I'm going to make their money not.

27:22 Everybody. How is that possible? Like who wouldn't? Who? Who wouldn't suggest that? Yeah, their loss is my gain. Yeah, absolutely. So Speaking of like advice and and putting things together that are simple for people to to get done as we're coming up to the end of the episode, you know, the transition teachers community, you know the educators community and there's tons of them sitting listening right now. And you, you've worked with thousands of people. Tell us where like 3 pieces of advice that you would give to them that are actionable right now that they can do if they're looking to step out of education and into a corporate role. Love that that is such a great question. And it's straight to the point too. This is this is my jam here.

28:05 OK, three pieces of advice, all right, The three that come to mind, one is something you need to change up here. The next one is something that we've already talked about and the third one is something that people need to start doing something new. OK, so #1 accept, especially in learning and development, that your next job will not be your last job. So don't worry if you don't get everything perfect and right. You are going to learn and grow. So accept that you're making the right choices, even if later on you reserve the right to change your mind and you want to do something different. So number one, just chill.

28:52 You're going to be OK. OK, the actionable thing, like once your nervous system comes down, fight or. Flight, right? Once you're ready to fight, but in a good way, I want you. This is advice #2 get visible. Learning and development has become such a competitive industry and I don't say that to make people uncomfortable or scared. Real talk, it has like real. Talk. It is crazy competitive, but that's because people are getting outstanding learning and development support and the people who are going to get hired, the ones, the ones who set themselves apart are the ones who are making their their learning and whatever they're producing visible. Yeah.

29:41 Don't you know, don't don't break any non disclosure agreements or give away intellectual property. That's not what. I'm saying about stuff. Like it's, it's so. Positive and not like what's it called? Toxic positivity. It's positive in the way where you're like, this was the problem. Here's how I fix this. And that's it. That's, that's another thing that you might have noticed, Holly, I don't ever talk about, I don't ever talk about haters, you know, of, of anybody. Like of, of if someone gets on and they're frustrated about something like I never write posts about like to the people who are feeling salty about it, like, no, keep it focused on the problems that need to be solved and you will get noticed as an authority. That's it.

30:33 And make it visible. Use your featured section on LinkedIn. Have a portfolio. If if you don't show it, it didn't happen. And keep me honest on this one, Holly, If you don't show it, it didn't happen. You have to be able to prove that you've been doing your research, even if you haven't been in the learning and development world yet. And there is absolutely space to break in the third part, and this is something that I feel like you and I can do another show on, is Start learning how learning and development professionals are incorporating AI into their work. Yes. Every.

31:15 We didn't even touch AI this episode. We're definitely going. To have to do another one. Goodness. If you are not finding ways to make your work more efficient and more effective using AI. And I don't just mean like rewrite this document, I mean real time saving, repeatable moves to increase the quality of your work. Essentially, use AI to save your future employer time and money. If you're not finding ways to do that, or at least practicing, you're getting left behind at an exponential rate. And I again, don't say that to scare people. I say that to empower people to put their energy in the right places.

32:00 So quick recap, if you wanted a sound bite #1 your next job's not going to be your last job. I don't care how much you love it, it's just not going to be. And that's OK #2 make your learning visible. Make your make your expertise visible. Even if you're building your expertise. And #3 you've got to find what you just do your research on how L&D is incorporating AI into the space. And then the rest, just just stay curious and keep consuming the Ed Up podcast by yours truly, Holly Owens to stay abreast of all of the current happenings in the Yeah. We've had some great guests and yourself included on that list that have just blown me away in terms of the advice and the things that I can do myself.

32:54 But not only that, to the listeners, they, I think that when they listen to this and we get to this part of the episode, they're like, they're just ready to write down all the advice and, and then find you and then, you know, start an action plan. Like as teachers, former teachers, we feel like when we're checking stuff off the list that is just so nice. If we're if we're making, we're opening paths, we're opening doors. It's it's so reassuring that we're taking the right steps. Bingo. Because as you said, there's noise everywhere. Everybody has something to say. There's so much advice and most of it is great advice. It's just too much. Yeah. People are are over informed and underwhelmed, Right. Yeah.

33:36 So it's like, OK, these are the things you need to do. Calm down. What did I say? Calm down. That's right. Calm down. Focus post and and learn about VI. Yep. You're going to be all right, all. The things you're done. That's it. Yeah. Steph, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. It's been amazing and I know the listeners are going to love this. We're going to have everything in the show notes, where to find you, elevated careers, all the the resources that you mentioned. Really appreciate all that you're doing in the space and that we connected and now we met kind of IRL. Thanks so much for coming on and chatting with me. My pleasure. I hope you continue to be well, and I really am excited to stay tuned in to hear of all the other wonderful advice you're giving folks.

34:20 Thanks. Thanks for spending a few minutes with Holly. She knows your podcast queue is packed. If today's episode sparked an idea or gave you that extra nudge of confidence, tap, follow or subscribe in your favorite app so you never miss an episode of Ed Up L&D. Dropping a quick rating or review helps more educators and learning pros discover the show, too. I want to keep the conversation going. Connect with Holly on LinkedIn and share your biggest take away. She reads every message. Until next time, keep learning, keep leading, and keep believing in your own story. Talk soon. Hi, we're ispring, an international team of e-learning enthusiasts who help more than 60,000 clients across the globe succeed with better online learning. Our two flagship solutions are ispring Suite and ispring Learn LMS.