Master Your Midlife Career Change: Proven LinkedIn Strategies for Menopausal Women

Are you a midlife professional staring at the ceiling at 3 AM, a hot flash washing over you, wondering, "Is this all there is?" Do you dream of a career change but feel trapped by responsibilities, ageism, or the sheer overwhelm of starting over? What if this period of transition—including menopause—could be the very catalyst that propels you into a career you love?

In a powerful episode of the Luxury Unplugged Podcast, host Neeti Keswani sat down with Wendy Alexander, a seasoned career coach who specializes in guiding midlife professionals, especially menopausal women, through successful career transitions. Wendy’s story is not just one of professional triumph but of profound personal resilience, and her proven strategies offer a lifeline to anyone feeling stuck.

This blog post delves into the goldmine of advice from their conversation, providing a actionable blueprint for mastering your mindset, leveraging LinkedIn strategies, and crafting a killer resume to make recruiters hunt for you.

From Adversity to Advantage: The Mindset for a Successful Career Transition

Wendy’s journey began amidst the profound challenges of growing up in apartheid-era South Africa. This experience, though traumatic, instilled in her a "warrior spirit" and a crucial lesson from her parents: "Choose your destiny and don't become a victim of your circumstances." This foundational mindset is the first step in any successful career transition.

Her battles didn't end there. She faced domestic violence, found herself as a single mom, four months pregnant, and saddled with $50,000 of debt after a house sale at a loss. It was at this rock bottom that she made a decision that would change everything: she took ownership.

"I was an emotional and financial mess," Wendy shared. "I was like, how do I come through it? So I put myself in counseling."

This highlights a critical, often overlooked step in a career change: emotional healing. You cannot build a stable future on a fractured foundation. For menopausal women dealing with brain fog, anxiety, and life changes, this step is non-negotiable. Seeking help—whether from a psychologist, a spiritual counselor, or a supportive community—is a sign of strength, not weakness.

The Power of One Action Step

Feeling overwhelmed is the number one dream killer. The key, according to Wendy, is to break the paralysis with a single, concrete action.

"When you don't know what to do, do something," she advises. "Because sitting around doing nothing means you're going to be continuing to sit around doing nothing."

For Wendy, that action was calculating the income she needed to clear her debt and then deciding to talk to the people who could make it happen: recruiters and hiring managers. As a natural introvert, this was terrifying, but her daughter's future depended on it.

"I was nervous and trembling when I made the first phone call... But my whole livelihood and my daughter's livelihood depended on me stepping into that very uncomfortable action."

The result? Within seven months, she landed a job that increased her income by $50,000. This incredible career transition wasn't the result of one giant leap, but a series of small, courageous steps. This is a powerful proven strategy for anyone contemplating a change: conquer one little step, then the next. The compound effect will bring success quicker than you can imagine.

The Ultimate LinkedIn Strategies to Get Recruiters Hunting You

In today's digital age, networking has evolved, and your online presence is your new handshake. Wendy emphasizes that the most lucrative roles are never advertised on job portals; they live in the hidden network. And LinkedIn is the modern gateway to that network.

Her LinkedIn strategies are designed to transform your profile from a digital CV into a compelling personal brand that attracts opportunities.

1. Ditch the Default: Master Your Visual Branding

Your profile is your showroom. If it's bland and generic, people will scroll past.

• The Banner: Never use LinkedIn's default teal banner. It says nothing about you. Create a custom banner that communicates who you help and how you help them. If you're unsure, a beautiful, high-quality nature image (mountains, oceans) is universally appealing and creates a positive first impression.

• The Profile Picture: Use a clear, professional, head-on shot where you look approachable and confident.

2. Craft a Killer Headline That Captivates

This is your 220-character elevator pitch. Most people waste it on a mere job title.

• The Mistake: "Project Manager" or "Career Coach."

• The Masterstroke: "I help midlife careerists uplevel their resumes, ace their interviews, and get to love Monday mornings again."

Your headline must answer: Who do you help? How do you help them? This principle applies to any field. Are you a project manager who delivers complex projects on time and budget? Say that! This is a cornerstone of effective LinkedIn strategies for a successful career transition.

3. Tell Your Story, Don't Just List Your Facts

Your "About" section is where most people fail. They create a fact-telling list of duties.
Wendy, a skilled copywriter, shares a golden rule: "Facts tell, but stories sell."

Instead of listing your responsibilities, weave a narrative.

• How did you start in your field?

• Why are you passionate about what you do (or what you want to move into)?

• Weave your key achievements into this story.

This narrative approach makes you memorable and relatable, creating a connection that a bullet-point list never could. For menopausal women navigating a midlife career transition, this story is your superpower—it showcases your vast experience, resilience, and wisdom.

4. Build Trust with Powerful Recommendations

This is one of the most underutilized yet powerful LinkedIn strategies. LinkedIn recommendations are trusted implicitly because they cannot be edited by the profile owner.

• How it works: You request a recommendation, and the sender writes it. If it's missing a key skill, you must ask them to revise it. You can only choose to show it or hide it.

• The Impact: A profile rich with authentic recommendations acts as a pre-verified reference. Recruiters can see consistent themes—"great leader," "collaborative team player," "excellent problem-solver"—and are far more likely to reach out, often skipping reference checks altogether.

The Art of the Career Pivot: A Proven Framework for Midlife Career Transitions

For those contemplating a career change, Wendy provides a clear, step-by-step framework.

Step 1: Identify Your Transferable Skills

You are not starting from scratch. You have a lifetime of skills.

• Beyond Job-Specific Skills: While tech or data skills are specific, everyone has collaboration, problem-solving, and leadership skills.

• Highlight Your EQ: Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is a critical asset that companies are desperately seeking. Think about how you've managed conflicts, motivated teams, or navigated office politics. These are invaluable transferable skills.

• Unofficial Leadership: Have you ever mentored a junior colleague, led a project without the title, or organized a team event? That's leadership. Your task is to learn the language to sell these skills effectively.

Step 2: Mine Your Story for Joy

Your next career should be aligned with what brings you energy. Wendy calls this "mining your story."

• Look back at your life—both professional and personal—and identify the threads that always brought you joy.

• For Wendy, it was writing and helping people. She combined them into a thriving career coaching business. What two threads can you combine?

Step 3: Strategic Networking on LinkedIn

Once you know your direction, use LinkedIn strategies to connect with the right people.

• Identify Your Top 20 Companies: Make a list of companies you admire and would love to work for.

• Research and Connect: Go to each company's LinkedIn page and look at their employees. Find decision-makers in your target department.

• The Personalized Connection: Never just hit "Connect." Always send a personalized note. Reference a post they shared, a common interest you found in their profile, or a company achievement. This shows you've done your homework and are genuinely interested.

"The people whose connections I accept are the ones that say, 'Hi Wendy, I saw your video on how to ace this question in an interview.'... I know they've looked at some of my work."

Navigating Menopause and Midlife: Turning a Challenge into Your Career Catalyst

For menopausal women, the physical and mental symptoms can feel like a barrier to a career transition. Wendy experienced this firsthand with severe insomnia, hot flashes, and brain fog while in a high-stress corporate role.

The stress of her body changes combined with the stress of her job became unsustainable. This is a common crossroads for midlife professionals. Her decision to leave corporate and run her career coaching business full-time was made during perimenopause.

This wasn't a retreat; it was a strategic pivot toward a life of balance and purpose. It required her to define her boundaries clearly—a crucial skill she now imparts to her clients.

The Power of a Polite "No"

"Get very good at knowing what to say 'no' to, because your 'no' is sometimes more important than your 'yes,'" Wendy advises.

She doesn't work on Fridays. That day is for her aging parents, her well-being, and her personal life. She communicates this boundary politely but firmly: "Thank you for the opportunity, but it's not right for me at this time."

This assertive boundary-setting is vital for menopausal women who are often pulled in multiple directions. It conserves your energy, prevents burnout, and models healthy behavior for those around you. It also instills confidence in interviewers—they see a leader who knows their value and won't be a pushover.

From Interview Anxiety to Job Offer: The Final Hurdle

You can have a perfect killer resume and an optimized LinkedIn profile, but if you can't interview well, you won't get the job. This is Wendy's favorite part of career coaching: the rapid transformation in interview skills.

She teaches clients to move from rambling for 3-4 minutes to delivering sharp, succinct, and powerful answers in under 2.5 minutes. Through practice and refinement, she sees confidence soar within a week, leading directly to job offers.

This final piece of the puzzle—acing the interview—is what seals the deal on your career transition.

Your Journey to a Luxurious Career Awaits

A midlife career transition, especially during menopause, is not an ending. It is a profound beginning. It's an opportunity to leverage your hard-won wisdom, transferable skills, and life experience to build a career that doesn't just pay the bills but brings you joy and fulfillment.

The proven strategies shared by Wendy Alexander provide a clear roadmap:

1. Heal and Fortify Your Mindset: You are not a victim of your circumstances.

2. Take One Actionable Step: Overcome overwhelm with consistent, small actions.

3. Optimize Your LinkedIn: Use advanced LinkedIn strategies to build a brand that attracts recruiters.

4. Identify Your Transferable Skills: You have more to offer than you think.

5. Set Boundaries: Your "no" is powerful and protects your well-being.

Your career change is possible. Your midlife career transition can be your most empowering chapter yet. By mastering these LinkedIn strategies, refining your killer resume, and embracing the support of a skilled career coach, you can step into a role where you are valued, fulfilled, and truly love your Monday mornings again.

The recruiters aren't just out there—they're waiting to find you. It's time to show them you're ready.

 

Host: Neeti Keswani
Guest: Wendy Alexander

Neeti Keswani: So, if you wish to master your mind game to get your career goals and ace up your LinkedIn game with a killer resume, and if you want LinkedIn recruiters coming after you, hunting you for a job, and if you're someone who wants a career change even during menopause, and you wish to find out proven strategies for your midlife career transitions… this is the episode for you.

Welcome to the Luxury Unplugged Podcast, where we dive into the art of living a successful and luxurious life. From the mindset and business to personal growth and entrepreneurship, I discuss everything with my superb guests. And today, we have an amazing topic on LinkedIn strategies and career coaching because we have with us Wendy Alexander.

She is a seasoned career coach with a unique focus on guiding midlife professionals, especially menopausal women. We are often, you know, thinking about our career transitions, but she's going to guide us and help us through various strategies. Let's hear it out from Wendy. Wendy, welcome to the show!

Wendy Alexander: Hello there. Nice to be here.

Neeti Keswani: Lovely to have you. We have so many questions brimming within us about career transitions and so many aspects of LinkedIn, and I hope you will throw amazing light on all of those.

Just to give a little perspective to our audiences, your story has been truly fascinating. I know about your situation and your story, what went behind, but a lot of our people don't. So, why don't you let us understand what kind of apartte situations you went through in South Africa and what sort of challenges life threw at you, and how did you overcome them? Especially from, you know, being a single mom to heavy mortgages to actually climbing the corporate ladder. How was it for you?

Wendy Alexander: Okay, so the journey started with the challenge of growing up in Cape Town in South Africa. I grew up in that country during the time of apartheid. So, anyone who knows anything about apartheid, you can probably liken it to the Civil Rights Movement that happened in the south of America in the '60s and early '70s. So, it was about segregation, and it was about segregation by color of skin. The country was segregated by law; this was entrenched in the law, divided by blacks, "colored" – which is what I am because I have mixed race, I have some white grandparents and some black grandparents, so I was classified as "colored" – and then, of course, the white group.

The white population was the minority population, but they were the population that had the wealth and the power. And so, there was a lot of oppression and suppression in South Africa during the time of apartheid, which ran from 1948 to 1994, when Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa after he was released from 27 years of imprisonment. He was a political activist, he was imprisoned for fighting back against the government.

I saw a lot of that growing up because I became a political activist myself in my teen years, once I realized what was going on in the country. I didn't always know that I was "othered" and that that meant certain things about me in that country. When you're a child, you don't see that. You grow up in your community, you see your neighbors, you see your friends, you see your cousins, your family. We all grew up in similar neighborhoods, so we never really knew any different until, I think, I was 7 years old.

We went to the beach one summer; it was a "Whites only" beach. We didn't know it was a "Whites only" beach, and we were thrown off the beach – the family, there was two families that went. That was my first introduction to segregation. So, it was a lot to overcome. And then, once I started to ask – because the moment that happened, I was a naturally curious child, much to my parents' annoyance, because I was always asking, "Why did this happen?" – I wanted to know, "Why did they throw us off the beach?"

My father, in the comfort and the safety of our home, started to explain to me what the country was about: that it was actually a segregated country, that people who were black lived in those neighborhoods, people who were colored lived in these neighborhoods, and people who are white lived in those neighborhoods. And you weren't allowed to go into each other's neighborhoods; you weren't allowed to go into cinemas that weren't designated for you, beaches that weren't designated for you, trains, buses, public transport, you name it, restaurants, everything.

But, you know, at 7 years old, you're not old enough to process it properly. But as I grew up, I definitely saw it everywhere. I myself had challenging experiences, like being put off trains. One time, I was in high school, I was late; my connecting bus to the train was late, so I was late, and I was like, "God, I don't want to get detention," so I just jumped into the first carriage, and it was a "Whites only" carriage. So, I was put off the train at the next station and ended up being late anyway. So, that was one example, but there were many like that. That was life in South Africa.

One of the things my father drilled into us was, "You need to get your education because you're a person of color." And he said to me, "You're a woman of color, so you're going to have some challenges stacked against you to try and get the kind of jobs that might lead to success." And so, I knew from the start that I had a few things stacked against me growing up in that country.

My parents had, in the meantime, been trying for a number of years to leave South Africa. And then, we had the big riots; schools were closed in 1985, which was my year of matriculation. We had to write our... schools were closed, but we still had to write the matriculation exam to pass high school with no teaching. Now, look, there was a lot of clandestine activity that happened. People snuck to teachers' homes, and the teachers taught us from their homes and so on, to prepare us. I ended up writing my exams in a military base, surrounded by guns and soldiers. So, that was traumatic because, you know, anything could happen; violence erupts and people open fire. That happened a lot in South Africa; a lot of people died in the struggle.

But I managed to get through that. I also applied for a scholarship because my parents couldn't afford to send me to university; that wasn't a possibility in our family, and for a lot of black families and a lot of colored families. And I won the scholarship to go to the University of Cape Town and did my first year of university there. And then, we migrated to Australia in my second year of uni. I was almost 21 years old when we came to Australia.

That had its challenges because, suddenly, we had this freedom that we didn't have in South Africa, right? We had this freedom, and we didn't know how to be with that freedom. Like, for example, one time my cousin was going into the city, and I said, "Okay, can I come with you?" and she said, "Yes." So, we went on the train, and I said, "Like, which carriage am I supposed to get into?" And she said, "You're not in South Africa anymore, you're in Australia, you can get on any carriage, you know?" And so, the mind... it took a while to shed that life that I'd lived there.

But I suppose, where the start of the career changes and the wanting success... look, I did, I had won that scholarship in South Africa, I got a great university education up until we migrated, and then came to Australia and completed my degree here in Australia. And obviously, it was a lot more opportunity for me here because I wasn't restricted by all those race issues.

And so, I went on to do well, landed my first job in a bank. There was a traumatic experience there with a bank robbery and being held up at gunpoint and things like that, but I got through that as well. But through that threat to my life... I was constantly aware that, you know, if I wanted to succeed, I had to put in the effort, work hard.

I then ended up in a relationship, and that was another huge challenge. That relationship ended when I was 4 months pregnant with my daughter. There was domestic violence in that relationship. I got out of that, and suddenly, I lose everything. I had worked three jobs to buy a house. We had a home together, him and I; we were about to have a child together, and then the relationship ends. I'm 4 months pregnant, the house sells at a loss, he walks away, leaves me with a debt. So, I'm starting a life with a baby in my belly and $50,000 worth of debt.

And that was when... one of the first things I did was put myself in counseling, because I was like, "How the heck did I create this mess in my life?" That was me taking responsibility for myself. I was an emotional and financial mess, and I was like, "How do I come through it?" So, I put myself in counseling.

Neeti Keswani: I think this is a very important point that you have mentioned, that you did very carefully for your career: you put yourself into counseling. A lot of people, a lot of women in India, do not go through counseling even after going through domestic violence and stuff like that in their marriages. And I think there's a huge requirement for such kind of career counseling.

Wendy Alexander: Oh, absolutely. Look, I think not just career counseling, but also you need to go through some kind of emotional healing. So, sometimes you need a psychologist, you know, or you might need a spiritual counselor, someone that can help you heal from the trauma of whatever you've been through.

And I did recognize that I needed that. So, the first lot of counsel I put myself through was psychological counseling. Then, I started to reach out to recruiters and hiring people, because I'm sitting with this massive debt over my head, I've just given birth to a baby, and I'm going, "How do I give this child a new life? How do I give her a great life?"

For me at the time, it was very practical. So, I did my numbers. I was like, "This is the debt I have, this is the income I'm on. If I'm going to pay this debt down in the next 2 years, I need to be on this income." And in my head, the numbers in my little spreadsheet showed me I needed to make $20,000 more a year. But I'm like, "Who's going to give me that kind of opportunity?" right?

So, I decided, well, the people that make the decisions are recruiters or hiring people. So, I went to them. I went to them and I said, "I need to do this with my career. How do I do it?" Now, I will say, most people were incredibly generous. I was very authentic; I told people my circumstances. I told them I was a single mom with this big debt, I was trying to grow in my career, I was trying to improve myself. I didn't hide anything. And so, I don't know if that's why – if people, human beings are naturally empathetic – and they helped me.

Recruiters would sit down with me; I'd buy them a coffee, because that was all I could afford. I couldn't afford to take them out for lunch, so I would go, "Can I buy you a coffee?" Buy them a coffee and pick their brains. In the meanwhile, I also was writing, testing out my resume. I've always been a wordsmith; it's one of the ways I've got through difficult times in life. I wrote my way; I journaled my way. I wrote little stories, I wrote poetry; it helped me process my emotions. So, I had the ability to use words. So, I started playing with words with my resume.

Neeti Keswani: This is another important point: journaling is a very, very important spiritual technique that even we talk about on our channel, on Luxury Unplugged, because it really helps you to calm down, to take out your negative emotions, and, you know, just clear the mess inside your head and bring out... it's all brushed out, and now is the time to focus on the real thing. And I guess that's right, you were guided.

Wendy Alexander: Absolutely, I was. Look, for me, when I was when I couldn't make sense of South Africa, I would write things out, and I would write all my feelings out. And what it did was, it took all that confusion out of my own mind and my own spirit and put it down on paper. And then, I could read back on things later and start to see patterns and try to make sense of things. So, for me, journaling was a natural thing; it came when I was really young. I did it all of my life; I still do it to this day. It's my way of processing.

So, yes, I highly recommend that if you're trying to process your own emotions, your own thoughts, the best thing to do is to get it out of your head and onto paper. Because when you read it back, you'll start to be able to see certain threads and patterns and be able to figure out, "Okay, I'm noticing this kind of negative thought popping up all the time, but I'm also noticing that sometimes I get this burst of inspiration and there's a slight solution to the problem," and then you can zone in on the solution.

So, anyway, the writing was always a part of my life. So, I started playing with my resume. And then, I was working parallel: playing around with my resume, I was talking to all these recruiters and these hiring people, and combined the two into a framework that I then started to test out.

So, what I did was, I started sending the resume out, written the way recruiters guided me and helped me and told me what to focus on. And it took 6 months before I got a bite that was promising, and I landed an interview. I didn't get the job. However, as I was walking out of the interview, I said, "Can you give me two or three points on what I could do better?" And they were generous too; they gave me the feedback. So, I was like, "Okay, I didn't perform well there, there, and there."

And this is the thing: you got to seek feedback. You got to, you know, don't just accept defeat, don't just accept that something didn't work out for you. If you're able to go and ask why, because then they're going to give you some pointers, and then you go, "Okay, I need to practice that a little bit better next time." And probably about 2 weeks later, I landed another interview, and I landed the job because I had refined my answers. I practiced and practiced. I mean, I was talking to myself in the mirror, I was talking to the baby – you know, baby's gurgling in the cot, I'm practicing. It didn't matter; it was like, there's something for me to talk to, and I'm going to practice and practice these answers.

And I ended up getting the job, and the job exceeded my expectations; it launched my income by a $50,000 increase. My number was 20, and that was... that was really the start for me. I saw a system that worked; I had refined it. People around me knew my story – my family, my friends, my colleagues – knew what I'd been through, knew the trauma I'd been through, knew I'd lost my home, knew the debt. They knew everything; I'm a fairly open book. And so, they were like, "How did you go from there to there in the space of..." it was about 7 months that that happened. And they said, "Can you help me?" And that's how my business was born.

I started to help my friends, my family, my colleagues with some of the systems that I was using to succeed in my own career. And then, eventually, it turned into a part-time business. So, I had landed a big role in corporate, and I had debt to pay, so I didn't abandon corporate. I worked probably back then 8, 10 hours a day in corporate, and I ran my coaching business on the side. And this happened for a couple of years, for a few years.

Neeti Keswani: Absolutely.

Wendy Alexander: And then, the side... look, I really loved seeing people succeed in their careers. And the more I was succeeding, every time I was learning a different strategy or was climbing the corporate ladder in a better way, I would teach the people coming up behind me the same thing, and they were having their own success.

So, my career coaching business has been around now for... it was 15 years part-time, and it's now 5 years full-time. So, 20-year business, but very much a side gig business for a long time until recently. So, where it changed was when I went through menopause. When menopause hit me, midlife hit me, that was another big challenge for me.

Neeti Keswani: So, you would have already stepped into your business before the menopause hit you?

Wendy Alexander: Oh, no. So, I actually made the decision to do the business full-time when I was probably in the second year of perimenopause, because it slammed me really hard. I was one of those women that had the insomnia, got the hot flashes, brain fog – every symptom that menopausal women can go through, I had all of them. And it really caused me severe stress. And then, I was still in a high-powered role. So, between the stress of the body changes and the mental changes that comes with menopause, there was also the very high responsibility in my job, and the two lots of stresses were not working for me anymore.

Neeti Keswani: So, definitely, there are some challenges that midlife professionals anyway go through, especially if they're in a really high position. But how did you manage the balancing act for a baby – not a baby anymore, yeah – but a single mom that you were, and the menopausal symptoms, and the position, and the budding business?

Wendy Alexander: Well, that's... I think that was really the crux of the matter. The crux of the matter was that I could see clearly that I wasn't managing it very well anymore because I was becoming very unwell. I was not sleeping because of the insomnia; some women get severe insomnia with menopause, I was one of those women. You know, as our estrogen levels drop, brain fog sets in, insomnia sets in, all kinds of things happen. Now, some women don't go through those symptoms; they're very fortunate. But most women do; they either get one or two of the symptoms, or they get all of the symptoms. And it does affect life in so many ways.

So, yes, I was... my daughter was in the late teenage years then, I had a new partner, so I was managing a relationship, I was running a part-time business, and I was working a high-powered role in corporate, right, managing teams of people. And I was like, "I'm not doing any of my various roles that I had in my life any justice because I'm exhausted and I'm sick all the time."

And so, I looked at it and I thought, "Well..." – and I have a process that's a free resource that I'll provide people with now – but I went through a process of what I call "mining my story." And what that meant was, I went through my life and looked at where I always felt a sense of joy doing whatever I was doing. If I was doing something, did it bring me a sense of joy? And I noticed two threads flowing through my life. One of it was writing; every time I was writing, I was happy. That was just a natural thing; it brought me so much joy. The other one was helping people. So, even when I was a teenager growing up in South Africa in very difficult times, I was working with people with disabilities, I was volunteering at homeless shelters. So, I noticed there was that thread to always want to make a difference and help people.

And so, I suppose I combined the two threads. I was like, "I already have evidence that I can help people with their careers, and I can help myself. I've helped myself with my career, I've helped other people with career. And I have evidence that I'm a half-decent writer, that when I write people's resumes, LinkedIn, and things for them, they tend to land the interviews." Right? Once I start rebranding them or telling their story in a way that makes them shine. I was like, "Okay, so there's two little threads." And I combined it, and that's when I took the writing business – because I was mostly writing resumes – and the ability to help people interview and coach them, and I combined it, and it became a career coaching business.

And that happened in my second year of perimenopause because I had a look at it and I was like, "I need to give something up." And I chose to give up corporate. Now, I had a lot of opinions around me about that because I was making a lot of money in corporate; I was in a very high-paying job. People are like, "You're stupid, why would you give up this high pay?" Well, the high-paying job is causing me the most stress because when you get paid that kind of money, you have to deliver; you're responsible for a lot. You know, I was responsible for project budgets that were into the 100, 200 million, you know? And I'm leading teams of indirect reports of 35 in one team, 35 in another, 10 direct reports – a huge, huge responsibility. And I was like, "You know what? It is this that is causing me the most stress, and I have something that I can transition into."

But it wasn't the easiest choice to make because it's nice to have steady high-paying income. When you start to run your own business full-time, you also have to market your business; you've got to get up there and get yourself out in the world and be known. And you know what we did? My partner and I – because my life partner is also my business partner – we did start really working LinkedIn big time.

Neeti Keswani: So, tell me something over here. You talk about menopause, and it's a... to pursue the life you've always wanted, how do you see the spirit of life as an opportunity rather than a barrier? Like, I can see those things in your career; despite all the challenges that you had, you still managed to go ahead with it, you know, move around it, beyond it, and still get to what you wanted to do, right? So, was it just the drive to give your child a better lifestyle, or was it your own hunger for success? Or how do you define... how does somebody who is actually in so much of trauma really carve a path of a career change and really succeed in that?

Wendy Alexander: Okay, so for me, I think, look, I think it came from the very difficult years growing up in South Africa. One of the things that was instilled in me by my parents was, "Choose your destiny and don't become a victim of your circumstances." So, it was that; there was a warrior spirit that was instilled in all of us from very young. And so, even though we grew up in difficult circumstances, one thing I will say, I have a lot of great memories of life in South Africa because the community, my parents... there was always music going on, there was always food, celebrations. And so, they were always looking for the silver lining, right? There were lots of clouds for sure, but they were always looking for the silver lining. And I think that was instilled in me as a young child, and as a teenage girl, and a young woman.

And then, when I went through my own... when I came out of South Africa and was going through my own personal traumas, as in relationship traumas and financial traumas, I think that warrior spirit has always been there. But the most important thing was, for a long time, it was my daughter that drove a lot of my decisions. Right? I was like, "Okay, I feel like crawling under the duvet and never coming out again because I was in so much pain." But I did have a baby growing in my belly, and I was like, "Well, what are you going to do?" And I also knew it was a girl; I intuitively knew it was a girl. It was confirmed when I had to go for an ultrasound. And so, I knew prior to her birth that... and I was like, "What example do I want to show my daughter? Do I want her to believe that life is limited for her? No, I don't." So, the best way I can do that is for me to become the example, because it's easy to go look at books and to look at other people, but you're the one that has to lead the way, especially for your own family or your children. Otherwise, they're easily influenced by external forces, right? So, that was a driving factor.

But then also, the big thing for me was, I never wanted to be a victim of anything. All the violence I went through, all the trauma I went through, all the... you know, the failure of that relationship, the financial losses... I knew there was something in me that was, "I'm never going to be a victim of difficult circumstances. I am going to be a victor – a victor of challenges; I'm going to overcome them." And so... but it wasn't always easy, and I didn't always know what to do.

Right. What I figured out though – and here's a message for a lot of the people that I work with, but also for your audience – is: take one action step. When you don't know what to do, do something. Because sitting around doing nothing means you're going to be continuing to sit around doing nothing, and you're always going to feel like you don't know what to do. So, if you don't know what to do, take one action.

Like with me, for example: "Okay, I got a $50,000 debt. What am I going to do? I don't know how to clear this debt. What I know is that I need to earn more money. How do I earn more money? I've got to go talk to the people that can tell me how I earn more money." So, even though I was actually an introvert by nature – because writers usually are, we're natural introverts; we love sitting with our pen and paper, we love keyboard in a quiet room, we don't like being out in the world – I was like, "I have to step out of this box, this comfort zone, and I've got to go talk to those people who can help me."

So, that's what I did. And it was hard; let me be honest and say it was hard. I was nervous and trembling when I made the first phone call to the first recruiter that I called and said, "Can I take you out for coffee? I have some questions." I was shaken doing it. But my whole livelihood and my daughter's livelihood and my circumstances that I wanted to overcome depended on me stepping into that very uncomfortable action.

Neeti Keswani: Wow.

Wendy Alexander: And so, my message is always... because, and then the other thing is, once you take an action, you realize, "Okay, I've taken that action, the world didn't fall down, the sky didn't fall on top of me. I can take another action." And that's kind of how I build things: one little action step at a time.

Neeti Keswani: So, that's a big nugget: one action at a time. Only one, one action, small action, but one concrete action at a time.

Wendy Alexander: I think people think that if they're going to change their life, they have to do these huge major moves and steps. But from working with so many people over the years, and also doing it for myself throughout all the challenges that I've been through, I know that if you try and take on everything, you become overwhelmed and you actually stop.

Neeti Keswani: Because the overwhelm will stop you. It absolutely will.

Wendy Alexander: You absolutely... but if you take one little step, and you conquer that one little step, and then you go to the next one and the next one, before you know it, all the little steps that you're taking compound, and then suddenly the avalanche of success comes to you quicker than you can dream or imagine. Like for me, when I look at making my first phone call to that recruiter and then landing that job that jumped my income by 50 grand, that was only a 7-month time frame. But when I started, I had no idea that it would be that quick.

Neeti Keswani: Right, right. But tell me something, Wendy, times have changed. What you faced in your initial career and what we have right now with social media and LinkedIn and so many other options... what do you suggest is a practical strategy? Yes, of course, it is about building personal connections and you know, having one-to-one meetings with people, but what about the possibility of catching the right recruiter on LinkedIn and talking them through? What is the right strategy for that?

Wendy Alexander: Well, I think what I will say is that networking has never changed. So, it was valuable when I was coming up; the way I got my opportunities was through networking, which was calling up these recruiters, calling up these hiring people. So, that has never changed. And the big, juicy, prime, wonderful roles that pay the most money exist in the network; they do not exist on job portals; they're not even advertised.

Neeti Keswani: Very true.

Wendy Alexander: If you want the prime, juicy roles that are going to pay you a really great six-figure income – sometimes for some people up to seven-figure income, you know, if you end up in those C-suite roles and you get all the shares and everything that go with it – that happens through the networks. Those roles are not advertised; they don't get to the job portals. It's about networking. You hear about it all the time: the deal on the golf course, the conversation over coffee, over a big lunch or a dinner or a football event or something, right?

It is easier for people to build networks now than it was in my time. In my time, I had to make the phone call, or I had to go to the event. I had to go to the industry event, the meetup, attend a project management industry event, for example, and then meet all the people that were there, you know, and the decision-makers that were there.

Now, you have LinkedIn. People do not know, or if they know, they're not doing it – this is what I see. They have not taken advantage of that professional networking social place. It's so much easier now.

Neeti Keswani: So, what are your three nuggets, let's say, on LinkedIn? Like, to get... let's say for menopausal women, somebody who's through career transitions and trying to find the way like you were in a situation earlier on, what would be the right strategy at this stage?

Wendy Alexander: Okay, so first of all, you do need to have a good resume. LinkedIn is not going to replace your resume, because LinkedIn is about social professional branding. So, you kind of have to have a really great story. You need to make sure your banners on LinkedIn – your background banner, your profile picture – is appealing, right? Because people are drawn into the story of you. It's all about the branding. It's like, if you're wanting to buy a BMW car, if you drive past a showroom and the showroom is tacky and not telling you much and not appealing, you're not stopping at that showroom. You're going to stop at the next one or the third one or the fourth one that's going to draw you in. LinkedIn's the same; you need to brand yourself so someone is drawn into your profile.

Some of the key ways to do that is:

1. Do not use LinkedIn's default banner. You know that little banner, sort of teal color with a little gray little squiggle? That tells someone nothing about you; that's about LinkedIn, that's not about you. So, that's number one place where I see people can make one little change already. Put up a banner that says something about you: who you help, how you help them. If you don't know – you think, "Oh, I don't know how I want to represent myself. Do I want to represent myself in terms of my hobbies, what I'm interested in, or in terms of the work I do?" – if you're confused there, the best banner is a nature banner. Everybody loves that. If you put up a beautiful nature banner, people are drawn to it, right? So, if you're someone that likes mountains, the ocean, whatever, put up a banner that represents that about you.

2. Profile Picture & Headline: Where you're going to make a difference is to start changing your headlines. So, if you look at most LinkedIn profiles, they use their title as a headline. So, "Project Manager," "Business Analyst," "CEO." Okay, that's what you are; that's your title. But how do you actually help? LinkedIn gives you 220 characters to write a compelling headline. And the headline should be sharp and succinct and tell them in that 220 characters how you help them, who you help, and how you help them, right?

So, if you look at my title – and I don't know it off by heart because I've changed it a number of times – but it says, "I help midlife menopausal women" or "midlife careerists to..." and how do I help them? "...uplevel their resume, ace their interviews, get to love Monday mornings again." That's a much stronger title than me just saying "Career Coach." Because I'm actually telling people how I help them. And that can go across any type. Whether you're a project manager, you can be a PM that helps in a way where you uplevel, you develop high-performing teams, you deliver projects within time and on budget, you're the kind of person that they want to work with again in the future, anything like that. You need to come up with titles that actually tell people how you help them. That's one difference where I've seen, you know, once we start changing people's titles when I work with them, makes a big difference.

Neeti Keswani: Absolutely, because it's the first thing; it catches... you need to catch people's attention.

Wendy Alexander: Then, your "About" section. So many people – this is, you know, tip number three maybe even number four now – the "About" section, people do this fact-telling exercise, I call it a fact-telling exercise. And what they do is they'll go, "You know, I'm a project manager and I do change management and risk management and this..." Well, okay, most people know what certain job titles do. If you tell your story in a narrative, in a story-style way, you're probably going to get a lot more traction.

So, what you want to probably do is give people a little bit of insight into how you started, why you still love what you do, and then weave a couple of your strongest achievements into that story. So, people can see that you've had this passion for this particular thing that you're doing or that you want to do, here's how you've already achieved in that space, and here's why you still want to continue to do this type of work.

There's an old saying – I'm a copywriter as well, so I write copy, do copywriting for small businesses – and there's an old saying in copywriting that goes, "Facts tell, but stories sell."

Neeti Keswani: Absolutely.

Wendy Alexander: So, you need to sell yourself through a story. Don't be boring is what I'm saying. Don't be that fact-telling person because nobody's going to be inspired by that.

Neeti Keswani: Absolutely.

Wendy Alexander: Um, and then the other, you know, another tip which I'll give is, you need to build recommendations on LinkedIn. Right? People avoid it, but LinkedIn recommendations are trusted above all else because they can only be written by the person you ask the recommendation of. So, for example, if I asked you to write me a recommendation, Neeti, and you wrote me one, and maybe you didn't cover something that I wanted you to cover, I can't go into that recommendation and change it. I have to send it back to you and say, "Neeti, can you talk about this particular coaching style of mine in your recommendation?" You have to then write it.

Neeti Keswani: Absolutely.

Wendy Alexander: All I can do with a recommendation is add it to my profile; I cannot change it. And so, it's trusted. And so, if you start building recommendations and testimonials there, people go to your LinkedIn page and they go, "Wow, you know, this person... so many people really like working with this person, and this is what they got out of working with them," and so on. It is really important; it is very underutilized on LinkedIn, but it is one of the things I've seen make the most difference.

And quite a number of hiring people – the recruiters, the hiring people – they go to the LinkedIn, they scan that recommendation first, and then they go, "Oh, I don't even need to ring up someone for a reference; it's right here. There's 10 recommendations for this person, and they're all saying very similar things: 'This person's a team player,' 'This person's a strong leader,' 'This person's a collaborator,'" whatever, whatever, you know. And so, a lot of the time, you're cutting work for a recruiter if they can see that you are someone solid to work with just by your recommendations and how you've structured your LinkedIn branding. They're going to go, "Oh, well, I don't need to ring up a reference; it's all there for me."

You have got to take ownership and steer the direction of your LinkedIn so that it sells you as a candidate. But you don't want to have it be too detailed, because you want to create the curiosity from LinkedIn so that the recruiter then reaches out and says, "Hey John, hey Mary, can you send me your resume?" That's what you want them to do: to get so curious about you, so interested in you, that they ask for your resume, which is where you're going to now be showcasing your solid achievements, your solid credentials. And then, of course, you go from there; you lead on from there into an interview.

I've seen LinkedIn make a massive difference. Clients who have argued with me – it's okay, I don't mind them arguing with me – they go, "No, I'm not going to do LinkedIn, I don't like it, blah blah blah." And then I say to them, "Let's try it for a month. Let's shape this LinkedIn up, and let's just try it for a month. Let's start to reach out, build your network, let's build your recommendations." There's not one client who's done it who hasn't landed an opportunity from it so far.

Neeti Keswani: No, absolutely. Yes, you are the right person for LinkedIn coaching. But tell me something: for listeners, you know, for my audiences who are considering a career change and they're feeling uncertain, what is that one piece of advice that you'd like to give them for their transition? What do you think is the right thing to do first of all, or whatever, like two-three things that you'd like to talk about?

Wendy Alexander: Okay, so the first thing, if you're wanting to make a career transition – if you've been in a certain industry all the years and you're bored with it, you hate it, you've got to midlife and you go, "Can't do this anymore," and that doesn't only happen to midlife women, it happens to us more so, but I've worked with midlife men who go, "I paid the bills, put the kids through school, I want something different" – one of the ways, the first thing you need to do is to identify your transferable skills. Because you need to be able to offer the new industry you want to go into some kind of skill.

Now, we all have transferable skills. Some of us have very job-specific skills, and that's fine – like you have people with tech and AI and data analytic skills, those are very specific – but everybody's got collaboration skills, problem-solving skills, leadership skills. You people have stepped up, whether you've officially led a team or unofficially helped people along a journey, you have got leadership skills. You just need to know how to sell it and how to highlight it. And a lot of people struggle with highlighting their transferable skills. EQ skills is huge now; every company is hiring for EQ skills, emotional intelligence skills. Huge. So, if you start to really highlight your EQ skills, that's going to be a big difference, right?

So, you need to identify your transferable skills. Then, I say to people, go and identify the top 20 companies. Because you need to know why you're inspired by a particular company or why you're inspired by a certain type of job, right? And then you start to frame up. And then, and where LinkedIn can help you, once you've identified your top 20, you go and put that company name in LinkedIn. For example, you identify Microsoft is one of your top 20; you type in Microsoft. Underneath Microsoft is going to be a list of employees. Well, there's a whole lot of people to start building connections with. Look at people's titles, going, "Okay, I need to form connections with some of the decision-makers at Microsoft." If, for example, this guy is the head of data analytics and I really want to work in data analytics, I need to form a connection.

Now, you don't just go hit "Connect," because the person doesn't know you, right? They're going to go, "Who is this person?" What I encourage when I train people how to connect with people is: go into their profile. Take the time of reading the person's profile. If they're a person that posts regularly, start liking their posts, start sharing their posts; become visible to them through that. If they're not someone that posts a lot, have a read through their profile because they're going to list where they've worked, they're going to list what they like doing. Find something that's a common ground and reach out to them.

And that means you've got to go into their profile; you hit the "Connect" button from their profile – not from that long list that just shows "Connect, Connect, Connect" – the profile, the "Connect" button within their profile will send you to a pop-up note, right? Pop-up note will allow you to send a personalized message. Always send a personalized message when you're wanting to connect with someone you don't know, because if you don't, they will not accept your connection.

Neeti Keswani: And even if they do, it's going to be very shallow.

Wendy Alexander: Yeah, very shallow. And people... if you take the trouble to... like, most of the people whose connections I accept, they have either watched a video that I've put up on LinkedIn, they've read one of my posts – because I post daily; I'm offering free tips and advice daily in the form of articles and in the form of video – people reach out to me. The people whose connections I accept are the ones that say, "Hi Wendy, I saw your video on how to ace this question in an interview." Moment I know they've looked at some of my work – boom, yes, I'm accepting you. And then they come back and they go, "Can you give me some advice?" I'm going to help whoever I can help with advice, you know? And I encourage people to book, you know, that first 15 minutes, because I do give people 15 minutes of my time to have a quick assessment of what they want to do, and then I show them how they can work with me.

But for me, if you just hit "Connect" and I don't know you, I'm not accepting your connection.

Neeti Keswani: Right, right. You need to know that you're serious about your career.

Wendy Alexander: Because that's what I do in the world; my work is about career transition and growth. And so, I know people who are serious about it, they take those extra steps, they go that extra mile. And then I know they're probably going to be a half-decent client to work with, because the ones who don't, they become very difficult people to work with. And I've let the stress of my life go, right? I did that in menopause; I'm not about to take on any more stress. So, I don't take on very difficult... that's why I also, as part... I always give people 15 minutes of my time, partly so they can see how I work, partly so I can get a feel for what they're really wanting to do, but also because I'm screening them.

Neeti Keswani: Absolutely.

Wendy Alexander: If they are difficult people who aren't going to be a partner with me in the journey, I don't take them on as clients.

Neeti Keswani: So, it does make sense to have your own little window to scan somebody while you're thinking that somebody's scanning you.

Wendy Alexander: That's another, yeah, correct. Absolutely. Well, it's... and it's the very same tip I give for people who go for interviews. I'm like, "Don't ever walk into an interview thinking that you have to bend only to what the company is. You are interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you." If you want a successful career, you need to know that they're the right company.

Neeti Keswani: Absolutely.

Wendy Alexander: So, you've got to ask a couple... I always give people a few questions to ask – different questions depend on the role – I said, "You ask these two questions at the end, and you'll be able to tell if they are going to support you as an employee or if they're only just about you giving to them." Because if you want career success, it has to be a two-way street.

Neeti Keswani: Yes. And then now, the last question about this topic about balancing the career in the stage of life that we are in... you know, this unique perspective that you have about career transitions and being able to balance it, what are your practical lessons that, or maybe one lesson that you'd like to share about, you know, where you are and what you'd not like to change the way you work now?

Wendy Alexander: So, I say to people – and this is me, and this is advice for me that I give myself a lot of the time, but also for my people that are growing in their careers and going to the next level – get very good at knowing what to say "no" to. Because your "no" is sometimes more important than your "yes." You have to know where the boundary is.

So, for me, for example, I have aging parents; they have challenging health issues. I don't work on Fridays anymore because Fridays is when I go and have time with my parents. Now, I've had people try to persuade me many which ways, right? Because they go, "Oh, but I really need the help, and I've got to have the interview coaching." No. I've chosen that this is my day for my parents; this is my day for my well-being. You know, Fridays is when I will go and get my pampering; if I'm going to go and get a massage, it's going to happen on a Friday. I'm going to go see my parents, I'm going to go play cards with my parents, I'm going to go on the beach with my parents, I'm going to walk the dog... all of these things. And I don't compromise on that.

You have to figure out what your boundary is fairly quickly. And even in the job, if you're going to be successful in career, you don't want to be the person that's working 10-, 12-hour days. That is not a luxurious, balanced life. Right? That is you setting yourself on a path for burnout. And so, you can get good at saying "no." It's sometimes more important than all the "yeses" you say.

You don't have to participate in everything. We don't have to attend all the functions and all the parties and all the, you know... sometimes it's good to say, "Thank you for the invitation," or "Thank you for the opportunity, but it's not right for me at this time." I use that phrase a lot, you know: "It's not right for me at this time." Keep the door open; don't be mean-spirited about your "no." Always, you know, don't go burning bridges. But make sure you communicate in a way that's empowering. And one of the best ways is to thank people for the invitation, thank them for the opportunity, thank them, and then decline.

Neeti Keswani: Very true, very true. Because often, when we are trying to find a career change, especially at that time, any opportunity and every opportunity, every interview seems like a good one. And then, yes, when you are sitting in that interview, you're sometimes thinking, "Why the hell am I even here? What is... I can't even be here right now in this interview talking about working here." It's a very different thing altogether. But yes, during career transitions, our mind starts to work differently, and we tend to accept sometimes. So, this is a very important thing.

Wendy Alexander: Yes, to be assertive, politely.

Neeti Keswani: Politely assertive.

Wendy Alexander: Because, yeah, that's the thing: you also will instill confidence in the interviewer. Most interviewers don't want people that are pushovers, because what they know, if you're a pushover, is that you don't know how to lead. Right? You're going to... you're going to show them very quickly, if you're someone that's a pushover in an interview, you're going to very clearly demonstrate to that interviewer that you are not the person that can lead others.

Neeti Keswani: Very true.

Wendy Alexander: And so... so, you know, always think about... but, you know, we all... always mind your manners. It's really simple: mind your manners when you're communicating. So, always communicate professionally, communicate gently, communicate with empathy, but be assertive with your "no."

Neeti Keswani: Lovely. Well, it's been very, very true. So, what is the one thing that excites you these days, Wendy, in your work?

Wendy Alexander: You know, the work that I enjoy the most – and I do different works; as I said, I'm a business copywriter for small businesses, I write resumes, LinkedIn, cover letters for careerists, I coach people in various strategies and networking and LinkedIn strategies – but the work I love the most is the interview coaching. And the reason I love it the most is because I can see the transformation happen very quickly.

So, people will sometimes come to me; they're nervous, they don't know how to articulate an answer in an interview. When we practice the first two or three questions, they're talking for three or four or five minutes. And then I start to train them in how to speak succinctly. And my thing is, if you're talking for two and a half minutes, if you're talking beyond that, you're talking too long. So, now we start training how to peel back the answer, how to give the most pertinent information in the strongest, shortest possible way. And by the time they've done three or four sessions with me, the confidence level... I like watching it happen in the space of a week. And then they go and they interview, and they land the jobs. And that for me is... that is gold. That is gold.

Because I know what the person was like when they came to me a week ago – because I do a lot of my interview coaching over a period of a week; three sessions or four sessions within a week, because most people only get a week to get ready for an interview; they get told, "You've got an interview next Tuesday," so now they've got to get ready – but I see that transformation, and I love it. I love watching it in front of my eyes, you know? So, that's the part of my work I love the most. And it's also the final piece to land the job. If you've got great documents and a great LinkedIn and a great cover letter, but you can't interview properly, you are not going to get the job. So, it's the final piece before that decision is made, and so I really love that part of it.

Neeti Keswani: Right, right. Well, lovely talking to you, Wendy, today. It's just been... it's been wonderful, wonderful talking to you, discussing and having so many nuggets for all my audiences, and amazing pieces of things that we have discussed for the menopausal women as well.

Wendy Alexander: It's yes, lovely to have you over.

Neeti Keswani: And hopefully, we'll have a couple of more sessions.

Wendy Alexander: Oh, I'd love to. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.

Neeti Keswani: So, thank you so much for your time today.

Wendy Alexander: Pleasure.

Neeti Keswani: And for my viewers, if you are looking for guidance on surviving menopause while you're changing careers, you have got today proven strategies for navigating those midlife career challenges with ease – a little bit of ease. And Wendy is a brilliant coach that can help you unlock your true potential. So, keep watching Luxury Unplugged for more such personal transformation and self-improvement tips. See you soon in the next video