Hi Nasser, from Nairobi, East Africa! Awesome! I am a medicinal chemist PhD
student eyeing a job in the developed world what will sell me as an African
scientist honestly not to be funny but the fact that you are an African
scientist in and of itself brings expertise that otherwise is not
available from people who have not dealt with the issues that you have in your in
your homeland and so I always try to tell people every thing that you have
been through we had a I had three I had several coaching sessions in the
last ten days but three of the individuals to women Anna Anna Anna Anna
man had these varied background off they're here on this session but had
these varied backgrounds and what I tried to explain to them just like I
would I would say to you Nasir is when you look at what you've done in your
career you automatically need to be thinking about how to tell your story in
a positive light so when you interview and you want to set yourself apart the
fact that you do not have not worked in this developed location or that
developed location as much so is not a detriment it's about bringing what
you've seen to help people in the developed cities towns whatever it is
areas regions expand their knowledge so the things that you do all have assets
it's the story you share and the way you control that story or control that
narrative about how whoever it is is interviewing you can benefit from your
experience and how that helps add value and get you better that's the way you
need to do it I mean the fact that you are a scientist right you you you are a
chemist obviously you've done a lot of research you've actually done the work
right you I'm sure you've evaluated and you've done studies and other things all
of that stuff is valuable so it's the things that you've
done so the research that you've done there's ways you go about it there's
methods and practices you've learned that that's a skill that's something you
can advertise and then all of the other people that come from wherever they come
from they've done those things too okay I understand that but you have that
as well so that's part of your story and now can you find out is there something
unique about the way that you researched surveyed gathered the data analyzed it
and so forth which is all the same activities that somebody else would do
as an example and we just got done with me so we're talking about like the way
in which I would pitch my services to a prospective client who wanted to enlist
us for our recruitment services and one of the things that I would say is we're
a search firm just like everybody else right you asked us for a person we go
out and we find that person we bring the person back to you right everybody does
that neutralize it get it out of the way but
here's what makes us different and then the stories told and here's what happens
behind the scenes lifting up the covers that nobody does and do you know how I
know nobody does this because every time I pitch this to somebody they tell me
they've never seen anything like it I know that right and I'm gonna tell you
why this is unique why this works and why it's incredibly potent in my hands
and no one else's so that's my story so the way you research the way you analyze
the way that discoveries you've made and so can be unique even though everybody
else does it but then you have to add in the fact that your location has
introduced things to you that no one else could have seen unless they were an
African scientist just you got to do think about it that way your story and
again in my leadership program the last session we just did was on personal
branding and part of what I just shared with you are things that you need to
think about when you brand yourself so it's not just branding yourself online
in the way you write articles on what your social media platform looks like
it's about how you tell your story that's your brand as well how you
network is your brain who you communicate with online and offline is
your brain so this is a great question fantastic
question and I think I think I broaden that to the bigger - you know - the
bigger picture that were a lot of people can benefit from you all need that so I
hope that helped