Build a Career Brand That Opens Doors with Kate Wade of Get Her Hired: Podcast Ep. 452

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452-SYB-Kate-Wade.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Carol Cox:
What does it really take to position yourself for bigger stages, promotions, clients, and visibility? That’s what I talk about with my guest, Kate Wade of Get Her Hired on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office, and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur, and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hi there and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. This is your host, Carol Cox. Today’s episode is all about building a career brand that truly opens doors. Whether you’re in corporate aiming for your next promotion or job, or you’re an entrepreneur wanting bigger clients and bigger stages. My guest is career strategist Kate Wade, founder of Get Her Hired. And we go deep into why so many talented women feel stuck and what you can do to get unstuck, starting now. We talk about how to find the thread in your story, especially if, like me, you’ve had a lot of twists and turns in your career.

Carol Cox:
How to communicate your value without feeling like you’re bragging, and the small but powerful shifts that make you instantly more memorable to recruiters, decision makers, and event organizers. Kate and I also talk about the rise of AI resumes and speaker applications, including our tips for using AI effectively. We talk about the realities of today’s job market, and why being good at everything is not the advantage we think it is. I know you’re going to love this conversation with Kate. I have known her for about five years now and we always have a fun and lively conversation. If you would like to work with us here at Speaking Your Brand to develop your thought leadership and signature talk so you have a strong personal platform, one that increases your visibility, amplifies your impact, and creates opportunities for you beyond your corporate job, the best thing to do is to schedule a call with us. You can do so by going to Speaking your brand. And then we can learn more about you, what your goals are, and the best options for working together. Now let’s get on with the show. Welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast, Kate.

Kate Wade:
Well, thank you so much, Carol. I’m so happy to be here today, and it’s delightful to be on your podcast. Thank you for the invitation.

Carol Cox:
I am delighted that you are here. We did a webinar together not too long ago at the beginning of October, and I feel like we laughed throughout the entire thing, even though it was really good quality content. I feel like the same thing’s gonna happen today.

Kate Wade:
There’s a lot of joy. I mean, there is so much non joy in the world that it’s good to have some joy, especially when we can share that from, you know, the scar rather than an open wound. And it also it makes it makes things more relatable for everyone that we can move forward. I’m sure humor helps a lot in the work that you do, Carol.

Carol Cox:
Oh, absolutely. And really being able to laugh at yourself.

Kate Wade:
Yes.

Carol Cox:
Much less about it, about the absurdity of everything else that’s going on right now in the world. Yeah. We have so much to talk about, Kate. We have known each other for a number of years now. I’ve always admired you as a an incredible business coach and now as an entrepreneur, the founder of Get Her Hired, which we’ll talk a little bit more about in just a moment. But I want us to jump right in, because the women who are listening to this podcast, they are entrepreneurs, they are executives in corporate. They’re leaders in their community and their industry. And I know that they want to have a bigger impact in the world, a positive impact and what they’re doing. Again, whether it’s in their workplace, their industry, their community, whether it’s on stage, in the media, within nonprofit organizations or within corporate. Yet so often and I know, Kate, you see this that and I experienced this myself. We get stuck at some point in our career, some point in our life, you know, things are happening around us and sometimes for good reason, we plateau. Maybe we have to hit pause. Sometimes it’s a choice that we make, but sometimes it’s things that are happening to us or we feel like are happening to us, and we really want we want those bigger opportunities, those bigger stages, those bigger promotions. But we feel like we’re not sure what to do. Where do you see that happening and how do you help the women you work with navigate that?

Kate Wade:
Um, I think one of the that’s such a good question, and I have three answers for that. Um, three things that I see typically, and this applies for people, whether they’re applying to a job or consulting or being a speaker or public speaker. Um, and that’s lack of target not having a singular focus. So one of the things we do when we work with women at Get Her Hired is we say, great, I’m glad you’re the Jill of all things, and no one’s gonna hire you to be the Jill of all things. This is a problem. So, um, working with people to get a focus is probably the number one thing. So a thing. Holding people back and keeping them stuck and small is not claiming an area of expertise, which seems kind of counterintuitive to some people because you think, well, I’m so versatile. I’m so capable. Why wouldn’t someone bring me in? I could do a workshop on this. I could do a workshop on that. I could speak on this, I could keynote on that. I can whatever. But actually, no, they want they want to hire an expert. So that’s the first thing. Do you see that too, Carol?

Carol Cox:
Yes. Well it is and I and and I agree with you because I feel like I’m a Jill of all trades for sure. I had this background in politics and technology and then in history, and then the work I do in speaking your brand. But to your point, if someone wants to hire you, they have a problem.

Kate Wade:
Yeah.

Carol Cox:
That they need help with. And it’s usually not all of those things at the same time. So they have to figure out where do they where do they slot you in to help help them fix their problem? Whether they’re hiring you and they’re your client or they’re hiring you, like you said, for a workshop or speaking engagement, or you want to get promoted within your organization. What is it that what problem are you solving for?

Kate Wade:
Yes. Well, this goes into point number two then on why women stay stuck. Really? And what I find is that, um, they have a narrative that’s full of features but lacks benefits, right? So if you think about all of the features that we have, you’ve had a background in politics, you’ve had a background in news, um, in news production. You’ve had a background in tech. These are features that make you really good at what you do. And the benefit to people is what we want to talk about, not the features, right? So we often can get stuck in the features. And that happens when I’m working with a CEO. That happens when I’m working with an SVP of marketing. It happens with people in every industry, in every type of functional role, is because it’s kind of like that opposite of not having a target as being too much of an expert in talking about functional, functional, functional. But talk about the benefit, just as you were saying a moment ago. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
And it’s so easy to slip into that. Like I just did that. So will you will you help us later? Think about this idea of a narrative more than the features.

Kate Wade:
Yes, yes, because it’s everything we do. And I’m sure, Carol, it’s very similar to what you do is we’re reverse engineering from the future. If you’ve got a target in mind and you’ve got clarity to that, we can design a really great set of career marketing materials. We also do this for people who are like fractional leaders. They maybe take on retained roles as a COO or something like that. And also for people who are entrepreneurs, we help craft these messages that come into like a one page brief that you can easily share. Why should you hire me? For example, for whatever it might be? Um, but the third, the third thing that, um, might be counterintuitive. Again, why women get good, women get stuck in bad places is because we can make ourselves indispensable.

Carol Cox:
Whoa. That is counterintuitive. Tell me more.

Kate Wade:
Well, it’s kind of like the not having a target. A lot of women we work with, um, and that I meet, have been, you know, rewarded for being able to fix lots of things, lots of different kinds of things. We have capabilities that go across so many different areas and that makes us indispensable. So women are held back from promotions because you’re too useful in that spot. No one else. We’d need three. We’d need three carols if you weren’t in this position. And we sometimes can take that as a compliment when really it’s a big problem. And that’s where you have to speak up and have that conversation with your leadership team about where what could be different. Um, and when I think about indispensable for people who are entrepreneurs, is it it kind of relates back to that lack of focus, trying to fix everyone’s problems in every different manner. Um, and we probably stay stuck as entrepreneurs because we’re too afraid to niche into our market. I had a, um, a CFO, I have a, um, fractional CFO who I call upon a few times a year to kick my butt, right? So I opened the books and I show him everything. And we talk about what’s happening. We talk about efficiencies and automations, and we talk about structure of the business. Right. And he said to me, he said to me, you know, you’re probably missing out on half of your potential audience and half of your potential revenue because you’re focused on women only. To which I said, great. Because we do work with men, we work with thems, we work with women. We market to women, though, because that’s the passion of where our mission is. That’s where I’ve had the experience and that’s where I know I can help as an expert. So yeah. Are we missing out on something? I actually don’t think we are. Um, I think we’ve got a great niche and men actually ask permission to work with us. Carol. So I think we’re okay.

Carol Cox:
Yes. The same exact thing happens with us as speaking your brand. Because as you all listen to the jingle on the podcast, the same jingle I’ve had since I started this podcast almost nine years ago and all. And so much of the work that we do is about helping women find and use their voice and have a bigger presence, but we have worked with male clients over the years and they have been amazing, and we really enjoy working with them. I think it’s because they understand our mission. They appreciate our mission and their allies to our mission. And so the same kind of thing, like they’ll contact us and like, you know, can you work with me? And we’re like, yeah, let’s absolutely like if we feel like like it’s going to be a good coaching relationship. Yes. Then for sure.

Kate Wade:
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And so a lot of the times we can, um, lose out and stay stuck by not taking that courageous step to just, you know, dig into one area and claim it.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, that is hard because I hear from a lot of the clients that we work with, and I feel myself the same way where I have all of these different threads in my career. I mentioned five different ones, and they’re like, how do they even relate to each other? I see the commonality, but they don’t. And so and I feel like for so many of us, we do have these different interests or different parts of our career where we haven’t had that straight and narrow line. And so how do you help women then? Maybe we can talk about this idea of crafting their narrative. Where do they have to find the commonality between these different things that seem unrelated to each other, or is it more about picking and prioritizing what is most relevant now?

Kate Wade:
I would never pick and prioritize based on some fashionable phrase. Okay, so the way I would work is with the whole person and looking through their career, there is a definite thread. Okay, I have a master’s degree in 18th century German literature. My mother said to me, why that? Why would you do that to yourself? Okay. Anyway, now I’m writing and I’m listening to people. And a thread for me has always been in my career. That ability to listen deeply, ask questions, evaluate, assess, and recompose the information in a way that’s really easy for others to digest. That’s like, oh yeah, no brainer. But that came from studying languages and literature, right? It didn’t come from nowhere to be able to do that. And some people ask me, you know, oh, did you go to school to be a resume writer? I’m like, that’s cute. No, I didn’t grow up wanting to be a resume writer, but.

Carol Cox:
Well, and also, I don’t think you would want to hire someone that that’s all that they trained. That’s all they did. Because they really they’re not they don’t have these other experiences that are. That is what makes what you do so good is because you have this background doing something that trains you in a different field, but that you’re using for what you do now.

Kate Wade:
And that’s the exact thread. So just like you, you got trained in other fields that make you fantastic at what you do now. Carol. So we look at the whole woman, we look at the whole story and what I like to do. Um, I’m a very data oriented person, but it doesn’t come out like data. Um, it comes out like a narrative. Because what I want to do is I assess people by listening, by looking, by reading, and I pull together, what are this person’s best competencies? What are they so great at? And a competency to me is the combination of a strength, which is something we’re born with. We’re naturally good at speaking in public. Carol, you and I, we work on it. Right. But like, we’re naturally pretty good at that, right? It’s a strength. A skill is something we learn over time. It’s not something we are naturally born with, and so we can work on public speaking as a skill, even if it’s not a strength. Right? And so I look at a person’s competencies holistically, which means what are they great at from a native, like just how they were born and how they show up in the world, and how what are they great at? Because they’ve learned how to do it really well and they’re excellent. And so if we take that picture then of what someone’s really great at, it is so easy to pull the threads through because you can see, well, of course, you’re really good at collaborative communication. I can see that because you’ve had this experience in your past, this experience in your past, this experience in your past. And this, of course, pulls these things together for you and is a really foundational part of who you are and how you show up.

Carol Cox:
Mhm. I like that. I remember now Kate. We are both PhD dropouts.

Kate Wade:
Yes. Dropouts.

Carol Cox:
But you know. So I studied modern European history. That was my focus for my PhD program, but finished with a masters and didn’t complete my dissertation. But to your point, I think doing that work trained us. Like you said, listen, evaluate, assess, recompose, digest. Even though it was on French history or German literature, what we were trained on very weirdly decades ago led us to this exact point. So let me ask you, Kate, why did you decide to start get her hired specifically? Because with the skill set and the strengths you have, you could have done a number of different things as far as in your business. So why get her hired?

Kate Wade:
Yeah. Thank you, thank you. Um, yeah. And there’s still lots of things I have ideas for. Um, but with. Get her hired. Uh, I got laid off. I’ve been laid off a couple times, and I got laid off from a job I loved. Felt horrible and I don’t know if anyone out there can relate to that because it happens to good people. Yes. And, um, at the time before my layoff, I was one of the only senior, uh, people in the company that was a woman that had a door on my office and my part of my role, and actually a point of contention I had with my boss, the president, many times was that I was mentoring too many people. I also got in trouble for taking all of the women in our Tampa office out to lunch and not inviting the men, um, all sorts of interesting things. I used to get in trouble, for, which are part of the thread as to what I’m doing now. Right. It’s like it’s not by accident. And, um, when I left that company, left that role, I said, okay, fine. I was doing strategy. So I just opened a consultancy and did strategy and did pro bono strategy work and had some clients. But the people from my company followed me and we’re continuing to ask me for advice. And so over time, it just turned into this business where I moved away. I dropped doing the strategic planning and the strategy consulting. I dropped doing business coaching and business consulting. And I said, what the heck? Why don’t I take all of this, that I know how to do and help all these people who’ve wanted help from me over time? And so two and a half years ago, I went all in on get her hired as a business where we’re helping, um, really cool women, thems and men land their next boss roles through great career marketing materials. That’s what we do.

Carol Cox:
And what are you seeing in the marketplace? You know, with the women, either that you know, or women who have come to you. Obviously, right now we’re recording this, you know, at the tail end of 2025, it’s been quite a year for a number of reasons. The job market, I feel like kind of like the housing market was right after the pandemic, like it feels like everything is just like in that locking place and nothing’s really moving around. So what are you seeing? What are your what are you sensing? And then when women come to work with you and I, I know because I’ve experienced it firsthand with you as a coach on the business side, helping. What are you what are they feeling like emotionally, and how are you helping them to either shift their mindset or to navigate what’s going on right now?

Kate Wade:
Yeah, it is a really difficult period, uh, with just what’s happening. Uh, in our in nationally with the job markets, I’ll just say that. And, um, I agree, it’s kind of in the stock zone, but there is, um, some good, some really good, uh, indicators that I’ll share in a moment. But the emotions people are coming to us with, we have leaders who have been in part of national federal agencies in very high levels coming to us, and they’re crying because they can’t do their job anymore. And we’re seeing a lot of frustration, a lot of lack of confidence, the confidence really getting shot down, um, disappointment. And in ourselves like that, we caused this to happen to us. And so there’s just a whole lot of negative emotion happening for a lot of people. There’s that side. And then there’s another side, which is the fear side of I’m still in role, but they just eliminated 13 people on my team. I was just talking to someone ten minutes before this. They eliminated 13 people on her team today, but she’s still there. And so she’s like putting out like, uh, when am I? When’s my turn? So, um, confidence, feeling shame and then fear that it’s going to happen to me next.

Kate Wade:
So that’s really where people are coming to us. And over the years people have come to us with that kind of emotional, um, makeup. But more than ever now it’s, um, very reactive, like something happened to them in their position, rather than them being proactive and wanting to go and find a new job. It’s reactive. And so that’s the difference in the market right now. Uh, we talk to a lot of recruiters, talent acquisition people because we want to know what’s actually happening in the businesses. Like how are. So I kind of go into reporter journalist mode and I’m like, so tell me, what are you what’s really happening on that executive search you’re doing? And I get a lot of information. And so the good thing is, and, uh, that the recruiters tell me and the search firms tell me that executive roles always get filled, there’s always a succession plan, and people are always hired for those roles. So if you’re in a higher level role, it’s not as dire as it might be in an entry level individual contributor lower level role. All right. And then I can tell you from the clients that we see that people are landing jobs all the time. All the time. We just had two clients this week that got back to us that said they landed an opportunity.

Kate Wade:
So but we work with people that are in that director level and up. So jobs are being found. Um, interestingly, I do some speaking, uh, which I should I should surely use speaking your brand to polish myself up, but there’s some very large, a very large pharmaceutical company that talk to me about a year ago and then dropped it, um, because they have a women’s erg, right. So they have an employee resource group for women engineers at their company, and they wanted me to come in and talk about how to talk about yourself. So kind of like speaking your brand but in your company because the ERG wants more women engineers in this company, right? And they dropped it with the dye stuff that kind of came to the fore earlier in the year. But they’re back again now. So here’s the thing. There was a blip, I think, for sometimes for people that are speaking or working in areas that might be considered woke or di related or too liberal or LGBTQ related, but I think it’s I seen it coming back around. Um, so that’s that’s a real relief for what’s happening in the market right now.

Carol Cox:
Yes. Well, thank you for sharing that, Kate. And those insights that you have, and I agree, I feel like earlier this year, a lot of companies pulled out of women’s conferences or sponsors for women’s conferences or, you know, closed down their ERG groups and things like that, very, very reactionary on their part. I think they wanted to, like, not be sticking their neck out, right, to get it chopped off, uh, so to speak. And so I feel like, though, they’re realizing the downside, the negative consequence of doing that for their employees and for their mission and their place in, in the market, their competitive place in the marketplace. So I like you. I have seen them starting to resurrect it, maybe more quietly than they had in the past, but it is there.

Kate Wade:
Yeah, yeah. Agreed? Agreed.

Carol Cox:
All right. So then, Kate. So thinking about, you know, the women that you’re working with. So you like, when you’re working with them, obviously you’re helping them with the kind of the nuts and bolts or resumes or cover letters. What are positions that that are the best fit for them? This idea of helping them build their narrative so the benefits, not just the features. So you’re doing all of this with them, and I know that you like to talk with them about this idea of having career advancing conversations. And so can you tell us what that looks like? And again, that can apply even to those people listening who are not in working in corporate but want to have, let’s say, opportunity advancing conversations. What does that look like?

Kate Wade:
Yeah. So what this what? And we guarantee our work that you’re going to have a career advancing conversation and we’ll give you your money back. Because if you’re not getting those opportunities, we haven’t done our job. Um, and so what that really looks like and how it can apply even in the entrepreneurial zone, is being clear on what you want, being clear on the benefits that you can bring to that situation, and then going ahead and having that courageous, uncomfortable conversation to ask for what you want. And so a career advancing conversation can look like figuring out that, you know what I really want to move into. Um, let’s see, I want to I want to move into the IT department. I’ve been a business analyst for years. I’ve coordinated and cooperated with, um, the IT department over the years. I want to go over and I want to be in the IT department. And so you’ve got a little bit of a pivot coming up there. Well you got to talk to people about it. You got to know what you want to do. You make a little bit of a plan for yourself before you have that conversation. So you can suggest something for how it works. And then you go and you have it have that conversation.

Kate Wade:
It can also look like a new introduction. So for entrepreneurs out there introductions are so important. A referral is gold because what psychologically happens is we’re borrowing the trust that someone else has. Right. So we’re like borrowing that trust when someone refers us to someone else. And so it’s asking people in your network, will they could they, um, introduce you? Uh, this is what you’re working on right now. Do you know anyone who needs this? And so going out there and having that courageous conversation of saying, the world needs this, I can deliver it. I’m probably not the only one who can deliver it. Right. There’s some humility that we get to have in this situation. But that doesn’t take away our power and authority, because the benefits are coming from the features of your skills in the background. Right? So like I’ve done this and so there’s a reason why you would be the perfect person for them to introduce you to. So that’s a career advancing conversation. Um, it could be having interviews. It could be doing press releases. It could be doing all sorts of different things that, uh, move forward, the knowledge about you and your product and how it can help the world. So whatever that is, that’s what that is.

Carol Cox:
So then, Kate, you mentioned this idea about humility, right? And going in, in, well, thinking about what we want, asking for what we want. But then I know that on the flip side of that, that we also have to show and tell the other person our accomplishments, you know, our our competencies and our strengths and our skills. Yeah. And I know that for a lot of us, it us, it can be hard to do that because number one, we feel like, well, who am I to brag about myself like that does not feel weird, like arrogant. But the other side, as women, we have been conditioned that we feel like there is a penalty, you know, unspoken penalty if we are perceived as coming across as bragging about our accomplishments or thinking that we’re we’re stuck up or that we’re all that.

Kate Wade:
Yeah, yeah. Um, so it is a fine line, but here’s, here’s, here’s where I differentiate it. If it’s a fact, it’s a fact, right? It’s not an opinion. So if you can gather the information about your background and you know these things as facts, they’re indisputable. Then, um, and I would say that the thing that separates the people that are bragging from the people that are honestly sharing what their experience is, is motivation. So if your motive is to impress someone with unearned laurels that you haven’t, you know that aren’t actually yours to be awarded. Um, that’s different than sharing your honest contribution within a situation. So a lot of the times we get people that will say to us, they’re on, you know, senior leadership teams. They’re the head of, um, product development for a very large, uh, semiconductor company. Who knows? And they’ve been leading a project, but there have been many other people involved, and it’s created, let’s say, $50 billion in revenue over the last three years. You know, that kind of thing, right? Well, they might say to me, well, I can’t take credit for that. I was part of a team. Yes. To which I say, Carol, that is so cute because you can take credit for that. It couldn’t have happened without your direction. And guess what? The men at the top of all these corporations are taking credit for all the stuff, all the time that they have no idea about, right?

Carol Cox:
Yes. Absolutely. Yes.

Kate Wade:
I’m not gonna name any names, but it happens. It happens. And, um, you know, you would think that some of the people leading these large companies are actual engineers or scientists or, you know, that they are a product expert, but they’re not they’re they really know how to run a PNL. They really know how to report to Wall Street, and they know how to talk to investors like that’s what they do. So, um, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
It’s a different competency. No, it’s a different it is a different competency. Right? It is.

Kate Wade:
That is a generous way of looking at it. Yes. And so therefore you can take credit for being a part of this $50 billion opportunity that you created. Absolutely. Especially if you’re not trying to say, oh, I did it all by myself, which few people are would assume. I mean, that would be ridiculous to assume someone did that by themselves. And few people really try to take credit like that. But we’re afraid of that, right? Because like you said, we’re we’re raised with this this expectation. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
Well, and and when we work with our clients on their talks and then say for, say for a keynote or even a Ted talk, is that I’ll always make sure that they’re dropping what I call credibility markers. Somewhere in the in the talk we have this three act structure. So it’s in act one. It’s not at the top like you don’t lead with that. Hi everyone. You know, look at all the great things that I’ve done. And I’m here to speak to you today. Right. Like it’s it’s in act one. So it comes in the beginning. But it’s not it’s not the first like you’re building towards that. And so I’ll say like you have you need to do that because then once the audience understands that, that you understand them, then they want to feel like you are the trusted source, that you’re going to help guide them on this journey, that you’re taking them on in your talk. So you have to have some of those credibility markers and share them with the audience so that they know what they what those are. And so that and that’s one strategy. The other strategy is I is I’ll say, okay, have your bio right. Make sure your bio is one that can be easily read out loud by whoever’s introducing you at the event, and put your credibility markers in the bio that they’re reading, because then someone else is doing it on your behalf, and then you maybe if you really feel uncomfortable doing it, then at least they’ve done it for you.

Kate Wade:
Yes. Such a good point. Yeah. So many. Um, I use this analogy quite a bit that the clients I work with are the Mona Lisa, and they’re sitting in the frame smiling. They can’t see how beautiful they are. They’re just sitting there, you know, like, but you and I, as in the audience, can see that beauty. Right. And, um, and the mystery of it. And that’s what it takes. It takes, you know, when we do this alone, it can be so unnerving. And like, our confidence can just get really shot when you’re like, oh, I’m just bragging about myself. It’s like, no, I see that beauty in you. Talk about it. It’s okay.

Carol Cox:
Yes. Well, I get the same thing. Like, oh, I can’t call myself a thought leader. Can’t. Doesn’t someone have to, like, give me that title? I’m like, no, you do not. They do not have to give you. Trust me. You can give yourself that title. Plenty of people do. And it is completely up to you. Same with speaker. We here, we have women who work with us and they’re like, I’m not a speaker. I’m like, have you ever done a presentation before anywhere at work? They’re like, yes, I do them all the time. I’m like, then you’re a speaker. Like.

Kate Wade:
Happy birthday. You graduated. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
All right. So let’s let’s dig into a little bit of resume and resume writing, because Kate can’t ChatGPT just write our resumes Mhm. For us. And write and write and write everything for us nowadays.

Kate Wade:
Um, you know I love ChatGPT. I love AI for from language, large language models. Right. So that’s typically what I’m working with. I have other automations I use in my business that are also AI related, but they’re not language models when it comes to writing a resume. There are some programs out there that do a pretty good job, some GPT, that will do a pretty good job of creating. Um, what I would like to say are, uh, credible bullet points. Now, here’s here’s the thing with it. Um. Today people are probably designing speaker requests using AI, right? For.

Carol Cox:
Oh, yeah. I have an example I’m going to share here in just a moment.

Kate Wade:
Same thing like people at companies and HR. They’re like, oh my God. Let’s let ChatGPT kick out this job description. Right. Yeah. And then it gets out online. And then we’re using ChatGPT to write our resume to fit to it. And it becomes this like echo chamber of zero value. And people will often ask in particular, I don’t know if this happens with speaker applications. Um, maybe, you know, but they’ll ask us, well, how do I get through the detectors? Right. So there are detectors that companies have that say how many keywords or the strength you have. So there’s an algorithm, a mystery algorithm on the receiver’s end that we can’t know what that algorithm is, the sensitivity of it. But a lot of people want to work to gain that by using ChatGPT to optimize their documents to get through. But then once they get through, they look like everyone else’s. So yes.

Carol Cox:
Exactly.

Kate Wade:
Because here’s what a GPT is. It is a large language learning model. It is simply predicting the next logical word in the sentence. Right. And because it doesn’t actually know anything, it is going to be basing what it talks about you, uh, based on like what it knows about 500,000 other people. So it’s actually not personal at all.

Carol Cox:
Yes. It’s like the lowest common denominator of the internet.

Kate Wade:
Yeah. Yes. And I would say there is good prompting. And we have AI, um, large language model augmented work that we do. So we do use, uh, professional models of ChatGPT, we use perplexity, we use Claude, and we have then other automated models that we use for different parts of the business. But, um, I would say that it can do it. Here’s what it’s good at. It’s good at creating a formula or a framework. Right. The the what that’s going into there can be really strong. And so I do like it as a thought partner sometimes to start some ideas. Right. I think it’s good that way. But then to really get to the strategy and the story, we have to move beyond it. Like it can give us a framework. It can suggest that these might be the things you might want to think about, but I used a lot of modal verbs there. Right. Like things you might you could, but I didn’t say should. They may be appropriate for you to use or not. And so yeah, go ahead and use it. But you have to customize it. You have to make it your own or you are going to sound like 1 in 1,000,000,000, you know.

Carol Cox:
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So I again I love AI, I use it all the time. I’ve talked about it on the podcast. I have my clone, I have my AI voice clone, I have an entire companion podcast called Confidence Speaker that has 100% AI generated very transparently, transparently. It’s great. Go check it out. So I love AI, but to your point is that it it is good at certain things and it’s understanding what it’s good at and using that and understanding what it’s not good at. So, for example, can ChatGPT write your presentation or write your keynote? Sure. In theory it could. It’s going to give you a whole bunch of words. Yeah, but I trust me, I’ve tried it. It’s not going to be very good because it is back to that lowest idea of the lowest common denominator. And it just it doesn’t have that. And I don’t know how it is like the human essence. And I’m sure, Kate, you feel this when you’re working with your clients is that we’ll ask them questions and all of a sudden we can see how they’re reacting to a question or how they’re starting to share an answer. And either they get really excited about that answer. And so we perk up. We’re like, oh, we’ve hit on something there. Let’s pull on that and see where that goes. Or we ask something and we’re going in a direction and we can see it’s flat. Like they just have no interest in that, that part of the talk or maybe that part of their career. So that’s the things we can pick up on as the humans on the other end that the AI can’t pick up on that.

Kate Wade:
Yeah, absolutely. Everyone has a different vibe. So we do a lot of work on the front end interviewing our clients. I know you have a big interview process as well and assessment process when you’re taking someone in. We do the same because we want to know the things that light them up, the things that they never, ever want to do again, the things that they prefer to have in their lives and not have in their lives. Um, their proudest moments, their most embarrassing moments. Like, we want to know all of this stuff because then we can really shape the voice of the person. And everyone is different. So different. We don’t want to emphasize in someone’s materials. Um, what was the one we had to take out the other day? Oh, I was working with someone in banking, and she doesn’t want to do treasury work anymore. She’s really good at it. And it was all over her previous materials. But guess what? Because, um, she doesn’t want to do it. We’re going to take that out and de-emphasize treasury so that no one gets the idea to put her in a treasury, you know, bucket again, you know? So, um, ChatGPT doesn’t know how to do that. Right.

Carol Cox:
Right. It’s going to see Treasury and be like, let’s double down on that all over the place.

Kate Wade:
Exactly. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. Well, and to your point that then the resumes, even if they get past the initial system, is that end up sounding like everybody else because I have used ChatGPT since it launched. I teach marketing classes at a university. My students use it even when I don’t want them to. I can tell what is written by GPT no matter how good you prompt it. Trust me, I can tell, and so can the people on the other end. And so right now, I’m one of the speaking coaches and curators for TEDx Orlando. We’re getting ready to have, you know, the events in 2026. We put out the call for speakers. We got over 600 speaker applications, which is like unheard of. It’s there’s so many of them. There’s ten of us on the speaker curation committee. So we’re like putting a process together to to, you know, go through them all. But as we started initially, like going through the initial batch that was coming in, we were reading them all. And even though every topic was different because they’re all they’re all different people, they all sounded the same. And we knew ChatGPT wrote the titles, the little description like, what is your idea worth sharing? And even though even though some of the ideas were interesting, it’s a turn off because the cadence, like the wording and the cadence is so similar from one to the other that this person’s the speaker’s personality just does not come out. And we want to know the idea the person has, but we want to know their personality too. Like, why are they passionate about this? And it doesn’t come through in ChatGPT writes it.

Kate Wade:
Yeah, no it doesn’t. And you know, we have a we have a definite voice over here at get her hired. Being a feminist company not using sports terminology, you know, there’s like there’s just certain things that we are not going to let pass the gates of get her hired out into the world. But ChatGPT is built by it’s it’s, you know, yeah, it’s kind of got common, common terminology that is not common to get her hired. And so we don’t allow that to happen to good people. We have a voice. We know everyone else has a voice, and there’s the dignity and respect toward that voice. And we’re going to represent it. Not saying we’re not going to get ideas and frameworks and some structure, um, pointers from an automated system or from a ChatGPT type of product. But, um, because we do, it would be stupid not to. Right. I mean, we used to hand-make all of these things. It’s like I liken it to the work I used to do is like, um, my mom used to quilt by hand, you know, she used to sew. Now she has a real fancy sewing machine, right? I feel like I have a real fancy sewing machine now. Mhm. Oh, yeah. I mean, that is great.

Carol Cox:
Like audience activities, like you’re like, okay, I have this audience. Here’s what the topic is. Give me some ideas for things I can do with the audience. It is great at that. Like okay. Like plug those in to where it makes sense.

Kate Wade:
Yeah for sure. Yeah. And ideas. Absolutely. Mhm.

Carol Cox:
So Kate, I know that you mentioned before we hit record that you have a new course that you’re putting out. So tell us about that.

Kate Wade:
Oh my gosh. So we are so excited. We have been working on a self-paced course. Um and we’ve been doing it for eight months now. Like these people. These people. There are people that are on the internet. They might show up in your Instagram or your LinkedIn and they they it appears to be so easy to create an online course. Well, I think they are using AI to create that whole online course and that’s why it looks easy. But the truth is, if you want to create a good online course, it takes a team of three people, 20 failures, five figure mistakes, eight months. Okay, so as an entrepreneur, I hope everyone can relate to this. And um, yeah, the personnel changes we may have been through in the last eight months on this particular project. And I’m so proud to say it’s actually launching tomorrow. Um, and so now coming up here at the end of 2025, we have our new self-paced course on writing your own resume and cover letter. It is incredible. We take all of the methodologies and the frameworks and the tools that we use with our CEO clients, and we give it to you in this course. It’s called hit send. Hit send because that’s what you’re that’s what you want to do.

Kate Wade:
Again I’m talking about the benefit. Do you see how I’m talking about the benefit and not the feature. Yes. In um, what we’re doing with the course name even. And so it’s a self-paced thing. We’ve got all the templates out there. We it is AI augmented. And so we say that in, you know, if you want to go and purchase this course, which I’ll give your audience, uh, 60% off, um, coupon for that. Um, if they use speaking your brand, just write it all together and we’ll give you 60% off on the course. Um, but what it’s got is all the templates, all of the materials, everything that you need to write your own documents and the AI augmented prompts that we, um, ask you to use in there, too. And so if you don’t want to use AI, don’t buy this course. There are plenty of people out there that don’t want to use AI, and we have a tick box when you purchase it to say, I acknowledge that this is AI augmented. And then and then we got to say in there, if that doesn’t fit your vibe, that’s okay. Cool. Don’t buy this.

Carol Cox:
Well, it’s good to be upfront about it. Yeah. That’s no that’s that’s good okay. So everyone go to GitHub. Right. So all together get her hired hit send and 60% off. That is so generous of you. Use the coupon code speaking your brand. That’s all together speaking your brand. And I’ll make sure to also include this in the show notes. So for those of you listening right now, just go to the show notes and you can find the link and the coupon code there. So find that and yeah and I’ll say that like for example, when we work with our clients in the Thought Leader Academy, we help them to put together their speaking proposals and pitches. And so we have this whole framework called their Brand Voice Canvas that they fill out. And we say, give your filled out brand voice canvas to ChatGPT or Claude or whichever chatbot you use and have that, then tailor your your pitches based on this so that it is less generic. Then obviously do any adjustment that you need to do afterwards. So I like this idea of you said AI enhanced. Is that the word that you use?

Kate Wade:
Augmented assisted.

Carol Cox:
Augmented. Yeah okay.

Kate Wade:
But there’s still a whole bunch of work we have to do in order to stand out. There are so many people out there competing for a job, competing for an speaking opportunity, competing for all sorts of stuff. We have to stand out, know what we’re really great at and ask people for it. And, um, this is one of the ways that people can do this. With our hint send course. It helps think through all of those great, great experiences you have and how to position yourself for what’s next.

Carol Cox:
I love that and of course continue to build relationships, build your network, build your community because not only for opportunities, but just for that sense of support so you don’t feel like you’re you’re alone, that you have that that community to go to.

Kate Wade:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
All right. Kate. Well, this has been incredible as I knew it would be. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the Speaking Your Brand podcast. And again, for all of you listening, make sure to check out the Hit Send course and also connect with Kate on LinkedIn. I’ll make sure to include a link to her LinkedIn profile as well. Thank you. Lovely as always.

Kate Wade:
Excellent. Well thanks Carol, I’ve really enjoyed it. And I love talking with other entrepreneurs about these kinds of things because it matters. Our stories matter and knowing like what you do, Carol, like helping people pull out their their greatness in their story and then sharing that with the world. That’s what makes life worthwhile in so many ways, helping other people. So Carol, thanks for helping me today.

Carol Cox:
Oh, absolutely. Well, and for everyone else. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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