Candice Bozarth is a career executive assistant and has experience in the arts administration, space-tech, private asset management, and construction industries.
In this episode, Candice talks about how to know when it’s time to move on, how to overcome imposter syndrome, and how to leverage the Leader Assistant Community to help you advance in your career.
RESOURCE – Candice mentions The Assistant’s Guide to Crafting the Perfect Resume online course, and you can sign up for the course at resume.assistantsguide.com.
LEADERSHIP QUOTES
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
– Eleanor Roosevelt
If you’re asking yourself if it’s time to move on, then it probably is time to move on.
– Candice Bozarth
CONNECT WITH CANDICE
ABOUT CANDICE
Candice Bozarth is a career executive assistant, currently serving the Chief Revenue Officer at Weifield Group Contracting – a 2022 Top USA Workplaces company and a 10 year Denver Post Top Workplace. To date she has worked in arts administration, space-tech, private asset management, and construction. She resides in Denver with her husband of 10 years and their two wonderful children.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Candice Bozarth 0:00
Hi, I’m Candice Bozarth. And today’s leadership quote comes from Eleanor Roosevelt. You gained strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stopped to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Podcast Intro 0:17
The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, Game Changing leader assistant
Jeremy Burrows 0:29
The Leader Assistant Podcast is brought to you by goody if you send business gifts to employees, clients or sales prospects, goodie is a game changer. You can send one gift or hundreds at a time without ever worrying about shipping details. With goody your gift recipients provide all their shipping info. And they can even swap out your gift for another option if they prefer. It’s free to start gifting and you can get a $20 credit when you sign up. Oh, and if you mentioned you heard about goody from The Leader, Assistant Podcast, goody, we’ll add an extra $10 credit to your account. So go to leaderassistant.com/goody. That’s g o o d y to start gifting today. Again, that’s leaderassistant.com/goody. Hey, everyone, thanks for tuning in to The Leader Assistant Podcast. It’s your host, Jeremy Burrows. You’re listening to Episode 158. You can check out the show notes at leaderassistant.com/158. That’s leaderassistant.com/158. And today I’m very excited to be speaking with Candice Bozarth from Denver, Colorado, Candice, how’s it going?
Candice Bozarth 1:55
It’s going great, Jeremy, how are you?
Jeremy Burrows 1:58
Good. I almost said Kansas, because I was thinking about how driving to Denver from Kansas City is not fun having to drive across the state of Kansas,
Candice Bozarth 2:07
State of Kansas as a very long state.
Jeremy Burrows 2:11
So tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into the executive assistant world? And tell us a little bit about your career? And then where you’re at currently?
Candice Bozarth 2:22
Yeah. So back in the early 2000s, I was in college, and I ended up with a job supporting the art events on campus. And I really enjoyed doing that. And so when I graduated from college with an arts degree, you know, it was the mid 2000s. And the market wasn’t great. And so I instead of going into a performing career, ended up launching my admin career from there. So I worked for a very small 501 C three wannabe that only lasted a few months. And then from there, I worked in construction for a little bit. Then my job after that would have been a startup rocket, reusable rocket company out in California. And that was an absolute blast.
Jeremy Burrows 3:17
Pun intended. Yeah.
Candice Bozarth 3:20
I took a few years off after that, to stay home with our kids. And then in early 2020, I went back to work in private asset management as an admin to the President. And then here we are currently now in my current job as the EAA to the chief revenue officer.
Jeremy Burrows 3:40
Nice. And what’s your favorite part about being an assistant?
Candice Bozarth 3:46
I really like serving people, I find that it brings me a lot of personal satisfaction to figure out what people need and get it for them.
Jeremy Burrows 3:57
Okay, so what’s your least favorite part?
Candice Bozarth 4:01
Oh, boy. Sometimes it’s making phone calls.
Jeremy Burrows 4:06
What do you not like about the phone call experience?
Candice Bozarth 4:11
As I get older, it’s a lot better. But you know, when you’re first starting out, there’s all that anxiety of how’s this phone call going to go? Are they going to want to talk to me? Are they going to take me seriously? That’s not so much of a problem at this point in my career, but sometimes I’m kind of I still feel the same way. You know, how’s this phone call? Gonna go?
Jeremy Burrows 4:33
Yeah, yeah, I remember there was a time. Well, I still kind of this way and like, Do I really have to call this person can I just email or text but I remember there was definitely a period where anytime my executive was like, hey, just call I’m just calling them like, you really want me to call? I’m an introvert. So I was like, I don’t know.
Candice Bozarth 4:54
I know. I’m also an introvert. So, email, texting is great. Can’t always text everybody.
Jeremy Burrows 5:01
Yeah. Cool. Well, what we’re actually the topic for this episode is how to know when it’s time to move on. So tell us a little bit about your last role. And when you kind of realized that it wasn’t for you, or maybe what was it that triggered the questions of, you know, what is it time for me to find a different role or different organization or a different executive.
Candice Bozarth 5:35
So my last role I kind of fell into a little bit backward. When I decided to go back to work, I actually took a temp job as a receptionist for a little bit until I found a permanent job, and did so well there that when they had the assistant to the president, open up, they asked me if I wanted to interview for it. And so it had been a great experience being there for the six weeks, I think that I had worked with them. And I was really gung ho about doing it. But I didn’t actually understand what the job was. And so I kind of ended up in a position where it wasn’t the job description, the job duties weren’t necessarily what I wanted to be doing.
Jeremy Burrows 6:20
Okay, so then, what did you try to work that out with the executives and the current? Or the, that company? Or were you like, Hey, okay, this is it’s time to move on. Like was that literally all it took?
Candice Bozarth 6:36
No, that wasn’t all it took. I was there for about 15 months, when I decided to take a coaching call, because it just felt very stuck. And I did not feel good at what I was doing. And it was through this coaching call that it tumbled out, but this just wasn’t the position for me. The position itself has a very set list of responsibilities. So there wasn’t really a room to move outside of that, or to change it up a whole lot. I’d had my yearly review, and sort of suggested, oh, I’d be interested in doing these things. And it was sort of like, we’re not really looking for you to do that. And it wasn’t negative at all. Actually, my last boss was incredible. We had a great relationship. It just wasn’t for me. And so between those two things, which happened, I think within two weeks of each other, I just decided from there that it was time to start looking.
Jeremy Burrows 7:37
That makes sense. So what was step one, once you made that decision to start looking elsewhere?
Candice Bozarth 7:45
Step one is always get yourself together as much as possible. So I got the resume out, I started looking for professional development groups and seeing what I could find in there. I knew that I wanted a much different position that I had. And so one figure out what that was what that looks like, which involves sifting through a lot of job descriptions online. And then also, I found the leader assisting group and from there is where I would just take it as much information as possible.
Jeremy Burrows 8:25
Nice. How did you find the leader, Sister community?
Candice Bozarth 8:29
I really don’t remember at this point, because a year ago feels about 10 years ago. You think your book was pretty new at the time. And I think maybe I saw something on LinkedIn. And that clued me into the group. So I signed up for the group, and just kind of started hanging out and seeing what people were saying. I eventually signed up for the premium membership. And so I listened to all the catalog sessions and started coming to the monthly Saturday sessions as well.
Jeremy Burrows 8:59
What would you say was maybe the most impactful session or topic that we covered in the premium membership that that really helped helped move you towards this new position?
Candice Bozarth 9:15
Oh, man, I have to really think about that one.
Jeremy Burrows 9:17
I know there’s a lot of them. We’ve had a lot of sessions. I
Candice Bozarth 9:21
think I might have listened to a bunch of the sessions that all revolved around changing jobs, your resume, and preparing that way. I can’t think of anything specifically right in the moment.
Jeremy Burrows 9:35
For those of you who listening who are wondering what the heck she’s talking about. The premium leader assistant community is an ongoing professional development, coaching and community that we have of global assistance and we do monthly training sessions, Zoom calls, and we record them and put them on the site, private site so that you can and watch all the replays. And that’s what Candice was referring to, with the with the backed backlog of the catalog of sessions and going through all those resources and really soaking it in. You know, Candace, you mentioned when we talked about having a conversation for the podcast, you mentioned overcoming impostor syndrome, what was being a part of the leader system community? bringing to light and how did it help you overcome the imposter syndrome?
Candice Bozarth 10:36
Do you think that everybody that is actively involved in the leader assistant group is incredibly confident, and it’s not necessarily brash confidence, but everybody comes to the table, and they bring everything that they’ve got. And so just seeing that there are other people out there who do what I do, who love to do the same things I do, and then just, you know, looking at their LinkedIn and saying, Oh, this person’s great, they do all these things.
Jeremy Burrows 11:04
So you went to check people out on LinkedIn, and you’re like, wait, these are people just like me?
Candice Bozarth 11:12
Yeah, they are people just like me. And the other thing that I found really helpful was I did take al Hussein’s resume course, and I was probably one of the most revolutionary things I’d done. As far as changing jobs was just his perspective on how you should present yourself was so much different than anything I had personally done up to that point. And it gave me a lot of confidence to go out into the job market, and look for what I really wanted not back down that take a smaller role. A lot of job postings now, which is really nice, you know, tell you to overcome that gap for yourself and send in your resume anyway. And I definitely did that and got some callbacks for jobs I never thought I’d hear from and that was also very helpful. I also decided to have a year of No, which I think is, when you’re a perfectionist, you’re always hesitant about things, because if they’re not perfect, it’s an automatic failure. And so I just decided to listen to know as much as I could. So you know, sending out resumes for jobs, you don’t think you’re qualified for talking to people who you think might be, you know, much further in their career or way better in their skill set than you are? Those are all things that really helped propel me forward. And give me a lot of confidence.
Jeremy Burrows 12:44
That’s amazing. Yeah, I’ll be saying, Matt Haney has a course called the assistants guide to crafting the perfect resume. And you can check that out at resume dot assistants guide.com. And be sure to check out that outline for that course, it really is the best executive assistant, industry specific resume, course and even template that you can just make your own. out there. And I’ve had several assistants, even in the last few weeks, that have reached out saying, Hey, I think it’s time for me to move on to a different role. What do I do? What do I do and and that’s like, my step one is like, go take that resume course and get your resume up to par, if you want to have a chance. So I’m glad that it was helpful for you as well.
Candice Bozarth 13:44
It’s a really great course. And like I said before, it’s a very revolutionary way to look at your job history as a set of accomplishments instead of a set of tasks that you carry out.
Jeremy Burrows 13:57
Yeah. So then how did you you know, you’ve heard talked a little bit about how you took the course and really gained a lot of confidence from the leader, Assistant community. Was there other aspects of being a part of the membership that really helps you? Like maybe even in the interview process? Did it ever come up? Like, you know, hey, I’m a part of this global or national community and we have, I can tap into the resources of that community. If I ever get stuck on the job or did that that kind of conversation ever happened with your current team when you’re interviewing?
Candice Bozarth 14:37
Not when I was interviewing, I have mentioned to my boss a few times that I have a group that I am a part of and I workshop with, and that it’s been great to have that in conjunction with my new job we just did. What was the last month’s Saturday session?
Jeremy Burrows 15:00
Oh goals, I
Candice Bozarth 15:00
think goals oh my gosh, I can’t believe I smoking on that. The whole session on goals. And what is amazing is so my office follows the traction rock set up. And it was really nice to kind of be in that call and see how just together my company has it as far as letting everybody have accomplishments. I don’t know if that makes sense. Yeah, like,
Jeremy Burrows 15:33
like, because some of the EAS were talking about how their company doesn’t really have goals for assistance, or they don’t, they don’t even expect us to fill out a goal or whatever. And one of the I remember one of the members was like, Oh, I just did it anyway, because because I’m a leader, assistant, and I’m going to do it anyway. But you’re saying your organization, current company, has a structure for everyone to participate in that process?
Candice Bozarth 16:04
We do. And I find that very reassuring. You create that yourself, get approval by your boss, and then you’re off and running to make things happen at work. I guess you could have a boss that doesn’t require you to have goals, but I don’t understand how you get progress out of that. Yeah. And I think it’s silly to decide that an assistant shouldn’t have goals. Yeah. All of our leaders assistant folks are very goal oriented. They come to the table and they bring a lot with them.
Jeremy Burrows 16:40
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I have to ask you one know about or one question about your prior experience. You mentioned you worked in like space tech rocket ships. Yeah. What was what was there any like? Fun? Time? Like, did you get to watch the rocket takeoff or anything crazy like that?
Candice Bozarth 17:05
I did. I didn’t get to launch a rocket take off a couple of times. I got to host one of the NASA labs for an event that we did. It was it was a small barbecue after a launch, but it was still incredible to get to interact with everybody from that lab, and be able to do that with them.
Jeremy Burrows 17:28
Nice. Is that company still still launching rockets?
Candice Bozarth 17:33
They are actually they have done a lot in the last 10 years since I left. I believe that they might be landing on the moon next year from what I’ve read. I know.
Jeremy Burrows 17:48
Wow, that’s crazy. Yeah, it’s just amazing how, you know, one of the things I love about the executive assistant career is you literally confined and executive assistant in any industry, any organization, any any company, it’s like, it’s so industry agnostic. That it’s, it’s awesome to see people like you go from private asset management, construction, space tech, you know, just all over the place, but your skills are transferable.
Candice Bozarth 18:23
Yeah, that has been really enjoyable to not be stuck in one specific industry based on skill set.
Jeremy Burrows 18:29
Yeah. Awesome, Candice. Well, what would you kind of wrap wrap it up? Thanks so much for being on the show. What would you tell a brand new Assistant, what’s like one or two things that you would encourage them them to do? As they launch their brand new assistant career.
Candice Bozarth 18:52
I would say definitely find EA groups to be a part of that knowledge from them is invaluable. And depending on where you end up, you might be the only assistant or one of two assistants and so without, you know, having a mentoring situation, you’re never going to really find what you actually need. The other thing I would say is just hang on as much as you can, you’ll get there if you have drive and intelligence and the desire to be awesome at what you do. It will all come in time.
Jeremy Burrows 19:27
Nice very well said thank you so much. Good luck with your role and I’m so glad that you ended up moving on and and putting in the work and the time and energy to develop yourself and Grow your confidence and find community and I’m so thankful and grateful that the leader assistant community was a big part of that story for your transition and just happy to See how your career progresses going forward?
Candice Bozarth 20:03
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoy the leader, Assistant community and your book is amazing.
Jeremy Burrows 20:08
Awesome. Thank you. All right, well take care and thanks again for being on the show. For those listening. You can check out the show notes at leaderassistant.com/158 and Candice if it’s alright, I’ll share your LinkedIn URL so people can connect and grow their network and say hi to you.
Candice Bozarth 20:29
Yeah, that would be great.
Jeremy Burrows 20:40
Please listen you on Apple podcasts. Goburrows.com
