Women in workplace: You need to ask for what you want, thought leaders advise

The workplace is not a game show. It’s not a place where you get picked. You have to ask for what you want.

So said, Karen Kessler, the founder and leader of Kessler PR, during the BINJE’s Best: Top Women in Business event Wednesday afternoon.

The biggest lesson you can teach anyone is something women don’t do enough of: Learn how to ask for what you want, Kessler said.

“Life is not a career,” she said. “It’s not like being on The Bachelor. Just because you go with the right intentions, you don’t get picked

“You have to ask for it.”

Fellow panelist Lori Roth, the CEO of Prager Metis, agreed.

She said women need to be intentional about where they want to go.

Roth recalled how in her first interview at the company she now leads, she asked, ‘How long until you can become a partner?’

That drive, she said, isn’t found as often in the modern worker. Now, Roth said, she feels the company has to ask the interviewee where they see themselves in the future. She doesn’t like the paradigm.

“I think that being intentional about what you want is important,” she said.

Kessler and Roth shared her thoughts during a panel discussion at the BINJE’s Best: Top Women Leaders in Business event Wednesday morning at the APA Hotel in Woodbridge.

Speaking before an overflow crowd of more than 300, Kessler recalled a recent phone conversation she had with a young woman who had called her for career advice. Kessler knew the woman was looking for a job, she just wanted her to ask about one.

The caller never did.

“They must have asked 15 questions,” Kessler recalled. “I kept waiting for the question, ‘Do you have the openings?’ And it never came. She has to learn how to say to me, ‘I’m looking for a job.’

“Just put it out there.”

The advice continues after you get a job and are looking for a promotion, Kessler said.

“You have to learn to ask: ‘What does it take for me to get this job? Or what skills don’t I have? Or what can I do better?’ she said.

“You have to learn to ask that to the people that you’re working with and working for, so that you know what you need to get to that next level.”

Everything else doesn’t work, Kessler said.

“If you just think that you can watch and observe, you’re not going to get it,” she said. “You really need to ask, and then when you ask, you really need to listen.”

Kessler and Roth were joined by Kate Gibbs of ELEC 825 during the discussion moderated by Linda Lindner of BINJE and Michelle Siekerka of the N.J. Business & Industry Association.

The event featured eight gold-level sponsors: RWJBarnabas Health, PSEG, DEVCO‑Helix, United Airlines, ELEC 825, Prudential Financial, Prager Metis and Spectrum Works.