4 Career Myths Keeping STEM Professionals Stuck, and What to Do Instead | Rachel Service

What if the biggest thing holding your career back isn’t a lack of skills, experience, or opportunity, but a belief you’ve been carrying for years?

🔍 What You’ll Learn: Many STEM professionals underestimate the value of their skills, overestimate the need for perfection, and assume hard work alone will create opportunities. In this quick-fire episode, Rachel Service tackles four common beliefs that keep scientists playing small and offers practical ways to think differently. You’ll discover: Why your scientific training gives you highly transferable skills that employers desperately need Why working hard stops being enough as your career progresses, and what replaces it How perfectionism disguises itself as professionalism and keeps talented people stuck If you’ve ever thought “I’m just a scientist”, “I’m not ready”, or “I just need to work harder”, this episode will challenge those assumptions in under 10 minutes.

🧠 About the Guest: Rachel Service is the founder and CEO of Happiness Concierge, a workplace training company that has worked with more than 200 organisations. Following her own experience with burnout and depression, Rachel built a business helping people improve communication, leadership, workplace culture, and career satisfaction.

📌 Episode Highlights: 00:00 The beliefs that quietly hold STEM professionals back 02:30 Rachel’s accidental entrepreneurship story and the burnout that started it all 03:15 “I’m just a scientist” and why that’s completely wrong 04:00 The scientific skills that transfer into almost any career 04:30 Does your work really speak for itself? 05:00 Why career growth eventually becomes a PR campaign 05:30 Done versus perfect, and the real fear underneath perfectionism 06:45 The question to ask when you think you don’t have enough time, money, or resources

🔗 Resources Mentioned: There Has To Be More by Rachel Service Previous long-form episode with Rachel Service on motivation and the “whinge phase”

🤔 Reflection Time: Which belief have you been carrying: “I’m just a scientist”, “I need to work harder”, “My work speaks for itself”, or “I’m not ready yet”? What skill do you use every day that you underestimate because it comes naturally to you? What’s one small action you could take this week if you stopped waiting to feel completely ready? One of my favourite insights from Rachel was this: “It’s not about being perfect. It’s about learning to live with the idea that someone might see your incompetence.” That’s uncomfortable. But it’s also where growth starts.

Want to craft a career story that opens doors? I help STEMM professionals speak with clarity, confidence, and purpose and show up as thought leaders —so the right opportunities find you. 📬 Let’s connect: angeliquegreco.com.au | LinkedIn

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