Thanks for Your Interest in Helping Career Women!
I’m really excited that you are interested and willing to contribute to this project to help empower young women in their careers through real stories of real successful career women!
I can’t wait to get to chat with you about all of your experiences, career highlights, and challenges along the way! These stories will inspire women who are just starting to build their own careers.
Below you’ll find some information about the project and interview including what questions I will ask. That way you know what to expect! If you have absolutely any questions just email me at ivnacuri@assertiveway.com.
Can’t wait to chat with you 
!
Interview Questions
The interview will include a set of questions from the list below, depending on how much time you have available and on how our conversation goes. You can also ask me to skip a question if you are not comfortable answering it. Here are the general guidelines:
- YOUR UNIQUE EXPERIENCES - The focus is your unique experiences not advice
- YOUR EMOTIONS - Please share how you felt in the situation to be relatable to other women
- WORK RELATED - Share work related experiences
- FEW EXAMPLES IS OK - One detailed experience is more powerful than 10 not so detailed experiences
Achievement Moments
- How did you get your biggest promotion or dream job?
- What was the biggest resource you ever got (e.g. time off, work from home, training, people)?
- How did you get your first team?
- What was the most courageous thing you've done at work?
Challenging Moments
- Have you ever been disrespected at work? What did you do?
- What was the hardest 'no' you ever gave to someone at work?
- What was the hardest feedback you ever got? Was it helpful?
- What was the hardest feedback you ever gave?
About the Interview
This interview is part of my research to learn more about how to empower professional career women in their 20s at work.
This project will help accelerate their career growth and contribute to breaking the glass ceiling by equipping young women with confidence to speak up and advocate for what they believe in, including themselves.
You’ll find an overview of the interview process below.Â
Objectives
This interview research project has 3 main objectives:
- Learn the top self-advocacy challenges and tactics to empower professional women in their 20s at work
- Collect relatable stories and teachable examples to use throughout all materials we produce at Assertive Way LLC because stories inspire and teach more effectively than theory
- Write a book with the results of this research
Answers to Your Questions
It is entirely up to you. I will ask you what your preference is during the interview. I respect your privacy.
If you choose to share your name in the content, then I’ll also ask you if you want to see the content before it gets published / shared.
If you choose anonymous, I will not use your name or city you live in.Â
No, it is not recorded. I will take notes from the conversation as we speak. After our interview, I’ll offer to share my notes of our conversation with you. That way if you want, you can review the notes, make any corrections, and add anything important that I missed.
I prefer Zoom because we can see each other and have a more engaging interview. However if you prefer a phone conversation we can do that as well.
Ideally 45min.
Shorter interviews of 20min or 30min and longer interviews of 1hr or 1.5hrs are also possible.Â
I’ll ask you how much time you have at the start of the interview or when we schedule it.
I’ll offer to share my notes with you.
I’ll confirm your anonymous or not preferences.
Before the book is published, I’ll share the content that includes your answers with you.
Who Are You?
Hi! I’m Ivna Curi. I have worked in the corporate world for more than a decade and I realized that:
- The top skill I wish I had learned in my early 20s was assertiveness.
- Many women struggle with advocating for themselves at work, a lot more than men do.
- No one ever taught me assertiveness. Parents, school, university, MBA, bosses, HR, no one! And that happens with most women.
- My favorite part in corporate life was to mentor and develop confidence in the women in my team.
So I decided I wanted to have a different type of legacy which was to help women in their 20s to better advocate for themselves at work without being seen as aggressive or pushy. Now I am doing this full time. This research is designed to help me help more women succeed at work and have meaningful work relationships.
If you have other questions, don’t hesitate to contact me at ivnacuri@assertiveway.com or via a Linkedin message.