Meet Katie Rose Hester

We recently connected with Katie Rose Hester and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Katie Rose, thank you so much for agreeing to open up about a sensitive and personal topic like being fired or laid-off. Unfortunately, there has been a rise in layoffs recently and so your insight and experience with overcoming being let go is relevant to so many in the community.

I’ve been fired and laid off, so I’ve had experience with processing and moving past both of these events.

I’ve been fired once, but it was a big one. Two months after joining a law firm as a junior associate, I was terminated for taking a single vacation day due to improperly requesting the time off. I’d been doing good work and getting positive feedback, so I was incredibly confused, hurt, and embarrassed about being let go for what seemed like such an insignificant transgression.

I would later learn that the firm had a deeply misogynistic history, and that I was far from the first woman who worked there to lose her job (or be otherwise punished) for a seemingly minor issue. Still, processing the situation was really hard, and it took a healthy combination of self care, time away, and therapy to come to terms with how things ended, mostly because – as it turned out – I would never return to private legal practice, the profession that I’d spent years, tears, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to pursue.

When I got laid off many years later, the situation was much easier to navigate. The company I worked for had been acquired, and we knew about the layoffs in advance. When the official word came, I was disappointed, but I was also prepared.

In both situations, I struggled the most with untangling my value as a professional and person from an outcome that felt totally divorced from the amount of effort and energy that I’d put into both roles.

Many of us have grown up believing that making an effort and staying committed will produce good results, and when that doesn’t happen, it’s really easy to assume that you didn’t try hard enough or work hard enough to make sure that others could see see your value, talent, and skill.

The reality is – of course – that professional decisions are made every day (like who to fire or which teams to lay off) that have very little to do with how hard you’ve worked, how committed you are, or how much you’ve given up to succeed somewhere. Over time, I’ve come to more fully understand that it’s next to impossible to draw straight lines from effort, talent, and skill directly to professional outcomes – there’s always stuff that gets in the way and reroutes your path. Sometimes, the stuff that gets in the way is unacceptable – discrimination, harassment, toxicity, for example – and how you handle that is an entirely different conversation; but sometimes the stuff that gets in the way is par for the professional course (companies get acquired, and people get let go).

Personally, the best way I’ve found to navigate these waters is to just keep swimming. Professional momentum is very real, and losing it is much easier than sustaining it. When I was fired, and when I was laid off, I did everything I could to stay professionally engaged, even without a job – self education online, job applications for gigs I actually wanted, launching my own projects – I spent time doing things that made me feel like I was investing in myself. It sounds really simple, but I think that’s why it worked.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Offscript is the product of a career lost and a purpose found.

After very unceremoniously leaving private legal practice in 2016, I wound my way through a long period of unemployment before finally finding my footing in marketing. After leading Brand and Content teams at start-up and scaling businesses, I was laid off in early 2024, when I decided to forego another round of job applications and role-hunting to launch my own business.

Offscript provides Brand & Content strategy for businesses across the world. Most are in their startup or scaling phase of growth, and most are product-led. My passion is working with teams or products that are bringing some kind of meaningful innovation to their market. Whether that’s technology to keep workers safe from workplace risks, or digital signage software that makes it easier for organisations to more meaningfully connect with their audiences, I love supporting companies as they uncover or refine their identity, and I take great pride in helping them craft their narrative, and share their story.

Additionally, I host The Offscript Podcast, which is a place for working women to share their career stories. Highlighting women’s journeys is incredibly important to me, and hosting the podcast has brought an element of purpose and passion to my current projects that’s been both refreshing and inspiring.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

In terms of practical skills, I think the value of being able to distill your thoughts, research, findings, points of view, ideas (anything, really!) into something that other people can understand and appreciate is hard to overstate. In any profession, on any team, in any business, it’s so crucial to communicate effectively. My advice for becoming a great communicator is to stay relentless in the pursuit of understanding – it’s much easier to get your point across when you understand where someone else is coming from, and what they’re looking to achieve.

I also think that the ability to create interesting connections (between seemingly unrelated topics) is incredibly important. I’m a marketing strategist, so I’m constantly searching for ways to present information in ways that actually resonate with people. From my POV, the best way to do that is via storytelling. But to tell an interesting story, you need to know some interesting information – so, I consume information as often as I can. The more random, the better. My current obsession is learning more about how we taught computers to play chess. I can’t count the amount of times that I’ve relied on seemingly random information or facts as the basis for a story (which, in turn, becomes the basis for a marketing narrative). My advice is to find ways to consume interesting information – documentaries, books, content from influencers, conversations with friends or colleagues…none of it’s super difficult to access, but it starts to pay dividends when you shift your focus and ask yourself how you can connect the seemingly random, useless stuff you’ve learned to create a really interesting, genuinely compelling story.

Lastly, learn your professional thresholds. Know when to dive in, when to step back, when to take charge, when to delegate, when to emotionally invest, and when to disengage. I often hear people saying that over-investing your time and energy into your professional existence is very out of fashion, and they might be right, but I think there’s something really powerful about doing exactly that, so long as it’s on your own terms. Everyone’s professional thresholds are different, but it’s worth spending the time to understand your own.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

It’s no secret within the marketing freelance/consulting community that the job market is tough. Every single day, people are posting on LinkedIn about how this year has been their worst year ever for business, and I know people personally who are struggling to find work.

I’ve been fortunate since launching Offscript to be booked and busy, but as I approach the end of the year, I’m definitely thinking about how I can grow my business and reach new clients in a tighter market. My strategy so far has been to reach out to any and all of my connections to let them know that I’ll be open to accepting new business in 2025, and I’m also researching (and pitching) product-led companies that might be a good fit for my skills and for my vision for Offscript.

It’s not uncommon for someone running their own business to identify their biggest challenge as simply earning a living, but this is new territory for me, and my goal is to be as proactive as possible so that I can worry less and focus on doing the work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://offscriptcontent.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-rose-hester/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4QQkjvr1VHkzNlxmaKapgQ
• Other: Podcast:

  https://open.spotify.com/show/1Gq9zTYGxsTK3j0mQkl1Pf?si=192c616d836c472c

Image Credits

AVO Camera