Category Archives: Uncovering opportunities

General Career Management, Networking, Self-awareness, Uncovering opportunities

My very own career detour

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Well, after a hiatus of just over three years (!) I’ve decided it’s time to start blogging again. Why now? Well, I’m now working in the career management field again, I’ve learned a lot over the last three years (some of which I think might be helpful for others), and I want an outlet for some of my thoughts and observations about work and careers.

So, here’s what’s been happening since my last post…

At the end of 2010 I got into a conversation about joining a bank as an internal HR Consultant. For various reasons, including having been in consultancy for ten years, it looked like a great move. It was an opportunity to apply some of the things I’d been helping clients do inside an organisation I was part of, it wouldn’t involve a sales target, it was a great package and they were saying all the right things. In April 2011 I moved.

It turned out not to be a good decision. The organisation’s culture just wasn’t for me (the last corporate HR role I was in, with a big retailer, ended for the same reason). I’ve come to trust my gut instinct over the years and, just at the point at which I was thinking ‘This isn’t working out’, I was called to a meeting by my boss. This was the end of 2011. I thought the meeting would be to discuss the projects I’d be working on the following year; but it turned out that I was caught up in another round of restructuring and was being made redundant. I felt a mixture of shock and relief.

The company provided outplacement support, which I took up (obviously!) Even though I’d been an outplacement practitioner for several years prior to this role, there were two questions I wanted to answer that I knew an impartial career coach could help with: ‘Is there a corporate HR role that would suit me – just not at this organisation?’ and, ‘If not, should I go back into consultancy or do my own thing?’

I was amazed at how the answer to the first question popped up just by doing a few basic exercises – a skills and values card sort and a career map. Clearly corporate HR roles did not play to my strengths, and a conversation with a headhunter made it clear that I couldn’t compete for them credibly against others who were in the market for those jobs.

So that left the second question. I had an idea for a business that would play to my strengths and it’s something I’d considered before. Again, using fundamental career decision tools the answer became clear: the risks and resources required in starting up a business (as the main breadwinner with two young children) outweighed the potential upside.

So very quickly I had a clear focus. A consultancy role. And the single most effective strategy to uncover new opportunities is networking – fortunately, something I’ve always sought to do since my very first days in a B2B role (see this previous post for a great networking philosophy).

One of my first calls was to a member of the Savile Group board; not to ask for a job, but because this person is so well connected – and I’d spent the last year immersed in building an internal network at the bank – that they could provide me with some useful market insights into what was happening in the big wide world and where I could look for new opportunities.

As it turned out, a combination of circumstances meant that there might be a new role at the Group and I was delighted to return in February 2012.

I can’t believe a year has passed already. I look back on my time at the bank as my career detour. I thought the grass was greener and inadvertently stepped into a role that didn’t suit me. I thought I had done sufficient due diligence and it was going to be a good move; but it wasn’t. Fortunately, employing some tried and tested career management techniques helped me land back in a role that I love.

A few client experiences have reminded me of my journey recently, and I thought it was about time that I started putting some of those thoughts in writing. I intend to post more regularly now and hope you get something useful from some of my ideas. Feedback and comments always welcome!

Career success stories, CV, Job Boards/Online, Personal branding, Uncategorized, Uncovering opportunities

The SlideShare presentation that got me hired

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I received this in a SlideShare newsletter last week. It’s a great example of a creative campaign to get hired (for a job that wasn’t being advertised – it was being tweeted).

Yes, it’s American; yes, she works in PR; and, yes, this won’t apply to everyone for every role. But there are some very important lessons to be learned from Laura’s story:

  • The impact of technology on the job search is unrelenting and you need to a) keep up, and, b) start using it to your advantage
  • Thinking creatively about how to market yourself usually creates a very good impression with a prospective employer
  • You create your own opportunities to stand out from the crowd

So read Laura’s story and think about how you could market yourself more creatively…

Resumes are Old School, Use SlideShare & Twitter to Get Hired

Laura Gainor wasn’t always the PR & Social Media Strategist at Comet Branding and this is the story of how that came to be.

When Laura found out she and her husband were moving from Charlotte to Milwaukee, she reached out to companies in the area, including Comet Branding who tweeted about a job opening.

Laura set out to get herself hired by launching a #LauraGainorToMilwaukee campaign that mixed in Twitter, FourSquare and SlideShare.
Laura and her husband had already planned a trip to Milwaukee. She made a poster out of the Comet Brand logo and posted pictures of the poster in various venues at Milwaukee with a Foursquare check-in and a tweet. The campaign was fun, spontaneous and creative and showcased Laura’s personality and creativity.

But Laura also wanted to showcase her experience as well as creative and strategic talents. So she uploaded a presentation to SlideShare and periodically tweeted links to that presentation.

“SlideShare allowed me the opportunity to publicly explain what I did and how I did it, to get the attention of Comet Branding,” said Laura.

Laura pulled together photos to create a virtual resume as well as screenshots of her Foursquare check-ins from Milwaukee. “My goal for my SlideShare presentation was to create a story about who I was, my professional experience, showcase my talents that would make me a good fit for Comet Branding, as well as pull together my #LauraGainorToMilwaukee story into one place,” Laura explained.
The very day Laura’s presentation was uploaded, it made it to SlideShare’s ‘Most Popular’ and was passed around on SlideShare and the Twittersphere. She got tweets and direct messages from all over.
There were even teachers downloading the presentation to show their classes and example of presenting yourself as a brand to possible employers.

Comet Branding also noticed Laura. They contacted her to setup a first interview. On March 1st she went in for a second interview and was immediately offered the position!

Laura says, “I feel very honored to have had my first day in my new desk at Comet Branding on Wednesday, March 3rd.”

If you are looking for a job, take a lesson from Laura’s book – showcase yourself through a presentation and use Twitter or Facebook to get the attention of the company you want to work at.

Establishing career goals, General Career Management, The labour market, Uncovering opportunities

Firms fail to meet employees’ career aspirations

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Today the Chartered Institute of Management published its survey results, which show some interesting things career wise:

Resignations have increased over the last year – and these aren’t redundancies – these are people leaving voluntarily. Requests for internal transfers are also down. So, despite the volatility in the jobs market, more people are choosing to pursue career opportunities elsewhere.

More than half the employers questioned (53.8 per cent) admitted that restructuring and job insecurity caused many of their staff to ‘jump ship’.  A significant proportion (38.5 per cent) recognised that their ‘failure to offer career opportunities and training’ contributed to employees leaving.  Given widespread recognition that engaged staff are more loyal, it is alarming that 61.5 per cent also admitted that their employees’ heads had been turned by head-hunters and recruitment consultants.

My sesnse of one of the best things to come out of this recession is a new intelligence about careers. I congratulate the people who’ve had the courage to move on to something better (sacrificing significant employment rights if they had more than a year’s service with the former employer), and I am disappointed that employers still don’t place enough emphasis on career management.

Too often, when someone hands in their notice, the manager says something like ‘I wish I’d known, I had big plans for you’. WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL THEM THEN?!

If you are considering a move, why don’t you take the initiative and ask for a chat with your manager about your career goals? You don’t have to be totally upfront with them about your desire to move on. Something like ‘I’ve been thinking about how I could add more value, and these are the things I’d like to focus on over the next year or so…’ will test the water. See if your manager responds with an open and authentic discussion about your career with the organisation.

In most cases, he/she won’t want to lose you and, assuming there’s a good cultural fit between you and the organisation, there are several advantages to staying with the same employer and shaping your job to play to your strengths more (longer holiday entitlement, established relationships, better visibility of new career opportunities, etc – and, if the worst does happen, your long service will entitle you to a bigger redundancy package).

So if your employer has been a bit remiss about helping you to manage your career, why don’t you get the ball rolling…..what have you got to lose? Looks like there’s still healthy demand for good people out there.

Career success stories, General Career Management, Job Boards/Online, Job Search Resources, Personal branding, Uncovering opportunities

Lessons from LinkedIn’s founder

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I read an interview with Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, last night. Successful internet entrepreneurs seem to have that proverbial ‘overnight success’; but, like anyone else, his career has been an interesting journey.

He graduated with a Master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford and initially saw his career path as academia, “But I realised academics write books that 50 or 60 people read and I wanted more impact.”  He decided that an entrepreneurial career would provide him with a bigger platform.

He returned to California in 1993, just at the start of the internet boom, and began to pursue a career in software. However, he had come up with a checklist of skills he wanted to acquire. He purposely set out to acquire them and, within four years, which included stints at Apple and Fujitsu to develop the skills he sought, he launched his first internet venture – a dating website called SocialNet.com

Whilst there were other online dating services, this was way before the terms Web 2.0 and social networking had been coined. You can see where Hoffman was going….

SocialNet.com wasn’t a great success. Hoffman realised that his early adopters were only customers for about three and a half months – either they found someone in that time or they got frustrated and moved on to try something else.

He realised that, “The ideal characteristic of a startup is where people don’t fully understand if your idea is any good or not but where you prove it is in two or three years.” (That certainly describes my experience with LinkedIn – I signed up in 2006 because it looked interesting, but it took a couple of years to realise its full power and its benefits).

In 1999, Hoffman moved to PayPal, becoming part of the founding board and then a full-time employee as VP of Business Development. He played a key role in the sale of Paypal to eBay in 2002.

From there the rest is history. He took what he learned from SocialNet and founded LinkedIn. It’s now pushing 50 million members worldwide and Hoffman’s goal is to sign up “25 per cent of the globe” (that’s his estimate of how many people could be described as ‘professional’).

He also likes to point out that “Every individual now is a small business. You no longer work for one entity for a lifetime. Part of the mistake is that you think you have to go and search and find a job. But there is a massive ecosystem of people out there who might come and find you.” And LinkedIn has certainly facilitated that!

Career management lessons:

  • Figure out where you can make the most impact with what you do.
  • Come up with a ‘checklist of skills’ to be the best in that field. Audit yourself – do you have all those skills or do you need to acquire them?
  • Test your ideas and, if something doesn’t work, don’t consider it a failure; learn from it.
  • (At this point it helps if you can make a huge pile of money from an IPO, but that’s not essential.)
  • Apply what you have learned.
  • Develop and maintain your professional brand (including LinkedIn profile!)

I leave the final comment to a quote from Hoffman: “Life is not like a chess plan. It’s more about what opportunities you find yourself facing and how you respond to them.”

Career success stories, Establishing career goals, General Career Management, The labour market, Uncovering opportunities

Ten careers that didn’t exist ten years ago

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This article at Carerbuilder.com isn’t a scietific survey, but it does make you think about how technology, social and environmental trends are shaping careers.

It contains an interesting example of a career shifter: the customer service rep who became a full-time blogger and more than doubled his salary!

And ten years ago, who’d have thought you could get a job as a Green Funeral Director or a Social Media Strategist?

Dom Sagolla, co-creator of Twitter, is also quoted as saying his success is down to his efforts to position himself at the intersection of two emerging new industries – iPhone apps and social media.

Nice work if you can get it! Rather than trying to predict the next big thing to get into, look for the convergence of two industries – the intersection is going to create a real hot spot and demand for people who can capitalise on it.

Establishing career goals, General Career Management, Self-awareness, Uncovering opportunities

Are you cut out for a move cross-sector?

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I recently attended a session on the Hogan Dark Side assessment. This instrument looks at 11 areas of strength (such as enthusiasm, focus, confidence, etc.) and measures which of these factors will flip into a ‘Dark Side’ characteristic when over-done under pressure. For example, confidence over-done becomes arrogance; enthusiasm becomes volatility, etc. I found the tool itself very useful, and what particularly interested me was the variation in norm group scores across different generations and between the public and private sectors.

There’s not a lot you can do about your age, although, if you’re in a management position, it is worth noting that your reactions to stress and pressure will probably be different to your colleagues in other generations (Gen X, Gen Y or Baby Boomers) – therefore they need to be managed differently.

The career management point I want to make is that there do seem to be some fundamental differences between what makes public sector workers tick compared to those from the private sector. Under pressure (and who isn’t at present?) the two groups react very differently:

Public sector workers become more cautious, detached and dependent; whilst private sector workers veer into displaying arrogance, becoming more manipulative and being dramatic.

These are quite stark differences. It suggests to me that the prevailing culture within the public sector is “Don’t take any risks, batten down the hatches, just follow orders”; whilst in the private sector it’s “Talk yourself out of it, take what you can, go over the top with emotion”. Stereotypical? Perhaps, but the data backs it up (statistics never lie, do they?)

This is a UK sample of over 18,000 – so statistically significant. And for the careerist, perhaps considering a move cross-sector right now, the question has to be ‘Am I cut out for this kind of environment?’

I know there are many parts of the public sector wanting to get more commercial and they are bringing in private sector expertise; and there are plenty of private sector organisations that would benefit from a more cautious approach.

In my experience, though, people who move across sectors expecting that they can single-handedly change things, very quickly succumb to pressure to conform or get spat out. I’m not suggesting you don’t consider a move cross-sector – there are some very exciting opportunities out there when you broaden your horizons – but go in with your eyes open, understanding that you will experience some culture shock, whichever way you move.

The people I know who have successfully made the move have done so on an interim or consultancy basis initially – experimenting with ‘the other side’, and taking the time to find their niche, before committing to it whole-heartedly.

My advice – explore all the options, network with people already operating in the area you are considering moving into and then test it out in some way if it appeals. Recognise that there are fundamental differences in the MO between the public and private sectors and you’ll probably assimilate pretty well.

Have you got experience moving cross-sector? If so, post a comment…