Great explorers, like Marco Polo or Christopher Columbus, didn’t arrive by chance in China or America. They planned their journey, they nurtured the right networks, and they crafted a personal story that was clear, distinctive and memorable. Perfect careers don’t just happen. Even if we had contact with a couple of recruiters in the past, that isn’t enough. Regardless of where you are, what industry or function you work in, the only way you can expect to manage your career effectively is if you invest the time and effort to get to achieve your objectives, just as those early explorers did.
So, what’s happening now? Most of us are happily cruising along waiting for the next great job, or else we’re nursing our wounds after suffering some kind of corporate fall-out. Like some of the once-great companies of the past, we have no idea how the world is about to change. A new competitor makes things difficult for our industry, a new boss is not so accommodating, or maybe a private equity company comes in and starts dismantling the business where we’ve been building our career for the past 20 – 30 years. It happens every day. Without options, we face huge uncertainty and possibly a long period out of work.
It doesn’t have to be doom and gloom. By defining our goals, identifying where those roles may exist, and then pro-actively marketing ourselves in the right direction, it’s possible to create opportunities that we would otherwise never hear about.
Here are three simple questions to help us work out if we have a problem:
- Do we have a career plan whereby we have defined where we would like to be 5 or 10 years from now? Have we thought about the steps that it would take for us to get there?
- Have we nurtured an active network of recruiters and other contacts who might help us to uncover the kinds of roles and opportunities that we aspire to? Having had calls from one or two recruiters in the past isn’t enough. There may be 50-60 relevant recruiters that we need to engage with, and another 200 – 300 relevant contacts in our wider network.
- Have we developed a clear and distinctive career story or narrative that aligns our professional skills and experience with our longer-term goals and objectives? We might have some kind of bland elevator pitch, but most of us haven’t yet got a career story that is short and memorable enough to help us engage our network.
The only way we’re going to arrive at our preferred destination is if we invest and take the right steps now to plan our journey. Nobody else is going to do that work for us. The advice is simple: don’t drift through your career excepting it all to work out fine. Take some pro-active steps now to help navigate the uncertainties that lie ahead. A good first step would be to check the answers to those three simple questions. How are we doing so far?
A fascinating discussion is definitely worth comment. I do believe that you should publish more about this issue, it may not be a taboo matter but usually folks dont speak about such subjects. To the next! Cheers!!
Good day! I just want to give you a big thumbs up for your excellent information you have here on this post. I am coming back to your web site for more soon.
After I originally commented I appear to have clicked on the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a comment is added I recieve four emails with the same comment. Is there a way you can remove me from that service? Thank you!
Can I just say what a relief to uncover an individual who really understands what theyre talking about on the web. You certainly know how to bring a problem to light and make it important. More people ought to read this and understand this side of the story. I was surprised that you arent more popular given that you most certainly have the gift.