Career and life planning in challenging times

David Levinson, International Careers Adviserdavid.levinson@ed.ac.uk

This session aims to….

Help you to reflect on where you are and where you want to get to in your career

Reflect on how to make this happen

Help you to identify next steps

The skills challengeHow on earth did I

get here?

‘To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive’ Robert Louis Stevenson

‘Life is a journey, not a destination-we determine our destiny by the direction we take’

Anonymous

‘It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end’

Ursula K. LeGuin

Do you know what are you looking for?

Career and life planning…

Most people spend more time planning a car purchase or upgrading their smart phone than they do thinking about their career.

What do you want? What kinds of knowledge and interests do

you want to use?

What kinds of skills do you want to use?

What kind of life style do you want to have?

Are there any potential barriers or conflicts?

Career focused or career blurry?

Why plan at all?

Serendipity or ‘planned happenstance’ (Krumboltz)

Making your own luck

Opening yourself up to possibilities.

Strategies for career success

Logical process of analysis, logic and elimination

Drive to find ‘ideal’ job Matching skills and values

to roles Systematic narrowing

down of choices through comprehensive research and information gathering

Future uncertain and unpredictable

Behavioural strategies to deal with this

Chance events provide opportunities

Must be pro-active Based on ideas and

concepts of theories of chaos

What’s stopping you?

Did you know….

Over half the people in the UK feel they are in the wrong job!

86% are not working in their dream job

Does this matter?

What makes people happy at work?

A sense of purpose / meaning

Friendship / affiliation

Autonomy

What were you “born” to do?

I was born to….

Success for me is….

Complete the following statements:

What is success…?

It could involve shifting from……

HAVEDOBE

to……

BE DO HAVE

It could involve shifting from……

Other peoples’ definition of success

“ railway tracks” – startedso I’ll finish

Failure is not an option Success is always

somewhere else Being unhappy

to……

Focus on internal – what we are in the process of becoming

Being about your passions

Being the best you can be

Failure and sidetracking are allowed!

Being happy!!

What is success…?

Life post-MBALife post-graduation

Better to earn money than wait for your ideal job?

Move in related steps BUT beware of damaging your CV

Pragmatism v Idealism?

How far do you want to move?

Increasing breadth of opportunity increasing likelihood of re-training increasing ‘risk’ increasingly further from ‘comfort zone’ increasing effort to investigate increasing effort required to make the move less value likely to be attached to previous

experience

Use your experience …..

Or should you jump?

Change is the new status-quo

Success at work will require agility, talent and the ability to learn from - rather than fear - failure

Dealing with change….

Your Job Survival Guide, a Manual for Thriving in Change, Gregory Shea, and Robert Gunther.

Focus on your skills & interests

Research what employers want

Brief yourself – LinkedIn, Twitter

Be realistic about your market value

Top Tips

☺Keep developing and learning☺Be open-minded and curious when looking

for opportunities ☺Make the most of your experience and skills ☺Maintain your professional networks

Surviving interesting times

Do……

Change jobs too frequently Fail to demonstrate resultsDo nothing!

Surviving interesting times

Don’t……

Finding opportunities25% advertised vacancies: Websites, agencies

--------------------75% not advertised: Networking, speculative

applications, ‘working your way up’

Using social media to look for work

More than 90% of employers use social media to find senior staff

What is a network?

People you know (and maybe the people who they know) People who know you (and maybe the people who know them) A way of accessing help and advice A way of providing help and advice Reciprocal

Why network?

Personal & professional growth

Become part of a community Learn and exchange

information

Networking: What it’s not

Networking:What it is

Planting the seeds Taking an interest in

people (gets them interested in you)

You identify the people you want to get to know first – it’s a long game

Nurture your network

Be polite Think of good questions

to ask Say thank you Follow up and keep in

touch BUT don’t be a pest!

Yourself

This is the start of your online brand

Use social media platforms to:

Self publicise Find and connect with key people Look for companies to approach for work Find vacancies Explore career ideas Learn new information/get inspired Keep abreast of developments within your field Market a company …

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional expertise and accomplishments

You can then form connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you

Your network consists of your connections, potentially your connections’ connections, and the people they know, (potentially) linking you to a vast number of qualified professionals and experts

There are over 200 million users on LinkedIn; are you missing out if you’re not on there too??

Final thought…what’s your USP?

Questions