SWITCHING OFF THE CAREER AUTO-PILOT
Sep 02, 2017
Jon has had a very fulfilling career spanning about 20 years. In his last role, he was heading one of the departments at a regional level for a reputed brand and has worked with Fortune 500 MNCs as well as local-listed companies over the course of his career. Beginning of this year, he was caught in the retrenchment cycle for his company and has been looking out for opportunities ever since. When we met, he was telling me how getting a job was a piece of cake for him in the past. He prided in the fact that opportunities just presented themselves either internally or externally and he went with the flow.
My question of “Why did you move into this job” was usually met with a casual “they offered me first” response or “because my manager advised me to do so” response. For the aspirations he had for the next 3-5 years, he had decided to play it by the ear.
Jon is not a unique case. In fact, most professionals would relate to him. From our experience, the one recurring pattern in professionals who find themselves out of work or unable to gain employment for an extended period of time is letting their careers run on auto-pilot for a long time. Surprisingly, factors like ambition or seniority level do not impact the autopilot mode much. Majority of professionals let things happen to their career without deliberating on the mid to long term goals.
We spend so much time planning projects, business objectives, budgets for the companies we work with. It is only fair to spend some time planning our career while being aware of the changes within the company and larger economy.
Keep your eyes and ears open
In hindsight, most professionals say that they had a hunch about being retrenched or not getting promoted but decided to not take any action or even give much thought to it. A part of them felt they were being paranoid or when discussing with their boss/HR, they were re-assured that their role is secure, only to be taken by surprise a few months later. Don’t sleep on your career. Stay in the know of what’s happening in the economy, the industry, company, all the way to your team.
When banks started outsourcing their operations function outside of Singapore, professionals just took the exact same role in other banks, to be hit by another cycle of retrenchment. While changing function completely at once becomes extremely difficult, a subtle approach is to take a role which uses your existing skills and also adds new skills to slowly move into a new field.
Career mapping
One of the business leaders in my first job used to repeatedly say “I am working to get the job of my boss’s boss.” In simple terms, just looking at your next move doesn’t suffice. We need to keep in mind what our move after this would be, while still staying agile and flexible. Apart from getting you out of your current job, does this role also make you more desirable in the next 3-5 years? If a different opportunity presents itself in the meanwhile, explore it in-depth to see if it is a better move for the career. However, do not accept new opportunities just because they presented themselves. Move onward and upward purposefully
An excellent way to know where the current opportunity may lead in a few years is to see what people who were doing a similar role earlier are doing now. Is that something you may want to explore? Fantastic – speak to these people. Build your network and make an informed decision. A couple of years back I was looking at pursuing a very specialized Masters. I contacted some alumni and current students to understand the prospects of the course and their experience. This one step saved me 6-figures as I realized that the prospects this course offers, don’t align with my plan.
Bridging the gap
Now that you know your next couple of steps, up-skill, learn, network and bridge the gap required to reach there. Even if you are well on your way to reach the goals and are absolutely happy with your current work, take a hard look at your career at least once a year, preferably every 6 months. I would suggest updating your CV/ profile every year even if you don’t intend to look out. If you are unable to add anything new in the CV, it’s time to wake up and shake some things up. A whole year is too long to not be able to add new responsibilities and achievements in your role.
These are just some first steps to start taking charge of your career. Whether actively job hunting or just open to new opportunities, take stock of your career.
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