The Career Explorer's Journal in 2011

Free on Smashwords, Barnes&Noble NOOKbooks, Sony ReaderStore & Apple US & UK

(Also available on Amazon's KindleStore US & UK)

A New Year always brings in the new

The 2011 Edition of The Career Explorer's Journal is here to bring something new to the way we think about and experience work - one career, one person at a time. Maybe your something new will be a better idea of what you want for the future or a clearer picture of what you're working towards. Maybe you'll discover something a little more fundamental, like new feelings of progress on a job search or a sharper sense of focus on that all important next milestone and what it looks like for you.

The Career Explorer's Journal is free now and for the rest of 2011 and it offers something new to everyone who finds it. ExploreYourCareer.com is also there for you to tell us what you think and share your experiences before, during and after your reader's journey. It's my hope that 2011 will be a year full of new career discoveries for everyone who picks up this book. From your very first choice to become a career explorer you'll join me and everyone else who has already taken exactly the same first step. Every single one of us on a mission to discover where we want our careers to go.

Wishing all the very best to you and your career in 2011!

Paul

Snakes & Ladders

Today was definitely a snake day,

Which means I took a slide in the wrong direction.

Sliding backwards and landing with a bump always hurts,

Especially in a world where we like to move forward.

Looking up isn't always such a bad thing :)

Although I might be a few squares further back on the board,

There's no lasting damage and tomorrow is a brand new day.

I've got a new bruise to help me avoid making the same mistake,

And I also learned this for a fact:

No matter how big the snake,

It never takes you back to square one,

And it always leaves new ladders in front of you.

* * * * *

Have you ever had a snake day?

How did things start looking up for you?

Start a new conversation in a comment box below!

Finding Yourself in a New Place

One day you're at work and everything's familiar.

The next day you're somewhere new and everything has changed.

Somewhere new can be a variety of places...

It might be a new company,

it could be sitting at home needing to start a new job search,

just as it can be anywhere else in-between.

Wherever or whatever the new place for you,

you'll probably be facing plenty of change.

I found myself in another new place recently too.

Can you guess where?

The new place I had to adjust to recently was a new blog.

I knew from the beginning it was going to be different but it took a little longer (plus a little help from a friend) to realise this new place also demanded something different from me.

At first I just carried on as before, writing what I write here in a very similar way. But by staying the same I was missing the point. I was also missing the opportunities a new place always has the potential to create.

Yes they are different, maybe even a little scary at first but new places can also be encouraging, inspiring even, as we learn more about them and what they ask us to change.

Although everyone's situation will be different, the shared experience of finding ourselves in new places is just one more thing that brings us together.

One more thing that invites us to explore our careers.

Best Regards for now,

Paul

* * * * *

Would you like to share a 'new place' career experience?

Who or what helped you deal with the change?

How did you adjust to the new place you found yourself in?

What would you say to someone going through change like this right now?

work/life change

Things need to change

I need to change

Things have changed

I have changed

I've no idea where they're going but sometimes I'm still jealous ;)

[Image courtesy of P - A - S on Flickr]

Of course there are differences but making changes and catching-up with change requires the same effort.

What do you think?

What changes do you want to make right now?

What changes are you trying to catch-up with?

All the best,

Paul

Can you think of a virtuous circle?

Something that goes around, comes around and is good?

A virtuous circle is opposite and entirely preferable to a vicious circle.

Here’s one example: When we make better career decisions, our experience of work improves. When our experience of work improves, we have more positive influences for our career decisions.

OK, it sounds a bit simplistic but there is evidence to support each step.

For instance, a better understanding in key areas like your VTGs (Values: What’s important to you, Talents: What you’re good at, Goals: What keeps you going) can help you make better career decisions.

And better career decisions are a great way for a virtuous circle to start.

It looks even prettier when you take a take a step back

[Photo courtesy of Swamibu on Flickr]

Big decisions about work and careers can make you feel dizzy.

Your VTGs can slow the whirling carousel and give you more confidence when you have a choice to make.

You start the virtuous circle when you’re ready and on your terms.

Think of a career cycle you’d like to break or any circle you'd like to be less vicious and more virtuous.

There’s plenty of evidence to show it can be done.

All the best for now,

Paul

Fill the Void

Ending a job starts one of the biggest changes of routine most of us are ever likely to experience.

The place you visited every day of the week disappears overnight. It doesn't matter if you chose to leave or the choice was made for you, a change of routine like this hits just as hard.

Most of the things you did for your job [your - Ahem - skills that pay the bills] are put on ice temporarily. Colleagues and workmates are no longer with you everyday. The guy you bought your coffee or sandwich from, the lady who knew what paper you like, the ticket collector or car park attendant you greeted at the top and bottom of every day. They're all still there but now you're somewhere else.

So where does all this change leave you? What new routine do you adjust to? What are you doing with all of your time? Can anything possibly fill a void like this overnight?

Lots of space to fill: Worry or Opportunity?

[Wailea Horizon - courtesy of Rosa Say on Flickr]

If you're looking for a new job right now, you might have heard it said that, 'looking for a job is a full-time job' but have you ever found this to be true? Has anyone ever found this to be true?

When's the last time the person telling us this spent 8 hours a day at their computer, at the library, on the telephone, reading the job pages of newspapers and everywhere else a job search takes us? Even that 'full-of-good-advice' well-meaning person would have to admit that as a new routine, 'making your job search your new job' isn't a patch on the old one.

What you fill the void with - whatever it is - is up to you. And no-one does it overnight. No matter what they say.

Adjusting to change as big as this takes time and needs a steady, determined approach. You can adjust and you can build a new routine and it can start on day one. But it will work best for you when it's built on small, gradual steps to get your career back on track. You'll do all of things you already know you have to do. You'll also learn plenty of new things along the way. And you can do it without all that pressure and expectation on your back.

The steps we take to adjust to a new routine might seem small and insignificant at first but they all add up. And they can add up to something that fills the void when a job disappears overnight.

Pick a question if talking about voids has got you in the mood:

What helped you get back to work when you were searching?

What big changes did you face after leaving your job? How did you handle them?

What did changing jobs teach you about your career?

What new routine are you adjusting to right now?

Comment below and join the conversation...

All the best for now,

Paul

Managing Career Change II

If you stopped by last October, you might recall reading about Prem.

Prem wanted to break into a new industry but he was finding it difficult. He was battling the perception that his experiences had no relevance outside his old work.

✪ Could Prem change these perceptions?

✪ Could he prove his experiences were valid in this new field?

✪ Could he get anyone to give him a break?

When Prem and I first spoke, he was already feeling like his choices were running out. To give us both the lift we needed, first we focused on the good news: at least Prem had choices!

We followed this up by establishing a shared belief in the fact that Prem's choices were actually the biggest single factor influencing his career success. Prem's intention to move his career into a new industry was his choice and his chief motivating factor after all.

[Louvre Voyeur - - see more at Saundra's Flickr Photostream here]

Managing Your Career

✪ Are you in a situation like Prem?

✪ Have you successfully switched from one industry to another?

✪ How did you get your big career break?

✪ What does managing our careers give us in common?

Comment is welcome & free!

All the best for now,

Paul

Related posts:

✪ Prem's story: Short & Long-term career planning

✪ Managing career change

✪ Career choice

Bruce Dickinson Teaches Personal Career Success

Bruce Dickinson has an interesting CV. He is probably best known as the lead singer of Iron Maiden. Later in his career he became a commercial airline pilot. Bruce’s career is full of achievement to the outside observer but Bruce Dickinson’s career is also highly successful from a modern career management perspective and that is why it is interesting to us here.

No-one else created a career path for Bruce Dickinson. It is unlikely that Bruce’s parents (careers teachers or any other advisors/mentors) mapped him out a dual career in music and piloting commercial jets.

Little Bruce (and Bigger Bruce as he got older) wasn’t following anyone else's notion of success as he made important decisions throughout his career.

'Heavy-metal-rock-star-to-commercial-airline-pilot' is the change in Bruce’s career that is most interesting and revealing to any of us making career decisions of our own.

If he wanted to make changes, Bruce (older, wiser and richer) could have done almost anything he wanted for the rest of his career. But with almost unlimited choice in front of him, Bruce chose to train as a commercial airline pilot. He chose this long, expensive, rigourous and technically demanding path because it was the change in career direction that best described personal success for him. For Bruce, no other career had the same potential for reward, fulfilment and satisfaction.

Bruce Dickinson’s example may seem an odd choice for a career case study. Isn’t it all too easy for millionaires to change careers on a whim? Regardless of risk or cost or time?

This may be true but Bruce’s career is relevant because you do not need money to follow his example and use your own choices to define career success more personally.

We could speculate about what was behind the decisions Bruce made but it is probably more productive for each of us to learn from his example and try to define personal career success through the choices we make. At important moments our individual values, talents and goals [often mentioned previously on this blog] can guide us along the way.

For the record, I am not an Iron Maiden fan, nor am I connected to the airline industry but - after learning about his example recently - I am a fan of Bruce Dickinson’s career decision-making and his shining example of defining personal success.

My hope is that Bruce's example is one that translates well to the career choices you might be facing now or may face at some time in the future. As always, I will only find out if you let me know what you think via email or comment!

Best Regards

Paul

Ash's story - Career Decision Success!

It seems like ages ago but Ash's story was one of the first case studies on this blog. This story was one of deliberate career change because it was driven by the choice Ash made to continue his entrepreneurial career even though a big corporate role was offered to him.

Career change can be forced upon us (redundancies are a good example of this) but there are also times when we have a clear choice to make. For much of his career Ash had worked towards the big corporate leadership role he was offered last year. Despite this and despite the more uncertain future he chose to continue, Ash knew that his small, start-up venture presented him with challenges, excitement and opportunity that couldn't be matched anywhere else. Not even in a job that a few years ago he even dreamt about having!

So what of the update? Well, Ash's business has made great headway since we last saw him on this blog and his future is looking brighter than ever. My explanation for this is Ash's career choices have aligned with his values, talents and goals, allowing an improved definition of personal success. Ash puts it down to his industry expertise, creativity, hard work and a lot of luck.

At a push the two of us are happy to agree that in this case we are both right!

Judging career success

When you talk to people about their careers, they may speak in general terms at first but conversations can quickly become deeper and replies get more personal and more meaningful as a result. The next time you are talking about your career or making career decisions, it might help to think about some of the following sentiments.

“My career is ideal for anyone who values their time.”
“I want to end my career with a bang!”
“Freelance work pays the bills but it’s not what I want for the rest of my career.”
“Companies are interested in my experience but I’m no longer enthusiastic about work and it shows.”
“I need a job right now but I don’t want to take anything that will damage my career prospects in the future.”
“It won’t make me rich but I have never been happier at work.”

Looking back on our careers to see how satisfied we are with our achievements, I would argue that the judgement that carries the most meaning is the one we make privately. Traditionally, this was a judgement most people made later in life or on retirement. Today, changes in employer/employee relationships have encouraged a greater number of individuals to take responsibility for their choices at an earlier stage in their careers.

As in the past, we can wait to judge the relative success of our careers when we look back on our achievements later in life. Alternatively, we can look to ourselves earlier in our careers to establish and confirm a personal definition of success and its greater potential for satisfaction and fulfilment over time.

It takes genuine bravery to admit that you don’t know what you want to happen next in your career. The reward for doing so - the only sure-thing if you prefer - is that from the moment you place yourself in this position, you begin to learn invaluable lessons about your career and your individual definition personal success.

Career advantages you already possess

Among other things career related, this blog attempts to support careers and job searches with planning that is mindful of short and long-term objectives. When I am asked why this is a preferable approach I like to use examples of how and why this has worked for people in the past.

It can also be useful to compare job search and career management activity to something an individual knows well. For example, if you are a project manager you should be used to resolving varied and complex missions into their component tasks and objectives. Similarly, professional researchers often have an advantage because changes in direction and discoveries made ‘along the way’ are familiar to research and job search.

No two careers are identical so finding a universal comparison for managing careers is no easy task. What is true for all of us however, is that we can influence the direction of our career and that our influence is boosted when it calls upon the personal and professional assets we already possess.

We aren’t all hot-shot project managers or go-getting researchers but we can use the skills and experiences we have earned so far, apply them to the benefit of our careers and build our own definition of personal success.

In career choice, less always means more

Kicking off a job search can be a daunting task because it is often the time when the greatest variety of career choice seems open to us.

The mission for those of us who have been in this position - and for those of us who are facing it now - is not only to narrow our range of career choices but to complete this narrowing process without damaging our longer-term career prospects. In other words, the aim is to define career choices with the greatest potential for satisfaction and fulfilment over time.

Traditional job search advice supports us with tried and tested tactical wisdom. We receive advice on answering interview questions, preparing our CV/resume, using the Internet in our search as well as the wide variety of recruitment services available to us on and off-line. This advice is all very helpful and many of us can point to past successes thanks to support, hints, and tips of this nature.

But, tactical job search advice finds it harder to answer questions like, What should I do with my career from here? What work does my experience qualify me for? What career or job will I find most rewarding? Where can my career go after redundancy? as well as old interview favourites such as, What will I be doing in 5 years time?

Until recently, questions like these were up to the individual to answer as best as they can.

The good news is, career management that looks to provide individuals with the ability to answer these questions is now much more accessible. As an example, the decision support and case studies on this blog talk regularly about defining personal success through understanding an individual’s values, talents and goals.

As this definition of personal success emerges, career choices begin to define themselves more clearly at the same time. The overwhelming variety of career-choice at the start of your job search can be narrowed and all without the harmful, narrowing effect on opportunity. Perhaps more importantly though, the potential for your career and your relationship with work to deliver satisfaction and fulfilment over time is directly increased as a result because the choices you make today are made in context with the preferred direction you are defining for your future.

As always, you comments and questions are welcomed on this subject or anything else career related. Enjoy your weekend wherever you are!

Best Regards

Paul

You’re way ahead, you just don’t know it yet...

What would you say to someone managing their job search right now but feeling like the odds are against them? First you might say that a job search is one of the most complex, tiring and all-encompassing projects that anyone can manage.

The most complex project is arguably the overall management of your career. Even the most dedicated and skilful project managers will have few tasks of an equivalent magnitude. What else calls on them - or us for that matter - to span 30+ years and deal with such a huge range of inputs and variables: human, analytical, technical and emotional for instance. So, to recap on the first point, managing your job search is no easy task.

The second point is even more easy to overlook because it is the notion that wherever you are in your career and your search, if you are attempting to manage this process, you are already way ahead of where you think you are. But, most of us don’t feel this when we are searching, so how can it be true?

It is true because career change is not something most individuals make a conscious effort to manage. When managing a job search, many of us convince ourselves that each additional day we are searching loses us more ground. That inside or outside of work, we are falling back farther and farther. That the longer our search takes us, the harder we will have to work to catch up or get back to where we were.

The reality of our situation is often the opposite because - to effectively manage our job search - we as individuals are already sitting on information that can assist us with our career decision-making. This essential career-management information can be identified and interpreted via our individual values, talents and goals and their ability to define the version of work/life success that is personal to us and to us alone.

If you are managing your job search right now, you can be sure that you are not the only one finding it difficult. You can also be sure that you are way ahead of where you thought you were. Not only in terms of managing your career opportunities and decision-making [in support of your immediate ‘back-to-work’ priorities] but also in support of an effort that defines your individual version of personal success and the greater potential for satisfaction and fulfilment that this holds.

Self-leadership and belief

Belief can be created in other people but only after you have belief in yourself. Belief in oneself can be misplaced but it can also be identified, qualified and rightfully earned. In the context of career management, self-belief [properly identified, qualified and earned] can help with progress towards personal success and the greater potential for fulfilment and satisfaction this holds.

Belief that contributes to self-leadership can be created when our values (what is important to us), talents (what we are good at) and goals (what keeps us going) are supported both internally and externally. When this is the case, belief can function as a tangible asset to an individual’s confidence in career decision-making situations, enabling career opportunities to be managed more effectively.

Belief that supports decision-making is an essential component of successful career management. It can help individuals to overcome obstacles, deal with rejection, learn from their mistakes and defend their choices, among other things. With beliefs linked to our values, talents and goals, self-leadership and the ultimate career aim of personal success can be present alongside our immediate priorities in the career choices and opportunity situations we encounter every day.

Norris's story: Redundancy/Layoff in a Team

"I was part of a small, close-knit team who faced redundancy together. In my case this didn't mean all of us were made redundant, it meant that the four of us who worked alongside each other every day were put in a room, told that two were being cut and that we should decide between us who stays and who goes. It's hard to describe how that felt at the time. We knew that two of us would be going but worse in a way was knowing that the two who stayed would do so at the expense of their buddies."

Survivor guilt is usually associated with events more traumatic than redundancy but survivor guilt in some form is at work in the above example. Redundancies affect people directly and indirectly and it is not always so easy to decide who comes off worse. Those who remain as employees don't automatically avoid the negative affects of redundancy or layoff.

In Norris's example this redundancy process didn't offer satisfactory support to those on either side. Much worse though was the way those managing the process tried to absolve themselves from the critical decision of who stays and who goes. That decision was left for the subjects to decide between themselves. Norris's story will be continued on this blog because it is an interesting case study of a poorly managed redundancy process and the improvements that interventions offer today can be highlighted as a result.

In the meantime - without giving away the ending - it is enough to say that all four individuals involved in this story can look back on the experience from an improved position today. Underlining the fact that even poorly managed redundancy processes can have little in the way of long-term, negative effects.

More about redundancy and layoff

Redundancies - or layoffs as they are called in the US - are becoming a more popular topic. In the US and the UK, Google searches for "Redundancies" and "Layoffs" have tripled in the last 12 months alone. This recent post on the BBC News website - Employers predict redundancy rise - is another example of what the UK employment market expects.

Redundancies/Layoffs have been the subject of a number of posts on this blog since it began. These posts have focused on individual experiences [Alex's story], personal opinion [Redundancy - A personal view] and traditional versus innovative business responses [Challenging the outplacement response to redundancy].

Posts on this blog have highlighted the positive outcomes of redundancy/layoff and the opportunities individuals have created in such situations. They have also tried to highlight the potential that is still resident for employers when redundancy/layoff situations are managed well and approached from a broader perspective. The aim here was not to ignore the hardship that can surround redundancy/layoff when it happens. Recovering from layoff or redundancy can be difficult and support in one form or another is often required. But, despite the difficulties redundancy has traditionally created, there are still opportunities and the individual stories of career development and job satisfaction that began with a layoff are testimony to that.

In the coming months the aim is to add more redundancy success stories - both individual and organisational - for you to read here. Where possible these stories will be told by people in their own words and there will be the opportunity for Q&A via comment too.

If you have a comment, a story or a question on the subject of redundancies/layoffs, please email it to worklifefusion[at]googlemail[dot]com. No story will be used without prior consent and any published posts guarantee the anonymity of all involved.

Prem's story: Short & Long-term career planning

Here is a quick story from Prem about a career planning strategy that needed to answer immediate priorities but at the same time ensure that progress was being made towards a longer term objective.

Prem wanted to break into a new career but found it difficult and kept being rejected. Looking back at his initial job search activity with hindsight, it was clear that Prem was putting his new career objective ahead of what the job market saw him as qualified to do. There was a whole section of the market that was being ignored by this 'destination first' career advice he had been following.

Prem realised that a better plan of attack was to work with the market and target the jobs and companies that were interested in him but make it clear to them he had plans to develop in a certain direction. Finding a new employer who would support him in this aim was no simple task but - with his existing market qualifications and personal commitment to a career development plan that could benefit his new employer as well - it became a challenge that he was qualified and equipped to meet immediately.

The good news is that Prem is out there in the job market at the moment and the tide is already turning in his favour. Prem's story - even though it is told anonymously here - should be an inspiration to anyone looking to manage and develop their career in the short and long-term future. Good luck as your search continues Prem!

___________________________________________________

work/life fusion now shares reciprocal links with JibberJobber.com. Not only is JibberJobber a great blog about managing your career and job search activity, it is also a tool that actively helps you to do the same. This recent blog post - DO NOT Lose Faith In Yourself - talks about managing your job search through challenging times and shares interesting direct experiences too!

Boulos's story: Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is tricky to understand. The earlier Job satisfaction post on this blog looks at the difficulty analysing it, how it can be disguised and - for those lucky enough to find it - how uplifting it can be.

Here is another brief, first-person account, this time on the subject of seeking and finding job satisfaction.

Boulos says, "I did find some job satisfaction in my previous career. I won promotions, got increases in pay and went on interesting assignments but there were also negative aspects that weren't being addressed. The work that interested me most kept pulling me away from what my employer wanted for me. In the end, this wasn't something that titles, money and travel could distract me from. I ended up taking a big risk to further my studies and turn the direction of my career towards the work I wanted the most."

Boulos goes on to say, "I wouldn't advise anyone to do what I did. I was lucky to have a boss who supported me and I now know the same can be achieved without putting so much at risk. Start with the work that interests you most and talk to as many people as you can about it, friends, family, colleagues, anyone. In the end you'll find partners who will help you along the way and make sure the steps you take are supported."

Boulos's story could be described as an attempt to define personal success. Boulos hung in for the work he wanted because the alternative was one that ultimately didn't satisfy. His progress could have been made easier with an earlier focus on his values, talents and goals - which could have helped him define his route and partnerships more clearly. But - and it is a worthy but - his conclusions on finding the right partners and his success in achieving the job satisfaction he sought will find no challenge here.

Managing career change

Career change comes with unique challenges but a great deal of lasting importance can be learned about our individual relationship with work when change is chosen or forced upon us. Moments of career change can also be the best time to apply career learning based on our hard-won, personal experiences.

Individuals who deal with career change well are able to do so because they understand their current situation as well as their preferred direction for the future. These best-in-class 'Opportunity Managers' understand the pros and cons of their current job, how it might be improved and where they would like it to take them.

When new opportunities come along, their relative merits can be assessed in the same context, allowing critical questions to be answered faster and with greater relevance. Questions like, How is this new job an improvement? How does it affect my current commitments? What additional experiences will I gain? How will it help my long-term objectives move forward?

With a clearer understanding of what is important to you, what you are good at and what you want more of in the future, career change can be managed within the context of personal success. For anyone new to this blog, personal success is the version of success that you define through your values, talents and goals.

Acquiring this knowledge, applying it to your current situation and referring to it in your ongoing career decision making, enables career change to be managed - along best-in-class lines - with your preferences in mind.

_________________________________________________________

Email or comment with your career change scenarios, questions or success stories to help the debate move forward. My thanks to everyone for reading, Paul.

Career Decision Making: The longer term view

In any decision making there are always essential, short-term priorities to be considered. For long-term plans to be successful, they must be able to interpret and adjust to everyday events. If they fail to do this, decision making begins to lose its relevance or, worse still, the long term plan becomes obsolete. Career decision making is a good example of planning that needs to be alive to the moment but also mindful of longer term aims.

For instance, you might be offered a promotion but you had planned on retiring in a few years time. Flexing your retirement plan to accept the promotion might be the decision that serves you best before and after you retire. Without the ability for your long-term plan to change, taking the promotion is out of the question and all of its positive effects are placed out of reach.

Good career planning should move us closer to what we want in the future by enabling better decision making in the present. A clearer understanding of our values, talents and goals can move us closer to personal success, one decision at a time.