Career and life planning in challenging times

1. Career and life planning in challenging times David Levinson, International Careers Adviser david.levinson@ed.ac.uk

2. 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

3. The skills challenge How on earth did I get here?

4. ‘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

5. Do you know what are you looking for?

6. 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.

7. What do you want? What kinds of knowledgeand 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?

8. Career focused or career blurry? • Why plan at all? • Serendipity or ‘planned happenstance’ (Krumboltz) • Making your own luck • Opening yourself up to possibilities.

9. 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

10. What’s stopping you?

11. 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?

12. What makes people happy at work? A sense of purpose / meaning Friendship / affiliation Autonomy

13. What were you “born” to do?

14. I was born to…. Success for me is…. Complete the following statements:

15. What is success…? It could involve shifting from…… HAVE DO BE to…… BE DO HAVE

16. It could involve shifting from…… Other peoples’ definition of success “ railway tracks” – started so 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…?

17. Life post-MBA Life post-graduation

18. Better to earn money than wait for your ideal job? Move in related steps BUT beware of damaging your CV Pragmatism v Idealism?

19. 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

20. Use your experience …..

21. Or should you jump?

22. 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.

23. Focus on your skills & interests Research what employers want Brief yourself – LinkedIn, Twitter Be realistic about your market value Top Tips

24. 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 timesDo……

25. Change jobs too frequently Fail to demonstrate results Do nothing! Surviving interesting timesDon’t……

26. Finding opportunities 25% advertised vacancies: • Websites, agencies -------------------- 75% not advertised: • Networking, speculative applications, ‘working your way up’

27. Using social media to look for work

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

29. 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

30. Why network? • Personal & professional growth • Become part of a community • Learn and exchange information

31. Networking: What it’s not

32. 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

33. 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!

34. Yourself This is the start of your online brand

36. 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 • …

37. 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??

38. Final thought… what’s your USP?

39. Questions