2 Beliefs To Carry You Through Your Career Transition

In 2022, at the peak of the 'Great Resignation', almost 4 of 5 employees expressed a desire for a job or career shift. Now that is an incredible number!

4 of 5 Indians Are Considering Changing Jobs

Sure the labour market in 2023 looks very different, but what does this number really say? Well to me, it suggests that there is such a large part of the workforce that actually wants to do something else.

Our own experience speaking to some of those who want to move shows that the vast majority of those who would like to move, actually won't. Instead they will stay on in their jobs.

Till they can.

This desire for 'something else'. Or 'yeh dil maange more', comes on the heels of another reality. As organizations re-configure and career ladders get broken, fewer people will have the luxury of a single career path.

The World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2023 suggests a churn of 25-30% over the next few years. Driven by shifts in technology and climate change, career ladders are irrevocably going to be broken.

The Future of Jobs Report, WEF, 2023

This means that being able to build yourself up for your next career, becomes more real than ever.

Second, and Third Careers Will Become Commonplace

In 2017, when I left my last corporate role at Deutsche Bank, I knew I wanted to help leaders and organizations deal with a world that was going to be fundamentally different.

All that Papiya and I have built today was back then just a germ of an idea.

We believed:

The fourth industrial revolution would change the world of work fundamentally. Organizations needed to be structured differently. Leaders needed to lead differently. Professionals needed to up-skill.

It may seem surprising today but just a few years ago these ideas were still novel.

After our talks with leadership teams, we would often be met with disbelief.

Was the world really changing that significantly? Hadn't change always been a part of life? What was different this time round?

Much has happened since then.

Few leaders today argue that what we are witnessing is simply more of what we have experienced in the past. We find ourselves positioned well.

Yet, did we really know this is how things would play out?

The answer is a firm--No.

Knowing any of this would have allowed me far better sleep in those early years.

Often Career Transitions Start Very Wobbly

The early days of any career transition don't feel particularly steady.

This is particularly true when we are not the ones choosing a career transition.

There are so many things that can happen that trigger a job loss.

• Perhaps our organization decided to restructure, and overnight our role simply vanished.
• Perhaps we have observed that we have 'aged out' of the role we were hired for (specially in technology), and are being 'eased out'.
• Perhaps our work is now outsourced to another firm, whom we don't want to join.
• Perhaps our spouse fell very ill and we took time to care for them, only to find ourselves suddenly 'unemployable'.
• Perhaps we have a new boss who doesn't like us very much, and has hinted that we need to look out.
• Perhaps we work in a dying industry and all companies are 'economising'. Perhaps we had a bad mental health year, and simply lost our drive.

Life happens.

Every now and then, we may find ourselves edged out of roles we may have liked to stay on in. Even if we weren't particularly happy. Even if we felt like something important was missing...

For so many of us, the start of a career transition can feel so unsteady.

It comes right when we are feeling our least confident. When our faith in our future can be shaken...

So what do we know about what helps?

It turns out that there are two beliefs that particularly help.

1. The Belief That There Is A Better Tomorrow For Us

Our interviews with people who have made successful career transitions reveals that a few years into it, most people agree that they have never been happier.

"I really never want to go back to a corporate job. I want far more say over what I do".

"I worked for 25 years. When I adopted my son, I knew I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. My new life gives me that flexibility."

"For the first time in my life, I am actually working on things I really like to do."

My own experience mirrors this. I simply love the intellectual freedom I have in my work today. I hope I never have to worry about which ideas to express ever again.

The beauty of choosing a second (or third) career is that this time round we can choose something closer to what really matters to us. And if we don't get it right just at the start, we can try again till we do.

While no career is perfect, there are definitely careers that are more 'right for us' than others. And this is exactly the promise we need to seek.

The belief that this time round, we can get closer to what is right for us.

Successful Career Transitions After Thirty

2. The Belief That We Have Experience That Matters

Did you know that there are two types of people who bring revolutions in any new field? The first are people who are young. They enter a field without being blinded by pre-conceived ideas and are therefore able to challenge existing paradigms to change entire fields.

Now, most of us are maybe not that young.

The second are people who switch fields. That switch allows them to challenge paradigms that exist in one field by bringing in ideas from another.

That Person is You!

If you have worked for a while, you have an idea of how things work, and also how things can work. As you enter a new field you now have the potential to innovate within that new field.

For instance, I bring in skills learnt in my doctoral studies to all that I do. I know how to research, connect dots and write. This is a set of skills I call on all the time.

Second careers allow you to think differently from those who have been in one field all through.

The second part of this is believing in the worth of your skills.

You already have skills that matter.

Now sure, you will have to learn many more. Sometimes, many many more.

But what you already know matters too.

Recognising and acknowledging the skills we already have is not always easy in the early days.

Perhaps, we realise how much we need to learn afresh. (And that is a good thing). yet that may be very true. Yet if you have lived and worked even for a while, there is often so much that you already know how to do.

• Perhaps you are good at reading, writing and researching.
• Perhaps you are good at execution.
• Perhaps you are good at building relationships.
• Perhaps you are a master of a field with deep expertise.
• Perhaps you are great at sales.
• Perhaps you have a strong commercial sense
• Perhaps you have that eye for detail that brings perfection to all that you do.

Playing To Your Strengths

The two beliefs are actually connected.

We know that we do our best in roles that call upon our strengths regularly. We are most satisfied when our work plays to who we naturally are.

Our next career can be more satisfying than the last one because we can be more conscious in crafting our next career.

We can build a career--that is right--just for us.

Even if sometimes the decision to start afresh--was not ours.

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(About me: I lead Unqbe, a think-tank and advisory firm around building future organisations. We track change through commissioned and primary research. We help leadership teams build the new workplace through a culture that supports change and people practices for the future.)