Career Stories Live with Sarah

Career Stories Live!

I launched a new LinkedIn Live series at the end of 2022 called Career Stories.

I've always been fascinated by what people do and the journeys they go through during their career.

So far I've talked to 8 people about their career stories.

I want to thank the people who have been on (and to those booked up for the coming months) for their honesty about the highs and lows of their careers, and for giving excellent advice to people watching. I've got so much material that I'll be repurposing in some way in the future.

It's been even more interesting than I expected because how often is it really that you get to sit down and talk to someone about what they've done in their careers? I've got to know more about these people than I ever expected.

What have I taken away from it so far?

There have been a few things that have really struck me whilst talking to people and reflecting afterwards:

• All of my guests have a strong sense of their personal values, and talk about how they think about them when choosing a future employer or clients to work with. For some, it wasn't obvious to them that they consciously thought about their values, but after discussing them with me they realised that it was a consideration.
• Nobody I spoke to is where they thought they'd be in their careers - everybody has pivoted in some way at some point.
• Everyone seems really happy either with where they are or their plan to get to where they want to be.

All the links to the sessions I've run so far are listed below (underneath who is coming up) with a bit of an overview of each person and their career:

Coming up!

Here's who is coming between now and mid May (who knew this would be so popular!):

• Thursday 9 Feb at 1pm GMT - Trevor Merriden ????? will be joining me to talk about how he could have been a yen trader, a scuba dive instructor and an editor in a national sports newspaper. He says "I could have ended up anywhere, though I'm very happy to have ended up here ;)"
• Thursday 16 Feb at 1pm GMT - Amanda Kirby who has had an excellent and varied career in IT across a number of different sectors. She says "Currently working on Digital Transformation for Thames Water but I've had a varied career in IT started from a temp job at 18 matching invoices! I'm a massive advocate for leadership and personal development and strongly believe that company transformations (which are essential) is more about culture and people that IT systems." I first met Amanda about 17 years ago and her networking skills amazed me right from the start.
• Thursday 23 Feb at 1pm GMT - Craig Allan (The Black Knight?) from an apprenticeship to a police officer, martial arts fighter for Scotland, nightclub doorman, private healthcare, into the IT sector and then setting up a consultancy business. SO much to talk about, as well as Craig being called #NatureNerd
• Thursday 2 March at 1pm GMT - Charlotte Watchorn will be talking to me about working her way up the pharmaceutical industry from a graduate programme to UK General Manager. There are so many interesting switches between functional areas including sales, marketing, learning and development, change management and so much more. We may well touch on her MBA and our shared love(?) of marathons.
• Friday 3 March at 7am GMT - Karen Tisdell a bonus edition! Very excited as Karen is based in Australia, so finding a time that works is tough. We've exchanged loads of messages so I'm pleased to be able to actually speak to Karen about her career which includes copywriting, training, recruiting, LinkedIn consultancy, lecturing and much more. Karen specialises in LinkedIn Profile Writing and is a LinkedIn Top Voice.
• Thursday 9 March at 1pm GMT - special edition live from Bristol. Not sure on the format yet, but I'll be at an event organised by John Espirian and so will be live chatting to hopefully a few people about what they do.
• Thursday 16 March at 1pm GMT - Kevin D. Turner will be joining me to talk about his career ranging from marketing, business development, public speaking and being a CEO. Experience gained across a whole host of sectors and is the go to person for finding out about new features on LinkedIn. Follow Kevin and his hashtag #KeepRockingLinkedin to be in the know with what's new and why it matters.
• Thursday 23 March at 1pm GMT - Melanie Seymour - we met in 1995 working at Prudential when Melanie came in as a contractor. Now Head of Global Client Service at BlackRock as well as Vice President of Women in Banking and Finance. The best supporter I know of so many causes - just check out her posts to see almost every one of them is talking about something that will help others. Seriously, go and scroll through her posts right now. We will talk about her time in Budapest, her career story and how she supports so many causes. I really don't know how she has time to talk to me for the session!
• Thursday 30 March at 1pm BST - Niraj Kapur - Everybody Works In Sales is both the company name and what Niraj talks about. We will talk about how he coaches people and supports businesses in their sales strategies and techniques, his books, his drum playing in a rock band how he became a TedX speaker and a LinkedIn Top Voice. I'll be hosting a book club talking about his latest book - Business Growth - Lessons learned from divorce, dating and falling in love again on 14 March at 1pm.
• Thursday 6 April at 1pm BST - Nicky Smith - very much looking forward to chatting to Nicky about her switches from a corporate career in clinical research into the education sector and then charity. We will talk about how she is passionate about engaging, training, motivating and empowering people, problem solving and finding collaborative solutions. Great values to have, and to be able to hear about in practice in such different sectors. This will be great for people looking to transfer their skills into something new.
• Thursday 20 April at 1pm BST - Daniel Chan MBE - I met Dan when he ran the Paddleboard coaching course I arranged last year. He's an awesome coach. Aside from that, he's a Director at PWC, he's Chair of a number of Charities, Charity Trustee, School Governor, he's a coach of pretty much all the water sports you can think of, a pilot and marathon runner (we caught up in New York last year when we both ran the marathon there). Again, not sure how he's found the time to fit this session in, but very glad he has!
• Thursday 11 May at 1pm BST - Rebecca Stobbs - we met last year when Rebecca booked me as a guest lecturer for the Newcastle University Business School Alumni event to talk about using LinkedIn to develop your career. We've chatted lots about running and other outdoors stuff and it was great to meet her in real life at the coolest venue I've presented at! Rebecca is An Alumni Relations Manager, which sits within the professional services portfolio at Newcastle University. The role is engagement focussed and requires the creation of mutually beneficial opportunities for both graduates and the Business School. Previous worked in fund raising for the third sector, so another great pivot to talk about. I'd imagine there will be lots of general tips for new graduates in this session.
• Thursday 18th May at 1pm BST - John Espirian - Relentlessly helpful LinkedIn nerd. Espresso+ community leader. Author of Content DNA. Trainer of LinkedIn trainers. Not a douche canoe. What more can I say? John is such a great person to get to know, he's so helpful and knowledgable - looking forward to meeting him IRL in a few weeks. He started his work in quality assurance and UAT, has been a very successful copywriter and is now a LinkedIn Consultant and Community Leader.

Here's who has already been on:

Brenda Meller?? talked about moving from a corporate marketing career into a self employed coach and consultant - her tagline is helping people a bigger piece of the LinkedIn pie. She shares excellent advice in this video on getting into marketing, and also on how to choose which clients to work with once you've got your own business.

John Finnegan has recently started a new role as a Manager in Supply Chain Strategy and Operations. He talked to me about his career which covers acting, writing books, supply chain management and much more, as well as his sabbatical and what he did in that period.

Celia Thatcher was a headteacher and made the seemingly unlikely switch into cybersecurity sales. She talks about how important her values are to her, and the importance of a network (and in this case that meant her circle of friends). Her new boss chimed in on the chat and talked about how great Celia is!

James Baggott is looking for a PhD position focusing on neurodiversity (lots more detail in the video). He is super smart and has so much to share based on his own experience and what he's observed working in the education environment supporting both pupils and staff members with his knowledge.

Mark Deeks is #ThatPianoGuy and when I asked him if he'd ever considered anything else as a career it was a flat out no (well apart from a professional footballer anyway). Such an interesting conversation about recording albums, playing gigs in caves and how much he loves and wants to share that love of piano.

Jeff Young - #TheLinkedInGuru - what can I say? Jeff has run hundreds of free LinkedIn sessions for groups. He is so generous with his time and knowledge. He talked about his early career in management consulting and gives some great advice for those wanting to get in and those wanting to get out of that area. We had a highly interactive chat going on talking about different programming languages and teaching in general. You'll learn loads just from reading all the comments!

Annette Richmond ?? talked about how she loves working with her clients on their personal brand. She gave me major cheerleader envy during the chat. Annette spoke about her early jobs in bars, and how that gave her as an introvert the communication skills she's since relied on for her entire career. Also great advice for those wanting to get into magazine writing.

Gillian Whitney and I share a love of water - being close to the sea (ocean!) is a passion we both have. We talked about our other mutual love - books and libraries. We both visit libraries wherever we are in the world. Another fantastic chat was going on during our session with talk about early internet experiences and people sharing their stories. Gillian of course talked about her video marketing business, and generously gave lots of information to people wanting to get into this line of work. She says competition isn't even a thing, there's so much work around and that referrals are the way forward!

Phew. That was a lot. Thanks so much for looking at my newsletter! Keep an eye out on my page on Thursdays at 1pm to see who I'm talking to.

Back next month with the next edition.

Sarah Burgess