What’s the best career advice you’ve ever had?

Please do comment below on the best career advice you've ever had. My friend Mark and I have a side hustle that involves speaking to people about changing careers and I wanted to share my notes, suggestions I give, the questions I ask, and to invite comments as I’m sure I can improve my advice and do a better job referring people / helping them network / plan for their next step(s). (Our side hustle involves helping those looking to leave government, civil or military service to plan and execute their first startup long before they quit their day job).?

Quotes?

In preparation for writing this I asked friends for advice and got the following, some of which feel pretty stark but perhaps worth considering. Even if you’re not thinking about this topic maybe it’s worth taking a moment now and then:?

• The only person who is going to look after your career is you (this isn’t my personal experience, I’ve had excellent managers who have become lifelong friends)
• “You never work for anyone, only work with them” or “You work for you, team of one, and you are the only stakeholder in your career. Too many people fall in love with organisations, and organisations don’t love you back”?
• If you think of the Venn diagram of what you’re good at and what you enjoy you want to figure out what you can do at the intersection of those two?

Motivation?

Are you clear on why you want to move? The typical list includes: promotion, salary, benefits, learning, new challenge, new market, etc. Digging deeper reveals reasons less comfortable to acknowledge: being undervalued/passed over, unlikeable or bad managers, or a scenario where you don't like a big decision your employer took. Whether you’re open about these reasons with anyone else doesn’t matter but just make sure you're clear on what you’re seeking to solve by changing career. If you’re looking to leave a good role only because your ego feels slighted, talk to friends or consider confiding in a therapist, as you may be in the same position again in the new role.?

If you’re in government, military, civil service, or even are a life-time academic, let me tell you that no longer having the same sense of mission in your life can be a major thing. A friend describes these types of organizations as: great scaffolds, where time, achievements, and personal growth all weave, constructing a ‘You Are Here’ on your career map. And so leaving also means leaving the scaffold inherent to these organizations. As such, be sure to identify what you need for your future career, based on what helped you flourish within your current organisation. Some find it liberating leaving gov/military as there may have been aspects of their lives they felt had to be deprioritised. I personally missed the sense of mission and started volunteering with gov again after leaving and intend to return to full time service later in my career. I think if we can make it easier for there to be pathways that mix public and private experience we’ll find both sides benefit.?

Goals?

What is this career change going to do for you? You want to change sector, market, role, grade, salary, you want more responsibilities, or other perks like flexibility, WFH, flexi time. No matter the reason, be clear on what is good about what you’re doing now, what is missing, what needs to be true for the new thing to tick all your boxes. If there is no? hurry, take all the time you need and get it right. Otherwise you may find yourself repeating the process in quick succession.

Is the next hop the final destination or another step along the way? Does it get you where you need to go? Can you skip any steps / cheat somehow? Is the longer path - one where you moonlight for time, straddling both your new and your previous career paths - worth taking? Sometimes the goals are entirely unclear. Here, again,? a therapist, mentor or good friend can help you define motivation and goals.?

These decisions often affect more than just ourselves, so when factoring in loved ones and other commitments, consider discussing your feelings and plans frankly with others. Whether you want to go this far or not some advice I’ve had here is the concept of having a ‘personal Board of Directors’ - where one directly manages future career moves with insight and input from select colleagues, professionals, friends who are respected and trusted advisors, in an informal but direct way to strategically carve their new career - can be adopted.?

Am I Institutionalised???

This one is mostly for the former gov / civil / military servants. When I think back to my own major career moments like leaving the civil service it’s hard to remember what I didn’t know. I’m pretty sure I had no idea what a private sector version of my role was, I don’t think I had any idea what the going rate would be for my time, and I didn’t really understand value. Research and networking are your friends here. You’re probably going to start by thinking ‘how do I find a slightly better version of what I am doing now?’?

Something to consider is how to transition. Will you evolve your career by moving diagonally (e.g. a similar title/rank in a sector adjacent to your current), or are you keen to do a full career pivot and fully embrace a new area / sector / challenge. On this choice, you have time. Moreover, when reflecting on past roles to decide for your future, personally I’d say even roles you may think were mistakes will all have been learning opportunities. (Leaving gov/mil is a big topic and I’d be happy to write more another time if of interest).?

Research

Of course use all the usual tools to help expand your horizons (Google, YouTube, podcasts, reddit). I love ChatGPT and everything I think about regarding work, hobbies, personal health -? I’ll ask ChatGPT about it, which then leads to some googling and me learning something / changing my point of view. Here are some prompts to try:

• Can you help me think about changing careers?
• How might I learn about a sector where I don't know anyone??
• How can I network from home if I have a busy life??
• Can you help me prepare my CV?
• Can you help me prepare for an interview??

Networking?

Why network? You’re going to find that speaking to people gives you the information you want and things you haven’t asked for. It's only by speaking to people that you can break down barriers and get into the whole ‘but what’s it really like day to day?’ It’s obvious but give some thought when planning your network to who would speak to you and why. There’s nothing better in my opinion than a warm, qualified intro from a friend / mentor / colleague to someone relevant. Ideally you’ve helped your friend craft the pitch to their friend. Even better if you’ve written it and they’ve pasted it into a message to send and cc you or forwarded your message. You’ve saved them the time, they feel in control, they get to feel good being helpful with minimal effort.?

The power of having a network is sharing it - networks improve with good intros. It’s only when you start talking about who you’re interested in speaking with that you’ll start to get offers from people you hadn’t realised had good connections. Before you know it you’ll be confidently networking in the margins of family events. Who should I be speaking with? I’d tend to divide the world into the five stakeholders Dr.Phil Budden talks about in this paper (government, corporations, universities, investors, entrepreneurs). The way you segment the world may be more focused on breaking down any one of these five into markets, or competitors, or whatever. I’d recommend having some conversations with a wide range of people while focusing the majority of your energy on where you think you want to go, if you have an idea.?

Play to your strengths: I’m an introvert. I hate networking events, I don’t know what my ‘personal pitch’ is, I have no small talk, I don’t want to be rude but once I’ve met someone and can’t work out any area of mutual interest I feel I should be taking advantage of the available networking time to meet as many people as possible. Awful. Some people thrive in this environment. Consider finding a few of those and asking for their highlights after an event. Personally I’d stick to deliberate networking rather than chance encounters or maybe 90% deliberate, 10% open to good randomness. (Networking is another big topic where I could go on and on, I’ll stop here but happy to write more).?

Your Profile

Given at the time of writing I have a silly AI generated art profile photo I clearly am not someone to listen to on the topic of your public profile but with that said when you’re networking and being considered for roles we have to talk about the fact that people are going to check you out. So what can people find out about you and can you curate the best of what’s out there to save them time / show off your best? In my day to day I’ll maybe read someone’s LinkedIn profile a few seconds before hopping on a call with them. Longer if it’s a first meeting with someone. LinkedIn mutual connections give a bit of a gist as to where worlds may overlap. If I’m hiring I’m going to spend much longer looking at someone’s online presence and CV. I personally wouldn’t write too much on LinkedIn regarding the detail of my work. Instead I’d want enough to show my experience and the detail is for the CV / interview. References on your profile are cool; I look to see the ratio of references given vs received.

My friend Ollie Whitehouse (soon to be CTO at the NCSC) manages his profile online really well, he has a personal website, a subreddit which he moderates and a substack where he publishes a weekly digest from his subreddit. Other friends run podcasts like Suzanne Raine with ‘On Geopolitics’. Or Steve Blank - who advises the consultancy I work for (BMNT) - who collates his articles, books and other resources into one place.? These are strong examples where professionals have?created or own a corner of dialogue around a topic, allowing them to build authority of their voice in the field. Doing so not only helps your career passively generate inbound interest, but may be a welcome alternative to? the active approach of it always being you reaching out. Conversely, if you have a billion followers on social media, a hiring team may wonder how much of your day you’re able to focus on what they need (caveat: these days perhaps you’re hired to use your audience for their benefit, I have no idea how the influencer world works). Final comment is: I know successful people who don’t spend any time on this stuff, so it is optional, but I think for most of us mortals we have to play this game to some degree.?

Upskilling

Somewhere along the way you may have fallen in love with a career that you feel you’re unprepared for. You could be looking to make a few job hops as lily-pads to your desired role, or consider using opportunities within your current role and spare time to upskill / train / get some extra education. You may have no opportunities to be responsible for anything within your role but have capacity to do something outside of work - can you create/find a volunteer opportunity that helps fill your skills gap? I am hugely biased, but as I would like to see more people involved in innovation, science, tech, STEM etc. I’d encourage everyone to consider learning to code (there are some great bootcamps: School of Code, Code First Girls).?

Alternatively, if you’d like experience in leadership, business plans, P&L, cash flow, sales, marketing we’re back to networking into opportunities which may be voluntary, or creating the opportunity for yourself. As an example, my mum started a ‘toy library’ shortly after I was born. We didn’t have loads of money for toys, and my mum welcomed contact with other parents, so utilizing this network, she created the opportunity to share and trade toys between parents, giving her incredibly useful experience that she wasn’t getting in her job otherwise.

Finding vs. Creating The Ideal Role?

You’re in dialogue with people in the industry that interests you. Or speaking to headhunters or people with roles that tick all your boxes. They may or may not have something open right now. What are you doing to help them create that role for you? Some job seekers can be passive. Not everyone is waiting to create a role. Large corporations can be very structured in how they create and resource roles, startups less so, but all reserve the right to be flexible when talent crosses their path. You create your own luck.?

CV Writing and Interviews?

You’ve found or created the role and now it’s time to formally apply. You wonder how to translate your recent experience into something you think the hiring team wants to see. These are two big topics with much written on them, so I’ll just make a couple of quick observations. On CVs: I’d love to know where the tech is on this today. Are we still writing covering letters? Who is reading these letters if they are still required? How are the ChatGPTs (and other LLMs) doing at saving us from this pain? On interviews: You’ll find plenty of good advice about them but my two cents is I’m personally interested in the story, the “so what?”, the learnings, and can you use this interaction to assess whether there is a good fit for you and the target organization? Be curious.?

Negotiation

It isn’t just about salary but that does matter. Having things in writing matters. Having multiple offers puts you in a good position. Be polite but know what you want. Don’t waste time. Don't give up any information that you don't need to, e.g. why tell someone your current salary before they’ve made an offer? Instead, get advice from friends or online communities as it’s always good to have opinions from a multitude of viewpoints. And remember to evaluate the whole package, e.g. people leaving the civil service might not know how valuable their pension arrangements are, or how much they rely on flexi time. Ensure you understand the risk & opportunity behind corporate perks (e.g. options). Get a feel of the culture of the organisation you are joining, can you see yourself fitting in over the longer term?

Risks

Things are pretty different to when I started my career. Back then I was told to be concerned about changing jobs too often and the signal this may have sent. I don’t know how much that’s a thing these days. Software is eating the world: I have no idea what jobs will be changed by technology in the coming years but it feels like the rate of change isn’t slowing down any time soon. I don’t know if entire traditional professions (law, medicine) might be partially or totally disrupted by technology in our lifetimes. I don’t know how to predict the future but I’d just suggested being mindful that the workplace increasingly feels like our melting icebergs and entire chunks that seemed safe might dislodge overnight. Therefore, the only thing we can expect is change, so the network tools and techniques you develop as a job hunter will need to stay up to date as the market changes around us.?

Be Your Own Boss?

Why not do your own startup and be your own boss? The worst case is it doesn’t work out and your CV now has experience in everything involved in founding a business (hiring, firing, growing a team, writing and executing a business plan, budgets, raising funding etc.). If this is of interest and you’re a government / civil / military servant that's looking to plan ahead, then my side hustle may be for you, but we’ll also direct you to other programmes that are excellent. I hope to return to full time government service at some point and I’d hope the same for those who leave government to found a startup that one day they’ll return post IPO or exit.?

What’s the best career advice you’ve ever had??

I speak to people about this topic all the time. I’d like to make sure I’m giving good advice. I’ll like to feel confident to refer people to this article before we schedule a chat. I’d love to see comments and opinions below, ideally a wide range of practical steps a job seeker can take, disagreement with anything I’ve written, alternative views, all very welcome

With thanks for input from: Suzanne Raine David Balson William Dixon Rob Leworthy Ollie Whitehouse Sabra Horne Giorgia Tomasello Matthew Long Graham Clarke MBE Ben Moores Peter M. Omar Daniel Rupert Shute Luca Leone Dr Tobias Stone Catherine Day Ben Whitby Jens Holzapfel James Kuht MBE Eric Slesinger Angus Hay Sophie H and special thanks to Cvic Innocent for both contributing and editing