When is it time to make a major pivot?
Stephen J A Wright
Financial Services Career Coach helping high performing professionals build careers that better align with their lives, values and ambitions
Everything changes and nothing lasts forever, so at some point in your career, what you’re doing and what you want to do will come to an end. This may be for one of two fundamental reasons. Let’s look at this in a little more detail as we offer you some notions to consider.
In my experience, Financial Services professionals make career pivots for one of two reasons:
Let’s talk about each in turn.
You want to change
As we progress through the various stages of our lives, what we hold as being most important will inevitably change. Our values in the context of life and career will change. What was so important to you once, is no longer so. Other things take their place at the top of your values hierarchy.?
This will make you want to change the way in which you live and, therefore, what is most important to you in your career. So, for example, having been a hard charging, deal-hungry Investment Banker just may no longer interest you. Instead, you want to get fulfilment from charitable and altruistic endeavours.?Family, friends and wellbeing or contribution become your new priorities. Once upon a time, it was bonuses, promotions and recognition for doing a great job that drove you.
There are no rights or wrongs here. It is what it is.
As things shift, you’ll want to change your career and probably your work-life balance and redeploy your focus and energies so that your career and way of life are aligned with your newly established values.?
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For as long as you don’t do this, you’re likely to feel stressed, unhappy and unfulfilled. Could a values misalignment be the source, or at least a contributor to? health and wellness issues at work?
You have to change
For whatever reason, you find yourself out of work or on the way out. There’s no doubt that you have a range of high value skills, and you hope to find a new position quickly. However, it doesn’t happen. Weeks turn into months, and you’re simply not gaining any traction. Something isn’t working. If you have a strong offer of value and you’re communicating it well, then it might be that the market is signalling that there’s simply no demand for you and your skills.
The reason you’re not gaining traction might be because it’s cyclical or due to a seasonal drop in demand. But it might just be that a structural change has happened and there’s no coming back from that.
For example, when I started in Executive Search in the City, there were US Equity Sales desks ten and twelve strong. Japanese equity sales teams were pretty sizeable too. That is simply not the case anymore and hasn’t been for many years. Things change. Those salespeople will have had to make a significant pivot and many will have left the sell side all together.?
So, it might be that despite all your best efforts to get back into a similar or same position that you once held, it’s just not going to happen. Now you have to make a pivot and find another way in which to continue your career.
If you find yourself in this position, consider these ideas:?
I hope you find this useful. If this resonates in any way, let me know if you’d like to have a chat about your job search and career more broadly. You can schedule a 15-minute Introductory Call here .