Do you manage your career?

Don’t worry if your initial reaction to that question is “what do you mean, manage my career?” I know, I know, you have quite enough to manage as it is, right? The scale of complexity and the amount of choice in the modern world demands a lot of managing. Managing your finances, managing relationships, managing your health or the health of loved ones, managing children, managing parents, the list goes on. And now here’s me asking if you manage your career! Well, hear me out at least, please 🙂

Managing your career demands a little time, true, but I feel it's a very worthwhile use of your time. It involves you being (or becoming) aware of what you want to get out of your career and doing some reflection to make sure that your current role is meeting those expectations/needs. That probably doesn’t sound very earth-shattering - you almost certainly did that the last time you got a new job. No, the trick with career management is to keep doing that review all the way through your working life, whether or not you’re changing jobs. The more often you can do it, the better, but there are three absolutely critical points in your working life where taking some time to check-in on your career direction can really pay dividends: First career role, mid-career and considering final career role.

First Career Role

This is typically your first job once you've left full-time education. You may well have had a job or two while studying, to pay the bills or enhance your CV but those jobs are usually taken knowing they are going to be short-term "means to an end" engagements. What we're focussing on here is the job you take because you made a considered determination that this is the right job for you for the foreseeable. Now, many years ago "foreseeable" would have meant "till retirement" as the aim was to get yourself into "a job for life", but no more. These are the days of the portable career and 3-5 years might be the lifetime of this first job. What's important in career management at this stage of your career is to recognise that this job which was as near-to-perfect as you could get when you took it might not still fit so well 3-5 years later.

So, if you're in this first career role stage and it's been 3-5 years since you started, it's time now (if you've not already) to do a review. The critical questions are;

• Do I still want to be getting to where I did, career-wise, when I first took this job? In other words, have your career aims changed over time?

• If the answer is "yes", then ask yourself "is this job still getting me there" and "am I getting there as fast as I want to"

• If the answer is "no", it's time to re-evaluate your career aims.

Once you have those answers you can do a simple gap analysis and consider what steps, if any, you want to take to get you back on track or onto the new track you want. Of course, the answer may be that life is getting in the way and you can't make any changes, or at least not the changes you'd like to make if you had free choice. If that's the case, keep repeating this review every few months to see if things have changed such that you can now make the career adjustments you want to. It may also be that while you can't make one big change, perhaps you can make a series of smaller changes which keep you motivated and moving in the right direction at least.

The outcome of the gap analysis might be that you realise it's time to completely change job, but it might also be that it spurs you on to have some dialogue with your current line manager about topics such as speed of progression, job content, taking on other experiences in your role. Be open to their feedback. It's quite common, especially at this early career stage, that our enthusiasm and energy can leave us wondering why we're not yet CEO. A good line manager can offer detailed and helpful feedback (not to mention a healthy dose of reality!) to help you progress at the best pace for you, your career and the organisation.

Mid-Career

This is the really tricky one. Not least because "mid" career has no single definition - it's largely personal. What's "mid" for you may still be "early" for someone else, or "late" for another.

What we do know is that most careers have a fairly standard "start" point (Early Career, as we've just discussed) of early 20's age-wise. It's the end point which is much less standard now than in years gone by. The concept of fixed retirement at age "X" has pretty much gone in most jobs. Even if you're drawing your pension you might still continue working, out of enjoyment or necessity. So "mid" career tends to be on average between the late 30's to mid 40's and perhaps stretch into late 40's early 50's for some. But it's what you feel it is for you which is important.

Whenever it comes, it's the period of the mid-life crisis, the big "what's it all about" re-evaluation of life, potentially significant changes at home with relationships, offspring, parents.

Or, more dangerously from a career point of view, it's the period of possible stagnation and entering a time-warp. More on that later.

Career-wise, it's very normal to have the "I could have been an astronaut" moments. We all have those. We can quickly rationalise them and settle down again fairly quickly to our real day-to-day lives knowing that yes I could have been, but I'm not and what I have is good enough, thank you. These thoughts might persist though, which is when it's best to not ignore them and think what to do about them. The younger persons' trend of backpacking for a few months has in turn led to an increase in (and employer acceptance of) mid-career sabbaticals. Maternity and paternity can of course also provide a very special type of career break, whether welcomed or not. It's good to see that more and more employers have excellent processes to ensure those who don't want such a career break to de-rail their plans can pick back up as seamlessly as possible. Some people find that making a complete career change works for them, effectively resetting their career stage back to "First Career Role". This is certainly not a decision to be taken lightly as it will almost certainly involve significant reduction in earnings. There are many different ways to re-energise your mid-career.

Mid-Year Qualifications

Then there's mid-career education. Gaining a new qualification can be a great way to create a paradigm shift in your career trajectory, either accelerating you upwards or enabling a sideways move. If you take this route, it's always best to choose a qualification which you have researched and you know will open the doors you want to open and that you have the buy-in from your employer to confirm that.

Far too many times I've seen people opt to take a mid-career simply because "learning anything has got to be good" or because they want the "badge". It's a lot of money to invest - for you or your employer - if it's only going to act as a trophy. However, if you know that your progression to the next role you really want is being hampered by you not having qualification X, then that's the time to seriously consider going for it. Yes, getting back to education later in life isn't easy, it almost certainly means waving good-bye to most of your free time while you're studying, but sometimes that step-change is also what those who start a course at this career point actually want, or need.

It's really important your employer is onboard with your decision. It can yield very unwanted results if you suddenly pitch up in front of your line manager one day brandishing your nice shiny new qualification out of the blue saying "right, where's that pay rise?". Your employer may well feel pressed into a corner and, worst-case, you might have priced yourself out of your job.

A caution here on MBAs in particular. Unless it's from one of the top tier Universities or Business Schools, do check it's going to deliver what you want in your career before embarking on one. They are much more common on CVs these days and as such have lost much of their former ability to open doors like some magic key. Be particularly sure to have your employer onboard and that they see an MBA as a good thing before enrolling.

Mid-Career Stagnation and Time-Warp

Something I come across in coaching far too often: The late career individual who looks back and says "I don't know how I got here" or "last thing I looked, I was 30 and had just got promoted". It's as if they've been in a time-warp, have suddenly woken up and bam! twenty years of their career have been and gone without them realising.

The work routine can become mechanical, comfortable. Even a fierce disliking of the job can become a familiar warm blanket. Perhaps just not even thinking about work, just going through the motions because it's so stressful and that's taking all the energy one can muster just to keep going. Life events taking all the attention, work becoming the distraction which pays the bills.

I characterise all these as career stagnation and it's why I suggest a review every few years to bring work back into the consciousness and make a purposeful determination;

• Is this job still bringing me what I want/need?

If yes, carry on. If no, work out what changes you can make to at least partially fix the situation, even if not completely fix it.

Final Career Role

Much as we don't like to talk in Human Resources about age anymore, our lives are nonetheless finite and the runway that is our career has an equally finite length. We achieved take-off in our early career, climbed to cruising altitude mid-career and as with all things what goes up must come down. There will come a time when we need to think about and prepare for what comes after our main career.

"Main career" might mean the "corporate world", it might mean the "9 to 5", it's just a phrase to recognise that work may well not simply stop entirely for you. You might transition from your main career role to some volunteering, giving back to the profession or line of work you used to be in. Perhaps a side-hustle which gradually becomes your sole but part-time work, topping up the pension.

As with the previous chapters of this blog, the suggestion is that you prepare for this phase of your career by thinking about it before you reach it. Don't just sleepwalk off a cliff. Your current working pattern, your current career will have to come to an end at some point and you have the opportunity to craft what that will look like.

Summary

Try to keep an active thought process running about your career. Your wants and needs from your career in your 50's is likely to be very different than in your 20's or in your 80's. Having that conscious thought regularly, every couple of years perhaps, will make you more likely to have the length of career in the role that's the best and most fulfilling for you.