Changing tracks - Reinventing your career

This is my pet subject since I ‘ve reinvented my career several times over the years – moved from the finance function of an MNC to selling financial services in the mid 1980′s, then became an investment banker and made a huge career shift into the headhunting world 7 years ago and more recently flying solo building a career coaching practice.

With the world rapidly changing, all professionals need to frequently reinvent their careers. As Thomas Friedman recently wrote in the New York Times: “What is most striking when you talk to employers today is how many of them have used the pressure of the recession to become even more productive by deploying more automation, outsourcing, robotics — anything they can use to make better products with reduced head count and health care & pension liabilities. That is not going to change. And while many of them are hiring, they are increasingly picky. They are all looking for the same kind of people — people who not only have the critical thinking skills to do the value-adding jobs that technology can’t, but also people who can invent, adapt and reinvent their jobs every day, in a market that changes faster than ever.”

On a similar note, LinkedIn’s co-founder, Reid Garrett Hoffman, has a book coming out  called “The Start-Up of You,” where he argues that professionals need an entirely new mind-set and skill set to compete. “The old paradigm of climb up a stable career ladder is dead and gone. No career is a sure thing anymore. The uncertain, rapidly changing conditions in which entrepreneurs start companies is what it’s now like for all of us fashioning a career. Therefore you should approach career strategy the same way an entrepreneur approaches starting a business.”

Therefore, I thought I should share a few pointers based on my personal experience of reinventing my career:

• Do you really need to make a switch?: Many people make a career switch because they are dissatisfied with their existing role. However, it is important to understand that the reason for dissatisfaction with a career usually lies within. Therefore, do not be hasty. Make sure you thoroughly explore your feelings of dissatisfaction with your current career before you start looking for solutions.

• Discover your passion: This should be the first item on your “to-do” list when you want to reinvent your career. There are many methods to discover what you enjoy doing in terms of professional work – go with what works best for you. For some, it may involve spending hours meditating or soul-searching. For some others it may mean speaking to close friends and mentors or reading books or online articles on this subject

• Broaden your career objectives: The second thing you should do is getting clarity on your career objectives, which should be broad enough to be applicable across sectors. These are not career alternatives but a list of the 5 to 10 broadly defined things you would like to have in any career role, it is the check-list that you  use to evaluate any new career opportunity that comes your way. If you havent defined these already, spend time with a mentor or career coach to do this exercise

• Look for emerging sectors: Making a switch in careers is much easier into sectors that are just emerging and therefore need to look for “out-of-the-box” talent. If you try to switch into a career where there is a well-experienced pool of talent available, it will be an uphill task competing in a beauty parade for any job role. You may then need to make an entrepreneurial move – either by setting up your own shop or by joining a start-up where most of your compensation will be performance-linked

• Fungible skill set sectors: When I made the big shift from banking to headhunting, I focused on doing search work in the financial services space where my domain knowledge and contacts in the banking & financial services world could be brought to use to source and evaluate talent. Moreover, I needed to be self-driven to generate fee revenues, something that I was used to doing for many years as an investment banker. Therefore, when you evaluate the emerging sectors that you could consider moving to, it would be useful to analyse where your existing skill-sets and expertise could be brought to use in those sectors

• Money is important: Blindly following your passion may not be a good thing. We need to remain practical as well. Do not believe that if you love what you’re doing you’re bound to make money. Recognize that you need a sound career plan and a comfortable financial plan to co-exist in order to have a successful mid-life career change experience.

• Be Proactive: It is unlikely that you will receive calls from headhunters or prospective employers when you are making  a career switch, because you are in the “out-of-the-box” category. You need to be proactive in first figuring out who could be hiring in the sector(s) you want to switch to and then dig deep into your network of contacts to make the connections to those prospective employers. It would be ideal if you could find a contact who would make a strong recommendation to a key decision maker at a prospective employer. However this may not be possible in all cases, at the very least you need to find a contact who can help you get an interview with a key decision maker so that you can present your credentials personally and hopefully convince that person to hire you

• Burn your bridges: This is a tough one. It is normal human tendency to keep an escape door open so that you can go back to your earlier career path in case the switch doesn’t work out. However, this will make you ambivalent about the switch and you will not be 100% committed to make a success of your new avatar. Therefore, I suggest that you burn your bridges to the past and only look ahead. Reinventing your career is not easy. It requires a lot of extra effort and dedication to come upto speed in the new sector in the shortest possible time frame. Therefore, you need to be totally focused and committed to become successful in your new role and this often happens when there are no safety nets and to survive, you have no choice but become successful

• Create Positive Energy: For those of you contemplating a career switch when reading this blog, I wish you lots of luck. Stay passionate about your move and the positive energy you create will definitely bring good fortune your way!!

As always, would love to receive your feedback and comments on my blog. Also feel free to share this on your LinkedIn or Facebook profile or pass it on to anyone who may find this blog useful

You can email me directly at luis@frontrunner.co.in as well.

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