Are you reflecting, failing and/or looking for a new job?

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I work with both Senior Leaders and people looking for, or already in early careers. I love the contrast in work and what my clients are looking for. In my newsletter this time round, I’m writing content for both groups in a kind of column style. What do you think? Too busy?
Senior Leaders – how often do you reflect back over your career?

Mostly I work with Senior Leaders on their LinkedIn profiles. But sometimes, it’s a more detailed career conversation. I often suggest that they have a look at a career line exercise. It’s quite straightforward, you draw a  horizontal line on a sheet of paper, and a start date or age at one end and a where you are now date at the other. Then you go through and plot the highs and lows. You usually at this point notice themes – what do the highs have in common etc.

Recently, I’ve noticed that some leaders tell me they don’t really need to be doing any navel-gazing, they already know what they want to do, so this exercise isn’t relevant to them. Of course, this is their choice, and I will always have other things we can talk about. But I don’t see it as navel-gazing. It’s not the intention to be self-indulgent, it’s intended to help you notice things that you hadn’t before. This can lead to new ideas about where you go next, the type of company, the idea for a business, who you want to be surrounded with. Yes, you may think you know all of this, but honestly, every time I do this exercise, I notice something else that I hadn’t before.

If you subscribed a while ago, you may not have it anymore, but I included this exercise with some accompanying questions in the welcome email. If you’d like me to send it to you, to have a go of, then please let me know. I’d love to know what you think of the exercise in general and what comes out of it this time round for you. And doing something slightly creative is so good for you!

 Students and Educators

First up, I’m running a FREE 90 minute masterclass for students and new graduates. If you’ve not already signed up, please drop me a reply to this email and I’ll add you to the list. It’s on 30 June at 11am on zoom.

This month, 2 of the student clients I’d been working with were featured in the Financial Times. We chatted to the journalist about the problems with graduate recruitment right now, and just how hard it is to find those early career roles. If you’d like to read the article, then head on over. I found I could read this on my iPhone, but it was behind a paywall on my desktop. It was very cool for my clients to have a photo shoot and be featured.

If you are looking for work at the moment, and struggling to find anything, please consider volunteering in some capacity. I appreciate that you may need money, but these opportunities can look great on your CV and LinkedIn, and may even end up getting you some paid work. The social element is also a massive plus, and having some structure to your week rather than just job hunting is really beneficial for most people.

If you’re looking for summer work or placement years, you might think it’s too late, but another of my clients just secured both 2 weeks ago. Make sure you are connecting to people on LinkedIn, and telling everyone you can about what you are looking for.

If it’s for 2027, it’s not too early to start looking and building connections now. Use your alumni – whether you’re at school, college or uni, it’s often a great source of information and advice.
Now I think this question is relevant to both groups.

What have you learnt from your failures in life, study or work?

It’s really common to be self-critical, and beat yourself up about those things that haven’t gone to plan. But you really can learn a lot from them. Last month, I was invited to speak at an event called Failed Nights. 3 of us stood up and talked to a room of about 150 people about the things that had gone wrong in our business and/or life. I was up first, which was nerve wracking, I’d not held a microphone in years, but the whole experience was really cathartic. To prepare, I used the career line (mentioned above in the senior leader section), and found some patterns which I’d never seen before. Each time something has gone badly wrong, I’ve done something pretty big to challenge myself. I wrote a post about it on LinkedIn if you’d like to read a bit more about the event. Now I know that not everyone will want to stand up and put themselves out there, but really thinking about those failures might be really helpful.

Kind of linked, I’ve just finished reading (well, actually, listening to) Matt Haigs book Life Impossible. A line in there really stood out for me:

“The dark is how we see the light”.

That might seem a bit deep, but it felt pretty relevant to me. I know I said this last time, but next time I will be talking about how to find the people and opportunities that move you closer to the work that gives you energy.