Career Management Toolkit

Just before Easter 2009, I was invited to speak at a local high school, where 290 Year 10 students (typically 15-16 years old) were having an onsite career expo. The school’s Guidance Officer asked me to speak with all 290 students about the importance of life long career planning, how to develop an ongoing career plan, and provide some useful career planning tools. It was a terrific experience sharing knowledge with the students and I was very impressed to see (from a show of hands) how many of them had an idea of what career they wanted to pursue when they finished school

What I shared with those Year 10 students is relevant to all Year 10, 11 & 12 students around the world, so I’ve decided to share the presentation with all of you through my blog. Whether you’re a student, you know a student, or are the parent of a student, please accept this information that I’m giving you about career planning and apply it to its greatest benefit in your day to day life

Here’s the presentation as I presented it and I hope you enjoy it

Let’s start with a few questions:

Hands up who has plans for the school holidays?

Hands up who has plans for what car you want to buy when you get your license?

Hands up who has plans for what career you want when you leave school?

I’ve worked in the recruitment industry since 1993, when I assume a lot of you were born, and I’ve spoken with hundreds of people who have spent lots of time planning their weekends, their holidays, and what they’re going to wear tomorrow, but very little time on planning what career they should have, even though it’s their career that will actually fund all of their other activities. It’s no surprise that that was the reason they were speaking with me - they were totally confused and felt like they were wasting their time in the wrong job

When I was invited to speak with you about the importance of career planning, I thought back to when I was in Year 10 and what was important to me at the time. I was going to school 5 days a week and had a part-time job after school, but all I was really interested in, was hanging out with my friends and girlfriend, playing sport and listening to music. Was I into career planning? Not really. But the one thing that I was aware of, was what kind of life I wanted in the future. I think I had some capitalistic tendencies back then, because I aspired to some of the finer things in life and knew that I needed to have a career where I could make lots of money. One of my best friends was even going to become a pilot, so that he could fly me around in my private jet! I look back at myself at 15/16 years of age and think that my ambitions may have been a bit one dimensional, but at least it drove me to develop a plan for the future, and that’s what I’d like to speak with you about today

The importance of lifelong career planning

I am a true believer that Year 10 is the time for you to be thinking about your future. Whether you’re thinking about leaving school at the end of this year, next year, or after completing Year 12, you should be thinking about what kind of career or careers you can see yourself in once school is over. If you’re intending to do Year 11 next year, you’ll know that a lot more of your subjects will be electives, and the reason that you’ll choose those electives is because they will better educate you towards the career that you want after you’ve finished school. If you intend to go onto Year 12, then your subject choices become even more important to shaping your career plan

From the thousands of people that I have interviewed during my 15+ years in the recruitment industry, I’ve found that these people fall into 2 distinct categories – those who have a career plan and those who simply let their career happen to them. People who simply let their career happen to them, are the ones who can become disillusioned more often. Imagine going on a road trip without a map and you come to a cross road - with no information to guide you, you may decide to turn left and after driving for 100 kilometres, you come to a dead end in the desert. Now, if you had taken the time to plan your road trip and decide on your destination in advance, based on what you most enjoy doing, then you would have known to turn right at that cross road, knowing that 10 minutes later, you’d be sitting on the beach! Does that make sense?

Let me paint you a picture of how you can start thinking about your career plan whilst you’re in Year 10. Imagine being in the movie industry. You’ve been asked to write your own movie script, where you’re the central character, and the story is about your future. On top of that, when the movie is made, you’ll be the one playing the lead role. Can you imagine what kind of script you’d write? Designing your own career plan is no different. All you need to do is find someone to fund it and help you make it happen, but it’s you who comes up with the actual concept

There are many influences that can impact on how you decide what career you want to pursue. Maybe you want to do what your Mum or Dad does (I actually know a few school teachers who became teachers because one or both of their parents were teachers). Maybe you’ve seen someone doing a job that you think seems pretty cool. Maybe you want a career that keeps you indoors, maybe you want to be outdoors. You might be a numbers driven person, you might be scientific, you might be creative and artistic, you might be entrepreneurial. All I’m saying here, is that you now have the opportunity to think about what you’d like to do with your career and start laying the ground work and building a framework around it to help make it happen

Different people, different careers. Think about how many different career options are available to you, the list seems endless. Depending on who you are and what’s important to you, you might decide on a career where you work for someone else, and that could be many possible reasons: You might need the security of receiving a pay cheque every week, you might like being part of a team, or you might simply not have the drive or risk appetite to want to start your own business.

If you do want to work for someone else, you might prefer large companies, like Telstra and Commonwealth Bank, or maybe you’re more suited to smaller companies, such as local companies on the coast, or you might even want to join the public service.

On the other hand, you might want to work for yourself, and this can cover a broad range of industry and job options: You might work in a trade as many do on the coast, in professional services (accountant, lawyer), or you might be a health practitioner, hairdresser, artist, retailer, sports person, musician or model

I thought I’d share a couple of examples of people who decided in Year 10, what they wanted to do with their career and how they went about achieving it. I remember once working on a recruitment assignment for Fosters Brewing Group, who make beer and wine products. They asked me to find them someone in their early 20’s, who was a computer guru and also had a degree in chemistry. They wanted this person to work in their beer science lab, running computer models for potential new beer products. I found them someone who was 23 years old, had a double degree in Chemistry and Computer Science, and was working as a systems analyst for a large oil company, where he visited ocean based oil rigs and made sure their oil drilling systems continually reported important real-time information to management. He grew up by the ocean, 200 kms from Melbourne where the oil rigs were serviced from and he knew as a school student what he wanted to do – a business oriented role, where he could combine his computer talent with his interest in Chemistry and be involved in making an actual product. He achieved his dream

Another example: an old friend of mine, Steve, didn’t like school but loved computers, especially digital animation. Now, this was before Pixar starting making movies like Toy Story, and the industry was very young. Steve finished Year 12 but didn’t go to University. Instead, he worked in an IT help desk role for a large company, which he didn’t really enjoy, but at night, he continued to develop his skills in digital animation, which had a natural talent for. He ended up leaving his employer and joined a small digital animation company owned by 3 young computer geniuses who were making TV commercials. Because he didn’t have a track record in the industry, Steve agreed to join them on a voluntary basis, just so he could get the necessary experience to give him greater opportunities. He worked behind a bar at night and the next 2 years for tough for him, as we all had full time jobs with good pay, and he didn’t. He did however have a vision of where he was headed. After those 2 years, Steve packed his bags and moved to Hollywood, where he approached many emerging digital animation companies. That was 12 years ago, and Steve is still in Hollywood, where he is a very successful digital animator in the movie and TV industries

These examples show what is possible if you have a plan. It doesn’t mean that you have to go to University, you only need to know what it takes to get you to where you want to go

Having a career plan should increase the chances that you’ll enjoy a satisfying career. Think about how many hours you’ll invest in your career when you leave school. In most cases you’ll be spending at least 35 hours a week at work, so you should be doing something that satisfies you. Being happy in your career increases your self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth. I think one of the key ingredients to living a happy life, is to feel good about yourself and the contribution you’re making to the world

To give you an example where I’ve seen happiness affected by career satisfaction, is the number of people I know who have worked on Wall Street and been very successful financially, but felt an emptiness, because of what they’ve felt their career has cost them. The long hours and constant travel has made them financially secure, but they feel stressed, they have no time for regular friendships or relationships, and they have to sacrifice other areas of interest in their lives. Some reassess and change career course, whilst others stay in the industry, because they don't know what other career paths to pursue (especially for the same financial rewards)

I’ve known other people who weren’t feeling good about themselves and unhappy with where they were heading in their careers, so they made a decision to radically change course and pursue a career in the non-profit world, helping others in greater need, and they found fulfilment. I’m telling you all this just to illustrate that your career is a moving target, and you can change course if necessary, but the better prepared you are whilst you’re still at school, the sooner you’ll feel successful when you leave

How to develop an ongoing career plan

Choosing what kind of career you want, can be dictated by what kind of life and lifestyle you want. You might have lifestyle goals that your career will need to accommodate (I know plenty of trades people who disappear from building sites on the coast when the surf’s up, because their job seems to allow them do to it). It helps if you know what you want from life and how much that might cost, then you can identify careers that support that. I don’t necessarily mean financial cost, but what’s known as Opportunity Cost, which means what do you need to sacrifice in order to have something else. A good example is the desire to keep living on the coast, rather than move to a large city, where employment opportunities might be greater and more financially lucrative. You need to decide what is best for you, because as I said earlier, you will spend a large chunk of your life at work, so you need to make the right career choice for you

The career you choose might require you to do further study at night, so you need to be sure you’re ready to see it through

You may decide that you want to run your own business. To make such a decision requires an assessment of your personal circumstances – can you afford it financially, and what will you do if your own business doesn’t work out?

“If you feel you’ve chosen the wrong career, then reassess and redeploy the skills and knowledge you’ve developed along the way” – that comment is part of a speech given to a graduating Year 12 class by the guy who started MTV, Tom Freston. Tom was reflecting on his own career, where he worked in advertising in his early 20’s, then resigned and set off with $4,000 to travel around Europe and Africa for a year. He ended up in Afghanistan, long before the troubles started there, and set up a business, exporting clothes back to the US. He eventually returned to the US without a job, and read a story in a magazine about a guy who wanted to start a cable TV network exclusively for music videos. Tom contacted the guy, got the job and built MTV into a global success story

The secret here is that Tom knew what he was good at and he knew the core of what he wanted to do, he just had to find the right platform to make it happen

Useful career planning tools

Over the last 15 years, I’ve counselled many people about how to assess their next career step, and I want to give you the same advice, and it’s pretty simple. Start by taking a sheet of paper and dividing it into 3 columns. The first column should be headed,

‘What am I good at?’, the second column, ‘What do I enjoy doing?’ and the third column, ‘What jobs enable me to do what I enjoy, and do it well?

This can be a very enlightening process, as it challenges you to put your thoughts down on paper and make an informed decision about what you really want to do with your career. It does take some crystal ball gazing, followed by some solid research, but the reward should be worth the effort

Taking control of what you want to do with your career should provide the challenges, job satisfaction and rewards that you’re looking for

Psychometric testing:

Companies and individuals all around the world use psych tests to help identify character and skills traits, which help with successful career planning

One of the things that helped me plan my own career when I was in Year 10, was when my Mum & Dad sent me to an organisational psychologist to do these tests, hoping they would highlight what I was good at and what interested me. The tests showed that I was good with numbers and problem solving, I didn’t mind taking risks, I had an outgoing personality and was driven largely by financial goals. They mentioned a number of career paths that I could take to satisfy those traits, and it helped me decide to take on commerce subjects in Years 11 & 12, and continue business studies at University. The tests were also valuable because they identified what I was weak at, and let’s just say I decided not to become an engineer. My older brother and sister also did the tests when they were in Year 10, but neither followed the suggestions, so the point here is that these tests don’t give you the perfect answer and you still need to decide what works best for you

Here are a few of the tests that have stood the test of time:

http://www.16pfworld.com/questionnaire.html

http://www.wonderlic.com/education-solutions/educational-and-career-testing.aspx

http://www.myersbriggs.org/type-use-for-everyday-life/personality-and-careers/

Summary

The choice is yours

Remember what I said earlier about the road trip and the cross road. You are in control of your own destiny and there is no better time than over these school holidays to take an hour or two to draw the 3 columns on a sheet of paper and challenge yourself to identify some career options for yourself. Ask people you know, why they chose the career that they’re in and what they think of that choice

I’m sure you all want a happy and fulfilling life, and I hope you enjoy the time that you have left at school. Have fun but learn as much as you can, and put that learning to good use in your future careers. We are all capable of doing something great, so keep striving and never give up

I’ll leave you with my favourite motto –

'Be your best and love your life'

Thanks and have a great holiday

Hiring new staff is never easy

A lot of you who are reading this, no doubt need to recruit new staff from time to time, but I bet many of you would say that it's not one of your favourite tasks, either because of the time it takes, or because you don’t fully trust your skills as an interviewer

We all know how costly it can be to hire the wrong person, and we’ve all probably made that mistake at least once, but we also know the satisfaction of hiring the right person. When interviewing, there are 4 categories of people to be aware of - 2 that you should hire and 2 that you should avoid. Here are the 4 categories:

1. Looks right, is right (an easy decision - hire this person)
2. Looks wrong, is wrong (another easy decision - don’t hire this person)
3. Looks right, is wrong (a harder decision but don’t hire this person)
4. Looks wrong, is right (the most difficult decision, but you should hire this person)

Lets look at number 4 in more detail...Looks wrong, is right…….
this person is generally not selected for the job and may end up joining one of your competitors, perhaps to your ultimate regret. The question is, what can you do to avoid letting this person slip though your fingers?

Companies rely on a range of selection techniques to help them decide who they think is the right person. These techniques have varying levels of sophistication: the most basic is "gut instinct," which is a decision based simply on how you feel about the person; the most sophisticated is “high performance modelling”, which involves building a model from the competency profiles of the best performers in your organisation and then using that model as a template for recruiting new staff. Between those two techniques are others including structured interviewing, psychological assessment and competency based recruitment

When recruiting, the goal is to identify and select the person with the best combination of skills, knowledge and attributes. The person’s skills and knowledge are their capacity to perform against the skills and knowledge required for the job, whilst their attributes reflect their needs, values and interests, and identify whether they have the attitude required to succeed in the job and the company’s culture. The best combination of these 3 competencies should result in maximum performance, satisfaction, productivity and tenure

The 5 different selection techniques that I’ve mentioned can all measure skills, knowledge and attributes, but at varying levels of depth and success

Think of how many people you’ve interviewed over the years and ask yourself how many more successful hires you could have made, if you had used a more sophisticated selection technique. I bet many of you have made some decisions based on “gut instinct” and regretted it later. These people could have easily fitted the “looks wrong, is right” profile, but were missed because you judged them on too little information. Maybe you or the person was simply having a bad day

Hiring new staff is a major investment, so maybe you should consider making a similar investment in your selection technique. The more sophisticated the technique you use, the greater probability you will identify the person who “looks wrong, but is right”

Feel free to leave a comment if you’d like to discuss this important issue further and I look forward to our paths crossing again soon

Be your best and love your life

Career Management Toolkit

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Brian Moore talks about his book Career Management Toolkit

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Why you should start career planning at high school

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

How to hire the person who looks wrong, but is right

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