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Establishing Life Goals - by Kara

Friday, April 16th, 2010

I’m sure many of you have read about writing down 101 goals that you want to achieve in life. I never thought I would be an advocate of it (the thought of sitting down and writing this out seemed pretty cringe worthy and pointless to me) - however, my cousin who has been staying with me made us sit down and do it… and it actually started to make sense! You need to think about what is important to you and identify your goals in order to achieve them. What if your goals change? - was my natural reaction. Well, let them - they will, review your goals every year and allow for this. The most important ones tend not to. personal-vision1

So… thinking of 101 goals is quite a lot to get your head around. There will be some that come to you instantly but after that you’ll really have to start thinking about it! One way to tackle it is to think of different categories; travel; food; finance; work etc. Or you could try thinking chronologically – what you are likely to do and when? A third way would be to try and list them in order of importance, some might seem essential to you and some are just a nice to have.

I thought about not only what I would like to have achieved if I was looking back at my life, and in the process also identified the things that weren’t as important to me. For example, I know that I like adventure and would like to complete some major challenges, but for me the nature of these weren’t as important as the process. When I was younger I thought one day I would row across the Atlantic, but I actually don’t think it would matter if it was that or cycling across the US or climbing Kilimanjaro, it would be the process rather than the outcome that matters to me.

When considering these aims it highlights how important identifying your motivations are when it comes to deciding your career. You need to understand what is important to you in order to identify a career that suits you and enables you to achieve your life aims. This global perspective can be invaluable when making career decisions.

Finally, I would suggest that you put some on there that will challenge you! It doesn’t matter if you don’t achieve them – the list will remind you to try!

Tags: career development, careers advice, life goals, personal development, setting goals
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It’s all about judgement

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Sad git that I am, I’ve been thinking (again) about what leads to career success. Many of the friends and associates I meet in business have similar broad capabilities. In fact, I would say that there is more than 1 situation in which I can think of a friend who isn’t particularly bright who has done extremely well in their career and achieved more than other friends with a lot more grey matter. Obviously there are a host of issues at play here. One of the biggies though is judgement. bad judgement

I’ve come to the conclusion that judgement and commercial skills together form the basis of career success. We’ll leave the commercial skills out of this post but will explore those later. So at what point in our careers do we have to make judgements and what impact do these have?

Well the first major point is in deciding what we study. Fortunately, the UK education system is not hugely prescriptive in that you can study philosohpy and still become an accountant. What we don’t want to do though, is study in a certain area and realise later that it was the wrong area for whatever reason.

The second major decision point is in which career to start in. Economic realities might mean that we accept something that we have no intention of staying in long term and that’s fine. A poor decision at this point though can mean that we accumulate 5 years of experience in an area that we don’t want to be in and are essentially going to be unhappy and unstimulated in. That’s not a good place to be. If your gut tells you you’ve made the wrong decision, act immediately. Don’t live with it.

The third major decision for many of us is about deciding to build our career within one organisation or to look actively for promotion opportunities in other companies. This is a tough one and there are no clear rules here. My suggestion though is that, assuming you’re challenged and learning in your current role, stay put for a few years and then start looking to move. This guideline assumes that you want to build a corporate rather than an entrepreneurial career. If you want to open your own business it may make more sense to experience a variety of relevant working environments early on. Sometimes job hopping works, but it will generally catch up with you. You can’t pretend to be something that you aren’t for too long. I’ve know a lot of people who have hung in and been solid performers. They often get the slots that the ambitious guys who left would have got.

I find that a lot of people make career decisions hoping that they will work out rather than having taken the time to really think them through. If you can show good judgement at the right times in your career, you’ll be at a real advantage.

Tags: Judgement
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

Why its no longer sexy to be a pilot

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Back when Pontius was a pupil pilot, becoming a pilot was every second boy’s dream. Thinking back, I reckon it had something to do with the emergence of the 747, the moon landing and a general perception that flying is exciting and exotic. Going on holiday with mum and dad to places that were previously unreachable and seeing the crew in their uniforms just reinforced the perception. Of course, in those days the air hostesses were hot and almost certainly selected for their looks first and service ability second. If you believe the Virgin ads, they still select on this basis! Pilots got to stay in these wonderful hotels in exotic destinations and the resulting parties were legendary. Sounds pretty cool huh, and then Leonard di Caprio comes along and proves it! virgin-ad

So why pee on some kid’s battery now? Well, life has changed. Flying is now a commodity. The pay and conditions for pilots now reflect that. Although still a relatively well paid career, many pilots now complain about stagnant salaries and reduced benefits. Low cost carriers fly more intensively, so there’s less time to party and you’re likely to be staying in a motel rather than anything with a few stars. Also, when you peel back the wrapping and have a hard look, flying is up there with Dentistry on the boredom scale. Essentially, pilots are highly trained bright individuals who drive a bus. OK, the bus is 30000 feet up and the risk factor is higher, but flying now is so automated that its boring. Of course, the skills will hopefully come in handy in an emergency - those of us travelling in the back certainly hope so. Oh and as the trolley dollies are now doing it as a career, the nubility factor is also declining. Bummer all round.

Even the military options has to some extent, had its wings clipped (bad pun). These days there’s probably more demand for gamers to fly drones than real planes. So, we’ve moved from Maverick single handedly beating the communists and having to endure 8 g’s in the process to gamers flying model airplanes with a Starbucks in one hand. Walking into a bar and delivering that as your pickup line isn’t going to have quite the same impact.

Any silver lining? Perhaps becoming a space pilot, although the vacancies will be very limited and probably only open to experienced flyboys. If the treatment Ryanair gives its passengers (note the word customer is not used), is anything like the staff are treated, then I suggest you consider immersing yourself in a vat of acid as a decent alternative.

Tags: Pilot
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7 ways to guarantee a disastrous career

Friday, March 19th, 2010

I’ve decided that I’d like a disastrous career - after all, who needs to be successful? Forget Deepak Chopra and Anthony Robbins, if you follow these 7 steps, you too can be a guaranteed disaster in your career. After consulting with the guru’s of “disasterdom”, this is what you need to do …

Choose a career that one of your parents does. This is normally a good start (down the slippery slope). It’s good practice to blindly follow in one of your parents footsteps. It’s a lovely, lazy option as you don’t even have to consider other alternatives. And of course, you’ll know so much about this career as your parents have taken so much time to discuss the pro’s and con’s of the career with you.
Do a psychometric test at school and believe the results. We’ve all been there. “You have good spatial relations (that’s meaningful), so architecture is what you need to do”. Take the 20 page report from the test, and apply for the recommended jobs in the order of their statistical significance.
Get your careers advisor to tell you what’s best. If you’re stuck for ideas, ask for an appointment with your careers advisor. Careers advisors can generally be counted on for their in depth knowledge of the real world of work because they’ve been on a 1 year course.
Change your focus every month. Variety is the spice of life, so why focus on anything for more than a month? If you don’t make instant progress, try something else - it’s bound to be easier. It’s also important to become frustrated easily and to move jobs as soon as you feel any sense of frustration. That way, you can become frustrated sooner in your new job.
Remember - your boss is always an a- hole. We all know this one, but it is so important I decided to include it. Remember, you always know more than your boss, it’s a wonder that he/she is in the position and frankly, you should let everyone else know that. Be confident in your superiority.
Do everything for your own self interest. In any situation, always think of what the best result is for you and then try your hardest to get that result. It’s a dog - eat - dog world, so make sure you’re doing the eating. If you see a weakness in someone else, put the knife in while you can.
Never, ever network. Networking is a spectacular waste of time and an activity pursued by incompetent brown nosers. You do not need a network to be successful. The only person worth networking with is the guy who brings around the sandwiches. It’s vital that you get yours before your preference runs out!

So there you have it. The book will be coming out later this year, but why wait? Start implementing these right away and you’ll be amazed at the results!

Tags: disaster
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Which way does the girl spin? - by Kara

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Take a look at this article, the direction in which you see the girl spinning is supposed to predict the side of the brain that is most dominant. Some people can see both, and some can only see one way no matter how hard they try. I can only see anti-clockwise!

What do all these psychometric tests mean?

So… what can you extrapolate from your results? Well… some would say that this may guide you on some of your career choices, similar to psychometric testing which finds character traits you possess and tries to match that to a potential career. However, at MyTalentPlace we think that approach to careers advice sucks. If I took the advice when I was younger that I was right brain dominant and thus more creative and followed a career based on that, I would have missed out on some fantastic opportunities to study statistics and sciences which have developed my analytical skills and I would not have missed for the world. Or, if I had taken the results of my school psychometric assessment and become a zookeeper! - I may never have fulfilled my ambitions.

Whilst psychometric profiling is probably the most widely adopted form of Careers Guidance in UK schools, we have to question just how much you can tell from a multi-choice questionnaire? In our careers advice services we adopt the approach that the qualities and motivations of an individual have to be explored from all angles - in the business world this is known as 360 degree profiling. The process involves feedback from parents, teachers and peers and most importantly explores the motivations and aspirations of the student. The result? - students not only have an idea of the career they want and the ways to go about achieving success on that career path, but also helps develop their self-insight and understanding of what is important to them. See this video testimonial from Lottie who has been through the process.

Sure it’s fun to take these tests - it may give you some ideas and make you think about your characteristics (whether you agree with the results or not!) - but when its something as important as your career you want substantial foundations that you can build your success on!

Tags: career choice, career coaching, career path, careers advice, personal development
Posted in Student Career Advice, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Virtual teams - the way forward

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

In a recent post, we agreed (I think) that although Elvis might be alive, careers in their traditional sense are dead. So what’s going to replace traditional careers? The biggest change is going to be the way in which we’ll work in virtual teams.

Let’s take the analogy of making a movie. Movies are great examples of short term projects. All of the necessary skills are assembled and they focus all of their energies on getting the movie made. The casting director will source the best cast from all over the world, the location will be chosen (again, anywhere in the world), everyone knows what their role is and off you go. The reality is that bitchiness, in fighting, petty politics and all of the lovely things that go with people working together still take place. Some things remain constant!

Tomorrow’s workers will need to have the following skills and assets in order to work this way.

Firstly, a good network. Finding and developing relations with people all over the globe who have complementary sets of skills and interests will be a common requirement. It often won’t be good enough just to operate within a local or regional network. Cost factors and specialists skills mean we’ll need to look wider than this. In a way, we’ll need laser precision in our research to find those individuals with the skills that fit the project we’re hoping to win the bid for.

Finding the work will be a challenge. Having the tentacles out to spot relevant opportunities (again, anywhere in the world) will be important and this links to the first point. If you have a good network, they’ll be spotting opportunities for you and the team.

Delivering quality work virtually. Project management skills are going to become even more important. The ability to ensure that deadlines are achieved and that quality is excellent are vital. Communicating with a virtual team, even though it will mainly be in English, will create its fair share of problems. Very clear methods of communication need to be established to minimise the chances of misunderstanding of the brief, roles etc.

One sure fire way of guaranteeing that people know about you and approach you is to become well known in your area through an effective blog, conference presentations, membership of online communities etc. Get these right and people will come to you.

Tags: Future work, Virtual teams
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Are Firefighters paid too much?

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with 2 of London’s firefighters. We discussed what it takes to be a firefighter, the training, selection criteria and so on. At the end of the meeting I was left feeling a little embarassed at what the bright graduate responsible for our sales and marketing is being paid relative to a trainee firefighter. In fact, if I were starting over I might seriously consider this career. This is what you need to get in:

What a career!

You have to be 17.5 years of age (Most of us qualify for that at some point)
Must be eligible to work in the UK (yeees)
I have to declare any offences for which the conviction is not already spent. So, having served my term for posing as Alec Baldwin, I’m OK there.
No beard allowed - facial hair messes with breathing equipment apparently. I couldn’t grow a beard if I tried. Another tick for Dr. G.
No make up, body piercings or jewellery. Bugger! Well I guess I might consider having that bolt removed from my nose.
I also need to be able to climb a ladder without falling off. Note to self, no boozing before going on duty.
I will have to complete some written tests although it does state that “no specialist knowledge is required”. In other words, this is not going to challenge the challenged unless those neurons really don’t fire much at all.

So, we’ve established that I’m in. How did you do on the seleection checklist? Having made it through this extremely selective process, how much could I expect to earn as a 17.5 year old trainee? In London I will start on £26100! And there’s more folks. Don’t leave just yet. If I do well, within 4 years, I can be running a station or similar. So, now I’m 24 and earning - £40K - £50K!

Look, I know this is an essential job and that firefighters perform a needed and valuable service. At times, the role is dangerous and occasionally lives are put at risk. But let’s face it, it’s largely about faulty toasters and rushing around going bee baaa. Give me a big red shiny company car with a loud hooter as well as this dosh and I’m there. Stand in the queue mate - I got here first!

This is a great example of the market not working efficiently. What’s the going rate for the kind of person who can pass these selection criteria. My guess is about £17K (in London) and less elsewhere. So why are taxpayers funding this excess? I don’t have a clue. Oh and by the way, when it comes to fancy dress parties, you’ve already got the kit.

Tags: market, pay
Posted in Student Career Advice, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

The unholy trinity - careers advisors, parents, students

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

I have a little theory and I know you’re dying to hear it! If we want to really improve the relevance and usability of careers advice, all 3 parts of the unholy trinity need to aligned. Let’s look at them one by one.

Firstly, careers advisors. Let me be clear here, I’m mainly talking about careers advisors at school. Many advisors struggle to find good resources and subscribe to “legacy” careers resources. So, it’s not uncommon for a careers advisor to spend a good part of his/her budget on books relating to careers. If you think about it, any book published this year was written and researched over a period of a couple of years. The content is out of date before its printed. Let’s get with the programme here! The solution is good quality web content and particularly content that’s updated on a subscription basis. The other challenge careers advisors need to overcome is the well known UK national sport called box ticking. Forget the football world cup and olympics, if there were a world championship in box ticking, the UK would win all the golds, silvers and bronzes. Many of the standards (boxes to be ticked) are the source of the problem because they set standards around knowledge rather than skill. Careers advisors need to be aware that ticking all the boxes on a standard probably means you’re achieving the minimum acceptable.

Parents - well, what can I say, we all have them! Most parents draw on a fairly narrow set of personal experiences when they try to provide careers advice to their kids (if in fact, they do try). I suggest that one of easy ways for parents to innovate is to pool their resources. By using their network, most parents would be able to set up informal discussions in which several parents could talk meaningfully about their roles, the decisions they take, skills required, highs and lows etc to an assembled group of their combined offspring.

Once careers advisors and parents are doing a better job, then we can require of students that they take more responsibility. It’s an exceptional student that will be proactive around career choices if the foundations are not in place.

Dr G is founder of www.mytalentplace.co.uk

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Why interview coaching pays

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

If you’ve seen any of the shift happens videos you’ll know the stat that young adults joining the world of work today are likely to have 14 different roles by the time they’re 38. Sounds a little scary and improbable? What the figures were not clear on was whether these would be different careers or different roles. In my view, it probably refers mainly to different roles and there are likely to be some career changes thrown in as well. So, what’s this got to do with interview coaching?

Firstly, if there are going to be so many role changes, there are going to be lots of interviews! It’s likely that people will be interviewed regularly both by their employers as well as partners of employers as they move between projects and roles. Those people that are skilled in being interviewed and building their personal brands will get the pick of the projects. They’ll be on the interesting projects, learning new skills etc while the rest are left with the less interesting stuff.

Not only are interviews going to be more regular, they’re going to be more competitive. The globalised and project nature of future work will mean that you are almost certainly going to be competing for work with people who have similar aspirations and skills levels anywhere in the world. There’ll be more “clutter” and the ability to build relationships and make a positive impact in interviews will be even more important than it is now.

Finally, interviewers themselves are becoming more expert. Recruitment has become and will continue to become more rigorous and analytical and candidates will find there’s less room to hide. Social profiles are already freely available and who you are is open to easy scrutiny. The ability to communicate clearly one’s skills, key messages about your personal brand, engage with a broad variety of cultures and ways of working will be required to stand out.

Convinced? One of the options is self help. That’s always a good start and indicates the right attitude. If you’re serious about competing though, you’re likely to need professional coaching. Learn the skills early and you’ll have them for the rest of your life!

Tags: Interview Coaching
Posted in Interview Skills, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Thoughts on how to get - and stay - motivated! - by Kara

Monday, February 1st, 2010

There are lots of different ways that you can improve motivation in all aspects of your life. I would suggest that perhaps the most effective and measurable way is to set goals for both long-term and short term achievement. It is also important that you have a support network around you to help you and encourage you to achieve these goals (they must have some understanding of what you are trying to achieve in order to do this effectively).

An example of this is that I train for rowing every morning and evening, before and after work and all morning at the weekends. It can get pretty tough especially in winter when everything is freezing and you are always training in the dark. People often ask me – what keeps you motivated? (I often ask myself the question too!). So here is a quick list of what I think are the most important factors:

University trial eights racing on the tideway

I love the sport – If you don’t enjoy it then what is the point! Ok - when it’s dark and miserable in the winter or when we have endless gym sessions and experience a hell of a lot of pain or when you lose a race you should have won - then it is far from enjoyable. However, I love all my teammates and coaches, I love racing and the sense of achievement when you race well after a lot of preparation, I like having a constant goal and I love winning.
Me (front-right) and some of my team representing England last summer.
I have a massive support network – coaches and teammates with common goals. It is also really nice when family and friends are supportive of what you are trying to achieve.
I want to win – this is where it starts to get interesting as firstly you want to beat your crewmates into the best boat. And then you want to make sure that as a crew you win against other teams.
There are continuous goals/aims. You have to set realistic goals about all aspects of your training e.g. if you are lifting 50kg on weights then in the next couple of weeks you may aim to lift 52.5kg, but you may aim that by next year you can lift 60kg. It’s the same on the water, you may be ranked 10^th and want to beat the person ranked 9^th in the next race, however you may aim to be ranked in the top 4 by the end of the season. You don’t want to miss any sessions as this would hinder you progression toward these goals and this is what keeps you going day after day. Take a look at this Canadian rowing motivational video for inspiration.

I hope this has given some insight as to how you can motivate yourself towards achieving the best you can in whatever aspect of your life. Setting goals, enjoying what you do, being competitive and letting other people support you and help you.

Tags: motivation, personal development
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »