Careershifters blog

We’ve just launched our 2008 survey, which is designed to help us provide YOU, our users, with an even better service to accelerate your successful career change.

The survey should take you no longer than 10 minutes to complete and, to say a big thank you, we’re offering everyone who takes part the chance to win an iPod Nano, a magnum of champagne, or one of more than 10 other prizes.

To be eligible to win, you will need to complete the questionnaire by 10pm on Wednesday 29th October.

Click here to complete the survey now!

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Our ever-favourite advocate of a lazy (or more effortless) way to career success, Fred Gratzon, has just released a new 5-minute video, which is well worth watching.

He obviously had a lot of fun making it, but at its heart, the message of the video is spot on - and has everything to do with what finding your ideal career is all about.

You can read an extract of Fred's brilliant Lazy Way to Success book, in our Features section.

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John Lees, a career transition coach we respect enormously (and a contributor to our 25 Top Tips to Kick-Start Your Career Change), has recently published a list of 10 tips to help anyone survive and thrive in more difficult economic times.

They are:

1. Look at what's working, rather than what isn't. Which parts of your job are still effective even in difficult times?

2. Find leverage. Concentrate your efforts on projects which are seen to be fireproof, or ways of protecting your income stream.

3. Find a fast-track mentor - an informal arrangement with someone more senior than you who can help you decode your organisation while it's going through tough times.

4. Don't ask for a pay rise just because everyone else is reacting to rising costs. Demonstrate your value - not your cost.

5. Go way, way beyond your job description in value-adding ways. Career progression, ultimately, is not a question of what you do, but how far you are seen to be doing the things that matter.

6. At the same time, work smarter not harder on tasks which your organisation recognises as things that make a difference.

7. Stay on winning teams. This is the time to negotiate a move away from a dead-end role, or a part of the organisation which is seen as under-performing or peripheral.

8. Stay in touch with changes in your sector, and don't stop networking - both for industry knowledge and for insider tips on the hidden job market.

9. Don't adopt cynicism of the marketplace. Not all organisations and markets are in decline - don't miss opportunities by seeing your glass as constantly half-empty - adopt a glass half-full mentality.

10. Stock your lifeboat before jumping ship: understand what you are really looking for rather than passively reacting to advertised or headhunted opportunities. Well-informed job seekers find great jobs in tough times.

The fifth edition of John's book, How to Get a Job You Love, will be published in October this year.

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We now have a Careershifters Twitter feed. Follow us here, or take a peek at the right hand column on this blog.

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The FT have just posted a video of Herminia Ibarra, a professor at INSEAD business school in France, talking on how professionals can make a mid-career switch.

Here's a summary of what she says, which we think is first-rate advice for anyone going through a career change:

The bad news first:

• Changing careers mid-career takes a long time: 3 years on average
• The process is non-linear: chaotic, messy, often unpleasant

The core principles in a career shift:

• Action beats introspection
• You have to figure out 1. what you want to do, 2. how to be a credible entrant

Three themes for a successful reinvention:

1. Get involved in side activities
2. Expand your network outside your usual circles
3. Work on your story for the benefit of yourself and gatekeepers to potential new careers
   

Her closing remark: "You don't have to have it all figured out before you make a move. It's much more helpful to take an experimental approach."

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From the excellent DailyOm site, passed on by our friend Thalbir:

"Sometimes it takes us the better part of a lifetime to discover our life’s work, even though we may have been doing it our whole lives without necessarily realizing it. Our life’s work is not always what we do to make money, although we often think it should be, and sometimes this way of thinking prevents us from seeing clearly what it is. It may be the work of having children, caring for them, and running a household. The way we know our life’s work is by how we feel when we are doing it. When we are doing our life’s work, we feel an uncanny sense of ease and alignment. This doesn’t mean that the work is always easy, and it doesn’t mean that it’s the only work we have to do; it just means that there is a conviction deep inside us that tells us we are in tune with our innermost self.

"When we are engaged in our life’s work, our bodies feel more alive, because our energy is devoted to a cause that, in turn, feeds us. We may be tired after engaging in our life’s work, but we are almost never depleted. We feel grounded in the world, knowing that we belong here and have something important to offer. When we are deeply unhappy, depressed, or subject to one illness after another, this may be due to a sense of disconnection from our life’s work. At times like these, finding the work we are meant to do is an essential act of healing. Most of us remember a time when we felt fully engaged in some act of work, service or creativity, and it is here that we may rediscover the work we are meant to do now. On the other hand, it may be time to explore what inspires us through volunteering, taking a class, going back to school, or just doing whatever it is we long to try. We all have callings, and when we find them, we owe it to ourselves to nurture and protect them, because while they may or may not be our livelihood, they are the keys to our wellbeing."

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It's always fantastic to hear when we've helped out in someone's career change, so it was particularly great to get an email from Nikki Welham this week.

Nikki took the time to tell us how the Careershifters site and then one of our workshops gave her the inspiration, confidence and momentum to leave her stuffy office jobs and follow her dream career of becoming a teacher.

"...My friend sent me a link to the Careershifters website as she knew I wasn’t very happy in my job. As I began reading other people’s stories about changing careers and the advice about how to go about it, I started to get a bit excited - maybe changing jobs wasn’t that impossible. My friend and I decided to go along to one of the workshops to find out more. It was easy to get to and would be a nice evening out, if nothing more. I can safely say now, that those two hours on a Tuesday evening in mid-June last year were the start of what has been the most amazing year for me..."

Curious to know what happened for Nikki after the workshop? Read her full story, here.

How has Careershifters helped you? Please let us know!

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Our very own Selina (aka Careershifters' Content Director) has just completed a marathon career shift.

Never one for a boring life, Selina has tried her hand at all kinds of things in search of career nirvana including serving chocolate delights to festival goers, making ceramic jewelry, running Spanish workshops and temping in different parts of the world. But after a long search, she's now finally found her dream vocation - and in an unexpected place.

You can read all about her "job that fits" in her latest ShiftLog entry and you can check out her eventful (often moving) journey getting there in her previous ShiftLogs.

Needless to say, we're massively proud of her!

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We're having a little celebration in the Careershifters team today. Why? Well, we're now ranked no. 1 on Google's UK site for the term "career change".

This is fantastic news for the team that has worked so hard to get us here. More importantly though, we hope it means that more people find us, more people get inspired about what they can do with their careers, and more people who are currently fed up, unhappy or unfulfilled in their work take the plunge and shift to a career that makes them jump out of bed in the morning... which, is ultimately what we're all about.

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You might be interested in hearing about one of the largest entrepreneurial gatherings happening in the UK this year. Your Life Your Legacy, will bring 2,000 entrepreneurs together from 14-16 April at Alexandra Palace in London. Meet successful small business owners, learn how to build winning teams and discover how to both create wealth and contribute to the world at the same time. Careershifters has teamed up with the organisers to offer you tickets priced at £118.70, rather than the normal £399. This offer is only valid until April 8th. Click here to book now!

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