Clare specialises in career transitions, and has run a program called ‘second curve careers’ for the last decade. The aim of this program is to help people think about a future career when they really are not sure what else they can do.
We have noticed an interest from some people in considering what their future career might look like. For some they are realizing that they would like more flexibility on a longer term basis or some or realizing their industry isn’t as robust as they thought. For some people they are considering roles that allow them to feel they are contributing more to the work. There are many reasons but a common thread we have noticed that this shift in the way we work has created a prompt to reflect on our career and think about how we want to work going forward and wondering what our dream job could be.
There are many ways of exploring your ‘dream job’ and I believe in actually challenging that concept of one perfect job. There are so many ways of thinking about planning your career. One model Clare follows is ‘Portfolio Career’ which is having a few roles, jobs or sources of income rather than one traditional job. Clare currently works as a lecturer for 2 universities, a one to one coach and a consultant for Diversity and Inclusion strategy. Having a portfolio career allows you to use your skills in different roles but also balance the risk so ‘all your eggs are not in one basket’ – so if one job goes, you have others to fall back on. The main benefit is that if you like variety in your work and work life then portfolio careers allow this. Studies in 2019 found that 1 in 7 workers had undertaken some form of gig-work in that year. 320,000 gig workers consider their work to be a ‘side-hustle’ showing some gig work was carried out as part of a portfolio career. There is an increase in this type of career for older workers. Working independently has an attraction for older workers as it allows them to scale their workload to suit their lifestyle rather than be bound by organisational role responsibilities.
Other career models such as boundary less careers and protean careers are creating a way of managing careers that allows us to support such wider thinking than the traditional career coaching model of finding the next job.
There are a few writers and researchers who peaked my interest in this area. One is Charles Handy who has wrote so many books on work and careers. He actually coined the term ‘second curve careers’. I do recommend checking out some of his work if you are looking for some reading.
The other is Herminia Ibarra, who wrote a book called ‘working identity’. She has recently published an article building on this research called ‘reinventing your career in the time of coronavirus’
In her original work, Ibarra talks about the process of transition in exploring career changes and that this feeling of uncertainty as we change our work identity. In this recent article she explores thinking about new opportunities, new learning or skills that allow us to experiment with possible future selves.
Some people have been forced to learn new skills such as teaching online, or managing remote teams or creating technology solutions to traditional ways of working. Some of these forced experiments may have created awareness of new capabilities or insights to possible new career opportunities
If you do feel like you have a few new options then I recommend that you note each idea and explore the possible options for each idea. Headings for exploring these options are as follows
- Possible job
- Skills required for role
- Cost for development (ie. Do you need to do a course?)
- Time (How long would it take me to get the required skills?)
- Network (Who do you know in this field? Who can you reach out to ask a few questions about this type of work?)
- Evidence (What support do you have for this idea? Skills, values, passion etc.)
Don’t worry if you can’t answer them all now as that’s the experiment part in finding out. And do expect to have more than one idea, some will pan out and some will maybe not feel right. Also remember the portfolio career model…. you can have more than one role
Clare is currently completing her doctorate research on the topic of career transitions and will be focusing on this subject more in the upcoming months. The plan is to share more guides on career transition and also to support expanded ways of coaching individuals and groups on managing their career transition. We will update you on this during the following newsletters and website posts, if you would like to know more about career transition, then do check out our reading list on our website or do get in touch via [email protected].
