Blog, Personal Development & Career Coaching Blog

Looking for your next career move internally within your current organization can be a great option because it’s an environment that you are already familiar with and in which you already have a foot in the door. The people around you and who you have worked with will know about the good work that you can do and will be able to support you as you move up or across the organization.

When exploring opportunities within your current business you may want to look at possible promotions in your team or area. Look at what is going on in other departments and what opportunities there are for you across the business. There may also be international opportunities to explore if that interests you. Certain offices abroad may be dying to have a talented individual in your field, move over to them or they might be struggling to hire into a certain area that you could try out. As an employer already in the company, you will be in a much stronger position than an outsider to find and land those roles.

There are many ways that you can go about looking for opportunities internally but the key aspect to keep in mind and do is to be curious. That’s being curious about the organization and people in it. Find out and try to understand what your company is trying to do. Where is it heading? What markets is it growing into or trying to reach? What’s the overall strategy? What services are being developed or launched? See where it’s going and how you can fit into that. This is all very important information to help you figure out how you can match the organizational values with your own. i.e. how can you help your company achieve it’s goals. Where can you best slot into this and hence where are the opportunities?

Once you know what the company is doing and get a feel for what’s going on around you – identify key people who you want to approach and talk to. Read what gets published, go to presentations that the company puts on and look around on the intranet. Talk to HR, the tech people around you, your manager or key leaders within the company. If you remain curious you will start hearing about people who are doing interesting things. Read the press, attend internal networking events, listen out for who’s getting promoted around you and what new services or products are being developed.

Find the contact details of people who sound interesting and arrange to meet them. Ask if you can have a coffee with them and if they would be happy to tell you a bit more about what they are doing. Don’t go straight in their asking for any roles or openings going on. First, find out about what they are up to. What is their project? What are their goals? Where is it going? How fast is it moving? Try to learn about their area and see if it’s something that is of interest to you.

By understanding what they do you will see if there is a place for you. If it sounds worth pursuing, ask to meet again to explore how you can help each other. This will be the time to then open up conversations around how you could help them and how they can help you i.e. roles and openings, skills missing or that you can add.

When looking for opportunities within your organization try tapping into the following resources:

Company presentations – go to them, meet people. Try to understand what’s going on and sieve out potential areas of development or where you might be able to add value.

Intranet – take a look around at what’s going on and the information available there. This is specifically there for people already in the organization and is designed to help you find opportunities internally so use it!

News and press coverage of your business – when your company is mentioned in the press it will indicate areas of importance and interest to the organization in terms of it’s overall strategy and vision. Understanding where your company is heading will help you to identify areas of opportunity. If the areas are interesting to you contact the people mentioned in the press release. Talk to them, find out if they have any openings for you

Team and General Meetings – at each team and general meeting go in there with your eyes and ears open for new opportunities that could be good for you. Ask more questions to understand what people are doing and what they are looking for or in need of. You never know what will arise if you just ask the question!

External awards – look out for and be aware of what awards your company is getting. They will signal key, important areas that your business is focusing and building on. These areas could very well have some great openings that you could be right for.

Observe who is being promoted – keep a careful eye on who is being promoted. Be open to observing this as it will indicate where all the subtle shifts and movements are within the business.

New products and services being developed – look out for new areas of the business being developed. New services or product to be developed will need teams to develop them! See if you could join that team.

Given that you know what it is like to work for your organization already – it is relatively very low risk for you to find another role their. You know what the internal culture is like. You know what the people there are like and who the leaders are within the business. You know about the company’s reputation and how you will feel working there. If you go to another business there is a risk attached to that move. It will be a new culture, a new set of people, values, management and climate. You will have read about the company and heard about how great it is but you will not know what it is actually like until you make that move and so that is a risk that you can take or not.

Nisa Chitakasem is one of the founders of Position Ignition, which provides careers advice for the modern age. Through Professional Coaching Nisa helps people get the support they need to achieve what they want and deserve for their Personal Development.

>> Find out more about Coaching for Professional Development

Comment

At Position Ignition we do not claim to do or be 'career coaches' or to do 'career coaching'. What we do is guide people from A to B. We work with them - combining the elements of coaching, mentoring, guiding, advising and consulting - to help them get back in control of their careers and make their next move. Our guides are experienced individuals who can draw from their own experiences, skills, insight as well as from their guiding training and ability. This is why we call each member of our team a 'Guide' (Meet the team).

Now - if we take a look at the career coaching market - we believe there is resistance to this so called 'career coaching' for a number of reasons:

There is an ingrained expectation that career advice, help, guidance and coaching should be readily available and is already embedded within our learning/education system. So if you are at school or go to University or work for a company – you expect there to be learning and development provided for you. When you need it – you expect it there, provided for you and free. The fact that what is provided may not be any good is a different matter!

In Britain, as a society we aren’t really used to investing in our own development. We have a tendency not to value ourselves or want to spend money on ourselves in terms of growth and development.

Great career coaching takes a holistic approach. Looking at your career shouldn’t be done in isolation but often it is – which is why it doesn’t always work well. Just taking a look at your CV or interview technique isn’t really what proper career coaching is about, although some ‘career coaches’ focus on just these aspects which makes the value people get from working with them variable. With us, we look at your whole life and everything that impacts it because it will have an effect on your career. 

The ‘coaching’ and ‘career coaching’ market isn’t well understood. It’s also very fragmented and there aren’t any clear standards in the market. This means that finding a good career coach can be challenging – given how easy it is to become one. So here lies 2 problems – the first being that people don’t always know what real career coaching is or how it should be done (or what they can/should get from it) and those delivering it are of varying standards and varying degrees of expertise.

A lot of career coaching you get out there isn’t directly linked to results. Sessions aren’t designed to really support you or direct or guide you to achieve your goal. With Position Ignition, we place a strong emphasis of guiding our clients from A to B. We make sure that the client moves forwards and reaches their end goal.

The level of personal investment that a career coach and their client put into the process can affect the results of the work they do together. Unless the career coach really cares or gets to know the individual well – they will be able to help that client only so much. So – we - in all of our work - make sure that when working with an individual we spend the time making sure we know them and can help them get the role they want.

Author: Nisa Chitakasem and Simon North

www.positionignition.com

For more articles and free careers advice: Position Ignition Career blog

Comment

A few weeks ago I went to a networking event.  There was a good speaker there – Andy Lopata.  I hadn’t actually heard of him before but apparently he’s known as Mr Networker by the Sun.  I liked what he went on about as it seemed very aligned with our thinking here at Position Ignition and what I have learned through working with Simon and also what I have observed and learned through my own experiences.   The points outlined below aren’t just a regurgitation of what I heard from this talk.  The talk spurred me on to think about this topic and in this article is what is occurring to me now.

Networking has been quite a ‘hot’ topic recently and seems to be the ‘thing to do’.  Everyone is doing it!  I thought that it might be useful to jot down a few learnings and observations of what feel like pretty common mistakes made when ‘networking’ or building connections:

Attending a networking event and ‘selling’

Ok, so when we ‘network’ – many of us have the underlying agenda where we are after something.  Usually we want the people we meet to help us in some way.  We are after a promotion, a new job, some insight and inspiration on what to do next and so on.  We would like the people we meet to help us in our career and lives.  This is fair enough - however, going to a networking event and spending all of your time trying to ‘sell’ yourself or whatever your company offers isn’t particularly useful.  How many people are there to ‘buy’?  None right? So don’t sell!  Go there to get to know the people around you.  Don’t shove your life story or current major problem or need in their faces.  They don’t know you yet so they aren’t going to help you if you just ‘sell sell sell’.

View Sales training courses here

Collecting numbers

Networking is not about the number of contacts you have.  Do you have 5000 facebook contacts? 6000 linkedin connections? Maybe a couple million business cards and a few zillion email contacts?  Is that good networking? Nope! Networking is not about collecting up the largest number of names you can get.  That’s not going to help you.  Maybe you have the biggest database of names and contacts in the world.  However – that isn’t of any use to you unless these people are going to help you when you drop them a line.  When push comes to shove and you ask them for help – what will happen?  Will they remember you? Will they care? Or are you just another number in their database?  Networking well and building up useful connections is all about really knowing the people in your network and them knowing you.  People only want to help you if they know you, trust you, respect you.  If you are just a number – you mean nothing.  If they are just a number – what’s the point?

Not Being Genuine

Too many times have I seen people try to talk to me or get in contact with me simply to ‘network’.  I get several invitations on linkedin each day from people wanting to ‘widen their network’.  If I join their network – then what?  Will we become good mates and help each other out?  Do they know me? In some cases maybe there is something genuine there – but in most cases I’m thinking not.    Now - what about meeting and greeting people.  Well if you’re being genuinely interested in getting to know the people around you – then you are more likely to build a useful connection and grow your network effectively.  If you are simply building a network superficially so that you can call on them when you want something and you don’t really care about them as individual, unique, talented people – they’ll suss that out and not really like you for it.  There was a guy I knew at Uni.  He graduated, became a big banker, joined some hedge fund and went off and became a big ‘networker’.  He rings you and contacts you if you are deemed ‘useful’ to him.  That is seriously self-centred, superficial and – not genuine.  Thus – can he contact me for help if he wanted it? Nope.  He is not a part of my ‘network’ – because I don’t believe in that approach.  So if you want to meet people and network – that’s absolutely fine – but do it authentically and genuinely. 

Dismissing the network you already have

We all have a network ready and waiting for us before we even start going out to ‘network’ and grow it.  It’s a common occurrence to forget about the people who we already know.  At school, university, through friends, family, extended family, friends of friends, work – through each of your jobs – you have met many very interesting and talented people – all of whom will have a different take on life and their careers.  Their experiences and interests will be varied and vast.  It can be very easy not to realize just how many people we really know or just how valuable our network actually is.  Maybe you know or have come across many people but you do not really ‘know’ them.  Why not spend some time getting to know them. Dig deeper. Find out what makes them tick – what experiences they have had, what they have done in their careers, who they hang out with, who their mates, family, friends are.  You are closer to getting what you want and meeting whoever you need – than you think.  Your mates brother, dad, second cousin, next door neighbour - could be just the person who could help you.  So – do not dismiss or forget about the people you already know. Get closer to the network you already have.  Form deeper relationships with them and you never know who you may come across.

Give to get and remember it’s not all about you

People want to help those who help others.  Or – people want to help those who help them!  So if you just take, take, take – you won’t continue getting for long! Don’t make the mistake of just calling people up when you need something.  Also don’t make the mistake of expecting those you ‘network’ with you give you whatever you want, when you want. It’s not all about you!  If you spend all of your time with others – talking about what’s on your mind – what you need, what you’re after, how they can help you, what you care about – it’s a one sided, pretty boring story!  It should be a 2-way thing.  Offer to help wherever you can.  Be genuine about it – and you never know what will evolve from that.  Try it and see!  If you offer up a useful contact and help someone out – they will be grateful, remember you for it and respect you.  They will remember that you are a great person to know and that you can help each other out.

There are other networking tips and tricks one could discuss and discover – however I think this covers a fair set of points to be aware of and consider for now.  A few other bits to think about could be

–      How you articulate what you want when you ask your network for help – Are you clear about what you want? Are you specific when you talk to a contact about how they can help?   Are you tailoring what you ask for according to each contact?

–      How you present yourself and what you stand for to your network – What do people know you for? What do they think about you? Are you giving the right impression and do they know you for what you want to be known for?

–      How you maintain your network and stay close to everyone – Are you keeping in contact with everyone?  Do you know what Joe Blogs is up to?

–      Around refreshing and evaluating your network every so often i.e. old contacts you no longer speak to – is it worth keeping them as a ‘contact’ or not?

If you are interested in improving your networking skills, you can work with us to do this.  Knowing how to harness and leverage your network can be really valuable in helping you with your career.  We also know that confidence can sometimes be at the core of networking well.  You can work with Position Ignition – to build your network (from your own network base and ours) and improve your networking skills so that you can continue confidently on your own. 

Nisa Chitakasem is one of the founders of Position Ignition, which provides careers advice for the modern age. Through Professional Coaching Nisa helps people get the support they need to achieve what they want and deserve for their Personal Development.

>> Find out more about Coaching for Professional Development

Comment

It’s 2010!  This is your time.

The world is changing and it is beginning to favour us.  Us – me, you, the consumer, the employee, us people.  Organisations, companies, the corporates – they need to tailor more and adapt what they do to suit OUR needs. 

For decades we were brought up believing that we needed to work hard and do what we were told in order to succeed.  It was all about getting a good education in order to get a good job.  We would work in that steady job for 40-50 years then retire with a pension and live a quiet life.

Is that where we are now? I don’t think so.  I’m not saying that getting a good education is bad.  Not at all.  What I am saying is that everything is pointing towards us and what our needs are.    

Employees have a voice.  You have a voice.  What we value, what we care about, what we want – that matters.    If you hate your job – do you need to put up with it? Not these days.  If you are talented, you can move.  People change jobs all the time.   To stay in one job for more than 5 years is even considered boring to some.  I am not saying it is by the way!  If you love your job then by all means – stay for as long as your heart is content.  On the other hand, if you really do not like it then what are you still doing there?  Why not consider your options.  There will be something better and there will be something enjoyable.  You just need to believe it and give yourself a chance to find it.

This is your time.  This is your world.  This is your opportunity to make it how you want it to be.  So start enjoying it or if you don’t – make a change, make it work for you before it is too late and time has past you by!

Put your feet up, stop stressing out.  Remove the stress and shift into more comfortable zone.  Your zone. Your time.

>> Learn more about Time to Train - and your right to request time away from work for training and courses, to improve yourself and better your prospects.

Nisa Chitakasem is one of the founders of Position Ignition, which provides careers advice for the modern age. Through Professional Coaching Nisa helps people get the support they need to achieve what they want and deserve for their Personal Development.

>> Find out more about Coaching for Professional Development

Comment

10 Things you must do before or as you change careers 

In today’s world, individuals will change careers on average 7 times more in their lifetime, compared to only a couple of decades ago – and this rate is rising.  There is more choice available to us - especially for those with talent, drive and ambition.  Currently the support that we tend to find is really limited. It’s also pretty generic – maybe some careers advice from your school, uni or MBA school.  Otherwise not much support until you are really senior in an organisation – and even then whether it is effective or not is debatable!

What results is a combination of lack of control and a cycle of movement from one unfulfilling job to another, or getting stuck at a ‘dead end’. However – do not fear – you do not need to stay in this ‘rut’.  New horizons could be just around the corner..

So – you want to look for a new and the right role.  This can be challenging, difficult, lonely, and sometimes stressful.   You might want to consider getting someone to ‘walk the path’ with you and help you get clear about what your options are, what you want to do and how to get there can be hugely valuable. It is even more helpful when you know that the person accompanying you has been involved in this process before on many occasions and is a real expert.  So if you work with someone to help with your career change look at their work and life experience to make sure they know what they are on about!

Right – so you are ready to change careers and want to find that right role.   In order to succeed bare in mind the following tips:

1. Invest in yourself

This journey is important – so give yourself time to work it all out.  You will need a significant amount of thought, consideration, time and investment in order to make this change smoothly and to make it the right career change.  There are many key stages and turning points to consider so take the time to do it.

2. Get Clear

Without real clarity about what you want to do or how to get it, achieving any sense of fulfilment or being in control of your future will be very difficult.   Therefore it is really important to work on getting clear about what your central goal is and how to achieve it.  If you want to learn about the different ways to do this then feel free to drop us a note.

3. Make an action plan

Simply knowing what you want will not ensure that you get it.  You need to be clear about your plan of action and how to carry out what you have specifically designed for yourself.  Get clear achievable steps in place.  Outline it so that it is broken down into steps that you can work through towards that bigger goal.   Reward yourself and be proud of yourself as you get through each stage of your plan. 

4.  Keep your energy focused on the task

Making a change and finding the right role is not always an easy task.  It can be tough, tiresome and long.  You need to stay really focused and be efficient around where you put your energy and effort to get the outcome you want.  Make sure that you are in control of the key elements in your world and are able to drive forward with the career and life of your choosing.  You will need perseverance and determination to help.  Being smart about how you spend your time is crucial. 

5.  Understand your strengths

Get to know yourself better.  Identify what your key strengths are.  What are you really good at?  What do you enjoy that you are also good at?  What skills have you learnt? What are you naturally inclined to do and be better at?  Make sure that you get right to the core of it.  If you aren't sure how to do this, we can help you. The more you know yourself the more confident you will become and the better you will be at identify the right role for you and projecting yourself in order to get it.

6. Get Passionate

Without real passion for a role – it will be difficult to get.  Even if you do get it – you will find it difficult to maintain and grow within and beyond it.   What you want here is the right role.  This means something that you are truly passionate about.  It might take a bit of experimenting to find what ‘floats your boat’ – but it will be worth it when you have found it. 

7.  Get clear about your boundaries

Being clear about what works and what doesn’t work for you in order to be happy can be groundbreaking.  It sounds simple but so many of us do not actually take the time to work it out.   In each different work situation – we may have different boundaries. By being clear about what they are and then communicating this clearly to others and staying true to what is important – will make a huge difference.  This impacts work and your personal settings.

8.  Learn to manage relationships better

This is important from all aspects.  If you learn to manage your relationships effectively you will be able to control the process and transition.  You will be able to manage your exit smoothly from your current or old role.  Understanding where your old boss is coming from and the impact you have on him/her – and how you interact could really influence how you leave a job.  How you get your next job and keep it may also rely heavily on your ability to manage relationships well.

9.  Harness your connections

Learn how to network and harness your connections effectively.  This does not mean bombarding people you do not know with emails or adding everyone you can find to linkedin.  Neither is this picking up as many business cards you can at a networking event and calling that person part of your ‘network’.   Real networking is about getting to know people. You need to work on identifying and getting to know those who can help you along your way. 

10.  Get free from your blocks, fears and insecurities

All of us have them at one stage or another.  Many of us keep them for years. However, do not let them stop you.  If you are afraid – that is ok – just do not let it take over and control what you do or do not do.  If something is blocking you from moving forward – take the time and action you need to confront it, deal with it and resolve it.  This does not have to be done alone.  Find support from those around you.  Get support from a professional if it is a deep personal issue that is troubling you.  If you do not deal with it now – it will keep blocking you in different ways throughout your career and life.  Once you have worked through the blocks – you will be so much more energised, comfortable, confident and free.

Those are the 10 pieces of the pie that you must do before or as you start your journey and change careers.  Each step requires some work, time and thought – but they are important if you really want to make it work.  There might be a lot to do – but you are not alone and you CAN do it.

Learn more Position Ignition about do and how they can help you to take control of your life and make the changes you want.

Comment

It costs UK plc the equivalent of the annual GDP of a small nation in lost productivity and earnings. Half of the country’s HR professionals report that they have to deal with it frequently or continually and two thirds of them cite it as the reason for prolonged absence*. We’re talking about conflict in the workplace – that’s right – work conflicts and work conflict resolution.  

It’s a recurring theme and one I hear almost daily: “The work I can handle, it’s the people I have problems with!”. It will more than likely have an impact far beyond the immediate protagonists as the ramifications and fall out can ripple across the whole organisation. And work conflicts are not an issue that is the sole preserve of any one; more the unsuccessful section of the working population. Indeed many of my clients are hugely successful business people in their own right: exceptional, energetic individuals with significant value to offer. However, like all of us, they are vulnerable and no organisation, and no one individual, is immune - from the most humble office junior through to the Chairman of the Board.

In fact, it was indeed the Chairman of the organisation that was involved recently in a scenario with one of my CEO clients. An acknowledged workaholic, she’d recently been diagnosed with a serious illness. She was aware that she had to make significant changes in her work/life balance but old habits - and other people’s perceptions of her - were hard to change.

Of particular interest was the lack of understanding by her Chairman. The fact that she said little about how seriously ill she was meant that she received little attention. If she and the organisation are not careful, they could be without her for a considerable time. Lack of communication, planning and understanding were leading to serious issues and conflict between all of the parties and had to be addressed.

The client needed the space to think about her situation.  She needed to think through her priorities and recognise that nothing is more important than her health.  Achieving more in the short term will not matter if the organisation loses her leadership forever.  Getting clear about what is important, what needs to be done and determining her own clear action plan had the effect of sorting out her challenges and giving her more energy for her recovery period.

Effective Communication is the root of all work conflict resolution. Communicating effectively is the opportunity for leaders and managers to work through their challenging people issues.  If they can deal with these issues early and effectively, work conflicts do not get to a point of causing the huge distractions and costs that research is showing.   We spend huge amounts each year on dealing with work conflict resolution when we really do not have to; if only we managed it better.

These are basic, albeit often neglected, management skills and much of our time is being spent in enabling the effective transfer of basic coaching skills to increase the effectiveness of line managers. The key is helping individuals, and the people around them, to help themselves and to be responsible for their own decisions and direction in their personal and/or business lives.  

*CIPD October, 2008

Nisa Chitakasem is one of the founders of Position Ignition, which provides careers advice for the modern age. Through Professional Coaching Nisa helps people get the support they need to achieve what they want and deserve for their Personal Development.

>> Find out more about Coaching for Professional Development

Comment

Most of us have tripped into our careers. Even those who went into professions like law and accountancy tell of taking up the training as nothing else had happened for them.

Why is it that most people have never experienced career advice? In schools it is usual that the careers teacher is doing that job as one part of a wider portfolio. And that role is often administrative as the expectation is that there is a library of information that students can access. In universities it is not much better. One of the UK's top universities requires students to pre-book a session where the student then has 15 minutes help with their CV. It is probably useful advice. How useful is it in the context of career advising as we might want it?

In business schools the students invest significantky for their programmes. The full-time MBA is paid for by the student who has also the opportunity cost of not working. The benefit and risk issues are significant to them. The part-time MBAs at business schools are over 2 years and are usually sponsored by the employer of the student. There is less risk to the student; they continue to be paid and their job continues after their MBA has been completed.

In these business schools, careers advice and support is critical to the full-time student. The student needs to understand fully the level of support that they will get throughout their course as the course budget gets squeezed by the costs of all the other componenets of the programmes. On the part-time MBA, the employers are sceptical (scared?) of any career advice lest the students walk away after the MBA is completed.

The stages above are just 3 examples of where career advice is useful. Some people are fortunate that they have access to good advice. They may have a parent or parents who take an interest and who are able to encourage their offspring down an appropriate channel. Sometimes there is a teacher or a mentor who has specific expereince that is helpful. For most, though, the career issue is not prevalent until it lurches into view at key moments - when one leaves school or university or when when has finished that Masters.

These examples are obvious as they are at "rite of pasage" points in our lives or where we may have taken a key decision to invest in our career. What would happen if careers were more central to our learning experiences at these key stages?

The best careers advice is achieved by understanding the capablities of an individual. In a school context this is often well understood by the teaching community as they are working with the students regularly in an academic, pastoral and ex curricula way. They are also measuring regularly to feedback to students and parents and also to relevant external bodies. The wherewithal to undertake good career advice is there. Most schools are not resourced to provide it.

The main issue seems to be that, as a society, we do not value careers as an important subject. Whether it is in schools or with people in work who are careering (rather than controlling) in their careers, the lack of value pertains. Some people do take proactive action and they broadly fall into 2 camps - they are in pain and distress because they have lost their jobs or they are bored and frustrated and know that they have to move out of what they are doing.

Taking care of your career is a lifelong responsibility. The earlier that we can value that notion and learn how to take care of it, the better it will be for the whole of one's working life.

Nisa Chitakasem is one of the founders of Position Ignition, which provides careers advice for the modern age. Through Professional Coaching Nisa helps people get the support they need to achieve what they want and deserve for their Personal Development.

>> Learn more about Personal Development training and courses

>> Find out more about Coaching for Professional Development 

Comment