6 Figure Career Management

As we wrap up 2008, I thought I’d share some of the best posts of the year below. I got the idea from Penelope Trunk, who recently shared her best 18 posts of the year on the excellent blog, Brazen Careerist.

As this is the last post of the year, can I also quickly say ‘thank you’ for reading and commenting on the blog. I understand that everyone is busy and so appreciate you taking the time to read. I hope you’ve found the articles of benefit during a turbulent 2008 and hope to bring you more valuable advice and information in 2009.

So wherever you are in the world, I wish you an enjoyable and relaxing time over the remaining days of the holiday season and look forward to ’seeing’ you in January.

15 Best Posts of 2008

Focus On Reinvention, Not Recession

10 Ways YOU Stop Yourself Getting The Right Job

How To Thrive During Uncertain Times 

9 Career Lessons From Richard Branson

13 Ways To Stay Positive In An Economic Downturn

How To Recession Proof Your Career By Developing Your Network

5 Tips For Managing Your Career In A Crazy Market

Why Thinking Like A Consultant Protects You In A Downturn

5 Steps To More Money AND More Satisfaction

The 7½ Tips For Being Remarkable

The Secret To Success In A Downturn: Choosing Your Reaction

5 Tips For Job Searching In A Crazy Market

How To Make Your CV / Resume Stand Out In A Downturn

Lehman Employees: Here’s What To Do Next

Career Changers: 6 Steps To Becoming Unstuck

If you like the post, I’d really appreciate it if you helped spread the word by sharing it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg!
 

“I thought, I can either feel guilty about surviving, or I can do something positive that will help other people.”
Megan Blunt (Cancer Survivor)

This is 15 year old Megan Blunt from the UK. Megan is a cancer surviver who chose to use her experiences to produce an A to Z guide for children on how to deal with cancer. She turned a bad situation into an opportunity to do some good. She turned lemons into lemonade.

She couldn’t change the fact that she had cancer – that was her situation, her condition. But she chose to attach a very different meaning to her illness – a meaning that involved using her experience of cancer to help thousands of other young cancer sufferers better handle the stresses and pains of the illness.

Megan is one of the inspirational individuals that has been recognised by the “Pride of Britain Awards” in recent years. Pride of Britain celebrates the achievements of the remarkable unsung heroes who make our world a better place. It’s the biggest national event of its kind in the UK.
 
Megan’s story perfectly illustrates how it’s not what happens to you, but about the meaning you give to what happens to you that dictates your level of success.

Click here to read the rest…

I’m not a huge fan of reality television or talent shows in general, but for some reason, I do enjoy Simon Cowell’s The X Factor TV show - the UK equivalent of American Idol.

It’s the usual talent show format - members of the general public audition, get selected to perform in front of a live TV audience and one by one, the public vote and eliminate one person each week until there’s a winner who receives fame and a multi-million pound recording contract.

Last weekend saw the surprise elimination of 21 year old Laura White – a talented singer tipped as one of the favourites to win the overall competition. It was quite a shock. Such a shock that it was even discussed in the UK Houses of Parliament by the Culture Secretary earlier this week!

And in fact, Daniel Evans who is by far the weakest singer left in the competition, amazingly survived. Based on singing ability, even a partially deaf person would realise that Daniel, should have been exited from the show.

But this is the X Factor. Members of the public vote to keep you in, not based on who is the best singer, but on who they feel most connected to. Laura was voted off, not because of a poor singing performance, but because of poor marketing and poor branding.

The same point applies to keeping your job during the current spate of restructuring and redundancies across the banking sector. It’s not just talent and ability that will keep you in your job - you also need to be able to market yourself to your internal audience.

I’m no expert on the music industry, but with my career management hat on, I can speculate as to why Laura was voted off and how the same points relate to you and your career during the current downsizing activity across the industry:

1. No clear personal brand

Click here to read the rest…

Following on from Goldman Sachs laying off 10% of it’s workforce in recent days, media reports this week suggest that the newly formed Bank of America / Merrill Lynch group is gearing up for a 15% cut across its global workforce. Like Goldmans, the lion’s share of redundancies are rumoured to be in New York and London.  With further reports of Morgan Stanley and UBS planning further cuts and the dire economic predictions from the IMF this week, there’s plenty of bad news around.

If I wanted to, I’m sure I could fill the pages of this blog daily with news stories of job cuts, dire predictions and gloomy announcements. But if you keep following all these stories, they just consume you, paralyse you into not doing anything out of fear or an attitude of “well what’s the point?”

It is much wiser (and so much more effective), to instead focus on solutions instead of all the problems. That means strengthening your network internally and externally, doing some self analysis to get really clear about all the skills and talents you offer, understanding what value you offer employers then reinventing and re-packaging yourself to meet the changing needs of your current and future employers.

That’s what every forward thinking business is to doing right now to survive - revaluating itself and then repositioning the business to meet changing needs of the market. As the CEO of You Inc / You Plc, that’s exactly what you should be doing to succeed in the current market. 

Individuals who are proactive enough to take meaningful action and make changes can potentially thrive and be the winners in this market. For these individuals, the economic downturn could in fact be the best thing that ever happened to their careers. On the other hand, those that sit around watching and worrying about the bad news stories will unfortunately find themselves become the victims of the downturn.

So it’s a choice - focus on the problems or on solutions.

What are you choosing….?

If you have a warm home, a soft bed, food in the fridge, clean clothes, family and friends – then you have a lot to be thankful for. Two-thirds of the world’s population would think they’d won the lottery if they were in your shoes. If you have a college education, own a car, a phone and have internet access then you’re far more privileged than about 90% of the people on the planet.

Keep that in mind the next time you find yourself complaining about the state of the economy, the job market and your prolonged job search. No matter how bad a day, week or year you’re having, you’re still in a pretty privileged place right now.

This is far more than a ‘you gotta stay positive’ message. Developing the right attitude is the foundation of your job search - without it, you will struggle to get back into the right job in the current economic climate.

Click here to read the rest…

Over the summer, I wrote about the job loss league compiled by the Here In The City site. They have recently updated the table  - below are the 10 banking groups who have laid off the most staff as measured by % to total work force:

Bear Stearns - 7,500 job losses, 14,000 financial markets jobs, 53.5% of the total

Lehman Brothers - 14,500, 30,000, 48.3%

Wachovia - 1,400, 3,900, 35.8% (Wachovia’s new owners, Wells Fargo, is thought unlikely to want to have to deal with an investment banking business in the current environment. The smart money thinks that the unit will either be sold of pared back)

CitiBank - 7,900, 30,000, 26.3%

UBS - 5,800, 22,300, 26%

Royal Bank of Scotland / ABN AMRO - 7,000, 28,000, 25% (The recent ‘part nationalization’ of RBS is thought likely to result in significant additional headcount reductions at the Global Markets & Banking Division).

WestLB - 1,530, 6,120, 25%

Fortis / ABN AMRO Asset Management - 490, 2000, 24.5%

Perry Capital - 20, 100, 20%

Ramius LLC - 40, 200, 20%

To see the full league table, click here

During the last financial services downturn in 2002/03 I worked as a recruiter in London’s financial district. The market was tough and we were all feeling pretty low - not too dissimilar to the mood across the industry today. 

Then one Friday lunchtime in the summer of 2002, the UK tabloid newspaper, The Sun, brought a group of bikini clad Page 3 models into London’s Square Mile on top of an open top bus in an attempt to “cheer up the City” (and of course create a nice little story for the weekend press). Whilst many of the girls in my office were far from impressed with the whole circus going on outside, all the guys rushed outside to see the passing of the ‘parade.’ We were like excited kids running outside to see Santa’s sleigh passing the house at Christmas (..very sad, I know).

So it was with a smile on my face that I read the story of Playboy offering Wall Street bankers the opportunity to earn extra cash by stripping off for an upcoming “Women of Wall Street” feature.

“When the news gets bad, then maybe that’s a chance to make people smile by coming up with something that puts a different twist on it”, said Gary Cole, Playboy’s photo editor.

But there is a more serious point here - a career lesson to learn from this story. 

Click here to read the rest…

“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
- Eric Hoffer (American Social Writer)

The world just changed. The old world of financial services no longer exists and with it many of the career opportunities you were working towards may well have disappeared.

The promotion you were working towards may have gone. The year-end bonus you have worked 9 months for may not materialise. The bank you wanted to work for may no longer exist. The long-term exit plan you had in your mind may well seem unfeasible now.

Does that just mean doom and gloom? For some people, maybe. But for forward-thinking people it’s a tremendous opportunity to reinvent themselves rather than worrying about all the headlines of recession and downturn.

As financial institutions go through the painful process of reinventing themselves to meet the demands of a world with more regulation, lower profits and slower growth, reinventing yourself and your career is exactly what you should be focused on right now - regardless of whether you have been impacted by restructuring and redundancy.

During my own career, I have reinvented myself 3 times. Each time the catalyst has been a tough market. Each time it has been an uncomfortable experience which turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my professional life.

So it may not feel like it right now, but the current market could be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Here are 5 tips I’ve learned about reinventing your career during a tough market:

Click here to read the rest…

 ”Meltdown Monday,” “Markets Reeling,” “Crash, Bang, Wallop!”

The fall of Lehman Brothers and tumbling of banking stocks this week has been a headline writer’s dream. The press and media are full of the problems and dire predictions. Bad news sells, as they say.

But despite all the uncertainty and craziness, you really can still be successful. The focus should be on making your position as  secure as possible whilst putting yourself in a strong position just in case something drastic happens to your firm

Here are some suggestions on how to accomplish this:

Click here to read the rest…

Cross posted at the Career Hub Blog 

“I’ll do anything - beggars can’t be choosers. Especially in the current market.”

That’s a line quoted by someone I spoke with earlier this week just after she had been laid off.  Jane works with a friend of mine who had referred her to me for some advice, a day after being made redundant.

When I pointed out what she had said and how this type of thinking was like poison to her job search and the overall health of her career, she quickly replied “Oh, I would never say that to a recruiter or future employer.”

It doesn’t matter.

The fact that you are talking or thinking like this, even just to yourself, means it matters hugely.

I know that ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ is one of those clichés, but as I have said before, there is sometimes a danger that clichés and stories actually become self-fulfilling prophesies.

As I pointed out to Jane, this type of thinking is faulty because:

Click here to read the rest…