Talk given in March 2013 at Dublin City Public Libraries as part of their public lecture series on career development. Prepared and delivered by John Deely BA MSc, Occupational Psychologist with Pinpoint (www.pinpoint.ie)

1. Changing Your Career in Difficult
Times
Helping organisations bring out the best in their talent
Helping individuals make positive and rewarding career choices
www.pinpoint.ie
Dublin City Public Libraries – Career Direction and Development
Programme
Prepared by John Deely BA MSc
Occupational Psychologist with Pinpoint.

2. Where Will You Be in Five Years?

3. Events that make us reflect on our career
 Redundancy
 Pipped at an interview
 Significant birthdays
 New manager
 Peers moving ahead
 Life events
 Having a family
 The “economy”
 An approach about a job

4. 3 wheels of career success
Managing
Your
Career
Role / Job
Context /
Environment

5. 2 Clues to Talent
 The Art of Interviewing – Two
Clues to Talent
 1) Rapid learning. Think of
projects / roles where you
learned a lot in a short period,
or where you were in at the
deep end?
 2) Sources of Satisfaction.
“What gave you most
satisfaction about an incident /
scenario?”

6. Career Clues and Strengths
 Challenges
 Achievements
 Moments of satisfaction
 Feedback
 Scenarios
 Learning
 Colleagues
 Managers
 Collaboration

7. WORK HIGHLIGHT EXERCISE
 Turn to the person next to you. Decide who is going first.
 Listener says ‘I’m interested in hearing about
a specific work situation or story where you
felt positive about what you were doing at
the time; something that stands out in your
mind’
 Talker, tell your story with no interruption – be as
descriptive as you can. Provide a bit of detail.
 Listener, listen and then ask questions. Use the 4 W’s
(Who, What, When Where) and How? to explore and
understand the event.
 3 minutes each to tell your story. I will signal for you
to swap roles.

8. Health checks / Career Maintenance
 Am I enjoying my role as much as I was 6 months ago?
 If yes,
 Progress
 Satisfaction & Strengths
 People
 If No,
 Explore Why?
 What can I do?
 Engaging help
 Write your future CV for next 12 months. Does it fire
you up?

9. Be a Career Detective
 Be forensic, learn from
each chapter of your
career
 Be clear about.....
 your skills, your qualities,
the scenarios you like
 the contexts that you enjoy
 your values

10. Be yourself
““People don’t change that
much. Don’t waste time
trying to put in what was
left out. Try to draw out
what was left in. That is
hard enough.”
Source: "First break all the Rules, what
great managers do differently" by
Buckingham and Coffman.

11. A principle to underpin your career
management
 Value your offer
 “Quiet: The Power of
Introverts in a World That
Can’t Stop Talking”

12. Your values, your ideal context
 Find the right career
is as much about the
right context as it is
about the right
activities
 Right skills wrong
scenario

13. CAREER ANALYSIS
MANY THINGS
Career Direction, CV, Linkedin, Interviews, Informal
Conversations, Professional Development, Personal
Development.

14. Interview Question #1
Can you highlight
something from your
career that has given
you real satisfaction.
What would you
choose and why?

15. Remember your stories

16. Challenges
 Habits
 Wrong career choice
 Clarity about your
strengths
 Gap
 Challenge of Change
 Income flexibility
 Well-being / nature of the
work
 Internet
 Network

17. The Process of Change
 1952 Lewin, Unfreezing, Moving, Refreezing
 1969 Kubler-Ross, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, depression
Acceptance
 1989 Rashford & Coghlan, Denying, Dodging, Doing,
sustaining
 Cut to the “moving and doing” 5 years before you plan to
retire. A phase of trial and error.
 Doing different things. Deepening your network. Expanding
extracurricular activities. Learning.

18. Habits & Rituals
 “We are what we
repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is
not an act, but a
habit.” Aristotle
 “First we form habits,
then they form us.
Conquer your bad
habits or they will
conquer you." Rob
Gilbert

19. Being pigeon holed

21. A Personal Project
 The transformative
power of a personal
project by
 Site:
www.brainpickings
.org

22. “To know oneself, one
should assert oneself.
Psychology is action,
not thinking about
oneself. We continue
to shape our
personality all our
life. If we knew
ourselves perfectly, we
should die.” Albert
Camus

23. Taking on new things
 Talk on
www.TED.com by
Matt Cutts
 Energy / Enthusiasm
enhances one’s offer

24. Overnight Success
“You bet I arrived
overnight. Over a few
hundred nights in the
Catskills, in
vaudeville, in clubs
and on Broadway.”
Danny Kaye

25. Job Search Channels / Activities
 Direct Application
 Recruiters
 Self-employed
 Contract roles
 Linkedin
 Networking

26. The Reality of Networking
 I'd like to add you to my
professional network on
LinkedIn.
 Over 50% of roles
 77% of industry leaders
 Generosity
 Resilience
 References / Intelligence
 Diversity

27. Networking – Building Trust
 Does anyone know any
good plumbers?
 “Go to” people
 Mavens, connectors and
sales people
 It takes time to build a
network or indeed to re-
build a network.
 Shared values or interests.
 I wish I had…

28. THE CURRENCY OF NETWORKING
“The currency of
REAL networking
is not greed, but
generosity.”
Keith Ferrazzi

29. Different Career Modes
 Consulting
 Free lance
 Part time
 Expert role
 Non-executive
 Mentoring / Training
 Interim Roles
 Web based opportunities
 Own Enterprise

30. E.g. Older Entrepreneurs
 New business formation
up from 14.3% to 20.9% in
15 years in the US
 55 to 65 year olds have the
highest rate of
entrepreneurial activity
 25% of small business in
the UK founded by over
50s
 4 year study of start-ups
64% survival rate for start-
ups by older people (vs
48% overall)

31. WRITE YOUR FUTURE CV
 Think about the next 12 to 18 months
 What would you like your future CV to look like?
 Sections
 Work experience
 Education & Training
 Extracurricular activities
 Interests

32. Position yourself for Opportunities
“Chance favours the prepared mind.” Louis Pasteur
“We must believe in luck. For how else can we
explain the success of those we don't like?” Jean
Cocteau.

33. Summary
 Review your career in a
forensic way
 The capacity for change is
a muscle which needs to
be exercised.
 Your network is an
ecosystem which needs to
be maintained.
 Transition takes time.
 You may need to recruit
yourself