A (0:00)

Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast. And before you listen to today's episode, I just wanted to let you know about some news that Sarah and I are very excited about, and that is that our new book, Learn Like a Lobster, is ready to pre order now. We really care about everybody learning and growing at work, but we know it is not easy to do and so we're borrowing some brilliance from lobsters to help you to do it. The book takes three inspiring and surprising abilities of lobsters in terms of how they grow and applies it to how we can learn at work. So if you want some inspiration and you need some practical insights to support your learning, growth and development, this is the book for you. And if you pre order now and send your Pre order to helloearnlikealobster.com you can join the Lobster Library where we have a community of lobster learners ready for you to learn with some live sessions. And this will all happen before the book arrives. So pre order the book now, send it to hello@learnlikealobster.com and and get started with your learning straight away. Now let's get onto today's episode.

B (1:03)

Hi, I'm Sarah and this is a squiggly career shortcut on career change. Now, we know that within a squiggly career you're likely to have at least four or five different types of career. So this will feel relevant for all of us. At some point we're all going to change careers at some point. It can feel both motivating and exciting, but also quite daunting and difficult to do. So if you are thinking about doing something different in your squiggly career, what can help you to get started? Whether it is a really significant squiggle, so doing something quite dramatically different, or whether it's a squiggle and stay move, so maybe a move within the organisation you're already in. 1. Start with progress over perfection. You can't think your way to career change as much as I might like to. As somebody who enjoys thinking and reflecting, you have to take action. And this action can be really small experiments, small projects, volunteering. Find as many ways as you can to try before you apply. Get involved, even if it's a really kind of small opportunity, doesn't need to feel big or time consuming, but the closer that you get to, the more relationships you will build. And also it's a good stress test for does this feel like the right fit for me? Number two, have as many curious career conversations as you can. It will help you understand the reality of different teams, different areas, what challenges they've got, whether that's something that you're interested in. So you'll get a feel for fit. And also you never know who knows who or who knows what. Now we know with really big career changes. So if you're looking to do something very different from what you do today, you need to find some new people to talk to. And that can feel really hard if you're more introverted like I am. So ask for introductions. Remember, people really like helping people, so have clarity on like, what do you need? So what is your ask? And it can just be something like I'm exploring and moving to sales and marketing at some point in the next few years. Do you know anyone who could give me some insights into that or who might be prepared to share a bit about their experience? And usually you will find someone will be able to help you. And people really enjoy talking about what they do. So never apologize for asking for a bit of help. Number three, talents over titles. You have to figure out your transferable talents and talk about them clearly and with confidence. My top tip here is think about how you do your job rather than what you do. Often we see ourselves in kind of what we do day to day, like the tasks and the jobs that we need to get done. But think about if you were doing a very different job next week, what would you take with you? It's usually your hows. Are you a really good listener? Are you an amazing collaborator? Do you work really well? Cross functionally? Are you really good at creative problem solving? What are those transferable talents that you've got? And then start to connect the dots between those talents and where you want to go. How will they be useful for that team, for that organization, for that department that you want to move to? And one word of caution, just watch out for job descriptions putting you off making those moves. Sometimes job descriptions can read a bit like wish lists. And so if you read a job description, you wouldn't apply for any jobs, whether that's similar to what you do today or if you're trying to do something different, different. But I think particularly when you're in that career change mode, you can look at a job description and think, well, I just don't have enough to apply. But think about those transferable talents. Have those career conversations. Do the progress over perfection. And if you can, if you're thinking about a career change, if you can have conversations with people beforehand, that often puts you in a much better position to at least be considered or hopefully get an interview. And final thing to think about with career change, and this has definitely worked for me every time I've made any kind of career change is bridging roles can be really useful. So a bridging role might not be exactly where you want to go, but it gets you much closer. So maybe there's a bit of what you do today. So maybe it is within a similar team or some of the skills that you've got. Both your what's and your hows still stay relevant, but there's, there's some newness there that's getting you a bit closer to where you want to go. Successful career change does tend to happen incrementally and bit by bit. Unfortunately, there's no sort of silver bullet of going from one thing to something very different overnight. And for most of us, we also need to make sure that we are still earning enough and kind of, we've got all of those kind of basics in place. And so often, you know, having a kind of bridging role and in between role and it might be one or it might be a couple, but. But where you feel like you're moving in the right direction, you're getting closer to where you want to go can be a really good thing to do. When Helen and I were, when we first created Squiggly Careers and our company, amazing if we didn't move from our kind of corporate jobs to running amazing if overnight. It actually took seven years. And we were doing loads of different things during those seven years. But that's the biggest career change and the biggest career move that I've ever made. And I think one of the reasons that it worked out so well and that I'm still doing it today is that we did all of those things that we just talked about. We did a lot of testing and learning, lots of curious career conversations, really thought progress over perfection. Now, it might not take you seven years, but just kind of be kind to yourself and, you know, think about your own expectations around kind of how to make these things happen. We're all going to be working for a long time in our squiggly careers, so don't feel disheartened if you can't make it happen straight away. I hope you found that useful. If you'd like a longer listen on career change, episode 379 of Squiggly Careers podcast, I interview April Ryan, all about career change. She's written and researched lots about career change. She's also done it herself. So if you want some examples and some more stories to bring to life some of the things I've talked to you about today, that might be a useful listen, Sam.