7 overlooked things to build before your next career decision
So you have more choice, and a better chance of making the right one when the time comes.
You’re not looking. You’re not even thinking about looking. Then a headhunter rings one afternoon with a role that sounds seriously tempting. More scope, more money, a more senior title, an organisation you’d genuinely like to work for. The sort of opportunity where your first thought is, “Blimey, I’d bite their hand off!”
Suddenly you’ve got quite a big decision to make.
Sometimes the catalyst is less welcome. A promotion gets pushed back, someone you trust leaves, the structure changes, or you realise the role that suited you three years ago doesn’t fit you any more.
And that can happen before you’ve had much chance to work out what you want, what your options are, how good those options really are and whether you’re actually ready to make it crystal clear why they should choose you.
You can update a CV over a weekend. But some of the things that really give you options can’t just be magicked out of a hat when you suddenly need them.
They take time to build. And effort.
That’s why some career assets are worth building while things are going well, so you’re not starting from scratch when something unexpected comes along. And you're not in a mad scramble to pull everything together.
The question isn’t only, “Am I becoming more valuable where I am?” It’s also, “Am I increasing the choices available to me if an irresistible, unputdownable offer comes along?”
The clock is ticking...
Here are seven I’d want in place:
1. Keep an eye on what’s happening outside your own organisation
It’s very easy to get buried in your own world. You know what matters inside your firm, who carries weight, which clients are important and where you fit into all of that. But if you haven’t looked outside for a while, you may have very little idea how your experience is being valued elsewhere.
You don’t need to be looking for a job. Have the odd conversation. Talk to people in the market. See what’s changing. Find out where people with your experience are going and what they’re being hired to do.
Just don’t wait until the first headhunter rings and make that one person your entire source of market intelligence.
2. Keep some relationships going beyond the people you see every day
A lot of professional relationships are surprisingly dependent on being in the same building, on the same matter or copied into the same emails.
Then someone leaves and, six months later, you realise you haven’t spoken since.
That’s normal because everyone’s busy. But it’s worth keeping some relationships alive because you actually value them, rather than because Outlook keeps putting you in front of each other.
Former colleagues, clients, peers, people you’ve worked with over the years.
A useful question is simply:
Who would still take my call if my email address changed tomorrow?
3. Keep a record of the things you’ve actually done
I know this sounds boring, but it’s also incredibly useful.
After a few years, it’s amazing how much you forget. You remember the ghastly matter that ruined Christmas 2022, but not necessarily the fact that you grew a client relationship, turned something around, developed somebody, saved a load of money or got something difficult over the line.
Write things down as you go. Nothing fancy, but make sure you can retrieve it at short notice.
Otherwise, when someone asks what you’ve achieved over the last five years, you’ll be spending Sunday afternoon going through old emails trying to reconstruct your own career and that is a recipe for Olympic standard procrastination.
4. Work out what’s yours and what belongs to the platform around you
If you work somewhere with a strong name, great clients, good systems and lots of opportunity, that gives you a huge amount. And that can make it quite hard to work out which bits of your value would travel with you.
So have a think about it.
What have you learnt to do really well? What judgement have you developed? Which relationships are genuinely yours? What do people seek you out for? What could you walk into another organisation and still do just as well?
If the logo disappeared tomorrow, what would still be yours?
That’s worth knowing even if you never leave.
5. Know what you’d actually want before somebody waves something shiny at you
This is the one I think people often leave too late.
A role appears with a better title, more money and an interesting firm. The person talking about how brilliant the opportunity is for you sounds really enthusiastic.
Of course it looks attractive.
So before you even speak to them, have at least some idea of your own criteria. What would make another role genuinely better for you? What do you want more of? What are you definitely not signing up for again? Your non-negotiables.
Write your specification before you read theirs.
Otherwise, there’s a real risk that the opportunity starts telling you what you want. Which may feel OK initially but may not be a year into the role.
6. Get clear on why somebody should choose you
By the time you’re looking at senior roles, “I’m very good at my job” probably isn’t enough on its own.
What have you built? Where have you created value? Which relationships have you developed? What do you understand about your market that someone else might want? What could you do with a different platform, more responsibility or a bigger remit? How concrete is your future value?
You don’t need some horrible rehearsed sales pitch. But you do need to be ready to make it very clear why somebody should choose you.
Preferably a while before the interview, rather than thinking of your best answer in the taxi on the way, or after the interview.
7. Keep enough going that staying is still something you’ve chosen
This is really what the other six are doing for you.
You know what’s happening in the market. You’ve kept relationships going. You know what you’ve built, what travels with you and what you’d want from something different.
And then you may look at all of that and think, actually, I’m very happy where I am.
Great. That is significant.
Because there’s a big difference between staying because you’ve looked at the options and this is still the best one, and staying because moving now feels like such an enormous faff that you’d rather not even think about it.
One way we can work together
If you’re starting to think about a move, or an opportunity has already appeared, private coaching can help you get clear on what you want, what your best options are and what the first steps should be.
We can look at what you’ve built, what travels with you, what you’d want from the next role and how to approach the decision with more confidence and less mad scrambling.
You don’t need to have it all worked out before we speak.
If you’re ready to start thinking properly about what comes next, let’s talk.
Amanda