Moving on and up in a pandemic

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afternoon everybody i'm going to get us started um i'd like to welcome you to this
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second webinar in our cipd series that's focused on helping you with your career in 2021 within the
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wonderful people profession my name is katie jacobs and i'll be hosting the next hour
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over this series we're really really keen to provide you with practical advice and tips from experts and people who
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have been there done that and bought the t-shirt and we want to give you the opportunity to connect with each other
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i'm going to make this session as interactive as possible you'll have lots of opportunities to ask questions and also to chat to each other using the
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chat function in our first session we explored breaking into the people profession
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in this one we're looking at moving on and moving up how do you take the next step in your
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career how can you find that next opportunity even during a downturn and how do you
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decide what's right for you if you're still kind of figuring out where you want to go next in your career
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joining me to share their insights and experiences i've got a really fab panel of experts i'm joined by laura
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walker laura is founder of midlife careers and she's even written a book on the topic
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louise sorrell who's hr business director at the recruitment firm baden often clarke yatunde oladipo
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senior talent consultant at the department of work and pensions and tim poynter svp for people and
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culture at creative artist agency global brands group i'll let tim explain what that does when
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we come to the introductions thank you all for joining us today as ever let me just run through the
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housekeeping quickly this webinar is being recorded it will be available on demand after the session
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apart from the slides you can see right now we don't have any others so once i'm finished doing the housekeeping and i'm telling
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you about various things you need to know about we're going to be running it as an interactive panel that means we need
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your questions so please do get them in from the start could i ask you to use the q a function
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at the bottom of your screen if you want a question you want me to see and you want me to put to the panel but i really want to see you using the
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chat function and make sure you set it to panelists and attendees to talk among yourselves and to swap
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tips and stories and encouragement on the last session we saw so much activity and people connecting and
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networking and it was really really great to see i think we've got over 200 people here
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so far and more joining every every minute so use the opportunity to connect you might come away from here having met
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somebody really really helpful i want to make you aware of our great cipd resources around
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careers our careers hub where you can access a host of brilliant interactive tools
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including a cv optimization tool we have a careers clinic on the cipd community where you can get
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advice from your fellow people professionals about your hardest career challenges and our amazing branch network which is
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a really great way to build your skills and to learn and to network with other people professionals
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these are really tough times especially for people who are job hunting so i want to flag our wellbeing helpline
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we're working with award-winning workplace well-being provider health assured to provide our members in the uk and ireland with free
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advice from qualified therapists you can also access the my healthy advantage app which provides wellbeing
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tools designed to improve your mental and physical health and finally as i flagged this as part of
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a series so we've got a couple more webinars coming on the topic of your career in the people profession
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so do watch out for those sorry excuse me so it's pretty clear
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that the pandemic has highlighted the vital role of the people profession but the context
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we find ourselves in presents both opportunities and challenges for professionals seeking to
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develop their careers in 2021 and beyond how can people professionals take advantage of new opportunities
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build on their skills during challenging times should your next step involve seeking promotion or moving on
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how can you build up your confidence post furlough or redundancy what's the best approach to virtual
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networking and could the trend towards more remote working expand your horizons and opportunities
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those are the kind of things we're going to be talking about but please do get your questions in as well so i'm going to kick off the discussion
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and i'd like to start first by asking our two practitioners on the panel tim and euton day to offer some context
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around their own career journeys what were the decisions that you made that enabled you to move on and up
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have you got experience of doing so during a recession or a downturn for example and tim can i start with you hello
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everyone uh great to be part of this uh exceptional panel um and a really really important topic i'm very
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fortunate i've had a a career which has um been in hr pretty much all the way
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through um sorry that's a it's just a crow a croaky voice i haven't got covered
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um and uh but part of the the joy of that has been times outside
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of hr and i would one of the first tips i would give i know that others will add to this is that
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you're given the opportunity to do something different even if you see your long-term future
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in human resources grab it with both hands i've been fortunate enough to have spells in retail management in
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marketing and it's always meant that i've come back into the profession with more understanding of the business
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and with greater technical now and business understanding better acumen which helps me to make
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better decisions so today as katie said i sit on the executive team for cagb which is the
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world's largest global brand management agency um and you know that's the experience
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that i've built up all the way through helps me to sit on that executive team not just
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as the person who's responsible for our people strategy but as a business leader as someone that
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has business understanding and experience and first looks at what's right for the
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business and then secondarily thinks about how we can use our people strategy to best build that
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now through my career i've been very fortunate to have had a lot of global experience so i've worked in the us i've worked
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out in asia pacific in fact i lived in sydney for five years and the opportunity to go to different
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countries different regions and to understand more particularly if you want to have a global career to work
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in international businesses to build cultural understanding again don't you that's not one of those cases
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of looking for it for me it's not about looking for a promotion it's about just looking for breadth and
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putting yourself forward always being the person who is curious and wants to take on that additional project
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that additional responsibility um it shows that you're someone who's up
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for the um who's up for the challenge and so i've been very fortunate that i've always been fascinated by
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brandy businesses i've been fortunate to work with some great branded businesses from marks
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and spencer where i started out on the on the grad scheme just a few years ago when i had more hair and
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i didn't have a beard um and and then i've worked for businesses like hmv waterstones i worked for maxim which
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is a global liquor joint venture when i was out in asia pacific and i spent a lot of time
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in in the fashion industry um both with diesel the only the brave group
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penland that owns uh speedo mitre ted baker and lacoste footwear um i
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spent two years with dixon's car phone and then most recently it's uh it's global brands group where all of the
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regional hr directors report into me and we work across 22 countries globally
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so you have a very quick whistle-stop tour there of you know a passion for brands a fascination with
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how we set people up to achieve things in international integrated businesses and
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you know the ability to just keep asking questions keep building keep stepping forward and
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um and i've been very fortunate to have some fantastic leaders over the years and that's a theme i'll
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come back to later on but i'll i'll i'll pass over on that note thank you very much tim really really great
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overview um day same question to you right um hi um i work in the civil service at the
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moment um and i've been as uh civil servant most of my career but before joining the civil service
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i qualified as a teacher and i was a teacher as well but i wanted to do something different
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but which will still involve um people i mean i think all jobs involve people
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but i wanted to do something different so i started to study um hrm and human resource management
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whilst and i remember before i started studying human resource management i was looking
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for jobs when i wanted to change from education into human resources i applied for many jobs
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but they didn't get through there was once one that i got through to the interview and at the interview i was told okay
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you're great you're good but you're not ready for hr you don't have the experience
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so i thought okay if i don't have the experience you're not offering me the experience where do you start so that was the first hurdle
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that i i had to cross so i decided to go and study human resource management at that point
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and started to apply for jobs again and i remember there was one day on my birthday i attended about
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three job interviews and that's because this is i knew then this is what i wanted to do so that's
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and i'm saying that now for people who are trying to get into hr switch or you know make that career transition
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it might be difficult but um you need to persevere and you know be very clear about
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you know um what you want and and keep going for it so i use different avenues i studied and while i was studying i got
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a job in the in the in the benefits of this as it was known then did that one so then i was also
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looking for jobs in nature to get into hr but i think for me having that
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frontline experience of what the business does really helps me and i could see um a connection between
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the frontline service that i was working in as well as the knowledge i was gaining through studying
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for my postgraduate diploma and that helped me so i started to look for jobs in nature i got
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one and um i got in there and i remember starting that job doing that for about
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six months and i thought right this is what i want to do i'm going for promotion and then
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and that maybe now was not so much now but then it was really difficult to get that promotion and i remember
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and i started thinking of different strategies and i remember my land manager at the
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time told me oh i'm not ready yet i said so i asked that what do i need to be ready
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so she told me i need to have like land management experience okay so i thought this was about many
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years ago and i said okay if i don't have that can we do a real reversal so i keep that put that forward
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let's reverse rule so that i'll be the line manager for uh a week and you can you know see my skills that way so
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that's another method of you know building experience look for opportunities put yourself forward
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and tim talked about breath earlier on and that's really important and as i i
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saw as my hr career experience began to grow and i wanted more so i started to look for more
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opportunities from being from being a generalist like hr
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business partner i wanted more than that you know i did employment relations um recruitment etc
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and i remember there was a time in my career that i was ready for promotion but there was
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no movement at the top people were not living and the new roads were not being created
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and i thought twice in my career i've had to leave hr to go to the front line gain experience
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of working with the business with business leaders operational leaders the chief executive
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and come back into hr on promotion so that experience that i gained outside hr
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helps me to propel my career in that regard on the second occasion when i was doing employee relations i wanted
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more but again there was no movement at the top i knew no opportunities for for for promotion at the time so again i
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left hr and i went to work at department for education as
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international relations so international research officer uh international
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so international information research manager to do that and that came at a good time
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in my career which i hadn't planned for but it was an opportunity that i had to seize
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um because i just completed my master's in employment studies and hrm which involved international
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studies of employment practices and this job came up and i grabbed it
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and in that job i think it was one of the best jobs in my career the best four
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years of my career looking at not you know things that affect employment we talk about cipd as
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a you know champion for better work and working less but that gave me that breadth of what happens before and after
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employment so i'll stop there the rest will pick up later thank you and really great to see some themes i
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think coming out from you and tim about getting that breadth of experience about leaving hr and
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doing something else and about that perseverance um as well um laura can i come to you as a kind of
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midlife careers um specialist what would be your initial kind of opening remarks or tips on
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where to where to go how to kind of make make the move and develop your career further yeah no
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problem thanks katie and so i am a careers and in particular midlife
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career specialist um i do a portfolio of work so including consulting coaching and writing um i've been
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also in the hr profession for most of my career so i've worked in six different industries so rather than
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necessarily really going outside of hr i've worked in a whole variety of different industries
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usually heading up um l d or talent or organization effectiveness so in businesses like gsk
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john lewis partnership bae systems burberry aviva lots of different companies i'm
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going to just comment on midlife careers today and there are a few things that you do really need to know um
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i mean mid-career midlife career it kind of is actually becoming earlier now so come from kind of 35 onwards and the
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clients that i work with range from 34 to 62. so just to give you a clue it's quite a broad range
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but there are a few things that you need to know um firstly research shows that it can be a uniquely
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challenging time um in life but around careers in particular
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uh for several reasons for three main reasons so most people at this stage in your career
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have a lot going on so there's a lot of expectations you have a lot of roles there's lots of people with needs from you more so than you
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might have earlier or later in your career the other thing um is that you're
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essentially at the pivotal point in your own life so you're between your youth and your old age but also you're between
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generations typically in your own family and also in organizations or in society
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so you're kind of the lynch pin that holds a lot of the society and the organization um
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together so it's a lot relying on you but the main thing is that the changes that are happening
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to you and for you are multi-directional in nature so most of the times in your life the
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trajectory is relatively positive whereas in midlife it's a whole mixture so some of it's positive so as you're
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moving forward you're becoming wiser in terms of how you make decisions but other things are typically are
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perceived anyway to be on the decline so things like your your well-being your health
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your physical strength uh your speed of processing those sorts of things so it's this complexity that makes it
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particularly challenging and there are a few things to know and that i found in my own research so i
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did some research as part of my master's two years ago and that forms the basis of my book and there's a few things to know
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about how do you do this at this point the first thing is not to get too hung up on changing what
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you do because actually that's not the most important thing so people who've changed from doing
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things like an it consultant in scotland to being a brewery owner in
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france the biggest thing wasn't that they went from doing that to that it was how they feel about their work so how they relate
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to the work they feel more liberated uh more passionate more engaged more
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committed to what they're doing and probably work a bit harder if anything but actually they feel really differently about how
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they relate to their work because they've got a sense of meaning behind it which escalates radically in
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the midlife the second thing is not to be seduced to jump into deciding too quickly
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so it's not to lurch to the first opportunity that presents itself to take the time that you need to
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get to know yourself again because what you want and need at 30 40
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50 is quite different to what it was when you were 20 so you have to really get to know yourself and what matters most to you
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now and spend a bit of time doing that and the third thing is that the context
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because you're in the midst of all this stuff that's going on contextual readiness is really important
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and a lot of people around you have an agenda about the choices that you make about your career
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so they might want you to keep doing what you're doing for some reason so they might have got used to your salary
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or your status or whatever it happens to be and other people will be really strongly encouraging you to change because they
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get sick of you moaning about you know what's going on in your life so it's quite difficult to get unbiased
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challenging support and so but it is worth persisting with and the final thing i will say um and
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most people i work with completely resonates with is the in midlife or probably slightly broader it is a
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dance with fear and confidence whether you know it or not you are dancing with fear and confidence
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and it's quite a complex dance so sometimes fears in the lead sometimes confidence is in the lead especially if
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you're transitioning and making a career move it's quite fascinating because they can both create drive
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and impetus but they can also keep you stuck so you have to pay attention to what is
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going on it's quite a dynamic um dance and the more you can learn
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from the reactions that you're having and the conversations and what that evokes for you the better prepared you are to
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dance so i'll stop there and obviously we can pick things up in their questions
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and hang back thanks thank you a really fascinating point sir um and louise before i come on to
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people's questions as a recruiter what's the market like at the moment kind of make us feel makes us feel
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better all seems a bit a bit grim out there yeah so yeah i mean no one can deny that the
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last 12 months have been probably i've been at baylor clark for 20 years and i think the last year has
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been the most one of the most challenging that i've seen but um on a positive there are positive
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signs so this year um we've seen actually an unexpected rise so if you compare
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this january to last january we've actually had an increase of 20 percent so if you compare like to like the
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number of permanent and interim roles that we've had come in have actually been more in january this year than last year which
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we weren't expecting which i think is a really positive sign that you know the job flow
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is starting to slowly increase again um i think we've seen sort of a split
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between sort of 70 pound 30 interim and i think personally the interim
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market probably will maintain sort of an upward trajectory this year as
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businesses sort of you know the ones that are maybe still uncertain or don't have the budget to recruit perm will
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um look to recruit an interim also some of our clients are recruiting interims for specific projects or they need
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people in really quickly and then you've got sort of the you know the sickness cover the maternity cover
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we've also seen clients um come to us to recruit interims to cover
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people that are struggling to home to school and maybe they're about to lead on a mass redundancy project and they're
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looking you know they can't do both so they've they've looked to increase um interims in their team for that
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um in terms of sectors so obviously i'm based in southeast
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aviation hospitality has taken quite a big hit but there are still lots
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of sectors that are buoyant um so half of our jobs have been within financial services insurance
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professional services law firms and then it's been sort of evenly split between the pharma
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health care technology sectors and in terms of role types i'd say so 60 65 of all of our roles
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have still heavily been within that sort of generalist er hr operations
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um some hr advisory business partnering kind of roles and then we've also seen
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sort of a some steady demand for reward specialists throughout and then most recently sort of the hr
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operations shared service at the sort of manager and head-off level and also the l d roles and the talent
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acquisition roles that again right at the start of the pandemic sort of took a massive hit
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have now starting to come back as clients obviously feeling that confidence in them in the
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in the market again to press on with their key highs and recruitment is starting to increase again so i mean we feel quite
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positive that looked you know i think people were worried about lockdown three but i feel like it's had less of an impact versus lockdown one
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and two and we feel quite positive that hopefully this trend will continue in 2021
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fingers crossed not all doom and gloom really yeah um but i'm going to come to your
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questions because there's some really really great ones um coming in so i'm not going to ask any of the ones that i wrote down and come
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straight to yours um tim i'm going to come to you on this first emma's asked what advice would you give growing your career or role within your
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existing company so where do you find the opportunities to develop where you are great question um so immediately
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understand your business understand the organization that you work for there's a phrase isn't there um
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are you working on the business or in the business and all that means is are you thinking about
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the strategy of the business where the business needs to be in terms of to be successful uh so in terms of the you know the
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delivery of products and services the vast majority of organizations um who will be represented on this call
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have been disrupted over the last almost 12 months really 12 months yes it is um in you
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know quite enormously um in terms of the way that they do business so how have you got engaged
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with that and how can you get engaged with that because that demonstrates that you're really committed to where the business is the organization
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is continuing to um to change so what's it mean to your digital strategy for example how
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has that changed in terms of the uh delivery of products and services how's it changed in terms of the
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how you focused on the health and well-being of your colleagues to sustain everyone through what i keep
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saying is a marathon of sprints we have to keep picking ourselves up
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we go like billy ho then we sort of go right and there's always the next project so we have to keep to have to keep
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sustaining everyone through this how are you rethinking what this
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for many organizations um the change in terms of not having people in the office means
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for the way that you bring people together to find solutions to the different challenges that you
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have to the way that it's changing access to talent because suddenly you don't need to find
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someone who's prepared to commute to that place wherever your office happens to be that
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might mean that you can access different talents it might be that you can plan things differently
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and what so many um people professionals have demonstrated over these last 12 months is their
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understanding of how working capital flows flows through the business and how they
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can how they can best position uh cash
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so in terms of a you know very cash focused uh place which is where we are now in a
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largely recessionary uh um in environment what that's meant for furlough was i meant for
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other other salary reductions for restructuring for the way we've looked at professional fees
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um for non-permanent colleagues or our approach to recruitment there's been
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lots of lots of examples of where people professionals have demonstrated how
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they can really support the organization through this change now not all are
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finding that they are um shrinking or feeling that recession there are many which are in completely
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different stages of growth at the moment so how are you challenging that well for
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those um louise was talking about a couple of the sectors that have been horribly disrupted over um over the last year and there's
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fantastic talent that have come out of those sectors um and who are you who we see on
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linkedin with the little green semi-circle of open to work uh now how could they transition to help
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you and be upskilled and move across so there's so many ways that you can
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think about what's happening in your business right now and you can i keep going back this word
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curious you know be curious ask the questions understand what's going on
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and if you're asking the right questions in so many cases you'll leave that
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conversation with a new responsibility so lean into that take the opportunity
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to learn to make a difference and enjoy it i think that word curious is so important in so many other
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discussions i have with with cpos that's kind of the number one thing that they're looking for um so thank you tim um louise we've got
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a couple of questions about job titles uh how much does it matter about your job title what if you feel
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your job title is actually holding you back that it's not giving a fair reflection of your responsibilities and it's
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actually getting you knocked back when you're applying for jobs or from recruiters personally
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i and i think this is quite a common theme i get asked this question quite a lot i
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don't really look at job titles when i'm looking at cvs because job titles mean
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so diff in different organizations like you could be a hrbp in one organization on 30k in another organization online tk
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so it's about it's our job as a recruiter whether your agency or internally to
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actually look at the skills underneath the job title and i think i think i i think in general
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people like i certainly do and make sure that you know my team does that and i think the only challenge i think that probably
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you would have in terms of job title is when you're applying directly and it goes through a portal and it's you know a sort of tick box
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exercise but i certainly feel that if you if you came to a recruitment agency or you had the opportunity to speak
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directly to a an internal recruiter or an actual recruiting line manager then
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i think it's quite the way to overcome that is just by making sure that on your
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cv your skills and achievements are really clearly laid out so it's you know in the first
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couple of bullet points under your job title i always say you know write the first
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bullet point just give me a summary of sort of your responsibilities
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so just give me an idea of how many employees for example are in your company how many you're responsible for
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in your client group how many people you look after how many people are in your team across what locations because
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that one bullet point will help people ascertain whether you're a hr business partner of
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looking after 20 people in the uk only firm or 500 people across
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five locations across the world so i think it's just making sure your cv is detailed as possible to
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help people ascertain that but certainly for me i don't tend to pay too much attention
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to the job title so maybe they're going to the wrong recruiters potentially well yeah i think it's i
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just think i think most people i mean most people only talk to most recruiting line managers
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understand that it's very different in terms of the companies that you've come from and
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you know whether you're american or you can you know some people are called hrd cpo vp is
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just it's very varied so you have to really just try and have conversations isn't it
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which i know is hard and you know i know it's hard to get action and get those conversations in the first place but i think you can
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use your cv to really hone in on what you have done and try and get that
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bullet point right under the job title so it's very clear for everyone to see thank you um yatunda you mentioned some
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great experiences of line management getting yourself that experience i'm just going to put a couple of questions to you
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first one is somebody asking how do they get that line manager experience they've been told they need it but they don't have it and following
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up from that um what advice would you give somebody who's just taken on their first line management role in the middle of
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the pandemic okay thanks um katie now land manager
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the role of the land manager here is really key i mean land managers are busy people but they're also interested in developing people so that
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they can deliver results for themselves for the team so they have a vested interest
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in your career so what i will say is have a good relationship with your line manager and i remember um in the example i gave
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earlier on about gaining that experience because i knew what i wanted i had set my ad
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when i went into the job i set out my objectives for the land manager what i was looking to do and how i can help
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so it's always that question how can i help you how can i make life better for you so when i mean it's a two-way street so
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you have to give and take so put yourself forward for things to help the team on one hand but at the same
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time make sure that you know you're doing things that matter for your career as well and having that conversation with your
31:11
line manager what i found useful is having that those career conversations with my line manager
31:18
say oh this is what i want to do now this is what i'm working on this is where i'm struggling and this is how i'm thinking of
31:23
approaching it so you're not only going to the line manager to say you know i want this i want this but
31:30
show that you have actually made that first step and for me that has helped and that helped
31:37
me to negotiate the broad reversal that i mentioned earlier on in my career to gain that
31:43
experience as my career has advanced i've kept those practices on and having those
31:48
conversations with my manager to say i would like to do this and if i'm working on a project
31:55
before that project finishes i'm looking at okay this is these are the things i want to do i've i can take off things and wherever
32:02
there is a cab i'll mention to my manager this is what i would like to do next and we i think all of us we've
32:08
talked about having that breadth so for me using the cipd hr professional map helps
32:14
me to actually identify what i need to do next so it's a tool that i would
32:20
actively promote and encourage people to use because that helps me and
32:27
in terms of these conversations and also moving forward um i was doing a project before that
32:34
project finished and i told my manager these are the things i would like to do next and between us and you know talking to
32:40
other people having a good network i found out opportunities and people invited me to come and work with them
32:46
and then i'll go have that informational interview to find out what the role involves and
32:52
whether it fits in with my own objectives if it did and then i'll go and take up the
32:58
offer and that has helped me throughout my career thank you brilliant tips there laura you wanted to come in yeah i wanted to
33:05
comment on the what the line managers do so obviously my l d world i've done a lot around
33:11
management development um and did a six month assignment recently at bau systems to redo their
33:16
first line manager program and the one thing that you can google search actually is google did
33:22
some really good research last year on what are the top 10 things that great people managers do and don't do
33:31
and interestingly we found very similar results when we did the internal research within the organization
33:37
the top two just to give you a flavor the top the first one is that the great line
33:42
managers take the time to get to know the individual team members as individuals so rather than doing the
33:48
same thing with everybody in their team they treat everybody as individual people and the second thing is not
33:55
micromanaging which is a thing um but just to say
34:01
there's two of the ten things but it's a really nice list and there's a lot of research that's gone into it so if you just search google's top 10 things that
34:07
great managers do thank you that's a really great tip um so i was going to ask you follow up with
34:13
somebody just lost it there are so many questions coming in so i'm going to come back to you um tim a specific question for you you mentioned um how
34:20
how valuable you found your international experience what advice would you give on finding how do you find those international opportunities
34:29
and of course it's a really interesting time to ask that questions
34:35
exactly yes thanks for that one um i okay the great the opportunity that
34:42
today's world gives us is the ability to work internationally without without leaving your house
34:51
and at the expectation um from uh those who are recruiting into those
34:57
roles that that that will be the case that you don't have to have physically been somewhere
35:03
so again within the organization that you're in now if it's an international business how do
35:09
you how do you go and find those so years ago i i
35:15
worked for marx and spencer and marx and spence had a um international franchise uh department so that would then
35:23
set up for the uh the franchise stores um internationally so i asked if i could go and do an
35:28
attachment to the franchise department rocket science hey and they would do
35:33
they were like okay well not next week but you know several months later off i went and sort of you know spent spend some
35:39
time with them really really open about how they did what they what they did and were delighted that
35:46
someone was interested um and that was in the 20s and you know just
35:51
just finding someone who was prepared to give you some time and then you know guess what the next
35:57
time they've got a project that comes up they know you you've you've enlarged your network you've lent in you've
36:03
i'm gonna use that word again you've shown your curiosity and you've built that now if you're in a
36:10
uk only organization for example um then take this so much great content out
36:16
there so much opportunity to learn from international businesses through panels such as these and podcasts and
36:23
all the great stuff that we know and then to build up your your know-how um to use the copd
36:31
resources i'm a fellow of the cipd and and to you know work through work through all
36:36
of my qualifications with the copd for years and encourage my team and others to to do the same
36:43
and again to find those through through your local groups or through different forums you
36:48
know find people who are doing this build your network what do we know
36:54
louise will say exactly the same thing which is where are the majority of jobs found they're
37:00
found through pre-existing networks and if the pre-existing networks don't work then we go to the professions
37:07
that's you know that's that's the truth of it so you know to build that network is
37:12
just so um so so uh essential and then go in there with my final point is go in
37:19
there with more humility than i showed it's a great thing when i got my when i
37:26
moved to um out to uh australia i had no idea what i was walking into
37:33
and thank goodness i had a boss and colleagues around me that had
37:40
patience and that would explain things wait the way things were to me
37:48
because the the delta between what i knew and what i needed to know was so vast so be prepared for an
37:56
almighty learning experience if you do make that move in terms of role or particularly
38:01
if you make that that international move yourself for the way that it stretches you
38:07
personally professionally your family life everything it really can take you to to
38:12
the edge and i moved to a country where i was speaking the same language um but you know it is you really have to
38:20
be open to the learning experience it is um for those of us that have worked in global organizations for many years
38:26
we know that the global moves fall over in the first six or so months and if you
38:32
can get someone through the first year you're good but that is that that's when you normally have
38:38
the wobble um because people don't realize the delta between what they knew and now what they're required to know
38:45
thank you tim um laura you mentioned that you've worked in lots of different sectors um we've got a few questions
38:50
asking when people are applying for jobs and they're told you know to work in financial services you really need to have worked in
38:55
financial services or retail or hospitality or anywhere before um what advice can you give if you're an
39:01
hr professional that wants to switch sectors um firstly i've never found it to be a
39:07
problem um i think that's part of the beauty of having being in the hr profession is
39:13
that we do have transferable skills so and i think larger organizations that have functions so like finance hr it are more used to
39:22
kind of people moving around across different sectors um i've always just made a major of it
39:27
being an advantage so in the interview or on my cv for example i think once you've moved once
39:33
it makes it easier to do it again so they know that you can move across sector so in terms of getting a job in
39:40
the first place if you can emphasize as louise said you'll cross your transferable skills
39:45
so major on skills and types of experiences rather than necessarily majoring on the
39:51
sector or the one organization i think the other thing that helps um i
39:56
should say this for those long longer serving people but um i personally find it's easier if you move
40:03
within five years or so so if you do some of those moves relatively early
40:09
it shows that that you're not i think people find it quite difficult if you've worked in the same company for
40:14
20 years to then believe that you're really committed to moving into a very different sector for
40:20
whatever reason or will find that an easy transition so i think if you are earlier in your career taking the opportunity to do it
40:27
a little bit earlier is is probably easier and you'll generally get a little bit more um support thank you
40:34
um yeah louise oh i was i i actually um that's great that laura has a positive
40:40
experience but i do think that a lot of people maybe at more junior end have have a
40:46
real challenge in terms of moving sectors especially some sectors like financial services
40:51
law firm professional services do are quite strict in terms of oh i don't
40:57
know whether it's because when they come to recruitment agencies obviously they're they're coming to us because they want a
41:03
very specific brief um and very specific skill set but but a few of my top tips i think for
41:11
people looking to move sectors is that you know if you're really passionate about wanting to move from a law firm into a
41:18
charity or vice versa you know is if you're really passionate about that then then be really specific about that
41:24
so don't then apply for five jobs so say say for example you
41:29
want to get into a charity then don't apply for five jobs within another law firm because then that sort of dilutes what
41:35
what you're looking for and i think again if you're really passionate about making a a move into a different sector is is
41:42
there a specific skill set that that particular job needs is it a system skill because again if you're
41:48
going up against five people that maybe have that sector experience but don't have that specific skill or system knowledge that
41:55
you have then that could be your way in to getting in in the door and also like
42:01
what tim was saying it's about using your connections so it could be that someone you worked with two years ago is
42:07
actually a ceo of a charity or or you know you can use them to write your
42:13
recommendation on linkedin can they then even refer you into that company or you know
42:18
they're going to be in a network where they're going to know what roles are coming up so then can they utilize your network and connections i
42:25
think is really key for that as well and use use your recruitment agency because
42:30
you know it's a lot easier for us to bring you to life overcome barriers when we're speaking to
42:36
hiring managers rather than just sort of sending a cv blankly or coldly
42:42
into a into a firm through internal recruitment or assist system because we can then sell you and
42:50
bring you to life and explain why you're looking why you're passionate i think that that often helps to use us as well to be able
42:56
to do that thank you um you tinder you mentioned that you'd had a few times where you've gone out of hr and
43:02
come back in and we've got a few questions of people asking how to bridge that gap so if they were an hr
43:07
specialist that's now gone and done something else for a few years and they're finding it hard to get back into the profession any tips on how you
43:14
can come back if you're taking a bit of time out okay so um i think for me one it was i mentioned
43:21
the reasons i wanted to to do that one initially was to get that promotion but because there wasn't any movement and
43:28
having that plan of what i wanted to do but again relationships it's really important to maintain good
43:34
relationships because that i was having regular conversations with my land manager about what i wanted to
43:39
do what i was interested in so when opportunities came and i explained to them that look the only
43:45
reason i'm going out is to gain this experience it's and then but i would still want to come back so while i was away
43:51
from hr i still maintain those relationships with you know we've talked about con networking so
43:57
that's really important having great relationships to do that so when there were opportunities that
44:02
came through the in in in our chats in our discussions they mentioned oh something is happening here or they're
44:08
going to advertise the job or this is happening and that helps me to prepare for my
44:13
return into hr so it's understanding one of your objectives keeping the
44:19
relationships looking out for opportunities and i think wherever wherever i went i would always
44:26
make sure that um you know i use those transferable skills in in those jobs outside hr and that
44:32
really helps me and coming back into hr again i use those transfer transferable skills but with more
44:38
knowledge better knowledge that gave me an edge over other people that's what louise mentioned earlier on about you
44:44
know you're coming back with something different so that really helps me to make that switch and then return
44:50
thank you and laura just building on that any advice on kind of how you sell it
44:56
some amazing points from nintendo there kind of bringing it to life when you're if there's a few people who say they are
45:01
struggling to get back to the profession yeah i mean i think as louise said you
45:07
know it's it's different experiences for different people so obviously you know some people are saying that they are struggling so i'm
45:12
believing them that they are struggling but i think the clearer that you can be about what you bring you know what you
45:19
uniquely bring and what you've you know how it developing that really clear narrative so whether it's a summary description on
45:26
your cv to say these are my responsibilities and right i have three versions of a cv
45:31
so i don't know if other people do so depending on what i'm doing so if i'm going for an interim which is an hr
45:37
generalist interim i have a very different version it's the same jobs it's the same experience i'm just
45:43
emphasizing slightly different things in the role than if i'm going for say a talent management interim
45:50
assignment you know it's quite they're quite different um or if i'm writing a bio
45:55
a biography if i'm going to something about the book you know i think it's really knowing
46:00
your audience and targeting you know what do they need to know it's the same content but it's just emphasizing it and writing it really
46:07
succinctly and sticking to the message great great point there see people in the chat
46:12
saying definitely definitely something to do um tim do you have any advice on how to
46:17
make the step into hr leadership roles obviously you've been doing hr leadership roles a long time i'm not commenting on your age but um
46:24
especially if you've got that kind of middle management experience but the gap between manager and leader is quite can be quite large
46:30
so any advice on how you can demonstrate leadership ability and build it maybe if you're not in a leadership role
46:36
yeah i suppose there's three immediate thoughts on that one is
46:41
that um what one thing that i've realized looking back at my career is that
46:48
there are certain leaders who you work for and you're like that's amazing
46:54
absolutely you know you just you'd walk over broken glass for them
46:59
and i i i probably didn't didn't i started to realize that that means
47:04
that you will work for them for a limited period of time because they will be going on to bigger and better things
47:10
um and you know who knows they might take you with them but but when you work for someone that you
47:16
just go wow work out what it is that makes you go wow
47:21
and you're gonna have to turn into a vampire you know you need to get that
47:28
understand what it is that they do that really really energizes you what knowledge do
47:35
they have what relationships do they have what is it about the way they show up what is it about their passion and
47:41
energy what is it about their their curiosity what is it about them that that gets you
47:49
going because you won't be the only one and i guarantee that will be you will have a limited window to do that
47:56
and that will then help you to work out the type of leader that you want to be and to
48:02
um and to take that and if you have that type of leader and you have the appetite to progress
48:09
they will give you the opportunity so i'm thinking about particularly my um
48:14
uh hr director um regional hr director when i was out in australia and she was
48:20
so generous with opportunities when there was um a board meeting and she was on
48:26
leave she would say well you know you you go deputize to me i think she was the only one of that
48:33
exec who sent a deputy everybody else when i leave they were just on leave or when there was a regional meeting in
48:40
in hong kong i remember saying i think that'll be good for you you go and that generosity of great leaders
48:47
is just fantastic you find someone like that you grab that opportunity with both hands because you're getting
48:53
that exposure but it's twofold right you've got to be prepared to step into that and to
48:58
demonstrate that you'll work with them to to to grab those opportunities
49:04
and if you're not you can find some of that inspiration elsewhere as well because it might not
49:09
be the person that you're seeking to learn from might not be your direct leader might be someone you can see over here
49:15
so you know again what you know what is that and how could you get to work with them on a project what's their agenda how can it
49:21
how can you support it and just think about the people that you um that you tap into more broadly you know
49:28
who do you fall on linkedin who do you follow on uh how do you follow on twitter i see a group of people here that you might want
49:33
to follow at timpointer um and you know just take that opportunity to connect in with
49:39
people and you know go um go for that the second point would be about learning what do you learn so first of all as
49:46
leaders second point is is learning how are you demonstrating your commitment to learning at the
49:51
moment just going back to the conversation that's just happened i am astonished to this day of the number of people that i
49:57
interview who haven't done their research about the organization that i work for
50:03
absolutely bonkers you know they're interested in the profession but are you interested in the
50:08
organization so where's your you know where's your commitment to um to learning what you you know what
50:16
are you reading at the moment this is this is not a stage there are two books on my desk right now what are the books that you're
50:22
reading right now you know what's when someone asks you that question how are you
50:28
i'm going to get laura's book now um you know how are you leaning into learning and my final point
50:35
uh i went for three l's is lifetime great book by linda gratton co-authored
50:41
by linda gratton called the 100 year old life read that helps you really think about
50:47
everything that you can achieve during your working life and your career and the openness to different opportunities
50:52
you might think you're someone who's always going to work in permanent roles i would like to challenge that perspective open yourself up to interim
51:00
opportunities to consultancy opportunities to really flexing to give yourself the most
51:05
learning that you can in terms of progressing on so those are my three leaders learning lifetime brilliant and that
51:12
linda grashan book is brilliant yeah fantastic team to build on what team
51:19
said you know about what are you learning and also lifetime i i think if we if we were to look at all of these you
51:25
know we're talking of people that mid life now we would have lots of experience without yet we will still have aspirations
51:32
but there may be some times when you know what you are doing at the moment um it's maybe limited for example if
51:39
you're working on a project and you have that passion and that yearning to do more than you know than your current world
51:45
allows you for there is an opportunity for you to learn and do things elsewhere opportunity to volunteer so that you
51:52
that the that's the skills that you have do not become out of date so for me that's one of the things that
51:59
um inspired me to volunteer with the cipd because the things i was doing in my work
52:05
in my day job my paid job where you know it's great but i still had that yearning you know i
52:11
still had that yearly to do more but the opportunities at work went there so
52:16
by volunteering with the cipd i was able to do more i was able to learn more i was able to connect more with people
52:22
expand my network expand my you know it's just amazing so i wouldn't say to
52:28
limit your learning you know whatever you do don't limit it to your work your paid job only there are
52:34
opportunities out there that you can gain to improving your paid job also from your paycheck to to that
52:41
as well so it's it's really important and i like how you use that the three elves you know leader
52:47
learning lifetime really fun important for people in in midlife career i'll write those down and take them and
52:53
where we are running out time i'm going to try and squeeze in as many more questions as i can um louise we've had a few on kind of
52:59
using linkedin um have you got any advice on how to get the most out of it is it appropriate for people to direct message
53:05
cold people like you um how do you feel when people do that yeah i do i i think it's such a powerful
53:12
tool and i think if you use it right then it's amazing and i think some of my i know we're
53:19
running out of time so i'll try and keep it brief but some top tips would be make sure you've got a uh appropriate
53:27
photo make sure that your skills um mirror are up to date and mirror your cv
53:33
i think make sure that you've got ask for as many recommendations and get as many recommendations as you can on there
53:39
because i think that's the first thing that as a recruiter and internal creatures we would you know i'd receive a cv if if i did receive a cold
53:46
cv or a cold message the first thing i would do is look at the profile so you want to make sure that's as
53:52
marketable as possible and also you know make sure that your personal brand across all of the social medias
53:58
is that consistent message so i think you can google yourself and then you can make sure that the
54:05
the message and the brand is consistent you can set up google alerts as well so whenever anyone
54:10
mentions you you can get an alert so i think for example when you you know it depends on how sufficient
54:18
and proficient you are at using linkedin but you know it can be so powerful i think
54:23
if you are looking for roles um i think you know you can you can set the status to open to work
54:29
and open for opportunities you can be as open and transparent as to post on there
54:35
that you are open and ask for help and ask for recommendations and get your profile shared and i think if
54:41
you can spend and commit to maybe five ten minutes each day of linkedin you know looking
54:47
like tim's saying you know if you can connect with the industry professionals and the people that you want to be connecting
54:53
with and comment and share industry knowledge share your
54:58
thoughts on what they've written you know it's just all of that will increase your visibility and
55:04
get you noticed at the end of the day and i think um i think it's a really pat and certainly
55:10
for recruiters you know i always make sure that i respond to people that message me and if
55:16
if i can't help then i'll recommend them or forward them on so it's such a powerful networking and it's
55:22
something that if you are if you have been made redundant or you are i've worked at the moment it's something that
55:28
i would be committing to sort of spending ten minutes a day just making sure that that's up to date in your
55:35
and you're constantly sort of commenting and liking and getting traction on your profile so yeah
55:41
i think it's really really powerful thank you um laura somebody say asked i'm being made
55:47
redundant i'm at a crossroads whether to persevere with a career in hr or do something completely different what advice would you give around
55:53
changing careers which is bearing in mind we've only got about five minutes left yeah problem i mean if you can take some time to
56:00
really rethink um even if you deliberately choose making a deliberate choice is the most
56:07
important thing even if you deliberately choose to continue with hr great if you deliberately choose to do
56:14
something else and to pivot in a different direction great but the main thing i'd say about deciding
56:19
between those different routes making those choices is it's an inside out process and an outside-in process
56:27
so what matters most to me what are my values what are my strengths and outside what's going on what's
56:34
available what's what does what matters in my world my context and those two things and taking a bit of time to
56:39
think a bit differently think of fresh is really useful thank you um and then i'm going to ask one more question and
56:45
i'm going to ask you all for one top tip this is a little bit self-indulgent being as i work at the cipd but a few people are asking
56:51
how valuable are cipd qualifications um and please answer honestly but you
56:57
sunday what what would you say is the value in being in being qualified
57:02
i think as a as a hr practitioner what i found useful about the cipd qualifications is that you're
57:09
bringing with you the knowledge so you understand the context why some things happen in nature rather
57:15
than just having the experience so the qualification will give you that knowledge so you understand what you the reason why you have to do
57:22
some things and why you have to stay away from something so it gives you that knowledge and also the confidence in making any
57:28
decisions because whatever decision you make would be evidence-based
57:33
you know so it's important to have that knowledge so the qualification for me i think is is key and tim is it something
57:40
you encourage in your teams as well as yourself i know you're yeah yeah absolutely absolutely
57:47
and it's but i would say that context is queen and that and i go back to you
57:55
are you a business person do you understand the organization that you work in because that context is so so important
58:02
so as i said fcipd um don't yourself encourage it on my team
58:08
it's not the only source that's out there and your broader learning is so so important
58:14
commit yourself to learning and it's it's um it's incredibly rewarding
58:20
and it really helps you to progress because it will it will broaden your ability
58:25
to understand the context for why you're enacting uh that technical under um understanding
58:31
and to talk to people who don't know what you're talking about if you speak hr
58:37
thank you chicks in the post both of you um before i come to a close um i'd just like to very quickly ask
58:42
everybody for one key takeaway that you'd like people watching this to take away um from this session and louise i
58:47
will start with you and sometimes it's easiest going first it's really i think i think in brief
58:54
i think be patient be persistent and stay positive um i think it's really
59:00
hot i understand it's really hard times really hard market but i think you know you could go for one two three
59:07
interviews but you know people are very unlikely to find that dream role in the first interview they go to so i just think
59:14
keep going keep using your networks using people like myself um and just asking
59:21
for advice and you know one thing i didn't mention earlier is the mentoring as well you know there's no harm in asking for
59:28
someone to mentor you i think it's really flattering so i think yeah just keep keep going you
59:34
will find you will find your dream job there is a job out there for everyone thank you laura i think the
59:41
slightly complementary perspective is around learning how to be yourself with skill so i think you know in terms
59:49
of progressing within an organization or moving into another organization being true to yourself
59:55
is much easier than if you're trying to pretend to be someone else but remember that you need to be
1:00:00
yourself with skill so it's not about being you know what's in all this is me love me or hate me
1:00:05
that's not actually very helpful for you or for other people learn to be yourself with skill i love
1:00:10
that i'm vietnamese
1:00:20
i think for me it's it's about trusting trusting the skills that you have
1:00:25
and finding out you know what makes you unique um and how how do you sell that to
1:00:33
to if you like your next employer and if you don't have hr experience
1:00:39
those skills will come in handy there but again it's about being curious ask questions learn and
1:00:46
network mentoring um for example i i have a i have a sponsor and uh and a reverse
1:00:53
mentor which works well for me to understand not only what i'm doing but you know understand what's happening elsewhere
1:00:59
and how my mentee who's a senior manager is or director is feeling
1:01:04
you know so that helps me so have a mentor have a sponsor network be curious to learn trust your skills
1:01:12
the positive so the outlook is positive and tim last but not least
1:01:18
everything that they said i i i would just go back to be a
1:01:25
business person with strong technical know-how focus on focus on context
1:01:31
commit yourself to being inspired and connecting to great leaders to a lifetime of learning
1:01:38
and thinking about your career through what i hope for all of us is a long and happy life even though
1:01:44
this we've been through a very difficult year and you know i find enjoyment in your
1:01:49
work we are very fortunate we are in a fascinating profession and it's never dull
1:01:58
brilliant thank you so much everyone i'm afraid we are out of time in fact i've run over by one minute so sorry about that
1:02:03
um thanks so much to our wonderful panel your tinder laura louise and tim thank you all for your questions and
1:02:08
it's been really really great to see you um chatting to each other as well and um sharing and helping each other
1:02:14
just a reminder as i said at the beginning that this is part of a series on building your career in 2021 we'll be back on the 8th of february
1:02:20
with a session looking at some of the various career paths available in the career in the people profession so whether
1:02:25
that's going kind of hr corporate route becoming self-employed looking at interim opportunities so i can hope you
1:02:31
can join us there because we have a really really great panel um on that lunch time as well that is it from us for now thank you so much for
1:02:37
watching and we will see you next time
1:02:46
bye foreign
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