Forks in the road

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It’s important at key stages in any career to identify forks in the road. These are times when the paths open to you can take your career on vastly divergent routes that can affect your future in a multitude of ways. Key forks in any road usually occur in transitional periods and can be of your own making, or can be imposed on you, as is the case for many people currently. How you deal with change and make the most of these periods will be down to your own skill and dexterity. Career Evolution can equip you with the tools that will help you get the most out of the situation and steer you on the road to a successful career.

Look for opportunity

Rather than being daunted by transitional periods, see them as a time when your options open up to you. Use them as opportunities to assess your own happiness and wellbeing, and to picture what your ideal or dream job looks like. If you have been working in the same role for a lengthy period, you may be becoming frustrated by the job. This may be especially crucial if there is little room for advancement, or for your own personal development. For many people, their ideal role will be one that will give them the most gratification. It’s useful to think of periods when you felt as though your job was really making a difference, that made you proud of what you had achieved and genuinely enthusiastic in your work environment. These are aspects that you’d like to experience on a regular, day-to-day basis.

Make a change

But just because you have been working in a certain role, don’t be constrained by the parameters of that role. And don’t simply look at exact matches for your skills, with an identical ‘job title’ match to your existing one. Look at how transferable your skills are between sectors.  This is your chance to assess what things matter most to you about your job. Do you waste time on a long commute and does it eat into both your own time and your own money? Are these factors to you in choosing a job, as well as the job itself? And would you be prepared to shoulder a reduction in salary to boost benefits to you in other ways?

These are questions you need to answer honestly when you are looking at your options at any career juncture.  In such times of transition, it’s useful to consult with career experts and coaches, to receive strong and impartial advice on which path to take.

Second time around – the second interview

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Congratulations. You have been invited back for a second interview. This is excellent news, but don’t forget, there are likely to be other candidates still in the frame so there is no guarantee you will secure a job offer at the end of it. Careful preparation now is just as important as it was for the first interview. You have got your foot in the door, now you need to convince the company that you are a perfect fit for the role on offer.

First things first

Make sure you find out who will be conducting the interview. It may not be the same person you met at the first interview. It might even involve a panel interview or an introduction to other team members, including your potential line manager. If you can find out the names of your interviewers in advance, then you can do a little research on them via LinkedIn. This should inform you about their particular areas of interest and help you prepare for the kind of questions they may ask you.

Review and improve

Look back at the notes you made after your first interview. What could you have done better? What questions did you struggle to answer? Make sure you rehearse these answers again as they may well be re-visited the second time around. Go over your CV with a fine toothcomb, making sure you can talk knowledgeably about every detail on it.

Time to shine

Sell yourself and don’t hold back. Provide lots of examples of what you have accomplished in previous roles that relate to this position. This is your chance to convince everyone in the room that you are the perfect candidate for the business and the role.

Doing things differently

Whereas, prior to the pandemic you might have been offered a tour of the facility, now it’s perfectly feasible that your second interview will be carried out remotely.  This still gives you the opportunity to ask lots of questions and you should still be able to find out if the business environment is right for you.

At the end of the interview make sure you ask when they are likely to be making a decision. This gives you a timeframe of when you can realistically expect to hear back. There is always a chance you may be offered a job then and there. Don’t feel under pressure to make an instant decision. Ask for some time to consider the offer properly and let the interviewer know when you will respond.

More than words – non-verbal communication

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In preparing for an interview, various different aspects of your ‘presentation’ will need to be addressed. Your appearance matters a great deal and also having the right look and tone for the company you would like to work with. Research the firm and find out what the company’s dress code is – if they have one – or what would be suitable if not. Staff profile photographs are usually a good indicator of how the company likes to present its staff to the wider world. Some office-based companies are still business suit/shirt and tie types of places. But more and more smart-casual is now acceptable in most workspaces – or pyjamas and slippers, if you’re working from home. It’s not just what have you say in your interview answers – although that will need to be pertinent and knowledgeable – but also how you deliver it.

Speaking volumes

No, we’re not talking about audio books. When it comes to interviews, it’s not just what you say, but how you say it. In addition to your outward appearance, your demeanour will also make a considerable impression in an interview. It’s not only the words you use, but also your tone of voice and your non-verbal communication, such as your posture. Spoken words are only 7% of the impact you make. Your non-verbal communication makes up the other 93%. This is divided between verbal (38%) and non-verbal (55%). The latter is a huge percentage, as so much of how we act defines who we are.

In most instances and situations – going into a shop to buy something, for example, or exchanging pleasantries on the street – our behaviours are normal and relaxed. But the added pressure of being in an interview can accentuate mannerisms, and what wouldn’t be noticed in everyday life becomes heightened, or even exaggerated, in the interview set-up. This can be particularly noticeable if you are fidgety, or gesticulate a lot when you speak to an unfamiliar audience when you become tense.

Build and strengthen confidence

Listen to the questions and answer them fully. Don’t try to crowbar a readymade answer in reply to an unrelated question. Try to find where points you’d like to make can be included, but also think on your feet and use your intuition, to appear yourself. If you tend to speak more quickly when you become nervous, try to address this. Practice speaking slowly, rehearse your responses to commonly-asked interview questions and generally hone your persona to become an interview-and-nerves-proof version of you. Be clear and coherent and the overall message will come across and be easy to understand.

Make sure not to talk yourself up cul-de-sacs and lose your train of thought. You need to ‘know your stuff’, but you also need to portray the right image for the job you are applying for. Practice of course makes perfect, so the more rehearsals you can have – using friends and colleagues as interviewer stand-ins – the more ‘unrehearsed’ your actual presentation will be when it comes to the real thing.  If you think your presentation may benefit from some professional support, our full outplacement programme includes support on this as part of the package. Our coaches can provide the experience and guidance you need to improve your confidence and presence, to ensure your non-verbal communication matches your suitability and skills.

Straight talking

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It’s the age-old question that’s posed at interviews, in the hope of getting an honest answer – “So why did you leave your last job?”. It’s a favourite question of interviewers, because if you haven’t rehearsed an answer beforehand, it can really put you on the spot.

Quick thinking

If you’re unprepared, your answer can reveal a lot about your character. It can also show how you react under pressure. If you haven’t already given this response some thought, it will result in the following internal dialogue. “Oh”, your brain says, “why did I leave my l last job? Quick, don’t mention who you fell out with, come up with something plausible”. Your response is even trickier if you didn’t leave your last role voluntarily. However, honesty is always the best policy. It’s possible to be entirely truthful and yet strategic in your response. Under no circumstances lie in an interview. The risks of being found out far outweigh any possible benefit. Facts can easily be checked by contacting your former employer. With networking and social media and platforms such as LinkedIn, this is even easier to do these days.

Questions and answers

Answering strategically will put a positive spin on the situation, even if in reality the situation impacted you negatively. For example, if you were made redundant by your former employer, then explain that your job role was redundant due to restructuring or downsizing. Avoid an overtly emotional response. This may make you sound like a victim. Be sure to highlight your accomplishments in your former role. Don’t focus on how and why it came to an end, but on how excited you are by this new opportunity – and how it matches your skillset.

Don’t allow yourself to be led into saying anything detrimental about your former employer. Industries are often quite small and you may quite unknowingly be speaking to one of their friends or acquaintances – if not in person, then maybe online. Speaking negatively about a place you used to work comes across as unprofessional. This is not going to show you in a good light in front of your potential employer.

Positive activity

When you have been unemployed long term, try not to sound defensive about it. Focus on the positive activity you have undertaken during your unemployment. This could be voluntary work, freelancing or temping – and the experience you have gained from this interim period. If you have moved around a great deal, changing roles frequently after just a few months, make sure you present each move as a positive one for you career-wise. Alarm bells might ring if employers see too many jobs on your CV in a short period of time. If an explanation is required, concentrate on the positives gained from each role. If you have moved between industries, make sure you have good reasoning prepared that reflects well on you.

As always, practice makes perfect. Practising your responses to particularly tricky questions will mean your answers don’t come over as hurried or panicky. You need your answers to be confident and relaxed, to reassure your potential employer that you’re just the candidate they’re looking for. Recruit a friend to help you, practise using online platforms such as Zoom or Teams. Or even rehearse in front of a mirror – it can be a great help in building your confidence before the real thing.

Energy efficiency in business

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Time is a valuable commodity. No one wants to waste their time, with nothing to show for the expense. But we all know that sometimes in business, you have to speculate to accumulate. If you’re tendering for work, there’s no guarantee you’ll win it, but the hours and effort must be spent pulling a proposal together. Taking the time to create something impressive can often be obvious in the finished product, when compared against work that has been pulled together quickly, with little thought or imagination. Job seeking too is often seen as a lot of effort, for little return – perhaps even more so at the moment, in the highly-competitive employment market.

Where to put your energies?

Whether through confidence or time constraints, many people avoid networking if they can. But did you know that 65% of new jobs come via networking, while 35% of new jobs come from speculative letters, job boards and agencies? The simple fact is people spend far too much time on the 35% and not enough on the 65% – hence the gulf in the two methods’ efficiency.

Networking without borders

It is important not to make assumptions about your network.  Even if a lot of your associates and contacts are not in your area (geographical or business sector), or you don’t think they will be useful, it’s not always the case. In the digital age, we don’t need to think quite so much about location – this much at least has been revealed by the lockdown and remote working – and sector knowledge is often transferable. Even if people you encounter in the course of networking may not seem an immediate fit for you and your sector, they may know someone who is, or they may know about an opportunity that can be conveyed remotely.

Natural communicators

For some people, networking comes naturally. They may be used to dealing with a wide range of people in their daily working lives – or at least they have become adept at appearing to be natural communicators. Either way, they can begin conversations in an organic, non-awkward fashion and be interested in what other people have to say, as well as getting their own messages across. Being able to do this is an enviable skill. However, networking may be daunting for people who are not used to the environment, whether it’s in person, or more prevalently at the moment, online.

A two-way process

Starting with the right approach is really important. If you have a contact or a lead that you would like to pursue, arrange to meet (virtually) for a coffee. Make the tone light, conversational. Don’t go out of your way to ‘sell’ yourself. It needs to be a two-way conversation and relaxed. They might not have a job offer for you, but they might have useful knowledge or recommendations to share, on a route into your next role. If you get something out of the meeting, or even if you don’t, it’s time and energy well spent – and practice for your next one.

Finding brilliance in resilience

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Since the beginning of lockdown, many aspects of our lives have been impacted by the effects of changes to our normal behaviour. Things like wearing masks in shops or on public transport, or working from home are starting to feel like they are the norm. How we deal with and adapt to these changes will depend upon how resilient we are.

Positive attitudes

Resilient people know bad things happen. They haven’t been singled out and they know the situation will eventually improve. When any business moves through a transitional period, managers throughout the company are tasked with dealing with the effects of these changes. Whether it’s having to tell someone their role is being made redundant, or addressing low workforce morale, it can be difficult for managers to remain resilient and stay positive. Having strong resilience to some of the emotions associated with change – and recognising their existence – can also positively impact on employees. Presenting a positive attitude will go a long way in helping to promote positive outcomes for everybody. This is especially important during these difficult times.

Bounce back to your best

Emerging stronger from a stressful experience – or an experience you don’t fully understand – can often be attributed to positive thinking. But this can be difficult to do in times of turmoil. Managers who can keep a positive attitude are likely to see the best outcomes, as their approach will encourage employees to channel that positivity and use it for their own personal and professional outcomes too. The term ‘bouncing back’ is often used to describe resilience and those with the most optimistic outlook and greater emotional strength will find it easiest to rebound from challenging times. Resilient people ask if what they are doing is helping or harming them. Recognising the impact negativity has on how we feel increases our powers of resilience.

Be an optimist

Resilient people are careful about what they choose to focus on. They see what they can change and accept what they cannot. Such optimistic, pragmatic approaches to management and communication will create a workforce that has strong good stamina and character. These are key to success in transitional periods. Resilience is based on the mindsets and relationships of the individuals in the team. Focusing on positives, or tuning into the ‘good’, makes us appreciate what we have already achieved.

A company with a positive vision provides employees with a strong forward drive. Managers with the optimism to guide employees will instil the business with a sense of direction. Working together during periods of transition allows everyone to feel valued and an important part of the company. If you help managers be resilient, the workforce will be too. Building resilience within your employees will lead to the workforce coming together to work in union, towards success.

Managing to be successful

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Strong, defined leadership is vital to ensuring your team is onside and on-message.  When your team respects your decisions and your actions, it can make a huge difference overall to team morale. Management has had to adapt to some considerable, sudden changes to work in recent months. But the basics remain the same.

Our experts at Career Evolution have pulled together some informative tips, to help you become a more effective and respected manager, to take your team to the top.

Team spirit

Even in the era of widespread remote working, delegate wisely. Allowing members of the team to undertake and lead certain tasks or projects will not only enable you to focus on other things, but makes your team feel valued. Trust is a big part of working remotely for both employees and managers, so delegating tasks provides them with opportunities to develop and take on greater responsibility.

It’s also important to recognise and reward achievements. Always demonstrate recognition to any employee who has achieved something, whether in work or in their personal life. If it comes to your attention, then show your recognition and admiration.

Doing the right thing

Short-term solutions to work-related challenges may seem attractive, but usually are only a sticking plaster. Think about long-term problems that can be fixed permanently, ensuring that your employees know that you care about finding the right solution for them, for you and for the business as a whole.

It’s also well worth setting goals for employees and teams. Goals provide employees with direction and the motivation to achieve these targets. Incentivising them and rewarding them when they reach their goals is very effective – and even an informal verbal acknowledgement of achievement will be appreciated.

Make time to talk

Remember to communicate. Far too many managers communicate far too little, even in normal times in the office. At the moment, communication between managers and teams is more important than ever. However busy you are, make sure you have time set aside to communicate with your employees. Making sure they are kept in the loop on all matters in these uncertain times will ensure that they don’t feel like they are the ‘last to know’ and have their confidence undermined.

When it comes to employees, make time to show that you care about their opinions and ideas. Be open to speaking to them and understand their point of view.  This is especially important if they are having a difficult time and need someone to speak to.

Work is serious and important but learn to relax a bit too. Get to know your team on a social level and make sure that each one understands that you consider them to be an essential component of the team.

Thinking about these tips can help managers build strong relationships with their employees. This will allow them to feel valued and develop a strong work ethic embedded in the business.

Tiring of lockdown

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The lockdown has taken its toll on peoples’ wellbeing in many different ways. Some have dealt with the situation easily, while others have struggled, particularly with mental health. And the half-in, half-out limbo we seem to be inhabiting at the moment isn’t helping.  You knew where you were with lockdown. Now we’re in this hinterland where the rules are blurred, misinterpreted and misunderstood, leaving many people more fraught now than earlier in the year.

Wellbeing under fire

One of the big challenges of the situation is fatigue. Many people have been working flat-out during this lockdown and some companies are busier than ever.  The impact of this however is there aren’t the usual relief options that many people enjoy to wind down. If you don’t have a garden, you haven’t even got an outdoor space to relax in. Only recently social and leisure activities have been allowed, the little things that help wellbeing and that so many people rely on to unwind. This lack of relief can lead to a feeling of burn-out and listlessness, which for any worker is going to impact on their state of mind and their output.

Coping in crisis

A further knock-on from this is people are beginning to get a little fed-up with the situation. Some staff have been furloughed, which has at least guaranteed income, if not their role remaining when the scheme ends. They are also stressed about the uncertainty surrounding their jobs and their incomes. Will their office even exist in October or beyond, as many companies are using this time to restructure and take stock? If you are concerned about the longevity of your role, you may have already started your job search in what has become a highly competitive market. August is traditionally a weak month in terms of job searching, as there are school holidays and other factors that slow productivity.

Collateral damage

Stress itself can cause fatigue. Now more than ever people are craving a mental holiday, whilst being largely stymied from travelling abroad. That battery recharge we’ve all become so accustomed to simply isn’t here. A myriad of worries can be exacerbated if you have further non-work concerns as well, such as personal issues or health matters. With remote working, for many it has been very difficult to separate your work and personal life, and that can prove stressful too. If sleep and rest have been disturbed as a result, stress can begin to cause more collateral damage. Not everyone has a wide family network, or even a partner, to communicate and discuss things with, and an employer has a responsibility towards their staff issues such as wellbeing and fatigue come into the frame.

Reassurance can help

This mental pressure is bound to be at the back of many employees’ minds, which is why it’s so important for management to keep in touch with their staff during these periods of remote working. As a manager, it will help if you can give them reassurances that their jobs will remain as the lockdown is eased. You may even be able to ask them back into the office now, to see them face to face. Find out how they are feeling and ask if there is anything you can do to ease their situation and anxiousness.  Sometimes a reassuring conversation is worth more than the highest praise to an employee’s morale. And good morale is something we all need at the moment, more than anything.

Remote interviews – how to break through the barriers

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As the UK finally begins to ‘unlock’, people are tentatively venturing out. Meeting in person is beginning to be reintroduced, with family members able to reunite, albeit it socially-distanced. This is allowing people a certain degree of normality to return to their lives. However, in terms of a working environment, many companies are actively encouraging the ‘work from home’ ethic to continue. This is fine if you have become used to working from home, or sometimes worked from home as part of your job anyway. But what if you were in the course of looking for a new job, to transition into a new role in a new sector for example?

Preparation is everything

The landscape has changed immensely of how people are hired and inducted. Anyone applying for a job now is doing it remotely. It’s important then to think how to project your personality in a remote interview, to come across well. Somehow, you have to depict your personality, without being there in person. Play to your strengths and use your communication skills to convey your skillset. Before any remote interview, you need to give some thought to practicing and getting used to using remote video conferencing tools.

One answer could be a video CV. This is not a new concept and has been around for over a decade. However, in these present times, it might be a useful way of preparing for an interview, even if you don’t end up using the actual video CV. The more practice you get at this sort of media, the better you’ll become at it. It’s not appropriate for all sectors, but when it works it can be a useful tool.

Remember to be confident and plan what you need to say. This will stand you in good stead for the interview itself. Good preparation will allow you to get your personality across in a relaxed manner and perhaps most importantly, smile. Looking surly onscreen won’t ignite a potential employer’s enthusiasm. While a smiley countenance will always endear yourself to the viewer.

Remotely interesting

Once you have video CV you are satisfied with, you should also be more familiar with video conferencing and how to project yourself onscreen. You’ll have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t. How to present yourself, and how to sit and act. Your posture onscreen will say as much about you as it would in person. Make sure you choose where you are going to sit carefully and check that your laptop or computer is at the right height for you to appear on screen properly.  It’s also well worth making an effort in your appearance. You will feel more confident if you are dressed as though you were attending the interview in person. Think about what a potential employer might ask you and rehearse some responses. Don’t gesticulate too wildly when you speak either.

It’s employers that are having to get used to this ‘new normal’ too. For example, they might feel uncomfortable about hiring a senior person in their company without seeing them face-to-face. However, they are having to accept it as the new norm. Posts will become vacant and will need to be filled and some sectors have been relatively unaffected by the lockdown, in terms of productivity and access. It has also made many people aware of the possibilities of global communication and perhaps their new work opportunity won’t even be in the UK. With the endless possibilities of technology, if you have internet access and a computer screen, you can communicate across the world.

10 signs your team would benefit from coaching

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Times are changing

Change is an inevitable part of life, especially within the working environment. But the changes we have seen in 2020 have been unlike anything we’ve experienced in our working lives before. Even in this lockdown period, changes to work methods and practices can lead employees to start feeling unable to keep up. Working remotely, for example, can seem very alien to someone who is only used to an office environment.

With the uncertainty surrounding the shape of what work and workplaces will look like next year, career transition may be forced on many people. It’s important that companies monitor their staff to look for tell-tale signs in these insecure times, particularly with more senior members of staff, who can become lost or even left behind by the pace of change. Coaching can help them, especially in the current economic climate.

Noticing the signs

Changes in a staff member’s behaviour can be a key sign that they are not coping well with company adjustments.

Here are 10 signs which could indicate that your staff are not managing effectively with change:

  1. Frustration – with themselves and their colleagues
  2. Stress – anxiety and general unhappiness
  3. Isolation – lack of conversing and reduced sociability
  4. Unprepared – looking or feeling lost and out of their depth
  5. Increased periods of time off – through illness, or an unwillingness to be in work
  6. Boredom – a reduced enthusiasm for their job
  7. Disputes with colleagues – becoming resistant or more argumentative
  8. Lack of confidence – in themselves and their work
  9. Punctuality – issues with continual lateness
  10. Procrastinating – being unwilling or unable to complete their tasks.

Inevitably, how well employees are able to deal with changes can strongly affect the business. At Career Evolution, we understand how crucial it is to help staff throughout the company cope.

A positive change

Through our expert coaching programme, designed to aid members of staff at all levels – including those at more advanced positions, such as senior managers and directors – our highly-qualified coaches will assist your staff to handle change effectively. This includes helping people before, during and after transition periods, offering bespoke support on a one-to-one and group basis.

Tailored specifically for how to best suit your employees’ needs, our coaching enables individuals to recognise their value, and most importantly, how they and their company can continue to succeed in the face of change.

Change for the better

The most effective method for your staff to deal with change is to embrace it as a positive element,  not as something to be feared and treated with scepticism and suspicion. Change is vital for businesses to adapt and survive in an uncertain environment, where many companies have already buckled under the pressure of not keeping up with the times. The other side of lockdown will be a testing time, economically and socially. Helping employees to take control of their changing role or situation, and formulate a plan for a future that will work for them, is the key to helping individuals thrive and prosper. It will aid both staff and the business forge ahead, and bring about positive change together.