Make a plan, plan to change it
Rural Ramblings
When I left school in the mid 1970s the job market was tough. So, I went to college for a year to get some extra qualifications. They were heady times during the Thatcher years. Students watched the news, read newspapers and were very well politically informed and motivated. What’s happened?
My parents and grandparents worked in an era where once you had a job the chances are you would stay with whatever company or organization and hopefully progress. Secure jobs in the government, the financial sector and major companies were considered golden.
When I left school, I had a major disappointment with getting into the Royal Navy as a trainee electronics artificer. I passed all the interviews and the tests only to be told right at the last that I was colour blind. That was the end of that. I was good enough for the Army though, to which I declined. The job market was a little better and I ended up working at a bank, which delighted my mother. I was paid to go to day release college to get a business diploma and I was working my way up. I was already a chief cashier at a busy branch and content enough to get more exams and go further.
Then, my train came off the tracks. My father was diagnosed with cancer, was treated with then very experimental radio therapy, and died within nine months, he was 66, barely retired after 30 odd years at Rolls Royce. Working thorough my grief I rethought my working ethic. My father had been very much looking forward to his retirement, fishing, travelling and fixing up the odd vehicle. I decided to look for another career.
Astonishingly to me, I only applied on a whim, I landed a job as a trainee scaffolding estimator. Boy was that ever different, two years training with the scaffolders, then a year or two with engineers, estimators and contract managers and I was out on my own into a career that lasted nigh on 20 years, three employers and over ten years running my own business with 60 employees at one point. I’ve done other things in between, managed a supermarket on the weekend, worked on fish farms and fishing boats, served in the reserve military and more. Not to mention over 25 years as journalist.
How would I have faired if I had stayed at the bank? Well, to begin with, I think. However, takeovers and mergers would have likely meant that like thousands of my former colleagues synergies and cost savings would have thrown me out on the employment scrap heap after 20 years.
So, what’s the point here? I guess I’m saying that especially nowadays there’s almost no such thing as a one stop career. You’re likely to or be forced to change what and where you’re doing it multiple times. Change is even expected on your resume now so embrace it. Sometimes it will be forced on you other times you can do it yourself. Make a plan, plan to change it. For employers and recruitment agencies that are increasingly using algorithms to sort resumes think on this, humans are adaptable, I say this look at what someone could be as well as what they are, you may be surprised.