As experienced headhunters, the founders of Harlschon have been working in the executive search industry for many years, helping companies to find senior executives and board members. When it comes to helping senior executives managing the career transition process, that experience can be invaluable.
As the world of employment itself transitions, Anthony Harling writes about how clear guidance can drive career transition and put clients on the road to developing the next stage in the work life journey:
More and more senior executives approaching the later stages of their careers are considering other factors when it comes to the next stage of their work life. This is about deciding what is important and how to take control of their destiny.
We’re talking about executives who are usually in their fifties, the generation that inherited the idea of ‘jobs for life’ and retirement plans from their parents, but who still have a lot to offer. Many want to keep on working and contributing, finding meaningful and fulfilling ways to keep themselves active and engaged. Old-style retirement is not the only option.
The truth is, for many senior executives, the role they’re in now is not going to be there until they retire. It’s naïve to think it might be. So, when I was in my fifties, with experience in the executive search industry, I took the decision to change direction myself and start working with those looking at a career transition in the later stages of their working life. This represented a new and fulfilling kind of work where I had relevant experience and skills that could be of benefit to senior executives facing the challenges of career transition.
We can think of an executive career in four stages: firstly, you have the apprenticeship, where you work your way up and learn your craft; secondly, you have the development stage, where you find a mentor or mentors to help you polish your skills; thirdly, you move into the operational stage where you progress in that field until you’re in a senior management position.
Then comes the fourth stage, which is what I call Career of Choice – a time when you make decisions about what you want to do, rather than what everybody expects you to do. You still want to work, but you might find that the personal rewards are outweighing the financial rewards. Your children are more independent, the mortgage is just about paid off, and you can view your earnings and your life choices in a new way.
For me it’s personal. I passionately believe in helping those people who are standing on that precipice. They may be looking to change through choice, or because they are facing redundancy, but either way, I want to help. I want to help because I know I’m good at it, but more importantly because I feel I’m doing something for people that is meaningful and helpful to them.
So that is why we’ve developed a model, a way of working, that gives some structure to the career transition journey.
Our approach is based on three core elements:
- Re-discover your purpose – ask yourself why you do what you do and what you want to be doing. Stop and take stock, the world has changed in recent years, have your priorities changed, too? Is it time to re-evaluate your purpose and then act?
- Re-set your personal narrative or brand – having worked out what you are and what you want to be doing in the future, now is the time to create a personal brand that properly reflects who you are today and what you’re going to be doing in the future.
- Re-engage your network – you won’t have got to where you are without contacts, a network. But how do you successfully communicate your new thinking to those contacts in an effective and pragmatic way? By understanding who among your contacts is important, who is relevant to what you want to achieve, you can unlock the power of networking.
My goal is to help people rediscover who they are and what they have to offer. The programme we have developed encompasses a six-month journey. During that time we help clients to develop their story, their personal narrative and look at what we can take from that to make them different and memorable. They need to own that story, use it to come to a conclusion about what they want to do in the next stage of their lives, and then turn that into a core message that people will respond to. From there, we work on getting that message out in a way to which others will respond.
It’s all inside them, it’s just a matter of helping them to see what they can offer.
My father lost his job in his early fifties and moving on to another career wasn’t really an option, and I will never forget the pain that caused him. In comparison, I have three children, all in their thirties, and each of them has changed career direction at least once. It’s the mindset of the younger generations and it’s one those in my generation need to embrace.
I call it Career 2.0 – there are so many people out there who have a massive urge to reinvent themselves. Yes, they are heading for 60, but we have to remember that a lot of people in this generation are going to live into their eighties and nineties. It’s going to be a very different old age and employers have to start to realise that and change their attitude to ‘older’ people.
Embarking on the career transition journey with Harlschon is a way for senior executives who have reached that critical career of choice stage to not only rediscover their purpose, but also to do something concrete and practical to help them achieve their ambitions for what may turn out to be a radically different work life.
What’s important for the clients that we work with is that they have that realisation, learn to tell their story, and start to take control of their destiny.
After that, the possibilities are endless.
More information about Harlschon, visit www.harlschon.com
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