Winter is coming, are you prepared?
There are seasons in every career and sooner or later, Winter is coming.
How you prepare for Winter is critical to your path but it's also important to have an appreciation for the rest of the seasons in your career.
Spring is the season for new beginnings.
It's a season of discovery and the excitement of new beginnings and opportunities. A relocation to a new job, a new city, and a new position on a bigger stage. The feeling of being wanted, valued, and actually courted.
It's easy to get comfortable in the Summertime.
After a couple moves, lots of hard work, sacrifice, and a number of chances taken that have paid off, you find yourself sitting in the Summertime of your career.
Fall can be the best of times or worst of times.
The transition to Fall can be a roller coaster, with so many changes such as budget cuts, or layoffs that prepare for the Winter.
Winter can feel like a kick in the gut.
The organization has literally told you that you are unwanted and unneeded. You gave that job everything and you are completely unprepared for what comes next.
A timely example is a situation we're all aware of. Below is an excerpt from CNN edition discussing the recent layoffs:
"CNN informed employees that layoffs had commenced, a move that is expected to impact hundreds of staffers at the global news network and mark the deepest cuts to the organization in years… The cuts to the organization also come after CNN’s former parent company, WarnerMedia, merged earlier this year with Discovery, creating a media juggernaut laced with billions of dollars in debt and a need to slash costs across the board. The merger had just been completed in April when the company announced it was shuttering streaming service CNN+ a month after it was launched"
News like this brings forth the Winter in many journalists and executives' careers. If you are fortunate, they offer you a coach or outplacement service. I know this well. It was an executive coach who gave me the two very things to focus on as I headed into the first Winter of my career (yeah, I've seen Winter).
2 Tips for professionals in the Winter of their career
Identify your strengths and passions
These can be leveraged across industries and functions, essentially widening the breadth of opportunities. Think about all the ways your competencies are transferable. When I coach talent I explain to Multimedia Talent the importance of 'merchandising' their social media content. That is making desirable content available in the right place at the right time. Having been in the retail store business a couple times in my career and responsible for merchandising, I can tell you that many of the principles are the same. It might be a great time to explore a side hustle!
Build out your Elevator Pitch
Support your career transition with a brief yet appealing paragraph of your career's story, including its future.
For example, "After 14 very rewarding years at (company name) where I produced and hosted Emmy nominated content, I've decided it's time to leverage my passion to serve and take those skills to another area of interest, the nonprofit world. I'm immediately available to pursue opportunities to create content for Goodwill, the Red Cross, or a similar cause and I'm networking to uncover the best available fit."
In summary, the more seasons you experience in a career the better you become at recognizing the signs of impending change. I've grown to look at Winter completely differently than most. If you've planned well and are living within your means, it's an amazing opportunity for positive and sometimes exhilarating change. In a world where the average job tenure is now less than 4 years, it's critical that you can prepare for change and actually manage it instead of it managing you.
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