My career stalled a couple of times, too, so I know how hard it can be to bounce back.
There’s quite a tale here, so grab a cup of your favourite hot beverage and come along for the ride.
So your career has stalled. It’s never “Game Over” unless you give up
Some situations I didn’t see coming and probably couldn’t have. Others, well, I was just a bit naive. So I’ve had several opportunities to learn how to bounce back when my career stalled.
And I’m still learning.
Maybe some of my experiences will resonate with yours.
What my dear late mother called WiSP-ing never got me anywhere
Whether you’re just feeling ‘stuck’ or facing redundancy, take some time; reflect; plan and get back up again.
Bounce back. There is ALWAYS another opportunity out there somewhere.
A few highlights from my own confidence roller-coaster
Early in my career, I sought out a move to another team only to find myself reporting to a toxic manager who set me up to fail. I don’t know what made her do it and I had seen this happen to others, so I should have seen it coming. My career stalled and my confidence took a real beating.
Fortunately, my former manager still believed in me and gave me a shot to redeem myself on another project. I guess you’d call that an “assisted bounce back”.
It worked. What a blessing to have a great mentor who can see value in you even in the most challenging times. Confidence restored, I went on to be promoted to run a team of trainers.
A few years later, brim full of confidence, I made a planned move that led to two promotions and an overseas secondment to the UK. Three years after that, still on a great career path, a restructure eliminated my role and I didn’t see it coming.
At the time I believed that some senior people broke promises – they did, and I had nothing in writing. A painful lesson about how the real world works!
Once again, my career stalled and I needed to bounce back, but…
Nearly 10 months unemployed and that was tough, personally and financially. Confidence battered again.
But my Mum’s words – “Don’t WiSP; do something!” – kept me going.
I tried all sorts of ‘business ideas’ but didn’t have the know-how or the resources to get them off the ground. My amazing wife stuck by me through this time and the years that followed in my first foray into self-employment.
Opportunity knocks
Eventually, an opportunity came up to join a great executive recruitment business where I became a partner after a year. A steep learning curve followed by 5 years of both challenging and rewarding work. With my wife’s backing and the support of my business partners, I managed to build a solid client base from the ground up.
Another big change
This next one I totally brought on myself when we decided to emigrate from South Africa to Australia. We moved, excited at starting a new chapter of our lives “Down Under”. We did not have jobs lined up yet, but I was confident that I would find another role in recruitment.
To my dismay, however, the recruitment firms in Australia were simply not interested despite my experience in the industry. I had no local network and couldn’t bring business in with me.
6 more months of job hunting while taking on casual work to feed the kids and pay the rent.
The self-doubt started to kick in again! Had I done the right thing? Would we ever get settled and set up?
Our Australian dream was turning into a nightmare!
But then, after 53 applications I landed a decent job as a trainer in a large company. It felt like a big backwards step but it was a start. It gave me a chance to prove myself and build local experience. 6 months later I secured a promotion back up to a leadership role.
All seemed to be going well until there was a change of CEO and several top execs. Someone decided to outsource my whole department – second redundancy. And I hadn’t been there long enough to score a large payout.
New direction
I went through an outplacement program and ended up joining the outplacement firm as a coach. The people were great and I loved the work. Finally, I was sure I had found my niche.
After 7 years as a Consultant, I was appointed as Account Director looking after what was then the firm’s largest corporate client. A very successful 3 years followed, but it reminded me that while I am good at and enjoy building client relationships, I really don’t enjoy hard selling.
So I tried to leave – but could not find a role.
Career stalled. Self-doubt set in again. Struggling to bounce back.
Was I too old? Was my background now too narrow? What roles could I go for? Why didn’t anyone see value in my skills and experience?
In the end, I stayed with the firm and moved back into a coaching role supporting senior leaders through career transition, which I loved, by the way.
6 years on, after many changes in the company’s culture and now late in my professional life I decided to move on again.
I joined a boutique executive search firm as a partner. Stayed there for a year re-learning a tough lesson that while I can do a great job in recruitment my core strengths lie in coaching and writing more than selling.
As someone once said: “If you have to work, do something you love!”
So if your career has stalled and you need a hand to bounce back, check out the links below.
To explore how I can help you find the Right Role for You Right Now, please contact me here.
To grab your get my FREE Stalled Career Revival Plan click here
