How to chart a successful career path

Garreth Hanley:
This is INTHEBLACK, a leadership Strategy and business podcast brought to you by CPA Australia.

Jessica Mudditt:
Hello and welcome to INTHEBLACK Career Hack series. I'm Jessica Mudditt. Over four episodes, we will speak to leading career and employment experts to bring you the latest strategies and tips to help supercharge your career. To help us understand some of the issues to consider when planning your career, I'm speaking to Kathryn MacMillan, managing director of CIRCLE Recruitment & HR. Kathryn is an accredited recruitment professional, a certified professional member of Australian Human Resource Institute, and holds a master's degree in human resource management and industrial relations. Welcome Kathryn, it's great to have you here.

Kathryn MacMillan:
Thanks, Jess. Great to be here.

Jessica Mudditt:
So my first question for you is, when it comes to planning our careers, do you think that it is never too early or too late to start? I just wonder whether some people are simply so busy in their roles that they maybe don't give career planning much thought, but I would dare say there are drawbacks to not giving it sufficient attention. Would you agree?

Kathryn MacMillan:
Look, I would agree and I think it's a broader question than just planning your career. I think it's actually about planning your life to a certain degree. Certainly, there's a time when it is too early to do that. I mean, when we are young, we all dream of being an astronaut or a fire engine driver or whatever it is. But there does come a time in your life when I think you need to think carefully about where do you actually want to go in your life and how you want to get there i.e, via your career. So I think that we shouldn't think about our career in isolation, but in its relationship to our life. How happy does it make us doing what we are doing? Does it give us the financial reward that we are looking for? Will it enable us to live the type of life that we would like to live? Planning with anything is ultimately very important. So I think taking the time to sit down, think about your priorities, your goals, where you want to go, and maybe isolating those small steps that you can take today to be able to plan the end game where you'd like to end up.

Jessica Mudditt:
Okay. Let's talk about being a generalist versus a specialist. What would you say the pros and cons of each? And maybe some people are inherently suited to one or the other, but surely it's worth thinking about which way to go.

Kathryn MacMillan:
Yeah, absolutely. But look, it's not something that you can really think about very early on in your career because when you are starting out, you don't know all the outer ends of a role to understand what those specialisations might be. So generally, people start as generalists. As a generalist, there's certainly generally wider opportunities in regards to the amount of work that is out there. Being a specialist, a more niche role. So there may be less jobs but may also be higher remuneration in regards to your specialisation. I guess something to consider is that the world these days really want specialisation as well. If you look at accountants, originally, you are an accountant and then there would be a specialisation to be a tax accountant for example. But these days there could be a tax accountant that specialises in superannuation, a tax accountant that specialises in investment, a tax accountant that specialises in company tax and so on and so forth. So there's a wide range of specialisations. I think when considering the advantages or disadvantages, my advice would be start as a generalist and try to understand as much of that role as you can and the different specialisations that might fall within that role so that you can then make a decision down the track if specialisation is the way that you want to progress.

Jessica Mudditt:
Because ultimately, we'll be led by our interests, where you need to follow where you are most interested in focusing, and then that surely will be linked to the level of success you'll achieve.

Kathryn MacMillan:
We're at work for an awful long time, a long part of our life. It's important that you really enjoy what you are doing and that you are interested in that. And it's like an ever-evolving sort of circle where the more interested you are in something, the more that you practise it. The more that you practise it, the better you become. The better you become, the more interested you are in it. So it's an upward spiral as long as you've got that interest initially.

Jessica Mudditt:
It's those 10,000 hours to perfect something, isn't it?

Kathryn MacMillan:
Absolutely. But if you love doing it, it's 10,000 hours that seems like five minutes.

Jessica Mudditt:
Yeah. And that's so important I think.

Kathryn MacMillan:
Yes.

Jessica Mudditt:
Okay. Kathryn, what is your advice on how someone could possibly test the waters in different specialist fields before making a decision? I was thinking it would be quite daunting to me to simply leave a familiar area for one place that they think they may enjoy but they don't know for certain if they will. And perhaps that fear could actually hold someone back and keep them in their lane, so to speak.

Kathryn MacMillan:
Yeah. Look, absolutely. I think that speaking to your employer is a good place to start in regards to letting your current manager know where your interests lie and where you might like to get experience in a certain area. Because if you don't speak up and verbalise that interest, potentially you'll never get those opportunities. So always good to approach your current employer and have a chat about a specialisation, you may be able to start undertaking some work in that area or being just involved in that area in some way. When young people are starting out their career, quite often, larger companies have graduate programmes which are excellent at really moving their new staff around in regards to different areas of specialisation. So that can be fantastic. But if that's not an opportunity that you've had, another thing that any of us can do is essentially being involved in online groups. So looking at different online groups, looking at being involved in discussions, chats about what's going on in that area there. Just being involved basically in that specialisation can really help you as well.

Jessica Mudditt:
Okay. Okay. Let's turn now to the perennial question of big firm versus small firm. In your opinion, Kathryn, what should a person consider when deciding whether to join a big firm or a small firm?

Kathryn MacMillan:
Look, I think some of the things that you need to consider are the opportunities that are available. So often, a larger firm has more opportunities in regards to specialisation because they have more departments and areas. However, a smaller firm will have a much shorter chain of command, so often the ability to experience higher level of responsibilities and to become a stronger generalist can be greater in a small firm. I think you need to think about your career advancement either way. Where would you like to be in two to three years? Is there an opportunity in that firm for you to move into that area? What other specialisations within the firm? So as I said, in a larger firm there's probably stronger specialisation areas, but in a smaller firm you can often learn much faster because there is that shorter chain of command and you're so much closer to the coalface than you are in a larger organisation. So I think really reviewing both organisations and looking at the pros and cons of both of them. And then speaking with your managers there, understanding their priorities and then to a certain degree following your heart.

Jessica Mudditt:
Yeah, sure. Okay. Because really, they're quite different experiences. And it may be worthwhile trying both and then seeing which delivers the most satisfaction and opportunities.

Kathryn MacMillan:
Yeah, absolutely. It can often be a very good growth activity to move from either a large corporate to a smaller business or vice versa because they're both very different beasts and they will give very different skill sets as well.

Jessica Mudditt:
Kathryn, what are your tips on how to work out your priorities and translate them into a career plan that will help you achieve them? Do you agree that we should check in every so often on now priorities in case they have changed? I think it's no bad thing surely if priorities do change. It's probably inevitable in life that things will change over time and we should be flexible and adapt our career plan to accommodate it.

Kathryn MacMillan:
Because your priorities change. As I mentioned at the beginning, this is very much because it's so closely related to your life plan. And your life plan when you are in your early 20s is very different to when you're in your 40s or when you're in your 60s. So your priorities are going to change all of the time. And that's why I think it's important when you look at your priorities and your career plan that you really think about your life and where you want to go and what you want to do with your life. Money isn't everything. So sometimes following a career that perhaps doesn't give you as higher remuneration but gives you an incredible intrinsic motivation because you love it so much and you're so happy doing that is going to be a thousand times more worthwhile than chasing the dollars for a role where you know are not happy. So I think happiness is something that you really need to consider very carefully. So I think it's a great idea to write down your priorities much like you might write down your New Year's resolutions and then go back and have a look at them in a couple of years to reassess and then that will help you in regards to perhaps you can say, "Well, I did achieve that and I feel great about that, but now my priorities have changed. Now I want to focus on this new path that I'm going down." I think writing it down is really in important and popping it away somewhere in a draw or something that you look at once in a while, because ideas, if they're not written down, can be very fleeting and then you can think, "What was it I wanted to achieve? I can't actually remember now. So much else has gone on." So definitely write them down and look at your career plan in correlation, I think, with your life plan and happiness as well.

Jessica Mudditt:
That's wonderful. I think that's very wise advice. Can you please outline the importance of continually learning new skills and technologies? A lot is spoken about being a lifelong learner, but I'd love to know what this really means in practise and what the benefits are of remaining eager to grow as a professional.

Kathryn MacMillan:
There's a wonderful saying, and I won't have the words correct, but it's something like, if you are not moving forward, you're essentially going backwards even if you think you're just standing still. I think that is so relevant specifically now when the rate of technological change is just so fast and the rate of change generally in society is very fast and always seems to be speeding up. So if you are not moving forward, you are going to be going backwards because things will change and will leave you behind. One of the most important things I think about that lifelong learning sort of idiom is to continue to have a growth mindset throughout your life. So to actively work, not to have a closed mindset and think, "Well, this is the way I've done this and I'll always do it this way, or this is my belief and I will always hold that belief." The ability to change your mind is one of the greatest things I think that you can work on. In regards to lifelong learning, looking at things with an open mind, questioning yourself, changing your mind where you might have said "That's not important, but now a few years later I realised that is really important and I wasn't right thinking that back previously." So I think keeping up especially with technology is so important, but keeping up with new ideas and with opening your mind to considering things that you might not have considered previously or looking at things in a new way, incredibly important not only for your career path but for your own enjoyment of life and your own enjoyment of the situations around you and the new opportunities that open up. It may not be related to career path, but I think having that growth mindset and just being open is incredibly important to us, not only for career, but I think to us as human beings.

Jessica Mudditt:
Okay. Okay, Kathryn, if you could share one piece of advice on what to do now to prepare for the future, what would that advice be?

Kathryn MacMillan:
Look, I think my advice would be pretty much the same as my last answer actually, in regards to having an open mindset. I think looking at anybody's future, the most important thing is to have an open growth mindset, to educate yourself, to be accepting of change because as we often hear, change is the only constant in life. So I think for us all to be able to accept change is a great piece of advice. I've probably given you about three pieces of advice there, but I'll succinctly say growth mindset, acceptance of change, keep learning, and keep your mind inquiring all the time.

Jessica Mudditt:
Well, thanks for sharing them with us today, Kathryn.

Kathryn MacMillan:
No problems. My pleasure. It's been wonderful to be on the podcast. Jackie Blondell: We hope you're enjoying INTHEBLACK's Career Hacks series. If you are interested in the latest news, analysis, policy updates, and business insights, you should check out CPA Australia's With Interest Podcast. Join us as we dive into the news and delve into the business issues of the day. Each week we talk to thought leaders from across the accounting, finance, strategy, economic and business spectrum, and you get their expert opinions. Now, back to INTHEBLACK.

Jessica Mudditt:
To help us think about how to navigate any unexpected twists and turns in our careers, I'm speaking to David Simpson who is the managing director of Melbourne HR and a former Navy officer who specialises in HR consulting and outsourcing to Australia's SME market. Welcome David, it's great to have you here.

David Simpson:
Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

Jessica Mudditt:
Okay, so my first question for you is concerning the fact that for many years the traditional career trajectory has been up climbing the corporate ladder one step at a time, but the pandemic has made many professionals recognise that up is no longer the only way and that there can be many benefits to a sideways move. You yourself made quite the sideways move from the Navy. What prompted that and what did the experience teach you about having multiple careers?

David Simpson:
Sure. I mean I think when I entered the Navy, I always had this idea in my head that I might do what's called a short career, which in my version was nine years long. It's not that short. But I did do a degree in that time as well. And I would say that I always had this idea that I would consider my options or I would always reassess my career. I had that thought at a very young age based on absolutely zero knowledge and zero mentorship. I think I really just stumbled upon it. But it actually helped me a lot because I do think that when you have a career over an extended period of time and you watch other people have their careers, you suddenly realise that that upper trajectory really only belongs in a large end of town. Anybody in the medium to small end of town will always have a zigzagging career, or 99% will have a zigzagging career. And that's actually really beneficial because you can do a lot when you zigzag and take two sets of careers or take different positions in other roles.

A good example is there's a real concept of brand when it comes to employers. So when you put a brand on your resume, maybe it's Microsoft, maybe you worked for Apple in Australia or you worked for Mercedes-Benz or PricewaterhouseCoopers, there's this concept of a brand on a resume that has impact. Zigzagging can actually do some pretty wonderful things for you because you can use that brand to give you a promotion in a less sexy employer or a less sexy space. Maybe it's a large scale blinds retailer or something, right? Something that's not necessarily really particularly sexy or you'd ever think about it. You take up a position as a finance manager there because they're looking for someone. They can't necessarily attract experienced finance managers so they're looking for young hot shots to take that step up. And so that creates a zigzag effect because you then go into that finance manager job and then you go 2, 3, 4 years later you apply for a finance manager at Apple Australia, right? So then in one way you are zagging up and using a brand to provide you a promotion. And in the second step you are zagging, I think. I think that's the word we use.

Jessica Mudditt:
I like this word.

David Simpson:
We zag across to achieve the same position probably with a bit more money and a bit more tenure and a sexier brand. That concept of zigging and zagging, people do that all the time without probably even realising it. There are probably people who zig and zag in their careers and if you pull them up on it, they'd be like, "Wow, I've never even thought that that's what I was doing all these years," but actually they were.

Jessica Mudditt:
David, it sounds like there are some great benefits to the right sideways move. In what circumstances should a person consider one in your experience?

David Simpson:
Yeah, I mean I touched on it earlier before, but I think that concept of zigging and zagging is key. They'll provide you first two reasons straight off. The one is consider a sideways move if you think it results in a promotion. The second is you might look at absolute lateral move. So no promotion if you think that it gives you good positioning in your next role thereof. So good positioning is where you take a role knowing that it could lead to something else. So almost like in chess when you preposition pieces, you're deciding to preposition yourself in your career. A lot of people do this by luck, they take a particular job because someone said, "Oh no, but there's going to be some great opportunity in a year or two" and they trust that person and it comes good and the opportunity comes good, right? But you can do it yourself. You can look at an organisation or go, "Do you know what? I want to get into FMCG on the finance side so I'm going to take that job with this supermarket. I'm going to work with IGA or Aldi or whatever it is. And then after that I'm going to look at getting into agri export or something," right? Whatever it happens to be, but you can look at those moves as sequences. I think just touching on that when it comes to sideways, I mean the obvious one by the way, let's just rip the bandaid off, the obvious one is you're bored and you don't like what you're doing. That's totally reasonable. If you are bored, if it doesn't work for you, look for something else.

Jessica Mudditt:
Say something about it.

David Simpson:
Absolutely. And if you're an auditor in any sized accounting firm, understand that being internal and external is vastly different. So sitting there, I think there's two things here, is that one, don't be afraid to take a risk, particularly early in your career. Early in your career is the time to take risks, right? Absolutely the time to take risks, because you can always go back. Do you know what I mean? And you lose a year or two, right? It's nothing. That's peanuts in the grand scheme of things when it's the start of your career. And potentially, you won't lose anything because they'll see the experience you had in the other places as valuable. So what I would say is that understand that an accountant in one place and an accountant in another place is not the same. It's just not the same. And so finance is a really broad space and you can be doing lots of different things in different organisations. If you are working in a firm, in the firm side of things, then going internal is a great way to shake things up and do something different. And if you are looking at a sideways career, there's nothing really wrong with having a crack at something early in your career. I mean, you can do it anytime, but what I'm trying to convey is that it's easier at the early part of your career. And you just don't realise that when you are young. When you are young, you look at this and you're like, "Oh no, but one or two years is such a big deal," but actually it's kind of not. And also you can learn a heap by doing something different. It's never a waste of time. It's never a waste of time because you can pick up new skills and new information and you can apply that to different places. So I think in terms of what reasons, the reasons could be lots, many varied. And I'd say to you that there's probably very few that are illegitimate.

Jessica Mudditt:
David, could you please outline the importance of transferrable skills and how to build them? What is it about them that makes them so valuable?

David Simpson:
Okay, I think I've going to probably just cut a few things up here. I'd say there's probably two types of transferrable skills if I'm going to try and simplify it. The first one is your general employee skills, right? Your general employee skills are your ability to work in the team, your ability to influence the people around you, both up and down and sideways in the hierarchy of an organisation, your ability to lead teams, and your ability to just get stuff done. There are just some people out there that really attack things right? We all have a little bit of it, but some of us have a lot of it. And so when an employee comes along that's willing to attack things and take problems away from the manager, then that becomes just the best thing. They just become your most favourite employee. You can't help it, right? They're your most favourite employee. So that's one. That's the core of those general skills. The other side of it is you pick up anything from the most inane or you think is most inane, which is just learning how to write, learning how to write persuasively when you have to pitch something, and it's all about the numbers except that you kind of have to pitch it, right? You have to convince everybody that what your analysis was correct and your recommendation is correct. So even something as simple as persuasive writing can have an impact on you almost on a day-to-day basis. And so learning all these things. And that's what makes them kind of powerful because I would say they're the glue that sticks your actual technical skills together.

Jessica Mudditt:
David, let's turn to today's challenging economic times. What would be your advice for navigating choppy career waters such as redundancies or some other kind of career setback? I'm sure that it can be really overwhelming to face something like that. So any tips you might have on maintaining a healthy kind of outlook about the future would be good to have as well.

David Simpson:
If it gets you down, that's just fine because you've just gone through something really difficult. And if you're sad about it and it's hurting you, then that's just fine. If it's hurting you a lot, then definitely get some help. But I would say to you that particularly if you have some experience up your belt, some experience, then I'd say that it's not that big a deal. What you do is you make sure you take your feelers out pretty wide and set yourself a bit of a goal in terms of applying for roles. This is for the finance sector, I mean look really wide. I mean there are people in the finance team in every company that isn't a corner florist, right? So anything above that has a finance team. So cast a pretty wide. And also try and get yourself excited about something. If you've always wanted to work in the automotive sector and you just got made redundant from a medium-size accounting firm, then look for some finance jobs in some automotive brands because that might be something exciting.

And also I think the big one is it's a good idea to apply for some promotions. Don't be down on yourself, but give yourself a mix. So make sure that you're applying for roles that are lateral so that you can demonstrate your experience and say, "Hey, I've done this job and I can do it for you too." But also look for some promotion opportunities as well. Don't short sell yourself. Make sure that if you're put in that position, you may as well look at high and medium. There's no lows here. Look at high and medium. If you find yourself at home stewing, do something. There's lots of ways in which you can work where you don't get paid. Volunteer somewhere. Don't let yourself stew. I think one of the problems that people have is once they start stewing at home, they sort of get into a tighter and tighter ball.

So there's quite a [inaudible 00:28:14] mental health component here. Applying for roles can be a bit of a marathon rather than a sprint. So it's really important to look after yourself, and that's potentially getting some professional help. But also it could just be something as simple as make sure you go out for a walk every day and make sure that if you've got some spare time and you've thought about volunteering at the local cat shelter, then apply and see what happens. Do those things. Something you got is spare time. So do yourself a favour and take advantage of it and look at other opportunities. I think that's key. I think finding another role is actually more of an internal struggle than it is an external one. I think once you've got experience up your sleeve, unless you're very senior, in which case there has limited roles, if you are in the early part of your career but you have experience or you're in the mid part of your career, you shouldn't find it overly difficult to find a role in a reasonable amount of time, say from two to six months, right?

Jessica Mudditt:
Yeah.

David Simpson:
So I think the biggest thing you have to set yourself is a goal about how you are going to spend your time and how you are going to manage your mental health so that you can maintain that marathon. So be optimistic. If you've got a lot of energy and you're feeling good, then make a bunch of applications. Take your time with those applications. If you want to work there, write a proper cover letter for each individual job. Don't just write the same rubbish that everybody else writes on the cover letter. Actually say, "This is why I want the job."

Just tell people why you want the job. Don't tell us that "I think I have the skills to do this job and blah, blah, blah." I'll make that determination where you have the skills to do the job. You don't have to tell me that. Just tell me why you want it. What interests you in this job? Tell me what interests you in this job. So I don't know. I guess in terms of navigating choppy waters, I think if you find yourself in a situation where you're without employment, the key situation is to stake up, look after your mental health, realise it's a marathon, and set yourself small goals and make sure you look after yourself. In terms of preventing it in the first place, work hard. Make yourself indispensable. And then if you think your company is in trouble or you think that there might be redundancies in the future, don't just sit at your computer and sweat about it. Apply for some jobs.

Jessica Mudditt:
Final question, what are your tips for learning from mistakes both your own and other people's? The fact of the matter is that we're all going to make them, and I guess it's more about not repeating the same ones over and over.

David Simpson:
Yeah, it's a tough one because I think it has a lot to do with ego. I think that you've got to take the ego out of it and you've got to sit there. Sometimes you've got to look for it. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are going to be your boss or your manager or your supervisor, they may not be your particular type of person. They may not be someone that you gel particularly with, and therefore taking advice from them or taking criticism from them becomes harder. It's in those times that distinguishes the people who push up and those who don't, because it's the people who sit there and go, "I don't like the way this person communicates. I don't like the way this person delivers their criticism, but I'm going to take it. I'm going to dissect it and I'm going to learn from it anyway." So hopefully you have great supervisors, but the reality is you're going to get some who are at least average, if not poor, and you need to make good on that situation.

And so you should always be dissecting what you do and how you could do it better, and what did the person next to you do. It doesn't have to be an unhealthy competitive spirit. It really can just be about you looking for self-improvement. Yeah, I think ego definitely becomes your... That's the biggest obstacle because you sit there and you go, "No, I put effort into this, so it's good." No, you put effort into it, you delivered something. It's guaranteed to be wrong in some aspects. It doesn't matter who gives me what, I will find something wrong with it, and therefore there is something to learn from it. You need to have that mindset that everything you do is wrong. It's just that that wrong is really an opportunity to learn from it. You may have achieved the standard required that your company or organisation wanted of you to deliver on it, but there was another level, there was another piece of polish, there was something else to be extracted, there was other information to be added.

There's always something. Even if you don't do it next time, understanding that you could go that direction means that next time you might be able to tailor your response a bit better and make it just that a little bit sharper. My advice would be talk to supervisors, talk to managers, offer to have a coffee with them and ask them about their careers, because it is learning from other people, hearing their stories and asking about what their career story was is one of the best ways to get a little snapshot or summary of what is possible. If you keep asking that question to lots of different people and you collect lots of different stories, then suddenly you start building a map of what's possible with the people around you and what their experiences were. That is going to help guide your own career progression, because one of the hardest things to do for someone is to plan their career when they have so little knowledge of what their career really entails because you're at the bottom and you haven't experienced it and you haven't learned about it. And so hearing people's stories and asking them is the best way. And asking your manager sitting down for a coffee or even in a quiet moment just going, "Hey, I want to learn more about this career after where I'm at. Can we grab a coffee? Or are you happy to have a chat about it now? I'd just love to hear what you did and what steps you took and where do you work and why'd you choose and was it a good idea." And all those questions. And if you have those stories, they're actually pretty powerful.

Jessica Mudditt:
Thanks a lot for your time, David.

David Simpson:
Not a problem. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Garreth Hanley:
If you've enjoyed this episode, help others discover INTHEBLACK by leaving us a review and sharing this episode with colleagues, clients, or anyone else interested in leadership, strategy, and business. To find out more about our other podcasts, check out the show notes for this episode. We hope you can join us again next time for another episode of INTHEBLACK.