Transcript #106. Two-year anniversary episode: The future of life and work.
Click here to see the episode show notes.
[00:00:33] Renata: Hello, and welcome to The Job Hunting Podcast. In this episode, we will talk about the future of life and work for the executive professional because the pandemic has shaken things up for the white-collar worker. Many of us no longer do daily commutes to work, no longer eat at our desks in open-plan offices, no longer meet face-to-face with clients and colleagues, at least not every day. These changes may have been forecasted and many times advocated for. But it was the pandemic that pushed things over the line.
[00:01:07] And in this episode, we also celebrate two years of The Job Hunting Podcast. As well as two years of my coaching business, including the Job Hunting Made Simple online course and coaching programs, my services such as the LinkedIn audits and private consultations that I do, which you can book online when you need them, and the reset your career workshop.
[00:01:29] My very first program, which is coming back on the 25th of November, 2021. And that's actually the 24th for those of you in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe, since I'm based in Australia. So if you think you can't do it because it's Thanksgiving in the US, well, you will be able to attend it if you want to.
[00:01:49] And to celebrate the second anniversary of The Job Hunting Podcast. I am gifting five registrations to the first five listeners who write this podcast, a review on Apple Podcasts. All you need to do is write a review, give us five stars. I'm assuming you're listening, and you're enjoying it. So it shouldn't be a problem for you!
[00:02:10] And send me a screenshot of your review via email or message me on social media. It could be Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook. We will be in touch with you when we get your message to ensure that you are registered for the upcoming research or career workshop happening on the 25th here in Australia.
[00:02:28] We will be gifting the five registrations on a first, in best-dressed basis as we receive the emails or messages from you. So please don't forget to contact us. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for us to find out who you are.
[00:02:43] You have until the 23rd of November, 2021, to participate in this giveaway.
[00:02:48] Okay. So, let's talk about the past two years and the future of working life ahead of us. The Job Hunting Podcast started on the 1st of November, 2019. I can't believe it has been two years, and it has been a roller coaster ride at that time. I don't remember a lot of career advice being given on podcasts or YouTube. I hadn't listened to any podcasts on career advice before I launched mine. So it was all basically out of the blue and scary, but I really enjoyed doing it.
[00:03:26] And I had all these podcast episodes already planned out, and then COVID started. And when COVID started, I remember looking at the batch of content I had already recorded and thinking, I can't post them. And they are just so out of touch with reality. I tried to be as contemporary, as recent, and up-to-date with the issues that job hunters were facing.
[00:03:52] After lockdowns and the pandemic started, people were getting sick and people not being able to work people, losing jobs, and no jobs available in the market. And you will find that the COVID series is still very relevant and very popular in the backlog of our episodes.
[00:04:08] We need to talk about the great pandemic, and how many professionals who don't want to go back to the office are rethinking their careers, lifelong plans, and priorities. The pace of life has changed for many of us. And maybe so have your plans for your future.
[00:04:29] Have you found yourself reassessing your life.
[00:04:32] Have you found yourself reassessing your career?
[00:04:35] I find that many of my clients getting in touch with me have joined the great resignation and left work already, but now they don't know what to do next. And I think that that's very interesting that people are quite emotional about this reassessment, and this need to have the timeout, but they don't really know what to do with that time. And how to go back into the wagon, whatever wagon that may be, if it's going to be continuing with their career, but at a different workplace that suits them better or a different location that suits them better. Or if it's going to be something completely different. So I love working with clients like that.
[00:05:14] Or some people are very tempted to leave but still holding on. And I completely understand those clients as well because not everyone can take time out and have the financial resources to support them as they seek other employment. So, we work in a very conservative way but also very purposeful. Make sure that you're investing the little time you have between your work commitments, family commitments, and personal commitments to dedicate to your career, which many people forget to do. With the pandemic, people are now starting to reassess that and how important it is to give your career the time it deserves.
[00:05:57] If you're an executive and you know that your career will most certainly include long hours in front of a computer. I mean, that's the story for most of us. We now have a chance of our life to take control over how, when, and what we are willing to engage with.
[00:06:21] Yes. It's very likely that if you're a white-collar worker working in the corporate sector, non-profit or public sectors, those are the vast majority of my clients and my listeners. Chances are we are going to stay in front of a computer. We were before the pandemic, let's face it, and we're going to continue to work in that way. And that's fine, but now we have this opportunity, and I know it's a bit scary. But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make the most out of the potential changes to the workforce that are happening now. And that is coming your way and negotiating things that are important to you. We have a window of opportunity now to make changes to our lifestyle. That can be very beneficial to our career, our wellbeing, our family. Whatever it is, that's driving. You may be able to negotiate something really important for you in the months ahead.
[00:07:21] With that in mind. I developed a Reset Your Career Workshop for this year, 2021. I did one just before the pandemic hit in December 2019. It was only a masterclass, and it was my first program. And I was so scared of running it. And I think I can't remember the exact numbers, but I think about 300 people attended, which was surreal for me.
[00:07:45] And then I was like, all right, let's do this again. Then in October last year, 2020, I relaunched Reset Your Career as a workshop. Taking into account all the learnings we've developed over the first seven months of the pandemic. And that was really well attended. It continued to be available on-demand for people that weren't able to attend it on the day. And then I pulled it out from the website and decided to redo it, and I'm going to relaunch it on the 25th of November, another live workshop. So you can attend, ask questions, and interact with all the speakers and me.
[00:08:26] The most up-to-date information and intelligence that I get from recruiters, head hunters, and employers about the need for executives to develop their online presence and LinkedIn.
[00:08:39] About setting up your home office in a productive way that makes sure that you are achieving your goals and not getting bored and not getting out of touch with your employees or employer.
[00:08:51] Applying for jobs, post-pandemic. What does it look like? It can be quite scary if you haven't applied for a job in the last two years, and you don't know what's waiting for you. The amount of technology used in recruitment and selection now is unbelievable, even for senior executive roles. If you have been applying, you know what I mean, right?
[00:09:13] So we're going to tackle that and talk about the trends that are sticking and those that are important for us to understand and some tips and tricks. To make sure that we are presenting well. In this new way of recruiting and selecting.
[00:09:27] We're also going to talk about the corporate executive of the future. We talk a lot, a lot about jobs of the future, industry 4.0, you may have heard those terms used. And they are very important terms for the corporate executive to understand. But what does it mean to be an executive of the future? We're going to talk about that in detail at the workshop. I really want to explore that together with you because this is all brand new. I'm a few steps ahead of you, but the importance of that workshop is not just hearing from me but the interaction between the participants because we can help each other and learn from each other. And there will be things there that I am sure I will be excited to hear from the participants. All my clients are very well experienced—high achievers in their profession. So I learned so much from talking to them.
[00:10:23] And, of course, we're going to talk about the great resignation and why executives need to seek help and get help before making that leap. And we're going to see what that means. And is this a trend? What is happening in the job market? How come it's so buoyant and so interesting for candidates at this time, and how to make the most out of it?
[00:10:46] And you may have heard of the 31 days of action plan, which is included. My clients love it. And it's a very good way of creating new behaviors, habits, and routines that will facilitate and turn your job hunting or career planning more successful over time. It's just something that you will learn and do step-by-step. Baby steps, and they are really, really effective. A lot of people love 31 days of action, and it's included inside Reset Your Career.
[00:11:20] I want to use the rest of this podcast to talk about these ideas that I'm having for the future of everything, the future of life and work. You may have heard the changes happening at Facebook, and the corporation is changing its name to Meta, and it wants to tackle the metaverse revolution, and it's coming, it's coming our way. It's going to be bigger than the web revolution. And we know how big the web revolution was. It seems like ages ago when we did not have the internet and Google.
[00:11:57] I'm very lucky that I was brought up in a family of Technology aficionados. My dad worked in telcos, and we had the first home personal computer that I could think of. We lived in Silicon Valley, and I married a software engineer who now works in it. And we were always the first people, like the early adopters of everything, right. And I remember being in Brazil and looking at houses in Australia that was in 98, 99. Look at universities on the web, all of those things that many people back then did not know how to do. And it was just starting.
[00:12:40] We didn't have seek.com back then. We had monster.com. And I looked at jobs. And in fact, I interviewed for the podcast the co-founder of monster.com, Geoff Morgan. You can go back and listen to that episode with him. And that was revolutionary. There I was on the other side of the world, looking at houses, schools for my kids, university, for me, jobs for my husband. And I remember being mesmerized by it.
[00:13:11] I remember when I bought my first iPhone, that it was 2008. And I was sitting in Chicago on a train with the maps open and looking at myself move on that train line and thinking, oh my God, I am in the future.
[00:13:29] I'm sure, you know, the listeners here mostly in their thirties, forties, fifties, and, and you may remember that important sort of milestones in technology. Now the metaverse will be revolutionary. We will have avatar experiences, interact with others, meet virtually, and mix those virtual and real contents as part of our jobs and work culture. It will come for sure in the next few years. And we need to understand where that's going and remember never to be lazy or never be dismissive about the new technology. If you have 10 more years to go in your career, if you have 15, 20, or even five, it's really important to use technology to treat technology as if it was a learning tool, something that you have to dedicate a little bit of time each day or each week to really learn and update yourself.
[00:14:34] I have been quite lazy, personally, with my iPhone. I have an iPhone eight. And I am now updating it to the latest version. And the reason why I haven't in the past was not that I financially couldn't because I could. It was just that I didn't want to because there was stuff for me to learn. Now looking back, I think that that's a mistake. I think it's a great investment of time, energy, and money to be always up to date and an early adopter of new technologies.
[00:15:08] So, if you're not an iPhone user, that's fine if you're an Android user. If you're a PC or an Apple, that's fine as long as you understand that it's really important to be up to date with the new versions. Using also things like Alexa, Siri, Google. We have Google all around our house, and we use it constantly, but we could use it even more. And I want to personally make sure that I'm using all of those bots and AI opportunities to ensure that I am up to date and ready for the future career. Not just for myself because I'm coaching you. So I need to be ready on your behalf.
[00:15:48] I also want to explore the idea of the metaverse and the companion experience. The idea that you can have a companion that doesn't exist is really interesting to me. It could be a pet; it could be a VA. It could be a friend that you create and develop a relationship with virtually.
[00:16:14] I really liked the idea of that virtual or personal assistance when it comes to. Utilizing the metaverse for your corporate career. And we all need more of that.
[00:16:25] One way that you can get used to this idea of automation and letting bots and AI help you with your professional career is to adopt things like Calendly or I have Harmonizely. It's a great way of outsourcing your calendar so that people book a time to talk to you, and it goes straight into your email. It goes straight into your calendar. You don't have to worry. There are no email's going backward and forwards. Using things like Microsoft teams, using things as I said before, Siri and Alexa, to help with reminding you of things that are coming up in your calendar. Use great apps on your phone that help you get yourself organized, get yourself unwinding from work. I'm a big fan of Mindset, but now I've also downloaded Headspace, which I've always loved. And I'm going back to Headspace to help me meditate and unwind at the end of the day. So making sure that you are familiar with these things and that you utilize them professionally is really important. There are so many tools, and I want to share with you in the reset, your career, all my favorite tools that I love to use to help me be productive.
[00:17:43] Because, you know, I work for myself, and I have amazing virtual assistants that are actually real people that help me. But most of the work that I do, I do alone, and I use a lot of technology to make sure that it's easy for me. But if you're working for a company, they may have a lot of resources that you can use. Or, if you're working from home, you may create your own efficiency system to make sure that you're maximizing your time and not spending too much time working, making sure that you're finding the equilibrium there between work and life.
[00:18:28] This is also something that everything we will need to sort work and home is no longer separate in the future. They are the same for many of us, white-collar workers. Many people have moved away from their office, from where they used to work, and you used to live. And coming back to the office every day is no longer possible for them.
[00:19:09] This will be more of a problem in the short term, and I don't think it will be a problem in the future. Still, it will also mean that casual work, even for senior executives, may be a solution to facilitate that flexibility that people are now seeking to gain. You can't have everything. So, suppose you want to be the sort of person that works from home and has the flexibility of choosing your time, having more days off. In that case, you may be the right candidate to consider contract work, interim executive work, temporary work.
[00:19:49] These are all available now, not just for early professionals or creatives but also for senior executives. I have done lots of interviews with experts on this. And you may be able to search through the backlog and find the interviews with Jacinta Whelan, Donna Burr about directorships with Marion McLeod, Moana Weir, and there are some more coming as well.
[00:20:18] The other thing that I want to talk about quickly today before we end is this idea of education and learning. I find that this is a topic that comes up over and over again with clients. Clients that are between jobs, that are, thinking about coming out of an opportunity that they are not satisfied with, and they think that they may need to do higher education, go back to study, do a masters. I'm not really sure that that's necessary anymore unless it's on your bucket list to do the MBA, and you really want to do it. Otherwise, there are so many opportunities for you to do self-learning these days.
[00:20:57] There is so much information out there. What the higher education program offers is the reputation of the brand if you're willing to pay that higher amount to go to a good institution that would give you that reputation. But also the framework. The framework, I think, is really interesting because there's so much information available for you to source online that having the framework of a certificate or an executive education program or a master's program helps you compartmentalize what you need to learn.
[00:21:35] But there is no need for you to do that or spend that much money. If you want to learn about something, Be it artificial intelligence or—the future of work or some technology, data analytics. You can do that from home. And you can do that by yourself. If you want to join a group so many times these days, I've decided I want to learn to do something. And people said, oh, there's a Facebook group for that.
[00:22:06] And I joined, and yes, absolutely. I learned so much from joining that Facebook group, or it could be a LinkedIn group, or it could be. You know, a free course that you do. Or a course that's paid, but not too expensive. So you need to be very careful how you spend your time and money because that is becoming more and more of a commodity it's time. Time is such an important commodity.
[00:22:33] Especially if you're ambitious for your career, your time can be eaten up by Netflix or work. And then there is no time left for you to think about your career future. So that's where I leave you today. The future of everything of life and work has us really thinking about our lives and how much it has turned upside down during this pandemic. I can't wait to unravel that with you during the workshop and in future episodes of the job hunting podcast.
[00:23:07] Thank you. So, so very much for listening. For the past two years, if you've been here from day one, many of you have thanked you so much for your support and the kind emails and messages that I get. From executives all over the world that are inspired, but what they hear in these podcasts. So. Thank you for your support and for sending me messages from all over the world and telling me how inspired you are by this podcast. It means the world to me that we have this connection.
[00:23:41] Bye for now. And I will see you next time.
