The Truth About Career Progression | Richard Edge | TEDxPCL

[Applause] come on careers it's a word that everyone in this room will have heard a lot and some will have thought about a lot strategized a lot maybe even dreamed about but what is the truth around career progression today I'm going to tell you three stories true stories about three different people at different stages in their career from different cultures and then from different sectors different backgrounds different skills and experience but throughout the three stories I want you to be cognizant of a theme or a Silver Thread that runs through it but before I do that I'm just going to make two quick assumptions my first assumption is that if you're here listening to this talk on careers today that you yourself are interested in progressing your own career and actually you're open to hearing new ideas or tactics and the second is that you don't have a secret trust fund that's going to take care of you financially and if our assumptions excellent so firstly the first person we're going to meet today is Robert Robert's a 22 year old from northern England who's finished his law degree but decided he doesn't want to go into law anymore just doesn't feel like the right fit for him what he wants to do is move into human resources the problem that Robert has is he doesn't have any experience he's only got his academic background so he sends CV after CV after CV and is told the same thing over and over again I'm very sorry but we need someone with experience and then one day he got an invitation for a job interview and some to go to big fancy offices on Tottenham Court Road near Oxford Street the heart of Central London which for a northerner who had never been to London before felt like a huge opportunity the job a six-week temporary HR Administration contract for a semi-well established NGO or non-governmental organization was not anything that most people would get excited about but to Robert it was a huge opportunity so we got ready got in his new suit and off we went to Tottenham Court Road and then he got there half an hour before the interview like you should check the people check the culture is everyone happy is everyone miserable you can learn a lot about an organization just by reading the room and he did that and all seemed fine and then the receptionist came to get himself actually Robert just one thing before you go into your interview we just want you to come into this room here we've got a very short simple test for you that we'd like you to do no problem so he went in and looked on the screen and his heart sank in front of him was in extremely simple vlookup Microsoft Excel exercise vlookup vertical lookup a very simple manipulation tool very very simple if you know how to do it now in this context Robert didn't have access to the internet he couldn't look anything up and he had to sit in this room for 10 minutes staring at a blank screen knowing he was no longer going to get this opportunity he was a bit sad about this but he was there and thought I'll go through the interview so we moved from being sat in silence and went through to the interview room and he met 45 year olds Sharon HR manager and 58 year old accountant Margaret and they had a wonderful chat for about 45 minutes and at the end of the interview he got asked the question that you will all get asked at the end of an interview so Robert nice to meet you have you got any questions for us and Robert said I don't actually have a question sort of a question but it's a bit more of a request I've really really enjoyed this conversation and it would mean the world to me to get this opportunity and I actually think that I could offer a lot of value but when I leave this room you're going to go next door and see that I got zero on your data test and now I know this means that I can't have the job but I've really enjoyed this conversation and I I don't want to let you down can I come back tomorrow and do it I'll go home tonight and I'll look up what a vlookup is and I would do it and I come back and I promise you I will get 100 and would you let me do that Sharon and Margaret look to each other it's slightly perplexed and went sure yeah go on then thinking they'd never see Robert again Robert went home that night went online looked it up 20 seconds later he knew exactly what the buttons were in Excel that he needed to press went back the next day the whole test took him about 20 seconds and off he went ten minutes later he got a phone call from Sharon we'd be delighted to offer you the job we've never seen anybody especially with the greatest of respects at your level show such commitment and wanting to actually go the extra mile to do something and we think we'd be lucky to have you now Robert then went from strength to strength that short temporary contract turned into something else within two months they made it permanent within four months he had his first promotion and within nine months he had his first assistant and I would argue that if in that moment of difficulty in that step of career progression rather than running away from the interview or rather than being emotional about it he focused on what he wanted Sharon and Margaret to think of him he wanted to build the relationship and he didn't want to let them down he tried something a little bit different and ultimately he was authentic and willing to go the extra mile and I want you to remember those points as we meet the next two people of my story so we'll leave Robert for now happy in his HR World in London and now I want to introduce you to Fatima Fatima is very different to Robert 45 years old Lebanese expatriate living in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates Fatima's had a very very successful career a very Niche career working in Sovereign Wealth Management in financial services salary anywhere in the region of around five to six hundred thousand per annum it's very successful but another key learning around careers for any of you that are thinking of moving internationally it is not just about who has the shiniest website or the shiniest Instagram page or the most followers or have done a particular drive a key thing of learning about when you're assessing organizations and where they're in different countries is employment law fatimer is an expatriate in Dubai when there is a change of management and she has an argument or a disagreement with her new boss and she gets a letter the next day that says there miss Fatima your contract is terminated in six weeks she has no recourse she has no ability to challenge it she can't do anything about it or Fatima knows now is that unless she finds a similar role in six weeks she has to return to Lebanon a country she's not been in for 15 years with no family there that's in the middle of a civil war and is going through an economic collapse quite a life change so Fatima knew time was of the essence and she did what all good professional do professional people do she looked into a network and she took some advice got a coach and a mentor started looking at building new Networks three weeks into the process she's online and the dream job emerges in front of her but what's quite important about this in this Niche world is that Fatima knew that it wasn't just the dream job for her but she was the dream job for them the dream person for that job so she knew all she had to do was submit her CV in that moment she got some counsel that said things are not always linear when you're applying for things don't just submit your CV why don't you make yourself visible try something a little bit different utilize LinkedIn which is a fantastic professional social network platform and see if you can make some contact with some people make sure everyone knows you exist why not try and look at different options she didn't really want to do it she didn't need to do it she was the perfect person for the perfect job she send a CV and the system works right on the Tuesday she submitted her CV on the Wednesday morning by the time she'd woken up she's got an email through Dear Miss Fatima thank you very much for your CV we are no longer going to progress your application we wish you all the best for the future kind regards human resources two and a half weeks left before deportation there's no other opportunities available she was upset and emotional and thinking about to be honest what was she going to do with all of her cats and her life and how everything was going to change the next day she got a message on LinkedIn from one of the people that she connected with who is the senior hiring director for that position dear Fatima thank you very much for reaching out you've got a really interesting profile I'd love to have a chat with you sometime Fatima was Furious she thought how dare this man who has just rejected me from this position and having this impact on my life now is sending me some pleasantry without really thinking about it I'm offended and I'm insulted before replying and responding she saw some counsel and the council said sis another really important lesson about career progression is whether you're working in a startup a medium-sized business a social Enterprise or in this instance one of the largest largest Sovereign wealth financial institutions in the world there's a very good chance that the internal dynamics of the organization do not work as seamlessly as you might think they do from the outside looking in the left hand often does not talk to the right hand let's just assume for a minute that this very senior director has absolutely no idea you've even applied it could complete completely oblivious to it let's be authentic let's try and build a relationship and let's be constructive so she wrote him a message and said Dear Mister we'll call him Mr X there Mr X thank you so much for your message in all honesty I was actually really hoping to get to know you a bit better but unfortunately I applied for this position and was rejected yesterday but if there's ever another opportunity for us to talk or anything else comes up it would be great to get to know you a bit more two and a half minutes it took him to reply can you talk okay Mr X then rang Fatima and they spent 15 minutes on the phone Fatima didn't say much all Mr X did was apologize now just be clear here he's a very senior director of a very large financial institution he was not apologizing for anything that he had done what he was doing was apologizing for his useless and rubbish HR department they should never treat you into this way I don't understand their processes they don't know what they're doing nobody of your standing should have been rejected where you can meet with my business partner on Monday we would love to speak with you about this opportunity you said okay she went on Monday and on Tuesday contract offer came through now the other interesting element of that story is that between that phone call and the Tuesday the psychological Dynamic of that career change switched and Fatima Knew by that point that she was being pulled into the organization so not only did she get the contract offer she renegotiated it by around 20 and managed to get a car park space which if you're in the heart of Dubai in the UAE is very important and she was no longer going to Lebanon so when you think of Fatima what I want you to remember is if she had not been authentic and she'd not tried to stand out and try to find a way to build relationships she would have been deported and she would be back in Lebanon right now rather than where she is in Dubai it takes me to my final story which is to meet Sadiq Sadiq again a different background an Egyptian National who is ex-military and worked for many years across the middle eastern APAC doing a variety of director roles in a number of sectors there's another thing that happens when you're progressing your career there's this thing that pops up from time to time called life life happens to Sadiq life fell in love with a new lady who lived in Thailand he didn't want to live in the Middle East anymore as far as he was concerned his new vision was now going to be project Thailand problem however with this is that many many countries like Thailand always prioritize and often only recruit Nationals from within that country they're not very good at hiring expatriates it might not be part of their strategic vision so for six months Sadiq constantly tried to apply for roles and get noticed rejection after rejection after rejection now Albert Einstein allegedly once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results so Sadiq thought well my mission hasn't changed but I need to change what I'm doing so he thought what I'm going to do rather than applying for the jobs I've built up quite a good Network now online I'm going to try and build those relationships and I'll see if I can help them in some way so a few weeks into this thought process an opportunity came up and Sadiq wrote to the HR department and said I know that I won't be eligible for this position but I was wondering would you mind if I shared it on online for you because I've got quite a large Network now and it could be useful I said yeah sure it's fine no problem so we did and he wrote a nice post to my lovely network over in Thailand I would have had some recent dealings with this business and they seem a great organization and if you're interested I would highly recommend post went absolutely viral he got 13 likes but the interesting thing about those likes was one of them was the global Chief people officer based over in LA and he thought well that's interesting that's a bit different I'll connect with that person see what happens he forgot about it then didn't do any more two weeks later he got a message from the global Chief people officer hello Sadiq I've been hearing recently that you've expressed quite a large amount of interest in our business and even shared one of the recent jobs that we advertised as you know we often look for recruiting Tire Nationals we've been looking quite extensively for someone with the right skills and experience from Thailand and we've decided that there is nobody would you be interested yes this was the answer from Sadiq she said great we'll fly you over you can meet the team and we can see if we can take it from there so off Sadiq went and I can glad to confirm he was offered the position and again Knew by that point he was being pulled into the into the organization which was very helpful when it comes to the negotiations as well now as we leave Sadiq I told you at the beginning of today I was going to talk to you about the truth around career progression and one thing that each of these individuals from all different backgrounds has in common is that they all try to do something different they all tried to prioritize relationships and they all tried to stand out in an authentic way there are many many different schools of advice around what the best way to progress your career is some people will say it's about who you know or who you knew as you were growing up and some people will say it's about what skills you've got or what academic qualifications that you've got and some people will say it's about being in the right time in the right place one thing that I would like you to take away from hearing those three stories is that for me it's all about being authentic putting yourself out there trying something different and being resilient now Simon sinek once said you don't always have to follow the same process as everyone else there's not just one way of doing things you don't have to just go and get a grad scheme because everyone else is doing it you can do it your own way the Only Rule is you can't impact anybody negatively whilst doing it so you should always look for ways to try and be Innovative and be creative now to sum up those three stories each of those three people had a key moment that could have completely derailed their career but they all focused on those relationships and now I'm pleased to say that Richard went on to be the youngest HR director in the UK's public sector before working internationally Fatima actually managed to set up a charitable fund that's raised millions of dollars for people back in Lebanon and Sadiq actually only moved to Thailand in October but he did say he's going to watch the recording of this so I just wanted to say hi to Sadiq and I'm sure you're having a lovely time none of those three life scenarios would have taken place if in that moment those individuals from different worlds had not focused on being authentic resilient and above all else prioritizing the relationships thank you foreign

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 16,726

Keywords: Behavior, Career, Education, English, Potential, Progress, Storytelling, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:51852]

Id: NX6qIbflNyY

Length: 21min 15sec (1275 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 06 2023