.png)
SheCanCode's Spilling The T
SheCanCode's Spilling The T
Adulting is a Work in Progress: Why Those Who Ask "Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?" Are Lazy Interviewers and Managers
In this episode of Spilling the T Adelle Desouza, founder of HireHigher, shares her unconventional yet inspiring career journey, challenging the traditional five-year plan mentality. From starting as a marketing assistant to becoming a marketing director and business founder in just 12 years, Adelle's success is a testament to the power of continuous skill development and seizing opportunities rather than sticking to a rigid career path.
Adelle opens up about why the ubiquitous "five-year plan" question can be disconcerting and unproductive, especially in today’s unpredictable job market shaped by the pandemic, hybrid working, and the dynamic TikTok generation. She highlights how the academic system's structured progression fosters unrealistic career expectations, leading many young professionals to fear failure when their careers don’t follow a straight line.
Drawing from her own experiences, including being made redundant at 27, Adelle emphasizes the importance of resilience, finding mentors, and remaining open to various opportunities. Tune in to discover how embracing the unpredictability of your career can lead to unexpected and fulfilling success.
SheCanCode is a collaborative community of women in tech working together to tackle the tech gender gap.
Join our community to find a supportive network, opportunities, guidance and jobs, so you can excel in your tech career.
Hello everyone, thank you for tuning in Again. I am Kayleigh Batesman, the Content Director at she Can Code, and today we are discussing why those who ask where do you see yourself in five years are lazy interviewers and managers. I've got the amazing Adele D'Souza, founder of HireHire, with me today. She's going to share her unconventional yet inspiring career journey challenging the traditional five-year plan mentally. Challenging the traditional five-year plan mentally Now, from starting as a marketing assistant to becoming a marketing director and business founder in just 12 years. Adele's success is a testament to the power of continuous skill development and seizing opportunities rather than sticking to a rigid career path, and she's going to tell us all about that today. Welcome, adele. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to have the discussion.
Speaker 1:It's a pleasure to have you on here. We're going to hear a little bit more about your unconventional career journey today. Can you kick us off with a bit of an overview about you, how you got into tech and just to set the scene for our community, if that's okay?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I think I start a little bit earlier than others in terms of I did a traditional academic route. I went into year 12 and year 13. Unfortunately, year 12 didn't quite work out the way that I wanted. So I am a loud and proud retake kid and took my year 12 AS exams twice. I then went on to year 13 and then I went off to the University of York, completed a business degree and found myself half expecting a job to be handed at the same time the parchment would. So I was completely unsure what I wanted to do and I fell into for want of a better phrase accidentally landed in the data centre industry, started off as a marketing assistant in a startup organisation and based a good few miles away from home up in the Midlands.
Speaker 2:I'm originally from West London and from there it's been nothing but a whirlwind.
Speaker 2:There's been no clear plan or trajectory, and I'm really open with that. But yeah, fast forward a few years. I found myself down in central London working for a telecoms firm. I then, through, I suppose, passion and professional central London working for a telecoms firm. I then, through, I suppose, passion and professionalism combining took a step out of marketing which is for a couple years and went into, I suppose, into a HR function, but was all involved around creating graduate programs and apprenticeship programs and how we can welcome at that time the next generation into the industry. Again, fast forward a couple years.
Speaker 2:I took redundancy at a really relatively early age of 27 and moved out to Reading, did a stint there and then found myself with a one-way ticket to Australia and spent a good couple of years working for a cloud services company out in Australia throughout COVID, and now I am sat on the beautiful Emerald Isle of Ireland in Galway. So really varied, really different. I'm now, as well as being founder of HireHire, which hopefully we'll touch on shortly I'm also the field director for an email marketing team in cybersecurity. So my whole career has been IT and tech. I don't think I ever sat there with an ala carte menu saying I want to do this, this and this, but I certainly wouldn't change any of it for the world.
Speaker 1:Incredible. It's nice to hear that you wouldn't change it and I love the fact that you fell into the world of data centers. That's what happened to me. I fell into data centers, centres and storage and it sounds like it's going to be really dry, but actually it was one of the best things that ever happened to me into that area and I never met anybody in that industry that said they regretted it and you're another one but said you know what actually, once you're in it, there's lots of opportunities, lots of opportunity to move around, and that's exactly what what you did with your career yeah, and I think that was it.
Speaker 2:You kind of everyone sort of asked again did I have a plan, did I have a list? Well, of the five industries broadly that I've mentioned, I didn't even know they existed until I was in them, right. So, um, data centers, I had no idea. But of course I was growing up at the time where apps were becoming a thing and social media was developing. I didn't know where that lived. I certainly didn't know that telecoms was an entire industry on its own, let alone public private cloud, and now I find myself in cybersecurity.
Speaker 1:So it was one of those things where I guess the door was slightly left ajar and I snuck in and yeah, they've not been rid of me yet, anyway, me, yeah, anyway, yeah, and here you are, um, so you you have, um quite an impressive, uh career journey, and it's lovely as well that you have a very squiggly career journey. We love those on this podcast and we love to hear all the ways that that people get in and then move around in the industry and that there's so much opportunity to do that. Um, can you walk us through a little bit through your career journey from marketing assistant to marketing director and then onto business founder, and what decisions and opportunities shaped this trajectory?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple things. Um, networking, I think, is really really undervalued. Um. I was really fortunate really early in my career um that I worked with you know, a couple of individuals and I suppose I was. I was dropped in the deep end to a degree when it came to events. Um, meeting people and talking to people and asking honest questions really really helped um, and through that I was given different opportunities and I think that the general rhetoric is you must say yes.
Speaker 2:I think some of my advice was you need to know when to say no. You need to say you need to know when to say no. You need to say you need to know when to say no, whether it's in a job role, whether it's a job opportunity. I remember for a long time thinking that an interview was a one way process. I remember for a long time thinking if I got offered a job, I must say yes, and it's only when I said no to a job, despite the fact that on paper it was a significant financial uplift, it had this fancy title, but actually I sat down and re-looked and went no, that's not for me, that's not a culture that I'm quite aligned to. Just yet they're driving values I don't really see in myself, so I'm going to pass on this one.
Speaker 2:So I think there was a good few opportunities where I said yes to things and got dropped into the deep end and went solo, and there was a good few times where I said thank you but no thank you. And I think that's really hard to do in your early career without having a network around you that kind of says, hey, that's okay. So that network could be family, it could be friends, but also it could be a professional network, and so they that was. They were two huge things that made a massive, massive difference. But also, when you do say yes to things and again I think there's a lot on socials and leaders and coaches say yes, strive for every new opportunity Is realize what it means when you say yes, the accountability that comes from saying yes and what you're going to be able to contribute, what you're going to get out of it and what you're going to be able to put into it so.
Speaker 2:I think. I think for me they were some of the key decisions that I learned to make quite early on, um, and some of them were turning down opportunities to go abroad at a young age, which someone would be like why didn't you jump at it? It just wasn't right. It just wasn't right at that time yeah, I you know what.
Speaker 1:I completely agree with what you just said, because we had a webinar where that discussion came up about how long would you stick out a job role if you really didn't enjoy it and if you think, if you said yes to something, and then you just you're in that job role and you're thinking, oh gosh, I should not have said yes, it's harder to get out of it, it's harder to find another role.
Speaker 1:Um, and how long do you stick that out? Because then it looks bad on your cv. You think it's gonna look bad on your cv. So I completely agree. Sometimes as well, especially if you know you've been made redundant and you're sitting there thinking should I just say yes to the next thing that comes? You know how long do I hold out for and wait for that opportunity.
Speaker 2:That's quite difficult to to do but the time pieces are really the time piece, so the time is a really interesting one. I had a number of conversation over the years, um, with a number of kind of new career starters, but also grads and apprentices around saying yes to big money, um, and I have. Whether it's valid for everybody or not, I don't know, but for many that I've spoken to it's a three-month window. It's a three-month. The first month.
Speaker 2:You see that new number come in on the payslip and you think I've made it, I'll put up with the fact that I don't really like the job or the company or the culture or my manager. And then the second month you go, you know what I own a bit more now, so I'm going to spend a little bit differently, I'm going to save a little bit differently, and by the third month you've normalized, you've become completely acclimatized to a new salary and now you're just left with a job that you don't like in a company you don't want to be in, working for someone that you don't necessarily respect or, you know, find aspiration or inspiring.
Speaker 1:So yeah, three. So, yeah, three months, I think, is the uh-oh. That yes should have been a no for a number of reasons. Yes, definitely, and and I I believe as well that, even if you, you have those interviews and, like you said, it is a two-way thing if you just decide on those interviews, this isn't for me that's good practice anyway, just to hear what else is out there, to brush up on your interview skills, because we don't do that every day.
Speaker 1:Um, so it's never a wasted opportunity, even if you do, then say no to to a job. I couldn't agree more to that. It's so different when you graduate and you're just trying to get in on any team, but when a little bit more through your career, you can, you can be a little bit, a little bit more picky. Um, if you, if you have a little bit more time just to wait, um, I, I completely agree with you on that one. Um, you, you believe in, um, uh, we're going to talk a little bit about the question and that you were chatting to me about before you came on this podcast. Why do you believe in the question? Where do you see yourself in five years? Why do you believe that that is unproductive for young professionals, and can you share an example from your own experience where this question felt particularly irrelevant? That's something that we hear a lot in interviews where do you see yourself in five years? But you think that you just should not ask that. Who's going to know that?
Speaker 2:it seems like when I first started hearing it and I probably when I was much younger I sort of thought oh goodness, I don't know. You know, I don't know necessarily what I'm doing next week or I remember hearing it at school what do you want to be when you're older?
Speaker 2:and you think, goodness, at the time I was 14 and I certainly wasn't even doing my own laundry or cooking my own food, let alone. What do I want to be when I'm older? So so it kind of it stemmed from there and I suppose five years for me it just seems like a made up figure. You know why is it five years as opposed to six months, as opposed to 18 months? And I did a little bit more digging and the average tenure of an individual in a job, that's a millennial, is just shy of three years. You take that up to Gen X, it's just over five years, and baby boomers, it's just over eight years. So I wonder whether the question. So when I sit here saying why is it not 18 months to two years, I wonder if that's reflective of my own generation saying that's the window that I typically, and actually my career trajectory, has showed that I spend in a role.
Speaker 2:And so the five year question to to gen, you know, to the next generation, is like five years. We think back. Now it's 2024, in 2019, covid hadn't happened, the world had not experienced the pandemic. Yet you're talking to a selection of students and a generation that not only lived through that pandemic but were educated through that pandemic, that built their work experiences through that pandemic. You know, I also look at things like the way that society has moved on and the reliance on social media. I think I've got figures that would suggest that there was about 650 million TikTok users in 2019. That's now 2.5 billion Like so much has changed in five years that it does feel like a lazy question yes, five years is such a large window.
Speaker 2:You know I look back five years and well, I certainly wasn't living in Ireland, I hadn't quite left for Australia just yet. You know, I wasn't long after being made redundant. The business that I founded was about a year old and we were kind of does this work, can it work, will it work? And I think there's something to be said for having aspirations and it's not to say, you know, don't you think past your nose? I think there's having aspirations but where do you see yourself in five years seems seems lazy and it implies that there's something that you could do.
Speaker 2:Now, ignore the middle four years, but as long as you're there in five years, don't worry about it. And I'm kind of working on the basis that actually every six to eight to twelve months, you want to be ticking a box that you've created for yourself, or you want to be achieving something, or you want to be starting something new and that be on that continuous learning. And what you don't want is the age old. It's annual review time. Let me update my document a week before the meeting, but actually I've not looked at my KPIs the last 11 months and the five-year question encourages that type of behavior. What does that do between now and the next three years? Because year four and five I'll really pull my socks up.
Speaker 1:Exactly that, and I think in tech as well. It's strange to ask that in tech, because things move so fast. I mean the conversations that that we have. For instance, we've had conversations on here about um, about AI. How can you predict, if you're working in AI, where you're going to be in the next five years? It just it does seem it's a ridiculous question to ask in the tech industry, where things can change so much. You can move around so much um, and also with uh, family as well.
Speaker 1:You know, you don't you don't know what's going to happen. Um, I did a video with a lady, uh, a couple of years ago, and she said to me I wish somebody had said to me when I started in work not to plan ahead for what she was thinking. So she was thinking I need to be in a good job which is flexible by the time I've had my family, by the time around 40, I need to feel, you know, I've got great work-life balance and I'm going to work that around children. And she said I wish somebody had just said just go at it, you know, not thinking right ahead to when you're 40, because she felt like she missed out on so much and her career had changed so much by the time that actually came around. That she said I was thinking ahead way too far and I wish I'd known where the tech industry was going to take me year by year. I said you know, I did get to that point eventually and I did have work-life balance, but it just kind of consumed her for some reason.
Speaker 2:I think it puts on this added pressure as well, and I think, especially for young women, it's really hard to not feel like you're on the treadmill, you have to do this at a certain point and this at a certain point and this at a certain age. And I just I worry that that five-year question you could well be talking to an 18 year old or 21 year old or 25 year old and they're going oh well, does that mean I need to be at a certain company so I'm there long enough so I could get some leave if I wanted to have a family? And what if my partner is? And you're asking them to build this entire life based on a question that, quite frankly, you've probably just not researched enough if you're asking it.
Speaker 1:Yes, and haven't made that decision either, because you don't know until you go through your career what you'd like to do next. I mean, you reach that crossroads where you have to decide do I want to manage people, do I not want to manage people? Do I just want to do my own thing or work on a team? But actually I'd rather, you know, stay working on solo projects and and not have to look after people. Until you've worked on a team, you don't know where you would like to go.
Speaker 2:Instead of having that thought of, if I'm not a leader by a certain age, then I've vowed that perhaps you don't want to be a leader, that's fine too and, but also and and I definitely will end up touching this later, I'm sure is is that idea of oh wait a minute, I've lost my train of thought?
Speaker 1:no, I told you, it happens, don't say bye.
Speaker 2:Bye. Leader, you just said something there and I was like, oh yeah, that's so valid. Ah, it's gone it's gone.
Speaker 1:I said about not everybody has to be a leader, or you feel like a failure if you don't yeah become a leader by a certain age. There was the age thing there was such actually saying, oh, that's what I was.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I'm gonna start that bit again. Um, yeah, one of those ideas around you don't know what you kind of want until you're in a team is from an exact example that I had in my own career. So I knew that I wanted to do marketing. I loved the creativity side of marketing. I wanted to learn more about the psychology behind marketing. And then fast forward a few years and I found myself in the HR department.
Speaker 2:Now, if I had this big five year plan, I would have said no to that opportunity. But it was me looking at something and going at the company I was with at the time and saying, hey, we'd love you know, we're looking at you as a company looking at workforce planning. I'd love to bring in the next generation into telecoms and data centers. How do we do that? And then you start doing bits and then all of a sudden you're in. You're in the HR team, but at no point.
Speaker 2:If someone had said to me when I joined that company, where do you see yourself in five years? Would I ever have said, oh, you know what, I'll probably end up deviating into global CSR and then I'll probably move into managing, you know, the top 10% of performers, and then I'll go on and build your early careers program. I never would have said that, and I almost wonder, if I'd been asked to document it, would I have looked at it and gone oh, ade, adele, previous you said you wouldn't do that, so, and you know, you end up holding yourself to account and upholding expectations that that you never set for yourself, but you were forced to yes, yes, exactly, and even setting them, I suppose even, even, even annually.
Speaker 1:Uh, I, we work with a company, um, uh, one of our corporate ambassadors, and I love the fact that their goals, their company bonuses, are not set on how much money you bring in, but it's whether or not you achieve your annual goals. So goals that you set for yourself career development, skill development, learning something new, moving into a new department that you wanted to, or a new skills area and they pay out bonuses based on that. So they do it to make sure that you're still progressing. But it's not like if you hit that in five years time, you know you're only going to progress everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't know. You know, and the flip side to that question is I don't know any organization those I've worked for or otherwise that look at someone and go they're underperforming in year one, but we'll wait and see where they're at by year five, yeah, you know. Or, and in the same way, if you're overperforming and overachieving in year one, I don't know any individual that goes well, I'm going to wait my five years to be recognised for that and I'll stay at it for the next 60 months.
Speaker 2:You know, so it just it seems. I know it's a controversial phrase, but it does. It seems. I know it's a controversial phrase, but it does. It seems like a cop out of a question, because I would be surprised if the interviewer, or indeed the manager, could say that what they would have answered that questions five years previous is the exact step that they've taken. Especially, like you said, in tech that is is so fast and, having lived in different countries, the speeds are at different places and the technologies are at different places and the cultures are at different places. In terms of what the working environment looks like.
Speaker 1:yes, yeah, another good point if you do move for work as well, um, that completely can change your career trajectory. And how do you differentiate between striving for continued skills development and following a specific career pathway? That's quite a balance, isn't it? Yeah, so work, so continuous skill development, but a specific career pathway.
Speaker 2:I suppose I err on the side of when an individual has a pathway. Is it a pathway or is it a job title? And I say that because that was me when I was much younger. The idea of having, you know, a C-suite title was was it looked like the pathway? But I hadn't actually planned a pathway to that point and I hadn't really determined whether I wanted to do that job or whether it just looked like. Like you said, come in five years. You start from here. You must then go to the top, and anything that deviates should you take a left step or a right step then you've failed. So the career pathway one is interesting for me.
Speaker 2:The continuous skill development, though, I do think is very important and one of the things that I spend a lot of time doing. A lot of the young people that we work with and a lot of the new joiners to the industry that we work with is around continuous skill development. So what we tend to do is we take, let's say, the job title and the job spec you have right now and we find if you say, you know what I want, the next level up. Everyone has their own productive. We find that job spec and we look at those skills and go right, do you have those skills? Where are we missing the gaps? How do we bridge that for you? Is it a course? Is it an academy, certification? Is it opportunities? Is it extracurricular activity? Is it public speaking?
Speaker 2:And you tend to find that if you continue to build your skill set by, by default, the pathway to which you have the most energy for impact will get you there. You will find that you have people that are continuously developing their skills, but they don't want to be a people leader. They really don't want to. But they could go all the way up and become the chief of staff. They've got no direct reports, but there is. There is this sometimes. I think that there's sometimes a little bit of fallacy to go where a career pathway suggests that you start as a specialist and then you're a manager and then you're a director and then you're a VP and then you know, add in whatever other made up ones you can on the way. But actually the value is in developing the skills because you find individuals go.
Speaker 2:Actually, I want to really develop that so there'll be some individuals that I've worked with that I would say are the absolute top of their game, but their job title might suggest that they're a specialist or even an executive, but there was no one else that I would go to if it came to that topic, other than them.
Speaker 1:I see, yeah, yeah, which is far better than thinking, like you said, reaching for that job title and also not always understanding that job title. Most people don't understand what actually comes with saying I want to be the CEO, what comes with that and the responsibility and being held accountable for what exactly?
Speaker 2:A lot of people just seem to think, yeah, I would like to do that, or I've seen a role model where I want to do that and you can't actually always relate anyway as to what that role is like, and I think you say I was listening to another talk recently where you will see and social media actually perpetuates this quite heavily is you end up saying what you want but not really realizing how you're going to get there and the sacrifices that that might entail. I know that we've done open days with leading CEOs and you take in, you know, maybe 16 year olds or 18 year olds and it's a free for all on questions and they ask you know what's your biggest regret or your biggest sacrifice? And sometimes they'll say that it's family, sometimes it will say that it's relationships, sometimes it will say it's their time, but again, I think when I was much younger it was striving for a job title and then you get to the point where you go I don't want to work on a Saturday, actually.
Speaker 2:I'd quite like to finish at five, or you know, I'm, I'm burning myself out and I'm in my 20s. I don't know if that's what I want, so so yeah.
Speaker 1:I think.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes the pathway. There's no reason why your pathway can't be a web. There's no reason why I can't go left and go. Oh, I really like that idea. I'm going to go left again. I really like that idea. I'm going to jump over there, Then I'm going to go up. You know what? I'm actually going to drop down because I really want to learn that skill and then come back up. I worry that sometimes, especially with people joining the tech industry and seeing what's out on social, it's how high can you get, how fast can you get there and how much money can you make doing it, and the pressure is phenomenal. But actually there's so much value and so much opportunity in managing the web rather than failing.
Speaker 1:And wherever you go as well along the way, the skills that you pick up along the way. And again, it's that you using that word, pressure, that's exactly it. I took a sideways step um a few years ago and I wanted to care for a parent and I went sideways so I could work locally. And I felt at the time it's that pressure, thinking I had to make that decision, to think I you know what I don't want to do international travel. I want to be closer to home and I'll just take a step sideways.
Speaker 1:And looking back, I didn't realise the new skills I would pick up working in something that was similar but slightly out of my comfort zone. And if I hadn't have done that, it wouldn't have got me to my next job and then the next one. But you put that pressure on yourself to think but I haven't gone up, I went sideways. You know that's that's considered, that's that's not a good career move, going sideways. But actually when you come back again to where you wanted to be in the first place, then you bring all these new skills with you anyway. So what does it really matter?
Speaker 2:absolutely absolutely we.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you a little bit about the job market. Obviously, you mentioned COVID previously, so in what ways has the job market become more unpredictable, especially with the pandemic and hybrid working models?
Speaker 2:In a number of ways I think that there is a greater level of transparency. That is now required of employers since hybrid working became the norm. I think that there is a greater respect for work life balance and I think that there's. I'd like to feel like you know there's less pressure whether you're caring or parenting or you've got extra curricular activities going on. The pandemic, I think, helped adjust that balance, whereas it wasn't that long ago that you'd be like oh, I'm really sorry, I've got a gym class at 7am so I won't be online until 8am. Don't start work till nine. You know, or you know, and I've seen it with you know, peers and colleagues of mine. I'm awfully sorry, but my young lad's a bit poorly, so I'm going to have to leave early.
Speaker 2:That has, I've seen that change, I felt that change and I think the technology industry and the IT industry has kind of embraced hybrid working. You know there's opportunities. Like I said, I live in the west of Ireland now. I live very rural on a farm and working in cybersecurity and driving. You know, new and diverse talent into the IT industry. That was unheard of before. You needed to go to big cities, you needed to go where the corporates were, and so I think that the the job market has changed and become unpredictable. That you can, you know I can, I can live on a farm and do that and others can see that and it feels more inspirational.
Speaker 2:I think working models have changed because working practices have changed. So technology now enables a lot of remote working, but there's still I still don't think we've got to an optimum state of collaboration. I still really value being in the office, I still really value that person-to-person contact, but I do think that the pressures of those that are returning to the workforce or joining the workforce so much has changed. Like you know, I was able to do in-person work experience. You know I've got friends and colleagues that did internships and summer placements. All of that has been remote for the last four to five years now. So I think there's still a little bit of instability and I think it's quite hard.
Speaker 2:I do feel that applicants for jobs are probably you know they're a lot more aware of what's out there and what they can and can't ask for and what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. And I think, as the tech industry and the IT industry calls out for the talent that we indefinitely need, it's all about reducing the barriers to entry. So if you, as an IT and tech organisation, can say yes, let's do. You know what seems to be quite common in terms of remote working and hybrid working? But also are all of your interviews in central London and you're asking a workforce to travel. You know an individual, a stay-at-home mum, who's been at home for five years to travel from north of Birmingham, when it's 150 quid one way and there's no you know how. What are we doing to remove our barriers to entry is the biggest thing that I've seen um COVID and the pandemic. Um do do for IT and technology.
Speaker 1:I think as well that is making for me personally. I think that makes people stay at jobs, that they think you know what I really like it here because it's flexible. I have that work-life balance. People are really holding on to that now now, especially with more people bringing people back into the office, that that thought of moving jobs at the moment as well as thinking, oh gosh, if the next one gonna require me to be in five days, because I'm used to that work-life balance, um. So I think that's making people feel a bit more loyal as well to their job, maybe, um, sticking around a bit longer than than they used to, instead of job hopping. Um, because it is still slightly unstable as to, um, what is going to happen and, uh, whether you know you suddenly call back into London, um or not. So, yeah, I agree, it's still um, even after all this time. Uh, how lovely though that you get to work on a farm and work in traffic.
Speaker 2:I absolutely love that I am the true hybrid life. For whatever that phrase yes, yes and uh.
Speaker 1:One of the the brilliant things about working in the tech industry is that we have the flexibility of doing that. Um. What about? Um the academic system? So how does the structured progression of the academic system contribute to an unrealistic career expectation?
Speaker 2:this one yeah, this one. I'm so incredibly passionate about this, this topic. It kind of goes back to the five-year question. So when you start at school in year seven certainly in the uk it's all around GCSEs which take place in five years time so when you start at 11, it's where are you going to be at 16? What subjects are you going to take? What courses are you going to choose? What pools are you going to you?
Speaker 1:know work within. Do you want?
Speaker 2:coursework, do you want exam work? And because we have an academic system that does that that after year seven you go to year eight, and then after year 10, you go to year 11, et cetera, et cetera. That for me, when I went from year 12 to year 12, again, you have all of these doubts in your minds of going. Well, I didn't go from this year to the next year. Now, that was my choice at my school. It was my choice. For some students, I know, know, it's not their choice and what it does is. And then we do the same at university level. And then, when we bring in new entrants to the industry and we ask them their five-year plan, we perpetuate this idea that it's all linear. And then we get upset and you see lots of commentary around it when young people go well, I've been working for 12 months, where's my pay rise, where's my new office? Where's my car? Well, hold up. You, you set that precedent. You set that, year on year, you're supposed to move in scale in time. And so when you don't, that's where I feel that the pressure and the stress comes from individuals that go oh goodness, I have to sidestep, and they tell you in such a downbeat way and then they defend it. There's nothing wrong with it at all.
Speaker 2:I spent a couple of years when I was much younger. We lived out in America as a family and their education system at that time was you move when you're academically ready to move. So if your maths ability allows you to go onto the next module of the maths ability, you move years. So I was in a year group with students that were a year older and two years younger, or vice versa, but it just meant that, especially in those formative years, you were able to move when you're ready, as opposed to move when your birthday was yeah, and so I think that's what happens when you come into your. You know those early careers, those early years of your career, whether it's a new career or straight from academic life there is that pressure, and I said it at the beginning when I got given my degree, I was half expecting the job offer to come at the same time because I was like oh, I have a teacher box. Thank you Next, please.
Speaker 1:And you're like OK, I'm applying for one job. I've got a thousand jobs.
Speaker 2:I still have a job and and it's it's funny we were running, um, we do a number of workshops, um with sixth formers and we've run a number of them. Back in March and there was a young gentleman that came up to me in year 12 and he said, oh look, I won't have to go through the you know the application process like others. And I said well, why?
Speaker 1:is that he said oh well.
Speaker 2:I, I got the top grades. I was like, oh, in the country. He was like no. I was like, oh, in your borough, no, or in your school, no, when your class. And I was like, right, but when you come out, you are competing with not just your class, you're now competing with the world, yeah and so and so, because that rhetoric is, you just got to do what you get to do to get to the next bit. You then find when you're, you know, 24, and again, social media does the same thing. You know you're 24 and you're not a director, and you're going, oh, what's wrong with me? I failed, I've not made it. No, you're learning, that's all right. Yeah, you don't. You don't need to be, and also, you might not want to be. Yeah and so. And I do think that that structured progression really, really affects people's ability to have resilience when it comes to your professional career not being linear in terms of seniority and pay.
Speaker 1:And I think that that goes back to your point as well about sometimes waiting and saying no, because you do have that pressure, especially when you just graduated and you're thinking you know what I just should? I just say yes, should I just? And it could start you off in the wrong direction. Your first job could really crush your confidence if you're not, you're not very good at it, or you've aligned on a team that you're you know, um, it doesn't align with your values and you think, actually, I wish I could just do all of that over again and I could have just said no to that opportunity and waited. But you're right, there is that pressure I have to get into a right, into a job.
Speaker 1:Well, I remember going back after graduation um, I, I was lucky enough, I did land a job and I went to graduation um, and I was employed and I was going to an awards ceremony that evening. It was a work do and I'd never been to a work do and I was all like, oh, I've got my job, I've got my work do. So many of my friends at that graduation ceremony still didn't have a job. It was just the thing People still don't have a job by the time they're collecting their degree.
Speaker 1:People still don't have a job by the time they're collecting their degree, and that is okay too, but it obviously gets to the point we have to make a decision on what you want to do next. But you, really you do. There is that realization when you come out and you think that's not what I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2:I think I was six months six months from graduating to getting a job, um, and so all of that of going back home after three years and you've got your degree and the pressure of everyone going what you're going to do and what you're going to do next and I changed my tact. I had been accepted into a couple of graduate schemes that I kind of had decided weren't for me, and then I'd obviously been rejected from a whole bunch of them and that's how I ended up in startup world really is. I just started applying to say actually I don't think I want the structure anymore. I think I really want to do something. Um, I'm not particularly great with structure and routine as an individual, um, and I just really leaned into that and that's where I got as much experience as I could from that startup organization yeah, and all of that experience kind of led you to that point and you, uh, where you wanted to do that and try something different.
Speaker 1:You mentioned the word resilience a minute ago there and I wanted to touch upon that. Can you tell us about your experience of being made redundant at 27, which is incredibly young to be made redundant? How did this change your perspective on career planning and resilience?
Speaker 2:on career planning and resilience? Yeah, I think because I had that year 12 retake year for a long time. I explicitly stated that my greatest fear in life was failure and I felt that I'd failed year 12. That's not strictly true. From an academic perspective. I didn't fail year 12. I just didn't secure the grades that I was perhaps capable of. But I held on to that fear of failure for a very, very long time and I put into my mind this career planning right, well, if you're an executive now, then you can be a manager then and you can. And I got quite caught up in it. And I think then, when, when I got made redundant at 27, some of those fears came back to be like you've not failed at work, like this isn't even an exam, you have not failed at work, like this isn't even exam. You, I've now failed at being an adult, which you know.
Speaker 2:Redundancy for me was something that happened in your 60s. I didn't know you could be made. I didn't understand the concept of redundancy. I you know this is and this is why I really focus on the fact that adulting is a work in progress. You know what is a pension, what is an ISO, what is redundancy, what are savings? But none of that is covered um through the curriculum or otherwise.
Speaker 2:I think what it did was it allowed me to sit and reflect on what I had achieved in those kind of five five just kind of back myself a bit more. You know, with the redundancy came a bit of flexibility. I was able to go traveling for a few weeks, a few months it probably was actually and I started my own business at that time because I felt so passionate about the industry. It gave me so much opportunity, and even if it had only given me opportunity for those six years, I'd found myself traveling all over the world to events. I was speaking on circuits, I was learning about the technology that drives the digital economy, and I was like this is from somebody that didn't know it existed.
Speaker 2:I can, I could start a business to do this, and so I think what it did was it allowed me to stop chasing something and instead allowed myself to be driven, which is different. If you see something in the future and you go, go, go. That's how you burn out, because nothing's ever good enough, and you begin to develop, and I openly admit you begin to develop. Well, I have to do this and I have to do this and I have to work these hours and I can't go to that birthday and it becomes your everything. I think the redundancy at that point of my career was an opportunity to go right. What have you achieved and how did?
Speaker 2:you do that and actually that wasn't your job and you did that anyway, and then they asked you to do that and then they promoted you to there and actually they're taking care of you and you're leaving on a really strong relationship basis with them and right what do you want to do now?
Speaker 1:where?
Speaker 2:Where is my internal drive? Not what am I externally chasing? I think to build resilience in a way that I probably didn't have before. I had grown up from a very young age playing team sports and doing a number of sports which I think started developing resilience, but I kind of dropped out of that in my teenage years. As a lot of young girls do, team sports tends to drop off.
Speaker 2:But actually it's only looking back now that I look at my brother and my cousins and even my male colleagues and my partner, that team sports and failing as a team and realizing that failure is such a harsh word, you never would say to somebody who got a silver at the Olympics that you failed. You never would say to somebody who got a silver at the Olympics where you failed yeah, you would, you would. You would never say, you know, oh well, actually you only on who wants to be a millionaire. You actually walked away with 500 grand, you failed. And and so what I did was you put things in context, you build a perspective to view, to view the world and your professional career through, and I think redundancy allowed me to do that yes, um, I love everything you just said there.
Speaker 1:You, you, you're so right sometimes that you and changing it to that drive and being able to figure out as well what you enjoyed about your last job, what you didn't enjoy, what, where, where even in past jobs before that, where your strengths lied, what you really loved doing, and finding a way to get back to what you really loved, or starting something new, as you courageously did it's just having that time to think and reset You're absolutely right and just never seeing it as a failure. That's something that we talk about as a team as well On this podcast. We talk a lot about when things go wrong, how you deal with that as a team and how you move forward Instead of thinking, sometimes as a team, if it's a failure, then you start throwing each other under the bus. You don't move forward. You know, if people go into panic stations and you know, and and the saying about making decisions out of fear is never a good thing.
Speaker 1:Um, and just thinking I just need to stop, reset, make a good decision about what's going to happen next and learn from this um is, uh, is just such good career advice for anybody that's listening, that has been made redundant and is sitting there thinking what am I going to do next? That's brilliant, brilliant advice. I'd love to ask you a little bit about how can young professionals overcome the fear of failure when their careers don't follow a linear path? We've touched upon this a little bit already, but is there something that you would say to your younger self and to our younger professionals? Um, about overcoming that fear of failure?
Speaker 2:um, when you know, things just don't turn out the way that they thought they were gonna yeah, one of the and this is probably a personal insight, and some might say I'm actually not doing that every single month since I got redundant, I have kept a note on my phone and every single month I write down what I did. New that month Now, that could have been. I was a bridesmaid for the first time. I traveled to a particular country. I actually finished that book series I had on my list. I anything. I went to my first rugby game.
Speaker 2:I things that are small, things that are large, but I've kept a running list because it's so easy to feel like a failure when you're in tunnel vision and the lack of context and perspective, like I will often say, sometimes in jest, but sometimes in meaning, oh geez, I failed at doing that and it'll only be somebody that sits me down and go hold up. You've taken it from there to there in this much time. You didn't fail, you just. You just set the bar here and we needed to be realistic in the time and the budget and the resource that you had that you're probably only going to hit here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so for me, it's. It's the biggest advice I can have is try and look at your achievements, both things that you've overachieved and underachieved in with perspective and put them in context. If you do not get a pay rise, you haven't failed. If you do not get the job promotion, you haven't failed. And I think it kind of stems all the way back full circle. If you set unrealistic five-year plans, you're holding yourself to account based on things and variables you're not even in control of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can make that knee-jerk decision as well. I didn't get the promotion, or I didn't get the pay rise, as you said, and you could make a terrible decision to think, that's it, I'm going to leave, when actually staying there and just waiting and building something and building a good case for something like that was actually closer than you thought it was and you've made a decision again out of fear of failure. Actually, I've failed and I've just exited and starting all over again in a new company, for instance like?
Speaker 2:I don't. I'll be honest. Of all of the people that I've worked with and worked for in companies, is that actually fail is such a harsh word? Have things not gone to plan? Yes, I don't know. If they failed. Do you know what I mean? You kind of readjust, you don't? You don't just throw everything out and start again. You kind of let's tweak and adjust and amend. You know, I could have. I could have looked at it with my AS level results all those years ago and gone right.
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't get the grades I want and I've defined that as failure. So I'm never going to read a book again. I'm never going to do any exam again. I'm never going to do a test. I'm not going to read a book again. I'm never going to do any exam again. I'm never going to do a test. I'm not going to do my driving test. I can't do exams. Can't do it Never. That's not what happened.
Speaker 2:What I did was I tweaked my approach to revising, which was to actually revise which I hadn't done the previous year self, and be like hold up, you didn't get where you thought you would be because you didn't put in what you know you should have put in. Yeah, and having the ability to be reflective on yourself as a young professional is really important. It's really easy to blame others, like you said, when the word failure comes up. It's well, it wasn't my fault and she didn't approve that and that didn't come through. And I asked them and they didn't respond. Hold up, what were the objectives? How do we get that? What do we need to tweak for next time around?
Speaker 1:yeah, and especially if you followed that career path that you thought was the route for you, and perhaps you got there and just realized that you were really rubbish at it and just you're just thinking you know what that wasn't for me and I couldn't even do it, and that was nobody else's fault other than I followed a terrible career path where I just wanted that, that job, and that was it.
Speaker 2:You chased you chased something, and sometimes we do, we absolutely do. We just go, yeah, that's what I want. And social media will tell us that and you know, sometimes our families and friends can tell us that. Or if you, you know if you have this qualification, or your teachers will say, you know, sometimes our families and friends can tell us that. Or if you know if you have this qualification, or your teachers will say, you know, if you do this course, it means this Just be mindful of what you're chasing, because you might get there and be like, oh God, I don't want it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that wasn't. That wasn't in my plan. I completely agree with everything you said today, adele. Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2:We're already out of time, unfortunately, but it's been a pleasure chatting with you, thank you so much, um, for taking time out of your busy day to come and have a chat. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:I hope it's valuable to all your listeners out there, I'm sure our ladies are going to love this episode. And to everybody listening, as always, thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next time.
