When I reflect on the things that mattered most to me at the start of my career compared with my career non-negotiables now, it’s clear that the past 30 years have changed me profoundly. One of my favourite sayings is that you can’t keep doing the same thing and expect things to change. It’s the approach that I take in business and also with my career.
I don’t mind admitting that in the starter stage of my career, I was easily seduced by the product, brand and job title. It wasn’t necessarily a poor strategy at the time as it kick-started my career in magazines, which I credit for the foundation of the wonderful media career that I have been lucky enough to enjoy. Let’s face it, when you are starting out you will often take whatever opportunity you can.
In my early twenties I cared less about the management style of my boss, the financial state of the company, organizational culture, salary level or opportunity for advancement – all of which, I should hasten to add, were positive but it didn’t occur to me to check at the time because those things weren’t important to my decision. I was offered a shiny title on a product that I had an emotional attachment to and they could have paid me less money than I was earning as a junior news reporter and I still would have taken the job. These days, not so much.
The wonderful thing about ageing is that you truly do get wiser about the things that matter to you. With every subsequent job on the path to my current role I was able to sharpen my focus on my career non-negotiables. This is what I now know about myself: I like the responsibility and the highs and lows of running a business or business unit. I love a spreadsheet more than I ever dared admit to myself when I was rejecting an early business career in favour of journalism. I would choose achieving business objectives over popularity every time. I can’t possibly work in a company that lacks basic fairness and decency.
To discover your career non-negotiables, write down all of the jobs that you have had and then alongside each write the reason for taking the role originally, and then for leaving it. Can you start to see any patterns?
Examples of these are:
- salary advancement,
- prestige,
- job security,
- flexible work hours,
- location,
- type of role,
- style of leader,
- company brand,
- entrepreneurial orientation of company.
Make a list of the 3-5 things that consistently result in you leaving a job, and the 3-5 most common reasons for choosing subsequent roles.
Then write down your 5-year and 10-year career goals. Where are the gaps in your experience and, possibly, education to get you there? Do you need a company sponsor to champion your talents? Is it time for a mentor?
You now have a pretty good guide for the non-negotiables for your next role, whether that be an internal promotion or an external move.