Tag Archives for " career development "

How to find your perfect niche

By Felicity Dwyer | Career change , Career development , Small Business

Do you earn your living as an expert in your field? You may offer professional services or advice. Perhaps you’re a consultant, trainer or coach. If so, one of the most valuable thing that you can do to grow your career or business, is to commit to a niche.

People often resist choosing a niche because they think it might be limiting. But you can’t be everything to everybody. If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you may have heard this message before from a marketing perspective. And it’s also true when it comes to finding satisfying work.

Your niche is where your expertise and your purpose come together. It’s where your unique set of knowledge, skills and interests interacts with the needs of others. Here are a few questions to help you identify this sweet spot.

What difference do you want to make?

Ultimately the value of your work is in the difference you make to others. The beneficiaries of your work may be other people, it may be animals, it may be the environment. Finding something you care about will give you satisfaction at the end of your working day, and your working life.

Who are you best placed to help?

Your starting point is where you are now. What does your background and experience bring to the table? What networks and contacts do you already have? And if you want to make a break with the past, then you can look ahead to find the answer to this question. What areas interest you? Where are you prepared to put in the work needed to learn new things and make new contacts?

Who do you most enjoy working with?

Do you enjoy being with young people, older people, animals, creative people, entrepreneurial people… the list goes on. What values and ideals does your perfect client or customer hold? Who have you most enjoyed working with in the past? The people we work with are often the single biggest contributors to our happiness at work

And when you do find your niche it just feels right. It’s often something that ties together your unique mix of interests, skills and experience from various stages in your working life.

And yes, you can have more than one niche. In my coaching business,  I use my experience and skills to help mid-life career changers to work out what they want to do. I have always been fascinated by career paths, and why people do what they do. When I discovered this coaching niche, it immediately felt right. It doesn’t feel restrictive at all.

I also run a training business with a colleague. Our main niche is helping people who manage volunteers to gain skills and qualifications. I came into this field partly through my own experience of volunteering and managing volunteers in a community theatre. And it also draws on my professional background working in the voluntary sector.

Niches can be quite different. For example a part time accountant who helps sole traders with their book-keeping, and also sells quirky jewellery at craft fairs. Or niches can relate to each other. My niches are both around helping people develop their careers – but in different ways. And in last month’s blog, artist Rhian John describes how her painting and graphic design are complementary. A good niche is neither so narrow that you become blinkered, or so wide that any meaningful level of expertise is impossible.

Need some help with finding your niche? This is the type of enquiry I can help with, so please have a look my free consultation offer.

Why you need a mentor

By Felicity Dwyer | Career development , Networking

Do you have access to someone who has experience in your field of work, and who is happy to give you some help to develop yourself and your career? In other words, do you have a mentor?

A mentor can support your career progression. A good mentor will see potential in you that you may not be able to recognise, and help you to make your ambitions a reality.

Research from the CIPD ⁽¹⁾ demonstrated that mentoring can be very effective in helping us gain knowledge, increase skills and act more effectively. It can lead to better management of career goals, and helps with developing a wider network of influence. And being mentored can increase confidence and self-awareness which leads to better performance at work.

A mentor would normally be someone in the same line of work as you, so they can offer you guidance based on experience. They can also help you to access networks and opportunities. A good mentor may also coach you where needed, helping you to clarify your own ideas for a way forward.

How can you find a mentor?

There are various ways to find a mentor or mentors. Some employers can help set up formal mentoring arrangements, so it’s worth asking about opportunities. Sometimes a manager can also act as a mentor. By which I mean they can help us to grow professionally and often personally, beyond the demands of our current job. I experienced this from one of my managers. Janet was an expert at developing her staff. She was willing to delegate and trusted me to take on extra responsibilities and to represent her sometimes at events. She also encouraged me to work towards a qualification which proved invaluable in my later career.

Sometimes a mentor is someone outside the management structure. Someone we meet and connect with in the workplace, who teaches or inspires us. When I first met Maggie, she was a wonderful role model and helped me discover a career direction that finally felt right. Maggie was hugely encouraging, she could see potential in me and helped me develop it. And a few years down the line, we ended up working closely together.

Sometimes you might look for a mentor externally to your organisation, particularly if you want to change direction. You may be able to find a mentor by asking within your professional and social networks. There are also individuals who offer paid mentoring services.

We all need mentors, even if they are only informal ones. And we need different people at different times or in different areas of our lives. Sometimes a simple conversation over coffee can prompt a change, and that is all the support we need at the time. Sometimes we might need a lot more in the way of handholding and be willing to invest in a professional mentor or coach.

The value of being a mentor

When you have established some success in your career or business, it might be time to look at giving something back and offering some of your own time as a mentor. This can be very rewarding. The CIPD research shows mentors also benefit from the satisfaction of developing their colleagues and from passing on their knowledge, skills and expertise. And it can help develop your skills too. Sometimes it’s only by sharing what we know that we can hold a mirror up to ourselves and recognise the depth of our own knowledge and skill. And mentors can also learn from mentees, from their questions and perspectives.

Have you been inspired by a mentor? Or are you a mentor? Please share your experiences in the comments box.

(1) CIPD Learning and development survey 2008.

Can you enjoy the process of career transition?

By Felicity Dwyer | Career change , Career development , Motivation

In his book “A Life at Work”,  Thomas Moore uses the metaphor of alchemy as a way of describing our search for our life’s work. He talks about the value inherent in the process of finding and deepening our sense of what we are here to do. As the alchemists strove to transform base metal into gold, our search for a life’s work transforms our personal history and experiences into something unique and meaningful.

Sometimes it seems as though what is happening in our working lives is “base metal”: day-to-day frustrations, lack of progress, lack of focus. And yet if we are willing to trust that things will work out, and able to find value in the stuff of our lives, then we will find glimmers of gold emerging.

And finding a way to enjoy the process will in itself bring a sense of meaning. In every career, there will be successes and setbacks along the way. But there is almost never an end-point at which we can say “yes I’ve made it!”; life is always unfolding.

We are now into a General Election campaign in the UK. Standing for parliament is a situation where there seems to be a very clear end point and winner. But the process of standing for election can be valuable in itself. Whether or not you win, you have the opportunity to stand up for something and to state your case. If you win, a new learning path will begin as soon as the celebration is over, and if you lose you will undoubtedly learn from the experience. I stood some years ago for a local council election and although not a winner, I learned a huge amount about myself, including the realisation that this wasn’t the right path for me at that point in my life.

Whatever our career ambitions, there are aspects that are beyond our control. If we only focus on end results, we lose what is more important: the value of the journey through this, our one life.

If your career feels wrong for you, then change it, but don’t put your life on hold while you do it. The more you can focus on what you do enjoy right now, in your current life and work, the more positive energy that will release to help you make changes. And when you are willing to make changes on the inside, that’s when transformation can happen on the outside too.

What valuable lessons have your learned along your career path? Please share in the comments below.

Is this you?

Serious about making a change? Interested in some in-depth, expert support with career transition?

Find out how I can help HERE.

Networking for career success

By Felicity Dwyer | Career change , Career development , Networking , Small Business

Meeting people face to face is one of the best ways to extend your network of professional relationships, and to find career and business opportunities. This is true even in this online era, and you will find online and offline networking complement each other powerfully.

Where to go to expand your network

There are lots of places where you can meet professional contacts. Try formal networking groups, informal events which combine socialising with opportunities to meet new people, conferences in areas of professional interest, training courses and seminars.

Set targets to help build networking confidence

If you are new to networking, it can be a bit daunting at first, to put it mildly. When I was first asked to attend events and conferences on behalf of my organisation, I didn’t find it particularly easy.  To help, I would set myself targets such as having two conversations with people I hadn’t met before, or making sure that I found and spoke to at least one person whom I’d identified in advance as being a good contact.  Then once I’d achieved my target I would tend to head for the door, usually quite exhilarated and glad I’d done it, but also somewhat relieved that it was over.

It gets easier with practice

Fast forward 15 years or so, and I feel quite differently about going to networking events. I get excited about the idea of meeting new people, look forward to the connections, insights and opportunities that might come up, and am happy to go up to people and initiate a conversation.  In fact I enjoy it so much that I now lead a networking group. So what changed?  Essentially a combination of practice, of reflection afterwards, and of coming up with strategies to make the process easier, more enjoyable and also more effective in terms of following up.

Stay in touch

Because meeting people is just the starting point, and the way you stay in touch and build connections and relationships is what will develop your network into something of real value. If you join a network with the attitude of “how can I help other people”, you will find it far more effective than if you only focus on what you want. So it’s good idea to get into the networking habit, even if you are not actively looking for a new job or career. It will allow you to approach the whole thing in a more relaxed way, gain confidence and connections, and then when you do need some help, you will have plenty of people to ask.

Networking tips video

Here are five of my top networking tips for small businesses and career changes.  I hope you enjoy this short video, and would love to hear your networking tips in the comments box below.

Since writing this article I was asked to contribute to a piece on networking for lawyers – this is an interesting article with great tips from a range of expert contributors: http://www.lawabsolute.com/recruitment-news/article/networking-dos-and-donts-for-aspiring-lawyers