Rethinking Your Career

The 'Weekend FT' had a piece on how redundancy has prompted many executives to retrain and follow their dreams ‘Jobless Bankers Carve Out Careers From City’ (FT April 18/19 2009).

Of course redundancy can be frightening stuff. With mortgages and bills to pay, mouths to feed, the thought of losing your job is not likely to fill you with optimism. But, if you are fortunate enough to have some savings to fall back on or a redundancy package that gives you space and time to ‘breathe’, it can be a catalyst for some great changes in your life.

So many of us fall into a rut with our career; I know people who have stayed in the same job or organisation for years and years, but never really meant to. Redundancy can give people the opportunity to do something completely different, to follow their dream. To retrain, do quit an office job for something totally different, or to take the leap to work for themseves. The FT article quotes Kate Blake, director of Dartmoor Outdoor Company, which retrains people who want to work as mountain guides has had more enquiries due to redundancies:

‘They are thinking, this is the kind of kick in the pants I need to [make me] look at my life and do something I enjoy’.

So, if you are unfortunate enough to be made redundant, try and turn it into an opportunity to change your working life and consider what you really want to do.