Career Tips Today From an Old Timer?

Would my career tips be worth a jott in today's app and big data driven world?  Or are my generation a weak link between the semi digital, nine-to-five past and the cloud sharing economy of the very near future?

Well the fact is that a career will still exist, although there is now a lot of pressure for the form of that work-employee-contractor status to change, really much of this is reinventing the wheel and mediating it via mobile phones. Essentially, value will still be created in its significant form via organisations, and those will still need intellect and management.

I choose a route I regret a little now, having a portfolio career and becoming a consultant, now finding it quite a lonely place with obvious uncertainties. The nature of employment and corporate law is that the world is becoming more uncertain as the Neo Liberal era goes through its dieing throws and reinvents itself as something which democracy will probably overthrow. Hence Brexit and Trump, and watch this political space because it will affect your ability to earn and have a work-life balance. Organisations will always need talent, but in my experience very often those in management are there because they had luck or pushed a little more at the right times to get up the ladder.  That ladder is a rarer thing as we go into yet more flat structures and what used to be departmental becomes compartmental ie single layer of workers use the tools of IT to manage and take responsibility for operations with a shorter chain of command.

How do you perhaps get on and what advice (take it or leave it) do I have ?

1) Experience Can Count for Qualifications , but often Not At All.....

It is really that the RIGHT experience can count for a mountain of qualifications. That is an experience which is highly respected or puts you in a position of power. The best example of course, is starting your own company - most of the Billionaires in computing, software and apps didn't start with a PhD or an MBA, they had an idea or two and found customers. In fact several never finished their degrees.

2) Get in Early to Something Big

This is what quite a few of the entrepreneurs above, like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and laterly, Mark Zuckenberg had the fortuity to be in - on the cusp, riding the crest of a wave, on the brink of explosive growth. There was a lot of fortuity in what they were into in a nerdy way, and what the market wanted in a latent sense.

Ok we all can't be Richard Branson but we can find those companies which are on the cusp of something new and exciting and get in there at the right time. Too early ? Well you may not get any pay back if you are in too early but then again you may be able to use that to get out to a competitor or move into another high growth company. Investors act like this, investing via venture capital in a spread bet over several companies in a sunrise industry.

Think of your time as a young person as investment from which you will get a greater return, and those 12 hour days and weekend hours  you put in then, will pay dividends in getting up the ladder with this as your launch pad. However you need to get the right type of job which is of above average value, and that means either being involved in creation (R&D) where you can put your name on something so to speak, or being a person who becomes a people manager early on.

3) Don't hang Around Too Long Sometimes< Other Times Stick Like Glue

I have experienced the downside of being in Tech Start ups where I have either been a dropped in consulttant or discovered as a 'hire' I was very much outside the A team. Most of all for the first three years out of my masters I tried to hold onto rubbish opportunities and work 'that year on the CV'.

Eventually I worked for a really interesting full service technology marketing agency, but while there a couple of years I noticed that I was the employee in project management and new clients who stayed on, the others fell away after less than a year very often. I felt I had to make a go of a job after three years of false starts, and enjoyed the work. The others got less interesting positions and clients and they got out very quickly. Two of the many who left, got much better jobs which I believe they stayed at for many years.

It is very much a feature of successful people be they employees or entrepreneurs, that they admit their mistakes and cut their losses getting out early. A lot of people take a first graduate job in one or other also ran, unknown branded companies, and treat it just as work experience and a spring board to the next job. Zuckenberg wanted a kind of on line girl rating, beauty pageant and dating app and when he saw the light of 'political correctness' became a multimillionaire on a year's work and making the right connections - he dumped his first, unlovely idea.

Which brings us to....

4) Always be Applying for Jobs and Looking for New Opportunities

There will be less job security in the ongoing political climate across the west, because the right wing want to reduce costs and make us work harder via insecurity rather than positivity. So if you work for an insecure, pushy boss culltured company or department, get the hell out! Many companies don't subscribe to fear makes work, they know the real motivation and productivifty comes from engagement and employees who have a work-life balance.

Job security is really a figment of the imagination nowadays for we of the mere mortals, and even chartered accountants are quaking in their boots as the new generation of leaders finally seek to automate much of what should have been automated in the 1980s when it was first possible!  We are all subject to take overs, cut backs, customer volatility, exchange rates and the whims of bosses and investors. Jobs then are just RELATIVELY safe, and if we see an environmental pressure on a company then it is time to get out early, that is where the smarty pants will., This is true of industries, with many of my former colleagues in Oil and Gas smooching their way into unrelated industries before the death knell tolled.

Always looking for new jobs has two other effects on promotion. One you can find opportunities to get promoted outside your company, and two you can use a job offer as a lever to get promoted. As I blogged on before, employees usually think they have a poor set of cards in the poker game of getting a job and a salary rise, and it seems that the risk of withdrawing their labour lies predominantly on their shoulders. Hence in the deunionised western office world, employers hold their poker face and will call you before you call them. In reality, very often you have very specific qualifications and experience which got you the job and the knowledge and experience you have of working there makes you uniquely productive. Bosses have targets for turn over, so as I found out when I was emmigrating anyway, they will offer quite a lot suddenly to keep you on when you resign.

Open applications with a personal follow up call are a really effective way of moving job either externally, or if handled correctly, internally. It is no mystery that interesting companies and exciting opportunities are often never advertised, while those positions which are are either hard to fill or they are looking for the cheapest in the trawl.

Companies are increasingly run on quarter-capitalist lines, and when they are buzzing away in a growth phase, then is the time to get a job offer as a lever to promotion. Alternatively when a company is struggling, then it is a great time to spot this early and have a plan B, which may become your plan A very shortly. When you are an employee then it is understood by the prospective employer that there will be a period of cessation under contract, and they may want to look at the open market of ready to go first, so it can take up to two months or more to get an offer from the outset of first interview. It can be wise to refer ' I will need to check my contract' on cessation such that you can keep your options a little open.

5) Recognise the GOOD opportunity from the BAD

This really applies to all the above scenarios and the ones below by in large. It is my greatest weakness in working life as an employee, yet a strength as a consultant now because I see my earlier failings. All jobs have some shit in them, but it is really how doing the whole job, dotting the i's and crossing the t's as well as the more interesting stuff, builds your position as in standing and respect in a company contra just being an eager beaver minion.

I have been a victim myself of 'imposter syndrome' where in one job I had with a multi national, I had a great level of responsibility as a project manager with upto 13 poeople working for me at anyone time and me conducting the orchestra, yet I felt it was all a bit scary and almost an out of body experience. I was treated with loads of respect and  that made me more nervous for crashing and being shown up as an imposter. I tackled it really pretty well, with only one minor fiasco which was mainly on the part of the client. After that I setteled a little more into my shoes, but had decided to move to be with my girl freind unfortunately! I should have stayed, because the girl went bad!!!

A good situation would include being trusted with incresing levels of responsibility and tackling the job with a minimum of overtime. A bad situation would be drowining in tedious operational work, and like a labour of Sysiphus, you work more overtime for diminishing producitivity. Worse, you get recognised by the users above you as a nice little work horse for doing their menial work. GTFO - get the fuck out- is the course of action for all but the masochists. Renegotiating your work load can be an option of course, but you need to have somethingn to bargain with and that is often just withdrawing your labour ie nuclear war. You never know, moaners often get their own way with those neurotic bosses concerned about staff turnover or productivity gains acheived via experience on the job. If you dont see it is crap, and ask for change, you will get more of the same!

A bad situation is usually typified by a company losing customers or struggeling to find more. This also applies to start ups, because most tech start ups fail not because of lack of investment, but because of lack of income from customers.  Essentially that is the difference between the also rans and the Facebooks, Microsofts and Apples of the world. Soft capital is a bad place relative to this because as I have seen several times, where the drive to get income from customers is lost in bullshit and doing R&D with 'partners' rather than delivering a product nbased on entr5epreneruial savvy.

Good situations are driven by a variety of factors. Firstly companies with a healthy economy, or the right reshaping opportunity for your skills to play a part in. Customers, markets and investors are important too, as are then the core offer and R&D pipeline., Very much though it is down to who 'buys' you and works with you above and around you. Which brings us to

6) FInd a King Maker or Be a King Maker

Internally to companies you are promoted not by some mysterious personnel assessment or a computer algorythm, it is your boss or some other boss you work with who gives you the nod. Sometimes you of course have to ask or you won't get, other times you get asked in for a chat in 'my office' with a smile and get offered promotion out of the blue. Conversely Many line managers will be little bitches who want to keep you down in your hole, and take the glory for themselves, and they are easy to spot, you never get a profile via them and are kept out of interesting / important meetings where your work is on display or of high relevance. How do you get round the little pricks when you are really performing? Well you make sure that other bosses know you are actually the one doing the work and get integrated into the chain of information and instruction, take ownership away from your boss over time.

A boss who recomends you for promotion, or puts you in a positiion you can shine in further outward in the company. They recognise your work, praise you and give you enough latitude to be visibile in the company. Part of this is just getting on with them, but mostly it is on your ability to cooperate and be productive in your own right. Kinbg makers then trust you and want to shove you forward - often they have a safe job and a family, and see you will be able to move on upwards in a company.. Sometimes they may be retiring.

More importantly, they may be moving company to an exciting opportunity and take you with them.  One thing to realise, is that there is no lack of investment in the world, and all my cynicism of thye rich owning property over for choosing industry is not to be overplayed, there are philanthropic investors all over the place who want to create value, jobs and return on outlay in a patient way, or with some strings attached. Following an experienced boss out to a new start up can be great if they are the right personbaoloty or have been there in the growth phase.

Being a king maker is maybe a much rarer opportunity for the older manager, who can then follow that King into new departments or ventures. It couold be also that you are tightly together with an entrepreneur when they go big, and get the recognition as an A team player. It can be worth swallowing your pride and allowing a more energetic person to lead the way, with in fact you  and others carrying them on your shoulders. Of course you can be following after an egotistical nut who will dump you without any recognition or payback.

7) Go Ugly Early

A lot of the above I have talked about the fast careers in start ups or glamerous corporates. very many leaders in those companies have been there in the big growth phase, and had their own little ling makers and so on., However the majority of people managers I have worked for  directly have had one thing over me and that is experience of peoplke managment per se in something vaguely related. And very unglamerous.

Going ugly early is a terrible kind of disco strategy from the 1980s, made redundant by Tinder swiping. It meant not bothering to seek out a particularly attractive girl or boy, rather going for the sure bet of getting interest and potential 'escalation' shall we say towards a one night stand.  In corporations there are thousands of small business to business brands and suppliers  no one outside that supply chain has really heard of, or which you see on the side of lorries or equipment, or office blocks in public. They attract their own stream of anonymous MBA 'europyuppies' in the EU who take early management positions at different locations upin the beck and call of their masters. By the time they are thrity they are highly experienced line managers, often with 'change management', 'Lean' and 'six sigma' on their CVs and they become the well paid middle management we love to hate in the EU. Often egotistical and rather uncharismatic. So there are lots of ugly, faceless businesses looking for expecially MBA candidates, but also people with relevant operational experience to put into fresh management positions.

These companies themselves are not very profiled or 'charismatic' and so they can often have a pretty rapid promotion to middle management too, as someone coming in with other operational or junior management experience.

8) Go Public Sector

One thing I note amongst a great deal of the very politically Neo Liberal inclined, is that a great many of them either work in public service or are paid pretty much solely by the government. And they are doing nvery nicely on it too.

The public sector is bound to have further rounds of privatisation and deunionisation now in the US and the UK, but there are always new areas to get into either side of the fence which are promising and offer a better degree of job security for managers than the usual corporate world.

Very often though the public sector demands the exact right set of qualificatioins to get in, such as in teaching or environmental health for example, but they will invest in keeping you qualified more than the lean and mean private sector.

Privatisation actually breaks this need for the right set of qualifications down a little too, so all is not bad for the indifvidual looking to shape a career with a smidgeon more job or career security

9) Be Super Qualified

Although there is often a bad side of being percieved as over qaulified, for a good graduate career you need to be super qaulified.

The ticket to being a manager as I have said, is the MBA, but that has to be from a school recognised by your employers of interest. However there are other more specialist or modular routes which gain a lot of respect. For example some ( and mostly they are self serving) marketing directors demand that you have a chartered inst. of marketing diploma and participate in courses. Other industries havbe 'chartered' status of course> engineering, architecture, accountacy, surveying.

In outset many companies now 'demand' a higher technical qualification than a bacherlors with honours. Sometimes these are specific to skills and areas of research nut bvery often in my meeting of people, a masters or PhD is arbitarily demanded or part of the culture. I wish I had ten quid for every PhD twit who I uncovered as having actually spent four years researching something tedious and unrelated to the tech company

I dont regret not being an MBA or PhD but it would have helped a lot with the culture when I was an also ran and not in a king making situation.

Maybe I should have just gone ugly early, instead of going ugly ratherr late in my middle age after working with a lo9t of excitign companies before!

New Paradigm Career Making jobs

The new paradigm of the post recession world: it will be hard to get full time marketing work and growth will be slower in the economy. To get the head start on your career, or like me on the next phase then you need to consider the new paradigms, which I will blogg about a few times in the forthcoming weeks:

1) forget job, think project, think task, think opportunity in the box
2) forget work place: think availability for the key calls and key pressing of flesh
3) forget "administration": move away from positions which have a lot of filler: concentrate on the higher value mental and personality oriented activities

When I say "forget job" I don't mean you should lose your concept of working for a brand-name, blue chip employer to get it on your CV. In fact if you eventually do want to forget being a delivery bitch at a company and go self employed, then you almost MUST have some decent employers on your CV. What I mean by this is that you should think about what the opportunity is for you and the company to engage in work of higher intellectual value.

Now this means examining the position you are in or being interviewed for or alternatively, identifying opportunities for virtual promotion within the company or value chain "nodes" you are dealing with on a totally pre-emptive basis. You want to avoid being a delivery bitch for long, not that you ever stop needing to do some hard, boring work until you become an MBA God at a firm, but that you need to reduce, avoid and displace menial tasks off your desk and out of your job description.

In outset for you as an MSc Marketing graduate, this means being wary of job offers with vague "marketing executive" titles and enough of a mix of low level BS that you wonder what you will end up doing. This could be sales work, or menial database work etc. If the job is at a lesser B2B brand or whatever, then this is worse: brands sell product, and sales people just work out the discount-volume and what dinner / golf tour the buyers want to "seal" the deal. PWC is a brand, Ernst and Young, McCanns, Blackberry, Zantac, Viagra, Oracle etc etc. Little plucky clever unbranded company does not need an MSc marketing graduate as canon fodder sales material.

It is more important for you, and funnily enough for me now, to define what tasks are high qaulity in a potential job and to try and work around that in discussions with employers. You want to persuade and jagole the employer into giving you responsibility for projects and tasks of higher value, while they also declare how much of the job is menial. Then think opportunity- reduce the job to it's elementary core added intellectual value: marketing strategy.

You may not formulate a marketing strategy yourself, but contributing to NPI, market research, acquisitions, investor relations and so on adds value to your CV rather than monkeys on your back in a low level job.

So dare to push the employer to identify these tasks. Take a week or two's work trial with them if you get an offer. This is thoroughly recommended for any entry level job with a diverse list of tasks. If you don't like the job don't worry: just say it sucks! They aren't going to grass you up to the dole. Be direct and tell them it is boring for you after the two weeks are underway, and tell them what you would rather work with. Look out for opportunities: points of touch, e-business, marketing purchasing, new markets & customer segments, new products/e-marketing ( social media strategy anyone?)


I am back in this position actually because of the recession and the general miss mix of my bloody minded, male and pompous attitudes ! Had I been in touch with my female side (Ha!) then I could have thrived in doing the manual tasks and sucking up to my aggressive bosses.

I need to assert my space in a job now, and so do you because it is really important to get a "career making" job within 2 or 3 years of finishing your MSc, otherwise you need to seriously consider working in another area or getting new skills, like I did when I got some IKT skills : perfect timing! HTML programming in 1995. I never really did much, but it gave me the edge in interview and also performance in some jobs.

I digress: you need to assert your space in the job and this is absolutely best before you start because otherwise you are on the back foot as a would-be-eager-bunny. ( I am SOOO NOT an eager bunny in new jobs with BS to do. I mean maybe a week or two before my nose is out of joint and I am all anarchic again.) In the interview phase you have leverage and they are on the back foot having chosen you. If they really push you though, and won't allow you to actually come in for even a couple of days and look at the tasks you will be doing, then check the work contract and it may have only a weeks notice which will make it very easy for you to move or threaten to move.

Salary is actually a lot less important for you guys luckily, and this is why you can afford to do a two week work trial, or to turn down a 100% position with "blah blah, 9 to 5" and take a part time job where you focus only on those higher value activities: or at least those which are bone fide marketing.


Some administration is however actually sufficiently high value for you to put your back into: Some high value admin will give you the edge in getting a better job, becoming manager for someone replacing you or if the axe falls, you have a "business critical" admin set to do: for example product administration through ISO and accounts and logistics systems.

As against, cleaning databases with calls, telesales itself, sales support admin.

The reverse situation is more dangerous - I know I have been there- you take a job which is "marketing" in title only or very low grade and bang your head off the wall to try and get a year's work experience on your CV. DON'T DO THIS! AAAAAH! Negotiate tasks worthy of you, and accept a part time job if that is all the time it will take, or just a project based job.

I can hear the cogs turning now, some of you are sceptical to becoming "perpetual projecteers" without ever a taste for operational management. Yes this is a danger! But MSc students are overlooked for the majority of blue-chip APM roles or top 3 agency Account Exec roles so you need to be able to add value to yourself with the smaller brands. Small brand with big strategic impact you made is really where it is going to be at over the next few years of recovery, with new small brands becoming the next FaceBooks or Kindles. (I say brands rather than company because if you are at a company with no brand other than flesh-pressing then forget a career in marketing with them!)


I'll blog again on this area, but I hope you leave with the ideas of being more assertive in defining what you do with your valuable time while you are young enough to work hard and work smart!

Show me the Money! Job offers in the Credit Crunch

...or the importance of getting a good deal before you accept the job offer

I haev ignored this three times in the last ten years and it is well worth your effort in NOT accepting a low offer despite your circumstances. Look the gift horse in the mouth! Make an informed decision and play some poker!

I cannot stress enough, I will not say too many times and I dare not shout too low that you must get what you need from a first (or second ) job before you accept the offer. Usually this boils down to money, and YOU MUST be happy with the balance between training, projects and salary, because that is all you are going to get while in the job.

Work experience per se is meanginless if you accept a "marketing assistant" job blindly or the nice tasks are only 10% of the time and maybe telesales, database admin, photocopying etc are 90% of the actual job. I wasted a crucial year in such a job! I managed to play catch up with a heck of a lot of hard work in my next job though. It is in fact much better to be paid virtually nothing on a 2 month work experience project where you actually conduct quality marketing tasks than the department GOFER for 12 months.

You need to avoid this by negotiating before you start. Negotiating is always a subtle play of information, and probing for a little bit more and then using it as a little bit more lever, while giving only a little bit out which gives a poorer lever to the other side. This is how you win, you subtlely win tip the balance in your favour while accepting some sort of concession compromise: a few prawns fall but you put them in check-mate.

But firstly, back to green-backs: Companies will palm you off with " we can't afford" or " we have current wage frameworks". This is rubbish, they want to screw you especially in a recession. " If you want people to work harder, pay them less" ...this is true in bum jobs or non graduate jobs......but how effective this stressed, undervalued work period is for both parties is quesitonable. The cost between a market going rate ( admittedly low -I know in the credit crunch hangover period) and a lower offer boils down to a few hundred pounds per month, maybe £70 quid per week for you as a graduate. Can't afford? they could save this by using a better travel agent for business flights, or missing one useless client dinner a month.

Facts are bosses like to screw you over and say they got you cheap, it makes them look good.

So what is on the table to get your information war going in your favour
1) salary
2) training
3) projects and defined responsibilities
4) relocation expenses
5) a 50 to 80% job so you get time to look for something better
6) promotion prospects and turn over in the firm/sector
7) external prospects when you have a year experience
8) the company brand name for your CV ( or client brand names !)
9) start date
7) legnth of trial period
8) Legnth or termination period
9) possible contract engagement only

How can you bargain? Well your only chip is to withdraw your offer of labour. If you are on benefits, this is high risk - you can get them stopped for refusing a job. But given the job is high risk and has financial implications ( expense of rented property). But it is still a poker game and you can't show your hand too soon

How do you bet this chip then, play this card?

Well first of all, you should from outset know what the "wage framework" would be for this position, and know that you as an MSc Marketer have five years of uni to offer and a very good marketing masters under you belt. This should NOT be turned back on to your expectation: some jobs have been 18K outside london for a while. Play dumb, say you have only started looking for work and have expectations to work hard and get on over money: what would they suggest as for me in this job? Don't push too hard, but do revisit the wage BEFORE you bother to go to final interview. Also don't go to employers who dont refund expenses and prefably choose those who book everything for you: if they do this, then put on a bloody good show as they will look after you as an employee!

Now when you get a disappointing offer in an interview, you need to not look too disappointed. It is more likely you will get this on the phone, same here , move quickly on from the money to the responsibilities. Now between this and the eventual decision you must buy time and get concrete DECISIONS not just information, but agreements on tasks, training and projects you will get. You need this in writing to refer to if y our job starts going down the pan soon in.

The important thing with a low offer and poorly defined work responsibilities is to stall in an assertive, positive looking way. Comms mus tbe very positive but not fully committed.

The pieces then come in the list come to play: low pay versus excellent experience or low pay because it is a crap job a graduate in medieval history could do. What tasks, repsonsibilities are up for grabs? Remember you have an MSc, they have not made their minds quite up, so help point them away from the photocopier and mail list towards the high valuie customer satisfaction survey, the social media PR campaign, monitoring competitors, the effective review of the marketing budget and so on....What training courses are internal, who will be your mentor, what courses do they offer externally, will they support your time and materials in doing the CIM courses?

The next thing is of course relocation expenses. These were , a while ago, tax deductable for employers but funnily enough NOT employee personal tax. Employers will put new senior managers up in penthouse suites with hired 4x4 executive wheels! But they will try it on with you as a new graduate in need of work experience. Don't let them if the salary stinks. If it just an average salary, negotiate even a lower salary for the first six months relocation on the back that they find you afirst a hotel and then pay rented accomodation. I have not done this on one notable occiasion and really got stung for the outlay when the job didn't work out ( they put a directors daughter in my job) As a graduate you will have enough debts.

So now you have the balance of information: if the job now sounds poorly paid, poorly trained, low level tasks without relocation, then you may as well ask for say 20k and tell the m you have an offer at that level: never tell them where ( esp recruitment consultants, they are desperate for leads and to close deals! )

Now given the pay is low, but there is relocation and training, you need to find out more about career prospects. Suggest a day's visit to meet the team and finalise the contract. This is a positive thing for the employer. Ask other employees how often people leave - is there a turn over- ask why the job is vacant from your prospective coworkers . Ask how your coworkers started out in the firm. Ask what they studied.

One thing too, what type of cars are in the car park? This is a very clear indication of salary prospects later. Audis, beamers, volvos, 4x4s good...., old fords and citroens very bad...a subsidised canteen is nothing much really as a benefit but a gymn, studio , pool? .

Now you have enough information to make a decision: take it only with more pay, reject it outright, ask for silly money as above or there is another option: shape something new based upon your own needs: a more focused project 3 days a week or for just three months on say expenses only as a work trial. Or a 60% position covering only relevant, higher value marketing tasks. Or they pay for your CIM proffessional development and two triaing courses of your choice within industry average cost of courses.

In negotiating you need to push them to the wire: stall as long as you possibly can if the wage is low: get as much information out of them while remaining positive, but non committal verbally amnd on paper. Then if you have managed say two weeks stalling for a job where there are lots of questiona and a final visit to meet the team, then you can pull your card out and say the offer is not attractive enough and thank you but no thanks

Then you can let them do the talking and you should not let them bully you, just repeat the pay is very low, you have a better offer, or you have interviews for better paid jobs.

If you have been looking for a job or working temp for a long time, up to 8 months say, and you feel forced into accepting a job, then a final end game is to stall and ask for a later starting date. Use the time and security of something to do anyway to look hard for other jobs. The fall-back and interview-offer experience will be good. When you get a better offer you will only have a months termination, which may be even before your start date or you can turn up to work with an offer, see what tasks and training you will actually get and then demand them or you will just call it all off.

Once again you could ask for a 60% position focusing on the real marketing tasks and thus avoiding being given rubbish to do. You could probably expand it to 100% if it goes well or at least have two days a week to look for other work.