Energise Career Strategies Blog - All Comments

re: Living life on purpose

Mark Bridge — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:25:47 GMT

I was perfecly happy with this until it became a sales pitch - and then I noticed that at least one of my values had been trodden on.

re: Living life on purpose

Rachel North — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:49:43 GMT

Without paragraphs, this reads like a load of gushing cliched pschobabble.

Maybe with paragraphs it still would but my eyes are glazed after trying to read it. As a sell for a £99 workshop, I'm now convinced that if I were to go, I would have much the same experience - blah blah babble babble and at the end, a list of the obvious that I could do without spending £99 or wasting 5 minutes of my life trying to read this stream of Oprahfied wordsalad.

My need for clarity wasn't 'honoured' sufficiently, sorry.

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re: Sharing thoughts to inspire people

Evangelos — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:17:17 GMT

@Brushfield, you just about covered all the issues.

My advice is re-invent yourself and your career.

Find or create new challenges for the next stage of your life.

By sticking around all you are doing is delaying the inevitable - redundancy - and allowing others to dictate your life.

The beauty of working in advertising or marketing is that - if you are any good - you would have developed a good creative streak.

Make that work for you!

re: Sharing thoughts to inspire people

Mark Griffiths — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:00:32 GMT

If you're 40-55 you should have built up enough contacts to consider going it alone, either as a freelancer or a new start-up. If you can take a redundancy payment to help you on your way, so much the better. One thing's for sure - there's no point just sitting there and complaining about all the pressure. While you're taking your necessary lunchtime nap, the youngsters around you are bragging about not having slept at all last night. But you've got one big thing they haven't - nobody can take your experience away from you. So you just have to use it to your advantage. The rise of Linked In and other social business networking sites have not arisen for nothing. Everybody is aware of what happens to PR, creative, media people when they hit 40. It's time to get up and go.

re: Redundancy

JUNED SUBHAN — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:41:41 GMT

Hi there,

I've just been been made redundant from my job.

I've tried to be as proactive as possible and have hand informal meetings in agencies in Leeds, but I don't seem to be getting anywhere, and am finding it difficult, particularly the fear of what on earth do I do, if I can't find anything! I know it sounds silly, but it is both upsetting, and scary and I'm trying to deal with it the best way I can. Another worry is I don't want to settle doing some boring admin job, but think I might have to as a temp just to imrpove my finances.

Any advice on how you guus go through this diffuclt period would be useful.

Thanks,

re: Redundancy

Sarah Vernon — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:29:45 GMT

I'm a mere baby at 26, but I was made redundant last November, completely out of the blue. It turns out it was a political decision by HR to trim down the marketing team and expand their own team. But now the company seems to be genuinely in trouble - staff are dropping like flies and what's left of the marketing team is a much diminished group of disillusioned people who are battling it out until they can find new employment. And apparently the phrase 'We should never have got rid of Sarah' is uttered regularly. Hurrah.

That said, being made redundant was one of the most upsetting things I've ever had to go through. I loved my job and was planning to stay there for at least 2-3 years - I'd only just managed a year. It took me six months to find a new permanent job, but now I'm in one, I have a tidy bundle of money squirrelled away in an ISA from my redundancy, which I definitely wouldn't have had before. Although being out of work for two months and in a poorly paid temp job for four did tear through my savings and overdraft quite quickly, and I'm still bunking at my parents, so it probably evens out about the same.

Although this article is aimed at the older professional, I do think it's worth putting in a word for us young 'uns out there. My previous job was my start in marketing, and I was lucky that it was a very full and varied role, and that they'd paid to put me through CIM. But the phrase 'lack of experience' was used a lot during my job search, and it did strike me as unfair that after battling to get on the marketing ladder in the first place, I was in danger of being knocked off completely and forced to return to my previous life as an administrator. So, you see, it's not all peachy for us young folk - and in larger marketing teams, when trimming the fat, the assistants and execs are far more likely to be cut than the managers and directors.

re: Redundancy

Conor O'Sullivan — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:04:01 GMT

Hmmm… the ‘R’ word…

Or should it more correctly be called the ‘F’ word (Fired)?

As someone who is also on the wrong side of 40, I’ve been F’d quite a few times in my career. I suppose you could say that it goes with the territory but that certainly doesn’t make it any easier when it happens to you yet again.

My story is remarkably similar to Peter’s.

When my agency in Ireland lost its biggest account and had to close, I hopped on a plane and came to Singapore- just like Peter. (I was around during the Lloyd Martin era!) I’ve been here ever since and gone through my share of Singapore-style F-ing..

What I've learned from all this bruising experience is that

1. Being made redundant IS personal. It might just be business for the company that fires you, but it is VERY personal for you.

2. Money IS everything. You absolutely need some backup savings – especially in a place like Singapore where so called ‘retrenchment compensation’ is entirely at the discretion of the employer. It’s all the more critical as, if you are over 40, you probably have a lot more responsibilities.

3. It takes a lot longer to find a new job when you are over 40. This business can be very shitty when you are deemed to be 'past it' - whatever 'it' is.

4. On the other hand, being fired can be just the kick in the ass you need to move on. In my last firing, I had been wanting to leave that particular sweatshop for years but I never had the courage (because of age). My firing got me out of a deep sh*thole with a couple of months salary in my pocket. And about a month later I managed to land a much more enjoyable job in a FAR better agency.

re: Redundancy

Roger OThornhill — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:40:44 GMT

I wasn't thinking about the 'r' word until i read your blog post. now i am thoroughly depressed, paranoid and constantly looking over my shoulder. cheers. roger

re: Redundancy

Sean Ruttledge — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:21:14 GMT

Iam self employed and have been seriously considering making mmyself redundant

Please could you tell me which approach is best and just how much money I could and should be making out of this

Thanks

re: Redundancy

Peter Martin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:04:29 GMT

A nice offer. For my part it got me on my bike (or 747), and a bit of a world tour. Then I came back... wiser... and, sadly, older.

These pages have before shared the joys of being over 40 in this profession.

I suspect that with the 'R' word being more than a buzz there may be even more feeling the pinch.

Wouldn't it be nice, in this internet age, if you really were as good as your last ad (servicing, buying, creating or whatever), and not what your hairline, hip size or CV suggested.

Would make a heck of an agency of freelance outfit if all that was required was the ability to write a great strategy, then brief... and then meet it:)

Maybe worth setting up?

re: Treating yourself

Gordon Macmillan — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:35:36 GMT

Happy birthday!

re: Post holiday blues or time for a career change?

Zeinegul Hassan — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:56:03 GMT

It is quite difficult to change career as usually a job search is done via recruiters who are stuck to the job spec they got. I would personally like to get into branding. I have knowledge, I have passion for branding, but I do not have "the right" job title or experience to get a desired role.

re: Post holiday blues or time for a career change?

Zeinegul Hassan — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:55:13 GMT