Push Play: How to start again

Identifying Career Opportunities in a post Covid World

About this time last year I wrote a blog post entitled “Paused: How to Move Forward when Life Comes to a Standstill”. Twelve months later, I’m finally feel ready to write its bookend “Push Play”.  I know Covid is not over yet but hopefully the end is in sight and with so many of us over 50s now vaccinated, we can start, if only tentatively, to plan our post Covid lives. 

So what does Push Play mean when the news for our age group is not great?

A recent article in the Guardian spoke of the over-50s as the “Lost generation of the unemployed” highlighting how hard the pandemic has hit the 50+ age group. A similar article ran in the Telegraph with the headline a “Quarter of a million over-50s ‘will never work again’ after coronavirus”. Yikes!

There are now 91,000 more unemployed 50+ individuals than there were 12 months ago - that’s a one third increase in a single year, significantly more than in any other age group. And it gets worse - Aging Better research highlights how hard redundancy has hit the over 50s. We are twice as likely as the youngest adults (18 to 24) to face long term unemployment (12+ months unemployed) and almost 50% more likely than those aged 25 to 49.

It's hard to take comfort in this research and the fact that the effects of Covid have been uneven, hitting some groups particularly hard, leaving others relatively unscathed. I know I have been one of the lucky ones and Covid has allowed me the time to reflect and regroup. Where we restart depends so much on where we’ve landed and if there was any cushioning. So this is what Push Play means for me:

Accept that some things have permanently changed as a result of pandemic.

Covid put an end to my idea of returning to a mainstream corporate environment - given my age and non-linear career I knew that my CV would sink to the bottom of any applicant pile. The above research highlights how difficult it will be for the over 50s to return to work. Acceptance can both be a little heartbreaking and freeing. By accepting the situation I knew I had to look to the future and change my approach to fit a new world reality. 

Think more holistically about where your true strengths lie.

Many people and I certainly fell into the trap, consider what they might do based on what they’ve done in the past and what they feel trained to do. One of my pet peeves with recruiters is that they can’t see past your titles of jobs and here I was doing it to myself.

Certainly, our experience and expertise is hugely important to our future success but it is only one of the ingredients. Understanding what comes naturally to you is critical to your success. As Maddie Lloyd points out in 8 steps to Help You Answer the Question What am I Good at?, ‘It’s easy to overlook our natural talents, especially if you think that everyone can do them or if you just shrug it off as something you’ve always been able to do — just because something comes naturally to you doesn’t mean it comes easy to others, or that your talents aren’t valuable.’ Are you undervaluing your true strengths?

Identify those skills others value in you.

A good way to identify your natural talents is to ask friends and family as well as work colleagues you trust to give you an honest assessment of your strengths, the things they appreciate in you and what sets you apart. Next, overlay this with what you love to do. There’s a good chance it will be related to what you do naturally. And because it comes naturally to you and you like to do it, you’re probably pretty good at it too.

Last year, the coach I was working with (shout out to Wendy Shaw at Spark Ideas) asked for this very feedback on me from a number of friends and past work colleagues. Some of the feedback was around how I worked with clients, my strong relationship skills and the care and attention I give to customers, etc. This was nice to hear as a customer marketer and client manager but not entirely unexpected.

The other feedback was around my “creativity” and “design sense”. I’ve always loved working with creatives and being in creative environments but never thought of myself as the creative one despite the fact that I’ve spent my life immersing myself in art and design. Was my creativity more than an interest but an actual strength of mine?

To complete this exercise I did a little Venn Diagram. I started with two overlapping circles, one labelled Things I am good at (Skills), another with Things I like doing (Interests). In the past, I had been focusing too much on what I saw as my skills when the answer lied in the overlap. This felt promising. 

Find the market opportunities

The last circle is Things people will pay me to do (Market Opportunities). The question to answer is what are the opportunities that blend my skills with my interests and provide a service or a product that people are willing to pay for. Hmm, easier said than done. The key is to think expansively, to keep your ears and eyes open and to continually ask yourself, could this situation be an opportunity?

Be on the watch for the Ah Ha Moment.

Like all “Ah Ha” moments - it came when I least expected it - when this very website, created on WordPress was hacked and visitors were redirected to a dodgy site selling Viagra! Long story short but it seemed easier and more cost effective to move the site to another platform (Squarespace) and start from scratch. I spent the weekend rebuilding the website - something I thought would be a chore and instead I discovered I loved doing it and I was actually pretty good at it! 

This was a revelation. As I explored the world behind Squarespace including entrepreneurial designers, Squarespace teachers and coders, I realised there could be an opportunity to work with small businesses offering more than just web design but also strategic business advice and customer marketing expertise.  

Many of the independent designers were millennial women catering to other millennials, their business skills were self taught and often their design and coding skills as well. I felt my 20 year plus business experience could set me apart. The ONS stats went through my head - more than 1 out of 10 new businesses in the UK are started by people over 50 and this is likely to increase after covid. I heard Jennifier Holloway’s voice telling me to define my niche. Could the 50+ entrepreneur be my niche?

Retrain and learn new skills.

Covid has made it easier than ever to retrain. I already had significant graphic design knowledge and technical expertise (Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign) under my belt. To prepare myself for this new venture, I signed up for a Squarespace business course, enrolled in two CSS code courses, used LinkedIn Learning to teach myself XD prototyping, brushed up my google analytics skills on SkillShare and researched the web design market online.

Take the plunge and PUSH PLAY.

Finally, I decided to take the plunge and push play. At some point you have to say, I am just going to go for it. So earlier this month, I built my new Web Design Business site (www.AscenderCreative.com) and went live.

Please have a look and if you need a new website or just want to chat about how to increase your profile online please reach out.