Coffee with Victoria Proctor
Describe your career path in two or three sentences including any twist or turns ending with where you are now and where you see yourself in the future.
I am an HR professional and spent the first ten years of my career in industry followed by 20 years in financial services followed by a rather off-piste turn in a digital start up. Future? Having done my stint in a digital start-up and having been a part of something that has burned through $60M of investment, I am hot-footing it back to financial services. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed this experience, I definitely have. I have learnt and grown so much and I now feel I have a lot more to offer back in financial services.
What decision / experience proved to be the most helpful to your career?
I have a short answer to this. Being honest with people. I know that sounds a bit strange because people would say ‘I am always honest’ but actually they are not. In my role in HR, you are treading a fine line between employees / employer and there is a tacit judgement call to pretty much everything you are doing on a daily basis, whatever the context is within an organisation, whatever discussions you are having. And what I have learned, having got to my 50s, is to always use my judgement soundly in these discussions and decisions and always be honest.
What do you think are the most important qualities are for sustaining a fulfilling career(s)?
Listen and learn and that transcends all generations. As we get older, we can become entrenched in our opinions and our views of people and the world around us so always listen and learn and be open-minded. Be prepared to shift style and stance. There is so much made these days of millennials, Gen Z etc and in that context and in the context of being older in the workplace, I think that it is a really important thing to be genuinely open to shifting your style and stance.
Resilience is the other thing. I think this is a female thing. We are less good at applauding ourselves, at saying we are good, at sitting at the table and actually making a noise constructively. There is an element of conditioning and of hard-wiring that women don’t tend to shout about being good at things. We would rather not say something for fear of getting it wrong. So, resilience in that context is a really important quality. You have to keep on going, discovering all the time, listening and learning and looking to self improve and the by-product of this is you build up resilience.
What advice would you give your 20 year old self knowing what you know now?
Believe in yourself. Completely. Because I still have huge moments of doubt. So just believe in yourself.
What are the biggest challenges for people wanting to make a career re-entry or re-invention in later life?
I actually think it is other people’s prejudices and fixed ideas about what they are looking for.
KB: So how do you get around that as an HR person?
VP: Well it is a bit linked to the next question about the opportunities.
What are the opportunities are for people hoping to work into their 50s, 60s and beyond?
You might mean the opportunities in terms of available roles but the way I look at this question is that we have to find the opportunities. We need to find our USP and figure out where we can add the most value. Then we need to be confident that we have the wisdom and experience, over the millennials and Gen Z, because the combination of the two is potent. Certainly, the younger generations are very capable, very skilled, very bright but actually they also have a naivety. There is no replacement for the years of experience and exposure we’ve had, whether it be in the workplace, whether it is raising children or just life in general.
The younger generations need as much guidance, they might not think they do, but they absolutely do, as everyone else, however capable they are. We are an aging population and there are so many really bright skilled older individuals on the market. It's ridiculous that we are having these discussions. In interviewing for HR jobs, I am lucky because it is one of the few areas where they don’t mind grey hairs.
Employers like the fact that you have been around a bit and you got a few wrinkles and grey hairs because it is all relevant in terms of dealing with people, dealing with organisational change, dealing with the design of organisations, dealing with anything and everything that is involved in somebody’s life cycle within an organisation.
What is your top tip for staying relevant in today’s job market?
I am not as good at this as I should be. It’s a similar theme. Read. Open your mind. Be prepared to learn from the younger generations. Be able to consume knowledge in different ways from Ted Talks to podcasts. It's all of those things. Understand what is relevant in whatever role you are doing, whatever organisation. And what’s relevant in life in general — just be aware, be open to it. It is easy to be a dinosaur. I am a little bit like that on social media but embrace it because it is here and it is here to stay and unless you embrace it you are not relevant.
Recommendation: Favourite book to read, website to browse or podcast to listen to while drinking coffee?
I am more likely to read something by Brené Brown.
I am not a big management book, self-help book person however, I was given a really interesting book by a coach who came in to work with some of my team in financial services. She is an incredible, really inspiring woman named Charlotte Frische. At the time, I was struggling to deal with a very difficult senior guy at work, he was quite angry with mood swings, I suspected he was not in a good place but I was struggling with how to cope and how to respond and help him and Charlotte suggested I read The Chimp Paradox. It is a fascinating read and it really helped me. Although, the book can be quite repetitive, is a very good. The byword is “don’t engage with the chimp” by not letting the emotional part of your brain respond to events.