Careers

A lot of work today simply can’t be done well without high-touch collaboration – a challenge when many people are working from home. New tools are helping, though, write Ryan Kaiser, David Schatsky and Robin Jones. The pandemic, with an impact lasting far longer than initially expected, is forcing organisations to rethink how their teams can collaborate from a distance. Some widely used digital tools make certain forms of collaboration – such as sharing and editing documents – easy. But other, critically important types of collaboration remain challenging when colleagues are not sharing physical space, or even time zones. Organisations can experiment with a newer breed of tools, some still experimental, that aim to support remote, high-touch collaboration. In view but out of sync “Did he hear what I just said?” “Was that a smirk?” “She’s looking down – is she texting?” It’s safe to assume that these questions cross the minds of many workers during days of endless video calls. The concentration required to process these virtual interactions can be taxing, leaving workers exhausted. But with so many professionals working from home due to the pandemic, it’s imperative that organisations find effective ways for remote workers to collaborate. New technologies are answering this call: from immersive environments to virtualised offices that facilitate casual interactions, organisations may soon have many more options for helping their teams collaborate effectively at a distance. Collaboration is key, but challenged by remote work Most organisations accept that effective collaboration is essential for high performance. Apple leaders considered collaboration to be so important that they designed its headquarters building to promote creativity and collaboration. Even workers’ perceptions that they are working collectively, according to a 2014 study, can enhance their performance. Thus, collaboration activities are pervasive in the modern office. Indeed, some researchers believe “collaboration is taking over the workplace”, with time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities increasing by 50% or more in recent years. It’s no surprise that collaboration is among the soft skills that employers seek most. But with the pandemic forcing millions of people to work from home, collaboration has become more challenging. Remote working obscures body language and distorts verbal cues that can be crucial to understanding intent. Formal, scheduled video calls – or more frequent instant messages or texts – are no substitute for quick, spontaneous exchanges of information. Professionals working in sales, customer service, management, design, and other roles in which impromptu and collaborative interactions are integral to the job may be particularly challenged. Some workers feel isolated. Managers are struggling to onboard, integrate, and teach office norms to new staffers, and building and sustaining an organisation’s culture has rarely been more difficult. Even when the crisis is behind us, the need for better remote collaboration will persist. High-touch collaboration still works best in person Of course, many, even most collaborative activities don’t require face-to-face interaction. A wide range of digital communication and project management tools support sharing files, editing documents, and communicating project status. But other valuable collaborative activities – scrum meetings for coordinating software development, brainstorming sessions to generate product ideas, hallway conversations to quickly exchange useful information – have tended to rely on face-to-face interactions. We call such activities high-touch collaboration. High-touch collaboration activities are typically synchronous, spontaneous, or sensory. Synchronous means two or more people are present in the moment when the activity is conducted, allowing for a free-flowing exchange of information. Spontaneous means unscheduled, low-overhead interactions that may occur outside the confines of a formally scheduled meeting. Some of the best ideas, and even businesses, started as impromptu thoughts or interactions between colleagues. Sensory refers to the non-verbal communication or body language we unconsciously decipher when interacting with others. Arm positions, posture, and tone of voice can influence how or when others choose to engage with or respond to us. Leaders can use this simple three-S model to identify the high-touch collaboration activities in their organisation that remote working arrangements may impair. Below are some common examples. They are important in our work and the work of many of our clients – and they can be difficult to perform when collaborators are just faces on a screen. Structured, interactive sessions. Some types of workshops or labs, employing techniques such as design thinking, aim to solve complex problems or help a group achieve consensus on a designated topic. In addition to typically needing a skilled facilitator, participants often need to read the room to assess group understanding, alignment, and engagement. Example: a lab may be used to forge consensus about the vision of a new firm-wide initiative. Ideation and co-creation. Many workers need to brainstorm and exchange information spontaneously, typically in a shared space with a visual aid such as whiteboards or sticky notes. Example: co-creation may be useful for brainstorming new product features to include in future releases. Spontaneous information exchanges. Employees may need to exchange information directly outside a formally scheduled meeting – perhaps as quickly and casually as poking one’s head in an office to ask a brief question. Example: spontaneously exchanging information with colleagues can be helpful when finalising an important client presentation. Informal connections. Conversations that typically take place in the elevator, office kitchen, or other common areas can foster a sense of connection and community; walking the halls can help cultivate relationships with clients and co-workers. Informal connections tend to rely on interpreting sensory and contextual information. Example: managers may informally check in with teams during a stressful time period to gauge well-being and engagement. To bolster collaboration among remote workers, we need tools that provide better support for these kinds of activities. Collaboration tools are proliferating A new crop of digital collaboration tools has emerged in response to the needs of companies with remote workforces. Vendors launched or enhanced at least 100 digital remote collaboration products in the first eight months of 2020, compared to the 24 product introductions we tallied in the fourth quarter of 2019. Established collaboration vendors are rapidly rolling out new features in response to user requests, and some have released free versions of products in an effort to gain market share. Some of this activity involves familiar categories of collaboration tools such as video-conferencing. Other types of tools – such as digital whiteboards, virtual offices, and immersive environments – may be less familiar, but they can provide crucial support to synchronous, spontaneous, and sensory collaboration activities. We scanned the offerings of hundreds of vendors and spoke with more than a dozen of them to learn more about their capabilities. Video-conferencing. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced millions of workers to work from home, many companies responded by substantially increasing their use of video-conferencing Google, Microsoft, and Zoom have all reported a surge in usage of their platforms. Allowing colleagues, clients, and partners to see each other over video can mitigate the feeling of isolation that some remote workers feel and can build and maintain the rapport crucial for collaborative efforts. Recent innovations in this category include the use of artificial intelligence to frame a caller’s face, background obfuscation to prevent distractions, and the use of avatars. But video-conferencing has its drawbacks. Not all work interactions occur in the confines of a formal meeting. Any given video-conference likely includes at least one participant battling audio and video quality issues, including lags that can jumble non-verbal cues and distracting background noise – especially for people sharing space with partners and children. Workers also report feeling exhausted at the end of a day filled with numerous video calls due to the mental focus required to concentrate on a grid of colleagues. Ideation and whiteboarding. Because it supports problem-solving, design, and strategic planning, ideation can be a critically important collaboration activity. A classic setting features a blank whiteboard, markers, and a team with ideas to share. Vendors such as Microsoft, Miro, and Mural offer digital tools that aim to provide the benefits of in-person ideation in a remote environment. Such tools typically feature an interactive workspace designed for visually oriented ideation and problem-solving. They are best suited for co-creation and ideation activities but can also be used to facilitate labs and similar sessions. A variety of features help spur thinking. For example, users may have access to templates or frameworks tailored to a variety of meeting types such as a scrum call or a design thinking session, time-keeping features to keep a group focused, virtual sticky notes to jot down ideas, and polling to streamline the decision-making process. These tools share little contextual information about users, however, making it hard for facilitators to read a room and determine how to best engage participants. Legibility can sometimes be difficult, and employees may need to consider a touchscreen, stylus, or other peripheral to maximise their capabilities. Virtual offices. Other types of tools attempt to replicate office spaces on your computer screen. Virtual offices are intended to run continuously in the background, showing in real-time what your colleagues are doing through the medium of digital aerial views of office floor plans, avatars, or even 3D worlds. And they aim to emulate the natural, rapid types of interactions that frequently take place in a physical workplace like tapping someone’s shoulder to ask a question. These platforms display context about colleagues – are they meeting with a client right now, or are they listening to music? – and they provide multiple pathways by which co-workers can informally connect. Sample virtual office vendors include Pragli, Sococo, Virbela, and Wurkr. Virtual offices typically allow significant customisation (avatars, floor layout, branding, etc.) and integrate with a growing list of social and collaboration applications one might use throughout the workday, such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Spotify. These vendors also enable informal interactions through emotive digital gestures such as high-fives or dance movements, allow users to tap each other to instantly join a virtual meeting room, and offer the ability to lock spaces for more private conversations. Many also allow screen-sharing and the uploading of files. Some virtual offices currently lack the ability to integrate with common office software such as Google or Microsoft and may lack common ideation mediums such as whiteboards. Some tools use much of a laptop’s processing power when rendering a 3D office, potentially affecting other applications. Immersive environments. This is an emerging category of tools that aim to enable workers to connect, share experiences, and participate in simulated real-life scenarios using augmented or virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies. Some studies have shown that VR is a promising medium for remote collaborative work. Users experience a 3D shared environment where they can see representations of themselves and colleagues and conduct meetings. Immersive environments are best suited for interactive sessions and co-creation/ideation. The virtual environments provided by tools such as Arthur, HoloMeeting, and Spatial can range from basic rooms to non-cubical architecturally complex spaces that expand creative possibilities. Some vendors make it possible for users to take a selfie and upload and wrap the image around an avatar for a personalised, life-like presence. Combined with spatial audio and visible mouth or hand movements, these technologies can give one the impression of being in the same space as a colleague. Interacting with the environment and accessing menus using one’s hands or controllers is highly intuitive. Typical features include 2D or 3D whiteboarding options, 3D process flows, and the ability to access content from the web, including images and 3D models. While some platforms are accessible by smartphones and laptops, the full experience is typically only available with the use of an AR/VR headset – a factor that may limit adoption in the near term. Early-stage tools may suffer from distracting latency – or lags in refreshing the display – or lack integration with other applications, which limits the type of work one can do, such as co-edit a PowerPoint slide, and most have smaller capacities (usually under 20 participants) when compared to virtual offices. What to watch The descriptions above are a snapshot of a rapidly moving market. Progress in the underlying technology of AR/VR, and increasingly affordable hardware, will likely boost the appeal of immersive environments over the next couple of years, for instance. Other developments in the domain of remote collaboration are worth watching. New features. With so many workers affected by the pandemic, collaboration vendors are quickly responding to user needs and rolling out new features. For instance, Microsoft recently deployed ‘Together mode’, using AI to place meeting participants side-by-side as if they were sitting in a virtual auditorium. Other advances include attention tracking, which alerts a host if an attendee goes more than a few seconds without having an application open; intelligent capture, which can make a person’s video image transparent so users can see content being written or drawn on a whiteboard as it happens; and real-time translation. Organisations should take note of this rapid pace and consider product road maps when evaluating tools. New mediums and uses. Remote collaboration tools are evolving, and organisations are likely to experiment with them in various ways. Some executives have used popular video games such as Animal Crossing, Grand Theft Auto, and Minecraft to conduct meetings, for instance. While some may not be inclined to use video games for collaboration or are unfamiliar with the format, others feel they help people think differently and bond with colleagues. The education sector may be another testing ground as teachers, students, and parents around the globe are now being forced to learn how to use virtual collaboration tools. Other formats are likely to emerge. New insights. Collaborating via software enables novel analytical applications not possible with conventional in-person conversations. For example, Gong uses speech recognition and natural language understanding technology to transcribe, annotate, and analyse data from sales calls to coach salespeople toward better performance. YVA.ai uses artificial intelligence to predict burnout and enhance employee engagement. Talent leaders may want to consider how data within these tools can help inform their talent strategies or improve employee performance. New shortcomings. Improved tools may eventually solve the video-conference fatigue problem, but it’s possible that emerging remote collaboration technologies may give rise to other unpleasant technology-induced side effects such as the dizziness or nausea that can accompany immersive environments. When choosing a collaboration tool, organisations should take these into account and design mitigation strategies such as time limits where applicable. New risks. As workers migrated to home networks and personal devices after the onset of the pandemic, firms faced an increase in hacking attempts, and many are enhancing their cybersecurity posture accordingly. The amount and type of information generated by remote collaboration tools could be especially sensitive, and companies should strive to ensure that such data is secure while meeting workers’ reasonable expectations of privacy. Preparing for a (somewhat more) remote future Many workers will not return to the office or may work from a company office only part of the time. According to a June 2020 Fortune/Deloitte CEO survey, CEOs expect 36% of their employees on average to still be working remotely by January 2022, three times as many as before the pandemic. One forecast suggests that through 2024, around 30% of all employees currently working remotely will permanently work at home. Many organisations are likely to need effective remote collaboration tools and approaches. Managers, particularly those in industries where remote working is already familiar, such as technology, financial services, and business and professional services, should begin exploring the use of remote high-touch collaboration tools, especially for collaborative activities that are synchronous, spontaneous, or sensory. As workers’ exposure to, and comfort with, these tools varies, organisations should consider implementing effective training and adoption strategies as well as policies guiding effective use. It may be helpful to think of remote collaboration as more than just a way of coping with the pandemic. To be sure, the pandemic triggered a surge of interest in remote collaboration and a burst of activity in the market for remote collaboration tools. But even after the crisis subsides, the need to support high-touch collaboration for remote workers will likely remain. This trend may carry the seeds of new opportunities. It may bring greater flexibility to talent models, offer workers new opportunities to balance professional and personal needs, help reduce the carbon footprint of work, and enable entirely new business models and industries. The development of remote collaboration could eventually change how we work in surprising and beneficial ways. Ryan Kaiser is a senior manager in Deloitte’s US Innovation group, where his efforts focus on digital transformation, strategy, and product/solution incubation. David Schatsky, Managing Director of Deloitte US, analyses emerging technology and business trends for Deloitte’s leaders and clients. Robin Jones is a Principal in Deloitte’s Workforce Transformation division, with 22 years of organisation and workforce transformation consulting experience.

While it might be difficult to find a new job in the current market, it's not impossible. Niamh Collins outlines five key considerations that will put you in the best position to move on in your career. The disruption to employment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has been severe. From hiring freezes to the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme to remote working and the tough decision of making redundancies, 2020 has been a year like no other for almost every industry. At the end of July, CSO data showed the COVID-19 adjusted unemployment rate as 16.7% across Ireland – the effects disproportionately spread across younger generations with 41% of 16-25-year-olds out of work compared to 14% for those aged 25-74 years. The employment market is not universally challenged. Despite the economic pressure and instability, there are organisations that need your knowledge, skills and experience. Whatever your reasons for looking for a new role, there are five key considerations which will put you in a better position to get a great job in a challenged market. 1. Be bold with your networking Contacts are invaluable. It’s important to stay in touch with as many people as possible – suppliers, customers, old colleagues and clients. Maintaining these relationships will stand you in good stead because the individuals could provide precious information when it comes to job opportunities, offer useful advice or guidance and even act as a reference when necessary.  Beyond your existing contacts, you can also actively seek out new networking opportunities in your field. Be bold on LinkedIn and connect with plenty of relevant professionals. 2. Be thorough in your research If you have identified a vacancy or a company that you would like to work for, always be thorough in your research. Read up about the business; the values, what they do, who their clients are, and also find out the names of the managers and as much about their careers as you can. Not only will this allow you to address any communications to a specific individual within a department, but it will help you create a better picture of the organisation as a whole.  3. Be flexible about your requirements While you may want the security and stability offered by a permanent job, have you considered pursuing a contract role? The flexibility of hiring a contractor is an attractive prospect for organisations at present. Also, it could be beneficial to weigh-up your salary expectations, especially if (as with many industries) you are able to work remotely. Regularly working from home will save monthly commuting costs and, therefore, lowering your pay demands accordingly (while being sure not to undersell yourself) could increase your attractiveness to employers and might be the difference between being hired or not.  4. Be open to partnering with a recruitment agency Eliciting the assistance of a specialist recruitment agency is a straightforward way to give your job-hunting efforts a boost. It will save you time, give you access to their extensive network of industry contacts, offer a wide range of opportunities that are often not advertised on job search sites and they have the inside line on knowing exactly what hiring organisations are looking for. 5. Be ready to clear your diary and move fast If you are serious about moving jobs, arguably the most important thing to remember is to be ready to act fast as things can change rapidly. Be prepared to clear gaps in your diary so that you can take calls or attend meetings, virtual or otherwise, at short notice.  Clearly explain what your requirements are from the outset and have references ready to go. When markets are difficult and hiring organisations may be looking for its new employee to start at a short turnaround, they will want a quick response if you do get offered a job.  Despite these unusual times, careers are being progressed. Your next role could be a couple of meetings away, but it will require focus, determination and input from you to make it happen. Niamh Collins is Associate Director of Finance & Accounting at Morgan McKinley.

Julia Rowan offers practical guidance to help leaders run productive and enjoyable team meetings.Team meetings both reflect and create a team’s culture. In times of uncertainty, they provide an essential lifeline to staff as well as an opportunity for leaders to develop the future team that they need.But before we dive into the detail, bear with me for a short and useful exercise: write down a few words that describe your team. Next, fast-forward 12 months: write down the words you would like to use to describe your team. What did you write? More strategic? More independent? More collegiate? More thorough? More proactive? Now reflect on this: how are you using your team meetings to build that strategic, independent, proactive (insert your own words) team that you want?Leaders rarely view the team meeting as an opportunity to build the team they want. Team meetings are seen as a duty, not an opportunity.Create a strong centre of gravityLeadership is challenging, both in good times and bad, but the challenges are different. Right now, there is significant uncertainty: possible recession, business continuity challenges, staff safety and more. Organisations are trying to recruit, induct, delegate, manage and lead at a distance. Many team members are anxious.All of this, to be slightly controversial, in an environment where commitment to one’s profession can be more important than commitment to one’s employer. And that commitment is neither right nor wrong – it merely reflects the reality that all professionals need to stay accredited. Otherwise, their employment prospects are gone. But it all feeds into the need for the leader to create a strong ‘centre of gravity’ within the team and to make the most of the opportunity (there’s that word again) that team meetings offer.Let’s go back to our opening exercise. Let’s say that you want your team to be more proactive; you have two choices. You either tell them that you want them to be more proactive or, at your next team meeting, you ask each team member to give an example of their proactivity and how it worked out. The first option sits nicely under ‘good advice’, and like all good advice, it may or may not be heeded. The second option sends a powerful message: that members of this team are encouraged to be proactive.The purpose of team meetingsMy take on leadership is that it happens through a series of conversations, most of which are one-to-one – interview, induction, goal-setting, delegation, feedback, performance management, coaching etc. Each of these conversations has a specific purpose and opportunity. Team meetings are different and serve three main purposes:they allow for the exchange of information, ensuring that everyone is on the same page;they facilitate discussion, which leads to better quality decisions; andthey are usually the only time and place where the team is together and can ‘do’ being a team. They are the equivalent of the family dinner – a time to stay connected, support each other and, yes, have the odd spat.The team-building part builds the trust needed to ensure that the discussion and decision-making are high-quality; that all team members can speak up, air opinions and be heard. This, in turn, feeds into that all-important engagement and commitment to the team, which is particularly important when teams work off-site or virtually.Plan and run outstanding meetingsTaking the time to plan and run outstanding meetings is tough on leaders who are already under pressure. They may unwittingly adopt a ‘tick-box’ approach to their meetings: regular meeting? Agenda circulated? All in attendance? All updates covered? Action list distributed?Actually, if you are doing all of that, take a bow because many teams never meet (and hopefully the thoughts below will help you make your meetings even more useful and enjoyable). Or maybe you used to run meetings and then stopped. They took too long, nobody spoke up, or the same few people dominated. Now is a great time to reinvest in your team meetings.The tips that follow may help stimulate some creative thoughts about how you plan and organise your team meetings. Julia Rowan is Founder of PerformanceMatters.ie. Following a career that spanned finance, marketing and public affairs, Julia now works with leaders and teams throughout Europe to build strong teams.

Ronan Dunne draws on his experience at the highest echelons of business to share his six leadership lessons. When I first worked in London as a banker, I was promoted three times in a period of about 15 months. I was an eager and highly qualified Chartered Accountant but in the first 12 months I worked late every evening. Then, I started working on Saturday and Sunday. I worked my socks off and for the first year, it was a remarkably successful strategy – but then, I hit a wall. I had no more capacity. It was a completely unsustainable model and it did not take me long to realise that unless I could invent an eighth day in the week, I would need to change my management style. The lessons that follow are based on my experience as a Chartered Accountant in business, and one who often had to learn lessons the hard way. Some may be more relevant to you than others, but I nevertheless hope that you find them useful. Lesson 1: It is not what you do, it is what you make happen When Chartered Accountants start out in their careers, they are largely personal contributors. They have a very specific role and success is defined by the outcome or the output of their particular job. Increasingly, however, we realise that this approach is based on an old-fashioned, hierarchical business model. In modern society, and for millennials in particular, painting inside the lines is not an attractive proposition – even in your first job. So, discover as early as possible in your career that your success does not just depend exclusively on what you do; it also hinges on what you make happen. Your capacity to impact and influence is infinite but your output is simply defined by hours in the day, no matter how hard and fast you work. At every point in your career, you have the opportunity to impact and influence those around you. Key takeaway: Take the opportunity to make a difference when it comes your way. Lesson 2: To be an effective leader, build an effective team The capacity to exceed expectations lies in how you blend the skills and capabilities of those around you. Effective teams do not simply do what any other team would; effective teams harness the unique talent, perspectives, and experience of their individual members in a way that enables the collective to achieve outcomes that would not otherwise be possible. When considering team formation, we sometimes think “I need someone for finance, someone for marketing, someone for legal” and so on. But actually, if you build a team correctly, you create space for each person to bring their own personality and their own unique perspective to the team. That is the secret ingredient to superior outcomes. Key takeaway: Every person within the team has a unique contribution to make. Lesson 3: Exercise judgement as to when to exercise judgement This might sound like a play on words but in my experience, people early in their career often have a desire to impress their superiors. They sometimes seek out opportunities to act decisively, to jump in and make a decision in order to demonstrate that they have what it takes to be a manager or a leader. In fact, they often demonstrate their inexperience by attempting to find a moment to showcase their decisiveness and by consequence, unwittingly illustrate their impatience. Very often, the wisest thing to do is to explain why a decision cannot be made due to a lack of information or context, for example. By all means, look for opportunities to exercise judgement but remember that judgement can sometimes be best exercised by not deciding and explaining why. Key takeaway: When meeting with senior executives, remember that rushing to make an impact may make you look like an idiot. Lesson 4: Leadership should happen at every level In business, decisions are best made closest to the point of impact. An effective organisation therefore ensures that those who make decisions have the right context and the discretion to decide, because hierarchy on its own does not always work. In a team, the most senior member is not always the natural leader on a particular topic or project so to be continually effective, teams should encourage those closer to the issue to take the helm. That means cultivating the flexibility to have junior members lead the way. Indeed, the biggest challenge facing larger organisations is their established hierarchical models. Such companies recruit bright, young, and digitally literate people but in too many cases they leave after a year or two because they get completely disillusioned. Despite understanding more about behavioural trends or other issues that may be affecting the business, their opinion is never sought out because they are three or four levels down in the organisation. Leaders need to empower those people and accept a certain amount of risk. There must be permission to fail but even in organisations with a mild risk tolerance, this concept creates a space in which an organisation’s collective potential can be nurtured. Key takeaway: Acknowledging context is critical to effective decision-making. Couple that with delegated authority and permission to fail, and you have a solid foundation for a highly effective organisation. Lesson 5: Authenticity is the gateway to true leadership My view of authenticity is built on two ideas – one is a personal insight and the other builds on the elements discussed above. I became a CEO for the first time with O2 in the UK when we were on the cusp of a major recession. I had a successful career up to that point but when I took over as CEO, I struggled for the first six months because I spent a lot of time wondering what other people would have done in my situation. In many jobs, you are the subject matter expert but as CEO, you are a jack of all trades and often master of none. Then, I had an almost spiritual moment when I realised that I had 27 years of rich experience. It became clear that the only way I could do my job was to be myself. So, as a leader, you need to ask yourself: who are you? People rarely challenge themselves with this question. I describe myself as chief cheerleader and chief storyteller. I am an extrovert, a joiner-upper, an enthusiast – and I use that to be a front-row leader because that just happens to be my natural style. So ultimately, the best way to be successful in any role is to be yourself. The second thing is that when you are the boss, nobody asks you a question that they know the answer to. This leaves you with a strange obligation to know the answer to everything, but CEOs manage uncertainty amid many shades of grey and it can be quite liberating to realise that the CEO can and should say: “You know what, I am concerned about that as well.” If you do that, you help your people work things out, find solutions, and build answers to organisational challenges with a sense of togetherness. Key takeaway: Know your strengths and acknowledge that you do not – and should not – have the answer to every question. Lesson 6: Know the question before you try to answer it There is massive structural impatience in organisations and as a result, I see much more ‘ready, fire, aim’ than ‘ready, aim, fire’. Too often organisations run towards an assumption of what the question (and answer) is; they are in action mode immediately. But a little time working out the precise nature of the question will invariably bring you closer to the answer. Organisations consistently do two things wrong: they press ahead to answer a part-formed question, and they do not allow talent to flourish because hierarchy gets in the way. Key takeaway: Define the question clearly before embarking on the search for an answer. Ronan Dunne FCA is CEO at Verizon Consumer Group.

John Slattery shares his simple three-step process to help you make a career choice you will not regret. In adulthood, bar sleep, we spend more time at work than anything else. Our career will have a massive bearing on the happiness, success, and fulfilment we experience in life. It is critical, therefore, that we make the best career choice possible at every professional junction. Making a career choice is a complex process, and there are many nuances to consider. Inspo’s three-step guide to making good career choices is designed to steer you toward the right decisions for you. The three steps are as follows. Step 1 Create an uninhibited list of career choices One measure of success around career choice will be the absence of any regret upon deciding. For this to be the case, we must identify all possibilities that appeal to us as possible career choices. This will enable us to feel confident that we are choosing from a complete list. You may be able to identify all possibilities yourself. Alternatively, you may need to bounce it off one or more people to help you formulate the list. If so, chat with someone you know who will give you a genuine opinion as to what career options they think would be worth considering. You must also ensure that you build an understanding of what each role entails. You can then make an informed decision as to whether to pursue or discard each option (more on that in step three). The end-goal for step one is to feel that you have identified a complete list of career choices and to have an informed understanding of each option. Step 2 Self-reflect To decide on the suitability of each option, you must self-reflect. You will use the output of your self-reflection to evaluate each option that has emerged in step one. There are three elements of self-reflection to carry out: Vision Positive psychologists Scott Barry Kaufman and E. P. Torrance claim that inspiration is the attempt to realise a future vision of oneself. Making career choices that align with our vision can, therefore, create a sense of inspiration in our professional lives. Research also suggests that making a career choice that is connected to our vision can lead to higher levels of productivity, motivation, and positivity. Therefore, our vision is a critical evaluation criterion. Strengths and interest areas This focus area of self-reflection derives from a definition of meaning by positive psychologist, Martin Seligman. He defines meaning as “using your signature strengths in the service of something greater than you are”. Seligman’s research identifies meaning as the most significant contributor to happiness. Strengths and interest areas are a simplified extraction of Seligman’s definition, but tapping into these two areas will give us excellent access to meaning and joy through our work. So, as with vision, strengths and interest areas are crucial evaluation criteria. Priorities Our career choices must be grounded in the priorities that exist in our lives at the time we make a choice. They might be personal, such as a desire to travel or buy a house, or they might be related or separate financial priorities. Honouring our priorities through our choice gives us the best chance to meet our goals, ambitions, and desires. It is the final critical element of evaluation. Our end-goal for this step is to have a clear vision, a sense of what our strengths and interest areas are, and an understanding of our priorities in life. Step 3 Evaluate, pursue, and decide In the final step, you first evaluate each option against the self-reflection criteria. For each option, you decide whether you are going to pursue or discard that option. This will leave you with a shortlist of options. From here, you pursue each shortlisted option further by furthering your understanding and actively exploring opportunities related to each career option. As you do this, you check-in with yourself regularly as to which prospect feels like the right one. You continuously repeat this check-in exercise during this final stage of exploration until you feel ready to make your career choice. I wish I could offer you a process that guarantees success in your career choice. Alas, neither I nor anyone else can do so. What I can say is that I have seen, through my work, that this process helps people make good career choices – and I hope it can do the same for you. The referendum effect Career choices are an imperfect process simply because the ‘perfect choice’ is rare if non-existent. So here is a concept I call the ‘referendum effect’ to help define success when it comes to career choices. Let us look back to the two most recent Irish referendums – the same-sex marriage referendum and the referendum on the Eighth Amendment. In both cases, there was high-quality information available and thorough debate and discussion on the merits of both sides of each argument. This allowed people to make an informed choice at the polls. In both scenarios, the consensus was that the right outcome was achieved. However, in both cases, more than 30% of people voted against the outcome. For me, these referendums are a good metaphor for what you should hope for with your career choices – that is to collect high-quality, accurate information regarding your options, to self-reflect, and to discuss the issues with people you trust and respect. At the end of the process, you will hopefully have a substantial majority for one choice. That for me would be the best outcome you could hope for when making a career choice. There is another side to this metaphorical coin. Consider Brexit – the quality of information shared with the UK electorate was of questionable quality and clarity. In some cases, the information was alleged to be factually incorrect. Voters therefore went to the polls with much higher degrees of uncertainty and a narrow, unconvincing majority voted in favour of Brexit. It has taken Britain several years to make any type of progress on the back of the referendum result and all the while, a vast cloud of doubt looms over the outcome itself. This is a good metaphor, in my view, for a poor career choice – poor or incorrect information, lack of clarity on the options available, and a very uncertain choice. Given the importance of our career in terms of our overall happiness, fulfilment and success, there is only one approach to take. Take the right one. Given the importance that we’ve discussed our career has in terms of our happiness, fulfilment and success – there is only one approach to take of these two shared in the Referendum Effect. Take the right one. John Slattery ACA is Founder of Inspo.

Orla Doyle outlines the job search activities that reap the biggest reward. The Pareto principle states that 80% of outcomes are borne from 20% of the causes. It is one of the cardinal philosophies in business that ultimately guides business leaders in selecting the most productive inputs to drive maximum efficiency. However, this principle can be applied in many settings, including in the job search. See how you can harness the benefits of the 80/20 rule in your job search strategy to target the right company, the right culture, the right management team, and help you get a job you love. Wasted time The job market is a fickle beast, where the amount of effort you put in doesn’t necessarily correlate with the results you get. Working smart rather than working hard is vital. For instance, many people spend a significant amount of time tweaking their CVs and cover letters. While it is important to spend time on this, people often spend too much time, with any subsequent additions unlikely to move the needle. Interestingly, the majority of job seekers choose the job site route to apply for new jobs. Don’t get me wrong; job sites such as LinkedIn and Glassdoor are great tools to use when searching for a new job. However, churning out 10-20 applications per day on one of these sites is a lot of work that won’t necessarily yield the results you want. The truth is, nobody taught us how to look for our dream job. Most people don’t have a real strategy and as a result, everyone ends up doing the same thing. There are better ways to conduct your job search. It may require stepping outside your comfort zone, but it will ultimately raise your chances of making the right next step for your career. Both approaches described above are passive. There are more downsides to this than the time spent sitting back and waiting for an answer. In many cases, applicants later find that the job isn’t what they wanted or that compensation is too low or, in the worst-case scenario, they get no response whatsoever. Over time, this leads applicants to conclude that the job market is unfavourable, and they adopt a negative mindset. If you have been cranking out a large volume of applications daily without much luck, then you need a catalyst – a change in mindset, approach or methodology that places you on the path to career success. The psychology of spending time on inefficient job search tactics When you read the above, a fair question may be: “Why do people choose to put themselves through that?” The most common answer is that it helps people feel productive. Sending out ten applications a day across four job sites may not be the optimal way to land an interview, but at the end of the day, it helps the sender feel that they have done something or that they have put adequate effort into the job search. It’s a flawed perception, but a satisfactory outcome nevertheless for most job seekers. The other reason is that most people love passing the responsibility to someone else. The thought process here may be that if they want you, they will come back to you; if you spoke with a recruiter, they will come back to you when a relevant role comes in. In a competitive and globalised job market, though, this is rare. With the advent of technology, talent is now available across borders and the labour pool is larger than ever. Hence, if candidates are not accountable for their job search, it is an uphill battle to find suitable employment as hiring managers are likely looking at a dozen profiles that are similar or even identical to yours. To achieve success, you must be willing to do what the others won’t to achieve what they can’t. Applying the 80/20 principle So, what are the things that most people don’t do? Below are three things that you can inculcate in your job search. 1. Get specific Do you know what you want to do or, are you merely seeing what you can get? After some rejection, many people throw in the towel too early and start working their way down in terms of the jobs they are willing to accept. To prevent this from happening, get specific about the type of job you want, the size and the culture of the company, and the particular industry in which you would like to work. And then, do not deviate from that. Do you know the types of companies that hire for these jobs, the exact ones for whom you would like to work? Once you have this clarity, you will automatically be inclined to work harder to source those types of jobs and apply accordingly. You will increase your chance of getting results as your whole approach – from your CV to your references – is streamlined for the position you want. This is not to say that you should be rigid in your job search and operate within this one defined box. It is merely a tip to ensure that you are not aborting the search for your dream job before the appropriate efforts have been expended. Second, get specific about the goals of the particular job search tactic you are using. If it doesn’t work, stop and try a different channel. Many people continue to do an activity without ever stopping and asking: is this working? They adopt the attitude of “try harder” rather than analysing the results of a particular method. Set yourself a goal. For example, aim to secure five interviews through a specific channel. This could be achieved by utilising three different recruiters – but if it isn’t working, stop and take a fresh approach. 2. Network Relationships go a long way in the job market. The best jobs are often snapped up before they are even advertised on a public platform because the candidate had a good relationship with the hiring manager (or at least someone that knew them). A CV is a piece of paper that outlines your experiences at a high level. But, if you can have a conversation with someone where you articulate your expertise and ambitions, they now have a ‘face to the name’ on the CV and can understand your value proposition at a more holistic level. Start by developing a networking strategy (i.e. identify who can help you get to where you want to go and go to them directly). Other people won’t even know what they are looking for, making it impossible to know whom they need to talk to, or what they need to ask. As with all things, practice makes perfect – but it all starts with the first step. 3. Show, don’t tell The next time you have an interview, add an additional dimension to your preparation. Try to understand some of the problems the company or unit you are applying to is facing, and formulate a solution. This could involve producing a one-page document at interview, which outlines what you would do in the first 30, 60 and 90 days in the job to remedy the situation. Make no mistake: this is much easier said than done. However, a lot of successful applicants employ presentation materials where they can demonstrate what they bring to the table. Words are easy to say but tough to back up. Hence, if a hiring manager can concurrently see your work along with your words, you are automatically better than almost anyone else competing with you for the same job.   Orla Doyle is Head of Marketing at Lincoln Recruitment Specialists.