Eoghan McDermott of The Communications Clinic

I’m looking to move jobs. I have a BA but feel under-qualified. Any advice?

Lack of a degree or lack of an appropriate qualification is the most frequently applied disqualifier. For example more and more job specs are looking for master’s degrees. Whereas in the past a Bachelor’s degree was sufficient, more companies are now looking for the MA behind the name. Much the same factor is coming into play within specific sectors. For example, in Law, until relatively recently, a basic law degree was usually enough to get you into a big law firm. You would then be expected to sit your FE1’s during you first year or two. Now the big firms are rarely offering a graduate position to someone who hasn’t at least started sitting (and passing) them.

In the 1980’s going to university and getting a BA was the be-all and end-all. Now there is the question of whether an undergraduate qualification is sufficient any more. Many of my clients in their late 20’s and early 30’s, now have a Masters or more and not necessarily acquired immediately after their primary degree. Many of them went for a job based on their first qualification and saw that they needed more training to make progress in their chosen career.

The solution is to get the Masters, industry qualifications or do further courses. If you want to aim high, in career terms, go back to college. Get the extra level of qualification. Or resign yourself to either a lesser job or a longer wait.
 

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My colleagues and I have had setbacks in work, with loss of clients and some jobs. We’re finding it very stressful and pressurised, like it’s out of control. Any advice?

I know it’s easy to write, but try and change the way you look at these setbacks. Reframe these disappointments as an opportunity and try and do something about them.
An American Professor of Psychology named Martin Seligman has a theory called "Learned Optimism". He’s researched this for 30 years and has found that optimism and resilience are vital components in high achievers. Pretty much what he found was that there are two types of people - the moaners who blame external factors or attribute the outcomes of events to forces beyond their control (we all know the ones, the “it was someone else’s fault”) aren’t as likely to succeed as those who believe that they’re masters of their own fate.

In research at MetLife, Seligman convinced the company to launch a highly original pilot programme to hire new recruits. Management’s best predictor of success, Seligman argued, is the candidate’s level of optimism. MetLife were unsure, but intrigued. Martin, sure of his theory, said to MetLife if the salesmen he picked didn’t outsell the others he’d pay them. And if they did, MetLife would pay them. Seligman identified a special group of individuals who scored high on optimism but failed the normal screening. MetLife took them on as promised. And they outsold the pessimists by 21 percent in their first year and 57 percent in the second.

What this means to you is stay as positive as possible, keep looking for the opportunities and you will get through these stressful difficult times.
 

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My company has just announced that it’s closing. I’m being made redundant. They say the will give us all outplacement support. What exactly is outplacement support and what should I do?

Outplacement support means several things to several companies. For bad companies, it’s a sop to the staff (and unions if they’re involved). It’s a thing they can announce to make it look like they care. For good companies, it’s proof they care. When used properly, outplacement support can make a huge difference in the lives of the people who have left their jobs.

At its most basic, the outplacement agency should be helping you prepare your CV and should be getting that CV to potential employers. But it should be much more than that. It should turn a difficult and frightening time into an opportunity. And if the service you receive doesn’t do that, then it’s up to you.

That means forgetting the job you now do and start with a blank sheet. There was a great example of this in last weeks Tribune Magazine- a couple who worked in Vodafone together and are now movie composers.

You should figure out what you enjoy in your job. What has made you happiest in your work? What have you always wanted to do? You need to be wary of focusing on speed and pure survival. Look at it instead as an unusual freedom. Once you’ve figured what you would like to do, find out the qualifications and experience you need to do it. If the outplacer is good they’ll do this with you, if they aren’t, hand them your goal as a foregone conclusion. And say ‘help.’

It is then their task to find the courses, jobs and contacts to help you get what you want. And their job to prepare you to use those contacts and get those jobs.
 

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With fewer job opportunities appearing in newspapers and on the net, is there a different approach that I could use?

There is and it’s your network.

We are now in a jobs market where the buyer is in control. And because of that, you need to pull out all the stops. You need to be a good networker. Networking is keeping in contact. Some people are great at it. For example, remembering birthdays, going to reunions, attending events after work. The same process is vitally important to a job hunter because without contacts you will miss out on ‘grapevine information’ about jobs that are coming on-stream, and so you will be unable to use informed opportunism. Not only that, but a scarcity of contacts means that you will not have tip-of-the-tongue reference value. What you need is for a recruiter, gazing into space, suddenly to find your name on the tip of the tongue as a solution to a problem. A name doesn’t find itself on the tip of anybody’s tongue unless you’ve maintained contact with the owner of the tongue.

If you network properly, it can be of enormous benefit to you in your career development. But networking is not a one-way operation. It operates on the same principle of all effective relationships- give and take: you must invest your time and concern in other people in order to create a context where they are likely to invest their time and concern in you. In some quarters this is known as the favour bank. You make it a practice, throughout life, to be helpful to people and to do favours for people without any immediate expectation of a quid pro quo. Keep yourself in credit in the favour bank. It will make you more successful. It will help you get a meeting with a potential boss. It might also, by forcing you to think about other people in a systematic and contributory way, make you a better person

 

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I want to get into banking. What should I do in the current climate?

Be related to a person in a senior position in a bank. Good oul Irish nepotism is a wonderful thing. If that’s not an option you have a lot of work to do.

Start researching. Research the market. See what banks, if any, are hiring and for what positions. Your research should include your network of contacts too. Do they know of any people moving in their organization or any people that have recently left that you could fit in and solve their problem. Use the internet, your contacts diary, your ear to find if there is anything.

After that the same rules of job hunting apply. Get your CV up to scratch and make sure everything in it is relevant, illustrative of success and correct…even a whiff of a typo means it will get the bin.

If you get called for interview you’re first of all blessed and secondly in a great position. They obviously think you’re worth a look and if they do, do yourself justice. Prepare yourself. Gather up examples that will show that you have done the job and will do it for them in the future.

Finally, I’m sure you have developed transferable skills so far in your life like team work, communication and deadlines. These can be used in jobs outside of banking. And it might be worthwhile looking there too. Limiting your careers options may be a luxury none of us can afford from now on.