Jenny J Chiang was a career coach at Careers Connect at Workforce Singapore*. In the latest issue of True North, an e-newsletter for career professionals, she shared how she helped Carol, a PMET in her late 40s with over 20 years of experience in the finance sector. Read the excerpt below to learn more!
Meet Carol, a mid-life, mid-career Singapore worker
Carol had left her role as Head of Marketing for a financial firm, handling affluent and high net-worth clients. She felt the work came into conflict with her personal values.
During her garden leave, she approached Workforce Singapore (WSG) to find out more about her options for a career switch.
She had two decades of experience in banking and finance but felt it contradicted her personal values.
Carol felt she was a “people person” with strong problem-solving abilities and leadership skills. While she also considered other career paths, she was unsure if her minimum salary of $10,000 could be met.
Noticing gaps in Carol’s career strategy
Through the intake interview, it was apparent that she was confident and was able to express herself well.
She also demonstrated high self-efficacy and openly stated that she was up for a challenge.
Despite this confidence, Jenny’s check of Carol’s LinkedIn profile found that it focused only on her experiences. What it did not clearly were articulate her unique selling points, core competencies or key achievements.
Furthermore, though Carol had not started her job search, she appeared to lack information about the labour market outside of the finance industry.
Using a five-step career development model
Given Carol’s lack of clarity about her future career plans, Jenny applied the five stages of Donald Super’s Career Development Theory to help her better understand her interests and options.
The career development model involved the following steps:
- Assessment: Evaluating her current position and skills
- Exploration: Researching and reviewing the possible options
- Preparation: Constructing a strategic plan to move to the next step
- Implementation: Execution of the plan. This includes acquiring the necessary skills, knowledge and experience.
- Review: Evaluating performance thus far and deciding if she is ready to transition to a new job or role
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Understanding strengths and needs
The assessment stage involved enrolling Carol for the VIP24 online assessment and for a career exploration workshop, to understand her values, interests and personality.
Jenny shared more about Holland’s Theory of Career Choice (RIASEC), which posits that one will thrive best in a job that fits their personality. This was then used to analyse Carol’s VIP24 results.
Carol also completed the Myers & Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test. Both the RIASEC and MBTI results indicated that Carol’s strengths lay in helping others, and that she was most suitable for interpersonal roles.
After doing her own career research, Carol decided that she would do best to stay in the finance industrym as she needed a salary of at least $10,000 to support her ageing mother and two children.
The gameplan that helped Carol get a job with better salary
With this decision, Carol began her job search. This was something new to her, as she had not had to do so in the past. Carol had always been head-hunted or referred from her ex-bosses.
As she needed to rework her LinkedIn profile, she attended a series of WSG-organised workshops in professional networking and personal branding. Jenny also advised her to work with executive search firms. In the midst of her job search, Jenny explained Donald Super’s life space concept to help Carol prepare mentally for the changes and understand how her self-concept would affect her career choices.
After her garden leave ended, Carol also began reaching out to her industry contacts for job referrals. She continued to speak with Jenny every fortnight, following up with subsequent meetings to discuss strategies to improve her job search progress. Within four months, she was offered, and had accepted, a Director-level role in a bank, where the salary was higher than her last-drawn pay.
*Jenny has recently moved to join WSG’s Quality Assurance and Planning Team
This article was first published in True North, an e-newsletter for career professionals. If you are keen to receive this e-newsletter in your inbox, sign up for our mailing list
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