Five tips to capture your next career opportunity

If only I'd had a cat, a stick and a spotty hankie, I'd have been 100% ready to channel my inner Dick Whittington.

Because driving up the A1 to collect our oldest from uni, I was excited to pass a sign welcoming me to (drumroll please) ....

"HERTFORDSHIRE - COUNTY OF OPPORTUNITY"

Dun, dun, duuuuuun!

Forget the streets of London being paved with gold. The legendary Dick should clearly have headed north like me.

I was intrigued.

Excitedly glancing around. 

How would I receive these marvellous opportunities?

Would they pop up, meerkat-style, from the grasses of the central reservation? 

Might they drop, jaguar-like, from trees if I pulled into the next layby?

Sadly, nothing doing.

I drove through Hertfordshire and into Cambridgeshire untroubled by a single opportunity.

I was considering an anonymous tip-off to Advertising Standards ("Pssst. You might want to take a look at Hertfordshire County Council ... it's an outrage") when I was reminded of this great saying by Thomas Edison:

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work".

You see, opportunities - particularly career opportunities - can't be relied on to jump out in front of you shrieking. 

Opportunities are tricksical little blighters, inclined to disguise themselves, sneak in through back doors, or even hide in plain sight to confuse you. 

They're also exceedingly deaf, so you have to speak loudly and clearly if you want to attract their attention. 

Here are five tips to help you spot and capture your next work opportunity:

1) Opportunities disguise themselves as people 🥸

If you think your next career opportunity comes packaged as a job ad, think again. 

Opportunities love nothing more than to disguise themselves as interesting people - and wait for you to reach out to them for a chat, expand your network to incorporate them, offer to create a piece of work for them or go along to events where they'll be busy discussing the career world you want to enter with a whole host of other opportunities dressed up as human beings. 

2) Opportunities hide behind problems 🫣

If you can find a problem, a work opportunity is never far behind.

So many career-building opportunities - whether a secondment, a stint of volunteering, leading a new project or setting up your own business - are the result of spotting a problem you can help fix. Lean into your skillset, your own life experience and your initiative to uncover the opportunities lurking in the shadow of a problem.

3) Opportunities often stay more local than you think 🌎

Okay, some opportunities like to put on an exotic outfit, jump in a fast car and wait for you to travel miles across unfamiliar terrain to find them. Like a massive game of hide-and-seek, they'll choose the hardest place to be found. But those opportunities are outliers. 

Many work opportunities are quite happy waiting around in your current organisation or sector, among your friends and family, within places you already have some ideas about (but just haven't quite got off your backside to look into). 

If you're unfulfilled in your current situation, be sure you've fully investigated the alternative opportunities right under your nose before you plan a journey into the unknown. Even if only as a first stepping stone onwards. 

4) Opportunities hang out with Learning 📚

Opportunities have friends. And they're top mates with Learning. Honestly, they're always down the pub together with a pie and a pint. 

Signing up for a short course, asking for some in-house training, going along to a workshop or seeking out a mentor are prime territory for stepping on squeaky new opportunities you'd never have thought of if you just stay sitting on the sofa. 

5) Opportunities find it hard to find you if you don't call them 📢

Opportunities can do their best, but they're not mind-readers, folks. And they have poor hearing. 

You need to get in the habit of talking often and loudly about what you're interested in, what you're looking for, what you're keen to explore, the kinds of people you want to meet, the goals you have. 

How else can you expect a perfect little opportunity to turn up and meet you in the right place?

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So, where can you go looking for opportunities?

The way I see it, it's time to stop waiting around for the poor critters to do all the legwork for us. 

Either that or head for Hertfordshire with a large net and see what's lurking.

Oh, and shout "YES!" really enthusiastically every time you think you see one.

(They love that. And it tends to make more of them come running.)

Stay curious, 

Rachel

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Need more help to figure out what size and shape of career opportunity you're looking for? 

"The Career Change Guide: Five Steps to Finding Your Dream Career" is just £14.85 on Amazon and is packed full of exercises, tools, strategies and case studies to help you figure out the work you want and how to get there. You can buy it on Audible too. 

#careerchange #careercoaching #careerdesign #careerdevelopment