Optimising the 7-year career cycle

I often provide mentoring for early-stage entrepreneurs and it is always fun to discuss new business ideas with enthusiastic people. But entrepreneurs are easily bored, and I have noticed this tends to work in a cycle of seven years.

When I mentor entrpreneurs who are successful but still seem unfulfilled for some reason, my suggestion is they consider handing over their business to their staff, taking a break and then looking for a brand new opportunity.

Harry Freedman runs Career Energy, which helps people find new employment. His business is the perfect bellwether of the careers market. In these hard times, much of his activity is in outplacement, helping often very dispirited people regain their self-esteem and find a new job.

Freedman has written a very timely book, How to Find a Job in a Recession, which explains his process. He says that looking for a job in a recession is different; the key is to be pro-active, and not just to wait for opportunities.

A basic difference between people is that some will be introvert, and spend most of their time working on their CV, filling it with relevant features, while others are extrovert and will rush off and network. It is important to remember that both tasks need to be done. A brilliant CV which is not actively promoted will just gather dust, and a candidate with an outgoing personality but without the right collateral will be overlooked for the best opportunities.

Freedman works on both aspects, starting with where to look for potential jobs when nothing is being advertised. The key is in personal and online networking. There are many online tools to help raise your profile, another way of describing your personal brand. Most of us now are on social networks, such as LinkedIn which is specifically geared for job-seekers.

Freedman's book also covers the mechanics of responding to job advertisements, the best way to use recruitment consultants, how to make speculative approaches and the challenge of cold calling. Then it is all about the interview, an area where everyone, especially the most confident, needs significant coaching. An interviewer will be trained to deal with the nervous; an over-enthusiastic interviewee can talk themselves out of an opportunity in a few minutes.

I discussed the seven-year cycle with Freedman and he had some additional insights based on people's ages. He suggests that between twenty-one and twenty-eight, you should try as many things as possible. From twenty-eight to thirty-five, you should make a good '"fist'" of something. Between thirty-five and forty-two, you might decide to try something different.

Between forty-two and forty-nine you are often at the peak of your powers, while forty-nine to fifty-six represents maturity. Between fifty-six and sixty-three you might want to plan your exit, so from sixty-three onwards you can enjoy your grandchildren.

Once you understand the mechanics of job-hunting and the cycles of life, you might eventually conclude that, in retrospect, that forced career move was the best thing that ever happened to you. As Freedman says in his book, there are still many great opportunities out there; all it requires is a positive mind-set, to understand themselves and then the job market.