Why you need a career bucket list

They call it job-hopping, and according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics it will be as normal to millennials as having eight kids was to your great-grandfather. Estimates now suggest that anyone born around the year 2000 will have around 20 different jobs in the course of their lifetime – meaning that people currently in the middle of their careers could easily find themselves dazzled by the blur of incoming/outgoing young professionals and their shiny new suits.

Just how long will it be before you start to feel… ancient?

Millennials are a different breed from the rest of us; like flies, they see things coming from a mile off and simply change gear when they need to react. Tech doesn’t phase them, relationships are as virtual as they are physical, and careers are something to be breezed through in whatever fashion serves them best.

But more personal career moments are on Richard’s bucket list, too, and they’re mostly fun, punch-the-air moments – like being able to introduce one of his acts to a sold-out crowd at London’s Wembley Stadium. ‘I actually just ticked one off my list last week,’ he says, ‘and that was to be a VIP at the red carpet premiere of a movie. I have lots of little goals littered throughout my businesses now.’

Your own bucket list will vary according to where you are in your career and what makes you tick. To get you on the right track, here’s some tips to get started…

First, think about the last time you felt good about being praised at work. What had you done? Did you enjoy it? Could you do more in this field to reap more rewards?

Think about the business and your industry as a whole. Do you have offices in other countries that you’d like to work in? Do you have different departments that you’d like to understand a little better? Are there new roles that you could create for yourself that you’d enjoy and would serve the company well?

Finally, spend some time thinking about professional things you might want to do away from your day job. Using your skills to sell a product or service online, perhaps, or possibly venturing into a new field in your spare time.

Paul Stewart-Smith, COO of Dubai-based Propertyfinder Group, smiles when he thinks back to the early career bucket list items he seemed so desperate to tick off. ‘Things like having my first set of business cards, which were obviously handed out mainly to family and friends,’ he says. A better one, perhaps, was his first business-class trip. ‘No matter what, that first trip when you turn left and not right on the plane is seen as success.’

He suggests that a career bucket list might, therefore, feature a series of goals that first achieve security of employment, then better career prospects so that money is no longer a major issue and, finally, the opportunity to achieve self-actualisation by displaying mastery of your chosen vocation. All of which suggests that you’re never too far down the career path to keep working on your bucket list. Senior managers, often under the impression that the most appropriate course of action in the workplace is to avoid rocking the boat, need goals as much as the rest of us.

‘I think it’s about stretching their responsibility,’ says Tony Moss, founder of Your World Healthcare, a global recruitment company with offices in London, Sydney, Dublin and Dubai. ‘There may be areas that senior managers have not thought about getting involved with. My commercial director hadn’t done much on the legal and contracts side, but as he’s very much a details person I felt that if he were to understand that and work in that area it would be very beneficial. And he really relished that challenge and grasped it with both hands.’

‘We do our best to support our team in achieving their goals, which could be anything from changing career direction, training and development, launching a new product, right through to opening an office in a new market,’ says Jon Richards, CEO of UAE-based finance comparison company compareit4me. ‘We get more motivated and better-qualified staff as a result, not to mention the fact that we get excited about seeing ambitious staff coming to us with new ideas.’

It really isn’t all about showering employees with trinkets and money. ‘Goals are very important and they really do need to be subjective,’ says Richard Upshall. ‘I watch a lot of employers making mistakes in providing incentives for people that are monetary-based but missing so many other aspects of it.’

For Tony Moss, a very special bucket list entry was ticked off when he was able to take offices in London’s iconic Broadgate Tower. ‘When we set up our London office, Broadgate was still being built,’ he says. ‘I remember thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great to be in there one day?” And now we are. That was a defining moment.’

There’s one other huge bonus. Ticking items off your directory of professional goals helps give you a gold-plated CV. The act of pushing yourself towards little achievements, all faithfully recorded on your résumé, demonstrates motivation and passion – and your ever-evolving CV will glitter all the more because of it.

All of which equates to more opportunities to progress – meaning that there’s something of a self-fulfilling nature about a good career bucket list.

‘There is no question that in today’s world you can’t leave it to your company to manage your career,’ says Dr Iain Henderson. ‘The job market for successful professionals is a free market, not a welfare state. You need to set and achieve goals that build your CV and make it attractive outside your present organisation.’

His colleague Shirin Jarrar, a senior teaching fellow at Edinburgh Business School’s Dubai campus, agrees: ‘Successful professionals are the ones who can break away from the herd,’ she says. ‘They are able to demonstrate their uniqueness, clarity of thinking and focus – and what is more of an exhibit of these qualities than a well-defined set of goals?’