S5E1 – Insights and Strategies to Navigate Career Transitions

Are you feeling like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole in your career? Join us as we delve into the Art of Career Transitions in this episode of Small Talk with RainKraft. I’m Subha Chandrasekaran, a career growth coach, and I’m thrilled to be here with Hasita Krishna, a marketing consultant at Motley Crew. We’ll decode the challenges, opportunities, and strategies behind making those leaps in your professional journey. Tune in to gain insights, find courage, and embrace the possibilities!

Discussion Topics: Insights and Strategies to Navigate Career Transitions

• You might feel at a crossroads
• Triggers – some obvious and some not so much
• How to find time (and courage) to learn new things
• A non-obvious trick to identify valuable, transferable skills
• 3 actions to lay the groundwork
• Get ready to do this one uncomfortable thing
• Sidebar: Going from entrepreneur to employee
• Two things you can do in a week right now

Transcript: Insights and Strategies to Navigate Career Transitions

Subha Chandrasekaran: Hi there. I’m a career growth coach, and this is season five of Small Talk with RainKraft with Hasita.

Hasita Krishna: I’m a marketing consultant at Motley Crew, and I’m so excited. Have we been to season five already?

Subha Chandrasekaran: Can you believe it? Please do. Look us up and catch an earlier episode too, but let’s get on with this one.

You might feel at a crossroads

Subha Chandrasekaran: Hasita. Have you ever been at a Crossroads in your career, wondering whether it’s time to change parts? I hear this often from mid-career professionals and even young folks who have started out but are feeling a bit unsure about the choices that they’ve made.

Hasita Krishna: Just yesterday I was feeling at a crossroads and it’s not the first time. There are so many opportunities and there are so many paths that we can take today. I think when I was just about to go into graduate-level education, the only options ahead of us were engineering and medicine. And within 10 years, that has changed so much.

So if you know we are not feeling like we are in that place of a transition, then I think that would be a much bigger concern. It is a tough sport though because when there are opportunities and choices, there’s also the fact that we have done something for a certain amount of time and now what do we choose if we should go with something else?

And frankly, how do we even know that what we are doing is not a good enough thing for us, exactly?

Subha Chandrasekaran: So maybe let’s see what career transition really means, right? Because changing your career is not easy. It’s like you said, you’ve built years of professional training or expertise, and it can be quite daunting if you have to one day switch to an organisation in a very different industry.

But it can also be a period of really exciting learning self-discovery and growth. So maybe let’s unpack some of the strategies around this. Firstly, even just the challenges around this, what leads to a transition then, what can you do about it? And I’m sure we have enough personal experience in

Triggers – some obvious and some not so much

Hasita Krishna: Yes. In fact, I was gonna ask you that you made a huge transition. What was your trigger? What was your thought process? How did you know that you are over something that you’ve done for a good, more than a decade? Almost two.

Subha Chandrasekaran: That’s the starting point that there is typically some trigger and that trigger could be various things.

And I think for me it was a combination of work and home, if I could call it, or life outside of work. And at work, the usual triggers are, the very. The simplest trigger is let’s say compensation or you didn’t get the role that you wanted or the reward that you were promised. Or, you have a really toxic manager.

We’ve spoken about that at length earlier. Those are some of the things that would be a very quick trigger.

Hasita Krishna: More obvious trigger.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Yeah, more obvious. And it’s something that you’re, it happens and you’re reacting to it. Then there are triggers that happen over a period of time.

It keeps adding up. And then, you reach a point where you say, let me take a call on this or something. Something’s bothering me. So that could be because you are. Really not feel like you’re growing. In that position, you feel I’m coming in every day and I’m giving it my all and what am I getting back?

And so that’s a trigger that builds up over a period of time because you start maybe also seeing peers doing something new. The industry is evolving in a way in which maybe your organisation is not keeping up.

And there are shiny new objects out there, right? Completely and the deeper ones. The ones slightly tougher to identify are where it either has to do with family considerations and more often it also has to do with the fact that you’re just not happy coming into that space.

The kind of work that’s being done, the organisational vision, the value system that the organisation now seems to have, which could have undergone a drastic change, right? Because of business model changes, because of the environment, et cetera. Let’s say even pre-pandemic and post-pandemic, there could have been huge shifts in how a company is run and how that culture has grown.

And so that could be something that starts to annoy you that I need to take a deep, hard look. The other more personal aspect, which has cropped up for many folks, is that, hey, there is another way to do this.

There is a life where I could potentially work from home more, and be more integrated with family life. I could have the flexibility that earlier the job didn’t provide. And I’ve shown that I can be as good in this model, but the organisation is not supporting it anymore.

Hasita Krishna: And maybe to some extent, even a newfound awareness of one’s own potential, right? Like we get to a point and then we realise we don’t want to do the thing that got us there anymore, and we’ve grown into new things, perhaps new interests, frankly, even a new expression of that potential as well. And you’re right, those are very small shifts. And the only way to know that has taken place is the disappointment with what is

Subha Chandrasekaran: Correct. And that’s a, it’s a very small shift because one of the interesting things about going to work is that whatever you have planned will fill the day. And I’m hearing from some coaches now that it’s not taking me eight, or nine hours to do what I need to do. And there is an opportunity to do more.

If I can do more, why do the same, more of the same? Can I explore other opportunities out there and really see what my potential is? This includes maybe chasing an idea that’s been sitting in the back of your head, or challenging yourself to new roles, which means a lot is spent in learning itself.

Hasita Krishna: And that’s just the awareness part, right? Like us, now we know that there’s something that’s maybe calling us away from what we are doing, if not towards something else. But at least that awareness is there.

Subha Chandrasekaran: And there could also be the pull. Like you want to specifically add something to your resume.

Or you’ve worked with a bunch of startups and you want to add a couple of big names to your portfolio, right? You wanna work with certain brands. And there are so many who in the tech industry are so keen to, let’s say, have that Google or Microsoft or Facebook on their resume at least for, or even Amazon, right to, because it means something to them. Say you’ve been there and survived.

How to find time (and courage) to learn new things

Hasita Krishna: Fair enough. Again, a career is a very long-term, kind of situation. It’s not as simple as showing up at a different workplace on a Monday morning. And now that we know that, I think the biggest hindrance I find is simply that I don’t know how to do anything else.

Let’s say on a given work day, there’s not always enough focused Headspace to explore something else, and it’s almost like you are probably at a middle management level, in place one, and then in place two, you’re pretty much starting from scratch.

You’re an intern almost just as a mindset-level challenge. I find that does come up. How do you make space for these two different identities?

Subha Chandrasekaran: Very true. And it takes us back to the fundamental concept of having a growth mindset for those who can. Embrace it, be willing to say that, there are challenges and I am ready to learn, my identity is not tied to being the world’s greatest coder. The difficulty lies when you’ve tied your identity to the work that you do.

I’m a great Designer, I’m a great coder, I’m a great analyst. And so you can’t even imagine a world when you’re not doing one of these things, right? But when you are able to go below and say, okay, what are the skill sets that lie beneath?

And that takes introspection. It takes time to generate that awareness for yourself. what we spoke about till now, it’s somehow happening to you. It’s pushing you to this precipice.

And now you have to make some decisions. And so that becomes the toughest part because you, it looks like you are actually at the edge of the cliff and you’re like, I’ve come till here being really good at doing certain things, and now I have to fall all the way to the bottom and start again.

Pretty much. And there’s a, Interesting bit I heard from Richard Che’s, the one who wrote about the 80 20 principle, and I think now he’s a very successful investor, et cetera also. But he started as a history major. Wow.

I think many of us who haven’t studied history or don’t have a deep interest think of it as learning a bunch of stuff that already happened. It’s like a set of facts. But he says that history is a lot about what he calls counterfactuals, that what else could have happened?

Why did this happen? And so those are very difficult questions, but they make you think about various things.

Scenarios and possibilities. And they make you analyse not just human behaviour, but maybe economic conditions and geopolitical conditions and all the factors that came into play. And he says right now, venture capital investing is all about scenarios. So I am uniquely positioned because I have that skill

Hasita Krishna: And that’s not something you come to a conclusion on one morning. I’m sure it’s a long period of just figuring out that these two dots seem to connect in this very specific space and time. And then, of course, my own interest. And abilities as well. Correct.

A non-obvious trick to identify valuable, transferable skills

Subha Chandrasekaran: My transition was also, if you look at it now in. In hindsight, it was pretty drastic. There were those initial moments where I said, Hey, 15 years, all I’ve been is a banker. Hence all I know is managing people and managing processes and managing the customer.

How do I transition out of this into something that I will do completely on my own? I don’t have any transferable skills, do I? And so it did take quite a bit of effort to then say, Hey, these are the skills that I used, these are the skills that I’ve sharpened and these are the skills that I want to continue using.

And then there’s this big chunk that I may need to learn now.

Hasita Krishna: So is there a soul-searching notebook somewhere where you actually made a note of all these things? And listeners, if you’re searching your souls very deeply, please do remember to hit follow while you’re at it. Thank you so much.

Subha Chandrasekaran: There are a lot of transferable skills, which we don’t realise.

And that’s a great starting point. And the other thing that I did was a swot. A SWOT in kind of a reverse fashion. Because typically in a swot, we sit down and say, okay, what are my strengths? What can I do? What can I not do? And hence what opportunities do I chase?

And when I did that, it was a very limiting view because the strength was, Hey, I know finance, I know banking systems, I know regulations. But when I only went from that strength, then the options in front of me were to join another bank or at that time a lot of payments. Payment banks were coming up, and a lot of FinTech startups were coming up. So it would’ve taken me down that path. But I don’t think that’s what my soul was searching for at that point.

So only when I flipped it, to say, let’s start with the opportunities out there. What is, what’s the gap out there that I could look at? And For someone, with my level of years in the industry and for someone with the kind of networks that I had and the kind of interest that I had, I started with something as simple as mentoring.

Women coming back to their careers because women succeeding in the workplace was a gap slash opportunity. And it was something that I had seen from close range.

And so looking at it from an opportunity perspective then also led to, okay, what are corporates looking for? They are looking for experts who’ve been there, and done that. Who’ve actually led teams and not, are not coming at it from a theoretical viewpoint.

And so that helped, right? That helped make some connections and start some early programs and workshops, et cetera. Starting with what the market needs can completely flip them. Equation.

Hasita Krishna: Equation. And that’s interesting because I think, the more logical way of making that decision seems to be to start with ourselves, but I think this is quite interesting, and I like what you said about not knowing the magnitude of that transition, which is why you’re probably even able to look from the outside in. And that’s quite fascinating. This brings up a bunch of questions, but I wanted to ask you the big question first.

Will you be making a t-shirt that says there’s only so much searching of the soul that you can do?

Subha Chandrasekaran: Oh Lord, I’ll buy one of five people, maybe comment saying that they will buy one, then it’s all, you’ll make it. 

Hasita Krishna: Yeah, let’s make it happen.

Subha Chandrasekaran: And that brings me to another T-shirt idea. There’s a lovely Mary Oliver quote that says What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Wow. That kind of hits hard when you are in these phases of wondering what’s happening with your life.

Hasita Krishna: Yeah, I think there’s a promise there that the leap itself is valuable irrespective of whether Yeah, exactly. And then you can leap again if it doesn’t work.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Exactly. And I think the youngest generation in the workforce really knows that. Really knows that it’s going to be several leaps. And several highs and several lows. my generation in the workforce is only now realising that because they’re in their thirties, and forties, losing jobs. Technology is getting outdated. they’re competing with a younger crowd. And because some leaps were not attempted earlier. It is genuinely daunting now. I can only imagine.

3 actions to lay the groundwork

Hasita Krishna: So Subha, we now know that a career is not a linear thing that you do from the beginning of your twenties till the end of your retirement. There are so many options, and at some point or the other, we are all going to be called into doing something about those options and opportunities. Where do you begin?

Subha Chandrasekaran: The first step, we’ve, in a way, talked about saying, do that little bit of introspection. What are your skills? What are your interests? What’s happening in the world around you?

What excites you? So if you find that you’re gravitating towards certain kinds of stories, articles, you’re listening to certain kinds of people, there’s something there. Pay close attention to that and then start researching fundamentally the homework that has to be done. It’s not going to just. Appear one day. It’s not going to appear. Meet with people or talk to a lot of people. And if you remember, that’s how we met, right? I was starting to build something.

You were starting to expand your scope of work and the kind of people you work with. And we were just out there at an Industry event, right? Free industry. The lunch was good. I spent maybe the first five, or six months along with some work that came along. Just out there going to a lot of startup pitch events.

Not because I was going to make the next new app or anything, but just to see, hey, what’s this generation doing? What are they talking about? What are their challenges? Who are they? And that helped me a lot in the journey that I subsequently took and in the people that I subsequently worked with.

One put yourself out there. And yes, you may still be at your full-time job and most likely you are. Make time in the evenings and the weekends and find some opportunity to speak to people and meet people and talk to them, ping them on LinkedIn, whatever it takes. Also, find ways to experiment with some of these roles.

Maybe volunteer somewhere or say, take up a non-paid gig somewhere because that will give you a sense of, okay, what I’m looking for seems to be this.

Now what are my skill gaps? And how can I plan to fill that gap because that gap is significant or large enough. Maybe it means taking a year off to do that learning. And then that has to go into your subsequent planning, financial and otherwise.

Get ready to do this one uncomfortable thing

Hasita Krishna: The other piece is that you, many of us who leave corporate, especially we lose that large chunk of our identity, and so you have to get ready to market yourself.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Yeah.

Hasita Krishna: It’s not that easy just telling people that, Hey, this is what I do now. It’s not the easiest thing to do, actually.

Subha Chandrasekaran: So you won’t have that perfect introduction to yourself. You won’t have a Perfect answer as to why you are in this room. It’s okay. I think this journey is also highly emotional. it’s not a purely cognitive journey.

It’s not about just the logistics. You have to manage the fears, the uncertainty that you will face some of the setbacks you will apply to a few places. You may not get accepted And you have to be able to have those conversations saying, this is why.

And you can do that only if you have a sense of it. This is why. I was listening to Harsha Bhogle the other day. and he started as an engineer. Mba. And He’s not really played cricket. But that’s not what the job needs.

He needs to give you insightful cricket analysis. And he has the skill set to do that. And he’s developed that skillset over a period of time, over a period of time.

But he’s made that leap of faith. So there are a lot of transitions, which you can do. Look around and see examples. And today when you look at the opportunity that even LinkedIn gives you, you meet somebody and you’re seeing them in a certain role and then you say, Hey, who is this person?

And you look at their LinkedIn profile and it starts somewhere else. And it’s really interesting. Even, it’s a very large example, if you look at Jeff Bezos, he talks about how he was in a very high-paying finance job, and he said, I wanna leave this and this is my idea.

And I think buying books online is going to become big, et cetera. And at that time, nobody was able to even see it. Even see it. So a lot of these changes have a lot of learning for us.

Sidebar: Going from entrepreneur to employee

Subha Chandrasekaran: There are even those who have gone the other way in the sense that once you move from corporate to entrepreneur doesn’t mean that you’re stuck in that forever because whatever you do may click, Or you may just say, okay, it’s time is over.

Hasita Krishna: And that’s actually a big thing on my mind and a lot of people’s mind is that it’s not the most socially acceptable thing to come back into the workplace.

Subha Chandrasekaran: So some of them do it because let’s say you sell and then the, and the new company brings you on board at.

As a senior leader, continue to run what you run. But typically those folks lose steam. Like when, because it’s not the same ecosystem anymore. Yeah, it’s the same. Facebook bought Instagram, they stuck around for a while, but valued systems the way they wanted to do things, and then they moved on to something else.

Even the CEO of Adobe started in Apple and then he founded a company. And then he joined a corporation, And he didn’t jump at the CEO level, he held multiple positions. Before becoming the CEO. So there are a lot of such examples. I think Open your mind first.

Two things you can do in a week right now

Hasita Krishna: What would be your recommendation to someone on whose mind? It’s probably been for a while and let’s say I take out a week and I say, I’m gonna really think about it. What should I do?

Subha Chandrasekaran: No. So just, I think putting together everything that we spoke about today. One is Usually there’s a trigger, right? So when you start feeling like you need change you want change, or circumstances are pushing you towards change latch onto it a bit and dig deeper and see where is this coming from.

What is it telling you? What else are you paying attention to? And use that as a starting point to say, okay, now in this context, what is, what am I feeling? What would I like to be doing? What are? What are the skills that I have picked up over the years and not just, functional, don’t just give them functional names but dig deep into what exactly am I doing here.

If I had to tell a five-year-old what I really do in this job? And hence, what are my skill sets? And then start looking for people, organisations, and opportunities. So give yourself time to create that—kind of basket of information for yourself. Which you will then experiment with. And that’s interesting.

Hasita Krishna: To really, I think, make it a playground and maybe have a bit of, a positive inclination towards the whole thing instead of seeing it as a, oh my God, I have to do it in the next three months or six months, or I think to get a little more intentional about it,

Subha Chandrasekaran: And so give yourself timelines and how long can you experiment and how, why, when do you need to decide, et cetera. Being a little on the generous side, I feel like don’t be too hard on yourself and expect that in three months you will’ve cracked the code and you’ll know exactly what you wanna do, would’ve also found that job, et cetera.

So even if it means that on the path to that, there’s something interim, do it. Do it.

Hasita Krishna: Interesting. Maybe it’ll just land on me. Who knows?

Subha Chandrasekaran: Just go and stand at the edge of a cliff and then maybe, see what happens. See what happens. No, don’t do that. Don’t try this at home. Please.

Hasita Krishna: At home, what you can try is to subscribe, follow, and do all of those things that make our hearts very happy.

You can do that.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Yes you can. Thank you folks. Thank you.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Hey, small talkers. Thanks for listening. I hope you take away something useful from this episode, and if you are in the middle of a career transition, wish you well. Bye.