80,000 Hours of Work

When I hold mock interviews with Year 10 students to prepare them for job hunting, I do not tell them I have secured one interview from over 50 applications in three years. It would make me look vulnerable, expendable and invisible. Why would they listen to me? What would they think of me?

They might think it will never happen to them – the fear of being irrelevant, but it can.

With so many people hunting for jobs, you can be the hunter or the prey. I do not beat my chest and roar you must be a hunter. I say work is like the card game Snap. You can only play the hand life dealt you but if you keep going and keep developing you will get a match.

If you win one round, you can win another. Being in the game, reacting to opportunities, making yourself heard and accepting that other people win when you lose, can prepare you for the ups and downs of your career.

Do not gamble your future away by wasting time in jobs you hate and following dead ends for self-improvement. The world of work is unforgiving when you don’t have a job or looking for a new one. You can avoid being the prey of autonomy, cost cutting and unemployment by investing in yourself to boost your employability and resilience.

Career Satisfaction

Sometimes it feels that employers are more interested in what your parents did for a living, if you had free school meals, your sexual identity and describing in 500 words how you achieved more in the past two years than global iconic figures did in their whole lives. I am determined to change that. Your CV is a list, your covering letter is written by AI and interviews make you wonder what you do at work.

‘Everyone says it’s important to find a job you’re good at, but no one tells you how,’ writes Benjamin Todd in his book 80,000 Hours which is how long you should spend working if you stay employed and live long enough to reach retirement.

Todd’s formula for long-term career satisfaction is a combination of:

• Career Capital: Skills, Connections, Credentials, Character, Runway

• Immediate Impact: Pressing problem, Size of contribution

• Supportive Conditions: Engaging work, Supportive colleagues, Basic needs, Fit with personal goals

• Personal Fit: Key drivers, Track record, Expert views

The aforementioned runway is the time, financial security and career flexibility you have before you must lock into a long‑term path. I remember being in my twenties and refusing to accept my day job is what I do. I had plans, I wanted to make a difference, but I didn’t know what I was good at, what to do or how to do anything but fire off applications and hope for the best.

Skills & Knowledge Gurus

There is nothing groundbreaking in Todd saying your skills and knowledge are the most important part of your career capital. What I like is flipping that coin where you consider what skills and knowledge you gain from jobs to increase your value. This is not easy if employers are unsure what their roles and organisation offer.

Jobs for life are disappearing and traditional career pathways have you headbutting the glass ceiling or getting stuck on a bouncy castle with a stupid smile on your face. Todd says: ‘You don’t only need to gain skills, you also need to prove you have them to future employers.’ He is talking about credentials and it needs to be easier to build a reputation and showcase your portfolio to prove to employers what you can do.

Todd’s case studies emphasise the importance of identifying skills needed for a role, find the most efficient way to learn them, and have the connections to demonstrate your skills to secure job offers. This book is not against further education, business schools or consultancies, rather challenging the notion that the established ways of getting ahead are not the only way to learn and grow.

I wonder how many people get more respect on LinkedIn than me by telling you to develop skills that cannot be automated. Wow, Thankfully, Todd elaborates on that sage advice. ‘AI remains bad at tasks totally missing from their training data. The internet contains huge amounts of text, but there’s no equivalent store of data describing physical movement. White-collar workers are likely to be affected before many blue-collar ones.’

The other unsurprising steer is to develop AI skills and produce things that are in demand. Experiences, events, healthcare and services that make your life easier and cheaper without being rubbish. Leadership, management and social skills are considered essential for the future. I encourage young people to get involved in clubs, volunteering and community groups to develop those skills as lots of jobs do not come with management responsibilities. You need to understand how organisations operate.

Make Your Time Count

I am 46 and my management experience is under two years. This makes it difficult for me to progress in my career because I cannot demonstrate management experience. This is unfair because whatever your management ability if you have it on your CV you have the advantage in applying for leadership roles.

The 80,000 Hours book makes those past the halfway point in their career regret their choices and wish they could turn back time. As I failed GCSE science I will not pursue quantum physics or string theory to resolve my dilemma. My takeaway from the book is to focus on what I am good at and stop wasting my time trying to fit into career paths that don’t suit me. I am proud of what I have achieved and look forward to the next 20 years. I agree with the headline ‘Work is good for you. It’s bad for your mental health to be sitting at home, isolated.’

As the book subtitle is ‘How to Have a Fulfilling Career That Does Good’ it advises your career vision to focus on global problems you would like to work on and the types of roles that allow you to do that. However, the career maxim “follow your passion” is being hotly contested. Todd points out that passion can mask the realities of working in your desired field especially if you are not top talent. Your passion may be something you do when you aren’t working. Don’t chase money, follow your intuition or aim for an easy life. You just need to be good enough at something.

This is a good book that promotes keeping your options open and creating a career profile wanted by the labour market. However, following all this advice is likely to increase your anxiety as you discover how difficult work can be.

I was listening to this Financial Times video Are graduates prepared for the AI era? which included this advice for 18-year-olds: ‘Don't study something because you think it's going to get you a job in the future. Because trust me, even the biggest experts in the world do not know what the best jobs in the future are going to be.’

Keep playing “Work Snap” until you get a match.

Inspiration

What we talk about when we are working and living

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