Voiceover (00:01 ):
As we start a new year on the Cambridge Marketing Podcast this week, we look at the world of careers.

Anne Bailey (Form the Future) (00:07 ):
We do a lot of work with people of all ages to help them know themselves, consider their options, and get the support they need to move into a good job. And a good job is a completely subjective term. It means what's right for you.

Voiceover (00:23 ):
You are listening to the Cambridge Marketing podcast from Cambridge Marketing College.

Kiran Kapur (Host) (00:27 ):
Hello and welcome. This week we are in the area of careers, particularly starting careers and I'm delighted to welcome Anne Bailey, who is co-founder and CEO of Form The Future. Form The Future is a not-for-profit careers and employment company. And welcome, lovely to have you on the show. Could you explain Form the Future's mission?

Anne Bailey (Form the Future) (00:50 ):
Sure. And first of all, thank you for having me. Form the Future is really about helping young people navigate their next steps, whether that be into further education and training or into employment. We want to see everyone find and secure a good job, not just their first job, but basically to have developed career management skills that will serve them for life.

Kiran Kapur (Host) (01:18 ):
And career management is so important, isn't it? Because gone are the days when you went into a career and you stayed in it.

Anne Bailey (Form the Future) (01:26 ):
Absolutely. And really this the whole area of how the world of work is changing, the future of work, the opportunities that are available to people, that's what drives us. That's why we think what we do is so important because in the old days, yes, you could have essentially signed up for a job at 16, 18 or 22 and stuck with it for the rest of your working life. Those days have gone, our working world changes rapidly. Technology is changing the ways we work and no one should feel stuck. You need to be constantly horizon scanning, thinking about where your skills are, where they need to be and what opportunities you want to pursue.

Kiran Kapur (Host) (02:17 ):
You say young people, so what sort of age range do you normally deal with?

Anne Bailey (Form the Future) (02:21 ):
So we actually set this work up originally to go into schools in order to inspire young people about their future career options. So that might mean helping them make more informed decisions around which GCSEs to pursue. That's their sort of first set of choices they get to make. Then thinking about what to do after GCSEs. So should they go down the A level route or other vocational qualifications or can they go into employment perhaps through an apprenticeship? But if you are going to go down a university route that isn't an outcome in itself, that is still a stepping stone to longer term choices and decisions that you're going to need to make. So we wanted to make sure that young people as they progress through education, have opportunities to get information, experiences, insights and support so that they can feel confident about their decision making throughout that journey.

(03:25 ):
We do also work with adults. We work with people who've left school and still need that support to think through their next steps. We work with a lot of adults in job centres who may have lost their jobs or moved to this country and are trying to see how their qualifications that they've acquired elsewhere can help them slot in. So we do a lot of work with people of all ages to help them know themselves, consider their options and get the support they need to move into a good job. And a good job is a completely subjective term. It means what's right for you.

Kiran Kapur (Host) (04:07 ):
I think the biggest problem people have is where do they start with this? So what do you need to do to even think about planning out a career or where do you tell people to start?

Anne Bailey (Form the Future) (04:19 ):
Yeah. Well, we actually like to start with the self-awareness piece. Really knowing yourself, the worst thing you can do is try to choose a job that's going to be right for somebody else. You are the one who's going to do it. The work you do takes up a huge amount of your life. So it's really important that you know yourself and what's important to you. So we would often talk about that as being values and your students who will all be knowing about brand values can actually deploy that for themselves. What are your brand values? What matters to you? What are your motivators? What drives you? Is it more important to be saving the world or making a lot of money? Sometimes you can do both, but sometimes you have to choose, do you want to be in a collaborative environment or are you a deep thinker, an innovator, someone who needs to be in a darkened room doing your great work? All of these things, all of these factors are available to people, but different roles, different environments and different companies will present those opportunities in different ways. So really starting to have your list of what's important to you, where you think you will do your best work and where you want to go to whatever extent that might mean in terms of a career is a journey and the first job or the next job isn't going to be the last job. It's probably a stepping stone to something else in the,

Kiran Kapur (Host) (05:58 ):
We often tell people to self-assess, I'd never know what you're supposed to do to do that. I can sit and sort of stare into space and try and reflect, but I never really know what I'm supposed to do.

Anne Bailey (Form the Future) (06:11 ):
I mean, I always find frameworks help. So just the really simple one that we would use every time we debrief an activity, we've done what went well, even better if, what will I do next time? You can use that same approach to reflecting on your own work. I actually use a daily tracker, a daily, I have a daily planner. It's from a guy called Cal Newport who I follow and essentially I set out my day on one column and then I do my record, my actuals in the other. What did I plan to do? What did I actually do? And then my reflection, what went well, what did I learn and what will I do differently tomorrow? That practise of self-reflecting on a daily level, on a quarterly basis, on an annual level, you can apply the exact same approach to reviewing your levels of personal satisfaction.

(07:11 ):
Am I making the progress I want to be making towards the goals that I think I have? Now, of course, if you don't have clearly defined goals, that's okay. As long as you're a reflective learner, you can be learning from every encounter, every experience, every job that you do, you'll be learning a bit more about things that you like and that you do well. You'll be learning about where you felt you were stretched and challenged in a positive way and where you went beyond that stretch zone into a space that wasn't right for you. And you just learning these are the situations where I can really grow and thrive and these are the situations I need to be careful about because it's not playing to my strengths. And that's okay.

Kiran Kapur (Host) (07:58 ):
That's really interesting. I have to say the idea of doing a daily what I plan to do and what I actually did absolutely terrifies me.

Anne Bailey (Form the Future) (08:05 ):
Well, I mean I only do this because I need it. This didn't come because I was perfect at sticking to my plans. I need these frameworks, I need these tools, and I need the scaffolding to keep me on track. I know my weaknesses as well as my strengths.

Kiran Kapur (Host) (08:23 ):
I think the other thing that always intrigues me about goals and reflections is it's very easy to be looking at your day-to-day. And as I said, your day-to-day idea already terrifies me, but then it's very easy to lose the longer term. So how do you balance that, keeping the micro going and somebody coming to you that could be, I've got to study for my GCSEs versus I've also got to think about what I want to do next.

Anne Bailey (Form the Future) (08:48 ):
Yeah, I mean that is so difficult. We are always most preoccupied with the urgent, aren't we? The thing that's right in front of our noses. And so part of this daily planner also has a weekly reflection period, which I do on a Friday afternoon from four 30 to five ideally. And then you should be doing it also monthly, quarterly, annually, and scheduling that time. But if you think about the person who's thinking, I've got to study for my GCSEs, I don't have time and space or bandwidth to even be thinking about what I want to do next. I guess my advice to that person is make the time. And that doesn't mean being disciplined, being rigorous about, but take the time to go for a walk, go for a chat with somebody who you like and who inspires you. Find the opportunity to reach out and ask questions of others except that you don't have any of the answers and get curious about what's going on out there.

(09:48 ):
I really think there is. I worry about these students who want to study 22 hours a day because we know our brains can't take all that information in. The best advice is always build in breaks into your study schedule. You need that time to digest it, reflect on it, consolidate it, and I would say taking time out from the sort of here and now to give yourself time to explore your future is a way of also consolidating where you are now and building stronger foundations for that future. So it really is important to give yourself time and space just to be brave to think ahead, not in a stressful anxiety provoking way, but hopefully in an exciting, getting curious about those possibilities way.

Kiran Kapur (Host) (10:40 ):
Okay. What sort of mistakes do you see people making? You've