The Career Equation®: The Formula for Career Clarity

We're hitting pause on the podcast for a short while — and I wanted to let you know why. Zoë and I are absolutely flat out delivering client projects right now, and honestly, that has to take priority. The podcast takes real time and energy to do properly, and we'd rather step back briefly than give it anything less than our full attention. This is not goodbye. We're going to finish the season and we'll be back as soon as we come up for air. There are some great episodes in the pipeline and I can't wait to share them with you. In the meantime, we'd love to hear from you. Got a question about your career, or about how to build a culture of career conversations in your organisation? Send it over — we read everything. pod@thecareerequation.com Stay subscribed. We'll be back before you know it — and thank you, as always, for your patience and support. Links Free Equation Builder: https://www.thecareerequation.com Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It's Careers Q&A Day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today's question comes from Moira: "I'm in my late 40s, I'm single, and I've always longed to travel. I have a dream of working as a digital nomad, just travelling around the world, seeing different countries as I go. But how realistic is this, and how do I even begin?" What we cover: The explosion of remote working and freelance culture has genuinely opened this up — and Erica answers live from Greece to prove the point. But there's real groundwork to do before you pack your bags. Start with what you already have. If your current role is fully remote, pilot the idea first: go somewhere for a month with the intention to return, and stress-test how it actually feels before committing further. Get clear on your income foundation before you go. If you own a home you can rent out, that may cover more of your costs than you think — especially if you pair it with volunteering platforms like Workaway or WWOOFing that exchange skills for room and board. Know what you're selling and to whom. If you're going freelance, get a few plates spinning before you leave — freelance platforms, former colleagues, and conversations along the way can all be sources of work, but don't rely on figuring it out once you're already travelling. Think carefully about your destinations: cost of living, political stability, ease of getting home, and whether friends can come to you. Build in recovery time if you're planning to move regularly — it's more tiring than it looks. Keep your skills current. Online platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning are your friend, and AI literacy is becoming a real professional differentiator. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It's careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today's question comes from Siân, a senior manager in a growing organisation: "Should I support my employee's side hustle?" What we cover: Side hustles are no longer unusual - from Etsy shops and Substacks to AI tools and freelance work, portfolio careers are increasingly common. The real question isn't whether people should have them; it's what kind of culture you want to create around ambition and growth. Start from curiosity, not control. Before jumping to risk assessment, get into a genuine conversation: what does this give them that their day job doesn't? Creative expression, new skills, autonomy, extra income? Understanding the why opens a far richer dialogue than leading with policy. Look for the overlap. Side hustles often build exactly the skills you'd value inside your organisation - commercial awareness, marketing, leadership, negotiation, risk-taking. If they were volunteering in the same capacity, you'd likely be enthusiastic. Notice if the anxiety shifts when money is involved. Agree healthy boundaries together. Support doesn't mean open-ended freedom - it means an adult, collaborative conversation about time, energy, potential conflicts of interest, and use of resources. Co-creating those agreements builds trust and means you worry less about what's really going on. Leaders who welcome this conversation tend to build stronger loyalty, not weaker. If ambition outside the business feels threatening, people will hide it. If it feels discussable, they'll stay open - and often bring that energy back in. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It's careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today's question comes from a listener called Josh: "How can I save my career from falling off an AI cliff?" What we cover: Careers rarely fall off a cliff overnight — there are usually warning signs along the way. The key is learning to read them. AI isn't simply replacing jobs wholesale; it's reshaping how work gets done, automating repetitive and rule-based tasks while increasing the value of judgment, creativity, communication, and adaptability. Rather than asking "will AI replace me?", ask the better question: which parts of my role are likely to be automated, and which parts are becoming more valuable? That shift in framing moves you from anxiety to agency. Get close to the change — don't avoid it. You don't need to become an AI engineer, but you do need to understand how it's showing up in your world. Which tools are being used in your organisation? Where could AI make you faster and more effective? And which parts of your role genuinely require your human presence, judgment, and creativity? Build AI literacy in small, manageable steps. Experiment with tools like ChatGPT or Claude, explore short courses on LinkedIn Learning or YouTube, and set aside an hour or two a week to explore what these tools can do for you. Platforms like IVDO Jobs can also help you understand which AI skills matter in your specific field. Stop defining yourself by your job title. Instead, focus on your design — your skills, strengths, and the kinds of problems you solve. Keep evolving that story as things change, and you'll find far more flexibility and resilience as the world of work shifts around you. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It's careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today's question comes from Greg, who works in talent development in insurance: "Should every business have an internal career coaching team?" What we cover: Not every business needs a formal internal career coaching team, but every business does need to give people access to good career conversations. Those two things are not the same thing. Where internal career coaching services do exist, they are almost always oversubscribed. That appetite is real, but a dedicated team is not the only way to meet it. The risk of a formal coaching function is that it accidentally becomes the only place career conversations happen, which outsources the responsibility for building a career culture to a small group in one corner of the business. A more sustainable and economical approach is to broaden the skillset internally: managers, peers, mentors, alumni, and people-growth enthusiasts can all be equipped to hold good career conversations using one consistent framework. Confidentiality matters. If people don't feel safe speaking openly with internal colleagues, they won't engage, however well-resourced the provision is. The right answer is usually a mix: internal coaches and enthusiasts, trained managers, and a sprinkling of external coaching where needed, all operating from a shared model that makes career conversations familiar and accessible everywhere. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoe on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It's careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today's question comes from Diana, who works in a large-scale organisation: "We're a huge business. How can we embed career conversations in a scalable way?" What we cover: You don't scale career conversations by making them bigger, you scale them by making them simpler. The goal isn't a new platform or a 20-page framework. It's a few consistent behaviours that enough people actually do. Structure without behaviour just creates noise and ticks boxes. Give managers a conversation scaffold, not a document. Three simple questions, what does success look like for you right now? What experiences would you like in the next 12 months? What would you like to do more or less of? Asked consistently across an organisation, they will transform the quality of those conversations overnight. Build career conversations into rhythms that already exist. Monthly one-to-ones, quarterly check-ins, project debriefs, onboarding. The less decision-making required to make it happen, the more likely it is to happen. Everybody needs both a question set and a time and place. Measure the conversation, not just the outcome. Engagement scores and retention data won't tell you whether the conversations are actually happening. Ask people directly: have you had a career conversation in the last three months? Does your manager understand your aspirations? When it comes to rollout, both approaches work: go loud and proud with a whole-organisation launch, or identify a pilot group where there's a willing leader or a retention risk and build a good news story from there. You know your culture best. Most managers haven't been trained to have these conversations. Give them permission to be imperfect, to not have all the answers, and to focus on listening rather than fixing. The ownership of a career sits with the individual, the manager's job is to make them feel seen. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It's careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today's question comes from Mark, who leads talent in a global organisation: "What role does a career conversation play in succession planning and high potential talent retention?" What we cover: Succession planning tends to live in data and spreadsheets, while career conversations live in one-to-ones — and when the two aren't connected, you end up with ready-now lists no one has agreed to, high potentials who don't know they're seen as such, and people lined up for roles they don't actually want. A good career conversation tests ambition properly: does someone want broader scope, or deeper expertise? Do they want your job, or something entirely different? Too much succession planning assumes upward ambition — and that assumption is expensive. Career conversations surface development gaps early, making the whole process more developmental and less reactive — moving from building blocks to genuine dialogue about where someone is now versus where they want to go. When people feel seen and heard, they become relationally invested — and relationally invested employees are far less poachable than those who are simply labelled high potential and left to it. Common traps to avoid: treating succession planning as a confidential strategy rather than a shared dialogue; only discussing the next role when a vacancy appears; overlooking the "forgotten layer" of high performers who don't shout about themselves but could be your strongest succession candidates. If someone is on your succession plan and doesn't know about it, it isn't a retention strategy — it's admin. Their involvement is what gives it meaning. Surprise resignations, flight risks, and people quietly twiddling their thumbs are all things you should already know about. Career conversations, done well, mean none of this should catch you off guard. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It's careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today's question comes from Chris, who works in the tech world: "How do we stop unexpected resignations in tech?" What we cover: Most resignations aren't truly unexpected — by the time someone hands in their notice, they've likely been disengaging for months, quietly interviewing elsewhere, and feeling stagnant or undervalued. The decision has been brewing long before it lands. Tech is particularly vulnerable: high demand, high mobility, remote working, and constant recruitment pressure all thin the emotional ties that keep great people in place. But at the root of most "surprise" resignations is a simple absence of good dialogue about growth, progress, and the future. Stop waiting for annual reviews. At a minimum, build in quarterly career check-ins — and go bold by asking questions like "if a recruiter called you tomorrow, what would tempt you to leave?" Make it a real conversation, not a tick-box exercise. Train managers in career conversation, not just project delivery. Most tech managers were promoted for technical brilliance, not people leadership — they may need support spotting disengagement signals, handling ambition without getting defensive, and creating growth pathways beyond the management track. Make internal mobility easier than external mobility. In many tech businesses, it's actually easier to move to a different company than to a different team — and that needs to change. Visible internal opportunities, secondments, cross-functional projects, and job swaps all help people see a future without having to resign to find one. The goal isn't zero resignations — some turnover is healthy. The goal is zero surprises. If a resignation feels like a shock, the real issue is that the conversation should have happened six months earlier. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It's careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today's question comes from Natalie, who works in talent development at a mid-size professional services firm: "What do you think makes a great careers week, and what can we skip?" What we cover: A great careers week isn't just about visibility — it's about helping people work out the path from where they are to where they want to be, including how to transfer their skills across the organisation. Employees today aren't asking "how do I get promoted?" — they're asking "how do I stay relevant, evolve here, and what can I try so I don't have to leave?" If careers week doesn't address those questions, it risks becoming a performance rather than a turning point. Start with self-discovery before you start showcasing. A reflection session with a simple framework — what am I designed for, what do I want more or less of, what environments suit me? — gives people the anchoring they need to engage meaningfully with everything else. Platform real journeys, not just polished ones. Brief your speakers to talk about lateral moves, moments of doubt, and the messy middle. That's what makes stories relatable and memorable. Interactivity matters. Live career mapping workshops, ask-me-anything sessions, skills tasters, round tables, and rapid networking all help the week stick beyond the five days. Skip the over-engineered keynote speakers, generic non-interactive lectures, and frictionless success stories. If content can live in a library, put it there — don't make it a live session. Before you book a single speaker, answer this first: what do we want people to think, feel, and do differently as a result? Clarity of intention shapes everything. It's not about quantity — it's about clarity, visibility, and momentum. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com — audio messages especially welcome. Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It’s careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today’s question comes from Hannah, an HR leader in real estate investment: “I would love our managers to take ownership of career conversations, but they are definitely running scared. How can I get them to be up for talking to their people about their next steps?” What we cover: It’s completely normal for managers to feel anxious about career conversations, and a lot of that anxiety comes down to a misconception about what they’re actually for. The moment someone hears “career conversation”, they picture the dreaded “where do you want to be in five years?” which rarely ends well for anyone. The correct framing is this: the individual owns their career, the manager nurtures their capacity, and the organisation enables the opportunities. Managers don’t need to have all the answers, promise promotions, or become internal recruiters. That’s not their job. Much of what holds managers back is myth-busting: the fear that any career conversation will inevitably lead to a request for a promotion or a pay rise. It won’t, and even if it does, that’s a conversation worth having. Career conversations are fundamentally an engagement and retention tool. People stay where they feel genuinely seen and invested in. When it comes to how to run the conversation, the single most important thing is to take the pressure off yourself. Stay curious. Simple opening questions “What does success look and feel like for you?” or “What experiences would you love to have next?” do a lot of the heavy lifting. Sharing a little of your own journey can also help the other person open up. Finally, if you want managers to succeed at this, don’t just train the managers. Consider raising awareness across the whole organisation first so that when someone sits down for a career conversation, both sides know the philosophy, the structure, and what to expect. Preparation on both sides is what turns a good intention into an excellent conversation. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It's careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today's question comes from a listener with a lot going on: "How do I figure out the right career for me? I know I've got loads of interests and could go in many different directions, but how do I know that I'm making the right choice?" What we cover: Having lots of interests is genuinely a good problem to have, the reverse is having none. Start by getting everything out of your head and onto paper: a messy mind map of every passion, hobby, and area of curiosity, however disparate they might seem. Once you have that list, separate what you want to keep just for yourself from what you'd actually want to monetise. Some things lose their magic when they become work, a joy pursued occasionally is not the same as a job done every day. Knowing which is which is an important early filter. At the same time, don't dismiss the surprising ones too quickly. People build careers from things they never imagined possible. Keep an open mind about what "earning a living" could actually look like before you start narrowing down. To test your shortlist, run each idea through four questions: Would it use skills you want to be using? Would it genuinely engage and energise you? Would the outcomes feel meaningful and satisfying? And would the environment bring out the best in you? Stack your options against those criteria and let the list begin to shrink naturally. No process can guarantee you'll land the perfect career, but doing this work makes a grounded, confident decision far more likely than not doing it. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach

It’s careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today’s question comes from a listener in the media world: ”I’ve climbed the ladder and I’m doing pretty well, but I feel really burned out. When is it time to jump and leave? And how do I make a plan to do that in a thoughtful and stable way?”

When Your Next Role Isn't Clear Yet: Applying the Career Equation to Emerging Careers It's careers Q&A day where we give you some personal attention by answering your questions. Today's question comes from Nina: "How can you use the Career Equation for roles in the future that are not yet set in stone, they're still evolving?" What we cover: Sometimes you feel stuck because you've been a specialist - "I've only done this, where else could I be useful?" Other times there are too many choices and the decision making feels overwhelming. Either way, doing nothing is still a choice. Your backstory is full of information you're probably overlooking. When have you loved stuff in the past? What have you been drawn to? When did you learn a skill you've not used for ages? Take time to harvest these insights from your story so far. Stop trying to find the name of the perfect job - there are so many titles now it won't help. Instead, think about what kind of experiences you want next. Is it a simple flip? Indoors to outdoors? Screen time to people time? Regulated environment to something more free-flowing? Or something completely different - more impact, being part of a cohesive team, using particular skills? These experiences become your anchor points. When you've got clarity, it's easy to take action. Careers are a series of choices about how what you're good at aligns with how you spend your time and make money. Send your questions: Email or voicenote to pod@thecareerequation.com Links: Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach