Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep233: How to take a career break (without destroying your future job prospects). Part 1.

Episode Date: November 24, 2024

✅ Watch FREE WORKSHOP, newsletter, work with me ⮕ http://www.meiphing.com ✅ Corporate Survivor™ is the ultimate career course for 9-to-5 working professionals, just like *you*, who want to enhance corporate world mindset, skillset and strategy so you can NAVIGATE + GROW your career with clarity, confidence & opportunities... 🚀 ⚡ 📌 ABOUT THIS PODCAST: Welcome to Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing — ex-Corporate Leader turned Career Coach & Founder of The Corporate Survivor™. On this podcast, Mei Phing shares her corporate world insights, experiences and wisdom so you can grow your 9-5 career with clarity, confidence and opportunities. ✅ WEBSITE ⮕ https://www.meiphing.com ✅ FREE GUIDE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/freeguide ✅ NEWSLETTER ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/mondays ✅ CAREER COURSE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ⚡

Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Should I take a career break? And if I decide to take a career break, how do I do that in a way that I will not destroy my future career prospects?

Hey, welcome, welcome back to the Corporate Survivor Podcast. With me, Mei Ping, ex-Corporate Leader turned Career Coach and founder of the Corporate Survivor, the ultimate career program for 9 to 5 professionals just like you. So today I want to answer a very common question that I get asked as well because personally i've actually taken two career breaks first was in 2016 when my mom was actually re-diagnosed with cancer so i took a seven month career break then then in 2019 i took another career break because my mom was terminally ill and i decided to return home to penang to be a caregiver to her so So to be honest, that career break since 2019

is actually what led to me discovering career coaching and eventually creating Corporate Survivor, helping hundreds and thousands of members out there navigate the corporate world and to grow their career. So in terms of like thinking about career break, I want to tackle today's episode in like two key sections. So the first part, we're going to talk about what are some of the key considerations if you're thinking about whether you should take a

career break or not. I definitely share with you what are the things that went through my mind and to a point that I decided to take a career break. And the second part is that what can you actually do to make sure that you are setting yourself up for success when your career break ends, right? Whether the career break ends in a few months or maybe a few years, there are some things that you can definitely do to make sure that you do not destroy your future career prospects, right? Obviously, you want to make sure that whatever decision that you make for a career right now, whether it's for your family, your parents or whatever, right? When the time is right for you to return to the workforce to continue on your career, you want to make sure that it is smooth sailing also. So let's talk about the first part, which is how did I decide to eventually take the career break? So this is

actually something that many people think about because obviously there are many, many things that can happen in our professional life, in our personal life as well. So I'll share with you what went through my mind that eventually helped me decide to go for it. So I think the first thing to think about is that what is this event or situation that may have happened that is actually leading to you thinking to take this break? So again, like I said, there could be a personal reason. So for me, my situation was that my mom was terminally ill. So I was like, okay, I think that I want to spend time with her.

So that was what led to my career break in 2016 as well as 2019 or maybe you have an older parent that need time that you want to spend more time with them or maybe they need some care or maybe you have young children right you want to spend more time with them as they are growing up or you maybe you have infants right you want to spend more time taking care of your kids as well so there could be personal reasons and i think the only thing i can say for um if you want to take a career break based on personal reasons is that to really make sure that you are setting yourself up for success whenever you are going to end this break and this is something i will tackle a little bit later in this episode so i think if it's personal reasons then do what's

right for you and this is something that i've also decided for myself to take a career break and even though that time many people told me that maybe this is like doesn't make sense your career is growing right you are doing really well at standard charter at that time like you know you should just take a sabbatical like you don't really need to quit but personally i felt that it was the right decision for me and till today i don't have any regrets so like i said if it's a personal reason, then no one deserves to tell you whether it's right or not. As long as you feel that it's right,

then just go for it. Now, there could be, like I said, the other reason. And the other reason could be, is it driven by professional challenges? Now, the reality is that in our career, it's a long journey, okay? It's not like a one-year thing.

Your career journey could be another 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, or even more. And as we go along the career journey, there may be challenges along the way. And sometimes the challenges can be very overwhelming to a point that you start telling yourself that, no, thank you. Like, I need to, like, be gone here.

It's like, I don't want to work here anymore or i don't want to deal with this anymore and therefore the initial the immediate thing that you may think of is that let me just take a career break because i just want to get out of this situation so this is something that is quite common i'll say i won't say it's like normal but i say it's quite common for sure and i think that if you're in a situation that is actually driven by professional challenges right then the second consideration i want you to think about is whether do you think that this is something that you can improve on your situation or do you really need to take the career break now i'll explain to you what i mean now i find

that a lot of people when they think about taking a career break, it kind of feels that I can just stop the problem immediately. However, the danger of that is that once you get into another new job, right, maybe it's a few months from now or even later, the same problems might happen again. So my point is that when you are driven to take a career break because you can't deal with whatever, you know, your career or work situation right now, then I think it's worthwhile to really think about whether if I adopt a slightly better mindset, if I learn better corporate skills,

if I gain a new perspective, would I see this situation differently? And this is definitely something that I help many of my corporate survivor career course members with because most of the time when they come to me, they tell me that maybe like, do you think that i should take a career break the same conversation that we're having right now and then i will actually dissect and we discuss in very

specific detail what happened at their current job like why do they feel there's a need for them to move on why is there a need for them to feel like they need to just let go of everything and get into the unknown and And in most instances, when talking to my career course members, and even for something that I've done in my personal life as well, is that you may be able to come down, be objective, and identify certain areas that you can definitely improve in your work. Maybe it's relationship with different people, learning how to send progress updates to your boss, re-connecting better relationships with your boss, making sure that your hard work is recognized and seen by the right people. So all these could be just a skills gap.

It's something that you can easily improve on. It's something that you can learn. And the situation will get better to a point that you feel better, you feel more confident, and eventually the career break is not going to even be a question. So that is something that definitely I've seen for many of my career course members. And on a monthly basis,

we also have live Q&A calls and I get updates from them. And I definitely can see that once they started being more objective, being calmer and taking that very specific steps, even if those are small steps,

they started feeling better and eventually they started feeling less frustrated and the conversation around career break just disappears. So the other part around this point is that if you feel that this is a situation that cannot improve, whether it's the company's problem

or you feel like your boss's problem or it's the team's problem, the structural problem, whatever it is, even after getting advice, maybe you get my, if you're a corporate staff member, you get my advice as a career coach or a mentor, or you get someone else's advice,

and you conclude that, no, I think the situation is not going to improve, then do you really want to immediately jump into a career break? Or do you want to start preparing to exit this job? So there's a big difference because in my opinion, it's like if you feel that, okay, this situation is not salvageable and I'm not willing to put in the effort

to improve the situation, then is it better to just take a career break and then just not do anything and to again come back on to see whether this thing is actually going to work out or not, and just be hopeful whether the next job is going to work or not. Because there are situations I've seen in which some people, they feel that they want to quickly exit the current job. It's like, okay, maybe I don't want to take a career break, but I need to quickly quit this job.

And as a result of that, they might end up jumping into a different role that may not be very suitable for them. And this is a conversation that I've also heard from some of my corporate surveyor members as well. So when they share with me some of their career challenges and asking me like what's the next step and as we work around their career strategy, I also often hear some of my members telling me that, oh, actually, I don't know why I got into this job. Actually, I really didn't think as to whether it's going to work out or not. I just know that at that time, I really hated my job. And I was not really willing to take a career break, or maybe I was in the midst of thinking about a career break, but this opportunity just happened to come,

and I really hate my job. And I just jump onto the next opportunity. And then guess what? Most of the time, the next opportunity is also a disaster, okay? Because you have not really addressed what created the chaos in the previous job, okay? So you're bringing along the chaos to the next job. So I'm not saying whether, right, taking a career break is right or wrong, but I just really think it's an important conversation for us to have and deep dive as to hey actually what is leading you to wanting to take the career break and the the behaviors that you are exhibiting that is actually getting you into potentially more drama in the future and you really want to identify these behaviors to really stop those so that you can actually come be calm and to redirect yourself to something that's more objective,

or something that is going to be calmer for you, more confident. Okay, so just wrapping up the first part in which, like I said, is the career break decision or the question came from personal situation, which in my opinion, like there's no right or wrong, like if you feel it's right for you, just do it. But if it's based on, or if it's driven by a professional situation, which in my opinion, like there's no right or wrong. Like if you feel it's right for you, just do it. But if it's based on it, or if it's driven by a professional situation, then I really want you to ask yourself whether, like, do you want to learn how to fix it? Right. Which could, like I said, you could get guidance. You can get my perspective. You can get my advice. We can re-strategize. If you're a member of the corporate survivor, you can definitely do that. Or you decide that I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be in this company anymore.

Then how can I start preparing to exit, right? This is where you start exploring your career interests, your career direction, right? Updating your resume. All these things are also taught in the corporate survivor, right? Whether it's wanting to improve your working relationship or wanting to seek out the next opportunity, both are actually taught in the Corporate Survivor Career Course itself.

So let's move on to the next part in which I really want to talk about. If let's say you've decided that, okay, maybe I've already decided to take a career break. So I don't know how long my career break is going to be. Is it going to be two months? Is it going to be six months? Maybe it's going to be a few years. So what should I do? Now, the first thing not to do is to just roll on every single day, hoping that, well, at some point, right, when I come back to the working world, everything's going to be okay. Now, of course, maybe at the point that you're taking a career break, obviously there may be other more important things on your mind and you don't really want to think about some of the things that you can do to make sure that you can set yourself up for success. But hear me out, even if this is something that

takes only 30 minutes, I want you to make sure that you do it. Now, what I found very useful in my own career, when I took a career break, or even at the beginning of me taking a career break, I knew I was still going to go on a career break. So how do I, it's like future proof, foolproof my decision. So knowing that I can always come back anytime. So the answer is actually LinkedIn. Now I know LinkedIn nowadays is a bit of a mess there. However, right, I want you to realize and know that there are many recruiters, HR and hiring managers scouring through LinkedIn every single day, looking for very, very good candidates that they want to present to companies who are

hiring. They are hiring, which then means that I want you to spend, even if it's just 30 minutes, I want you to really, really go and update every single element of your LinkedIn profile. Now, that is very important because you want to make sure that you are discoverable. You are discoverable to recruiters, maybe during the period of your career break, recruiters who are looking for candidates. And if you're a good candidate, you will be getting messages from recruiters. And then it's for you to consider whether

is it a right opportunity and whether that makes sense in terms of when you think you want to get back into the workforce. So make sure that you do that. Now, there's also also second thing i want you to do with linkedin is actually networking so when you leave your current company obviously you're going to take a career but you're going to resign right but when you leave your current company i want you to really make an effort to connect with some of the key stakeholders whether it's your team members your boss or maybe other people that you have worked with connect connect with them on LinkedIn because there may be opportunities

that will pop up as time goes on. Obviously, while you're on a career break, right? The company is still, like life goes on, right? Work goes on. And there may be opportunities, positions, projects that come up and they remember that, hey, actually, right? Mei Ping used to be so good in this role. She's on a

career break right now. I wonder what she's doing. Let me reach out to her. And I can tell you that this is something that definitely has happened in my career. Remember I said earlier, when I took a career break in 2016, right, I took a break for about seven months in total. However, in the, I would say, fifth month of my career break, I actually got multiple messages from recruiters, specifically from Google as well as PayPal. Obviously, I ignored all the rest, but for Google and PayPal, I did attend the interview just to learn a little bit more about the role. And how did they find me? It's on LinkedIn. So they found me on LinkedIn because I had a very strong LinkedIn profile.

So I received messages asking me if I'm interested to learn more about opportunity and I decided that, okay, why not? So I attended the interview. I learned a little bit more, even though that time I wasn't really ready to get back into the working world, but imagine how good it feels and how assuring it feels that even though you're on a career break, and at that time I was definitely on a career break, that you are still getting opportunities, meaning that anytime you want to get back into the corporate world, into the working world, into another job, it's not going to be a problem

because even though I was on a career break, I knew that people could see the value in my background skills and experiences and I'm already getting messages of people who are interested. And remember I said earlier around making sure that you are connected to your ex-colleagues or ex-team members

or like ex-stakeholders and so forth is so useful because how I ended up rejoining Standard Chartered in 2017, remember I said like about seven months after my initial career break, was I was in touch with one of the stakeholders that I used to work with a lot before I quit. And that stakeholder, eventually they were setting up a new team, right right it's a business team business portfolio team and this lady reached out to me asking me that if so what have you been doing right now like do you feel that you want to get back to our team because we are hiring and we really love to have you and are you free maybe let's have a discussion around um is this something

that you would want to do and then let's talk about maybe some of the timelines in terms of like your personal plans, like what is it all about? So this is super duper helpful. And eventually I did get back into the role. And this only happened because of the fact that I had a very strong LinkedIn profile. I also network with the people who have worked with me. Obviously we connected and there was a little bit

of back and forth during my career break. So I'm still connected. I'm not actively networking, but I'm still connected. And that was how I managed to easily land a role whenever I felt that I was ready

to get back into the working world and I actually rejoined Standard Chartered. Then on the other half is that for my second career break from 2019 until today in fact i'll say that until today i'm still getting messages from recruiters asking me for like compliance director positions right the banking director positions as well and how do they find me it's on linkedin because guess what my background skills and experiences are clearly on display.

My professional value, my professional reputation, everything is there. And that's how recruiters can still find me, HR can still find me, even though I have not applied for a job for a long time. And obviously right now,

I'm really, really focused on the Corporate Survivor, which is my career program for 9-5 professionals, basically teaching my members exactly what I've done is my career program for 9 to 5 professionals, basically teaching my members exactly what I've done in my career. Clarity, confidence, gaining opportunities,

how to really set yourself up for success, especially long-term success. You're talking about the next 10, 20, or even 30 years. So all these are things that it sounds very simple, but I think it's really, really important to set yourself

up for success so that i don't want you to panic when when you feel that like okay you know my family thing has resolved already or after i've taken a little holiday now i want to get back to the working world and then you start feeling lost in terms of like oh what what do i do now i didn't plan anything and now look at the job market. I feel so stressed out. And then you start feeling low confidence. You start doubting yourself. You start feeling lost, which is not a good feeling, right? Obviously, after your career break, you want to start afresh. It's a new adventure.

It's a new beginning. And I want you to feel this way too. And the strongest way that you can set yourself up to feel this way is to really make sure that you are taking the career break for the right reasons and you're not escaping. You're actually intentionally making that decision to take that career break. And the next part, of course, is to make sure that you set yourself up for success. And LinkedIn is definitely one of the best methods to be able to do that. So with that, I hope that this episode gives you much better clarity in terms of how to make that decision

or whether you should make that decision to take a career break or not and how you can seamlessly, easily get back into a career that totally makes sense for you whenever that you are ready after that career break. So with that, I hope you enjoyed this episode and if there are any big takeaways or learnings, if you're watching on on youtube you can feel free to drop a comment below and if you're listening on any podcasting platform such as spotify apple and so forth make sure that you follow the podcast because i'm doing a nine-part series where i answer your questions and today's is one of the questions that i'm answering from my community as well so with that i'll see you in the next episode bye