When many of us were young, raised as we were in the mid-1960s and 1970s, we were brought up to believe that our life would follow a fairly standard and idyllic pattern—school, university, career, marriage, children, and finally, a comfortable retirement, with perhaps a house abroad and zero financial worries.
Our careers would have had an ongoing, uninterrupted trajectory from fun times as eager juniors through hard working, lucrative managerial years in our forties, before easing back in our ‘senior advisor’ fifties and finally packing the golf clubs and heading into the sunset. Our jobs would be rewarding and we would be paid commensurately with what we were worth, with due managerial acknowledgement for our efforts.
How different those plans, and our world, look today. With the continuing supply/demand mismatch in terms of candidates versus jobs, highly qualified people—and their valuable talents—are left unused and unable at times to even secure an interview through no fault of their own, with the attendant loss of self-confidence that can easily spiral downwards.
Rather than have a home base with a minimal commute and hence being able to spend more time with their family, people are obliged to either commute inordinately long distances, stay away during the week or even move abroad in order to give their families a chance of the quality of life they had come to believe was theirs by right. Financial pressures mean that marriages and plans to start families are being delayed, and stress is adding to the overall dilution in quality of life.
Partly due to a combination of global financial crises, growing use of technology and a tardiness in keeping pace with change, many professionals in their forties and fifties are earning no more—which, with inflation, means less—than they were doing a decade ago. Cold comfort perhaps, but if you feel that the above mismatch in expectations/reality applies to you, then you are no means alone in this industry.
What’s the answer? Well, thankfully, everyone is different, but I’d suggest the best thing is—if you choose to remain in the industry of course—to keep a sense of perspective in that even at lower levels people in financial services are relatively well remunerated, working conditions very comfortable, and if belts are tightened, a reasonable quality of life can be had. When the market improves—and plenty of indicators are pointing that way—talent will be able to find a home more easily, and while the ‘golden days’ we were promised may never actually materialise, some semblance of normal service may be resumed.
As ever, do let me know your thoughts. Drop me a line at paul@localhost
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