The recent wintry weather has had me reflecting on resources and support offer on career management in uncertain times – and in particular, the work we do around career anxiety.
We run annual career briefing sessions on dealing with career anxiety – here’s a link to an older post outlining why career anxiety can be helpful, how to make the most of it, and when to seek support if it’s not being helpful: Dealing with Career Anxiety – IAD4RESEARCHERS
During Careers Month last year, a participant wondered about career anxiety related to a particular working environment or tasks and responsibilities: Careers Months 2025 – Briefing Session – Dealing with Career Anxiety – IAD4RESEARCHERS – in this post I offer some reflective questions that can help us better understand these types of anxiety, what we can learn from them, and what actions we might take.
Healthy career anxiety is most often a lack of knowledge – and in particular, information about the world of work and self-awareness. It’s a lack of the tools that can help us manage and interpret this information, and an absence of supporters who can help us with both information and using the tools to make the most of that information.
Whilst filling some parts of the ‘information gap’ are within our control, there are some things that will remain vague, ambiguous, and uncertain. For example, we can’t predict labour market trends or economic trajectories in any great detail or with great certainty. Sure, people are experts in this, and do their best…but two things, how often do you yourself read labour market and economic analyses? And bubbles burst – the dot.com bubble, the credit crunch, the crash of ’29… There’s speculation that the AI boom may bust – but no one really knows when or how, or the exact consequences. It’s also not within the control of any of us reading this blog post.
What is in our control and what can reduce our anxiety are: healthy self-awareness, connections to others, and career adaptability.
I grew up in a part of the world with extreme weather, we never enjoyed days of no electricity or heating (no fun when it’s -16 C or more) after an ice-storm, but we were prepared for any eventuality – food, water, batteries, kerosene heater, camp stoves, etc. There was genuine hardship and risk at times – but we minimised it by being prepared, and by helping out our families and neighbours. Sometimes the storms weren’t as bad as a predicted. We breathed a sigh of relief, took stock of our inventory, and made sure everything was in good working order, ready for the next time.
Our careers need the same preparedness in uncertain times. Know yourself – be confident in your achievements, and what you are good at. Be guided by your values, and interests – and especially your priorities, be it family, location, sense of purpose – whatever is most important to you. Be realistic – even if you are not anticipating, or you even want, a change – be ready to make one if the situation is thrust upon you. With this in mind, start developing your career adaptability with this course from the Open University: Developing career resilience: Week 7: 2 | OpenLearn – Open University You can guide yourself through the whole 8 week course on career resilience if you like – or just focus on the adaptability part for now. Any step you can take now is a good start to filling the information gap, and dealing with career anxiety.
