When most people think about financial planning, they think about savings, investments, insurance and retirement.
But there is another asset that sits behind almost everything in your financial plan: your career.
For most working professionals, your career is the engine that generates the income which funds your lifestyle, supports your family and allows you to build wealth over time.
That is why I have never viewed career planning and financial planning as completely separate conversations.
Previously, we even ran career-related programmes for our financial planning clients. These were not recruitment sessions. The purpose was to help clients think more intentionally about their careers, understand their strengths, increase their career capacity and improve their ability to navigate the job market.
Because if the income engine stops, the financial plan is immediately affected.
And increasingly, I believe career resilience deserves much more attention.
Career security is not the same as job security
A common assumption is that career risk gradually falls as we become more experienced.
In some ways, the opposite can happen.
As professionals progress into more senior positions, their compensation increases and the number of equivalent roles available may become smaller. A company restructuring or changing strategic direction can affect someone regardless of how competent or hardworking they are.
This is especially important because many of these career events are outside our control.
So I think there is a better way to define career security.
Instead of asking:
“How secure is my current job?”
Ask:
“If my current role disappeared, how valuable would I still be to the market?”
That is a very different question.
The first depends heavily on your employer.
The second depends much more on what you have built in yourself.
Think like an owner, even if you are an employee
I agree with the idea that salaried employees can learn something from entrepreneurs.
That does not mean everyone needs a side hustle, should take more risks or needs to start a business.
It means taking greater ownership of your career.
An employee can easily fall into the habit of thinking mainly about his or her job scope:
“What am I responsible for?”
“What do I need to complete?”
“What is expected of me?”
Those questions are necessary, but an owner thinks differently.
An owner asks what the business is trying to achieve, what customers need, what problems need solving and where the organisation creates value.
Employees who develop this mindset are more likely to understand what matters to their bosses and to the business as a whole.
Rather than simply completing what is assigned to them, they become more intentional about where they can contribute.
That is valuable to the organisation, but it is also valuable to the individual because those capabilities can travel with you.
Keep increasing your career capacity
I sometimes use a simple analogy with clients:
If you don’t know how to swim, changing swimming pools will not solve the problem.
Sometimes circumstances can carry our careers forward for a period of time.
A manager leaves and we are promoted. A good opportunity appears at the right time. We happen to join an industry during a period of strong growth.
There is nothing wrong with benefiting from good circumstances.
But over a long career, we cannot depend on circumstances always being favourable.
What matters is whether we continue building the skills, experience and track record that make us valuable.
If someone is good at what they do and continues developing relevant capabilities, losing one particular job does not necessarily mean losing their career.
They may simply take those capabilities somewhere else.
That is the kind of career resilience I would want my clients to build.
Start “looking for your next job” the day you start your current one
This is something I used to tell clients, although it is easily misunderstood.
I do not mean that you should join a company today and immediately start applying elsewhere tomorrow.
I mean you should never stop understanding the market.
Even when you are happy in your current role, continue speaking with people in your industry. Meet people from other companies. Have coffee with former colleagues. Stay in touch with people doing adjacent roles.
These conversations give you information that you may never get from simply staying within your own organisation.
You might discover that a particular skill is becoming increasingly important across your industry.
You might learn that competitors are approaching a problem very differently.
You might realise that your experience is highly valued in another part of the market.
Or you might discover that there is a gap in your capabilities that you should start addressing now.
That information is useful even if you never change jobs.
In fact, it may help you become better at your existing one.
Networking is not about collecting contacts
Many people hear the word “networking” and imagine networking events, exchanging name cards or adding hundreds of people on LinkedIn.
I think that misses the point.
Good networking is really about relationships and information.
Who are the people in your industry whom you can learn from?
Who understands where your sector is heading?
Who can give you an honest perspective about another company or role?
And equally importantly, who have you helped along the way?
These relationships become a form of career capital.
One practical exercise we used previously was something I think of as a “reverse interview”.
Instead of waiting until you desperately need a job and then applying for advertised vacancies, speak to people working in industries or roles you are interested in while there is no immediate pressure.
Ask them questions such as:
- What skills are becoming most important in your industry?
- What qualities differentiate people who do well from those who struggle?
- What are the biggest challenges facing the industry today?
- What do companies look for when they hire for roles like yours?
- If someone wanted to enter this field, what would you advise them to start developing?
- Who else would you recommend I speak to?
The objective is not to ask that person for a job.
It is to understand the market before you need the market.
Over time, these conversations can give you a much clearer picture of where your own career stands.
Know the value you bring
Another important exercise is being able to explain, simply and clearly, why you are valuable.
Many experienced professionals struggle with this.
They can describe their responsibilities in great detail, but they find it much harder to explain the impact of their work.
There is an important difference between:
“I was responsible for this project.”
and
“This was the problem, this was what I contributed, and this was the outcome.”
The second tells someone what value you created.
I believe professionals should periodically take stock of their achievements, strengths and contributions instead of only thinking about these things when updating a résumé.
Ask yourself:
- What have I become better at in the last two years?
- What problems can I solve today that I could not solve previously?
- What do colleagues or clients consistently rely on me for?
- What evidence do I have that I created value?
If you cannot clearly articulate your own value, it becomes much harder for someone outside your current organisation to recognise it.
Career choices should also be intentional
Career resilience is not only about avoiding unemployment.
It is also about building a career that fits the life you are trying to create.
We spend a significant proportion of our waking hours at work. Income matters, but so do purpose, values, family priorities, personal strengths and work-life balance.
Very few jobs will ever fulfil every criterion perfectly.
But there is a big difference between making a deliberate trade-off and simply drifting into whatever comes next.
That is why, when assessing a potential role or company, I think professionals should view the interview as a two-way process.
The employer is evaluating you, but you should also be evaluating them.
- Does the company culture fit you?
- Is the industry heading in a direction you believe in?
- Will the role help you build capabilities that remain valuable five or ten years from now?
- Can you see yourself working with the people leading the organisation?
- Does the opportunity fit the broader life you are trying to build?
A higher salary is important, but it is not the only variable.
Financial resilience gives you career optionality
This is where career planning and financial planning come together again.
When someone loses their job unexpectedly, one of the biggest pressures is usually time.
The bills continue. The mortgage continues. School fees continue. Family expenses continue.
If you urgently need another pay cheque, your range of choices becomes much smaller.
You may have to accept the first reasonable offer even if the role is not particularly suitable, the compensation is significantly lower or the job takes your career in a direction you do not really want.
This is why I sometimes speak to clients about building a Career Resilience Fund.
A Career Resilience Fund is not simply money set aside to survive unemployment.
Its deeper purpose is to buy you time and optionality.
If you have sufficient financial runway, a retrenchment does not necessarily require an immediate decision.
You may have more room to explore the market properly, upgrade your skills, reconnect with your network and wait for an opportunity that is reasonably aligned with what you want.
Very few jobs will ever be 10/10.
But having sufficient financial resilience may allow you to search for an 8/10 rather than being forced to accept a 5/10 simply because the bills are due.
That is a very meaningful form of financial freedom.
Build options before you need them
Career resilience is not about trying to predict whether you will be retrenched.
We cannot control every economic cycle, corporate restructuring or technological change.
What we can control is how prepared we are.
Continue building your capabilities.
Understand where your industry is moving.
Maintain genuine relationships within and outside your organisation.
Know the value you create.
Build sufficient financial reserves so that your next career decision does not have to be made from a position of desperation.
Most importantly, be intentional.
Do not wait until your career is disrupted before thinking seriously about your career.
The best time to build options is when you still have plenty of them.