The COVID_19 pandemic has given millions around the globe an unforeseen chance to pause and reflect on their lives. Many had already been feeling the quiet stirring of discontent with their lives - a feeling which has been heightened as millions already in work experience furloughing and redundancy as the UK pauses and values rebalance from "me" to "we". At the same time, a complete generation of young people are left worried and confused about their futures. So what's the solution?

Career Alchemy Founder and Lead Coach, Carolyn Parry was a recent guest on The New Normal, a podcast run by Chris Webb and Helen Armitage of Sheffield Hallam University.

In the podcast, Carolyn talks about the way the world of work is necessarily changing, how society at large has been able to reconnect with what really matters to us and led us to appreciate how little we actually need to be happy. She talks about the shift in business values away from the intense spotlight on profit for shareholders towards a more balanced focus on solving the wicked problems the world faces and developing staff regardless of background, the new ways of working and how this creates a change to level up across the regions of the UK, how Coronavirus is speeding up trends towards automation, how retail is changing, and new opportunities within the gig economy, 

She highlights the democratisation of learning and how we should all be life long learners so we can protect our futures, how we will continue to see greater virtual collaboration and less competition across organisations: as we work together to solve common problems using new tools for distributed working which leads to the question of education and how it needs to repurpose itself to ensure our young people are able to find a clear why to help them create fulfilling and sustainable futures.

You can listen to the podcast here:

A generation of young people is at risk of being lost and we want to do our bit to help. That's why we are offering free careers support and research-proven career tools to 16 to 24 year olds and their parents and carers via our newly set up our FaceBook group, INSPiRED Teenager Plus.

We have a team of twenty highly trained and experienced careers advisers already helping young people and their parents find a new "career why" by working through our research proven programme, INSPiRED, so they can get their working lives going again and create a brighter future.  

Since Covid 19 hit, millions of people's jobs and career prospects have been left in tatters with young people aged 16 to 24 being the most badly affected as UK employers across the board withdraw job offers and furlough staff.

Supported by the HM Government and The Cabinet Office as part of the Inclusive Economy Partnership, and endorsed by the Institute of Student Employers and supported by the Career Development Institute, the professional body for the sector, INSPiRED Teenager Plus is an innovative digital community learning approach is helping hundreds of parents/careers and their teenagers across the UK to work through a specially adapted version of the INSPiRED Teenager programme live together to create exciting futures and find a way through the upheaval they have experienced as a result of COVID-19.

Developed and delivered by Carolyn Parry RCDP, Founder and Lead Coach, the INSPiRED Teenager programme is a research-proven and structured approach which helps individuals create happy, successful and purposeful working lives that last by finding their "why". The content for each unit is taught via twenty minute Facebook Live sessions online each week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with each live session being recorded for those who want to watch later.

The programme includes interviews with special guests where they share magic and challenging moments about their career journeys. Guests to date have included Elizabeth L Wright, paralympian medalist, inspirational speaker and disability rights activist and Daisy Claydon, the PR mastermind behind Captain Tom's news story.

Jan Ellis, Chief Executive of the Career Development Institute says: “The Career Development Institute welcomes the ethos of INSPIRED Teenager Plus as a sector wide initiative in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, it focuses on using qualified career development practitioners to support and steer families and their teenagers through these uncertain times and beyond. We wish them every success.”

 If you are in need of careers support, please join our free community here and please help others in need to do the same:

Universities UK, the voice of UK universities, has just published a survey undertaken by ComRes sharing the insights from 2270 graduates and undergraduates which covers the reasons why people choose to study at university and what information they wish they had had beforehand. And it makes interesting reading..

In the last few weeks alone, over 11,000 households have woken up to newspaper articles and media outlets telling the world that their jobs in supermarkets, fashion retail and banking will be going.

​Multi-award-winning career development coach Carolyn Parry, founder of Career Alchemy and one of the UK’s top career coaches, shares three top tips she teaches to clients which will help anyone affected by the threat of redundancy to stay positive despite the uncertainty.

With restructuring taking place all over the UK and shared by the media every week, being at risk of redundancy has sadly become a standard feature of modern day careers. No matter whichever research stats you read, the uncertainty that accompanies restructuring and redundancy consistently rates as one of the most stressful experiences you can go through and the experience is right up there with divorce, moving house, and bereavement. 
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Multi-award-winning career development coach Carolyn Parry, founder of Career Alchemy and one of the UK’s top career coaches, shares ten top tips she teaches to clients which will help anyone affected to minimise the stress of the situation by taking appropriate action.

It's clear that faster is better if we want to to do simple things like catch a train or a plane, book a hotel, or look up something on Wikipedia, but when it comes to things which hold greater significance and meaning, faster will cause the wheels to overheat and come off.