Vicki MarinkerCandid Career Coach 🎯 Hi Reader What does burnout feel like? Ever had that feeling where your job in comms, once your happy place, now feels like wading through treacle with concrete boots on? What if it's not just a bad week? I was reading some research by burnout experts Maslach and Leiter who put it succinctly. Burnout is when "energy turns into exhaustion, involvement turns into cynicism, and efficacy turns into ineffectiveness." Here's how to spot if you're burning out: You...
6 days ago • 1 min read
Vicki MarinkerCandid Career Coach 🎯 Hi Reader If you’ve ever sat in a meeting, looked around, and thought, “What the hell am I doing here?” – welcome to the club. You’re not broken, you’re human. After 30 years in comms (first in PR, then 23 years as a recruiter, and now as a coach), I’ve noticed something fascinating: The most brilliant communicators are TERRIBLE at recognising their own value. You craft perfect messages for your organisation but freeze when it comes to talking about your...
13 days ago • 1 min read
Vicki MarinkerCandid Career Coach 🎯 Hi Reader Last week, I hosted another Job Search SOS Q&A session with Lucy Cairncross, MD of VMA GROUP. It was an opportunity for exhausted job seekers to ask the questions that are keeping them up at night. Lucy has been a recruiter for many years, experiencing major economic shifts - from the 2008 financial crisis, to the pandemic. She has developed a solid understanding of market resilience. If you didn't have the opportunity to join us, you can listen...
20 days ago • 1 min read
Vicki MarinkerCandid Career Coach 🎯 Hi Reader “Can you just pretty this up?” “Can you just turn this into a newsletter?” “Can you just make this sound better?” Sound familiar? If you’re still being treated as the company’s Powerpoint Pixie instead of as a strategic partner, I need you to hear this: It’s NOT because your organisation doesn’t value communications. It’s because you haven’t positioned yourself as more than a tactical executor. After coaching hundreds of communications...
27 days ago • 2 min read
Vicki MarinkerCandid Career Coach 🎯 Hi Reader Tell me about yourself 🤢It's a lazy, predictable interview question, but you know it's coming. So be prepared.This is the main thing:Don’t start at the beginning, start at the end. The interviewer doesn’t want to hear about your first paper round.Here’s the formula:➕ Your elevator pitch should start with where you are now.➕ Then discuss the main themes that run through your career. What problems do you solve and how do you solve them?➕ Follow this...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Vicki MarinkerCandid Career Coach 🎯 Hi Reader If I could wave a magic wand and hand you your ‘dream’ job, what would it be?* It’s a tough question isn’t it!? You might be so caught up in your current situation that you haven’t given much thought to what lies ahead. How are you going to get there, if you don’t know where ‘there’ is? *By the way, I’m not keen on the phrase ‘dream job’ because perfection doesn’t exist. There will always have to be some compromises. I’m using it here as a...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Vicki MarinkerCandid Career Coach 🎯 Hi Reader PIVOTS! Have you made one? I've made five during my career, some more successful than others. If you want to make a successful career pivot, you need to identify your transferable skills. "OK, but then what!?" I hear you scream. You need a strategy Connect the dots: What connects your current sector to your target sector? For example, if you want to move from consumer PR into working for a charity, it might be stakeholder management, campaign...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Vicki MarinkerCandid Career Coach 🎯 Hi Reader If you've been on the hunt for a new job recently, it might feel like you're trying to play poker wearing a blindfold, against robots. The game has changed and no one has bothered to explain the rules. It all used to be so straightforward. Now we’re dealing with AI gatekeepers, ghosting employers, even after multiple interviews, and companies asking for free work disguised as 'assessments.' Sound familiar? Faced with these challenges, most people...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Vicki MarinkerCandid Career Coach 🎯 Hi Reader Happy new year! It's not too late to say that yet, maybe next week. I hope you had a good break and are feeling refreshed and ready to face 2025. If you spent some of the festive season comparing new year resolutions while inhaling mince pies, I have some bad news. New year resolutions don’t work. If they did, you wouldn’t have to make them every year. They’re usually about what not to do, or what to stop doing. Instead, I want to get clear on my...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Vicki MarinkerCandid Career Coach 🎯 Hi Reader Happy new year! I hope you had a chance to recharge over the festive season. I'm not really back to work yet - but I wanted to give you a chance to register for our next Job Search SOS webinar ASAP. I'll keep it brief: If applying for jobs feel like a game of roulette (where someone changed the rules); or your applications are vanishing without a trace, you're not alone. The job search is a struggle. Let us help. Join me and Lucy Cairncross,...
3 months ago • 1 min read