Originally published on LinkedIn

New year, new you. Maybe that means deciding to pursue a new job or a career change. If you’re in one of a quarter of all Canadian jobs that’s expected to be disrupted over the coming decade, it’s probably something you’re already considering. And you wouldn’t be alone. According to a recent survey, about a third of full-time workers have changed careers. Including me.

Rewind to spring 2013, when I graduated from journalism school and had no idea what the job market was like. I studied hard and earned an international internship and a national scholarship with Canada’s public broadcaster, paving the way for a dream opportunity to cover national politics with CBC News in Ottawa. The glitter of a promising career blinded me to the realities of the faltering news business.

While I was scrumming with political leaders and chasing members of parliament for breaking news, the landscape was shifting under my feet. The Internet and social media meant the traditional news media was competing with more information sources willing to offer their wares for free. Without that monopoly on mass audience attention, fewer advertisers were willing to shill out the big ad bucks and thus, revenues declined. Media corporations across the country announced layoffs and shut their doors (the Canadian Media Guild has compiled all the cuts in Canada between 2008 and 2016, which is both helpful and depressing). But I was working at the public broadcaster, funded in part by the government (in spite of budget cuts in prior years), so I felt safe.

What’s holding back people who are still in jobs at risk of disappearing from making the leap towards more promising ones? Is telling a person to “just build your network” enough?

And then I didn’t. Government budget cuts and declining revenues finally began to truly take effect and job cuts were announced at the CBC (about 650 at first, and then another 1,000 to 1,500 — roughly 30% of its workforce). Around me, I saw colleagues and tenured veterans I respected jumping ship, getting laid off, or forced to retire. So then, before I had a chance to rev up in a career I was super passionate about and pretty good at, I decided I couldn’t bet my future on an unstable industry and left journalism. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I became one of many Canadian workers whose career would be interrupted by the swirling currents of innovation and technological disruption that continue to churn in our economy.

A degree of uncertainty

I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do next, though I was interested in expanding my political knowledge beyond Canada’s horizons and hoped to find my next career influencing international relations. This led me back to school to get a master’s degree in global affairs where I would spend two years figuring out my next steps. After an internship at Canada’s foreign affairs department in investment trade policy, I pivoted down a very different path to work in internal strategy consulting at a major Canadian bank after graduation (a story for another time).

My transition from journalism to banking was made significantly easier with my graduate program. Not because of the content of what I learned (you won’t find many business strategists using the international law principle of jus cogens in the halls of a big bank) but because I had networking opportunities through the program that helped me get my current job. My path, going back to school to get a set of not-necessarily the right skills and knowledge and take advantage of built-in networks, might not be right for everyone.

Generally, there are two ways to transition to a new career. One is enrolling in some sort of training or academic program in order to obtain the skills and make the institutional connections needed for the next role. The other is going at it yourself — networking, applying directly to new jobs, etc. — without the structure and connections of an educational institution. It’s unclear which approach is more effective.

Skills training programs: results may vary

If you look at the options out there, you’d be convinced to think that training is the way to go. Various levels of Canadian government are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into reskilling and retraining programs to help workers navigate between careers and upskill within their existing ones. The federal Canada Training Benefit, for example, is expected to launch within the year and provides funding for skills training and income support through Employment Insurance.

However, there’s a mixed bag of reviews as to whether they’re actually successful. In 2016, Ontario’s Auditor General found that the province’s Second Career Program, which funds skills training for recently laid-off workers seeking employment in high demand jobs, helped only 35% of its clients find employment at the end of the program, only 17% find full-time employment, and only 10% find employment in their field of training. Further research will yield plenty more examples across Canada.

What happens to the 65–80% of people who aren’t able to successfully re-skill and thus, start their next career? What’s holding back people who are still in jobs at risk of disappearing from making the leap towards more promising ones? Is telling a person to “just build your network” enough? The answers will vary by person, but there’s still much we as a society don’t fully understand about the challenges along the journey between one career and the next. As a result, I’m not convinced that we’re doing enough of the right things to support Canadian workers through what will certainly be even more disruptive times and many more career changes going forward.

There’s a lot of literature out there about the macro factors causing tumult and losses in the jobs market. There’s a lot of literature about what skills people will need to thrive in the future of work. Only now are we starting to hear a little bit about people leaving (or forced to leave) their jobs and their path towards their next one(s). We need to learn more, and directly, from Canadians. We need to understand what’s not working in the effort to get people working.

So, I’m launching Project Delta to hear from everyday Canadians about what the journey is like between Career X and Career Y and specifically, what challenges they’ve faced or are facing. I’m putting out feelers to the people I know and the people they know. I’d like to hear from you if you’ve had to, or feel like you will have to, leave your job due to transformations or disruptions in your industry and are looking for another one. This will start as a multimedia project to share stories and learnings for the benefit of other Canadians. With your support and contribution, together we could evolve Project Delta into so much more.

Interested? Send me a note at talkprojectdelta@gmail.com. Let’s get working.