Simon Kuper’s article (“My career race is in the home stretch. Here’s what I know”, Magazine, Life & Arts, April 20) is very timely for me as my own children start out on their careers.
The reality is that they have at least 40 or possibly even 50 years of work ahead of them if there are more changes in the retirement age and greater life expectancy.
For those in office work and professional services, that’s hundreds of thousands of meetings, project plans, handshakes and performance reviews. Sadly, there might also be many moments grumbling around the water cooler and unplanned pub nights prompted by anger, frustration and regret. My advice to my children is to look at a career from a sector point of view rather than (in my day) from a discipline, ie lawyer, accountant, train driver or astronaut.
Our law firm has a big team advising clients in the video game sector and we have lawyers who feel they are living their best life advising companies and brand names they grew up with (possibly while killing zombies). Within that sector you can be in marketing, product development, engineering, HR, or indeed working as a general counsel. But your day-to-day work will still make you an intrinsic part of the team helping to deliver fantastically compelling products to market. If you can marry what you believe you are good at with a sector in which you have a personal interest or passion then the chances are you will have a happy and fulfilling career.
Pub nights prompted by achievement, celebration and the sheer joy of work are a good sign that you chose wisely.
Olivia Sinfield
Employment Partner (and matriarch)
Osborne Clarke, London EC2, UK
