If you were made redundant tomorrow, how confident would you be in securing another role? Roxanne Calder, career strategist and founder and managing director of EST10, one of Sydney’s leading recruitment agencies, discusses.
Of the 2.1 million Australians who left or lost a job in the year to February 2025, 12% were retrenched. As the managing director of a recruitment firm, that’s not a statistic I’d gamble my career on.
The old employment bargain has changed. Loyalty and strong performance no longer buy the same security, progression or protection they once did. Even capable, committed employees can find themselves caught in restructures that have little to do with their value or effort.
Organisations are adapting fast to technological change, economic uncertainty and shifting customer expectations. I see the impact of these decisions daily and restructures can feel personal, when really they’re a response to business survival.
EAs and other employees need their own survival plan. We’ve dabbled with career cushioning, networking, upskilling and side gigs, but career cushioning is too soft for the times we’re in. It lacks agency and it assumes your existing job and employer are the centre of your career. That’s the wrong mindset. What professionals need is a career parachute – the vocational safeguard that lets you land anywhere.
A career parachute is about sovereignty and ownership; recognising that your career belongs to you, not your employer. It’s preparation and self-efficacy, ready and packed well before you need it.
Skills for relevance
Pack light and right. Resumes are often loaded with courses and certificates that have little relevance to what employers want. Being weighted down with qualifications doesn’t make you employable, it’s part of why skills shortages persist despite the push to upskill. The issue here is a lack of relevant capability. Be discerning about what you add.
Reputational value outside your organisation
Most people build their reputation inside the company they work for and are anonymous everywhere else. If nobody outside your organisation knows your capability, your career equity is concentrated in one place.
Check your reputational canopy as it’s what creates lift. This means building genuine relationships, being known for your expertise, contributing to your industry and leaving roles with people willing to recommend you. Reputation hasn’t lost value with time. If anything, trust and credibility are harder to earn than ever – and easier to lose.
Financial resilience
This is the reserve chute – and often the hardest part to build, particularly during a cost-of-living crisis. Without it, you can’t jump. Financial pressure is what pushes people into roles that aren’t right or keeps them in jobs that no longer support growth. Whether it’s an emergency fund, reducing debt or building additional income, financial resilience gives you control over your career decisions.
Courage
One of the greatest career myths is that successful people avoid risk. In reality, they avoid reckless risk. Every meaningful career move involves uncertainty (a promotion, a new employer, a new industry, asking for a pay rise, putting your hand up to lead) but the greatest risk? Standing still. Courage is knowing when to pull the cord.
Think like a business – have a plan
And know where you can land. Successful businesses invest, innovate and adapt to changing markets and have a plan. Your career deserves the same discipline.
Only 4% of employees have a clearly documented or structured career plan. That makes a career plan one of the easiest competitive advantages available to any employee. Instead of going with the flow, create a specific plan.
Your employer may still be excellent, your boss supportive, your role secure. But none of that is a career strategy. A career parachute means you’re refusing to outsource your future to one organisation, one title or one version of the market. The safest careers now belong to the people who know they can land somewhere else.
