Take the Time to Think About Your Career

20TH MAR 2018

Our HR Director, Jo Moxon, writes about choosing the right career path and how to fulfil your aspirations.

Choosing the right career path isn’t always easy and for some it feels less of a choice and more a case of fate or chance that determines their path.

Speaking personally, it was the result of making a mistake early on in my career, mixed with the good fortune of having a great CEO, that I was subsequently offered the role of Training Manager, which gave birth to my HR career. Twenty-five years later, I reflect on the opportunities I made, as well as those I have taken.

In a fast-paced working world, taking the time to reflect on where you want your own career to go can sometimes take a backseat. At Pendragon, we want to encourage our team members to think about how they might steer their career and take up (as well as create) new challenges and opportunities. 

On International Women’s Day I was proud to be one of four leaders asked to talk about our careers and the paths we took to get to where we are now. I’m pleased to say the reaction was fantastic from team members who pitched up from a variety of different functions and departments to take part in the sessions. These talks opened team members’ eyes to the range of careers that are available within the motor industry, and closer to home, within Pendragon. We do so many different things within our business, from digital marketing to HGV driving; it’s certainly a place to forge a career and explore different opportunities.

At Pendragon, we support internal recruitment and encourage our team members to build a career with us, supported by great development opportunities at our Pendragon Training Academy. We have a strong ethic of promotion from within - many of our most senior leaders started their career at the most junior levels and are now running multi-million-pound operations and functions.

I’ve found it’s often fear of failure or of the unknown that puts people off making a change and fulfilling their aspirations. My experience has been to throw caution to the wind, to try new things and to not let the self-limiting beliefs take over. If you have the fundamental skills required for a role, a willingness to learn and a sense of purpose, you could find yourself taking on a new challenge in no time.