Career transition |

How Beauty can make your Career

As mentioned in previous posts, I’ve had a volunteer gig as an actor, dramaturge, and associate artistic director of 9^th Hour Theatre Company since its inception in 2010.

From the beginning of March this year, I’ve spent every Wednesday 9-5 at Raven Studios helping to edit a musical audio drama called Beauty Will Save the World (BWSTW). I played a major role in the development and production of this original work, including what often felt like endless hours in a studio with playwright/producer Charley Bouchard and sound designer/technician, Jakub Racek.

We spent 44 hours recording the show over 1 week then another 160 hours of editing. And that doesn’t include the thousands of hours (involving dozens of people) spent thinking, writing, revising, workshopping, and developing this original work since September 2020.

But it’s all been worth it. The show reeks of professionalism—a sheer delight to listen to–a rich, entertaining, and enlightening audio experience…that required thousands of micro decisions over 3.5 years of thinking, writing, discussing, revising, workshopping!

The frequent rule

It reinforced for me the iterative nature of the creative process, something that I emphasize with my career clients. If you want to change careers or find a new job, you will need to apply this rule frequently: take an action towards your goal—if it moves you closer, take another action; if it doesn’t, then take a different action.

It sounds so simple but it is often very difficult to apply in real life. For example, BWSTW comprises 11 episodes, each one is about 30 minutes in duration. The 3 of us sat in front of computers to edit, mix, and master each episode. There was no time to waste because we were paying by the hour for studio time.

In order to complete this project, we had to make a thousand creative and technical decisions each Wednesday: is that actor’s voice loud enough? Where should we start or end that soundscape? Should we cross fade between that sound effect and the following dialogue? Did that singer hit the right note, come in too early, pronounce the ‘t’ at the end of that verse?

Each question required an action. Each decision was made in the interests of telling the best story to realize our vision.

Your beautiful story

BWSTW is a beautiful story. I think of a client’s life in the same way. How can I help them edit their career story to achieve their goal. There is no time to waste. Being stuck without a job or being stuck in a job that sucks your soul costs more than a lost opportunity, it costs you precious life energy!

A career is an iterative process too. It can be devised and revised according to a particular goal or vision. A client’s story is then told through a resume, bio, elevator pitch, interview preparation, career management and advancement…and on and on.

A thousand decisions have to be made to get a beautiful result. Each action will move them closer to their goal; if it doesn’t, we take a different one.

No need to overthink it. No reward in procrastinating. There is power in action…step by step to reach a goal!

P.S. Click on this link and you can listen FREE to the first episode of BWSTW. If you like what you hear, hover over each episode to read a synopsis. If you like what you read, then please select ‘Listen Now’ and subscribe on Patreon to listen to the remaining 10 episodes at your leisure. I bet you’ll binge listen! If you like listening to podcasts while you’re working or relaxing, you’ll enjoy this 5.5-hour cautionary tale involving 17 actors and singers.

Patience Pays off in Career Change

Patience is a virtue.  This might be especially true for career change.  And even more true the older you get.

A client contacted me almost 2 years ago at age 50+.  She’d been in the same office job for 25 years and needed to make a change due to burnout and depression from staying in a stagnant position for so long. Her self-confidence was shot!

I started by assessing her needs, priorities, and preferences.  She was not willing at her age to go back to school for further education, so it was a question of identifying and defining her strengths, skills, and interests to match attainable jobs.

A long and winding road

Although she had a passion for working with pets, her lack of credentials in that field would consign her to low skill, low pay jobs.  She seriously considered that option to preserve her health and sanity and even applied at a few places.  In the end, she wasn’t willing to take such a significant pay cut.

So, we identified jobs in both the public and private sector that would recognize and reward her for the administrative skills used in her office job.  I modified her resume accordingly.  I taught her how to complete online government applications.  After several false starts, she got the hang of it.  After 6 months or so, she started getting call-backs for interviews related to HR Assistant, Collections Officer, Client Support, Client Services, Payroll Officer, and similar jobs.

Interview anxiety

Learning to interview was another hurdle to cross.  She had not been to a job interview in 25 years! Just the thought of one filled her with worry and anxiety and, for various reasons, she cancelled the first few interviews.

Over the next year, she kept getting invitations because her skill set had real value in the job market. I pointed this out to her repeatedly while continuing to coach and guide her through the interview process, especially with respect to answering situational questions and telling compelling stories that gave a picture of her in action solving problems relevant to an employer’s job description.

Slowly but surely her confidence increased.  She made it through a few interviews without her nerves getting the best of her.  This past summer, she was invited to a hiring process as a Screening Officer with a government agency, which involved many challenging steps that I successfully guided her through. She also had to provide references from her employer, a prospect that triggered another round of concern, but we navigated through that obstacle.

Happy ending

Six months after the interview, she was offered the job.  When she gave notice, her employer went to great lengths to retain her.  But she stuck to her guns and started her new career in January this year: “I can’t tell you how happy I am to try something new. Your assistance has been invaluable! I couldn’t have done it without your help!!!!”

She started this career change journey with little hope but felt she had nothing to lose because her job was literally “killing” her body, mind, and spirit.  She was overwhelmed by the prospect of such a significant change.

But she did it! What courage to start, what patience to persevere, what resilience to overcome each obstacle!

JobJoy Smile – Patience Puns

My wife said she’s lost her patience with me.

I told her I’d help her find it.

People who buy turf for their yards don’t have the patience to grow their own

They want instant grassification.

After months of patience and persistence I finally have a nice body.

It fits perfectly in my trunk.

Why do you need patience at the gym?

Because there is a lot of weighting.

Going to a seminar on patience

Can’t wait!

I had my patience tested today

It came back negative

The Trouble with Career Transitions

In the past year, I’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of mature workers being terminated by major employers, usually senior managers in their mid-40s to 50s.

Most are unable to get re-employed quickly at a similar level with another company in a similar sector. Instead, they are forced to consider some kind of career change. It’s a lot of trouble to go through.

But there is no going back to the way things were for these mature workers. All workers will simply have to get better at making career transitions as the pace of technological change accelerates over the next decade.

Actions to take

What actions, if any, help individuals make a career change? First and foremost is answering the questions: where and what? What other work are you suited for? Which organizations will recognize, reward, and motivate you? And what should you do there in terms of specific jobs or duties or responsibilities?

In other words, what is your job target? It’s pretty hard to hit a target unless you can see it. And this is where most people get bogged down because their career identity is so wrapped up in their most recent job or the path that they’ve followed with a specific company for 15 or more years. If they can’t find similar work elsewhere, they simply don’t know what to do.

However, most people do not answer these basic questions of where and what before starting a career change. Instead, studies show that they jump into networking, acquiring new knowledge and skills, trying things out, researching options, and self-reflection.

The trouble is…

Some of these activities are good, even necessary, but they often lead to a lot of wasted time and energy. Networking is not very productive if you can’t tell others what you are looking for. Acquiring new knowledge and skills is not very useful if they don’t align with your strengths and motivations to leverage them into a rewarding career. Trying things out might be fun but are they part of a strategy or tactic that leads to new employment? Researching options might be interesting but there are over 90,000 job titles operating in North America today, so which 1, 10, or 20 match your strengths and ambitions? And self-reflection can be self-defeating until it is tied to a purpose and a plan.

Less trouble

I’ve been helping individuals make career changes for over 30 years. My speciality is answering the questions Where and What for my clients. In my experience, it’s a lot less trouble if you start at the beginning with a target—one that expands opportunities and motivates you to take action.

Square peg in round hole

You’ve heard the expression “fitting a square peg into a round hole does not work”.

And yet, this is precisely the situation that many individuals feel about their jobs– their natural strengths do not match the skills needed for core job duties. Many of my clients “grind it out” day after day in order to pay their bills and bank pensionable time, even though it hurts and causes much career pain.

For example, I’ve worked with some clients over the past 30 years who get hired into an entry level position then show a special ability to step into an unstructured situation to solve problems with people, planning, or productivity. They have a natural talent for sorting through many complex details to develop a step-by-step solution exactly suited to the people and the situation.

The outcome of their solution is often the establishment of very efficient and effective structures, systems or processes that improve productivity. Their accomplishment makes a big splash in the organization and they often get promoted to maintain the new structure or system that they developed. But this new role bores them to tears because maintaining a structured situation requires a different set of skills and motivations than problem-solving in unstructured situation.

In short, they are often the victims of their own success. The new structure does not produce the same kind of problems as the previous unstructured situation and their natural talents don’t get triggered again.

They might go around looking for new problems to solve–they are simply doing what comes naturally to them–but end up stepping on other people’s toes, crossing boundaries, or unwittingly causing friction with co-workers.

They feel like a square peg in a round hole. They sometimes blame their employer or themselves for not being able to advance in their career…and they continue to feel that way until they understand their natural strengths and their unique motivational pattern.

My job is to identify and define those key success factors and match them up with the kinds of jobs that need their strengths and the organizations that will reward them for it.

For example, some of my clients with the talents and motivations described above have gone on to new roles, such as Workflow Analysts, Strategic Consultants, Business Operations Analysts, Project Managers, Change Managers, or similar in large dysfunctional organizations or medium sized ones experiencing rapid growth and all the problems that go with it.

JobJoy Smile – Work puns

– Employer: We need someone responsible for the job.
Job Applicant: Sir your search ends here! In my previous job whenever something went wrong, everybody said I was responsible.

– A human resource person was quizzing a new employee on the company’s safety manual. “And what steps do you take in case of a fire?” she asked. The new employee replied, “Quick ones.”

– Boss: How is it that you are always sick on weekdays? Employee: It’s my weekend immune system.

To be or not to be…who you are!

I had a client recently who is passionate about animal care…always has been, since childhood.

At least once a year, for the past 30 years, someone like her enters my practice. Sometimes young, or middle age, male or female—what they all have in common is this inner longing to take care of animals…for them a stronger desire than taking care of people.

And yet, none of them had been able to move beyond the care of their own pets. Most of them tried pet-sitting or dog-walking or some related low skill, low pay job but couldn’t make enough money to make ends meet.

Finding the right path

Like my client this week, they go into other careers, usually because they had no desire or inclination to be a vet or a vet’s assistant. As my client said, “I want to care for them, not kill them!” This is a typical rationale for such clients: when the most obvious option that society offers (e.g., be a vet) is not one that interests them, they give up on their heartfelt aspiration.

In her case, she worked as a cashier, custodian, martial arts instructor, and finally trained and worked as a Rehab Assistant, caring for individuals recovering from accidents…but she quit after two years because it didn’t meet her expectations.

She’s determined now to find a career working with animals, which is the only thing she really wants to do. I assured her that there were dozens of animal care jobs, including many she’d never of heard of, and many that don’t require a lot of education or training.

Choosing the right path

In general, jobs with animals fall into three categories: service (care & feeding), resource development and conservation.

I gave her a list of all the jobs related to animal care, everything from animal trainer to bison farmer to wildlife photographer. I gave her a list of education programs for Resource Development and Animal Conservation.
She loved the idea of wildlife rehabilitation but didn’t want to go back to school.

In the end, she decided to start with Kennel Attendant and work towards owning and operating her own kennel someday. She may even return to Rehab Assistant part-time, or on contract, to save money to buy some property for a kennel near Winnipeg.

She is finally accepting who she is in terms of her right work and taking responsibility for what she wants in life.

Living the right path

Very often our right work shows up early in life, but other values, priorities, advice, or circumstances get in the way of us following our instincts, intuition, or heartfelt desires.

We often get knocked off our right path early in life and end up surviving on another one…but not thriving.

It’s never too late to get back on it. Sure, it might not be ideal, but it will certainly be deeply satisfying and rewarding in ways that are often hard to explain to others who have different values or priorities.

Be who you are…you won’t regret it.

JobJoy Smile – Animal Puns

Q: What do you call a sleeping bull?
A: A bull-dozer.

Q: How do you fit more pigs on your farm?
A: Build a sty-scraper!

Q: What did the farmer call the cow that had no milk?
A: An udder failure.

Q: Why do gorillas have big nostrils?
A: Because they have big fingers!

Q: Why are teddy bears never hungry?
A: They are always stuffed!

Q: Why do fish live in salt water?
A: Because pepper makes them sneeze!

Q: What do you get from a pampered cow?
A: Spoiled milk.

Q: Where do polar bears vote?
A: The North Poll

Top 3 factors to a successful career change in midlife

In the last few years, even during the pandemic, I’ve helped a significant number of individuals make real career changes into a new field or into self-employment. Based on this experience, here’s the top 3 reasons they did so:

1. Know where to look

There are lots of opportunities in today’s job market but only in specific sectors. By doing a deep analysis of their transferable skills, we identified which sectors will recognize, reward, and motivate them. We start with the sectors where there is high demand and high growth.

2. Know how to look

We position and package them for specific jobs in those sectors. We master the online application process and identify a few very specific people to approach offline for leads and referrals. Then we prep for interviews by developing compelling stories that demonstrate in very clear and concise terms how they can help these employers make money, save money, improve productivity, attain efficiencies, meet difficult deadlines—all the bottom-line stuff that adds value to an organization.

3. Stick to it.

Most of these people had some financial security because, by a combination of their age and covid circumstances, the value of their assets (especially their house) had gone up a lot, so they did not feel desperate. This allowed them to really focus on attaining the kind of work that energized them, work that gave them purpose or meaning, rather than settling on something just to pay bills. They felt liberated, empowered! This positive attitude enabled their job search.
In addition, they found it quicker and easier to acquire a new credential, or skill, or subject matter expertise with all the micro-credentials available online. Succeeding with a credential boosted their confidence in interviews and helped them make their case for employment in a new field. They could speak with authority and authenticity on how they would handle certain situations in a job.

Conclusion

Making a successful career change in mid-life is really about understanding and communicating your past accomplishments at work and in life, and how they fit the needs and priorities of a potential employer. By mid-life, you’ve succeeded in many things that support you to succeed in a career change!

Starting over is not starting from scratch

A local client came to me recently seeking a career transition after 23 years in the same job. Like many others before her, she asked, “Is it even possible?”

In their minds or, to be more accurate, in their emotions, it feels like a career change means “starting over” from the point of departure 23 years ago when they started their career from scratch.

No, a career change doesn’t mean you are starting from the beginning. Having been in the world of work for 23 years, this client has many transferable skills and knowledge because there is no substitute for experience.

To transition to certain jobs that require a specific license to practice—such as medicine or law—then a career change might involve much more education.

But for many individuals, including this client, there are dozens of jobs that match her work experience. I provided her a list of such jobs that she can easily transition to without further education.

And, today, there over 1500 micro-credentials that she can acquire in the space of a few weeks or months that will qualify her for dozens of other jobs that are in demand.

With just a little career exploration and a few hours of simple research or assessment exercises, most individuals can identify a handful of job targets.

Then it’s a question of hitting those targets with proven job search strategies and tactics.

Remember, it only takes one employer to recognize your value in this very dynamic job market in which employers a desperate to meet with experienced candidates.

Some individuals prefer to go all in with a job search. They quit their current job and dedicate themselves to finding a better job fit.

Others, like my recent client with 23 years’ experience, prefer to keep their current job while taking small steps to reposition themselves for jobs that they are targeting as a better fit.

Return To Work

A client in Calgary is looking to return to work after 12 years of childcare, eldercare and pandemic isolation.

Like many individuals in her situation, she does not like the idea of jumping into job hunting after an extended absence.

In her case, we are undertaking an assessment of her natural talents and previous work and education to match with sectors of the economy where there is a high demand for new employees.

Then we will identify the micro-credential that she can acquire in the shortest time that she can leverage into a targeted sector where there is a significant shortage of workers.

This is the quickest way to re-enter the workforce—to acquire a technical skill that is in high demand by employers. Here is a link to the Massive Open Online Courses.

The great advantage for workers nowadays is that the preponderance of remote work expands options for individuals with a technical skill, especially a computer-related technical skill, because computer skills are now core skills required in traditional sectors—such as transportation, healthcare, manufacturing, education, public administration—as well as new sectors, such as IT, SaaS, cybersecurity, data science…so workers are not restricted to jobs only in their geographic area. Instead, they can work remotely from anywhere in the country for employers located anywhere.

The key is to identify the sector and skill that best suits you for a return to work sooner rather than later.

If you would like to discuss your situation, please contact me.

Career change tip: Don’t make assumptions

According to many surveys, about half the working population is preparing to make a career change. We read stories about exhausted nurses and teachers leaving their fields. Or service workers going back to school for IT diplomas. Or senior executives cashing out to sell real estate.

Many individuals change careers for good reasons. But just as many make decisions based on assumptions that could lead them down the wrong path. For example, a good many people have come to me with the intention of going into HR because they want to have direct contact with people and help them. That’s a noble motivation, right? Yes, but most HR duties are about managing processes not people.

Processes or people

HR is about using software and systems to effectively and efficiently deploy a specific resource in an organization—that resource is called talent, or human resources. When employees actually need help for a work-related problem, such as managing their stress or mental health, they are most often referred to a third party. If you want to work directly with people, then consider working in an employee assistance program run by a third party provider.

We need to substitute our assumptions with a reality check. Before committing to a career change, verify that your natural strengths and motivations align with its core duties and responsibilities.

Let’s use the HR scenario again. If by “helping others” you mean meeting with employees one-on-one to listen to their problem, then advising them on their options and helping them choose and appropriate course of action–then you may not enjoy sitting in front of a computer all day using PeopleSoft or some other software to review payroll complaints from workers spread across the country.

If what you really want to do is influence the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of individuals towards some positive change, then identify which “jobs” in HR actually perform that function. Also, check to see what other careers are organized around that core activity.

You can make a better decision about a career change and what you need to do to make it happen with the assistance of my JOBJOY FOR LIFE™ Course.

Job change or Career change–which is right for you?

The pandemic has caused many people to re-evaluate their life priorities and surveys indicate that many plan on changing their job this year, some for a better or different job and some for a whole new career.

In terms of deciding what to do, it may be helpful to understand the difference between a job change and a career change.

Career is derived from its Latin root meaning ‘wheeled vehicle,’ which lent itself to the modern notion of a single, linear, vocational direction (the metaphor equating to: ‘following a particular path’ or ‘climbing the corporate ladder’), as working permanently in, or committed to, a particular profession, such as a journalist, nurse, teacher, police officer, engineer, and so on.

Job change is not necessarily career change; some job change involves promotions, or demotions, with the same employer, or a lateral transfer using similar or related skills with a different employer in the same career field.

For example, social media has wiped out many daily newspapers and magazines, and some journalists who’ve lost their jobs have made a job change to a Communications/Media Relations Specialist with a large corporation, a government department or a nonprofit organization. Instead of reporting the news, they now work to “make” news by having their employer’s activities reported as news.

A career change, by contrast, is more difficult and involves moving from one career path to something completely different; for example, a journalist becoming a home renovator as an independent contractor.

Job change or career change—which is right for you? It will depend on your aspirations, preferences and circumstances. Your strengths and weaknesses will need to be factored into your decision. It may be important to do an objective evaluation of the pros and cons of each strategy for your situation.

Would you quit astrophysicist job to run a fireworks business?

Just this morning, one of my clients called to tell me that his two nephews—one a dentist, the other an astrophysicist—can’t stand going to work each day…so they are quitting their jobs to take over their father’s very successful fireworks business in Baltimore! I kid you not.

Now, if you were to go to their mother’s FaceBook page, you would get a very different impression, one of a proud mother singing the praises of her boys, and rightly so…it’s no small accomplishment to become a dentist or astrophysicist!

But the misery these boys feel is quite common. Psychology Today, the Menninger Clinic, The American Management Association, and other eminent organizations estimate as much as 90% of the working population is not in their right work. And we all know that depression is now the #1 workplace disability in North America.

If you’re in this situation, it is not your fault!

We tend to do things because that is the expected thing to do. We’ve been told to go to school to get good grades, in order to get into a good university and get a good degree in order to get a good job and live a good life. We follow this formula.

Sometimes it works, much of the time it doesn’t. Why? Studies show that most individuals are motivated by extrinsic drivers early in their lives, i.e. to get a secure job, get married, raise a family—do what is expected of us. Nothing wrong with it.

What is true for university is true for trade school, the family business or the military—we conform to the norms of societal expectations, rather than finding out how our personal priorities and our public contributions can be combined through work to create a meaningful life.

But then life smacks us between the eyes—job loss, aging, divorce, death of a loved one, new values, new aspirations—and we start to question our values and priorities.

It’s just normal adult development after the age of thirty to re-order our priorities around intrinsic drivers, such as our deepest values and highest aspirations.

My client has no idea if his nephews—as a dentist and astrophysicist–have any skills or motivation to run a fireworks business! And neither does his brother, the father of these two men. They could run it into the ground for all he knows! But it hurts him, as a father, to see his sons so unhappy in their chosen professions.

That’s why my client told his nephews to sign on to my JOBJOY FOR LIFE™ Course. He wants them to take the time to find out now what they each have as natural strengths and motivations when it comes to work. This will increase their chances of finding job satisfaction and success in a fireworks business…while sparing their parents the misery of seeing their sons unhappy once again.