Career Decisions – Page 10

Passion? What Passion?

Students, if you can see the end of your Penn years looming in the not too distant future, this post is for you. It concerns passion. You may have been asked or are asking yourself what your passion is. You may even be tired of hearing well-meaning friends and relatives say, just follow your passion.

If you actually have a passion, carry on. You are fortunate. You are also in the minority. Most undergraduates (and many graduate students as well) do not have anything resembling a passion. So don’t feel bad or inadequate if you don’t yet have a passion that is leading you to a particular kind of work.

In my experience after watching the careers of numerous Penn alumni unfold, graduates discover their passion through the development of skills, and this frequently happens in the workplace. It is through the daily discipline of a job that you develop the skills and expertise you need to feel like you are really making a contribution. You feel good about yourself when you do something well. You become excited about the work, and your strong performance on the job. In this way you develop a passion for this work (and perhaps the industry), and you seek positions in the future where you can use and continue to develop these important skills that you can now demonstrate.

What if you do have a passion, but it is for a political candidate, or a charitable organization, or a sports team, or any number of other things? You would do anything to work for that candidate, or that non-profit, or that team. This can be hard. The positions available may be volunteer, or extremely low paying. They could be routine, and give little opportunity to develop skills or to advance. But if by working in the organization you are meeting people, observing the roles they play, learning about the field and developing a vocabulary, then give it a try. After all, if you can’t take a risk at 22, when will you ever be able to do so?

If you can’t make it happen (or can’t afford to), don’t despair. The world is full of people who pursue their passions outside of work as volunteers. In the meantime, you can be working someplace where you can make a living, develop expertise, and perhaps find a new passion, one that is potentially more authentic and long-lasting.

Career Exploration Lessons from the Cheshire Cat

I’m definitely not the first to compare Lewis Carroll’s character of Alice lost down a rabbit hole to the career exploration process. However, sometimes as a career counselor I feel a little like the Cheshire Cat, if slightly less cheeky. With that said, I do feel this particular sassy feline has a lot of good advice to offer, particularly as it relates to looking for that first job after graduation. Here are some of my favorite quotes of his and how they apply to life after Penn:

Alice: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

Cheshire Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

Alice: “I don’t much care where –”

Cheshire Cat: “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Before you start applying for jobs, it is important to have some direction because what you want greatly influences how and where you look for those opportunities. Once you identify a goal, we in Career Services are happy to help you develop a strategy to get there. However, if you aren’t sure what you want and you’re not ready to decide (a topic for a whole different blog), then you open yourself up to possibilities, which can be as exciting as having a more concrete goal. Just like Alice picking from different possible paths, if you aren’t sure of what your long-term plans are, just about any first job will help you get there. This is because any role will help you develop new skills that you can use in future positions as well as give you a better sense of what you want (or don’t want) in future jobs. The trick is to take advantage of all experiences put in front of you because you never know which path they will help illuminate next. You might even think of it as an adventure…

And, as the Cheshire Cat also wisely said, “Every adventure requires a first step. Trite, but true, even here.” In other words, don’t be afraid to test yourself and explore new things. Even in the nerve-wracking and stressful process of figuring out life after graduation, each small step along the way, whether that’s updating your resume or doing an informational interview with a Penn alum, can help you get there. Or, taking a risk on an unusual first job may also be that first step towards an adventure.

“Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do – some… don’t ever want to.”

This quote could be interpreted many ways but in this instance I take it to mean that very few people find careers about which they are truly passionate. And even fewer are passionate about something as a senior in college. Some spend the rest of their lives looking for it and some never find it. For those lucky few who seem born to do what they do (think Steve Jobs, Jim Henson, Jane Goodall), they have typically taken the path less traveled or more risky to get there. So it’s okay if you’re not passionate about something now. That’s not what your first job is all about. It’s just the first step along your adventure. But as you travel on your own winding path or tumble down a rabbit hole, be on the lookout for the Cheshire Cats in your own lives. We may be frustrating, or even cheeky, but hopefully we will help you ask questions of yourself, what’s important to you, and which way you want to go.

Bring on the Career Joy!

By Barbara Hewitt

We recently added a new addition to our household – Carmen, a cute Shi Tzu/Yorkie mix (who knew they were called “Shorkies”?) from a local animal shelter. It has been fun having her around, as can be evidenced by the very happy picture with one of my daughters below!

Carmen During the weeks since Carmen joined us, we’ve come into contact with a variety of individuals who have chosen careers working with animals and I’ve noticed how much they all seem excited and engaged by their work. The workers and volunteers at the shelter from which we adopted Carmen were incredibly upbeat and thrilled to welcome prospective adopters to their shelter. The atmosphere was a little crazy, as it was rather crowded with prospective adoptive families and volunteers along with (as you might imagine) lots of barking dogs. Even in the hectic environment, the staff took plenty of time to answer our questions to ensure that the transition went as smoothly as possible for Carmen and our family. The staff followed up a week or so later to make sure everything was going fine. I mentioned to one staff member how impressed I was with the entire upbeat environment, and she smiled broadly and said “Yes, we love our animals!” Clearly she had found her passion.

A few days later we took Carmen to a groomer and again I noticed how incredibly positive and excited about working with dogs the staff was there….Same thing when we visited the vet for a check-up a few days later. The vet and assistants were happy to meet our new addition and again spent lots of time getting to know Carmen and even let my kids check out her heart rate with the stethoscope. We’ve enrolled Carmen in a training class and the instructor is an incredibly energetic owner of two amazingly well-trained boxers…she is wonderfully enthusiastic about her work and the opportunity to meet and work with new dogs on a regular basis.

I can’t imagine that any of these individuals chose their professions because of huge paychecks, but rather because they love the work. While we all consider the benefits and “perks” we receive when considering a new job (the pay, the benefits, a short commute, flexible work hours, etc.), the most important thing to consider is the intrinsic nature of the work – do you like most of things you will be doing on any given day? Does it give you energy instead of leaving you drained? Many individuals find “mission-oriented” work extremely fulfilling, when their work is aligned with a cause that is important to them, often in a nonprofit setting. But I’ve also spoken with plenty of individuals who find deep fulfilment in other sorts of work, depending on their individual values. I’ve spoken with students who interned in consumer product marketing who have told me they find it incredibly gratifying when they are at a store and see someone purchasing their product ….and I’ve also had students tell me that they realized they were in the wrong career entirely when they came to the realization that they couldn’t care less if more consumers bought the new potato chips they were promoting. It all boils down to what is important to you as an individual and what you most highly value. Pay close attention to what makes you tick and brings you joy….there are plenty of career clues embedded in that joy.

The Complexity of Career Planning

I’m currently studying complexity theory, the way “patterns emerge through the interaction of many agents.”* Because the actors and issues and environment continually change, patterns also change as they emerge, stabilize, and then perhaps dissipate. Observation and flexibility are the keys here.

This seems particularly applicable to planning and navigating careers. Since everything is in flux—organizations, technology, economies, the environment, politics, relationships, and YOU—we’re aiming at moving targets. Preparation for a career can take years as we study, develop skills, and gain experience. When we finally get “there,” the “there” has likely changed.

So in order to prepare for the evolving and complex landscape of the future, developing the skills of observing, learning, and adapting is critical. “Probing” is key. Your liberal arts education at the University of Pennsylvania provides a foundation for this perspective. I encourage you to observe, question, discuss, and engage as often as possible. In the realm of career planning, this means opening up to a range of options. If you have already identified a career goal, plan for it and pursue it while simultaneously continuing to learn about other opportunities and how they are similar to or differ from your initial focus. If you are exploring career options or haven’t yet begun to do so, jump in and learn about career possibilities in every setting. Pay attention to the work that people do and ask them questions about it. Whatever it is that you enjoy doing, do it! And talk to others who also do it to see if/how they’ve used their skills in professional settings.

The best tactic, the one that will help you adapt to how the future unfolds, is to explore.

*From Kurtz, C.F., Snowden, D. J. “The New Dynamics of Strategy: Sense-Making in a Complex and Complicated World,” in IBM Systems Journal (42:3), 2003.

Get Lucky

This week I attended a wonderful panel discussion featuring alumnae who were all varsity athletes. They discussed the success they have achieved in a variety of fields, and described how their experience as student athletes prepared them for their professional lives.

One panelist made the following comment (I am paraphrasing): everyone’s career is the result of chance, typically a chance meeting with someone who introduced the person to a field, a company or an opportunity. Although it may not seem to be true when everyone you know is purposefully interviewing in OCR, the fact is that we end up in our life’s work by happenstance. In fact, there is a wonderful book that describes this: Luck in No Accident: Making the Most of Happenstance in your Life and Career by Krumboltz and Levin. Their Happenstance Learning Theory attempts to put clients in a position to transform unplanned events into learning opportunities.

This is what we try to do in our work with Penn students. I myself do not believe in any kind of magic matching system that takes answers you provide on an instrument or survey and determines what is your best career fit. Such exercises may well be valuable in your self-assessment, as a way to learn more about your strengths, but they do not have The Answer, or the perfect match.

By all means have a plan, at least for the short term. But be open to opportunities, ideas, directions that present themselves to you. Branch Rickey of Brooklyn Dodgers (and Jackie Robinson) fame once said, “Luck is the residue of design.” That is undoubtedly true. It is important to prepare yourself, and to plan. But luck can present itself in many guises, and may be hard to recognize. Be alert to opportunities as you face them, this year, and throughout your career, so you can make the most of them. May you be lucky, again and again.