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Career Counseling - True Stories - Part 2
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Once in awhile, our career counseling clients will be parents with their teen age children. I love to see this - parents who are taking an active interest in their children's career.
One such case was a mom, dad and son in Texas. The dad was a CEO of a company. The mom was a CFO. Talk about power parents. We did the session over Skype because they wanted a face to face. The son and dad were in the picture and mom was in the background. Their house was huge. Must have been a mansion
As we went through the career test results, I could see the father nodding his head in agreement. Their son was a junior in high school and was trying to decide between his three top career choices and whether to go to Stanford or Texas A&M.
All three of his career choices were consistent with the test results, and he was really torn between these different career paths. When I told them the best way to make the final decision, was to spend some time - even if it's just a few days or a few hours - in the real work environment, his father was thrilled. That was what he had already been doing with his son. We call it "shadowing." Spending time in the actual work environment that you are considering.
When you visit the kind of place where you might work, check in to see how you "feel" there. How does your body feel? Do you feel good there?
If it's the wrong career for you, you should get a subtle physical reaction that says, "Get me out of here!" But you have to be sensitive. This is your body talking to you, your gut reaction. You are trying to bypass the mind, which is always confused about careers, and listen to your body which does not get confused.
If your gut reaction is, "Hey, I could hang out here. I like it here," then that career choice could work for you. It might not be your absolute best choice, but it could work.
One of the career choices was law, and he had his son hang out in a law office. The other choice was accounting and finance, so he had already arranged for his son to work the summer volunteering in an accounting office. So in this case the parents were already doing all the right things.
Several of my career counseling clients are between 26 and 35 and are still in the early phase of their careers.
What I see here is that many of these folks never received any sort of quality career guidance when they were in high school or college. They simply stumbled along. Picking a college major when their initial major became too hard. Taking the first job someone offered them, rather than thinking strategically about where they might want to work.
Probably the saddest thing is when someone puts in 4 to 5 years to get their degree and then their first job is with a small 30 person company. I firmly believe that your first job out of school should be with a large, fast growing, international firm, with money in the bank.
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If you join a large (3000 people and up) fast growing firm, their growth will create new opportunities.
You can literally change jobs every year while still working for the same company. You can get exposure to many different careers this way.
I like to use Apple and Google as examples of this. Find a company whose products and services are so hot (think iPhone, iPad) that people will wait in long lines for. Or services (like web searching) that are so useful, billions of people around the world will use them.
These companies always need new talent and they like to promote from within. So one year you are in engineering the next year in marketing, but you never have to leave the company.
That is how younger people (26-35) should spend their early careers, not in some little 30 person company where you won't grow.
On the opposite spectrum of those youngsters are those people who are over 50, and maybe over 60.
I am a firm believer in never wanting to retire. That may sound crazy, but a mentor of mine, who lived to be over 100, once told me that the day you retire is the day you start to die. He was a very wealthy many, and held the distinction of being the longest running chairman of a company on the New York Stock Exchange. He was one of those immigrants who came to the US with $19 in his pocket. He built a high tech company that employed over 4,000 people around the world.
He came to work everyday, even into his late 90's. His father worked until he was 93. And neither of these gentlemen needed the money.
I was lucky enough to get coaching and mentoring from him, sometimes as often as once a week. What an honor.
But he believed that when you stop working, your brain begins to deteriorate. You start to drink too much. You get lazy. etc. etc.
OK, you don't have to agree with me. Many of my friends don't agree, and they do seem to be enjoying retirement a lot. But retiring is not for everyone.
If you hate your job, or you hate the work you do, or you hate your boss, and you are 50 or over, you are probably counting the days till you can retire.
But if you love the work, and your boss has your back, or maybe you are your own boss, it's different. You are not counting down to retirement. You are working, adding value and your brain is probably still sharp.
Either way, as you approach 50, you become much less hire-able. When you are 25 or 35, you can change companies and find a new job pretty quickly. Assuming you picked a career field that is still in demand.
But the closer you get to 60, the less desirable you are - at most companies. So you have to play it more strategically. You can't just quit when you feel like quitting. You can't just complain all the time. You can't be so outspoken. You probably have to fly under the radar and play things more carefully.
You really don't want to be 58 and looking for a job. I have a friend who is 62, and when he got cut loose from his last company, he was afraid he would never get another job in his life. He was desperate. He had trouble getting interviews. He had to color his hair and mustache black to cover the gray.
Fortunately, he used advice that I give many of my career counseling clients. The way to find a job is networking. Calling everybody you know and tell them you are looking for a job in "_____________" and if they hear of anything to let you know.
Headhunters will tell you that 85% of jobs are found by talking to the people you know, by leveraging your connections. Only a few percent of jobs are filled by using the internet. Yet most people spend 85% of their time on the internet where as they should spend 85% of their time talking to people. That's how jobs are found today.
For part 1 click here
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