A career is as unique as the individual.
Most people I talk to, regardless of what stage they are at in their career, can connect the dots as to how they arrived at their current position. However, if you asked them to predict their current job 5 years ago, most of them wouldn’t have been able to do it. For the lucky few who were inspired at a young age and for better or worse stuck to their dreams, their career path may have turned out as expected. However, for most people, there is a lot of uncertainty in their career journey.
There are a common set of events and actions that are universal to career journeys which can be categorized in the following order:
- Characterizing your journey
- Searching for opportunities
- Finding support and role models
- Identifying inflection points
- Embracing catalyzing events
- Identifying decision points
- Actualizing commitment events
- Planning your exit
1. Characterizing your journey
The first step is just building awareness of what you are doing and how it forms part of your journey. If you are in high school it’s probably because you have to be, but once you graduate you have to start making decisions.
The most important part of characterizing your journey is to identify what you have control over and what constraints are applied to your situation. Constraints are ever present. If you are in college, you may want to transfer to a different college or switch majors, but you have to consider the expense of time and money that constrain your decision. If you join a firm that gives you stock options or delays your signing bonus, you may be influenced to stay at the job for longer than desired.
It’s important to understand the series of decisions that led you to where you are today and try to articulate where you would like to go over the next 6 to 24 months. Identifying a destination will help you work backwards to prepare yourself and identify your assets, your constraints, and the actions that you will need to take to make progress on the next stage of your adventure.
2. Searching for opportunities
Most career transitions take up to 24 months. This is enough time for you to build a new knowledge base and gain relevant experience. During this time you have to seek out opportunities. To do this, look at people’s LinkedIn profiles who are already doing what you want to do and see what activities they were doing 2 years prior. Write your future resume and then look for opportunities to get the experiences, skills, and recommendations that you need to make your ideal resume a reality. If there aren’t opportunities readily available to you, then you will need to be creative and go outside your circles to create your own opportunities.
For example, I was at a school that didn’t have a consulting club so I reached out to a couple presidents of other university consulting clubs and asked if I could join their club and luckily enough I was able to.
3. Finding support and role models
Role models are not necessarily people you aspire to be, but rather people who show you what is possible. For me it was seeing individuals with PhDs go into consulting, although I didn’t know any of them personally.
Finding support is the more critical step and involves identifying a few people who can coach you along the way. You might find support from one or two people, or crowd source support from multiple people. It’s good to have a diverse network, as communicating with a wide range of people like you can help you to better predict what your experience will be like.
4. Identifying inflection points
Inflection points on a graph occur where there is a dramatic change in the Y-variable in relation to the X-variable. An example of this would be the hockey stick graph for projected revenue growth that startups might include in their pitch deck.
In your career journey, this might be a moment when you discover that you are exceptionally good at something. When you start focusing your attention on a certain type of project, or picking a concentration within your major in college. These are points that may be immediately recognizable or may require some reflection. Regardless, they are points which elevate you to another level and provide additional opportunities based on your newly identified skill set.
5. Embracing catalyzing events
In chemistry, a catalyst is something that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed by providing an alternative pathway for the reaction that has a lower activation energy. In your professional career, you will sometimes encounter such catalyzing events. While probably more luck than being intentionally sought out, be ready for them when they happen. This could be when you network with the right person and land an interview, get a leg up from someone more senior to you, or find yourself promoted into a leadership position and have the opportunity to demonstrate your capabilities. These events are situational and can be transformative.
I was fortunate enough to find teams for two case competitions. This was mostly by chance and happened within a couple weeks of each other. I made it a priority to find space in my calendar to fully participate and it was an amazing experience. I took advantage of the opportunity and it helped me gain experience, connections, and confidence in my decision to pursue consulting.
6. Identifying decision points
The best piece of parenting advice I have heard is “think twice before making an irreversible decision”. There are certainly irreversible decisions in life, or ones which are hard to change. In the working world, changing your mind can cost you serious time and money. For me deciding to apply and interview with consulting firms was not as stressful as accepting an offer, since accepting an offer has a long term impact and will shape the next few years of my life.
Once you join a firm, choose carefully what projects to work on and remain conscious of the decisions that will shape how you spend your time, money, and energy. As you approach a decision point, it’s best to have a framework on how you will make the decision and work through multiple scenarios.
I knew which firms I wanted to apply to, what a typical offer might be, and how it might impact my career. I ranked firms before applying and had a set of criteria to help make the decision before receiving any offers. The decision was no less stressful but it was helpful to go back to a document I had made during a time of lower stress. These are the same basic principles that are used when planning for a negotiation where you need to identify your position, what you’re willing to accept, and what it is worth to you.
7. Actualizing commitment events
Once you have committed to something, you need to fully embrace it. The decision will become part of your identity. This will include shifting the activities you do to prepare for your next journey. Don’t burn any bridges or cut off ties with your peers, but do refocus your energy and efforts towards the next chapter of your journey.
8. Planning your exit
Regardless of your career stage, there will be an exit at some point. Some people will stay with one firm their entire career, but it is increasingly common to work for multiple companies. It’s good to have a general idea of what your criteria are for when you need to move on to something else. One common theme that I have heard from consultants is that “when you stop learning it’s time to move on”.
It’s your journey. You can be a high performer and a great employee, but if the job is not meeting your needs then it might be time to switch.
I have always taken the approach that it is better to move towards a new opportunity rather than away from an existing job.
Summary
Job descriptions are written based on the needs for the employer.
As you gain more experience and interact with more people, you can start to find where you fit best within your industry, company, and team. Each job you take should get you closer to finding this best fit where you can excel in a natural way.
Each time you start a new chapter in your journey, you can draw on your previous experiences to make better decisions.
Andrew Kuczmarski is a PhD candidate at the University of Delaware whose passion lies at the intersection of science and business.
Image: Unsplash
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