Create Your Future: Passions Vs. Practicality {Part 3}

/
Create Your Future: Passions Vs. Practicality {Part 3}

"I've been thinking about interior design, or maybe architecture. Because I really like math, but I also want to be able to do something creative. But then I'm worried about job opportunities, I know it's ridiculous to try to get a job in those fields."

I had a hunch, so I asked, "Do you have any programming or web development experience?" 

"It's funny you ask that because earlier this week I started teaching myself to code online. I like it!" Her face lit up.

"And have you ever heard about interaction design?" She smiled. And then proceeded to tune out the rest of our session because it's clear I had hit a nerve and she just wanted to go google. 

Read More

Find Your Values: Passions Vs Practicality {Part 2}

/
Find Your Values: Passions Vs Practicality {Part 2}

"The money would be amazing," my friend said, contemplating an offer from a Large Tech Company. "I mean, I think the job would be rough. And there is no such thing as work-life balance there. But I could do anything for a year. Right?" 

Maybe. How precious is a year to you? What is important to you in life? People I meet get stuck A LOT on the dilemma of practicality versus passion. What happens when you have student loans to pay down, and a desire to start a social enterprise or nonprofit? What do you do when you have a family who needs your support and you want to start your own business? What if you have a great stock options offer but you know you'll find the work boring? Do you take the money or do you hold out for something else? And how do you figure that out? 

Read More

Big Scary Life Decisions: Passions Vs Practicality {Part 1}

/
Big Scary Life Decisions: Passions Vs Practicality {Part 1}

Last week, I went to the doctor and came back with some not-great news. I have a health profile that includes a Big Scary Illness, and occasionally I have a situation where my doc says "Heads up, this doesn't look good". I'm in the middle of one of those scares right now, and there's an internal battle that goes on in my brain in a situation like this: 

1. "Crap I'm going to need lots of money and really good health insurance." (ie, a nice stable job!), and 

2. "Wow life is short, and I should make the most of the time I have by doing what I love." (ie, pursue my passion now while I can!).

It's the ultimate battle: do I prioritize practicality or passion in the face of a life situation that makes me need and want both? 

Read More

Miserable at Work? Try This.

/
Miserable at Work? Try This.

It's been a tough time at work. There are lots of things to complain about, all of which our fearless leader knows just as well as the people working with her. 

We have limited resources and big to-do lists. We have no natural light. We're in a temporary and open plan office and frequently are asked to move desks or share office space. The air conditioning is either paralyzingly cold or stuffily hot. The technology systems limit flexible work arrangements. Things are changing so much that the targets are constantly moving. 

My first thought on getting home this evening naturally was:  "Ugh. I do not want to go back there tomorrow.". I complained out loud to myself about a situation that feels like it makes good work challenging, too much like work and not enough like productivity. 
Does that sound familiar? 

Read More

You Can't Think Your Way Out of This One

/
You Can't Think Your Way Out of This One

Hi Janet,
 

A couple of questions for you: 

1. I have still been thinking quite a bit about changing career paths and getting my MBA (I'm working in a university now), but I have two concerns with this path.  A) Is the cost (roughly 40K) worth the payoff?  B) Will I like the career path more than my current one? I have visited an MBA class and found the topic being discussed that day very engaging and something I was generally excited about, but it really was just one class session.  Also, since I already have a graduate degree, is earning a second one really a value add?    

2. If I stay in academia, I will likely not go on to a doctoral program since I have no interest in research work, but I worry that this course of action may stunt my career growth.  

I think what I'm looking for is just a few guiding questions to help me better frame my ideas on these paths.  I have tried to think of questions that would help me work it out, but it just isn't as good as asking you.  

Read More

5 Ways to Hack Your Education

/
5 Ways to Hack Your Education

"It's just that I don't think I'm getting very much real-world knowledge through my courses," he complained. He was studying an undergraduate business degree, while running a small business to support his university studies. And he was finding his university classes a bit lacking. "It's good information if I wanted to work in corporate I guess," he conceded, "but I don't want to work in corporate. I want to do my own thing." 

I recommended a leave of absence, and I'm pretty sure he'll end up dropping out of his bachelors degree. And I don't think this is a problem. If you know your goals, and it's not clear that university will support those goals, then university might not be the right place for you right now (I have very different advice for those in graduate school, you can read that here).

So what if, like this student, you don't feel like university is meeting your needs, but you still want to learn useful things? Maybe university feels too expensive, or the education isn't exactly what you're looking for, or maybe you have big things to do and university feels like it's going to take too long. Or maybe you've already done your university degree and you still feel like there's more you want to learn or practice? 

Read More

How to Disagree With Your Boss

/
How to Disagree With Your Boss

I have a great boss. She's an advocate, she empowers me to do my job in the way that I think it should be done, she trusts that I'll follow through on my commitments, and she's interested in my professional growth. She also says "No" to me sometimes, which I hate hearing (of course), and can lead us to conflict. 

So what do you do when your boss says no? When you are SURE that your plan is going to work and they stand in your way? How do you move forward with someone who's first response is to stop you in your tracks? And what if your boss, (unlike mine), is just plain obstinate and unreasonable? 

Read More

You Probably Shouldn't Major in Accounting

/
You Probably Shouldn't Major in Accounting

I had a student in my office this week. She was quiet, and polite, and asked her questions quite directly. "I'd like to make a career change. I'm thinking of a Masters in Professional Accounting. Can you tell me how to market myself so I can get a job?" 

I get asked about Accounting as a career path more than any other professional discipline. Why? Accounting is on the list of Skilled Occupations for migration to Australia, so anyone coming here from overseas has an eye on that list for career paths that come with a visa. There are other reasons too, domestic students pick accounting because it's clear. It sounds practical. Sensible. Surely every business everywhere needs Accountants. It's one that Mom and Dad can understand, be proud of. "Jack is an Accountant." Nothing says "risk-free" like Accounting. I see a lot of risk-averseness in my office. 

Read More

Should I Go to Grad School?

/
Should I Go to Grad School?

Dear Janet: 

I'm graduating this year, and I'm not sure if I should go on the job search, or if I should go to grad school. Should I go to grad school? 

- Student 

 

No. No you should not go to grad school. Are you listening? You should go to work. 

Too many young people I talk to go to grad school because they don't feel really ready to face the working world. Maybe it's because you worry that you won't be able to compete for a job (maybe you've already been rejected for a few jobs that looked really good), or maybe it's that you don't really know exactly what you want to do yet. 

Read More

4 Excuses That Are Holding You Hostage

/
4 Excuses That Are Holding You Hostage

A couple of months ago, I was contacted to participate in creating a public video about my work. The request came by email and I ignored it. When I eventually prodded myself into responding, I was reluctant. "Ok, maybe, but can you give me more information?" That led to emails with a production company that I also delayed in responding to. 

Eventually, I agreed to interview with them, giving them little time and a tight schedule to work with. I slowly came around and the project went forward. It culminated with a full day of filming at the end of November that was one of the best professional experiences I've had yet. The video will be published early next year, and I am thrilled. But why was I so reluctant for this fantastic opportunity to grow my career and expand my professional reach? 

Read More

Drinking on the Job

/
Drinking on the Job

It's holiday time, and where I'm currently working, that means we're getting gift boxes in the office and hosting staff holiday parties, and we're generally a bit more relaxed and laid back than we would usually be. We've hosted a retirement party, two Christmas parties, and here, at this university in Australia, that means drinking wine on company time. 

This is new to me. I came from a public university in the US, where the alcohol policy was strict and explicit: alcohol on campus is not allowed without a permit, should not even be stored in staff offices, and we would never have a drink even off campus during working hours. You just didn't do it. 

Here, we pour champagne at lunch for a retirement party, we pour shiraz at 4:00 pm when we get a little antsy in the week before Christmas. And we sit at our desks with our disposable wine glasses and chatter on about work as we would any other time.

Read More

How to Get What you Want at Work

/
How to Get What you Want at Work

"My girlfriend invited me to go to New York with her next week, for a conference. It's a great opportunity and I really want to go! Can I ask for the time off this close to the date?" 

One of the biggest challenges in establishing yourself as a professional with a solid reputation is how to juggle what you reaaaaaallyyyyyy want to do outside of work, with what your workplace needs and wants of you. "But it's my life, I should be able to do what I want," you think, while your boss is thinking "it's our busiest time of year, is he blind? If he asks for one more day off  I need to hire someone more reliable." 

Read More

A Tribute To A Friend and a Life Well Lived

/
A Tribute To A Friend and a Life Well Lived

I lost a friend this week. Captain William Dubois, an air force pilot, was killed when his plane crashed in the middle east due to a mechanical failure on Monday. Will and I were casual friends, actually. I met him when he was in Seattle on training several years ago, we flirted in a restaurant and had a date together and then kept in touch via phone and email and Facebook while he finished his military training. We both fell in love with other people and stayed in touch, saying "happy birthday" now and again or asking about each others' travels and times abroad, and watching our Facebook feeds for fun and interesting news and photos. You could hear his laugh right through the computer screen in the images put there, and his almost shy sense of gentlemanliness came through in his smile. But now he's gone. He leaves behind his new wife and labrador puppy, and a devastated family that adored him. Will was 30 years old, and he was right at the beginning of something. 

Read More

Work For Free

/
Work For Free

 

 There is a lot of coaching opportunity here for both the project manager and the intern. For example, we might talk about clear communication throughout the project, and the importance of creating check-in points to assess progress against the goal. It might be important in this case for both the manager and the intern to have been proactive in making sure expectations and needs were being met, perhaps after 4 hours of work, or after an initial milestone was completed. But even with all that, if you're an intern or a new hire, I'd like to make the case for doing additional work, even if it's beyond what you expected and even what you were paid for.

Read More

Why a Startup Should Be Your First Internship

/
Why a Startup Should Be Your First Internship

I'm often asked by students contemplating job offers, "Should I start with an established company and then go to a startup later, or take this opportunity with a startup and hope that it works out?" 

 

Even when you're drawn to entrepreneurial, fun work environments and the excitement of a startup, it can be tempting to want to take the position at the well-known company. Doing that provides name recognition on your resume, and can be a secure way to add to your bank account and maybe pay down your student loans (or avoid taking out more). But if you're drawn to startups at all, they make great internship and first job experiences. Here's why: 

Read More

Oysters and Hurricanes: Bad Decisions in Business Travel

/
Oysters and Hurricanes: Bad Decisions in Business Travel

Before I became "CareerJanet", I was Oil Spill Janet, working for a small environmental consulting firm that contracted with a large government agency that got involved any time someone accidentally broke a pipeline or leaked some sludge. There's a lot of travel in this business. When the Deepwater Horizon oil spill happened in 2010, I was contracted to go on site to the command post, based in New Orleans, as part of the spill management team, and thus began several months of continuous business travel. I was in my mid-20's. This was heaven.

On Location

New Orleans is both the most ideal and least ideal location to put a whole bunch of extremely hard-working, stressed out consultants, scientists, Coast Guard officers, and oil company managers. The city was the most accessible and logical hub of the gulf coast to this particular incident, having enough hotel rooms to accommodate the several hundred personnel stationed there on behalf of the environment. And, the city specializes in helping you relieve that work stress in any way you need to.

Read More

Whose Career Goal are you Pursuing?

/
Whose Career Goal are you Pursuing?

"My mom said I should be a librarian because she knows someone whose daughter is a librarian and said that's a good option," my student told me.

"Do you want to be a librarian?" I asked.

"I don't know...", she broke eye contact.

 

At least it's obvious that she's pursuing Mom's goal instead of her own. Some of us are working on a far more insidious type of career choice....the one made through more subtle clues about what our parents or family members want of us. It's more common that I work with a student who says, "My parents are worried about what kind of internship I'll have this summer."  Or, when I ask "How did you decide you wanted to be a doctor?" the answer is "My dad is a Neurologist," which, I have to remind the person, is not actually answering the question.

Read More

Don't Quit Grad School

/
Don't Quit Grad School

About a year into my graduate degree, I agonized about quitting. I was burned out by the juggle of life and school, I was watching my loans build, most of my courses weren't stimulating, and I was having major doubts about my chosen career path.

My experience is not unique. I hear this kind of thing more than you'd think from graduate students or post-grad students, folks in law school, PhD programs, or medical residency. Someone in this boat will go on to talk about how it seemed like the best thing to do at the time, but that working 80 hour weeks or the total lack of a life outside of whatever program they're in makes one reconsider their decision. Sometimes the feeling of regret and "can't go on" is even more extreme, like the med student who realized a year into her program that she actually doesn't want to be around sick people all day every day. Or, maybe you're a PhD student and the never-ending criticism and lack of support from your faculty members or grantors feels impossible to slog through any more. What do you do?

Read More