I would like to share my experience interviewing for jobs in new fields that are unrelated to my previous career in software testing, i.e. interviewing for non-software jobs. What is common among all the interviews is the insistence on why I would like to do the career change and why I am a fit for the new job. Most interviewers were pretty adamant about these two questions and kept rephrasing these same questions until they got an answer that satisfied them. Even though I prepared appropriate answers for these questions, my initial answers were not sufficiently acceptable.
So in particular, the positions that I interviewed for were for real estate appraisal and a retail job at FedEx Kinko’s. I did not get the impression that they judged me because I am trying to switch to a new field. I felt that the opposition was not about trying new things, but it was more about the classical question "Why did you leave Microsoft???" :-) Most interviewers questioned why I want to leave a career that seems to be more lucrative and stable than the one I am applying for. Many of them got angry at why I did not try to do the career change while still at MS, and they did not seem to understand how I can give up something that is perceived to be "good" and "desirable". So they drilled down with their questions on my previous role in software testing and asked me why I don't go back to testing. What don't I like about it? They kept rephrasing the same question until they got an answer from me that satisfied them. Usually after they insist so much and after I exhaust my prepared answers (e.g. I liked what I did before but I want to explore something new because I want to use skill x and skill y, or something along those lines), I just say that I don't like to be in front of a computer the whole day, or I don't like the amount of chaos and ambiguity that I had to deal with, and that's what changes the tone of the interview and I think is the critical point when they decide not to hire me. :-) I don't know what else to answer because they are not satisfied with my initial answer that is focused on the positive. I try to stay away from the negative, but they insist.
This is what I have to share about my personal interviewing experience. I feel that for the next interview I need to be very convincing to the interviewer that I am a fit for their job opening and have a strong sales pitch and confident attitude!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Saturday, May 19, 2007
"Transitions" by William Bridges
Summary
I just finished reading this book. The first edition of the book was published in 1980. Bridges edited the book for its second edition that was published twenty four years later in 2004 (or twenty five years after Bridges first wrote the book in 1979). William Bridges did a career transition himself in the 70s. A former professor of English, he started a new career to help others deal with change.
The concept of transition described in the book is simple in that transition comprises three intuitive stages: ending, a neutral zone, and a new beginning. Bridges tackles transition in its broad sense and does not limit it to career change, but points out that it encompasses many areas of our lives like relationships. Bridges goes into detail in describing each stage. He writes about the challenges and the importance of ending what is old, the often unsupported and confusing neutral zone, and the new beginnings that do not start unless one goes through the internal transformations of the first two phases.
The dominant idea throughout the book is that transition is an internal process. We make the change first psychologically and emotionally, and it is only after this deeper change, that the external changes in our lives (new career, new life partner, etc.) are authentic. Bridges makes a clear distinction between change and transition. Change is superficial and does not involve the deeper shifts on the emotional level. An example of change is when someone gets a new job without much internal search of the new person they want to be, or when someone jumps into a new relationship without having been over their ex partner. Transition, on the other hand, is a deeper state of change, when someone processes the loss of the old situation, goes into a middle phase of void and uncertainty, and finally becomes ready for a new beginning. Transition obviously is a longer process than change.
Bridges also points out that our lives can comprise many transitions. People and their circumstances change over time - aging, change in the organization, change in the family (grown-up children leaving home) prompt us to seek a new transition.
It is interesting that Bridges points out that transitions happen at every age. Adults go through it as well as children and teenagers in the case of the developmental transition from childhood to adolescence, and from adolescence to adulthood. In addition, no transition in itself is perfect and we may be carrying with us unfinished business from an earlier transition, which we may face in our future transitions.
My Thoughts
Personally, I got mostly touched when reading the chapter about endings. I realized myself that I had a vision of who I want to become, but I didn’t realize that vision because I was so scared. Before reading this book, I thought I was scared of the new, but now I feel that all along I have been really scared of leaving my old identity as a software tester. Having invested about ten years of my life working in the software field, I identify myself as the shy techie. It is very difficult for me to break away from this self-image. I do have a deep desire to change. I would like to overcome my shyness, to become a more assertive person. However, all these years nothing happened. It seems to me as though I am my own prison. That by refusing to leave my old self-identity, I have been sabotaging myself from making a transition.
What I would add to this book is that weight loss is also another example of transition. I have been through weight loss myself. I first tried it unsuccessfully many times, then a couple of years ago managed to lose most of the excess weight (60 lbs), which I unfortunately regained. I mention weight loss because it is a problem that many people in our society are touched by. I think the difficulty of losing the weight is because we do not give much attention to the psychological factor. Letting go of the old habits of using food for comfort and self-medication. Letting go of the old self-image of a fat person and replacing it with a new self-image of a healthy and fit person. It is after all who we want to become. However, it seems that the old never goes away entirely, it is perhaps still ingrained somewhere in our brain. As an analogy, many people regain a portion of the weight they worked so hard to lose. A more dramatic analogy is the statistic about how many criminals repeat their crimes once out of prison.
I wonder if relapses are also a problem in the transitions mentioned by Bridges like career transition or divorce. After we go through a transition, do we have a relapse? Or does the relapse happen only because we didn’t do a deep enough transition?
About the Style of the Book
I felt a little bored reading the second part of the book. I think the second part is redundant as there are many repetitions about the fact that the transition needs to be an internal process before it manifests itself externally through a change in our lives.
Also, I find the analogies to stories from the Greek mythology were excessive. This is a book about transition and not Greek mythology. Even for the sake of illustration, the author should have used them only once or twice, but not more.
Excerpts
Here are some excerpts that I found worth quoting.
p. 78 – Finding meaningful work could clash with societal expectations of monetary success and prestige.
“ In our culture, there are forces that stand in the way of this normal, cyclical pattern of development. We place a high value of monetary success and professional prestige, and that encourages people to set (and then keep trying to reach) distant and elevated goals. This emphasis on success often stands in the way of people’s doing what really interests them and makes them happy. The elevated and distant goal of success is often rationalized by the idea that, even if the goal is not reached, its height insures that even falling short of it will lead to substantial achievement. For all but a very few, however, “aiming high” in that guarantees an ultimate day of reckoning (and what a profound transition that is!) in which they will have to come to terms with having “failed.”
p. 99 - The ninety year old version of oneself:
“Imagine that you are really old. Let’s say you’re ninety. From that time in the future, you can look back on yourself now. Then you’ll know what was really going on and even how things turned out. You may also know how they might have turned out if you had taken a different path. From that vantage point, was this present point in your life a time when it was a good idea to keep on in the same direction, or was it a time that cried out for change? And if the latter, what kind of change was called for? Looking back from age ninety, did you notice signs that pointed to the direction you ought to have taken at this point in our life, signs that may have been hard to see but that were there? And looking back from that future, what feelings do you have about your situation now? At ninety, are you sympathetic with your current confusion or impatient with your current blindness? At ninety, are you pleased by how things turned out or troubled by the nagging feeling that you missed a turn in the road back here where you’re standing now? Do you, at ninety, wish you could have encouraged your present self to take more risks? Or do you wish you could have made the present you wake up and see all that you already possessed and not risk it for something that was just ego candy? To give these questions a little more vitality, take a few moments first to imagine the old you that you’ll be at ninety. Shut your eyes and see whether you can picture your ninety-year-old hands. Imagine what your old body will feel like in whatever position you are now in. In your mind, “people” the world that the old you will be living in: Who will be there, and who won’t? Where will you be living? How will you spend your days? When you have let your imagination sketch out that world, try going back to any of the earlier questions that didn’t seem answerable at the time, and let the ninety-year-old person who lives in that world answer the question.”
p. 109 - Endings: How we hang on to our old habits and lifestyle. Letting go of the old is challenging. New beginnings are not possible without closing the old chapter of our life, ending our old identity, and grieving the loss.
“For it wasn’t the new beginning that accounted for the confusions they were experiencing but rather the termination of their old lives.”
p. 135 - Don’t feel bad about the neutral zone, about being uncertain and lost. This period is essential.
“You should not feel defensive about this apparently unproductive time-out during your transition points, for the neutral zone is meant to be a moratorium from the conventional activity of your everyday existence. The activities of your ordinary life keep you “you” by presenting you with a set of signals that are difficult to respond to in any but the old way. Only in the apparently aimless activity of your time alone can you do the important inner business of self-transformation. But you don’t do it as you do ordinary things, for it is in the walking, watching, making coffee, counting the birds on the phone wire, studying the cracks in the plaster ceiling over the bed, dreaming, and waiting for God-knows-what to happen that you are carrying on the basic industry of the neutral zone, which is attentive inactivity and ritualized routine.”
I just finished reading this book. The first edition of the book was published in 1980. Bridges edited the book for its second edition that was published twenty four years later in 2004 (or twenty five years after Bridges first wrote the book in 1979). William Bridges did a career transition himself in the 70s. A former professor of English, he started a new career to help others deal with change.
The concept of transition described in the book is simple in that transition comprises three intuitive stages: ending, a neutral zone, and a new beginning. Bridges tackles transition in its broad sense and does not limit it to career change, but points out that it encompasses many areas of our lives like relationships. Bridges goes into detail in describing each stage. He writes about the challenges and the importance of ending what is old, the often unsupported and confusing neutral zone, and the new beginnings that do not start unless one goes through the internal transformations of the first two phases.
The dominant idea throughout the book is that transition is an internal process. We make the change first psychologically and emotionally, and it is only after this deeper change, that the external changes in our lives (new career, new life partner, etc.) are authentic. Bridges makes a clear distinction between change and transition. Change is superficial and does not involve the deeper shifts on the emotional level. An example of change is when someone gets a new job without much internal search of the new person they want to be, or when someone jumps into a new relationship without having been over their ex partner. Transition, on the other hand, is a deeper state of change, when someone processes the loss of the old situation, goes into a middle phase of void and uncertainty, and finally becomes ready for a new beginning. Transition obviously is a longer process than change.
Bridges also points out that our lives can comprise many transitions. People and their circumstances change over time - aging, change in the organization, change in the family (grown-up children leaving home) prompt us to seek a new transition.
It is interesting that Bridges points out that transitions happen at every age. Adults go through it as well as children and teenagers in the case of the developmental transition from childhood to adolescence, and from adolescence to adulthood. In addition, no transition in itself is perfect and we may be carrying with us unfinished business from an earlier transition, which we may face in our future transitions.
My Thoughts
Personally, I got mostly touched when reading the chapter about endings. I realized myself that I had a vision of who I want to become, but I didn’t realize that vision because I was so scared. Before reading this book, I thought I was scared of the new, but now I feel that all along I have been really scared of leaving my old identity as a software tester. Having invested about ten years of my life working in the software field, I identify myself as the shy techie. It is very difficult for me to break away from this self-image. I do have a deep desire to change. I would like to overcome my shyness, to become a more assertive person. However, all these years nothing happened. It seems to me as though I am my own prison. That by refusing to leave my old self-identity, I have been sabotaging myself from making a transition.
What I would add to this book is that weight loss is also another example of transition. I have been through weight loss myself. I first tried it unsuccessfully many times, then a couple of years ago managed to lose most of the excess weight (60 lbs), which I unfortunately regained. I mention weight loss because it is a problem that many people in our society are touched by. I think the difficulty of losing the weight is because we do not give much attention to the psychological factor. Letting go of the old habits of using food for comfort and self-medication. Letting go of the old self-image of a fat person and replacing it with a new self-image of a healthy and fit person. It is after all who we want to become. However, it seems that the old never goes away entirely, it is perhaps still ingrained somewhere in our brain. As an analogy, many people regain a portion of the weight they worked so hard to lose. A more dramatic analogy is the statistic about how many criminals repeat their crimes once out of prison.
I wonder if relapses are also a problem in the transitions mentioned by Bridges like career transition or divorce. After we go through a transition, do we have a relapse? Or does the relapse happen only because we didn’t do a deep enough transition?
About the Style of the Book
I felt a little bored reading the second part of the book. I think the second part is redundant as there are many repetitions about the fact that the transition needs to be an internal process before it manifests itself externally through a change in our lives.
Also, I find the analogies to stories from the Greek mythology were excessive. This is a book about transition and not Greek mythology. Even for the sake of illustration, the author should have used them only once or twice, but not more.
Excerpts
Here are some excerpts that I found worth quoting.
p. 78 – Finding meaningful work could clash with societal expectations of monetary success and prestige.
“ In our culture, there are forces that stand in the way of this normal, cyclical pattern of development. We place a high value of monetary success and professional prestige, and that encourages people to set (and then keep trying to reach) distant and elevated goals. This emphasis on success often stands in the way of people’s doing what really interests them and makes them happy. The elevated and distant goal of success is often rationalized by the idea that, even if the goal is not reached, its height insures that even falling short of it will lead to substantial achievement. For all but a very few, however, “aiming high” in that guarantees an ultimate day of reckoning (and what a profound transition that is!) in which they will have to come to terms with having “failed.”
p. 99 - The ninety year old version of oneself:
“Imagine that you are really old. Let’s say you’re ninety. From that time in the future, you can look back on yourself now. Then you’ll know what was really going on and even how things turned out. You may also know how they might have turned out if you had taken a different path. From that vantage point, was this present point in your life a time when it was a good idea to keep on in the same direction, or was it a time that cried out for change? And if the latter, what kind of change was called for? Looking back from age ninety, did you notice signs that pointed to the direction you ought to have taken at this point in our life, signs that may have been hard to see but that were there? And looking back from that future, what feelings do you have about your situation now? At ninety, are you sympathetic with your current confusion or impatient with your current blindness? At ninety, are you pleased by how things turned out or troubled by the nagging feeling that you missed a turn in the road back here where you’re standing now? Do you, at ninety, wish you could have encouraged your present self to take more risks? Or do you wish you could have made the present you wake up and see all that you already possessed and not risk it for something that was just ego candy? To give these questions a little more vitality, take a few moments first to imagine the old you that you’ll be at ninety. Shut your eyes and see whether you can picture your ninety-year-old hands. Imagine what your old body will feel like in whatever position you are now in. In your mind, “people” the world that the old you will be living in: Who will be there, and who won’t? Where will you be living? How will you spend your days? When you have let your imagination sketch out that world, try going back to any of the earlier questions that didn’t seem answerable at the time, and let the ninety-year-old person who lives in that world answer the question.”
p. 109 - Endings: How we hang on to our old habits and lifestyle. Letting go of the old is challenging. New beginnings are not possible without closing the old chapter of our life, ending our old identity, and grieving the loss.
“For it wasn’t the new beginning that accounted for the confusions they were experiencing but rather the termination of their old lives.”
p. 135 - Don’t feel bad about the neutral zone, about being uncertain and lost. This period is essential.
“You should not feel defensive about this apparently unproductive time-out during your transition points, for the neutral zone is meant to be a moratorium from the conventional activity of your everyday existence. The activities of your ordinary life keep you “you” by presenting you with a set of signals that are difficult to respond to in any but the old way. Only in the apparently aimless activity of your time alone can you do the important inner business of self-transformation. But you don’t do it as you do ordinary things, for it is in the walking, watching, making coffee, counting the birds on the phone wire, studying the cracks in the plaster ceiling over the bed, dreaming, and waiting for God-knows-what to happen that you are carrying on the basic industry of the neutral zone, which is attentive inactivity and ritualized routine.”
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Book Review: Working Identity
I started reading books about career change. I am so happy to have read the book by Herminia Ibarra entitled "Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career". It is actually referenced in this article
http://www.careerjournal.com/jobhunting/change/20041102-gunn.html (you can find this link also on my blog page under Career Articles). I vividly agree with Herminia on most of her points and I think this book is an excellent resource that I recommend everyone who is thinking about career change to read!
In summary, the author conducted her research by interviewing career changers. She supplemented her research with publications on the subject of career change and psychology that she references in her book. The end of the book presents what she calls unconventional strategies to career change.
While the current career books and career counselors advocate knowing ourselves first by doing self-assessment tests and exercises to discover our talents, or searching our passion through mental/emotional exercises, no one in the industry points out the importance of trial and error in the career change process, which helps in fine-tuning what we want to do and eliminating mismatches or unpractical choices. Herminia stresses on the importance of the exploration phase and states that career change is made up of the collection of the small steps we take that build our story. Action is more important than introspection and knowing ourselves. She points out that career change involves re-examining our identity and testing out our possible selves.
However, I think the author undermined a little too much the importance of introspection through the various self-assessment/personality tests. I think personally that both parts are important. Introspection provides the base from which we can narrow down the possible opportunities we want to pursue in the career exploration phase and can save us a lot of time and money. Without knowing ourselves, we may approach career change in a very chaotic way and our search may have no direction and could lead nowhere. I think that the action part of trying out several possible occupations is the complement of introspection.
Below are some excerpts from the book that I found excellent. They are so well written that I thought it is better to copy them rather than to paraphrase them. I hope that you will find these passages inspiring.
The following excerpt describes the transition period as being like a hurricane. It is an essential period that feels uncomfortable because it is riddled with uncertainty and ambivalence.
p. 64-65:
“The between-identities phase of a career transition is about bringing possibilities to life, proving they are feasible and not just pipe dreams, and learning whether they are appealing in practice or only in theory. To discard outdated identities once and for all (that is, to do the work of ending), we need some good substitutes. Old possible selves are always more vivid than the new: They are attached to familiar routines, to people we trust, to well-rehearsed stories. The selves that have existed only in our minds are fantasies or that have are grounded only in fleeting encounters with people who captured our imagination are much fuzzier, fragile, unformed. The middle period is the incubator in which provisional identities are brought, tentatively, into the world via the projects we start, the people we meet, and the meaning we lend to the events of that period.
What happens in this period sets the stage for the degree and success of one’s reinvention. Whether it takes months or years, living the contradictions is one of the toughest tasks of transition. Indeed, living with uncertain identity can feel like “living inside a hurricane.” But as we will see in the next chapter, premature closure is not the answer. People who can tolerate the painful discrepancies of the between-identities period, which reflect underlying ambivalence about letting go of the old or embracing the new, end up in a better position to make informed choices. With the benefit of time between selves, we are more likely to make the deep change necessary to discover more satisfying lives and work and to eventually restore a sense of continuity to our lives.”
The following describes the fact that our old social networks are counter-productive to our career change. They sabotage the change because they typecast us and are afraid to lose the person they know.
p. 120-121:
“Our close contacts don’t just blind us, they also bind us to our outdated identities. Reinventing involves trying on and testing a variety of possible selves. But our long-standing social networks may resist those identity experiments.
[…] But we need to realize that our inmates – spouses, bosses, close friends, parents – expect to remain the same, and they may pressure us to be consistent. Most people who have made big career changes have heard loved ones tell them, “You’re out of your mind.” Sabotage is not their intention, but a shared history has entrenched certain expectations, and reinventing oneself can amount to breaking the implicit “contract.” People who have quit smoking, lost weight, or gotten divorced are familiar with the mixed reactions of friends, who see the change as loss.”
The following two excerpts are a sequel to the previous one - we need to form new relationships outside of our old circle of contacts in order to successfully navigate career change, and these same weak-tie contacts are the ones that are going to help us to get where we want to go.
p. 122:
“Pragmatically, a career change requires weak-tie contacts outside the daily grind to provide leads, referrals, job information, and entrees to organizations and decision makers. And, emotionally, it is hard to get validation for a new self without making shifts in our social relationships. When change entails rethinking our very identity, we need substitutes for the people and groups we have to leave behind and role models for whom we might become.”
p. 130:
“If we are free to try out any identity we like, it is also true that we must rely on others to complete the picture of which we are only allowed to paint certain parts. The desired identity remains incomplete and tentative without the stamp of approval of a new peer group, mentor, or community. It is important to conduct our “role rehearsals” outside our usual circles because the old audience tends to narrowly typecast us.”
The following excerpt stresses on the importance of taking a risk and making mistakes in order to move one step closer to the new career.
p. 166:
“Another dimension on which to compare and contrast experiences concerns the outcomes of the career changes. Throughout the study, one question came up more frequently than any other: Did anyone regret the move into the new? Many people said they made at least one “wrong” move. But they learned from their mistakes and moved on to something else, adjusting their course based on their experiences. Of course, there is always an element of rationalization: After the fact, we easily conclude that we did the best we could. People did make trade-offs: Some struggled with lower incomes when they chose to pursue their passion, and others gave up some measure of challenge or intellectual stimulation in pursuit of a more secure future. But I heard great regret only from those who failed to act, who were unable or unwilling to put their dreams to the test and to find out for themselves if there were better alternatives. The only wrong move consisted of no move.”
The following outlines the unconventional strategies the whole book revolves around.
p. 167:
“Unconventional Strategies
This book started by warning the reader that there was no ten-point plan for making a career change. But some important general guidelines emerge from the many stories told here. This section distills those guidelines as a set of nine unconventional strategies for reinventing your career: act, then reflect; flirt with your selves; live the contradictions; make big change in small steps; experiment with new roles; find people who are what you want to be; don’t wait for a catalyst; step back periodically but not for too long; and seize windows of opportunity.”
The following excerpt is about the fact that our identity is fluid and can change over time. Questioning and commitment are both essential to keep our identity vivid and alive.
p. 170-171:
“Identity, Lost and Regained
Psychologist Erik Erikson once wrote that identity is like a good conscience: It is never maintained once and for all but constantly lost and regained. Adult development, he argued, is a process that requires both questioning and commitment. The person who neither questions nor commits to a course of action obviously goes nowhere. Questioning that does not lead to a new (or renewed) commitment, as in the case of the perpetual student or the devoted dilettante, is not much better. Commitment without questioning produces an “organization man” who has no identity beyond title and function. To be a growing adult means to make commitments that are informed by prior questioning. As one of the career changers in this study put it, “There are two types of people. Some are always jumping. Some never jump – they settle down too easily and get stuck.”
Self-renewal requires some jumping and some settling back in. The kind of reinvention considered here is not a personality makeover; it is a process and practice that allows us to get back in touch with forgotten selves, to reorder priorities, and to explore long-standing or newfound interests. As in most voyages of discovery, the end points are never quite as we imagined them, and they are rarely the ones we originally charted. Sometimes all we know at the start is that we want to be somewhere else. “The end of all our exploring,” as T. S. Eliot reminds us, “will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” In between, we try on unfamiliar roles and experiment with trial identities, always updating our goals and methods, with each step coming closer and closer to becoming ourselves again.”
Note: You can find a link to this book under the Career Change Books section.
http://www.careerjournal.com/jobhunting/change/20041102-gunn.html (you can find this link also on my blog page under Career Articles). I vividly agree with Herminia on most of her points and I think this book is an excellent resource that I recommend everyone who is thinking about career change to read!
In summary, the author conducted her research by interviewing career changers. She supplemented her research with publications on the subject of career change and psychology that she references in her book. The end of the book presents what she calls unconventional strategies to career change.
While the current career books and career counselors advocate knowing ourselves first by doing self-assessment tests and exercises to discover our talents, or searching our passion through mental/emotional exercises, no one in the industry points out the importance of trial and error in the career change process, which helps in fine-tuning what we want to do and eliminating mismatches or unpractical choices. Herminia stresses on the importance of the exploration phase and states that career change is made up of the collection of the small steps we take that build our story. Action is more important than introspection and knowing ourselves. She points out that career change involves re-examining our identity and testing out our possible selves.
However, I think the author undermined a little too much the importance of introspection through the various self-assessment/personality tests. I think personally that both parts are important. Introspection provides the base from which we can narrow down the possible opportunities we want to pursue in the career exploration phase and can save us a lot of time and money. Without knowing ourselves, we may approach career change in a very chaotic way and our search may have no direction and could lead nowhere. I think that the action part of trying out several possible occupations is the complement of introspection.
Below are some excerpts from the book that I found excellent. They are so well written that I thought it is better to copy them rather than to paraphrase them. I hope that you will find these passages inspiring.
The following excerpt describes the transition period as being like a hurricane. It is an essential period that feels uncomfortable because it is riddled with uncertainty and ambivalence.
p. 64-65:
“The between-identities phase of a career transition is about bringing possibilities to life, proving they are feasible and not just pipe dreams, and learning whether they are appealing in practice or only in theory. To discard outdated identities once and for all (that is, to do the work of ending), we need some good substitutes. Old possible selves are always more vivid than the new: They are attached to familiar routines, to people we trust, to well-rehearsed stories. The selves that have existed only in our minds are fantasies or that have are grounded only in fleeting encounters with people who captured our imagination are much fuzzier, fragile, unformed. The middle period is the incubator in which provisional identities are brought, tentatively, into the world via the projects we start, the people we meet, and the meaning we lend to the events of that period.
What happens in this period sets the stage for the degree and success of one’s reinvention. Whether it takes months or years, living the contradictions is one of the toughest tasks of transition. Indeed, living with uncertain identity can feel like “living inside a hurricane.” But as we will see in the next chapter, premature closure is not the answer. People who can tolerate the painful discrepancies of the between-identities period, which reflect underlying ambivalence about letting go of the old or embracing the new, end up in a better position to make informed choices. With the benefit of time between selves, we are more likely to make the deep change necessary to discover more satisfying lives and work and to eventually restore a sense of continuity to our lives.”
The following describes the fact that our old social networks are counter-productive to our career change. They sabotage the change because they typecast us and are afraid to lose the person they know.
p. 120-121:
“Our close contacts don’t just blind us, they also bind us to our outdated identities. Reinventing involves trying on and testing a variety of possible selves. But our long-standing social networks may resist those identity experiments.
[…] But we need to realize that our inmates – spouses, bosses, close friends, parents – expect to remain the same, and they may pressure us to be consistent. Most people who have made big career changes have heard loved ones tell them, “You’re out of your mind.” Sabotage is not their intention, but a shared history has entrenched certain expectations, and reinventing oneself can amount to breaking the implicit “contract.” People who have quit smoking, lost weight, or gotten divorced are familiar with the mixed reactions of friends, who see the change as loss.”
The following two excerpts are a sequel to the previous one - we need to form new relationships outside of our old circle of contacts in order to successfully navigate career change, and these same weak-tie contacts are the ones that are going to help us to get where we want to go.
p. 122:
“Pragmatically, a career change requires weak-tie contacts outside the daily grind to provide leads, referrals, job information, and entrees to organizations and decision makers. And, emotionally, it is hard to get validation for a new self without making shifts in our social relationships. When change entails rethinking our very identity, we need substitutes for the people and groups we have to leave behind and role models for whom we might become.”
p. 130:
“If we are free to try out any identity we like, it is also true that we must rely on others to complete the picture of which we are only allowed to paint certain parts. The desired identity remains incomplete and tentative without the stamp of approval of a new peer group, mentor, or community. It is important to conduct our “role rehearsals” outside our usual circles because the old audience tends to narrowly typecast us.”
The following excerpt stresses on the importance of taking a risk and making mistakes in order to move one step closer to the new career.
p. 166:
“Another dimension on which to compare and contrast experiences concerns the outcomes of the career changes. Throughout the study, one question came up more frequently than any other: Did anyone regret the move into the new? Many people said they made at least one “wrong” move. But they learned from their mistakes and moved on to something else, adjusting their course based on their experiences. Of course, there is always an element of rationalization: After the fact, we easily conclude that we did the best we could. People did make trade-offs: Some struggled with lower incomes when they chose to pursue their passion, and others gave up some measure of challenge or intellectual stimulation in pursuit of a more secure future. But I heard great regret only from those who failed to act, who were unable or unwilling to put their dreams to the test and to find out for themselves if there were better alternatives. The only wrong move consisted of no move.”
The following outlines the unconventional strategies the whole book revolves around.
p. 167:
“Unconventional Strategies
This book started by warning the reader that there was no ten-point plan for making a career change. But some important general guidelines emerge from the many stories told here. This section distills those guidelines as a set of nine unconventional strategies for reinventing your career: act, then reflect; flirt with your selves; live the contradictions; make big change in small steps; experiment with new roles; find people who are what you want to be; don’t wait for a catalyst; step back periodically but not for too long; and seize windows of opportunity.”
The following excerpt is about the fact that our identity is fluid and can change over time. Questioning and commitment are both essential to keep our identity vivid and alive.
p. 170-171:
“Identity, Lost and Regained
Psychologist Erik Erikson once wrote that identity is like a good conscience: It is never maintained once and for all but constantly lost and regained. Adult development, he argued, is a process that requires both questioning and commitment. The person who neither questions nor commits to a course of action obviously goes nowhere. Questioning that does not lead to a new (or renewed) commitment, as in the case of the perpetual student or the devoted dilettante, is not much better. Commitment without questioning produces an “organization man” who has no identity beyond title and function. To be a growing adult means to make commitments that are informed by prior questioning. As one of the career changers in this study put it, “There are two types of people. Some are always jumping. Some never jump – they settle down too easily and get stuck.”
Self-renewal requires some jumping and some settling back in. The kind of reinvention considered here is not a personality makeover; it is a process and practice that allows us to get back in touch with forgotten selves, to reorder priorities, and to explore long-standing or newfound interests. As in most voyages of discovery, the end points are never quite as we imagined them, and they are rarely the ones we originally charted. Sometimes all we know at the start is that we want to be somewhere else. “The end of all our exploring,” as T. S. Eliot reminds us, “will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” In between, we try on unfamiliar roles and experiment with trial identities, always updating our goals and methods, with each step coming closer and closer to becoming ourselves again.”
Note: You can find a link to this book under the Career Change Books section.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
My Adventure In Trying Out Real Estate
Real estate seems to be the career changer’s job of choice since 93% of real estate agents come from a previous career according to a book I read. It is easy to see why this is so since the barrier to entry is low in terms of the training required to get a real estate salesperson license. In the state of Washington, all that is required is to take one class about real estate fundamentals, pass the class exam, and then pass the state license exam which is comprised of two sections – one for federal and one for state. A high school diploma is not required. The test is not overly difficult and one can easily pass it if they prepare adequately. I found that rehearsing with practice tests helps a lot to solidify the knowledge and get higher scores in the practice tests.
If the barrier to obtaining a license is low, the barrier to success in the real estate sales profession is very high. The turn-over rate of real estate agents is high compared to other professions. According the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the turnover rate of licensees is 50%, which sounds a little low to me since I heard from an agent that only 5% of agents actually renew their license when it is due. It is a clear indication that new agents are not well prepared for a career in real estate sales as the training provided is not sufficient – in terms of sales training and real estate - and due to this reason, the expectations of newcomers are also off. This is the pitfall that I got into when I decided to get my license and joined a brokerage firm. To be honest, I didn’t realize what I was getting into and in some way I made myself blind to facts that I obtained through my own research. I know that I am interested in real estate, but I am not that much into sales per se. I read two books for new real estate agents, interviewed four agents who are active in their field, and watched training videos provided by my brokerage office. It was evident after all the research that prospecting and marketing is a predominant factor for success. I hesitated for a brief time as I had a bad feeling when I thought about meeting five new people every day and building my database of contacts as suggested by the RE/MAX training videos. :-) But I was able to swiftly push this feeling aside and look at the future hopeful and determined. As we are told to market to our sphere of influence, I ended up marketing to my friends.
Here are the things I learned:
Thick Skin
During that time, the first thing I learned was to develop a thick skin. In my situation, my rejection rate was high, perhaps around 80% at my own estimation. I reasoned that the primary reason of the high rejection was the perception people held of me. I was doing a drastic career switch from software testing to real estate sales. On top of that, I am a pretty much a shy and hesitant person with an aspiration of improving my people skills.:-) So it would be a natural consequence that my friends do not view me as a competent real estate professional that has the expertise to get them the best deal. In all honesty, the first rejections were a little hard to swallow although I was already warned about rejection through the books I read and interviews with other agents; however I adamantly chose to deny these warnings and felt confident that I could deal with it!
Perception and Image are Important
Plunging into the field of real estate and coming from a very different background where people wear jeans and t-shirts and do not worry about their image, I realized through people’s reactions and feedback how important it is in business of how you are perceived by others. I have to admit that it is difficult for me to look at myself from an objective standpoint, so I formed an idea of my external perception through two ways: people’s observation of me, and observing other sales professionals who share similar personality traits with me. My difficulty of attracting new clients is an indication of not projecting the right image. When I visualize the agents that I met who are dressed up, have a cheerful attitude, make contact with others easily, appear confident, and can do the talking, I also know that they are successful. On the other hand, visualize the agent who doesn’t talk much, doesn’t know the right things to say, doesn’t make eye contact, and is in general not easily approachable, and it is difficult to believe that they are successful.
People Skills
A salesperson with no people skills is as good as a piano with no tone. People skills are important in every field, even in non-sales professions - in jobs where people hide behind computers, we have to effectively communicate with our peers to work collaboratively, and negotiate our next promotion with our boss. But at least in these jobs, our income is not directly tied to our people skills, perhaps only the raise portion of it. But in sales jobs that are commission based, the salesperson who doesn’t sell has their survival at stake.
We Want a Sales Pitch
I worked with a close friend who was shopping for a house for several months. Towards the end of the house shopping period, we were at a condo conversion sales office and we were being shown the model condos by an attractive-looking and dressed up real estate sales professional. The real estate lady was also friendly and good at explaining the facts. After our visit ended, my close friend pointed out to me that this is the type of job that I should look for and that I should be as confident and professional as the sales lady. To be honest, I was actually surprised that this comment came out of my friend. In fact, my deer friend is a laid back person, values honesty, simplicity, and the natural things in life. She does not care much about bells and whistles. Even in her case, she was longing for a sales pitch and some degree of embellishment through external appearance and attitude.
Tough in Negotiations
A recent experience I had was with investors who are friends of mine who are looking to buy a house at bargain price to flip it. As I made the call to the listing agent in their presence, I politely asked a couple of questions and then hung up. My clients were very upset that I did not insist enough on getting more information from the agent and being tougher. We later submitted an offer and had to “play the game” as the agent was putting pressure on the premise that there is another offer that was at full price, which later he disclosed that it was not at full price. Go figure what is true and what is not. In the end, I think an agent with good negotiation skills is worth his/her commission.
Know Your Neighborhood
Last but not least, real estate agents should know the neighborhood pretty well to advise the clients on what to look out for. When I was working with my client, there were two instances when we both were faced with unanticipated facts. The first instance was when I advised her to view a rambler that was in a good location in Kirkland, but as soon as we arrived there, the traffic noise was very noticeable since the rambler was on a busy local road - I didn't live in the neighborhood in question and so I had no idea there was going to be high traffic noise. My client was disappointed that we had to drive all the way there to discover it. The second instance was a house in Canyon Park situated next to a gun range. We heard the gun shots on our second visit to the home since it was on a Sunday when the gun shots are heard. This one also could have been avoided by more familiarity with the neighborhood on my part. In general, clients do expect their agents to have neighborhood knowledge and save them the time to discover things on their own.
Conclusion
It was definitely one year of adventure for me. Because of my renegade nature I had to try real estate sales. I enjoyed the thrill of it with all the ups and downs. I have no regrets since I know a lot more about business, sales, and marketing now than I knew when I started (and by the way a lot more that what I learned in the MBA classes). And I also know a lot more about myself. I still admire the cheerful real estate agent out there who can make the connections with people! I know now that this is probably a rosy picture. What attracted me to this field was being outdoors and away from the office, :-) in addition to the ease of connecting with people. For the people skills part, I know now that I need to take baby steps towards a better version of me. For the outdoors part, I wonder if I can find a job that fulfills my desire to be outdoors!
If the barrier to obtaining a license is low, the barrier to success in the real estate sales profession is very high. The turn-over rate of real estate agents is high compared to other professions. According the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the turnover rate of licensees is 50%, which sounds a little low to me since I heard from an agent that only 5% of agents actually renew their license when it is due. It is a clear indication that new agents are not well prepared for a career in real estate sales as the training provided is not sufficient – in terms of sales training and real estate - and due to this reason, the expectations of newcomers are also off. This is the pitfall that I got into when I decided to get my license and joined a brokerage firm. To be honest, I didn’t realize what I was getting into and in some way I made myself blind to facts that I obtained through my own research. I know that I am interested in real estate, but I am not that much into sales per se. I read two books for new real estate agents, interviewed four agents who are active in their field, and watched training videos provided by my brokerage office. It was evident after all the research that prospecting and marketing is a predominant factor for success. I hesitated for a brief time as I had a bad feeling when I thought about meeting five new people every day and building my database of contacts as suggested by the RE/MAX training videos. :-) But I was able to swiftly push this feeling aside and look at the future hopeful and determined. As we are told to market to our sphere of influence, I ended up marketing to my friends.
Here are the things I learned:
Thick Skin
During that time, the first thing I learned was to develop a thick skin. In my situation, my rejection rate was high, perhaps around 80% at my own estimation. I reasoned that the primary reason of the high rejection was the perception people held of me. I was doing a drastic career switch from software testing to real estate sales. On top of that, I am a pretty much a shy and hesitant person with an aspiration of improving my people skills.:-) So it would be a natural consequence that my friends do not view me as a competent real estate professional that has the expertise to get them the best deal. In all honesty, the first rejections were a little hard to swallow although I was already warned about rejection through the books I read and interviews with other agents; however I adamantly chose to deny these warnings and felt confident that I could deal with it!
Perception and Image are Important
Plunging into the field of real estate and coming from a very different background where people wear jeans and t-shirts and do not worry about their image, I realized through people’s reactions and feedback how important it is in business of how you are perceived by others. I have to admit that it is difficult for me to look at myself from an objective standpoint, so I formed an idea of my external perception through two ways: people’s observation of me, and observing other sales professionals who share similar personality traits with me. My difficulty of attracting new clients is an indication of not projecting the right image. When I visualize the agents that I met who are dressed up, have a cheerful attitude, make contact with others easily, appear confident, and can do the talking, I also know that they are successful. On the other hand, visualize the agent who doesn’t talk much, doesn’t know the right things to say, doesn’t make eye contact, and is in general not easily approachable, and it is difficult to believe that they are successful.
People Skills
A salesperson with no people skills is as good as a piano with no tone. People skills are important in every field, even in non-sales professions - in jobs where people hide behind computers, we have to effectively communicate with our peers to work collaboratively, and negotiate our next promotion with our boss. But at least in these jobs, our income is not directly tied to our people skills, perhaps only the raise portion of it. But in sales jobs that are commission based, the salesperson who doesn’t sell has their survival at stake.
We Want a Sales Pitch
I worked with a close friend who was shopping for a house for several months. Towards the end of the house shopping period, we were at a condo conversion sales office and we were being shown the model condos by an attractive-looking and dressed up real estate sales professional. The real estate lady was also friendly and good at explaining the facts. After our visit ended, my close friend pointed out to me that this is the type of job that I should look for and that I should be as confident and professional as the sales lady. To be honest, I was actually surprised that this comment came out of my friend. In fact, my deer friend is a laid back person, values honesty, simplicity, and the natural things in life. She does not care much about bells and whistles. Even in her case, she was longing for a sales pitch and some degree of embellishment through external appearance and attitude.
Tough in Negotiations
A recent experience I had was with investors who are friends of mine who are looking to buy a house at bargain price to flip it. As I made the call to the listing agent in their presence, I politely asked a couple of questions and then hung up. My clients were very upset that I did not insist enough on getting more information from the agent and being tougher. We later submitted an offer and had to “play the game” as the agent was putting pressure on the premise that there is another offer that was at full price, which later he disclosed that it was not at full price. Go figure what is true and what is not. In the end, I think an agent with good negotiation skills is worth his/her commission.
Know Your Neighborhood
Last but not least, real estate agents should know the neighborhood pretty well to advise the clients on what to look out for. When I was working with my client, there were two instances when we both were faced with unanticipated facts. The first instance was when I advised her to view a rambler that was in a good location in Kirkland, but as soon as we arrived there, the traffic noise was very noticeable since the rambler was on a busy local road - I didn't live in the neighborhood in question and so I had no idea there was going to be high traffic noise. My client was disappointed that we had to drive all the way there to discover it. The second instance was a house in Canyon Park situated next to a gun range. We heard the gun shots on our second visit to the home since it was on a Sunday when the gun shots are heard. This one also could have been avoided by more familiarity with the neighborhood on my part. In general, clients do expect their agents to have neighborhood knowledge and save them the time to discover things on their own.
Conclusion
It was definitely one year of adventure for me. Because of my renegade nature I had to try real estate sales. I enjoyed the thrill of it with all the ups and downs. I have no regrets since I know a lot more about business, sales, and marketing now than I knew when I started (and by the way a lot more that what I learned in the MBA classes). And I also know a lot more about myself. I still admire the cheerful real estate agent out there who can make the connections with people! I know now that this is probably a rosy picture. What attracted me to this field was being outdoors and away from the office, :-) in addition to the ease of connecting with people. For the people skills part, I know now that I need to take baby steps towards a better version of me. For the outdoors part, I wonder if I can find a job that fulfills my desire to be outdoors!
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Is Early Retirement a Good Idea?
Early retirement is not exactly the same as career change but it is linked to it. Many people take this route instead of career change under the belief that once they reach financial freedom, they can start living their best life and realize their dreams.
Well, at least this is one category of people. Personally, I don't agree with this view. Here is why.
In my opinion, striving for early retirement is an extreme approach to living life. This school of thought suggests that we should work hard during our prime years, save as much money as possible, live frugally, and work in high paying jobs to accelerate the early retirement. After this is achieved, we will be rewarded in the future by a large net worth made up of our savings accounts, retirement accounts, and assets. At this point, we can quit our job and reclaim our freedom. However, this means that during the working period of our lives, we must be working hard perhaps also clinging to high stress jobs that are high pay, putting our social life and well-being to a lower priority, and not rewarding ourselves enough with the things we want from life like vacations, material possessions, and more time with friends and family.
Even if we are willing to live an extreme lifestyle for the first part of our lives, will we reach happiness later in life? Happiness cannot be bought with money, it comes from within. Happiness is the combination of being healthy, having enough money to live a decent lifestyle to meet our needs, maintaining meaningful relationships with friends and family, and having a purpose in life. Now money is important to provide us with the things we need, but beyond that, it is of less value. But how do we determine what constitutes a "need"? Of course, this varies with each of us based on our values and background. Personally, I think a financial need is any need that is a basic need (like having a place to live, clothing, food, having access to a mode of transportation (like a car), having an education) or a useful need (basically an investment that is going to result in an improvement or financial return like taking classes, investing in a business, etc.) I believe that these needs can be met gradually through a balanced approach to living life.
Along the same lines, I believe that work is good and is in fact necessary for our well-being. In fact, as the statistics show that unemployment is the riskiest job to have. Jobs are not mere vehicles of making money, but they are ways to express ourselves through them, to reach our potential, and to make a difference at the end of the day. So why retire early? If we do not work as hard and slow down to smell the roses, our net worth will build up more slowly, but this is for the better. If we retire early and stay home while other people our age hold regular jobs and are being productive every day, how are we going to spend our time?
However, there may be some cases where early retirement can be benefitial. If a parent retires to take care of family obligations like raising children, or the case when one is as rich as Bill Gates and can spend their future career working on volunteer activities. Otherwise, it is not a path that I want to pursue, unless it happens by accident! :-)
All in all, this is my biased view of work and life :-) Maybe it's because I am more conventional, I like enjoying my time and accumulating material possessions gradually and not postponing everything until retirement :-) But I guess for other people who live their lives differently, early retirement might be an attractive option!
Well, at least this is one category of people. Personally, I don't agree with this view. Here is why.
In my opinion, striving for early retirement is an extreme approach to living life. This school of thought suggests that we should work hard during our prime years, save as much money as possible, live frugally, and work in high paying jobs to accelerate the early retirement. After this is achieved, we will be rewarded in the future by a large net worth made up of our savings accounts, retirement accounts, and assets. At this point, we can quit our job and reclaim our freedom. However, this means that during the working period of our lives, we must be working hard perhaps also clinging to high stress jobs that are high pay, putting our social life and well-being to a lower priority, and not rewarding ourselves enough with the things we want from life like vacations, material possessions, and more time with friends and family.
Even if we are willing to live an extreme lifestyle for the first part of our lives, will we reach happiness later in life? Happiness cannot be bought with money, it comes from within. Happiness is the combination of being healthy, having enough money to live a decent lifestyle to meet our needs, maintaining meaningful relationships with friends and family, and having a purpose in life. Now money is important to provide us with the things we need, but beyond that, it is of less value. But how do we determine what constitutes a "need"? Of course, this varies with each of us based on our values and background. Personally, I think a financial need is any need that is a basic need (like having a place to live, clothing, food, having access to a mode of transportation (like a car), having an education) or a useful need (basically an investment that is going to result in an improvement or financial return like taking classes, investing in a business, etc.) I believe that these needs can be met gradually through a balanced approach to living life.
Along the same lines, I believe that work is good and is in fact necessary for our well-being. In fact, as the statistics show that unemployment is the riskiest job to have. Jobs are not mere vehicles of making money, but they are ways to express ourselves through them, to reach our potential, and to make a difference at the end of the day. So why retire early? If we do not work as hard and slow down to smell the roses, our net worth will build up more slowly, but this is for the better. If we retire early and stay home while other people our age hold regular jobs and are being productive every day, how are we going to spend our time?
However, there may be some cases where early retirement can be benefitial. If a parent retires to take care of family obligations like raising children, or the case when one is as rich as Bill Gates and can spend their future career working on volunteer activities. Otherwise, it is not a path that I want to pursue, unless it happens by accident! :-)
All in all, this is my biased view of work and life :-) Maybe it's because I am more conventional, I like enjoying my time and accumulating material possessions gradually and not postponing everything until retirement :-) But I guess for other people who live their lives differently, early retirement might be an attractive option!
Monday, February 5, 2007
Should one go back to school to change careers?
I was asking myself lately whether it is worthwhile to go back to school in order to switch careers. While there are advatanges to starting over, it may not be suitable for all.
Evidently, the most prominent advantage of going back to school to study a new major is freedom. I get to choose a new field I'd like to go into, and as long as I graduate with a new degree, I have a chance at working in my dream job. For example I could study nursing or bio-chemistry, or anything that I find interesting. Once my new degree is in hand, I have a shot at working in the new field. However, this approach has some serious downsides in my opinion.
One of the downsides is aging. I'm in my early thirties now. I have been contemplating architecture since I like drawing and have a passion in construction. The only way for me to switch to architecture is to pursue a 3-year Professional Master of Architecture program. This would take me 4.5 years if you count the 1.5 year it will take me to apply to and enroll in the school. After graduation, it's the start of the rat race, i.e. competing with other fresh graduates who are in their early 20s to get internships and work as an intern for another 3 years at least. The internship is a required step in the architect's career path. The year count is now at 7.5 years and I haven't even started yet in my new career as an official architect. After the internship, only then can I start expecting good job offers or going solo, at which point I will be in my early 40's perhaps still competing with 20-somethings :-) who have a clear youth advantage fueling them with undoubtedly more energy and drive.
And guess what?... What if I made a mistake in picking architecture as a career? Ouch, that will be painful... For the 20+ year old, it's OK - they will just have to try something else. But what if it's the second or third college degree at a much older age? Well, this is what I call high risk! Of course, this means that career changers need to do a lot of research about their new field before making a career move to mitigate risk. I'm currently reading a book entitled "Becoming an Architect" by Lee Waldrep who himself found out that he was in the wrong career after getting his doctorate in architecture and starting his third month of work. I am still at the beginning of the book, so I will post about it more in the future.
Other than the time disadvantage, there is also the money issue. It can be very expensive to go back to school full-time. For example, tuition for many architecture schools is between $20,000 and $30,000 a year, unless if I go to a state university paying resident tuition which would be $11,000 a year more or less. Add to that the opportunity loss of not generating an income and it starts to look very pricey even with resident tuition. The question is will the return on investment be high enough to justify these expenses? Probably not financially, since it takes so much time before one can start working as a licensed architect and the income is not higher than other professions (median income in WA state is $65k according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I think people who have the median income probably map to the 5-10 year experience level.) Will it be rewarding on a personal level? Perhaps.
So the more I think about going back to school, and the less attractive the idea becomes.
Evidently, the most prominent advantage of going back to school to study a new major is freedom. I get to choose a new field I'd like to go into, and as long as I graduate with a new degree, I have a chance at working in my dream job. For example I could study nursing or bio-chemistry, or anything that I find interesting. Once my new degree is in hand, I have a shot at working in the new field. However, this approach has some serious downsides in my opinion.
One of the downsides is aging. I'm in my early thirties now. I have been contemplating architecture since I like drawing and have a passion in construction. The only way for me to switch to architecture is to pursue a 3-year Professional Master of Architecture program. This would take me 4.5 years if you count the 1.5 year it will take me to apply to and enroll in the school. After graduation, it's the start of the rat race, i.e. competing with other fresh graduates who are in their early 20s to get internships and work as an intern for another 3 years at least. The internship is a required step in the architect's career path. The year count is now at 7.5 years and I haven't even started yet in my new career as an official architect. After the internship, only then can I start expecting good job offers or going solo, at which point I will be in my early 40's perhaps still competing with 20-somethings :-) who have a clear youth advantage fueling them with undoubtedly more energy and drive.
And guess what?... What if I made a mistake in picking architecture as a career? Ouch, that will be painful... For the 20+ year old, it's OK - they will just have to try something else. But what if it's the second or third college degree at a much older age? Well, this is what I call high risk! Of course, this means that career changers need to do a lot of research about their new field before making a career move to mitigate risk. I'm currently reading a book entitled "Becoming an Architect" by Lee Waldrep who himself found out that he was in the wrong career after getting his doctorate in architecture and starting his third month of work. I am still at the beginning of the book, so I will post about it more in the future.
Other than the time disadvantage, there is also the money issue. It can be very expensive to go back to school full-time. For example, tuition for many architecture schools is between $20,000 and $30,000 a year, unless if I go to a state university paying resident tuition which would be $11,000 a year more or less. Add to that the opportunity loss of not generating an income and it starts to look very pricey even with resident tuition. The question is will the return on investment be high enough to justify these expenses? Probably not financially, since it takes so much time before one can start working as a licensed architect and the income is not higher than other professions (median income in WA state is $65k according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I think people who have the median income probably map to the 5-10 year experience level.) Will it be rewarding on a personal level? Perhaps.
So the more I think about going back to school, and the less attractive the idea becomes.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Dependable Strengths
There is a variety of help out there for career changers between classes, books, career assessment tests, personality tests, and career counseling - none of which comes with a garantee of finding a new career but nevertheless could be helpful tools to support us in making more informed decisions in our job search. The most recent class that I took was offered by the UW Career Services Center in Seattle, WA. Here is the link:
University of Washington. Seattle, WA
Dependable Strengths Seminar
http://depts.washington.edu/careers/careerplan/depstrg.php
The Dependable Strengths model was developed by someone called Bernard Haldane originally to help military personnel to find jobs after they leave the military. Later on, this technique is now applied to all career changers. For more info, go to http://www.dependablestrengths.org.
The UW Career Services Center uses this model for their Dependable Strengths seminar. Basically, the idea is to list your good experiences (a good experience being an activity that you did well, you enjoyed doing, and that you were proud of). The strengths are then extracted from these good experiences and distilled into a list of top dependable strengths which are then used to write your own report (which is a brief version of a resume that focuses on your strengths and links them with the activities that you achieved). The idea then is to use this report for networking with people (friends and strangers) to get job ideas and referrals for new jobs.
Pros
* It was very helpful to work in groups. The class size was about 10-12 people and several exercises were done in subgroups of 4 people or 2 people. It was good to get other's people reassurance of what our strengths are and practice mock interviews.
* The other thumbs up was that we had a follow-up session one month later. This helped us get the structure to do the homework of networking in the one month timeframe. Most importantly, it helped us reconnect and form an informal support group. We ended up not meeting regularly because of the different locations we live in, but we exchanged email addresses and phone numbers for occasional communication.
Cons
* While the idea behind this seminar is good, I found that the hard part was the implementation. Therefore I think the class format is too short (it was a 2-day class when I took it). We did a networking exercise on the 2nd day when we went out to talk to people on campus and let them recommend job matches for us, which was a disaster for most of us. Of course the idea was to just practice but I still think it was too premature for us to do this. The class should have been offered instead as a quarter class spanning 10 weeks, so we have enough time to explore career ideas, get more assistance from the career counselors, and get assistance in searching for the next job.
The method of extracting strengths employed in this class is very similar to methods described in career change books. For example:
1) What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles
http://www.amazon.com/What-Color-Your-Parachute-2007/dp/1580087949/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/002-5557587-5272008
The book has the same idea of listing the activities that you did well and enjoyed doing, and then extract from them the strengths that you utilized. This is done in the "flower exercise".
I read this book several years ago. Basically you get what you put into it. You should take the flower exercise seriously and make an effort to do it. But other than that, I don't remember anything else remarkable about this book.
2) Passion and Purpose by Marlys Hanson
http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Purpose-Identify-Leverage-Powerful/dp/0971721548/sr=1-1/qid=1170621289/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-5557587-5272008?ie=UTF8&s=books
Along the same lines, "Passion and Purpose" also adopts a similar technique to help you list your strengths. However, the difference between this book and the "parachute" book is that this book employs a much more detailed process that guides you in listing your skills. The skills are organized into different categories, and by guiding you through each category and answering questions, you can build your list of strenghts based on your good experiences. So I liked the more detailed approach here. She calls this bundle of strengths the motivational pattern approximation, which sounds to me a very scientific term :-)
Also, what I liked in this book is the idea that each one of us is naturally inclined to do something. So if we observe what we are naturally motivated to do when we are not pressured to do anything in particular, then we will find where our talent and interests lie. And this is not dependent on having explored many things in life. Some people complain that they didn't have the chance to do many things in their life, and they feel trapped by the lack of life experience and use it as an excuse for not being able to discover their strengths. The author argues to the contrary and claims that even if we led simple and unsophisticated lives, our pattern will still show up. For example, if we are naturally inclined to keep things organized and tidy, we will be doing that at home or in the office no matter what circumstances life offers us.
University of Washington. Seattle, WA
Dependable Strengths Seminar
http://depts.washington.edu/careers/careerplan/depstrg.php
The Dependable Strengths model was developed by someone called Bernard Haldane originally to help military personnel to find jobs after they leave the military. Later on, this technique is now applied to all career changers. For more info, go to http://www.dependablestrengths.org.
The UW Career Services Center uses this model for their Dependable Strengths seminar. Basically, the idea is to list your good experiences (a good experience being an activity that you did well, you enjoyed doing, and that you were proud of). The strengths are then extracted from these good experiences and distilled into a list of top dependable strengths which are then used to write your own report (which is a brief version of a resume that focuses on your strengths and links them with the activities that you achieved). The idea then is to use this report for networking with people (friends and strangers) to get job ideas and referrals for new jobs.
Pros
* It was very helpful to work in groups. The class size was about 10-12 people and several exercises were done in subgroups of 4 people or 2 people. It was good to get other's people reassurance of what our strengths are and practice mock interviews.
* The other thumbs up was that we had a follow-up session one month later. This helped us get the structure to do the homework of networking in the one month timeframe. Most importantly, it helped us reconnect and form an informal support group. We ended up not meeting regularly because of the different locations we live in, but we exchanged email addresses and phone numbers for occasional communication.
Cons
* While the idea behind this seminar is good, I found that the hard part was the implementation. Therefore I think the class format is too short (it was a 2-day class when I took it). We did a networking exercise on the 2nd day when we went out to talk to people on campus and let them recommend job matches for us, which was a disaster for most of us. Of course the idea was to just practice but I still think it was too premature for us to do this. The class should have been offered instead as a quarter class spanning 10 weeks, so we have enough time to explore career ideas, get more assistance from the career counselors, and get assistance in searching for the next job.
The method of extracting strengths employed in this class is very similar to methods described in career change books. For example:
1) What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles
http://www.amazon.com/What-Color-Your-Parachute-2007/dp/1580087949/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/002-5557587-5272008
The book has the same idea of listing the activities that you did well and enjoyed doing, and then extract from them the strengths that you utilized. This is done in the "flower exercise".
I read this book several years ago. Basically you get what you put into it. You should take the flower exercise seriously and make an effort to do it. But other than that, I don't remember anything else remarkable about this book.
2) Passion and Purpose by Marlys Hanson
http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Purpose-Identify-Leverage-Powerful/dp/0971721548/sr=1-1/qid=1170621289/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-5557587-5272008?ie=UTF8&s=books
Along the same lines, "Passion and Purpose" also adopts a similar technique to help you list your strengths. However, the difference between this book and the "parachute" book is that this book employs a much more detailed process that guides you in listing your skills. The skills are organized into different categories, and by guiding you through each category and answering questions, you can build your list of strenghts based on your good experiences. So I liked the more detailed approach here. She calls this bundle of strengths the motivational pattern approximation, which sounds to me a very scientific term :-)
Also, what I liked in this book is the idea that each one of us is naturally inclined to do something. So if we observe what we are naturally motivated to do when we are not pressured to do anything in particular, then we will find where our talent and interests lie. And this is not dependent on having explored many things in life. Some people complain that they didn't have the chance to do many things in their life, and they feel trapped by the lack of life experience and use it as an excuse for not being able to discover their strengths. The author argues to the contrary and claims that even if we led simple and unsophisticated lives, our pattern will still show up. For example, if we are naturally inclined to keep things organized and tidy, we will be doing that at home or in the office no matter what circumstances life offers us.
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