Making a career transition can seem like a daunting task; whether you’re searching for your first job, looking for your next step in your career, or switching job functions or industries. Career transitions have become even more common, especially in Generations Y and Z. The intent of this two-part article is to shed some light and give some advice on the major steps in the process — from framing your mindset to succeeding in your first months on the new job.
In Simon Sinek’s Start With Why, he explains the concept of “starting with why” using concentric circles: in the center circle, Why; middle circle How, and outside circle, What. The why is a philosophical approach to your career: Why do you want to work? For Steve Jobs, the reason was to disrupt the status quo. For Bill Gates, the reason was to enable the greatest potential for everyone. Martin Luther King Jr.’s purpose was to make a dent in the institutionalized and legalized racism in the United States. Your why pervades your professional and personal life, but typically must be uncovered by an introspective examination of your values and priorities. Your how is your actions that support this why and are the process from transforming your why into whats or tangible outputs. Jobs and Gates built companies, Apple and Microsoft respectively. King led the Civil Rights Movement to accomplish his purpose. Whats are the outside circle in Sinek’s model and the most easily observable aspects of our careers. Jobs’ and Gates’ whats are the products and services their companies helped create and bring to market. King’s what focused on civilized public action and legislative changes. My initial advice is for every job seeker to use Sinek’s concentric circles as a framework when planning their career path, not just once but periodically.
Take the time and effort to put your why into words; the how and what usually flow naturally from there.
This advice inspired by Sinek leads into my advice centered on framing your mindset to prepare for the career-transition process. First and foremost, embrace change and learning. Change can be scary when there is uncertainty ahead, but the more you view the change as an opportunity to grow rather than a risk of failure or danger of being unprepared, the easier the change will be. In addition to embracing change, embracing learning is important if you desire to prepare mentally for a career transition, and learning has benefits beyond knowledge growth, since much preparatory learning can be exhibited both on your résumé or during your interviews.
Next, neither of my Baby Boomer parents are using their college degrees in a direct way to provide the bulk of their incomes, and each has held various functional roles in various industries as they’ve traveled their career paths. This may not be true for you or your friends and family but know that career transitions are much more expected than they are surprising. At the same time, do not let your knowledge that career transitions are nearly ubiquitous in this day and age lead you to underestimate the time and effort required for a successful transition. Like most life changes, a certain activation energy is required to create meaningful change.
My last two points for mindset are slightly more cautionary than the previous ones. Firstly, recognize when the idea of a “Confidence Gap” is present in your thoughts and actions. The confidence gap is a theory that can help explain the United States’ gender income inequality. I. The theory is based on research that revealed that, generally, “men overestimate their abilities and performance”* in comparison to their female counterparts. This leads many men to apply for jobs they are less qualified for and to ask for promotions sooner than many women, often giving men a socioeconomic advantage over women.As a job seeker or employee, especially one that is female, recognize when the confidence gap may be impacting you and seek to fight against its effects by not underestimating yourself and even daring to overestimate yourself or take a gamble on yourself and your abilities.
Lastly, expect the unexpected. Career transitions come from a place of want: wanting something you don’t have, wanting something to change, wanting something better. The potential problem of wanting something you don’t have is a lack of knowledge stemming from the lack of the experience of possessing the supposedly desirable. Likely, your current situation is once something you wanted, but now is something you want behind you. Understand this cycle of want, get, and release. A fatalistic view would conclude that the cycle is endless and inevitable at least for some. Still, I recommend that you examine your wants carefully before actively pursuing them and that you attempt to minimize the length of each period of dissatisfaction that follows the getting.
Iterative improvements are easier to attain than large bounding leaps.
A career transition is typically a major life change. It could reflect changes in your values, your worldview, or simply the environment you live in. Your goal is not to just get through this transition or get that “perfect” job at the “perfect” company, but to truly understand why you want to make this change and imagine a better path for you. The second and final article on career transitions looks at each step in your career transition and interweaves your mindset with actionable advice.
*https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-confidence-gap/359815/
NOTE: This was adapted from a virtual Quest Bridge alumni session held on Wednesday, May 5, 2020. While I hope this article has some longevity, I understand that it was created within a particular personal and environmental context that may limit its future potential. That being said, I welcome all feedback.
The Mentorship Series is composed of knowledge that I have shared and hope to share with mentees. My goal is to help others navigate life post-commencement, using knowledge I’ve learned firsthand or through my mentors. Each article in the series provides perspectives I have found useful and outlines steps to apply these insights. Mentorship is inherently personal, so this series should be seen as a starting point for relationships with mentors rather than a substitute for those irreplaceable relationships. Topics for future articles can be suggested by contacting me through LinkedIn.
