Part 16 (1/2)
1. First, look at your completed Flower Diagram, and from the center of the Flower choose the top three of your favorite Knowledges (or fields of interest, favorite fields, or fields of fascination-whatever you want to call them). All nouns. On one piece of blank paper, say 8 11, or on your mobile device, copy these in the top half of that page, in their order of importance to you (most important at the top). Beneath them all, midway down the page, draw a line, straight across.
2. Then, look at the Skills petal on your completed Flower Diagram and choose your top five favorite Transferable Skills. All verbs. Copy them down, in order, below the line.
3. Now, take this page and show it to at least five friends, family members, or professionals whom you know. Ask them what jobs or work this page suggests to them. Tell them you just want them to take some wild guesses, combining as many of the eight factors on that page, as possible. Plan B: If they absolutely draw a blank, tell them interests or special knowledges (in the top half of the page) usually point toward a career field, while transferable skills (in the bottom half) usually point toward a job-t.i.tle or job-level, in that field. So, ask them, in the case of your favorite special knowledges, ”What career fields do these suggest to you?” And in the case of your transferable skills, ”What job-t.i.tle or jobs do these skills suggest to you?”
4. Jot down everything these people suggest to you, on your computer, iPad, smartphone, or small pad of paper. Whether you like their suggestions, or not. This is just brainstorming, for the moment.
5. After you have done this for a week or so, with everyone you meet, sit down and look at all these notes. Anything helpful or valuable here? If you see some useful suggestions, circle them and determine to explore them. If nothing looks interesting, go talk to five more of your friends, acquaintances, or people you know in the business world or nonprofit sector. Repeat, as necessary.
6. As you ponder any suggestions that look worth exploring, consider the fact we saw in chapter 7, that all jobs can be described as working primarily with people or working primarily with information/data or working primarily with things. Most jobs involve all three, but which is your primary preference? It is often your favorite skill that will give you the clue. If it doesn't, then go back and look at the whole Transferable Skills petal, on your Flower Diagram. What do you think? Are your favorite skills weighted more toward working with people, or toward working with information/data, or toward working with things?
7. Just remember what you are trying to do here: find a name for your flower. What you call it-name of Flower, name of a field based on your favorite subjects, the name of your new career, or whatever-doesn't matter. You are trying to find the names of careers or jobs that would give you a chance to use your skills in the most effective way. You want competence, and therefore happiness, in the job-market.
8. If you would be unique, you must combine, as much as you can, two or three fields: that's what can make you unique, with very little compet.i.tion from others.
Here is how to go about doing that: let us say your three favorite knowledges are gardening and carpentry and a limited knowledge of psychiatry. What you want to do is use all three expertises, not just one of them-if you possibly can. So, put those three favorite knowledges on a series of overlapping circles, as seen above. Now, to figure out how to combine these three, imagine that each circle is a person; that is, in this case, Psychiatrist, Carpenter, and Gardener. You ask yourself which person took the longest to get trained in their specialty. The answer, here, is the psychiatrist. The reason you ask yourself this question, is that the person with the longest training is most likely to have the broadest overview of things. So, you go to see a psychiatrist, either at a private clinic or at a university or hospital. You ask for fifteen minutes of his or her time, and pay them if necessary. Then you ask the psychiatrist if he or she knows how to combine psychiatry with one-just one, initially-of your other two favorite knowledges. Let's say you choose gardening, here. ”Doctor, do you know anyone who combines a knowledge of psychiatry with a knowledge of gardening or plants?”
Since I'm talking about a true story here, I can tell you what the psychiatrist said: ”Yes, in working with catatonic patients, we often give them a plant to take care of, so they know there is something that is depending on them for its future, and its survival.”
”And how would I also employ a knowledge of carpentry?”
”Well, in building the planters, that's a start, isn't it?”
This is the way you learn how to combine your three favorite knowledges, all at once, no matter what those three may be. The Internet can also be useful, sometimes, with this research.
During this stage of your information gathering, don't ever think to yourself: ”Well, I see what it is that I would die to be able to do, but I know there is no job in the world like that.” Dear friend, you don't know any such thing. You haven't completed your informational interviewing, yet. Now I grant you that after you have completed it, and conducted your job-search, you still may not be able to find all that you want-down to the last detail. But you'd be surprised at how much of your dream you may be able to find. Sometimes it will be found in stages. One retired man I know, who had been a senior executive with a publis.h.i.+ng company, found himself bored to death in retirement, after he turned sixty-five. He decided he didn't care what field he worked in, at that point, so he contacted his favorite business acquaintance, who told him apologetically, ”Times are tough. We just don't have anything open that matches or requires your abilities; right now all we need is someone in our mail room.” The sixty-five-year-old executive said, ”I'll take that job!” He did, and over the ensuing years steadily advanced once again, to just the job he wanted: as a senior executive in that organization, where he utilized all his prized skills, for a number of years. Finally, he retired for the second time, at the age of eighty-five.
Always keep in mind your dream. Get as close to it as you can. Then be patient. You never know what doors will open up.
Informational Interviewing Step Two HOW TO TRY ON CAREERS BEFORE YOU DECIDE WHICH ONES TO PURSUE.
Maybe you're looking for the same kind of work you've previously done; you know that industry or field, and you know it well. Okay, then you can skip this step.
But what if you just can't find any jobs in your old field or industry (think: record stores). Suppose you just have to go for a career change. Or maybe you really want to do a career change. You've found one, or ones, that sound attractive. But before you go and get all the training or education it requires, or before you go job-hunting for that career, you need to try it on.
This is exactly a.n.a.logous to shopping at a clothing store and trying on different suits (or dresses) that you see in their window or on their racks. Why do you try them on? Well, the suits or dresses that look terrific in the window don't always look so hot when you see them on you. The clothes don't hang quite right, etc.
It's the same with careers. Ones that sound terrific in books or in your imagination don't always look so great when you actually see them up close and personal.
What you want of course is a career that looks terrific-in the window, and also on you. So this is where you need to go talk to people who are already doing the kind of job or career that you're thinking about. The website LinkedIn should be invaluable to you, in locating the names of such people.
Once you find them, if they live nearby ask for twenty minutes of their time face to face-Starbucks?-and keep to your word, unless during the chat they insist they want to go on talking. Some workers-not all-are desperate to find someone who will actually listen to them; you may come as an answer to their prayers.
Here are some questions that will help when you're talking with workers who are actually doing the career or job you think you might like to do: ”How did you get into this work?”
”What do you like the most about it?”
”What do you like the least about it?”
And, ”Where else could I find people who do this kind of work?” (You should always ask them for more than one name, here, so that if you run into a dead end at any point, you can easily go visit the other name[s] they suggested.) If at any point in these informational interviews with workers, it becomes more and more clear to you that this career, occupation, or job you are exploring definitely doesn't fit you, then the last question (above) gets turned into a different kind of inquiry: ”Do you have any ideas as to who else I could talk to-about my skills and special knowledges or interests-who might know what other careers use the same skills and knowledge?” If they come up with names, go visit the people they suggest. If they can't think of anyone, ask them, ”If you don't know of anyone, who do you think might know?”
Sooner or later, as you do this informational interviewing with workers, you'll find a career that fits you just fine. It uses your favorite skills. It employs your favorite special knowledges or fields of interest. Okay, now you must ask how much training, etc., it takes, to get into that field or career. You ask the same people you have been talking to, previously.
More times than not, you will hear bad news. They will tell you something like: ”In order to be hired for this job, you have to have a master's degree and ten years' experience at it.”
Is that so? Keep in mind that no matter how many people tell you that such-and-such are the rules about getting into a particular occupation, and there are no exceptions-believe me there are exceptions to almost every rule, except for those few professions that have rigid entrance examinations as, say, medicine or law. Otherwise, somebody has figured out a way around the rules. You want to find out who these people are, and go talk to them, to find out how they did it.
So, in your informational interviewing, you press deeper; you search for exceptions: ”Yes, but do you know of anyone in this field who got into it without that master's degree, and ten years' experience?
”And where might I find him or her?
”And if you don't know of any such person, who do you think might know?”
In the end, maybe-just maybe-you can't find any exceptions. It's not that they aren't out there; it's just that you don't know how to find them. So, what do you do when everyone tells you that such and such a career takes years to prepare for, and you can't find anyone who took a shortcut? What then?
Good news. Every professional specialty has one or more shadow professions, which require much less training. For example, instead of becoming a doctor, you can go into paramedical work; instead of becoming a lawyer, you can go into paralegal work; instead of becoming a licensed career counselor, you can become a career coach. There is always a way to get close, at least, to what you dream of.
Informational Interviewing Step Three HOW TO FIND OUT WHAT KINDS OF ORGANIZATIONS HAVE SUCH JOBS.
Before you think of individual places where you might like to work, it is helpful to stop and think of all the kinds of places where one might get hired, so you can be sure you're casting the widest net possible. (A fisherman's metaphor, of course.) Let's take an example. Suppose in your new career you want to be a teacher. You must then ask yourself: ”What kinds of places hire teachers?” You might answer, ”Just schools”-and finding that schools in your geographical area have no openings, you might say, ”Well, there are no jobs for people in this career.”
But wait a minute! There are countless other kinds of organizations and agencies out there, besides schools, that employ teachers. For example, corporate training and educational departments, workshop sponsors, foundations, private research firms, educational consultants, teachers' a.s.sociations, professional and trade societies, military bases, state and local councils on higher education, fire and police training academies, and so on and so forth.
”Kinds of places” also means places with different hiring options, besides full-time, such as: places that would employ you part-time (maybe you'll end up deciding, or having, to hold down two or even three part-time jobs, which together add up to one full-time job); places that take temporary workers, on a.s.signment for one project at a time; places that take consultants, one project at a time; places that operate primarily with volunteers, etc.; places that are nonprofit; places that are for-profit; and, don't forget, places that you yourself could start up, should you decide to be your own boss (see chapter 11).
During this interviewing for information, you should not only talk to people who can give you a broad overview of the career that you are considering. You should also talk with actual workers in those kinds of organizations, who can tell you in more detail what the tasks are in the kinds of organizations that interest you.