Changing Careers Part 2 Lining up Your Ducks

Changing careers is a daunting step for anyone, especially if you have been invested psychologically and financially in your previous career. Career change is often forced upon us by circumstance, rather than as a conscious choice. There are many factors which may lead to the decision. The most common is lose of our present job.


When this happens our first response is to look for a position of similar or greater value. Then we discover that we are going to have to compete in a totally different marketplace than the one we experienced the last time we looked for a job. We find that our technical skills may be out of date. Our years of experience can stand in the way of gaining entry in a company when we are competing with the politics of internal promotions. Our salary history, no matter how desperate we are for a paying job, may price us out of the market.

After weeks, months and in some cases years without success in finding a place in our old career, it is then that we realize that a career change may be the only answer to our situation


I find that clients and friends who find themselves in this position asking me for "job leads." I ask them how they have prepared for this change in career. I tell them that generating leads is useless if you have nothing to offer. You need to get your ducks lined up before you try to sell yourself. You need to develop trust with those you are seeking help from and this requires work. Trust must be earned.

The salesman who leaves his samples, brochures, and order book at home will not get the sale. The lead will be wasted since the sales-person has no specific tools to make an offer or to close the sale. And while the lead/prospect may be sold on the idea, once sold they may buy the product someplace else. That is the prospect is sold on the solution, but not on you.

If you are seeking leads for yourself, then you need to address these questions for yourself and do the research required to answer them. It is your responsibility to communicate your answers to potential employers and to those that you are asking for leads. These questions are:

         1. Who are you? 
         2. What do you have that is unique? 
         3. Who uses that uniqueness and for what purpose? 
         4. Why do you think you are the right person for organization and/or job?

If you can't answer these questions by yourself, then maybe you need professional help. You need to hire a "sales representative" or a "marketing person" to help you generate the leads you are looking for.  There are job placement serves and job boards, alumni offices, professional associations that list jobs openings. Some charge you to help you, some charge the employer for posting the job, and some charges the employer if they find and make a successful placement. If you need more in-depth counseling and/or mentoring, a personal career coach may be the answer

Networking in the field(s) and areas where you have knowledge, experience, contacts, reputation, interests, and competencies is where to start. But don't expect that this will result in a quick sale.

You need to realize that when you are asking for help there is cost involved for the helper. For example, I will only refer individuals to a contact or client if I know who that individual is and what they can do for my contact or client. If I were to send a total stranger who might embarrass me, I might risk losing my creditability with the contact or client. This is something I am not going to do.

Changing your career is like any other sales job. You have to sell yourself as a person first; the organization (your professional/vocational qualifications) you represent second; and, then the product (why you are the solution to the employer's personnel need.) yourself last. That is how you build the trust you will need to succeed whether for a referral or an actual job application.

Can you make it alone?

In this Blog I have emphasized personal responsibility and a certain point of view that might suggest that we, you or I, can make it on our own, that we are the masters of our own destinies. It may seem that I am advocating an ego-centric, Ayn Rand/Rand Paul libertarian philisophy. If you, dear reader, have this opinion, let me make it clear that that is not the point. The current political discussions have made this very clear for me.

The political "debate" over the economy and jobs has degenerated into a form of class and philosophical warfare that is distorting the nature of economic success and the role and reason for government.

Mitt Romney and his surrogates claim that all successful entrepreneurs have achieved their success by their own "hard" labor. He argues that they deserve the fruits of their success by being allowed to keep the wealth they extract from their efforts, ship it overseas, hoard it, or squander it - free of taxation or government. They argue that as long as this done "legally" there should be no moral or ethical question of their motives nor their responsibilities to the common wealth of the community, state, or nation. This is a right because it is Legal.

President Obama and his surrogates claim that if you are a successful entrepreneur, business owner, your success in shared with the many people and institutions that made your business possible and came to your aid when it was critical. He argues that you owe a debt of gratitude to those individuals and institutions that helped make your success possible. That debt should be paid back in a number of ways including paying your fair share of the taxes that have gone into making your successful possible, participating in supporting and furthering the basic principles of  democracy and human rights that are the corner stone of the nation, and paying forward to insure that this is "a nation of the people, for the people and by the people", NOT Plutocrats or Corporations.


The difference I see between the points of view discussed above between the Republican and the Democrat candidates point to very different attidutes and beliefs about what constitutes humanity and person responsibility going into the 21st Century both here in the Unites States and by extension into the post-cold war world order. It is my belief that personal freedom is only possible when you choose between two life strategies based on what one assumes is the nature of being a Homo sapien.

Strategy 1: Accept your animal origins, separate yourself from the herd, and take your chances. This is the survivalist's strategy. It is a deadend strategy since it doesn't matter to you or anyone else what you have achieved in this life. It is based on the false assumption that "He who dies with the most toys wins" philosophy. The reality is that once you die, they aren't your toys anymore.

Strategy 2: Accept your humanity, your frailties and your strengths, engage with the herd and contribute to the herd's success. This is the humanist and spiritual strategy. It recognizes that we are interdependent and that our legacy is in how we contribute to the continuity of the herd. It calls upon us to take responsibility for our actions as they serve both our personal and the herd's needs.

A recent article in Forbers magazine by Jessica Hagy makes the point that in order to be a success we each need at least 6 people in our corner if we are to be a success. These "people" are really roles that one must play in order to be successful. Individually we may find ourselves playing some or all these in our lives. But what is critical here is that no one can effectively play all of them at once.

To put it succinctly, "Lawyer who defends herself, has a fool for a client." We might admire the "player-coach" but rarely does he lead his team to a championship.

Hagy identifies these roles as:

   1. The Instigator
   2. The Cheerleader
   3. The Doubter
   4. The Taskmaster
   5. The Connector
   6.  The Example (Mentor)

I find that in the present discussions Mr. Romney and his surrogates (the people who will make or break his campaign) don't understand that success is a group effort. Who are the Instigators, the Koch Brothers? Who is the Doubter, Carl Rove? Who is their Example? Richard Nixon? Certainly not Ronald Reagan! Who is their Connector, the Tea Party? Who is their Taskmaster, Grover Norquist, the unelected Budget Czar? We know that Fox "News" and Rush Limbaugh are the Cheerleaders.

And because they can't see this, they can't see that the Republican Congress and Party have as much responsibility for the declining fortunes of America and the American Middle Class as their allege culprit, the President of the United States.

Don't make the mistake to think you can do it all alone and take all the credit for your success. The measure of your success is how you staff and handle these 6 critical roles as you build your life, and create your legacy. Its not the toys that you will remembered for, it will be legacy you leave for future generations. That legacy can lead to greatness or it can lead to disaster. Your choice -- who is on your team?