Career Ideas

The New York Times reports that companies are recognizing the value of retaining good, proven employees even during the recession.  Instead of relying solely on layoffs, some are trying other approaches that cut down on labor costs while making sure that employees can hold onto their jobs.  This also means that the company doesn’t lose reliable workers who know their business.

It’s not from any warm and fuzzy feelings that organizations are doing this but because companies today measure the productivity and value of their employees more carefully (or think they do), and recognize that they can’t afford to lose good workers. 

“A growing number of employers, hoping to avoid or limit layoffs, are introducing four-day workweeks, unpaid vacations and voluntary or enforced furloughs, along with wage freezes, pension cuts and flexible work schedules. These employers are still cutting labor costs, but hanging onto the labor,” reports the NY Times article. 

If you are a manager who’s been asked to trim costs, please consider these more creative options.

And if you are out of work, but understand these kinds of issues, there’s a BIG opportunity for you to succeed if you can carve out a niche as a workforce saver who can still save money. 

In other words, as I tell my coaching clients who want to just hunker down during a recession and avoid working on their real career dreams—with any big changes in the economy (good or bad), comes big opportunities for anyone who knows how to keep organizations succeeding in the new circumstances. 

So if you are creative and alert to the idea of opportunity, this recession, as awful as it’s proving for many people, does also provide new niches to pursue if those match your passions and skills.

Technorati Tags: career coach, career ideas, new career ideas, retaining workers

I wasn’t happy with the other answers I saw to a career question on Yahoo this week, so I answered it.  It was from someone apparently just starting to look for a career, someone with lots of artistic interests who didn’t want to be focused just on making money.  Since it is the most foundational of all career questions, I thought I’d share my answer, slightly expanded, with anyone coming to this blog too.

Q: How do you know what career is best for you?

As a career coach (in Minnesota but working nationally), I often work with clients who are doing great financially but are just miserable in their careers. They light up when they start following their passions instead. So I can say that beyond the cliché, it’s generally true that following your passions WILL make you a lot happier than following only the money.

So what to do? For now, why not pursue all or many of the artistic passions you mention by taking classes if you are about to go to college (or are in college)? Now is your chance to experiment and learn about these arts and about yourself.

Keep your eyes open–notice what specific things you really love to do, not just dance, for ex., but what kind of dance you like and what role.  Choreographer or performer?  Part of a group, couple dancing, soloist?

Notice where you are willing to be persistent and not mind “failures” vs things you only like when they are going well.  That will clarify which are more likely for day–to-day work and which are more appropriate for your hobbies.   I think keeping a log about what you like is great too as you’ll start noticing patterns that will help you decide on a major.

Get help from others while in college or taking classes instead of being a passive student. Talk to teachers, other students, and people in these arts for a living (informational interviews) to see what careers look like from the inside. That way it will be easier for you to decide.

In other words, do follow your passions, noticing what really suits you and isn’t just this month’s whim.

Remember to sign up for free career and creativity ezine.  Done with this blog?  Get more articles with career ideas here

Technorati Tags: artistic careers, career coach, career coach Minnesota, career ideas, choosing career, new career

Here’s a career idea that can be another aid in helping you choose a career, even though it is intended for a more narrow purpose (where it’s also useful).

Yesterday, I posted links to a Wall Street Journal study about the finanical value (or lack of it) for an MBA.  Here’s what I think is a very cool follow up.  It’s from the University of Virginia B school, but here’s the thing.  What she’s saying on this video is is ALSO relevant to ANYONE thinking about career choices in general–not just about MBA programs.

For instance, she talks about asking people who know you when they’ve noticed that you were most excited or most frustrated in the past few months.  She suggests that applicants use this as a way of writing a good MBA application essay (and not bore the heck out of the readers). 

But don’t be fooled.  You can also mine this information to help you find what you have real passion for doing and what is challenging and what is just not your cup of tea. 

Others can’t tell you what you should be doing. Tests can’t tell you.  Even career coaches, all knowing as we (think we) are, certainly can’t.  However, people who know you CAN give you concrete examples of what they’ve seen that can help you get clearer about what kinds of things you consistently love.  It’s up to you (with the further support of friends, family, and possibly career coaches) to see how to tap into those situations to decide what kinds of careers match those situations. 

In other words, you are a detective and these are clues about your happiness.  Sure, the exact thing that you were passionate about may not be the career you will choose (say teaching your girlfriend how to ski).  But it may well give you info about how much people interaction you want, how much you want something where learning or teaching is important, etc.

So watch the video and see if her essay suggestions spark some good thinking on your part or that of your friends and relatives.

If you want me, your friendly career coach, to write more about how to use your passions to determine your career, post a comment or send me an email.  

If you want some info about career coaching, also send me an email or check out my business site

So here is the YouTube video from Sara Neher, Darden’s Director of MBA Admissions (University of Virginia)

Technorati Tags: career_coach, career_ideas, career_vision, choosing_a_career, MBA_application

As a career coach, I help clients figure out their career vision and dream career(s).   I often wind up reminding them that potential income is only part of that vision, and not the first factor to consider unless you don’t care how you actually will spend thousands of hours of your life.  That’s not to discount the money, if you will, but to make sure you don’t get misled by that factor alone.

But those of you who have a career all set may be considering how to move ahead or simply how to earn more money.  Many in management figure an MBA is the next step.  But is it?  In terms of raw dollars spent in obtaining it vs. dollars earned because of it, will it help or hinder you?  The Wall Street Journal just took a look at this question to see what your ROI (return on investment) would be from ponying up for an MBA at 27 US schools.   

They found out first, that it will cost you anywhere from $40,000 to $136,000 to complete your program.  No small piece of change no matter which school you chose.  The WSJ question is, whether the return after 5 years more than equals the cost.  This is not about quality of the degree, but quantity of the return.

It turns out that the best ROI was at Texas A&M (243%) and the worst at NYU (only 56%).  You can find the complete table here and the article discussing it here.

Technorati Tags: career coach, career development, career vision, MBA schools, MBA value, Wall Street Journal

Art and economic/business success CAN go hand in hand.   That career idea is being proven thanks to a new generation of internet and business savvy artists.  A NY Times article,Transforming Art Into a More Lucrative Career Choice, presents a number of entrepreneur artists using the internet to extend the reach of their art or artistic business, choosing a career in art without the usual financial struggle.

One way is through multiple income streams–the same idea promoted some might say ad nauseum by informercials and every internet marketing guru I’ve ever read (confession–I’ve read quite a few).   The article cites the case of Claudine Helmuth.  “She has an online store…  does custom illustrations for customers using photographs they provide. She licenses her artwork for greeting cards, calendars and other products. She has written two books about her techniques and has a third one coming out. She tours the country teaching both business and art workshops.” She also manufactures her own line of art products. 

I don’t know about you, but Claudine makes me tired just hearing everything she’s doing, but it certainly shows all the directions you can go into if you don’t limit  yourself to a simple model of what a career is.  

Often, I have career coaching clients who say they want to be a landscape architect or a sculptor or  further afield from art–a travel agent creating educational trips to little known areas or a caterer for world foods–and they think it’s just not financially feasible. They may be right–if they limit themselves to doing their work in the way they’ve imagined it or always seen it done.  But they may be wrong if they can harness the powers of the internet.  As with Claudine, that can mean, selling to a wider market or just getting know to a larger group that might publicize whatever you are doing thorough social networking, or having your art up and available instantly 24/7 in a virtual gallery publicized by all your friends and colleagues. 

It’s not just about the internet as invaluable as that can be.  It’s about looking at new ways to combine passions into activities you love that someone else will be interested in or need enough to pay you for your services and products. Whatever you want to do, don’t get stopped just because the conventional way of doing it doesn’t seem financially viable.  You may need “multiple streams,” and you may need partners, but you can often find a path to your career vision.

Technorati Tags: Art career, career coaching, career idea, career vision, multiple income streams, NY Times

Choosing A Career is a daunting task for most of us.  We have all had to be our own career coach without any training, and we can have so many career ideas and not know if we could succeed with any of them, and if we did, whether or not we’d feel happy about that choice.  Of course, there are exceptions.

My nephew was one of those lucky people who always knew what he wanted. He started drawing and painting at age 2. I used to draw with him until he was about 6 and started imitating my way of drawing (not good) instead of continuing what he was doing. We led him back to doing what he naturally was doing, and today he is a visual artist and senior creative at an international design firm. Choosing a career was not that tricky for him.

Not so for most people, including me. I had many passions, but not so many career ideas, as I didn’t realize I could start with my passions to determine a career.  The good news in my case was that I can now apply what I learned to my current work as a career life coach.

So how do most people go about choosing careers? Having led career talks, programs and coaching sessions for thousands of people, I can tell you that most people look at where they can make money using the skills they have. Pretty reasonable, right? Hey, that’s what I did and I established a very successful communication company of my own that earned me a good living and gave me lots of free time. Perfect? Maybe not.

The problem was that I began dreading my work days and tasks more and more over the years. Something inside of me said: This isn’t really you. You’re wasting your time. This isn’t what you love. This isn’t how I want to really contribute to the world–even though the work was pretty good, and the clients generally pleasant.

Thank goodness for that nagging voice. It forced me to rethink what I had done and led me on the journey to what I am now doing–helping people in finding and choosing a career they will love….without the pain and hassle I went through.

Be Your Own Career Coach

How did I do it? The secret lies in NOT starting out with skills and finances. Instead start out with who you are, what you love and what you value as well as what your skills are. That’s the first big step in generating new career ideas. Leave finances and realistic planning to the last and what I consider the fourth step. (More on the steps in other postings. Or check out my Guide to Lifework book for a complete program.)

The second step in becoming your own career coach is to take those key values and passions and skills and find out what you can do with them. That’s an exciting and creative process in itself, but when you realize what you want to do is teach or start a travel business or be an engineer, you can create focus and clarity with a LIfework Summary Statement that answers question 2–WHAT do I do for my career.

These statements look like:

I teach kids in the inner city how to read so they can go on and succeed in their dreams.

I help a large marketing firm organize and plan projects in a team effort to produce the most creative and effective campaigns with the least problems for our clients.

I help couples find peace and reconciliation after a divorce through couples counseling and workshops held at churches.

These are actually pretty elaborate statements. Yours can be simpler. It just has to work as a guiding tool for YOU.

Then you are ready for your third step in choosing a career–determining exactly what your day to day world will be like. So you’re a teacher–is that in a Montessori school in Chicago or a charter school for languages in a rural area? Are you working mostly on budgets by yourself as a planner or in a team? You need to paint a compelling picture that will excite you and lead you to your dreams. This stage can also include finances–how much will you earn.

Now, you are ready for all those practical elements of a plan. Your fourth question is: How Do I Succeed in making this vision real?

That question is answered with a step by step action plan relying on and developing a community of support (mentors, idea people, advisors, emotional supporters as well as some creative ways to look at your own thinking to make sure you don’t get down or stuck.

So choosing a career that you’ll love is a matter of just answering 4 questions. OK, that will take time. But I can tell you speaking from my personal experience as well as the responses of all kinds of clients, if you do it this way, you’ll not only wind up happier, but also enjoy getting there as well because it’s fueled by your desires, dreams and passions. Good luck.

Find out more about this topic, plus how to use mindmapping to help you with this process at Choosing A Career–3 Questions.

© 2008 Leonard Lang

Technorati Tags: career life coach, career plan, career steps, choosing a career