I am a regular reader of your blog and a huge fan of your work. I started following it in 2007. I was drawn to it because I was/am that classic twenty-something: lost. I immediately found my post-undergrad job to be unsatisfying and boring. I started in corporate finance. I have since upgraded to an analyst position in asset valuation at a financial services firm. I have been here three years and although I am not miserable, I daily yearn for something more.
I am in the process of researching NGO’s in Nepal. I want to move there for 2-3 months to work in women’s empowerment. I want to volunteer in Nepal because (a) I have spent the majority of the last five years making money for myself and my employers, not contributing much to humanity, (b) I want to immerse myself into a new culture and I find the Nepalese culture intriguing and (c) I want a hub to explore Asia (primarily after my commitment is fufilled in Nepal). I have been to Asia twice and traveled throughout Europe in college so I am very confident in my traveling skills.
My biggest hesitation here has probably crossed your mind: what will I do upon my return? I don’t know. I am hoping that while abroad, I will be presented with new opportunities that will lead to my next step or, at the very least, my time overseas will shed some light on my next career move. I am fairly certain that I do not want to stay in finance and I do not want to come back to Chicago, which is where I’ve lived for nearly five years. One of my inclinations, among many, is to pursue a career in writing, using my material from a blog that I will keep while in Nepal and afterward. My priorities of traveling and exploring will come second to writing my blog to ensure that I have a product when I return to the US (if I return).
What are your thoughts? Am I completely insane to pick up and leave (with approximately $10K in the bank) after building so much career equity in the past five years? I am so lost and without a clear direction on my next “job” and I feel drawn to do something drastic and unconventional like this.
I went to art school and have been working in the creative industry for about five years now. I am going back to school this Fall for nursing though because I didn’t want to purely do art for the rest of my life. I see myself has having dual careers, nursing as the main one (day job) and art as the freelance one.
My question is about my LinkedIn profile! Should I make my LinkedIn profile for nursing only? Art jobs boil down to the portfolio, so I think having a separate online presence will be enough for freelance. Yes, I think I answered my own question. I don’t think I should mix the two because it will confuse nurse recruiters.
I’ve been reading your blog, and you are right, self-pity gets me nowhere. Yet I have anxiety because I have forgiven myself of my past, yet I cannot forget as the choices haunt my life.
1) I am 40 in Dec.
2) I live with my mother who exasperates me endlessly. I am the eternal teenager and now, in order to just avoid conflict, I have accepted my role as one.
3) I have a daughter in college for nursing. My other is 16, goes to high school, and is working at a tea shop. She lives with me and my mom.
4) I’ve been in poverty.
5) I’m in school, getting an Associate’s Degree in Science, but I only have 8 credits.
6) I’m unemployed–I worked 10 years as a Montessori instructional assistant–stayed too long because I knew I was in for another dead end job.
7)I have great anxiety because I feel like a bum with my mom. I’ve never been financially independent. So now that creates the low self esteem and confidence.
I know you can’t tell me what to do. I had a child at 19 and another at 22. So I’ve never really known myself. Just that I am a very kind person. After ten years and those last two years in that horrible job, I don’t want another dead-end job. I’ve thought about a business. I don’t know what —I’ve babysat and cleaned in my life and that is not my idea of a fulfilling job. I can’t sew. I can barely cook. I don’t have musical talent. And people have always run me so running a business?? Not to mention, how would I start a business on food stamps and school loans? I can barely afford gas for school. All excuses I suspect.
I know all you probably see is negativity, yet these are the realistic facts. I’m stuck. And I feel screwed and desperate. Like I should go to work at the Dollar Store or McDonald’s for less than what I had made at years of the other dead end job.
Enough of a sorrow email, I have just felt compelled to write. Cause I’m a mom. And I feel pathetic with my stance and that I have failed my children.
Here are three ideas:
1. Find the person who is in charge of the area of the company where you want to work. You can use LinkedIn for that. And contact the person. Let them know you want to work with them and ask them to keep you in mind. Then email periodically to check in so you stay on their radar. You can also email them with an updated resume if your resume changes while you’re waiting. It’s good to say, “I just want you to know about this recent accomplishment… and I’m still looking forward to interviewing with you when the time is right for the company.” Something like that.
2. Send an email that is essentially a pitch to do consulting. Show them that they need you to solve a problem they didn’t know they had, or they didn’t realize would be easy to solve – by hiring you. You can start as a consultant and get them to hire you full-time later, or you can convince them in the interview that it’s a full-time position.
3. Work for free at the beginning. At a very small company there is often a need to hire someone before there is money to hire them. If you get a foot in the door before there is money, and you do a good job, then when there’s money the job will already be yours. And bonus: you’ll get extra stock options for working for free.
I have bipolar disorder. If my meds are working and the stress level is reasonable (I can accept a tight solid well defined deadline) I deliver superior work. I am a systems engineer and damn good at what I do. I have received national recognition for a system i built. I developed a software architecture that goes to sea with every Navy aircraft carrier.
But when the meds are wavering, and somebody proposes something bat shit stupid, I lose it. The manic part of bipolar kicks in and I am furious, angry, rude, throwing things, and generally being a 100% walking tantrum time bomb.
I have never held a job longer than 3 years before completely alienating everyone in the company or having a meltdown severe enough to either get fired or decide to move myself along.
I have not only burned bridges, I have nuked them. I can’t go into consulting. No people skills for politics and networking. There are pretty much only three major corporations in my area of expertise that I haven’t worked at and they do a lot of defense work. I do not want to design something that kills people and I don’t want the hassle of a security clearance.
And I have just been laid off.
I need some advice.
I am in a serious dilemma in a crossroads in my life. My dad is an old school, wealthy conservative who wants me to join the workforce like he did and slave away my life to something I don’t necessarily feel good about. I can’t spend my life in a office, I simply can’t and I know this deep inside me.
My true passion lies in one thing- Poker. I have studied and played the game since I was 13 (I’m 22 now) and I have no doubt in my mind that it is what I want to do with my life. Don’t misjudge my passion though, it is not solely in pursuit of money. I have fallen in love with the game and the people. When I sit at a table and watch and study the people across from me I feel at home. I am competitive and intelligent, and I always have had a fascination with observing people and what drives them. I also love to meet people and be social. There is no better place to see every kind of person than at a poker table.
I want to watch people and guess what they are thinking every single day of my life. I want to die on the felt.
Here is the problem: I have one semester left in college and I had to pay for it on my credit card because my dad was not happy that I failed a class. I have always done well in school, but I find undergraduate school very pointless. I have learned nothing in college and I struggled to put any focus into it- I have always spent my time reading books about succeeding at poker. I am in debt and have no money to pursue what I want to and my dad won’t help me at it because he is severely against it.
Gambling has always been an iffy career choice, but the game, Texas Hold em, has stood the test of time and feeds many, many people as a career. My dad doesn’t believe me and won’t help me.
How do I get away from my debt and embark on my true passion?
– Anonymous Poker Player
Your post titled How to Pick a Husband if You Want to Have Kids really reasonated with me. Well, half of it did. I already have a husband, and I’m 31 years old. I’m an ENFJ, so a lot of my self-worth comes from my career achievements (I’m a lawyer), but relationships are very important to me too. Not just my relationship with my husband. This is going to sound borderline sociopathic, but I get excited when I’m able to make a connection with an interesting person who is really introverted.
Anyway, right now I am trying to assess whether I should have children at all. My husband definitely wants them. I think I want them too, but in reality, I know I would really struggle, especially the first few years because I would have to compromise at work. And he makes about twice as much money as me, so I would have to be the one to take the longer maternity leave and work around the nanny/daycare/whatever schedule much more than him, at least for now.But if I decide no kids ever (leaving aside the damage to my marriage that would ensure), how do I know I won’t wake up when I’m 45 and really regret it? My personality makes me think that would probably happen. Then again, if I don’t have that strong urge to be a mother now, will I ever have it?
People constantly say I’m really nurturing, and I’d be a great mom. My own mother died when I was 22, so I don’t have a great sounding board for this stuff. Part of this may be coming from me seeing friends have babies and struggle with it. Three of my best friends from law school had kids within the past year, and all three tried to go back but quit working entirely within the first year.
What is your advice for women like me who are already pretty far into their careers and did not take your advice to have kids early?
I feel stuck. I have been doing consulting in the Big 4 for around 10 years now and it’s just getting old. I took the test and I am burnt out. I took the other test and it appears that I may not have a good job and then I took another test and it shows me that I am an ISTJ. After you get the result from that personality test it provides links to jobs that may be good for that type and I am already in those jobs and have been most of my 13 year career.
I feel like I have been trying to get out of consulting for years now, but now that I look at the openings that exist in my market that are outside of consulting, it appears that I don’t have the skills to do those and it feels like consulting is the only thing I can do (which is not the case….I’ll admit to having a broader skill set than just being a consultant). I don’t know where to start to get unstuck. I need to reinvigorate my career and find interest in what I do or I need to find something else.
I am risk averse though. My wife quit work 3 years ago to stay at home with our four kids. We live comfortably on my salary, but I can’t take a massive pay cut to get into something that would potentially make me happier. That will just lead to more stress. Also, I am rooted firmly in Columbus. All of my family is here and it’s a good place to raise a family.
I need to find something where I get some kind of fulfillment. Telling people all of the things they do wrong and how they could be better isn’t doing it for me lately. I’m 36 and I feel like I hit a wall. I am unmotivated and constantly thinking about how can I get a new job that will provide something closer to an 8-5, will keep me off the road and will let me be more present in my kids lives.
My hope is that someone else has emailed you about this before and you can just copy and paste that answer here, but I know one size does not fit in with career advice. I ordered a couple of the books you referenced on your site as well, so I am hoping that they provide some guidance or perspective.
Any insight you could provide would be much appreciated.
I am a mother of three children under four years old and I am currently searching for a job. I just got home from an interview for a corporate job with a company I’d love to work for, and the woman screening me asked me several times about how many kids I have, how old they are, what my feelings are about leaving them with a caregiver all day, and so on.
I did not volunteer this information, it came up because she asked why I left my old job (my last company folded just as I was leaving for maternity leave). I found it hard to tell whether she was asking this information because she was unsure about my ability to do the job, or whether she just wanted to talk about her own maternity leave and desire for more kids.
If I pass the personality screening test I wrote today, I will have an interview with the chairman. My question is, how do I address questions about my family size/future reproductive plans without saying, “That question is illegal” or “That’s none of your business”? Please advise!
I was in a gender harassment situation that I left about two years ago, and did not really think about my future as I was exiting the situation. I have had a lot of personal trauma around the experience, and realize that I can’t use my last job for reference even though I was there for five years. What should I do? I still need to be able to work.