St. Louis Business Journal
Experiment early in your career, then go for what you most
enjoy doing

By Anna Navarro

May 2001 - "I've got my degree. Now what? " That's the refrain of many a young person as they graduate from college.

If you find yourself in this situation, consider yourself NORMAL. Most of us don't figure out what we really want to do with our lives til long after graduation.

Instead of trying to target your perfect job, plunge into the world of work as opportunities present themselves and your interests dictate. Experiment with vigor and don't be afraid to follow a zigzag course FOR A WHILE.

Then, after a few years of experimentation, (usually three to ten) step back and take stock of what you've learned about yourself and the world of work. At this point you will have gained enough experience to be in a good position to set a longer-term career trajectory.

During the period of experimentation, expect to hold jobs for one to three years, sometimes up to five years. Do good work and learn the ropes. Even if you don't like what you are doing, give it your full-out effort.

The payoff for this hard work is two-fold: First, it helps you develop the discipline ALL work requires. Second, it provides you with insights that are critical later to targeting work that is truly satisfying.

Melinda graduated with a degree in sociology and had no idea what kind of work she wanted to do.

She found her first job through the newspaper, working as a private investigator for a small company that tracked down fathers who defaulted on child support payments.

She was an able and reliable employee and liked finding informants and persuading them to cooperate. She also enjoyed working for a small business and admired the flexibility and freedom the owner had. But the job, which involved endless waiting and "staking out" deadbeat dads, soon lost its appeal, though she continued in the position for 2 years.

Her next opportunity came when a client for whom she had done an assignment offered her a position as a management trainee in a bank. In that position, she rotated through a number of roles, ultimately ending up in the loan department. She did well, and liked developing and serving her customers, but disliked working for a large company and found the travel to small towns in the region tiresome.

Just as she was beginning to think about leaving the bank, a friend at the gym where she worked out told her about a job opportunity selling telephone systems to small businesses. It paid better than the bank, was in the growing telecom industry and didn't require travel. She jumped at the chance.

But at the end of another two years, she felt she'd come to a dead end. She was a star performer but the job was very repetitive and she wasn't enjoying it. She didn't know where to go next.

She came to see me at a perfect point in her career. She'd been working for seven years and knew a lot about herself and what she liked and didn't like. Continuing to experiment at this point would have been a mistake. What she needed now was to sort out what she had learned and to focus her career in a direction that was positive for her. She needed to start building for the future.

We did an analysis of what she really wanted and developed a set of 15 job characteristics that were critical to her. Key variables included developing rapport with clients, understanding their needs and selling them a service in which she believed. She also wanted her work to relate directly to people, and someday to be a small business owner.

She investigated several different possibilities and ultimately decided to go into the employment field, working for a firm that specialized in recruiting personnel for financial institutions. Again she did very well, and eventually worked for several different agencies, learning as she went along. She made good money and was frugal.

Five years after entering the field, she opened her own firm. Now, two years later, she has survived the ups and downs of a start up and runs a very prosperous employment agency specializing in recruiting accountants for accounting firms and businesses.

Like most of us who love our work, Melinda's path was neither linear nor predictable. But because she intuitively knew when to experiment, when to take stock and when to target her efforts, she eventually evolved a solution that was a satisfying fit for her.

Anna Navarro is the founder of Work Transitions, a nationwide career consulting firm that trains independent career strategists and consults with individual clients.

This column was originally published by the St. Louis Business Journal. The actual title of the column and date in which it appeared in the Business Journal may be slightly different from what appears on WorkTransitions.com.