St. Louis Business Journal
The thirty-something career turning point

By Anna Navarro

June 2001 - Sometime in their late twenties to early forties many people come face to face with the realization that they are on the wrong career track and need to make a correction. It's not a sign of personal failure. It's a sign of personal growth. And it's a commonplace experience.

Some of these individuals have had a fair amount of career success. But they aren't happy, and the thought of continuing on the same path for the rest of their lives sets their teeth on edge.

The source of their difficulty is easy to understand. Focussed on school achievements, many young people don't know enough about themselves or the world of work when they graduate to understand what will bring them satisfaction in the workplace.

When school ends, life forces them to make choices. They do the best they can, but for many there is no substitute for the insight gained in full-time, year-round work experience.

So after a few years, they run into what I call the "thirty-something turning point", a time when it's advisable to take stock and target a new direction. Otherwise they will continue to dig themselves deeper into careers that will disappoint them.

But making a change at this stage of their lives presents some challenges.

For people who have obtained expensive degrees in specific areas, like the law or an MBA, contemplating a shift at this stage sometimes brings on feelings of guilt: "How could I have wasted all that money getting a degree for work that now I don't want to do?" Some are still repaying large educational loans.

And for those who are buying homes, or getting married or starting families, it often raises fears of not being able to handle the new financial responsibilities they have assumed.

What people who are going through the "thirty-something turning point" need to know is that they aren't prisoners to their first set of choices. If they take time to figure out who they are and what they want, they can often leverage their education and experience into work that is much more satisfying.

Mark had gotten his undergraduate degree in political science because he loved the subject. As graduation approached, he decided to apply to law school because he couldn't think of anything else to do.

He got accepted easily, ranked in the middle of his class and got hired by a firm that specialized in labor law. He worked his way from associate to senior associate, but his level of boredom kept increasing and his motivation to put in the grueling hours required to make partner kept dropping.

He had gotten married four years before, and he and his wife were expecting their second child. She had an MBA, and worked in the corporate finance department of a major company.

When he came to see me, he was feeling trapped and unable to see any way out.

As we worked together, it became clear why the law was a poor fit for him. He disliked research, writing and being tied to a desk all day, all of which were major aspects of his work. Also, the long hours typical of the law made his home life difficult.

On the positive side, however, we pinpointed that he really liked interacting with people, helping them solve problems and giving presentations. He also wanted to work on short-term projects that had a sense of closure. (In the law, some of the cases he worked on went on for years.)

We explored several different career options. In the end, he went to work for the human resources department of a company that had recently launched a major initiative to educate its workforce about the benefits of diversity. They were glad to have a former labor lawyer on their training team to make sure they were following federal regulations. The job was about 75% interactive, and he got to visit plants and other corporate facilities.

Though his salary as a human resource manager was lower than as a lawyer, his income, combined with his wife's, was enough for a comfortable lifestyle. And the shorter hours were more compatible with his family needs.

All in all, the tradeoffs this career path offered were much better for him than those offered by the law. He succeeded in converting the "thirty-something turning point" from a trauma into an opportunity.

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.