St. Louis Business Journal
Giving more than you get
can be an excellent short term career strategy

By Anna Navarro

May 2002 - Twenty years ago I was a frustrated corporate executive. I had been successful in several careers but happy in none of them. After a lot of soul-searching, I decided to devote my energy to helping people like myself who were not satisfied with their jobs find work that was fulfilling.

As I checked out academic training programs, I discovered they mostly focused on career testing, which I had tried and found only marginally useful. So I embarked on a year long pilot program to design a process that would help people find careers that were fulfilling.

The bargain I struck with my clients that year was straightforward. I was launching an experimental program, and offered the service for very little money. In exchange I asked for two things: their feedback on whether it worked for them, and referrals to friends if it was helpful. By the end of the year I had designed the first draft of the Work Transitions process, had feedback that it worked, had a growing client base and perhaps most important, had proven to myself that I liked the work and was good at it.

I clearly gave more than I got that first year. I gave up my executive compensation, barely covered my overhead and paid my living expenses from savings. I worked long, feverish hours to design, deliver and evaluate the service. But I also found a career I loved and gained the experience I needed to launch Work Transitions. Twenty years and many improvements later, it's still going strong.

Giving more than you get can be a useful strategy for career growth as long as it's SHORT TERM. Examples include interning, volunteering, freelance consulting, working on a temporary or part-time basis, or, as in my case, giving huge cost breaks at the start of a new venture.

The essence of this tactic is willingly trading compensation for the opportunity to demonstrate that you can do something well, even if you have limited past experience. It's an approach that can work at any stage of a career. We usually think of this as something appropriate for a young person just starting out. But young people can miss the opportunity to make the most of it unless they focus on excellent performance.

Bob is an example of handling an internship in a way that opened doors.

He was hired as a summer intern in a fundraising campaign for a major institution. Before long he noted many things going wrong in the project. So he started helping out in areas outside his own. Then he realized the problem was that the fundraising consultant, who had been hired to lead the effort, was an alcoholic who managed to conceal his drinking, except when he worked at their off-site location.

The rest of the off-site staff was aware of the problem too, but no one was willing to blow the whistle. Finally, after much thought, Bob decided to tell the vice president of development what he saw. After corroborating the story, the vice president fired the fundraising consultant, and asked Bob to take on responsibility for transitioning the project to another fundraising consultant.

Bob did so on the wages of an intern because the budget for staff was already committed. He worked long hours to hold the staff together until a new consultant was found and started working. Then he went back to college.

When Bob graduated, he was already an "experienced" fundraising consultant who could claim expertise way beyond that of a summer intern. The grateful vice president of development's recommendations were invaluable to him in getting a great job.

Much of that outcome was due to sheer luck. But some of it was Bob's commitment to excellence, even as an intern. Had he chosen to use the consultant's drinking problem as an opportunity to slack off, as did the other interns, he would not have gotten this result.

I have recommended the strategy of giving more than you get to countless clients who have applied it in a wide array of situations, ranging from working part-time, to freelance consulting, to interning, to giving freebies as they start a business. An important aspect of this approach is to be sure to have a built-in end point. Giving more than you get can have many benefits in the short term, but it's not something you want to do for more than a year, or at most, two.

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.