St.Louis Business Journal
SENSE OF DIRECTION IS CRITICAL IN A TOUGH CAREER MARKET

By Anna Navarro June 2010  

Examples in this column are fictionalized to protect privacy.



Many people fall into a career, turn out to be reasonably good at it, and evolve from there, not because they like what they are doing, but because that’s where they happened to moor up and it pays the bills.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Unless your safe harbor gets disrupted and you have to navigate your way into another port, which is an increasingly common occurrence these days.

A Tale of Two Candidates

David started out as an engineering tech in a large manufacturing company and evolved into quality control. He’d been promoted several times, and ended up coordinating and facilitating quality improvement teams. He found the work tedious but the job seemed safe and he had a family to support.

Then the company fell on hard times. David lost his job. Even though he wasn’t excited about quality improvement, he’d been in the field for ten years and had no idea what else to do. So he started job hunting in the field.

Like David, Adam was pursuing a job in the quality improvement area. But his story was very different. He started out as a computer programmer and first discovered the field by doing computer support for quality teams. He found the work fascinating, so he intentionally pursued computer projects in the area, and took advantage of company sponsored training in the field.

Then he talked his way into an entry level position in the quality department, doing data collection, and statistical analysis. Soon he was promoted to facilitating quality teams and doing Baldridge assessments. He’d only been in the field for three years when he was downsized.

David and Adam applied for the same job and were the two finalists in the selection process. On paper, David was the stronger candidate - his experience was broader and deeper than Adam’s. But Adam got the job.

Why? The employer, like most employers, chose to hire someone with a clear sense of what he wanted to do. She figured Adam would quickly fill in any missing pieces in his background - after all, he had a track record for doing just that. But there was no way she could infuse David with the sense of energy and enthusiasm for the work that he lacked.

Having a clear sense of direction, by which I mean knowing what you want to do and being excited about it, is one of the most important career assets you can have. It can help you figure out how to make the most of your current job by giving you a focus for what to emphasize in your day-to-day work. And it can help you beat out the competition in a job hunt.

Developing a sense of direction comes easily for some people. Adam chanced upon a field he found fascinating, and was smart enough to pursue that interest assertively and build it into a career he really enjoyed. But what about those of us who aren’t lucky enough to encounter, even briefly, something that turns us on?

Developing a sense of direction is something you can do methodically. You start by gathering clues about what you enjoy doing and do well (to be happy and successful, you need to meet both those criteria), what your passions are and what other characteristics you need in work, like location, compensation, working conditions and so on…

The next step is to brainstorm fields that might fit those characteristics and systematically investigate them by reading and talking to people who do that kind of work. Expect a number of your initial ideas to fall by the wayside as you investigate them, but keep at it until you find a direction that really turns you on. The process is labor intensive, but it works if you keep at it.

Once you find an area that interests you, figure out a plan for moving in that direction, even if it’s very gradual. If you’re lucky, there may be ways you can orient some of your current work in that direction, without changing jobs, as Adam did. If that’s not possible, look for other ways to move in that direction, like volunteering for extra projects within your organization, taking classes, or volunteering in the community.

Having a sense of direction can benefit you in many ways. It can help you stay motivated and make the most of your current job. It can also give you the edge in job hunting if you are ever cut loose from your anchor.

Anna Navarro is the founder of Work Transitions, a nationwide career consulting firm that works with clients on an individual basis to help them find more satisfaction and fulfillment in their work-lives. She can be reached by phone at (314) 367-0008 and her e-mail address is email@worktransitions.com. For more information visit the worktransitions.com website.

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.