They both graduated from college around the same time with decent grades. They both clamored about for a bit about what to do next before taking the reasonable path and settling on a job that pays the bills. (The bills do need to be paid, after all.)

And now they’ve gotten restless. Both women long for more: More fulfillment. More passion. More meaning. They long to do work that feeds their soul, not just their bank account.

Two women. Same situation. Same yearning.

Fast forward 10 years later

In the spring of 2024, their lives look strikingly different.

The first woman has come to life — she’s escaped the meaningless, seemingly endless cycle that once defined her. She wakes up each morning with a smile on her face, a spring in her step and an urgency that can’t be stopped. She can’t wait to get to work, to get moving, to give her gift to the world. She’s found herself, she’s found her work, and it shows.

And the second woman? She’s still stuck doing similar work as before — sure, she’s climbed the ranks and advanced in responsibility. She’s even changed companies a few times in hopes of finding a new opportunity, and yet with each move she finds herself taking on similar roles because, well, that’s what she’s qualified to do, right?

Her experience has pigeonholed her, and she doesn’t see a way out without taking a drastic pay cut. And a pay cut? A pay cut isn’t an option when you’ve got a mortgage to pay, student loan (and car and credit card) debt to pay down, and a family to feed. It’s just not realistic — at least, not anymore.

A decade later, she still feels as if a piece of her is dying as she pulls into the parking lot each day. And as she stares out the window in the year 2024, she realizes that not a whole lot has changed in her life over the past 10 years.

“Maybe things could have been different,” she sighs. “But now it’s too late.”

And so she stays, day after day after day…

What made the difference

It’s not that one woman began with more clarity than the other — they both felt lost, stuck and unsure about how to break free. Nor did one have any more talent or skill or luck than the other, except for the luck that she made. One didn’t start off in a better financial position or with a bigger network. And it wasn’t one single thing that made the difference, either — it was lots of things combined.

Don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t an easy road for the first woman, and it didn’t happen overnight. There were lots of sleepless nights, lots of tossing and turning and second-guessing. And yet come hell or high water, the first woman was determined to make it happen. She wasn’t sure where to begin or exactly where she’d end up, but she took it upon herself to actively wade through the uncertainty: to explore, to question, to experiment, to play with her passions.

The other waited for clarity and change to find her. She said, “If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen,” or “I’ll make a change tomorrow.” But what change? The truth is, she didn’t know where to start. Sure, she had some ideas about what she might like to do, but the ambiguity and uncertainty paralyzed her. She didn’t see that in closing herself off to uncertainty, she was also closing herself off to possibility. Her fate was sealed.

The first woman reached out and found mentors — people who’d made the leap and built lives they loved  — and their stories gave her hope that a different life was possible. They encouraged, guided and inspired her, and eventually became some of her closest friends.

The second was “too busy” to reach out — and to tell the truth, she was afraid to do it, too. Afraid to look stupid. Afraid of rejection. Afraid it wouldn’t lead her anywhere, anyhow.

One woman found support and community in other people like her: fierce, passionate, driven fire-starters who weren’t about to accept less from life than what their hearts demanded. They helped each other grow,  held each other accountable and nudged each other forward when they wanted to give up.

The other thought she had to go at it alone — and in doing so, ended up going nowhere at all. She clung to her familiar group of friends and acquaintances, the kind of people who counted down the hours till 5:00 each day, living for martinis and weekends in bikinis. It was safe. It was familiar. It was all she knew. She was one of them, and one of them she’d remain.

One lived below her means. She skipped shopping trips and Starbucks and sandy destinations to pay down her student loan debt — fast. She picked up an extra job bartending on weekends and used the extra cash to invest in trainings and conferences and coaching — anything to get her where she wanted to go.

The other tried her best to be frugal, but it was easy to cave when it came to dinners and drinks and vacations in Vegas. When opportunities for training and growth came along, she’d say to herself, ”I can’t afford that kind of stuff.” What she didn’t see was that the alternative was much more costly.

She believed that finding meaningful work was unrealistic — a fairytale — and too far away. She gave up on her dream before she even gave it a chance.

The first woman knew that a life of fulfillment might not come easily, but she was willing to risk ambiguity and disappointment and loss. She knew that it was better to go through struggles on her own path than to sail smoothly on one that was not her own. (Click here to tweet this thought.) Scribbled on the journal at her bedside was a quote by author Paulo Coelho:

On some nights, [the warrior] has nowhere to sleep, on others he suffers from insomnia. “That’s just how it is,” thinks the warrior. “I was the one who chose to walk this path.” In these words lies all his power: He chose the path along which he is walking and so has no complaints.

This is how she’s felt about her journey. It’s been scary, uncertain, arduous and sometimes risky. And yet it’s all been infinitely worthwhile. From the moment she began to walk along her own path, she knew she was on her way home.

Which will you be?

Thoreau famously wrote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

So I have just one question for you: Which life will you lead? What song will you sing? Five or 10 or 15 years from now, who will you be — most men or the man? The first woman or the second woman? One of a million, or one in a million?

The choice, my friend, is yours.

This post originally appeared on TheUnlost.com.

Therese Schwenkler is the Founder, CEO and “Marketer of Truth” at TheUnlost.com, where she provides non-sucky advice on life, love, work and what to do when life sucks. Click here to read Therese’s most popular articles about discovering the work that you love (plus, learn why it’s OK to be lost and confused).

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The post Two Roads Diverge in the Workplace: Which Will You Choose? appeared first on Brazen Life.

Today’s hit shows are smarter, more complex and more intriguing than ever — so it’s not surprising that Undercover Recruiter recently posted this infographic by Semester Online on what your TV fandom could say about your career interests.

Whether your must-see TV is Breaking Bad or The Walking Dead, here’s what you can learn about yourself from it — and some fun tidbits about the shows, too:

While we’re not endorsing a career in meth dealership or zombie killing, you have to admit there are some interesting things to consider.

Check out the post on Undercover Recruiter here.

What does your favorite show say about you?

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The post What Your Favorite TV Show Can Say About Your Career appeared first on Brazen Life.

The best response to uncertainty is clarity of purpose and decisive action. (Click here to tweet this thought.) To achieve these, you need to look beyond your job description and discover ways to add value to the team and organization.

A well-crafted purpose profile can be a source of inspiration, guidance and discipline for you to stay focused on what matters most at work.

Ask yourself, “What would my team be missing if I left now and never came back to work?” If you can’t realistically answer that question in a way that reflects a substantial void, you should work to refine your purpose on the job.

Comprised of three distinct elements — vital role, value-added contributions and hidden challenges — your purpose profile is your unique signature at work. It isn’t a canned assessment or a personality type. There are no shortcuts to figuring it out on your own.

To help you fine-tune your work purpose, consider the following sample purpose profiles that include descriptions of roles, contributions and barriers to watch out for:

The catalyst

“I make things happen when nobody else can.”

Catalysts are the sparks that make things happen. They think in innovative ways, and their actions ignite progress when pressure and resistance build. Whether it’s a subtle insight or a grand plan, catalysts have respect and use it to push ideas forward.

On the negative side, bright, shiny objects can distract them from priorities, and their impatience with structure can slow catalysts down. At times, they fail to ask enough of the right questions to identify important considerations.

The lookout

“I make the critical observations, insight and connections that keep us out of trouble.”

Lookouts are watchful of liabilities that can derail the show. They’re compliance-minded and often ask hard questions that create a helpful pause for necessary consideration. They see details that others don’t, which enables them to make connections between opportunities and risks.

Lookouts can get tunnel vision and fixate on potential risks that are actually acceptable to take. This can create pessimism and resistance that prevents progress.

The forager

“I connect people, ideas and resources in surprising, innovative ways.”

Foragers are resource magnets. They understand people and can spot talent when they see it. They’re clever and creative at identifying multiple options for achieving one goal. They’re efficient, innovative and industrious when it comes to stretching resources. This makes them versatile, productive and essential on any team.

Foragers can sometimes wander off and follow unnecessary leads that distract from urgent priorities. Their unpredictable nature can cause others to resist relying on them.

The storyteller

“I help people to understand and believe in something bigger than themselves.”

Storytellers can get people on the same page by describing current scenarios and possible futures in ways that help people assimilate complex ideas. With powerful images, they translate the landscape around them to encourage belief in what’s possible. The connections between people and the ideas they communicate present a vision and a path forward that makes new initiatives more likely to succeed.

But storytellers can get captured by the drama and intrigue of their vision, which causes them to drift and overreach.

Regardless of your title, tenure or slot on the organization chart, you’re the single greatest influence that shapes the quality and character of your working life. If you’re proactive, you gain tremendous power to shift things if you’re unhappy with your job, the quality of your work or the prospect of what lies ahead.

The initiative-taking process that will clarify the elements in your purpose profile, and ultimately give you the momentum to reach your potential, is as simple as asking three key questions at the start of each day:

1. What vital purpose can I play during meetings and conversations with colleagues?
2. What value-added contributions can I deliver during my key interactions?
3. What challenges could surface and interfere with my best work, and how can I get in front of them?

As you begin to see patterns and themes, you’ll recognize the attitudes, skills and abilities you bring to the table in support of your purpose and value-added contributions. And you’ll get better at anticipating challenges and going beyond your job description to solve them.

Jesse Sostrin is the author of Beyond the Job Description. He writes, speaks and consults at the intersection of individual and organizational success. Follow him @jessesostrin and visit his site here.

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The post Transcend Your Job Description: A Fun Way to Give Yourself Purpose at Work appeared first on Brazen Life.

You only need to look at the latest job satisfaction surveys to recognize how unfulfilled most workers feel. For seven straight years, The Conference Board has reported that less than half of U.S. workers are satisfied in their careers.

So, what can you do to find job satisfaction and fulfillment while still making a great living?

Uncover your core genius

“Core genius” is the special contribution each of us brings to our professional life. It’s what you’re in this world to do that only you can do. It’s the unique package of skills, experiences, passions, interests, talents, abilities and attitude that you possess.

Take one of my clients, Laura Rolands, for example. Laura was a hardworking human resources executive at Chrysler. She’s also a mom. When her son was diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), she got to work and investigated how to best help him with attention strategies at school and in life. Through this experience and through our career coaching work together, Laura realized she had a talent and an interest in helping people with attention issues.

It led Laura to start an attention coaching business shortly after accepting a voluntary buy-out from her position in the automotive industry. Her business focuses on coaching people to overcome challenges associate with ADD or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Her clients have developed time-saving personal routines and have improved their academic and business performance.

The path to a successful career fit

In 10 years of coaching, I’ve seen that we are each uniquely built to fulfill a specific purpose. However, too often, people take their unique talents for granted. (Click here to tweet this thought.) In fact, the real challenge is that most people have no idea what their purpose is.

I believe the best way to find your purpose — your core genius — is to conduct a formal soul search and get specific about all the elements of your ideal career. It starts with assessing yourself across eight essential dimensions, which include:

1. your top interests
2. your key motivators
3. skills you want to employ
4. ways you want to contribute
5. your best qualities
6. your ideal work environment
7. activities you enjoy most
8. salary and benefits you desire

Soul search before you job search

By reflecting on these elements, you can prioritize what’s most important to you and brainstorm career possibilities that match these elements.

In order to discover your core genius, you need to stop looking at want ads and instead start talking to anyone and everyone about the ways you are already of service. Carefully process all of that input, and you’ll see viable new options ahead. Take seriously the value you bring to the table, and believe that you can get paid to deliver it. Let others know about the high-value service you’re prepared to provide, then deliver it consistently and professionally.

Soon, you’ll find you have more than enough work in your new role — and you’ll be making a living while loving what you do.

Are you in touch with your core career strengths? What steps did you take to gain that awareness, and how have you applied it to your career? Share your thoughts in the comments!

CNN dubbed Maggie Mistal “one of the nation’s best-known career coaches.” A former Learning and Development executive at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she has been featured across major media, including NBC’s Today Show, Fox Business, CNN and The New York Times. Connect with Maggie on Twitter, or LinkedIn or Facebook and check out her Soul Search Workbook here.

TalentCulture is a vibrant open online community, driven by professionals who share a passion for innovation, collaboration and a desire to advance the world of work. Join their #TChat Events every Wednesday from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. EST, or join the ongoing conversation anytime at #TChat on Twitter.)

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The post Before You Job Search, Make Sure You Soul Search appeared first on Brazen Life.

As a young professional, you might feel compelled to decide right this very moment what your future career path should look like. In reality, you don’t need to have it all figured out. Most people don’t. Most college students don’t know at 17 or 18 what their career passion is. They may not know at 27 or 28, or even at 47 or 48.

Even if you don’t know what that perfect-fit career is just yet, here’s how you can actively explore your options and work toward the job you love:

You have more than one talent

You might like your career track, but don’t want to give up other skills and passions. Or you might feel limited by your chosen career track and want flexibility to do something else. Either way, you have every reason to explore other avenues.

In today’s world, it doesn’t make sense to focus your work around one single talent. You’re a multi-faceted individual with multiple talents. If you want to learn or do something else, go for it.

Diversify your career portfolio

In my career, I’ve held roles as a C-level corporate executive, a consultant, a sales and marketing expert, an executive career coach, a hypnotherapist, a bestselling author, a college professor and an entrepreneur. And, yes, I managed to make money at all of them.

Developing several talents and building multiple income streams provides insurance. You don’t have to put all your career eggs in one basket. It’s just like diversifying risk in your investment portfolio. One stock or bond might not do so well this year, but you can always count on another. It’s the same with your career.

Try something else on the side of your full-time gig to expand your skill set and build career insurance.

Think outside the one-track career box

Think about what you like to do — not just what your schoolwork has proven you’re good at, but what you really enjoy. Then think of careers that need someone with those skills. You can likely try a few different things at once.

• Math whiz? You don’t have to choose between becoming an engineer or a math professor. You could pursue a career as an engineer and work as a math tutor on the side.
• Love to write? You could make a living as a journalist and write short stories and blog posts on the side.
• Great at using your hands? You could develop a talent like woodworking and create a carpentry business while you pursue another line of work.
• Interested in people? Besides customer service or sales, you could also pursue hypnosis, therapy, HR, behavioral profiles or market research.

Sharpen your talents outside of work

You might start your first job and and find it doesn’t require the same talents and skills you thought it would. Though you can succeed at work without putting certain skills to use, find ways to hone those talents and keep them fresh.

• Volunteer or study those skills in your free time.
• Continue to learn about and evolve those skills.
• Get involved with people who specialize in (and are making money) doing what you love.
• Don’t let your skills get rusty.

The more versatile you are, the more career options you’ll have. Down the line, you may be able to turn your hobbies into a lucrative career.

Don’t focus on just the skills your employer wants

Many career experts recommend you focus on a specific skill area or build expertise in a particular function. Recruiters want to put the square peg into the square hole. If your background doesn’t match the job 100 percent, it can be hard to prove a good fit.

Just because recruiters or employers want to mold employees into certain categories doesn’t mean you have to play the game. (Click here to tweet this thought.) Don’t bounce from job to job trying to see what works. Being scattered is not a positive trait.

While you build your resume and work experience, it’s OK to look for opportunities to do more of what you do well, then incorporate those skills outside of your job.

• Take notes about your best talents. Capture proof points in a journal about all of your talents and how they manifest.
• Find ways to incorporate them elsewhere. Stay sharp by using those skills at a side job, through volunteering or by helping friends and family.
• Post your talents online. Tweet about them, showcase your abilities on your blog and let your friends know what you can do.
• Keep it up. Stay sharp and focus on developing your talents. Your knitting skills may not be useful in your customer service job, so knit during your breaks and on weekends.

Focusing on one area may work for some people, but for many, life is filled with so much more than one interest or passion. Keep exploring what’s right for you.

What are some other ways job seekers can pursue their talents and passions?

Beverly D. Flaxington is a two-time best-selling and gold-award-winning author, corporate consultant, speaker, trainer, coach, hypnotherapist and behavioral expert.

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The post Work Toward Finding the Job You Love (Even if You Don’t Know What That Is Yet) appeared first on Brazen Life.

Perhaps you chose a major without any idea of what career you could find after graduation, and now you’re stuck at a dead-end job. Or you set out with a specific career in mind, only to discover you hate it. Or you’ve figured out the only way to get to the top is to choose a different ladder.

Regardless of where your career might be at this point, never get complacent about finding the right fit for you. Here are a few steps you can take to get where you want to be, and find out what that is in the first place:

Discover your options

If you’re unhappy with your career, take action. Turn off the TV, stop looking at Facebook and start looking at job listings.

Find out who the major employers are in your city and browse their websites. Read about all the positions, including ones you’ve never heard of, to learn more about what’s available. Talk to people in other departments of your company about their roles and how they got there. Find college alumni with cool-sounding jobs on LinkedIn, and ask if they’d be willing to get coffee and tell you more about their work.

Many obscure jobs are out there; your dream job might be one of them. You’ll never know unless you educate yourself.

Your college degree isn’t a life sentence

It takes guts to change careers, but trying new things is how you find out what you like to do and what you don’t. Your career won’t magically improve on its own. Push yourself.  (Click here to Tweet this thought.)

Set small, attainable goals, like applying to one new job a week. Every weekend, write a new cover letter that explains how your skills will apply to a different job. Begin by creating a list of your highly adaptable and transferable skills. There are plenty of articles on the Web on this subject to inspire you.

Start wandering, but don’t stop wondering

Once you’ve landed a different job, don’t stop there. Keep looking inward to determine if it’s right for you. Do you look forward to accomplishing the goals you and your manager have set? Is it a company you believe in? Will your job have a positive impact on others? Instead of looking for the right role, the right salary, the right fit for your resume, ask yourself what’s culturally right.

Never settle for “just OK”

Refuse to settle for what’s convenient; constantly seek more meaningful work. Figuring out what makes you tick is the key to finding the right company culture that closely aligns with your own. You’ll probably be surprised where you find that match — often in a place you never imagined.

There’s so much pressure today to know exactly where you’re heading from the moment you enter college. If you don’t know, nurture your curiosity and let it guide you. You may find yourself in roles that suck the life out of you just to survive, but then again, you could find perfection in a position you never imagined you would enjoy.

Don’t ever settle. You’ll have to compromise many times in your search, but always use those experiences to get to know yourself, your core values and what drives you forward. If you’re always doing the work behind the scenes, someday you will find your sweet spot in a place that fits you just as much as you fit it.

Danny Roberts is a recruiter for Redfin, a technology-powered real estate brokerage that is currently hiring for many roles. In 2000, he participated in MTV’s The Real World: New Orleans, which lead him on a unique and varied career path that helped him discover what his values are and where he needs to be.

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The post These Steps Will Lead You to a Career That Truly Fits appeared first on Brazen Life.

Usually, that’s not a controversial topic, but this particular discussion disturbed many participants. Why? Because we projected the number of jobs a typical Millennial will accumulate over the span of a career in our so-called “new economy.”

Do the Math

Consider these estimates from reputable sources:

• By 2020, 40-50 percent of all income-producing work will be performed by short-term contractors, freelance workers and “supertemps.”
• The length of a career already averages 48 years. By 2020, it will be 50+ years.
• Today, the average time in service for a Millennial at any company is 2.6 years.

Admittedly, I’m not really good at math. But this data is pretty conclusive: At 2.6 years per job and over 50+ years in the workforce, with several temp assignments and contracts, GenY can expect to hold 20 to 25 jobs over the course of a career.

Here’s the problem — or, rather, several problems:

No One Told GenY

Those statistics genuinely scared #InternPro participants, most of whom are Millennials. No one had done the math. Plus, between parents, educators and old-school career experts, there seems to be a halo effect surrounding an old paradigm: lifetime employment.

Many Millennials seem to believe once they graduate and get that first job, their job search is effectively over. They’re unprepared for the fact that it’s really just the beginning of a continuous process. (Click here to Tweet this idea.)

Traditional Higher Education Hasn’t Noticed

Many higher education stalwarts — not exactly known for quickly adapting to changing economies and markets — still feature old-school theory taught by tenured professors who’ve never held a position outside academia. Instead of teaching the skills that will be in demand in the “freelance economy,” we’re still shoving 1970s courses and curriculum down the throats of unsuspecting students.

Higher education must change fundamentally. To remain relevant, academics must start emphasizing transferable, marketable career skills.

We Aren’t Entrepreneurial Enough

Successful supertemps, solopreneurs and freelancers rely on one skill above all else: entrepreneurism. Why? Because going forward, our livelihood depends on our ability to sell our skills, our value proposition and our niche — continuously.

In fact, with the average duration of a job search at about 40 weeks, there will almost never be a time when we’re not selling… us.

Old-School Recruiters Haven’t Adapted

It doesn’t help that recruiters still haven’t caught on. Old-school recruiters, unwilling to accept new workforce trends, discount job seekers whose resumes show they move every two to three years. They still consider this “job-hopping” — and many won’t interview candidates with this tendency, who are labeled “disloyal” and a “long-term risk.”

Here’s the reality: Between economic conditions, GenY’s penchant for moving on when they become restless or feel undervalued and the inevitable entrepreneurial spirit that is becoming pervasive among job seekers, recruiters who stick to this now antiquated “rule” will lose out on high-quality talent. In the meantime, their competitors will thrive.

Fasten Your Career Path Seatbelts

Without a doubt, our new economy is already here. Members of GenY who cling to old standards — through fear and/or influence by parents, higher education and recruiters — will clearly continue to struggle. They will continue to do as trained — and will continue looking for jobs that no longer exist.

However, young professionals who recognize the new workplace for what it is and learn the career skills required to win…

• Strategic planning
• Goal setting
• Sales and digital marketing
• Effective follow-up
• Customer service
• Integrity-based self-promotion

… will not only embrace the new economy; they will surround themselves with success.

What’s your reaction to the “average” career path of the future? How would you suggest Millennials prepare to manage their careers more successfully? Share your thoughts in the comments!

This post originally appeared on TalentCulture.

Mark Babbitt is CEO and Founder of YouTern and COO of Switch & Shift. He is a serial mentor, a keynote speaker and blogger, and is honored to have been named to GenJuice’s list of “Top 100 Most Desirable Mentors,” HR Examiner’s “Top 25 Trendspotters in HR” and CareerBliss’s “Top 10 Gen Y Career Experts.” Mark is currently working on two new books: A World Gone Social: How Business Must Adapt to Survive (AMACOM, June 2014) with Ted Coine, and The Ultimate Guide to Internships (And Making Your College Years Matter Again) (Allworth, September 2014).

TalentCulture is a vibrant open online community, driven by professionals who share a passion for innovation, collaboration and a desire to advance the world of work. Join their #TChat Events every Wednesday from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. EST, or join the ongoing conversation anytime at #TChat on Twitter.

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The post Brace Yourselves, GenY: 25 Jobs in One Career is the New Norm appeared first on Brazen Life.

But that go-big-or-go-home attitude can cast a shadow on other job opportunities that might not be as glamorous. If you truly want to become a hotshot executive one day, you have to start somewhere. And the difference between an ordinary employee and one who becomes a leader is the ability to see value in every position.

In this tough job market, don’t overlook potential opportunities in stereotypically less-than-desirable positions. Ask yourself these questions to help differentiate an opportunity from a dead end, particularly when you’re considering a position that may have not been your first choice or target.

1. Will you interact with customers?

You can use direct consumer interaction as an amazing opportunity. The chance to listen to customers and learn what they really think about a product is invaluable.

Take a retail job, for example. These positions are sometimes referenced as dead-end jobs for the unmotivated. In reality, there are only dead-end attitudes. (Click here to Tweet this thought.) As the direct point of contact, you’re the first to see the development and transition of consumer trends. This interaction can provide you with customer insight the CEO might not even know.

A position that requires you to communicate with customers or clients is an opportunity handed to you on a silver platter. Learn to translate that experience into knowledge, then use that knowledge to establish yourself as a valuable, in-the-know employee.

2. Do you have opportunities for growth?

People often write off certain positions because they don’t provide much opportunity for growth. Before you pass on a job, find out the opportunities for advancement. Businesses that offer stepping stones present opportunities for longevity and can propel your career forward.

The moving and hauling industry, for example, isn’t the most glamorous. At College Hunks Hauling Junk, we’ve worked hard to combat stereotypes about our field by providing a clear career trajectory for each employee.

Recent college grads are given the opportunity to learn about the inner workings of the business and can advance quickly. Our employees are brand ambassadors and have the responsibility of pitching and assisting our clients with their in-home servicing needs. From there, they can advance to assistant location manager and oversee 50 employees. If they do well, they can become a general manager with a six-figure salary.

3. Does the position provide additional training?

In today’s job market, skills are everything. A position that provides on-the-job training to help develop your skill set is incredibly valuable. The opportunity to hone and craft a skill set can help launch your career.

When assessing the potential impact of a job opportunity, don’t discredit the training that comes with the position. Your drive to build skills and a knowledge base is an attractive quality to employers and can help you develop a niche or specialty. Should you decide to pursue other opportunities down the road, the skills you learn in training can be used to differentiate you from other job seekers.

In the end, a job is what you make of it. For anyone looking to develop a long and fruitful career, it’s important to embrace each position along the way.

Dream big and do great things, regardless of your title. Each level is a new learning experience. The only way to propel yourself higher up the ladder to is take in the wealth of knowledge from the very bottom and embrace the full experience.

Stephen Bienko is a serial entrepreneur and current owner of several franchise locations of College Hunks Hauling Junk and Moving. You can find him on Twitter at @stephenbienko.

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The post 3 Ways to Make the Most of a Dead-End Job and Find the Hidden Career Potential appeared first on Brazen Life.

I’ve been there. At first glance, my resume may seem odd. I’m a former running coach who has helped create postage stamps, DVDs, books and corporate training programs. Today, I’m a growth developer for a tech startup. The common thread: I love building things, whether it’s a high-functioning team or a killer website.

If you identify with the less-groomed path, too, you can blaze your own trail. By following your intuition, you’ll build a unique, fulfilling career. You may never feel like you’ve reached your destination, but maybe there isn’t one. You don’t need to know what you want to be when you grow up. But here are five things you don’t want to be:

1. Bored

Many entry-level jobs are boring by design. When seasoned employees get sick of a responsibility, it falls to the newbie. But that doesn’t mean you need to pay your dues forever. You deserve the opportunity to use your gifts at work. You deserve to have an opinion and make a difference.

Your boss might not notice you’re bored out of your mind. It’s your responsibility to stay engaged. If you’re feeling bored, speak up. But do yourself a favor — don’t utter the words “I’m bored.” Express the desire to take on more, learn a specific skill or collaborate with a new group of people.

2. Stuck

You went to school for psychology or physics or philosophy, but that doesn’t need to limit your path. Early in your career, you went into banking or real estate or marketing. This doesn’t mean you need to spend the next 40 years doing that if you don’t love it. You have options — probably more than you realize.

Not happy with your career choices so far? Make proactive your middle name. (Click here to Tweet this thought.) Research what it would take to make a specific change. Read books, tap into your social networks and identify actionable ways to move toward your new target. Remember: people take career leaps every day. You can, too.

3. Broke

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but neither do back-breaking student loans and an ugly credit report. Even if you’re out to save the world, you don’t want to be broke. There’s a difference between living frugally (great!) and getting in over your head financially (not great).

Sometimes, you may need to make a strategic career move for financial reasons. Think of this as a big-picture decision, something that’ll help you do X, Y and Z down the road. And the big-picture rule goes both ways. Sometimes, it makes all the sense in the world to take a pay cut for an amazing opportunity.

4. Unappreciated

Do yourself a favor — don’t work indefinitely for people who don’t really get you. Find employers who like the way you think. Find emotionally intelligent people who know how to recognize and support their employees.

In every job interview, suss out whether the job, company and coworkers are a good fit. Don’t allow your self-consciousness to drive the interview process. Yeah, you want them to want you, but you also want to work in a positive environment.

5. One-dimensional

You’re not just a [insert job title here]. You’re a teacher who also loves organic gardening. Or a designer who likes to practice martial arts. Or a full-time parent with a passion for astronomy. Or maybe astrology. You bring your own unique spin to your job and life. That’s valuable.

Seemingly disparate passions converge all the time. Maybe you dream up your best work-related ideas while taking a bike ride or browsing a bookstore. Pouring 100 percent of your energy into your job is never the answer. Don’t forget to be a student of life. Make time for the people and hobbies that fuel you.

Emma Wilhelm loves punchy words and uphill battles. When she’s not driving growth for Mad Mimi, she relishes long runs, the family brewing biz and dance parties with her kids. Follow her on Twitter @emmasota.

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The post 5 Things You Absolutely Don’t Want to Be When You Grow Up appeared first on Brazen Life.

Don’t be a statistic. (Click here to tweet this thought.) Learn to avoid common obstacles without stumbling on your career path by remembering this advice:

You won’t be the newbie forever

If it’s your first day, week or month at a company, expect to be tested. Don’t be surprised if most of what you’re asked to do isn’t on your job description. This is the office equivalent of an initiation.

If you survive, you’ll get to come back a second day. If that bothers you, don’t get too settled into your office space because you won’t be there long. Take consolation in the thought that you won’t be the newbie forever.

If after six months (or you can fill in the blank with your own time period), you’re still the one being sent out for coffee — especially after three new people have been promoted — you’ve got a problem. It’s time to stand up for your job and career.

Have a sit-down with the boss and explain you can’t give 100 percent to your job if you have to spend 15 percent getting pastries for meetings and replacing the copier toner.

Run from office gossip

Participating in office gossip can be a career killer. Not only is it an energy drain and rarely a positive experience, but you never know who’s an office snitch.

The next time you walk into the break room and see everyone playing with cell phones and complaining about how the boss drinks too much at office parties, go take your break elsewhere. Someone may go back to the boss with the comments, and the loudest complainer may get the job of refilling the bathroom paper towel dispensers for the remainder of their career.

Don’t spend time around whiners, either. Professional whiners are the people who complain when the company changes the brand of push pins they use because “they’re not pointy enough.”

Professional whiners have lost sight of the simple pleasures, such as the fact that they have a job. Don’t let them drag you down into their pits of despair. Bring in your own push pins if that helps you cope.

Success comes slowly; disaster happens in a nanosecond

In our high-tech world, mistakes can take on a global impact instantly. All it takes is a push of the “Reply All” tab instead of “Reply” to send out a searing barb about the boss to the entire Western US division of the company instead of your friend across the aisle. Pay attention to details.

It’s best not to tweet from work unless you work in digital marketing. Don’t risk it. You could become the next topic of conversation for the gossipers in the break room.

Fail, be imperfect, quit

Sounds like really bad advice, doesn’t it? But “failure is essential, perfection is overrated, quitting is smart.” The real factor that stunts you career growth is fear.

As you enter the workforce, you want to prove yourself and you don’t want to fail. You may limit your growth and experience by sticking to the projects and tasks you know you can do. But success comes from failure. No one is perfect, so aim for “progress,” not “perfection.” The initiative you take will stand out to the higher-ups.

Don’t be afraid to quit something. A common misconception is that quitting means you’re lazy and unreliable. If you know your project was a bad idea or you can’t work fruitfully with the team you created, don’t waste time on it because you want to see it through to the end. Accept this as a failure (that’s OK, remember?) and move on to your next idea or help someone with theirs.

Learn, grow, move forward.

Amanda Richter is a mom and avid reader from the Northwest. She runs a small business from home and enjoys writing about parenting, career advice and social media trends.

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The post Tips for Surviving Your First Year on the Job, Even if Your Boss Scares the Heck Out of You appeared first on Brazen Life.

Talk to any group of 25-year-olds for more than 10 minutes, and this topic is bound to crop up. The idea of pursuing a passion is shorthand for loving your job, being a successful person and doing amazing work. It’s about having it all.

A lot of the time, it’s also completely ridiculous.

Whether for practical constraints (rent!) or more intangible reasons, finding your passion — let alone pursuing it — is an elusive goal. And yet everyone is expected to do it.

The thinking goes: if you have the courage to discover your true calling, you’ll be happy. If you’re not brave enough, you’ll wind up as an empty shell with a commute-work-die life. Talk about pressure.

Before pulling your hair out, taking yet another eHarmony-like personality quiz or crying into your pillow because Pinterest told you “Without Passion, Life is Nothing,” check out these five passion pointers:

1. You can create a passion

Computer scientist Cal Newport is fast becoming the face of the Anti-Passion Brigade—he doesn’t buy the “follow your passion” mantra. Instead, he believes passion can be created.

There is no special passion waiting for you to discover. Passion is something that is cultivated. Research shows that the traits that lead people to love their work are general, and can be found in many different career paths. They include things like autonomy, a sense of impact and mastery, creativity, and respect and recognition for your abilities.

Newport’s basic premise: Focus on a career area that generally interests you and offers value to the world. The deeper you dive into it and the better you are at it, the more interesting it’ll become — and the more passionate you’ll be.

2. Stop thinking!

Here’s a dirty little secret: No matter how hard you try, you can’t determine what your passions are by thinking about it. You have to take action.

Sign up for a class, try your hand at something new, volunteer for an assignment that’s out of your comfort zone — do anything that lets you dip your toe in the water. Through actual, hands-on engagement, you’ll be able to figure out what activities and situations light you up.

3. Following your passion might ruin it

As Alison Green of Ask a Manager says:

Turning what you love into a career can ruin what you loved about it. You might love to bake, and your friends might regularly swoon over your cakes and tell you to open a bakeshop. But getting up at the crack of dawn every day, baking 100 cakes daily, and dealing with difficult customers and the stress and finances of running your own business might have nothing to do with what you love about baking—and might sap the joy right out of it.

Before committing yourself to a passion plan, determine if the daily work realities really appeal.

4. Passion is a lifestyle issue

Finding your passion is all tied up in figuring out what kind of life you want. What lifestyle are you striving for? What part of the country do you want to live in? How much money do you need to make?

Take this pointed observation from Brazen co-founder Penelope Trunk:

I am a writer, but I love sex more than I love writing. And I am not getting paid for sex. But I don’t sit up at night thinking, should I do writing or sex? Because career decisions are not decisions about “what do I love most?” Career decisions are about “what kind of life do I want to set up for myself?”

Instead of starting with a passion, try starting with a lifestyle you want to pursue. (Click to Tweet!) From there, work backwards to figure out what career options could help you realize your lifestyle goals. This doesn’t mean you have to ignore what you’re passionate about — just put it in context!

5. Your passions (can) change

Life changes, and sometimes passions shift, too. As YouTern’s Mark Babbit writes:

Very few of us are fortunate enough to turn any of our passions into lifelong vocation. In fact, very few of us pursue ANY of our passions for a lifetime including hobbies, careers — even relationships. So, knowing this is the case for 99% of us, why is passion such a driver in our professional lives? Could it be that we’ve been sucked into “passion” while failing to realize that even our deepest passions have a limited shelf life?

If you’re not feeling the buzz anymore, don’t be ashamed to go back to the drawing board.

What’s your favorite piece of advice about the passion puzzle?

Annie Rose Favreau directs content and community strategy for a tech startup in Seattle. You can find her Twittering away at @A_Favreau.

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The post 5 Things You Absolutely Must Know About Finding a Career You Love appeared first on Brazen Life.

That’s right. The typical 40-hour work week has steadily crept up over the last few decades, and most people are actually working closer to 45 hours. And some work 50, 60 or even more hours each week. How’s that for work-life balance? Do you really want to spend that much of your life on a career path you despise?

The answer is absolutely not, which is why it seemed useful (and entertaining) to put together this list of no-nos when deciding on the career for you. These are the absolute worst reasons to choose a career:

1. Everyone says you’re good at it

Are you the person everyone comes to when their computer is on the fritz? Do your friends and family find it hard not to laugh at your jokes? Just because you have a particular skill doesn’t mean you have to do that as a career. You may find that talent-based jobs like telling jokes, playing sports or creating art are a lot harder to excel at than you think.

Beyond that, hobbies you enjoy can quickly become monotonous and annoying when you’re doing them full-time. You can actually turn something you love into something you hate.

2. It’s what you’re “supposed” to do

Did mom and dad raise you to be a lawyer or doctor? Do you come from a long line of police officers or have a family business? Even if you know it’s what everyone expects you to do, and you might’ve even thought you’d be doing it from a young age, that doesn’t mean you have to if you’re having second thoughts.

When you finally decide on a path, do so because it’s what you think you want.

3. You like the perks

Okay, so you know you shouldn’t decide on your life’s work in the hopes of picking up hot guys or girls, but what about other cool stuff that comes along with it? Maybe you get a company car, free travel or a pool table in the office. Whatever perks they have that impress you, don’t pick a career based on silly stuff like this.

It seems awesome, but how often are you going to be able to enjoy it? If you’re mostly driving that company car to and from a job you hate, it’s going to end up feeling like a prison. Free travel likely means you’re going to be jetting around the country—or world—for work. How much of that time do you think you’ll be able to appreciate?

And there’s a reason that pool table in the office is always free—because people are working. There are some perks that really make a difference, but you still shouldn’t base your decision on them.

4. Your friends are doing it

This happens a lot more than you think. We’re all influenced by the people we hang around, and if you end up befriending lots of people who want to be engineers, botanists or video game designers, it’s more likely that you’ll gravitate toward that path—even if it’s not right for you.

This can cause you to struggle in your work because you don’t have a natural talent for it or desire to do it. And you may even end up finding yourself alone, because jobs are so hard to come by these days you’re probably not going to be working with your friends.

What should you do? Try new things. Diversify your interests and friend group as much as possible. Research what a job is really like on a site like CareerQA or the Occupational Outlook Handbook. Take the time to speak to someone in that career field to find out what it’s really like.

Imagine yourself in potential careers one, five or even 10 years down the line and think about what a regular day for you will be like. Ultimately, the most important thing is that you feel happy and fulfilled in your work.

Josh Weiss-Roessler is co-owner of Weiss-Roessler Writing and a professional resume writer who frequently offers job hunting advice and workplace tips. Along with his wife, baby son and two very excitable dogs, he lives in Austin, Texas.

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The post The Absolute Worst Reasons to Choose a Career appeared first on Brazen Life.

The reality was, I was miserable.

I hated practicing law. I hated it every single second of every single day for five years. (And given my workload, that included weekends, too!)

It was on the eve of my 30th birthday that I finally quit. I was sick and tired of hating my work. And I didn’t want to live with the same gnawing sense of career anxiety in my 30s that plagued my 20s. I knew there was something better out there for me. But at the time, I couldn’t imagine what it was.

Running from the law to do what I loved

Without any real plan in mind, I did the only respectable thing I could think of: I packed my bags and went off to graduate school. I’ve always loved learning and had been a great student, so going back to school was the perfect escape from Alcatraz (a.k.a., the law).

I earned a degree in Human Resource Management from Cornell University and went straight on to Goldman Sachs, where I started managing corporate learning and development for technology executives around the world.

My job was all about helping people be their very best at work: team building, performance management, leadership development and coaching for success. I loved it right from the start!

To go so quickly from work I hated to work I loved was just incredible. All the negative energy I once spent on worrying myself sick and complaining about my job was transformed into positive energy and boundless drive. Even though I was making less money, work went from being drudgery to a joy. I could see the positive impact of my efforts on people’s lives every day. And I wanted to do more, more, more.

So after a couple of years, I left Goldman Sachs to start my own consulting firm to help other Wall Street firms manage people more effectively and maximize the potential of their employees.

I couldn’t have been happier. For a good eight months or so, things were literally perfect. I had great clients, I was doing work that I loved—and, I was making more money than ever before.

Then came 9/11. And right alongside the World Trade Center, my business crumbled, too. With the whole city in mourning, it seemed that team building and leadership development were the last things on anyone’s mind.

Not knowing what I wanted to do, but doing it anyway

“Now what?” I thought long and hard. But no clear answers emerged.

Instead, a million Ideas for businesses I could start, products or services I could sell, websites I could create and more flooded my brain. For each idea I had, I bought the related Web address (domain name). Before I knew it, I owned more than a hundred domain names.

One day, someone called me and wanted to buy one of my domains. That day changed my life, because I learned that domain names are like pieces of digital real estate on the Internet and can sometimes be extremely valuable.

My domain addiction only grew from there. Hundreds of domains turned into thousands. And at an average renewal price of $10 a year, owning thousands of domain names came with a hefty price tag! It’s fair to say I had become a full-fledged Internet junky. I was working around the clock to learn how to sell and trade domain names, develop websites, blog, use Google Adwords and Adsense, write Web copy and more.

While I was making some money between a few high-paying consulting gigs and domain sales, in those days, my spending typically outpaced my earnings by a pretty good margin.

Brushing off the career exploration naysayers

Everyone around me worried that my career still hadn’t gotten back “on track.” When I would excitedly brag to my friends about my latest domain name conquests and Internet marketing exploits, they could only roll their eyes and admonish me to “get a job.”

And my poor parents—they were so disappointed. My dad gave me pep talks about how my old law firm would surely love to hire me back. (How comforting!) And my mom, bless her heart, urged me regularly to “find a job with the government, because they have such good benefits.” (Perhaps the DMV or the Post Office could use someone with my skill set?)

While my income during much of my 30s was wildly inconsistent, I was somehow never worried about my career. Whether I was making money or not, I knew I was on the right path. A path to where, I still didn’t know. All I knew was that I loved what I was doing, I loved what I was learning and I loved all the ideas, opportunities and possibilities I was exploring every day. I was happy and confident that one day it would all make sense.

And then, one day, it did.

Becoming the master of .CO domains

I had just turned 40 when I met Juan Diego Calle. We hit it off famously. He had this big idea about turning Colombia’s .CO domain extension into the world’s next great Web address.

Given all my years in the domain space, I knew better than anyone the frustration people felt with the lack of good domains. I also knew how exciting it was to find the perfect domain name for your business, brand or blog. The project captured my imagination like nothing ever had before. Although I’d never held a marketing job in my life, I convinced Juan that I could get the job done. And I’ve been doing it ever since.

We launched .CO to the world three years ago. Since then, people in more than 200 countries have registered over 1.5 million .CO domain names. In my role as VP and brand strategist, it feels like every odd skill, bit of experience and piece of knowledge I’ve ever learned is put to work on a daily basis. My work is filled with purpose as I get to work with an incredible team of professionals to help people all over the world bring their ideas to life online.

For those of you who are feeling stuck doing work that you hate, or who simply have the sense that you’re traveling down the wrong career path, I’d like to share a few words of advice:

1. Listen to yourself

If you feel anxious about going to work every day, chances are something’s wrong. Listen to your gut. If it’s giving you clues that you’re in the wrong job or pursuing the wrong career path, then you probably are.

Do something about it. You never know what incredible opportunity could be waiting for you just around the next corner.

2. Open your heart

Forget the notion that you’re supposed to be climbing some pie-in-the-sky career ladder to success. Instead, open your heart and your mind to new people, experiences and opportunities.

When you let your interests, instincts and passions lead the way, you never know what you might discover about yourself—or what interesting new twists and turns your life may take.

3. Don’t let your degrees dictate your choices

Just because you have a law degree doesn’t mean you’re sentenced to a lifetime practicing law. The same goes for HR, finance, medicine or any other field.

It’s normal to deviate from a plan you may have made when you were younger—or even one you made just yesterday. It doesn’t matter what your degree says. What matters is how you apply your education and seize the opportunities that life throws your way.

4. Tune out the naysayers

Be wary of self-appointed career advisors who may not fully understand you or your choices. It’s your life!

My friends and family thought I was crazy when I started my love affair with domain names—but it turned out to be the greatest career move of my life. Although they had the best intentions for me, had I listened, I might still be a sad and deflated lawyer.

5. Keep moving forward

Your life and career are going to be filled with mistakes and failures. Don’t get hung up on them. After all, it’s the collection of your experiences—especially the hard knocks—that make you uniquely you.

I hated practicing law, but quitting that job taught me there was work out there that I could truly love. I absolutely loved being a management consultant, but it was only when my business failed that I stumbled upon my true career passion.

Have faith in yourself, learn from your mistakes and stay focused on your strengths and passions. Most of all, keep moving forward. You can always correct course from a wrong turn; just don’t let yourself stall out.

Lori Anne Wardi is Vice President of Brand at .CO. Responsible for all matters involving brand strategy, business development and global communications, she spends her time traveling the world and preaching the bible of .CO.

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The post How a Burned-Out Lawyer Quit Her Job and Discovered Her Dream Career appeared first on Brazen Life.

With lucrative opportunities for the newbie job seeker, you now have a chance to learn more skills in a shorter period of time. Especially with tech startups, hiring is on the rise, as 87 percent plan to hire this year—up 73 percent since 2009.

But will landing a job at a startup be the right decision for you? Discovering what type of environment you work best in is just as important as which company you want to work for. Here’s how to look past the free catered lunches and in-office gaming consoles to decide which path is right for you:

Determine your ultimate career goal

Think about where you see yourself in 20 years.

Are you hoping to one day become a VP, CEO or other top-level executive at a big company? Or do you have an entrepreneurial spirit with a passion for starting your own company?

A larger, more established company will likely offer you better pay and health benefits. But, it may be five or 10 years before you see a significant salary increase or position in the company.  Startups typically have a flat organizational structure, offering the opportunity to make a significant impact in a shorter time span. But, since three out of four startups fail, job security isn’t the industry’s biggest asset.

Discover your personal work style and passion

Do you thrive in tight-knit teams, frequent collaboration opportunities and a more relaxed company culture? Or do you work best in a more structured corporate environment that provides more of a work-life balance?

Take time to explore how you prefer to work to avoid landing in a frustrating job that stunts your personal and professional growth. Unique tools like Good.co can help you discover your ultimate workplace happiness, including your strengths (and, ahem, weaknesses), your natural role in a team and best-fitting careers for you.

Choose the business model that supports your career path

So, what type of positions are companies looking to fill? The highest-paying, non-tech-related startup positions are in business development, sales, marketing, design and editorial. The demand for engineers is increasing, so those with solid technical skills are hot commodities in the startup space.

Several of the top-paid corporate positions are in merchandise planning, accounting, pharmaceutical sales, software development and investment banking.

Know what to expect

What should you expect to gain from both a corporate and startup work environment?

In a more established company, you’ll likely work a set schedule—somewhere between the hours of 8:00 to 5:00 or 9:00 to 6:00. There are typically many layers of managers, directors and top-level executives, so expect to climb the rungs of the corporate ladder to earn more pay and notoriety. Large companies are required to adhere to legal compliance, so there may be tasks employees must do—no questions asked.

In a startup environment, expect to work long hours and in small teams across departments. Startups tend to be more transparent, so you will likely know how the company is performing from week to week. You will be required to wear a lot of different hats and take the reigns on a project you may know little about. Startups typically offer paid lunches, in-office activities and a high-energy office culture.

Keep things in perspective

Whether you decide to work for a hot new startup or a larger, more established company, entering the workforce will have its ups and downs. Just remember what your ultimate goal is and what you want to accomplish in your career. It will keep you focused and help you make sound decisions with every opportunity.

Christina Jones is a Florida-based freelance writer and digital marketing professional who is passionate about the startup space. Follow her musings on Twitter @christinajon3s.

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The post Startup vs. Big Company: Which is Better for Your Career? appeared first on Brazen Life.

But finding a career you actually like doesn’t have to be rocket science. You’re basically looking for a job that fits your interests, skills and needs. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

Ask yourself these 10 questions to figure out if a career is really right for you:

1. Does this career let me follow my passion?

This is a trick question; you don’t have to follow a passion to have a great career. But you shouldn’t hate your job, either. So a better question to ask is, “Does this career path interest me on a general gut level?” (For more on decoding the passion puzzle, check out Cal Newport’s latest book).

2. Am I choosing this career to please somebody else?

If the answer is “yes” or even “maybe,” it’s time to reexamine your priorities. Friends and family can offer great advice, but it’s hard to find happiness when your life is dictated by somebody else’s expectations. You deserve to find a career that fits who you are.

3. What’s my style?

A career that’s a good match will suite your work style inside and out. Are you a self-starter who thrives on high-intensity hustle, or are you more of a procrastinator who does well in a structured work environment?

Be honest with yourself and choose a career that coordinates with your work style and strengths.

4. Do I like people?

On average, you’ll spend one-third of your life with your coworkers. If a job is a bad social fit (example: an extreme introvert in a customer service position), unhappiness is almost guaranteed.

5. Can I be successful in this career?

If you’re willing to put in the hours, you can learn just about any skill. However, finding a career that plays to your natural talents can make life much more pleasant.

If you’re a creative type, you’ll have better luck in a job that utilizes your outside-the-box thinking than a gig that’s all cut-and-dry numbers. Sounds obvious, but it’s surprising how many people don’t consider this.

Also, think about your own definition of success. What really motivates you? Money? Helping others? Work-life balance? Figure out what drives you and then pick a career that will help you reach success on your own terms.

6. Is there a good chance I’ll make as much money as I want/need?

Money shouldn’t be the main deciding factor for a career choice, but it shouldn’t be overlooked, either. Give yourself a reality check to see if your salary expectations can be met within your career field—the social worker who plans to make $100K a year will be sorely disappointed.

It’s also a good idea to take a long-term view. Rather than focusing on starting salary, use a site like Payscale.com to figure out the average income of mid-career professionals. This gives you a more holistic picture of the money situation.

7. Can I afford to get the training I need?

Many careers require formal training, whether in the form of a degree, a certificate or a license. But before you shell out money for college or grad school, make sure the career path you’re interested in will pay off (see question #6).

8. Does this career have a shelf life?

If at all possible, aim for a field that’s hiring. A dwindling industry (like publishing or post office work) can increase competition and make it harder to find a job with long-term possibilities. Check out the US Bureau of Labor employment projections—or better yet, industry chatter—to get a general sense of whether a career field is going places.

9. Do I have an escape plan?

If your industry took a nosedive next week, you’d want to have skills that translate to a new career. These usually come in the form of soft skills like a talent for communication or leadership. Adaptability—and the good sense to pick a career that lets you develop in diverse areas—is the key to continual success.

10. Am I ready to fight for it?

In today’s job climate, you won’t find many (or any) fields that aren’t competitive. Even entry-level gigs can be tough to land. So you’ve got to be willing to go to bat for your career. If you’re not ready to fight for it, you probably don’t want the job.

What questions would you add to the list?

Annie Favreau works for Inside Jobs, a site that helps people discover strong careers and connect with the right education to achieve their goals. Follow her on Twitter at @InsideJobs!

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The post 10 Enlightening Questions to Pick a Career You’ll Truly Enjoy appeared first on Brazen Life.

Who is Hasnain Zaidi? Just a young man who spent a few years after college working for the prestigious (and well-paying) management consulting firm Bain & Company, only to decide he’d rather do something more rewarding and creative with his life. So he left his cushy corporate job to work the burrito assembly line at Chipotle…and eventually wound up opening his own restaurant.

As reported in AOL Jobs:

Zaidi is one of a growing army of young people who are defecting from high-paying jobs in finance and consulting to pursue more passionate work. There’s Mark Ramadan and Scott Norton, who were business and finance consultants, before they launched the gourmet ketchup company Sir Kensington’s. And Benjamin Benton, who left his hedge fund job to start a fashion line. There’s even a website, Escape the City, that helps corporate and finance types find more fulfilling employ, founded by Rob Symington and Dom Jackman, former Ernst & Young consultants.

…”I think they realized that our generation is a different beast,” Zaidi said about his parents’ response to his career change. “It’s not get in at the entry level and work 20 years to make your way to the top. It’s much more about blazing your own path and finding what’s going to be fulfilling to you.”

You can check out the full article, including a Huffington Post Live interview with Zaidi, here.

What do you think about Zaidi’s radical career change? Would you give up a high-paying job for more “real-world” skills you could apply to your passion?

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The post GenY Defects from High-Paying Jobs to…Work at Chipotle? appeared first on Brazen Life.

My personal career panic set in during a high school career assessment. As my classmates were celebrating their bright futures as engineers, pharmacists and executives, I couldn’t wait to see my top match.

That is, until I saw the words “professional clown.”

Though there were some wonderful careers on my list (writer among them), I could not see past those two words. If wearing oversized shoes and cramming into an undersized car was my most suitable option, what hope did I have?

It’s taken time, but I now realize that feeling confused about your career path is normal at any age. When I work with interns or talk to my younger sister, their career questions frequently come with a dose of panic and the question: “What am I doing with my life?”

My response is always the same: It is okay to be confused. No one has it all figured out. Believe it or not, that’s a good thing.

Let me set your mind at ease:

You aren’t married to your college major

Choosing a major is a common source of career anxiety. It can be a struggle to balance interests with career aspirations. What if you’re not sure what you like? What does a liberal arts education really teach? What sorts of jobs are possible with a STEM degree? What if you change your mind?

Don’t get overwhelmed. Picking a college major is not a lifetime commitment. Sure, you should be sensible about the choice. College is an investment, and you want to make it a smart one. But you can learn valuable skills in any major. The presentations you give, the papers you write and the internships you do in college are valuable, regardless of your major.

Only 27 percent of US college graduates work in jobs directly related to their major. If you’re one of the 73 percent who don’t, you can still have an amazing career. Ask Clarence Thomas (Supreme Court justice, English major), Christopher Conner (CEO of Sherwin-Williams, Sociology major) or Jill Abramson (Executive Editor of The New York Times, History and Literature major).

Your first career choice is not your last

Figuring out how to get a job after college can feel impossible when you add the pressure of your entire future to your first job search. Sometimes you have to try something to realize it’s not for you. Other times, you might try something new and discover that you love it more than what you were doing before. Your career is going to twist and turn as your experience level increases.

Technology changes and cultural shifts can also impact your career. I work with editors who tell stories of working for a newspaper in the pre-Google era. After decades of working in print journalism, they had to change careers because of the decline in the newspaper industry. You’ll have to adapt at some point in your career, even if you know exactly what you want to do.

And if you aren’t crazy about your first job, you can still learn from it. Paying attention to your likes and dislikes can help ease career confusion. If your favorite part of the job is the environment, you’ll learn that company culture is something to focus on in future job searches. Realizing that you work best on solo projects could inspire you to find a position that focuses on independent work.

As you grow in your career, you’ll naturally figure out what makes you happy. If you start to feel unsatisfied, figure out the reasons behind it. If you can fix it, try. If you can’t, start looking for the next opportunity.

You don’t need all of the answers to succeed

Getting started on your goals doesn’t mean you have to have your entire life figured out. Your path from college to career might be riddled with questions, but you don’t have to answer them all at once.

As Albert Einstein once said, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

Even top-level executives go through moments of doubt. Having some career confusion is good because it means you care about what you’re doing and where you’re going.

So stop stressing, keep questioning and embrace your curiosity.

Erin Palmer is a digital content specialist who happily spends her days writing, editing and researching new stories. She has been published in The Chicago Tribune and The Huffington Post, yet she still gets excited every time she sees her byline. Interaction with readers makes her day, so reach out to her on Twitter @Erin_E_Palmer.

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The post Why It’s OK to Be Confused About Your Career appeared first on Brazen Life.

That’s all true, but will you feel that’s all there is to college when you’re forced to move back home, aimless, jobless and with a mountain of debt? The fact is, attending college today requires a different mindset than when your parents went to school. While your mom and dad could graduate without direction or serious planning and still be confident they could live the American dream, you won’t have it so easy.

You need to take matters into your own hands and bring a DIY mentality to career planning—even as early as your senior year in high school. Follow these four steps, and four years from now you’ll find yourself with more than a cap and gown; you’ll be on your way to landing a great job in your ideal career path.

1. Learn which careers fit you

Career planning fits perfectly as part of the college selection and application process. Just as you evaluate your interests and passions to select the right school, you should also take this opportunity to consider different career paths and use those paths in your college selection process.

Thankfully, finding information and resources to identify which careers might make the most sense is easier than ever. The key is to find an engaging way to bring those resources and tools together to make a real impact on your college years. As with any endeavor, complementing online research with individualized guidance can be vital, so turn to the wisdom of parents, family and friends to fill in gaps in your career understanding. Just keep in mind that not all career guides—whether they be a website or an industry pro—are created equal; finding the right resource is half the battle.

2. Create a college roadmap

With this more focused career lens based on your interests and skills (or desired skills), you’ll be able to identify suitable careers for which you can easily build a tailored college roadmap beyond just choosing a generic “major.”

And if you can create that college roadmap as early as possible, even before setting foot on campus, it will be that much easier to select appropriate majors and courses, find the right extracurricular activities (clubs, speaker series, athletics, etc.) and internships and refine your career focus.

3. Set milestones

Roadmap in hand, identify annual milestones to hit as you advance toward graduation. For example, while conventional wisdom might say that your freshman and sophomore years should be filled with basic college requirements like “rocks for jocks” (a.k.a. Geology 101), you may instead want to load your schedule with more skill-centered courses to have a leg up on landing great internships earlier in your academic career.

These early internships will not only help build attractive and practical skill sets, but also help you further refine your career trajectory. That experience will lead to a higher likelihood of landing great job offers at graduation.

4. Be open to change

The last step to avoid unemployment (or underemployment) at graduation is both the easiest and the scariest: be open to change. Growth and self-discovery are fundamental parts of the college experience, and there’s little doubt your priorities and interests will change. If this happens, adapt your roadmap so that past decisions don’t push you toward a less-than-perfect career path.

Just remember to always give serious thought before you make a change. The less disciplined you are, the longer it will take to figure out your career trajectory, the larger the deficit you will face and the harder it will be to get the right job.

While you have just four steps ahead of you, it certainly won’t be easy. But little is easy for today’s college student facing long odds due to high unemployment and skyrocketing tuition.

That said, if you buckle down and bring a DIY mentality to career planning, you can identify the right career path and collect the passions, skills and knowledge required to be an insanely attractive candidate when recruiters hit campus.

Adrien Fraise is a former recruiter for Deloitte and CEO of Modern Guild, an online one-on-one career mentoring service for college students and high school seniors. Modern Guild is a member of the inaugural Kaplan TechStars EdTech Accelerator in New York City.

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The post 4 Things You Can Do During College to Ensure You’ll Land a Job When You Graduate appeared first on Brazen Life.

The upside to this trend is that as a young professional, you’ll have a lot of choice throughout your career. The downside is that not all choices are necessarily good, and having too many can be paralyzing.

To aid in the often overwhelming process of choosing a career, my team at Distilled and I worked alongside Rasmussen College to create an interactive career choice tool. Drawing from Bureau of Labor Statistics data, this visualization compares median salary and number of people employed across various fields and job titles. You can narrow your options by choosing what career fields interest you. Clicking on a single dot loads extended information about that job, including a short description of the role, projected growth by 2020 and the level of education needed to obtain that job.

Why put all this data in one place?

Because mapping the number of job opportunities in a given field vs. potential salaries vs. the stability of the market for the next few years can ensure you’re investing in a career that won’t dead-end. As the labor market continues to shift due to changes in technology and the economy, choosing the right path from the beginning can help you avoid emotional and financial stress down the road.

Of course, you should consider other factors when trying to decide which career to pursue. The above interactive tool is but one piece of the puzzle; it’s best used as a foundation as you ask yourself other crucial questions and try to answer the age-old question, “Which career is right for me?”

Here are a few great questions to ask as you decide:

1. What are you good at, and what do you love?

Yeah, I know. You’ve heard the “follow your passion” line since the day you were born. While some people have a clear passion, many of us find ourselves lost in the “passion puzzle,” paralyzed with fear that we’re not doing it right if we don’t have one burning career goal to pursue obsessively. And even if you do have a passion, chances are high it’s something vague and out of reach, like becoming the next Stephen King.

The problem isn’t the idea of pursuing things you’re good at and that you love; it’s that your aspirations are too broad and difficult to act on. Think of your passions as a starting point. If you want to be the next Stephen King, break that passion down into writing and editing. Then do a “skills inventory” to determine just what else you bring to the table.

Are you good at providing feedback and coaching other writers? Then becoming a writing teacher or tutor might be right for you. How about really digging into a subject, synthesizing a ton of research and guiding editorial direction? Then becoming a tech writer or editor might be a better fit.

Your skills inventory could take the form of a checklist, a mock resume or interviews with friends, family members, mentors and former employers who can provide an outside perspective. You can then return to a tool like the one provided above and more carefully match your skills and interests to job titles, narrowing in on those that are both best suited to you and have the best prospects for growth.

2. Are you promotion- or prevention-focused?

Feeling motivated is an essential aspect of job satisfaction. But causes for motivation vary widely from person to person. In general, there tend to be two main motivation types: promotion-focused and prevention-focused.

Promotion-focused professionals are classic creatives and entrepreneurs. They work quickly, seize new opportunities and think abstractly. The downside is that they can be impulsive, overly optimistic and are likely to make bigger mistakes.

Prevention-focused professionals are just the opposite, focused on maintaining the status quo and protecting all they’ve worked on. These professionals prefer planning, reliability, thoroughness and analytical thinking.

While we all need a little bit of promotion- and prevention-oriented thinking, it’s important to determine which way you lean before diving down a career path. A prevention-focused person, for example, would do far better as a developer in a major corporation than launching her own startup. A promotion-oriented person will likely feel suffocated in a traditional 9-to-5, thriving instead in a more creative environment with bigger risks and bigger rewards.

3. What is the best environment for your personality type?

For similar reasons, it’s often helpful to do even deeper personality tests like the Myers-Briggs. This will help you further pinpoint just what you need in your work environment to thrive. Particularly important is determining whether you’re more of an introvert or an extrovert, as the two personality types differ widely in their needs.

An introvert, for example, may be more attracted to a quieter research role, while an extrovert will thrive in a busy, loud sales office. Public speaking, amount of teamwork required and frequent contact with clients are also factors to consider.

But as Susan Cain articulates so well in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, introverts and extroverts can both thrive in roles better suited for the opposite personality type, as long as they’re passionate about the cause or are able to adapt the job to fit their style. This is why stopping to think out your passions is important, though you’ll also discover many along the way.

4. What kind of lifestyle do you want?

Most jobs start off with at least a few years of hard labor at lower pay than you’d like. What’s more important is looking ahead at people well into a career track to determine whether the lifestyle they lead is desirable to you. Some factors you might want to consider include the amount of control they have over their own time, their salary and the amount of travel involved, among other factors.

I’m not saying you need to have a distinct goal like “$150,000 per year or bust.” I’m saying that what’s acceptable to you is highly individual, and it’s important to do what will make you the most comfortable.

If giving back to the community gives you the most job satisfaction, then perhaps being a social worker with a relatively low wage will satisfy your needs. But if you’d prefer to turn off work at the end of the day and go live your “real” life, including eating out, travel and play, then perhaps a higher salary goal is more appropriate.

Again, these are things you may discover as you go.

5. Where do you want to live?

While not essential for every career type, determining where you want to live can be an important part of the career search process. This is especially true for jobs that are focused in certain regions. If you want to work in the magazine industry, then you’ll probably need to move to New York City. Wheat farmer? The Midwest. Anthropologist? Just about anywhere.

Beyond geographical region, think again about the lifestyle on offer in the places you’ll be headed. Do you seek a metropolitan lifestyle with restaurants and cultural attractions on every corner? Or do you need the beauty and quiet of a rural setting?

This is another place where the data can be extremely helpful. If location is important to you, head to the Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ website and do a few searches of job titles by region.

Deciding which career is right for you can be an overwhelming process. Rather than focusing on identifying a direct path, first determine your own needs and goals, and then sync your findings with what the world has to offer.

Adria Saracino is the head of outreach at Distilled, a digital marketing agency. When not consulting on outreach and content strategies, you can find her writing about style on her personal fashion blog, The Emerald Closet.

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As a responsible young professional, you pay close attention to the management of your financial assets. You put aside a bit of each paycheck towards savings and paying off student loans, and you watch your 401K like a hawk. You try to follow the advice of financial advisors: implement a long-term strategy, and your diligence will pay off.

 Now here’s a question about an even bigger asset: how well have you managed your own career?

Over the long-term, workers who earn the median US income of approximately $50,000 per year could earn more than a million dollars during their lifetimes. As important as the earnings, a career also brings a source of pride and identity. If you manage your career like your most important asset, you’ll not only maximize your financial return, but also achieve greater lifetime satisfaction.

To manage your career as your most important asset, follow these 10 steps:

1. Establish your own goals for growth, risk tolerance and security needs

You need a sense of what you want to accomplish. How high do you want to climb? How hard do you want to push? What risks, like moving to a new city, are you willing to take?

2. Find a mentor

Seek expert guidance from a knowledgeable person who’s interested in your success. Don’t just rely on your boss. Your mentor could be a sponsor, rabbi, colleague or family member who can share valuable wisdom and experience that you can apply to your career.

3. Strengthen and diversify your portfolio

What skills do you have, and what do you need to create the future you want to create? For example, if you specialize in a particular line of work, do you need general management skills and experience? If so, how can you get that experience?

One analyst I know could not get promoted to manager because she had no management experience—everyone’s Career Catch-22. She took a leadership position in a volunteer organization in her community and gained excellent experience quickly.

4. Assess the current market

Find out what’s available in the job market and what it’s worth. What are the trends? Where is the growth? Mainstream publications often publish lists of “fastest growing jobs.” Adapt your skill set to meet the demand.

5. Make career decisions based on facts, not emotions

Yes, trust your gut—but be sure your gut has been informed by the facts. Choose your next opportunity as carefully as you would choose a stock or mutual fund. Who is the manager? What’s their track record? How do others evaluate their performance? For mutual funds, we have Morningstar. For work environments, we have the word of mouth of employees or sites like Glassdoor to get an inside look at the culture and job satisfaction of others who work there.

6. Ask for what you need

We can be experts in some things, but not in everything. If your career isn’t moving in the direction you want or at the pace you expect, get specific feedback and guidance from bosses and colleagues that will allow you make changes.

7. Show a fast ROI

When you do get the opportunity you want, balance the learning curve with the need to show an immediate lift in your new organization. Establish a reputation for effectiveness, and then learn more. At the end of each day, ask yourself, “Did I add value today?” and “Did I enhance my own portfolio today?”

8. Monitor your progress and make course corrections as needed

Don’t wait for your annual review to take stock. A year is a long time. Too many opportunities to add value and build your network can be missed over that time.

9. Use all tools available to you

Look both inside and outside the organization to invest in your career and benchmark your progress. Check online postings, outside listings, articles on hot careers, classes to take, networks to join, etc.

10. Own it!

We would never say to someone else, “Here’s my house. Figure out what to do with it, and let me know.” Like homes, careers require ongoing maintenance, upgrading and periodic investments of time and money so they will grow in value.

The bottom line: invest in yourself and manage your career as you would your financial assets, using the help of trusted advisors. Your strategy will pay dividends.

Lisa Parker is an executive coach and author of the recent book Managing the Moment: A Leader’s Guide to Building Executive Presence One Interaction at a Time.

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The post 10 Tips for Managing Your Most Valuable Asset: Your Career appeared first on Brazen Life.

As someone with a lot of different passions—someone with both a film degree and a law degree, who did freelance Web design and played classical violin for much of her life—I couldn’t imagine ever finding a single career that would keep me interested long-term.

If you have a lot of different interests and skills, you’re likely multi-passionate, too. I use the term “multipotentialite” to describe us on my website, Puttylike. But you may also be familiar with the terms Renaissance Person, Polymath or Scanner. Basically, it means that you are insatiably curious and like to play in different disciplines.

What I didn’t realize when I was younger is that it is absolutely possible to design a career that incorporates many of your interests. Here are a few tips to help you identify those careers and companies that will not only value your multi-passionate nature, but actually pay you to explore and integrate your many interests into your work:

1. Figure out how much variety you require

Are you a multi-passionate who needs to use a number of different skill sets throughout your week? Do you need to be writing one day and leading a group the next? Or do you prefer to work on one project till completion and then jump on an entirely new project?

Knowing how much variety you require in your week, and how often you need to cycle through your various skills to stay happy and engaged, will give you clues as to the right kind of career for you.

2. Look for careers in fields that are interdisciplinary in nature

Is there an intersection point between two or more of your interests? Here are a few examples of interdisciplinary fields:

• Bioethics = Science + Philosophy
• Architecture = Art + Science
• Anthropology = Language, History, Literature, etc.
• Physical Therapy = Health + Athletics
• Filmmaking = Photography, Art, Writing, Business, Music, Design, etc.

3. Look for careers that provide flexibility and are self-directed

Some careers (and companies) value multi-passionate personalities more than others. Look for an organization that appreciates independence and creative thinking and sees your ability to do many tasks as a good thing.

When I was in my second year of law school and applying for summer jobs, I found one legal clinic that loved my diverse background. They took a look at my transcript and enthusiastically asked about the astronomy class I took in undergrad. “What on earth is ‘Assembling Space Ship Earth’?” they asked. We talked for awhile about the class. I almost think they hired me because they could sense my passion and curiosity in so many different realms.

4. Get in the door with one skill, then be proactive about doing additional things within your company

One sneaky way to craft your dream career is to get in the door by highlighting one primary skill, then volunteering to take the lead when an opportunity in a different area shows up within your organization. Better yet, be proactive and initiate projects, making suggestions for ways to help your organization grow, innovate or run smoother.

The key again is to find an open-minded organization to work for and a boss who understands you (and is maybe multi-passionate himself). Of course, being an outstanding employee is a given; otherwise your ideas won’t be taken seriously.

5. Look for a position that is “mission-based” rather than skill-based

You can often tell by the way a job listing is worded whether a company is looking for someone to perform one task again and again (which won’t be fulfilling to you as a multi-passionate) or whether they’re focused on an end goal like client happiness or problem-solving.

I recently hired a “Director of Tribe Happiness” at my company. It was unclear exactly what he would be doing (though we had some ideas: forum moderation, customer support, etc.). He ended doing all of those things and more. Way more. But all of the skills he uses are in service of the ultimate goal of enhancing the experience of our users. How he does that doesn’t really matter to me.

It’s like they say in copywriting: focus on the benefit, not the features. What can you do for your organization? If you need to use multiple skills to make that happen, so be it.

6. Be an entrepreneur

Running a business naturally requires that you wear a lot of different hats. You need to understand marketing, human psychology, the intricacies of your field, growth and partnerships, product development, design, customer support and so on.

There are endless ways to utilize your skills when running a business. For instance, if you own a coffee shop, you might bring your love of art to your business by having your space host lectures and cultural events. If you’re building a consulting business but also love comedy, you could incorporate your humor into the mix and brand yourself as “the funny guy, for fun businesses.”

Entrepreneurship is a fantastic way to combine your interests, and if you take a look at many of the successful entrepreneurs—the Richard Bransons and Russell Simmonses of the world—you’ll notice that they’re usually involved in many different facets of their businesses. (And sometimes many different businesses!)

Having a dynamic career that allows you to switch between your skills and explore new areas is completely possible. There are people in every field who have found ways to make their careers more plural. But it first starts with understanding what makes you tick and then seeking out a complimentary career.

How have you gone about integrating many interests into one career? Do you have any tips to add?

Emilie Wapnick recently launched Multi-Passionate Must-Haves, a bundle of 27 products to help you pursue your many passions in a sustainable way. Multi-Passionate Must-Haves is only available until May 16th at midnight Pacific, and it’s an incredible deal ($1,379 worth of products for $97!). Learn more here.

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The post 6 Tips for Incorporating Multiple Interests Into One Career appeared first on Brazen Life.

Here are a few important principles—in love and business—that can help you make those tough decisions:

1. Use the first date to feel out your compatibility and pick up on warning signs

The interview (a.k.a. the job equivalent of a first date) is much like its relationship counterpart; you get a general impression of a person and, if you’re paying attention, you can also get a preview of the warning signs.

Note the work environment and the how people present themselves (carefully dressed? splatters of food on the tie or on the desktop?) and how the two relate to each other. An interviewer who talks down to a secretary gives the same impression as a date talking down to a waiter. Look for the basics of kindness, common sense and a touch of humor to give you an impression of what your day-to-day life would be like with this person (or employer) in it.

2. Realize both partners should be giving and taking, not just taking

Give and take is a natural cycle on the job and in your relationships. Don’t get too strict about keeping score, but be sure you have a general sense of when someone (or some job) isn’t contributing a fair share. In the workplace, this could mean telecommuting in exchange for lower pay, or a generous expense account for a tough travel schedule.

If your company starts to pull perks without compensating you in another way, that could be a warning sign that they don’t have your interests at heart… or anywhere at all. In the same way you would seek balance with a partner, don’t be silent about your employer’s lack of consideration. Speak up or move on!

3. Try something new if you don’t feel committed

Leaving is hard, especially when you feel comfortable in your job (or relationship). But if you find yourself “just getting by” or feeling like you aren’t growing as a person or as a professional, you may be in the wrong job.

Don’t get me wrong; very few people wake up thrilled-beyond-reason every morning, in work or in love. There are good days and bad days in every field. But if at the end of the year you don’t come out on top, you’re putting your long-term happiness at risk. Assess the pros and cons of the situation with a close friend and see if you’re really getting what you need out of your job.

4. Play the field to learn more about yourself and find the best fit for you

Therese Schwenkler hit the nail on the head when she wrote, “You don’t start off knowing the exact person you’re going to marry, and no one expects you to…So why do we expect this when it comes to our careers?“

Within a given field, there are as many dream job possibilities as there are job openings. Each position will be different from the other in the way that one potential spouse is different from every other. Some people luck into the perfect job on their first go around, but more and more find it by accident after two or three tries. Many more find a way to make the perfect job for themselves. (Though maybe don’t try that in a relationship, Dr. Frankenstein…)

The important thing is to try new careers (and hobbies and experiences) to keep learning about what you like and what you don’t like, what you need from a job and what you couldn’t care less about.

No job, like no relationship, will be perfect in the long run. But if you make the commitment not to settle and you keep an open mind, you just may find a spouse and a career that help you achieve long-term happiness.

What other relationship or career rules would you recommend?

Sarah Greesonbach is a content and communications expert with a lot on the back burner. She manages and writes for the lifestyle and personal finance blog Life [Comma] Etc and recently launched her first ebook, Life After Teaching.

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The post 4 Relationship Rules That Will Help You Fall in Love With a Job appeared first on Brazen Life.

Do you have to be a young woman sitting in a cubicle to apply Sandberg’s advice? Not at all. Even if you’re still finishing your college degree and have no idea what you want to do with it yet, the book is still applicable to your developing career.

It’s counterintuitive to think you should “lean in” to your as-yet-to-be-determined career path, but leaning in is exactly what college students and recent grads should do. And here are three ways you can do it:

1. Focus on being heard, not liked

How many classes have you sat through where you smiled, nodded politely and generally showed the professor you were paying attention—but never raised your hand or spoke up?

Unfortunately, being likable and being successful are not the same thing. High GPA aside, star student status is really determined by how well your professors know you. Whether in school or at work, aim to be heard and not always liked. Ask challenging questions and voice your opinions.

Good professors and managers respect and will remember those who speak up, and they’ve got fantastic insights and contacts to offer your future career. It’s the connections you make now—when you’re floating from one career idea to another—that will help anchor you for the long haul.

2. Develop a lasting relationship with a mentor

Hopefully you’re involved in a few different student activities, or you’ve spent some time with administrators and professors at your school. If you’ve already graduated, think about the higher-ups at your current job—or even your parents’ friends. Find yourself a mentor.

Mentors are people who can and want to help guide your life and career. Since you don’t know what you want to do, aim to find someone who will be completely honest with you, who has a variety of experience and who you can count on to be there for years to come.

3. Fake confidence till you make it

One of the biggest lessons from Lean In is that people’s own lack of self-confidence is what really holds them back—far more so than outside influences.

When you don’t know what you want to do with your life, you probably lower your own expectations of yourself, fail to set big goals and stop being ambitious.

If you don’t know where you’ll be career-wise in the foreseeable future, apply self-confidence, set big goals and be ambitious about figuring it out. Make career exploration your job, and jump in full-force rather than leaning back.

College students and recent grads face far too many obstacles from external forces. Employment for 20-somethings in today’s barely recovering economy is still high, and the majors most schools offer rarely match the jobs employers have to offer. Why add your own internal doubt and uncertainty to that already heavy load?

Lean In tells us to choke down the fear, buck up the self-confidence and just go for it already. That’s advice we can all use.

Brie Weiler Reynolds is the Director of Content and Community at FlexJobs, the award-winning site for telecommuting and flexible job listings, and a former college career advisor. At FlexJobs, Brie offers job seekers career and work-life balance advice through the FlexJobs Blog and social media.

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The post Not Sure What You Want to Do With Your Life? Lean In Anyway appeared first on Brazen Life.

Hold it right there. You might want to rethink your job hunting strategy. You could have overlooked some of the best opportunities out there.

Most of the companies on your list are well-known, right? And, most of them are probably big enough to have multiple departments, branches and even their own zip codes, yes? If they don’t, you might be on the right track. But, if you’re like so many other eager grads, you’re probably not targeting those diamond-in-the-rough positions just waiting to be filled at one of the many small businesses operating around you.

Okay, so small businesses might appear to be lacking potential. But really, they’re bursting with possibilities. Seriously.

A small business can offer a number of unexpected benefits, including the chance to:

1. Get noticed by people in the company who matter

Think “big fish, small pond,” but in a good way.

You might be competing with hundreds (or—ugh—thousands) of candidates for a position at a large company. Small businesses tend to get fewer applications, giving great resumes room to make their way to the top of the pile.

This doesn’t mean you can pull back on effort when it comes to applying and interviewing, but it does mean you could have a much better chance of standing out from the crowd.

2. Build strong relationships with employees of all levels

Small businesses tend to have less hierarchy, which means you could actually work with (not just for) your boss. This can open the door to mentoring and collaboration opportunities that might otherwise be miles out of reach.

Of course, while this can be great for making a big impression, it also means results really count, because you-know-who is watching.

3. Learn all aspects of the business inside and out

In a corporate setting, you’ll likely just see a tiny piece of what keeps the business running. Conversely, in a small business role, you’ll almost certainly get the chance to take part in projects that cross over into different areas.

Your exposure to more aspects of the business will likely be greater at a smaller company.

4. Diversify your skill set by participating in new projects

In a small business, resources can be limited. On the plus side, employees often get to follow projects from start to finish. So, instead of handling a small component of a larger project as you might in a big firm, you could be a part of the brainstorming, engineering and execution of a marketing campaign, product launch or other important project.

This can be an amazing way to learn on the fly and venture into new territory. Just remember that you probably won’t always love the task, and being a princess (or prince) about it won’t score you any extra points. Besides, those tasks are great for building character, right?

5. Explore your talents and discover what you love

Another major perk of trying your hand at new things is the chance to discover where you shine. The assumption is that, as a graduate, you know what you want to do with your life, but the reality is that many people don’t. And, for those who haven’t found their calling, this opportunity can be huge!

You may learn you have a hidden talent for schmoozing clients, handling finances or thinking up new product ideas. Who knows? Many of those lucky people who absolutely love what they do often say, “I just fell into it.” And odds are that many of them discovered their true passion while working for a small business.

6. Make a big impact (and get credit for it)

Corporations are complex entities that rely on a number of departments and individuals to complete any given project. Each project may only play a minor role in the overall success or failure of the organization. On top of that, processes tend to move slowly through the different levels of management in a large business. This can dilute an individual’s chance of being recognized for performing great work.

In a small business, it is often completely the opposite. When you’re responsible for seeing a project through from start to finish, you’re more likely to have access to quick decisions (or even have the authority to—gasp!—make them) and get the credit you have earned.

Additionally, you could have the opportunity to make a real difference in the success of the business, since most projects are likely to have the potential to significantly impact a small scale operation. So, why be a cog when you can move the whole machine?

Now you’re in the know about working for small businesses. Maybe you’d like to revise your criteria to include the little guy. It’s a choice you’re not likely to regret.

Jennifer Kwasnicki is a career and education writer for Trade-Schools.net and its blog, Classrooms, Careers, and Crossroads, where you can find insight into a variety of education- and career-related issues.

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That destination is…another career. It’s a career for which you may or may not have been preparing. It’s also a career in which you’ll only succeed if you are prepared.

It’s not something new. Previous generations have all ended up in that career. Sometimes they had someone doing the work for them, sometimes they did the work themselves. In general, those who do the work themselves have done better, but that’s probably true of any business or profession; nobody does it as well (or as to your taste) as you do.

It’s a career for which you can prepare right now if you want to.

Given that everybody ends up there, it’s something anybody can do. It’s not rocket science, but it’s not sweeping floors, either. As in most careers, the more you put into it, the more you accomplish and get out of it.

There are peer groups and many people join those, but (like most professions) the actual job is done solo. Although you can do it “old school,” it’s best done these days on your computer or smartphone.

The good news is that you can start doing it now, part-time, to get up to speed. There are training opportunities aplenty, most of them free. Such are the riches of the Internet.

So, are you ready to hear it?

Your mystery career is investing

Does that surprise you? Does it surprise you that whether you’re a doctor, bus driver, rocket scientist or business executive, your ultimate job title will be none of those, but rather “investor”?

Think about it: most of us, if not all, have this vague notion that “one day” we will “retire”—both nebulous notions meaning different things to different people.

“One day” could be a magic age, such as 40, 50 or 60. It could be later in life because “you don’t want to stop working.”

And “retire” may mean golfing all day, traveling the world, starting a new business, being a painter or writer, or any other pastime of your choice.

Regardless, all of us will reach the day when we either can’t or don’t want to “work” (however you define your current occupation). Look it up: very, very few people stay in their careers until death by old age.

So, what are your options?

Everyone has just two potential sources of income:

• Income from your labor or business
• Income from investments

With the passage of time, smart people work toward a place where the income from their investments will be sufficient to cover their needs to the point where they no longer need income from a job or business.

In order to get income from investments, you need to have investments that produce income. Because, like most of us, you probably didn’t win the lottery of the womb. You started life with very little in the way of capital to invest.

The obvious solution is to start accumulating as much capital as you can as early as possible. That’s where saving, getting out of debt and utilizing retirement plans all come in.

What’s less obvious is that it’s possible to learn about investing while you do that. Investing is a bit like an airliner: there’s a lot of groundwork that needs to be done before it can take off.

It’s possible (indeed, advisable) to start reading up about investing before you’ll actually need to do it for a living so that, like that airliner, when it’s time to take off, all the groundwork is complete.

If you feel you’re too dumb to invest, think again. Can you buy a house? That’s an investment. If you can buy a house, you have the basics of what it takes to become a successful investor.

Investing is nothing but shopping. It’s a different kind of shopping, to be sure, but shopping nevertheless. Just like any kind of shopping, there are things to learn and things to become familiar with. But if you can shop, you can invest. Millions do it every day.

If you’re halfway successful in your current career, you can succeed at investing, too

If you simply don’t like investing, and you’d feel more comfortable handing it to “someone else” to do, you might want to think twice about that. Who pays those people? (Hint: it’s not the tooth fairy.) You pay them, directly and indirectly. Do you want to give away a third of your earnings?

When you buy a house, would you just tell a realtor to find you a house and call you when it’s ready to move in? You could, of course, but really, is that what you would do? No. You get involved, and you buy what will work best for you. And only you can judge that.

If you find this a scary notion—that no matter what you do today, you’ll end up being an investor—you shouldn’t. Think of it this way: the better you are at investing, the earlier you can achieve that ultimate dream each of us has—freedom. Freedom to choose what you want to do, when you want to do it and how you want to do it. If you want to work till you drop (and you can), that’s fine, but it’s nice to have the option to not to have to be a greeter at Walmart or clean tables at McDonald’s.

Investing doesn’t necessarily need to be the things you hear about everyday (stocks, mutual funds, etc.)

No matter what you end up investing in, there are universal truths regarding investing that every person needs to know.

The Internet is filled with free learning on different kinds of investing. If you don’t know what you’re interested in yet but want a general starting place, try Bite the Bullet Investing.  There are also numerous free resources dedicated to specific investment vehicles, such as  Motley Fool and and AAII (American Association of Individual Investors) for stocks and Learn Bonds for bonds.

Whatever you do, you owe it to yourself to be prepared for what may in the end be the most important career of your life.

The good news is that you have time. You don’t have to wait (in fact, you shouldn’t wait) until you have money to invest before getting up to speed. As with any profession, the earlier you start, the better you get. Wouldn’t it be nice, when you make the switch, to be comfortable with the notion and concepts of investing?

Why not start now?

William Cowie writes about the long view on careers and personal finance and is a previous contributor to Brazen Life. Check out his free introduction to investing at Bite the Bullet Investing.

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Which is why we’ve gathered 11 of our favorite posts on choosing a career to help you cut back on the trial-and-error time and get to the good stuff—actually beginning the career of your dreams:

1. How to Decide on a Career (Even If You Don’t Know What You Want) – Deciding on a career can be simplified into three basic problems. Conquer these, and you’ll dramatically up your chances of finding the job that’s right for you.

2. The 2 Biggest Reasons You Can’t Decide on a Career Direction – If you’re looking at others’ seemingly effortless career choices with envy, take comfort: most of us don’t seamlessly find our way to our dream jobs. Here are two of the biggest hurdles you’re likely facing, and how to get over them.

3. Are We Asking the Wrong Question When Planning Our Futures? – Instead of wondering what we’re supposed to do with our lives, perhaps the better question is to ask who we want to be.

4. 4 Secrets to Figuring Out What You Want to Do With Your Life – Tired of jumping from job to job, never finding one you love (or even like a little)? Here are four things you can do right now to figure out which direction you should be going in.

5. 3 Lies You’re Telling Yourself About Your 20s – The vision you have of how your 20s “should be” can influence so many things—your happiness, your motivation, your life choices. So make sure you’re not falling for any of these misguided notions.

6. Should You Wait Until Your 30s to Choose a Career? – Scientists now say your brain is still developing well into your 30s. Does that mean it might make sense to wait until then to make big life decisions?

7. How to Overcome a Quarter-Life Crisis and Find Your Dream Job – Has your career hit the wall (and all your energy and enthusiasm along with it)? Here’s how to reevaluate and get back on track.

8. The Ultimate Secret to Discovering Your Passion – “Follow your passion” may be misleading advice. Here’s how to try cultivating your passion instead.

9. Why Finding Your Career Path is Like Choosing a Spouse – You don’t start off knowing the exact person you’re going to marry, and no one expects you to. So why do we expect this when it comes to our careers?

10. Careers That Work Best If You Have Multiple Passions – What if you want to be several things when you grow up? You don’t have to settle for just one interest, as this post demonstrates.

11. How to Succeed as a Multi-Passionate Careerist – Still having trouble choosing which way to best integrate your many interests? Try this guide for tips on how to find your way.

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But even recruiters did, of course, look for a job at one point—and perhaps being a recruiter is the right career move for you, too. Shifts in the job market, including changes in employment laws, hiring processes and locating the most qualified applicants, mean more employers are looking to recruiters to fill their open positions.  

So, what’s the nitty-gritty of a recruiter job? Do you have the right personality and skills to become one yourself? Read on to find out.

What recruiters do

Through sourcing and networking, recruiters create a talent pool of applicants that meet the requirements, skill base and specifics of an open position.

This means recruiters can be the first impression of a company in applicants’ eyes. What happens next makes recruiters part salespeople and part matchmaker. Recruiters assess the job responsibilities of the open position, learn about the company’s culture and whet potential applicants’ appetite for the right job.

As a recruiter, you may be working in-house as part of a large company’s division of human resources or for an independent staffing agency hired by a company.

Two key things a successful recruiter needs

1. Great communication skills and discretion

Remember, a recruiter is working on behalf of a company, but he or she also needs to tactfully juggle the needs of both the hiring managers and the applicants. So brush up on your communication skills—that includes being a great listener.

Top-notch people skills and communication skills are the backbone behind building rapport. When you’re able to establish rapport with hiring managers, it builds confidence in your abilities, and they will be more likely use you again. Establishing rapport with applicants can be beneficial as applicants can refer other qualified job seekers to you.

2. Consider pursuing a graduate degree in HR

More people are pursuing a master’s degree in human resources development to give them a competitive edge in the recruiting field. Gaining graduate-level know-how in business operations, employment law and management will make you stand out from the crowd. The training and curriculum within this type of degree program will equip you with the skills to fulfill any division of human resources.

Denielle Fisher is an office manager who is also responsible for maintaining financial records at her company. She does freelance writing/blogging on the side and enjoys ghost writing as well.

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“Every day ordinary people do extraordinary things.”-Bob Richards, Olympic Pole Vaulter

Creating your own badass career doesn’t have to be as out there as saving lives, building schools in Africa, setting up libraries around the world or any of those making-a-huge-impact-everyday types of jobs. Your career just needs to be meaningful to you. Because living a meaningful life is badass.

Here’s how to create your own badass career:

1. Seek out passionate people

Inspiring people inspire others. As Jim Rohn, entrepreneur and personal development coach, says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” So banish the “Debbie Downers” in your life.

If you want a fulfilling career, hang out with people who are fulfilled. It doesn’t matter if you don’t share their same passions. Passion is contagious; infect yourself. Figure out your “why.”

2. Develop a side hustle

A side gig is a way to generate income outside of your day job. Launching a side hustle will give you the financial resources to explore other job options. Your day job will no longer feel like a ball and chain. A productive side hustle will free you up to try new things without having to worry about the next promotion or getting downsized.

3. Consider the unconsidered

I never thought I’d fly helicopters until I took a ride in one. Growing up in Alaska, it’s common to fly, and I had my fixed-wing pilot’s license. I flew as a hobby, but the only aviation job that occurred to me at first was piloting a commercial airliner, which wasn’t appealing to me. It wasn’t until I considered other options that I realized flying could actually become my career.

Carve out time to try new things and dig deeper into fields that interest you. You never know what might come of it.

4. Define your ideal job

It’s important to know what you want in a career. What would a day or week or month at your ideal job look like? Do you need a lot of social interaction? Then working from home may not be for you. Do you need a steady paycheck? Then the variable income of freelancing or consulting may be too uncertain to be enjoyable. Do you want a location independent career? Or to only work part of the year? Use your side-hustle as an opportunity to try out different career options.

I thought it would be fun to own a bookstore—until I worked in a bookstore and realized it was more about stocking shelves than helping someone find the perfect book. Identify what you want before looking for jobs that can offer it.

5.Tap into your network

Share your ideas with friends. Let them know you’d like to find out more about whatever you’re interested in. They’ll often be able to direct you to people who know someone in that field. Be valuable. Connect with people both online and offline. Be authentic and share your interests with them.

6. Start before you’re ready

We often want to wait until we have it all figured out or we are completely prepared. But we’ll always be less experienced than someone. So stop comparing yourself to others. If you commit to doing something, by the time you get there, you’ll have figured out how to do it.

I started blogging to build an audience for my novel. My blog has led to freelance writing gigs and teaching classes on social media. You won’t always know exactly where you are going or how you’ll get there. That’s okay. Pick your best guess direction and start today.

You already are badass. Now create your badass career.

Lorena Knapp is an EMS helicopter pilot and writer living in Alaska. She blogs about flying and creating your own Big Life today at Big State, Big Life.

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Perhaps you’ve seen this illustration kicking around somewhere before:

It’s a pretty popular little image as it neatly encapsulates two truths: one, the road to success is winding and long; and two, we like to delude ourselves about that fact.

But is Gen Y more deluded about overnight success than everyone else?

That’s what Mark Quinn, Vice President of marketing at Leggett & Platt, argued recently on Business Insider. “Technology has simultaneously been the Millennial generation’s best friend and worst enemy. While they have grown up with social media and iPhones, they’ve also lived under the specter of Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Systrom, and Mike Krieger,” he writes, before explaining the pernicious effects of these exemplars of “overnight” success:

Seeing Facebook and Instagram make these twentysomethings into billionaires has upped the ante for what young people expect out of life—and their careers….It’s easy for inexperienced professionals to get caught up in the Zuckerberg example—he didn’t finish college and didn’t spend 80 hours a week working his way up in a traditional corporation. With a lack of context, it’s tempting to believe we’re all destined to be exceptions on the level of Facebook.

Rather than imagining that you too will beat the odds a la Zuckerberg, Quinn suggests “your best bet—if you plan to have a career that spans more than 10 years—is to find your niche and strategize your vertical move from there.”

Gen Y’s Particular Delusion

Is Quinn right? Are young people more likely than older folks to hanker after overnight success?

There’s some reason to support his opinion. Besides the natural optimism of youth, which is as of yet untempered by firsthand experience of the many setbacks on the way to success, other factors also nudge young careerists towards undue optimism about how quickly they can become career rock stars.

Take our fascination with entrepreneurs, for example. Surveys show a massive percentage of Gen Y aspires to entrepreneurship and ridiculously few of us have any appetite for slogging our way up to senior corporate posts. Is this because we’ve seen the rocket-propelled rise of Facebook, or did card-carrying Gen Y member Zuckerberg found his company because, like many of his peers, he looked around at adults’ corporate jobs and said “No way”?

It’s a chicken-and-the-egg question that perhaps no one can answer, but whether Gen Y’s entrepreneurialism drove Zuckerberg or Zuckerberg drove our entrepreneurialism, Quinn is right, and the result is the same. Gen Y loves startups, and startup mania projects an unhealthy image of a quick (though difficult) road to success.

Building a Better Model

Those unhealthy expectations become an issue when they lead young folks to make the wrong decisions about how and where to invest their energies and when they cause slowly climbing Gen Yers to despair because they’re not living up to some imagined standard of instant excellence.

So what’s the antidote to straight, fast and ever-upward career images? Quinn trots out the tired old metaphor of the climb up the career ladder, but in today’s world of portfolio careers and job flux, that probably strikes you as pretty unrealistic. Careers are too chaotic these days. Perhaps Tina Seelig, the director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (the entrepreneurship center at Stanford’s School of Engineering) has a better model. Think of your career as a pyramid, she advises:

Most young people believe that their career path should progress at a predictable rate, with ever increasing responsibilities and compensation. That usually isn’t—and shouldn’t be—the case. I like the analogy that Carol Bartz, [ex-]CEO of Yahoo!, used when she spoke at Stanford a few years ago. She said that you should look at the progress of your career as moving around and up a three dimensional pyramid as opposed to up a two dimensional ladder.

Lateral moves along the side of the pyramid allow you to build a base of experience. It may not look as though you are moving up quickly, but you are gaining a foundation of skills, experience, and contacts that will prove extremely valuable later. Additionally, there are often times when you slide backward. Don’t despair: Your recovery after a failure often propels you forward more quickly than if you stayed on a linear, predictable path.

Or just take another look at that doodle at the start of the post.

Do you think Gen Y often has an unrealistic image of success?

Jessica Stillman is a freelance writer based in London. She writes a daily column for Inc.com and has blogged for CBS MoneyWatch and GigaOM, among others.

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As someone who has spent her life working in multiple disciplines—from music to Web design to law—I have learned that the idea of a “monodestiny” is somewhat of a fallacy.

If you thrive in a specialist environment, then absolutely, becoming an expert in one area makes sense. However, if you are a person who is curious about a wide range of topics (what I refer to as a multipotentialite), then you do not need to pick one of those topics to the exclusion of all of your other interests. It is absolutely possible to integrate a plurality of subjects into your work and retain enough flexibility to explore new ideas.

Certain careers lend themselves better to people with multiple passions, including careers that involve some autonomy. This is why many entrepreneurs happen to be multipotentialites. Running a business (or working for a startup or small organization) requires a working knowledge of multiple areas: marketing, product creation, customer service, etc.

But it’s not just self-employment and forward-thinking companies that provide a good work environment for people with many interests. I have met multipotentialites in every field, even in some areas that are typically considered to be the domain of specialists like medicine, law and education.

Where to Start

Any career can be made more plural if approached with the right considerations. Here are a few things to think about when designing a career around multiple areas:

1. Play to Your Strengths

You don’t want a career that will require you to perform one skill repeatedly. As a multipotentialite, this will not be fulfilling. Instead, look for a career that requires you to use skills like idea synthesis, lateral thinking and fast skill acquisition in your daily work. These are qualities that come about naturally as a result of having a diverse background. They are what I refer to as the multipotentialite super powers.

If you are good at translating between modes of thought, for example, then working as a researcher or project manager might be fulfilling, since it would involve working with groups in different areas and bringing a larger vision to life.

If you enjoy synthesizing disparate ideas, then an interdisciplinary field like architecture, which combines design and engineering, or a career in the arts like documentary filmmaking or media production, might be a good choice.

2. Use One Medium to Explore Multiple Subjects

One medium can be used as a vehicle through which to explore multiple subjects. Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker, uses filmmaking quite literally as the lens through which he explores subjects ranging from jazz to baseball to the history of New York.

Teachers who introduce their students to a range of different concepts use this model, as do journalists who cover stories in many areas and lawyers who take a family law case one day and a intellectual property case the next. Many authors use writing as a vehicle through which to explore different ideas as each book looks at a new subject matter.

Do you have one medium or format that you feel comfortable with, that can be used as a vehicle through which to explore multiple subjects?

3. Use Multiple Formats to Explore One Theme or Idea

Instead of using one medium to explore many subjects, you might try the inverse: communicating one theme or idea through multiple formats.

For example, it’s not usual to find people who are writers/speakers/consultants/teachers, all at once. As Marci Alboher writes, these four “slashes” complement each other nicely. The idea is to find a message you care deeply about, then start using different methods to communicate this message and reach different audiences.

Russell Simmons, founder of Def Jam Records, brought hip hop culture to mainstream consciousness and lifted up his community through multiple formats: a record label, clothing line, television show, activism work, writing, speaking, etc. Dallas Clayton encourages children to dream big through his books, artwork, poetry, speaking and teaching.

Is there an issue you care deeply about, or a particular change you would like to inspire in the world? How can you deliver that message in various ways?

You Don’t Have to Choose

Contrary to what the dominant paradigm would have you believe, having interests across multiple disciplines is not a weakness. It does not make you a dilettante or jack-of-all-trades. Having many interests can be a source of great personal and financial fulfillment, and with a bit of creativity, almost any career can be made more plural in nature.

Have you combined many interests in one career? What strategies have worked for you?

Emilie Wapnick is a writer, speaker, coach, violinist, filmmaker and law school graduate. She is the founder of Puttylike.com, where she works with multipotentialites to help them integrate ALL of their interests into their lives.

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How many years until you should ditch a job? It’s a tough question.

If you leave a new job within a year, you risk being labeled flaky, especially if it ends up being a pattern (like staggering between three jobs in as many years). On the other hand, if you hang on too long, you risk being labelled a slug. Slug, as in going nowhere interesting, fast.

After the three-year mark, you start getting that creeping sensation down your spine. Then, after about five years, you know the pressure’s on. This is particularly true for software engineers and others who live at the bleeding edge: holding on to your current advantage in a given technology will put you at a disadvantage when that technology goes obsolete.

You’re ahead of the game at this point—you’ve shown that you’re stable, and at the same time, by sniffing around for other opportunities after three to five years, you show you’re active enough to keep an eye out for new challenges.

But looking for a job takes energy. Your boss likes you. You’re comfortable. Do you have it in you for a search?

Setting the energy dial to low can actually work in your favor. Playing hard-to-get is a good tactic in employment, just as in romance. It’s better to be the hunted than the hunter.

Consider these four reasons to open yourself up to job offers:

1. Your job might not be as secure as you think

Building security and loyalty by staying at a job for a long time is something from another generation. Particularly if you are a technologist, your job might actually get less secure over time as your outdated skills reach obsolescence. But if you leverage your demonstrated abilities in one technology while it’s still hot, employers will be glad to have you help them as they too move to the latest thing.

2. Variety demonstrates growth

Companies like Microsoft like to lay off people who are too “long at level.” Four years on a job is around where the value tops out. Having some variety in your background shows that you are staying active.

3. You risk burnout

You’ll likely burn yourself out at your job if you hang on too long. Luckily, burnout can be good for you—if you use the burnout in one job to motivate yourself into finding to find a better one.

4. Most significant career boosts happen when you change jobs

All it takes is a single good employer who thinks you can fill bigger shoes, and you’ve stepped up.

So scratch that little itch that’s telling you to get yourself moving. Relax; experienced pros like you are in demand. Just open yourself up to the possibilities, and you can take your career in a new direction.

Josh Fox has long wondered why experienced software engineers stick so long at one job. He  helped create FiveYearItch.com to help them receive job offers that meet their stated requirements.

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I’ve decided to pursue a life teaching English, German and whatever other languages I’ll master in the future. There is little to no prospect of “moving up” since I don’t plan to stay anywhere permanently, and I’ll probably spend a lot of time working for far-below-average pay.

So why would someone do something so ridiculous? Here’s my argument for abandoning the career ladder and instead pursuing a so-called “dead-end” career:

If You Have the Right Job, You’ll Love Working

Our society likes to say that a well-adjusted person “works to live” and doesn’t “live to work,” but I say that’s totally backwards. If the part of your day that you spend at work doesn’t count as “living,” then half of your life will be irrecoverably lost.

Instead, find the life you want to live and then figure out how to make a living from it. As a linguist, I’m obsessed with figuring out the systems and semantic intricacies of languages, and nothing fascinates me more than going off and studying them wherever I go. My career choice gives me the ability to do what I want to do for fun, and to get paid enough to live for it.

Getting to Be Different

There’s something appealing and satisfying about leaving behind the pursuit of social status and trading it in for the pursuit of personal perfection. Beware, though, that abandoning the eternal hunt for power and wealth can make you look rather alien in an increasingly suburban world.

The End of Performance Anxiety

I am not ambitious. There—I’ve said it in the simplest terms. I’m considerably more interested in making my work acceptable to myself than I am in making it impressive to my superiors.

Refusing to kiss up to one’s superiors is a luxury reserved only for those who’ve resigned themselves to the place where they are now. Luckily, I’m already there. I don’t need upward mobility, because my current momentum will already carry me to or beyond where I want to be.

Financial Independence

How can making less money give you greater financial independence? The answer lies once again in social status. Many of the most expensive things we buy (like nice cars, large houses with big, green lawns and entertainment items) are luxury items that serve as a black hole for our incomes.

There is, of course, a certain level of income needed to live while being financially independent, but that number rises and falls depending on where you live and your own perceived social status.

What do you think? Do you see the benefits of pursuing a “dead-end” career?

Micha Boettiger is a linguist, blogger and writer. Read his observations and opinions on a variety of topics at his blog, http://www.mindpeeler.com/.

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There’s the kid who constantly messed around with his parent’s computer and naturally pursued a career as a programmer. Or the child with an utter fascination for drawing that led her securely down the path of being a graphic designer.

But guess what? For most of us, that doesn’t happen.

Most of us look at others’ seemingly effortless career choices with envy, because we’re still wondering what we want to be when we grow up. Oh yeah, and we’ve already grown up.

If that’s you, have a look at these reasons that likely explain why you’re having trouble choosing a career direction:

1.  You Don’t Know What You Like

The basis for choosing a rewarding career direction is recognizing the topics, activities or environments that are more interesting to you than most other things. Identifying these categories is tremendously helpful because it focuses your career search. You can learn about potential jobs, network and develop your skills in a manner that is specifically targeted to your areas of interest.

If you don’t know what you like, the opposite scenario occurs. Every job in the world becomes a possibility. Or perhaps you try to hit the moving target of today’s coolest or most lucrative career paths. Your attention scatters and your attempts at developing a career suffer.

To remedy this issue, turn an interested eye toward the man (or woman) in the mirror.

Take a look at your computer’s bookmarked sites, the books on your bookshelf and the television programs you enjoy. Ask friends what they’ve noticed about your interests. Try to remember experiences that were particularly enjoyable for you. A few themes will likely emerge.

If your internal search results come back empty, invest time into exploring new things, particularly those things you think you might like. These do not need to be immediately relevant to a career path. It may sound silly, but knowing you prefer attending a ballroom dancing class over a book group matters. Ask yourself why you like a certain topic to gain a deeper insight into your preferences, and remember that the main goal with this exploration is to increase your self-knowledge.

2.  You Know What You Like, But You Don’t Think It’s Okay

One unfortunate result of humans being such socially oriented creatures is that we’re extremely susceptible to the opinions and doubts of other people. If you’ve been feeling confused about your career direction for a while, my guess is that the true issue probably isn’t a lack of knowledge of what you want. Instead, the confusion stems from the fact that what you want conflicts with what the people around you tell you is acceptable or possible. Often when this occurs, we dismiss what we truly want and instead try to conform to others’ expectations.

A telltale sign that this is occurring is when you have an initial shot of excitement over a particular career path but then wind up avoiding it completely. This avoidance stems from your social sense, which is telling you that people in your life might judge or belittle such a career decision. To dodge this potential discomfort, you retreat. Then you look around and wonder why other career paths never sound that appealing.

The core solution to conquering this issue is to modify your social environment. Find and surround yourself with people who naturally accept who you are deep down. These people may be others who are already pursuing your desired career path. They may be particularly accepting and supportive friends. Or they may take the form of a coach or mentor with whom you click.

Focusing on creating an environment full of social acceptance for what you want will help you to calm down, drop the confusion and realize that your true career aspirations are legitimate and worth honoring.

Remember those people who seemed to have effortless career paths? In all likelihood, they had an awareness of what they liked and an environment that supported them in pursuing their dreams. You may not have had these two things before, but as an adult, you can find ways to provide them for yourself. Hopefully by giving yourself a dose of introspection and an encouraging community, you’ll be able to drop your career decision anxiety and get on your way.

Alison Elissa Horner specializes in helping adults in their 20s and 30s figure out what the hell they’re doing with their lives. You can check out her career coaching blog or sign up to receive her free Career Unstuckinator at www.alisonelissa.com.

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The post The 2 Biggest Reasons You Can’t Decide on a Career Direction appeared first on Brazen Life.

Gen Y came out of college exploring one job to another (to another). But when the recession hit, many said the days of job-hopping were over.

Yet there’s no reason to be scared into longevity at your current position. Here are 10 reasons to keep job-hopping:

1. Job-hopping allows you to widen your choice of jobs, not narrow it

When you have more experience in a wide range of positions, you’ll be able to increase your skill set. As long as you’re comfortable and adept at describing your transferable skills, you can easily act as a chameleon and morph from your current position to your dream job.

However, if you don’t know what transferable skills are, you may need to stay put.

2. No need to impress people you’ve never met

Many people, primarily HR managers, warn against job-hopping so you can theoretically impress another HR manager in the future—one you haven’t met yet. Besides the fact that you probably won’t be on the same career path a few years from now, let alone in the same industry, there’s no reason to build your career around what HR managers want.

Instead, impress yourself. Keep your own commitments and promises, and you’ll be fine.

3. Loyalty no longer exists

Your company is not loyal. Your boss is not loyal. Employees are never put first. More than ever, every job is unstable. It’s now more secure to build your own unique career from scratch.

So don’t show loyalty to a company that is not loyal to you. Now, that doesn’t mean ignoring your work or being disrespectful to the people who put money in your bank account, but it does mean being realistic in your career planning.

4. Job-hopping is a precursor to the future of careers

Careers are no longer linear. Instead, you will piece together positions and opportunities to fully form your career puzzle. You’ll have six to eight jobs before you’re 30, and you certainly won’t settle into the same company for the rest of your life after that.

As the idea of careers shift toward more contract work and portfolio careers, you can prepare by realizing results quickly and providing massive value.

5. Your network—not your resume—gets you jobs

When you job-hop, you expand your network tenfold. You meet more people: coworkers, managers, partners, influencers, leaders. And it’s your network, not your list of positions, that will get you in the door at the next job.

While you can and should apply with your cover letter and resume, when your network can recommend you for a position, it is much easier to advance your career.

6. Get a substantial raise and title upgrade

It’s better to find a new job that pays well and has a great title than to try and convince your existing company to give you a raise and a promotion. After all, you signed their contract. And it’s cheaper for them to keep you in your place.

When you ask for a raise, you’ll likely only receive a two to three percent increase. When you job-hop, the typical increase in income is 20 to 30 percent. Enough said.

7. You don’t know what you like until you do it

A slim minority of us fall right away into careers that are representative of our dream jobs. Everyone else gets stuck in jobs we hate.

While you can try to journal and vision-board your way into a soul-enriching career, it’s quicker and more effective to try several different positions until you discover what you truly enjoy. Action is quicker than thought—so don’t guess; go out and do.

8. Companies don’t move as fast as results

From startups to large corporations, every organization is fighting against some sort of barrier, whether it’s lack of money or lots of bureaucracy.

You may bring stellar results in the first three to six months, but by the time a year rolls around, your plate is likely devoid of challenge and meaningful work. Job-hopping means you always have relevant tasks to work on and can continually create positive impact.

9. The recession is a great excuse for high-performers

Naysayers warn Gen Y not to job-hop since it supposedly looks bad. But when Negative Nancies hunker down, it’s the perfect opportunity for high-performers to get out and fight. The recession is your excuse, as a high-performer in particular, to take risks and reap big rewards.

If it doesn’t work out, well, it’s been a bumpy ride for everyone. But the odds are in your favor.

10. Your talent is desperately needed

If you love your job, then for goodness sake, hold onto it with all your might.

But the truth is, the majority of Gen Y is disillusioned and dissatisfied with their careers. The longer you stay in a position that doesn’t fulfill you, the longer you cheat the world of your unique talents and gifts.

So whether you love picking out an accent pillow or get pleasure from financial projections, go on: get after it!

Rebecca Thorman’s blog Kontrary offers tips to create the career, bank account and life you love and is a popular destination for young professionals. Her goal is to help you find meaningful work, enjoy the heck out of it and earn more money.

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“Five years ago, did you know that you were going to end up marrying Gretchen?” I asked my newlywed friend Rob, my eyes wide with curiosity. “I mean, how did you figure it out?”

Rob set his frothy pint o’ beer down on the table and looked at me with disdain.

“Therese, I’m not trying to insult you here, but your questions are so freaking STUPID! I’ve already told you a million times—there’s no possible way I could’ve known that I’d marry Gretchen. Five years ago, I hadn’t even met her yet! I didn’t even know she existed!”

“You mean you started out without knowing who you’d marry at all?” I asked in dismay. “And you’re saying that you didn’t plan to marry her from the beginning?”

“Well, of course not. I mean, how could I have known?”

I chewed thoughtfully on my Gardenburger patty for a couple of minutes, slowly digesting what Rob had just told me.

His amazing wife, Gretchen, didn’t come into his life through careful thinking or planning. He hadn’t, after some hard-focused brainstorming session, thumped his fist on the desk and exclaimed, “I finally know—it’s GRETCHEN I should marry!”

In fact, no amount of brainstorming, analysis, thinking or planning could have resulted in the answer of “Gretchen”—not ever.

I know this story sounds a little silly, but there’s a reason for that: finding your career and your life path really isn’t all that different than finding a hot and funny wife named Gretchen.

You don’t start off knowing the exact person you’re going to marry, and no one expects you to. In fact, to hold someone up to this expectation would be ludicrous.

So why do we expect this when it comes to our careers?

Why is there this ridiculous expectation that we should know from the get-go exactly what we want to do with our lives?

Contrary to expectation, some of the happiest and most successful people started off without a grand plan or a clear vision of what the endpoint would be—and yet they ended up doing insanely fulfilling, passion-igniting, made-for-them things. I’ve heard this from so many of my mentors, in fact, that I now believe career planning is a horrible idea.

It’s time to change the way we think about career planning, from a process in which we think and plan and analyze our way into the answers beforehand to a process more akin to finding a mate. So here are three reasons why finding your truest career path is like finding a spouse:

1. Experience matters

Back in high school, I used to have the hugest crush on…let’s just call the guy “Danny.” He was perfect in every way (or so I thought): he had beautiful blue eyes, he was funny and nice and smart and he was the star of the basketball team. Based on all rational thought, Danny appeared to be the perfect boyfriend. After lots of hard work and investment (er, stalking), my dream finally came true: Danny and I went out on a date.

Guess what? Dating Danny wasn’t nearly as awesome as I’d thought it would be. It turns out he wasn’t a great fit for me, after all—he smelled funny and our senses of humor really clashed.

Choosing a career without having any real life experience or opportunities for exploration is like deciding to marry Danny based on the view from the gymnasium bleachers. Regardless of how much thinking or research or ogling you’ve done, you simply cannot know beforehand what the actual experience will be like.

So how do you go on a date with your potential career? You do anything that helps you actually TRY OUT different options, even if you have no clue whether or not you’ll end up enjoying them. Volunteer. Get an internship. Start a project. Get involved in any way possible. You can do this even if you already have a full-time job.

2. We can’t possibly think our way into all the options

Five years ago, Rob couldn’t have identified Gretchen, regardless of how hard he’d thought or analyzed or planned. Why? Because he had no idea she even existed. If he had followed the traditional career planning model, he’d have thought through his list of contacts, scanned the personal ads for potential candidates and decided to marry Janet, who was nice but far less compatible.

When it comes to our careers, there are countless obscure options we haven’t been exposed to (or that may not even exist yet) just waiting to be discovered. In trying to think our way into the answers beforehand, we miss out on exposure to the Gretchens of the world.

How do we find our way into these options? Through experience. By going on dates with potential careers, we’re exposed to new contacts, new experiences and unforeseen opportunities that we never could have envisioned from the get-go.

3. We’re looking for far more than just a career

Traditional career thinking hinges on the fact that if only we could identify that one perfect career and get the job, we’d be magically fulfilled. HA!

Let me tell you about my friend Mark. Mark is married to “the woman of his dreams”—and yet, still, he’s unhappy. My friend Allison has attained the “job of her dreams” as an attorney—and yet, still, she’s unhappy.

In dating and in work, the same principle holds true: a career or a spouse alone will never fulfill us.

We’re looking for far more than just a career; we’re looking for ourselves. We’re looking for purpose and passion and meaning, and if we rely solely on an occupation (or a spouse) to give us these things, we’ll be sorely disappointed time and time again.

So there you have it: three reasons why finding your career path is like finding a spouse. When it comes to career planning, our traditional methods are flawed. Trying to identify a spouse a priori would be unthinkable in the realm of relationships, and it’s time we shifted the way we approach our career paths as well.

Therese Schwenkler, founder of TheUnlost.com, wants to show you how to “date” your way into your truest career and life path. For more details and little-known secrets on “career dating,” click here.

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The post Why Finding Your Career Path is Like Choosing a Spouse appeared first on Brazen Life.

That’s a lot to give up—including free access to the fabulous Cosmo beauty closet. But a year and a half ago, as I looked down the road, I saw that I was approaching a key turning point in my career. If I wanted to try something bold and different, I had to grab the chance sooner rather than later. In other words, it was time for me to do some serious career management. In January, I told my boss I would be leaving towards the end of the year to focus on being an author, speaker and entrepreneur.

Sometimes we can get so caught up in doing our job that we lose sight of our overall career. But you need to be a relentless architect of your career. You have to manage your career—and your success—as well as you manage your job.

You may have thought that by doing your job really well, you were also taking care of your career—and to some degree that’s the case. But in many ways, they call for different skills and tasks.

Here are some key strategies to make sure you’re managing your career brilliantly:

1. Demonstrate your upward mobility.

Try to imagine how your boss might describe you to someone. If the description is less than fabulous, consider why and then kick your butt quickly into gear.

Start going to meetings with big, bold ideas, give your full attention to projects, volunteer for new assignments or stuff your boss is too busy for—and then knock it out of the park. Get a new haircut and a couple of great outfits to signal that you have your mojo back.

And don’t be afraid to verbalize your intentions to your boss. I got a note from a staffer after she received a promotion, and she ended it with the phrase, “Someday I want to be you.” It was the first time I realized how fiercely ambitious she was—and I liked that.

2. Be ready.

If you don’t have the right skills (public speaking, social media, whatever) for the next big job in your sights, get them.

Also, check out online the jobs you think you want. What are the full descriptions and necessary requirements? How can you position yourself to be a better candidate for those jobs?

3. Get out there—in person.

When you’re starting out, you network out of necessity to find a job. But further along in your career, it’s easy to let networking fall off because of time constraints. You need to keep it going at full throttle.

Ahead of any event, research key people who might be there. Approach them with specific talking points. (For instance, start with “Your article in X trade publication was terrific” and then ask a question about it.) Join conversations by first listening to what’s being talked about and then being inquisitive. Later, send new contacts links to info relating to what you discussed.

4. Volunteer to be on panels at events.

This is a great way to show people how much you know. (But be super-prepared and get media trained.)

5. Think “sponsor,” not just “mentor.”

A mentor gives you advice. A sponsor opens doors.

A mentor can also be a sponsor, but the bottom line is that you need to cultivate relationships with people who will make key introductions for you and not just dispense wisdom. (Studies, by the way, have shown that men are more likely to have sponsors than women.)

And you can’t wait for a sponsor to drop into your life. You need to cultivate these relationships. And you then have to be gutsy enough to ask for help—such as requesting an email introduction to a potential boss.

6. Take on one thing a week that nurtures your success.

For instance, attend a speech by someone in your industry or write a blog about your field. Go on YouTube to hear a motivational speech by someone wickedly successful, like Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg. And use this kind of time, too, to develop your “Big Mouth list” (all the people you email with important professional news about yourself).

7. Do the math—and then be strategic.

In many fields, there are points when you need to reach a certain level of achievement, or it’s not gonna happen. As a senior editor in my early 30s, I did the math and began to see that in the magazine field, if you didn’t make it to an editor-in-chief job by your late 30s or early 40s, the chances got really slim. That helped me start focusing on how much time I had and laying the foundation for it to happen.

8. Tap into your envy.

Let’s pretend for a second: A colleague just got offered a great job somewhere else. How irritated are you, really?

If you’re still thriving at your job, you probably will not be bothered by the person’s departure. But if you find yourself hating the person, it’s a warning. Allow your envy to point you to the fact that you’re overdue for a change.

9. Go for it.

When the right job comes up, you must ferociously go after it—even if it’s in your company. Tell them why you want it and what you will do for them.

I know of an executive magazine editor who heard about an editor-in-chief job when the company was in the final round of interviews. She called the contact person and was told that the company president was leaving that day for an overseas trip and wouldn’t be able to squeeze in an interview with her. The editor said she would be willing to accompany the president in the limo to the airport and maker her pitch on the drive. She did—and she got the job. Now that’s going for it.

Kate White is a world-renowned bestselling author, career expert, motivational speaker and consultant to Hearst magazines. Longtime Editor-in-Chief of Cosmo, her newest book, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This: Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know, is on sale now.

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Here are five ways to get in the game:

1. Acknowledge that you’re blessed

No, I don’t mean you’re supremely talented. But having multiple interests—and actually being able to choose one or more to pursue—is a luxury. Back in the day, people didn’t have a choice. Some people, especially in underdeveloped parts of the world, still don’t have a choice.

So take advantage of your situation and show some gratitude. Being multi-passionate isn’t a burden; it’s an opportunity. When someone asks you about your interests, instead of doing the humble brag (“Oh, I don’t know. I have so many things I’m good at, it’s so difficult to choose!”), proudly describe your latest project and revel in it.

2. Freely offer your time

The chances that you’ll discover a dream job encompassing all your desired interests and skills for the rest of your life are slim. Careers aren’t linear these days. Instead, you’ll design a career in bits and pieces that, when looked at as a whole, will create something wonderful.

So consider volunteering. Perhaps you can join a committee as part of your local social media club or help organize monthly events around design thinking. The point is to add another passion piece to your puzzle so that you can feel more fulfilled and harmonious about your career as a whole.

3. Choose to work in a “connector” field

Certain jobs, while only utilizing one set of your skills, do allow you to interact and engage with a wide range of other industries. If you enjoy constantly learning and are interested in being exposed to new ideas and people, choose one of these connector positions.

Fields like event planning or sales can expose you to a wide range of experiences. In fact, many jobs fit this bill if you have the right attitude. Find a job in one of these connector areas, or start thinking about how you can gain exposure to new ideas from your existing set of responsibilities.

4. Schedule your focus in waves

Don’t worry; I’m not asking you to choose between your passions. (We all know that’s impossible.) Instead, dedicate your focus to one particular passion for a period of time—say, two weeks or two months. Put the others aside for that period and really go deep with this one particular interest. You can return to the other passions when the time is up.

This will allow you to stop feeling manic as you bounce between all the ideas in your head and will also let you experience some satisfaction from fully exploring one idea.

5. Make sure you finish what you start

The problem with being multi-passionate isn’t the long list of interests, the bouncing between ideas or even wanting to “do it all.” The problem is when you don’t finish something. If you make a commitment to yourself and back down, you’re going to feel crappy about it.

Instead of trying to narrow your passions, just make sure you finish what you say you will. By completing whatever passion projects you start out on, you’ll get an extreme high that will continue to motivate you in pursuing your other interests.

Accepting who you are and being deliberate in your work will help you achieve fulfillment and success as a multi-passionate careerist. Go on, get out there, and put your hands in everything.

Rebecca Thorman’s weekly blog, Kontrary, offers tips to create the career, bank account and life you love and is a popular destination for young professionals. Her goal is to help you find meaningful work, enjoy the heck out of it and earn more money. She writes from Washington, D.C.

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Scientists now say your brain is still developing well into your 30s, according to The Wall Street Journal. That means it might make sense to wait until then to make big life decisions, right?

The Journal reports:

Recent research into how the brain develops suggests that people are better equipped to make major life decisions in their late 20s than earlier in the decade. The brain, once thought to be fully grown after puberty, is still evolving into its adult shape well into a person’s third decade, pruning away unused connections and strengthening those that remain, scientists say.

Yet many of us make life-altering decisions like who to marry or which career path to commit to in our 20s or even our teens. And at that point in our lives, our brains aren’t yet optimal, the neuroscientist who made this discovery, Jay Giedd, told the Journal. One of his quotes is a real doozy: “It’s a good thing that the 20s are becoming a time for self-discovery.” (Click here to read the full WSJ story.)

But if you wait until your late 20s or early 30s to choose a career or commit to a spouse, where does that leave you in your early-to-mid-20s? Is this just an excuse to avoid dedicating yourself to a career or person?

Is it better to make some sort of decision in your 20s, even if you end up changing course later? Or would you advise putting off big life decisions as long as possible?

What do you think?

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by TalentEgg Incubator

When I tell others that I’m a marketing coordinator, the statement is invariably followed by, “So, what do you do exactly?”

For many, it seems marketing is difficult to understand. I like to believe it is because it encompasses a wide variety of tasks and skill sets. So, when I answer that question, I don’t just provide a textbook definition of what marketing is (the strategic process of determining the needs and wants of a particular group of people and then providing a good and/or service to satisfy those needs and wants), but rather an exploration of how my role integrates and impacts the organization within which I work.

The marketing career path

Marketing consists of several different career possibilities: advertising, public relations, brand management and market research, to name just a few of the big ones.

In my opinion, it’s not as important to know what particular path you will end up following but instead to know if marketing as a whole is the right fit for you. This is because new marketers are often thrust into generalist positions that allow them to have a hand in all of the above possibilities and then some. Ultimately, you learn from experience where your true strengths and passions lie, not from a textbook.

So, if you’re looking to take that leap into marketing, consider the following:

Communication

Marketing is often paired with communications because of how integral it is to the success of any marketing endeavor. In both the oral and written sense, communication is the heart of a message. To speak and write articulately in the predominant language of a market is to embrace a construct that facilitates connectivity between the consumer and the organization.

If either of these—speech or the written word—comes naturally to you, marketing is certainly a career path that will force you to understand your audience and hone your ability. Now, if it is a not-so-natural skill but marketing appeals to you nevertheless (and there is no reason why it can’t), my suggestion is to practice because your ability to skillfully communicate is powerful beyond measure.

Strategy

Do you want to work with customers, or write copy? Are you interested in events, or advertising? Regardless of your field of focus, at the core of each segment is a strong strategic element.

What target market will we enter? What articles will we write? What events to attend and what ads to distribute? Though these questions appear superficially simple, they create a foundation for any marketing strategy.

Even if you don’t plan on venturing into the strategic aspect of marketing, it is always important to remember its significance and how your role is part of the bigger picture.

Multifaceted

One of the things I love most about marketing is it continuously challenges me in unexpected ways. I live for that challenge, mostly because monotony drives me insane. I also find that marketing embraces change. It has to in order to survive. And any new marketer will have to as well.

The market, the industry and the customers are changing all the time. The best marketers are consistently aware of that. They respond quickly, fervently accept the challenge and willingly (though not always successfully) take risks. If that environment of challenge and change doesn’t leave you kicking and screaming—well, then, welcome to marketing.

Visuals

Graphic design is often closely interconnected with marketing. This is because it aids in delivering a message, cultivating a brand, advertising and building its presence and developing a visual and physical identity. I included this section because being comfortable with the visual, and sometimes tangible, aspects of marketing can enhance your understanding of an industry and a market.

Knowing the software (e.g., Adobe Creative Suite) takes it one step further. Combine all of the above plus this and you might just have the full package.

All I can say is: consider the above. None of this is gospel, and none of it is meant to alienate you. Ask yourself: do you see yourself fitting in somewhere above amongst the beautiful chaos of marketing?

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