During the course of the Hammerfall 3.0, a young woman with whom I had worked a bit reached out to me in the aftermath. Would I be interested in having coffee to talk about careers? We had a bit of back and forth on the scheduling, but the meeting finally happened this past week.
I interacted with her most directly just before everything fell apart. She was memorable to me at one point because she made the comment about this being her first "grown-up" job. That comment made me laugh (out loud, as it turned out) as it was exactly the sort of thing I would say.
Since I had a lead up to the meeting, I had some time to think about the nature of the conversation. Beyond the sorts of questions that I thought I could predict, what could I actually bring to the conversation? I tried to think back on similar times in my own life when I, in turn, had asked questions of others.
Oddly enough, I do not remember getting any specific advice in those sessions. So then I took a different tack with myself - given where I was now, what do I wish I would have known or asked back in the day? This turned out to be an easier question to answer.
For our coffee based meeting (all good career meetings should be coffee based), we exchanged information on what we knew, each from our side of the situation, about our layoff events and who else we knew that was laid off. We talked about careers a bit - what it was like to work in Quality, how to "break into" Quality (as if any sensible person wants to break into a form of prison), and the industry in general. I did throw in a couple of question as well that I hoped would generate some thought longer term down the road:
1) "What do you really want to do?" - In this case, it was her first job in the industry. But was it really what she desired to do, or was it convenient and was it something she could see herself doing for a longer period of time. It is one thing to try something and realize that it is not for you; it is another thing to stick with something and then 20+ years in realize that you are trapped without a way out. Now was as good a time as any to really consider this question as the opportunity to redirect would be much easier than if one is long invested in a career and skill set that needs to be completely changed.
2) "Are you thinking outside the box?" - It turns out there are a lot of things that involve what we do, but in ways that people do not generally think of. For example, if one's interest is in process engineering, it is not just chemical and oil companies (or biotechnology) that uses these skills. Distilleries, breweries, wineries - they all use the same basic principles. Sometimes looking at our skills in an industry blinds us to looking at the skill set we bring and the industries we could apply it to.
Ultimately, of course, I can do very little to influence the course of another's job search or life journey. What I can do - what any of us can do, especially those of who are a bit more "senior" - is to gently ask the sorts of things that, 20 or 30 years ago, we might have benefitted in hearing and thinking about.
Because, at least in my case, if I can save one person from being trapped in a career they see no way out of, I will have done a good thing.
Passing on info you've learned over the course of years is a good thing (where did I hear that from?!), especially if the recipient wants to hear it. It was heads-up of that woman to ask to talk a "work vet", good for her. Something like this is one advantage of grey hair eh TB?
ReplyDeleteNylon12, occasionally I like to pretend that the grey hair actually buys me some sort of "street cred" - as well as this case, over 25 years in the industry.
DeleteTo be honest, I offered to meet with her and she accepted. I felt I needed to, as I am the recipient of any number of mentors in my own life that did the same thing for me. I also took the opportunity to suggest she relay a message to a coworker we both knew that it was always the time to look. One does what one can.
There is a "cheerleading" function to that kind of mentoring. We have a different time-scale than younger people.
ReplyDeleteYounger people benefit from hearing "You are doing the right things. Keep doing them. You will prevail." unless, of course they are following truly terrible advice.
Also, you have a unique perspective in that you are working a "bridge job". That frames you as somebody who wants to work. It also keeps your stimuli hopper filled and exposes you to new ideas, new contexts.
Young, unemployed people could do worse than to work a job that is below their aim while they send out 500k resumes that will be rejected by AI.
ERJ, that really is how I view that part of the role - not just with this young woman, but with all of the my friends. My job is to encourage them as I am able.
DeleteHonestly, I wish I had the willingness to seek out someone when I had graduated from college and did not know what I was going to do - yes, my school failed me terribly in that aspect, but I also paid it no mind. Since then, the times that people have told me "keep on keeping on" has been very encouraging.
It is funny you mention the "bridge job": this was not something I ever mentioned to any of my management or immediate coworkers at my last position. When I have mentioned it (sparingly) to my layoff colleagues, the response is always "cool" or "that is great". That was a surprise to me - after all, in every case I am at least 20 years their senior and Produce (A)Isle really is an entry level job. I had not really thought about how it must look to others other than "desperate".
Jobs below their aim - This is what I am encouraging them to do as I am able. Although she needed none of my advice, The Dog Whisperer listed herself on a site for dog walking and is prepared (if necessary) to take jobs she knows she can do even if she dislikes them. For the young woman in question, I encouraged her to look at something part time - even tutoring. To your point, I think the search will be a lot longer than any of us anticipate.
After the last Hammerfall and my decision to stop working altogether, I had several such meetings with former co-workers my age who I considered friends and who still worked for the company. I found them to be somewhat awkward and hard to have. It was too easy to just sit there and talk about other people that I knew within the company and what they were up too. I found it hard to just talk about extraneous topics. All three of those friends have now retired in the last two years and we've met in the weeks after their retirement. Without the burden of a company that was between us in a way, the conversation became a lot easier and we didn't dwell much on the company anymore. It was in the past for both of us and thus making us on the same page in life again.
ReplyDeleteEd, for me that is always the challenge for making friendships that transcend the work environment. Too often those relationships are only (and completely) contextualized based on the work environment, and once that environment is gone, there is little enough to talk about, it seems. One thing I have been consciously working on with these relationships is finding touchpoints that are outside of the work environment so we can continue to have things to talk about.
DeleteYour admonition to realize the expanded scope of experience and skill set.... Yes!
ReplyDeleteMy head loves processes. I'm a frustrated IE weenie I guess. I was able to bring a process to a welder that cut his time in half on a project. I had to work with him a few days to see the need. Your "bridge job" is a perfect example of getting outside the box experience to bring to your career OR take your skill set outside your career for wider application. Getting the creativity unleashed is key, too.
I hope it was helpful, STxAR. The young woman in question was incredibly bright and, when I probed a bit, had already done some investigation into biostatistics (because she likes data) - which is a fantastic field currently.
DeleteIt does make me wonder if one of the failings of our educational system is the fact that we train students to think narrowly instead of broadly, in terms of roles instead of skills and subjects.
You and ERJ give my head more thought candy that I can handle some days. More like a brain spank at times. And I love it. Thanks for the poast toasty. ;)
ReplyDeleteERJ is a genius. I am just a guy that blogs and, like a blind squirrel, finds a nut once in a while.
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