A good friend of mine—who has a successful career in Human Resources with a Fortune 50 company on the east coast—just sent me this note.
Have been giving serious thought to a change in direction in about 18 months. Absolutely nothing to do with HR. Maybe writing. Maybe something else.
Wow. My friend is known for transforming HR departments and working with C-level executives to attain higher levels of performance. He is amazing. He has a killer, killer resume. I am jealous of his skills. Seriously. He could go anywhere, but after twenty years in the human capital industry, he is exhausted. I don’t blame him. A career in writing, especially one where you hang out with your animals all day and think about concepts bigger than yourself, is much more fun.
Gavin Davis wrote an article called How to Make a Career Change on Recruitingblogs. He created a five-point plan on how to make a big change in your life, and it’s a very tactical way to look at the steps needed to adjust your career profession.
Gavin’s article is worth reading, but I think we mistake a desire to change our careers with a desire to find deeper meaning in our lives. Many of us hate our careers for legitimate reasons, but what we hate more is the lack of balance, the demands on our personal time, and the unequal way we’re compensated for work. I’m not a hippie, but if you spend your day focused on a job & a career at the expense of other important things in life, you will go postal. So what if we kept our day jobs—or some semblance of employment—and focused on the things that matter most in life?
- You can be a writer and a Human Capital leader. I know this because I blogged for three years before I left my job and started my career as a freelance writer.
- You can be an artist and a computer programmer.
- You can work as an accountant during the day and play in a band in the evenings.
You can work for a Fortune 50 company and set some boundaries. You can have personal balance. You can say no more often than you perceive.
But if you are truly intent on changing your life and you’re not a Human Capital leader who makes plenty of money, I have important advice for you: stop buying stuff. Go to work and bank your cash. While you’re at work, practice your new career on the sly. When you leave your job, prepare yourself for an exhausting ride on the change curve.
Changing careers can be done, but I speak from experience when I say that it’s not for the faint of heart.
{ 41 comments }
Kind of sounds like male mid life crisis but then everyone is entitled to live their dreams, crash their success, sit under a tree in the lotus position and meditate. You get to make anything you want on your pottery wheel. I recently interviewed Paula Caligiuri, she has a great book precisely on this topic. If your friend, or anyone considering recareering would like solid strategic guidance it’s “Get A Life Not A Job”. I don’t want to self promote really but if anyone wants to read the review it is over at my place – just search the author’s name on my site.
@karla love Paula. Before we go down this route, I will tell you that I said the same thing about my career. Was it a male midlife crisis? No, I was 30 and female. I just want to be careful on all gender stereotpyes.
Beyond Paula, Gary Vee also champions the philosophy I mention in the final paragraph. He says, “Stop watching Lost.” You can watch TV imho —
but the consumerism will kill any chance you have @ changing your career.
Laurie — I think you hit the nail on the head. Do we truly want career change or do we want to find deeper meaning and balance in our lives? I don’t thinkit is a mid-life crisis, male or female anything… just an intrinsic desire to have what you DO match and balance who you ARE and want to be. And really, who wants to spend decades as the person continually harassing management about the financial justifications for replacing headcount, the value of maintaining healthy benefit plans, following through with the b.s. promises they make to their employees, and, everyone’s all time favorite — being the “face of the company” communicating reductions, wage freezes, and why that great plan that gave employees who worked Saturday a day off is no longer being practiced? I apologize for the run-on sentence. But I just woke up in budget and benefit renewal season.
@Sarah that’s an especially awesome run-on sentence. For the record, it sounds like you are in the midst of some shit at work. Hang in there because your life experiences become awesome comments on this blog!
Laurie, funny you posted a pic of Jack Kerouak. If your friend is at all inspired by him, have your friend check into this:
http://kerouacproject.org
@Chris Keroauc is my hero (sorta) and I especially admire his alcoholism (kidding) and his cats (serious). All great writers have a ton of cats and drink themselves to death. Or commit suicide. Or go crazy. Hm. Maybe I should stop. Love the link, though!
Read often but have never posted a comment. Oh the pressure. When I saw this title come up on my RSS feed, I was immediately freaked out by the timing of it. Today, I have a conversation set up with a trusted recruiter at my company to help me make a career change from HR/Training to working on a technology platform (same company). This move would take me from a flexible, 8-4:45, work/life obsessed team to one that can work 12 hour days and sometimes weekends. While I have a 22 month old and a husband that is helpless at housework, I know that I need to do this for the well-being of my FUTURE life (there is absolutely no career progression or value add of my current team). It’s unfortunate, but I believe that flexibility needs to be earned, so it’s my hope that when she’s older and I want to go to her T-ball game, I’ll have earned that flexibility and will then be able to focus on the work-life balance. (And on writing that book that I’ve always wanted to write, but that’s neither here nor there right now.) It’s my hope that I’m making the right decision at 27. How do I know? I guess I won’t until I do it. I’ll need to grow where I’m planted and hope for the best.
@Jessica WHOA! Thank you for commenting and good luck. Wow, there is no right or wrong answer (because I’m a fan of the Karate Kid). You’ll figure this out, and if it sucks, you have more data that will help shape future decisions. Good luck and keep us posted!
your friend sounds very committed for change in his life! i think he feels he has achieved everything in the human capital and he wants to start a fresh in a relaxing way, making his own rules no, sounds exciting. am very interested to know how you can change the C-level employees to A- level employees. Laurie can you you send me articles on that, such comments are very good for us armatures in the industry glad not C-level employee!
@janet I meant c-suite, not c-level. Sorry.
You could just insert myname in most of this article.
@Jeff Funny how I collect friends, huh? There’s a running theme.
Reinvention is possible, if you have proper motivation, but you have to see the handwriting telling you it is time to move on. My biggest career motivator was attending a retirement dinner at a tire plant in Akron. One of the many “lifers” in my department was leaving. So I went with my wife of a few weeks and was treated by one party goer to pictures of his very cute young daughter. His young daughter was 7 years older than my spouse. It took no time at all to decide that the last thing I EVER wanted to do was retire as a lifer, especially from that company. I took every single class I could (Design of Experiments/Statistics), an off-site course in Finite Element Analysis, attended in-house seminars. I worked w/ the CAD group (before 1980!). I learned to write programs in BASIC and Fortran for both the statistics classes and FEA. I used the Design of Experiments class knowledge for a few QA studies. And I wrote great reports. So when production in the plant shut down, I got a job writing for a magazine. On the magazine (in the engineering trade press) I continued to learn. I also saw the absolute transience of various engineering disciplines. Moore’s Law is a career killer if you choose wrong. On the magazine, I also worked with some the best and brightest marketeers on the planet as low cost-CAD and analysis software on PCs became popular. Other career stops include several analysis software companies, a compiler developer and CAD software. I never stopped writing and now do manufacturing (my first career stop) CAD, FEA, website (content, navigation, graphics — site traffic is rising and will serve up over 1.5E6 pages this year), sales support, and whatever. Engineering (or any other job) depends on how much you are willing to learn. You also have to learn to sell both yourself and your ideas. Even a pure nerd has to convince his/her boss that this is a great project! And by the way, it really helps when your boss knows why you are doing something, so you should add good communications to the list. So yes, career change is possible, if you never stop building your skill set.
@HHSpouse Whoa, great comment and great story. I wonder if part of what makes you different is that you have a vision and optimism that others don’t have… where does that come from?
L,
Your right about the balance and deeper meaning of life (not work)…moonlight doing stuff that recharges your batteries (i’ll keep it short today)!
M
@Mark I love yorur comments regardless of length.
You can be an artist and a computer programmer.
You can, indeed. My experience, however, is that one vocation, by necessity, must take precedence over the other. An artist who desires to make his or her art the primary vocation must eventually let go of the other to fully mature as an artist.
I have spent 19 years as a mental health therapist and done my artwork in spare time. That 19 years in another vocation gave me good research about the human condition, which ultimately feeds and inspires my artwork. It also paid the bills somewhat, but was never a very lucrative career, honestly. It consumed me, though, and the work demands never really were justified by the menial compensation.
I am now tired of it and changing careers.
Changing careers can be done, but I speak from experience when I say that it’s not for the faint of heart.
No truer statement has ever been said in this space, and you speak a lot of truths, Laurie.
I hear this a lot: “I wish I was an artist.” “I wish I could paint like that.” “I wish I could give up my day job and do this.”
No you don’t.
Everyone is enamored by the mystique of the artist. Or the writer, musician, actor, etc. Everyone desires to have creative talent and the wherewithal to do something with it. But most people do not have the tenacity and drive to make the kind of sacrifices it takes to do it full time.
Not only do you have to struggle with the creative dilemmas that plague you as you develop your art, you also have to do all the same grueling things that everyone else who starts a new business must do. Artists are not typically adept at doing business tasks, nor do we find them at all satisfying, so it is ten times more grueling and time consuming than it is for more business minded people.
My life is full of painting, writing and other creative tasks. It is also full of social media marketing, researching business topics, trying to find ways to balance a meager budget, uploading images to print-on-demand sites and spending hours labeling them properly for SEO purposes, packaging artwork to be mailed to customers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I do not wear fancy clothes or drive a fancy car. I am struggling to keep my truck on the road. I do not go on fancy vacations and I spend my weekends painting when everyone else is out with family and friends.
Why do I do it? That is the mystique of the artist. I just do. At this point in my life, I find nothing else worth doing.
If you are like that, go ahead and change careers and do that art that you always wanted to do. If not, stick with that job, save for a great retirement, and wait to do your art then.
@BZ Tat Thank you for this comment. Thank you, especially, for that last sentence. So true.
I can soooo relate. It gets more and more difficult to achieve balance with non-work activities when work requires a lot of energy and all you really can do is crash in front of the TV at the end of the day. When you don’t have kids, you really have to force yourself to leave the house and sit in traffic again to find that balance, and that’s not a terribly appealing option after work when I’ve been awake since 5 am.
I honestly don’t know what the answer is to the balance quandary. Certainly, many of us lose our work-life balance due to the lack of connectedness to anything but work and our co-workers, but given how much the workplace has changed in the past few years, I’m not sure how to mitigate that.
@H Aria There’s a whole work/life balance industry waiting for you to write that book.
Love the article and the thoughts!
I typically end my military career transition presentations with a dharma slide:
Know what you love, and do well
Know what you love and don’t do well
Know what you hate, and do well
Know what you hate and don’t do well
Understanding each key aspect will help settle some of the frustrations that we feel such as I do this thing really well, is that who I am? Yes, no, maybe.
Finding deeper meaning might mean doing more. I expanded into developing programs marketing local food sources in my area. Am I more busy? Sure I am, but more fulfilled and the energy, passion and new things that I learn I bring back to my day job.
Totally agree with the lowering expenses and stop watching TV. Big influencers in how we feel about ourselves through external rather than internal references.
Finally I think life crises are good no matter when they happen. It is always good to shake things up and look at things a different way even if it means doing a lotus position while standing on your head.
@Kathleen Awesome comment — especially the dharma slide. Awesome and hippie-ish but totally appropriate and relevant.
“…but what we hate more is the lack of balance, the demands on our personal time, and the unequal way we’re compensated for work. ”
What really makes these items sting is the amount of work time wasted on politics, stupidity and the reinvention of the wheel.
@salescomp Word. The politics kill me. Unless you’re in a battle to cure cancer and the forces of the world are against you for some explained reason, STFU and get back to work.
I left HR to teach (well mostly left, I did some consulting on the side). I gave up on my career change after 2 years. I loved teaching but I realized I loved paying my mortgage more. I remember clearly the night I made up my mind. I was broke and had been attempting to organize my finances… I looked at the teacher’s union pay schedule, and it really hit me – even after finishing my graduate degree, doing several years of post grad and putting in 20 years with the county, I would make less than I made in my 20′s doing HR. 3 weeks later I started a job with a big 5 consulting firm and set about rebuilding my career.
I don’t regret my time as a teacher. It helped me refocus my priorities. It made me a better HR pro by sharpening my training skills and building my patience. It also helped prepare me for being a parent.
Most of the time I honestly enjoy HR, it can be frustrating as hell. But it has its own rewards. Would I like to be a world famous novelist, sure who wouldn’t… But I write when I can. And when I get the itch to teach, I train and come up with fun projects to do with my kids.
@Corey Here’s what I believe to be true: you are probably a great teacher and a respected leader in your company. I know you are an amazing parent. Sounds like you made the smart call, buddy!
So far in my life, I’ve been trained and worked (all in chronological order) as a licensed Pest Control Technician, Pershing Missal Crewmember, 101st Airborne Cannon Crewmember, Telemarketer, licensed Private Investigator, Collector, Delivery Truck Driver, Graphic Designer, Animation Designer, Production Artist, Art Director, Production Designer, Set Designer, Prop Master, Production Assistant, Mural Designer and Painter, Faux Finish painter, licensed Fire & Casualty Insurance salesman, Abstract Painter/Fine Artist, IT recruiter/Account Manager.
I have done everything I’ve wanted to do artistically, spiritually, motivationally, monetarily—no stone unturned. And am currently pursuing video fine art production.
You gotta follow your heart, sister.
@MattyMat My heart says kitty momma. My wallet says HR coach/consultant/writer/speaker/make mo’ money.
I think that the greatest disservice that we do to ourselves is that we focus on accomplishments. Accomplishments, accomplishments, accomplishments – gotta have them on resumes, we ask for them during interviews, we receive “raises” as a result of them, and according the “Housewives of…” series, our lives are graded on what we achieve, collect, and consume.
Glen’s article is okay…but it’s no different than “What Color is Your Friggin’ Parachute” is to job search. What’s missing is an introspection and frank discussion of one’s legacy.
Legacy is the key to any major life change [trust me, there is a connection here to career change]…
Asking “How do you want to be remembered?” requires that you regularly look at your legacy. More often than not, legacy is veiled because it is so dang hard to pull yourself away from being focused on objective accomplishments. In the context of work, in addition to remembering your accomplishments, try and identify what your legacy would be if your left. Look at your previous positions: While you might have reduced DSO from 60 days to 52 days, what happened after you left? Did the processes, programs, initiatives, etc. that you created and implemented continue to reduce DSO? Did the people you coached as part of your leadership responsibilities go one and achieve greater successes? How do these people remember you? What do they say about you?
But we don’t do this because day to day, we focus on getting things done. It’s all about the accomplishment.
Yet I can guarantee you that somewhere inside you, is that one thing you would really like to do. It might not be a job but it’s the one thing that brings a gleam to your eyes. It has nothing to do with work-life balance or finances but it has everything to do with internal/external balance. In other words, it might not require a career change; you might be content with your job if you find fulfillment in other parts of your life.
Mine is being a lifeguard at Jones Beach; if you’ve been there you know how chaotic it can be and you’ve undoubtedly seen the lifeguards rescue people on the brink of dying. I’ve made thousands of rescues since 1977 and while I only do it on the weekends now during the summer, I look at my legacy has having rescued people who themselves went on to accomplish great things in their lives. While I might be guilty of massaging my ego, when people come up to me years later and ask, “Remember the day you pulled me out of the ocean?”, my response is ego-less. It’s pure joy when I ask them to tell me about their lives…
I truly enjoy recruiting but my life will never be judged by recruiting nor will I be eternally happy having simply been a recruiter.
Before you can manage your career, you need to manage and feed your soul. Without this, no career change will make you happy.
@Steve Wow, thank you, what a great comment that is full of such rich insights. The internal/external balance really resonates with me. That’s so well said.
Hi Laurie,
If there’s one thing my research and life experience has shown me, it’s that the so-called “midlife crisis” is not an all-male phenomena, it doesn’t necessarily happen in midlife, never happens to some people (lucky them, I think), and can happen to the same person more than once. Few of the stereotypes seems to be true, either.
BZTAT has some good advice. I’m a tech writer that writes some columns on the side for an aviation human factors company. Guess what, folks? Following your muse is hard work. Anyone that thinks good writing isn’t hard work hasn’t done any. As one person (can’t remember who) said about creative writing, “Just sit down in front of your typewriter and open a vein.”
Reinventing one’s self? I used to be an airline supervisor (20+ years). Failing health and injuries forced me into airline technical writing (via a stint at college), which led me into IT technical writing when the airline business imploded. So yes, I’ve reinvented myself a few times. It’s truly not for the faint-hearted.
SalesComp also has a point, but I’ve found that a certain amount of stupidity, pointless meetings and wasted time seems to be built into humanity. Be glad you’re one of the people that realizes how wasted that time truly is – many of your peers mistake that for work. Keep your sense of humor about you about that.
I’ve also found volunteering for something that I really, passionately believe in helps me keep my spirits up. I’m a volunteer for two different Sheltie Rescues in my area and was a founding Director of a third that I no longer work with. (My primary role was to use my skills to get their 501(c)(3) application written and approved.)
Will I be remembered? What will I be remembered for? Damned if I know. That’s up to my family and posterity. I’d LIKE to be remembered for my work in Sheltie Rescue.
Your friend may just need a long break to recharge. He may need to change careers. It sounds as if he has the luxury of time and funds to experiment. Most people don’t and have to make sure they follow the right muse.
@Question Wow, this is a really great comment. Thank you for your thoughts and I love the work you do with Shelties. This is a good example of how to do a transition with grace, with purpose, and with meaning. xo
Was it yesterday you posted about the difference between a “job” and a “career”? And you said there is nothing wrong with having a job if only for the sake of paying the bills? EXACTLY. Fulfillment does not have to come from your 9-5 self. Get out there and DO something. Take up a sport or join a social club. Become part of something bigger than you and your job.
As for people who want to change their careers to become writers, start writing first and making money with it before leaving your real source of sustainable income. Writing can be done at night when you come home or on the weekends. If you’re not writing now, what makes you think having the house empty and the TV playing back to back talk shows is going to inspire you anymore than what you have now???
@Q Whoa, you are awesome to link my themes from day-to-day. Thank you, and yes, that’s exactly what I said. I like the idea of doing something that focuses your interests elsewhere. Something beyond the normal corporate distractions of drinking, womanizing, and general gossiping.
I think that’s really wonderful. He’s been successful in HR for 20 years, and his success has probably provided him the opportunity try something new. The thing you are great at, is not always what you love. Even if you do love something, after doing it for 20 years, it may become old.
I like what Sarah said: “just an intrinsic desire to have what you DO match and balance who you ARE and want to be.”
Best wishes to your friend!
@Ginger That’s an optimistic take. That’s why I appreciate your comments, actually. Thank you!
I’m wondering if this is just a symptom of burn out that many of us in HR are feeling at the moment. From day to day, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be sitting “at the table” , ordering said table, decorating this invisible table, or conmforting the table when it is having a bad day. ( All the yucky cliche HR things that we loathe but unfortunatley are still tied to HR where I am) Right now I have a job, plain and simple.I hope it lasts, but if not, it might just be what I need to push myself out of my comfort zone and go after my dream job. Just how much do professional shoe shoppers make these days?
Seriously tho, isn’t it interesting that what often we seek is something that is creative. Says something about the corporate world if you ask me….
@Carol That’s insightful about HR and definitely applies in my case. Creativity doesn’t have much of a role in the corporate landscape, though.
I just left recruiting after 12 years (and this is career #2 for me, I was in Mental Health for 6 years before this ) I did well: good $, respect, fun, intellectual challenge, worked with & for amazing people/companies.
That said, I also worked w/idiots in power, wasted time managing up to such mediocre but ass kissing types. And oh yes, I also had to deal with classless, mean spirited and frankly, toxic candidates and clients.
Folks have said “Are you nuts?” or “good for you!” and also shared much wisdom and learning. Honestly, when the thrill is GONE acknolege it, plan ahead & get OUT. It’s ok. Take time off. Live of off savings. Figure out what it will take to get a new career. So many people get stuck or comfortable and then suddenly they are 50 years old and have regrets…or die of a heart attack. Yes it takes courage to deal with change but frankly, these days, doesn’t it take courage to walk out of your house in the am? We live in a world where too many people forget that they are people and not drones and that work does not have to be can unsatisfying, routine, boring or toxic.
YEs, your friend might have to plan for a bit and make big changes, depending on what he wants to do. I (we) have: the husband and I rented the condo in the city. packed our crap and moved to Montana. THis cut expenses by about 50% -can’t wear Jimmy Choo shoes to ride horses!) Yes, I am living on savings to figure out what is next and that is different (and sometimes scary as hell.) And yes it has been an adjustment that we can’t eat out all the time…but I can make a great meal for my husband and not have to get on email right after to deal w/ work. I get to take my dog for walks any time of the day. My cats like me again. I don’t grind my teeth anymore. I have started keeping a journal again because I have time. I can stay up all night writing, reading or messing around on the internet. It’s been bliss to not deal with desperate people who are over-scheduled, under-fed and miserable. I realize that I am lucky that I have no debt , no kids & a husband who is game to do this with me…But where there is a will, there is a way. I don’t know what the future holds but I know I will be fine and will figure it out. I am 39 years old and have been in the workforce for 20+ years..I found this profession so… I am guessing I will figure out the next gig.
My advice to your friend is, JUST DO IT! Life is short. Follow your bliss. Do something that once again excites you. Make it your project to figure out how to get out! Don’t let this chance pass you by….get out of HR while you have the cojones to do it!
@Rosanna Thanks! Wow, what a story. Good luck!
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