Career choices

You know I’ve read many articles and books about always moving forward, not falling into your comfort zone, being focused and staying goal oriented. But I’ve never actually had someone tell me, face to face, to do, just that.

Had an unexpected meeting with my ex-client turned ex-boss at an event. I have utmost respect for her since she’s the smartest and most insanely capable person I know at her age. It’s been 6 months since she left, and seeing her again today, she looked much, happier. Even while she was my boss, we never actually talked at great length until today.

She shared her experiences at her new company, how things are better or worst at her new place, how she goes about doing her job and affecting change. Just listening to her I learn new things about humility, discipline and being assertive. The importance of getting your point across with assertiveness and congruency, is a skill I’ve yet to even start to grasp.

It was when we got to the topic of career choices and job stability, that got me, this time, really thinking if where I am right now is the right place for me to be in, for what I want to achieve career wise. Man, what were my career goals in the first place?! I’ve completely lost track of everything since I’ve started to sink into my little comfort zone.

She related that after finishing your education it’s actually good to start off working in small to medium size companies or agencies, where things are small enough to be moving fast without going through layers of corporate politics, hectic enough for you to get your hands dirty in everything, and stressful enough to build work discipline and attitude. After you’ve gone through a few years of ‘grilling’, you’ll probably be older, wiser and more well informed of the paths you have, or do not have, in your industry of choice.

If you feel you’re in the wrong industry, now is the time to get out. If you feel it’s the right industry for you, then moving up to a way larger corporation would be the next step as it affords greater job stability, proper processes and an actual career path, compared to the mostly ‘dead-end’ positions in small companies.

The transition from small to large corporations will most likely be a breeze for those who’ve gone through the fundamental problems and shit storms that small companies face. Multi-tasking, lack of processes, lack of proper structure, ridiculous deadlines and maybe even a lack of direction.

This is not the general rule, but I feel people that join large corporations without going through the hardships of small companies tend to be more complacent, and after a few years they become content with the system, politics start to develop, and we all know a particular employee that worked at the same company for 20 years, always hanging around the pantry gossiping and complaining about the most irrelevant and petty issues.

Large corporations offer more specialized job scopes (vs multitasking), with processes, structures and career paths all created for you. All you need to do is to get to know the system, do your job and climb the corporate ladder. The good thing about making the move into key companies in their respective industries is that after a while you’ll start to know the industry inside out. Competitors, people, industry news and happenings. Even if you’re not satisfied with your current job, it’s easier to move about within the industry.

Take for example designers and journalists. There are only so few agencies and publishing houses in Singapore. The best designers and journalists will be head-hunted by people in the know among these few companies, and high level position moves and transfers within the industry will be easier since everyone knows everyone. It will be tougher for someone in unrelated industries to jump around and still expect the same compensation.

Then there’s the issue of what you want to do within a particular industry. If you’re a graphic designer looking to step into the advertising industry, staying as an in-house designer in a mining company won’t get you anywhere. You can be known as the designer that specializes in mining industries, but that’s about as far as it goes. Don’t climb all the way up a ladder, only to realize later that you’ve set it up on the wrong wall.

To summarize, find what you want to do in life, find a job that lets you do that, then find an industry that will let you go far doing what you want to do. This is going into my ‘List of things that I wished I knew when I was 16.‘

Now knowing all this, I’m once again at a crossroad, and have no idea what to do. She mentioned if I wanted to take the first step into the industry of choice, I had better do it now while I was still young, and with quite the solid portfolio, before I start to forget everything. For my case it will most probably mean taking a pay cut and starting from scratch. But the longer I wait, the tougher it’ll become. Age, commitments, family, everything will start to weigh down on decisions as the years start to pile up.

If I were to take a piece of paper, split it in half and measure the pros and cons of the 2 roads against how effective it’ll be in my career objectives, they’ll most probably turn out to have the same priority. It’s one of those instances where both choices look equally promising in the short term, and you can’t really see far enough pass circumstances to gauge long term effectiveness.

Tonight was a huge unexpected wake up call. But it was worth every minute.