Help my wife choose a career
October 11, 2014 7:04 AM Subscribe
Since leaving university a few years ago with a humanities degree (human geography with Spanish), my wife's mostly worked as a temp in an admin position for the same company. Her plan was to do this while deciding what she really wanted to do; two years later, and she's still no closer to making any decisions but as dissatisfied with her current work as ever...
We'd love to hear about as many Mefite's career experiences as possible to help give my wife some more ideas! If anyone has any experiences with retraining in wildly different fields in their mid-twenties (what and why), careers that don't involve office work, or stories about how you finally figured out what you wanted to, we'd especially love to hear about those.
We'd love to hear about as many Mefite's career experiences as possible to help give my wife some more ideas! If anyone has any experiences with retraining in wildly different fields in their mid-twenties (what and why), careers that don't involve office work, or stories about how you finally figured out what you wanted to, we'd especially love to hear about those.
I'm in my late 20s and currently in nursing school, which is a 180 from what I was doing previously (teaching, random customer service work, and, most recently, office work in a law firm--that started as a temp admin position!) I love it and it definitely is not sitting at a desk.
It is not something I ever imagined myself doing, but my mom (who is a nurse) kept suggesting it to me, and finally I started volunteering in an ER while working at the law firm, and for the first time felt like I could envision myself in a particular working environment for a long time and wanted to work towards being there.
I made the decision to go back to school based in large part on that volunteering experience, and I would recommend that your wife get some kind of first-hand experience of the field she think she might like before re-training. Besides loving the ER, nursing is also very diverse and I am very much a people person who doesn't like to sit behind a desk. It fit my payscale as well.
So, my number one piece of advice would be to get some kind of exposure to the field (via volunteering or whatever avenue) before committing, because in my experience studying a field is often completely different than working in it.
posted by queens86 at 7:58 AM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
It is not something I ever imagined myself doing, but my mom (who is a nurse) kept suggesting it to me, and finally I started volunteering in an ER while working at the law firm, and for the first time felt like I could envision myself in a particular working environment for a long time and wanted to work towards being there.
I made the decision to go back to school based in large part on that volunteering experience, and I would recommend that your wife get some kind of first-hand experience of the field she think she might like before re-training. Besides loving the ER, nursing is also very diverse and I am very much a people person who doesn't like to sit behind a desk. It fit my payscale as well.
So, my number one piece of advice would be to get some kind of exposure to the field (via volunteering or whatever avenue) before committing, because in my experience studying a field is often completely different than working in it.
posted by queens86 at 7:58 AM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
I am old guy and long gone from work, so I can but note this:
I became a college prof, tenured, and enjoyed a nice and long career. However, it was not many years in the field when I began to see how teaching in the humanities was not a career that was going to be easy. More and more part timers, cutting back on tenure etc.
Which then leads to my saying this: do we follow our passion or look for paying work we might finally come to enjoy?
My son graduated with major in history. No future in that unless he went on for PhD and into teaching, right? He is now just about finished with MBA and has a job he has found he enjoys...a nice combo...but each branch of what he is doing helps the other branch: if he leaves his job, he has degree and experience..If he stays, he has better credentials.
Life is tough. Choice are too. But they must be made.
posted by Postroad at 8:04 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
I became a college prof, tenured, and enjoyed a nice and long career. However, it was not many years in the field when I began to see how teaching in the humanities was not a career that was going to be easy. More and more part timers, cutting back on tenure etc.
Which then leads to my saying this: do we follow our passion or look for paying work we might finally come to enjoy?
My son graduated with major in history. No future in that unless he went on for PhD and into teaching, right? He is now just about finished with MBA and has a job he has found he enjoys...a nice combo...but each branch of what he is doing helps the other branch: if he leaves his job, he has degree and experience..If he stays, he has better credentials.
Life is tough. Choice are too. But they must be made.
posted by Postroad at 8:04 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
Her academic background could set her up nicely to move into community development, fair housing, or other similar lines of work. She should take a look at housing and civil rights non-profits and see if any of the jobs there look interesting (nb: many of the jobs will be for lawyers, but it's very possible to make a nice career in those fields without going to law school). The work would largely be office work (though she could look into community education or direct service work which would have her out and about more), but maybe connecting with a larger mission would help her find interest/meaning in her work.
posted by snaw at 8:19 AM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by snaw at 8:19 AM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
After graduating with a master's in psychology, I ended up in eCommerce. I do marketing and analytics.
Someone above suggested coding and I am going to second it. I know at my office, we're always looking for freelancers who can code our emails. Learning to code emails is a good first step to see if she likes coding.
Other skills we generally look for at my office: Analytics skills (ability to distill information and present the important findings to upper management), data skills (ability to handle data bases and pull various reports), web marketing skills (creating various digital ads and targeting groups of customers)
Since your wife knows Spanish, she might be in a good place to work in website content for sites that cater to Spanish speaking populations.
posted by parakeetdog at 8:38 AM on October 11, 2014
Someone above suggested coding and I am going to second it. I know at my office, we're always looking for freelancers who can code our emails. Learning to code emails is a good first step to see if she likes coding.
Other skills we generally look for at my office: Analytics skills (ability to distill information and present the important findings to upper management), data skills (ability to handle data bases and pull various reports), web marketing skills (creating various digital ads and targeting groups of customers)
Since your wife knows Spanish, she might be in a good place to work in website content for sites that cater to Spanish speaking populations.
posted by parakeetdog at 8:38 AM on October 11, 2014
Her skills match up well with many of the realms of urban planning. Although it's necessary to get a masters degree to go far in the field, her degrees would be considered ample academic qualification. She might want to explore Planetizen, an on-line magazine for the profession, to see if it sounds appealing.
posted by carmicha at 8:58 AM on October 11, 2014
posted by carmicha at 8:58 AM on October 11, 2014
May I suggest she take the O*Net Career Interest Profiler Survey? I found this tool to be immensely helpful in helping me rethink my career objectives and plans.
posted by goml at 9:05 AM on October 11, 2014 [9 favorites]
posted by goml at 9:05 AM on October 11, 2014 [9 favorites]
Other than her academic background, without more information about who she is, it's hard to offer good advice. Here are a few observations and suggestions from someone who took a while to figure what he wanted to do:
She should:
1. Make a list of all the things she believes she's good at. Staying organized? Event-planning? Spanish? Put it down. Doesn't matter whether it's a hard ( easily definable) or soft ( social/fuzzier to define) skill, put it on the list as long as she can justify each one.
1a. Conversely, make a list of skills or tasks she either recognizes she's just not good at or knows she does not want to do.
2. IF she had a dream work environment, what would it be like? Try to get detailed about the why. Not in an office (why not? Is it truly being in an office, or is it doing temp work in an office?) What sort of work culture would she like?
The better idea she has about how she works best, what sort of environment and job suits her, the better set she'll be to evaluate prospective careers as to whether they are something she could learn to do, and if they are at least somewhat in line with what she knows about her strengths, and she can live with whatever drawbacks they have.
Then she starts talking to people in those careers. Informational interviewers. "I'm not looking for a job from you, I really want to learn about what it's like doing your job, how you got there... "
posted by canine epigram at 10:02 AM on October 11, 2014
She should:
1. Make a list of all the things she believes she's good at. Staying organized? Event-planning? Spanish? Put it down. Doesn't matter whether it's a hard ( easily definable) or soft ( social/fuzzier to define) skill, put it on the list as long as she can justify each one.
1a. Conversely, make a list of skills or tasks she either recognizes she's just not good at or knows she does not want to do.
2. IF she had a dream work environment, what would it be like? Try to get detailed about the why. Not in an office (why not? Is it truly being in an office, or is it doing temp work in an office?) What sort of work culture would she like?
The better idea she has about how she works best, what sort of environment and job suits her, the better set she'll be to evaluate prospective careers as to whether they are something she could learn to do, and if they are at least somewhat in line with what she knows about her strengths, and she can live with whatever drawbacks they have.
Then she starts talking to people in those careers. Informational interviewers. "I'm not looking for a job from you, I really want to learn about what it's like doing your job, how you got there... "
posted by canine epigram at 10:02 AM on October 11, 2014
It might help if you could say what she's done since leaving school and taking the job to try and figure out what she really wants to do.
As for advice: I've found that if I need to make a big change, but I don't know what, or how, the best thing to do is make smaller changes. The change in position and perspective adds up. So, if she doesn't know what she wants to do, she should just find another job somewhere else. She'll learn something, and might get some ideas.
posted by Good Brain at 3:59 PM on October 11, 2014
As for advice: I've found that if I need to make a big change, but I don't know what, or how, the best thing to do is make smaller changes. The change in position and perspective adds up. So, if she doesn't know what she wants to do, she should just find another job somewhere else. She'll learn something, and might get some ideas.
posted by Good Brain at 3:59 PM on October 11, 2014
I'm one of those - studied something arts/humanities related and am now back in school for engineering. I started my new degree at 27 years old!
And I came from a position similar to your wife's - I graduated from my first degree, worked a few years in jobs that were fine but not career material, and reached a point where I was ready to re-evaluate everything. That started when I was about 24 or 25.
For me, that meant addressing my life-long hatred and fear of mathematics. I've always loved everything tech- and science-related, and had taught myself to program, but had almost flunked out of even remedial math and science classes. Science class was interesting, but required study skills and some frustration tolerance, neither of which I had at the time. And math had been my mortal enemy since 3rd grade.
So at first, when re-evaluating, I just left anything math- or science-related off of the table. I looked primarily at things related to my degree/jobs or non-math-related programming. But I couldn't find anything that seemed deeply interesting, and I wasn't sure why.
Then I read Barbara Sher's book Wishcraft, which though a bit cheesy has great advice in it. There, she asks in several different ways "what you would do if you had all the time and money in the world."
The answer was clear for me (science, tech, engineering), and through some exercises I noticed that it was really just the math thing that was getting in the way. And what I saw after some time is that, ultimately, the problem was not "the math thing" but "how I felt/thought about the math thing."
Long story short, now I do "the math thing" as well as "the science thing" on a daily basis and have grown to really love it. I'm definitely one of the slower ones in terms of calculating, which is a hindrance on timed exams, but the concepts are not a problem and increasingly beautiful as I learn more. My parents still hardly believe that I'm studying engineering!
There are a lot of good suggestions for related careers above (with Spanish for example, a really great skill to have!), but I wanted to contribute my story to show:
1. It's absolutely worth it to take the time to examine all "interesting, but off-the-table" ideas carefully, even if only to discover what makes them appealing. Even the most outlandish ones are worth thinking about!
2. It's possible to overcome some serious obstacles with the right resources and mindset.
The Sher book has a useful structure to help analyze the above two points, including the "resources" thing.
One more thing - I know that I'm very lucky in that my interests correspond with a mainstream career path that is in demand. I'm not sure how I would have dealt with this whole thing if I had decided that, say, being a photographer full-time was the career for me. I think having several plans that are viable is perhaps the best way to deal with something like that. But maybe others have more ideas.
Despite being a pretty long post, I left out a lot of details about my 180 change! So please feel free to Memail me if you have any questions.
By the way, I think it's great that you are so supportive. Good luck to your wife!
posted by Pieprz at 3:18 AM on October 12, 2014
And I came from a position similar to your wife's - I graduated from my first degree, worked a few years in jobs that were fine but not career material, and reached a point where I was ready to re-evaluate everything. That started when I was about 24 or 25.
For me, that meant addressing my life-long hatred and fear of mathematics. I've always loved everything tech- and science-related, and had taught myself to program, but had almost flunked out of even remedial math and science classes. Science class was interesting, but required study skills and some frustration tolerance, neither of which I had at the time. And math had been my mortal enemy since 3rd grade.
So at first, when re-evaluating, I just left anything math- or science-related off of the table. I looked primarily at things related to my degree/jobs or non-math-related programming. But I couldn't find anything that seemed deeply interesting, and I wasn't sure why.
Then I read Barbara Sher's book Wishcraft, which though a bit cheesy has great advice in it. There, she asks in several different ways "what you would do if you had all the time and money in the world."
The answer was clear for me (science, tech, engineering), and through some exercises I noticed that it was really just the math thing that was getting in the way. And what I saw after some time is that, ultimately, the problem was not "the math thing" but "how I felt/thought about the math thing."
Long story short, now I do "the math thing" as well as "the science thing" on a daily basis and have grown to really love it. I'm definitely one of the slower ones in terms of calculating, which is a hindrance on timed exams, but the concepts are not a problem and increasingly beautiful as I learn more. My parents still hardly believe that I'm studying engineering!
There are a lot of good suggestions for related careers above (with Spanish for example, a really great skill to have!), but I wanted to contribute my story to show:
1. It's absolutely worth it to take the time to examine all "interesting, but off-the-table" ideas carefully, even if only to discover what makes them appealing. Even the most outlandish ones are worth thinking about!
2. It's possible to overcome some serious obstacles with the right resources and mindset.
The Sher book has a useful structure to help analyze the above two points, including the "resources" thing.
One more thing - I know that I'm very lucky in that my interests correspond with a mainstream career path that is in demand. I'm not sure how I would have dealt with this whole thing if I had decided that, say, being a photographer full-time was the career for me. I think having several plans that are viable is perhaps the best way to deal with something like that. But maybe others have more ideas.
Despite being a pretty long post, I left out a lot of details about my 180 change! So please feel free to Memail me if you have any questions.
By the way, I think it's great that you are so supportive. Good luck to your wife!
posted by Pieprz at 3:18 AM on October 12, 2014
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I don't think this sort of thing in mid-20s is even enough to make people blink, anymore. Nobody is going to question the fact that she finds being an office temp unfulfilling.
Just in case it comes up, the one thing she absolutely should not do is go to law school, and I am happy to elaborate why privately if you like, but mostly, just don't.
posted by Sequence at 7:35 AM on October 11, 2014