life@work

How to Get the Coolest Jobs

Alexandra Levit, author, career consultant and blogger, has written a cool book about cool jobs.

Even if you're already established in a career, aren't you curious about what it takes to be an art curator, image consultant, travel journalist or computational linguist? Don't you want to know what a computational  linguist is in the first place?

In How'd You Score That Gig? A Guide to the Coolest Jobs and How to Get Them, Alexandra describes what it takes to break into 60 different careers.

First you take a quiz (I love quizzes!) to figure out your "passion profile":

• The Adventurer
• The Creator
• The Data Head
• The Entrepreneur
• The Investigator
• The Networker
• The Nurturer

Each profile features 8-10 jobs. Alexandra describes what each job entails, how to enter the field, how competitive the industry is, and in some cases, how much it pays.

What I especially appreciate about this book are its focus on jobs you don't normally read about in career reference books and its up-to-date links to resources. I also enjoy the conversational writing style and the interviews with people who are currently doing the jobs.

Alexandra has obviously thoroughly researched each of these careers and doesn't hesitate to share the possible downsides. I like this too.

Whether you're just graduating from college or are considering a career change after a number of years on the job, this book is a helpful guide that you'll actually enjoy reading!

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

Changing to Your Dream Job? Be Patient.

Photo by caspermoller

Career change takes a while.

That's my big declaration today. If you can dream it, do it...but please be patient.

I don't mean to be a bummer and rain on your parade. I really want you to go for that career change. I just want you to keep these things in mind (inspired by this piece on CareerJournal.com):

1. Every dream has its gestation period.

Whether your career change dream has more in common with a chipmunk (31 days to get a new one of these) or an elephant (it's 645 days before this one shows up), you will experience a delay between the moment you want a new career and the moment you get one.

2. Build on your existing skills and network of contacts.

No need to throw out the baby with the bath water. Leverage what you've done and who you know.

3. Plan in phases.

Keep your day job for as long as you can while you work on your career change on the side. This might mean volunteering on a nonprofit board, or taking on a couple of photography clients on the weekends, or studying for the GRE.

4. Fully explore what you're getting into.

We all have our ideas of what other people do, but how accurate are they? Is advertising really a glamorous industry? Is writing children's books really all about inspiring kids? Can you make a living wage as a horticulturist?

Talk to people who are doing what you want to do and grill them, ever so nicely. Find out the dark side of what you are dreaming about. Can you handle the dark side? Is it smaller than the sexy aspects?

5. Find ways to keep your dream alive during the gestation period.

You're going to feel impatient, and you're going to feel tempted to quit. Who or what will keep you going? Plan who you'll call when you're feeling discouraged. Create a visual reminder of your dream and put it on your wall (and look at it).

Changing careers is more like a marathon than a sprint, so it's wise to plan accordingly. This means pacing yourself, keeping your energy up, and understanding the peaks and valleys that are a natural part of the journey.

If you have completed a career change, I would love to hear your story in the comments!

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

How Advanced Degrees Affect Women's Lives

Photo by sndrspk

I am one of the few women in my now 10-year-old mom/baby group with "just" a B.A. degree.

Several have at least a Master's degree, and there are a couple of PhD's. Many of my friend's spouses or partners have advanced degrees, too.

I read this article from CareerJournal.com with interest, about a large new study conducted by a law professor at Washington & Lee that's coming out next week on women and advanced degrees.

Among the findings is the fact that women with M.B.A.'s are more likely to divorce than men. (Apparently the men to whom they are married don't also have an M.B.A., otherwise their divorce rate would be just as high, right?)

In fact, women with law and medical degrees are more likely to divorce than their male counterparts as well.

Forget divorce, the study also states that women with advanced degrees are abstaining from marriage in the first place at a much higher rate than are men.

And here is where the rubber meets the road - the more women earn, the more likely they are to be single without children.

This rings true looking at my own world of contacts.

The good news is that my highly educated friends are all still married. Yet, for the most part, they have decided to be at home full-time with their families. In these cases there is a high-earning spouse, with a demanding career that takes up a whole bunch of time.

One of my friends told me once that she thought a family in the U.S. could support only one "high powered" career. Personally, I agree.

We all have our ideas of what a family needs in terms of time devoted to family life and attending to children, and two people working 80 hours a week is really pushing it. (I'm not a fan of any one person spending 80 hours a week at work as a matter of fact!)

So what to make of all this? It's more evidence that career planning and navigation is tricky work when you've got a partner and kids. That old slogan about "having it all" - well, it's time to decide what you really, really want, because you may not be getting it all, not all at one time anyway.

I'm all about optimism and "making it work", a la Tim Gunn. I've got a can-do attitude and lot of creativity. Yet navigating career and family life often involves compromises and feelings of ambivalence. It's important for me to acknowledge that in my own life, and it's important to many of my clients to do that themselves as well.

If this were a blog about social and political activism, I'd have a call for action right about now. But instead I'll have a call for reflection.

• Do you fit the statistics of this new study?
• How has an advanced degree (or lack thereof) affected your happiness in relationships or your decision to become or not become a parent?
• And does your advanced degree translate into high compensation? (For many folks, it does not, sometimes to their surprise.)
  
• What compromises have you made or do you make regarding career and family?
• Are these compromises OK with you?

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com