Presto Change-O! - career changes

Black Enterprise, June, 1999 by Cassandra Hayes

On average, you will have at leas three careers in your lifetime. With the right preparation, the transitions can be like magic.

I've always thought it absurd that people were expected to make a decision early on about a career and then stick with her. True, some people have clear gals and pursue them throughout their Lives. But others go from experience to experience, not always where it is leading them, but trusting that there is a next step. For these peple, there is no one goal in life.

-- Carol Pomerantz, career counselor

Ahh! How simple it was in grade school when you daydreamed about the various jobs you'd have when you grew up. Perhaps you fantasized about being an astronaut or a nurse, maybe even a painter, lawyer or tram conductor. Sadly, though, you may find that your career expectations have been whittled down to one, and maybe not even the one you really wanted.

Over the years, you got caught up in making that one career happen by going to the right schools and working for the right companies. Now, some 10 or 20 years later, the unpredictable workplace, the encroachment of technology and your own insatiable spirit remind you that change is imminent. You ignore it and put up roadblocks: "I have a family now," "I can't afford to change jobs," "I'm too old." In other words, you settle.

"When you have invested so much time in one career and society says you've made it, there is a fear of failure," says organizational consultant Marti D. Smye, Ph.D. "People crave change, but are afraid of leaving behind the familiar and each day feel more boxed in by life. Change may be scary, but just putting in time or being bored it your career is deadly to the soul."

Many seem to agree. In fact, a 1998 American Management Association survey of more than 4,500 executives found that 71% had held two or more positions in the 1990s. Of those, 39% had held three or more positions. Managers 35 and trader showed the most mobility, with 90% of them having had more than one job (the average number was three).

Let's face it, we'll alt go through at least one career overhaul in our lifetime. Some will go happily while others will be wrangled into submission. Smye, who wrote Is It Too Late to Run Away and Join the Circus?, says the successful career changer must be information-oriented and self-responsible, with good people skills. The important things are your willingness to accept change, the support system you've developed and your focus on making your dream a reality.

In the end, your determination and sacrifices will lead to new levels of satisfaction in this crazy thing called work.

PREPARE FOR CHANGE

Through derring-do, pluck or accident, Stephen James learned these things early on. "I became a 'roads scholar'-- a black guy who grew up in the South Bronx, went to Harvard and got a Ph.D.," he says of the winding road that led him to a professorship at Lehman College, part of the City University of New York. "People think that's a big transition. For me, it was a transformation."

As a child, James found more comfort in the cello, gymnastics and his mother's collection of mail-order books than in the rigors of the classroom. In 1969, when he was 17, he dropped out of high school and became one with the socio-political movement of the day. He sold the Black Panther newspaper along Bronx streets as a community worker for the nationalist organization, often landing on the steps of local college campuses. Lehman College, one of the many colleges that make up the City University of New York, would later play a pivotal in James' life.

In 1971, he traded his Panther black combat boots for the hard hat of a carpenter's trainee. "Construction was the best hiding place for a radical," says James, who had just married. "I had been politically active and had no plans of going back to school." Yet, as much as he tried to hide, "school" found him as construction sites became his classrooms. "When you work with your hands, you get to use your mind," says James, now 46. "There is a lot of opportunity to think and talk." He also became a student of tai chi, the ancient Chinese discipline of meditative movement that helped him to relax, especially during the times to come.

By 1978, construction jobs had diminished and his marriage had ended in divorce. He was a driver for a commuter bus line, working three- hour stints during the morning and evening rush hours. On his second day at work, he drove to his familiar haunt, Lehman Colege, and registered for classes right on the spot. "I was driven to finish what I didn't when I was younger," says James, who attended classes in between his runs.

"The first part of preparing for change is figuring out what burns inside of you and pursuing that goal" notes Marilyn Greist of Career Systems International, a career development consulting firm. Although James had shunned his early schooling, it turned out that he had a passion for education.

Nine years later, James earned his degree in English and applied graduate school, He checked the box on the GRE exam to have his scores sent to universities he was interested in, but never imagined Harvard would respond. Not only had Harvard accepted him, but as well, With a stipend in hand, James was off to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1987 to study English and American literature.