Reinvent yourself! - self-improvement strategies to enhance career advancement - Cover Story

Black Enterprise, Feb, 1994 by Caroline V. Clarke

"GRIM" BARELY BEGINS TO DESCRIBE the workplace news of the past year. As layoff and unemployment numbers mounted, fear stalked the corridors of corporate America. No one was immune--not even blue-chip CEO's. Once secure middle managers scrambled to prove their viability. Legions of loyal forty something careerists faced the jolt of early retirement. And eager college grads sent out their resumes, resigned to the fact that their budding careers would not get the same enthusiastic jump-start as their parents', or even their older siblings'.

If, like those new graduates, you've come to believe that many of the old rules and rites of career-building no longer apply, you're right. But, if you've decided that means you can't have the dynamic, fruitful career of your dreams, think again. There is a way to rise above the fray. But it involves revamping your outdated notions of a successful career and how to build one; reshaping your goals and expectations; and embracing the idea that the path to success is neither straight, narrow, smooth nor clearly mapped out. Today, you must take an entrepreneurial approach to your professional future and be willing--and prepared--to reinvent yourself again and again.

What does that mean exactly? It means taking a hard look at yourself and breaking with outmoded notions of who you are and what you're capable of, says Melvin T. Williams Jr., president of Delphi Consulting Group Inc. in White Plains, N.Y. "Just because you went to school to be an accountant doesn't mean accounting is all that you can, should or will be allowed to do" in coming years, he explains, adding that "skills are far more transferable than most people think." To make those changes, you'll have to "get out of your box and into situations that are potentially opportune." That may mean looking for employment in places you might never have considered before.

The days of making a career in the same field, company or industry, choosing a mentor, finding the ladder and climbing step by step up to the executive penthouse--are gone. The new reality is that to keep moving forward you may need to drop back a few steps, accept lower pay, work on contract, start your own business or return to school.

In the course of all this, expect to change careers--not just jobs--several times. Vocational guru Caroline Bird, who is based in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., says that 10 years ago a person could expect to go through three to five career switches. Today, expect four to six, she says, including full- and part-time stints at entrepreneurial ventures. Flexible career paths offer multiple chances to hone new skills and tackle a variety of assignments and responsibilities--opportunities that are rare if you've spent the bulk of a lifetime working in one field for only one, or even a handful of, employers.

As far back as the late 1970s, Bird was one of the first to declare that the one-career life span was more fairy tale than fact. "The idea that college grads will work for one company for 30 years and retire with full pension and benefits and a gold watch was always a mirage," Bird says, adding dryly, "especially for black people."

The break up of large and once-stable organizations is proving her accuracy. What that means for careerists, Bird insists, is that "if you have a skill, you need the wherewithal to take that skill from a dying industry to a growing one, from a big-but-rocky company to a small, stable one. If you don't have a skill, perhaps you have a hobby that you can parlay into a new career. If you have neither, you need to get some training--fast."

A Twisting Path To The Perfect Post

Christina Dunbar, 33, mastered the reinvention game early. It shows in her resume, which winds through her accomplishments in wildly divergent industries (banking and baked goods), a mid-career hike through Harvard Business School and a two-year pursuit of an ambitious entrepreneurial endeavor. That led to her current role as senior vice president for New Rochelle, N.Y.-based The Levmark Corporation, a black-owned investment firm whose combined holdings grossed between $30 million and $40 million last year.

Throughout her various incarnations, Dunbar has held firmly to two constants. She has always kept an ear to the ground for interesting opportunities and people who could help her snag them--something experts insist is important now more than ever before. And, she never lost sight of the somewhat sketchy goal she had as a senior at Wellesley College: to find a job "working with interesting and dynamic people that involved travel." But the economics and political science major knew even then that she "could never buy into the big corporate lifestyle" that lured so many of her peers at the prestigious all-women's school.

Career experts such as Williams exhort professionals to continually assess their goals and desires as they move along. Dunbar is naturally analytical and introspective, so she constantly evaluates how her professional and personal objectives are being met. She is also a risk-taker, something experts agree you have to be to thrive in today's job market. A tip from Williams: If you begin from the perspective that there's very little security these days for anyone anywhere, taking risks becomes easier to do.