California Miramar University

Regardless of age, many people are changing careers. It is estimated that today’s workers will probably change their career four times in their lifetime. This does not mean changing jobs or employers, it means changing careers!

Some people are changing careers out of necessity as work is outsourced, automated, or compressed, while others are changing careers out of preference. The “in” phrase is “Re-Careering.”

Age is no longer an obstacle to doing whatever, within reason, you want to do. The only reasonable limitation lies within your self concept: afraid to fail, afraid to succeed, afraid what others will think, etc. Ugh!

The key to Re-Careering is a combination of self-evaluation and being in-charge.

My research and observations as a Human Resources Executive leads me to believe there are five pivotal elements to help people take charge of their career. These elements apply to several situations: 1. beginning a career but not sure if it is the right one; 2. feeling stuck in a present career and wondering about changing or staying where you are; 3. wanting to change a career but not sure how or to what; 4. wanting to reinforce your decision to remain in a current career; 5. transitioning from one career to the next such as from the military to the civilian sectors; 6. wanting to retire but not sure what to do during retirement.

Knowing as much as you can about Re-Careering is imperative to your success and happiness. Human Resource Recruiters actually apply these five pivotal elements to candidates when they interview them, and so, it makes sense that the person seeking to Re-Career should also apply the same five pivotal elements whether you seek to join an organization as an employee or be self-employed.

The purpose of this article is to share with you the five pivotal elements of Re-Career success, to advise you how to maximize the chances of your Re-Career success, and to give you a personal professional example. I identify these five pivotal elements as the Five Sigma of Success. They are: Interest, Competency, Motivation, Capability, and Fit.

The first element is Interest. Most successful people love what they do, even have a passion for it. When you are interested in what you do, your dedication elevates and you want to learn more about it. You love the process and the content. So, the first step to Re-Career success is to find out more about your Interests. A way of identifying your Interests is to identify activities you really enjoyed in the past, what you enjoy doing in the present, and then to forecast your Interests that will be appropriate in a future career. Most Interests fall into categories such as Hands-On, Investigative, Social Interaction, Risk-Taking, Structured, and Creative. So, think about what you liked to do in the past, what you like to do now, and then place your Interests in one or a few of these categories. Then ask yourself if you want to do the same things you have been doing in the past and in the present in the future, or do you want to do something different? How can you leverage your past and present Interests into your future Interests?

Competency is the second element. This means having the skill to do things. You probably have many skills. Perform the same exercise from above, but replace Interests with Competencies. Use the same categories. For future success, you must couple what you love to do (Interests) with what you are good at (Competencies). If you find yourself not very good at what you say you want to do in the future you will need to improve your skill in that area, or find something else that you can be good at.

The third element is Motivation. You must have the fire in the belly to do what you want to do, to withstand adversity, to find the resources to help you reach your goals. It really means identifying your intrinsic and/or extrinsic needs that must be met in order for you to feel fulfilled, to be all that you want to be. When you are not sure what motivates you, you just may fall for anything and be sorry for that in the end. Perform the same exercise from above, but replace Competencies with Motivation. By completing this third step, you are putting the pieces of your Re-Careering puzzle together. You are moving towards leveraging your Interests, Competencies, and Motivational Needs.

Capability is the fourth element. This means having the potential to go beyond what you currently enjoy and do, to become better. In other words, having the capacity to expand, to grow, and to be a life long learner. Again, perform the same exercise as above, but replace Motivation with Capabilities.

The fifth element is Fit. This is the trump card for Re-Career Success, meaning that in spite of the other four elements present, Fit cancels them if it is not present. Fit means finding the right environment to support your Interests, Competencies, Motivation, and Capabilities. Without the appropriate support and reward system in the right environment, all bets are off for your Re-Career success. Again, perform the same exercise from above, but replace Capabilities with Fit.

As a Human Resources Executive, I have discovered that when employees in organizations fail it is often because they do not fit into the way things are done in that particular organization. Have you ever heard, “You just haven’t signed on-board,” “This just isn’t the right place for you,” or “You really aren’t compatible with how we do things around here.” This does not mean that the organization is necessarily dysfunctional and the employee is Ok, or vice versa. This only means that the relationship between the organization and the employee is not suitable, not compatible, not a good fit.

As I have reviewed with you, a key to helping you Re-Career for success is to uncover your Five Sigma of Success, by analyzing your past and present, and then forecasting your future. Regardless of your age, you have had the best teacher for analyzing yourself … your experiences in life. You can tap into your experiences and leverage them for your future Re-Career success.

I am not saying this is an easy process, but seeking answers to questions such as the following are helpful. To uncover your Interests, for example, you might ask yourself: “What did I really like doing when I was younger, and why was that?” “What do I really like doing now, and why is that?” “What do I really want to do in the future and why is that?”

These three questions help you explore your past and present Interests in order to help forecast what your future Interests might be. If your past decisions brought you to where you are today, then it seems reasonable that your present decisions can take you to where you want to be in the future. I recommend you ask yourself similar questions for the other four elements (Competencies, Motivation, Capabilities, and Fit). The focus is to look at patterns and trends.

Now for the personal example. I have over twenty-five years in the Human Resources field, and now I am currently on the faculty of several business schools in San Diego. I am also a published author. Before I started to professionally write, I believed I could not write well because I was told by teachers that I could not write very well, and that I was better served to study the sciences. So, I received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology. However, one day someone challenged me to give up my false assumptions and to stop listening to what others were saying. With some initial resistance, I took the challenge. And as they say, “to make a long story short,” I am the published author of two management books and seven mystery novels. I am a frequent radio and television guest on the topic of career management, and I give lectures on the topic of re-careering and writing.

I leveraged my Five Sigma of Success.

You can be the best you want to be, but “if you don’t know where you are going, then any path will take you there.” The key, then, is to find who you were in the past, who you are today, who you want to be in the future, and build a pathway to get there.

Enjoy the journey. No one cares if you can’t dance, just get up and dance.

The freedom of choice; one of the great things about living in a free and open society. It allows us to wear what we want, express ourselves how we want and essentially pursue our dreams (whatever those may be). In the business world, though, free choice is a whole different ballgame.

It means that, from a business standpoint, we need to figure out exactly what we want and then create a framework for how to accomplish that. With so many brands selling very similar products and services, you need to make yourself stand out from the pack by being unique. ‘Distinctive Competence’ means not only building a unique business; it’s building a business that is distinct from your competitors so people recognize you and have a reason to become your customer rather than your competitors.

Transcript of the Lesson

One of the key things that we’ll emphasize is what we call is ‘Distinctive Competence’. What that basically means is how are you different from anybody else, because for strategic success and competitive success you have to draw that difference between you and any other competitors. Otherwise what is it that would make somebody buy from your competitor rather than you? Those distinctions are usually based on three or four major elements, which we’ll talk about.

And those elements come down to: Cost, Quality, Delivery, or what we call ‘response time’, and Flexibility. Each of those is very important as you develop a strategy to identify and analyze how they play into the particular market and industry that you’re trying to participate in.

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The reason people choose to pursue a Master’s of Business Administration degree is due to the various career options it avails to you. According to the National Center for Education Statistics there are approximately 156,250 MBA graduates per year in the USA. And this number will only continue to grow as more people realize the immense benefits of traditional and online MBA programs.

A new survey by the Graduate Management Admission Council claims that 74% of 216 companies around the world plan to hire MBA graduates in 2012, as compared to the 57% that were hiring in 2011. In 2010 many studies found that nine out of ten MBA graduates are employed within a year of graduation. Due to the turbulent economic crises this belief started fading in 2011, but the New Year could bring better. 22% of companies are planning to hire more MBA degree holders in 2012 as compared to 2011.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are 13.3 million unemployed persons around the world. Due to numerous lay offs people decided to go back to school rather than endlessly looking for a job while markets weren’t doing well enough to hire. After the economic crises (although we’re not really at “the end” yet), the economy is finally picking up, with a decrease of 594,000 persons unemployed around the world by the end of December. With an opening competitive market in the horizon having a unique resume and masters leadership is necessary.

An MBA degree opens you up to various careers besides business management and financial services, such as IT, marketing, economics, etc. Doctors, engineers and lawyers pursue MBAs too. The tools you learn can be incorporated in to any size of company and it earns you a higher salary. If the financial gurus are right and we can see the global economy picking up in the near future then going back to school and pursuing an MBA degree is a great investment of time, energy and money.

Between years three and four, employees often begin to wonder whether they should move on to another organization or stay put. Therefore, this is the time when the organization should step up their efforts to retain quality employees.

Since it takes about 1 ½ times an employee’s yearly salary to replace the employee (to include recruiting the replacement, orienting the new hire, training the new employee, and getting the new employee fully up to speed, not to mention the lost quality productivity while the job is vacant), it is much more cost effective, at minimal, for organizations to invest in the employees than to replace them. The investment improves not only employee retention and productivity, but it improves employee loyalty and trust to the company, something that is difficult to place a number on.

However, at the same time, employees need to be sensitive in figuring out when it is time to start looking around, when the itch to switch needs to be carefully considered. Ironically, the itch to switch consists of the same five elements (Five Sigma of Career Success) that enticed the employee to join the organization in the first place (Interests, Competencies, Motivation, Capabilities, and Fit). Here are some signs.

1. You are no longer Interested in doing the work. What was fun and meaningful is no longer of interest.
2. Your Competencies are no longer used in the way or to the degree that you want them to be used. You are not able to exercise your skills like you once were able to, or the organization no longer believes your skills are valuable. Perhaps the job has changed; perhaps you have changed.
3. Your Motivation to contribute to the company declines. You are no longer passionate about the job, the company, or the people with whom you work. Your desire wanes.
4. You believe that you do not have the opportunity to tap into your Capabilities. You do not see growth opportunity, to reach your potential. You feel trapped with the career ceiling closely hovering over your head.
5. You do not seem to Fit in with how things are done, how decisions are made, how people are treated. You seem to get irritable more easily and feel that your values are in conflict with the organization’s values. It seems there are more times when the clash of values is apparent, and you being to resent it.

Other perceptions come into play as you wonder if it is worth sticking around, or if the itch to switch should be a reality. Certainly, you should talk with those with whom you trust, such as the Human Resources representative, your boss, a peer, a colleague, etc., i.e., someone with whom you can safely share your notions and listen to. If you do not have a mentor, then perhaps now is the time to seek one out. A mentor can be someone within or outside of the organization, and someone within or outside of your functional area or department. Not everyone wants to be or is good at being a mentor, but most of us all need one to help us advance in our career. Perhaps you too could be a mentor for someone. Further, maybe the organization has changed without you realizing it, and now you must change. So, before you switch, check out the origins of the itch. Then decide.

On October 26 I held a workshop, “Secrets and Strategies for Successful Social Media Marketing”, and it was a huge success. A lot of people came out and we engaged in discussion, which is what is at the heart of SMM. Here is the first video that I will be releasing from the workshop, which is all about showin’ Google some love.

Let me know what you think, if you have any questions, and if you have any thoughts/strategies/ideas of your own. What have you done that works? Because social media is still relatively new, we’re all learning together. So let’s harness the interaction ethos of social media and help each other out.

What have you done that you have found beneficial? What hasn’t worked for you? Let’s discuss!

Best,
Ilana Herring

Transcript of the Lesson

Okay, strategy number 1 is Google Love. We want to create Google Love. It’s a term David Carlton, who’s a marketer in San Diego, coined early, so I learned it from him.

Basically, Google, which is where most people are searching for things – most people are going into Google and typing in “car repair” – Google’s new algorithm called Panda, was designed to say, “we care about social media, we care about what your connections are doing.” And the algorithm actually will show you different results based on who your connections are and what your connections say and do.

So the more connections you have, or whatever connections you have, the more likely some of that material will show up in your results. So what that means is if each of us went home to our home computers and typed in “car repair”, we all know Google knows – well hopefully most of us know – Google knows where you are. It knows from your IP address and the research you’ve done – you’re in San Diego or Miramar or Poway. But all of our results are still going to be slightly different based on the fact that we’re logged into something like Facebook, or we’re logged into our Gmail, or logged into anything; it knows that my best friend just wrote a review – or maybe not my best friend, maybe a colleague or maybe someone I met at an event once – wrote review for a “car repair” and I might see that. And not only will I see that, but that might come up higher.

So if you do social media for no other reason – no one ever comments on your Facebook posts and you feel like no one cares – know that the material you’re feeding to Facebook actually affects search engine results. So that’s enough of a reason to do it. Because we all want to do things that affect search engines results. When you’re doing things on the Facebook you want to use your niche terms, your brand keywords. Your keywords might be “hypnosis”, but a better keyword is, ”hypnosis to solve (or to stop) smoking”, or “solutions to stop smoking”.

Does that make sense? Please stop me at any point if there’s questions.

You want to use that material and you want to feed the search engines in all of your social media content with your keywords. If you forget everything else tonight, just remember that: know your keywords and use them when you doing social media.

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