“And remember: the sky is the limit! You can be anything you want to be!”
“Thank you. I want to be a secretary.”
That stopped them short. “What?”
“A secretary,” she repeated.
“But…” they trailed off, dumbfounded. “Why? You could be a CEO, a scientist, a law–”
“I don’t want to be a CEO,” she said. “I want to be a secretary.”
They scoffed. “You want to answer phones all day?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
“Schedule appointments?”
“I like organizing.”
“Be a second banana?”
An affirmative nod. “I’m skilled at helping.”
“I just don’t understand,” they said. “HOW could you be okay with all of this?!”
“I enjoy the work.”
“BUT YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE!”
“I know.”
“Then WHY?!”
She shrugged.
“Because I want to be a secretary.”
Honestly though, this is very similar to my mom’s experience. She’s always been super bright, but has realized as she’s gotten older that intellectual pursuits just aren’t her jam. She dropped out of her PhD program to have kids, and although she has her master’s and was a pretty good school psychologist, she hated having to make huge decisions. She’s a church secretary now and loves it, and she’s GOOD at it; she’s letting her school psych certification permanently expire this year with zero regrets. If you can be anything you want, that includes the things we don’t tend to value as highly as a society. Not everybody is built for or wants the “respectable” careers.
On a similar note, not everyone needs to be in a leadership position- if you’re good at doing a thing, that doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll be good at leading people to do the thing, or that you should want to lead people to do the thing. There’s lots of stories of really good programmers who become team leads, except they wind up spending most of their time in meetings, pissing on fires, dealing with BS, and telling other people what to program, they turn out to miss programming and turn out to be poor leaders who hinder the people under them, bad blood develops, and then they quit.
I don’t have the social skills or patience to be a team lead. I don’t want to sit in meetings and piss on fires and deal with BS and tell other people what to program; I want to do the programming myself, and I want to get really good at it. I’ll happily leave the decision-making to other people.
It’s perfectly fine to strive for more if that’s what you want, but it’s also perfectly fine to want to stay where you’re happy. Leaders need skilled people working for them who can make the magic happen.
Doing a Ph.D. is a really scary thought. Especially in humanities and social sciences. Especially in today’s job market.
Here I’m going to speak a little about my approach to Ph.D. applications, why I chose to do what I did, and how I put it all together including examples.
1. The Doubt
After coming out of my Master’s degree, I already had a year of research set up, so I didn’t have to think about jobs like all of my friends I had made during that degree. I watched many of them struggle to find a job offer. Some were successful in attaining a job in Cultural Resource Management, a couple got smaller jobs in local museums, but for the most part it induced a lot of stress to have come out of a Master’s degree with no prospects.
How I imagined my future at that time: I knew I didn’t want to work in a museum, I knew I didn’t like Cultural Resource Management, I knew that after all this hard work I didn’t want to end up underpaid somewhere doing data entry.
A Ph.D. has always been something that I wanted. Ever since entering the Anthropology discipline, I imagined myself working towards becoming a Professor.
Here’s what I was told when I started to consider a Ph.D. Program:
“Don’t do it” (said by someone who already had her Ph.D.)
“I wish I had gone into something with more money, even after my Ph.D. its been difficult to find stable work”
“If you’re doing a Ph.D. in social sciences, ONLY go if you are fully funded, otherwise it is not worth the financial debt”
“Most people don’t get in their first try, that’s why people apply to 10+ schools”
Coming up with a plan: After hearing this, I came up with a couple different options. Plan A: Apply to Ph.D. programs, if I get into one my first try and it’s fully funded then I’ll do it. Plan B: Find a job in Environmental consulting, I could put my GIS experience to use, make some money, and then try again for a Ph.D. later down the road if I wanted. Plan C: Move to Japan and live out my weeb dreams (I’m part Japanese and have a lot of family there so this wasn’t as crazy as it sounds).
I was genuinely okay with any of these options. They all involve things that I enjoy, none of them are bad options, none of them would feel like “failure” if I ended up not getting into a program. I think this step is very important because it forces you to figure out what you care about, and allows you to be open to change if plan A doesn’t work out.
2. Choosing a Program to Apply to
I knew that I didn’t just want to apply anywhere. Getting a job outside of a PhD is already hard enough, and I wanted the school that I chose to reflect the work that I would put into it. As much as we want to think that name brands don’t matter when it comes to education, it sure as heck does help when it comes to opportunity and being selected amongst 100′s to 1000′s of applicants. Therefore, why not shoot for the stars? What’s the harm in trying. For this reason, I decided to only apply to schools that:
Had a prestigious name
Had a program that supported what I wanted to study and allowed for cross-disciplinary research (Digital Archaeology focused on SE Asia)
Had an advisor that had done research paralleled to mine (whether that included SE Asia or just Digital Archaeology in general).
I started research into programs with the Ivies and went down from there, also cross-comparing programs that had been ranked as best schools for studying Anthropology.
At the time of researching, the programs that stood out the most to me were:
Stanford (ideal because it was close-ish to home, fully funds their Phd students for 5 years, has opportunity for additional funding, had professor working with digital archaeology in Asia)
Harvard (had professor working in Digital Archaeology though it wasn’t in my preferred region, also has good funding, and its Harvard)
U Chicago (traditionally one of the top schools for Anthropology, however I had heard that a lot of this is because of “legacy” professors, and not much has come out of the department in recent years. Did not have someone specifically in my region of focus)
ASU (Also considered one of the top Anthropology schools, but funding is often fought for between students)
UC Berkeley (Had professors studying Asia, but it is a public school and also has limited guaranteed funding)
I sent e-mails to advisors that I thought I could support my research (this was probably around May, when applications are due Sep-Dec).
Hello Professor______,
My name is _______ and I am interested in applying to ________’s Doctoral program in Archaeology beginning in the fall of 2020. I would like to inquire whether you are accepting graduate students for this period, as my research interests align well with your research. I received my B.A. in __________ from _________ in 2017 and am currently _______. [Enter what you’re doing now, and any relevant experience that shows what you’re interested in researching]. [Enter something about their research, and why you’re interested in working with them/why you think you would work well with them]. I am eager to continue along this path and I feel as though your experience with _______could provide an interesting opportunity for future research. I would also be interested in working with [enter any other faculty that have similar interests, this shows that you’ve done some research into the program and the school in general] For your convenience, I have attached my CV here. If you have the time, I would appreciate the opportunity to speak with you further about the program and future research.
Best,
Full name
I also researched the financial aid provided to incoming Ph.D. students. After doing this, the only schools that sounded good to me were Stanford and Harvard.
Yeah, I know, only applying to Stanford and Harvard was a “big risk,” but this is how I thought about it:
I don’t want to commit to a Phd program for 5+ years if it’s not fully funded, doesn’t have a big name, and isn’t going to guarantee opportunity after graduating.
I wanted an environment where I knew I could be happy under immense amounts of pressure (California by family, Boston by friends).
If I didn’t get in, I had back up options that honestly sounded really fun to me, so I was okay with pursuing those instead.
I didn’t want a Ph.D. just to have a Ph.D., I wanted a degree that would set me apart from others so that I could give myself the best chance for success afterward. I wanted one that, if pursued, could lead me to become a professor.
So I applied to 2 Schools.
I got scolded for this by many people… but whatever…I got in, so ha. Why spend money and time on an application for a school that you don’t really want to go to? :P
3. Applying to a Program
What an application looks like:
1. At least 3 recommendation letters:
Mine were:
Undergraduate Anthropology Advisor who has been helping me throughout the years with grant applications, etc. She knows me well, can speak well to my accomplishments. She is also a very well decorated anthropologist.
Undergraduate Professor of Geography who can speak to my GIS coursework. I’ve been updating him with my whereabouts and successes since graduating, so we have kept in touch regularly since taking his course.
My Master’s dissertation advisor (he stressed me out submitting his letter 3 hours before the deadline >:| )
It’s good to have your recommendation letters come from people within the academic world. These people can write on your ability to achieve your research goals, your drive, etc. It’s okay to have maybe one letter from a workplace environment, however, it’s best to get as much street cred as you can from these letters, and this comes from Professors that know what they’re doing.
2. Curriculum Vitae (C.V.): This is important because it shows everything you’ve accomplished up to this point. This is how mine was set up:
Full Name, Current Position, Email, Phone Number
Education: University Name, City, Degree in ____
Publications: In Edited Volumes, Journal Articles, Manuscripts in Preparation
Conference and Workshop Participation: Papers, Presentations
Grants, Awards, and Fellowships:
Research Experience: Project Roles, Fieldwork
Teaching Experience
Additional Employment History
Leadership and Extracurriculars
Skills/Languages
A C.V. is a list of EVERYTHING you’ve done in your career, unlike a resume which is tailored to the specific job that you’re applying to. If you’d like a specific example, send me a DM.
3. Personal Statement: This is where you tell them why you want to be there and what makes you qualified. Why should they consider you?
Personal Statement Example
1st paragraph, introduce the program and your research interests: I am applying to _____ for admission to the Ph.D. program in Anthropology with a focus in Archaeology. My research interests are to explore [the consequences of ….. on the environment and human responses to environmental change] in [region of the world], and how these actions of the past can be visualized through the use of remote sensing and GIS applications to archaeology.
2nd paragraph, why you’re interested in what you’re doing: I learned the value of digital applications in archaeology through my undergraduate and master’s degree. [Digital archaeology] is appealing to me because [………]. I first became interested in [example of why you’re interested in the topic/what inspires you]. After witnessing this, I began to seek out opportunities to partake in similar research.
3rd and 4th paragraph, what makes you qualified to pursue this degree?: I have many research experiences that qualify my pursuit of a Ph.D. dedicated to using digital methods in Anthropological research. [Talk about your undergrad experience, do some name-dropping of professors you’ve worked with], [why did these experiences inspire you to take the next step?], [how are you where you are now because of them?]
5th paragraph, what are you doing now?
6th paragraph, why this school in particular?: This is where you name drop the professor you are interested in working with, talk about how their research aligns well with yours by mentioning specific things that they’ve done such as theoretical approaches. What are you interested in doing that would fit well within this program? Are there any facilities on campus that you are particularly eager to work with? Show that you’ve done your research.
7th paragraph, what do you plan to do after you get your Ph.D. from this institution?: With goals of continuing archaeological research in ________ and expanding off the networks that I have established in _______, ________’s doctoral program in Anthropology is the ideal match to further my career as a Digital/Landscape Archaeologist. The Ph.D. in Anthropology at _______ allows for _________[reasons why you like the program]. Ultimately, my postgraduate goals are to remain in academia by continuing research and gaining a university faculty position. My foundation in archaeology gained in my undergraduate, graduate, and ______experiences have equipped me with a unique set of abilities to offer to ______’s Anthropology graduate program, and I look forward to the opportunity to exchange ideas with faculty and students alike.
Have your resume and statement looked over by as many eyes as you possibly can. It took me a good 6-10 revisions before settling on something that I liked.
4.Let the professors that you’ve been in contact with know
This puts you at the front of their minds when application review comes around. They’ll be like “oh yeah, this person messaged me about this.”
I hadn’t spoken to the professors that I reached out to since those first few exchanges back in May, so sending this message was very valuable to remind them of my existence.
This email can be as simple as: Hi Professor ____, I hope you have been well since we last spoke. I am writing to inform you that I have submitted my application to _______. Since our last chat I’ve been [whatever you’re up to now that’s relevant]. I look forward to hearing from _____ soon. Best, Me.
5. Productive Waiting
Yay, you’ve submitted! That was hard, but you made it through. Time to start diving into those other plans you’ve been thinking about. What will you do if you get into your top school? What will you do if you don’t get into your top, but you do get into your 2nd or 3rd choice? What if you don’t get into any of them?
Remember that none of these options are bad, and in this world, you have to be open to change and welcome it. A Ph.D. is a really long commitment, and it doesn’t have to happen right away.
If you get in, accept only if:
It has the research you’re looking for
It has an advisor that’s supportive of what you’re doing
It’s transparent about what it offers its students
The current students are happy with the culture of the program and quality of life
The location is something you’re comfortable with (for me having family nearby was a very important factor)
The money you are offered is enough to live the lifestyle you need to maintain good mental health
There is an opportunity for networking and expansion of your research outside of the university
As always, feel free to reach out with any questions at @aal.archaeology on Instagram or DM here! I’m happy to share my documents with you.
When I graduated from college, I knew I wanted to work in children’s literature but I had no idea how to go about doing so. What does this thing called editing actually involve? How does one get started in the industry? Where should I look for job postings? Feeling pretty lost, I spent every spare moment over the course of several months researching the answers to those questions.
Since I love chatting with people just getting started in the industry, but don’t always have the time to do so in my day-to-day, I wanted to share some resources I find valuable—and resources I regularly pass along in informational interviews.
This is a competitive industry; landing your first internship or your first job can be tough! I’m hoping these tips will help you out on your path.
What kinds of jobs?
There are SO many cool jobs within publishing. Here are just a few of the many departments: Editorial, Managing Editorial, Design, Production, Digital, Marketing, Publicity, Subrights, Sales, Web/IT, Contracts, Finance, and Operations. Do you love international travel? Perhaps Subrights is the right fit for you. Do you lust after foil covers and painted edges in the book store? Perhaps Production is where you’re meant to be.
Although this post is about working at a publishing company, I want to point out that there are so many other jobs within the book pipeline that may also be of interest: artist (writer/illustrator), agent, reviewer, blogger, bookseller/book buyer, librarian, reading specialist/teacher, and professor. Publishing wouldn’t exist without these smart and passionate partners.
Education
So often I’m asked whether you need a publishing or copyediting certificate or a masters degree to get a job in publishing. Definitely not! Publishing is a mentorship industry—the only place you can really learn the job is on the job.
But extra credentials can help your resume stand out from the pack by showing your commitment and knowledge; the other perk is that your time in a relevant educational program can be incredible for networking! When you graduate, you may suddenly have friends at major publishing houses, and when you need help, they’re only a phone call away. Only pursue if you’re interested, but if you are, you have a wide variety of options to choose from.
You can consider a publishing course—usually a time commitment of one to several months—like the publishing courses at Columbia, Denver, and NYU. You could consider a copyediting certificate (usually made up of several courses, often offered online) from places like Editcetera or UC Berkeley Extension. And finally, you could consider an advanced degree, like a masters in publishing at NYU or Emerson, or a Children’s Literature masters at Simmons College, and many more.
My sister often tells me I am “fake” when I’m on phone calls or in class or work, and this has always rubbed me the wrong way. After thinking about it for awhile, I think it’s because it’s obviously implies that I am not being my authentic self and only portraying a certain side in order to “get what I want” (her words).
But I think you gotta be a little “fake” in life to get to where you need to be.
And first, a disclaimer: I don’t think this is being “fake” at all. I think a person can have multiple sides of them.
For example, when you’re out with your close friends, you may feel at ease and unfiltered. You can gossip, catch up, talk about your favorite TV shows/dating stories/family annoyances, etc. When you’re at work, you have a more polished side of you that shows: you talk courteously, you’re respectful to your coworkers and patient, you only talk about related and professional topics. Obviously, you are not going to act completely the same in all environments: with friends, with work colleagues, in class, etc.
When I talk with my professors, I have a more polished side. I’m not that close to them yet so it’s almost like a casual interview vibe with them, when I go in for office hours. These professors are going to write me letter of recommendations in the future, so obviously they don’t need to know me on a PERSONAL level the way my best friends do. Sure, they can know about my hobbies and things like that. But I’m not going to rant to them about how my sister used up all of my facial moisturizer, and it was expensive, and I was really upset.
Obviously, there’s a line. Don’t be COMPLETELY different from your “work” side and your “personal” side, and have contrasting personalities. I think your personality would show through in both cases (if you’re bubbly and social, that should be portrayed either way), but you’re just restricting yourself on what you’ll share.
I don’t know, maybe I’m not writing about this topic eloquently enough but tldr; be cognizant of what “you” you’re presenting in what environment!
Conventional wisdom says that if you want to make a career transition, you need to train for a new industry while still working your current job. Get an MBA! Go to night school! Do an internship! Apprentice on the weekends! Network! Beg for informational interviews!
I’m obviously not one for conventional wisdom. Which is why I also recommend you… start a weirdly specific hobby with your college roommate???
Kitty and I started Bitches Get Riches when we were both full-time employees—a graphic designer and a book editor, respectively. We’d both been in our careers for about six years, and gotten fewer promotions than we deserved. We liked our work, but we’d smoothed out all its most exciting challenges long ago. We had the mental bandwidth for a new endeavor.
So we started Bitches Get Riches.
We never viewed it as a money-making venture. (In fact, it was a money-sucking venture.) We never tried to make it seem more polished or professional than we wanted to. (BGR: proudly rocking the same free WordPress theme since 2016.)
It was for fun! It was a way to work together, express ourselves, promote interesting ideas, and maybe help a couple of people along the way.
We’ve always taken pride in being self-taught. Our personal finance advice is for Real Amuricans™! Give us your tired, your poor, the huddled masses who need to bust out a tip calculator for a $19 lunch bill!
Essentially, I was becoming an amateur expert in personal finance—a field that had nothing to do with my chosen vocation of book publishing—while operating as if I had one career path and one career path alone. I quietly built up expertise and contacts in a second industry, keeping that second iron in the fire with no idea it could lead to a career transition someday.
My self-administered education in personal finance was taking up a significant amount of my personal time. I probably dedicated as much time and mental real estate to BGR as some people spend getting a grad degree. It’s just that I wasn’t viewing it as actual job training. I certainly didn’t see it as a path to a career transition!
So when the time came to decide if I would transition away from publishing and into another industry, I didn’t just have a lightbulb moment. I walked face-first into a solar flare.
It’s not bad enough that a shitty credit history and poor credit score can keep you out of housing or a desperately needed loan. It can also keep you out of a job.
That’s right: It is entirely legal for a potential employer to require a credit check as part of their hiring process.
Some employers try to justify this discriminatory hiring practice. They think a credit check is a good way to measure a job candidate’s “trustworthiness and reliability.” Because no trustworthy or reliable person ever missed a credit card payment, amirite?
Credit reports and credit scores, as an institution, were invented to show banks and lenders how capable a person is of paying their debts. That is their only purpose—they’re not a substitute for a Myers Briggs type or a job placement exam.
How this is a discriminatory hiring practice
According to psychologists at the University of New Mexico, credit checks actually introduce racial discrimination into the hiring process. This is because racial minorities tend to have lower credit scores.
And why is that? The premise “brown people are just naturally worse at money” is inherently racist. So we can assume, therefore, that credit scores are themselves a racially biased system.
So including a credit check in the hiring process is basically like…
Even if credit scores aren’t racist… your credit score is not your employer’s business! Just as what you do with your uterus is between you and your doctor, so your credit score should be a private matter between you and your bank.
A lot of people have poor credit scores due to past mistakes and misfortunes. That shit stays on a credit report for years! And the snowballing effect of bad credit often makes it very difficult to repair credit once it’s broken. (You get turned down for financial assistance and opportunities because of bad credit, so you sink further into poverty, debt, and bad credit, preventing you from accessing financial assistance and opportunities.)
A divorce wrecking your credit score should have no bearing on your candidacy during the hiring process. Signing up for a predatory store credit card when you were young and ignorant about finances should not prevent you from getting a job.
A notable proponent of this most blatant of discriminatory hiring practices is the financial industry’s own Voldemort Dave Ramsey. But then, he also famously asks to speak to interviewees’ spouses before hiring them. So he’s not exactly concerned with ethical hiring practices.
we’ve all been there. trapped in life/work/relationship/financial woes that make it difficult to get out of bed each morning — our lives feel like they’re not our own. instead of chucking the deuces to painful experiences, we allow insecurities, financial needs or other challenges to convince us to sit front row at the “my life is a hot ass mess convention.” we start to listen to the voice in…
I’ve received a lot of questions from readers lately about careers and jobs, mostly from those in high school, college, or recent graduates. The questions take many forms and specific topics, but the underlying panic is:
“What the hell should I do for a career?!”
Some people seem to know innately what they were born to do, and forge ahead accordingly. Meanwhile, others struggle with the big life decision of settling on a career path. I’ve been on both sides of this coin. I’m only in my late twenties and still figuring things out myself, so I don’t suggest that I have all the answers - but I have learned a few things along the way.
Here are my words of advice, along with a few tools and resources that might help if you’re feeling stuck, indecisive, or anxious about the pressure to Choose Your Perfect Career.
First of all, though, let’s agree on one thing: The concept of a “perfect career” as we commonly think of it is bullshit. It contains the romantic, narrow, and dangerously incorrect notion that there’s only type of job, profession, or career that you will ever be happy in.
Throw away the fairy tale.
There are no such thing as soul mates, and there is no such thing as your one true perfect career. You can be happy doing a variety of things for love and money.(click to tweet)
I held onto this belief for way too long. From a very young age I believed with full conviction that the life of a gallery-represented painter was the only career that would make me happy, and my ability to achieve this was the only measure by which I could consider myself successful (I know, heavyright?). I drowned my creativity under waves of pressure and perfectionism, trying to live up to my own lofty expectations in an intensely competitive and completely nonsensical market. Thankfully, I was able to dig myself out of this, with my love of painting fragile but intact, and my sense of self sharpened.
Chances are you’ve been trained to think very singularly about “what you want to do for the rest of your life.” You’ve been (or will be) asked to choose a major in college, maybe even put through lessons and too many extracurricular activities and given aptitude tests. And yes, to get through a college education you will need to choose a major and place your bets on a particular course of action. But the truth is, you are a dynamic, multifaceted being with so many potential directions. You will do many things in life, go down many roads you can’t even foresee right now. And what specific topic you choose to study in college really, honestly, will not matter in the long run, in most cases.
What does matter is what you choose to do with your unique matrix of interests, useful skills, and knowledge. I believe firmly in the concept of designing your own career path. Not everyone has the same path towards the same job (I’m a former painting major now working in social strategy at an advertising agency, for example), and the landscape changes every day. When I was in school, and for even a few years after, the job I have now didn’t even exist.
An entrepreneurial attitude to your career and life is no longer optional. There is no longer a blueprint to follow. You’ve got to make your own way. (Click to tweet)
“Great! Except… I have no idea where to start.”
If you weren’t blessed with a strong passion or career direction early on in life, please know that you are in fact, quite normal. You probably even hold the advantage - you’re open to many things early on (remember how my initial passion turned out to be quite narrow?). At this stage, it’s a good idea to do some research - about yourself. You are always changing and growing, so no matter where you are in your career, it’s always helpful to check in and get to know you a little better. In my experience, there’s no better way to do this than to put pen to paper.
1. If you want to know yourself, start writing. Guided writing exercises and workbooks were most helpful to me when I broke free of the idea that there was One True Thing I was supposed to do in life. At that point, 3 years out of college, the girl who always knew what she wanted to do with her life found herself squarely on her ass, unemployed in a new city, wondering anxiously what was next.
Books can help you, and even give you a somewhat false sense of productivity, but nothing helped more than digging up my own words and arranging them on paper in a way that made sense. It’s totally a metaphor for what’s going on inside you - a jumble of confusion, the right parts are there somewhere but out of order. In a very real way, writing helps put the puzzle pieces together.
I spent a lot of time reading and poring through books, digital downloads, and countless articles online, but nothing helped guide me through this messy, transformative process like The Desire Map by Danielle Laporte.
Because of the writing exercises and guidebooks I found in The Desire Map, I came out on the other side a little clearer, and with a firmer understanding that how I want to feel every day should be at the core of these important life decisions. Once you know this, you have your very own proverbial North Star to guide you in countless ways.
(Full disclosure: if you click the link above and decide you want to try The Desire Map too, I’ll receive a small percentage of the sale - but please know I would never endorse something I didn’t use and love myself. In fact, I purchased The Desire Map years ago and still refer to the scribbled notes I took in it frequently.)
And if you already have a passion, and are sure you know what you want to do, great! As you get older and more experienced, be open to letting that unfold and evolve. I clung desperately to this narrow idea of what I was supposed to do with my life mostly out of fear. Everyone my whole life expected me to become a successful artist, and I’d seen so many people give up along the way – the last thing I wanted was to be seen as giving up too. But after a while, I realized I’ll always be an artist so long as I keep painting, external recognition be damned - and anyone who thinks otherwise can jump in a lake. Plenty of successful artists hold down day jobs, and many even keep them when they don’t need the money because they like them and find them fulfilling. It doesn’t have to be so black and white.
Which leads me to my second piece of advice…
2. If you want to understand how others have done it, stalk people on LinkedIn. When I was “squarely on my ass” and unemployed with no direction, the reason I figured out what kind of careers might be a good fit for me is I incessantly stalked people on LinkedIn.
Get on LinkedIn if you’re not, and search for people who started from similar places. It’s not hard to reverse-engineer their career paths. How did they move from one job to another? The more digital-savvy of them will have very complete profiles that easily allow you to examine how they got from A to B, or what traits or job responsibilities helped them pivot from one industry or role to another if something wasn’t working for them.
A writer for Mashable also tested this idea, working with LinkedIn’s data science team to find his “future self” among other LinkedIn users with a similar background: “How LinkedIn Found My ‘Future’ Self.”
In my case, there were several people who unknowingly helped me understand what my possibilities were, but one in particular later became my friend. One day while searching for profiles and jobs on LinkedIn, I saw that a fun-looking woman around my age named Elysa had attended my university for a graphic design degree and worked her way from designer to well-known leader in the field of digital strategy (and a successful blogger to boot!). She was kind enough to meet me for coffee on her way to a speaking engagement at SXSW. I learned so much from that one conversation – as a jobless 25 year old, I understood at that point that the only thing separating me from progress was myself.
The only thing was, I still needed to figure out how to make money from what I’d discovered with The Desire Map.
Remember that unique matrix of useful skills, interests, and knowledge I mentioned earlier?
It’s critical to remember that if you want to make money at something, it has to be useful to others. This very basic principle applies whether you’re someone’s assistant (no shame here, I’ve done it!) in which you are selling your organizational services in exchange for benefits and a salary, or you’re a gallery painter selling the product of artwork that brings real joy to its new owners.
To understand these transactions as anything else (I’m just an employee! I’m not selling anythingor,I’m not selling a product - how dare you, I’m an artist!) is to not fully understand business or the real world, or as Ramit Sethi calls it, the game being played around you. And the sooner you get on board with this concept, the better equipped you’ll be to find a career that both makes you happy and makes you money.
My very sincere advice would be to think long and hard about what you enjoy doing (even just hobbies - doesn’t have to be “job-like”) and what you’re naturally skilled at (things like “being a good listener” and “talking to people about their problems” totally count here, by the way) and compare that to what you think might actually be useful to random people you don’t know. Put more simply,
What are you good at or enjoy doing that solves other people’s problems?
Start there. With some soul searching, writing, and very realistic analysis, you’ll find yourself starting down a path to a long, lucrative career path that is uniquely yours, fun, exciting and never static.
God, I’m so excited! I have a new email from that agent I queried three months ago! I’ve been waiting so long. I hope she-
Oh.
It’s a good manuscript, but it isn’t quite what they’re looking for at this time.
…
AMAZING!
I was thrilled to get my first rejection letter. It happened a few months ago now, but I keep the email in a special folder on my laptop so I can open it and smile…
