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I’ve been thinking lately about how to best shape my job search. I’ve been working as an independent consultant since my December 2008 layoff, and while I’m enjoying the work and the money it brings in, I’ve had a nagging feeling that something has been missing. While I can certainly apply for every full time job that fits my skills and experience (and for a while I had been), I’ve lately decided to hold back and solidly target the opportunities that truly fit how I approach success.
Looking back over my career and its high points, I’ve found a few consistent factors contributing to that fulfilling feeling of accomplishment:
- Team - Given a choice, I’d much rather be working as part of a team than be off on my own. No one person is ever greater than the whole, and innovation thrives in a social setting.
- Vicarious Wins – Watching someone whom I’ve mentored or guided succeed, not directly because of my help, but because my help gave them what they needed to grow and succeed on their own.
- Impact - I love when my work has a solid, positive effect on the team/department/project I’m involved with, and/or when my work positively impacts other teams/departments/projects.
Given this, the knee-jerk reaction is to look for management and leadership roles. The only problem is that many of these available positions call for experience that I simply don’t have (in various engineering, industry and programming disciplines). No one is looking for a technical communications or similar leader, and no one is looking for a generalist. Tight job markets make for picky fishing among those hiring. But that doesn’t mean I won’t give up, and that doesn’t mean I’m limiting my search to these types of roles.
In my search I don’t merely look at the open position but I look at the company as well. I try to learn as best I can about the corporate culture and how teams interact (or don’t interact), and I try to see in what direction – based on corporate mission and vision – the leadership of the companies want things to be moving. Hopefully I can not only find a fit in this manner, but also land it. As you know, the market is still quite nasty, no matter what the talking heads on TV are saying.
So what gives you that feeling of accomplishment? Are you getting it in your current job? Are you searching for it in your job hunt? Does it matter to you, or are you content with just putting in time for a pay check? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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Hi Bill — I’m comforted to see someone whose opinion and experience I respect highly having the same issues/challenges as I am. Not so much from the “I’m not alone!” perspective, but more from a “OK, so I’m not completely irrational in wanting to do well by doing good in my field.”
To me, “accomplishment” is a close cousin to “satisfaction”, and both are very amorphous and inchoate, as hard to hold on to as a soapy ball.
All too often I find myself in the mood where accomplishment = “I survived”, which is not a strong place for advancement either personally or professionally. I’ve very seldom experienced a sense of accomplishment, in that I am too much the perfectionist and not enough perfect. So it’s an aspirational objective, not an attainable one, much like the heat mirages at the skyline of a hot highway.
Thanks for opening the question!
Grant
Thanks for weighing in, Grant. No, you’re not alone. I could try to be content with equating accomplishment to getting a project completed and out the door, but honestly, by the time that’s ready to happen I’m already looking well ahead into the next need. That is, finishing a project is less to me an accomplishment or a success and is more a milestone that needs to be met. Accomplishment and success, to me, is far more intangible, and along those lines also far more rewarding for me.
Just because “No one is looking for a technical communications or similar leader” doesn’t diminish the need for such roles in most organizations that don’t have them. I produce better work when I have a manager with a strategic vision for how content fits across an enterprise. He certainly received a lot of push back from the higher echelon, but he fought well and focused on the quick wins to build on.
You have proven yourself to have the required experience to focus how an organization generates content across an enterprise. This type of role is important to help a company better position its brand, from the development documentation all the way through marketing.
Understandably, the job won’t exist yet. You’re going to have to create it.
I started my technical communications career as a technical editor in R&D. I found a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment in helping researchers describe research developments and to help create documentation for totally new products. i enjoyed working on the exciting edge where new technology was being developed. When I looked for new positions, I often chose the riskier option with new technology over a safer position where I would be simply updating an existing inventory program manual. My career has fluctuated with the economy, but I don’t regret my choices to contribute to something new vw playing it safe..
Well written Bill. I’ve been trying to name “vicarious wins” for a while now and you nailed it. I completely agree with your three bullets and that’s what I’m currently looking for as well.
I’m seeing more job posts than I expected for companies with reputations for not giving much beyond team. The downside is that those are the companies that are offering salaries at the level I had when I was laid off, or higher.
I’ve been lucky enough in my previous searches that money was never a factor. With the new search, I’m getting more worried that I’m going to have to choose between what I want personally and what I want financially. I won’t know for sure until the offers start coming in, but it’s a strong gut feel right now.
Tony: Agreed, however it’s not exactly the best market for creating these new roles, at least not in my neck of the woods. Hiring is slim and targeted at the moment. But that’s a role I’d love to land into, as it aligns well with what I’d been doing during my last 5+ years at MapInfo/PBBI.
I don’t really equate leadership with management. In a collaborative environment, anyone can be a leader. Many (if not most) technical communicators are self-directed. At my company, the senior tech writers tend to find a niche that suits them, and assume a leadership role in that niche, becoming mentors for the team.
Andrea, no argument there whatsoever. Part of the puzzle is that because I’ve held management and leadership roles, I am seen as “overqualified” for any task-oriented role. That is, I’m a perceived flight risk. I can’t say their logic is flawed (it’s more of a 50/50 from my experience) but it certainly does limit my options.