Find your fit: The 6 Rs of career transitioning

Large numbers of doctors (20%) and nurses (50%) say they will quit medicine or make a career transition in the next 2 years. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but, what is clear is that the pandemic has forced people to re-evaluate their priorities and the meaning of their work.

80% of nurses plan to stay in healthcare until retirement. That’s way up from 55% who said the same in 2022, meaning many in the field may feel like things are moving in the right direction. ?Most doctors who say they will quit probably won't either.?Here's why.

Since career planning and development is yet another subject neglected during formal medical and?bioscience graduate school education and training , members of the?lost tribe of medicine ?are looking for solutions and guidance. The result has been a growth cottage industry of physician career coaches and advisors, many of whom are doctors who have moved on to other things.

Maybe you don’t know which career will bring you fulfillment, you’re struggling to move on from a terrible past job, or you’re not getting very far in the interview process. Career coaches can help you figure out what you want to do, understand what’s preventing you from advancing in your professional goals, and endure the ups and downs of job hunting.?This author presents five reasons you might consider hiring a career coach and five tips on how to choose the right one for you.

The process of developing your career happens in several stages. One such model suggests the 6Rs:

REFLECTION

it’s useful to run through this three-step exercise, or do a “career detox.” The first step involves turning inward and asking yourself a series of reflective questions focused on whether you’re still happy with your current path. The second step is all about naming your values, and the third is about aligning what you’ve learned to your career. Use this practice to figure out what might need to add or subtract from your work life to feel more satisfied in this moment.

To Do:?Ask and answer who you are and what, when, where, how and why you want to do what you want to do next. ?Do you just want to do remote work??What are the pros and cons?

?It can be challenging to tell if any negative feelings you have about work are because your job is toxic, or because it’s just not right for you.?Here are some ways to figure out if you’re on the path to a fulfilling career or headed in the wrong direction.

Many of the skills and abilities that got you here are transferable to where you want to go. ?Just fill in the gaps that don't.?Start with changing your mindset.

This simple exercise has the potential to help you determine what you love about work, identify your transferable skills, and figure out what gaps you need to fill to land your next role.

• First, create a blank Bingo card. Write 10 to 15 skills that you possess, enjoy, and think employers may consider valuable in various boxes. (The more specific you are, the better.)
• Next, come up with a list of five to 10 traits you would like to have in a future hiring manager and five to 10 values, benefits, or qualities you would like your future organization to possess. Write those down too.
• Now play Bingo!?Focus on aligning the tasks or skills on your card with those needed for roles in your area of interest. When you come across job descriptions that align with your skills, check those boxes off on your card.??Likewise, note any boxes that remain unchecked.
• Just as your skills will align better with some roles over others, so will your needs when it comes to hiring managers and company culture.
• Overall, this practice can help you identify what you really want and look past the limits imposed by your current industry or role.

Here ares some tips on how to do self-reflection each day and its benefits.

There are six signs it may be time to move on from your current role or career. ?First, it’s no longer encouraging your growth. Second, you’ve achieved what you set out to achieve and there is no pathway to growth. Third, you actively look for ways to procrastinate or avoid your job. Fourth, you regularly approach work with dread or have feelings of exhaustion and burnout. Fifth, your job is causing you to develop bad habits that don’t align with your values. Finally, your workplace has become harmful to your physical or emotional health.

Do a situational assessment. Do you want to work for yourself or for someone else? What are your financial and family situational requirements? Will you need a salary and benefits and work from home options, or do you have different needs?

Most of us would prefer to think long-term about our careers, rather than just veering randomly to snag perceived opportunities and avoid pitfalls. But how can you adopt a strategic lens when you might not be entirely sure where you want to end up? The author offers four strategies: 1) Start by figuring out what you?don’t?want. 2) Pick one direction as your “provisional hypothesis” for where you want your career to go. 3)?Double down on foundational skills and knowledge that will make you better, no matter what direction you ultimately decide to pursue. 4)?Take stock of your emotional and mental energy.?One of the most important elements in thinking strategically about your career is understanding that our lives operate in cycles —?this author calls it “thinking in waves” ?— and we have to recognize where we are in that process.

It’s not that it’s?easy?to achieve our?long-term career goals . But if you know what you’re aspiring toward, you at least have a sense of the process:?Begin with the end in mind , work backward to the present day, and execute assiduously.

But for almost all of us, the last two years have scrambled the trajectories we were on. Foundational elements were upended, from how we work (the widespread shift to?remote and hybrid arrangements ) to geography (11% of Americans moved ?during the first year of the pandemic alone) to where we work (before the job market rebounded, the International Labour Organization estimated that?114 million people ?lost their jobs in 2020). That hasn’t just shifted the starting point for our career planning; in many cases, it’s also altered our understanding of what’s possible and what we actually want.

For some, there’s additional clarity:?I want to live near family, or?I only want a job where I can work remotely, or?it’s time to?start my own company . But for others, the disconcerting truth is that we’re?just not sure . Most of us would prefer to think long-term about our careers, rather than just veering randomly to snag perceived opportunities and avoid pitfalls. But how can you adopt a strategic lens when you might not be entirely sure where you want to end up? Here are four strategies I’ve discovered in my?research ?that can be helpful in moving toward your long-term goals — whatever they turn out to be.

Decide what you?don’t?want

We often put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves to know our future direction. Partly that’s because humans are?hardwired to dislike uncertainty , and also sometimes because we fear?losing status ?with others if it seems like we don’t know what we’re doing. But that pressure can lead us to prematurely decide on a course of action that may not be a fit. Instead, I advise my clients to take the opposite approach: Get clear on what you don’t want, and then take steps to avoid that. It’s much easier to identify things you know you dislike, rather than ideating about a hypothetical future.

For instance, you might decide you never want to work for a micromanaging boss again, or you’re done with your current industry, or you no longer want to work hands-on and only want to take on advisory roles. Those are extremely useful pieces of data from which to form a more realistic picture of what you do want, by asking:?How can I make sure I avoid these things in the future??Those decisions are likely to lead you in the direction you want to take.

Develop provisional hypotheses

We all know it’s impossible to do everything at once. And yet it’s hard to resist the lure of?too many goals . Instead, we need to get disciplined and narrow down our focus. Elizabeth, a professional I profiled in my book?Reinventing You , was interested in a half-dozen possible careers. Exploring them all could have become a massive waste of time that distracted her from making genuine progress on anything. But instead, she had a methodical approach, gathering “data points” about each profession (ranging from informational interviews to reading industry analyses) in order to find reasons to rule it out (for instance, the weekend hours required in a certain profession might make it a non-starter).

That process allowed her to focus more intensively on a small number of promising avenues. Think about how you can narrow down your options (perhaps, as above, by focusing on what you don’t want) and then pick one direction as your “provisional hypothesis” for where you want your career to go. You can always change your mind later, but you’ve made an informed choice and will be strategically working toward a plausible goal.

Make progress on the basics

In science, “basic research ” focuses on increasing our understanding of fundamental phenomena — how the brain works, or the principles of physics, for example — whereas “applied research” translates those findings into practical, real-world uses. In our careers, it’s great to be practical, of course — but only if we’re sure of the direction where we want to go. For many of us, the myriad of professional choices we might make leads to?decision paralysis ?and no action at all. Obviously, stasis isn’t a great career strategy.

What’s far better is to focus on the professional equivalent of basic research and double down on foundational skills and knowledge that will make you better, no matter what direction you ultimately decide to pursue. Learning to code in a particular computer language may not be helpful if you decide to leave engineering — but becoming a better public speaker or honing your time management skills are likely to be useful in almost any profession.

Take stock of your emotional and mental energy

The past two years have been draining for everyone, but we’ve all been affected differently based on our circumstances (Working remotely and living alone? Constantly barraged by a spouse and kids?). One of the most important elements in thinking strategically about your career is understanding that our lives operate in cycles — I call it “thinking in waves” — and we have to recognize where we are in that process.

Don’t Focus on Your Job at the Expense of Your Career

The gap between what we have to do today and where we see ourselves in the future can be vexing. We’d like to advance toward our goals, but we feel dragged down by responsibilities that seem banal or off-target for our eventual vision. In this piece, ?the author offers four strategies you can try so that you can simultaneously accomplish what’s necessary in the short-term while playing the long game for the betterment of your career.?What got you here will get you there if you work on transferable skills.

You may have been?languishing ?during the pandemic, but now feel ready to shake off the torpor and dive into new projects with zeal. Or you may have spent the past two years working at the outer edges of your limits, just trying to keep everything together. If that’s the case, this probably isn’t the moment to go all in at work. Instead, you may need to?manage your energy ?and recognize that the best thing you can do for your long-term career success is to take a well-deserved break, whether it’s a more formal?sabbatical ?or simply recognizing that it’s OK to pause on creating ambitious new goals for yourself right now — and avoid beating yourself up for that choice.

Short-term pressures always intrude on our long-term career planning, and that’s especially true when we’ve been through a collective period of crisis. Even if we’re not entirely sure where we want to end up, by following these strategies, we can ensure we’re taking the right steps to move away from what isn’t working for us, and toward a future that seems more hopeful.

What is your personal business model value proposition?

What is your vision? Inevitably, you will have to make mid-course corrections or pivot along the way. However, whether it be your business model canvas or your personal model canvas,??you should take care to align strategies with the larger picture of where you are heading — your “vision.” ?Keep your eyes on the prize.

Here is another heurstic to help you find your way:?identify, community, necessity and horizon.

Answer these prompts to help make an intentional career transition .

What do you like about your job? ?Ask:

1. Where do I find the most satisfaction? Is it in the process of doing my work or in the final outcome?

2. How do my values align with my work?

3.?What do I want to be able to say I’ve accomplished?

RESEARCH

To Do: Scan the environment for roles, holes and goals ?that might be a match that fits your needs and what is required to do them.?Explore your local innovation ecosystem.

?In this piece, the author outlines steps ?you can take to avoid a painful career misstep: 1) Before you begin to think through your decision, outline your career goals and criteria for acceptance, laying out a roadmap for how you will evaluate each element. 2) During your interview, ask exploratory questions about employee engagement, growth potential, expectations, metrics, challenges faced, and how long people historically stay in their roles. 3) Beware of your cognitive biases as you try to make a decision. 4) And finally, before accepting an offer, make it a priority to network with employees who work for the company you’re interested in joining, and get their view of what it’s really like on the inside.

Many professionals dream about shifting into a new role or perhaps an entirely new career. Of course,?making the case for yourself in a new industry ?may be challenging, especially if you lack directly relevant experience. But even beyond the obstacle of convincing others to give you a shot, there’s often a larger conundrum:?how to pay for it.

REVIEW YOUR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

To Do: After you have defined the required knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies you will need to to do what you want to do next,?create a personal and professional development plan ?and a way to track your progress in each domain. For example, do you have?what it takes to be a phyisican entrepreneur? ?How about being a Level 5 leader? ?Do you have the 5 key attributes of succesful entrepreneurs?

REACH OUT TO RESOURCES, COACHES, MENTORS AND PEERS AND APPLY FOR JOBS

To Do: Expand your?networks, find mentors, engage with peer groups and ?, if necessary, find a coach to help you. Update your LinkedIn profile,?particularly your "about" section. ?Join relevant LinkedIn groups.

Here is how to update your resume and Linkedin profile .?Here is a list of 50 transferable skills. ?I'm sure you can add several more to the list.

Remember, someone wants to hire you because you can help solve their problem. It usually is one of the M & Ms.

Now it's time to start selling yourself.?Since most doctors don't get sales and marketing , here are?some LinkedIn Learning courses to get you started. ?(Check to see if your employer has a site license to access for free as an employee). If they don't, then look at this video about selling yourself.

Get better at asking for help.

Learn when and how to use AI to land a job.

7 AI tools to automate your job search

REALIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

To Do:?Create a personal business model canvas and test your hypotheses ?by experimenting with different job situations, using what you have learned to inform the next phase of your career development. Explore and exploit the plan on a regular basis.?Start building your personal brand.

Some reasons why you are having a hard time finding a job are:

1. Too little: You do not bring the right skills or tools to the job
2. Too late: You started your job search too late
3. Too: lonesome: You waited too long to build your networks
4. Too lazy: You did not find the right intrinsic motivator to actively engage you
5. Too unlucky:?The side-gig microeconomics are not favorable

Here are typical side gig gaffes.

RECOGNIZE THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE

To Do: Be kind to yourself, Take your time. Think big and start small and stay small for the time being.?Make it personal but don't take it personally. ?Plan for it to take a while.?Get a life before you get a lifestyle. ?Pass it forward. Be a mentor

If you are a bioscience graduate student or medical student, do not expect to learn non-traditional career development in your formal training.?Learn the hidden curriculum as soon as possible on your own.

Here are some tips on how to do all this during a pandemic.

What are you doing about your career strategy?

Good luck on your journey.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the?Society of Physician Entrepreneurs