Escape from Expectation: The Benefit of Following Your Passions in Your Career

Challenging the traditional career path narrative

So much of the traditional advice for young professionals is centered on sticking it out, paying your dues, putting in the long hours, and sacrificing for some eventual golden opportunity that will make it all worthwhile.?

While staying the course and keeping your nose to the grindstone is good advice for some, I’m here to offer a different perspective.?

Follow your interests. Lean into what excites you. Don’t stay where things feel grueling or exhausting. If a job is leaving you in tears at the end of every day, regardless of what a wonderful opportunity it might be to build your resume: leave.?

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that everything can go belly up in an instant. The world can shift nearly overnight. I saw so many of my contemporaries reevaluate were they where and what they invested their time and energy in over the last few years. It was such a pervasive trend that we even coined a term for it: The Great Reshuffle.

I’ve seen lawyers quit their practice to open yarn stores. I’ve watched friends who spent decades in traditional publishing leave to become homesteaders. Folks who were grinding away on the corporate ladder decided to launch their own agencies or consultancies to share their expertise with others more directly.?

The lesson each of these stories taught me is that all experience is relevant experience. The editor who grows heirloom tomatoes? She understands a deadline, precision, research, and attention to detail. That directly translated to understanding ideal growing conditions and the best times to plant or harvest. She’s no stranger to long days and racing against the clock to finish something on time before it’s unusable.?

The lawyer who opened a yarn shop knew exactly what was needed to operate a business legally in her county. She understood the lease paperwork she signed, knew how to talk to vendors, and secure viable terms for being able to pay back small business loans. She understands walking a customer through an intricate process, explaining each part in detail so they have all the information they need.?

Have you ever read a sock pattern? It’s just as complicated as a contract, written in its own specific language with its own set of rules.?

All experience is relevant experience. ?

The Myth of the Traditional Career Path

For many of my peers, their career journeys have been straightforward: four years of undergrad, a summer internship or two, then an entry-level role that led to progressive responsibility and scope. Many of them continued on to a graduate program or added certifications to develop their specialization further.?

We are mid-career with strong resumes and a good decade of relevant experience.?

I don't have my bachelor's degree yet. (Class of 2024 after 20 years pursuing it.) I have relied solely on my professional experience and transferable skills to advance my career.

A traditional career path is linear: it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It has predictable milestones. You start out with a title like junior this or associate that and work your way up to senior something or vice president of something else.?

Often folks are afraid to stray from that path. It’s the sunk cost fallacy in action: “If I leave where I am, I’ll have to start all over from the bottom.”

In a recent report , an emerging workplace trend among employers is a willingness to hire candidates not based on years of experience or academic credentials but instead focusing on skill-based assessment.?

In short: if you have the skills, it doesn’t matter where you got them.

Exploring the connection between interests and motivation

I didn’t follow that linear path, though.?

I started my professional experience working as a direct service advocate for victims of sexual violence at a non-profit.

Then I became the arts and entertainment editor of a local weekly newspaper.?

From there, I moved to Las Vegas and joined a government affairs agency as a social media manager.

Some may look at these three roles and think they’re drastically disparate. How did I get these jobs with no previous experience??

As a victim advocate, I developed skills in crisis communication, de-escalation, gathering a lot of information quickly, and being able to turn it into something actionable just as quickly. I learned how to interact with people in emotionally charged situations. I learned how to write detailed reports and provide confidentiality. There was a high demand for working well under pressure and on time-sensitive projects. Research and expert recording keeping was vital.?

Those are skills I took to the newspaper. Where I further developed my ability to take in a lot of new information quickly and synthesize it so it was broadly applicable to a varied audience. I also worked across teams to pull together content under a deadline. I gained a functional understanding of newsrooms and journalism, media ethics, and publishing.?

I took those skills to the government affairs agency, where I developed public relations and media outreach skills. I knew how to talk to journalists because I'd been one. I learned about translating content to digital audiences. I already had experience working with nonprofits and local government, so I was able to work with clients in those industries, including doing PR and social media for a rape crisis agency, because I had a specific understanding of their needs that many traditional PR or social media professionals might not have.?

In every role I’ve had since I’ve carried skills forward. I worked for a whiskey distillery, a digital marketing agency, a full-service PR and marketing agency, and now, an ed-tech company.?

I started as a direct service advocate, sitting with folks at their scariest, worst points. Today, I’m a brand manager specializing in telling employee stories to engage top talent into joining our mission to serve students and educators.?

It doesn't look linear on paper, but to me, it's been a very straight line from where I began to where I am today.

Benefits of Non-Traditional Career Paths

The benefit of a winding path like this is that you develop niche skills and experience. Every role is an opportunity to dive deeper into the things that you're particularly interested in. The more you know about yourself and your motivation, the easier it is to seek out that next role that will let you do more of that and less of what you don't like doing every day.

Wouldn't it be amazing if, at some point in your career, you had a job that genuinely excited you every day? Where the things you did in your day to day kept you engaged and interested instead of depleted and exhausted?

Every job you’ve had is an opportunity to develop transferable skills and grow professionally. Changing careers and being willing to learn something completely new: a skill, an industry, an audience, or a trade is all a testament to adaptability and resilience. Skills almost every employer values.?

Practical Tips for Exploring Non-Traditional Paths

How do you take all your current experience and make yourself attractive in a new field??

It’s all about how you tell your story.?

In a traditional career path, when you’re applying or interviewing for a new role in your field, you might rely on the years of experience you have in that field. You’ll point to specific metrics that matter to that industry. You may even hope that brand recognition - your previous employer's reputation - will help bolster your application.?

When you’re moving into a completely different field or type of role, you have to tell your story in terms that will be understood by any audience: what things from your unrelated roles apply directly to this new one??

Some tips:

• When reviewing the job description for the role you’re applying for, look for common skills that tie your past experience to this role. Use those keywords when developing your resume and cover letter. You may not have ten-plus years of experience in that exact role, but you might have a lot of the skills of someone who has been in that role.?
• Some things are broadly applicable: being a quick learner, adaptable, a team player, detail-oriented, highly organized, creative, or growth-minded are all things many (maybe even most) employers are looking for in candidates. Be sure to include the ones that are relevant to you in your application materials.?Check out this article on the top soft skills employers are looking for in 2023.
• A portfolio that showcases the quality of your work, even if it’s not exactly the same as what you may be doing in a new role, can go a long way to showing a prospective employer the type of work you’re capable of. Portfolios aren’t just for creatives! Strategists can create case studies of past campaigns they’ve built, showing off the thought process and efficacy of work.?
• Networking is key. Engaging with folks in the field you’re hoping to move into is a helpful way to learn the ins and outs of the industry before you join it. Knowing trends, keywords, thought leaders, and who’s who is super helpful.?
• Think through the question, “Why are you interested in this role, specifically?”? Prepare an answer that connects your past experience and interests with this new role.?

Go Your Own Way

Every step and pivot along my career journey has uniquely positioned me for the next one. I bring my skills from advocacy and journalism into my role as an employee brand manager today, using my ability to interview people from many different backgrounds and to understand their unique struggles and triumphs in a way that helps others.?

By following my interests, I’ve created a through line that is always focused on human connection regardless of the role or industry I’m in.?

Ultimately it’s a deep understanding of my own motivations that drives my career forward: learning about and helping people succeed is what I want to do every day.? So now the opportunities are nearly endless for how to apply that professionally.?

It is never too late to try something new or grow in a new field. The grass is green where you water it, so you can grow anywhere if you are the one carrying the water.