An Untraditional Path

Over the past 25+ years, I’ve been fortunate enough to embark on several different career paths. My professional arc might not have been traditional at the time I entered the workforce. I didn’t choose a specific career at the age of 23 and remain in that lane. Instead, I’ve experienced multiple disciplines over the past 2+ decades. I believe this is becoming a much more common path for individuals entering the workforce over the past decade.

Recently, I’ve been chatting with colleagues early in their careers asking me how I’ve navigated my own career, particularly around how I knew what I wanted to do next and how I made the leap between different disciplines. I can’t guarantee this will resonate with everyone (or anyone for that matter), but it has worked for me.

Understanding My Interests

Raised My Hand: People don’t know you’re interested in something if you don’t tell them. Whenever opportunities arose to participate in projects outside my core responsibilities, I quickly volunteered. It’s one of the best ways to gain exposure to other work disciplines. Three personal examples below:

• Need an extra body to support Customer training? What an awesome way to enhance my customer facing, problem-solving, and presentation skills and extend my network. Relationships built here forged the path for me to move from Customer Support to Professional Services at early in my career at Elance.
• A new role opens up in another discipline? Apply. Go through the interview process to show you are a serious candidate. Get rejected. Apply again. Get serious consideration. Get rejected. Apply again. Get the gig. This is how I transitioned from Implementation to Product Management at Amex.
• Your Manager goes on sabbatical and never comes back? No need to look anywhere else, the successor is right here. It’s how I started my leadership career at Tipalti six months after taking on the new challenge of being a Solution Consultant.

Look for Complementary Opportunities: Throughout my career, I’ve moved from Customer Support to Professional Services to Implementation to Product Management to Solution Consulting to Strategic Initiatives. With each new career I entered into, I was able to leverage skills from my previous work history. It makes the transition easier and it is very beneficial to your pitch when interviewing for a new role.

How I Made it Happen

Commit to Yourself: I almost called this Bet on Yourself, but betting is an educated guess, not a personal commitment. A successful career pivot requires discipline and dedication to learning the craft (make no mistake there will be a ton of learning as you settle in). A career change can be daunting. To be successful, you’ll need to do the work, take the training, make the internal connections and essentially own your growth into the new role.?

Develop A Champion: There are mentors and there are champions. You want a champion, someone who will recommend you and essentially puts their reputation on the line. It takes time, effort, and results to develop a champion. This is particularly valuable when you’re looking to make a change within your current company.?