We’ve been following the career decision-making path of Graham by looking at his talents, passions and values to find appropriate job matches. Much of what we’ve done so far requires matching personal characteristics with specific occupations.
This is a very helpful process, but it doesn’t negate the reality that life happens and sometimes you’ve got to jump start your career pathway with action that may or may not lead to the specific careers targeted in your career exploration activities.
John Krumboltz’s, (who with Ed Levine wrote, Luck is No Accident), career development theory is one of “planned happenstance”. Basically, this view is that people in career development should help people learn to create more satisfying lives for themselves, and this doesn’t necessarily mean pointing someone towards a specific occupation. It does mean helping people create action steps related to their career that will lead to life satisfaction.
How does planned happenstance work?
When Graham was about to graduate from college, the economy had just tanked. He graduated at a time when 80% of college graduates moved back in with mom and dad because they didn’t have a job or didn’t have a job that paid enough to allow them to live on their own.
During Graham’s last semester of college, I talked with him about next steps after college without any career assessments or inventories. He loved his entrepreneurship major and had done well academically, had worked as a Capstone Man (a highly coveted college ambassador spot that allowed him to rub noses frequently with high powered people in our state), had been the President of the Freshman Leadership group and had worked for Joseph A. Banks part-time. He had taken action steps (towards a satisfying life) in college by engaging in activities that made him more marketable and more connected than most students, but the economy was still terrible.
So what was his next action step? He took several including talking to people in venture capital because he had developed an interest in the field through his major and considered briefly going into business with my dad and uncle. His key action step related to his current career came when he saw an article in a southern magazine about Billy Reid moving their corporate office to Florence, Alabama from Dallas. The article focused the company’s entrepreneurial spirit and desire to re-invent men’s fashion with a focus on southern style.
Graham was intrigued and most people would have left it at that. But he sent the company his resume and cover letter focusing on his interest in men’s fashion and desire to stay in Alabama. He had no idea if they were hiring, but he took the action step anyway. They called him within two days and he accepted a summer internship with them.
He could have backed off because it wasn’t a full-time, permanent job offer, but after talking with them, he felt like it was the right step for him. Because of his hard work (he did grunt work like paint the new store along with other business related tasks) he was offered the full-time role of Director of E-Commerce three months after starting and has been growing with the company in his career ever since.
4 Actions for Planned Happenstance
$1· Take the step to get involved in things that allow you the opportunity to network and demonstrate leadership
$1· Read and stay current on your interest areas and companies of interest and “apply” with them by demonstrating your passion for what they do even if they don’t have a posted opening.
$1· Working hard in a less than ideal role in an industry and/or with a company you like can lead you to the right spot in your career
$1· BOTTOM LINE: ACT even if you don’t know where it is going to lead. It may land you in the job of your dreams if you follow your intuition.
Next week, we’ll discuss how the job market encompasses this whole diagram, your talents, passions and values in determining career decisions.
