Golden Nuggets from Career Conversations

Well.

We've had quite a few conversations with quite a few people doing quite a few different things!

It's been a blast.

To round out our second season (!), we thought we'd do a bit of a summary of the key takeaways, or golden nuggets that came out of those conversations. Because despite all the differences, there were a lot of ideas and experiences that repeated over and over again.

What did we find the most telling? The number of times these things came up:

• The role networking played in so many careers
• The non-linear pathways
• Finding yourself doing something you hated in high school, and realizing it wasn't so bad
• The impacts of AI on the changing career landscape
• Being willing to change your mind and get off the train as soon as you know it's going the wrong direction
• Evolving as a human and how it changes your work and how you work

Transcript

Welcome to The One About Careers with Devon and Sarah Jane. A career podcast for adults involved with teens navigating life after high school. We help you help your teens make informed education and career decisions by providing quality information and resources. Join us for weekly, bite -sized conversations covering various aspects of careers, including insights from professionals in different fields. New episodes available every week at the oneaboutcareers .com.

Hi everyone, welcome back to the One About Careers with Devon and Sarah Jane. We
have been on quite a ride lately chatting with people and finding out about people's
career journeys and getting their insights, and it's been a blast. So we thought
today what we'd do is share with you some of the key takeaways or the golden
nuggets, as it were, of some of the things that came out of our conversations. Hi,
Sarah-Jane! - Hey, Devon. - I'm so excited. - Of course you are. - I know,
all of these things. You and I, every single episode, we're nodding our heads,
nodding our heads, nodding our heads. - So sure. - Yeah. - Off the top of your head,
what's like one thing that stood out for you um from all the folk. So one thing
it was to me there was this constant return to networking and talking about
networking and building relationships and you know anytime people were like I'm not
really sure what I wanted to do next it was I just went and talked to a bunch of
people or to find out what options were but that was like it was a recurring theme
I think almost everybody said that. Yeah, what about you? Yeah, absolutely. That was
one of the things that really did surprise me because I know we talk about it in
the career space all the time and especially in the job search space. And so it
really did sort of take me aback that that that was a key, key thing in terms of
developing relationships and networking, the number of people who got like jobs
because they were pulled along by a friend, right, or offered a thing.
And so what's really interesting, of course, is our most recent guest, Rachel
Brethauer, said that, you know, you do as a screenwriter,
you work in groups, and it's sort of like if one of the group makes it into a
certain area, then all of the groups makes it. So it's an interesting thing,
this relationship piece to do with the networking. I think for me the other thing
that just repeatedly kept standing out made me just giggle every single time. I
didn't have a straight line. Like they're supposed to have a straight line. Totally.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't understand this because you would have reached out to
people in this space forever. And we're both like, it isn't a straight line.
Why do people not know this yet? Are we still are we still creating like linear
career maps? I mean, what's so funny is I don't think anybody specifically is this
is the funny thing. And I know I've brought it up before on the podcast, and I've
certainly had this conversation with other people who work with youth in particular.
I don't think anybody in particular is saying it has to be linear. I don't think
anybody's drawing a map that looks like that or anything like that. It's something
that just like hovers in the ether and people pull it in and take it as gospel,
even when the people in their lives are saying, "Yeah, I don't think that's how
that works." It's bizarre. Yeah. Well, I think we were hopeful,
right? Most of us like clarity and we like to know stability,
predictability, what is the next step and just just give me the rules right and I
can follow them and I think that's where I think some of the the challenges is in
in the career world first of all the rules change a lot and regularly and so first
of all trying to find out what the heck they are today at 1257 is one thing And
then of course at 1258, they might be different. And so that's part of the,
you know, I've certainly seen whole careers decimated because of something that's
changed. And
that's not really a new thing. But people certainly are very shocked by that.
Like I'm hearing some chatter, you know, economically about, especially people who've
worked in automotive manufacturing, they're like, this is my life. Like, I don't know
how to do anything else. There can't be, they're actually, like, they don't even
have the capacity to think that there's something else. They're like the third
generation, right? So it might have been a fourth generation farmer at one time. Now
it's third generation automotive And no, like, and, and of course, because that's all
they've ever seen and known and shot and, and part of it makes me so angry because
it's like, no, in most career spaces, things change and you have to adapt and move.
It isn't always going to be the same. Yeah. Yeah, and even among like, when you
survey post -secondary students and you ask them things like what are you looking for
in a career, like a very high percentage will say, I want to be at a place I can
be at for my entire career. And every time I see it, I think, oh, honey. I know
what happened, honey. And the other piece of that is that employers are not seeing
that happen. No, people are jumping like super quickly.
So it's very funny because students are saying they want this and they get out
there. They don't actually do that when they're out there. So yeah,
it's an interesting thing. What else did you hear someone say that
you were surprised by?
I'm trying to Um,
there was something, there were a couple of times I think that it came up and I'm
sure you have quotes because you kept notes and I didn't, um, but I feel like it
came up a couple of times where people sort of took like a left turn and weren't
really expecting that. Yeah. A lot of people. So I think there were two really
notable ones was about, I didn't like silent science in high school and became a
nurse. Yeah. I didn't like math. - And now I do data analysis. - Now I do data
analysis, right? Like it's, yeah. - And it's one of the most common career questions.
What subjects do you enjoy in school? And so it's like, whoa, no,
no, no. Those people did not enjoy those subjects in high school. Huh, okay.
And it really goes back to that whole thing of, not just the subjects, and not
just sort of the limited space, but the limited time. Like, how do you know if you
like something when you're 15? I mean, there are certain things, obviously, but like,
there are a lot of things, you know, even food, I go back to now that I didn't
like as a teenager, you know, like, it just you change over time. And there's
something completely missing in our conversations with youth in terms of careers,
about how you don't stay the same person. And I don't I honestly don't know how
you have that conversation, you know, it does, it does come out, certainly the
conversations I have with my clients, but it's, that's a hard thing to get across
to people like you're not going to be the same person in five years, never mind 50
years.
Fair, fair. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's
a, that's a really good point in terms of what um yeah
that that we're gonna change as much as the the economy changes as much as
employers change as much as um political network changes yeah yeah sometimes it can
be as simple as like even as as the parent or the grown -up in their life look at
your own life five years ago Now, at this point when we record this, five years
ago was the beginning of the pandemic.
Everything was different, right? Everything was different. And then go back one year
before that, everything was different, right? And then just as you look forward,
put on a lens of like, why wouldn't I assume the next five years would be totally
different too? I think it's so hard to do, but it's like just a tiny bit of logic
and you can really flip that one easily, but I don't know how else you approach it
with so many. - Yeah, yeah. I think today I was reading actually a little bit about
the possibility of AI being involved in reviewing information about drug that are
being submitted for approval. And so it can reduce the amount of time. And I I was
like, fascinated by this, 'cause I know there's a lot of areas in our world that
we are waiting for a human being to read something and figure out what's right,
what's wrong, what needs to be addressed, what doesn't need to be addressed. So it
was like, do you know how many things that could speed up, whether it's home
development, whether it's environmental environmental impact, you know,
all of those things, like how, like, because you can, you can get, if I,
if I understand AI, you can get all those layers into one, right?
And then so it can read from all of those perspectives. Whereas, as humans,
I'm not sure that we have that capacity that we can read from all there are some
for sure there's some really bright folks who can read from a lot of different
capacities um and you know and like it's just it was so i'm like we are gonna see
some major shifts yeah you know um my son actually he was recently in an area that
had um an and autonomous vehicle,
you know, as a taxi. And he was like,
it was fine. It did everything it was supposed to. It just felt odd.
- Weird, yeah. - Yeah, really odd. So if you just think about sort of those things
that are starting to happen, how are those going to impact our worlds? Like, Wicked!
We don't even know the jobs, some of the jobs that will exist in a year because
they're still being developed, right? For sure.
um I think the other thing that struck me was Not limiting yourself,
you know, so You can transfer to other colleges, universities.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like universities. You actually said this in our last podcast
was when you figure out the trains going in the wrong direction, get off.
Get off the train. Yeah. And I'm not sure that people necessarily realize that one
of our first guests, Melanie, talked about never saying no to opportunity.
Yeah. Who knows we're not a lead. Yeah. You can try it. Is there anything wrong
with trying something?
And I think, I think that feeds back to the, the internal expectations we have of,
okay, but if I try it, and I don't like it, that doesn't fit with my picture of
I'm supposed to go work for the same company for 20 years. Like, it's really hard
to reconcile those two things. I had, you know, I mean, obviously I have a lot of
conversations with about these things. And there was at one point when I said to
somebody, you know, what, sometimes I think the best career strategy is just
isn't all that. But to me, especially if you were paying $10 ,000, $15 ,000 a year
to go to school, if it's not for you, save your money. You may as well just like
set a bucket of cash on fire otherwise. So yeah, I mean, the earlier you get out,
the more you can re -correct and the more you can do that reflection part process
of what did I like about that that maybe I wouldn't mind keeping? And what did I
not like that? It's like, okay, we're taking that out totally. But maybe there's a
little piece that I can take with me to the next thing and kind of expand that a
bit more. It's an iterative process.
- Yeah, most definitely.
Sometimes as people followed some of those crumbs, right? They discovered something,
they didn't even know that job existed. And they discovered something they loved.
And so it's that being open to following some jobs,
someone said lead with curiosity.
And the rhythm of time, which I think was something we were talking about
previously, is that, you know, different stages of our life, we want different
things. Yeah, absolutely. And that's going to Um,
how we do our work, just as you said, you know, five years ago, we were at the
start of the, um,
pandemic. And so it's
so many things changed at that point. And that's just the rhythm of time. Yeah,
100%. Yeah.
Yeah. The concrete plans sometimes are. Yeah, you know what I feel like was a bit
of a thread through some of these conversations was that navigating your career is a
whole lot of figuring out who you are and who you want to be. I feel like that
came up a lot. What I'm thinking right now is Amanda where she talked about kind
of honing in on that thing where she's good at bringing people together and didn't
realize that was a skill until somebody was like, holy crap, you're good at that.
And I felt like a lot of our conversation with her was her talking about kind of
like stepping into herself as a human, and that's sort of what has dictated some of
her career moves. And I think we definitely don't think of careers in that way.
I've certainly seen it written into career studies curriculum that that's supposed to
be a big piece, but I think it's something that's so obvious and so subtle at the
same time, it's hard to teach it to people. Yeah, and I think you're really right
there in terms of understanding how what I'm naturally good at can actually translate
into dollars and cents, and what industries employ those kinds of folks.
And
I think that's where sometimes we do we do struggle especially um and one of the
other things Rachel said is you know there are jobs that exist now of course that
didn't exist and that's part of the thing is that as we're moving along and people
can create jobs wherever they are um because they serve and people talk about that
up all the time. Find a need, solve the need. Find a problem,
solve the problem. Get hate to solve the problem.
So I think it's a, the world of careers still like lights me up.
Yeah. You know, what's endlessly fascinating. It's endlessly fascinating. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think the fact that frankly the fact that there are new jobs now that
didn't exist when I started out uh it's like that just lights me up for sure for
sure anything else you want to add to the uh great takeaways from our fabulous
guests I mean we could go on forever really as we always can um yeah no it was
it's it's been a lot of fun chatting with people and getting to know them and I
don't know if you kind of felt this because we both sort of brought in people we
knew but there were something there were definitely some times in conversations where
I'm like I had no idea about that person which is sort of fun so it's sort of a
fun way to sort of rediscover things about about friends and family which is amazing
absolutely uh I'll maybe end with a quote. I don't know if people will find this
encouraging, but I think it's the reality. Melissa McFarland Heidmiller said
"careers are like a messy map."

And they are.

Thanks for listening to the One About Careers podcast. You can catch up with past
episodes at theoneaboutcareers .com. Join us next week for another bright -sized
conversation.