Career Transitions

Do you want to shake up your career? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Whitney Johnson, the author of Disrupt Yourself. They talk through what to do when you’ve trained for one career and long for another, when you reenter the workforce after a long gap, and when you want to move into management.

From Alison and Dan’s reading list:

HBS Working Knowledge: Nine Unconventional Strategies For Reinventing Your Career by Herminia Ibarra — “Major career transitions take three to five years. The big ‘turning point,’ if there is one, tends to come late in the story. In the interim, make use of anything as a trigger. Don’t wait for a catalyst. What you make of events is more important than the events themselves. Take advantage of whatever life sends your way to revise, or at least reconsider, your story.”

HBR: How Stay-at-Home Parents Can Transition Back to Work by Dorie Clark — “If you want to return to the workforce, you have to manage and overcome the unspoken assumptions about who you are and what you’re capable of. By making it clear that your skills are current, networking assiduously, showing that you’re motivated, and demonstrating that your caregiving experience is actually a strength, you can go a long way in combatting pernicious stereotypes and re-entering professional life on your own terms.”

HBR: Convincing Your Boss to Make You a Manager by Anna Ranieri — “Lay out very clearly what you have learned about managing, inside or outside of a professional setting. State the additional management skills that you look forward to learning, and your plan to learn them. Make the pitch, and demonstrate that you are the upcoming management talent that the organization needs.”

HBR: Disrupt Yourself by Whitney Johnson — “Current stakeholders in your life and career will probably encourage you to avoid disruption. For many of us, though, holding steady really means slipping—as we ignore the threat of competition from younger, more agile innovators, bypass opportunities for greater reward, and sacrifice personal growth.”