Ten Steps to Getting a Cool Career

If you are looking for an unconventional career, you need some unconventional strategies to help you find it.

Here’s 10:

1. Network, Network, Network.

Networking is the best way to gather information about unusual and unconventional careers. Most of the conventional job market is hidden. The unconventional job market is even more hidden. Search out success stories. Find out who are the top people in your chosen field, or role models who can teach you new things. Find ways to meet them. Don’t expect to find them in your existing social network. Break out of your existing social habits and meet new people. Remember the Six Degrees of Separation theory – we are each of us only six people away from anyone in the world. If you contact a friend they can put you in touch with another friend who can give you another contact and so on down the line until you meet the person you really want to get in touch with. Do your research and ask questions all along the way about what interesting careers are out there and how you could get started in your career of choice.

2. Think Creatively

Take the path less travelled. There may be one career that suits you but several that will suit you at different times. If you have the chance, volunteer or do short contracts, trying out different jobs as much as possible. Each of them will teach you more about what you like and dislike. Remember, in this country we can invent our own careers by taking bits of different careers and giving them a new title.

3. Live with Contradictions

If you can’t find the perfect career straight away, that’s OK. Just keep taking step after step and make sure each step is consistent with your values, personality and interests. As you build self-knowledge by taking action, inspiration about different career paths you could follow will come along.

4. Keep Flexible

Remember, we are each of us more than one person. What interests you at one time in your life many not be right for you at another. Be prepared to be flexible and respond to your intuition as to when to change paths.

5. Failure is OK

It is perfectly OK to have a career on your CV that wasn’t right for you. Trial and error teaches us more than introspection. As you learn more about yourself, you can get more precise and accurate in matching your career choices to who you are.

6. Take Small Steps to Get You to the big Goal

Even if you know what your ideal career is, it may take a while – even years – to get there. Although it would be wonderful to wave a magic wand, small wins are the best ways to work the path towards a bigger goal. Use each small change you make, and everything you learn, as feedback about what you want and how to get your big goal. Accept that the path often weaves in and out of rocks and disappears for a while underground before coming back again. It is not a straight line. A series of small wins will add up to a big change over time.

7. Keep Learning

If you don’t have the opportunity to learn through your current job and you can’t afford to take an immediate leap to another career, identify voluntary or parallel projects that you could take on that will give you new skills or insights. Turning points in careers don’t usually come because of one huge leap, but because of a build-up of preferences and commitment from the different assignments over time. It is better to spend more time trying out different ways or styles of working in extracurricular projects, where you can afford to change direction, rather than taking a huge career leap that might prove hard to reverse and cost you money or security.

8. Be Patient

Career growth and transition take time. If you want to take the unfamiliar path, it may take two, three, or even more, years for you to grow the career you really want.

9. Recognise Opportunities When They Appear

We all have periods when we make progress and periods when we seem to get stuck. Always keep your eyes peeled for opportunities. Career changes don’t always come conveniently labelled as such. Keep your eyes open for opportunities to make your career cooler than it is at present. Think about becoming an expert in a particular niche area. Or how about changing geographical location? What are you prepared to do that other people might not consider? Make a story out of your career so far. Take advantage of whatever life throws at you. Only you can make your career a positive experience for you. Tell the story of your life in a positive way to bring meaning to your career and it will make you get clear on the next steps you can take.

10. Take a Risk and Become Self-Employed

You can aim for an employed career or you can just get your name out there and invent your own. Be prepared to take a risk and go self-employed once you really know your own working preferences. It takes some courage but it could be your best investment in yourself ever.