What do you want out of your professional career?
I had a conversation with what I consider a fairly successful business person today and it really got me thinking about my professional career. After I listened to his speil about where his career has lead him and what not, he asked me a question I could not answer: What do you want out of your professional career?
After thinking about it for thirty minutes, I still can’t answer it. I emplore you, all 3 readers of my blog, to help a brotha out. I’ve never really thought about it mainly b/c I’m still immature and do not want to be considered a “career person”. I don’t like sitting behind desks, taking orders from jabroni’s, making other people money, doing the same job over and over again or dealing with people in an office that I have to pretend to like even though they are spineless bastards. That is why I left Websourced / Keyword Ranking / MSI / whatever it is now.
Sure i liked the money, but I was bored and dreaded getting up to work every morning. In grad school, everyone was so geared towards working in a bank, it made me want to shoot myself.
I want to travel, have fun and not grow up. How do you articulate that to someone who asks about your professional goals? Tell’em I want to work till I have enough money to support my expensive hobbies of traveling, photography and beer drinking? I want to work with people I respect, trust and enjoy, but also make some money doing it.
I still need to have some career goals but how do you say it? How do you say you are not a career-oriented person without sounding like a drug induced hippie?
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14 Responses to “What do you want out of your professional career?”
The beautiful thing about the world you create and live in is that you can do whatever makes you happy. The goal is to continue doing what makes you happy while finding ways of sustaining your life, monetarily. I can respect, but do not like about questions like that and people who surround that 9-5 desk job, corporate America mentality. Just because you have found success in something, namely a path in life, that doesn’t mean someone else has to follow that same path to be as successful. If you do not think that is the life for you, then it by no means needs to be forced upon you. Your career plan is to do what you love, make some money at it and lead by example. BREAK DOWN THE WALLS!! /anti-establishment_rant
Yea I agree, but like I said I want to have some sort of response that is not as retarded as “I want to retire at 35″.
I asked old man Belsky this and he said something that is probably right, there are more people in our generation that feel like this rather then his generation (he’s 41).
i dunno
Is the desire to retire by 35 not a legitimate professional plan? Retirement is not what it used to be; and by that I mean when it actually comes time for you to retire if you follow the “right” path, there will be nothing there for you anyway, other than what you put aside.
I think a good equivalent question to his, is more along the lines of “What do you seek to accomplish with your time on this Earth?” That is to say what do you want to do while you are in your prime, working for the man, yourself, on projects or whatever. What do you want to do to validate your time here.
I read an interesting article about a year ago regarding this very topic. It basically stated that studies have shown that the new generation of American workers are not going to “settle.”
ironicallly i forwarded it to HR at WEbsourced/MSI/Whatever and was laid off a month later…
Anyway, the days of someone staying at a company for 30 years is over. Money is important, but it isn’t everything. If you are bored, unchallenged and don’t like the next step on the career ladder at your current job, why stay?
For me, the perfect job isn’t a job. A job is something you have to do to get by. A career is something you are passionate about. A career should built around enthusiasm.
I think you have to identify what motivates you. What makes you truly happy. I know it’s a cliche, but some of the wealthiest people i know are miserable.
I guess it depends on your definition of success.
sadly money motivates me, but only b/c with money you have the ability to do what you want to.
sounds a little self indulgent I guess.
you guys are all over the place and it is all relevant.
A career is something you are passionate about. A career should built around enthusiasm.
sadly money motivates me, but only b/c with money you have the ability to do what you want to.
Dead on point.
Money and wealth may not be the ideal thing to focus on when valuing your life, but we live in a society that REQUIRES it and that sucks. Life should be about what you can do, who you can help or do something with and working things out in between. Instead we are held down by the ideas of money, punishment, failure, and fear of all of the other. Just gotta find something that works and adjust your perspective.
I guess it depends on your definition of success.
Pepper your conversation/interview with words like this:
creative flow
outside the box
freedom of expression
don’t want to be tied down
not wedded to the corporate culture
work better in an open environment
room to expand
excel in a more dynamic atmosphere
external productivity
don’t want to be pigeonholed
You should be able to explain it in a way that doesn’t make you sound like a hippy if you are creative with the wording.
At this point in our careers, do we really need a “career goal”? Can’t we continue to “move forward” or “move up” and see where that takes us? As long as you’re enjoying what you do, and you’re doing it better and better, do we need a “place of achievement” as a goal? Can’t everyday be an achievement of itself?
i sure as heck have no idea what my career goals are…geesh thanks evan now i’m sitting here thinking about what a loser i am
Paul you are right, and it goes along with what other said, its a different generation, and not the traditional fall in line mentality.
CG, your welcome, anything I can do to help
or you could just be honest and say you are too lazy to have a 9-5
old man belsky is 29, fyi
and is wise beyond his years
Horse Apples! Belsky used to babysit Steve Grogan.
like i told Evan yesterday, i’d like to get paid to do the stuff i normally do for free. unfortunetly, no one is hiring binge drinking 80s TV experts
I think VH1 is looking for a new host for I love the 80s
Too late - I already took the gig for Dance Off/Pants Off