Category Archives: Career Big Picture

Unsolicited Advice

Posted on December 12, 2011 by | Leave a comment

I considered launching a website this month called “Unsolicited Advice.”  The “About Us” section would read: Unsolicited Advice is a chronicle of the myriad of unsought after tips, ideas, opinions, and suggestions people offer up regarding not-their-own future.  This site is a forum for examining the tenability of the claims.  More specifically, it would be documenting the journey of one particular post-graduate student [yours truly] from graduation to employment.  Comments are welcome.

The impetus for this site was the fascinating amount of rather useless unsolicited advice I have received since graduating from graduate school.  Mind you, dear readers, I have been a proud M.A. recipient for an apparently gasp-worthy two weeks.  Before I could even take a moment to exhale from the painful amount of work that went into receiving that degree (not to mention, concurrently interning and doing research), I was verbally bludgeoned by friends, family, and acquaintances.

Those who were succinct and clear about my direction told me I should write a book, open a tattoo removal business, consult to pharmaceutical companies regarding clinical trials, be a clinical psychologist, and apply to be a notary. Then there were the bizarrely nebulous suggestions that proved to be the most useless such as: work for a nonprofit, narrow down my research interests, expand my interests, publish something, go out on my own, and go volunteer somewhere.   By and large, the most common piece of unsolicited advice I received was, “You should go back to school. With the economy the way it is right now, it’s a good time to be in school. Ride it out.” These individuals seem to ignore the fact that I just finished doing exactly that.

The odd part of all this is not the ineffectual advice.  The advice itself is irrelevant. I think any grad student can attest to being the recipient of unwarranted career recommendations that tend to be immaterial to your end goal.  The business people tell you to get out of academia, the academics tell you to get more research experience, the researchers tell you to get more published, and your mom tells you to get some sleep.   What is relevant is why people seem to be soliciting advice.  Is there an implication that those who finish graduate school without a job are directionless? That we are wandering aimlessly in unemployment? That we are acting as leeches on the economy?  I am not sure.

It is amazing to me, though, how few unsolicited advice-givers have stopped to ask me what my degree is actually in or why I went to graduate school in the first place. These bits and pieces of information just might be relevant…in the meantime, I am off to research becoming a notary…

~Margo Aaron

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Posted in Career Advice, Career Big Picture, Graduate School

Vertical Limits

Posted on April 22, 2011 by | Leave a comment

A few weeks ago, I met a woman who, in her lifetime, had been a psychologist, a consultant, and an entrepreneur.  To most, her path seems random. To her, it was inevitable. “We all go through multiple careers in our lifetime,” she told me. “You aren’t the same person at 64 that you were at 40 and you aren’t the same person at 40 that you were at 27.” She had a point.  Do the decisions we make in our 20s have to be linear correlates to the outcomes of our 60s?

On a certain level, they are invariably related. Experiences form our skills and values which, in turn, inform our actions. It is a linear progression. Then again, anything in retrospect can sound linear.  Hindsight is 20/20.  You can always make sense of your decisions in the past. You have context and outcome to use to justify your path.

In the midst of these changes, it’s not so simple. Often the decisions you make are not linear.  New opportunities arise, economic climates change, your priorities change, you have a family, you move, you age.  The vertical heights you will achieve later in life are not yet in sight. And the ones staring you in the face might be limiting.  Sometimes, to get a better view, you need to move laterally, shift left or right.  Readjust, refocus, redirect.

It is much more palatable to think of your career linearly, but it isn’t always realistic. This woman had her doctorate and ultimately discovered she was an entrepreneur.  She did not limit herself by reaching for the highest she could go in one field (academia), she reached out and tested the waters in a few others (business).  Just as we grow with age, as should our careers. It seems that reaching vertically is limiting.  It can’t always lead us to the highest place we can go.

- Margo Aaron

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Posted in Career Big Picture, Career Reflection

Non-Peer Pressure

Posted on March 21, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Starting in middle school, American students are bombarded with exhortations to avoid the illusive “peer pressure.” From how the “experts” present it, if you succumb to peer pressure (dramatic pause) you will get chlamydia and you will die.  While these “experts” harp on and on about how your friend Janie will invariably turn you into a drug addict, they fail to educate students on the real dangers of non-peer pressure.

Non-peer pressure is exactly what it sounds like, pressure from non-peers.   Non-peers can include family members, teachers, family friends, coaches, American culture, the government, the media, and Chuck Norris.  It is far more perilous than peer pressure because it comes from everyone, everywhere, and in every form.

It is in the small-talk at dinner when family friends ask casually, “So, what do you do?”  It is in that look your grandmother gives you when she notices you still don’t have a husband. In the saleswoman’s catty glance at your outfit. In your boss’s tendency to promote only those employees he can talk about golf with. In your teacher’s nonconstructive criticism on your essay.

Instances like these and more can cause us to question our trajectory. Today’s world is a cesspool of pressures.  Achievement pressures, social pressures, sartorial pressures, pressure to have the right job, the right apartment (and then house), the right car, the right girlfriend, the right hobbies, the right degrees, the right school, the right dinner plans, the right hair, the right discussion topics, the right interview skills, the right outfit, the right salary, the right job, the right life.  With all these pressures, how do we endure?

We endure by being ourselves in spite of the pressures.  We endure by remembering that for a majority of these issues, there is no right or wrong, no good or bad.  There is only different. In the end, you have to do what is right for you.  That is how you deal with non-peer pressure.

And to think, all your friend Janie wanted to do was smoke a little pot. sigh.

-Margo Aaron

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Posted in Career Big Picture

A Lesson From the Dictator of Taste

Posted on February 1, 2011 by | Leave a comment

In last week’s episode of Gossip Girl (stop rolling your judgmental eyes at me, you know you secretly loved that rerun you watched because “there was nothing else on TV”), Blair Waldorf is determined to score an internship with Indra Nooyi, the CEO of Pepsi and one of the most influential women in the world.  Meanwhile, Blair’s mother presents her with a tempting offer to intern at her high-end fashion line.  Blair inaccurately declares that she finds following in the footsteps of her mother repugnant and resolves to continue her quest to work for and ultimately become Indra.

Throughout the episode, Blair struggles between what she thinks she wants and what she knows to be true about herself.  Clues abound as to what Blair’s heart desires, but she fails to pay attention to them.  Her frenimy Dan offers, “You do know that ‘powerful woman’ is not actually a career, right?” Though the comment is made in jest, his words are accurate; Blair is blindly following a nebulous notion of success without any direct idea of what she wants from her career.

In this way, Blair represents a quandary that we all occasionally fall a victim to; that  is: being undiscerning as to why we are pursing the career we are pursing.  It is not until Blair is accused of being an “evil dictator of taste” that she realizes her calling is in fact in the fashion industry and she agrees to join forces with her mother.

While Blair Waldorf is by no means the paradigm of moral or career reasoning, she makes a good point this week: pay attention to what your internal compass is telling you.  Blair doesn’t abandon her aspirations (being in “powerful woman”), rather she allows them to change form (a fashion editor) in a way that allows her to capitalize on her skills and remain true to her self.

And critics say Gossip Girl has no lessons. Psh.

-Margo Aaron

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Posted in Career Big Picture, Career Options, Doing what you want

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Practice What You Preach

Posted on December 31, 2010 by | Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I grew curious as to what information is actually being dispersed to students when they seek out their career center.  I decided to do the dirty work myself (instead of passively reading about it) and made an appointment at a career center with a certified career counselor.

I sat down at my appointment eagerly expecting the least from my counselor. I anticipated he would be useless and likely feed me his shpiel about why I should take the Myers-Briggs….again.  The poor unsuspecting man sat down and asked how he could help me.

“Listen,” I said, “I have always been 110% committed to getting my PhD and pursuing a career in research.  [insert my explanation of my research interests here].  However, (dramatic pause) what if I decided to not immediately pursue my PhD and instead graduate with an MA? What can I do with an MA in developmental psychology?”  He looked at me and replied, “Well, what are your skills?” I metaphorically rolled my eyes, I congratulated myself on predicting that this consultation would be useless.

“No no,” I scoffed at him, “that is not what I am asking. This is not about my strengths.  I am asking what I can do with this degree, as opposed to a PhD. I am not asking you about my skills. What can I do with this MA? What will it allow me to do?” Again, he looked at me with a straight face and said, “You can do whatever you want, it depends on your skills.”

Instead of getting frustrated, I decided to hear him out. He explained that the degree merely represented that I was capable and that I could parlay the skills I acquired in the program (or had previously) to any job I wanted.  The answer to my question was at the intersection of what I wanted and what I was capable of doing.

I had seen my MA as limiting.  That I was now confined to a specific industry for the rest of my life.  He saw it as limitless.  An indicator of my academic prowess and intellectual capacities.  I saw it as closing doors, he saw it as opening them. I sat there in shame realizing I was guilty of hubris.  I swallowed my words.

Here I was thinking and writing about careers and, yet, I had apparently never stopped to apply what I knew to my own career.  Even if I was going for “research,” my questions were sincere.  I wondered how many of us talk and talk and talk and never practice what we preach? Why are we so quick to offer advice, but not take it?

I knew better than to view my career so myopically.  And, yet, there I was dismissing the truth staring my in the eye. After that appointment, I made it my mission to hold a mirror to myself and my actions.  I asked myself the tough questions and forced myself to be as brutally honest as possible about the answers. I wanted my past experience to matter, even if it was out of sync with my current goals.  I should have been focusing on my skills, strengths, and natural talents.

It is a process. And it requires constant revision. And there is nothing wrong with that.

-Margo Aaron

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Posted in Career Advice, Career Big Picture, Career Options, Strengths, Talent