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Helping Alice Reinvent Herself

December 15, 2010 •

Today was a “pay it for­ward” day, coach­ing some­one who’s been out of the job mar­ket for 5 years, and now wants back in. Alice needs help think­ing about options, iden­ti­fy­ing what’s new or changed in the busi­ness envi­ron­ment and her own pro­fes­sional arena. She’s strug­gling to find her best self while explor­ing how and where to re-enter the job mar­ket.

Although career coach­ing is not my forte, I’d agreed to this meet­ing at the request of an Apple col­league who thought I could offer some use­ful per­spec­tive and thought-pro­vok­ing ques­tions. Before the meet­ing I for­warded Alice some web links just to get her cre­ative juices flow­ing. That set a great con­text for our con­ver­sa­tion.

When Happily Ever After Doesn’t Last Forever

It’s the kind of sit­u­a­tion you see here in Seat­tle (or the Sil­i­con Val­ley, Austin, etc.): Alice retires early, thanks to an IPO from a famous Seat­tle suc­cess story. Mar­ries, has kids. Hap­pily ever after — or for as long as the stock holds its value. A fairy tale come true, or so it seems.

Fast-for­ward 5 years, Alice’s kids are now in school, bore­dom sets in, per­haps money is no longer stretch­ing as far as it once did.

But what’s really moti­vat­ing Alice is the emo­tional need to re-engage with what she calls “a tribe.” Recon­nect­ing with adults, away from the play­ground with the nan­nies and other moms. Form­ing bonds with other like-minded pro­fes­sion­als who love to do great work, with and for oth­ers. Learn­ing new skills, test­ing one­self in the chal­lenges of the work envi­ron­ment. Help­ing “the tribe.”

Alice had been an accom­plished expe­ri­ence (UI/UX) designer for a local com­pany with global brand recog­ni­tion. She has some impor­tant accom­plish­ments on her resume, but no pro­fes­sional achieve­ments to speak of for the past 5 years. Her time was invested in being a mom, vol­un­teer­ing at the preschool, and so on.

A lot has changed tech­ni­cally in the world of dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences, online mar­ket­ing, social net­work­ing, etc., since Alice left the work­force 5 years ago. For design­ers it’s been a vir­tual tsunami of change…

The First Step on Her Journey

Alice knows she has a lot to learn, so the ques­tion is where to start, where to focus her time and ener­gies. What to do to refresh her port­fo­lio, her per­sonal brand­ing, her “show and tell” mate­ri­als. Should she go back to school, get an advanced degree or pro­fes­sional cer­tifi­cate, or find an entry-level role and essen­tially start over…

Alice’s self-esteem is some­what frag­ile; she’s out of prac­tice with “sell­ing her­self” to a prospec­tive employer or client. She’s heard that employ­ers or clients pre­fer kids fresh out of school, who com­mand lower payscales than expe­ri­enced design­ers like Alice. (And let’s not even go down the path of the higher value placed on devel­op­ers ver­sus design­ers these days…) It’s hard for Alice to imag­ine how to sell her­self against a younger per­son with more up-to-date tech­ni­cal skills — 5 years being a vir­tual life­time in the web world.

Sadly, age bias in the work­place is very real, even in lib­eral places like Seat­tle. As a Boomer it’s painful to see age bias rear its ugly head as an employ­ment issue even for rel­a­tively young women, peo­ple in their mid-30’s like Alice.

So we talked about ways Alice could seek oppor­tu­ni­ties that might value her strengths, rather than focus­ing on her near-term skills gaps. Some of these areas, like the “visual think­ing move­ment,” were off the radar screen when Alice was still work­ing. Some offer real promise for tal­ents like Alice’s.

At the end of a long con­ver­sa­tion, I was able to steer Alice toward some oppor­tu­nity areas that might value her strengths, wis­dom and career expe­ri­ence. It felt good.

But what was most reward­ing was see­ing Alice light up, excited by notions about where she could still make a dif­fer­ence, even if in dif­fer­ent forms or media than 5 years ago. I hope she finds her new tribe.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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