TECHIE Careers. Transformed.

 

I have to admit that it's pretty amazing to be in a business that gets to play a part in transformation.

Even more exciting is to get to do that with professionals who either work in technical fields as support or are techies supporting other operations because, essentially, transformation is the business they are in, creating/enhancing processes to improve functionality and efficiency. (In other words, nothing is ever the same after they get their hands on it!)

Career opportunities transform lives.

I was thinking about this other day when my client, John, called to tell me that he had taken a job offer for a Product Engineer position that was moving him and his family 600 miles from his current location. He was so excited, not just because the offer was a good one, but also because where they are moving, his kids are going to be in a better school district and closer to extended family, something they had wanted for a long time.

Another client, Sara, after going back for her MBA, finally realized her dream of making it to the CIO level at a midsize company she has had her eye on for a while.

It is calls like these that make me see just how impactful a career can be. But all too often, I hear people looking at the concept of a career as a burden.

In todays' market, well-meaning people love to talk about work-life balance, and in doing so, they often do their best to either downplay or demonize work as something trivial or anti-family. And certainly there is some basis for that. We all can most likely think of times when work has hindered or hurt our personal relationships or caused us too much stress.  

But to trivialize our careers ignores the transformative aspect of them...whether that is for good or for bad.

For just as our careers can be a hindrance to our personal lives, and attitudes, they also can be a major blessing to them. Stability, satisfaction, opportunity, self-fulfillment, monetary gain, influence...these can all result in a positive way from our careers and spill into our personal lives.

In other words, bad experiences don't make careers in and of themselves bad. Nor do they make ambition bad. They just make for, well, bad experiences.

After listening and interacting with technical professional after technical professional, there is no doubt in my mind that careers transform our outlook, our life path, our decisions. So they do matter...very much. And not just for sustenance and something to do.

Furthermore, in today's world, careers are even more valuable as job searches are tougher and more complex and the market is a global stage. Therefore, they should be something that is nurtured and taken care of, not something that is trivialized and downplayed or, perhaps even worse, ignored.

As my client Ahmed recently stated, "going through this process has made me realize that there are many more doors open than I realized. I thought I was destined to be lost out on the job search sea, just hoping for a rescue. Now I see that my career can be something I can manage and look forward to. It's made me a much happier person."  

Now, I'd say that's transformation!