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The Job for You
Broadcast starting week of December 26, 2007

Looking for a new job? Wish you were? Afraid you will be? Today's show focuses on how to find "The Job For You." The show's first guest is Richard Bolles, author of the world's best-selling career book ever, "What Color Is Your Parachute?" Guests also include Dr. Ann Marie Ryan, the former president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology; Dr. Steffanie Wilk, assistant professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; and career coach Sharon Jordan-Evans. Also featured are a slew of career changers including oboist Blair Tindall, whose decision to trade the orchestra pit for the newsroom had some surprising consequences; management consultant Richard Cuff; teacher turned web designer Robert Boyle; and Elizabeth Betts, formerly homeless and addicted, who at the age of 43 is holding down her very first full-time job... and loving it. The show also features a report on an organization called Career Transition for Dancers and how its helping some dancers stretch themselves in new ways. John Hockenberry concludes "The Job For You" with some thoughts on what constitutes the perfect job: volunteering.

In an introductory essay, host Dr. Fred Goodwin recalls some of his own experience with career transition. He had been the director of the National Institute of Mental Health. When he left that job, his clinical practice as a psychiatrist provided important continuity, but he like something was missing. Then along came "The Infinite Mind." Says Dr. Goodwin, "My work as the host of "The Infinite Mind" combines things I've done all my life: thinking about research, teaching and lecturing, and listening empathetically. Mix that up, season with a little bit of ham, and voila you have it… passion... I'm happy to report that in my case, at least, I've found 'The Job For Me.'"

Next, we hear from Blair Tindall. For ten years she played oboe as an extra for the New York Philharmonic. She played in the orchestras of Broadway musicals and on the soundtracks for many films. But she got bored of playing the oboe. In midlife, she enrolled in Stanford University's journalism program, and quickly landed a job with the San Francisco Chronicle as a business reporter. Then a funny thing happened. "I found for the first time in twenty years I was enjoying playing music again!" Today, she's playing oboe in the orchestra of the Broadway revival of "Man of La Mancha" and writing. She says the two careers enhance each other.

Next, Dr. Goodwin interviews Richard Bolles, author of the world's most popular career book ever, "What Color Is Your Parachute?" The book's first edition was published in 1970. Bolles says that while the internet has changed some aspects of the job search over the 30 years since the book's first publication, the substance of the search is the same because it's about human nature. A caller, Paulette, asks Bolles for advice. She's a paralegal but she hates her work but she thinks she could never find work doing what she's really like to do. "You can't do that to yourself," Bolles tells her. He says she will corrupt the chances of her finding the work she wants to do if she assumes she'll never find it. What she would really like to do, she says, is be a spiritual advisor or counselor to other people, but there is no one church she wants to join and she's suspicious of traditional psychology. Bolles advises her to identify other careers in which she could do what she wants to do.

A second caller, Jon, shares his dilemma. He has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and he wants to start his own business as a consultant but he's not sure he could handle some of the administrative details. Bolles tells him he's skeptical of a diagnosis that lays so much emphasis on what someone CAN'T do. "We all have limits," he says. Asking Jon what he excels at, he advises him to identify and seek out people who work in that field to learn more about it and to also learn how others with ADHD have succeeded in adapting.

A last caller, Julie, is a singer-songwriter whose career is developing very nicely but who can't yet support herself fully through her work as a musician. She has a job in a corporation that offers flexible hours and good pay but the environment is stiflingly anti-creative. Bolles advises her to spend a few minutes each day writing down what she has learned on the job that day, including what she has learned about her own needs in a work situation. "For instance, if it's the kind of place where there's never a quiet moment write down 'I need some quiet each day,' and then you can expand that to include 'because...and then you fill that in. I am the sort of person who needs some time for reflection.'" Offering some final advice for job hunters and career switchers, Bolles says "I tell people 'First a change of heart before a change of job." A job hunt is a good occasion to question assumptions and to "think out who you really are and what you love to do."

To contact Richard Bolles or learn more about his work, visit his web site at jobhuntersbible.com.

Next, we hear from career switcher Richard Cuff. He was a corporate executive but over a period of four years he landed in several jobs that were a poor fit for him. They required him to write creative promotional copy, set up trade fair booths, and other tasks hat required high creativity, which he found through vocational testing, was not a strong suit of his. Today, he uses his high quantitative and analytical skills as a management consultant and is far happier.

Dr. Goodwin's next interview is with Dr. Steffanie Wilk and Dr. Ann Marie Ryan. Dr. Wilk is assistant professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ryan is the former president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Professor of Psychology, Michigan State University. A good fit between a person and a job can include a match between a person's values and interests and the organization's goals, but those interests can change over time, points out Dr. Wilk. Self-directed inventory tests can help individuals pin down their interests and skills and can be helpful. New research is focusing on the role that personality plays not only in career selection but in team-building within the work place. For instance, when a preponderance of extroverts work together there can be a lot of conflict.

To learn more about Dr. Ann Marie Ryan or send her email, click here or write to her care of Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1117

To learn more about Dr. Steffanie Wilk visit this web site or write to her at 2000 Steinberg Hall-Dietrick Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6370.

Next, we hear from Robert Boyle. For more than 10 years he taught high school students science and taught college students who were learning how to be science teachers. He loved teaching but he hated the petty politics that were part of teaching. He'd always been the one his friends went to when they had problems with their computers and for years they had been telling him he should really do something with computers. Finally, he made the switch, landing a job as a web designer. He loved the job, but he lost it two weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center. His office had been a few blocks from the World Trade Center and serviced a client base rooted in the financial services industry. The attacks dried up the work flow. He has been assigned temporary work as a web designer since then, but he sometimes wonders if he should go back to teaching. There's always a market for science teachers, he says wistfully, but he knows it's really not the right work for him.

What to do when you've lost your dream job? After a short break, The Infinite Mind's Devorah Klahr reports on an organization that helps dancers stretch themselves in new ways. Career Transition for Dancers offers support groups and career counseling. Liz van Vleck is among the dancers who attend a monthly support group. She has danced with the Ithaca Ballet and several smaller companies, but in her late thirties the company she was working with disbanded. She knew as she got older it would be harder to find work as a dancer and that it was time to move on. "I felt like smushed gum on the sidewalk," she recalls. "Career transition. Devastated." She got by for awhile as a personal trainer, but she missed dancing. Today she's working as an assistant dance teacher, teaching children in the New York City public school system. She says she wants to make a go at teaching. " I think that part of what you get out of something is what you put into it. So if I'm passionate about what I'm doing then passion will come back to me. Hopefully. And if not then I'll try something else."

For more information on Career Transition for Dancers, visit the organization's web site.

Next, The Infinite Mind's Emily Fisher interviews Sharon Jordan-Evans, a career coach, and the author with Beverly Kaye of "Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay." Having interviewed 1,400 people on why they've stayed in jobs, she says, one of the most important reasons people stay in a job is the chance it offers them to learn and continue to grow. The number one reason people leave, on the other hand, is a poor relationship with their boss. "It can be somewhat career limiting to go to your boss and say 'You know what, you're a jerk,'" says Jordan-Evans. Instead she advises someone in this situation to approach the boss with a request to discuss how to "change the way we interact." As for people who feel stuck in a lackluster job, she says it's not uncommon for people to "quit and stay.. and that can be rather expensive, not to mention terrible for the person who's in that situation." She advises people who are feeling unengaged at their jobs to do what they can to"enrich" their work life. Ask yourself if there's something new you would like to learn at your job this year, whom you can learn it from, and then find a way to do it.

To learn more about Sharon Jordan-Evans, visit the web site for Jordan Evans Group or call (805) 927-1432. Click here to buy "Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay."

Next, we hear from Elizabeth Betts. For more than 15 years she was addicted to crack cocaine and for many of those years she lived on the street and in abandoned buildings. "I did anything and everything to get by," she says. Arrested, she was given the choice of serving time in jail or entering a drug treatment program. She chose the program and has been clean ever since. Today she works as a supervisor at "Ready, Willing, and Able," an organization that helps formerly homeless and addicted people learn basic job skills and find work. Betts likes the women she works with and loves helping women who are in the situation that she was in. She gets satisfaction from earning her own money, waking up in an apartment, and knowing she's earned what she has. She gets to work early in the morning so she can drink her coffee and say hello to everyone, calling out "Hello, family!" Betts says she never forgets where she was, "the park benches... waking up in a pile of a snow..." and she's grateful for how far she's come. "I just love my job."

Concluding "The Job For You," commentator John Hockenberry recalls "I once had the perfect job. Then I lost it. I grew up." The perfect job at age 15 was working at a local hospital. He concluded that through his efforts at this west Michigan hospital he was making a measurable impact on the health of the entire community. What made it perfect? Free food, a boss who worshipped him, and no pesky worries about salary...he was a volunteer. It's "the getting paid thing," says Hockenberry, that ruins the idea of the perfect job. He concludes "There is only one perfect job… being master of your own destiny. It's a tough job… but everyone should try to do it."

 

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