A modern fighter jet making a sharp turn; in making a career pivot, you will have to make many sharp turns.
I’ve done quite a bit of this “career pivoting”. I’ve learned a great deal through these career journeys and I’d like to share these lessons learned via this article. Career pivots are becoming more and more common with fields and industries experiencing rapid change and employment opportunities shifting accordingly. So, in response, we change course and head for the richest fishing grounds. One graduating from college, vocational, or other certificate career programs, can expect not to have three different jobs, but three different careers. And this is reflected by the countless LinkedIn profile I’ve had the opportunity to review over several years. For many, their respective profiles tell a story. Personally, I find these stories very interesting and one of the reasons I’ve done more and more career coaching and mentoring over the past few years. It’s a two-way street and I’ve learned so much from my mentorees or they prompted me to conduct research in certain areas; most recently marketing analytics.
To put this career pivoting into context, please allow me to share some related stories. When I went back to school around age 28 for cardiovascular technology [i.e., with an emphasis on echocardiography or cardiac sonography], it was driven by the post 9/11 recession and its harsh impact on the telecommunications sector where I had previously worked in. Many other “adult learners” in my class were in the “same boat”. One woman in her mid-40s was a COBOL programmer, https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/what-is/cobol , [i.e., this programming language was used primarily for business and mainframe computer driven applications; the advent of personal computers with GUIs in the 1990s proved to be the death-knell for mainframes] who was forced to make a career pivot. Her knowledge and skills with COBOL programming became obsolete.
Technological change can be harsh on workers. Just think about all of the people employed on Trans-Atlantic ocean liners prior to commercial airliners offering air transportation across the continents. When these commercial flights became regularly available and enabled travelers to get from New York City to London in a little less than a day [i.e., the very early commercial Trans-Atlantic flights were flown on propeller-driven planes which requires several stops for refueling in places like Nova Scotia and Greenland which meant the total transit time was much longer than today’s direct 7–8-hour flights from the Northeastern U.S. to Western Europe]. When the passenger ocean-liner industry was superseded by commercial airlines, most of the respective jobs were eliminated. One might ask if some of those passenger ocean-liner Captains decided to attend aircraft pilot training programs? Imagine that challenge, having been an expert maritime navigator and ship captain for decades and now having to make a dramatic pivot. Perhaps some of their leadership and navigation skills can carry over, but certainly, for those who embarked on becoming pilots faced a tremendous amount of new knowledge and skills they had to master.
Some other examples that stand out in my mind are an insurance executive who decided to become a mortician and an Emergency Room Doctor with a side-hobby in computer programming who decided to leave practice and launched an Emergency Department Information System (EDIS), https://www.medsphere.com/blog/emergency-department-information-systems/, company. Additionally, military veterans leveraging their discipline, leadership skills, ability to learn quickly, and “can do” attitude move into the civilian or private sector and move into executive management positions with Fortune 500 companies, launch their own ventures [i.e., including military and/or federal government contracting], or go into politics and public service.
But no matter where they came from or where they are going, they all have some things in common. And that is, they came from somewhere, some industry change, change in their life, or some other driving factor sparked something in their mind to take a leap of faith and pivot, and they are now heading for unchartered territory on a personal level. I don’t have to tell you this, but this is a major, major decision. We all know, our careers are a key and integral part of our livelihoods and our ability to support ourselves and for some of us, our families, are one of the biggest components of our identities and lives. And this means more than ever with the daily “cost of living” escalating rapidly and unpredictably. And this is the main reason why I have decided to take the time and share my knowledge and write on this topic. One can arguably say that possessing career pivoting skills has become a survival skill in the “job market jungle”. Just as if you find yourself lost and isolated in a real jungle, your knowledge of that environment and wilderness skills will allow you to survive; in the case of career management, our career pivoting skills can be our “career and employment survival skills”. Not many things are as important or meaningful.
We’ve all heard and read from career experts that we must be “adaptable” in today’s job market. But oftentimes the specifics are left out. My aim with this piece is to bridge that gap. This article is a type of recipe or instruction manual for making the career pivot or major “career move”, successfully. You need not use every tip or suggestion offered, but I believe the more of it you incorporate into your pivot strategy, the more successful that you will be in this endeavor. And it doesn’t matter where you are in your career. If you’re two years post-graduation or a thirty-year veteran in your prior field, now looking for a change, these tips are applicable to all making this move. The three key things you will need to be willing to do are:
1. Be willing to learn new knowledge, skills, and applications.
2. Be willing to take instruction, direction, and constructive feedback from veterans and experts in your new chosen field. This might be a bit more challenging for those in mid-to-late career as this instruction, direction, and feedback might be coming from someone decades your junior. My advice is, put your ego aside and learn from them; they grew up with advanced technology so it comes naturally to them. If you want to understand Dolphins and their behavior, swim with the Dolphins. This might be one of the toughest things.
3. Be willing to work very hard, apply yourself, and make some short-term personal time sacrifices during this period; in a way, whether literally or figuratively, you are “going back to school”.
I went from telecommunications, https://www.technofunc.com/index.php/domain-knowledge/telecom-industry/item/overview-of-telecom-sector –> Healthcare [Cardiac Diagnostics / Echocardiography], https://www.predictiveanalyticstoday.com/what-is-healthcare-industry/ and U.S. Military [U.S. Navy Reserve, https://www.navyreserve.navy.mil/] –> Medical Device Marketing Consulting, https://www.advamed.org/medical-device-industry-facts/ –> Federal Work [Training Instruction, https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/training-and-instruction] –> Teaching, Tutoring, Career Coaching [i.e., I continue to provide medical technology & medical education marketing consulting services]. It’s been a journey. It’s not as hard as you think. I think the hardest part is just making that initial decision or leap and choose what you are leaping into.
You can significantly increase your probability of success through preparation and data gathering. You must be patient, but also work very hard to get up-to-speed and be very determined in your new path. Utilize the knowledge and skills that you already possess which you can leverage in your new career or field. Initially, you will have to sacrifice some personal time, but it will be well worth it. Here are some other key tips to make this happen:
· You will find that the skills and knowledge that you have acquired to date will apply to your new field; it will all come together. Leverage this optimally. This is really key. I found that my combined business, U.S. Navy, https://www.navy.mil/ business analyst, https://www.iiba.org/professional-development/career-centre/what-is-business-analysis/, program management, https://www.productplan.com/glossary/program-management/, background all really helped me and came together as a Federal Training Instructor, which involved a lot of cross-functional coordination. Related article: https://www.rhythmsystems.com/blog/dos-and-donts-of-coordinating-cross-functional-teams
· Read and learn as much as you can about your new field and obtain the key certifications. When I got into echocardiography in 2003, I really jumped into it. I was also drilling in the U.S. Navy Reserve while in this full-time program, hospital internship and working several part-time jobs in the evenings and weekends. I set and adhered to a very strict study and work schedule. But I made sure that I found time to exercise, which is a MUST. I purchased every major echocardiography book that I could find. I went to every echocardiography conference that I could in my area [i.e., meeting one of the echocardiography leaders in the process, Terry Reynolds, https://www.pegasuslectures.com/faculty/terry.php], really studied hard, pursued registry status [i.e., Through the American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers (ARDMS), https://www.ardms.org/, and became nationally registered in adult echocardiography [Adult Echocardiography (AE) – Registered Diagnostic Cardiac Sonographer (RDCS)] [2006] by passing board exams [i.e., Ultrasound Physics and Cardiac Pathologies], maintained my continuing medical education credits (CMEs) and went to prominent echocardiography conferences [i.e. University of Pennsylvania – Perelman School of Medicine, https://www.med.upenn.edu/, Emory University School of Medicine, https://www.med.emory.edu/, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine, https://rwjms.rutgers.edu/, etc.], read cardiology journals [i.e. Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), https://www.jacc.org/, Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography (JASE), https://www.onlinejase.com/, and eventually went on to teach [i.e., Didactics: Anatomy & Physiology of the heart, Cardiac Pathologies, and Doppler Principles & Instrumentation] and instruct [i.e., echocardiography scanning techniques and use and application of cardiovascular ultrasound systems] echocardiography at a healthcare trade school [Healthcare Training Institute (HTINJ), Union, NJ, https://www.htinj.edu/]. Also, network as much as you can in your new field.
· Join industry groups [i.e., online and otherwise] for your new field; it’s a great way to network, learn, and build your “personal brand“. Related article: https://www.thinkific.com/blog/personal-branding-guide/
· Find a mentor or two in your new field; this is really key and they ideally should be an expert in your chosen field.
· Once you get experience in your new field, look into getting co-chair and leadership positions in the industry groups that you’ve joined.
· Join the industry groups here on LinkedIn and other professional networking sites.
· Subscribe to as many industry-specific journals as you can and read them [i.e., as opposed to collecting dust; and yes, I recommend reading hard copies as scientific studies show that we absorb hard-printed material better]. Also, order key books about your industry
[i.e., ensure the publication is recent and that the material is up-to-date]
and read them in entirety.
· Keep up-to-date on current events and trends in your new industry through the industry journals and articles about your field in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Newsweek, Reuters, etc… Use keywords to search for related articles on these sites. This is very important given how fast things are changing in this world. I also recommend reading the newsletters from McKinsey [Quarterly], https://www.mckinsey.com/quarterly/overview, and Deloitte [Insights], https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights.html, which are industry-specific. You can sign up for free.
· Connect with fellow Alumni from your Alma Mater that work in your new field. For example, for mine, NYU Stern, https://www.stern.nyu.edu/, we can connect and communicate through our “Violet Network“, https://violetnetwork.nyu.edu. You can search for people in your field and connect with them. This is highly recommended. Many of my mentorees found me through this dedicated University network.
· Also, look for industry-specific resources that your Alma Mater has for your new field. You may even want to enroll in a specific course they have in this field. And I recommend for anyone in management to check-out offerings from the American Management Association (AMA), https://www.amanet.org/.
· Really dig into your new field. Ask questions. Volunteer for related work projects. Be proactive. Learn about cutting-edge technologies and techniques in your new field and maybe even apply them and use them in your new job. You can even quickly surpass others [i.e., incumbents] in skill and expertise in a given field if you really go after it; others may be in the downshift mode. There are many advantages to being new in a field and some employers will even prefer to hire you because you will have a fresh perspective and unbiased views on new technologies. [i.e., Think about that ocean-liner captain going to pilot school; I would think that the much faster aircraft speed forced that person to rethink navigation as miscalculations are much more costly.] There is always that silver lining.
· Get to know all of the acronyms and lingo in your new field. I’ve found this is very important, especially in tech and acronym heavy fields, which coincidentally for me, telecommunications, cardiology, U.S. Navy, and Federal Government are all very acronym heavy. Some acronyms even overlap as you can imagine [i.e., in cardiology “CAD” represents “Coronary Artery Disease” and for the U.S. Navy “CAD” represents “Computed-Aided Design”]. It’s important to get this piece down so you can both understand others when they use the acronyms or jargon and also so you can communicate your points in a way that makes others feel that you know what you’re talking about. People will usually tune-in more when you “speak their language“. It’s 1/2 acceptance, 1/2 credibility. Unfortunately, a lot of professionals will tune-out quickly if they feel you don’t really know their language and the lingo. I suppose it’s a part of human nature. Related article: https://megankillion.com/blog/f/7-reasons-why-you-should-be-using-industry-jargon
· Learn and master the software and applications in your new field and the major manufacturers and/or software vendors for your field. This is really helpful. As an echocardiographer technician performing cardiac sonograms, I became very familiar with the major ultrasound system manufacturers including Philips, https://www.usa.philips.com/healthcare/solutions/ultrasound, General Electric (GE), https://www.gehealthcare.com/products/ultrasound, Toshiba [Canon], https://us.medical.canon/products/ultrasound/, Siemens, https://www.siemens-healthineers.com/en-us/ultrasound, and others. And I also got to know the respective sales and clinical representatives. This really helps to understand the industry. I studied the operating manuals for each cardiovascular ultrasound system [i.e. Medical ultrasound systems have specific hardware and software for each clinical application be it General / Abdominal, Vascular, OB/GYN, Echocardiography, etc.; some of these systems allow for multi-modality function and some are single-application systems], which was kind of mandatory. I ended up using all of these vendors’ systems in different hospitals and private cardiologists’ offices. Again, my background as a business analyst allowed me to quickly understand the echocardiography field as far as hospitals, cardiologists’ offices, and the equipment manufacturers. The bottom line here is that getting to know the ecosystem in your new field will help you on many levels.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you found it helpful, readable, and useful. As always, I welcome your feedback on this article as I am always looking to improve as a writer. Originally, I intended to keep this brief, but I decided that by conveying some of these stories and make it, perhaps, a bit entertaining, that it will paint a more vivid picture within your mind, it might spark some new ideas in your mind, and put all of this into greater context. Neurological science proves that we prioritize data that we can relate to and for which we can identify an immediate use for. Anything else, our minds categorize as “fluff“. Related article: https://psychology.ucdavis.edu/news/brain-prioritizes-high-reward-memories
With that, if you require specific advice regarding the above, please feel free to send me a connect request.
I wish those making the jump the best of luck to you in making your career pivot!! It’s mostly about self-will and raw determination. So, take a deep breath, “saddle-up” and get ready for a challenging and rewarding ride!
cliffordthornton 