I was at a party recently talking to a bunch of strangers. As usual, the subject turned to what each of us did for work. When I stated I ran a career advice blog, one attendee in his mid-30s and giving off a pretty serious vibe said, “Which one?” I gave the same response I’ve given for the last 18 months since launching the site, “It’s CAREEREALISM.com. It’s the word ‘career’ and ‘realism’ put together, but they share the ‘r’ in the middle.” Usually, people just nod at me and say, “Ohhh,” and the conversation moves on.
This time was different…
The guy suddenly broke into a huge grin and said, “Hey! I LOVE that site. I’ve been reading it for a while now. I’m a total Careerealist!”
I’m sorry…you’re a WHAT!?!?
I’m not going to lie, I was blown away. There are 20,000+ career sites in the world, and while we’ve been moving up the ranks in terms of visitors, I still see the site as a small, unknown community of passionate people who want to help one another find greater career satisfaction on their own terms. Yet, what shocked me even more was the way he referred to himself as a Careerealist. He actually identified himself as someone who felt part of our initiative to get people to take control of their careers. After that, he and I talked for a good twenty minutes about the site’s mission and the types of people it attracted as regular readers. Thanks to that conversation, I realized it was time to formally band together all of the smart, proactive Careerealists out there. We needed to give our loyal community a place of prominence on the site. Here’s why:
Careerealists all share 3 simple, yet vital traits for success.
After that clandestine meeting with a reader, I took the time to contemplate what defines a Careerealist. I came up with a list of more than fifty traits, but finally simplified it down to 3 core beliefs adopted by true Careerealists. We all:
1. Recognize and accept EVERY job is temporary.
2. View ourselves as businesses-of-one who need to always be developing an attractive personal brand we can market as needed.
3. Engage in career development activities, even when we are gainfully employed, by sharing our thoughts, reading up on the latest trends, and focusing on ways to stay employable long-term.
If you said, “That sounds like me,” when reading the above, then you are definitely a Careerealist! It also means we’d like you to join your peers and become recognized for your professional savvy.
STARTING TODAY…Share Your Thoughts & Get Recognized for Your Contributions
First, we’d like to invite you to post a comment below explaining why you feel you are a Careerealist. Tell us, and the rest of our readers, how you are embracing today’s career reality. You can:
A. Explain what you feel you are doing differently than others.
B. Share with us the ‘Ah-ha Moment’ that made you a Careerealist.
C. Provide your own thoughts on the traits exemplified by a true Careerealist.
Then, we encourage you to continue to comment regularly on our posts. Any time you have a thought or insight to share, we want to know about it. The more comments we get from Careerealists, the better the content gets on this site for all of our fellow readers. At the same time, we will be monitoring the comments. Each week, we’ll select a Careerealist who we feel is making an outstanding contribution to the group and showcase them in the Careerealist Corner – a program designed to highlight professionals who have the right attitude and approach to their careers. We’ll also give them a FREE life-time membership to our CAREEREALISM Club.
Plus, We’ll Help Improve Your Personal Brand On-line
One way to really advance your career is to be associated with on-line content that showcases you as a top-notch professional. If selected to be featured in the Careerealist Corner, you will automatically improve your credibility on-line. It will be a distinction you can add to your:
- Resume
- LinkedIn profile
- Twitter feed
In short, we’ll help you impress others with your career savvy!
Best Way to Get Selected = Subscribe via E-mail
The easiest way for you to contribute and get selected to be featured as a Careerealist is to sign-up to receive our career posts by e-mail:
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That way, you can stay up-to-date on the latest career news and contribute your own thoughts quickly and easily.
Let’s Get Started…Comment NOW & Let Us Know Why You’re a True CAREEREALIST
We look forward to hearing from all our Careerealists and can’t wait to start showcasing you to the world. So, don’t wait, post your first comment below and tell us why you are a Careerealist!
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19 Comments
I have been running a blog about Successful Career Mentoring for the past 15 months and had 3,000 visitors saying that it was time to ramp up the community. So today I decided to relaunch the operation on WordPress and check out blogs worth talking about and picked yours.
Hope you don’t mind using the same picture to make sure people feel there is no spam, phishing or other nasty security hacking going on here!
Wishing you nothing but success
Martin
Founder of Gobbla.com
Montreal, Canada
ABSOLUTELY I am a Careerealist, and aspire to inculcate these themes in my clients, be they employees or employers. When I was in graduate school and working in the sales of fitness memberships, our famous saying was, “You're only as good as your last day . . . and it's TOMORROW!” The new work contract is not much different, but I see this as opportunity, not discouragement.
Find ways to be uniquely you, seek opportunities to use your “Best Stuff” every day, make sure those who should know what you arebdoing DO know, and that “temporary” job may transition multiple times over the length of your career, but it will always be something that inspires and enthuses you.
ABSOLUTELY I am a Careerealist, and aspire to inculcate these themes in my clients, be they employees or employers. When I was in graduate school and working in the sales of fitness memberships, our famous saying was, “You're only as good as your last day . . . and it's TOMORROW!” The new work contract is not much different, but I see this as opportunity, not discouragement.
Find ways to be uniquely you, seek opportunities to use your “Best Stuff” every day, make sure those who should know what you arebdoing DO know, and that “temporary” job may transition multiple times over the length of your career, but it will always be something that inspires and enthuses you.
I have always been a believer that I should never stop learning, expanding and growing. When doing so, it's impossible for me to be satisfied in the same position with the same responsibilities for very long. While I may work for the same company for any given amount of time, I tend to get bored quickly and enjoy the challenge of a role change. I have been promoted twice since I started my most recent career as an Employment Specialist a year and a half ago, each time building on the skills I learned while in a position. I look to participate in activities that benefit not only my current role but that may also lead to my next role. I attend Chamber of Commerce workshops and volunteer, working to build a strong network of business contacts. Even though I may not necessarily need to draw on them now, by putting myself “out there”, it will be easier to do so when needed.
The “a-ha” moment came today when I was reading this post. Knowing that I can put a name on these thoughts/activities is an awesome feeling.
Thanks for sharing this.
I have found this site and am exploring the numerous tools and resources just this afternoo. That said, I suppose I am legitimately, at least so far, a candidate for Careerealist status not yet washed in the dye of full participation. But from what I can tell I am very likely to continue on the path forward to credentialing as one of the apostles of career reality. Yada Dada Doo.
The tone and perspective is one with which I find great comfort and agreement. The journey to that place is a shared one. Shared by family, fellow travelers and those from whose experience I have learned from their, errors observed, besides my own.
As an initial offering on the altar of initiation as a Careerealist the following:
* Each of us is an entrepreneur. We have choices as to where and how to identify markets for what we do and design to “sell” the value we bring to an organization, internally or externally.
* The organization has the responsibility to bring into their “house” those that can improve their “serve” to clients or to the ability to better meet the org's objetives more effectively than without them.
* Continuous updating of market (whatever that is for your services/products) info (the who and how) of the exchange of dollars for the value proposition you are expected to deliver.
* The value of and ability to distinguish between communication tools and strategies that are trendy, not yet fully realized, marginally in time-justifiable to learn vs productive use and those with longer term more professionally substantial protocols and potential. And yes you have to kiss a f number of rogs in today's dynamic tools environment. Like the guy constantly looking for the best hamburger finally realizing that each one is unique in its own right but some you'll definitely come back to.
* Always , alway listen to those you trust. They don't always understand your specifics but they always have something to take away and consider, even after you've defended your present position with them and found it lacking.
* Trust your own thoughts and perceptions, but never simply accept that what you thought you heard or saw is exactly whatever it is.
* Review the stuff you saved in tagged folders that was just outstanding. They still are, mostly. If not put them back for later.
* Redo your TO DO list every day and again and again as the day changes. Priority choices remain in the list. Remember Covey's, First Things First and the differences between urgent, important and critical. And those that are all three.
* You're not an item in your day. You are your day. You are a file or folder on someone's desk. Identify strategies to use in those places that matter that will move your file from the stack to attentive care, whether resume or marketing proposal. You are a marketing person wherever you are. Unless you are Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, you have an external responsiblity. And that's a lesson they teach albeit presently practicing in social entrepreneurial ventures more often in recent reports.
Nest Ilearned thse lessons in the energy industry where contracts and relationships always cross paths. I am blessed to have worked fo some of the finest, more integrity driven hard working people in the marketplace of skills and practice, I learned that consideration and opportunity are parts of a management structure and my recommendations are one perspective for overall decision-making. I learned that the human capital asset truly is the key to produtive technology and its implementation. Success is not dependent upon ownership of the best tools but the brightest innovators use of its means of accessing a more positive and longer term outcome.
I learned that regardless of governmental oversight or industry expectations, integrity engages more than truth telling and comfort with your products/services. I learned that we are not measured, organizationally or indivdually by the size of the task we have to do but by what we are able to do. The rest is just moving chess pieces around the board.
1. For me, not just every job, but every career is temporary. I have studied for past 4 years to be a software developer, but I don't plan to be a software developer for long. I am quite satisfied with what I have achieved so far on my own. My next step is to get real-world job and experience being in a company. While I do that, I plan to study to be a doctor or electrical engineer. Eventually, I want to change my career and do something else. Then, when I am in my 40s or 50s, I would want to try being a politician or some other career which may not even exist at present times.
2. I don't develop myself in order to market myself to companies. I do it because that is what I enjoy doing and I have a thirst for knowledge. For some people, it may not be attractive that I actually want to switch gears because it is a given that I won't be with a company for ever. By Business-of-one, just that phrase, as I read it, it meant for me that with my skills I be able to run my own company. Be a micro entrepreneur.
3. I agree with career development. Even before I had my first computer science course, I was doing web development with whatever I learned online. Even while I learned new things at college, I learned, what they did not teach at school, in my own personal time. I have learned so much by now, I want to put it to test in actual world. Once I stop learning anything new at my work, I'll find a new job to continue my education. Maybe I should create the phrase, college-of-one, for my life is a continous struggle to find something new to learn each day.
Thanks for sharing Harpeet!
I love that you said this, “…I have a thrist for knowledge.” That is a true sign of a Careerealist! I also love how you see so many directions for yourself in the future. We have to embrace the desire to do many different things if we want to be able to stay current and employable. It really is a mindset.
Glad to have you here and I look forward to seeing more of your insights on future posts!
First of all this is a great idea. Thanks for opening up the lines of communication like this. As a career coach I've been teaching these 3 core beliefs to the laid-off, unemployed, and underemployed since 2001. I had a great professor in college who taught me these principles, but I did not understand them until I was faced with a soft market for my skills. First I applied them myself and networked my way to roles in HR leadership, Grant Administration and Technical Recruiting. After finally finding MY niche, I've chosen to differentiate myself and build a brand based on a niche population. Two years ago I began teaching the reality of these core principles at a local Bible College where I can reach young people and teach them to be “Careerealists” BEFORE they even begin their careers. I work on my own with this niche population and also work with a top notched team of other career consultants and coaches where we serve mostly mid to late career upper level professionals. I agree with your 3 core traits for a Careerealist – it is a complex label that encompasses an attitude of personal and professional responsibility focused on finding your purpose and living a truly fulfilling life that serves others through your gifts and talents.
Thank you JoAnne for sharing your story. I am so excited that you are teaching students to be Careerealists while still in school. I work extensively with college students, and most recently, launched a program for campus career centers to support them in their efforts to empower their students to be Careerealists.
http://www.careerealism.com/yikes-tough-campus-…
The more career education we can provide & the earlier we provide it, the better! It's going to take a large team of passionate career coaches to help turn the corner and get Americans looking differently at their careers. I'm so thrilled to have you (and hopefully some of your colleagues – please tell them about this movement!), so we can make this a reality.
Welcome aboard!
As a true Careeralist, I constantly seek out knowledge. I look in the obvious and the not-so-obvious places. For example, an obvious place is going to university and getting a degree; however, a not-so-obvious place would be serving in the military. As a twenty-one year veteran, I spent my entire career observing others and how they treated their jobs. Additionally, I put myself on mailing lists for all types of military publications. Along with reading, I volunteered to go on many deployments–travel is THE best educator. Although I retired from the military three months ago, I continue to use it as a fertile ground for learning.
My “Ah-ha” moment came when I went back to school in my mid-thirties to finish my undergraduate degree. I was on the cusp of the non-traditional student wave, and many times I was older than my professors, but I became so enamored with learning that I went straight into the English graduate program. While in graduate school, I submitted papers to all types of conferences hoping I would get one selected, read it at the conference, and meet and learn from subject matter experts. As a medievalist and Shakespearian, I attended several academic conferences where I was surrounded by fellow scholars. My “Ah-ha” moment came at the Shakespeare Association of America Conference in 2003 when I met and spoke with many of the experts I had been reading and using for references. By speaking with these experts, I realized that I had become a Shakespearian, too, and that was when I realized I would be a life-long careeralist. Although I am not teaching now, I have continued to widen my field of knowledge by continuing to seek out unique opportunities.
A true careerealist is someone who does not sit on his or her certificates, degrees, or awards. He or she constantly strives to become a subject matter expert in more than one field, which helps the careerealist become more marketable. The careerealist is a consumate networker who gives and takes–helping others when he or she can and accepting help when he or she need it. If I had one piece of advice to give to young careerealist it would be, “Read everything you can get your hands on–it does not matter if it is in your field or not because you WILL learn something.” Learning is like air for me and becoming a careerealist is exciting.
Thank you MMbeene for your answers. I love this quote from you:
“A true careerealist is someone who does not sit on his or her certificates, degrees, or awards.”
I work with so many job seekers with advanced degrees who are angry and bitter. They say, “I spent a lot of money to get that degree, I should be paid more and get more job offers.” But, as we are seeing in today's recession, that's not the right reason to get those degrees!
All the education in the world will not pay your entry into the world of being a Careerealist. It really is a decision to be proactive and positive – you just can't buy that.
I am so happy to have you as a member of our community and really look forward to your comments on future posts!
The ‘Ah-ha Moment’ that made me realize I am a Careerealist happened over a span of several weeks but actually hit me today while reading the Careerealist article. I have been working as a Workforce Development Specialist for a short while, attempting to teach Life Skills, Soft/Hard Skills and reintegration skills to individuals with a criminal history. I have found myself slowly joining sites like Linkedin, Twitter, Careerealism, and Brazen Careerist. While following people on Twitter, keeping my own job related Employment and Career blog, taking the questions I am asked or topics I am asked to discuss and writing helpful suggestions on how to better the job search, the overall process of job hunting, or employment issues, I found out that I had turned into a Careerealist. I have found numerous helpful things on different sites, had meaningful communications on Twitter, and messages on Linkedin, but never realized the network I was slowly building had infact helped me become a Careerealist.
Thanks Chris!
Your experience is similar to mine. It just sort of hits you that this is a type of person. We all assume everyone is like this, but it's not true. There is a small group of us that really do embrace the 3 core traits more than others. This will be what helps us all get the career satisfaction we want and deserve – in any economy! It just takes the mindset and the willingness to work for what we want. Sadly, not everyone feels the way we do. But, I think that's good. I don't want all 15M job seekers as Careerealists – then we wouldn't have this wonderful competitive advantage!
Welcome to the community!
As a career coach, I'm teaching my clients your 3 tenet philosophy of Careerealism. Now more than ever it is important to take charge of your career by creating a personal brand, defining your value across roles/jobs/companies and marketing it to others by networking and actively engaging with others. I'm a careerealist who lives the 3 core beliefs. I love your site!
I agree with no1, but I'm more of the opinion that every “role” is temporary not necessarily every job. for instance (and yes this is quite far-fetched/hypothetical…or not) if you feel you've gained everything you can at your current job and are ready to move on but they wouldn't let you go – or if you own your own company and are given the chance to expand your business/role – an evolution of sorts to incorporate a wider range of clients and offer even more services – hasn't your role changed from that which you were initially hired for? and as long as you keep being creative/innovative you could remain in the same place with an ever-changing role (which I guess could be interpreted as a new job *shrug*) – just my two cents
or what if you keep working out of different international locations learning and doing different things but for the same parent company?
o well – every individual is a brand – agree completely. I don't want to ever stop learning and I especially like the phrase “market as we need”. not every thing is applicable to every situation but if you have a vast pool of skills/resources to draw from, you can totally get whatever (job) you want – God willing
i'm still yet to be employed but even after I am, I don't plan on ceasing the newsletters to my inbox or following loads of career sites on twitter – the CV/interview advice alone i've gotten from some of them have been more than helpful!
Excellent points Omowale. There is nothing saying that we can't reinvent ourselves within a company and let our roles evolve. I think the key is to recognize that true Careerelist would plan for that. It's the folks who stop learning, growing and changing roles that put themselves at serious risk. As we've seen in the recent cuts, if you don't differentiate yourself and prove your worth, you are seen as expendable.
At the same time, I am working with more and more people who are finding out that being laid-off was the BEST thing that could have happened to them. It's forced them to look at their careers differently. They've had to get their skills up-to-snuff. More importantly, they've experienced something they don't want to feel again – lack of control. These folks are now landing in new jobs on their own terms. One of our CAREEREALISM Club members even reached out to the boss who let him go to thank him for being the catalyst for a positive change in his life!
PS – Welcome to the Careerealism team – so glad you commented!
Hmmm let's see Careerealist definition #1…”check”. I'm exhausted from feeling as though I have to climb some career ladder at a company & sit in their cube. I'm building my own ladder out of the cube and the sky's the limit.
Ok definition #2….”check”. Personal branding is being put in place. I'm running the show now. And finally definition #3…”check”. I'll be sharing this with the fabulous ladies of my career club I formed–tonight! I really feel that Careerealism is a revolution of sorts. We as workers in this economic climate have realized it's time to take career matters into our own hands. We're not going to accept the popular notion & definition of a “career”, we're going to make our own and feel great with that.
Welcome to the team Colleen! I LOVE this quote from you, “I'm running the show now.” – that simple shift in mindset makes such a difference.
I can't wait to hear about your career group. I agree, the revolution has started. I really think that there are at least 10,000 fellow Careerealists out there ready to achieve the professional satisfaction they deserve – at the pay they want.
Thanks for joining the movement!