The Sophomore Job Debate
Gradual Graduation; A Back2School Truth Bomb’
I have misled you.
In our conversations and in my writings, I bring up, frequently, the idea of a of the “dream job” (explicitly and implicitly). To that end, in talking of my own career affection, I likely imbued that there is to be such a professional end game. A prize won by the strategic, passionate, smart, measured, generous, and cheeky alike. That character and the 9-5 grid are one. An economical umbilical cord, a tangible grace.
This is my misstep entirely. The foundation is true, but the translation skewed. It is my assessment that the more proper equation is that every job (gig) is at best a step towards our individual career justice. On the negative flip side: they are a distraction from professional identity Nirvana. The delineation being how said gig(s) are played by the player- you know that person in the mirror…
How do we know such a thing?
That is a funny ask like: How do you know I love you? That there is God or isn’t? The World is round? If your pet likes you. That the missing sock is somewhere in the apartment even though you can’t find it.. Think: Goal Permanence.
Goal Permanence: One’s commitment to and certainty of professional aims regardless of the given job or position one holds at any given time.
Example: You are working in advertising, whilst harboring dreams of artist management. Last year you did a stint on a film set, worked in catering for the five years prior, was unemployed for too long after that, and are a certified yoga teacher twice over – though you have never taught a class. Adding on: Seven months in relationship rehab and that veterinary hospital internship…
Pop Quiz:
Are you?
a) A deft professional with an array of life and work experience, commitment to growth and education. Never satisfied with the status quo and deeply focused on service?
b) Too scattered to bother. Needing to: go back to school for UX design, stop texting your ex, give up that sublet and rent already, and get a job in the middle tier or some middle management wing on a public company that does something you can’t explain in one sentence?
c) A joke.
d) An adventurer.
e) An American.
Answer: A+D=E
What makes the above person successful or stupid is not WHAT they did or do, but HOW they travel through. The story one spins, independent on the needs or title of a given gig is absolutely everything. You are the only one holding the role. The role NOT you, but YOURS.
Ok, so we have learned a bit about Goal Permanence. Great! Now it is Fall, at the end for the oddest year since the start of the last ice age, and you are unemployed or unhappily job holding. You are getting interviews, yet your inbox is empty. Or you are hearing nothing from the dozen of apps you send out. What about this: your industry died?
How do you get hired without killing your soul? You make a compromise that what happens next for you job wise will not be ideal. It will be what I call a Sophomore Job.
Sophomore Job: A Non-Lateral move that is not as vertical as desired or deserved.
We are to take Sophomore Jobs in difficult micro and macro times, in a new career, after a graduation or during school. These are not “big wins” - they are ripples. Not surfable for sure, but movement enough to keep things circulating.
This is a good thing. Moving too quickly can cause us to get lost in the gig, forgetting ourselves. A wise perspective is ALL JOBS ARE SOPHOMORE JOBS. To think otherwise would be to assume that there is some fucking end game to our careers. That they plateau. There isn’t even retirement anymore. #giveuptheghost
What keeps that NOT from being bad news – but, instead a truth tirade – is that every job is sophomore. The wins are that we become career curators, modeling our goal golems at each turn. Using gigs to our growth advantage.
This process is nuanced for sure, individual, and in constant development, but some short catch-all’s are:
1) Build your legacy statement: Marking and clearing the kind of footprint you wish to leave - in the interview, at the company, in the role, industry etc. Aiming your strategy, setting clear achievement deadlines, and ride your own ass to keeping getting your best interests met.
2) Know who you want to know – tracking your career heroes. Trolling those folks, known or unknown on LinkedIn or wherever to watch where they came from, are, and are going. Their circle, experience etc. AND even reaching out to get some validation and intel. This practice prevents isolation and begets a self-manifested network of career peers, models, and mentors.
3) Change the goal. Don’t inventory what you did or do, but what you learned and are gaining in aptitude. That is what and how a career is best measured.
Be a shark. Swim to live, and keep your lidless eyes open wide. A seafaring consumer mindset. A monster fish: eating resources in abandon or die. Moving through one Sophomore Sea to the next, not looking for the water to be more than lukewarm, but knowing you’ll have a new and better bathing suit to wear in each pool.
