D graduated from a top college in 2014 and got a job with a consulting firm that pays very well. She works hard and generally enjoys the people with whom she works. Lately, however, she’s been questioning, “is this what I want to do with my life?”.
My advice, as a pragmatic old guy, is that if the money is decent and the workplace is tolerable - you can derive satisfaction in other areas of your life. If you chase some “I’m changing the world for the better” dream, you’ll probably end up disillusioned and financially worse off.
What are your thoughts on advising a young person in the workforce and reconciling “making a difference” with “making a living”?
Did she mention what else might interest her? Is it the actual job she is performing, the type of corp she works with or the field?
Some of son’s college buddies (also grad from a top uni) have changed things up as they have grown more. One changed from a big IB firm to a small boutique PE firm, another went from a smaller IB to get her JD/MBA and is switching to corporate law. Another went from H law and corporate to consulting for VCs not practicing. Another has left a HUGE firm in NYC for an MBA in CA. Some went from consulting to a public school teacher in Harlem. List goes on and on…
They are just about 5 years out from graduation…and a surprising number are now married or engaged. I think it is so interesting that they feel they can change their goals and re-evaluate what they want. What brings them happiness and the journey along the way is pretty cool.
As my son says “you only need so much money Mom, the rest is for showing off!”
Many top universities offer career counseling to their alums. Have her call to the school’s career counseling center to talk to someone and see if she can make a phone appointment (if she’s not in the same city). I’m sure there are also private career counseling centers that provide the same services. Looking at my alma mater’s Career Services page, they offer services to alums and provide a list of career coaches in the major cities. I don’t think the two goals of “making a difference” and “making a living” have to be mutually exclusive. She may need to rethink or prioritize some things.
If smart, motivated young adults use their employment experiences to refine the direction they want their careers to take, I am delighted for them. The happiest people I know have worked to assess their jobs, make the numbers work and honor their preferences and talents.
Some compartmentalize joy in their hobbies, with tedium at work. I wouldn’t want someone I love to feel that is the only way forward, nor would I be afraid of exploration for a grounded young adult.
I have to agree with your pragmatic approach. You want a job that can provide you with a good life. A person can always do some volunteering etc. if they want do something to feel good about themselves… As I’ve said, “That is why they call it work.”
My daughter graduated from college in 2011 and went to work for a consulting firm.
In the course of her work, she came into contact with people at clients’ offices who performed a variety of functions. She became particularly interested in the marketing people, and she realized that she would like their jobs a lot better than her own. She did some further research on marketing as a career field and decided that it might be an appropriate place for her.
So when she went back to school for her MBA (something she had been planning to do anyway), she chose a marketing major. And after she finishes her MBA this summer, she will go to work in a marketing job (already lined up through on-campus recruiting).
My point is that working in consulting brings a person into contact with people in other areas of business. If any of those areas are appealing, your daughter might want to investigate what she might do to transition her career from consulting to an aspect of business that she likes better.
However, if your daughter is thinking beyond the business world, I have no advice to offer.
How much do you think might be a general adjustment to full-time work?
It can be quite an adjustment to go from full-time student/school where classes change every semester, there are several breaks throughout the year, then there’s SUMMER break which often involves a new job or internship and a change in scenery…
It’s so different from life in the regular workforce as an adult.
Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life
That’s the ideal, but I’m sure there’s a lot of middle ground for everybody. I had a buddy switch from software engineer to law in his mid-30’s and he’s pretty happy. People should at the very least not be doing something they hate, but in-between hate and love there’s plenty of grey area to find something you like and enjoy.
Anyway, if you can’t try different things in your 20’s, when can you? Now is the time for her to explore or at least consider other things that she might find more satisfying.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates. Your daughter’s question may not have a correct “answer” but it is the stuff that makes up an “examined life.” She can decide whether she will be pragmatic or a dreamer. She is fortunate to be at a time and place to be able to ask this question. That is what I would tell her.
make sure your D runs to something not away from something. Running away from something often leads to poor decision making.
as has already been mentioned, consulting is a great way to learn about a variety of functions and industries…and you get paid to do it. This makes it a good place to learn what to run to (if it is a corporate type job)
given graduation date given, it would appear D has been consulting about 2 years. That is generally a good point to either move on to grad school (where you get a do-over of sorts if you want to change careers) OR provides an excellent chance to try something completely different out (non-profit, etc.) that can be found either on own or leveraging the consulting firm’s network. She would still have oppty to go to graduate school after that (would be even better candidate given 2 different experiences) if she wanted.
Feeling that you have a purpose in life is more fulfilling than only racking up a bank account and buying nice toys. Your daughter may be realizing that “top college/high pay” is for many people just a bill of goods. I like David Brooks’s recent quote to the effect that people who ask what they can get out of life might rather ask what life wants from them.
I agree with you danstearns and would echo what happy1 says - if she looks around, I’ll bet she can find a way to help someone / some people in her community or beyond with her wisdom and knowledge and experience. I believe volunteering can really help people add purpose to their life, and yet keep the bills paid. And really, to effectively help others, you need your own resources (i.e. income). It can be tough to do this with long hours and travel, of course.
Then, if that doesn’t do the trick, she can look at exploring other options.
I also agree with Midwest67 that it is quite a transition to the working world…
I’m pragmatic–money goes a long way for me in making my life secure. I’ve always enjoyed (pretty much) my career. Lots of things I’d RATHER do at times but hey, money helps there too. But I have jumped ship when I got really unhappy in certain working conditions.
Even the BEST job has its trials and tribulations.
I go with Moonshot99–run towards something, not away from anything.
There’s a theme that keeps coming up here – the idea that you can use a master’s program of one sort or another to reinvent yourself.
Those programs cost money, and financing them through loans is an iffy proposition if you’re anticipating going into a relatively low-paying job after you complete the program.
For example, if you want to use your business skills to make a difference in the world, you might want to consider an MBA or MPA program with a major in nonprofit management. But the job you will get at a nonprofit after you complete that program may not pay enough to enable you to easily pay off a large student loan.
Fortunately, your daughter has an alternative. She has a high-paying job. If she makes a point of living frugally for a few years while working in that job, she could save enough so that she could go back to school for a year or two without borrowing much (if any) money.
I think you have to love something that you do. If not work then some hobby or volunteer work. I have a friend who loves photography (and is very good). He chose to go with business in college and is now living off a nice retirement income while he focuses on what used to be his hobby. He thinks he made the right choice.
It depends how much she doesn’t like what she is doing and how much extra life there is available to her. If she’s working 60 hours a week, she may not have the energy or time to compartmentalize. I’ve counseled my children to ask the big questions and take the big chances when they are young and unattached and without real responsibilities.
The other point though is that what she is doing right now may not be what she will be doing in the same job at the same company in the next year or two. Jobs change as they advance and your impact increases. Even if that’s not true, she may find that the experience she acquires in this consulting position is portable and that she is able to move into, say, counseling nonprofits.
The answers are all so individual. Good luck to her and congratulations as well for having done so well already.
Well, I myself went back to school in my mid. 30s. Everything was tolerable at my job, but I did not care for the job itself and after working for 11 years, I did not care about it even more. Going back to school and getting my second career was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. I am very satisfied with what I am doing now, it is very entertaining and very hard to retire from type of work and many around me seem to feel the same way. I switched from EE to CS and went from feeling like a fish out of the water to having the ball with my job for over 30 years now. However, keep in mind I gave my first career a try for over 10 years, I did not jump out of it in my first year and also, most of my second education was paid by my various employers, all thru MBA. I also never went to any top school, I went to local college that was plenty enough for both of my careers. My education provided me with the very satisfying job at the satisfying place with great co-workers and a good pay.
Great advice here, thanks. @Marian and @moonshot99, we have talked about the great experience she’s getting as a consultant, seeing a variety of industries and different parts of the country and the importance of keeping one’s eyes open to see future opportunities.
@bearhouse, the Socrates quote has come up in our discussions. Probably better than my advice to “just put your head down and grind it out”
@3girls3cats, she has talked about her twenties being the ideal time to shift focus. Her analogy being that if you decide you want to fly to San Diego instead of Seattle, it’s a minor course change early in the flight.
I think part of it is also looking back at some of the things she enjoyed and excelled at that have been left behind because of the time constraints of the job.
I really enjoyed a book by Cal Newport called “So Good They Can’t Ignore You (why skills trump passion in the quest for work you love)”. Don’t know how readily applicable it would be to your daughter’s situation, but his basic thesis is that there’s a lot of misspent, and frankly misguided energy spent out there in trying to find one’s “passion”, and he gives a lot of unfortunate examples of folks who dropped out of a well-paying career to jump into something exciting without the requisite skills to be successful in the new venture. Instead, he advocates the systematic cultivation over time of some skill set that society values, and parlaying those skills into a job you find satisfying (because competence breeds satisfaction), and affords you the lifestyle you want. He calls it the “craftsman” approach to career satisfaction.
For career changers, I think this means that, if at all possible, make sure you’ve invested the time and effort to have a robust new set of skills BEFORE leaving that reasonably comfortable and well-paying gig you’ve currently got. I suppose if the way one plans to acquire said new skill set involves going back to school, then it’s pretty tough to keep the job at the same time, however.
You didn’t say anything about your daughter’s personal life. If she’s young and unattached, I would say now is an excellent time to try something new.
We all like money and want our kids to make enough so that they remain independent! However, many of us live quite happily without amassing a lot of wealth or view the trappings of wealth as often being frivolous and silly. Encourage her to do what makes her happy as long as she can support herself at a level where she is comfortable. I guess she’s 24? Long time to have to do something that leaves her flat.
