Thread: How did you come into your career? Do you feel it is your "calling?"

After talking to several friends who are finishing their degree but haven't discovered the career they're interested in, how did you come into your career?
Do you enjoy it?
What was your search process to target a select career?


Studies are speaking of multiple career changes in a lifetime, averaging 1 every decade or so, how do you feel about this?
Is it applicable to you?
Will you look for another job in a similar field or will it be different?

"Calling" is hard to define. Many students will wonder at some stage whether they chose the right study.

It is hard to tell whether a certain job is right for you. Follow your heart and not the money as job satisfaction is more than just a fat paycheck.

Many people will sooner or later discover that the job they have is not the job they want to do for the rest of their life, which explains why so many people change jobs every so often.

I got into the "car selling" business because I suddenly needed a job and had a wife and child to support. Overall, it's been a great business, but the hours are brutal. Funny, while car salespeople are on the low end of the trusted scale, I'd enjoy this business a lot more if there weren't so many lying customers.

RT

The job selects you. I haven't been able to find a job that didn't require proven experience yet.

Your career is usually chosen for you while you work to support yourself and pretend its all about your "passion".

I like to remember its a job.

I remember sitting next to two volunteer fireman who said "Why don't they pay us for all this work we do" and I said "Because you two idiots keep doing it for free"

I fell into my "career" out of necessity. The company I worked for downsized and everyone said I needed a degree to get a job in the same field so I went back to school. Unfortunately when I was done most jobs in my field had been outsourced to India, China, Phillipines, etc. I started my own business and I've been drowning ever since. Hopefully I'll get good at selling things on ebay and make up the difference.

Originally Posted by REFLUX

After talking to several friends who are finishing their degree but haven't discovered the career they're interested in, how did you come into your career?

I have always wanted to act. It's in my nature. I was the class clown in school and always looking for attention, but it wasn't till I saw Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone when I was about 10 or so that I connected it up to something I wanted to pursue.

Originally Posted by REFLUX

Do you enjoy it?

Enjoy? Well it sure can be hard work and dealing with other actors' egos can be a strain, but for me there's nothing like striving to fullfill the art that a playwrite has created, give an audience that pause to consider their place in the world which great art can do or hear the applause of the crowd.

I've always felt I have something to offer in terms of revelations about the human heart and the human condition and it's my goal to help people see these things about themselves.

Originally Posted by REFLUX

What was your search process to target a select career?

I looked for teachers in my home town first and did as much of that as I could until I had outgrown it. I also researched the best schools in the country, set my sights and hit my mark at The National Theatre School of Canada.

Originally Posted by REFLUX

Studies are speaking of multiple career changes in a lifetime, averaging 1 every decade or so, how do you feel about this?
Is it applicable to you?
Will you look for another job in a similar field or will it be different?

As an underemployed actor I have had many second jobs in my life and expect to have many more. I'm always happiest in them when I can use my skillsets to their best advantage, but that doesn't always happen.

I started work straight from Secondary school at 15 years old.
My father wanted me to get a trade & I liked messing around with things so
I got an apprenticeship as a Maintenance fitter with a Chemical company.
Spent 5 years day release at a Technical college getting my Craft qualifications.
Finished at 50 years old after 35 years at the same company. Fancied a change once or
twice but never did. The company was taken over 5 times while I worked there so there
was plenty of changes over the years.
Tony

My advice would be to pursue something you truly enjoy doing. Period. My father told me this when I was younger and I didn't quite listen to him. I wish I had.

Jordan

Yes.

When I was doing an internship in the last year of my Masters in Engineering, I went to a small company that does automation projects for large companies.
Initially, I wanted to have as little to do with computers as possible, but I had to do programming tasks anyway.

Then I discovered that I could use a computer to make an engine turn, or read a thermometer. That was when I was hooked. I learned a lot of writing software in LabVIEW, and learned C and C++ in my free time.
Subsequentially, I did large projects in C and C++, and then learned C# and .NET in my free time. Now I also do projects using that.

Figuring out how things work, and making software work with other software and hardware is my passion. I have been doing it for 9 years now, and at this moment I cannot see myself doing anything else.
I have written code for firmware of telecoms lasers, realtime systems, embedded systems and test and measurement systems.

Being a software geek who goes as deep as he can go is really my calling. That is where I strive for perfection.

Career? I'm 26. Should I have one of those by now? Whoops!

Let's see, I started working when I was 14 and I haven't spent more than 3 months unemployed, so I've been a day laborer at a nursery (the plant kind, not the kid kind), a lifeguard, a computer hardware installer, an ethernet technician, an ASP programmer (prior to .NET, using JScript on IIS 4.0, SQL Server 2000, Javascript), a wave solder operator in an electronics factory, an assistant cheddarer, a notetaker for the blind, a customer service rep at a health insurance company, deployed as security forces, and deployed as a field radio operator (which is my actual MOS; the first time I was deployed in an infantry billet, cause all Marines go to school of Infantry in addition to their MOS). When I get home I'll probably continue at the health insurance co. while I finish my degree...ultimately I'd like an MBA so I can get started on my own business. Might also be looking to apprentice as a carpenter for a few years so my wife (interior designer working on architect cert) and I can flip houses when the market starts heading back up.

Specialization is for insects