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Navigating the Career Choice Maze

Seek a balance

Self-assessment must move beyond job skills and workplace factors to encompass other important components of your life. Arron suggests that feeling successful amounts to achieving a balance in four areas: work, relationships, leisure, and challenge.

Sometimes, taking on a new challenge outside of work can help alleviate job dissatisfaction. Arron cites the example of an attorney who first took up flying lessons and later became involved in his children's soccer league. Those outside interests allowed him to put the components of his life in perspective and cope more comfortably with the less satisfying aspects of his work.

For people seeking more creative challenges in their lives, one solution might be to keep those day jobs and find something that piques the creative spirit outside of work, such as joining a local theater group or taking a painting class.

On the other hand, Arron notes, "there's intellectual challenge in everything we do. If what you do is stimulating, you're in the right field. Most successful people in our society probably love what they're doing."

If your life is out of balance, consider whether the focus on one component to the neglect of others is of your own doing and how long you're willing to continue on that path. For example, Arron says, an attorney might decide to put in long hours for a couple years to earn money toward the children's college fund. For most people, living a life out of balance cannot continue indefinitely.

"Doing too much of anything brings on dissatisfaction," she warns.

Dig for answers

Research entails finding "where you can do what you've decided you're meant to do," Arron explains. Attorneys seeking alternative careers have more options than ever before, and more employers are willing to consider candidates with a law degree for nonlegal positions. Indeed, the section on job options for lawyers and law school graduates in What Can You Do With a Law Degree?, now in its third edition, has grown significantly over the years.

In general, career development today is much less linear than it was 20 years ago. Industries change constantly, and people have more options in choosing their career path and direction. The American economy changed relatively slowly from an agrarian to an industrial base, Arron notes, but its more recent evolution to an information base was much swifter and has changed the face of job hunting. Today, more transportable skills are requisite, as is the ability to articulate your skills and how they can be useful in a new situation.

Arron's book lists potential positions in a variety of fields, from entertainment to health care to entrepreneurial ventures, along with a list of resources for finding more about what those jobs entail. In addition, she notes, the public library remains a valuable source of information about potential new employers, and the Internet has opened a wealth of data about different fields and companies.

With that type of information in hand, networking with employees of a specific company can yield valuable details about it.

Take the plunge

The implementation stage, which consists of tracking down your next job, must be much more interactive than sending out resumes with a cover letter, Arron insists. To get the job you really want, you need to:

• focus on the employers' needs;
• concentrate on active, personal contacts; and
• be persistent in following up with a flexible plan.

That means not waiting for a description of your perfect job to show up in the want ads. Many professionals get the jobs they want by showing their employers what they can do for them. Arron notes that half of all managerial/technical positions are created for the people who fill them.

One way to create your dream job is to approach a potential employer as a contractor, offering to perform the work you want to do on a trial basis. Working as a contract lawyer is an increasingly common way of making the transition to a new career.

Expect to be confronted with stereotypes about lawyers, Arron cautions. Many potential employers may object to hiring you on the basis that, as an attorney, you must be high-priced, confrontational, not a team player, or a "loser lawyer" because you're leaving a traditional law practice.

Foreseeing those objections can allow you to deal with them in realistic terms by preparing responses about how your law background will make you a valuable member of the team and why you're looking for a new career.

Being a lawyer is not always an advantage when you're looking for a career outside the law, Keller agrees. She remembers meeting a constituent in her door-to-door campaign for Cedarburg Common Council who told her bluntly, "I don't trust lawyers. Tell me why I should trust you."

Partly to sidestep that distrust and the assumption that lawyers are arrogant and partly because she dislikes labels, Keller prefers not to introduce herself as a lawyer. "I do say that I have training in the law, when it's important to do so."

But Keller has found many benefits of her law education in her diverse career pursuits. At the foundation of law is a versatile primer in how people interact, how they get into problems, and how to help them out of those problems, she says.

As she installs insulation and drywall in her 1873 farmhouse and ponders her next career move, Keller says she is intrigued by the possibility of getting involved in conflict resolution and mediation.

"Every new experience gives you the chance to plumb the depths of your desires, your strengths, and weaknesses," Keller adds. "Sometimes, I enjoy casting my fate to the winds. And worrying certainly doesn't seem to solve problems any faster."

Karen Bankston engages in her dream job as a freelance writer and editor from her Stoughton, Wis., office.