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Quick Change Artists: Navigating Sudden Career Shifts

Written by: Judy Martin

Article Overview: Life deals us a mixed batch of cards and sometimes your get the joker. But it's no "joke" when the hand your dealt forces a sudden career change. Illness, relationship issues, family concerns, layoffs or being at the end of your rope unhappy with your job - there are many reasons to shift. But you can do it with grace. Here's a bit of inspiration along with some tips to tackle career interruptus.

Quick Change Artists: Navigating Sudden Career Shifts

Creativity appeared to be an elusive goal for marketer and sales trainer Catherine Wright in her position at a building products company that suddenly downsized. “I think people immediately feel bad about themselves when they lose a job,” she says. But despite her concern, she wasn’t going to shoot herself in the foot. “I prayed, took action and trusted that there was a blessing on the other side of this. I decided I’d have to dive into networking and do some guerrilla marketing.” Making a conscious choice to brand herself, she designed her next position—at first only on paper. Wright wrote a description of her perfect job. She looked at what wasn’t working in her former position, and then assessed her individual strengths, skills and talents. “I realized I love making a difference for women and families.”

So Wright accepted a board position on the Long Island Women’s Business Council. After the first meeting she was directed to the Jericho-based National Association of Mothers’ Centers, which had two openings. As they were for a non-profit, neither job delivered the salary she was looking for, “so I got really creative and was able to merge the jobs into one,” stepping into a full-time job as a membership development director. “You have to put yourself out there. Just because a job doesn’t exist doesn’t mean someone won’t appreciate your skills and create one for you,” she says.

When Change Finds You

Career shifts come in many forms, but rarely are they as sudden as the one Aggie Geoghan experienced after her brother, Attila Hejja’s, tragic death. Hejja, an internationally recognized artist died unexpectedly at 52, leaving his prestigious Oyster Bay-based school, the Stevenson Academy of Fine Arts, without a leader. “There was no decision making. It was obvious what I had to do. Closing the school wasn’t even a thought,” says Geoghan, who was living in Florida. Moving back to Long Island within a few weeks of her beloved brother’s passing she took the helm at the school that Hejja had created just a few years ago.

“He had planned and orchestrated every nut and bolt for years before he opened,” says Geoghan of her brother, who grew the academy from 40 to 300 students in a few short years, sharing his own lessons learned as a noted painter for large corporations, the U.S. Air Force, the United Nations and NASA.

It was the passion to continue her brother’s legacy that fueled Geoghan’s courage in the move from health care consultant to director of a fine arts academy. “I’ve been exposed to the arts all my life, but always through Attila. Now I’ll have to learn step by step to fill in the gaps,” says Geoghan, who will take art classes to familiarize herself with the school’s programs. It’s probably what Hejja would have wanted. Just days before his death, he told his sister of a potential partnership with a local college and surprised her by asking her to move back and help with the school. “I told him I would seriously think about it,” she says, not knowing that within days he would be gone, leaving her a legacy of memories and a new creative career path. “Of course it’s going to be successful,” she says. “I can’t fill his shoes, but I look forward to following in his footsteps.”

As described in those two stories, life happenings can mean a dramatic shift to our working lives, kicking off a journey into unknown territory. Coping and succeeding with changes is not as tall an order as it used to be, according to Cali Yost, author of Work + Life: Finding the Fit That’s Right for You (Riverhead/Penguin Group 2005). “The biggest emerging trend is a shift from flexibility being a top-down, one-size-fits-all policy to a process where the flexibility is tailored to the person and the job,” says Yost. But Yost adds that making a dramatic shift can empower an individual to create his or her own new and improved standards of success and fulfillment

Find Meaningful Work

1. Identify the most and least enjoyable parts of your job. Can you enhance the positives without stretching your workload too much?
2. Evaluate your time in the office. How much is spent in fulfilling work?
3. What additional skills might you offer your employer to boost career growth?
4. Volunteer to do a project that you are passionate about. Doing an activity that we enjoy doesn’t seem like work.
5. Create your own path in your current position. Learn new skills and start using them to slowly augment your position.
6. Review your workplace relationships. Keep company with those who offer support. Who is energizing you and who is depleting you?

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Article Tags: academy of fine arts, aggie, beloved brother, board position, business council, career shifts, catherine wright, conscious choice, elusive goal, first meeting, full time job, guerrilla marketing, helm, island women, living in florida, marketer, membership development director, oyster bay, stevenson academy of fine arts, tragic death



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