LET ‘EM MAKE CAKE
Ivanka's Lame Career Advice
To all of you who started out wanting to be a doctor, a nurse, or a fireman, congrats, given the state of the world in the time of COVID19, you made a good choice. Those jobs, while considered high-risk for contracting the virus, are still in high demand. But if like hundreds of thousands of others, you chose a career less reminiscent of the ones held by the grownups in children’s books, you may just find yourself currently unemployed. If so, first-daughter Ivanka Trump has some advice for you: Find Something New.
In the ad campaign for the new website Findsomethingnew.com, co-chairs Ivanka Trump and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross urge the great unemployed masses to find a new career path. Called “a directionless information dump” by The Washington Post, instead of creating “a portal with live career counselors, or put more money on the table for scholarships and grants so that folks can afford college-level courses or obtain the certification to get jobs in rising career fields”, the site is a maze of links that rarely connect to new job opportunities.
When social media made mincemeat of the site, calling it “clueless” and “tone-deaf”, the first daughter was quick to defend her effort. “This initiative is about challenging the idea the traditional 2 and 4 year college is the only option to acquire the skills needed to secure a job,” she said, adding, “This work has never been more urgent.” That’s something anyone who visits the site out of necessity doesn’t need to be told, especially by the likes of Ivanka who reportedly made $85 million dollars last year while serving as White House Advisor. Perhaps what Ivanka should do is take one of those $85 million and buy herself a clue. Let’s face it, unlike the rest of America, she’ll never know the urgency many citizens feel unless her bank account is drained, her rent is due and she can’t afford health insurance.
Drawing from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, the site provides a list of rising careers including Aerospace Engineering and Operations Technician, Diagnostic Medical Sonographer, Contact Tracer, and Wind Turbine Technician (ironic since Ivanka’s dad ravages windmill energy at every opportunity), just the sort of jobs you can land when you lose your minimum wage position at Starbucks or are laid off from Macy’s.
Chock full of questionnaires and surveys that may be just a bit harder than the Cognitive Assessment Test that President Trump claims to have recently aced, the site can, once you determine what you’re good at, direct you to classes (some which come with high price tags) to prepare for your dream position.
Thank goodness you don’t need to rely on just Findsomethingnew.com for help. Let’s start by acknowledging that looking for a new job in the best of times is stressful and that the current climate, rife with inherent health risks and uncertainty, makes people want to act more conservatively. Then ask yourself if you’re looking for a new job or a new career. The pandemic may be the perfect time to reset your career goals to their factory settings.
While their career shifts were not virus-induced, a number of famous people ‘caught the bug’ and found success by reinventing themselves. Channing Tatum started as a male stripper before playing one on the big screen. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from muscleman to actor to governor of California. Martha Stewart segued from model to Wall Street stockbroker before becoming a domestic goddess. Jeff Bezos left computer science to ascend to the throne as King of E-commerce. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson morphed from linebacker to WWF superstar before achieving stardom in Hollywood.
Reporting in the Harvard Business Review, Hermina Ibarra, who has been studying career changes through the .com bust, the 2008 recession, the bull market and now the pandemic, believes that “to do it right, you have to experiment with, test and learn about a range of possible selves.” She defines possible selves as the ideas we all have about who we want to become. Some of them are “concrete and well-informed by experience; others are vague and fuzzy, nascent and untested. Some are realistic, some are pure fantasy”. Like looking at a menu, some choices are more appealing than others.
Ms. Ibarra suggests that the first thing we need to do is to embrace the transitional phase we’re experiencing. She refers to this emotional rollercoaster as the liminal period where untethered, people often “oscillate between holding on and letting go”. Don’t despair, according to Ibarra, it’s all part of the journey and downtime is crucial. In fact, “neurological studies suggest that taking advantage of liminal time to do that ‘inner business’ may be more beneficial than engaging in a flurry of busy-making self-improvement efforts.” In other words, relax. Don’t feel that you have to be busy and productive all the time.
That doesn’t mean you get a pass to avoid doing the work that will result in your own reinvention. It’s a great time to gather knowledge, hone new skills and reconnect with your network. Ms. Ibarra, whose book Working Identity is about career reinvention, suggests taking a course, doing pro-bono work or develop a start-up idea. “This activity is crucial. It helps you work through not only the practical questions, but also the existential ones that drive career change. We learn who we want to become by testing fantasy and reality, and of course, by doing.”
Naturally, you’ll want to work your network, but Ibarra points out that most people looking for a career change try to mobilize their weakest ties (people they don’t know or don’t see very often) in order to learn things they don’t know. The problem is, especially in these unprecedented times, that those weaker connections will be less motivated to help you, especially if they’re stretched thin themselves. At the same time your strong ties (friends, family and close co-workers) know the same things you know and, in the end, may wind up pigeonholing you.
Ms. Ibarra suggests working your “dormant ties”, people you were once close to but who you haven’t been in contact with for three years or more. A study of 200 executives revealed that people who reconnected with dormant contacts found the advice they received was more valuable than what they obtained from more active relationships.
Other career experts including Andrew Levine, founder of Second Act Stories podcast suggest “That as the world finds a new normal, it’s a good time for individuals to find a new job with both purpose and a paycheck.”
Whatever you decide to do, now is the time to dream big, assess your own value, determine how your skills match growth industries, build your personal brand, be realistic and act mindfully. Who knows, you could even apply for a job at the White House. If we’ve learned anything from this current administration it’s that no experience is required.
