How I Became a Career Coach from Being an Engineer
I remember I was standing mid court, sweat pooling on my body, chest heaving with exertion after winning the point. Both of us were getting towards total exhaustion and the game was tied. One more point to go. My serve.
Squash isn’t for people with bad knees – which mine were from years of mogul skiing.
I don’t remember if I won that game yet I do still remember our after conversation.
I was playing squash with my Human Resources buddy Steve, on our regular 6 pm weekday game. We both worked for the same large corporate engineering firm. Once a week we left work at 5:30 pm on the dot to play squash. As there were very few young professionals in the head office, we ended up playing together. We were pretty much ‘the youngsters’ – Steve was 31.
That was the day that I heard the words from him “You know Fiona, you will never get promoted in this company. No matter how good you are or how long you stay, they won’t let you progress.”
I didn’t really understand what he meant. So I got him to repeat himself.
It didn’t change the message.
I was at the time a (very) young woman in an old boys company. That was the perceived truth as senior management saw it. HR had hired me under a co-op program they had run so I was in the door. I was doing a good job… They couldn’t fire me yet management didn’t need to ever promote me.
It shocked me – it angered me.
Yet it also motivated me to change.
Now after doing more than 3 successful career transitions (aka career pivots), I can tell you from both personal firsthand experience as well as being a 15+ year professional Career Coach, your career path probably won’t be a straight line. Mine wasn’t.
Careers paths these days are more like climbing a jungle gym than climbing straight up a corporate ladder!
Like Father, Like Daughter
My dad was an Engineer – Civil actually. He immigrated to Canada from Scotland with $50 in his pocket to establish his career just after WWII. He initially earned $400/month working in a large Montreal company and was considered better paid than his contemporaries. This still boggles my mind! Yet by his mid career, he chose to step away from corporate to become self-employed. He wanted more control over both his career path and his income. (I hear this a lot from younger workers even nowadays). As a family and growing up, we seemed to have a great life. It was full of travel in that my dad traveled for his work. We also had the first color TV on the block, and a pool in the backyard (the pool got bigger as we kids grew bigger).
Yes, I often say gratefully that I had a “charmed” childhood.
The Best Career Path Advice
I had high marks in primary and secondary school and so I was accepted straight into the Engineering program at a university out of town. I was following in my dad’s footsteps. Partly because, at 17 I really didn’t know what else I wanted to do. And, also I really liked our lifestyle!
In fact, very few of us know our passions early in life. Telling us to follow our passions is confusing. Thankfully when I was young, I was given the same advice that Michelle Obama’s mother gave her:
“Make the money first and worry about your happiness later”
I took this advice to heart. In fact, I had my career path mapped out at the young age of 17 when I entered university. I didn’t focus on passion – I focused on a career path that could earn me money. I figured the rest I could figure out.
Life Doesn’t Follow a Career Plan
Just after I started at university, I had a car accident and my health took a real kicking. I actually almost gave up and dropped out after 4 years of the 5 year program. It was grueling on my health and my psyche. I will be forever grateful to Marlene in the university’s Dean of Engineering office. By this time knew me very well. She refused to give me the forms as I had made it through with only 6 months until my graduation. She wasn’t going to let me quit while I was ahead.
Yet by the time I graduated with my Mechanical Engineering degree, I wasn’t at all the same carefree youngster. It was also during a recession. Thankfully I had a job lined up (yes, being visible has some advantages).
Lessons from the Job
Standing in the middle of that squash court was just the beginning.
I was quickly learning a new lesson. Being a “woman in a man’s world of engineering” was going to be a significant career challenge if I wanted to progress.
So I asked my dad, who was my first career coach, how to craft a great lifestyle and a fruitful career. He said there were 4 types of jobs that paid well, had some freedom and would give me the flexibility to potentially live well.
In no particular order:
- Sales
- Become Self-employed
- The Entertainment industry
- Become a Professional Sports Athlete
Needless to say I knew that option 3 and 4 were not going to happen for me!
Career Pivoting
The Computer Aided Design & Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) industry was booming at the time. This was the time that technology was having a big impact on how cars and products were designed and manufactured. So I made my first career pivot – moving into technology and then into sales. Ultimately at the young age of 27, I moved into my first management job (which was in my opinion, a disaster).
Up to this point, I had been changing roles within companies about every 6 months and changing actual companies ever 2 years. I mention this because we often need to explore what works for us early on in our careers. Other than travel and some friends, my focus was work and making money. My stress load was high.
Figuring out what next.
About the same time, the bottom started to drop out of the CAD/CAM sector as the little upstart AutoCAD began to do what the big companies had dominated. Stressed and burnt out, I looked around for another rising industry… that paid well. Funnily enough, my dad was visiting me in Toronto. He handed me a newspaper advert (really!) for “Tech Recruiting” which was still just getting established. I applied and interviewed. When offered the job, I said I had to think about it. It was again a big unknown. Change is not easy until you practice it a lot.
Three weeks later I started my new job (career pivot #2) and stayed in that firm for over 11 years. Back then (the pre – Monster.com, INDEED or LinkedIn days) being a good IT/Technology Recruitment expert paid very well. It was again highly stressful though. My health continued to suffer due to another big car accident and as the industry rode the waves of two recessions and Y2K. Career burnout was a big component.
When my Canadian recruitment company was acquired late in 2000 by a large US-based conglomerate, I knew I was overdue for a change. I decided to do a grown-up gap year to get my head on straight, get healthy and try to decompress. I traveled around the world – 14 countries. Note: travelling the world is not stress-free nor a stress buster! Thankfully, I was fairly financially established by this time. I also no longer had a pre-set career path.
Is Becoming Self-Employed the Answer
Eventually I came back to real life and started my own recruiting and coaching firm. We support Fortune 100/500 and well funded S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics/Manufacturing) companies and IT/Tech professionals.
Being self-employed isn’t for everyone. Yet my father was correct – it provides a wonderful and flexible lifestyle if you can take advantage of it. I decided to take a short “work detour” when I turned 50 for a couple of years. I wrote a book called B.I.T.C.H (Babe In Total Control of Herself), podcasted, wrote for several digital magazines and even began public speaking. If you are an introvert then I highly recommend Improvisation classes!
The Final (?) Career Chapter
By this time in my life (mid 50’s), I’ve helped put hundreds of people into new jobs. I have seen and heard it “all” over my 25 years of supporting people’s career paths and in providing career management support and workshops. I’ve read and written thousands of resumes (and of course, LinkedIn profiles). I have figured out what works for personal branding (especially for people who may not even want to pay attention to branding!). Also for dealing with career path/job bumps along the way.
I continue to support corporate professionals as they make some of the biggest (and smallest) decisions of their careers.
I can (and do) work from wherever I am in the world (as long as there is Wi-Fi). Technology improvements can be a marvel for a harmonized or remote life. Many of my career coaching clients and even journalists, who I speak to on the ins/out of career management, get a kick out of asking “Where in the world are you today Fiona?”
What has changed in career planning
There were no professional career coaches when I started out.
Life unfolds in ways you can’t imagine when you are young. Many of us can expect to have at least 5 career changes over our lifetime of working. Strong career management, I believe, is therefore even more important these days. This entails nurturing your circle of influence (ie. your network), cultivating great communications, knowing your transferable skills, and having bold yet compassionate conversations. I often remind people that we have not recently had a recession. We are overdue. We also know that ML (machine learning) and AI (artificial intelligence) are on the cusp of exploding.
Staying relevant is critical. Paying attention to your career path is critical. No one else will.
“The world of work is constantly changing.”
I made 3 career pivots for different reasons – job dissatisfaction, industry changes and to stay relevant. Make sure you speak to others to explore all of your options. If you need help in navigating your future, please reach out and get the help you need.
There is no final destination.
Your “career” will probably be very long – maybe even 50+ years. This is almost impossible to imagine when you are young. You will take many twists and turns. Really there isn’t any final destination. You should define success by your own standards.
I personally believe it includes health, great friends and loved ones, as well as the ability to provide value and to influence. Money helps with all of that. In many ways, that is what I do for my career coaching clients.
Your career matters – make it count!