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Wednesday
Feb172010

Answers! Visions of your ideal career! 

DateWednesday, February 17, 2010 at 07:11PM

Last week we asked millennials what their vision of an ideal job/career looks like (see the full question here), and we got responses on Facebook, via email, Twitter, Buzz - seemingly every digital venue imaginable. Here are some samples of the answers we received. Please, should you feel so compelled, feel free to offer your insight in the comments section:

Ahser Platts told us: The idea career path for me, would be something that either is in the field of making the world a better place, where I can make ends meet simply by pursing my ethical interests-- or a job with high enough pay, and flexible enough hours that allows me to make ends meet and do all the things that change the world for the better, but sadly pay nothing.

Dorothee Royal-Hedinger, our friend from OrganicNation.tv suggested: Above all, my ideal career allows me to make media that challenges the status quo and promotes sustainable living. A great day for me is one that allows for exploration and creativity at every turn. With that said, I have to admit that time and following my ideals has certainly been valued over money although I certainly see the value in being properly compensated for your expertise. I've been happy to discover that my work has been able to blend what I love doing and what people want to pay me for.

Bryan Guffey explained: A job that allows me to have flexible work hours so I can continue to engage in my community, that supports my educational endeavors by investing in me, and one that creates a positive working environment by focusing on the quality of the work produced, not the number of hours it takes to produce it.

Bryan McLeod (a Gen Xer) jokingly offered: I think Peter [Griffin, of the Family Guy] had it right, and he attached this picture:

We also had two great responses via email, each of which are from millennials, and each of which will remain anonymous:

Person one, a young woman in her mid-20s, wrote:

The feeling of "needing to be needed" is something that I've thought about a lot lately. It's that feeling that unites everyone who works at [my last job] and an addiction I've obviously had to fight since working [at this less intense job] in coming to terms with the fact that the work I do isn't urgent. It doesn't need me to stay late. It doesn't compel me to sacrifice time with my family. It means that I don't get to say yes when people ask me whether or not I'm passionate about what I do. For a lot of work-addicted people like my co-workers, though, this is a deal-breaker. I imagine that it would be the case for young entrepreneurs and the ambitious millennials in your audience as well. So maybe it's a question worth raising, especially since, for the vast majority of people who are less than superhuman,  the ability to keep a job that feeds into one's passion is oftentimes in direct conflict with family/friend time.

Person two, a young woman also in her mid-20s, wrote:

For me, the ideal career - in a way - is about freedom.

This means not being tied down to or aiming for a particular job, but rather seeking one that fulfills my needs and goals for personal and intellectual stimulation. I have come to understand through working both "ideal" and "unideal" jobs, often finding each to be the reverse or at least a complicated mix of the two, that it is useless to really aim hard for something particular, as opposed to keeping in mind that:

  • you can always learn something, and even if you think you will never use it again, you probably will
  • nothing is forever, especially in today's job market - meaning you could get canned big or, conversely, offered something else amazing when you least expect it
  • without personal pioneering and drive, you will end up in an unideal job, no matter how close it is to being exactly as you envisioned your life would unfold.


Equally, this is the approach i take regarding time/relationships with family and friends, and i think it's useful to have the same, open-minded approach - one that does not attach itself to particulars or proscriptives, but all the while remains conscious of what feels like it does and does not fit, as well as an awareness of when it is time to change/move on.

I'm not really answering your question, so much spouting a sort of abstract philosophy of life. But for me, I think, the questions you ask are so fundamentally intertwined with personal values that they become one and the same.

I will say, though, on the subject of personal values, that i absolutely think about health care, child care, sick leave, and opportunity for promotion when deserved, as - not only are they necessary, particularly later in life - but I would feel uncomfortable working for an organization for whom these issues were non-issues.

I will also say that my sort of indiscriminate freedom-loving ideas about careers is probably the result of privilege in a lot of ways, and comes from a consideration that I have been afforded by never having struggled to the point that I thought I couldn't eat or pay my rent. It has been tough at times, and I have definitely gone hungry for periods, as well as worked from age 16 to contribute to my education - but not in the same way that other, less fortunate people have had to. I would posit, perhaps, that this is likely the position a lot of our generation comes from, for many of whom career ambivalence has nothing to do with a long-thought out philosophy of freedom or desire to be happy, having significantly struggled to do so in our society, but rather from a place of sort of wanton privilege and an excess of options and opportunities. Not to say that everyone is spoiled because they have had everything handed to them, but that our culture and society presents such an overwhelming and repercussion free plethora of choices, that we sit around "waiting" for the perfect job, vacillating, never committing, just waiting for things to be perfect without feeling like we have to really work for it, and that sometimes things are shit - just like it has been for every generation that preceded us. The same can be said of our approach to relationships. Those who don't rush into marriage seem to sit in 5 to 8 year relationships, living with their partner, ostensibly participating in a "married" relationship, but keep waiting and waiting to feel like they know they really want to commit - that this is it. We seem to actively participate in the myth that you don't have to work for things, relationships included, which is troubling. Having so much, I think, has led a lot of us to have - concretely - very little indeed. 

AuthorAlex Steed | Comment13 Comments |
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Reader Comments (13)

Very interesting post. One thing I've noticed with regards to jobs, it is the imagining that often paves the way for actually getting that coveted position somewhere. If one cannot imagine working somewhere, in my experience, that one will not usually get that job.

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