Hi guys. I’ve been working for a year and a half since graduating with my masters in mechanical engineering.
I’ll be honest. I’m none the wiser as how to approach a career.
Is it a case of picking roles that give you a breadth of knowledge? What about choosing a role that is really specialised in a skill and perfecting that, then moving on to another skill?
How do you dodge pigeon holing? How do you maximise long term earning potential?
Currently looking at an interview for a role that looks great. But again, highly specialised and technical and worried about getting trapped as the ‘whatever it is’ guy.
Anyone got any ideas or advice? Thanks
4 comments
Can’t speak for others, or claim its the best approach, but for me there’s been no real planning. Definitely haven’t thought about it as deeply as you outline in your question. I’ve mainly progressed in my career by just jumping in and doing stuff. Finding out what I like and don’t like, and what I am and am not good at on the job. Then using that knowledge to inform my next step. And repeat.
Have never had a big overarching plan. I just take opportunities as they come up, and follow paths as they seem interesting, then change paths if my interest changes. I would guess a lot of people are the same. You end up finding something you enjoy that you didn’t even know existed at the start of your career. I do feel that over planning a career can box you in, or close your mind off to paths you haven’t considered.
With distain
Are you the guy that posts variations on this at least once a week?
The real answer is that you need to stop overanalysing. You are just spinning your wheels achieving nothing.
The answer to most of your questions actually don’t matter.
I mean you are a young guy with barely any experience of anything already worried that you have already been pigeonholed and now you are worrying about getting pigeonholed in theoretical jobs you will only maybe even apply for.
Your breakthrough will be when you can realise that your lack of activity and overanalysing is the actual problem and not the stuff you are asking questions about.
At 20 years old, I got onto a graduate program in insurance (I didn’t have a degree but a couple of years experience). A year later, I had quit and gone to uni full time. This then lead to another career as a lecturer which was then over before I was thirty. I am now in another career.
The point is that you are worrying about things that could be absolute ancient and irrelevant history in the footnotes of your life in a ridiculously short amount of time.
You or anybody else can give you a good idea of what you should do or what is best. All you *can* do is try *something* and see where that leads you. You have started a job and don’t like where it is leading. OK, so put the work in to try something else. But don’t build it up to be deciding on the rest of your lifes course. It may work out that way but equally it could be another dead end and you will try something else.
The only sure thing is that your current approach is a complete mental dead end and unfortunately you will be stuck in it until you just decide to engage with something else on the basis that it seems interesting and has potential and think no further then that.
Been a few years since graduating and still struggling to come to terms with my job not defining me as a person. The goal is work to live, not live to work. As long as you’re happy where you are, don’t sweat it