Create the Path for your “Career Journey” to Define and Enable a Future that Inspires You

Did you ever notice that as you prepare for a job interview, you learn something about yourself?  The dreaded “How did you get here” question forces you to try to explain the connections that led you from “Before” to “Now”.

When I was in my early 30s, I found that when I looked back at the jobs where I was most engaged and successful, they had a lot of “NEW” in them.  I found that I had gravitated toward “NEW” paradigms and selling the “NEW” product into a “NEW” set of customers as an evangelist, and that I had been drawn to doing all the things necessary to be successful in that “NEW” market, regardless of whether those things were technically a part of my job. This was an important realization for me, and I went back and rewrote my resume to tell this story.  I struggled with what to call it, but finally settled on positioning myself as experienced in “Market Development” (which for me, is part Bus Dev, Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, Strategist and Evangelist).

My “Career Journey” to that point, had not been conscious, or even fully intentional, but by looking back at my story, I could see the connections that made the story work for me.  Not surprisingly, the story was based on recognizing:

• What I was interested in (since, interest and passion lead to motivation, and results)
• What I was good at (you don’t have to be an expert already, but you usually need some aptitude)
• What someone else needed (although they may not fully realize what it is that they want or need…)

I then found that there were not that many jobs for “Market Development” and that companies (particularly large companies) have a built-in bias towards hiring specialists, like someone with “15 years of cost accounting experience in the automotive industry”, rather than problem solvers or generalists.  But some jobs had many of the elements I was looking for, and required the broad-based experience that was part of my “Career Journey”.  I was fortunate to land at VMware in 2004, as their first director of global channel marketing and programs. This was back when they had only 450 employees, and during the time I was there from 2004-2010, there was constant change and the need for people to scope and grow NEW things. During my last few years there, I worked with technology partners (Cisco, HP, Symantec, etc…), helping them build GTM programs adjacent to VMware/virtualization.  These roles helped me build out additional skills around understanding the technology ecosystem, in alliances and channels, and in sales and marketing, that I am able to leverage today in my consulting practice with The Andrews Consulting Group.

Looking back now, it has been 15 years (1999), since I have been in a role that existed before I had the job, and “Market Development + Channel Development + Alliance Development = GTM Strategy and Execution” is still my “Career Story”. In the real version of this “story”, there were bumps in the road, like RIFs 😦 , but the story truly began with the exercise of sitting down to write my “Career Journey” story, and then taking actions to take that story into the future.

This post is not intended to be a lecture on my “Career Journey” story.  Everyone’s story and goals are different, but what may be universal is the importance of getting to know yourself and staying in action to make your “Career Journey” story a reality. Preparing for a job interview is a good time to rethink/start work to define your “Career Journey”, but I think an even better approach is to make this an ongoing project that you revisit at set intervals (like 6/12 months).  This makes your story an evolution, with a set of milestones/revisions, rather than an event, and gives you the opportunity to rethink and make course corrections.  Regardless of how you approach your “Career Journey” story, it can help you define what you want in your career and steps that you can take now to extend your story into to a future that inspires you 🙂

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