AMY BERNSTEIN: … from my perspective, a mid-career shift really challenges you to tell your story. You need to make the argument for you. It’s a great exercise because it forces you to make sense of your career, and there are no false moves in a career if you can make sense of them.
NINA BOWMAN: That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And it actually has an additional benefit of giving you some deep understanding of who you are so that you understand you’ve had agency in your career.
NINA BOWMAN: That’s right. And it takes work.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, it takes a lot of work.
NINA BOWMAN: Because there’s a lot of self-reflection and assessment in order to create that narrative.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And astringent honesty because if you tell a story that rings false-
NINA BOWMAN: Yeah, it doesn’t work.
AMY BERNSTEIN: …your listener is going to hear that.
NINA BOWMAN: They will. They will. So weaving that narrative in an honest way, finding the common thread, it makes all the difference in being able to make a transition.
AMY BERNSTEIN: You’re listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Bernstein. When you realize the line of work you’ve been in for years doesn’t interest you anymore, or is in decline or won’t ever pay well enough, what’s your next move? Changing jobs is hard already. Changing sectors is daunting. You’ve built a network of reputation, skills, expertise, a firm grasp of how business operates. Maybe you got a degree in this, maybe more than one. And to just leave all that behind? But then you remember you’re bored or less in-demand than before or underpaid.
One of our listeners who feels stuck doing the thing she has a PhD in, that she’s an expert on, that feeds her family, asks that we do an episode about switching sectors mid-career when you can’t afford to make a misstep. So here we are—here I am—with Nina Bowman. She’s an executive coach and managing partner of the consultancy Paravis Partners. One of the many ways she develops leaders is helping them go from one sector to another, which means facing the uncertainty, the time commitment, the strategizing and storytelling, because while the stakes are high, so is your potential to succeed. Plus, it’s not like you’re starting from scratch.
After my conversation with Nina, I’ll talk to two women who made big career leaps. One transitioned from academia to tech, the other from government to consulting. They faced familiar hurdles like building new networks and showing how their skills translated. They emerged with careers that not only better reflect their values and talents, but also give them greater confidence in their ability to take risks and adapt. But first me and Nina.
You’ve seen a lot of career moves. This is your world. What is the most surprising move you’ve seen and how did the person making that move tell the story?
NINA BOWMAN: Oh goodness. I have seen lots of career moves. You’re right. An interesting one: I had an attorney—large firm attorney—shift into a social justice executive director. I have had a career finance, big bank executive transition into a real estate developer. I have had a woman who was an executive—this is probably the wildest one—an executive who had a passion for bears and she wanted to know how she could create a business. So, we shifted from an executive career move to an entrepreneur who found a way to build out a business with her love and knowledge of bears.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And she did. And she managed to pull it off.
NINA BOWMAN: Managed to pull it off, which again is just a reminder of we can do anything when we want to and when we put our minds to what it is we really want, when we take the time to make the connection and then have a process for how we do it.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And I think it’s so important. I mean, what you just described are these sort of jagged career lines.
NINA BOWMAN: That’s right.
AMY BERNSTEIN: These paths… they’re not logical until you apply the logic, right?
NINA BOWMAN: That’s absolutely right. But we get in our own way when we’re trying to apply that logic.
AMY BERNSTEIN: How do we get in our own way?
NINA BOWMAN: We get in our way because we think it just can’t be done. We look at all the hurdles of why it can’t work. We focus on what we’re missing versus what we can bring to the table. And so when we do that, we create all kinds of hurdles for ourselves. So the work is actually mindset work. It’s mental work to get out of our own way. And the best way that I’ve seen to do that is to just keep looking at examples of people who have done it.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So what kinds of motivations have you observed and people who are trying to make these dramatic career leaps? What drives people and how do you use that?
NINA BOWMAN: Yeah, what’s really interesting, what I hear most often, and particularly from folks who have maybe been successful in their careers, is that they have gone from job to job because someone else asked them to take it on. And smart folks can do a lot of things and we will tend to follow people. And so there gets to be a point in our lives when we look up and we say, “Who’s driving this train? Is it me or is it everyone else that’s asked me to do something for them?” And so when we start to listen to ourselves and get that inkling that maybe I’m not the one driving this train, that’s the thing that I think starts to move people—that they don’t want to ride out the rest of their careers doing something that someone else asked them to do. They want to do something that they’ve driven themselves to do.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I have to tell you that that is exactly my story. And it took me until I was 50 years old to realize that I actually had some agency in my own career and that I could look around and figure out what I wanted to do and get myself there. It had never even occurred to me before because I moved through my career the way jobs presented themselves to me.
NINA BOWMAN: That’s right. Amy, tell me, how did you figure out your move?
AMY BERNSTEIN: I had to kind of hit bottom in the sense that I moved from journalism into business, and this was all about me. This was not about the company I worked for, so I really want to emphasize that. But I found myself in this career move around age, let’s say, 47-ish, lost. I didn’t understand what I was doing there. I didn’t quite understand how the company was really using me. And I realized that what I was doing was not what the company did. It was a sort of ancillary activity. It wasn’t journalism, it wasn’t editing. It wasn’t the stuff that I really liked doing. And I was very unhappy. I had no idea where I was going, and I had no idea why. And I definitely got a nudge from my boss who clearly saw that I was lost. What my boss said to me, it was some version of, “What are you doing here?” But that’s when I realized, oh my gosh, I’ve got to grab the wheel. I’ve never ever taken control and now I have to figure out what I want to do next.
First of all, I wanted to understand the work I did. I wanted to believe in the work I did. I wanted to feel at home again in my work. I wanted to respect and learn from my colleagues and I wanted to understand the business. And the other thing I learned, what was really important is I wanted to do the main work of the company, whatever it was. I didn’t want to be garnish on the plate. I wanted to be the meat in the middle of the plate.
NINA BOWMAN: That was what my first mentor told me. Always make sure that you’re sort of in the main part of the business. That was my first lesson in business from an amazing mentor very early in my career, so I appreciate that.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. Yeah. I wish someone had said that to me in my twenties.
NINA BOWMAN: Tell me a little bit more about how you actually made that leap into publishing.
AMY BERNSTEIN: It was when I got out of journalism and publishing that I realized that’s where I was happy. It wasn’t just because I was comfortable. It’s because I got it, I believed in it—still believe in it—and it’s what I loved doing. So this opportunity here at Harvard Business Review presented itself and my first thought was, Why in the world would they want me? I don’t have the resume they’re looking for. Then I had that moment of realizing if I don’t try to do this thing, if I don’t put myself out there, if I don’t go for it, I’m going to regret this for the rest of my life. This is a dream job. This is my dream right here, and it’s just presented itself to me. And I would be a fool to give in to my insecurity and say, no thank you. So, I did. And the other thing I realized after I grabbed the wheel is the worst thing that could happen is that I wouldn’t get the job, but at least I had tried.
NINA BOWMAN: That’s right. That’s right. Because the thing we regret the most is when we don’t do something.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Right.
NINA BOWMAN: That’s what comes back to haunt us that wish I had at least given it a try. And that thought comes up in spades and I tell folks that I’m working with that. That’s the biggest regret people have is not trying something. And I always say a job that you can do a hundred percent of isn’t a good job for you. You need room for growth in any role that you go into. So you should be looking for that percentage of the role that you haven’t done before. And you certainly lean into the… The folks like to focus on sometimes the hard skills—in what they don’t have when they’re looking at a particular job description. Women do that a lot. They focus on the little bit that they haven’t done. And you have to recognize that the soft skills are actually the hard things. And if you can bring forth that narrative of what you’ve done in those realms, how you’ve changed things, how you’ve made big decisions to move teams or work with teams in order to get things done, how you communicate effectively, all of those things are transferrable.
AMY BERNSTEIN: That sounds very good in theory. Now, give us an example of how you’ve helped someone to make these hard moves and deal with these really tough moments.
NINA BOWMAN: So the one woman that I worked with who was an attorney, right? Now think about, attorneys are trained to look at the risk. So the mindset of shifting from being a long-time large-firm attorney to seeing yourself as the executive director of a social justice center. That move was really significant. So she kept thinking about the fact that, oh, I haven’t managed these individuals before because in a law firm, you’re managing associates, but you’re not having to manage a large team. So she kept focusing on her lack of experience and being able to do that. And I kept saying, “Let’s talk about what’s driving you in this direction. What are you passionate about in terms of the work of social justice? How do we talk about that? Because one of the things that you are good at is communicating. You are writing all of the time, you’re making these eloquent arguments. How do we weave that skill into talking about what you are capable of doing because of this thing that you’re so passionate about?” Because when you think about a move into the nonprofit sector, it is about passion for the mission and how do you communicate to someone that you are passionate about that mission, that you’re going to move mountains, that you can fundraise for that mission. And because of her communication skills as an attorney, she was actually uniquely good at that, about crafting the argument. So that’s what we talked about.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So when you are talking to someone who wants to go from being a registrar of deeds to being a bear tracker—all right, let’s say that—what are you saying to her?
NINA BOWMAN: Yeah, well first I’m asking folks not to focus on the industry shift that they’re trying to make because that’s really not the relevant focus. The focus is what are their interests and how do we look at those interests? And we have a narrative of going from one place to another based on that interest. When we shift to interests, we do the homework of looking back at everything we’ve ever done, whether it be professional or personal, and say, What brought me joy? What did I really like? And we can look at every role we’ve ever had and start to piece the things that we like and we didn’t like. And so when you do that homework and identify those interests, then you can look and say, Okay, where can I apply that? And you might actually find that it’s across a number of different industries that there isn’t one place you can go. And so, all of a sudden it’s not that I have to get from this to this, it’s that I can go from this to this or that or this other thing, which opens up a world of possibilities and helps us to get unstuck right in the process.
AMY BERNSTEIN: How do you know someone’s ready? You’re waiting for this moment where they’re frustrated, but what is the tip-off to you?
NINA BOWMAN: They’ve started to think about how they can create some security for the next stage. So maybe they’ve told me that they’ve started putting funds away to support themselves during a transition in the event that they’re going to stop working while they make this move. So that’s one tip-off that they’re starting to make some adjustments to get ready. I start to hear how they’re creating a system for the work.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And what might that look like?
NINA BOWMAN: So a networking system. When you are making this shift, networking is key. And so how are they starting to think about who they know? How do they process all of their different networks? Maybe they’ve started creating those spreadsheets. So they’re thinking about, How am I organizing myself for this work? And so I could see they’re starting to think about the system that’s needed.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So you mentioned networking. What do you look for in the networking? For someone who’s moving from industry A into industry?
NINA BOWMAN: It can feel overwhelming because we may think we don’t know anyone in the space, but what I’ve experienced is that when you break down networking into what are we actually networking for? Because there’s different types of networking. Are we just trying to learn about the industry? Are we trying to learn about a particular new role? Are we trying to learn about the culture? There are lots of things that we have to learn about the space that we’re going in. If we break down the networking needs, then we find that it’s not always about trying to get to the decision maker who has that job for us right now, it’s often about what are the first moves that we need to make so we can break down what the needs are. And then we can look at our current group of contacts and say, Okay, maybe I don’t know anyone in the industry, but I know folks who are in similar roles. I can look at not just my professional network, I can look at my personal network, I can look at my neighbors. I walk a dog and I meet all these people at the dog park and I can get to know them because maybe I don’t know anyone, but they know someone. And so we start to look at networking very, very differently.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m thinking about how you sort of prepare yourself to launch into a new industry. What if you know that you want to move away from where you are, but you don’t know where you want to go?
NINA BOWMAN: Yeah. Yeah. The most important thing when you’re doing a career move is to be moving towards something and not away from something. Because if you are in an interview, people can tell when you’re moving away from something. And so, you first have to do the work of saying, again, What are my core interests? What do I really enjoy? What is that common thread that interests me? And when you start to talk about that, you can see people’s body language change. You can see their tone of voice change. They lean in when they’re talking in. And so it matters in so many ways. And I always say, “let’s get that work right.” Let’s do that hard work before you get in front of anyone, because if you do that, then updating your resume will be easier.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And that also helps you present a coherent picture of yourself—
NINA BOWMAN: That’s right.
AMY BERNSTEIN: …if you start with what really lights you up. And that’s also what a hiring manager wants to see.
NINA BOWMAN: That’s right.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Because once they’ve seen you at your most enthusiastic, when your eyes are just bright with excitement, they want to believe in you.
NINA BOWMAN: That’s right. And I will say another reason why it’s really important to do that work is because shifting careers feel so scary. Sometimes people can leap to the first thing that comes because it’s like, oh, all right, I can’t leave. Someone wants me, right? I’m going to take this thing.
AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s my escape hatch.
NINA BOWMAN: Exactly. And my job is to get them to hold to say, “Let’s do a check. What’s our litmus test about whether this is really the right thing and how does it line up to what we said you really wanted and what were those main ingredients that were essential to the next role being a good fit for you?”
AMY BERNSTEIN: So how do you identify what you have that’s valuable to bring to the table if you’re moving into a world that you don’t know very well?
NINA BOWMAN: Yeah. Certain skills can be moved in any industry. And so literally I take them through a work history, a personal history exercise. So let’s write down every job, every experience that you’ve had, and let’s work our way up from childhood, your schooling years to your work years. And let’s also talk about those side things that you did that maybe you didn’t give a lot of importance to. But there are examples of where you chose to bring your energy and your time, and so there’s something valuable there because you made that decision to do that. So let’s look at all of that and let’s identify the things that were energizing to you. Let’s look at the things that were not, and then let’s talk about, What’s the pattern that we’re seeing? What’s the pattern of those things that were energizing? And so we can then start to bucket things. So you know, did you not enjoy managing people day to day, but maybe you enjoyed mentoring or coaching? And you begin to see the distinction between things that you think are similar because they’re managing people in some way, shape, or form. But no, there are these small distinctions that make a difference. The only way you get to that level of distinction is by doing the work of exploring what worked for you and what didn’t. And often you do need an objective voice to push you.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I mean, when you’re contemplating this kind of move, I would imagine—and I’m actually speaking from my experience—you’re usually doing it in a state of frustration, possibly even misery. I’m busy in this job and I want to make the leap, and I’ve done a lot of this work that you’ve described, but it’s time-consuming and my job is very demanding. How do I create the space to get my ducks in a row? Just to mix a metaphor there.
NINA BOWMAN: Again, you have to get to a place where you recognize that there is a cost to staying still, that there is a cost to staying. It’s not free. And when you feel the cost of that enough, you are then willing to make the shift. Sometimes my conversation is, what is that costing you right now? As you reflect on your last couple of weeks and what that felt like, what does that cost you? So we begin to look at the process of, it’s not a free ride to stay where we are.
AMY BERNSTEIN: What we’re describing isn’t comfortable. It isn’t easy. Can you tell us about a woman—someone you’ve advised—who has managed to do all this? Who has continued doing her work, hasn’t left her job, has made the space to look for the next job, is networking, is investing in herself appropriately, whose calendar is now reflecting her priorities and who has done this without taking time, without the gaps?
NINA BOWMAN: And that’s likely the majority of folks. I mean, many folks don’t have the luxury of stopping work. So one individual that I worked with who had spent many years as a brand manager in sort of a traditional consumer products organization, really was interested in shifting to the tech sector and not doing that brand manager role. But what we started to look at was sort of more project management type in tech, and we saw that as a transferable skill. Her job was really demanding in her brand management role. The company was also going through a number of transitions. The expectation on her time was significant. So, we had to get really creative about finding ways to make time.
So, certainly, we define commitments around weekend. How much time can you commit to spending time on the job search on the weekends? Then as we got a little bit closer, she was starting to make traction. We needed to find even more time. I was like, “What sick days do you have? Yes, you can’t leave your job, but maybe you can take a sick day and let’s not put anything else on that day.” Then it was, Let’s look at vacation time. Can you take a week? A week of solid focus on your job search can move mountains. And so, we did a concerted week where we actually worked together every day on this search, and she made so much progress because of the focus. So that week focus really allowed her to get a ton of emails out. It really allowed her to get interviews set up, informational interviews. And so all of that progress fed her, and she was able to move into a role at Amazon leveraging the project management experience that she has. She’s still there and happy.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh wow. So Nina, making the leap requires that you understand what’s driving you so that you can tell an honestly compelling story. So with that in mind, I’d love to read the question from the listener who inspired this episode. She works at a school where she develops the curriculum and coaches teachers, so let me read what she asked. She says, “I got my PhD in educational leadership falsely thinking that would open up new career options. I know I have transferable skills in systems thinking, process improvement and process management and would love to use these toward tackling climate change, DEI, and/or other social issues. But I don’t know how to navigate applying for a job in other sectors such as healthcare, government, or business. I also earn the primary income for my family of five with three kids in elementary and middle school so I can’t afford to start in an entry level position or take time off for retraining. I feel stuck in my field and would love advice on navigating this change.” Okay, there’s a lot going on there.
NINA BOWMAN: There is a lot going on there. And the first thing I have to say is I can really empathize with this particular listener because so many people enter careers thinking that it’s going to be one thing and then realizing that it’s something else, right? First of all, I commend the listener to be able to notice and say that they’re ready for that change and that they’ve identified some really good transferable skills. Because yes, that is the first stage. And I would push the listener to think about what other soft skills they bring to bear because there’s probably a number of other things that they bring to the table. What is scary is to think about is I could go to this industry and go to that industry. So she’s named several other places that she’s not sure how to get into. My suggestion is to say, well, let’s look at the industries and let’s talk about the roles. Let’s actually let the industry go for a minute and let’s talk about what you think you want to be doing all day long.
Because it is not industry that makes us happy at what we do, it’s what we’re doing and who we’re engaging with all day long. That brings us some element of joy in our work. And so, let’s get clarity on role first. So, let’s talk about different kinds of roles and let’s have conversations with people who are in different kinds of roles. I would call that easy networking because people like to talk about what they do and you’re not asking them for a job, you’re asking them to share what their day is like, and you can find folks who are able to do that. Once you do that, then you can start to narrow down and say, “Ah, this is the title that I think I’m after.”
And then you can say, “Then what industry do I think I want to do that in?” And let’s prioritize. You’ve got… this particular listener identified several. Well, let’s prioritize each one and why there’s some pull towards that particular industry. And so let’s pick your top one and let’s just begin the process of exploring that industry. Let’s take a look at job descriptions using the role that we’ve identified in that industry that we’ve now prioritized, and let’s begin to think about what it looks like shaping the story and the narrative for that space. So you could see that it really is about taking one step at a time and not looking at the big challenge of a change, but carving it down into these little steps that help you get clarity.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So our listener…she mentions that she has three kids and she’s the primary breadwinner. How does that affect your guidance to her?
NINA BOWMAN: I’m listening to that really carefully because I know that in the process of job change, there’s going to be a lot of fear. The fear of I’ve got to support my family will show up multiple times in this process. So I have to make that listener feel safe in this transition. It’s interesting because when we are moms and we have children, the fear of making a move at that juncture is harder. And so I am thinking about one individual who really needed to make a shift because she was just incredibly unhappy where she was, and there was a mental toll to that that actually impacted how she showed up at home. And so there was some other aspect that we could look at that gave her the focus and the means to look at staying as a risky thing to do. So for this particular individual, we were able to think about her challenge in a different way.
Then it was, you still have a family to raise, you still have children at home. So maybe doing this work in the evenings is going to be a little bit challenging because you may not have the freedom to stay focused in the evenings with kids moving around. So, it was sort of, are there a couple of days where you might have the ability to go in a little bit later? Kids are dropped off at school. You can at least find an hour and let that be an hour where you’re getting off a couple of emails to set up some informational interviews. It takes a little bit to work with the reality and the challenges that many women have when they’re trying to do these job changes when they are responsible for their families, either as breadwinners or just moms.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And it might take longer than you’d like.
NINA BOWMAN: That’s exactly right. Which means the process of keeping the person going… you need to try different things. So, you have to build in these different means to stay focused and to stay energized.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Right. And so you say energy, and it makes me think of that moment that you’ve done all of this work, you’ve laid all this groundwork and you have gaps in your resume, or this is not a logical career move. How do you tell your story? How do you think about this?
NINA BOWMAN: Yeah. First, I tell them that you can make anything sound logical. So, my challenge to them is always, okay, let’s put ourselves in the seat of the interviewer. What do they need right from this role? What are the problems that they’re trying to solve? Let’s talk about how you’ve solved those problems before. Let’s be ready with a story from your past about how you’ve done that and what you’ve learned. They don’t always have to be the shining examples of perfection, but “here’s what I learned in the things that went wrong and the things that went right.” Interviewers need to feel an element of authenticity in a conversation. And when people come to the table with, “I’m good at everything,” that doesn’t feel authentic. What feels authentic is when someone is able to come to the table and say, “This is what I’m good at. These are the areas that I’m looking to also grow in. This is what I think I can do for you. This is the environment that is right for me. And maybe these are the environments that may not be.” That last comment of “these are the environments that may not be” tells the interviewer that you are thoughtful about what is the right space for you.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Nina, you’ve gotten the job. You’ve made the big leap, and now you are in a responsible position in an industry you’re not all that familiar with, and a company that’s new to you. How do you not just shrink from all that you don’t know? How do you turn the gaps in your experience into a strength?
NINA BOWMAN: Yeah. Sometimes we are excited about the change and then all of a sudden all that newness brings up that imposter syndrome.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
NINA BOWMAN: And so, you have to be really clear on who you’re trying to be. We have to recognize that we were selected for that role because we are bringing new energy, new information, new ideas, and sit in the strength of that—versus the fact that, Oh, I don’t know how to do this thing yet. So again, that work of, I’m a learner and everything new requires learning. So my noticing that I’m feeling like I don’t know something and that feels bad, just notice it. Notice it, and then shift to what am I bringing here.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Nina, this has been great. I wish you had been by my side 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, but it was so nice to have you here today.
NINA BOWMAN: Thanks for having me. It’s been a real joy.
AMY BERNSTEIN: As Nina said, the best way to make switching careers feel attainable is to pay attention to examples of people who have done it. So that’s what we’re going to do for the rest of this episodehear from a couple of women from within our audience. First of all, thank you both for being here.
RENEE: Yeah, of course. It’s awesome.
LAUREN: Thanks for having us.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Renee, you moved from working in residence life in higher ed to learning and development. And Lauren, you moved from defense policy at the federal level to consulting at a private tech company. What drew you to your respective new careers? And I’ll start with you, Renee.
RENEE: Yeah. So for me, as I was looking at my career in higher education, I was looking at where I thought I might want to go. When I first started my career, I thought I would become a vice president for student affairs. I thought I would head up the ladder of that trajectory within higher education. And as I began to look more closely at what my leader was doing, I began to go, “Is that really what I want my next step to be is to become a senior housing officer? Is that where I want to go?”
And when I began to really process what I love about my job and what could I do more of is when I landed on, I really loved working with adults in the workplace. And then what I began to do next was just to look on LinkedIn and look at job descriptions and go, Okay, what transferable skills do I have? What am I missing? What could I begin to job craft within my current role to prepare for what that type of next step could look like? And just beginning to process, what does that type of career shift mean?
AMY BERNSTEIN: Okay. And Lauren, talk to us about what drew you to your new career.
LAUREN: I have been in and around national security and defense policy for the last 15 years. And so for me, it was something that I had always wanted to do, serving our country and working at the federal government level. And it felt like the culmination of a lot of hard work and study to get to where I had gotten. But as I looked around me, sort of actually similar to Renee, I saw that there were other opportunities that were interesting to me that allowed me to use the issues that I was passionate about in my desire to learn about the world and help translate global events into decisions and effects for stakeholders. And I wanted to grow professionally. For me, that was a really big driver in leaving. I was in a role where I was basically, I wouldn’t have been able to grow very much more without changing something up.
And so, the question for me was, how did I want to change it up? And again, sort of similar to Renee, I spent a lot of time thinking about what skills I’ve developed in government, how my government experience could be translated to the outside world, and then where the fit would be best for me. And so, I landed in this space now where I’m helping a tech company think through geopolitical issues and the impact it has upon the company. It’s something that I’m very passionate about. I’m learning a lot, too, in this new role, which is really… for me, that’s a big indicator that I made the right jump.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Renee, Nina emphasized the importance of identifying interests and transferable skills and weaving a narrative around them. What is the story you’re going to tell that makes sense of all this? Talk about how you did that.
RENEE: Yeah, so I think the way I was able to do that successfully was to go, Okay, what is it that is a need within the corporate environment that I can help to fill uniquely that might be a skillset that. frankly, within the higher education realm is kind of taken for granted? And that’s what I began to really suss out. And frankly, a faculty member in the management program I was in was really helpful with being able to connect those dots a little more clearly and see that I had this value that I didn’t fully realize would be appreciated in the corporate environment. I just needed to make some tweaks to how I was communicating about it. What also helped was that I found that almost more important than going, I need to go work for a specific company or a specific type of industry, was really looking closely at what type of corporate culture I wanted to work in.
As I began doing some informational interviews and talking with people in my network, I discovered that initially there were some companies that would’ve been top of my list to go find a job with and discovered that the things that I valued in terms of fast-paced change, ability to pull levers really quickly to be able to make a difference and make an impact, were not necessarily in alignment with some of the companies I initially had in mind and discovering that those for me were not going to be a good fit in terms of the type of workplace experience I wanted to have. So, my ability to communicate that as well helped—that I could understand a given corporate culture and how I could work effectively in it. So those were the couple of things that really seemed to help as I was navigating that change.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Did you encounter much skepticism as you were interviewing for jobs in a totally different sector?
RENEE: To an extent, but what also helped is I discovered others who’ve done it before. So actually, the company that I work for now, my predecessor also came from the same background, actually in residence life and housing, worked in higher education. And so they really valued that skillset and knowing that I had this variety of credentials around the types of assessments they want to do with employees or just overall my ability to be able to understand adult behavior in the workplace, make meaning of it, to create change. So, it helped that I had someone else who had kind of kicked down that door for me before that and had demonstrated credibility in that space.
But I’d also say that would be something really important to look at is to go, where else can I find others who’ve been down this career path before me? And is there something that I see similarly in the types of companies that they worked for, where they may be not only open to, but really receptive to someone with my type of background and experience and what that looks like to make that transition.
AMY BERNSTEIN: When you were telling your story, it sounds like you really did a very good job of understanding the market need and understanding the details where there was transferability from your old role, from whatever training you had done, whatever would help you fit.
RENEE: Yeah. In some ways, it actually felt a little more like consulting—where I was coming in to go, “I want to understand the biggest problems you face and how can I help you to be able to solve those? And this is how I’ve done it before and this is what I see as replicable to what I could help you all to be able to do going forward.” I actually really enjoyed the process, which might not be common, just getting to know other people. And the way I saw it was even if something didn’t land or didn’t happen, am I potentially expanding my network a little bit? Because when the right one did, I could tell when I was in that interview process with them of like, this is all connecting. They’re asking me the types of questions that I want to be answering day in and day out with them.
AMY BERNSTEIN: You’re talking about the need to listen and to tailor your message to what you’re hearing and to mean it, but there’s also something in what you’re saying about attitude and essential optimism. And I’m wondering, Lauren, how does that resonate for you in your experience?
LAUREN: Yeah. I mean, my track record was maybe a little more hit or miss than Renee. I had a lot of conversations spread out over the course of a year while I was really in the trenches working this process that never went anywhere. I had job applications that were close to an offer letter that it just, poof, disappeared. I got sort of ghosted, I guess is the term of art these days. For me, it always felt like one step forward, two steps back. But my positive spin on all of it was, well, one, I now have a much more expansive network than I did a year ago as I went through this whole process.
But two, I really learned through the process of talking to people and doing all these interviews and writing tests and other metrics that went along with. I learned how to translate these very government specific skills into something that speaks to the people that hired me and got the one hiring manager to not say, “Oh, her resume is nothing like the type of person we usually hire.” But to actually see that my ability to interpret world events and put some order on the chaos to the world that we live in is a skill that is transferable in-house in the corporate tech company context.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So you mentioned networking, and Nina, of course, says that networking is a very important part of making this transition. So Lauren, talk to us. You said it was a little bit bumpy. Not every meeting worked out the way you wanted it to. Talk about how you evolved your approach to networking or your attitude toward networking as you were doing it to make this switch.
LAUREN: Yeah. I think for me, where I started was I’ve actually never really liked networking, and it felt like just something that I needed to do a chore to find the next opportunity. But I think part of the challenge for me was… I think one of the recommendations from Nina was take a week off and try and sink some time up front into networking. My last job was so intense that I could not really carve out any time for my personal life, let alone to go out and start to network for a week away from my job. I think once I learned how to operate within the constraints that I had from my last role, networking became a lot more fun to me because it was something where I could just learn more about those that had taken similar journeys and frankly, even people that hadn’t but ended up doing neat things in cool companies across the country that were all having impact.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, so it sounds like you were able to make an important attitudinal change. You gave yourself a break. Did you do some self-talk? I mean, help me, I hate networking. If I wanted to switch sectors, what would you tell me?
LAUREN: My question that I carried with me was always, “what can I learn from this person?” And if I could end a conversation being able to answer that question, that was to me time well spent, coffee money well purchased.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Excellent. Renee, you started the process of switching sectors and making this pivot just about the time that you gave birth to your second child. Speaking of constraints, right?
RENEE: Yes.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So what actually triggered this move for you? How did you decide to make the big change at a time when you were under what must’ve been a lot of stress?
RENEE: Yes. Yeah. What happened was a few weeks before I had my second baby, the university I worked for had a reduction in force. And typically, I’m pretty pragmatic about things like this. I get it. There’s a business of higher education, there’s decisions that need to be made. But when I saw the types of people who were let go in that reduction in force, it left me very disillusioned. And it was this realization of I had been riding on passion in my career. And what I found in that moment was going, I needed to become a little smarter about where I was spending my time and what decisions I was making.
During that time of maternity leave, obviously I was very much focused on this newborn who was very demanding and had a lot of needs, but also it was getting on phone calls with mentors. And while I’m sitting there feeding her, I’m on the phone call with someone else who might be able to help give me some guidance. And what I also found at that time was that I had three other colleagues who worked at other universities in identical roles to mine who were going through the same thing I was.
So we had some good text messaging threads going about, “Okay, what is the game plan here? What are you looking at next? What is the plan?” And so what was fortunate is that I had other people in my network looking to go down a similar path, and having that source of support was really essential. But then a mentor gave me a really good recommendation—I think others may appreciate this, who also feel the constraint of time—of I just went, I’m going to spend 30 minutes a day on my job search. I set the timer and at least 30 minutes a day was plugging away on something, whether it was applying for jobs, updating LinkedIn posts, reaching out to connect with someone, whatever that is. Sometimes it was more than 30, but in any case, I set that timer and it was like, I’m going to plug away on this 30 minutes a day. And the benefit of that was that I was beginning to see that forward progress and momentum that you might not gain if you kind of have a false belief of, I’m going to go all in and in this week I’m going to put forth all of these. I think as Lauren probably also experienced, you’re not going to see the return on that investment for some time.
I think that is the really hard part about a job search, no matter what it is—that it’s the time it takes for that to be able to all unfold. And so giving myself that 30 minutes a day really helped me to be patient with the process to focus on what I can control. Because ultimately that’s the hard part too, is that there’s a lot of things that you might be able to influence a bit. You could send out that message to the recruiter who contacted you to go, “Hey, just want to check in on where this stands.” But at the end of the day, you can’t control it.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I wonder if either of you were engaged with a headhunter at all as you were making these transitions.
RENEE: Yeah. I was not.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Lauren, what about you?
LAUREN: I did. I engaged a headhunter because of what I felt the time constraints in my ability to navigate opportunities entailed. I reached out to a couple that worked specifically in the advisory and consultancy space and asked them really for help on understanding the lay of the and where the opportunities were at. I’d never worked with a head hunter before that. So for me, it was honestly a learning experience in knowing what they want and how to navigate. But I will also say that I was fairly surprised when a couple of them came back and gave me a roster of companies to network with, all of whom I’d already spoken with in some form. So, I actually quickly pivoted away from using a headhunter in this specific jump because I had covered that ground on my own networking instead.
AMY BERNSTEIN: How did you find the headhunters you got in touch with?
LAUREN: One was recommended, and the others I found through LinkedIn, and they were sector specific, I will note too. So they were working at the nexus of international affairs and corporate risk, which is a pretty niche field. And so there’s a limited number of head hunters in that space.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m going to ask you both this question. You heard what Nina had to say. She offered really valuable advice. Is there any advice you would add for our listeners who are contemplating this kind of big move? I’ll start with you, Renee.
RENEE: Yeah. The other piece of advice I would give is giving yourself some space to grieve. I think our careers are big parts of our identities, and I found I really had to reconcile that. I had invested more than 15 years of my life in developing a career in higher education, I had a very hyper-specific graduate degree focused on that field and in that area. And I remember at one time it was like the stages of grief, and I was so angry, and I was yelling at my husband about it in the kitchen and going, “I wasted all this time on a degree that now doesn’t mean anything.” And it was not true. But I had to go through those stages of feeling mad and feeling who am I if I’m no longer a professional in higher education? What value do I bring? Is my value in my work? There’s a lot of existential questions coming up.
AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s a lot of identity questions. Like, who am I?
RENEE: Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of successful women feel that of like, you don’t become successful from the work you’ve done because you only care about it a little bit. You’ve deeply invested in yourself. And once I was able to better unlock like, okay, wait a second, these reactions I’m having are grief and I need to give myself the space to feel that, to talk with other friends who’ve been through it, but just knowing that that will come as a part of the process is really important.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. What about you, Lauren? What advice would you add?
LAUREN: Yeah, I mean, I feel like Renee, I feel like I went through the same phases of emotions as you did in a lot of ways. This transition, it’s very inherently wrapped up with identity. And so learning how to channel a lot of those emotions as you’re making this very big change is really hard. But I think my biggest piece of advice is really, to folks that are considering it, do it. It’s hard and scary, but if you have a support network around you and you’re confident in the choice that you’re making, it’s probably the right decision. I think that said, though, there’s I think space to honor the career that you had. It’s really important, in my view, to capture those memories and that time that you had. Whether that’s adorning your home office with mementos from your last role or having a killer goodbye party as you transition from one career to the next. It’s appropriate to celebrate that.
But it’s also appropriate, to use Renee’s words, to grieve it. And for me, it’s not really been grief as much as it’s been about finding other ways to still stay plugged in with areas that spark my fire and light, that passion that I took to my last job. And so, if there are means or mechanisms for side hustles, board positions, other opportunities where you can continue to channel that passion that took you down that original career path, and you’re able to balance that alongside family and everything else, that’s certainly something that I would recommend others consider as well.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, you don’t have to say goodbye to all of it.
RENEE: No.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Right. Thank you both of you for sharing your stories with us, Lauren and Renee. This has been a great conversation.
RENEE: Thank you, Amy.
LAUREN: Thanks for having us.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Fun fact check: the client of Nina’s who loved Bears didn’t actually develop a bear tracker. What she did develop Nina clarified later were books and other bear-themed items to sell at US National Parks. In case you were curious.
Changing careers is a subject that Harvard Business Review has published a lot on. Here are a couple of book recommendations: The HBR Guide to Changing Your Career, and from The Women at Work Series, Taking Charge of Your Career. There are also lots of articles on hbr.org, like “4 Questions to Ask Yourself before Changing Careers“ and “Reinventing Your Career—When It’s Not Just About You,” and “4 Questions to Help Women Navigate the Second Half of Their Careers.” That’s a lot of four questions. Anywho, find the links to all of the above in our show notes.
Women at Work’s editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Tina Tobey-Mack, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler, Ian Fox, and Hannah Bates. Robin Moore composed this theme, music. I’m Amy Bernstein. Get in touch with me and Amy G. by emailing womenatwork@hbr.org.
