Part Time Careers

A friend of mine’s sister went through about 6 years of university education to get a degree in engineering.

She slaved away for that time, went heavily into debt, and was an A student.

During that time she held a number of part time careers, from waitressing to teaching sports, always focused on the objective.

She was hired by a top engineering company 6 months before she graduated, at the top of her class.

On the first day of her job, she was given her office (very sizable) and her workstation (top of the line), and left her to it.

As her new boss closed the door to her office, it hit her:

She would spend the next 40 years of her life, in front of a work station, working on CAD.

No change, this office, while fantastic, would be her prison.

She quit and walked out that afternoon.

Imagine the time and money put towards this venture. All too often, I’ve seen people spend years of their lives, working towards a goal in their career, only to realize that it’s not what they really wanted.

While I have all the respect in the world for her, imagine if she had taken 3 months over a summer, and offered to work for an engineering company as one of her part time careers.

Or, imagine if while in university, she had focused her part time work on areas that she thought she might like.

By getting your feet wet in an industry, you have a ton of benefits

- You get to know people

Industries move in small circles, and usually everybody knows each other. A reputation can be built on knowing people in an industry, and communicating with them.

- You get to see your future

Look at the people who have spent their life in a career – if you follow this path, you most likely will end up similar to their situation when you reach their age.

Looking at their life down the road lets you see your future life through a window – from here you can make an informed choice as to whether or not it’s “for you.”

- It’s an easier transition

The easiest transitions in the career world come from the one-step transitions.

That is, if you’re a computer engineer for a railway company, and would like to become a salesperson for a telephone company, there’s two good ways and one bad way to make a transition.

The two good ways to make a transition are to go from computer engineer to salesperson at the railway company – this is a relatively easy transition, as you likely already understand the ins and outs of your industry. From here, the transition to salesperson a telephone company is much easier – you already understand sales, and learning telephones is a relatively easy process as the activity is similar, just a different product

The other good way to transition is to go from being a computer engineer at a railway company to a computer engineer at a telephone company – this way you can learn the industry and then the transition to sales is easier.

Moving directly from one to the other, however, can be very difficult – it presents a much bigger learning curve, and often a larger drop in income, due to making a number of switches at once.

In this case, part time careers can help, as they can expose you to different experience based on where you want to go.

If you can’t find part time work in the field you’d like to be in, focus on similar activities.

For example, if you’re in an introverted or administrative position, and want to be in a people focus your part time careers on work that involves people – working in a restaurant, tourist bureau, or teaching a sport.

If you’re in a people based career and need to improve your organization skills, try focusing your part time careers on data entry or paperwork based skills.

These careers may not be the most lucrative at the moment, however the ability to gain extra skills to round out your portfolio can be very helpful.