Careers Tend to Snowball, Parents: That's Why Starting Off Right Is Crucial

In my office at the University Counseling Center, a lanky underclassman sprawls in the chair across from me, absorbing the results of his Strong Interest Inventory. He looks up and says, "Interior designer is one of my highest scores." He tells me how the design field fits well with other parts of his life and adds, excitement warming his voice, "You know, I'd like to manage my own showroom someday." Then he hops up and hurries out of my office to declare a major in interior design.

I never saw that client again, but I bet he did in fact become an interior designer. I wouldn't be surprised if he later managed his own showroom. Because he was a freshman or sophomore in college when he made his career choice—the perfect moment to pack his occupational snowball and set it rolling.

John Holland, an eminent vocational psychologist, wrote that "careers tend to snowball over the life course." He meant, in part, that people tend to stick with their first career choice. Sadly, that seems to be true even when it's a lousy fit.

For that reason, it was more gratifying for me to help college students choose their first careers than to work with adults who wanted to change their professions. Many of my older clients could identify a more desirable occupation fairly quickly—but then they slowed to a standstill. Change was simply too difficult, when they had children and spouses, car payments and mortgages. Not to mention that prevailing plague of our present day: never enough time.

Research in decision making confirms that people tend to stick with the status quo unless they are forced to change. Even if they are fired or laid off—a calamity with a silver lining—their options may appear limited. She lacks the time and money to retool, so she'll stay the course and find a job similar to the one she loathed before she lost it. At least that way she can cash in on her work experience to buy groceries for her kids.

I myself had a tough time changing my career, and I was a young 26 with no dependents. Sure, there was some delight in discovering my calling. But I also suffered, taking the silver spoon from my mouth to scoop up beans and rice and mix in chunks of food bank cheese. In the process of exploring new directions, I encountered an astonishing number of people who said that the only thing I could do was teach English—when I'd only taught freshman composition on a part-time, temporary basis for one measly year of my life!

Here's my point: It is appropriate to feel some urgency. Your child does not have all the time in the world to make a good career choice, particularly not if she's a specialist by nature. In posts to come, I'll show you how to help your student pack a firm snowball and start it rolling in the right general direction, so she doesn't later find herself hurtling down the wrong hill, gathering girth until she's smashed into a snow bank, her self-esteem, her happiness, and her earning potential all buried in the cold.

Why Mentoring Talent Is Win-Win-Win: Well, Wouldn't You Want Your Dentist to Be Good at Her Job?

Here's the most astonishing thing I learned in my twenty-two years as a career counselor: Most people don't know what they're good at. Part of the problem is that our abilities are so close to our essence, we tend to see right through them. To use an analogy, she can't really focus on her hand when it's plastered to her face; instead, she looks through blurry fingers. When she does gain a glimmering of her greatest strengths, she often discounts the feedback, assuming that if she's good at something, then it's no big deal, or assuming that if something comes easily to her, then it comes easily to everyone else, too.

That's the funny thing about talent: It's easy to miss, easy to squander. Especially from the inside. That's why talent needs someone on the outside, a mentor like you.

By talent, I mean an individual person's power for problem solving. Her talent—being able to learn something more easily than others—provides her with a competitive advantage. For example, someone with high aptitudes for finger dexterity and hand-eye coordination would more quickly learn the manual skills required in dentistry (and then also be less likely to gouge your mouth while filling a cavity). Furthermore, using natural abilities is satisfying and enhances self-esteem. Your child likes dentistry and knows she's doing a good job and her patients appreciate her work and make referrals, all of which feels fabulous. In talent mentoring, the first win is for the protégé, who has the potential to become simply superb at solving certain kinds of problems (and receiving the financial rewards).

We have plenty of unsolved problems, pressing in at every level. The workforce desperately needs skilled employees who have ability and interest in their chosen field and want to continue learning. No wonder, then, that competition for talent has gone global. As Rich Feller, past president of the National Career Development Association, told me over lunch, "The mediocre and the passionless are in a bad place." Sadly, a recent Gallup poll found that an alarming seventy percent of workers in the United States are disengaged. We can do better than that!

With more thoughtful talent development, a much higher percentage of the workforce would be well suited to their work, appropriately trained for their jobs, and fully engaged in solving problems for their client or employer. After all, wouldn't you hope your dentist was capable of remembering what she learned in dental school and reasoning with that knowledge to find the best solution to the problem in your mouth? Let's say your problem was tooth decay, and the solution was a root canal. You'd want her procedural skills to be simply stupendous, and you'd pray that she actually wanted to help people like you to the best of her ability. The second win is for the wider world.

Unfortunately, the basics of how to develop talent aren't well known. Parents, grandparents, and educators may have the best of intentions—but they don't know what they don't know. Because the research literature tends to be the tiniest bit obscure, I will select and interpret the most relevant findings and also provide a glossary of terms. I'll show you how to identify ability and offer appropriate educational options, whether for dentistry or something entirely different. The choice of what to pursue will always be the student's, but you can nevertheless make a phenomenal difference in the life of someone you care about. The third win is for you, the mentor.

I'm here to mentor the mentors, so the talent of someone special to you does not become lost in the everyday hubbub, like the "mute inglorious Milton" buried in that famed poetic churchyard. Here's my promise: I'll share my expertise online with any aspiring mentor who can read English, providing privileged information for free. So that your protégé will be better able use her natural abilities to achieve a competitive advantage in our bewildering world of work, this blog will help you recognize strengths when you see them, ferret out abilities that may currently be hidden, set learning challenges at the just-right level, and nurture the talents of your child, grandchild, or whomever—for her greater joy and our world's greater good.