hitting your stride
A friend of ours came in to town this weekend to see those of us who still live in DC. As we sat around talking about what’s been happening in our lives over the last year, he remarked on how far we’ve all come- just a few years ago, we were this bunch of early-career, slacker wage-slaves, most of us with jobs we hated, or companies that couldn’t get their acts together.
Now, just a few years later and only ranging in age from about 28-32, we are, as he put it, “scratching each other’s backs.” The guy at the event company is hiring the girl at the video production house’s company to make promotional videos. The guy with the IT consulting company is inviting the event management guy to bid on the AV for a conference he’s supporting for his client. I’m helping my friends to make connections for new jobs and new clients.
It occurs to me that there’s a turning point in a lot of people’s careers, where you go from being the peon to the person with either enough influence or enough juice of your own to be able to steer connections and business and buying decisions toward the people YOU know and trust, not just the people your corporate overlords know and trust.
I think about this every time I’m having to explain to some fresh-faced recent graduate that they don’t have enough experience for me to be able to place them. On one hand, I’m only 28 myself and I remember what it’s like to try to get experience when you don’t have any to start with. It sucks. Trust me, I hate being part of The Man Who’s Keepin’ You Down almost as much as you hate what I have to tell you. On the other hand, having recently reached the first turning point in my own career and watched it happen for many of my friends, I know that it DOES happen, far more often than not, for people who are smart and motivated, and that no matter how much those first 5 years of your career suck, you need them, and there’s nothing I can do to help you skip over the crappy part without paying your dues.
So what’s the point I’m trying to make? Eh, I don’t know, maybe that you should buck up and not take the indignities of your early career to heart? Maybe I’m just feeling all nostalgic and crap from having a friend come to visit? I’m not sure.
Checkout UK finance jobs on Accountant Careers.
December 19th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
I’ve thought about this more and more often in recent years, especially after starting an employment-related web site and writing about employment issues. I’m 32, and I did a year and a half in corporate hell before deciding I couldn’t make it five years (or even two). Luckily, entrepreneurship worked out for me. For those not going that route, Tiffany is right - hang in and you’ll get where you want to be (assuming you’re willing to work hard).
December 19th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
And I think that people for whom entrepreneurship will work out later often need those first couple of years in corporate hell. Some people have the gumption and the sense to make it on their own after a year and a half (*salutes*), but other people need the lessons of a few more years watching business get done. Also, in most industries, you’ve still got to develop enough gravitas to get people to take you seriously, and that takes a little while too. So I think even with entrepreneurs, it takes a little while to really get yourself moving effectively in the right direction.