The Dilemma of "Making the Next Job Count" at Age 30
"I see you have done many different things in your 20s, but there is nothing further after Ph.D., so this particular job search will really be key for you," the recruiter was absolutely spot on when hearing about my desire to look for a long-term job at age 30. Just as much as going back to school for further studies hurt the prospects of landing a high-paying job afterward, years of jumping around different parts of the world doing what many think are odd jobs also make getting the next job only that much tougher. When the initial curiosity over an international resume ends, recruiters only have a bunch of questions left about motivation.
The message to counter the skepticism is the sentiment of "making the next job count," but getting the message to stick is much harder than simply repeating it over and over. For a person who takes pride in going everywhere to do new and exciting things, it is difficult to convince others that all of the sudden, everything has changed and personal interest has shifted to developing a career within the confines of one job, one career, and one place. Decades of pursuing more excitement simply would not allow the person to change his or her mind so quickly and make others believe it.
But there is no disagreeing that the recruiter is correct to highlight the particular importance of the job search at 30, compared to previous ones in the 20s. As work experiences accumulate, employers are expected to pay more for the more experienced professional. With higher pay being demanded, employers are justifiably more concerned with finding the right candidate for the job who will stick around for a long time. From the employer perspective, the cost of getting the wrong person is just so much higher when the person is a mid-career hire, not a fresh graduate straight out of school.
The thought of a more scrutinizing employer only adds pressure for the mid-career professional looking for a job. An experienced worker gets conscious of being experienced at work. Experience means that presenting oneself at interviews ought to be smooth and logical, with crystal clear explanation of past jobs and achievements. The experienced professional should have said goodbye to the fresh-out-of-college nervousness years ago, after partaking in countless high-stakes business meetings that made years of career advancement.
But humans will always be humans. Higher stakes mean more anxiety about potential failures, and more anxiety naturally lead to a person becoming more jittery, however hard the person attempts to calm his or her nerves. And when the thought of an experienced professional needing to behave both professionally and display experience, s/he only becomes that much more conscious of performance, anxious about potential errors, and become more nerve-wrecked. That all-or-nothing attitude of a fresh graduate, willing to let curiosity lead the conversation, feels so much easier to pull off.
The recruiter's words about making the next job count only make the situation worse. Added to the already nervous situation is an inherent, underlying doubt about whether the interview is being conducted for a job one really wants to do for a long long time. Even when speaking about the enthusiasm and motivation to perform, it is difficult to completely hide that underlying doubt. Anxieties about "what if I do not get this job because I do not sound experienced enough" and "what if I get this job and it is not really what I want to do for the rest of my life" get mixed up, exacerbating the emotional rollercoaster during the interviews.
There is no easy way out of the dilemma. For people like me who somehow stumbled into so many different jobs in so many different parts of the world, stumbling into another job is quite possible but often less than desirable. Having neglected to put in more efforts into really thinking about what I want to do for decades to come, I have only delayed the inevitable day of reckoning, with my back against the wall. While those in the 20s should not have regret about doing many things that pique their interests, they should also not expect the trend to continue forever.
Yet, compromise is always possible to some extent. Why not get a steady income on the weekdays so that weekends can be used to pursue activities that are related more for personal interest? Why not take a shot about doing multiple jobs at the same time so that the monotony of having to do one job all the time can be at least somewhat mitigated? Even as the traditional fear of having to get a career continue to apply pressure on the minds of mid-career professionals, the changing nature of work should be leveraged as much as possible to stick to an accustomed lifestyle that values professional curiosity as much as persistence.
The message to counter the skepticism is the sentiment of "making the next job count," but getting the message to stick is much harder than simply repeating it over and over. For a person who takes pride in going everywhere to do new and exciting things, it is difficult to convince others that all of the sudden, everything has changed and personal interest has shifted to developing a career within the confines of one job, one career, and one place. Decades of pursuing more excitement simply would not allow the person to change his or her mind so quickly and make others believe it.
But there is no disagreeing that the recruiter is correct to highlight the particular importance of the job search at 30, compared to previous ones in the 20s. As work experiences accumulate, employers are expected to pay more for the more experienced professional. With higher pay being demanded, employers are justifiably more concerned with finding the right candidate for the job who will stick around for a long time. From the employer perspective, the cost of getting the wrong person is just so much higher when the person is a mid-career hire, not a fresh graduate straight out of school.
The thought of a more scrutinizing employer only adds pressure for the mid-career professional looking for a job. An experienced worker gets conscious of being experienced at work. Experience means that presenting oneself at interviews ought to be smooth and logical, with crystal clear explanation of past jobs and achievements. The experienced professional should have said goodbye to the fresh-out-of-college nervousness years ago, after partaking in countless high-stakes business meetings that made years of career advancement.
But humans will always be humans. Higher stakes mean more anxiety about potential failures, and more anxiety naturally lead to a person becoming more jittery, however hard the person attempts to calm his or her nerves. And when the thought of an experienced professional needing to behave both professionally and display experience, s/he only becomes that much more conscious of performance, anxious about potential errors, and become more nerve-wrecked. That all-or-nothing attitude of a fresh graduate, willing to let curiosity lead the conversation, feels so much easier to pull off.
The recruiter's words about making the next job count only make the situation worse. Added to the already nervous situation is an inherent, underlying doubt about whether the interview is being conducted for a job one really wants to do for a long long time. Even when speaking about the enthusiasm and motivation to perform, it is difficult to completely hide that underlying doubt. Anxieties about "what if I do not get this job because I do not sound experienced enough" and "what if I get this job and it is not really what I want to do for the rest of my life" get mixed up, exacerbating the emotional rollercoaster during the interviews.
There is no easy way out of the dilemma. For people like me who somehow stumbled into so many different jobs in so many different parts of the world, stumbling into another job is quite possible but often less than desirable. Having neglected to put in more efforts into really thinking about what I want to do for decades to come, I have only delayed the inevitable day of reckoning, with my back against the wall. While those in the 20s should not have regret about doing many things that pique their interests, they should also not expect the trend to continue forever.
Yet, compromise is always possible to some extent. Why not get a steady income on the weekdays so that weekends can be used to pursue activities that are related more for personal interest? Why not take a shot about doing multiple jobs at the same time so that the monotony of having to do one job all the time can be at least somewhat mitigated? Even as the traditional fear of having to get a career continue to apply pressure on the minds of mid-career professionals, the changing nature of work should be leveraged as much as possible to stick to an accustomed lifestyle that values professional curiosity as much as persistence.
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