Career Choices

A conversation about the future of careers in engineering got me thinking about the choices I made along the way to my current state (see www.lyonhouse.us for a glimpse of what that is). While I had little to complain about during my career at P&G and even less to complain about now, I do believe that I my life along the way could have been more satisfying and less difficult had I chosen a degree and career that was a better fit for my aptitudes and personality. I believe that my life contribution was unduly limited by a less-than-optimal career choice that I made as a senior in high school.

Back in high school, I viewed college as an advanced vocational school--wholly as a way to get a good, high-paying, life-long job. It was not that I chose to view college this way; I could conceive of no other way to think of it. In those post-Sputnik days when the space program was sucking up engineers by the thousands and driving up salaries, engineering was the logical choice for a kid like me who liked math and science. I went to a great school (U of Michigan), got my degree in chemical engineering, got several job offers and chose P&G. It wasn't until I was actually doing engineering work that I discovered that there is an engineer personality and that I wasn't it*. 

In retrospect, I wish that somehow I had been able to entertain the thought that college and career could be more than about getting a "good" job. I wish there had been an adult in my life who could have engaged me in a heart-to-heart about what I really wanted to be when I grew up. 

Now, from the perspective of my own life experience, if I were in a position to give career advice to a young person, I'd try help him or her believe:

§ knowing yourself is much more important than knowing the job market.

§ you'll be happier doing things that excite you and for which you have a natural aptitude.

§ you could well end up making more $$$ and having a better career doing things that are a great fit for you.

§ it's better to be enjoying yourself in the top half of a low salary range than struggling at the bottom of a high salary range.

§ your life choices are both more limited and more open than the common wisdom would lead you to believe; your internal interests, aptitudes and drives make some "obvious" choices dead ends and make some less-obvious choices open doors to lives of great satisfaction and success.

§ regardless of what the future job market for engineers looks like, if you have an engineering personality, you should consider engineering and if you don't, you shouldn't. 

Then I'd buy them the most recent edition of "Do What you Are" by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger and work with them to get a clue about what their own personality, passions, interests and aptitudes can tell them about what they could be doing with their life.

Ken Lyon
11/8/2005

*Let me make it very very clear that I have great respect for "real" engineers. In fact, I am in awe of them; how think as they do is an incomprehensible and wondrous mystery to me. Some of my best friends, as well as my brother-in-law, are real engineers.