“A: You cannot change careers without taking a pay cut. It is childish to ask this question. So stop asking it.”

As my co-writer and friend Jess presented in her last blog: “What if I want to change careers?”, everyday more and more people look at other’s success and think: “crap, I’m in the wrong business!”  Well, guess what kiddo, you are, and so am I, and so is the Lawyer making 200K a year.  I believe that its natural human behavior to feel unsatisfied for working for others.  It may be because the challenge fades away, or because you think you could do better, or maybe  you don’t get paid what you KNOW you deserve; for whatever the reason, we need to move on.  But, expecting to re-start your career and not re-start your paycheck, sounds quite childish.

Think back to the time where you got out of college or high school, and count how many years it took you to make what you make now, or how many different jobs did you have to move through, how many bosses you needed to get to  know and so on and so forth; now, keep that memory and crush it.  You will have to do exactly the same thing all over again.

Back in the day of my youth, I went to Music School, and became a professional musician (no, it’s not an oxymoron), and once my childish dreams of stardom were fulfilled, I found myself with an over inflated ego and a really skinny wallet, so I decided to go back to school and get a masters.  Stupid me thought that thanks to my masters I was going to start making the big bucks; I was wrong. But after a lot of work, a lot of experience and jumping around through different aspects in my career, I keep on increasing how much I feed my wallet.

My brother, after reaching his potential at corporate America decided to go on his own and start his own company… guess how much he was making?  NOTHING.  He is extremely successful now, but he had to start from the beginning and work his ass off to get there; so could you.

The ugly truth is that if you got laid off or are about to, Those Jobs Will Never Come Back – New Ones Will, and you may have to change careers and start again, but there is nothing bad with that.  If you are afraid of making a change in your life, because you may need to make some adjustments in your life, you are a fool. And since I don’t want to be telling my audience how much of a fool they are, I will leave you with a quote from Penelope Trunk:

“You are saying that it’s more important to buy all the stuff you’re buying than it is to be engaged in your most rewarding work. In most cases, really, you get more bang for your buck by switching to a career you like than staying in something else for 20 years just to live what is your fantasy of adult life. Because really, adult life is not about getting all the things that make you look stable and successful. Adult life is about constantly making difficult decisions about what you are going to give up.”

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• September 2, 2009 -- What’s your 5-year PROFESSIONAL plan? (1)

You probably went to school, picked a career and found your first job (or you wouldn’t be reading Young And Employed), that was your 5-year plan back in the day (maybe 5 years ago), but do you know what’s in our plan TODAY?

I want to SUGGEST 5 categories for this 5-year plan (just to keep it simple); these categories (in no specific order) are:

1. Salary

2. Title

3. Responsibility

4. Power

5. Personal Time

The first thing to do with this list would be to arrange it in order of priorities.  Some are more into money, and others into power, for example.  Arrange it however you feel like, and then expand.

1. SALARY – There is a big difference in price and worth, you may be willing to pay $100 for a haircut, though you could find one price in $10; same thing applies to salaries.  What you are WORTH and what you MAKE are not always in the same line.  I won’t expand too much on this, but bottom-line you should know how much do you WANT to make, and that will give you some ideas of what do you need to get there.  Please take into consideration that some industries pay better than others, if you are in Marketing (like I am), don’t expect to make $200,000 a year like your friends the MD’s; you can make it happen, but it’s not the norm.

2. TITLE – Some companies give these out instead of a salary raise, and sometimes they come WITH a raise; either way, their importance is a variable controlled by you.  For me titles are useless, you can make $70K as an event planner, and $65 as a Marketing Manager or Director, its just a name that USUALLY tries to define your duties and responsibilities.  If you care more about your title than your salary (nothing wrong with that), you should write it down, you should not let yourself feel discouraged for what you make if you are going for Title (or maybe you should re-arrange the list).

3. RESPONSIBILITIES – What type of supervisor do you want to be, or if you want to supervise at all.  Some of us enjoy the responsibility that comes with guiding others; some don’t.  For those of us that enjoy this, it is important to set a goal of an approximate number of people we would like to supervise, the positions they would fulfill, and the kind of people you would like; but most importantly you should prepare yourself to be able to GIVE something back to those under you.

4. POWER – There is nothing wrong with power, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  You may be a natural born leader, with nerves of steel that wants to make important decisions for your employer, or be your own boss.  I know of people who went into their own business, and part of their incentive was to have total control (power) over the decisions of the company.  That’s all fine and dandy, but you need to be honest with yourself and figure out if you are indeed capable of making these decisions, if you are not, you have found something to work on.

5. PERSONAL TIME – Last but not least you need to think of your personal time.  Life comes at you fast, and your professional life should be aligned with your personal goals in life.  If in that other 5 year plan, you have decided you want to be a parent, you should take this into account when you are planning the professional side of you.  Many people don’t put this one as a priority, and that is perfectly fine as long as you enjoy your career in a personal level and manage to have the freedom you need; but for those of us that don’t think this way, it’s extremely important to count our personal life into our professional plan, or all other criteria of this list would fall apart.

There you have it, some unsolicited advice of how to plan your professional life.  Plans are supposed to and will change in time, they evolve, but your goals usually stay similar if not the same.

I hope this helps some of you to figure out the next step in your careers.

- Frank

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• September 15, 2009 -- Q: How can I change careers without taking a pay cut? A: HAHAHA! (2)
• June 26, 2009 -- When even the lack of expectations remains more than you can handle (1)