management blog

At an early stage in my career, I thought about quitting journalism. While flirting with the idea of becoming a speech therapist, I also applied to be the assistant to Theodore Zeldin, the historian.

Dr Zeldin is an authority on France and also an offbeat thinker on how to make work more rewarding. During the job interview, he persuaded me to stick with journalism, which he described as “that most privileged of professions” in a recent Lunch with the FT.

He was right and I’m grateful for his advice. But many follow through on the impulse to jack it all in and find a new trade. With such people in mind – particularly those in mid-career – we’ve just published a video lecture on career change by Herminia Ibarra, a professor at Insead.

In it, she stresses the value of experimenting with new identities before launching into a radical reinvention. Want to quit banking? By all means do work experience at a school to see if you like teaching – but maybe try some financial consulting too, just to see if that might also appeal. And while you are at it, talk to people from outside your professional peer group in order to get a fresh perspective. In short: action beats introspection.

None of that was obvious to me when I was thinking of switching careers. I didn’t know much about speech therapy but it seemed a more soulful outlet for someone with an interest in language; Dr Zeldin’s touchy-feely style was also appealing. However, he convinced me that neither speech therapy nor working for him could compete with the diversity of experiences and intellectual stimulation offered by reporting.

I definitely think a lot of people contemplating a career change would benefit from a chat with a wise outsider, particularly those looking to move into a “caring” profession (medicine, teaching, NGOs, speech therapy) after years in a supposedly “selfish” profession (accountancy, law, banking, journalism). Sometimes we just need permission to carry on as we are – or encouragement to develop our existing roles in new ways in order to fill unmet needs.