Navigating Your Career When Your Compass Feels Broken
It has been two months since I started my new position at Rapid7. Prior to this, I’d been at IBM for sixteen years on a technical executive path that I had invested most of my adult life to develop.
The great resignation has normalized a reshuffling of employment expectations and opportunities for many folks. And while this environment may have bolstered me with some courage to re-evaluate my goals, a big move was a long time in the making. In truth, I’d been considering it for years.
I’ve had a whispering thought that I wanted to try something different, something very different. I wanted to make a big move. I did my best to ignore those thoughts. For a person who has always been very focused, these kinds of thoughts were distracting. They were scary and negated a lot of the investment I had made into my current career path, not to mention my professional network. Further, I didn’t know what this “something different” was so I squashed these strange, scary thoughts down and stayed on course.
At some point the thoughts were no longer whispers; they were demanding to be heard regardless of how loosely formed they were. And while I didn’t immediately commit to making a career move, I did eventually commit to exploring them. From that point it took me no less than a full six months of dedicated self exploration and learning to find the right “big move” to jump to.
As someone who lives out loud about my career and learnings on the internet, it was a departure to take a private, introspective approach to the process. I’ve kept my journey private largely because I needed the space to explore this on my own - the only influences from within. Like I said, scary. I’m sharing it now in hopes that my experiences and learnings might help others navigate to their next big move.
Realizing My Compass Was Broken
During my time at IBM, my true north “dream of all dreams” was to become the top technical executive; a Fellow. This coveted path felt wildly unachievable in my formative years, but in the last few I was starting to see it as a real possibility. I had been appointed STSM (Senior Technical Staff Member), a role for which you needed to prepare a comprehensive submission package with executive support to be seriously considered, let alone appointed by a board of technical executives. The next level was DE (Distinguished Engineer) and then the revered Fellow destination. There was a large labyrinth of work to be done between each level, spanning project deliverables, intellectual property, domain thought leadership and more. But, doors that were previously closed to me had been open for a while now. I was chairing patent boards, approving technical badges and more - all work and connections that took years to build. So, why wasn’t I rejoicing?
The interesting thing is that the farther I followed my true north, the more it felt like my compass was broken. Although I love building strictly technical skills, I was beginning to realize that I had a deeper appreciation for the intersection of business needs and the tech to enable them. Over time, I became less excited about progressing down my stated path. I no longer wanted to work on or discuss my DE (distinguished engineer) package, I didn’t feel comfortable discussing new roles. Technical extra-curricular activities that used to be fun felt more like a chore. I no longer wanted to make any moves forward, because I no longer knew what forward was. I realized that I was stuck - off course. I needed to recalibrate my direction and chart a new path.
Asking For Directions
I began to navigate out of the darkness just like I would if I was lost; I asked for directions. I socialized my thoughts with trusted advisors in my network. I asked people how they were coping with the pandemic in hopes that this was a situational phase. I asked people if they had encountered a similar feeling in hopes that I could copy their path. I asked people to tell me about their jobs in the hopes that it would inspire me to explore a new area. I told people about my situation and asked them for advice, in hopes that someone could prescribe me the remedy.
Each conversation was an incredibly valuable hint, perhaps a bread crumb, that helped me find my path. But after a while I realized that I couldn’t shortcut a solution without a deeper reflection on what I was looking for and, more importantly, why I was looking. It was then that someone suggested I speak with a career coach. I was hesitant about the idea at first, because my previous experiences with coaching had been geared towards achieving the goals within the scope of my existing role. I was certain that what I needed was help understanding the goal, and I assumed that the only person who could define the goal was me. So how could another person help me?
It was during my continual asking for directions that someone suggested Jennifer Gibbs, a former IBM colleague of mine and practicing data executive. She focused on a different kind of coaching. She focused on mindset and internal exploration with growth and clarity as an outcome of this work. I read her article on “Getting Unstuck” and it felt like she was describing me. I took the plunge.
Defining My New North
In working with Jennifer, I did a lot of hard reflection, revisiting my journey and everything that came with it; the good, the bad and the ugly. Being a female in tech for decades didn’t come without its scars. It was interesting how I manifested those experiences into my beliefs, my goals, and my self-imposed limits. The process was extremely vulnerable, uncomfortable, and even frustrating, but ultimately I was able to change from participating in a pattern of endlessly proving myself, to embracing a dreamer’s mindset. It was when I allowed myself to dream of a future without limits that I started to feel comfortable with the idea of making moves again.
I performed an exercise in which I wrote out what my dream career life would look like. I listed the qualities my dream job would have, how I would engage with the data community, my learning paths, giving back, and more. I then listed out every career related activity into which I was investing my time.
When I was done, I compared the lists and realized that I needed to seriously evaluate how I spent my time, and to cut commitments if I wanted to take a new path and grow. I took a hard look and slashed a variety of cherished activities that I enjoyed and strongly identified with, but in the big picture were standing in the way of my pursuits. It was almost unnatural to give up the opportunities that I had coveted for years (like chairing patent boards), but my new true north was quickly resolving into a different direction and I was crystal clear about what I needed to do.
If I wanted to grow, I had to let things go.
Setting Sail
With my new north identified, it was time to test the waters. I set sail and began experimenting with different career activities to test the new fit. I allowed myself to explore the emerging landscape of responsibilities for the Chief Data Officer and the Chief Data Analytics Officer - relatively new leadership roles quickly finding their roots in today’s world. Along the way I became interested in the Carnegie Mellon Chief Data Officer Certificate Program. I did my research, met with past alumni, current CDO program coaches, and then took the plunge to enroll. On top of the CDO program, I tried out a variety of other avenues (courses, events, etc). Some stuck and some didn’t, but each experiment helped me to further resolve my new north.
Eventually, I knew that it was time to put myself out there and apply for new roles. Working on my resume had always felt painful, but with Jen’s help I learned to approach it with a light hearted mindset. She asked me “What if this was fun?”, which I truly did not want to hear. That said, the power of positive thinking can have an amazing impact. After a number of iterations I had a resume that, when all was said and done, was good enough. I used that first resume to begin applying for jobs, and I iterated on it throughout the entire application and interview process. I engaged a resume service (TopResume) for help with formatting and other optimizations to achieve more engagement from resume scanners. I also gave them a number of desirable job posts for which they modified my resume to better translate to. At first I was skeptical, but this investment ended up being one of the most beneficial activities of my job hunt. Don’t underestimate it!
Over time, the applications lead to interviews. I committed to myself that I would take a first interview for any data opportunity that was even remotely a match. As a result, I seriously interviewed with over 10 companies. It was a hectic, wonderful experience. I learned that interviewing is one of the best ways of getting the inside scoop on how companies were using data to transform their businesses - and just doing cool stuff. In an interview, you’ll hear about a company's data platform, tooling, activities, struggles and more. These are all aspects that aren’t publicly written about, but so valuable to your journey. Each interview was like reading a business case about a company’s data operations.
Finding Land
With every interview, I was able to experiment with a different version of my career. Each one allowed me to tweak my compass just a little bit more. After much exploration, the final decision came down to two companies, both of which I would have been lucky to join. Each a high-growth company in a strong industry, offering an exciting data leadership opportunity. The decision was tough because during an interview process you can really get to know your future colleagues, form real connections, and share excitement along the way.
Ultimately I made the fortunate decision to join Rapid7 with the focus of furthering their organizational data mission. It’s been two months since I landed at the company, and I know I made the right choice for me.
Thank you for taking the time to hear about my journey and I wish you the best of luck with your own.
Laura Ellis (aka Little Miss Data)
