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9 ways to create luck in your career
03 July 2010
By Tennie Videler
Some of the most successful people have got where they are by carefully planning their career. There is no doubt that being informed on options, opportunities, limitations and requirements will allow you more control over your future. The Vitae career planning page would be good place to start you off on that track.
On the other hand, an alternative career planning theory is planned happenstance. I have also heard it called enthusiastic serendipity, which is very apt. It acknowledges the role of luck and serendipity and rejects the notion of always being able to plan for the perfect job. Career decisions are very complex and incorporate a range of pro and re-active decisions. Planned happenstance is about being open to opportunities and being able to seize them. It is not about passively waiting for an opportunity to present itself, but about working to increase the likelihood of such an opportunity to arise. How can you increase this? Here follow 9 (oh, yes) ideas…
1. Start by thinking your interests to get an idea of where chance might play a role and how you might plan for this. Visiting a careers adviser (like Liz said) can help you explore your ideas and work with you to assimilate what may seem like quite disparate skills and interests. Allowing chance to play a role will require you to take a pro-active approach and be open to opportunities when they arise.
2. When people attribute their career to luck, it is likely that they put themselves in a position to be lucky. When someone has done work experience which lead to a job offer, this may feel lucky, but working for nothing contributed to the opportunity. Do you volunteer in an organization? Sit on committees? This sort of thing will both allow you to develop and evidence skills and develop different networks.
3. Andy’s RSC careers advisor put a lot of emphasis on networking. Why? Lucky breaks happen to people who make themselves known. It is not just about how many people you know (or know you) but who know about your abilities and interests. When you meet people, do you talk about your interests and experiences? It is probably worth making an effort to articulate your dreams and ambitions and honing them by talking to people. Also, think about consider how you can be of help to others as networking is a reciprocal process.
4. Follow your interests. If you’re really excited about something, explore it. You can use your curiosity to talk to new people by asking them questions about their specialism- who isn’t flattered by that sort of interest? It might work as a way to approach people who seem ‘important’.
5. Make sure you are as informed as you can be, about the substance of your interest(s), events (has anyone tried Meetups? Probably worthy of a post in its own right) you could go to, opportunities and people who are key or involved in your field.
6. What would be more satisfying in a job than combining several of your interests and strengths? Capitalise on your unique combination of experiences and skills! To understand your strengths you’ll need to cultivate self-awareness:
7. For best results, be open to discovering things about yourself.
8. To allow chance to play a role it is vital to accept some ambiguity. Try not to foreclose on an idea before you’ve given it a chance (this ties in with Matthew’s post on unforeseen collaborations). Let yourself imagine how you could channel an interest; be open-minded and willing to consider ‘crazy ideas’. Talking to people, you’ll find that many career stories are not that linear.
9. You’ll need to be prepared to take risks and be willing to experiment, learn new skills, make mistakes, and change your mind… Exploring your interests will take time and energy, but you will be pursuing your dream… When things happen differently from what you expected, ask yourself, could this be an opportunity in disguise?
So, I’d love to hear of how you feel planned happenstance is turning out in your career. Has luck played a role? Have you allowed it to? Would you?
Nathan Ryder05 July 2010 at 10:25 AM
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A great article Tennie, and one that rings very true for me. I often think of myself as lucky, but what it really boils down to (I think) is what you've described in points 3, 4 and 9: meet people, shake hands, get to know them and let them get to know you, and just take chances, try to figure out what you could do for them and just see where things take you.
Simon Smith05 July 2010 at 06:17 PM
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My first reaction to these suggestions is a bit defensive, because I immediataly see two dilemmas in adopting a career strategy based on 'planned happenstance'. Firstly, it feels like you're losing control (or admitting how little control you ever had). It might be sensible to do so, but it's still a little uncomfortable! Secondly there's the dilemma that if you invest a lot of time and energy in developing diverse skills and in all these forms of networking, it can become difficult to reserve enough time and space in your week for the small matter of actually doing any quality research! Having said that, I very much buy the underlying argument that we shouldn't be ashamed of having a non-linear career structure, and I, like most multiple-contract researchers, would freely admit that luck has played a big part in how my career's developed, mostly in positive ways.
Sarah Davies08 July 2010 at 12:56 PM
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Thanks for a thought-provoking post, Tennie. I wonder, though, where does *bad* luck come into things? I'm all for planning, and I love the idea of enthusiastic serendipity, but my experience has been that research careers are also something of a lottery. Sometimes things just don't work out, through no fault of our own - we're just pipped to the post by someone with slightly more relevant experience, or the ad for our perfect job is advertised somewhere we wouldn't think of looking, or, of course, that old classic of a grant proposal being turned down simply because a reviewer is having a bad day. Sometimes serendipity works against us - and I don't think we should beat ourselves up over that. However much we plan and seek out opportunities, failure happens, and it doesn't necessarily mean we are lacksadaisical or bad researchers.
Andy Humphrey12 July 2010 at 01:48 PM
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I agree with Sarah. After 13 years in research, I feel that my publication record should be twice as good as it is. The reasons for its present state are (1) working on a couple of quite speculative projects that didn't ultimately yield the results we were hoping for, (2) working in a field where publication is often heavily delayed as a result of trying to firm up intellectual property rights, and (3) having past PIs who simply haven't got round to finishing off the papers, even when I've already drafted the bulk of them! I didn't plan any of those things. I've always gone where the science seemed interesting, rather than where I thought I'd be able to churn out a stack of papers. That's really how I've ended up in my current situation: loving the research I've done, yet not really able to advance myself. I'm sure it's possible to adopt a much more mercenary approach to selecting research projects, based on heavy ingratiation and targeting groups who get publications every time a researcher sneezes. But I don't think I'd have enjoyed the science half as much - and surely being fulfilled in your job is really what this post is all about. Ironically, I'm now at the point where my best prospect of a long-term career lies in the activities that some of my colleagues have derided as a distraction from my academic life...