Midlife crisis career planning: How does professional career change really happen?

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with some new acquaintances in my new home town of Seattle, Washington, where we just moved in August. When we talked about my career website, someone asked about career planning. “Frankly,” I said, “the research shows most people choose careers by serendipity. They start doing one thing, and it leads to another, and another...” “No way! I think most choices are planned.” So we went around the room. “Liza” began training for a Second Career in social work. As part of her program, she was required to take classes in drug and alcohol counseling. To her surprise, she found the work fascinating. She went on to take more courses and eventually got certified. Now she works full time in the field. “Tom” decided to take some classes because his wife’s job entitled him to free tuition. Since he was interested in teaching, he took an education course, which turned out to be about program evaluation. He decided he liked statistics. Eventually, he completed a doctorate in educational assessment and now holds an administrative job with a school district. So, someone asked, does this mean an end to career counselor? “Some would say yes,” I said. “But I think the key is becoming aware of opportunities and welcoming serendipitous events. What I mostly do is encourage purposeful planning and action.” And, of course, often an outsider can tell when something’s clicked. What seems to be a detour often turns out to be the main highway...or vice versa. Mainly we’re finding that career changers do not follow the traditional model: identify your strengths, find a perfect match and move to a target like a homing pigeon. Under this model, careers tend to get stalled: we wait to learn about ourselves and often never get past this step.