A Most Unusual Career Coaching Tool
Increasingly, pressure is placed upon college students by their families and by cultural norms to set goal and not allow anything to get in their way. Unabated, success continues to be defined to many in terms of earnings, and material acquisitions, prospects of promotions and affiliation with brand-name companies. Faced with this, traditional students – young people without significant worldly context - continue to arrive in their career education office, often emotional or anxious. Most of us who provide career coaching to students know that it is often futile to move forward with data, stats and career assessments, until we place our student in a position to listen and learn. Most of the time, throwing more data at a person who is already bewildered by all of the complex choices that they face, is ill-advised.
About three or four years ago, I adopted a most unorthodox tool to deflate the angst of the moment when a student arrives anxious, even fatalistic, unleashing a barrage of life challenges and decisions that they have to make in the coming years. I recall that a week prior to adopting this tool, I had made my way to our student center to take some measurements of our ballroom, the room where we hold most of our career expos. I was trying to determine some different ways we might configure the room to accommodate more employers. When I returned to my office, I had placed the tape measure on the corner of my desk, where it sat for several days.
My First Use of the Tape Measure
A sophomore student, let’s call her Sarah, visited me that day, upset and confused. She had already changed academic majors twice – without visiting the career office, unfortunately – and was under pressure from her family to “tell them exactly what [she] was going to do with [her] life.” Her family was threatening to pull her out of college and make her return home unless she could come up with a crystal ball that would map out, with precision, her entire professional life. Moreover, she hated her courses and was not sure if she could make it through the rest of the semester. Between tears, tissues and a few sobs, it was evident that asking this 4.0 high school graduate to complete an MBTI or Holland Code assessment was not an appropriate course of action. That is when I noticed the tape measure on the corner of my desk. I grabbed the tool and said, “Sarah, take the end of this tape and roll backward” (the guest chairs in my office are on rollers). Looking curious, and even giggling a little in anticipation, she pinched the ends of the tape between her finger and thumb and rolled backward and I counted every 10 inches, “Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, keep going, fifty, sixty. . .stop!” I had her stop at about 70 inches – the tape measure nearly two-yards extended. Here was the dialogue that followed:
Me: How old are you, Sarah?
Sarah: I will be twenty in about 4 months.
Me: OK, I want you to pinch the tape at about 19 and a half. (which she did)
Me: (continuing) Everything between your fingers and you is in the past. There is nothing we can do about any of it. Do you agree?
Sarah: Yes.
Me: Most people your age are going to work until they are between 65 and 70 years old. I will mark 67 on the tape (pinching it with my finger and thumb). Now, you will be about 21 when you graduate. Look at the difference between today and 21.
Sarah: Ok.
Me. Now look at the difference between today and retirement. Next, consider that the rest of this semester is probably represented by only about ¼ inch on this tape, if that.
Sarah: Oh my gosh. I never thought about it this way. It’s not that much time – I mean sophomore year is not much time when you look at it this way. It is such a small part of the whole picture.
Me: That isn’t meant to minimize the way you feel right now, but to show you that there is plenty of time for choices and next steps. All is not lost here. Before you get to this 67 mark, you are going to have job changes, and even career changes, maybe a family. So what I want to do is give you the tools to help you make choices so that you can have a framework for making choices for what you can see will be a very long time.
Sarah did make a decision, she became active in her new academic field, and graduated, earned a great job and stays in touch with me through LinkedIn.
I am the first one to go for data, to pull out all of the stops and throw every tool and technology at a challenge. My encounter with Sarah reminded me and should remind other career coaches of the importance of having tools to first deflate an emotional situation, to put things in perspective and to open a student’s mind, getting them ready to more objectively look at the future.
Whenever I work with students today I take careful inventory of their state of mind and readiness to learn. Our office is called “career education” for a reason. People learn things when they come in here and it is my job to make sure that they do and that they also can use that knowledge for the rest of their lives. Many of my career brethren have developed similar techniques that set the foundations for a great career appointment. Perhaps some of those aspiring or new career coaches out there can make use of this simple tool, or develop their own toolbox, to set the stage for career education appointments that are fruitful and form the basis of discussion for a life of success among the many students who visit our offices each year.
It’s your future. Take charge!
Article first appeared on LinkedIn on September 11, 2017. View this and other articles by Dr. Rindy here.