CAREERS IN PROFILE

The goal of “Careers in Profile” is to provide people starting a second career with clear, organized answers to the questions you have about a profession (and to a lesser extent, to amuse you with apropos demotivational posters like this one).

I realize there are a lot of places on the web with information like this, but it never seems to be presented in a manner I find useful or in a way that it easy to navigate. Basically, we all just want to know:

1) How hard it is to get up to speed on the profession in terms of education?

2) When – if ever – do you start to make good money in the career?

3) How much of the job is grunt work and how much is substantive work (all jobs have both)?

4) When and how do managerial duties come your way?

5) What are the hours – really?

Careers in Profile cannot help you match your nature to your profession or understand what issues and jobs you are passionate about, but we can help you understand your options and point you to a lot of great websites, such as this one, that will help you do those other things as well.

Obviously, two people could have a similar job in different companies and different locations and answer these questions quite… differently. However, the more I talk to people about their jobs, the more their answers describing their professions sound the same, despite those different employers and locales. To give you as much information as possible, I try hard to interview several people in the same profession, so that you have a variety of perspectives on any one job.

The people profiled in this series have taken a lot of time to do this, so if you have a moment, drop them a thank you in the comment box. They will appreciate it! Please also let me know if there are certain professions you would like to see appear in the series. Good luck!