Pursue Your Passion
Everyone has a dream job. Isn't it time you land yours?
By Mary Beth Franklin, Senior Editor
From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, December 2005
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No obstacles
There's no secret to landing your ideal job. "Find something you like to do and figure out how to make money doing it," says Valerie Young, who runs ChangingCourse.com, a career-counseling service. But for most people that's easier said than done. In a survey conducted by CareerBuilder.com, nearly three-fourths of those interviewed said they aren't working in their dream job because of financial responsibilities, lack of education or fear of the unknown.
Those don't have to be insurmountable obstacles. After Young left her job with a Fortune 500 company to start her business, her salary was cut in half. Now she has multiple income streams. Not only does she charge clients $160 for a 90-minute telephone consultation, but she also does public speaking, leads corporate seminars and sells motivational books and tapes.
And there are other ways to turn your dream into a reality. If you're fortunate enough to know exactly what you want to do, it's a question of staying focused and building a network.
From the moment Bonnie Arnold landed her first job out of college with a Boston TV station, she knew she wanted to work in the entertainment industry. Arnold, 49, worked behind the scenes on small films in her native Atlanta and later moved to Hollywood.
Her big break came when she took a pay cut to work on a low-budget film in Mexico starring Kevin Costner. The money wasn't much, but the contacts she made were priceless. They led Arnold to a position as associate producer for Costner's film Dances With Wolves, and eventually to a plum assignment as producer of the computer-animated megahit Toy Story. She's currently producing Over the Hedge, a new animated film from DreamWorks, scheduled to be released next year. "Sometimes I see a little kid walking through an airport with a Woody doll [the cowboy doll in Toy Story, played by Tom Hanks] and I realize I've had an impact on an entire generation," says Arnold.
At age 23, Lisa Pagano is already on the path to her dream career. A sports fanatic, Pagano wanted to be part of the scene when Major League Baseball returned to Washington, D.C. She put the word out to everyone she knew, and a friend of a friend got her an interview with the Nationals, which had received more than 2,000 résumés.
Thanks to her networking -- and her background working in George Washington University's athletic department while she was in college there -- Pagano landed an entry-level job in the communications department with a starting salary in the high $30s. "This is the greatest thing ever," says Pagano. But she has much bigger dreams: One day she'd like to be the general manager of a major-league team.
Seize an opportunity
Not everyone knows right off the bat where they'd like their career path to lead. Often inspiration comes later in life, and sometimes when it's least expected.
Gerry Beauchamp was an executive in human resources for John Hancock, in Boston, when the company went public in 2000 and downsized in 2002. Seeing the writing on the wall, he took an early-retirement buyout at age 53. His severance package included outplacement services with New Directions which helps top-level executives who are looking to change careers.
Beauchamp wanted to do something that was closer to home and more rewarding. An avid runner who has completed 27 marathons, he traded business suits and a 60-mile round-trip commute for gym shorts and a two-mile run to the Ipswich, Mass., YMCA, where he became executive director. New Directions showed him how he could move from the corporate to the nonprofit world and verified that he could afford to make the switch.
His new salary was less than half of his previous one, but with two children in college and their education paid for, his expenses were fewer, too. To supplement his income, Beauchamp took his John Hancock pension in a lump sum and invested his assets. "This is a wonderful chance to live and work in my community and spend more time with my kids," says Beauchamp. And it doesn't hurt that after three years at the Y, he has brought a money-losing operation back to near break-even status.