“I should have met you last year.” So Scott said as he left Career Counseling Connecticut’s offices. Scott was a twenty-five year old customer service-salesman for a well known but small business in Madison, Connecticut. He had graduated from The University of Connecticut with a business degree. He had generally been successful in all his endeavors as he was both a strong student and athlete from Daniel Hand High School in Madison. The current job, however, was shifting his life view and self-esteem.
Scott took the job without too much thought. He was graduating from UCONN. The owner of the business was a long time family friend. Scott seemed to think that he could build business experience and then shift into something he liked more. He discovered what many twentysomethings find out: unless you make something happen, nothing in adult life automatically changes.
Scott’s job was not terrible. The pay was fine. His boss – the family friend – was very nice. It was just that the job and business held little interest for him. He was just going through the motions. Moreover, although he could claim that he developed “business experience”, he knew that the narrow niche of his company was not directly transferable to most companies. He was beginning to worry that he was stuck.
I assured him that at 25 he was far from stuck in a career. My toughest career counseling cases are the Scotts of the world who are 45, having worked in a mismatched career for 20 plus years.
Fortunately, Scott and I crafted a vision for his next move. He needs to execute. But when he does, he will end 2019 in a better career.